Shadow Knight
The Risen Queen - Book 2
M H Johnson
Copyright © 2018 by M H Johnson
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, and events are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to real persons, places, or events is entirely coincidental.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Thank You
1
Jess! We are under attack! Arm yourself and come at once, Eloquin needs us!”
Jess jolted awake, focusing on the sound of her friend's panicked voice. Her head swam with dizziness, lost in some awful state between daylight and dream. She stumbled from her bed, struggling free of her cotton sheets, gazing at her door, imagining Malek lurching forward as the door sprung open, so frantically he was pounding upon it.
A surge of will, and nothing. Jess shivered, throat suddenly dry.
Her door wouldn't open.
Malek's pounding grew all the more panicked. “Jess! For gods' sake, open your door!”
Grimacing, Jess forced her racing heart to calm, walking forward even as her guts twisted and knotted. She took a trembling breath, deliberately pressing her palm against her door. A click, and she all but collapsed with relief when it finally sprung open, though the stout oak wood seemed strangely quiescent to her touch.
“Jess, thank the gods!” Jess beheld the intense gaze of her closest friend in all the world, already kitted in mail armor and thick padded gambeson protecting torso and limbs alike. He squeezed her shoulder and Jess blinked, realizing not for the first time how beautiful Malek was. His gentle brown eyes, blazing so fiercely with protective anger, could be so tender with those he loved.
Jess grimaced, pulling away from his gaze. Now was neither the time nor place, hearing at last the shouts and panicked cries in the hallway beyond. And why were she and Malek even here? Hadn't they been kicked out of school? Or had that just been some sort of awful dream?
“Jess! Are you all right?”
Her shieldbrother’s anxious concern snapped her out of her odd daze, even as she felt the comforting weight of her beloved familiar leaping gracefully to his favorite perch. Of long habit, she gently reached up to stroke her familiar’s lush fur as he sat perched upon her shoulder. Brilliant sapphire eyes turned to meet her own.
“There is no time, my mistress. You must don your armor and blood your blade at once.”
Jess shivered, feeling a curious sense of urgency with her familiar's counsel, thankful that at least the fog of confusion had faded, leaving her feeling alert and focused once more. “Of course, Twilight.”
“Bloody hells! I can see you again, Twilight!" Malek's awe-filled whisper made Jess smile even as she donned her gambeson and plate reinforced leather boots.
Twilight sighed. “Of course you can, silly Hound. And if you thought to understand why you can see me, the trial ahead would be that much easier.”
“Now’s not the time for riddles,” Malek said, shaking out of his own reverie. “Come, Jess! I know you can equip yourself faster than this, we used to compete with each other after all.”
Jess grimaced. "I know that, Malek. Just bear with me! For some reason, this mail shirt keeps slipping out of my grasp!"
Jess gazed with frustration at her hauberk of brilliant mithril mail splayed casually upon the back of her study chair, exactly where she had left it the night before. A curious tingle coursed through her. Somehow, she knew that she and Malek had just survived the most terrible and wondrous adventures, but the details slipped like sand through the frustrated fingers of her mind. One thing she knew with utter certainty was that this hauberk now belonged to her in ways that transcended any mundane sense of property rights. As if the artifact was now kin to her soul.
She gave a frustrated growl. Bound to her or not, the exotic links now kept sliding free of her hands, no matter how hard she gripped. “Bloody hells, its like I can’t even pick the thing up! Like I’m a ghost.”
Effortlessly, Twilight flowed from her shoulder to spring upon the study table, catching Jess’s gaze with his own. “And why do you think that is, Jess?”
“We don’t have time for riddles, Twilight!” An anxious Jess snapped.
Twilight tilted his head. “Then you had best do what needs doing. For if you cannot don your mithril shirt, then perhaps you shouldn’t be heading out there in the middle of a mad melee that appears to have sprung up out of nowhere. Agreed?” Jess shivered under her familiar’s heavy gaze, almost feeling like he was trying to tell her something without saying a word, but she knew she didn’t have time for puzzles.
“You are right, Twilight," she conceded. "If I can't even don my mithril armor, I have no business being out in the middle of some mad engagement."
Her familiar looked oddly relieved.
Jess took a deep breath, quelling her growing panic, forcing herself to drown out all distraction and focus solely upon the cool links of mithril mail underneath her fingertips. She gently ran her fingers across armor she knew she had worn in the realm of dreams and darkest Shadow, mail so exquisitely made that no blade could rupture its links, or even scratch its surface. In that moment the mithril felt as viscerally real as a lover's kiss, or a blow to the face.
Trembling hands slowly lifted the shirt of shimmering armor, forcing it over her head, her arms slipping through the mailed sleeves. Suddenly she felt as if she were but a wispy shade being crushed by an unfathomable weight. But a moment later the odd fancy passed, her armor draped upon her frame as comfortably as always, even as she cinched the waist belt she had strung through it, the priceless artifact now hugging her frame as snugly as any well-made doublet. She gave a firm nod of satisfaction. “Done, Twilight. Thank you. I just needed to focus.”
