ALTDORF (The Forest Knights: Book 1)

by J. K. Swift

  “So, you would raise arms against a brother just to be welcomed amongst the ranks of those you despise?”

  Gissler raised his sword to a low guard and said, “You consort with witches. And you are not my brother.”

  Gissler struck first: a straight thrust followed by attacks to either side of Thomas’s head. Thomas knocked Gissler’s blade aside easily, with quick, deft blocks. Gissler danced back and smiled.

  It had been an exploratory attack to get a feel for how comfortable Thomas was with his weapon. To any normal observers Thomas would seem highly skilled, and they would not be wrong. However, in Gissler’s mind, Thomas had taken the second slash too near the tip of his blade, where it had no stopping power.

  Thomas had always preferred fighting with mace and dagger, much shorter weapons. He was nowhere near Gissler’s equal when it came to the long blade, and Gissler saw that very thought mirrored in Thomas’s eyes. The man was smart enough to know when he was outclassed.

  “I will say this only once. Drop your blade and submit or I will kill you. But I believe you know that,” Gissler said.

  In response, Thomas yelled and charged at Gissler, swinging left and right with powerful overhand attacks. Gissler backpedaled and brought his sword up in a series of awkward blocks until he managed to sidestep the frontal assault and regain his balance. The quick attack had caught him off guard and he cursed himself for being so lax. Thomas was no ordinary opponent. He would not underestimate him again.

  Gissler attacked. Two straight thrusts at Thomas’s abdomen followed by a reverse cut to his head. Thomas parried them, but then Gissler swept his blade down and drew a line of blood across Thomas’s thigh. Thomas grunted and stepped back. He dropped his sword to a low guard and met Gissler’s next attack with a parry and two counter strikes of his own.

  Gissler blocked the attack with ease and stepped around the left side of Thomas. His blade flicked out and he sliced Thomas across the ribs. Thomas leapt back lessening the depth of the cut, but not the pain. He grimaced and backtracked further to gain some room. Thomas was breathing heavily now, and looking into his eyes, Gissler knew the man was finished. But to Thomas’s credit, he did not give in. He launched a flurry of strikes, but Gissler was ready.

  He moved in circles and casually met his blade with crisp blocks at the end of each swing’s powerful arc, and when Thomas stepped in too close, Gissler raised his elbow and smashed it across his mouth. Then he stepped away to create distance and slashed Thomas across his sword arm’s shoulder. Thomas screamed and his blade flew through the air, landing on the ground near one of the dead wagon guards.

  Breathing heavily, Thomas limped after his weapon, one hand pressed against his shoulder to stem the flow of blood. Gissler watched the pathetic man with a detached calm. So this is how Thomas Schwyzer, Captain of The Wyvern, the finest fighting ship in the Levant, was to meet his end. What would Grandmaster de Villaret say now of his favored son?

  Gissler allowed him to pick up the sword with his left hand before attacking again. Thomas was on the defensive immediately but he was far too slow and clumsy with his off hand. Gissler slashed his chest and then rode the length of Thomas’s blade with his own all the way to the handle’s crosspiece. With a flick of his wrist he snagged Thomas’s sword and sent it spinning from his grip. He placed the point of his blade against the front of Thomas’s throat and forced him to his knees.

  Thomas gulped in air through his bloody open mouth. His dirty tunic was now soaked in red and he had the forlorn eyes of a man who had lost everything. To Gissler, Thomas had already been dead a long time. His life had been spent in blind servitude. He could not bring himself to feel sorry for his old captain because Thomas had accepted his fate with open arms. Never had he fought to better his position or change his lot. He was little more than a slave to be used by those God truly favored. Those who struggled to further their station in life.

  Thomas looked up at him and pulled the neck of his tunic to one side exposing the hollow between his collarbone and carotid artery.

  “Make it fast,” he said, his stare defiant to the end.

  Gissler nodded. “You deserve that much.”

  He lowered the point of his sword from the front of Thomas’s neck and stepped to the side to deliver the killing thrust. But his sword would not move.

  Thomas had thrown his arm over Gissler’s blade and held it pinned under his armpit against his side, while his hand Gripped Gissler’s wrist. His other hand snaked towards the body of the caravan guard next to him and yanked on the crossbow bolt protruding from the dead man’s back. It came free with a wet pop and before Gissler had time to react, Thomas leaned back reaching far behind his head with his right arm holding the crossbow bolt, its iron point and shaft slick with dark blood.

  With a loud cry, Thomas drove the hardened iron point into the base of Gissler’s throat, just above the spot at which his chainmail vest ended. The wind blew out of his lungs and Gissler stumbled back, dropping his sword while his hands wrapped around the base of the thick bolt protruding from his upper chest.

  Gissler stared at the shaft with wide eyes and his head shook back and forth in disbelief. Blood poured from the wound and seeped under his chainmail, only to emerge at his waist to turn his white under-tunic a vivid red. He stumbled to his knees and his eyes lost all focus before he fell onto his back. He looked up at nothing, still clutching the crossbow bolt.

