Knight Rising

by Jason Hamilton

  Blisters were forming on the parts of his skin that made direct connection to the armor. His entire body was tender, and it hurt to rise.

  But rise he did.

  Not waiting for the dragon to attack, he charged, running as fast as his cooked legs could carry him. The dragon, still recovering its flames, took a few steps backward. Too late.

  George brought his sword down on the creature’s head so hard that more than a few scales flew off. The dragon hissed, and its tail flew out of nowhere, catching his shield and throwing him to the side against another wall.

  “Ahhhhggg!” he yelled as one of the spikes from the dragon’s tail drove right through his shield and into his shoulder. The spikes were barbed, based on the pain that now raced through his body. He could only hope they were not also poisonous.

  Vaguely, he remembered his monstrous encounter with the first strange serpent, before they had even arrived at the Forest of Arden. Oddly enough, this wasn’t all that different. Both foes were reptilian, and both had dangerous tail spikes that they used to attack. The first serpent had even wrapped it up in its coils much as the dragon’s tail had done.

  Una had told him to choke the serpent before, and that had caused it to lose its grip. Una was not here now, and obviously choking the beast would not save him. But he was not defeated yet. Just as he had not stopped attacking the serpent, he would not stop until this dragon was dead, even if it meant losing his own life.

  Bracing against the pain, he raised his sword and brought it down on the tip of the dragon’s tail, even as a spike from that tail still lay embedded in his shoulder.

  The pain as the spike buckled in his flesh was almost too much, and his vision swam, but the pained roar of the monster was enough to spur him on. He hacked again and again on the tip of the tail, breaking off scales and cutting through vulnerable flesh beneath until…

  The dragon roared as his sword sliced through the tip of its tail, severing it completely. It fell backwards, waving its injured limb in the air.

  George braced himself, grabbed hold of the spike in his shoulder with his gauntlet, and pulled it loose. The pain made his vision swim again. But he was alright. The spike had missed any vital areas or arteries. He would bleed, but it would not be enough to cause unconsciousness. Not for a while yet. All he had to do was...

  The dragon pounced. It rose on its haunches, and its two paws came down with terrible force. George barely managed to raise his shield, but the force of impact was enough to send him crashing to the ground once more.

  The weight of the dragon bent his front chest plate in a bit, enough that breathing suddenly became difficult. His armor had already caved in the back. If it did so in the front as well, he would be crushed within his own armor.

  But he still had his sword in hand. He swiped at the beast’s claws, though the angle was awkward, and it was hard to bring the sword in at just the right angle. The dragon opened its mouth less than three feet from his own head, and a warm light began to emanate from within.

  With a desperate strike, his sword broke off one of the dragon’s claws. The light in its throat lessened as it grew distracted by the pain. Then George stabbed upward, breaking off a scale in the neck.

  The dragon staggered backward, giving George just enough time to raise himself up and swing at the creature’s feet one last time.

  How his sword managed to cut through the dragon’s natural armor, he did not know. Perhaps one god or more aided his strike, for it tore through flesh, scales, and bone alike. The entire left paw came off completely, leaving the dragon without one of its four limbs.

  The beast threw back its head and belched fire into the sky. The clouds warped around this beacon of fiery light, and the air seemed to grow darker. Something like thunder rolled through the sky, though there was no rain. Dark clouds gathered around them, swirling in a unique pattern around the castle, with the point of the keep as the center. The dragon’s fire had done that? Perhaps there was more magic afoot than just dragon fire.

  “WHO ARE YOU,” said the dragon as its head came back down to face him. “NEVER HAS ANY KNIGHT DONE WHAT YOU HAVE DONE.”

  “I’m the Knight of the Red Cross,” said George, managing to steady himself on his feet. He could hardly move, as his armor clamped around his torso making it difficult to breathe, and the rest of his body was covered in blisters from the fire. But he was still alive. He would not be able to fight for much longer, yet that fact remained. He still lived. “I will never stop until you or I are dead.”

  “THEN DIE, KNIGHT OF THE RED CROSS.”

  Clumsily, his vision wavering, George brought his shield up to cover himself. The shield itself was broken and bent inward, but it was still enough to catch the brunt of the dragon’s fire as it shot out of its jaws once again.

  The force threw him backwards, where he skidded in some mud until a tree stopped him from continuing. There he lay, resting against the roots of the tree, a trail of mud in front of him, and the dragon beyond, his hate-filled eyes flashing in triumph.

  George tried to rise, but it was too much. His leg slipped in the mud, and the breastplate was too tight.

  “AND SO IT ENDS. YET ANOTHER KNIGHT, FALLEN,” said the dragon, limping forward on its one good front leg.

  “Una,” George whispered. “I hope you found what you’re looking for.”

  Then he prepared himself to die.

  36

  Una ran up the stairway leading up to the top of the keep. She passed door after door but knew instinctively that whoever she was following was going all the way to the top.

  Her breath came in frantic gasps and she forced her legs to continue up the several hundred steps. But she would not stop. There was someone left in this castle, and she would find out who it was. Maybe the person could help in the fight against the dragon. George would need all the help he could get.

