Текст книги "Gate of Ivrel"
Автор книги: C. J. Cherryh
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Now I will ask her."
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"Let me go," said Morgaine, "and I will not remember this against you."
But there was a sound intruding upon them, soft at first, under the limit of hearing, then from all sides, the soft crunch of snow underfoot. It came with increasing frequency about them.
"Roh!" Vanye cried in anguish, hurled himself across the snow toward the place where Changelinglay.
Then dark bodies were upon them, men that snarled like beasts, and Roh went down beneath them, mauled under a black flood of them, and the tide rushed over Vanye, hands closed upon his legs. He twisted over onto his back, kicked one of them into writhing pain, and was pinned, held about his knees. Cord bit into his ankles, ending all hope of struggle.
They let him alone then, to try to wrench himself up to his knees, laughing when he failed twice and fell. On his third effort he succeeded, gasping for air, and glowered into their bearded faces.
They were not Hjemurn, or of Chya.
Men of Leth, the bandits from the back of the hall: he recognized the roughest of them.
There was quiet for a moment. He had had most of the wind knocked from him, and bent over a little to try to breathe, lifted his head again to keep a wary eye upon their captors.
They were prodding at Roh, trying to force him to consciousness.
Morgaine they let alone, she with ankles bound the same as he, and now with her back to a rock, glaring at them with the warmth of a she-wolf.
One of the bandits had Changelingin hand, drew it partway, Morgaine watching with interest, as if in her heart she urged the man on in ignorance.
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But riders were coming up the hill. The sword slammed into its sheath, in guilty hands. The bandits stood and waited, while men on horses came onto the hill into the clearing, horses blowing frost in the starlight.
"Well done," said Chya Liell.
He dismounted and looked about the clearing, and one presented to him the things that had been taken, all of Morgaine's gear; and Changeling, which Liell received into respectful and eager hands.
"Chan's," he said, and to Morgaine paid an ironic bow. He considered Roh, half-conscious now, laughed in pleasure, for he and the young lord of Chya were old enemies.
And then he came to Vanye, and while Vanye shuddered with disgust knelt down by him and smiled a faithless smile, lordly-wise, placed a hand upon his shoulder like some old friend, and all too possessively. "IlinNhi Vanye i Chya," he said softly. "Are you well, Nhi Vanye?"
Vanye would have spit at him: it was the only recourse he had left; but his mouth was too dry. He had a Lethen's hand in his collar behind, holding him so that he was half-choking; he could not even flinch, and Liell's gentle fingers touched and brushed at a sore place on his temple.
"Be careful with him," said Liell then to the Lethen. "Any damage or discomfort he suffers will be mine shortly, and I will repay it."
And to those about them:
"Set them on horses. We have a ride to make."
* * *
The day sank toward dark again, reddening the snows that stretched unmarred in front of them. They moved slowly, because of those on foot, and because of the thinner air. Liell rode first. He had taken back his own black horse and his gear.
Changeling
hung from his saddle, beneath his knee.
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Several Lethen riders were between him and Morgaine, and two men afoot led Siptah, as two led also the horse they had borrowed for Roh, who had no strength to walk; and the black mare that Vanye rode was Liell's grace, personal, offered with cynical courtesy– exchange of the mare for the one he had stolen.
And bound as he was, hands behind, even feet bound securely by ropes under the mare's ribs, he could not even stretch his legs against the torment of the long ride, much less be aid to Morgaine. She and Roh were in no better case. Roh hung in the saddle much of the time, giving the appearance of a man who would as likely collapse and fall if the cords let him. Morgaine at least seemed unhurt, though he could guess the torment there was in her mind.
Liell was qujaland knew the ancient science. Perhaps he could even read the runes of Changeling, and then Thiye, whom Morgaine had called ignorant, a meddler in sciences, would have a rival he could not withstand.
They came among trees again, pines, rough brush, sometime outcroppings of black rock. And the trees began to be twisted and stunted things, writhing out of all true shape for their kind. Bare limbs held tufts of sickly needles, bare trunks described horrid, frozen evolutions.
And in the snow they saw a dead dragon.
At least so it seemed to be– an object leathery and twisted, and the horses shied from it. It was monstrous, frozen in its death throes so that it was yet less lovely. One membraneous wing was half unfolded, stiff and stark. The other side was bare bone, taken by other beasts.
