The Knight: A Tale from the High Kingdom

by Pierre Pevel

  The crossbows were tautened by their levers and shouldered. The attackers had almost reached the foot of the tower.

  ‘THE LADDER BEARERS!’ yelled Lorn. ‘SHOOT THEM D—’

  Lorn did not finish, surprised by the sound of cannons being fired from the fortress’s ramparts.

  ‘Take cover!’

  But cannonballs were already striking the tower and its parapet, passing over their heads or whizzing between the merlons. Laedras had deployed cannons on Saarsgard’s outer ramparts, aimed inwards at the Castel’s defenders. That was why he had waited to attack, allowing the defenders time to organise themselves.

  He had been preparing too.

  Lorn stood up, feeling slightly dazed, but quickly recovered his wits. The dragon-prince’s troops had placed their ladders against the towers and were climbing up them.

  ‘With me!’

  Drawing forth his heavy Skandish blade, he killed the first man to appear at the embrasures, smashed the shield of the next, and, still striking with both hands, split his skull. Three soldiers moved to support him while Logan and two others drove back the assailants who were climbing the second ladder.

  Dull blows struck the gate below: the battering ram was at work despite the bolts shot by the crossbowmen from their slits. When one man fell, another immediately replaced him.

  ‘HOLD THEM BACK!’ Lorn cried. ‘DON’T LET THEM SET FOOT ON THE PARAPET!’

  The cannons fired a new salvo as Logan pushed a ladder out into thin air and took a wound to the side. The cannonballs’ impacts shook the tower. One of them lodged itself in an arrow slit, sending stone shards flying which killed a crossbowman. Another whizzed past Lorn and decapitated a soldier fighting on the parapet. A third smashed a merlon into a cloud of dust.

  The ram was still battering at the gate.

  With his men, Lorn pushed off the second ladder. Then he looked below, took stock of the situation, and turned to Logan.

  ‘THE GATE IS GOING TO GIVE WAY SOON. HELP ME,’ he said, before straining against a merlon that had been struck by a cannonball.

  Logan pushed with him and the loosened blocks shifted, slowly tilted, leaning out above the gate, and finally toppled in an avalanche of stone and dust which crashed fifty feet below onto the men wielding the ram. It killed and maimed, crushing bone, flesh and metal. Horrible cries rose and the hammering against the great gate, at last, halted.

  The respite, however, was of short duration.

  Already, the cannons were thundering again.

  Already, more ladders were being raised.

  The fighting resumed at the embrasures. Abandoning the arrow slits, Yeras and his crossbowmen came up to assist Lorn and the others, who risked being overwhelmed. At the top of the tower, they loosed a last volley of arrows at the Yrgaardians straddling the parapet, then they drew their swords and threw themselves into the melee.

  Their arrival made all the difference.

  The assault was repelled, the ladders destroyed and the attackers who still remained on the tower were quickly eliminated, launched into space without there being any question of taking prisoners. But the Yrgaardians had dragged the battering ram clear, pushed the bodies out of the way and, once again, under the orders of a big black drac, the gate was subjected to the device’s mighty blows.

  Lorn realised they would have to abandon their positions if they did not want to be trapped here once the doors below gave way. Moreover, of the fifteen men who had been defending the tower with him, seven were dead and three were no longer capable of fighting.

  His gaze fell on the body of young Glenn.

  ‘We’re falling back,’ he said, just as the tower suffered another salvo of flaming cannonballs.

  ‘Knight!’ Yeras called, while Logan led the men down the stairs, supporting the wounded. ‘Come and see.’

  Lorn cautiously approached the ruined parapet.

  He noticed that the horizon was growing lighter, and then saw what Yeras was pointing out.

  Laedras was heading towards the tower, leading fresh troops marching to the beat of drums, all perfectly aligned, their red-and-black banners floating above them.

  ‘Quickly,’ said Lorn.

  They hastened to the stairs.

  On the bridge side, the tower could be closed by a portcullis. The latter was half-lowered, propped up by a solid wooden beam that Lorn and his men had placed there, just before destroying the mechanism keeping the barrier raised.

