He?d filled out and shot up as he turned sixteen, and though he was taller now he looked more like his father than ever-save that his hair was fine and corn yellow, rather than Mike Havel?s coarse black mane. That meant Michael Jr. also looked more like his half brother Rudi, a thought which made her force herself not to scowl; they were both exceptionally handsome young men, straight-nosed, with square dimpled chins and high cheekbones. Mike had the brand of the A-list between his brows, despite his youth. He?d won it by bravery on the field, at the Battle of Pendleton last year, and the privilege of carrying the lance that bore the Bear-head flag.
The lance was perfectly functional. Bearkillers didn?t bring empty symbols to a battlefield.
The mounted trumpeter on her other side was also close kin, her twin brother Eric?s son Will, and also young for his task. A field-force commander?s signaler had to get things right. That branch of the family was Catholic; he crossed himself. Both the youngsters wore only mail shirts and leather armguards over their brown uniforms. Not even Bearkiller thoroughness went to the hideous expense of refitting fast-growing teenagers in a new set of plate armor every year. It had to be tailored like a fine suit of clothes. ?Signal execute retreat,? Signe said.
His brown face was solemn as he raised the trumpet to his lips and blew the six-note call the regulation three times. ?Now let?s see if the CORA boys are still fixated on being ornery independent cusses of sure enough cowpokes by goddamn, or whether they?ve finally learned to do what they?re told,? she said.
They had; the whole hundred-odd of them started to fall back at a hand gallop, turning in their saddles to shoot. The Pendleton cowboys pursued their outnumbered opponents, yelling and whooping and bunching up, which was almost instinctive in a situation like that. Signe?s lips peeled back from her teeth in a she-wolf grin as they approached a certain point and her hand rose. The forces of the realms allied in the Meeting at Corvallis were stretched thin. She had thirty A-list lancers with her, no more, and the lower your numbers the less the margin you had for error.
I don?t have any at all.
The retreating CORA riders passed over a low ridge, and towards a section of sparse grassland dotted with sagebrush that looked no different from a hundred thousand square miles just like it in this part of the continent. The CORA horsemen weren?t trying to lead the enemy towards her; reckless or not, the pursuit wouldn?t come anywhere near the A-listers. Not within charging range of armored lancers on armored horses; not so close that they couldn?t disengage on their more lightly burdened mounts and pepper the heavy horse with arrows from a distance.
And… yes, one or two of them were starting to look at the ground ahead suspiciously. One stood in his stirrups to shout something. Beside her Will put the instrument to his lips and took a deep breath. ?Wait… now!?
Her arm chopped downward. Will?s bugle call rang out instantly, loud and sweet. The CORA horse-archers split left and right as the sagebrush erupted. A hundred Mackenzies sprang up from where they?d lain prone beneath their war-cloaks since they?d crawled forward in the middle of last night. The cloaks were mottled coarse cloth sewn with loops that held sage and bunchgrass; they fell aside to reveal kilt and plaid… and brigandine and helmet and well-stuffed quivers of clothyard shafts fletched in gray-goose feathers.
It was cold last night. Better them than me!
A piper was with them, and the harsh, hoarse squeal of the drones wailed out. As it did the long yew bows came up, bent into beautiful shallow curves, and began to snap. Arrows flicked out in a sudden ripple, thirty a second at point-blank range into a bunched target; a target of horses completely unprotected, and of men with nothing more than boiled leather or the odd mail shirt. The charge of the Pendleton men shattered like a glass bottle flung at a castle wall as men and horses went down in a thrashing, screaming tangle, and now – ?Sound charge!? she called.
The trumpet sang, high and sweet. The A-listers? deep shout of Hakkaa Palle! rang out as the lances dipped and the big horses began to move away from her in a mounting rumble of hooves. Tactical doctrine specified a two-deep staggered row for this. Sheer lack of numbers meant a single line. ?Hakkaa Palle! Hack them down!?
They started slower than a ranch-country quarterhorse; sometimes she thought those were crossbred with jackrabbits, and the Bearkiller mounts were carrying the armor of their riders and their own on neck and chest as well. But their long legs were fast enough when they got going… and the Pendleton cowboys were too tangled with their own dead and dying to react quickly. The arrow storm stopped as the Bearkillers struck. Five minutes later the enemy were running hard, but by then far fewer of them were able to move.
The CORA horse-archers rallied behind the Mackenzies and slid back around to their right, to the north and as close to the fort as they could get without being back in artillery range. That put them on the flank of any attack by the block of the Sword of the Prophet waiting under the fort?s cover.
They weren?t moving. It wasn?t cowardice.
It?s iron discipline, she thought. Damn. We were supposed to be ahead in that, too.
The Pendleton men still outnumbered the Bearkillers by three to one, even after most of the A-list fighters had speared one enemy out of the saddle in the first onset. That was about as important as fresh eggs outnumbering ball-peen hammers, though; now the backswords were out, armored riders on tall barded horses working in drilled teams. The eastern cowboys stood the melee for moments only, just long enough to look for a way out. Most instinctively broke southward away from the Bearkillers… which meant they had to cross the front of the Mackenzies again, as the A-listers left them to the longbowmen.
Even at this distance and over the sound of the?Ravens Pibroch? she could see the grins of the clansfolk, and hear them shouting cheerful bets at each other as they drew and tracked the moving targets and loosed. A superficial acquaintance with Mackenzies could leave you with the impression that they were a friendly, musical, fanciful, harmless people. Signe Havel had been dealing with them almost as long as there had been Mackenzies, and she knew that stereotype was about three-quarters right.
The last bit was a very bad mistake, though. Lethally bad.
Three more of the enemy squeezed out northward and made straight for her in a triple plume of dust either just trying to get by, or out for some revenge on the party under the enemy banner. They grew swiftly from doll-size to real men on real horses, close enough to see the fixed snarls of terror and rage, the thin reddish beard of one, the bleeding slash along another?s cheek. ?Heads up, troopers,? she said to her son and nephew, drawing her sword and sliding her round shield onto her arm.
Will slung the trumpet around over his back and pulled the recurve bow out of its saddle scabbard before his left knee; his other hand went back and twitched three arrows out of his quiver, putting one on his string and the other two between a forefinger and the bow stave. They all signaled their horses forward with thighs and balance, walk-trot-canter-gallop; an A-lister usually didn?t touch the reins in battle.
Three deep breaths and everything left her mind but the now. The cowboys drew closer with shocking speed, strings of foam and slobber running from their horses? jaws. The men were nearly as wild-eyed, their shetes in their hands. None of them had any arrows left in their quivers-most of these cow-country men were fine shots, but the sort of organization that brought ammunition forward during a fight wasn?t their long suit. Beside her Mike Jr. was riding with perfect form, shield on arm and lance slanted forward at forty-five degrees, held loosely. The popping fluttering rattle of the flag increased as the wind of their passage cuffed at it.