Death Knight

by Vaughn Heppner

  The Mistress frowned as she studied Leng. “It is time to gather the horde, to bring back all the darkspawn. I will crush Hosar’s Army, these crusaders, and then perhaps it will soon be time for the Great Conjuring as I sweep these pitiful islanders into an age of blackest magic.”

  “Yes, my lady.”

  “Come, giant, attend me.”

  Cuthred stepped aside for the scrawny, ugly Mistress. Then he squeezed through the small door after her and shuffled down the corridor on his aching feet. He couldn’t get the image out of his mind of the silver sword that had blazed with power. It had made him feel as he did staring at the sun. It had made him feel ashamed. He hated the feeling. It would be good to kill that knight and break his sword. Cuthred grinned. It would be very good.

  ***

  Outside Kleve Castle, home to Baron Bain of the morningstar, Count Nine Fingers’ carpenters hammered together catapults and other siege engines. The entire countryside roiled with smoke from a hundred blazing fields, sheds and village huts. Besieging tents flapped in the breeze and sat around the doomed castle. To this rode a frenzied messenger on a foaming steed. He galloped through the camp, shouting, “Nine Fingers! Nine Fingers! I have a message for Nine Fingers!”

  Squires captured the messenger’s wild mount and hauled the man down. “Take me to the Count!” he shouted.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “The Barrens is aflame! The Cragsmen pour out of the hills. They squat around Krum Keep, after having first tried to boil over the walls. I barely made it out of their lines. I must speak with Nine Fingers.”

  The messenger was led to a stooped old man with blazing eyes. The Count listened to the youth speak, and as he did the old man’s upper lip curled like a snarling hound’s might. He began to pace, stroking his jutting chin with a maimed hand, one missing a finger, one long ago cut off by the father of the present High King of the Crags. He snapped his fingers and demanded to see the High Priest’s letter. A clerk ran into a tent and ran back out. He handed the missive to Nine Fingers, Count of the Barrens and lord of Krum Keep. The old Count scanned the letter anew. Then he snarled, crumpling it with his maimed hand.

  “Let the High Priest fight my neighbors. I will go home and crush these Cragsmen. I will hunt them until all are chased into the sea and drowned!”

  Soon the carpenters’ hammers pounded no more. The tents came down and the army of Count Nine Fingers tramped out of the Midlands and back for the Barrens.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  During a long walk along the cliffs of Bosham, with ocean breakers crashing upon boulders and a stiff breeze ruffling his cloak, Gavin pondered all that he had seen. He recalled that awful night in the Great Hall, how handfuls of darkspawn had slain countless humans. He thought about Swan, Hugo and he in the swamp facing hunting clawmen. He reconsidered the ride to empty Forador Castle and the gaunt in the swamp, the wraith of Zon Mezzamalech and the dreadful death of Sir Hunneric. He thought, too, about the bats and the hopping things that had attacked them on the gallop back to Wyvis Keep. Gavin growled low in his throat at the thought of Joanna. He shuddered at the remembered sight of armed clawmen butchering bound and helpless people of the Crags. Man for man, being for being, most folk were no match for an individual darkspawn. What the enemy did was take ordinary people and turn them into monstrous creatures that no similar number of normal folk could hope to face, let alone defeat in combat.

  Combat at night, Gavin amended. Perhaps there lay the answer to the puzzle of beating back the darkspawn. Fight them during the day.

  He spoke later that evening to Josserand. They sat in his tent pitched on the edge of the training field outside the huge castle. It was perhaps the biggest fortress in all Erin, excepting the cities of Glendover and Banfrey. The tent held a central pole, a chest with a few of his belongings, a field cot where lay the silver sword and a table where the two of them sat at. Cold meats and cheese lay in slices on a board, together with a flagon of wine and goblets. Underneath the board was a map of Erin, with the Midlands and the East March highlighted.

  Gavin spoke to blank-faced Sir Josserand about his ruminations. The mercenary knight was as lean as ever, his long face unreadable. Sometimes, Gavin thought of Josserand as the Sad Knight. The dark-haired fellow seldom smiled, but wore a frown behind which he kept his ideas hidden. Tonight, Josserand wore a jeweled green clasp pinned to his black cloak.

