by Robert Adams
The combined impetus of mule and horse lifted the pierced man shrieking from his saddle, and his horse ran from under him, dropping him to the roadway. The shock of the unexpected impalement almost drove Geros over his own cantle; only his fear-locked thighs retained him his seat. Unable to release his grip on the spearshaft, he thought his shoulder must be disjointed, in the split second before the blood-slimed blade came free of its lodging with a sucking sound.
The two footmen just stood in the road, their weapons dangling beside them, shocked beyond words at what they had witnessed. Secret drills in benighted meadows and brave words spoken in the dark were one thing, but coughing up your lifeblood on a moonlit roadway was something entirely different! They still had not ordered their benumbed brains sufficiently to run, when Geros was on them.
The big mule's shoulder struck the foremost, sprawling him backward, directly in the animal's path. The last thing he ever saw was the immense, looming hoof that shattered his face and crushed his skull.
The second man stood on Geros' right. Clumsily, he brought up his old sword, wishing less to fight than simply to fend off that horrible spear, already wetly gleaming with his friend's blood. Again swinging two-handed, Geros' spearshaft again missed its target . . . but the tip of the knife-edged blade connected. The footman dropped his sword and clutched at his slashed throat, his last screams bubbling out his severed windpipe.
Reins flying free, its rider in a state of shock, the mule pounded into the bright-lit courtyard and would probably have kept going until it struck a wall, had not one of Komees Djeen's troopers run and leaped to grasp the curb chain and halt the beast. Geros let go the spear and slid from the mule's back, but had to clutch tightly at the saddle when his legs refused to support him.
Komees Djeen crossed from the hall at a limping run. He was encased in a suit of plate, a golden cat crouched atop his helm and another enameled on the wide baldric supporting his heavy broadsword. His gauntleted hand crushingly gripped Geros' trembling shoulder.
"What is it, man? What has happened? Dammit, speak!"
But the trooper who had stopped the mule spoke first. "He's been fighting, My Lord Count. Look at this spear, there's fresh blood half down the shaft."
"Brandy!" The old man snapped over his shoulder, to no one in particular. Then turning back to Geros, his tone became solicitous. "Had to fight your way through them, did you, comrade? I must confess I misjudged you earlier, thought you a man of no mettle. Glad to see I was wrong."
"It requires a high degree of courage to do what you did, lad—ride off alone, though hostile forces, to fetch succor for your comrades. I always feel privileged to meet men of your rare kind. The Confederation never has enough of you."
Had Geros been able to let go his hold on the saddle, he would have pinched himself. He was certain that he must be dreaming. Such accolade for Geros-the-coward, from so great and famous a noble warrior, must surely be a dream. He opened his mouth, tried hard to speak, but his still-constricted and brick-dry throat emitted only a croak.
"No, no, comrade," Komees Djeen gently patted his shoulder. "Don't try to talk 'til you've had of your tipple."
As soon as he had recovered from the coughing fit engendered by the strong, hastily gulped brandy, Geros gasped out his message, and the courtyard began to buzz like an overturned beehive. Already saddled horses were led out and the girths tightened, bows strung, weapons hefted, and last-minute adjustments made to belts, stirrups, and armor.
Shortly, Komees Djeen's small command galloped out of the gate. Intensive search had failed to find any of Komees Hari's servants, so there were but nineteen riders in the column—the four noblemen, the orderlies of Djeen and Vaskos, Drehkos's body servant, and his big, mountain-barbarian bodyguard, ten scale-shirted Freefighters . . . and Geros.
"We'll surely need every fighter, comrade," Komees Djeen had declared, while two troopers buckled Geros' cuirass, draped a baldric over his shoulder, and handed him a fresh spear. "Especially a gutsy man like you. Were you a soldier, I'd see you wear a Cat for this night's work!"
6
Bili mindspoke Mahvros, "Faster, brother! Be ready to fight."
The huge, black horse quickened his gait and beamed his approval, one of his principal joys being the stamping of the life from anything that got in his way. Raising his head, he voiced a shrill, equine challenge, then bore down on his promised victims.