The Lethen described a wide path about that corpse. Vanye stared back at the thing as they passed and the bile rose in his throat.
Other things they saw dead too. Most were small. One resembled a man, but the wolves had had it.
The light faded in this place of evil. They moved among the twisted pines in twilight, and went carefully. Men had bows ready, eyes constantly scanning the forest.
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Then the trees thinned out, quite abruptly. Upon the great shoulder of the mountain was a lesser rise, and upon that were broken pillars, fair-colored, rune-graven, out of place among the black rocks of Ivrel's cone.
And the Gate.
It was vast, unlike that of Aenor-Pyvvn or Leth at Domen: metal uncorroded by the years, casting a web of shimmer that had depth, stars winking in a black arch against the twilit white side of Ivrel. The air here worked at the nerves. The horses fought to shy off– men that rode dismounted, and prepared to wait.
Morgaine was helped down first, her ankles freed, and she was made fast against one of the few twisted pines that grew this near the Gate. Next Roh was similarly treated, though he strove to fight them. Finally Vanye was lifted down, and he thought that they would do the same with him, but instead Liell ordered him brought forward in the line.
He kicked a man, threw him to the ground writhing in pain, and a Lethen hit him, kicked him down and laid a quirt to him: Vanye tucked down against the blows, unhurt by reason of the mail, save where the quirt hit neck or hands.
And of a sudden Liell was by him, cursing the man, other Lethen hauling Vanye up, and the man that had struck him cringed away.
"No hand on him!" Liell said. "No harm to him. I will kill the man that puts a mark on him." And carefully he unlaced the cloak from Vanye, and gave it to a man, walked all about him, full circle. Then he made to lay hands on him and Vanye flinched back, constrained to bear it in patience while Liell gently probed bones, as if to see whether they were sound or no. In bitter humor he cherished the ache in his skull, the worse pain in his legs and joints where the ride bound to the saddle had bruised him– his only revenge on Liell. It was a sorry, sad thing, he thought of a sudden, that he had been taken so easily, and it was no comfort at all that Roh was about to pay dearly for his idiocy.
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And by that time, there would be nothing left of Nhi Vanye, though his body would continue to move and live, housing for Liell-Zri, which would take revenge upon Roh, upon Morgaine.
That image struck him as Liell began to climb that last distance, and they began to force him up the long barren slope. It took from him what courage he had left, such that he would have fallen if not for the men on either side of him. He stumbled on the loose rocks, Liell striding surefootedly beside him, up in that clear place where air cut at the lungs like the edge of ice. There was only the Gate above them, and the stars within, and wind that gently sucked at them, aiming into that gulf.
It grew as they walked, until there was no more sky. The Lethen with them balked, and Vanye thought for one wild soaring moment that they would lose their courage and fail to hold him. But Liell cursed them and threatened them, and they drew him up and up, until they stood swaying in that awesome wind, poised upon a level place near the Gate.
There Liell bade them unbind his hands and hold him fast: "I will not enter an impaired shelter," he said. And this they did, but held his numb arms and strengthless wrists still wrenched behind him with such cruel force that he could not struggle free. He stared up into that great gulf, dizzied, faltered and lost his balance even standing still.
"How is it done?" he asked of Liell. He did not want to know, but his courage was never proof against the unknown: he feared that he would shame himself at the last, crying out, if he did not know. He knew Morgaine's things, that there were laws and realities that governed them; he insisted to believe so even in this.
"It is less pleasant for me than for you," said Liell. "I must ruin this present body of mine, enough to die; but you– you will only seem to fall for a moment. You will never reach bottom. Do not fear; you will not suffer."
Liell knew his fear and mocked him with it. Vanye set his lips and forbore to say anything, head bowed.
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"Those companions of yours," Liell said. "Have you fondness for them?"
"Yes," he said.
Liell's lips made a slight smile, which his eyes did not share. "As for Chya Roh, that is an old and personal matter, which I shall enjoy settling. That which you are about to bequeath me is well capable of handling the lord of Chya, of claiming what he rules, by the blood you share; and claiming Morija too. You never appreciated your heredity as I do. And do not fear so much for Morgaine. Without her weapons she is harmless, and she has knowledge that will be of great interest to me. And in other ways, with your youth, she is of interest. Flis is tiresome."
Vanye made a sound like spitting, at which Liell was neither amused nor troubled, and they began to climb again. He balked, had his arms painfully wrenched, and gave up resistance, lost in what loomed over them.