  Lorn made sure they had not left anyone behind in the tower. Then, with the help of Logan and Yeras, he removed the beam and the portcullis slammed down into place, Yssaris passing beneath it with a bound before streaking, belly to the ground, towards the Sanctuary.

  At the same instant the gate opened, smashed apart by the battering ram.

  They were running across the bridge when Lorn heard a loud squealing of tortured metal that chilled his blood. Letting the others outdistance him, he turned and saw the portcullis twisting, opening up as if claws had dug into the middle of it and were spreading it apart.

  The soldiers continued to flee towards the Sanctuary whose gate stood wide open for them, but Yeras and Logan had also halted and were coming back, cautious and worried.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Yeras.

  ‘Laedras is fed up with the damage we’ve inflicted upon him,’ Lorn replied.

  ‘Somehow, that idea comforts me,’ remarked Logan.

  ‘He’s using his Dark powers.’

  ‘The ones that come to him from the Black Hydra,’ Yeras thought aloud.

  ‘From his mother, yes …’

  ‘Then we’d better hurry,’ said Logan. ‘We’ll be a lot safer behind the Sanctuary’s walls.’

  The soldiers and the wounded were entering the keep while, at the embrasures on top, Liam and Dorsian observed the scene without comprehending.

  ‘Those walls won’t hold him back,’ said Lorn. ‘Not while he has possession of his Dark powers. Fortunately they’ll be used up quickly.’

  He was perfectly calm.

  ‘Knight?’ Yeras asked anxiously.

  Lorn watched the dragon-prince who was now crossing the ripped-open portcullis. Laedras was in armour but bare-headed, his red hair falling upon his cape and his spaulders. He walked alone, his sword unsheathed, surrounded by a mist which shifted about as if animated by a life of its own and took on the appearance of a dragon made of shadow and night.

  So that’s the form the Dark puts on for you, thought Lorn, not moving an inch.

  ‘Knight!’ snapped Yeras.

  The blasts of a horn could be heard coming from the Sanctuary. They seemed to be desperately calling Lorn to fall back.

  In vain.

  Lorn looked down at his marked hand.

  A feeling of warmth had invaded his fist and then his arm, radiating from the stone seal engraved in his flesh. It was a burning, familiar heat, but this time it was beneficent.

  The Dark was calling the Dark.

  ‘Leave,’ said Lorn. ‘Join the others in the Sanctuary.’

  ‘You can’t defeat a dragon-prince, knight,’ said Logan.

  ‘I can slow him down. If he reaches the Sanctuary while in this form, it will be a massacre. And believe me, it’s better to be killed by Yrgaardian steel than by the Dark …’

  Yeras tried to protest but, without taking his eyes off the dragon-prince, Lorn overrode him:

  ‘Leave, now. That’s an order. No turning back. Tell Dorsian that I’m giving him command. It’s been an honour to have fought at your sides.’

  Yeras hesitated but Logan took his arm, signalling to him not to insist, and led him away.

  They jogged off, leaving Lorn alone in the middle of the stone arch, standing at its highest point above the crevasse. A lugubrious groaning rose from its apparently bottomless depths.

  The sun was rising.

  Lorn took out his dark spectacles. One of the lenses was cracked, but he put them on anyway. His wounded shoulder no longer hurt. He was calm a
nd almost confident.

  In fact, he was perfectly indifferent to his own fate. Didn’t he have a destiny?

  He drew his sword and waited.

  ‘You don’t actually imagine you can stop me, do you?’ Laedras asked in amusement.

  ‘I can always try.’

  ‘Surrender. I promise you a quick and honourable death.’

  Lorn smiled.

  The dragon-prince stared at him and Lorn was unable say which of the two, Laedras or the Dark dragon surrounding the Yrgaardian, was examining him more closely. He could make out two bright eyes in the statue of living mist.

  ‘Then I should like you to answer a question for me … Did you really do all this …’ Laedras made a gesture that encompassed the fortress all about them ‘… for that?’ He pointed a finger at the High King’s banner which floated in the light from the rising sun. ‘For the High King and the High Kingdom?’

  ‘They’re not the same thing,’ said Lorn.

