Knight's Shadow

by Sebastien de Castell

  A choking scream reached my ears and I turned to see a figure running towards me, the nightmist clinging to his outstretched arms. It was one of the village men – Bannis? Baris? All I could remember was that he grew barley in a small field and made beer with it. The locals liked it.

  ‘Celeste!’ he screamed, ignoring my swords and pushing me out of the way. He fell to his knees and cradled the girl in his arms. ‘I told her to stay in the mountains!’ he cried. ‘I told her . . . I went back but she was gone – she must’ve followed me. You—! This is because of you and your damned Greatcoats . . . you damned . . . damned . . . Trattari!’ He sobbed as he yelled at me then, accusing me of terrible crimes, saying the things a man says when his child is dead and he needs someone to blame. I wanted to shout right back at him: to scream at him that if he and his thrice-damned mates hadn’t betrayed us, his child would have had a chance, but I couldn’t bring myself to do so because he was right, in a way: had we not been here, he wouldn’t have had to betray us, and maybe then none of this would have happened.

  On the other hand, this is Tristia.

  I clenched my hands tightly around the grips of my rapiers. Grief passes faster than it should when there are still enemies in the field, and rage provides its own kind of clarity. I would find Trin and make her pay for this: not just for the men, women and children dying in villages and towns across the Duchy of Pulnam as she kept up pressure on Duke Erris to swear his support for her, but for the murder of Lord Tremondi, and most of all for what she was trying to do to Aline.

  The sounds of steel-on-steel broke through the mist and guilt gave way to fear. Move, I told myself. Don’t sit here wallowing. Aline is out there, alone, waiting for you to find her. I ran towards the noises in the mist. I will find her, I promised myself. Aline’s a smart girl and she can be brave when she needs to be – hadn’t we survived together for nearly the entire Blood Week in Rijou before we’d been caught? She was hiding now, I was sure of it. She’d’ve found a place to wait for me, and now I would find her before Trin’s men did and I would pick her up and get to my horse and take her fast and far from this place. The daughter of my King wouldn’t die because of me.

  *

  I found Brasti some fifty yards away, near one of the village’s two wells, nursing his hand while sitting on the corpse of his opponent’s body, which was lying face down in the mud.

  ‘The son of a bitch got me,’ he said, showing me a wound barely deeper than a shaving cut.

  ‘You’ll live,’ I said. ‘Get up.’

  ‘It’s my hand, Falcio,’ Brasti complained, rising to his feet. ‘I’m an archer, not a swordsman. My art requires finesse and skill; it’s not just swinging a pointy bar of metal around like a doddering old man waving a stick.’

  ‘Remind me to kiss it better for you later,’ I said, hauling him up by the shoulder.

  We took off at a run and headed into the mist, ignoring the bodies of villagers, Greatcoats and Trin’s warriors littering the ground. There was still no sign of Aline, so I gave a short prayer to Saint Birgid-who-weeps-rivers that one of ours had found her.

  ‘Where’s Kest?’ I asked suddenly.

  ‘I’m not sure. He took off after some spectacularly big armoured bastard who’d just made short work of two of the Tailor’s Greatcoats. I told him we needed to stick together but he started glowing red and ignored me.’ Brasti’s expression became grim. ‘He’s still doing it, Falcio. He just—’

  ‘I know,’ I said. Ever since Kest had defeated Caveil-whose-blade-cuts-water and taken on the mantle of the Saint of Swords, something had changed in him. Whenever we got into trouble he went straight for the strongest fighter, only the strongest fighter, as if compulsion had overtaken reason.

  ‘Falcio, we need a plan. We don’t know how many of Trin’s men there are here. They could outnumber us ten to one, for all we know – and they’re wearing armour.’

  There was something shockingly unsettling about the fact that Brasti Goodbow, a man who’d never met a plan he fully understood, never mind liked, was the one reminding me we needed a strategy. But he was right: as Greatcoats we were trained for duelling, not facing armies, and the dark grey cloth Trin’s Knights were wearing combined with the nightmist made it even harder to find the weak spots in their armour. We needed an advantage: a trick that could surprise them when the moment came . . .

