The Sword of the Lady

CHAPTER NINETEEN

NORRHEIM, LAND OF THE KALKINGS NEAR KALKSTHORPE

(FORMERLY WASHINGTON COUNTY, MAINE) JANUARY 7, CHANGE YEAR 24/2023 AD

Rudi could see the throwing arm of the trebuchet move despite the bright morning sun rising behind it. The great wooden baulk was tiny as a matchstick in the distance even through the binoculars he held in his left hand; his right was around the tree trunk, hugging the rough resin-smelling wood. The picture swayed as the big pine did. The two of them were high enough up that their weight made that sway worse, like a rock at the end of a stick, but the snow-clad branches all around should still hide them as long as he was careful not to let light flash off the lenses.

The war engine was of the simplest, a thick upright beam on either side braced with shorter logs fore and aft like a double inverted V. The throwing arm was another tree trunk swinging between them, roughly smoothed and pivoting on a metal axle a third of the way along. The stone in its sling lay loosely on the trampled snow for an instant, as the arm stood pointing downward. Then the ropes were released. For an instant the great box of rocks on the shorter end stayed poised aloft; then it began to fall, slowly for an instant, gathering speed until the air whirred. The long arm moved even faster, dragging the sling along the packed snow in a shower of shavings and lumps, then soaring aloft. The cradle of woven rope whipped upward at its end, and at the height of the curve the eye that held it closed slid off the carefully shaped hook at the end of the beam.

A dull whunk and heavy creaking sounded as the weighted end of the throwing arm rocked back and forth at the bottom of its trajectory, the longer tapering part upright like a mast swaying in a storm, with the loosened sling for a pennant. All the while a two-hundred-pound boulder flew free. It spun lazily through the hazy air, seeming slow even though he knew it was traveling faster than a galloping horse, if more slowly than an arrow. Then there was a crunch that made him wince slightly even at this distance. The field glasses showed man-thick logs snapping like twigs. A section of wall wavered and sagged outward, its frame of rod and cable shattered by the repeated blows. Rubble poured out as the logs tumbled, and now the inner row of timbers was exposed.

Captured oxen were brought up to hitch to the winch that would haul the machine back to its ready position, and men began to roll another rock forward.

Edain showed teeth in what was not quite a smile.'I thought the Cutters were against machinery'' he said quietly.

He wasn't using glasses, but his unaided vision was the keenest the Mackenzie heir had ever met. 'They are; complex ones. Not levers,' Rudi said grimly.'And to be sure, that's as simple an application of leverage as you can get, short of a club like the Dagda's for the bashing of heads. They've bashed well at the blockhouses on either side of the stretch they're knocking down, you notice''

He'd brought Edain up for a reason. The young man was more than bright enough to learn more of war than what you needed to lead a few archers.

And I'm going to need him. For all that I've got so many capable commanders-in-the-making in this band.'Engines there'' Edain said. 'There were. And enough well-protected archers shooting through slits to make an assault like sticking your rod into a meat-grinder with a madman turning the crank. Whoever's in charge there knows his business. It's how I'd take the place myself, if I was in too much of a hurry to starve them out. Now quiet for a second.'

He turned his attention to the rest of his enemies' efforts. There were the two ships anchored offshore, keeping the water approach covered with their deck engines. He estimated them as a bit more than two hundred tons' burden each, substantial but not large. Probably with large crews, but there was no way to tell for sure how much of their space held men and how much food and water-they were far from home and from secure supplies.

And a camp ashore at twice bowshot from Kalksthorpe's defenses, of tents and brushwood huts surrounded by an abatis of tree trunks with their branches sharpened to act as obstacles. He rough-counted the men there, and the ones behind a row of mantlets before the breech. There were archers, stepping aside from the cover of the wheeled shields to shoot now and then, dueling with those on the wall. Two light throwing machines as well. One bucked and spat as he watched; what the western world called scorpions, more or less. The roundshot smashed chips off the pointed edges of the logs along the fighting platform, and he thought he saw a man fall, though he couldn't be certain. There was a haze of smoke over the town, but no great black plumes. The attackers weren't using incendiaries.

Still, overshot rounds will smack through roofs and into kitchens or forges. Fire's always a threat in a wood-built town. 'Twenty-five or thirty of our old comrade Graber's Sword of the Prophet,' he said. 'Sure, and they're as hardy as cockroaches!' Edain said. 'They're good fighting men, and no mistake,' Rudi said.'Nor is there any giving up in them, at all. They're worthy of a better cause. Three times that number of those Bekwa savages; maybe four.'

Edain grunted thoughtfully. Rudi could read his thought: fierce men, fearless and deadly on their own ground, but lightly armed and not trained for a stand-up fight. 'And as many again from those ships, the Moorish pirates. They look well armed and most malignantly expert in their trade, the grievous sadness and pitiful misfortune of it, ochone.' 'Two hundred inside the wall, less any they've lost, from what our friends of this land say,' Edain said.'Counting every booger and arsewipe, as me da would put it.' 'And just thirty-six of us here,' Rudi said.'Call it two hundred, two hundred and thirty on either side.'

