All sixteen guards were now staring at me, so I took off at a run, charging straight at them across the tops of the tables beautifully dressed in white and gold, screaming obscenities at the top of my lungs and knocking over translucent porcelain plates and golden goblets as I went, much to the consternation of the noble guests and their attendant Knights. This tactic—and it is an actual tactic, which we in the Greatcoats call a “Wanton Dancer”—distracts the enemy by focusing their attention on the wrong target, in this case, me. One day soon I plan to rename this particular version the “Suicidal Idiot.”
Brasti took advantage of the momentary diversion to grab his quiver and sling it over his shoulder before running to the raised foredeck where he could rain arrows down on our opponents. Kest slammed the rounded front of his shield across the face of the man closest to him before driving the edge into the stomach of the next. “Falcio, coming in low!” he shouted.
I leaped up from the table and heard the whoosh of a broadsword stroke that could have cost me my ankles pass harmlessly beneath me. The agility and grace of my maneuver became marginally less impressive when I landed and the tablecloth slipped out from under my feet, sending me tumbling backward, shattering crockery and sending half-eaten chicken legs and chewed ribs flying into the faces of those guests who hadn’t yet had the presence of mind to move away.
With the wind knocked out of me, I struggled to draw breath into my lungs, much to the grinning satisfaction of the guardsman who had raised his broadsword high for the killing blow. He was so convinced he was about to end me that I hadn’t the heart to tell him that what I lack in luck and skill, I make up for in sheer bloody-mindedness—well, that, and the fact that a rapier thrust moves at twice the speed of a broadsword stroke. Wincing through the pain, I drove the point of my blade through the leather of his jerkin and into his belly. From the expression on his face, it was clear that he’d found the outcome of our exchange exceedingly disappointing.
I tossed the bleeding man a clean linen napkin from the table. “Keep pressure on the wound. The blade missed your stomach, so you still have a chance to live.” Believe me, I’m no Saint, but I’d dealt with so many monstrous individuals lately that I was developing a fair amount of sympathy for the people forced to work for them.
I rose to my feet in time to face the rest of the guards, who’d been wrestling their way through the crowd to get to me. I’d chosen my terrain carefully: by fighting on the tables in the midst of the guests, I’d made it almost impossible for my opponents to swarm me without accidentally skewering the nobles. Hard to believe, but some of them still appeared to think this was some elaborate wedding performance—Viscount Brugess came within inches of being decapitated as he leaned forward to grab another leg of chicken, clearly sharing Brasti’s enthusiasm for southern spit-roasted poultry.
The Knights were taking a more pragmatic view: they’d already begun dragging their noble employers to the relative safety of the back of the barge, clearing the way for the guards to close in on me. As that made the field of battle less favorable—to me, at least—I jumped off the table and began running along the barge’s wide railing.
Don’t fall. Don’t fall. Don’t fall. Brasti will never let you forget it if you tumble into the water and drown.
“Protect the Margrave!” Captain Squirrel shouted, cleverly guessing at my destination.
As it happened, I had no false illusions about my chances of reaching Margrave Evidalle in time to deliver the death he so richly deserved, but my apparent intentions were enough to convince the guards currently cornering Kest, Brasti, and Chalmers that I was the more urgent danger, and with everyone’s attention once again on me, Kest moved on to Part Two of the plan.
“Find the sister,” Kest told the young woman who’d been posing as a Greatcoat.
She didn’t move. This “Chalmers” had likely never been in a battle this full of chaos and mayhem before—more evidence that she wasn’t a proper Greatcoat, since chaos and mayhem were pretty much our stock and trade. As if to prove my point, one of the guards got the brilliant idea to drop his sword and instead try to swat me off the railing using a long bargepole. I squatted down, grabbed the other end and jumped off the rail, then ran to the other side of the boat. With the bemused guard clinging manfully to his end of the pole, I managed to knock the swords out of the hands of at least two of his fellows before he yanked, hard, and I dutifully let go—sending him crashing backward into yet more of his unfortunate comrades.
“Cestina’s sister,” Kest pressed Chalmers. “You said Margrave Evidalle was holding her captive on the barge—is she truly his prisoner, or might she be part of his scheme too?”
“I . . . no, the Lady Mareina is innocent in all of this! They’ve got her below in the—”
“Don’t tell me, just go and get her! We’ll keep the guards busy.” Kest shoved her unceremoniously toward the stairs leading belowdecks before coming to my aid.
Brasti joined us. Sighting along the line of his arrow at a group of guardsmen who were preparing to make a run at us, he asked, “Tell me again why we didn’t bring fifty Greatcoats from Aramor on this little pleasure-cruise?”
“Perhaps because we don’t have fifty Greatcoats?” Kest suggested.
In fact, we had less than a dozen at Castle Aramor, despite all the Bardatti we’d sent out in search of them. But that wasn’t the reason why I’d brought only Kest and Brasti with me to Margrave Evidalle’s wedding. “We’re here to send these bastards a message,” I reminded them.
“A sternly worded letter wouldn’t have sufficed?” Brasti grumbled.
A massive brute of a man grabbed one of the tables by two legs and held it out in front of him like a kite-shield, and more guardsmen rushed to take up position behind him so that they could rush us without fear of Brasti’s arrows. Brasti tried sidestepping, looking for a clear view of their flank, but the table was too wide and the big man holding it too wily to give him a target.
“I hate the big ones,” Brasti complained. “Since we’re likely to die here, Falcio, do you mind telling me what message we were supposed to deliver?”
“It’s simple,” I replied, reaching up to wrap the end of a rope hanging from the yardarm about ten feet above me around my forearm. Once it felt moderately secure, I leaped from the raised foredeck, the point of my rapier aimed at the face of the man carrying the table. I’d never tried anything like this before, but if I was stuck having to fight on a boat, I’d damned well try and enjoy it. When the guardsman tilted his makeshift shield over his head to protect himself, I let go of the rope and landed squarely on the middle of the table. Before the big man could shake me off, I’d hopped to the other side of his little squad and by the time the man at the back had turned to face me, I’d already stabbed him in the ass.
“Think twice the next time you decide to ambush a Greatcoat, gentlemen,” I suggested. “We’re better at this than you are.”
Believe it or not, that got a smattering of applause from the wedding guests.
The rich really are different from the rest of us. They’re insane.
“Seems a little unfair to punish these poor fellows for ambushing this Chalmers person,” Brasti said, taking advantage of the confusion to fire an arrow into the thigh of the man holding the table. “She wasn’t even wearing a proper greatcoat.”