Hand of the King's Evil - Outremer 04 (68 page)

It was an absurdity, a madness: to fight and mend, to mend and fight again. But it was his own madness, a nonsense of war when war was a m
adness in itself. He ducked neatl
y under the flailing club-like claw of the nearest ghul, hesitated just a moment, and then struck hard and clean.

Dard bit, seemed indeed to leap forward in his hand in its eagerness to bite after a long fast. Bit deep, for blood and meat together: drove in beneath the swinging arm, high and rising into the massive creature's chest, so far that in a man the point must have erupted from neck or spine behind. In a man, it must have been a mortal blow. Marron gave the blade a twist to let the blood run freely, and still thought the ghul would survive. It might be fleshly made but it was spirit still, it could shape its body to its will; anything short of a death-blow he thought it could repair, in time.

A gush of hot blood drenched his hand, as though he'd tapped a barrel. It soaked the sleeve of his robe, stinking mightily. The ghul staggered before him, both hooked claws lifting in a way that seemed to disregard its own hurt, if it could only strike at him.

But its blood was flowing, and the one arm failed and fell back, too heavy for torn muscles and fading strength; the other had no speed to it, and Marron didn't even need to duck. He simply sidestepped watchfully and called back over his shoulder, 'Get you gone! Why do you linger?'

'Lack
of confidence,' Coren said quietly at his back, 'and rightl
y so, it seems. You could have killed that thing, and did not.'

'Hurt, dead, what difference to you if you're not here? Muster those men together, and leave this to me.'

'Some difference to you, perhaps, if I'm not here. But, Marron, look
...'

The ghul he had maimed was slumped against the wall now, sliding down it, leaving a dark wet streak where its sodden mats of hair rubbed against the white plasterwork. Solitary by nature and unnaturally driven by 'ifrit, stones in their tongues to impel obedience, the others should be trampling it, he thought, struggling to be swiftest to the slaughter.

Instead the second beast was crouched above its brother and impeding the one behind, blocking its way past the long kitchen tables. Marron should have used the moment, and did not; did nothing but gape in bewilderment, then snatched for a slow understanding as the one ghul raked a claw across the others throat, opening a wound that could bleed only in a dribble, as there had been so much blood lost already.

Or no, not that. It bled and then it did not bleed, so swiftly closing that only a dribble escaped. And the wound that Dard had made, wide and wet, that closed also; and the creature that had been so hurt rose up strong and fresh, gazing at him with the eyes of a maddened horse set in the skull of what might have been the dream of a maddened horseman. All the world was mad, Marron thought, if it allowed a monster to remake itself in a moment, by virtue of a second wound that should have killed it dead.

"They are not stupid, Marron,' Coren said at his back, above the whispers and soft cries of the wounded men. 'They may move more slowly than you do, they may even think more slowly — but they do think, and they are as wily as any man. And they know what they are, as well as we do.'

'Well, then
...'
Could he hurt them all, so badly that they could not hurt each other? It seemed unlikely. But he was still quicker, he could worry them, distract them, draw them to himself and so do well, do something good this day and have nothing to worry him at the end of it. 'Best take those men away swiftly, Coren.'

'I'll take you first, Marron. You matter more.'

To whom - his friends, Surayon, the Kingdom? 'Not any more. The Princip took what mattered from me,' and stowed it somewhere in the palace. He had no feeling for it, no sense of where it might lie.

'You could matter as a swordsman, if you chose.'

But he had made that choice already, and didn't mean to change it. Surely he had proved that by now, if it hadn't been proved long ago?

Being a swordsman in the only way he could, he didn't glance round even to glare at the King's Shadow. Didn't speak to him either, only stood with Dard raised and ready, watching the gap between the heavy tables, the only way the ghuls could come at him, one by one. He thought he could hurt them, one by one; they could heal each other, but only one by one. That must buy time enough for Coren to open his hidden gateway and escape with what little garrison was gathered here.

But,
they are not stupid, Marron —
and he had forgotten it again, not held it close to the forefront of his mind, not given the ghuls the same respect he'd give a human foe.

Two of them laid their brute clawed hands suddenly atop those refectory tables and vaulted over on long stiff arms. Scrubbed timbers creaked under an extreme and sudden load, the force of it; one snapped, late and uselessly. The ghuls had swung themselves half across the kitchen in one simple movement. Their hooves skittered on the flags of the floor; for a brief moment they looked likely to fall, and did not.

Stood now within a long arm's reach of the wounded men with their pitiful kitchen-weapons; and ghuls have long, long arms.

Pointl
ess for Coren to bellow, 'One stroke only - one stroke!'

Where one stroke of knife or cleaver could never kill, could barely cut tough hide; where the foe seemed barely to register the blow, even with a heavy blade buried deep in the flesh, wedged in the bone of its flailing arm; where dying seemed almost a duty, why worry whether you hurt or healed before you died, why not simply chop and chop?

They did that, those men, those doomed men. They chopped and hacked with a will, with that heedless energy born of utter despair; and - one by one as Marron had hoped to meet the ghuls, to prevent all this - they began to die.

He saw the first death, even while he was trying to watch everything that happened, everywhere. He saw the last of the ghuls - its rank hair glistening, still sodden with its own blood, that it seemed now not to miss at all - watching him, his sword, the movements of his head and hand; he saw Coren doing nothing, only standing back and watching as he was himself, that big blade wasted in an old man's hand who apparently had no strength to wield it; he still saw how the first man died under the ghuls' hand.

In a ghul's hands, rather. One great arm swung, a claw struck and clung hold; now the other could reach out and take a more leisurely grip.

One twisted, nut-knuckled hand circled the man's upper arm, the other his neck; there seemed no effort in it, as the ghul pulled its two hands apart.

