Knight Awoken

by Tammy Salyer

  Her brow wrinkled. “Slangarooks? You mean those water dragør creatures?”

  He nodded, snapped a small bone, and sucked the marrow out. She guessed he didn’t even realize the low, pleased sound he was making in the back of his throat.

  “Good rabbit?”

  “Good? Mylla, good is warm water splashed over your face, the feel of a velvet scarf around your neck, maybe the sound of a lullaby when you’re a child. This”—he raised the stick his dinner was skewered on—“this is the taste of divinity. I had quite forgotten how good creatures of Vinnr, creatures that live on land, could taste.”

  His innocent joy at a simple spitted rabbit made her smile. After chewing a few more bites, she pressed, “These slangarooks, then. Are they able to speak like myths say dragørs can?”

  Instead of answering, he set his carcass, now just bones, down, and gave her what she had come to recognize as his school’s-in-session stare. “Have you ever wondered why the creatures of every realm are so similar? Maybe not in color and shape, but in all ways that matter? We can breathe each other’s air, recognize each other’s seasons, eat foreign foodstuffs. Hmm?”

  “I, um, I hadn’t ever thought about it, I guess.”

  His head was bowed toward the fire, but he peered up at her crabbily beneath thick brows. “What can they be teaching at the Conservatum anymore? Well, I’ll spell it out, I suppose, since you don’t seem to be learning it elsewhere. We all come from the same Five, yes?” Before she could answer, he went on. And she was grateful he did, because her own grumpiness had been triggered. “The Five were the One, as you know. At least, you know now. So we all come from the One. Are you following?”

  “I think so.”

  “That is why the realms are similar. The One. And that is why the answer to your question is yes. The slangarooks, the dragørs, all cousins, they all… communicate. They all know the First Tongue, though you wouldn’t say they speak.”

  “… They communicate, but they don’t speak. That right?”

  “It’s what I said, yes.”

  Overcoming the urge for a sarcastic response, she opted for a diplomatic one: “It’s clear I have a great deal more to learn.” Deciding she wasn’t in the mood for his pedantry after all, she rose and stepped outside the firelight to bury her own bare rabbit carcass before he could continue lecturing and kick her patience to death.

  Once finished, she moved back to the fire and said, “We should sleep while we can. I’ll take—”

  But she was speaking to no one besides the rabbit bones Griggory had carelessly dropped.

  Looking around, she called quietly, “Griggory? Hey—Knight Dondrin?” Even as she spoke, she slowly backed away from the fire until she was just another shadow among the forest’s many. He might simply be taking a moment to pass water or look for more fallen twigs to burn. Whatever he was doing, though, he should have known better than to just disappear without a word to her.

  Her fingers already clenched her klinkí stones, now held at her side. From behind a wide tree trunk a dozen paces from the fire, she kept a silent vigil, waiting for his return.

  Minutes passed as she watched and listened. To her straining ears, it seemed that the forest grew quieter rather than familiar. She didn’t call for him again. Her guts were telling her he was… gone.

  And soon, they told her something else. Griggory might not be present, but she wasn’t alone.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Jaemus recognized Havelock Rekkr from his brief glimpse of him at Vigil Tower, when Safran had told him that Mylla had died. He’d forgotten about that until now. The mix of emotions that danced over the man’s face at learning his love still lived moved Jaemus, but it also made him realize how complicated his situation with his own lifemate had gotten. Cote was just a man, after all. He’d be so much better at this role than I am, though, Jaemus thought and knew that conversation was in their future. Their near future, he hoped. If Jaemus was going to live forever, or some approximate length of time that might as well be, he damn well wasn’t going to do it without Cote.

  He pulled himself out of his thoughts and refocused on the conversation.

  Havelock was telling the Knights: “Brun has turned Vigil Tower into a garrison. Between its walls and Aster Keep’s, and potentially some of the catacombs if we can barricade them well enough, the whole city should be able to take refuge if we’re attacked again. And the towers offer unequaled defenses.”

  “Thanks to the armory Roi and I’ve been hammering out for that last few centuries,” Stave grumbled. The Knight’s inner blacksmith had never been idle, and Jaemus knew many rooms in Vigil Tower were positively bursting with all the weapons he’d crafted over his many years.

