Damsel Knight

by Sam Austin

  "We need to find her," he whispers. "If we don't find her soon she'll be lost forever. Anything could get her."

  Bonnie tries to ignore the feeling that ‘anything' is out there right now, watching them. He's right. They need to find her. There are too many stories of people going into the dark forest and never coming out. A long time ago after the purge of dark magic, King Robin sent armies into the Dark Forest to rid the circle of the last remnants of evil. Not one man who stepped into those trees ever stepped out.

  They need the princess. In her focus on the dragon she'd forgotten the importance of that. The King needs the dragon dead and the princess returned to him before he'll give them the reward. Bonnie doesn't care about inheriting the circle, and Neven can wed the princess, but the riches and a knighthood do matter to her.

  Her birth isn't that bad if she can prove her origins. Her mother was from one of the lesser houses, but her name still holds some respect. Her father, despite his low origins beyond the circle was a great knight. A dragon slayer. Were she a boy that might be enough to win the right to squire for some knight, and eventually become one. But she's a girl. Anyone who can verify her birth will verify that her parents only lived long enough to have one female child.

  The only way she'll become a knight is if she proves her worth with no background to support her, like her father did. For that she needs the princess.

  "We stick together," she says firmly. There's something solid about the black that surrounds them. It's childish, but she can't help the fear that if they step too far away from the fire, the darkness will swallow them whole like some living thing with thoughts and feelings, and a taste for blood. "We'll widen our perimeter, keeping the fire in our sight. If that fails, we may have to chance waking the dragon. The spell may bind him to her, and aid him in finding her."

  "Wait," Neven says, turning his head toward the darkness. "Did you hear that?"

  She strains her ears. Aside from the dragon's heavy breathing, and her thumping heart she hears nothing but the silence. The silence is as thick as the darkness, and carries its own noise, so loud it hurts her ears to focus on it. It's a hollow sound defined by its absence of sound. It seems to suck at her ears in a way that reminds her of the patches of quick mud around her village, or Neven's black holes of magic he says are out there in the stars.

  "There it is again," Neven says, moving away from her, into the trees. The shadows close around him before he's taken two steps, torch and all. It's like he's stepping through a thick black curtain. "I know that voice. It's-"

  His torch is gone, then his face and voice, then his head and body, until the only thing left is his right arm, trailing behind him. Panic stabbing at her chest, she grabs for it. Her fingers grasp his wrist a moment before the hand vanishes.

  Then all at once she can see him again, dim but still there, as he should be. Had she imagined it? She takes her hand off his wrist gingerly, but he doesn't disappear.

  He turns back to her, annoyed. "Are you coming or not?"

  She opens her mouth to tell him what she saw, then closes it. He's mad enough with her already, for the cruel words she spoke, and for the whole situation with the dragon. She could explain that - or part of it, but those words hide away as well. "I'm coming," she says instead. "Just hold my hand. It's dark."

  He looks at her curiously, then closes his hand over hers. He asks her no questions, which makes her love him more.

  They walk together, side by side. He seems to know where he's going, weaving around trees that range in size from as round as the house they'd shared, to as thin as her arm. The sword is a comforting weight on her back, making her glad she'd thought to bring it along with the shield she'd plucked from the graveyard. Neven still has the metal cuffs attached to his arms, and the pack jingling with spare parts when he moves. Her pack still sits beside the fire, and with each step she wishes she'd brought it along too.

  At least that black curtain is gone, she thinks before she happens to glance backward. The fire is nowhere to be seen. It could have disappeared behind a tree, or even the dragon if the angle was right. Only, she can't hear the dragon either, and given the noise he makes they should hear him for another hundred meters at least.

  The light from their torches doesn't travel as far as it should. A few feet around him, the darkness seems to engulf it. The black curtain isn't gone, she realises. They're inside it.

  "Neven," Bonnie says, tugging at his arm. "This is wrong. We have to go back to Gelert."

  "Can't you hear him?" Neven laughs, breath puffing white. Laughing, in a place like this. "It's Ness. He must have followed us."

