The Protectors war

Chapter Twelve

Near Amity, Willamette Valley, Oregon

May 13th, 2007 AD-Change Year Nine

"St. George for England!"

The bandit in front of Havel started to turn, jolted by the unfamiliar cry from behind him. He jerked his head back with a scream of panic as he realized what he'd done by dropping his guard, then looked down incredulously at the yard of steel through his stomach.

Havel wrenched the sword back. Muscles tried to clamp on it, but the knife-sharp blade severed them as they did; the sensation was hideously like carving a pork roast. The man doubled over with an oooff, like someone who'd been punched in the gut-except that he wouldn't be getting up. Havel turned the motion of withdrawal into a loop, ending in a short economical overarm chop at the man behind the one who collapsed hugging his gut. The sword smacked into bone, and when the bandit clutched at his left arm with his other hand the limb came off in it. He stared at it for an instant and then turned, shrieking like a machine grinding through rock, spraying blood into the faces of his fellows.

"Hakkaa paalle!" Havel shrieked, sword and shield working together in a blur of speed.

A spray of red drops flew through the air as he cut backhand; the frame of a shield cracked like a gunshot, and the arm bone beneath it. He smashed the edge of his own shield into the man's face as he dropped his guard, then thrust over the falling body; the point went home in the meat of an upper arm, and he twisted it like a coring knife:

"Oh, shit, Bearkillers!" one of the outlaws screamed.

"Hakkaa paalle!"

Signe screeched the war cry and killed the man in front of her with a stepping thrust to the neck that snapped out and back in a blurred glitter of steel. Then the bandits broke, backing up fast, crowding each other in the doorway and then turning and running. Havel followed. The sunlight outside made him blink for an instant, shield and blade up. Nobody struck at him; they were too busy running away.

And dying. Another horse stood nearby; the rider had dismounted, a big man plying a longbow with wicked skill.

It was the two mounted men close by who were really startling. As he watched, one pulled his lance out of the back of a fleeing bandit-running away from a lancer on foot was an exercise in futility-and swung the long shaft into an upright position. His companion sloped his red-running sword over one shoulder; both used their bridle hands to push up their visors as their horses turned back towards the ruined video store and away from the dozen or so outlaws flogging their horses east across the tall grass of the fallow field.

Visors, Havel thought, mentally gibbering. Yikes!

The two horsemen were in full plate armor, cap-a-pie, head to foot, the sort of thing people before the Change would have thought of as a King Arthur knight-in-armor outfit. It was enameled in green, and he blinked and squinted to see the details.

Sallet helms. Milanese style, he thought. Fifteenth century. Agincourt armor, Henry V, Wars of the Roses, once more unto the breach, St. Crispin's Day, Joan of Arc and all that good shit.

The Larsdale library had a book on it, part of a series on the history of arms and armor with illustrations and diagrams. He'd gone through it when they'd considered making some like it; the plate harness was good equipment, not much heavier than a mail hauberk, nearly as flexible, and better protection against arrows or crushing weapons. In the end they'd decided it wasn't worth the trouble. Plate had to be shaped to the individual the way a tailor hand-cut a good formal suit, and the level of time and trouble required was a whole order of magnitude greater than with the mostly chain armor they were using.

"Good day," the first armored horseman said; both bore a blazon of five red roses on their shields. "Saw you were in a spot of trouble with these bandit chappies and mixed it in. Hope that's all right, eh? Had to clear the way, in any event."

The accent was English, in a rather old-fashioned plummy Eton-Oxford-Guards way Havel had heard only in movies before the Change. Mild eyes regarded him from beneath the raised visor, blue and a little watery; a fair mustache shot with silver confirmed his estimate for the man's age, a bit north of fifty. He rode a big yellow horse as if he'd been born there; the saddle was a high-cantled war model, and the stirrup leathers were long, leaving his legs nearly straight. The man beside him was bigger and younger, a lock of yellow hair plastered to his forehead with sweat, eyes blue-and worried.

"Many thanks," Havel said, containing a burst of questions; he hadn't seen anyone from farther away than Montana for years, and now:

"Quite welcome. We'll be moving along then, we're actually in a bit of a hurry, you see-"

"Mike, Unc' Will's arrived!" Signe called.

