Debt of Ages (30 page)

Finally, incredibly, the attack drew back over ground made treacherous by the heaped dead. The Saxons, their line thinner now, stood in what wasn't really silence—there were too many wounded for that—but seemed like it after the abrupt cessation of the hideous cacophony that had gone before. They stood exactly where they had stood before, waiting. And all at once Tiraena knew, beyond any possibility of doubt, that if the day went against them there would be an unbroken shield-wall of the dead down there. They could be killed, but they could not be moved.

I've heard the Saxons called dull,
she thought in her awe.
Maybe it's true. That much sheer guts can't possibly leave room for much else.

"I can't give the signal yet," Gwenhwyvaer said to no one in particular. She had mounted her horse, the better to be seen by those below, and they had all followed suit. Now she sat in her saddle looking like a knife was twisting in her guts. "Marcellus is still holding his heavy cavalry in reserve. They'd be able to counter our own cavalry." Tiraena looked down the hill to the north where the British cavalry waited, the red cloaks of the Artoriani vivid among the tribal contingents. The riders' impatience was infecting the horses, she could see even from here. But Gwenhwyvaer was right.

She swept her eyes over the rest of the field. The imperial flanks had gotten bogged down in disorganized fighting on the wooded slopes. And within their main body, something was happening.

Then, with a new note of trumpets, the imperial
catapractarii
moved forward in all their armored ponderousness, and the infantry parted ranks to let them pass. Tiraena turned toward Gwenhwyvaer and started to open her mouth, but what she saw closed it. The queen was staring fixedly ahead, as though in communion with the ebb and flow of battle, awaiting some certain knowledge that the moment had come.

The imperial cavalry built up to a charge and Tiraena silently pleaded with her to give the word. But her expression remained unchanged even as the armored riders smashed into the shield wall with a force that caused it to buckle, though not to break. Evidently someone thought it
had
broken, for a shout arose from the enemy infantry and they advanced to support the shock cavalry.

At that instant, Gwenhwyvaer sprang from her motionlessness and flung up an arm. The trumpeters blared out the signal, and in the hidden area behind the hill to their left, a horse and rider—Tiraena was sure it was Constantine—sprang forward. The entire cavalry formation followed as one, riding like the Wild Hunt.

They had a goodly way to go—any further would have tired the horses too much at such a gallop—as they rounded the hill. If the shield-wall could only hold until they appeared in the rear of the now-fully-engaged imperials, the enemy would be caught between the Saxon anvil and the Briton hammer. . . .

It was at that moment that the west wind brought to their ears the weird war-cries of the Fomorians.

Tiraena twisted around in her saddle just in time to see the tribesmen appear at the crest of a lower ridge just to the northwest of the one topped by the British infantry line. It was too distant to make out details of the figures, but there was no mistaking the gigantic one in their midst.

In growing horror, she watched the British line begin to waver. Never mind what the mysterious wise-woman Lucasta had told them; they knew the supernatural when they saw it. A few men began to run, and it was like the first few drops of leaking water that presage the full torrent into the hold of a doomed ship, for more and more of their comrades joined them, then the whole line dissolved in panic.

Oh, God, it's the worst possible time. If the Fomorians hit the shield-wall from the rear while the situation is still fluid. . . .
Without a word and without further thought, Tiraena turned her horse around and plunged down the hill's western slope.

"Lucasta, wait!" Gwenhwyvaer's dwindling voice didn't register on her, for her entire consciousness had narrowed to the task of controlling her horse's wild career down the steep slope. She belatedly remembered that her implanted riding skills were only minimal, and supplemented by actual practice in only her last few subjective months, as she descended the hill at breakneck speed.
Well,
she found a fraction of a second to think,
I finally know what that expression means. Breaking my neck is exactly what I'm going to do!
Then she was in the defile, forcing her mount to scramble up the ridge. Soon she was among the fleeing troops.

"Stand, damn you!" she shouted as she rode among them. The British tongue was another subject on which she'd worked at improving "Lucasta's" minimal knowledge, and few of these men understood Latin. "He's mortal, I tell you! He can be killed!"