  “The darkspawn are unbeatable,” Gavin said.

  Josserand sipped from his goblet.

  “Knights can slay them,” Gavin said, “but there are never enough knights.”

  “The cry of all kings and their councilors,” muttered Josserand.

  Gavin nodded. “A kingdom’s reputation rests upon the exploits of its knights, upon its gentlemen of valor. ‘Send for the knights!’ That is an old and well-known adage. Thus, when men like the High Priest find men like you, why, they dub them knights.”

  Josserand set down his goblet.

  “The militiamen, the peasants and the outlaws seeking reprieve,” Gavin shook his head. “They are no match for these terrible creatures of Darkness. At the first onslaught, our footmen will run screaming from the battlefield and leave the knights to face alone the dark horde.”

  “A problem,” admitted Josserand.

  Gavin snorted, pouring himself more wine.

  “I think I have a solution,” said Josserand.

  Gavin raised an eyebrow.

  “Turn these simple folk into knights.”

  “Or soldiers,” Gavin said, ignoring the sarcasm. He pursed his lips and swirled the contents of his goblet. “Once I was a blackheart. We fought the hunchbacks and Varangian Marauders in the depths of Muscovy. Our plan then was simple: stay alive. Yet if I recall a-right, our commander said something interesting, something perhaps that could pertain to us.”

  Josserand appeared uninterested.

  “‘Never fight them one-on-one, lads,’ he told us, ‘but gang up on them like town bullies.’”

  “That’s sage advice for just about any fighter,” said Josserand.

  Gavin slapped the table, making the meat board jump.

  A flicker of interest appeared in Josserand’s otherwise blank eyes.

  Gavin stood, setting down his goblet. “The darkspawn fight like beasts. They do not war like true men. They are not formation fighters.”

  “The clawmen we faced in the Crags fought together.”

  “Yes, like wolves might in a hunt or like the lions of the south.”

  “I have never been south or seen lions,” said Josserand.

  “The darkspawn are beasts more than they are men.”

  “Does that matter?” asked Josserand.

  “I think it might.”

  ***

  The next day, after first making a few preparations, Gavin called the commanders of footmen together. They were a ragged group of mercenary crossbowmen, militia masters-at-arms and several knights who had been talked into the assignment. Some sat on hay bales. Others stood to the side with folded arms. Behind them towered huge Castle Bosham, flags whipping in the stiff ocean breeze.

  Gavin first spoke about the darkspawn and their fighting prowess and propensity to fight as beasts. “What they lack, however,” he told them, “is human intelligence, the ability to coordinate the way men sometimes do. That is the advantage we must drill and hammer into our footmen. No one must face darkspawn individually, but in teams of three or four.”

  “They outnumber us, I’m told,” said a gray-bearded crossbowman.

  “That’s true,” Gavin said. “So when we fight, we must fight intelligently and maneuver them in such a way that we tackle each beast with three or four humans against one.”

  “Easy to say,” said a young knight, “now how will we do it?”

  Gavin called up four men he had coached earlier this morning. They held shields and spears. Shields were the most rudimentary of defensive items and all that many of the peasants had been able to acquire. Spea
rs had been handed out to those who lacked any arms at all. A sword was much more costly than a spear, taking more iron to make and greater skill to fashion and use. Thus, because of their availability, spears proved to be the footmen’s weapon of choice. Gavin had these four men demonstrate various formations, the first the ‘engagement in meeting,’ where he played the darkspawn. One man with shield and spear approached him, the other flanking back and to the left, ready to charge at any opening. The commander, the third man, cocked his spear for a quick cast. The fourth watched the field to see if more darkspawn approached. If any did, the fourth man would run forward and provide cover for the others to retire.

  “When will any four of our footmen face a single clawman?” asked the young knight.

