Best Served Cold

She was under, head full of light, bubbles rushing round her face. Cold clutched at her, and cold fear too. She thrashed her way up for a moment, out of the darkness and suddenly into the glare, the sound of battle crashing at her ears again. She gasped in a breath, shipped some water, coughed it out, gasped in another. She clawed at the saddle with her left hand, tried to drag herself free, but her leg was trapped under her horse’s thrashing body.

Something cracked against her forehead and she was under for a moment, dizzy, floppy. Her lungs were burning, her arms were made of mud. Fought her way up again, but weaker this time, only far enough to snatch one breath. Blue sky reeling, shreds of white cloud, like the sky as she tumbled down from Fontezarmo.

The sun flickered at her, searing bright along with her whooping breath, then blurred and sparkling with muffled gurgles as the river washed over her face. No strength left to twist herself out of the water. Was this what Faithful’s last moments had been like, drowned on the mill-wheel?

Here was justice.

A black shape blotted out the sun. Shivers, seeming ten feet tall as he stood over her. Something gleamed bright in the socket of his blinded eye. He lifted one boot slowly clear of the river, frowning hard, water trickling from the edges of the sole and into her face. For a moment she was sure he was going to plant that foot on her neck and push her under. Then it splashed down beside her. She heard him growling, straining at the corpse of her horse. She felt the weight across her leg release a little, then a little more. She squirmed, groaned, breathed in water and coughed it out, finally dragged her leg free and floundered up.

She trembled on hands and knees, up to her elbows in the river, babbling water sparkling and flickering in front of her, drips falling from her wet hair. “Shit,” she whispered, every breath shuddering in her sore ribs. “Shit.” She needed a smoke.

“They’re coming,” came Shivers’ voice. She felt his hand rammed into her armpit, dragging her up. “Get a blade.”

She staggered under the weight of wet clothes and wet armour to a bobbing corpse caught on a rock. A heavy mace with a metal shaft was still hanging by its strap from his wrist, and she dragged it free with fumbling fingers, pulled a long knife from his belt.

Just in time. An armoured man was bearing down on her, planting his feet carefully, peering at her with hard little eyes over the top of his shield, sword beaded with wet sticking out sideways. She backed off a step or two, pretending to be finished. Didn’t take much pretending. As he took another step she came at him. Couldn’t have called it a spring. More of a tired half-dive, hardly able to shove her feet through the water fast enough to keep up with the rest of her body.

She swung at him mindlessly with the mace and it clanged off his shield, made her arm sing to the shoulder. She grunted, wrestled with him, stabbed at him with her knife, but it caught the side of his breastplate and scraped off harmless. The shield barged into her and sent her stumbling. She saw one swing of his sword coming and just had the presence of mind to duck it. She flailed with the mace and caught air, reeled off balance, hardly any strength left, gulping for air. His sword went up again.

She saw Shivers’ mad grin behind him, a flash as the red blade of his axe caught the sun. It split the man’s armoured shoulder down to his chest with a heavy thud, sent blood spraying in Monza’s face. She reeled away, ears full of his gargling shriek, nose full of his blood, trying to scrape her eyes clear on the back of one hand.

First thing she saw was another soldier, open helmet with a bearded face inside, stabbing with a spear. She tried to twist away but it caught her hard in the chest, point shrieked down her breastplate, sent her toppling, head snapping forwards. She was on her back in the ford and the soldier stumbled past, floundering into a crack in the river bed, sending water showering in her eyes. She fought her way up to one knee, bloody hair tangled across her face. He turned, lifting the spear to stab at her again. She twisted round and rammed the knife between two plates of armour, into the side of his knee right to the crosspiece.

He bent down over her, eyes bulging, opened his mouth wide to scream. She snarled as she jerked the mace up and smashed it into the bottom of his jaw. His head snapped back, blood and teeth and bits of teeth flew high. He seemed to stay there for a moment, hands dangling, then she clubbed his stretched-out throat with the mace, sprawled on top of him as he fell, rolled about in the river and came up spitting.