  ‘Brasti, I need you to get Intemperance and get up to the rooftops.’

  ‘That won’t work. It might be clear up there but I can’t make out friend from foe in the mists – I’m just as likely to hit one of ours as one of theirs. Why can’t they run around with their armour all shiny like they usually do?’

  I reached inside my coat to a tiny pocket – one of the dozens that held a Greatcoat’s tools and tricks – and found three pieces of brittle amberglow. ‘Leave that to me,’ I said. ‘You just make sure you’ve got those bloody long ironwood arrows of yours and get up top.’

  ‘Fine, but don’t blame me if I end up shooting you by mistake,’ he said, and turned to run back the way we’d come, towards the centre of the village.

  I resumed my search for Aline, and a few moments later the mist shifted again and a figure appeared in front of me: a woman with dark hair, too tall to be Aline. She was looking off to the side and I could make out the elegant, sensuous lines of a face for which most men would do just about anything.

  Trin.

  Hate and fear mixed inside me like the ingredients of nightmist, filling me with swirling desire. I tightened my grip on my rapiers. She hasn’t seen me. She hasn’t even drawn her sword. Part of me wanted to call out her name, to hear it drip from my lips, to see her face as I finally put an end to her. But I kept silent. Capturing Trin would have given us a huge strategic victory but if I challenged her or tried to take her alive there was too great a chance of her men being close enough to hear me and I couldn’t risk a dozen Knights swarming over me before I’d dealt with their mistress. Brilliant heroics are nice, but when you’re still partially paralysed and terrified a dirty win works just fine. It won’t be assassination if I simply kill her, will it? This is a battle – we’re at war. Even the King would have understood that. Wouldn’t he?

  I let the point of my rapier drift into position and began the three steps it would take me to reach Trin and take her from this world. All the rage and frustration I’d felt these past weeks ignited inside me like a bonfire. A few seconds more and she would join her damned mother in whichever hell was reserved for those who would murder children. The skin on my face felt tight and it took a moment to realise I was smiling.

  Just as I was in striking distance of her, she turned to see me. Her eyes went wide as the light glinted off my rapier, but when she saw my face the look of fear changed instantly to relief. ‘Falcio!’ she said.

  I barely stopped my blade in time, stumbling to a halt and barely keeping my balance. Valiana. It’s Valiana, you idiot! She and Trin looked enough alike that in the fog my hunger for revenge had overtaken my senses.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ I demanded. Damn you! Damn you for not being her. ‘Get inside one of the cottages and hide before you get yourself killed.’ My rebuke was harsher than she deserved, and aimed at the wrong target.

  ‘I’m . . . I’m a Greatcoat now,’ she said, with as much defiance as an eighteen-year-old girl who’d never fought a duel in her life could muster. ‘I’ve got to find Aline and protect her.’

  Valiana’s determination was the only thing that was truly her own. Her life as a princess had been a ruse, a cruel joke perpetrated by Duchess Patriana, devised not just to amuse herself with that cold, calculating cleverness that only the very rich and very evil find amusing, but also to hide Trin, her true daughter, in plain sight. Now Valiana had a sword in her hand and a Greatcoat made for her by the Tailor in exchange for her vow to throw herself in front of any blade coming for Aline. And your name, I reminded myself. You gave her your name. She’s Valiana val Mond now and as close t
o a daughter as you’ll ever have.

  ‘I need you to get inside one of the cottages,’ I said, more gently this time. ‘I need to know that you’re safe.’

  ‘I swore an oath to protect her,’ Valiana replied, her voice stronger now, and more sure than she had any right to be. ‘If I die doing so, then so be it.’

  I considered knocking the sword out of her hand and dragging her to safety. She’d been trained in fencing the way all sheltered nobles were: as if it were all a game, with points scored and style applauded. Out here in the real world it was a recipe for a quick death.

  ‘Falcio!’ she screamed.

  I’ve learned over the years – often the hard way – that if the face of the person in front of you suddenly fills with terror and screams your name, it generally means something unpleasant is about to happen. I ducked even as I spun around and saw the spiked iron ball of a flail fly past the spot where my head had been an instant before. I brought my rapiers up in front of me just as the man wielding the flail prepared his second strike.

