King's Champion

by Peter Grant

  Fired at point-blank range, the razor-sharp bolt sliced into the thin, wrinkled skin between the gruefell’s wings, where there were no scales to offer protection. Its point speared through the soft cartilage between two massive vertebrae, penetrating deep into the spinal cavity, severing many of the nerves in the spinal cord. The strongly beating wings froze in mid-stroke, even as the bolt’s lethal cargo of poison began to spread through the spinal fluid. The gruefell shrieked again, arched its back, then toppled backwards as its upward momentum gave out and gravity pulled it down.

  Diava had no time to be afraid as the massive beast collapsed on top of him.

  —————

  Hanging back from the clearing, Margash watched in horror with his spell-enhanced vision as his colleague’s gruefell rose from the ground, then shuddered and fell backwards, crashing to the ground on top of the archer who had slain it. He slapped the shoulder of the Graben seated ahead of him. “We’ve got to recover Karikan’s body!”

  “Forget the bodies!” the other screamed over his shoulder, watching the carnage through his mental link with his gruefell steed and its ultra-keen eyes. “There are nine gruefells down already! Get the rest out before we lose them all!”

  Margash grasped his upper arm. “Listen to me! We cannot – we dare not – leave a sorcerer’s body on the field! Do you want your entire family, every member of every generation from the eldest to the youngest, to die in torment under spellfire? That’s what the Council will do to them, and to us, if we don’t get him back! Order the gruefells to tell their riders to withdraw. While they’re doing that, the enemy will be distracted. We’ll go in to grab Karikan’s body – look, you can see it’s been thrown clear – and get out at once. Tell your gruefell not to land, but to grab his body in its talons as we pass over it.”

  The other hesitated, then nodded. “All right, but use your powers to clear a path for us, or we’ll be joining him!”

  “I will.”

  As the gruefell started towards the clearing, Margash spellcast a desperate message to the Council of Masters. It is disaster! Ten – no, eleven gruefells are already down, and Karikan is dead. I have ordered a withdrawal, and will try to recover his body. Help me with your spells, lest all be lost!

  —————

  In the ring of standing stones the five stood as if turned to stone themselves, observing the wreck of Karikan’s plan through their scrying spells. Frozen in horror, they watched as if in a nightmare from which they could not awaken as gruefell after gruefell staggered, screamed and fell kicking to the ground, and Graben after Graben succumbed to the deadly skills of the men-at-arms. Many of the latter fell as well, but their archers reaped the ranks of the attackers like scythes, helping to bring down more than twice as many as the defenders lost.

  Margash’s desperate call galvanized them. One spun around to look at their leader. “We must do something!”

  “What can we do? We are far from the fight. If we try to intervene over so great a distance, with spells powerful enough to help all those in danger, we shall have to put all our might behind them. That will instantly reveal us to the priest-mages at the monastery of Atheldorn. Once they realize that some of the Master Sorcerers of Karsh survived its destruction, they will alert the rest of their kind, none of whom will rest until we too are destroyed.”

  “Our leader is right.” Another spoke, his voice harsh, clearly restraining himself with difficulty from venting his fury and fear. “Only we five lived through the Fall. We must remain alive and safe at all costs! Only we can train new Master Sorcerers, to restore this Council to full strength.”

  The first speaker was unrepentant. “We have already lost Karikan, who was only a few years from achieving master’s rank. We may lose Margash, too, unless we aid him.”

  The leader nodded. “Yes, but that is a price we must pay, if necessary, to preserve the secret of our existence. At least Karikan’s gruefell killed the Champion. That is some consolation to us for our losses.”

  “But what Owain stole from Prince Ilvan has not been recovered. Our enemies will learn much from the scrolls, if not from the other things, and they may guess at our existence through the presence of Karikan and Margash. If they do, our lack of action will have been pointless.”

  “If we recover Karikan’s body they will have little evidence of us. The spell he used against the arbalestier will make it look as if the man suffered a heart attack.”