He cased the binoculars and tapped his knuckles thoughtfully on his chin for an instant. 'This is going to require the most careful timing,' he said. 'We're enough to pull it off… but only just, do y'see.' 'With luck, and the Lugh's own favor.'

They slid down the tree, dropping from branch to branch and springing the last ten feet or so. His companions gathered around him. 'It can be done,' Rudi said.'To boil it down, we wait until they're all engaged, then attack them from the rear. But it's possible only if we have some advantage of surprise. Take them at just the right moment, and it will work. Otherwise, bloody failure. The problem there is that the Cutter magus has what I'd be calling a most unpleasant habit; he knows things he should not. Not with just his five senses.'

Thorlind was gray-faced but determined.'He will not.' 'Not this time,' Heidhveig said.'I can… feel him. Like putting down your hand and having it push into a rotten corpse seething with maggots. He's very strong. But we can blind him. For a little while.' 'A little while is all we'll need. We must also take out their sentries, as many as possible. Delay the alarm as long as we can.' 'When will you attack'' Thorlind said. 'Not until they've made their breach in the wall. Not until they've launched their attack, and are fighting in the town itself, tangled up amongst the buildings with no way to run.'

Thorlind's face was grim, and Heidhveig's like an age-worn stone. 'So long'' she said.'You must wait until they've entered our home'' 'Yes,' he said with calm firmness.'We aren't enough to count on driving them off if we attack sooner. A blow struck when your enemy's off-balance is the one that knocks him down so that you can put the boot into him. And even if we did put them to flight earlier… we would not reap and savage them as we must. Pushing an enemy back isn't enough, nor even making them run; too much chance of their returning the favor, manyfold, some other day. I want to catch them between my hammer and the anvil of the town and crush them. And the price of that must be paid, for it is the price of victory.' 'Paid by my people,' Thorlind said.

Rudi met her eyes and nodded.'For the most part, yes. The cost of defeat would be much higher.'

Heidhveig gathered her bearskin robe around her shoulders.'I'm glad I don't have to make decisions like that,' she said softly. 'And I'd be glad never to make them either,' Rudi said.'But if I'm to make them, make them I will, and properly.'

He raised his head from the map.'Ingolf, you're in charge of the main body; Father Ignatius, you're second in command.'

Then his finger went over the parchment.'As for their sentries.. Mary and Ritva, you take the ones here. Edain, Asgerd, here. Fred and Virginia, here. Matti and I will see to the removal of the ones here in the center, and them causing such a blockage and obstruction, the spalpeens.'

That was a legitimate use of his own talents; he was much more likely to succeed than anyone else they had.

I'm a general with an army of about platoon size, right now. And one with a round half score of followers fit for the command. 'Ingolf, you come forward with the main body, and we'll rejoin as you do. Then we cross the open ground and hit them before they can disengage. Keep ranks; no quarter until I command, or they all throw down their arms. Lady Heidhveig, Lady Thorlind, you'll remain here. Is everyone clear' Then let's go.'

The enemy sentries should be here, Rudi thought, twenty minutes later, baffled. They had perches in the trees.

Instead everything looked just as it had; the last fringe of pines, towering over hummocky ground covered in thick soft snow… and no sentries waiting concealed in their branches, as Edain and the others had reported.

That snow exploded upward right at his feet. A man came after it, the long knife in his hand flashing upward. The point struck him in the pit of the stomach, and breath gusted out of him with a grunting uffff!

Shock and fear happened, but distantly; as distantly as pain. Will forced air back into his lungs in a whooping gasp. He could see his own shock reflected in the other man's dark face, exaggerated by the bar of white paint across his eyes, as the knife tip stopped on a plate of the brigandine beneath the Mackenzie's parka. The knife kept prodding, reflexively, as if the man couldn't believe it hadn't sunk hilt-deep and ripped upward. 'Merd'!' the Bekwa blurted.

Rudi snarled, an utterly unconsidered guttural sound that sprang from the back of his throat. His long-fingered hands flashed out, weaponless, and clamped on the man's chin and the back of his head, twisted and pushed in one sharp ninety-degree turn to the left. There was a brief fibrous resistance and a sharp sound like green willow sticks breaking. He released the body instantly, and it fell limp as a banker's charity as Rudi whirled.

His sword hissed out, but the knee-deep snow leached agility. Two men had come out of the same sort of deep hide as his attacker, snow allowed to drift over loosely woven spruce branches. Rudi's mind calculated without prompting, and his arm swept forward in a smooth arc. The long hilt left his fingers with a feeling of inevitability like the sensation when you leap from a height into water. The yard-long blade turned twice in a blurring twinkle.

Thunk.

A heavy wet sound with a crackling beneath it, incongruous somehow in the cold air. The Bekwa who'd been about to stab at Mathilda's back looked down, goggling at two feet of longsword sticking out from his chest just below the breastbone. Blood steamed on the steel, and as it leaked out of his mouth and nose. Rudi stalked forward as the third man attacked Mathilda; she had her kite-shaped shield up, and the smooth curved visor of her sallet down. The long parka concealed her coat of titanium-alloy mail, but not the vambraces or greaves or gauntlets, and the metal had a gray glint in the bleak morning sunlight.

