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thrust at his groin again before he returned to low guard. She scored.
    His blocking stroke smashed into her blade near the hilt, bent it dangerously, forced it from the wound. Her own momentum took her to her knees. She used her impetus to prick the thigh of the attacker on her I opponent's left. Then she had to get the rapier up to block her antagonist's weak followup.
    Instead of raining blows upon her while she was down, he used his greater strength to force his weapon down while he tried to knee her in the face. Again she let him have his way. With her left hand, beneath their locked blades, she used her dagger, going first for the big vein inside his left thigh, then the ligaments behind his knee. Neither blow was successful, but she hurt him. He backed off to let another man take his place.
    The man she had pricked went down. Uthe grabbed the opportunity to force her inside the box. No gentlemanly gesture, she realized. She was becoming more a liability than an asset.
    Between and over the heads of the fighters, she tried to see how Bevold was doing.
    Not well. He was trying to reach the mound, but his men had become hopelessly disorganized and it seemed unlikely any could push through. Half his saddles were
     empty anyway. As she watched, Bevold himself succumbed to a blow on the helmet.
    And desert men by ones and twos continued to straggle from the forest. Soon they would send a detachment after Rolf.
    She looked homeward to check Preshka's progress. There was no sign of him, but she did see something that buoyed her spirits. Riders in the distance, only specks now, but coming fast, straight through the grainfields.
    "Bragi!" she shrieked. "Bragi's coming!"
    Uthe and the others took it up as a war chant, vented a moment of wild ferocity on their enemies.
    Elana felt something underfoot. She looked down. Her crossbow. She still had quarrels. She snatched it up, cocked and loaded it, looked for a target.
    Just then the man on Uthe's left, growing too enthusiastic, broke the shield wall. An enemy took instant advantage. He paid the price of his foolishness. The man to his left fell as well.
    That two-man hole, for the seconds it existed, loomed ominous. Elana put a bolt into a man trying to open it wider, clubbed a second with the crossbow, bought time for the gap to close.
    A square then, with Elana cramped inside, too crowded to do anything but jab with her dagger.
    Why was Bragi taking so long?
    Only a minute had passed since she had spotted the riders, but it seemed an age. What good help that arrived too late?
    iv) To ride against time
    This time there was no lack of motivation in Ragnarson's ride. He didn't have to pretend he was racing El Murid. When Elana's messenger met him on the road, he took only a moment to order the man on to Mocker's for reinforcements. He began galloping.
    The horse was fresh but incapable of carrying such a
     heavy rider so hard so long. It collapsed a mile north of his northernmost sentry post. There was no flogging the animal on. Carrying only his weapons, he ran. That was difficult. His legs were stiff and his thighs were chafed from two hard days in the saddle.
    It never occurred to him that Elana might have sent her message before danger was actually upon her. He expected to be too late to do anything but count the dead. But he ran.
    By the time he reached the lookout post he was almost as winded as the abandoned horse. Out of shape, he thought, as he staggered the last hundred yards, lungs afire.
    The sentry remained on duty. He ran to meet Ragnarson. "Bragi, what happened?"
    "Horse foundered," he gasped. "What's going on, Chotty?"
    "Your wife got up excited. Put out sentries. Sent Flay to get you. But nothing happened till a minute ago."
    "What?" His guts were about to come up. All this action after last night's beer.
    "South call. The wolf."
    "Uhn. Any others?" They reached the man's hiding place. He had only one horse.
    "No."
    "No ideas?"
    "No."
    He had a vague notion of his