Cold Magics (51 page)

Several of them said something, but it was too quiet to hear. “Answer me!” Thomas screamed.

Shouts of “Aye!” and “Yes, sir!” rang out.

“Make a wedge!” Thomas shouted again. “Now!”

The students formed up as best they could, making a rough triangle with rapiers pointing out. Eileen tried to get beside Thomas but he shoved her back to the centre. “Stay there!” Thomas put himself at the front then shouted at the footmen in front of him. “Get out of the way!”

The footmen in the back row looked, eyes wide.

“We’re charging!” yelled Thomas. “Clear the way! Now!”

The footman held his ground. Thomas didn’t wait. “Charge!” he yelled to his students. “Push our troops out of the way and kill anyone else!
Charge
!”

The footmen in front of them heard his last yell, and the students hardly had to push anyone out of the way as their wedge charged forward into the fog and the battle. Thomas saw the inner lights of the enemy through the fog before he saw their bodies, and stabbed forward even as he charged. A man cried out and stumbled out of the way. Thomas ignored him and pushed on. A half-dozen more men converged on them, and for a moment Thomas thought they weren’t going to be able to break through. Blades flashed out on all sides and the men against them fell back. “Keep charging!” Thomas yelled. “Stay with me!”

They pushed forward, breaking through the enemy line and racing towards the shining light only Thomas could see. More lights appeared to Thomas through the fog, hazy and man-shaped and a half-dozen strong, and in their midst, a single glowing point of light. “Get ready!” Thomas yelled and charge into their midst.

Thomas muscled aside the blade of the enemy in front of him, and was nearly spitted from the side before another student’s blade thrust into the raider. Blades flashed, men screamed and cursed, and blood made the already-slippery snow even more treacherous. Thomas ignored it all, focusing on the man with the light. He could see him now; could see the wooden rod in his hand that glowed bright blue and spilled out fog.

Thomas killed the man in front of him and lunged forward, driving his point into the body of the rod-wielder and hacking down with his dagger at the man’s hand. The rod hit the ground as the man gasped out his life. Thomas dove forward, scrabbling in the snow to get the rod. Above him, blades clashed and men swore. The students were giving as good as they got, but the men they were fighting were experienced and held their position. From the ground, Thomas stabbed one man in the back and cut another’s leg open. They fell and Thomas realized the students were alone with no one to fight. Twenty were still standing. Three lay on the ground, bleeding—two still and one crying in pain. Another was sitting on the ground screaming, holding the stump where his forearm had been.

“Form up!” Thomas screamed again, shoving the rod into his belt. He slapped a pair of students on the shoulder and pointed at the student crying on the ground. “Grab him and put him in the middle,” he grabbed another student and shoved towards the one missing a hand. “Help him up and get him moving. We’re going to form another wedge and get back to our lines! Got it?”

Heads nodded and students did as they were told. Around them the fog was lifting and Thomas could make out the bodies on the ground and the men battling above them. Sir Rowland and his knights were driving back their lightly armoured opponents, while the footmen held their place. There were many more of the knights and the king’s troops, and many less of the enemy now than before. “Charge!”

They ran again, doing a little better at keeping the shape of the wedge as Thomas led them across the square. The injured men moaned and cried out as the students ran. The enemy saw them coming, and men broke away from the fight, first one or two, then the entire group. The footmen shouted and charged after them. A dozen or more wounded men stayed where they were, sitting or lying on the ground and crying or cursing or screaming. Thomas led his troop straight toward them.

“Get back to the line!” Sir Rowland shouted, riding hard after the footmen, three other knights behind him. “Get back here!”

The footmen slowed their pursuit and Thomas got his students back to where they had been. “Form up our line again!” Thomas shouted. “Put the wounded with the others! Before the enemy comes back!”

The students looked scared and angry and did as they were told. Thomas watched them and realized that the one he’d made haul the handless student across the square was Eileen. She looked sick to her stomach, but kept moving. There was a roar from the street they had come from and Thomas saw more troops moving forward. Under their sergeants’ orders, new lines were formed, bristling with swords and pikes and archers. The other footmen returned, and Thomas remembered that two of his students had gone to fill the line. He could see no sign of them. Rowland rode up, pulling his horse to a stop in front of Thomas. “What did you think you were doing?”

