Svanhild had gone down to the horses, restless with a bright moon overhead. They were upset about something. She loved horses, and especially the steeds of the Magyar, which were superb. She'd talked with Erik about taking some home to the great plains beyond Cahokia. Apparently the Magyar steeds were bought from the Ilkhan and crossed with an old war-horse breed. She'd certainly never seen their like.
She walked among them in the moonlight, murmuring a bit of praise here, patting a neck or a flank there. Then she heard the thunder of galloping hooves. Erik must be back. So early? Something must have gone wrong. She gathered her skirts in order to run back toward the cave.
A group of cavalry thundered past her, heading for horse-paddocks she'd just come from. She ran for the cave and her brothers. She could see Bjarni, already out, sword in hand, running toward her, yelling and beckoning.
The main body of Caesare's cavalry had waited until the two blocking groups were past. Caesare mounted his horse. The yellow dog had gone ahead, scrambling up a steep limestone edge, claws scrabbling for a hold on the rock. It would attempt to deal with the guard on the upper footpath.
The shaman basically had to get out of the way. Horses tried to trample the shaman if they smelled or saw him. The iron horseshoes were painful. Lead bullets the creature found harmless, but cold iron he liked not at all.
Now Caesare pushed forward and saw in the moonlight how things hadn't waited to begin going wrong. Those idiots going down to valley floor had broken open the horse-corrals. And ridden straight past his target! Horses, panicky and confused, were running back toward the camp.
He could see her, blond hair streaming, running in the moonlight. She'd never get to the men pouring out of the cave. As they began to charge into the little valley, Caesare saw her turn and look back.
And stop. Even amid all the other noise he heard the whistle she gave. The twist of horses that the rush of cavalry had released . . . stopped too. And, as a group, they began galloping toward her. They had less than half the distance to cover that Caesare did. And they had no riders to weigh them down.
Caesare knew that this one would have no trouble riding bareback. She'd get away!
He called for the shaman. The shaman was closer! Sliding and scrabbling, half falling, the yellow dog came down the slope from nearly straight above her. He would end virtually at her feet.
As, in dust and flurry and snapping teeth, the yellow dog cascaded toward her . . . Caesare saw that the horse herd was nearly at the woman. And then he realized what he'd done.
"GO! Leave her! Stay away!"
But the steepness of the slope meant that for all the pale creature's snarling and scrabbling the shaman-dog still ended up actually hitting Svanhild. It half knocked her over. The lead stallion reared.
Chernobog, looking through his slave's eyes, didn't understand horror in human terms. But he felt the slave's horror nonetheless, when he saw the blond woman and the yellow dog fall beneath the flailing hooves. The horror of failure. The horror of knowing what his master would do to him, when the woman died. Which, with iron-shod hooves pounding her as they tried to reach the yellow cur, was an inevitability.
The yellow dog, yowling with pain, exploded out of the side of the horse-mass. Straight toward Caesare.
The Magyar cavalry's horses felt just the same way about the yellow dog as the Corfiote guerillas' horses. Horses and humans had been together a long, long time. There was a deep bond between them. Only the true dogs hate the betrayer more. More than half of the main body of the cavalry charge, including Caesare, were unseated as the Hungarian horses tried to kill the yellow dog.
Erik arrived at a scene of pandemonium. It was apparent that Caesare's raid had run into more resistance than he'd expected. Part of the problem was horses. There were riderless horses, at least forty, milling in the narrow valley.
Standing in the middle of the slope were three Vinlanders. They were defending something against a considerable force. Defending it well, by the rampart of bodies. As Erik galloped toward them one Vinlander fell. Screaming like a banshee, Erik struck the flank of the attackers. He was vaguely aware of Kari and his brother beside him.
There were a good fifteen or so Magyars attacking the remaining Vinlanders, but the sudden furious attack drove them off, just as the second to the last Vinlander collapsed. Only big Bjarni remained standing. And it was plain that it was only sheer force of will that kept him up. "Erik," he croaked, his breath bubbling. "Svan. Take her home . . ."
Erik was already kneeling beside the crumpled form on the ground, his heart swelling until he thought it would choke him. He took her up, tears pouring down his face as he felt her bones grating against one another, felt the pulpy flesh moving in ways it never should. Gently, he called her, holding her. "Svan! Svan!"