  She hears nothing but that deafening silence. "Ness is marching to King’s City to be trained for war. He's not here Neven."

  "Yes he is," Neven says, pulling his hand from hers. The movement overbalances him, and he drops his torch. The flame dies on contact with the ground as quickly as if it had been dosed in water. It hisses steam up at them. Neven barely seems to notice. "He's right there. There-"

  His eyes go wide in the dim firelight. Before she can grab for him, he runs off toward - something. She catches only a glimpse of it. It's an indistinct figure as tall as a man, with a body made of mist that stands a stark white against the black.

  Then it wisps away as quickly as if it'd never been, and the black curtain swallows Neven whole.

  "No!" She cries, running to where Neven had disappeared. The darkness recedes before her flickering torch the same as any darkness should, but an arms length away it turns stubborn. It keeps up its inky black wall around her, moving with her racing feet.

  It's trying to separate us, she thinks wildly. Whatever is out there is trying to split them up, and then what? She doesn't know. She doesn't want to know. She just wants to find Neven and get out of here. Whatever her many reasons for killing the dragon, they aren't worth Neven's life.

  Pain explodes in her head and shoulder, and she falls backward onto the cold ground. The torch flies out of her hand. "No!" She cries again, lurching toward it, but it lands and gutters out into steam on the cold ground.

  Hesitatingly she puts her hand out to see what she ran into. Bark as cold as ice greets her fingertips. A tree. She ran into a tree.

  Tears sting her eyes, hurting almost as much as her screaming head and throbbing shoulder. Something warm runs down her cheek, and she doesn't know whether she's crying or bleeding.

  She wants Neven. She wants Gelert. She wants her dead parents. She wants Mrs Moore with her constant scolding and warm hugs, she wants Mr Moore with his simple no nonsense approach to life. She even wants Ness, though she doesn't know whether she'd hit him or hug him.

  She can't do this. It's too much. She's no knight. She's just some girl whose father entertained with a few sword lessons. She can't fight dark magic, just like she can't fight a dragon. She was just kidding herself because of -

  Because of the blood. Because of the box.

  She's a girl. Girls can't be knights. All girls are good for is waiting around for some man to come and take care of them. Her father may not have thought that, but her mother did. All she wants right now is some knight in shining armour to come and save her and Neven.

  "Wipe those tears Bon, and I'll tell you a story."

  She spins around toward the voice, her hand reaching over her shoulder to grasp the hilt of her sword. She freezes.

  He stands over her, looking as solid and real as he always had. He's tall with a strong build like Ness, and he has her bright blond hair and blue eyes. His face is clean shaven, something not common among knights.

  "Da?" Her voice trembles.

  "A story about dragons, knights," he crouches down to her level. He smiles that warm smile of his, and his eyes really seem to see her - for everything that she is. "Magic, and fierce maidens. Would you like that?"

  She would. She wants that so badly, but something's not right. He’s too solid, too real. Non-existent sunshine lights up his face like it would on one of their bright su
mmer days at the stone house. Her mother had hated moving even the short distance away from their roundhouse to the city, but she loved the way the stone house captured the sun as much as they did. Around her the darkness wraps so completely that she can’t see her hands.

  “What are you?” She whispers, her lungs tight with cold and fear.

  He frowns at her, puzzled. “Why, I’m your father Bon. Now, how about we see if we can drag that beautiful mother of yours out of the kitchen? She’ll work herself to the grave, dutiful thing that she is.”

  No she won’t, Bonnie thinks. But she’ll die all the same. When he reaches out his hand to her she remembers how comforting his large callused hands felt wrapped around her small ones. How safe she always felt in his arms. She wants to take that hand, and go with him to see her mother again. She’d throw a fit over her clothes and hair, and scrub the mud from her until her skin was scoured pink, but she’d do it out of love.

  Instead she takes a deep breath and draws her sword. It’s light for its great size, enough to hold and even swing it one handed for short periods, but she holds it in two. It makes it easier to pretend her hands aren’t shaking.

