The Dragon Knight

by Gordon R. Dickson

  "Who is leader here?" he shouted.

  One heavily armed figure struggled wearily to its feet.

  "I, Charles Bracy du Mont," he croaked.

  "Do you and your men all yield, or do we start cutting throats?" shouted Brian.

  It was no idle threat. The locals who had gathered to Jim's aid, had now emerged from the trees in a number of a hundred or more, all with their knives out, and eager expressions on their faces.

  "I… yield," said Bracy du Mont.

  "And your men?" This time it was Jim, speaking sharply.

  "And all those with me," said the other exhaustedly, slumping as he stood.

  "Disarm them and bind their hands behind them!" ordered Brian. Bracy du Mont's head came up sharply.

  "How?" he shouted. "Tie us up? I, and most here are belted knights! We give our parole!"

  "Knights who fight in the service of the Dark Powers have no parole," said Brian. "Tie them all up!"

  "And now?" asked Jim of Brian, as of the last of the captured men able to walk were trussed up and gathered together.

  "Now, we march them, tied, around to the front of the castle," answered Brian grimly. "It's my guess these were the greatest part of Malvinne's force—and Dafydd's bowmen have silenced those upon the battlements. Let's see if, now, Malvinne has sense enough to surrender the castle to us—"

  Brian's words were broken into suddenly by an interruption that certainly would have caused a great deal of consternation, if most of those on the field behind the castle had not been too busy to see it approaching. Secoh landed with a thump about fifteen feet in front of Jim.

  "Jim!" he cried joyfully, as a couple of arrows aimed by the less expert local bowmen flew past him, happily at a distance that could be unremarked by Secoh. "It's good to see you! On behalf of the mere-dragons I officially bring you their welcome home!"

  "Well… thank them," said Jim, just beginning to get himself back together again after the shock of Secoh's sudden arrival. "They must have really moved to get together and agree on that resolution in the short time I've been back."

  "Well," said Secoh, "actually, they haven't had time for that, yet. So I took it on myself to deliver the message, anyway. And the Cliffside Dragons want to know why you've been back in the neighborhood for more than twenty hours and still haven't returned their passport to them."

  "Are they insane, dragon?" exploded Brian. "We've been far too busy to think of passports!"

  "Exactly what I said to them myself," answered Secoh. "But you know how it is, each dragon's favorite jewel, and all… If you'd give me the passport right now, Jim, I could fly it off to them without any more delay."

  "He'll do no such thing—" Brian was beginning, in what appeared to be a fine fury, when Jim put a hand on his arm to check his words.

  "I think I'd better, Brian," said Jim. "It'll just take a few minutes."

  "If you don't mind," he said to Brian, Dafydd, and everybody else within hearing, "I'm going to need privacy—I mean I'll need to be privy—for this. Because it has to do with magic, you see."

  "But Jim," said Brian, "I thought you told us that your magic—"

  He checked himself this time; and just in time too, in Jim's estimation.

  "This is a special case, Brian," said Jim. "I'll be back in a moment."

  He went off into the trees. He had actually wondered himself, the evening after talking to Carolinus on the battlefield in France, why, if Carolinus had been correct in saying that Jim had only been drawing on his account to do his magic, he would still have the ability to shrink down the passport into a size small enough for him to swallow. But the spell had still worked. The only solution he had been able to think of was that in this one particular case he was still being allowed the use of Carolinus's magic account.

  Now, among the shadows of the trees, after some moments trying to recall the exact procedure, he was able to cough up the passport in pill form. It grew quickly of its own accord to the size of the full sack of jewels he had been given originally; and he carried this, in both arms, back to give to Secoh.

  "I think it was wise of you to give me the passport back now, James," Secoh said, taking it gratefully. "I'll take it right to Cliffside—er, just a moment. My own jewel contribution, you know."

  He placed the sack on the ground, untied the top, and reached down inside. He groped around for several moments, with a definitely worried look on his face, which suddenly gave way to bright cheerfulness. His arm emerged with his claw clutching the pearl he had originally donated.

