The Labyris Knight

by Adam Derbyshire

  He opened his eyes, returning to reality with a start, noting the churning brown water below, the waves breaking as the stonework from the archway crashed into the depths. This was no sparkling bay! The air alongside him crackled, pulling at his skin, the vortex pulling him into a dark void where the wind howled and the waters ran dark and choppy. He had to control his dive, had to take steps to keep his sword out of the way or risk seriously injury when the blade hit the water.

  The surface was rushing up towards him now, the wind biting in its chill. Kerian knew he had seconds to act, he swung Aurora up above his head and drew in the deepest breath that he could, just as he hit the sea with a force that felt like it had sent his knees up into his stomach. His mouth opened at the shock as the icy water closed over him, the brackish liquid forcing into his mouth making him choke and splutter. Aurora’s light extinguished, leaving him with a vivid after glow pulsing red across the underside of his eyelids.

  He tried to orientate himself, but everywhere was darkness, he had no idea what was up, what was down, only that he needed to breathe and soon, or risk drowning. He fought back the panic, waiting for his body’s natural buoyancy to send him the right way then kicked in that direction, praying he had chosen correctly.

  Kerian surfaced into the storm, his mouth gasping for air, his arms leaden, clothing and armour pulling at his limbs, threatening to drag him under the water again but he noticed something in the darkness and swam towards it, gasping with relief when his fingers grabbed the stonework of a huge pillar that rose above the water. It had to be one of the archways, somehow, he still in the ship’s graveyard but why had it become so dark?

  He tried to make out where the shipwrecks lay, then swam towards a likely area that was darker than his immediate surroundings, struggling to pull himself from water that not only tasted strange but was slick and had debris floating in it that both threatened to entangle his clothing and make his progress painfully slow. Kerian floundered in the shallows, struggling to pull his battered body from the icy clutches of the waves and slipping on the slick rocks that butted up to a grassy clearing. Grass… the graveyard did not have grass. His heart sank. Something was very wrong here.

  A hand reached out from the darkness, catching him by the wrist, helping him clamber from the water to collapse on the ground shaking with the cold. He turned over, blinking his eyes clear from the relentless rain to make out who his unlikely saviour was and noticed the exhausted features of Thomas staring back down at him as lightning flickered across the sky.

  “Is that you Thomas?” Kerian laughed through chattering teeth, struggling to sit up, his cloak tangled around his legs.

  “Kerian?” Thomas stared down at the man he had rescued from the waters, the man who had battled alongside him against Malum. He could not believe his eyes. If this was Kerian then he was easily twenty years younger than the old man he had once known.

  “I thought it was you.” Kerian smiled, moving to stand then stopping as the satchel at his waist started to bulge out. He struggled to free the flap, then reached into the bag to retrieve the cause, pulling free the small black Scintarn puppy that had crawled in there under the dining table at Castle Glowme. The puppy coughed and spat water then looked up at Kerian with its wrinkled face and whined, clearly not happy with being in the cold.

  “You know for a minute there, I thought we were in trouble.” Kerian continued, looking up at the captain, only to pause in his conversation as Thomas’s attention appeared to be drawn to the tempest and the darkened landscape around him.

  Thomas looked over to the nearby bridge that Kerian had clung to and followed its span as it reached out across the water. He knew that bridge. He looked up at the sky, noting the flashing lights indicating aircraft flying miles above the storm, then let his eyes fall to the wet railings beside him and the sign erected there. He knew what the inscription on the sign would say even before he read it. It would describe the battle of Brooklyn and the evacuation of Fulton Landing. He turned, looking back across the grass towards the squat building in the distance, the one he knew held a carousel inside. Pebble beach was over in that direction. He was standing in the Empire Fulton Ferry Park! The lightning strobed across the bruised sky, turning everything monochrome like an old photograph.

  The captain looked back towards the bridge, searching the night for some sign of the El Defensor, some glimpse of the ship’s graveyard and realised there was nothing but the wind, the storm and over it all the tantalising smell of hotdogs.

  “Oh, we are in trouble all right!”

  -: The End :-

  The Crew of the El Defensor Will Return

  Acknowledgements

  Okay, first off, I need to apologise for leaving the second part of this first trilogy on such a cliff hanger. The problem is that I have discovered writing is addictive and as I have been hitting the keys for the last three years, sharing my adventures of the El Defensor crew, I suddenly realised that this second novel was going to be a lot larger than its predecessor. Readers had already emailed me about the inherent risk of carpal tunnel, back strain and the hernias they had endured in reading Styx & Stones. Amazon’s publishing platform equally did not permit novels with bigger page ranges than my first novel, so there was nothing for it. I needed to decide to cut the story, to end The Labyris Knight and start part 3, Sinders & Ashe. I hope you can all forgive me for where the editing axe fell!

  Speaking of editing… Finishing a novel is not quite as solitary a process as the romanticists would have you believe, sure there are long times spent alone typing into the early hours but that is only the tip of the iceberg as regards the people who went into finishing this massive book. I need to thank Hampton Ewart my editor in chief, who has often regarded me from over the top of his glasses with a stony frown, an exasperated headshake and an authoritarian ‘No!’ I wish to thank him for his incredible patience with my ‘tale of high adventure’ over the last three years, for all of those Friday night sessions of tea and biscuits where we hammered out as many grammatical errors within the sprawling text of this mighty tale as we could find. Any errors that remain within the text are now solely this authors responsibility.

  I also wish to thank Alex McCowan, a keen proof reader who sent complex emails on the structure of armour and the nutritional nature of hay for horses. Thanks also go out to Richard Wilson for late-night messages of support, even when struck down with the bubonic plague of Bristol and his insistence that someone, somewhere, ought to make a movie out of this. Dave Pannell also needs mention for corrupting my youth by introducing me to fantasy novels; tales about white gold wielders, swords of truth hidden in piles of junk and teaching me that putting a car in reverse actually involves depressing the clutch first! These novels are fired by your infectious enthusiasm!

  Jay Eales of Factor Fiction Press came up trumps again with the title for this novel. That’s two I owe you now. The Monday Night Lads need a quick nostalgic mention. May your dice never stop rolling. You all know who you are, despite the fact that over the years we have drifted continents apart. Thanks also to Dr Warwick Coulson for the dubious honour of crafting the ‘Tale of the Bloated Badger’.

  Finally, I need to thank the three people that remain my inspiration. Ryan and Owain, two young men I remain extremely proud of, currently facing their university courses with typical Derbyshire aplomb and of course my wife Nicola, who ensured this book cover is as stunning as the last.

  Now if you will all forgive me. I need to write a modern-day thriller, craft a world with citadels of ice containing exotic masked villains and spin tales of warships that scream. The El Defensor has a new captain and he is as cold and as ruthless as the place that birthed him.

  Adam Derbyshire. April 2019

  Author Notes

  Adam Derbyshire has always wanted to write stories…

  But real life and utility bills kept getting in the way.

  Swiftly approaching his mid-life crisis, he decided it w
as time to

  either buy the luxury sports car, or tell the world about the

  ghostly ship and crew that sail throughout his dreams.

  He lives in Northamptonshire with his wife and children

  and sadly, could not afford the Aston Martin.

  The Labyris Knight is his second novel.