Angel's Knight

by A. J. Grimmelhaus

  Steven slew to a halt. His hand slipped from hers as he cast a quick glimpse around.

  ‘You idiot,’ she told him. ‘We’re going to—’

  He spun away, and lashed out with his foot. The door of the last house flew inward. Steven grabbed her hand, a manic grin on his face. ‘Escape,’ he finished for her. He launched himself into the building and pulled her into the darkness after him.

  *

  Katarina stumbled through the doorway as Steven pulled her off the street. The room was almost completely dark. A sliver of moonlight followed her in, and gave just enough illumination to see vague outlines, hints of obstacles that Steven was already navigating his way around. The faint patches of lighter shadow marking planes and angles of items gave Katarina just enough information to confirm what she had guessed. With her free hand she punched Steven on the arm.

  ‘You can’t just break into people’s houses!’

  ‘Try telling Kartane that,’ Steven said, leading her diagonally across the room towards a yellowish square of pale shadow. ‘He’d have nothing to do.’

  A soft slurp came from behind her, followed by the unique sound generated by a corpse hitting the hard ground: the Gurdal had caught up. Katarina glanced back over her shoulder and saw Stetch silhouetted in the doorway as Gurdal warriors crowded around, trying to force their way through the narrow gap.

  ‘What if there’s a family here?’

  They reached the yellow patch, and Katarina realised it was a window, stained by desert winds.

  Steven stopped at the window. ‘Then they’ll die anyway,’ he said. He thrust his sword through the window, the pane shattering and allowing pale light to seep through. ‘Just faster, is all.’ He swished his sword around and cleared the remaining shards of glass. Steven turned and grinned. ‘You want to leave a note?’ He raised a leg and stepped up onto the sill and through the window, dropping into the street beyond while Katarina tried to think of a suitable retort. It’s the distraction of those Gurdal dying behind me, she told herself. That’s why I couldn’t think quickly enough.

  ‘Come on!’

  Steven had propped his sword against the wall, arms reaching back through the window. I’m getting tired of being shouted at, Katarina thought. ‘I can manage,’ she said primly. She tried to get her foot up onto the sill as Steven had done, but the idiot had much longer legs. Too long if you ask me. He swore loudly and then grabbed hold of her in a most ungentlemanly fashion, half lifting and half hauling her over the lip of the windowsill.

  Katarina fell against him, legs scrabbling over the sill’s broken glass as his arms bore the brunt of her weight.

  ‘Stetch!’ he yelled, close enough to Katarina’s ear that it hurt. Idiot! Katarina pushed herself free from Steven’s overly familiar embrace and checked herself over in the moonlight.

  ‘Look what you’ve done,’ she shouted, fingers holding a swatch of fabric on her left thigh that hung loose, exposing a large triangle of flesh near the top of her leg. She glared at him, and the fool was taking far too much interest in the rent in her trousers. His eyes were wide, and Katarina didn’t think it was because of the poor light. ‘You’ve ruined them!’

  Steven’s head snapped up, and he sprang into action. His hands wrapped themselves around her again – she felt a fingertip brush her breast – and suddenly Katarina was moving, her feet leaving the ground. He spun her round like a parent twirling their child, and Katarina felt a whoosh of air as Stetch dived through the open window head-first. His shoulder hit the ground where she had stood a second earlier and Stetch rolled forwards, coming to his feet an inch shy of the alley’s wall.

  Steven spun a half-circle, dropping Katarina lightly to the ground and lurching towards the wall to snatch up his sword. He jerked back – sword in hand – just as a Gurdal thrust his sword through the gap. Katarina’s breath stopped, but the swordpoint missed his head. He bounced back upright and flicked his wrist, the Gurdal’s arm dropping to the ground at Katarina’s feet.

  Steven grabbed her hand and pulled her further down the alley. She looked back and saw Stetch backing towards them, a Gurdal warrior learning the hard way that the Sworn really did live up to their reputation. Beyond the warrior, a dozen Gurdal were already in the alley, and more were coming through from the main road.

