by Guy Haley
I nodded, unable to speak. If I’d opened up my mouth, only tears would have come.
“These parts are not lightly traveled,” said Coppergather to Quinn. “The dragon is a constant threat to us, and strange things dwell in the northern woods. We are few in number, and have barely enough land to feed ourselves. Some years ago, the dragon became more aggressive, taking our livestock from the edges of our fields, and our people from the woods. We do not look kindly upon strangers. Nevertheless, Matthew has agreed to take the boy in.”
“Thank—” began Quinn. But Coppergather held up his hands.
“Delay your thanks, knight. Matthew’s adoption of his kin is conditional.”
“What are the conditions?” said Quinn.
“They are not for me to decide. You have roused the dragon. When this happens, there is always a price.” Coppergather was deeply troubled. “We must see what Brother Amos has to say about it.”
Two rows of armored men marched us across the courtyard of the fort. This was a true castle, entirely military in nature, another new sight for me. It was not like it is now, with many houses and workshops outside the walls and gardens in the ward. Then all of Winfort’s industry was hidden inside, and nervous men kept constant watch from the battlement. The central square was much bigger back then. Where the hall and church are now were open spaces, marked out for sparring. Otherwise, you might recognize it. The granary is the same, the houses, weaver’s row. But what was really different in my memory was the atmosphere. There was a sadness on the place, a resignation. There were few old people there, and hardly any children.
The keep was like it is now, tall and imposing, the great doors set high up the steps behind a drawbridge. The stone ditch was full of spikes then, not water. No fish swam there.
For the first time I entered the Winfort keep.
The main hall was a cool space all of stone. There was a dampness to it—there is, still. Huge fireplaces on two walls burned up six-foot logs, but they did little to drive off the chill. In that man-made cave, winter had come early.
Back then there was a wooden dais at the far side of the room; that’s gone now. Upon that Lord Corn had his throne. More armed men flanked him, six to a side. Each was decked in mail reaching down to their knees, coats of metal lamellae over the tops, and padded leather underneath. They had shoulder guards and thick steel helmets with white horsehair plumes on their heads. They gripped the hilts of their swords with their right hands, ready to draw. They looked at Quinn through narrowed eyes. Until then, I had no idea that knights were not always welcome. Quinn was a hero to me.
Lord Corn was sickly when I came here, and soon to die. He had been a great warrior, until weapons born from the old knowledge took his breath in the war. His skin was gray, his lips pale. I’ve been told he was powerfully muscled in his youth, but had become emaciated. He was swathed in wolf and smilodon furs, and yet still he seemed cold.
“A knight champion?” said Lord Corn. “I have not seen your kind in these parts since the war.” He smiled. There was nothing but derision and pain in his expression. His teeth were too long in pale, shrunken gums. “And come up from the southwest. There is a dragon in these parts, surely you are aware?” Every word dripped with bitterness. “Or do you simply not care for yourself, or for the others that your passing through the dragon’s lands jeopardizes?” Corn’s anger brought on a hacking cough. A servant hurried to his side bearing a silver spittoon held in a cloth. Corn leant over the side of his throne and hawked and spat for a good half minute; stringy yellow mucous from deep in the lung, streaked with dark blood clots.
He groaned and leaned back into his throne. Corn’s man fussed and dabbed at his lips. The lord waved him away angrily. The servant’s cloth came away red.
“Gas,” said Quinn.
Corn nodded. “I got a lungful of it in the war, not long before Columbus fell. I’ve been dying ever since. Twenty years of pain.”
“You’re still alive.”
Corn’s yellow eyes swiveled down. “I don’t call this living. Many gifts I’ve been given by the angels. Land no one can farm. A dragon set on my doorstep to punish a dead emperor. A dragon that grows more wicked with every passing summer. And this weakness. So heavily I am blessed. Amos!” Corn attempted a shout. It came out wheezy, feeble.
