The Dread Wyrm (Traitor Son Cycle)

by Miles Cameron

  His brother shook his head. “Let’s go. It’ll take de Vrailly a day to unfuck this.”

  Ganfroy sounded the call. Immediately archers to the west of the road came out of their cover. Many of them had horses to hand. Others simply ran—across the road, over the ditch, and up the hill.

  A few terrified routiers ran around the end of the line of archers and went south to safety. More of them died as they were run down by mounted archers.

  To Gavin’s left, a dozen Galles re-emerged onto the road. And then suddenly there were fifty lances—more, perhaps.

  “Oh well,” the captain said as he closed his visor. Nell put his horse’s reins in his hand and took his ghiavarina.

  He swung a leg over Ataelus. Gavin got up on his Bohemund. A dozen more knights closed in around them, coming from the south.

  “Up the lane,” Gabriel ordered through his visor.

  The Gallish men-at-arms were forming for a charge. They were being hit with occasional arrows—a torment of shafts, but not a torrent, and not an immediate danger. Here, a shaft found a horse—there, a man whose mail didn’t fit under his arm.

  The company knights—some of them, anyway—rode into the village lane and a short distance up the hill, and then turned to face their pursuers.

  The Galles halted when they began to pack into the lane.

  “Come on,” muttered the Red Knight.

  But the Galles hung back.

  “They’re moving into the field beyond the hedge,” Ser Danved shouted.

  “Back,” the Red Knight called. Ganfroy sounded the retreat again. They had twenty lances by then—all the picked jousters in the company, the men who had intended to fight at the tournament.

  Except Michael and Bad Tom.

  They reached a point almost halfway up the hedge-lined lane.

  Finally, the Galles at the foot of the hill followed them. There were no more arrows flying. The horns from the direction of Second Bridge were closer.

  “Let’s break a lance,” the captain said. “For the Queen.”

  “The Queen!” his knights called.

  Gabriel opened his visor and smiled at his brother. “This is the way war is supposed to work, isn’t it?” he said. “We’re hideously outnumbered, and we charge them. Two at a time. Care to join me?”

  Gavin laughed. “You’re mad,” he said. “Of course.”

  “See the little bend?” Gabriel said. “See the path into the field?”

  Even as he spoke, the lead Galles passed it.

  But Gavin was an old hand at jousting, if not at this kind of war. “See you in the fields,” he said, and pulled his visor down again.

  He put spurs to his horse before Gabriel had his visor shut, and he was alone, flying down the narrow, cool lane. His war horse’s hooves struck sparks off the white gravel of the road.

  The men at the front of the Gallish column should have been ready, but they were far more concerned with the arrows that came through the hedge from time to time and had killed a valuable war horse.

  He got his spear in the rest in good time, and he caught his first man almost at a stand. The blow from his lance snapped his neck inside his helmet and he fell like a man who had been hanged, his head lolling horribly.

  The impact didn’t break Gavin’s lance, so he went on, unhorsing the second man on the right, and then Bohemund was savaging another horse and it was all a tangle, a swirling dog fight. The Galles were all as big as Gavin and as well-armoured. But Bohemund took him past the third and fourth man—

  He knew from the sound that his brother had struck behind him. Something hit his helmet so hard his ears rang—he lost his sword, plucked out his dagger and rammed it into a man’s armpit under his raised arm and then—no thanks to any planning—Bohemund plunged through the narrow gap in the hedge and out into the newly planted cornfield. The young maize was already tall enough to carpet the ground, and not yet tall enough to give any cover.

  An arrow slammed into his back plate and he cursed. But he pointed his horse up the slope and crouched low on his saddle, hoping that the archers would see his arms on his surcoat.

  Gabriel went through the Galles like a threaded needle where an awl has already passed. He unhorsed men on either side as if it was a tilting game—rings—and not a blow landed on him. He watched Gavin pass the gap in the hedge and he touched his spurs to Ataelus and they were through—he just managed to get his lance tip up and not unhorse himself on the hedge, which would have been embarrassing. As he passed the hedge, he had a flash of Ser Danved and Angelo di Laternum running their courses.

