The Forgetting Moon

by Brian Lee Durfee

  Fifty paces to the north, near the southernmost Laijon Tower, was Aeros’ tent; large as a good-sized cottage, complete with partitioned rooms, a bath, closets, cabinets, bookshelves, and a four-post mahogany bed. Hammerfiss and the Bloodwood stood just outside the tent’s entry. Enna Spades was inside with Aeros. The flicker of candles lit up the tent’s far end. The rest of the army encampment, some fifteen thousand Hound Guards, Rowdies, and Knights of the Blue Sword, and more than five thousand archers and squires, were sprawled out to the northwest. Their fires, twinkling clusters in Gault’s periphery, receded away into the cold distance. An air of exhaustion still encompassed the army, but their victory over Wyn Darrè near two days ago certainly lightened the fatigue. They were itching to fight again. Ten miles to the west, King Torrence Raybourne and the last of the Wyn Darrè army lay as they had fallen, rotting. Snow covered them now. Their bodies would be left to freeze, then rot, freeze again, thaw, rot, bake in the sun, until naught remained, never to be given religious rites or a proper burial, fated to become food for the nameless beasts of the underworld.

  A hundred paces to the east, beyond the Laijon Tower, lay the Aelathia Cliffs and a sheer drop to the Mourning Sea below. The Laijon Tower itself was five hundred feet of quarried granite soaring above them. The circumference at its base was impressive, the size of four to five horse stables clustered together. Vines of ivy, brown from the late winter chill, grew up the tower’s base in a twisty maze. Its northern side was thick with moss. The four other Laijon Towers rose up into the darkness to the north, ten miles separating each.

  Hammerfiss walked up to the fire. “There are good ways to die and bad ways to die,” he said. His skin was colored with anger beneath the blue Suk Skard clan tattoos spanning his face. The small fetishes tied in the tangled mass of his red hair and beard seemed to quiver with anger too. His battle armor thunked heavily as he plopped down on a birch stump directly across the fire pit from Gault and Stabler. The bark of the stump splintered under his girth. “That’s exactly what that sneaky little bastard over there said. Good ways to die and bad ways. Quoting the Illuminations right to my own face.”

  Gault shrugged, drawing his cloak tighter around himself.

  “Best leave that man be.” Beau Stabler pulled the hood of his own blue cloak away from his face, revealing a dark mane of hair and a black eye patch over his right eye. A legion of battle scars crisscrossed Stabler’s face, but most were hidden under his beard, a scraggly, unkempt bushiness, rarely trimmed. The only hair on Gault’s head was a finely carved goatee. He kept the hood of his cloak pulled tight over his bald head.

  “Gives me the creeps, he does,” Hammerfiss said. “What do you make of the Bloodwood assassins, Gault?”

  Gault looked toward the Bloodwood—Aeros’ newest member of the Knights Archaic—who was now writing in a small book and reclining against the base of the Laijon Tower. His gaunt Bloodeye stallion stood watch over him. The horse’s ribs gleamed with the oils rubbed into its velvety-black hide, and the beast’s eyes glowed red. The demonlike steed, different in both color and temperament from the other four steeds belonging to the five Knights Archaic, was named Scowl. Enna Spades had the first two hours’ watch over the Angel Prince tonight. Normally, she would be standing watch at the door of the tent. But Aeros had earlier ordered her inside. The Bloodwood would soon take second watch, Gault third.

  “True, I suppose,” Gault answered. “There are good ways and bad ways to die.”

  Hammerfiss chuckled, fetishes jangling in his beard. “Aye, nothin’ but nonsense, that, and after spoutin’ such foolishness, he went and claimed to have just stabbed me.”

  “He claimed to have stabbed you?”

  “Aye. The wicked sneak.”

  “You’d think a stabbing would be something you’d notice.”

  “Indeed.”

  Gault looked back toward the Bloodwood again. Everything about the man seemed dark, treacherous. Wrapped in tight-fitting black leathers, no weaponry visible, the Bloodwood looked—as Hammerfiss would say—wicked sneaky. The entire camp knew of the dozen or more daggers hidden within the assassin’s boiled-leather armor and how rapidly those thin blades, black as smoke, could slice and fly at a moment’s notice. Gault and Stabler, once finding themselves surrounded by Wyn Darrè knights at the Battle of Kragg Keep, watched amazed when the Bloodwood swooped into their midst, knives seeming to scarcely graze everything they came near. Before Gault or Stabler could even draw their swords, there was naught but corpses. The air was a mist of blood, every throat severed and every assailant dead before they hit the ground. Yes, the Bloodwood was deadly. Spiderwood was the name given him by Black Dugal, leader of the Caste of Bloodwood Assassins. Spiderwood’s real name and age, no one would ever know. Most in camp avoided him, most but for Hammerfiss, who felt the need to incessantly prod at the Angel Prince’s newest Knight Archaic. Most in camp just called him the Spider.

