Sir Conrad dabbed his face with a kerchief and tossed it aside. He inhaled and then launched a flurry of quick strikes. Goodkin met each swing with strident counter-strikes, barely meeting Conrad’s speed but more than matching his strength. Their fight circled through the courtyard, the warring steel clashing as they duelled.
Conrad kicked a slop bucket into the air, hooking it with his boot. The spinning bucket met Goodkin’s shield and was batted back. Conrad wailed as he was showered with excrement. Sopping with waste, he retreated towards his men. Was this the secret baptism he had been awaiting?
‘Just kill him.’ Conrad buried his face in his elbow. ‘Just bloody kill him!’
Daimonia’s horse burst into the courtyard, as fierce and fleet as lightning. She rode into Sir Conrad, sending him flying like a thrown doll. His agonising shrieks were the worst she had ever heard.
‘Hurry!’ she screamed at Goodkin. The Way Knight ran awkwardly towards his horse as Daimonia rode among the wounded, hacking and stabbing from her saddle.
‘Don’t let them escape!’ Dobra Knave blared at the duke’s men. The cavaliers immediately obeyed, spurring their horses to give chase. Conrad rolled on his back, crying.
Daimonia and Goodkin goaded their mounts to flee the courtyard with abandon, leaving behind a chorus of curses and screams. They ploughed recklessly through streets and gardens, overturning market stalls and flattening patrolling militants. This time Daimonia’s elation was a sword of searing fire; she had become the protector.
As they raced through the eastern gate, the duke’s cavaliers were still in determined pursuit. These adept riders were talented horsemen and would not be easily evaded. Their plumed helms bobbed in the breeze as they chased their prey.
Immediately outside of Knave, a meandering train of wagons approached. At the forefront rode an illustrious noble from House Guldslag. This wealthy dignitary was perched joyfully upon an extravagantly coated camel. He was escorted by a regiment of Guldslag soldiers marching uniformly behind him.
Passing at speed, Goodkin swung his fist into the noble’s mouth. He knocked the man clear off his panicked camel and into the astonished men below. The resulting confusion of spears, horses, men and livestock made a devastating trap for the pursuing cavaliers, who rode headlong into the turmoil.
‘We’re free,’ Daimonia breathed. ‘We did it.’
Goodkin made no reply but instead nodded. He looked like a thing just born, wrinkled and bloody.
The forest called to them, offering safety in its many pockets of darkness. As they made for the trees, a single Geld enforcer escaped from the carnage and rode furiously in pursuit. He was a strapping Afreyan warrior gripping a keen-edged ebony scimitar.
‘Don’t stop,’ Goodkin yelled. The Way Knight veered his horse around to engage the Afreyan, straining to raise his sword as he moved into a mounted charge.
They exchanged blows as the horses drew together, a mad savagery gripping them both. The Afreyan lost a finger in the clash, but had the mettle to stand in his stirrups and retaliate. The strike was so hard the Way Knight’s sword broke, and the scimitar sank into his flesh. Goodkin buckled in his saddle, leaking blood into the wind.
Daimonia slowed to witness the scene, her heart thundering as she watched Goodkin trying to ride away from the enforcer. The Afreyan was kicking his horse madly, delirious with the prospect of the kill. The horses raced towards her.
A terrible foreboding gripped Daimonia and her eyes welled with tears. She reached for her bow and nocked a single trembling arrow. Goodkin was bleeding to death and the Afreyan was riding up, teeth clenched, to hack him to pieces. As the horses rode wildly, Daimonia tried to still her feelings, to lose herself in the arrowhead.
With a breath she let loose a shot aimed at the large target of the Afreyan’s horse. The arrow lacerated the animal’s forehead crudely. The creature faltered in distress and Daimonia laughed as horse and rider were both dashed upon the ground in a neck-breaking collision.
‘Good shot.’ Goodkin nodded as he caught up with her.
They pushed on into the woods, Goodkin pressing hard against his gushing wound. He was trembling, uttering something, but it was beyond comprehension.
‘Don’t worry,’ Daimonia told the knight. ‘I won’t leave you.’
A Single Silver Piece
They raced determinedly over rippling brooks and beneath the far-reaching arms of monumental trees. An eruption of perfect flowers spread around them in a vast train of flourishing beauty. As the Way Knight began to choke and fail, they rode into a great and ominous shadow.