  I’ve never understood the flail as a weapon: it always feels slow and cumbersome (and aptly named, as far as I’m concerned). But my enemy was quite determined to prove me wrong. His fast, precise swing sent the small spiked metal ball on the end of the chain hurtling towards me: an overhead attack this time. I sidestepped it, expecting to see it hit the ground and pull my opponent off balance, but instead my opponent used the momentum of the swing to bring the weighted ball back and straight around again, this time on a horizontal axis towards me. I’ve seen the impact of the spiked-ball end of a flail break the ribs of an armoured opponent. The bone plates in my greatcoat were strong, but so far I’d managed to avoid finding out if they could resist a flail and I didn’t think now was the time to start. I brought my right rapier up so the point was aiming straight up to the sky and, stepping back, leaned away just enough that the ball missed me but the chain wrapped around the blade of my sword. I yanked on it as hard as I could, pulling the man towards me, driving the point of my rapier into the vicinity of his armpit, where the gap in between his armour would be. My thrust missed and once again I cursed the dark grey cloth.

  Valiana tried stabbing at the Knight with her sword but she didn’t have the training to deal with an armoured opponent and her light blade did little but annoy him. For my part, I hung onto his weapon arm for my life and kept stabbing my rapier as quickly as I could, trying to find that damned gap. It was hardly the kind of swordsmanship they sing about in the sagas, but most of those sagas aren’t about Greatcoats anyway. After three tries my tip found a spot between his helm and the top of his neck. He dropped the flail and fell to the ground.

  Before I could enjoy a well-earned sense of relief, Valiana shouted and I turned to see a gaggle of Knights coming for us. Hells! I thought. Had I been a little faster, we might have been able to escape before they found us.

  Three were brandishing swords and the other two had maces. I couldn’t hope to take two opponents right now, never mind five. Kest could have done it, I thought. I cursed my black luck and the damned nightmist and the fact that Kest wasn’t here when I needed him. ‘Run!’ I shouted to Valiana. ‘Run and find Kest and stay with him.’

  She didn’t obey but took up a guard position next to me that would have made a lovely painting in the hall of a Duke’s castle but wouldn’t be the slightest help when our enemies attacked.

  ‘Falcio!’ I heard Brasti call out from somewhere behind and above us. ‘Where the hells are you?’

  ‘I’m here,’ I yelled back.

  ‘I can’t see for shit. I can make out shapes but I don’t know which ones are you and which ones are the damned Knights!’

  ‘Too bad for you,’ one of the Knights said. He looked at Valiana. ‘Duchess Trin will find special favour for the man who brings this one back in chains.’ There was a hunger in his voice that filled my mind with images of what they would do to her. No, I thought, stay here. Stay calm. You won’t win on rage alone.

  An arrow whizzed through the air and very nearly clipped me in the arm before hitting the ground.

  ‘Did I get him?’

  ‘Don’t go by the sound of their voices!’ I shouted. ‘The nightmist distorts the way we hear noises.’ Somewhere in the world lives a God or a Saint who took it upon himself to invent magic. I plan on killing him some day.

  ‘Then how—?’

  As the first Knight came for us, I reached into my pocket and found one of the pieces of amberglow. It’s a lightweight, brittle substance that glows just enough when you crush it to let you mark the spot where a piece of evidence is found. I hurled it at the Knight’s chest. At first it didn’t look like anything had happened, but a few seconds later a small spot on his clothing began to glow, almost as if it had caught fire.

  For a moment the Knight looked panicked, but he quickly realised he wasn’t burning. ‘Stupid Greatcoat tricks,’ he said, and raised his blade.

  ‘What’s that?’ Brasti shouted. ‘Falcio, is that—?’

  ‘Aim for the glow, Brasti!’

  ‘Now!’ the Knight roared. ‘Now, Trattari! Now death comes!’ He charged for us.

  ‘You bet death is coming, metal man,’ Brasti called out.

  The Knight had only a brief instant to look up before he heard the loud thunk of a two-and-a-half-foot-long black arrow piercing his chest so deeply that I thought it might come out the other side.

