Black Moon Draw

by Lizzy Ford

The man at the center of the approaching riders flings himself off his horse and strides towards us. I recognize him from the rooftop of the Red Knight’s fortress.

  Size runs in the family. While he may be in his prime, The Desert Knight isn’t much smaller than the Shadow Knight.

  “Any trouble, son?” the Desert Knight asks the kid beside me.

  “Nay, father.”

  He yanks me off the horse and grips my chin a little too hard. Sensing danger, I decide to listen to Westley and stay quiet instead of protesting.

  “Fully recovered from your fall, I see,” the Desert Knight observes. “I have never seen a battle-witch heal so quickly. Is your magic awake, witch?”

  “Not consistently,” I reply.

  “A sennight with the Vulture will fix that.”

  “Father, we need her magic now. Black Moon Draw will not wait a day to send for his armies,” Westley says quietly.

  The Knight releases my chin and lifts the medallion off my chest. His eyes match his son’s, though his features are heavier, seasoned, and deeply lined.

  “Danger has a way of awakening the magic, does it not?” Westley adds. “We keep her with us in battle.”

  “You left me a foolish boy and returned a wise man. I should give all my sons to the Red Knight to train.”

  Westley says nothing. I stay quiet. The Shadow Knight was frustrated by my inability to use magic but willing to give me somewhat of a breather, perhaps because of his family’s history and his faith in the curse and legend.

  I’m not sensing any intent to offer leniency in the hardened face of the warrior before me. If his son fears him, I don’t have a chance.

  “Very well. You do not leave her side!” he ordered his son. Releasing me, he stalks back to his horse.

  Westley nods towards my horse, indicating I should mount. I do so with little grace and watch the Desert Knight wheel his horse and head back to the tree line. Westley takes my reins without addressing me, and we follow his father through the throngs of Brown Sun Lake men.

  I can feel their eyes on me and purposely stare straight ahead, clutching the saddle nervously.

  I had hoped to find someone in this place capable of reason instead of war, but after meeting the Shadow and Desert Knights, I don’t think a peace summit or discussion is going to happen between the two enemies. They’re too hardened to want to work together, their blood feud fueled by a thousand years of repressed anger. It’s not going to get fixed in the two days we have left.

  Watching the back of Westley’s head, I start to think there’s one button here I can push, one man who might be a tad more reasonable than the overbearing Knights of this world.

  I just have to wait for my opportunity to talk to him alone once more. In the meantime, I need the Heart to start working on command. There has to be a key, something I’m missing. I begin to go over past instances where it flared to life.

  My mind keeps going to the Shadow Knight and how angry he was. Why does it hurt to think of him?

  Chapter Eighteen

  There were two passageways through the mountain range isolating his fortress from the rest of the world. One was used by the people and visitors who wanted to reach the secluded, well-fortified hold at the seat of his kingdom. The other was for use by the Shadow Knight’s army commanders and messengers only, an expedited means of facilitating important news to and from those in the hold.

  No one outside of his inner circle in Black Moon Draw knew the location of the secret pass between mountains, the one the men of Brown Sun Lake had taken him and the witch through. It was his second sign that aught was not right with the welcoming party, one that warned him more than the Jackal-headed man was a threat before revealing himself.

  Brown Sun Lake had armies on his land and the means to pass through the mountains and destroy Black Moon Draw before his warriors returned. If the armies of Brown Sun Lake were this deep in Black Moon Draw, they had moved with help from his own people. There was no other way for them to hide such an enormous amount of warriors pouring into his lands, if someone were not actively suppressing any word of it.

  Worse – Brown Sun Lake armies were between him and his warriors. Even if his messengers reached his men, there was a very good chance that Brown Sun Lake captured the hold on the cliff before help arrived. His enemy had a bargaining chip he would do anything to recover: the battle-witch needed to break the curse.

