De Lisle had every advantage, but there was a woman at his side, and he did not respect her courage or her hatred as he should have done. The white horse was close to his, and of a sudden Mellis twisted sideways, threw her arms about De Lisle’s body, and held to him desperately.
“Martin—Martin!”
Martin kicked his heels into his horse’s flanks, leaning forward and swinging his club. De Lisle had got an arm around Mellis’s body. He dragged her around on to his knees, struck her savagely in the breast with the pommel of his sword, and flung her down under her horse’s feet. He brought his horse around just as Martin charged him, and gave his enemy the point; but Martin had been waiting for such a trick, and slipping down under his horse’s flank, he let Fulk’s blade gash his shoulder.
His own horse blundered into De Lisle’s and staggered the other beast. Martin slipped clear, and got in a blow that made the swashbuckler reel in the saddle. De Lisle struck back at him, and Martin, guarding, had his staff cut clean in two. He sprang in and up, got a grip of Fulk’s swordbelt and wrist, and dragged him out of the saddle.
De Lisle’s sword flew out of his hand, and the two men lay struggling like wild beasts under the horses’ hoofs. De Lisle’s harness bit into Martin’s flesh, his spurs gashed him, but Martin felt no pain. The fight was for the swashbuckler’s poniard, already half drawn from its sheath. Martin came uppermost, one hand gripping De Lisle’s wrist, the other thrust under the vizor of his helmet. De Lisle struck at him furiously with his gadded glove, and then tried to tear Martin’s hand away from his eyes.
But Martin was too strong for him; he had lived a cleaner life, and his muscles won in the tense balance of such a struggle. Neither man seemed to move for half a minute, both bodies rigid, straining against each other. Then De Lisle’s hand was jerked from the handle of his poniard, and Martin had clutched it and drawn it from its sheath.
Fulk de Lisle knew what was coming. He rolled to and fro, lashed out with his mailed fists, tore at Martin with his spurs; but his heavy harness cumbered him, and his breath was gone. Martin struck three times at the man’s gorget before the plates gave, and the poniard drove deep into the swashbuckler’s throat.
Two more such blows, and Fulk de Lisle twitched, gave a wet cry, and lay still.
Martin struggled up, panting, battered, running with blood. He looked around for Mellis. She had been leaning against a tree trunk, her hands clasping her bruised bosom, watching that death struggle with eyes that saw love and life fighting for her and for her honor. Her man was wounded. He would need her now.
She ran to him, eyes full of soft lights and shadows, pitying his wounds, and not shrinking from his bloodiness.