by Brian Daley
The blades became a blur and he fought by reflex. Then he found himself thinking a move or two ahead and used compound movements with unconscious smoothness. Time and again he let learned responses parry ferocious cuts in prime and tierce.
His slash was shield-blocked by his foe and he managed to take the return stroke on the knife; if it hadn’t had brass knuckles on its grip he’d have lost fingers. He avoided a knee to the groin in an incredibly violent corps-à-corps. It was only by chance that he bobbed to the left as the man gathered a mouthful of saliva and spat it at him, or he’d have been momentarily blinded and permanently killed.
But in spitting, his antagonist had cocked his head forward, and the exposed throat triggered another kind of reflex in the American, who tried to chop at it with his left hand. Though the blow was clumsy—his hand still held the knife—it staggered the other and gave Gil a split second to drive the knife blade into the soft area just in front of his foe’s right ear, below the rim of his helmet. It took maximum effort, a stroke that only a strong man might use effectively, but it succeeded and the cavalryman was dead even as he sank to the ground.
So much for the niceties of combat; chivalry be damned. Gil thought it interesting that he’d lived through his first sword fight and very, very gratifying.
During the match, the elements under Springbuck and the whelming Hightower had broken through. The old hero’s booming voice called for surrender and was met in moments by a pass littered with weapons. Gil picked up his Browning and examined it. Doubtless it and the carbine were clogged with dirt and sand. Cleaning them would be a bitch.
He didn’t see a dismounted man near him turn, cock his arm and aim a spear at him, but someone else did.
The man was slain before he could release his weapon by a stone hurled with bulletlike speed and accuracy. Gil heard the impact and saw the man slump, skull shattered. He glanced up to see the Wolf-Brother gazing down calmly. Reacher hadn’t even bothered to pick up a backup rock.
Overconfident shrimp, huffed Gil MacDonald.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
And I saw askant the armies, I saw as in noiseless dreams hundreds of battle-flags borne through the smoke of the battles and pierced with missiles, I saw them.
—Walt Whitman, “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d”
“Because,” Gil said wearily, “even if we do fight our way through the army surrounding Freegate, there’s another right on our heels, and it’ll seal us in again but good. We’d be stuck, trapped, static. On the other hand, if we stay outside and organize the people in the countryside, we might be able to do something useful. Maybe we could regarrison the pass redoubt before it’s too late or enlist more of the tribes of the High Ranges and liberate Freegate from outside.”
Reacher was unconvinced, unconvincible. He meant to go back to his city and lead its defense; he wouldn’t listen to logic or pleas. His dreams had instructed him to do so he said, adamant.
“Reacher, my friend,” Springbuck said. “You understand what our scouts tell us? There is a large unit outside your gates and an enormous one following us hard. We’ve many wounded and scarce time. We’re liable to be decimated between two foes. I doubt seriously if we could hold our own against the first corps alone, if it has all Freegate at bay.”
The Wolf-Brother remained solemn, indifferent. “Do not come then. I must go back.”
“And I’ll go with you!” rumbled Hightower, and he clapped Reacher on the back, staggering him. “The debt I owe you won’t be paid until I’ve done you a service. Besides, I don’t like all this talk of skulking and hiding and consorting with peasants and masterless men. You came when you were needed and aided my kin. Now let’s bash our way into Freegate and I’ll show you how Hightower can brace for siege. And when they’ve dented their skulls and worn themselves out on your white walls, we’ll break ’em and send ’em yelping on their way with a boot to their cracks.”
Gil muttered under his breath and wondered why he’d left Philly. Too late to second-guess now, but the next time anyone tried to tap him for interuniversal service . . .
Springbuck knew that Hightower’s remark had been a rebuke of sorts to him. He said to Reacher, “If this is your wish, ally, then I bow to you; you have been staunch at my side. Perhaps it is for the best. Many of our men need care.” He was also thinking that a leader mustn’t be too proud or stubborn to see another’s viewpoint. Too, he sensed that the Wolf-Brother would never yield. To chivy him on it would risk an end of their coalition.
