They were seven against thirty-eight and possibly more if Odo’s host had been joined by more men than Quill had counted when he filched the venison. Ten of those men were knights, well mounted and armored. And twenty-eight crossbowmen, while lower in the fighting ranks than knights, were not to be entirely discounted as a threat.
The code of chivalry demanded that Tamberlane make his presence known and give his enemy a fair chance before launching an assault. But the code had not been written for men like Odo de Langois, who attacked villages without warning and made plans to ambush a king.
Any ambuscade Ciaran set would have to rely heavily on surprise. He needed his foresters to take up prime killing positions, to fire swift and steady, and to disregard the next highest rule amongst the legion of rules that shaped the covenant of chivalry: They would have to aim first for the knights.
At dawn, when Amaranth found him, he was standing on the cliffs pondering his decisions, wrestling with his conscience. She used the excuse of bringing him bread and ale to break his fast, but her heart swelled when she saw his face dusted by the rising light, saw his eyes so intent upon the sea, his hair dark and ragged where it blew forward on his cheeks. If they failed in their quest to save the king, it would not be for lack of courage or honor.
One by one, beginning with the two burly knights, the men approached the Dragonslayer and went down on one knee to pay homage, pledging their loyalty and their swords, their very lives into his command. The gesture almost surpassed the one Tamberlane had planned as he ordered Roland to remain on his knees while the Order of Knighthood was bestowed upon him. The solemn vows were made and witnessed and when he rose from his knees, he was pronounced to be Sir Roland Longchamps de Monteau. The investiture was applauded by much slapping of shoulders and wide grins and afterward, Ciaran regarded his meager host of comrades-in-arms with a long unused emotion: pride.
It was a motley crew who had departed Taniere a sennight earlier, but it was a band of men who stood on the meadow that morning. No knight declared precedence by placing himself ahead of a squire or forester; they would stand together as equals and as equals would defend against those who would murder a king.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Rolf de Langois spent the morning contemplating the duplicity of his brother, smugly satisfied that he had thought of a way to turn the tables on Odo, when he caught sight of a distant speck out in the Channel. At first glance it could have been just another wave peaking far out along the easterly horizon. The surf was surging against the rocks below the castle with much crashing and heaving of whitewater spume, but Rolf's keen eyes, which had scanned those same waters many times before, picked out the tiny pyramid of sail on the horizon before any of the sentries noticed it.
"Ship," he cried. "I see a ship!"
Odo was a dozen paces away when he heard the shout, but before he could react, a brace of arrows streaked out of seeming nowhere and struck with the force of an axe. The first caught Rolf high on the throat, severing his windpipe and driving through to lodge at the back of his skull. The second pierced his chest, the power behind the iron head punching cleanly through the chain mail armor and shattering his spine as it exited.
Dead before he could gasp his surprise, Rolf slumped heavily onto his knees then pitched face down on the wet grass, his last despairing glance aimed out to the sea.
~~
The brace of arrows that struck Rolf de Langois were fired almost simultaneously from the weapons of Quill and Fletcher. They had communicated their targets of choice by a series of hand signals, but at the last moment, the glare from the sun sheeting off the waters of the Channel had caused both men to blink.
When they looked again, not only had both their arrows struck the same man, but their main quarry, Odo de Langois, had heard the distinctive whoosh thunk thunk and had leaped instinctively behind his horse. Both foresters nocked and fired twice more in rapid succession but were only able to strike the saddle and notch the ear of the huge destrier before moving on to more exposed targets. Within the first thirty seconds, there were nine men dead, near as many writhing on the ground, and the rest scattering in search of cover. There were shouts of astonishment and confusion from the knights and screams from the horses who found their flanks or withers pierced with arrows.
Foresters, land-bound creatures for the most part, instinctively feared those beasts almost more than the men who rode them, knowing that the great, blooded warhorses were trained to rear and slash a man with iron-clad hooves, or worse, trample him to bloody mash on the ground. Thus, despite Tamberlane’s directive to aim high, a goodly number of arrows were thrown low. Horses dropped and thrashed on the ground; their riders tumbled free only to stand and find themselves the next target.
Behind the veil of trees, Tamberlane dropped the visor of his helm and raised his sword. He glanced both ways to acknowledge his three mounted companions, then touched spurs to the flanks of his magnificent piebald.
The sight of four armored knights charging out of the woods, their shields and swords raised, caused many of Odo's lingering retainers to break for cover. The four knights fanned apart like the horsemen of the apocalypse and galloped straight into the confused scramble. Swords scythed downward and blood sprayed through the air. The four thundered clear across the meadow and pulled up on the far side before wheeling about and charging again, cutting a bloody swath through the panicking guardsmen and driving them straight into the waiting arrows of Quill and Fletcher.
Tamberlane identified Odo de Langois screaming furiously for his horse and using a rock to step himself up into the saddle. He had lost his helm in the initial scramble for cover and the mail of his coif had been loosened and pushed back off his head revealing the shock of bright red hair.
Ciaran's big stallion responded to the command in his master’s knees and drew to a snorting halt a dozen broad paces away from where de Langois was still trying to gain control of his horse.
