[Knights of Bretonnia 02.1] - Rest Eternal

by Anthony Reynolds - (ebook by Undead)

  Like a sponge, the porous, dry bones were sucking up the blood, and they were now a deep, bruised red. Sinew and muscle started forming across the skeleton. Ligaments and tendons pulled the bones together tightly, and internal organs formed within the beast’s abdomen. A massive heart grew within its chest cavity, and a spider web of veins and arteries spread across the rapidly regenerating musculature. That heart began to beat, then it was obscured as more muscle and flesh built up over it.

  Still not yet fully formed, the wyvern rose from the ground, its red-raw body coiling sinuously, as yet unfleshed wings flexing.

  The beast’s massive jaws opened in a silent challenge, its vocal chords not yet formed, and hateful eyes grew within their sockets. The wyvern clawed up the earth as it shuddered and writhed, as if in pain or ecstasy, and finally its green-grey skin began to spread across its flesh.

  It all happened within the space of ten heartbeats, and by the time Calard and Orderic closed on it, it was fully regenerated. The beast was already wading into the bubbling pool, and the two knights broke into a run towards it.

  “It cannot be allowed to pass through!” shouted Orderic, leaping into the pool. He landed knee-deep in blood, and began splashing towards the wyvern. Calard was only a step behind him. The beast swung its massive head around towards them as it registered their presence, and it let out a deafening screech.

  Five minutes later, the beast was dead, and Calard and Orderic collapsed on the bank, exhausted and bloodied. The two knights had fought well together. As quickly as it had arrived, the blood shower had passed, the clouds streaking across the sky to disappear over the burning horizon.

  Once again, the beast was nothing but bones, dry and brittle; its flesh had turned to dust as Calard had struck the fatal blow, his sword penetrating the wyvern’s heart. In the blink of an eye, the bones were back where Calard had first seen them. Indeed, the only evidence to show that he had not imagined the entire episode were the injuries that he and Orderic had sustained, and the blood on his blade, which the oppressive heat had already dried to flaking rust.

  “There must be a way to end this cycle,” said Calard, wiping his blade clean. “Some way to put the beast to rest once and for all.”

  Orderic merely shrugged.

  What if there was no way to end the cycle? Was this to be his fate, then, to be stuck here in this nightmarish plane, fighting the beast every time it rose? He thought of the horror and slaughter that would result if the beast passed through the blood-pool, unleashing its fury upon the Old World. Could he in all sincerity turn away, and do nothing?

  No, he realised. He could not. If this was what the Lady willed of him, then he would take up Orderic’s vigil. Perhaps it was penance for the tainted blood he suspected ran in his veins. Or perhaps it was as Orderic had suggested—punishment for taking up the quest for selfish reasons.

  “Faith in yourself,” Calard muttered. He sighed and shook his head, his shoulders slumping.

  You will be with us soon, whispered a voice.

  Perhaps this was where he belonged.

  Time had no meaning in this hell, and Calard could no longer gauge how long he and Chlod had been trapped there. The peasant had become completely non-communicative, merely rocking back and forth and muttering to himself.

  At first, Orderic spoke with Calard about all manner of things, mundane and otherwise. Orderic talked of his homeland, Montforte, and of the things that he missed; the mountain air, the springtime, the endless blue sky.

  “And bluebells,” he said with a shadow of a smile on his face. “I miss bluebells.”

  Nevertheless, Orderic had slowly become quieter until he had slipped into a protracted silence, staring into nothingness. His eyes had become vacant and dead, and Calard had given up trying to speak with him. Was that what he would be like, given time? Was he to merely wait here until another came to take up his vigil?

  He tried to sleep, but whenever he closed his eyes he saw the skinless daemons surrounding him. Waiting.

  Calard took to patrolling the area but there was nothing to see from horizon to horizon, save the blood-pool and the cairn. While he walked, his mind whirled with jumbled thoughts. Was Orderic right? Was he questing for the wrong, selfish reasons? Had he blinded himself with falsehoods, trying to be what he was not?

