Death Knight

by Vaughn Heppner

  Sir Ullrick, his eyes ablaze and his dusty beard bristling, drew rein before the lead wagon. “Halt!” he shouted, pointing his axe at the driver with his whip hand raised. The Bear’s knights clattered into formation behind him. The stallions’ sides heaved as sweat slicked their glossy hides.

  Men-at-arms now jumped down from the wagons. They, too, wore hard expressions. Some laced up their leather jerkins. Some cranked crossbows. Some had white-knuckled grips upon their pikes.

  “What is the meaning of this?” shouted Ullrick.

  A red-haired fellow in leather barding pointed behind Ullrick. “My lord is coming, sir. Why not ask him?”

  The knights with Ullrick shifted their horses around to face Baron Bain. The rattling cavalcade with its chainmail armor, buckled swords and jiggling saddle bells drew near. The heavy hooves stirred more dust. Baron Bain’s knights and squires seemed uneasy. Two donned helmets. The baron, who rode at the head, spat at the rutted path and snarled something over his shoulder at his retainers. Soon thereafter, he brought his steed to a clattering halt before the Bear.

  “Where do you ride, sir?” asked Ullrick.

  The knights and squires of Bain were half in number of those with Ullrick, although the grumbling men-at-arms of the wagon train evened out the odds.

  Baron Bain, with his awful morningstar tucked in a saddle holster, scowled. “Who are you, sir, to demand my comings and goings?”

  “I am your fellow ally against the darkspawn,” said Ullrick.

  “The darkspawn be damned,” said Bain. “Nine Fingers threatens my home. Will I let it be burned down around my ears while I sit like a fool at Bosham?”

  “What does that matter, sir, when in several weeks’ time your ladies and kin will howl like the beasts of the field?”

  “Bah,” said Bain. “I will stand in Kleve Castle and none shall pass, neither Nine Fingers nor beasts.”

  “More fool you,” said Aelfric, the Duke’s white-haired champion. “Kleve will fall like all the other castles have in North Erin.”

  “Fool is it?” asked Bain with a sneer. “You name me that when you were chased out of your lands like a lowborn cur?”

  Aelfric’s sword leaped from its sheath. Those around him also drew steel so there appeared a forest of knightly blades.

  “You must return with us,” Ullrick said ominously.

  “I go where I will,” said Bain, squaring his armored shoulders. He drew his morningstar, the spiked balls dangling in readiness.

  The Bear hesitated as anger smoldered in his eyes. The metal of his gauntlet creaked as he tightened his grip.

  “Look, Bear,” said one of his knights.

  Ullrick shifted in the saddle. A dust-cloud billowed along the path. “Who comes?” he said. “Who can tell me?”

  A crossbowman standing on a wagon shaded his eyes. He almost choked on the words as he said, “They fly the Banner of Tulun.”

  Baron Bain paled. Baron Aelfric and those around him lowered their swords, while Bain’s men-at-arms stepped down from the wagons and glanced abashed at each other.

  Swan soon arrived. She went bareheaded, with her short dark hair tussled by the ride. She wore a jerkin of leather and a white cape with a yellow flame symbol. She had boots like any man and riding breeches. Hugo, dressed in white and holding aloft the banner, cantered at her side.

  “You should not ride alone, milady,” chided Ullrick. “What if outriders of the darkspawn had found you?”

  “What is this I see?” said she, ignoring Ullrick. “Do crusaders draw blades against one another?”

  “Milady,” said Bain, urging his steed nearer. “Nine Fingers threatens to burn me out, to burn out all of us. Can we stand here meekly while all our homes go up in flames?”

  “He threatens,” said Swan. “But will he truly do this deed?”

  Bain laughed bleakly. “When did Nine Fingers ever utter a threat he didn’t follow through? He is lord of the Barrens and cousin to the King.” Bain waved his hand to indicate all of them. “We must garrison our castles and fight from our homes, milady. Let the King’s Army deal with the darkspawn. For if we have not the King’s leave to marshal our men, than we are indeed rebels.”

