Death Knight

by Vaughn Heppner

  “Remind her that she should bless the weapons.”

  Gavin was surprised. “I didn’t think you believed in such things.”

  Josserand shook his head. “I don’t, but the men do. And as you say, with increased confidence they might stick around long enough to thrust their spears.”

  At the appointed hour, Gavin rode into the castle, joining Swan in a room strewn with books. There were hanging tapestries of former seers and several doves cooing on the sill of an open window. Swan looked weary in her white gown. Her eyes were red-rimmed and a thick book was on her lap.

  “I’m happy to see you in here, resting,” Gavin said, as he sat on a stool by a table. He picked an apple out of a bowl, rubbing it against his shirt. “You spend to much time tending to the wounds of strangers and outcasts.”

  “From victims fleeing the darkspawn,” she said. She shut the book and rubbed her eyes. “I wish I did rest.”

  With a crunch, he bit into the apple.

  Swan rose, joining him at the table, cutting a slice of bread and using her thumb to spread butter. “Sometimes I wonder on the ways of Hosar.”

  “Oh?”

  She smiled sadly. “I try to force visions.” She frowned, rubbing at the scar on her cheek. “Do you think strenuous exercise, peril or sickness heightens the possibly of visions?”

  “I have no idea.”

  Swan thoughtfully chewed her bread. “My most interesting visions came while I traveled on your back.”

  “I remember.”

  “Can we defeat them, my Captain General?”

  “You ask me,” he said. “I have come to ask you.”

  “I look into the faces of those fleeing south,” she said. “I see despair and hopelessness, and I wonder if I tell them rightly to trust, to have faith, that Hosar will yet raise up a champion.”

  “You are our champion,” Gavin said.

  “I am the Seer. You are the strong right arm.”

  “You must bless our weapons,” he said, uncomfortable with this praise and the way she looked at him.

  Swan shook her head. “There is no potency in my blessing.”

  “If a soldier believes his sword is blessed and he fights harder because of that, isn’t that a true blessing?”

  Swan pursed her lips. “Maybe you’re right, but that way starts the beginning of hypocrisy.”

  He rose, and he took her hands in his. “You’re weary. You must rest more. Without you, the crusading ends. Then Erin will be plunged into bitter darkness. Every human here will be sacrificed to hideous evil or changed into darkspawn.”

  “How can I rest when I know that the spirit of Zon Mezzamalech marches south? And coming to meet him and us the King will soon march north. We shall be cracked in the middle like a walnut. O Gavin, I need more hope. Where shall we gain hope?”

  Gavin left later, unsettled. She was human after all, he told himself, and he strode the parade ground angrily. There had to be a way, a secret, a thing that he wasn’t considering. It would give him victory over vastly superior forces that fought in the dead of night. Should he try to attack them during the day? Maybe instead of sending scouts north he should send raiders. He smiled grimly, deciding to test the idea two nights from now by riding north himself and in force.

  That night, an hour after midnight, he heard shouts, challenges and the clank of armor. Springing from his cot, drawing his sword, he was surprised when Hugo swept back the tent cloth and said, “The Seer approaches.”

  Swan, with her eyes shining and with a strange serene smile, and while holding a lantern, seemed to glide into the tent. She said nothing about being sorry for waking him or the commotion she had just caused. She set down her lantern and glided to him, taking his hands, peering deeply into his eyes.

  “They came,” she said.

  “Who did?”

  “My visions,” she said.

  “I shall guard outside, milady,” Hugo said. “You will be undisturbed.”

  She appeared not to hear. “Do you know what I saw?”

  Gavin shook his head.

  She let go of his hands and picked up the silver sword where he had laid it down. “The Sword Glamore, the silver sword, etched with the slivery runes of power!”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Reverently, she set down the sword. “Would you hear the tale, milord?”

  “What tale?” he asked, sleepy, not understanding any of this.

  “Tonight I saw how Glamore came into being. Oh, Gavin, it is the answer, the answer.”

  “The answer to what?” he asked.

  “How to defeat the darkspawn,” she said.

  That got his attention. He forced his eyes wide and sat on his warm cot.

