Chapter Two
Word had run ahead of them. They'd won their reputation as heroes. People began to appear by the road to beg them to find their children. Eventually, they reached the capital. The gates to the city stood open and crowds of cheering people lined the road. The tale of the brief fight had obviously grown in the telling.
They were heroes of legend, come to save the people. Giants sent to right the wrongs of the world. The Doctor removed another flower that had lodged in his hair and Lib and Peral snickered.
The king was alive and very happy to see them. His nephew had taken over the western part of his kingdom. It had happened too swiftly for him to gather an army to stop it. Now, all the knights he would have called were dead. Each one killed in the defense of a village or town on his lands. The king had sent his guards to free the western lands, but none had returned. And there was a dragon...
The capital was the first place they'd seen children between ten and fourteen. The walls were stout and well defended. None of the children had been taken from it, but every croft outside the city gates had someone who mourned a lost child.
They rode west. On the trail of the children.
Mid-day their fifteenth day on the planet, they met the dragon. It was iron and a machine, but it was a dragon.
"It's a steam powered robot and, like our human friends in the town, has no business being here."
"That's all very well, Doctor, but we still have to get by it. I really don't fancy using a sword against a machine that size. Can't we just go around?"
"I need a closer look at it, Peral. It's a piece of this whole mystery."
"You don't fight dragons with swords. You fight them with a lance. Right, Doctor?" Lib knew fairy stories. They'd been her father's share of bedtime lore.
"Yes, Lib. Now, I need to put the lance somewhere it doesn't totally destroy the circuitry..."
Peral and Lib climbed down and sat on the ground. The Doctor looked like he'd be thinking for awhile. They'd seen him become totally motionless before. The interesting thing was, the horse was motionless too. "I've got it!" Lib and Peral remounted and followed him to face the dragon.
The Doctor couched the lance and Leoht thundered into motion. At the last moment he swung wide. The Doctor turned and drove the lance beneath the armor plates into the dragon's side. He rode back to them and said, "Now we wait."
The dragon was leaking. It was also getting sluggish. Its jaws didn't snap as hard when the Doctor made a quick pass on horseback to see his handiwork. Eventually, they quit snapping. The Doctor had drained its boiler.
He dismounted and climbed up on the dragon. He walked up its back to its head and, from a small pouch on his belt, pulled out his favorite little screwdriver. He opened the dragon's head and removed a mass of glittering circuitry, climbed down, sat on the dragon's tail, and went to work on it. Peral removed the lance and Lib watched people arrive.
This crowd was different. They carried staffs and pitchforks, axes and scythes, and they waited for the Doctor to notice them.
"Lord, I am called Logan. I have come to ask you teach me and these others. Each bears the sword of a fallen knight. Our neighbors have chosen us from among them. They too have come with those things they deem useful as weapons. We have come to free our children. My Lord, I carry the sword of the Knight of Perath. I would carry it well."
"Please, call me Doctor." He'd liked the handsome young man instantly. There was an air of calm commitment about him.
"As you wish, Lord Doctor." Lib and Peral looked at the serious young man, awkwardly holding the sword, and stifled their laughter, but the Doctor's expression had been PERFECT.
"Just Doctor. I understand what you need and I'd like to help you, but I need to stop the taking of the children now. I've just learned why they're being taken."
"I too know. I escaped the Black One's city. They are to be made slaves; but now, they lie in stinking pens. The Black One has many guards. We would aid you, if you deem us worthy. I know one comes to take the children at the turn of the season. He is your enemy as the Black One is mine. I would not leave the children suffer, but the time to free them is not come. Teach us that we will be prepared for its coming."
The Doctor smiled. Logan had given him information he'd needed. He'd recognized the technology of the dragon. He was right, they needed to prepare. "Well, if I'm going to teach you, why don't we start with the proper way to hold a sword?" Logan's smile and outthrust sword hand were his answer.
Lib and Peral grinned at each other and started organizing the people into training groups. They had most of a season to train a small army.
"It was the first time he'd ever held a sword. The first time most of them had. They'd been carrying them wrapped in cloths. They didn't want to insult their knight's memories by hacking at things with them."
"Doctor, this is a fairly small kingdom, but how did all these people get together to find us?" Peral had found out the hundred eighty or so people had come from all over in twos and threes.
"Logan. Oltath gave him Perath's sword and he stopped at every village and asked for volunteers. Word spread and others were chosen to bear swords. He decided this was where I'd be."
"Why here?"
"When I asked him that, he was surprised. He told me it had seemed obvious. If you wanted to find a white knight, you looked for a black dragon." He smiled and Lib and Peral laughed.
"Doctor, they're ready."
"I know, Peral. I just hate thinking about what I'm leading them into. Logan's become a fine swordsman. He's learned faster than I would have thought possible, but that doesn't mean he's prepared for guns."
"Do you think this prince will have that many of them?"
"I'm hoping he's just getting the raw materials together. I'd hate to think of all that iron he's been collecting pointing at us as weapons. I'm worried about the scorban even more. He's ferried a lot of human bullies to this planet for the prince. He won't be happy about losing his trade goods. And I know his guards will have more than simple projectile weapons."
"Scorban?" Lib was puzzled. He'd said it with disgust bordering on loathing.
"Children of primitive societies are their stock and trade. I've never seen one operate on this scale before. Usually, they just pick a village and round up all the children between ten and fourteen and take off. It was the scale of the operation that kept me from realizing what was happening. The ages were a clue I shouldn't have missed."
"Why between those ages?"
"Old enough to work, young enough to be turned into slaves. This scorban thinks big. He's operating on at least two planets and planning on a nice profit. Well, at least there will only be one."
"Whoa, Doctor. Back up. Two planets? And why only one?"
"Peral, we know he's operating both here and on Earth or there wouldn't be humans here. He's probably using children taken on Earth to finance the operation. Most scorbans have hired bullies they take with them so they can pick up a little stock from anywhere they land. Probably human in this case. Only one, because no scorban with a profitable idea shares it. Let's see if we can teach these people something about guns and good cover. I'd say we have about three days, then we go west. This isn't over yet." Since it hadn't yet begun, the Doctor's comment struck Lib and Peral as a bit strange. "There's technological meddling here, but this isn't the real enemy. Everything here shows off-world influence, but it's of the ordinary kind."
Lib watched him pace for a moment, then said, "What I don't understand is, why pick humans for henchmen. Those bully boys were from the Earth's late middle ages. How did they get here?"
"At this particular time Earth and Laeth are in about the same stage of development. A few hundred years from now that won't be true. Laeth will have only minor wars and develop their technology much more carefully, to fit with a very well organized educational system and enlightened political philoso
phy. Or at least that's the way it should happen. The scorban is just shuttling from one planet to the other. There's no time travel involved."
"Doctor, we were sent to free the children, not hunt for this minion thing. Why?"
"Because our side has its priorities straight." He smiled at them. "Let's check this piece of the quest off the list, shall we?"
"They have the weapons you spoke of, Doctor, but they do not use them well."
"No, Logan, they don't." He ducked as rock chips flew from the boulder he crouched behind. "But they're learning rather quickly."
Logan smiled. "Perhaps it is time we stopped their practice."
The Doctor heard a ship and looked up to see it riding down on braking thrusters. "That's our cue. Let's go." Logan's smile widened. 'Cue' he didn't understand, but 'let's go' was definitely in his vocabulary.
The Doctor and Logan dodged bullets and ran for the city walls. The others saw them and followed. The Doctor pulled himself up the wall. He blessed the person who'd thrown the stone. The man it had hit had been aiming a gun down at him.
He had just enough time to glance around to find his helper. The stone had come from inside the walls. A small boy in a pen with several others smiled at him and hefted another stone. The Doctor jumped from the wall and smiled as another guard fell. They'd never have made that boy a slave. He met Logan at the gate and they opened it. Peral and Lib were the first ones in.
The problem with hiring bullies is they're bullies. At the first sign of a good fight, or even a fair one, they run. Logan went to find the Black One and the Doctor went to find the scorban. He would be running for his ship.
The scorban had brought his own guards. The Doctor found several of them. They had beam weapons. He dove for cover. The square in front of the spacecraft was a deathtrap and, if someone hadn't opened fire just a bit too soon, he'd have been caught in it.
Lib and Peral wove and dodged to his side. He wasn't as pleased to see them as they thought he'd be. "WHY didn't you stay under COVER?! You could have been KILLED crossing that square!"
"Doctor, you're a mother hen. Besides, since Leoht is still carrying your sword, I want to see how you intend to take out those beamers with your bare hands."
The Doctor gave Peral a dirty look. "I don't think a sword would have been much help. Stay here." They didn't. As soon as they saw what he was doing, they decided to help.
He was removing the opposition one at a time. Inviting someone to shoot at him, then tracking the beam back to its source. He was very good at removing that source. Lib and Peral used the roofs. When fire licked out at the Doctor, they'd drop behind the wielder of the weapon and retire him from the battle. Everyone they retired was human.
They met the Doctor at the site of the last retirement. "WHY didn't you stay where you were?!" Lib and Peral just grinned at him. "I still haven't found the scorban behind all this. I'd APPRECIATE it, if you'd wait here until I do!" He turned and started walking toward the space ship sitting beyond the square. Lib and Peral grinned at each other and kept parallel with him, staying behind cover.
"Scorban, your scheme didn't work. Your local assistance has just ended. It's over." Lib and Peral waited. He'd sent the words ringing out across the field toward the ship.
"I have worked too long to let you escape punishment for your interference."
The Doctor turned around to face the scorban. It was holding a beamer on him. "You've lost this one scorban. Laeth no longer has anything for you. Your green scaly presence is not appreciated. I shall give you one chance to leave."
"You are not of this world. How did you come to be here? How did you know I would be scorban?"
"I'm a Time Lord. I recognized the technology when I took apart your dragon."
The scorban hissed at him and fired its weapon. The Doctor almost got clear of the beam, but not quite. He fell heavily and the scorban moved up to finish him off. As the Doctor slowly sat up, the scorban aimed the beam weapon at his head. "It will be a pleasure to kill you, Time Lord. Your meddling has forced me to begin anew somewhere else."
"I don't think that will happen. Look behind you."
"Do you think me a fool, to be taken by such a simple ruse?"
"Ahem." The scorban spun around and Peral slugged him. "So that's a scorban." He shook his fingers. "Got a hard jaw."
The people of Laeth put the scorban and the captured humans to work destroying the guns and the equipment to make them. The first thing destroyed was the scorban's ship. Lib had enjoyed taking care of it for them. He wasn't going somewhere else to start again.
"Doctor, I do not know how to speak to a king."
"Logan, I'm the wrong one to advise you. I usually just walk up and say, "Hello, I'm the Doctor." Why don't you ask Peral?"
That evening when Logan was presented to the king he said, "Hello, I'm Logan." The king had been delighted. Later, he told the Doctor it would have been worth the trip from the capital just for that.
Logan had settled with the Black One. He'd told him with such grim satisfaction, the Doctor had wondered what the prince had done to him. He'd curbed his curiosity. Whatever had happened, it had been intensely personal.
The Doctor had found his small, stone throwing, assistant in the arms of his mother. Marna had found her child. As he left them, he heard the boy begging her to let him carry her staff. The Doctor hadn't even known she was among the people they had trained. The king called an audience and requested the Doctor and his companions attend.
"The knights of my realm died in defense of their people. From among those people have come others to take up their arms. I call before me those who bear them." Twenty-two very nervous peasants knelt before him. The king moved from one to the next, asking their names and whose sword they bore. He knighted each, gave him chattel, charged him to care for the fallen knight's family and defend his people. He skipped Logan. "All those I have knighted may retire."
Logan looked around himself rather nervously. He was now the only one kneeling in the square. He watched the king return to his dais and seat himself. He knew he hadn't been dismissed, because the king sat watching him.
"Your Majesty," Logan looked up in surprise at the Doctor's words. He hadn't known he was beside him. He'd been watching the ground. "This is the man you have asked I bring before you. He is the one who bears the sword of Perath. He is the one who roused the peasants from their fields and he is the one that slew your nephew. He is called Logan."
"Logan, come kneel before me."
His knees were shaking, but he knelt before the king to accept his punishment for killing a prince. The king stood and pulled his sword. Logan prepared himself to die.
"I dub thee, Sir Logan, Duke of Merale and Knight of Perath. I give you the lands of the Prince of Merale to hold in fief. I shall accept your oath of fealty." The king burst into laughter. The look of stunned surprise on Logan's face was wonderful. "Come, I will teach you the words."
They helped Logan move into his new home. Since he had nothing but a sword, there wasn't a lot to carry. Lib and Peral helped him find people to fill the big empty place. Ones to clean the kitchen and work in it. Ones to clean the stables and work in them. Ones to clean the bedrooms and halls and keep them that way. Bullies weren't very good housekeepers and the prince had been a slob. One room Logan cleaned himself. The Doctor had watched from the doorway as he scrubbed the bloodstained floor and wept. He'd been right. The reasons had been personal.
Oltath arrived the night Logan held his first banquet. He left his seat at the head of the table and ran to the door to meet her. He tried to get her to join him, but she asked to be led to the kitchen. She wanted to sit by the warm ovens and sample the good foods she could smell. He led her there himself.
When he returned to the table, he said, "She tells them stories while they work. It was in such a kitchen she found me. She bears a message for you,
Doctor. Ride east."
The Doctor smiled. "We'll leave in the morning. I suspected Oltath was here to send us somewhere else."
"Good. I had feared you would leave this hour. You are my first guests. I would not wish you gone before the feast had begun."
Knight Progenitor Page 10