  Ahead of them, Gurdal were coming in from the alley’s opposite end where it joined a parallel road full of angry warriors. Steven was leading her towards them. Again. It seemed to be becoming a habit, charging towards the enemy and hoping for the best. As habits went, Katarina thought it wasn’t one of the best to acquire. There was a side street between Steven and the Gurdal, but the desert warriors were far, far nearer to it.

  We’re not going to make it, she thought. ‘You’d better have a plan,’ she shouted.

  ‘You won’t like it.’

  It wasn’t the encouraging response Katarina had hoped for.

  35.

  It was just as she had feared: Steven’s plan was utterly idiotic. So little thought had gone into it that Katarina didn’t think it could really be called a plan – it was more like what happened when you couldn’t be bothered to formulate a plan and instead decided to continue what you were doing and hope for the best.

  Still, she thought as he hacked his way through the Gurdal, there weren’t exactly a surfeit of options. In fact, their options seemed to largely consist of either fighting or allowing themselves to be killed, probably slowly if the Gurdal had their way. By that criteria, I suppose, this could be considered something of a triumph.

  This alley, running east to west between the two broad roads full of Gurdal, was wider than the last. Steven was fighting two of the warriors at a time. Katarina could hear Stetch a few feet behind her, and knew that he was similarly outnumbered. He seemed to be trying to learn his numbers, grunting them out in sequence as he worked his way towards double figures. He sounded as happy as Katarina could ever recall. Except, she thought, for that time I found him with twins.

  Steven was making slow progress through the Gurdal. They were still a dozen yards from the adjoining alley, but Steven kept a slow, steady pace, refusing to yield ground to the attacking warriors. Katarina had caught a glimpse of him when Stetch – with her slung over his shoulder – had left Siadendre. At the edge of Siadendre he had fought like a possessed man, spinning and moving with an intricacy and perfection that few even of the Sworn could match. Now, though, it seemed to Katarina that it was stubbornness alone which allowed him to maintain his forward momentum. His sword moved economically, with no flourishes, tricks, or fancy moves. Gradually he was forcing them back, but Katarina could see tiredness beginning to creep in, his breathing becoming more laboured and his movements more sluggish, less fluid.

  What else has he faced this night? she wondered. He had killed a demon in front of her eyes – although she had done most of the hard work – but Steven had even then looked worn and haggard, as though he had already fought a battle. His clothes, too, looked as though they had seen better days – possibly on a scarecrow. Or maybe a corpse.

  ‘I need a sword,’ she said, tilting her face to shout at the back of his head.

  Another Gurdal fell to Steven’s sword and he plodded forward another pace. ‘I’ll keep an eye out,’ another man fell and he shuffled forward again, ‘for a weapon shop.’ It sounded very much like the idiot was trying not to laugh.

  Someone screamed, the cry dying abruptly. ‘Sword,’ Steven grunted, an object landing at Katarina’s feet.

  She picked up the weapon, and cursed under her breath. ‘It’s still got a hand attached,’ she screeched.

  ‘Good sword,’ he grunted. ‘Second hand,’ he added, and this time Katarina heard definite laughter between his laboured breaths. She prised the severed hand off the sword’s grip. Her clothes were already ruined, so she wiped the handle clean on her tunic. Perhaps I’ll send him the bill for a new shirt. It was tempting, even if just to see the look of surprise on his face.

  St
etch bumped into her back and promptly cursed. ‘Move,’ he growled. Katarina let the comment pass and took a couple of steps forward, bringing her within a foot of Steven’s back. He smelled awful.

  What do people say in this kind of situation? Katarina wondered. It seemed possibly rude to simply barge him aside, not to mention potentially dangerous. It was something none of her unofficial Sworn tutors had ever mentioned. An oversight, she decided, I will have to address.

  ‘Coming through,’ Katarina shouted. It seemed as good as anything.

  ‘Don’t,’ he grunted, ‘stab me.’

  ‘It’s tempting,’ she snapped. ‘Now move!’

  He shifted suddenly, a hint of ethereal grace as his body and sword moved as one, blade scything in an arc from left to right and somehow toppling both attackers he fought.

  ‘Right side,’ he barked, shuffling forward and left to allow her through.

