by Sam Farren
“My real work,” she repeated, mulling the words over. Satisfied with my reply, she pulled the latch across the pen and swung the door open with a creak. “And what would that be?”
“You're going to slay a dragon?” I offered up, not certain how a Knight's work could revolve around anything else and doubting myself in the same instant.
“Quite,” Sir Ightham said, voice accompanied by the sound of hooves.
With her horse's reins in a fist, she led him out of the pen and towards the night that was glowing with moonlight, after adjusting to the depths of the stables. She didn't ask me to step aside, and I almost tripped over my feet in an effort to get out of their way. Sir Ightham climbed onto her horse's back and gripped the reins, meaning to disappear forever. There'd be an outrage tomorrow morning, and it'd be my fault.
“Wait, Sir!” I said before she could head off. “Let me come with you.”
I blurted it out and felt myself redden as the words lingered in the air between us. Sir Ightham stared at me. She glanced at her horse, consulting with him through a series of meaningful looks, and then he stared at me. I cringed, trying again.
“You'll need a squire, won't you?” I asked. In truth, I wasn't entirely sure what a squire was, but they always featured side by side with Knights in all of Michael's better stories.
Again, they stared at me. In that moment, the fact that I was standing before a Knight really sunk in, and it took all my strength not to stare down at the ground.
“Have you ever held a sword in your life?”
There was nothing like amusement in her words. Her voice was entirely flat, even, and she spoke in a way that suggested she already had her answer. Which didn't mean she wasn't waiting for me to reply.
“No, but...” I bit the inside of my cheek, sure that my honesty would give her all the reason she needed to charge off. “But I know how to fight! I might not be able to use a sword, but I grew up wrestling wolves—someone has to take care of the sheep, and that's always been my job.”
I twisted my fingers in the hem of my shirt, ready to hoist it up at the first sign of scepticism. If she wanted war-wounds, I had plenty of those; twisted, gnarled scars covered the entirety of my torso, made infinitely worse by my early attempts at honing my necromancy. They'd turned the colour of bruised, rotting fruit, but in that moment, I would've let all the world see them if it meant proving myself.
Sir Ightham was a fighter, versed in the art of slaying towering beasts. She'd see past the grotesque and understand the scars for what they were. Proof that I'd thrown myself into the fray and come out victorious.
She said nothing.
My grip loosened. My words didn't mean a thing to her. She'd spent her life slaying dragons; what did mere wolves matter to her? She'd never take a necromancer along with her. Not wanting to risk inciting Thule's anger, Thane must've told her what I'd done. How I'd lied to the village. How I'd claimed to be a healer for seven long years.
Sir Ightham tugged on her horse's reins as I knew she would.
“Wait, Sir!” I called out, rushing after her. “If you won't take me with you, that's alright. I won't tell anyone about this. But could you leave a note, at least? Explain that you had to leave, and that it was of your own choice. Because if you don't, they'll think I... they'll blame me.”
Only then did Sir Ightham seem annoyed, irritated by the fear that spilt into my voice. She heaved a great sigh and her horse came to a halt before they'd had the chance to get anywhere.
“Feed your horse bitterwillow,” she said through grit teeth. “We've tens of miles to cover before sunrise and I have no more time to waste.”
CHAPTER II
There was plenty of bitterwillow stored around the farm.
We started growing it once it became evident that nobody was going to replace the apothecary. My father didn't quite have the knack for it, but the village deemed it good enough. I took a handful of the crisp red leaves drying along the wall, shoved them into my pocket, and bolted into the stables, waking my horse.
Charley wasn't best pleased to see me. In the time it took me to coax him to his feet, Sir Ightham could've made her escape. I held out a few of the leaves, trying to tempt him into action.
He sniffed my hand and swished his tail against the sides of the pen.
“Come on, boy,” I pleaded with him, “I'll get you carrots at the first market we reach. Carrots, apples—anything.”
