The Fell Sword (71 page)

The Galles – he assumed they were Galles – struck. They had about a dozen knights, and at the moment of impact, Ser Francis Arcourt and one of the company’s few Gallish men-at arms, Phillipe le Beause, each cleanly unhorsed a man. Chris Foliak killed his opponent’s horse and then swept his lance unsportingly sideways like a toll gate, taking another Gallish knight down. But Ser John Gage was unhorsed by a man as big as Tom himself.

Foliak, a canny fighter, didn’t slow his horse, but burst through, dropped his lance, and rode back south, away from the fight.

Atcourt hesitated, and was surrounded in a moment and unhorsed by three different men catching his bridle and wrestling him from his saddle.

Phillipe de Beause managed to put his dagger into another man and his horse – bigger, or perhaps better exercised – pulled him clear of the stour by main force. He saw Tom and rode to him—

Twenty crossbows spat together, and Beause died in an instant.

Tom’s other men-at-arms were rallying to the north. He could hear Ser Michael’s voice.

One of the enemy knights raised his visor and pointed his lance at Tom. ‘Yield,’ he said.

Tom laughed. ‘Usually we fight first,’ he said. He wished he had an axe.

The Galle charged him immediately, his great horse sending gouts of snow into the still air. His lance tip came down like a swooping falcon, and Tom uncurled and cut the last three feet right off the lance. His backhand carved a hand’s breadth of meat off the horse, and it turned, panicking at the pain.

Tom cut again, ignoring the rider and cutting deeply into his horse’s near side back leg.

The horse toppled.

Another Galle charged Tom.

Bad Tom set himself in a new guard to wait the lance, but this man had seen his trick, and he didn’t couch his lance at all. He rode forward, and he only lowered his lance at the last second.

Tom batted it aside and cut into the horse’s neck and was knocked flat as the rider moved the horse to his own right. But the cut landed – the horse slouched and fell.

Tom got up.

A thrown lance hit him like a thunderbolt in the side, the head piercing his mail. He staggered.

‘
Deus vault!
’ roared the big knight as he thundred by. He turned his horse and came again, this time with a long-handed steel mace.

He cut – the expected cut, a heavy fendente from his right hand, and Bad Tom caught it on his sword and was staggered by the sheer strength of the man – but not so staggered as to not let the blow slide off his parry like rain off a steep rood, and counter-cut as the horse went by. Again, he struck the horse, who screamed.

The other knight reined in. Crossbowmen were coming up.

‘This is a mere butchery of horses,’ he said.

‘Get off yours and we’ll make it a butchery of men,’ Bad Tom said.

‘You are a fine man of arms. May I ask your style?’ asked the enemy knight.

‘I’m Ser Tom Lachlan of the Hills,’ Bad Tom said.

‘I am Ser Hartmut di Orguelleus,’ the other man said. He waited. ‘The Black Knight.’

Tom shook his head. ‘I think you’re waiting for your crossbowmen to come and kill me,’ he said.

Ser Hartmut laughed. ‘Of course!’ he said. ‘Why would I not? There is no such thing as a fair fight.’

Tom charged him. He roared, ‘Lachlan for Aaa!’ and ran as fast as his injured hips would allow.

But Ser Hartmut only let him come two paces and then pricked his horse into motion. The Black Knight’s mace cut – Tom’s blade rose.

Both were deceived, and thus, both struck.

Tom took the mace in his left pauldron, and was knocked to the ground.

Ser Hartmut took Tom’s thrust on his breastplate, and was unhorsed. The difference was that Ser Hartmut rose uninjured beyond the blow to his dignity.

Bad Tom had taken the worst wound of his life.

Ranald entered the woods at a walk, his archers in a compact mass behind him. He could hear the fighting now – hear it in three places. But even winter woods blocked enough of his sight to keep him from understanding.

He heard Tom’s battle cry and went at it. But even then he didn’t surrender his caution. He trotted, visor open, looking left and right.

He saw the crossbowmen first, and then he saw Tom, alone, on one knee.

