Hand of the King's Evil - Outremer 04 (51 page)

Time yet for one more shaft, though. The range had shortened, there was still no wind; he picked his man and shot, and this time urged his horse into motion while the arrow was still in flight, barely keeping enough attention on it to note that it took his target sweetly in the throat.

The horse was nervous on the downslope, wedging the toe of each hoof firmly against a cross-piece before stepping forward with the next. It would be more nervous in a minute, Jemel thought.

Onto the stone footings at last, and now he could sling his bow across the saddle-horn, kick his beast into a reluctant gallop, draw his scimitar and scream exulting as he rode to war. It would not last, but there was a glee in slipping his restraints at last, abandoning friends and anxieties and all, plunging headlong into the simplicities of
battle
. The men in black were to kill; the man in black over white was most liable for killing, because he was an officer and never mind whatever other reasons might apply; the blade in his hand was for killing with, so long as the horse between his knees could hold him up.

*

As he'd expected, the charge of the Ransomers had carried them .through the first thin line of Surayonnaise defenders, without harm except that their formation was broken short of the bridge that was their target. Now they wheeled and slashed like hunting dogs at the kill, brutal and merciless. Panicked horses broke riderless from the melee, and were let run; the men who had backed them were of less interest even than the horses, lying as they were on road or crushed grass, crippled or dead.

It pleased Jemel's sense of the proper order of things, that warriors should defeat farming folk. It would be a great offence if Patric defeated Sharai; at these odds - just the one of him - it seemed not unlikely. He'd send one or two more of them on ahead, though, he was determined on that, before their weight of numbers killed him
...

The glitter of steel in sunlight and the grate of edge on edge, a blade to meet his and the shock of that meeting jarring his body all through, all but lifting him out of the saddle; and his horse was stumbling and fighting the bridle and had to be hauled around, and the Ransomer's mount was swifter to obey its rider but slower in its movement because it was so much heavier, so that neither sword could strike again before the other; and so they traded blows, hack and thrust and parry while the warhorse bit and kicked and Jemel's nag struggled against his control until he was almost praying for the Ransomer to slash its throat for him, save him the trouble.

It sank abruptly onto its haunches, screaming its pain as an iron-shod hoof connected. Jemel saw the great sword lift above his head, and knew that nothing could stop or block its fall. But he was so slow, this Ransomer, as slow and heavy as his sword, his horse, his thinking
...

Jemel dropped the reins, put his hand on the saddle-horn and vaulted as the nag surged up again beneath him, that bare moment that he had before the sword could crush body and bone in its fall.

His own strength and the horses rising threw him high, or high enough. He swung one leg across the hindquarters of the warhorse, just as his shoulder struck the Ransomer in the chest, below his upraised sword-arm. The force of it knocked the man loose from his stirrups, almost knocked him from the saddle altogether. Briefly both were fighting for balance, rather than fighting each other, the Ransomer even dropped the sword that was threatening to overtopple him, letting it swing loose on its lanyard while he clutched at mane and reins to haul himself upright again.

Breathless with effort, Jemel could suddenly have been breathless with laughter
instead, though not kindly so.
His legs gripped hard on the horses flanks; his left arm took a grip around the Ransomer's ribs and pulled with a will; he almost expected the man to turn and thank him.

Instead the man died, as Jemel s scimitar moved feather-light across his exposed throat.

It took only a moment to fling the body down, another to slip into the saddle. The Ransomer had been a taller man than Jemel, his stirrups hung too low and all this Patric harness was too heavy, too clumsy to be comfortable in use. But the nag had turned tail and fled, driven off by the pain and bloodstink of the battle. Better a strong and daring horse beneath him, anyway, however awkward its handling. At least it wasn't trying to buck him off; probably too stupid to be loyal, he thought, content to obey whoever sat its saddle and drew on its reins.

