Knight's Ransom (The First Argentines #1)(20)

The bridge wasn’t far. A few buildings, mostly barns, sat off the side of the road. His feelings still raw from Lord Kinghorn’s reprimand, Ransom focused his attention on the road and the bridge. Light flashed off metal in the distance. His insides began to squirm.

“They’re guarding the bridge,” Ransom said to himself. He felt a pulse of warning, a sickening realization that the fight was upon them. His anxiety quelled as the familiar rushing sound of water filled his ears. He reached for one of his two lances and pulled it out of its saddle pocket.

“Oy!” shouted Captain Baldwin. “What are you doing!”

Ransom could barely hear him over the tumult of his heartbeat and the rushing noise in his ears. The knights in front of him reached for their lances as well. Ransom kicked Gemmell’s flanks.

“Easy, lads,” Lord Kinghorn ordered. “Don’t rush. Save your strength.”

As they came closer, Ransom saw the knights guarding the bridge had a different style of armor, with helmets and nose guards that covered the tips of their noses. Each had a long, narrow shield bearing the colors of Brugia.

They charged at Lord Kinghorn’s men.

“Ready your lances!” Lord Kinghorn shouted. “They’re charging us!”

Ransom’s heart thundered in his chest. He already had his prepared. Their steeds began to snort in anticipation of the violence. Gemmell’s nostrils flared, and the beast let out an otherworldly shriek. Ransom tried to swallow, but his throat was too tight. Men began to shout, spewing not words but emotions.

Then the battle cry started. “Averanche! Averanche! Averanche!”

Ransom began to scream it himself. He spurred Gemmell forward, wanting to be one of the first to engage. The two forces collided in a cacophony of sound. Ransom’s lance shattered on his opponent’s shield, but the force of the impact knocked the other knight clean off his destrier. Ransom discarded the broken lance and dodged a lance coming straight for him, nearly coming off his own saddle as he did so. It missed. He grabbed his other one, couched it in his arm, and pressed forward into the next rank of charging knights. He spotted a rival, adjusted his aim, and went straight for him. The lance caught the man in a vulnerable spot, the edge of his breastplate, beneath the arm, and killed him instantly, sending the knight down to the dust-choked ground. Ransom pulled his weapon free, using the length of the lance to block another man aiming for him. The two horses nearly collided, but they passed each other instead.

Ransom found another Brugian facing him and spurred Gemmell on. The two struck each other, and Ransom’s second lance shattered against the knight’s. They whacked each other with the stumps, Ransom managing to club the man over the head and unseat him before the tide of battle swallowed them both up, like the surf on the shores outside the castle of Averanche. He heard the battle cry being shouted still. Disoriented, he turned and saw many of Lord Kinghorn’s knights had gathered in a circle. They were fighting with swords now, their lances used up or useless at such close proximity. Horses trampled fallen men, flailing their hooves against armor. Knights fell and didn’t get up again.

Ransom wrenched his bastard sword out of its scabbard and charged into the fray. Chaos reigned supreme. It felt like they were outnumbered by the Brugians three to one. The enemy was everywhere. A knight slashed at Ransom from behind, and the blow glanced off his armor. He twisted in the saddle and engaged, battering the knight so hard the man fell off his horse and added to the bodies already on the ground.

The rushing noise of the waterfall drowned out the cries of battle. Ransom spotted another enemy and pressed into him, knocking him from his horse too. Then another. And another. He could not keep track of how many foes he’d conquered. A war hammer came at Ransom’s helmet, but he managed to deflect it with the flat of his sword and used the hilt to return a blow to his enemy’s helmet. Despite the grueling pace of the battle, he felt no weariness, no exhaustion. He felt alive, in complete command of his emotions and his situation. Gemmell heeded his every thought, guided by pressure from Ransom’s knees instead of the reins. Another knight fell. Then another.

Ransom felt a broken lance batter against his sword arm. The knight facing him hadn’t drawn another weapon, or perhaps he lacked one. Ransom grabbed the bridle of the man’s horse with his free hand and yanked. The stallion reared in pain, spilling the knight onto the ground, and then backstepped and trampled him.

A ringing blow rattled against Ransom’s helmet, but it didn’t stun him. He turned, saw a knight with hate in his eyes strike out again with a flanged mace. He only had time to lift his armored elbow to absorb the blow, the feeling of metal clanging against metal ringing through him. But it did not slow him down. Ransom, pivoting his bastard sword, nudged Gemmell, and struck the knight in return. A look of surprise crossed the fellow’s face as the sword bypassed a gap in his armor, the blade piercing the metal chains of his hauberk. The knight slumped forward in the saddle, resting on the armored neck of his destrier, and then, face contorted with pain, rode away. A moment later all the Brugians were riding away.

Ransom turned in his saddle, surprised to see so many dead sprawled on the ground around him, as if he and Gemmell were an island amidst a sea of wounded and dying. Lord Kinghorn raised his fist into the air, and a triumphant shout began to rise up from the knights of Averanche.

Again the battle cry sounded. “Averanche! Averanche! Averanche!”