“I guess I’m going to have to practice more,” she muttered.
This had been her second attempt at hunting. Her first had been equally fruitless and every bit as discouraging. For what must have been the fiftieth time, she sighed over the thought that if Will were healthy, he would have no difficulty at all in using the bow to provide food for their table.
She had shown him the bow, of course, hoping that the sight of the weapon might awaken some spark of memory within him. But he had done nothing other than stare at it with that disinterested, disingenuous expression that had become all too familiar to her.
There had been a fresh snowfall overnight and the snow was knee-deep as she trudged back to the cabin. It had been the first snow in over a week and that had also set her to thinking. Winter must be more than halfway over and, eventually, when the spring came, the Skandians from Hallasholm would again begin to move through these mountains. Perhaps some might even arrive to use the cabin she and Will were wintering in. He would have to be recovered by then so they could begin the long trek south, and she had no idea how long his recovery might take. He seemed to be improving with each day, but she couldn’t be sure. Nor could she really be sure how long they had until the spring thaw began to melt the snow.
They were in a race, she knew. But it was a race where she had no sight of the finish line. It could be on her any day.
The cabin came into view. She was relieved to see that a thin whisper of woodsmoke still issued from the chimney. She’d banked the fire before she’d left earlier in the day, hoping that she’d put enough fuel on to keep it burning through her absence. Nothing was more disheartening, she had already discovered, than arriving home cold and wet to a dead fire.
Naturally, there was no way she could expect Will to tend the fire while she was away. Even a simple task like that seemed beyond him. It was not, she realized, that he was unwilling. He was simply totally uninterested in doing or saying anything beyond the most basic functions. He ate, slept and occasionally came to her with that pleading expression in his eyes, asking for more warmweed. At least, she consoled herself, it had been some time since he had done that.
For the rest of the time, he simply sat wherever he might be, staring at the floor, or his hand, or a piece of wood, or whatever might have formed a focus point for his eyes at the time.
The old leather hinges on the cabin door creaked as she swung it inward. The noise was enough to draw Will’s attention to her. He was sitting cross-legged on the floor in the middle of the cabin, much as he had been when she left, some hours earlier.
“Hullo, Will. I’m back,” she said, forcing a smile onto her face. She always tried, living in the hope that one day he would answer her.
This was not to be that day. The boy showed no sign of reply or interest. Sighing to herself, she leaned the small bow against the wall, just inside the door. Vaguely, she realized that she should unstring the bow, but she was too dispirited to do so right at the moment.
She crossed to the pantry and took out a small piece of their dwindling supply of dried beef. There was rice there too and she began preparing the beef-flavored rice that had become their staple meal over the last few weeks, setting water to boil so that she could steep the meat in it and prepare a thin stock with at least a little flavor to it.
She had measured out a cup of the rice and was setting it into another pan when she heard a slight noise behind her. Turning, she realized that Will had moved from the position he’d occupied for most of the afternoon. He was now sitting near the doorway. She wondered what had caused him to move, then decided that it was probably a random inclination on his part.
Then she saw what it was, and she gave a jerk of surprise, spilling some of the precious rice onto the table. The little bow was still leaning against the wall by the door. But now, it had been unstrung.
36
DEPARNIEUX’S MEN HAD BEEN OUT SINCE EARLY THAT MORNING, sweeping scythes through the long grass that covered the field in front of Château Montsombre. The Gallic knight was taking no chances on the planned combat. He had seen battlehorses brought down by tangles of long grass and he wanted to make sure that the fighting ground was clear of any such danger.
Now, an hour after noon, he emerged from the sally port that he had used on the occasion of his last combat. He had no doubt that he would defeat Halt. But he also had no misconceptions about the small stranger. He had watched the constant practice sessions that Halt and Horace had been conducting and he knew the Araluen was an archer of rare skill. He had no doubt of the tactics that his opponent would be employing. The practice sessions had made them plain. Deparnieux smiled to himself. Halt’s psychological tactics were interesting, he thought. The constant sight of an arrow slamming though the vision slit of a rapidly moving helmet might well be enough to unnerve most opponents. But, while Deparnieux had little doubt about Halt’s abilities, he had even less about his own. His reflexes were as sharp as a cat’s and he was confident that he could deflect Halt’s arrows with his shield.
