The Red Knight

by Miles Cameron

  Random got his back to Guilbert’s. ‘Stand fast!’ he yelled. ‘Stand fast!’

  A few feet away, Harmodius pulled a riding whip from his belt.

  ‘Fiat lux!’ he commanded, and fire raged over the boglins. A guildsman in the process of having his throat ripped out was incinerated in the strike, but the sweet horns were sounding all around them.

  Random estimated that the little knot he was with had perhaps twenty men, and at least one of them was on his knees, begging for mercy.

  Harmodius drew his sword. He raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Damn,’ Random said.

  Harmodius nodded.

  Guilbert shook his head. ‘Wagons punched us a hole,’ he said. ‘The mounted men are that way.’ He pointed back along the track. Back the way they’d come.

  Random spat. I’m going to lose everything, he thought.

  Harmodius nodded. ‘Might as well try,’ he said. ‘Ready to run, everyone?’ Random felt he ought to contribute something, but it was all happening too damned fast.

  Harmodius raised his arms, and a ripple rolled from his hands like a flaw in glass, spreading outwards in a semi-circle like the ripple made by throwing a pebble in a pond, except that trees blackened and grass vanished and boglins fell like wheat under a sharp scythe before it.

  Gawin, out beyond the edge of the bubble, charged his destrier straight at it. Random saw him put the animal into a jump, and they were up; down again in moments, having leaped the growing edge of the wave of destruction in a bound. And done it apparently unharmed.

  ‘Oh, well done,’ Harmodius said. ‘That’s a proper fellow.’

  And then they were running back down the trail.

  They ran, and ran.

  When Harmodius couldn’t breathe, Gawin dismounted, put the Magus up on his destrier and ran along with them for a while.

  And then, as if by common agreement, they all stopped running at a deep stream – the stream they’d crossed that morning at the break of day. There were a dozen wagons there, and all the mounted men on the far bank. One by one, the desperate men scrambled across, soaked to the waist, uncaring. Some stopped in mid-stream to drink from parched throats.

  The mounted men began to weep, and Random ignored them.

  But Gawin, alone of the panicked men crossing the stream, didn’t throw himself down in the illusory safety. He sheathed his sword.

  ‘I have run from terror, too,’ he said to the mounted men. ‘And it is three times as hard to regain your honour as it is to preserve it in the first place. But this is where we will all make ourselves whole. Dismount, messires. We will hold the river bank while these good men get to safety, and in so doing, we will find both honour and peace.’

  And such was the power of his voice that one by one they dismounted.

  Random watched with disbelief.

  There were nine of them, all well armoured, and they filled the gap of the trail.

  Guildsmen took their horses as more men came in – a dozen in one group, wild-eyed, and then in ones and twos, their jackets torn.

  And then no more.

  There were perhaps fifty survivors from the three hundred men who had awakened that morning.

  They had a dozen wagons – mostly the horse drawn carts whose animals had stuck to the road, or followed the military horses. But as they waited for the next assault of the enemy, whose horns could clearly be heard – a boy appeared on the far bank, no more than fifteen years old.

  ‘I reckon I need some help!’ he called. ‘Can’t get these here oxen through the ford on my own!’

  The boy had saved four wagons. He didn’t seem to know that he was supposed to be afraid.

  ‘They’re busy a-killin all the horses and cattle!’ the boy said. He grinned like it was all a great prank. ‘So I’m just walking up and taking any wagon ain’t got a bunch of ’em aboard!’

  Random hugged him after they had the oxen across. Then he turned to Gawin. ‘I honour your willingness to fight here and get us clear,’ he said. ‘But I think we should all go together. It will be a long road back, and as dangerous as these woods – every step of the way.’

  Gawin shrugged. ‘These men can go – although I believe they owe you a great service.’ A daemon appeared across the river, and a troll belled. ‘But I will stand here, for as long as God grants my hands the power to hold this ford,’ he said. And very softly, he said, ‘I used to be so beautiful.’

  Harmodius nodded. ‘You, messire, are a true knight.’

  Gawin shrugged. ‘I am whatever I am, now. I hear that daemon across the stream – I think I understand him. He calls for his blood kin. I—’ He shook his head.

