Free Master of Hawks by Linda E. Bushyager

horse away.
    Jaxton spurred his bay, and the animal rammed intoa foot soldier and plunged beyond him, sending the man reeling backward into the path of another horse. Then Jaxton reached Geoff S'Akron and grabbed the wounded man's collar.
    S'Akron coughed and jerked up. "Help me," he whispered, staring at his cousin. But Jaxton only pulled the Pendant upward.
    "No!" shrieked Geoff, suddenly realizing the other's intention. He tried to use the Pendant's power but was too weak and agitated to control it.
    For an instant the men struggled, heedless of and unheeded by the battle around them. Then Jaxton grabbed the arrow with one hand and drove it downward.
    Geoff's body arched back, and blood spurted from his wound. Jaxton tightened the chain around Geoff's neck, stifling his cry and choking him. He yanked the Pendant of Thantos off and slipped its chain over his own head. As Jaxton released his hold, Geoff S'Akron toppled from his horse.
    Automatically, as if he'd always worn it, Jaxton directed the powerstone to produce a protective shield around him. Then he wheeled his bay around and, skirting fallen bodies, headed up the street.
    After the initial volley of arrows, the Empire soldiers had managed to overcome their surprise and now fought back, hand to hand. At the end of the street, a knot of horsemen fought to push their way by an overturned wagon to the safety of the woods beyond the town. Painted women in bright, tattered clothes tried to stop them.
    Jaxton drew his sword and swung it downward, slicing repeatedly at the swordsmen who had emerged from the buildings. Ahead loomed Gerard Farber—no, not Farber, Jaxton now realized, but another man, similar in build and coloring, who'd taken the sorcerer's place, and who, with the rest of the uniformed impostors, had fooled Jaxton into believing that the advance party had taken the town.
    However, this man wore no stone and sent forth no spell, so his sword could not penetrate Jaxton's golden field. Jaxton raised his blade and cut Farber's impersonator down like a weed.
    As he hacked his way up the street of death, Jaxton hardly cared whom he hit if that man blocked his way out of the trap.
    While he fought, his mind meshed more tightly with the Pendant's power, and the glowing stone within the bordering circle of seven leaves became a blinding star upon his chest. Instinctively murmured words taught in childhood and pointed at the buildings. Wherever he pointed the wooden structures burst into flame. Soon screaming archers fled their cover. Some seemed more terrified of the sorcery than the fire.
    Bodies of men and animals clogged the street. Riderless horses, panicked soldiers, charging York swordsmen, and a few knots of Empire troops with sense enough to form back-to-back defensive groupings mingled together and became an almost indistinguishable, inseparable mass as red covered the Empire's black and silver and York's blue and gray. Now those around him realized that Jaxton was a sorcerer. Fearing his power, both friend and foe pulled back. His horse pushed ahead and suddenly was clear. He had reached the gap between the buildings and the inn.
    Then the bay reared and spun crazily. It seemed as if the world dropped out from under them. The protective haze around them became an orange mist through which fingers of gray smoke passed, bringing pain without focus or measure to the horse and its rider.
    Realizing it was an enemy sorcerer's attack, Jaxton used the Pendant of Thantos. As he recited counter-spells, his shield solidified into a golden-orange corona that blocked the pain- Because of his inexperience, at first he could only hold the barrier without being able to return fire. He held his horse motionless, concentrating on defense.
    The battle swept around him as running men and galloping horses tried to break the trap at its weakest point.
    Above, two eagles swooped down and set upon the smaller falcons that Jaxton no longer had the strength to control. Without his