The Red Knight ttsc-1

by Miles Cameron

  The quarter guard was the watch reserve – half the able men, usually the very best men, but today simply half the available troops. Sauce had more than a dozen men-at-arms in the day watch – most of the rest were kept ready for the sortie – led by Ser John Ansley, a big, cheerful, ruddy-faced young man. ‘Ser John, you have the watch,’ she said. ‘I’m taking the quarter guard. On me!’ she called, and the quarter guard came; sixteen archers and eight men-at-arms. Most of the archers were guildsmen she didn’t know – with all five of the new recruits – the local boys. Ben should have been her master archer, but he was already standing with Wilful Murder.

  ‘Cuddy – you’re the senior,’ she said.

  ‘Like enough,’ he said.

  Jehannes raised his voice. ‘You are insane!’ he roared at Tom.

  Tom laughed.

  Her senior man-at-arms was Chrys Foliak – one of her own tent-mates. He had the others ready to move.

  Cuddy made a motion with his hand and Long Paw stepped out of the ranks and joined him.

  They went out the postern. It was obvious to them all that Ser Jehannes disagreed with the order to send them. But then the courtyard was behind them, and they were out in the light.

  Below, on the fields, hundreds – perhaps thousands – of creatures were moving toward the Lower Town. The fields themselves seemed to be moving.

  ‘Good Christ!’ Chrys Foliack muttered. ‘Good Christ.’

  Long Paw spat thoughtfully.

  He paused in the postern, leaned back, and shouted ‘Toby! Michael!’

  He couldn’t see the captain’s valet or his squire. ‘JACQUES!’ he roared.

  A nun – tall and pretty despite her hollow eyes – came to the postern. ‘May I help?’ she asked.

  ‘Captain’s in trouble. Tell Bad – tell Ser Thomas we’ll need relays of arrows and all the men in harness.’

  She nodded. ‘I’ll tell him.’

  ‘See you do, lass,’ Long Paw spat carefully to one side, flashed her his best smile, turned, and ran down the long path to catch up with the others.

  Lissen Carak – Harmodious

  Harmodius watched the bustle in the courtyard as he climbed past the two men-at-arms arguing – reached the wall-

  It was worse than he had thought.

  He ran, barefoot, along the wall to the apple tree.

  Summoned power, and raised his staff . . .

  Lissen Carak – The Abbess

  The Abbess watched the day watch form under her window. There was something particularly well-ordered about the company. Their scarlet jupons, their bright polished armour. They made her feel safe even when she knew that she was anything but.

  Even as she watched – looking for the captain, and missing him, and assigning herself a penance for looking, all in one thought – the woman who wore men’s armour shouted an order, and all of the men on the right of the formation turned and followed her.

  There was suddenly an air of crisis – men moved in many directions.

  She reached out-

  He was preparing an attack.

  She felt well-slept and immensely strong. She walked across her solar to the windows on the outer wall, three hundred feet above the fields below, and looked out.

  Her fields seethed as if covered in maggots.

  Her feeling of revulsion was more than physical.

  A pair of her novices, alerted by her movements, appeared with a cup of warm wine and a fur-lined robe. She drank the one and shrugged on the other while the older novice brushed her hair.

  ‘Hurry,’ she said.

  She put light shoes on her feet, pulled the mantle of her profession over her fur robe and was off while the creatures in the fields below were still merely a tide lapping at the foundations, and not a mighty wave.

  She collected the crozier – the crooked staff that the Abbess bore by tradition, with a curious green stone head.

  And then she ran, like a much younger woman, for her bower – her apple tree.

  She was shocked to find another there. Not just there, but swimming in her power.

  ‘Master Magus,’ she said, coming to a stop.

  ‘Lady Abbess,’ he said. ‘I’m working.’

  Even as she paused, he raised his staff. His power was visible. His whole form gave off tendrils of power.

  The Lower Town, Lissen Carak – The Red Knight

  The captain watched the enemy’s creatures gather. They were well within bowshot, and No Head and his fellows began to pink them. The two youngest archers carried sheaves of fresh shafts from the second floor, and the older men began to loose.

