The Tournament at Gorlan (4 page)

The attackers were armed with axes and long swords, with small wooden shields studded with metal. As they watched, Halt caught a glimpse of a swirling garment in red-and-blue checks. Tartan, he realized.

“That's not Duncan,” he said. “They're Scotti warriors!”

H
ALT
CLAPPED
HIS
HEELS
INTO
HIS
HORSE
'
S
SIDES
A
ND
IT
sprang forward, going from a standing start to a full gallop in the space of a few meters. He let the reins fall across his horse's neck and unslung his bow, reaching with his other hand for an arrow from the quiver angled over his right shoulder.

Shooting from horseback with a full-sized longbow wasn't an ideal position, but he held the bow at a forty-five-degree angle as he nocked the arrow, his hands moving surely in spite of the horse's plunging movement. Guiding the animal with pressure from his knees, he raced down the gradually shallowing slope toward the village. As he drew closer, he could see several huddled forms lying in the road. None of them wore tartan, he noticed.

He could sense Crowley a few meters behind him. He glanced back and saw that the Ranger had also let his reins drop and had an arrow ready on his own bowstring.

Closer still and he could make out more detail as they swept into the space between the first of the village buildings. Several of the defenders behind the barricade were women, he realized. One of them was thrusting with a heavy spear at an attacking Scotti warrior. The clansman grabbed the weapon behind its iron head and jerked it toward him, dragging the woman forward over the barricade.

As she fell, off balance, he tossed the spear aside and raised his huge broadsword over his head for a killing stroke.

Halt heard the unmistakable thrum! of a bowstring from behind him, then an arrow flashed past, its fletching hissing in the air.

The Scotti threw up his hands, the broadsword falling to the dirt beside him. He clawed at his back with his right hand,
trying to reach the arrow that had impaled him. Then he pitched forward, landing on the barricade, then tumbling off onto the road.

Another Scotti was striking with a sword at a villager armed with a sickle tied to a pole. The makeshift weapon was clumsy and unbalanced, and the villager was hard pressed to ward off the powerful strokes from the raider. As they watched, the pole spun out of his hands and he was left defenseless.

Halt shot and the second Scotti went down. The villager looked up, startled, searching to see where his salvation had come from.

The two riders were barely fifty meters from the desperate battle. Halt decided that was close enough. He reached down with his right hand for the reins—his bow was in his left. He dragged on them and pressed his left knee into the horse's flank, bringing it to a skidding, sliding stop, side on to the barricade. Crowley mirrored his actions and the two of them sat their horses, side by side in the middle of the village high street.

Now the Scotti were aware of the danger to their rear. A group of them disengaged from the barricade and formed a line facing the two bowmen. There were ten of them and their small circular shields were pressed together to present a barrier to any further arrows.

But not an impenetrable barrier. The shields couldn't cover the raiders' entire bodies and the two archers were expert shots who could pick the smallest target and hit it at this distance—virtually point-blank range. Halt shot again and one of the men in the middle of the line went down with a cry of agony, an arrow through his thigh. Then Crowley sent another arrow hissing on its deadly way and a Scotti warrior reeled back out of the line
with an arrow transfixing his forearm. His weapon fell to the muddy road. As he staggered back, one of the defenders behind the barricade, momentarily forgotten, leaned out and brought a long, heavy staff crashing down on his skull. His knees folded up under him and he went facedown in the mud.

A huge Scotti, apparently the leader, bellowed with rage as he saw his men wounded. He pointed his broadsword at the two mounted men and shouted a command. His warriors responded with an incoherent cry of their own and began to advance, shields up and weapons raised.

Three more of them went down in the space of five seconds—two with leg wounds and the third with an arrow through his shoulder. Aside from the pain of the wounds themselves, the sheer force of the arrows at this range, propelled by eighty-pound longbows, knocked them backward. Another arrow slammed into one of the shields and its owner was forced back several paces. It was too much to expect them to continue to advance in the face of such withering shooting. The arrows came thick and fast and men screamed in pain and rage. One man turned and ran, followed almost immediately by another. Then the entire group had broken and were retreating at full pace to the north, those who were so far untouched by the arrow storm helping their wounded comrades to hobble with them at the fastest pace they could manage.

“That's enough,” said Crowley, lowering his bow. He had no wish to shoot at men who were retreating and, effectively, defenseless.

Halt nodded agreement. “They'll keep running until they reach the border.”

They turned their horses and began to walk the remaining fifty meters to the barricade. As they approached, the villagers
straggled out from behind the tangle of tables, chairs, handcarts and the other paraphernalia they had thrown up to stop the attackers.

A ragged cheer went up as the two riders stopped and dismounted.

A tall, heavily built man in his mid-thirties stepped forward. He was one of the better armed and equipped among the villagers, with a single-bladed battleax in one hand and a large wooden shield on his other arm. He wore an iron helmet, a simple piece in the shape of an acorn.

He leaned his ax against a nearby handcart and greeted them, right hand outstretched.

“Can't tell you how glad we are to see you,” he said, smiling broadly. “We were on our last legs here. You arrived just in time. I'm Yorik, headman of the village.”

Halt deferred to Crowley, motioning for him to step forward. The Ranger did so, shaking the headman's hand and grinning at the other villagers who were clustering around.

“Glad to be of service,” he said. “My name's Crowley, and this cheerful chap with me is named Halt.”

Halt nodded a greeting as Yorik appraised them keenly. He took in the cowled cloaks, the dual sidearms—saxe and throwing knife—and, of course, the mighty longbows both men carried.

“Judging by the way you shoot,” he said, “you're King's Rangers.”

