by Richard Nell
Johann nodded, becoming slowly immunized to the vulgarity. He waited for the inevitable nightly requests.
“We’ll need more shot and powder, and one musket exploded. By some miracle the boy wasn’t badly harmed but he near pissed himself. I expect he won’t be staying on. Look for more recruits, too.” The knight rose and wiped his face with a dirty, powder-smeared rag, then walked towards the fort. “Oh, and Johnny? Tomorrow, bring your gun.”
* * *
That evening, as was their nightly ritual, knight and scribe took their places at the magistrate’s table. Lamorak, by virtue of his title, sat in the seat of honor at the lord’s right, and Johann one seat down. Since their arrival, the lord of Fort Tyne had entertained no other guests, and so the large, rectangular table was empty save for the four of them. Twice as many servants waited in attendance.
“The beef is excellent, my lord. Please pass my compliments to your kitchen.”
“Thank you, Master Planck. You’re overly kind, the meat is barely adequate.”
The magistrate nodded and pronounced Johann’s name with the Keevish ‘plonk’, rather than the Vendian ‘plank’, which made the silent Lamorak flinch. This was no doubt the point.
“And though perhaps I need not bother adding, my lady, you look lovely this evening, as always.”
The words were out of Johann’s mouth out of rote social training before he considered them. He instantly had to fight the blush because it was oh so very true, and to his frustration and shame, he couldn’t help but notice. She smiled.
“It is always worth the bother. And had we known what polite, gracious guests were King Marsun’s scribes, I believe we’d have entertained them sooner.”
The lady smiled to her husband, who nodded politely and raised a cup.
“Well,” Lamorak wrapped his swollen knuckles around a silver knife, then shoved a hunk of beef into his mouth. “If that’s all done with,” he opened his mouth and chewed, “I’d like to know which of your men has the balls to act as a scout tomorrow.”
The knight’s impoliteness seemed a nightly ritual as well, and Johann’s good humor drained at the sheer embarrassment of being associated with him. Every day he watched a warrior train, becoming more and more impressed with his ability and fortitude. Then every evening he watched a needlessly crude, ugly man.
The magistrate’s face soured, too.
“A ‘scout’? What exactly are we scouting, sir? Every inch of ground is civilized here. There’s no wilderness to explore.”
Lamorak swallowed and sniffed, his mouth still full of meat.
“Aye, civilized, and hostile. We’ve got to actually find these militia, my lord, who it seems have thus far hidden in plain sight. I’d like as many men as can ride searching through farms, woods, and towns for any trace of where they make their nests.”
The lord and lady exchanged a glance, and Johann tried not to stare at the lady’s perfect, pink lips as she spoke.
“That won’t be necessary. We…already know which lord harbors them.”
Lamorak set his knife down with surprising care, and leaned back in his seat.
“And you’ve done nothing?”
“What would you have me do?” The magistrate raised his chin. “You’ve seen my soldiers, my equipment. This is Humberland, for God’s sake. We’re men of coin here, not war. Our lords don’t bloody brawl in the streets like Western barbarians. They negotiate, they act like gentlemen!” He spared a glance to Johann. “No offence, Mr. Planck.”
Johann shrugged and smiled politely. In truth he sensed a volatile rage building in his companion and felt concerned only by that. He tried to think of something to say to diffuse it, but couldn’t help but agree the inaction of the magistrate was incredibly foolish, and very nearly treasonous.
A pale-faced butler saved them.
“My lord, forgive my interruption. I believe the matter is urgent.”
He stepped from the footman’s line with a large, wooden box. The crest of House Northwen—two golden crowns representing rulership of God and King—were displayed on all four sides, and a scroll rested on top.
“Of course. Bring it here.”
The magistrate pushed aside his plate, but the butler didn’t move.
“I’m…sorry, my lord. I will if you wish, of course, but…the message is addressed to Sir Lamorak.”
The magistrate nodded, and the elderly butler stepped forward with a solemn dignity, grunting slightly as he placed the box flat on the table.
Lamorak lifted the letter, eyes scanning quickly over the lines.
