Next was a challenge. Bellowing at one another. Turning their backs on one another and using both front and rear feet to kick clods at one another. Clods? Something black and powdery that they took some trouble to find. Black dust powdered down upon him. Then the Hippae faced one another again and rose on their back hooves. Clashing barbs, hissing through teeth they separated, dancing backward until a considerable distance had opened between them. A hundred yards. Two hundred. Rigo risked a look at the assembly on the walls, at the mounted men. Nothing. No cries, no excitement. Only this deadly calm. He gritted his teeth and hung on. At last, the green beast lowered his head and charged. Rigo’s mount did the same.
The opposing mount was coming up on his right, neck arched down and turned so that the barbs jutted wickedly outward. Rigo’s mount had taken the same position. They were like two warhorses, thundering toward one another. Neither of the beasts could see where he was going. Each threatened the other. Stavenger sat like a dummy, unseeing. At the last possible moment, Rigo jerked the toe of his right boot out of the stirrup hole and stood on his left toe, right leg high and bent back, holding himself high by locking his left hand tightly around the blunted barb.
The barbs of Stavenger’s beast meshed with those of Rigo’s mount, passed through and raked the place where Rigo’s booted leg had been, missing the blue Hippae skin by the thickness of a finger. Still holding himself high, Rigo could see Stavenger’s right boot in tatters. Blood blew from the man’s leg, long ragged lines trailing into the dust. The animals had no intention of hurting one another. The barbs were aimed at their rider’s legs.
Rigo settled upon the creature’s shoulders, and as they moved apart he took out the knife and cut the four barbs immediately in front of him, striking them to make them fall to one side. Though there were longer barbs on the neck, the amputation made him safe from being skewered, at least. The Hippae had turned and were readying themselves for another charge. They had to aim themselves like missiles; once their heads were down, they could not see where they were going. Some instinct or long practice let them know precisely where their opponent was, however. They passed this time on the left, the barbs meshing like gears, screaming as they plunged past one another, and once again Rigo moved his leg and balanced high on the opposite side of his mount, glued there by equal parts rage and fear.
This time Stavenger’s left boot was in tatters, his left leg streaming blood. There was still no expression in his face. The Hippae would keep it up even if Stavenger fell, even if he died. The Hippae would keep it up until Rigo was dead. There was no point in trying to kill Stavenger. It would be like killing a flea on the neck of an attacking dog. No. To stop the battle, the Hippae themselves would have to be stopped.
The next charge was to the right again. Rigo wound the reins around his left arm, grasped the smoothed barb in his left hand, withdrew his right leg, threw himself across his mount as the other went by, and struck at its rear legs with the knife extended to its full length. The blade hummed and sliced, through the flesh as it had through wood.
The green beast screamed, tried to walk on a leg half cut through, and crashed to the ground. Rigo’s mount pranced and howled and lashed back at him with barbs that were no longer there. Rigo reached low along one side and cut a back leg from beneath it, rolling away as the beast fell.
Noise. Two beasts screaming. He staggered to his feet, eyes fixed on them. They were trying to crawl toward him. trying to get up on three legs. He turned the knife to its maximum length and moved forward, slashing once, then again, cleaving the two skulls down through those clamping jaws, to leave the truncated, cauterized necks to lash themselves into quiet.