Damsel Knight

by Sam Austin

  Bonnie tosses her pack over one shoulder, the small wooden shield Neven had made for her over the other. In a free hand she carries her father’s sword. Although large, it’s not as heavy as most broadswords. A special metal, her father had said. One harvested in the north beyond the circle where he was born. Forged with dragon fire he had told her. She’s not sure about that last part. Getting a dragon to help forge a sword without getting burned at the same time seems an impossible task. Everyone says dragons are mindless, and know nothing but killing.

  The metal is a strange dark colour. It never seems to rust, so maybe there’s something to the stories of it being special. She likes to think so. Her thumb traces the carved dragon winding itself around the hilt. It grounds her.

  Maybe Mr Moore had been a knight like her father. It seems unlikely.

  “Come on,” she says. “We have to get to the woods before they come looking.”

  He drags his feet and looks like he’s on the verge of crying, but he follows. That’s all she can ask.

  Once they’re deep enough in the woods she stops, taking his pack from his shoulder. He doesn’t protest, instead crouching by a small stream to wash his face. He keeps his eye on his reflection in the water, like he’s waiting for it to tell him something. Maybe it will. They say water is the doorway between this world and the next. Sometimes when she looks at her reflection she fancies it must be someone else looking up at her from the other side. After all, her reflection has never looked like someone she recognises. It makes sense to think the pale girl with white blond hair and big blue eyes is a stranger.

  “Don’t look,” she says. He doesn’t even seem to hear her.

  She dresses hurriedly, hoping that her cheeks aren’t burning. All that has happened hasn’t been enough to take every stupid weak feeling it seems. Her foster father is dead. The woman she came to know as a mother is likely dead as well. The King’s soldiers are after Neven, and though she knows she has to protect him, she doesn’t know why. Yet here she is acting the woman. Her father would be ashamed.

  “What do you think?” She asks, not able to stop herself from plucking the fabric self-consciously.

  His eyes widen as he turns to look at her. “Take that off Bonnie! If someone sees you…”

  She looks down at her thin body in his spare pair of clothing. Part of her wants to do just that. A girl in boys’ clothing. It’s not done. She thinks back to the senile woman burned for wearing her husband’s clothes. It’s hard, but she fights down the urge to shudder.

  “No,” she says, hoping her voice sounds stronger than it does in her head. “I have to protect you, and we’ll have to travel far. A girl will attract too much notice.”

  “Protect me?” His face screws up into a mixture of grief and anger. “You’re a girl Bonnie. You won’t even be able to protect yourself. You have to go back. I have to go back. I’m not afraid to serve.”

  She goes to crouch by the stream, her sword balanced carefully on her knees. She may have only had chance to use it for practice, but she keeps it sharp anyway. Another thing her father had taught her. Her jaw clenches against Neven’s words. She’s been given a mission, like her father got his from the King. She doesn’t know the reasons why, but that is not always for a knight to know. A knight must do their duty.

  A knight sounds a lot better than a pig farmer’s wife.

  “We can’t go back. Your father gave his life for us not to.” She raises the sword, the edge glinting sharper than most weapons. The metal has a red hint, like it’s still hot from the fires that made it all these years later. She touches the broad side carefully, its surface cool beneath her fingers. She would have to be the same; different on the outside than she was on the inside. Or maybe this new identity would suit her better, and she would finally feel herself instead of an impostor. “And I’m not a girl any longer.”

  She pulls the blade through her hair. It cuts the strands like a heated knife through butter, and she’s left with a fistful of white blond hair that trails down to curl around her feet. Her head feels lighter without it. “Help me with the rest.”

  Neven digs in his pack, pulling out a small blade. He steps toward her hesitantly. “I hope you’re sure about this.”

  So does she. She drops the handful of hair into the stream. An offering. It feels strange, like she’s cut off a limb.

  “Gods give us luck,” Neven murmurs behind her.

  “Gods give us luck,” she echoes the prayer. They’re going to need it.

