Nell took the war horse and led it back down the road towards the archers. There was fighting in the woods to the north-the squires. And the archers had all followed the wagon, while the pages had followed Count Zac somewhere.
Nell was all by herself. And there were things moving in the woods south of the road.
After a moment of panicked lèse-majesté, she vaulted into Ataelus’s war saddle. The great horse tolerated her, even sidled to allow her to settle her weight. Horses liked her, and Ataelus knew her well enough.
She moved her weight to bring him to a trot.
The thing-she had no words for it-exploded out of the brush to her left, but she had a heartbeat of warning and Ataelus was ready, weight on his rear haunches, and he sent the thing flying with a right-left hoof combination. The dead thing lay like a sack full of raw meat and teeth.
“Good boy. Pretty boy.” Nell soothed the horse, showing as little fear as she could. Ataelus was quivering and Nell quivered with him. A few yards away, Lord Wimarc stood over the prone priest, and farther along the road, two of the knights were spurring their mounts back-towards Wimarc and the captain.
There was a flash behind her. For an instant, her shadow and that of the horse were cast, black as pitch, on the trees to the south of the road. Even at the edge of her vision, the sheer whiteness left spots.
Without volition, she turned her head after flinching.
Fifty paces away, the captain stood between two great trees. Five paces away was a daemon, his red crest fully erect, his grey-green skin glowing with power, his beak a magnificent mosaic of inlays-gold and silver, bronze and bone. He was taller than a war horse and wore a loose cloak of feathers that sparkled with fire-and which seemed to have been torn.
He also had a large splinter of wood through one shoulder and bright red blood leaked around it.
He had an axe of bronze and lapis. He pointed the haft at the Red Knight and a gout of raw power, unformed ops, crossed the space.
The Red Knight stood in a guard as if facing a more prosaic opponent. His spearhead was down on his left side, and the haft passed across his hip-dente di cinghiare. His spear rose and he seemed-as far as Nell could tell-to catch the unseemly gout of raw power and toss it aside. He stepped forward with a double pass.
The daemon cast again-the same gout of power, this time tinged with green.
The captain didn’t falter. He caught the attack high and flung it down where it burst in a shower of burned leaves and exploding frozen ground.
The lapis axe whirled and a great green shield appeared, heart shaped, traced magnificently in the air by the bronze shaft of the monstrous axe.
The captain closed another pace, spearhead low and haft now high, and as the third attack-three spheres of green-white fire at pin-point intervals-left the axe shaft, the captain’s spear turned a half circle on his forward hand, and the spearhead, glowing a magnificent blue, collected all three spheres in its sweep, and they hurtled into the woods. One blew a head-sized fragment out of an ancient oak tree, one passed all the way through the grove and crossed the road within a few feet of Nell’s head to explode in the thicket behind her, and the third vanished into the sky.
Nell watched her captain close the last pace into engagement range and saw his spear lick out. It passed effortlessly through the daemon’s glowing shield, which vanished with the shriek of an iron gate torn from its hinges. The great saurian, driven to extremes, used his bronze axe-haft to parry the blow.
The ghiavarina passed through the axe haft like a cold knife through water. An incredible amount of hoarded ops exploded into non-aethereal reality.
The storm of power seemed to consume the daemon. It passed the captain the way the sea passes the prow of a ship, and even as the shaman slumped, the captain-subsumed him. The great creature began to unmake from the head down, his very essence leached and his corporeal form un-knitting even as the storm of his own power made his skin boil and explode outward in superheated destruction.
Nell retched.
The nearby oak tree, already damaged by the sorcerous overspill, gave a desperate crack.
The tree fell.
Toby watched the last daemon warrior run. He’d seen enough fights to know a healthy fear-what if he has friends?
He reined in. “Hold hard,” he called.
Adrian was still trying to draw his sword, which, in the hurry of combat, had rotated too far on his hips and was now almost lost behind him.
“Marcus is dead,” he said. “Father Arnaud’s still down on the road. Lord Wimarc’s standing over him.”
Toby got his horse around and reached behind his friend and drew his sword. He put it in Goldsmith’s hand. The artist was shaking like a beech tree in a wind.
“You got it, Adrian,” Toby said. “That was a preux stroke.”
Adrian gave him an uneven smile. “It was, wasn’t it? Christ-all the saints. Thanks.”
There was a flash of light so bright that both squires were stunned for a moment.
“Captain’s doing something,” Toby said, turning his horse to face the empty woods.
Adrian was looking at the ground. “Daemons, Toby.”
“I know!” The older boy looked around, completely at a loss. To the east, the captain was in some sort of sorcerous duel-there were pulses of power so rapid he couldn’t follow them.
To the north there was a flash of red, and then another.
“More daemons?” Adrian said. His voice was high and wild, but his sword was steady enough.
“Back to the road,” Toby decided.
“What about Marcus?” Adrian asked.
“He’s dead and we aren’t,” Toby said. “We’ll come back for him.”
He backed his horse to get clear of the brush and turned. Adrian followed him.
There was an explosion to the north, not far away. It was so great that both men and their horses were covered in gravel and sticks and a hurricane of leaf mould. The horses bolted.
Neither man was thrown. The company stressed riding skills for its squires, and they’d spent almost a year training with the steppe nomads of the Vardariotes.
Toby’s masterless horse burst onto the road a few horse-lengths from Nell, mounted on Ataelus. She was paper white. The horse half-reared then neighed at the familiar horses, who both slowed to see their herd leader so calm.
Something horrible was a tangled mass of blood and broken teeth between the huge war horse’s feet.
“There he is,” Toby said. Lord Wimarc was ten horse-lengths away, standing with a spear over the prone form of Father Arnaud. There was blood dripping from his spear. He was watching the ground south of the road. Francis Atcourt was just dismounting by his side and Phillipe de Beause was still mounted, watching the sky. Two hundred paces to the west, the sun was setting in splendour and a knot of archers could be seen, all drawing and loosing as fast as if repelling the charge of a thousand Morean knights. They had Ser Danved and Ser Bertran covering them. Both had swords well-bloodied.
Something passed overhead and darkened the sun. The shadow went on forever, and Toby raised his head in despair-
The great oak tree fell. Gravity was faster than the captain’s best reactions and stronger than all the daemons in the Wild and the oak tree’s top smashed him to the ground and he thought-
Cuddy drew and loosed, grunting as his shaft leapt into the air, and without pausing or following its flight he bent, took his next shaft, sliding the bow down over it and lifting it already nocked.
Needlepoint bodkin.
Needlepoint bodkin.
Broadhead.
Broadhead.
Beside him, Flarch’s elbow shot up in his exaggerated draw posture-he was a thin man and he pulled a heavy bow and his body contorted with every full draw, his back curved like a dancer’s.