Dark was all their vision now, stars more numerous than shone in the sky, clouds upon clouds of stars. The air was dead. It numbed. The vision seemed about to drink them into that shimmering nothing– though they climbed, it seemed a pit, a downward plunge into which one could fall and fall, and that they leaned impossibly above it. The mountain on which they walked seemed out of proper alignment with earth. The wind skirled about them, maleficent and voiced, humming with power, blurring senses.
Liell reached the Gate and touched its arch; his fingers moved upon it, and all at once there was utter dark within the Gate. The wind ceased. The humming altered its tone, higher pitched. The opalescence of Changelingitself burst and coruscated within the arch, flung light at them.
The Lethen faltered. Vanye spun, flung himself downslope, lost footing and slid, brought up against a level place and staggered to his feet, dazed, blinded, aware of shouting ahead and behind in the gathering dark.
Out, was the only thing his senses grasped at the moment; and hard upon that single light of reason: Morgaine.
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He could not help her. They would have a dozen men upon him before he could free her.
Changeling.
He ran, sliding, mail-protected, but leaving skin of his hands on rocks, battering himself in one spill and another. Men tried to head him off at the bottom. He gasped air, spun left, veering off from Morgaine and Roh, scattering horses as he fled. Then there was the familiar black before him: he vaulted for the saddle, shied the beast and clung, clawed his way firmly into the saddle and caught the flying reins. The beast knew him, gathered himself and sprang forward under his guidance.
Riders were already starting after him. Tumult and shouting were in his wake, though no arrows flew. He did not even seek the hill, to brave that weight of air, that awful climb, not with pursuit and enemies and a frightened horse to confound matters. He headed back along their trail.
If the Gate were barred to him, there was still Ra-hjemur, where Thiye ruled. There was Changelingunder his knee, its dragon-hilt familiar to his anxious fingers. With that in hand and the power of the Gate to feed it, he could force his way to the heart of Thiye's power, destroy its source, whatever it was, destroy the Gate– destroy himself and Morgaine too, he knew.
And Liell.
The world had not yet seen what Liell could do with the power of Morgaine added to his own. Thiye was small compared to that evil.
He rode the horse without mercy, whipped the poor beast down snowy slopes and across trails and down, doing all he could to clear Ivrel.
Even Liell must have care of him now. Even Morgaine's other weapons were nothing to the power of the opal blade, that drank attack and cast it elsewhere, that drank lives and cast them into nothing. And armed as he was, with that power in his hands, it was madness to kill the horse that was his best hope of reaching Hjemur: he came to his senses when he had 191
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cleared the steepest portion of the road, and come to the main trail. There he slowed his pace at last, let the horse breathe.
Around the limb of the lower slope the main road led, bending toward Rahjemur. It must be. There was no other place in Hjemur that could even boast a road.
He kept the horse to a holding pace. Lethen might be reluctant to follow, but Liell would drive them to it– timid as Morgaine avowed herself to be, able to spend others' lives before her own, she was capable of fearful risks when it became necessary; and Liell surely would prove no different: when caution would not serve, then there would be nothing reserved, nothing. When Liell knew finally that the Gates themselves were at stake, he would surely follow. The only hope was that he had yet to understand what Changelingwas, or that a Morij ilinmight understand what had to be done with the blade.
A shadow thundered out at him. The black screamed shrilly and shied, and an impact hit his shoulder, tumbling him inexorably over the black's rump, head over heels, and into snow and hard ice.
* * *
Joints moved, bones unbroken, but shaken; he tried to gain command of his battered limbs and move, but a shortsword pressed under his chin, forcing his head down again into the numbing snow. A body hovered over him, the arm that rested across the figure's knee ending abruptly.
"Brother," said Erij, whispering.
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Chapter 10
"Erij." Vanye tried a second time to rise, and in a sudden move Erij moved back and let him. Then he snapped the Honor blade back into his belt and stalked up the road a space where his horse stood, along with Vanye's black.
Vanye stumbled up from the ditch, limping, trying vainly to overtake him and prevent him, saw to his dismay that Erij had already found what the black horse bore on its saddle.
A fierce grin spread over Erij's face as he took the sheathed blade in hand, and with the sheath in the crook of his arm and his hand upon its hilt, he waited Vanye's coming.