  “Yes, and we should be thankful the fruits of your calling won’t have gone to waste,” Symvalline said to Stave. “And Brun has always seemed a competent commander.” She looked at Havelock. “Am I right in guessing she’s kept Vigil Tower from being too badly… I don’t want to use the word ‘looted,’ but Ulfric has told me that the city folk and Beatte were”—she cracked a cynical smile—“disgruntled at the circumstances of the Knights’ leaving.”

  “Which is Beatte’s own fault, it is,” Stave proclaimed.

  Havelock was nodding. “As far as I know, Commander Brun is protecting it as much as occupying it. You had an herb garden in the western tower, didn’t you, Knight Lutair? I wouldn’t be surprised if the commander has laid a pallet down among your plants and guards them with her life.”

  “Brun is a gardener?” Symvalline asked.

  “She’s a fair hand at growing anything, but she’s especially skilled at hops and rye.”

  Jaemus saw Stave’s unshapely eyebrows rise in surprised appreciation, though he couldn’t guess why these particular plants called hops and rye would elicit that reaction.

  “Wing Rekkr,” Ulfric cut in. “It’s a favor I wouldn’t ask otherwise, but there is too much at stake not to. Would you precede us at the Vigil Tower and prepare Brun for our arrival? I know I’m asking you to leave your post, but—”

  “Say no more, Stallari. I know what’s at stake. It will take me till nightfall to reach Asteryss.”

  “No, Wing. You’re going the fast way,” Ulfric said.

  Havelock’s eyes widened. “Through the interrealm well?”

  “Safran, will you accompany him?”

  She nodded.

  “Then you go ahead and speak to Brun. We’ll follow in two hours’ time. Let’s get to the well.”

  “First, I should show you where I’ve left my Wing fighter. You may need it.”

  He walked the Knights to a stand of trees about six hundred paces down the flank of the mountain. Several of the trees seemed to have been chopped in half by a tremendous ax. The top half of about a dozen of them had splintered and fallen over, coming to rest in the branches of the still-whole ones, creating a chaotic jumble. As they approached, Jaemus could see a small flying craft situated as far back in the copse as it could go, camouflaged with broken-off branches. It could only be spotted from close.

  His engineer’s curiosity was immediately aroused. It was smaller than any craft he’d flown or built in Himmingaze, and sleek, like an insect of some sort. He wanted—now, be honest with yourself, Jae—he had to know more about it.

  Turning to the group, he said, “While we’re waiting, Wing Rekkr, would you mind if I took a peek at your, er, did you call it a ‘fighter’?”

  “I figured you’d be back one way or another, Stallari.”

  A dark-skinned, sharp-chinned woman wearing heavy-looking armor stood before the Knights as they stepped into the Verity chamber at the top of Vigil Tower. Her eyes were a light gray, and when her sharp gaze fell on Jaemus, he felt for a moment he was being stared at by the slangarook again. When she blinked, her eyelids moved slowly, as if her penetrating gaze was all-seeing all the time, immediately putting Jaemus ill at ease. So he did what came naturally.

  “Ah, hello, madam. Commander Brun,
is it? We haven’t yet met. I’m Jaemus Bardgrim, Knight Corporealis—newly minted Knight, actually—and a pilot and glint engineer by way of Himmingaze. Not to mention a Mystae of the Creatress. It’s a pleas—”

  Ulfric saved them all from his further babbling. “This is our newest member, Commander. He’s Himmingazian, hence his unique features, but ordained by Vaka Aster.”

  “As I was saying,” Jaemus couldn’t help but add, then stopped himself from saying more.

  “Given what Wing Rekkr and Knight Glór have said, you’ll need all the Knights you can get.” The commander dismissed Jaemus and turned to another soldier standing near the room’s doorway. “Wing Owers, wait outside and close the door. Tell the company that I don’t want to hear a knock until I’m done here unless a Verity itself is asking to speak to me. Clear?”

  The soldier, unarmored and wearing a light tunic like Wing Rekkr’s, nodded and paced outside.

