John Flanagan: Erak_s ransom

A thin red line formed immediately, then blurred as blood began to well out of the cut. Horace barely felt the touch of the blade but he felt the hot blood coursing down his arm and knew he'd been wounded. How bad the wound might be he had no idea, and in any event, there was no time to worry about it now, with the Tualaghi inside the arc of his giant sword.

But there was more to the sword than its long blade and Horace simply brought the massive brass-pommelled hilt back in a short, savage stroke, thudding it into the man's head. The kheffiyeh absorbed some of the blow, but not enough. The man's eyes rolled back into his head and as Horace put his shoulder into him, he sailed back off the platform, landing on the struggling heap that had fallen at the bottom of the steps.

Horace stood at the top of the steps, feet wide apart, the sword sweeping back and forth in short, menacing arcs. Having seen the fate of the last group of men who tried to mount the steps, none of the other Tualaghi were anxious to try their luck.

Halt and Selethen stood towards the rear of the platform. Gradually, the square was emptying as the Maashavites found their way into the alleyways and streets that led from it. The struggling, fighting groups of Arridi, Bedullin and Tualaghi were rapidly becoming the only ones left in the square. And the Tualaghi's numerical superiority was becoming obvious.

'Nice of the townspeople to lend a hand,' Halt muttered. He and the Wakir had both armed themselves with swords dropped by the fallen guards. Gilan had a sword as well and the two Skandians were brandishing spears – also the former property of their guards. Evanlyn was fumbling with the broad leather belt she had been wearing, unlacing a length of leather thong that had formed a decorative criss-cross pattern on the belt. Halt glanced at her curiously, wondering what she was up to.

Then Selethen replied to his comment and his attention was distracted from the girl.

'They're used to submitting, not fighting. They think only of themselves,' the Wakir said. He had expected no more of the people of Maashava. He had heard how some of them had even cheered his upcoming execution.

Gradually, in response to a pre-arranged plan, the Arridi and Bedullin warriors were falling back to form a perimeter around the execution platform. Selethen glanced around the square, a worried frown on his face.

'There can't be more than fifty of them,' he said. 'Where did they come from?'

'Will brought them,' Halt answered. He gestured to the semi-collapsed watchtower, where he had finally caught sight of a small figure perched among the crossbeams, a longbow ready in his hands. Halt waved now and his heart lifted as the figure returned his salute. With no immediate targets to seek out, Will was conserving his arrows, hoping for another sight of Yusal.

'Will?' Selethen said, his face puzzled. 'Your apprentice? Where would he find men to rescue us?'

Halt smiled. 'He has his ways.'

Selethen frowned. 'A pity he didn't find a way to bring more then.'

'Do you think we should go down and lend a hand?' Halt gestured to the stubborn line of fighters, forming a perimeter around the base of the platform. Selethen looked at him, cut his sword back and forth experimentally to test its balance, and nodded.

'I think it's time we did,' he said.

Hassan grabbed Umar's shoulder and pointed to the left of the tower they had been watching.

'There!' he said. 'He's on that tower!'

They had heard the sudden silence from the town that greeted the death of Hassaun – although they had no way of knowing the reason for it. Then they had heard the clash of weapons and the screaming of the crowd. Obviously, the battle had started, but there was still no sign of the foreigner on the watchtower. And there had been no signal from Aloom's bugler. As luck would have it, he had been struck down, almost by accident, in the opening seconds of the battle. As most soldiers learn sooner or later, if something can go wrong, it will.

Then Hassan had noticed movement on the adjoining tower as Will opened up with his high-speed barrage of arrows and had drawn Umar's attention to it.

'He's on the wrong one!' the Aseikh complained. Hassan shook his head.

'So what? He's on a tower. What are we waiting for?' Umar grunted and drew his sword. He turned to the men crouched behind him in the gully.

'Come on!' he shouted, and led them, yelling their war cries, out onto the dusty track that led to Maashava.

Gilan moved into the thin rank of defenders ringed around the platform and began wielding the unfamiliar curved sword as if he had been using one all his life. The speed and power of his slashing attacks cut through the Tualaghis' defences like a knife through butter. Men fell before him, or reeled away, clutching wounds in pain, sinking slowly to the ground. But, in spite of the confusion around him, Gilan was searching the veiled faces for one in particular – the man who had taken such pleasure in beating him on the road to Maashava.

Now he saw him. And he saw recognition in the man's eyes as he shoved his way through the press of fighting men to confront the young Ranger. Gilan smiled at him but it was a smile totally devoid of any warmth or humour.

'I was hoping we'd run into each other,' he said. The Tualaghi said nothing. He glared at Gilan above the blue veil. Already imbued with a deep hatred of these foreign. bowmen, he had seen another half dozen of his comrades fall before their arrows this morning. Now he wanted revenge. But before he could move, Gilan spoke again.

'I think it's time we saw all of your ugly face, don't you?' he said. The curved sword in his hand flicked almost negligently up and across, with the speed of a striking snake.

It slashed the blue veil at the side, where it was attached to the kheffiyeh, cutting through it and letting the blue cloth fall, so that it hung by one side.

There was nothing extraordinary about the face that was revealed – except for the fact that the lower half, usually covered by the veil, was a few shades lighter in tone than the browned, wind- and sun-burnt upper half. But the eyes, already filled with hate for Gilan and his kind, now blazed with rage as the Tualaghi leapt forward, sword going up for a killing stroke.

It clanged against Gilan's parry, and the Tualaghi drew back for another attack, attempting a hand strike this time. But Gilan caught the other man's blade on the crosspiece of his own weapon, then, with a powerful twisting flick of the wrist, turned the other man's sword aside and went into a blindingly fast attack. He struck repeatedly at the other man, the strikes seeming to come from all angles at virtually the same time. The sword in his hand blurred with the speed of his backhands, forehands, overheads and side cuts.

The Tualaghi was an experienced fighter. But he was up against a swordmaster. Gilan drove him back, the defenders on either side of him advancing with him to protect his flanks. The Tualaghi's breath was coming in ragged gasps. Gilan could see the perspiration on his face as he tried to avoid that sweeping, glittering blade. Then his guard dropped for a moment and Gilan, stretching and stamping with his right foot, drove forward in a classic lunge, the curved sword upturned by his reversed wrist, and sank the point deep into the Tualaghi's shoulder.

Gilan withdrew his blade as the sword dropped from the other man's hand. Blood was beginning to well out of the wound, soaking the black robes. Gilan lowered the point of his sword. As if by some unspoken agreement, the fighting around them stopped for a moment as the other combatants watched.

'You can yield if you choose,' he said calmly. The Tualaghi nodded once, his eyes still burning with hate.