  "Excellent!" he said, looking at it. He tucked it into one cheek of his long lower jaw, hastily retied the top of the sack and spread his wings. "I'll see you very soon, James!"

  He took off, mounted quickly until he caught a high thermal, and glided away in the direction of Cliffside.

  "Well now," said Brian, in none too pleased a voice, "if that's over, perhaps we can get these prisoners moved around to the front of the castle?"

  "By all means," answered Jim hastily.

  They began their march around the castle. By natural right, Jim, Brian, and Dafydd led. Behind them, the bulk of the experienced men-at-arms and archers went before the prisoners, who moved in a sort of ragged, four-abreast column, followed by the straggling host of local volunteers, their knives out and ready—just in case.

  They came around the northeastern end of the castle. The drawbridge was down, and Malvinne was standing on the ground in front of it, with a figure all in plate armor, its visor down, shield on one arm, and a mace in the other. Behind these two, stretching up the gangplank and through the gateway behind to the interior courtyard, were several more ranks of such weaponed and armored fighters as they had just vanquished behind the castle. They all appeared to be simply waiting for the arrival of Jim, Brian, Dafydd, and the rest.

  The whole affair took on an almost organized, if not formal, appearance. On their horses, the first three led the rest at a walk, out, around, and back in again, so that they ended with Jim, Brian, and Dafydd seated on their horses with their column behind them. The three were about ten feet in front of Malvinne and the silent, ominously armored and armed, figure beside him.

  While the sky was not overcast this day, it was plentifully supplied with clouds, and no sunlight was striking directly on the scene. The dulled light gave the motionless metal figure beside Malvinne a heavy glint.

  "James," said Brian under his breath, and keeping his gaze fixed straight ahead on Malvinne, "I fear me that from here on you must command and do the speaking."

  "I'd planned to," said Jim harshly, without making any attempt to lower his voice. He was thinking of Angie and the others, prisoners somewhere in the castle.

  He dismounted from his horse. Following his lead, Brian and Dafydd dismounted with him and came forward.

  "You planned what, James?" said Malvinne as he halted a couple of steps in front of the other magician,

  "I plan to have you out of this castle of mine very quickly," said Jim. Now that he was face-to-face with Malvinne, he found himself coldly angry. What right had this defrocked AAA magician to go around acting as if he could make his own rules?

  "Your castle, James?" said Malvinne, cocking a head at him like an interested bird. "I believe you inhabited it only a short while."

  "Nonetheless," said Jim, "it's mine—on a grant from King Edward."

  "Hmmm," said Malvinne thoughtfully. "Would it interest you to know that there's another paper taking it away from you, in London right now, just waiting for the King's signature? You know that under certain conditions he'll sign just about anything, just to be left alone?"

  "Why should I believe that?" said Jim. "And if I did, what's it got to do with the situation here? You're occupying my castle and I want you out. Out—and any damage you've done to it or harm to the people in it, I'll hold you to account for!"

  "You're thinking perhaps of our meeting shortly at the request of the Accounting Office?" said Malvinne. "You might stop to consider t
hat those charges you made may look a little flimsy, when it's understood that they're made by a man who's my prisoner."

  "I'm not your prisoner," said Jim.

  "Ah, but you will be," responded Malvinne. "As I was saying—they might sound like an attempt by a very weak, young magician to defend himself in a bad situation by accusing a senior practitioner of the Art in order to divert attention from his own situation."

  "I don't believe the Accounting Office works that way," said Jim becoming a little weary of this chitchat. "In any case, as I said, I'm not your prisoner."

  "But, as I said, I think you will be," said Malvinne. His voice took on formal tones. "Now, before the people here assembled, I charge you with having lied about me, both as regards the charges and on many other occasions."

  Jim felt a sudden sense of something wrong, which pushed the earlier cold anger from him. What Malvinne had just done, in the terms of this world, was issue the kind of personal challenge one knight would issue to another. Jim himself was of course a knight; and most undoubtedly the other had been knighted somewhere along the way, or at least ennobled, so that he was of the gentlemanly class in a temporal sense.