  They fought shoulder to shoulder, slowly pressing back the Gurdal tide. Katarina’s lessons came back to her, her muscles slowly remembering their distant patterns as her heart pumped so hard she thought it would explode. Her throat was dry, the fear she faced as real as the armed men in front of her. I will not fail, she told herself again and again, repeating the words as her body moved in the intricate sword dance practised by the Sworn. Yard by yard they forced them back, stepping over bodies and through the damp gore. Katarina lost track of time as she fought, but the solid presence of Steven at her side anchored her and helped keep the fear at bay. She had no time to look, but she could sense he fought differently now: more hesitantly, and always with an eye on what she was doing as if the fool might need to skewer her opponent at any moment. It was both maddening and a little bit heartwarming. There aren’t many who’d risk themselves in battle for another. That much Katarina knew: she might never have experienced the full horror of a battle but the Sworn had spoken to her of such things.

  A minute, a bell, or a day later, Katarina saw the gap in the alley appear at her side. They had finally reached it, and escape was only moments away, the branching passage leading unerringly north towards freedom.

  ‘Go,’ Steven grunted at her side. Another man fell to his sword and he moved into the centre of the alley, forcing her towards the gap in the wall. ‘Now.’

  She slipped into the deserted passage, her heart rate slowly returning to normal. As she slowed her breathing she became aware of a deep ache in her arms. So this is what a battle’s like, she thought as Stetch appeared at the junction. None of the Sworn had told her how tiring it was, or the chaos that stopped you from seeing everything but the weapon held by the man before you. Their lessons, it seemed, were entirely insufficient in several key areas. Still, she thought, they haven’t been involved in a pitched battle for many years. In truth, the Sworn worked mostly in the shadows and usually alone or in pairs. This kind of mass confrontation was as foreign to them as giving people the benefit of the doubt; the Sworn tended to err on the side of killing anyone not proven to be an ally. It was still something Katarina intended to take them to task about, those of her tutors who still lived. She felt a pang of sadness; most of her former tutors were already nothing more than entries in the ledger.

  Stetch retreated a pace into the centre of the junction. Katarina wasn’t sure how he managed it, but Stetch made it appear like he wasn’t really retreating, just giving himself more room to work. He killed another Gurdal and slid back a pace to find himself back to back with Steven, still fighting the warriors coming from the other direction.

  ‘Go,’ she heard Stetch growl, almost exactly as Steven had barked at her only moments ago. It’s like a hierarchy, Katarina thought, where each is subservient to another.

  Steven’s sword lashed out, and he ducked into the alley with a grunt. Stetch followed a moment later, his back to Katarina as he filled the passageway and held the Gurdal at bay.

  If it’s a hierarchy, Katarina thought, how did I come to be at the bottom?

  *

  For a few brief moments Katarina thought they had finally outdistanced the Gurdal and slipped behind the battle lines, but it seemed that more awaited around every corner. Stetch and Steven rotated positions regularly, one holding their pursuers at bay while the other ploughed forwards – sometimes through an empty street, but often through clumps of Gurdal streaming into the poor district from the main roads where two armies fought and died.

  It seemed such a foolish way of deciding important issues: throwing two groups of men at each other and hoping that yours were the ones left standing. There was no skill in such endeavours, and the outcome seemed predicated on little more than chance and the size of the respective forces. Might as well gamble the fate of your nation at dice, Katarina thought. She stumbled, falling against the wall with an oomph. Steven appeared at her side, concern etched in his features.

  ‘Not much further,’ he told her. He’d been saying that for what seemed like half the night. Katarina was fairly certain he didn’t know that for sure; at best, it could be described as what he hoped was true. She let his foolish comment pass, and when he transferred his sword to his left hand she let him take her hand in his. It might make him feel better, she decided. A dozen times the two of them had fought side by side, retreating down broad lanes as Stetch had forged ahead, cutting a swathe through any Gurdal he met. At first Katarina had sensed Steven’s unease, occasionally noticing the way his sword seemed ready to strike her attacker at the first sign she was about to be struck. Eventually, though, he had realised she knew how to wield a sword with deadly effect. Before the exhaustion took her in a death-grip, Katarina had felt something strange. For a time, they had reached an almost instinctive understanding, two warriors moving as one in perfect synchronicity. Gurdal warriors had fallen by the score before the two of them as they darted and feinted, misleading their enemies and striking with deadly efficiency. For those minutes, Katarina had felt a strange kinship with the man who so often frustrated her, as though they were on the cusp of some spiritual union. It seems almost like a dream, Katarina thought as Steven led her onwards, the path ahead quiet and empty. Or a precious memory, that however hard I try I cannot quite recall. Something important, just beyond my grasp.

