The Scourge of God

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

APPROACHING THE BLACK HILLS, EASTERN WYOMING

JUNE 2, CY24/2022 AD

"Damn," Red Leaf said. "They outnumber us by quite a bit."

The Sioux and their guests had stopped at the top of a rise. The pursuers had halted a mile and a half farther back, near the little stream, and they were watering their horses. Rudi leveled his own binoculars and rough-counted, being careful to distinguish between warriors and remounts. He pursed his lips thoughtfully.

"Eighty or ninety," he said. "Twenty of them are Sword of the Prophet, from their gear. The others are cowboys."

"Yeah, locals from the Powder River spreads that've gone over to the CUT. Three-to-one all up, bad odds. And they wouldn't have come this far onto our territory if they weren't ready to fight. I'm really worried about the Sword; I've run into them before. Those guys are nuts. They want to die for the Prophet, and they like killing for him even better, and they won't give up for shit-we learned that in the war we just had."

"You're not telling me anything new, so," Rudi said dryly. "I think I recognize their commander and he's been chasing me since last Lughnasadh, or nearly, and over better than a thousand miles of rough country…"

"Lughnasadh?"

"The summer harvest festival. Call it a little less than a year. Any chance of reinforcements from your folk?"

"Not much, but let's do what we can. No point in keeping all the remounts…"

He shouted. "Hey, Wolf Paws, Brown Bear!"

Two of the youths riding bareback trotted over. "Take four horses each and get to the hocoka. Tell 'em where we are and how many of the wasicun toka there are after us, and tell 'em to hurry."

They looked slightly mutinous, and he barked: "Hokahe!"

The youngsters turned and went, fast- get going was evidently what hokahe meant.

While they did the rest of the Sioux put on their war gear, which in most cases simply meant transferring their metal-strapped leather helmets from the saddlebow to the head, and adding a few feathers to them, kept carefully wrapped against need. The covers came off their shields, revealing designs painted or pyrographed or picked out in feathers and beads on the tough bison hide-a buffalo's head, zigzag lines to represent thunder and lightning, a bear's paw, a dragonfly, eagles or falcons, deer, cougar, lions and patterns of dots to show hailstorms. One had a whole stuffed weasel attached to his.

The men were cheerful, laughing and joking with one another as they took a few seconds to paint their faces, usually simply a few bars of black or yellow, though one did his face with red on the right side and yellow on the left. Edain had managed to get the more complex Mackenzie war-paint on-his was a stylized wolf's face-and it attracted some admiring comments.

"Most times of year there would be bands scattered all through here, but this is the season we get together and do the social thing. We're about a half day's hard ride from the nearest hocoka — that's a big encampment," Red Leaf said to Rudi as the band rocked back into motion.

"Any chance of running into a patrol?" Rudi said through the drumming of hooves.

"We are the patrol. Wolf Paws and Brown Bear ride light, they can gallop all the way. They'll get there soon."

"But if we tried it, our horses would fall down dead."

"You got it, not to mention the time we'd lose switching saddles. Once they get there… gathering a war-party big enough won't take long, but getting it back to us… that'll take a bit longer."

"And the Cutters will be upon us earlier," Rudi said.

"Yeah, looks like their horses are fresher, dammit, from the way they ate up the ground behind us. Either that or they started out with a lot of remounts and they're abandoning them as they founder. Which means they're really, really determined."

Rudi sighed. "We'll leave you then. They're probably after us, and they'll let you go."

"You fucking well won't, kilt-boy! Virginia's my tonjan, my niece-Dave Kane was my blood-brother. And we're not going to let them ride onto our land and do as they please! We spent four years fighting them to a draw, well, nearly to a draw, and we're not going to roll over and show our bellies now."

Rudi nodded, honor satisfied. Red Leaf went on: "I'll organize us into a column of twos. That ought to help… a bit, and there's a sort of convention we've got here… If we can just keep them off until dark…"

He pulled his horse to one side and began to shout orders.