Twilight blinked, seemingly surprised. Jess grinned. It was as if he had doubted she could actually don it.
“Are you ready yet? Thank the gods. Come, Jess. Eloquin is expecting us!" Malek's anxiety cut through her reverie. Hurriedly, Jess fastened the straps of her helmet, secured her blade, and was ready to dash off after her brother-in-arms.
“Jess. Your blade.” Twilight’s gaze was unwavering and Jess grimaced once more.
“We don’t have time, Twilight!”
Her familiar’s gaze brooked no argument, however. Carefully, she unsheathed the blade and gasped. It was exquisitely balanced, the edge as keen as she could want on a longsword, and she recognized the stamp as being one of the many backup longswords her master had for his Squires, should any break in battle. Of her own masterwork blade, there was no sign.
Malek gave a frustrated shake of his head, catching Jess's gaze. "We don't have time to admire our blades, Jess, it's an emergency!"
"But, Malek, where's my own blade?"
He blinked. "Wait, you don't remember? Your blade got destroyed when, well..." Ma
lek's brows furrowed. "Didn't we survive some mad adventure together? Of course we did. We were expelled, yet instead of heading home we trained, preparing ourselves for some test? Some ritual of sorts? Then something momentous occurred, and there was a huge celebration and everything, I'm sure of it! Anyway, I quite clearly remember Eloquin handing you that sheathed blade, saying our vacation was at an end, and no Squire worth her name would be caught with a blade as damaged as yours had been. Then Jacob distracted me and, well, never mind all that, we have to get going!"
Jess let her friend's words wash over her, Malek's words invoking mysteries for another time.
"Jess." She swallowed, gazing Twilight's way, her familiar's brilliant eyes made it clear what she needed to do. Oddly, she felt no pain as she sliced her cheek against the tip of the blade, frowning to see the blade unmarked.
“Focus, Jess. If you can don your mithril armor, you can blood your blade.”
Jess nodded even as she shut her eyes, all the better to concentrate, drowning out the faint cries of battle, the screams of the wounded, the clang of steel, even her shieldbrother’s increasingly frantic demands that she hurry.
“Silence, Hound. Our mistress is focusing!”
“Bloody hells," Malek grumbled. "Very well. But she isn't my mistress, and I'm not your hound!”
A deep breath in, then out. She felt the grip, warm in her hand. The cold tingle of naked metal against her flesh, sharp and deadly, abrading against her skin. At last she felt the hot sting of steel cutting ever so slightly into her left cheek. She gasped in startlement, shamed to hear the soft whimper pass her lips as the pain surprisingly caught her off guard. Odd, too, since the cut seemed to have bitten past where her cheek guard flared out. As if her helmet was not even there.
“Jess, we don’t have time for ceremonial rituals! We need to go!”
Jess nodded, heart racing with the increasingly shrill cries of the students she heard in the main corridor, not even sure why she had felt compelled to stain her perfectly serviceable blade. “You’re right, Malek. Side by side, let’s go!”
Moving as one they did just that, Twilight flowing effortlessly to his perch, watching forward and back as they raced towards the din and cry of battle, increasing in pitch until the passage they raced along suddenly opened into the main dining hall.
For but a moment only, Jess wondered how they had arrived there so quickly, but her mind immediately snapped into battle focus, assessing the scene of terrible violence before her. For all was chaos and confusion, a wild melee involving a score of upperclassmen and guards desperately battling fearsome soldiers of living darkness. Save for eyes glowing like hellish embers, it was as if they fought warriors of liquid shadow.
Dozens of the younger students, unarmed, sobbed in naked terror. A handful of older students lay crumpled upon the ground, eyes glassy with the horror of death, their bodies ripped open by the most grievous of wounds. Jess saw that the shadowy assailants had already herded scores of the youngest students into the very center of the great hall before deliberately smashing knees and ankles with blows designed to shatter bone, the now maimed children screaming and writhing in agony upon the cold stone floor.
The student's panicked pleas rang through Jess's soul and shook her. The horror of the violent melee turned to an icy awareness of the battlefield as a whole. Somehow, Jess recognized the malignant meaning of the blood-soaked sigil inscribed into the middle stone tiles of the chamber that the crippled children had been thrust upon.
Jess’s heart began to hammer. She understood at once that her peers were about to be butchered, a dark sacrifice to things hideous and foul.
Then she heard the piercing cry of a whistle, the sound instantly filling Jess's heart with a fierce exultation. For in that moment she knew that she and Malek were not alone. None other than Eloquin himself, her mentor and most esteemed professor, had come to answer the call of battle, leading a tight vanguard of third and fourth-year students, all with the hardened eyes of those who had spent their college years training diligently for just such a day. In stark contrast to the panicked terror infecting so many of the students in the dining hall, Eloquin's protege's looked fierce, determined, and more than willing to sheath their blades in the vile flesh of the enemy that had dared to invade their school.
