The Shining Ones

The riders coming up from behind had slowed to a walk. They were rough-looking men wrapped in furs and armed for the most part with bronze-tipped spears. The one in the lead wore a vast, bristling beard and an archaic-looking helmet surmounted with a set of deer-antlers.

‘That’s it,’ Sparhawk said shortly. ‘They’re definitely following us. Let’s get the others and deal with this.’

They rode on back to where their friends had taken some small shelter on the lee-side of a pine grove. ‘We stayed in Jorsan too long,’ Sparhawk told them. ‘It gave Rebal time to call in help. The men behind us are bronzeage warriors.’

‘Like the Lamorks who attacked us outside Demos?’ Ulath asked.

‘Right,’ Sparhawk said. ‘These are most likely followers of Incetes rather than Drychtnath, but it all amounts to the same thing.’

‘Could you pick out the leader?’ Ulath asked.

‘He’s right up front,’ Vanion replied.

‘That makes it easier, then.’

Vanion gave him a questioning look.

‘This has happened before,’ Sparhawk explained. ‘We don’t know exactly why, but when the leader falls, the rest of them vanish.’

‘Couldn’t we just hide back among these trees?’ Sephrenia asked.

‘I wouldn’t want to chance that,’ Vanion told her. ‘We know where they are now. If we let them get out of sight, they could circle back and ambush us. Let’s deal with this here and now.’

‘We’re wasting time,’ Kalten said abruptly. ‘Let’s get on with it.’

‘Khalad,’ Sparhawk said to his squire, ‘take Sephrenia and the children back into the trees a ways. Try to stay out of sight.’

‘Children?’ Talen objected.

‘Just do as you’re told,’ Khalad told him, ‘and don’t get any ideas about trying out that rapier just yet.’

The knights turned and rode back along the muddy track to face their pursuers.

‘Are they alone?’ Bevier asked. ‘I mean, can anybody make out the one who might have raised them?’

‘We can sort that out after we kill the fellow with the antlers,’ Kalten growled. ‘Once all the rest vanish, whoever’s responsible for this is going to be left standing out in the rain all by himself.’

‘There’s no point in waiting,’ Vanion told them, his voice bleak. ‘Let’s get at it. I’m starting to get wet.’

They all pushed their cloaks out of the way to clear their sword arms, pulled on the plain steel helmets that had been hanging from their saddle-bows, and buckled on their shields.

‘I’ll do it,’ Kalten told Sparhawk, forcing his mount against Faran’s shoulder. There was a kind of suppressed fury in Kalten’s voice and a reckless set to his shoulders. ‘Let’s go!’ he bellowed, drawing his sword.

They charged.

The warriors from the ninth century recoiled momentarily as the mail-shirted Church Knights thundered toward them with the hooves of their war-horses hurling great clots of mud out behind them.

Bronze-age weaponry and ancient tactics were no match for steel mail-shirts and contemporary swords and axes, and the small, scrubby horses of the dark ages were scarcely more than ponies. Kalten crashed into the forefront of the pursuers with his companions fanned out behind him in a kind of wedge formation. The blond Pandion stood up in his stirrups, swinging his sword in vast, powerful strokes. Kalten was normally a highly skilled and cool-headed warrior, but he seemed enraged today, taking chances he should not have taken, over-extending his strokes and swinging his sword much harder than was prudent. The round bronze shields of the men who faced him barely slowed his strokes as he chopped his way through the press toward the bearded man in the antlered helmet. Sparhawk and the others, startled by his reckless charge, followed him, cutting down any who tried to attack him from the rear.

The bearded man bellowed an archaic war cry and spurred his horse forward, swinging a huge, bronze-headed war axe.

Almost disdainfully, Kalten brushed the axe-stroke aside with his shield and delivered a vast overhand stroke with his sword, swinging the weapon with all his strength. His sword sheared down through the hastily raised bronze shield, and half of the gleaming oval spun away, carrying the bearded man’s forearm with it. Kalten swung again, and his sword struck the top of the antler-adorned helmet, gashing down into the enemy’s head in a sudden spray of blood and brains. The dead man was hurled from his saddle by the force of the blow, and his followers wavered like mirages and vanished.

One mounted man, however, remained. The black-cloaked figure of Rebal was suddenly quite alone as the ancient warriors who had been drawn up protectively around him were abruptly no longer there.

Kalten advanced on him, his bloody sword half raised and death in his ice-blue eyes.

Rebal shrieked, wheeled his horse, and fled back into the storm, desperately flogging at his mount.

‘Kalten!’ Vanion roared as the knight spurred his horse to pursue the fleeing man. ‘Stop!’

‘But …’

‘Stay where you are!’

Still caught in the grip of that reckless fury, Kalten started to object.

‘That’s an order, Sir Knight! Put up your sword!’

‘Yes, my Lord,’ Kalten replied sullenly, sliding his blood-smeared blade back into its sheath.

‘Take that weapon back out!’ Vanion bellowed at him. ‘Wipe it off before you sheathe it!’

‘Sorry, Lord Vanion. I forgot.’

‘Forgot? What do you mean, “forgot”? Are you some half-grown puppy? Clean that sword, Sir Knight! I want to see it shining before you put it away!’

‘Yes, my Lord,’ Kalten mumbled.

‘What did you say?’

‘Yes, my Lord!’ Kalten shouted it this time.

‘That’s a little better.’

‘Thanks, Vanion,’ Sparhawk murmured.

‘I’ll deal with you later, Sparhawk!’ Vanion barked. ‘Making him see to his equipment was your responsibility. You’re supposed to be a leader of men, not a goatherd.’ The Preceptor looked around. ‘All right,’ he said crisply, ‘let’s form up and go back. Smartly, gentlemen, smartly. We’re soldiers of God. Let’s try to at least look as if we knew what we’re doing!’

There was some slight shelter from the wind back in among the trees. Vanion led the knights through the grove to rejoin Sephrenia, Khalad and the ‘children’.

‘Is everyone all right?’ Sephrenia asked quickly.

‘We don’t have any visible wounds, little mother,’ Sparhawk replied.

She gave him a questioning look.

‘Lord Vanion was in fine voice,’ Ulath grinned. ‘He was a little dissatisfied with a couple of us, and he spoke to us about it – firmly.’