He turned to Long Paw. ‘Cover me!’ he yelled, but most of the archers were already sliding off their mounts, valets taking the horses in their fists even as the archers pulled their stung bows over their heads.

Ranald took his lance out of the bucket in his right stirrup and put his spurs to his charger.

Just off to the right, he saw the flash of winter sun on metal.

There were three knights – in a glance, he knew that none of them were company. And they were between him and his cousin.

He rode at them – reached up and slammed down his visor, and all four of them went to a gallop – no mean trick in snowy woods.

Six strides from contact, Ranald changed targets – his horse took a beautiful cross-step to take both of them a yard off line – and Ranald leaned forward as if he was in a Harndon tiltyard and his man went flying. A spearpoint struck his breastplate, but it didn’t bite – and the tip rode up the V-shaped reinforcement and shot past over his right shoulder, ripping the round pauldron from his body as it passed but doing no other damage.

Ranald didn’t turn.

Ten yards behind him, Chris Foliak’s lance unhorsed a second man before Foliak’s horse lost its footing in the now and went down in a spectacular spray of snow and dead leaves.

Ranald raced for his cousin.

Tom was on one knee, apparently unable to rise, defending himself with two-handed parries. A huge knight – at least as big as Tom himself – cut again and again with a mace – paused and hurled it like a lightning bolt.

Tom missed his parry and the thrown weapon struck his visor, deforming it.

The big knight drew his sword, and it burst into flame, and the crossbowmen yelled a cry, revealing themselves.

Ranald had time to think,
Christ, there’s a lot of them.

The first ranging arrow from Long Paw’s bow struck a crossbowman.

Behind him, Ranald could hear Foliak fighting, sword to sword.

There were fights scattered all over the woods, now – the Vardariotes were rolling in from the flanks, and suddenly it was his to win. But he needed to get the giant off his cousin, first.

Ranald put his lance at the big knight’s back, but, a heartbeat from impact, the man writhed like a snake. He was still struck, but it was uncanny how he avoided most of the blow.

But his great burning sword never touched Tom, who managed to get back to his feet as Ranald swept past, reining in all the way.

Tom cut, a rising cut from a low guard, and the Black Knight snapped his own sword contemptuously at the blow – and severed Tom’s sword at the midpoint.

Tom stepped off line and hurled his ruined weapon like an axe at the Black Knight, who had to step back and parry – and still took a ringing blow to the head from the hilt.

Tom drew his dagger.

A full flight of arrows from the company bowmen fell like a snow squall. The enemy soldiers stood their ground, took hits, and replied with a volley of bolts.

The Black Knight raised his burning sword—

‘Get out of the way, you loon!’ Ranald roared, and hip-checked his cousin.

He had a great axe – a long-hafted axe with a beard so long that it had its own poll on the shaft, the great vicious thing like a half-moon of steel on a five-foot haft. It was the axe Master Pye had made him.

Tom collapsed to one knee.

Ranald stepped past his cousin as the Black Knight threw a heavy blow – a simple fendente from his right shoulder, but with the power of a warhorse.

Ranald parried, the axe close to his body.

The two weapons met with a
clang
that rang through the woods.

‘So!’ the Black Knight said from inside his helm.

Ranald stepped forward, the axe out behind him like a long tail. As the Black Knight didn’t flinch, Ranald cut.

Fast as a leaping salmon, the Black Knight’s blade leaped to meet the axe—

Ranald rolled the great axe head – his blow a feint – and thrust with the butt spike, striking the Black Knight’s hand, and locking his own haft across the Black Knight’s left wrist.

He stepped forward and used the lever of the axe haft to throw the bigger man to the ground.

Quick as a cat, the Black Knight cut – flat on his back – and his burning sword cut deep into Ranald’s left greave.

The Black Knight
rolled backwards
over his own head like an acrobat and came up on his feet.

Ranald could scarcely think from the pain.

