The high voices screamed again; the sound tore at his concentration. One of the figures laughed aloud, a jagged spike of sound that almost loosened his fingers from the reins as the chestnut jigged and half-reared under him.
“Mortal fools … did you really think your charge would break us?” The voice had somewhat the silvery quality of elves’ voices, but edged with cruelty and spite. “We will feast well tonight on your horses … and you we will torment without mercy.”
“Tir’s bones, but you’re an ugly bunch,” Cracolnya said. He sounded more annoyed than frightened. Despite his dun horse’s antics, he sat as firm in the saddle as if he were straddling a quiet log. “It’s no wonder your cousins don’t want to admit you exist.”
“You will die this day,” one of the blackcloaks said, and hissed what must have been a command, for they ran forward, striking at the horses’ legs and screaming their unnerving screams.
“Not without a few of you,” Cracolnya said. He leaned forward and said something to the dun that sent it straight at the one who had threatened; Arcolin spurred toward another, and the chestnut obeyed. It was foolhardy with the cohort in disarray, but running would be no better. A few of the cohort now had their horses under control and converged on the captains. Those who had been thrown picked up fallen weapons and came on foot.
Arcolin took his first target in the throat; a sword thrust that killed iynisin as easily as humans. He fended off a swing by another, and one of the dismounted soldiers put a bolt in the iynisin’s side and then another, just as Arcolin managed a thrust into the iynisin’s shoulder.
More of the cohort were on foot now, gathering into squads, running quickly toward the fight. There were fewer iynisin than Arcolin had feared when he first saw them—perhaps fifteen or sixteen in all—and Cracolnya’s cohort now outnumbered them. The iynisin screeched again; this time it had no effect, and they began to retreat, edging toward one end of the trees.
Cracolnya yelled something Arcolin could not understand, pointing across at the facing slope. Arcolin glanced upward just as he caught the sound of hooves and the first birdlike ululation. A loose crowd of small horses ridden by … he blinked … riders with lances. Who were they? Cracolnya yelled again, and the other group charged down the slope, riders in outlandish clothing on horses hardly larger than Jamis’s pony. Horse nomads—they had to be horse nomads—
Arcolin’s horse leapt suddenly, and only his years of experience kept him in the saddle as the horse evaded what he’d missed: an iynisin whose sword would have killed him if the horse hadn’t been more alert. That one was running now, running fast to its companions as they all turned, running faster than any human afoot.
Beyond the pickoak tangle, the oncoming horse nomads whooped and cheered, swerving to cut off the iynisin’s attempt to escape. Cracolnya spurred his mount to meet them, giving the same whoops and yodels as the nomads. Arcolin started to follow, then checked; the cohort needed him. A few were down, injured in falls from horses or wounded by iynisin, he could not yet tell. The others, under the orders of the cohort sergeants, had re-formed and rearmed themselves from dropped crossbows.
Arcolin stood in his stirrups for a better view. If the iynisin got into the pickoak thickets, where horses and formations couldn’t go, they’d be more dangerous, so cutting them off, or at least establishing a line in the thickets they could not pass, would be best.
“A hand to check our wounded and make sure the blackcloaks are dead. Half to the thicket; cut them off inside it, work toward that end, but stay in touch. All should have bows. Half with me.”
“Yes, my lord.”
He led the half-cohort toward the end of the thicket where the iynisin still seemed bent on escape, Cracolnya close behind them but out of sword range. The nomads, still whooping, galloped straight for the iynisin, waving their lances.
The iynisin swerved, running hard now, trying to cut between Arcolin’s half-cohort and the oncoming nomads. But the nomad horses, small as they were, flattened out in a burst of speed. Lances flashed as the horsemen reached the laggards.
In moments it was over: all the iynisin dead before Arcolin’s group could close with them. Now the nomads swung back to ride toward them. Arcolin urged his mount forward, and Cracolnya let out a warbling call that brought the nomads to him instead. Arcolin rode that way, signaling the troops to stand where they were.
He had known for years that Cracolnya was part nomad but not that he could have been brother to any of the those in this group, barring the lack of the intricate tattoos most of them wore down the heart-side of their faces. Now Cracolnya jabbered away in a language Arcolin didn’t know, and this gave Arcolin a chance to observe the nomads, most of whom were staring at him. Short, broad-faced, cheeks bright red from wind and sun. Their clothes, heavily embroidered with brilliant colors, looked to be various kinds of leather and fur. They rode small rough-coated horses with stiff upstanding manes and bushy tails, and, Arcolin saw with astonishment, they did not use stirrups. Their boots had embroidery all over the soles, and they sat with the soles pointed at him, as if to make sure he saw them.