Wings of Fire

by Jonathan Strahan; Marianne S. Jablon

  The archers shot at Bork steadily, but the closer he got to the tree, the worse their angle of fire and the larger the shadow of safety the kettle lid cast over his body. Finally, holding the lid high over his head, Bork began hacking one-handed at the trunk. Chips of wood flew with each blow; with his right hand alone he could cut deeper and faster than a normal man with both hands free.

  But he was concentrating on cutting wood, and his left arm grew tired holding his makeshift shield, and an archer was able to get off a shot that slipped past the shield and plunged into his left arm, in the thick muscle at the back.

  He nearly dropped the shield. Instead, he had the presence of mind to let go of the ax and drop to his knees, quickly balancing the kettle lid between the trunk, his head, and the top of the ax handle. Gently he pulled at the arrow shaft. It would not come backward. So he broke the arrow and pushed the stub the rest of the way through his arm until it was out the other side. It was excruciatingly painful, but he knew he could not quit now. He took hold of the shield with his left arm again, and despite the pain held it high as he began to cut again, girdling the tree with a deep white gouge. The blood dripped steadily down his arm, but he ignored it, and soon enough the bleeding stopped and slowed.

  On the castle battlements, the Count’s men began to realize that there was a hope of Bork’s succeeding. To protect him, they began to shoot their arrows into the tree. The archers were well hidden, but the rain of arrows, however badly aimed, began to have its effect. A few of them dropped to the ground, where the castle archers could easily finish them off; the others were forced to concentrate on finding cover.

  The tree trembled more and more with each blow, until finally Bork stepped back and the tree creaked and swayed. He had learned from his lumbering work in the forest how to make the tree fall where he wanted it; the oak fell parallel to the castle walls, so it neither bridged the moat nor let the Duke’s archers scramble from the tree too far from the castle. So when the archers tried to flee to the safety of the Duke’s lines, the castle bowmen were able to kill them all.

  One of them, however, despaired of escape. Instead, though he already had an arrow in him, he drew a knife and charged at Bork, in a mad attempt to avenge his own death on the man who had caused it. Bork had no choice. He swung his ax through the air and discovered that men are nowhere near as sturdy as a tree.

  In the distance, the Duke watched with horror as the giant cut a man in half with a single blow. “What have they got!” he said. “What is this monster?”

  Covered with the blood that had spurted from the dying man, Bork walked back toward the drawbridge, which opened again as he approached. But he did not get to enter. Instead the Count and fifty mounted knights came from the gate on horseback, their armor shining in the sunlight.

  “I’ve decided to fight them in the open,” the Count said. “And you, Bork, must fight with us. If you live through this, I’ll make you a knight!”

  Bork knelt. “Thank you, my Lord Count,” he said.

  The Count glanced around in embarrassment. “Well, then. Let’s get to it. Charge!” he bellowed.

  Bork did not realize that the knights were not even formed in a line yet. He simply followed that command and charged, alone, toward the Duke’s lines. The Count watched him go, and smiled.

  “My Lord Count,” said the nearest knight. “Aren’t we going to attack with him?”

  “Let the Duke take care of him,” the Count said.

  “But he cut down the oak and saved the castle, my lord.”

  “Yes,” said the Count. “An exceptionally brave act. Do you want him to try to claim my daughter’s hand?”

  “But my lord,” said the knight, “if he fights beside us, we might have a chance of winning. But if he’s gone, the Duke will destroy us.”

  “Some things,” said the Count, with finality, “are more important than victory. Would you want to go on living in a world where perfection like Brunhilda’s was possessed by such a man as that?”

  The knights were silent, then, as they watched Bork approach the Duke’s army, alone.

  Bork did not realize he was alone until he stood a few feet away from the Duke’s lines. He had felt strange as he walked across the fields, believing he was marching into battle with the knights he had long admired in their bright armor and deft instruments of war. Now the exhilaration was gone. Where were the others? Bork was afraid.

