and two sisters—the latter barely in their tenth and eleventh years—had been taken to the guards’ barracks for the amusement of the sodomizing bastards until none had had the strength or will left to plead for mercy.
Nicolaa had saved Gil to the end, teasing her just enough with the hot irons to know that when the screams of her mother and sisters stopped, hers would begin in earnest. By sheer luck, one of the dungeon guards had been a friend to Gil’s father. He bore the screams of the women as long as he could, then one night, after another poor red-haired lass was dragged dead from the barracks, the old man had put the body in Gil’s cell and had whisked her out in an empty ale barrel.
Gil had survived, but she could hear her sisters screaming still, in her nightmares, just as she could hear Nicolaa de la Haye laughing and goading the guards to another round … and another …
“No,” she gasped, seeing Nicolaa raise her sword above Alaric’s head. “No! By God, you will not take the life of anyone else I love!”
She jumped out of the boat and screamed Nicolaa’s name. Too late, she realized she had set aside her longbow to pull Servanne’s hand free, and, for lack of any better weapon to use against the falchion that turned eagerly in her direction, Gil paused to scoop up a fallen crossbow. She released the trigger only to hear a wet snap as the string refused to respond. Nicolaa’s fleeting moment of panic gave way to grinning delight and as the slender, red-haired archer ran closer, she clasped her shortsword in both hands and drew it back for the killing stroke.
Something black, salty, and gritty struck her stingingly across the face. The muck was in her eyes and in her mouth, and Nicolaa was repulsed into breaking her stance as well as her grip on the hilt of the sword. Alaric threw another handful of wet sand, but by then she had turned away, cursing and scraping the stuff from her face in time to see the blurred fury that was Gil Golden slam into her chest and send them both crashing into the surf.
Alaric doubled over onto his elbows and knees, his head bowed forward with the pain. Gil and Nicolaa became a rolling, thrashing mass of arms and legs beside him; Lucien and Etienne stood a dozen paces away, their swords unsheathed, their footsteps bringing them together in an ever-decreasing circle of crouched wariness. Nicolaa’s falchion lay in an inch of water, a body length away, but before Alaric could drag himself over to it, a mail-clad boot kicked it a hopeless distance away. Almost too weary to expend the energy to do so, Alaric looked up, seeing his death in the eyes of the mercenary who braced himself to deliver a hacking blow across the back of Alaric’s neck.
Fff-thunck!
The mercenary stiffened, his back arched against the brutal force of a six-inch arrow fired from an odd, harp-shaped arblaster. Two longer, thinner ashwood arrows, tipped in steel, fired simultaneously from raised longbows, thudded into the guard’s back and shoulder, skewering through leather armour and Damascan chain mail as if it was soft cheese. The knight toppled forward, his arms spread wide, his sword splashing harmlessly into the shallow water beside Alaric.
Sparrow’s gleeful cry brought a wall of black and gold clad knights surging out from behind the tumble of boulders. Calmly, coolly, half of them dispatched a spray of arrows into the ranks of De Gournay’s surprised mercenaries; the rest, led by Sir Roger de Chesnai and Sir Richard of Rouen, poured out onto the beach, their throats roaring an unmistakable challenge.
The Dragon saw his men falling back, retreating under the onslaught of flashing swords.
The Wolf smiled and felt a resurgence of energy burn away the fatigue and despair that had nearly claimed him.
“And so, it comes down to just you and me, Etienne,” he said in a low, controlled voice. “With honour as our judge and God our witness.”
Etienne’s blue eyes glittered his response and, in ankle-deep water, the Wolf and the Dragon brought their blades slashing together. Lucien, his black shirt and leggings shading him like a dark wraith against the sparkle of the sea, lunged and spun away, his hair shedding bright droplets of salt water into the breaking sunlight. Etienne blocked the thrust and countered with a strength-shattering one of his own, the muscles across his back and arms