The Bekwa was bulky in his furs, but no taller than she, with a four-foot spear tipped with a spike of ground-down steel strip in his right hand and a knife in his left. Snow fountained out from under his feet, the moccasins throwing up trails like arcs of powdered diamond. The same snow was more than knee-deep on Mathilda; she waited in the perfect knightly form her instructors had taught, left foot forward and sword ready over her head. He could see d'Ath's instruction in it.

The savage came in with desperate speed. He leapt the last few feet, just as Rudi reached his dead comrade and wrenched his longsword free; the hilt and blade stood up like a mast from a ship. Then he was close enough to hear Mathilda grunt as the weight of the Bekwa struck her shield, the point of the spear grating across her helmet as she flicked her face and the vision-slit away. But she was already crouched and ready for the impact; the broad curved surface of the shield turned the swift thrust of the knife. The man reeled back, and her sword moved in an economical over-hand chop that ended with a crack of steel in bone, then a low stab under the ribs. He sat down, staring at the nearly severed forearm that jetted blood onto the snow, clutched it to his chest and sank backward to die.

There was only the panting of their breath in the cold silence, and a murmur of something like melleur place from the wounded savage. The face beneath the crude paint was young, thin with bad feeding and rather sad as the ferocity leached out of it. His eyes wandered for a moment, blinking and glazing with a look Rudi recognized; blood loss starving the brain. The Dread Lord's wing had passed over his face, and it would be only seconds now. 'Maman'' he whispered.

Then he smiled uncertainly for an instant, and the expression fell away as he went limp. Mathilda closed his eyes, drew the Cross on his forehead, then rose and leaned against Rudi's shoulder. 'He said we were going to a better place,' she said quietly as he squeezed her for a moment with his free arm. 'I don't doubt he has,' he said. Then:'Earth must be fed.'

Rudi touched a finger to the blood on his steel and then marked his forehead, murmuring the salute to the departed. After that he whistled a fluting trill like a bird's-not any particular type, but with a generic avian sound. A few minutes later the same call came from the woods about. Edain appeared with Asgerd trailing him; she looked a little wobbly. Garb trotted at his heels, massive head low and licking her hairy chops, with a little congealed blood from a slight cut on her right shoulder. 'All right'' Rudi said; he couldn't see any wounds on the Bjorning girl, though there was a spatter of red drops drying on the mottled white of her coat. 'In the event, Chief,' the young clansman said.'They'd come down from their perches, though, and weren't where we expected, and there was an extra one. I had to shoot a bit fast-the last one was only winged. Asgerd took care of him, though. Might have been right nasty, if she hadn't.' 'My first.' She swallowed and added.'It… wasn't like practice. More like pig-butchering time. And as if I was watching myself kill him.'

Edain put a hand on her shoulder for a moment.'He chose to come onto your land uninvited with a weapon in his hand,' he said.'When a man does that, he consents to his fate and makes you clean of his blood.'

She took a pair of deep breaths and nodded.'That's true. And.. that's one towards my oath,' she said, her voice growing stronger.

Then she looked at Garbh.'That dog is a man-killer.'

Edain grinned.'To be sure, when she needs to be, or when I tell her, she is a man-killer. So am I. And so are you, now.'

Asgerd nodded, but there was a dubious expression on her face, as if she was trying to frame an objection but couldn't quite think of the words. 'And we've both hunted wolves, eh'' She nodded again.'The Gods have made the world so that sometimes we must kill to live; not just us, but our brother wolf and tiger and bear too. In the end, the Hunter comes for us all. Earth must be fed.'

Mary and Ritva were silent when they came ghosting up; the one-eyed Ranger was wiping the sickle blade on the end of her fighting chain, which was comment enough. Fred and Virginia appeared next; the girl from Wyoming had a fresh scalp at her belt, and the dark young man was limping very slightly. Rudi went forward with slow care, then down on one knee behind a screen of leafless brush at the edge of the woods-where forest met open country there was always a screen of it. Through his binoculars he could see past the besieger's camp, which looked empty now except for a few threads of smoke that were probably cookfires, or heating water for healers to use.

Beyond that the town wall was even more battered than it had been from his treetop lookout earlier; they were getting a boulder into the air every fifteen minutes or so, good practice with a hastily built weapon and untrained crew. Shattered timber and rock made a rough low slope through the gap the trebuchet had pounded. The two scorpions bucked again, and the loads they threw trailed smoke. They were using incendiaries now, the best possible way to knock back any defenders massing to hold the breach. Thick volleys of arrows hissed up from behind the mantlets, not individually aimed but falling in a steel-tipped rain where any defenders would be.

Graber knows his business, to be sure. And I'd be betting that the pirate captains do so, too.

Crackling and muffled footfalls came from behind him; you couldn't move two-score warriors through the forest silently at a trot, even if they were all woodsmen individually. 'Ready,' Ingolf said, slightly breathless; running in armor did that, no matter how fit you were. 'Their outposts didn't give any alarm,' Rudi said; which was a stroke of luck, even with experts in what the Dunedain called sentry removal at work.

