Angel's Knight

by A. J. Grimmelhaus

  ‘I’ll try,’ Tol muttered, then he was springing up, fingers clawing at the crumbling sandstone as he tried to pull himself over the lip. He felt Kartane grab his foot and shove it upwards, and suddenly Tol had his elbows over the top, awkwardly pulling himself up after them.

  The roof was chaos. A light grey shape was dancing among the archers. The demon’s arms windmilled as it lurched between them, each blow sending men flying left and right. Several, Tol saw as he stood up, went over the edge and into the killing ground below. He moved forward, trying to pick his way between the panicked men. One or two were loosing arrows at the demon, but they did nothing except incense the beast further. Tol shouldered a man aside, and came face to face with the demon. Its hide was light grey, far lighter than the other demons he had faced. It was smaller too, but no less ugly. And no less dangerous, he reminded himself as the demon swatted another man from the roof.

  Tol drew Illis’Andiev, and saw fear register briefly in the demon’s pale red eyes. It drew its own weapon, an uneven black shard of metal, and hissed at Tol. ‘You die here, mortal.’

  The demon bounded forward, its heavy bulk moving faster than a dancer. Tol brought up his sword, but the force of the strike sent him staggering back a pace. The demon pressed its attack, its rough-hewn weapon lancing at Tol again and again.

  It’s afraid of me, Tol realised as the demon abandoned any pretence of toying with him as it had the archers. He defended again and again, trying to process what he now knew was true: the demon had seen the blade he carried and feared for its life. It gave Tol hope. If such monsters could truly know fear then he had a chance, however small. He allowed a smile to bloom as the demon came at him again, and he saw the uncertainty take hold of the creature. It faltered momentarily, and Tol took his chance. He struck at the demon with Illis’Andiev, arms moving faster and faster as he fell into the unfamiliar pattern which the sword whispered into his mind. He took a step forward, and the demon fell back. He began another pattern, eyes unable to follow the path of his own sword as it danced in front of him. Another step forward, and he caught the demon a glancing blow on its arm. A small trickle of ichor steamed forth as the demon howled and it gave Tol renewed strength. He was one with Illis’Andiev, the sword an extension of his arm as Tol’s feet shuffled and twisted over the coarse roof. Another blow, a shallow groove carved into grey stone, and the demon bellowed in rage and pain. It tried to break Tol’s assault, and he felt warmth spread across his side as he moved too slowly to dodge the barbed metal. The pattern changed, to accommodate the demon’s clumsy assault, and Tol shifted his feet again, Illis’Andiev bright in the burgeoning darkness, a candle of death seeking his foe. Tol changed the cadence, the sudden change in rhythm causing the demon to stumble as Tol brought Illis’Andiev down, the sword leaving a deep gash in the demon’s chest. The animal howl died as Tol brought the sword back and lunged forward again, the point piercing the demon’s heart. It stood there a moment, surprise etched on its stony face, then fell backwards from the sword, its body thumping onto the roof with a battering ram’s boisterous boom.

  Tol stood there, staring at the demon. He didn’t really believe it was dead, and felt sure it would get up any moment. He waited, but its chest neither rose nor fell. He blinked, suddenly aware of another noise, something he could hear just above the screams coming from the square below. People were cheering.

  He looked around at the surviving archers. They were staring at him with something approaching awe, and he couldn’t remember seeing anyone look so relieved. He glanced down at the demon. I’d be relieved too if someone killed one of those for me. He looked over the roof’s edge and sighed; the Gurdal had reached the edges of the square now and were cramming themselves into the open mouths of city streets.

  ‘The square’s fallen,’ he told the archers. ‘Move to your next positions.’ He grabbed one of the men as he went past. ‘There might be more demons,’ he said. ‘You or the others see one then shout and I’ll come.’

  The archer nodded. ‘I’ve never seen anyone move that fast.’

  Tol touched his side, fingers coming away with a thin layer of blood. ‘Not fast enough,’ he grimaced.

  *

  Victoria watched the docks but there was no sign of her sister. Around her, the crew were bustling like cowards fleeing a war zone. Which, she reflected, is exactly what they are doing. The anchor had been raised and the Sea Crow was slowly drifting away from the docks as the sounds of battle drifted out over the rooftops. Beside her, Kenzin Morrow silently watched, his brows knitted as though deep in thought.

