Damsel Knight

by Sam Austin

  Damsel Knight

  by Sam Austin

  All rights reserved

  Copyright 2015 by Sam Austin

  First Edition: December 2015

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of characters to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. The Author holds exclusive rights to this work. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. No part of this book can be reproduced in any form or by electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing by the author. The only exception is by a reviewer who may quote short excerpts in a review.

  For more information see: http://samaustinwriter.wordpress.com/about-me

  Cover photograph: © | Dreamstime.com

  Stories in the Crystal Wolves series:

  Moon Madness

  Blood Trail

  Other Stories from this author:

  Novellas:

  Sage

  Short Stories:

  What You Wish For

  Demon Teddy Bear

  Monster

  Second Chance

  Monster Hangover

  They Came at Night

  Listen to Me

  Iron Knife

  Time for War

  The Exterminator

  Smile

  Education

  It’ll be a Riot

  Hellhound

  The Dragon

  The Doorway

  Contents:

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 1

  The guardian stone stands tall where it has for a thousand years, and where those it protects expect it will stand for a thousand more.

  Thirty years have passed since a hand last touched its surface, and another seventy are due before a druid will come to check on it again. Many have tried to break it, from vast armies, to small children who learnt the hard way that while you may leave the giant circle this stone and its cousins form around the kingdom, few men are given the power to let you back inside.

  No one reached an inch from its surface. Not with arrows, swords, magic, or fists. Until today.

  A cracking sound splits the air. If a man stood on the inside of the barrier, he would look up with horror at the noise few who spend their lives deep inside the protective circle would recognise. The dragon flies high in the clear blue sky. It flaps its wings again with a whooshing crack.

  Had the stone had thoughts, it would not be worried. Dragons had come and gone, slamming themselves against the invisible barrier with a blow that strained the constant hum of the guardian stones, but always ended with the barrier whole and the animal bruised and broken.

  It had no way to tell that this time would be different.

  The dragon stops a distance from the stone, its giant wings flapping more frantically. It eyes the object with a feral hate. Then jerking forward its neck, it lets out a burst of white hot fire.

  The guardian stone stands through the assault stoically, the raised pitch of its hum the only evidence of strain. The dragon is bigger than most, its fire hotter, but the barrier is made to last.

  That should be it. The dragon should give up, go back to its nest, the circle safe for another day. But all at once the humming stops.

  White hot flames shoot through the invisible barrier to blacken the grass on the other side. For a moment the large stone disappears under a jet of bright white. A sharp crack, barely audible over the beat of the dragon’s wings, and the ancient stone splits into two.

  By the time the dragon closes its mouth the stone is a jagged pile, strewn on burnt ground.

  Satisfied, the dragon flies above the stone. Its muscles tense as it passes through the barrier, but it meets no resistance. It does not pause to celebrate. This is not the victory it’s looking for.

  Its claws itch to rend, its teeth to crush men, women, children. It doesn’t care who it hurts. It wants to hear the screaming, smell the blood, and see blackened corpses frozen forever in horror.

  It flies toward the unknowing kingdom, and the beat of its wings sounds like death.

  Chapter 2

  The clash of swords fills the hot summer air. Bonnie fights valiantly, with the ferocity of a berserker, and the honed skills of a knight. She dances back and forth with her attacker, bare feet nimble over the uneven ground on the river's edge. His breath comes in ragged pants whilst hers slides from her lungs, smooth as silk. Then an opening. She takes it, twisting her sword against his until the wooden sword springs out of his hand and lands with a splash in the river.

  Quickly while his guard is down, she raises her sword and points the wooden tip at his neck. "Will you yield?"

  Neven's only response is to put a finger in his mouth with a look of pained indignation. "I think you gave me a splinter."

  She lowers her sword, feeling the warm rush of victory flood through her. It doesn't last long enough for her to enjoy it. This is what her father called an empty victory. Neven had never been a match for her despite years of her diligent tutoring.

  Neven looks despondently at the river, which is little more than a stream really. He sucks at his finger, his untidy mop of brown hair falling over his tanned face. His shoulders slump, making him look even more small and weedy than he already is. "I'll need to make a new sword."

  Bonnie parries the air, imagining herself surrounded by enemy warriors. Barbarians, dragons, witches. All of them shy before her sword. No one thinks of her as just a woman. "It'll take you all of five minutes."

  Suddenly Neven brightens. "Can I show it to you now? It's really good. I think this will be the one."

  A wariness creeps over her. "Is it going to blow up again?"

  "No," Neven says, walking through the long grass toward the single old tree that stands by the river. It had been here long before Bonnie came to live here, long before she or Neven were born, and she suspects long before any of their parents were born. It's a gnarled warped thing that has many hidey holes among its twisted roots. "This is something new. I've given up on the idea of flying for now. Da was right, doesn't seem natural."

