Angel's Knight

by A. J. Grimmelhaus

  Tol sighed. It was going to be a long journey to Galantrium.

  *

  The faint glow of the approaching sunrise stained the horizon as Tol left the city behind. Despite Katarina’s worrisome promise of talking she had remained silent, her little legs taking the pair of them – Stetch hovering behind like a bad smell – through the ranks of wounded survivors. They had passed hundreds, and many of them had called Tol’s name, his passing seeming to lift their spirits. He felt like a fraud.

  Along the way they had acquired a knot of followers, surrounding them almost protectively like a royal escort. Kartane was whistling My Meracian Lady, occasionally singing some of the bawdier verses. Catardor and Isallien marched silently on Tol’s left. Several Meracian officers Tol didn’t recognise were hovering near the knights, their faces grim and painted with shock as if they couldn’t quite believe they had lost Obsidian.

  ‘Do you think we are far enough from the city we can slow down?’

  Tol started in surprise. So that’s why she’s been quiet, he realised. He had thought she was angry with him – he still wasn’t ready to rule out that possibility – but it seemed Katarina had known the dangers of dawdling with an army at their backs; Gurdal scouts would almost certainly be coming to pick off the stragglers.

  She was breathing heavily, and Tol could see how much effort it had taken Katarina to march at such a pace after the previous night’s exertions. ‘Yes.’

  ‘We need to talk about our strategy for defending Galantrium,’ Isallien protested.

  ‘There’ll be time for that later,’ Tol said.

  ‘Come along then,’ Katarina said, tugging his sleeve, ‘we’ll walk beside the shore for a while.’ She started leading Tol away from the main column, towards the lapping waves. ‘Keep an eye for Kenzin’s ship. It’s a far more preferable method of travel.’

  ‘I think they’re probably gone by now.’

  Katarina nodded. ‘Stetch,’ she called over her shoulder, ‘see that we’re not disturbed.’

  They veered left from the main column, reaching the edge of the Spur in a few minutes. To their left, the sea glinted in the early morning light. Sunrise was painting the sky orange and yellow to the east. It was almost beautiful, if you ignored the hundreds of men tramping along the centre of the Spur.

  ‘I’ve always found the sound of the sea relaxing,’ Katarina said.

  It wasn’t the opening Tol had been expecting. ‘The smell always reminds me of home,’ he said. He looked over his shoulder and saw Stetch walking a dozen yards to his right, positioning himself between them and the mangled army. ‘I was young when my father sent me to Icepeak, but the smell of the sea always reminds me of home.’

  Katarina didn’t say anything else, and the pair walked in silence for a while. Tol didn’t dare break it, revelling in the quiet; just the two of them walking side-by-side. As far as Tol was concerned it was a perfect conversation, and would remain that way until he opened his mouth and said the wrong thing.

  Katarina looked up sharply, and Tol realised he had sighed. Do I say something? he wondered. Is she waiting for me to start? He chewed his lip and tried to think, but it was difficult with those deep brown eyes fixed on him. Where do I even begin?

  ‘Did you know,’ Katarina said, ‘that you look more frightened right now than at any time I saw you during last night.’ A crease rippled momentarily across her brow. ‘Am I so frightening, Steven, that you cannot talk to me?’

  ‘No.’ Tol shrugged. ‘I just always seem to say the wrong thing. I don’t mean to, it just kind of comes out wrong.’

  Katarina smiled as if she’d just won a mighty victory. ‘I make you nervous.’

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t say that.’ Tol saw the mischievous smile on her lips and realised she was toying with him. ‘You make everybody nervous,’ he said, a little more defensively than he’d intended.

  ‘Perhaps,’ Katarina allowed, ‘but so few people dare argue with me that you are a refreshing change. Agreeable sycophants are all well and good but they can be so tiresome, and so very, very dull. Travelling with you is anything but dull.’

  There was a catch in her voice as she finished and Tol peered down at Katarina’s face, illuminated by the early morning sun. Perhaps she was just tired, but she looked haunted after a night of pursuit through Obsidian’s winding streets.

  ‘I was terrified,’ he said.

  ‘Of me?’

