Hewspear feinted at the man with the sword and shield, caused him to stop and stay out of range, guard up, but the longswordsman took another step forward. Hewspear’s slashing spear shot out, the tip slipping past the soldier’s guard, brought to bear too late, and striking him in the folds of mail around the base of the throat. While it was hard to tell if it penetrated the mail at all, it struck him hard, and he doubled over, letting go of his hilt with one hand and clutching at his neck.
The soldier with the sword and shield thought this was his opportunity and came in fast, shield in front, eyes peering over the edge. Hewspear seemed to anticipate this, but instead of trying to maneuver back or to the side to maintain his range, or attacking immediately to possibly force him to halt, he let him come two steps. And as the soldier started his attack, Hewspear unexpectedly stepped forward to meet him, changing his grip as he did, spear nearly horizontal, the tail and butt spike rising, then turning to intercept the blow, catching it low on the blade. At the same time he used the haft to check the shield, pressing into it hard before the soldier could have a chance to use it as a weapon to pummel or bash, and then Hewspear was taking another step to his left, forcing the sword and the arm out of his way as he moved passed the edge of the shield. The soldier tried to turn with him, but his momentum carried him forward, and it was obvious he hadn’t expected such an aggressive move from the taller man.
Hewspear kept the sword pinned out of action just long enough, spun one step ahead of his opponent, worked the haft around the edge of the shield as he did, and used it as a fulcrum as he set up his next shot, sliding forward, turning the spear, and striking with the butt spike all in one fluid motion. The spike was much shorter than the slashing spear head, but it caught the soldier square in the face, just left of the nose and south of the eye. While it didn’t kill the soldier, it effectively ended the fight, as his first instinct was to reach up and protect himself, which proved impossible with a sword in one hand and a shield in the other. Hewspear used the lapse to step in, delivering a wicked blow straight down to the Hornman’s collarbone. The soldier dropped his sword and flailed with his shield in desperation, but it barely connected with Hewspear as he kept moving, and his final blow was a horizontal one across the Hornman’s lower jaw that did considerably more damage than the butt spike had. The Hornman was down, still moving, but spastic, and not for much longer by the looks of it.
Hewspear looked like he was considering whether or not to finish him off, but then recalled the Hornman with the longsword, and was turning to find him. He saw him at the same time I did, with Vendurro standing over his prone body, his own shorter sword red with the man’s blood. Or someone else’s. But in either case, the man with the longsword was still as stone in a pool of dark red-black.
He nodded at the younger man, and looked around for his next foe. There were plenty of choices, too many, but before joining another part of the melee, Hewspear saw a Syldoon fighting a spearman off ten paces away, with another Hornman about to attack him from the rear. Hew-spear moved the slashing spear into one hand, pulled his flanged mace off the belt with the other, and flung it at the second Hornman. It spun end over end, and I’m not sure if it was weighted to be thrown or if Hewspear only got lucky, but the flanged end struck the soldier directly in the back of the helm. It seemed to stun the Hornman for a moment, and when he wheeled around to face his foe, Vendurro was already closing the distance to engage. Hewspear leaned over on his spear, the tail in the dirt, holding his injured ribs that he had managed to hurt more with the throw than the toe-to-toe fighting with the Hornmen.
This seemed to be the one thing the Syldoon had in their favor-I’m not sure if they drilled for this kind of chaotic street battle, but they obviously worked together exceptionally well as a unit-even when splintered, they protected each other, and seemed to keep their eyes open so they could aid one of their brothers-in-arms in trouble as they battled a foe with superior numbers.
Still, Hewspear might have been killed, standing briefly like that, bent over, head hung, holding his ribs as they broke or shifted or maybe even tore something deep inside, as a pair of Hornmen were advancing on him, one in mail, one in a filthy gambeson, both with spears up and level and ready to ride him through. But just as he’d helped rescue a fellow Syldoon, he was rescued in turn, though not in any way I could have ever expected to see.
Soffjian stepped forward to intercept them, but even having seen her in action, I didn’t know if she could take on two herself. The Hornmen saw her, and changed direction to meet her. And when she brought her ranseur back with one arm, cocked almost behind her in what appeared to be the least helpful guard imaginable, with her other arm straight ahead, fingers splayed as if she was trying to somehow ward off the attack, I was sure she was dead.
But then something happened so unlike anything I’d ever witnessed, I wondered if I actually perceived it accurately or not. The Hornmen closed the gap, almost in range to strike, and she hadn’t moved an inch. And then both Hornmen suddenly stopped where they stood, and an instant later, they dropped their spears as if the hafts were on fire, the one in the gambeson reaching up, clawing at his face and eyes, the one in mail stepping back as he yanked at his hauberk, trying to tear it free, swatting at his limbs and sides as if he were being stung by a swarm of insects all over his body, though there were none to be seen. He tripped over his heels and fell backwards, and switched from fighting off an invisible pestilence to covering both ears with the mail mittens of his hauberk, and then crawled away from Soffjian as best he could, digging his feet into the dirt and trying to propel himself backwards.
I listened closely, and heard nothing save the sounds of combat-men grunting and yelling and screaming, metal striking metal, metal striking wood. No new noise, and while the existing noises were awful, they weren’t anything to injure the ears. But still, he crawled away and covered his ears as if he heard demons shouting his name.
Soffjian remained fixed in that pose, though she pivoted slightly, fixed on the Hornman who was still in front of her. He was still digging at his face, so furiously that he’d torn his flesh, rivulets of blood running between his fingers. And he let out a shrill scream, horrendous, and I would have thought his comrade was attempting to block out that noise, except I was certain he had covered his ears and begun his mad scramble before it broke the air.
The Hornman in the gambeson dropped to his knees, still emitting the single, piercing note, rising even higher, the sound of someone anguished and terrified and confronting something not of this world, and he continued to scream as he clawed, blood pouring down his face below his hands, and he gouged an eye out, which brought the scream to another more horrified level briefly, before he suddenly, and mercifully, stopped and fell over, hands clenched in claws in front of his ruined face. But he wasn’t moving. And it was clear whatever awful thing tortured or possessed him had finished him. He was surely dead, his life and scream snuffed out as if they never existed at all.
Hewspear was upright again, mostly, staring at Soffjian, face pale, though from his own pain or from seeing the same thing I saw, I couldn’t say. But he regained his composure quickly enough, and then he drew down on the other Hornman, who was sitting now, and looking around, bewildered. That soldier never had the opportunity to shake off whatever Soffjian had done to him, as Hewspear moved directly behind him and drew the edge of the slashing spear across his throat.