Read Online Tom Swan and the Head of St. George Part Five: Rhodes by Christian Cameron - Free Book Online

shouted. ‘Aiiee!’ and he attacked.
    Swan ignored the sabre and cut at the axe. The sabre blow rang on his helmet, and his pommel struck something – he had one of the man’s arms, and he broke it at the elbow, and punched his armoured right hand into what he assumed was the face as yet another weapon struck him – he dropped his opponent and stepped back, looking for balance. Two weapons struck him together – a blow to his visor that almost brought him down and a cut to his left arm that rang like a bell on his left vambrace. He had his sword up, and he cut down, into the darkness, and connected – and there was a vicious pain in his right calf. He screamed – or roared.
    Someone had his left arm. He slammed his right fist and his pommel at this new threat – connected, and the man fell away – then he took a kick or a punch to his knee that caused him to fall backwards.
    His head struck the stones that had almost tripped him as he entered the corridor. He hit hard – but his armet took the blow and his thickly padded liner saved him.
    He could hear them coming, and he knew he was hurt, and more on impulse than by training he hauled himself over the rock – under his desperate hands, it became a stone column with deep fluting. He knelt because his left leg was having trouble supporting him, took his sword in both hands, and put the point up.
    Forty feet down the tunnel, there was a scream and the last torch went out.
    ‘One, two, three! Charge!’ called a voice in Turkish. They had taken twenty of Swan’s gasping breaths to ready themselves.
    Swan had used the time to get against the right-hand wall, crouched down behind the fallen pillar. He couldn’t see them. But he could certainly hear them.
    They all screamed together – the long, undulating scream that had taken Constantinople.
    The two leaders hit the pillar together. And fell.
    Swan cut – in panic – at the sounds. Hit something soft, cut again, and again. And again. Cut – thrust, cut.
    A desperate Turk, heroically brave, seized his sword-blade – probably in his death throes, but his sacrifice was not in vain. By luck, or fortuna , he plucked the blade right out of Swan’s hands. Swan felt it go – heard it fall.
    A man hit his chest. And tried to wrap his arms about Swan’s shoulders.
    Swan pulled the man over the column – every Turk had to discover the downed column for himself, and it had become Swan’s greatest advantage. He used it to break the man’s balance and threw him, and then fell atop him, steel-clad arms and hands working brutally.
    A heavy weapon rang off his helmet. And there was suddenly weight on his back – he rolled, a man screamed, and Swan got his right hand on his rondel dagger. It was still there. He got it out – reversed – and stabbed with it.
    He realized that the roaring sound was his own voice.
    He felt the man’s neck go just as he pounded the blade into the man’s skull. The skull cracked like an egg and then the whole head collapsed under his weight. Then he felt himself repeat the blow, even though he knew the man had to be dead.
    He tried to rise off the new corpse, but his leg failed him and he sank back – now kneeling on both knees. He could see nothing. He could hear at least two men dying. Everything smelled of blood, and faeces, and despair.
    Perhaps he whimpered. He certainly wanted to.
    That was how Fra Tommaso found him, when he came at the head of a dozen knights. Swan was still kneeling, facing the corridor. His armour was caked in blood and dirt, and he had a dagger blade in both hands, and he was weeping. He couldn’t stop it, and he couldn’t get his helmet open. As soon as he heard the Italian voices coming, he’d burst into tears.
    He was ashamed of his weakness. But that only made him sob. He choked.
    Fra Tommaso clutched him to his chest – steel to steel. Torches illuminated the charnel house – seven dead men, all looking as if they’d been savaged by demons or