  ‘Last night,’ Tol explained. ‘Running through those streets in the dark, never knowing whether more Gurdal were round the next corner. It was more frightening than facing a demon.’

  Katarina searched his face. ‘Truly?’

  Tol nodded. ‘It was nearly as terrifying as meeting your father.’

  Katarina stared at him a moment, then suddenly laughed, her face lighting up with mirth. ‘Thank you,’ she said, ‘I was starting to think I might never laugh again.’ She shivered. ‘Last night was somewhat unpleasant,’ she conceded in the kind of understatement that seemed as natural to the nobility as breathing. She straightened up, her bosom expanding as she drew in a fortifying breath. ‘We need to talk about what you said last night.’

  Ah. So she hasn’t forgotten. ‘I was surprised,’ Tol said. ‘I didn’t expect to find you there, one moment I’m sticking my sword in a demon and the next you’re staring at me like I shouldn’t have taken so long, and I shouldn’t have called you an idiot, but—’

  He stopped as Katarina touched his arm. ‘You told me you loved me.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything.’

  Katarina kicked him in the shin.

  Just when I thought I was doing well.

  38.

  Tol hopped on one leg, hissing through his teeth as he gripped his newly-kicked shin. ‘What did you do that for?’

  Katarina’s hands were bunched into fists, pressed hard against her hips. ‘You don’t tell someone you love them then say you shouldn’t have mentioned it!’ Her face was a battlefield, anger the clear victor as knitted eyebrows hovered over her nose like scavenging ravens. ‘Unless,’ she said, ‘it was a lie.’ Her face rippled briefly, then settled on a sturdy frown. ‘Was it a lie?’

  Tol tried to work out what was going on: would the truth save him, damn him or make him look a fool? A few weeks ago this would have been simple, he realised. Say whatever I needed to skate free untouched. Now, though, things seemed different. This time it matters. He let go of his aching shin and met Katarina’s searching gaze. ‘No,’ he said quietly, ‘it wasn’t a lie.’

  She nodded perfunctorily. ‘Good,’ Katarina said, turning away and following the shoreline north as if nothing had happened.

  He stood and watched her walk away. One day we’re going to have a conversation where I don’t come away feeling like a fool. He sighed. It probably wasn’t going to be any time soon.

  Tol caught up with her a dozen strides later, glancing at the woman he loved and trying to work out what she was thinking. I owe her the truth, he realised. She’s been with me since the beginning, offered aid and saved my life numerous times. When this is over we’ll go our separate ways, but at least she’ll know the truth.

  And still it took a moment for him to speak. The truth was never easy. Tol had avoided it for a long time, even after Valeron’s damned book had ended up in his hands. He had learned the truth behind the world’s greatest lies: the truth about the Maker and his angels, the truth about the church and the lie which began a religion, and the truth about his own ancestor. Truth, Tol had found, was hard, brittle, and never painless. But it is precious nonetheless.

  ‘I didn’t lie,’ he began awkwardly. Tol scratched his chin and heard the buzz of ploughed stubble. ‘I was so caught up with what I was trying to do that I didn’t see it until it was almost too late.

  ‘I meant what I said. When I saw that ship sail away with you onboard, that’s when I knew, that’s when I decided my life was better with you in it and that it’d be worth dying just to rescue
you and see your face one last time.’

  She was quiet for a long time. ‘Yet still you regret telling me how you feel?’

  ‘No good can come from it,’ Tol said. ‘Even if you felt the same we could never be together, you know that.’

  Katarina made a noncommittal sound. ‘No?’

  ‘You’re the daughter of a duke, and I’m a common knight, last descendant of the most hated man in history. Can you imagine the scandal? Your father would kill me before allowing us to be together.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said slowly, ‘it would be a scandal, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘Lords and ladies would look at you differently. Plenty wouldn’t talk to you, and the rest – the rest would look down on you and talk behind your back.’

  ‘Terrible,’ Katarina said. ‘Terrible.’ She gave a sharp sigh. ‘At least it would be if I cared a whit for what anyone else thinks. You know,’ she said, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper, ‘I’ve always rather liked the idea of being at the centre of a scandal. It sounds so sordid.’ She drawled the last word in a manner that sent a shiver down Tol’s neck.

