The Blood Knight - J. Gregory Keyes [184]
Stephen nodded and refolded his notes.
“Well,” he said, “I think I’ll try and get some sleep.”
“About that.” She sighed. “I may have to give you one more chance, you know.”
“What do you mean?”
“Because, as I said, it’s going to get awfully cold tonight.”
He opened his mouth to say something, but she closed it with a kiss that smelled pleasantly of barleywine. He kept his eyes open, wondering at how different a face looked from that close.
She nibbled around to his ear and down the side of his throat.
“I really don’t know much about women,” he apologized.
“So you said. Then it’s time you had a lesson, I think. I can’t give you the ultimate lesson; this time of month you might get me with child, and we don’t want that. But there’s no point in skipping to the back of the book, is there? I think some of the early chapters can be pretty entertaining.”
Stephen didn’t reply; anything he said was potentially the wrong thing.
Besides, he’d pretty much lost interest in talking.
IGNORING SIR LEAFTON’S protests, Anne hurried to the far end of the square, where the Craftsmen had been quickly building a redoubt, piling crates, planks, bricks, and stone between two buildings that together commanded most of the breadth between the two walls.
In the few bells they’d had, they’d done a creditable job, but it wasn’t good enough. As Anne watched, a wave of armored men eight deep crashed into it, about half of them wielding pikes to keep the Craftsmen back as men with sword and shield pushed forward. Already they were spilling over the top. That quickly, Anne saw her plans crumbling.
It would be only seconds before their line was breached.
“Saints,” Austra shrieked, echoing Anne’s sentiments as one of her men fell, a spear driven through his mouth lapping out the back of his head like a monster’s tongue.
“Archers!” Leafton bellowed, and suddenly a black hail fell from the roofs and upper windows of the buildings. The charge faltered as shields raised to ward off fletchéd death, and the Craftsmen’s line closed solid and surged back to the wall.
Anne experienced a brief flash of hope, but they were still terribly outnumbered. Should she go now, while she had the chance? Take Austra and Cazio into the tunnels? At least she would avoid capture, and Artwair’s hands wouldn’t be tied by threats to her life.
But the thought of leaving her men to die was intolerable.
The attackers re-formed their ranks and battered at the wall again. Many fell, but they kept pushing.
“Majesty,” Leafton said, “I beg you. Move away from here. They will break through at any moment.”
Anne shook his arm off and closed her eyes, feeling the ringing of steel and hoarse cries of pain vibrate through her, reaching through it and beneath her for the power she needed to boil blood and marrow. If she could summon the same sort of power she had had at Khrwbh Khrwkh, she might be able to turn the tide or at least give her men respite.
But at Khrwbh Khrwkh there had been something potent in the earth, a pocket of sickness she had been able to draw to the surface, like pus in a boil. Here she sensed something similar, but it was more distant and more subtle, and lurking behind it she could feel the demon, waiting for her to open the way. Thus, a part of her faltered.
But a sudden new tenor entered the sounds of fray, and she opened her eyes to see what had happened.
Her heart fell when she saw that the attackers had been reinforced and were now nearly double their number, or so she thought at first.
Then she realized that wasn’t the case at all; the newcomers weren’t armored, at least not most of them. They wore guild clothing and jessy, woolen plaid and workman’s flenne. They carried clubs and pitchforks, fishing spears, hunting bows, knives, and even a few swords, and they were cutting into her attackers from the rear.
The Craftsmen all sang out at once and went slashing over the wall. Blood ran like rainwater down the streets of Gobelin Court.