The Knight's Blade (Realm of Lords Book 1)

by RG Long

  Darrion and Rosha came up the hill on horseback until the horses couldn't bear the terrifying sight any longer. Even so, the beasts lasted longer than their riders. Rosha and Darrion were left in utter shock. The sight of their city in flames and ruined was terrible. No matter how desperate they had been to leave, they never wanted to see it like this.

  Rosha cried silent tears, and Darrion's face drifted into a vacancy of all thought as he witnessed the destruction on all sides. Guards laid dead on the path to the castle. Regular citizens of Oldrum did, too.

  "A Red Night," Aladorn repeated, following the warning of the bandit lord. "The Red Corsairs."

  "This is the Red Knight?" Darrion asked.

  Aladorn was taken aback by it all. Whatever hot fury he had wound back and readied to lash out was thoroughly muted and done with. All that was left was terror and awe.

  "The stories didn't do justice to the... visceral truth."

  A building collapsed up the road. Darrion knew exactly which one it was. It was the inn and tavern where his aunt and uncle presided. For a moment, he worried that they were inside. He flashed through his past, his absent mother and the stern hand, both front, and back, of auntie Gertie. The thought of her being gone, being vanquished under the red tide of war, hurt him more than he expected.

  The horses wouldn't go any further. They bucked and stomped in refusal. Rosha dismounted her horse and stroked it carefully while the other two got off in their own ways, with Aladorn risking a tumble to the ground. Once they were free, the horses turned to retreat. It seemed like the most immediately right thing to do.

  "Come on," Darrion said, "there might be some people still hiding. They'll need our help."

  "Help with what?" Aladorn asked. "Do you know how to write a will? I thought you couldn't even read a blueprint without my help!"

  Darrion turned with a burning in his eyes that looked hotter than the flames behind him.

  "To escape!" Darrion shouted. "Anyone we can, we should, and we must help them leave before the monsters finish pillaging the castle and turn their way back toward the main road."

  "Oh, a pox on that entirely!" Aladorn objected. "Do you know what force has been issued here, and under what conspiracies?"

  "I don't care!" Darrion demanded.

  "My parents," Rosha whimpered. She sucked up a thick run of snot that was pouring out of her nose. She was already in the midst of powerful mourning, dreading the worst, defenseless, and awash with innocence.

  "My parents... we have to find them."

  "All right," Darrion said. "Let's stay off the main road and head along the forest."

  He turned to Aladorn to confirm if he was coming, just on the chance he would refuse. It was his chance to leave and follow the horses, or to secure a proper escape for any survivors they did find, but he nodded. He couldn't turn down Darrion's raging determinism.

  "As long as we stay unseen," Aladorn said.

  Darrion led them both behind the houses, out of the reach of the fires or smokey ruins, to the backrun of the town near the border of the forest. The only thing untouched was the wildlife fence that kept the creatures of the woods out of people's yards and gardens and livestock pens. It may as well have fallen too because every yard they traveled through showed evidence of the Corsairs' passage.

  They slaughtered everything that moved before them, men, women, and even the animals they tended to. Chickens were crushed with heavy boot and hoof. Pigs had huge stab wounds through their backs and were scattered out as they struggled in their last bleeding moments. None were spared. Not even dogs or cats. If it was living when it was caught, it was slain like everything else.

  Walking through the dead remains caused the three youth unequal strife. Rosha was completely distraught, to the point where she could do nothing but make screaming gasps and sickly groans as they pushed forward. Her spear was dragged behind her with the metal tip grasped up to the hilt in her hands.

  Darrion pushed forward and kept his eyes ahead, willfully ignoring the carnage around him.

  Aladorn observed it somberly. The loss of life was a gruesome toll he couldn't brush off. They weren't bandits that were killed, just simple towns folk whose only worries were of the temperament of their local lord and how it would affect their taxes.

  They went past everything, the same way they left only a day ago, and reached the stable. There was nearly nothing left. It was still on fire and quickly burning from the front. The main gate would be destroyed, but the back entrance could have still functioned. Half the roof was collapsed as well. If there was anything inside, it would probably be dead.

