The ceremony began with a stoning. Baskets of rocks were distributed among the citizens by sweating slaves. Families scrambled to grab fistfuls of the sharpest and heaviest stones. A portcullis grated open and a group of prisoners were spurred into the arena by the spears of the militants. The competition began immediately, with the audience launching rocks energetically at the terrified targets. The prisoners wept and ran, shielding their heads with their arms as stones rained down from all sides of the pit.
Daimonia was aghast at the brutality. She watched the fervour of the crowd, finding it vulgar and repulsive. She witnessed their strained, almost sensual faces, their tongues extended, eyes hot with desire. Many were in states of undress, some even caressing themselves as the rocks shattered bones and smashed faces.
‘Crooks, anarchists and molesters of various kinds,’ Jhonan commented. ‘All fit for death.’
Daimonia was unsure of whom Jhonan was speaking. ‘I cannot watch,’ she croaked, hiding her face in her hands. Tender tears wet her fingers.
Jhonan tossed a glazed look at the crowd. ‘All life is violent,’ he remarked bluntly. ‘This is the closest some’ll get to smashing their own fears in the face.’
A great cheer rolled around the arena. Afraid to look, Daimonia squeezed her eyes tightly shut.
‘Cracked that one’s head like clay!’ Jhonan seemed impressed. The image was offered like a curse to Daimonia, who was forced to imagine it.
‘I cannot stay.’ Daimonia wept. She pushed against the human wall but was unable to breach the crowd.
‘Wait!’ Jhonan urged. ‘Niklos arrives!’
A sloping figure emerged from behind a portcullis to be met with a vociferous barrage of jeering and booing. He peered up at the yelling hundreds who had come to watch him die, a thin veneer of bravery on his face. The militants had mockingly dressed him in a tabard of the Knights Anarchist, a parody of the heraldry of a true knight. His armour had been removed, but he had been provided a broadsword and shield, his only allies in the trial ahead.
‘Nik!’ Daimonia cried, but her voice was lost in the cacophony.
Some who still had rocks threw them into the arena, though that stopped when Baron Leechfinger arose. The baron fixed his impassioned gaze upon the youth. ‘No betrayer is worse than those we have held to our bosom,’ he began, raising one fist to his chest. ‘Young Vornir was afforded every advantage, coming from a reputable family and having been granted the prestigious rank of Knight of the Accord. But just as cream will spoil, so a privileged youth may become corrupt.’
The crowd were listening like dogs to their master, allowing their hatred to be piqued so as to better enjoy the violence ahead. ‘Vornir murdered remorselessly,’ the baron continued, feeding their appetite for slander. ‘He stole children from the care of the Seidhr. He corrupted other knights, some of whom have already met a tragic end in this very place.’ The baron’s voice became thick with emotion, as if he genuinely believed his own contrivance. ‘But perhaps it is we who have failed young Vornir? Not done enough to lead him on the right path? Not loved enough? Not given enough?’
The mob became much agitated by this line of reasoning and cried out in wrath. They demanded Niklos’ execution and not just his death, but his mutilation and crucifixion.
‘I implore you now,’ the baron addressed Niklos. ‘Beg for the forgiveness of these good people and you will meet a clean death. Your body will be burned in honour of the Goddess and your family exonerated of any complicity.’
‘I regret nothing!’ Despite his defiance, Niklos sounded timid and wavering in the amphitheatre. ‘The Accord is a lie!’ He said the words, but his voice dwindled almost to silence. Nevertheless the young man summoned enough phlegm to spit upon the sand.
‘Entreat our mercy,’ the baron coaxed, as if to a stubborn child. ‘If not for yourself, then for the sake of your family.’
Niklos’ eyes found his sister. ‘I will prove my innocence in combat!’ he shouted. This time his voice rang clear and brave, but his legs were trembling visibly.
‘So be it.’ The baron made a show of surrendering to Niklos’ wishes, washing his hands in an ornamental bowl. ‘I call upon Prettanike to administer sentence.’ He plucked a pear from a servant’s dish and regained his seat, biting hungrily. Juice and drool washed down his chin.
From the pit’s under-chambers came the grind of a winch turning. A second portcullis cranked open and a sepulchral stench exuded from the depths.
