K Parker - Colours in the Steel

As he peered into the darkness ahead he cursed his poor eyesight, and the years of crouching over his bench that had bowed his legs and cramped his back. His helmet felt loose on his head, despite his wife’s last-minute packing with a woollen scarf, and with the sideflaps tied down he was sure he could only hear about half as well as usual.

The disruptive effect of archery … Well, time to get ready to do something about that. Nervously, his voice higher and squeakier than it should have been, he gave the order to string bows, and set about bending his own; the end of the bottom limb trapped against the outside of the right foot, then the left leg steps over the bow until the underside of the knee is brought to bear on the inside of the bow, just below the handle; grip the upper limb firmly in the left hand and flex it inwards (and every time he did it, he felt sure the bow would snap, though it hadn’t done so yet), while the right hand brings the loop of the bowstring over the nock, thus completing the manoeuvre. Standard bow drill, he’d done it many thousands of times; but tonight he had to try three times before he got it right.

The noise was nearer, close enough that he could make a good estimate of where they were; just inside the plumbers’ quarter, where the tank-makers had their shops. He tried to imagine the scene, but couldn’t; bloodthirsty savages swarming past shops he’d known since he was a boy, the idea was so incongruous as to be laughable. He gave the order to nock arrows.

A fairly new bow, this. Last spring, when the tournament season started, he’d finally been forced to admit that his old bow, twenty-five years old and still as sound as the day it was made, was getting too heavy for him to draw, and so he’d treated himself to a brand new one, a hickory and lemonwood ninety-five pounder instead of the hundred and twenty pound draw of the old self yew. Ninety-five was still too stiff, if the truth be told, but a man has his pride. The string felt dry against his fingers – shame on him for neglecting to wax it, he’d have nobody to blame but himself if it broke on him now. As for the arrow, he’d instinctively chosen the worst of the set, slightly bowed and a bit shabby in the fletchings; it always flew left and a little high; he knew the degree of variance well enough. This would almost certainly be the last time he drew it; other things more important in a battle than retrieving spent arrows, after all. The thought of aiming it deliberately at someone was quite bizarre; hadn’t he spent the last fifteen years as range officer telling the archers never under any circumstances to point a bow at anyone?

Movement under the archway opposite-

Too dark to make anything out except a general impression of moving bodies, a wave of men advancing steadily, cautious on unfamiliar ground. Not our men, anyway. Without looking round, he stepped back into the line, heard his own voice giving the order to mark and draw…

(The strain of the bow against his left wrist; a sharp twinge in his back as he brought his shoulder blades together. He looked for a single target to aim at but there wasn’t one, just a featureless line seventy-five yards away across the square)

… Hold and loose; his fingers relaxed and the string pulled away, slapping the inside of his left arm where the bracer protected it. He tried to follow the course of his arrow, but it was lost among so many, and now his voice was calling, Nock, mark, draw, hold, loose! and he was doing the drill in time to his own commands, as if he was once more a young boy under the sergeant’s eye. He felt a muscle protesting in his left forearm, easy to pull something if you don’t take care, but there wasn’t time to worry about that, he had to keep up with the commands ( nock, mark, draw, hold, loose ) or else get hopelessly out of step, be the laughing-stock of the quarter-

A shape loomed up at him in the darkness and turned into a man; short, thickset, in early middle age, a spear in both hands and his eyes full of terror, plunging towards him not twenty yards away. So that’s what the enemy looks like , he realised as he lowered his aim, picking a spot a hand and two finger’s breadth above the handle and letting his fingers relax. He saw the arrow strike, the shaft vanish into the man’s chest until only the fletchings and the nock were left; he saw the man run on two, three paces until his legs folded under him so that he pitched forward on his face; and behind him another – enough time to nock another arrow, he wondered dispassionately, as one second expanded into a substantial part of a lifetime. Perhaps, but if he was wrong he’d never have time to draw his sword. He let the bow fall ( my beautiful new bow, and someone’s bound to tread on it ) and dropped his hand to his belt, feeling for the pommel of the old standard-issue sword that had been his father’s-

Horrible, heavy great thing, cruel to the hands of a man who made his living by fine work; sword drill was compulsory but he’d never made an effort at it; enough that he should cut his fingers to the bone with a bowstring without rubbing the skin off his palms with a wire-bound sword-hilt…)

– Which slid out of its scabbard with a rasping, grating noise and felt hopelessly heavy, lumpish in his hand, as the enemy came forward, running straight towards him-

He’s got his eyes shut , Corodin noticed with amazement. Bugger’s charging with his eyes shut. Poor bastard must be scared stiff .

– In his hand a short-bladed, long-handled sword with a single cutting edge, which he held above his head like a winnowing-flail-

Metrias Corodin the instrument-maker let him come, let him come; and when he was close enough to reach, he held out his sword and let the poor frightened savage run straight onto it; at which point he was close enough to hear the air escaping from the punctured lung, before the man dropped to the ground, pulling Corodin’s arm down and yanking the sword from his grasp. Empty-handed, then, he looked up at the next one, coming straight towards him as the other one had done, a lance in his hands, the same terror reflected in his face. Too late to work the sword free, but he tried it anyway, felt it budge and start to move just as the other man’s spearhead came into sharp focus, so close that even his dim eyes could make it out, down to the fresh marks of the stone on its broad, leaf-shaped blade. He waited for the lance to pierce him, in that long last second thinking, I wonder if it’ll hurt much , and was still waiting when the man next to him in the line leant across him and fended the lance away before following up with a thrust that ripped into the other man’s stomach and made him howl. Corodin was grateful to his neighbour – gods, if it wasn’t Gidas Mascaleon under that big, rusty helmet, a cheapskate and a disgrace to our profession – but before he could say thank you, another one of the enemy slashed Gidas Mascaleon across the face, cutting right through his nose just above the bridge; and while he was still stunned with the shock and the pain, drove the sword into his chest and killed him.

Corodin had his sword free by now and looked round for the man who’d killed his neighbour, but somehow wasn’t there any more. No time to look more carefully; another one of them straight ahead, running in, but slowing down to climb over the drift of dead and dying men that was starting to build up around the feet of the defenders. As Corodin watched, the man seemed to lose his sense of purpose; there was fear in his eyes too, but the man was thinking, weighing up whether the attempt was feasible. He stood there for a moment astride a dying man; a tall, thin boy with a straggle of beard and slim, muscular arms showing under the baggy sleeves of a mailshirt, a sensible lad who realised the attack was over, and turned his back and ran off the way he’d come.