The Warlock in Spite of Himself - Warlock 01 (39 page)

Tuan of course, would stay with his beggars.

As Tuan swung into the saddle, Catharine stopped him with a hand on his knee. Rod saw her tie a veil of silk about Tuan's upper arm. Then her hands lifted to him, pleading. Tuan caught them and pressed them to his mouth, bowed to kiss her lips, then wheeled his horse away, rode perhaps ten yards forward, then wheeled again. They stood frozen a moment, the young Queen and the white knight. Then Tuan reared his horse, pivoted, and galloped after his ragtag-andpatchwork troops. Rod smiled covertly.

'The time to feel smug is not yet, Rod,' Fess reminded him. Rod made a face. 'Who do you think you are, Pinocchio's Cricket?'

He turned back for one last look at Gwendylon, standing near the Queen's tent; then he rode for the left flank.

He was the only horseman who rode without armor.

It was full, 14th-century plate armor, on both sides of the field; but the Southern armor was massed together in a solid, glaring wall, while Catharine's knights were spaced out, twenty yards apart, over the length of the enemy line.

Yes, there are a few holes, Rod thought. And the single line of foot soldiers behind the Queen's knights didn't compare too favorably with the packed masses that backed the rebel lords. No, it was not a sight to inspire confidence.

But the beggars weren't in sight. Nor, for that matter, were the witches. Or the elves.

The rebels were in for some very unpleasant surprises. At the southern end of the field, a bugle called. The rebel knights couched their lances.

The Queen's knights followed suit.

There was a long, straining, pause; then the horses plunged forward. Horses' hooves muttered and rose to the roar of an avalanche as the two metal lines fell toward each other.

And as they fell, the North's line drew in upon itself till the knights rode shoulder to shoulder in the center.

A cheer went up from the rebel line as they saw easy victory coming; it would be easy for the rebel flanks to sweep around the Northern line and trap the Queen's forces.

The Queen's knights met the center of the rebel line with a grinding crash. Knights were unhorsed and blood spurted, but the center of the line held.

And with a victorious roar the rebels swung about to outflank the North. ...

The yell broke into wild screams as the ground fell away beneath their mounts.

Knights and horses floundered in a six-foot trench. The elves had done a good night's work.

The footmen came running up to their masters' rescue; but now the beggars broke howling from the trees at the sides of the field, with knife and sword and bludgeon, and fell on the footmen with extreme good will.

Still, they were vastly outnumbered.

But now the aerial army got into the action. Teams of four levitating, fuzz-cheeked warlocks supported a swinging basket beneath them and in each basket was a telekinetic witch. The warlocks fired arrows into the scrimmage at random, their hands freed by the leather harness at their waists; and pebbles flew out of their baskets, guided by the witches, to strike with more than enough impact to stun. Arrows speared up at them out of the Southern ranks: but the witches deflected them, and sometimes even managed to turn them back on their owners. The simple, orderly battle deteriorated into hand-to-hand chaos. But the Southern knights were still overly busy. The Code dictated that only a knight could fight another knight - a foot soldier could be killed just for trying it, and Heaven help him if he tried and won!

So Catharine's knights worked their way outward from the center along the rebel lines, a large percentage of them dying on the way. But the percentage of rebels was greater, for Catharine, like her father before her, had seen fit to give her knights a little extra in the way of training.

Toby, the young warlock, suddenly appeared in the air just above Rod.

'Master Gallowglass! The Duke Loguire is sorely pressed; you must come to him!'

He disappeared as abruptly as he bad come. It might not have been the greatest form of military communication, but it was better than the rebels had.

Rod dispatched his current preoccupation with a parry and a thrust between breastplate and helmet and backed Fess out of the melee. He ran around the lines to the other end of the line, where a spindly, armored-clad form with a glowing sword had just finished cutting its way through the troops to Loguire. One of the councillors was trying to save the day by eliminating the leadership. The sword had a strange, radiant quality. Rod didn't know what it was, but it was something mighty potent disguised as a sword.

