If it could give her some measure of protection, she would do well to keep it. She knew that she would need all the protection she could get before the day was out.
Marcel assisted her in arming for battle.
'I will go with you, Andre. You'll need my help.'
'No, little brother. You remain here, where it will be safe until I come for you. I would not want to lose you now.'
'Nor I you,' Marcel said. 'Sir Brian is a strong knight. He will make a dangerous opponent.''
'And I will fight better knowing you are safe,' said Andre, 'than I would if you were by my side and I had to constantly watch out for you.'
Marcel drew back indignantly. 'I can take care of myself,' he said in a wounded tone.
She pulled him to her. 'Of course you can. But I would worry anyway. Indulge me and set my mind at rest. There will be other battles for you when you're older. Now I must go. Remember, stay here and do not be tempted to look outside upon the battle. The Saxon archers shoot straight and true.'
With sword and shield in hand, she left him and walked quickly down the corridor. Her heart was racing, as it always did in the excitement of a battle. She would have to find a way to kill Bois-Guilbert in such a manner as to not leave herself vulnerable to the men whom he commanded in defense of the castle. She stopped by an aperture and, holding her shield ready to protect her face, risked a quick glance outside. The barbican had fallen. Any moment now, they would begin to attack the outer walls with scaling ladders and they would start ramming at the gates. Given their number, it was inevitable that they would soon gain entry to the castle. Given a firm hand and strong leadership, the defenders of Torquilstone might still repulse them, but not if they were deprived of their commanders. De Bracy was already accounted for. Only one remained.
She stopped a man at arms who went rushing by her in the corridor. He looked terrified.
'You!' She approached him. 'Where are you going?'
'I… I was…'
He was running away to find a place to hide, no doubt. 'Where is Sir Brian?'
The man was near hysteria. 'You ask for Sir Brian,' he said. 'Sir Brian bellows for Sir Maurice! The Saxons bellow for our blood! They are on us like flies upon a carcass and where is De Bracy?'
'DeBracy'sdead!'
They both turned toward the sound of the voice and saw De Bracy's torturer. Andre cursed her luck. She had bolted the door to the dungeons, but the man must have broken through. He held a mace in his hand. The beefy torturer had murder in his eyes as he pointed at her with his mace.
'There stands the culprit! Sir Maurice breathed his name before he died!'
Andre ran the man at arms beside her through with her sword and pushed his body aside. Holding the mace with both hands, the torturer advanced upon her. Suddenly, he stiffened and dropped his mace, a look of surprise upon his face. He pitched forward. As he fell, Marcel stood revealed, a bloody dagger in his hand.
'Marcel! I told you to remain behind! I could have dealt with-'
Marcel's eyes widened. 'Andre! Beware, behind you!'
Instinctively, she threw herself to one side, thereby avoiding the killing stroke. The nysteel armor might have saved her, but her reflexes were too quick for her to think of that. As it was, she caught a glancing blow on her brassard and, stunned, she dropped her shield and staggered. Marcel leapt forward with his dagger.
Andre heard him cry out and raised her head in time to see Bois-Guilbert withdrawing his sword from her little brother's stomach.
'God! Marcel!'
'So,' said Bois-Guilbert, 'De Bracy's dead and we have a traitor in our midst. As God is my judge, I will show you the price of treason, de la Croix!'
'I have already paid that price,' said Andre, glancing at Marcel. 'And in a moment, God will be judging you.'
What opposition there was was either dead, in flight, or hiding. Finn had to find the chronoplate. It would not be where anyone could readily see it. If Irving had been using Nottingham Castle as his base of operations, then it stood to reason that he'd keep the chronoplate secure within his chambers. But which of the rooms were his?
Finn ransacked them all systematically, tearing everything apart to find the object of his search. In several of the rooms, he found men and women cowering in fright. There was a chance that they would not have attempted to interfere with him, but he could not afford to take it. He shot them all. If they succeeded in their mission, the refs would have a lot of cleaning up to do. If not, the point was moot. There were a lot of lives at stake. Somehow, that thought did very little to comfort him.
The crossbow bolt in his shoulder was beginning to cause him a great deal of pain now. He could not afford to dwell on it. Hunter had to be right, he had to be. The thought of so much killing to no purpose…
Where was it?
There remained two more places where he had not searched. Please, God, Finn thought, let it be in one of them, please. He tried the door. It was bolted from within, like several of the others had been, where people had attempted to hide from him. He took a small amount of the plastique and blew it open. A man rushed at him with a sword. Finn shot him. There was no one else inside. He looked down at his attacker.
He wasn't even old enough to shave.
Irving clocked back into his chambers. Safe, for the moment, behind a bolted door. He was breathing hard. He was almost completely spent. Each time, he tried to rest a little, to catch his breath, but the strain of the temporal fugue was beginning to wear him out.
He had almost bought it when the fugue began. They were using a chronoplate as well! He had been certain that the other referee would not have risked it, would not have had a plate issued to his team. This changed everything. Obviously, there was no chance of tracing the plate. He hadn't been aware of it before and that meant that the tracer function had been bypassed, just as he had done on his unit. Those fools! Didn't they realize what they were forcing him to do? He had gone to a great deal of trouble to become Richard and he hated to abandon his role, but he had to recognize the possibility that he would have to clock out to another period, start a new scenario. They might never find him then. They had forced his hand. He hated to leave now when he had come so close, but it appeared that he would have little choice.
But before he did anything else, he had to bring the fugue to a conclusion. He could not risk being outmaneuvered. He had to stop that man; he was the only one left… And perhaps that would even end it. He had killed the other agent. Perhaps when he killed this one the scenario would take a turn in his favor. Maybe this time the other ref would be too late. He still had a hole card.
Andre de la Croix.
She was carrying a PRU slaved to his chronoplate. He could clock her back into his chambers and bring her back into the fugue with him. He could not hope to explain the mechanics of a temporal fugue to her, but she already believed him to be a wizard, he could pass it all off as sorcery and tell her that the only thing she needed to concern herself with was the death of his opponent. Together, they would outnumber him and he would stand no chance. He had given her the unit in expectation of trouble, but he had not suspected just how badly he would need her. He would end it now.
Reaching for the control console of the chronoplate, he punched out the sequence that would clock her back to Nottingham. Then, when her usefulness was ended, he could kill her at his leisure.
Bois-Guilbert was putting up a valiant struggle, but he was being hammered into the ground. He couldn't understand how de la Croix's armor was standing up so well under his repeated assaults. Both knights were exhausted, but where Bois-Guilbert's armor bore the marks of Andre's assaults, de la Croix's armor was undamaged. She had already drawn blood.
Andre was fighting with a fury unlike anything that she had known before. For the first time, she felt the fire of blood lust coursing through her. She was tired and Bois-Guilbert was strong, but her ensorcelled armor and her charm gave her protection he did not enjoy. He had killed Marcel and he would pay.
With a savage stroke, she smashed at him. He caught the blow on his shield, which was badly battered, and the force of it was too great for him to hold on. She struck again and he lost his shield. Holding his sword with both
