Knight and Champion

by Steven J Shelley

  Jader laughed, slapping Tanis on the back.

  “Sure, sure,” he said. “As good a theory as any. You know, I was born in Feyn Bridge, not that I like to admit it. Classic tumble weed. Ma was a drug addict, pa got himself killed by Hespades bandits. Ranger by the name of Knowles took me under his wing. Golden generation back then. Legendary men. Learned from the best. Maybe they didn’t recruit enough of us lost kids. Maybe they were distracted by a threat we should never have had to deal with on our own. But over the years, I buried more rangers than I trained. Saro, one of the best hunters I ever saw, always gave me a hard time. No matter how often I complimented him, set his skin, carried his kills over miles of hill country, he never let me in. One night I snuck a few sips o’ moonshine and asked him what his beef was. I remember the old man’s words like it was yesterday. He said ‘Son, you ain’t worth a speck o’ shit. I don’t care where you been or what you aimin’ to do. All I know is that I will die before you. When that happens, you will dig my grave, sweat in my name and honor me like a goddam ranger should. You understand me?’”

  Jader looked at Tanis as if he’d just relayed the most wonderful jape in all Elesta.

  “Well, I had no immediate answer to that, so I shrank away. I thought long and hard about what Saro had said. At first all I could see was rejection. Killed me. But then it clicked. Rangering is about succession. You grit your way through the years and earn the respect of the cubs at your feet. You teach through action. Every lesson is free. Survival is honored above all else. What did Saro owe me? Fuck all.”

  Tanis nodded, counting the seconds till Jader moved away. The man was beyond salvation, his reflective frame of mind the redoubt of a dead man walking.

  “Guess that story isn’t for everyone,” Jader said, frowning.

  “I wanted to live like you,” Tanis said, a mosaic of emotions rising to the surface. “I was ready to be taken by the forest.”

  Jader’s eyes flashed with something, perhaps the first glimpse of clarity in days.

  “We got a job to do,” he eventually muttered, dropping back down the line.

  Tanis shook his head, surprised at the frustration he felt. He had surrendered to the Dawn Rangers, mind and soul. In another life he might have made something of it.

  The living moment required his full attention. The purple-flowered mulberry trees had thinned out, the freshness of the forest all but faded away. Brackish still water was the predominant terrain. Fenril Swamp stretched to the horizon like a moist scab. The highest peaks of the Ishar Mountains were just visible through the heat haze far to the south.

  “Eyes sharp,” Jader muttered from somewhere behind Tanis. “Way seems clear, but that’s just what she wants us to think.”

  Tanis had never had the misfortune to visit Fenril Marsh, but he knew what a healthy, vibrant swamp should look like. The village children used to love exploring the modest swamp beyond the Old Wood. That one was alive with frogs, dragonflies and lizards. Fenril appeared to be a stagnant, windless dead zone. Dry, grasping shrubs and tussocks squirted feebly from the edges of dull, rancid water. What vegetation dared to stake a claim here was shackled and pinned, on the edge of oblivion. Most pools were shallow, tepid affairs and Tanis saw no risk in traipsing right through them. The deeper pools filled him with disquiet, especially the sliver-grey slicks that winked in the bright sunlight. Though he sensed no immediate threat, he recognized the magic that infected the place. It was an energy he knew, a presence that felt for all the world like an old friend. He could only imagine how it was affecting his comrades.

  Beckoning for Adalita to join him on point, he studied her pale, bloodless face. The other rangers seemed similarly afflicted. Weakened by the very ground they walked on, their bodies had retreated into their sturdy brown leathers. The further they penetrated the bogs and fens of Fenril, the fiercer was death’s grip.

  “Onward,” Jader said firmly, as if his voice could shield his beloved flock from harm. Tanis pressed hard, knowing that little could be gained through delay. The Tall Lady would either be vanquished or not - lingering in her domain was a pointless exercise. The sun rose steadily over his left shoulder as he focused on viable paths ahead. The terrain became black and sticky, almost like tar. It was an effort to pull each boot from the clinging muck. Tanis found himself drinking steadily from his canteen, running dry as the sun reached its highest point.

  “Hold, boy,” Jader called out. “We need to prepare ourselves.”