“We stopped the fog,” said Thomas. “I killed the one doing it and got the rod he was using.”

“Next time, tell me!”

“I tried! You couldn’t hear me!”

“Then send a bloody messenger!” said Rowland. “Any sign of other magic?”

“None.”

“Then form up and stand ready!”

“Yes, sir.” He turned to his troop. “You heard him!”

“Captain Thomas! Captain Thomas!”

He turned and saw Lord William on horseback charging forward. William was wearing only his formal wear from the banquet, now singed and bloody. He hauled on the reins, tearing into the horse’s mouth as he pulled the beast to a stop. “The duke needs you, now! They’re in the castle!”

25

I
f the run to the poor quarter had been hard, the run back to the castle was a nightmare. They students kept their lines together, though, and moved through the streets as quickly as they could. Ahead of them, William trotted his horse, looking constantly back over his shoulder and shouting at them to hurry. Thomas was seriously considering telling the young lord to get down and see if he could manage it any faster when they came out of the narrow streets and on the wide thoroughfare to the castle.

Orange flames were licking out of the inner keep.

Thomas swore and increased his pace. The students around him did the same, racing toward the gates. They were open, to Thomas’s surprise, but blocked by guards with pikes.

“I’m Lord William!” shouted the lord even as he pulled the reins back to slow his horse. “Get out of the way!”

The guards moved and William charged through the gate, then sawed the bit back in his horse’s mouth to make the animal stop. The horse whinnied in pain as it skidded and slipped. William jumped off before the animal had stopped moving and ran straight into the castle. Thomas and his troop dogged the other man’s heels.

In the great hall, a dozen or more wounded men sat on benches and chairs. Many more lay sprawled on the floor, some burnt almost beyond recognition. Merchants and their wives huddled in one corner, and black streaks of soot and char marked the room. Around one table a dozen men clustered, including all the barons. William made straight for them. “I’ve got him!”

He pushed the barons aside. On the table, the duke, badly burnt and cut in a dozen places, struggled to sit up. Thomas stared in horror.

“Get over here,” rasped the duke, his powerful voice hoarse. He coughed. “Listen. They’re in the inner keep. Eastern quarter, near the guest chambers. They’ve got fire. John and the lords are after them. Get them. Now!”

Thomas turned to William. “Lead us.”

William left at a run. Thomas and his students followed close behind. The smell of smoke grew stronger as they moved further into the castle. “I should have been helping the others, not getting you!” snapped William. “Why are you so important anyway?”

“Shut up and lead,” said Thomas, listening for the sounds of flame or battle. He heard both a moment later as William led him to the end of the hall and up a flight of stairs.

On the floor above, everything was chaos. Smoke was billowing from a nearby room, and from somewhere on the floor Thomas could hear battle cries and steel clashing with steel, but there was no sign of anyone. From the far end of the hall, Thomas could see the inner light of a man, glowing red and blue, stumbling toward them. Thomas raised his blade and said, “Ware!”

The man came closer. He was a guard, his uniform singed and wet from the blood that leaked from under the hand he had pressed against the hole in his side. “Where are they?” demanded Thomas.

“All over the family quarters! They’re throwing fire!”

“Where?” demanded Thomas. “How far?”

“Down this hall,” said the guard. “There’s two dozen men bottling them up, but they’re throwing fire—”

Thomas didn’t wait to hear the rest. He ran forward, William beside him and the students hard on his heels. The smoke left Thomas and his men coughing and squinting to see. Thomas reached the burning remains of a door and saw a dozen more of the castle guards and young lords, Lord John among them, bracing a pair of double doors shut with their bodies. The room used to be a large parlour, but now held only soldiers and broken furniture. It stank of blood and burnt flesh, and Thomas felt bile rising in his throat as the acrid stench filled his nostrils. Bodies lay on the floor, some still, others still moving and crying in pain. Around the edges of the room another dozen men stood, blades at the ready, all looking at the door.

