Vaughn Heppner - Assassin of the Damned

Even after trapping and destroying most of the knights, the numbers were still highly uneven. There were five times more men, but most of the men still marched on the causeway toward the fight. They marched into those doing the fighting and caused a mob of confusion there.

That could spell disaster. Night fighting was normally terrifying. If anything went wrong, courage often wilted. The stockade-sized bonfire helped. The wretched swamp did not, nor that most of the humans stayed on the plank road. Their horrible foes made it worse.

The knights already butchered in the trap and those dying now to Orlando might decide the battle at any movement. If the last knights and the men-at-arms around them should turn and run, the battle could turn into another slaughter as men milled in a confused horde. They would become like sheep-the causeway itself had become a trap.

On their giant horses, the knights, the heroes of each side, hammered at each other. Sword and maul crashed against shields or plate armor. It sounded like a smithy. Yet knight after knight went down before the glowing sword. Durendal became a living wand in Orlando’s hands. He was a god of war. He was death. He was the black knight and he was invincible.

I scooped up a fallen pike. It was huge, heavy and unwieldy. I ran and I heaved. The twelve-foot pike wobbled in the air. It sailed over the knights and at Orlando, or more accurately, at Orlando’s prized stallion. Was it luck? I was the damned one. I’d thrown to pierce the animal’s side. Instead, the pike slithered between its legs as the stallion cantered forward. The pike snapped. That’s all I saw, other than the prized stallion pitch to the side and Orlando go flying.

Da Canale staggered up to me. His face was pale and his red beard glistened with sweat.

I grabbed him by the collar and roared orders into his ear. He nodded, sucked down a large breath of air and began to shout orders. Other mercenary captains must have understood. For soon, they beat at the bunched-up soldiers to leave the causeway and form a line, even a line into the swamp.

We had to bring our numbers to bear.

Orlando regained his seat, but that momentary respite had brought hope to many a man-at-arms. The black knight could lose.

Crocodiles attacked then. Some were sluggish, however, with bulging gullets. They must have feasted on the dead earlier. Still, many men wept in terror of the giant swamp creatures. Our front on the causeway wavered.

That’s when I saw the priestess of the Moon. The men-at-arms streaming into lines on either side of the causeway had lessened the mob bunched behind the front-fighters. Other, tough-looking soldiers had finally been able to form a second line. The priestess directed them, pointing here and there. Small Ofelia stood near her, and she looked petrified.

The thirty knights who followed Orlando, nearer twenty now, had awed our knights. The glowing sword terrified. Some of our men-at-arms clawed to get away from that sword.

Fortunately, for the army and for me, the priestess not only employed tough men-at-arms, but ruthless ones. They had formed a second line, a shield-wall. When the last of what must have been the original knights tried to burst through the shield wall to escape Durendal, the ruthless men-at-arms hacked them down. It was brutal, but it might have saved the night. For if those knights had streamed through, they might have jammed into men marching up the causeway and created debilitating confusion, a mob, in other words.

The priestess stood behind her picked guard. Under her direction, Ofelia and other maids in long silver gowns set up a stand and a brazier and poured hot coals into it. The priestess climbed onto a stand. She pitched fistfuls of powder into the stirred fire. Then she waved her arms in complex motions. Her chanted shrieks rose above the din of battle.

She jumped down. Maids in silver staggered to her. Each clutched one end of a carrying pole attached to a silver chest. The priestess produced a key. She unlocked the chest and lifted the lid. She shrieked again, and she wrestled something heavy from the chest.

A silvery ball the color of the moon rose by jerks and sways. It rose above the heads of fighting men. The priestess lifted her arms. She implored. Her hands shone silvery. And suddenly the ball poured out light. The light was bright like a full moon.

Men shouted. They cheered. The light revealed altered men who slunk through the jungle toward them. Men-at-arms charged the surprised goat-men. The goat-men scampered back into the swamp.

On the causeway, men-at-arms, knights and others surged around the thirty, now less than twenty enemy knights. Signor Orlando hacked two more times. Then he savagely sawed the reins. He turned his mount and galloped back in the direction of the Tower of the East. His remaining knights followed. No one among our host had the courage to chase them.

Using the moon-bright light, men slew crocodiles in teams. Then the battlefield emptied of enemies. The besieging host had driven off Erasmo’s force, but at a wretched cost.

The rebel camp was in turmoil, a seething cauldron of pain, fear and grim determination.

The pain bled into the air with the cries of the horribly wounded. The battle last night had proved costly. The bonesetters and barbers had worked throughout the day and now into the next night. Many of those wounded perished in raving delirium. The groans, the mumbled last rites and the sounds of spades cutting earth for a mass grave added to the misery.

The swamp began several hundred paces from the edge of camp. That was the beginning of the causeway. The Alps rose in the other direction to the west. The moon was bright enough to show snow-covered peaks in the distance.

The camp was a sprawling city of tents. There were big tents, small tents, silk ones and old, leathery affairs. There were tents for horses, some for weapons and others for barrels of salted fish. Now there were tents for the badly wounded and dying.

That brought out the fear, as did the countless retellings of the swamp fighting last night. The giant crocodiles, the possessed and Orlando Furioso with his magic sword Durendal frightened the soldiers the more they thought about it. Work had begun on a wooden palisade to protect the camp. Worse, soldiers had begun to slip away, to desert. It had only been in ones and twos so far. Yet there were already camp orators who openly spoke about the futility of this fight. Men could not stand against demons. Men could not face witchery and hope to retain their humanity. Too many campfire talkers dwelt on the horrors of becoming altered men. That particularly had become a canker, and the dread of it bored away at soldiery courage.

It also brought out grim determination in others. Signor Hawkwood had ordered patrols around the sprawling camp to net those who tried to run. Whipping posts arose in the center of camp. Soon there would be new cries, those begging for mercy. It wouldn’t be long before gallows arose, too. Guards marched down the lanes. They bore halberds, crossbows, lanterns and mastiffs. They marched in groups of fifteen or more. They wore white sashes, or pinned a white rose to their chest or clipped white-painted straw to their cap. As part of the White Company they deemed themselves above fear.

The camp held more than soldiers and pages. There were whores, armorers, smiths, servants, peasants and merchants. They were the usual attendants of men-at-arms in the field. They drained the fighter of coin while providing him with his endless needs. The horses, mules, dogs, cattle, goats and herders also added to the noise and confusion. Since leaving the swamp in Avernus, I hadn’t seen so much humanity in one place or so many animals.

“I will not commit treason, signor,” Da Canale told me.