The Forgetting Moon

by Brian Lee Durfee

With the feel of the knife against his flesh, the last frail threads of Nail’s mind caught up with the reality of what was happening—his master was rescuing him.

  “Make haste,” Shawcroft whispered. “Crawl through the hole in the tent.”

  Nail’s head was pounding with pain, his vision unstable. But what faint light remained in the tent was enough: he could see that there were lines of both pain and worry in his master’s ashen face that had not been there the last time he had seen him. He noticed a longbow and quiver of arrows were strapped to Shawcroft’s back. Plus, the man again wore at his belt the heavy longsword Nail had taken from him on the battlefield. He must have found the sword . . . wherever I dropped it.

  “We must go. Now,” Shawcroft said.

  There came the sound of stifled sobs from somewhere in the tent. It was Gisela again. Knife in hand, Nail scrambled toward her. “No.” Shawcroft reached out.

  Nail shrugged off his master’s grabbing hand. “I must free the others,” he hissed, reaching Stefan and Gisela, slicing through their bonds. Shawcroft crawled forward and took both Stefan and Gisela by the hands and stood them up. He guided the two toward the opening in the back of the tent. Nail hacked through Polly Mott’s and Liz Hen Neville’s bonds next. They scurried away, crawling through the opening too.

  Other prisoners were standing now, all aware of the sliced-open part of the tent and the bulky form of Liz Hen shoving her way through it. Everyone hobbled toward the hole, clogging it, making far too much noise.

  Nail moved toward Ava Shay. She twisted around, craning her neck, looking back at him. The luminescence of her face in the dim light stole his breath. Her eyes glowed, and he soaked in the sight.

  “Hurry,” Jenko said, urgency in his voice. “Us next.”

  There was a flicker of hope in Ava’s eyes as she repositioned herself for Nail to cut her bonds, a faint trembling in her straining arms and outstretched hands as they touched his, the feel of her bound hands on his cold flesh like a caress.

  “Hurry.” The sound of Jenko’s voice assaulted him. “What’s wrong with you? Hurry. Cut us loose.”

  Nail looked at the dark form of Jenko hovering just beyond Ava. There were both cold anger and impatience in the older boy’s look. Nail’s gaze fell upon Ava again, and the look in her eyes betrayed her impatience too. He backed away, Ava’s soft hands falling from his. She reached for him. But he scooted farther away. Her eyes locked onto his, questioning, pleading. And by the look that fell over her face, Nail could tell that the girl knew his intent.

  Nail slipped the knife into his belt and hurled himself toward the back of the tent, shoving his way through the huddle of villagers there, pulling at them, dragging them out of his way. And when the opening was clear, he scrambled through it toward the gray light of dawn and freedom.

  A grim quiet resided outside the tent. The moist, warm air was muted and lifeless. Yet the watery silence didn’t last long. The pain in Nail’s head thrummed to the rhythm of his now rapidly beating heart, his vision fogging in and out.

  Shawcroft pulled him to his feet, pointing him at once toward the dark bulk of the chapel in the distance, shoving him roughly in that direction. Nail almost tripped over a villager who had escaped the tent. The fellow was still bound hand and foot, crawling along the ground. Nail followed the dark forms of Liz Hen, Stefan, Gisela, and Polly Mott in a mad dash toward the chapel. His legs were stiff and he had to force them into action, somehow managing to gather speed.

  The ground was littered with bodies in lumps and heaps, all of them Sør Sevier knights. Nail’s heart quailed at the sight. At least two dozen dead. It was clear that Shawcroft alone had killed them. Even sorely injured, he had killed all these men. And he’d done it in obvious silence and in a systematic way so as not to strike up a clamor.

  The thing was, now Shawcroft scared Nail—scared him deep. Who was this man? A murderer! A cold killer! His rescuer?

  A man back from the dead . . .

  “Escape!” the alarmed voice of a Sør Sevier guard yelled. “Escape!” There was a burst of more frantic shouting, and Nail risked a glance back. Warriors bearing torches spilled around the tent. They muttered curses when they saw their fellow knights on the ground. The villagers, still bound hand and foot outside the tent, were soon stabbed and hacked by swords that flashed in the moonlight.

  Shawcroft was running just behind Nail, urging him on. The man hunched in pain as he ran. Then came the sound of barking dogs. It now sounded as if the entire enemy encampment was roused. As his legs churned, Nail sensed they had a decent enough head start on the enemy, though the pain in his head was still a sharp reminder that he too was injured and everything was a half-muddy haze in his mind. The sound of pursuit grew louder, the feet hammering behind closer. His throat pained him with every raw breath. He imagined the entire Sør Sevier army was swarming behind him like a dark flock of crows. He felt the slender knife slip from his belt and fall to the ground, lost.