  ‘You saved us,’ said Harmodius. ‘Like a knight.’

  Gawin gave him a wounded smile. ‘It is an estate from which I have fallen,’ he said. ‘But to which I aspire.’

  Harmodius grinned. ‘All the good ones do.’ He raised his hat. He was still mounted on the destrier, and he seemed a bigger man than he had before.

  Across the river, the trolls belled again, and Random felt bile rise in his mouth.

  But then there was the sound of a horn beyond the sweet horns of the boglins. A bronze trumpet call sounded through the trees.

  South of Lissen Carak – Amy’s Hob

  Amy’s Hob lay still.

  He lay so still that ants crawled over him.

  When he had to piss, he did so without moving.

  There were boglins at the base of the hill. They were feeding. He tried not to watch, but his eyes were drawn, again and again.

  They went to a corpse, covered it, and when they left it, there was nothing but bone, hair, and some sinew. A few fed alone, but most fed in a pack.

  Beyond them, a pair of great horned trolls walked slowly down the ridge. Ten horse lengths from the unmoving scout, the larger of the two raised its head and called.

  A dozen boglin horns sounded their sweet, cheerful notes in return.

  Gelfred appeared at his side, and his face was as white as chalk.

  ‘How many?’ he breathed.

  Amy’s Hob shok his head. ‘Thousands.’

  Gelfred was made of different stuff. He raised himself on his elbows and scanned carefully from right to left. ‘Blessed Saint Eustachios stand with us,’ he said.

  One of the trolls heads whipped round and saw him.

  ‘Run!’ he shouted.

  Gelfred aimed his crossbow and the string rang like a bell and the nearest boglin folded. So did the one behind it.

  ‘We’re dead,’ Amy’s Hob said bitterly.

  ‘Don’t be such an ass,’ Gelfred said. ‘Follow me.’ They ran down the reverse slope of the ridge. The troll was crashing along behind them, much faster in the undergrowth than they were.

  At the base of the ridge they were just a few horse lengths ahead of the thing, but to Amy’s Hob’s amazement, there were a pair of horses waiting. Both men vaulted into the saddle, and the horses were away, as terrified as their riders.

  As soon as they outdistanced pursuit, Gelfred slowed. ‘Go to the captain – he’s on the road.’

  ‘I’ll tell him to get back to the fortress!’ Amy’s Hob said, eyes still wild.

  Gelfred shook his head. He was still pale and his fear was obvious, but he was the kind of man who was afraid and kept on functioning. ‘No. Absolutely not. Tell him it can be done. If he’s quick.’

  Amy’s Hob might have stayed to argue, but staying there was insane. He put his bare heels to the pony’s sides, and he was gone, leaving Gelfred alone in the woods with a thousand boglins and a troll.

  The man knelt by his pony, and began to pray, intent on his purpose.

  There was a flare of light, and Gelfred vanished.

  South and East of Lissen Carrack – Bad Tom

  Victory can be as much luck as skill, or strength of arms.

  Bad Tom led the vanguard. They’d heard the boglin horns for a league and had stopped on the trail, a long column of twos, the war horses snorting, the arc
her’s ronceys trying to avoid being nipped by the bigger horses. There was new grass by the road and all the horses wanted it.

  Amy’s Hob cantered in from the east and he looked as if he’d seen hell come to earth.

  Tom laughed at the sight of him. ‘Guess we’ve found ’em,’ he said, delighted.

  Amy’s Hob saluted the captain, who looked remarkably calm, a tall figure in scarlet and steel. ‘Gelfred says—’ He shook his head. ‘There’s a mort of ’em, but Gelfred says it’s now or not.’

  ‘We’re right on top of them,’ Tom said. He nodded to the scout. ‘Well done, lad. Must take balls of brass to be out there alone wi’ ’em.’

  Amy’s Hob shivered. ‘Gelfred’s still out there.’

  The captain listened. Sounds can be read as easily as sights, sometimes. He could see the action ahead – the road ran east along the south bank of the river, then south between the hills. Before it turned south and began to climb, it crossed a stream.

  ‘What’s happening?’ Michael asked.