  ‘You’re just playing with me now,’ he said. ‘Don’t taunt me like that.’ He yelped, high and girlish, as Katarina punched him hard in the arm.

  ‘You’re worried about my father?’ she asked, as if someone – anyone – might not be terrified of the most powerful man in Sudalra, especially if they had actually met him. Katarina kicked him in the calf, a sharp tap. ‘My father,’ she kicked him again, ‘does not decide,’ a slap to the arm, ‘who,’ a punch to the same arm, ‘I take as a husband.’ Katarina slapped Tol’s arm with the back of her hand. ‘It is not my father whom you should be concerned about upsetting.’

  ‘He’s the Black Duke,’ Tol retorted. ‘He’d either kill me or send one of the Sworn, maybe all of them just to make a point.’

  ‘He’s a teddy bear,’ Katarina said with all the patience of forest fire, ‘and he knows better than to refuse his youngest daughter.’

  Tol bit back an angry rejoinder, his mind slowly catching up. Katarina stood next to him, her face flushed with colour and more irate than usual. This is not simply teasing me, he realised. ‘What are you saying?’ he asked quietly.

  Katarina smoothed down her bloodstained tunic. ‘What I am saying, Steven, is that there are no barriers between us but those you choose to build.’

  Tol stood there helplessly, looking into her eyes and seeing the truth staring out, bold as a pirate. How did I not see it?

  He opened his mouth, but his throat was suddenly dry and his tongue felt like a lump of iron ore. ‘You feel the same way as I do?’

  Katarina sighed, and shook her head. ‘No, Steven, I always risk my life to save uncouth northmen I meet on the road. It’s perfectly normal for me to intercede a number of times – a great number of times – to keep your stubborn head intact. At great personal risk and not a little inconvenience, I might add.’ She gave him an apprising look. ‘Or did you not wonder why I helped you?’

  ‘I was kind of busy trying not to get killed,’ Tol muttered.

  ‘I even,’ Katarina continued as if he hadn’t spoken, ‘took you home and introduced you to my family. It is not a common event.’

  ‘You knocked me out and kept me tied up in a cabin for the whole voyage!’

  ‘Yes,’ she said as if that proved her point, ‘but I didn’t have you thrown overboard for the sharks.’

  ‘I…’ Tol wanted to believe, wanted desperately to believe, but there was still the possibility this was all a cruel trick for some perceived slight. Or for shouting at her. Or for calling her an idiot for walking onto a battlefield. Or…Well, anything. His jaw flapped uselessly for a long time. ‘You really think we can be together? You really love me?’

  ‘Well,’ she said slowly, and Tol could tell Katarina was savouring this moment. ‘Love is a bit of a strong word. And you can be something of a stubborn pain – most of the time, if I’m honest – but life is never dull around you.’

  ‘Oh.’ Tol felt his elation slipping away.

  Katarina cuffed him on the shoulder. ‘Yes, you dolt, of course I love you.’

  Tol found he was grinning like a loon, and after a moment she smiled too. ‘But you’re going to have to make a few changes,’ Katarina said. ‘There’ll be no carousing, for starters. Certainly no dallying with other women – not unless you want your manhood fed to a hound. You’re going to need some decent clothes, and we most certainly need to improve your bathing habits because frankly you smell awful right now, and…’

  The list was long, and Tol soon stopped listening. She loves me, he thought. His face was beginning to hurt because he couldn’t stop smiling, but he didn’t really care right now. She loves me.

  *

  Katarina frowned. He was grinning like a loon and she had a firm suspicion that Steven hadn’t heard a word she’d said. ‘And we should probably cut off your legs, too.’

  ‘Sure.’

  She gave him a playful slap on the arm and finally got his full attention. ‘I am going to assume you didn’t hear most of what I said, but don’t worry, I’ll remember for us both.’

  ‘Great,’ he muttered, though his lips curled in a slight grin.

  ‘Once this is over,’ Katarina said, choosing to ignore his lack of enthusiasm, ‘we’ll have plenty of time to discuss the future. One thing I do expect – and this is entirely non-negotiable – is for you to sever all contact with that flying friend of yours.’

