The Red Knight

Peter could scarcely breathe. The lightning nightmare of the close fight with the red-haired man had taken all his breath, all his energy, all his courage. He wanted to lie down and go to sleep.

The wound in his leg ached, and worried how deep it went.

Ota Qwan went bounding forward as the mail-clad men sounded a horn.

Peter forced himself to follow the black-painted man. As he looked back, he saw Skahas Gaho and Brant rise from the grass as well.

They were following him, and there were ten more with them. They loped after him, and he ran as hard as he could after Ota Qwan.

To the right, the enemy shocked all of them by charging – not a handful of them, but a solid wedge, which ran right for the centre of their line.

Peter was so far to the right that the end man of the wedge wasn’t even close enough to fight – the wedge ran by him in him moment of indecision and then there were cries deeper in the woods.

Ota Qwan continued to run forward. Peter didn’t think he’d even seen the enemy charge, but he followed.

Skahas Gaho stooped and scalped the red-haired man.

Otter Creek Valley, East of Albinkirk – Hector

Hector was fresh and unblooded, and the first clump of Outwallers died on his sword point and edge as fast as he could roar his war-cry three times, and then they were down and his wedge was alone in the woodlands.

The essence of warfare is to force the pace and hope your enemy makes a mistake. That was his father’s law of war, and his own. So he didn’t stop and form a shieldwall.

‘Follow me!’ he roared, and continued on.

On, and on.

The Outwallers were faster but not fitter than the drovers, and tricks of terrain and bad luck – pulled muscles, wounds – left them at the mercy of the hard-faced armoured men, and their mercy had nothing of mercy in it. A dozen Outwallers died in a hundred paces.

Hector ran on, his sides heaving and his legs burning. Running any distance in mail was an effort.

Running five hundred paces was more than an effort. It was like a test.

Most of his men stayed with him. Those few who paused, died.

The Outwallers fled, but even in panicked flight they ran like a flock of swallows or a school of fish, and those ones unthreatened by the charge recovered first, and arrows started to lick through the trees.

‘Keep going!’ Hector cried, and his men gave him everything they had.

An Outlander boy tripped over a root and fell, and Ranald beheaded him with a flick of his wrists.

On and on.

And then Hector had to stop. He leaned on the hilt of his great sword, and his sides heaved.

Ranald put a hand on his armoured elbow. ‘Water,’ he said.

The length of a barn away they found young Clip, the farmer from the Inn, pinned under his dead horse with his throat slit. A bowshot farther on they came to the ford that they would have crossed. Outwaller arrows had begun to fill the air again, and Hector had perhaps thirty men left when he crossed the ford and won a respite. His men drank water, spread out in the trees, and caught their breaths. Those that had shafts left, or who had pulled them from the ground, began to pick their targets carefully – and it began again.

Ranald scratched his beard. He’d taken an arrow in the chest – it hadn’t penetrated his fine mail, but it had cracked a rib, and breathing was hard. ‘That was worth a song, that run,’ he said.

Hector nodded. ‘It’s noon and we’ve led them back a mile, anyway. When they come at us across the stream – well, Donald’s away.’ Hector shrugged. ‘If I’d kept all the boys together, would we have beaten them?’

Ranald spat some blood. ‘Nah. They’re too canny, and we didn’t kill nearly enough of ’em. Hector Lachlan, it’s been a pleasure and an honour knowing you, eh?’ Ranald held out his hand, and Hector took it. ‘Don’t fash yourself, man – I reckon there’s five hundred of the loons out in the woods. This way, if you put a boy in that lass – well, he’s got a fortune and fifty good men to start him off.’

Hector shook his head. ‘Sorry I am I brought you here, cousin.’

Ranald shrugged, despite fatigue and the weight of his chain mail. ‘I’m honoured to die with you.’ He smiled at the sunlit sky. ‘I’m sorry for a certain lass I love, but this is a good way to die.’

Lachlan looked up at the sun. Arrows were flying thickly, and a few were starting to come from their own side of the stream – the savages had found a crossing too.

Despite it all the sky was blue, the sun was warm and golden, and the flowers of the forest were beautiful. He laughed, and held his sword in the air. ‘Let us make a song!’ he roared.

Otter Creek Valley, East of Albinkirk – Peter

Peter followed Ota Qwan until his lungs were starved for air, and then he slowed. The black-painted man slowed, too, as if they were attached by a string. They had reached an open field, and there was a small herd of cattle, every head facing them – a single horse, and dozens of sheep.

And no men.