Instantly the two good fingers of his left hand spun the collar below the cane’s grip, and then he sprang forward in a thigh-straining, long lunge, simultaneously whipping free the length of steel and whirling it into line.
Polidori lurched aside to Crawford’s right, but in midair Byron twisted Crawford’s wrist outward into a deep sixte line and managed to drive two inches of the blade into Polidori’s side.
“Eisener breche, you bastard!” Byron gasped as Crawford’s right foot slapped down at the end of the lunge.
Polidori shrank off the end of the blade; he was still human in form, but only a couple of feet tall now. His facial features, handsome a moment ago, had now cramped together in a toadishly broad face. He scuttled away backward down the hall, burping and retching.
Josephine, biting her lips, watched him go but at least didn’t follow.
The footsteps were in the hall now, and running, and Byron spun to face them. Six soldiers with drawn swords skidded to a halt at the sight of his sword, and then advanced cautiously, their blades extended. Oddly, not one of them carried a gun, and their eyes shone with an uneasiness that clearly had nothing to do with Crawford or Josephine.
Reminded of something by Byron’s cry, Crawford took advantage of the momentary pause to override Byron and swing the sword at one of the wooden pillars between the windows, leaving a horizontal dent in the wood.
Byron swore as he resumed control, and then he hopped forward impatiently with a feint at one of the soldiers and a corkscrewing bind to the blade of another; Byron’s point darted in and gouged the man’s forearm, and then Byron had leaped back out of range.
The wounded Austrian fell back with a startled curse, and the two of his fellows who had been flanking him ran forward with their swords held straight out, and Byron feinted high and then flung himself down and sideways so that he was in a low crouch, supported by Crawford’s left hand and holding the sword extended in the right, and the window-side soldier unwittingly lunged himself onto the point.
Byron straightened, yanking the blade free as the man tumbled backward, and Crawford intruded for a moment to make his hand lash the sword at the wooden pillar again, cutting another dent next to the first.
“Stop that!” yelled Byron as the four unhurt soldiers all attacked at once. Byron swung his blade in a horizontal figure-eight, parrying all four of the blades for the moment, and then he hopped forward in a short lunge and darted his point into the cheek of the man on his far right—instantly he swept the blade down and across, knocking aside the other three swords, and ducked to quickly but deeply stab the kneecap of the next man.
He was going to advance, but Crawford halted him and swung the blade very hard at a section of the pillar below his two previous cuts.
“God damn you!” Byron yelled, and hopped forward with a furious beat to the blade of the nearest Austrian.
The blow jarred the man’s blade out of line, and Byron slashed his throat in the instant before two of the others could bring their own blades to bear. Blood sprayed from the opened throat and the Austrian folded to the floor as Byron shuffled back.
“Your clowning will get you killed,” Crawford heard his own mouth say; nevertheless Crawford took possession of his body one more time and, ignoring the advancing men, drove his point into the crude face he’d hacked into the wooden pillar.
The sword’s grip was suddenly red-hot, and he had to force himself to hold on to it.
And then one of the advancing sword-points slashed along his right ribs, twisting as it darted in. Josephine gasped, and through the hot flare of the pain Crawford was peripherally glad to know that she was still there.
Byron spasmodically took back control and lashed his sword forward; it chopped across the Austrian’s eyes and physically knocked the man over backward, and then Byron was rushing at the three Austrians who were still standing.
None of them were unwounded, and they turned and ran from this embodiment of murderous fury. Their footsteps clattered down the stairs, and Crawford could hear them calling for reinforcements.
Tense with the pain of the gash in his side, Crawford swished the sword through the air, and realized that Byron had relinquished control of his body.
He heard Trelawny’s voice, raising no echoes in the narrow room of the inn at Lerici: “How do you feel?”
“Feel!” yelled Byron from his own body on the bed. “Why, just as that damned obstreperous fellow felt, chained to a rock, the vultures gnawing at my midriff, and vitals too, for I have no liver.”
Crawford took a step back toward Josephine, and the cut in his side sent such agony lancing through him that he sagged and had to take a deep breath to keep from fainting.
Apparently Byron felt it too, for in his bed he shouted, “I don’t care for dying, but I cannot bear this! It’s past joking, call Fletcher; give me something that will end it—or me! I can’t stand it much longer.”
Faintly through the window Crawford heard the echoes of gunshots, and he prayed that they were Carbonari guns summoned by his stabbing the makeshift mazze. He took Josephine’s arm and limped away up the hall in the direction the midget Polidori had taken, pressing his sword-gripping fist against his bleeding side and leaving the scabbard lying on the floor behind him.
“Here, my lord,” said Fletcher, seeming to be speaking at Crawford’s ear despite the hundred and fifty miles between them.
A moment later Crawford shook his head and exhaled explosively, for his head was full of the fumes of spirits of ammonia. Then the smell was gone—and so was his link with Byron.
“We’re on our own now,” he told Josephine grimly.
He took her arm and hefted the sword, and together they limped on down the hall, through patches of moonlight and darkness.
At last he could see a door in the wall ahead, and he was dizzily hurrying Josephine toward it when he heard heavy steps on the stairs behind him.
He fell forward into a jolting, flapping run, dragging Josephine along beside him. His lungs were heaving and his sleeve-socks had completely come apart, the ribbons loose and whipping at his ankles, but he didn’t slow down until he and Josephine had collided with the tall door.
There was a plain iron latch, and he had fumbled at it for several seconds before he realized that it was bolted on the other side.
He turned around and raised his sword.
The stairs were far behind now, and the three Austrian soldiers were uneven piles on the floor in the middle distance. It occurred to him that the hall stretched so far south that he and Josephine must by now be within the walls of the Ducal Palace.
“Stay away from the windows!” came a call in Venetian Italian from the head of the stairs. “The Austrians have a cannon loaded with shot in a boat in the canal.”
Crawford let himself fall against the wall in relief—it was the Carbonari.
Bearded men were running up the hall toward him, with pistols drawn, and a couple of them crouched briefly over each of the three downed Austrians and worked briefly with knives.
The man in the lead came sprinting up to Crawford in a low crouch, a pistol in each hand. “What in hell are you doing? This is no place for humans.” He gave Josephine a hostile stare. “Though it’s where I’d expect to find nefandos.”
“Help me,” gasped Crawford, “kill the man we’ll find behind that door.” He waved over his shoulder.
“No,” the man said angrily. “He can’t be killed. Two of my men are dead on the Piazzetta—is that what you called us for, to try to kill him?”