Do not succumb to information overload, Havel thought, his head swiveling west. A trumpet sounded from there. About time, he thought, and threw up a hand as Will Hut-ton reined in with a spurt of gravel, his lancers dusty and foam on the necks of their horses. He pointed northward with one gauntlet and spoke. "Bossman, Arminger's men are comin' down the road. Troop strength at least. More off to westward, that's why we were late-had to get around 'em. Looks like they're beatin' the bushes for someone, and they want him bad."

Havel bared his teeth as he looked around once more; there wasn't much time, but going off half-cocked wasn't the answer.

"I presume you're no friend of the Protector's?" he asked the older man in the plate armor.

"Rather! The rotter's after our heads, I'm afraid." A calm smile. "Name's Loring. Sir Nigel Loring. Late of the Blues and Royals, and the Special Air Service regiment. My son, Alleyne, and the big fellow there is Little John Hordle."

Havel blinked in shock. All right, information overload has arrived. Then he nodded coolly-it didn't really matter. There wasn't time to gibber and rave and run around waving his arms.

"Believe it or not, I've met a friend of yours, Sir Nigel, and he's told me about you: later, later! Will, get Kendricks patched up and out of here."

"Ambulance wagon's about a quarter-mile back," Hut-ton said, and made a motion to his signaler. The young man put the trumpet to his lips and blew a complex pattern.

Havel went on: "Then throw out a screen and tell Arminger's men to get the hell out. If they come at you, skirmish and fall back. Eric, Luanne, you come with us. Move."

He turned to Nigel Loring. "My name's Mike Havel. Aka Lord Bear around here. Also no friend of the Protector, as you've probably heard. I knew there were some Australians or Englishmen in Portland, but: later! I was doing some bandit-ambushing when you showed up-" : and nearly got me killed by delaying Will:

"-but I'd rather not restart my war with the Protectorate just now. I do offer sanctuary; we don't extradite fugitives from that bunch. My men'll keep Arminger's busy, and sure you're still running directly south. You come with me; we'll finish up my chore, and then head home. Where I'll be very interested to hear your story."

Loring looked at him steadily for an instant, then nodded with a brisk decisive gesture.

"Sanctuary: will be very welcome. Lead on, Lord Bear."

He was evidently making a snap judgment on Havel 's character as well. His followers had all been waiting for that small gesture; the big longbowman grabbed the bridle of a horse whose bandit owner would never need it again and swung into the saddle. The knight and his son fell in behind Havel, and the Bearkiller leader waved.

"They went thataway," he said, pointing to the clump of woods a bowshot distant to the northeast. "Follow me!"

Will Hutton stood in his stirrups and chopped a hand forward. The Bearkiller troop rode northward, swinging out to make a single line across the road and the fields on either side. That kept their pace down to a canter, which was just as well; the Protectorate force ahead was coming on at a round trot, in column of fours, a massive rumble of hooves and rustling clatter of equipment and bristle of lances, with a few mounted crossbowmen out in front. Those turned back when they saw the Bearkiller, and the column of men-at-arms writhed for a moment and began to shake out into a two-deep line about two-thirds the width of his. There were more than thirty of them, all well mounted; he stood in the stirrups and used his binoculars. The big kite-shaped shields were matte-black with the Lid-less Eye, not quartered with a baron's blazon-the Protector's household troops, then. Beyond them the ground dipped a little, but he could see sunlight breaking on edged metal there, too; probably infantry coming up at the double, but quite a bit behind.

"Halt!" Hutton said, swinging his fist up. Then: "Wings forward! Extend to the west!"

The formation shifted, each end thrown north, the one to his left stretching further and a pair of the riders from the right trotting over to join it. The shorter wing to his right was anchored on Palmer Creek; a steep bare bank running down to a broad marshy channel-the Protector's men could get around there, but they'd have to take quite a while at it. One thing Hutton had learned long ago was that hooves didn't go well with soft footing, particularly when they were carrying two hundred pounds plus of armored rider and gear, so he didn't have to worry about that flank.

The Protector's horsemen were coming towards him in a line centered on the road, but it was a line that rode deeper into an unequal-armed V every moment.

They're getting uneasy about it, too, he thought, grinning whitely. Good. I do purely hate that man and all his crew.

The enemy formation slowed an instant or two before their commander signaled a halt about two hundred and fifty yards away, the limit of practical archery. He rode forward a little with his trumpeter at his side; Hutton tightened his thighs to move his mount out from his own formation. At that signal of mutual intent to talk they both trotted forward to meet midway between the two war bands.

