Sharpe 3-Book Collection 6: Sharpe’s Honour, Sharpe’s Regiment, Sharpe’s Siege. Bernard Cornwell

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      Sharpe landed heavily, fell, and he came up with the sword flailing at the man he had wounded. The man’s horse reared, the sword was at his breast, and the Partisan fell and Sharpe was gripping the reins and pulling the horse towards him. He flailed with the sword at another man, striking his horse on its rump and frightening it downhill. Sharpe was shouting like a demon, trying to drive the men down the track by the sheer ferocity of his voice.

      The leading man had turned, had drawn a sword, and he shouted at his companions to make way. His mouth stayed open as Angel put the second bullet into it. He went backwards, the rain suddenly crimson, and the shock of the second bullet checked the men and gave Sharpe enough time to put his foot into the rope stirrup and swing himself into the saddle. He wheeled the horse and took his heavy sword against the remaining Partisans.

      He supposed he ought to be ashamed of this kind of joy, of the fierce, singing joy of battle, yet he had known, from the moment that he had mounted the horse, that his ambush had worked.

      A flint clicked uselessly on steel, the musket’s powder turned into a grey porridge by the rain. Four men faced Sharpe and he drove his horse towards them, sword lifted, shouting, and he swept the grey blade down on a raised sabre, lunged into the man’s ribs, and twisted the blade free. A musket butt slammed into his left arm, he pulled the reins with numbed fingers, stood in the saddle and screamed a challenge as the sword came across and down to shear into the man’s face. A third rifle shot banged from the wet rocks.

      God bless the boy, Sharpe thought. Angel had reloaded as fast as any Rifleman and another man was down, being dragged by the stirrup of his frightened horse, and Sharpe parried a swinging musket, sliced wood from the butt, and lunged at the enemy’s throat, twisting the blade as it went home, and the blood was warm on his hands as he parried right, hacked down, and the enemy was going downhill. They were running!

      He pushed his heels back. ‘Go! Go! Go!’ They heard him coming, they were frightened, and one man pulled the reins, his horse slipped, screamed, and Sharpe swerved past him and lunged forward with the sword at the spine of the last unwounded man. The man screamed, arched his back, and Sharpe let the blade come free.

      He pulled on the reins.

      His attack had been so sudden and so savage, as an attack should be, that the enemy was gone, all but their dead. Sharpe leaned left, snatched the reins of another horse, and turned back up the hill. Now was the time for speed.

      ‘Angel!’

      ‘Señor?’

      Sharpe was galloping the horses uphill. ‘You’re a marvel! A bloody, bloody marvel!’ He had shouted it in English. He tried an approximation in Spanish and was rewarded by seeing the boy’s broad grin as he squeezed out of the rocks. Sharpe was laughing. ‘You’re as good as any Rifleman!’

      ‘Better!’

      ‘You’re better!’ They both laughed. ‘Get the horses!’

      Angel threw Sharpe’s rifle to him and he slung it on his shoulder. ‘Helene!’

      She came slowly out of the crack in the rocks. She stared at the men who lay crumpled on the road, their blood already diluted by the rain and trickling down the ruts of the track. Her eyes came up to Sharpe. She was smiling. ‘I’ve never seen you fight!’

      ‘You’ll see more if you don’t hurry.’

      ‘You’re wonderful!’

      ‘Helene! For God’s sake! Hurry! What are you doing?’

      She was running past him. ‘I want one of those cloaks! I’m goddamned cold!’

      She dragged a fur cloak from one of the dead men, grunting at the weight of the corpse. Sharpe leaned from his saddle to help her. He laughed when she draped it about her shoulders because it seemed so odd to see such delicate beauty swathed in such a brutal great fur.

      El Matarife had not been among the seven men, so presumably the Partisan leader was at the foot of the mountain. He would have heard the shots, but it would be several minutes, maybe a half hour, before he knew what had happened. Then, though, he would realise what Sharpe was doing and guess that his enemy was escaping him. Sharpe chivvied Helene into Carbine’s saddle, knowing that every moment was precious.

      Sharpe had four horses now and he led them upwards, away from the dead men, up to the plateau. ‘Where are we going, Richard?’

      ‘Down the other side. There’s a small path, a goat track.’ He had ridden round the plateau before going to the convent, sure there must be another path, fearful that he would not find it.

      ‘Then what?’

      ‘We ride as far as we can! We’ve stolen half a day’s lead on the bastards, but they’ll follow us!’ He did not tell her that no one moved faster across country than Partisans. Their pursuit would be grim, their revenge terrible unless he hurried.

      She watched as he clumsily wiped the blood from his sword on the saddle-cloth of his captured horse. ‘Thank you, Richard!’

      ‘Thank Angel! He got three of them.’

      Angel blushed. He was staring at La Marquesa with dog-like devotion. Sharpe laughed, then led them back up the mountain and south towards the far valleys.

      He felt an extraordinary surge of life in him. He had done it! He had crossed Spain and snatched this woman from the Convent of the Heavens, he had fought her enemies, and he would take her to safety. He would find his answers, he would wrench his life back where it belonged, but first, first before all things, because at this moment it seemed the most important of all things, he would find out if she had changed. He looked at her, thinking that her beauty dimmed this land, and that when she smiled it was as if she held all his happiness in her hand. For the first time in months, because of this woman, he was content.

CHAPTER 13

      La Marquesa moaned, her eyes shut. She turned her head on the pillow, her lips open just enough for Sharpe to see her white teeth. The fire smoked into the room. Rain rattled a crisp tattoo on the tiny window through which, dim through the rain-smeared grime, Sharpe could see a candle burning in a cottage across the street.

      ‘Oh God, oh God, oh God.’ She paused, her head turning in its gold hair on the pillow again. ‘Oh God!’

      He laughed. He poured wine for her and put it beside the bed. A tallow wick, held in an iron bracket, smoked above its dim flame. ‘Wine for you.’

      ‘Oh God.’

      They had ridden till one horse had had to be abandoned, until even the two good British horses were heaving with tiredness, and until La Marquesa’s thighs, unused to the saddle, were rubbed raw like fresh meat. She opened her eyes slowly. ‘Aren’t you sore?’

      ‘A bit.’

      ‘I never want to see a bloody horse again. Oh Christ!’ She scratched her waist. ‘Bloody place. Bloody Spain. Bloody weather. What’s that?’

      Sharpe had put a metal pot on the rough table. ‘Grease.’

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