Eric Flint - The Shadow of the Lion

Gianni cackled again, and there was no sanity in that sound. "Ye try, Marco?boy, ye g'won 'n try! Big Gianni don't care. He c'n play wi' ye live?or he c'n play wi' ye dead."

Marco's nerve almost broke?so before it could give out altogether, he attacked. Before Gianni had a chance to react, he threw himself at the bigger man with an hysterical and suicidal leap. Marco had no chance at all except one which was so desperate that not even a lunatic like Gianni would think to counter it.

He drove the open palm of his left hand frantically down on Gianni's knife?aiming at the blade, not the knife-hand?hoping to impale his hand on that blade and render it useless.

His dive off the hummock had caught the loco marsh-dweller by surprise. Marco had always run before. Gianni's twisted mind wasn't ready for him to attack.

So Marco's half-sketched plan worked better than he hoped.

Harrow rose from his crouch, his soul ringing like a cymbal. He understood at once the boy's maneuver?it was a theoretical gambit all assassins had considered?but had never once in his violence-filled life seen anyone actually do it. Such reasons the boy must have!

The point of Gianni's knife sliced into Marco's palm as he rammed his hand right up to the hilt. The pain split his arm like the lightning that was splitting the sky. Marco screamed and closed his fist around the crossguard anyway, wresting it out of the bigger man's hand. Gianni's grip was loose, he was so stunned by Marco's unexpected action. Then, as Marco's feet skidded in the mud, he fell forward, throwing all of his weight awkwardly behind an impromptu lunge with his own knife.

Gianni's screams were a hoarse echo of his own as the knife sank up to the hilt in his gut. He beat at Marco's head with both hands; Marco slipped and slid some more, and fell to his knees, but held onto the knife hilt, ripping upward with it.

Gianni howled and tried to pull himself off the blade, pushing at Marco. But Marco slipped more, falling underneath the bigger man. Gianni lost his balance on the slimy rock of the trail, falling forward farther onto the knife blade. As thunder crashed, the big man collapsed on top of Marco, screams cut off, pinning Marco under the muddy water

All the air was driven from his lungs as the crazy man fell atop him. Marco tried to fight free but the slimy mud was as slick as ice under his knees. Then he lost what little purchase he had, and the knee-deep water closed over his head.

The surface was just inches away from his face?but he couldn't reach it!

He clawed at the twitching thing that held him there; tried to shove it off, but could get no leverage. Raw panic took over. He thrashed and struggled, his lungs screaming for air, his chest and throat afire with the need for a breath. He was caught like an otter in a drown-snare. He was going to die, trapped under the body of his enemy.

The mud conspired to hold him down, now sliding under him, sucking at his limbs. Sparks danced before his eyes, and he wriggled and squirmed and struggled for the air that his hands could reach, but not his head. He had a strange crystal-clear vision of himself floating lifelessly beside the trail, touched by the morning sun?

Suddenly, the weight of the corpse on top of him was removed. With a last frantic writhe, Marco freed himself, slipping off the trail into the deep water on the right. His head broke the surface, and he gulped the air, great sobbing heaves of his chest.

A powerful hand seized him by the scruff of the neck and half-hurled him toward firmer ground. Marco reached for and caught a clump of reeds, and pulled himself to the trail. He hauled himself back onto the hummock where he'd left his pack, crying with pain and fear, and gasping for breath, while lightning flashed above him and thunder followed it, almost deafening him. He clung there with only his right hand, for Gianni's knife was still transfixed in his left. His frantic eyes flitted across the landscape, looking for whoever had lifted Gianni off him and dragged him to safety. Marco's rescuer could also be a threat.

But he saw nothing. His rescuer had vanished.

Why did he do that? Marco wondered. For what reason?

"My God, boy?" Chiano's eyes glared out at Marco from the shelter of his basketlike hidey. He and Sophia had anchored their rafts and their hides, side-by-side, on a bit of old wood Chiano had driven into the muck of the bottom to use as a safe tie-up.

"Lemme in, Chiano," Marco said, dully. His hand felt afire. He was shivering so hard that it was only because he was holding his jaw clenched that his teeth weren't rattling. He swayed back and forth, drunk with exhaustion and pain. He could hardly use his arm, much less his wounded hand?it felt like a log of wood. He'd tied up his hand as best he could, but he hadn't been able to do more than stop the bleeding. He knew he was probably falling into shock, but didn't care any more.

"Wait a moment." Chiano propped up the edge of the basket with a stick, reached out and shook Sophia's hide. "Wake up, you old witch?it's Marco and he's hurt."

"What? What?" The edge of Sophia's basket came up and she peered out at Marco. For some reason the sight of her struck him as funny and he began to laugh hysterically?and couldn't stop.

He was still laughing when they propped the baskets together, like two halves of a shell, and helped him up onto their combined rafts. Then, unaccountably, the laughter turned to sobs, and he cried himself nearly sick on Sophia's shoulder.

Sophia held him, wrapping her tattered old shawl about his shoulders and keeping him warm against her. Rain pattered on the baskets and, for the moment, there was no place Marco would rather have been.

In the corner of his eye, he saw a strange expression come into Chiano's face. The kind of expression a man gets when he suddenly, unexpectedly, remembers something long forgotten. Puzzled, despite the pain and weariness, Marco turned his head in time to see Chiano straighten his back and spread his arms wide.

"Luminescence spareze. A Mercurio!"

There was a commanding tone to Chiano's voice; seeming to be as forceful, for the brief time it took to utter those peculiar words, as the storm itself. Maybe it was the pain, or the shock, but in the sudden flare of witchlight the lean, sinewy man seemed somehow taller, his weathered face outlined in stark, sharp shadows.

Marco, his Pauline training coming to the fore, flinched from the sight. An old half-suspicion was now confirmed. Chiano really was a Strega man-witch. His reputation, carefully cultivated in the marshes, was a double front. He really was a pagan?and a magician to boot.

Marco… wasn't at all sure how he felt about that. Still, Sophia's wrinkled face and Chiano's weathered one were a heavenly sight. He decided not to worry about it, for the moment.

"Drink this, boy." When the sobs diminished, and the shivering started again, Chiano thrust a bottle into his good hand. "Let the old girl see to your hand."

He drank, not much caring what it was. It was harsh raw alcohol, and it burned his throat and brought more tears to his eyes. He put the bottle down, gasping; then gasped again as Sophia took it from him and poured its contents liberally over the wound. The clouds were clearing now, and the moon emerged; you could see it from under the edge of the basket. Sophia propped up one side of the basket and held his hand in its light, examining it critically.

He had occasion to stifle a cry and seize the bottle back from Chiano, more than once, before she was through with her probing.

"Should be stitched?but the grappa will stop the flesh-rot. I've a poultice against the swelling. You tied it off right well. I don' reckon ye lost too much blood. What happened?"