  ‘The enemy is attacking a convoy,’ the captain said. He and Tom exchanged a look.

  Hywel Writhe used to say, war isn’t sword cuts, it’s decisions.

  ‘They’re all on this side of the stream?’ he asked.

  Amy’s Hob nodded. ‘Aye.’

  ‘Clumped up?’ he asked.

  ‘Which Gelfred said to tell you it is now.’ He shook his head. ‘There’s a thousand of ’em—’

  The captain’s eyes met Tom’s. ‘Go,’ the captain said.

  Bad Tom grinned like a madman. ‘On me!’ he roared.

  Around him, men checked one more thing. It was different for each one – here, an armour strap, there, the way a helmet sat on your head. Or the check to make sure your dagger was right there, at your hip.

  But men were smiling.

  They said things.

  They were going to do that thing that they did. When they moved like lightning and struck like the hammer on the anvil. Soldiers know, feel, these things. And luck rose about them, as if they were magi casting words of power with the hooves of their horses.

  They rode right for the sound of the horns. Tom only reined in when he saw his first boglin, and he looked back to see Grendel and his rider pounding up the road.

  The captain flipped him a salute. His visor was up.

  ‘There they are,’ Tom said. He couldn’t keep the grin off his face.

  The captain listened and scratched his beard.

  Their eyes met again.

  ‘Never met a Wild creature that could fight in two directions at once,’ Tom said. ‘They don’t fight. They hunt. And when they pounce – why, that’s all they have.’

  ‘You mean, the Wild doesn’t keep a reserve,’ the captain said.

  ‘What you say,’ Tom said. He could tell the captain was of one mind with him.

  ‘Someday they will,’ the captain said.

  ‘Not today,’ Tom said.

  The captain hesitated another moment. Breathed deeply, listening. Then he turned back to Tom, and his grin was wide and feral.

  ‘Let’s do it,’ he said. He raised his lance, and pointed with it. Carlus, his trumpeter, raised his long, bronze instrument, and the captain gave him a nod.

  Tom didn’t bother to form up, because surprise was everything. He was sure he knew what was happening ahead, and he led his men forward, armoured in that assurance. And when his destrier leaped a low fallen tree and the track turned and he saw hundreds of the little fuckers plundering wagons, he just raised his sword.

  ‘Lachlan for Aa!’ he roared, and he began to kill.

  South and East of Lissen Carrack – The Red Knight

  There is a great deal of luck involved in catching an enemy, especially a victorious enemy who outnumbers you twenty to one, flat footed, glutted with spoil, unable to either fight or flee.

  There’s even more luck involved when you catch your enemy glutted with spoil and pinned against a roaring torrent of a stream, with only one ford, and that ford held by a desperate madman.

  Because he was in command, and because he feared a trap, the captain was among the last men onto the field, leading half a dozen archers and two men-at-arms and Jacques with all the valets as a reserve. He came forward still full of doubt at his own decision, which seemed rash, and yet full of a sort of certainty – almost like religious faith – that he could feel the enemy’s failure.

  He came on the heels of the main battle’s charge to cover Bad Tom’s headlong rush, and Jacques was less than twenty horse lengths behind the last man of the main battle, and still, by the time he rode under the big oak trees, the fighting was over by the abandoned wagons. He rode by what he assumed had been the convoy’s a last stand – a dozen guildsmen face down, some of them looking half eaten or worse.

  He rode past the carcasses of not one, but three, dead dhags. He had only ever seen one, before today.

  He passed down a line of carts, their draught animals dead and partially butchered in their traces. Other wagons had their oxen or their horses untouched, panicked in the traces but alive. There were human bodies among the dead boglins and other things – one corpse looked like a golden bear, cleanly beheaded.

  He shook his head in disbelief.

  He couldn’t have planned it this way. Couldn’t have coordinated such a victory, not with a pair of magi to handle communications and twice the number of men.

  Farther on, they were still fighting. He could hear Tom’s warcry.

  He came up to two men holding a dozen fretting war horses and Jacques sent four valets to take their reins. The two men-at-arms grinned, loosened swords in their scabbards, and headed off down the trail toward the sound of belling. The captain took a breath, thinking of the kind of men and women he employed. The kind who smiled and hastened down the trail to battle. He led them. They made him happy.