Thomas charged forward, not caring if William was behind him or not. “Lord John!”

“Thomas!” Lord John broke away from the door, gesturing another man to take his place. “They’re behind the doors! We don’t know if they’ve managed to break through—” The door gave a lurch, and the heavy sound of bodies ramming against the other side filled the room. The guards and lords shoved back with all his weight, “—break through on any other level. There’s more of them than us and they’re—”

Flames streamed out from under the door, and Thomas jumped to one side as the guards screamed and stumbled away. The door lurched again, sending the burning defenders sprawling, and bodies poured into the room.

“Attack!” John screamed.

The guards and lords ran forward and bodies and blades clashed in the middle of the room. The students pressed forward behind them, blocked from the battle by the men in front. Flames danced on a half-dozen surfaces, throwing shadows in all directions and filling the air with acrid, eye-burning smoke. A guard fell and Thomas charged into his place, cutting one man’s legs out and stabbing another from the side.

Thomas saw a pair of guards and one of the lords falling even as he killed another of the attackers. Students stepped in to fill the gaps, but the attackers pressed forward. Thomas couldn’t tell how many there were; his world reduced itself to the men in front of him.

“Drive them back!” screamed John. “Kill them and drive them back!”

Both sides redoubled their efforts. Men screamed cries of battle or pain, and some slipped to the floor or stumbled back, clutching at bloody wounds. The lords and guards and students pushed forward, making a wall of steel and flesh. Inch by inch they drove the attackers back. The raiders gave every step grudgingly, and tried surging forward half a dozen times.

“A rescue! A rescue!” The shout came from behind the lords, rising from a dozen throats.

“They’re ours!” yelled one of the wounded lords. “Over here!”

From behind the enemy, someone shouted something in a language Thomas couldn’t understand. The raiders all screamed at once and turned on their heels. The lords shouted in victory and charged forward.

In the hallway on the other side, Thomas had a split second glimpse of a man raising something that glowed bright with magic in his hand. Thomas screamed “Look out!” and dove to one side, rolling on the hard stone of the floor as flames tore toward the charging lords.

Screams filled the room. Lord John and half a dozen others stumbled back and fell to the ground, slapping at themselves or rolling on the ground to douse the flames that covered them. Others lay in the hall, unmoving and on fire. Thomas came to his feet, focusing his mind even as the man with the glowing rod stepped forward to meet the next round of charging troops. Behind him, more men were massing for an attack.

Thomas opened his hand and lightning flew from his fingers into the chest of the rod-wielder, sending him flying backwards with a deafening boom of thunder. This time, both sides froze and stumbled back. Thomas raised his hand again and let loose a blast that spread through the hallway in front of him. Spread out, it didn’t have the power to kill, but it sent men flying and made others cringe back.

“Charge!” Thomas screamed. “Before they recover! Charge!”

Thomas ran forward, jumping over squirming bodies of the lords and aiming for the stone rod lying on the ground a dozen feet away.

Behind him, Baron Goshawk screamed a battle cry and charged, driving a thick-bladed war-sword into the enemy. Other voices joined in and suddenly Thomas was no longer alone. Guards and students streamed forward, attacking the enemy. Thomas, knowing his magic was nearly gone, used his rapier instead, cutting and thrusting at the enemy to keep them back.

“Form a wall!” shouted Baron Goshawk. “Form up on Thomas!”

They did. In the wavering light of the flames, Thomas could see that the enemy was now outnumbered. The baron yelled for his men to move forward and Thomas did the same, fighting his way to the rod on the ground.

One of the enemies had the same idea, and was much closer than Thomas. He reached for it, but Goshawk was on top of him before he could stand, taking his head with a single quick cut.

The wall of students and troops, now reinforced by the surviving lords, inched forward, fighting step by step, forcing the enemy further back down the hallway. Thomas focused on getting to the stone rod. Several more of the enemy saw what he was doing and tried to drive forward, but the troops and Thomas’s rapier forced them back again and again, until Thomas could reach down and take possession of the rod.