Knight's Shadow (30 page)

On the east side of the village, Kest stood facing the Knights in formation. His warsword was drawn, the point resting on the ground as he gripped the pommel with both hands. He looked as if he were leaning against it for support.

For a moment I wondered what it must be like for Kest, to feel the red fire inside eating away at him, then I turned my attention back to the Knights. I had my own job to do.

‘I call on the Knight-Captain,’ I shouted.

One of the Knights standing in the centre of the formation lifted the visor of his helm and looked around until he spotted me. He peered up at me. ‘What is this I see? A strange little brown bird nesting up there on the water tower singing to me.’

He spoke with the careful diction of a nobleman – likely he was the second son of a Lord or Margrave. It didn’t do much to endear him to me. ‘And who answers me back but a black crow standing where I should see the bright yellow tabard of Luth – or should that be the green of Aramor? Or perhaps the scarlet of Rijou? I see Knights in black tabards without lawful orders making war on their own people. That’s what I see, Knight-Captain.’

‘It matters not what a little brown bird spies,’ he replied, ‘if its wings are properly clipped before he can sing his song for anyone else. Is there a tune you would care to sing for me, perhaps?’

I took a breath and hoped that the others would be able to keep their people in line. ‘I would sing this, Knight-Captain. We surrender.’

There was a brief silence as the Knights looked at their commander.

‘You surrender?’ the Knight-Captain asked.

‘Absolutely and utterly. We ask only for mercy, simple mercy. These people request nothing more than that you spare their lives.’

The Knight-Captain roared with laughter. ‘Simple mercy? For dogs who bite and snap at their masters’ feet? The only mercy these brigands will receive will be the good God War’s fist crashing down upon their little souls. They have steel weapons, these peasants, taken up against their betters in plain violation of the law.’

‘And for that, they will pay. But they haven’t attacked you, and the penalty for possession of a steel weapon is only a fine or imprisonment, not death. I repeat, Knight-Captain, we surrender. These people are—’

‘They are animals,’ the Knight-Captain said, ‘and every man, woman and pig’s child among them dies today.’

‘I repeat a third time, Sir Knight, we surrender and ask mercy.’ In all the old stories, these things had to be said three times. I thought it best to stick with tradition. A few of the Knights looked troubled, but most didn’t. That was fine; I would settle for what I could get. If even a few of them were beginning to doubt their commander’s honour then we could use their hesitation to our advantage.

‘Surrender a thousand times if it pleases you,’ the Knight-Captain laughed. ‘It will make no difference. For a hundred years from today Garniol will be spoken of in terrified whispers by peasants wise enough to know who their betters are.’

‘Okay, fine,’ I said. ‘Just thought I’d ask.’

If the Knight-Captain was surprised by my casual response, he didn’t show it. Instead he turned to his men. ‘Will someone with a crossbow kill that brown bird for me?’

I saw two of them setting down their swords to unhitch the leather straps holding crossbows to their backs.

‘Before you fire, there’s something else you should know,’ I said.

‘Oh? Do you have another song to sing for me?’

‘I do,’ I replied, ‘and it’s a song about Knights, in fact: about the code that the Knights of Tristia once followed. They lived and fought and died by rules that remained unbroken for a thousand years. How many of you, cowering beneath your kite-shields as you prepare to massacre those whom you should be defending, first took up armour and shield dreaming of those better men? Of that better code? How many of you swore you would die heroes one day?’ I looked down on them, and though I could not see them clearly, I could imagine their faces. Were they earnest young men here for their first taste of battle, or grey-bearded veterans simply following orders?

‘Well?’ I shouted. ‘Tell me, do you feel like heroes today? Do you think those same Knights you heard about in the songs and read about in the stories would call you brother? Or would they instead strike you with their iron-braced gloves and command you to meet them on the duelling field? No, now that I think of it, I don’t think they would agree to duel with you at all. I don’t believe they would consider you worthy.’