"Listen to her, you cowardly sods!" She heard Peredur's voice behind her and stole a glance over her shoulder. Yes, he and Cynric had followed her. He rode among the milling foot troops, beating at them with the flat of his
spatha
. "By God, do you need a woman to take you by the hands and lead you into battle? Well, here she is! Maybe she'll wipe your bottoms for you too!" An angry growling arose, but the rout slowed. "Get back up to the crest of the ridge before the Irish gain it!"

Good thought
, Tiraena realized. "Follow me," she yelled, and urged her horse up the slope. She saw that Cynric was with her. Yes, there it was just ahead, the top of the ridge . . .

They reached it just in time to come face to face with the Interrogator.

Their horses reared uncontrollably, shrieking with panic at the sight and smell, and threw them. Tiraena managed a rolling landing that absorbed most of the impact. She shook her head violently to clear it and raised herself to a crouch. The Fomorians were scrambling up to the ridgeline, and the Interrogator was advancing toward her. He carried the great club she'd heard about in one hand; the other held a sword that must have been specially made for four mutually-opposable digits, and was far too long and heavy for a human to wield anyway. It couldn't be any good, forged as it was from the low-grade iron available in Ireland. But that didn't help her much, for she had no weapons, nor any implanted skill at using them if she had.

A Saxon war-cry rang out, and Cynric rushed past her and interposed himself between her and her attacker, holding aloft his shield and brandishing the
spatha
he used in lieu of his own people's traditional weapons when on horseback. He shouted his defiance again, and the adolescent voice quavered and broke.

With a force beyond that of human muscles, the Interrogator brought his club down. Cynric screamed and went to one knee as the iron-reinforced wooden shield, and the arm holding it, shattered. Then the Korvaasha thrust with his sword at the youth's midriff. The Saxon ring-mail was surprisingly good, but the power behind that thrust sent the crude iron sword crashing through the rings. Cynric screamed again with the torment of a pierced liver and dropped his
spatha
. The Interrogator pulled his sword free and raised it for a final slash.

Tiraena was on her feet, moving through a world of horror. "No!" She shouted in Standard International English. "I'm the one you want, you Korvaash bastard!"

Because she had spoken words his translator could handle, he heard her. He redirected his sword as it descended, slewing it toward her. It sliced through the flesh and muscle of her right thigh. The leg gave way under her and she crashed to the ground and rolled a few paces. Looking up through a crimson haze of agony, she saw the Interrogator advancing ponderously toward her. Idiotically, her foremost thought was:
Bob will be so worried . . .

There was a whinny and a shout, and Peredur, keeping his charging mount under control with the horsemanship for which the Artoriani were renowned, sideswiped the Interrogator and sent the Korvaasha staggering. The Briton brought his horse around and hauled on the reins, bringing the animal rearing up. The flailing hooves momentarily held the massive alien at bay. Then Peredur brought his
spatha
down. The Interrogator parried with his own sword and, with a metallic crack, the brittle iron gave way and the blade snapped. But then the Korvaasha thrust his club at the horse's exposed belly. Off-balance, the animal went over, crushing Peredur's left leg. The Interrogator stood over the immobile Briton and pointed the remaining length of his broken sword downward. With the full mountainous weight of a Korvaasha behind it, it punched through the scale armor and the Briton's chest. There was an obscene amount of blood.

Yet even at that moment, Peredur brought up the
spatha
he'd somehow kept in his grip. The thrust lacked the force to pierce that thick hard integument, but it slid along a leg, bringing the distinctive Korvaash blood—like human blood mixed with clear syrup—welling up.

The Interrogator made no audible sound, of course, but he was less than steady as he turned from the lifeless Briton and advanced on Tiraena, gripping his club in both hands.

Tiraena felt something hard against the tips of her fingers. It was the hilt of the
spatha
Cynric had dropped. Her grip closed around it, and she struggled to her feet. The transcendent pain that started in her right thigh and flooded her entire being seemed to burn away some impediment to clarity, for all at once reality consisted of the tormented face of an impaled little girl. But then the girl's blue eyes turned dark, the skin shaded from pale to coppery, the features shifted, and it was a little Raehaniv girl who stood terrified in a dimly-lit place of horror created by the Korvaasha, a little girl who also bore the name Tiraena.

