“Down! Stay down,” Madoc urged. “Be dead. The line’s well ahead now.” Shifting the branches that covered him, Madoc brought his lips close to Elisha’s ear. “Keep still a while, let us get on—you’ll hear the horsemen pass you, then do what you will.”
Shaking his head urgently, Elisha only made himself more dizzy, and his face fell again, the mud smearing his cheek where once an angel had touched him. Now the panic threatened to overwhelm him. He had to get up, somehow, to escape the ooze, even if he could not flee the rain.
Madoc had thrown them into the pit of a previous blast where water gathered that much more quickly. Elisha rolled over, shivering, his hands shaking so much he could barely turn them to his will. With elbows and flailing knees, he flung off the branches and scrambled uphill.
More debris rained down on him, more screams added to the din. He couldn’t see, his chilled hands couldn’t tell if he climbed on mud or stone or the ruins of the siege tower. Then they struck something warm.
Elisha let out a cry and collapsed again onto his belly, gathering the heat to him, the small warm body of the banner bearer.
Mastering his fear, Elisha held on to the warm, unconscious boy, feeling the life in him. His palms thawed with the sense of the boy’s faith, and his one-time eagerness for glory, for the admiration he had toward Madoc, and the fleeting heat of memories Elisha could not quite touch as they raced by.
Grudgingly, Death gave ground, retreating one terrible step at a time, withdrawing the freeze, then the pain, then the horrible sounds of men who could no longer speak.
Some time later, the earth trembled as the cavalry rode by, accompanied by shouts and the clanking of steel, sending a brief shower of mud down upon them, and a few more wails from the wounded, wails that shivered into Elisha’s heart.
At last, Elisha lay quiet. Rain washed away most of the mud clinging to him, but it was just rain, and the mud was only earth after all.
He took a deep breath, and let it out. His second breath went deeper yet, drawing in a sense of his own aches, and the burn on his chest soothed by the mud plastered against it. His third breath ruffled the curly locks of the boy who lay beside him. After a moment, Elisha reached out his hand to touch the boy’s throat. The pulse beat slow but steady. He inched himself up just a little. His arms still trembled. Elisha ran his hand gently over the boy’s arms and legs, finding no arrow strike or obvious wound. Carefully, he turned the face toward his own.
A reddened patch stood out in sharp relief on the lad’s temple, remnant of a heavy blow. Still, the skull beneath held no fracture. Even as Elisha smoothed back the hair to check the extent of the blow, the boy’s eyes flew open, and he flinched from the touch.
Immediately, the banner bearer started to rise, then slumped back, both hands at his head. “By the cross,” he muttered, blinking at Elisha.
“You’re all right,” Elisha told him, “but you’d better rest a bit to get your senses back.”
“I’ve got to find Madoc,” the boy said, trying to shake his head and giving up with a groan. With one hand, he groped across the mud until he found the pole and the banner lying beneath him. “Got to take them on.”
“Wait, wait,” Elisha murmured. “Like this, you’ll only blunder up and be killed.”
A pretty blare of horns sounded some way off, and the boy rolled himself over, his head swaying as he tried again to rise. “That’s the charge!”
Still shaky himself, Elisha caught his arm.
“Let me go, I’ll not go home to Mum and tell her I’ve spent the battle lying in a pit.”
“Lad,” Elisha said, “You saved my life; let that content you until your head clears at least.”
Turning wide dark eyes on him—the pupils two different sizes—the boy breathed, “Me? I don’t remember that.”
Elisha smiled faintly. “Take my word for it, if not for you, I’d be a dead man.”
Sinking back to the earth, the boy grinned. “That means every life you save here on out is due to me.”
Laughing, Elisha tested his left arm, finding it adequate, if still throbbing. “Yes, my boy, it’s true.”
“Well, I’d better rest up for my next feat.” He drew one arm up over his face as his eyes slid shut, the concussion overcoming him once more.
“I’ll come check on you,” Elisha murmured, then he raised his head.
At the bottom of the pit below, three men lay in the mud. Two had their eyes wide in that unblinking astonishment of death, but the third moaned, hand scraping feebly at the earth.
