The Family Sea by Tanith Lee

Author:Tanith Lee [Lee, Tanith]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780340930854
Goodreads: 1021245
Publisher: Hodder Children's Books
Published: 2007-09-06T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 13. Flanked

There came a point in any intense action when Roland lost sight of the bigger picture. It was one disadvantage of being the sort of leader people called “hero”—the sort who rode in front and led by example. Roland couldn’t worry about whether Lamont had broken through Hastafel’s southern flank or whether Daphne was staying safely out of the front lines or whether they were overextending themselves to the south. He couldn’t even worry about how many men he’d lost, or whether his company was sticking together or whether the wounded he’d sent to the rear had made it safely out of the fighting. Roland’s world shrank to the next man coming at him—men on foot with spears or swords, mounted warriors with lances. His focus dwindled to the space around his horse’s head and the increasingly treacherous footing.

And then Roland was glad that he had not taken Cato into this fight, because a crossbow bolt caught his horse in the throat. The bolt penetrated the horse’s leather armor and went so deep that Roland saw the tip protruding from the animal’s neck.

Then all Roland could think about was falling. Falling and not dying or being pinned or trampled. The horse, at least, did not suffer. It went down so hard and so fast that it didn’t have time to roll or kick in its death throes. That probably saved Roland’s life, because the enemies around him did not give him time to recover.

Roland staggered free of his fallen horse and pulled his sword loose just in time to block a pike aimed at his head. A battle axe made a meaty thunk as it missed him by inches and slammed into the dead horse. Then one of his men leapt in to engage a rider that would have trampled Roland into the blood-drenched soil. Another of his men, also on foot, turned back-to-back with him and Roland had a moment to catch his breath. All around them the fighting was intense. The ground was spongy with rain and now slick with blood.

A creature came at Roland from around his dead horse. A man, he reminded himself, just a badly injured man. But the man’s face was a bloody pulp on one side. A loop of intestines protruded from an awful stab wound in his abdomen. He should be seeking the rear of his own lines, looking for a doctor and a place to lie down, perhaps a cool drink before he died. Instead, he was roaring like an animal, holding a weapon that looked like a scythe. He should have been weak, but he slammed into Roland with such force that Roland barely kept his footing.

The man didn’t stop after Roland cut his legs from under him. He grabbed at Roland’s greaves and tried to trip him as another enemy attacked. He was biting the leather of Roland’s boots as Roland finally shook him loose.

Roland wanted to shout at him, “Why do you care so much?! This

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