Goodkin groaned and fell from his horse, landing violently amid the treasury of colour. Daimonia descended and landed by the Way Knight’s side.
Luscious fragrances welcomed the girl as she knelt in the primitive grandeur. Her fingers caressed the man’s hard face. The coarse skin was rough to her delicate touch, each scar containing a soft valley amid the rifts of ruined flesh.
Goodkin’s eyes returned her stare like hard stones. ‘I am done,’ he told her.
‘No,’ Daimonia answered. She wondered whether it was wrong to feel powerful at this moment. She felt like a character in a strange tapestry, surrounded by colour as she knelt by her dying companion.
An imposing carving of Mother Cerenox towered over the grove, crowned by the foliage above. The wooden Goddess was tall and substantial, shaped from a standing tree. For eyes she had two deep alcoves wherein were set a cluster of unlit candles. Her belly was round with impending life.
‘Great Mother,’ Daimonia implored, ‘please hear your daughter’s prayer. I have sought you through the thunder and the rain. I have looked for you in the morning and in the night. I have stood on the precipice of death and yet not turned aside. Through it all this man has been my shield, my brother and my protector. Let him stay awhile longer before taking him in your arms, for I cannot find you alone.’
The Great Mother was silent.
Daimonia beat her fist against the wood, her eyes alight with fervour. ‘Hear me!’ she cried.
A single butterfly broke loose from atop the Goddess and fluttered to an unsightly cave in the worst darkness of the grove. Daimonia followed, rushing through the long grass. At the edge of the cave she paused and stared into the gloom. It was silent. Cautiously she leaned against the timeless stone and took a single step into the blackness. She immediately recoiled as her fingers slipped amid a sticky mass of mucous and meat. Disgusted, she discovered hundreds of snails clustered amid an elaborate maze of slime.
Wiping her fingers against her dress, Daimonia yelled into the cave, ‘Is someone there? Please help me!’
A deep croaking sound erupted from the dim hollow. A figure began to drag itself up, wheezing as it climbed. A raw unearthed scent pervaded the air. Daimonia took a step back, poised to flee.
An elderly woman emerged, clad in shabby skins and leaning on her knees to climb. She was so long in years that every part of her face was crevassed with deep lines of age. Her yellowed eyes peered in two directions simultaneously, one of them set fiercely on Daimonia.
‘Mind the snails!’ the old woman howled.
‘My friend is dying!’
‘So is mine!’ the crone snapped. With wrinkled fingers she plucked a broken-shelled snail from the wall and stroked its moist body. ‘Go to the Great Mother, little one,’ the woman prayed, making a tomb of her gnarled hands.
‘There is a man dying over there!’ Daimonia shrieked in exasperation.
‘Is he more special to the Goddess than this one?’ the crone rasped, her spittle filling the space between them. ‘This precious one you’ve killed in your carelessness?’
‘Yes! I think so. No…I don’t know,’ Daimonia admitted.
‘Who are you?’ The crone’s dominant eye scrutinised Daimonia. ‘What do you want?’
‘I am no one.’
‘A satisfactory introduction,’ the crone decided with a sigh. ‘I am Sister Tulanae, a delightsome holy virgin
in the service of the Goddess.’ Her lips creased into a saggy smile. ‘I know, I know. It seems hard to believe I have kept myself pure all these years and it’s not as if I didn’t have suitors–’
Daimonia’s hand lashed out and slapped the old face. ‘Help us!’ she demanded, her lips curling with rage.
‘How dare you!’ The crone rose up like a great owl, empowered by wisdom and age. Her sleeves became baggy wings and her long nailed fingers tensed like talons. With a huge inhalation she filled her belly and then blew words into the wind with impassioned deliberation. ‘IN THE NAME OF MOTHER CERENOX I REBUKE YOU AND FORBID YOU FROM LAYING A HAND UPON ME!’
Daimonia slapped the leathery old face again. ‘Help us!’ she insisted.
Sister Tulanae visibly diminished. ‘Young people have no respect,’ she whined, curling up around herself. When she had rubbed the soreness from her face, she dared to look up again. ‘Very well, let’s see to your friend. There’s an altar below, sanctified to the Great Mother. Help me get him to it.’