  Brun then addressed Ulfric in the memory keeper. Safran had apparently prepared her ahead of time for the oddity. “Let me just tell you right now, Stallari Aldinhuus, your best intentions have sunk us all in not just a pot of hot water, but an ocean of it. I know you thought you were helping when you called on Vaka Aster, and maybe you were. But thanks to that little party you and the Dyrraks threw in Aster Keep, and how badly you humiliated Beatte, where you’re standing at this moment is as close as you’re going to get to the Arch Keeper. This war you say is coming will start the moment she knows you’re here.”

  Even in miniature, Ulfric’s scowl was obvious to everyone in the room. “I was afraid of that. Commander, your level head is the only thing that’s going to ensure Ivoryss prevails against the Dyrraks serving Balavad. We need your help in handling the Arch Keeper.”

  The commander snorted. “Her confidence in me has waned somewhat.” Brun began pacing back and forth before the heavy, ornate seat on which Vaka Aster had once sat. “Beatte trusts me to fight our enemies, but she now only listens to a handful of advisors, and I’ve been reporting to them of late. So from Vigil Tower, I’m doing my job to protect this city, while being somewhat less conversant with the Arch Keeper. What I know is, we’ve had scouts watching the shipways from Dyrrak since you left, and they are coming. A small forward force of thirty ships has amassed at Udunum Island in the Verring Sea.”

  “That’s a half day’s sail from Asteryss, isn’t it?” Mallich asked.

  “A full day on an Ivoryssian ship, but I’m sure I don’t have to tell you how fast our enemies’ are.” She paused from her pacing long enough to pass a censorious eye over the Knights, then resumed. “They’ve stayed put for the last three days. We assume they’re waiting for further orders, but of our own fleet, what wasn’t damaged or outright sunk in Balavad’s first attack was all but finished off by the Dyrraks when they, and when you, left. We can’t do anything about them on Udunum, so we’re fortifying our sea walls with heavy armaments and have emptied both Aster Keep’s and Vigil Tower’s armories.” She looked to Stave. “Which are very impressive.”

  “I know,” Stave said.

  “And what of Yor? Has Beatte secured their allegiance against Dyrrakium?” Ulfric asked.

  Brun snorted. “Fergus and his entourage were gone before the dock fires were out upon your departure. I don’t think he has confidence in Beatte to handle what’s coming.”

  The Knights exchanged worried glances, and Jaemus began to wonder if he’d made the wrong choice in coming the Vinnr.

  “As far as Balavad goes,” the commander went on, “I only know what Wing Rekkr has told us. The Battgjald Verity is back, according to you, and he’s taken over the Dyrraks.” Stopping to speak face-to-face with Ulfric, she said, “If Balavad was going to take over an army, why couldn’t he have gone after the Yorish? We would have had a chance against them. But the Dyrraks? However over-keen I might find their adherence to their ancient traditions, there’s no denying their strength and discipline are going to make them nearly impossible to beat—and that’s if we were at full strength. So you tell me, Stallari, what are we going to be up against? Because it was obvious to me before you and your Order even left with them that they’d be back.” She added coldly, “The only way to stop fanaticism is to slaughter it.”

  At this point, Jaemus felt so out of his element that he was considering whether or not he could sneak away and be unnoticed. He glanced toward Ulfric, who was staring fixedly at him, as if he’d read Jaemus’s mind—which, he hated to admit, wouldn’t be the first time. With a “who me?” smile, he forced himself to stop glancing toward the door and listen as Ulfric provided Brun with what explanation he could.

  The commander’s face grew hard as Ulfric outlined in brief but discouraging detail what they’d seen of the Dyrrak forces: several dozen squadrons of aerial combat craft, ten to each squadron; a fleet of at least three hundred troop-carrying oceanic ships; and an empire’s worth of warriors who’d trained to fight since they were children. Lastly, many if not all these Dyrrak warriors would be celestially cursed to increase their resilience so much that one of them would have the strength of five Ivoryssian soldiers. To Jaemus, the whole situation sounded as unnerving as it did unwinnable. He couldn’t imagine living in a world where it was not only normal that your neighbor or your kingdom’s neighbor might attack you at any moment, but it was also so common that people had written entire libraries of books on strategy for counteracting (or performing) such actions and built entire war-waging machines for just that possibility.

