Free The Starfollowers of Coramonde by Brian Daley Page A

despite her efforts to keep it upright. Growls and
shrill whinnies added to the total chaos.
    Gil was
afraid to risk a shot with Springbuck and the others intermingled with the
pack. For the same reason Van Duyn held fire, and Angorman and Andre hesitated
to strike. Gil took Jeb Stuart into the savagery. The war-horse, practiced
combatant with hooves and teeth, instantly took a dog out of the fight,
trampling it to bleeding shapelessness. Gil slipped his right hand from its
sling.
    Springbuck
took another hound out of midair with Bar. The sword’s enchantment of unfailing
keenness was as effective as ever; the canine head and body fell away in
different directions. Reacher had grappled the dog that had knocked him down
into a bear hug. He applied his remarkable strength; the dog howled as its
spine splintered.
    Katya had
lost her sword and now had a long combat knife in each hand. She dropped to one
knee to evade a leaping hound. Her right-hand knife darted up to gut it as it passed
overhead.
    Two dogs had
Woodsinger’s horse by its nose and neck, another its tail, pulling it down.
Ferrian’s left hand blurred. A whirling metal loop struck down the tail-end dog
in a welter of blood.
    Gil, gripping
his saddle tightly, leaned far over with the Browning in his hand. One dog had
stopped pulling the nurse’s horse, gathering itself to spring. The American
stiffened his elbow and wrist, fired at a range of five feet. The dog
somersaulted and fell dead.
    Andre and
Angorman had gotten to Woodsinger’s side, pulling her from her floundering
horse, keeping her safe between broadsword and greataxe. Reacher had plucked up
another dog and raised it above his head. Now he flung it down against the
cobbles with all his strength. It lay in death spasms, many of its bones
shattered.
    The two
remaining hounds were still at the horse, pulling its tack, chewing at the red
bunting with maniacal hatred. Springbuck smote the first down, while Reacher
wrestled the second to the ground and held it immobile, arms locked around its
throat, legs around its body. Guards had come to investigate; at Springbuck’s
command they took ropes and tied the dog, binding its muzzle.
    “What the
hell was all that about?” Gil demanded, shaken. Gabrielle, examining the baby,
was satisfied she hadn’t been harmed.
    “I cannot
say,” the Ku-Mor-Mai answered, wiping Bar on a dog’s coat. “These
animals were all trained, and none had ever set upon a human being.”
    “They may not
simply have attacked Woodsinger,” Andre countered. “They were at her horse too.
When we pulled her from her mount, the pack did not pursue her.”
    Katya,
returning her cleaned knives to their sheaths strapped to her thighs, asked,
“How now, then; did they go mad?”
    “It is more
to be suspected that they were driven to it.” The wizard tore a strip of the
red bunting from Woodsinger’s saddle. He held it close to the bound dog; it
growled, straining to tear into him.
    “This, then,
prompted the attack.”
    Gabrielle
examined it. “There are procedures,” she agreed, “spells of no difficulty to
Bey or his more adept followers. Yes, the dogs would assail anyone bearing this
cloth. From whence did it come?”
    The nurse was
mystified. “I became impatient at awaiting my mount, so I went and found it
myself, saddled and decked out so. I do not know who draped it, and thought it
some good-fortune wish or send-off decoration.”
    Van Duyn had
taken the bunting, sniffing it. “Your impatience saved you. The horse would
probably have been brought around to the main steps, and the hounds released.
You would have been killed before we could have gotten to you. Whoever planned
this had no choice, after you’d taken your horse, but to set the dogs on you
here.”
    The Ku-Mor-Mai dispatched a detail to search the kennels and stables for the one responsible,
but doubted the person would still be close by. Gil now held the strip of
bunting. He wadded it up and tucked it down