Among those who recognized the blast of a battle horn of the Knights of Solamnia were Sir Pirvan and Sir Darin. Pirvan could not see across the citadel as easily as Darin, with his extra height, so it was the younger knight who saw the truth first.
He uttered a word Pirvan had never before heard from his lips. Then he added, “There is a knight leading the rear column. I must ride out and learn what he is doing in such dubious company.”
“You must-?” Pirvan began.
Darin shook his head. “If he is there by design of the orders, well and good. He will not allow me to be harmed. If he is there for other reasons-he must learn what a fool he is, to ride with them against fellow knights.”
Only Sir Darin did not use the word “fool.” He used a much stronger word in the minotaur tongue. Pirvan had heard him use it before, but never applied to another knight, or indeed any person Darin respected.
The older knight was still recovering from his surprise when Darin leapt off the wall, to land halfway down the stairs. He descended the rest of the way three steps at a time, then dashed across the courtyard toward his mount. A moment later, Pirvan heard him roaring.
“Open the gate! Paladine demands that I ride to save a knight’s honor.”
As softly spoken as he commonly was, Darin possessed a voice to match his stature. Pirvan feared he could be heard all the way to the trees, and that he would have a dozen arrows in him before he was twenty paces from the gate.
But Darin was right. The Knights of Solamnia had to look to one another’s honor, when ignorance or folly might strike at it.
Briefly, Pirvan cursed the moment he had accepted command of Belkuthas. His honor demanded that he remain at his post, and leave riding out to save others’ honor to Darin.
Chapter 14
By the time Zephros overtook Luferinus, the sell-sword captain’s own men had surrounded him. None of them were attempting to care for his wounds. No man with his head at that angle to his body could be alive.
Zephros reined in. He saw a ripple of rising heads and raised weapons around Luferinus. His initial impulse, to go and kneel piously beside the body, began to disappear.
Taking its place was an impulse to be elsewhere, if only he could find an excuse and a way to leave without turning his back on either the enemy or the men who had been his allies until a few moments before. He would not have minded Luferinus’s fall under most circumstances, but these circumstances seemed to have been contrived by Hiddukel the Liar.
He was contemplating this, and it seemed to him that some of Luferinus’s archers were contemplating drawing bow, when a mounted man galloped into sight. His horse was lathered and his own eyes were wild, while from his gaping mouth came a shriek.
“The knights are coming out! The knights are out of the citadel! ’Ware, ’ware!”
That seemed to Zephros as good a reason as any for digging in his spurs. He galloped off, to a brief chorus of jeers, which died when the men saw that he was advancing toward the citadel and the charging knights, not fleeing.
His real reasons for advancing were less than heroic. He wanted to give Luferinus’s men as few excuses as possible for shooting him in the back. He also wanted to see if the knights’ charge was another rumor.
As Zephros rode, he swore a mighty oath that he would kill with his bare hands the next person who spread panic by spreading tales!
Mistaking Sir Darin’s ride out to parley for a charge of the garrison’s knights was understandable. Darin wore armor and carried both sword and lance, and he looked as formidable as any three knights. His horse had been kicking its heels in the Belkuthas stables for two days, so it emerged at a brisk center.
Though they thought Darin was attacking, the first ranks of the soldiers refused the honor of engaging him. He did not even have to couch his lance before they scuttled off in all directions. The knight doubted this was due to a vast abiding respect for the Solamnic orders, and drew his sword, a more effective weapon at close quarters.
This convinced other sell-swords that it was time to face Darin, Solamnic Knight or not. Some thirty of them swarmed toward him on horseback and on foot, at the same moment as he recognized Sir Lewin.
To say Darin was confronted with a dilemma was to grossly understate matters. Sir Lewin had been raised by Sir Marod, Sir Pirvan’s patron, since before Pirvan took to thieving in Istar or Darin was washed ashore near Waydol’s stronghold. Darin would have found it hard to doubt Lewin’s honor, even had there not been much in the Measure against such doubting.
Nonetheless, Lewin was riding with the enemy rabble, apparently advancing to the attack with them. There had to be some explanation that did not involve Lewin’s having lost either his honor or his wits. Darin hoped one would be forthcoming, and that Sir Lewin would not stand on his superior rank as a Knight of the Rose and refuse to speak.
Meanwhile, whether the men coming at Darin were friends of Lewin or not, they were clearly no friends to the younger knight.
Darin sheathed his sword, couched his lance, and prodded two sell-swords out of their saddles, trying to do as little damage in the process as he could. Against a third mounted opponent his lance encountered a too-robust breastplate and snapped. He used the broken shaft to club a fourth rider out of his saddle, then tossed the piece away, drew his sword again, and tried to discourage the men on foot from approaching.
Discouraging them proved inadequate. Sadly he realized, almost too late, that he would have to kill. By then the soldiers had drawn close enough to use their weapons-mostly pikes and bills, and nearly all with rusty metal-against his mount. In moments Darin’s horse was bleeding in half a dozen places. Then he felt it starting to fall.
He leapt free, landing with the agility of a much smaller man, with shield on his left arm and sword in his right hand. He pushed two men hard with the shield, cut a third across the chest with a precise sword stroke, then settled down to what he feared would be a long and serious fight before he could speak to Sir Lewin.
Indeed, Darin had lost sight of the Knight of the Rose in the rock. The defenders on the citadel wall had not. They saw Lewin still riding forward, now accompanied by a good score of men-at-arms. They saw him to all appearances advancing to the support of the sell-swords who seemed to be doing their best to bring down Sir Darin.
Sir Darin would have been respected for his personal qualities even had he not been a friend to Sir Pirvan. The archers on the wall included both humans and elves, and the humans began shooting at once. Their sergeant had to dissuade some of them from leaping down from the wall, advancing to hiding places among the ruins, and shooting from closer range.
It was now the elves’ turn to face the dilemma. They respected Sir Darin as much as they did any human, and he was plainly in danger. Also, the humans on the wall were now fighting for him. If the elves did not shoot, they would again be holding back from battle. If their not shooting caused Sir Darin’s death, they would be shamed before everyone in Belkuthas, and down the years to the end of their lives.
The prospect of such a long life of shame decided the matter. The elf who had not given his name to Pirvan-but who was in fact named Dohartar and was a cousin of Belot-was the first to shoot. The other nine were only a few heartbeats behind.
The range was long even for elves, but the ten followed a common elven practice for such ranges, all aiming at one or a few targets. Thus enough arrows would fill the air around the target that one or more would strike.
Indeed, they put down five men with fifteen arrows, faster than a greedy child taking a bite out of a stolen honey cake. Four of these men were sell-swords. The fifth, by mischance, was one of Lewin’s men-at-arms. He flew backward out of his saddle, arms flung wide, his eyes staring, and an arrow in his throat so that blood sprayed from his mouth.