  The captain had seen archers in action before, had watched his men practise at the butts, but he’d never watched a dozen professionals at full stretch.

  He’d fussed at No Head while the older man felt the breeze, and carefully arranged his sheaves in brackets for the purpose set into the wall – little iron buckets.

  The two senior men – No Head and Kanny – raised their bows, loosed, discussed their aiming points, and watched the fall of their shafts.

  ‘Over,’ said Kanny. It was a different tone of voice from his usual hectoring, barracks-lawyer voice.

  ‘Over,’ No Head said. ‘Ready, lads?’

  He raised his bow, and every man on the tower raised his in emulation, and they all loosed together. Their arrows rose and rose, and before they had begun to fall the next flight was on its way.

  Down on the plain, the distant irks screamed their defiance, showed their hooked teeth, patted their backsides and hefted their spears.

  There were a thousand of them – more, most likely. In their homespun greens and their leathers and brown skin, they looked as if they’d been grown from the earth under their feet.

  The first flight of arrows struck. They all struck together, and tore a small whole in the great patchwork of brown-green irks.

  The phalanx of spears moved a step closer.

  The second flight struck.

  And the third.

  And the fourth.

  The regiment of irks started to look like a piece of leather on a shoemaker’s bench punched with an awl. And again, and again. The punches only made small holes. But it made a great many of them.

  The irks screamed, their handsome elfin faces contorted into masks of rage, and they charged.

  ‘Fast as you can, boys,’ No Head called.

  His arms became a blur of motion. He drew and loosed, took a shaft from his bracket, nocked, drew, and loosed so quickly that the captain had difficulty sorting his actions.

  Brat, the youngest archer, opened a linen sack and dumped the shafts, points first, into No Head’s bracket, and ran to load the next archer.

  Kanny was grunting with every draw. The sound was so frequent and rhythmic it was obscene.

  The irks had little or no armour, and no shields. As they crossed the three hundred paces to the breaches in the northern wall, they left a trail of wounded and dead creatures behind them. It was as if the whole phalanx was a wounded animal, bleeding little corpses.

  They reached the first breach.

  Kanny ran dry of arrows, and had to pause to get his own bundle. Brat couldn’t keep up. One by one, the bows stopped twanging.

  ‘They’re not going anywhere,’ No Head said calmly. ‘Don’t rush. Everyone get their quivers full again. Brat, you get one more load up here and join us on the wall.’

  The captain felt superfluous.

  Lissen Carak – Sauce

  Cuddy watched the first charge out of the slits of one of the covered ways halfway up the ridge. Then he ran down the steps to Sauce.

  ‘They’re going to need help,’ he said.

  She glared at him.

  ‘We can hit them from down there,’ he said, pointing to the lower path. ‘With arrows.’ He continued. The men-at-arms tended to forget the power of the bows.

  Sauce paused. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Let’s go!’

  They pounded down the track – over a streambed, d
own steep steps, around a long curve, and then they were right above the Lower Town. The wall had a fine low parapet, and the Gate Tower was just a hundred paces away and almost at eye level.

  Cuddy admired No Head’s archery for three long breaths. The shooting was continuous, now, and the flow of shafts like a waterfall crashing down on the irks in the field. The creatures died and died.

  It was clear to Cuddy that the irks were defeated. Archery combat had a ruthless logic of its own. Cuddy was an expert in it.

  ‘Five shafts,’ he said to the men around him. ‘Right in the midst of them. Fast as you can.’ Two of his guildsmen had crossbows – not really worth a thing in a fight like this.

  Oh, well.

  ‘Ready?’ he called. Every longbowman had five arrows in the ground, ready to hand, and another on the bow. Long Paw had one on his bow, one in his bow hand, and four in the ground.

  Cuddy raised his bow.

  Lissen Carak – The Red Knight

  The irks broke.