“Dismiss your servants.”
Magistrate Tolly looked about as if for some other authority. Finding none, he nodded to his butler, and the servants hurriedly dispersed. Lamorak waited until the last door of the dining hall closed.
“Dear Servant of Tyranny,” he began reading, voice emotionless, “we, the Patriots of Humberland, declare ourselves independent of the House of Northwen, with God-given rights as free men to swear loyalty to our own lords, in our own lands. We will no longer abide the usurious, unreasonable demands of your immortal master. We reject his divinity, we reject his claim to our lands, and we reject his laws and authority.” Here he paused, and the silence of the room seemed so oppressive, Johann let a tickle in his throat pass without clearing it. Lamorak’s eyes turned to the box.
“Enclosed is the fate of all tyrants. Leave our lands, or suffer the same.”
Without waiting for a reaction, the knight used his knife to unhook the lid clasp. He reached inside with both hands, and withdrew an almost slimy, bald, pale head. He set it carefully on the table.
“Dear God.” The magister’s eyes blinked over and over. “Is that Sir Agreth?” He raised his kerchief to his nose.
Johann instead stared at Lady Tolly. He had been instantly concerned for her, hoping she averted her eyes. But she clenched her long, graceful jaw, and raised her chin, and seemed entirely more stoic than her husband.
“It is.” Lamorak stood and draped his tablecloth over the gruesome sight. “Perhaps you would do him the honor of a proper burial.”
“I…yes, of course…but…”
“Now if you’ll excuse us.” The knight almost spat the words, as if he found them distasteful. “It seems I’ll require the scribe’s services. Johann.”
Lamorak stomped towards the guest-rooms without a nod or bow, only the sound of his boots fading to disturb the dead silence.
Johann had the distinct impression of being called like a dog. It pained him slightly to obey with the Lady Tolly watching, but still he rose, bowed slightly to his hosts, and stepped away.
* * *
Johann walked through the narrow doorway of Lamorak’s room. He felt a strange mixture of horror at seeing Sir Agreth’s head, anger at being summoned—and, he supposed, a little fear.
Lamorak sat on the bed and removed his shirt.
“If they can kill one knight, they can kill two.” He raised his arms and stripped his tunic above his head, throwing it onto the floor.
Johann had been preparing what he’d say as he walked from dining to guest room, but now his thoughts and words jumbled together. He stared at the pale, raised scars splintered like rivers on Lamorak’s chest, enthralled by the tortured canvas of flesh. On top of the many, many wounds, he noticed both knight’s nipples were gone, replaced by smooth, purple smears.
“Are those…gunshots?”
The words just sort of sprung from him, and he stood transfixed, gesturing at the hundreds of small circles covering the knight’s torso. He could now see demonic markings had been carved into Lamorak’s skin, as if by an ameteur with a knife. And he recognized Amondras at once. The curls of the top ‘hooks’ often found in the elemental variants were displayed clearly up the man’s shoulders. But Johann saw other marks, too.
“You’ve held other demons,” he whispered. “Do you hold any more now? More than just Amondras?”
Lamorak glanced briefly at himself.
<
br /> “No. Now get your things. You’ll need to mark yourself and be ready to take this if I die. I assume seeing it first is preferable.”
He slid open the lone drawer of his nightstand, withdrawing rolled tobacco and lighting it with a match.
Johann shook his head.
“It’s too powerful for me. I’m ranked at least one below it, maybe two.”
“Well there won’t be anyone better within fifty miles. So if I die you take it, you get on a horse, and you ride back to your masters with the fear of God in you and hope you make it. Is that understood?”
Johann nodded, wandering in a daze to his room for quill, ink and parchment as he stared at the floor. He fumbled through his bags and returned promising himself he wouldn’t stare, wouldn’t make a fool of himself—at least more than he already had.
Despite their inauspicious beginnings, and the rudeness, Johann reminded himself that Lamorak was a living legend.