Besides, Gabrielle was still in Freegate.
“Okay, all right,” Gil conceded. “We’ll do it your way. But we don’t just have to romp in and slug it out. We must do this fast and sneaky, and maybe there’s a way. Pray Yardiff Bey hasn’t figured out how we played games with his generals’ communications or had time to warn his other field commanders about it.”
* * * *
They’d taken up positions and made preparations by moonrise, two hours after dusk of the day after the battle in the pass. They’d managed to rest and had avoided contact with enemy patrols with the exception of one, shortly before sundown. That one they had destroyed to the last man.
Gil’s plan was uncomplicated but dangerous. The main body of the expedition formed up and moved slowly through the woodlands to the southeast of the city barbican, tracing the rim of the chasm. They made their cautious way toward the bridgeway with Reacher and the prowlers afoot, eliminating the occasional sentry without commotion. Since the plateau on which the city stood featured only one connection to the surrounding lands, the enemy had massed all his forces in that area, sure that the decisive action would take place there.
To the northeast, on the opposite side of the encampment from the barbican, Gil, Springbuck, Hightower and a small group of selected dragoons were poised just beyond the outermost ring of guards, hidden from sight. Gil was thinking that if everything didn’t come off fairly simultaneously they could all pack it in. Springbuck decided it was time to move and said so. Gil gnawed a thumbnail and turned to the cavalrymen, four of whom were buglers.
“Remember: when we’re through the first cordon of sentries, start blowing To arms, but keep with us. When I give you the word, switch to Rally here, and don’t fall behind! I just hope those boys bagging Zs in the tents can’t tell you from their regular tooters and follow procedure.”
Speed would be their only chance. There were fewer than twenty of them.
The American looked toward Springbuck, difficult to discern in the darkness. The Prince raised his arm, so Gil clamped his reins in his teeth and drew his pistols, his heart banging in his chest. If he hadn’t drifted away from his religion, he would have prayed in that moment.
Springbuck’s arm dropped. They were off with a rush, brandishing weapons and guiding their horses with knees and teeth-held reins. Swooping through dimness they rode down the first line of sentries, who barely had time to cry out in alarm. Gil opened up with both guns, yelling through clenched teeth. The others were yanking torches from the ground, riding past tents and slashing ropes, spreading fire as they went.
Gil waved both arms over his head and the buglers blared their notes. Men were jolted from sleep by fearsome explosions and urgent bugles: To arms! As trained, they groped and stumbled to prepare for battle in the midst of what they’d believed to be a secure camp. Officers were as bewildered as enlisted men, and none more so than the camp commander, Midwis. The bugled message changed shortly: Rally here! Stand to your banners and rally to us! Still fuzzy with sleep, soldiers moved to do what was required of them.
The officer in charge of the watch force maintaining guard on the barbican dispatched a rider to find out what was going on, then belabored his men to do their job, keep their eyes on Freegate and stop trying to peer at the excitement behind them.
At the onset of the action, Reacher and the main force of the allied expedition moved ahead as quickly as possible. Rolling along the entrenched army’s right flank, sending th
eir foes reeling and convoying their wounded along as fast as they dared, they battled time and distance as well as the spears of their enemies.
Some calls for aid went out now to the camp commander, but most of his men were already responding to the false bugles and were beyond recall for the moment, charging to the—to them—alien sound of gunfire and praying that they weren’t going to be ordered to join battle with supernatural beings.
Leaving a wake of burning, collapsing tents and mowing down disorganized defenders, the small band of attackers at the far side of camp had beaten their way to approximately the center of the bivouac. It was hard to see clearly, though the blazes behind helped a bit, and Gil was careful not to shoot without making sure it wasn’t a comrade in his sights. They broke into a parade area and began to rampage around its periphery. Gil paused to fumble new ammunition into his pistols with frantic haste, no easy task when mounted, especially with the Mauser.
