Beltane the Smith

by Jeffery Farnol

So came they where torch and lanthorn smoked and gleamed, by whose fitful light they beheld a barricade, rough and hastily contrived, whence Sir Benedict fought and Walkyn smote, with divers of their stout company and lusty fellows from the town. Above, upon the great flanking tower of the gate, was Giles with many archers who plied their whizzing shafts amain where, 'twixt outer and inner wall, the assailants sought to storm the barricade; but the place was narrow, and moreover, beyond the breach stout Eric, backed by his fierce townsmen, fought in desperate battle: thus, though the besiegers' ranks were constantly swelled by way of the breach, yet in that confined space their very numbers hampered them, while from sheltered wall and gate-tower Giles and his archers showered them with whistling shafts very fast and furious; so in that narrow place death was rife and in the fitful torch-glare was a sea of tossing steel and faces fierce and wild, and ever the clamour grew, shouts and screams and cries dreadful to be heard.

Now as Beltane stood to watch this, grim-lipped, for it needed but few to man the barricade, so narrow was it, Roger caught his arm and pointed to the housetops above them; and what he saw, others saw also, and a cry went up of wonder and amaze. For, high upon the roof, his mail agleam, his white robe whiter in the torch-glare, stood Friar Martin, while crouched behind him to left and right were many men in ancient and rusty armour, men grey-bearded and white of head, at sight of whom the roar of battle died down from sheer amaze until all men might hear the friar's words:

"Come, ye men of Belsaye!" he cried, "all ye that do love wife or daughter or little child—all ye that would maintain them innocent and pure—follow me!"

As he ended, his sword flashed, and, even as he sprang, so sprang all those behind him—down, down they leapt upon the close-ranked foemen below, so swift, so sudden and unexpected, that ere they could be met with pike or sword the thing was done. And now from that narrow way, dim-lit by lanthorn and torch-glare, there rose a sound more awful to hear than roar of battle, a hoarse and vicious sound like to the worrying snarl of many great and fierce hounds.

With ancient swords, with axe and dagger and fierce-rending teeth they fought, those fathers of Belsaye; thick and fast they fell, yet never alone, while ever they raved on, a company of madmen, behind the friar's white robe. Back and back the besiegers reeled before that raging fury—twice the white friar was smitten down yet twice he arose, smiting the fiercer, wherefore, because of his religious habit, the deathly pallor of his sunken cheek and the glare of his eyes, panic came, and all men shrank from the red sweep of his sword.

Then Sir Benedict sounded his horn, and sword in hand leapt over the barricade, and behind him Beltane with Roger and Ulf and Walkyn and their serried pikemen, while Sir Brian and Sir Hacon limped in their rear.

"The breach!" cried Sir Benedict, "seize we now the breach!"

"The breach! The breach!" roared a hundred voices. And now within the gloom steel rasped steel, groping hands seized and griped with merciless fingers; figures, dim-seen, sank smitten, groaning beneath the press. But on they fought, slipping and stumbling, hewing and thrusting, up and up over ruined masonry, over forms that groaned beneath cruel feet—on and ever on until within the narrow breach Beltane's long sword darted and thrust and Ulf's axe whirled and fell, while hard by Walkyn's hoarse shout went up in roaring triumph.

So within this narrow gap, where shapeless things stirred and whimpered in the dark, Beltane leaned breathless upon his sword and looked down upon the watch-fires of Duke Ivo's great camp. But, even as he gazed, these fires were blotted out where dark figures mounted fresh to the assault, and once again sword and axes fell to their dire work.

And ever as he fought Beltane bethought him of her whose pure lips voiced prayers for him, and his mighty arm grew mightier yet, and he smote and thrust untiring, while Walkyn raged upon his left, roaring amain for Red Pertolepe, and Ulf the strong saved his breath to ply his axe the faster.