Lackey, Mercedes & Flint, Eric & Freer, Dave - [Heirs of Alexandria 01] (107 page)

The front limbs were perhaps the worst of all. Heavy, powerful arms�almost human, except for their size�ended in a demon's taloned paws. Except no demon Erik had ever heard of possessed suckers on its palms and forearms. As if an octopus were part of its ancestry.

Again, the monster roared. There was a peculiar glee to the sound. As if the creature had been forced into silence for so long that the mere act of making noise was a joy in its own right.

"Any advice, Lopez?" asked Manfred cheerfully. The big prince was holding his sword by the hilt, now, ready to fight.

Erik glanced at the Basque priest. But Lopez, he saw immediately, would be of no more further assistance. The man was clearly exhausted. Lopez simply shook his head and whispered, "This is your affair now, Prince of the Realm. I can do no more. God and the Right."

Erik felt a moment's dismay at the last words. He knew that Manfred would�

Sure enough. "
Dia a coir!
" bellowed the prince, striding forward two steps and bringing his heavy sword down on the monster with a great two-handed swing.

Reckless idiot!
Erik lunged forward.

The monster squalled�half in fury, half in glee�and evaded the blow deftly. The sword sank into the soil. An instant later, spinning, the Woden's tail lashed around and knocked Manfred's legs out from under him. The prince landed on his back, his sword flying out of his hands. Fortunately, Erik's training in wrestling enabled Manfred to break the fall by slapping down his arms.

But, for that moment, he was helpless. The Woden charged forward like a crocodile, great jaws gaping. A taloned and suckered hand raised for the death blow.

This time, it was the monster's turn to misgauge. Erik moved far faster than the Woden expected. His sword met the downstrike and removed the hand at the wrist as neatly as a carrot top removed by a knife. The hideous thing went sailing through the air and plopped into some nearby bushes.

The Woden shrieked in agony, black blood pumping from its severed wrist. The jaws lunging at Manfred's throat veered aside and snapped at Erik.

Another mistake. Again, the monster was caught by surprise. No human it had ever faced moved as quickly as the Icelander. Erik sidestepped the snapping jaws; then, as they gaped wide again, his sword slid through the teeth, mangling the great tongue.

The Woden squalled in pain and fury and twisted aside, blood gushing from its maw. The tail lashed around, striking at Erik's legs. But the blow was blocked. First, by Erik driving his sword into the soil; then, by Manfred lunging forward and grappling the monster's hindquarters. The prince gathered his legs under him, ignoring the claws scrabbling at his armor. Then, with a grunt, heaved the monster completely off the ground and slammed it into a nearby tree. The tree�a sapling, really�broke under the impact. So did the Woden's ribs.

Erik was astonished. He'd always known that Manfred was far stronger than the average man. But he realized now that he'd never really seen Manfred exert his entire strength. This was�almost superhuman. The monster must have weighed at least four hundred pounds.

Again, the Woden lashed its tail; and, again, knocked Manfred down. This time, however, the prince had been expecting the blow. So he was simply staggered to his knees rather than upended.

Desperately, Erik raced forward. As badly injured as the Woden was, the horror was still alive and still quite capable of wreaking havoc. And Manfred�his charge and responsibility�was facing another attack. Unarmed, and on his knees.

The Woden sprang at the prince, using its hind legs to drive and its remaining forelimb for balance. The jaws opened like a shark's�and if the tongue was a ruin, the teeth were not.

To Erik, everything seemed to move as slowly as ice. The jaws were approaching Manfred faster than his sword could intervene. Jaws now gaping wide enough to close on Manfred's entire head, helmet and all�and Erik didn't doubt for a moment that those jaws were quite capable of crushing the helmet like a snail.

Manfred broke its jaw. One punch, with an armored fist, skewed the Woden's bite into a harmless snap. The monster coughed blood, half-stunned. But its forward momentum knocked Manfred on his back again, this time with the Woden sprawled across him.

Erik hesitated, unsure where to strike with the sword that wouldn't risk hitting Manfred.

Then�

"Gah! What a stink!"

The monster's head and back suddenly lurched up. Manfred, lying beneath the creature, was holding it up with his big hands clamped firmly around its gullet. Holding it up�and steady.

