Death Knight

by Vaughn Heppner

  His claws snicked out of their sheaths as he began to scale the old brick wall.

  ***

  Hugo shivered. Ever since the High Priest’s assassination attempt, he had taken charge of Swan’s safety. He loved her. She gave him what he had craved for so long: meaning. If only Gavin could see that. He well knew the bitter knight, the disillusioned warrior. Gavin was a one-of-a-kind swordsman and Swan needed him. The people of Erin needed him. With his sly tricks, his sideways method of seeing things, Gavin could surely find a way to defeat the spirit of Zon Mezzamalech and his horde of darkspawn. If only Gavin would trust the Seer.

  Hugo sighed, wiping a greasy rag across his crossbow. He stiffened then. An odd feeling worked down his bowed back. It was hard to straighten his old spine anymore. The twinge said that something didn’t quite fit. Something—Swan!

  Hugo cranked the crossbow, slotted one of his ever-ready bolts into the groove and hurried to her door, hammering at it.

  “…yes?” she asked in a tired voice.

  Hugo hesitated. He knew her schedule. Barons, knights, squires, priests, divines, sisters of Hosar, old peasants, frightened blacksmiths, mothers terrified for their children, Swan saw them all, gave each a kind word. When did the Seer find time to rest? She needed moments alone. Hugo turned to go.

  The twinge worked his back again. He set his jaw. “Swan,” he said, with his mouth by the door. “Can I come in?” The other guards were at their posts downstairs and down the hall, while outside the hotel prowled yet more men led by Sir Josserand and his tough mercenaries. He was being foolish. He knew that.

  “Is this important?”

  Hugo frowned. What would he tell her? He… Trust your guts, you old fool. That’s what Gavin does. Without permission, Hugo opened the door and barged in. She stood by the window, wearing only a slip. Ye gods, but she had a fine figure. He shook his head, grimacing at his lechery.

  “Git away from that window,” he growled.

  She smiled. “Poor Hugo, you see shadows everywhere.”

  “Please, milady, move now.” He winced as the twinge bit hard. He raised his crossbow. He loved it. Even though he was old, without the speed or strength of youth, if he aimed this heavy thing at something and squeezed the trigger…well, not even Gavin could pack as much punch as this thing.

  “I’m safe up here,” she said.

  “Please, milady, move to a safer—”

  Glass shards sprayed at Swan as the window crashed inward. She screamed. Something dark hurdled toward her. For that split-second Hugo froze, with his good eye wide. Then he tracked and squeezed. He didn’t yank the trigger like a frightened fool. His training was too deep for that. He squeezed like the professional crossbowman he was. The heavy weapon shivered. The bolt flung itself with terrific velocity. But the blur, the dark thing, moved faster than humanly possible. It twisted, but not quite fast enough. The bolt ripped through furry flesh. The squat missile should have gone through the thing’s chest. Hugo had aimed perfectly. Instead, it tore through a shoulder, spraying gristle and bone and spinning the creature.

  An awful howl issued from a demonically fanged mouth. The beast staggered back, clawing at its shoulder.

  “Run!” Hugo shouted as he threw himself at the beast.

  Swan turned and ran.

  The thing, the beast, its eyes blazed a hellish red. It roared like a jungle cat and leaped after her. Hugo swung the crossbow. The beast’s good arm blurred. Leather armor parted like silk as talons opened Hugo’s chest and stomach. The old squire sank with a groan as blackness filled his vision.

  ***

  At the beastly howl, Gavin’s head snapped up.

  “Gavin?” asked the woman beside him.

  A candle burned in the room. Armor and weapons lay scattered about. He had drunk just enough earlier to yearn for Vivian. The woman resting beside him on his couch had long dark hair like hers. So he had found a few swift minutes of…well, maybe not peace, but at least release from his constant guilt of failure.

  A long, thin scream made the hairs on the back of his neck rise. A man roared in pain.

  Gavin leapt up. Old scars crisscrossed his rugged frame. Big, jagged, chewed-up tissue snaked where swords had sliced, while puckered, twisty scars sat where spear-tips or arrows had once lodged. His big bones were connected by ropy tendons and lean, flat muscles that had vibrant power.