  The open field was like a different world. They had emerged on the south side of the hedge, so none of Du Corse’s men-at-arms were there. But new banners were flooding into the field from the south. The leading banner was the Earl of Towbray’s.

  Ser Bertran, Le Shakle and di Laternum all emerged from the hedge with Ser Danved at their heels, a heavy mace in his hand. He was roaring his war cry.

  There was nowhere to rally in the patchwork of planted fields. Nor did Gabriel want another go. He pointed uphill with his lance. “Go!” he shouted. “Follow Gavin!”

  In the fields below him, the Earl of Towbray’s knights hooted and began to cross the first ditch. Gabriel watched them. On the road, a man took aim with a crossbow and loosed, and Gabriel had a moment’s deep fear, and then the bolt sailed into the ground well short.

  A heavy rider burst out of the hedge. He saluted as he rode past. “I’m the last, Monsieur!” called Jean, Ser Bertran’s squire.

  The Earl of Towbray’s knights—fifty lances or more—crossed the ditch in good order and started up the hill. There were more men behind them—Albans and Galles, most not as well armoured as Towbray’s professionals.

  The Red Knight turned Ataelus and rode up the hill. The ploughed earth was hard going, and Ataelus was having a hard day—three fights in two days. He was impatient to get to the top—but he did not want to kill this horse.

  Towbray’s men were having a hard time, too.

  He passed a point where the hill steepened, and suddenly, by turning in the saddle, he could see Du Corse’s lances on the far side of the lane—over to the north, where, if he didn’t move quickly, they could cut him off from his retreat.

  Ataelus was snorting with furious effort, cresting the last and steepest bit of the muddy field.

  “Come on, lad,” he said. “Come on, Ataelus. Don’t die on me here—never had a horse like you.”

  Ataelus’s ears moved, and he gave a little more—and they were up.

  Now he had a view of the whole battlefield. Gelfred’s men were forming along the village hedges. His own pages and archers were now mixed in, and the knights—the jousters—were slapping each other in exhilaration.

  Gabriel took a cup of water from Nell and drank it off. The Queen was there, and Amicia, already healing a man—a Gallish prisoner, apparently.

  “Bravely done, ser knight!” the Queen called.

  “Not bravely enough,” he said. “Du Corse is a very good captain. He’s slipped my ambush and now he’s flooding the fields with men.”

  Gelfred came up on a palfrey. “They found another lane, my lord,” he said. “I’m sorry—I must have missed it in the dark.”

  Gabriel could see that Towbray’s men—and other Albans and Galles who must be under his banner—were pouring into the southern fields at the base of the hill like water through a leaky dyke. They weren’t coming around the jam of baggage wagons. They were coming up another road to the south and east that almost outflanked the hill.

  Gabriel looked out over the hillside at the wreck of his clever plan.

  He just didn’t have enough men.

  Despite the various flaws in his battle, though, he had lost almost no men and Towbray’s knights were completely uncoordinated with Du Corse on the other side of the hedge.

  The Queen smiled. “Is that my old friend the Earl of Towbray?” she said. She took her newborn son from Blanche. “Thos
e are Albans. This is what I came for, Ser Gabriel.”

  The Red Knight nodded. “Few enough archers. It’s worth a try, your grace.” He turned to Daniel Favour. “Go fetch Ser Michael and Ser Thomas and tell them my little ambush has failed and I need them on the hilltop.” He’d put them off to the north a little in the woods, to complete the rout of anyone who attacked up the—

  “Stop!” he cried. “Never mind, young Daniel. Go to them—and tell them to see if they can take Du Corse in the flank when he comes for the village.”

  Gavin shook his head. “They’ll be thinner than goose fat on a peasant’s bread.”

  Gabriel grinned—not a happy grin. “Have I ever lost a battle?” he asked.

  There was no one around to remind him that he had.

  The Queen rode down the hill out of the town. For a woman who had, in the last day, survived an attempt to burn her to death and a ride cross-country only to birth a baby in a barn, she looked more like a goddess than a human woman. Her skin glowed in the sun, her rich blond-brown hair seemed to have invented its own colour between gold and bronze, and she rode like a centaur, her plain linen veil trailing behind her.