The Protector's man halted his mount without needing to use the reins; Hutton nodded slightly in acknowledgment, and glanced approvingly at the big glossy black animal. They both removed their helmets and propped them on their saddlebows, another bit of the etiquette that had grown up over such matters in the last few years. Arminger's commander was in his late twenties, around six feet tall and broad-shouldered, with the hard muscular look anyone got if they trained every day in armor. His face was harder still, high-cheeked and snub-nosed; his corn-colored hair was cropped closer than a crew cut over the area behind his ears, and a few inches longer forward of that. That was the fashion among the Protectorate's military elite; it looked deeply silly as far as Hutton was concerned, but it helped prompt his memory.

Alexi Stavarov's boy, he thought silently. Then: "Lord Piotr."

Alexi had been one of Arminger's original backers in Portland just after the Change, according to Signe's research; if he wasn't second-in-command it was because the Protector was careful to keep the power structure of his realm at the level just below himself full of bickering rivals competing for his favor, without any clear chain of command. What the arrangement lacked in efficiency, it more than made up for in security. At least from the Protector's point of view, and Hutton thoroughly approved from his own.

The odds are long enough, without them gettin' their shit together, he thought, waiting with raised brows. Take your time, Russkie-boy, take your time. Time is my friend.

"Lord William," Stavarov replied, equally polite. "Might I ask why you're blocking the road?"

"Might be I could ask what you're doing on this road, Piotr Alexandrovitch?" Hutton said. "Wouldn't be thinkin' of crossing our border, would you?"

Piotr Stavarov flushed; he was fair enough that it showed despite an outdoorsman's weathered tan. "This is Protectorate territory," he snapped. "It's a long walk to your border. We're patrolling. You are trespassing."

"Don't see any of your people on the ground hereabouts," Hutton pointed out. "And we're here because we're hunting bandits. So you don't patrol it, or not enough to keep road agents down. Seems to me your claim is sort of mostly talk."

"We're pursuing dangerous criminals ourselves," Stavarov replied. "Are you assisting them deliberately? Because standing in our way makes it more likely that they will escape."

Which was brass, if you liked, since his father had been a smuggler, drug runner, extortionist and loan shark before the Change and a mass murderer after it. For that matter, he'd been a KGB agent back before the Berlin Wall fell. Back when what happened on other continents mattered:

Hutton spread his gauntleted hands. "You folks and us, we've got different ideas of what a dangerous criminal amounts to," he pointed out. "That's why we don't have no extradition treaty with y'all."

Stavarov opened his mouth, then visibly realized that argument would be playing into Hutton's hands; with every second the fugitives he sought were that much farther away.

"Get out of our way or we'll kick you out of it,^: ' he snarled, and reined his horse around, spurring back to his own men at a gallop.

Hutton grinned to himself, looking up at the sun to estimate the time; it wasn't a good idea to try wearing a wrist-watch under armor, particularly since nobody was making any replacements for wind-up watches that got smashed.

Around two o'clock; say they think the people they're chasing are moving at ten miles an hour:

"Bows out and ready," he said to his own trumpeter. "One shaft, then Parthian retreat. And pass the word, aim at the horses when you can-but hit the men if you have to."

That took only a few seconds; Hutton grinned harder as he thought of young Stavarov's dilemma. Unlike the Outfit's A-listers, Protectorate men-at-arms didn't carry saddle bows as well as lances; they relied on their infantry for missile fire, and had to get within ten feet of you to do any harm. They could wait for their crossbowmen to come up: but that would take time, which was the whole point of the matter, and Hutton could just pull back out of range and make them deploy all over again. They weren't trying to beat him, they just wanted him to go away so they could barrel on south and catch those weird refugees, whoever they were.

He could read a snapping of temper in Stavarov's savage gesture. The long curled trumpet Arminger's forces favored rang out, and the lances came down in a glittering wave. The horses went forward: walk : trot: canter: Then they settled into a steady hand gallop, and the earth shook under the pounding of a hundred and twenty hooves. In the fields on either side of the road divots of earth flew up as the horseshoes churned at the turf; he could see Stavarov himself coming straight at him, his kite-shaped shield sloped up under his eyes and covering his whole left side, the double-edged blade of his lance head aimed at the Bearkiller's midriff.