  Tanis felt a lurch of anxiety as the veteran began passing out bushels of saleesa. Jader, whose instincts were razor-sharp, seemed certain that their quarry was relatively close at hand. Tanis could feel it too, a looming shadow that stalked his every thought. He refused the offer of herbal protection - it was likely to do him more harm than good. Filled with growing dread, he busied himself with Adalita’s saleesa, ensuring her exposed skin was well plastered with sweet resin.

  “You smell fucking terrible,” he said with a smile.

  “Do your worst, Tanis,” she replied with a forced smile. “I dare you.”

  The rangers were ready to continue within minutes. Tanis took point once again, Jader hard on his shoulder.

  “Come out, come out, you filthy witch,” he leered, his face ghastly with saleesa resin. “Make me a happy man.”

  Tanis began sweating profusely, his legs like lead weights in the unpleasant muck. The blue sky had diminished ever so slightly.

  “Storm?” he asked aloud.

  “Fog,” Jader corrected, a knowing scowl plastered across his face. “Dire magic is a cowardly art. The witch will look to remove our vision before she attacks. Close in!”

  The rangers clustered into a tighter formation as the sky rapidly faded. Tanis hesitated, but Jader waved him on impatiently.

  “She wants us to stop,” he growled. “Ripe meat for the taking. Onward, rangers.”

  Tanis exchanged a worried look with Adalita before pressing on. He couldn’t quite pinpoint where the “fog” was coming from, but Fenril was losing what little color it had. Tendrils of mist clutched at his feet and grew larger as he watched. In less than a minute, the comforting horizon had been ripped away, seemingly never to return. Walls of cloying fog pressed in from all sides, hammering at vulnerable minds.

  Tanis grabbed Adalita’s hand and kept her close as he picked his way through yet another shallow pool.

  “Watch for landmarks,” Jader said suspiciously. “We could be rounding in circles.”

  Tanis fired an arrow into the muck, where it sank half-shaft. Leaving a trail of arrows behind them, the company edged their way into the troubling fog for at least two hours. Not a single word was uttered in that time. It was as if the rangers had entered a silent netherworld.

  “What am I looking for, Jader?” Tanis asked with a hint of frustration.

  “Veterans used to talk of a chapel,” came the reply. “Smallish. A-frame with a steeple. Word is the bitch has taken up in there.”

  Tanis sighed - finding the chapel in this fog would be impossible. They could die in the mud without the Tall Lady ever engaging them.

  “Can you do anything about this damn fog?” Jader asked, eyes shifty in the gloom.

  “She’s watching us,” Tanis answered. “I can feel her out there, but not with any accuracy. I could try and dispel the fog, but I don’t want to play my hand just yet.”

  Jader grunted. “Might be right there, lad.”

  The afternoon dragged on interminably. Tanis thought he was maintaining a linear path, but was gutted to come across one of his arrows. More than one ranger groaned audibly.

  “She’s killing our morale,” Adalita said. “One disappointment at a time.”

  Tanis had, at the very least, ensured that his arrows were all pointed in the same direction. The only logical course of action was to strike out on a lateral tangent.

  “This way,” he said, striking out over a small rise. At least the ground was relatively dry there. With any luck they’d find
a place they could shelter and regroup. Short of improving the situation, the fog darkened and billowed aggressively around the tight cluster.

  “And it begins,” Jader said in a hollow voice. Tanis scanned the faces of his comrades. They appeared deathly white, skin stretched precariously across bones. He squeezed Adalita’s hand and feared he might break it.

  “What’s happening to me, Tanis?”

  Tanis’s heart melted at the fear in her voice.

  “She doesn’t know what to make of me,” he said angrily. “As long as I’m standing, we live.”

  “Get down!” Jader bellowed.

  Tanis crouched low, shielding Adalita from the shadow that passed over them.

  “Siblisy!” someone gasped.

  Tanis scanned the darkening fog. A flailing body was suspended in there somewhere.

  “Where’s he gone?” asked Gyre, a younger ranger.

  “The fog lifted him,” Forsha answered. “He’s coming back!”

  Siblisy was approaching through the murk at high speed. The fog was rolling him through the heavy air. His movements were jerky and frenetic. Forsha rushed forward to help her friend but Tanis grabbed her arm.