  He dismounted, handed his horse to Jacques, who gave him his spear. And dismounted himself.

  ‘Not without me, you loon,’ Jacques said.

  ‘I have to,’ the captain said. ‘You don’t.’

  Jacques spat. ‘Can we get this over with?’ He gestured, and Toby appeared, somehow taller and more dangerous looking in a breast and back and a pot helm.

  They ran forward. There was fighting off to their left – the humdrum sound of blade on blade. And ahead, heavy movement and grunting, like a huge boar in a deep thicket.

  ‘Don’t let it fucking cross the river!’ Tom roared, almost at his elbow.

  The captain came around the great bole of an old elm, and there was the beast – twenty-five hands at the shoulder, with curling tusks.

  A behemoth.

  It turned.

  Like every creature of the Wild, its eyes met the captain’s, and it roared a challenge.

  ‘Here we go,’ said Tom, with relish. ‘Captain’s here. Now we can dance!’

  Jacques hip-checked the captain. ‘Mind?’ he said, and shot the thing, a clean shaft that leapt from his bowstring at full draw and plunged through its hide, vanishing to the fletchings. His war-bow was as long and heavy as Wilful Murder’s, and most men couldn’t draw it.

  Somebody behind it plunged a sword deep into its side, and then a man-at-arms was sawing at its neck, and it was roaring in anger. But the flurry of blows let up, and suddenly it got its feet under it, tossed the man-at-arms free, and put its head down.

  ‘Oh fuck,’ Jacques said.

  A solid lance of fire crossed the stream and struck the behemoth in the head, splintering a tusk and setting fire to the stump. Despite the fear, every man turned to look. Most of them had never seen a phantasm used in combat.

  The captain charged it, because that seemed better than it charging him. His horse had done all the work until now, and his legs were fresh, despite the weight of steel greaves and sabatons.

  The fire was a nice distraction and he slammed his heavy spear into its face, near an eye. It was collapsing back – Jacques, also unaffected by the pyrotechnics, was
walking forward, putting arrow after arrow into its unguarded belly.

  It turned away, suddenly less fearsome and sensing the defeat of near death. It tried to burst free across the stream but the rocky bottom betrayed it and it stumbled; a dozen archers, guildsmen and mercenaries alike, poured shafts into it, and its blood swirled in the fast water. It gathered itself up and leaped – awesome in its might – scattered the archers, and killed two guildsmen, massive front feet pounding their bodies to fleshy mush in the spring mud. And still it got its head up when the captain came out of the trees behind it, and it turned at bay. It’s great eyes met the captain’s.

  ‘Me again,’ the captain said.

  It raised its head and bellowed, and the woods shook. One of Tom’s men-at-arms – Walter La Tour – landed a hard blow with a pole-axe and got swiped by the whole force of its mighty head in reply, crushing his breastplate and breaking all his ribs. He fell without a sound. Francis Atcourt, one day out of the infirmary, struck it with a pole-axe too, and danced aside as it’s splintered, burning tusk sought his life. He tripped and fell over a rotten stump, which saved his life as its tusks and fangs passed over his head.

  The captain ran rock to rock across the stream, his sabatons flashing above the swollen water, charging his prey. It turned to finish Atcourt, caught sight of the captain’s rush, and hesitated a fraction of a heartbeat.

  Bad Tom watched his captain rush the monster and laughed. ‘I love him,’ he shouted, and leaped after.

  The monster lurched forward, and stumbled, and the captain thrust, catching it in the mouth, cutting up so that ivory sprayed. The splintered tusk caught the back of his rerebrace hard enough to slam him into the stream. He went down, his helmet filled with water, but he got a rock under his backplate and sprang to his feet, stomach muscles screaming as he levered his own weight plus sixty pounds up on his hips, and then he had his feet planted, knee deep in water, and he was cutting – down to the Boar’s Tooth guard, his heavy pole-arm cutting from the height of his shoulder all the way down to his hip – then back up the same path, ripping up through its trunk to the Guard of the Woman. He reversed the blade and thrust down into its eye as the creature fell.