  Almost without realizing it, she reached the top, nearly stumbling as her legs kept trying to climb, but instead met empty air. She was at the top.

  And there was no one there. The circular room was empty, and all she could see was a small balcony at the other side, a lookout to see in every direction. She had spent many long moments here, staring off into the beyond, wishing she could leave the confines of their little kingdom. If only she had known what awaited her there, and how badly she would want to return once she left.

  There was nothing else, no sign of the rag-clothed person. They had to be in here somewhere. Had she been wrong? Could the person have hidden in one of the spare closets or side rooms located in the keep? That must have been what happened.

  Cursing, she made to go back down. She would check every room in the keep if she had to, but now that she had passed, that gave the one she was looking for a chance to escape out the base door.

  She was almost back to the stairs when she heard something. It sounded almost like some kind of machinery, like a bellows in a blacksmith’s forge, or some form of gears grinding together. She’d seen such things from some of the strange contraptions used by foreign dignitaries. They had used them to move objects with far less force than would have been usually necessary.

  But where was it coming from?

  The floor rumbled just slightly, but enough that Una noticed. Was that due to the battle between the dragon and George? No, this was more constant, like the grinding of a mill wheel, not the thundering clash of the battle. She could make that out separately.

  Whatever it was, it was beneath her.

  Moving down the stairs, she felt the wall as she wound down the tower. Yes, there was something there, the rumbling came through walls itself. Was there a hidden chamber here she hadn’t known about? Indeed, there were no rooms in this section of the tower that she knew of. But it made sense there would be some kind of cavity here. Otherwise that was too much space to be filled with solid rock.

  She went back up to the top of the steps, staring around at the empty room. There were no trap doors here. She would have seen one lo
ng before now.

  And yet…

  The room did seem a little smaller than it should be. She hadn’t thought it through before now, but the walls were unusually thick here.

  She began moving her hands along the sides of the walls, feeling for...what? There was nothing here. Yet something told her there was. That rumbling beneath her was not her imagination. Perhaps there was another entrance elsewhere, but instinct told her she was already in the right place.

  A draft blew against her hand, and she froze in place. Looking closer, the space between the stones was different here, closer together and with nothing to cement them. Come to think of it, there had been a tapestry hanging here if her memory served her correctly. And now she could feel a faint brush of warm air on her palm as it moved over the spot.

  Tentatively, she pushed. Nothing happened. Not backing down, she began pushing on each individual stone, one by one, starting at the top and working her way downward.

  Then one of the stones fell inward.

  The reaction was immediate. A large section of the wall suddenly popped outward, then swung slowly forward. Una took several steps backward as the massive stone door revealed a passageway behind it. The stairs were like a mirror image of the ones she’d used to climb up here, only reversed so they went down on the other side.

  A pale blue light emanated from the darkness beneath. Una swallowed. Whatever she had expected to find in the castle of her childhood, it had not been this.

  Slowly, tentatively, she began taking the steps one at a time.

  The rumble increased in intensity as she went down, as did the blue light. Finally she could see the last of the steps, and she finished climbing, only to see a large room, the width of the keep, illuminated by a flickering fire-like light.

  On the walls were shelves upon shelves, filled with uncounted vials of various shapes and colors. Two large desks lay on the other side of the room, themselves covered in mountains of parchment.

  But in the center of the room on the floor were inscribed glowing lines that pulsed with a red-purple color, consisting of a pentagon and a circle, and many other markings that Una did not recognize. Above the lines hung an orb of light. It was from this that the flickering blue light emanated. Una stared at it. What was she even looking at? She’d known that magic existed. The sorceresses of Avalon used it after all, and she herself had found some form of dark magic within. But this...this was something else entirely.

  She was so caught up staring at the orb of blue light she barely noticed a solitary figure standing behind it.

  “You…” said the figure. It was a man’s voice, but high-pitched and frantic. “You are not supposed to be here.”

  He rounded the circle, pointing a finger at Una. “You must leave, you must leave.”

  It was the person she’d seen before, clothed in rags and a hood, but there was something familiar about him too.

  He stood hunched over, approaching her with a limp in one leg, his finger still outstretched. “Leave, leave!”

  She took a step forward. This old man was not scary, at least not in the physical sense. He stooped so he was shorter than Una, and he was thinner than a dried-up twig in winter. As he drew closer, she reached out a hand and pulled down his hood.

  What she saw drained the color out of her face. The man’s appearance was gaunt and pale. His eyes were sunken, his cheekbones were overly defined, and his hair was gone. But there was no mistaking that face. It was Antioch, her father.

  37

  “Father,” she breathed, feeling all warmth leave her. It couldn’t be her father, could it? “What has happened to you?”

  The man froze, taking a good look at Una’s face. “Girl? The girl? You are the girl?”

  “The girl? I don’t know what you mean. You’re not making any sense.”

  The man’s eyes widened and he turned to retreat to the back of the room. There he started rummaging through the leaflets on one of the desks. He threw great clumps of parchment to the floor. “No, the girl cannot be here, she is not ready,” he rambled.