The gray-haired Araluen seemed to have misjudged his opponent, he thought, and felt vaguely disappointed by the fact. He had expected so much of the stranger. Now, it seemed, those early impressions had come to very little. Halt was an expert bowman, that was all. He had no supernatural powers or arcane skills. In fact, thought the warlord, he was a rather limited, rather boring man with a high opinion of himself. He doubted the archer’s claim to royal lineage, but that no longer mattered to him. The man deserved to die, and Deparnieux would be happy to oblige him.
There were none of the usual flourishes of trumpets or ruffles of side drums as Deparnieux cantered his black charger slowly onto the combat field. This was not a day for ceremony. This was a simple working day for the black knight. An interloper had challenged his authority and his preeminence in the area. It was necessary to dispatch such people with maximum efficiency.
For all that, virtually every member of the staff of Château Montsombre, and a good many of Deparnieux’s fighting men, were present to witness the combat. He smiled wolfishly as he wondered how many of them were watching in the hope that they would see him defeated. More than a few, he thought. But they were doomed to disappointment. In fact, the dispatch of the archer would serve a useful purpose for him. Nothing would serve discipline so well as the sight of the Château’s lord and master dealing a quick death to an upstart interloper.
Speak of the devil, there he was now. The archer was cantering onto the far end of the field, on his absurd little barrel of a horse. He wore no armor, only a studded leather vest that would give him no protection at all against Deparnieux’s lance and sword. And, of course, his ever-present gray-and-green dappled cloak.
His young companion rode a few paces behind him. He was fitted out in chain mail and had his helmet slung at the saddlebow of his battlehorse. He wore his sword and carried the round buckler emblazoned with the oakleaf symbol.
Interesting, thought Deparnieux. Obviously, in the event of Halt’s inevitable defeat, his young fellow traveler would attempt to avenge his friend. All the better, thought the black knight. If one death would serve as a salutary lesson to his more unruly retainers, two would be doubly effective. After all, that was how this entire disappointing business had started in the first place.
He brought his horse to a stop now, testing his grip on the lance in his right hand, ensuring that he had it at just the right point of balance. At the far end of the field, his opponent continued to ride forward, slowly and steadily. He seemed ridiculously small, dwarfed by the muscular youth and the huge battlehorse that paced beside him.
“I hope you know what you’re doing,” Horace said, trying to speak without moving his lips, in case Deparnieux was watching—which he undoubtedly was. Halt turned in the saddle and almost smiled at him.
“So do I,” he said quietly. He noticed that Horace’s right hand was easing his sword in its scabbard once more. He had done that same thing at least half a dozen times as t
hey rode forward. “Relax,” he added calmly. Horace glanced at him openly now, no longer caring if Deparnieux saw him or not.
“Relax?” he repeated incredulously. “You’re going to fight an armored knight with nothing more than a bow and you tell me to relax?”
“I’ll have one or two arrows as well, you know,” Halt told him mildly, and Horace shook his head in disbelief.
“Well…I just hope you know what you’re doing,” he said again. Halt smiled at him now. Just the briefest flash of a smile.
“So you keep saying,” he replied. Then he nudged Abelard with his knee and the little horse came to a stop, ears pricked and ready for more signals. Halt’s eyes locked on the distant figure in the black armor and he raised his right leg over the saddlebow and slid off the horse.
“Take him out of harm’s way,” he told the apprentice, and Horace leaned down and took the Ranger horse’s rein. Abelard twitched his ears and looked inquisitively at his master. “Go along,” Halt told him quietly and the horse allowed himself to be led away. Halt glanced once at the youth sitting astride the battlehorse. He could see the worry in every line of the boy’s body.