Knight Executioner Prettanike strode into the pit, the bones of dead warriors crunching beneath her calloused feet. She was tall and athletic with thick thighs and muscular calves. Armoured scales glistened along her left arm, leading to a shield-like pauldron that curved to guard her neck. Her leather gauntlets clenched a long partisan headed by a trinity of blades. Her head was protected by an elaborate helmet, from which her red hair plumed like a continuous spout of blood. Only her lips were visible beneath the ornate headpiece, pressed firm in resolution.
‘They humiliate Nik by making him fight a woman,’ Jhonan moaned resentfully.
‘Look at her.’ Daimonia shivered. ‘As fierce as Cere-Thalatte!’
Prettanike’s swaggering advance cast a shadow over the rock-ruined corpses that lay strewn around the sand. The crowd began to clap in time with her steps, as did the Afreyan musicians beating their oversized drums.
Niklos looked to the crowd and then to the gate. He began to step backwards, retreating while keeping his eyes locked to the Executioner’s movement. She was approaching with a slow surety, inevitable as death. He fell back behind his shield, poised to thrust at his towering foe.
Prettanike charged, horse-like, across the sand. Muscles propelled her momentum. Drums crashed.
Niklos leaned into the shield, consolidating his body into a compact hammer of rage. The combatants collided, skin meeting skin, flesh rippling with the impact. A fist found Niklos’ face, a knee his gut. He swung with his shield, but the gladiator was already a step away, her foot raised to stamp on his chest.
Ribs fractured. Niklos stumbled over a fresh corpse and in the confusion barely glimpsed the blade spearing towards his head. His face was lacerated, making a bloody mouth of his cheek.
Daimonia touched her own face in sympathy, her lips quivering with fright. ‘Please live,’ she implored. ‘Fight and live!’
Niklos rolled and leaped away, jogging to the edge of the arena. He wiped his bleeding face with the back of his hand, blinking through the pain.
Prettanike held her ground, allowing the crowd time to mock Niklos’ hasty retreat. She steered her long weapon towards the boy, as if keeping a lethargic animal at bay.
Niklos appeared to be thinking desperately, caught between retreat and battle. All the names of the Goddess rolled off his tongue imploringly.
‘Come on!’ Prettanike taunted. She stretched out her arms, seeming to invite attack.
Niklos rushed in with a sequence of thrusts and slashes that seemed rehearsed and unnatural. Prettanike turned his blade aside and thwacked his backside with the rear of her weapon. The crowd cheered.
Niklos fell back, his chest rising with heavy breaths while Prettanike resumed her slow advance.
Niklos was visibly tiring, his movements becoming slower and more burdensome. His sword dragged in the sand. His bloodstained mouth hung open, drawing huge breaths.
‘Fight!’ Jhonan bellowed, his cheeks flaming red. ‘Go on, boy, fight!’ The old man was striking at the air, as if it were his battle.
Desperation filled Niklos’ eyes. Throwing all caution aside, he charged with an energetic overhead swipe. Prettanike raised her partisan, blocking the blow, and then struck with the triple-bladed end. The cut was not deep but severed the belt of Niklos’ trousers and they began to sag awkwardly, slipping down his thighs. Enormous laughter erupted from the crowd as Niklos was forced to defend himself with one hand hoisting his trousers up. A Visoth horn-blower produced a mocking noise like passing wind. Men held their
bellies and women threw back their hair as they taunted the inadequate fighter.
Daimonia’s heart stung as she saw the despair on Niklos’ face. This was to be his death and there was no nobility in it, only pain, humiliation and infamy. A lifetime of vulnerability was rushing up on her brother, culminating in one moment of absolute defeat.
Prettanike thrust her whole body into the strike. She drove the partisan deep into Niklos’ stomach. A glimmer of satisfaction played on the Knight Executioner’s lips as she twisted the weapon and wrenched it free of the dying youth, releasing a gush of blood and flapping entrails. Her blades now bore a bloody flag ripped from rent tabard.
The world inside Daimonia ended. Memories putrefied, decaying her will to live. With her last strength she drew herself up onto the wall and toppled into the pit. She surrendered to the bitter sun as she fell into the arena, ready to die alongside Niklos.