  As he speaks he lifts a pile of wood and iron reverently from a bundle beneath the roots. He pulls back his grubby sleeves to strap what look like manacles around each of his arms. Something bulky is attached to both of them. It contains an impressive amount of iron for a fourteen year old farm boy to get hold of, but Neven has his ways. His gift for making things had long since caught the eye of the village blacksmith. Neven's father hadn't allowed him to become an apprentice, but he works a few hours here and there in return for scrap metal and a place to forge more complicated inventions.

  He holds out hi
s arms toward her with a wide grin, and clenches his fists. The bulky things attached to the manacles sit up to attention, making Bonnie jump. They're shaped like long tubes of metal with a thick box extension attached to the manacle at the inner elbow. Already it's looking better than his last invention - the ‘make a person fly machine', which Bonnie had tried to rename the ‘make a person explode machine' after they tried it with a dummy which is now in various wooden pieces little bigger than the splinter in Neven's finger.

  She takes a step back just in case. "What does it do?"

  "I call it the ‘shoot things really far machine'," Neven says as the things on his arms make an ominous clicking sound. "It shoots things. Wood doesn't work well because it burns up. I made little iron balls that work best, but stone of the right size does the job, at a pinch. I used the explosive material from the last experiment that wasn't supposed to explode. It generates a force that propels the projectile to the target at high speeds."

  "Right," Bonnie says, who had only heard that he had strapped explosive material to his arms. "Are you sure you shouldn't use a dummy for this?"

  "It'll be fine," Neven says. "Watch."

  Bonnie watches, wishing that she'd asked to practice shield manoeuvres instead of swordsmanship. She could really use a shield to duck behind right now.

  Nothing happens.

  "That's strange," Neven says, shaking his arms up and down. "It's supposed to be shooting right about now."

  A high pitched scream comes from behind them. They spin around.

  There on the crest of the small hill that overlooks the river stands Neven's mother Mrs Moore. Her work worn hands press to her face in horror. Wide brown eyes the same dark shade as Neven's stare at them.

  In a quick practised movement, Bonnie hides the wooden sword behind her back. For a moment Bonnie has a vague hopeful notion that her foster mother's horror is directed at the possible explosives her son had strapped to his arms, then she shakes it off. That isn't likely. Everyone in the village is too used to Neven's eccentric toys to raise an eyebrow at anything less than a brutal maiming or destruction of village property.

  "Bonnie Ceana!" Her foster mother screeches. "Look at you! You're filthy!"

  Bonnie looks down. The dress Mrs Moore had picked out for her that morning had been nicer than usual. Freshly washed, with none of the usual tatters that catch her feet as she runs. Now it hangs limp and wet around her ankles, mud showing even on the brown cloth. Splotches of mud travel up both her lightly tanned arms, and there's probably some smeared on her face as well.

  "You look like a barbarian," Mrs Moore says, raising her hands to the skies in a show of hopelessness. "Whatever shall he think?"

  Bonnie waves the wooden sword behind her back, and Neven finally gets the message and takes it from her. Boys can play with swords and neat things that blow up, but Bonnie would catch her foster parent's fury if they caught her doing anything like that. Girls are supposed to care for nothing but preparing to be a good wife, and worrying what their future husband will think of them.

  "He's here?" She asks in a low voice. Her skin itches as dread takes over. What will this one be like?

  "Yes," Mrs Moore says. "Now come child. I suppose the damage is done, and a woman should never keep a man waiting."

  Bonnie walks glumly up the hill away from the river, feeling as if she's walking to her death. Maybe she is. If this goes the way her foster parents want then she won't be the same person anymore. There'll be no time for Neven or sword fighting. No more fancies about killing dragons with red scales and black eyes. No more Bonnie Ceana. She'll have to grow up and become Bonnie - wife.

  The thought makes her shudder and long for her sword.

  ***

  Bonnie steps into the roundhouse, her foster mother's fingers digging into her shoulders from behind. A feeling of melancholy washes over her as it always does stepping through the wooden door. Roundhouses are all built more or less along the same lines. A big circle shaped house with walls made of mud and straw, and a carefully thatched roof. Opposite the door there's a large wooden cabinet that holds various relics from the family's ancestors, to the sides are the beds, and in the middle is the hearth where long winters are spent around the fire.

  It reminds her of her own roundhouse that she shared with her parents long ago.