He must hope so. The man he wanted, the black-cloaked officer was riding him down already, his darkened sword extended like a lance as the massive destrier hurtled across the ground. No hope of countering such a charge; Jemel's blade would snap if he tried it, just an eye-blink before that great sword skewered him.

At the last moment, then, Jemel flung himself down, wrapping both arms around the horse's neck and sliding half out of the saddle to keep its body between him and the flailing blade.

As soon as he'd felt the wind of its passing, he slithered upright again. One vain slash back at the destrier's crupper, which only demonstrated the deceptive speed of those vast horses; then he was dragging his new mount's head around to follow, not to be a standing target a second time. This wasn't a good moment to play Sharai riding-games, on an unfamiliar horse using unfamiliar tack. The destrier would be slow to halt, slow to turn; when it did, the officer should have neither time nor space to build up to another dangerous charge. Jemel would be right there, eye to eye and blade to blade. He'd been too busy evading his lethal sword to look at the man's face during that first brief passage of arms; this time he'd be ready, and he'd know in a moment. Not likely that it would be Sieur Anton, there were many knights in the Order; but if that one knight were among the invading army, then where else would he want to be but here, riding this dangerous, glorious mission to seize the bridge ahead of all his troops?

Jemel could see the man sawing on his reins to force the destrier to a halt, and surprised himself by hoping that this was not after all Sieur Anton. It would make little difference whether he was or not, the man was dead either way, white bones riding — but Jemel would be disappointed if Marron's idol turned out to ride so ugly.

This man yanked his horses head around, but he must have heard Jemel's riding behind him, he must have been ready; he did it one-handed, dropping his shoulder to put all his weight on the haul. That meant there was no good target for Jemel s opening slash as the destrier twisted almost on the spot, only the long sword rising to meet it.

The two blades clashed and rang with the force
of the impact, deadening Jemel’
s fingers but doing no damage else.

Sword and scimitar locked hilt to hilt for a moment; time for one quick glance at the officer's face, and no, it was not Sieur Anton. No matter. This man could die now, and the other later.

Or, of course, Jemel could die now and the other not at all, or not at his hand. Steel battered against steel; he felt his arm start to tire and his horse shy back from the weight and aggression of the destrier. On a Patric warhorse he was trapped into fighting Patric-style, the beast knew nothing else, but he wasn't made or trained for this. His opponent was stronger and wily with it, experienced and fast. In the end, though, the simple strength would be enough. Jemel had blocked a storm of blows, but he couldn't block for ever. Those rare chances he had to cut or thrust, his blade was fended off with a twist of the wrist, a sweet riming that seemed almost contemptuous. He had killed Sand Dancers, but it seemed he could not kill even this one Ransomer, who was not the one he wanted; and he had been so urgent once to kill them all. He bared his teeth in a savage grin, reminded himself that the stars did not in fact turn around his head however often he'd felt certain that they did, and hacked two-handed at the Ransomer's unbreakable guard. His arm was too heavy now for any grace, for any speed or elegance. This was survival or else it was the other thing, and he thought he knew which. It was a matter for regret, and Jazra would be angry, but—

But the Ransomer was backing his horse where he should have been pressing forward, to lean that tremendous weight against Jemel's mount. That was why they bred their destriers so big, not just for the shock of the charge but to overbear their enemies; so why was this man relenting, retreating? Why was he staring past Jemel, over Jemel's shoulder and up, with such an appalled look on his face?

A trick, a trap of some kind, surely, but it could prove lethal to the Ransomer captain before ever he sprung it on Jemel. He'd left himself open to a classic head-cut once already, in the moment of his pulling back, except that Jemel had been too slow to see it in time, too tired to take the chance. There would be other chances, though, as long as the man was so distracted; all it needed was for Jemel to go forward, to grant no respite, to ignore whatever might or might not be happening at his back and claim another life against the immeasurable debt that was Jazra's loss.