  The new arrows came from behind, plunging down and killing them. In a minute a tenth of their numbers were pinned to the ground, screaming their thin screams.

  Lissen Carak – Sauce

  ‘Save your shafts,’ Cuddy said. He had only fifteen more. High above, on the ridge, he could see valets starting down with bundles of arrows, but it would be ten minutes before those arrows reached them.

  He pointed to the town. ‘Some of them got in,’ he called to Sauce.

  ‘Are you happy to stay here?’ she asked.

  Cuddy nodded.

  ‘Men-at-arms – on me.’ She waved to Cuddy and started for the postern gate.

  Long Paw winked at Cuddy as he followed her.

  Lissen Carak, The Lower Town – The Red Knight

  The captain went to open the tower’s lower door himself. He and Ser George were the only men without bows.

  Sauce was outside, with a crowd of armoured men. ‘Town’s full of irks,’ she said. Her sword was in her hand, and behind her, men were cleaning the dark blood from their blades.

  He nodded. ‘We have to keep the street clear for sorties,’ he said.

  She nodded. ‘That’s going to suck,’ she said in a matter-of-fact voice. And took her party to move stones and fallen roof tiles.

  The captain went with them.

  It was brutal work. As the spring sun rose it burned, distant and orange, through the smoke-filled air. It was growing warm, and inside forty pounds of chain and plate, and a heavy quilted arming cote, it was hot.

  Just bending to lift a stone was hard enough in armour.

  It took five of them to lift a fallen roof beam.

  When they began to complain, he pointed out that it was their horses who would come through here in the dark.

  They went on, picking up rubble, pushing obstructions aside.

  After an hour, the captain was soaked through. He collapsed on a low stone wall and Toby handed him a flagon of water.

  Thump-snack.

  ‘Son of a bitch,’ the captain cursed, and the stone slammed into a church fifty paces distant, blowing a hole through the tile roof and vanishing inside.

  He began to stand up, and the irks attacked.

  There were only a dozen of them; desperate, and brave, and ferocious.

  When the rush was cleared, the captain found that the armoured man at his back was Ser George Brewes.

  The flagon of water was still unbroken by a miracle. He took a swig, spat, and handed the jug to Ser George.

  Ser George leaned on his sword. ‘Feg,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘Irks. I’ve heard of them.’

  The captain just panted.

  ‘Like killing children,’ Ser George said.

  The whole sky was a pink-red. Another rock crashed to earth off to their left.

  ‘You really think we can hold?’ Ser George asked.

  ‘Yes,’ the captain wheezed. He’d taken a cut on the back of his shoulder. He could feel the blood mixing with his sweat. I need to learn to heal myself. It was trickling down his side – warm, instead of cold.

  Why? Why did she turn her back on me?

  He made a face.

  ‘It would be something,’ Ser George admitted.

  ‘Yes,’ the captain managed.

  Toby – unarmoured and unarmed – had survived the rush from the irks. He’d simply run away. Now he was back.

  ‘I’ve food,’ he said.

  His scrip was packed with beef, bread and good round cheeses and Sauce’s men-at-arms fell on him like scavengers on a carcass. His head was patted a dozen times. He had a meat pie for himself. But he always seemed to.

  Sauce moved among them. ‘Drink water,’ she said, as if they were children and turned to the captain. ‘Think they’ll try again?’ she asked.

  The captain shrugged, and the weight of his armour and the pain in his shoulder defeated the motion completely. So he bobbed his head. ‘No idea.’ He took a deep breath. His breastplate seemed to be too small, and he couldn’t catch his breath. The smoke in the air was burning the inside of his lungs.

  It was a very small working, an insidious thing. He saw it as soon as he made the effort.

  The air was full of a poison. He couldn’t even see how it was done.

  Sauce started to cough.

  Harmodius! He called.

  I see it, lad.

  Do something! the captain shouted in his head.

  Lissen Carak – Amicia

  His shout came to her as clearly as his anguish.

  She was working on Sym’s back, running her hands along the weels left by the lash, and trying to fix some of the deeper issues, as well. The captain’s thoughts were not helping her concentration.