"Now!"

Hutton raised his bow, drew, loosed. A volley slashed out from the Bearkiller ranks; carefully aimed, and at no more than a hundred yards' distance. The arrows twinkled once in the sun as they reached the top of their shallow arcs, then snapped down towards the Protectorate's men-at-arms. Hutton's horse turned in place under the pressure of his thighs and rocked into motion. He'd been directing the Bearkillers' breeding program for most of a decade now, and he'd folded a good deal of old-style quarter horse into the mix, for the jackrabbit acceleration that their powerful haunches produced. The Protectorate men-at-arms were well mounted, and a long race would be a toss-up, but the Bearkillers had a definite edge in acceleration.

Hutton could see that, as he drew another arrow and turned in the saddle to fire over his mount's rump. That let him see the results of the first arrowfall. Some of the shafts stood quivering in shields, or had glanced off the mail of hauberks despite the bodkin points, or simply missed. Others had penetrated, and riders were down, one being dragged by a foot caught in the stirrups, some simply falling out and clutching at the steel and wood in their bodies.

What really disrupted the charge was the arrows hitting the horses. Wounded, they bolted, or turned bucking and plunging, or fell under their neighbors in a chain-reaction of tumbling and tripping thousand-pound animals. They were much larger than their riders, unarmored, and they had far less ability to face pain and injury for the sake of obeying orders.

Which makes you wonder who's smart and who's dumb, he thought, wincing slightly at the piteous screams the wounded animals made, full of an uncomprehending agony. He'd always liked horses:

The rest of the men-at-arms bored in, grimly intent. Hut-ton shot again, aiming low, and a charger reared with an arrow through the fleshy part of its left forelimb. The distance between the two forces narrowed until he could see the flared nostrils of the horses, then opened out again.

"Trumpeter," Hutton called. "Sound fall in, column to the enemy's right."

That would let the Bearkillers shoot, and if the Protectorate force turned to chase them: why, then, they could still shoot at their pursuers, and the enemy would be heading away from the fugitives.

Gonna be one frustratin' day for that Russkie-boy, Hutton thought as he angled his horse westward; hooves rattled on asphalt, crunched on gravel, and then the animal bunched and gathered itself and leapt the roadside ditch.

The bandits' tracks were clear enough to Havel in the field to the east of the road. They ran straight eastward towards the Willamette, went past an overgrown drainage ditch and became clearer still where they'd ridden down the wooded stream bank beyond, straight into Palmer Creek. That was where they'd hidden and waited for the tempting ranchers and their horse-herd to come north from the Crossing Tavern. They'd abandoned their plunder and those eastern-bred horses ran free through the roadside meadows, but all the gang members who'd managed to run away had done it on horseback. Havel leaned over in the saddle as they passed the mess of blankets and cooking pots and buzzing flies that told of the outlaws' wait, and kept to the front as they moved down the low slope to Palmer Creek.

His mount breasted the stream and the others put their horses to it as well, the beasts tossing their heads as they felt for footing; cold water poured into his boots and lapped at the-waterproof-lower edge of his bow case. His eyes scanned up through the trees and brush on the other side, and the edge of the water. The hoofprints there were fresh, still filling where they'd stamped down through the leafmold, bits of dirt fallen where the horses had taken the bank ahead. His own surged beneath him as it climbed out of the water in their wake.

"I make it eleven," he said.

Luanne Larsson kicked one boot free of the stirrup and leaned far over in the saddle, holding to the horn. "Twelve," she said, pushing her round bowl helm back by the nasal to examine the soft black soil. "Blood trail, there, though-don't know if it's the man or the horse," she went on, swinging back erect.

"Halt for a bit, then. I want to get back into my gear."

Signe and Havel dropped to the ground; their regular battle mounts were along on leading reins, and their own war harness was bundled across the saddles.

On the one hand, we're going someplace marshy, Havel thought, as they helped each other into the hauberks. On the other, it's someplace people might try to kill us. On the balance, I'll wear the armor. And we can handle a dozen raggedy-assed bandits, but there may be more of them-probably are more of them:

"I like a man who knows his mind," Nigel Loring said; which was both a compliment and a hint. He looked Havel up and down. "Good gear, by the way."

Havel nodded. "Easier to make in quantity than what you're wearing," he replied. "Not that it isn't a pretty suit."