  “Quite a trick to stab a man clean through his armor without him even noticing it,” Gault said with a grin. “Quite a trick indeed.”

  Hammerfiss smiled at that. A big, yellow, toothy smile, which, in spite of his tattooed and wildly bearded ruggedness, made him look a trifle childlike. “Like ya said, mate, I’d likely notice something like that.”

  “Well.” Stabler pointed. “You do have a bit of blood about to drip from under that armored plate.” Despite having but one eye, Beau Stabler was Aeros’ best tracker; he possessed an uncanny ability to see things normally unnoticed. Sure enough, a tiny dot of red had seeped from under the big man’s chest-plate armor and now dripped to the ground.

  Hammerfiss looked down and ran his hand under the armor. His fingers came up bloody. “Lady Death, take me!” He jerked to his feet, unbuckling his plate cuirass, stripping off his leather tunic and undershirt. Both tunic and shirt sported a small hole and fresh bloodstains. Under the armor, Hammerfiss wore a peculiar-looking necklace of thin, pointed mermaid teeth adorned with jewels. The necklace looked right at home set against the wild red curls and muscular grandeur of his bare chest. He quickly parted the mat of hair above his heart, locating the pea-sized wound just under his collarbone, probing it with his meaty forefinger. “The wicked sneaky bastard.”

  “A bad way to die, that there,” Stabler said. “I hear his knives are poisoned.”

  “Forged of some foul witchcraft, they are,” Gault added. Hammerfiss looked up from the wound, genuine fear set into his eyes.

  “He was King Aevrett’s favorite torturer for a time, you know,” Stabler pointed out. “Probably practiced that trick on some poor sod pulled from the dungeons of Rokenwalder. Perhaps you’re next in line for Dugal’s Sacrament of Souls.”

  “I’ll show him a thing or two about torture.” Hammerfiss turned toward the Bloodwood and yelled, “Hey, you, sneak thief! Come over here and answer for this!”

  Spiderwood scribbled in his book a moment, then sheathed both book and pen and rose. He casually brushed snow from his cloak and walked toward them, his steps soundless. Gault stood. As did Stabler, who rested his hand on the hilt of his sword. The Bloodwood dipped his head in greeting as he stepped into their midst. He looked at them through cold, narrow eyes—eyes blood-shot with red. He had a chiseled set to his jaw and cheekbones. Brows were sharp. Hair was cropped short and glistened with the same bluish-black hue of a raven’s wing. A quiet, icy confidence clung to him like a vapor.

  Still, at seven feet, Hammerfiss towered over him. With thickset, immensely powerful shoulders above a barrel chest, massive arms, and stout legs, Hammerfiss had the look of a man who could uproot trees with his bare hands. “If you value your life and want my respect, you’ll have to earn it in some other way,” he said, chest puffed out, bright blue eyes looking down on the Bloodwood as he pointed to the wound on his own flesh. “Respect you earn on the field of battle with hard steel. You can’t cheat your way into it with black daggers and your sneaky assassin ways.”

  “No.” Spiderwood’s eyes strayed
toward Aeros’ tent. “As I see it, there are a great many ways in which one can earn respect. I kill how I please. As do you, clumsily I might add, with scant style or grace. But you are Hammerfiss.” He bowed. “I am Bloodwood.”

  “Clumsily.” A flush of rage spread over Hammerfiss’ face like a rash. “You tread on dangerous territory.”

  “Ofttimes your great bulk crowds me.” Spiderwood motioned to the wound in Hammerfiss’ chest and shrugged. “A mere warning, that. Next time you venture clumsily within my reach, I make it painful.”

  “If it weren’t for Aeros’ misplaced affection for you, I’d flog you right now.”

  “I think not.” The Bloodwood took a step back. With a flick of his arm, a dagger appeared in his hand. “My blade thirsts. If you made such an attempt, you would be dead between heartbeats.”

  Gault slipped between Hammerfiss and the Bloodwood. Stabler drew his sword, saying, “I like not the tone of this conversation.”