Wish we'd had time to change out of full armor, Rudi thought; it would slow them and tire any horse they rode. On the other hand, they'd probably catch us anyway, and we may last a little longer in our gear.

The column kept to a steady canter. Disconcertingly soon, the enemy came over the rise behind them at the same pace, but a little faster. They spread out as Rudi watched over his shoulder, working themselves into a loose crescent pointed towards the Sioux. The horns of it began to creep up on either side; when they advanced far enough, they could stab inward and surround the smaller band.

Now I am commencing a serious annoyance with these people, Rudi thought. If they persist, it's soon I will be angry.

"Ah, shit," Red Leaf said. "They've got a lot of spare gear, see? They're driving their remounts along saddled with the stirrups tied up on the horn. Makes it faster to switch horses, but it's expensive if you're abandoning the ones that've been ridden out. Someone back there really has a hard-on for us. But I know a trick for that too."

The sun grew hotter, and Rudi sweated under his brigandine and war gear. When Red Leaf gave the order he switched to a remount and rode it bareback, with Epona pacing beside him unburdened, saving her endurance for later; the others did the same. The roll of the land grew a little steeper, and the blue on the horizon was definitely hills. They splashed through another seasonal stream, and then onto a flat upland where the Cutters came up on them faster…

Just about long One of the russet-armored Sword troopers rose in the stirrups and drew, his bow pointed halfway to the sky for maximum range.

— bowshot, Rudi thought.

The first arrow twinkled towards them and landed with a dry shunk in the dirt not far behind the last of the Sioux. The second was never shot; a Rancher whose saddle glinted with silver in the hot sunlight rode close and cut the man's bowstring with the head of his light lance. Suddenly unstrung, the powerful recurve bucked and twisted, and the trooper clapped his hands to his face.

Does that smart? Rudi thought, grinning to himself. Ouch!

The relentless pace of the pursuit faltered as a furious argument broke out between the Rancher and his men and the soldiers from Corwin.

Virginia left her place beside Fred for a moment. "That'll be Vince with the fancy saddle, the son of a bitch always did like to show off. He needs me alive. At least for a while-and if he did catch me, he'd wake up dead sometime soon. But they won't be spraying arrows at us long distance, not when one might hit me."

"That's good news," Red Leaf said as the argument among their enemies died down. "Three arrows beat one, pretty much. And that'll make them keep their distance-there's no reason we can't shoot at them. Hey, though… didn't I hear Vince was already married?"

"He's a Cutter now. They can have as many wives as they want. He is a bastard, too-was even before he went over to the enemy."

As she spoke a young cowboy spurred out from among the pursuers. He shook his bow overhead and screeched a challenge.

"I was hoping for that," Red Leaf said. "They're going to challenge us to one-on-one fights. It's one of our ancient traditions here, both sides of the border."

"Ancient?" Rudi said.

"Yeah, ten, twelve, maybe even fourteen years old-immemorial antiquity, as my Classics teacher used to say. They figure they can't lose, since they outnumber us; we'll get whittled down until it's safe to charge us. OK, Black Elk. Get him!"

Others shouted encouragement too:

"Hoo'hay, Lakota!"

"It's a good day to die!"

"Nail his balls to the barn door!"

Both parties slowed a little. A way to let the younger men prove themselves, Rudi thought; that made sense. And… he grinned.

That commander of the Sword of the Prophet must be trickling steam from both ears, and his nose, not to mention his arse, he thought happily. Here he's caught up to us after month upon month of chasing, and now the locals won't let him just shoot us full of holes. But there's not enough of his men to ignore their sensibilities, that there is not. Most of them must be scattered elsewhere, looking for us.

It was worth bearing in mind for the future. No man was ever really just an instrument of another's will; everyone had their own purposes.

Then the grin died. The two young men had galloped towards each other, standing in the stirrups and shooting as fast as they could. Red Leaf swore under his breath as the Sioux rocked back in the saddle, an arrow standing in his body. The cowboy cased his bow and pulled out his shete; the curved blade glinted in the sun as he swept past the wounded man, and the Indian toppled to the earth. The victor reined in, a showy flourish as the agile quarter horse reared and milled its feet, and sprang to earth.