  ***

  Gissler’s lips moved, and with his ruined lung, he had hardly any wind left to make words, but Thomas heard them all the same. Though, like most men’s last words, they made little sense.

  “No… I must… hire a farrier…” Gissler gave a last shudder and his hand fell away from the crossbow bolt’s shaft.

  Thomas pushed himself to his feet and looked down at his boyhood friend. They had traveled to the end of the world together, faced the mightiest Saracen warriors ever assembled, and survived when so many others, most in fact, did not. Only to come back here, where it all began, and kill one another.

  Where was God’s Will in all of this?

  A horse whinny caught his attention and he looked up. Leopold stared at him, disbelief blanketing his face. Thomas raised a blood-soaked arm and pointed.

  “You,” Thomas said. His voice rasped in his throat. “You… are poison.”

  Leopold looked once again at the fallen bodies on the road, then back to the specter walking towards him. He reined his horse in a tight circle away and kicked his heels into her side.

  Long before the sound of galloping hooves had disappeared into the distance, Thomas collapsed face-first onto the hard road, amidst an ever-growing circle of crimson.

  Chapter 39

  THE MOONLESS NIGHT allowed the twenty figures to crawl over the barren landscape of the fortress’s killing fields like darkness overtaking a desert. They flowed through gaps in the half-built walls, shrinking well back of the torchlight from the main gates, and continued inexorably forwards, until they came before the walls of the prison. There, they merged with the night, and waited.

  A door opened, and Heller, the jailer stepped out. He glanced about, craning his neck to take in all corners of the courtyard, and then beckoned to the shadows. Noll and his handpicked group of men and women passed by him wordlessly and poured into the depths of the large stone prison. It took only seconds to overcome the three sentries in the guardroom, but a full half hour to unlock the countless cell doors and manacles of the hundred condemned wide-eyed inhabitants.

  They armed themselves with chains, flails, torches, pointed staves, forceps, sharp cones of iron, and other tools readily available in a house of torture. When the distant sounds of fighting could be heard at the main gates of the fortress, Noll and Heller opened the doors of the prison and set their army free.

  There were less than forty Habsburg soldiers at the fortress that night. Eleven survived to be thrown into the very cells they used to guard. Vogt Berenger von Landenberg was amongst their number. He
had been found in his room in the keep, hiding in a wardrobe.

  Noll had him dragged into the courtyard, and at first the man cursed and screamed, demanding to be set free or he would bring the wrath of the Holy Roman Empire down upon them all. But he sang a different tune when Noll held a hot iron up to his face.

  Noll wanted nothing more than to take the Vogt’s eyes, as he had taken those of Noll’s father. But Landenberg was the only true bargaining piece he held. He needed him to trade for Seraina, and perhaps the ferryman, if he yet lived. And a fat Vogt with no eyes would make a poor offer, indeed.

  Impromptu fires had sprung up all over the courtyard. His army had found the keep’s stores and people all around Noll were singing and feasting. Children and wives had raced up from the town to welcome their previously imprisoned loved ones back into the world.

  Yes, Noll was now in control of the Altdorf fortress, something far more valuable to the Duke than Landenberg. And if Noll knew relinquishing it to the Austrians would ensure Seraina’s release, he would have given it up in a heartbeat. But it was not Noll’s to trade. It belonged to the people.

  In the end, he threw the poker aside and settled for whipping Landenberg’s back until it frothed with blood, and the man’s screams faded into unconsciousness.

  The mess on his back was nothing a good tunic would not cover.

  Chapter 40

  AFTER RIDING all night, a road-weary soldier from Altdorf limped into the Habsburg throne room early the next morning. A purple-haired Fool trailed along behind him, mimicking his inebriated-like gait, with an added flourish or two.

  The bells on the Fool’s shoes seemed especially loud to Leopold on this day.

  The Duke, with the hulking and grizzled form of his man Klaus standing once again at his side, listened to the soldier’s report. Leopold sank further into his chair with the telling of every detail. The Fool pulled up a chair beside the Duke and began copying Leopold’s posture.

  The soldier was in the midst of describing how Vogt Landenberg had been captured by the villagers, and was perhaps even dead, when Leopold sprang from his chair and wrapped his hands around the Fool’s throat. They fell to the floor kicking and thrashing, and by the time Klaus managed to break his lord’s grip on the jester, the little man was blue in the face and a crowd of servants had gathered at the door.

  The soldier stood straight, his wide eyes fixated on the coughing Fool still lying on the floor. Leopold straightened his clothes and ran his hands through his hair once before turning to Klaus. He looked refreshed, like he had just stepped out of a bath.

  “Make arrangements to leave at once,” he said.

  “To what destination, my lord?”

