The Red Knight

The captain looked a little longer. ‘Catching their ambush between two hammers,’ he said. ‘Yes.’ He turned to his valet. ‘Sound – single rank, full interval.’

Lissen Carak – Peter

Ota Qwan was on his knees in the high grass. The enemy – a small party of knights in highly polished armour – had hesitated at the edge of the Trench of Fire, as the Sossag called it now, though it was black and cold in the sun.

‘That lordling knows his business,’ Ota Qwan said. ‘I don’t know him – lacs d’amour? Whose banner is that?’ He spat. ‘He’s spreading his knights.’

‘So?’ Nika Qwan asked.

‘So in a tight bunch, his men kill a few unlucky warriors and we massacre them from all sides. In a long line, every one of them kills a warrior – or maybe five. It is a lucky warrior who gets an arrow into one of them.’

The knights began to come forward in the strong light, and the blue sky was mirrored in their harness. They looked like monsters from the Aether – like mythical beasts. The overhead sun sparkled from their harness and stung men’s eyes.

Skahas Gaho appeared as if by magic from the grass. ‘More tin-men behind us,’ he said. ‘Forming by the woods closest to the river.’ He shrugged. ‘Their horses are wet. They swam the river.’

Ota Qwan made a grunt. Nita Qwan could see he’d made his decision, just in that moment. The war leader stood, put a horn to his lips, and sounded a long call.

The Sossag stood and ran like songbirds before an eagle. They ran north, even as the two long lines of knights closed on them.

Lissen Carak – The Red Knight

The captain watched the painted man rise from the grass just a hundred horse lengths in front of him, sound his horn, and begin to sprint north, out of the closing jaws of the counter-trap. He watched with a sense of failure and the vaguest professional admiration. He knew the Outwallers.

He ordered his valet to sound ‘Charge – ahead!’

His line caught a handful of stragglers but, obedient to his orders, the line swept east and south, and didn’t deviate to pursue the Sossag. Arrows flew as the Sossag rearguard gave their lives for their fellows, and one man-at-arms went down in a tangle of armour plate and dead horse, and then the black-clad knights from the riverside swept over the rearguard, killing every one of them in an instant, no quarter given.

The Prior moved past him, raised his hand, and summoned the military order knights to him without a word being spoken. It was a magnificent display of power.

The captain shook his head. ‘I thought we were good,’ he said.

Sauce had blood on her lance tip, and she reined in. Jacques was sounding the rally, and a wounded knight – Ser Tancred – was being hauled bodily onto Ser Jehannes’ horse. She leaned over. ‘We are good,’ she said.

To their left front the whole squadron of black- and red-clad knights went from a galloping charge to a dead stop in a few hoofbeats – then wheeled right around as if performing some gypsy horse trick and halted facing the Bridge Castle in a neat wedge.

Sauce shook her head – not a big motion in an aventail and bassinet. ‘Sweet Jesu. They are good,’ she admitted reluctantly.

The Prior cantered to the centre of the new line. ‘Well, Captain?’ he asked. ‘Shall we relieve the castle?’

The captain raised his hand. ‘At your command, Prior.’

Seventy mailed knights made the earth tremble.

The boglins scattered.

Lissen Carak – Thorn

Thorn watched in weary anger as his useless allies ran rather than face the knights. So many claims – so many boasts that they could fight anything, that they could conquer the maille-clad riders.

He watched them run, and knew – with the pain of intimate and exact intellect – that his entire plan for the day would come apart.

A burst of power from the field alerted him. The power itself was very low in intensity, but also very tightly controlled. Only someone as imbued with mastery as he himself would detect it.

And immediately recognise the wielder.

Prior Mark.

Thorn watched as the Prior used his power to pass signals to his knights – to turn them into finely crafted weapons, responsive to his will. Another man who loved power.

For a moment, he considered using all of his remaining puissance in a single spell to kill the Prior.

But that was foolish. He needed that power. He reminded himself that there was no hurry. That the king’s army would never reach the river.

But the fall of the Bridge Castle would have made all that unnecessary.

Thorn rarely spoke aloud. He had no peers to whom he could speak his mind – voice his indecision, his secret fears.

But he turned to his startled guards. The shamans who worshipped him. The cloud of midge-like followers who attended his every need. His voice came out as a harsh croak, like the voice of a raven.