Angel's Knight

by A. J. Grimmelhaus

  ‘Whose?’

  The angel shrugged. ‘Either.’

  ‘You should not have changed him.’

  Kalashadria raised an eyebrow. ‘The alternative was to let my friend die. Would you rather I had?’

  Tol saw Katarina dip her head out of the corner of his eye. ‘He didn’t tell me that,’ she muttered.

  Kalashadria reached forward, her long ivory fingers tilting his lover’s head upwards so their eyes met. ‘There is much he didn’t tell you,’ the angel said, and Tol felt a renewed surge of panic. She’s going to tell her.

  ‘I have seen Tol’s life, relieved his memories. I, who have known centuries of war and witnessed the destruction of my homeworld, consider his life a hard struggle.’ Kalashadria’s gaze flicked over him and she released Katarina’s chin. ‘Trust is difficult for those such as us who have struggled alone. For now you must content yourself with the knowledge that you have earned some measure of what little trust Tol still retains. In time, that will change.’

  Katarina’s voice was flat and hard. ‘After tomorrow you will leave us be.’

  Kalashadria folded her arms, a wry grin creasing her pale face. ‘We are not rivals for his affections, child.’

  ‘Of course not,’ Katarina said, ‘because he’s mine.’

  The angel smiled. ‘You are nearly as stubborn as him.’

  Tol sighed. Just when I thought they might get on with each other.

  ‘And equally foolish,’ Kalashadria added, sending a fresh wave of worry through Tol. ‘I can sense his emotions, child. Every time he looks at you I feel it through our bond. He loves you.’

  ‘I know that,’ Katarina said. She cleared her throat. ‘But it does no harm to hear it.’

  Tol put a hand gently on her shoulder. ‘Can you give us a few minutes?’ He held his breath and waited for the storm.

  Katarina and Kalashadria stared at each other for a good many heartbeats. Finally, Katarina broke away. ‘Do not be long.’ She turned and walked towards Stetch, the pair of them retreating down the alley. Tol watched them go.

  ‘She loves you.’

  Tol nodded his head, watching the dim outlines of Katarina and Stetch, standing. Waiting.

  ‘It will not be easy for her.’

  Tol turned back to face Kalashadria. ‘I can’t tell her about us.’ He shifted his weight. ‘About what happened.’

  ‘She already knows.’

  ‘No!’

  Kalashadria sighed. ‘She suspects, at least. Perhaps the truth would be kinder?’

  Tol shook his head vigorously. ‘No.’

  ‘It is your decision,’ the angel conceded. Which, Tol thought, is not the same as saying I’m right.

  ‘We don’t have long,’ he said, anxious to change the subject. ‘I reckon they’ll come at dawn.’ She nodded. ‘And they’ll bring as many demons as they can.’

  ‘I agree,’ Kalashadria said. ‘You have a plan?’

  ‘Yes.’ He explained it quickly.

  ‘And that is your best plan?’

  Tol pulled a face. ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Very well.’

  Tol shifted his weight from one leg to the other. Then back again. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. He sighed. ‘Fighting those things is terrifying. Each time I think it will be my last.’

  Kalashadria laid a hand on his shoulder. ‘You have done more than could be expected of any human, Tol. There is no shame, no dishonour in choosing happiness over war.’

  ‘If you really need me,’ he said quietly, ‘if there’s no one else and things get really bad…’ He sighed. ‘I’ll miss you.’

  Kalashadria stepped back. ‘And I you, friend.’ She took another small step away from him. ‘Until dawn, my friend.’

  Tol took a step forward and wrapped his arms around her. ‘I don’t regret anything,’ he whispered.

  45.

  This is it.

  The noise had been building since the first rays of dawn had lanced over Galantrium’s rickety skyline. The wall had fallen, sheer numbers forcing the defenders back. Tol couldn’t see them yet, but he could hear them well enough. I just want it to be over. He stood in the centre of Galantrium’s main square, the Governor’s Hall at his back, and the fierce rays of the morning sun bathing the left side of his face. The main route to the gate joined the square a hundred yards in front of him, a street wide enough for an army to march twenty men abreast, and still with space to swing a sword. The clot of soldiers standing against the Gurdal tide had been slowly retreating for a quarter-bell, maybe longer, slowly edging their way back to the square.