  “Salzburg. And send runners before us. I want an entire War Council convened before we arrive.”

  Klaus bowed and turned on his heel. He waved his arms at the gawking servants and they fled before him as he left the room.

  The Fool jumped up from the floor and began to follow them.

  “And where do you think you are going?” Leopold said.

  The painted man turned and faced Leopold with one hand on his hip. “Why to pack of course, my lord. For what War Council would be complete without a fool?”

  He flashed Leopold his best entertainer’s smile and scurried from the room. The bells on his shoes made not a sound.

  Chapter 41

  THE SUN WAS out but it did little to cut through the searing cold frosting the beard and mustache of the old trapper as he made his way towards the one-room cabin in the distance. His rhythmic breathing drowned out his muffled footsteps as his snowshoes floated in and out of the fresh powder. As he came down out of the trees and started across a hillside clearing that would be a field in the spring, the trapper paused and leaned on his walking stick.

  A thunderous crack boomed through the woods behind him and echoed throughout the forest. The sap in a tree had frozen, and expanded freeze after freeze, until finally, the trunk gave in and exploded.

  Without looking back in the direction of the sound, the old man pushed off on his walking stick and headed to the cabin.

  The door was stuck, frozen in place. He chipped away at it with his walking stick until it yielded to his shoulder. Air considerably warmer than the outside temperature rushed past him, carrying with it a stagnant odor. Against the far wall, a spruce-bough bed held two still forms, covered up to their necks with a single threadbare blanket. A man and a woman; her head on his chest and him on his back with his white, beardless face turned toward the rafters.

  The trapper crossed himself and then covered his nose with the same hand. Idly, he wondered why it was so much warmer in the room than it should be, until a flicker of light caught his eye. On the small table in the center of the hut, burned a single tallow candle. And just past the candle, peering out over the rough table, a pair of dark eyes stared back at him.

  A boy, who looked to be around four, stood at the edge of the table and did not move. The pupils of his already dark eyes were dilated so wide they appeared midnight-black.

  The trapper attempted to speak, but his voice came out in a croak. He had not used it for speech since the summer. And then only once, while he traded for supplies. He cleared his throat and tried again.

  “Nothing to fear, boy. Tell me your name.”

  The dark eyes narrowed and bored into the trapper’s own for so long the trapper thought the boy could not understand him. He was about to try again, but in French this time, when the boy’s chest heaved and he finally spoke in a voice as dry as the trapper’s own.

  “Thomas.”

  “How long you been here like this?”

  The boy turned to look at the figures on the bed. He pointed at them.

  “They look cold so I covered them. Might be they are still sick.”

  The trapper’s eyes followed the frail little arm to look at the gaunt figures embracing on the handcrafted bed. The fever got them long before the cold ever did.

  The old man crossed himself again and averted his gaze.

  “The cold cannot reach them anymore, Thomas.”

  Thomas came awake with a jerk that sent a spasm of pain racing down the length of his arm and under his ribs. The old trapper’s face hovering above him faded and was replaced with Seraina’s. Her auburn hair fell across one of her green eyes and he could make out the light freckles on her sun-browned skin.

  She smiled and held a cool hand to his forehead. She smelled of violets and spoke words he did not understand, but were comforting. His body became heavy, and staring up at her, he fought hard to keep his eyes open, wanting nothing more than to remain lucid in the moment. But within seconds, her skin and hair blurred together and those brilliant eyes faded like stars on a cloudy night.

  The scent of violets, however, remained with him long after the darkness returned.

  ###

  The story continues in “MORGARTEN”

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  Historical Notes

  The William Tell story that most of us are familiar with, has William Tell being forced to shoot an apple off his son’s head by an oppressive Austrian Governor named Hermann Gessler. We have the playwright Friedrich Schiller to thank for this. He wrote his hugely successful play William Tell in the early 1800’s. In 1829 Rossini premiered his opera of the same name. The opening piece was the William Tell Overture, portions of which would be brought into popular culture by its adoption for use in The Lone Ranger radio and television shows.

  Most historians doubt William Tell ever existed. He does not show up in any historical documents until one hundred and fifty years after the time he was supposed to have shot the apple (around 1307), and there is absolutely no mention anywhere of a Governor named Gessler. This is very unusual, as written records did exist at the time detailing the names and positions of even minor officials. The apple scenario itself is most definitely an embellishment, for strikingly similar tales of a tyrant forcing a hero to shoot objects off the head of a loved one appear much earlier than the 1300’s, in several different cultures, from Denmark to India.

  The only thing we know for sure, is that the regions of Schwyz, Uri, and Unterwalden rose up against their Austrian overlords in a rebellion that culminated in the Battle of Morgarten in 1315. My own feeling on the matter is that the legend of William Tell arose based on the exploits of more than one man or woman. William Tell was invented to personify the bravery and perseverance of a small group of people who, even when faced with overwhelming odds, still chose to make a stand for what they believed.