The toe of his boot met the back of the Kolder’s round helmet, and the impact of that meeting numbed Simon’s foot. The man lost his balance and sprawled forward, bearing the witch with him. Simon swung from the saddle, stumbling, with fear that his jarred leg would give under him. His groping hands slid over the Kolder’s plated shoulder, but he was able to pull the fellow away from the gasping woman and send him over on his back, where he lay beetle-wise, his hands and legs still moving feebly, the blankness of his beaked visor pointing up.

Shedding her mailed gloves the woman knelt by the Kolder, busy with the buckles of his helm. Simon caught at her shoulder.

“Mount!” He ordered, drawing his own horse forward for her.

She shook her head, intent upon what she was doing.

The stubborn strap gave and she wrenched off the helm. Simon did not know what he had expected to see. His imagination, more vivid than he would admit, had conjured up several mental pictures of the hated aliens — but none of them matched this face.

“Herlwin!”

The hawk crown helmet of Koris cut between Simon and that face as the Captain of the Guard knelt beside the witch, his hands going out to the fallen man’s shoulders as if to draw him into the embrace of close friends.

Eyes as green-blue as the Captain’s, in a face as regularly handsome, opened, but they did not focus either on the man who called, or the other two bending over him. It was the witch who loosened Koris’ grip. She cupped the man’s chin, holding still his rolling head, peering into those unseeing eyes. Then she loosed him and pulled away, wiping her hands vigorously on the coarse grass. Koris watched her.

“Herlwin?” It was more a question addressed to the witch than an appeal to the man in Kolder’s trappings.

“Kill!” She ordered between set teeth. Koris’ hand went out to the sword he had dropped on the grass.

“You can’t!” Simon protested. The fellow was harmless now, knocked partly unconscious by the blow. They could not just run him through in cold blood. The woman’s gaze crossed his, steel cold. Then she pointed to that head, rolling back and forth again.

“Look, outworld man!” She jerked him down beside her.