  Tol shifted his feet. It was strange, observing the battle and not being involved. He wanted to rush to the men’s aid, but instead he held his position, watching and listening as the Meracian soldiers retreated back through the city.

  This is where I need to be, he told himself. It didn’t ease his discomfort though, nor his guilt. I should be there.

  The defensive line was almost at the square now, and a sea of sun-burnished faces howled behind them, a thick river of them that ran all the way back to the gates. Probably further.

  Maybe I was wrong, Tol thought. Maybe we’ll be waiting here and the city will fall around us. All because I gambled and chose wrong.

  The noise was growing by the moment, no longer a droning, distant murmur. He could hear the individual screams now. Others could, too, and Tol felt the line of men behind him shift uneasily. He stood alone in the square’s centre. Reserves thronged the numerous side streets leading east, west and north, but Tol stood alone. He glanced over his shoulder and tried to offer a reassuring smile. Twenty feet behind him his friends waited, their faces grim and humourless. The remnants of the Seven were there at the front, though Kartane had somehow insinuated himself in their midst. To their left and right the Knights Reve were gathered behind them, a line of defenders silent and ready. In among them, his allies stood here and there with no semblance of order, like raindrops on unspoiled sand. Katarina and Stetch were there, the men of the Sworn spread out among the knights. And, stuck close to the Seven – almost trying to force their way between them - the three women of the Sisterguard stood, scowling over the knights’ shoulders as if believing they had earned the right to stand in the front of the row. Perhaps they have, Tol thought. The Seven though, well, they saw things a little differently, their thinking much more…inflexible.

  Tol sighed, the sound lost amid the battle’s growing clamour. We stand or fall together. Victory or death. He was hoping for the former. He’d made Stetch promise that if he fell Stetch would take Katarina away so she didn’t share the same fate. It wasn’t much, but it was something. Better not to lose, he told himself. Thousands of men were depending on him, and thousands more were blissfully unaware of the ramifications if the Gurdal took Galantrium and surged north into Meracia. The end of all things, he reflected sourly, that’s what defeat will bring. It might not be fast, maybe not even in a human lifetime, but once the Spur was lost Meracia would soon follow, and the fate of the other free countries would be sealed. We have to win.

  The defensive line fell back into the square, spreading out into a ring to contain the Gurdal. It won’t be enough, Tol thought as reinforcements joined from the east and west. The line will break unless we first break the Gurdal’s spirit.

  He drew Illis’Andiev, fingers tingling as the sword’s awareness latched onto him, an alien presence gently caressing his mind. If I was wrong it will all be for nothing.

  Tol stiffened as he felt a wave of anxiety through his bond with Kalashadria: fear, anxiety, and relief all in one.

  ‘Stand ready,’ he yelled over his shoulder.

  He saw them: bulbous, ugly shapes struggling to stay aloft as they flew over the heads of the attacking army. Tol heard a distant cheer roar beyond the gates, the noise rolling towards him in a wave as the demons flew over the heads of the Gurdal army.

  I was right. He let out a breath he hadn’t realised he had been holding.

  There were
two of them: squat, heavy shapes with straining wings flying along the path of the arrow-straight road. They were coming, as he had thought, to pass over the army and attack from behind, to kill and maim and spread fear through the ranks of the defenders. If they weren’t stopped, the army would break and Galantrium would fall to the Gurdal and their demon masters.

  Tol inhaled. This is it.

  He forced himself to take a step forward. His throat was dry and his legs felt wooden as the black shapes grew larger and larger in his vision. The pair had seen him now, but he couldn’t be sure they’d divert themselves from their task. I’m going to regret this, he thought. If I live long enough.

  The demons were crossing the defensive line now, just flying into the square. Tol took another step forward.

  ‘Come on, you ugly bastards,’ he yelled.

