Dragon Bones (Hurog #1)(67)

The followers of Meron were men of the land, farmers and herdsmen. Peasants. If a peasant had spoken to a nobleman's messengers the way that this priest was, my father would have him whipped until he couldn't stand up. But a priest was different.

I looked at the priest's calloused hands; he helped in the fields. Perhaps he had his own herds.

"Eh," I broke in, interrupting Oreg rudely. "They're mages, what do they know about the way of the Healer? Good with a fancy argument, they are." I'd heard enough peasant Oranstonian to know I'd gotten the accent close to right. "Nobles who sit in stone halls don't understand the goddess. I worked the land myself, before I took up the sword, and didn't I feel her hand guide my plow?" I thought my father's head herdsman might be a man of the priest's ilk, and his mannerisms weren't difficult to adopt. "Doesn't mean I don't think you ought to take whatever the goddess holds sacred and save it for her." I nodded at the armband that held its place of honor on the altar. "Hate to see that on the arm of one of those heathens who burned Silverfells and stole the dragon stone."

For the first time, the priest looked shaken in his convictions.

"If you take them with you to Callis," I said, "as soon as Kariarn turns his attention elsewhere, you can return them to their place." I heard something odd outside.

He took a deep breath. "I suppose...temporarily..."

It was the faint clash of steel on steel I'd heard. I left the priest dithering to Oreg and took a quick step to the temple door and peered out. It required no more than a glance.

"To arms!" I bellowed, as if I wasn't the last person to see. "Raiders!"

They had doubtless meant to sneak up on the village. But had met with a few of Tisala's men who'd been on the outskirts of town. I tore out of the temple and was on Pansy's back before I'd finished speaking.

The first few men hadn't slowed the mass of Vorsag down much, but by the time I arrived at the fighting, they'd run into the larger block of our troops and their forward progress had slowed to a crawl.

Pansy screamed, a harsh, shrill stallion's warning, and plunged into battle. And time slowed. Everything in me was concentrated on each moment, each block, each blow, each life lost. I became gradually aware that Tosten fought on my left and Penrod my right, but it had no meaning beyond the moment.

I loved the battle, even when it was against scarecrow bandits. Here, where sword met sword and I tested myself against the mettle of my opponent, it meant something when my sword sank deeply into flesh. Pansy told me with twitches of ears and muscles where he was going to move, and he listened in turn to my shifts of weight. We brought death to our enemies, and I loved the power of it. And that final love, one I shared with my father, frightened me more than any battle ever could.

Axiel had been right; a real battle was different. The knowledge that here at last I was facing my own kind, warriors trained in martial arts, added the sweetness of competition to the fray. These men had a real chance of killing me as the bandits we'd fought before did not. For these were regular army men, for all they wore outlaw's rags over their armor.

Stala would have told me to pull the men, because our armies were too evenly matched. There would be no victor here, just dead men to litter the ground. But there were villagers behind us, unarmed women and children I'd been sent to protect.

A long-fought battle has a flow to it. Fierce speed when I was in the heart of the enemy army followed by almost peaceful moments when Pansy and I broke through the battle lines and there were none to come against us. I held Pansy there to give him a rest and saw that there were others doing the same.

In one such pause, Tisala joined me, meeting my grin with one of her own before the years of command fell back upon her shoulders.

"We're evenly matched," she said.

I nodded, moving my right shoulder to try to restore some feeling to my arm. "I hope that occurs to the Vorsagian commander soon. We can't let them through to the village, but if the Vorsag don't pull back, there won't be many of either side left."

She scanned the battle and pointed to a group of her men who were cornered. Without another word, we both put our horses at the enemy.

Her stallion was as hot for battle as Pansy and nearly as well trained, but Pansy's heavier build made him a more effective weapon. When he shouldered a Vorsagian horse, the other horse went down with its rider. Tisala's style of fighting was different from my own, with flourishes designed as much to cow the enemy as anything else, but she killed as quickly as I did.

At another lull in the fighting, I noticed the sun hung low in the sky, though I'd have sworn it was still early afternoon. Pansy's head hung low, and I rocked back and forth with the force of his breathing.

"The commander's breaking off." Penrod rode up to me, his teeth flashing white in the dark blood and gore of his face. "They weren't expecting a troop of fighters here. They outnumber us, but not enough to make this anything but a bloodbath for us both."

"A good general never wins a close fight," I quoted my aunt. "He pulls his men out before his losses are high and hits the enemy another time."

"Your aunt never left her troops behind."

I followed his gaze and saw that the man who'd been commanding the Vorsag was escaping through the trees, while his underlings were organizing a retreat in a slightly different direction.