by Colin McComb
Pelagir had learned to crush his expectations and deal with immediate necessity. He could forecast, anticipate, and plan for eventualities, and he had one of the finest minds among the students of his year—indeed, of any class in the school that year. Further, the lessons they had taught him in this year had been successful in driving hope from his spirit. He planned, he improvised, and he did not hope. He trusted to his training and his ability to carry him through, but he shed no tears if he failed. This culling of his spirit, his native intelligence, and his stoicism in the face of pain and humiliation made him eligible for the rank of Elite.
This also made Pelagir a target of his classmates. Though the students were forbidden to kill or maim one another, their instructors tacitly encouraged the harshest possible competition. They believed that the smarter and stronger students would be best served by cultivating paranoia, remaining wary for traps and betrayals at all times, and that the lesser students would learn to work together to bring down the leaders. Their traps fell into a variety of categories, but these physical and mental gambits often were complete failures and occasionally were disasters. The other candidates, male or female, though intelligent, were not in the class of their superiors, and their efforts sometimes rebounded on them, with deadly results. When at last they realized they were completely outmatched by the better students, the lesser students rejected all contact with them, and this was the most effective betrayal of all.
Worse yet, the best candidates couldn’t trust one another. They were in competition for the ten Elite slots, so they met with their peers only on the practice field and in the classrooms, where they struggled to prove themselves in the eyes of instructors. They were otherwise in almost total isolation.
This, too, was planned. It had been the custom for hundreds of years.
Year 4 – CY 581
Two hundred students. Of the hundred missing, twenty-six had died. Sixty-one had tested out early to squirehood in the Knights Lesser. Thirteen had been withdrawn by their families—though difficult, it was possible, especially in the case of students with no prospects in the knighthood. Those thirteen might do well in the regular armed forces, but they would always recognize their failure to enter the knighthood.
One hundred seventy-three of the remainder were destined for the Knights Faithful, and their work now determined their rank within the order on graduation. The last twenty-seven were in competition for the ten Elite spots, and nobles from the great families came to watch them in training. The candidates who failed to achieve Elite status were automatically part of the high ranks of the Knights Faithful, valuable recruits, and the Houses of the Empire paid well for their services. The Knights Elite were answerable only to the king and those he chose to speak for him, performing the tasks necessary to maintain the Empire, but the other orders traveled among the Houses, every two years delivered by dirigible to those who had asked for their aid. They returned to Terona at the end of their term for training in the rugged terrain to the north of the city, and as long as the Houses paid their leases, the Houses retained the services of highly trained and most deadly warriors. The knights’ loyalty was to the Empire first, to their brotherhood second, and to their adopted Houses last, so when no external threats materialized, they fought against one another in the many internecine battles between Houses great and small.
This mattered little to the young men and women who sought the slots. The knighthood’s regimen had driven ordinary ambition and emotion from them. They struggled now against one another, a competition among near-equals, for their place in legend. They believed that if they could achieve Elite, their struggles would be against the heroes of the past. For now, though, they trained, they studied, they marched hard miles under the blazing sun and under the torrential mountain rains. They fought in muddy trenches, across fields strewn with mountains of dirt and shreds of metal. They trained with swords and spears, bows and siege engines, and other, more esoteric devices created by the Archmagus and his acolytes. They spent a month alone in the wilderness, living off nothing but their wits.
Through it all, they were observed by a cadre of Knights Elite, to whom the duty of training this raw flesh would fall. Pelagir’s witness, Lieutenant Caltash, took a special interest in his charge and set him a variety of tests to gauge the boy’s reactions. Caltash liked what he found. He liked it very much indeed.