Brother Amos wore the rough homespun of the mendicant order, the same robes I wear now. He was old, sinewy and dry as the corpse of a rat found mummified in a wainscot. He held his head forward of his body, like he was always trying to catch something someone was saying just out of earshot. He was blind, see, in both eyes. He told me, months later, that he had been all his life.
His blank white eyes stared at us both. When they fell on me, they bored through flesh and bone to look in on my soul, and I shriveled inside surely as a sinner shrivels in the fires of hell.
“A boy and a knight,” he said. “And a dragon at our gates. What conundrums the lord sets us for our troubles.”
The blind eyes fixed themselves on Quinn. He never failed to find the man he wished to address. Some say he was possessed of angel-given second sight, and he was feared for it.
“Did you fight in the war?” asked Amos. His voice was surprisingly strong from one so old and frail.
“I’ve fought in a lot of wars.”
“Do not test me, knight, I ask in amity. Did you fight in the war of the emperor and the angels?”
“I did.”
“You fought on the side of Pittsburgh.”
“Against the angels of Columbus.”
“We do our best to stay on good terms with those west of the river,” said Corn. “Ohio has still not healed its hurts. Your arrival here is unwelcome.”
“Don’t see how my coming makes any odds to your situation.”
“The angels see clearly and far,” snapped Corn. “Their eyes are forever on their agents.”
Quinn was not fazed. “Atlantis is a free city, unaffiliated with the league. The angels there do as they see fit, and I did what the angels asked. That business is all passed.”
“You serve them no longer?” asked Amos.
“Pittsburgh’s problem with Columbus is not my quarrel anymore.”
“You speak as if the destruction of Columbus was not the end of it,” said Amos.
“Affairs like that never end. They weren’t the end of it for the Emperor of Virginia. And you, living here under dragon-threat on the edge of the Wildlands? I reckon you know that too.”
Lord Corn sneered. “These lands were gifted me for my part in the war. I am warden of the marches, beholden to neither kingdom. Our hold on the land is tenuous. We are dependent on the goodwill of Virginia and Ohio both. I will not risk my holdings here by antagonizing those west of the river. You must leave.”
“Your name, sir?” asked Amos.
“I am Quinn.”
Brother Amos cocked his head on one side. He remained so for a moment, then spoke rapidly. The effect was somewhat birdlike. “Jacob Quinn, sanctioned by the Angels of Atlantis as their warrior and their agent. Champion of the South, onetime general of the emperor. Hero of the Battle of Four Rivers.”
Corn smiled. His pale lips gleamed with residual sputum. “Brother Amos has memorized the names and deeds of all the angels’ knights recorded in the chronicle.”
“You’re a long way from home, sea knight,” said Amos.
“I’ve a long way yet to go.”
“You are the last knight of your city?”
“Far as I know. Not many knights left from anywhere these days.”
Amos nodded. “A pity.”
“We’re not in fashion anymore,” said Quinn. “Angels made us, used us, found us wanting. I’m a leftover, just trying to get by.”
“You are not in fashion any longer,” agreed Corn harshly. “Dragons and revenants and slithering things are the preferred tools of heaven upon the Earth in these times. The emperor has a lot to answer for. We are all punished for one man’s ambition. I w
as rewarded for my service against him. See the bounty of the angels!” his dry voice whispered round the chilly hall.
Quinn shrugged. He unhitched his falchion’s quillions from his longsword. The lord’s men tensed as his hand touched the hilts.
“Treachery is poorly rewarded, even by those it serves,” said Quinn.
Lord Corn’s face set in a mask, all hard angles of hate. He leaned forward on his throne, grunting with the effort. He raised a shaking hand and pointed at Quinn. “And we are now to be punished for another’s thoughtlessness.” Corn’s jaundiced eyes came to rest on me. They were as cold and inimical as the eyes of the unliving.
Men stepped into the hall behind us. They carried crossbows, and they were all pointed at us.
“Remove the knight’s weapons.”
Quinn looked behind him questioningly. Castellan Coppergather shook his head slightly.