What it most needed was for Jemel not to pause, not to hesitate even for a moment, above all not to be tempted into giving even the briefest glance behind him, to see if the Ransomer were faking or truly distrait. . .

Jemel glanced behind him and was entirely still for a moment, forgetful of Ransomers and war, of friends lost and left behind, forgetful of everything that he knew for certain about the strength and reliability of the world.

While he fought, the river had been rising from its bed. It thrust into the air like a dreadful snake, the waters woven together into a long and sinuous body of black that rippled and sheened with all the dark strength that he had sensed in it before, when it had run noisy but obedient in its channel. Now it was striking out, rebelling, uprising with a will and a wickedness that reminded him forcefully of the Dead Waters when the djinni had been trapped within them
...

Except that he could still hear that same noisiness that it had in its obedience. And that noise was the rush of water on rock, the grinding of rock on rock within the water, just as it had been before; so no, this was not and could not be the river risen. Which made it a creature risen from the river, not snake-seeming but truly snake; and its snake-head stood as high as the arch of the bridge, and there was a figure on the bridge, a boy on a horse, not moving
...

Just where Jemel had left him, Marron sat trapped between impossibilities, the shards of broken oaths waiting to pierce him on either bank. He could go neither forward nor back, and so he had gone nowhere; but if he stayed where he was, then that snake was going to eat him. And there would be another oath broken, Jemel abandoned by another oath-breaking boy, Jazra had left him that way, dying when he had promised not to.

He would have turned to slay the Ransomer, stricdy in order not to see Marron dying on the bridge; but at that moment the great snake turned its shapeless head — more worm than snake, perhaps, some water-worm compounded of its own element by the way its body seemed to shimmer, to ripple and run - and he saw the dim glitter of red eyes buried deep.

'Ifrit,
he thought, he wanted to shriek,
‘’Ifrit’

’
Not snake or water-worm at all, no creature of the river but spirit-demon on its own malevolent course. These monsters had pursued his companions since the day he'd met the first of them, the girls; they had pursued singly and in battalions and they were pursuing still, and still Jemel had heard no one offer a convincing reason why.

Reasons didn't matter, though, right now. What mattered was Marron, stranded on the bridge without Jemel, without the Daughter, without defence.

Move, ride, run
...
‘
He ached to cry out, but he had no breath to do it; and he was too far from the bridge in any case, and Marron would never hear above the roaring of the water and perhaps the pounding of his own desperate blood, or else the screaming of his horse. Marron's blood was a great uncertainty, even without its former passenger; the horse Jemel thought he could rely on.

It did scream, he could see that and hear it too, thin and high enough to sound even above the tumult of the river, as the fighting failed all around him. Whether the 'ifrit heard, he couldn't tell. They seemed to live in silence, only death dragging any kind of noise from them; perhaps they had no sense of sound.

Eyes were enough. Those smoky, sunken lights glowed like irons in a fire, as hot and dry as the creature's native land. Whatever kind of view they gave it - and he couldn't believe that it saw the world as he did, in bright and varied colour; more like Marron's Daughter-tainted sight, perhaps, sharp-drawn but all in red, all hues of blood - that view still showed it everything that stood around, and what there was to kill.

Bent at the neck like a swan, like a hook, like a column of water forever falling and forever failing to fall, it turned its head towards the bridge and couldn't fail to see Marron sitting there like a victim, like a sacrifice, like a boy rapt by the prospect of his own death coming.

Marron wouldn't scream, any more than he would fight. Jemel would do both on his behalf — and had the blade to do the fighting with, ready blessed for the occasion, more use than Marron's precious Dard - but lacked the time to get there. And the mount: his stolen warhorse stood fixed beneath him, all four legs braced and trembling now that it had seen what stirred in the river.

The horses picketed beneath the bridge were in worse case, lathered with terror, rearing and plunging in their lines until they wrenched pegs from the ground or snapped the ropes that held them and went galloping blindly off into the haze.