Rod sailed into the ruckus, bulldozing his way through grappling pairs of beggars, and soldiers, slipping on blood and loose heads. Loguire saw the blow coming and threw up his shield to ward it off. The councilor's sword sheared through it silently, but missed Loguire. The old Duke yelled in pain as the heat was conducted through shield and armor to his skin and momentarily dropped his guard. The councillor swung the sword up for the final blow. Fess slammed full tilt into the councillor's horse. The animal went down and the councillor went flying with a scream of terror, sword flinging wide from his grasp.

Soldiers scurried back to be clear when the magic sword fell. Rod, without the slightest tremor of conscience, wheeled about and trampled the councillor under Fess's iron hooves. The man gave a bubbling scream, choked off; and the scream rang on in Rod's mind. Now his conscience began to clamor; but he locked it away till the battle was done.

He whirled about toward the sword, hearing the soldiers gasp

'Witchcraft!'

'No, just magic,' Rod shouted as he swung down, caught the sword, and remounted. 'That's not so strange, is it?'

He threw the sword to Loguire hilt-first; the old nobleman caught it and saluted him, and Rod broke out of the lines again. The battle clamored about him, steel on steel and bone and gristle, no quarter asked. The locked armies lay in the middle of the field like some great, pulsing, obscene amoeba.

Overhead the esper-witches turned and wheeled home, no longer able to tell friend from foe.

Rod charged back and forth through the battle-lines - Fess plowing his way easily through mere mortal flesh - guarding the three generals and as many knights as he could, directing the clearing of the wounded when he could, adding the weight of his - arm to break deadlocks. The beggars seemed to have the soldiers hopelessly outclassed; this was their kind of fighting. Many of them were killed, but seldom without having first accounted for six or more of the enemy, with wooden staves, rusty swords, keen knives, and total disrespect for age and/or rank.

Rod thought of Karl Marx and winced.

Big Tom had long since gotten lost in the battle. Rod hoped he was all right.

Then at the back of the rebel line, Big Tom rose up roaring 'To me! To me!'

A thousand beggars rallied to him and began to chop their way through the Southern ranks.

The idea spread; beggar groups sprang up all along the line, and began to press the amoeba of war in on itself.

Big Tom was hewing his way through to a very definite goal. Rod frowned and stood up in his stirrups, trying to plot Big Tom's course. There, in the center of the battle, twenty frantic scarecrows labored furiously to construct some-sort of machine: a spidery tripod topped by a wasp-waisted contraption with alien curves. It was the councillors, with their last hope.

Rod rapped with his heels, and Fess leaped - but the robot had responded a touch slow. With a sense of dread, Rod realized that the strain of battle was beginning to tell on Fess.

The horse bounded over the heads of the army and plowed through to the force of councillors, just as Tom broke through from the other side, with only a fraction of his beggar troops.

A long, lurking moment of silence filled the little circle as the councillors saw their executors.

Then the councillors howled, drawing back into a tight circle about the machine, the ferocity of despair in their eyes, their glowing swords leaping out.

Tom's boys circled out around the councillors and closed in. The councillors' swords were deadly; but they had to hit to be effective, and the beggars were good at hitting and getting clear. A lot of beggars dropped, cut in half; but a lot more lived. They outnumbered the councillors four to one. They whittled away at the ranks.

The councillors screamed, chopping, and died.

In the center of the circle, Rod could make out one lonely figure still working frantically at the machine - Durer.

Then, suddenly, there were only five councillors left. Durer spun away from the machine with a shriek of despair and lugged something out of his wallet-pouch.

A laser pistol.

Rod dropped down to Fess's far side, the bulk of the horse between him and the councillors, knowing that only a head shot could hurt the robot, and snapped open a hidden panel in his horse's side. In it was his last-ditch defense: the latest-issue DDT laser pistol. He fumbled the weapon out, hearing the screams of the beggars as their legs were sheared off at the knee, and shot around under Fess's neck. His shot creased Durer's leg. The scarecrow-man clasped his knee and fell, howling.

Tom bellowed.

The beggars stepped in. Oaken staves whirled, knocking the remaining councillors off their feet.

The staves rose high, poised a moment, and fell with a sickening, moist crunch.

Big Tom bellowed victorious laughter and scooped up a fallen councillor's sword.

Durer rolled back up to one knee and fired.

The red pencil of light caught Tom in the shoulder. He roared, spinning, and fell.

