Sword of the Bright Lady (36 page)

Karl was stalking Bart, but the black knight ignored him, pursuing his real foe. He let his horse battle Karl to a standstill.

Before he had time to think about it, Christopher sprung on a knight extricating himself from the grasp of several saplings. He lunged and thrusted, trusting to the tael to guide it between the chinks in the armor. The knight cried out and lashed back with his own sword. But he had dropped his shield, so Christopher ignored the weak blow that skittered off his mail and chopped savagely against the knight's neck. The enchanted blade sank into the meat, came out red and dripping. The knight fell and Christopher turned away, ignoring the unreality of it all, the terrible feeling of having cut into living flesh, and sought out the real enemy.

The black knight had won free of the area where the plants were active. He drove Cannan before him like a calf to the slaughter, back out to the open road where the warhorse could ride him down. From the road came two more horsemen, and Cannan was trapped as they plunged through the woods at him, but he was not their target. The unknown riders flew past the beleaguered knight and crashed into Black Bart.

One rider was armored in blue half-plate, with a sword as large as Bart's but glowing like a cobalt torch. His warhorse eagerly challenged Bart's coal-black mount. The men whaled on each other in the peculiar offensive style of this world, ignoring blows that would have felled an ordinary man. Bart seemed to be dominating, but now Cannan was back into the fray, stabbing up from the ground. The second rider hung back, the smaller horse unwilling to join the clash of hooves, but the rider stood in the saddle doing something unusual. Christopher realized she was aiming a crossbow only when he saw the bolt sprout from Bart's shoulder.

He had not recognized her with a weapon in her hand. Lalania the troubadour, making a grand entrance. As usual.

“Cannan! Save the boys!” Christopher cried.

The knight glared angrily but did not hesitate. He sprinted back to the line, threw himself bodily into the black knot of armored warriors. Their swords rattled on him like sticks on a broken drum, but his blade flew in bright-red arcs as they fell around him.

Christopher ran forward, feeling small in the midst of the huge horses and iron-clad men. Unnoticed, he stabbed at the seam in Bart's armor where the leg joined the hip. A weak strike, but the sword flashed brightly and the black knight shrieked in pain. Bart urged his horse forward, as if in a panic.

The warhorse plunged out of Christopher's reach, so he chased after it. It reared on its front legs and kicked him squarely in the chest with two hooves. His tael absorbed the blow like a spring, transforming organ-crushing force into merely broken ribs, but nothing could dampen the kinetic energy, and he flew twenty feet through the air until he crashed into the trunk of a tree, which immediately wrapped its branches around him and held him tight.

It didn't matter; the battle was decided. The horses screaming against the unnatural ground that pulled at them, the groans of men, the clash of metal carried on, but the fight was done. Bart had forced the stranger's horse into the circle of grasping shrubbery, and now his own black mount gathered itself for escape. Nothing could check his flight, but Niona appeared, singing in a high, beautiful voice. The black warhorse slowed, stopped, turned its head and stared at her, entranced. Bart raged on top of it, lashing out, striking it with his fists and feet, but it ignored him and did not move. The strange knight freed his horse and charged, his long blade held out like a lance, aimed at the rider. Bart snarled in fury, but his men were down, his horse was paralyzed, and his foes advanced upon him. He looked away, to where freedom lay, and then . . . was simply gone.

His saddle was empty, the blue-clad knight's sword passing through still air. Niona sang a different song, soothing and calm, and the panicked horses began to quiet and still, while the blue knight galloped around the circle of writhing shrubbery, looking in vain for the vanished foe. Lalania advanced carefully to the edge of the circle, took leisurely aim at a knight trapped in the trees, and shot him in the throat. He twitched once, twice, and then the tree, no longer sensing life, dropped the corpse to the ground in a heap.

Then all the plants relaxed, returning to their normal placid torpor. Christopher fell forward and whimpered with the effort of drawing breath. He had to ignore the pain. He was not going to die, but some of the boys might.

He managed to stand, but every step constricted his shattered chest like a vise. Never mind the way his sight faded with every flash of agony; he simply couldn't breathe. With hand signals he waved to two of his boys, who carried him between them like a mannequin.

“Show me the worst,” he whispered. They brought him to a corpse, mangled and still. Morbidly curious, he rolled the body over. It was Kennet.

Three more boys were unmoving, one from shock, but the other two were dying. Being a priest of the Bright had its advantages. Although his last remaining spell for the day was the fear-inducing one that had claimed his first casualty in this world, he was able to transform it into a healing spell, and bound up the wound of the boy before him.

“Niona,” he tried to cry out, but she was already there. She bent over the other critical case and cast her spell. The boy opened his eyes and blinked.

“I am down to orisons,” she told Christopher. He saw her costume was cut, and there was blood on it.

“Me too,” he choked, coughing up blood into his hand. He looked at his reddened hand with horror.

Niona reacted more practically, touching his chest and casting a spell. The pain faded, only flaring when he tried to walk.

“You cannot heal them if you are dead,” she said, the nicest possible way of chiding him for his stupidity. Together they scanned over the remaining boys, spending their magic to stop the worst of the bleeding. The rest would have to depend on mundane bandages.

Lalania helped, binding open wounds and in one case setting a broken arm. The boy sobbed in pain but did not scream, and she rewarded his bravery with a kiss.

The blue knight cantered up, but not empty-handed. He dumped a whimpering yellow-clad figure on the ground. Christopher recognized the ugly little man as Bart's priest.

“I caught this rat sneaking away, though I could not find even a trail of his master. But I dared not search too far afield.” The blue knight's voice was strong but not hard.

Cannan stood guard, glaring at the knight on general principle.

