The Born Queen - J. Gregory Keyes [176]
Aspar nodded. “That’s what I see.”
“I don’t see your three friends.”
“No.”
“Always the conversationalist,” Fend said. “Well, let’s get this over with.”
“We’re not in a hurry,” Aspar said. “You just pointed out that Winna isn’t here yet. Why should we charge down to their defended positions?”
“You have a plan, then?”
“What happened to your basil-nix?”
“They’re really quite fragile creatures once you get past their gaze. That’s why I used it from a distance. Harriot’s troops figured out what it was and poured arrows on it.”
Aspar nodded.
“Was that your plan, to use the nix?”
“If we had it, sure.”
“What now, then?”
For answer, Aspar studied the distance and the play of the almost nonexistent breeze on the grass. Then he set a shaft to string and let it loose.
One of the churchmen pitched back, grasping at the arrow in his throat.
“Buggering saints!” Fend swore. “You’ve still got the eye, Aspar.”
“Now there are sixteen,” he said as the men below scrambled for cover behind the crude barriers they had erected.
“When they get tired of this,” Aspar said, “they’ll come up after us, fight on our ground. If Winna shows up before we’re finished, we can always make your mad charge.”
“We can’t take too long. The beasts will get hungry.”
“Send one or two down to hunt when it gets dark.”
“I like the way your mind works, Aspar,” Fend said.
We’ll soon change that, Aspar thought.
Fend sent an utin down that night. It didn’t come back, but the next morning Aspar counted two fewer men below. The Mamres monks were all still there, though, so it wasn’t as good a trade as might have been hoped for. Aspar watched through the day from the cover of the trees, looking for another opportunity to skewer someone, but the knight was being very cautious now.
Toward sundown, he felt it all starting to catch up with him and found himself almost dozing, his eyes unwilling to keep open.
He’d just closed them for a moment when he felt an odd turning. He looked down to see what was going on and realized that two of the Mamres monks and three mounted men were racing across the field toward the other entrance to the valley.
“They’re here!” Aspar shouted. He stood, took aim, and let go. One of the horsemen pitched off.
Something went streaking by him. He saw it was Fend on the wairwulf. The remaining utin loped along behind him.
Aspar fired again, missing a Mamres monk, but his third arrow found its mark in the man’s leg, and he went rolling down. He had one more shot before they were out of range, and that hit another horseman.
Grim, let Fend and his be enough, he thought. But Winna had Leshya and Ehawk, too.
The other nine men were charging up the hill. Seven knights and two Mamres monks against him, the Vaix, and a greffyn.
Aspar gritted his teeth and drew the cord, wishing he had more than five arrows left. But if wishes weighed anything, he’d have a heavy pack right now.
The first one hit a knight and skipped off his armor, but the second one punched right through his breastplate, and now they were eight.
From the corner of his eye he saw the greffyn bounding down the hill. Three of the knights turned their lances against it. The Mamres monks came on, dodging his next two arrows, but then the strange Sefry met them with his glistering feysword, and things went too quickly for him to follow even if he had had time to, which he didn’t, because three armored mounted men were coming up on him fast.
Aspar shot his last arrow from four kingsyards away at the knight on his far left, and it went through the fellow’s armor as if it were cambric. He dropped his spear and slumped forward, and Aspar let fall the bow and ran as hard and fast as he could, putting the now masterless horse between himself and the other two mounted men. He grasped the spear as one of his pursuers dropped his lance, drew sword, and wheeled to meet the holter.
Aspar caught him in midturn, ramming the sharp point into the armpit joint. The fellow hollered and went windmilling off his horse. The other fellow had ridden out a little farther and