by Kim McMahon
“I do hope you can come through on this, Orph,” Artemis said with a tremor.
“Trust me,” he assured them.
Although he didn’t really sound all that confident.
THIRTY-FIVE
Adam had gotten plenty of fearful shocks during the past two days—but nothing compared to what he saw when they climbed the battlements and looked down at the valley floor.
The Templars were riding up to the fortress’s main entrance, spread out in a vee formation. The advance guards had lit torches, illuminating the sixty-plus knights mounted on their great warhorses—grim, hardened soldiers who looked huge with their armor and weapons.
Against the few dozen small, slender Sisters, who, fierce and skilled though they might be, seemed like dolls by comparison.
That familiar lump was in Adam’s throat again, and this time he didn’t even bother trying to fight it down. This was David against Goliath—but David’s only hope was a pint-sized head who very possibly had let his mouth write a check he couldn’t cash. On top of that, Adam and Artemis were an outright joke—she was carrying one of the Sisters’ curved swords and he’d picked out a long pike spear, but neither of them had any training, and the weapons felt big and clumsy. The only one who looked competent was Mustafa, who’d armed himself with a bow and quiver of arrows and placed himself next to a phalanx of the Sisters’ archers.
Orpheus scanned the surroundings, then pointed with his nose at a niche high up in a rock.
“That will work,” he said. “Set me up in there—then get ready to attack.”
“We’re going to attack them?”
“You’ll see. Come on, shake it! The meter’s running.”
Adam had to scramble up the rock face and stretch on tiptoe to reach the niche. While he was hanging there, Orpheus whispered to him.
“Adam—Theodora’s a good woman, and she meant what she said about Eurydice—when she said it. But if push comes to shove, she might have second thoughts.
“And I hate to even say this, but it’s just possible that Artemis might side with her. She’s been here long enough that Theodora could have won her over. So be on the watch.”
Adam nodded unhappily and jumped back down again. With all the other worries, nothing like that had even occurred to him.
But then came still more. As he and Artemis hurried back to their vantage point on the battlements, she started whispering to him, too.
“Adam, this is hopeless. What can Orpheus possibly do? He’s so tiny to begin with, and now he’s sitting way up above everything. You don’t suppose this is all a trick, do you? To have everyone else caught up in the battle, and he manages to get to Eurydice?”
It was yet another thing that had never occurred to Adam. Could Orpheus bounce and roll his way through the stone halls to her, following the sound of her voice? Or even have another way of moving that was faster and more agile than he’d let on? He remembered what Cristof had said about people who managed to stay alive here learning to keep secrets—and Orpheus had stayed alive a long, long time.
And what about Artemis? Was Orpheus right? Would she side with the Sisters in the end? For that matter, what about Mustafa? Was he really a spy for the Templars, or for Nicodemus of Edessa?
At least Adam didn’t have any ulterior motives himself—the only thing he couldn’t be trusted on was to be of any use in this battle.
He shook his head hard, trying to throw off all the doubts. “Look, Artemis, we just have to ride this out. And that means we depend on each other—all of us.”
The Templars had come to a halt. They were a only couple of hundred yards away now, and the Sisters were poised with their bows ready, but the distance was still too great for the accuracy they needed to find chinks in the knights’ armor.
Then one of the Templars in the lead raised his broadsword high in the air. With a chill, Adam recognized him—Gerard de Chavirage.
And somehow even more chilling, he noticed another man on horseback who was watching the scene, far to the rear and all alone on a hilltop—safely away from the action. Adam couldn’t see him clearly, but something about his shape and bearing—even more than that, something about the creepy feeling Adam got—made him sure that it was Nicodemus of Edessa.
Chavirage suddenly brought his sword sweeping down as if he was cutting off somebody’s head. On that signal, torches moved quickly through the ranks—and a dozen flickers of a different, strange-looking kind of fire appeared, quickly flaring up into phosphorescent greenish blazes. Their ghostly light showed that these were arrows, nocked on the drawn bows of the Templars’ own archers.