  "You're challenging me?" he echoed, hoping to prod the other into providing a little more information.

  "Yes, I am," said Malvinne. "Well—not I exactly, since I'm elderly. So I'll make use of the fact I'm a magician, and therefore of the class entitled to choose a Champion to fight for me. In fact I've already done so. My Champion is here beside me."

  He turned to the silent, metallic, visored figure beside him.

  "Are you not at my side now, my Champion?" he inquired.

  The figure slowly raised its visor; and Jim stared.

  The race was one he had seen only once before, but would never forget. It was the face of the man he thought still running and hiding on the continent. The face of Sir Hugh de Bois de Malencontri, whom he had last raced on a spit of land reaching out to the Loathly Tower, more than a year ago, after Secoh had been tricked by Sir Hugh into calling Jim down to where Sir Hugh's crossbowmen could cover him with their weapons.

  "I am here, and I am your Champion," said the square, heavy-boned face revealed by the vigor. He smiled, not pleasantly. "Nor am I something made of snow, Sir James, as you may be thinking. It is I, myself, standing in front of the castle that was my own, and shortly will be my own again with the signature of the King on that paper in London, once it has been proved that you are Malvinne's prisoner. For we are now to have a trial by battle, and it shall be God's"—the word took a bitter twist in Sir Hugh's mouth—"will, that you show yourself a false and recreant knight, with no claim either to your spurs or to this land and castle!"

  He had been stripping off one of his gauntlets as he spoke; and as he finished he flung it in Jim's face.

  Jim made a sudden discovery. It was why people who have gauntlets flung in their face by way of challenge tend thereafter to be eager immediately to take up the challenge. The metal-reinforced glove struck Jim in the face like a weapon. Suddenly, his nose was bleeding, a bad cut on his lip was bleeding, and it felt as if one of his teeth had been knocked loose. The only thing in his mind, abruptly, was getting down to business with Sir Hugh as quickly as possible.

  But the glove had fallen from his face to the ground before him; and before he could pick it up, Brian had caught him by one arm and dragged him back enough steps so that he could speak to him in a voice so low that Malvinne and Sir Hugh could not overhear.

  "James!" Brian sounded almost as if he would shake Jim out of his present explosion of emotion. "James! Listen to me! You cannot fight Sir Hugh! Hear me, you cannot fight him. You are a magician yourself, even if less in rank than Malvinne, but equally entitled to choose a Champion. I will be your Champion. I must pick up that glove for you. Do not touch it yourself!"

  "The hell you will!" said Jim a little thickly through an already swelling upper lip. "I'm going to cut that bastard into so many pieces—"

  "If you could, I'd be all for it!" said Brian, still in the same low, urgent tone of the voice. "But listen to me Jim! This is Brian, who has been teaching you to fight all this last winter. I tell you, you stand no more chance against Sir Hugh, than a child against the Lancelot of legend, himself. He is a knight of great experience. I agree with you—he's a bastard. But, he is nonetheless a bastard who is one of the best fighters I know. I trust in God above all things, but I will not tempt God this time by letting you go out to fight him. As a trial by combat, this is a farce! Do you hear me, Jim?"

  "I hear you," growled Jim, licking the blood from his cut lip, "but listen to me, Brian. I, and nobody else, am going to fight him!"

  "James, if you love me—" Brian was beginning, as Jim pushed him aside, strode forward, and reached down to scoop up Sir Hugh's glove. He held it firmly in his hands and grinned bloodily at Sir Hugh.

  "I accept this challenge in my own right, in God's name!' he said, using the formula that he had learned from Sir Brian months ago.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  The common folk were delighted. There was going to be a circus after all. Or, if not a circus, the next thing to it, which was an official combat between two knights, one of which was their own Lord, Sir James, who stood high in their affection.

  People like themselves ordinarily never had a chance to see any such legal combat. This would be something to tell their grandchildren about; even though, under the circumstances, most of the usual procedure involved in such a combat would be missing.

