The Red Knight

by Miles Cameron

  His only regret was that there was so much more he might have done – and in his darker moments of dying, he reviewed how he might have swayed his hips a little farther, evaded the wyvern’s blow, and carried on unhurt. So very close.

  The archangel’s manifestation took him by surprise – first, because he had refused the angel’s orders, and second, because the archangel had always insisted on coming to him in private.

  Now he appeared, glorious in armour, cap à pied in dazzling white plate, with the red cross emblazoned on a white surcote so utterly devoid of shadow as to seem to repel death.

  All over the beaver meadow wounded men stopped screaming. Servants fell on their faces. Men rose on an elbow, despite the pain, or rolled themselves over despite trailing intestines or deep gouges – because this was the heaven come to life.

  ‘You fool,’ the archangel said softly – and with considerable affection. ‘Proud, vain, arrogant fool.’

  Jean de Vrailly looked into that flawless face in the knowledge that his own had deep grooves of pain carved into it. And that he was going to his death. But he raised his head. ‘Yes!’ he said.

  ‘You were quite, perfectly brilliant.’ The archangel bent and touched his brow. ‘You were worthy,’ he said.

  Just for a moment, Jean de Vrailly wondered if the archangel were a man. The touch was so tender.

  The words cheered him. ‘Too proud to betray the King of Alba,’ he said.

  ‘There is a subtle philosophical difference between killing and letting die,’ the archangel said softly. ‘And thanks to you, all my plan is in ashes, and I must build a new edifice to make certain things come to pass.’ He smiled tenderly at the dying knight. ‘You will regret this. My way was better.’

  Jean de Vrailly managed a smile. ‘Bah!’ he said. ‘I was a great knight, and I die in great pain. God will take me to his own.’

  The archangel shook his head. ‘Perhaps,’ he said. ‘But I think you should live a while longer, and perhaps learn to listen to me next time.’ He bent low, and stripped the bright steel gauntlet off his hand – a slim, ungendered hand – and ran it along the knight’s body. That touch struck de Vrailly like the shock of taking his first wound – and lo, he was healed.

  He took a deep and shuddering breath, and found no pain at the bottom of it.

  ‘You cannot just heal me,’ de Vrailly snapped. ‘It would be unchivalrous of me to walk away healed when my brave people lie at the edge of cruel death.’

  The archangel turned his head, brushed the long hair back from his forehead, and he stood. ‘You are the most demanding mortal I have ever met,’ he said.

  De Vrailly shrugged. ‘I will beg and pray, if that’s what you require, Taxiarch.’

  The angel smiled. ‘I grant you their healing – those who have not already passed around the curve of life into death. And I grant to you great glory this day – for why would an angel of the Lord visit you except to bring you great power in battle? Go and conquer, arrogant little mortal. But I tell you that if you ever choose to match yourself against the greatest Power that the Wild has ever bred, he will defeat you. This is not my will, but Fate’s. Do you hear me?’

  ‘Craven fate would never keep me from a fight,’ de Vrailly said.

  ‘Ah,’ said the angel. ‘How I love you!’ The angel waved his spear over the beaver meadow.

  A hundred knights and as many squires, men-at-arms, servants and valets were cured, their pain washed away, their bodies made whole. In many cases they were better than they had begun the battle. A peasant-born man-at-arms, a Galle, had the permanent injury to his lower left leg healed and made straight – a valet missing one eye had his sight returned.

  All in the wave of a spear.

  Several dozen wounded Jacks were cured, as well.

  ‘Go and save the king,’ the archangel said. ‘If that is your will.’

  Every man in the meadow knelt and prayed until, in a puff of incense-laden displaced air, the armoured angel vanished.

  Lissen Carak – Desiderata

  Desiderata lay in a patch of bright sunlight. Her power was dimmed – she herself felt like a candle under a shade. Flickering.

  So unjust! That single arrow, plummeting from heaven, and she was done. She had desired to be her husband’s support, perhaps to win herself a share of glory. And instead – this.