The Black Knight flicked a salute. ‘I think my archers have been bested by yours,’ he said. He was backing away. ‘And my useless dogs of allies have all run home. I’ll see you another day, sir knight.’ He took another step back, and another.

Ranald wanted to follow him, but there was blood all over the ground, and it wasn’t Tom’s.

The crossbowmen broke.

Their leader, a man in good armour, tried to rally them until he saw Ser Michael coming with a dozen men-at-arms and as many Vardariotes, and then he threw a leg over his own horse and rode for it.

Ranald tried to wrap his own wound, and, eventually, Francis Atcourt joined him.

‘What happened to you?’ Ranald said.

Atcourt smiled. ‘Someone hit me on the head,’ he said. ‘Luckily, he didn’t stay around to take me prisoner.’ He watched the Galles. ‘Who were they? They were – very good.’

‘Better than me,’ murmured Tom. ‘Christ risen, who was that loon?’

Five leagues to the west and two days later, Bad Tom stood atop the main tower of Osawa’s fortifications, peering through the light snow down the lake as if to summon the Galles back to their duty. In the yard below them, the largest fur convoy Morea had mustered in twenty years shook itself out and started into the hills, carefully watched by most of the Imperial Army.

Bad Tom stomped his feet and frowned.

‘Cheer up, Tom,’ the Duke said. ‘We’ll find someone else to fight.’

Tom swore and strode down the many steps to his horse. The Duke followed him down.

‘War of manoeuvre? I’m no fool – you out-manoeuvred the Galles and only the ambush gave them a fight. But—’ He shrugged. ‘A war without fighting?’ Tom spat the words. ‘And Ranald got everything yesterday, and I got beat.’ He looked down. ‘And lost Phillipe.’

Ranald had been magicked and bandaged and he was still pale. Bad Tom had bounced back. But Ranald was the hero of the hour, and Tom was public in his thanks.

‘You saved me, cousin, and there’s not many men as can say that.’

Ranald looked sheepish.

‘I want another go at that Black Knight. Nor will you beat the Thrakians with fancy manoeuvres.’

The Red Knight laughed and put a hand on his friend’s shoulder. ‘Tom, there will be plenty of fighting in the spring. For which, I need you to go home to the hills and raise your kern. Bring every thane and kern you can muster and the whole of the drove to the Inn of Dorling when the ice clears the roads. Spend the rest of the winter healing. You’re hurt.’

Lachlan nodded. ‘That I am.’ He could walk, but both hips hurt; he could move his right arm, but his left arm – even after powerful magery – felt like ice.

‘You giving me an order?’ Bad Tom scowled.

The Duke shook his head. ‘No. No, I’m not. I’m asking – as Megas Ducas to the Drover.’

Bad Tom nodded. ‘There’s many a slip. But I’ll go. There has to be a Drover. And if I can, I’ll be there.’

‘The Wyrm will help,’ the Duke said.

‘My cousin’ll help, I hope.’ Tom turned to Ranald.

The Duke sighed. ‘Tom, Ranald may feel he needs to go west to Lissen Carak. Lady Mary has been sent from court, and is even now riding up the Albin to spend Christmas at the nunnery.’ He handed Ranald a dispatch and smiled. ‘It’s good to have a spy service. I’m going to miss it. Kneel, Ranald.’

Ranald looked at him. ‘Why?’ he asked. He looked at the snow, which looked muddy, and cold. His leg hurt.

‘Because it’s customary when being knighted,’ the Duke said.

Chapter Fourteen

Liviapolis – The Princess

L
ady Maria stood in the informal throne room with the scrolls in her sewing basket.

‘The Megas Ducas is – apparently – on his way home,’ she said. ‘He sends word that he’ll be back in a week.’ She raised her eyes. ‘He bids you prepare for Christmas.’

‘My father is still a hostage?’ the princess asked.

‘He has been treated very badly,’ Lady Maria said. ‘The Megas Ducas bids you not lose hope. The Emperor has been moved further into the mountains, he says.’

The princess turned her head and sobbed, ‘What!’ and then burst into tears.