  Suddenly, Rosha perked her head up and rushed forward.

  "I hear something," she said in a panic. "There's a horse left! I know it!"

  "Are you sure?" Darrion asked.

  All he could hear was fire around him and fighting in the distance, screams of men as metal pierced metal, and crashed hard with resounding echoes. Rosha dashed ahead to the rear of the stable, forcing the other two to follow. She had hope remaining in her heart for some kind of reunion, for just one life to be saved. Even if it was a horse.

  She pushed her way into the stable and saw many of the beams fallen and on fire. One had fallen and smoked with the threat of fire closing in. Under it, pressed firmly against the wall of its open pen, was a great ashen-grey steed reserved for the riders who hunted through the woods. At the base of the pen, lying face down on the floor were two bodies, run through from behind with deep red wounds.

  Rosha stepped forward slowly as if she didn't want to disturb them. Dread piled up in her heart like storm clouds gathering in the distance. Then all at once, like thunder from on high, her voice shrieked out when she saw who they both were. Her mother and father, killed in the stable, trying their hardest to defend just one last animal.

  "No!" Darrion hushed.

  Aladorn stood back and watched as Darrion crouched down to comfort Rosha as she cried. In the panic of destruction, the very heat of the moment, they were defeated in spirit and were reduced to the wandering children they truly were.

  Old enough to fight, perhaps, but still too young to know the cruelty of the world beyond their village. The wizard pitied them and knew he couldn't say anything to help. Instead, he diverted his focus to the horse.

  "Rosha," he said, "Darrion, can you find a pry bar nearby to move that beam?"

  "What?" Darrion asked.

  He turned back, with a hot lecture braced in his mouth, but saw how serious Aladorn was, a fire of his own in his eyes of cynical frustration.

  "I could try to lift it myself," he said, "but to manipulate fire that way would risk burning the horse. I'd like to only give one quick push to free it, if I can, rather than risk burning us all down in the act."

  Darrion saw through what the wizard wanted. He was trying to restore their balance again, force them out of the misery that threatened to cripple them where they sat. Darrion stood up and looked around. Then Rosha stood and clacked her spear to the ground. She huffed out a ragged breath and rubbed her face clean and chaffed with her sleeve.

  "Use this," she said, holding out her spear. "If even once, I want to use this to... save something. And not... kill."

  "Okay," Darrion said. He guided her over to the pen. The horse grunted at their presence. Rosha gave it a calming stroke on its snout, and it was calmed considerably. Darrion wedged the spear in over the wall between the falling pillar and gave it a hard pull with all his weight. The beam was pushed out, but it was still falling onto the horse and forcing it to crouch lower.

  Aladorn held up his hands and crossed his fingers in two braids per hand. He whispered a wordless, soundless language that came from his mouth like a dry, ashen breeze. It swept over the ground, over the bodies, and went up to the rafters to mix up the flames.

  The fire became like a cluster of snakes, reaching and coiling over one as they worked down the trapping beam. Then, before they got too close, the flames tangled together in the same hands
and arms and started lifting and pulling away.

  The beam tilted up higher off the ground where it rested. With Darrion's help, the beam finally lifted away from the horse, and it trotted its way out of the pen. Rosha led it away, around her parents' bodies, out to the rear yard. Darrion cleared the way just as the spell ended, and the fire lost its solid form and returned to its natural state.

  Aladorn was left tired, with a sigh fitting of a long chore being finished, and looked up to see Darrion with a grateful and humble expression.

  "Thank you," he said.

  "Oh, sure," Aladorn said. The beam collapsed further across the other stables, and the roof continued to fall in with a rain of solid fire. "Am I to assume my debt paid?"

  "Of course," Darrion said.

  They retreated from the stable just as it finished falling. The rubble buried Rosha’s parents there. The couple’s resting place was among the horses they cared for so much, their purpose worth more than their lives in the end.