"We took the design from museum pieces, actually," the Englishman replied, pronouncing the word as ekshually. "Now, as to what we're doing: "

Havel settled his palm-broad sword belt, bloused the hauberk above it slightly-that shifted some of the weight to your hips-and pulled a map out of Trooper's saddlebag. The well-trained horse stayed steady as he spread it against the saddle.

"I originally planned to trap Crusher Bailey wherever he jumped me," he said. "But the troops I had planned for that are now screening against the Protector's men who are chasing you. I: really don't want to let Crusher get away and rebuild his gang, either."

He looked at his party; Signe and him, Eric and Luanne, and the three Englishmen; he knew his kinsfolk's quality, and from the look of it the foreigners were good men of their hands too. That wasn't surprising, from what he'd been told:

"So we're it. Let's push them hard enough they don't get any fancy ideas, like setting ambushes."

Sir Nigel leaned over and looked at the map, then up at the country ahead. "Seems to be something that requires action," he agreed. "And we certainly owe you a debt for your hospitality, Lord Bear. Alleyne, John?"

The other two nodded, Loring's son gravely, the bowman grinning from ear to ear. "Whatever you say, sir," John Hordle said. "Never a dull moment!"

He had an accent that reminded Havel of Sam Ayl-ward's, though not so thick. He was younger, perhaps in his late twenties, with a face like a ham, hands the size and shape of spades, little russet-brown eyes above a nose something had squashed years ago, and a shock of dark auburn hair and orange-hued close-cropped beard that did little to hide a thick scattering of freckles. He wore a green-enameled chain-mail shirt, and carried a longbow in the old medieval style, a simple tapered stave of yew, a full quiver of gaudily fletched arrows across his back; a long double-edged hand-and-a-half sword and a dagger hung at his waist. Eric blinked at him, obviously not much enjoying someone looming over him the way he did over most others; the Englishman would be six foot seven in his stocking feet, and Havel thought his shoulders were as broad as a Bearkiller sword was long, scabbard and all. The battle-gear made him look like a cross between a young Santa Claus and some ancient heathen god of war.

"Let's go, then," the Bearkiller lord said, putting his foot in the stirrup.

They broke back into the sunshine, instinctively spreading out in the bright sunlight; past an abandoned sheet-metal building that bore the faded logo of a fruit-packing company, past derelict farmhouses and collapsing barns, through meadows blue with camas flowers and iris, red columbine and pale pink twinflower growing more common as they headed southeast; bird and butterfly started up as the horses breasted the tall grass and weeds. The fleeing outlaws were not in sight, but their path was obvious enough. Then Luanne cried out:

"Horse! And man too, I think."

The horse was standing with its head down and hidden in the rank growth nearly as tall as it was. The head came up as the Bearkillers and their guests approached, and it whinnied at them-or more probably, at their horses. A man struggled up too, clinging to a stirrup, falling back with a cry of despair as the horse shied, then scrambling awkwardly back into the saddle as it steadied. Luanne gave a whoop and unlimbered her lariat, whirling the loop of braided rawhide over her head as she charged. The fresher horse closed quickly. Luanne had been ranch-raised in Texas and an up-and-coming junior-rodeo star before the Change; the circle of leather rope landed neatly about the man's shoulders and jerked him screaming from the saddle as she snubbed the lariat to the horn of hers.

The others reined in; the man was lying half-stunned, weeping and cursing and trying to staunch a stab wound in one shoulder which he couldn't reach with the lariat on him. Luanne kept the tension on the braided rawhide expertly tight, backing her mount whenever the outlaw tried to get any slack on it.

Havel smiled grimly and swung out of the saddle, drawing his sword. The outlaw howled as the Bearkiller's boot caught him on the wound; he could do no more than paw feebly as he was disarmed. The cries of pain and panic died away to a frantic gurgle as he felt the prick of a sword point under his jaw. The fallen man bared yellow snaggled teeth in a dogliice grin of submission, their look fruit of malnutrition and neglect since the Change; Havel judged he'd been about twelve back then.

"Look at me, you worthless sack of shit," Havel said, pushing the helmet back so that his face was clear, he'd discarded the irritating contacts some time ago. "Who am I?"

The sweating face went even paler beneath its fuzz of mouse-colored beard. "Oh, Christ, Lord Bear."

