|
|
|
|
|
|
road. If the longbowmen could delay the pursuers by shooting some as they came out of the narrow track, the rest of the party might get near enough to Clyro to be seen by the guards on the walls. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Moments later, Walter emerged into the small broadening of the track caused by the crossroad and the clearings around three woodcutters' huts. Sybelle, her escort, and the pack animal had already disappeared up the pathfor that was all it wasto the left. The sound of their horses' hooves came back through the trees. Walter wrenched Beau left, then around the nearest hut, and had to bite back more curses when he saw only three men hastily stringing their longbows and nocking arrows, two behind the farther hut and one sheltered by the one he had circled. A fourth man was holding the horses beyond the third ramshackle shelter. Inside the hut Walter could hear a child's scream being muffled and a woman hissing for silence between sobs of fear. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
"Take them as they come out," he said to the man near him, "one or two, then mount and follow the others. If you can get in a shot behind as you ride, do that, too, but do not get yourself hit." |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
He spurred Beau across to the other hut, meanwhile placing his shield on his arm, and repeated his order. Briefly he thought of telling the men to shoot one of the horses, hoping to block the trail, but he could not make himself do it. One arrow, or even three, would not kill a horse instantly, and, if they did not, there was no purpose to harming the innocent creature. The bows twanged just at that moment, and the first man out of the tree-sheltered path screamed. However, since shock and pain had caused him to kick his mount, the animal sprang forward and the bowmen had a chance at the second man coming out. They got him, too, more successfully, for he fell from his horse. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The wounded man had regained control of his mount and turned it toward the huts. One of the bowmen shifted his attention from the oncoming men, but Walter shouted at him to keep his aim on the mouth of the road. His sword sang out of its sheath, and he rode out to finish what the arrow had begun. It was no heavy task, but Walter regretted he could not take the man prisoner and wring from him the truth of who had set the ambush and for whom it had been set. However there was no time for that. Crossbow bolts were flying at |
|
|
|
|
|