Andrew Offutt - The Tower of Death

They were galloping his way. They swerved around the cows. Strange, armed and armoured men, here in the pasture-

They were galloping at him. They were attacking!

Though it was a peaceful country of late afternoon he was in, and among friendly peoples, mac Art was glad now that he had eschewed going about naked; sword and dagger hung at his hips. Of a sudden he was sorry that he wore neither helmet nor mailcoat, and carried no shield.

Yet that would have been ridiculous. Who’d have dreamed he would find himself about to be murdered in such a place on such a lovely day?

He was; the horsemen galloped at him, bending forward now, with lances poised to slay. Clumps of turf from a soil seldom dry flew from the pounding hooves of their mounts.

Though he was poised and full ready to draw steel, Cormac pretended to stare stupidly at them. Let them think he could not believe their mission, these silent racing assassins! They separated, with blue-kilt’s bay digging up more grass and sod as he swerved to Cormac’s right. The Gael decided; that man he watched, turning slowly. The fellow was a bit too distant to make a good unavoidable cast…

Cormac sprinted directly ahead, drawing steel and turning his face to the other man after he’d begun to run. He felt marvelously fleet, nigh sixty pounds the lighter without helmet, chaincoat, and buckler. Sword and dagger had long since become as part of him.

His timing had been so excellent it was as if Eirrin’s ancient god Crom of Connacht had tugged him forward under Behl’s shining sky-eye; with a whistling whizzing sound the lance of the man in the tartan kilt passed through the space wherein Cormac had just stood. That ironshod lance would have transpierced him from behind. As it was, the spear’s head drove heavily into the earth, twenty paces away; thirty from where Cormac now stood.

So much, for a few seconds, for that attacker. Cormac swung his face back to the bay-mounted man.

That one had reined about and was charging in from the side, bent low with his eyes squinted against whipping mane. His spear was held on a downward angle. Cormac saw that he had no chance of running to the other lance, pulling it free, and wielding it in time to meet this attack. This idiot was gripping his mount with muscularly bulging calves and thighs, and obviously meant to skewer the unarmoured Gael. Surely the shock of impact would knock the fool off his mount…

That was hardly high among Cormac’s concerns. The fellow obviously did mean to do it. Perhaps his horsemanship was that good and his legs that strong. It didn’t matter; even if he did fly backward off his steed on impact, that same impact would drive the spear through Cormac’s body. Here came death, at the gallop.

The horse plunged at him, seeming to grow bigger and bigger, its neck stretched forth and its teeth showing. Was it so ferocious? Almost in desperation, Cormac decided to find out. He bellowed out as loudly as ever he had in his life. At the same time he feinted left and dived rightward. He struck the ground to roll over and over, hanging onto his sword.

Without ever coming to a halt he hurled himself onto his feet and started a spring for the other lance, standing at an angle from the ground.

He never glanced back to see that the assailant on the dark horse had tried to follow the feint, missed, and was galloping on, rocking precariously in the saddle and using his shield-arm to tug his mount around. Mac Art was interested only in the imbedded lance-and the first horseman, the blue-kilted man on the wiry bay.

Their course was set to intersect. The man wanted his lance back, and could naturally snatch it from the ground as he raced by; these men were, after all, horse-soldiers. Not only did the Gael want that spear, he did not want its owner to retrieve it.

Cormac ran as fast as he could, yelling, brandishing his sword.

Neither of them got it. Cormac was on the horseman’s right, and that hand was empty, set to grasp the spear. The attacker’s shield was on his horse’s other side. He could try yanking his mount about-and perhaps cause it to fall or, if he succeeded, get himself or his horse sword-slashed. Cursing, the fellow raced on, with a leftward swerve. The spear remained.

And Cormac heard hooves pounding behind him.

His own curses filled the air and he slashed wildly at the spear as he fled past. Pause to grasp it, he knew, and he’d be skewered from behind, or crushed beneath flailing forehooves. As it was, he too veered leftward, and his sword-blow, while it failed to slice through the spear’s haft, did knock it flat to the ground. It wouldn’t be easily regained from horseback, now.

Once again the Gael had little time for thinking or planning. On the run, he circled, and saw the garnet-coloured horse bearing down on him, seeming big as a ship with a strange horsehead prow. Desperately, he hurled his sword. A continuation of that all-body movement sent him lurching leftward.

The horse snorted, then squealed almost humanly as only a horse can. The sword, turning in air, struck it crosswise just above the pale softness of its nose. The animal jerked up its head, trying to hurl itself aside. The thrown sword, without wounding, had served Cormac’s purpose.

His attacker, rocking in the saddle, had to lever his right arm out for balance-and a ravening maniac, black hair flying and eyes burning like blue fire, pounced in to grasp the haft of his spear betwixt point and grip. And the horse lunged away leftward.

There was no brace for the rider’s feet and thus no leverage for his body. Himself falling, Cormac pulled the tartan-kilted attacker off his own mount.

Both men struck the ground hard, with whump sounds and grunts. In a drier clime they might have broken bones. The assassin’s impact was much greater than that of his intended victim, and he loosed his hold on his spear. Even so, as Cormac clung to the haft, it came treacherously up into its owner’s armpit. His groan was loud, and pained.

That shoulder and arm would have given the would-be assassin a bad night and remained sore on the morrow as a family of boils, had not Cormac lunged to his feet and, twitching his hands into a new grip as he moved, driven the ironshod spear into its owner’s guts. The man squealed with the sound of a gelded hog.

The Gael’s biceps sprang up and under his tunic his pectorals leaped, as he gripped the spear with all his might and gave it a good twist while he drew it forth. Blood poured from the large wound. The man kicked weakly while with both hands he sought to stem the red tide from his stomach.

Cormac was already whirling, hardly winded, to brace the other man with the dripping spear. He’d noted it was not barbed, as were those of the Sueves.

The other man was heeling his bay, racing in at his prey. Bent low, he swung the ax he’d pulled on its haftthong from his saddle. Now he saw that he was alone, that his spear was irretrievable from horseback, and that his prey stood waiting-in a weapon-man’s crouch, long spear ready for the skewering.

A dozen yards from the Gael, his attacker suffered an attack of wisdom. He leaned leftward while he changed the pressure of his heels against his mount’s flanks. The horse swerved readily. Angrily Cormac ran after it as it galloped away. The Gael paused long enough to launch the spear-seemingly disarming himself in his zeal for vengeance.

The lance fell well short of the racing horse. Cormac’s glance told him that now he was but four paces from the other spear, and he tried to look helpless, afoot and unarmed.

Blue-tunic gave himself no opportunity to fall into the trap. He went bucketing on without ever turning to glance back. Reins streaming, his partner’s horse galloped in his wake.

Cursing fiercely and imaginatively enough to blue the air about him, the cheated Gael sought out and found his sword. He’d speared one man and driven off the other, and his blade wasn’t even blooded. He returned to the man he’d unhorsed and speared. Feeling vengeful and robbed, mac Art would right happily tickle the bastard’s stones with his sword point until the fellow told him a few things.