Knights of the Sword

by Roland Green

  It sounded like a chorus of bears in a vile temper with everything, including one another.

  Gaps showed in the line now, and for a moment Pirvan saw the high captain’s banner waver. But the banner bearer with the stricken horse passed the banner to another man, and they came on without missing a step.

  Then Waydol pushed his way through the square. Pirvan put out an arm to halt him; the Minotaur brushed past as if Pirvan’s sinewy arm had been a stalk of grass. Other men took one look at him and opened the gap wider.

  Armed but bare-handed, Waydol stood in the open ground between the square of his men and the advancing Istarians. Pirvan mounted, wheeled his horse, wished he dared tell Haimya not to follow, and glared at Birak Epron when he started toward the gap.

  Epron remained within the square, but both Stalker and Whistletrot came out at Pirvan’s heels. Anyone else who might have felt the urge to go and die with the Minotaur mercifully had no time to act on it.

  Trumpets and drums hurled signals about within the Istarian ranks. The infantry halted. To the left, the cavalry put their spurs in and their heads down, then rode for the cliff as fast as the trees and rough ground would let them.

  To the right, the cavalry did the same—but their goal was clear to Waydol and those around him.

  “Hold the entrance!” Waydol thundered. Birak Epron needed no further orders or explanation. The square broke into a trot, about as fast as it could move without losing form. Pirvan also saw archers shifting about within the square.

  The stronghold might last long enough for those within to get to sea. Even some of the square might fight again.

  Those who had followed Waydol out to provoke the Istarians were fighting their last battle.

  At least that settles the matter of any Judgment of Honor over fighting Istarians, Pirvan thought.

  The Istarian cavalry on the right was barely twenty strong, but they were all well mounted and armed with lance or sword. Pirvan backed his horse, couched his improvised lance—and saw Waydol step out into the path of the charge.

  The third shatang was in his hand.

  The lead rider saw only the foolish defiance of an easy target, couched his lance, and charged.

  Pirvan bit back a cry as Waydol let the man come at him. Then he saw that the others were breaking their formation, to allow their captain the glory of the kill.

  “Forward!” Pirvan yelled.

  His horse jumped forward. At the same time, the Minotaur tossed the shatang from his right hand to his left, raised it, and threw. The lance dipped and tore into Waydol’s shoulder as the shatang struck the rider in the neck.

  “Struck” was too feeble a word. The shatang drove clear through the man, so that his nearly severed neck actually wobbled on his shoulders for a moment, before he fell from his mount. Two riders behind him fell also, though trying not to step on him.

  In this moment of disarray, Pirvan and Haimya rode in among the Istarian ranks, with Whistletrot and Stalker running behind them. The air was suddenly full of war cries, screams, neighing horses, the clash of steel, flying bolas, and the weird roaring of a kender hoopak lustily wielded.

  Pirvan nearly lost his mount to his second opponent, but replied by slashing the man’s horse across the rump. The horse reared and threw his rider, and Pirvan put a knife into the man’s throat as he started to rise.

  Haimya had worse luck in the matter of opponents; Pirvan saw Stalker use his last bola to bring down the horse of a rider coming around on Haimya’s blind side. The knight waved his thanks.

  In moments the Istarians had lost five men and every bit of their remaining order. It was then that Waydol reentered the fray. He held the bloody lance he’d drawn from his shoulder in one hand, then gripped it with both hands and swung it like a club. Suddenly there was another vacant saddle—and the lance snapped like a twig.

  Pirvan thought he heard Waydol grunt. He knew he saw the Minotaur reach back over his shoulder with both hands and draw his clabbard. Then all saw what a minotaur who had in his youth fought with a clabbard in each hand could do, even many years later and with one shoulder a mass of blood and torn muscle.

  The Istarians who saw this mostly did not live to tell anyone about it. Waydol emptied the area around him of living or at least fighting men and horses in less time than a thirsty man could empty a cup of wine. Several horses who did not go down were running off, screaming from wounds or stark terror, saddles empty.