"Do me the favor, would you?" hissed the prince. Erik's sword drove into the glaring blue eye and deep into the Woden's brain. The monster twitched and shuddered. And kept twitching and shuddering, after Erik jerked the sword loose from the skull.

With another great heave, Manfred tossed the thing off. Soaked with blood, he rose to his feet and stalked over to the place where his sword had been sent sailing. Then, stalked back. The Woden was lying on its side, still twitching and shuddering.

Manfred spent the next considerable period of time hacking it into small chunks. He didn't stop until each single piece of the monster was lying motionless and the blade of his sword was as dull as a table knife.

Erik tried to restrain him, early on, so that he could examine the prince for injuries. But Manfred would have none of it.
"Dia a coir!"
was repeated perhaps two dozen times, intermingled with other expressions which were vulgar and profane beyond belief.

Eventually, Erik gave up and went to help Lopez, who had begun tending to Von Gherens. The Prussian knight was alive, though still unconscious. But now that the Basque priest had removed the man's helmet, Erik was relieved to see that the burn marks on Von Gherens's face were not as bad as he had feared.

"He'll be all right, with a little rest," murmured Lopez. "The facial scars will be bad, but�at least he's a Prussian. They treasure the things, so there should be no really adverse consequences."

He glanced at Manfred, still furiously dismembering the already-dismembered carcass of the Woden, and smiled slyly. "Unlike your friend, who�I daresay�is adding years in purgatory with every oath that comes out of his mouth."

Erik wasn't quite sure how to respond. Lopez shook his head. "Not your problem, my fine young Icelandic friend. You are
not
responsible for protecting the Hohenstauffens from God, after all."

Erik couldn't help grinning. "True enough." Seeing that Lopez needed no further help with Von Gherens for the moment, Erik went over to retrieve his hatchet from the corpse of Sister Ursula.

But... there was no corpse; just a burned piece of grass.

And there was no hatchet, either. Only the wirebound shaft remained.

After a time, Erik fell silent. Lopez clucked his tongue. "And I daresay you've just added as many years. Where
did
you learn to curse like that, anyway?"

Stolidly, Erik stared at the priest. Then, pointed at Manfred, who had finally left off with his hacking.

"Oh, sure," grumbled the prince. "Blame everything on me!"

Erik and Manfred stood in one of the bastions of the northernmost of the Polestine forts, watching the Venetian cannons finish pounding the last of the Milanese galleasses into rubble. It seemed a somewhat pointless exercise, since the galleass had ceased being a water-capable means of transport quite some time ago. But a quick glance through the gunports in either of the bastion's retired flanks was enough to see the reason. The ditch in front of the curtain wall was a charnel house, with nothing more to fire at beyond a relative handful of wounded and maimed soldiers in Visconti colors.

Nothing alive, at least. The ditch was mounded with shattered bodies, all that was left of the Milanese mercenaries who had stormed the fortress thinking a quick rush would be enough to overwhelm the few surviving defenders. The rising sun cast a pale reddish glow over a landscape which seemed red-soaked already.

The mercenaries trapped at the curtain wall had tried to surrender, soon enough. But the Venetians were in no mood for terms. On this day, at least, the normal conditions of Italian condottieri warfare had been suspended. Milan had tried to destroy Venice; the city of the winged lion was returning the compliment. The gunners in the bastions had kept firing on the men piled up along the curtain wall until they had been turned into so much ground meat. Then, still raging, turned their fire onto the grounded and crippled galleasses. There too, clearly enough, they would not be satisfied until the ships had been turned into so much kindling.

Manfred squinted into the distance, where the retreating Milanese army could be seen frantically trying to build fieldworks. Their galleasses destroyed and the assault on the forts having been driven off with heavy losses, Sforza had led the Visconti forces into a retreat along the river. Had tried to, rather. Now, finding that Enrico Dell'este had cut off his retreat with a far larger army than anyone believed Ferrara could possibly put into the field, Sforza was doing what he could to prepare a hasty defense.

"No 'Old Fox' out there today," mused Manfred. "He's looking for Sforza's blood, or I miss my guess."