  The important element remained, that two knights were about to hack in deadly fashion at each other in front of all spectators; and the winner would be adjudged to have been chosen by God to have the right on his side.

  Two temporary tents had been put up; not so much for preparation of the two knights to be so engaged, or provisioned for quick surgery, or whatever other crude medical help could be given either one if they were specially wounded, but to follow the pattern of such things.

  As a result, Brian had Jim by himself for a little bit, and during that time in the tent was busily giving him instructions on how to fight the battle.

  "You were a fool James, to pick up that gauntlet," he said. "But there, let it be. Clearly it was God's will that you and you alone should fight Sir Hugh at this time instead of myself."

  Brian crossed himself.

  "No one has greater faith in the Divine Will than myself," he said, "but you will need something like a miracle, James, to win this with Sir Hugh. Now, attend me closely."

  Jim's initial fury had calmed down. He still was coldly determined to go out and do the best he could to chop Sir Hugh into little pieces, but he was now calm enough to recognize the common sense in what Brian was saying and be ready to listen.

  He was only too aware of his own inadequacies as far as being able to handle the weapons of the fourteenth century; and he most thoroughly believed Brian, when the other told him that Sir Hugh would be a very accomplished opponent to meet.

  "Go ahead, Brian," he said, having cleaned his face with a wet cloth. The tooth was not quite as loose as he thought it might be. Hopefully, it would grow solidly back into its socket. "I'm ready to hear anything you've got to tell me. So go ahead. What's the best way for me to fight him?"

  "Good, James," said Brian. "Going into such a battle all hot and unthinking is the worst way to do it. Sir Hugh will certainly not be hotheaded when he steps out there, and neither should you be. Now, let's look at the situation as it stands. You are a novice, in spite of a few small bickers like the one at the relieving of my castle. To all intents and purposes, you should be a plaything in Hugh's hands. However, he is not without his own faults, which you may find advantage in."

  "For example?" asked Jim,

  "I was just about to list them," said Brian. "Let's look first at what we have. You've little skill with weapons, but you're both young and strong. Sir Hugh has great skill with weapons, and is also strong, but somewhat older. Also he is twenty-five to thir
ty pounds heavier. Much of that will be in muscle—which is a reason for you to avoid his blows as much as possible—but some will be fat. Finally, we have your one main advantage, which is that you are unusually quick of movement. James, by sheer movement, you may evade most of his blows, or even draw Sir Hugh into a trap where his sword will be out of position and you will be in position to strike."

  "Go on," said Jim.

  "He will prefer to use the mace he was carrying just now," said Brian. "That, with his weight of arm, will make him very dangerous indeed if he can get a blow home, even upon plate armor. A shield will not long stand up to a mace. Also, be your helm never so well padded, a solid blow from a mace can kill you. They have not yet picked a marshal of the field to carry the baton, and cast it down when the combat is to cease. However, they will assuredly do so, since it is Malvinne's announced intent to take you prisoner, rather than get you killed. This gives you one other, small advantage. You are free to kill Sir Hugh if you have the chance. But he will try to avoid killing you—that is, unless in the heat of combat his own feelings run away with him."

  "And those are all the advantages I have?" demanded Jim.

  "Patience, James," said Brian, "I was just about to say more of your advantages. In a nutshell, Sir Hugh's are weight and experience. In a nutshell, yours are youth, speed, and agility. You have never mastered making a running mount on your horse. But I've already seen you leap higher than I will ever hope to do. So, the way you should fight this combat, is to avoid Sir Hugh's blows, make him follow you around, tire him out, and only then move in on him."

  "It's that mace—" Jim was beginning, when Brian interrupted him.

  "We will try and make him discard the mace for another weapon," Brian said, "let me announce that you are carrying my long, two-handed sword."

  "That?" said Jim.

  He had never liked his practice with the two-handed sword. To his way of thinking it was large and clumsy. Also Sir Brian favored a basic position that seemed to Jim very awkward indeed.