The Knights below, secure in their metal carapaces, bristled with rage. I could feel a flood of anger in them, mostly directed at me, of course, but I had to believe that some of them, deep down, had some inkling of how far they’d fallen. Frankly, I didn’t care which it was; what mattered far more was that in a battle like this one, every ounce of distraction or confusion I could sow in the enemy would be worth its weight in gold. Now I just had to wait for a man to shoot me with a crossbow.

One of the Knights stood tall as he came out of the formation with a crossbow in hand. He removed his helmet, lifted the weapon and aimed it towards me. There was always a decent chance he would miss, of course, or that the bone plates in my coat would keep the bolt from burying itself in my flesh, but I never did trust my luck at dice.

‘Brasti!’

From one of the rooftops along the street outside the main square, I saw Brasti stand, aim and release, and a moment later the Knight had an arrow sticking out of the back of his neck. He slowly toppled to the ground.

The rest of the Knights roared in anger, but so did the villagers in their lines.

‘Dariana!’ I shouted.

‘Forward!’ she screamed to her troops: her farmers and ploughmen, her beardless boys and young girls in sundresses, holding weapons they’d never been taught to use. And at her command they started to advance, brandishing their spears and halberds and rusty rakes and broken old pitchforks, moving one step at a time towards the fate awaiting them at the practised hands of hardened military men protected by shining plate-armour.

The Knights advanced too, keeping to their squared-off formation, using their kite-shields to drive the farmers back, until Dariana shouted again, and some of her people in the front line set the bottoms of their weapons and tools against the ground, making it harder for the Knights to press forward, and smaller men and women with swords and hoes and garden rakes ran forward and attacked the kite-shields. Several died, but not all, and some of them managed to pull away the Knights’ protection.

‘Archers!’ Brasti shouted, and arrows flew from high and low, coming from alleys and rooftops around the square. Most hit only those damned shields, but when a few broke through I let out the breath I hadn’t realised I’d been holding in. We didn’t have to win every strike; we just had to kill a few of them.

As the Knights advanced, they now had to do so over some of their fallen comrades. The Knight-Captain, still barking his orders, nearly fell over, tripping on one of his own lying dead at his feet. He screamed in frustration. This was supposed to have been an easy fight for his soldiers – after all, they were facing farmers, peasants, fuzzy-bearded youths and barely grown girls with their hair in braids . . . Even a half-trained Knight should be able to wade through a dozen such pathetic opponents without breaking into a sweat. But there weren’t a dozen of them; there were more than a hundred, and every time one of those little girls managed to get a hit, even if she died moments later, spitted on a broadsword or beheaded by a war-axe, the men in armour grew more angry and more anxious.

Saints, what was wrong with me? Was I growing so cold inside that I could so emotionlessly count the bodies of children on a tally?

I raced down the ladder and into the fray.

The Knight-Captain, finally realising his men were now at serious risk of being overwhelmed, gave the order for five of his Knights to break away from the pack to outflank the villagers and go for Dariana.

That’s it, go for the leader. You military men all think the same way, don’t you?

Kest, who’d been standing as still as a statue so far, suddenly lifted his blade high in the air and rushed forward, sweeping it down in a great arc that brought the whole north wind with it. He crashed down against the top edge of one of the Knights’ shields, very nearly cutting it in half, then without pausing for even an instant, turned his slash into a thrust, pushing straight up into the Knight’s gorget. The strike didn’t break through the metal plate but it bent it inwards, choking the man. He dropped his sword and with his hands grasping ineffectually at his neck, trying in vain to loosen the armour, he fell back into his comrades.

Two more Knights split off and tried to encircle Kest, but an arrow came down from the sky and landed in the back of one of them.

‘No!’ Kest screamed, his face red with rage and fever. ‘
NO!
The next man who takes one of mine meets me on the field when this is done!’ He whirled, swinging his sword like a club, and drove it into his opponent even as he dropped down low to avoid attack.

‘Falcio!’ Dariana shouted, and when I turned I could see her line was breaking. It had held for nearly seven minutes, far longer than I had believed possible, leaving only twelve Knights remaining of the original enemy formation, but these dozen had gathered themselves and reformed and I could see the men and women of the village were fast losing their nerve.

