The Red Knight

The captain got his sword in a good two-handed grip, and George leaped for the nearest troll as he brought it up high above his head on the left. You are supposed to use a lance on these things, he thought.

The troll saw him, turned, and put its antlered head down, low, so its antlers covered its neck, and charged, seeking to get its antlers under the Red Knight’s sword and unhorse him.

George turned mid-stride.

Faster than human thought, the animals struck.

Like a cat, George pivoted his weight and one hoof licked out and caught the monster a staggering blow in the centre of the forehead, so hard that cracked its stone face.

The troll screamed, turned its head, whipping its antlers through a spray of motion and leaped, turning, caught the armoured horse in the right rear haunch. George got his back feet off the ground with a caper and the blow slewed the horse around on his forefeet-

The line of attack opened like a curtain as the two creatures turned into each other. The captain felt as if he had all the time in the world – as if this moment had been predicted since the dawn of the world. The troll’s turn – his destrier’s turn – the open line at the back of the monster’s neck . . .

His sword struck, two handed, like the fall of the shooting star to earth, and cut along the line where two great plates of hardened flesh met; sliced through the troll’s spine, and in, down, out and free in a gout of ichor-

George leapt free, stumbled, and the captain was thrown from the saddle.

He got a shoulder down, landed on something squishy and rolled, the plates of his shoulder harness clanking like a tinker’s wagon and the muscles in his neck, injured and re-injured since early spring, wrenched again.

But he ended his shoulder roll on his knees, and pushed immediately to his feet.

Off to the right, Tom and Sauce were pouring blows into another troll, but behind them the thick knot of companions had begun to dissolve as the remaining trolls ripped into their horses. Armour crumpled; men died.

Lissen Carak – Ser Gawin

Gawin followed Sym as the archer followed the novice – down the stairs, across the courtyard to the entrance to the cellars where the stores were kept.

There were two archers guarding the heavy oak door to the cellars.

‘The Wild is coming up the escape!’ Amicia yelled, fear and frustration powering her words.

Every farm wife and nun in the courtyard heard her.

The two archers looked at each other.

Sym came up next to her. ‘Captain’s orders!’ he yelled, his thin voice shrill and not very heroic.

The bigger of the two archers fumbled with his keys.

Gawin ran across the yard to join them.

The women were frozen, and he had a moment to consider the looks on their faces – panic, determination, and a sullen kind of anger that it should come to this when they had already lost so much.

Yes, he understood those looks of loss. Of failure.

‘Arm yourselves!’ he called to them.

The bigger archer opened the iron-bound oak door and Sym ran down the steps into the darkness.

Gawin pushed past the novice.

The first cellar was gloomy but well-enough lit. A stack of spears leaned against one of the company’s great wagons. Gawin caught one up as he went by.

There was another door, ahead, which was just opening.

Sym was too late to stop it, so he spitted the creature that opened it – ripped his sword out of the boglin’s armoured thorax and kicked it so hard that it folded backwards-

Gawin caught a glimpse of steps going down and a seething knot of the creatures filling the stairwell.

‘Hold the door!’ Gawin called. He thrust with his spear, and felt the steel head crunch through the soft hide around the boglin’s neck and head – just like digging a knife into a lobster. Something popped, it fell off his spear, and he pushed.

Sym cut, and cut again, and again, desperation and terror lending wings to his sword arm.

The stairwell was crawling with them.

He killed another one.

And another one.

And the novice turned, raised her hands, and spoke a single word in Archaic, and golden-green light filled the cellar.

Lissen Carak – Desiderata

Desiderata could scarcely breathe for the immanence of power. And the pain, which was returning. But she could feel the enemy – the centre of the power of the Wild, its emerald intensity shot full of black – gathering force. She could feel it as surely as she could feel the power of the sun on her arms.

‘What’s happening here?’ Ser Alan asked. He bent to carefully place her litter on the doorsill of the chapel.

The woman was older – dressed plainly, like a servant or a farmwife. She had a spear in her hands. ‘If it please you, Ser Knight – there’s boglins got into the cellars, and all the garrison is trying to hold the doors.’

‘Good Christ!’ Ser Alan cursed. The other knights of the escort drew their swords.

Lissen Carak – Thorn

Thorn watched as the king and his knights obligingly fought their way into the centre of his range.