Assail (Malazan Empire, #6)(95)

‘Give up your horses and you can go,’ one answered in thickly accented Talian.

‘They are ours and we will keep them!’ Lyan shouted.

One of the crossbowmen brought his weapon up to aim and a fellow near him knocked it down. ‘Don’t shoot, y’fool! Might hit a horse.’

‘Here’s mine!’ Lyan yelled and kneed her mount into a charge down the hill. She whooped a war-cry as she came and Dorrin followed in her wake.

She thundered past Kyle, who could only urge his mount onward to join her. A spearman directly in her path jabbed but she parried with her blade and the man leapt to save his life. Dorrin followed close behind. A crossbowman drew aim on Lyan and Kyle twisted his mount over to charge him; the man dropped the weapon and leapt aside.

Then they were through, galloping for a draw between the next two shallow hills. But when Kyle brought his horse over he saw Dorrin’s mount running riderless, its saddle empty.

He yelled, turned in his saddle: the lad lay in a heap on the flat between the rises. The soldiers were closing on him. Kyle yanked his mount around, just as a scream of shock and rage announced that Lyan had discovered what was happening.

Kyle reached Dorrin first. Dismounting at a run, he yanked the boy up by one arm and flinched upon seeing a bolt impaling his leg. Some crossbowman had snapped off a lucky shot. He tossed the lad over his saddle and drew a hatchet. ‘Hang on!’ he ordered. Dorrin nodded, his face snowy pale and glistening with sweat, and wrapped the reins around his hand. Clenching his teeth against the necessity of it, Kyle struck the horse’s flank with the impaling spike.

The horse screamed and reared, then took off in a spray of kicked-up dirt. Dorrin hunched low, hugging its neck. Kyle turned to face the closing men and women. He counted fifteen.

Damn the Twins’ luck. Nothing for it. He switched the hatchet to his left hand and drew his blade.

The men and women spread out in an arc, facing him. He snapped a quick glance behind, saw Lyan leading Dorrin away on his mount, the lad’s horse following.

‘Togg turd!’ one man shouted. ‘At least we can make you pay!’

Then one of the spearmen stepped forward, pointing. ‘You!’ he bellowed, and charged. In the instant the man closed Kyle noticed that he wore a tattered blue cloak. Shit.

‘Die, Whiteblade!’ the ex-Stormguard yelled in rage.

In a single movement Kyle swung, hacking the head from the spear, spun, sliced through the haft and the man’s leading arm at the elbow, looped his arm in an arc and took off the fellow’s head cleanly through the neck.

The dismembered corpse fell, spraying arterial blood from neck and arm.

In the stunned pause that followed, Kyle charged.

The first he reached actually turned to run. Kyle cut him across his back, severing his spine. He caught a sword blow from another with his hatchet, then swung, cutting through the sword arm. He severed a spear as it thrust, took off the spearman’s leading leg at the knee.

A crossbow bolt hissed as it brushed past his head and he wished he had a damned helmet. The thought drove him to charge the remaining crossbows. The nearest, a woman, reflexively raised her weapon to protect herself; Kyle sliced through the stock and ironwork and took her forearms with it. She woman stared in horror at the severed stumps of her arms, her eyes rolled up white, and she toppled. Kyle meant to close on the remaining two crossbowmen but four swordsmen were dangerously close. He remembered the trick he had learned from the Silent People and threw his hatchet, taking one bowman in the stomach, and charged the other. This one backpedalled, terrified. Kyle pressed forward until the man tripped then took off one foot as it flew upwards. He spun to meet the swordsmen, blade raised in a guard, but no one was pressing the attack. The survivors were running.

He eased his stance, let out a long hard breath. The wounded crossbowman, screaming curses and clutching his ankle, he left alone. He bent down to retrieve his hatchet, and walked away. Their friends may, or may not, come back for them. The lesser wounded might make it to the coast.

He didn’t care. He was just tired of the stupidity of it. The needlessness of it. He had been forced to defend himself and now he was a killer. He cleaned the blade on the blue cloak of the dead Stormguard, carefully sheathed it. This one he didn’t recognize, but it made sense that many of them would now be out selling their spears. He walked on, trying to spit, but his mouth was too dry.

Atop the next rise he found Lyan tending to Dorrin. She’d torn his trouser leg and removed the bolt and was now tightly wrapping the wound. Mercifully, the lad was unconscious. Kyle was worried; the boy had lost a lot of blood.

He cleared his throat to speak, croaked, ‘We have to move.’

‘I know,’ she answered without stopping her work. Kyle nodded, though she wasn’t looking. ‘Saw you fight,’ she said, and glanced up. He saw something new in her eyes, something that troubled him. ‘That was plain butchery.’

He went to collect the horses.

That night, across the small fire, Lyan cradled Dorrin to her chest, giving him her warmth. He’d woken only for brief moments, groaned his pain, and shut his eyes once more. Sweat now gleamed on his face and Kyle feared a fever. It occurred to him that the lad might not make it and the thought brought a terrible squeezing pain to his chest that made it hard to breathe. The boy had shown such good sense, such endurance, such patience and wisdom beyond his years. Kyle suddenly realized that if he had a son, he could only hope for one such as this. The band across his chest became a burning acid gash and he blinked away a swimming blur in his eyes.