Crowley nodded. “I am. He's as good as.” He gestured around the village, taking in the still figures lying in the street and the burning and smoldering buildings. “What caused all this?”

Yorik's face clouded over. “Prince Duncan caused it. He went raiding with his men over the border and stirred up the Scotti.
Then he moved on before they could retaliate, leaving us to face the music. Curse his criminal hide,” he said bitterly. Then a look of sudden fear swept over his face. These were King's Rangers, after all, and likely to owe their allegiance to Prince Duncan as a member of the royal household. “Forgive me,” he said, dropping his gaze. “I spoke without thinking.”

Crowley shook his head. “No forgiveness necessary,” he said. “We've been hearing some strange tales about Duncan. Sounds like they're true.”

Yorik nodded warily. He still wasn't totally sure of his ground.

Halt entered the conversation. “We heard he'd been throwing his weight around—stealing and helping himself to anything he fancied.”

Yorik seemed a little reassured by the note of censure in Halt's voice. “Aye, that's right. And when he'd taken everything of value, he moved on. We were glad to see him go—until the Scotti turned up, of course. Duncan has twenty men-at-arms with him. They would have made short shrift of these brutes.”

He gestured at the two dead Scotti lying in the street. Already, the other villagers were beginning to dismantle the barricade and return the items of furniture to the homes they had come from. Of course, the inn was totally destroyed, so several pieces that had come from the taproom were left to one side. Yorik looked gloomily at the smoldering wreckage of the inn. As they watched, a final section of the roof collapsed in on the rest. Sparks flew in a shower, then settled slowly.

“We'll give you a hand clearing things away,” Crowley said, and he and Halt joined the villagers in their work, returning the carts and furniture to where they had come from, and laying the
bodies of those villagers killed in a row by the side of the road. The dead Scotti were piled separately, and with considerably less care.

“We'll bury our people later,” Yorik told them. “The Scotti we'll burn.”

Crowley dusted off his hands and looked around. The barricade had been dismantled and removed. The funerals, he sensed, would be a private matter for the villagers, where outsiders like him and Halt would be intruding.

“Thanks for your help,” Yorik said. “If you hadn't turned up, we'd have been finished.”

Crowley and Halt shrugged diffidently. There was nothing to say, really. It was an awkward moment and Yorik smoothed it over with his next words.

“Come join my wife and me for a glass of cider and a bite to eat,” he said. “She's the best cook in the village.”

They followed him toward one of the larger houses—a single-story wattle-and-daub structure with a thatched roof.

“I thought the Scotti might try something like this,” Yorik said. “So I'd posted lookouts along the road to the border. They caught one but the second got here in time to give us warning. We managed to throw up the barricade before they arrived.” He glanced down the road to where two men were lifting one of the still figures sprawled in the rapidly drying mud. “Not that it did young Merrick and his brother any good,” he added heavily.

Crowley dropped a consoling hand on his shoulder. “Still, you held them off long enough for us to get here,” he said.

Yorik nodded gratefully. “That's true. You certainly taught those murdering Scotti a thing or two.”

He opened the door to the house and they went inside ahead
of him.

“Maeve,” he said, “we've guests joining us.”

His wife was the woman Crowley had saved with his first shot. She nodded a greeting to them and began to set food on the table.

“You're welcome in our home,” she said warmly.

There was a cold roast of beef on the table and a crock of yellow pickles stood beside it. Maeve was cutting thick slices of bread while Yorik poured three mugs of cider. She smiled and gestured to the chairs by the table.

“Seat yourselves, Rangers,” she said.

“I'm actually not a—” Halt began, but Crowley cut him off.

“You ride and shoot and fight like a Ranger and you were taught by one of the best of the old breed. Let's just take it as read that you are one.”

Halt shrugged in acquiescence and reached for a piece of bread, piling several slices of beef on it and spreading a generous helping of pickles over the top. He bit into the food and sighed contentedly.

“So tell us about Duncan,” Crowley said.

Yorik paused, gathering his thoughts. “He and his men turned up here four days ago. Around noon, wasn't it, Maeve?”

“Aye,” said Maeve. “Close enough to noon.”

“They marched into the tavern across the way, kicking everybody else out and helping themselves to the best wine and ale that Tilson had in the cellar.”

“They seemed to have an eye for the best,” Maeve said heavily.

Yorik glanced at her, nodded agreement and helped himself to bread and beef before he continued. “Young Jemmy Mandell
was driving his father's prize sow out to the green when they arrived. They took her and slaughtered her, right in the street. When the boy tried to stop them, they beat him something savage. Then they started roasting joints of pork over a fire, laughing all the while. Thought the whole thing was right amusing, they did.”

“And Duncan said nothing about this?” Crowley asked.

Yorik shook his head sadly. “Prince Duncan was laughing the loudest. He was cheering his men on. And he kept doing so while they stole and beat people and terrorized some of the womenfolk. He's the worst of the lot of them, if you ask me.”

“It sounds like it,” Halt said.

“When did they raid across the border?” Crowley asked.

“That was the day before yesterday. They headed out around midmorning. We thought they were gone for good. Then they arrived back next day and told us what they'd been up to. ‘You can expect a return visit from the Scotti,' Duncan told us. ‘They seemed quite annoyed when we left.'

“Then, yesterday, they finally left us in peace. Except, of course, that we knew the Scotti would retaliate. Which they did,
as you saw.”

“I doubt you'll see the Scotti again,” Crowley told him. “They won't be too quick to follow a war leader who comes back from a raid empty-handed, with a third of his men dead or wounded.”