The lord’s guard came down from the steps, circling Quinn warily. Quinn took the measure of each, then raised his hands.
“I don’t want any trouble with you here.”
“By rights, I should slaughter you like a dog, Sir Quinn,” spat Corn. “You and yours were on the side of the emperor, and his name is reviled here.”
“I served the emperor at the behest of the angels. They are my masters.”
Corn coughed once, hard. “And that is why I am forced to set you free.” A jerk of Corn’s chin, and Quinn’s weapons belts were unbuckled.
“Your weapons will be returned at the gates. You will ride from here immediately.”
“It ain’t going to happen that way,” said Quinn. He looked upward. “As God is my witness, I demand trial by combat, as is my right.”
“Ha! Your conditions?”
“Should I win, this boy is to go free with no taint upon his character, that he be allowed to freely live within this community, the goods and monies he carries to remain with him, and that I be released with all my trappings and possessions, and allowed to proceed upon my journey unmolested. Those are my conditions.”
Lord Corn snorted. “Petty concerns! There is a dragon at the gate. You are free to go already. I deny your request.”
“You cannot. Deny a trial and you defy the angels. My authority as their agent stands.”
“When other matters are more pressing, I can do as I will. Let the angels judge me harshly if I am wrong. Remove him!”
Quinn shrugged off the men when they reached for his shoulders. “What about the boy?”
“The dragon has been roused. Only blood offering will send it back to sleep,” said Amos. “You woke it.” He was apologetic.
“You’re going to give the boy to the dragon?”
Men closed in on me, blocking my way out.
“Do you propose that I sacrifice one of my own to save this stranger? Is that it, one of my people should offer themselves up in his place? You think so, very well!” Lord Corn looked around the room. “Does anyone of you volunteer to take the place of this boy?”
Cousin Matthew stepped forward, but he was grabbed and pulled back into position. He looked at me in dismay.
“So be it,” said brother Amos sorrowfully. “Sound the horns. Let the beast know we have an offering, and we shall pray that it is enough to spare us from its wrath. Take the boy to the stone.”
“Quinn!” I cried.
Quinn tensed.
“Make a move to aid him and I will have you shot down,” Corn warned.
Quinn relaxed. This time, he accepted the hands of Corn’s warriors on his shoulders.
Corn smiled. “Sensible. Go. Do not return.”
“Quinn!” I kicked and struggled as the men dragged me away, but I couldn’t get free of them.
“I’m sorry, son,” said Quinn. “I’m sorry.”
They kept me prisoner overnight while horns blew over and over again, inviting the dragon to dinner. The sound of people coming into the castle went on late into the night as the valley was emptied. A pair of women attended me. They were not unkind, they fed me and helped me wash, but did not speak much. I heard my cousin arguing with the guards after dark, but he was sent away and I did not see him again until it was all over.
Morning came. I had not slept. You might think I cried, but I didn’t. I spent the night staring at the roughness of my cell wall.
They took me out into a chilly morning awash with pale sunlight.
Quinn had gone. There was no sign of him or his horses as the gates opened and I was taken out into the fields and to that terrible stone. The betrayal hit me more than the notion that I was about to die.
My guards held my unresisting hands in place and screwed the manacles shut. The metal was cold with the night, and hurt my flesh. They fit just fine. They favored women and children for their sacrifices in those times, or I could’ve just slipped my hand right out. That made me hate them for a long while afterwards. One of the guards wouldn’t look at me. The other gave me a grim look. Not hateful or anything of that kind, but sympathetic.
“Keep your eyes closed, boy,” he said. “Don’t look at it. It’ll be over quickly.”
They withdrew fast, the castle gates creaking shut behind them. People lined the battlement, looking down on me, all solemn. For hours there was no sign of the dragon. The sun grew hot, the stone stayed cool at my back. Those hours are burned so deep into my memory they’ve become a part of me in a way most memories don’t. But they’re outside of me at the same time, a little eternity of suffering separate and complete in its right. The flags hung limp on the castle towers. There was a hush over the vale, not a human word was spoken, no bird sang in the forest crowding the fields.