Shimmying back down the slope, Elisha retrieved Collum’s kitchen knife—it might yet come in handy—and tucked it at the back of his belt. He shifted his emergency pouch to the side and crept over to the wounded man. Heaving aside one of the corpses, he quickly saw the twist of the wounded man’s arm at his back and the blood seeping through his hair.
“I’m the barber,” he whispered to the man’s ear, and the eyes fluttered open, a trace of a smile touched the soldier’s lips. “Good. You’ve got a break in your arm, it doesn’t look bad, but it’ll hurt when I set it, hear me?”
As he spoke, his strong fingers searched out the break, judging where to hold, where to press just so. Relief welled up in him; watching the shaking of his hands, he had thought of his boast to the physician. His hands were the only thing he had faith in, and they had looked to fail him not so long ago. Now, the power returned, if a little slower than he would like.
Carefully, he placed his hands and eased the shifted bone back into place. He tore the sleeve from one of the corpses, the worn fabric washed by the rain until it was nearly as clean as any bandage back at the hospital. With the break bound, he probed the back of the man’s head, finding a small scalp wound, bloody, but not serious.
Withdrawing, he inched over to lie face to face with the soldier. “You’re fine, but lie still. There’s a cut at the back which should give up bleeding soon.”
“Thanks,” the soldier said.
Nodding his acknowledgement, Elisha crept on past, climbing the opposite bank on his stomach to get a view of the battlefield. Elisha pushed his hair back from his face, spending a minute to bundle it all together again. Ahead, and nearer than he’d ever seen it, stood the duke’s castle.
As he watched, he heard the bombards blast, but on the far side. One of the tree-topped hills beyond the castle trembled, then slipped from view in a cloud of dust, quickly dissipated by the rain. The ground shook as from an earthquake and finally lay still again. Elisha brushed raindrops from his face, staring at the place where the vanished hill once was. On the tall castle towers, storm winds shook bold pennants like taunting tongues.
Between there and the bulk of the last siege tower, the battle raged. Men on foot and horseback crossed swords with a ringing of steel. Banners waved and fell and were taken up again by other hands. Shouts and cheers warred with the cries of the fallen, but Elisha had taken back his touch and heard only as a man should, and no more. Behind him, a patch of ruined earth showed the reach of the bombards’ blast, but there were few bodies, and Elisha let the glow return, that euphoria tingling inside him. Few bodies because the arrows never struck another man. The archers must have stopped shooting, whether from superstitious awe or by order of some worried superior. Beyond that, arrows sprouted from the ground and from the distant soldiers like unholy saplings, and Elisha’s glow faded. If he had only done it sooner. But it was the living that must concern him, and he turned his attention again toward the battle. Those behind had lain long enough that either they were dead, or they had bound up their own injuries with whatever came to hand. The ones ahead still had need of him.
Keeping his head low in case of stray arrows or bombards, and to keep from the sight of the captains who watched for shirkers, Elisha wriggled along until he came to the nearest man who showed any life. This one had a nasty gash down one side from the splintering of the siege tower, and Elisha freed a few shards of wood before binding his ribs tight with a d
ead man’s tunic.
As he went on, checking pulses, setting breaks, and stitching the wounds he deemed most in need, Elisha took up whatever came to hand to bind them. Some soldiers sported bandages torn from their captains’ banners, while others made do with the tunics of the dead. Many would have to wait for more serious care at the hospital; these he wrapped with tourniquets and bandages of their companions’ belts and baldrics. Here on the field, he treated lords and soldiers alike, any who might be too hurt to last until the hold was called. He wielded the kitchen knife against his private foes, cutting out arrows, spearpoints and shafts of wood. He hoped, even here, he could make Ruari’s task a little easier. Once in a while, he looked up to check his progress. He tried to work his way across the field, back toward the river, without getting close to the battle.
After a few hours of this, his throat began to itch, and he realized he had been humming. The wounded groaned or wailed or cursed him as he worked, and the humming started up as it always did. As he broke off, taking a drink from the rainwater collecting in a fallen shield, Elisha heard a voice call out not far off, a shout of pain and helplessness.