  But the dragon-prince wasn’t listening.

  ‘Or did you do it, as I believe, to set all the Imelorian kingdoms on fire?’

  ‘Why does it matter?’

  Laedras pulled a face.

  A few yards still separated the two adversaries. Only the two of them seemed to exist in the whole world, on a great stone arch spanning nothingness.

  ‘Farewell,’ said the dragon-prince.

  Lorn adopted a defensive stance, his sword gripped in both hands. Laedras raised his towards the sky, before pointing it at the knight. The Dark dragon accompanied this movement. It reared up …

  And spat out a black, opaque fire which engulfed Lorn.

  The malevolent blast went on and on, obscuring its victim – in flesh and in soul – entirely. A terrible metallic scream bore into the temples and stirred the guts of those witnessing the scene. The air vibrated and the bridge itself seemed to tremble, dust escaping from beneath its stones.

  Finally, Laedras lowered his sword and his dragon ceased to belch.

  There should have been nothing left but a broken, deformed being, a cringing and wretched madman pleading to be killed with whatever sanity he still retained.

  But instead Lorn pounced, delivering a slashing stroke to the middle of the dragon-prince’s chest with enough strength to split a tree stump.

  Laedras reeled under the impact.

  The dragon arched its back and screamed in pain.

  The dragon-prince’s armour had saved him, but he was wounded. Astonished that Lorn had somehow withstood the full force of his Dark blast, he barely managed to counter a flurry of attacks.

  What had just occurred was impossible.

  Unless they were protected by the Dark, no one could …

  The dragon-prince was unable to solve this conundrum, being too busy saving his own life. Transported, exalted, Lorn gave him no respite. The moment that Serk’Arn had spoken of had arrived. The Dark within him was triumphing. Pressing his advantage, carried away by his fury, he struck and struck again without letting up.

  Upon the Sanctuary’s walls, horror and then incredulity had given way to delight. Hurrahs and cries of encouragement rang out from the defenders. In the guard tower, on the other hand, there was fearful consternation …

  Laedras attempted to riposte, but again, Lorn surprised him. The knight dodged, grabbed the dragon-prince by the wrist and delivered a violent headbutt to his face. Laedras staggered backwards. The Dark dragon vanished, as if carried away by a whirlwind which tore it into shreds. Lorn continued his onslaught, delivering a hook to the jaw with the fist holding his sword. The basket guard of the Skandish weapon stunned the dragon-prince, who dropped a knee to the ground. Then Lorn spun him round to face the tower and, seizing him by the hair with his left hand to force the Yrgaardian to lift his chin high, he slid his sword under the other’s throat and waited.

  The dracs belonging to the dragon-prince’s personal guard were already coming out onto the bridge. But they halted on seeing their master at Lorn’s mercy. With a single gesture, the knight could slaughter their commander.

  Would he dare?

  Lorn heard the Sanctuary’s doors opening behind him. He glanced back and saw his own men emerging but hesitating to advance too far, in case they provoked a catastrophe.

  ‘And now?’ asked the dragon-prince, his teeth pink with blood.

  From the top of the guard tower, fifteen crossbowmen had taken aim at them.

  ‘I won’t let you capture me,’ continued Laedras. ‘If you try, I will order them to shoot.’

  ‘They won’t obey you.’

  ‘Oh yes they will. No one takes a dragon-prince prisoner.’

  ‘But if your men advance, I’ll slit your throat.’

  ‘You’ll condemn yourself to death.’

  ‘Do you think I’ll even hesitate?’

  ‘No.’ The dragon-prince stifled a chuckle. ‘A strange victory, isn’t it?’

  Indeed, Lorn thought to himself, the situation was scarcely ideal.

  His life depended on a stalemate which could not be maintained indefinitely. Moreover, the slightest incident – a cry, a misheard order, an arrow loosed by one side or another – was all it would take for hostilities to resume.

  Lorn pondered his options.

  And hesitated.

  With nothing to lose, he considered leaping into the abyss with Laedras. The authors of the Chronicles would love that. A First Knight of the Realm carrying a dragon-prince to their deaths was the stuff of legend, much less history …

  A shadow passed over the bridge.