  “Already dead,” he muttered.

  Tears in her eyes, the ranger sank to her knees. Tanis squeezed his eyes shut and focused on the dire magic swirling around him. It was surreal to be immersed in something so familiar and yet so uncontrollable. All he could do was “part” the fog a little, enough to release Siblisy. He was the first to reach the body and waved the others away. Siblisy’s face was unrecognizable, a heaving mass of intricate veins and glistening pink flesh. The Tall Lady’s dire magic had turned it inside out. Ignoring Tanis’s warning, Forsha rushed to her comrade’s side and began wailing in despair. She fell forward from a blow to the back of her head. Jader stood over her with a furious leer.

  “You want out, then lay down and fuckin’ die,” he spat.

  Tanis was about to remonstrate when a second commotion drew his eye. Pierson and Lavach had both been taken by the fog, which was now swirling with hypnotic speed.

  “We need to do something!” someone screamed.

  “Show yourself!” Jader shouted, spraying the grey mud with his spittle.

  “Keep moving,” Adalita urged, staying close to Tanis. All sense of direction abandoned, the company moved into the unknown.

  “I can’t repel this,” Tanis said. “I can only enhance it.”

  “So use it when the enemy is visible,” Adalita said crisply. “I don’t think this phase will last.”

  Tanis couldn’t echo her optimism. The company had moved into a pocket of incredibly cold air. The death fog seemed to lift for a moment, but then a pair of bodies came spinning toward them.

  “Brace yourselves!” Tanis roared, throwing Adalita to the ground.

  Lavach’s mangled, stripped corpse soared overhead, her wizened bones falling free and arranging themselves into lethal projectiles. Tanis watched on helplessly as several of his comrades were struck down by the bones of the dead. Gyre fell heavily as a femur skewered her head. Jader loosed arrows like a madman, unable to find a target before a bone struck him on the knee joint. He screamed in agony but continued on, dragging his useless leg behind him.

  “Fall in!” Tanis called, scanning the rising fog for survivors.

  Four rangers limped over to his position. Along with Adalita, Jader and himself, that made for seven able-bodied rangers to find and kill a target they hadn’t even seen yet. The fog was thinning rapidly, signaling an end to the grey horror they’d endured. The rangers found themselves on open, swampy terrain once again. It was late afternoon and the departing sun cast an orange glow over the dead swamp. The rancid mud stretched as far as the eye could see, except for …

  “There,” Adalita said, thrusting a finger to the west. A modest church spire was silhouetted against the sun.

  “We push,” Jader said furiously. “We push until we’re all fucking dead.”

  The veteran charged forward, clearly hampered by his injury. Tanis glanced at his fallen comrades, already half-buried in the mud.

  “No time for looking back,” Adalita said.

  Tanis nodded grimly and joined Dana, Orst, Willard and Hopper on their run to the distant chapel. Just as he’d instructed, Adalita stayed well behind. Riven with disappointment over his lack of influence thus far, Tanis fell in alongside Jader. The veteran’s eyes were darting left and right.

  “If you got anything to offer, boy, now’s the time.”

  Tanis wasn’t sure if Jader was burning with rage or deploying the bone-dry wit he was occasionally known for.

  “As soon as I can see her, Jader.”

  Past the point of caring, the veteran chuckled. The response rankled Tanis, probably because he felt so powerless. Was he even able to harness his latent power into something useful? Something that could save the people he loved? So far, dire magic seemed singularly ineffective for such heroics.

  The sickly splash of swamp water was the only sound as the survivors pushed through their pain and made for the humble bluestone chapel. It was a curious location for a place of worship, but then Fenril had, once upon a time, been farmed by intrepid pioneers. No surprise that the swamp had proved difficult to drain. It was a graveyard of hopes and dreams long before the Tall Lady slithered in to capitalize on the isolation.

  Jader wisely reined in his crazed pace as the company neared the building. The wooden doors were long-rotted but the interior was unnaturally dark.

  “Buzzards,” Jader mused, peering beyond the chapel. Tanis followed his gaze - clouds of insects swirled no more than a yard off the mud. A familiar dread pooled in the pit of his stomach as he watched the creatures coalesce into larger entities.

  “More,” he groaned.