Taking another quick swallow, Elisha set out again, crawling around the corpses when he could avoid them, or treading gently when he could not.
“God help me, it hurts!” the victim screamed to the leaden sky.
Elisha risked raising his head, spotting the writhing figure just to the left. Angling that way, he quickly reached him, lifting his head again to survey the man’s wounds.
The wounded man wore a breastplate of steel, embossed with a pattern of animals most likely related to his coat of arms. If Elisha paid more attention to such nonsense, he might even be able to put a name to the man. It was enough to see that one of the buckles of his armor had ripped loose, leaving a gap by his left arm. From the gap thrust a crossbow bolt at a wicked angle, little of the short shaft emerging.
Blood soaked the man’s cotton padding and ran down his pale throat, which worked to swallow his pain. The strap of a skewed helmet cut across his cheek.
Wetting his lips, Elisha reached out and touched the man’s face.
His head whipped around to stare at Elisha, the white showing at his eyes. “Who are you? What do you want?”
“I’m the barber—I want to help you,” Elisha said. He brought his other hand around and freed the buckle to draw off the man’s helmet.
Settling his head back with a little moan, the noble maintained his frightened gaze. “What’ll you do? I’m for the Lord now,” he gasped. His body quaked with the shock and pain as he crept a hand up his chest.
Darting a glance toward the moving hand, Elisha saw the flash of the dagger in its grasp.
Biting back a curse, he shot out his arm as the blow came. Elisha grabbed the man’s wrist, his fingers slipping on the metal bracers. Still, he managed to shake free the blade and sent it tumbling away among the dead.
Frustration knotting his brow, the noble struggled, trying to reach Elisha’s face.
“Stop it,” Elisha said through gritted teeth. “Just stop it and let me help.” His own strength hadn’t fully returned, what with the force of his casting and the damage of Matthew’s iron.
Side by side they lay, locked in this one-armed battle until the nobleman’s desperation was spent, and he let his arm fall back, panting with the effort it had cost him.
“That’s better. I’d advise you to keep as still as you can, if this arrow burrows any farther, you’re a dead man, hear me?”
With a whimper and a flash of those agonized eyes, the man nodded.
“I’m taking off your armor,” Elisha warned, as he fumbled with the clasps he could reach. He guided the breastplate around the shaft and flung it to the other side, leaving the man’s padded chest heaving and exposed.
Reaching for the handle of the kitchen knife, Elisha paused. “I’m bringing out a knife, but it’s not for you.”
The lord flinched as the blade came between them. He shut his eyes, screwing up his courage for a killing blow, his lips twitching in the Lord’s Prayer.
Elisha pulled up a bit of cloth around the wound and cut through, swiftly shearing away the padding, as well as the linen shirt beneath. This done, he replaced the knife. Gently, he snuck his fingers under the layers, against the warm flesh.
With a sharp breath, the lord popped his eyes open, swiveling his head to frown at Elisha.
“Didn’t I tell you I’m not going to kill you? Good God,” Elisha muttered. His palm lay flat over the man’s heartbeat. He flicked his eyes to the man’s face, gratified that the eyes which met his looked more brown than white by now, as the fear left him. Elisha smiled.
Placing his right hand around the shaft to steady it, he instructed, “Take a breath, deep as you can.”
The man whimpered as he did, but the arrow didn’t move any more than expected. Good. Shifting to lean over the nobleman, Elisha wrapped his left arm underneath, lifting him up just enough to creep his right hand along the man’s back. No exit wound; judging by the angle, the arrow was likely lodged against the shoulder blade, and too much movement could well force it back to the vital organs.
Now to stabilize it until a small knife could be found to get it out. The awkward kitchen knife couldn’t handle such delicate work, and the little knife in his emergency kit would never do. Horses whinnied nearby, probably roaming the field riderless, the sound at odds with the moans of the men who still needed his attention. Elisha brought his head up to search the noble’s person and those around him. He needed a long strip, or something which might be knotted together to anchor the shaft.