  Chapter 21

  THE ASHEN STEED WITH dark spots along its rear stomped impatiently in the yard. It could see the fire and hear the destruction and couldn't do anything about it. Rosha tended to it as best she could, but gentle hushes, and head pats only calmed it so much. The horse was made for hunting. When it was out of the gate, that meant it wanted to run.

  "I don't suppose," Aladorn asked, "there are any saddles you keep outside the stable?"

  "There are," Rosha said, to his delight.

  She pointed over to a small shed, a boxed-up fence post with some leatherworking tools inside and a worked-on saddle hanging off the edge to tan. Aladorn rushed over to grab it, leaving Darrion and Rosha alone.

  "I'm so sorry," Darrion said.

  "No, don't be," she said. "We don't have the time now, do we?"

  "Right," he said.

  "It's fortunate for us," she said, trying to become more positive, "that we chose to leave as we did. Otherwise we would have been here during the worst of it with no role to play. But now, as we are, we're still weak, but we can do something."

  "What could that be?" Darrion said.

  "What was the goal of ours again?" she asked. "To retrieve the stolen scepter?"

  "And that's all but buggering gone," he said. "Off in the hands of a thief of thieves, back in the hands that stole it in the first place."

  "But to do what?" she asked.

  "To start a war," Darrion said as he observed the flames. "And to blame those innocent nearby to mobilize the Grannitwatch forces against its rivals prematurely. To invalidate the Trials. To bring chaos."

  "No," Rosha said. "Why we wanted to bring it back. What our goal was after. You can't have forgotten. What were we going to do?"

  Darrion had been so caught up in the turmoil and panic. In all the terrible pacing of maturity, he was forced through and the chance for glory, he forgot all along what his goal was.

  After fighting the bandits, killing their leader, being betrayed, and finding his home in ruins, it slipped his mind what drove him away in the first place. It was to join the King's Guard and stop such things from happening elsewhere. It was to expand his place in the world and to become a proper knight of the crown.

  Rosha could see in Darrion's eyes that his passion had returned. Aladorn finally returned with a dusty blanket and a saddle to put over it. He handed them both off to her, and she set the horse up while it patiently waited for its rider to assume her position. Darrion went over to Aladorn, away from the horse as the wizard still didn't trust the beast at all.

  "How are you feeling?" Darrion asked.

  Aladorn was immediately begrudged by the question but took a calming sigh to stave off the turmoil of his unchecked emotional sway.

  "I should be asking you that," he replied. "Emotional discipline is a specialty of mine so much that I can control myself between any important spell casting."

  "Then, do you suppose," Darrion dared to ask, "you'd have it in you to fight?"

  "Not at all," he quickly answered. "I'm against the notion of finding survivors in the first place, remember? Not out of cruelty, but because I think there are none to find. Anyone of worth or swiftness would have retreated to the castle before it got locked up, and that didn't even do anything."

  "Awful," Darrion said.

  Aladorn nodded and saw the boy reach down to the dagger on his belt. His hand was shaking as he grabbed the handle.

  "I wonder if I have it in me, either."

  "You obviously don't," Aladorn said. "But if it comes to it, and there's no better option than to stage a final defense, I'd trust you to take the lead out of all of us."

  "Yeah," Darrion said. "I won't fail you."

  "You'd better not," Aladorn said. "We're even now. No more threatening to turn me in after all the help I've given you. I'll ride out with you to Ravenmere, at the very least, and try to get out of this land before this hellfire covers it. It might be safer down in Darkveil, if only because the Red Knight may have no fancy with a city of criminals."

  "Hop up," Rosha said.

  She climbed up onto the saddle and invited the other two to do the same. The saddle was elongated to seat two riders. Aladorn took the middle seat, and Darrion forced himself in the widest position over the horse's rear. It refused at first, but Rosha gently coaxed it into accepting the extra burden to ride with.

  "Now what?" Aladorn asked.

  "We have to go," Rosha said. "There's..."

  She turned back to Darrion to try and meet his eyes when she said her piece.

  "There's no survivors."

  He looked dead ahead with sincere conviction.