  “What’re those things, boy?” Orst demanded, clutching his double-bladed axe tightly. The portly veteran was one of the few rangers who favored melee weapons. “Will they taste steel or are they another cheap trick?”

  Tanis had no answer, but his heart went out to his comrades. This was a battle they couldn’t win. Jader wore a look of horrifying resignation as he nocked one of his few remaining arrows.

  “No one to lay crosses for us,” he purred. The concept seemed to appeal to him. “This is where it ends.”

  The “insects” weren’t insects at all. They were maggots lifted from various carcasses lying in the mud. The filthy grey creatures had been shaped into five larger beasts. A cross between wolves and hounds, the shaggy beasts came bounding toward the doomed rangers. With unnerving accuracy, Jader let rip with head shot after head shot. Crimson blood was spilled, but still the hounds came on. Their maggoty maws dripped with sickly yellow pus and their noiseless gait was actively disturbing.

  “Tanis …”

  Adalita was busy unleashing her own well-placed arrows. The foremost dire hound struck Orst with brutal force, almost knocking the big man over. The ranger swung his axe in a downward arc no human, elf or dwarf had a right to survive, but the hound suffered no visible effect beyond a slight buffeting. The creature launched itself at Orst’s throat and pinned him to the ground. The big man’s eyes were lifeless before his body had settled. The hound’s writhing jaw dripped with chunks of withered flesh.

  “To me!” Jader screamed, drawing his broadsword and swinging it wildly. Tanis drew his knife and lunged at the hound going for Dana. The blade slipped through the maggoty surface and seemed to slow once inside. Tanis felt a strange tingling and found himself prone on the ground. The hound knocked Dana over and clamped its jaws around her left hip. The leg came free with a wet pop. The remaining rangers formed a tight circle but it was no use. The hounds were able to attack with impunity, pinning Hopper and Willard whilst the other defenders were engaged.

  “Take the fight to the church,” Jader urged.

  Tanis nodded - it was their only option. He grabbed Adalita’s hand and the trio sprinted to the chapel’s eastern wall. The hounds snapped at
their heels but Tanis positioned himself between the creatures and his companions. He certainly wasn’t immune to being attacked, but the hounds seemed wary of him, as if they sensed a powerful entity. Instead, they swarmed Adalita through sheer weight of numbers. She was dragged to the ground and pulled in several directions at once. Tanis’s volcanic anger allowed him to focus, and his focus provided him with possibility. The magic infecting the chapel like a curse was available to him, he could sense it. The building blocks were there; he just needed to create something. He closed his eyes and tried to “lean” in to the ambient force working against the rangers. Even though it was antagonistic, the energy seemed to acknowledge him. Most of all, Tanis could feel the hot spots that represented the dire hounds. They were nodes of intense taint that couldn’t be reversed by any power he possessed. But they could be accelerated.

  Tanis didn’t have the benefit of a mentor, but he was beginning to grasp something of the nature of dire magic. It was about the enhancement of existing natural processes. Transmutation, decay, decomposition, death. Marshaling his rudimentary understanding, Tanis “reached out” to the dire hounds and sank his hands into the stinking clay of their temporary lifeforce. He could “see” his hands passing through the writhing, grotesque flesh and gripping the shadowy essence that lay within. Possessed by white anger, he squeezed as hard he could, encouraging the beasts to drink deeply from their own powers of abject decay. He pictured the congealed, conjoined maggots hardening into calcified plates, brittle to the touch. He felt his mind submerge into the seductive sea surrounding the chapel, a horrifyingly dark ocean that made him feel like the ugliest, and yet most potent, man alive.

  The dire hounds were living, breathing, heightened animals, careening head-first into the welcoming arms of death. Tanis, too, was a casual passenger, held in thrall by his fevered mind and assaulted by his most painful memories. He pictured his parents’ bodies, mangled and decaying, twitching in the dirt behind the Ebbe Tavern. He knew they couldn’t be real but the image sliced through his defenses as neatly as any blade. His little brother, Ril, was dead in his arms, fading, fading, into a skeleton without the remotest hint of humanity. On the verge of an abyss he knew he could not return from, Tanis forced his eyes open. The dire hounds were circling fifteen yards away, their movements spasmodic. Their leathery, off-white shells seemed to harden and grow brittle.