  Hammerfiss grinned at Spiderwood, pushed Gault aside, and stepped easily within the Bloodwood’s reach. “I see your true heart now. Full of weakness. Lacking in courage. That’s why you rely on your sneakiness, your devilry, and your childish acrobatics. It’s all a ruse with you. The truth is, you’d like to fight me now that I stand mostly naked before you, my gear scattered at my feet.”

  “Do not mock my ways,” the Bloodwood said.

  “No, do not mock ours. What have you and your black-hearted Bloodwoods done to help this war effort? Where were you when Felisar Gannon yanked a dozen Wyn Darrè arrows from his own chest and then flung himself back into the Battle of Agonmoore?”

  “I’ve heard the tale a dozen times. Wasn’t Felisar crushed by his white destrier moments later, his death opening up a vacancy in the Knights Archaic for Stabler?”

  “Where were you when Wolfmere Lohr, still impaled by a spear, staggered into camp after the Battle of Oksana and tossed the severed heads of his foes into the fire pit?”

  “Then he keeled over dead, right? Now I have replaced him at Aeros’ side.”

  “He died proper,” Hammerfiss said, voice rising. “A glorious death. With honor.”

  “Perhaps,” Spiderwood drawled. “But I see nothing before me but a brutish idiot practiced only in the fine art of clumsily swinging an unwieldy spiked ball about. True, you’ve won battles. Smashed the heads of the blindly unaware. You recount the same barbaric stories to your fellows here every night.”

  “I’ve helped conquer an entire kingdom. The Illuminations record my deeds.”

  “Oh, yes,” the Bloodwood said. “Bloody violence will save you.”

  “Don’t quote the Illuminations to me. I was reading them before you were born.”

  “Did your Illuminations record Hollis Berne’s death? Is it written how this fool charged straight into the fray along the River Sen, leading a cavalry of a hundred Knights of the Blue Sword behind him? Does it tell of how Sør Sevier lost many good men that day, most sinking like stones while the rest, floundering in the river, were crushed to death when five hundred Wyn Darrè foot soldiers fell upon them? Do your Illuminations tell how Hollis’ compressed corpse was dug from under the mass of dead and returned to his homeland in shame accompanied by the severed head of his destrier? Does it tell why he was not burned as a hero? Does it tell why his soul was not allowed to take wing with the smoke of a holy pyre and rise into heaven to dwell in service of your precious Raijael but was instead banished to the underworld and the dreadful abyss of the dishonored? Your Illuminations are selective in who they speak of.”

  Stabler jumped in. “Victory is a gift from our Lord Aeros, a lord who communes with both Laijon the Father and Raijael the Son. Our success is not carved by the skill of our weaponry and bravado alone. ‘Slay all’ is our creed. ‘Raijael will know his own.’  ”

  “Again, you quote the Illuminations,” the Bloodwood said.

  “Better to read the Illuminations than those black words of a nonbeliever you must scribble in that secret little book,” Stabler said, his anger now matching that of Hammerfiss. “Why are you even here?”

  “My reasons I keep secret,” Spiderwood said. “In my little book.”

  “Again you continue to think us idiots,” Stabler said.

  “With respect, you know that we Bloodwoods pay scant homage to Raijael or Laijon, or even Mother Mia. Still, Black Dugal and my fellow assassins have much business in Gul Kana. All has been sanctioned by our blessed King Aevrett.”

  This last statement brought with it a moment of silence. Gault knew that Black Dugal, his Caste of assassins, and their relationship to King Aevrett were all hard to define. It had been a mystery to the other four Knights Archaic why this particular Bloodwood was counted among them.

  “So you hunt your brother?” Stabler asked. “You hunt Hawkwood?”

  “You will not speak his name around me.” There was challenge in Spiderwood’s eyes as they raked over Stabler. “There are many I hunt in Gul Kana.”

  “Enough!” Enna Spades yelled. They all turned. Spades let the flap of Aeros’ tent fall shut behind her. “The tone of your blathering disturbs the prince.”

  Snow crunched beneath the red-haired woman’s boots as she strode toward them, purpose in her gait. The four men, Gault, Stabler, Hammerfiss, and the Bloodwood, parted as she stood among them. They lapsed into an uncomfortable silence. Spades appraised Hammerfiss first. He was still naked from the waist up, a trail of blood running down his chest from the small hole. She eyed the Bloodwood—his dagger had vanished.