"Yes!" Red Leaf said, as the crumpled form suddenly lashed out with a knife. Then: "Damn, it didn't work! But you tried, Black Elk!"

The cowboy skipped backwards, then stabbed with his shete. He left it standing in the body as he bent; there was a flash of knife blade, and then the man stood again, dripping scalp in one hand and knife in the other, shaking them aloft and screaming his triumph.

Mathilda swore and reined out, sliding the knight's shield from her back.

Red Leaf spurred ahead of her. "No!" he said. "If you interfere, they'll do a massed charge. We want to spin this out!"

Rudi nodded grimly. The whole thing made a certain sense; battle customs often did. Not every fight was to the last man man standing. This was something halfway between a tournament and an all-out fight to the death. The winner stripped Black Elk's body of weapons and grabbed the reins of his horse, riding back with his trophies and his loot.

Both war-bands had slowed down to a trot, halting altogether during the duels; the horns of the Cutters' crescent were level with the forward part of the Sioux formation. By tacit agreement they went no farther, as long as the Indians didn't refuse the challenge.

"It's our turn," Red Leaf said, looking down the line of his men. Every one of them raised his voice, asking for the honor…

He waved to one. "Go for it, Jimmy."

Jimmy was slender, dark, and looked young, probably younger than he was, and he was naked to the waist except for the kit-fox pelt that marked his membership in that warrior society.

Hmmm, Rudi thought. He also looks quick as a weasel.

The young warrior nodded soberly at the chief's call, sliding his round shield onto his left arm and taking a two-foot stick from his belt, one with a feather at the end.

"He's toast, itancan," he replied, and rode back along the Sioux column with a whoop.

"Challenger gets choice of weapons," Red Leaf said. "Sorta."

A cowboy spurred out to meet Jimmy. He had a metal-strapped leather breastplate, and a helmet like a steel bowl topped with a horsetail that bobbed and fluttered with the motion of his gallop; there was a letter Q with a diagonal slash through it in white on the dark brown bullhide of his shield. He cased his bow and drew his shete, which showed what Red Leaf had meant by sorta; evidently no bows were used if the challenger started with an impact weapon.

The two horsemen met in the field between the war-bands. Rudi didn't think the life and death of brave men should be just a show.. but he was a warrior by trade, and it was frustrating not to be able to see the details. The men came together with the combined speeds of their horses, screaming their war cries, and there was a tangle as the Cutter's blade chopped down. Rudi's breath caught for an instant as the shete flashed… and then Jimmy was past, shaking his stick in the air and whooping, and the Powder River man was reeling backwards in the heavy Western saddle, pawing at his face with both hands.

A groan that was half growl went up from the ranch-hands and their patron; the Sioux gave a high shrill cheer-one that contained the banshee Mackenzie shriek, and shouts of Haro! Richland! Lacho Calad, Drego Morn! and USA! as well as Father Ignatius' more restrained Good!

Red Leaf grinned like a wolf. "They're about to find out Jimmy's other name."

"Which is?" Rudi said, his eyes still glued to the two small figures.

" Many Coups. In the old days sometimes they'd just whack someone with a coup stick and leave them to swallow the humiliation, but we're more practical now."

Jimmy Many Coups brought his pony around in a tight circle, dust spurting up from under its hooves. He ducked under a wild swing of the cowboy's weapon-Rudi guessed that the first stroke had been a blinding slash across the eyes-and struck again. The shete pinwheeled away from a broken hand, and the stick jabbed. The cowboy fell. This time it was the Sioux who screamed triumph and led his enemy's horse back with the captured weapons across its saddle, waving the fresh scalp to an admiring chorus from the other Sioux:

"Ohitike!"

"You rock, Jim!"

"Ohan, Many Coups!"

"Dude! That so does not suck!"