  ***

  It's night by the time they reach the docks. It's not a long walk, an hour or two at the most. They'd waited in the woods for the cover of darkness before passing over that last stretch of open land. They'd seen no soldiers out there by the boats, but it doesn't hurt to be cautious.

  Neven had spent the time curled up, looking through the pack his father had packed for him. She can't tell what he's thinking, but she can guess. Time hasn't dulled the pain of losing her own parents. She can't think of any words to help him in his grief, so she leaves him be.

  "This one," she whispers back to him through the black.

  The boat is a small thing compared to the few others on the dock. The others are trading boats with cargo bound for Porthdon. This one is as small as the fishing boats tied up off the main dock, though not as rickety. Maybe it's supposed to be mistaken for a fishing boat to hide its true purpose. If so they should have hired someone with less of a fondness for telling tales. It sways from side to side on the dock in a drunken manner. Empty it would fit ten people at a squeeze. Filled as it is with various bags and boxes covered in a large rough sheet, it would fit only two or three.

  Bonnie steps in the boat, causing it to bob up and down in anger. She sets to work moving boxes to make a space under the cloth. After a while she stops to look over her shoulder and glance at Neven. "Hurry up."

  He steps forward, nothing but a twitching shadow in the scant moonlight. He's heard the tales as she has, but he was always one to focus on dangers rather than adventures. "This is a really bad idea. Can't we just stick to the road?"

  She knows the road he means. The one that leads from Porthdon all the way east to King's city. Going to the city isn't a bad idea. There are enough orphans scurrying the narrow alleyways that two more won't be noticed. Whether they'll be able to avoid the soldiers patrolling the city long enough to avoid whatever danger they're recruiting for is another matter. But no. Either way the road won't do. "The soldiers will go that way. And I don't fancy striking out on goat trails and getting lost. The water's our only way."

  Neven bows his head. He knows it too. Still, he glances at the other boats tied to the mud caked dock before putting a hesitant foot in the boat. It lurches forward against the rope, causing him to balance precariously, arms pinwheeling before it stills. With eyes squinted shut like he expects the wood to eat him, he puts the other foot in the boat.

  "See it's not so bad," Bonnie says, ducking beneath the cloth. The air is stale under here and tastes of rot. But there's enough space for her and Neven both. Enough for them to crouch between the boxes long enough for the boat to get up the coast and away from here.

  "Right," Neven says, sounding like he's going to be sick. Unlike her, who hassles fishermen for a trip along the coast, this is the first time Neven has stepped foot inside a boat. She hopes he's not going to turn out to be seasick. It would be ironic given how devoted he is to the Gods if his stomach protested his travel across where the line between their world and this world is the thinnest.

  A large hand reaches out of the darkness and closes around Neven's throat. He yelps, but any further noise is cut off when a second hand touches a savage looking knife to his neck. The shadow towers over him, and over Bonnie.

  "What're you doing on my boat, boy?" The gruff voice rolls over them both along with warm breath smelling strongly of cider. "Stealing? You been stealing my things?!"

  Neven cringes away from the hand, his adam’s apple bobbing too close to the
knife for comfort. His body trembles, and the colour drains from his face.

  "Jack put him down," Bonnie says, standing up from beneath the cloth. It's a struggle, but she makes sure to leave her sword under there before she exits. No sense escalating things. "You're scaring him half to death."

  The knife is removed from Neven's throat, but his legs stay dangling several feet off the boat. Jack bends down to squint at Bonnie through the darkness. He's a giant of a man. Nearly seven feet tall, and almost half as wide. A thick fur vest covers his barrel chest even in this warm weather, and the skin not covered is about as hairy. His eyes are not small, but his oversized jaw and wide broken nose make them seem so.

  "I know you?" His gruff voice holds more confusion than menace now.

  "Picture longer hair," she says, attempting a smile. It's strained. Jack may be a friend of a sort, but trusting him with this secret was stretching that friendship to its limit. "And a dress covered in fish guts."

  "Bless my whiskers," Jack says, releasing his hold on Neven. He falls to the deck with an audible thump. "Bonnie Ceana. What are you doing looking like that? Did someone steal your clothes? You can tell me lass. I'll deal with those scoundrels. Got a druid I know who's looking for a couple fresh organs. Liver, kidney and such like. Not too picky where they come from either."