  “Father, it’s me, Una. I’m here to get you out.”

  “Mustn’t get out, must stay.”

  “Why?” she narrowed her eyes at the shriveled husk of the man who had once been her father. What had happened to him after all this time? He had obviously survived the dragon, but had the sight of seeing everyone else die driven him mad? That had to be it.

  “Made a deal,” he said, still rummaging through the parchment.

  “A deal with who?” Una asked. “And where’s mother? Is she here?”

  “Mother, who?” said her father. Was he even listening?

  “Fiona,” she said, with emphasis. “My mother.”

  “Fiona, no, Fiona’s gone.”

  Her heart stilled. “What do you mean gone?”

  “Died three years ago, in the summoning.”

  Una nearly sank to her knees. Her mother, dead? She had prepared herself for this eventuality, knowing the likelihood of her parents’ survival was slim, with the dragon about. But something about seeing her father, even in this condition had given her hope.

  Her head bowed, and her eyes stung. All her life, her mother had been the one to nurture her, to tell her stories, to tell her she could make anything out of her life, and not just be what everyone else wanted her to be. Now she was gone.

  Yet something her father had said caught her attention.

  “What do you mean, ‘in the summoning?’” she asked.

  Her father appeared to have finally found what he was looking for on the desk. He grasped a piece of parchment so tightly Una half expected it to tear.

  “This. This is it,” he said, his eyes manic. “The last piece of the puzzle.” He scurried over to one of the shelves and extracted a green vial, turning it over in his hands as though fondling it. Had he not heard her?

  “Father,” she said insistently. He did not reply, but took the green vial and approached the glowing blue orb. Then extracting a small knife from one of his rags, he passed it along his hand. Dark red blood drained down his fingers.

  “Father!” she said even more forcefully. What had happened to him, and what was he doing? “Antioch.”

  Her father flinched at the mention of his own name. “Mustn’t distract me. Been waiting three years to finish the ritual.” “Father,” she began walking closer. “What is it you are doing, and what did you mean mother was killed in the summoning?”

  “Get away!” her father spat with such fury it almost took her aback. “Waited three years. Not ready then. But ready now. Today is the only day, while we are in this world. Mustn’t delay.”

  “Delay what?” she asked, her voice raised. Her father was insane. He had to be. After all this time spent hiding from the dragon, he had finally cracked.

  “Delay the third summoning.”

  “Father…”

  “Get away from me!” he snarled, his eyes finally meeting hers. “You are not my daughter.”

  Never could so few words birth such a reaction in Una. Every part of her stilled, all save the blood that drained from her face. “What?”

  “First summoning,” he ranted. “Your mother. Deal with the other...the other…”

  “What are you saying?”

  For a moment, his eyes met hers, and there was a little sanity there, a brief connection between the two of them. “Una,” he said. “You are the child of the other. Him and your mother.”

  This time, she did sink to her knees. She wasn’t her father’s child? If that were true, then who was her father?

  You are of the old blood, Duessa had told her. The dragon had confirmed the same. Did that have anything to do with this?

  But now her father had seemingly forgotten about her, taking his bleeding hand and holding it forward, towards the great glowing orb. Then he walked forward, with the green vial in his uninjured hand.

  The outstretched arm entered the orb, and it provoked an immediate reaction. The blue orb grew,
pulsating outward. Her father cried, but not in pain. He was exultant, laughing as whatever he was doing appeared to work.

  “Antioch,” she said. “What are you doing?”

  “No time,” said the ruined husk of her father. “Must break down the walls to the Otherworld.”

  “You what?” For once, color rose back into Una’s cheeks. She was on her feet again, taking a step towards the orb and her father. For a moment, she thought she saw something in that orb, flowing shapes, and the image of a multi-headed monster. She recognized the image before it flowed away in the orb’s light. She’d seen it before in her dreams.

  “Come no closer,” said Antioch. “Summoning nearly complete.”

  “Antioch,” she said, no longer electing to use the word, ‘father’. Whoever this man was now, he was not her father. And not just because he claimed not to be her biological father. Whatever remained of the man who raised her was lost. “What is the summoning? What are you doing?”

  “Stay away,” was all he said.

  “I want to help,” she lied. “I can make it better.”

  “No,” he said. “You arrived too soon.”

  Holding the green vial aloft, he began taking out the cork.

  “You said this is the third summoning,” Una said, still slowly moving forward. “What happened on the other two? What did you do?”

  His eyes sobered once again, meeting her eyes directly. “First summoning,” he looked at her. “You were conceived. Second summoning…” his eyes grew sad. “Second summoning…”

  “Yes, father, what happened in the second summoning?” Though she already had an idea.

  “Second summoning…” his eyes were frantic, as though being forced to relive a most painful memory. “We brought it here! The dragon.”

  Una breathed out. Her parents had been responsible for bringing the dragon to Castle Silene. “You opened the door to the Otherworld.”

  “Yes,” said her father, speaking clearly again. “Killed your mother, killed everyone. Left me alive so I could continue the work.”