  Steven’s hand slipped from hers and Katarina shook her thoughts aside as he crouched down over a figure propped against the alley’s wall. She peered down, dimly recognising the man as one of those who had rescued her from Calderon. A sword lay beside him, the young man’s fingers laced together over his stomach like he was sleeping peacefully. Holding a wound, Katarina realised as the moonlight revealed a dark stain spreading out from underneath his hands, soaking the man’s clothes and forming a sticky pool around him. He’s dead, Katarina realised, her eyes taking in his whitened face.

  She started as his eyes flickered open.

  ‘Tol?’

  Steven was crouching in front of him, their eyes at the same level. ‘I’m here, Kal.’ From the tone of his voice, Katarina knew he realised there was nothing more anyone could do for him. His cousin, she remembered. He was with us in Siadendre.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Kal murmured. ‘I failed.’

  ‘It’s not your fault,’ Steven began, but his cousin reached up and grabbed Steven’s wrist.

  ‘I got her,’ Kal said, ‘I got her, but…it didn’t stop her.’ He coughed. ‘She was so fast, Tol. So fast.’

  ‘She?’ Steven leaned in closer. ‘Who killed my father?’

  Kal Kraven’s body shook, and Katarina thought he died, but his eyelids fluttered open one last time. ‘A nun,’ he whispered. His body shuddered, head falling back against the wall so that sightless eyes stared up at the moon.

  A nun?

  Steven reached forward and closed his cousin’s eyes. ‘I will see you avenged,’ he breathed.

  A nun? Why would a nun kill anyone? Nuns were supposed to be meek, devout women who had the sense to stay locked up in a convent out of everyone’s way. They don’t wander around killing people. Katarina gasped as she rem
embered Steven’s travelling companions: three armed nuns had been with him in Siadendre. And they came north with us. I brought them here. She looked at Steven, expecting an accusation, but he only looked puzzled, as if he hadn’t yet worked out that it was Katarina’s fault his cousin was dead. She glanced back and saw Stetch a scant few feet away, Gurdal throwing themselves uselessly against him.

  Katarina gripped Steven by the arm. ‘We have to go,’ she said.

  ‘Nuns are more trouble than they’re worth,’ he muttered.

  36.

  ‘It’s not your fault, Coll. Nothing you could have done.’

  A man grunted, the kind of sound that suggested he wasn’t entirely convinced the speaker was right.

  ‘He shouldn’t have run off like that,’ someone else added. ‘A man on his own out there? He ain’t coming out alive, Coll, and that’s the truth.’

  Another man lost, Kartane thought sourly. He glanced at the clump of archers standing a few feet away. They had the look he’d seen on men all too often, the look of a man who’d lost a brother, lost a friend, and wasn’t quite ready to accept it yet – not without proof. And there’s a lot of men like that tonight, Kartane thought, looking out at the remains of the defending army, all that had survived the night’s battle and the terrifying slaughter that had raged through Obsidian’s darkened streets.

  The north gate and freedom stood at Kartane’s back, and a slow trickle of injured men still dripped through the gap. Many, he knew, wouldn’t survive the fast march north to Galantrium. Some would die outright in the morning sun; they would be the lucky ones. Others would slow down, maybe stop altogether, and they’d be the ones who’d really suffer – sport for the Gurdal as they marched north.

  The sounds of battle were drawing close now, the large square of open ground beneath the gates filling up with men as defensive lines from a dozen roads all retreated to this one final place the Meracians and their allies held. Kartane stood in the centre of the square, and peered into the failing darkness. He could already make out a seething, dark mass of writhing shapes in the city’s widest street as it ran straight and true through the whole damned city, north to south. Won’t be long now, he thought.