  The thing pretending to be her father laughs. “Do you want to play swords now? We should wait until your mother is at her sewing. You know what she’s like when she gets a project into her head. We shan’t see her for hours, and when we do she’ll have more pretty dresses for you to wear.”

  She raises herself to her feet, levels the point of the sword at the thing’s neck. “What I want is my friends back. Give them to me unharmed and you might keep your life intact.”

  The thing’s mouth twists into something too sharp for a smile. “Life?” He stands up, brushing non-existent dust off the red tunic and blue trousers her mother had sewn her father. His blue eyes fade until they are balls of mist. The merry tone drops from his voice, and it becomes something different - higher and stranger, but with enough of her father’s sound to make her cringe. “What do you know about life? Taker of life is what you are Bonnie Ceana. Tell me. Why did you open the door? He told you not to. He told you never under any circumstance to open the door, yet you did. You opened the door, like you opened the box years before. You did this!”

  All at once the front of his tunic is torn. The gash spreads dark over the red of the cloth, and the cloak around his shoulders is as pale a pink as any she’s seen. Blood drips from his mouth, torso, and cloak. Whenever a drop hits the forest floor, it hisses and vanishes.

  Bonnie stumbles back a step, both hands shaking around the hilt of the sword. Her heart pounds in her chest. For a moment she wants to do nothing more than drop her sword and run, but she can’t do that. Neven is out there, so is the princess. Neither of them have a sword to defend themselves.

  “Give me my friends,” she says again, trying to keep her voice from shaking as much as her hands. “Or-”

  “Or you’ll take my life?” The sharp smile twists into something unnatural. Its features blur, becoming less recognisable. The cloak is gone, the clothes replaced by something shapeless. It laughs, and for a moment it’s her father’s laughter, then Neven’s, then Ness’s, then the twin’s childish tones, until it becomes all of them warped together.

  She swipes the sword through the thing’s middle, almost falling when the blade passes through with no resistance. The thing turns from shapeless human to mist, then that wisps away. She spins, but there’s nothing around her but black.

  Her breath comes in frozen bursts, more out of emotion than exertion. It took her father’s face. It knew things she’d never told anyone. How could it know those things? And more importantly, where is it now? She’s not naive enough to think it might be defeated by one swing of a sword. Scared off if she’s lucky, but not defeated.

  “Bonnie?!” Neven’s voice calls out of the darkness. “Where are you Bonnie?!”

  He sounds scared, desperate, and alone. It could be a trick. The real Neven could be dead already for all she knows. There’s no way to tell, except to follow the voice and find out. Follow the voice or walk away?

  She follows, sword kept firmly in her hands. This time she keeps a steady pace, using her blade to find and avoid trees. Roots are more difficult to avoid. They seem to appear out of nowhere. Her mother’s dance lessons come in handy for keeping her balance.

  Finally she sees him ahead, bright in the solid black. It’s only seeing that black curtain surrounding them again that she realises that it hadn’t been there while she’d been walking. When had it gone? It was there when the thing was talking to her, she remembered, but after she’d cut it, the wall had gone as well. She files away that thought.

  “Bonnie!” Neven says, sounding relieved. “I couldn’t find you. I looked and looked, but there was all this black. But I think I saw some smoke coming from over there. We should go. It might be someone who can help.”

  “You don’t want to help,” Bonnie says. She slices her sword through his body, neck to groin.

  He stares at her with wide brown eyes, then fades into a bright white mist and disappears. The black curtain goes too. It’s still too dark to see her hand in front of her face, but it’s less heavy. And she can hear Neven again - the real Neven - from the direction she’d been walking.

  She starts on her way, quicker this time. It won’t be long until it comes back.

  “Neven?”

  “Bon-Bonnie?”

  Close. So close. She fumbles her way to him in the dark. He’s standing with his back against a tree. She might have walked right past him, were he not hyperventilating. She’d have to be deaf not to hear the racket he’s making - or separated from him by that curtain again.

  “It’s me Neven,” she says, reaching out a hand to touch him.