Nothing struck him as readily useful, and he was out of bandages in his own little stock. Then he remembered Martin Draper’s queer gift, the long bit of cloth he carried coiled up in his kit.
Elisha hesitated, then fished it out. It was not his only talisman, and it might well save this man’s life, depending on how gently he was brought from the field. He could send to Ruari for his chest. If he made it off this field himself.
The man’s head lolled as he lapsed into unconsciousness. Carefully, Elisha began his wrappings, tying off the shaft and binding the man’s arm so he wasn’t tempted to flap it around. He’d just brought the end around again when he was jerked back by the hair.
Letting go the cloth, Elisha grabbed at the hand that held him. Then two and a half feet of steel flashed before his gaze, and the sword swung up beneath his chin.
Chapter 25
Pulled backward as he staggered to his feet, Elisha held his breath, trying to lift his throat away from the edge.
“Teach you to loot from the Earl of Blackmere,” muttered the voice against his ear. “Like to slash your guts and leave you to the crows, so help me, if I’d not get your cursed blood upon him.”
Before him, three men dismounted their horses, tossing the reins to a few already on foot. The smaller of the three led them, a paunchy man in battleworn mail, who dropped to his knees at the side of Elisha’s patient. “Praise the Lord—he’s alive!”
A fourth man stood a little back, steadying a blackened bronze tube on the end of a wooden shaft. With a sickening jolt, Elisha realized this was a bombardelle, its deadly shot aimed at his heart.
“Get back inside, your Grace—it’s not safe out here,” Elisha’s captor urged the paunchy man.
“I saw Phillip go down,” the man replied. “The least I could do for him is to attend his body.”
“This bloody murderer would’ve hacked him with a kitchen knife!”
His head jerked back again, his hair yanked tight to stretch his neck over the man’s shoulder. Time for that haircut, Elisha thought distantly. He wrapped his right hand around the mailed fist which held the sword, but he was no match for its iron will. Between gasps of breath, he swallowed, his feet finding a bit of ground at last.
“His armor’s off,” a different voice remarked, “and his dagger taken.”
“Let’s execute the bastard and hav
e done,” someone advised. “At this range I could blast a hole in him the size of his head. Once my lord Robert steps aside, of course.”
“Still more certain with the sword,” replied the man at his back—presumably Lord Robert. The blade snicked the skin along Elisha’s jaw, and he grappled with the implacable hand, even as the grip made the subtle shift to kill him.
“Hold,” another voice commanded, stern and striking.
“Blast it,” muttered Elisha’s assailant. “Your Grace, this is no time for mercy.”
“Bring him here, Robert, and gently, if you please.”
Stumbling, Elisha was dragged on and thrust to his knees before the horsemen. “Hands on your head.” His captor briefly removed the sword to enable this action.
“Don’t move him,” Elisha called in his momentary reprieve.
The sword drew a stinging line of blood across his stomach, and Elisha cried out, stifling the sound as the sword leapt back to his throat. The barrel of the bombardelle thrust nearer as well, searing his nose and throat with the scent of death.
“Now, really, Robert,” chided the shorter man, looking up at Elisha’s cry. He knelt at the wounded man’s head, examining the protruding shaft. His round face creased with concern, and he stripped off his gauntlet. “Don’t move him,” he muttered, echoing Elisha’s admonition. With careful fingers, he lifted the trailing end of the strip binding the wound. “What’s this?”
Elisha’s throat moved against the blade, but he couldn’t draw breath to speak. His arms trembled, his hands clamped to his head as ordered.
Cocking his head with a weary sigh, the man said, “Robert, it’s all well and good your wish to defend me, but let the man speak, would you?”
The sword wavered and withdrew to hover just a few inches away, easy striking range.
“The shaft struck against his shoulder blade in back.” Elisha spoke quickly, his words tumbling in a desperate rush. Whoever he was, this man held power over his life. “If he moves much, it might harm the lungs or heart. I tied off the shaft to steady it. You’ll need a narrow blade to slide along it and back it out.” His chest heaved, the taut skin of his brand aching as he drew a few breaths, watching his questioner.
Elisha Barber: Book One Of The Dark Apostle Page 22