Oakleaf Bearers

15

W HEN THEY REACHED THE CREST OF THE HILL, H ALT PAUSED TO look back. Erak stopped beside him, but he grabbed the bigger man's arm and shoved him roughly toward the two tethered horses.

"Keep going!" he yelled.

In the valley below them, he could hear alarm horns sounding and, faintly, the sound of shouting. Closer to hand, on the slope of the hill below, he could see movement among the trees as those Temujai who had been concealed in listening posts around the hillside now broke cover and headed uphill in pursuit of the two intruders.

"Damned hornets' nest," he muttered to himself. He estimated that there must be at least half a dozen riders on the hill below him, heading upward. A larger party was obviously forming in the camp itself, with a view to heading around the base of the hill and catching him and Erak between two pursuing forces.

Alone, and mounted on Abelard, he was confident that he could outrun them easily. But burdened by the Skandian, he wasn't so sure. He'd seen the man's skill as a rider-which was virtually nonexistent. Erak seemed to stay in the saddle by virtue of an enormous amount of willpower and precious little else. Halt knew that he would have to come up with some kind of delaying tactic, to slow the pursuit down and give him and Erak time to make it back to the larger Skandian force.

Strangely, although they had been nominal enemies up until now, the thought of abandoning the Skandian to the pursuing Temujai riders never occurred to him.

He looked back to where they had tethered Erak's horse-Abelard, of course, needed no tethering. He saw with some slight satisfaction that the wolfship skipper had managed to clamber into the saddle and was sitting clumsily astride his small, shaggy mount. Halt waved a hand now in an unmistakable gesture to him.

"Get going!" he yelled. "Go! Go! Go!"

Erak needed no second bidding. He wheeled the horse to face downhill, swaying dangerously out to one side as he did so and managing to retain his seat only by grabbing at the mane and gripping with his powerful legs around the horse's barrel of a body. Then, half in and half out of the saddle, he drove the former Temujai mount down the slope, skidding and sliding in the soft wet snow, swerving dangerously among the trees. At one stage, Erak neglected to duck as the horse drove under the snow-laden lower branches of a huge pine. There was an explosion of snow and both horse and rider emerged coated in thick white powder.

Halt swung smoothly into Abelard's saddle and the little horse spun neatly, moving at a dead gallop almost before he could draw breath. Halt sat easily as Abelard slid, checked, skidded and regained his footing, gaining on the other horse and rider with every stride.

He'll be lucky to survive another fifty meters, Halt thought as Erak's mount, half out of control, swerved and skidded and slipped among the trees. It seemed only a matter of time before both horse and rider collided full tilt with one of the large pine trunks.

He urged Abelard to a greater effort and the horse responded instantly. They drew level with the plunging horse and rider and Halt, leaning down to one side, was able to grab the trailing reins. Erak had long since abandoned them and was clinging for dear life to the saddle bow.

Now, at least, Halt could exercise some small control over the headlong plunging of the other horse. Abelard, sure-footed and agile, led them through the trees and Halt left the choice to him entirely. The lead rein jerked and tugged at his arm but he clung to it desperately, forcing the other horse to follow in Abelard's tracks. Abelard, as he had been trained to do, chose the most direct and, at the same time, the clearest path down the mountain. They were two-thirds of the way down now and Halt was beginning to feel more positive about their chances of escape when he heard shouting and the sound of those damned horns from the hill crest behind them. He glanced quickly back but the thickly growing trees obscured his view. Nonetheless, he knew that the sudden burst of sound heralded the appearance of the pursuing Temujai at the top of the mountain.

And he knew that it was only a matter of time before they would overhaul him, just as he had overhauled the bulky Skandian on the small horse.

A thin branch whipped across his face, bringing tears to his eyes and punishing him for taking his attention from the direction he was heading. He shook his head to get rid of the accompanying shower of snow that the branch had brought with it, then, seeing the way ahead was clear, he turned briefly again to call encouragement to Erak.

"Keep hanging on!" he yelled and the Skandian promptly did exactly the opposite, releasing his grip with one hand so that he could wave an acknowledgment.

"Don't worry about me!" he yelled. "I'm doing fine!"

Halt shook his head. Frankly, he'd seen sacks of potatoes that could sit a horse better than Erak. He wondered how the Skandian ever managed to keep his feet on the heaving deck of a wolfship. The trees were thinning around them now, he noticed. Then he heard the braying note of one of the Temujai horns out to their left and realized that the first of the parties coming around the base of the mountain from the encampment must be close to heading them off. It would be a near-run thing, he thought grimly. His slight increase in knee pressure sent Abelard bounding even faster. From behind he heard a startled yell from Erak as he nearly lost his seat again. Another quick glance told him that the Skandian was still mounted, and they broke out onto the level ground between the hills.