  “Idiots,” she said, glaring at them all.

  More silence followed her withering stare. “Aeros’ wishes are known,” she began. “We strike at Gul Kana. We aim for the small fishing village of Gallows Haven.” She turned to Spiderwood. “Your fellow Bloodwood has gathered evidence that one of the Brethren of Mia, Ser Roderic Raybourne, King Torrence’s younger brother, resides there under a false name.”

  Spades paused, her gaze roaming toward the Aelathia Cliff and its three-hundred-foot drop to the Mourning Sea below. “With Ser Roderic may be the one thing Aeros desires most . . . the boy who was stolen.”

  It was faint, but Gault saw it. Spiderwood had narrowed his eyes just slightly at the mention of Ser Roderic, tightening them into something fierce and cold.

  Gault, Stabler, and Hammerfiss slumped back down in front of the fire, the quibble between the Bloodwood and Hammerfiss forgotten, anxiety building within each as they thought upon the upcoming siege of Gul Kana. The Bloodwood was standing watch before Aeros’ tent.

  In the silence, Gault’s mind wandered back to his childhood and the famine that had left him an orphan. Home. Stone Loring. Those words held scant meaning for him now. Starvation, squalor, and assassination—the ways in which his family had all died—were not honorable deaths. According to The Chivalric Illuminations of Raijael, the ideal death was in war. The ideal death was not a tame one. A peaceful death in bed, lovingly embraced by family, was a humiliation to any true warrior of Raijael. An ideal death needed to satisfy the Illumination’s code: “Bloody violence will save you; awaiting survival won’t.” In death, a warrior’s soul was taken up into heaven to serve the one and only son of the First Warrior Angel, Laijon, in the Court of Raijael.

  The Chivalric Illuminations of Raijael—a ten-volume and growing manuscript housed in the Rokenwalder Castle library—was a detailed history of Sør Sevier warfare to be read as holy script. Warfare was Sør Sevier’s heritage. And Gault knew war. Almost his whole existence had been honed in violence. It was simply a way of life. He knew no other. Five years conquering Adin Wyte, and then five more raiding and pillaging across the island of Wyn Darrè, had led the armies of the Angel Prince to this point under the southernmost of the five Laijon Towers. In their wake, the armies of Sør Sevier had left behind a mournful collection of burned cities, smoking ruins, deserted hamlets, scarred fields, empty churches, and penniless marketplaces. The once fruitful and mighty Wyn Darrè was now no more
than a wasteland of scattered rubbish, her people a simpering, beaten-down lot. Just like Adin Wyte before, Wyn Darrè was now full of naught but criminals, poverty everywhere. The plague had sprung up from the squalor and was spreading. Roads were unsafe. Murder was rampant. Robbers and thieves now ruled with scant regard for life. All was now exactly as it should be—exactly as both Adin Wyte and Wyn Darrè had deserved. The decades and centuries of savage attacks on Sør Sevier shores were finally avenged.

  Slay all. Raijael will know his own was the Illuminations’ creed.

  Yet the truth was, in battle, most men, some even fully knighted, were a disgrace. They pissed themselves, shat themselves, then found themselves stuck to the pointy end of a better man’s sword. Some warriors, the green ones usually—the Hound Guard and Rowdies—cried for their mothers in the end. Seventeen-year-old Konnor Riddle, lying facedown in the mud of Pensio Fields, encased in fifty pounds of armor, blood spurting from two severed legs, had cried for help before Gault’s merciful killing stroke took his head. Then there was young Salisan Lusk. As the surgeon pulled chunks of chain mail from the gruesome wound done to his groin, Salisan had squalled like a babe. He begged Gault to deliver a copper trinket to his girlfriend in the case of his passing. Salisan did die. Gault pitched the trinket into the River Sen. Both he and Spirit had watched it sink.

  Ten years of war. Now here they sat, the Angel Prince and his five Knights Archaic: Gault Aulbrek, Beau Stabler, Hammerfiss, Enna Spades, and the Bloodwood, camped smack under one of the five Laijon Towers, its ever-burning fire put to sleep forever, smothered with the bodies of the enemy knights guarding it and left to dwindle down to naught but smoldering coals and fetid smoke. Their crusade to retake the Five Isles had now reached this point, the easternmost edge of Wyn Darrè atop the Aelathia Cliffs, the Mourning Sea the only thing now separating them from their ultimate goal—the island of Gul Kana.