‘Skinner!’ he roared. ‘I’m coming for you! But first, these guys… ‘
Karsa Orlong sidestepped at the sudden arrival of some armoured warrior riding a monstrous, dead horse. Seeing the newcomer ride to meet the Hounds, he snarled and set off after him.
The lance angled down on the left side and so the Toblakai went to the rider’s right, eyes fixing on a Hound that clearly intended an attack on the horseman’s unprotected side.
Two beasts and two warriors all met at once.
The rider’s lance drove into a Hound’s throat just beneath the jaw, surging up-ward through the base of the skull, severing the spinal cord on its way to obliterate the back of the animal’s brain. The serrated lance head erupted from the skull in an explosion of grey pulp, blood and bone shards.
Karsa swung down, two-handed, as the other Hound arrived alongside the rider and reared to close jaws on the stranger’s right thigh. Flint blade sliced down through the spine, chopping halfway through a neck thick as a horse’s, before jamming-the Hound’s forward momentum, now pitching downward, dragged the weapon and Karsa with it as the animal slammed the cobbles.
At that instant the rider’s Jaghut horse collided chest to chest with a third hound. Bones shattered. The impact sent the rider over his horse’s head, dragging his lance free as he went. He struck and rolled off the back of the Hound-which seemed stunned, as the undead horse stumbled back.
Pulled down on to his knees, Karsa ducked the snapping attack of another Hound-and then the beast was past, as were all the others. The Toblakai rose, took two quick strides and thrust his sword into the chest of the dazed third Hound. Howling in pain, it staggered away from Karsa’s blade, blood fountaining out in the path of the withdrawing sword. The stranger had recovered and he now sank the lance into the gut of the writhing animal, the lance head tearing messily through soft tissue, fluids spilling down.
Something flashed in the eye-holes of the twin-scarred mask. ‘Well done, To-blukiii! Now let’s chase down the others!’ The two warriors swung round.
Cutter stared as seven Hounds swept round Karsa and the Seguleh. Now he didn’t even hold a lance- dammit- and he unsheathed a pair of knives as one of the beasts made straight for him.
A hand grasped the back of his shirt and yanked him back. Yelling in alarm, Cutter stumbled into someone’s short, brawny arms. He caught a momentary glimpse of a weathered face, eyes bulging, red moustache twitching beneath a bulbous nose-
Do I know this man?