Honour and the Sword Read Online Free PDF Page A

said quickly ‘All right, do what you like, but I couldn’t ride him myself, not bareback, I’m not up to it.’
    I turned away to grab my blanket, and make a bundle of it for the gun and some oats for the horses. I had a bit of bread and cheese up there too, so I took that along with a bottle of apple brandy which Father used to hide under the rafters and didn’t know I knew about. I ran out into the yard, and there was the boy standing by Duchesse. He looked mutinous and thoroughly pissed off, but he was standing by Duchesse like I told him.
    I gave him a leg-up, hurled myself on Tonnerre, took Perle’s halter, and signalled the boy to follow. The loose horses were blundering about in confusion, bumping into each other and half bolting, but we weaved our way through towards the fork in the path. The right was the carriageway down to the Manor and about a million Spaniards, the left was where the bridle path wound on up to the north of Ancre and the Forest of Dax. I reached the fork and saw horsemen starting up the carriageway towards us.
    Duchesse whinnied behind me, and I turned to see the boy half sliding off her back. The stupid little bugger, he was still clutching that sword in one hand, and actually trying to lead Tempête with the other, he’d got nothing to hold on with and was slipping off towards the ground. I fought back to him through the milling horses, but I’d only got one hand to support him, I was holding Perle with the other, while crushing the gun and my bundle against Tonnerre’s neck to keep it on.
    ‘Let go of him!’ I shouted, struggling to drag him back up. ‘They’re coming, let go of the halter!’
    He turned his face to me, pale and desperate and sheened with rain. Down the carriageway I heard someone shouting.
    ‘Then the sword, drop the sword!’ I said.
    He shook his head furiously. ‘It’s my father’s.’
    There was a flash below us, then the sharp crack of a musket. I hauled him back high against Duchesse’s neck, screamed ‘Come on!’ then tried to turn Tonnerre, but we were blocked in by the loose horses, I couldn’t get through, Mai was in front of us, rearing and rolling her eyes white in panic, and the poor old Général was backing into me, trying to turn towards the guns, desperate to get back to his old place in the cavalry lines.
    Another horse loomed beside me. I swore at it, then realized with shock it was grey and black, a horse I didn’t know, and when my eyes went up there was a man on him, black and red, and his arm high in the air. Something white was striping down towards me with a sound like whipping air, I tried to jerk back, but another blade whistled in between us, there was the sharp ring of steel as swords clashed just inches from my nose. I dug in my heels, driving Tonnerre back, and there was the boy on Duchesse, one hand screwed in her mane, the other slicing down with his sword, the rush of it changing to a hard squelch as it bit into the Spaniard’s neck. The man was screaming in my face, he was veering back, his arm coming up, an open white palm with fingers splayed in panic, he was falling away, he was gone.
    I closed my eyes, yelled again ‘Come on!’, got my head down, urged Tonnerre to the gallop and rode like mad down the other fork. There was no time to look back, but the sound of hooves told me the boy was following, and at least I knew he’d let go of Tempête.
    There was more shouting below us, and the neighing and stamping of horses, but no more shots, and I couldn’t hear anyone else coming after us. I suppose they were too busy trying to round up the loose horses, which were a lot more valuable than we were, after all. Perle was still up with me, and the foal tangling its long thin legs as it skittered desperately after her. I risked a glance behind and saw the boy was keeping up too. He was twisting his head to look back for Tempête, but he still had that sword in his hand, and the blade was dark with what I knew was