One man and horse went down in a squealing, screaming, hoof-flailing tangle, while Bili took a ringing sword cut on the side of his helm in passing. Still shrilling his challenge, Mahvros came to a rearing halt, pivoted, and returned to savage the downed horse and rider, while Bili axed the other man out of the saddle with a single, businesslike stroke. The stallion was able to experience the brief elation of feeling man-ribs splinter under his hooves, before Bili urged him back toward the bridge.
Scores of hooves were pounding close behind him, when he cleared the last of the trees to see Ahndee and Klairuhnz, their blades gleaming, sitting their mounts knee-to-knee, a few paces onto the span. Three yards behind them, the trooper had uncased and strung his short bow, nocked an arrow, and calmly awaited the appearance of a target.
"Bili!" shouted Ahndee exuberantly. "Sun and Wind be thanked! We'd thought you slain." He started to back his gelding, that Bili might have his place.
But Bili signed him to stay, positioning Mahvros a little ahead of the others. "This will be better," he stated shortly, not seeing the smile they exchanged at his automatic assumption of command.
The trooper proved himself an expert archer, putting his shaft cleanly into the eye of the first pursuer to gallop out of the forest. His second arrow pinned an unarmored thigh to a saddletree. He nocked a third, drew . . . and his bowstring snapped! Cursing sulfurously in several languages, he cast away the now-useless hornbow, drew his saber, and ranged up close behind Ahndee.
The next four attackers took a brief moment to form up, then launched a charge, apparently expecting their prey to remain in place and wait their pleasure. They did not live long enough to recover from the countercharge!
The leading attacker held up his shield to fend off Bili's axe, while he aimed a hacking cut at Mahvros' thick neck. The stout target crumpled like wet paper and the axe-blade bit completely through, deep into the arm beneath, the force of the buffet hurling the man down to a singularly messy death, amid the stamping hooves.
Mahvros roughly shouldered the riderless horse aside, while Bili glanced around, seeking another opponent. At that very moment Ahndee was thrusting the watered-steel blade of his broadsword deep into the vitals of his adversary and Klairuhnz was obviously more than a match for his shaggy opponent. But the Freefighter had troubles aplenty. First his bowstring, and now his saber had broken, leaving him but a bare foot of pointless blade. With this stub, he was fighting a desperate defensive action.
In one mighty leap, Mahvros was alongside the ruffian's mount. Shortening his grip on his axe, Bili jammed the spike into a side made vulnerable by a wide gap between the breast and back plates of an ill-fitting cuirass. Shrieking a curse, the mortally wounded man turned in his saddle to rain a swift succession of sword cuts on Bili's helm and shoulders. While the Pitzburk turned every blow, Bili was unable to retaliate, his axe being almost useless at such breast-to-breast encounters.
Unexpectedly, the man hunched and began to gag and retch, spewing up quantities of frothy-pink blood. At this, the Freefighter reined closer, used his piece of saber to slash the dying man's sword knot, then neatly decapitated the brigand with his own antique blade.
They had almost regained the bridge when the van of the main force caught up to them. First to fall was the rearmed Freefighter, his scale-shirt unable to protect his back from a nail-studded club.
Bili's better armor turned a determined spear thrust, before he axed an arm from his spearman. Then he turned Mahvros and, straightening his arms, swung his bloody axe in several wide arcs before him. He struck nothing, but did achie
ve the desired effect of momentarily halting most of the oncoming force and granting Ahndee and Klairuhnz a few precious moments to regain the bridge.
Bili failed to see the man who galloped in from his left, but Mahvros did not.
With the speed of a striking serpent, he swung about and sank his big teeth into the flesh of the smaller horse. The little mare was not a warhorse, and she had no slightest intention of remaining in proximity to a huge, maddened stallion. Taking the bit firmly in her teeth, she raced back into the forest, bearing her shouting, cursing, rein-sawing rider only as far as the low-hanging branch, which swept him from her back and stretched him senseless on the sward.
Mahvros' forehooves were already booming on the bridge timbers when a hard-flung throwing axe caromed off Bili's helm, nearly deafening him and filling his head with a tight red-blackness shot with dazzling-white stars. Only instinct kept him in the saddle; Mahvros, well-trained and intelligent animal that he was, continued on to the proper place, then wheeled about just ahead of Ahndee and Klairuhnz.