The deadly game continued as the sun crept past noon. Father Ignatius punched his opponent neatly out of the saddle with his heavy lance, then dismounted to offer the dying man absolution. Which, to the visible fury of the Sword of the Prophet, he accepted. Rudi nodded to himself; not all the folk the CUT had overrun really accepted its teachings. The Sword troopers kept to their solid disciplined block, but an hour later the Sioux had lost five men and their opponents seven.

Then:

"I'll take this one," Rudi said. Because honor demands it, he thought. We can't let our hosts do all the fighting for us.

Epona turned beneath him, so responsive that he didn't need to conciously think of directing her.

"So, so, my fine lady," he whispered, smoothing a hand down her sleek neck.

Sweat ran on it, and she wasn't as young as she'd been… but she wasn't too tired, either. Rudi guided her past the little two-wheeled cart; it had kept up so far, and Edain was driving it, being the worst horseman in the group.

"Show them how a Mackenzie fights, Chief!" he said.

"I'll show them how the Morrigu wards her own," Rudi replied grimly.

He reached for his sallet helm and settled it on his head. The steel dome had a flare of raven feathers in holders at either side; the helm and the smooth semicircular visor were graven with feather patterns inlaid in niello, and the curve of the visor was drawn down in a point over his mouth like a beak. He'd switched his sword to his right hip, but he used that hand to pick up one of the lances in the wagon bed.

It'll do, he thought, hefting it. Better than trying to use my left; I haven't had enough time to get the memory into the muscle there.

He snapped the visor down with the edge of his shield, and the world shrank to a narrow horizontal slit. Then he tensed his thighs and Epona came up to a canter; he halted in the space between the two bands, tossing the lance up and shrieking the Clan's battle-yell. There was a hesitation; the cowboys had already seen that these twelve-foot lances were something entirely again from the light spears some of them used. Even if they didn't recognize the brigandine that armored Rudi's torso, they could see that he had a knight's four-foot shield, plate shin guards and vambraces, and mail-sleeves and mail covering on the outer sides of the leather breeches he'd pulled on beneath his kilt. Fighting a steel tower on a tall horse was simply outside their experience…

After a few moments one pulled out of the slow-moving crescent mass, coming forward at a hard gallop. The Rancher's man left his round shield over his back and his shete at his belt, but he didn't use his bow either-evidently he was going to stick to the rules that far. Instead he unlimbered the coiled lariat from his saddlebow and held it out to one side, spinning the lasso vertically as his horse rocked up to a gallop.

"Well, friend, at least you're being different!" Rudi called.

Epona drifted forward, her long legs moving in an easy canter. Rudi kept the lance sloped up as long as he could; it protected his head from a cast of the rope. Only in the last fifty yards did he bring it down and clamp his thighs tight against the saddle and brace his feet. Both war-parties roared as the horses headed towards each other at full tilt, their combined speed closing at seventy miles an hour. Rudi could see the taut grin on the cowboy's red-bearded face, and the flexing of his greasy leather coat as his right arm moved in wider and wider circles. The foot-long lance-head pointed at his chest didn't seem to bother him at all.

An instant later Rudi found out why. The plainsman threw himself sideways-for a moment the Mackenzie thought he'd jumped out of the saddle altogether, and then he saw that he was crouched down with one knee around the horn.

The spectators roared again, this time in admiration at the feat of horsemanship; the lance-head punched through the space where he'd been, and the cowboy brought himself back into the saddle with a snapping flex of leg and body. Rudi turned Epona with desperate speed as she felt the appeal of his body and pirouetted with a speed astonishing in a horse her size. The noose settled over his head nonetheless, and over his left arm, pinning that and his shield to his shoulder.

The lance was already falling as he released it. He grabbed the lariat instead, the braided three-quarter-inch rawhide rope clamped tight in the soft chamois of his gauntlet's palm. Then he set his feet in the stirrups and hauled; Epona reared, adding her weight to the grip. Pain flexed deep in his shoulder despite all the healing, but the cowboy hadn't quite had time to snub the end of the lariat to his saddlehorn.

