The Blackest Heart

by Brian Lee Durfee

  Liz Hen Neville and Dokie Liddle ran beside him, faceless under similar gaoler helms, both encased in similar iron plate. The girl gripped an unwieldy iron shield in one hand, the Sør Sevier longsword she had stolen so long ago in the other. Tall and heavyset, she looked every bit the formidable fighter she wished to be. Dokie seemed horribly out of place, wispy and slight, armor rattling about his thin frame. He, too, carried a shield and sword, dwarfed by both. Beer Mug bounded along just behind the boy, gray fur already soaked. Godwyn had to forcefully swallow his own fear and impulse to turn and flee. It seemed a lifetime ago that he had been a simple bishop watching over a small mountain abbey. Now he was charging into war in the middle of an ocean. He followed the teeming mass through a dip in the seabed, water up to his knees briefly. Then the army was soon again running on a flatter surface. Onward they loped, mud-splattered, sand and mire kicked up all around.

  There was a whistle and crack of air.

  One of the fighters running near Godwyn was suddenly sprouting an arrow from his mouth just under the rim of his half-helm. The man fell forward into the ankle-deep water with a splash, dead. More arrows rained down, clacking against armor and shield. There were screams. Some fighters fell. Others peeled away from the charge.

  Godwyn waded through the rising water again, almost knee-deep now. Liz Hen, Dokie, and Beer Mug were still with him. Ahead in the distance they all heard the clash and shouts of war as the two armies finally met. Sword crashed against shield. Men roared and bellowed. Horses neighed in terror, bloodcurdling and loud, horror instantly raging from the throats of the injured and dying. As this chaos swarmed toward them, Dokie came to a standstill, shaking and petrified, sword and shield wavering in hand. Beer Mug, ears alert, moved in front of the boy protectively, gray eyes darting nervously.

  “We’ve got to keep going.” Liz Hen’s voice echoed from under her helm, urging the boy on. “We’ve got to help with the fight!”

  Godwyn risked a glance backward and saw the line of draught horses, thousands of them, pulling fishing boats, skiffs, and small sailboats over the seabed and soupy sand. Leif’s plan was contingent upon the boats reaching the battlefield in time. The battle was but a delay to drown Aeros’ army in the rising tides, the trailing boats an escape route for Leif and what Gul Kana fighters might survive. Derry Richrath and his young ward, Otto, were somewhere in the throng of boats, helping; their entire team of Turn Key Saloon ponies and draught mares had been drafted into the fray.

  “They’re dragging the boats out now!” he called out to Liz Hen and Dokie.

  Liz Hen tore off her helm and bellowed, “I didn’t march all the way into this fucking channel to just hike back to the boats!” She brandished her sword above her head, bloodshot eyes ablaze, red hair cropped clear to her skull. “Today I fight for my freedom!”

  “I gotta fly in my helm!” Dokie tossed his shield down—it was immediately swallowed underwater. With one gauntleted hand he swatted at his armored face. “I can’t take it!” He pushed the gaoler helm up over his head—it also plopped unceremoniously into the water. Flies buzzed about the boy’s face. He swung his sword at the flies with wild abandon. Liz Hen ducked out of the way.

  “You’re gonna hurt someone!” Godwyn tossed his own shield aside, snatched hold of the boy’s wrists with one hand. “Stop!” He gripped the boy tight. “Stop!”

  “Beetles and flies everywhere!” Dokie was panicked. “The gnats will come a-swarming next! I know, I was on the beach in Gallows Haven, I seen it!”

  Beer Mug was barking up a riot now, bounding around Liz Hen with a mighty splash, frantic. Suddenly the bishop found himself in a swirl of pounding hooves, his startled gaze scarcely registering the sudden tumult all around: the blur of Sør Sevier armor, slashing weapons, Gul Kana men screeching in retreat, some falling hacked and bloody. Sør Sevier blades appeared to leap and slash from every direction. He swung his own sword at a passing rider, blade glancing off the charger’s armored neck. The blow shot pain up the bishop’s arm, staggering him. Something smashed heavily into his back, forcing him to his knees, bloody water splashing up under his helm. Sputtering, he scrambled to his feet, then another blow slammed him back to the ground, Dayknight sword spinning from his hand. On hands and knees, cold water lapping up into chest and face, gulping down seawater, he frantically clawed through the thrashing channel for his lost weapon. A mad pursuit.

