Matt looked up and shouted, "It's not you! They've got bigger game to worry about!"
Fadecourt looked up, indignant and offended—then looked where Matt was pointing and saw the two pursuing knights charging straight for him, with their pack of pikes in full voice behind them.
The cyclops took the better part of valor and leaped for Narlh, crying, "Away!"
Matt dashed to join them, calling, "Is it time to help the good guys yet?"
"We ken not who they may be! Wizard, away!"
Whatever the merits of the two lone knights, they weren't short on courage. They galloped full out toward the pursuers, blind to the mob. But their enemies were just as doughty, and their lances just as long. They slammed into the fugitives with a crash like an iron foundry going broke. Lances splintered; someone screamed; a body slammed down to the ground; and Matt squeezed his eyes shut. When he looked again, the two fugitives were down, along with one horse; the other was galloping away. The knights rode on over their bodies, unheeding, galloping toward the woods. The pikemen paused long enough to make sure the knights were dead, stabbing through the joints with their pikes, then ran after their leaders.
Matt winced. "Not long on mercy, are they?" Then he suddenly realized the knights were chasing nothing—at least, as far as he could see. "Hey! Where'd the lady go?"
"Into the woods," Fadecourt answered, tight-lipped. "If you wouldst save her, Wizard, 'tis now you must cast your spell."
Matt frowned. "Wait a minute, no. All along, you've been telling me not to pitch in until I know which side is good and which is evil. How come all of a sudden you know?"
"Why, because she is a woman."
Matt stared.
Then he sighed and said, "One of these days, I'll figure out the logic of that—or else I'll have to admit that chivalry can become a knee-jerk reflex. Okay, I'll try to give her a little help.
Huge forces seemed to bend about him, and he actually felt his words slowing as he spoke—but he plowed ahead, finishing the verse with, sweat starting from his brow. He drew a ragged breath and shrugged. "That's about all I can do."
"Mayhap not." Fadecourt ran toward the fallen knights, chivalry personified.
"Right," Matt muttered, following at an uninspired jog. "What's it matter if they were just trying to carve your brisket? They're down and helpless, that's all that matters." Nonetheless, he came up behind the kneeling cyclops to see what he could do.
"Naught here—he is dead." Fadecourt turned to the second knight, his face grim. "Ha! He lives!"
"No...torture," the knight grated. "Quick...death."
"Doesn't he have any chance?" Narlh came up behind Matt.
Fadecourt pointed to the blood welling out of the knight's armor in a widening pool and shook his head.
Narlh nodded, his beaked face unreadable. "Nothing I can do here, then. I better go check up on the woman." He turned away and loped off down the trail.
"Good." The dying man had pushed the girl out of Matt's mind for the moment—but Narlh was right, she might need protection. Or reassurance, anyway—though Matt could think of much more reassuring sights than the dracogriff. She was likely to hide at the slightest glimpse of him, especially since the knights had been chasing her.
Of course, that was assuming she was innocent, and not a major villainess herself. In this country, though, Matt couldn't imagine that the knights could have had any moral reason for chasing her.
But moral or not, the man was dying. Matt understood why Fadecourt was so sure the knight had no chance of survival. If the pikemen hadn't been so zealous, the knight might have lived. What kind of medieval society was this, anyway? In his Europe, a peasant soldier would have been hanged for killing one of his betters, even if by accident.
"We are wanderers," Fadecourt told the knight, "not foemen. Can we ease you?"
"Aye. Shrive...me."
Matt stared. "Listen to your confession, and give you forgiveness?"
Suddenly, Fadecourt looked helpless. "We cannot; we are not priests."
"Repentance is enough." Matt knelt beside Fadecourt. "If you're sorry for your sins, you won't be damned."
"I...repent..." The knight's body convulsed. "Aieeee!"
"His master listens," Fadecourt said, thin-lipped, "and punishes him for his repentance."
"Repentance." Anger boiled—the sorcerers could at least let the man die in peace. But of course, that would have been the reverse of their main purpose, wouldn't it? Damning as many souls as possible. Matt lifted his head with grim resolve. He'd already worked one spell here, and if hanged for the kid, be hanged for the goat.
Matt felt the force of magic moving outward from himself, against very heavy resistance—but as long as it held, it was accomplishing its purpose: keeping the evil magic away from the dying man, so that he could pass in grace. "Gramercy," he panted. "I must...recompense..."
"You must die well." Matt set a hand on his arm. "Think of Heaven."
"Nay...of earth. No...debt."
"He will not die beholden," Fadecourt interpreted. "Give him some small assurance that his last charge is fulfilled."
"What, the maiden he was riding with?" Matt asked. "Be of good cheer, Sir Knight—she made it into the forest well ahead of her pursuers, and they're going to have tough going among those branches, so she'll probably be safe."
"Gramercy..." The knight's face twisted with sudden pain. "I have...discharged..." Then his face froze, eyes staring, and his whole body went rigid—then limp, and a last breath hissed out.
"Discharged your duty," Fadecourt finished, and reached over to close the man's eyes. "Good rest to you, Sir Knight—and may your toils in Purgatory be light." He stood, face grim, then turned to look down at Matt. "Come. Let us do what we can to fulfill his last charge."
"Right." Matt stood up and followed Fadecourt toward the trees.
As they came in under the leaves, they heard several voices shouting, with a lot of slashing and crashing. Fadecourt pressed Matt back behind a trunk, and three pikemen came barreling past them toward the meadow, shouting with anger and outrage. Fadecourt looked up at Matt in inquiry. "What did they see?"
"Heaven only knows," Matt said, "and I don't think I want to. Any idea which way the lady went?"
Fadecourt did, as it turned out—among his other skills, he was an excellent tracker. Not that it needed much skill, to tell that a horse had blundered through where there wasn't any trail—but how the cyclops could tell which horse had been ridden by a woman, Matt couldn't begin to guess. Still, Fadecourt followed the trail unerringly—until they came to a small clearing and discovered the horse contentedly cropping the grass. Fadecourt looked grim, but he simply searched the perimeter of the clearing...then kept on searching, until he'd come back to Matt. He frowned, puzzled. "I had found her trace—then realized it could not be hers. I searched on, found it again—and knew it for a false trail. Then I came upon the true trail...yet was suddenly uncertain that..."