  A thought occurred to him. If Orderic killed the beast each time it arose, then why had he faced it in the Grey Mountains? He wanted to question Orderic, but the knight was completely unresponsive.

  The fires of Chaos rolled across the heavens, and the red earth was scorching hot beneath his boots. Sometimes he thought he saw winged black things circling overhead, and at others voices whispered in his ears, telling him things he did not want to hear.

  You are already dead, they hissed. You just don’t know it.

  Calard probed the blood-pool, trying to find a way back to reality, but it was no use. He was becoming resigned to the idea of staying here in this hateful realm of Chaos, though the thought of doing so filled him with horror. Yet if it were the Lady’s will, what right had he to argue?

  It was while testing the depths of the blood-pool that he found the body.

  Sweating and breathing hard, his lungs burning, Calard heaved it onto the bank.

  “What are you doing?” asked Orderic, his voice full of horror, making Calard jerk in shock; he had not heard the knight’s approach. Orderic was staring down at him, panic written on his face.

  “I found…” started Calard, but his voice trailed off as he stared down at the skeletal remains that he had dredged up from the bottom of the pool.

  It was the skeleton of a human, wearing antiquated plate armour. The armour looked familiar…

  “Lady wept,” said Calard, looking between Orderic and the corpse. “You’re dead.”

  Orderic was shaking his head in denial, his face a mask of confusion and fear.

  “No, no, no,” he was saying, backing away, his expression gaunt.

  “The wyvern defeated you,” said Calard, kneeling over the skeleton. He touched the thick hole in its breastplate, a hole larger than his fist. “Its sting punched through your chest. It must have killed you almost instantly.”

  Orderic touched his own chest, where now there was a gaping hole, and his hand came away bloody.

  “It is this place,” said Calard. “It’s brought you back, just like it does the wyvern.”

  “I am not dead!” shouted Orderic, clutching his head in his hands and sinking to his haunches.

  Calard stood, shaking his head.

  “I’m sorry, Orderic,” he said. “Your quest is over. You died. Let yourself go.”

  “No, no, you’re speaking lies! Daemon! Sorceror!” said Orderic.

  “I’m sorry,” said Calard, edging towards the blood-pool, away from the pitiful sight of the tortured knight.

  He knew why the Lady had brought him here.

  Calard did not know how much time had passed before the thunder began, and the blood clouds raced once more across the burning heavens. Orderic had disappeared. Calard hoped that the knight had finally moved on, his soul passing to Morr, but he knew that was not the case. The knight would never attain that while his body dwelt in this realm of Chaos.

  Calard truly felt sorry for him, but had faith that he was doing the right thing. This was the reason the Lady had brought him here. It was not a test of arms as he had first thought. He had not been brought here to kill the wyvern, or at least not directly. No, he had been brought here to give Orderic his rest eternal.

  He had removed the armour from the dead knight’s skeleton and bundled the bones up into a satchel, which he now slung over his back as the blood rain began to fall. Half carrying Chlod, he moved towards the bubbling pool.

  The wyvern was in the process of reforming itself, glistening muscles building up over its skeleton, but this time Calard did not draw his sword. He merely waited as veins and sinew grew from blood, and grey-green skin encased its flesh. Fully reborn, it s
lipped into the bubbling pool.

  “What are you doing?” yelled Orderic, reappearing suddenly, his sword drawn. “It will pass through! It must be stopped!”

  “No,” said Calard, moving to intercept the knight, drawing his own blade. “It is the only way to get back to Bretonnia; the only way that you can attain peace.”

  “You would draw your blade against me?” said Orderic. “You truly are a daemon!”

  “No,” said Calard, sheathing his sword. “I will not fight you. If you wish to cut me down, do it, but I will not stand aside.”