  He lurched to his feet empty-handed, gazing upon an ocean suddenly littered with the dead and injured. Men fought. Men fell. Hooves stirred and splashed the blue waters, the sea now rife with smears of deep scarlet. Heaps of hacked and tortured flesh, both horse and man, piled one onto the other, hollow eyes staring up from the knee-deep waters like a nightmare. All semblance of strategy from either side was gone.

  It’s been so long since I’ve seen real war!

  “Liz Hen! Dokie!” he called out. “Liz Hen! Dokie!” But it was as if his young companions had simply ceased to exist. The shock and panic swarming around him was almost paralyzing to behold. The swirling bloody tumult was everywhere, in every direction, as far as his eyes could see. His mouth was parched.

  Yet it was not water he sought. He’d already swallowed a mouthful of it to no avail. He’d always thought the brine of the sea smelled like dog vomit; add blood and horse guts and Laijon knew what else, and it was almost unbearable. Still, his aching thirst was unrelenting in its torture; it clawed at his every thought and soul. Bloodletting. Even in the midst of this chaos it was all he could think of. Today is my time to die. He knew it with a quavering certainty. He braced himself for it, waited for the killing stroke to crush his skull.

  A Sør Sevier knight fell in the water at his feet, helmetless. A woman, her gray face a mask of pain as the crimson-streaked water swallowed her up, blood bubbling from her mouth, gauntleted hands clutching at the spear in her chest. Godwyn tried to yank it from her body to no avail. He gave up and searched for another weapon. Black beetles were everywhere, greedily feasting on the gore and red viscera. He found the water swirling around his thighs was no longer cool, but warm with blood.

  “Beer Mug!” Dokie’s wild scream called from behind him.

  Godwyn spun about. A massive bull-necked knight with a wild beard and blue-tattooed face bore down on the boy and the dog, his huge white stallion charging hard. Godwyn recognized the gleaming armor and blue livery that marked this knight as one of Aeros Raijael’s Knights Archaic. The five knights were legendary. All who followed the wars in Adin Wyte and Wyn Darrè knew their names. This broad-faced brute was Hammerfiss. His flying mane of red hair flamed in the sun as his massive ball mace swung low in a crushing arc, skimming the water as it swiped upward toward Dokie’s exposed face.

  Liz Hen lunged forward to block Hammerfiss’ blow, heavy gaoler shield upraised, bloodshot eyes wide with fear. In a spray of water and twisted iron, the shield exploded upward, flinging the girl backward into the sea. Liz Hen disappeared underwater as Hammerfiss’ ball mace crushed the next Gul Kana fighter in his path, armor and bone crunching.

  Liz Hen rose up from the ocean, paunchy face streaked with blood and seawater, cropped hair matted to her scalp. Hammerfiss whirled, stern-faced, his stallion bearing down on the girl once again, corded muscles under spiked armor bunching as the beast charged. Liz Hen again dropped to her knees, sludge and grit splashing up into her mouth as Hammerfiss’ spiked mace sailed over her head, decapitating the Gul Kana fighter behind her. His body crumpled into the blossoming red waves. Hammerfiss swung again, the spikes of his mace tearing open a third fighter’s midsection. The surprised fellow tipped into the sea, floating momentarily, a string of steaming entrails unraveling from his stomach, slithering and coiling down into the water.

  Liz Hen clambered back to her feet as Hammerfiss rode on, war charger kicking up frothy water in its wake, the chaos of the battle swallowing them up. Beer Mug lapped at Liz Hen’s face, the dog’s head and gray haunches all that remained above water now. Dokie stumbled toward
the girl and dog, horror etched on his face.

  We’ll all soon be dead. Everywhere Godwyn looked, the once-blue sea was streaked with scarlet, sunlight glimmering off blossoming pools of red, man and horse thrashing. He considered shedding his armor right then and there, for he knew once the water reached a certain level, its weight would drag him down. “Let’s get back to the boats!” he hollered at Liz Hen and Dokie.

  A riderless horse fell sideways into him, its lathered neck spouting blood high into the air from a deep gash. Godwyn was pushed down into the sea as the horse rolled over on top of him. Water enveloped them both. Gagging on the sour taste of salt and blood, Godwyn untangled himself from the beast’s jerking legs. Frantic, he squirmed free, regaining his feet as the horse continued its death throes, a dark pool bleeding out around it.

