chater thirteen the fight at anvard (第4/5页)
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"Killed ?" asked three voices breathlessly.
"How can I tell ?" said the Hermit."The Cats have done their work. All the riderless horses are dead or escaped now: no retreat for the Calormenes on them. Now the Cats are turning back into the main battle. They re leaping on the rams-men. The ram is down. Oh, good!good!The gates are opening from the inside: there s going to be a sortie. The first three are out. It s King Lune in the middle: the brothers Dar and Darrin on each side of him. Behind them are Tran and Shar and Cole with his brother Colin. There are ten—twenty—nearly thirty of them out by now. The Calormen line is being forced back upon them. King Edmund is dealing marvellous strokes. He's just slashed Corradin's head off. Lots of Calormenes have thrown down their arms and are running for the woods. Those that remain are hard pressed. The Giants are closing in on the right-Cats on the left-King Lune from their rear. The Calormenes are a little knot now, fighting back to back. Your Tarkaan's down, Bree. Lune and Azrooh are fighting hand to hand;the King looks like winning-the King is keeping it up well—the King has won. Azrooh s down. King Edmund s down—no,he s up again: he s at it with Rabadash.
They re fighting in the very gate of the castle. Several Calormenes have surrendered. Darrin has killed Ilgamuth. I can t see what s happened to Rabadash. I think he s dead, leaning against the castle wall, but I don t know. Chlamash and King Edmund are still fighting but the battle is over everywhere else. Chlamash has surrendered. The battle is over. The Calormenes are utterly defeated."
When Shasta fell off his horse he gave himself up for lost. But horses, even in battle, tread on human beings very much less than you would suppose. After a very horrible ten minutes or so Shasta realized suddenly that there were no longer any horses stamping about in the immediate neighbourhood and that the noise for there were still a good many noises going on was no longer that of a battle. He sat up and stared about him. Even he, little as he knew of battles, could soon see that the Archenlanders and Narnians had won. The only living Calormenes he could see were prisoners, the castle gates were wide open, and King Lune and King Edmund were shaking hands across the battering ram. From the circle of lords and warriors around them there arose a sound of breathless and excited, but obviously cheerful conversation. And then,suddenly,it all united and swelled into a great roar of laughter.
Shasta,picked himself up,feeling uncommonly stiff,and ran towards the sound to see what the joke was.A very curious sight met his eyes.The unfortunate Rabadash appeared to be suspended from the castle walls. His feet,which were about two feet from the ground, were kicking wildly. His chain-shirt was somehow hitched up so that it was horribly tight under the arms and came halfway over his face. In fact he looked just as a man looks if you catch him in the very act of getting into a stiff shirt that is a little too small for him. As far as could be made out afterwards and you may be sure the story was well talked over for many a day what happened was something like this. Early in the battle one of the Giants had made an unsuccessful stamp at Rabadash with his spiked boot: unsuccessful because it didn t crush Rabadash, which was what the Giant had intended, but not quite useless because one of the spikes tore the chain mail, just as you or I might tear an ordinary shirt. So Rabadash, by the time he encountered Edmund at the gate, had a hole in the back of his hauberk. And when Edmund pressed him back nearer and nearer to the wall, he jumped up on a mounting block and stood there raining down blows on Edmund from above. But then, finding that this position, by raising him above the heads of everyone else, made him a mark for every arrow from the Narnian bows, he decided to jump down again. And he meant to look and sound-no doubt for a moment he did look and sound—very grand and very dreadful as he jumped, crying,"The bolt of Tash falls from above. " But he had to jump sideways because the crowd in front of him left him no landing place in that direction. And then, in the neatest way you could wish, the tear in the back of his hauberk caught on a hook in the wall. Ages ago this hook had had a ring in it for tying horses to. And there he found himself,like a piece of washing hung up to dry, with everyone laughing at him.
"Let me down, Edmund," howled Rabadash. "Let me down and fight me like a king and a man;or if you are too great a coward to do that, kill me at once."
"Certainly," began King Edmund, but King Lune interrupted.
"By your Majesty's good leave," said King Lune to Edmund. "Not so. " Then turning to Rabadash he said, "your royal Highness, if you had given that challenge a week ago, I ll answer for it there was no one in King Edmund s dominion, from the High King down to the smallest Talking Mouse, who would have refused it. But by attacking our castle of Anvard in time of peace without defiance sent, you have proved yourself no knight, but a traitor, and one rather to be whipped by the hangman than to be suffered to cross swords with any person of honour. Take him down, bind him, and carry him within till our pleasure is further known."