Odo saw the threat and bared his teeth in a snarl. “What devilry is this? Who are you? And how dare you attack without provocation!”
“Aye, there is devilry in the air. But you should not be one to protest about attacking without provocation, for it would appear to be your habit of late."
Odo clenched his teeth and snarled again. “Who are you, cur? Show yourself so that I may know the face of the man I slay this day.”
Tamberlane raised a gauntleted hand and lifted the slotted visor, then on a second thought, removed his helm completely, casting it aside with a clank of metal so that all he wore was the chain mail coif. Odo’s rage momentarily clouded his vision when he saw the unmistakable, luminous green eyes.
“You!” A curse escaped from between his teeth. “A one-armed ferret whispered in my ear not three days gone that you had left your lair, but I could scarcely believe it. He said he came upon you fornicating in the abbey with my slut of a wife. I might have thought it beneath you until I remembered you were accustomed to fucking Saracen whores. Thus, any bitch above the dung mark would have a sweeter taste.”
Tamberlane smiled with lethal calm. "Whereas I might have thought it beneath you to take up the blade of an assassin, but lo... here you are, poised to carry out the blackest treachery of all. Tell me—what price these days to spill the blood of a king? Two holdings? Three? And if you succeeded, I wonder, how long you think the prince would let you live? Not long enough, I warrant, for you to formally stand trial for the slaughter of a village full of innocent people. For that I have already judged you guilty and you shall pay with your life.”
Odo roared. He spurred his horse forward. His sword was in the air and swinging but Ciaran was ready for him and the first pass was met with a resounding clash of steel on steel. Both men were powerfully built, their arms like oak, their blades well blooded in battle. They turned and rode at each other again, this time bashing at shields, striving by sheer force and shock of impact to unhorse the other.
On the third pass, Tamberlane’s shield was s
plit in two but he managed to hack through the links of the mail protecting Odo’s left arm. The armor was enough to lessen the force of the blade, but not enough to deflect it completely and first blood was drawn.
Ciaran cast the shattered bullhide to the ground and reached for his misericorde--a weapon longer than a dagger but half the length of the battle sword. With blades in both hands, he guided Tristan with his knees, urging the destrier to charge again and again, the turns and circles becoming smaller as the two knights flailed and bashed at each other.
Both were showing blood. Neither showed signs of weakening. There was fighting going on behind them as Roland, Boethius, and Geoffrey battled the remaining knights, but most of the crossbowmen had fled and those few who remained felt their loyalties draining out of them as the tide clearly turned in the favor of Tamberlane’s valiant party of defenders.
~~
Across the field, Amaranth was lured out of her hiding place by the sound of screams and the clashing of swords. She crept closer to the edge of the trees to watch, her heart in her throat as she saw Tamberlane take a crushing blow across his back and shoulders. It was a strike that surely would have split him in two but the blow glanced off his armor, slicing only his gyphon and nicking an ear.
~~
Odo was so surprised to see the knight still upright that he paused and stared a moment—a moment which allowed Tamberlane to swing his upper body around in the saddle and drive the pointed tip of his sword into the hollow of Odo’s armpit and clear through the breadth of his chest. At the same instant, when the shock of feeling the blade punch through his flesh was the greatest, Tamberlane brought the misericorde forward, slashing it across de Langois throat with enough vehemence he heard the blade scrape across the backbone.
With the severed neck gouting blood, Odo's torso remained upright in the saddle for as long as it took for the weight of armor to tip it over and send it crashing to the ground. The head, with it’s shock of red hair, tore free and was sent spinning toward the end of the cliff, where it rolled over the edge and dropped out of sight.
~~
Amaranth had not been aware of holding her breath until she saw Odo’s body fall and knew that Tamberlane had won the day. Her relief was short-lived however when she realized that Ciaran's shoulders had taken a decided slump. Even from a distance she could see that he was struggling with the pain of an injury, and when his horse turned, blood had soaked the length of his thigh crimson. Releasing a soft cry, she broke from the cover of the trees but had only gained half a dozen paces when someone else stepped out from behind a broad oak and caught her up around the waist. She was lifted off her feet and slammed against the trunk, the force causing her head to crack against the hard bark.
As her senses started to fade and her body slumped into unconsciousness, the last thing she saw was the empty, knotted sleeve of her attacker.
~~
Tamberlane's thigh was slashed, his left arm and shoulder were badly bruised, and a cut over his eye had turned most of the world red. Tristan's flank was slashed, which made the great beast snort and dance with the pain, and as he wheeled about, Ciaran caught sight of Hugh de Bergerette hauling Amaranth back up onto her feet. Her head lolled drunkenly forward, her arms hung limp at her sides, and the former Crusader was struggling to lift and support her with only one arm.
Ciaran roared and spurred Tristan toward the woods. De Bergerette heard the thunder of hoofbeats and managed to hook the stump of his arm under Amie's chin. He pressed the blooded edge of his sword alongside her face so that a single, vicious swipe would remove her cheek and nose.
Tamberlane reigned Tristan to a halt a few paces away.
