Jack Whyte - Uther

Finally, Uther was alone above his friend. He whirled to kneel and search for a pulse beneath Garreth's jaw, ignoring the tugging pain of the wound that still bled on his thigh. But there was no pulse. The King's Champion was dead, and Uther felt his heart swell up and break as hot, scalding tears flooded his eyes. Then, screaming aloud in his black and violent need for blood and vengeance, he grasped his sword hilt tightly in both fists and swung up and around again, looking for someone to kill. And there, less than ten paces distant, watching him from the back of a high horse and hefting his long, strange reaping-hook weapon in his hand, sat the giant in rusted armour who had come so slowly across the stream: the leader of this doom-laden band of alien horsemen.

As soon as he set eyes on the big man, Uther's frustrated rage flared up even higher and then immediately narrowed and condensed into a hard, cold, incandescent blade of tightly focused fury. A lifetime of avoiding fighting in anger fell away from him and left him with nothing but the all-consuming need to destroy this enigmatic interloper who had brought destruction to his friends and companions. He had no thoughts now that this might be Death himself. This was a man, dirty and travel-stained and fit to die for what he had brought to this cursed place. And yet Uther restrained himself from charging blindly forward to attack.

He knew he had to get into his saddle, that he was in dire peril afoot alone against the mounted man—any mounted man—for he had killed more than a score of men in the previous short space of time precisely because he was mounted while they were not. Steadily, grinding his teeth and keeping his sword raised high with both hands in front of him, he stepped backwards until his shoulders touched the tree beneath which he stood, and then he looked about him quickly. There were men aplenty around him, but none of them was his, and all of them stood motionless, staring at him and occasionally glancing towards their giant leader.

He saw his own horse from the corner of his eye, placidly cropping a patch of grass on the forest floor, but as far away from him in one direction as the threatening horseman was on the other side. The big man hefted his reaping-hook weapon again and urged his horse forward, and Uther quickly thrust his long sword into his belt, snatched up Garreth's fallen axe, turned sharply to his left and ran towards his horse, hearing the other surge heavily into motion behind him.

Reaching his horse on the dead run, he turned and spun to face the oncoming rider, swinging the heavy axe up behind his head, then throwing it with all his strength. The big man saw it coming and quickly lowered his head, tucking his chin towards his breast, and the whirling axehead struck the domed top of his helmet and glanced off. The shock of the deflected blow nevertheless threw him backwards, sending him reeling in the saddle and almost unhorsing him. Uther watched for the space of half a heartbeat, then spun away and seized his horse's reins, raising his left foot to the stirrup with surprising, painful difficulty and then leaning forward into the swing of his rising body. But his body would not rise and swing him up into the saddle. His left thigh was useless; the wounded muscles, strained beyond repair by the effort of running, had become incapable of bearing his weight. Disbelieving, he tried again, heaving desperately but vainly to lift his body from the ground. Behind him he heard the trampling of hooves as the big man regained control of his horse and moved again to the attack. Yet again Uther tried to mount, and this time a heavy blow landed across his armoured back, smashing him into the side of his horse, which had now begun to toss its head and sidle nervously, rolling its eyes, frightened by the indecisive nature of its master's movements.

Grimly, waiting for the next blow, Uther hooked the elbow of his sword arm over the horn of his saddle and fought to drag himself up into the saddle. The blow came, smashing him yet again, but he clung on doggedly, willing himself to rise up and find his seat. Once mounted, he could fight, leg or no leg, he knew. And then a third blow hit him, this one like a massive, booted foot crashing into the small of his back, and the pressure of its impact closed up his throat and took away his breath. He felt no pain as the wicked, serrated reaping-hook blade plunged deep into his flesh, penetrating far into his rib cage with its upward swing, beneath the edge of his cuirass, and he felt none as it ripped free again, tearing his back open irreparably. But he was aware of the loosening, hot, debilitating flow of pent-up blood gushing from his open back, and of the gathering darkness that was filling his eyes as his hands slipped from the saddle horn. Slowly, his vision fading fast, he turned around to look up at the giant figure looming above him, and when he opened his mouth to speak, bright-red blood poured from between his lips and splashed down onto his cuirass.

"Ygraine," Uther Pendragon said. "Ygraine." But no one heard him.

The big man sat staring down at Uther's body and then spoke to one of his companions. "Those other people, the newcomers. Bring me their leader."

The man returned with the tall, gangling man called One-Finger, who told his inquisitor that he had been dispatched by his Chief, Othoc, with half of their party to make sure that this cavalry rearguard were held at bay while Othoc and the others captured the women in the first group. The big horseman sat straighter in his saddle.

"What women?"

One-Finger then told the story of the battle two days earlier and the chase that followed it, and when he had done, the big man turned again to his lieutenant.

"Get the men mounted right now and go after those women. See that you find them before this Othoc lays hands on them" He looked down again at the corpse in the bronze armour, and then at the massive horse the dead man had owned. "I'll come after you as soon as I've stripped this body and put his armour to good use. If these people were from Camulod, and I think they might have been, then all we've heard about that place is true, and we would do well to avoid it. But this is the first set of decent armour in my size I've seen in years. Go now, and take these others with you. Leave mc two men. That's all I'll need. When I'm done here, I'll follow you."

He watched until the others were on their way, and then he dismounted and went to kneel beside the man he had killed. Uther's open eyes were vacant, uncaring of the robbery about to be perpetrated upon his corpse. The kneeling man closed the staring eyes and then went to work, stripping Uther's body. As he removed each piece of equipment, he examined it to see if there was blood on it, and if there was he handed it to one of his two companions to clean. Otherwise, he laid each piece of the armour carefully aside, arrayed in order from top to bottom. He had a difficult time with some of the blood-slick straps and buckles, and at one point called on one of his two men to help him turn Uther over onto his front, so that he could reach the fastenings among the gore at the small of his back, but he did not mistreat the corpse, and when he was done with it and the body was bare, he turned away and began to remove his own battered, rusted equipment.

As he lugged at one of the straps holding his own much-dented cuirass, he looked back several times at the dead man lying close by him almost as though he expected to find the eyes open again, watching him. Finally he muttered an oath and turned to his two men.

"Each of you take an arm and haul this man away." He glanced around him and saw a massive fir tree close by, its bole surrounded by dead branches. "Lay him over there beside that tree."

Glancing at one another in surprise but saying nothing, the two men stooped, each of them grasping Uther by one arm, and then they tried to straighten up, lifting him. They failed, and the bigger of the two turned to their leader.