The Knight of Honor (The Arising Evil, Book 1)

by Ulysses Troy

  “What now?” Conrad asked, clearly bored. Like I am surprised.

  “When I entered the room, he ordered me to pack up his things instantly, help him to wear his armor and find a horse, to go to the plains and join the contest!” Merlon was furious. “I tried to explain to him how the Hag said he would not be even able to walk properly, and needed to rest for a week, yet the fucker just pretended he did not hear that, and then started to give me a speech about how we are responsible for keeping our promises!” Merlon cried in anger and grief. “This fucking idiot is about to get us both killed!”

  “Take it easy, Merlon,” Conrad said to the servant patting his shoulder. “Let me talk with him.”

  “Please, please do it! I hope you can bring some reason to him.”

  ***

  Conrad entered the room, seeing Edmond consciousness, and watching the roof. The Young Baron of Gannadár and the Knight of the Holy Faith turned his eyes towards him upon hearing the door open.

  “Ser Conrad, please forgive me for not being able to salute you properly,” Edmond said trying to stand up on his bed but failing.

  “There is no need for that, my Baron,” Conrad said closing the door behind.

  “Did we manage to save Veron? All I remember after that bandit cut my leg is blurry memories.”

  “Yes, we did. He is well and safe here.” He continued. “Merlon said you have decided to ride through the Plains, to take place in the contest.”

  “Yes,” Edmond said with a determined voice. “If we take a night’s ride, we may arrive at the Plains before dawn.”

  “My Baron, it wouldn’t be wise.” Conrad tried to explain with a calm voice. “If you face the Black Knight in this condition,” He looked at Edmond’s injury “you will have no chance of victory.”

  Edmond’s face was sad. “I know, but I gave my word, Ser Conrad, to face Ser Evrard de Wellon ib the arena of Plains, to protect the honor of my House, tomorrow. You must understand me.”

  “I do,” Conrad said. “Yet it does not change the current circumstances. We don’t even know if you can walk.”

  “A promise is a promise, and a word cannot be taken back once it is given. I said I would meet with him, and so I will.”

  “But . . .”

  “Please Ser, I know you are an honorable man.” Edmond looked into Conrad’s eyes. “You must understand the value of a word.”

  Conrad hesitated to talk, pausing for a moment. He won’t give up. “Okay. I will find a way to get us to the Plains tonight.”

  “Thank you, Ser Conrad.” The Baron of Gannadár said with a smile, and then he fell asleep again.

  ***

  “Well, Gavise, I think we may talk a bit now as you pretty much owe me an explanation, and it better be a good one.” Conrad said to his friend, while sitting down on a chair that stood in front of him. They were still in the village of Hoél, inside of a shack that was used by villagers to chat, discuss important matters and trade. And they have said they did not have a tavern, yet this thing could also work as one. After leaving the Baron under Merlon’s care, Conrad wanted to talk with his old friend in private, as he had searched him through the Northern Baltaire for weeks, from Ferenaon to LaPellás.

  “If I am not wrong, you want to talk about my mysterious disappearance?” Gavise said while putting the apple in his hand on the table. “Ah, I can understand you, Conrad. Being deprived of my company, my friend, is not an easy thing to experience in the first place. Yet, I am more concerned about the ladies than I am concerned about you, as they must have been in a great deal of grief while I was absent, not roaming around here and there to steal their hearts.”

  “I see your intelligence has doubled since the last time we talked, Gavise. I mean, this assumption was a pretty smart one.” Conrad said, roasting his friend as usual. “And the ladies? They at least had peace for a time, sure. Their fathers were also relieved, as they did not have to chase you for the thousandth time.”

  Gavise of Beocur smiled. “And here it is, our good old Conrad, the master of the art of roasting, hailing from the most southern province of the Kingdom, Battum.” He crossed his legs. “And you are as annoying as the last time.”

  “Well, it has been only two weeks . . .”

  “Only two weeks, really?” Gavise said in surprise. “I am not good with counting, or maybe it is only that way because I was in great peril. Riding alongside a pack of killers for weeks, and so.”