He raised his voice:'Form on me. Archers to the front, and then on the flanks when we charge. Edain, the usual for an assault. Now wait for the word… and when I give it, a steady trot keeping good order, no more. It's useless a man is when he's too winded to fight.'

Even as he spoke figures spilled out from behind the mantlets, running forward towards the ruined wall of Kalksthorpe under the cover of the ar rowstorm and the globes of napalm. Those lifted as they swarmed screeching up the rough slope, arching higher to fall safely behind the first rank of the defenders. The crest seemed to sprout armed men as the survivors of the bombardment rose to meet them. Faint with distance he could hear the screams of the Bekwa, and a deeper chant: 'Cut! Cut! Cut!'

The Moorish pirates had slung their bows; they formed up in two solid blocks behind the sloped siege shields, waiting and still. Tall poles or spear shafts held green flags over their heads, with a squiggle of some unfamiliar script in silver on them, visible as the sea wind streamed them out. The bleak light glinted on their spearheads, above the dun mass of their tall almond-shaped hide shields. Here and there ostrich-feather plumes danced on a helmet or jewels glittered, oddly cheerless in the light of northern winter.

Odard hissed between his teeth.'I suspect that they're not all blood brothers out there,' he said.'It's after you, my friends. No, no, I insist, after you!' 'You are a cynic, my lord Gervais,' Father Ignatius said; he was on the other side of Mathilda from Rudi.'I fear you are right this time, as well. Your Majesty'' 'Wait. Wait,' Rudi said, even as another long guttural shout rang out, this time from the corsairs: 'Alllaahuuu Akbaaaar!' 'Wait… not quite yet…'

The green flags waved and the rover crews ran forward towards the thump and clatter and screams of combat beyond the broken wall. 'God is Great,' the priest murmured.'So He is indeed. But men, alas… Father, forgive us for what we are about to do, and forgive us that we can see no better way. Lord who blessed the centurion, bless us also this day. But Thy will alone be done, for Thy judgments are just and righteous altogether.' 'Holy Mary, Lady pierced with sorrows, Queen of Heaven, intercede for us, now and at the hour of our deaths,' Mathilda added soberly; she held up her sword for an instant by the blade, kissed the cross the hilt and guard made, then tossed it up and caught it ready.'For us and for our foes.' 'Amen,' the Christians said.

Tension grew, with a taste like hot copper and salt at the back of his throat. For a moment Rudi thought the wings beating above were in his mind. Then he realized they were two real ravens, launching themselves from a tall spruce. They soared upward, circling above the town. He felt a chill worse than the sweat congealing on his flanks under the armor and padding. Then a great calm, and under it a lifting current of hot anger. 'Yes,' he said.'It's time, Victory-Father.' Louder:'For Montival! Follow me!' 'Artos and Montival!' his companions called.

The wedge of them trotted out into the open ground, snow floating up around them like dust to the pounding of booted feet. 'No!' Abdou al-Naari snarled, cuffing a man over the head with a gloved fist.'I'll castrate the first man who plunders before the battle ends!'

The crewman staggered, dropped the golden necklace he'd been pulling off a body and picked up his shield again. An arrow struck quivering in it a moment later with a hard dry thunk and the man's eyes rolled in shock.

Abdou coughed; the whole town wasn't burning, but there was enough smoke to lie thick. And it was a maze of lanes and log houses with steel shutters over their doors and lower windows; from the upper ones came arrows and spears, rocks and jars of burning lamp oil. Bodies of pagans and corsairs and their allies littered the trampled mud and dirty snow of the street, in a mess of blood and broken weapons and men who shrieked or whimpered or tried to crawl aside and bandage themselves.

Spears and axes waited behind a rough barricade of carts and furniture a little farther down; he could see the tiered roofs and gilt and painted dragonheads of the pagan temple beyond. If they took that, only the boat sheds and docks remained. 'Shields!' he called.

The Bou el-Mogdad's crew rallied, raising a wall of wood and leather ahead and overhead as well. Under that tent he looked around for his bosun, shouting the man's name: 'Falilu!'

The man looked up, and Abdou pointed to a well-placed house larger than the others with his sword. 'That one. Clear it and get us some covering fire while we storm the barricade.'

The man nodded, grabbed a dozen hands who were all archers. They slung their bows, lifted a thick timber and began beating in a door; it gave off a thudding bang like a huge drum as they rammed their way through. Then it fell inward, and they drew their blades and charged in; screams came out then, but only a few clashes of steel on steel. 'The rest of you, with me. God is great!'

They charged the barricade with their tall shields locked together against missiles. Those rattled and thunked and banged off the protection until the moment they had to climb the obstacle; here and there a man fell, silent or screaming or cursing, but the others closed ranks and kept up the rush. Steel probed for his life as the wild corsair charge struck. He knocked the spearhead aside, slicing up it at the wielder's fingers; a snarling face loomed out of the corner of his eye and a huge two-handed ax swung towards his head. Another man's shield put itself in the way; Abdou could hear it crack beneath the force of the blow.