  “I’ll be brief,” Swan said. She thought a moment, and then began to speak. “The sorcerers of Hyperborea, the terrible servants of the lords of Darkness, once sent raiding ships into what they called the Uncharted Lands. Those ships sailed to ancient Iceland, Erin and Albion. The Hyperborean soldiers captured men and women for the slave marts and as sacrifices to Old Father Night. Whenever the ancient peoples of those islands tried to make a stand, Hyperborean sorcerers practiced their foul spells.”

  “You’ve said as much before,” Gavin said.

  “Listen,” said Swan. “The people of legendary Avalon lived during that time. They followed Hosar, and they warred against the Hyperboreans. Instead of spells, they forged powerful swords and spears. The greatest weapon was Glamore, the sword you presently carry. It was forged to fight against Darkness and against the sorcerers of Hyperborea in particular.”

  “Forged how?” Gavin asked.

  Swan frowned and then shook her head. “Does it matter how? We have the ancient sword. That is enough.”

  Gavin picked up his sword, with Swan’s lantern-light shining off the bright blade. “Avalon was real?”

  “With this sword of Avalon we have strength to face the enemy and a champion to slay our dark foe.”

  “I must slay the spirit of Zon Mezzamalech?”

  “You must destroy the amulet,” she said.

  Gavin twisted the blade this way and that. “Do you think the sword can cut such a talisman?”

  “If it cannot then we are doomed.”

  He nodded, and deep lines furrowed on his brow. “How does one…summon the blue lightning?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “It flared at the altar and it slew the fravashi,” Gavin said. “But otherwise the runes have never shone.”

  “Perhaps the sword senses in some way great powers of Darkness, and then its powers are stirred.”

  “Is the sword sentient?” asked Gavin.

  “No. I don’t believe so. Rather, it must react to great powers of Darkness, as I’ve said.”

  Gavin was bemused. “It was the heirloom of an earl of Albion. He wept on parting with it.”

  “He was a fool to wager it. And yet, perhaps it was destiny that you won it.”

  “Or luck,” he said.

  “Our good luck,” Swan said with a smile.

  Gavin set the sword on the table, his mind awhirl on possible new stratagems and strategies.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  “We can’t wait for them to marshal all their strength,” Gavin told his assembled commanders. The men sat on hay bales, with a bonfire crackling behind Gavin and the morning sun finally beginning to heat up the day. Around the grassy valley, peasant soldiers sat around similar fires, slurping porridge out of wooden bowls. The tents of the encampment fluttered with the salty ocean breeze. From farther away, stallions nickered in roped-off areas. Already the horses had to be taken farther a-field each day to forage. Gavin didn’t want to hay-feed the horses until the darkspawn army was almost upon them.

  Gavin cleared his throat. “The King, as you’ve heard, will soon set out of Banfrey to ride north against us. Heralds and ambassadors from us shall of course be sent to him, to reason with his Majesty and the High Priest, his most persistent counci
lor against us.” Gavin wanted to shrug but refused too. If the King and the spirit of Zon Mezzamalech attacked in any sort of coordination, whether in happenstance or through policy, then the crusading was doomed. But that wasn’t something he could tell his men. So he grinned bravely and told them, “We’re going to upset our enemy’s timing and thin his ranks in the process, and through that we’re going to give our lads more training time.”

  So Gavin chose two hundred hardy riders: knights, thegns and squires. Each man was given three mounts. The battle-stallions would only be mounted when they intended to fight. The palfreys would do the man-carrying the rest of the time. With these raiders he rode north up the East March, north up the invasion route. They galloped past the grim Marcher Castles. Trumpets blared from those high parapets. Gavin ordered his buglers to greet them in return.

  Josserand, Aelfric and Welf rode with the raiders. Sir Ullrick remained behind to see to the training. Gavin had also forbidden Hugo and the banner to go with them.

  “Our two gifts are my sword and the banner,” had been his explanation. “I will not risk both unless it is on the last battlefield.”