  Ahead, Liz Hen Neville, despite her bulk, ran as if the wind pushed her. Stefan and Gisela ran beside her. Reaching the cracked-open double doors of the church first, the three of them slipped through. Polly Mott tripped over the wattle-and-daub fence that lined the hardened dirt roadway in front of the chapel. Nail jumped over the fence with ease, Shawcroft right behind him. They both lifted Polly to her feet, Shawcroft pushing her forward. But Polly shoved Shawcroft away with a deranged shout. Soon dogs swarmed around them, barking wildly, feinting and snarling, snapping at their legs. One dog bit the inner flesh of Shawcroft’s thigh, tearing a large chunk from it. With a startled shout, the man pulled his black sword and swung at the dog, who danced away.

  Nail sprinted the remaining yards to the church. He slipped through the doors. Shawcroft followed, hunching, limping, sword now sheathed. His leggings were bloody and shredded. He slipped inside the building behind Nail.

  They turned to help Polly through the doorway. But the mole-faced girl lingered near the fence, disoriented, dogs tearing at her clothes. A Sør Sevier knight closed in on her fast, his long halberd striking with speed and deadly precision. Polly was speared in the back and she fell, dragging the halberd from the knight’s hand as she went face-first onto the road and rolled over. Her mouth stretched open in silent agony, and her dirt-smeared face twisted back to look at Nail, one hand reaching out for someone to save her, the other swiping the dirt from her own face, revealing her one legacy, the one thing Nail would forever remember her by, the unsightly mole under her left eye.

  Shawcroft put his shoulder to the heavy door and pushed. An arrow thudded into the door just as it closed with a slow grind. Shawcroft reached up and threw down the iron bar, locking it. “We haven’t much time before they find another way in.” He led the huddled escapees deeper into the dismal church. As they scurried over the tile floor, a crunch and clatter of shattered glass sounded underfoot.

  Shawcroft’s limp had worsened. Blood poured from the fresh wound in his leg as he walked. He was simultaneously tugging at his ripped pants near the injury. “Where’s my knife?” he asked, hand out.

  “I lost it when I ran.”

  Shawcroft nodded and kept moving. As Nail picked his way through the darkness, the charred smell of burnt wood was overwhelming, nauseating. The stench added to the difficulty he was having just remaining upright and coherent. He felt the need to puke. But he was not the only one in dire straits. Gisela Barnwell clung to Stefan, both of them panting. Liz Hen’s chest heaved from the exertion of their sprint. Her wide shoulders slumped in resignation, curls of red hair stuck to her damp cheeks. She was sucking in hoarse lungfuls of air in a way that suggested she was near done in. It was Liz Hen who made the first comment on the state of the church. “It’s completely ruined,” she cried as her eyes cast about the gloom. “Where will the boys ever do their Ember Lighting Rites now?”

  Nail had always marveled at the village’s great chapel and the muscular carving of Laijon that was hung on the even larger black-painted
wooden replica of the Atonement Tree in its center. The craftsmen who’d sculpted the statue had been masters. Once, Nail had harbored dreams of being as good an artisan someday. But now those dreams seemed so far away. The statue of Laijon had been toppled. It rested facedown, smashed on the tile floor, arms broken, torso cracked open. The chains used to pull the statue down were still wrapped about its neck. The thick clumps of horse manure that surrounded the statue were evidence of the foul beasts that had done the work of toppling it. The blackened timbers of the great Laijon tree that had once stood so tall and glorious behind the statue of Laijon littered the floor in smashed, jagged splinters.

  A faint light fell from the shattered windows above and illuminated their dismal surroundings, illuminated the violence and desecration visited upon the holy building. The benches of the church, which had been piled against the walls of the chapel and set afire, were now mere jagged remains in a pool of black ash. Some patches of wood still smoldered. Smoke rose here and there in spiraling tendrils. The entire chapel was naught but a tangled mass of burnt and broken destruction. All things the villagers had once considered holy were covered in a layer of soot and foul, burning stench. Nail was most heartsick at the sight of the millions of exposed, glittering shards of stained glass littering the ash-covered floor like colorful jewels.

  There were desperate and bewildered looks among Nail’s companions as Shawcroft hobbled toward the bishop’s altar in the center of the chapel. Blood oozed black and thick from the wound in the burly man’s upper thigh.

  The altar stone had been removed, something Nail had never considered possible. It lay flat on the floor in front of the altar. What looked like a ladder descended into the altar. “I opened the altar earlier,” Shawcroft said. “I feared we might have need of it.”

  Nail heard a flurry of shouts from outside. Heavy banging began on the barred front doors. Gisela spit out a shriek. Her ever-widening eyes darted about frantically. From the rising clamor, it sounded as if the Sør Sevier army would soon burst through the doors. Nail imagined a horde of hundreds was out there, circling, trampling poor Polly Mott’s body underfoot. The image of Polly being speared in the back was a fresh wound in Nail’s mind. But he was too drained to feel much sorrow.