  Frustrated and furious, the Shadow Knight defeated his enemies a couple of candlemarks after the battle-witch left the pass. He had no way of knowing how large the army waiting for him at the other end of the pass was. He turned back and tore out of the narrow path towards the fortress, mind racing.

  He had miscalculated, stretched his armies out across the realm, marching steadily towards his final battle with his main enemy, only to learn the older, wisened, wily Desert Knight had circled behind and cornered him.

  There were no warriors in his hold, and he doubted his former ally at White Tree Sound was going to help anyone but the victor.

  The Shadow Knight wanted to roar in anger, most of which was aimed at himself for being too arrogant in battle and assuming he had the upper hand against an enemy like the Desert Knight. Instead, he hunched over the horse’s neck and urged it to run faster along the foothills towards the cliff where his hold sat.

  Attack at shadow moon. Capture the Heart. The messages conveyed by the Desert Knight to the Red Knight now made sense. The shadow moon was the first night after a full moon, called such because it stayed out all day and disappeared soon after nightfall.

  He had dismissed the warnings as improbable out of what appeared to be sheer pride, for no one had ever taken the hold at Black Moon Draw. Tomorrow was the full moon, which meant his kingdom fell the day after, taking with it the entire realm, engulfed by a curse he had no way of stopping without the battle-witch.

  The other thought torturing him was one he did not entirely expect.

  His battle-witch left his side and protection willingly. He offered her the kingdom – and she left him. Was it her prediction that he died in the upcoming battle? A sign she did not share his feelings? Or was she acting out of fear for her own safety, mayhap frightened by the idea of facing the curse?

  Why did it matter why she chose to leave?

  For the second time in recent days, he experienced a cold jolt of what could only be fear.

  It seemed impossible for him to have been so thoroughly routed before the battle with his enemy even began. With no army and no battle-witch, a city void of people, and two days before the end of the world, his chances of saving his realm had never seemed bleaker.

  Determined, he swallowed the desperation creeping into his thoughts and began to think about what advantages he still held.

  I will go down fighting. There was no longer any reason to maintain what restraint he had.

  His resolve lasted until he set foot into his hold and saw the empty streets of his home. He had ventured thrice before to his city. Knowing what was there did not make it easier to visit. Dismounting, he stood on the smooth stone road leading from the gate into the heart of his city, dread settling deep into his soul, rattling him in a way he had never experienced.

  The streets were silent – but not empty. Men, women, and children – frozen in place the day the battle queen placed a spell upon the realm – crowded the streets, merchants’ alleys, and domiciles of the city. A hundred thousand souls and not a one of them were alive.

  He wove among them, taking in their features in the moonlight. For a thousand years, they had been statues, waiting patiently for their ruler to rescue them. From the tiniest babe held against her mother’s bosom to the guards on the wall, each was perfectly preserved in the white stone of the cliffs.

  Not even a small contingent of living men guarded a haunted city filled with stone inhabitants. No one living had occupied the city for almost a thousand years, the magic contained in the hold at its center turning anyone who remained more than a day
or two into stone. Any man who managed to escape before then went mad, and no one who entered the hold at its center had ever left.

  The seat of Black Moon Draw had been abandoned for a thousand years, waiting for the Shadow Knight capable of ending the spell that held it in its grip.

  The Shadow Knight was halfway to his hold when he noticed something that made him halt in the middle of a frozen crowd of his subjects. He turned all the way around to survey his surroundings, his gut twisting and chest constricting.

  A hundred thousand people, his people, would perish in two days.

  The cliff top hold had never been breached by an enemy, let alone taken. It was built to withstand years of attacks, needing only a small amount of men to hold the fortress. But there was only his sword – and the dangerous magic at the core of the hold that spewed out deadly fog.

  The realm would be destroyed long before he had a chance to save even one life. A thousand years of fighting ended here, with the last Shadow Knight.

  If his army were present, he would not hesitate to take the fight to his enemy. It would be over quickly, for the Desert Knight did not know Black Moon Draw the way his men did.

