Squire of War

by M. H. Johnson

  The philosophy and ethics professor, a short, stout man with wispy white hair and a kindly gaze had greeted her with a cool nod. “Welcome, Supplicant. For all that folly has lain you low, there is ever virtue in an honest desire to better oneself. It is my hope that you are able to learn from our discussions. Your silence is expected, but you are welcome to feast upon the insights I present.”

  He turned to the class at large. “There will be no mockery of Calenbry before, during, or after my class, anywhere in the vicinity of this chamber. There is virtue in redemption, and the gauntlet of humility is a challenge few have the spine to endure. No matter that Calenbry dares the Penitent’s white, the solace of wisdom free of bitter bile shall be the feast that we all share in this class equally. Am I clear?”

  And much to Jess’s amazement, not a single student castigated her during that class. Never had she felt so fiercely grateful to an academic professor before. He was a pudgy and soft, unlikely to survive more than a single skirmish in the cauldron of war, but for that hour Jess thought he stood like a giant, and she did her best to honor him by taking in every word he said.

  Yet save for the solace of that one class and one other where the professor made it clear that the jeering nobility would never be tolerated, the rest of her day had been worse than she could possibly have imagined.

  Thirst and hunger both tormented her, but she couldn’t bear the thought of the ugly hate to be revealed in the dining hall, lest those who had previously paid her no attention openly mocked and jeered, former friends hanging their heads, saying not a word on her behalf. And really, after jeopardizing the lives of her fellow Squires, how could she blame them?

  Jess fought a losing battle against the sobs escaping her even now. She didn’t think she could bear it. Not at all.

  She gazed wistfully at the forest line, a shadowy comfort off in the distance beyond the fields adjoining the school, the moon shining high above, and wondered what it would be like to escape the shameful nightmare her life had become, to leave this school and all its now bittersweet memories behind, and never look back, not even once.

  She shook her head, flashing the battered girl in the mirror a sad smile. “I’m not going to give up that easy,” she promised herself, before turning once more to the grand tome filled with stories of adventure and wonder that she had been gifted, losing herself in those pages, suddenly curious about what it would be like to dip into the waters of living dream.

  To live a life of daring and glory, where her status as a Delver would protect her from so many social strictures as she hunted for ancient secrets and lost treasures, her past no more relevant than a fairy tale long forgotten as she chased after wondrous adventures forever more.

  She heard a tentative knock at her door, her heart skipping a sudden beat, infected with the sudden fear that students had come to mock and harass her yet again.

  But no. A tentative touch showed only the gentlest of presences, free of malice or bile.

  Jess opened the door, gazing down upon a cheerful countenance. A tow-headed boy of perhaps eight summers, skinny, for all that she knew him to be the head cook’s boy, exchanging a wink with one of the laundrywomen even then darning bed sheets in the alcove by the storage room across the hall. The only room in some distance, allowing Jess considerable privacy, thanks to the unusual design of this wing, and Jess knew for a fact not a soul had been able to open that door since the summer had begun.

  However long ago that was.

  After all, she had been the one to seal it shut, locking away the deadly secrets hidden still within.

  The servant caught her gaze, honoring Jess with the smallest of nods before continuing with her darning, Johnathan quickly handing Jess a crock full of hearty pork and bean stew, well-cooked, before darting to the servant who slipped the boy a jug of what Jess sensed must be ale, presenting it to Jess with a smile.

  “Thank you so much, Johnathan,” Jess whispered, quickly placing the items out of sight in her quarters. “but I would cause you and your mother no trouble for helping me.”

  Johnathan frowned. “Mother says it’s an outrage. What does that mean?”

  Jess smirked. “It means that life can be very, very complicated.”

  “But didn’t you save those wizards? Mother says she had trays brought to the mages wing, and Ansa overheard several of the mage ladies sobbing and carrying on that they had been captured by evil wizards and were a heartbeat from cruelest death, and you saved their lives, charging like a Valkyrie. One girl thought you had wings. Is that true?”

