The Exiled Blade (The Assassini) - By Jon Courtenay Grimwood Page 0,110
f-fight.”
“Your highness . . .” Captain Weimer hesitated.
“We’re C-Christians,” Marco said. “W-we’re m-meant to f-fight demons.”
“I’m not sure it’s meant to be this literal,” muttered Frederick, sliding himself alongside Giulietta’s horse so that he held the other side of her bridle. A high scream filled the air and was chopped off. “Highness, with respect, we should retreat. We don’t have the weapons.”
“I have this,” said Giulietta. In her hand was a hunting horn. “It’s Roland’s,” she told Tycho. “It summons the paladins through a circle of flame.”
“Where did you get it?”
“From me,” Frederick said.
Tycho ignored him. “Where will you get your circle of fire?”
“There.” Frederick pointed at the castle. Turning to Giulietta, he said, “My lady, sound the horn.”
“That thing is yours?”
“You’d rather die than accept my help?”
I can’t die, Tycho almost replied. She could, though, and Leo . . .
“It belongs to my son,” Giulietta said. “It belongs to Leo because he’s going to be head of the krieghund.”
Marco froze . . . So did the nobles around him.
“Y-you shouldn’t s-say things l-like that.”
“It’s the truth,” she said fiercely. “Leopold was krieghund and so is my son. Leo will lead the Wolf Brothers.” She nodded to the sword slung across Frederick’s back. “That’s the WolfeSelle, it belongs to him, too. Isn’t that right? Doesn’t it belong to Leo?”
Frederick nodded.
Away to the edge of the circle of ice around the cathedral a man threw himself on to the makeshift moat, the crackle ice almost holding as he ran for the safety of the frozen lake on the other side, only to plunge through at the last second. His cry of shock at the coldness of the water turning to screams as webbed hands rose to reach for him and began to tear.
Giulietta vomited.
“Sound the damn horn,” Tycho said.
Lady Giulietta wiped her lips and blew a thin note like a child’s bugle. The note was stronger the second time. Lowering the horn, she waited expectantly. The entire cathedral blazed, flames billowing through ruptured windows and blown-out doors. Burning domes gave the building a devil’s crown of fire. The sides of the valley were molten red. Yet this was a cathedral; it was like watching what was once part of heaven be destroyed by the fires of hell.
“Three times,” Frederick insisted. “Try again.”
Hurriedly, she raised the battered hunting horn. Her third call rang high and clear and was loud enough to still the battle for a second. That is, the domovoi stopped killing Venetians and renegades for the briefest of moments; both sides having huddled together to face the more brutal enemy.
“T-there . . .” Marco”s face was exultant in the firelight.
Out of the Red Cathedral’s burning doorway rode a knight in armour so old it belonged on the slab of an ancient tomb. Embers exploded beneath his horse’s hooves, smoke rose from his shoulders, the paladin’s tattered cloak wore the flames he had ridden through. Behind him rode others.
Giulietta crossed herself.
“S-so b-beautiful,” Marco whispered.
The paladins swept on to the ice to hit the domovoi from the rear, clearing a path with their swords. They rode down Marco’s and Alonzo’s men alike as they turned and charged again, hacking ferociously and leaving domovoi broken behind them. Their horses were heavily armoured, the metal points of their toes turned down in exaggerated spikes. Marco was smiling as if visited by angels.
Captain Weimer came hurrying up with a question.
Marco shook his head. “T-they are the p-paladins. Who would d-dare offer them aid?” The fighting was spectacular in its fury. The paladins were remorseless and brutal and their enemy driven to fight by some instinct that didn’t allow retreat or surrender . . . The paladins killed and the domovoi died, and the inner circle of ice that had been the domovoi’s killing ground became their cage. And the spearmen and the knights, the renegade Crucifers and the wild archers, all those mortals who thought the world belonged to them, scrambled out of the way when the fighting came too close, and watched it happen. Slowly, surely, the paladins halved the number of domovoi and then halved it again.
When it came, the end was unexpected. A domovoi jumped for a paladin, missed its leap and impaled itself on his horse’s spiked faceplate. The creature was carried a dozen paces still hacking with its stolen sword until the paladin beheaded it, twisted half out of his saddle and kicked it free with curved steel toes. Tycho was the only one to see it happen.