A score or so enemy cavalry came onto the parade ground from the opposite side; deducing correctly that these men in uniforms similar to theirs were nevertheless enemies, they charged. It took all the rounds in both the Mauser and the Browning to break that charge.
Springbuck was laying about him with Bar and thrusting a torch at whatever looked flammable. Hightower chopped his way through adversaries, thick armor taking dents and nicks, but the man within apparently indestructible. He threw down his ruined shield and pulled from his side a mace with a heavy ball and long, wicked spikes.
Gil drew his horse up next to a platform of logs, a reviewing stand of some sort. He vaulted onto it, tied his reins to the rail and pulled his carbine from its saddle scabbard. Taking stance, he knew the peculiar calm that often came to him at such times. He began to fire rapidly at the milling riders whose faces he couldn’t see. He felt something brush his leg and looked down to see an arrow quivering in the wood near his boot. Archers were casting their shafts at him from the left. He threw himself prone and continued to fire, dropping several bowmen and dispersing the rest.
The platform trembled and he looked around. From nowhere, a fully armored knight in plate had ridden up to the platform; unable to reach Gil from the saddle, he had somehow managed to dismount and clamber over the rail. Though ungainly when not on his charger, the knight lumbered on, sword raised.
Gil brought his carbine around and pulled the trigger; but its breech was open, the magazine spent, and the American knew with heart-stopping surety he was to die.
And he would have died, except that the knight, as was the style in his own circles, wore sollerets with long, articulated, pointed toes. As he stepped nearer to kill the outlander, his metal footwear—well suited to stirrups but impractical under these circumstances—tripped him. He tottered for a second in his heavy plate, then fell to one knee.
Gil bounced to his feet, shifted his grip on the carbine and drove its butt under the open visor, and again, shaking with fear reaction. The knight toppled with a resonant clang and didn’t move.
Now defense was becoming organized and members of the raiding party were falling back around Gil, hemmed in on all sides. Swords flashed in the night like fish in some deep pool. Gil slung his carbine and plucked from his belt the two fragmentation hand grenades he’d saved against desperate resort. As if at range practice, he tore the GI tape from the bodies of the grenades, pulled the pins, let the spoons fly free and hurled them as far as he could in the direction in which the party must soon make its way.
The dull metal egg-shapes arched through the air, timers marking the seconds. They landed in dense clusters of troops, unnoticed for a moment until the detonations sent bits of metal through flesh, riddling horse and man. Opposition fell back at the twin reports, and raiders could see that their way through the smoke was cleared for the time being.
Gil, reloading his pistols for the final run, dropped the empty Browning magazine and spent Mauser clip—irreplaceable, but no time to fiddle with them now—and called for the others to follow him. He launched himself off the platform onto Jeb Stuart, returning the carbine to its sheath.
Springbuck, shaken by the grenade concussions, waved his torch and cried, “No, I shall lead. Buglers, sound the call as I have told you!”
The buglers, hearing him, blew four last, baleful notes. They didn’t sound the battle flourish of the Ku-Mor-Mai, but rather “The Crown’s Retribution,” notes to mark state executions and other occasions of high vengeance. Those who heard were astounded and afraid. It seemed as if a death sentence had been passed on them by a phantom monarch come with flame, thunder and sword irresistible.
With Springbuck at their head, the small party began its reckless dash for Freegate.
* * * *
With mass and ferocity, the great Kisst-Haa and his kin—who’d had no chance to participate in the fight at the pass and were thus more avid for combat—parted the way for the main force of the allied army as they fought their way along the chasm’s edge toward the barbican. Once they’d driven the enemy back temporarily from their objective, Bonesteel arranged his men in an arch to dig their heels in and hold, while wagons of wounded were trundled across the stone bridgeway, the vehicles scavenged from the abandoned redoubt after its former defenders had been disarmed and released.
Foremost of those who fought the action there was Dunstan who, though he held his place, met every man who came to him in combat with glad killing-fever.