  He could not understand why the Duke’s men had not shot any arrows at him. Actually, it was a misunderstanding. If the Duke had known that Bork was a commoner and not a knight at all, Bork would have had a hundred arrows bristling from his corpse. As it was, however, one of the Duke’s men called out, “You, sir! Do you challenge us in single combat?”

  Of course. That was it—the Count did not intend Bork to face an army, he intended him to face a single warrior. The whole outcome of the battle would depend on him alone! It was a tremendous honor, and Bork wondered if he could carry it off.

  “Yes! Single combat!” he answered. “Your strongest, bravest man!”

  “But you’re a giant!” cried the Duke’s man.

  “But I’m wearing no armor.” And to prove his sincerity, Bork took off his helmet, which was uncomfortable anyway, and stepped forward. The Duke’s knights backed away, making an opening for him, with men in armor watching him pass from both sides. Bork walked steadily on, until he came to a cleared circle where he faced the Duke himself.

  “Are you the champion?” asked Bork.

  “I’m the Duke,” he answered. “But I don’t see any of my knights stepping forward to fight you.”

  “Do you refuse the challenge, then?” Bork asked, trying to sound as brave and scornful as he imagined a true knight would sound.

  The Duke looked around at his men, who, if the armor had allowed, would have been shuffling uncomfortably in the morning sunlight. As it was, none of them looked at him.

  “No,” said the Duke. “I accept your challenge myself.” The thought of fighting the giant terrified him. But he was a knight, and known to be a brave man; he had become Duke in the prime of his youth, and if he backed down before a giant now, his duchy would be taken from him in only a few years; his honor would be lost long before. So he drew his sword and advanced upon the giant.

  Bork saw the determination in the Duke’s eyes, and marvelled at a man who would go himself into a most dangerous battle instead of sending his men. Briefly Bork wondered why the Count had not shown such courage; he determined at that moment that if he could help it the Duke would not die. The blood of the archer was more than he had ever wanted to shed. Nobility was in every movement of the Duke, and Bork wondered at the ill chance that had made them enemies.

  The Duke lunged at Bork with his sword flashing. Bork hit him with the flat of the ax, knocking him to the ground. The Duke cried out in pain. His armor was dented deeply; there had to be ribs broken under the dent.

  “Why don’t you surrender?” asked Bork.

  “Kill me now!”

  “If you surrender, I won’t kill you at all.”

  The Duke was surprised. There was a murmur from his men.

  “I have your word?”

  “Of course. I swear it.”

  It was too startling an idea.

  “What do you plan to do, hold me for ransom?”

  Bork thought about it. “I don’t think so.”

  “Well, what then? Why not kill me and have done with it?” The pain in his chest now dominated the Duke’s voice, but he did not spit blood, and so he began to have some hope.

  “All the Count wants you to do is go away and stop collecting tribute. If you promise to do that, I’ll promise that not one of you will be harmed.”

  The Duke and his men considered in silence. It was too good to believe. So good it was almost dishonorable even to consider it. Still—there was Bork, who had broken the Duke’s body with one blow, right through the armor. If he chose to let them walk away from the battle, why argue?<
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  “I give my word that I’ll cease collecting tribute from the Count, and my men and I will go in peace.”

  “Well, then, that’s good news,” Bork said. “I’ve got to tell the Count.” And Bork turned away and walked into the fields, heading for where the Count’s tiny army waited.

  “I can’t believe it,” said the Duke. “A knight like that, and he turns out to be generous. The Count could have his way with the King, with a knight like that.”

  They stripped the armor off him, carefully, and began wrapping his chest with bandages.

  “If he were mine,” the Duke said, “I’d use him to conquer the whole land.”

  The Count watched, incredulous, as Bork crossed the field.

  “He’s still alive,” he said, and he began to wonder what Bork would have to say about the fact that none of the knights had joined his gallant charge.

  “My Lord Count!” cried Bork, when he was within range. He would have waved, but both his arms were exhausted now. “They surrender!”

