Despite the hermetical working on the maille, a trickle of blood flowed down off de Vrailly’s shoulder onto his surcoat. The needle point of the baselard didn’t have to break a link to go a finger joint’s length into a man’s flesh.
De Vrailly felt the fight-ending blows.
And he knew.
Inside the helmet, he sobbed once.
But training powered his arms. His left shoulder had three shallow penetrations and the pain was immense but the muscle steady.
He stepped back, rolled his great sword through a deceptive flourish-cut down from a high left side guard, his blow falling onto the Red Knight’s crossed hands, and then down and down, past the long tail with the weapon put behind him like a dragon’s tail and then rolling his hands precisely, his point coming in line-
Gabriel saw the feint, covered the rising cut-and knew the sequence with the same imagination that could see a thousand dusty deaths and could read the angle of his opponent’s hands.
Thrust with deception from the low line, said some distant part of his head to his strong right arm without communicating to any part of his brain that registered thoughts. His last cover had put him right leg forward, his dagger well back on the left side, point down.
All. Or nothing.
He rotated on his hips, the true volte stabile, and he caught the tip of his dagger between the index finger and thumb of his left hand. He didn’t think about it, and they worked well enough.
Neither man was thinking. All that was fighting was training and will, muscle and steel. The men were lost in the fight. The fight was, in every way, the men.
The thrust came forward. It was almost perfect, but again, at the moment of timing required, de Vrailly’s left leg was slow.
For all that, the tip struck-not in the Red Knight’s exposed armpit, as intended, but on the very front of his breastplate of Morean steel. Then-an aching heartbeat late-the Red Knight’s dagger caught it near the middle third of the end and pushed it aside, so that the blade engraved a furrow up the Red Knight’s breastplate to the top ridge, hesitated-and passed off into empty air.
Gabriel knew he’d been hit-but he pushed the blade away, his point in line, guided by the minimal pressure of his maimed left hand. The target drifted across his sight and he turned his high cover into a thrust. He used his left hand to guide the thrust, and when de Vrailly’s desperately rising hands slammed into his left arm, in front at the moment of contact, he had a galvanic shock like a hermetical attack, and his own dagger sliced effortlessly through the chamois glove inside the palm of his steel gauntlet and cut deeply into his left palm even as his point went forward between his fingers-
It caught on the bent metal of the damaged edge of de Vrailly’s helmet. The outer helmet was not hardened steel, or had been softened by repeated blows, and the point caught-harmlessly.
Without any intention beyond desperation, the Red Knight slammed his right foot down on de Vrailly’s left.
De Vrailly’s left leg crumpled. Neither man could keep his balance, and they fell together.
Michael had long since begun to ride forward. The two horses had separated-de Vrailly’s charger was hurt, but still snorted with fury. Gabriel’s Ataelus reared once more-and de Vrailly’s horse shied away.
The dust was so thick around the horses and men that Michael could no longer see even the glint of swords or armour. He opened his helmet and raised a hand-a sign of peace-and rode forward, even as Du Corse and another knight came forward with the herald.
Behind him, Ser Michael roared, “Stand your ground, or by God,” and there were murmurs.
In the Gallish ranks, men pushed forward. The centre of their line seemed to swell-as if about to give birth to a battle.
Archers in the company began to nock shafts.
Du Corse raised a hand. As he wore only an arming coat and had no weapon, his gesture carried.
Michael tugged his sword from its scabbard and dropped it on the ground.
The herald began to wave his green pennant back and forth.
Michael was close enough now to see into the haze of dust.
Both men were down.
And as he cantered up, with Du Corse converging from another angle, Michael saw no movement at all. The two men lay in a huddle of limbs and arms.
Gabriel never lost consciousness.
He had time to panic about his position, and to realize that he was atop de Vrailly, and de Vrailly was not moving. Gabriel’s chin strap was broken, his neck hurt savagely, and his bascinet was twisted enough on his head to make seeing difficult. And his head was ringing.
He realized that he was covered in blood. It was an odd, slow realization-the stickiness of his right hand, the sheet of pain from his left with its slickness, the taste of blood in his own mouth and nose all slowly added together into a universe of blood.
He couldn’t use his left hand, trapped between them, at all.
He tried to pull at his dagger to get in another blow, all with aching slowness, and it came free with a slick, wet feeling that told him where it had been.
He used the dagger to push off the ground, and got to his knees. Shook his head to clear his vision, and ignored all the pains, and settled his visor so that he could see.
But no further blow was required. Somewhere in the fall, his dagger’s point had slipped from its position on the outer helm, baulked of its prey. It had followed the path of least resistance, probably driven by their contact with the ground, sliding in between the helmets, through de Vrailly’s left eye.
The great knight was dead.
Gabriel Muriens sat back on his knees, his weight on de Vrailly’s breastplate. He heard hoof beats. He dropped his dagger, having to shake it from his sticky fingers, and scrabbled with the buckle of his chin strap until he could pull his own helmet off his head, and then he drank in the air. He drank it in, again and again, blind to the men gathering around him.
He finally raised his head, and there was the herald, and Du Corse. And Michael. He thought of Gavin, whose fight this ought to have been. Many, many thoughts came into him then, as if he’d been an empty vessel and now he was again filled.
He wept.
And Ser Michael put an arm under his and raised him to his feet. “Come, my captain,” he said. “These worthy gentlemen want to take the body of their friend, and go.”
The words passed over Gabriel, and left no mark. But other men shouted orders, and other men made plans and, in an hour, the Galles were headed south in a dejected company, with Jean de Vrailly borne on a litter between four horses.
Ser Gerald Random followed them at a discreet distance with a tithe of the Harndon militia.
The rest of the Red Knight’s little army turned on their heels and marched north. The day was not so old, and the men had not fought a battle. There was a great deal of grumbling, and Michael halted them, lectured them in a voice reminiscent of the old captain, and then promised double pay for the next month.
All the company cheered, and even Master Pye’s armourers set up three hearty huzzahs.
And two leagues further on, at their third halt, the Queen rode down the column with the Red Knight at her side, clad in an arming doublet, bare-headed, and with his left arm in a sling, but with his sword at his side. As they rode, the army cheered, so that the cheers welled up at the front and carried all the way to the back, rippling along, and then the militia marched faster, and the men changed horses with more will.
Back at the front of the column, the Red Knight reined in.
“I confess that I feared you dead,” said the Queen.
“Me, too,” Gabriel admitted. It was the first sign of the return of humour. As he said later to his brother, he had been somewhere else.