by Jack Porter
But just at that moment, I wanted her to relax. To lower the knife and trust us. “Because there are Blackcoats searching the monastery for you at this very instant,” I said.
The poor woman’s expression betrayed her. It wasn’t much of a slip. But it was there. The mask of her courage and determination flickered for an instant to fear, before returning.
But the next moment, she rallied, taking a deep breath and casting her doubts to one side. “The Blackcoats have been searching for me for days,” she said.
It was Meghan who presented the decisive argument. “We found you,” she said. “Against this good monk’s best intentions. Do you really think he could have held out against the Blackcoats if they forced the issue?”
It seemed as if the old monk in question wanted to object, but Elaine glared at him and shook her head.
Anwen considered Meghan’s words, and knew that the enchantress spoke the truth. And her veneer of courage gave way completely.
Instead of the fighter, the woman who had tried to poison the King, there was Anwen, the woman who was in over her head. For the first time, the tip of her dagger wavered, and all the pain and hardships became visible on her face. Out of instinct, she looked to the least threatening of the four of us, for support. To her, Meghan appeared to be a harmless old woman wearing perhaps too many layers, and carrying a staff.
“What am I to do?” Anwen asked, her voice fraught with uncertainty and tears not far away.
But Meghan was more than up to the task.
“You trust us,” she said. “We really are here to help.” At the same time, the enchantress stepped forward and indicated Anwen’s dagger. “And you put that away. But keep it nearby, because you have chosen a dangerous path, and a good dagger can always come in handy.”
Meghan had said just the right thing, and she had managed to bridge the gap between us and Anwen. Advising her to keep the dagger close by wasn’t something an enemy would do. But Anwen was stubborn, and willful. And, I admit, she had good reason not to trust strangers. It took her a few moments to accept Meghan’s words.
But then she did sheath her dagger as if to signal that she was going to trust us.
Elaine, Galahad, and I all breathed a collective sigh of relief. But Anwen still hadn’t emerged from her bolthole. “What happens next?” she asked.
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Again, it was Galahad who answered. “I know a place where we can take you for now. The Blackcoats haven’t thought to search there in more than a decade, no matter what they were after. From there, it is largely up to you, although I have some ideas, if you are willing to listen.”
“But we should really hurry,” Meghan added. “There really are Blackcoats searching for you, and it’s only a matter of time before one or other of them decides to check the chapel again.”
There was no discussion of which way to go. With the Blackcoats around, we couldn’t return to the kitchen or the cart. Instead, the five of us, with Anwen accepting our help at least for the time being, made our way to the main chapel entrance, and out onto the street.
The rain hadn’t eased off, and if anything, it was even heavier than before.
As soon as we were outside, three things happened almost at once.
The first was that Galahad suggested we head back to the cart and take it so that the women could travel in relative comfort. The second was that Anwen asked again who we all were. But before Meghan, Elaine, or I could respond to her question, the third thing happened.
We all heard it. From inside the chapel, the aging, quarrelsome monk was starting to bellow.
“Blackcoats! Blackcoats, come quick! The one you seek is getting away!”
“Fuck,” I said. I glanced to the others, and saw their expressions of consternation and anger, and a touch of fear on Anwen’s face.
“Make for the cart?” I said, and that was all the discussion that was needed.
As if we were of one mind, the five of us set off at a run, intent on putting the chapel and the Blackcoats behind us. Instinctively, Elaine moved to offer Meghan a hand, but the enchantress didn’t need it. She touched the jewel in her necklace, and instead of a shuffling old woman, she became the young, beautiful witch I knew. Together, she and Elaine shepherded Anwen in the right direction.
With my boots splashing heavily in the mud, I put all other thoughts out of my mind. The Blackcoats were behind us. It would take them time to return to the chapel, more time still to listen to the surly monk’s words. Barring a piece of ill luck, the five of us would reach the cart and be gone before the Blackcoats could mount a serious case.
In my mind, we were as good as away. Except that through the rain, I could see a dim shape in front of us.
It was a man, of that much I was sure, and even though the rain and gloom blurred his features, I knew he meant trouble. There was something about the way he was standing. I could sense his malice, his formidability long before I could make out his face or what he was doing.
With my heart pounding loudly in my ears, I faltered. Instead of striding along, I hesitated, planted one foot in the mud and skidded, holding my hands out for balance.
Perhaps that was what sold me. Or perhaps it was some instinct, some warning. Because in that moment of hesitation, what the man was doing became clear.
He was holding a crossbow, and pointing it right at me.
My instincts took over. If I had still been running flat out, I would have had no real chance. I would have met the bolt he fired head on, and that would have been that.
But my skid, my hesitation, and my instincts proved decisive. I threw myself to one side even as I dropped flat, and ignored the sound of Sir George kicking up a fuss on my shoulder as his balance was suddenly gone.
Twang.
I heard it through the rain, through the panting of Galahad and the girls as they ran. Heard it over the steady slap of their feet in the mud.
How close the bolt came to me, I never knew. The width of a finger. The span of a hand. Either way, it was close. Close enough that I felt the breeze of it as it passed. Before I heard the solid thump as it struck home.
