Octobers Baby by Glen Cook Read Free Book Online Page B

leapt to avoid being pinned beneath. The jump threw him face-first into someone’s boot and stirrup. A swordstroke proved the small battle-worth of his fancy helmet. A wing came off. A dent so deep that the metal bruised his scalp left him half-unconscious. On hands and knees, with hooves stamping all around, he lifted his visor to heave the milk he had drunk.
    With bile in his mouth, thinking the pukes and a dented helmet were cheaper than a shaved ear, he rose in the melee like a bear beset by hounds, sprang barehanded at the nearest enemy not looking his way. With his forearm across the man’s throat, using him as a shield, he struggled out of the thickest press.
    While strangling his victim, he looked around. The remaining horsemen were drifting toward the forest. Only a handful from either side were still in their saddles. His own people, on the ground, were having the best of a more numerous foe. They were in their element, being infantrymen by trade. Here and there they were linking up in twos and threes. In a bit they would have a shield wall.
    Things weren’t going that well atop the mound. He saw Elana now. She, Uthe Haas, and another man were trying to hold off three times their number and managing well enough that their attackers had not noticed their comrades withdrawing.
    There was no one to send to the mound. Except himself. And he would be no use charging into that mess. Just fodder for the Reaper. But a bowman could help.
    There must be a bow somewhere. His people all used them. He trotted over the litter of dead and wounded, andbroken, abandoned, and lost weapons. He found a crossbow of the type El Murid’s men preferred, but it was useless without a string. He had never gotten the hang of the things anyway. Then he found a short bow of the desert variety, a weak thing easily used from a horse’s back, but that had suffered the ungentle caress of a horse’s hoof. Finally, as he was about to snatch up a sword and go screaming up the barrow anyway, he found his hamstrung mare with his bow and arrows still slung behind her saddle.
    He went to work.
    This was the kind of fighting he preferred. Stand off and let them have it. He was good with a bow. Target plinking, he thought.
    His fourth victim went down. Yes, much better than getting up toe to toe and smelling your opponent’s rotten breath and sweat and fear. And you didn’t have to look them in the eyes when they realized they were going to die.
    For Ragnarson that was the worst part. Killing was damned discomfiting when he was nose to nose with the fact that he was ending a human life.
    His sixth score broke the siege. The survivors followed their comrades toward the forest. Trotting, Ragnarson lofted a few desultory shafts to keep them moving, at the same time shouted, “Let them go!” to Elana and Uthe. “They’ve had enough. Let’s not get anybody killed after we’ve won.”
    Elana sent a look toward the forest, then threw herself at her husband. “Am I glad to see you!”
    “What the hell do you think you’re doing, woman? Out here without even a helmet. Why the hell aren’t you at the house? I’ve a mind to... Damn! I will.” He dropped to one knee, bent her across the other, reared back to smack her bottom. Then he noticed his men gathering. Grinning, those who had the strength left.
    “Well,” he growled, “you know what to do. Pick up the mess.” He rose, set a subdued Elana back on her feet. “Woman, you pull something like this again, I’ll break your butt and not care who’s watching.”
    Then he hugged her so hard she squealed.
    As often happened in a wild mixup, there were fewerdead than seemed likely in the heat of action. But virtually all his people were wounded. The enemy had taken some of their injured with them. The worst hurt had been left behind. Bevold Lif, still dazed, stumbled up to report four of their people killed. The count on the enemy wasn’t final. His men were still making corpses out of