"Let her go!"
"Once again," de Bergerette snarled, "you disgrace yourself over a female. You slay the husband so you can have free reign over the wife."
"Let the girl go," Ciaran's voice was low and even.
"She means something to you, does she? As much as a hand and an arm perhaps? I have often thought of finding you and repaying you for this—" he hitched the stump of his arm higher under Amie's chin, causing her head to arch so far to the side, another inch and her neck would snap.
But Ciaran could see, where Hugh de Bergerette could not, how Amie's hand slid down, how her fingers curled around the hilt of the dagger sheathed at her waist. She kept her body limp but her intentions were anything but as she drew the blade and thrust it back, her aim catching the knight between his thighs just below the hem of his gambeson.
De Bergerette howled with pain as the blade sank into his groin. His arms sprang open and Amie lunged forward, darting to the side as Ciaran raised his sword to deal the fatal blow. For a moment he was swept back to the desert and he saw Inaya so horribly wounded, protecting the tiny bundle of blue in her arms.
He slowly lowered the blade and shook his head.
"You were not worth the effort to kill in Arsuf, you are not worth the effort now."
He whistled softly. The two wolfhounds bounded out of the woods, leaping as one, driving de Bergerette to the ground as they landed on his chest.
Ciaran cantered forward and scooped Amie into the saddle. As they rode away they could hear sounds of growling, snarling, gnashing and screaming, but Tamberlane only put the spurs to the piebald and galloped back across the field to the top of the cliffs.
He glanced around once to insure the field was his. The hail of arrows had slowed to occasional well-placed shots. Geoffrey de Ville and Roland Longchamps were herding surrendered foot soldiers into a circle. Boethius was still engaged with two routiers, but it was plain he was just toying with them, savoring the heady rush of combat again.
Ciaran felt that same rush of blood through his veins.
He had fought as a whole man again and, as he remembered it now, God’s name, as well as that of King Richard, had been on his lips as he rode out of the forest.
He winced at a sharp pain in his thigh and was reminded of the gash in the muscle. He had other cuts, and would likely be bruised black and blue come morning.
Amaranth rode before him, one arm around his neck, the other against his chest. Her face was pale and lovely and as Ciaran turned his gaze to the brilliant blue of the sky, he knew that he had come alive again.
CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR
The ship Rolf de Langois had seen with his dying glimpse sailed steadily toward landfall, and maneuvered unerringly into the small, protected cove. As the sails were furled and the anchor dropped; a longboat was lowered into the water and ten men cloaked in pilgrim’s gray boarded and were rowed ashore. All wore plain, conical steel helms with wide, descending nasals. All were dressed in drab gray showing no crests or colors or fancy weaponry.
Nine of the ten, after a small argument on the wet shingle, came up the goat path first, their cloaks swept back over one shoulder to free their sword arms. They had the efficient look of royal guardsmen about them and proof of that was borne out when the tallest among them saw the carnage that littered the meadow.
He came forward and cast his steely gaze down the soiled and bloodied line of defenders, most of whom were nursing wounds. Sir Boethius had a stained strip of cloth tied on an angle over his forehead concealing an eye that was split and swollen almost closed. Lord Geoffrey de Ville had a slashed rib and a hand wrapped in bloody bandaging, but that hand stayed close to the hilt of his sword and would have swung it upon the instant had he doubted the intentions of the new arrivals.
Their leader was an impressive beast of a man. Standing well over six feet tall, his body was a superb tower of muscle that commanded the eye upward to the coldest, cruellest pair of eyes most mortal men had ever seen. Pale blue-gray they were, twin mirrors of ice and frost, steel and iron. Piercing eyes that held more secrets than a soul should want to know, or, if knowing, would live to tell. His massive torso was made even more so by the jerkin of gleaming black wolf pelts he wore over his mail hauberk. His chest expanded further as he insolently placed one hand on his hip and the other on the c
urved support of the longbow he held casually by his side.
“I am left to surmise some mischief has been wrought here today,” he murmured thoughtfully. "Who is to answer for the cause?"
Boethius and de Ville stepped aside, revealing where Tamberlane sat upon a large boulder, his thigh bound in several layers of wadding and linen strips. A crooked half-smile playing across his lips when he saw a flicker of recognition in the blue-gray eyes.
“My lords and lady, the vaunted Black Wolf, Scourge of Mirebeau, honors us today with his presence this side of the Channel. I had heard he had avowed never to leave his new eyrie in France.”
The thusly identified scourge narrowed his eyes. “I had heard a similar vow with regards to a slayer of dragons: that he had buried himself away in this godforsaken land of noddypeaks and arse-whistlers, sworn to pluck daisies and count rings on the surface of a pond for the rest of his days.”
“Daisies?” Tamberlane paused and rolled the thought across his tongue before speaking. “They were never a favorite flower of mine. Speak to me of amaranths, however, and I would happily count those petals until the future becomes the distant past."
At the sound of her name, Amie’s head came up. She had been wrapping Ciaran's thigh in the linen bandages, and when she looked up, she smiled at him, not the glowering Black Wolf.
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