be, though I would be learning soon enough. All I knew was that they had come to the banquet as guests uninvited, and had to be driven off before one or another of our folk got hurt.
Well, they burst into the clearing, weapons drawn, ready to start lopping heads and making corpses. Eight soldiers not counting the abbot broke into the ring of torches. Guy, all in mail and leather, greaves and gorget, charged ahead on a pale grey destrier. He took one look at the black-feathered phantom, reared up in the saddle, and let fly with his lance.
King Raven darted lightly to the side as the spear sailed past, easily evading the throw, even as I nocked one of the black arrows onto the string and, holding my breath, drew and aimed at the marshal.
Someone else had the same idea.
Out from the brushwood beside the trail streaked an arrow. It blazed across the clearing, struck Guy, and slammed him backwards in the saddle as he reached to draw his sword.
That reaching saved his life, I think. The arrow pierced the steel rings of his hauberk at the fleshy part of his upper arm and stuck there. If he had been more upright in the saddle, he’d have had it in his bonnet. As it was, he dropped the sword and called his men to shield themselves as the arrows began falling thick and fast.
Three men went down before they could unsling their shields, and a fourth took an arrow in the back the instant he swung it around to protect his chest. They fell like stones dropped in a well.
Abbot Hugo, shouting in Ffreinc, drove into the clearing, heedless of the missiles flying around him. Well, I suppose killing a priest is serious business—Norman or no—and Hugo maybe felt safe even with men falling all around him. Or, it may be he is that brave or stupid. Even so, he was urging the knights and men-at-arms to throw off their fear and attack, but that showed no understanding of the nature of the assault. A fella afoot cannot strike what he cannot see, and a warrior on a horse cannot charge into the brush and brake if he hopes to live out the day.
The soldiers on foot drew together, trying to form a shield ring to give them protection from the whistling death all around. I loosed two, and made good account of myself so that, by now, any soldier still in the saddle threw himself to the ground even as his horse was slaughtered beneath him. Those who somehow escaped being skewered with an oaken shaft scuttled on hands and knees to join the others as arrow after arrow slammed into the shield wall, splintering the wood, ripping the leather-covered panels apart, striking with the force of heavy hammers. I sent two more arrows to join those of the others.
The commander of the knights showed heart, if not brains. He struggled to his feet and, shield thrown high to protect his head, broke ranks, charging off in the direction of the main attack. He made but four steps from the ring before an arrow found him. There was a thin whisper as it cut through the snow-clotted air. I caught the dull glimmer of the metal head—and then the knight was lifted off his feet and thrown back a pace by the shock of the oaken missile driving into his chest.
He was dead before his heels came to rest in the snow.
Marshal Guy, clutching his arm with the slender shaft sticking out both sides of the wound, gave his thumping great warhorse his head, and the animal charged the black-cloaked phantom standing in the trail at the far end of the clearing.
King Raven stood motionless for a moment, allowing the beast and wounded rider to come nearer, lifting his long, narrow beak to the sky as if taunting them. As the horse closed the distance between them, Guy released his bloody arm and drew the dagger from his belt, making a clumsy swipe with his left hand.
The phantom ducked under the stroke. As the big horse sped by, he gave a last wild shriek and turned, wings spread wide, retreating not into the wood, as anyone might expect, but straight down the centre of the road—the way the wagons had come.
Abbot Hugo, seeing his adversary on the run, reined up and screamed for the soldiers to give chase, but they remained cowering behind their shields. Crying down heaven