Just in time—and as relief swelled in the young man, he gazed into the darkness ahead of him. Nothing could’ve possibly felt better than to be gaining altitude like this.
He looked down. Far below him were scattered pinpricks of twinkling light.
In contrast to that, a heavy shadow fell across the young man’s heart. He’d never be safe here now. But where could he go?
Impacts to either side of him were transmitted to the center of his back. His body dipped seriously. Clearly his wings had been slashed.
Craning his neck, he looked up above.
Although it was pitch black out, the crimson armor he saw there was branded into his retinas.
Don’t tell me he can fly, too?!
Although the young man madly attempted to pull back on the lever he gripped, the wire that relayed the movements to his wings seemed to have been severed, and his descent didn’t stop.
“Do you have any idea what you’ve done?” a voice called out from above him.
Was it following him down?
“Your life alone will not be enough to atone for the crime of raising your blade against our princess,” the voice continued. “Look back from the hereafter and watch what results from your reckless actions!”
Suddenly, the young man felt the base of the wings tear free from his back. Without a peep, he plummeted straight down, dropping into an endless abyss.
Unable to lose consciousness as the wind howled in his ears, he found a dull band of silver growing in his field of view. It was a river that stretched like a ribbon far below him.
THE ROAD OF STAKES
CHAPTER 1
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I
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The road was just wide enough to allow two farm vehicles—which were relatively rare in these parts—to pass each other. Going east, it led to the village of Sacri, while to the west it hit the dusty highway.
Verdant waves flowed to either side of the road. Prairies and wind.
As the high stalks of grass bowed in succession, they seemed to be passing something along. The name of the distant rulers of this world. Their lost legends. Or perhaps the tale of the current dictator whose manor stood on the outskirts of the village. And the situation in the trio of wagons racing madly out of town. And the reason the horse-lashing farmer and everyone in his family had fear burned into their tense faces.
“Halfway left to go!” cried the farmer working the reins on the lead wagon. “If we reach the highway, they won’t give chase, since that’s outside their domain. Hannah, what’s it look like back there?”
“The Tumaks’ and Jarays’ wagons are both doing well,” replied his wife, who’d leaned out from where she was riding shotgun. Drawing the little boy and girl she held closer with her plump arms, she added, “At this rate, we’ll be fine, dear.”
“It’s too early to say. We’ve still got half to go—this is where we brave the fires of hell. I don’t know if the horses will make it or not,” he said, the words coming out like a groan.
But any further comment was cut short by a shriek from the farmer’s wife.
Thirty feet ahead, a horse and rider so crimson they seemed to brand their image into the couple’s retinas had just bounded onto the road from the high grass on the left.
The farmer didn’t even manage to pull back on the reins.
In an attempt to avoid the horse and rider that seemed to be ablaze, the team of two steeds made a sudden turn to the right.
Packed with all the family’s worldly possessions, the wagon couldn’t follow the animals around that sharp curve. The wooden tongue that connected the wagon to the team twisted, and the body of the wagon tilted as it did. The tongue snapped in midair, and the vehicle threw up a cloud of dust as it rolled.
Without so much as a glance back at the rumbling of the ground and the tableware that was being thrown everywhere, the horses kept galloping toward the promised land of freedom.
The Tumak and Jaray families narrowly avoided crashing their own wagons. Desperately whipping the hindquarters of the halted animals and tugging on the reins, they tried to turn back the way they’d come. It didn’t look like they would even try to help their friends who still lay on the road with their toppled wagon.
“It’s the Blue Knight!” Jaray’s son exclaimed, his cry of despair rising to the fair sky.
The road they needed to take home was now blocked by the blue horse and rider that stood about fifteen feet from them. However, the rider’s hue was not that of the pristine heavens, but rather the dark blue shade of the depths that led to the unsettling floor of the sea—the blue of freezing cold water.
With the sun still high in the sky, an air of deathly silence and immobility was thrown over the three families there on the stark white road.
“Where do you think you’re going?” said the one in front of them—the crimson rider on a horse of the same color. The people had called his compatriot a knight, and he, too, was sheathed in armor from the top of his head to the tips of his toes. His breastplate was wide, the pauldrons and vambraces were thick as a tree trunk, and he was so tall people would have to look up at him whether he was on horseback or not. If he were to ride out onto the battlefield on his similarly armored mount, he’d be such an imposing sight it seemed likely the very demons of hell would recoil in horror. On his back were two pairs of crossed longswords—four blades in all. Gleaming in the sunlight, the weapons looked so large and heavy they’d leave even a giant of a man exhausted after a single swing.
“I believe we made it quite clear that it’s been decreed no one is to leave this domain,” said the Blue Knight. He was such a deep, dark shade of blue, he seemed to drain the heat from the rays of the midday sun and make the light drift away in vain like soap bubbles. “Not a single soul will be allowed to flee from the village where that little bastard wounded our princess,” he continued. “You should consider yourselves fortunate we didn’t slaughter the whole community out of hand. But then, there’s no need for any of you to concern yourselves with that business any longer. The stakes await you.”
