Knights shouted for spears. Crossbowmen drilled the creatures at pointblank range. One twenty-foot monster bit a knight’s leg and knocked him down. Feathered bolts stuck out of the crocodile’s skin. Swords bounced off its armored hide. The crocodile thrashed and its jaws snapped, and it bit off the armored leg. Men-at-arms tried to help. The mighty tail flailed and knocked several to the ground.
It was too much. The crocodiles broke whatever had been left of our discipline. Everyone fled as a mob. Soon only da Canale, a knight and I were left of the rearguard. I grabbed da Canale’s arm, and I truly ran. I forced him to run faster than I’m sure he ever had.
The clanking knight tried to keep up. He’d lost his helmet, and he panted. Then he snarled, stopped, turned and lifted his sword. He bought us precious seconds as the altered men hacked at him. The clangs were hammer-blows on my soul. I tried to think about Francesca. I did this for her.
The Goat Man’s pipes changed. It might have been a recall. I heard shrill whistles and the crocodiles disappeared.
Carlo da Canale and I didn’t stop to see why. We sprinted through the mist and through the hacked out trail that led back to the causeway. The thud of our feet was loud in my ears, and Canale sobbed with effort.
We along with a few others finally stumbled to the causeway. All work had stopped. Some carpenters nervously stood together and clutched axes. They almost hacked at us. Others held torches or heavy mallets.
Our few survivors collapsed, exhausted.
“Run!” I shouted. “Flee to the stockade.” I couldn’t fathom why the altered men had stopped. I distrusted this lull.
Many of the workers already streamed toward the stockade. They must have fled at the sound of battle. Their footsteps drummed with frantic haste on the laid-down planks.
The axe-men hesitated. They were brave, but I knew they could not stand up against the altered berserks.
“I can’t go on,” Da Canale gasped.
I glanced east into the mist. Wild cries came out of it. I glanced west at those pounding down the causeway. Despite this lull, there was about to be a slaughter. I sensed it. So I dragged da Canale off the causeway and past the many tree stumps. We crashed through heavy foliage and wet leaves.
“Down,” I hissed.
Da Canale collapsed and gasped for air. I knelt and peered past a frond back at the ground we’d just covered. Incredibly, some of the axe-men yet waited.
Then the mist vomited Signor Orlando and his thirty knights. They galloped at the axe-men. Beastly men holding crackling torches ran with the knights. The knights lowered their lances. Their huge war-horses thundered upon the muddy ground. A horn blared. It was too much. The axe-men turned and ran. Most dropped their weapons. Two who stood their ground died as lances split their chests like melons.
It was murder, not war, and I understood now the reason for the lull. It had no doubt taken time for Orlando to work his way through the dark army.
The knights charged the workers running for the stockade. Crazed altered men followed hard on their heels and butchered any they caught.
Beside me, an exhausted da Canale wept silently.
It galled me to have flee. It shamed me. But I was the Darkling, not a knight-errant. I had vowed to become ruthless like an assassin. Now I practiced ruthlessness and it left a foul taste in my soul.
***
I watched the best I could, but mist drifted in the way, the stockade was a goodly distance and I remained crouched. I only saw a little of what occurred but could surmise the rest.
The knights led the charge. Thirty trained killers encased in heavy armor, astride massive steeds and with the best lances and swords in the world, they rode through the workers like the living embodiment of the plague. I suspect only the first workers to flee made it to the stockade.
If the crossbowmen I’d seen walking the ramparts earlier had opened the gate for those survivors, those in the fort would have quickly died. Enemy knights might have dismounted and run through before the gate closed, or altered men would have done so. The stockade held. That told me the crossbowmen had either thrown down ropes or left the pitiful survivors to their own courage.
The wooden walls would protect the crossbowmen from the crocodiles and from the knights on horse. Were any of the possessed left? How long would they remain berserk?
Screams, metallic bangs and roared orders told me the fight was in earnest over there.
“I’m going to climb a tree and see how they fare,” I whispered.
Da Canale put a trembling hand on my arm. He pointed to my right.
I squinted into the misty foliage. Something large moved over there. How had da Canale sensed it and I hadn’t? We waited, and we witnessed apprentice sorcerers with whistles leading hissing crocodiles. The giant creatures trotted in their obscene manner and they followed like dogs. The sorcerers plunged into the foliage all around the clearing and in various directions. It made me suspect they laid a trap. Or maybe they hunted for me.
“We must try to slip out of here,” I whispered.
Da Canale turned a horrified face toward me. “They broke into the stockade,” he whispered. “Listen.”
A ferocious ‘Hurrah’ echoed through the swamp. It was a victorious sound. Had the possessed leaped onto the ramparts? Had those vile altered men clawed their way upward in the hail of crossbow fire?
Smoke chugged into the starry sky. Fires grew and soon threatened to set the swamp on fire. Yet that seemed unlikely. The enemy burned the stockade and probably burned the laboriously gathered planks. The swamp itself was too wet to burn.
In time, Orlando’s knights cantered past. Their helmets rested on their saddle pommels. The sweaty-faced killers jested with each other. They laughed and bragged about their deeds. In the rear rode Orlando Furioso. He yet wore his helmet, although he had sheathed Durendal.
One of the knights turned and asked, “Here, signor?”
Orlando waved them on beyond the causeway, toward the hacked-out trail.
By almost leaning out of my hiding spot, I saw several of the knights dismount. The hidden crocodiles and now the knights waiting-
Altered men began to arrive from the stockade. Many bore crossbow wounds. Some dripped with blood. Some gnawed on severed body parts. Like the knights, they bragged about their exploits, even the human hounds with bloody faces.
In the distance, through the jungle, sounded approaching horns.
Da Canale lifted his head, and he gripped my forearm. “Reinforcements come,” he whispered. “They’ll butcher these curs.”
“The enemy is setting a trap,” I whispered.
Da Canale stared at me. Some of the fear that had gripped him earlier had drained away. “We must warn them, signor.”
“And have Ofelia demand my capture?” I asked.
Da Canale murmured something vague, a promise, I suppose. Yet he was right. I had to warn them.
“You must move as quietly as possible,” I said.
He grinned at me in a ghastly manner. “I was a childhood thief, signor. It’s how I survived London’s bitter winters. Lead on, I can follow.”
A thief and a Darkling, we were a matched pair.
***
We made a wide circuit, too wide as it turned out. And we, or I, misjudged the reinforcements.
Naturally, they marched on the causeway. They advanced like a human snake, a long winding column of knights, men-at-arms and crossbowmen. I suspect the plan had been to feed the reinforcements into the advance guard where da Canale had begun the evening. One hundred men-at-arms behind mantelets should have been able to hold off three or four times their numbers. My mistake was in thinking Signor Hawkwood knew his trade. I had heard of him, and da Canale loved to bray about the captain-general’s exploits. I would have sent footmen first, a shield-wall of footmen and with others to carry torches and lanterns for light.