  ‘We can’t leave her.’

  He kept his eyes on the docks. ‘Can’t wait. Stetch will see her safe.’

  ‘I’m surprised you waited this long,’ Victoria said. Morrow wasn’t what she had been expecting. He was rude and coarse, but there was also something about him that inspired trust and confidence. It just made her hate him more. ‘I half expected you to kill us in our sleep like the traitor you are.’

  ‘Keep talking like that,’ Morrow said equably, ‘and I’ll bend you over my knee and spank you in front of the men.’

  ‘You wouldn’t dare!’

  He glanced at her. ‘Try me.’

  Something about that look in his eyes made Victoria think he might well be true to his word. After all, what else did a man like Morrow have left to lose?

  She frowned. Her journey from High Mera had been full of strange occurrences, including her sister’s odd behaviour after being rescued by Kraven. Perhaps the most puzzling thing though was Kenzin Morrow. He had kept his word, something she had never expected. But more than that, he had humoured Katarina, putting his ship at risk to wait for the other survivors that she had insisted he help. It was puzzling, but the real mystery was why Kenzin Morrow had agreed to ferry them into a war zone in the first place.

  ‘My father would see you dead.’

  Morrow grunted.

  ‘The Sworn all want to kill you.’

  ‘Yes,’ he replied, answering no differently than if he’d been asked whether it would rain.

  ‘Stetch wants to kill you, too.’

  ‘Aye,’ he answered. ‘It’s a shame, that.’

  Kenzin Morrow might have left the Sworn, but he still retained their minimalistic approach to conversation. It was, Victoria found, frustrating. She sighed, and decided to try a more direct approach. ‘So why, when my family wants you dead so badly, did you come to the Spur? And why was my sister so pleased to see you?’

  Morrow was quiet a moment. Finally he said, ‘I did a bad thing.’

  ‘That’s why everyone wants you dead.’

  He shook his head, eyes still on the shoreline as the Sea Crow slowly drifted into deeper waters. ‘Not that,’ he said. He ran a finger through his dark beard. ‘She’s a hard girl to say no to, your sister.’

  ‘Did you deflower her?’ Victoria snapped. ‘Is that why she’s so besotted with you?’

  He slapped her hard with a gnarled open hand. When Victoria blinked the spots away she found Morrow staring at her, his face flushed with anger.

  ‘Never say that about your sister,’ he said in a low voice. ‘Your sister’s no slattern, and I’ll not tolerate you saying such things of your own flesh and blood.’

  Victoria rubbed her cheek, too stunned to scream at the monster. She also, for no good reason, felt guilty, like a child caught with stolen cakes. ‘I’m sorry,’ she mumbled, feeling six years old again.

  Morrow nodded absently, his eyes back on the coast. ‘What I did was worse,’ he said. ‘I taught your sister what it means to be Sworn. Nobody else dared, but once I started she soon convinced others to act as teachers.’ He finally met Victoria’s gaze, and his eyes looked big and sad like a lonely puppy’s. ‘I taught her everything except the vow,’ Morrow said. ‘Your sister is as much one of the Sworn as your brother.’

  Victoria shook her head. ‘It doesn’t work like that,’ she said. ‘You can’t just decide you’re one of the Sworn�
�� They don’t take women anyway.’

  ‘My brothers accepted her,’ Morrow said. ‘It’s the only judgement that really counts.’

  ‘Well, she still got kidnapped,’ Victoria said, crossing her arms. ‘The Sworn don’t get kidnapped.’

  Morrow shrugged. ‘Except sometimes they do. Being Sworn is about how you deal with that.’ He turned his haggard face to Victoria. ‘Look at your sister’s eyes and you’ll see she had already made the decision when she was rescued. If your friends hadn’t rescued her she would have killed herself or died escaping.’

  He rolled his shoulders as he walked away and left her. ‘She is Sworn.’

  30.

  Tol followed in the wake of the archers he had saved as they made their way across the rooftops, working their way deeper into the city. Dusk was all but done, yet it was a cloudless night and Ammerlac hung heavy in the sky, bathing the streets of Obsidian in an eerie amber glow.

