There was a press from the rear, men driven forward, and in the instant's bawling panic only Rikard knew what it was—the Temple guardsmen, aided perhaps by armed commoners themselves, throwing their power out of the rooms and side passages where it had lurked, blocking the troop's retreat and falling on it from the rear!
The line eddied and swirled about him, spears flying, arrows and hurled throwing-axes, the ranks of Rayth buckling under pressure from both ends. Time to get out of here, before anyone suspected that he, Rikard of Nyrac, had led them into the trap.
He turned on the man beside him and his ax hewed low, shearing through flesh and bone of a leg. As the screaming warrior fell, he brought his weapon up, a backhanded blow crashing into the face beyond. The man behind him thrust from the side; he took the spear on his cuirass and kneed viciously. Stooping over, he undercut another of his late companions, and Leda reached over his back to slash down the soldier beyond.
Rikard bent his knees and leaped, soaring over the fallen, a dozen pikes stabbing up after him. He hardly noticed the sharp bright pain where one raked his thigh; he was through their line and Leda was with him. They drifted down among the Engineers.
A big red-faced young man snarled behind his space helmet and lifted an ax as Rikard descended. Someone else grabbed his arm. The helmets were left propped open, and his voice could reach. "No, Shan, those are friends!"
"Oh, sorry—I forgot." Shan swung about and spattered the brains of the nearest trooper.
The fight was now pressed into the audience chamber; men jammed together, slashing and hacking at arm's range—there'd soon be more room, thought Rikard grimly, and took his place in the Engineer line. The Temple, though, had order and plans of a sort, however relatively untrained its fighters were, while the invaders were broken up into knots and fragments where their discipline could not exist. The important thing was to hit them, and keep hitting them, so they didn't get a chance to reform.
His ax smote, clanging off metal, raking the face and the arm behind. A blade hacked at him; he caught it on his helve and turned the blow and hewed back. Leda was beside him, her clear war-cry raising as she stabbed and struck; Shan the Engineer was chopping and roaring pious mottoes on his other flank: the Temple men pushed against the roiling soldiers, took their blows on their heavier armor, and gave them back with murder behind. The clamor of men and metal was a roar as of sundering worlds.
Rayth was fighting like a demon, his blade whirling and shrieking, his voice lifted in a rallying-cry that drew his scattered followers together. He had courage, thought Rikard above the snarl of combat—perhaps he was a fitter chief after all. But too late now!