It ripped through his hands instead, and his horse staggered sideways as the force of the tug was transmitted through the rider's body and the grip of his legs. The man lurched to one side, the easy centaur grace of his seat on the quarter horse destroyed for a moment at the shocking force of it. Then he drew his shete, setting himself. Rudi's shield was on his left arm, the one he used for the sword now; he didn't attempt to juggle the weapons. Instead he pushed in close.

There was a thud as Epona's shoulder struck the cow pony. There wasn't enough momentum to pitch the lighter horse over, but even so the big black mare's more than half ton of weight made it stagger again, sinking back on its haunches. That spoiled the overarm slash aimed at Rudi's head; he smashed his shield up and the curved steel-rimmed upper edge caught the blade near the guard. That tore it from the cowboy's grasp. And in that instant, Rudi made his right hand into a fist and punched the metal-shod mass into his face. Bone and teeth snapped and the man's eyes rolled up, but even three-quarters unconscious his superb horseman's reflexes kept him in the saddle.

The cow pony whirled again, turning on its hind legs and coming down moving; Epona sped the gelding on its way with a hearty snap in the buttock and bugled a challenge at the plainsmens' mounts, dancing lightly sideways with an unmistakable air of satisfaction. The Sioux gave a collective groan of disappointment, but Rudi wasn't too displeased that his opponent had survived. The Powder River men halted, several of them easing their comrade out of the saddle. However unwilling, the troop of the Sword had to do likewise until their allies were ready to move on.

Mr. Lariat won't be fighting anytime soon, not with his face rearranged so thoroughly. And he was a brave man, and clever. That trick nearly worked.

The Mackenzie did take a moment then to dismount and recover the lance-it was a product of Isherman's Weapons Shop in Bend, a thousand miles west as the crow flew, considerably more as humankind had to travel, and replacing it would be difficult. It was a combination of Epona's tossed head and the drumming of hooves and the shout of outrage from the Sioux that warned him.

It was a Cutter who charged, grimly silent as he drew his bow to his ear. At that range, armor probably wouldn't stop a hard-driven shaft, and the Corwinite's bow was thick with sinew and horn; his upper body hardly seemed to move at all, despite the plunging gallop of his horse, and the narrow point of the arrowhead grew until it was like the head of a spear. He was taking no chances.

Anticipation, some corner of Rudi's mind thought.

Nobody could dodge an arrow at this range, but his body was already moving. The snap of string on bracer and the bang! as the curved steel of his helm shed the point were so close together that they blended into one sound. The impact on the steel covering his head felt like a blow from a club and white light flashed through his brain, but his hands brought the lance-point up then-too quickly for the horse to be able to follow its natural instinct against running into an obstacle at speed. The sharp steel bit, and Rudi was thrown backwards by the impact. The butt of the lance struck the hard ground as he landed flat on his back, pinned for an instant by his gear. Momentum drove it deep into the horse's chest, and then the ashwood snapped across two-thirds of the way from the point.

He rolled frantically to avoid the falling, thrashing body of the wounded horse; its huge astonished scream seemed to propel him like a giant's hand. He used the movement to flick himself erect, his sword coming out. The Cutter had been thrown clear as his mount went down; the lacquered-leather armor and padding protected him a little, and his horseman's instincts for a fall even more, and he managed to stagger erect and draw his blade as Rudi charged with sword in hand.

Ting.

The blades met, sparking as flat met edge, then slid down and locked. Rudi's right hand clamped down on the Cutter's left as it reached for his dagger and they strained against each other, motionless for a long moment except for the shifting of their feet as they shoved like rutting elk locking horns in the fall. His enemy's face filled the vision slit in the clansman's visor, dark gray eyes, flared nose crossed by a white scar, tuft of brown beard. There was no fear in those eyes even as his arms bent back under Rudi's inexorable strength, simply a cold intentness.