‘Disperse!’ I yelled back to her, and the moment she gave the order the villagers turned and ran, many dropping their cumbersome weapons as they fled. A few seconds later, only Dariana was left. She put one hand on her hip, gave the Knights a wink and then turned and ran into one of the side streets.

The attackers were left with no one to attack. They could either stand where they were, doing a brilliant job of guarding each other with their shields but not doing much actual fighting, or they could break up their smart formation and find people to fight. They chose the latter.

Good
.
If everyone stays out of the square then our archers can attack at will
.

Out of the shadows came two figures.
Great, yet again my orders have been ignored. Why do people keep demanding that I come up with brilliant plans if they have no bloody intention of following them?
Brasti, Intemperance in hand, walked towards the Knight with a young boy perhaps twelve years of age in tow. The boy held a quiver in one hand and an arrow in the other.

‘Brasti, what are you doing?’ I shouted.

If he heard me, he gave no sign. ‘No more armour,’ he said firmly, and fired an arrow straight into the chestplate of one of the Knights. The piercing of metal echoed in the large square. The boy had drawn another arrow from the quiver and handed it to Brasti before another Knight started charging them, but Brasti was faster; he nocked, pulled and fired in one smooth motion and the Knight fell to the ground.

‘No more armour,’ he repeated.

The remaining Knights quickly regrouped, trying to get their shield wall up in time to stave off Brasti’s attacks, but even as they did, Dariana raced out from the alley between the houses, hammered the point of her sword into the back of one man’s knee and fled again before anyone had time to react. The injured Knight went down, screaming like a stuck pig, and crashed into one of his comrades, conveniently opening a gap between the shields.

‘No more armour,’ Brasti said a third time, taking out one of the few Knights still alive.

The rest didn’t hang around to be picked off by the madman with the huge bow. As they dispersed, glowering, I ran towards the main square; sooner or later someone would figure out the ridiculously easy solution to the problem he presented, so I nominated myself to guard Brasti’s flank. Sure enough, three Knights – one the Knight-Captain himself – were busy sneaking around to get behind Brasti and the boy holding his arrows. It looked like the Knight-Captain wasn’t entirely stupid: his true target was the boy. Once they’d taken him out, Brasti’s arrows would fall to the ground and the Knights could overwhelm him before he had time to pick one up.

That was their plan, anyway, and just as I reached them, I saw a warsword come up high and begin its inevitable downwards arc towards the boy’s head. I crossed my rapiers and jumped towards him, landing hard on my knees but holding my blades up, crossed, just in time to feel the full weight of the warsword crash down on them. The Knight’s weapon stopped barely an inch from the boy’s head – but neither the boy nor Brasti appeared to have noticed how close he’d come to being headless.

‘No more armour,’ I heard Brasti say again as he nocked and let fly into the square.

‘No more Knights,’ the boy said in answer, handing him another two-and-a-half-foot-long steel-tipped arrow.

The Knight-Captain gave a roar and came for me.

I was still on the ground, on my knees, as the Knight’s sword lifted free of my blades.
Get on your feet, damn it
, I told myself sternly, but before I could follow my own orders a red haze appeared on the left-hand side of my peripheral vision and Kest leapt in front of me, bashing one of my attackers’ swords away and squaring off against the other.

For some reason the sight of the blood-red Saint of Swords made the Knight-Captain reconsider his position.
So much for honour
, I had time to think as he grabbed the shoulder of the Knight next to him and pushed him towards Kest before taking off at a run down the square. I rose to my feet to help fight off the two remaining Knights, but Kest swore, ‘Get the hells out of here and stay away from me, Falcio!’

I ran back into the centre of the square. Thanks to Kest’s maniacal swordwork, Brasti’s single-minded shooting and Dariana’s firm handling of the villagers, the Knights were broken. In front of me a small mob of villagers were moving to overwhelm a single opponent, and to the right I could see Dariana withdrawing her blade from an opponent’s neck. Suddenly there were only two men in armour still standing.

‘Surrender!’ one of them shouted, and both men dropped their weapons and fell to their knees. ‘We surrender!’