Then I caught myself as good as I could, and lurched back into an upright position.
The man who had fired his crossbow at me stepped forward through the rain until I could make out his face. It was Rolf.
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The disgraced Blackcoat was grinning his wolfish grin. “I nearly had you there,” he sneered at me through the wet. At the same time, he was casually winding back the string of his bow so he could reload it. “Not to worry,” he said. “I have another bolt. I’ll get to you soon enough.”
The others had all come to a halt behind me. I could sense them, could sense their uncertainty at this unexpected attack. “What do you want, Rolf?” I grated at him.
He seemed to be in a mood to answer. “Mordie, Mordie, Mordie,” he said. “You never learn, do you? I want what I’ve always wanted. What you have taken from me. And the key to getting it back is right there by your side.”
All at once, I understood. Rolf was looking at Anwen. The woman who had been there right at the start. Somehow, Rolf intended to use her to bargain his way back into the King’s good graces.
Perhaps it would work. Perhaps it would not. Either way, I didn’t much care.
With my sword trapped beneath the monk’s robe I was wearing, I was effectively unarmed against the man before me. And Rolf was as dangerous as ever. He had paused far enough away to give him some time to reload, and was doing so methodically. I considered dropping my shoulder and charging him, chancing the outcome, when from behind me, I heard Galahad offer a sound that seemed a mixture between a grunt and a sigh.
I didn’t see what happened, but what I heard was enough.
“Father!” Elaine yelled, and as I half-turned toward them, my worst fears all came true.
Galahad was swaying on his feet, with Elaine closing the distance between them. Somehow, when I had ducked out of the way of Rolf’s bol
t, I had opened up a path for it to strike the old man.
It had caught him in the side, about where his liver should have been.
Even in the rain, I could see that dark blood had started to flow. It was a serious wound, and all of us knew it.
“That looks nasty,” Rolf said. “You really should learn to protect your people better.”
The former Blackcoat had just about finished winding back the string of his crossbow. He was still looking at me, still acting as if he was in total command, as if there was nothing I could do to stop him.
But in that, he was wrong.
I had already beaten him once.
With that thought in mind, I let out a mindless roar of pure rage and hurled myself toward him. But instead of simply dropping my shoulder and charging him down, I gathered my robes as I ran and hurled them from me before I had taken three strides, and within the four, I had drawn my sword.
I didn’t give Rolf the chance to string his next bolt. I was too quick for that. But my first slash was not one Lady Emmeline would have approved of. I overextended, using my weight and fury in place of the skill she taught me, doing my level best to hack off Rolf’s head. He blocked my swing with his crossbow and took half a step back. I swung again and again, hacking at him like he was a tree and my sword was an axe, and he blocked me both times. But such was my fury, such was my unschooled rage, that I left myself open. He took one of his hands from the crossbow and punched me hard in the guts.
It took some of the wind from my lungs and bent me over. Yet the fury that drove me to attack him sustained me. I didn’t go down, didn’t lose my focus, and when he raised his crossbow to smash me in the head, some measure of the skills Lady Emmeline had taught me returned.
Still doubled over, my sword flicked out, catching the former Blackcoat on his wrist before I danced out of his range.
Rolf let out a cry of pain and anger, and flinched his hand back from the crossbow.
It was all that I needed. I inhaled a lungful of air, forced myself to stand up straight, and kicked out, catching the crossbow with the tip of my boot.
The force of my kick was enough to take the weapon out of Rolf’s hands. For a moment, he stared at me in shock, and then his feral grin returned. He stepped back, just out of my reach, and drew his sword.
Perhaps he thought this would be a repeat of our battle in the caverns beneath the castle. Perhaps he thought I didn’t have any more of the powder I had used at the time, that had turned the tables of the battle my way.
If he thought that, then he was right. I had run out of the powder.
But that didn’t mean this was going to go his way.
I went on the attack, using everything that I had, all the skills Emmeline had taught me wrapped up in my own determination and need, and desire to win.
And, even without the advantage of the powder Meghan had given me, I knew that I was Rolf’s match with the blade.
But no more. Rolf was powerful. He was stronger than me, and faster than he had any right to have been. His skill with the blade was formidable, and combined with who he was, he was damned hard to beat.
As far as I knew, Rolf had never lost any sort of fight in his whole life until I had beaten him beneath the castle.
And he was determined. He didn’t have any intention of losing a second time. Even so, he had made a miscalculation.
Perhaps he didn’t know who my companions were. Or perhaps he simply didn’t understand the skills they brought to the table.
Galahad was injured. Badly injured. But Meghan was an enchantress, and she had yet to join the fray. What she might be able to do, I could barely guess at.
But I knew full well what Elaine was capable of, and in between a flurry of strikes and counterstrikes, blocks and slashes with the ring of steel rolling out into the rain, Elaine joined in.
“You shot my father!” she cried, and suddenly, Rolf had no choice but to step back as the woman’s flickering blade sought his flesh.
I could see the thoughts going through his mind as if they were written on his face. At first, he thought her no more than an irritation, somebody to swat out of the way before returning his attention to me. But it didn’t take long for him to understand that behind her fury, behind her mask of hate, there was real skill guiding her blade.