  ‘Friend? You mean the angel?’

  ‘Yes, Steven,’ she sighed, ‘the angel.’ She raised an eyebrow. ‘Unless you have any other friends who fly, perhaps?’

  He shook his head, and Katarina reached the conclusion that a knightly education apparently didn’t cover the nuances of rhetorical questions. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I’m glad that’s settled.’

  Steven jerked like someone had just stuck a pin in his plums. ‘Settled? It’s not that simple. I swore an oath to serve her. I’m her knight.’

  ‘A minor inconvenience,’ she said with a wave of her hand. ‘You will just have to make her release you from your oath.’

  ‘I’m not sure she will—’

  ‘—You will find a way,’ she interrupted. ‘There will be no room for a second woman in your life. Especially one with wings.’

  He nodded, with a worryingly glum expression. And that’s why it has to be, Katarina told herself. Better to break their friendship now than always wonder.

  ‘I’ll talk to her,’ Steven said.

  Katarina squeezed his arm. ‘Do not worry. I am sure you have already done enough to earn your freedom – how many demons have you killed in her service?’

  ‘Four.’

  ‘Four,’ Katarina repeated, trying not to let her voice betray her surprise. ‘That is four more than most men could ever hope to accomplish. Three more than Valeron as I understand it, no?’

  ‘I guess.’

  Katarina clenched her jaw. There’ll be time to talk about this later, she told herself. He could be quite easygoing, in a kind of rough-edged way – right up to the point where he became thoroughly stubborn and intractable with no hint of warning. Still, she told herself, it keeps things interesting.

  ‘Good,’ she said, reluctantly letting the matter drop. ‘And have you given any thought to what you will do afterwards?’

  ‘Afterwards?’

  ‘You know,’ Katarina waved her hand towards the bedraggled column of men on their right. ‘After the Gurdal are defeated.’

  ‘No,’ he said after an interminable wait. ‘To be honest, I hadn’t thought I’d survive this long.’ He looked down on her with those sad puppy eyes. ‘I still might not, you know. If we lose at Galantrium…’ He sighed. ‘Even if we don’t, there’s no guarantees. Anything can happen in a battle, and it’s going to be bad.’ He winced, and corrected himself. ‘Worse, I mean. The Gurdal will throw everything they have at us.’ His voice dropped. ‘More demons.’

  ‘Wel
l, you can hardly be expected to kill all of them. Isn’t it about time this angel of yours pulled her weight? For that matter,’ Katarina said, ‘where was she in Obsidian? She should have been fighting those things, not you.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said quietly. ‘I thought she would come.’ He glanced at her awkwardly. ‘I didn’t call her,’ he said. ‘I could have, but I didn’t, and by the time I thought to it was already too late – she wouldn’t have arrived in time.’

  ‘I am sure you had other things on your mind,’ Katarina said, gently patting his shoulder. But he said the creature watches us from Ammerlac, which means she knew what was happening, knew she was needed. Katarina shivered. ‘She will come when needed, won’t she? You haven’t managed to upset her, have you?’

  ‘She’ll come,’ Steven said. He didn’t sound entirely certain though. Mostly certain, but with a weighty issue like this, mostly wasn’t particularly reassuring.

  ‘There’s one thing I don’t understand,’ she said.

  Steven’s face went very still. Like he’s preparing to tell a lie and doesn’t want his face to betray him. Interesting.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Which of the three nuns killed your father and cousin? And why did they come to your aid – surely it would have been easy enough to kill you in that press of bodies?’

  ‘That’s more than one question,’ he muttered with a weak grin.

  ‘It’s all related,’ she said with a wave of her hand, ‘so it’s essentially one question. So? Which of them killed your family?’

  Steven chewed his lip, and didn’t answer for a long time. ‘I’ve been thinking about that.’

  An unhelpful answer if ever I’ve heard one. ‘And?’

  ‘I don’t think it was Rachel or the other two. I think it was someone else.’

  ‘And just how many bloody armed nuns are there wandering around? And why do they all come looking for you?’

  He grinned suddenly. ‘What can I say, I’m irresistible.’

  Katarina kicked him in the leg.