  The other cavalry soldiers began drawing back, whether out of fear or to give the infantry a clear field. Stalker took one of these cautious warriors down with a sling, and Whistletrot jumped up behind another and garrotted him out of the saddle. The man was still fighting when he hit, so Haimya rode over, made her horse rear, and brought its forehooves down on the man’s chest.

  Then Pirvan saw movement rippling down the line of infantry. It was time to say farewell to Haimya, because they had about a minute more before they went out fighting.

  The high captain’s banner burst through the ranks of the infantry. Beliosaran was going to lead the final charge himself.

  Then more happened in a single moment than any three men could have seen even if each had three eyes. Archers leaped up from the rocks above the entrance to the stronghold. The Istarian cavalrymen on the left, about to dismount and hold the entrance against Epron’s square, found death hailing from above.

  Birak Epron shook the square out into a line, so that all the archers would have a clear line of fire. They shot, and the surviving cavalrymen joined their comrades.

  Beliosaran and his guards dug in their spurs—and Waydol’s last shatang flew.

  It struck the high captain’s horse, and the beast stopped so suddenly that the rider kept going, right over its head. He landed lightly, however, springing up at once and drawing his sword.

  He cut a fine, warlike figure for the last moment of his life.

  Then Waydol closed and swung his clabbard. The saw-edged blade removed Beliosaran’s head as deftly as a girl plucking a grape. The high captain’s guards were too far from Waydol to use their lances, but not far enough to be out of range of the clabbard.

  Those who weren’t cut out of their saddles were too busy to notice Pirvan and his comrades charging them. In a moment the charge went home, and several more of the Istarian guards went down, though Pirvan was now content to dismount them rather than kill them.

  The stronghold suddenly had a fighting chance, likewise the square. But the five comrades were now barely a hundred paces from a thousand Istarians howling with rage over the death of their leader.

  A ball of fire plummeted from the sky, to strike the ground barely a spear’s length in front of the Istarians. Tongues of flame spurted in all directions where it landed. Some reached nearly as far as Pirvan; many flowed over the Istarians.

  Pirvan’s mouth fell open, but he closed his eyes and wished he could close his nose. He had seen enough dead men still able to writhe and scream, and smelled enough charred flesh.

  Only the smell of heated earth and burning grass reached him. He opened his eyes. Flames were rising from the grass and undergrowth everywhere the tongues of fire had touched down. And the Istarians were retreating. In fact, they were running as if the flames were licking at their heels. Some of them were throwing off their armor, and all of them were crying out in fear, some even in pain.

  But there was not a single charred corpse to be seen, let alone smelled.

  “I think we have found Rubina,” Waydol said, “or she us.” Then he coughed. Blood spattered the ground at his feet.

  Pirvan rode toward the Minotaur, then realized the futility of trying to hold up or lift onto horseback a being who weighed more than he and Haimya together.

  “Hang on to my saddlebow.”

  “No. You folk get—get on inside. There’s more Istarians about, and Rubina may not be up to all the work of seeing them off.”

  “Waydol, you swore an oath of peace, which means you promised to obey me.”<
br />
  “Only in disbanding my folk and sending them away in peace.”

  “Play the law counselor later,” Haimya said, riding up on the other side of Waydol and reaching down. “You cannot make us shame ourselves by leaving you out here.”

  Waydol grunted, the grunt turned into another cough, and more blood joined that already on the ground.

  Pirvan met Haimya’s eyes above the Minotaur’s head. Lung wound. If we don’t take him down to Sirbones, he’ll bleed to death or suffocate.

  Pirvan took a firm grip on one massive wrist and placed it on his saddlebow. “Now hold on, friend Waydol, for very surely we will have to dismount and die with you if you stumble over your own hooves!”

  Behind them, beyond the first line of fires, another fireball erupted. A pine tree boomed into a pillar of flame, and steam shot up like a geyser as a stream boiled.

  * * * * *

  Tarothin was vaguely aware of Rubina at work ashore. He deliberately kept the awareness vague. Awareness could lead to influence, and this was no time for Evil to influence Neutral spells.

