The False Knight of the Motorway

by Arden Ellis

  "No. That you find the true source of your conflict and pull the trigger on it."

  Wright said nothing. She glanced sidelong at Preston, silently inviting him to intercede on her behalf. He looked as if he were trying his best to keep silence. After a moment, he rolled up his paper and met her gaze awkwardly. "She does have a point."

  Wright threw the rest of her bundle of sticks into the fire and stood. "I'm going to patrol the perimeter." She stomped off into the darkness, casting one final dark glance at Kai's back as she did. It seemed to her that Kai's breathing had stilled once more, as if Preston had not been the only one pretending not to listen.

  *~*~*

  The next day, Kai rose earlier than ever before. Wright pretended to sleep while watching through her eyelashes and listened to Kai grumbling and clanking as she stoked the fire back to life and set the kettle to boiling. She brewed the tea strong and poured an indecent amount of liquid from a brown bottle into her own portion. Then, at last, she drew forth her largest saddlebag and lay it carefully on the ground beside her.

  Wright watched through one cracked eye as Kai knelt on the damp floor and spread her armor out over her bedroll. Preston and Silva were, to all appearances, still sleeping. The morning air was cool and quiet, filled only by the pop of the fire, the bubble of water on the pot, and the soft click of Kai's armor.

  The first time they'd met they'd been trying to kill each other, The first time the blood dripping from Wright's sword as Kai had charged her from across the battlefield, a wild grin on her lips that equally resembled a snarl. Wright left that battle nursing fresh wounds and a sense of awed respect.

  The wounds healed and scarred; the respect lingered until Wright had seen her next, at the summer peace tournament where lords both friend and foe came together to negotiate over treaties and alliances while their vassals tested their skills. Kai had won almost every game reliant on skill in combat, and then drank so much she'd been too inebriated to pursue the women who had thrown their favors at her not hours before. Wright had been the one to help her back to her rooms. Kai had rewarded her by throwing up over both their feet.

  It was hard to believe that drunken berserker was the same woman Wright watched from the warmth of her bedroll. Gone was the mocking twist of her lips. She set to her task with a reverence Wright had never seen, her grey eyes focused and her fingers slow as she strapped her greaves around her legs. Watching her tighten the straps on her vambraces sent a thrill through Wright's stomach. Which in turn, made her question why she was watching Kai dress in the first place. She squeezed her eyes shut as Kai climbed to her feet; in the silence, she wondered if Kai was staring at her.

  Then a booted foot jabbed into her ribs. "Rise and shine," Kai grunted. Wright sat up instantly, fixing Kai with a glare. The irreverent smirk was back on her face, like it had never been gone.

  "It's not like you to sleep in. Getting lax, ser?" Kai said as Wright whisked off her covers and shivered in the cool air as she set to rolling up her bedding. Preston and Silva were beginning to stir. "Tea's in the kettle. You're welcome," Kai said as she walked over to begin brushing down her horse. She didn't look at Wright again.

  Wright skipped the tea that morning. She donned her own armor quickly, without feeling.

  *~*~*

  Progress was slow after they crossed the border. Silva led them warily, stopping often to dismount and scout ahead in stealth. Many a time when she slipped away Wright nearly rode her down, convinced she would disappear into the brush and reappear with a hunting party of Tintagel's men at her back; but every time, Silva returned alone and led them true.

  By the middle of the fourth day, Kai's restlessness with their slow pace began to grate on even Preston's nerves. She spent much of her time ranging ahead, scouting the road or hunting small game, her hands tight on the reins and her eyes darting too quickly, seeking a release for her tension. Kai was like a hawk jessed too long, liable to start removing unwary fingers.

  It was necessity, not kindness, which led Silva to propose a solution when they all stopped to rest the horses and their own saddle-sore legs. The sun was warm, the grass was soft, and it was all too tempting for Wright to let her guard down. Instead she sat and ran a cloth over her sword, keeping watch as Kai found a release for her agitation.