The moment ended—it had lasted no more than a millisecond. Tiraena felt no pain anymore, only a calm certainty that she was about to do that for which she had been born. As though in slow motion, the Interrogator swung his club in a stroke that would have taken off her head. She dodged the blow with an unreal ease and grasped her sword in both hands—the
spatha
wasn't intended for it, but it could be done. She rotated almost a full three hundred and sixty degrees as she brought the blade around in a perfect drawing cut, into what would have been the belly of a human.

Tiraena already knew that the Korvaasha could, with difficulty, produce a sound in the human auditory range. An extremely high-pitched Korvaash scream sounded like a distant foghorn. The Interrogator emitted a
loud
foghorn sound as he doubled over. Recovering, Tiraena brought the
spatha
down on the long neck, where the hide wasn't quite so thick.

No human strength—not even Tiraena's as it was at this moment—could have actually severed the neck with one of this era's blades. But the Interrogator's head flopped grotesquely and the unpleasant-looking Korvaash blood fountained forth as he sank to the ground.

Tiraena collapsed with a gasp of returning pain. Funny, she thought: she hadn't noticed that a wide circle of spectators had formed around this combat, half Briton and half Fomorian, all of them now standing with their mouths hanging comically open. Then the tableau broke as the Fomorian half of the circle disintegrated, fleeing with howls of panic. The Britons followed in pursuit, striking at their country's invaders as they could not strike at their own shame. Tiraena was left alone with the dead and dying.

She tore a strip of cloth from a sleeve and used it to bind her wounded thigh. Then, using her left leg and both arms, she dragged herself painfully over to Cynric. He was breathing but unconscious; she could do nothing for him but stanch the flow of blood with a wad of cloth. Finally, she made her way to the place where Peredur lay pinned to the ground by the Interrogator's broken sword, staring sightlessly at the sky. She reached out and closed his eyes.

Was it you, Peredur?
she wondered.
Were you the Peredur who, in my reality, made the name of Sir Percival a byword for all that's best in men? I think it must have been you. And I hope you found your Grail.

Time passed and the distant voice of battle gradually diminished. Then she heard a clatter of hooves and looked up at Gwenhwyvaer and her attendants. The expression on the queen's face told her all she needed to know, but she asked anyway. "The battle . . . ?"

"Yes. Constantine struck at just the right instant, and Cerdic's Saxons held. The imperials were crammed together so tightly they couldn't even use their weapons. It was a butchery. We couldn't pen them all in, of course, but the survivors are no longer an army. Our militia can harry them back down the Thames." Even as she told the tale, Gwenhwyvaer's eyes kept shifting to the carcass of the Interrogator, and several of the attendants crossed themselves as their horses shied nervously away.

"I suppose we should bury it . . ." someone began.

Tiraena stood up, heedless of pain. "No! You don't want him anywhere in your food chain!" She saw their puzzled expressions and forced herself to concentrate long enough to speak words they'd understand.

"Burn him! This earth was never meant to bear his weight. Burn him! And beg your God's forgiveness as the smoke of that burning rises into His sky!"

It was all she had left in her. She collapsed into unconsciousness. A heartbeat of dead silence passed before men started running in search of firewood.

* * *

Tiraena lay in the torchlight beside Cynric, whom they'd carried back to the camp with her even though his wound was clearly mortal. Cerdic stood looking down at his son, tears making runnels in the blood and grime that caked his face. Cynric was no child, but a man according to his people's lights, and therefore a fit subject for mourning.

Gwenhwyvaer stood nearby, looking at Cerdic and his son with an expression Tiraena now understood. For her own part, she was waiting for an opportunity to pop one of the little pills in the pouch at her waist. Her wound would heal anyway, but there was no reason not to speed things along.

A horse approached, and its rider dismounted. Cerdic turned and glared at him. "Well, Constantine ap Cador, here I am, and the battle's over. Have what you will of me!"

Gwenhwyvaer seemed ready to intervene, but Constantine shook his head and looked at Cynric, who lay alternately sleeping and awakening into agony. "No, Cerdic. There's not a man alive I'd seek a quarrel with at such a time. And besides . . ." He hesitated, then continued with the awkwardness of a man saying something very difficult. "I saw the line of piled Saxon corpses that marks where the shield-wall stood." They'd all seen it from atop the hill before the sun had set, and Tiraena had thought of redcoats lying dead in square on the field of Waterloo.