The Messenger of the Black Prince

by Thomas A. H. Mawhinney

In the next breath we were down again. A flight of arrows clattered against the stone face of our fortress or passed close over our heads. The enemy must have been filled with bitterness that so many of them had fallen while they had not been able to touch one of us. They paused for a space to form again. This time they came on, not scattered as before, but rather in groups. The first of them shot their arrows and dropped to the ground. Those behind sent their missiles at us just at the moment when they expected we would raise our heads above the wall.

They were coming in. There was no doubt of that. And so close on the heels of each other did their arrows fly that we were unable to look out long enough to take a good aim, for on the second try I shot wide of the mark and in ducking back an arrow almost ended my life, for it grazed the top of my head and cut into my scalp far enough to draw a few drops of blood.

I began to fear for our safety. I knew the kind of enemy we had before us. If they could lay hands upon us they would tear us limb from limb. If we were to get out of our difficulty, it would be only by the death of them all. But how it was to come about was more than I could guess, for their numbers far surpassed ours. Even if we were to make off, there were more and more of them about us in the woods.

I took the risk once more and raised my head above the wall. At the same time I took a shot at a fellow who was half hidden by a tree. It was as good as a miss, for the arrow only grazed his arm and tore a piece of the cloth of the sleeve of his coat. But he let out a roar that echoed to my ears. As though I had destroyed something of the greatest value, he threw all caution to the side. He strung his bow and shot an arrow at me with such force that it struck the rock and shivered into a thousand pieces. Then with the same running motion he came on. He zig-zagged from one tree to the other. He fumbled with his bow, but in his madness could not steady himself long enough to string it. When he was within fifty feet of our wall, he cast it to the ground in anger. He fumbled for a moment at his belt. He drew out a dagger and raised it on high as though he would sweep us all to death with the very fury of his attack.

Both Charles and I (the Dwarf was far to one side) saw him advancing. At the same time we raised ourselves to shoot him down before he reached the wall. But we had no sooner showed the tops of our heads when a rain of arrows forced us to drop back again. In the next second the fellow was bellowing like a wild bull. With one leap he had a footing on the wall. Another, he had sprung over it and bounded into our midst.

It was a situation that we had not foreseen. In a certain sense he was as safe as he would have been if he had remained among the trees. We knew that if we rose to grapple with him we were as good as dead, for the men without were on their guard. They were protecting him with their eyes alert and their bows strung to kill the first of us who would be so forgetful as to raise his head or shoulders in a line with their arrows.

The fellow flew at me like a fury. He caught me by the arm and spun me around. I slid away from him and rolled over two or three times on the ground. Charles lowered his body and made a flying leap. He struck him in the middle of the back and sent him sprawling on his face.

I got to my hands and knees, poising myself on the balls of my feet ready to move in case he came at me again. He rose. His countenance was black with anger. The hand that held the dagger quivered with the wrath that was boiling in him. He stood straight up and glared at me as though his very looks would kill.

The Dwarf was edging over towards us, shuffling with his body low to the earth. His face was covered with the same smile that I had noticed when I first saw him. The fellow had one foot ahead of the other ready to move. The Dwarf made one leap—a long, low horizontal leap. He fastened the fingers of his powerful hands in the calves of my attacker’s legs. He sunk his nails into the flesh with a grip like the claws of a wild animal that is desperate. I heard him snarl and gnash his teeth. The fellow tried to kick him away. He might as well have struggled against the grip of an iron trap. The Dwarf gathered his strength into his shoulders. He took in a deep breath. With a twist he jerked his victim’s legs to the one side. The fellow came down with the swiftness with which you would snap a whip. His head struck a stone and that so loudly that I heard the crack of it. He gave a groan. His arms fell limp to his sides and he rolled over with his eyes glazed on his back.

I breathed a sigh of relief. That I had been near death I fully realized. But I had no time to reflect, for an arrow came darting over our heads and sang its way beyond us into the forest. I sprang to the wall, for I surely thought that the enemy suspected that their companion was captured or injured and would make an attempt to save him.