  Swan urged her steed nearer the baron, reaching out, grasping his wrist. “Will you not at least wait a week, sir? It is wrong for us to be moved from our sworn path by mere words. We must fix our resolve and save our island from destruction.”

  “In a week I will be beggared and named wolf outlaw,” said Bain. “I must ride today, milady.”

  “No,” said Ullrick, lifting his axe. “You swore an oath on the banner. If you foreswear than I name you dog and a coward.”

  Anger colored Bain’s cheeks. He made to disengage his wrist.

  “Give us a week,” said Swan, holding tight.

  “And then what?” Bain said in a passion. “What can you possibly achieve in a week?”

  “Only this,” said Swan. “The word of Nine Fingers to leave your castle and your lands untouched.”

  “You swear this?” asked Bain, amazed. “How can it be done?”

  Swan’s eyes flashed in anger as she let him go. “Swear, sir? I deplore the art. My yes is yes and my no is no. Give me a week, this I ask.”

  “But milady,” said Bain. He gestured helplessly.

  “Sir Gavin rides west, Baron Bain. More than this I will not say.”

  “West?” asked Bain. “I grant you that the man is an extraordinary swordsman and knight. Yet what can even Sir Gavin do to stop Nine Fingers?”

  “Give me a week’s time and then you shall know,” said Swan.

  Baron Bain eyed Swan, the Banner of Tulun and the Standard Bearer who had risen from the dead. Then he eyed the hard-faced knights with drawn steel beside and around him. He nodded. “Very well, milady, I give you a week. But by all that’s holy, I pray that you are right.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Something grim and unyielding solidified in Gavin as he rode west with Josserand and forty of the hardiest crusaders. The miracle of Hugo’s rebirth lay at the root of this new resolve. He suspected, however, that their form of travel also had something to do with it. They rode fast and without rest: each of them with a string of seven or eight horses, the pick of the crusaders.

  He’d known a Scythian nomad in Muscovy. The clever nomad had taught him how they did things on the Steppes. In those wastelands, the nomads often traveled vast distances in short amounts of time. There, they customarily traveled with eight or more mounts per warrior, switching in rapid fashion so they could cover hundreds of miles in a matter of days. During such swift forays, the nomads lived off thin strips of jerky they kept warm by hiding them under their saddles. They drank alcoholic milk called kumis that they curdled in small leather bags, and they nourished themselves by the blood of their nimble steeds. They opened a vein in the foreleg and drank, binding the wound when finished and resuming the ride.

  The forty crusaders paused every several miles and hurriedly saddled the next horse in the string, mounting again and riding hard for the Crags.

  The Scythian had taught Gavin one of their customs, how to bind one’s stomach for hard riding. Thick leather straps wrapped tightly around their torsos now aided each of the crusaders. Yet each felt the relentless pace. They set their teeth and bit back their groans, telling each other that what they did west would determine whether they had an army east to fight the darkspawn. Unless they succeeded, the host at Bosham Castle might well melt away as knights and squires rushed to defend their castles and lands from the depredations of a raiding Count Ranulf, old Nine Fingers, cousin to the King.

  By such hard and relentless riding, they soon picked their way through the western foothills of the Crags. The lonely heights held few trees, many rocks and boulders and carpets of heather and short, sheep-sheered grass. Thus, from the pinnacles of the higher peaks, they could see for miles in all directions.

  “I still don’t understand how you plan to gain the Cragsmen’
s trust,” said Josserand. “They’re not known for their easy ways.”

  Gavin had been mulling that over. A more clannish, distrustful people were not known in all Erin. Of course, the Cragsmen had every right and reason to hate the feudalistic invaders of their ancestral lands. Cragsmen, when found outside their mountains, were treated as kin to wolves. Only the bleakness and sheer ruggedness of the Crags had kept the knights and their men-at-arms from trying to conquer and hold such territory—the last ditch savagery of the Cragsmen also had something to do with it. Gavin thus wondered if another miracle might be needed. So when one of the men claimed from a peak to see something odd, Gavin asked quickly, “What do you see?”

  “Brigands, I think,” said the youth. “They drive a line of captives.”