  Jess crinkled her eyes, grateful for the smile he inspired. “No, Johnathan, nothing like that. And there are some rumors we should never say aloud, even if they have a sliver of truth. But please give your mother my thanks.”

  Johnathan nodded solemnly. “Mother says thank you, by the way. She knows you are the one who saved us from pink-lung when everyone sickened earlier this summer, you and Lady Vaila with your magic potions, and mother always pays her debts, but she said she can’t ever replace me, so you should always count her your friend.”

  The tear Jess wiped away was of sweetest joy, her sore heart lightened like the first rays of sunlight caressing a ravaged garden after the worst of storms.

  “I thank you, Johnathan. That means more to me than you know.”

  The boy grinned then, giving Jess an impulsive hug before darting off. “It will be okay, Jessie, you’ll see!”

  Jess ignored the jolt of pain his squeeze had caused, smiling at his back before locking gazes with the woman knitting still, bowing her head in gratitude.

  “Not all of us forget what matters, Lady Calenbry,” the servant murmured, gathering her things, as if deciding at that very moment that her work day was done.

  “I won’t forget either,” Jess softly promised, smiling gratefully at the servant as she passed, knowing she wouldn’t forget the care-worn yet handsome face, nor the thoughtful intelligence behind eyes heavy with the weight of the tumultuous world all servants lived in.

  She sighed in deepest pleasure as the last of the delicious stew and much needed ale passed her lips; tasty drink, for all that it had been so very mild, table ale allowing for a clear head and safer to drink than water alone.

  She indulged in one more tale about a questing prince and a talking frog before she lay down once more, reminiscing upon words Jacob had said during their last circle meeting.

  The call of adventure. Delvers exploring lands of myth and living dream, but a footstep away in directions wild and strange, and Highrock itself expecting a rift to open in the days ahead. Jess found her thoughts wandering in unexpected directions, daring to wonder at wild dreams she would have thought utter folly, just days ago.

  It was then that she heard the knock on her door. Imperious, demanding, just like it's owner.

  Jess hissed and whimpered, forcing her agonized body to stand straight once more, lurching to her door. "Go away, Mord."

  Mocking laughter, just feet away. "Ah, Jess. to hear your ragged voice. To know you stand but feet before me, trembling and worn, your body shuddering with sweetest torments still. Open the door, Jess, I have a gift for you."

  "The hell I will!" She sobbed, exhausted, worn, heart racing with panicked fury to know her nemesis was just beyond, no doubt savoring her humiliation, her downfall.

  "I won't touch your person this eve, Jess, not without your say. On that you have my word. So open the door, Jess, unless you would call me liar and oath-breaker both."

  Jess hissed, clenching her eyes shut, hating to be so maneuvered, and by a man who could very well seal her fate in nightmare. With a resolute nod, she allowed the door to open, her reasoning brutally practical. She loathed him, but his word had value. And should he break her trust, far better one more betrayal than a lifetime chained to a monster.

  Her door slowly opened to reveal Mord's smiling countenance, wearing tunic and hose of darkest crimson. Tight, formfitting attire he favored for the looks of admiration it g
arnered him, Jess herself seemingly the only one immune. She glared into eyes shimmering in the hall lights like chips of obsidian as Mord shook his head all too knowingly, favoring Jess with a soft chuckle.

  "Ah, my little moppet, to fall so low trying desperately to save those who have already failed themselves. Breaking the chain of command, putting scores of lives at risk, all because you lack the resolve to do what needs to be done."

  "They were going to die!" Jess heard her voice crack, knowing she was playing right into Mord's hands.

  He tisked and shook his head. "And in your desperate attempt to save them, you lost your best friend and nearly lost two score of Erovering's best fighters. You put their lives at risk because, ultimately, you're a woman, ruled by a woman's weaknesses, a woman's emotions. And your foolishness near destroyed the very people you swore to protect at all costs."

  "I saved my friends. Almost all of us made it!" Jess cried, knowing it was useless to explain herself to her enemy, unable to keep herself from trying.

