Snowbrother (28 page)

Kh'ait faced a burly farmer with a woodcutting ax. The trooper next to him took the blow on her saber, under the axhead, bringing her shield arm around to immobilize it.

The Bannerleader heard a grunt of frustration, then the sweep of the warhammer drove the smooth stone head into a cheekbone, left one eye dangling out of its socket and sent splinters into the brain.

This is going well
, he thought. The main danger was that too many would escape into the deep woods, scattering before his force and retreating faster than the more heavily burdened Kommanza could pursue. He was about to give the order to disperse into squads and garner more of the fleeing enemy when he saw what waited ahead.

His eyes flicked rapidly down the line. Yes, a definite line; someone had finally taught Minztans to fight in a well-ordered array. Baiwun strike whoever it had been! Smocks with uniform blazons, corselets, helmets, billhooks, shortswords, crossbows—lakelander light infantry kit, from the descriptions he had heard; some Kommanza had wandered that far east, horsetraders, and sellswords in the endless fratricidal wars of the city-states that ringed the inland seas. Hmmmmm, placed a little too close together for optimum effect—they would get in each other's way—but commendably steady. He waited tensely until the last moment before trilling out the signal—
-down
!

The Banner threw themselves to the earth, under the crossbow volley; before their opponents could reload they charged, shrieking. The Kommanza prided themselves on versatility, and next to mounted combat this was the form of war they liked best.

Numbers were even, thirty to a side; the plains killers stepped in, reckless of thrusts, keening between their teeth and hammering with edged metal.

The Minztans retreated calmly, a slow steady movement Kh'ait recognized as a controlled retreat to keep his fighters in play until the helpless villagers had a chance to make good their escape. Or, yes, if enough of those rallied, they could break his formation from behind with sniping. He growled with frustration. These bark-eaters were good enough to delay his Banner: there was one down, then another, and then one of his own. Heavier-armed and more skilled, the westerners were having the best of the encounter, but not swiftly enough. Not nearly. Battle-sound echoed through the lanes of the wood, dull thud of blade on shield, occasional harsh musical clang of metal on metal, war-shouts, a wounded Minztan screaming endlessly, until unconsciousness cut off the sound sharp as a knife.

Snarling impatience, Kh'ait ran eyes over his opponent. Shield up and angled, short broad-bladed cut-and-thrust sword held hilt down; it was an effective stance, against an adversary armed in the same fashion-He skipped back a pace and released the outer handhold of his shield, taking the warhammer in a two-handed grip. Then he stepped in, relying on his
breastplate. That worked; the tip of the Minztan's sword darted out, struck, and slid off the hard smooth surface. The withdrawal was snake-swift to a ready position with the point just past the edge of the shield, offering him no target. But he was not interested in subtle fencing; he was going to break this line, and had the right tool for it. The warhammer's heavy granite head went up over his helmet. He planted his feet, swung downward in a lashing stroke, unstoppable. A mace was a strong man's weapon, but the arms and shoulders that drove this stroke had trained to war every day of his life, and wrestled young bulls for sport. The shield crumpled; the frame broke, and the arm beneath it. The Minztan wailed in agony, and Kh'ait giggled with pleasure as his backhand blow snapped her neck. He stepped through the gap, ready to turn and kill from behind.

A sword probed for his eyes, and he had to give ground to bring his shield up. He made swift evaluation. This was the leader: chain armor, longer sword, stance, balance. Greed awoke at the sight of that hauberk; this was one soon-to-be corpse that he meant to strip himself. The shield was oval, larger than the round plains buckler; it met his one-handed blows expertly, moving just enough to slide the force off the curves without giving him a clear solid impact that might have done harm even through protection. And the sword worked at him, over the top and side of the shield. The Minztans were backing faster now, moving like a huge door swinging open; he might have been puzzled at that if he had had the time to think about it. It was almost as if they were trying to draw him on toward something waiting in the woods… He drove in, lashing at the enemy commander overarm and backhand; the warhammer boomed on the shield, a drumbeat sound through the trees. But he dared not use full force. The follow-through would leave him off balance, open for an attack, not a risk to be taken with an opponent of this caliber.