"Bingo first time, asshole; the guy you just tried to rob and kill. You listening?" A fractional nod and a wince as it moved against the shaving-sharp point of the sword. "So you know my word's good. Here's the deal. Lead us in to your hideout-we know pretty much where it is, so don't get any bright ideas about stranding us in the swamp-plus telling us everything we want to know, and you get to live. Yes or no?"

"Shit-Crusher, he'll-"

Havel put a little pressure on the sword point, and a bead of blood appeared; the outlaw jerked fractionally, turning it into a trickle. The Bear Lord transferred the point of the long blade to the tip of the bandit's nose; it followed his movements with mechanical precision, and he stared at it with cross-eyed fascination.

"What exactly is Crusher Bailey going to do to you that I can't?" Havel asked reasonably. "And I'm right here. He isn't."

The bandit's eyes shifted to the ring of figures around him, then desperately to the bright world beyond. It would be hard to die on a spring day:

"OK, you promise?"

"Yeah, I promise."

You get to live, Havel thought. The only convincing argument I've ever heard against capital punishment is that being dead doesn't hurt much. You'll haul rock and break rebar out of concrete twelve hours a day seven days a week, but you won't be dead. If you're real unlucky, you'll still be alive and doing it twenty years from now.

The prisoner swallowed at Havel 's expression and stuttered: "OK, man, OK!"

"Signe, patch him," he said, stepping back, sword still poised.

"Do I have to?" Signe asked.

"Unfortunately, yes. Hard to get information out of his corpse. Luanne, get his horse."

The Lady of the Bearkillers ripped open the outlaw's dirty shirt and even filthier denim jacket and applied the field-dressing without any unnecessary gentleness. When he yelped, she backhanded him across the face and snarled, "You the one who yelled 'First after you with the woman, Crusher'!"

"No, ma'am, it wasn't me I swear: " He gabbled, then took another look at her and became more panic-stricken than before, if that were possible. "You ain't, you can't be-"

Signe shook her brown locks: "Hair by Ms. Clairol, asshole. And I didn't make any promise to let you live. Did you notice that, lover boy? Did you?"

"OK, I'll shut up!"

Havel grinned. How we think alike, my gentle spouse and I! The prisoner flicked his eyes away from Signe to him, but did not seem to find the expression on his captor's face reassuring. In fact, he seemed to think of it much the way a coyote would about the smile on the muzzle of the very last wolf it ever saw.

"Where's Crusher's camp in there?" he asked, flicking the sword through the air from the wrist. It made an unpleasant vwweepf sound.

"Ah: look, we, uh, they, camp a couple of different places. Mostly near the old gravel pits, you know, on the west bank downstream from Woods Landing about maybe half a mile, a bit more? There's a jetty on the east bank, Crusher keeps boats hidden both sides, sorta flat-bottomed things, so he can get stuff back and forth, you know?"

Havel nodded. That explained a good deal about how Bailey's gang had ranged so far, and been so hard to find or track, but he wondered where Crusher Bailey had gotten the boats. He didn't think they were the types who'd run them up themselves. And if they simply ran for their boats and took them all with them, there wasn't much he could do but go home and try again another day. Bailey could go look for a new hangout, in another of the burgeoning swamps along the Willamette, or in the ruins of Salem, or even farther south in Eugene, or in the mountains near one of the roads that crossed the Cascades.

"Put him on his horse. Tie his hands together and then to the reins, and lash his feet to the stirrups."

The outlaw gave a moo of panic at that-it meant almost certain battering death if the horse fell or bolted-but went quiet again after a look at the faces around him. They put him at the head of the little column, and the Bearkillers all pulled out their recurves and set a shaft to the string. So did John Hordle; Havel looked over at him curiously. It wasn't impossible to use a longbow from horseback, just immensely awkward and difficult; he'd seen Sam Aylward and Eilir Mackenzie do it, and read about samurai using seven-foot bamboo bows from the saddle.

"Can you shoot that thing mounted?"

"No, sor, I can't, not to speak of," Hordle said cheerfully. "But I can get off a horse right quick, I can."

Havel nodded; the big Englishman's feet were near the ground anyway, on an ordinary-sized mount. Then he cocked an eye at the sun-it was behind them, about three hours past noon-and waved them forward, his eyes busy. They crossed an old railway embankment, a line of weeds and saplings now, with the two streaks of rusted iron mostly hidden, then down into another neglected orchard, the sweet-sour smell of years of fallen fruit strong and the spindly saplings crushed by the passage of the fugitives they were chasing.