  My father is dead.

  It still didn’t seem quite real. Tol had seen it happen, had been holding his father as his body gave one final convulsion then failed. Even so, it was like a stranger had died in his arms – a distant, remote thing, not touched by familiarity.

  The battle had passed them, Tol knew. The sounds of murder no longer came from the square behind and below him. Now the noise had swarmed to his left and right as the killing moved from the open ground to Obsidian’s numerous winding streets. Tol’s fight with the demon had seemed like an eternity ago, but he knew that no more than a few minutes could have passed since he had climbed up to the roof. They’re making good progress, he thought sourly as the archers began filing out over a wooden plank and across the street to another roof. The Gurdal had already crossed the open ground just within Obsidian’s walls, passed through the storm of arrows and the burning pools ignited by the archers, and still they kept coming. The city’s defenders, he knew, were falling back through the myriad streets which sprouted from the square like tiny veins. The plan, Tol seemed to remember, involved using the narrow streets to slow the Gurdal advance while archers rained arrows down on them from the rooftops. The city, his father and the knights agreed, would fall; the only question was how many Gurdal they could take as they retreated. With far fewer men than the Gurdal, the defenders had to make sure they took two or three men for every one they lost. And even that might not be enough.

  ‘Are you coming?’

  Tol’s head snapped up. Two of the archers were across the street, ready to take up the plank they had used to bridge the gap. Tol looked down, left and right, but this particular street was empty of men. The ground looked a long way off. Still, he thought, it’s less of a drop than falling off Icepeak. He stepped out, walking nimbly along the plank and onto the next roof. As soon as he was across, the two archers scooped up the plank and headed after their fellows, already running across to find vantage points for the streets around them.

  ‘Rather be up here than down there,’ one of the archers called to him.

  Tol nodded absently. The archers were the key to whittling down the Gurdal’s numbers, and from the rooftops they could send arrows down into the tightly-pressed ranks in relative safety. Unless, he thought, there’s more demons out there. Tol shivered, and a fresh burst of pain spread from his side as if in sympathy. He touched his side gingerly, gritting his teeth as the pain flared again. The wound was just above his hip. It hurt like a Pit hound’s bite but the flow of blood trickling out was already slowing down.

  He followed the archers as they skirted the edge of the roof. He risked a glance below and saw the street bursting with a writhing mass of Gurdal warriors. How much ground have we already lost? Tol thought. He looked over his shoulder; already the gates seemed a long way off.

  Tol followed the archers, his eyes picking out clumps of them on distant rooftops, ghostly shapes silhouetted in the moon’s pale light.

  ‘You’re better off up here with us,’ one of the archers yelled over his shoulder. ‘Nothing but chaos down there, and skill don’t count for nothing in a melee like that.’

  They reached the next roof, using the plank to cross again. They had passed the front line now, and Tol saw the archers spreading out, taking up positions that afforded a slim view of the street below – just enough to send arrows skirting over the heads of their own men and into the attacking Gurdal.

  Tol stood there helplessly for a moment, his eyes and ears alert to the din echoing off the city’s walls. Below, he could see the thin line of defenders – mostly Meracian soldiers, but with a handful of white Reve tabards shining like beacons – as they stood against the horde. I should be down there, he thought, that’s where I belong.

  ‘This’ll do,’ one of the archers shouted, and Tol felt the men move around him, readying their bows and drawing arrows from their quivers. He looked further out over the city and saw they had passed the other lines of archers, spread out in a loose line over the rooftops from east to west. The road below them was one of the city’s widest, a cavernous gulf between its walls that had allowed the Gurdal to surge forward in great numbers, the sheer weight of their bodies forcing back the Meracian defenders.

