The Errantry of Bantam Flyn (The Autumn's Fall Saga)

by Jonathan French

  Deglan could not keep the fondness from his face. He closed his eyes and breathed a tiny laugh. “Flyn, you witless swain.”

  A bellow erupted from the rear of the cell. The Dread Cockerel was on his feet, quivering with fury.

  “PRETENDER!”

  He charged, causing both Deglan and Sigrun to lose their balance as they scrambled closer to the door. The chains snapped taut, brutally arresting the coburn's headlong rush. The door to the cell was thrown open and the guards rushed in, spears leveled. Sir Wyncott strained against his bonds, still screaming.

  “IMPOSTOR! PRETENDER! THIEF OF THE PRIZE!”

  For one moment, Deglan thought the enraged coburn would rip the chains from the walls. In that instant, Deglan felt both triumph and terror. Triumph, for the Dread Cockerel would be free. Terror, because the coburn's gaze was fixed upon him. But the chains held and the guards quickly ushered Sigrun out before they too left the cell, slamming the door as they went, leaving Deglan alone with the incensed knight.

  “THIEF! THE PRIZE IS MINE!”

  Deglan swiftly skirted the Dread Cockerel and hunkered down behind the support beam, assaulted by the crashing of chains. Soon, the coburn's cries degenerated into wordless, tortured noise. At last, the noise abated, but Deglan waited longer than usual before coming out of hiding. He found the Dread Cockerel prone upon the floor, face down at the end of the chains' reach.

  “Sir Wyncott,” Deglan said, standing over him. “What is the prize?”

  The Dread Cockerel stirred. Slowly, he roused himself and sat back against the wall.

  “You are going to answer me, Sir,” Deglan insisted. “What is the prize?”

  Taking a deep breath, the Dread Cockerel spoke, his voice harsh and gravelly.

  “It was taken from me,” he said. “The prize of the tourney.”

  Deglan frowned, remembering a story Flyn had told him. “Tourney? You mean Coalspur?”

  The knight's eyes flicked up at him, brimming with suspicion. It was as if he took offense to any mention of the sword.

  “I was undefeated,” the Dread Cockerel said. “Hatch, Pitch Feather, Strummer, Blood Yolk. They all fell. Stoward Thom, too. That upstart squire was the last. Flyn.” The Dread Cockerel seemed to taste the name as he said it, finding it bitter. “But Tillory got in the way.”

  “You killed him,” Deglan said, recalling the story.

  The Dread Cockerel lurched to his feet. “The Grand Master was a fool to let him fight! The prize screeched in my head, blinded me with its fire! I was clumsy. Tillory fell to an unlucky stroke. He was newly returned from questing, tired. Refused a shield! He never should have been on that field. Lackcomb put him between me and the prize. The blood is on his hands. It should have been Flyn who faced me that day!”

  “But it wasn't,” Deglan said. “You slew a brother knight and disgraced yourself. The prize went to another. Coalspur was given to Flyn.”

  “Impostor!” the Dread Cockerel proclaimed through a raw throat. “The sword is mine. It called to me. It calls to me still!”

  “Truly?” Deglan asked harshly. “Or are you merely mad? Driven to the brink of sanity by guilt and grief. You are the sullied knight of the Order, Sir Wyncott. You know that better than I.”

  These words seemed to take the strength out of the coburn's legs. He slumped heavily to the ground, his chains pooling around him.

  “I thought as you,” the knight said after a long silence, not looking up. “I thought lust for glory had overtaken reason. I begged forgiveness from the Grand Master and was allowed to return to errantry, to Outborders. The burning followed. The sword seared me across the leagues, punished me for every moment it was not in my grip. For months I endured, hoping that my next foe would slay me so I could be free from the anguish. Then one day, the pain was gone and stayed away for the meat of a year.

  “But it returned. I could no longer deny the call of the prize. I sought it out, returning to the Roost to find it still within that popinjay's keeping. I would have challenged him in the Great Hall, but Corc the Constant interrupted. Then the gruagach attacked, set fire to the Roost. The young strut fled with the chronicler.” The Dread Cockerel's eyes flicked up, boring into Deglan. “And you.”

  “You have followed us since Albain.” It was not a question.