  The white linen penitent’s gown that de Rohan had forced her to wear now shouted her innocence. The babe on her chest proclaimed who she must be—and who the babe must be.

  Gabriel Muriens grabbed the royal pennon from Chris Foliak’s hand. “Stay here,” he said, and followed the Queen and her babe.

  Foliak sputtered. “That’s my knighthood riding away!”

  “Let him be,” Ser Francis said.

  Down near the foot of the hill, the earl sat his charger with Ser Christopher Crowbeard—Kit to his boon companions.

  “I mislike the hedges and the ploughed fields,” Crowbeard was saying. “Let de Vrailly throw his sell-swords at yon.”

  Towbray looked down at the young corn shoots under his horse’s hooves. Ahead of him, fifty good lances—knights and squires—had dismounted to rest their horses. Off to the right, a solid body of Harndon militia in red and blue emerged from the woods—crossbows and spearmen with great tall pavises. He had none of his own foot—de Vrailly had cut them up last summer, and now they were far away, home in the Jarsays. So he had no archers and no peasants to clear the hillside and test the enemy’s intentions. If the hedge was lightly defended…

  But if it wasn’t…

  A rider came through a gap in the town hedge just a long bowshot away.

  “Blessed saint Mary Magdalene,” Crowbeard said. “It’s the Queen.”

  Towbray watched her ride effortlessly down the steepest point of the ridge.

  A second, armoured rider came through the gap in the hedge. He had a lance and was flying…

  Towbray spat, contemplatively, on the ground. “The Royal Standard,” he said.

  “She has a babe on her breast.” Crowbeard paused. “Sweet Jesu, my lord earl. She’s foaled.”

  Towbray nodded. “Just sit and watch, Kit,” he said.

  The Queen rode down the hill until she was in easy bowshot of the Towbray men-at-arms, and then she rode along their front, attended by just one knight. She rode from near the village lane to well over by the Harndon militia.

  While she made her ride, the Galles of the rearguard finally broke through the carts and the panicked routiers choking the main road and began to enter the field behind Towbray. Half a mile away, Towbray could see de Vrailly’s banner.

  Some of his men-at-arms were kneeling.

  Towbray chuckled. He watched her pass back, headed up the hill to the town on the crest.

  A rider dressed in Du Corse’s livery reined in. “My lord earl?” he asked. “Monsieur Du Corse asks your support in assaulting the village. Peek-ton,” he said, pointing up the hill. “He orders that you cover this side of the lane, and he’ll go up his side.”

  At the word orders, the earl frowned. But he thought a moment and nodded. “I agree.”

  The courier bowed and rode away, picking his way as best he could along the ploughed ground.

  “What orders, my lord?” Crowbeard asked.

  Towbray made a little motion with his eyebrows, almost lost in his bascinet, but Crowbeard had known him his whole life. “Monsieur Du Corse orders me to—how was it phrased? Cover? This side of the lane.” He nodded. “Alban—such a difficult language. Do you think we could cover our side from the little rise just here?”

  “You mean to leave Du Corse to his own devices and let him swing in the wind?” Crowbeard said.

  Towbray made a clucking sound with his tongue. “I mean that on the one hand, Kit, the newborn King of Alba rode along our ranks and I doubt there’s five lads out there with any heart for this fight—eh? And on the other, that Gallish prick had the nerve to give me—me orders.”

  “Might ha’ been any pretty wench wi’ some base-born bastard,” Crowbeard said, but his heart wasn’t in it.

  Towbray shrugged. “Let’s go and cover the hill,” he said. He sent a messenger to order the Harndon militia to go forward to the base of the first swell.

  Their dogged slowness made his men look positively eager for a fight.

  Gabriel handed the pennon back to Foliak and slapped his armoured back with his own gauntlet. “I’d never have believed it,” he said. He looked at Ser Francis, who was watching the Harndon militia through the hedge.

  “Some of them even cheered us,” said the Queen.

  The captain dismounted. “Every jack of you on this hedge,” he shouted. “Get up and go to the other side of the lane. Move. Move!”