A little click deep in Adam’s memory brought up the term Greek fire, which water wouldn’t quench and spread like flaming grease—the medieval equivalent of incendiary bombs.
With a great whoosh, the volley of arrows streaked from the bows toward the fortress’s wooden door, striking with solid thunks. Another flight of arrows came right behind the first one, and then another, until the door was a pincushion of the greenish flares. It was massive, made of heavy wood that only a battering ram could have broken through—but it was also centuries old and dry as dust from the desert heat. Within a minute, the dozens of blazes had converged into a raging bonfire, with the spooky flames leaping and crawling like they were alive.
Now Adam could see that the knights were readying heavy iron grappling hooks on chains. As the door weakened, he realized, they’d charge in and hurl the hooks against it, pulling it apart in chunks. With them and their mounts protected by armor, they could ride unscathed through the remaining scattered flames—straight on into the fortress.
Adam wiped his sleeve across his sweating forehead, with despair washing over him. Their only hope was Orpheus, but Orph had done exactly nothing—just stayed perched high up there in his niche, where he looked so small and still, he could have passed for a pebble.
Was that his plan, as Artemis had wondered? To stay hidden and safe—like Nicodemus of Edessa—until he got a chance to sneak away unnoticed and find Eurydice? Could he possibly be that treacherous, so desperate to regain her that he’d throw everyone else to the wolves?
There was no more time to wonder about it. The Templars were starting their charge, spurring their snorting, pawing horses forward into a gallop and holding the grappling hooks ready to throw.
Adam stepped to Artemis and put his arm around her shoulders. He could feel her trembling, although she was doing her best to look brave. He was trembling, too, and he was sure he didn’t look brave at all.
Then it happened.
From above and behind them, a sound cut suddenly through the night—a high, shrill, piercing tone that Adam felt more in his teeth than he heard in his ears. He, Artemis, and all of the Sisters whirled around to see its source.
Orpheus was singing again, but this time, it was no haunting love serenade—it didn’t exactly hurt, but you wouldn’t waste any time getting away from it if you could.
The sound poured out over the battlements and down into the valley, meeting the charging Templars head on like another invisible army.
And that, Adam realized, was exactly what it was!
The knights were going wild! It was almost comic—they jerked and gyrated like zombies dancing an insane jitterbug, hurling away their helmets and gauntlets and clawing off the rest of their armor like it was full of wasps. The horses were rearing and careening around, bucking off their riders and crashing into each other.
Artemis whooped with excitement. “That’s it! He’s causing a resonance in their armor that’s driving them crazy! It must be torturing their nerve endings!”
The Sisters pounced on the opportunity, swiftly drawing their bows and sending flights of deadly accurate arrows at the now vulnerable knights. Howls and curses rang through the air as the missiles found their marks.
Still, those who’d stripped off their armor started to regroup, gathering their wits enough to throw up their shields for protection, while their archers to
ok cover behind fallen horses and returned fire—a Sister suddenly cried out and fell back, with a quivering shaft piercing her neck, while others rushed to tend to her.
Then Adam spotted Gerard de Chavirage, who’d managed to stay on his mount. In that instant, Adam made up his mind that he was going to strive with his last breath to plant his spearhead in the Templar’s throat.
Theodora was rushing around the battlements like a demon, her eyes shining as she shouted commands and encouragement. “Sister Hibernia,” she cried out. “Let fall the door!”
A strong-looking woman ran to a windlass the size of a barrel, wound with heavy chain. She released it with a mighty yank on a big lever, and jumped clear of the windlass’s spinning handle as the rattling chain whipped free. The fortress door plunged outward like a wall toppling over, hitting the ground with fiery chunks of wood that exploded in all directions and took out several more Templars.
The Sisters streamed down the stone staircase to the courtyard, moving so fast they seemed to be flying. They raced through the long sloping hallway to the opened entrance, drawing their swords as they danced through the flames to meet the Templars hand to hand.