Charley wasn't the fastest horse in the world – he wasn't even the fastest horse in the village – but he'd been with me since I was sixteen and always came through, eventually. He ate the bitterwillow and clopped out into the night, grunting impatiently as I saddled him up.
The bitterwillow I'd fed him would do, for now. It'd give him energy enough to run for a few hours at the very least, and there was still plenty in my pocket. I grabbed a little more on the way out, wishing I'd brought a bag. Wishing I'd brought anything; all I had in my pocket was my knife.
I glanced at the house, not a candle burning within, but knew I had no more time to waste. I'd never make it to my room without each and every stair betraying me and waking half the village.
Sir Ightham was already gone, though she hadn't gone far.
She was waiting in the hills beyond the farm, looking to head south of the woods. That was a small mercy in and of itself; leaving the village was a big enough step, and I wasn't yet brave enough to push into the perpetual darkness between the trees.
The wolves would smell one of their own on me, and my head was full of childhood tales of the pane that were sure to lurk within. I was ready for some level of adventure, but not the sort that involved giants tearing the flesh from my bones.
“Okay—okay, I'm ready,” I said to Sir Ightham, as though she'd taken the time to ask. Side by side on horseback though we were, she still towered over me. Without a word, she set off along the path zigzagging back and forth, winding its way out of the valley. “Wait, Sir!”
Sir Ightham looked back without stopping, unwilling to tolerate yet another delay.
“It's quicker this way,” I said, tilting my head towards the black of night. I might not have gone far in my life, but I knew all the hidden ways in and out of the valley, all the short-cuts that would save us miles. “The path's not on any map. Actually, I might've made it myself, but... it's quicker. Definitely quicker.”
She followed my lead in order to save time. Or to make up for the time I'd already wasted. At the top of the valley, the village was much of nothing; shadows had taken the streets and I couldn't pick apart one building from the next. Not a single light struggled against the black. The festivities had exhausted everyone.
In the opposite direction, it was much the same. I made out the shape of hills in the distance, trees wandering away from the edge of the wood, but the moon was covered again and night fell across all of Felheim.
I'd stood at the foot of the path Sir Ightham was taking us along more than once, but I'd only stared down it. It'd never occurred to me that I could take a step forward and remove myself from my old life.
Charley hesitated.
“I don't have any money,” I said to Sir Ightham's back.
“If you aren't coming with me, leave,” she replied. But it wasn't that. I wasn't having second thoughts, I just—I didn't want to be a burden. I didn't know what I could offer her, and I wanted her to know all the facts upfront. Though what I could say to make her dismiss me when she already knew I was a necromancer was beyond me.
“No, I just don't have any money,” I said, catching up with her. “Or clothes, or food. I didn't exactly have time to pack.”
Without sighing or clicking her tongue – though she might've rolled her eyes, I couldn't tell – Sir Ightham pulled one of the bags from her shoulder.
“Carry this.”
I held both arms open but wasn't prepared for the weight of it. I almost toppled clean off Charley's back before recovering at the last second. There was more than clothing and
food in the bag, but I didn't dare complain. I slung the straps over my shoulders and something inside the bag dug into my back.
Sir Ightham hadn't been exaggerating when she said we had a long way to go before sunrise. The land evened out at the top of the valley, and her horse set off at a speed I worried Charley wouldn't be able to match, and throughout the hours we tore through, not once did she glance back at me.
I feared I was missing so much of the world I'd never wandered out into, but the cloak of darkness kept little from me. We passed open plains larger than my entire village, a river that reminded me how thirsty I was, and a whole collection of trees twisting themselves into terrifying shapes. I had been out of my village for four, maybe five hours, and concluded that the world repeated itself indefinitely.
I saw no more of Birchbridge, or what I thought was Birchbridge, than I did of my own village, but as the sun rose and colour trickled back into view, I realised that I hadn't allowed myself to become excited. I was out of my village, stepping into the world that all of Michael's stories were born of. No one would know who I was, what I could do or what I'd done; I was allowed to be happy.