Nor did I give him the chance to work out how he might beat her. I simply gave her a half step of space and continued my own attack, aiming my blows where he would be hard pressed to defend.
Even then, Rolf’s quickness, his expertise with the blade, combined with his sheer will to win proved almost enough to keep us at bay. But while he blocked, parried, or slipped half a dozen attacks, he couldn’t slip the seventh. The tip of Elaine’s blade caught him in the shoulder.
He barked out an inarticulate noise of anger and stepped forward, trying to go on the attack. But I tangled him, giving Elaine space to start in again, opening up a cut beneath his eye.
As quick as a blink, I followed that up with a strike that that opened a gash on the back of his hand, and Rolf’s attack faded. His expression grew murderous, and I could see him calculating a last desperate move, but neither I nor Elaine gave him the freedom to put it in place.
Elaine caught his blade on her own, and I drove the point of my sword deep into his shoulder, then withdrew it again in time to catch his response. Elaine used the time I bought her to lunge for him, and I could tell by the way he flinched that her steel made it through his thick coat to his flesh.
It was as if Rolf couldn’t believe what was happening. Couldn’t believe that he was being beaten by me and Elaine. Couldn’t believe he was being beaten at all. With his eyes wide, filling with madness, he uttered a cry of rage and looked to hurl himself upon us. But when he saw both swords angled toward his heart, he slashed with all his strength, trying to beat both of our blades away.
At the same time, he half-turned, and tried to run.
I had caught the lion’s share of Rolf’s final blow and was slow to respond. But Elaine was quicker, dancing forward like a viper and slashing out with her blade.
Part of Lady Emmeline’s lessons included caring for our weapons. Elaine’s blade was like mine, the product of a master, but under Emmeline’s tutelage, it had become more than that.
My blade was razor sharp. I could have shaved with it, and without need of any form of leather. And I knew without having to ask that Elaine’s was the same.
The leather that made up Rolf’s boots might have turned a lesser weapon. But Elaine’s strike parted that leather with ease.
If Rolf hadn’t turned to try to run, perhaps he could have lasted a few seconds more. As it was, all he managed to do was present a decisive target.
Elaine’s blade cut through Rolf’s boot at his heel and took the Achilles tendon as well.
The former Blackcoat made it precisely one step before his foot gave way beneath him, and he collapsed into the mud.
Both of us were upon him in an instant. Yet even then, he hadn’t given up, rolling onto his back and hacking away with his blade.
“You can’t kill me!” he sneered, and I knew that he was talking to me more than Elaine. It was always about me with this man. It seemed that he had made me his life’s work. “You don’t have it in you!”
Maybe, at one time, he had been right. After all, I had kept him alive when I had already murdered his henchmen. But things were different now.
Now, I didn’t have the luxury of time.
Now, there were Blackcoats coming our way, and we needed to go.
And Rolf’s crossbow bolt had struck true, catching a man I couldn’t help but admire in a most dangerous spot. A man who just happened to be Elaine’s father.
I didn’t even hesitate, and neither did the fierce woman beside me. I blocked a wild swing, and without hesitation, stabbed Rolf through the heart.
It didn’t surprise me in the least to see that Elaine’s weapon got there a fraction of an instant before mine.
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Rolf gave a sort of cough and looked up at the both of us in surprise. Feebly, he tried to swing his sword arm again, but I withdrew my sword and knocked his effort to one side.
“You…” he managed, a bubble of foam appearing. “You…”
But he had no strength for anything else.
Lying there in the mud, the light faded from Rolf’s eyes.
Elaine offered the corpse of the man who had caused me so much trouble a curse, and spat on his face. Then the two of us turned back to the others.
Meghan was on her knees in the mud, her expression full of concern as she comforted the old man. In moments, Elaine joined her as I stood there, unsure what to say or do.
Galahad had taken a crossbow bolt meant for me. He hadn’t done it on purpose. He had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time. And now he lay in the mud, still alive, but in obvious pain as the bolt stuck out of his side.
“We’ll get you home,” Elaine said, her voice having lost none of its determination. Even in the rain, I could see how pale the old knight’s face had become. I wanted to offer what comfort I could, but didn’t know what to say.
“Meghan,” I began, but the look the enchantress shot my way clamped my tongue to the roof of my mouth. She was a healer. Surely, anything could be done…
Subtly, away from Elaine’s line of sight, Meghan shook her head.
I didn’t want to believe her. Didn’t want to understand what she was saying. Sure, Galahad had been shot. But he was still alive. Other people had survived such wounds before.
Had they not?
I wasn’t the only one to stand awkwardly, not knowing what to say or do. Anwen didn’t know Galahad, Meghan, or Elaine. Yet her face was filled with empathy, knowing just as I did how dire the old man’s situation had become.
At the same time, she stood a little apart, alone in the rain as she swapped her gaze from Galahad and the others to me.
“That man. That Blackcoat,” she said, and that was enough to tell me that she recognized Rolf even in the rain. Rolf wasn’t wearing his Blackcoat anymore. Just a normal, dark brown one, the type of thing commonly worn by Camelot’s people.