Goodkin was dragged groaning into the cave, where old candles melted in coarse alcoves and odd malformed things lurked in jars. Sister Tulanae insisted on administering to the knight alone. Daimonia reluctantly backed out of the hole, careful not to bash the snails as she left.
In the grove Daimonia found her way back to the comfort of the Goddess. Beneath the maternal figure’s shelter, she allowed fatigue to finally take her. She fell to the flower bed, as if to her own death.
Leaves gambolled around the grove, stirred by a sinister wind. Darkness snuck from hollow and nook, tentatively at first but then with growing boldness until the shadows became a crawling smoke invading the sweet pasture.
Daimonia was unable to move or blink. Fixed on her back, she stared up at the encroaching night. Her thoughts became tired and dreadful, full of cosmic catastrophes and unpleasant mythology, the end of all things in a hail of screaming stars. Staring at the vastness of space, Daimonia felt the world had been turned upside down and feared she might fall into the never-ending darkness. She gripped the plants to save from flying from the earth, her muscles straining against the irrepressible pull.
A distant winking star sailed towards her, launching from its place in the heavens. Daimonia’s eyes were wide with wonder as the brilliance of the star expanded, casting a silver luminescence over the great forest. The whole grove groaned in anticipation of an incomparable event or manifestation. In the centre of the light, Daimonia discerned a single golden figure.
Daimonia awoke with a gasp. The world seemed to spin and a great oneness filled her heart, as if she were indistinguishable from the flowers or the stream. The dawn sun warmed her with its watchful light.
Sister Tulanae sat nearby, poking the last embers of a log fire with her staff. She stared at Daimonia as if expecting her to give birth to an idea.
‘I had a dream,’ Daimonia said.
‘Tell me.’
‘A man came to me from the sky. A superior figure cloaked in fire.’
‘You dreamed of Chrestos.’
‘The brother of the Goddess?’ Daimonia wondered.
‘Yes and no,’ Tulanae replied. ‘Chrestos is not one man, but that which is best in all men. Be they son or father, friend or lover.’
Daimonia shuddered involuntarily. ‘What is the meaning of such a dream?’
‘Such a visitation is very portentous. It means you’ve been anointed as one of us. You’re a daughter of the Goddess, one of the sisterhood.’
‘No,’ Daimonia asserted. ‘I do not plan to spend my life watching shadows in a cave.’
‘Then how will you spend your years?’ Sister Tulanae asked with a crafty smile.
‘As I am. As Daimonia.’
This provoked a hearty laugh from the crone. ‘How could you be anything else?’
Daimonia stood. Her body was wet with sweat and her cheeks were red as apples. ‘Will Goodkin live?’
‘No.’ The crone flinched. ‘He has joined the stars above. There he will wait until the end times, when they fall and take us all.’
Daimonia ran from the crone, the animals scurrying from her path. She paused by the cave, stopped by a terrible stench. Then with trepidation she entered, as if into the mouth of a dead animal.
The Way Knight lay naked on the altar, like a relief in stone. Daimonia approached with quiet reverence. She forced herself to look at Goodkin’s face; it seemed easier now the man was gone. But she could see no scars, only dignity and perseverance.
Daimonia’s head found his chest, listening for a heartbeat. When no sound came, she lingered, resting her face and arms on his cold body. The vast silence spoke for her loss.
‘All journeys must eventually be made alone.’ Sister Tulanae hobbled into the cave.
Daimonia wiped her eyes and sat up. She noticed that Goodkin’s palm was open, offering a single silver denarius on a chain. For me? Daimonia wondered.
‘There, there,’ the crone encouraged. ‘Death belongs to us all. We only weep when it gets someone else first!’
‘Can you speak the Way Knight’s last words as the adjurators do?’
Sister Tulanae laughed derisively.
Daimonia scowled and gently unhooked the chain from Goodkin’s hands. She hung it around her own neck, rubbing the coin softly between her fingers.
‘A Way Knight symbol.’ Sister Tulanae raised a grey eyebrow. ‘The sign of warriors and hardy travellers. Who are you hoping to fool with that?’
‘Myself.’
Tulanae presented Daimonia with the Way Knight’s folded tabard. ‘Fare well on your journey,’ she encouraged.