He slashed at the pagan's face and he fell backward in a spray of blood as the ugly yielding feel of thin bones breaking flowed up wrist and arm. Grown men and boys and elders and even shrieking women were in the crowd facing the corsairs in a heaving, stabbing, shoving mass. Then they turned and pulled back as a shower of black cane arrows came slashing down from the house, driven by powerful whalebone-backed bows.

Abdou braced the point of his scimitar on a broken cart and his weight on the pommel for a moment to sob for breath, waving his free hand to Falilu, who grinned from the second-story window before he loosed another shaft.

Then a choked-off cry of pain drew his notice. Ahmed was crumpled at his feet, trying to get the broken shield off his arm. Abdou helped his son, and though the youngster was silent his teeth brought blood from his own lips. 'Not broken, dislocated,' the father said. Then, in a sharp bark: 'What's that''

The boy's head jerked aside to see what had brought the cry of alarm. In the same instant his father grabbed the arm, pulled and twisted. The joint went back into its socket with a click audible as much by feel as through the noise of combat. Ahmed made a stifled sound, but the rough treatment was over before he could shift his attention back to it. 'And you saved my life.' Abdou grinned into the pain-sweating face. After a moment the younger man grinned back.'Now stay close. That arm will be too sore to hold a shield for days.'

They pushed on over the ruins of the barricade, and the houses drew back on either side. The triangular open space before the silver-worked and gilded doors of the idolater's temple-even then a brief what a place to sack! went through his mind-was crowded, but the fight was shaking itself out into lines after the chaotic scramble through the streets. His crew linked up with that of the Shark, and Jawara was there, grinning like the predator itself. 'We have them, I think,' he yelled.

Abdou nodded and let the battle surge past him; his head went back and forth. The pagans were still fighting, but they were outnumbered now… and most of the casualties on his side had been the weird allies the Marabout had found, not his own folk. Which was just as he'd planned.

A cry came from behind him; in Wolof, and not just the sort of screaming-usually for their mothers-that men in unendurable pain made. He turned, and his eyes went wide in alarm. It was one of the men held left as a rearguard at the broken wall. Two gray-fletched arrows stood in the back of his steel-strapped cuirass of doubled hippo hide, and his left forearm and hand were a dripping mass of ruin through which bone showed pink-white. His right held the broken stub of a sword.

The man fell forward into Abdou's arms, and the captain turned and laid him down gently on his side. Blood bubbled out across his broad dark face, and his eyes were blind as they hunted about. It was a younger cousin of his, not much older than Ahmed. 'What is it, Dia'' he asked. 'Too many,' the man mumbled.'Couldn't stop them. They come. Warn the skipper! Hurts!' 'You have warned me,' Abdou said.

He spoke loudly, to cut through the haze of agony and fear. The other did hear, and understand for an instant. 'You die with honor. Go with God, ghazi of the Faith. The gates of Paradise open for you.'

The man forced a smile, shuddered, jerked, died. Abdou rose and met Jawara's eyes. 'We're fucked,' the other man said.'So much for our allies' sentries who were experienced woodsmen.' 'They met someone more experienced,' Abdou said.'We couldn't divide our forces and we didn't know the country. Probably some force from inland.'

Which was any corsair's nightmare on a longshore raid; you had to strike swiftly and then go. He drew a deep breath. A rover captain had to be able to think quickly in an emergency-even a disaster, as this had suddenly become. He went on urgently: 'Your men are closer to that southern gate and it's probably not held anymore. Chances are any of the pagans there hurried back into the street fighting when we came over the wall. Get going. Cut your way through anything you meet and stop for nothing. It can't be helped. Inshallah, we can break contact and follow you.'

Jawara started to protest, and Abdou grabbed him by the shoulder and shoved him backward hard. 'Go! Now! We'll hold them as long as we can and then retreat. You can cover us from the water with your ship's catapults. Go!'

What in Shaitan's name happened at the wall' 'Volley! Forward six paces. Volley! Forward six paces! Volley! Forward six paces- pick your man. Volley! Volley! Wholly together! Volley! Forward six paces!'

Edain had the bowmen well under control. Two dozen longbows bent and spat at the sparse line of corsairs opposing them in the gap of the shattered wall. A third of them fell, and the rest wavered as the heavy-armed band around Rudi came up behind the thin line of archers. He knocked down his visor with a hard snick-clack! 'Morrigu!' he shrieked, as the world shrank to a slit.'Charge!'

They ran forward in a wedge with him at the point; the archers slung their bows, drew blades or axes or mallets, and followed. A curved sword swung at his head as he leapt up the body-littered slope of the broken wall, agile as a great steel-skinned cat, screaming like a panther in battle heat. He ducked beneath the stroke and stabbed up at the man above him. The point of the western longsword went in behind the chin and punched through the thin bone that shielded the brainpan. Rudi wrenched it free; Matti's shield knocked aside a spearpoint probing for his face, unseen until the last instant. His own shield blocked a slash and he cut the man's legs out from under him with a chop that severed a thighbone.