  The strange young man had put the pain at a distance. That was a blessing. She could feel his worthiness like a bright flame. A knight and a healer – what a superb combination – and she longed to know him better.

  Around her, her ladies were silent.

  ‘Someone sing,’ she said.

  Lady Mary started, and the others slowly joined her.

  Desiderata lay back on the cloaks of a dozen soldiers.

  And then old Harmodius came. He came unannounced, walked into the castle courtyard and knelt beside her.

  She was pleased to see the look in his eye. Even mortally wounded, he found her pleasing. ‘There you are, you old fool,’ she said happily.

  ‘Fool enough to leave the battle and save you, my dear,’ he said.

  Carefully, painfully, with Lady Almspend and Lady Mary, he rolled her over and stripped the linen from her back. ‘It’s really quite a nice back,’ he said conversationally.

  She breathed in and out, content at last.

  Lissen Carak – The Red Knight

  The captain could see the king riding for the bridge at the head of his household, and he could see the king’s battles – each with more men-at-arms than he had ever commanded – coming down the ridge.

  He rode along the trench – a trench currently occupied by two hundred archers and valets of his own company, and all the farmers from all the out-villages.

  His sanguine surety that the Enemy had made a tactical error was gone, blown away on the wind, and now he watched an endless line of boglins crossing the open ground toward the trench with something akin to panic. It was hard to breathe.

  The Prior was sitting on his destrier with Bad Tom, in the non-shade of a burned oak tree.

  The captain rode his horse over to them, and then wasted his strength controlling his young war horse as the stallion sought to make trouble with the Prior’s stallion. Finally, he curbed the big horse mercilessly.

  ‘I miss Grendel,’ he said to Tom.

  ‘Bet Jacques doesn’t,’ Tom said. He looked back over the sunlit fields. ‘They’re coming.’

  The captain nodded. Overhead, the trebuchet disgorged another load of small stones. Cast from a height, it smashed into the oncoming tide and ripped a hole in the enemy line.

  The hole closed almost at once.

  ‘It’s so stupid, the captain said petulantly. ‘When he burned the farms, he did all the damage he needed to do.’ He turned his head to where the king’s Royal Guard was pouring into the trench, led by two hundred purple- and yellow-clad crossbowman from Lorica. ‘And his attack – whether it carries this trench or not – won’t take the fortress.’

  The endless wave of boglins, and larger, worse things, swept across the burned plain towards the black line of his trench.

  The reinforcements were not going to make the near end of the trench in time.

  The farmers and the guildsmen were spread too thin, and they knew it. And the inexperienced purple and gold Loricans were halting, only a third of the way along the trench, and loosing bolts. Like militia.

  Of course, they were militia.

  ‘The farmers will hold,’ Tom said. He was chewing on the stem of a flower. It was an oddly disconcerting sight. ‘The guildsmen will break. They’ve broken before.’

  The captain looked at the Prior. ‘Messire, you are so much my senior – in years, in experience, and in this place – guide me. Or command me.’

  The Prior let his horse put his head down to munch grass around the heavy bit. ‘Oh, no, you don’t. You have led this force to this point – you think I’m going to change commanders now?’

  The captain shrug
ged. ‘I wish you would,’ he said.

  Tom was watching the oncoming line. ‘You know we have to charge that line,’ he said. ‘If we charge the line, we should buy – hmm – ten minutes or so.’ He was wearing a grin that made him look like a small boy. ‘A hundred knights – ten thousand boglins – and trolls, and daemons, irks . . .’ He looked at his captain. ‘You know we have to.’

  The Prior looked at Tom, and then back at the captain. ‘Is he always like this?’ he asked.

  ‘Pretty much,’ the captain said to the older man. ‘Will you come? I’m not at all sure any of us will come back.’

  The Prior shrugged. ‘You are lucky,’ he said. ‘And luck is better than any amount of skill or genius. I can feel the power in you, young man. And I think your presence here is God’s will, and God is telling me to go where you go.’