The trees were splitting the battle lines, the forest folk using the trunks to prevent the steppe warriors from coming at them more than one-on-one. Out of the corner of his eye Kb'ait saw a trooper charge a single Minztan, using the light one-handed plains ax. It whirled around her head in a blurred, rippling circle; she struck, driving him backward as chips flew from his shield. He tried a stab, relying on the pattern of attack; she stopped the ax in midflight and drove the head backhanded into his neck.

Kh'ait saw an opportunity. The mace was a weapon relying on sheer mass and battering for its power; chainmail gave more protection against cuts than leather, but it lacked the stiffness and fiberglass backing to resist a crushing blow. The enemy leader… yes, it must be habit, using his sword as if the chain hauberk could protect his shoulder.

The heavy stone head halted in midair, then blurred down with amazing speed.

It was a trick. The Minztan dropped to one knee, throwing his shield up at an acute angle to catch the macehead. Kh'ait saw it even as he began the stroke, but by then he was committed and the momentum was too great to stop.

This one is really not too bad
, he thought with surprise. At the same instant the sword snaked out, angling up under the skirt of his hauberk, through the
slit
that let a horseman bestride a saddle; a frantic twist deflected it a little, but the point plowed painfully into the back of one thigh, above the greave. He crumpled backward, for a heartstopping moment certain that the blade had parted his hamstring. It hadn't, but the wound was still serious. He rolled, backward, curling himself under the protection of his shield and struggling to draw his saber. The Minztan followed, striking cautiously, then skipping back as the Kommanza's followers closed in. The forest war band was in full retreat; their leader joined them, darting from tree to tree.

"After them, kinless bastards!" he snarled. "Pursue until they scatter, then rally to me."

Humiliation burned him worse than pain. Someday, he thought, I will take that one's scalp, then kill him for a day and night. His hands probed the wound. Not as bad as it might be; the blood was coming in a steady flow rather than gouting as it would have if one of the big arteries had been cut. From his belt he pulled a field dressing in a leather pouch; it had been boiled and soaked in pure wood alcohol, as the shamans prescribed, a powerful ritual against the demons who brought pus and the green rot. Of course, the shamans could usually lay a deathspell on the little demons who infected wounds, but it was better not to take chances. Absently, he bound the wound, his mind focused on his report. This was an important development, Minztans trained and armed as regular troops. They would have to get to the bottom of it. He hoped his killers had remembered to take a prisoner for interrogation.

He brightened. That would provide amusement, even if he had to stay off the leg for a while.

Deeper in the woods, a consciousness wavered in indecision. The
calling
drew it, and the rage of territory violation; but wariness had been ground into its breed for generations past counting. It hooted softly.

A mind touched it.
Reassurance-familiarity-confidence
, it projected. The flavor was not familiar, but it had the right resonances. Slowly, cautiously, it drifted forward. The Wise Man came in its wake, alone of the forest people able to sense any trace of it at all. The exultant screeching of the plains raiders turned to shouts of alarm as the Minztans turned; and as they did axemen sent the final strokes through trees already nine-tenths cut. The huge pine-trunks thundered down in a crackling of branches that was like volley-fire. Not many of the Kommanz were caught directly by the latticework of fallen trees, but it disrupted their formations and each trunk was a breast-high fort. And the pursued turned back to worm their way through the tangle of fallen wood, as at home in the underbrush as their enemies were clumsy.

Shkai'ra spurred down the line of the column in the wake of the alarm alert, past sleds and horses and warriors reined in by discipline but longing to join the distant combat.

"Eyes on the
woods
, you kinless lumps of nomad shit," she heard the officers shouting.

"Bows out! Fire at will on sighting!"

She reined in at the head of the column, to see the warriors of HighKestrelBanner stuffing fresh arrows into their quivers, each bundle of thirty held in alignment by two pierced leather disks at point and mid-shaft. She pulled up and called to the Banner-leader: "Report!"

The woman replied without taking her gaze from the trampled underbrush where FangBanner had vanished.

"One casualty," she replied, clipped and impersonal. "Attack in Banner strength or more, but we won the shaft battle. Senior Banner-leader Kh'ait decided to exploit fire supremacy with FangBanner, ordering me to remain here with the reserve and await your orders, Chiefkin."

