Jack Whyte - Order in Chaos

Will felt a swelling sense of well-being to be alive and free on such a perfect summer day, the mid-morning sun warm on his armored back and the lazy droning of a fat bumblebee briefly catching his attention. He was aware, as young Henry suddenly spurred his horse higher onto a rocky knoll that crowned the escarpment, that behind him the linnet had stopped singing, but he paid it no heed as he set spurs to his own mount, pulled hard on his reins, and sawed at the bit, wheeling the horse around in a rearing spin for no other reason than that he felt like doing something to express his own high spirits.

He neither heard nor felt the impact of the crossbow bolt that struck the back of his cuirass. The missile glanced off the curved surface of the steel covering at his back, digging a deep gouge into the metal and hammering him from the saddle to crash senseless to the ground.

He regained his wits moments later and opened his eyes, but was unable to draw a single breath, every ounce of wind smashed out of him by his fall, so that he could only splutter and whoop in agony, vainly trying to suck air through the flattened air passages in his breast.

His sight was as sharp as ever, nonetheless, and he saw every feature of the four men running towards him, weapons drawn. They were unarmored and poorly dressed, and he assessed them instantly as local peasantry who had seized the opportunity to attack and rob an unescorted knight. One of them carried a crossbow, useless now that it had shot its bolt, but two others carried daggers and the last of them held a long-bladed, single-edged dirk as though it were a sword. Will tried to draw his own blade, but although he held the hilt of it in his hand, the sheath was trapped between his legs, hampering his draw.

Time must have seemed suspended, he realized later, but at that moment he heard the clatter of hooves as a charging horse smashed into the four running men, sending three of them flying. Young Henry Sinclair had no weapon at all, for squires were not allowed to carry a lethal blade before they were knighted, but he spurred into the fight as though he were fully armed. His horse snorted and reared after the collision with the runners, and the man holding the crossbow swung it like a club and caught the young squire on the thigh, drawing a high-pitched shout of pain. He threw down his weapon and grasped Henry by the booted heel, wresting his foot from the stirrup and heaving upwards, unseating the boy, who fell heavily on the other side of the horse, and after that things started happening far too quickly for Will’s taste.

He was just beginning to catch his breath. The unmanning pain in his chest had abated and he had managed to untangle his legs and the sheathed sword between them, but he still had not enough strength to rise to his feet, although he was fighting to do so, both hands crossed on the guards of his still-sheathed sword and using it like a crutch to pull and push himself erect. The three downed men righted themselves quickly, little the worse for being knocked aside, and now two of them scrambled towards the supine Henry while the other two scuttled towards Will, splitting to take him from opposite sides like rats converging on a wounded squirrel.

Still gasping for air, Will managed to stand up at last and drew himself as erect as he could, finally stripping the sheath from his sword blade and casting it aside, and even though he was weaving on his feet and plainly weak in the legs, the sight of the long, lethal blade was enough to give his attackers pause. They glanced uncertainly at each other, and Will gave silent thanks, for he could feel the strength flooding back into him with every heartbeat as his breathing steadied towards normal. Looking from one to the other of them, he moved his point from side to side in concert with his eyes, waiting all the while for his breathing to steady, yet trying to give no indication that he was recovering. The two hovered there, now glancing at each other for support and growing more apprehensive by the moment. And then Will saw the other two rush on the boy Henry with their daggers raised.

He exploded into movement, leaping towards the man on his right and felling him with a single angry overhead slash before spinning, sword rising again, towards his companion. As the fellow turned to flee from him, his upraised arms bent over his head for protection, Will hacked around and down, severing the tendons behind the running man’s knee and dropping him like a stricken ox, and at once leapt towards the other two men and the unmoving form of his young squire.

One of the two heard him coming and turned to face him, drawing himself up to his full height, but as he did so Will heard a tearing sound in the air and three arrows hit the fellow in the torso at the same time, their combined force clubbing him to the ground. Again Will paid no attention, his entire being focused on what was happening to Henry Sinclair. The ruffian above the boy had him by the hair, and his hand, clutching his long dirk, plunged down even as Will threw himself forward with a despairing howl and stabbed his blade deep into the murderer’s back. Raging with grief and disbelief, he wrenched the steel free and struck again, this time at the killer’s neck, and as the severed head went bouncing down the slope of the hill, he kicked the torso violently aside and dropped to his knees beside the boy who had saved his life.

He was aware of the sound of hooves galloping towards him, but he could not pull his eyes from young Henry, whose face was the color of whey, his cheek pushed out of shape by the blade of the dirk that thrust upward, dripping blood, from the neck hole in the boy’s long shirt of mail. He felt hands grasping him and pulling him up and away, and saw someone else take his place, kneeling above the still form and slicing with a sharp blade at the leather thongs holding the mailed shirt in place from neck to waist, stripping the garment back before cutting the coarse shirt beneath it and ripping it away to expose the boy’s white skin and the thumb-wide hole in which the dirk was lodged. Thick blood welled from the wound and spilled sluggishly down the dead boy’s chest, coating his skin and soaking into the wadded cloth beneath his armpit.

“My fault, my fault.” He heard the voice repeating the words and knew it was his own, but he could do nothing other than keep repeating it. “My fault, my fault.”

The hands bracing him gripped him tighter and he felt himself being swung around until he was facing the man who had spoken. It was the King’s nephew, Sir Malcolm Seton, and the young knight’s face was creased in a deep frown as he looked at Will.

“Sir William, are you hurt? You are covered in blood.”

“I killed him.”

“You killed more than one of them. You killed two and spared another to hang.”

“No, young Henry. I killed him. Brought him up here blindly, without looking.”

“Sir William, the lad is not dead. Sore wounded, but not dead, not yet. Look at him. Dead people do not bleed.”

The words penetrated the buzzing that filled Will’s head and he frowned, then turned and glanced sharply down at his squire, seeing the still-welling blood. The sight of it brought him to his senses immediately, and the strangeness fell away like a discarded cloak.

“Sweet Jesus, he is alive.” He swung around, searching the hillside below. The three treasure wagons had halted on the road, guarded by roughly half the men who had set out; the others had come charging up the hill as soon as they saw what was happening. “I have to get him to safety—to where he can be tended. Let me carry him.”

“No need for that. We’ll make a litter.” Seton pointed to the two men closest to him. “You two, use your spears, quickly, and your belts. Tie them across the poles—here, take mine, too—and spread a cloak over them to wrap the lad in. No!” He had turned to where one of the men crouching above the motionless boy was gripping the dirk’s hilt securely. The fellow hesitated, caught by the urgency of the knight’s shout as young Seton dropped to one knee beside him and caught hold of his wrist. “Leave the blade where it is, Robbie. If you pull it out he’ll bleed to death. Leave it there for someone who knows what he is doing. Hurry with that litter, you two.”