  “What?” the Count asked the knights near him. “Did he say they surrender?”

  “Apparently,” a knight answered. “Apparently he won.”

  “Damn!” cried the Count. “I won’t have it!”

  The knights were puzzled. “If anybody’s going to defeat the Duke, I am! Not a damnable commoner! Not a giant with the brains of a cockroach! Charge!”

  “What?” several of the knights asked.

  “I said charge!” And the Count moved forward, his warhorse plodding carefully through the field, building up momentum.

  Bork saw the knights start forward. He had watched enough mock battles to recognize a charge. He could only assume that the Count hadn’t heard him. But the charge had to be stopped—he had given his word, hadn’t he? So he planted himself in the path of the Count’s horse.

  “Out of the way, you damned fool!” cried the Count. But Bork stood his ground. The Count was determined not to be thwarted. He prepared to ride Bork down.

  “You can’t charge!” Bork yelled. “They surrendered!”

  The Count gritted his teeth and urged his horse forward, his lance prepared to cast Bork out of the way.

  A moment later the Count found himself in midair, hanging to the lance for his life. Bork held it over his head, and the knights laboriously halted their charge and wheeled to see what was going on with Bork and the Count.

  “My Lord Count,” Bork said respectfully. “I guess you didn’t hear me. They surrendered. I promised them they could go in peace if they stopped collecting tribute.”

  From his precarious hold on the lance, fifteen feet off the ground, the Count said, “I didn’t hear you.”

  “I didn’t think so. But you will let them go, won’t you?”

  “Of course. Could you give a thought to letting me down, old boy?”

  And so Bork let the Count down, and there was a peace treaty between the Duke and the Count, and the Duke’s men rode away in peace, talking about the generosity of the giant knight.

  “But he isn’t a knight,” said a servant to the Duke.

  “What? Not a knight?”

  “No. Just a villager. One of the peasants told me, when I was stealing his chickens.”

  “Not a knight,” said the Duke, and for a moment his face began to turn a shade of red that made his knights want to ride a few feet further from him—they knew his rage too well already.

  “We were tricked, then,” said a knight, trying to fend off his lord’s anger by anticipating it.

  The Duke said nothing for a moment. Then he smiled. “Well, if he’s not a knight, he should be. He has the strength. He has the courtesy. Hasn’t he?”

  The knights agreed that he had.

  “He’s the moral equivalent of a knight,” said the Duke. Pride assuaged, for the moment, he led his men back to his castle. Underneath, however, even deeper than the pain in his ribs, was the image of the Count perched on the end of a lance held high in the air by the giant, Bork, and he pondered what it might have meant, and what, more to the point, it might mean in the future.

  Things were getting out of hand, the Count decided. First of all, the victory celebration had not been his idea, and yet here they were, riotously drunken in the great hall, and even villagers were making free with the ale, laughing and cheering among the knights. That was bad enough, but worse was the fact that the knights were making no pretense about it—the party was in honor of Bork.

  The Count drummed his fingers on the table. No one paid any attention. They were too busy—Sir Alwishard trying to keep two village wenches occupied near the fire, Sir Silwiss pissing in the wine and laughing so loud that the Count could hardly hear Sir Braig and Sir Umlaut as they sang and danced along the table, kicking plates off with their toes in time with the music. It was the best party the Count had ever seen. And it wasn’t for him, it was for that damnable giant who had made an ass of him in front of all his men and all the Duke’s men and, worst of all, the Duke. He heard a strange growling sound, like a savage wolf getting ready to spring. In a lull in the bedlam he suddenly realized that the sound was coming from his own throat.

  Get control of yourself, he thought. The real gains, the solid gains were not Bork’s—they were mine. The Duke is gone, and instead of paying him tribute from now on, he’ll be paying me. Word would get around, too, that the Count had won a battle with the Duke. After all, that was the basis of power—who could beat whom in battle. A duke was just a man who could beat a count, a count someone who could beat a baron, a baron someone who could beat a knight.