  The captain rolled his eyes. ‘You’re making this up,’ he said.

  ‘Did you speak so to the Abbess?’ the Prior said.

  For once abashed, the captain looked away.

  ‘We will follow you,’ the Prior continued. ‘If this fortress falls our order will have lost everything.’

  The captain nodded. ‘Have it your way, then. Tom; we’ll file across the trench on the two bridges and form line on the far side in open order.’ He looked around – to see Sauce, Michael, Francis Atcourt, Lyliard all looking pale with exhaustion.

  ‘Kill whatever comes under your sword,’ the captain said with an edge of sarcasm. ‘Follow me.’

  The king entered the Bridge Castle’s courtyard to find his Magus, Harmodius, kneeling by the Queen. He was examining a wound in her back, and Lady Almspend put a hand on the king’s shoulder and kept him from approaching any closer.

  ‘Give him a moment, my lord,’ she breathed quietly.

  ‘Here they come!’ called a voice on the walls.

  Crossbows began to release in a series of flat snaps.

  The king didn’t know what to do. ‘I must see her!’ he said to Lady Almspend.

  Lady Mary came up. ‘Please, my lord. A moment!’

  ‘The battle is about to be won or lost,’ the king moaned.

  ‘Fast as you can, lads! The captain is depending on us!’ called the voice on the walls.

  ‘My love?’ Desiderata called.

  Harmodius stepped back, face pale, and the king came forwards.

  Desiderata reached out and took his hand. ‘You must go and win this battle,’ she said.

  ‘I love you. You make me a better king – a better man. A better knight. I can’t lose you,’ the king said.

  She smiled. ‘I know. Now go and win this battle for me.’

  He bent and kissed her, mindless of the thread of blood that ran from the corner of her lip.

  As he pulled himself away, Harmodius followed him.

  ‘I might ask you what you are doing here, but we’re in haste,’ the king said.

  Harmodius narrowed his eye. ‘This battle is a closer run thing than I would ever have imagined, and even now, our enemy has increased his power to a degree I could never match,’ he said. ‘If I work to heal her he will know me, and he will assail me here. And I will be destroyed. This is as much a fact as the rising of the sun.’

  The king paused. ‘What can we do?’ he asked.

  Harmodius shook his head. ‘There are protections in the fortress – especially in the chapel.’ He shrugged. ‘But even if I could get her there, my saving her would deprive the army of my protection, and when he starts to kill, he will devastate us.’

  The king frowned. ‘Save her,’ he commanded. ‘Save her. I will form up my knights and guard her to the fortress on a litter, and you can take her to the chapel, though all the enemies in the world stand between us and them.’

  Harmodius considered his king, who was willing to sacrifice the army for the love of his queen.

  But his feelings were very much engaged as well. ‘Very well,’ he said.

  Lissen Carak – Father Henry

  He didn’t like what he had to do. He didn’t like that they all hated him, now, and he wanted to argue with them. To show them what they were going to become.

  Like her. Like the witches.

  Gnawing the ropes was easy. But the archers had hurt him, and his back was flayed raw. It took time, and pain. He paused and rested. Paused and slept.

  Awoke when he heard voices coming into the cellars. From below.

  He gnawd his bonds again, mad with fury like a trapped animal. When he exhausted his muscles, he made himself pray. He overcame the pain.

  He was good at pain.

  After hours and more hours, he had the ropes off. And then he got through the scuttle – a trap door to the next cellar room. He moved carefully, and he only passed out once and woke again minutes or hours later.

  He made it to the base of the main cellar ramp – where he could hear a pair of archers on duty.

  He prayed . . . and God showed him the way. Whoever had come up into the cellar had left a door open. He dragged himself to the portal, and looked down.

  Scrambled and found a lantern with a candle and a tinderbox. It was God’s will.

  He dragged himself down the steps into the dark.

  The mercenaries, efficient as always, had left arrows painted on the rock. He began to follow them.

