The Red Knight (33 page)

Two.

Three.

Four.

Five.

He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t see. He had no more to give—

—but he struck blindly, and something caught his dagger hand and threw him to the ground.

He rolled to his feet, because he was a knight, as an irk – one of the deadly ones – slammed a spear into his midriff. He went backwards and suddenly there were men all around
him—

Men!

He was in among the spearmen. It put power into his limbs, and he got up again, his sword rising and falling.

He could see the thin crossbowman, James, still standing. The boy had flattened some of the things with his crossbow, and now had his side sword in his hand.

The creatures, panicked by even this very small attack from their rear, were flinching away from them both.

Ser Alcaeus gathered himself. One more time.

He tottered forward, and swung – one.

Two.

Three times. In those swings two boglins went down. The big irk flinched, turned, and hopped back.

The two hellish things feeding on the older boy died on James’ sword, and then abruptly the square cleared.

Behind them huddled two hundred shocked survivors.

The men on the castle walls finally opened the gate. Or perhaps were ordered to, now it was safer, and people flooded through, utterly panicked. More died, trampled by others, than at the
Wild’s hands – the crush of women panicked beyond the capacity for anything but herd animal flight.

The spearmen backed up after them, step by step.

Step.

By.

Step.

In the shadowed streets beyond the square a pair of daemons rallied their own panicked forces, and added irk archers – good ones. Using the light of the burning town, the irks began to
loose long shots across the square. Their elfin bows were light but deadly.

Ser Alcaeus couldn’t cover them all. He was almost immune to their hits but the shafts hurt when they struck his helmet or his greaves, and he was already beyond normal pain, beyond normal
fatigue. He looked to the right and left and found that he had reached the gate. The guards were trying to close it; he was trying to back in. But the crush of injured men and trampled corpses
underfoot was jamming them open as the enemy made their charge.

He was able to get his sword arm up in time; he managed to cover himself against a daemon’s heavy sword, and then old Ser John was there. He had a mace. It had a five-foot handle.

He used it well.

He stepped out past Ser Alcaeus, bouncing on the balls of his feet as if eager for the contest, and his mace moved like a piston. The daemons flinched back from his strike. A boglin died.
Another daemon took a blow in the torso and staggered and the mace hit its foot, shattering the bone. It screamed as it went down.

It wasn’t glorious work but Alcaeus bent and grabbed the corpse of a trampled woman and threw it out into the darkness.

The gate moved.

He got his hands under a dead boglin’s skull and threw the corpse into its fellows.

The gate moved another hand’s breath.

‘Ser John!’ he shrieked. His voice was hoarse and cracked.

The old knight bounced, cut, and suddenly bounded back.

Alcaeus stumbled after him.

The gates slammed shut. Terrified sergeants slammed the timbers home into the sockets that held them, and blows rained on the outside surface of the gate from the creatures outside. One irk,
braver or craftier than the rest, ran up the gate and got a leg over before one of Ser John’s archer’s spiked it to the wooden hoardings with a clothyard shaft. The professionals on the
wall held – the wave failed, and died.

Ser John fell to his knees. ‘Too gods-damned old for this,’ he said, staring at the courtyard full of refugees.

But the gate held. The wall held.

Alcaeus tottered to a pillar in the colonnade and tried to open his faceplate, but he couldn’t raise his arms. He hit his head on the colonnade. He couldn’t breathe.

Strange hands flipped the catches of his visor and lifted it. Air flooded him. Sweet, wonderful air, tainted only with the harsh screams of people too maddened by fear to do anything else.

It was James the crossbowman. ‘I’ve got it,’ he said. ‘Just stand still.’ The boy hauled the helmet right off his head.

He pulled off the gauntlets. And Alcaeus slumped to the ground, his back against the colonnade.

Ser John appeared in front of him. ‘I need you on the walls.’

Alcaeus groaned.

The boy stood in front of him. ‘Let him breathe! He saved everyone!’

Ser John snorted. ‘They ain’t saved until they’s saved, boy. Ser knight? To the walls.’

Alcaeus reached out a hand.

Ser John caught it, and pulled him to his feet.