Acting Spatharios Darkhair pushed forward. ‘What’s happened? And where?’

Maria opened a chart. ‘It is fiendishly complicated. The Megas Ducas went west almost to the Green Hills and outmarched Andronicus to western Thrake. He defeated Demetrius, who retreated. Andronicus raised an army and then dispersed it.’

Ser George Brewes nodded. ‘Of course. He didn’t have a supply train.’

Darkhair chortled. ‘But we did!’ he said.

Lady Maria permitted herself a small smile. ‘We did.’

Brewes whistled. ‘So – the furs were a feint all along.’

Lady Maria raised her voice so the princess, sitting disconsolate on her throne, could hear. ‘No, gentlemen. The main army marched north along the lake and will – apparently – escort the furs south.’ She ran her eyes over a fourth dispatch, and shrugged. ‘This says there is a Gallish force on the Inner Sea that our Megas Ducas expects will retire at the sight of our banners, but I have difficulty believing there are Galles on the lake. At the edge of winter? There have been reports, but this still seems to me to be a scribal error.’

The princess shook her head. ‘But he said he was going east!’

Ser George Brewes bit his tongue. He managed a smile and said, ‘Either way, it’s a neat campaign. And we’ll have a bonny Christmas.’

Far, far to the north, Ser Hartmut watched bitterly as his galleys raced into the light snow. Already, the mouth of the lake had ice that needed to be broken.

They’d burned two towns of wicker huts and hide houses. He had nothing else to show for all his military might, and he’d been forced to retreat when an army – a magnificent army – had appeared over the hills to the south.

‘Three lacs d’amour,’ he said to de Marche, shaking his head. ‘Who was that?’

De Marche groaned. ‘Do you know the story of the King’s attempt on Arles?’ he asked.

Ser Hartmut looked back through the snow. ‘
That
captain? Ah, Master de Marche. I will need to look to my arms in order to teach him some manners. That will win me the King’s love.’ He rolled his shoulder against the stiffness. ‘Those were good men-at-arms. As good as my own.’

‘You didn’t lose a man. I lost six sailors.’ De Marche was fed up with war.

Ser Hartmut shrugged. ‘Fortuna. If their horse-archers had pressed harder, we’d all have been taken. The ambush was a pointless fanfaronade – I admit it.’

De Marche let go the breath he’d gathered to speak his mind. Instead, he asked, ‘I assume that operations are done for the winter?’

‘You mean, if we are not all caught in the ice and crushed like bugs by the winter?’ Ser Hartmut said. ‘You wouldn’t try sailing home at this time of year?’

‘Christ on the cross!’ de Marche said. ‘No, my lord, I would not. I’ll pull my ships off the water and brace them and perhaps even build them sheds, if the weather allows me.’

‘Good. And we’ll train the natives. They have much to learn from us,’ Ser Hartmut said. ‘We’’ll teach them to be braver.’

De Marche knew that fully two-thirds of their Outwallers had left them after two days of fruitless combat, leaving only the Galles and a handful of loyal stalwarts to face the rising Morean tide. By Outwallers standards, they had been exceptionally loyal allies, fighting after it was clear that the Moreans and the Southern Huran had the upper hand.

But he looked at Ser Hartmut, and said nothing.

Liviapolis – Master Kronmir

It had been one of the coldest rides of his life. Kronmir lost the little finger from his left hand as soon as he found a doctor, and it took him three long days to get warm again, even among the civilised hypocausts of Liviapolis.

Master Kronmir posed as a wealthy merchant this time, and he rented rooms at the Silver Chalice, an inn much frequented by Etruscans and other foreigners.

The army was still absent from the city, and he made his rounds as soon as he felt warm and secure. He spent half a day making purchases, merely to assure himself that he was not being followed, and then he visited his best agents and left them Christmas presents – amulets fashioned by Aeskepiles. He left them coded instructions for the use of the amulets and his warmest wishes for the New Year, and then he began cautiously probing for a malcontent among the newly recruited sailors at the now-thriving Navy Yard.