Unfortunately, most wore nothing more than padded gambesons. Effective armor as that was for cushioning a blow and foiling a killing cut with over a dozen layers of expertly quilted linen, it was no substitute for the mail she and Malek both wore. And much like she had trained herself to do through countless mock engagements, she understood instantly where she and Malek would be most effective.
Eloquin, with a few curt gestures Jess immediately understood, split his group into a pincer formation, flowing to the left and right of the waiting apparitions of deathly shadow. They were but seconds from slamming into the enemy's flanks with roaring cries of defiance, their blades ready to cut into the ghostly horde with all fervor and fury.
A single shared glance with her commander across the battlefield, and her orders were clear. Silently, she flashed long rehearsed hand signals, receiving a tight nod from Malek, and together they raced to slam into their enemy’s rear flank at the instant Eloquin gave his soldiers the whistle to engage their enemy in unison.
The hideously undulating shadows were caught completely unawares. Used to disorganized, panicked resistance, they were not expecting a coordinated flanking counter-strike launched with a well-trained soldier's fury, as Eloquin's disciplined students sought to grind their disorganized enemies between their two fronts.
Momentarily distracted and off balance from Eloquin's pincer maneuver attacking their left and right flanks, the shadow soldiers did not sense Jess and Malek’s attack from their rear until after she gave fierce cry, her bloodied blade lashing out to deadly effect, cleaving one apparition’s shadowy head from its shoulders in a fount of pale mist and blood that never even touched her, as the specter itself faded before the corpse hit the floor.
Having seized the Vor, Jess and Malek attacked with all the frenzy and rage they could muster, both knowing that the only chance a smaller unit had against a larger enemy was to completely devastate and demoralize their foe; to strike from quarters unseen, to shatter their enemy’s resolve and discipline, to strike fast and hard, constantly moving, giving their enemy not an instant to regroup. Flashes of endless lectures and a hundred mock battles flittered through Jess’s brain even as her blade arced out in a blisteringly fast series of cross-cuts, her smoking weapon slicing into her surprised enemy with hideous ease, rupturing his chest cavity and dropping him instantly in a spray of blood and gore that felt no more real than mist.
Jess knew she dare not waste even a moment in awe or horror, even as she spun about and struck again by pure instinct, having heard her shieldbrother’s panicked grunt, slicing her blade completely through both her enemy’s arms as it sought to disembowel Malek. Then it too screamed an oddly faint wail, spectral blood flowing to nothingness as it faded from sight.
It was as if her foes wore no armor at all, she thought. As if her blade cut through naked flesh, her enemies utterly unprepared for the furious terror that gave such power to her blows. Jess could understand her enemy’s confusion. For even as her blade seemed to cut through the shadowy armor they wore as if it were, well, no more than shadow, their armaments seemed to ward her fellow student’s blows with ease.
“Focus, Malek.” Jess snapped, even as she spun back to back to protect her shieldbrother, long practice allowing the two to flow together in perfect unison. It was almost as if they could sense each other’s movements, so precisely they knew just when and where to step, weave, and dodge; every gesture as coordinated as if they engaged in the most exacting of performances, for all that neither favored any dance save the one played to the din and call of blood and steel.
A curse as more shadowy soldiers charged her and Malek, wicked black blades whistling through the air. Jess grinned fier
cely as she parried, lashing out with an expertly timed Absetzen counter. Her blade plunged deep into a shadowy foe’s chest even as he prepared to strike from above. She felt as much as heard the awful crack of breastbone, the moment of resistance before her blade tore through, piercing her foe’s very heart. With a hiss and grunt she forced her blade out with a savage yank and tear, knowing the worst folly would be to lose her weapon, should it lodge hopelessly within his breastbone or muscles locked in death spasm. Yet freeing it was chillingly effortless, no harder than pulling her blade free of butter, her enemy fading to mist even as he slid off her sword, as had every foe before him.
And all the while, flashes of Eloquin’s endless lectures roared through Jessica’s mind even as battle roared on all about her, time itself seeming to slow as her combat senses fully took hold. She recalled a flash of one particular lecture, Jess bright and focused where her peers were yawning, hypnotized by the warmth of that summer day even as Eloquin had droned on about the virtues of timing, reinforcing the idea that the deadliest warriors knew exactly when to time their strike, often at the very moment of pause when their foe was just about to attack themselves.
“Duck!” Twilight hissed, and Jess did not hesitate for an instant as she felt as much as saw the blade whistling over her head, even as her own sword plunged into the assailant racing towards her. With his own sword raised high for a killing blow in conjunction with the man at Jess's rear, Jess had instantly turned her dodge into a hyper-extended lunge, knowing surprise was just as important as proper form. In that heartbeat of time she whipped her sword around with the grace of a ballerina, ripping it free of her enemy's gaping wound as she turned the momentum of her lunge into a spin away from her dying foe's counterswing even as he shimmered and faded to mist and shadow. And but a heartbeat later she was already engaging the shade that had nearly decapitated her, a threat her shieldbrother should have seen coming.
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