  Archers like Three Legs grumbled at having to pick up all the arrows they’d stuck in the ground, but they moved. Pages shifted their horses. Dan Favour was back—one wave and a glance and the captain knew he’d passed the message.

  He looked at Francis Atcourt. “You and your lances and the Queen—that’s all I’m leaving on this side,” he said.

  Atcourt bowed.

  “Right,” Gabriel said. He ran, sabatons clicking and clanking, across to the lane. He peered down it, but there was no squadron of death-or-glory Gallish knights ready to crush his cat-and-clay plan.

  He left one page—the new man, Bill something, recruited that morning in the barnyard—to watch the road.

  “Call out if you see any men—mounted or on foot—in the lane. Do you understand me, Bill?”

  Bill looked terrified, but whether that was at the coming battle or the mere fact of conversing with a lord, Gabriel didn’t know.

  “You have a weapon?” he asked.

  “No, lord,” Bill said stolidly. “I had a spear, but it’s back wi’ the wagons, wherever they is.” He paused. “Awhich I’m Bob, not Bill. Bob Twill, that’s me.”

  Gabriel breathed out, a long and steadying exhalation. He unbuckled his arming sword and tossed it to Bob. “Don’t lose it, Bob,” he said.

  The former ploughman clutched it.

  Gabriel turned and ran for the other side of the hedgerow.

  He arrived at one of the many gaps to find that Du Corse had arrayed his men well—a solid line of horsemen, well spaced out to make worse targets, and behind them he’d dismounted two hundred men-at-arms in a body.

  Gabriel couldn’t wipe the grin off his face. His brother came and they knocked their armoured fists together.

  “Why are you so happy?” Gavin asked.

  Gabriel wanted to hug him. “Unless Towbray attacks this minute or Du Corse decides to be rash instead of professional,” he said, “we’re about to hand him his head.”

  “Suddenly you’re cocky,” Gavin said.

  “It’s the Queen,” Gabriel said. “Never mind. It’s everyone. But we’re going to pull this off. Listen up!” he roared, raising his voice. “Du Corse is going to roll up the hill and we’re going to beat him. The moment his men break—and trust me, lads and lasses, they’re going to break—we mount and follow them. See the road down there to the north where it enters the woods? Go to there. Rally there. Do not mess about. Ten minutes�
� hard fighting, and we ride free. I promise. You all hear me?”

  They shouted.

  “You see the King?” he asked them.

  He pointed down the hedge to where the Queen sat on her palfrey and the Royal Standard floated.

  They roared.

  Gavin laughed. “You are shameless, brother.”

  Gabriel smiled. “You know what?” he said. “We are going to rock de Vrailly back. And then we’re going to ride north and collect the rest of our forces.” He paused, watching Du Corse, who was giving a speech. “And then, by my powers, I’m going to show Master Thorn something.”

  The Galles gave a throaty roar.

  The horsemen put their beasts to the trot and then the canter. They had charged once, and they weren’t fresh, and they, too, were on their second or third fight in a few days. Many of their horses hadn’t recovered from a sea voyage. Those didn’t get past a trot.

  And when they passed Cully’s almost-invisible line of withies stuck into the ground, the arrows fell on them.

  Gabriel took a riding horse from Nell and rode back along the hedge to the Queen.

  Towbray’s men had come a third of the way up the hill. The militia hadn’t even come as far.

  “About time to go, your grace,” he said. He smiled at Amicia.

  She frowned. “You love war,” she said. She shook her head. “It’s an odd thing to love.”

  The Queen made a face. “I’m ready to go wherever you lead,” she said to her captain.

  He nodded at Ser Francis. “When we charge, follow us down,” he said. “We’ll cut our way out and ride for Lorica.”

  Ser Francis nodded. “What are the odds on my fief in Thrake?” he asked.

  “Not bad at all,” Gabriel answered. He trotted back to the hedge. All the archers were working as hard as men can work, their bodies straining into the big bows, their back muscles and arms doing a day’s work in a few minutes.

  Cully pulled a shaft to his ear and let it go.

  Flarch and Ricard Lantorn called out, almost together, “Twenty.” Most of the archers only had a hand of shafts in the ground at their feet along the gaps in the hedge, and maybe three more in their belts.