  The rising tide was waist-deep now. Heart hammering, Godwyn heard a chorus of horrendous pain-filled screams like no other, thousands of voices sounding at once in the distance. He could only see one fin at first, a boil and swell of water rolling toward him, smooth white triangle jutting from the channel pale as bone.

  The great white shark rose up from the water, mouth agape, biting a fully armored Sør Sevier knight in half, swallowing the top half whole. Then, in a teeming mass, the rest of the sharks swarmed, the larger ones plying the deeper parts of the channel, sharks in the hundreds, fins and tails whipping as they forced their way through the battlefield, following the dark rivers of blood. Knight and steed alike fled before them.

  “Is that sharks?” Dokie muttered from behind Godwyn. He turned just in time to see the boy faint, small armored body folding face-first into the sea, red silt and sand and black beetles swirling up over him.

  Beer Mug paddled toward the spot where the boy had vanished.

  “Dokie!” Liz Hen plowed through the waist-deep waves toward the spot where Dokie had disappeared, her sword held high above the water. She knelt in the bloody sea in search of her friend, hauling the boy to his feet with her free hand. He was unconscious, but breathing, red bubbles forming around his nostrils.

  “Wake up!” Liz Hen screamed into his face. Holding her sword out in defense, she propped the boy up with her hip. Beer Mug, treading water now, licked his face.

  Godwyn waded toward them, shoving abandoned armor and dead bodies aside, grabbing Dokie under the armpits from behind, hoisting his limp form up out of the water. “We’ve got to retreat!” he shouted at Liz Hen. “We’ve got to head for the boats!”

  Liz Hen seemed to wholeheartedly agree this time. She slapped away a floating helm and a purple coil of guts and started toward Lord’s Point. Godwyn followed her, Dokie’s unconscious form pressed to his chest, while Beer Mug paddled along at his side.

  Another white stallion reared up in their path, the beast and rider turning in the water to face them. Another Knight Archaic! Godwyn’s weary mind cried out in dismay.

  Enna Spades! The most foul and vile of all Aeros’ Knights Archaic, notorious throughout the Five Isles. The warrior woman bore a sword nearly as long as her body, silver armor and dark blue surcoat bloodstained red. Her hair flowed out behind her like a ragged red flag, hair that almost glowed like firelight when touched by the sun. There was a feral, animal-like bearing about her freckled face, and her squinting eyes were fierce and cold, twin orbs that bred naught but evil as they cut toward Liz Hen.

  “That’s a Sør Sevier sword you carry!” Spades pointed her long blade at the girl. “You dare befoul the weapon with your cursed hands!” Then she set spurs to flanks, and in loping strides her powerful white stallion splashed forward.

  Liz Hen met the woman’s charge with a wild swing of her sword. In one sweeping blow, Spades knocked the blade from Liz Hen’s grip. And just like that, the Sør Sevier sword that had accompanied Liz Hen on so many adventures spun off into the water and disappeared. Beer Mug barked and snarled, biting at the flanks of Spades’ horse as a spear-wielding Gul Kana knight drove headlong into Spades with his dun-colored destrier, knocking the red-haired warrior from her steed. Both horses toppled into the sea on top of Beer Mug with a foaming red splash.

  A twisted pile of legs and hoofs thrashed as both Spades and the Gul Kana knight scrambled to get above water. Spades stood first, ramming her sword down into the neck of the screaming destrier of her foe. The dun-colored horse righted itself, spewing blood high from the slick arterial wound. Spades ducked under the spray as the destrier reared up, then dropped down on top of her, sinking them both under bloody froth and scarlet.

  Two white sharks shoved their great bulk straight into the fray. Spades’ stallion, blood-streaked and bleating, retreated and stumbled away, eyes wide and frenzied. Spades did not resurface as the sharks tore into the dun-colored destrier on top of her. Godwyn stumbled away too, Dokie Liddle squirming away from his grasp, awake now. The boy stood nearly chest-deep in the water, young face a mask of terror at the sheer amount of noise and watery carnage surrounding them. “Are those sharks?” he mumbled, voice barely audible over the bedlam and madness.

  “Godwyn!” Liz Hen cried out. Weaponless, she was facing two swaggering Sør Sevier knights. Together they bore down, longswords glossy with blood. One was a Knight Archaic, glimmering helm covering his face. The other wore the livery of a Knight of the Blue Sword, a great helm upon his head, eye slits dark and deadly.