The malcontent was a fool, and a dangerous, malicious fool – the worst sort of agent. But Kronmir had little choice. He used the tool to hand. And he had to meet Snea, the fool, in person – he couldn’t be trusted to a cut-out – and that was dangerous.

Kronmir was taking chances. And he knew, as few men really did, where that path had to lead.

South of N’gara – Nat Tyler

Tyler left the Faery Knight’s castle at the break of day, well aware of what kind of trek awaited him. There was no force to hold him, and he walked free of the hold’s magicks, not quite fleeing. When he crossed the hold’s not-quite-visible sanctuary line – the border of the lord’s power – he saw moths out in the snow, a hundred or more of the things fluttering weakly against the bitter cold among the trees, like snowy owls without heads. He didn’t like them much as an omen, and he liked them even less when two followed him.

Perhaps it helped him that he didn’t particularly care whether he lived or died.

At some point in the past, he’d known how much of this was on his own head, but he’d had weeks to revisit his version of events, and by the time his feet were crunching along on frozen snow, supported by the web of rawhide thong on rackets that the Outwallers used, he no longer thought about Bess, or how long he’d loved her. He kept his thoughts fixed firmly on the uselessness of the younger generation of Jacks, not one of whom had wanted to accompany him.

I’ll free the poor serfs if’n I have to do it myself,
Tyler said.
And a pox on Bill Redmede and that harlot.

He made it a day on anger, and another. Anger burns very clear in the winter. And the weather was as kind as winter can be – clear and cold, yes, but without the sudden thaw that might have killed a man travelling alone. Tyler was no fool, for all that he was consumed with jealousy and rage, and he made camp early, gathered immense piles of brush and dry wood – easy enough with the snow four feet above the forest floor. He camped under downed spruce trees, or built shelters of spruce bows, and he had his Outwaller sleigh – he pulled it himself – on which to lie on a thick pallet of skins. The wood of the sleigh and the layers of fur and the warmth of the fire kept him alive, and every morning he fried a piece of his frozen bacon and prepared to face another day. He expected to be fifteen days crossing the Wild, if he was lucky; by the time he reached the villages around Albinkirk he’d be out of food and desperate.

If he lived that long, it would be a wonder. But he couldn’t stay and watch the remnants of the Jacks betray everything they stood for. They would soon turn Bill Redmede into a lord and follow the Faery Knight into servitude.

On his third night on the trail, he downed a deer with his bow and tracked it by blood spore across a ridge. He was late making camp and not as careful as he might have been – worried, more than anything, that he’d felt something give in his bow when he drew to his ear in the deep cold. He gathered firewood in a near frenzy, and sweated too much into his clothes, for which he’d pay in the deep darkness of midnight when the slick of sweat next to his skin turned to a pool of ice water.

But full darkness found him cooking deer meat in front of a respectable fire, and he’d made a good shelter in the lee of a downed, dead tree that had fallen in a windstorm and taken its roots with it, so that the roots made a wall and an overhang, studded with rocks big enough to split his skull if they fell on his head. But there was room enough to wedge his little sleigh in place and he sat on it, eating hot meat and drinking hot water.

He heard the crunching of footsteps on the snow when it was far too late. He rose to his feet, wondering who, or what would be out in this weather, at this time of year, and then there was a man – tall and straight, with thick white hair tied back with a quill-wrapped thong. The man wore a heavy robe of squirrel skins that was as black as the night around them, and he bore a staff that seemed to be made of iron, and he had no gloves.

‘May I be welcome at your fire?’ asked the man.

Nat Tyler had walked the world a long time. He got his sword hilt under his hand and then turned. ‘You ain’t no man, to need my fire. Whatever you are – if you are a guest, take a guest’s oath.’

The black-clad man bowed. ‘You are wise. I will do no harm at this fire, or indeed, to the fire’s maker,’ he said.

Tyler nodded. ‘I’ve sassafras tea, if’n you have a mind to it,’ he said.