  “Oh, yeah. That Brotherhood.” Conrad looked at the apple that stood on the table for a time. “Well, you managed to surprise me again, Bard. I thought the Brotherhood might have been holding you against your will.”

  “Retlaff was a goatfucker, yet he knew a good ally when he saw one.” Gavise said after picking up the apple again and biting it. Then he looked at the burning grate. I wonder why the Hag left it like that, still burning.

  “That Retlaff, the ‘Vampire’, what do you know about him?” Conrad asked Gavise.

  “Not much, but enough to know he was no vampire.” Gavise took another bite of the apple. “He gave me the creeps. And . . . he worshipped something . . . something that no one at the castle knew. When I finally had the guts to ask him about it, he told to me to go and fu . . . “

  “I can finish the sentence on my own, Gavise.”

  “Yeah.” His voice suddenly got more serious. “But his eyes . . . they were as red as this wine.” He pointed to a glass of wine standing on the table. “ . . . and his skin . . . he was no ordinary man, Conrad.”

  I doubt that. “Just an albino with a very bad temper, probably.”

  “Probably,” Gavise said. “I wonder what kind of freak we will face in the coming days of our career. Someone with cat eyes, perhaps? No, that would be too precise. A one-inch dwarf with a two-inch ax? Or maybe with one of those Daumm!”

  “I thought Daumm were mere tales, created by a bored bard who liked to enjoy scaring people, just like you.”

  “You can never truly know, Conrad. After all the strange things we have encountered, I would not be so sure.”

  Conrad looked at the flames for a time, and somehow, they reminded him of Unac’h Dorn. “Unac’h Dorn . . .” He said, still watching the flames of red and yellow. “ . . . it was a strange place, strange enough to haunt someone for . . . a while.”

  “And I thought you were the bold one among us. Because I, brave Gavise Of Beocur, have spent days over days there along with a great number of dangerous criminals who knew how to kill and were very eager to do so.”

  “The bandits at Unac’h Dorn, they were fresh recruits and not the worse patch of the Brotherhood.” Conrad said. “A bandit we questioned said that the real force of the Brotherhood had departed from the castle, for somewhere else. Do you know anything about that?”

  Gavise thought for a bit. “They were that many when I arrived at the castle with Retlaff’s group, and no, no one departed from the castle for somewhere else, and if they did, they did it before I came to Unac’h Dorn.”

  “So, if you don’t know about that, what were you able to learn about this Brotherhood with your ‘excellent spying skills’, after spending days with them, sharing their bread and secrets?”

  “They don’t properly know how to take a bath.” Gavise smiled while finishing his apple, throwing its core out of the window.

  “I mean apart from that, and the other things you may use for another shitty joke?”

  “Well . . .” Gavise gathered his arms behind his head, and relaxed. “ . . . they believe they are after a right cause.” So do we all.

  There was a steel plate of fruits standing on the table. The Brotherhood aid must be prosperous enough for Hoél to use steel plates, I guess. After searching for it for a bit, Gavise picked up another apple from the plate and started to eat it. The bard was always fond of fresh fruits and had a subtle taste. “Most of them were lowborn, peasants who were indoctrinated by the Brotherhood to take revenge against the tyrannical rule of the nobles. You would be surp
rised, but among them, there were many with actually valid reasons to harbor a grudge over the nobility.”

  “No, I would not be at all.” Not after seeing the nobles’ dark and rotten side for years in various events. Getting to know them better each day and involuntarily falling into the middle of their pointless games and disgusting intrigues over and over. If one wants to hate the nobility, he can do that easily, as he would have plenty of reasons to do it, more than he would ever require.