She stirred in his arms. The horse hooves had left her body bruised and broken, the skull half-shattered. Her long blond hair was soaked with blood, looking black in the moonlight. "Erik." It was barely a whisper. "You came. Love you. Stay with me . . ."
He could not see for tears. "I'll never leave you, Svan. Never."
When Benito and the others burst on the scene, Kari and his brother were desperately defending Erik, who was holding someone. Svanhild, Benito guessed, seeing the long hair in the moonlight. Erik seemed oblivious of his own impending death. Then, just as the impetuous Kari fell, Erik put his burden down. Stood up, picking up a sword from the ground as he did so. Even from here, Benito heard his scream. It was both heartbreak and pure rage.
And with Bjarni's great sword in his hands—a weapon so long it had had to be slung across the Vinlander's back—Erik went berserk.
Benito had heard of berserkers before. Now he realized that the magnitude of the truth defied the stories. In berserker rage Erik literally split a horse's head. Hewed two more attackers apart.
From downslope Benito heard Caesare yell: "We want him alive!"
Stupider things have been said, but not often. Benito didn't care. He was too busy fighting his way down the hill toward Caesare.
The thing that was Aldanto's puppet master saw through the puppet's eyes how one man could turn a battle. And that, far from being trappers, his troops were now surrounded, by men who knew the terrain. By men who were determined on vengeance, too. And in the middle of his Hungarians was a man seemingly possessed of superhuman strength, unstoppable, who was cutting down seasoned warriors like a scythe through cornstalks. Somehow this man had turned the situation from one where they outnumbered their surprised foes . . . into a developing rout.
He heard someone yell: "Just keep out of his way! He can't tell friend from foe."
The only trouble with this advice was that the newly arriving Corfiote irregulars were herding men toward their berserker. And fear—and the stupidity that it brings—was killing them fast.
It was time to intervene. The slave still had considerable skills, one of them being with the sword. And if need be, Chernobog could draw on reserves of strength that might kill the slave. Later.
Then there was someone in his way, between him and his target. Someone who had once been a nobleman, by the ragged finery, and the dark wavy hair, not showing the rough crop of the peasantry. He was clean shaven too, which in itself was unusual, among these spiky rebels.
The slave had many "duel" assassinations to his credit. This fool would be one more. Chernobog allowed the reflexes of the slave to take over.
And came within an eighth of an inch of losing the slave's life. An accident, surely? The slave's one real attribute had been that he was a truly great swordsman. Chernobog, seconds later, realized that it was no accident. The swordsman had looked like he'd be another provincial aristocrat—full of delusions about his swordsmanship, and short on real skill or practice. A quick kill. A soft man, despite being lean and sun-browned. Chernobog could see it in the eyes. Doe's eyes. He could see it in the face. The fine lines there were those of someone more accustomed to a lazy smile than to anger. The slave Caesare was a lion to such men.
Except . . . this time the prey was a lot better with a rapier than Caesare Aldanto ever had been, or could have been. The swordsman's movements seemed almost effortless, fluid. Yet the blade moved faster than Chernobog's slave physically could. Caesare was driven back, forced back down the hill toward the opening of the lowest cave, the water-cave, fencing with one who could kill him in a heartbeat.
It also took the Black Brain very few of the slave's heartbeats to realize something else: The master-swordsman didn't want to kill.
So he lowered the sword point. Took the blade itself in his left hand and held the hilt out to the man. "I surrender!" he called out.
As the master-swordsman stepped forward to take the sword, Caesare stabbed him with the stiletto shaken from his sleeve. It struck something hard and skittered, cutting—but not, as intended, piercing the heart.
As he did this Ambrosino, the traitor, shouted and rushed to him, and grabbed at him. "You promised you wouldn't kill him!"
Caesare hit the traitor with the butt, and pulled back the stiletto to stab again.
Something hit him so hard he sprawled yards away, the stiletto gone. He'd been hit by the lead weights of the bird-net that the yellow dog had so dreaded. The woman threw herself over the fallen swordsman, protecting him with her body. Caesare staggered to his feet, snatching up the rapier he had pretended to surrender, from where it had fallen conveniently near at hand. She was now trying to pick the swordsman up.
So be it. Two for the price of one.
Then, a voice like doom behind him.
