In a shaken voice the Consul Syagrius asked, “What was that horror?”
Cormac shook his head. “We know not. It’s attacked us afore, a monster seeking destruction. It’s gone, whatever it was.”
“Gone, aye. It is in my mind that but for you, Mawl, I should have fallen its victim.” Syagrius smiled grimly. “I can offer little reward any longer, but for what it is worth, I renounce any claim to Sigebert of Metz! He is yours, Mawl.” The Roman threw aside the remnant of his military cloak and raised his sword. “Now let us go in there and take him!”
They gripped hands in a silent sealing of their purpose, and Wulfhere’s huge red-furred hand rested atop both of theirs to make a triple clasp. Then they gathered their men and moved to the attack.
23
The gates shattered before a makeshift ram. Cormac, Wulfhere and Syagrius were first through the opening. Gothic mercenaries and piratical Danes poured after them, shouting. The owl was dead. The men of Raven attacked; the death-bird’s crew flew into Sigebert’s keep.
Cormac remembered little of that fight. The black Gaelic battle-frenzy came on him, that madness peculiarly his that would prompt a minstrel of Britain to say, “At such times he is more terrible then Wulfhere, and men who would face the Dane flee before the blood-lust of the Gael.”
His red-streaked sword flashed and seemed to spring lithely before him, opening throats so that blood came gushing forth; striking into entrails. No shield a man could bear was adequate to protect him from that inhuman sword-arm, however skillfully he handled it. Cormac was a henchman of death who stalked grimly among those Franks and struck like a fanged snake.
Beside him strode Wulfhere, a two-handed ax-man exulting in his freedom from the cold agony that had dwelt near his heart for so long. He was irresistible and terrible. Shields broke like crusts of bread under his ax. Men died headless or half sundered. Swords skidded off the blade that destroyed their wielders.
And there was Syagrius. Defeated, deposed, careless of life, the Roman fought like a demon. His kingdom was lost. All he wanted here was vengeance. He took it and was resistless in his uncaring advance. Sigebert’s Franks fell to his whistling steel, and Gallo-Roman traitors. That night any man who tried to stand before one of the three leaders-or could not flee-died.
Aye, and the trio’s men followed their example mightily.
There, across a gore-spattered and corpse-strewn courtyard, stood the doors of the mansion, shut and barred. Sweeping away the last opposition, Goths and Danes together brought up the ram. Molten lead came splashing down from above. Men fell back with howls and curses. Leather leggings smoked and were holed by hissing splashes. Up came shields, high. And those men moved to batter down the doors under an armoured roof of wood and metal. The ram thundered; the bars burst. The foreigners swarmed in, attacking foreigners in the manse built so long ago by the foreign conquerors whose last consul now stomped in under a helmet crested with scarlet little different from the one worn by that first Caesar called Caius Julius.
Ten Franks faced them, ranged on a marble staircase. At its head stood the man they sought, and his smile was all mockery. “It is pleasant,” Sigebert said, “to see men so eager for my company. My lord Syagrius, I see.” One-ear bowed with a flourish. “And speaking of company-you lower yourself, once-king, by consorting with pirates who await the rope. Do you know the men flanking you to be Cormac mac Art and Wulfhere Skull-splitter?”
“Indeed?” Syagrius glanced interestedly at his allies. “Is this true? I see that it is! Last week I might have had to order your deaths; today: well met! I’ll not allow you to sow dissension this time, Sigebert, traitor! Thanks to you, I no longer rule Gaul and have no responsibility to enforce the law against these men… even had I power and inclination to do, which I have not. I am come here to deal with you. So are they. Since they have a prior claim, in a manner of speaking, I have relinquished mine in their favour.” With the courtesy of a king, he turned to his piratical allies. “I have done speaking, my friends. Consider the dog and son of a dog yours.”
“You Franks,” Cormac called. “Will ye be dying needlessly with your unworthy master, or leave him to me?”
One of the Franks spat on the stair without taking his gaze from Cormac’s eyes. There was no other answer, and none of Sigebert’s men moved.
“Brave men ye be, and loyal,” Wulfhere said rumbling, “but foolish. Think again. By my beard, ye shall live to go free.” He stared at a Frank. “We come here for justice. You and I have no quarrel. Why die for him?”
