Kushiel's Scion - Jacqueline Carey [251]
They wore armor.
They carried short-swords. They planted the butts of their thrusting spears on the dusty cobblestones and slung their shields over their forearms.
"Oh, we are in a sodding world of trouble!" Gallus muttered.
Domenico Martelli was a solid man with a black hair and a fleshy face, deep lines inscribed on either side of his mouth. They deepened further as he smiled. "Prince of Lucca!" he rumbled, spreading his arms. Beneath his bridegrooms robes, a steel corselet glinted. "Father! Do you acknowledge your heir?"
Beside him, Helena kept her eyes downcast.
"I do not." Gaetano's voice was steady. "Valpetra, hear me. We are prepared to come to an accommodation. Do you cede your claim and leave in peace—"
That was as far as he got.
The Duke of Valpetra waved a casual hand. "Kill him," he said. "And take the gatehouse."
His escort didn't hesitate. A third, at the rear, peeled away to assail the gatehouse. Two-thirds of them simply settled their shields on their arms, lowered their spears, and charged.
"Archers!" Gallus roared. "Now!"
The air sang and hummed as flights of arrows passed overhead. I saw them find targets. I saw shields bristle with arrows. I saw armor pierced. I saw men wounded, and I saw some fall back and others press forward. Beneath me, the Bastard shifted restlessly, tossing his head.
His nostrils flared. I felt sick with fear. Beside me, Eamonn drew his sword.
"Again!" Gallus called, and another flight of arrows sang. For a moment, it kept the assault in the square at bay, but in the gatehouse there was shouting and fighting and the sound of gears grinding. The portcullis was rising, the drawbridge lowering. Someone was blowing a horn over and over. Beyond the walls, Valpetra's withdrawn army was advancing in a hurry. Two thousand men, less fifty, ready to assail the city.
The portcullis rose to half-mast and stopped. With a rattling clank, the drawbridge halted in its descent, hovered at an angle over the moat. I prayed, silently, that Gilot was all right. He couldn't hold a sword. He shouldn't be there.
Domenico Martelli's face darkened.
"Lucca!" he shouted. "Are you willing to watch your daughter die?"
He reached for her, catching her wrist. In his other hand, he held a naked blade. All around them, men were beginning to fight and die. Luccan guardsmen, mostly, were doing the dying. The only mercy was that the Valpetran spears were hampered at close quarters; but by the same token, our archers could no longer shoot for fear of hitting their own men. Gaetano Correggio had fallen to his knees, his hands outstretched. I watched Helena's chin rise. Her eyes blazed with despair and pride.
Gallus Tadius laughed.
I swore.
It was too much; too much. I had seen that look on the faces of too many women in the zenana; the ones who went to their death and knew it, clinging to whatever small scrap of pride was left to them. Lucca's dead might not be mine, but I had my own to answer to.
A high-pitched ringing filled my head, obscuring the din of battle. All I could hear was the horn sounding the alarm, over and over, and a single voice uttering a fierce, wordless battle-cry. Heads turned slowly, knots of unmounted fighters disengaging. So, so slow! I felt the Bastard quiver beneath me, haunches gathering. Elua, but he was a good horse! When I touched my heels to his flanks, he shot forward like an arrow from the bow.
All the fear was gone.
There was only fury, a fury so vast my body couldn't contain it. It felt as though flames surged from the top of my skull. We plunged into the melee, guards and soldiers scattering. I guided the Bastard with my thighs and he wove between them, his striped hooves beating a fierce tattoo on the paving-stones of Lucca.
No one touched us.
I didn't even remember drawing