At the end of the fourth year, one of ten. This letter went to the Knight Assessors, who oversaw the training and advancement of the young candidates:
By order of the Commander of Knights Assembled,
On this, the third day of the month of the Eagle, of the year Crystal, of the cycle Strength, commonly known as the 581st Clasping Year, let it be known that Pelagir Amons has surpassed our expectations. Let it be known that he has been judged and found worthy. Let him be borne away to Devilsfoot on this night. Let him be delivered to the tower of the Archmagus, where he shall undergo his final excruciations. Let him receive a blood weapon of his choosing. Let him be admitted into the sacred brotherhood of the Knights Elite. Let him give the remaining portion of his life in service to the Empire.
To this I set my seal.
Sir Ellionn Carderas, Commander of the Knights Assembled, Duke of the Eastern Protectorate, Earl of Farassi, Viscount of Hanging Bay, Baron of Suthersford
The walls of the King’s Forest loomed ahead of him, tall trees planted firmly across hundreds of rolling acres. Pelagir pulled back on the reins and dismounted, sliding from the saddle in a single fluid motion. From his pouch he extracted a flask of milk and set it to the child’s lips. She drank thirstily, burped once, and fell asleep. Pelagir laid a blanket on the ground, set her gently on it, and set about making the modifications to his steed that would help him hide his trail. Inside the wood the King’s Foresters patrolled. If he wasn’t careful, their snares could undo him.
He bent to his work.
The Forester’s Tale
Cold steel presses into my throat, and passionless eyes stare into mine. My death is upon me… but I feel no fear. The woods are alive around me. I hear birds call, and the hum of the forest’s insects is a reassuring drone. The afternoon’s rain drips from the leaves, and the setting sun sparkles through the trees like an oaken halo. I am not afraid to die in the woods I love.
All morning we were on full alert—we, the elite of the King’s Foresters, knew this forest better than our husbands and wives and children, better than we knew each other, better than our most intimate lovers. The forest nurtures us, fills us with joy, breathes new hope into lives dulled by pain, war, suffering. We are renewed here. In the wind’s whispering tracks we hear the health of the river that nourishes the mighty trees. The forest is our home.
We were alert before Cox summoned us to the lodge with three short blasts on his horn—the breeze broke in strange ways that morning, and the birds screamed their indignation from their high nests: the forest’s peace was broken by an intruder. We knew the intruder was alone. We knew he was skilled in the lore of our wood, too, because we didn’t know where he was.
We also knew he was dangerous. Cox would never have called us otherwise. He would have let us track the intruder down ourselves and deal with the interloper as we dealt with all trespassers in the King’s Forest. We showed no mercy.
We gathered at the stilt lodge, moving silently, singly and in pairs among the old trunks. Usually we traveled alone, but this was the Year of the Journeyman. Those of us who had taken ’prentices two years ago now traveled with our charges to see their skills. Warren had Xis, an old southern infantryman who had taken to the teachings as well as any child, and already he moved more silently than some who had been born to the wood. Three others came as well, with the nicknames we’d given ’em: Toll Halfman, the eunuch from Terona; Strom Surehand from the cold northeast; and Brus the Clean.
My ’prentice had washed out. There was no shame in it.
I was one of the first to arrive. We greeted e
ach other with a nod and a name (“Mishi,” they said to me), and no more—foresters are quiet folk at the best of times. When thirty of us were there, Cox began to speak. His words were terse, clipped. “I received word from Terona. The intruder is one of the King’s Chosen. His name is Pelagir. He’s carrying a child. If the child comes to harm, it’ll be your head. The Council of Knights has asked that we shoot to wound Pelagir, not to kill him. Recovery of the child is of primary importance.”
It meant a kidnapping, then, from a family high up the social ladder. Maybe the highest. The Council wanted vengeance, and it was going to be terrible. We’d pay if we stood in the way of their punishment. And if we had to die to get the child, it wasn’t sacrifice enough.
