by Jack Whyte
I did not lose consciousness, but every bit of wind was driven from my body as I hit the ground. I was incapable of moving for some time, my chest and throat a mass of agony. There was noise everywhere, all around me, and then I felt hands pulling at me, raising me up, and I gasped for breath. Donuil hauled me to my feet, his fingers hooked inside the armholes of my cuirass, and I saw his eyes peering, wide and anxious, into my own. He shouted at me, asking if I could move, and I nodded and pushed him weakly away, but he hung on to me and half dragged me to where my horse stood, snorting and rolling his eyes, held firmly by one of our young troopers. Donuil cupped his hands and hoisted me back up into my saddle. As I hung there, still fighting for breath, I saw Tressa and Shelagh, both mounted, sitting their horses tensely, staring at me and obviously waiting to move again. I looked down at Donuil, who was pulling himself back into his own saddle.
"Where's Ded?" I thought this was a shout, but it emerged as no more than a pain filled, choking wheeze.
"He's dead, Cay, " Donuil shouted back. "They're all dead, all of them who rode into the rope. Now move, or we'll be joining them!"
He pulled his horse in, close to my right side, while Benedict flanked me equally closely on the left, and we began to move again, gathering speed quickly until we were riding at full gallop. As we went, my breathing became easier, and soon I nodded and shouted to my two escorts, letting them know that I could now control myself and my big horse. They nodded and edged away from me, and after a short ; time I was able to look around me again. Our party had shrunk by half, perhaps more.
Donuil knew what I was thinking. He leaned closer to me and shouted again, his voice interrupted by the wind roaring through the ear flaps of my helmet:"... don't know who those people... too many of them to light... lucky to break through them... lucky to stay ahead of them. Most of them were afoot, but... horses ... don't know how many... won't be far behind us, though, if they're coming at all... best keep moving... outrun them."
Some time after that, the ground began to rise more and more steeply beneath us and our horses started to flag. Germanicus was foaming at the mouth, and I knew he was close to foundering. Then we came to a spot where the steep pathway levelled out for a stretch, and on an impulse I drew rein, calling to the others to halt, and turned to look back the way we had come. This spot would be defensible, I thought, for the crest of the rise was almost a straight edge and beneath it was a fringe of low, thick bushes. Anyone coming up towards us would be totally exposed, while we might remain concealed.
I jumped down immediately and untied the bindings that held Publius Varrus's great bow in place beneath the flaps of my saddle, calling to one of the troopers to unlash the quiver from the other side and bring it to me. As he did so, I fumbled in my scrip for a bowstring and made the weapon ready, shouting to Donuil to organize the others and change the saddles from the horses we had been riding to the spare animals. Somehow, we had come through that running fight with almost all our spare mounts. They had been roped together in four groups, and we still had three of those with us. As that work progressed, I stood on guard, an arrow nocked and ready to draw at the first sign of movement on the slope beneath. Behind me, Tress finished transferring her saddle to her spare mount, then set about tending to Germanicus, but Donuil relieved her of that task and finished it.
For half an hour I stood there on guard, while my people and their horses caught their breath and regained their strength. Towards the end of it I started looking at the skies again, where the heavy, sullen, strangely coloured clouds were still boiling. Someone behind me cursed, briefly and viciously, but when I spun to ask what was wrong he merely held out his hand, palm upwards. It was starting to rain again.
Below me, on the flank of the hill, I heard a dull, scrabbling sound and a muffled curse. I jerked my arm up, warning the others, and then scanned the trees below. As I did so, four running men emerged, one of them limping, running like a crab and scrubbing at the fresh mud that caked his right knee. They were all peering upwards towards where I stood, but there was no focus to their attention, and I realized they had not seen me. I was still concealed from them by the brow of the slope and the low screen of bushes just below it, and from the way they ran, dogged and silent but showing no sign of caution, it was evident that they did not expect to find us there so close. Five more men followed them, and now I could hear the sounds of others farther back among the trees.
