Dave Duncan - Speak to the Devil

For the new count to take fright and run away before he had reached his objective would just be good sense. It would also be rank cowardice by chivalric standards. Yet to charge ahead and be mown down would throw away the lives of his five companions, and worthy leaders did not do such things. Anton had no choice. If there was one thing a brainless Magnus colt like him could not tolerate it was a challenge like this. Omnia audere! Other men might call him an idiot, but success would make him a hero in the eyes of the garrison, and he would need true loyalty when the attack began.

“Then let’s see if we can turn the tables. I’ll be bait. Wait behind these trees. Stand still and make no noise. If I come back with the wolves on my heels, try to shoot them and not me, all right?”

“My lord!”

“You have your orders.” Anton wanted no argument that might weaken his resolve. His heartbeat was disgracefully fast already.

He reached for the crossbow slung on his back and tore off the cover. It was designed for use on horseback, being small and spanned with a goat’s foot lever. Now it was already spanned, and he loaded a bolt in the groove. The chances of hitting a target were remote, but just holding a weapon was a comfort. A lance would be even better.

He reminded himself that Caesar, Hector, Alexander-all great leaders-had been men of suicidal courage. If the city shaver sent by the king could prove that he had real balls, then the garrison would follow him to a man. There would be no more sad muttering about Count Stepan and Sir Petr.

Prodded into motion, Avalanche leaped forward, glad of the chance to show his paces. The big fellow was a hunter, able to choose his path, and he swerved around the corduroy patches, preferring to take his chances in the muck.

The trail wound like a snake between ponds and swamp and the little aspen groves. The dark firs were farther off than Anton had guessed, and the ambushers, if they existed, might already have closed the road behind him. His excitement now was as intense as sex. His groin burned with it. Omnia audere! This was what a Magnus did. He had felt some of this battle lust going down the hill at the hunt, but here he had no Wulf to save him. This was his legend, live or die. Ancestors, behold! Even Vladislav might approve of him now.

Where was the enemy? What a fool he would look if he arrived at Long Valley to find the guards drawn up in rows, saluting their count.

Thirty yards off to the right, a man emerged from cover, running toward him as fast as he could struggle through the mud.

Some brainless Wend sounded a hunting horn, three long blasts to mean that the dogs were on a good trail. The woodland hatched about a hundred horsemen, like dragon teeth, a dozen riding out from behind a copse before him, more from trees behind him, on both sides. Some distant, some close. How could he possibly have missed seeing so many?

He swung Avalanche like a sword and headed for the running man. It was the Englishman, Llywelyn, bloodied and clutching a wounded arm to his chest with his free hand. Two enemy men-at-arms were converging on him and seemed likely to cut him down before Anton could arrive.

Assail a wounded man, would they? Anton spurred Avalanche cruelly. He dropped the reins, guiding his mount with his knees and using both hands for the bow. He must hold his aim until he could be sure of hitting the foe and not Llywelyn, but on horseback that might be forever. At the last possible moment, when the nearer Wend had his saber raised to strike, Llywelyn threw himself flat. The bow cracked, and must have sent the bolt right through the hussar, for he toppled back, dropping his saber and unbalancing his horse. Anton had no time to reload. He dropped the bow and drew his sword.

The second attacker veered away from Llywelyn to meet the danger. He was a small man who would not match Anton in brute strength, so Anton ducked low and swung upward. Their sabers rang as the horses passed, and he managed to continue his parry into a backhand riposte at the enemy horse’s rump. That would make it unresponsive for a while. He reined in Avalanche alongside Llywelyn, who was upright again, white eyes staring out of a muddy mask. Llywelyn grabbed for the saddle with his good hand, Anton reached down to grip his cuirass strap, and they both heaved.

With the wounded bowman draped over his withers, Avalanche made a game effort to run, but he was grievously overloaded and the footing was treacherous. Help was coming, though. Horn sounding, Notivova was leading his gallant band to the rescue. By luck or inspiration, he and his four riders had spread out and the aspens made it hard to judge how many they were. The Wends were fewer than they had seemed at first sight, maybe thirty or forty, but now half of them were between Anton and his rescuers.

“The odds are good,” he shouted cheerily. “Good for a good fight, I mean.”

Llywelyn was whimpering with pain, probably because his wounded arm was trapped underneath him and he needed his other hand to hold the saddle, lest he slide off, headfirst or feetfirst.

“Very grateful, my lord.”

“I’m only doing my duty like you were. Hang on.”

Two Wends were converging on Avalanche, timing their approach so they could strike simultaneously. Anton prepared to take the one on his right, a big, ugly, hairy brute.

It wasn’t going to work, though. He had no shield, nothing to parry the other attack with except his vambrace, so he might well come away from this encounter with a broken arm. He might even lose a hand.

Shock!

He wheeled Avalanche to meet the other assailant, but his sword had disappeared. Blood was trickling out of a round hole in his right rerebrace. And also from a matching hole on the other side of it. He had apparently taken a quarrel through his upper arm. It was strange that he could feel no pain. He was spouting blood. He might lose his arm. He was thinking in patches. What should he do now?

Finding his way blocked, Avalanche had stopped, puffing hard and flickering his ears at the stench of blood. Llywelyn uttered a groan and slid to the ground. He tried to land on his feet, but collapsed in a heap among the reeds.

“Yield, my lord?”

A ring of mounted Wends surrounded them, with a dozen spanned crossbows aimed at Anton Magnus’s heart. Not a likely-looking nobleman among them. Yield to a commoner? If he had a sword he could try to take one of the vermin with him. But black mist was starting to swirl around him, and even Vlad had yielded at the Battle of the Boundary Stone.

“I yield.”

“Wise of you, Count Magnus.” The new voice came from his left, and apparently from a priest, since he wore a jeweled pectoral cross and bore no arms or armor. He was clad in black robes and an odd pot-shaped hat; even his horse was black. Above a black pillow of beard his right eye was watching Anton with amusement and contempt; his left was studying the mountains.

“I don’t yield to priests.”

“You will yield to death very shortly if you don’t get down and let us attend to your arm.”

His accent sounded like pottery in a waterwheel, but what he was saying was probably true, and descending voluntarily would be more dignified than falling off in a faint. Anton kicked out of his stirrups and leaned forward to pull his right leg over. From habit he put weight on his right arm. That brought on the missing pain. He screamed, fell off Avalanche, and landed on top of Llywelyn.

He could not have been unconscious very long, but long enough for his captors to strip off his spaulder, vambrace, and rerebrace to expose the wound. A soldier who looked like a swineherd and smelled like the swine was stitching one of the wounds with a needle and gut. Another man was holding the other hole shut until it could be treated. There was no lack of pain now, murderous thunderclaps of agony.