Cries rang out, battle slogans where they weren't just raw shrieks of rage or of pain: 'Morrigu! Morrigu!' 'Allahu Akbar!' 'Jesu-Maria!' ' Haro, Portland! Holy Mary for Portland!' 'Ho La, Odhinn!' 'Face Gervais, face death!' 'Artos and Montival!'

There was a long moment of slipping, scrambling fighting on the uncertain footing of the broken wall. Rudi felt an arrow hammer into his knight-style shield; six inches of it showed through the inner felt lining just beside his forearm until he broke it off with the hilt of his sword. The Moors' bows hit hard. The man was behind a balk of timber, fumbling another shaft onto the string when Rudi's lunge punched the point of the longsword into his throat.

It didn't sink deeply-the lunge had also slammed Rudi's shield and chest against the pinewood-but it was enough to send him back, both hands scrabbling at the wound. Rudi vaulted over into the place he'd occupied, landing with a grunt under the weight of his armor and dodging a stroke from a curved slashing sword in the same instant. A big Bjorning named Hrolf followed Rudi, roaring, one of their newcomers from Eriksgarth. His blow met and snapped the sword in a shower of sparks, then crushed the Moor's shield hand right through the thick leather with a swing of the hammer side of his ax. 'Edain. That one!'

Rudi pointed with his sword as the wounded man dodged beneath a return stroke that would have taken his head off, turned and sprinted into the town; you could tell when a man was running to something, as opposed to just away.

The younger clansman sprang up on the balk of timber behind him. The pirate staggered as two shafts thudded into his leather armor, then ran on and vanished behind the corner of a building. His comrades ducked and backed, wavering on the edge of panic as Rudi stood ready with dripping sword and shield up under his visor's beak. Arrows showered down on them as more and more of the attackers came over the ridge and put their bows to work. Garbh paced the rubble at Edain's feet and barred blood-dripping red teeth. 'There they go!' Mathilda said breathlessly, as she scrabbled over to join him.

The last few pirates broke and ran, down into the smoke-fogged streets. Rudi looked over the town, recalled what the descriptions and maps had said, made a quick decision.

We need to put a lid on the kettle, he thought. Otherwise they'll squeeze out, if they've their wits about them. But I wish I had more men to spare. 'Odard!' he called.

The Portlander noble looked at him, mouth a grim line beneath his visor and sword dripping crimson-dark. 'Take six men and block that road there, the one to the south gate. Hold if anyone comes at you, push on to the square in front of the temple if nobody does.' 'Your Majesty!'

That's actually starting to sound more natural, and less like a joke, some corner of Rudi's brain noted.

Odard dashed off. Rudi led the rest down the ruined wall and into the town-there was a clear strip inside the defenses, and then houses. 'Come out!' he shouted.'Kalksthorpe folk, come out and fight!'

There were probably a lot of dwellers still inside, waiting to sell their lives hard when their doors were beaten in. He filled his lungs and shouted again, a great bass sound like a trumpet in the fouled street, overriding the sound of boots and the growing clamor of combat. 'Come out and fight!'

The folk of Kalksthorpe came out of their homes to join them as they loped down the street, with sword or ax, spear or smith's hammer in their hands.

We're not going to make it to the south gate, Abdou al-Naari knew. Maybe we should have tried for the water and the boats… No, it was fated. I shouldn't have listened to that so-called holy man!

He could have been content with what he'd found in Miami and Balti more and been halfway back to home by now with a good if unspectacular cargo; the knowledge was as bitter on his tongue as the wormwood tea the hakims brewed for fever.

The last knot of his crew formed up around him, their backs to the blank log wall of a warehouse or workshop. The newcomers surrounded them, in wildly mixed gear that didn't look like Norrheimer equipment at all. The leader of the strangers came at him, leading the rush. He was a tall young man in full armor that showed through the rents in his winter coat; a crescent moon cradled between antlers showed on his shield.

But he moved like moonlight on water under the weight of steel and wood and leather, his long straight sword trailing red drops as he whipped it in an effortless figure eight. A taut grin showed beneath the beaked visor of the odd-looking helmet, with light stubble the color of sunset along the jaw; behind the vision-slit were eyes as blue-green as tropic seas.

This one is trouble, the pirate captain's experience told him. Then: No. He is the shadow of Azrael's wings. He is death.

Abdou called on God-or croaked-and cut at the unbeliever's knee. The kite-shaped shield twitched into the path of the slash and glanced the blow, leaving him off-balance. The corsair twisted desperately and tried to get his own tattered hippo-hide shield up as the return thrust came for his throat, driving like the strike of a cobra, faster than any man had a right to move. He succeeded just enough to keep his windpipe unslit. Instead it plowed into his shoulder like the kick of a horse focused behind a narrow point of steel, breaking the mail links and tough leather, nearly breaking the bone. Agony ran through his body like rays of sunlight.

