It took more than courage to keep him steady in his ground, or loyalty to his friends or his men, or belief in the cause (whatever it was) or religion itself. The instinct to run away would've overridden any of those, or all of them together. But the thought occurred to him, even as panic smashed through his defences into his mind, that if he ran, or if he didn't maintain the defence and drive the enemy out, then the Flutes wouldn't be discharged and everything would be wrong: history wouldn't turn, the world would stay the same, and it'd all be because of one weak tendon. He couldn't face the embarrassment.
He overdid his next cut recklessly, swinging with far too much force and not enough direction. The stroke went home, sure enough, but there hadn't been any need to chop bone, and Monach saw an accusing spark fly up as the hard steel of his sword blade chipped against a steel belt-buckle. The slightest notch in the cutting edge would ruin it for the perfect drawn cut, the stroke in which he'd striven all his life to find religion. Everything had gone completely wrong, and he hadn't even lost a square yard of ground yet The best and only chance was to close and seal the breach before the decisive number (a constant easily discovered by simple maths) got through it and into the yard. If the decisive number was sixty and he let through sixty-one, he'd failed. One hell of a time to screw up a tendon.
Even so, he thought; and he swung at the next man to get in his way with everything he had. It was a poor cut, a lousy cut, Father Tutor would have rolled his eyes and clicked his tongue, but the dead man hit the ground with a thump, and his sword clattered against the rim of his shield as it dropped. The next one was slightly better, but the annoying fool of a target stumbled, was in the wrong place, and the edge cut into the ball of his shoulder instead of his neck; Monach had to waste a whole cut finishing him. From there, it was all simply dreadful. Some of them had time to hit back and he had to parry, something he hadn't needed to do for ten years. One of them even slipped past a third back guard and nicked the lobe of his ear before Monach could deal with him. He was tired, he'd wickedly abused his shoulder, he was filthy with mud and blood and he'd knocked a splinter as wide as the nail of his little finger out of the edge of his sword, a forefinger's length down from the tip. History and the world owed him badly for all this.
Fortunately, he'd underestimated his men. Their efforts were so shabby as to be practically an abomination, but they did contrive to hustle the enemy back into the breach without getting themselves wiped out-and, to do them credit, they took a respectably long time about it, unlike the haughty sword-monks who couldn't be bothered to spin out a simple job in a good cause. How much longer could Spenno need, anyway? Two old women and a three-legged dog could've shifted those Flutes by now Only three men were left from the party of enthusiasts who'd tumbled in through the breach after the ram. Two of them promptly vanished, cut to bits by a couple of sword-monks who'd wandered down from the wall, presumably out of boredom. That left just one for Monach himself, not that he was really fussed. Still, it'd be no big deal getting rid of a lone infantryman-a long, thin, spindly individual with a badly burned face. Monach decided to start from sword-sheathed and do a proper draw. An act of religion was just what he needed right now, to soothe his mind and take it off the pain in his shoulder.
As the back of his hand brushed the sword hilt before flipping over, the infantryman stepped into his circle and grinned. 'Hello there, Earwig,' he said.
Monach froze, just managing to check the draw in time. 'Gain?' he said. The infantryman nodded, and drew.
Back in third year, before they'd learned anything worth knowing, Monach had sparred with Gain in the exercise yard: two-foot hazel sticks wrapped in cloth, with a wicker handguard. After the bout had gone on far too long, Gain had lost his temper and lashed out blindly, allowing Monach to do the two-step sideways shuffle that still gave him problems all these years later, and flick a little cut across Gain's forehead, drawing enough blood to establish victory. Curiously, the thin, straight scar had survived whatever had happened to Gain's face in the meantime.
The tip of Gain's sword nipped the very end of Monach's nose, spurting a few drops of blood into his eyes as he rocked back. He heard Gain swearing, couldn't blame him-nobody had reflexes fast enough to get them out of the way of a perfectly executed rising throat-cut straight from the draw; most definitely not the Earwig. Nonplussed, Gain neglected to double his hands and step out with a left downwards diagonal; there was an instant, a full moment in religion, in which time wouldn't exist. If Monach could reconcile himself to killing an old friend, Gain was already as good as dead.
Monach drew.
But you couldn't do religion with a trick shoulder; only the perfect could attain perfection. The hard edge of his sword slithered off the opposing flat of Gain's sword, like a skater losing his balance on the ice. Because the anticipated resistance of bone to steel was missing, Monach stumbled forward, turned over his right ankle and flopped on the ground, while Gain's coaching-manual lateral beheading cut sailed over him, slicing air. As Monach scrambled frantically to his knees, he saw Gain step back and shake his head. 'See you, Earwig,' he called out, then stepped backwards through the splintered palisade like an actor leaving a stage.
Someone else must've given the order to bring up logs and stakes to plug the gap torn by the ram. Monach watched them do it-better carpenters than they were soldiers-then trudged back across the yard, just as the rain began to fall. Perfect, he thought bitterly.
But as he came up to the gate, he heard the now-familiar sound of somebody cursing a blue streak: Spenno, at last. Monach broke into a run, and found himself in front of the fodder store, staring at a large round black hole that seemed to go on for ever, right though to the edge of the world and out the other side into infinity. Instinctively he ducked; a burst of laughter greeted his movement. He glanced up and saw Spenno grinning at him down the length of a Poldarn's Flute. 'We did it!' Spenno was shouting. 'We're all done and dusted and ready to go, just got to load up the charge-'
Spenno's next words were drowned out by the hollow thump of battering rams on the tortured remains of the gate. 'Perfect,' Spenno said. 'Right on time-couldn't be better if we'd all been practising for a week. You, for fuck's sake, where's the goddamned vent pick?'
Monach didn't need to know what a vent pick might be. He skipped out of the way, ducked under the muzzle of the Flute and into the shed. A man he didn't know brushed past him, lugging a leather sack the size of a plump cushion; his. knees were bent and he was straining. Behind the knobbly stump end of the Flute-he'd heard Spenno call it the cascabel, the gods only knew where he'd got the word from, but knowing Spenno it was the right one-someone else was blowing gently on a manky little stub of smouldering rope, fetching up a tiny red ember. 'Watch what you're fucking doing with that match,' Spenno's voice rasped, and its malevolence was the most reassuring thing Monach had ever heard. 'Clear away, make ready,' someone else yelled-Galand Dev possibly, but it didn't actually matter. The rest of the exchange was blurred by the cracking of timber; Monach turned round to face the gate, and saw the nose of a four-foot-diameter log poking through shattered boards, like a worm in an apple. They were coming. The slayer was set up, and they were smashing their way towards it, pressing forward in their haste to be the first to crawl into the narrow black tunnel to nowhere. My idea, Monach reflected; and the horror of what he was about to achieve made his stomach lurch. They hadn't tested it on wicker screens or sacks stuffed with straw or even just a wall of soft mud: this would be the first time, against muscle and sinew and bone, but there could only be one possible outcome. A hundredweight of gravel, spat out of a short tube at unimaginable speed; the first man through the gates would simply disintegrate, like a rotten apple thrown up in the air and smacked hard with a stick.