Spell of Fate | Page 8

He heard a crunch, a clatter, and a loud grunt from his left, in the direction they'd just come from, and turned to see a heavily built man with a wild black beard and a broadsword getting his balance on the path; a spill of earth showed where he had jumped and slid down into the gully.
Max landed inverted at the bottom of the pit, in a handstand, his arms tangled in leaves and netting. The horse with its broken legs was sliding in after him. Max let himself fall carefully backward. Something narrow, scratchy, and tall pressed up against his back, yielded, and then snapped with a crack. There were spikes, but obviously not enough of them to carpet the hole. Max kicked another spike over out of the way and sprang backward onto his feet, then leaned forward to press himself against the side of the pit. Next to him, the horse finished collapsing into the pit, impaling itself on the spikes. An arrow thonked superfluously into its flesh.
There would be at least four of them, Jurtan thought. The hefty guy guarding the path with his sword, the archer, the one with the steerhorn, and probably another swordsman to watch the path on the other side of the pit. Max had been tutoring him in swordwork, but even after Max's usual intensive crash-course Jurtan didn't think he could take down all of them with his blade, especially considering the tactical situation the terrain put them into. The blade was scarcely the only weapon at hand, though.
The music in his head left Jurtan an opening. Drawing his own sword, he hurled himself forward at the hefty man, yelling out "Heda!" in tune with the music.
A blare of internal trumpets matched him. The edge of Jurtan's vision swam, but with the last month's practice behind him his concentration locked solidly into place and held his consciousness together. Instead, the man ahead of him reacted slowly, as though he'd fallen into a sudden daydream, his eyes vague and sluggish as he began to adjust his stance and bring up his sword.
Max and Jurtan had determined that vocalization wasn't nearly as effective in projecting paralysis as the flute in Jurtan's pack or the harmonica in his pocket. On the other hand, his voice was close to hand and left both arms free. Jurtan slid past the man's guard and whacked him on the side of the head with the flat of his blade. Music stabbed at him; without thinking, Jurtan leapt back. Another arrow flashed in front of him through the space he'd just left and punctured the falling man's chest.
Max vaulted over the thrashing horse before it could crush him against the wall and rolled upward out of the pit. Not pausing, he pushed out of the roll and sprang up the side of the gully. Just above of him sticking over the edge an arrow was being slapped into a bow. Max snatched at an exposed root just below the lip, pulled himself closer, grabbed the bow with his other hand, then let go of his grip on the root. As he fell backward he pushed off with his feet and yanked. With a crazed howl a man appeared in the air above Max, still holding his bow. The man twisted over Max and followed his bow head-first into the pit.
Two sets of footsteps crashed above, retreating rapidly into the trees. Max was scrambling back up the embankment to give chase when the charging footsteps stopped and were replaced by first a whinny and then a gallop. The path beyond the pit jogged to the left; presumably it snaked around to the spot where the ambushers had their horses hidden. Max dropped to the floor of the gully next to his own horse. "What?" Max demanded of it.
The horse had its head cocked to one side and was giving him a reproachful look from beneath its weighted net. The horse hadn't moved a foot throughout the entire affair. "Be that way, then," Max told it.
"Are you all right?" said Jurtan, from a location safely beyond Max's reach.
"No thanks to you. Next time take better care of your horse."
Jurtan was relieved to note that Max's tone of voice was relatively mild, for Max. "I don't think anyone's going to be taking too much care of that particular horse in the future."
The kid was right. The horse in the pit had had one last thrash in it, and it had expended this by rolling over onto the bowman. Most likely the guy had broken his neck anyway, but that still left no one to interrogate. Max picked up his hat, which Jurtan's horse had demolished by falling on it, then tossed it into the pit. So much for a field test of