"Halt," he called softly in the insect-buzzing gloom. "There's a steep slope ahead of us, wooded, and then open country that was swampy even before the Change. It runs into a loop of the Willamette, the Lambert Bend, and the bar upstream broke in the floods three years ago. Easy to bog down. Eric, you did the scout, you ride right after our guide here. First time it even looks like he's leading us into a swale, put one through his gut. Asshole, your only chance of getting out of this alive is for us to win, understand? Rest of you, we go in fast and hard, get stuck into them and kill 'em all-I'd have preferred to take Crusher alive to hang, but there aren't enough of us. Any questions? Then go!"

They came out of the orchard into a stretch of woods that sloped eastward; flickers of light came through the canopy above, and the hooves pounded and then began to squelch as the land leveled out. Suddenly the trees about them were dead, bleached white ghosts, and reeds waved about them higher than a mounted man's head.

"Here!" the outlaw at the head of their column said. "Left here!"

They turned on to an old dirt road; it was muddy, and gobbets of the soft black soil flew high as the horses loped forward, but it was passable-just. Havel kept his reins knotted on his saddlebow, guiding Trooper with thighs and balance; the outlaw wasn't up to that standard of horsemanship, but the other Bearkillers were. He noted with interest that the Englishmen were too, at least the two in plate armor.

The directions kept coming, and they were making good progress. Suddenly the reeds were past; the ground was still soft and boggy in spots, but the trail led among trees, big black cottonwoods and willows and red alders, with blue ponds-probably the old gravel pits-on either side. The ground sloped down very slightly from the levee to dense woodland and brush along the river; amid the trees were tents and crude huts, and hearths smoking. Men and women boiled among them, gathering bundles with frantic haste and scurrying down towards the river's edge and the boats hidden there.

Raw screams of panic came as the Bearkillers rode into sight; then a great booming voice: "There's only seven of them, you pussies! There's better than thirty of us-do you want to lose all you've got? Take 'em!"

Uh-oh, Havel thought, and shot. Total mindless panic would have been nice.

Arrows and crossbow bolts came whining back at them; some distant part of his mind grinned in amusement as the first of them struck the bandit they'd captured and made their guide, leaving him flopping limp in the saddle to which he was lashed. The outlaws were shaking themselves out into a rough line or elongated clump, but there were an almighty lot of them; it wouldn't have mattered if he'd had Will's troop at his back, but he didn't. It wouldn't have mattered in open country, either; horse archers could peck footmen to death easily if they had room to run. This wasn't open country; he couldn't go a hundred yards in any direction without needing webbed feet, and on the muddy tracks they'd used to get here the outlaws would probably be quicker than horses.

"OK, work to be done," he said. "Let's give them a charge."

Get ironclad fighters in among the lightly equipped outlaws, and they could still turn it around. He cased his bow, whipped out his backsword and slid his targe onto his left arm; out of the corner of his eye he saw John Hordle slip from his mount and raise his longbow. Eric and Luanne pulled their lances free of the saddle scabbards and leveled them.

The bandits waited, grounding spears or jeering and shaking bows and crossbows. Then The brush can't be moving, he knew.

That was exactly what it looked like, brush and tangled shoots standing and shaking itself along a hundred-yard line. Then he saw the kilts and plaids below the ghillie cloaks-war cloaks, the Mackenzies called them-and heard a familiar deep voice cry out: "Let the gray geese fly!"

Forty longbows snapped, and the broadhead shafts twinkled in the mix of shadow and sun, flashing as they came out of the shade of tree and grass. The range was close, less than a hundred yards. Half of the armed bandits fell in the first volley.

The rest charged the Bearkillers, but it was less of an attack than a desperate attempt to get by them and into the swamps. John Hordle's bow snapped three times, and three men went down-two with arrows in the leg, one shot through the gut; the armored riders chased targets that dodged and squealed in panic. Havel stabbed one with a slamming thrust down by his own left leg, freed the blade and rode another down, Trooper's shoulder sending him spinning into the downward stroke of the backsword. It jarred on bone with a butcher's-cleaver sound, then came free in a great fan of blood that sparkled bright red on the rank wet grass. That put him in position to strike for Crusher Bailey, but the outlaw chief's companion threw a javelin that made Havel duck. Bailey gave a cackle of relief as he dodged past, trademark hammer held high.

