Ignore that one, he?s out of it.

He pushed off the impact, using it to swing himself around, the longsword slashing horizontally as he spun.

Get close, get close…

Too close for anyone to draw a spear back for a stab, and himself a whirling screaming striking blur that left death and ululating agony in its wake as the melee stumbled across the hillside?s uncertain footing. Edges and clubs grated and banged on his helmet, thumped into his brigandine, hard enough to leave bruises he?d feel later, if he lived-they were striking at the head and body from instinct, unused to dealing with real armor and not knowing how vulnerable they were to his ironclad violence.

If I had full war-harness on and a knight?s shield I could take the lot of them!

But he didn?t, and it could only be seconds until sharp metal hit something unprotected and vital, throat or limbs; he couldn?t block a dozen men, couldn?t kill them all. There wasn?t time An ax looped towards his neck. Rudi?s buckler deflected it with a crang, and his sword licked down on the man?s arm above the elbow. The edge cracked into bone and through it with an ugly thump that jarred up the weapon and into his arm and shoulder. The man spun away, staring at the bleeding stump and then sitting down to die. Startled as the blood spurted over her fetlocks, Epona stopped stamping a body into rags of flesh and bone-splinter and reared to pound her hooves into him instead.

Rudi recovered with desperate speed and a spray of leaves and twigs beneath his boots, but the next man was poised with his spear cocked back to thrust into Rudi?s face, the lunge already beginning. ..

… and he froze, with an expression of intense surprise on his features for an instant, as a wet red point appeared through his chest. Then he went flaccid and collapsed at the Mackenzie?s feet. Behind him a horseman swerved his mount and snatched another javelin out of the hide bucket slung over his back, throwing it with a whoop. The shadowed woods were alive for an instant with leaping fleeing men, throwing aside their weapons to run with heedless speed and crashing through the thickets as the horsemen they?d ambushed harried them on.