  He pinned her with his dark gaze. "You're a woman and you're weak, Calenbry. Forty of our finest near perished thanks to you. Far better for Highrock to exile you now, before you get a regiment of men killed in a real war."

  He sighed, his gaze one of cold pity, tossing her a silver flask. She caught it out of reflex, though she trembled with shame and fury both.

  "Your place is in your master's home, tending to his needs. For all that you've fought your fate for years, you have just proven your nature beyond a shadow of a doubt, for all the world to see."

  He gazed down at the flask in her hand. "Laudanum. It will dull the pain. And if you ask real nicely, there is more where that came from." His lips curled into a cold smile. "You'll find the solace it gives you sweet. It will numb mind and body both, and if you drink enough, euphoria. Near sweet as a man's pleasure. And if you please your master enough, there is no limit to how much I will let you savor."

  Jess shuddered, dropping the silver flask. "I don't want your drink, Mord."

  Mord's dark chuckle was all too knowing. "Sure you do. keep the flask. There is more where that came from. All you need to do is ask. And when you are ready to finally submit to me, there will be no limit to the sweet release that shall be yours; laudanum, absinthe, even hashish infused brandy." He gazed at her hungrily. "All you need to do is submit, my sweet. It can all be yours."

  Jess lurched back, heart hammering with horror, sickened by the look in his eyes. "Leave, now!"

  Mord winked. "You know where to find me, my soon to be my wife, tied by chains of rapture and need."

  Jess screamed and slammed the door shut, shuddering as she heard Mord's laughter echo down the hallway, slowly fading away.

  She glared at the silvery flask lying on her woolen rug, shining so brightly in the moonlight reflecting from her window, promising such release. A few delightful sips, just to ease the constant throbbing pain.

  "Bloody hell I will," she hissed, picking up the flask only to send it spinning out her window, feeling a savage satisfaction at how far it sailed, never mind the sudden sharp throb spiking through her back.

  Trembling with pain and exhaustion, it was all she could do just to pull up cool linen sheets over her shuddering frame, slipping at once into tormented sleep.

  30

  Jess, help me!”

  Jess shivered at those words, even as howling black winds enveloped her, hideous darkness thick as ink. Not even her hands could she see.

  “Jess?”

  “Malek!” Jess screamed, “where are you?”

  “I can’t find my way back.”

  Howling darkness. Jess shivered as the most horrific of fears lanced through her.

  “Malek! Were you taken by the storm?”

  “Jess… I’m tired.”

  Anxious hope was flooded by panicked desperation. “No, Malek, don’t give up! Follow the sound of my voice. I’m here for you!

  “Jess…”

  “Please!”

  A mournful howl, far off.

  And Jess ran as fast and furiously as her legs could take her, never mind that she could feel nothing beneath her feet, just a desperate surge of panicked fear, racing into the darkness, desperate to find her friend.

  “Jess, I can’t hold on.”

  “Malek!” Jess screamed, able to see him at last, or the dream of him, holding desperately upon the lip of a howling whirlpool seeking to suck him in.

  Terrified feet ran at a frantic pace.

  Jess shuddered and lurched to a stop.

  Jess!

  Malek, gazing at her with such panic, grip weakening as he was slowly pulled into the shrieking winds, sucking everything into a shadowy vortex.

  The maw of a massive jackal, black as death, eyes burning with all the fires of Hades.

  Eyes filled with such pain lanced her own. “I’m sorry Jess, I tried.”

  His hand slipped free.

  “Don’t give up!”

  Swallowing her terror, Jess leaped into the maw of that hideous beast, the eye of the storm that had come so close to killing them all, desperately grasping Malek's hand with her own.

  “Oh no, Jess,” he sobbed, "now we will both be consumed by Shadow.”

  Jess gazed at her friend, saw his dread and panic as they slid down that gullet of endless nightmare turn into a smile, bleak as strange.