Vanye stopped short of the threat he posed him, still shaking in all his limbs, trying to gather his breath and his wits and frame some reasonable argument.
"There is a qujalout of Leth," he began, his voice hardly audible. "Erij, Erij, there are Lethen and the devil himself behind me. We are both in danger. I will go with you clear of this road– not try at escape, at least that far. I swear, I swear it, Erij."
Erij considered, his dark eyes fluid in the dark. Then he nodded abrupt decision, hooked the sheath of Changelingto his own belt– one-handed as he was, he wore it at his hip, not his back– and swung up to mount.
Vanye hauled his aching body into the saddle on a second effort, sent the black galloping down the road in Erij's company, down side trails into forest, though at every turn the forest looked more ominous in itself. The horses went at a careful pace now, wending their way down into rocky ground. Here were still patches of snow in which to leave prints, but brush and woods were so thick that pursuit of them could not be easy for any group of men, and their trail was somewhat obscured. It held no feeling of safety, this place– rather, the same kind of queasiness that all of Erij's ambushes had held, from boyhood up, screaming alarm, such that he thought, like another dream by Aenor-Pyvvn, that he might have ridden 193
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this place in some bad dream, wherein he had died. The trees, the rocks etched themselves into his sight, his senses clinging to them as strongly as fingers might cling to some last handhold on solidity. I am losing these,he thought, and: I am mad to go with him like this.But he had no strength left, and Erij held Changeling, held his duty as ilinto hostage: Erij could reason, could be reasoned with– his hope insisted so.
Then, in a clear place among the trees, Erij reined in and ordered him down.
Panic struck him. Almost he did lay heels to the horse. But he found himself climbing down, careful of strained knees as he caught his balance on the ground. He moved out uncertainly as Erij motioned him to the center of the clearing.
"Where is she?" Erij asked then, and as he asked, climbed down, and unhooked the sheath of Changeling.
Then he knew of a certainty that Erij meant to kill him when he had answered; and Changelingslipped inexorably from its sheath, Erij knowing the nature of the blade now, well able to wield it.
Vanye hurled himself at Erij waist-high, grappled and came down with him, Changelingfalling still sheathed.
Erij's elbow crashed into his face, blinding him. Vanye was suddenly underneath again, losing, as he had always lost, as it had always been with his brothers. He could not see, could not breathe, could not feel for a moment. With his last effort he heaved over and clung, fighting only for leverage. Then his hands were slamming Erij's head into the snowy ground, again and again, until Erij's limbs weakened and ceased to struggle. He scrambled up to find Changeling, his mind next clearing as he reached his horse, holding the sword-sheath, groping blindly for the reins.
The horse shied. Erij's rush carried into his lower back, hurling him, stunned, almost under the hooves. Changelingflew from his nerveless fingers, beyond reach, and when he struggled after it, Erij kicked him over by the shoulder. He came halfway up, staggered, and met Erij's fist, which 194
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laid him backward into the snow. Then Erij fell upon him with a knee upon his chest and his maimed arm still strong enough to strike his arm aside: Erij ripped the Honor blade from his belt and slipped it within the throat-laces of his armor, cutting down the thongs like so much rotten thread.
"A third of Nhi died at Irn-Svejur," Erij gasped at him, hoarse and out of breath. "Your doing– and hers. Where is she?"
Vanye swallowed against the blade's pressure, unable to answer. He fought instinctively to breathe and froze, trembling with the effort, when he felt moisture trickling down the sides of his neck. Raw pain rode on the edge of the blade as it eased slightly.
"Answer me," Erij hissed.
"Leth." He moved an arm as heavy as his whole body ought to be, ceased.
" Qujal– men from Leth caught her– to make her give them what she knows. Erij– Erij, no, do not kill me. They will have her knowledge—theirs– Thiye's– together– against us."
The pressure eased altogether, but it was there. The faint hope there was of Erij's interest sent the sweat coursing over him, Erij's knee hampered his breathing: he felt himself losing touch with his senses again, dizzied and numb. "And you, bastard?" Erij asked him. "What are you doing loose and alone?"
"Hjemur– the source. That can stop them. I am to kill Thiye– take Rahjemur. Erij, let me go."