The bridgeway was blackened and burned in places; the defenders had been compelled to use liquid fire against sallies on their gates. Andre, driving the lead wagon of casualties, stopped at the gatehouse. Holding a torch close by his face, he called up to the amazed sentries in the bartizan to open for him.
The officer of the guard, already confused by the distant sound of gunfire and battle, dithered over whether or not to comply. He was saved by the arrival of the Snow Leopardess in answer to his previous summons. She stood to the wall and, recognizing Andre, commanded that the gates be opened.
As the wagons were being hurried in, Katya got a rapid explanation from the plump magician. Just then Lady Duskwind, again in armor and wearing a sword, arrived at the head of a complement of household cavalry. She’d heard the distant noise of battle and had seen what would be demanded. The tall Princess’s eyes smoldered with the lust for combat and she called for a horse and quickly ordered them to ride forth and support those holding at the barbican. The officer of household cavalry objected and received a short, scathing rebuke, after which he loosened his sword in its sheath and waited unhappily.
With borrowed sword and buckler, Katya turned to her troops.
“Sabers, gentlemen,” she said evenly, as if it were some minor military acknowledgment she asked. Their swords swept out in avid unison.
Then she galloped for the gate. It was her way; rather than order them to follow, she challenged them with bold example.
When it had first arrived, the host from Earthfast had bested the men of Freegate and the remaining Horseblooded in the open beyond the city, and driven them into confinement. Su-Suru had fallen in that battle, and several of the reptile-men had been among the many others slain. It had been the Snow Leopardess’ first major engagement and she seethed for repayment.
But her arrival didn’t change matters on the far side of the bridgeway very much. The besieging army was coordinating its actions and driving the allies back to the barbican. She steered herself into a gap in the ranks with a feline howl; agile and competent as any Wild Rider, she traded strokes with an amazed soldier and downed him. Her brother was there, but couldn’t pause to talk to her. He swung two appropriated swords in a whirlwind around himself, and those whom he touched died.
Over the tumult they heard the grenades’ detonations. The King, knowing the others were now making their last break, began to slash furiously to prepare way for them. Kisst-Haa crowded next to him and swung his colossal blade with cold, elliptical precision.
Shots heralded the arrival of the Prince and his companions. C
ounting Springbuck, Gil and Hightower, there were seven left. They were, in this segment of the conflict, effectively at the enemy’s rear. They barely slowed as they fell on the men of Earthfast and cut their way ahead, finding it relatively easy to do so. Few wanted to ride against the terrifying guns of the American or the gory broadsword of the aged titan beside him.
The first Springbuck knew that he’d broken through was when he was nearly pared from his saddle by a screaming warrior-goddess with long, white-blonde hair and red-stained saber. He parried with his bowie knife and called Katya by name. She checked her return stroke and laughed for joy.
Now it became a matter of slowly falling back through the barbican and across the bridgeway. One by one, all the regular troops were sent dashing back to Freegate, galloping for their lives, while Reacher and Katya, Springbuck, Hightower and Gil held shoulder to shoulder along with Dunston and Bonesteel, who stoutly refused to leave. Even Kisst-Haa and his fellows were commanded to go; they were mighty fighters but would slow the final retreat too much. The Lady Duskwind was told to go by Gil, with an emphatic bellow; but after hanging back for a minute, she chose to stay near until the American came with her.
Bonesteel was met by a far younger man and could no longer find energy to match him. He was thrown down with a death wound, but lived long enough to see Dunstan, suddenly come to sanity at this tragedy, slay the man who’d dealt him his last injury. And when the Berserker tenderly took up the old general to bear him back to the city, Bonesteel, beyond pain, had just enough time left in his life to wonder why he’d so mistrusted this man, had never taken time to make him a friend, and to be sorry for it.
The Princess’ horse whinnied in terror and agony as an arrow found it. She managed to jump free as it fell, but wasn’t on her feet long. Hightower leaned over; hooking one hand around the back of her knife belt, he hauled her across his saddle. He spurred toward Freegate, hot on the heels of Dunstan, with the Snow Leopardess objecting in the loudest of voices.