  They rode into a land of smoke and ruin, of gutted castles and burned villages and towns. In places, the grasses had turned black or shone the color of iron and the trees had become deformed and stunted. Too many times rotting corpses hung from ropes that were tied to the branches. Strange dogs with yellow eyes that shone in the daylight as a wolf’s did at night and with slavering fangs bayed and gave chase. Bites from those hounds caused skin to blacken, swell and turn gangrene. Four men died because of it. Three others cut out the blackened skin and lived. From then on, crossbows shot down weasel, cat or wolf, any animal that approached them. Gavin banned everyone from eating the flesh of the slain beasts. Occasionally, a slain darkspawn was sighted. At one castle, a pit had been filled with darkspawn. There, the humans had been nailed to all the available wooden walls.

  “It’s as if a hell-gate has been opened onto the Earth,” whispered Welf, “and all the horrors of the Netherworld have been let loose.”

  Raiders muttered agreement. They burned dark wood at a night camp. The wood gave off wicked fumes. A quarter of the men at a time prowled as sentries. They started at almost any noise. Howls in the night, screams and the far-off snarl of a cat-thing, it made hardy knights shiver in dread and clutch their weapons tighter.

  Bleary-eyed and tense, the men mounted up in the morning. Their features had become grim. The muscles around their eyes tightened. Cold had settled into their guts.

  “How do you fight such evil?” asked Aelfric.

  “It’s not the fighting that bothers me,” said Josserand. “I want to know how you win.”

  “Maybe you can’t win,” muttered Gavin. “But you can hurt them.”

  Several knights nodded agreement. Others paled.

  Gavin drew rein. It seemed as if the smoke from a hundred villages had turned the sky slate-colored. Dread hung over the land. A dog-pack saw them, bayed, and raced toward them.

  Seventeen crossbowmen slid from their saddles, knelt and cranked their squat weapons. Other men also jumped down, drawing blades and unlimbering their shields. Several guarded each kneeling marksman.

  As the foaming beasts streaked across the black grasses, steel cords snapped and stubby iron bolts dropped the evil hounds. In a thrice the danger was no more.

  “There!” Gavin said, turning his horse to face the others. “That’s how we win, one fight at a time. If I have to spend the next twenty years going up and down Erin, slaying a band or a pack at a time, I will do it. Yes! After seeing the horrors we’ve witnessed, it feels good to hit back.”

  The men considered his words.

  “I said it feels good to hit back!” shouted Gavin. “You had better damn well cheer when I say that.”

  A few men cheered raggedly.

  Gavin drew the silver sword, standing up in the stirrups. “Cheer, you! Let yourself hear the sound of victorious warriors! Let this dead land hear the sound of living knights and thegns! One, two, three—”

  “Hurrah!” they shouted. Under this iron-colored sky, that was an odd sound.

  “Now let’s find some more of these bastards to butcher,” Gavin said.

  They looked, and found more horror, more unspeakable atrocities. A night later, as they debated where to set up camp, they heard a chorus of howls and yips and evil cries. It chilled them. Then more cries pitched in.

  “No pack that,” said Josserand. “It’s one of those bands you’ve been speaking about.”

  Gavin sent Welf ahead with three others, ordering them to be careful above all else. Into the gloom of twilight, the four horsemen raced ahead. Each wore leather instead of chainmail, with rags stuffed in their scabbards so their swords wouldn’t rattle and betray them.

  As the rest of the raiders walked their mounts toward a forest in the distance, Welf raced back and reported a horde not a band.

  “A mass of clawmen dance around twin altars,” said Welf. “They sacrifice goats and among themselves perform wicked deeds.”

  “Here’s our chance,” whispered Gavin.

  The crusaders mounted the war-stallions, and quietly as possible, they followed Welf and the other scouts. Through dark trees they filed, until Welf led them to the lip of a small vale. Fires roared below and clawmen danced, cavorted and practiced bizarre rites as the goat-sacrificing continued.

  Gavin chopped down with the silver sword. Buglers blasted the charge. Down the battle-stallions thundered. Knights, thegns and squires bellowed themselves hoarse. All the fear and loathing boiled into a type of frenzy. They hit the screaming, milling throng of clawmen. The crusaders hewed and trampled many. Uncounted clawmen scattered. A few faced the knights so the swords clove through their teeth instead of the backs of their skulls.