Erik did not argue the matter. That was his assessment also. He thought the Duke of Ferrara was behaving foolishly, but given what he knew of the personal history between Dell'este and Sforza he was hardly surprised. The Old Fox had waited for years to obtain revenge on Milan, and now that the day had come he clearly intended to show Carlo Sforza who was
really
"the Wolf of the North."

They heard footsteps behind them, clambering up the stone stairs to the bastion with an oddly arrhythmic pace. Before they even turned their heads, they knew it was Lopez. The Basque priest had been tending to his two companions in the fort's infirmary below. Diego and Pierre had both survived the encounter with Ursula and the Woden monster, but they had been badly shaken.

Lopez limped over to stand next to them. He spent no more than a moment or two studying the distant scene, with eyes which had clearly seen more than one battlefield in times past.

"Stupid," he pronounced. "We have no idea what is transpiring in Venice itself. While Ferrara obtains his revenge here, the city may still be lost."

That neatly summed up Erik's assessment. Manfred's also, judging from his nod.

"Come," commanded Lopez. "If we can reach Dell'este in time, we may still be able to convince him to forego his pleasure." He turned and began limping off.

"What can we�" began Manfred, but Lopez's impatient wave of the hand stifled the rest.

"You are the Emperor's nephew, young dolt! And I have a certain talisman which may help. Now come!"

"I'm not entirely sure I care for that man," said Manfred sourly, as he and Erik followed the Basque toward the fort's stables.

Erik smiled. "And I, on the other hand, am
entirely
sure that Father Eneko Lopez doesn't care in the least what you think of him."

"He should," grumbled Manfred. "I'm the Emperor's nephew, dammit!"

By the time they reached the Ferrarese lines and were able to negotiate their way through to the duke's presence, the battle was well underway.

Not that it was much of a "battle" yet. Clearly enough, from what they had seen as they approached, the Old Fox hadn't lost any of his tactical acumen. Since he had Sforza trapped, he intended to bleed him with gunfire as long as possible before ordering any direct assaults. Dell'este's own soldiers were mercenaries, for the most part. Professional soldiers�highly experienced Italian ones, especially�had little use for commanders who wasted their lives in premature assaults.

The duke's field headquarters consisted of nothing more elaborate than a simple open-air pavilion erected on a small hill overlooking the battleground. They found Dell'este standing just under the overhang, studying Sforza's lines with a telescope. Like all the optical devices of the day, the telescope was a heavy boxlike affair mounted on a stand. The old duke was slightly stooped, peering through the eyepiece.

Hearing their footsteps, he stood erect and turned to face them. He gave each of them a quick study in turn. Perhaps oddly, he spent most of his time studying Erik and Manfred, the two men he had never met before.

"Knights of the Holy Trinity?" he asked, his lips quirked into a wry smile. "Not wearing full armor? I think you might be excommunicated, if you're not careful."

Manfred frowned; Erik chuckled. "I'm from Iceland, Your Grace. Spent time in Vinland also. Full armor, in today's world, is just stupid."

The duke's eyes fixed on Manfred. "And you, large one? Do you agree?"

Manfred was clearly struggling not to glare outright. So all he managed in reply was a muffled grunt which could be taken as a form of agreement.

"I declare you honorary Italians," pronounced the Old Fox. Then he faced Lopez, his smile disappearing. "There's no point in discussing the matter, Father. I know perfectly well why you came. Venice is Venice, Ferrara is Ferrara. I've done enough for Venice this morning. The rest of the day�and tomorrow, and the day after, if that's what it takes�belongs to me and mine."

He turned his head, his fierce old eyes glaring at the distant Milanese lines. "I will have Sforza's head. And spend the rest of my days planning to reap Visconti's."

"Me and mine?" demanded Lopez. The priest reached into his cassock and drew forth a small object. When he presented it to the duke, Erik could see that it was a miniature portrait. He had wondered what the object had been that he'd seen Lopez tucking into his saddlebag when they left the fort.

"Do you remember what you said to me when you gave me this, so-called 'Old Fox'? 'Old Boar,' more like. Dumb as a nearsighted pig."

Erik was surprised to see that Dell'este did not bridle under the sarcasm. Indeed, for a moment his lips even twitched, as if he were trying to control a smile.