The shete slipped backwards and the Cutter released it and clawed for Rudi's face beneath the visor. The pommel of Rudi's sword clubbed down on his upper arm, and the limb went strengthless despite the tough leather armor. The smaller man staggered back and went to one knee, freezing as the point of the Western longsword flashed to rest just below his chin. The world grew brighter as Rudi used his free hand to push up his visor, but the sword stayed precisely where it was, delicate as a surgeon's scalpel, a tiny trickle of blood sliding down from where it dimpled the weathered, stubbled skin of the other man's throat. The rank-smelling sweat of agony beaded the Cutter's face.

"What's your name?" Rudi said.

The other man showed a little expression; surprise, and then an iron pride.

"Major Peter Graber, third battalion, Sword of the Prophet of the Church Universal and Triumphant, tasked with your destruction."

"Well, it seems to be working out the other way round, I'm thinking," Rudi said dryly. "Despite your sticking to my arse like an importunate tick this last long while."

"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.

The land here wasn't quite as table flat as it had been an hour earlier; the foothills of the Black Hills were nearer now, and Rudi could see the first dark mantle of the pine forests that had given them their name. The mule-drawn cart was bouncing just ahead of them as they crested the ridge and plunged downward towards a shallow hollow with a little blue water in its lowest part. Garbh rode the lashed-down cargo beside her master, and it was her bristle and roaring growl of challenge that alerted Rudi. That and a rank musky odor, like tomcat magnified a thousand times…

Then the whole cursing, shrieking, slashing mass of Sioux and cowboys were down the slope at full tilt… and the lions were starting to their feet from among the grass and the shade of the single cottonwood tree. His mind froze for an instant, just long enough to note that they were very large, about as big as most tigers he'd seen, and a little shaggy compared to the old pictures.

"Urr-urrh- oooouurrrghhhHHHHHH!"

One of the big black-mane males roared, a sound that shattered even the battle frenzy, and sent well-trained horses into bucking, bolting panic as they realized what they'd been forced into. Edain's mules bolted themselves, galloping in a flat-out frenzy with their teeth showing yellow, ears laid back and eyes bulging; clods of the hard high-plains dirt flew from beneath their hooves. The younger clansman dropped flat and gripped the ropes that held the cargo down as the light vehicle bounced shoulder-high and threatened to tip over at any moment. His other hand pinned Garbh beside him, and she barked in a long continuous quasi-howl.

A tiny form squalled as the hooves and wheels passed over it-tiny in comparison to the adult lions, though despite its kitten spots it was the weight of a moderate-sized dog already. The pride had been on the verge of flight, but the sound drove the lioness mad; she leapt, and a Sioux and his horse went down as nearly four hundred pounds of parental fury struck, swinging paws the size of dinner plates with sledgehammer force, claws out and ripping, her fangs sinking into the man's shoulder and shaking him the way a terrier would a rat until he came to pieces.

That sent the other lions leaping among the mounted humans; there were four adult males in their black-maned prime, and twenty females only a little smaller and far more savage with cubs to protect. Red Leaf's horse jinked to the right and his son's to the left as one of them landed and whirled in a circle, lashing out with paws like knife-edged rams moving so fast that they were tawny blurs. The older man's mount recovered and galloped on, despite his attempts to slug it to a halt, with five bleeding grooves down one haunch. Three Bears' pony skidded on the dry dusty earth and went down on its left flank with a hollow boom like a struck drum as its ribs hit the soil.

The young Sioux tried to leap clear, and almost made it. At the last instant his foot caught a little in the stirrup, just enough to slam him down beside his mount and send him rolling. The lioness landed on the pony, her paws gripping its head as her jaws closed on its throat by reflex in the throttling bite that the big cats always used on their larger prey.

Epona wore no bit; and even now, she responded to Rudi's urgent hands on the hackamore and reins, rearing to a halt. Rudi leapt to the ground; it thudded up through his boot-heels, but he kept his footing in a bounding lope that slowed to a halt just by the bruised, bleeding form of Rick Three Bears. A snatch, and the Indian was over his shoulder.