  “Don’t go,” pleaded the woman on the couch.

  Gavin picked up the silver sword and in a bound opened the door. Crashes and screams came from down the hall. He ran across the wooden floor. Turning the corner, he spied a scene from the Netherworld. Swan limped badly through the common room as she fled from a monstrous beast. As if by magic, men in armor rose up to bar the darkspawn’s path.

  The beast leaped over their heads. The men turned and swung. No blades touched the beast, however. It was already out of range. Swan dove under a table and kicked down a chair. She madly crawled for safety. The beast, in a blur, followed her, kicking chairs out of the way and slithering faster than a lizard. Mail-clad warriors blundered into each other as they raced after the hell-beast. Their swords hacked out pieces of table-wood. With a whistle of rage, the beast turned at bay. Its arm blurred. Warriors screamed, blood splashing from underneath their helmets. As Gavin raced down the stairs, he saw the men-at-arms clawing at their now eyeless faces.

  Nothing should be able to move that fast.

  “Swan!” he shouted.

  The beast, upon a table as it crouched on all fours, whipped its ghastly head about. For an instant, Gavin stared into those burning eyes. Recognition came. His boy!

  The beast roared.

  Gavin, jumping down the stairs, landing in the main room, saw the crossbow bolt in the shoulder but no sign of his old squire. “Did you slay Hugo?”

  The beast roared again, savagely, as men hung back from it.

  Tears welled in Gavin’s eyes. “Didn’t you know that he loved you more than anyone?”

  Once more, the beast roared, and it seemed as if anguish lay behind the awful sound.

  Crossbows twanged. The beast rolled too fast for the eye to follow. Bolts smashed into the walls. One tore out a man’s throat. Swan, her face tight, her eyes hard, rose from hiding and sprinted toward Gavin. The few remaining guardsmen raced to block the beast from intercepting her. It snarled, spitting hate, and bounded at the doomed Seer.

  Gavin wore no armor, shield or even shirt. One swipe from the beast and his entrails would spill across the sawdust-littered floor. He laughed then. Everything he touched died, or it was ground up and spit out as darkspawn. Swan’s face, never beautiful like Vivian’s, was screwed up in grim determination. There wasn’t panicked fear on that face. The scar on her cheek flamed a bright red. Swift calculation and belief in victory, despite the beast at her back, drove her relentlessly. That was insanity.

  Gavin bellowed with calculated rage. He snatched up a stool, hoping he could time this exactly—it was his only chance. He hurled the stool at Swan. Her eyes went wide, but with superb reflexes, as Gavin had hoped she would, she dove for the floor. By the thickness of a fingernail, the stool missed her skull. The beast, hot on her trail, saw the stool only as she ducked. Even so, the beast twisted with uncanny reflexes. The stool thus passed the beast and crashed into a guardsman running after it. The stool knocked the guardsman against others so they fell with a crash of chainmail and shields. Gavin, timing everything, hoping he had guessed right, skipped over Swan and thrust the silver sword. He thrust where he judged the beast would be after it had dodged the stool.

  Too late, the beast saw the cunning tactic. Yet still it twisted in its catlike way. So instead of skewering it through the chest as Gavin had planned, he only cut its side. The fiery tracings in the sword, however, blazed into life. A blue spark jumped from the sword and into the beast. The spark, like a butcher’s clever, ate a hole into its side. The beast screamed, and as if receiving a blow from a sledgehammer, it staggered backward. Yet even fro
m this, it recovered inhumanly fast. With its side pouring blood and gore, it cried out as if a tiger were given speech.

  It snarled, “Gavin!”

  Half demented with grief, Sir Gavin gripped his sword with two hands and hewed. The beast’s head thumped onto the floor. The body gave a single spasm and then flopped alongside its head.

  For a moment no one moved, although blind men sobbed.

  A soft hand touched Gavin’s shoulder. He spun round. Swan, greased with sweat, whispered, “Thank you.”

  Gavin panted and his mouth hung open.

  “Gavin?”

  A wild sound issued from his mouth. His sword clattered to the floor. “Thank you?” he shouted. “You spout thank you?”