He had read stories of the man’s exploits since childhood in the tower. What little history was actually written down said his demon had been passed only twice, from Vin of House Moran, to Luther the Lion, and finally to Lamorak when he was only fourteen. The tower library said he was common-born and that he’d taken part in the so-called One-Day War, making him at least ninety years old. Johann had not believed that last part until this moment.
When he returned he found the knight propped against a cushion, strands of smoke circling his head as he sighed and inhaled.
“And yes,” said the knight, closing his eyes, “they’re bullet wounds, mostly. Some are arrows, spear-points, knives, javelins and the like.”
Johann hadn’t meant to ask and felt embarrassed. He also had no idea what to say. Amondras, as with all the powerful elementals, fortified its bearers flesh and bone. Philosophically Johann knew this, as he knew the shadow demons were wilder, more erratic things which sometimes gave men strength or speed, or even let them see in the dark. Most ‘passengers’ of any sort expanded life and health, yes—Johann knew this. But he had never truly seen, at least not in a man who took that dark power into the world, and employed it in war.
“Who…performed your marking, if I may ask? I assume the efforts were done…in some amount of haste?”
Lamorak’s lips twitched on his tobacco. “Performed, is it? I did, scribe. Does my work disappoint you?”
“No, I didn’t mean…it’s just…”
The knight laughed and waved a hand. “You’ll want the story, I suppose. Very well.” He cleared his throat, as if to relay a practiced tale.
“I was a boy. Just another ignorant bastard, but even so an archer and a killer in the king’s army. I didn’t know much, but I knew what a knight was, and wanted nothing else since I got off my mom’s teet.” He shook his head and grinned, as if mocking Lamorak the child. “Then at Cambri…”
“The Cambri? The first one?”
That was a hundred and twenty years ago!
“Aye. I stood on that God-cursed hill with my fellows, proud as a peacock, ignoring my captain and watching Luther on his horse as his banner streamed from his lance, white stallion shining in the sun. I’d never heard of a cannon, then. None of us had. I remember not being afraid, though, thinking ‘how can we lose with the Lion on our side? With the God-king’s banner? With God himself?’
‘Course then the Powder Duke fired his guns, and us standing there like fools, out of range and helpless. I still remember the sound. Boom boom boom boom, one after the another, just like that. Then the dirt starts flying and men screaming, and even the Lion struggled just to steady his horse. But soon he did, and called to the captains, and we marched behind him under fire and took our turns. I didn’t learn till later that the duke’s cannon focused us archers. We were damn fools, all clumped up. But soon we spread more by chance than anything and charged down, and even the shit hand-cannons of the day sounded like heavy horse galloping out of hell. They didn’t kill as many as it seemed, no doubt, but the infantry fumbled and panicked and half broke and ran before the fight even started.”
Here he stopped, as if too disgusted to go on. But when he glanced at Johann’s wide eyes it seemed to rally him.
“I don’t remember the rain starting, but we were so covered in mud and blood you couldn’t hardly tell friend from foe. Like a pack of animals grunting and screaming at each other it seemed to me. But my God, you should have seen Luther. No story will ever get it right, Johnny. No bard could ever know, never truly tell it like it was with fancy words. All we wanted was to run screaming back to our mum’s. But we couldn’t with him there. Not with him fighting and watching. We couldn’t shame ourselves, not with the Lion in a sea of jackals.’
Here Lamorak shrugged, and sighed.
‘But then he fell. They shot him, they stabbed at him, you can’t imagine. But not till his horse died did he fall. And my brother and I dragged him, armor and everything, back up the hill and away. And he looked at me, blood soaked and dying, and he said ‘Get a knife, boy, and strip my armor’. We didn’t know how but we managed the straps and pads, and I saw the awful black symbol for the first time, like circles with claws and eagle’s feet. ‘Carve it’, he says, to neither of us boys in particular, one hand on the knife. ‘Carve the symbol in your skin, lads, and drink my blood, and you’ll be a knight’.’
‘Then just like that he lays back and closes his eyes, and my brother and I sit there on the grass with a nightmare below us, and a dead legend before us talking nonsense. I’d never heard or imagined such a thing, but there we were. My brother shook his head and said something, maybe ‘sorry’, and ran. So by God I took the knife. I carved the marks in my skin and screamed but did as I was told, and I scooped a hand into Luther’s bloodied wounds and I drank his blood, and felt the thing you call Amondras. And here I am.”