Scrambling amid the debris, she crawled towards her brother. Skeletal ribs loomed like ivory pillars as she struggled among them, clawing determinedly towards the ruined shape.
Niklos was still alive when she reached him. He smiled hopefully, as if he might steal her away to the stars. ‘See, Dai?’ He caressed her face with a bloodied hand. ‘It all comes to nothing in the end.’ He faded, his last breath dissipating into the wind.
An inferno blew through Daimonia’s flesh. Her trembling hands reached for Niklos’ sword as if compelled. Her fingers tightened with a force she had never mustered and she gripped it as might an assassin. A dark potency filled her and she practised some quick thrusts, exhaling hard with each stab. Have I strength enough to pierce flesh and kill?
The crowd had fallen to a hush. Prettanike’s lips were drawn into a thin contemptuous smile.
Daimonia felt time slow as she rushed at the Executioner. Her feet kicked up sand as they ploughed into the ground, launching her forwards. She was unleashed, every muscle singing as she forced herself at Prettanike, a stab aimed at her enemy’s throat.
The blade touched the Executioner’s neck, steel kissing flesh for a moment. Prettanike’s leg shot out, her powerful kick destroying Daimonia with a snap.
Daimonia teetered with pain as an ache erupted from the depths of her stomach and branched up through her chest. Her fingertips were numb and her mouth full of sick. Disorientated, she fell to bite the filthy sand.
A single droplet of blood eased from the graze at Prettanike’s throat. It rolled gleaming down her tanned skin, an affront to the gladiator’s prowess.
May one drop of blood become a river, Daimonia prayed. She rolled onto her back, staring at the sea of faces above.
The crowd were screaming with laughter. Men threw themselves into the pit to raise Prettanike on their shoulders or else rejoice as if the victory had been their own. They raised triumphant fists to the sun.
The Bloody Crossroads
In a tavern at Littlecrook, a wobbly yeoman gave his distinct rendition of events. ‘I saw it clear as the nose on my face. A girl jumped into the Meat Pit, killed all the Knight Executioners and then chopped off the baron’s cock!’
‘Clearly you weren’t even there,’ a balding knight contradicted the first account. ‘I saw the whole thing and the girl clearly jumped down shouting, “For the women!” She was then immediately martyred.’
‘Maybe it was the Goddess,’ the bartender offered with a gulp. ‘The girl was slaughtered by Prettanike, but her body mysteriously disappeared.’
‘Either way it was the worst fight I ever saw,’ a squinting elder complained. ‘So one-sided! Just once I’d like to see someone take on insurmountable odds and, not just win, but literally swim in the blood of their enemies!’
‘They chopped that boy up after Prettanike was done with him,’ the bartender continued. ‘Hung him up with the other traitors at the crossroads.’
‘I’d have done exactly the same thing.’ The bald knight slapped the table. ‘I hear he was fiddling with kiddies!’ He recoiled at the thought, as if someone had waved dung in his face. ‘Leave him for the maggots! That’s what I say!’
As the debate declined into chatter, a pair of shadows arose from the corner and quietly departed.
Daimonia’s eyes were wide with trepidation as she stared into the shameless night. She was braced to see the truth, no matter how terrible it might be. Fleeing in the rickety horse-drawn cart, the girl hugged her aching body, watching locks of windy hair play around her face.
The horse’s reins were guided by Jhonan’s trembling hands. The old man’s face was limp and corpselike, but his eyes burned when the crossroads came into sight.
The Leechfinger crossroads was a grotesque forest of crow-pecked bodies. Six men hung crudely nailed to tree and post, stripped and brutally mutilated. Each haggard face was twisted in fear and anger, an exhibition of rotted teeth, bulging eyes and blood-thick beards. Their last thoughts had been swarming with palpable hate.
A glorious tapestry of stars gleamed upon this arrangement of death, illuminating the faces with such sharp shadow and light that they seemed noble as statues. One oddly tranquil face could be found amongst the dead. The serene expression belonged to Niklos. The starlight enshrined his body, revealing stumps where his legs had been.
At the sight of her dismembered brother, Daimonia felt her heart die. Is there a stronger version of me who can survive this moment?