  “But without our help, using only his own limited powers in the face of foes such as these, Margash may not be able to retrieve Karikan and make his own escape.”

  The leader threw up his hands in surrender. “Very well. We shall help him alone if we must, focusing our spells as tightly as possible. That way we may be able to avoid being detected. However, the other gruefells and their riders must make their own escape as best they can.”

  “I agree. Look! Margash has almost reached the clearing.”

  —————

  The Baron of Brackley scooped up the arbalest from beside the fallen archer, glancing at him with a frown. The man was clearly dead, but his body bore no visible wound. He shook his head, checked that the weapon was cocked, took a poisoned bolt from the archer’s quiver and placed it in the track, then hurried over to the fallen gruefell. Diava’s left forearm and hand protruded from beneath its body, ominously still.

  “Thank you for my life, Diava,” the Baron said softly, going to one knee beside his friend, touching his hand as he blinked back tears. “If you hadn’t pulled me clear, I’d have been under that thing too. You beat your disease to the punch, old friend, and died a soldier’s death – nay, a hero’s death! May the Gods receive you kindly. I’ll say the rest of the words over your pyre later. Right now, I’ve got this fight to finish.”

  Still on one knee, he looked around. Five of his men-at-arms, including Diava, lay among nine dead attackers and three fallen gruefells. The survivors of those who had attacked his party were running back towards their steeds, which were hurrying to meet them. With a growl of anger, he rested the arbalest on the carcass in front of him and took careful aim at a gruefell as it turned sideways, pulled its wing up and back, and lowered its neck, offering the saddles it bore to an approaching rider. As the Graben thrust his foot into a stirrup and swung himself up, the Baron pressed the lever.

  The bolt soared in a high arc across the grass and spiked deep into the hollow behind the beast’s foreleg. The animal reared up, screaming, throwing its rider from its neck as he struggled to mount. It started to half-run, half-hop towards the Baron, clashing its beak in anguished fury, but within a few steps faltered, stumbled, and fell to the ground with a groan as the poison on the bolt began to take effect. Its erstwhile rider threw it a despairing glance as he scrambled to his feet, then he sprinted towards another gruefell.

  The Baron tugged frantically at the cocking lever, spanning the steel prod as he hurried back to the arbalestier. He rummaged through the quiver on the dead man’s belt, cursed as he realized there were no poisoned bolts left, then seized one of the regular bolts and slotted it into the track. He was about to loosen the belt and remove the quiver when a man-at-arms yelled, pointing up at the lightening sky. Another gruefell was diving towards them from the far side of the clearing. The front rider was bent forward, looking at something on the ground, but the one behind him was half-standing in his stirrups, supporting himself on the first rider’s shoulder with one hand, pointing the other in their direction.

  “GET BEHIND COVER!” the Baron yelled at the top of his lungs as he remembered how the arbalestier had died. “They have a new kind of weapon!” He dived behind the body of the gruefell once more, seeing his men-at-arms scatter around him, heading for trees and bushes. One was too slow. He staggered, clutching his chest, then fell face-down, as if he’d been pole-axed.

  Brackley risked a glance around the carcass, using its outthrust foreleg as cover. The approaching gruefell didn’t land, but grabbed in its talons the bod
y of one of the attackers, then swerved to the right. As it did so, its two riders looked in that direction, and the beast exposed its left side to the defenders. The Baron instantly took advantage of their distraction. He jumped to his feet, shouldering the arbalest, swinging the heavy weapon to track the gruefell’s movements as it passed in front of him at point-blank range.

  The animal screeched in pain as the bolt smashed into it. It struck too far back to hit the creature’s heart, but pierced the scales on its side and disappeared into its torso. The beast labored skywards, still clutching the body of the fallen attacker in its claws, and disappeared over the trees at the edge of the clearing, flying low, moving slowly, jerkily.

  —————

  “My gruefell’s hard hit!” the rider yelled over his shoulder. “We’ll have to set down as soon as we come to a clearing, so I can see what’s happened to her.”

