That chore out of the way, he reined in and looked to see if she was still where he'd left her. She wasn't. Swearing loudly, Valens stood up in his stirrups, making himself ignore the rich detail of the slaughter going on all around him (people he'd known all his life were being killed everywhere he looked, but he simply hadn't got time to take note of that; it'd have to wait), and eventually caught sight of her. For some reason she was riding straight toward a knot of them, four horsemen or was it five, engaged with some opponent on the ground he couldn't see. Furious because he wasn't being allowed any time to plan ahead, he dropped his painfully won lance, drew the ridiculous hanger and kicked forward. Out of his mind, he thought wryly; must be catching.
By some miracle, the one he reached first hadn't seen or heard him coming. Valens drewcut the back of his neck as he passed him, in the gap between the bottom of his aventail and his shoulders, and hoped he'd done enough, since he had no time to look and make sure. The second one thought he was ready for him, but raised his shield a couple of inches too high in his anxiety to cover his face and chest. Another drawcut, just above the knee; useful arteries there. Even so, he managed to land a cut before Valens was clear of him; he felt the contact, and something like a very severe wasp-sting, which could be anything from a flesh wound to death in a matter of seconds. Nothing he could do about it, so he didn't waste valuable time looking to see where he'd been cut. Ducking low as the third Mezentine swung at him, he punched his sword arm forward as he passed. He felt the point grate and turn on bone, dragged his horse round to address the fourth, and found he wasn't there anymore. Small mercies.
The luxury of a moment to pause and take in the situation. One Mezentine was still in the saddle, but he was leaking blood from his leg like a holed barrel, and could be safely ignored. Two riderless horses; one Mezentine riding away: one man, at least, with a bit of common sense. She was sitting motionless on her pretty little horse. Her dress was soaked with blood, but not hers; the Mezentine 's. She was staring at the dying man, watching the spurt and flow ebb as he quickly ran dry. Quite likely the most horrible thing she's ever seen in her life, Valens reflected; and true love did that, riding yet again to her rescue.
There was someone else involved, he realized: a man, someone he recognized. Reasonably enough-once seen, never forgotten, the bizarre, spider-like character, Vaatzes' assistant. What the hell was he doing here, anyway?
Answer: he was standing astride a dead horse, holding the front half of a broken lance, which he'd just pulled out of a dead Mezentine. He too was bloody to the elbows; his eyes were impossibly wide and he was gasping for breath as though he'd just been dragged out from under the water. That was impossible, because he had no call to be there, certainly he had no business fighting, heroically… Valens forced him out of his mind and looked round a second time. Three Mezentines were heading for him, lances couched. One damn thing after another.
The ugly, spidery man had seen them too; he swung round from the hip to face them, holding out his half-a-spear as though bracing himself to receive a charging boar. Immediately, Valens understood; it was all in King Fashion, after all. He turned his horse's head and rode away, forcing himself not to look back.
The lancer who detached himself from the pack of three to come after him hadn't seen the breakaway maneuver he'd used on the first Mezentine he'd killed, so the ploy was worth risking again, and succeeded quickly and efficiently. Even so, time was very tight. Valens wheeled round, almost too scared to look, but it was all right, just about. One lancer had charged Vaatzes' man, who'd dropped on one knee, spear-butt braced against his foot (pure King Fashion), and allowed the lancer's horse to skewer itself through the chest. That left one Mezentine to be the boar engaged with the pack. Valens rode in on him from the side and cut half through his neck before he'd figured out what was going on. Then there was just the unhorsed Mezentine on the ground; he was dazed from the fall, and probably never knew what hit him.
But it was all a waste of time, Valens realized, as he looked up again and took in the shape of the engagement. Hardly anybody left alive, apart from a full dozen Mezentines, taking a moment or so to form up and surround them. A little spurt of anger at the unfairness of it flashed through Valens' mind. He'd done his best-done pretty well, in the circumstances-but he was going to lose anyway, in spite of his efforts. If only there'd been time, he'd have complained to somebody about it.
The Mezentines had completed their ring; all they had to do was close it up in good order and they could finish the job without further loss or fuss. Instead, they seemed to be hesitant about something. What, though? One man with a toy sword and a freak with a sharp stick? Maybe he was missing something. He glanced over his shoulder, and saw the most beautiful sight.
(Perhaps, he thought later, that was how she felt, when the Vadani cavalry swooped down through the fire and slaughter at Civitas Eremiae to carry her to safety. He doubted it, somehow. She'd only have seen the disgusting spectacle of killing, too horrible for her to differentiate between heroes and villains. He, on the other hand, could feel ecstatic joy at such a sight, because he knew it meant that his enemies were going to die and he wasn't.)
One platoon of the household cavalry; only thirty men, but enough to make all the difference in the world. They were standing to a furious gallop; Valens sketched it all out in his mind, and found that there would be time for the Mezentines to close in and kill her, and him, but only if they couldn't care less about being slaughtered a moment or so later. The fact that they were hesitating told him what decision they were going to make, whole seconds before they made it. They wheeled and galloped away. All over.
Valens felt the strength empty out of his body as the pain broke through. He struggled to draw a breath; he thought, I've been cut up before now, this is something else, but he couldn't think what. His mind was clogging up, with pain, with repressed fear, shock, all manner of nuisances and all of them the more intense for having been kept waiting, like petitioners left for too long in an anteroom. He looked at her, and the blank horror in her face was too much to bear. She's disgusted just looking at me, he realized, and he could see why. It was not what he'd done, but how he'd done it-quickly, with the smooth efficiency and minimal effort that comes only from long practice. Whenever she saw him now, she'd see the slaughterman.
The hell with that, he thought resentfully-he could feel himself starting to slide off the horse, but it was too much effort to fight for balance. His mind was almost clotted now, but something was nagging at the back of it, shrill, like the pain of toothache. He remembered: his wife. Was she dead or alive? As if it mattered.
A shift in balance, and the ground was rushing up to meet him. It hit his shoulder and hurt him, but it was too big to fight.
Someone was standing over him, telling him something. His eyes hurt.
"Syra Terentia and her two daughters, Lollius Pertinax, Sillius Vacuo and his wife, and they cut off their daughter's arm at the elbow…"
He struggled to place the voice. All he could see was light, and a blur. "What's the…" he heard himself say, but he didn't know how to finish the question.
"Sir?" Ah, Valens thought, someone who calls me sir. Not many of them whose names I know. "Do I know you?" he asked.
"Nolentius Brennus, sir," the voice said. "Captain of the Seventh Company, Household Cavalry." A short, nervous pause. "Sir, do you know what's just happened? Can you remember?"