The Born Queen - J. Gregory Keyes [141]
He speared at the axman’s face, but the fellow lifted his shield, turned his blade with it, and stepped in with a hard cut. Cazio jerked his blade to parry in a high prismo, with his hand above his head and the blade slanting from right to left across his body. It met the ax just below the hilt, deflecting it a fingers-breadth from hitting him.
With his point down and standing belly to shield with the other man, Cazio did the only thing he could think of: He sprang straight up, tilting his hand out so that the earth-pointing blade came down on the other side of the enemy’s shield and stabbed him in the neck just above the breastbone. Encountering no bone, Acredo slipped right down into the man’s lungs.
When Cazio’s feet hit the ground again, his legs wouldn’t hear of standing, so he went on down while the axman stumbled off, trying for a little while to pull Acredo back out of his body before fetching against a tree.
That left the archer, who was advancing cautiously toward him. Desperately, Cazio began crawling for cover, glancing back often. The man looked grim now and stepped up his pace. Cazio wondered if the axman had been his friend.
But then the fellow sat down hard and dropped his bow. Cazio saw that he had an arrow in his belly.
“Ah, sceat,” he heard the man say. “I knew it.” He sat that way for a moment and then used his bow to push himself to his feet. He looked around, then cast another glance at Cazio.
“Sceat on this,” he said, and began hobbling off into the woods.
“Good luck,” Cazio called after him.
“Fooce-thu, coonten,” the man called back.
“Right,” Cazio breathed, trying to stand. It was absolutely astonishing how much blood was on him. Should he try to get the arrow out?
He took hold of it, the sun exploded, and the next thing he knew, someone was looking down at him. He hoped it was a friend.
“This is going to hurt,” z’Acatto said later that evening.
“You’ve never lied to me before,” Cazio said sarcastically. “I—” But he forgot whatever he meant to say as his vision went white with pain and his capacity for speech was reduced to a series of ragged gasps.
“Told you,” the old man said.
“Yes,” was the cleverest response Cazio could manage.
“You’ll be fine if the fever doesn’t get you.”
“What a relief,” Cazio replied, wiping tears of pain from his eyes with his good hand.
A glance at Austra’s concerned face, and he felt suddenly a bit ashamed. He’d only had an arrow in the meat of his arm. What had been done to her was far worse.
He drank something z’Acatto handed him. It tasted like fire stirred with the sweat of a drunk.
He took another drink, and as z’Acatto plugged and bandaged the wound, he got the broad strokes of what had happened. Shortly put, they had won. The hedgehog had held back the attackers so that the archers could keep putting arrows in them.
“Then the Cassro orders us forward,” Jan told him. “Against what’s left of the horse. At first they can’t believe it; they reckon we’re a defensive formation. But we advance with pike a step at a time, braced together like old times, and they got their infantry behind ’em. Even charging they couldn’t break us, and now we’re startin’ to tickle ’em with our pikes, and they’ve no room to charge. Before you can say Jaq Long-wick, they turn and cut their way through their own infantry.”
He jerked his chin toward the swordmaster. “That’s a man who knows a thing or two about fighting,” Jan said.
“I’m sorry I missed it,” Cazio said.
“Ah, you did your part. Here, have another drink with me.”
“Pleased to,” Cazio said.
“One more,” Austra said from behind him. “Then he’s mine, boys. The sun’s going down.”
They’d set up a tent for her, and once inside, he took her gently by the shoulders and kissed her. She had alcohol on her breath, too, and her eyes were troubled, showing more need than desire.
He pulled her closer, and need suddenly was replaced by what looked like panic. He felt her go rigid and released his grip.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“No need for that,” he replied, stroking her head.