  “Perhaps never,” Gavin said. “The point is to teach our men to operate together as a group. In the swamp, Osric the Wyvis thegn went to investigate alone and died alone to a single gaunt. Our group, a squad, would not have moved alone, but together. Your task, as the foot commanders, will be to divide the men into squads of four, choosing which of them will be the leader. I suggest that you put men together who are friends or neighbors or known already to each other. Each squad will be part of a larger group. To each group of eighty will be added ten crossbowmen and five net-men. The crossbowmen’s task will be to slay any darkspawn that break through the group. The net-men will take care of bats or any other flying creatures sent by the enemy.”

  “That sounds complicated,” said the gray-bearded crossbowmen.

  “Each group of eighty will have a standard, a flag around which to rally,” Gavin said. “Our Seer will bless that flag and each man will then take an oath to defend it to the death.”

  “Seems like she should bless all our weapons,” said the young knight.

  Gavin nodded thoughtfully. “The key to all this—what I want you commanders of foot to remember—is to train our men to think and to fight together in their squads of four. It is as important that they have a way to handle the darkspawn as that the way actually works.”

  “What do you mean?” asked the young knight.

  “Our footmen must not flee on the day of battle,” Gavin said. “That would be disastrous. Yet we all know that in any local war between barons, that the footmen almost universally flee a charge of knights.”

  “They would be fools and dead men if they didn’t,” said the young knight.

  “Indeed,” Gavin said. “Thus, our footmen are practiced at fleeing. They expect to be placed behind walls and other outworks.”

  “Isn’t that how we’re going to face the darkspawn?” asked the graybeard. “Fighting behind a wall, like the one that blocks the swamp-route?”

  “I don’t know,” Gavin said. “But I do know it’s foolish to only be able to fight one way. What our footmen need at the very least is confidence. That way they might stay around long enough when the time comes to actually swing a sword or stab a spear at the enemy.”

  A few of the foot commanders chuckled.

  “If they do stay, then our footmen need to know how to fight, how to actually harm the enemy. This splitting into squads and giving of battle-flags and training in special tactics will help give them that confidence.” Gavin scanned the ragtag group, wondering if he had convinced any of them. “So far the men have run at straw dummies, been taught how to hold their spears and how to march in line. That is all good. Now they need unity, belief in one another and belief in a way that they are convinced will see them through on that horrible day of battle.”

  “I still think they’ll run,” said the young knight.

  Gavin hooked his thumbs through his sword belt. “Will you run, sir?”

  The young knight stiffened and bolted up off his hay bale, as his cheeks burned red. “You insult me, Captain General.”

  Gavin swept his eyes over his foot commanders before focusing again on the angry young knight. “I want the men you train to learn to have a similar sense of honor as you’ve just shown me. Infuse them about the disgrace of running away from their flag, of being cowards when they have a way to defeat the darkspawn. Most of all, sir, make them feel that the three other men they train with in their squad depend on them, that if they run out on them that they are worse than beasts, that they are base cowards and traitors to their oaths.”

  The young knight crunched his eyebrows together, soon sitting down.

  “Seems like the best way to make them feel like that is to give them some practice winning,” said the graybeard.

  “First things first,” Gavin said. “Are there any questions?”

  There were plenty, but afterward, Gavin sent them away to begin implementing his plan.

  ***

  Going with Swan and Hugo among the refugees who had fled North Erin, Gavin quizzed everyone who had faced darkspawn. Gavin searched for an enigma, an insight or a different way of viewing the enemy. It was all in an effort to devise a stratagem or strategy that might give them hope of victory.

  “How can we defeat the darkspawn?” he asked Hugo one morning.

  They stood atop the tallest battlement of Bosham Castle, the most southern of a line of fortresses guarding the invasion route between North and South Erin. This was the East March: the individual castles and keeps belonging to the marcher lords. Once the East March had been like the Barrens, ruled by a single count beholden to the King. But that had been over fifty years ago. The aging count of that time had six sons, each holding a castle or keep upon his death. They refused to hand over the keys to the eldest, and each in time became his own independent lord. These Marcher Castles were considered impenetrable, the best on the island. Bosham Castle was perhaps the strongest and the most famed among them.