Hall-crawling, half-leaping, Durer went for him, struggling to get a clear shot.

Rod snapped a shot at him, and missed.

Durer howled and dove behind a fallen body.

Rod slammed his heels into Fess. 'Quick! Before he can recover to shoot!'

The horse leaped; the laser beam caught it in the belly - a hollow steel belly, no harm.

But the robot's legs stiffened, its head lolled forward, even while it was in the air.

Rod sprang free as Fess landed, crumpled, rolled. Rod rolled too, came up to see Durer, risen to one knee, level the pistol at him. Tom's huge body smashed into him.

Durer caromed away, pistol flying wide from his hand. The same had happened to Rod's. He cast about him, frantically searching. Tom rolled, came to his feet, lurched after Durer, catching up a fallen councillor's sword. . . and tripped over a body.

Quick as an eel, Durer was up, catching Tom's fallen sword, chopping down...

Rod dove.

His shoulder caught Durer in the belly, whipped the little man around; the sword landed harmlessly in the earth.

Durer leaned on the sword, kept his feet, and swung the sword up, turning to Rod.

Rod rolled to his knees, saw the sword coming.... Tom bellowed, slammed into Rod, striking him out of the sword's path.

The glowing sword fell, shearing off Tom's shoulder and a third of his rib cage.

Rod screamed as he rolled to his feet and swung around. His arm locked around Durer's throat, his knee came up into the small of the back. Something snapped.

Durer screamed and went limp, screaming still, the sword falling from his fingers.

Rod threw him down.

Still screaming, the scarecrow groped for the sword. Rod dropped to his knee and chopped down.

The callused edge of his hand smashed larynx and vertebrae. Durer gurgled, convulsed, and lay still.

Rod stood, gasping, and turned, to see Tom's shoulder pumping blood in great gouts, the big man's face contorted in a silent grimace. Rod was down again, groping frantically in the welter of blood and spare bodies.

He came up with the laser pistol and swung back to Tom. The remaining beggars lurched forward, too slow', before they could reach him, Rod pulled the trigger and, holding it down, sliced off another half-inch along Tom's wound. Tom screamed.

Then they were on Rod, mauling and clubbing.

'Nay!' Tom rasped, a sickening parody of his former bellow. 'Fools, let him be! Do y' not see! He stopped the blood!'

He sank back as the grasping hands hesitated, then loosened. Rod limped back to him, bruised on face and body, rubbing the worst of them - his scarcely-healed shoulder.

He sank to one knee by the gasping hulk of a man, face still wrenched with pain. The stink of cauterized flesh filled his head. Tom forced his eyes open a fraction and tried to grin. 'Twas. . . well meant. . . master. Two minutes ago, it. . might ha' saved me.'

Rod jerked off his cloak, balled it up, thrust it under Tom's head.

'Lie back and rest,' he growled through a tight throat. 'You're a healthy hunk, you'll make it. You haven't lost all that much blood.'

'Nay,' Tom panted, 'too much. . . lost. And the. . - body's shock. . .'

His face twisted with a spasm of pain. Rod turned away to Fess, slapped the reset switch and fumbled in one of the horse's hidden pockets for an ampul.

He limped back to Tom, slapped the ampul against the burned flesh. Tom relaxed with a huge sigh as the anesthetic took hold. 'My thanks, master,' he murmured weakly. 'Thou hast given me, at least, painless death.'

'Don't talk that way.' Rod's face was frozen. 'There's many a roll in the hay for you yet.'

'Nay master.' Tom shook his head, closing his eyes. 'My time is nigh.'

'You're not going to die. You'll leave me in your debt if you do. I won't have it.'

'A pox on what thou wilt or wilt not!' Tom spat, with a touch of life again. 'I am not thine to command or deny now, lordling. He who now hath me in thrall is far more puissant than thou, and will one day command thee also.'

He sagged back on the pillow, heaving gasps of air. Rod knelt silent by his side.

Tom's remaining hand groped over his belly to catch Rod's forearm.

'Aye, thou'rt now in my debt, though 'twas not of my choice.'

'Not your choice?' Rod scowled. 'What are you talking about? You saved my life!'

'Aye, and thereby lost my own. But I would never ha' done so with a clear head.'

'Clear head?'