“They know we aren’t fools—but neither are they!” Gar called to him. “They’re frightening us into riding headlong because they have an ambush planned!”
“Ambush?” Antonio cried, incredulous. “From where?”
“There!” Gar pointed ahead at a cluster of peasant huts that had just come into view. “Scare us enough, and we’ll think we’re safe when we come to shelter, any shelter!”
Even as he said it, more condotierri burst out of the huts, galloping straight toward them. Gianni gave a frantic look back, but saw another group following hard on their trail.
“We’re lost!” one of the drivers cried, and slewed his mule to a halt, throwing up his hands.
“Circle!” Gianni shouted. “Do you want to be slaves in the lords’ galleys the rest of your lives? Form the circle and fight!”
The drivers pulled their animals around to form an impromptu fortress.
“They’re soldiers!” the lone driver wailed. “We can’t win! They’ll slay us if we fight back!”
“Better dead and free than alive and in bondage!” Antonio shouted.
“Any man who wishes to live as a slave, leave now!” Gianni called. “Perhaps you can escape while the rest of us fight!”
That one driver bolted—out of the circle, down off the road, and over the fields. The others all held steady, staring at the mercenaries thundering down upon them.
“Slay the horses first!” Gar called. “A man afoot is less of a threat!”
A cry of terror made them all look toward the deserter, just in time to see a condotierre strike him down with a club. He fell amidst the grain, unconscious and waiting to be harvested when the battle was done.
“That is the reward of surrender!” Antonio called. “Better to die fighting!”
“Better still to fight and live!” Gar shouted. “But if you must die, take as many of them with you as you can!”
The drivers answered him with a shout.
“Fire!” Gianni cried, and a volley of crossbow bolts slammed into horses. The poor beasts threw up their heads and died with a scream; the next rank of soldiers stumbled and fell over the crumpled bodies of the first. But the third rank had time to swerve around their fallen comrades, and the drivers dropped their crossbows, realizing they wouldn’t have time to reload.
Then the condotierri fell upon them.
It was hot, hard fighting, and it seemed to last hours, as Gianni caught blades on his dagger and thrust and slashed. Gar stood just behind him, back to back, roaring and slashing at rider after rider. In minutes, they were both bleeding; as their men fell, swords slashed them, skewered them, but they shouted with rage and didn’t feel the pain as anything but a distant annoyance. The condotierri bellowed with anger as drivers thrust swords into their horses’ chests, and the mounts buckled beneath the soldiers. Screams of anguish and agony filled the air, but more from the condotierri than the drivers—for the Stilettos were striking with clubs, trying to capture men for the slave markets, but the drivers struck back with swords and lances and axes. Finally the condotierri gave up hope of profit and drew their swords in rage. Gianni shouted in pain when he saw his men falling, blood pumping from chest and throat, then cried with anguish as old Antonio fell with his jerkin stained crimson.
Then a roundhouse swing struck his sword up and slammed the blade back into his forehead. He spun about, and as he fell, saw Gar already lying in a crumpled heap below him—before the horse’s hoof struck his head, and the world stopped.
CHAPTER 3
The world went away; there was nothing but darkness, nothing but consciousness—consciousness of a spot of light, small or distant. Distant; it grew larger, seeming to come nearer, until Gianni could see it was a swirl of whiteness. Closer then it came and closer, until Gianni realized, with a shock, that its center was a face, an old man’s face, and the swirling about him was his long white beard and longer white hair. Hair blurred into beard as it moved about and about, as though it floated in water. Beware, beware! His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
The words sprang unbidden to Gianni’s mind, words he was certain he had never heard before—and surely not the type of thing he would have thought of himself. But those eyes were flashing, looking directly into his, and the lips parted, parted and spoke, in a voice that seemed to reverberate all about Gianni, so low in pitch that it seemed to be the rumble of the earth, issuing words he could barely understand because they throbbed in his bones as much as in his ears:
Your time has not yet come. Live!
And Gianni was astonished to find that he didn’t want to, that the warm enwrapping darkness was so comforting that he had no wish to leave it.
This is not your place, the face said. You have no right to be here—you have not earned it.
But I can do no good in the world, Gianni protested. I have seen that! I can’t protect my men. I can’t protect my father’s goods—I’m not half the man my father is!
Nor was he, when he was your age. The face spoke sternly. Go! Or would you deprive him not only of his goods, but also of his son, who is more dear to him than anything he owns? Would you leave him to weep his grief in your mother’s arms, and she in his?
A pang of guilt stabbed Gianni, and he sighed, gathering his energies. Very well, if you say it. I shall go. His attention suddenly sharpened. Yet tell me first, who are you?
But the face was receding, and the voice was commanding, Go! Go back to the world! To your mother, your father! Go! Go, and come not back until …
His voice seemed to blur as he shrank to only a circle of whiteness, and Gianni asked, Until? Until what?
Come not! Come not! Come … Come … But the face had dwindled to a circle of light again, shrinking, growing smaller and smaller until it winked out, leaving a last word lingering behind: Come …
“Come back, Gianni! Come back!” a voice was saying, was urging gently. “Come back to the world! Wake up, arise!”
Gianni frowned, finding himself somewhat irritated. He forced his eyes open—only a little, then wider, for there was very little light. He saw the giant bending over him, his rough-hewn face even more craggy in the stark whites and sudden blacks of moonlight.
“He looks!” Gar marveled. “He opens his eyes! He lives!”
“Yes, I live,” Gianni groaned, “though I would far rather not.” He tried to push himself up, but his arm was too weak. Gar caught him and hauled him upright. Gianni gasped at the lance of pain in his head, then choked down the nausea that followed. “What … how …”
“It was a blow to your head,” Gar said, “only that, but a very bad blow.”
“I remember … a horse’s hoof …”
“Yes, that would be enough to addle your brains for a while,” Gar allowed.
Gianni blinked about him, trying to make out dim shapes through his haze of pain. “What … happened to … the day?”
“We lay like the dead, I’m sure,” Gar told him, “and the condotierri had no use for corpses, so they let us lie—after looting our bodies, of course. My sword is gone, and my purse and boots.”