  For a moment, Calard thought the shade was going to do it, to run him through then and there, but Orderic relented, dropping to his knees.

  “I’m sorry,” said Calard, “but this is the only way. May you soon find peace, Orderic of Montforte.”

  He turned away, and moved quickly towards the blood-pool, dragging the whimpering peasant Chlod along with him. He reached its edge just as the wyvern disappeared beneath the bubbling surface, its spined tail flicking, and he shoved Chlod roughly into it. The peasant was babbling something indecipherable, and Calard was not sure if he had any real understanding of what was going on.

  “Dive!” he shouted. “Dive, you stupid peasant!”

  “You would abandon me here?” called Orderic, his voice filled with longing and despair, but Calard ignored the plaintive cry. “Don’t leave me here alone!”

  “I’m sorry,” he said under his breath as he waded out into the blood-pool. Praying that this was going to work, he sucked in a deep breath and dived. He had no idea if Chlod was following.

  He swam down and down. It was pitch-black, but he was swimming through water now rather than blood.

  At last he came up, breaching the surface of the water and he breathed in deeply. The air was freezing, but he smiled broadly, overjoyed to be away from the burning hot otherworld. He was within the beast’s cavern lair, and he thanked the Lady. Still, the wyvern was loose, and more people would likely die if he did not hurry.

  Chlod came up after him, half-drowned, spluttering and coughing, and Calard hauled him to the shallows.

  “Come, peasant!” said Calard, hurrying towards the cave entrance.

  He stepped out into the bright daylight, blinking against the glare. There was not a hint of cloud in the bright sky, and Calard smiled up at it, never more thankful to see it. The flaming heavens of that corrupted realm of Chaos had been driving him slowly insane.

  The snows had all but gone, only patches of it remaining in the shadowed lee of pine trees and rocks. He shook his head, wondering how long they had been trapped in that hellish realm.

  With Chlod in tow, Calard scrambled further up the mountain until he came to a glade within the pine trees. The view was spectacular, overlooking the mountains and down towards the lowlands of Bretonnia, towards Montforte. Bluebells spread out across the grass beneath the trees. It was a place that Orderic would have liked, he decided.

  Calard dug a shallow grave and placed Orderic’s bones reverently within. Chlod offered to help, but Calard refused. This was something he had to do alone. He filled the grave with soil, and then spent the better part of the afternoon gathering and heaping stones on top of it in order that wolves and other scavengers did not dig it up.

  Atop the burial mound, Calard erected a small tri-frame of pine branches. Around the top of it, he wound Orderic’s necklace, so that the little bronze statuette of the Lady hung above his resting place. It wasn’t much, but it seemed appropriate.

  “Be at peace, Orderic of Montforte,” said Calard as he knelt before the grave.

  The next day, weary and footsore, Calard and Chlod passed a pair of hunters, fresh kills draped across their shoulders. From those simple men, Calard heard a strange tale. They said that a wyvern had been seen abroad the day before, flying above the mountain peaks, but that it had turned to dust mid-flight, to be dispersed on the breeze.

  “What does it mean, master?” said Chlod after they had bid farewell to the hunters. His eyes were still haunted from the sights he had seen in the Chaos otherworld.

  “It means that my task here is done,” said Calard. “In life the wyvern defeated Orderic, yet he refused to accept death or failure. He became locked in an eternal loop, seeking always to defeat it; sometimes he would win, sometimes he would lose. Granted final rest, perhaps it too was allowed to move on, once and for all.”

  Chlod’s brow furrowed, and he picked his nose.

  “Do wyverns go to Morr’s hall too, master?” he said.

  “It is like speaking with an orc,” said Calard, shaking his head. The peasant grinned and dribbled.

  “Where do we go now, master?” Chlod said after a few minutes.

  “For now, homeward,” Calard said. “After that? Wherever the Lady leads us.”

  Scanning, formatting and

  proofing by Flandrel,

  additional formatting and

  proofing by Undead.