‘Do you know who I am?’ asked the figure.

Tyler nodded. ‘You smell like Thorn, to me,’ he said.

The figure rose and bowed again. ‘You
are
wise. Wiser than your comrade, who betrayed me.’

Tyler crossed his fingers inside his mitten. ‘I ain’t no friend o’ Bill Redmede’s just now, Warlock, but he never
betrayed
you. You wanted dominion. We want
no one
to hold dominion over others. We was allies. And you wasn’t much of an ally to us.’

Thorn’s gaze was steady across the fire. ‘Nonetheless, you are leaving Redmede. With plans of your own.’

‘I am,’ Tyler admitted.

‘I could use you,’ Thorn said.

Tyler smiled toothlessly. ‘Aye, Warlock. I imagine you could
use me.
But I’d rather not be used.’

Thorn laughed mirthlessly. ‘You are a bold rogue, and I am out of practice in such converse. What do you want, to do my will?’

Tyler took a deep breath. He let it out slowly, and watched as it turned to white mist. He wondered how many breaths he had left. ‘I doubt you have anything I want,’ he said.

‘What if I told you that your Bess only loves Bill Redmede because the irk lord has cast a glamour on her? And on your friend? They aren’t even acting under their own wills. They are puppets.’

A stick snapped. Something let out a very animal-like grunt and Tyler stood up and drew his sword – an absurd motion when he was sitting across the fire from Thorn, who was unmoved.

A third figure glided into the firelight.

‘
Ill met by firelight, tressssspasssser
.’ Tapio’s fangs glinted like metal. ‘
You are a fine one to ssspeak of puppetssss. Man, you accept ssstrange guessstsss at your fire.
’

Thorn turned his head. ‘Tapio. You are very foolish, coming out of your circle of power.’

‘
Not-a-man, you are very far from your own, do you not think?
’ The irk stood easily on the snow.

Thorn rose and faced it, holding his staff before him. ‘Shall we have our contest now?’ he asked.

The irk shrugged. ‘
I would regret killing this man, who is my guest friend
.’

Thorn didn’t move, even so much as an eyebrow. The shape of Speaker of Tongues was his perfect cloak – it looked like the body of a man, and yet had a thousand pockets to hold surprises.

He drew one and threw it.

Tapio flicked it away in the twitch of an eyebrow. ‘
I could help you, Thorn
,’ he said.

‘Help me? We are foes!’ Thorn said, reaching for a more subtle preparation to cast.

Tapio gestured again, a slight wind passed, the fire flared, and Thorn’s casting dissipated among the stars, impotent. ‘
I have had thousssandsss of yearsss to perfect thisss
,’ he said. ‘
We need not be foesss.
’

Thorn’s staff crackled and a wave of green and black shot out, mottled like mould. It passed through Tapio, who vanished.

‘That was far easier than it should have been,’ Thorn said. ‘I distrust even victory.’

‘
You have gained in wisssdom, then, Thorn.
’ Tapio’s voice seemed to come out of the air. ‘
Master Tyler, I came to keep you free of thisss – entanglement.
’

‘Yes, this cruel little elf has made your lady-love a strumpet and broken your friendship and has come to help you,’ Thorn said.

The irk’s laughter rang on the clear, cold air. ‘
Cruel little elf! Ah, my pooor friend. You reek of Asssh.
’

Thorn moved, and the irk was suddenly outlined in a pale green light. Thorn’s staff shot out – there was a flash, and then another – a sound like distant thunder, and the tree behind Thorn burst into a thousand splinters – some of them quite large. One penetrated right through Thorn’s man-form. But it was a form, not a man, and Thorn paid the wound no heed as he worked again, and the very air became pellucid – Tyler could not breathe, but only watch. It seemed that only Thorn could move, and the tongues of his dark fire licked at the irk’s form . . . and then something gave. It felt to Tyler as if the whole world missed a beat, and suddenly he was alone at his fire, heart in his throat, choking.