  But what was a person who could beat a duke?

  “You should be king,” said a tall, slender young man standing near the throne.

  The Count looked at him, making a vague motion with his hidden hand. How had the boy read his thoughts?

  “I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that.”

  “You heard it,” said the young man.

  “It’s treason.”

  “Only if the king beats you in battle. If you win, it’s treason not to say so.”

  The Count looked the boy over. Dark hair that looked a bit too carefully combed for a villager. A straight nose, a pleasant smile, a winning grace when he walked. But something about his eyes gave the lie to the smile. The boy was vicious somehow. The boy was dangerous.

  “I like you,” said the Count.

  “I’m glad.” He did not sound glad. He sounded bored.

  “If I’m smart, I’ll have you strangled immediately.”

  The boy only smiled more.

  “Who are you?”

  “My name is Winkle. And I’m Bork’s best friend.”

  Bork. There he was again, that giant sticking his immense shadow into everything tonight. “Didn’t know Bork the Bully had any friends.”

  “He has one. Me. Ask him.”

  “I wonder if a friend of Bork’s is really a friend of mine,” the Count said.

  “I said I was his best friend. I didn’t say I was a good friend.” And Winkle smiled.

  A thoroughgoing bastard, the Count decided, but he waved to Bork and beckoned for him to come. In a moment the giant knelt before the Count, who was irritated to discover that when Bork knelt and the Count sat, Bork still looked down on him.

  “This man,” said the Count, “claims to be your friend.”

  Bork looked up and recognized Winkle, who was beaming down at him, his eyes filled with love, mostly. A hungry kind of love, but Bork wasn’t discriminating. He had the admiration and grudging respect of the knights, but he hardly knew them. This was his childhood friend, and at the thought that Winkle claimed to be his friend Bork immediately forgave all past slights and smiled back. “Winkle,” he said. “Of course we’re friends. He’s my best friend.”

  The Count made the mistake of looking in Bork’s eyes and seeing the complete sincerity of his love for Winkle. It embarrassed him, for he knew Winkle all too well already, from just the moments of conversation they had had. Winkle was no
body’s friend. But Bork was obviously blind to that. For a moment the Count almost pitied the giant, had a glimpse of what his life must be like, if the predatory young villager was his best friend.

  “Your majesty,” said Winkle.

  “Don’t call me that.”

  “I only anticipate what the world will know in a matter of months.”

  Winkle sounded so confident, so sure of it. A chill went up the Count’s spine. He shook it off. “I won one battle, Winkle. I still have a huge budget deficit and a pretty small army of fairly lousy knights.”

  “Think of your daughter, even if you aren’t ambitious. Despite her beauty she’ll be lucky to marry a duke. But if she were the daughter of a king, she could marry anyone in all the world. And her own lovely self would be a dowry—no prince would think to ask for more.”

  The Count thought of his daughter, the beautiful Brunhilda, and smiled.

  Bork also smiled, for he was also thinking of the same thing.

  “Your majesty,” Winkle urged, “with Bork as your right-hand man and me as your counselor, there’s nothing to stop you from being king within a year or two. Who would be willing to stand against an army with the three of us marching at the head?”

  “Why three?” asked the Count.

  “You mean, why me. I thought you would already understand that—but then, that’s what you need me for. You see, your majesty, you’re a good man, a godly man, a paragon of virtue. You would never think of seeking power and conniving against your enemies and spying and doing repulsive things to people you don’t like. But kings have to do those things or they quickly cease to be kings.”

  Vaguely the Count remembered behaving in just that way many times, but Winkle’s words were seductive—they should be true.

  “Your majesty, where you are pure, I am polluted. Where you are fresh, I am rotten. I’d sell my mother into slavery if I had a mother and I’d cheat the devil at poker and win hell from him before he caught on. And I’d stab any of your enemies in the back if I got the chance.”

  “But what if my enemies aren’t your enemies?” the Count asked.