  The Dread Cockerel nodded. “Those painted barbarians, the Pritani, delayed me in the mountains. You took ship at Caer Caled, but the prize told me where you were bound. I boarded the next ship to Gipeswic. The squire had gone. It mattered not. The prize again left a flaming trail in my mind. I found Flyn bleeding and broken, lying in the mud of the riverbank. The prize was there, stabbed into the muck above its unworthy bearer. It was within reach. I nearly touched it.”

  Deglan watched as lust filled the Dread Cockerel's face. He seemed lost in the memory, as if willing himself to return to that moment

  “But a bloody big bear stopped you!” Deglan barked, gratified to see his words snap the coburn out of his obsessive trance. “Flyn's gypsy family was looking for him, too. Pali found him just as you did and drove you off.”

  “That was no mere beast,” Wyncott replied. “It nearly killed me.”

  “And you him,” Deglan growled.

  The knight showed no remorse, merely returned Deglan's hard stare and continued. “I was injured, but less grievously than the pretender. I thought I would soon claim the prize, but Flyn was spirited away, here, to Middangeard. I followed, but these humans found me before I found him. They deny me the prize, for now. But like the Pritani, like the bear, they will rue hindering my path.”

  “Sir Wyncott. Do you know what Coalspur is? The purpose of that sword?”

  “It is the prize. It is my destiny.”

  It was not an answer, but the Dread Cockerel could not see it. There was such certainty in his voice, such conviction in his countenance. He was entirely possessed by a purpose he did not understand. Deglan's spine went cold and he backed away from the knight, returning sluggishly to his beam. He leaned against it, out of the coburn's sight and allowed his mind to swim in dark thoughts.

  Deglan had never believed Fafnir's augury, that was no secret. Likely the others thought him simply a stubborn, cynical old stoat who refused to put stock in prophecy, but there was more to his doubt. There was always something missing from the dwarf's claim, something that had bothered Deglan from the beginning. He had lived for thousands of years and seen with his own eyes the ravages of great purpose upon mortals and immortals alike. Fate was not borne lightly, it always exacted a heavy toll. Lives were a tool to it, wielded and worked relentlessly until blunted by victory or broken by defeat. For all his hardships, Flyn never displayed the wounds caused by the manipulations of an unseen hand. He was headstrong and rash to a fault, but his choices were always his own. The decision to leave the Roost, the defeat at the hands of his father, all were undeniably set into motion by the young strut. Bantam Flyn, though a cocksure, flighty, insufferable knave, was ever the master of his own fate.

  The Dread Cockerel was another matter. He was racked by unknown energies, tortured and tested without mercy. It would now be impossible to see Sir Wyncott's true nature, for it had long been enveloped in the crushing tides of omen. The sword sought its rightful wielder, called to him incessantly. How else could the Dread Cockerel have tracked Flyn across the known world? He mentioned a year of respite, when he was not harried by the absence of the blade. No doubt this coincided with Flyn's time on Pocket's island. Sir Corc had said the place was not chosen at random and contained more protection than simple secrecy and seclusion. The wards surrounding Pocket must have stifled Coalspur's call, granting the Dread Cockerel relief until Flyn departed the island.

  Earth and Stone!

  Sir Wyncott was not mad. He was the coburn foretold in the Chain Maker's augury.

  With a snarl, Deglan punched his fist into the wooden beam. The bones of his hand throbbed in complaint and he skinned his knuckles, but Deglan ignored the pain. How
could Fafnir, a Chain Maker, have failed to see this? Surely he must have sensed Flyn's nature was contrary to what the quest required. Fafnir admitted that this business with Arngrim felling the Warden Trees had forced his hand, made him desperate. He either knew or refused to recognize the truth. He had the wrong champion.

  And what of Ulfrun and Crane? Was the wizard wrong about them too? No matter, the prophecy was not properly fulfilled. Two of three chosen champions was not enough. Flyn was brave and skilled, but would that serve him on a path he was not intended to tread? If the Corpse Eater could only be killed by those foretold in the augury, then only one outcome awaited any who tried to slay her beyond the verge of that prophecy. Deglan always feared that Fafnir would get his companions killed, now he was sure of it.

  He had told Sigrun he did not know how he could help his friends, but a plan was beginning to form in his mind. He worried at it throughout the night, avoiding any contact with the Dread Cockerel. Did he possess the resolve to go through with this scheme? More importantly, if he did, what was the source of that resolve, betrayal or selfless bravery?

