"So much for a bit of quiet Sentry Removal as a solution to that little problem we're havin'," Edain added. "Getting our friends out, that is."

The twins nodded soberly, not rising to the slight edge in his voice; it was too obviously true. A mounted man wasn't as good a sentry as someone on foot and hiding-much harder to miss and easier to avoid. Unfortunately they were also a lot harder to take out so quietly that nobody noticed. Killing a man silently was hard enough; doing the same to an animal as big and well constructed as a horse was much more so. Doing both together…

When problems that involved fighting came up, the Rangers were extremely good at sneaky, underhanded, elegant solutions. Astrid-the Hiril Dunedain, the Lady of the Rangers-considered straight-ahead bashing crude. Sentry Removal was one of the Dunedain specialties. Sometimes elegance bought you no lard to fry your spuds, though.

"Where, what pattern, and how many all up?" he asked briskly.

"They've got pairs riding in a figure-eight pattern; eight on the move at any one time. There's thirty more of them altogether, with that party that came in this afternoon, the ones who had Mathilda and Odard and his man Alex."

"About half of them are wounded," Ritva said, taking up the tale; then she grimaced slightly. "And we're not counting the six who were too badly wounded to ride fast or fight."

"Their officers killed them?" Rudi asked. The Cutters certainly seem ruthless enough for that.

"No, they killed the badly injured horses. The men killed themselves," Mary said flatly. "No argument about it, either. They were singing until the knives went in. Something about bright lifestreams. "

"And sure, Ingolf said that the Sword of the Prophet were… serious men," Rudi said. "Everything I've seen bears it out. And our folk?"