Reaching forward, Ahndee grabbed Bili's limp arm and shook him. "Are you all right, Bili? Are you hurt?" he shouted anxiously.
Then he turned to Klairuhnz. "Your help, my Lord, he's all but unconscious. Let's get him behind us, ere those bastards cut him down."
Bili could hear all and could feel movements on either side of him, but neither his lips nor his limbs would obey him. Fuzzily, he pondered on why Vahrohneeskos Ahndee would have addressed a mere roving bard as his lord.
Holding at the bridge where a flank attack was impossible had been a good idea. The blades of Ahndee and Klairuhnz wove a deadly pattern, effectively barring their foemen access to the dazed and helpless Bili, now drooping in his saddle. Thanks to the narrowness of the span, only two men at a time could attack the defenders, thus nullifying their numerical superiority. On a man-to-man basis, the ill-armed crew were no match for experienced warriors. The length of the bridge, from the forest side to the center, was soon gore-slimed and littered with dropped weapons and hacked, hoof-marked corpses.
But the repeated assaults had taken other toll. Ahndee sat in agony, his left arm uselessly dangling at his side. He had used its armored surface to ward off a direct blow from a huge and weighty club, while he slashed the clubman's unprotected throat. He was certain that the concussion of that blow had broken the arm. Klairuhnz's horse now lay dead and the Bard stood astride the body. He had hopefully mindspoken Mahvros, but the stallion's refusal had been final. He had been promised dire consequences should he attempt to either unseat Mahvros' hurt brother or take his place on the big black.
Bili regained his senses just in time to see Klairuhnz sustain a vicious cut on the side of his neck and fall, blood spurting over his shoulder plates. Roaring "UP HARZBURK!" through force of habit, Bili kneed Mahvros forward and plugged the gap, admonishing the horse not to step on the fallen man. A swing of his axe crushed both the helmet and the skull of Klairuhnz's killer. As the man pitched from his saddle, Bili belatedly recognized the face. It was that of Hofos, Komees Hari's majordomo!
Then there were two more enemy horsemen on the bridge before him. But this time it was Ahndee who was reeling on his kak, unable to do more than offer a rapidly weakening defense. Bili disliked attacking a horse, but the circumstances left him no option. He rammed his axe spike into the rolling eye of his opponent's mount, and in the brief respite afforded him while the death-agonized beast proceeded to buck its rider over the low railing and into the cold creek, he swung his axe into the unarmored chest of Ahndee's adversary. Deep went that fearsome blade, biting through hide jerkin and shirt and skin and flesh and bone and into the quivering heart itself!
Someone in the decreasing group between the bridge and the forest cast a javelin and Mahvros took it in the thick muscles of his off shoulder. He screamed his pain and shock and would have reared, had Bili's mindspeak not restrained him. Grimly, the young man dismounted and gently withdrew the blessedly unbarbed head. Backing the big horse, he turned him, beaming, "Go back to the hall, Mahvros."
"Mahvros still can fight, Brother!" the black balked stubbornly.
"I know that my brother can still fight." Bili mindspoke with as much patience as he could show. "But that wound is deep. If I stayed on your back, you might be permanently crippled." Thinking quickly, he added, "Besides, the other man can fight no longer and must be returned to the hall. A horse of your intelligence is needed to keep this stupid gelding moving, yet see that it does not move too fast so that the man falls off."
Bili was not exaggerating. Ahndee had dropped both sword and reins, and nothing save the high cantle and pommel of his war kak were keeping his limp, unconscious body on his horse. Bili grasped the gray's bridle, faced him about, slapped his rump, and shouted. Even so, the gray made to stop at the end of the bridge, but a sharp nip of Mahvros' yellow teeth changed his mind.
Laying down both axe and javelin, Bili grasped Klairuhnz under the arms and dragged him back from the windrow of the dead men and horses, propping him against the rail. Odd, he thought vaguely, I think he's still alive. He should be well dead, by now, considering where the sword caught him. . . .
