S. Stirling - The Scourge of God

"Kill me, then," he said. "My lifestream will join the Ascended Masters, and yours will be dispersed in the Outer Dark."

Rudi's wrist moved, and the blade flicked off the man's helmet.

"It's easy to kill," he said. "As easy as smashing glass. Any fool can do either. And dying is even simpler. Living well… now that, my friend, is a more difficult matter. Think on that when you wake up."

"Kill me!" the man said, lunging up against the point, before the sheer agony of his broken arm stopped him.

Rudi smiled. "No," he said, and flicked the flat of his sword sideways.

Bonk.

The stroke was precisely judged, though you could never tell exactly what a head injury would do; at the least, Major Graber would have a set of bad headaches. The man slumped down bonelessly. Rudi sheathed his blade, whistled, caught Epona's bridle as she was about to step on the man's face accidentally-on-purpose-that would rather spoil the lesson-and swung into the saddle. As he trotted back to join his comrades he worked the right shoulder.

Just a little twinge, he thought. Not bad since I was using it to ten-tenths, as old Sam Aylward puts it. But Master Hao was right; too much is worse than too little. I'd just as soon rest it now.

He looked back. The Sword troopers were grouped around their officer. Probably splinting his arm, at a guess, and it was a mercy to him that he'd be unconscious during the process of getting the armor off, though he wouldn't thank Rudi for the head he'd have when he woke up.

"But somehow I don't think they're going to give up," he said as he drew in beside Red Leaf.

Mathilda leaned over in her saddle to give him a hug and a kiss-always awkward beneath a raised visor, and Epona shouldered her horse rudely. The beast was a big rawboned grey destrier, but it was thoroughly in awe of the alpha-mare, and shied. Mathilda was still laughing as she lurched and took a moment to regain her seat.

"Is that beast your horse, or your wife?" she said.

"I think she has her moments of doubt," Rudi replied.

Red Leaf looked back, and Rudi did as well. The cowboys had left the Sword men to tend to their commander. Even as he watched they legged their horses up from a trot to a canter, and then a gallop. The Sioux did likewise.

"You counted coup there pretty good. But I don't think they're in a mood for playing now," Red Leaf said grimly.

The Sioux fanned out at Red Leaf's command, unlimbering their bows and ready to shoot over their horses' rumps when the pursuit came in range. The cowboys brought their shields up, and most of them drew their shetes; they intended to cross the killing ground and come to handstrokes. A dead Virginia Kane was of no use to their leader at all, and evidently their discipline was good enough to take the risk. A little rise ahead hurtled towards them…

Suddenly Red Leaf whooped. "The land's fighting for us, Kit Foxes!" he said. " Pispizah! Prairie dogs! Keep going! Hokahe! Hokahe!"

They topped the rise. The land fell away before them, a slope as gentle as the other side… and it was dotted with the neat round mounds of a prairie-dog town. The little ground squirrels were mostly gone underground at the noise of the hooves; a few lingered, standing erect with their paws dangling and noses up, but they whistled shrilly and vanished with a flicker of black-tipped tails as the whooping mass of riders bore down on them.

"Epona, protect Your daughter!" Rudi shouted, invoking the Horse Goddess for his mount.

Only blind luck-and for some of the Sioux, superlative horsemanship-would decide who got through, and whose horse would step in one of those hills as it galloped. He heard a cannon bone snap with a crack like a breaking lance-shaft, and a cut-off scream of equine pain. A glance over his shoulder showed Virginia Kane down, lying stunned just beyond a horse with a broken neck. A Sioux was down too, the tall red-haired young man. Both managed to get to their feet, and then Fred Thurston and Mathilda had both turned back.

"Shit!"

Rudi began to do likewise, then reached for an arrow instead; it would take too long for him to do them any good directly. Thurston leaned far over with his right arm extended and crooked; whoever his father had kept to teach his sons horsemanship must have been a rodeo star of former times. The Powder River Rancher's daughter turned and ran five steps in the same direction, then grabbed the young man's arm and bounced upwards, landing neatly astride the horse behind him. Rudi's eyes went wide; he'd have tried the same thing, and counted his chance of bringing it off no more than even.

Red Leaf shouted again, and swung up his bow. The Sioux halted their horses, turned, and drew their recurves to the ear, lined up just beyond the edge of the dangerous ground. Hooves thundered from beyond the ridge, and dust smoked above it. Rudi's eye sought Mathilda; she hadn't the strength to duplicate Thurston's feat, and her target was heavier as well. Instead she slugged her destrier to a halt by the red-haired Sioux and held it plunging while he scrambled up, steadying him as he put a foot on her stirrup and swung around pillion.

The big horse would need a moment to get up to speed, as well-it was carrying twice the usual weight, and its own leather-and-steel barding.

And the cowboys were over the rise, yipping and whooping as they saw their foes halted. They didn't notice the prairie dogs until they were well into the town and the first of their horses went over in a whirling tangle of equine limbs and crackling bone. A galloping horse couldn't halt quickly, not even a cow pony of quarter horse breed, and the fighting men of the Bar Q were more tightly bunched than their opponents had been. Their greater numbers left them unable to dodge even if they'd known what was coming. Some sawed at their reins anyway, and half a dozen pairs of horses collided and fell even without putting a hoof down a burrow. Many of the rest halted with horseman's reflex overcoming warrior instinct, and those behind them had to pull up or run into them.

And then the Sioux bows began to snap, the first volley lashing out at fifty yards and into the milling confusion of the enemy formation. More screams followed. Some of the cowboys did make it through at a gallop; one stood in the stirrups and poised a spear to drive into Mathilda's back, or the Sioux riding with her. Rudi cursed and wheeled Epona, but there were too many of the Sioux in the way..

A gray-feathered arrow went through the space between Mathilda's head and her passenger's, brushing the fletching against the back of her head and his nose. The cowboy froze with the light lance poised to thrust, looked down at the goose fletching that had blossomed against the leather breastplate, and toppled like a cut-through tree. Then Mathilda was with him, grinning under the raised visor of her helmet, but with her face gone pale.

"Thanks!" she shouted at Edain.

The young Aylward stood with his longbow on the bed of the cart, shaking the long yellow yew stave overhead and screeching the shrill ululations of the Mackenzie battle-yell. Then he reached over his shoulder for another shaft.

The redhead and Virginia Kane slid down and did creditable ten-yard sprints to the remount herd, vaulting onto the bare backs of the spare mounts without breaking stride. The Sioux wheeled their horses and followed, and some of the cowboys were among them as they went up another long swale. The clash of steel on steel sounded, and the flat bang of a blade hitting the bison-hide surface of a shield, along with the thunder of hooves. More and more of the Bar Q men followed as they pulled themselves out of the tangle and picked their way through the dangerous ground; Rudi had hoped they'd be discouraged enough to quit, and from his expression Red Leaf was equally disappointed.