  “In short, Commander,” Ulfric concluded. “There’s only one way Ivoryss will endure their attack. When they come, you must surrender.”

  Brun’s pacing had resumed as she’d listened to Ulfric. At his last statement, she came to an abrupt stop, the metal of her armor clicking distinctly.

  Then she began laughing, but there was no humor in it.

  “Stallari, if you think Ivoryss would give up without a fight, you’ve been out of touch with your own people for far too long.” She wiped her mouth with the back of a hand, and the last of her grin turned into a thin-lipped frown. “A statement like that might even make me wonder if you’re working for our enemy.”

  It was Ulfric’s turn for a humorless chuckle. “You know better than that, Brun,” he said flatly.

  She held her stiff pose silently, her eyebrow cocked in a challenge. “Do I?”

  “Do you have a choice?”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Ulfric and Brun stared at each other long enough that Ulfric began to strongly suspect they would have to disarm her and her entire garrison and lock them up until they could figure out another way to persuade the Ivoryssians that fighting was suicide. That, or simply let them meet their slaughter head on. Then the Knights would be free to slink ignominiously into Dyrrakium and retrieve his body and Vaka Aster’s vessel while the Dyrraks were wading in Ivoryssian blood.

  Shortly, though, her good sense saved her, and maybe Ivoryss as well. She broke eye contact, glanced at each of the other Knights, and said, “I’ve never been a gambler, but the only way I can see to survive as a realm is by putting all our efforts behind whatever you Knights plan to do.” She looked pointedly at Ulfric. “Please tell me you have a plan.”

  Careful to hide both his relief and his sudden dread, he held back the truth. The fact was, they didn’t have a plan, not really. Except for the one that had started to form as he’d explained things.

  His companions weren’t going to like it, and it cut him a little inside too, he had to admit. But it was time to tell not only Brun but the rest of his companions what he’d decided the next step would be. “For now, I need—”

  His voice was drowned out by a clanking and clattering coming from the stairwell, and the sound of several sets of boots. They weren’t coming in a calm, measured manner, but quickly. Everyone turned to the doorway, still closed after Wing Owers was set on watch.

  “Mallich, bar the door,” Ulfric ordered.

  A moment after the Yorish Knight ha
d lowered the stout beams, someone began hammering against the heavy wood, followed by a voice: “Commander Tannir Brun and Knights Corporealis, open this door immediately or we will break it down.”

  “Owers, that bastard,” Brun growled. “He turned you in.”

  “Jimp wouldn’t do that—” Wing Rekkr began, but Brun held up a hand sharply to silence him.

  She stepped toward the door and squared up to it as if she’d fight first it, then anyone who dared come through it. “By whose authority, Marine? Or did you forget I’m the commander of this military?”

  There seemed to be a hesitation, but it was short. “Arch Keeper Beatte’s authority, Commander Brun, and you don’t command the Keeper’s Guard. Now open the door and face your fate for the crime of harboring and aiding the traitors.”

  Brun turned away from the door, grumbling about her disdain for someone named Jarmand, presumably the leader of the Keeper’s Guard. “Always had more ambition than honor.” She spat, then looked at Ulfric in the memory keeper. “Take the interrealm well back to Mount Omina and just go. I’ll face this on my own. I’m not going to open that door to a fight I know those guards can’t win. Your wystic stones will shred them before they’ll even know what hit them. Some of those soldiers aren’t sensible enough to see how foolish and delusional Beatte is, but that doesn’t mean they deserve to die.”

  “What about you, Brun?” asked Safran, using a Fenestros to be heard.

  “I’ll… do whatever’s necessary.”

  “Magdaster,” Havelock suddenly blurted, and the thunk of something heavy and thick slamming into the chamber’s door punctuated him.

  “What?” Brun said.

  “The Knights should go to Magdaster.” As an afterthought, he added, “And so should you and I. Commander Nennus has the city battened down as tight as a drum. It’s walled, it’s fortified for a long siege, and their heavy cannons have been able to hold off dragørs for a thousand turns. They should be able to hold off the Dyrraks for at least as long.” He looked to the Knights. “If you go to Magdaster, Nennus can be persuaded to help in whatever plans you have for facing Balavad.”