  It was near dusk. They had been traveling nonstop ever since leaving Bosham Castle by the Sea. The horses were weary and dust-stained and the men more so. Yet Gavin recalled something Swan had told him about the darkspawn. As Old Father Night gained more creatures and beasts beholden to him, the darkspawn would gain in power and soon be able to fare during the day. Wouldn’t they first learn to fare a little before dusk? Such seemed logical.

  “Pick your least blown horse,” Gavin said. “You three will guard the herd,” he told the most tired. “The rest of you…” He grinned bleakly. “If I’m right, it’s time to slay darkspawn and purchase us some goodwill.”

  Josserand frowned, but soon they galloped over hill and dale, at a point to intercept those that the far-sighted youth had seen.

  ***

  Angella of Cynwyth Cliffs refused to weep. The tight leather collar twisted around her delectable neck choked her most of the time. The beasts had ripped off her woolen shrift, so naked she stumbled along with the other neck-leashed captives. Many of them wept silently, numbed by terror and goaded by lashing whips or the dread that next they would be chosen as meat.

  The beasts, the wolf-men, snarled among themselves. Angella was amazed that sometimes she understood what they said. They were hairy and deformed, ugly and incredibly strong. Some of them wore knightly belts over their furry pelts, hanging from them captured swords and daggers and awful wallets of putrid meat. These creatures ate man or beast, anything they slew. They ate like animals, never draining the blood. Angella shuddered and coughed as she tried to draw down air. The twisted collar choked her as she stumbled along. Twenty of these creatures drove three times as many people of the Crags, men mostly, some women, but no children. The beasts had devoured the children. Angella shuddered again. She had been one of the first captured and had witnessed all the varied horrors. She was her father’s favorite, his first born, he the chieftain of the Black Hawks. She could sling a stone as well as any man and had once hurled a javelin at a raiding lowlander. Her lithe form now bore many welts from beatings. She wondered if she should rejoice that these creatures weren’t human. Otherwise, she was certain she would have been raped many times by now. She was the village beauty, although her mother had taught her not to let that go to her head. Too soon, women of the Crags lost their youthful charms through a toilsome life and many sorrows.

  Angella worked her wrists each day, trying to loosen the thongs that bound them. She could no longer feel her fingers. They had long ago grown numb. Wisely, the wolf-men had bound her wrists and everyone else’s behind their backs. Otherwise, her strong teeth would long ago have chewed through the bindings.

  The creatures now snarled angrily at one another, motioning in a way that all of them had come to understand as ‘move faster.’

  The people of the Crags did, weeping and stumbling, their feet cut and bleeding. They left bloody footprints upon shale, rock and grass. All the captives were naked, dirty and glassy-eyed.

  “Run!” snarled the lead beast, he with a golden medallion.

  The captive line jogged and staggered, snaking through the ravines, heading in the direction of Forador Swamp.

  Later, they halted in a bottom junction between several hills. All the captives panted, huddling together for warmth, weeping and wondering what horrible fate lay in store for them.

  Angella slid near the beasts, trying to overhear what they said. One opened his wallet. She almost gagged. The stench was wicked. She pressed her nose against her shoulder, trying not to vomit. Whatever these creatures didn’t eat right away, they tossed into their wallets. Upon opening them as they did now, they always ate the oldest meat first.

  She slid away from them, unable to bear the stench.

  Soon the beasts stopped tossing putrid morsels into their fanged maws. Their ears perked up like dogs. They drew swords, daggers and stolen Cragsman hatchets. They eyed the captives and snarled among themselves as if debating plans.

  “Up! Run!” snarled the medallion-wearing beast.

  With a groan the line of captives, about sixty strong, rose, stumbled and ran.

  Angella heard what the beasts must have already heard: the metallic clink of chainmail, the iron links riveted together that lowlander knights wore, that and the pounding of hooves and the clatter of shields.

  A trumpet blast froze everyone, both captives and beasts. On a hill, knights reined in their stallions. As the sun sank into the horizon, a cavalcade of lowlander horseman shouted in rage. They drew their terrible iron swords, readied their long lances and charged after them.