Finally a roar came forth from the west, and the priest came up onto the tallest tower in answer. Amos mounted a platform there. It rose over the crenellations on the wall, with a lectern at the front. Damn thing was a pulpit, and he was going to preach. His apologetic nature had bled away in the dark. That morning he was all righteousness. Strangely, I never hated him for that. He was doing the Lord God’s work, and the bidding of his prince. He and I became friends, eventually.
“These strangers have come into our rightful lands!” he said. “These territories granted to our Lord Corn by God’s own angels. They have roused the guardian of the river against us, and his wrath is hot and dire. We call upon you, dragon of the angels, take this interloper so that we might live with you in peace. Let the Lord’s will be done!”
The priest stepped down from his platform, retreating with the rest to the safety of stone. The inhabitants of the Winfort peeked out at me between the teeth of the walls.
They didn’t have long to wait.
A terrifying smashing sound came through the brush behind me. The worst of it was that I couldn’t see behind me on account of that tall stone. I twisted in the chains, the manacles biting the skin round my wrists, but the stone at my back kept me from seeing. Branches broke. The dragon came out of the woods. I heard its heavy tread in the field, the grind of rocks pressed into one another by great weight, and a reptilian slithering.
I looked up at the cloudless sky and prayed harder than I’ve ever prayed in my life, before or since.
The dragon’s footfalls came closer, a slow prowl. If you could hear a cat walk, I imagine it would sound like that. A vibrating, throaty breathing came with it, deep and gusty as a forge bellows. A sense of malice gripped me, and I pissed myself with the fear of it. The prayer died on my lips, and I started to moan. You think I’m a coward, and that you would do better? I know that ain’t so.
The dragon spoke, a wash of heat rolling from it with every word.
“I hear thy call, priest,” rumbled the dragon. “Thou hast angered me. My territory has been subject to vile trespass. This insult I shall not brook.”
“We are contrite, servant of the servants of the Lord. Do you accept our offering?”
The dragon breathed in.
A movement at the corner of my eye. A silver tentacle made of metal segments and tipped with a glo
wing, red glass eye slid around the rock. The eye glowed dimly, flaring when it fixed upon me. It looked at my face, dipped down to survey the rest of my body. The tentacle reared up, as some snakes are wont to do before a strike, then it slipped away behind the rock.
“A petty morsel, and not of your own. This stranger has little value to you, and therefore none to me. Where are your daughters, where are your maidens?”
“Do you accept our offering and our contrition?” shouted out Brother Amos.
The dragon roared, my ears rang with it, and I screamed. I was crying now, sobbing great wet tears. “I’m sorry God, I’m sorry Jesus,” over and over in my mind. I tried to say it, but nothing but moaning would come.
“This thy morsel I accept, priest, but I bring you people of the castle warning—trouble ye my lands again, and a greater tithe in blood and flesh shall I demand! Offer one from outside thy flock again and thy priestly skin I will devour!”
None said ought to the creature, but watched in abject terror from the castle. Such was the sense of evil I had of this thing behind me that I reckoned the castle walls to be no defense against it at all. This was the wrath of the Lord clothed in flesh. I could feel that without seeing it.
It paced around rock, that rumbling breath growing loud. I screwed my eyes tight shut. I didn’t want to see it. The heat coming off the thing hit me hard, furnace heat, not quite enough to burn but not far off.
“Look upon me, child,” it said.
I turned my head to the side.
“Look upon my majesty and fear me!”
There must’ve been some spark of defiance in me under all that terror, because I refused.
It roared again. I cried out at the pain in my ears. It backed up, because the heat got less. There was a sound like the wind, a sucking in of air, and a tremendous whining noise.
I was going to die, burned up by a dragon’s flame.
Another sound came to me, penetrating the ringing in my ears. The galloping of hooves, the skid of a horse coming to a rapid halt.
“Hold! Hold!” came a voice.