  ‘Cowardice . . .’ the man murmured, sinking to his knees.

  ‘That’s not cowardice, Sir Knight,’ I said, ‘that’s Intemperance.’

  I gave a silent thanks to Saint Merhan-who-rides-the-arrow for having made Brasti a Greatcoat. No matter how strong a Knight’s armour, it’s not impenetrable to a two-and-a-half-foot-long steel-tipped arrow launched from a six-foot longbow made of red yew and black hicksten and drawn by a man who hates Knights more than any other living thing.

  The other attackers were more cautious now and started moving to surround us. I threw a second piece of amberglow at one of the other Knights but before it could shed any light he brushed it off and stamped it into the ground. Well, it’s not as if my luck ever lasts longer than a second or two.

  The Knight opposite me echoed my thoughts: ‘Your trick worked once, Trattari. It won’t work a second time.’

  ‘Falcio, what’s happening?’ Brasti shouted. ‘Where’s the next target?’

  ‘I’m working on it,’ I said.

  The Knight brought his blade down hard and I skipped back, letting it pass in front of my face and down to the ground. I flicked both my rapiers at him, slicing them across his chest, but he just laughed and didn’t even bother to parry. A rapier cut against plate-armour is about as deadly as the soft caress of silk. But I wasn’t trying to cut the plate. I was simply cutting the cloth that covered it.

  ‘Something’s glinting,’ Brasti called out.

  ‘That’s your target! Hit it!’

  The Knight realised what was about to happen and frantically tried to cover the sheen of his exposed armour, but he was too late, and an instant later an arrow pierced his chest.

  ‘Valiana,’ I said, ‘take one of the Knights with the maces. Keep out of his reach and don’t try to kill him – just cut as much of the cloth covering his armour as you can.’

  The other Knights rushed us, but this was a fight I could deal with. The two swordsmen tried to outflank me but my rapiers were just as long as their warswords and twice as fast. And I didn’t need to aim very well at all.

  Brasti’s voice called out. ‘I think I see—’

  ‘Wait until you’re sure!’ I shouted back, fearful he might mistake the flashing of my blades for exposed armour.

  One of the Knights tried to behead me and I slipped underneath and ran behind him. It took just two quick slashes to expose the plate on his back; I doubt he even noticed as he turned back around to face me. The sun overhead was beginning to burn through the nightmist – just enough that its rays gleamed against the Knight�
��s armour – and an instant later an arrow buried itself into his body.

  I heard another arrow whiz through the air and spun around to see it lodged in the leg of Valiana’s opponent. Good girl. Don’t try to expose him for the killing blow – settle for anything you can. As he went down on one knee she slashed at him again and a moment later a second arrow took the same Knight in the throat.

  My second swordsman was trying to stay close to me but this was a fight of speed and agility and even with my recent infirmity I had the edge. I skipped back and slashed three times, exposing a wide area of plate around his belly. Brasti’s arrow found it moments later. All I needed to do now was take out the second mace fighter.

  I heard a scream and turned to see Valiana, her sword on the ground several feet away and the last Knight readying his mace to strike her down. She would die the instant that blow landed. In my mind’s eye I saw her lying on the ground, her skull crushed inwards. I darted towards them, cursing every Saint I could name, already knowing I would be too late. The Knight was still fully covered in his grey cloth and there was still too much mist for Brasti to be able to make out anything but blurred shadows. Valiana slipped and fell to the ground, and I knew that if Brasti shot now he was just as likely to kill me or Valiana as the Knight. But we had no other choice.

  ‘Brasti! Take the shot!’

  ‘Falcio, I can’t see—’

  ‘Take the—’

  The mist parted and a wild figure emerged, running at Valiana and her opponent, a warsword in his hand. He was glowing red, as if fire was burning just under the surface of his skin. A demon, I thought. Trin’s found a way to send demons for us now. At the last instant the figure leapt in the air, sailing effortlessly over the girl, sword held in a reverse grip with the point aimed downwards. As gravity pulled him back to earth, he drove the tip of the sword into the Knight’s chest with all the crashing force of his momentum behind it. The blade pierced the plate armour and sank deep into the Knight’s body. The world froze for a brief moment.