  The medallion-wearing beast howled as others among the wolf-men snarled in bafflement. Several of the beasts bolted, bounding away in terror. Others turned on the captive line and began hewing, stabbing men and women in the belly.

  “Charge the wolf-men!” shouted Angella. “Swarm the beasts.”

  No one heeded her. As one, the captives, starving, dehydrated and sickened by the long march, shrank back from the foaming creatures of evil that stabbed and hewed as they barked in glee.

  Angella dodged a dagger by leaping back, dragging another captive into the blade’s line. That man wept in fear, and the dagger slashed open his belly.

  The thunder of hooves became loud and the trumpet once more blasted its call.

  Under the howls and snarls of the medallion-wearer, the beasts dared marshal themselves to face the terrible men of iron. For the first time in her life, Angella was glad the knights were such fearsome warriors. As she lay on the ground, trembling, she watched in awe a particular knight who wielded a silver sword.

  ***

  Hundreds of years ago, the Cragsmen had lived throughout all Erin. Then the first knightly invaders from Albion had landed on their shores. It was during the time of one called Sir Strongbow that the most critical Cragsmen defeats took place. They had been driven from the forests and the fertile lowlands and into the empty fastness of the Western Crags. Foot-fighters: slingers and javelineers and known as ferocious hand-to-hand knifemen, the Cragsmen had been unable to stand against the tall iron men on their mighty chargers. Yet the Cragsmen were fiercely independent, lovers of song and daylong ballads. They seldom united en mass, too stubborn to do so, but they often raided the lowlands in bands of twenty or more. Smaller than the lowlanders, they were as wiry and nimble as he-goats. So when armies of knights came to retaliate, they fled to the higher mountains, driving their cattle and sheep before them. Once the knights retreated, the Cragsmen returned to their burnt homes, building their wattle huts and low-walled wooden palisades in a week. Their very poverty, in knightly terms, and their civilian mobility, kept them free from the feudalism of lord and serf. The pride of their personal freedom was both their bane and their salvation.

  It was these people that Gavin, and through him Swan, hoped to use against Nine Fingers, Count of the Barrens, the cousin of the King and the protector of the realm from the incursion of these very Cragsmen.

  “Ask this High King of the Crags,” Swan had instructed Gavin, “to join with us in our fight against the darkspawn. Then you must go together with the High King and speak with Nine Fingers, warning him of our unity and begging him to understand the horror of the darkspawn. If he marches on one of
us, he marches on us both and will feel the wrath of us united.”

  “The High King will never agree to that,” said Angella on the ride from the darkspawn defeat and to her father’s palisade.

  Gavin and his forty crusaders had butchered the clawmen. They had freed the captives, at least those that lived. That is when Angella, the daughter to the chieftain of the Black Hawks, rose and told them who she was. On the ride to her father’s palisade, Angella listened to what Swan had instructed.

  “No,” said the girl of the Crags. “The High King will never agree to that. He is known as ‘the Wily One’ for a reason. He will never believe you. It is a known fact that all lowlanders always lie to those of the Crags.”

  “What about the heads of these clawmen?” Josserand asked. He slapped a gory sack tied to his saddle pommel.

  “The High King is the wily one,” Angella repeated. “He will never believe it. I’m not sure I believe it myself. It all seems like a nightmare now that is better left forgotten.” She tugged at her lower lip. Then she looked up and grinned. “Nine Fingers led a cunning raid into the Crags six months ago. He captured the High King’s totems and put them up in his hall in Krum Keep. If Nine Fingers rides in strength against you crusaders, then now would be the time to attempt a lightning raid against Krum Keep. Yet whatever you say the High King will expect is a lie. For as I’ve said: he knows that no lowlander tells the truth to a Cragsman. Therefore, you must beg the High King not to attack the Count.”

  “Why would we beg that?” asked a befuddled Gavin.

  “Because you must tell the High King that Count Nine Fingers is your ally. Instead of talking about the Count invading your lands, you must say that Nine Fingers is coming to aid you in your war against the darkspawn.”

  Josserand said sourly, “You have a devious mind, girl.”