  Margash thought fast. “Very well. Find an open space big enough to land, then I’ll see if my spellcraft can heal her, or at least give her enough strength and endurance to get us home.”

  The pilot nodded, looking ahead as the creature gained altitude slowly, glancing from left to right to find a break in the trees. He pointed to a thin dark line in the forest ahead of them. “That’ll be the trail to Atheldorn. It’s too narrow for us to land, but there are wider clearings along it. We’ll follow it until we find one.”

  —————

  Owain looked around the clearing. The wagons were parked beneath the trees at its edge. Their teams had already been harnessed to the yokes, and the spare horses fastened to the tailgates on lead ropes. He and Garath would drive them today, Maran riding on the wagon with the youngster. The four men-at-arms had saddled their horses and were standing at their heads, looking at him expectantly.

  The light of dawn was already spreading across the sky. Owain shook his head, annoyed at himself. They’d dallied in their preparations this morning. Usually, by the time there was this much light, they’d have been on the road. He opened his mouth to yell the order to start, but was forestalled by a startled shout from the armsman nearest the road. He raised his hand and pointed along the trail in the direction from which they had come. “Gruefell! Coming in low and slow!”

  Owain seized his arbalest from behind the seat, cranking the cocking lever with frantic haste as the men-at-arms scattered back into the trees, tugging at their horses’ reins to get them under cover. The startled animals resisted, tossing their heads, neighing. Behind him on the second wagon, Garath called, “What should we do?”

  “You can’t run from a gruefell,” he yelled back. “We fight! Archers, aim for the riders. I’ll take care of the animal.”

  He heard and felt the bowstring click into place on its catch, and grabbed the quiver from the wagon bed, blessing the time he’d taken the previous afternoon to apply Graben poison to another dozen bolts. He slotted one into the track and nocked its end to the bowstring, then tried to stand upright; but the team had been made nervous by the sudden activity, and was moving restlessly, rocking the wagon. He jumped out and down, thumping to the ground, grunting with pain as the impact strained his knees, raising a puff of dust beneath his boots as the gruefell appeared over the trees at the edge of the clearing.

  —————

  “There are men here too!” the rider yelled. “It’s a trap!”

  “Tell your gruefell to get us out of here!” Margash shouted back.

  “I don’t think she can! She’s too badly hurt!”

  —————

  Owain drew back his lips in an unconscious snarl as he saw the gruefell. He dropped the quiver, threw the arbalest to his shoulder and sighted down the tiller. At such close range, he could hardly miss. He pulled the lever, and the bolt flashed across the clearing. It plunged into the gruefell’s neck below its beak, drawing a hoarse, coughing, rasping screech from the animal. It faltered, dropping a dead body it was clutching in its claws, then crashed to earth with another croaking cry.

  The two men on its back were bounced out of their saddles by the impact. They landed hard, rolling in the dust, then jumped to their feet. The one in front drew a sword, while the other raised a hand as if to point at Owain; but before either could do anything more, three arrows, two from the men-at-arms and one from Garath, swept across the intervening ground. Two hit the sword-armed man, one in the right leg, the other in his chest. The third struck the other man in his stomach, doubling him over the protruding shaft as he shrieked in pain. Owain suddenly realized that he was unarmed, and wearing a black robe rather than soldiers’ clothing. He instantly knew what the man must be, and yelled, “That’s a sorcerer! For the Gods’ sake, kill him quickly before he can cast a spell at us!”

  The archers needed no urging. Three more arrows pierced him even before Owain had finished speaking, demonstrating the speed of fire of composite horse bows, so much faster than a crossbow or the even slower arbalest. The dark-clad figure crumpled to the ground. Three further arrows treated his comrade in the same deadly fashion.