It turned into a yell of alarm as John Hordle stepped into his way. The hammer beat down, but the Englishman stepped in and caught the wooden shaft just above Bailey's hand. His great red paw closed on the hickory, ripped it from Crusher's hand and threw it casually behind him. Then his bear grip closed around Bailey's torso, trapping him with his arms pinned to his side; the bandit weighed well over two hundred pounds, but Hordle raised him high and squeezed, squeezed:

Crusher screamed and thrashed, and went limply unconscious. Luanne's lariat fell around the body of his javelin-throwing companion, and she signaled her horse into a short trot, dragging any fight out of him. Mackenzie archers sent a flight over the heads of the last fleeing outlaws, the long arrows burying themselves in the soft turf with only their fletchings showing, bringing the crowd to an arm-waving stop.

Another voice called, a soprano, high clear: "Throw down! Now, every one of you! Hands high! Anyone whose hands aren't high will be shot!"

Silence stretched, and then the outlaws began to shed their weapons. Havel legged his horse forward, the others following in his wake. A red-haired figure waited for him, standing beside a broad-shouldered man leaning on his bow as Mackenzies rounded up and bound the surviving members of Crusher Bailey's gang-and protected them from a group of women clad in rags and bruises heading their way with weapons snatched up from the ground, or in a couple of cases with kitchen knives and roasting spits. A few men likewise ragged and hot-eyed came with them; those were mostly limping heavily, from smashed kneecaps or broken legs left to heal crookedly and make escape impossible. Other nonfighters, women and some children, stood uncertain or looked daggers at the warriors who'd destroyed the outlaw band.

Well, even bandits probably have families who love them, Havel thought. Then: This ought to be interesting, as he reined in by the Mackenzie leaders.

"Juney, Sam, good to see you," he said. "Lucky you happened to be in the neighborhood. That's why we got reports the Protector's men out east were all running around like headless chickens!"

"You always were a bit too headlong, mate," Aylward said.

Juniper Mackenzie made a tsk sound. "Mike, how often do I have to tell you there's no such thing as coincidence?" she asked, grinning slyly, then nodded to Signe. "Merry met!"

"Hi," Signe said flatly. "I'll get this organized. Looks like the gang had a fair number of prisoners here."

She turned her horse aside, towards a series of wood-and-wire cages that gave off a stench even more noisome than the rest of the bandit camp. Eric and Luanne slid from their saddles; the young man whooped as he threw his arms around the Chief of the Mackenzies and swung her around. His wife was almost as enthusiastic; Havel snorted and turned his eyes away.

He watched Sam Aylward instead. For once, the air of hard cheerful competence deserted the ex-SAS archer. He looked at his compatriots with his eyes bulging and his jaw dropped; he stuttered for a moment before he managed: "Sir Nigel? Young Mr. Loring? Little Johnnie?"

The big bowman grinned at him. "It's not King Arthur and the Round Table, nor yet Robin Hood neither." Then his eyes dropped to Aylward's kilt. "Oh, sod all, Samkin! Don't tell me you've gone Jock?"

Havel gave a snort of laughter. " Lot of explanations coming," he said. "But this isn't the time." He slapped a mosquito. "Or the place."

The land around the Crossing Tavern was crowded; with Will Hutton's troop, twenty-one Mackenzies, a dozen freed captives from Crusher Bailey's camp babbling their thankfulness-and, beneath a great garry oak, a row of men who sat bareback on horses. The rope nooses about their necks ran up to where the ropes were fastened to the outspreading branch above; most were silent, and a few who'd babbled or begged were gagged. From where Michael Havel watched, the tall round shape of the tree was silhouetted against the sun going down behind the hills to the west; birds twittered in it, rising in a cloud when the humans disturbed them too badly-once when a bicycle-borne Mackenzie came up from the south and started calling for Juniper; the clansfolk hustled him off Havel noted the action out of the corner of his eye and then ignored it; he had more pressing business.

Crusher Bailey was the last of the row, glaring, his lips moving silently as he mouthed curses. A sign hung around each bandit's neck, written in charcoal on a board: ROBBER, MURDERER. Crusher Bailey had that, with additions: