The Labyris Knight

by Adam Derbyshire

  The Labyris tournament had begun as it would end… in blood.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Kerian looked out across the cooling desert sands and sighed deeply to himself, letting his dry tongue run around his cracked lips in a forlorn attempt to leave some moisture on them. He was so tired he just wanted to lie down on the hard stone beneath him, close his eyes and sleep forever but Octavian was still out there somewhere hunting for food. In a curious way, Kerian doubted he would ever be able to sleep properly again, knowing that his companion was scouring the dunes hunting for prey.

  The horses stood asleep behind him, shoulders touching, skin sagging, their coats dull, the odd nicker of discontent signalling that the scrub grass and sparse vegetation foraged from along their journey had barely kept the horses fed. Octavian’s mount was suffering the most, the wound on its flank so slow to heal, despite the fact that the gypsy was walking alongside it.

  Their water supplies were another problem all together. The horses had to come first if they were to make it across the barren sands and Kerian was stunned at just how much water a thirsty stallion could consume. He licked his lips again, feeling the crusty skin rasping across his tongue as he considered what he would give to magically fall back into the cool depths of the Mereya River.

  Thirst was a torture Kerian had never really experienced before. His tongue felt swollen and kept sticking to the roof of his mouth and he had small painful ulcers developing. Cracks had formed at the edge of his mouth making talking uncomfortable and eating an agony, that was, if any food actually ended up on his lips!

  On the third day of their trek, Octavian had recommended sucking on a small pebble to make saliva in Kerian’s mouth but after a while the knight had forgotten what he was doing and had tried to bite down on the stone, stopping with a nasty jolt back to reality. How many days ago was that? Kerian tried to focus on the landscape about him as he struggled to think the simple question through, his burning red-rimmed eyes straining, looking for a sign of a charging wolf like beast, an approaching caravan or possibly armed raiders. He felt his eyes growing incredibly heavy.

  How far had they travelled today? Kerian had no idea, some distance he hoped, following Octavian’s nose in the direction of Blackthorn and the doubtless terrifying horrors that awaited them there. Octavian’s spectral wife had told of petrified forests and monsters that ran in the night, of a castle in the woods where she was captive. It made Kerian shudder just thinking about it. After all, if she was trapped and could still wound Kerian with her magic, from this considerable distance, just imagine what she could do if she was liberated?

  He shivered and pulled his cloak further around his shoulders. If he could just get some sleep, rest his eyes for just a moment. No! He had to wake up, keep alert and protect the horses so that tomorrow they could travel further over this accursed dustbowl! The thought of another desert trek sapped what little strength and resilience Kerian had. Why was he doing this? Did it really matter? The El Defensor was worlds away; he needed to face the fact that he would never see Colette again. A smile played across his cracked lips as he thought of golden tumbling curls and cornflower blue eyes. It had been so long since he had held her in his arms. He wondered if she ached for him as much as he longed for her. He just needed to rest his eyes for a small moment. Just…

  Kerian awoke with a start, sitting up in fear, knowing that in his exhausted state he had let his guard down. His cloak had stuck to the side of his head and reluctantly peeled away as he moved, tearing small flakes of dried skin from his cheek. A windrow of the shifting sands had accumulated at his back, making an uneven pillow that he needed to remove if he were to get comfortable again. He tried to rub the sleep from his eyes and instantly regretted the gritty feeling, as if someone was scouring his eyeballs with sand. Well, in a strange way this was exactly what he had done. He blinked, praying for tears and felt the blessed coolness of them as they slowly slid across his blurred vision.

  He swivelled to check the horses and then took a slow look around from his vantage point on the rocky outcrop, his tired eyes struggling to confirm if a flickering shadow was a threat or simply a result of an over active imagination. Satisfied no danger was near, he slowly got to his feet and arched his back, feeling his joints cracking in protest as he took a few steps across the stone outcrop to gaze out over the valley where Octavian’s direction had taken them.

  This was a desolate place, made worse by the overcast sky which had leached the lunar brightness from his surrounds as he had slept. Stumps of trees littered the ground, their life bleached from them, their boughs now skeletal bones. Even the serpents, present every night with a tenacity that would have put a well-paid mercenary to shame, found the terrain tough going, tending to slither rapidly across the rocks in ribbons of gleaming quicksilver rather than burrow beneath its rocky surface.

  What had he been thinking about when he had drifted asleep? Kerian knew it had meant something important to him but for the life of him, he could not remember what it was and the effects of the heat had made it so hard to concentrate of late. There was much to consider, Octavian had not explained how much further it was to their destination and had scolded him like a child for repeatedly asking the question, yet it was a valid one with their provisions nearly gone. He did not wish to die out here, a victim of exposure, scoured by the relentless sand and baked by the oppressive heat.

  He realised they could not allow their mounts to perish if they wished to cross the desert and make good distance each day but the creatures needed more rations than Kerian had believed possible. He was starting to begrudge every morsel Toledo devoured! He had no control over the current situation, no means of improving his lot and that of his fellow traveller. Kerian hated feeling so impotent, having to rely on another to survive. He felt like a man adrift, powerless to swim against the currents of a turbulent river that he knew he was floundering in, largely due to his own mistakes.

  Kerian let his hand slip around the hilt of the sword now hanging at his belt and gently slid the blade free, marvelling at the balance of the weapon, the keenness of its bevelled edge and the way its flawless length shone despite the darkness. Somehow, just holding this blade gave him a feeling of calm, a semblance of normality in his currently chaotic world.

  Shimmering lines of reflected light moved across Kerian’s worn features in time with the dark clouds scudding across the heavens. Dimmed slivers of lunar illumination painting his thoughtful face with silvers and shadows, mirroring the turmoil of feelings with which the knight wrestled. He hefted the sword’s weight in his hand, taking it carefully by the blade to examine the hilt and the golden circle set at its base. Engraved flickering tongues of flame etched across the grip and the cross-guard represented the celestial orb of light today’s dawn would bring.

  Kerian took up the weapon by its hilt again and looked down the blade, noting the symmetry of the fuller, the sharpness of the edge and the way it tapered into a deadly gleaming point. The blade had been so bright when he had first used it against Octavian, yet now, under this increasingly overcast desert night sky, it stubbornly failed to flare with its earlier brilliance. He moved to sheathe the sword then paused.

  A smile slid across his lips. In the romantic tales of the old knights that Kerian had read as a boy, the heroes always named their swords. The thought appealed to Kerian’s poetic and chivalrous image of what it was to be a true paladin, fighting the evil monsters and foul creatures that infested the darker corners of the world. He chuckled to himself, realising that with his own chequered past and the rather dubious life choices he had made, he could hardly be considered a paragon of virtue or stalwart foe of darkness in all its forms. Indeed, in times he had been the very darkness people had feared but the thought of naming the blade seemed right somehow. He sat and pondered. Now what should it be called?

  He thought back to the way the blade had lit up in the darkness, how its radiance had turned the desert night to brightest d
ay. It had to be something connected with that light, something about the clean brilliance of the blade and the way it had shone as a beacon in the darkness.

  Aurora. Somehow, Aurora sounded the right thing to name this strange weapon. He slid it home in the scabbard hearing the cross hilt click softly against its mouth as the weapon rested firmly in place. This scabbard had to have been made for the weapon; there was no other way it could have sat so well. Indeed, the whole outfit he wore appeared connected, both in construction and colour. For a second Kerian’s mind wandered, considering what the previous owner of the outfit must have looked like and how he had met his end and then he shrugged turning his attention back to the dark horizon and the other problem he had yet to address.

  The storm that had been pursuing Kerian and Octavian relentlessly since they departed the oasis remained hanging ominously low in the sky behind them. Each day it inched ever closer and each time Octavian promised that the prevailing winds would sweep the clouds past, yet somehow, they never overtook them. Hypnotic patterns of dust and sand writhed through the air in a banking wall of debris that howled as it stalked them, displaying a shrewd cunning and intelligence as if alive, rather than the mindless atmospheric feature it was supposed to be.

  Kerian’s eyes scanned the line where the wall of dust kissed the dunes but with the low level of moonlight filtering through the overcast night sky, it was difficult to identify if anything actually lay hidden within the mysterious wall of billowing sand. One thing was for sure, it made Kerian uncomfortable and he always trusted his instincts when the little voice in his mind warned him something was wrong. That little voice was practically screaming at him now, warning him to mount his horse and flee but where would he go, especially with the inherent dangers involved when travelling the desert at night? The way he felt right now, dehydrated and sapped of strength, meant that anything more than a short jog would soon find him on his back, begging whatever irrational fears he believed were after him to quickly end his misery.

  “Come on Octavian. Its time you were back!” he whispered to himself, subconsciously gripping the hilt of his magical weapon tighter as he continued to scan the monotonous landscape. The damned gypsy had to be out there somewhere! He said he was going to try and find some food for them and Kerian was starving!

  A shadow wriggled across the distant dunes, angling its path of travel so that it would cut past the very front of the cloud. Kerian squinted hard, crunching up his eyes, trying to get a clearer glimpse. It looked like a giant lizard… with a rider upon its back! The creature ran lightning fast, flicking its tail rapidly from side to side in an effort to maintain its balance, its hind legs scooting across the sand, propelling the beast in a wiggling line that was closing rapidly on Kerian’s position.

  Something suddenly detached itself from the cloud mass, falling forward and splitting apart, crashing down upon the sprinting lizard as it charged past, pinning the lizard’s limbs, dragging it squealing in protest to the desert floor. The rider became unseated, falling from his thrashing mount and hitting the desert sands, rolling over and over as the huge dust cloud surged forward and swallowed both rider and lizard from view.

  Kerian’s blood turned to ice in his veins. What had just happened? The reaction of the cloud was so fast! Were they human figures that spilled from the cloud and attacked the lizard? He continued staring at the swirling mass of dust, his eyes straining, searching for some sign of the rider and mount, some clue as to the person’s fate. Somewhere in the base of the cloud brief, bright, flashes of coloured light flared, illuminating a mass of silhouetted creatures hidden within the swirling mass of dust before the wall of sand ominously darkened again and continued its slow advance towards where Kerian stood.

  That was the final straw! The dangers of travelling the desert at night be damned! Kerian would rather take his chance with the silvery serpents and crimson scorpions than face whatever it was he now knew was definitely pursuing them. He rushed to his bedroll, lifting the blankets and supplies from the floor and packing them upon the horses as swiftly as he could, his eyes noting the shifting walls advance towards him, close enough now that he could hear the roar that accompanied the moving sand. The horses reacted instantly, stamping hooves and pulling at their reins as they sensed Kerian’s agitation to the approaching menace.

  “Come on, come on.” Kerian snarled to himself, struggling to strike the campsite as quickly as possible, his fingers frozen almost numb with fear, as he wrestled with the obstinate buckles and straps. Stuffing blankets into holdalls, bundling dirty pots, pans and utensils into a sack and swiftly fastening them to Toledo’s saddle. Piling supplies haphazardly onto each other, quickly tied with belts, only to bounce up and down precariously on the rumps of the overburdened horse that shied and rolled its eyes with fear.

  Kerian paused to check that nothing important had been left behind, before he took up the reins of the horses and started to lead them from the campsite and down into the stony valley, trying to keep to the larger exposed slabs of stone jutting from the ground as much as possible and making wider paths around areas where treacherous pockets of sand had collected. All thoughts for Octavian fled his mind, the gypsy was just going to have to track him down and catch up later. There was no way he was going to wait for the roaring wall of dust to envelope him with the inherent consequences such an encounter would bring. He needed to move faster, needed to get up onto his horse.

  Toledo snorted in protest as Kerian moved to mount the stallion, stepping sharply away to the side and aiming a well-earned nip towards Kerian’s hand. There was no way the horse was going to let him climb aboard in its overburdened state and despite the weakness the horse was experiencing it refused to yield, crab walking away every time Kerian moved to place his foot in the stirrup.