  The sound of metal on metal rang over the grassy hillside. She and Silva had been sparring for almost an hour. Wright knew from her own personal experience that Kai's stamina in a fight was nearly unlimited. Perhaps she should have warned Silva of that; but despite being almost twice Kai's age, the mercenary was holding her own.

  Wright often found her eyes wandering to the bout without meaning to. With reluctant admiration, she had to note that Silva's form was deadly in its precision. Kai fought with something akin to joy, adding a flourish here and a feint there. Silva, on the other hand, wasted not a single movement of her sword. Kai scarcely scored a single point against her single-minded onslaught, right up until the moment Silva backed up with her hands raised in surrender.

  "No more, ser, no more," Silva cried, flopping onto the grass. "I yield."

  "Oh, but we were just getting started!" Kai rotated her sword with a laugh. The metal glinted in the sunlight; the sweat shone on her neck and face. "Come now—is there no one that would face the great Ser Kai of Warwick? Predictably, she turned her gaze to Wright. Her eyebrow quirked.

  Wright returned her gaze. "I don't believe I'll give you the satisfaction."

  "Fear not, ser, you've never been in danger of giving me anything of the kind." Without further ado, Kai stuck the point of her sword into the soft ground and wandered over to her pack, digging out her water skin taking a long draught. She then stripped her tunic over her head, revealing the slick expanse of her lower back before her undershirt fell down to hide it again. Kai mopped her face with her shirt, swiping it over the back of her neck before tossing it on the grass. "Very well. If none of you dare stand against me—"

  Preston cleared his throat. "I would be happy to do a bout."

  In the midst of wiping the sweat from her brow, Kai turned to regard the wooden staff across his knees with a bemused stare. "With all due respect, scholar, if I was looking to hack at a stiff plank of wood, I'd choose a tree first and Ser Wright second." She just barely managed to leap out of the way of the petulant kick Wright aimed at her ankles.

  Shifting his staff to his left hand, he used it to lever himself up. "I can hold my own," he said. "Unless you're afraid of losing to a bookkeeper."

  The guffaw that tore out of Kai's mouth was answer enough. With an answering grin, Preston stripped off his cloak, gloves, and tunic, until he stood in breeches and undershirt alone. His arms were all wiry muscle and sinew, but that wasn't what caught Wright's eye. On his right arm, starting at his hand and covering the skin up to the mid-bicep, a path of twisted flesh and skin that glistened like oil under the sunlight. It looked something like the melted flesh of a burn, but the colors made it unmistakable as a mark of the curse.

  Kai had noticed it too. She raised her eyebrows, shaking her head as she hefted her sword.

  Despite the flecks of gray in his hair and stubble, Preston sank into a confident stance, his left hand gripping the base of the staff and the right raised to guide it.

  Kai eyed him with newfound wariness. "Is this the part where I discover you trained in the northern mountains for twenty years to become a master of the stave?"

  Preston chuckled, and gave his staff a graceless twirl. "I'm afraid not. But perhaps you could offer me some pointers…?"

  "I suppose I can hack and talk at the same time."

  "I wouldn't be so sure," Wright called. Kai made a disparaging gesture in her direction before straightening out Preston's stance by jabbing the point of her sword at his feet. Wright lay on her side in the sunlight and watched them, Silva moving from the fray to lounge near Wright's side. It was strange, to feel so at peace—sitting with a disreputable sellsword, a half-mad alchemist, and whatever Kai
was to her. It was the most difficult mission Wright had ever undertaken, and yet this—this was almost easy.

  Obstacles must be removed. The memory of her own lord's command sent a cold finger dragging down her spine that even the heat of the day could not dissipate.

  "Times such as these, you can almost pretend that there's no curse."

  The mercenary's eyes were trained on Kai and Preston as they began their measured sparring match, Kai offering exaggerated slow blows for Preston to counter with his staff. The crack of wood and metal rang over the gentle hill.

  "I didn't think sell-swords tended towards such fantasies."

  Silva's eyes darted up to hers. "What good is life without them? Without the curse, perhaps we'd have no need for all this killing."

  "You would be in need of a new occupation, in that case."

  "As would you."

  Wright laughed. "There's more to being a knight than battle."

