The Red Knight

They always do.

He had a long heartbeat to look into its golden-yellow eyes, flecked with brown – the slitted black pupil, the sense of its alienness.

Other archers loosed. Most missed – taking panicked shots at ranges far closer than they had expected. But not all did.

It ran forward over the last few yards, its two powerful, taloned legs throwing up clods of earth as it charged the thin line of men, head low and forward, snout pointed at the captain’s chest. Wings half open, beating the air for balance.

Gelfred was already spanning his crossbow, confident that his captain would keep him alive for another few heartbeats.

The captain shifted his weight and uncrossed his hands – launching the hardest, fastest swing in his repertoire. Cutting like an axe, the spearhead slammed into the wyvern’s neck, into the soft skin just under the jaw, the cut timed so that the point stopped against the creature’s jawbone . . . and its charge rammed it onto the point, pushing it deeper and then through the neck.

He had less than a heartbeat to savour the accuracy of his cut. Then the captain was knocked flat by a blow from its snout, his spear lodged deep in the thing’s throat. Blood sprayed, and the fanged head forced itself down the shaft of his spear – past the cross guard, ripping itself open – to reach him. Its hate was palpable – it grew in his vision, its blood lashed him like a rain of acid, and its eyes-

The captain was frozen, his hands still on the shaft, as the jaws came for him.

Afraid.

But his spearhead had wide lugs at the base, for just such moments as this and the wyvern’s head caught on them, just out of reach. He had a precious moment – recovered his wits, put his head down, breaking the gaze-

– as in one last gout of blood, it broke the shaft, jaws open and lunged-

The hardened steel of his helmet took the bite. He was surrounded by the smell of the thing – carrion, cold damp earth, hot sulphur, all at once. It thrashed, hampered by the broken spear in its gullet, trying to force its jaws wider and close on his head. He could hear its back-curved teeth scrape, ear-piercingly, over his helmet.

It gave a growl to make his helmet vibrate, tried to lift him and he could feel the muscles in his neck pull. He roared with pain and held hard to the projecting stump of the shaft as the only support he had. He could hear the battle cries – loud, or shrill, depending on the man. He could hear the meaty sounds of strikes – he could feel them – as men’s weapons rained on the wyvern.

But the creature still had him. It tried to twist his head to break his neck, but its bite couldn’t penetrate the helmet for a firmer grip. Its breath was all around him, suffocating him.

He got his feet beneath him and tried to control his panic as the wyvern lifted him clean from the ground. He got his right hand on his heavy rondel dagger – a spike of steel with a grip. With a scream of fear and rage, he slammed it blindly into the thing’s head.

It spat him free and he dropped like a stone to the frozen ground. His dagger spun away, but he rolled, and got to his feet.

Drew his sword.

Cut. All before the wave of pain could strike him – he cut low to high off the draw, left to right across his body and into the joint behind the beast’s leg.

It whirled and before he could react, the tusked snout punched him off his feet. Too fast to dodge. Then threw back its head and screamed.

Bad Tom buried his pole-axe in its other shoulder.

It reared away. A mistake. With two wounded limbs, it stumbled.

The captain got his feet under him, ignored the fire in his neck and back, and stood, powering straight forward, coming at it from the side this time. It turned to flatten Bad Tom, and Jehannes, suddenly in front of it, hit it on the breastbone with a war hammer. Its face was feathered with barbs and arrows. There were more in the sinuous neck. Even as it turned and took another wound, in the moment that the head was motionless it lost an eye to a long shaft, and its body thrashed – a squire was crushed by a flick of the wyvern’s tail, his back breaking and armour folding under the weight of the blow.

Hugo crushed its ribs with a mighty, two-handed overhead blow. George Brewes stabbed it with a spear in the side and left the weapon there while he drew his sword. Lyliard cut overhand into the back of its other leg; Foliack hammered it with repeated strokes.

But it remained focused on the captain. It swatted at him with a leg, lost its balance, roared, and turned on Hugo who had just hit it again. It closed its jaws on the marshal’s head, and his helmet didn’t hold, The bite crushed his skull, killing him instantly. Sauce stepped over his headless corpse and planted her spear in its jaw, but it flung her away with a flick of the neck.

The captain leaped forward again and his sword licked out. This time, his cut took one of the thing’s wings clean off its body, as easy as a practice cut on a sapling. As the head turned and struck at him the captain stood his ground, ready to thrust for the remaining eye – but the head collapsed to the earth a yard from him, almost like a giant dog laying his head down at his master’s feet, and the baleful eye tracked him.

He thrust.

It whipped its head up, away from the point of the sword, reared, remaining wing spread wide and thrashing the men under it, a ragged banner of the Wild-

– and died, a dozen bolts and arrows catching it all together.

It fell across Hugo’s corpse.

The men-at-arms didn’t stop hacking at it for a long time. Jehannes severed the head, Bad Tom took one leg off at the haunch, and two squires got the other leg at the knee. Sauce rammed her long rondel into every joint, over and over. Archers continued to loose bolts and arrows into the prone mound of its corpse.

They were all covered in blood – thick, brown-green blood like the slime from the entrails of a butchered animal, hot to the touch, so corrosive that it could damage good armour if not cleaned off immediately.

‘Michael?’ the captain said. His head felt as if it had been pulled from his body.

The young man struggled to get his maille aventail over his head, failed, and threw up inside his helmet. But there was wyvern blood on his spear, and more on his sword.

Gelfred spanned his crossbow one more time, eyes fixed on the dead creature. Men were hugging, laughing, weeping, vomiting, or falling to their knees to pray, others merely gazed blank-eyed at the creature. The wyvern.

Already, it looked smaller.

The captain stumbled away from it, caught himself, mentally and physically. His arming cote was soaked. He went instantly from fight-hot to cold. When he stooped to retrieve his dagger, he had a moment’s vertigo, and the pain from his neck muscles was so intense he wondered if he would black out.

Jehannes came up. He looked – old. ‘Six dead. Sweet William has his back broken and asks for you.’

The captain walked the few feet to where Sweet William, an older squire in a battered harness, lay crumpled where the tail and hindquarters had smashed him flat and crushed his breastplate. Somehow, he was alive.

‘We got it, aye?’ he said thickly. ‘Was bra’ly done? Aye?’

The captain knelt in the mire by the dying man’s head. ‘Bravely done, William.’

‘God be praised,’ Sweet William said. ‘It all hurts. Get it done, eh? Captain?’

The captain bent down to kiss his forehead, and put the blade of his rondel into an eye as he did, and held the man’s head until the last spasm passed, before laying his head slowly in the mire.

He was slow getting back to his feet.

Jehannes was looking to where Hugo’s corpse lay under the beast’s head. He shook his head. Looked up, and met the captain’s eye. ‘But we got it.’

Gelfred was intoning plainchant over the severed head. There was a brief flare of light. And then he turned, disgust written plain on his face. He spat. ‘Wrong one,’ he said.

Jehannes spat. ‘Jesu shits,’ he said. ‘There’s another one?’

North of Harndon – Ranald Lachlan