His sword fell from nerveless fingers, and the captain of the Bou el-Mogdad looked death in the face as the blade rose again. He dropped his own shield and grabbed for his enemy's, snarling as he tried to wrestle it away while his hand scrabbled for his dagger. The effort sent ice spikes into his wounded shoulder. Another, slighter figure attacked beside him. 'Ahmed, no!' he cried.

The straight longsword beat the boy's scimitar out of his hand with a snapping backhand slash and plowed on to cut flesh. In the same instant the green-and-silver shield smashed into Abdou like a collapsing wall in an earthquake, hammering him back against the logs behind him; the impact of his helmeted head on the wood had him seeing flashes of light for a second. There was no more room to retreat and his sword arm hung useless. 'Surrender!' the man who'd wounded him shouted, his blade poised to pin the rover captain to the logs.'Surrender, and sure, we'll spare you all!'

There was a brief pause, as men panted and glared hate at each other from arm's reach. Ahmed was alive, rolling on the dirty snow and clutching at his twice-hurt arm. His father looked to either side; a dozen men were all that were left on their feet, though more of the fallen might live if they got help soon. 'I surrender,' he growled thickly in the English tongue, and threw down his dagger and raised his hands.'We not fight more. No kill.'

Or at least he raised his left, which still worked. The weakness and nausea of blood loss made his vision swim, and his lungs sucked at the cold air. His men did the same, all except one gone battle mad, who charged instead. A spear cut off his war cry, and an ax came down on his neck; Abdou kept his hand up, but for a moment he thought it would do him no good, as the killer's weapon went up for another smashing strike.

Then the stranger flicked his sword out. Even awaiting death, Abdou blinked at the casual speed and precision of it, faster than a shrike and more delicate than an artisan's graver tapping patterns into a silver dish. The sharp point rested in the bushy thicket of the ax-man's brown beard, and the Norrheimer froze motionless, his eyes rolling down to look at the length of blood-running steel. Behind him was a ring of his friends and kin and neighbors, looking on with interest; a Norrheimer even bigger than most barred their way with a gruesome hammer-ax weapon held parallel to the ground, leaving him isolated among the odd-looking company.

He had courage, though.'Who are you to stop me avenging my folk'' he asked.

The man with the sword at the ax-man's throat used his shield to push up his visor. That revealed a face that was beautiful in an alien way, though red and running with sweat. His breath puffed white in the chill air. When he spoke the harsh English language held a lilting music, but the words might have been hammered from iron: 'I'm Rudi Mackenzie of the Clan Mackenzie, and High King of Montival, the which you couldn't know by looking at me. I'm the man the Gods have chosen to save the world, the creatures-the which you couldn't know either. But I'm also the man who saved your pisspot town, boyo, the which you should know by the evidence of your own eyes.'

He prodded, very slightly, and the Kalksthorpe man swallowed. 'But be telling me now. Do I look, do I look in the least little bit, like a man who'd let you break his oath for him'' 'No,' the Kalksthorpe man whispered.

His eyes locked on Rudi's like those of a rabbit on the very last wolf it ever saw. 'I promised these men quarter if they'd throw down, and throw down they did.' 'Sorry,' the Norrheimer muttered, as the sword withdrew. 'See to their wounds as you would those of your own folk, and then lock them up. Swear to it!' 'I swear. By Forsetti who hears oaths, and by my own honor in the sight of my kin.' 'Give them food and water too…' He turned to Abdou:'Wait, pork is geasa for you, am I right''

Abdou nodded, dazed as the pain started to push through the fading blaze of urgency; he bent to lift his son. ' Haraam, unclean, yes,' he said. 'Then give them something they can eat.' To his own followers: 'Move! We have work to do yet!' 'Are you sure they won't harm those prisoners'' Father Ignatius said as they trotted southward. 'Reasonably, yes,' Rudi said grimly.'And I have a use for them, I think, too.'

Mathilda snorted something that was almost a chuckle. The Kalksthorpe folk were getting themselves organized with surprising speed, tending the hurt and putting out fires and scouring for enemy stragglers. He didn't think any such left within the walls would survive the next quarter hour however hard they tried to surrender, except the ones he'd given quarter. 'You!' he called.

The man was in late middle age with dark silver-shot hair receding from a high forehead and even darker eyes; he threw another bucketful of water on a smoldering wall and turned. 'Yah'' he said, nodding in friendly wise. 'Is anyone down by your boats' If you can get men out, they might be able to seize those enemy ships, or at least one of them, before they're crewed and away.' 'I'm Thorleif Heidhveigsson,' the man said, picking up a spear. 'I'll see to it. Odinleif! Thorvin! Freyjadis! With me!'

Bodies lay thicker as they approached the gate. Thick enough to be worrisome; he'd sent Odard to do some flanking, not fight a major battle. Rudi hissed softly as he saw two of the Southsiders he'd sent with the young baron. They were the only ones still on their feet, and they were both badly wounded.

The hiss turned into a curse as he saw what they stood about. The most senior of them looked up, and went almost limp with relief. 'Rudi-man! Chief! They hits us hard. Too many!'