Two mounted road-watchmen approached. They were dressed in weather-beaten greatcoats, with long-necked spurs on their boots. One watchman wore a thick leather face guard revealing nothing but predatory eyes glaring into the night. The other was ghastly thin and suffered from horribly ulcerated cheeks and self-inflicted facial scratches. Both men had the hungry stare of opportunists.
Daimonia brimmed with hate at the sight of these agents of the baron. She made the sign of Cere-Thalatte to protect herself from their greed. If the riders were offended by the insulting gesture, they hid it well behind their insatiable stares.
Jhonan gave the barest nod to the night-watchmen as he stopped the cart by the hanging bodies.
‘Wotcha doing, you dirty old pig?’ the masked watchman demanded. ‘Thieving trinkets from the dead?’
Jhonan wearily raised his empty hands to show he meant no provocation. The old man’s palms were as scarred as war-worn axe-heads. ‘I claim the body of my grandson Niklos. We are taking him home for the adjurator to perform the last rites.’ Jhonan dismounted and stood ready by the corpse.
In the cart Daimonia touched her pallid face with her hands. She searched the watchmen’s expressions for something other than cruelty but found them lacking. A sound of despair escaped from her lips.
‘Each of ’em was a dirty traitor,’ the masked watchman gloated. ‘The dead stay where they are, as a warning to others.’
‘He’s paid for his crime,’ Jhonan reasoned. ‘Surely no further payment can be taken than his life? He needs to come home for the proper rites.’
‘Oh, we’ll all be paying more before long,’ the ulcerated watchman commiserated while picking absently at his face. ‘Mate of mine from Kraljevic reckons the prince needs more silver for the endless bloody war. You know what that means? More bleedin’ taxes. But as for the dead lad, how about we turn a blind eye to him vanishing and you leave us your horse?’
‘Plainly I can’t part with the horse.’ Jhonan looked exasperated at the negotiation. ‘You watchmen ought to show some mercy. Your guild is hated enough by anyone who must use these roads. Why add cruelty to shameless greed?’
‘Strikes me your girl could sweeten the deal,’ the watchman suggested, completely unabashed by the chastisement. His fidgety picking finger had moved to his blistered ear and was thrusting inside searchingly.
‘I’m unimpressed by your threats,’ Jhonan replied steadily. ‘I’m taking my grandson home and you’d best let me get to it.’
‘Not happening,’ the masked watchman decided. ‘The body stays right where it’s put.’
The old man broke up then. Tear
s singed his eyes and he buried his face into his forearm. The riders glanced at each other, taken aback by the sudden show of emotion.
An arrow struck into the head of the masked watchman. The penetration was no deeper than the arrowhead and instead of dying the watchman pawed stupidly at his face and fell sideways out of his saddle.
Daimonia drew another arrow from her quiver and aimed at the second rider. The meandering wind, now cold and decisive, billowed around her hair and cloak approvingly.
The split second of silence that followed became a deafening roar. A lion unleashed, Jhonan leapt for the panicking scab-faced watchman, who was petrified by his own excitement.
They hit the floor rolling and struggling, both men attempting to wrest fatal advantage over the other. As the gap in their prowess became quickly evident, the air was filled with Jhonan’s derisive laughter. Mocking the watchman’s desperation, he wrenched a hammer-headed pick from his leather belt. The old man rose above his inferior opponent and waited a full moment before delivering two heavy blows that shattered the scabby face.
The other watchman was not yet dead. Jhonan cut that one’s throat with the brutal efficiency of a butcher. As the watchman gargled and spat, Daimonia was both appalled and fascinated by the violence she had instigated.
Jhonan wiped his bloody hands on his cloak and spat upon the ground. He guided one of the watchmen’s horses back to his own cart and tethered it. The other rider’s horse had bolted terrified into the night. Jhonan then relieved both dead watchmen of their coin. Each action led to the next, as natural as pissing.
When Jhonan’s attention returned to his grandson’s body, he finally gave pause. His brow furrowed and he bit at his crusted lip. Looking back at his granddaughter in the cart, he scowled to see her trembling uselessly.
The Way Knight: A Tale of Revenge and Revolution Page 4