  Neven scurries away to Bonnie's side. Once free, terror quickly turns into anger as the man's words seem to catch up with him. "You snuck us on a black market boat?!"

  "Just a little one," Bonnie says, holding her thumb and forefinger a short distance apart. "And Jack's a good guy," she turns back to Jack with a polite smile. "No thank you. We don't need you to kill anyone today."

  "When you have to remind him not to kill people, he's not a good guy." Neven pauses, looking warily up at Jack. "I thought he was the puppeteer you liked. The one who told really scary stories."

  "Every man needs something to pay the bills, and something that makes their heart sing." Jack tilts his giant head, finally pocketing the knife. "Sometimes life is cruel and they're not the same thing."

  Neven's eyes stay fixed on Jack's large stomach. She can guess what he's thinking: cruel or not, smuggling seems like it pays well. "What if he sells us as slaves, or decides to take our organs instead."

  Jack raises a bushy eyebrow. "Nervous little thing, isn't he?"

  "Well," Bonnie says, tilting her head. "This is his first time to the docks, and you did just put a knife to his throat."

  "Traditional greeting where I'm from," Jack said with a shrug. "What're you two doing here in the dead of night anyway?"

  Bonnie stands up straight, trying to look older than her fourteen summers.. "I hear you're going to Dragon's Bay."

  Jack frowns at her for a moment before his eyes widen in understanding. "Oh no. No way, no how. Going out on this ship is no place for a lady."

  "You say that like you haven't taken me sailing already," Bonnie says. "And it's only a couple of days away, hugging the coast the whole way."

  "One, a couple trips around the bay is not sailing," Jack says, getting out his knife again and waving it through the air for emphasis. Though that's not true. There was one time long ago when she'd been bundled in his boat, the newly orphaned daughter of a knight, and carried down a river, then along the coast past what's now Dragon's Bay, and to this nondescript little market town. "And two, what would your foster family think? They'd be distraught. Nice little girl like you out in the big nasty world. Doesn't bear to think about."

  Bonnie looks to Neven, but the boy looks away. His shoulders slouch like he's just been kicked.

  "There's nothing to go back to Jack," she says. It's a balance deciding how much to say. Jack's a nice enough guy, and she's watched his puppet shows and peppered him with questions about the stories since she first came here, but he also works Dragon's Bay. That means he works for the King. "I wouldn't ask if I had any other choice."

  Jack peers at them from under his bushy brows. "Does this have anything to do with the soldiers I've been hearing about? Word is a recruitment went wrong in one of the villages nearby. Things got bloody."

  "No," she says hurriedly. Asking a favour is one thing. Asking a man to go against the one who filled his purse with coin is another. "We just-"

  "We need to run away," Neven says quickly. "To er, seek our fortunes."

  "To Dragon's Bay?" Jack asks.

  "If you were going someplace else we'd ask to go there," Bonnie says, forcing the words to come out firm and even. Many men would give her a slap for that, but Jack had never scolded her for speaking her mind. That's why she liked him. "Things are changed now. I'm no little girl. I've got no one except Neven. Now I live and die by my sword."

  "Right," Jack raises an eyebrow. He looks her up and down. Last winter had treated her badly, leaving her more skinny than usual. She had seen her reflection in the water. Her shorn blond hair left her face looking too gaunt, skin tight against her cheekbones causing them to stick out. "Expect you'll be dying then. World's a lot harder than it sounds in stories. Now out of my boat, the pair of you."

  Neven shuffles, looking like there's nothing on earth he wants to do as badly as that. Bonnie doesn't move, her chin held high and her eyes fixed on Jack's.

  "I can't go back," Bonnie says. "You know what the village will do to me looking like this." Her heart jolts in her chest at the words. It's not like she didn't realise what she was doing, cutting off her hair. She did. A girl can't travel with only the protection of a boy and expect to get anywhere in this world alive or unhurt. A boy can. But if anyone were to realise she's a girl under the clothes and shorn hair then it'll be a quick trip to the nearest council and the first available bonfire.