Morning dragged on. My father and brother would be up for breakfast, accompanied by an empty seat at the table. They wouldn't think much of it, for I'd taken plenty of time to myself, those last few months. It'd be two days at the very least before they'd start to worry, unless news of Sir Ightham's departure reached them and they put the pieces together.
The light hit her armour. It was as Michael had said: white was the only way to describe it. It didn't hurt my eyes to look at, not exactly, but it made me thoughtful, with nothing much to think on. I wondered how many hours had been put into carving each link in her chainmail, the scales across her pauldrons. The first thing they mentioned about Knights in stories was that only dragon teeth could cut dragon-bone, and supposedly the smallest of those were the size of a fist. They must've made smaller blades using the teeth, I decided, and made a note to ask Sir Ightham later, thinking it was something we might discuss.
“Where are we heading?” I called out, breaking hours of silence. Sir Ightham heard me and made no reply, so I elaborated. “Not that it matters to me! I'd never been as far as Birchbridge until today, and I think we passed that hours ago. I'm curious, that's all.”
Sir Ightham nodded ahead.
After a beat, she said, “You'll see.”
I scowled at the back of her helm, but she was right.
Minutes later, the endless green of Felheim was broken up by grey intruding upon the horizon. It wasn't the sky, clouds set to burst; a wall stood before us, the likes of which I'd never seen. I thought Michael's tales of towns might be as exaggerated as all else, but what I could see of the settlement was huge, and the stones of the wall alone must've taken five people each to get into place. I was so sure he'd been romanticising his life with all the talk of the endless bustle within towns, for it seemed impossible for me to believe that there could be so much life out in the world, colours cast in a different shade.
The wall grew and grew, but Sir Ightham turned sharply, leading us away from the hill the town was built upon, into a scattering of trees. I kept my eyes on the town for as long as I could, certain she heard me go ah! when I caught sight of the first guard patrolling the wall, but soon it was out of sight and firmly within my mind.
“Aren't we going into the town?” I asked as Sir Ightham dismounted her horse. I remained in place, gaze drifting to the town I could no longer see, sure this was my only chance to set foot in a settlement that wasn't my village. “It wouldn't have to be for long. Isn't there anything you need? I could get it for you, or—”
“Are you hungry?” she asked, if only to cut me off.
“I suppose so,” I grumbled, admitting defeat. I didn't have much say in the matter, and reminded myself that I didn't want to give Sir Ightham any more reasons to be rid of me. Besides, she hadn't outright said we weren't going into the town, and I expected that she didn't want to face the crowds before breakfast. I certainly didn't want to. There'd be nothing worse than a rumbling stomach to put me at even more of a disadvantage.
Sir Ightham took a seat on the flat surface of a rock, armour making all manner of uncomfortable noises as she moved. I relented and hopped off Charley's back, leaving him to get acquainted with the other horse, and joined Sir Ightham. I sat before her in the dirt, and for the first time, managed to take a proper look at her.
I did my best not to stare, stealing glimpses while I pretended to dig dirt out from under my nails with a loose rock. Luckily for me, she'd removed her helm and placed it next to her. Daylight presumed to tell me far more than the sharp shapes of night had.
I'd heard a lot from Michael and my father, but my mind hadn't formed the right impression of her. Armour notwithstanding, she didn't look like the Knight I'd imagined; I was expecting her to be as dark as the storm clouds Knights march against on their way to slay dragons – dragons being held accountable for foul weather, of course – but she was fairer than anyone I'd ever met.
Her long, sandy hair was kept at such a length as a display of power and wealth, and her skin was pale enough to rival the dragon-bone she wore. She was older than me, perhaps by as much as a decade, and I thought it showed.
There were few white-skinned people this far south and I was certain she'd burn, even though the early spring sun lacked the power to thaw the ground beneath us. I was a descendant of the Myrosi people, dark brown skin common to most of Felheim, and with my short, messy black hair, there were few similarities between us.
