The Bristling Wood - Katharine Kerr [98]
“True enough, silver dagger.” He turned to his captain. “Have the men arm. One way or another, today sees the end of this.”
The gnome grabbed Rhodry’s hair and gave it a tug, then vanished.
The warband drew up behind the gates; watchmen climbed to the ramparts. As the waiting dragged on in the hot sun, the men ended up sitting down on the cobbles. No one spoke; every now and then someone would look Rhodry’s way with a puzzled frown, as if thinking they were daft to trust this silver dagger’s words. All at once, a watchman yelled with a whoop of joy.
“Horsemen coming out of the forest! I see the Wolf blazon! It’s Benoic, by the gods!”
Laughing, cheering, the men leapt to their feet. Nedd threw an arm around Rhodry’s shoulders and hugged him; half a dozen men slapped him on the back. At the tieryn’s order, two servants lifted down the latch beam at the gates and rushed to man the winches. From outside, the battle noise broke over them; men yelling, horns blowing, horses neighing in panic, and through it all was the strike of sword on shield and mail. Rhodry started to laugh, a little cold mutter under his breath; he felt so light on his feet that it seemed he hovered over the cobbles.
“Remember!” Nedd hissed. “We’re going after Naddryc.”
Although he nodded agreement, Rhodry went on laughing.
With a groan and creak the gates swung back. Screaming and jostling, the warband rushed out, just as when leaves and sticks dam a stream, which worries at them, nudges them, and at last breaks free in a churn of white water. Down the hill, the enemy camp was a screaming, shoving, bloody madness. Half of Naddryc’s men had had no time to arm; those wearing mail were trying to hold the breach in the earthworks against a full cavalry charge, and they were doing it with swords, not pikes. Horses went down; others screamed and reared; but for every horse lost, three or four of the enemy were trampled. All at once the cry went up: the sally to our rear! the sally to our rear! Rhodry’s laugh rose like a wail as the horsemen drove through. The defenders broke, swirling and running to face the new threat as Graemyn led his men downhill.
“There he is!” Nedd shrieked. “With the trimmed shield.”
A burly man with mail but no helm was racing across the battlefield in retreat, the silver edging on his shield winking in the sunlight. At an angle Rhodry went after him, his laugh gone as he thought only of running, and soon he’d left the wounded Nedd behind. Naddryc was slowing, panting, gasping for breath. Then he stumbled, and Rhodry dodged round to cut him off. For a moment they merely stared at each other, panting while they got their breath back, Naddryc’s mouth working under his blond mustache.
“So,” Rhodry said. “Here’s the man who was going to kill women and children.”
Then the cold, mad chuckle took over his voice. As he lunged, Naddryc dodged back, flinging up his sword and shield. He parried gracefully, his shield a little high to protect his bare head, and made a quick thrust that Rhodry easily turned aside. Suddenly light flared in a drift of black smoke; someone had fired the tents. Rhodry feinted in from the side, then struck; Naddryc parried barely in time, jumped back, and began to circle. As Rhodry swung to face him, the murk reached them, smoke, dust, thicker than a sea fog. They both checked, coughing for a moment, but the smell of burning drove Rhodry mad.
With a choking, gasping howl he charged, as wild as an injured lion, striking, parrying, cursing, and coughing while Naddryc desperately tried to fend him off, rarely getting in a blow of his own as he parried with both sword and shield. Yet even in his madness Rhodry saw that the lord was tiring. He feinted to the side again, dodged fast to the other, and then back as Naddryc tried to follow—too slowly. Rhodry’s blow caught him hard on the side of the neck. With a ghastly bubbling scream he fell to his knees, then buckled as his life’s blood pumped out the artery.
Rhodry’s berserker fit left him, dropped away