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By Root 1226 0

drawn. His visor was closed, he held his sword two-handed, and somehow the dust and half-light made him look like some enormous earth-giant come from nightmare’s bowels. His plate armor was coated in chalk and earth, and Hook stared, petrified by the unnatural vision, but then the man bellowed and that sound startled Hook to reality just as the man-at-arms lunged the sword at his belly. Hook twisted to one side and rammed the poleax straight at the steel-shrouded face. The spear point slid off the pig-snouted visor, but the top edge of the heavy hammer cracked into the helmet, crushing the metal. Hook had used all his archer’s strength in that blow and the earth-giant reeled backward, blood welling from his visor’s holes, and Hook remembered all those lessons in Sir John’s meadows and closed on the man fast, getting inside the sword’s reach so the enemy could not swing the blade, and he rammed the poleax like a quarterstaff, driving the man down onto the floor. Hook had no room to swing the poleax, but strength made up for that and he slammed the ax blade onto the man’s sword elbow, breaking it, then slid the spear point into the gap between the enemy’s helmet and breastplate. The Frenchman wore an aventail, a mail hood, to protect that gap, but the steel spike ripped easily through the links and gouged into the man’s throat, and then more men were coming toward Hook as the earth-giant, shrunken to normal size now, writhed on the mine floor where his blood spilled into the chalk, black draining into white.

The men coming up the tunnel were fighting each other. Hook dragged the blade free of the dying earth-giant and rammed the spear point at a man in a strange surcoat. The blade glanced off plate armor, ripping the coat and the man turned, beast-faced visor pointing at Hook, and brought his sword around, but it caught on one of the mine’s timber supports and Hook lunged again with the poleax, this time hooking the ax blade around the man’s ankle and then pulling hard so that the Frenchman lost his balance. A Welsh miner staggered toward Hook, guts spilling from an opened belly. Hook shouldered him aside and pushed the spear point under the fallen man’s breastplate, the gap just visible through the torn linen. He pushed and twisted the long haft, trying to drive the blade up into the man’s stomach and chest, but something blocked the blade, and then another rush of men pushed him backward. They were Lord Slayton’s men, retreating from the French, though a handful of the enemy was among them. Men wrestled in the dark, tripped over the dead and the dying, and slipped in sewage. Two men-at-arms forced Hook back against the side of the tunnel and he again thrust the poleax like a quarterstaff, two-handed, but a rush of men pushed his enemies aside as archers and miners fled to the sow.

“Hold them!” Sir Edward’s voice bellowed from farther down the mine.

The barrels. Hook, momentarily free of enemies, turned and ran toward the mine entrance. He made it to where the shaft sloped gently up toward the surface, but there a foot tripped him and he sprawled heavily onto the chalk. He twisted aside and tried to climb to his feet, but a boot kicked him in the belly. Hook twisted again to see Tom and Robert Perrill standing over him.

“Quick,” Tom Perrill shouted at his brother.

Robert lifted a sword, point downward, aimed at Hook’s throat.

“I’ll have your woman,” Tom Perrill said, though Hook could scarcely hear him over the shouts and screams echoing up the tunnel. More shouts sounded from the sow where attackers fought a bitter sudden battle against startled defenders. Then Robert Perrill’s sword came down and Hook rolled again, throwing himself against his enemies’ feet and he heaved up so that Robert Perrill tumbled against the far wall and the poleax was still in Hook’s hand as he scrambled to his feet and turned on Thomas Perrill, who simply ran away.

“Coward!” Hook shouted, and looked down to Robert who was flailing the sword uselessly and screaming, screaming, and Hook suddenly understood why. The earth was quivering as