  Owain finished spanning the arbalest and bent to grab another bolt from his quiver. Even as he dropped it into the track, the air above the fallen bodies shimmered. It seemed to them all as if two huge shadowy arms emerged, hazy against the skyline. Their hands reached down. One grasped the body dropped by the gruefell, while the other seized the figure in the black robe. Owain didn’t have time to raise the arbalest, but aimed it from the hip at the two arms and pressed the firing lever. The bolt soared across the clearing and through the hazy limbs even as they drew the two bodies up into the eddy in the air, which wavered, then blinked out.

  Owain stood open-mouthed, struggling to believe the evidence of his own eyes. He was still standing there when Garath ran up to him, panting. “Did you see what I think I saw?” the young man demanded.

  “I think so. That was sorcery, sure enough.”

  “What do we do now?”

  “We run for the monastery, as fast as we can! There may be more of them where those came from. I’d as soon face them from behind stout walls, with priest-mages to counter their spells.”

  “What about my father?”

  That set Owain back on his heels. He thought quickly. “Even if they haven’t yet attacked him, they may. You’ve got to warn him. Can you get there on horseback from here, or will it be faster on foot?”

  “We’ve already come two leagues from the path we used yesterday, but if we ride ahead for half a league, there’s another one leading back to my father’s camp. It’s wide enough for horses.”

  “Right.” Owain whirled on his heel, yelling, “Everyone to me!” The four men-at-arms and Maran hurried to his side.

  “Garath and Maran are going back to the Baron as fast as they can ride, to warn him about this. Dort, Rostam, give them your horses – you’ll ride their wagon. The rest of us will take the wagons and head for the monastery.” He turned to the young man. “Garath, tell your father that he’s to gather up his people and bring them to Atheldorn for safety until we know what’s going on.”

  “But all of us have been declared outlaws by the Earl of Elspeth,” Garath objected. “The town fathers of Atheldorn won’t want to offend him. They won’t let us through the gates.”

  Owain hesitated, then made up his mind. “It’s long gone time we ended this nonsense, and this” – he gestured at the fallen gruefell – “gives us a perfect opportunity to do so. Tell your father to come in. If he argues, inform him that I’m exercising my authority as the King’s Champion, having elected to take up my post once more, as expressly permitted by his late Majesty. I require his co-operation to help me deal with a threat to the Kingdom’s security. I’ll tell him more when he gets to the monastery, and I’ll make sure the town opens its gates for him.”

  Garath nodded, while Maran snapped to attention, giving a formal military “Aye, sir.”

  “Enough talk. Get your weapons from the wagon and ride like the wind! The rest of you, load that gruefell ri
der and his weapons aboard my wagon, and the saddlebags off that beast. Move, damn you!”

  —————

  The five Master Sorcerers gazed at the bodies of Margash and Karikan as they lay on the grass in the center of the ring of stones. There was silence for a long moment.

  At last one spoke. “We have lost two of our most advanced students, plus fourteen gruefells and most of their riders. This has been nothing less than catastrophe from beginning to end!”

  “It has,” their leader admitted. “There is no other word for it.”

  “And who is to blame?”

  “The enemy, of course: but also, all of us.” He gazed around at the other four unflinchingly. “Let us not delude ourselves. We all agreed on this course of action, so we are all responsible for its failure. Furthermore, none of us anticipated the very strong resistance the enemy would put up. It is unprecedented in our experience since the Fall, and must serve as a warning to us for future operations. We shall have to use better tactics, and probably exercise greater control ourselves over our forces’ actions, rather than delegate that to others.”

  “Agreed,” a third said crisply. “Did you see the man with the arbalest in the clearing, the one who slew Margash’s mount?”

  “I did.”

  “Could that have been Owain, the King’s Champion?”

  The leader shrugged. “In the half-light, it was difficult to see him clearly, particularly while we were concentrating on the bodies. His reactions were certainly fast enough to have been those of the Champion. If our spell-arms had been physical rather than sorcerous, his bolt would have wounded them.”

  “Perhaps Karikan was mistaken about having killed him at the Baron’s camp.”

  “Possibly. He may have killed another axeman of similar size. In the half-light, such an error would have been understandable.”