Cormac’s face stiffened. After a moment, he asked, “Then… dare ye carry me to her, by your sorcerous means?”
“No!” the queen cried.
“In this matter, lady Queen, your commands are second to mine. It is possible for too much nobility to be on a person, even a monarch.”
Both Riora and Dithorba stared at this tall, darkskinned stranger to their land who dared speak so to a queen. Cormac kept his gaze expectantly on Dithorba, who realized the Gael still awaited his answer.
“I dare, Cormac mac Art.”
“No, Dithorba! I forbid it!”
Cormac saw to himself. Blood oozed no longer from his twice-punctured left arm. His buckler remained serviceable-hopefully. His right wrist bore only a pair of barring lines, with neither wound nor stiffness on him there. The wound to his leg was only to the superficial meat, not into muscle, nor had it had time to stiffen. His Saxon knife was in its sheath and his sword was ready for the drawing on the instant.
Deliberately he drew Dithorba away from the doorway, out of sight of the piteously imprisoned queen.
“We go in,” he said quietly. “The moment we alight, release my hand, and return ye here.” When Dithorba nodded, Cormac turned and shouted to those others they’d released. “Free Balan and Torna! Take up chains and Elatha’s dagger; whatever armament there be, and remain ye there-sentries may come.”
The last was an afterthought, added in hopes their weakness might be forgot in renewed fear that he knew led in some to renewed strength. Such surely would be the case at least with Balan and the young man who was showing his energy in the flogging of Elatha.
Cormac took Dithorba’s hand. “In.”
He said it too loudly; from her prison came Queen Riora’s weak shout: “No! It’s your death!”
Cormac felt Dithorba’s hand quiver and he gripped it the tighter. “My command, Dithorba my friend,” he said softly, “In-and leave me.”
The familiar unpleasant sensations came immediately, and then Cormac was jolted, stumbling. Even so his hand fled Dithorba’s and leaped to the hilt of his sword. On this third occasion of his transport by means of another man’s mind, the Gael’s brain acid eyes cleared more swiftly.
His staring eyes saw that Dithorba had already left him, and was peering into the chamber from beyond the doorway. Their sorcerous means of transport had triggered no attack, for they had not passed through the door. Cormac stood in a crouch, feral-eyed and with sword and shield at ready. His slitted eyes swiveled to the side; he saw naught but Riora the Fair and Righteous.
Awkwardly he caught her hair in his shield-hand, betwixt head and binding; his sword sliced swiftly through the rope that had forced her head up and back. It was allowed to assume a natural position. Her eyes focused-and she cried out. Dithorba’s call of alarm crowded close on hers.
Her Guardian had appeared in the queen’s prison chamber.
Cormac had hardly expected to face here a foe of his own height and apparent build, nor had he ever seen a man so helmed and armoured.
No skin of the Guardian was visible. His scalemail coat fell from neck to knees; beneath it he wore leggings of good mail that vanished into short boots. Mailed gloves covered the hands that clutched sword and six-sided shield; faced with bronze it was and on it a death’s head had been picked out in awl-punched dots filled with black enamel. But once had Cormac seen such an eye-covering helm, on an arrogant Roman commander. From that visored helmet depended a camail of mail, which was connected in front to the nosepiece of the helmet so as to conceal the tall figure’s entire face.
Cormac faced a grim and silent foe covered all in iron.
With some nervousness on him though without sinking heart, the Gael remembered to crab-step from the bound queen of Moytura. She must not receive a chance slash.
“It’s your queen this be, man. Elatha is-no more. I am come here to set her free, and if ye insist I’ll be doing it through yourself. Sheathe sword and stand Ye back to serve your queen, for she will be free.”
The ironclad Guardian said nothing. Cormac could not see so much as eyes, to read their expression. Stance and ready-lifted buckler, with the upraising of the broad long sword in mailed hand, were indication enow of his reply and intent.
The man of iron paced forward, not toward Riora but at Cormac.
“Ye’ll be dying then, for all your armour,’ Cormac said, and moved but the tips of his fingers, ensuring his grip on shaped hilt.
He would let the other strike first, move while he took the stroke on his shield, and attack instantly and viciously. No such traitor as this, and him stupid besides, deserved to draw breath.
The Guardian’s arm came around in a blur. Cormac’s shield caught the sword-edge and his arm turned to let the sword slide on, thus allowing the attacker’s momentum to continue-while the Gael moved rightward and drove his blade forward. The impact of sword on shield was tremendous, a jolting surprise to mac Art’s arm and mind, as was the fact that the other’s bronze-faced buckler moved so rapidly. Yet it did not quite catch his rushing thrust; rather than plunging as he’d intended into an armoured side, Cormac’s blade screamed through iron links and completely transpierced his foe’s shield-arm, near the shoulder.
Cormac yanked his blade forth. It was well for him that he did not assume the fray to be over then, but remained mindful of the other’s long brand and his shield.
He had already seen; no blood marked the blade of mac Art.
Nor did his opponent seem to take note of his wound; he backswung and Cormac had to skip while thrusting back his shield to avoid the prodigiously powerful slash at his neck. Again the iron sword crashed on the Gael’s shield with a sound to torture the head, eardrums, and again the terrific impact shook his arm and rattled the teeth in his head.
He moved two rushing paces on, for a few snatched moments to relieve his shield-arm… and to try to hurl from his brain the numbing influence of shock.
Again he looked at the blade of his sword; he could not believe what he had seen-or rather not seen. It was true. The steel shone bloodlessly. Nor did any so much as ooze from his ironclad foe’s arm, which should have been pouring scarlet, if not spurting with his heartbeats.
Still without so much as a grunt or a curse, he who had been set to prevent the queen’s rescue struck again.
This slash came high, and Cormac at the last instant chose not to meet it with his buckler. Nor did he counterattack with his usual thrust; he ducked low and chopped deeply into the Guardian’s left thigh.
That titan in iron chain staggered-and back came his arm, in a hardly interrupted backswing.
This time Cormac dived away, and again he saw with hair-raising incomprehension that his blade was unblooded. His antagonist swung to follow; again he staggered a little on a leg that nevertheless held him erect-and bled, not.
Mac Art did not wait but struck hard, side-armed and with all his strength. The Guardian’s shield dropped swiftly into line so that Cormac’s blade chopped half through it. The wood held. The iron man was cleaving; Cormac lunged desperately forward to be within that sweep-and to crash his buckler into his foeman. Into the junction of arm and torso it smashed, so that iron shield-rim slammed both chest and arm and the boss centered between them drove into the hollow just above the silent attacker’s armpit.
The Guardian’s slashing glaive struck naught but air though his mailed arm rapped Cormac’s back. The Gael bore on, to hurl backward a foe who should have been down and half bled.
The Danan staggered back with a harsh jangle of overlapping iron scales that covered him from nose to toes and fingers. His left thigh, shorn half through, gave. He began to topple. Bracing himself, Cormac jerked his sword arm with a rapid up and down movement. With a screech of steel on wood and bronze, the blade came free. Panting, Cormac watched his silent foe crash backward to the floor.
Under such circumstances a man either yielded or died. Cormac stepped swiftly forward.