"Bloody bandits!" the carter growled, pulling a short sword from under his seat and jumping over the side.
"Take cover!" Beka yelled, although the others were already doing just that. She slid off Wyvern with her bow in hand and whacked the horse on the haunches, hoping he'd get clear of the archers.
Heart pounding in her ears, Beka dove for the scant cover at the front of the sledge. Crouched there beside the carter, she tried to size up the situation.
The point riders weren't back yet; that left Zir, Kaylah, Corbin, Rethus, Mikal, and Syrtas—assuming none of them were already killed—and the three drivers.
Judging by the hail of arrows whining at them from the cover of the trees, however, her group was considerably outnumbered. Worse yet, they were being fired on from both sides of the road.
"You said nothing about bandits when we set out," she hissed to the driver.
"Ain't seen any most of the winter," he replied grudgingly.
"This crew's come north early. They must of laid for us until they saw you send off them other two."
Beka moved to the opposite side of the sledge just in time to spot three swordsmen running at them from the woods. Almost without thinking, she fitted an arrow to her bowstring and shot one of them; the other two fell to someone else's shafts.
Arrows snarled and hissed over her head as Beka dashed back to the next sledge, where she found Mikal, Zir, and Kaylah shooting wildly into the trees to either side.
"Stop shooting!" Beka ordered. "We can't afford to waste the arrows."
"What do we do?" Mikal demanded.
"Wait for a clear shot. And grab any spent arrow you can reach without getting hit."
Ducking low, she made it to the last sledge.
Rethus and Corbin were unscathed. Their carter lay panting beneath the sledge, an arrow shaft protruding from his hip.
That first enemy arrow had cut Syrtas just above the knee before striking his horse. The wound was bleeding freely, but it didn't seem to be slowing him down much as he and the others shot into the trees.
Beka repeated the order, and then nocked another arrow on her bowstring, waiting for one of their attackers to show himself.
The bandits mistook their actions as a sign of surrender; in a moment the arrow storm stopped and swordsmen burst from the trees, yelling wildly as they charged the sledges on foot.
"Now hit them, both sides!" Beka shouted, scrambling to her feet. Heedless of any archers who might still be lurking in the trees, she sent shaft after shaft at the swordsmen running at her, downing three of them. For the first time since the skirmish began, it occurred to her that she was taking human lives, but the thought carried no emotion. The thrum of bowstrings and the cries and shouts of battle filled her mind, leaving room for nothing else. Beside her, Rethus fired with the same silent determination.
An arrow nicked the shoulder of her tunic and pinned her cloak to the side of the sledge behind her. Yanking the brooch pin loose, she dropped to one knee and continued to shoot.
A dozen or more bandits fell to their arrows, but an equal number were closing in around them.
"Swords!" Beka shouted. Drawing her blade, she strode out to meet a bearded man in scarred leather brigadine and ragged leggings. Ducking his wild swing with a broadsword, she whirled and struck at the back of his neck.
She'd practiced the move a thousand times against her father and others; this time she drew blood.
There were plenty more with him, though, and she drew a long dagger in her left hand, using it to fend off thrusts to her open side.
Syrtas was to her right, Kaylah to the left.
Covering each other as best they could, they waded into the knot of bandits.
The attackers outnumbered her side at least three to one, but Beka quickly realized that most of them relied more on brawn than skill. With almost disappointing ease, she ducked another swing and ran a man through, then pulled her blade free in time to strike another on the arm as he attacked
Kaylah. The girl flashed her a grin, then lunged at a tall, scrawny youth who turned tail and fled.
Looking around, Beka realized that there were mounted fighters at work, too. Mercalle and the others had come back at some point and were charging into the fray, their helmets flashing in the sunlight as they scattered ambushers and struck down the stragglers with their swords.
The bandits were already beginning to fall back when more riders of the Horse Guard thundered down the road from the direction of the column. Tobin was at their head, with Portus and Braknil beside him.
The enemy broke for cover and the horsemen followed, driving them into the trees and dismounting to give chase.
"Come on!" cried Beka, rallying her blood-streaked comrades. "Let's not let them steal all the fun!"
When the rout was over, more than twenty ambushers lay dead in the snow. Beka's riders had sustained nothing worse than a few sword cuts and arrow wounds.
"By the Flame, that was a fair-sized gang," Mercalle exclaimed.
The lead carter crawled from under his sledge. "Looks like old Garon's crew. They been harrying the traders up and down the valley for nigh onto three years now. The sheriffs couldn't never catch 'em."
"They chose the wrong prey this time," Sergeant Braknil remarked, grinning as he strode over to join them. "Looks to me like you had things pretty well in hand by the time we got here, Lieutenant."
"I wasn't so sure," Beka said, noticing for the first time how shaky her legs felt. "What are you doing here, anyway? Not that I'm not glad to see you."
"When Barius and Marten showed up, I sent Tobin and Arna back," Mercalle explained. "But all of a sudden they came belting back with word that you were under attack. They didn't know how big the force was or who, so I sent Arna back to the column for help and came on with the others. As it turns out, Braknil had talked the captain into letting the rest of the turma come meet you. He and Portus were less than a mile away when Arna met them."
The rest of the turma had drifted over to listen.
"Any losses?" she asked.
"Not a one, Lieutenant!" Corporal Nikides reported proudly. "Not bad for our first battle, eh?"
"I don't know that I'd claim routing bandits as a battle, but we acquitted ourselves well enough," Beka said, grinning around at the others. "You did well, all of you."
Braknil exchanged a look with Mercalle and cleared his throat. "With all due respect,
Lieutenant, there's a custom some of the riders should observe. For their first kill, that is."
"Drinking the blood of the first man you kill to keep off the ghosts, you mean?"
"That's the one, Lieutenant. Some call it superstition nowadays, but I say the old ways are sound."
"I agree," said Beka. She'd heard of the custom from her father, and from Alec, who'd done the same after his first fight. "How many of you made your first kill today?"
Everyone in Mercalle's decuria stepped forward, and several more from the others. "All right, then. All of you archers, find your first killing shaft. Come back here when you find it. The rest of you bring your swords."
Beka walked to the body of the first swordsman she'd killed, a middle-aged brigand with a braided beard.
He lay on his back, a look of mild surprise on his unremarkable face. She stared down at him a moment, making herself remember the murder in his eyes as he charged at her. She was glad to be alive, but not to have killed him.
It was an odd mix of feelings. Shaking her head, she pulled the arrow from his chest and joined the others standing in a rough half circle beside the road. When everyone else had come back, she looked around and felt the weight of the moment settle upon her.
"Sergeants, I'm as new to this as the rest of them. Are there any special words to be spoken?"