The Flashman Papers: The Complete 12-Book Collection. George Fraser MacDonald
hell. But the bridge was falling; I saw it yawn away from the outer arch, and moonlight flooded in, and then with an appalling crash the great mass of wood fell outwards, smashing against the stonework of the causeway, leaping as if it were alive, and settling—oh, thank God!—across the gap.
The clap of the explosion was in my ears as I grabbed my sabre and took cover at the side of the archway. My first thought was to rush out across the bridge—anywhere out of that damned castle—but an outcry from the causeway stopped me. The guards! I couldn’t see them, but they were there, all right, and then I saw a pin-point of light from the far end of the causeway, and the crack of a shot hard behind it. Sapten’s merry men must be getting into action; there was a ragged volley from the shore and a scream, and I hesitated no longer. Anything emerging across that bridge was going to be a prime target; this was no place for Harry Flashman, and I fled back into the hall, looking for a safe corner to hide in until the forthcoming passage of arms was over. By God, I had done my share, and no mistake; not for me to try to steal all the glory which the Sons of the Volsungs so richly deserved.
Someone was running and yelling in the passage from the dungeons; another voice was bellowing from up aloft. The hall was going to be fairly busy in a moment or two, so I scampered towards a doorway hitherto unnoticed, midway between the main gate and the dungeon passage. It was locked; I battered on it for a futile moment, and then swung round to look for another bolthole. But it was too late; Kraftstein was leaping across the hall, sword drawn, bawling to everyone to come and lend a hand; two more were emerging from beyond the stairs. I shrank back in the doorway—fortunately it was fairly deep, and they hadn’t seen me, being intent on their yawning front door.
“Pistols!” roared Kraftstein. “Quickly, they’re coming across! Heinrich! Back this way, man! Come on!” He vanished into the archway, with the other two close behind him; I heard them start shooting, and congratulated myself on having left them a clear field in that direction. Sapten wasn’t going to have things all his own way, by the sound of things, and presently two more of the garrison came racing out of the dungeon arch, and another from the stairs; unless I had miscounted, the whole of the Jotunberg friendly society was now gathered in the main entrance—all except Rudi, who was presumably still stretched out above stairs, and bleeding to death, with any luck.
I wondered if the last man up from below had cut Carl Gustaf’s throat and sent him down the pipe; not that I cared much, but the besiegers would probably feel better disposed towards me if they found him alive. However, he could take his chance; in the meantime, it seemed reasonable that I should seek out another refuge elsewhere; if I made a quick bolt for it there seemed little chance that the defenders would notice me—they were warmly engaged by the sound of yelling and banging from the direction of the drawbridge.
I peeped cautiously out; the dungeon passage seemed a good place, for I recollected openings off it where I ought to be able to lurk in comparative safety. The hall was empty; I made sure there was no one in sight at the main arch, and was flitting stealthily out when a voice from the stairway stopped me dead in my tracks, yelping as I did so.
“Hold on, play-actor! The comedy’s not finished yet!”
Rudi was standing on the bottom step, leaning against the stone balustrade. He was grinning, but his face was ghastly pale, except down the right side, where the blood had dried in a dark streak. He had a sabre in his free hand, and he lifted the point in my direction.
“Bad form to sneak away without saying goodbye to your host,” says he. “Damned bad form. Didn’t they teach you manners at that English school of yours?”
I made a dart towards the dungeon passage, but with a speed that astonished me, considering the wound on his head, he bounded off the step and was there before me, slashing at me so close that I had to leap back out of harm’s way. He laughed savagely and feinted to lunge, tossing the curls out of his eyes.
“Not quick enough, were we? It isn’t de Gautet this time, you know.”
I circled away from him, and he followed me with his eyes, smiling grimly and making his point play about in front of me. I heard a movement behind me, towards the arch, but before I could turn, he sang out:
“No, no, don’t shoot! You attend to the rats outside! I’ll settle the one in here!”
He advanced slowly, his eyes flashing as the light caught them.
“It isn’t played out yet, you know,” says he. “Perhaps your friends will find Jotunberg a tougher nut to crack than they imagined. And if they do—well, they’ll find twin corpses to cheer ’em up!” He flicked out his point, and I parried it and sprang away. He laughed at that. “Don’t like cold steel, do we? We’ll like it even less in a minute. Come on guard, curse you!”
I couldn’t fly; he’d have had his point through my back in a twinkling. So I had to fight. Not many foemen have seen old Flashy’s face in battle, but Rudi was destined to be one of them, and I couldn’t have had a more deadly opponent. I knew he would be as practised with a sword as he was with a knife or a pistol, which put him well above my touch, but there was nothing for it but to grip my hilt with a sweating hand and defend myself as long as I could. I could see only one faint hope; if he was so greedy for my blood that he wasn’t going to let his pals intervene, there was just a chance that I might hold him off long enough for Sapten to overcome the defenders—if I wasn’t a swordsman of his brilliance, I was at least as good as the master-at-arms of the 11th Hussars could make me, and I was strong enough, while Rudi must be weakened by the smash on the head I had given him.
Perhaps the thought showed in my face, for he laughed again and took a cut at me.
“You can have your choice of how you die,” jeers he. “A nice thrust? Or a good backhand cut—it can take a head off very pretty, as I’m sure you know!”
And with that he came in, foot and hand, and had me fighting for my life as I fell back across the hall. His blade was everywhere, now darting at my face, now at my chest; now slashing at my left flank, now at my head—how I parried those thrusts and sweeps is beyond me, for he was faster than any man I’d ever met, and his wrist was like a steel spring. He drove me back to the foot of the stairs and then dropped his point, laughing, while he glanced towards the main gate, where the pistols were cracking away, and the smoke was drifting back like mist into the hall.
“Stand to ’em, Kraftstein!” he shouted. “What, they’re only a pack of ploughmen! Fire away, boys! Sweep ’em into the lake!”
He waved his sabre in encouragement, and I seized the chance to take a wild slash at his head. By God, I nearly had him, too, but his point was up in the nick of time, and then he was driving in at me again, snarling and thrusting with such speed that I had to duck under his blade and run for it.
“Stand and fight, damn you!” cries he, coming after me. “Are you all white-livered, you damned British? Stand and fight!”
“What for?” I shouted. “So that you can show off your sabre-work, you foreign mountebank? Come and get me if you’re so bloody clever! Come on!”
It was the last thing I’d have thought of saying to anybody, normally, but I knew what I was doing. I’d noticed, as he turned to follow me, that he had staggered a little, and as he stood now, poised to lunge, he was swaying unsteadily from side to side. He was groggy from his wound, and tiring, too; for all his speed and skill he wasn’t as strong a man as I. If I could lure him away from the hall, away from the chance to call in his men, I might be able to exhaust him sufficiently to disable or kill him; at least I might hold him in play until Sapten and his damned dilatory Danes came on the scene. So I fell back towards the dungeon doorway, calling him an Austrian pimp, a bedroom bravo, a Heidelberg whoremaster, and anything else that came to mind.
Possibly he didn’t need this kind of encouragement; it only seemed to amuse him, but he came after me hard enough, stamp-stamp-stamp, with arm and sabre straight as a lance when he lunged. I retreated along the passage nimbly, keeping him at full stretch, and got my footing on the steps. After that it was easier, for whoever had built the steps had known his business; they spiralled down to the right, so that I could