I had twenty three arrows in my quiver and one nocked to my bowstring. I pulled and loosed almost without aiming, bringing the leading man down in midstride, the force of the arrow knocking him over backwards. I immediately loosed another missile, then a third, and two more men went down. A chorus of howls and shouts broke out momentarily, and then all sound and movement ceased, except for the writhings of the third man I had shot. I ignored him, putting aside the temptation to waste another arrow, and scanned the greenery below. The fourth man had thrown himself down behind a hummock of grass, and I could see one of his legs projecting into the open. '
It was raining heavily again, and the noise of the rain! hammering on leaves drowned all other sounds from below. Behind me, however, I could hear the sounds of my people ! mounting and preparing to leave. I was taking careful aim; at the exposed leg when Donuil appeared at the edge of my vision. I turned my head slightly to look at him and as I did! so, all the world exploded in a blinding flash of blue-white light and sizzling heat that sent both of us reeling backwards, away from the lip of the crest. As quickly as it had! come, the light vanished, and I was blind, blinking my eyes uselessly in panic with the stink of something alien in my nostrils. I heard people and horses screaming in the blackness all around me, and then my vision started to come back to me, imperfectly, marred by glaring spots of brightness that shut much from my sight. Staggering with nausea, I ran back to the edge of the path and looked down again, still blinking wildly, and saw movement beneath me on the slope. Nothing at which I looked directly was visible to me, but I could see men rushing on both sides, as though around a hole in my sight. My mind told me that a lightning bolt had struck beside us, and it told me in the same flash that the men below, further away from it, had not been affected! as I had, and that they were now swarming up the hillside.
I nocked another arrow, made out a target on my left, then swung towards the running shape and fired, but as soon as I did so, I lost sight of both target and arrow and had no idea
of whether I had hit or not. Undeterred, and feeling a snake of fear biting at my entrails, I repeated the manoeuvre, this time spinning to my right and loosing at a half seen shape; this one went down, spinning to fall among long grass. More than half blind I might be, but the attackers had no way of knowing that, and once again they dropped to the ground. Still, I saw movement among the growth, far on my right, too far away and too indistinct to offer a target. I knew what the movement represented, though: people moving uphill to outflank us. I shot two more arrows into the area directly ahead of me, pulling the bowstring back to my ear each time. The blind spot before my eyes was diminishing.
It was then I saw a most amazing, overwhelming thing. The very surface of the trees below me seemed to bend and flex, as though pressed flat by some enormous, unseen hand. Everything in my sight faded almost instantly to an impenetrable greyness and was lost in a swelling roar of deafening sound. I barely had time to marvel, for almost instantly that alien force came beating down on me. It was a hailstorm, massive and elemental, and the sheer fury of the onslaught hammered me to my hands and knees. The noise against my metal helmet was appalling and the weight of hailstones beating at me was insupportable. I allowed myself to fall face down, abandoning my weapons and rolling my body up into a ball. Every exposed portion of my skin was a mass of sharp, stinging pains and I wondered if I might die there, battered to death by ancient forest gods. But then the force of the storm abated slightly, and I opened my eyes.
Donuil was riding towards me, bent forward from his saddle, his right arm outstr
etched to seize me. I uncurled my body and pushed myself erect, grasping my long bow in my left hand and reaching upward with my right, aware as I did so that I clutched a single hailstone the size of a .: horse turd. I dropped it and bent my arm, locking elbows with Donuil as he galloped by and leaping upwards as he swung me across his horse's rump. It was a trick we hadpracticed a hundred times. I clung to the back of his saddle as he turned, just short of the path's lip, and headed back towards the others. I leaped down and pulled myself up into my own saddle, fighting my horse as it struggled and reared away from me, maddened by the pulverizing hail. I managed to mount, eventually, and to bring my horse under a degree of control, and then we were moving again, seeking shelter that was nowhere to be found. Even among the trees there was no respite, for the hailstorm had stripped the leaves from the thick canopy above. And then, as suddenly as it had begun, the deluge of ice ended and a profound silence settled everywhere.