The man had dropped his
little
knife, long since it seemed; now he arched his back and gave himself over entirely to screaming.

Screamed and did not stop, but was stopped rather: just as Marron was wishing the claws to grip tighter and choke back that cry, it was cut off. Not choked, not smothered; it did not dwindle, or break off into a sobbing, desperate gasp for air, it was simply gone, snapped like a string, and the room was emptier for lack of it and the man who made it.

It seemed quiet then, but not for long. The ghuls were among the men, and it seemed that there was only him to prevent a slaughter. They were too hurt, too poorly armed, unled; they needed Ransomer discipline - perhaps the first time he had missed that, or any aspect of it - and they did not have it. Coren could have, surely should have plunged forward to take command. A man who had authority over princes, and who had led in war before, how not? But Coren made no move, and Marron had a ghul of his own yet to face. To face again, to strike again: to kill or not to kill, as his hand or mind allowed.

He meant to maim it, as he had before; its companions were too busy now to heal it. But he was prevented, forestalled. The ghul's eyes that had been sheened with a cunning intelligence were suddenly dull, as though it had been cast into shadow. It had been shambling towards him with deadly intent; now it checked, swung its arms randomly as though it groped for what it
could not see, blundered directl
y into a pillar broader than itself and clung to it.

Marron spared a glance for Coren, who said nothing but, 'Swiftly, swiftly now
..

Marron was swift, and thinking even more swiftly than his f
eet could run. He ran not directl
y towards that reckless melee where men ducked and rolled, stabbed and gasped and died beneath the slashing blows of two demon-creatures that they could not kill. He ran instead towards the cooking-fire, where it lay smouldering beneath its turves, still hot enough to boil porridge and render mutton-fat. On the way he slammed Dard back into its scabbard and snatched up instead a bleached and age-worn timber from the ruins of the table.

Cold ashes grated beneath his boots; no one had swept the hearth today. The pot-boys were gone, fled or dead. Julianne had borrowed one last night, and brought only his body back. She had cried for him, he remembered, when she had not for Rudel, nor for a hundred other deaths.

Marron thrust the splintered end of the plank through the blanket of turves, deep into the glowing heart of the fire beneath. Left the other end jutting out like a spears haft and reached instead for the handle of the porridge-cauldron, where it hung from a pot-hook beneath the great manteltree.

Hot iron seared his palms. He hoisted the weight of it, cauldron and bubbling contents together, and felt it score through to the bone. It was only pain, though, and he could endure that almost with welcome, almost with contempt; what matter one more scar where he carried so many, one more hurt when he had known so much? This was a simple thing, a mindless thing, another trivial story written in his flesh.

He pivoted on his heel like a dancer, like the youths he used to watch at the fairs of his childhood as they wheeled their girls around. The cauldron spun at his arms' length, and barely a drop of the porridge spilled; wet though it was, it seemed to cling to the smooth inside surface of the pot as he whirled.

Once around, twice around while it rose higher, travelled faster, burned deeper into his hands; and then he let it go.

Felt it tear free of his flesh, and did not care. Watched it turn in the air, watched as it connected heavily with the monstrous skull of a ghul; saw the porridge flood out before the cauldron fell, a glistening grey coat flowing down over the creatures hair and hide.

It howled even while he went on turning, stooping back to the fire and seizing hold of another scalding handle, this time the pan that held the molten mutton-fat.

Liquid enough to run down over half the ghuls body and thick enough to cling, the porridge had made a grotesque capering fool of the creature. Half blind and terribly scalded, it danced its agony, moaned the song of it, entirely disregarding the small men who were falling back around it, gathering up their small weapons and waiting their moment to close in again.

One blow harms, the next heals—
but not now. Whether it was magic or simply mystery, that was a rule for clean strikes, for individual wounds. That ghul must have monstrous blisters swelling already beneath its monstrous hide; neither spell nor nature could count the harm it had taken now.

Or so he hoped, so he — almost — dared to expect. Let the men do their work, with whatever blades they had gleaned. No warnings this time except a hoarse cry, 'Way! Make way there
...'
as he plunged forward to hurl this second pan.

Not trusting to aim or luck a second time, he came close enough to smell the ravening ghul, the rank rancid fur of the beast and the taint of human blood that smeared it. By contrast, the dense odour of the mutton-fat was herb-sweet:
a perfume for the stinking
he
thought absurdly as he finally let the pot fly.

This time he screamed himself when the handle ripped out of his hands, taking more skin and flesh with it, but the ghul screamed louder. Marron didn't wait to see if this one also danced.

He went back to the fire, to retrieve his plank of splintered table-wood. It was cruelly rough and heavy to his seared hands, but that was a petty cruelty, it lacked malice and intent; he lacked neither as he drew out the smoking end and whirled it around his head to make it flame.

Whirled the brand and flung it, straight and true, so that its blazing made a spear's head of light that flew clean towards the ghul's heart.

And yes, it did know what was coming, and the noise it made was pure wordless terror. Too near to dodge, it tried to knock the brand aside. A neater creature with a quicker eye might have done that, but its own clumsiness was its betrayal. Its clawed hand met the flame, rather than the wood behind; its first tight, sharp little cry at the heat of it was lost in a soft, eruptive sound as the fire caught and gripped it, flowing up the length of its arm and so all over. Dags of hair drenched in hot oil made simple wicks; Marron had known it, and the ghul did too.

It had never seemed so human as now, when he could see only the dark shadow of its shape at the heart of a living pyre, when its agony made an animal of it, as it would have done with any man. Marron had seen boys burn at the Roq; now he saw a ghul burn in Surayon, and he could see little or no difference, except that this time he had set the flame himself.

A voice at his back said, 'Your sword would have been kinder.'