He turned. The lioness had both forefeet on the dead pony not fifteen feet away. And it was snarling at Epona, showing teeth like yellow-ivory daggers, its face wrinkled into a bloodied mask of ferocity. Rudi whistled, and the great black horse turned and trotted towards him. That apparent flight triggered the big cat's reflex, and it sprang.

Epona's head was over her shoulder, and her hind feet lashed out with precisely calculated force. The cat's spring turned into a tumble as it saw the paired horseshoes moving, but even its speed could only turn it sideways in time to receive the massive thump of impact. The big predator flew squalling, landed with another thump, and began to limp away with one foreleg held up against her breast, and no further interest in the fracas except to get as far away from it as she could.

Rudi fought down an almost hysterical laugh as Epona floated towards him, head and tail high, feet tapping out puffs of dust as they touched down, and pride glowing from every line of her. He heaved the younger man's limp form over the saddle and ran on, holding on to the stirrup leather to steady himself-even for someone of his size and long legs, running in sixty pounds of armor was no easy thing.

Red Leaf was waiting for him; his wild-eyed horse made a final circle against the ruthless pressure of the reins and then submitted.

"Look! Look!" he shouted after one swift glance at his son, pointing eastward. "The cavalry!"

Rudi looked. Seventy Lakota were pouring down into the hollow. Foam from the mounts' dripping jaws coated their forequarters and the legs of the riders, but shetes and spears and bows waved in the warriors' hands. The cowboys and the lions seemed to pause for an instant, then fled in all directions, like a spatter of water on waxed leather. The rescue party was in no condition to pursue; as Rudi watched and panted like a bellows against the constriction of his armor one of their horses went down by the hindquarters in a limp collapse.

Sure, and I feel like doing the same, Rudi thought, leaning against Epona and panting like a dog.

"The cavalry to the rescue!" Red Leaf said, as he lifted his son down from the saddle, pulled the stopper from his water bottle with his teeth and held it to the young man's mouth.

Then: "Well, sorta."

Rudi nodded, wheezing. My own folk? he asked himself.

A quick survey showed them all-except Edain, but the mule cart was small in the distance by now, and it would keep going until the mules recovered their nerves or dropped dead. He closed his eyes for a long moment, then pulled his canteen from Epona's saddlebow; he took off his helmet, filled it, held it for the mare's slobbering muzzle and then rinsed out his mouth with the last swallows. There was blood in his mouth from a place where he'd cut the inside on his teeth, an injury he hadn't noticed until now.

Now it stung like fire under the salt-iron taste, and he probed gingerly at it with his tongue. Luckily the teeth all seemed in order; he doubted there were any first-rate dentists within reach.

As he looked up Virginia Kane came to them; Fred Thurston was by her side, looking at her a little oddly. He saw why when she held up a dripping scalp of her own; it was one shade lighter than her sun-streaked auburn-brown locks.

"Vince Rickover," she said with satisfaction. "Guess he's goin' to be along to protect me after all."

She looked at the bloody lock of hair. "Leastways, part of him will be."

Rudi blinked. Remind me never to press an unwelcome suit with this one! he thought.

Just then Mathilda came up. Their eyes met, and they both smiled. He would have laughed, but his mouth hurt too much.

Then: "What's that?" he blurted, looking down at the squirming bundle in Mathilda's arms.

Epona looked at it too, and bared her eyeteeth, rolling a great dark eye and sidling a little, snorting through wide red nostrils.

"Stop that, you big baby," Mathilda said to her. "It's just a kitten."

Then she held up the cub, all head and eyes and huge paws absurdly disproportioned to its gangly little body. "Isn't it adorable?"

The three-week infant turned and tried to sink its needle fangs into her hand, then recoiled when they met armor.

"Good thing you've got a first-rate pair of mail-gloves, moi breagha," Rudi said.

Suddenly he needed to sit, but… he looked around.

Is there a spot nearby without bodies on it, or at least blood?