The Scourge of God, page 42
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 brèagha,” Rudi said.
Suddenly he needed to sit, but . . . he looked around.
Is there a spot nearby without bodies on it, or at least blood?
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Dead cities cry laments
For children grown strange
For a world that died in birthing
Children it could never know;
Beneath the winter’s grass
New blossoms wild and fair—
From: The Song of Bear and Raven
Attributed to Fiorbhinn Mackenzie, 1st century CY
OGALLALA HOCOKA, WESTERN SOUTH DAKOTA
JUNE 3, CY24/2022 AD
“Wake up, people! Get up and wash your bodies, drink a lot of water, make your blood thin and healthy!”
The crier was shouting at the top of his lungs and beating on an iron triangle as he walked; now and then someone would stick their head out of a tent and shout back at him, usually something unfriendly and sometimes involving invitations to do things with horses, sheep or his mother. Rudi Mackenzie woke, yawned and stretched beneath the comforting buffalo-robe. Most of the aches and scrapes from yesterday’s running fight were fading, though some of the bruises would have to go through the gamut of colors before they left him. Still, that was familiar enough; if you fought, you got thumped, and counted yourself lucky to have no more.
The welcome was nearly as strenuous as the fight! he thought.
It flickered through his memory in bright shards; the great ring of fires, the excited crowds pushing forward to hear Red Leaf’s impassioned description of the action, the discordant wailing from the womenfolk of the fallen in the background. Louder chanting and nasal song from the throng, drums throbbing, cheers around him as the victors showed their captured horses and weapons and the grisly personal trophies and boasted of their deeds.
And then Red Leaf had gotten to the part where Rudi beat the Cutter officer and saved Three Bears from the lion: hands lifting him out of the saddle, pounding him on the back, pulling him into the whooping, whirling, stamping, screeching, leaping delirium of the scalp-and-victory dance, until he could scarcely stagger to his bed.
He sat up and ran his hands through his hair as the crier outside called his message again, winced as he hit a tangle, then searched for his comb. The tent where he and the other men of the party had been put up was something new; he’d expected tipis, and there had been a few in the encampment, some of them huge. But most of the dwellings were like this one, a round barrel shape twenty feet across on a wheeled platform, the walls five feet tall and topped by a conical roof rising a little higher than Rudi’s head in the center. The structure was an interlaced pattern of thin withes crossing one another in a diamond pattern and lashed together with thongs; the outside was covered in neatly sewn hides treated with some sort of glaze to make them waterproof, and from the look of it the interior could take a quilted lining as well in cold weather. The floor was plywood covered in rugs.