At that consummately sensible suggestion, Frankish laughter was a baying of trapped wolves. “We’ll see who does the dying, an ye’ve the hardihood to be first up these stairs!” one jeered. “Come and eat steel!”
Wulfhere sighed. In their place, he’d have used the same words.
“Have it your way,” he said, and gripped his ax-haft high up and far down.
The notched and dripping weapons of the attackers crashed against the unblooded ones of the defenders. Murder seethed on the stair; blood spilled over the marble. The noise within those walls was as the anvil-pounding of a god. Wulfhere’s ax dropped one Frank with a shattered hip and, twisting a bit, brained another on the return stroke. Syagrius, weary from combat and travel and combat again, at last proved a little too slow. A blow from a Frankish shield-rim broke his arm. His sword clattered down the stair. Timely intervention by a Goth and a Dane in combination saved his life. They trod over a glaring Franci corpse and fought on toward the top.
Cormac himself slew the last of the ten Franks and in his impatience he hurled the follow from the topmost stair. At last, Cormac mac Art faced Sigebert One-ear of Metz, of Soissons, of Nantes; of Frankdom.
The Frank wore a light-flashing cuirass of moulded leather. Refulgent steel epaulettes guarded his collar-bones; an oval of convex steel polished to mirror brightness guarded his bowels. Almost as strong as mac Art’s mesh-mail, that cuirass, and a deal lighter. For the rest, he wore a leather helmet strengthened with iron placques, carried a buckler rather than the large Frankish shield, and held, with seeming negligence, a long Frankish sword.
“How impetuous we are tonight,” he murmured. “What, pirate? No big talk? No blather of how I’m to answer to you now for that moronic crewman of yours? What was his name; the one who slashed my face?”
“Black Thorfinn,” Cormac said, slitted swordgrey eyes watchful. “Nay, no talk. Time enow for that when you are dead, Sigebert, dead. Should I fail, there be Wulfhere to come. But should I fall in combat with such as you, I’ll have deserved it!”
“No argument.” Sigebert smiled. He was facing his end, Cormac thought grudgingly, like a man with more to be proud of. “Oh yes, I see Wulfhere. He’s too big to miss. How is your health lately, redbeard? I’ve heard reports of-”
The sword, no longer negligently held, leaped for Cormac’s neck. The Gael’s own blade turned it aside with a teeth-torturing scrape of metal. A less experienced man had surely been taken off guard by Sigebert’s mocking banter, and died for it. That cut had been startlingly swift. Cormac bashed back, was rebuffed by shield, shoved hard, pounced to the landing-and only just ducked under a slash that hummed like a breeze.
Mac Art fought coolly, making no showy displays of skill. For now, he was content to hold to the defensive and make trial of Sigebert’s swordsmanship. Determination was on him to take no chance of underestimating this man. Others had done that; among them, mayhap, was Count Bicrus.
The blades flickered and rang. Cormac’s battered shield met Sigebert’s unmarked buckler with a great bam and crash. They struck, feinted, circled. A thrust of Cormac’s was deflected over Sigebert’s shoulder by the well-handled buckler. In return, the Frank cut slantingly down at the side of Cormac’s knee in an effort to cripple. His sword met the edge of Cormac’s shield, cut in through the already much abused rim, and stuck there. Mac Art strained to give his buckler a quick turn in hopes of disarming or dragging off balance. The Frank twisted his hilt the other way so that his blade tugged free and he sprang backward. For him, it had been a nasty moment. Mac Art attacked with a sword seemingly flailing, pressing his advantage. Sigebert eddied away from him like mist, knowing the Gael to be stronger and longer of arm. Now he ceased the retreat, for to turn further had exposed his back to the top of the stair and those who watched, and “honourable fight” was a game for boys. Came a brief savage flurry, almost body to body, legs straining and swords a bright flashing cross of steel between the two men. Their grunts and the stamp of their feet mingled with the sound of clashing steel. Then Sigebert had slipped aside and was safely away from the stair. The rushing after him of Cormac’s shield was impressive for the strength in the Gael’s left arm, but Sigebert avoided it and flashed a smile at Cormac’s grunt.