  Then another.

  And a third, and then a fourth …

  All eyes were lifted towards the sky to see the wyverns arriving out of the rising sun. Enthralled by the duel between Laedras and Lorn, no one had seen them approaching and now here they were, in great numbers, circling over Saarsgard.

  They were war wyverns. A hundred of them, harnessed, armoured and ridden by the best wyverners in the world.

  On their flanks they bore the colours of Argor.

  Count Teogen of Argor was the first to land on the bridge. Then Vahrd, Orwain and others, while the remainder continued to turn in the sky, the shadow of their leathery-winged mounts casting menacing shadows over Saarsgard.

  Wearing armour, with his famous mace at his side, Teogen advanced towards Lorn, who released Laedras and allowed him to stand up. And in a calm, firm voice, the count said:

  ‘I don’t believe, prince, that you’ll be taking this fortress today. Surrender your sword to the knight, please.’

  With the dragon-prince at their head, the Yrgaardians retreated and before evening came had re-embarked for the kingdom of the Black Dragon. Saarsgard was saved and, when night fell, the High King’s banner still flew over the fortress.

  Just above that of the Onyx Guard.

  Epilogue

  End of Autumn 1547

  1

  ‘Who will tell of the loneliness of dying kings? Who will tell of their regrets and their wounds? Who will tell of their fear?’

  Chronicles (The Book of Defiant Heroes)

  In the Citadel’s throne room, beneath its immense vaults, large candelabra burned in the darkness. Carrying his helmet under his arm, Captain Norfold had placed one knee on the floor to draw as close to his king as possible. He spoke to him softly, as one speaks to dying men, in a voice strained by worry.

  ‘Sire. You must answer me, sire. Was it upon your orders that Lorn prevented the signing of the Angborn treaty?’

  The High King, unmoving, with his back straight and his hands gripping the armrests of his Onyx Throne, gave no reply. Behind the black veil concealing his corpselike face, he was staring at a distant point that only he could see.

  ‘What difference does it make?’ he asked at last.

  ‘Sire! If Lorn disobeyed you, if he overstepped his …’

  ‘What difference does it make?’ repeated the king in a stronger voice.

  The captain fell silent and bowed his head, to
rn between dejection and anger.

  ‘He … He triumphed, didn’t he?’ the old king said. ‘He stood alone against Yrgaard and he won.’

  Norfold nodded reluctantly.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘But …’

  ‘He’ll be glorified,’ the High King interrupted him. ‘I will be glorified,’ he added, stressing the personal pronoun in a quavering voice. ‘Lorn … Lorn has restored honour and pride to the High Kingdom. And to me. To us all. To you too, Norfold.’

  The captain sighed.

  He would have liked to speak at length with his king and bring him back to his senses, but clearly it was impossible.

  ‘But at what price? The Black Dragon will not let this insult go unanswered. There will be war, sire. With Yrgaard. And it will happen when the High Kingdom is more divided than ever.’

  The king mulled this over.

  Then he turned his head slowly towards Norfold, and said:

  ‘At what price?’ His eyes sparkled beneath the veil held in place by a crown adorned with dark jewels. ‘And just what is the price of the High Kingdom’s honour, do you think?’

  ‘I beg you, sire,’ the captain tried one last time in desperation. ‘Tell me. Did you order Lorn to oppose the treaty’s signing in your name, or …?’

  Or is your First Knight of the Realm a man devoured by anger and the Dark, capable of provoking the High Kingdom’s ruin? he thought, unable to say the words aloud.

  The High King was once again staring off into space with a rocklike stillness.

  And then he lied:

  ‘Yes. I gave the order.’

  2

  There was a triumphal parade in Oriale.

  Given in honour of the heroes of Saarsgard, it passed along Erklant I Street, from the Langre Gate to the palace. The building façades were magnificently bedecked in the High Kingdom’s colours to mark the occasion. Beneath a blazing sun, the gold and azure shone out in garlands, pennants, banners and silk ribbons thrown out as the procession passed by. The people thronged below the houses, at the windows, on balconies, on rooftops and even in the trees.