  The battlement Gavin and Hugo stood upon gave them a bird’s eye view of the Sea of Nuada on one side and of the main valley thoroughfare on the other. If the dark horde planned to march from North to South Erin this was the likeliest way they must go.

  Flags snapped in the stiff ocean breeze and Gavin shivered, pulling his cloak tighter about himself. Hugo appeared indifferent to the cold. He wore a white linen shirt, white wool breeches and sandals. Since the miracle, dirt had become abhorrent to him and he had also become more withdrawn and thoughtful—and cold seemed not to bother him at all.

  “Swan will show us the way,” Hugo said.

  Gavin eyed his old friend. They had drifted apart since the miracle. The leathery-faced squire had doted on the Seer before. Now he seldom left her side.

  “What do we do until then?” asked Gavin.

  “Train,” Hugo said. “Seek the power of Hosar. Abstain from evil and all forms of guile.”

  Gavin suspected that the last was specially directed at him. Swan had disproved of his diplomatic maneuverings with the High King of the Crags and his outright lies. But like everyone else, she had been pleased that talk about leaving Bosham Castle to protect their hereditary lands had ceased among the knights, mayors and men-at-arms.

  “Do you remember how in Muscovy they told us that Hosar marched with us?” asked Gavin. “And the Sword Brothers, they were much as Swan is now. Yet we crusaders in Muscovy lost the bulk of our army in the cold pine forests. The enemy defeated us and drove us back to the border forts. Only a few blackhearts survived. And how did they survive? They lived by wielding deadly blades, by refusing to give up and by plenty of luck. Your new life is a miracle, my friend. And I think that now you see things the rest of us cannot. But don’t tell me to pin my hopes on a girl having visions. I need a plan, a strategy, a way to defeat the darkspawn.”

  “Who else can give us that way than the Seer?” asked Hugo. “She is closer to Hosar than any of us.”

  “Don’t the old legends say that an evil kingdom flourished in the distant North?”

  “That kingdom fell before the Great Ice,” Hugo said.

  “You’re missing my point.”

  Hugo squinted at him, and Gavin wondered why Hugo’s bad eye had not been healed in the miracle.

  �
��Some folk must have fought against the sorcerers of Hyperborea, folk who trusted Hosar and surely had their own seers,” Gavin said. “Yet they still fell before the powers of Darkness.”

  Hugo’s squint turned into a scowl.

  “I want to know the secret to victory, old friend. Not victory everywhere, but victory for us, here, in this time and place.”

  “I told you: train, seek the power of Hosar and abstain from evil.”

  “You forgot one thing,” Gavin said.

  “The forgoing of guile?” asked Hugo.

  “No. Oil your crossbow and keep it ready. I think before this is over I’m going to need your keen aim.”

  ***

  Gavin quizzed survivors of encounters with darkspawn. He sent scouts north and listened to their reports at whatever time they returned, whether it was morning, noon or midnight. He and his commanders debated ideas in his tent and he had long talks with Josserand. The mercenary knight and he practiced fencing. Gavin was stronger, swifter and had greater endurance. Josserand had grim bitterness and determination, and sometimes, when his eyes glowed with a wild light Josserand sped up and penetrated Gavin’s steely web of parries. All who watched agreed that here indeed were the crusaders’ two best swordsmen.

  “If I fall you must pick up the silver sword and lead the charge,” Gavin said.

  “If you fall then we are certainly doomed,” grumbled Josserand.

  Gavin laughed, shaking his head, toweling sweat from his face.

  Josserand ticked off his fingers one by one. “You freed the Seer from Forador Castle, beat the King’s champion in Banfrey and thereby gained men enough for the beginning of the crusading. And you slew the fravashi.”

  “Now explain to me how I’m supposed to destroy the growing horde of darkspawn,” Gavin said. “We lack the numbers, and instead of sending heralds to tell us he joins us, the King soon marches north to put us down.”

  “Troubling news,” said Josserand.

  Gavin reached out, taking Josserand by the arm. “Check the footmen for me. Test some of them. I must speak with the Seer…” He looked up at the sun as it approached noon. “I must speak with her in less than an hour.”