A thin sound like a note from a broken flute split the air and a short, fat old woman clutched at her chest as she fell—Mr. Jaray’s elderly mother. The rest of the family consisted of Jaray and his wife, their nineteen-year-old son, a sixteen-year-old daughter, and another daughter aged twelve.
As for the Tumaks, there were six of them—the husband and wife, Mr. Tumak’s mother and father, and a five-year-old son and three-year-old daughter.
No one seemed to be paying any attention to the old woman, who’d suffered a heart attack out of sheer fright. Their eyes were trained instead on death as it stood barring the way before them and behind them in the form of knights of flame and water.
Their fate was inescapable.
The two armored knights turned to the sides of the road. Toward the fifteen-foot stakes that were driven into either side of the road at roughly three-foot intervals. Oh, they ran on endlessly, too numerous to count, and on their sharpened tips shook the stark white bones of the impaled. Apparently the stakes were quite old, and perhaps less than one in ten still had skeletal remains hanging from it. And in most cases those were just the spine and rib cage, while the arms, legs, pelvis, and skulls lay sadly at the base of the stake as part of a fairly large mound of bones.
However, while the families stood there as if their lives had already been lost, the corpses staked to either side of them were almost completely intact, their rags dancing in the wind and the eye sockets in their skulls aimed at the road like soul-swallowing caverns in the land of the dead as they cast a spell of silence.
The two knights closed the gap.
“Help!” someone shouted.
A flash of crimson cut off the cry.
The grass swayed in waves. It seemed to speak of shock and destiny.
Mr. Tumak’s aged father looked down at his chest. Blue steel ran right through him. Tumak’s wife looked down at hers as well. The bloodstained tip of
a weapon stretched from it. The weapon that’d impaled the two people as they stood back to back had to be more than eight inches long, but it wasn’t the blade of a sword. It stretched more than three feet from the old man’s chest before coming to a guard that was twice as big around as a man’s fist. The hilt then sloped upward for another six feet before disappearing into a blue gauntlet, and it extended another three feet beyond the knight’s little finger.
Though the gigantic warrior was over six and a half feet tall, how could he wield a fifteen-foot lance with such skill? Both the weapon’s tip and its metallic hilt were etched with elaborate designs, and altogether it must’ve weighed at least two hundred pounds, and probably more than four hundred.
The weapon bent supplely. The blue lance flexed upward, and the two victims were launched into the air like they were on springs and came right down on the stakes as if they’d been aimed. The old bones turned to powder and flew in all directions as new victims were run through the heart.
“Although our princess instructed us to wait before meting out any additional punishments, we, the Four Knights of the Diane Rose, cannot allow this to pass. We were just beginning to get frustrated when you were good enough to try and escape. Although this is only for fun, you should provide a slight diversion.”
As if driven by the Blue Knight’s words, the people started to run. But the Red Knight was in front of them. A crimson wind gusted between the fleeing people. Still, they ran right by the sides of the Red Knight. Even though their heads had fallen off five or ten feet back, they didn’t stop running. Another gust of even redder wind shot up from the ground to the sky, blocking the people and knights from the rest of the road.
“Ungrateful insects. This is the price you pay for your foolish actions.”
Before the knights bellowing with laughter, Jaray’s wife and Tumak’s son had fallen to the blood-soaked road. The pair hugged each other tightly.
“So, which of you shall I—” the Red Knight was saying when there was suddenly the shrill sound of engines approaching from the village at a frantic pace.
More than a few.
“Looks like we have company,” the Blue Knight said, gleefully rolling his head from side to side.
Less than two seconds later, gasoline-powered motorcycles with high horsepower engines arrived at the scene of the cruel butchery.
While their engines remained running, a white-haired figure hopped off the back rack of the lead bike. He was an old man with a cane.
“Mayor Torsk is my name and . . .”
The reason his voice died as he was making his introduction was because he’d just seen the grotesque piles of corpses that littered the road.
The riders of the roughly ten motorbikes were speechless as well.
“What the hell is this?!” said the rider of the bike that’d carried the mayor, spitting the words one by one.
Although he was more than fifteen feet away, the Blue Knight must’ve had unnaturally keen ears, because he then looked at the rider and muttered, “A woman?”
“So what if I am?!”
Stripping off an apparently homemade cloth helmet along with her goggles, the rider revealed the face of a beautiful young woman with a slight pinkish flush. Her hair was cut shockingly short, and her eyes were ablaze with anger.
“What the hell . . . ,” she groaned once more, the words sounding crushed and lifeless as she turned the nose of her bike toward the Blue Knight.
Two steel pipes pointed forward from either side of the vehicle—four in total. If the pressurized gas in the tank to the rear were to launch the steel arrows within, they were certain to fly straight and true into the heart of the knight.
“Ah, more prey to amuse us? And this one looks to have a little fight in her,” the Blue Knight replied, his mere words freezing the atmosphere again.