  A smile Jess shared as she drowned in visions of gore-spattered battlefields choked by sulfurous fumes. Memories of crimson banners snapping upon the battlements of vast ancient cities of lead and bone, hideous armies of hellions dark and foul, now racing through her mind.

  Both their minds.

  As one they laughed.

  Suddenly not afraid, not afraid at all.

  And the Shadowstorm that had swallowed them tasted fear in its gullet, and so began to tear through the countryside once more.

  But it was too late.

  For the terrible beings that had once been closest friends remembered what creatures of Shadow and darkness had long forgotten.

  Living storm shrieked like a thousand howling gales until its cry was but the faintest breeze, consumed so utterly that not even its memory was left.

  For Jess was the blackness. The Void in the heart of the starry night sky, stars exploding as they approached her dreadful apex, her terrible wolf of flame and fury by her side, devouring them in endless supernovae. They gazed into the brilliant starry skies surrounding them, their ravenous howls causing billions of stars to spin ever faster in a hideous vortex before rupturing in shrieking, brilliant agony, consumed by the event horizon of their endless hunger.

  Until there was nothing left but the eternal reverberations of the forces and fields that comprised reality itself, and with famished howls, wolf and Void devoured even that, the very cloth of existence bursting into fiery oblivion.

  The end of all things.

  31

  Jess? Jessie, wake up!”

  Josie’s voice.

  Jess lurched from her covers, stumbling off her bed in a heap, still choking back the most horrid of screams, soaked in fear sweat, sobbing with terror.

  It had been so awful. So gods-awful.

  She saw her mother’s exquisite gift of a full-length mirror and flinched away, terrified by what she would see, the hideous monster with glittering eyes that would be wearing her face, her lips splitting in the most awful of grins, a thousand sharpened fangs, gnawing away.

  Jess screamed and shook, Josie’s pounding increasing in pitch.

  “Jess! Oh, by all the saints, please open this door, Jessie. You left the Healers Wing before Jevons could finish your treatment! He is sick with worry. He said you were to check in with him before you returned to quarters, but you never showed!”

  Jess took a deep breath, forcing her racing heart to calm.

  Never did she recall a dream so awful as the one she had just fled.

  Bleary eyes blinked, taking in her pounding door.

  She relaxed some strange
muscle she couldn’t explain, the door easing open to reveal an anxious Josie pounding frantically on her door, a worried Raphael gazing protectively on.

  His face lightened with relief before frowning with concern. “Josie, I do believe she’s tumbled from her bed. Come. Let’s bring her to the healers.”

  But Josie had already dashed to Jess’s side, eyes wide with panic.

  “Oh, by all the gods, Jess, you shouldn’t even be in quarters! When I heard what that bloody head proctor had done, I swear I wanted to beat him senseless myself! Please stop flinching, Jessie, I need to examine you, make sure you are okay.”

  Jess blinked, still feeling groggy, utterly disoriented, grateful to see Josie’s tender expression. To know that someone still cared about her.

  “But, Josie, I don’t think you are supposed to even talk to me. I’m… I’m penitent now. Having fallen so low, I don’t want you to get in trouble. You are too precious to risk falling prey to that vile proctor. Not for a second, would I allow that."

  “Nonsense!” Josie snapped. “We’re friends. We’re there for each other.”

  Raphael nodded firm agreement.

  “Besides,” Josie winked, “I’m a healer training directly under Master Jevons, and he has specifically remanded you to my care, and he will make it quite clear to proctors, General Eloquin, even the dean, that when it comes to the care of injured patients, his precedence supersedes all others.”

  She turned back to her beau, gazing at her so protectively.

  “And what with various goings-on, students suffering from tainted drinks, reports of threats even in the baths, no one objects to girls taking escorts wherever they go, even if it’s their lovers and everyone knows it. But no proctor dares to say a word, lest another denizen of our keep go missing, and on their heads’ would go the blame.”

  Jess gazed at her friend in alarm. “Someone’s gone missing?”

  Josie nodded. “That’s the rumor that’s going around. I haven’t had a chance to track it down. We were only informed with our first period class.