On anyone else, I might've called her features delicate. Yet the freckles scattered across her face, disappearing into her armour, weren't enough to stop there being something unnervingly hard about her. Even her eyes were hard, or as hard as blue eyes can be.
“Where are we now? What's the name of the town?” I asked while she rummaged through the bag she'd been carrying.
“Eaglestone,” she replied, and I stole a glance in its direction, as though it had inched into sight while I wasn't looking.
“Eaglestone,” I repeated, liking the sound of it.
I'd already decided the people there were a friendly bunch, eager to aid an unseasoned traveller.
I said nothing more as Sir Ightham removed a number of parcels from her bag, thinking she might be in more of a mood for questions once breakfast was seen to. Sir Ightham didn't look at me as she unwrapped an entire pie, but she didn't go out of her way to avoid eye contact, either. She was a Knight, in the habit of meeting and rescuing a lot of people. She wasn't obligated to pay any particular amount of attention to me.
I was about to offer her my knife – it'd been cleaned properly since the incident with the wolf – but she pulled her own from her bag. She unsheathed it and set to cutting up the pie, and I caught a glimpse of the carving across the dragon-bone blade. A bird, escaping what looked to be flames; a phoenix, most likely.
Using the white knife, Sir Ightham scooped up a smaller slice of the pie, and held it out to me, two fingers atop the crust. I cupped it between my hands, crumbs already spilling into my lap, and ate it as neatly as I could.
I enjoyed the pie, for the first few seconds. It was one of Ms. Parson's, it had to be. No one else could make the crust that perfect. I bit into it, remembering how she'd always have one baked for me at the end of the week, how she never asked for anything in return. Now, she wouldn't even sell Michael one. Something about being too busy for baking, what with running the village school. Michael and I both pretended to believe her. It wasn't quite so appetising, after that, and I was so thirsty that it was like trying to swallow down ash.
Sir Ightham had no such problems. The portion I'd been given was only small by comparison, and she was doing a thorough job of devouring a mountain of food, taking liberal sips from the waterskin at her side. Halfway through her meal, she reached out and took one of the bags from my side. She didn't ask me to hand it over; she just leant forward and snatch
ed it up, and began searching through it with one hand. I needn't have been eager to see what she was looking for. She pulled out a scroll, quill and ink and set about writing.
The tip of the quill scratched across the unfurled scroll, and Sir Ightham continued to eat and drink as she wrote without knocking a crumb out of place. I brushed off my lap, and said, “Can I help?”
I felt useless sitting there, pressing my dry tongue to the roof of my dry mouth. If nothing else, I'd managed to eat all of the pie that didn't end up in the grass, for the sake of politeness.
“Can you?” she asked, not looking up.
Probably not.
I took in my surroundings for the umpteenth time: trees, grass, town still out of sight. Sir Ightham wrote and wrote, and twice reached for more pie when there was nothing left on the crinkled brown paper. She lifted her head, giving me false hope that she was finished, but only looked at my bare feet, quirked her brow and went back to writing. Even when it was done, there was the matter of waiting for the ink to dry. I sat there, idly tearing grass out by the roots, while Sir Ightham was so lost in thought she probably forgot I was there at all.
Yet when she did speak, I gave a start, as if I'd been under the impression I was alone.
“Hand me that bag,” Sir Ightham said, nodding towards the larger, lighter of the two. I scrambled to pick it up, almost spilt its contents, and saw in Sir Ightham's eyes that she regretted not reaching over and taking it without a word again. “Turn around.”
Rising, I turned on my heels, arms wrapped around myself, feeling more of an urge than ever to speak up. It wasn't until I heard her huff, chainmail and dragon-bone plates coming away with a clatter that I realised what was happening. Intrigued by the sudden movement and strange sounds, Charley wandered away from Sir Ightham's horse, knocking his forehead against my shoulder.
“Be patient,” I hissed, intent on holding my ground. He whinnied, nudged me with his nose and set about sulking. I put my hands on his head, scratched him behind the ears, and Sir Ightham fussed with her armour behind me.