  By the time Sigrun returned, late the following day, Deglan had made up his mind.

  “Tell Crow Shoulders, I beg to speak with him,” he told the thrall as soon as she opened the door. “I know how to help him find the dwarf.”

  Sigrun hesitated a moment, reading his face. She nodded and left the cell without a word.

  It was not long before she returned. She did not step inside the cell this time, but gestured for Deglan to emerge. Outside, it was snowing. The crisp air was a welcome change from the sour closeness of the cell. Four warriors awaited him, their looming forms draped in mail and woolen cloaks. The men surrounded Deglan and began herding him, not to the central tower, but along the interior of the curved wall. Sigrun followed a few paces behind.

  Bólmr had four gates, housed at north, south, east and west. The western gate was closest to Deglan's cell, but the men took him to the north gate, already thrown wide by the guards posted there. Following his escort, Deglan passed beneath the gatehouse and walked out onto the bridge of packed earth spanning the frozen moat. The men stopped in the middle of the bridge. And there, propped against the side of the bridge and leading down into the moat, a ladder waited.

  Deglan glanced down at the loathsome ranks of draugr standing in the hoary trench, their feet encased in ice. They faced away from the castle, an uncountable number of mouldering sentries. As one, the heads of the dead men slowly revolved, looking up at the living occupants on the bridge. The warriors pushed Deglan roughly towards the ladder. He stumbled, but whirled around as soon as he regained his balance. Beyond the guards, Sigrun watched him forlornly. So, this was how they intended to dispose of him.

  “Let me speak with your jarl,” Deglan said desperately. “I can help him!”

  The guards made impatient noises in their throats and stepped towards him.

  “Climb down,” Sigrun begged him. “Climb down before they throw you in.”

  Fixing the guards with a glare of contempt, Deglan backed up to the ladder and, grasping the ends of the poles, swung his foot down onto the first rung. The ladder was nearly five times his height and the rungs were spaced for a grown man's legs. It was a long and awkward climb down. Deglan took his time. He was in no hurry to die and kept pausing to look down at the waiting draugr. The ice prevented them from walking, but each held a spear or a long-hafted axe in their skeletal hands. It would be easy enough for them to strike him dead as soon as he reached the bottom.

  The dead men watched him descend, colorless eyeballs and empty sockets tracking his movement. He would be damned if some rotting, ensorcelled carcass was going to skewer him through the arse while he fumbled down a bloody ladder. When he was four rungs from the bottom, Deglan jumped, aiming for the wall of frozen dirt formed by the foundation of the earth-bridge, hoping to land outside the reach of the draugr. His feet hit the ice hard, then flew out from under him. Pain shot through his elbows and the back of his skull as they smacked the ice. Skidding briefly, he hit the wall and rolled to standing, putting his back against the dirt. Before him stood a hideous forest of draugr, every head turned to the left, watching him. Then their chins raised, looking to the top of the bridge just as the ladder began to shake. Someone else was climbing down.

  To Deglan's astonishment, Sigrun joined him in the moat. The woman's last step down the ladder brought her well within reach of a draugr's axe, but the moving corpse only continued to watch her. Clutching her shawl tight under her chin with one hand, Sigrun extended the other to Deglan.

  “Come,” she said, her face pale and nervous. “They will not attack unless commanded.”

  “Comforting,” Deglan grumbled and reluctantly took her hand.

  Sigrun had to practically drag him the first few steps. They weaved their way through the dead men, going slowly to keep their balance on the ice. The cold air trapped in the moat was tinged with the reek of rust and rot. To their right, the wall of Bólmr loomed above, to their left, the lip of the trench and open sky. All around were the draugr. They were in various stages of decay, the skeletons far less unnerving than those still covered in bluish flesh and rime-crusted beards. They were equipped as an army, with helms and mail, weapons and shields. Deglan kept a wary eye, but it was impossible to watch in every direction. He could hear the creak of bone as the skulls swiveled to watch him pass and expected a pitted blade to kill him at any moment. After what seemed an eternity navigating this orchard of cadavers, Sigrun came to a halt.