  Where is she? He could sense the angel, but she hadn’t moved from her position even though she had to know the demons had arrived, had to have seen them in the sky.

  One of them screeched something in a guttural language Tol didn’t recognise, the noise cutting across over the sounds of battle and setting his teeth on edge. The two demons passed over the weakened line of Meracian soldiers, their wings beating as they flew low into the square. Tol could make out their red eyes, filled with hatred and fixed on a single point. Him.

  It worked.

  He almost wished it hadn’t as the demons altered their path towards him. He sensed Kalashadria move, felt the brief surge of happiness as she hurled herself into the air and took flight. He sensed her rise, sensed her movement as she rose higher into the sky. He sensed the distance between them change.

  Tol’s throat went dry. The angel wasn’t flying towards him. Just me and those two, he thought.

  Alone again.

  ‘For Galandor,’ Tol screamed as the black shapes dropped to the sand and sprang towards him.

  *

  Kalashadria squatted on the edge of the church tower, her eyes scanning the city’s southern skyline. Although this desolate little collection of buildings is hardly a city by Anghl’teri standards. It was more, well, Kalashadria didn’t know what to call it; none of her kin would ever build a settlement of such poor standards. She sighed, and flicked the thought aside. Nerves, she told herself.

  She watched from the church spire as tiny figures swarmed through the broken gates far ahead. Their little voices joined together in a choir of anger and fear and Kalashadria couldn’t shut the noise out as she watched the sky for a different kind of danger.

  They are so many, she thought. Her own people had never been numerous, but millennia of war had thinned their population to the barest amount that might possibly survive and reproduce. The humans, though, spread like an infestation with their short-lived spans and almost unnatural proclivity for procreation. The army Kalashadria had seen the night before was many times the size of her entire race, and even this forlorn little city boasted greater numbers than the surviving Anghl’teri. Today, she realised, more people will die than the sum of the Anghl’teri population. More than us and the Demhoun-el’teri combined. Many more.

  She sighed, her eyes flitting across the horizon. And if they are not stopped here and now, many thousands more will follow.

  There were so many of the little creatures, primitive beings that she had thought were little more than animals until Tol Kraven had forced his way through her defences, shattered her illusions. And broken his way into her heart.

  From her vantage point, Kalashadria could see the southern part of the square, the northern side occluded by the Governor’s Hall. Tol was just a small dot in the distance, but many more stood behind him, a gulf of space between them. I wonder how many of the humans here today truly know what it is they fight for? Among the defenders, only Tol and a few of his allies knew the truth – and most, she knew, only some portion of the truth. But there was a whole army trying to force its way through the city’s broken gates, an army in servitude to her mortal enemies. How much do they know? According to the human knight who had fought in the last battle here, Galandor had claimed the invaders worshipped the Demhoun-el’teri as gods, but Kalashadria wasn’t sure. Did Gal truly know? Or was that a lie of his own? He might have lied, she realised, to turn the humans to his own will and force a resistance to these Gurdal and their vengeful masters. To save our people, Gal would not hesitate to lie. Kalashadria knew it was true: before meeting Tol Kraven she would have done no different. And perhaps I still would, if it was necessary, if there was no alternative.

  She fought to resist a wry smile. I have already lied, Kalashadria remembered, though not for such noble reasons. It had hurt him, when she had revealed the truth. Tol Kraven had nearly died rescuing her, and from the very enemies she and Alimarcus had already known were present in Meracia. At the worldholme’s insistence she had kept that knowledge from her knight. In a moment of weakness she had told him the truth, surprised at how her deception had wounded him. And more surprised by how she felt. He still hasn’t forgiven me. She could sense it through their bond, a simmering sadness below his surface emotions. Perhaps that was why he had chosen a mate. It’s foolish, Kalashadria told herself. We can never be together. Yet the knowledge didn’t lessen the hurt that he had chosen another over her. And after today I will not see him again. I will return to the worldholme, and spend the years repairing the damage alone, with no company save for Alimarcus. It would have been better to have never befriended Tol Kraven. Because if you have never made and lost a friend, you didn’t know what you were missing.

