'Nor scimitar and sword together,' Marron said suddenly, pushing through the mass of men with some excitement. 'But, Jemel, you saw how it held back from me, and Dard has never been touched by one of your imams. I said a prayer over it myself, just now, as I was standing there; and the 'ifrit had been coming for me, and it stopped at that moment, as I blessed the blade
Jemel shook his head, bewildered. 'You are no priest. Not even of your own religion.'
'No — but I was a brother once, of this Order of Ransom,' said
proudly, defiantl
y, staring about.
Doom,
Jemel thought grimly, seeing how t
he faces changed. 'We are all - I
mean, I was consecrated to the service of the God, as all the brothers are. That's as good as being a priest; we can lead the services at need, say a prayer over the dying on a battlefield to haste them into heaven - and bless a weapon too.'
The men were muttering; Jemel heard 'heresy, and thought that a congregation of imams would say the same.
'How did you know the blessing would hold?' A man might trust to such a thing and find too late that it was no more than empty words, spoken over unheeding steel.
‘I
didn't, but the 'ifrit thought it would. If I was wrong, we both were.'
Could an 'ifrit be wrong, about such a matter? Jemel wasn't sure. They could be deceived by someone sly enough to work the trick, Lisan had done that in Julianne's cell; but Marron was so afflicted with honesty, he couldn't deceive the most gullible of innocents. Surely the only sense here was that this 'ifrit had heard him bless his blade, had felt the edge of that against its future and so backed away. In which case
...
'You say any brother of the Order can act as priest?'
'If I can, then surely any. I was cast out, I must have been anathematised after I left the Roq, and I no longer follow the teachings of the priests - and yet the virtue holds. I think the virtue holds
Jemel turned to the knight again. 'You heard. He speaks as true as he knows; if he's right, it may not be any of us who dies this day. Say a prayer over your weapons, bless each separate blade, dedicate it to your own God's good and maybe, maybe we can fight that creature, if we fight it all together.'
The knight smiled thinly, and shook his head.
'Not me, lad. I'm no brother, sworn to the Order and the God. We knights take different vows, and mean them less, sometimes. Fra' Colcan!'
'Sieur?'
'You are the men's confessor; that is as good as a priest. Come, bless my blade, then all the rest.' Then, as the other man hesitated, 'Where's the harm? A Sharai's idea, true, from a recusant's suggestion; but no matter for that, it would still be a prayer to the God. If it means no more, there is still no hurt in it. We can flee that demon, or we can fight it; and I for one do not mean to flee, so long as we have any hope of fighting. Nor do I mean to see any man under my command ahead of me. I have heard stories all my life about the invulnerability of spirits; I have also heard that the God can conquer all. You have given your life to that belief. What holds you now, if you are true to your own calling?'
'Sieur, I don't know what to say.'
'You heard the preceptor bless us all, before we rode. You have heard prayers and blessings every day of your life, man, and repeated them to the priest. Is it so hard to find a few words now, when you need them more? Here is my sword; come, put the Gods light into its steel, to set against the blackness of that soulless thing. Or would you see a Sharai boy better armed for the fight, and the only one still living when it's done?'
'No, sieur
...'
The older man laid an ungloved hand on his officer's blade, ran the dp of his tongue across his lips and began to whisper.
'Louder, Fra' Colcan. I want all the men to hear it, to know that the God rides with them and their steel cannot fail.'
Men could still fail, where steel was strongest. Jemel said nothing, though. Nor did he listen, as the Ransomer's voice rose in a strong petition to his God. He was wondering what 'recusant' might mean, and how to extricate Marron and himself from among these men when - if ever — the 'ifrit was killed or driven off, now that the bridge was down and they were all trapped together on this side of the river.
First, though, there was the 'ifrit to face, and no certainty as to how that would fall out. There could be no certainty in the world any more, he thought, where a Sharai who hated Ransomers could ride with Ransomers in Patric country against a spirit that threatened nothing that was Sharai.