The knight took a long, final draw from his tobacco, reaching instantly for another.
When the light from his match flared, Johann realized he’d stopped drawing, and maybe even breathing. He shook his head and eyes back to focus on following the curves by hand, rather than reach for his compasses.
“That’s amazing,” he said. “I mean, that you could handle Amondras so young.”
Lamorak shrugged. “It was that, or die.”
They sat in silence for a time as Johann drew. He had so many questions, so much curiosity to satisfy about the past and what the ancient knight had seen and experienced that had never been put down in books, and how he saw the world.
“I’m sorry,” he blurted, when his courage built and he’d nearly finished. Lamorak’s brow quirked but he said nothing. “For my behavior. I’ve been…arrogant, and unsupportive. Please, forgive my inexperience, and my…misconceptions. I want to learn, truly.”
The knight made no sign of hearing, or any acknowledgment at first. But eventually he nodded, if only slightly.
“Words are good,” he said, almost like a grunt. “But deeds are better. From here on you do exactly as I tell you, when I tell you. Questions are acceptable, but never complaints. Agreed?”
Johann sensed the meaning of ‘and all will be forgiven’, so he nodded gratefully.
“Good.” The knight grinned with his eyes as he smoked, which seemed to Johann a predatory thing. “Now find a girl willing to massage my feet, and after find your rest. Tomorrow will not be easy.”
Johann rose at once, thinking a few coins should do the trick. Then he realized no one would believe ‘foot rub’ really meant ‘foot rub’, and decided it would cost a bit more.
“And Johnny?”
Johann turned now with attention, deciding to accept the mispronunciation as a nickname.
“Get yourself a uniform. I’m making you the seargent.”
Chapter 5
They buried Sir Agreth in the morning beneath the fort’s royal tree, then Lamorak transformed into a holy terror.
“On your God-damned feet, weapons up. Form firing line.”
Johann, as instructed, had worn a uni
form and brought his arquebus. He fell in beside the other soldiers in the hot spring sun, waiting in the open courtyard as commanded. As the recruits looked about themselves in a panic, some haplessly trying to emulate the fort’s regulars, it became clear they had no idea what a firing line was.
“Impressive.”
Lamorak’s voice dripped with sarcasm, and many of the men blushed and simply stood at attention in a line. The knight had changed into a shockingly clean, formal knight’s tabard of pure white cloth, the king’s two crowns displayed in iron on his chest. Beneath it he wore thick chain, and had clasped a heavy sword to his belt and covered his milky eye with a black patch. His now-shaved face and scalp shone red in the sun as he paced before the confused, scrambling men. His heavy boots clomped as they stirred dirt, spurs jangling with every limping step.
“Yesterday I taught you to shoot. Today, we learn formations.” He waved a hand, and two stableboys opened the large, barn doors of the fort’s armory. Behind it, swords and pikes gleamed as the light touched them, their metal points and blades polished and unblemished.
“Only every third man in every line will carry a musket.” Lamorak didn’t look at the men, not seeming to care how that landed. “A third of you will carry pikes to ward off cavalry, and a third will carry swords. Ideally, in a defensive position, the gunners in the front line would fire twice, then exchange places with the men behind them while they reload. Questions?”
“Sir,” one of the regulars cleared his throat, “what do the muskets do if the enemy infantry charge?”
“Stand back, and pray.” Lamorak rolled his eye when the men didn’t laugh. “Ideally, private, they will continue firing and reloading as possible. However every man with a musket will receive a short sword or dagger. Anything else?”
A few more men asked basic questions, and the knight answered them kindly enough. Johann felt his arms growing weary just standing and holding the heavy arquebus, so he set the bottom against the dirt and hoped it wasn’t some terrible military crime.
The rest of the afternoon the men were divided between muskets, swords or pikes, according to their skill and interest, then formed into lines and marched across the courtyard. Then, they were marched again. And again. And again.