individual Behrenese, though Ashwarawu surely didn't like him putting a human face on their enemies! A To-gai-ru rider came galloping back then, running the line to the mid-jje where Ashwarawu sat waiting.
"Twenty soldiers guarding seven wagons," the man reported. ?Just like the last one."
"We should take them as prisoners," Brynn remarked under her breath.
"Ashwarawu will not," Pagonel replied quietly.
Brynn turned to regard the mystic. She had not been speaking to him, hut could not deny the truth of his response. Ashwarawu had made it per-fectlv clear to all of them: no Behrenese inside the borders of To-gai would be allowed to live.
Not the women, not the children.
Fortunately for Brynn, she had not been forced into killing noncombat-ant women and children as of yet. Both of the previous caravans, and this one, too, apparently, had been comprised mostly of soldiers, warriors, in-struments of the imperial Yatols. Brynn could fight and kill such men, and a few warrior women, with clear conscience, for these were the invaders, the source of To-gai's ills, the people who would destroy the To-gai-ru culture and heritage.
The woman tried not to think of the inevitable conflict that would arise between her and the fiery, dominating leader when at last the warrior band encountered Behrenese noncombatants.
She turned her attention to the situation at hand, eyeing the caravan as it meandered down below. Brynn understood her part well enough, for in Ashwarawu's sweeping tactics, every role was the same. The raiders would wait until the caravan was directly below them. Then, with war whoops and weapons brandished high, the force would sweep down the sloping ground, slicing through the caravan like a swarm of angry bees, overwhelming the force with sheer numbers and sheer brutality, and with a deep-set confi-dence, the belief that a To-gai-ru warrior was simply superior to any Behre-nese fighter.
The caravan continued along, drivers and guards seeming oblivious to the threat.
And so it began, a whirlwind, a charge, two hundred battle cries rising above the wind.
The drivers and soldiers tried to turn the wagons, tried to get into some sort of defensive position, but the charge was too fast.
On Runtly, Brynn leaped ahead of those closest to her, the strong pony outdistancing the others. Eager for battle, the young ranger veered in toward the center, outpacing even the strong black-and-white horse of Ashwarawu.
She came to the caravan first, her sword alight with fire, slashing across to tell the nearest mounted Behrenese soldier. She veered immediately back to the left as she connected, to meet a second warrior, her pulsating shield deflecting his thrusting spear up high.
Brynn cut even sharper to the left, with Runtly understanding and ac-cepting the angle and smashing hard against the taller horse of the Behre-nese soldier. The horse jumped to the side and the man lurched over, and Brynn wasted no time in smashing the soldier across the face with her shield. She pulled Runtly up to a rearing stop and turn, and slashed her sword across.
The soldier's head dropped to the snow.
Runtly burst ahead, leaping the hitch between a pair of horses and the wagon behind them, then Brynn cut him sharply to the left, bringing her down the line along the undefended side of the caravan. She stabbed at each wagon driver in line, scoring a couple of hits, one fatal, and forcing three other drivers off the other side.
All semblance of defense was shattered as the frightened horses of those four wagons, some aided by a slap on the rump by Brynn, broke formation.
The ensuing frenzy was just the type of chaos favored by Ashwarawu and his warriors, and each Behrenese, soldier and driver, was quickly isolated from his kin, and quickly slashed, stabbed, or trampled.
It was over in a matter of moments, as fast as a passing avalanche. Only a couple of the Behrenese weren't quite dead, lying bleeding in the snow, cry-ing out in agony, crying out for mercy.
Brynn found Pagonel collecting one of the wayward wagons. She moved to help him, trying hard to ignore the cries of the wounded.
"It is not a pretty business," the mystic remarked, seeing the distress on the young ranger's face.
"I do not enjoy the killing," Brynn admitted. She grabbed up the loose reins of one team then, and started to turn them about, but she stopped, noting that Pagonel was glancing at her and then to the side, silently mo-tioning for her to take notice.
Brynn turned to see the To-gai-ru line reformed beside the bulk of the caravan, with Ashwarawu