  “I met a man there,” Gavise said, spitting one of the pips of the apple from his mouth. “He was a fresh recruit, joined the Brotherhood just a day before me from that village near the Lanaél. He said he joined these outlaws because it was all he could do for the memory of his deceased daughter, after a bloody Knight slew her in cold blood, only because she rejected to sleep with him.” The bard’s voice was sad, and it was rare that it sounded like this. “He also said the Rider gave them an opportunity to protect themselves and their own. ‘My daughter was innocent. And the Knight, he was supposed to defend the innocent from the evil in the eyes of the God.’ he said, ‘yet he was evil itself.’ You know Conrad, sometimes this shit freezes my blood and makes me lose my faith in this damned world.”

  The evil itself. Conrad thought. And now, he is probably in the same place with his daughter, while the Knight still walks among us in the peace, without suffering the consequences of the sins he committed.

  “Yet not all bandits were the same as that old man. I encountered many flotsams in the castle, too.” Gavise continued to speak. “Second sons of houses who wanted to make easy money, or covert psychopaths who just wanted to access a safer way to pillage, kill, and rape. To do the things they could not do when they were alone, but could when they were with a pack, with a Brotherhood.” He paused talking to drink some wine. “Well, at the end of the day I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel about the Brotherhood’s demise. Even though some of them were wretches who had just been cheated by bigger fish.” Gavise looked at the grate. “Yet, all of them were very eager to cut us in half anyway and tear our guts out. Even after spending days with me, playing dice and listening to my songs.” He put the glass of wine on the table, now empty. His voice became louder to display his disappointment. “I still cannot believe how easily they turned their back to me. I should never have performed my pieces to those pails of garbage.” He took a bite from his apple; Conrad was not able to understand if it was green or red in the dim light of the room of the shack.

  “If things had happened slightly differently, we were dead men,” he said with a silent and calm voice.

  “And If I happened to be a more faithful man, I would be still praying to the God for still being alive, because what happened back at Unac’h Dorn was no less than a miracle.” Gavise replied.

  Miracle? I don’t think so if it is the right word. A beneficial extension of a dirty intrigue would be more accurate. “If you consider the unintentional help of Evrard and the men of LaPellás as a miracle, because I don’t. Although if it was not for them, we would be dead by now at best.”

  “Yeah. After knowing Retlaff a bit better in person, I still can’t decide how he would want to kill us, feed us alive to his bloodthirsty hounds or personally cut our bodies into small pieces with his favorite butcher knife. Maybe if we got lucky, he would have some mercy in his dried heart and prefer to simply hang us . . . just before peeing on our heads.”

  “If you never vanished in the first place, the whole thing would likely have never happened.”

  “What is this ignorance I hear?” Gavise stood up, knitting his eyebrows and raising his voice. “For the God’s sake Conrad, do you have any idea what I have been doing for weeks?”

  “Well, I thought Regel may have kidnapped you again. At first, I presumed they might seduce you, just to realize they don’t need to at all, as they could simply beat your ass without facing a proper hassle, just like the last time.” He was barely able to refrain from laughing.

  “Regel was no joke, Conrad. They were women, sure, but they knew how to use their bloody axes pretty well. I held my own long enough to prevent their robbery and could have even won the brawl, if they had not circled me all around with their greater numbers.”

  “To be honest, I would really be surprised if this were the case, because as far as I remember, the children to witness this “brawl” told me otherwise.” Conrad couldn’t manage to keep his laughter anymore. While he was laughing, Gavise’s face turned red with anger.

  “Then you would be surprised to learn that I literally saved your goddamn ass!” He aggressively sat on the chair, again. “Back at Ferenaon, one of the bloody peasants gave us away to the bandits for some tourins. They confronted me when I was going to the village for a drink. I tell you; the bandits were stationed all around the shack! They were all over us. Normally, they intended to burn it as the peasant told them we were there to serve justice by hunting them one by one. But after seeing me alone and unarmed, they decided to leave their positions to confront me. Thanks to my incredible talents in speech and human relationships, and also my deep understanding of criminal psychology, I managed to convince them that we were actually rogue adventurers, not enforcers of the law, and even would likely join their cause if they gave us the chance.”

  “So, this is how the legendary ‘Veron de Charn’ was born.” Conrad said ironically.