He had been right. It was a close-run race. The leading riders of the Temujai party swept into sight on the flat ground between the hills. They were barely two hundred meters away. Halt dragged Erak's horse around brutally, touched Abelard with his heels and set the two horses galloping back along the track they had followed earlier in the day. On clearer ground now, he could look behind him more easily. He made out at least a dozen riders chasing them. For a moment, the grizzled Ranger had a distinct sense of deja vu, his mind racing back across the years to the time when he had been driving a herd of stolen horses with another party of Temujai howling for his blood close behind him. He grinned mirthlessly. Of course the horses had been stolen. He simply couldn't bear to disappoint Horace any further when he had told him of his previous encounter with the eastern horsemen. He'd felt at the time that the boy had been disillusioned enough for one day.

Now he eased Abelard fractionally, allowing the other horse to come level with them, and tossed the reins to the Skandian jarl, who bumped and lurched in the saddle beside him. Surprisingly, Erak caught them. There was nothing wrong with his reflexes, at any rate, Halt thought.

"Keep going!" he yelled at the Skandian.

"What:you:got:in:mind?" Erak replied jerkily, the words lurching out of him as he was tossed and bumped in the saddle.

"Going to slow them down," Halt replied briefly. "Don't stop to watch. Just keep going as hard as you can!"

Erak gritted his teeth as he came down heavily on the saddle. "This is as hard:as:I can!" he replied. But Halt was already shaking his head. The Ranger had unslung his longbow from across his shoulders and was brandishing it in his right hand. Erak saw what was coming, a moment too late to do anything about it.

"No!" he began. "Don't you-!"

But then the bow whipped down across his horse's rump with a resounding crack and the beast leapt forward, stung.

The profanity that Erak was preparing for Halt was lost in his drawn-out howl as he grabbed at the saddle bow once more to keep his seat. For a second or two he was furious. Then he realized that he was still in the saddle, that he could keep his seat even at this accelerated pace. So, when the horse began to slow down to a more comfortable speed, he slapped his big hand across its backside several times, driving it on.

Halt watched in satisfaction as his companion went on ahead, urging the horse on to greater efforts. In a few seconds, Erak swept around a curve in the trail that was formed between two of the hills and was out of sight.

Then, in response to a well-learned knee signal, Abelard reared and pirouetted on his hind legs, spinning in a half circle so that he came to a stop at right angles to the direction they had been following.

In an instant, the horse had gone from a dead run to a full stop. Now he stood rock steady as his master stood in the stirrups, an arrow nocked to the string of his massive longbow.

He knew that the longbow outranged the smaller, flat-shooting recurve bows of the Temujai. He allowed them to close in a little farther, gauging the pace at which they were eating up the distance between him and them, estimating when he would need to release so as to have the arrow arrive at a given point just as the lead rider did. He did this without thinking, allowing the ingrained instincts and habits of years of endless practice to take over for him. Almost without realizing it, he released and the arrow sped away, sailing in a shallow arc toward the pursuers.

They were one hundred and fifty meters from him when the arrow struck the lead rider from his saddle. He slid sideways to the ground, trying to maintain his hold on the reins and bringing his horse down with him as he did. The rider directly behind him, taken totally by surprise, had no chance to avoid his leader's fallen horse. He and his horse came crashing down as well, adding to the tangle of legs and arms and bodies that rolled in a welter of thrown snow.

The riders behind them were thrown into utter confusion, with riders sawing savagely at the reins to drag their horses away from the tangle ahead of them. Horses plunged and reared, getting in each other's way, sliding stiff-legged to a halt in the snow, heading in all directions to avoid the crash. As they milled in confusion, Halt was already galloping away, rounding the bend and heading after Erak.

Slowly, the Temujai regained order. The leader's horse had regained its feet and limped in a circle, blowing and snorting wildly. Its rider lay in the snow in the center of a widening circle of red. Now the others could see the cause of all the trouble: the heavy, black-shafted arrow that had arced down to take him. Accustomed to using the bow themselves with deadly skill, they were unfamiliar with the feeling of being on the receiving end-and at such an extreme range. Perhaps, they realized, a headlong pursuit of the two fleeing riders wasn't such a good idea. The Temujai weren't cowards. But they weren't fools either. They had just seen clear evidence of their quarry's uncanny accuracy. They sorted themselves out and set off in pursuit again-but not quite so eagerly this time, and not quite so quickly.

Behind them, the second rider, who had collided with the fallen leader, was left in a vain attempt to catch the leader's horse. His own had broken its neck in the fall. He didn't seem in too much of a hurry to resume the chase.