  A grey fog of panic settles over her as Jack only stares at her, any expression lost under his bushy eyebrows and uneven beard. Maybe she should've gone by the road, or even the goat trails, but she'd thought Jack was her safest bet. Which he was, unless he decided to turn her in.

  She swallows, her palms sweating.

  "We stop at Dragon's bay, then go onto the City," Jack says slowly, not looking happy about it. "There you keep your head down until your hair grows back. And you best think up a more convincing name than Bonnie. People look for skirts with a name like that."

  Bonnie gives a relieved smile and holds out a hand. Her legs feel like they're made of water. "Call me Boone."

  Jack wraps his massive hand around her dainty one and shakes. He hitches a shoulder in a half shrug. "It'll do," he says. "But best mind yourself Boone. Dragon's bay is nothing more than a place to go to die. You stick close to me. No going near that castle."

  Bonnie gives a placating smile, but beneath it all her muscles are coiled with tension. Jack's job makes it best for him to travel the coast in ways that attract least notice, but there's another reason for her picking him. It has to do with one of the many stories he's entertained the kids of Porthdon with, and the kids of many a town with.

  It's a story of a dragon with scales as red as blood, and eyes so dark you felt they'd swallow you whole. The beautiful princess he guards, and the prize awaiting anyone with enough bravery to slay him. The red beast with black eyes who killed so many that its footsteps crack on a carpet of bones.

  Chapter 4

  After all this time, is all Bonnie can think when they finally arrive in Dragon's Bay. Finally, after all this time. Her heart thrums with excitement. She steps onto wet sand cautiously, half expecting this all to be a dream.

  It's a small cove. A short stretch of sand that quickly gives way to grass. To her right the Dark Forest goes on and on as far as she can see. The trees are densely packed together like they're whispering about the secrets they hide. Straight ahead the hill gets steeper and greener with every step.

  Somewhere over that hill is the castle. It's the only building on the bay. From the stories the fishermen told her it's supposed to be on the outer tip of the island overlooking the sea. Of course, it's not really an island. Everyone just says that
because it might as well be with the only ways out being the sea and through the forest.

  All the champions that come here to slay the dragon arrive by sea. No one comes through the forest, not even knights.

  Neven steps out of the boat and falls to the ground on his hands and knees. He grips the wet sand with fervour. "Land!" He shouts, tears in his eyes. "I'm sorry I left you. Please never leave me."

  "Get out of my way lad!" Jack stares at Neven with an expression part way between frustration and astonishment. "I have to pull the boat in."

  The past two days have not been a happy time for Neven or Jack. Turns out Neven does get sea sick, and it turns out Jack is allergic to whining. Bonnie's just glad that what happened in the village hasn't taken all of Neven's spirit, though sometimes when he thinks she's sleeping, she'll catch him staring over the edge at the water with a haunted look on his face.

  Neven scurries out of the way, moving up the hill to admire the grass. Jack pulls the boat up the small beach, muttering. Bonnie does her best to help.

  "Are you going to bring that to the castle?" Bonnie asks as Jack heaves one of the boxes up the hill. She has her sword and her pack. She's a little hopeful. It would be a good excuse to get close to the castle, and the dragon.

  "No one goes near that castle," Jack says, giving her a hard look over the wooden box. "Least, not anyone not half mad for gold, glory, and the girl."

  Neven looks up from his spot on the hill, a wistful expression on his face. She's only ever seen him look like that when he's thinking up an experiment he wants to try. "The princess is supposed to be very beautiful, isn't she?"

  Jack snorts, dropping the box heavily beside a gnarled looking tree that sits at the top of the small hill. The contents clatter. "Not sure how they can say that when she's been locked in that castle since she was a child. But I'd wager they're right. The King has more than enough gold to buy beauty for his daughter. And he has no problems buying magic to serve any of his other whims. I hear he brought his jester back to life when he couldn't find a good enough replacement. Course I imagine he's a lot less funny now being undead and all."