Striding back, he picked up the short, heavy dart, drew back his brawny arm, then chose a target and made a running cast. One of the men with only a breastplate was adjusting his stirrup when the missile took him in the small of the back, tearing through his guts and far enough out from his belly to prick his horse when he stumbled against its flank. Scream of horse almost drowned out scream of man. The riderless mount galloped for the forest and most of the remaining ruffians made move to follow.
But a big, spikebearded man headed them off and, beating at them with the flat of a broadsword, drove them back and commenced to harangue them. Bili, leaning on his gory axe amid the dead men whom he expected to soon join, could pick out words or detached phrases of the angrily shouted monologue, despite the fact that he had not heard Old Ehleeneekos spoken in ten years.
". . . cowards . . . to fear only one, dismounted man . . . creatures of filth . . . gotten on filth-eating sows by spineless cur dogs . . . gain your freedom? . . . lead all men to the True Faith? . . . treasure and women? . . . Salvation . . . killing heathens . . ."
Bili shook his head, hoping to clear it of the remaining dizziness. A true product of his race and upbringing, he had no fear of death. He was a bit sorry that it was to come so early in his life, but then every warrior faced his last battle sooner or later. He would have liked to have seen his father and his sweet mothers just once more, but it would rejoice them when they learned that he had fallen in honor, his foemen's blood clotting his axe from spikepoint to butt. And his brother Djehf, six months his junior, would certainly make a good Chief and Thoheeks of Morguhn, maybe even a better one than he would have made.
"DIRTMEN!" He shouted derisively at the band of ruffians. "Rapists of ewes and she-goats! Your fellow bastards here are lonely. Are you going to come join them, or are you going home to bugger your own infant sons? That's an old Ehleen custom, isn't it? Along with eating dung?"
He carried on in the same vein, each succeeding insult more repugnant and offensive than its predecessor. Their leader wisely held his tongue, hoping that Bili's sneering contumely would arouse an aggressive spark in his battered band where his own oration had failed.
At length, one of the tatterdemalions was stung to the quick. Shouting maniacally, waving his aged saber, he spurred his horse at the lone figure on the bridge. Bili stood his ground; to the watching men it appeared that he was certain to be ridden down. But Bili had positioned himself cunningly, and he judged the oncoming rider to be something less than an accomplished horseman.
The horse had to jump in order to clear the two dead horses blocking the direct route to the axeman. Before the rider could recover enough of his balance to use his sword, Bili had let his axe go to swing by its wrist thong, grabbed a sandaled foot and a thick, hairy leg, and heaved him over the other side of his mount!
But Bili had not watched. No sooner was the man out of the saddle, than he who had unseated him was in it, trying to turn the unsettled and unfamiliar animal in time to meet the fresh attackers he could hear pounding up. Hear . . . but not see, for once more the sick, tight dizziness was attempting to claim his senses. When at last he got the skittish horse facing the forest, it was to dimly perceive the backs of the motley pack of skulkers pounding toward the forest, a small shower of arrows falling amongst them, the shafts glinting as they crossed a vagrant beam of moonlight.
Bili's brain told his arm to lift the axe, his legs to urge the new horse on in pursuit of the fleeing ruffians . . . vainly. His legs might have ceased to exist, while his axe now seemed to weigh tons. The weight was just too much and he let it go, then pitched out of the low-cut saddle to land on the narrow railing above the deep, icy water.
Hari and Drehkos caught the senseless body just in time to prevent Bili from joining his latest victim on the bed of the stream. While Komees Djeen led his men on the trail of the fleeing force, the brothers bore the Thoheeks' son to where Vaskos and his orderly, Frahnkos, were tending Ahndee. When Bili's battered helmet was removed, it was found to be filled with both old and fresh blood from a nasty scalp wound. Nor was that the extent of his hurts. Once his body lay prone, a stream of blood crept from the top of his left boot, and examination revealed a deep stab in the side of the calf. Also, as was usual for a man who had fought for any length of time in plate, the skin surfaces of his muscular body from shoulders to knees were one vast bruise, while his clothing dripped of sweat.