The others moved, after nervous glances at the slowly moving horsemen, back into their places. Gird grinned at them. “And get those weapons ready!” Far too slowly, the scythes and sickles and crooks and sticks came forward. At once Gird could see what was wrong, besides not having anything but a knife and short cudgel of his own. They could face only one way, and he knew, knew without even trying it, that they’d never reverse in formation, with weapons ready. There had to be a way—what could work? In his mind, he saw his mother’s pincushion, pins sticking out all ways—but then how could they move? There was no time; the horsemen were closing, still at a walk, but he knew they would break to a trot or canter any moment. They must be a little puzzled by a mass of peasants who weren’t trying to run, weren’t screaming in fear.
“We have to kill them all,” Gird said, as calmly as if he knew they could do it. “When they’re close enough to fight, they can recognize you. The only way you can be safe back on your farms, is if you kill them all. That’s what all this drill is for, and now you’re going to use it.” All those eyes stared right at his, blue and gray and brown. He felt as if someone were draining all the strength from his body; they were pulling it out of him, demanding it. “You can do it,” he said, not pleading but firmly, reminding them. Never mind that this wasn’t the best place for a small group of half-trained peasants to fight a mounted troop. Make do, make it work anyway. Miss this chance and you’ll not have another. I’ll be safely dead, he thought wryly.
Almost automatically, the formation had chosen the side facing the horsemen as the front. Gird walked quickly along it, nodding, and then, talking as he worked, shifted those on the flank and rear to face out. “If they come from two directions, we have to be ready. You turn like this—yes—facing out, and you behind him—yes, you—you put your crook here. You, with the stick—poke at their eyes.”
“But do we hit the horse or the man?” asked someone behind him. This group had never drilled against even imaginary horses.
“The horse,” said Gird. “If you hurt the horse, either it’ll run or the man will fall off. Now think—you want to open a big hole—”
He heard the hoofbeats louder now, and faster. Sure enough, they were trotting towards him, eight horsemen with their swords out and shining in the sun. The horses looked huge, and their hooves pounded the dry ground. The two sent around the peasant formation had stopped: clearly they were intended to prevent runaways. The horsemen yelled, a shrill wavering cry, and Gird yelled back, instinctively. His motley troop yelled, too, a sound half-bellow and half-scream of fear. Two of the horses shied, to be yanked back into line by their riders. The peasants yelled again, louder; the riders spurred to a full charge. Belatedly, the other two riders charged the back side of the formation.
He was still thinking I hope this works when the riders crashed into the block of peasants. The horses’ weight and speed drove them into the formation, but five of them died before they cleared the other side. Gird himself slammed his cudgel into one horse’s head, leaping aside to let it stagger past into the sickle of the woman behind him. The rider missed his swing at Gird, but got the woman’s arm; someone buried a scythe in his back before he could swing again. Two riders were dragged from their mounts and stabbed; another took a scythe in the belly before sliding sideways off his horse, screaming. Gird saw one of the women with a simple pole poke one rider off-balance; someone else caught his sword-arm and stabbed him as he fell.
It was over in minutes. Ten horsemen lay dead or dying on the ground; seven horses were dead, two crippled, and one, spooked, galloped away to the west. Gird looked around, amazed. The woman who had lost an arm sat propped against a dead horse, holding the stump and trying not to cry. Eight were dead; two others badly hurt. But—but peasants on foot, with no weapons but the tools of their work, had defeated armed men on horseback. Not an equal fight, but a real one.
He knew he should say something to them, but he couldn’t think of anything fitting. He looked around the horizon, and saw only the sentinel shepherd, waving that no danger neared. Per came up to him, bleeding from a gash on his scalp, bruised, amazed to be alive. They all were. Per nodded at the woman who’d lost an arm, and said “Gird—I see now.”
“Do you?” He felt a thousand years older as his fury drained away. It had to be better to die this way, fighting in the open, than rotting in dungeons or worked to hunger and sickness, but those silent bodies had been people a few minutes before. That woman had had two hands. He nodded at Per, and walked over to crouch beside her. Someone else had already torn a strip of cloth from her skirt to tie around the stump. “You—?”
She had gone pale, now, the gray-green pallor before fainting or death, but she managed a shaky smile, and moved her other hand, still gripping the sickle. “I—killed the horse.”
“You did.”
“I—fought—they—died—”
“Yes.”
“All?”
“All.”
“Good.” With that she crumpled, and before they had finished sorting out the dead and wounded, she had died.
“Noooo!” That scream came from one of the other women, who fell sobbing on the dead one’s body. Then she whirled to face Gird, her face distorted. “You let her die! You—you killed her—and this is what happens—” She waved her arms to encompass the whole bloody scene. “You said fight to live, but she’s dead, and Jori and Tam and Pilan—” Her voice broke into wild sobbing. Gird could think of nothing to say: she was right, after all. The woman had died, and seven others, and the two worst wounded would probably die, even if their lord didn’t notice their wounds and kill them for that. The ten horsemen had probably had lovers or wives, maybe children—the weight of that guilt lay on his shoulders. But another voice, thick with pain, spoke out.
“Nay, Mirag! Rahi’s dead, but she died happy, knowing she’d fought well. Not in a cage in the castle, like young Siela, when she tried to refuse that visiting duke, and not hanging from a hook on the wall, screaming for hours, like Varin. Gird promised us a chance, not safety.”
“You say that, with that hole in you, with your heart’s blood hot on your side? What will Eris say, tonight, when she has no one beside her: what will your children say?”
The man coughed, and wiped blood from his mouth. “Eris knows I’m here, and she knows why. If she weren’t heavy for bearing, she’d be here herself, and the little ones too. This is best, Mirag. Rahi’s satisfied, and I’m satisfied, and if you keep whining along like that, I’ll say out what I think should happen to you!”
The woman paled, and her mouth shut with a snap. The man looked at Gird.
“She’s not bad, Marig—Rahi’s her sister.”
“I’m sorry,” It was all he could say. Marig shrugged, an abrupt jerk of her shoulder; the man beckoned with a finger and Gird went to him.
“D’you know much of healer’s arts?” Gird shook his head “Might should learn, then. If I’d been able, I’d’ve put a tighter band on Rahi’s arm. You’ll need that craft, Gird.”
“You’ll get well, and be our healer,” said Gird, but the man shook his head.
“Nay—this is a killing wound, but slower than some. Blood’ll choke me, inside. But you’d best get all away, before more trouble comes.”