  Today all things change. She had felt different after her rescue, slowly realising that physical changes were taking place as her body began to feel like that of a stranger. Whether as a result of her imprisonment and torture or her coupling with Tol, Kalashadria didn’t know. The truth, though, had dawned slowly: I am no longer ni-feln, no longer without caste. She felt stronger, faster, her body adapting to the final stage of Anghl’teri development.

  She looked up, and saw them scudding across the sky. Kalashadria’s stomach churned as she counted them. So many. Two of them were arrowing towards Tol and the square, but Kalashadria saw more of them, a thin line of them flying north over the battling humans. Two were flapping over the rooftops to the west of the square, a hundred yards between them. As she watched, the pair adjusted course for the square where her knight and his allies stood, the sheer number of men enough to whet their appetite for mayhem.

  Two more of the demhoun-el’teri were flying over the eastern side of the city, and a third followed the western coast with the ships slowly drifting out of port the likely target.

  Seven. Kalashadria’s skin went cold. Seven of them. The first two were dropping into the square, heading straight towards Tol. The pair to the east were heading his way, too. His plan worked. The remaining three maintained their course, ready to drop into the midst of the humans and create bloody mayhem.

  Kalashadria took one last look at the square, indecision scouring her heart. Hold on, she willed him. She threw herself from the church spire, wings snapping out.

  Kalashadria climbed, her wings beating to a furious rhythm. She had one last moment of doubt, but she knew what she had to do. She banked to her right, and flew west towards the docks.

  I am sorry, Tol. This is what must be.

  46.

  Tol gripped Illis’Andiev tightly, his throat dry. He felt Kalashadria change course, his connection to her dimming as she grew further away. We have been betrayed, he thought. Abandoned by the very angels all this is in aid of. He felt sick, the demons almost upon him. No, he thought, she wouldn’t abandon me.

  Tol raised his sword. ‘For Galandor!’

  He forced himself forward to meet the charging demons. Two monstrous black shapes with bared fangs and crimson eyes. They’re moving too fast, he realised as they closed to within a dozen yards. Tol waited till the last moment, waited until the demon’s leg hit the sand, muscles bunching as it prepared to leap forward. He feinted right
, then threw himself forwards and left, keeping his right arm extended and away from his body. He bounced up to his feet as the demons skidded by, Illis’Andiev wrenched from Tol’s hands under some god-like impact. The force spun him round back towards his allies but his own momentum sent Tol stumbling away from them. He caught a glimpse as he fell of one demon crashing to the tightly packed sand, the other slewing to a halt.

  It worked.

  Tol hit the sand with a solid thump, kicking his legs over his shoulders and rolling backwards as Father Michael had taught him. Never stay still on a battlefield, the abbot had told him. That’s what the dead do, the living ought to know better. He came to his feet, eyes searching out Illis’Andiev.

  There. The sword lay buried in the demon, its edge having sawed most of the way through its torso. The other demon stood a few feet away, the creature’s gaze fixed on its dead compatriot. The only way to retrieve his sword was to get close to the demon. Really close.

  It looked up at him, its face a vindictive sneer. Tol took a step back. He could practically hear the old abbot’s voice echoing through his skull. Lose your sword in a fight, Father Michael had said many times, and you’re as good as dead. Unless you’ve got another. Or are fast as an angel with a long knife.

  I don’t think that will help this time. The demon took another step towards him. It shouted something guttural in its own language, nearly loud enough to deafen Tol. He took another step back, noticing motion behind the remaining demon as a knight sneaked up behind it. What’s he going to do, kick it in the plums? That’s not going to do anything except annoy it, he thought.

  Another pace backwards, and the demon matched it. An arrow sailed down from a rooftop overlooking the eastern side of the square. It bounced off the demon’s thick skull and didn’t seem to do anything except annoy the demon further.

  ‘Kraven,’ the demon hissed. ‘This will be fun.’

  Not for me. Tol took another step, just catching view of the knight reaching the demon’s fallen comrade. He heard a wet, sucking sound that also drew the remaining demon’s attention. It turned to find Kartane grinning like a madman.