None of us moved in that silence, not even our horses, as though all of us were afraid to stir lest the gods of the storm detect our movement and unleash the ice again. But the silence held, and grew, and we began to accept that it was over. I twisted in my saddle and looked about me, gratefully conscious that my sight had fully returned. All the land about us was carpeted with solid ice and slush. I pulled myself together and kicked my horse into motion again,' beginning to feel the smarting ache of the pounding my body had taken, and the others moved with me, gathering themselves and moving slowly towards the path again. Only twelve of us remained: Benedict was there, and young Bedwyr, who looked exhausted and far older than his years, Shelagh and Tress and Donuil, and six troopers. Germanicus, my black, was still with us, though he had lost his saddlebags, and beyond him I could see the other spare horses, more than half a score.
An arrow shot close by my face and glanced harmlessly off the cuirass of the man ahead of me, startling us all and reminding us abruptly and frighteningly that we had enemies in close pursuit. I raised my bow and reached behind my shoulder for an arrow, only to discover that I had none. I had lost the entire quiver somewhere below, most probably when Donuil had snatched me from the ground. I waved everyone forward and we rode again, spurring our mounts and cursing loudly as we tackled the steep slope above us, all of us painfully aware of the ice beneath our animals' hooves. Mere moments later, the rain came back, lancing down heavily through the fading light of the late afternoon and cutting visibility to where we could barely see the rider ahead of us. The cursing grew louder, but we took some comfort in knowing the enemy were all afoot and must be suffering even more than we were.
The pathway grew rapidly steeper and narrower, slippery and treacherous underfoot. It swung around to the left, where we found ourselves on an exposed slope, with a steep cliff above us and a yawning chasm falling away on our right. Far out, above the mist shrouded valley below, a jagged fork of lightning flashed and was mirrored instantaneously by a much closer one. Shelagh rode directly ahead of me now, and in front of her several of the spare horses followed three troopers, who rode directly behind Donuil. Beyond Donuil I could see Benedict's red crested helmet and in front of him rode Tress, with another trooper on her left. Another arrow fell in front of me, wobbling spent and harmless. I turned in my saddle to look back, but there was nothing there to see. I felt sure that this was a parting shot, a last, defiant arrow. We had beaten our pursuers.
It was then that my horse reared, whinnying in panic. Ahead, I saw one of our horses, its legs kicking wildly as it fell from the pathway into the void beneath. The scene ahead of me was terror and madness, a mass of rearing, plunging animals and milling arms. A second horse went over the edge, a rider clinging to its back, and I saw another flailing human form plummeting down.
Directly in front of me, Shelagh's horse slipped and fell, sliding backwards into my mount and kicking the legs from beneath him. As he went down, I threw myself from the saddle, sideways, to my left. Shelagh landed flat on her back in front of me. I heard a splintering crack as I fell sprawling and felt something give, sickeningly, beneath me. Stunned, I waited for the pain that must surely accompany such a sound, but I felt nothing other than the solidness of the ice covered earth. I looked down then, and saw that the noise had been the splintering of my bow, the mighty and ancient Varrus longbow, which now lay broken and useless beneath me. In a curious condition of mindlessness, I stared at it, thinking that this weapon had been more than a hundred years old, cared for by generations of proud owners, and now it was shattered and dead.
I snapped back to awareness. People had fallen! I scrambled to my feet and saw that Shelagh had not moved; she lay with her arms and legs sprawled wide. In that same glance, I saw someone else, on the far side of the path—a helmet and shoulders, hands clutching at the icy edge of the pathway and huge eyes peering terror stricken into mine. I threw myself forward in a dive, reaching for those arms, but they fell away before I could grasp them. I landed face down on the ice and slid forward on my metal cuirass, head first, over the edge. I twisted violently, reaching frantically for a handhold, and fell, only to find myself arrested and dangling by one leg, upside down over the abyss.