  "You're right," he said. "But we can bring the guard from Ravenmere, perhaps. They may not assist the citizens of Grannitewatch, but they could send an advance guard to see the destruction happening close to their borders."

  "Make quicker allies with fear," Aladorn said, "than stir up war with conspiracies."

  "Okay," Rosha said. "It's a few days out, though."

  "But closer than Grannitewatch," Darrion said. "If they head to cut us off...."

  He looked toward the castle again just as the horse began to move. They circled around to the front to take the main road, ruined and scattered with bodies as it was, it was still the fastest straightaway out of Oldrum they had.

  Something was in their way. Not in front of them, but to their side as they came onto the road, exiting under the burning arch of the castle gate. Behind him was a luminous field of oranges, yellows, and reds, like the sun itself, touched onto the ground and swallowed the palace in a blazing inferno. The figure, himself, even against such light, stood out in the splendor of crimson red armor.

  "Oh Gods be damned," Aladorn said.

  "Is that him?" Darrion asked.

  "Oh, I'm sure of it," Aladorn responded with a gulp. "The Red Knight."

  He was taller than a normal man and wore twice the natural amount of wrought iron armor. Over the burnt-out greyscale of his front was a mantle torn and tattered to be a part of the armor from the back up to the front of deep, brilliant red. It was like he wore the fringes of a flame himself across his back that shifted in the breeze.

  He held a dark, charred-black sword in his hand. It was a longsword with a narrow tip that shimmered with a coating of blood. His face was concealed by a featureless mask, and his red mantle reached up over it like a bloody scalp frayed from the forehead out. A slight red shimmer of a glaring eye could be seen through the narrow slit in his helmet.

  "Run," Aladorn quivered.

  The Red Knight rose his sword straight up in the air and then swung it down quickly. The ground beneath shock with the force of the blow, which resulted in a burst of wind that spread away from the flames and dust and ash all around it from the power of his swing. No man in armor could swing a sword that big so quickly. Just the warning was enough to threaten their horse to buck.

  The Red Knight took a step forward. His clattering metal footfall resounded with the breaking of the cobble
stone road below him as all of his weight fell one heel at a time into the ground. The party was stunned, their horse was unrested by distress, and their great enemy was making his way toward them.

  In a heated instant, Darrion stared long into the dark abyss of the Red Knight's armored face. The fear left him. Images of his old life flashed before his eyes and burned, like hot kindling to the fire, which burned his inner rage even hotter until he glowered with a fearsome, childish threat. Eyes wide, teeth grit and body shaking.

  The Red Knight stopped in place and stared back. It was just enough time for the horse to begin running and for Garis to appear from behind in a desperate screaming charge. He ran forward, face bloody and armor bent, with a lance in his arms. The Red Knight turned and swung as he changed position. Just the force of his horizontal check shook the lance from Garis' hands but did not waver his path.

  The Red Knight side-stepped the final thrust. As he did, Garis immediately discarded the lance as he drew within range and replaced it in his hands with a curved dagger with a fine point. He dove inward, fearless, even as the Red Knight brought his sword up over his head to swing down.

  Their attacks crossed Garis' lunge with the Red Knight's wind-parting swing. Garis managed to sink his blade up against the Red Knights' armor and tried to work it up into the creased folds that protected his midsection, but it was no use.

  The knife was merely blunted on its curved side. If it were straight, he might have made it, but he lacked a weapon like that to use. Garis coughed out a thick throatful of phlegmy blood and reached his arms around to cling onto the Knight, his final attempt to slow the monster down.

  He watched the horse ride out and split off into the woods to the east. He watched them go once, with the hope they would return. He was proven right once before. As he died, he hoped he would be proven right yet again.

  Chapter 22

  IT WAS STRANGE OF THE group to try resting after such a harrowing event. The city of Oldrum still burned in the distance, and the dying lights of the fire even reached deep into the woods down the cliffside coastline, but they were not chased, and they were not seen. Although none thought they would feel safe enough to even be tired, they all fell asleep in turns, with Darrion falling asleep last.