  Not when he almost had the enemy in his grasp. It had been almost easy, once Rubina told him; he would never forget that.

  As for the rest—as a Neutral wizard fighting for the balance, he had power that Evil priests fighting against it could never attain.

  He gripped his staff and began to repeat the first five syllables Rubina had taught him.

  * * * * *

  There’d been no more than a dozen archers on the rocks above the entrance, but they’d had the advantages of height and surprise and were picked men.

  Pirvan still insisted that they go on ahead, through the entrance, down the tunnel, and into the stronghold. He dismounted, slapped his horse on the rump, and saw it prance away. He hoped it would find a way around the flames—Rubina’s fireballs now had three half-circles of fire burning around the stronghold.

  “Waydol?” Cold gripped Pirvan as he realized he could not see the Minotaur.

  “Over here.”

  Pirvan scuttled around a boulder. Waydol sat on the ground, head slumped on his chest. Blood now trickled steadily from his mouth.

  “Had—had to set—fall. We can bring the rocks—bring the rocks down from inside. My people—know how.”

  “You can do it yourself, after Sirbones heals you.”

  “Sirbones—”

  “A priest of Mishakal will heal anyone his power allows.”

  Waydol raised his head. Half his mouth quirked in a smile. “For me—that is a lot of power.”

  “The longer we wait, the more it will take.” Pirvan hoped he would not have to leave a Waydol who could no longer walk, and hunt up some eight or ten bearers to worm him through the tunnel.

  “If it must be …”

  “I do not know what must be, but what must not be is you dying out here alone.”

  “Yes, my lord Pirvan.”

  Waydol staggered when he rose, and had to put some of his weight on Pirvan, but the knight had carried packs loaded with stones that weighed more, in his training days. He had not owed the stones any debts of honor, either!

  * * * * *

  Pirvan had no trouble finding bearers after he and Waydol staggered into the stronghold. Enough men ran forward to crew a fair-sized ship. Four of them carried a stout plank door fitted with handles, and on this they laid the Minotaur. The four men and as many others as could get a grip on the door lifted it, and the procession down to the water began.

  Pirvan could do nothing more for Waydol, so he went in search of Birak Epron and Haimya. He found them standing in front of Waydol’s hut, swords drawn, facing a dozen angry men. From their ragged appearance, most of them were either new recruits or refugees.

  “What goes on here?” Pirvan snapped.

  “These men wanted entry to Waydol’s hut,” Birak Epron said. “They could show no right. They said they wanted to bring his goods down to the shore. I think they’re after loot.”

  “Perhaps,” Pirvan said, fixing the men with a gaze that made them step back several paces. “Or perhaps they are thinking how much the kingpriest will pay for the secrets of a minotaur who has lived among humans for twenty years.”

  “Well, by all good gods, why not?” one man said. “Waydol’s going home without—”

  Birak Epron suddenly had one hand on the man’s collar and the point of his dagger at the man’s throat. “Who told you that?”

  The man gobbled something that might have been a name. Birak Epron threw the man down like a rotten leg of mutton. “The same one who told the archer who killed Pedoon, or so I’ve been led to believe. Trying to make trouble to the last, I suppose, but at least this time he hasn’t got anyone killed.”

  “Or at least he won’t, if we don’t see any of you bastards around here again. The boats are waiting. Be in them before I come down to the beach, or start swimming.”

  The men ran off.

  “I shall have to find the troublemaker and kill him before we turn these folk loose on Solamnia,” Birak Epron said. “I know you and your lady are too honorable to do that, but I assure you that it must be done.”

  Pirvan at this point would have listened to an assurance that they must go questing for the Graystone of Gargath. This quest had stretched his notions of what could and could not be far beyond previous limits—and he did not feel he had led a particularly sheltered life.

  Haimya looked at the hut. “I hate to leave it for Istarian looters. They may take everything to the kingpriest even faster than those bandits.”

  “Time enough to think about that when we’ve saved the men—” Epron began.

  Drums from the ships interrupted him. Then shouts, then a scream from below.