Only a bridge,
he thought,
it only came to kill a bridge —
except that Marron had been on the bridge, and perhaps it had come to kill him? If so it had failed twice already, once on the bridge and once on the bank, when it had seemed almost to use the injured Ransomer as a lure. Even without his blood-companion, Marron was proving extremely hard to kill; Jemel intended to keep him so.
'Look,' one of the Ransomers muttered, pointing back past Jemel's shoulder. 'It's coming out of the water.'
The 'ifrit looked more than ever like a giant worm, creeping up out of the river and shimmering darkly in the sunlight as it dragged itself across the grass. It was vast, massive like a living wall, flexing like a whip; slow, though, slow to move under all that rippling weight of water. Swift to strike, they'd all seen that, but not made for progress on dry ground. A man on foot could outrace it, if he were not rigid with fear; on their horses they could ride in circles and torment it like hunting dogs around a bull antelope. If their weapons were potent after a Patric blessing, if their horses would obey
...
'Excellent,' he said. 'It made itself for the water; it's too stupid to know how weak it is on land.'
He drew his scimitar to show these Patrics once more how speed and skill and determination could override both the brute strength of the 'ifrit and the terror of the horse, at least in the hands of a Sharai. The Ransomer knight was ahead of him, though, snatching a newly blessed lance, tucking it firmly beneath his arm and urging his horse into motion.
Draw its attention one way, strike from another, strike and run, wheel back and strike again - a Sharai party wouldn't need to be told. He hoped the same was true of these men; if they didn't know already, it was too late now to teach them how to fight desert-style. And this was a desert spirit despite its watery b
ody, made for desert men to kill.
He cried out and kicked his horse forward without a backward glance, permitting himself just the slightest huff of relief when he heard voices raised, the pursuit of hooves at his back
They rode to the other flank of the 'ifrit, yelling and waving their weapons. Once they had closed almost to within its striking distance, though, their captain called out to them, a few words that brought them swiftly into
battle
order. If three or four attacked at once, the 'ifrit could not kill them all, and they would see then what kind of damage they might do. Always remembering that Jemel had slashed the black hide open once already, only to see it repair itself...
The 'ifrit moved, snake-swift suddenly where it had been worm-slow before. Its head struck out towards the knight, while its body coiled for strength and balance. Before blunt black vastness could reach slender steel-tipped lance, though, the creature reversed itself shockingly, making a brutal lash of itself as it had before, whipping around like a flail aimed at the small group of horsemen opposite.
They lifted steel against it, all they could do, flimsy pinprick weapons against unconquerable bulk; and just before it reached them, the 'ifrit reared, snatching its head into the air so that it skimmed just above their points' reach.
It does, it fears those weapons now .
..
Jemel yelled exultantly, to encourage the same understanding in the Ransomers; then he kicked hard, to urge his reluctant horse in closer.
The Ransomer knight was charging in earnest now, sods flying from his destrier's hooves as man and horse thundered towards the knotted body of the beast, the lance before them like a thorn thrust towards a waterskin.
The 'ifrit turned its head to watch the approach, seemed poised to strike down, ruthless and unanswerable - and then did not, tried rather to slither away. Too late: the knight drove his lance home with a cry, with all the strength of his arm backed by his horses weight and speed.
Which was the moment that Jemel realised he'd been holding his breath, because it fled from him all at once in an explosive sigh as the lance's point sunk deep, half a shaft's depth into the great barrel thickness of the 'ifrit's body.
Water spurted from the wound it made, such a forceful jet that it soaked the knight in a moment and all but knocked him from his saddle. The next moment, his horse finally succumbed to terror. It reared up screaming, forelegs threshing the air; half-fallen already, the Ransomer clung desperately to the arched neck, barely contriving to keep his seat, losing stirrups and reins in the process, surely losing any sight of what went on around him.