  Then thunder boomed from low clouds and it began to rain. The bonfires hissed. Fortunately, before the firelight went out the fight was over. Gavin called the retreat and all that night they rode for the East March.

  A last piece of luck helped them. Two days later shortly after the noon hour, they discovered barns filled with sun-hiding gaunts and pre-positioned undead. Those barns soon burned with cleansing fire and swords finished the darkspawn squealing and stumbling under the bright sun.

  “That should stick in the spirit of Zon Mezzamalech’s craw, if he has one,” Gavin said. “That will surely give him pause. Now let’s hurry home and see how things stand with the King.”

  ***

  As Gavin and the raiding crusaders returned to Bosham Castle, eleven ships wallowed out to sea. Eleven hulks of creaking timber showed no signs of life. Waves lapped against the hulls. Oars, in five specially decked galleys, rattled in their tholepins. Sails, tied securely with inexpert knots, propelled these seeming ghost ships not at all. The sun burned above, scorching the salt-encrusted decks. However, no debris lay scattered about the ships. Ropes were coiled tight. Guidelines hummed in perfect tension. Steering oars were lashed securely. All, in fact, seemed to be in order. Then, as waves pushed the apparently empty vessels apart, ropes rose out of the water and stretched tight between them. A massive cog, an 800-ton cornship, pulled two galleys attached by these hidden ropes back toward it. They would not be allowed to drift away.

  On the nearest galley, a hatch creaked open. Through the slit peered two cat-like eyes. The creature hissed, closing the hatch. Then all was as before.

  ***

  It was only as the sun sank into the cooling sea that life stirred aboard the eleven ships. With the appearance of stars, hatches banged open and clawmen boiled out. Oars slid into the sea. Haphazardly, sails came down to catch the wind. A gust on the 800-ton cog flapped the huge sail. Clawmen screamed, whipped off the rigging and into space. The few who had attempted to learn how to sail thudded onto the deck, snapping bones and splitting open skin.

  The captain, a blood-drinker with a black cape and ivory white fangs, gave harsh orders. The boards over the main
hatch were torn away. Out of the hold crawled a giant. Unsteadily, the giant used the mainmast to stand upright. As the giant lurched about this way and that because of the waves, he pulled down the sail and gave the ropes to new clawmen to knot.

  In fits and starts, the eleven-ship flotilla resumed its bumbling voyage to Lobos Port. One ship, its entire crew seasick, fell farther and farther behind. The blood-drinker captain grew uneasy. At last, she shrugged in fatalistic resignation. Like the Mistress, she knew this to be a wild gamble. But it was a gamble where her head would roll for failure…or worse, the humans would impale her and jeer at her twitching corpse.

  Humans!

  Oh how she loathed them.

  Her worry grew as the night wore on. They had to land, marshal their forces and storm the port before daylight. Her stomach knotted and her need for fresh blood grew strong. At last, with half the night spent, she realized she would have to gamble to have any chance of success. Another day floating at sea, this close to Lobos, was simply too great a risk.

  Employing signaling drums, she had the ropes between ships hacked off and she brought the five galleys near her. Then, by spending more precious time, she had them tie heavy ropes to the cog. She needed the newly made giants above all else. She then gave the order. The five galleys dragged the behemoth cog. The other merchant ships with their clawmen cargoes comprising half the invading army would have to make it to Lobos when the wind picked up.

  With night fast waning, she at last spied Lobos Port on the dark horizon. A fire on the headland, a well-known beacon, guided her toward the other major port after Glendover. She made a swift calculation. Lobos Port was divided in two by the Fangohr River. Joining the two city halves was a fortified bridge with towers on both ends of it. Control of the bridge gave one control of Fangohr mouth.

  With so little night left, she would need a fortified position in order to withstand any counterattacks from the humans during the day.

  Humans! By the Lord of Bats, she despised them.

  She snarled new orders. The five galleys aimed themselves at the largest docks where four of the King’s biremes lay. The ropes attached to the 800-ton cog hummed taut. The dark seaport loomed closer and closer.