"Aldanto."
Caesare turned, slowly, and realized it was Erik Hakkonsen. Hakkonsen was at that final stage of berserk, when sanity returns—just before the berserker collapses.
Hakkonsen was bleeding from a dozen wounds and swaying with exhaustion. He was also intent on killing Caesare, even if it meant dying himself.
Hakkonsen, had he been in the peak of physical shape, would have been very evenly matched to the old Aldanto. Now his muscles were quivering with fatigue. And yet a will, a spirit harder than adamantine made Erik Hakkonsen drive Caesare back, back toward the water-cave.
One quick double twist-disengage, riposte, twist . . . and Erik's sword fell, clattered to the rocks.
"Die!" Caesare lunged forward. Somehow Erik managed to move so that the sword passed between his arm and ribs. He trapped the blade, holding Caesare's sleeve. The tomahawk came up.
The part of Caesare that was elsewhere used powers that could only be released in fleshy contact. A coup de grace of spirit world . . . only hampered by this place. Magical force, huge amounts of it flowed through from Chernobog, to the slave, and then into the Icelander. Coruscating rivers of power that should have burned and shattered the victim. Should have, but did not. Instead it seemed to flow through him and into the earth of Corfu. Nonetheless, Hakkonsen fell back as if flung by some great force. He lay sprawled on the ground like a puppet with severed strings. The dry grass he lay on smoked.
"There's still me, Caesare."
The tiny part of Caesare that remained Caesare saw Benito Valdosta. An older, broader but not taller person, yet a very different boy from the one who had once idolized him. Benito had plainly hurt his one arm, as it was tucked inside his shirt.
"See this sword, Caesare Aldanto? It's my father's. Carlo Sforza. The Wolf of the North. He'd eat five of you for breakfast. I'm going to cut your head off with it."
The boy-man stalked closer. "You think you're a great swordsman, Aldanto."
"What's wrong with your arm, Benito?"
"Cut the tendons back there. The fingers aren't working. But that's all right, because I only need one hand to fence with you. If I hadn't cut it, I'd tie it behind my back."
Sheer bravado, Caesare was sure. Benito had always been prone to that mistake. He had the mental edge on the boy.
The boy was close now. Barely three yards off and walking in. Fool.
Benito stopped, just about within reach of a lunge. "I thought I told you not to brag when you fought unless you had a reason," said Caesare.
"You did." Benito smiled mockingly. "But I didn't always listen. You also said this business of saluting your enemy before you fence with them was an opportunity to kill someone, while they're sticking to fencing etiquette. But I've got a salute to give you from Maria."
Benito raised his sword.
As Caesare began to lunge . . . something slammed into his chest with the force of a mule kick, driving him down. His rapier went flying.
Dazed, Caesare looked up to see Benito drawing a wheel-lock pistol from the shirt where he'd hidden it—holding it in his supposedly maimed hand. The boy had fired right through the fabric. Some part of Caesare felt an odd little pleasure, then, realizing how much he'd taught the boy in happier days.
"It's Maria's," grunted Benito, holding the pistol up. Smoke was still drifting from the barrel. "It seemed a nice touch to me, you swine."
The cave was just behind the puppet, Chernobog realized. The puppet's vision began to blur. It was dying. But if he could lure the boy close enough . . .
Benito stepped in, hefting the sword.
Chernobog's power built—
And fled, hastily, from the mind and soul of the slave. The sword itself was blessed! And there was something about the boy himself—some strange virtue that would not allow the magic to even touch him.
Benito wished he could just turn away. But Caesare had always taught him: Finish it. Be sure.
And then the dying man spoke. The voice sounded . . . ecstatically joyful.
"Benito. Thank God! Kill me. Kill me, please. Kill me before it can get to me again. Please. Please! If you ever loved me—"
Suddenly something huge, black and slimy with a barbel-fringed long-fanged mouth launched out of the water. Benito barely managed to dodge aside, cutting at it.
Caesare didn't dodge and it seized him. The water closed over the monster and the blond assassin.
There might be a battle going on, but Benito sat down. There wasn't much of a battle left anyway. Caesare had been lying with his "I surrender," but the Hungarians had been similarly fooled. Unfortunately for them, it had been a case of "No quarter," after Caesare's treacherous about-turn.