  He turned his gaze to the heavens, shrouded by fog. The sensation he had experienced earlier in the day – hope – was gone. He was not long for this world and never meant to see the blue skies.

  A thousand years and he was so close to saving everyone.

  A thousand years and he was about to lose everyone.

  Raw emotion pierced him and suddenly, too late, he knew what he wanted after the war and curse ceased to exist.

  He also knew it no longer mattered, that the reason he never thought beyond the end of this era was because some part of him innately knew he would never see the dawning of the next.

  His focus settled on the fortress at the center of the city, the source of fog and the heart of the curse. The witch was right. There was a time for battle and a time to try aught very different than battle. Failing to defeat his mortal enemy, he still had a chance to face the curse the way the Knights before him had tried.

  As he strode towards his hold, he went over what he knew of the interior, especially the chamber at the bottom of the uppermost, highest tower, from whence the fog spouted. Sword sheathed, he shoved open the wooden doors of the fortress meant to be his home and broke into a run, sprinting through the castle before its deceptive walls and hallways could rearrange themselves.

  The purple haze was visible the moment he turned down the long corridor leading to the tower entrance. Still, he did not stop, too aware of time slipping away. The Shadow Knight reached the door, breathing hard.

  The source of the curse, of evil, of the destruction of his realm lay behind the door. The hallway was colder than the ocean air, the fog dense enough it was difficult to breathe. A thousand years culminated in this moment. His body pulsed with raw energy, his teeth clenched hard enough for his jaw to hurt.

  He placed his hands on the door and pushed.

  It did not budge.

  Bending, he nestled his shoulder against it and tried again.

  No movement.

  The fury and frustration building in his body erupted. The Shadow Knight smashed into the door over and over, first with his shoulders, fists, and feet, and then with his axe and sword

  Neither weapon nor body left so much as the tiniest scrape and the door remained locked.

  “What is the secret?” he roared into the air, fear at his core again. “I am not afraid to face you!”

  Silence.

  Shaking with emotion and exertion, he stared at the door, his sense of doom creeping over him.

  He could not fight an enemy he was unable to confront.

  A thousand years and it ended here, a scrap of magical wood preventing him from saving his realm.

  Chapter Nineteen

  I could really use some coffee.

  It’s mid-morning and I’m safely stowed away in the trunk of a large tree at the base of the mountains. What little I slept was filled with bizarre dreams that made no sense. I had hoped the long dead warrior queen would make an appearance.

  She didn’t, which leaves the medallion and me at odds once more.

  “What do these words mean?” I ask Westley.

  Dressed for battle, he sits quietly on the other side of the tree, resigned to be my babysitter instead of preparing for war like the rest of his father’s army is doing.

  “We do not read or write,” he replies.

  “No one does?”

  “Scribes do. ‘Tis not a noble pursuit.”

  I wish my squire was here. I trace my fingers over the writing. I’m not sure I should talk or trust the teen facing me, but at the moment, I’ve got no real choice. “Any idea how this really works?”

  He shrugs. “’Tis a secret only the battle-witches of Black Moon Draw know. Our battle-witch had none.”

  I stand and pace, thoughts once again on the Shadow Knight. “I only have two days to figure it out! How can it be that hard?” I glare at the medallion.

  “Two days? Nay, witch, it’ll take but one,” Westley replies.

  “For what? Are we talking about the same thing?”

  “The fall of Black Moon Draw.”

  I drop the medallion and face him fully, startled. “What’re you talking about?”

  Westley glances up from the piece of wood he’s patiently carving. “My father’s armies lie between the Shadow Knight and his armies. We will take his hold by morning. If he refuses to surrender, my father will slay him, as was done a thousand years ago.”

  My whole world stops.

  He lowers his whittling project. “You speak of aught different. What is it?”

