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Page 152
He was breathing hard but more with fear that Alinor had been, or would be, carried away while he was thus occupied than with effort. He had fought many better skilled and more dangerous opponents in the past. First, far in the rear, in the direction from which he had come, he saw his own troop and Alinor's, Ian urging his flying horse to still greater effort and Beorn thundering along just behind. His intent was so fixed that he did not regard them either as help or hindrance. There was only one thing Simon sought.
Then Simon found his objective. He did not yet see Alinor, but from various directions the horsemen were converging upon one spot. Simon clapped his spurs to his mount's already sore sides and it leapt forward, breasting the thinned spot in the brush where Alinor and the squire had forced a path. Down beyond he saw her at last, her back to the wall of the shepherd's hut. It had no door. Four men ringed her, but not too close for one was nursing a hand from which blood dripped. Another held the five horses. He was the first to die there. He did not even have time to cry a warning. He had not looked around, expecting more of his companions and finding the scene before the hut of more interest. The morningstar caught him full in the chest. Blood filled his lungs and burst from his nose and mouth. The horses, suddenly freed and affrighted, galloped away.
Startled at the sound of pounding hooves so close, one man turned from Alinor and shrieked a warning. He was the second of that group to die. None of the men had drawn a weapon. Perhaps had Simon seen, he would have held his hand, but his eyes had only taken in Alinor's bloody face and hands and torn clothing. When the man-at-arms fell, he had no face. The third, Simon brained with a single downward thrust of his shield. The man had not pulled his helmet on over his hood. What was there to fear from a single girl?

 
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