I have no knowledge of how long I hung there, but I remember some of the thoughts that went through my head. I knew that I was hanging suspended by one of the metal greaves I wore on my legs. It had evidently snagged on some protrusion, perhaps a sapling or a root. Only two thin leather straps secured that greave against my leg. If either of them broke, the other would snap, too, and I would fall head first. I knew that my sword was still safely at my back, for as I fell it had slipped freely through the metal ring between my shoulders, and its cross guard had lodged beneath the neck flap of my helmet. I could feel the weight of it, pressing against my helmet and pushing it forward onto my brow, forcing my chinstrap hard against my jaws to choke me. Someone far below me was moaning in agony, and lightning still flickered in the darkening sky, setting thunder rolling in great, crashing, concussive waves. And the rain still poured.
It was Benedict who found me. I heard his voice above my head, calling my name and warning me not to try to move. I tried to answer him, but my helmet's strap had jammed my mouth tightly shut. Some time passed, and then I heard sounds of movement, and two men came down to where I hung, lowering themselves on lengths of rope, Benedict and a trooper called Marco. Marco held an additional length of rope, and once he had anchored himself securely he passed it carefully around my shoulders to Benedict on my other side. I felt them cinch it tightly, securing my sheathed sword against my back in the process, and then Benedict held on to me while Marco reached above and cut the straps that held my greave in place. I fell free, safe in Benedict's grasp, and found myself facing the cliff face, solidly supported by the rope. Benedict told me to hang on, then both of them swarmed back up to the path and began to raise me to safety. I was grateful and unsurprised as I arrived at the top to see Donuil standing there above me, his giant body braced on thick muscled legs as he hauled me upward, hand over hand, while the other two stood watching anxiously.
My legs would not support me when I reached the path above, and Benedict had to untie the rope about my chest. Donuil had returned to kneel over Shelagh, who was propped against the wall of the cliff face, her eyes open but staring vacantly. I asked if she was well, and he nodded, his eyes huge and wide. I looked about me then. Benedict and Marco were close by and I could see two other men working with the horses some distance above.
"Where's Tress?" Even as I asked, I knew the answer, and Benedict lowered his head.
"She's gone, Cay. Her horse took her over the edge."
I felt nothing, except an enormous lassitude that settled over me like a cloud of fog.
"What happened, Ben?"
He drew a long, deep breath. "It was a wildcat."
"What?"
"A wildcat, or some such animal. It must have been crazed by the storm. I saw it leaping from the cliff face above us, and then it landed on a horse's neck and all the world we
nt mad. I saw it happen and there was nothing I could do. The animal it landed on spun around screaming, rearing and kicking the horse behind it, which tried to do the same but fell and slid back down the hill into the animals behind. Once that had begun, it was chaos. I saw Tressa's mount rearing and circling on its hind legs while she stood in the stirrups trying to pull it down, and then one ' of its hooves slipped off the edge and they went over. My own horse fell sideways, the other way, pinning me against the wall, and I was stuck there until it got to its feet again.
Donuil leaped off his horse and managed to avoid being crushed. Marco and Rufus went down, too, but they were fortunate and landed between horses. Bello, who's working with Rufus, fared similarly. Shelagh was thrown safely, though she took a hard, hard fall, and you went over the edge. I didn't see you go. I thought you were dead with the others. Thank God we looked for you. "
I remembered the moans I had heard coming from beneath me. "Someone's alive down there, " I said.
"Aye, we know. We heard him, but we can't see where he is. "
"It might be her—it might be Tress, Ben. "
He grimaced. "I doubt it, Cay. Tress went over with her horse, much farther up the track, and the sounds I heard were made by a man, I think. "
I struggled to rise to my feet and fell back. "We have to look. We have ropes. We'll climb down. "
"Merlyn, we can't. It's too dark now, too dangerous. There are only seven of us left, and we're all frozen and exhausted. If we go clambering down there in the darkness, we could all be killed. We'll have to wait till morning. "
"By morning they might all be dead. "
"I know. But there's no other possibility. "
Again I gathered myself and attempted to rise, and this time I made it to my feet, but when I took my first step my right leg, the one from which I had hung for so long, folded uselessly beneath me and Benedict barely managed to catch me as I fell headlong. My face hit his cuirass, then all the world went black.