  She reached out instinctively. It was in the air. Poison. She read it from his thoughts.

  She tasted the air through his mouth, and felt it through his lungs.

  She was in him.

  Then he slammed his gate shut.

  She was standing over Sym, with her hands clenched into fists. Shaking.

  Captain! She sent.

  He responded.

  It’s an unhealing. A curse.

  Tell me.

  You cannot banish it. You can only heal it.

  Another voice. The Magus. I see! Well thought, mistress.

  Now it was her turn to raise her defences. Get out! She said it aloud too.

  Sym looked at her.

  ‘Not you, silly,’ she muttered.

  Lissen Carak, The Lower Town – The Red Knight

  The captain could feel the poison thickening in the air and he didn’t know how to heal. Although now that she showed him, he could see it.

  A curse.

  The physical manifestation of a curse.

  He went into his tower. ‘I need help,’ he said to his tutor.

  She smiled. ‘Ask me anything,’ she said.

  ‘A curse. A physical curse – a poison in the air.’ He went to the door to his tower.

  ‘He’s waiting for you to open it,’ she said.

  ‘I think he’s busy, and a lot of people are going to die if I don’t act.’ He reached to door.

  ‘If it is physical, perhaps we can move it physically,’ Prudentia said. She smiled sadly. ‘I don’t know healing, either.’

  ‘That’s a fine thought.’ He looked up at his symbols. ‘Wind,’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ Prudentia agreed.

  He spoke the names. ‘St George, Zephyr, Capricorn,’ he said, and the great ranges of symbols rotated silently.

  He touched the door.

  He could feel the enemy, and he opened it anyway.

  And slammed it back shut.

  Lissen Carak – Sauce

  The wind came up without warning – first a heavy gust that cooled them, and then a mighty rush of air from the east.

  Sauce drew a shuddering breath.

  ‘Get a scarf over your face,’ the captain shouted. ‘Anything.’

  The wind moved the poison – but he could s
till smell it.

  And then he felt the sending. It was gentle as snow, and just for a heartbeat the air seemed to sparkle all around them, as if the world was made of magic.

  Lissen Carak – Harmodius

  Harmodius watched the Abbess’s working and he could only think of Thorn’s statement that men were too divided.

  It was beautiful. The sort of mathematical Hermeticism that moved him the most deeply. In it were the rotations of the planets and the paths of the stars across the heavens. And many other things, thought and unthought . . .

  ‘You are far more powerful than I had imagined,’ Harmodius said.

  She smiled. Just for a moment, it was the Queen’s smile.

  ‘Who are you?’ he asked.

  ‘You know who I am,’ she said it playfully. She rose from her seat. ‘I think Thorn will find it very hard to use that trick again.’

  Harmodius raised an eyebrow. ‘Trick?’ he asked. ‘It wasn’t Hermeticism. It wasn’t a working. Not as I understand them.’

  ‘There are more things on heaven and earth than are in your philosophy,’ she said. ‘He uses the deaths of the irks to fuel his curse. It is a very, very ancient way to power magic.’

  Harmodius nodded in sudden understanding. ‘But you-’

  ‘I stand for life,’ the Abbess said. ‘Me, and my God, as well.’ She smiled sweetly. ‘He will not be back for some time. I need to speak to a novice. Pray excuse me.’

  Harmodius bowed. As she swept past him, he said, ‘Lady-’

  ‘Yes? Magus?’ She paused. Her attendants paused, and she waved them on.

  ‘If we linked, lady-’ he said.

  She made a moue. ‘Then you would know all my innermost thoughts. And I yours,’ she said.

  ‘We would be more powerful,’ he insisted.

  ‘I am already linked to my novices. And to all my sisters,’ she said. ‘We are a choir.’

  ‘Of course you are,’ Harmodius said. ‘Gads, of course you are. I’m a fool.’ It was obvious, when she said it. Forty weak magi would still be very powerful indeed, together. But it would require incredible discipline.