Seeing the courtyard growing bigger and bigger, Reynevan yelled. As did Nicolette. Their screams, transformed by the suffocating wind into truly hellish howls, achieved a much better effect than their physical arrival. Save for Kuno of Wittram—who happened to glance skywards—none of the Raubritters had even noticed the riders on the flying bench. But the howling accomplished a literally devastating psychological effect. Weyrach dropped on all fours, Rymbaba cursed, yelled and flattened himself against the ground, and Tassilo of Tresckow tumbled down beside him, unconscious, the only victim of the air raid—the bench had caught him on the back of the head as it plummeted towards the courtyard. Kuno of Wittram crossed himself and crawled under a hay wain. Buko of Krossig cringed as the hem of Nicolette’s cotehardie slashed him across the ear. The bench, meanwhile, shot upwards, accompanied by even louder screams from the flyers. Notker of Weyrach stared open-mouthed as they flew away and was fortunate to glimpse Scharley out of the corner of his eye and dodge a halberd thrust at the last moment. He caught the shaft and they began to wrestle.

Samson discarded the axe, caught one of the horses by the reins and was about to grab the other when Buko lunged at him with a dagger. Samson dodged, but not quickly enough. The dagger cut open his sleeve. And his shoulder. Samson punched Buko in the teeth and sent him staggering towards the gate before he could stab him again.

Samson felt his shoulder and saw the blood on his hand.

“Now,” he said slowly and loudly, “now you’ve really annoyed me.”

He walked to where Scharley and Weyrach were still fighting over the halberd shaft and punched Weyrach so hard that the old Raubritter turned a graceful somersault. As Paszko Rymbaba raised the bardiche to strike, Samson turned around and looked at him. Paszko took two rapid steps backwards.

Scharley caught the horses while Samson grabbed a round, wrought-iron buckler from a rack by the gate.

“Have at them!” yelled Buko, lifting a sword Wittram had dropped. “Weyrach! Kuno! Paszko! Have at them! Oh, Jesus Christ…”

He had seen what Samson was doing. For Samson had taken hold of the buckler with the grip of a discus thrower and was whirling around like one. The buckler shot from his hand as though from a ballista, just missing Weyrach. It whistled across the entire courtyard and slammed into a corbel, shattering it. Weyrach swallowed. Samson, meanwhile, was taking another buckler from the stand.

“Jesus Christ…” gasped Buko, seeing the giant start to spin again. “Take cover!”

“By the dugs of Saint Agatha!” yelled Kuno of Wittram. “Every man for himself!”