“Horace?” he called, and the apprentice warrior stopped and looked back at him.
“I do know what I’m doing, you know.”
Horace managed a wan smile at that.
“If you say so, Halt,” he said.
As they were talking, Halt carefully selected three arrows from the two dozen in his quiver and slid them, point down, into the top of his right boot. Horace saw the movement and wondered at it. There was no need for Halt to place his arrows ready to hand in that way. He could draw and fire from the quiver on his back in a fraction of a second.
He didn’t have time to wonder about it any further. Deparnieux was calling from the far end of the field.
“My lord Halt.” His accented voice came to Horace clearly as he reined in, off to one side. “Are you ready?”
Not bothering to speak, Halt raised a hand in reply. He looked so small and vulnerable, Horace thought, standing all alone in the center of the mown field, waiting for the black-clad knight on his massive battlehorse to bear down on him.
“Then may the best man win!” shouted Deparnieux mockingly, and this time Halt did reply.
“I plan to,” he called back as Deparnieux clapped his spurs to the horse and it began to lumber forward, building up to a full gallop as it came.
It struck Horace then that Halt had not said anything to him about what he should do if Deparnieux were victorious. He had half expected the Ranger to instruct him to try to escape. He certainly expected that Halt would forbid him to challenge Deparnieux immediately after the combat—which was precisely what Horace planned to do if Halt lost. He wondered now if the Ranger hadn’t said anything because he knew that Horace would ignore any such instruction, or if it was simply because he was totally confident of emerging as the victor.
Not that there seemed any way that he could. The earth shook under the hooves of the black battlehorse and Horace’s expert eye could see that the Gallic warlord was a warrior of enormous experience and natural ability. Perfectly balanced in his seat on the horse, he handled the long, heavy lance as if it were a lightweight staff, leaning forward and rising slightly in his stirrups as the point of his lance drew ever closer to the small figure in the gray-green cloak.
It was the cloak that first sent a slight feeling of misgiving through Deparnieux’s mind. Halt was swaying slightly as he stood his ground, and the uneven patterns on the cloak, set against the gray-green of the mown winter grass, seemed to send his figure in and out of focus. The effect was almost mesmerizing. Angrily, Deparnieux thrust the distracting thought aside and tried to center his attention on the archer. He was close now, barely thirty meters away, and still the archer hadn’t…
He saw it coming. A blur of movement as the bow came up and the first arrow spat toward him at incredible speed, coming straight toward the vision slits in his helmet and bringing instant oblivion with it.
Yet, fast as the arrow was traveling, Deparnieux was even faster, raising the shield in a slant to deflect the arrow. He felt it slam against the shield, steel screeching on steel as it gouged a long furrow in the gleaming black enamel then went hissing off as the shield deflected it.
But the shield was now blocking his sight of the little man and he lowered it quickly.
All the devils in hell take him! It was what Halt had planned on, firing a second arrow even as the shield was still up! Deparnieux’s incredible reflexes saved him again, bringing the shield back up to deflect the treacherous second shot. How could anyone manage to fire so quickly, he thought, then cursed as he realized that, unsighted as he was, he had already been carried past the spot where the archer stood, calmly stepping out of the line of the lance point.
Deparnieux let the battlehorse slow to a canter, wheeling him in a wide arc. It wouldn’t do to risk injury to the horse by trying to wheel it too quickly. He’d take his time and…At that moment there was a bright flash of pain in his left shoulder. Twisting awkwardly, his vision constricted by the helmet, he realized that, as he had galloped past, Halt had sent another arrow spitting at him, this time aiming for the gap in his armor at the shoulder.
The chain mail that filled the gap had taken most of the force of the arrow, but the razor-sharp broadhead had still managed to shear through a little way and penetrate the flesh. It was painful, but only minor, he realized, moving the arm quickly to ensure that no major muscles or tendons had been damaged. If the fight were to be a prolonged one, it could stiffen and affect his shield defense.