  Lissen Carak – Thorn

  Thorn watched his great assault sally forth from the edge of the woods, and knew fear.

  He had lost many, many creatures in the weeks of siege and now he feared he lacked the resources to survive.

  His fear hadn’t started there, though.

  As his assault began, something whose level of manifested power was to Thorn as Thorn was to a boglin shaman, had appeared on the other side of the river. It had cast a single phantasm of such complexity and power that it beggared the very strongest sending Thorn had ever cast. And then it had vanished.

  A Power. A great Power of the Wild.

  Thorn stood at the edge of the burned fields, watching his massive assault leap towards the hated enemy; seeing the fruition of his revenge on the king and his useless nobles, watching as his boglins finally seized the empty Lower Town and boiled through its streets.

  And all he could think was – Damn the daemon. He was right. I’ve been had.

  Lissen Carak – The Red Knight

  The captain led his men in single file across the boards laid across the burned, vitrified trench. As he crossed, two farm boys with halberds waved. They gave a cheer.

  Why not? They weren’t riding into a horde of boglins.

  He laughed. Turned to find Jacques behind him, Carlus the armourer with his trumpet on his hip, and Michael carrying his banner.

  ‘Form your front,’ he called.

  The line of boglins was about six hundred paces distant.

  He looked back at Bridge Castle, hoping to see the king.

  He looked across the river, but the main battle was just straggling down the ridge. Two thousand knights.

  The king was just a little late.

  He could see a handful of knights crossing the bridge. The banner was from Galle, and not one he knew.

  Move! he thought.

  He looked back.

  His men-at-arms, with the addition of all the military orders knights, formed in two ranks, and took up two hundred yards of front – leaving as much again on either flank.

  Empty air.

  He was the centre man in the line.

  The boglin line was four hundred paces away, give or take.

  ‘Advance! Walk!’ he called, and Carlus repeated it by trumpet.

  ‘Remember this, boys!’ Bad Tom called from his place in the ranks.

  The big horses made the earth shake, even at a walk. Their tack rattled and clinked, and the sound of their riders’ armour added to it. The sound of a company of knights.

  Two hundred and fifty paces.

  ‘Trot!’

  Even a hundred and fifty armoured men on destriers make the ground rumble l
ike an earthquake.

  One last time, the enemy had underestimated them. They had more than a dozen of the great trolls, belling and ranting several hundred paces to the rear of the infantry line. They were coming on now – coming quickly. But like the king, they were going to be much too late for the moment of impact.

  The captain had a feeling, though, that the trolls were not at their best in the open, and that they wouldn’t be particularly manoeuvrable. Or was that his own hubris?

  But that was all passing away. Strategy and tactics were over, now.

  He turned his head at the cost of some pain, and saw the Gallish knights pushing along the trench. The Lorican crossbowmen were moving too – Ser Milus was visible, roaring orders at them.

  There would be no gap in their line when the Enemy struck.

  The two lines were approaching each other at the combined speed of a galloping horse. The boglins were not going to flinch but they were spread out over the ground, all cohesion lost, like a swarm of insects pouring over the ground.

  ‘Charge,’ he shouted. Carlus and Jacques might not have heard him over the drumming hooves, but he swept his lance down to point at his first target – locked it into the hook-shaped rest under his arm, and Jacques sounded the charge.

  The captain leaned forward into his lance.

  For a few glorious heartbeats, it was the way he had imagined, when he was a small boy dreaming of glory.

  He was the wind, and the roar of the hooves, and the tip of the spear.

  The slight bodies of the boglins were like straw dolls set in a field, and the lances ripped through them so smoothly that creatures died without dragging the lances down, and the stronger men were able to engage three, four even five of the creatures before their lances broke, or their points touched the ground, dug in and shattered or had to be dropped.

  The horses were spread widely enough to allow horse and rider to thread the enemy line, to take advantage of spaces between boglins, to weave their path.

  For a few deadly heartbeats, the knights destroyed the boglins, and there was nothing the boglins could do to retaliate.