Free Dawn Wind by Rosemary Sutcliff Page A

face, as she writhed round and doubled up to sink her teeth into a man’s wrist and hung on, worrying at it. ‘Ah, would you, you wild cat!’ someone snarled; and he heard the sound of a blow followed by a shriek and a stream of filthy gutter words in the girl’s hoarse high voice; and for the moment all sight of Regina was lost to him.
    His first instinct had been to loose Dog on them and come flying out with his knife, but his brain was working cold and quick, and he knew that would be a fatal thing to do. Even with Dog’s terrible jaws to help him, what could he do against a score of armed men? And after he and Dog were dead, there would be no one left to help Regina. If he could make a diversion of some kind, that would be the thing—
    The plan seemed to come to him ready-made, and next instant he was melting back into the shadows, still clutching Dog’s leash, leaving the pigeons abandoned where he had laid them down. He was slipping from one patch of dense shadows to the next, along the ruined colonnade towards the far corner where the cattle were penned; and as he went he plunged his hand into the little rawhide pouch at his belt, feeling desperately for the few sling pebbles he had left from his day’s hunting. Five or six by the feel of it; that should be enough. In his ears were the voices and the ugly laughter about the fire, but he did not waste time in looking that way again. His business was with the cattle … And a few moments later he was crouching close behind the place where they were penned. Dog was pressed against him, obedient to his orders, but he could feel the eagerness for battle, the rage and the bewilderment quivering through the great hound, as he drew out the first of his sling stones and lobbed it on to the broad back of the nearest cow.
    She flung up her head and shifted uneasily, but no more; he chose a calf for his next target, throwing with all the strength and skill he possessed, and heard the young one bawl in pain and fright, as he ducked back behind the screening wreckage. Then he threw at the cow again before her unease had time to die away, and she snorted and flung up her head trying to turn full circle in the crowded pen. The fourth pebble caught a steer on its soft moist nose, and set it bellowing. The pen was a sea of tossing heads now, and he heard a warning shout from the direction of the fire as he lobbed the fifth pebble into their midst to keep the panic spreading. He had no need of the sixth pebble; a cow had gored one of the steers, the calves were bawling in terror, and the whole pen was in a milling turmoil. Suddenly the rough barricades burst and swirled aside, and the whole mass poured out into the open, bellowing and kicking and trying to horn each other as Owain, still clinging to Dog’s leash, rose with a yell behind them.
    ‘The cattle are stampeding!’ ‘Someone’s driving the cattle!’ ‘Attack—it’s an attack!’ he heard men shouting.
    ‘It’s the Saxons after all—!’ They were snatching up their spears as the lowing milch cows bore down upon them. The panic had spread to the ponies now, so that the poor little brutes threshed about neighing, terrified by the hobbles that dragged them to their knees. In a moment the entire Forum was a swirling and plunging chaos, shouts and cries, the lowing of cattle and the shrieks of ponies tore the air, and a bullock dashed right through the fire, bellowing as the flames scorched its hide and scattering burning fragments far and wide. And at that instant Regina twisted out of the slackened grasp of the man who held her, ducked under an outstretched arm, and came flying towards the Forum Gate.
    Owain raced in the same direction, and reaching it first, turned for an instant to wait for her. She was running like a wild thing, her black hair flying behind her, and even in the dusk he saw the white terror in her face. ‘It’s all right—it’s me!’ he panted, and caught her as she reached him and