Mathilda gave a little sound, like a cat's, then clamped her lips shut. She didn't dash forward, but they all stopped around the figures on the ground, scattered where they'd fallen in the melee. Two near the end were in the armor of the Sword of the Prophet; another pair were the dark-faced corsairs. One of those was a near-giant, with his wiry black hair in long knotted locks and a great brass-bound club lying by his hand. His dark eyes were still open in a stare of astonishment, and one leg was slashed to the bone just below the hip with all his life's blood spilled from the huge wound.

The fifth was Baron Odard Liu de Gervais. He lay limp, his head propped up against a sack of something someone had dropped, with two trails of blood leaking out of the corners of his mouth. Battered shield and broken sword were near his limp hands. He opened his slanted blue eyes as they approached and smiled slightly.

Father Ignatius went down on his knees beside the fallen man; Rudi signed quickly, and the others dragged the bodies aside and helped the Southsiders. For a moment he was chiefly aware of relief; he'd nearly sent Edain on this errand. That brought a stab of shame, and he moved forward to kneel. 'I need you, Father, but not for that,' Odard said, in a breathy whisper as the cleric started to reach for the latches of his armor.

The priest examined him through the gear instead; the injured man bit back a gasp at one gentle touch. Ignatius looked up at Rudi and Mathilda, and shook his head very slightly. Odard saw it and nodded a little. 'I can… feel the bones grating. The big one… caught me full-on. Please. Things to say… first. Taking off the hauberk would… do it quick. Got to… keep still.' 'No,' Mathilda whispered.'Not after we've come so far!' 'Dice… don't fall sixes… forever. Had to be… someone,' Odard said.'Mathilda… I do love you. Didn't at first. Then I really did. Sorry I ever lied… to you.'

She took one of his hands. Tears fell on it, but she raised it to her lips.'I love you like a brother, Odard. Like the brother I never had. I always will.'

Rudi could see how hard Odard tried not to laugh, and felt a sudden upwelling of emotion in himself he recognized as close to love indeed.

May I face the Huntsman as boldly, he thought. And to be sure I've never yet met a woman who understood why saying that drives men crazed.

Odard's voice was light:'I don't even feel mad at hearing that bit about being a… brother, Your High… Mathilda. So I must be… dying. Look… after my family.'

This one is not a perfect man, Rudi thought. Who is' Not myself! But he's a man indeed.

She nodded and clasped the hand in both of hers.'I will. I'll try my best for your mother. And I'll take your brother and sister in ward myself; they'll always have my protection and my favor. I promise it before God.' 'Tell them… I died… well''

Then she leaned closer and kissed him, very gently, on the lips. 'You are my knight, Sir Odard Liu, valiant and true as steel, with honor as golden as your spurs.' 'I… think I am, at last.'

His eyes turned to Mary and Ritva and Rudi.'Mother… wanted you dead. Because of my… dad. I… didn't, not ever, really. Took a while to… see it.'

Rudi leaned forward and-very lightly-touched Odard's shoulder. 'You've been a true friend, brother,' he said.'I'll miss you. For yourself, and because you'd have been a right-hand man to me. One I could trust with my back.' 'To quote… your father… this… sucks,' Odard sighed, and then a sudden effort not to cough made sweat spring out on his face.

When he spoke again, there was a gurgle to it.'I would have followed you, Rudi. And I just get my… head straightened out and I die. Shit! Good-bye to… all of you. It's been… fun.'

He moved one hand; Mathilda helped wrap his fingers around the hilt of his sword and move it, so that he could kiss the cross made by that and the stub of blade. 'Father'' he said, weak and breathy now.'We'd better get… started. There's… a lot to… confess.'

They all moved back, and the priest leaned forward, opening the boiled-leather box across his back, taking out a long strip of cloth, kissing it and draping it about his neck. Rudi took another step backward when he heard Odard struggle to say: 'I confess to Almighty God, to blessed Mary ever Virgin… and to you, Father, that I have sinned exceedingly-'

Some things should be private. They all turned, making a wall between their friend and the world for a long set of moments. Nobody spoke as the murmured words sounded behind them. The twins looked the most stunned; they'd known Odard as long as he had, if not so well, and had always played a half-serious game of verbal feud with him. But even Virginia had been with him for most of a year now, and a damned intense one at that. Ingolf leaned close to Rudi and said very softly: 'I never liked him all that much. But by God, he's game.'

Rudi nodded and murmured:'I thought the same.'

The priest's voice rang a little louder behind them: '-Paradisi portas aperiat, et ad gaudia sempiterna perducat. Amen.'

Odard's Amen was thready, barely perceptible. 'Benedicat te omnipotens Deus, Pater, et Filius, et Spiritus Sanctus. Amen.' 'Amen.' 'Quickly, now, my friends,' Ignatius said.'The Death Angel comes.'

Odard's face was very pale now; the oil gleamed on his eyelids as they fluttered. The eyes moved as those he'd known best knelt around him, a greeting and farewell. After a few labored breaths he smiled; it should have looked grotesque, with the blood on his teeth, but it didn't. His face lit, looking past them somehow. ' So… beautiful!' he said, coughed blood and died.