Kings of the North - Elizabeth Moon [93]
Then Stammel’s voice: “I am the Blind Archer!”
The hair stood up on Arcolin’s body. “Holy Gird and Falk!” he muttered. Beside him, around him, others were muttering, too.
“You are one; we are many!” one of the horsemen yelled.
“I am the Blind Archer,” Stammel said again, releasing that bolt. The man who had yelled fell from his horse.
At the rear of the enemy, Arcolin could see a few men back away—not turning to run, but easing back from the others. One in the front rank leveled a crossbow at Stammel; Arcolin yelled—but the bolt missed Stammel by an arm’s length, and his return bolt dropped the man.
“Archers,” Stammel said, this time in his usual voice. “Volley fire.”
Suli pulled away from Arcolin’s grip and with the other archers stepped up on the parapet and on Arcolin’s count fired, some at the horsemen and some at the infantry. A few in each group went down. Return fire was ragged and ineffective, as Stammel—standing calmly alone and re-spanning his bow quickly between shots—hit one after another. Each time he called loudly, “I am the Blind Archer.” Arcolin called for volley after volley; the small group of horse on the far side, charging in as a distraction, could not get through the ditch and up the parapet. The less able at archery, those not formally in the archery group, had grabbed spare crossbows and picked off almost half the ten horsemen on that side as they tried to dismount and charge the barrier.
The enemy wavered, foot and horse both, and finally some charged forward while others turned away. The cohort sallied to meet those still coming, surrounding Stammel where he stood with a fixed smile on his face.
“Are they gone?”
“No. But they will be.” Those charging forward had not yet noticed that their formations were half the size they had been; a mere thirty crashed into almost three times that many Phelani, and in half a glass they were all dead.
“Stammel, what was that?” Arcolin asked, watching the others strip the brigands—or whoever they were—of weapons. More curved blades, some straight, crossbows, half a dozen Vonjan pikes with the Cortes Vonja mark stamped on the blade.
“Burek told me more of the legend, Captain,” Stammel said. Now that it was over, he wiped the sweat off his forehead. “You know that tavern in Fossnir, the Blind Archer?”
“Yes—”
“There’s another tavern named that, in Cortes Vonja, and one in Cortes Cilwan. All named for a story old as Torre’s Necklace. A man blinded by a usurper, for loyalty to the old king. He comes back, a beggar everyone thinks, and because he’s blind and harmless, the usurper has no fear of him—but he kills him, an arrow to the throat.”
“I didn’t know that,” Arcolin said.
“Nor I, Captain. But down here, many do, Burek said.”
“Did he tell you to stand out there?”
“Of course not,” Stammel said. “I just thought—what if I can scare some of them, and anyway …” He flushed a little. “Something came over me,” he said. “I felt—I felt it was right.”
“Well, it worked,” Arcolin said. “But the next time you don’t follow orders, Sergeant, I’m docking your pay.” He put a hand on Stammel’s shoulder and shook it. Under his hand, Stammel’s shoulder felt like oak: all that muscle regained, all that strength. “Dammit, man,” he said, fighting back tears. “I don’t want to lose you now.”
“I’m not lost, Captain,” Stammel said. “Not while I’m with the cohort.”
They moved on the next morning. Though they had killed more than half the attacking force, Arcolin was sure now the brigands outnumbered the cohort, and he was three days from easy communication with Cortes Vonja. The Blind Archer legend wouldn’t deter them all, or any for long.
Back on the west side of the forest belt, Arcolin considered how best to finish the season’s work. The maps he and Burek had made showed multiple trails in the forest and the tracks of old farm and village lanes where wagons might go. The Vonjans, if they had the will, could use those with their own militia, especially in the fall when the leaves fell, to locate and defeat the brigands. They had more forces