The Charnel Prince - J. Gregory Keyes [203]
“Leshya, take the left one,” he grunted.
“Yes,” she said.
Aspar took careful aim and fired again, but the monk spun aside without stopping, and the dart just grazed him along the arm. He was closing the distance so swiftly, Aspar figured he had only one more shot coming.
He released it at five yards, and still the man nearly dodged it. It hit him in the belly and he grunted as he took a wild, unbalanced swing at Aspar with his sword. Aspar wheeled Ogre and avoided the blow, then spurred the beast to give him distance to shoot again, but the monk kept coming, much too quickly, leaping through the air. Aspar managed to deflect the sword with his bow. But the force of his antagonist’s leap knocked him out of the saddle.
Aspar managed to untangle himself from the monk and kick clear to draw his dirk, but even as he regained his feet he found the sword slashing toward him, a bit slower than Aspar was used to from the warrior-priests, whether due to the belly wound or whatever had gone on just before their arrival, he could not say. He managed to duck the blow and step in, grabbing the swordsman’s wrist and slashing viciously at his inner thigh with the dirk. A spray of blood hit him in the face, and he knew he’d got the knife where he wanted it.
The monk didn’t know he was dead yet, though. He grabbed Aspar by the hair and kneed him in the face, and as the holter fell back in sudden agony, closed his hands around his throat and began to squeeze. Aspar stabbed the dirk into his ribs and twisted it, but he felt something cracking in his throat, and black stars blotted out the mad green eyes glowering down at him.
Then the strength went out of the man’s fingers and blood poured from his mouth, and Aspar was able to push him off.
Just in time to see another of the fratirs, only a yard away, sword raised for the kill.
The nauschalk came at Neil, and it was all he could do to evade the blows. Fighting in plate armor was less a contest of sword-skill than it was about who had the best armor. Fully armored knights didn’t really parry; they just took blows and gave them. But in this case, Neil knew from experience that even the superior armor he’d worn in z’Espino was no match for the glistering feysword. And though Neil had spent most of his fighting life in mail or leather hauberk—and thus knew full well how to parry—he didn’t really dare do that, either, not when each blow against his weapon of mere steel left it diminished.
He had to keep the battle rage at bay and think, watch for one more good chance before he was exhausted.
The knight cried out and drove forward, just as Neil realized he’d been backed up to the mound. He stumbled, and almost lazily saw the radiant weapon descending toward him—then suddenly he knew exactly what to do.
He lifted his own blade in high, direct parry, taking the entire brunt of the blow on the edge, rather than on the flat, where a parry ought to be made. The force of the cut slammed his weapon down onto his shoulder, and then the feysword sheared through Cuenslec and into his byrnie.
Ignoring the shattering pain, he released his sword and caught the nauschalk’s weapon hand with both of his, spun so that he had the arm turned over his shoulder, and snapped it down. The articulated harness kept the arm from breaking, but the sword fell glimmering to earth.
The knight punched Neil in the kidney, and he felt the blow through the chain, but he gritted his teeth, kicked back into the nauschalk’s knee for leverage, and threw him heavily to earth. Then, before taking another breath, he grasped the hilt of the feysword, lifted it, and plunged it into the cut he’d already made at his foe’s shoulder. The nauschalk shrieked, a wholly inhuman sound.
Gasping, Neil raised the blade once more and in one fierce stroke cut off the head.
An arrow swifted by Stephen’s face as he reached the unconscious princess, but he ignored it, grimly trusting that Aspar and Leshya could keep any attackers off them until they’d gotten her to safety. Not for the first time, he wished he had more