Harndon City – Edward

Master Pyel’s first commission for him was the dullest project he could imagine. It was something he could have done when he was fourteen.

He was to take twenty iron bars and make staves like barrel staves, then forge-weld them into a single column with bands to keep the staves together. Bands every handspan. Inside diameter to be
a constant diameter of one inch.

Dull.

Still, he was smart enough to know that Master Pyle wouldn’t have given him the work if it didn’t matter. He was careful with his measurements, and he decided to construct a mandrel
to keep the
insides
of the staves equidistant while he forge-welded them. That took time, too. He planished the mandrel and then polished it endlessly.

He had a moment of deep satisfaction when another journeyman, Lionel, grinned. ‘You know,’ he drawled, obviously relishing the moment. ‘You can order an apprentice to do
that.’

I’m a fool
, he thought, happily. He left Ben the shoemaker’s boy to use pumice on his lovely mandrel while he went out into the evening to fence with his mates and show Anne
his ring. Better, to show Anne’s parents. Apprentices didn’t marry – but a journeyman was a person of consequence. He was a man.

The next morning, he had the mandrel ready, thanked the apprentice like a good master, and then whipped the forge welds into shape, smoothing both inside and outside. It turned out to be more
finicky than he had expected, and took him all day.

Master Pyle looked at the result and slammed it against the oak tree in the yard. The welds held. He smiled. ‘You made a mandrel,’ he said.

‘Had to,’ replied Edward.

Master Pyle made a face. ‘My design is flawed,’ he said. ‘How’re your casting skills?’

Edward shrugged. ‘Not that good, Master,’ he admitted.

The next morning when the sun rose, he was down by the river, casting bells with the Foibles – rivals, but friends.

Lissen Carak – The Red Knight

Hundreds of leagues to the north, the same sun rose on a fortress which was complete in every warlike respect – high wooden hoardings crowned the turrets and curtain
walls, and a major engine of war stood atop every tower: the donjon tower bore the weight of a trebuchet, and smaller mangonels and ballistae decorated the smaller towers.

Aside from a dozen men on duty, the garrison, who had laboured two days and nights by torchlight, lay asleep in heaps of straw. The dormitory was full of local people and so was the hall and the
stable.

Sauce awakened the captain because there was movement down by the river. He had placed a garrison of ten archers, three men-at-arms and a pair of knights in the tower at the bridge under Ser
Milus’ command the evening before. They had their own food and a mirror with which to signal, and this morning they were apparently flashing away merrily.

Ser Jehannes had gone with them, as a mere man-at-arms. He had gone without comment and left no note. The captain awoke to find it still on his mind.

‘Damn him,’ he said, staring at the newly whitewashed plaster over his head. Jehannes had always disliked him because he was young and well-born.

As far as the captain saw it, Messire Jehannes could have both his birth and his youth. He lay on his bed, his breath steaming in the air, and found himself growing angrier and angrier.

‘Damn who?’ asked Sauce. She flashed him a smile that was probably meant to be winsome. She was an attractive woman, but the missing front teeth and the scar on her face tended to
made her winsome look slightly savage.

Sauce and the captain went backaways. The captain considered confiding in her – but he was the captain, now. Everyone’s captain.

He got his feet on the cold stone instead. ‘Never mind. Call Toby for me, will you?’

She leered. ‘I’m sure I could dress you, mesself.’

‘Maybe you could and maybe you can’t, but neither will get me moving fast enough.’ He stood up, naked and she swatted at him with her gloves and went out calling for Toby.

Toby and Michael arrived together, Toby with clothes, Michael, sleepy to the point of clumsiness, with a cup of steaming wine.

The captain armed himself in the ruddy light of the new sun, Michael fumbling with buckles and laces so that it seemed to take twice as long as arming usually did and he almost regretted sending
Sauce away. But he ran lightly down the steps to the great courtyard and patted Grendel’s nose when he was led out. He took the tall bassinet on his head, pulled steel gauntlets over his
hands, and vaulted into Grendel’s war-saddle. He was giving his men a good example – he was also riding out of a fortress into the unknown.

It occurred to him as he ducked his head to pass through the narrow postern – he had ordered that the main gate be shut for the duration – that if nothing attacked them, he was going
to look a ripe fool. Followed by the image of a taloned foot ripping the guts out of his riding horse, which made his stomach lurch and his throat go cold.