  “Well, you could say that,” Gavise said. “I told them I was Veron de Charn, the heroic champion of the oppressed, and the best bard through the known world. One with a dauntless heart for the cause he stood for, the good and future of the smallfolk! Perhaps a malefactor in the eyes of the nobility, but still a saint to the people of Baltaire!”

  “And they believed you? Just like that?”

  “It took me a performance of a couple of my pieces, but they finally believed me . . . for at least I was a bard.”

  “And what about this ‘Jarn Wittern’.”

  “Oh, he is an Utornian Sword Dancer, and Veron’s side kick. Just like you are to me.” Gavise smiled. “I created him as a cover for you, and talked about him to the Brotherhood, just in case you encountered them, as my wits guessed that you would, go after them looking for me.”

  “This Veron, he is a good one, for an imaginary character.”

  “Veron de Charn was only my brief reflection. I got the inspiration from a great persona: myself.” Unfortunately, Gavise was serious about every word he said. “A strong, brave, capable, honorable, famous, popular, and skilled bard wandering on the roads in order to struggle against the prevailing evil in the world. See? It is almost completely based on me. I just added the ‘honorable’ part over my current status.”

  “But I think you missed some features you hold along the lines like cowardice, immorality, guile, mendacity, arrogance, and foolishness. Well, at least you don’t claim yourself to be an honorable person. I’ll give you the credit.”

  “Honor, my friend, is a term created by fools for the use of fools. “Gavise lowered his arms to the table. “As for the continuation of the story, I, the great bard who hates the nobility for their cruel and immoral deeds on the honest folk and has a significant sympathy over the ones who dare to raise their swords against them and their unjust ways, the legendary Veron de Charn, ultimately joined the Bandits in their journey towards the Jade Forest.” He took another sip from his mug. “Thanks to my wits, again, I quickly created a mastermind plan and got to work to execute it. My intention was literally to conquer the castle from the inside. To achieve my goal, first, I had to gain the trust of the bandits and their frightening commander, Retlaff the Vampire.”

  “This part quite surprises me,” Conrad said. “I still cannot believe how you managed to fool that Retlaff. I guess vampires are not as smart as we consider them to be.”

  “No, it’s just that I am smarter than you consider me to be.” Gavise said with a reproachful attitude. “As a professional bard, I got my education in the art of persuasion at Beocur’s best Gui
ld of Bards: ‘The Sweet Lute’. So, it was not hard for me to gain Retlaff’s trust with my clever words and become one of his most reliable lieutenants in a short length of a time.”

  Conrad lifted both of his eyebrows, expressing his astonishment. “Are you sure about that? Because back there in the castle, it didn’t look as if you were anywhere ‘reliable’ to him. I mean, he lost his trust over you pretty quick.”

  “You may be right, but it only occurred in that way because of your and the stupid Baron’s inconsiderate, heedless and foolish actions. If you had not interfered with my plan, all of this bloodshed could have been prevented, and my masterfully created plan would not have gone to waste.”

  “So, you are still persistent that making yourself a prisoner to the Brotherhood voluntarily is somehow equal to a masterful plan?”

  Gavise was not convinced, as usual. “Retlaff had wanted me to prove my loyalty to the cause of the Brotherhood. So, I, cunning Gavise, had to lure the Baron to a dangerous trap of the vile bandits in order to gain the trust of their commander. Yet, at the end of the day, I intended to rescue the Baron from the castle inside.” He explained further. “You may continue to underestimate my great efforts and masterfully crafted plan, Conrad, but doing so will only make you the fool, as at some point I convinced Retlaff to let me sneak into the plains and do some spying for them. If he had let me done that, I meant to learn why he required such information about the contest and warn the LaPellás about it. But thanks to your heroic deeds again, all that effort has gone to waste.” Gavise looked disappointed with his friend. “You, my friend, are blocking my career and limiting my overall success, even though you are not aware of it.”

  “Wait.” Conrad hesitated for a moment. “If he intended to send a spy to the plains and did not send you, who did he send instead?”