Demon Knight

Alfredo's return grin was strained. 'It's good exercise! You want to bring some friends to join the party? We can make room for more.'

'I'll round some up. How long can you hang on here?'

If the Venetian captain-general shrugged, his steel breastplate hid the gesture. 'An hour at most. Fifteen minutes would be healthier.'

'Don't go away!' Toby vanished.

Now the Unplace was populated. He rode within an escort. There seemed to be at least a score of them, but they were shadowy and indistinct, mostly mounted knights with their visors down, riding in silence on either side of him. Some of them — or perhaps all of them some of the time — had other shapes: centaurs with lion heads, dragon monsters with wings above their backs, even giant scorpions. He paid no attention. He had seen demons before, and what they looked like was immaterial. All that mattered was that they were conjured to defend him.

He crossed the river to join up with the Neapolitan forces, and there he found himself in a full cavalry charge, riding alongside Jules Desjardins, the captain-general. That was no place for a man without a lance and a complete suit of steel mail, but he had a few seconds before the thundering line met its approaching counterpart. He bellowed over the din.

'Captain-General! It's me, Longdirk.'

The steel-clad figure showed no reaction, but that was hardly surprising. His hands were fully occupied with lance and reins. He could not move his helm, and he had very little lateral vision inside it. His opinion of Toby's timing for a chat was best left to the imagination.

'We need to reinforce Alfredo,' Toby yelled. 'I'm going to take Gioberti.' The two lines of cavalry were closing fast. He had to leave or die.

He left.

Egano Gioberti was Desjardins's deputy. Busily regrouping two battles of infantry, preparing for a second assault, he looked up in astonishment as Orphan emerged from empty air beside him and shuddered to a halt. Toby barked orders: The Fiend's bridge was still standing, and if Gioberti could seize that, then he could start moving troops over the river to relieve the Venetians. He might not get very many across, and they might be slaughtered when he did, but he would at least distract the Fiend and relieve pressure on Alfredo. Gioberti was an experienced condottiere. He understood at once and began shouting orders of his own.

* * *

Florence was out of danger because its own army had taken the summit of San Miniato hill. Now the don was expertly supervising the hunting down and butchery of survivors and at the same time redirecting the guns to fire at the Fiend's forces. They were at the extreme limit of range, but a few balls bouncing along into their backs ought to distract them a little, enough to make Desjardins's work easier.

Master of Gunnery Calvalcante was there, too, chortling over the newfangled cannons. Nobody needed Toby's help. He left them all to it.

* * *

That left Bruno Villars and the Romans. The fight in the southwest was almost over, and Villars had enhanced even his reputation. Perhaps if he were a more pleasant person, he would not be so demons-take-it good at fighting. He had driven the Fiend's forces into the angle between the river and the city wall and was slaughtering them. Revolted by the sight, although it was what he had ordered, Toby went on without stopping.

* * *

Ercole Abonio again…

A score of the Milanese knights were standing around, or sitting on the ground, recovering from their exertions while squires fussed around them, tending them and their horses. One or two were being tended by medics. The old collaterale had removed his helmet and was seated on a low stone wall. His face was still flushed from the heat inside his armor; he had a wineskin in his hands. There was blood all over his surcoat, and his thinning salt-and-pepper hair was streaked by sweat, but he grinned when he saw who had arrived.

Toby leaned down from the saddle. 'Can you spare a mouthful?'

'Only if you're sure you've earned it.' He passed over the wineskin. A boyish squire came running with another.

'That isn't your blood, is it?'

'Isn't even human, I'm afraid. Horse.'

Toby took a drink and surveyed the field. The makeshift bridge was a smoking ruin, but since the Allies were obviously winning on both banks on this downstream side, that was not overly serious. Now he could appreciate why Ercole had stationed his infantry on the left. Having broken the opposition with his archers and cavalry, he had deployed the foot soldiers to close off any possible retreat to the hills. Like Villars, he had pinned the Fiend's forces between the river and the city wall. He just had not reached the butchery part yet, and there was a lot of arquebus firing going on.

'How is the struggle going elsewhere, comandante?' asked a sweat-soaked face from inside a helm, a young knight Toby did not know.

'Very well on the left bank. Upstream, the Venetians are in serious trouble. Ercole? Can you—'

The old warrior brightened. 'Certainly! Luigi, Giovanni — help me up. We can leave the infantry to clean up here, Tobias. If I take the cavalry around, will that be enough?'

Toby almost laughed aloud with relief. 'You'd probably be enough all by yourself, you old scoundrel. Yes! By all means. But be as quick as you can.'

Ercole opened his mouth and pealed like a thunderstorm over the noise of battle: 'Fresh horses! Drummer, sound the Prepare to Advance!'

Toby went off to tell Alfredo that relief was on its way.

* * *

The Fiend's Brenner Pass army was pressing Alfredo hard when Abonio brought the Milanese knights around the city to attack on its left. Shortly after that, Gioberti fell on its rear. The Venetians took new heart and counterattacked. Even so, the fighting continued to rage under the howling demonic storm clouds. It seemed incredible that men could continue to fight for so long without dropping dead of exhaustion. Toby lost all track of time. More than once he found himself in the lines, fighting alongside Tyroleans, then mercenaries wearing Neapolitan insignia, finally Venetians. Later he discovered blood on his sword and had very little memory of how it got there. (The legends that grew up later had him fighting in a hundred places all over the battlefield, rallying defeated troops with rousing speeches, leading charges, slaying famous warriors in single combat, but the truth had to be much less that that.) Three times he was attacked by demons, but each time his demonic bodyguards drove off the assault.

The end came suddenly, when a fiery apparition in the shape of a phoenix swirled up from the knoll where Nevil's standard flew and sped away to the north. Everywhere Allied troops raised a mighty cheer, knowing that the Fiend himself had quit the field with his attendant demons. Then Maestro Fischart and his assistants were able to break the enemy forces' spiritual bindings. Their resistance collapsed at once; they threw down their weapons and fell on their knees.

* * *

'No Quarter' was the order of the day, and most of the officers made efforts to enforce it. They failed. With few exceptions, Italian rank and file flatly refused to slaughter their defeated opponents. This minor mutiny had begun even before Nevil departed, and it spread rapidly over the entire battlefield, in a strange and spontaneous demonstration of mercy. If the invaders groveled convincingly and were willing to swear loyalty to Toby Longdirk, then their lives were spared. No one knew where that second condition came from, but possibly it was simply the most obvious way to dispose of the problem. No right-thinking Italian wanted his city to undertake the expense of maintaining a defeated army, but equally he did not want any of its neighbors to own it either, so he decided to give it to that young foreigner everyone seemed to trust. Let the comandante take it far away.

By the end of the day, the nightmare Toby had foreseen had come true, and almost seventy thousand of Nevil's troops were still alive. What he had not foreseen was that they had all sworn allegiance to him. They were all going to want to eat.