Then the plague hit-like a plague of locusts, but worse: gnats, mosquitoes, bees, horseflies, swarming so thickly they blocked out the stars. The knights swore and leaped back from the wall, swatting at their armor-mosquitoes were small enough to get into the chinks. One knight howled and tore off his helmet-bees make unpleasant padding.
Matt looked up, startled, just as two three-inch sticks thudded against the battlements in front of him.
"Trespassers!" he bellowed. "Repel boarders! We're invaded!"
The knights forgot the insects and lugged out their swords; but footmen were streaming onto the battlements. Swords rang on shields; armor clashed; men screamed and died, flipping backward off the wall. Matt chopped through a shield, blessing his monofilament sword; but men were coming at him from all sides.
A voice behind him keened, "Wizard, to me! I'll clear space for your work!"
But the footmen heard the word "wizard" and fell on Matt like a screaming horde. He caught one sword on his shield, blocked another from his right with the flat of his sword, kicked the guy in the middle in the knee, turned his own blade and struck down, cleaving a head in half. Blood and brains started to spill, but he was already turning back to the man on the left - with his stomach starting to rise. He swallowed hard, clamping his jaws, as he swung up his shield to catch another blow, then turned to block another early chopper from his right. But he forgot to flatten the blade, and the soldier chopped at Matt's sword edge - and stared, horrified, at the stump of a sword he was left holding. He threw it at Matt and fled, howling. Matt ducked, but not enough; it clipped him on the side of the head, ringing a gong in his helmet and sprinkling stars across his vision; there wasn't much padding between steel and head. He turned, dazed, in time to see a sword chopping down at his nose. He rolled back, swinging his shield up. The sword ricocheted off the shield, and Matt thrust while the man's guard was down. The soldier screamed, arcing backward. Matt yanked his sword out and turned away before he could see the man fall. "Max, clear for me!"
"Aye," the Demon sang. Flame gouted over Matt's head to sweep an arc clear on the battlements. Matt ran till he slammed full against the inner rampart wall and leaned against it, shuddering, gulping breath. How did you get rid of a plague of insects?
You swallowed them, of course.
High-pitched cries filled the air, drowning out the buzzing. A horde of dark wings filled the battlements, swooping and diving. Knights and footmen alike shouted and hid their faces. The defenders came out of it first, realizing their advantage, and rushed the attackers with a shout while swallows dive-bombed bugs all about them.
When the sky cleared about ten minutes later, so had the battlements. Wounded men groaned on the stone, mixed in with dead bodies. Grim-faced knights stalked the length of the wall, dispatching wounded enemies with quick cuts or stabs.
"The birds were your work?" the abbot demanded, and Matt nodded. So did the abbot. "Where have they gone?"
"Back to fulfill their mission. Don't you take prisoners?"
The abbot turned to watch the slaughter, his face a stone. "'Tis hard. But we have no food to spare, nor medicine; and there is no way to say which one of them might turn against us."
Matt noticed each of the knights making the Sign of the Cross while his lips moved in prayer, before he stabbed his enemy. "What's this, Lord Abbot?"
"'Tis the words of conditional absolution they pronounce, Lord Wizard, if the men cannot speak repentance of their sins, they are forgiven."
Matt turned to watch brown-robed monks lifting wounded knights gently onto stretchers and carrying them away. "Where are they going?"
Sir Guy looked up. "To the chapel, Lord Matthew, there to be tended; they will heal more quickly there, and the sanctity of a church will protect them best in such a war as this."
"These guys really prefer to pray when they're wounded?"
"These are holy men. And, too, they know that each man praying in the chapel sends greater strength of grace to fortify us who maintain guard."
It was working, Matt realized - his body felt a little lighter, refreshed; magical power tingled in his limbs. Somehow, by the weird metaphysics of this world, prayer could translate into physical strength. The power of prayer was no empty phrase here.
"Ram!" a lookout bellowed.
Matt ran to the wall, craning his neck to get a view.
A wooden tunnel, thirty feet long, was approaching through the enemy forces, like a giant centipede.
"It has as many men as its length," the abbot growled by his shoulder, "and a great trunk of a tree within, I doubt not, hung from timbers. The armored roof protects the men from arrows, bolts, or aught else we might hurl down upon them. Well, let it come; of that, I have no fear."
"Malvoisin!" another lookout cried, and voices took it up, aghast. "Malvoisin! Malvoisin!"
The abbot's head snapped up. Matt followed his glance.
A fifty-foot-high scaffold was rolling toward them, three hundred feet away. It was a siege tower, a square, ugly, unfinished wooden structure, pulled by five teams of horses; but inside, there were steep stairways, and soldiers could run up them at amazing speed to come out the top door, and cross onto the battlements. The name meant "bad neighbor," which it certainly was.
"That," the abbot grated, "I fear."
He swung away. "Ho, archers! Slay me those horses! Have no regard for the tunnel; but put to death the horses that drag that foul scaffold hither!"
A heavy chant sprang up from the archers as they bent their bows and filled the air with volley after volley:
It seemed sacreligious, but Matt realized they meant it from the depths of their hearts. He didn't know enough theology to say whether the saint actually might bless an arrow aimed at another human being, even under these conditions; but it seemed to be working, whether magically or psychologically. In -five seconds, the horses stumbled, fell in their traces, and rolled over, dead.
But the hail of steel points drew an answer-arrows rattled down onto the battlements, sticking in shields or clattering off them. An occasional one pierced armor, and a knight howled, falling. The brown-robes scrambled to pull him in, so the loss in firepower was almost balanced by the increase in spiritual power from the prayers of the wounded. Matt could feel a magic potential rising in him, singing; he felt like a capacitor waiting to be discharged. He wondered if he'd be able to keep from working magic.
Enemy footmen ran in to form a shield-wall around the horses. Hostlers ran in behind them, to unharness the dead beasts and put in replacements.
"Guard them!" the abbot called to the archers. "When you see an opening, loose!"
"The ram, Lord Abbot," Sir Guy reminded.
"What of it?" The abbot frowned down at the tunnel. It was only a few feet from the gate.
"Ought we not to fire upon them now?" Sir Guy demanded.
"Nay." The abbot grinned like a wolf. "Let them swing, their ram."
The tunnel groaned on and connected with the gate, making a hollow boom. Its mouth nearly covered the great doors. A moment later, a huge thud shook the wall.
"Porters!" the abbot called. "Ready at the bar!" He began to count. "One ... two..."
The porters yanked the great oaken beam loose, tossed it to the side.
"Five!" the abbot cried. "Prepare to open!"