  What would my father do? Somehow – and Tol had no idea how it had come about – Krom Kraven had been placed in charge of the city’s defences. And now he’s dead. Tol could see shadows moving in the empty streets behind the line of defenders, roving patrols of knights and soldiers, but without direction the men didn’t know where they were needed. Right now, Tol saw, they were needed in that central avenue, a broad street that bisected the city and offered a straight route through to the north gate. And once the Gurdal get far enough along, they’ll be able to pour out through the alleys and attack the other lines from behind. It unfolded in Tol’s mind slowly, a picture of how the city would fall if the Gurdal took this key road: more and more would pour down the street, spreading out through alleys and passages like an insidious infection that would strike the defenders, encircle and eradicate them. Tol opened his eyes and took a deep breath, wondering what his father would do in this situation. An orchestra of bowstrings roused itself to life around him, and Tol realised he didn’t have the faintest idea what his father would do if he were alive. A stranger, glimpsed only in hard memories, the details softened by age. Would Krom Kraven stay on the rooftops, directing the flow of battle? Would he charge down and rally the men, or would he run like the traitorous coward the world believed him to be? The world may believe it, Tol told himself, but I know the truth: my father was a hero, like our ancestor before us. The world may believe the lie, but I know the truth. It made him feel a little better.

  He took a deep breath, still absent of any certainty, and wondered what the abbot would do in this situation. Probably tell me that death awaits below, and to avoid it if there’s any choice. The old man would – if he hadn’t died at Icepeak – probably have one of his typically unhelpful nuggets of wisdom to offer. Tol could imagine the old codger, grinning while ink-stained fingers caressed his weathered chin. ‘Yes’, he would say, drawing the word out slowly, ‘there’s an art to fighting in a city, and that art is to avoid doing anything so stupid ever. It will likely be the last stupid thing you ever do.’ He would probably smile, and say, ‘Luck is your greatest weapon if you ever find yourself in a battle in the middle of a city.’

  Tol shouted, trying to attract the attention of a patrol below, but his voice was drowned out by the twang of bowstrings and the screams of men swirling up over the city’s buildings.

  What would Kartane do? The thought came at no urging of Tol, simply popping into his head. Of all the role models to have, Kartane was almost certainly the worst – at least most people would consider him such. Tol, though, knew the fallen knight better than most. True, he was callous, vicious, and the altogether sneakiest bastard he had ever had the pleasure to meet, but… sometimes that was what you needed. Tol smiled, the answer to his own question charging into his mind like a horde of angels flying into battle.

  �
�See you later,’ he shouted at the archers, dropping over the edge and into the street below.

  *

  Tol dropped down to the street and immediately fell over as a wall of muscle and sinew ploughed into him.

  ‘Watch where you’re going, boy!’

  Tol pulled himself to his feet and found himself staring at three hard-looking men, all wearing the familiar white tabard he had longed to one day own: upon each man’s chest a winged sword hung in front of the amber moon where the angels dwelled. Tol smiled; he had never been so pleased to see a knight of the Reve.

  ‘I need you to find Isallien,’ he told the scowling knight who had upended him. ‘Tell him to get on the rooftops and direct our forces.’

  The knight scowled, dark eyebrows knotting in consternation. ‘The Reve don’t take orders from boys.’

  I don’t have time for this. The abbot would probably reason with the three knights, and Tol still had no idea what his father would have done in a similar situation. Which left him with what Kartane would do, and that, Tol knew, was the easiest question in the world.

  Tol drew, the edge of Illis’Andiev at the knight’s throat before he knew what was happening. ‘I don’t have time to argue,’ Tol said. ‘Find Isallien and tell him Krom Kraven is dead and he needs to direct the reserve forces from the roofs.’ Tol eyed the other two knights. Both had hands on swords, but as yet they hadn’t drawn. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea, he thought. Kartane’s way of doing things was fine up to a point, and that point seemed to be when you drew steel on your allies. ‘If you don’t do this,’ Tol explained, ‘we’ll lose the city even quicker than we are doing, you understand?’ The knight nodded carefully and Tol lowered his sword. ‘Tell Isallien that Tol sent you.’

  ‘You’re Tol Kraven?’ the knight asked, finger checking his neck.

  Tol nodded.

  ‘You should have just said that, lad. We’d have listened to the Demon Slayer.’ The knight looked him over. ‘You don’t look like I expected.’ It was a knight’s apology – not an actual apology, but about as close as a man might hope for from one of the Reve. He met Tol’s gaze without flinching. ‘Might want to say who you are next time instead of drawing on your brothers. The Reve take a dim view of that kind of behaviour.’