The two lead guards reined in and swung down from their horses first. I heard leather stretching, mail clinking. Shit. If they were well armored, this might be tough. One of them rolled his shoulders as if glad to be off the saddle, boots crunching as he walked closer.
Then the guard saw it. He stopped short, staring at the nearest grave. His brow furrowed. He stepped closer, crouched, and reached out to tug at the edge of a tarp. A pale hand showed beneath it, fingers stiff and curled.
"No, no," he cursed, straightening abruptly. His voice rose as anger replaced confusion. "You bloody fools. Why'd you have to go an' dig the fuckers out?"
"We just did as was asked 's all," I said.
The other lead guard hadn't moved. He stood closer to his horse, one hand resting lightly on his sword hilt, eyes sweeping the quarry with slow, deliberate care. He wasn't smiling like the others. His gaze lingered on the tree line, on the broken stone walls, on the uneven ground where too many boots had passed recently.
I felt it then, that tightening in the gut before it all came crashing down, that shift in the air. And somewhere to my right, too close, there was a sharp crack. Wood snapping underfoot.
I didn't turn my head, but I saw it all the same. The suspicious guard's eyes snapping toward the sound, pupils widening. His mouth opened.
"Amb—"
The arrow took the space where his head had been a heartbeat earlier, hissing past with a sound like tearing cloth. He threw himself sideways as he shouted the word, half falling, half diving.
"Ambush!"
"Shit," I breathed, already moving.
The cloak slid from my shoulders as I let the shovel fall and drew my sword. Steel whispered free, the familiar weight settling well into my hand. The shield flicked up with a kick even as I half knelt to strap it in properly. Without armor, I needed it.
The plan, the one where I specifically said to wait until they're all dismounted and with shovels instead of swords in hands, shattered in that instant, splintered by one careless step.
I glanced sideways and saw Hugh, halfway out from behind the tree he'd been hiding behind, bow still extended. His face was pale and frozen with the shock of what he'd just done.
I wanted to curse him for a fool, but perhaps I was the bigger one. Should't have asked a man to do more than his due.
Hugh was brave enough, aye, and loyal, but not trained for this kind of work. The Companions knew better. An ambush was patience, it was the hunter waiting hours beneath his tarp as the gazelle moved closer inch by inch. It was holding still while your heart tried to claw its way out of your chest.
The surprise was gone now, whether I liked it or not. I shouted the signal anyway, my voice cutting through the confusion, and the quarry exploded.
Men burst from cover, cloaks flying back, bows rising. Arrows streaked out in a vicious, uneven volley. The lead guard that had come closer jerked as two bodkin points punched into his chest, the narrow heads finding gaps in his mail. He went down hard, breath blasted out of him in a hoarse grunt, not dead but out of the fight.
The horses beneath the guards screamed at the confusion, rearing and spinning. One horse bucked wildly, throwing its rider clear; another caught a shaft to its flank and took off, before its rider got the same treatment on his throat.
For a moment, the rest of the Whitehead guards just stared. Then the dismounted man, the one who'd spotted us, found his feet and his voice.
"Ride them down!" he roared. "Ride, ride!"
That spurred them forward.
Before I was halfway to him, sword at the ready, one of the mounted men broke free of the chaos and charged straight at me. His sword came free of its scabbard with a bright ring, arm lifting high as the horse gathered speed.
I knew better than to meet him head-on. It didn't matter how much better I was with a blade, no man won against a charging horse by standing his ground.
I waited until the last possible moment and I could nearly smell the animal's sweat. The sword came down, aimed for my neck, then I ducked and leapt aside, slashing out as I went.
My blade bit into the horse's front leg, not deep enough to cut it clean, but enough that the animal screamed and stumbled, its weight carrying it forward as its legs betrayed it. Horse and rider went down together in a jumble of horseflash and iron tools. The man launched forward to slam face-first into the ground, and I imagined he became paste beneath his ton and a half animal.
I barely had time to straighten before another rider was on me. I saw him out of the corner of my eye, too fast, too close, but Jack got to me first. He crashed against my side like a truck, sending us both down in a pile.
Steel flashed above me, a sweeping cut from the rider as he thundered past us blade scraping across Jack's back. He screamed just as my back hit the ground. The breath blew out of me in a silent gasp.
Panicked and breathless, I shoved at him with both hands, rolling him off despite the way my chest burned. For a heartbeat, I thought he was dead. My hands were already scrabbling at his back, at the torn cloak, expecting a torrent of blood—
"I'm fine," Jack said through clenched teeth.
My spinning head was barely settled. I looked down and saw only a thin line across his back, no more than a skin-deep cut.
He sucked in a breath and said it again, firmer this time. "I'm fine."
I nodded, grabbed him by the shoulders, and hauled him upright without another word. I trusted him enough to know his own limits, and there wasn't any time for fussing.
Around us, chaos filled the quarry.
Riderless horses screamed and bolted through the churned soil, tack slapping loose against their flanks. One mule reared so hard it nearly tore free of its traces, the cart behind it tipping and then rolling with a hollow crack of wood. Another had already gone over, spilling bodies half-wrapped in awnings out onto the wet ground like discarded puppets.
The air echoed with shouts and screams, steel ringing against steel.
