Best Served Cold

Shivers went along with ’em. There wasn’t much choice since Faithful was right at his side. Hanging back would’ve seemed poor manners. He would’ve liked his axe to hand, but hoping for a thing often brought on the opposite. Besides, as they picked up speed to a healthy canter, keeping both hands on the reins seemed like an idea with some weight to it.

Maybe a hundred strides out now, and all still looking peaceful. Shivers frowned at the farmhouse, at the low wall, at the barn, gathering himself, making ready. It all seemed like a bad plan, now. It had seemed a bad plan at the time, but having to do it made it seem a whole lot worse. The ground rushed past hard under his horse’s hooves, the saddle jolted at his sore arse, the wind nipped at his narrowed eye, tickled at the raw scars on the other side of his face, bitter cold without the bandages. Faithful rode on his right, sitting up tall, cloak flapping behind him, sword still raised, shouting, “Steady! Steady!” On his left the line shifted and buckled, eager faces of men and horses in a twisting row, spears jolting up and down at all angles. Shivers worked his boots free of the stirrups.

Then the shutters of the farmhouse flew open all together with an echoing bang. Shivers saw the Osprians at the windows, first light glinting on their steel caps as a long row of ’em came up from behind the wall together, flatbows levelled. Comes a time you just have to do a thing, shit on the consequences. The air whooped in his throat as he sucked in a great breath and held it, then threw himself sideways and tumbled from the saddle. Over the batter of hooves, the clatter of metal, the rushing of wind he heard Monza’s sharp cry.

Then the dirt struck him, jarred his teeth together. He rolled, grunting, over and over, took a mouthful of mud. The world spun, all dark sky and flicking soil, flying horses, falling men. Hooves thudded around him, mud spattered in his eyes. He heard screams, fought his way up as far as his knees. A corpse dropped, flailing, crashed into Shivers and knocked him on his back again.

– 

M orveer made it to the double doors of the barn and wrestled one wide enough to stick his head through, just in time to see the Osprian soldiers rise from behind the farmyard wall and deliver a disciplined and deadly volley of flatbow fire.

Out in the grassy paddock men jerked and tumbled from their saddles, horses fell and threw their riders. Flesh plunged down, ploughed into the wet dirt, limbs flailing. Beasts and men roared and wailed in shock and fury, pain and fear. Perhaps a dozen riders dropped, but the rest broke into a full charge without the slightest hint of reluctance, weapons raised and gleaming, releasing war cries to match the death screams of their fallen comrades.

Morveer whimpered, shoved the door shut and pressed his back against it. Red-edged battle. Rage and randomness. Pointed metal moving at great speed. Blood spilled, brains dashed, soft bodies ripped open and their innards laid sickeningly bare. A most uncivilised way to carry on, and decidedly not his area of expertise. His own guts, thankfully still within his abdomen, shifted with a first stab of bestial terror and revulsion, then constricted with a more reasoned wash of fear. If Murcatto won, her lethal intentions towards him had already been clearly displayed. She had not balked for a moment at engineering the death of his innocent apprentice, after all. If the Thousand Swords won, well, he was an accomplice of Prince Ario’s killer. In either case his life would undoubtedly be painfully forfeit.

“Damn it!”

Beyond the one doorway the farmyard was rapidly becoming a slaughteryard, but the windows were too narrow to squeeze through. Hide in the hayloft? No, no, what was he, five years old? Lie down beside poor Day and play dead? What? Lie down in urine? Never! He dashed to the back of the barn with all despatch, poked desperately at the planking for a way through. He found a loose board and began kicking at it.

“Break, you wooden bastard! Break! Break! Break! ” The sounds of mortal combat were growing ever more intense in the yard behind him. Something crashed against the side of the barn and made him startle, dust filtering down from the rafters with the force of it. He turned back to the carpentry, whimpering now with fear and frustration, face prickling with sweat. One last kick and the wood tore free. Wan daylight slunk in through a narrow gap between two ragged-edged planks. He knelt, turning sideways on, forced his head through the crack, splinters digging at his scalp, gained a view of flat country, brown wheat, a stand of trees perhaps two hundred strides distant. Safety. He worked one arm through into the free air, clutching vainly at the weathered outside of the barn. One shoulder, half his chest, and then he stuck fast.