“Who are you?” he demanded.

“May I present the Baronet Gregor,” Lalania said, “late of Tomestaad. More recently, late of Goodman Parno's wretched little inn.”

“We've been shadowing you for days,” Gregor said. “But only this morning did we catch wind of Bart. We came to warn you, but you had already departed. We chased after you and found ourselves chasing Bart. And now he's given us the slip.”

“Not without a few tail-feathers,” Cannan said with satisfaction, glancing around at the corpses. “But what's this mewling putrescence?” He kicked the yellow priest lying on the ground.

“A loose end to be tied up,” Gregor said as he dismounted.

Niona spoke to her kittenhawk, and it took to the air. “Bartholomew stands alone, and we have gained his mounts. If we have good and capable horsemen, we might still give pursuit. We should not let this predator escape to kill again.” Christopher was a little unnerved by her manner. He knew she was right, but he couldn't shake the image of her cutting the knight's throat.

“Agreed,” Gregor said. “Will your pet find him?”

“If he is near, yes. I do not know what magic he used or how far he traveled.”

Gregor looked to the troubadour, who shrugged unhappily. “My spell-craft is certainly no better than the Lady Niona's. All I can tell you is it was a device of some kind.”

“Perhaps this can tell us something,” Cannan said, looking at the yellow priest Gregor had hauled to his feet.

“I know nothing!” the priest whimpered. “I only follow orders. The Lord Baron tells me nothing.”

“I know a question you can answer for me,” Gregor said with a dangerous ease. “How many children did you murder last year?”

Christopher started to object to this slanderous accusation, but the man was already confessing.

“On Lord Bartholomew's orders!” the priest squealed. “He demands the secret rites, and I must obey.”

“Then perhaps you can tell me this. Did you rape them before or after you killed them?” The blue knight casually drew his dagger with his right hand, while his powerful left kept its iron grip on the little man's throat.

“You cannot hold me to account for my religious duties!” the priest squeaked in wide-eyed terror.

“Just watch me.” Gregor ripped open the front of the priest's robes. Underneath the stained and tired yellow were more robes, as black as night.

“I beg the justice of the Church,” the priest choked out, futilely struggling against the vise.

“We are on Church lands,” Karl said softly.

“Shouldn't he get a trial?” Christopher asked uncomfortably.

Lalania's pretty face was twisted. “He'd be set free. Your Church does not prosecute priests of other faiths. It does not dare warfare.”

“Exactly!” the priest squeaked like a yellow-headed blackbird under the cat's paw. “You must respect your Church law.”

“I object,” Christopher said to the blue knight. “I formally demand that you surrender this prisoner to the nearest officer of the Church.”

“Dark take you,” Gregor replied with a fake smile, like he was saying, “Have a nice day.” But the phrase was the local equivalent of the F-bomb. It didn't get any ruder than that.

“Hmm,” Christopher said to the priest. “It appears that the weakness that prevents the Church from prosecuting you is the very same weakness that prevents it from protecting you. Apparently I cannot punish or prevent your crimes, any more than I can punish or prevent Ser Gregor's.”

Despite his anger, the blue knight grinned at the sophistry, and Cannan laughed out loud. If the women had reservations, they kept them to themselves.

With grim exactitude, Gregor drug his dagger up the priest's exposed belly, and then across, in a grotesque cross. Blood and guts spilled out, long, gray, slimy loops splashed in red, as the man fell to the ground, grasping in futile agony at his internal organs. Christopher's head spun, and his knees went weak at the sight, but no one else, save the boys, seemed to be particularly affected.

The priest squealed and bled on the ground while Gregor watched him with bleak satisfaction. Cannan was amused, Niona indifferent, Lalania disgusted but not unapproving. Only Christopher found anything wrong with the sight.

“End it,” he grated.

“It's exactly what he does to the children,” Gregor said. “Well, minus the raping part, but I'm not interested in that. Help yourself, if you are.”

Christopher could feel his blood rising and pounding in his temples. He glared at the blue knight so fiercely that Lalania intervened.

“This is no less than he deserves.”

“I. Don't. Care.” Christopher could not prevent their revenge, but he did not have to tolerate wanton cruelty.

With a sigh that might have been resignation, or possibly even relief, the blue knight put his armored boot on the back of the priest's neck. He reached down with his hand, caught the man's greasy black hair, and cranked, snapping the neck like a twig. The body convulsed and then lay still.

Cannan was looking around appraisingly. “There's too many to harvest,” he said. “We'll have to boil them.” He bent over the dead priest, and without further ado twisted the head off the corpse.

Christopher was going to object, but he fainted instead.

He was out for mere seconds, but the ground was comfortable, so he stayed there while the troubadour knelt over him.

“You are the most puzzling enigma,” she said with an ambiguous smile. “You fight like a swordsman, talk like a priest, and flutter like a virgin on her fourteenth birthday. You know things esoteric even to me, yet toddlers confound you with their wisdom. We troubadours cannot resist puzzles. I would think you tease me purposefully, but I know better now. So instead I am confused, and frustrated.” She ran her hand down his chest, lightly, but not lightly enough.

“Ow,” he said. “Ribs. Broken. Ow.”

“Stupid chain mail,” she grumbled.

“He can't fight like that,” Gregor said, leading two horses over to them. “Leave him. The druid's pet has not returned. We must scout a wider circuit.”

Christopher raised his head enough to see that Karl was mounting a steed from Black Bart's retinue. Cannan was still making sickening noises around corpses, filling up a sack with disgusting bulges, but then he was done and leaping into a saddle.

“I can ride,” Christopher forced himself to say. It was just pain. His tael would not let him bleed to death, at least not from this injury.