Unknown - The Devils Children

Uncle Chacha balanced to meet the charge. Nicky thought she knew what he would do. He would wait again until his enemy was almost on him, feint one way to commit the axe to a blow that side, then dodge round the other side of the horse and either pull the knight from his saddle, or wound or kill the horse so that he could fight the knight level. He would have to be quick, though: the other three men would soon be dangerously near.

But this time he didn’t wait. When the horse was six feet away from him he made a long skip to his right, so that the knight had to turn the horse in to him, one-handed. As the big animal came awkwardly around, Uncle Chacha moved again, leaping forward with a shrill, gargling shout. The knight’s axe came up, ready for him, but the fat man leaped direct for the charging horse, sweeping the pen-noned spear sideways and up in front of its nose at the very moment that the wolf-cry of his shout cut short in a snapping bark. The terrified horse, bred and trained to pull brewer’s drays through orderly streets, shied sideways from the onslaught, and half reared in a swirling spasm that gave the knight far too much to do to allow him to smite at his attacker. Uncle Chacha struck with his sword and the knight had to drop the reins and raise his iron arm to parry the whistling blade; even before the steel clanged into the drainpipe, the knight’s own spear point was lancing up into the armpit which the raised arm had exposed.

He was still grinning as he toppled.

Uncle Chacha, bouncy as a playful cat, flicked round the plunging animal and his blade flashed through the air again. Nicky heard the thudding jar of the iron doll hitting the turf, but no cry at all. Then the horse was careering off toward the woods and she could see how the knight lay, his feet toward her, his gold curls hidden by the bulk of his armored shoulders, and the half spear still sticking into him, straight up, as though it had been planted there to mark the place where he fell.

The men from the stables were only ten yards further off. Nicky yelled “Look out!” and pointed. Without pausing to study the danger Uncle Chacha lugged the spear from the carcass and ran for the barn. To fight more than one enemy you must have your back against a wall. Nicky left the window and rushed down the stairs, barely noticing as she crossed the loft that Ajeet now had the woodman’s son locked in a death wrestle with a six-armed ogre. The children sat as still as if there’d been nothing outside the window but birdsong.

Gopal had been watching the duel through the long slit where the knight’s two blows had knocked a whole plank out. Now he was lifting the bar of the door.

“Shut it behind me!” he hissed. “He cannot fight three men!”

“Wait!” whispered Nicky. “Then you might catch one of them from behind.”

A thud told that Uncle Chacha had his back to the planking. Peering throught the slit, Nicky saw the rush of his pursuers falter as he faced them — they had seen what had happened to the knight. They were all three terribly young, just murderous loutish boys, eighteen at the oldest. Now they quailed before the hard old warrior standing at bay, glanced uncertainly at each other and crept forward with their swords held stiff and low. They must have plundered some museum for them.

Gopal crouched where the doors joined, like a runner settling into his blocks at the start of a race. The robber at the near end passed out of Nicky’s line of sight, his back toward her.

“Now!” she whispered, and threw her weight against the big leaf. Gopal stayed in his crouch until the gap was wide enough; just at the moment when steel tinkled on steel outside, he exploded through. Nicky forgot her duty and rushed after him.

The nearest man had heard, or felt, the movement of the door and had half turned, so that the point of Gopal’s sword drove into the soft part of his side below the rib cage. His face contorted; with a bubbling yell he buckled and collapsed. But the small blade had gone in so deep that his fall wrenched the hilt out of Gopal’s hand, and the boy now stood weaponless.

The middle man, who had just skipped back out of reach of a lunge from Uncle Chacha’s lance, wheeled at the cry, then rushed toward this easier victim. Gopal waited his coming hopelessly, but knowing that you have more chance if you can see your enemy than if you have your back to him. Nicky, who had checked her outward rush as the first man keeled over, scooped up a turf from the stack by the barn door and hurled it, two-handed, over Gopal’s shoulder into the attacker’s face. The brilliant summer had dried the turf into fine dust, barely held together by the dying roots of grass. The man staggered in his charge, blinded, and the next instant Uncle Chacha’s lance had caught him full in the neck.

The third man dropped his sword and ran around the corner of the barn. No one chased him.

Without a word Nicky and Gopal walked panting to the other side of the doors, where there were no corpses, and leaned against the wall. Uncle Chacha picked up his shield and joined them.

“Three more killed/’ he said, “and one run away. Not bad.”

“What happened at the house?” said Gopal.

“They are good soldiers. Many of them slept with weapons by their beds. Wazir is dead, and Manhoor, and young Harpit. We have killed perhaps half of them, but a group are defending themselves in the big bedrooms on the far side. We are hunting through the other rooms before we attack them. Perhaps we will have to burn the house around them. Look.”

A man, an Englishman, was running along the top of an eight-foot wall. He must have climbed from an upstairs window. Another figure, turbaned, dashed out of a door, planted its legs wide apart and raised its arms in an age-old pose. The arc of the risaldar’s bow deepened; then it was straight. The man on the wall threw his arms wide between pace and pace and tumbled with a crash through a greenhouse roof.

“I must go back’ said Uncle Chacha.

“I expect the other horses are in that stable,” said Nicky, “and the rest of the armor. If you turned the horses out you could set fire to the stable and burn the saddles and things as well, and then you wouldn’t have to fight any more knights on horseback.”

“You are right,” said Uncle Chacha, and trotted off across the grass, still as light on his feet as if he hadn’t spent the morning fighting for his life against grisly odds.

“You go too,” said Nicky. “He’ll need a hand with the brazier. I’m going to take the children home.”

“That was a good throw, Nicky,” said Gopal. “Thank you.”

He gave her a gay salute with his bloody sword, made two practice slashes with it, and ran off after his uncle. Nicky climbed to the loft with legs like lead.

Ajeet’s tiger was dead, with its skin nailed to the temple door. In the temple the woodman’s sons were marrying queens.

Nicky nodded to Ajeet, who put her palms together under her chin.

“And so ends the tale of the tiger who had no soul, ,,she said.

The children watched her in silence.

“Thank you, miss,” said the red-headed girl.

“I’m going to take you all to your homes now,” said Nicky.

A squealing like a piggery racked the loft.

“Quiet!” she yelled, and the squealing died.

“Now listen to me,” said Nicky. “My friends have killed half the robbers. Ajeet’s father beat the worst of the men on horses and killed him too. The rest of the robbers are shut up in the house, but a few have run away, Some of them may be hiding in the woods, but it’s all right — they can’t hurt us if you do what I say. There’s a pile of flints by the ditch over there, and I want you each to pick up two of them, or three if you’ve got a pocket to put the third one in. Choose stones which are the heaviest ones you can throw properly and straight. Carry one in each hand, and if you see anybody who looks like a robber, lift up your arm and be ready to throw, but don’t throw till I shout. Do you understand? Just think — thirty big stones, all held ready for throwing. One man won’t attack an army like that. You’re an army now. Soldiers. And you’re going home.”