  She stepped away from him.

  “I just killed my son!”

  Her gaze flickered to the headless darkspawn. Understanding swept over her. “The boy,” she whispered.

  “Don’t you see?” Gavin cried. “He killed Hugo, who loved him more than anyone. Now I killed him.”

  “Hugo!” she shouted. She turned and raced up the stairs.

  On unsteady legs, Gavin followed. He found them in Swan’s room, the cold wind blowing through the broken window. She knelt by Hugo’s corpse.

  Gavin clenched his teeth. Rage knifed through him. It slew his guilt. He roared, “Here’s your precious crusading! Here! Death, lady! Death and more death! My friend is dead because none of you would listen to me when I said to flee! We should all flee. That’s all that’s left. Why won’t you listen to me?”

  Swan lifted red-rimmed eyes.

  “The crusading is madness,” he said, as Josserand entered the room. “It’s a path unto slaughter and more slaughter. Why doesn’t your precious Hosar help us?”

  “You rage at the wrong person,” she said.

  “Do I?”

  “You should hate the darkspawn, the spirit of Zon Mezzamalech and Old Father Night.”

  “Don’t preach at me, woman. Not now.”

  “No,” she whispered. “No preaching. Only action will do now.” Swan rose, went to the bed and dragged out the banner, unfurling it. Gently, she laid the silk over Hugo’s torn body. A few others stood near Josserand in the doorway. They looked as confused as Gavin. Swan placed her hands on the banner and over Hugo’s chest. She closed her eyes. “O Hosar, give us back our Standard Bearer. Give back Sir Gavin his heart.”

  A sob tore out of Gavin.

  The wind died.

  “Listen,” whispered Josserand.

  Gavin heard it, a faint sound. It was musical, a voice sweet and innocent. The banner, with its flame symbol, began to glow with an unearthly color. The singing increased so that Gavin clamped his hands over his ears and squeezed shut his eyes. The room grew unbearably bright. He dropped to his knees as he trembled. He felt dirty and unclean. Whatever was happening terrified him worse than the darkspawn, worse than Muscovy.

  “No,” he whispered. “No. Go away.”

  Then both singing and blazing light stopped.

  Gavin opened his eyes and took his hands from his ears. His mouth fell open. A woman behind him gasped. Josserand sputtered.

  Hugo sat and blinked as if awakening from a deep sleep. The grizzled old veteran smiled as a weeping Swan hugged him. Between them, draped over his arm and her shoulder hung the Banner of Tulun.

  It was a miracle.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  The High Priest of the Banfrey Temple, the King’s chief councilor, toiled like any clerk in his ornate study. The interior room was silent but for the scratching of his quill. A small man, he sat perched on a stool and was bent over a raised and angled writing board. A thick piece of parchment was pinned to the board, and the ink in his pot glittered most golden. It was his most expensive ink, saved for his most important documents. He wrote with exquisite letters, tall and cursive, beautiful, as near to a work of art as he had ever produced.

  Before he had risen through the temple hierarchy to become High Priest, he had begun as a scribe, a clerk in a cloister, taking old books and copying new editions. He felt peace as he dipped the quill into the golden ink and painted another sentence onto the parchment. He wondered if life mightn’t have been simpler and more pleasant if he had remained a scribe, reading and copying the great works of the masters of the past.

  He lay down the quill and slid off the stool, carefully wiping his ink-stained fingers on a cloth. Only then did he rub his eyes.

  The room was lit by an open window, where outside larks trilled in a garden. Many books lined one wall. The greatest paintings in South Erin except for those in the King’s gallery decorated the other walls. He massaged his eyes once more as he began to pace across the thick Magyar carpet, clasping his fine-boned hands behind his back. A small man, he wore a white gown and comfortable slippers. He paced back and forth before a mighty desk. On the desk was a silver candleholder from Novgorod the Great. Hanging from the candle in the holder was the golden medallion of the Moon Lady. He had pulled one of his tomes from his library and found script similar as to that on the double weight gold coin given him by Sir Gavin. That deadly knight and that strange Swan had been correct. The coin held the Moon Lady on one side and Hyperborean hieroglyphics on the other. The only other item on the otherwise empty desk was an open parchment.