“Knock it off, Elena,” the mayor of the village said, breaking the silence. Turning to the two butchers, he said, “I’ll make no complaint about those already dead. But could you at least be so kind as to show mercy on the last two?” he pleaded in a hoarse voice as the wind stroked his profile.
The grass was singing,
Stop, I say, stop,
For they will never spare you.
“These people disobeyed an order from our princess,” said the Blue Knight. “Until the one who attempted to take her life is captured, no one whatsoever is to leave the village. Nor is anyone to enter. Anyone attempting to leave without her permission will be considered to be in league with the culprit and be promptly executed. And it is our duty to see to it her word is upheld.”
“The only reason they tried to leave was because you enjoy killing everyone just for the fun of it!” Elena shouted. “That hag of yours ordered more than just that. If the guilty party hasn’t been caught within ten days of her decree, ten villagers are to be impaled on stakes. And every day after that, five more are to be drawn and quartered. It’s only natural for some people to try and get away!”
“Only natural?”
The two knights looked at each other and laughed.
“And we could say to you and your whole village that what we do is only natural. Take a good look around you at this verdant land and its bountiful fields of grain—just who do you think made all this possible? Lowly humans scratching away at the untamed wilderness with rusty hoes like stupid beasts? Do you recall what it was you said to the princess back then?”
Elena gnawed her lip. Agitation swept like a wave through the group behind her—and judging from the way they were all dressed alike, she was undoubtedly part of the same group. However, Elena quickly looked up at the knight and shouted, “That was a long time ago!”
“What?” the Blue Knight growled, his lance rattling slightly in his right hand.
“Now, hold on a minute,” the Red Knight interjected. “There’s no point arguing all that here and now. We’ve disposed of those who disregarded the rules. Take those other two back with you.”
Joy suffusing his countenance, the mayor stammered, “May I—may I really?”
“You may. Be quick about it.”
“Very well—Come along now, you two,” Torsk said, extending his arms toward the exhausted woman and child.
But neither of them said a word, and foam spilled from their lips. It wasn’t the world around them that filled their eyes, but rather death itself.
“Oh, this isn’t going to work. Come now, let’s be quick about this,” the mayor seemed to tell himself with new resolve as he advanced across the bloody road.
One more step and the two of them would be within reach—but at that instant, the wind snarled.
Even before the geysers of blood went up chasing the two heads that flew into the air, the grass was already singing,
Stop it, just stop it,
For they shall never spare you.
Just as the Red Knight’s blade returned to its sheath in a gust of bloody wind, the Blue Knight’s lance danced out.
The fluid of life gushing so vainly from the stumps became a thousand droplets in the wind, forming a crimson curtain that slapped against the people’s faces.
From behind it, the Red Knight called out, “The rules are the rules, and we make no exceptions. And now to deal with the little monkey bitch who called our princess a hag.”
Although Elena tried to aim her gas-powered launcher purely out of reflex, the dark red stain across her field of view wouldn’t allow her to do so. She had to wonder which would come for her instead, the steely blade or the bloody lance? The face of the girl was stained with the hues of blood and death.
Just then, the vermilion curtain was torn in two, as if to announce the beginning of a new tale.
Even the deadly knights and their mounts averted their gaze and backed away from the wind that gusted down the road.
But the bizarre phenomenon ended quickly.
And everyone who looked up then saw it—an inky black horse and rider advancing eerily through the corpses and the stake
s. For some reason, it would’ve seemed a terribly appropriate image in anyone’s eyes.
The teeth of skulls still impaled on the stakes chattered in the wind. The green grass bowed, and the sun—ever generous with its light—ducked behind a cloud at that very moment.
Everyone had forgotten all else as they gazed intently at the new arrival.
About ten feet from the Red Knight the rider came to a halt. The face below the traveler’s hat was not of this world. Unearthly in its beauty.
Even the wind died out. Probably because it, too, was awestruck.
“Clear the way,” said the traveler.
“And just who are you?” asked the Red Knight. “This is our mistress’ domain. No one may enter. Leave at once.”
However, didn’t the knights currently have orders to kill any intruders on the spot? What did these merciless killers sense in the young man before them?
“The village of Sacri lies ahead, doesn’t it? I have business there,” the young man said, not seeming the least bit hesitant. His long hair fluttered in the breeze.
“Oh, so you want to die, do you?” the Blue Knight said to him. “What’s the matter, Red Knight?” he then asked his comrade. “Have this man’s good looks got the better of you? If that’s the case, I’ll handle this.”
Needless to say, he was joking. The Blue Knight knew better than anyone the skill of his crimson compatriot, as well as his cruelty and his valor.
And that was why it was only natural he was dumbstruck when the Red Knight told him, “You’re welcome to try.”
“What?” the Blue Knight asked in return, but that was only after the space of two breaths had passed.
“I leave him to you. Give it a try.”
The reply had certainly come from the Red Knight. And the crimson rider had even fallen back to the edge of the road.
The mayor, Elena, and the bikers all just stared, dumbstruck. One of the Four Knights of the Diane Rose was backing down—was this some sort of waking nightmare?
Mysterious Journey to the North Sea, Part 2 Page 25
