spitted itself on the point of the bronze blade. He twisted the sword in the wound, then yanked it free. The monster screamed again, this time with the note of shocked surprise he'd heard so often from wounded men.
As it staggered, he thrust again, this time taking it right in the throat. Blood fountained, black in the light of the moons. The monster stumbled, fell, and did not rise again.
The Fox ran to the next closest fight he could find. He stabbed a monster in the back. It shrieked and whirled to face him, whereupon the trooper it had been fighting gave it a sword stroke almost identical to the one Gerin had used.
Though the monsters were individually more than a match for unarmored men, they had little notion of fighting save by and for themselves. That let the Elabonians slowly gain the upper hand on their attackers. And, like any beasts of prey, the monsters were not enthusiastic about taking on foes who fought back hard. They finally fled into the forest, still screaming in fury and hate.
'Throw some wood on the fire,' Gerin said. 'Let's see what needs doing here and do it.'
As the flames leaped higher, the warriors went around finishing off monsters too badly hurt to run or even crawl away. Several men were also down for good. Gerin, Rihwin, and a couple of others who knew something of leechcraft did what they could for men who had been bitten or clawed.
'Lucky they didn't go for the horses,' Van said, holding out a gashed arm to be bound up. 'That would have spilled the perfume into the soup.'
'Wouldn't it?' Gerin said. 'As is, we'll have some cars with two men in them rather than three. But you're right; it could have been worse.'
'It could that,' the outlander said; every once in a while, a Trokme turn of phrase cropped up in his speech. 'Me, I'm just as glad I won't be clumping along on foot when Adiatunnus and his jolly lads come after us in their chariots. That'll be tomorrow, unless Adiatunnus is blinder than I think.'
'You're right there, too,' the Fox said. 'We could have run into them yesterday, easy as not. I'd hoped we would, as a matter of fact. All these little fights leave us weaker for the big one ahead.'
Van nodded, but said, 'We've hurt them worse'n they've done to us, though.'
'I console myself with that thought,' Gerin answered, 'but drop me into the hottest hell if I know who can better afford the hurt, Adiatunnus or me. He brought a lot of Trokmoi south over the Niffet with him, the whoreson, and these monsters only add to his strength.'
'We'll find out come the day,' Van said, more cheerfully than Gerin could have managed. 'For me, though, the only I thing I want to manage is some more sleep.' He set down spear and shield, doffed his helm, wrapped himself in his blanket, and was snoring again while the Fox still stared indignantly.
Gerin could not put the desperate fight out of his mind so easily, nor could most of his men. Some still groaned from their wounds, while others sat around the fire and chatted in low voices about what they'd just been through.
The eastern sky turned gray, then pink, then gold. Tiwaz's thin crescent almost vanished against the growing light of the background against which it shone. The sun spilled its bright rays over the land. The Fox's men scratched shallow graves for their comrades the monsters had slain, then covered them over with stones to try to keep the creatures or other scavengers from molesting their remains. The corpses of the monsters, now stiff in death, they let lie where they had fallen.
Drivers harnessed chariots. 'Let's get going,' Gerin said. 'What we do today tells how much this strike is worth.'
The first peasant village through which they rolled was empty and deserted. Gerin thought nothing of that till his warriors had already passed the hamlet. Then he realized word of their coming had got ahead of them. If the peasants knew invaders were loose in Adiatunnus' lands, the Trokmoi would know, too.
'Well, we didn't really think we could keep it a secret this long,' Van answered when Gerin said that aloud. The outlander checked his shield and weapons to make sure he could get at them in an instant. Gerin told Raffo to slow the pace. When the driver obeyed and the chariots behind came up close enough, he shouted the warning back to them. Then he thumped Raffo on the shoulder. His chariot rejoined Drago's in the lead.
Cattle, sheep, and a couple of horses grazed on a broad stretch of meadow. They looked up in mild surprise- and the herders with them in dismay-when Elabonian chariots began rolling out. The herdsmen fled for the woods, but they were a long way away.
'Shall we go after 'em?' Raffo asked. 'By their red locks, they're woodsrunners.'
'No, let 'em run,' Gerin said. 'They look like men who hardly have their breeches to call their own; they're no danger to us.'
Van pointed across the meadow. More chariots, these drawn by shaggy ponies and painted with bright spirals and jagged fylfots, came rattling out of the woods there. The men in them were pale-skinned and light-haired, like the herders. Bronze shone ruddy in the morning sun. 'You want folk dangerous to us, Fox, I think you've found them,' Van said.
Before Gerin could so much as nod, Drago the Bear called from the other chariot: 'What do we do now, lord?'
'Pull over to one side, begin to form line of battle, and clear the roadway so the cars behind us can deploy,' Gerin answered. Raffo, who knew his mind well, already had the chariot in motion. Drago's driver conformed to his movements.
To Van, Gerin murmured, 'Now we see how much Adiatunnus has learned from a few years of fighting against Elabonians.'
'Aye, if he's brought his own army in a great roaring mass, Trokme style, he'll swarm down on us before our friends get here,' the outlander said. 'Let's hope he's set out scouts the way we have, and that they're waiting for their main body, too.' He chuckled. 'The fighting trick'll work against him this time, not for.'
Much to Gerin's relief, the Trokmoi across the meadow didn't whip their horses into a wild charge. Instead, they too sidled out onto the grass almost crab fashion, as if wondering how many cars the Fox had with him and how soon those cars would arrive.
Gerin was wondering the same thing about the woodsrunners. Adiatunnus must have done a fine job of absorbing Elabonian military doctrine, for his supporters began coming out of the woods at about the same time as those of the Fox. The two lines of chariots stretched about to equal length on the meadow. Monsters stood between the cars of Adiatunnus' battle line. Gerin wondered whether that would do the Trokme more good than harm; the ponies that pulled the chariots seemed nervous of these fierce new allies.
Adiatunnus cupped his hands and bellowed like a bull. Gerin knew that voice. At the same moment, Gerin raised his arm and then brought it down to point toward the Trokme line. Drivers on both sides whipped their teams forward.
Chariot battles were generally fluid as quicksilver, and this one proved no exception. The herds in the broad field made teams swing wide to avoid them. The pounding of the horses' hooves, the rattle and thump of the cars, and warriors' hoarse, excited shouts panicked the sheep and cattle and made them run wild, spreading more confusion still.
Gerin plucked an arrow from his quiver, nocked, and let fly at Adiatunnus: if the chieftain fell, that would make his followers easier meat. Shooting from the jouncing platform of a chariot carindeed, standing in the car without hanging on to the rail to keep from being pitched out on your head-was anything but easy, though endless practice let him do it without wondering how he managed. He cursed when the Trokme did not fall.
An arrow hissed by his own ear; the woodsrunners were aiming at him, too. Here and there, men on both sides pitched out of chariots to sprawl in the thick green grass. Horses went down, too, and often made the cars they drew founder with them. Sometimes warriors would come up from those mishaps unhurt, and go on to fight as foot soldiers.
A monster loped toward Gerin's chariot. The creature was almost as fast as the horses, and much more agile. Unlike some the Fox had seen, it carried no weapons. Even so, it was clever enough to attack the beasts of burden rather than the men they hauled: the horses could not fight back, and if one of them went down, the chariot was apt to overturn, too.
The Fox shot at the monster from only a few yards' distance, and turned the air sulfurous when his arrow went wide. Van was on the wrong side of the chariot to attack the creature, and in any case could not reach it with his thrusting spear. The horses squealed and shied away from the monster as it came up on them.
Before Gerin could draw another arrow, Raffo lashed the monster across its outstretched arms with his whip.