"Bastard, I have chased you from Irn-Svejur. The others had no stomach for Hjemur's territory and Morgaine's weapons, but I swore to them that I would go where I had to go to bring back your head. I would bring back the whole of you alive, but one-handed as I am, I know I cannot manage that. For Nhi and for Myya, for San and Torin– most especially for Nhi and its dead, I will do this thing, and then find how to put this gift you have given me to best use. I have no enemies I need fear so long as I wield that. If it would bring you safely to Ra-hjemur, then it could bring me there too."
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"Go with me there, then."
"I offered you the chance of sharing power once, bastard, and I meant it; but you loved the witch more than you loved Morija, enough to kill Nhi for her."
"Erij, you know at least that I will not break an oath. Help me– to Rahjemur. Now. Before our enemy takes it. Let me have my revenge on Thiye– for Morgaine; on the qujaltoo if I can. I am speaking sense, Erij.
Listen to me. There are weapons in Ra-hjemur, surely– and if our enemy lays hands on them, even holding Changelingmight not be enough to take the citadel. Do this. Come with me. That is my oath to her– to deal with Thiye. After that, anything that is between us will be between us, and I will not cry foul at anything."
Erij's shadowed eyes took on a narrow, reckoning look. "You were condemned to be ilinby our father's law, for Kandrys; and you will be clean of that if I listen to you. But you have me yet to satisfy. Suppose I were to sentence you to another year."
"I would think that was too slight a thing to satisfy you."
"Swear," said Erij, "by that oath you regard with her, that you will stay for Claiming by me, no treachery, no aid from her if she should somehow live. And that will not be a year that you will thank me for, Chya bastard, and it will not stop me from turning you over to the kinsmen of Paren and Bren when it is finished. But if it is worth the price to you, I will refrain from cutting your throat here and now. I will even go with you to Rahjemur. Is that the way you want it, bastard? Will you pay that?"
"Yes," Vanye said without hesitating; but Erij's blade still rested under his chin.
"And I will wager," said Erij, "that you know the use of the sword and that you know the witch herself better than any now living. If taking Hjemur purges you of her– that being the service she named for you, and not merely a year– then let us agree, my brother, that when Hjemur falls, it is mine, and you are mine– from that moment. And you will not speak of this oath of ours– not to her, not to Thiye, not to anyone."
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He saw the trap then, which Erij wove for Morgaine, treachery suspecting treachery in everyone, and admired the cunning of the man: Myya to the heart, thinking of all possibilities save one– that neither of them would survive the taking of Hjemur.
He did not like the oath: it was woven too tightly.
"I will agree," he said.
"And upon your soul you will not betray me," Erij said. "You will hand me Hjemur and hand me Thiye and the witch and this qujalhimself."
"As many as live," Vanye agreed.
"That you will not desert me or raise hand against me before then."
"I agree."
"Your hand," said Erij.
It was not right to do: by ilin-law he ought not to yield another oath, and any crossing of the two obligations was on his soul, his own fault; but Erij insisted, and he yielded up his hand and clenched his teeth as Erij drew the black across the palm. Then Erij touched it with his mouth, and Vanye likewise, spat blood into the snow. It was not Claiming, for there was no signing with it, but it was an oath and a binding one, and when Erij released him to get to his feet, he knelt clenching numbing snow in his fist as he had knelt once in a cave in Aenor-Pyvvn, shaking this time in utter misery, such that his senses threatened to leave him.
The liyohe served could by rights curse his soul to perdition; he had yielded his brother the same right. And yet he knew that he would have mercy of Morgaine, and none at all of Erij. He knew his liyo, that though she was cruel in other ways, she would not curse him; and that knowledge of her perversely made him sure which oath he would follow.
And kill his brother, as he had killed a third of Nhi.
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He had done this for his liyo, serving her: ilin-oath had bound him, and he had killed kinsmen. There had seemed no worse act that he could be drawn to commit.
Until this, that he oath-broke, and murdered his brother by his silence.
I owe it to thee to tell thee plainly; if thee usesChangeling as I have told thee to do– thee will die.
Changelingwas not selective in its destructions.
"Come, on your feet," said Erij. He hooked the blade to his saddle-harness, displacing his own to the useless right-hand fastenings. Then he gathered reins and climbed up, waiting for him.
Vanye gathered himself up and sought the black, who stood, reins dangling, some distance away across the clearing. He set foot in the stirrup and rose into the saddle with a wince of strained muscles.
"You are guide," said Erij. "Lead. And be mindful of your oath."