Adam and Artemis were right behind them—but as they faced the looming reality of the huge warriors thundering around on their steeds and swinging their ferocious weapons, Adam’s excitement was short-circuited by fear, especially for Artemis. He grabbed her arm, trying to pull her back into the fortress.
“You stay here! They’ll crush you like a bug!” he yelled.
“I’ll sting them first!” she shouted back, yanking herself free with a wild-haired glare at him.
He watched, horrified, as she ran straight at one of the mounted knights with her sword upraised. The man’s bearded face turned astonished, then he broke into a sneering laugh as he leaned out of his saddle with a battleaxe to cut her down.
But at the last possible second, she seemed to vanish, diving to the ground and rolling. By the time the furious knight could rein his horse around, she was on her feet again and behind him, leaping high into the air to slash her blade across the side of his neck. He slapped his hand to the wound, roaring in pain and rage as blood streamed out through his fingers. He kept circling his horse, swatting at her like she was a bug. But she stayed just out of reach, and each time the momentum of his swing carried his heavy axe past her, she darted in again with another slash or stab.
It all happened as fast as a string of firecrackers going off, although it seemed to Adam like it took forever—and then the knight slumped, slipping out of his saddle with one boot still in its stirrup, to be dragged away across the ground by his nervous horse.
Adam realized that he was staring in a trance of shock. But his brain was kicking and screaming at him: Don’t just stand there, idiot—if she can do it, so can you! And remember what you promised yourself!
He tightened his grip on his pike and started looking for Gerard de Chavirage.
The wild brawl was touch and go, with the Templars swinging their weapons like baseball bats, while the Sisters gracefully dodged and sliced with surgical precision. It seemed like it could tip either way at any second.
Then Adam saw Chavirage. He was fifteen yards away, dueling with a Sister who was holding her own—until she parried one of his sword strokes, then suddenly faltered, stumbling. The torchlight caught her pain-twisted face and fair hair.
It was Theodora!
She struggled to regain her balance, but something was wrong—she was hurt, and her few seconds of weakness was all that Chavirage needed. His horse wheeled around toward her, his broadsword raised to slash her from shoulders to waist.
No way could Adam run fast enough to get there in time—but his body seemed to react on its own, as if a remote control had suddenly taken over. He leaped forward, planting the pike’s butt on the ground like he was pole vaulting, and launched himself through the air, landing close enough so that the charging knight swung around in his saddle for a look at what was hurtling toward him.
“What happened to Cristof?” Adam yelled. “Did you gang up on him and stab him in the back again?”
Chavirage’s eyes went wide with disbelief and rage.
“You!” he roared. “I’ll have your head for my pommel, boy!” He yanked the horse’s reins viciously, changing direction to bear down on Adam.
Adam stayed crouched, digging in his feet, with the pike held low to the ground and his entire universe crystallized into an area the size of a dinner plate—the Templar’s beard.
At the last second, he whipped up the spearpoint and threw his weight behind it. What happened next was a blur, but the shock of contact vibrated down the wooden shaft so hard it was torn from his hands.
Chavirage roared again, this time in pain, but as Adam dove off to the side, the sword still swept down so close it would have cut off his buttons if he’d had any.
As he rolled clear and jumped to his feet, he saw that he’d missed his target, but not by much—the spear was lodged in the knight’s chest, just where it met his shoulder. Chavirage sheathed his sword, gripped the haft with both hands, and yanked it free, cursing so venomously the words practically smoked coming out of his mouth.
Then, with blood streaming down his tunic and his eyes insane with fury, he leveled the pike at Adam.
Adam’s universe crystallized again—this time, on the spearpoint. There was no escape—with that weapon in the hands of a trained warrior, he’d barely get his feet moving before it skewered him.
And yet, he felt a surge of pride. He, along with his friends, had fought an overpowering enemy right up to the last. He’d given Chavirage something to remember him by, too—and a scar from a fourteen-year-old boy wasn’t going to add any bragging rights to the Templar’s precious honor.
