Tom Swan and the Head of St George Part One: Castillon Read Online Free PDF Page B

but nevertheless a powerful one. Swan saw the twitch in the man’s stance that heralded the blow and pulled on his hilt with a sudden burst of strength. The sword-point grated and came free, and Swan got his guard up and wished he had a buckler. The two swords rang together.
    The man was essentially untrained, and obviously scared to death.
    Swan was scared, but he did as he’d been taught. He pivoted his weight, let the heavier sword ‘win’ the bind, and cut sharply down with little more than the pressure of his wrist. Two of the scimitar-wielder’s fingers fell away, and the man dropped his sword and screamed. Swan stepped in and drove his pommel into the man’s mouth, teeth sprayed, and the wounded man was down. Even as the fourth man ran at him from beyond the wagon team, Swan plunged his sword through the body of the man writhing on the ground.
    His mother’s brothers all said you had to do it. ‘ Don’t leave anyone behind you ,’ they said, when they drilled.
    The fourth man had a spear.
    Swan got into a low guard. His knees were weak. He’d practised this. It hadn’t usually gone all that well. But the spearman was no better trained than the falchion man, and he thrust ineptly, a tentative attack, which Swan beat remorselessly aside with all the energy of doubt and fear. He stepped through, got a hand on the shaft, and killed the man with a simple cut to the neck – and then cut him twice more as his body fell.
    He stood, breathing like a bellows.
    He could hear hooves, and the sounds of shouting.
    I killed them all .
    He was kneeling beside the last man. He wanted to vomit, wanted to take some action. Wanted to pray.
    It was all more personal than the battle had been.
    He watched his hands cut the man’s belt and take his purse and dagger. Then he went to the falchion man and did the same. He tottered to his horse and tried to get a foot over the old thing’s back. He was shaking too badly to mount.
    But the hoof-beats were still distant. Across the ford, he could see dust, and more steel moving on the hillside beyond the ford. He had a little time.
    He went to the first man he’d cut down. There was a stunning amount of blood around the man – a pool like a small lake, of a red opaqueness like magic wine. He’d never seen so much blood.
    He threw up into the pool of blood.
    His horse and saddle saved him, and he stood there, one hand in his stirrup leather, for as long as a man would say a benison. Without the horse, he’d have fallen in the blood.
    Then he unbuckled the man’s belt and took his purse and dagger. He had to touch the blood. But he did. Then he put all three purses in the leather sack the first man had been carrying.
    Even in the shocked reaction to his first real killing, he eyed the wagon. The canvas was split, and he could see the cargo. On the wagon box, where the drover sat, was a chest with iron reinforcement. It had a lock. They’d been trying to force the lock when he came up.
    But he didn’t need trouble, and the distant hoof-beats were getting closer.
    It seemed a waste, though.
    He got mounted, and convinced his antique horse to trot.
    He was no sooner moving than a dozen mounted men appeared in front of him, three of them fully armoured, with lances. They rode at him hard.
    It was not a fight he could win, so he was very pleased when he recognised the French man-at-arms from the abbey, and behind him he could see the two notaries. He saluted.
    The French knight rode up, raising first his lance and then his visor. ‘Messire,’ he said. ‘You are one of the cardinal’s men?’
    ‘Yes,’ said Swan.
    ‘Have you been attacked?’ said another of the men-at-arms in blue and red. He sounded hopeful.
    Swan pointed at the road behind him. ‘Brigands attacked one of your wagons. I’m afraid they killed the wagoner. We happened on them.’ He shrugged.
    Cesare was waving from farther up the road.
    ‘You burst through them?’ asked the man-at-arms.
    ‘No,’ said