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sparks lodged in Goldie's mane and her own hair.
    "Aren't you getting too old for this, Randi?" gasped the mare.
    Zaranda threw back her hair and laughed like a schoolgirl. "No!"
    Two horsemen appeared around the stone corner to Zaranda's left. Zaranda brought Goldie round to meet them. Then the sudden backward pivot of the mare's long ears alerted her that the third one had circled to take her from behind.
    "Not so fast, buster," Goldie said as the third horse, a white stallion, ran up on her. "We hardly know each other."
    She launched a sudden savage kick with both rear feet. The stallion screamed and shied back as a steel-shod hoof gouged a divot from his shoulder. His rider, the man with the mace-on-a-stick, groaned and sagged, clutching his thigh. Goldie's other hoof had caught him square, with luck breaking the femur or at the least giving him a deep bone bruise and an excellent set of cramps.
    With one foe out of the fight, however temporarily, Zaranda charged the other two. The rider on Zaranda's left sat a stubby little pony a hand shorter than Goldie, who wasn't as dainty as she effected to believe. Zaranda put her mare's shoulder right into the smaller beast's chest, rocking the pony back on its haunches and fouling its rider's sword strokes, while Zaranda traded ringing cuts with the man to her right.
    The bandit swordsman had greater strength, but Zaranda was used to that. Though she was tall and strong, most men were stronger. Skill and speed were her edges. In an exchange that flashed with more than sunlight, she took a nick in the shoulder but left the man's right side in ribbons and his cheek laid open, streaming blood into a matted gray-flecked beard. Frantically, he sidestepped his horse away from the blade storm.
    All this time Goldie had been driving the pony back, trying to force its rump against the house's stone flank, and grunting mightily to let Zaranda know how hard she was working. The rider, who had a gap in his teeth and a right eye that looked at random out across the bean-fields, finally hit the notion of yanking his mount's head to the right and trying to slide past the mare.
    As he did so, he hacked cross-body at Zaranda's face, hoping to down her while her attention was on his comrade. "Randi, duck!" shouted Goldie.
    Zaranda threw herself to her right, letting her left foot slip from the stirrup, snagging the knee on the pommel to keep herself from leaving the saddle entirely. She whipped Crackletongue over and across her body, deflecting the broadsword so that it skimmed her rump and thunked into her saddle's cantle. With a backhand slash, she laid the man's face open. He screamed and dropped his sword, clutching his face with his hands.
    With a bellow of triumph, the grizzle-bearded man spurred his horse at her, bringing his own blade up for the kill. A hissing sound, and he crossed his eyes to look at the bright, slim tip of Farlorn's rapier, which suddenly protruded from his breast. The blade slid inside him like a serpent's tongue, and out his back. He slumped from the saddle.
    The cockeyed man had fallen to the grass beside the kitchen stoop and lay curled in a ball, sobbing.
    "Thanks," said Zaranda with a nod to Farlorn. The bard grinned and saluted her with a flourish of his blade.
    Zaranda looked at the man with the morningstar, who sat a wary ten yards off, massaging his thigh. "Surrender, and we'll let you live," she told him, "as long as you're willing to answer a few questions."
    The man grimaced in pain and licked greasy lips. "Does that means just as long as I'm answering questions?" he asked.
    "Zaranda," a familiar voice called timidly from the farmhouse's far side. "Could you, ah-could you show yourself, please?"
    Zaranda turned and frowned at Farlorn. "Father Pelletyr?" she said. He shrugged. The morningstar man took advantage of their distraction to spur his horse away behind some apple trees covered with tiny green buds of fruit.
    Farlorn dismounted to see to the man