  The High Priest picked it up, scanning the lettering for perhaps the tenth time.

  It was the Tara Charta, dictated by Swan the so-called Chief Crusader of Erin, Truth-Teller and Seer of Hosar. It called the people of Erin to defensive arms against the darkspawn of Old Father Night. It rang with references to the “spirit of Zon Mezzamalech” and “the silver sword” and “in the defense of all humanity.” He had studied it carefully. It deeply troubled him. What he knew of the Moon Lady and the fearsome hints of legendary Hyperborea… Might the darkspawn truly be the terror that she spoke about?

  The High Priest’s upper lip curled. He tossed the Tara Charta back onto his desk and marched to his stool, climbing up it, taking his quill and dipping it into the golden ink. With sure, swift flourishes, he finished the missive. He read it over to himself and picked up a handful of sand, sprinkling it over the lettering. He heated red wax, poured it to the bottom of the parchment and pressed the King’s stamp upon it. He pinned two blue ribbons against it. When all had dried and hardened, he used his fingernails to work out the tacks, rolled up the freed parchment, tied it with a red ribbon, sealed it with wax, using the King’s stamp once more, and then worked it into a royal message tube.

  He then sat at his desk, slumping in exhaustion as he closed his eyes.

  Later, a tap at the door stirred him.

  “Come,” he said.

  His chamberlain brought in a young knight, the leader of the Albion gentlemen adventurers. The talk was brief, the young knight bordering on rudeness and then soon sent on his way. The fool had actually wished to ride north and join the crusaders.

  After that came more men, many of them messengers, two of them assassins given new assignments and one a bent old woman said to possess the second sight. The High Priest locked the doors and spoke with her in low whispers. From her many layers of clothing she produced strange cards, shuffling and fanning them and then bidding him to pick three. With a trembling hand, he did so. He had once ordered witches like her to be burned at the stake, trying to rid the kingdom of them. Yet the need was great, and his fear and uncertainty more than usual.

  The witch nodded as she studied the tarots, smiling, revealing that she was missing many teeth. “A fight, Your Excellency, but then you will be victorious.”

  “What of Swan?”

  “She will fall.”

  He grinned, lurching from his chair, staring out of the window.

  After a time the old woman coughed into a withered hand.

  With a start, he turned, went to his desk, pulled open a drawer and dribbled silver coins into her pouch. He ordered her to speak to no one about this session.

  After she had gone, he drumm
ed his fine-boned fingers on his desk as he stared at the message tube.

  Another tap came at the door.

  “Come.”

  “Your Excellency,” said his chamberlain, “The Matron Innocence is waiting to see you.”

  The High Priest blinked at his chamberlain as his stomach turned queasy. “Usher her in.”

  The chamberlain bowed and retreated, closing the doors. The High Priest took his place behind the desk. With a start, he grabbed the medallion, putting it away into a drawer.

  The double doors to his study opened and the chamberlain said, “The Matron Innocence of the Shrine of Tulun to see you, Your Excellency.”

  A plump woman in her fifties, in a blue gown and fiery crown of office, with deep blue eyes and a serene smile allowed herself to be guided into a cushioned chair in front of the desk. The High Priest nodded to the chamberlain, who silently took his leave. The High Priest gave his full, grave attention to the Matron Innocence, the most powerful religious leader in the kingdom after himself.

  “What is this urgent request for a meeting about?” she asked.

  He picked up the Tara Charta. “Have you heard of this?”

  “The letter from Swan?” she asked.

  He lofted his eyebrows. He had thought his missive the only copy. “It will save time if you’ve already read it.”

  “Time is critical, I agree,” she said.

  “You do? I’m surprised. You were most fond of the girl, if I recall.”

  Inga frowned. “I think you misunderstand me. Swan has been proved right. There are indeed darkspawn and they have conquered the Duke’s territory.”

  “Nonsense!”

  The Matron Innocence seemed bewildered. “Have you actually read the charta?”

  “This inflammatory summons to open rebellion, yes, I’ve read it.”