  By the cold hearth, two men talk. One is Mr Moore, a short man with skin more sun browned than his wife or son, and a wiry build, full of taut muscle that speaks of a life of much work and little reward. The other is taller, and unusually for a villager has a stomach that protrudes over a belt made from real leather. She knows him vaguely from trips to the market in Porthdon, a town where most of the villagers around here take their excess wares to sell. He's a pig farmer she thinks, from the larger village made up of nearly twenty roundhouses not a mile from where their village ends.

  The men look up when they enter. A frown settles on both their faces.

  "I'm so sorry for her state, Mr Drust," Mrs Moore says, her voice containing a panicked quality. Her fingers press hard enough into Bonnie's shoulders to hurt. "The poor girl wanted to help our son with his chores and slipped in the mud. She was ever so distressed after making such an effort to look nice for your meeting."

  Bonnie shifts her bare feet. Mr Drust looks old, forty, maybe even fifty. His face holds the severe expression her foster parents had when they were about to tell her off, but she gets the impression this is how he looks all of the time. He certainly doesn't look like the kind of husband who would practice sword fighting with her, or let her go away to slay dragons.

  "How old is she?" Mr Drust asks, his voice little more than a grunt. Perhaps all the time he spent with his pigs made his voice sound like that. Bonnie has to fight to bury a grin at the thought.

  "Fourteen winters," Mr Moore says as he walks over to stand next to his wife. "I know she doesn't look like much, but she'll grow to give fine children."

  The thought makes her nauseous. She still thinks of herself as a child. She doesn't want to have children of her own, and certainly not with an old man who looks as likely to give her the back of his hand as look at her. She'd heard only whispered rumours about what a girl had to do to have a child, but that's enough to decide that she NEVER EVER wants to be a mother.

  The pig farmer steps so close that the scent of pigs rolls over her, making her dizzy. He glares down at her with his squinty little eyes, and reaches out to take a few strands of her golden hair between his pudgy fingers. Then he turns her chin this way and that, like he's examining a piece of livestock.

  Something stubborn takes over her, and she fixes her eyes on his, not looking away like a good woman should. Never take your eyes off your enemy, her dad had always told her. Potential husband or not, her gut tells her this man is an enemy.

  "Girl!" Mr Moore shouts, giving her a swat to the back of the head that makes her eyes water. She stumbles and then dropped her eyes to the dirt floor. Her heart thuds, angry in her chest, and her hand clutches the handle of a non-existent sword.

  "She has potential," Mr Drust says in his grunting voice. His squinty eyes are still locked on her hair. Golden hair is rare this far south, and Bonnie knows that her hair, long to her waist and fussed over by Mrs Moore daily is a rare beauty. Under Mr Drust's gaze she doesn't feel beautiful. She feels like a slab of meat set out at market. "But she doesn't know a woman's place."

  "Her father was from the far north," Mr Moore says, his tone apologetic. He sends Bonnie a sharp look. "She's picked up some of his barbarian ways, but she's bright enough. I'm sure she'll learn."

  Bonnie's heart gives a twist. People so rarely talk about her family except behind her back. She feels a certain sense of pride at being compared to her father, but she wants to scream that he wasn't a barbarian. Barbarians are horrible blood-thirsty creatures little better than the dragons they share their mountains with. They kill men, women, and children, and that's if the victims were lucky. They're rumoured to eat people and lea
ve any remains out for the dragons to take back to their nests.

  Her father was a good and kind man. A man with a shock of bright blond hair who was always ready with a grin and a joke, and yes, even a hug, though that wasn't a man's place. He fought for the King and died in the bravest of ways. She knows of no person less like a barbarian than him.

  She bites down on her tongue to hold it still. Mr Moore, while a fair man, doesn't stand for nonsense in front of strangers. Her aching head is proof enough of that.

  "One pig," Mr Drust says, still staring at her. "Pick of the litter. Take it once it's weaned and feed it up yourself."

  Mr Moore's face breaks into a rare smile. Mrs Moore's hands relax around Bonnie's shoulders. Bonnie barely notices. Her whole life seems to flash before her eyes in an instant. Her father showing her how to use a sword, her mother looking on with disapproval. Red scales smooth under her fingers, and eyes as dark as night staring up at her. Countless days playing with Neven by the river. All gone.

  As a wife there will be no more games, no swords, no dragons. A wife exists only to serve their husband.

  "We'll marry in the morning," Mr Drust says, the words addressed to Bonnie's foster father, not her. "A small ceremony at my farm. Bring her over at first light. You can choose your pig then."

  "So soon?" Mr Moore asks. Bonnie thinks she hears a note of regret in his voice, but that might be wishful thinking. As much as she wants to hate them, she can't. They'd taken her in when everyone else had turned their backs, a strange girl from the King’s City with an odd story following her. They had treated her fairly, even occasionally with love. Even this marriage isn't cruelty, no matter how much she wishes to think that way to justify the anger burning inside her.