  "Ah yes. Your precious loyalty." Silva's voice was measured, the same polished tones Wright might have heard at court. Not the sort of cool reserve Wright would have expected from a ragged mercenary with bones in her hair and bands of ink dyed around her arms. "Tell me, ser, if you'll venture such information to a lowly sellsword—what did your lord ever do to secure such devotion?"

  Wright plucked a stalk of grass and twirled it between her fingers, watching Kai's sword-strikes and idly parrying them in miniature. "My parents were scavengers, and not particularly good ones. What happened was inevitable. One of Lord Kenilworth's men discovered me with their bodies; it had been days since I'd had anything to eat. I was taken in with the rest of Lord Kenilworth's wards, given bed, board, instruction in the blade; fealty was a small price to pay in exchange."

  "Did you have a choice?" Silva regarded Wright with a neutral expression, and yet it seemed there was something far too discerning in her eyes. "You already owed him your life, your safety. That's a heavy weight to hold over the head of a child."

  Wright frowned. The blade of grass slipped from her fingers to rest on the fabric of her tunic. "Of course I chose." Her voice sounded flat, even in her own ears. She had never thought of her vows in such a way. Could one choose to be loyal, or did it simply happen? Her own lord's command rang in her ears once more.

  Roughly, she brushed the grass from her shirt. "What does a mercenary know of loyalty?"

  "More, perhaps, than one who has never questioned it." Silva tilted her head in Wright's direction. "I have served many lords, from the day I was old enough to hold a blade. Boundaries shifted. Lords rose and fell. In the end, only one thing remained constant."

  Wright snorted. "The attractive shine of coin?"

  "The curse, ser." Silva's eyes drifted out to the fields. "It is always there. Eating away at our bodies, our resolve, our very history. That is our enemy, ser. It knows no loyalty, no honor, no mercy. All it knows is death."

  Wright's frown softened ever so slightly. Loss was one thing all denizens of the cursed world shared. Silva turned her eyes back to the sound of blows and shouts where Kai and Preston sparred. "It is too beautiful a day to speak of such things. For now, perhaps we should simply indulge in the fact that the curse cannot reach us here."

  Wright let out a heavy breath. Some of the anger and tension went with it. The sun was still warm, the breeze cool—Kai was shrieking with laughter as Preston tried to demonstrate an unlikely method of disarming an opponent. Wright found a rueful smile creeping over her own lips. Kai's laugh was infectious.

  "It's a pleasant thought," Wright said at last, and Silva leaned over to slap her on the shoulder companionably. The fact that she felt at ease with Silva at all was troubling in itself. For now, Wright put her mission from her mind. Kai and Preston had resumed their bout, two weapons and two styles clashing with an odd sort of grace.

  Silva leaned forward, a broad smile spreading over her face. "Go for the gut, Preston!"

  At once the older man renewed himself, a broad grin on his face as he drove Kai back. Kai leapt and rushed to parry each blow, surprise written on her face as Preston held his own. Wright found herself laughing in earnest as Kai threw down her sword and grappled the stave out of Preston's hands, both of them falling to ground in a tangle of flailing limbs and shouts.

  Lest Kai glance over and catch Wright with a smile on her face, she leaned onto her back and stared at the sky, ready to close her eyes and concede to what rest she could catch. A flock of birds moved against the clouds, stretching across the sky in an undulating wave.

  Wright frowned. That was no flock of starlings or sparrows; birds of many shapes and sizes were all flying together, in the same direction. She sat up slowly. The sweat drawn out by the sun was suddenly cold against her skin. She stared out on the other side of the valley, Kai and Preston's shouts distant in her mind. She had to be sure. There was always the small chance that it was nothing.

  Movement flickered at the tree line.

  "Stop the bout."

  Her words rang sharp over the sound of their laughter. Preston tensed, recognizing the warning in her voice; Kai sat up from where she had pinned him with his own staff, running a hand through her sweaty hair. "Come on, ser, I was winning—"

  Wright leapt to her feet and began stuffing the rest of her belongings back into her travel sack. "We need to move. Now."

