‘You mean –’
‘I mean the loa came, fool! But to him! Him alone! And free of Don Pedro! And what a loa! All I did was complete the débâtment – hold Him fast! Now get me out of here! Get us all out! Do you want to be caught in what’s coming? Don’t you know who That is?’
All very interesting, but what were those Wolves hanging around for? Don Pedro was shrilling at them, but they didn’t seem too eager to budge.
‘It’s Ogoun, you idiot!’ screamed Stryge, in answer to something I hadn’t heard. ‘The one loa who’d root most gladly in such a mind as his! Ogoun Feraille the Ironmaster, Lord of Smiths – and so of industry, commerce, all that dross! Of politics, even! Ogoun the Giver of Profit! Ogoun the Giver of Success!’
‘Wait a minute!’ breathed Jyp, in tones of awe and horror. ‘Ogoun? That’s not all he is –’
‘No! He’s more!’ Le Stryge crackled. ‘Shall I turn Him loose, invoke His other aspect? Do you want to be caught in range when I do? Forget the boy – get me out of here! Save yourself!’
I turned to look at them. Jyp stepped back a pace, nothing more. Stryge snarled with laughter. ‘So be it, then! At least it’ll be amusing!’ He dug his fingers into the design, and chanted
I looked down, panting. With swift strokes he was adding something to that vever, a flourish, a great crest – what looked like a sword, flanked by two banners, backed with stars …
Something stirred in me – like something vast moving under the earth, or an insect shaping in its chrysalis. But not yet ready to burst out …
I was caught, snared in some inner turmoil, suddenly unsure of myself. I looked around. The Wolves were stirring now, getting ready to charge in earnest. Stryge shook his head wildly, redoubled his chant – until a harsher laugh cut through it. It was Mall, her bonds cut, with Clare trying to support her. But she couldn’t stand, and fell to her knees at the edge of the design. She managed a brief glance of contempt at Stryge. ‘Thou’rt not all-wise, old man!’ she croaked. ‘Hast forgotten aught? But then thou wouldst – the godless sorcerer thou art!’ Dark blood was trickling from her head-wound again, but she stretched out trembling fingers, rubbed raw by her bonds, and with a vast effort began tracing lines that cut the banners across.
‘Let me!’ said Clare quickly. ‘What d’you want? Crosses? Christian crosses?’
‘Aye, so!’ whispered Mall. ‘Crusader crosses! For they’ve lent this One a Christian name, too! A saint’s name!’ Her breath rattled in her throat as she watched Clare complete the design. Something shifted, balanced on a brink – and slid down solidly into place. ‘And let Don Pedro hear it now, and tremble! For ‘tis the battle cry of his own folk, whom he betrayed! Saint-Jaques, Saint James the Great –’
‘Santiago!’ The shout burst unbidden from my lips, in the sheer glory of battle. I was a sword, a flame, a winged horseman, I was the print in Frederick’s window; I was edged iron and all the work that it could do, and I wasn’t disposed to wait. Gleefully I crooked a beckoning finger at the advancing Wolves. ‘Vin’ donc, foutues!’ I screamed. ‘Loup-garous dépouillés, écouillés! Come on, you sons of bitches! Shift ass! Come and lick my sword clean! Come on, you crap-haired cowardly sheep-shaggers!’
That last one did the trick. The Wolves were on me, and as they burst through the crowd I cracked the remaining chain-length like a steel whip over their heads, so close the shameful collars whistled through their rainbow hair. Then I let it snake back around my arm, and flung myself at them. They’d no time to form any kind of line. The first, the leader, I caught with a great slash at midriff height and cut him in two, and while his limbs still tottered my return stroke swept the heads from two behind. One raised a buckler to me and I pounded down on it, once, twice, three times, so fast he couldn’t raise a counterstroke and was hammered down to the ground like a nail. On the fourth stroke the shield split, and so did the Wolf beneath it. I kicked him under the feet of his fellows and growled with delight, then laid right on into the real meat. Swords shattered before they’d touch me, axes broke without daring to bite upon me, and bits of weapon and Wolf flew everywhere.
Behind me Stryge, like a man demented, was shrieking out, over and over.
I laughed louder than ever as I sent the Wolves spilling from my path, left and right and over my shoulder on my sword’s point, kicked one in the belly and vaulted over him as he doubled up, aimed a great slash at another, lunged, hewed, thrust. There was a loud crash, and something whistled near me. One of the worshippers was kneeling, steadying a revolver of some kind on his arm. I wheeled and ran straight at him. He pulled the trigger once more, but the hammer stayed where it was; and then I was on him. Blued steel is still iron at heart.
Noise erupted behind me. Some Wolves had circled round and attacked the crew as the last of them were getting cut loose. As I turned one of them hurled an axe at my head; I reached out, caught it and went for him with it, and they all fell over themselves avoiding me. Pierce rolled at my feet, entangled with a monster of a Wolf who was trying to throttle him. I pressed the axe into Pierce’s flailing hand, sprang over him and went for the rest with great two-handed slashes. Now they fell back at every dart I made, but I was faster. The ones in front fell against the ones behind, and I carved at them like a solid mass, driving them back, back among the terrified crowd, pressing on towards that stinking altar. How long it lasted, I don’t know, the mad music of hewing metal, the shouts, the screams and the hacking, jarring impacts; but suddenly I’d run out of enemies. The Wolf ranks broke. They fled like mad in all directions, and the remaining worshippers bolted with them – back towards the altar, seeking their master’s shadow, or just out into the night. I shouted after them, I don’t know what. The fouled ground before me seethed with shapes that groaned or kicked or twitched their way down into stillness, and I chuckled deep in my throat to see them, mocking the insistent cries that came from the altar. A few more disciplined Wolves were trying to turn the rout by the simple means of felling anyone, Wolf or human, who tried to push past. A terrified free-for-all developed, Wolf against Wolf with the humans caught bloodily in the middle, tearing each other to shreds like rabbits with a ferret loose in their burrows. I drank deep of the reeking air, and was just about to press on after them when a cry turned me in my tracks, as perhaps no other could.
It was Clare’s voice, from where she knelt. Stretched out across the vever Mall lay sprawled, unmoving, limbs outflung, blood from her head seeping along the wide gouged lines. Slowly, very slowly. Two strides took me to Clare’s side. I looked down. Mall’s eyes were half-open, but rolled back so the pupils had disappeared. Clare sobbed. Something within me sang a high steely tone of recognition, of acknowledgement, and without quite knowing what I was doing I knelt slowly down, reached out and touched my middle finger right to the centre of Mall’s forehead.