  Arngrim Crow Shoulders walked amongst the dead, his well-muscled form and feathered cloak making him appear huge amongst the wasted bodies of the draugr. The jarl turned as they approached, regarding Deglan with flinty eyes beneath a brooding brow. Beneath his cloak, the warlord wore mail and a sword hung at his hip. Deglan noted the weapon did not conform to the thick, one-handed blades forged by the fjordmen. This weapon had a wider, curved guard, longer grip and lighter pommel. Indeed, it looked very much like Flyn's sword, though smaller. A blade of dwarf-make.

  Running a hand through his fierce beard, Crow Shoulders uttered a short sentence, then gestured at Sigrun with a broad hand.

  “The jarl will now listen to your words,” the woman translated.

  “My lord,” Deglan said, pacing his speech so that Sigrun could easily echo him in the tongue of Middangeard. “I cannot bring you to the Downward Fields. But I can bring you to Fafnir, wherever he may be. The wizard believes in a prophecy, and searches for the individuals foretold within its verses. He believed your sire, Tyrfing, to be one of those he sought.” This time, the mention of Crow Shoulders' ancestor caused the jarl's face to grimace before Sigrun even translated Deglan's words. Quickly, he pressed on. “He was wrong. Fafnir's error brought ruin to your forebear. Now, he has seduced one within the order I serve with the same augury he used to cozen Tyrfing. Again, he has erred. My companion is not who he needs. But the augury is real and the rightful champion is the coburn you have chained.”

  Deglan saw disdainful incredulity creep over Crow Shoulders' face as Sigrun repeated this.

  “That is the cause of his rages,” Deglan proclaimed. “Like the sword you inherited, Fafnir gave a blade to my friend, but he is not destined to wield it. Sir Wyncott, who you have imprisoned, is. He is compelled to possess the weapon, driven by fate. It is his sole purpose. If you release him, he will lead you to the sword. And to Fafnir.”

  Crow Shoulders had grown still. He was listening, thinking. Time for the final gambit.

  “The runecaster is powerful. And he has surrounded himself with powerful allies. If you confront them, they will fight and you will lose many men, mayhaps even your own life and the lives of your sons.”

  A bark of arrogant laughter followed this, but Deglan was undeterred.

  “Fafnir is cunning and he will slip away in the chaos of battle. His chosen champions trust me, count me a friend. I can speak to them, show them the truth. Give me your oath
that you will let them go free and I will see to it they abandon the wizard. I can leave him friendless and then no one shall stand between you and your vengeance.”

  His proposal made, Deglan set his jaw and looked firmly at the warlord. Crow Shoulders' face may well have been carved from stone. He considered a moment, then growled a short statement before striding past Deglan and Sigrun, making his way through the ranks of draugr, in the direction of the bridge. Sigrun's eyes went wide and she hesitated a moment before backing away.

  “What did he say?” Deglan asked the thrall, trying to keep the desperation from his voice.

  The woman turned without answering and quickly followed her master.

  “Sigrun!” Deglan called after her. “What did he say?!”

  “He wants to know if you speak the truth.”

  A spasm ran down Deglan's spine, one that had nothing to do with the cold. The voice came from behind him. It was thin and reedy. Familiar.

  He turned and saw a gaunt form emerge from the ranks of dead. Tall as a man, it moved with a queer grace, silent and sure upon the ice. It was clad in clothes ill-suited for the cold. Simple boots and breeches, a thin tunic. Upon its head was a broad-brimmed covering Deglan knew well.

  “Buggery and shit,” he whispered. “Slouch Hat.”

  “Greetings, old friend,” the husk said. He stopped in front of Deglan, his sack face twisted into a smile.

  Deglan's mind reeled. The last time he had seen Slouch Hat was in Hog's Wallow, the home they shared for nearly a century. The husk had fled the hamlet, believed to be the murderer of his master, Brogan. Soon after, Hog's Wallow was put to the torch by Red Caps and Deglan's life had been thrown once more into the turmoil of growing war. Though he had not seen Slouch Hat again, he later learned they had become embroiled in the same desperate struggle against the Red Caps, a struggle which was supposed to have ended the husk's existence.

  “You were dead,” Deglan proclaimed.

  “Why did you believe so?” Slouch Hat inquired, the black pits of his eyes narrowing. “Because I lay lifeless within Castle Gaunt? Abandoned along with the dormant remains of the Unwound? You did not see this for yourself, Deglan.”