Why was Bragi taking so long?

Only a minute had passed since she had spotted the riders, but it seemed an age. What good help that arrived too late?

iv) To ride against time

This time there was no lack of motivation in Ragnarson's ride. He didn't have to pretend he was racing El Murid. When Elana's messenger met him on the road, he took only a moment to order the man on to Mocker's for reinforcements. He began galloping.

The horse was fresh but incapable of carrying such a heavy rider so hard so long. It collapsed a mile north of his northernmost sentry post. There was no flogging the animal on. Carrying only his weapons, he ran. That was difficult. His legs were stiff and his thighs were chafed from two hard days in the saddle.

It never occurred to him that Elana might have sent her message before danger was actually upon her. He expected to be too late to do anything but count the dead. But he ran.

By the time he reached the lookout post he was almost as winded as the abandoned horse. Out of shape, he thought, as he staggered the last hundred yards, lungs afire.

The sentry remained on duty. He ran to meet Ragnarson. "Bragi, what happened?"

"Horse foundered," he gasped. "What's going on, Chotty?"

"Your wife got up excited. Put out sentries. Sent Flay to get you. But nothing happened till a minute ago."

"What?" His guts were about to come up. All this action after last night's beer.

"South call. The wolf."

"Uhn. Any others?" They reached the man's hiding place. He had only one horse.

"No."

"No ideas?"

"No."

He had a vague notion of his own, inferences drawn on yesterday's mysteries. "Got your horn? Get up behind me here. She can carry us to the house."

As they rode, Ragnarson sounded the horn, alternat­ing his personal blast with those for the greathouse. Anyone not already in a fight would meet him there.

He found a few men there ahead of him, saw a half dozen more coming. Good. Now, where was Elana?

Gerda Haas came from the house.

"Where's Elana?"

"Crazy fool you married, Ragnarson. Like I told Uthe when you did, you'll get nothing but trouble from that one."

"Gerda."

"Ah, then, she rode off with Uthe and Bevold and the others. South. Took my Dahl's horse, she did, just like..."

"How many?"

"Counting her ladyship and the sentries already down there, nineteen I'd guess."

Then all the help he could hope for was already in sight.

Ragnar came running round Gerda, but the old dragon was quick. She caught his collar before he got out of reach. "You stay inside when you're told."

"Papa?"

"Inside, Ragnar. If he gives you any trouble, whack him. And I'll whack him again when I get back. Where's Dahl?"

"In the tower." She scooped Ragnar up and brushed the tears from his eyes. The boy was unaccustomed to shortness from his father.

"Toke," Ragnarson ordered, "get some horses for me and Chotty. Dahl! Dahl Haas!" He bellowed to the watch-tower, "What you see?"

"Eh?"

"Come on, boy. Can you see anything?"

"Lot of dust down by the barrow. Maybe a big fight. Can't tell. Too far."

The barrow lay near the tip of a long finger of cleared land pointing south, with the millstream and lumbering road meandering down it. He had been clearing that direction because the logs could be floated to the mill. It was two miles from the house to the barrow.

"Horsemen?" Bragi called.

"Maybe. Like I said, a lot of dust."

"How long?"

"Only a couple minutes."

"Uhn." Bad. Must be something besides, a gang of bandits. H is people could take care of that with a flight of arrows.

Toke came round the house with the horses. The women had started saddling them when he and Chotty had come in sight. "All right, everybody that can use one, get a lance. Gerda, get some shields." He was wearing a mail shirt already—a habit when he traveled—so needed waste no time donning that. "And for god's sake, something to drink."

While he waited he looked around. Elana had done well. All the livestock had been herded into the cellars, the heavy slitted shutters were over the windows, the building had been soaked with water against fire, and no one was outside who had no need to be.

A girl Dahl's age brought him a quart of milk. Ugh. But this was no time for ale or beer. Beer made him sweat, especially across his brow, and he needed no perspiration in his eyes during a fight.

"Lock up after us," he told Gerda as he swung into the saddle and accepted shield, ax, and lance from another of the women. "Helmet? Where's my damned helmet?" He had left it with the foundered horse. "Somebody find me a helmet." To Gerda again, "If we're not back, don't give up. Mocker's on his way."

The girl who had brought him the milk returned with a helmet. Ragnarson groaned. It was gold- and silver-chased with high, spread silver wings at the sides, a noble's dress helmet that he had plundered years ago. But she was right. It was the only thing around that would fit his head. If he weren't so cheap, he'd have a spare. He disappeared into the thing, glared around, daring someone to laugh.

No one did. The situation was too grim.

"Dahl, what's happening?"

"Same as before."

Everyone was mounted, armed, ready. "Let's go."

He wasted no time. He rode straight for the barrow, over sprouting wheat.

v) Sometimes you bite the bear, and sometimes the bear bites you

Even while still a long way away, Ragnarson saw that the situation was grim. There were four or five men on the barrow, afoot, surrounded. As many more were below, on horseback, hard-pressed. Men from both sides, unhorsed, were fighting on the ground. There were more attackers than defenders, and those professionals by their look. He couldn't see Elana. Fear snapped at his heart like the sudden bite of a bear trap.

He was not afraid of the fighting—much; a truly fearless man was a fool and certain to die young—but of losing Elana. They had an odd, open marriage. Outsiders sometimes thought there was no love between them, but their interdependence went beyond love. Without one another, neither would have been a complete person.

He slowed the pace briefly, signaled his lancers into line abreast. Those who couldn't handle a lance stayed back with their bows.

Some cavalry charge, Ragnarson thought. Six lances. In Libiannin Greyfells had commanded fourteen thou­sand horses and ten thousand bows, plus spearmen and mercenaries.

But every battle was the big one to the men involved. Scope and scale had no meaning when your life was on the line. It came down to you and the man you had to kill before he could kill you.

The foreigners weren't expecting more company. Indeed, a freehold this size should have had fewer men about, but Ragnarson's land wasn't a freehold (in the sense that he had been enfiefed and owed the Crown a military obligation), and many of his hangers-on weren't married.

The attackers noticed his approach only after he was less than a quarter-mile distant. They had hardly begun to sort themselves out when he struck.

Ragnarson presented his lance, swung his shield across his body, gripped his reins in his lance hand. His shield was a round one, in the Trolledyngjan style, and not fit for a horseman. He paid the price almost immediately.

As his lancehead entered the breast of his first opponent, a glancing saber stroke slashed his unshielded left thigh. The sudden pain distracted him. He lost his .lance as the man he had slain went over his horse's tail.

Then his mount smashed into two others, momentarily trapping him. He couldn't drag out his sword. He clawed at the Trolledyngjan ax slung across his back while warding off swordstrokes with his shield, began chopping kindling from the nearest unfamiliar target.