  He clings to her arm like he’s drowning, and she’s the only thing keeping him afloat. His grip is painful, but it’s also real. That thing wouldn’t feel like this, she knows somehow. It would be cold, she thinks. Beyond that she’s not sure, and doesn’t think she wants to be.

  “I thought it was Ness,” he says, the words clumsy and stumbling. “It sounded like Ness, and it looked like him. He was dressed all in uniform. He was covered in blood Bonnie! Every inch of him from head to toe, like he’d bathed in it. And - it - he - I think he was dead. He kept asking ‘why did you leave? Why didn’t you take me with you?’ Why didn’t we Bonnie? We could have. What if he goes to war and never comes back?”

  “It wasn’t him,” she says, finding his shoulder and clasping it tight. “It’s something else. It must have lured the princess away like it did us. It wants us separated and scared. We have to stick together and stay calm.”

  “It’s not him now,” Neven says. His voice hiccups wetly, like he’s been crying. “But what if it’s showing us the future? What if Ness dies like my father? What if everyone dies because of what we did?”

  “King Robin is a just King,” she says. “Everyone says so. The soldiers attacked your father because he attacked them. Everyone else fled. As long as they can’t prove they were involved, they can’t hurt them. Ness will go off to war and have as much of a chance as everyone else - more even. He’s young and strong. Were he born into riches he would have already squired and become a knight.” What she doesn’t add is that he would have trained since toddler-hood with a sword as she had to get that knighthood. Ness may be strong, but strength doesn’t compete with years of training. They have to hope whoever he faces has as little training as he does.

  “And what of my mother?” he asks. The tears stay out of his voice, but his heavy breathing tells her it’s a struggle. “A woman on her own has enemies, and no one to protect her from them.”

  Bonnie doesn’t say what’s on the tip of her tongue: that she may already be dead. Witnesses would have seen her hurry them away. If she didn’t give a convincing enough explanation, that may be enough to convict her. “We find the princess. We kill the dragon. We get out of the forest. With the reward money we’ll be able to claim her and keep
her safe. She can live the rest of her days with food in her belly and silks on her skin.”

  She can practically hear Neven turn the words over in his head. “We find the princess.”

  Silence buzzes in her ears. She looks up to see the heavy blackness around them again. White mist materialises, forming the rough shape of a human. It swirls, constantly moving, as if it can’t decide whether it’s short or tall, fat or thin. “We find the princess.”

  Bonnie keeps a hand on Neven’s shoulder. She raises her sword with the other, her muscles feeling the weight. There’s a click that tells her Neven has his arms out, those metal shooters at the ready.

  The mist rushes together, taking on shape and colour. One moment it’s formless mist, the next princess Alice stands before them, her dress bright blue under Bonnie’s brown one. Her green eyes go wide. “What are you doing? You’re scaring me.”

  “Where is the real Alice?” Neven shouts. There’s fear in his voice, but anger overshadows it. “Tell us where she is!”

  “You have a good heart son,” Neven’s father says, strolling out of the black wall to stand at Alice’s side. White mist trails behind him. He’s younger by a few years, his skin not quite as weather roughened. He has the clothes on he wears to market; cleaner than his usual. “And life takes no greater pleasure than destroying people with good hearts. I’ve seen it happen. I’ve told you to ignore her, but since you won’t listen, you take this on yourself. She’s your responsibility. Make sure she keeps her head down. There’s no-one more at risk in this world than a woman who can’t follow the rules.”

  He’s talking about her, she realises. When Neven saw her scrounging for food at the market and decided to take her in. The figures fade in and out between mist and person.

  Her father joins them, smiling and asking if she wants to see what he brought back for her from his trip. Her mother materialises beside her, launching into a tirade about the state of her clothes, and the pout on her face. She doesn’t notice her haircut or the sword in her hand. She’s scolding a younger Bonnie, not her. Jack joins them, then the pig farmer, Neven’s mother, Ness, the twins. They form a circle around them, blocking them in from all sides.