They left the cave in silence and walked the grove under the watchful eyes of the Goddess. Daimonia untied Goodkin’s horse and let it go, although it merely cantered around the grove. Her own mount was impatient to leave. The lonely task of reaching Khorgov rolled out in her mind.
‘Sister.’ Daimonia’s voice was imploring. ‘Give me the flaming sword of the Goddess.’
‘It is lit already, in your heart.’
At the forest’s edge Daimonia emerged, leading her horse by her side. Her hair was alive with wave after wave of voracious wind. She looked to the vast clouds shadowing the plains between Knave and Khorgov. The vista was huge, full of possibility and potential danger. In the distance she spied travellers heading to and from surrounding villages and hamlets. Their distant faces appeared small and scared on their journey, hopeful for a protector.
Daimonia turned determinedly toward Khorgov and readied herself for the final run. In one fist she held Goodkin’s worn tabard and on a whim she pulled the garment over her clothes. The bloodstained fabric rippled in the wind, like a raised sail.
Musical Interlude
The Geld Knight Conrad Ernst briskly cleaned John Grobian’s severed head in a wooden bucket. So much of the giant face was missing that water leaked from a multitude of cracks and holes. Painstakingly Conrad used an old knife to pick grime from the ruined teeth, but when the first one popped out, he gave up that effort.
‘Grobian, please,’ Conrad admonished. ‘You must look your best when presented to the prince!’
The head did not reply and Conrad sniffed it suspiciously. It was going to be a long journey to Kraljevic with this rancid companion.
‘Maybe a little perfume, my lord?’ Dobra Knave gathered her skirts and strode across the tavern bedroom to her master. ‘Either under your nose or a little on the outlaw’s head.’
Conrad rewarded the girl with a mild smile. How useful she was becoming. He had firmly refused when the Duke of Knave had tried to offer her services to another guest.
‘That won’t be possible,’ Conrad had informed the duke.
‘Not possible!’ The duke’s old veins had almost exploded.
‘Dobra is an agent of the Geld now. She won’t be entertaining any more of your guests.’
‘Fine.’ The duke had flared his nostrils bitterly. ‘Take the useless whore. I’m tired of seeing her mise
rable face anyway.’
‘Very good, my lord.’ Conrad didn’t bother to bow before departing.
They had left Knave, laughing at their own scandalous behaviour.
That night Conrad had been in too much pain to sleep. Dobra had brewed hemlock, henbane and wine. Once he had drunk himself unconscious, she had tended his wounds, cleaning and wrapping them like a surgeon.
As they rested in the Wayfarer’s Tavern, the Geld Knight mused that Daimonia Vornir would almost certainly have escaped to Khorgov. Conrad wondered whether it would be petty to chase her there. A far better prize awaited him at Kraljevic; the outlaw’s head might even earn him initiation in the fraternal Order of Saints.
Dobra sat by an open window and began to pluck a small harp. Beneath her frilled sleeves, her hands danced along the strings, teasing out a pleasant sound.
‘Please don’t,’ Conrad moaned. He had no desire to indulge the vapid hobbies of bored girls.
Smiling away Conrad’s grumpiness, Dobra simply continued, demonstrating great skill in her use of the instrument. The tune was like a guileless child, cautious at first yet trusting in its steady progression. It gave voice to that which is silent: the solitude of a field, an unspoken feeling between friends, the longing between distant lovers. Ever more rousing the song became until it possessed the heart of a great poet.
So gentle was the melody, it seemed the girl’s fingers played upon Conrad’s soul. It was a song he had always known, but was hearing for the first time.
Inexplicably he began to weep. Hadn’t he once known such joy and innocence? Hadn’t there been a golden time before he was orphaned off to the Exalt Temple? Once he had a family, a delicate mother with eyes brimming with love. He could see her now, her face lit with joy as he snuggled beside her, golden curls adorning her divine face. The music drew him back into that safety and the simplicity of those lost childhood days.
He followed the memory through the farm he had played in as a boy. He saw his sister laughing and chased her through a maze of sunlit corn. Pushing through the crisp stalks, he was young and clean, unsullied by the world’s corruption. Running through those fields again, he pursued an elusive question.
The Way Knight: A Tale of Revenge and Revolution Page 14