The Blood Knight - J. Gregory Keyes [8]
Only a few kingsyards away, four archers continued to hold their ground behind the shields of six swordsmen. Together, the men formed a small fortress well situated to rain death on the only course Neil had any desire to follow—the track of the horsemen bearing Anne.
He decided to charge right at them, as suicidal as that might be. Anything else only delayed the inevitable.
Neil concentrated as he ran, feeling clumsy in his ill-fitting armor, longing for the beautiful set of lord’s plate Sir Fail had once given him, the armor that now rested at the bottom of the harbor of z’Espino, hundreds of leagues away.
The world seemed slow at times like this, and wondrous detailed. Geese trumpeted, distant and overhead. He smelled the resin of broken pine. One of the shieldmen had bright green eyes behind the burnished noseguard of his helm and a downy auburn mustache. His cheeks were red with the cold. His face was clenched in a determination that Neil had seen more than once behind the war board. On another day this young man might drink wine with his friends, dance with a girl, sing a song known only in the tiny hamlet of his birth.
On another day. But today he was ready to die if need be and take whoever he might with him to greet the ferry of Saint Jeroin.
And on the faces of his companions there was the same look.
Neil stumbled, saw a bow bend and the tip of an arrow come down, felt the line drawn through the air to his eye. He knew his shield had dropped too low, that he would never bring it back up in time.
Suddenly the archer dropped his weapon and reached awkwardly for the shaft that had appeared in his own forehead.
Neil couldn’t afford the time to turn and see who had saved his life. Instead, he crouched deeper behind his shield, measuring the last few yards, and then—howling again—flung himself at the shield wall, battering boss to boss with the green-eyed boy.
The fellow did what he ought to do and gave ground so that his fellow shieldmen could move up and put Neil inside the line, surrounding him.
But they didn’t know what Neil carried. The feysword he’d taken from the pieces of a man who could not die lashed through the air, leaving in its soughwake the faint scent of lightning. It cleaved the lifted shield that hovered before him, through the metal cap and skull beneath, through an emerald eye, exiting finally below the ear before twisting to shear through the ribs of the next closest man.
Along with his battle rage, Neil felt a sort of sick anger. There was nothing chivalrous about the use of such a weapon. To fight against overwhelming odds was one thing. To claim victory by shinecraft was another.
But duty and honor didn’t always go together, he had learned. And in this case, it was duty that swung the sword he had named Draug.
The simple fact was, feysword or not, this wasn’t a fight he was likely to win.
Someone grappled with him at his knees, coming at him from behind, and Neil cut down and back, only to find another armored body in the way. Draug bit deeply, but the pommel of a broadsword smacked hard into Neil’s helm, and he toppled into the snow. Another man wrapped around his arm, and he couldn’t swing the sword anymore.
The world flared entirely red as he struggled, waiting for the dagger that would inevitably work around his gorget or through his visor. He was suddenly and strangely reminded of sinking into the waves back in z’Espino, dragged down by his armor, his helplessness mingled with relief that his trials were finally over.
Except that this time there was no relief. Anne was out there, in danger, and he would burn the last tinder of his strength to prevent her coming to harm. To more harm. If she wasn’t already dead.
So he struck with the only weapon he had left, his head, butting it into the nearest panting face, and was rewarded with the cartilage crunch of a breaking nose. That was the fellow pinning his left arm, which he brought up now with all the strength of his battle rage, punching into the fellow’s throat. That sent him back.
Then something slammed