He rode down the steep road, leaning well back into the comforting buttress of his war-saddle, with Wilful Murder, Sauce, Michael Rankin and Gelfred all fully armed at his back. At the base of
the hill he turned away from the bridge and rode west – not onto the narrow track he’d followed and fought the daemon, but around the base of the fortress.

He rode slowly around it, looking up so hard that his neck hurt, examining his hoardings from their attackers’ perspective. The fortress was a hundred feet above him, huge, imposing and
very, very far away.

After he passed the donjon the first trebuchet released. He heard the crack of the wood base of the counter-weight striking its restraint and saw the rock pause at the height of its arc. Then it
fell with a crash well to the west.

The captain turned to Wilful Murder. ‘Go and put an orange stake on it, Will. They won’t loose again.’

‘It’s always me,’ Wilful grumbled and did as he was told.

The rest continued to ride around the base of the fortress. Two other engines released, and both times the captain sent Wilful off to mark the fall of shot.

‘Tough nut,’ Sauce said, suddenly.

‘Some of our enemy have wings,’ the captain replied and he nodded heavily, because he was in full harness and couldn’t really shrug well. ‘But yes. With our company on
the walls and all the defences up we should be able to hold until we starve.’ He looked beyond her. ‘We’ll lose the Lower Town first, then Bridge Castle.’ He shrugged.
‘But the – the king will come first.’

With that, he leaned his weight forward and led them at a slow, lumbering canter across the fields to the Bridge Castle.

Milus met him, also fully armoured, at the tower gate. Behind him, on the bridge, were a dozen heavy wagons laden with goods and fifty or more men and women all pale as parchment. Merchants.

‘Come for the fair,’ Milus said. He made a face. ‘They say there’s five convoys behind them.’

The captain turned and looked at Michael, who grimaced. ‘We don’t even have all the farmers in,’ he said. ‘Fifty, you say? And their wagons?’

‘And I’ll bet they don’t have any food,’ the captain said. ‘I’ll guess they have carts full of cloth and luxury goods, because they’ve come to
buy
grain.’ He looked around. ‘How many more mouths can you take, Milus?’

The older knight narrowed his eyes. ‘I can take all of ’em,’ he admitted. ‘And thirty more like ’em. But I’ll need more grain, more salt meat, more of
everything to do it. Except water. We’ve plenty of that, out of the river.’

Back up the hill he went to report to the Abbess. A heavy military wagon was raised from the cellars and reassembled, then loaded to heaping with food and provender, and hand-hauled down the
steep slope, teams of men on gate winches letting it down a few feet a time. The captain disarmed, handing his harness to his squire. His hips were screaming, and once it was finally off he felt
light enough to fly away.

Even as they increased the supplies to the lower fort, more merchants arrived. Some were angry at the interruption of trade, and some were clearly already terrified. The captain went back down
the hill and wasted the morning trying to calm them. He finally told them to send a deputation up the hill to the Abbess.

Then he made the climb back up to the fortress to hide in his Commandery, a small cell with a door directly onto the courtyard and a pair of arched windows separated by a fluted column. Open,
the windows let in a spring breeze carrying the scent of wildflowers and jasmine, and he could see fifteen leagues to the east over the low hills.

Today, instead of turning to the parchment scrolls full of accounts that awaited him, he unbuckled his sword and hung it on the man-high bronze candelabra and leaned his elbows on the sill of
the leftmost window.

Booted footsteps announced Michael. ‘Your armour,’ the young man said quietly.

The captain turned to see two archers with a heavy wicker basket, and his valet with an armload of dressed lumber. While he watched, the archers argued about which pre-cut peg went in which hole
and the valet stared off into space while idly providing the correct piece, even when the archers asked for the wrong thing. Before the sun had moved the width of a finger, they had assembled a
rack for the captain’s armour, man sized, a little taller than the man himself, and Michael dressed the heavy wooden form carefully. A good arming rack could speed a man into his harness by
precious minutes. And with every inch of the fortress convent crammed to capacity and past it with soldiers and refugeees, his office was his sleeping room.