We slung our yew bows onto the pegs in the walls and took the dull bronze crossbows from the racks in their place—plain arrows wouldn’t do against one of the King’s Chosen. There was no way we could fire an arrow that would hit him unless we managed a distraction, and that was unlikely. True, the crossbows were unreliable. Sometimes they exploded when they fired, sometimes they didn’t fire at all, and they required yearly maintenance by Verthain, the wizard of the forest. But against a knight, the eldritch bolts they fired were the best option we had. These crossbows had no strings to tangle in the brushes and branches. The forks summoned and focused energy from within the worked metal of the weapon, launching the quarrel only when we squeezed the crossbow’s stock. If they were more trustworthy, we’d use them all the time. As it was, we used the yew bows except in emergencies. If worse slipped to worst, we had our knives, though of course they’d be useless against a knight.
We left the stilt lodge without saying anything else and fanned out through the woods to the west. If we ran across the knight, we’d be dead unless we had backup, but we couldn’t travel too closely together, or he’d be warned of our coming. Against any ordinary person, these precautions would have been unnecessary. We’d use these tactics against one of the vicious things that sometimes wandered into the forest from the blasted hills, and the cautions would keep us safe. Against one of the King’s Chosen, they might not be enough.
I grew afraid then—afraid of losing the forest, afraid of losing my life. My heart knocked in my chest, and my legs weakened as I trotted through the massive trunks. But my only choices were to pursue the knight and the child, or to break my oath and lose my life. In the end, I had no choice at all. I would die in the service of the forest I swore to protect.
That didn’t diminish my fear in the slightest.
I slipped through the underbrush, the crossbow fastened tight against my back. I ducked hanging branches and leaped over fallen trees. I launched myself over moss-laden rocks, grasping vines that hung from the high branches. I called out in birdsong as I ran and heard trills from the other foresters. We spread farther and farther apart as the hours wore on, and still we came across no sign of Pelagir.
It was midafternoon. We had been running for most of the day and still had no sign of the knight, no warning from the others. I’d come across Strom’s trail, and hooted thrice to let him know I’d seen it. His master Karl would want to know. Clouds had built in the sky since the morning, and a cold wind rushed through the forest, swaying the trees and stripping leaves from their branches. I knew the signs of the storm. This was going to be a loud one.
When it broke, it broke hard. The lightning tore into the day’s gloom, the thunder following in a swift counterstroke, the sign for the rain to fall on us like heaven’s arrows. For a less experienced forester, this would wipe out all traces of Pelagir’s passing. Not for us.
I covered my crossbow with a sheet of brown felt to protect it from the rain and set out again, choosing my steps with greater care. It wouldn’t do to slip now. I cast my eyes more carefully along the forest floor. I watched for any sign out of the ordinary, and found none. I called out in birdsong again to see if any of the other foresters could hear me over the rain and thunder. I waited for a minute and called again. I tightened the crossbow’s strap and wove south and westward through the wood.
I stopped at the first sight of blood on the northern banks of the Branish River. The splatter was already nearly lost in the rain. I unslung my crossbow and started to run along the bloody trail.
It grew fresher as I ran. I had forgotten my fear in the run through the forest, but now it returned full force. I smelled death in the air.
I rounded a bend in the river’s course and saw Xis stretched out on the pebbles by the water’s edge. His soft leather jerkin had a hole about the size of my fist in the middle of his chest, darkening red against his dark skin. His blood pumped rich and scarlet into the water. I trotted to him, cautious of ambush. I lifted his head gently.
“Xis…”
“Mishi,” he whispered, and coughed blood. “Warren did’t. Had a clear shot, he jogged my arm. Fought. Sliced him. Fled. Shot me here. Dying. Hurts.”
I kissed his eyes, farewell forester-style, and opened the big vein in his throat with my belt knife. I watched in respect until he stopped breathing. The rain slipped into slight drizzle, soon headed for mist, and the clouds began to break in the few moments it took. I checked his crossbow. It was ruined, and I left it with his body. I fired a single shot from mine into the air, a signal flare for the others. I marked five stones to point where I’d gone, and I ran, ran. I was more afraid than ever.
