Wolfbreed (51 page)

It had only been moments since the riot started, but that had been long enough for panic to turn to rage. The space in front of the towering pyre was a shrinking circle held by the Germans. Every armed man, aside from the bishop’s personal guard, faced out, trying to keep the mass of humanity back.

As Günter watched, one of the soldiers took a misstep, and dozens of hands grabbed him, dragging him into the mass. He heard the man scream as he fell into the crowd. Seconds later, Günter saw a Prûsan man raise the soldier’s sword above his head and scream,
“Death to the Germans!”

Günter looked into the face of the screaming man. Günter
knew him. A farmer with three children who Günter had never known to even raise his voice in an argument—but there he was, wild-eyed, face smeared with stripes of Christian blood, screaming like a saga warrior.

Günter looked around for the bishop and his entourage, and saw them backing through the entrance to the keep next to the towering pyre. It was the only escape route left. He heard Erhard call out, “To the keep.”

Günter scrambled to his feet and ran for the doors the bishop and his men had just gone through. By the time he reached them, he was pressing through with a half-dozen other men.

“Ready the doors!” Erhard called out. He stood with his fellow knights, slowly backing toward them. Günter saw sword-waving Prûsans converging toward the small knot of knights, but the men of the Order were more disciplined than their secular comrades. They didn’t falter, or allow a man to fall out of their ranks. When a hand reached to strike them, it was met with a sword.

Then Günter realized that only five men backed toward him. On the ground, somewhere in the bailey beyond the line of Prûsans, the knights had lost one of their own.

And Günter saw that the mob was growing more disciplined as well. Instead of madly rushing the knights, the way the crowd had the other soldiers, the armed Prûsans formed a ragged line in front of the knights, meeting them step for step. They knew the Christians were backing into a place with no retreat.

As the last of the soldiers fell back into the keep behind the knights, the men inside—Günter included—began pushing the doors shut. The knights stood in front of the closing doors, only slipping through one by one when the gap was barely man size. Erhard was the last through the gap, and then it became a shoving match—Günter and two dozen Christians against the mass of Prûsans outside.

The Christians had the advantage briefly because they were already
braced and in position to push the siege doors shut. The gap was closed before the Prûsans were in position. The men inside held the doors while the knights dropped the massive oak timbers to bar the entrance.

They were safe.

But they were also trapped.

or a few moments after Lilly disappeared, Uldolf was convinced that guards would converge on them. But the first armed men he saw were panicked soldiers running toward the doors of the keep, about ten paces away from him. They didn’t spare Uldolf a second glance; they didn’t even look in the direction of the pyre.

In their midst he saw Sergeant Günter, blood streaming down the side of his face.

What’s happening?

Something inside the pyre collapsed, and a hot wind blew across Uldolf. There wasn’t much room between the keep and the pyre, and it wasn’t safe anymore. He turned to his mother and said, “We have to get him away from here.”

She nodded and helped him as he bent to pick up his father’s limp body. He draped Gedim’s dead weight across his shoulders. His mother tried to help him bear it, walking next to him and trying to support him, but she wasn’t much better off than his father, so he didn’t lean on her as much as he needed to.

A crowd had massed by the entrance to the keep. Uldolf headed in the other direction.

When they emerged from behind the towering pyre, he heard his mother gasp. It took him a few more seconds for his eyes to adjust so he could see what had shocked her.

First he saw the mass of Prûsans shouting and running toward
the entrance of the keep. Many of them seemed to be armed now, and for a moment he was confused about where the weapons came from. Then he noticed that the people were jumping over obstacles that littered the ground.

Bodies
.

Bodies lay on the ground, Prûsan and German, in near equal measure as far as Uldolf could tell—so many that the earth had turned muddy with blood.

Uldolf saw a familiar face in the surging crowd and called out, “Lankut!”

Lankut turned to see him, and Uldolf saw his eyes widen in shock.

“Over here!” Uldolf called, groaning under the weight.

Lankut stopped, causing another man in the crowd to slam into him broadside. Lankut dropped to one knee, and the other man kept running toward the keep.

Lankut got to his feet and held up a warning hand as he dodged through the press of his countrymen. Fortunately, the crowd was thinning and he made it over to them without any more collisions. “You’re alive.”