Down on the hoof-pounded snow two unblooded
youths and the shaman were attending to the wounded warrior. The crossbow shaft had been cut across flush with the cuirass before the breastplate was removed, and they were hacking a clear area around the wound, slicing away gambeson and tunic. Walks-with-Demons put his ear to the man's mouth, listening for the telltale bubbling.

"Good!" he grunted. "Missed the lung." A preliminary tug at the stub of wood produced a stilled grunt and quiver from the victim. "So, yes, have to cut."

The shaman halted and turned his face to the woods. There was something… but no time. They placed the warrior's knife hilt between his teeth. The shaman took a small crook-bladed tool from a pouch and swabbed down the edge with alcohol from a flask, scrubbed the area around the puncture, and began to probe.

"Have it out in a minute, yes, Rh'iwuk," he muttered: Healing was not the most dignified part of a shaman's work, but he was proud of his skill; the dhaik'taz learned anatomy and the healing skills as the first part of their training. And it served to keep the warriors feeling less hostile, to have them reminded of their dependence on his knowledge.

"Sssssa, caught on the joint, yes, as I thought." He made another cut, gripped the wood firmly, and pulled. The man lay panting, wide-eyed but soundless, as it came out.

"Ahe-he-he-we," he hummed, putting more of the disinfectant on his fingers and probing for bits of cloth and armor in the deep narrow wound. That done, he poured some of the clear liquid into the puncture, packed it with the special wound powder made from potato mold with secret rites, and covered it with a pad of boiled linen and the iodine the southron traders brought.

"Good as new, yes," he said, grinning, as he strapped bandages around the shoulder.

"Don't put any strain on it for a while." Playfully, he gave a slap on the shoulder and rose to a torrent of scatological abuse.

Shkai'ra had been using them as a focus, her eyes blank as she weighed factors. Now she threw down a pouch from her saddlebag.

"Dreamweed," she said. "As much as you like of that, but no more once it's finished." To the officer: "This smells of a diversion; no sense to a weak attack like that, otherwise. I'll take your Banner—you whistle in the odds-and-sods on guard duty and the two inner ranks of the right-flank scoutmesh, and hold them here as reserve—"

At that moment the four slave-guards from the coffles came pounding around the bend of the river; the details of the Minztan attack floated ahead of them in an intricate sequence of trills. Shkai'ra wasted no time; she fluted HighKestrelBanner into double line and chopped her arm forward. Seventeen horses rocked into motion, the whole mass curving down the ice in a hard, controlled arc that would bring them around the narrow bend and into the slightly wider area behind in perfect contact alignment.

Shkai'ra suppressed excitement; this was no time to lose the self in battlejoy, no, she must remain alert and clear-witted. The lance was held loosely in her hand. Under her the horse rocked into a long, loping gallop, seeming to float across the surface of the frozen river, touching its hooves down at intervals to keep speed in that weightless trajectory.

On either side, narrow leafshaped steel slivers jutted hungrily, the pennants streaming in the wind of the riders' speed. One with her mount, she leaned gracefully into the curve as they turned, their ranks rippling as instinctive skill
maintained exact distance between riders. Overhead the arrows went whistling,
whup-whup-whup
, hoi-ah, the Breath of Baiwun streaming out over the battlefield! Exultant, the troopers screeched, couched their lances, each transformed into a hammering, sharp-pointed projectile of flesh and bone and armor. Hooves tossed gouts of packed snow and blue-gray ice into the air; white-eyed, flare-nostriled heads pumped with the effort of the gallop, huge muscles bunching and coiling between tight-clamped thighs.

Shkai'ra felt the keening welling past her clenched teeth, felt the shivering desire to kill rising in a hot tide in her throat, a warm rank taste like blood. Even then she was freezing the scene before her into memory: the last slave guard falling among the Minztan blades (and that was a good death: that one would be reborn as
ofzar;
she herself would raise a tablet in her kuoheaith). Thirty or so of the forest warriors running, scattering before the unstoppable horror avalanching down on them. More scrambling up into the woods, but that was beyond control.