The Red Axe
Page 23
CHAPTER XXIV
THE SORTIE
The door was open, and the next I mind was my axe whirling about my headand Jorian rushing out of the other door a step ahead of me, with hisbroadsword in his hand. I cannot tell much about the fight. I never couldall my days. And I wot well that those who can relate such longparticulars of tales of fighting are the folk who stood at a distance andlabored manfully at the looking on--not of them that were close in andfelt the hot breaths and saw the death-gleam in fierce, desperate eyes,near to their own as the eyes of lovers when they embrace. Ah, Brothersof the Sword, these things cannot be told! Yet, of a surety, there is aheady delight in the fray itself. And so I found. For I struck and wardednot, that being scarce necessary. Because an axe is an uncanny weapon towield, but still harder to stand against when well used. And I drove therabble before me--the men of them, I mean. I felt my terrible weaponstopped now and then--now softly, now suddenly, according to that which Istruck against. And all the while the kitchen of the inn resounded withyells and threatenings, with oaths and cursings.
But Jorian and I drove them steadily back, though they came at us againand again, with spits, iron hooks, and all manner of curious weapons.Also from out of the corners we saw the gleaming, watchful eyes of a darkhuddle of women and children. Presently the clamorous rabble turned tailsuddenly and poured through the door out upon the pathway, quicker thanwater through a tide-race in the fulness of the ebb.
And lo! in a moment the room was sucked empty, save only for the huddledwomen in the corners, who cried and suckled their children to keep themstill. And some of the wounded with the axe and the sword crawled to themto have their ghastly wounds bound. For an axe makes ugly work at thebest of times, and still worse on the edges of such a pagan fight as wethree had just fought.
So we went back victorious to our inner doors.
Then Jorian looked at me and nodded across at Boris.
"Good!" was all that he said. But the single word made me happier thanmany encomiums.
In spite of all, however, we were no nearer than before to getting awaythat I could see. For there was still all that long, desperate traverseof the defile before we could guide our horses to firm ground again. Butwhile I was thinking bitterly of my first night's sleep (save the mark!)away from the Red Tower, I heard something I knew not the meaning of--thebeginning of a new attack, as I judged.
It sounded like a scraping and a crumbling somewhere above.
"God help us now, Jorian!" I cried, in a sudden, quick panic; "they arecoming upon us everyway. I can hear them stripping off the roof-tileoverhead--if such rabbit-warrens as this have Christian roofs!"
Boris sat down calmly with his back against the earthen wall andtrained his pistol upward, ready to shoot whatever should appear.Presently fragments of earth and hardened clay began to drop on thepounded floor of the corridor. I heard the soft hiss of the man-at-armsblowing up his match, and I waited for the crash and the little heap offlame from the touch.
Suddenly a foot, larger than that of mortal, plumped through our ceilingof brick-dust and a huge scatterment of earth tumbled down. A great bareleg, with attachment of tattered hose hanging here and there, followed.
Before the pistol could go off, Boris meanwhile waiting shrewdly for theappearance of a more vital part, a voice cried, "Stop!"
I looked about me, and there was the Lady Ysolinde come out of herchamber, with a dagger in her hand. She was looking upward at the hole inthe ceiling.
"For God's sake, do not fire!" she cried; "tis only my poor Lubber Fiend.Shame on me, that I had quite forgotten him all this time!"
At which, without turning away the muzzle, Boris put it a little aside,and waited for the disturber of brick-dust ceilings to reveal himself.Which, when presently he did, a huge, grinning face appeared, pushingforward at first slowly and with difficulty, then, as soon as the earshad crossed the narrows of the pass, the whole head to the neck wasglaring down and grinning to us.
"Lubber Jan," said Ysolinde, "what do you up there?"
The head only grinned and waggled pleasantly, as it had been through ahorse-collar at Dantzig fair.
"Speak!" said she, and stamped her little foot; "I will shake thee withterrors else, monster!"
"Poor Jan came down from above. It is quite easy!" he said. "But not forhorses. Oh no! but now I will go and bring the Burgomeister. Do you keepthe castle while I go. He bides below the town in a great house of stone,and entertains our Prince Miller's Son's archers. I will bring all thatare sober of them."
"God help us then!" quoth Jorian; "it is past eleven o' the clock, andas I know them man by man, there will not be so much as one left able toprop up another by this time!"
"Aha!" cried the head above; "you say that because you know the archers.But I say I shall bring full twenty of them--because I know the strengthof the Burgomeister's ale. Hold the place for half an hour and twentyright sober men shall ye have."
And with that the Lubber Fiend disappeared in a final avalanche ofbrick-dust and clay clods.
He was gone, and half an hour was a long time to wait. Yet in such acase there was nothing for it but to stand it out. So I besought themaids to retire again to their inner chamber, into which, at least,neither bullets nor arrows could penetrate. This, after some littlepersuasion, they did.
We waited. I have since that night fought many easier battles, andbloody battles, too. Now and then a face would look in momentarily fromthe great outer door and vanish before any one could put a shot into it.Next, ere one was aware, an arrow would whistle with a "_Hisst_!" pastone's breast-bone and stand quivering, head-covered in the clay. Viciousthings they were, too, steel-pointed and shafted with iron for halftheir length.
But all waitings come to an end, even that of him who waits on a fairwoman's arraying of herself. Erdberg evidently did not know of the littleparty down at the Burgomeister's below the pass of the ravine, or,knowing, did not care. For, just as our half-hour was crawling to anend, with a unanimous yell a crowd of wild men with weapons in theirhands poured in through the great door and ran shouting at our position.At the same time the window at the end of the passage opened and a manleaped through. Him I sharply attended to with the axe, and stood waitingfor the next. He also came, but not through the window. He ran at me,head first, through the door, and, being stricken down, completelyblocked it up. Good service! And a usefully bulky man he was. But how hebled!--Saint Christopher! that is the worst of bulky men, they can donothing featly--not even die!
One man won past me, indeed, darting under the stroke of my axe, but hewas little advantaged thereby. For I fetched a blow at the back of hishead with the handle which brought him to his knees. He stumbled and fellat the threshold of the maids' chamber. And, by my sooth, the LadyYsolinde stooped and poignarded him as featly as though it had been awork of broidering with a bodkin. Too late, Helene wept and besought herto hold her hand. He was, she said, some one's son or lover. It wasdeucedly unpractical. But, 'twas my Little Playmate. And after all, Isuppose, the crack he got from me in the way of business would have donethe job neatly enough without my lady's dagger.
I tell you, the work was hot enough about those three doors during thenext few moments. I never again want to see warmer on this side ofPeter's gates--especially not since I got this wound in my thigh, withits trick of reopening at the most inconvenient seasons. But the broadaxewas a blessed thought of the little Helene's, and helped to keep thecastle right valiantly.
Yet I can testify that I was glad with more than mere joy when I heardthe "Trot, trot!" of the Prince's archers coming at the wolf's lope, allin each other's footsteps, along the narrow ledge of the village street.
"Hurrah, lads!" I shouted; "quick and help us!"
And then at the sound of them the turmoil emptied itself as quickly as ithad come. The rabble of ill-doers melted through the wide outer door,where the archers received and attended to them there. Some precipitatedthemselves over the cliff. Others were straightway knocked down, stunn
ed,and bound. Some died suddenly. And a few were saved to stretch thejudicial ropes of the Bailiwick. For it was always thought a good thingby such as were in authority to have a good show on the "Thieves'Architrave," or general gallows of the vicinity, as a thing at oncecreditable to the zeal of the worthy dispensers of local justice, andpleasing to the Kaiser's officer if he chanced to come spying that way.