  Pirvan studied the stronghold, then the cliffs. There! Small figures scuttled atop the cliff at the east end of the cove, moving like archers. Archers, standing where they could reach some of the ships and part of the houses.

  And where they would be as hard to come at as if they’d been shooting from the Abyss itself with Takhisis’s permission!

  The companions ran down the hill even faster than the would-be looters.

  * * * * *

  Waydol was in a boat on his way to Windsword by the time the three companions reached the beach. Archers were running toward the east, looking for places where they could at least distract the enemy.

  From what Pirvan heard, the enemy looked like Istarians—rangers, perhaps, or fleet archers. Neither cared whether the bow was an elven weapon, and were among the most formidable archers outside the elven nations. They also had the advantage of height, and altogether they promised to be a problem that Pirvan had not anticipated and really did not need!

  “Can more follow where these went?” he asked, of nobody in particular. Twenty archers up there were doing enough damage. A hundred—

  “No.” It was Stalker. “Only very good climbers could be up there. I wager one man fell for every one up there.”

  That was some consolation. So was the stronghold’s plainly beginning to fight back. Friendly archers were shooting, not accurately thanks to having to shoot upward. But they had numbers and plenty of arrows; luck might do the rest.

  Also, several of the ships in Jemar’s fleet were replying. Two had full-sized siege engines mounted on deck, and two more had huge fortress crossbows that could send a bolt the length of a man through a foot of oak. It was one of those crossbows that took down the first archer, snatching him out of sight in a single breath.

  This slowed his comrades’ fire briefly, long enough for Pirvan to lead his companions up to the blue-doored hut of Mishakal. Several wounded lay on blankets outside it, but Sirbones was nowhere in sight.

  “I—I am Delia,” said the thin, pale woman holding her staff over a man with an arrow-gouged thigh. “I was—midwife, healer, to Lady Eskaia. She is safe aboard Windsword, but Sirbones needs help.”

  “I’m sure he does,” Haimya said. “But Waydol needs help direly. Can you tell us where
Sirbones—?”

  “Delia!” a voice shouted from up the hill. “Did I not tell you to—?”

  “Sirbones, there were so many of them. Leaving them be was worse than healing. Leave be, or I shall have to spend strength healing you that—”

  Sirbones appeared on a path just uphill. Before Pirvan could ask him to make sense of this conversation, the archers atop the cliff let fly with their farthest-reaching arrows yet.

  Pirvan and his companions knew where three of them went. One glanced off Birak Epron’s helmet. A second stuck in the thatch of Delia’s hut.

  A third struck Delia in the stomach. She gave a faint cry, put a hand on the arrow shaft, then sat down, clamping her mouth shut against the pain.

  “Don’t touch it,” Haimya said. “There it’s not likely to kill, with a good healer readily at hand—”

  “Ah, but no healer is close enough now,” Delia said. Her eyes rolled up in her head, and she fell backward, atop the man whose leg she’d been healing.

  “Lady?” he said. “Lady?” he repeated, this time in a wail.

  “Delia?” Sirbones asked, hurrying up. He knelt beside her, holding his staff lengthwise along her body. “Delia?” he said again.

  Then he rose slowly to his feet, his face working. “I warned her. She—when she healed Lady Eskaia and the babe—she put so much of herself into those spells. There was nothing left for her. Then she went and healed others, giving more and more that was not really there, until a mouse bite could have killed her!”

  Blindly, Sirbones groped for support. Haimya let him put his head on her armored shoulder and held him while he wept.

  He sobered quickly, but flies had already begun to gather around Delia before he spoke again. “Is it true that Waydol—?”

  A thunderclap left that question unfinished. Pirvan looked up to see a dozen small fireballs scouring the top of the cliff where the archers stood. Had stood, rather—these fireballs were not mostly illusion.

  Pirvan’s gaze followed the blazing corpse of one archer all the way down from the top of the cliff until he hissed into oblivion in the water of the cove. Several more fell after him, and then some rocks, heated until they also threw up steam when they struck the water.