  It takes me a minute to find my voice and begin breathing once more. I sit down heavily, once again torn by what I should or shouldn’t say to him. “The curse. It ends in two days, and if the requirements for lifting it aren’t fulfilled, this whole world ends.”

  “You jest.”

  “No.”

  “Then you are wrong.” He shakes his head decisively. “The curse can be stopped by the death of the Shadow Knight. My father says so. To prevent the fog from consuming the world, we need only to kill him.”

  “Westley, listen to me. Black Moon Draw must reclaim its power and rule over all the kingdoms in the realm before the start of the next era, or this world and everyone in it ceases to exist. It’s what drives every Shadow Knight to conquer.”

  He studies me, distrusting. The muscles of his jaw are ticking.

  “The great warrior queen of Black Moon Draw said there were side effects of her spell that she didn’t know when she placed the curse upon everyone.”

  “You spoke to her?”

  “In a way, yes. She spoke to me in my dreams,” I reply. “I don’t like the way the Shadow Knight does things any more than anyone else does. But I understand that he’s trying to accomplish something truly great. He’s trying to save the world.”

  Westley stands, shaking his head once more. “I cannot believe this!”

  “It’s true!”

  “I know, witch, that you are a prisoner, one who will use manipulation to be free. I do not fault you for this. ‘Tis your right to -”

  “Westley, I’m not –”

  He holds up his hand and I shut up.

  “’Tis your right to use deception and lies to escape. But what you speak is nonsense. No battle-witch has ever spoken to the dead, and nowhere is it said that the kingdoms will disappear if the Shadow Knight does not win.”

  “I’m not wrong!”

  “You are tired and confused.”

  I’m getting nowhere with him and fight the urge to climb a tree rather than hide inside one. He’s more upset about what I’m saying than he was being imprisoned by the Red Knight. Maybe I’m wrong about him being reasonable or approachable, but I really thought I had a shot with this kid.

  His dismissive choice of words reminds me too much of Jason, who had a way of brushing off
everything I felt or said. It strikes me how much I hate feeling that way, how much frustration this kid provokes and how deep the emotion runs.

  He’s not Jason, and I’m no longer the mushroom who let Jason talk to her like this. I force my hunched shoulders down and decide that the time for backing down is gone.

  “Will you think about it?” I ask softly. “I am a battle-witch from another world. I might not understand much about here, but this is one of the few things I’m sure about. I know you’re afraid of your father, but you need to grow a backbone and focus on what’s right instead of what he tells you to do.”

  He looks like he wants to say something and then shakes his head, storming out.

  For once, I’m confident. Unaccustomed to pressing an issue instead of dropping it, I’m surprised by how natural it feels to stand up for myself. I usually let people like Jason tell me I’m wrong, ugly, stupid, fat – and I usually take it.

  Not anymore.

  “Where better to start being someone else than in a place that doesn’t exist?” With a newfound bloom of warmth inside me, I lift the medallion. “You’re next.”

  I trust you. The Shadow Knight’s steady declaration was part of the reason I didn’t sleep well last night. He did what Jason, Tracey, and others have never done in my life – believed in me – and instead of being grateful, I did what I always do: freaked out, assumed I’d fail, and ended up letting him down anyway.

  I feel like I owe him to try.

  I also feel like I owe me to try. I’ve never been particularly secure about who I am, always down on my looks, low paying job, lack of a life, thunder thighs, general apathy about my future, you name it. I feel safest when I’m lost in a book because there’s no one to judge or reject me. Last night, huddled in his arms, I decided to do what was right instead of being swept away. The sense I need to take control of my life, to start living it on my own terms, is gaining ground. I set limits with the sexiest man alive; I can make this damn thing work.

  Shifting to get comfortable, I continue to gaze at the medallion. The scene of the battle-witch cursing the realm replays in my thoughts. She had been so strong and sure of herself, the opposite of me. The man she loved had just been struck down and she was running on pure adrenaline. There is more about her than her depth of emotion that makes me envious.