I spot one of the Whitehead guards spur his horse forward and ride straight down one of my Companions as the man tried to loose an arrow into a cluster of guards near the carts. A hoof caught him square in the chest, and the guard's sword came down in a brutal arc to finish him off.
I felt my jaw tighten until it hurt.
Near the road, six of the Whitehead men, those who had either dismounted or been thrown, had formed a tight knot around the first guard who'd noticed the ambush. He yelled commands at them even as he fought head-on against Hugh, the man having discarded his bow in favor of the sword.
Codin and Derek stood next to him, the three of them holding the line but giving ground inch by inch. Without the archer protecting their flanks, they would not last against double their numbers.
"Tell the archers to get the riders," I shouted to Jack even as I moved. "Can't let them get word back to town."
Then I broke into a sprint, not bothering to wait for his answer.
The lead Whitehead guard turned just as I reached the edge of the knot, his sword already mid-swing toward Hugh's exposed side. I caught it on my blade with a jarring clang that ran up my arm, forcing it wide. He recovered fast, too fast for your run-of-the-mill man-at-arms.
A captain of the guard, perhaps.
I noticed that, amongst the Whitehead men, he was the only one in proper armor. Mail hauberk, sturdy helm, thick gambeson beneath it all. The rest wore loose work shirts of cheap linen, sleeves rolled up for a day's labor. They hadn't come here to fight.
We traded blows in close quarters, the sound swallowed by the noise around us. He pressed me hard, testing, looking for an opening. By the widening of his eyes, I knew he expected me to have already folded to him.
Another guard rushed in from my left, wild-eyed and desperate. I stepped inside the arc of his wide swing even as I kicked the armored guard away, then cut the desperate man down in a single motion with machine efficiency, opening him up from shoulder to groin.
The armored guard swore and came at me again. He was strong, and he knew how to use it, but he was no Areo Hotah. I was faster, my movements cleaner and tighter.
Parrying his thrust, my sword ran the length of his own, steel scraping steel, then I struck his wrist with the flat of the blade. He cursed as his weapon flew from his hand. Quick with his instinct, he tried to close, grabbing me by the arm to try and grapple, but I punched him on the chest with my shield, drawing a gasp, then I twisted free, drove in, and took him across the thigh and neck one after the other.
He stiffened, hands going up to his throat to try and stem the bleeding, eyes red and suddenly pleading. Wouldn't do him any good. He fell to die in the mud.
Codin finished another to my right with a brutal downward chop, while Derek, further back, wasn't so lucky. I saw him falter as a blade kissed his leg, blood darkening his trousers even as he kept his footing. Codin and I turned together then, moving without speaking, and the rest of the Whitehead guards broke. I cut one down as he tried to run, pivoted, and killed another before he could raise his weapon.
It felt mechanical, distant, as if my body were acting ahead of my thoughts.
Hugh had the last of the six pinned, sword raised for the killing blow, his face twisted with rage and the bloodlust men tend to get during a fight.
"Stop," I barked. "We need prisoners."
He hesitated, and for a moment I almost thought he might disobey me, then he nodded and lowered the blade, letting out a heavy sigh. Prisoners had been the plan since the beginning.
Giving him a hard glare, I turned to look around. The fighting had mostly died out.
It felt unreal how quickly it had all happened. Moments before, the quarry had been quiet enough to hear birdsong. Now the ground lay littered with dead men and horses, the air thick with dust and the iron stink of blood. Shouts had dwindled to pained groans and the nervous snorting of horses.
I spotted two of the closest scouts where they had struck from behind by the entrance to the quarry. One stood with a bow still half-raised, the other wiping a bloodied blade on a fallen man's sleeve. Both looked winded, eyes scanning for threats that were no longer there. They must have run the whole way here.
Jack stood a short distance away, bent over a struggling guard pinned beneath a fallen horse, the animal's weight crushing the man's leg as he screamed.
With everything seemingly under control, I began counting. Dead and living, sprawled and bleeding or being bound by our men. I blinked and counted again, slower, even as dread crept in with each number.
"Fuck," I muttered, and then louder, "fuck!"
Three short.
I went to Jack, and he met my eyes before I could speak.
"Three got away," he said. "Broke when they saw how it was turning."
I swore again. There's no fixing that now.
I gave myself no more than a second to breathe and think, then I was shouting orders, my voice carrying over the din. I needed men to secure the horses and properly bind the prisoners, others to get our wounded onto the carts.
Jack took charge of it at once, dragging two of the overturned wagons upright with help. The dead would have to wait. All of them, the men we'd found here, and the two we'd just lost. One Companion. One of my father's men. Lym and Ormond. I'd remember the names.
A man and horse came trotting up the path then.
One of my men raised a bow, but I caught his wrist. "Hold."
It was our last scout, leading the reins on foot. Draped across the saddle was a man clutching his arm, blood soaking the sleeve where an arrow had gone through. The scout gave me an apologetic look.
"Got one, m'lord," he said. "Two made it past me."
My mouth tightened into a line for a second, but I forced myself to sigh and give the scout a nod. I couldn't expect one man to stop three riders galloping for their lives.
They came closer, and the wounded guard shifted, hissing in pain. When his eyes met mine, they widened.
"You," he said.
I looked down at him, my own reaction muted and colder compared to his.
"Hello, Arrec."