  “Oh to hell with you!” Kerian cursed, snatching up the slack of the reins, having no choice but to resort to leading the two mounts across the rock-strewn ground as the cloud continued to creep ever closer. Where was he going to go? He noted the winding path of the valley floor, the way it meandered and twisted, realising that he was inadvertently following an ancient dried up riverbed offering very little in the way of options for a choice of direction. A well-placed kick sent an over inquisitive hissing serpent slinking off into the scrub as he pressed on, the knight now noting the roaring sound of the storm as it moved closer, a constant reminder of the horror that now harried his every move.

  The banks of the dry river started to rise on either side as Kerian struggled on with the horses. Dust began vibrating on the desert floor, small grains of crimson and beige shimmering and dancing across the rocky surface, whipping about around the legs of the mounts and their determined guide, errant gusts funnelling dust plumes along the riverbed and blasting past him as the oppressive clouds advanced. The route became steadily darker, more cloaked in shadow, certainly more difficult to follow and before long, Kerian found his footsteps faltering and unsteady as the walls of the river course rose up about him, curtailing what little light remained.

  Toledo suddenly stopped in his tracks, wrenching Kerian’s arm and pulling him around. The knight turned, determined to give the horse a piece of his mind but the stallion pulled sharply away, heading towards the bank and practically dragging Kerian along with him. Sharp branches clawed at Kerian’s face and his boots slipped on the rocky scree, his vision practically useless in the darkness of the ravine. Off balance, he had no option but to rely solely on the stallion’s instincts in finding a way forwards, so he let his resistance towards Toledo’s actions ebb and tried to protect his face with his spare hand as much as he could.

  The roaring of the cloud started to lessen as Kerian felt, rather than saw, the surprising presence of a roof over his head. Toledo continued to drag Kerian along with him, pulling him through a rickety doorway and further into the darkness, until, apparently satisfied with his destination, the horse stopped and let the reins finally go limp. Octavian’s horse snorted and stampe
d his hooves as Kerian quickly struck up a flame and gazed out at his unlikely sanctuary.

  They seemed to be inside a small abandoned dwelling that had been fashioned from an old cave; at least it may have been habitable as a home a long time ago. Faded pictographs and hand drawings covered the walls, there were dried palm leaves scattered across the stone floor and a small fireplace, still marked with soot, stood cold and stark in one corner. Broken and discarded ancient furniture lay in pieces about the hovel, with piles of drifting sand settled in the furthest nooks and crannies, no doubt blown in by the breath of the desert winds. Withered shrubs and desiccated vegetables lay forgotten within raised flowerpots, something the horses soon set to work on, chewing frantically on the rubbery carrots and wrinkled apples foraged from a stunted fruit tree and a cracked terracotta trough. A sunken well lay in the far corner and a small alcove set off the main room appeared to be the main sleeping quarters.

  Kerian found a dusty lamp, the glass cracked, fuel minimal upon shaking and swiftly lit it before he set about building a fire in the derelict grate out of the crumbling pieces of wood lying about the room. A warm glow soon issued from the fireplace, sending a thin tendril of smoke spiralling up into the darkness. Confident that he could extinguish the lamp and conserve the fuel, Kerian blew it out, then reached over for the last remaining apple on the stunted tree and bit down on the heavily dimpled surface, chewing slowly, relishing the saliva squirting into his mouth with each heavenly bite. It may have been the rubberiest most pathetic apple Kerian had ever had, but it tasted simply divine.

  The horses shuffled about within the cramped quarters, jostling for position and nudging each other away from the remaining rubbery vegetables, chewing nosily and seemingly agreeing with Kerian’s verdict of their meagre faire. The knight tried not to laugh aloud in his relief at finding shelter and brushed himself down before moving to the entrance of the home to wrestle with the warped and sagging door. He struggled to push the door to but the wood was badly warped from its exposure to the elements and failed to hang true, allowing the swirling clouds of dust to still seek ingress about its poorly fitting frame.