  From her similar vantage point, Silva had already seen what Wright had. In an instant she was up and slinging her own pack over her shoulders, making for the horses; Preston followed suit, his remaining clothes balled up in his arms as he cast apprehensive glances over his shoulder. Palms slick with sweat, Wright yanked the drawstring of her bag tight just as Kai stopped beside her. "What did you see?"

  Wordlessly, Wright pointed towards the other side of the valley.

  Drifting out of the trees was a bank of low-lying fog, glistening with an iridescent sheen in the sunlight. Putrid tendrils of every color curled within its mass as it crept down the hill. The air itself seemed to boil.

  "Gods' mercy," Kai breathed. "I'd heard no reports of a tempest in this realm."

  "Get your things. We need to go." Wright shouldered her pack and made for Farstride, running a soothing hand over his neck as his hooves pawed the ground nervously. They were closer to the ocean here; such curse-storms were known to blow in from the floating islands far out to sea.

  "Wasn't our path going to take us across that valley?" Preston's voice was nervous as Wright hoisted herself into the saddle. Already the deadly cloud had eaten its way halfway down the slope, a beast that would graze off of grass and trees and men with equal disinterest.

  "I'd say we're due for a change in route," Wright said tersely. "Silva?"

  The sellsword hesitated. Her own horse was dancing beneath her, showing the whites of its eyes. "The only other path I know of would take us close to settled lands."

  "We don't have a choice." The cloud had reached the valley floor. A young sapling that had been shivering in the breeze suddenly twisted as if in a terrible wind and went rigid. She looked to Silva and nodded once. "Lead on. There's no time to wait."

  Flicking her reins, Silva urged her horse across the upper edge of the valley. In a line, the rest of the party followed. By the time they diverted away from the meadow, the tempest had crept up the slope toward them, a silent, heavy mass trailed listlessly at their heels as they left it far behind.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Silva called a halt early that night, while there was still light in the sky. The tempest had carved a swath straight across the path they had meant to travel, forcing them into a warren of overlapping roads thronged with cars, shimmering with the oily evidence of the curse. This path was nearly as dangerous as the one they'd fled, and harder to navigate. Silva frequently called a halt while she found her bearings before she eventually helped Wright fill in the blank spaces on the map, so she could consult it more easily. Stopping early was a necessity more than a relief; all four travelers were exhausted.

  They settled on
a hilltop sheared into a rocky cliff, with a view over the treetops to the west. Far in the distance, the high towers of a godsruin jutted up against the horizon. The curse was so strong in the ancient city that Wright could see its distortion against the skyline from miles away. It had been two centuries before anyone had been able to venture into those distant metropolises. They were nothing but poison now. The sun sank towards it as the party made camp under its distant and ominous silhouette.

  A fire was too great a risk on unknown territory, so they sat in a close circle gnawing on dried meat and trying to ignore the growing chill. A meager and unfulfilling meal. It wasn't long before Kai muttered, "Sod this," under her breath, and pulled a metal canister out of her saddle bag.

  Wright stared with open horror. "Godsfood? You can't be serious."

  Kai shrugged. "They were cheap. The vender cracked one open and ate from it to prove they weren't tainted." Kai inspected it for rust before cracking it open with her knife to reveal slimy pale-yellow stalks of corn swimming in liquid.

  "That looks vile," Silva commented.

  Kai shrugged, swallowing a stalk with a grotesque slurp. "If it's good enough for the gods, it's good enough for me." When she held the can out towards Preston, he eyed it suspiciously—and then accepted it, along with Kai's knife, skewering a piece of corn to carefully bite into it.

  Kai's grin widened. "See? The alchemist isn't afraid of a little curse."

  "I'd find my job rather impossible if I was."

  "Is that how you earned that rather impressive scar?"

  Wright shot Kai a warning look—dying gods, didn't she know better than to ask after a person's curse marks?—but Preston just smiled ruefully. "I may have spent much of my life with my nose in ancient texts, ser, but those books are not easy to come by. I and others in my order would often journey into the godsruins in search of new material."