That was the time for the 'ifrit to strike back, before the knight could recover and draw sword against it. Jemel caught his breath again, watching for the monstrous head to fall even as he lashed his own mount with the slack of his reins, trying to reach the man in time to save his life.
Trying his utmost, and doomed to fail: he'd been too slow to start and there was too much ground to cover. Courage could be repaid with honour, as it deserved to be, but not alas with rescue.
Except that he was not the only other man in the field. While he rode to the aid of their commander, the other Ransomers drove in like a spear's head - except for one who couldn't force his horse to do it, who abandoned the beast and ran in afoot - to slash and hew at the 'ifrit's flank. Its writhing scattered them in a moment, but where it writhed it sprayed water from half a dozen fresh wounds. Its head twisted about, abandoning the knight in search of this new threat but not striking down at it, fended off by the harm promised by a hedge of glittering steel raised against it.
By the time it turned back to find the knight again, he had recovered seat, reins and stirrups, steadied his frantic mount and drawn his great sword.
The 'ifrit seemed to squirm for a moment, caught between implacable and dangerous foes on either side. It was still losing water from where the lance-shaft was sunk into its side; if it healed its every other wound, Jemel thought, it could not heal that so long as the weapon stayed caught in its hide.
It had the same thought, perhaps; or else it had achieved what it had come to do, or else it had failed and lost its chance. Whichever, it sought to turn, to retreat into the river. Jemel had reached it now, though, and knew his own best way to hurt it. He galloped past it as he had before, closing so swiftly that his horse barely had time to register its fear before they were away; and as he passed, he swung his scimitar, just as he had before except that this time he passed on the near side and cut forward from the shoulder, hacking down.
A man, any animal of flesh would have been laid open to the bone by such a stroke. The 'ifrit had no flesh, no bone; there was only the water that came gushing from a great rent ripped in its shimmering skin. The weight of water fell on them both, Jemel and the horse, like a buffet to shove them further off; cruelly cold and drenching, it was too much for one of them at least. Staggering from the hammer-blow of the flood against its ribs, the horse ignored good sense and Jemel s instructions from rein and heel. It tried to swivel sharply away from the looming, lashing body of the 'ifrit; its hooves slipped on wet grass when it was unbalanced already, and it came crashing to earth.
All his life, Jemel had had ponies and horses fall beneath him. Usually it was his own fault, and often deliberate; it was a battle move that had brought many an enemy down to his death and every Sharai boy practised it, every Sharai mount was trained to make it and to recover after.
Jemel was slipping his feet free of the stirrups as soon as he felt the horse's shoulder go; before the animal hit ground, he was out of the saddle and rolling, one arm flung out to keep his scimitar from slashing him.
He rolled twice and came to his feet on the third roll, muddy and soaked but barely bruised, blade at the ready. The horse was still struggling up; Jemel let it go, less use than his own feet now. The twisting coil of the 'ifrit's body loomed above him, spewing water; a little distance off was the Ransomer knight, also dismounted, standing close by the monster and simply chopping at it two-handed.
The skin still rippled, but it was flaccid now, hanging in wrinkles where it had been firm and full. Jemel thrust his scimitar in and sawed like the crudest of farmers, seeing it bulge and split, seeing how there were almost two layers to the hide before the water spilled out to spoil his sight of it.
The monster's tail came flicking around, in a desperate attempt at them. With its former strength and speed, that blow might have killed them both at once, would certainly have broken bones and left them helpless; but they met it each with his sword's point and felt the shudder that racked the creature, heard for the first time a shrill whistling scream even though it lacked a mouth to make such a noise or any.
It was hard to stand in sodden clothes on the slipperiness of mud and force tired muscles into another stroke and yet another, when every stroke was followed by another bitter rush of ice-cold water. They endured, though, watching each other now as much as they watched the 'ifrit, or more than that. Jemel felt a smile rising even through the filth and the sweat of the work as he recognised that the Ransomer knight was not so much older than himself, and that neither one of them was ready to slack off before the other did.