  Beer Mug, paddling for all he was worth, was the only thing between the girl and the two knights. “No!” Dokie screamed.

  Then the Knight of the Blue Sword pulled the helm from over his head and glared at the girl. “Liz Hen?” he muttered.

  “Jenko Bruk!” she roared, rage as red as the bloody sea flooding over her face, confusion creeping into her bloodshot eyes. “You wear the armor of the enemy!”

  The knight named Jenko Bruk lifted his sword, eyes tightening at the corners. He was a good-looking young man with wild dark hair, a puzzled look of his own growing on his handsome face.

  “Nail was right!” Liz Hen bellowed. “You are a traitor!” She waded through the gore and pandemonium straight toward Jenko, hands balled into fists.

  “I don’t want to kill you!” The tip of Jenko’s sword was poised between them.

  “Fuck you and the legless bearded fucking cunt of a baron who sired you!” Liz Hen plowed forward, water and red viscera swelling up around her armored body. Jenko and the Knight Archaic with him advanced on the girl, mere paces away from her now.

  “Mancellor!” Came a shout of sharp intensity to Godwyn’s right. “To me, Mancellor Allen, to me!” The shout was frantic. “You and Jenko rally to me!”

  A soft breath of fresh air grazed Godwyn’s face as he whirled and beheld the most marvelous sight rising up in the center of the ocean’s lashing wet butchery and gore.

  Sitting regal atop a magnificent white stallion of sheer majesty—without a spot of red or ruin upon him—rode the White Prince himself, Lord Aeros Raijael. The glamour and fine white brilliance of his bearing was unmistakable amid the floating black beetles and sodden dark slaughter. A horned helm of peculiar make crowned his head—the ghost-white coloring of the helm’s curved horns perfectly matching his ghost-white skin. Reins of his stallion in one hand, Aeros effortlessly wielded a glimmering double-bladed battle-ax in the other. The splendid ax shone in the sunlight with a dazzling bravura that nearly blinded Godwyn. Forgetting Moon! Godwyn’s mind reeled. Aeros Raijael wears Lonesome Crown and carries Forgetting Moon!

  “Ivor has Leif Chaparral and Lord Kronnin trapped!” Aeros yelled. “Rally to me! We shall finish them off!”

  The white bulk of a massive shark shoved its way out of the water right under Aeros. Mouth yawning open, the shark rolled onto its side, clamping down on the White Prince’s stallion, engulfing the horse’s front quarters in its tremendous gaping maw, twisting. With a throaty gurgle the horse was pulled below the rose-colored skin of the sea, caught in the beast’s powerful jaws. Aeros fell tumbling into the gore-lathered water, horned helm and battle-ax flying.
/>   Forgetting Moon!

  Lonesome Crown!

  Godwyn watched as both shiny artifacts disappeared beneath the tossing and churning channel. There was a maelstrom of swelling and frothing of water where Aeros and his horse had vanished as the shark squirmed and thrashed and feasted.

  Jenko Bruk, the closest to Aeros, unhooked his breastplate and tossed it away. Undaunted, he lunged headfirst into the red soupy water, muscular body arrowing straight for the place where Lonesome Crown and the Forgetting Moon had disappeared.

  More sharks pushed past Godwyn on every side, dozens of them, slithering along the surface of the seabed, half submerged, their barrel-like bodies boldly shoving through the armies, sweeping aside everything in their path, swallowing armored knights from both armies whole. Horse and man fled in terror.

  It was clear who was winning the battle now. It was no longer Gul Kana versus Sør Sevier, but rather panicked knights on both sides seeking to save themselves from the sharks, spearing and stabbing at the water. Only a scant few sharks floated belly-up amidst the human limbs and horse entrails. And more came, white fins and bubbling bloody swells announcing their approach.

  Godwyn’s attention was drawn to the Knight Archaic nearest him, the one who had arrived with Jenko. The Sør Sevier knight had lost his helm and was stabbing at a shark under him. What set this particular knight apart from the hacking and slashing shark-infested slaughter swirling around him was his calmness. He stared down at the shark beneath him with a seemingly detached and cool resolve, stabbing it over and over. The knight had eyes that were bold and fierce and determined, and he bore what appeared to be thick smears of dark war paint under each—a Wyn Darrè trait. He also had carefully pressed braids of a strong russet color that draped down his back, wet braids, sodden with bloody water and chunks of torn flesh.