As it was, the wound was a nuisance. A painful nuisance, he amended as he felt the hot blood trickling down his armpit. Halt would pay for that, he promised himself. And he would pay dearly.
Because now, Deparnieux believed he understood Halt’s plan. He would continue to blind him as he came charging in, forcing him to raise the shield to protect his eyes at the last minute, then sidestepping as Deparnieux went charging past.
Except the knight had no intention of playing Halt’s game. He would abandon the wild high-speed charge with a lance for a slow, deliberate approach. After all, he didn’t need the force and momentum of a charge. He wasn’t facing another armored knight, trying to knock him from the saddle. He was facing a man standing alone in the middle of the field.
As the plan came to him, he tossed the long, unwieldy lance to the ground, reached around and broke the arrow shaft off close to his shoulder, and tossed it after the lance. Then, drawing his broadsword, he began to trot slowly to where Halt stood, waiting for him.
He kept Halt to his left so that the shield would be in position to deflect his arrows. The long sword in his right hand swung easily in circles as he felt its familiar weight and perfect balance.
Watching, Horace felt his heart thud faster in his chest. There could be only one end to the contest now. Once Deparnieux had abandoned the headlong charge for a more deliberate approach, Halt was in serious trouble. Horace knew that nine out of ten knights would have continued to charge, outraged by Halt’s tactics and determined to crush him with their superior force. Deparnieux, he could see now, was the one in ten who would quickly see the folly in that course, and find a tactic to nullify Halt’s biggest advantage.
The mounted knight was only forty meters away from the small figure now, moving slowly toward him. As before, the bow came up and the arrow was on its way. Deftly, almost contemptuously, Deparnieux flicked his shield up to deflect the arrow. This time, he heard the ringing screech of its impact and lowered the shield again. He could see the next arrow, already aimed at his head. He saw the archer’s hand begin the release and again brought the shield up as the arrow leaped toward him.
But there was one important item he didn’t see.
This arrow was one of the three that Halt had placed in the cuff of his boot. And this arrow was different, with a much heavier head, made from heat-hardened steel. Unlike the normal
war arrows in Halt’s quiver, it was not a leaf-shaped broadhead. Rather, it was shaped like the point of a cold chisel, surrounded by four small spurs that would stop it from deflecting off Deparnieux’s plate armor and allow it to punch through into the flesh behind.
It was an arrowhead designed to pierce armor and Halt had learned its secrets years before, from the fierce mounted archers of the eastern steppes.
The arrow flew from the bow. As Deparnieux raised his shield, he never saw the extra weight of the head already causing it to drop below its point of aim. The arrow arced in underneath the slanted shield and punched into the breastplate exposed there, with barely a check to its speed and force.
Deparnieux heard it. A dull impact of metal on metal—more a metallic thud than a ringing tone. He wondered what it was. Then he felt a small core of intense pain, a bright flare of agony, that began in his left side and expanded rapidly until it engulfed his entire body.
He never felt the impact as his body hit the grassy field.
Halt lowered the bow. He eased the string and replaced the second armor-piercing arrow, already nocked and ready, back in his quiver.
The lord of Château Montsombre lay unmoving. A stunned silence hung over the small crowd of onlookers who had come out of the castle to watch the combat. None of them knew how to react. None of them had expected this result. The servants, cooks and stable hands felt a cautious sense of pleasure. Deparnieux had never been a popular master. His use of the lash and the iron cages on any servant who displeased him had seen to that. But their expectations of the man who had just killed him were not necessarily any higher. Logically, they assumed that the bearded stranger had killed their master so that he could take control of Montsombre. That was the way of things here in Gallica and former experience had shown them that a change in master brought no improvement to their lot. Deparnieux himself had defeated a former tyrant some years back. So, while they felt satisfaction to see the sadistic and pitiless black knight dead, they viewed his successor with no great sense of optimism.