At least he would die worthy of the title Sir Adam.
But he still was a fourteen-year-old boy, and there was one last thing he could do. He stooped quickly, grabbed a fist-sized rock, and let it fly with his best overhand fastball pitch.
By pure luck, it smacked Chavirage dead center on his fresh wound. This time, he let out a howl that would have made a banshee run for cover.
Then, so suddenly she seemed to just materialize, Theodora was in front of Adam—almost dragging her leg, but with her sword ready and her teeth bared with cool ferocity.
“We’re not done talking about Cristof,” she shouted. “I’ll wager that my sword will send you to meet him again, one last time—as he watches you plunge into hell!”
Chavirage growled like an angry bear—but she’d recovered enough poise to make him hesitate.
In the pause, Adam realized that he was hearing another sound in the distance—a furious, high-pitched yipping, like a battle cry coming from many voices.
There! At the valley entrance, a band of mounted men was appearing, galloping hard into the fight—warriors wearing turbans and wielding scimitars that gleamed in the rising moonlight. Their leader was riding a horse with four distinctive white socks that flashed beautifully with its graceful stride.
Saladin and Zuleika!
And far off to the side, Adam glimpsed the skulking figure of Nicodemus of Edessa, high-tailing it out of there as fast as he could go.
Chavirage hurled the pike toward Theodora and Adam, but it missed and skittered harmlessly on the ground—he was already wheeling his horse around, bent low over its neck and spurring it viciously, to take off after Nicodemus. The other Templars who could still ride were falling in behind him.
“First in flight again, I see, O brave and noble knight!” Saladin shouted at Chavirage. But as his own men started in pursuit, the Sultan’s command stopped them. “Let the cowards go, to live forever with their shame.”
He rode up and slid quickly off Zuleika, clasping Adam’s shoulder as he strode by but going straight on to Theodora, who had sat down with both hands tightly clasping her left knee.
“Are you badly hurt, Sister?” Saladin asked, crouching beside her.
&n
bsp; “Just hobbled, lord Sultan—and I only have my own clumsiness to blame. I turned his blade with my own, but my foot caught in the rocks and wrenched my knee. Binding it will help. I have to see to the others—there are many worse.” As she spoke, she produced a dagger seemingly out of nowhere, used it to tear a strip from her robe, and wound it around her knee in a careful pattern, testing it for tautness with each wrap. She’d obviously done this sort of thing many times before.
“Take care to see to yourself as well,” Saladin said. “Besides your Sisters, you’ll soon have another patient who needs you.”
Her hands paused and she looked up quickly, her eyes brimming with hope.
“Cristof?” she breathed.
Saladin nodded, and smiled as Adam yelled joyously, “He’s alive?”
“He was treacherously wounded by an arrow from a hidden archer—one of Chavirage’s men, I don’t doubt. But his brother Hospitallers came to his aid. The wound is serious, but as we know, he’s not easily killed. They’re bringing him here now.”
“And Artemis?” Theodora said anxiously. “Where is she?”
Adam was already looking for her, with his elation about Cristof quickly submerged by worry. The scene around them was gruesome—in a way, worse than during the fury of the battle. The ground was strewn with bodies of men and women both, some lifeless and others twisting in agony, with their moans a nerve-jangling chorus. The surviving Sisters were moving among them, changed from angels of death to angels of mercy, and Adam realized that they were tending to the Templars as well as to their own—by their code, apparently, enemies and comrades alike deserved fair treatment when the fighting was over.
But nowhere did he see Artemis’s wild pale hair.
Then, when he’d worked up his nerve enough to start picking his way through the fallen, terrified that he’d find her among them, he spotted her slight, black-robed figure, sitting off by herself with her knees drawn up to her chin. The reason he hadn’t seen her right away, he realized, was that her hair was darkened by streaks and splotches—of blood.