Warren, a traitor. Who knew how many more of our kind Pelagir had under his spell? I had known Warren for years. He had always seemed loyal. Now I was facing a forester as skilled as I was, and a knight to boot. My heart sank. I knew I wouldn’t leave the day alive.
Warren was close, I knew. He hadn’t taken the time to bind his wound. He was running alone on the river’s edge, bleeding. It was a stupid mistake…
… or was it? I stopped. I crept back into the cover of the hilly woods and started looking. In a few moments, I saw him.
Warren was pressed against the bole of a huge oak tree, sighting down his crossbow at me. I raised my weapon, knowing it was already too late, when he flung his bow to the ground with a curse and rushed at me. He drew his knife as he came, and I could not understand his shouts or the look of panic in his eyes.
I fired once, and the impact took him off his feet. I think I got him in the head. I watched him fall for an instant.
Something heavy slammed into me from behind. My head hit a trunk on the way down. Darkness rushed into my eyes as earth filled my mouth.
When I opened my eyes, my back was to a tree, my arse on the ground. There was a blade at my throat. Behind that knife was the man I’m looking for, hoping not to find. And behind that man stood death. My fear surged into my throat. Just as quickly, it slipped from me like a waterfall.
I am fully in the moment of my life and my death.
“Pelagir,” I say.
“Forester. How many of you follow me today? How soon can I expect them?”
“How long was I unconscious?”
“A minute and a half.”
“You probably have five minutes. You might be able to escape in time.” No use in lying.
“I might. It was a pity you shot your friend.” For the first time, I hear something in his voice. Compassion, perhaps?
“Xis said he was a traitor. Said Warren jogged his arm and then shot him.”
His hard mouth quirks slightly. “It was the other way around. Xis was a friend of mine in the eastern war. When he heard my name today, he thought he would repay a debt. Your friend Warren did much better in close quarters against a soldier than I’d have given a forester credit for. But Xis gave me time to get off the river. Is he dead?”
I think of lying this time. But then I realize it won’t matter—he’ll kill me fast either way. “Yes. I slit a vein. There was no helping him. Where is the child?”
“In a safe place. She’s sleeping.” The light dims from his eyes. “Will you renounce your oath and let me go free? Or do you die here?”
“I die today one way or
another, from you or my fellows. If I let you go, I would live only another few minutes.”
“I have no taste for killing women who perform their duty faithfully, forester. I’ve seen and done enough of that in the city.”
“You’ve broken your oath, Sir Pelagir. Why do you care about morals now?”
Now I see actual hurt in his eyes. “Mine required me to be faithless. I could not bear it any longer.” The knife presses harder. “But I have no more time to exchange words. I ask one last time: Will you let us flee? Will you help lay a false trail?”
I look beyond him at the squirrels dancing on the branches of the trees. Tears spring unbidden to my eyes.
I take in what might be my final breath.
“No.”
The knife leaves my throat for a second. The clouds break behind the knight as he brings his knife back for a swing. Through my tears, the sun shines golden behind his head.
He reverses his dagger at the far end of the arc, and the pommel crashes into my temple. Darkness comes, and surprised gratitude is the last light I see that day. I must face the judgment of my fellows, but I am breathing even as I slip into unconsciousness.
The Tale of the Excruciations
Morning, early spring, and the chill had not yet left the air. The courser’s motion was smooth, even as it leaped rocks, streams, logs. Pelagir sat atop his mount, cradling the child. His face was dirty with the dust of the countryside.
Spring, Month of the Metal Dog, CY 581
The dormitory of the senior squires was quiet, moonlight from the high windows streaking across the midnight floor. The boys and girls slept in their bunks, some snoring softly. A spring breeze sighed in the open windows behind the moon, and on the back of the breeze came the hooded men. There were twenty of them, and they moved without sound as they clambered through the windows. They dropped to the floor, and in teams of two they spread across the bedchamber. They took their positions, and at once, they struck.