Roland Green - The Wayward Knights

Instead the horse came down hard on Gerik's right leg, pinning it, breaking it, driving it into soft ground but also against a hard rock. Gerik wanted to scream with the pain, but held his cry down to a gasp.

Then a lance drove down into his temple, just before the last survivor of Bertsa Wylum's sell-swords cut the lancer out of the saddle. Unlike Horimpsot Elderdrake, Gerik had a moment of pain, and another, longer moment of bewilderment.

Then he died.

They were nearly the last humans on Suivinari Island, but Pirvan and Haimya felt reluctant to shake the last of its sand from their feet. Too many friends lay on the island, under its rock, or in the waters around it.

The expedition to Suivinari would still be accounted a victory, by those who wrote down such judgments. They would not mention the dead, except with conventional formulas of honor. They might also not mention what seemed to Pirvan the greatest part of the victory-humans and minotaurs each seeing that the other had courage and honor in plenty.

The two races would surely meet again as enemies, but among both, there would be those who remembered Suivinari.

A rumble began again, then grew louder than any before it. Looking east, Pirvan saw a ragged gap open in the side of the Smoker. A great ball of incandescent gas and lava grew from the gap, to slump down and begin to flow toward the sea. The glare seared the eyes, the sound hammered at the ears, and Pirvan doubted that any lungs could survive the dragon breath of the Smoker when it blew over the beach.

"Into the boat, you fools!" came a bellow louder than the mountain. "Into the boat, or I'll pick you up and carry you myself!"

It was Fulvura. Bandaged in three places and bloody in four more, she still seemed quite capable of carrying out her threat.

"I warn you, I bite," Haimya said, trying not to laugh.

"Hard way to get a mouthful of beef," Fulvura said. "I'm not as young as the lads seem to think. I'd be tougher than thanoi hide!"

"We'll take your word for it," Pirvan said. He turned and waved. The boat that had been resting on its oars just inside the surf line shot forward to grate on the sand.

The surf boomed louder and foamed higher on the way out, but Fulvura herself took an oar in each hand, and that made the difference. By the time they boarded Shield of Virtue , a third of the Smoker's side was an orange glare, and a wall of heat was growing around the island. Even the Green Mountain seemed to trail steam from its crest, and more steam boiled up along the shore where the lava struck the water.

Safety lay still farther out to sea. For all the lava that was pouring into the water, much more had to still lie below. When the sea reached that-

"Make all sail," Pirvan called to the captain. "Our work here is finished."

It had been prudent to march to the sound of battle.

Lady Eskaia led her Vuinlodders up to the Tirabot barricade within minutes after Gerik's fall. Furthermore, he had left her with much less work than he might otherwise have faced. His berserker's fight had slaughtered half the rear guard, made the other half easy prey, and removed all barriers to the swift retreat of the remaining enemy.

All but a few diehards. They still held the trail, where it led into a clearing. Behind them, Eskaia saw another twenty or so armed riders in House Dirivan colors. No doubt the arrival of friends had given the diehards fresh courage.

It was annoying to have to do Gerik's work all over again. She used that word, because the tightness in throat and breast since she learned of Gerik's death would not let her even think anything stronger.

Time enough for that later. Stronger words, tears, being held and comforted-all could come later, as she had come, too late, for her friend's son and his friends.

Eskaia arrayed her men and was about to order them forward, when the Solamnics appeared, at the charge. It appeared that the knights' patience with recalcitrant House Dirivan hirelings had run out at the same time as Eskaia's. Forty Solamnics were a match for thirty sell-swords even if the sell-swords had their heart in the fight. These sell-swords did not.

Also, Sir Shufiran had arrayed the Solamnics with a master's skill. Sir Rignar led the actual charge, shouting war cries and making his weapons and mount dance, but, as Eskaia noticed, doing much more to frighten than to kill.

Whether it would have come to killing, Eskaia did not know. The sell-swords did not tarry long enough to permit an answer to the question. Only two of them remained behind, and those as wounded prisoners who were so frightened of Sir Shufiran's bleak looks that they babbled as if dosed with truth-poppy.

Eskaia left that work to the Solamnics. She did not trust herself within reach of any who might have her friends' blood on his hands. Besides, there was plenty of work to do, helping Ellysta and Serafina keep themselves busy with healing the wounded.

It was only toward sunset that the sea flowed into the lava chamber underneath the Smoker. By then the fleet was so far out to sea that the explosion did not touch them, and indeed was almost invisible in the veil of ashes and fumes the mountain had drawn about itself.

Pirvan knew that such eruptions might fling towering waves on distant shores, but that magic and timely warnings or even mere common sense would diminish the death toll. He still had enough to do here, keeping any of the yet living from joining the well-filled ranks of the already dead.

He did it until well into the night, until he was so tired that Darin had to guide his stumbling steps to his cabin. Even then, Pirvan did not sleep, until he felt familiar warm arms grip him from behind, and a familiar soft breath on the back of his neck.

Darkness had long since swallowed the forest, for all that it was one of the shortest of summer nights. The forest life, driven into flight or silence by the day's battle, was slowly returning.

Ellysta sat on a stump, feeling almost as wooden as her seat, and listened to the chrrrr of a bird as she worked on a man's wounded shoulder. Remove the old dressing, clean the wound, salve it afresh, then bind it with clean cloth dipped in yet more salve. The man would live, perhaps even have full use of both arms, for all that his shoulder was worse than Grimsoar's had been, from the arrow.

It had been his heart that took Grimsoar One-Eye, a heart finally strained once too often. The wound had not helped, but it was his labor from the end of winter to this day's battle that had weighed down his heart, more and more, until it collapsed like an overburdened mule.

Serafina had been dry-eyed until sunset, then gone aside to weep in private. Ellysta supposed she should find time to do the same, but Gerik was already dead. He would not die again from lack of her tears, while some of the living who bad fought well might die for lack of her care.

The man winced and bit his lip. He did not cry out, because Rubina was seated cross-legged on the ground, holding his hand. It was a point of pride for all the wounded not to show weakness before the Little Warrior, as they had nicknamed Rubina. Some thought her a good luck charm, some a mascot, some touched by the gods, and some merely the blood of Pirvan and Haimya running true. None wanted to disappoint her.

A small figure took shape out of the darkness-Lady Eskaia, in male attire. She carried something in one hand that looked remarkably like a doll.

"Zixa!"

Rubina jumped up and ran to Eskaia, then snatched the doll and hugged it.

"The people who were laying out the dead found this on Bertsa Wylum's body," Eskaia said. "They thought it might belong to one of her kin."

"Well, they should have known better," Rubina said. Then she tucked Zixa inside her tunic. "I have to go thank Bertsa," she said. "Lady Eskaia, will you come with me?"