“We need help,” Uldolf said. “I can’t carry him myself.”

Lankut nodded and lifted Gedim off of Uldolf’s shoulders. He hooked his arms under Gedim’s shoulders and told Uldolf, “Take his feet—” Then he glanced at Uldolf’s one arm and elaborated, “Each of you, take a foot.”

Once they did so they started making better time, moving Gedim away from the riot.

“What happened?” Uldolf asked. “What’s happening?”

“The bastards started swinging their swords into the crowd,” Lankut said. “Once that happened—”

“They just attacked?”

“God only knows what they were thinking.” He shook his head. “No, I know
exactly
what they were thinking. They were looking for an insurrection. Well, they found it.”

ir Johann backed away from the door, appalled at how quickly the situation had degenerated. He had seen the damned creature moving on the pyre, and in minutes he had been fighting for his life. The Prûsans had nearly overtaken him and, worse, he had seen his squire fall into their grasp. The boy was barely old enough to grip his sword, and had panicked before the sudden raging crowd, swinging his weapon wildly before Johann could command him otherwise.

He could still hear the boy’s screams as he was pulled into the mob.

Then Johann had been fighting a retreat with the knights of the Order, pressed back into the keep. Only now that the door was barred and the immediate danger had passed did Johann feel the pain in his thigh. Whatever had stabbed him had pierced the mail enough to leave a hole that drained blood down his leg to pool in his boot. He could feel it slide between his toes every time he took a step.

However, aside from a slight limp, it was nothing important.

“There are more crossbows in the armory!” Erhard called out, and he pointed at Johann. “You. Take six men to the armory. I want every embrasure on the east side of the keep manned by archers. Fire on every Prûsan holding a weapon, and anyone who appears to be in command.”

“Yes, sir.”

Johann surveyed the soldiers in front of him. He saw twenty-three men.

Did we lose that many?

Four of the men were knights of the Order, and those were congregated about Erhard. They would remain in command here. Another four were Prûsans who had been part of the original garrison here. Johann was not about to take them. He ran down the line, pulling men out from the remaining fifteen.

Beyond them, he heard the mob pounding outside the door. Johann smiled. Unlike those few hundred farmers, he had participated in sieges before. He knew what it took to break one, and that rabble outside didn’t have it. Without supplies, command, or a plan, the mob wouldn’t be able to hold out an hour—especially when crossbow bolts began raining down on them. Seven men, taking care to aim, could take out thirty or forty men in five minutes.

He led his six men up the curving staircase, toward the armory. Once on that level, they moved through a stone corridor. Torches had been taken from their sconces, leaving most of the hall in darkness. The pyre, still burning outside, cast light through the arrow slits in the embrasures along the outside wall, the light making flickering yellow crosses against the ceiling.

Johann raised his hand, halting the advance.

Ahead of them, opposite another embrasure, the armory door hung open, the light from inside casting moving shadows on the opposite wall.

Did some of the Prûsans make it in here?

Or the creature?

He gestured for silence and drew his sword. The six other men followed suit. He led them down the corridor, and ahead he could hear the movement of men and the clatter of metal.

He edged along the inside wall, toward the armory door, his men following suit behind him. He reached the edge of the door and peeked around briefly—just long enough to see two men rummaging through the armory and note their positions.

He looked back at his men, pointed at three of them, and waved them forward. Then he rushed into the room.

“In the name of God,” he yelled at them in Prûsan, “lay down your arms and yield!”

The man nearest him made the mistake of turning on him with a sword raised. Johann blocked him and followed through with a
blow to the neck. The blade glanced off the man’s gorget, but hit with enough impact to knock him back.

The man stumbled back, coughing.

“No. Please!” the other man shouted in broken German, holding his hands spread. “We are the bishop’s men.”

Johann lowered his sword and looked at the two men. They still wore the bishop’s colors, gold and green. “Why in the name of all that’s holy would you swing a blade at me?” he yelled at the other one in German, who still clutched his neck.

“You talk the pagan tongue,” the man said.

Wonderful. The Italian bastard probably didn’t even understand what I said
.

“Get the crossbows,” he told the three who’d stormed the armory with him. The trio sheathed their swords and began gathering the weapons.

Johann looked at the bishop’s men. “What do you think you’re doing, raiding the armory?”

“We protect the bishop.”