He retraced the way that they had come, then cut north, aiming to come out upon the highroad at a different place than they had left it. When they had it in sight among the trees he was relieved to see that there were as yet no tracks marring the snow.
Only as they came out into the open road, something fluttered through the trees, alarmed by their passing– a rapid clap of wings in the dark. Erij stared after it with hate in his face, the honest loathing of a human man for things that frequented these woods.
Vanye had even ceased to shudder at such things. He set a good pace, reckoning that they were laying a clear trail for Liell and his men if they would follow; but it could not be helped. There was one quick way to Hjemur's heart, and they were on it.
The black was laboring. It was impossible to drive the horse further, hard-put as he had been on the road to Ivrel. And at last Vanye reined in, looked back and considered stopping. It was an uncomfortable place. Forest was on one side, high rocks upon the other.
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"Let us be moving," Erij said.
"I am not going to kill this horse," Vanye protested, but he kept the animal at a walk all the same, and did not stop.
Then Erij spurred his own horse and the black dutifully matched the pace.
Vanye smothered his temper and hoped that the horse would last to the gates of Ra-hjemur.
And they came upon tracked snow, where an unexpected road intersected theirs at an angle from the direction of Ivrel. Men afoot– horses– the short-footed sign of the smallish northerners, Hjemurn mixed with the larger prints of men: Andurin.
And blood upon the snow, and bodies lying in the road, abandoned.
Vanye swung down, Erij ordering him otherwise: he ignored his brother, went quickly from one body to the other, turning them to see the faces.
Two were Lethen. The other three were the small, dark men of Hjemur, and one fair, like qujal.Relief flooded over him.
Erij hissed, drawing his attention: suddenly there was a stirring, a crunch of snow and a rattling of rocks, and he pulled himself out of his thoughts, looked up to see a dark shadow crouched upon the ledge overhanging the road.
He ran, sprang for the horse, hauled himself into the saddle as the startled animal began to run: he gathered reins awkwardly and tucked low as Erij did.
"Erij," he gasped when he could, "Hjemurn have come in behind, but Chya Liell and the Lethen are on the road ahead of us– the Hjemurn could not hold them. Ease off, ease off, or we will be riding into them."
"Then," said Erij, "we will be one enemy the less."
Morgaine too, and Roh, if they still lived: Erij, who held the sword, would as gladly kill them both as Chya Liell and Lethen: Nhi's bloodfeud with 199
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Chya was old and well-exercised, and that with Morgaine was as fresh as Irn-Svejur, and still painful.
"Give me a sword," Vanye asked of him then, for he had not so much as a dagger. "If not hers, then at least some weapon."
"Not at my back," said Erij, insulting the oath there was between them.
But that was Erij's privilege: it did not lessen the oath.
Vanye pressed his lips tightly in anger and kept with him, counting Erij for a madman, to press both horses so, to ride unshielded after any company containing Morgaine after his bitter lesson at Irn-Svejur. He regretted his oath for a new reason: that Erij would kill the both of them and hand Changelingto the enemy, madder than Chya Roh and almost as great an idiot.
The road was winding, the turns blind, woods and rocks cutting off their view upon the right, trees almost taking the road in places upon the left.
And they met it, inevitably: the rear of Liell's column, men warned by their noise and braced to receive them with a hedge of spears, a bristling shadow in the dark.
Erij ripped Changelingloose and let its sheath slide, lost, nothing hesitating. He spurred his uncertain horse and drove the beast at the spears, while the blade flared into opal and a peculiar starry dark hovered at its tip. The Lethen that touched it were quickly nothing: others fled aside, closed in, in renewed determination as Vanye tried to ride through, but few, few of them. Instead came dark, fur-clad bodies off the ridge, dropping thick upon his path– Hjemurn, howling their blood-chilling cries. In his last clear sight of the column ahead he saw a glimmer of white– Siptah among those horses: and the Lethen riders began to run, abandoning those on foot, perhaps knowing what pursued them.
Dark bodies poured between, Vanye kicked his faltering horse, himself and the beast being pulled down together. A spear rammed at his ribs and rocked him badly. Weaponless, he seized the shaft with both hands and tried to wrench it free from its owner.
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Then the horse collapsed, and arms encircled him, pulling him to the ground at the same moment. A blade flashed down and rebounded off his mail, surprising the would-be killer. Others hacked at him, with the same result, bruising, driving the wind from him. He was smothered in bodies and sinking into dark.