  “Down the ladder.” Shawcroft was helping Stefan climb down into the altar.

  Nail stepped forward and leaned over. Concealed within the altar stone were a dark opening and indeed a thin wooden ladder descending straight down into it. A strange orange glow was coming from somewhere below. “The ladder will empty us into a tunnel,” Shawcroft instructed. “There are torches already alight at the bottom. Wait for me. There are many tunnels leading to many unsavory places.”

  Stefan’s face disappeared into the pit as he scurried down the rungs. Shawcroft helped Gisela into the altar next. She descended a tad slower, less steady and sure of herself, eyes glazed with tears.

  A flaming arrow sailed through one of the broken windows high above. As it arced into the church, Nail lurched back to avoid being hit. The arrow lit hard on the floor at his feet, its flame dashed in the soot. A second arrow flew in through the dark opening, landing in the shadows of the nave. Nail kept his eyes trained on the black opening above, where the colorful stained glass used to live. He recalled the intricate designs of the windows that had once graced those now vacant holes, angelic images that had once cast graceful shadows of red and blue and green over the congregation. But it was all naught but sprinkled glass under Nail’s feet now, the destruction a grim reminder of the evil residing within the heart of the enemy.

  Liz Hen descended the ladder next, head disappearing down the hole. Nail lifted his leg over the lip of the altar, finding the top rung with his foot. He heaved his other leg up and over and began his descent. The last image he had of the Gallows Haven chapel was of another flaming arrow arcing through the window, dropping through the smoky haze, smacking into the forehead of the downed statue of Laijon with a flurry of sparks, arrow skittering off into the darkness.

  * * *

  Some claimed Laijon was born of goodly parents and raised in righteousness from a humble birth by the sea, that he had the powers of heaven bestowed upon him by angels. Whilst others claimed Laijon could divine where gold lay hidden in any streambed or cave. Truth is, he led many astray who paid him for such false divinations. He was deemed a fraud, and for his crimes was sold him into slavery to rot in the pits of Riven Rock.

  —THE CHIVALRIC ILLUMINATIONS OF RAIJAEL

  * * *

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  GAULT AULBREK

  4TH DAY OF THE MOURNING MOON, 999TH YEAR OF LAIJON

  GALLOWS HAVEN, GUL KANA

  Why were the iron shackles and neck collars not used?” Aeros asked.

  “Some supplies were left on the ships returning to Wyn Darrè, my lord,” captain of the Hound Guard, Rufuc Bradulf, answered, his pinprick eyes shifty in the half-light of dawn. He stood over the body of a dead girl in front of the Gallows Haven chapel. “It’s naught but a few escaped peasants,” he continued, thin mouth grinning, bits of food stuck in his rotting teeth. “Plenty such folk escaped in Wyn Darrè. We paid them no mind.”

  Aeros Raijael cocked his head, as if in deep contemplation, nodded once, pulled a thin ivory-handled dirk from the folds of his white cloak, and handed it to Gault.

  Gault took the blade, carefully planted his torch into the ground, then rammed the dirk up under Rufuc’s chin and into his brain. Rufuc’s body spasmed once, eyes bulging in surprise. He slumped lifeless to the roadway, his mouth still stuck in a dirty grin.

  As Gault retrieved his torch, he watched the light die in Rufuc’s eyes, then looked away. He just didn’t care anymore. It was these ever more frequent passionless moments of coldness that were bothering him. He had grown too familiar with the Illuminations ritual of “cleansing of emotions.” These past five years of war and death, he had been keeping his heart utterly empty.

  He handed the knife back to Aeros. The Angel Prince’s enraged eyes roamed over the crowd of Rowdies and Hound Guards and their squires gathered before the chapel. “Has the ease of our first battle in Gul Kana made us lax in our duties, forgetful of our discipline?” His question shot forth angrily. “Why were the prisoners kept so near the edge of camp? Why not closer to the middle?” Nobody answered. “We cannot take our enemy lightly, no matter how crude their weaponry and how inept they seem. Even a mangy dog can kill a knight if it gets lucky.” Aeros looked at the corpse lying in a spreading pool of blood at his feet. “The next Hound Guard captain better not prove as sloppy as you, Rufuc.”

  As far as the Hound Guard went, Aeros usually paid them no more than passing attention. Yet lately he appeared especially bent on berating them as lazy vermin, lower than the squires, naught but a nuisance set to infect the entire might of his army.

  Aeros pointed to the dead girl lying in the road by Rufuc. “I want her head on a pike planted at the entrance to the prisoner tent as a warning. Send Rufuc’s body home. No pyre will be built for him. We will not honor him with the purging flame of redemption.”

  Sending Rufuc’s body home was a grave insult to his legacy as a warrior. But there was nothing to be done for it; Rufuc had gotten what he deserved. Gault tried to dig any sort of emotion out of himself, but he could not. He held his torch low, examining the dead girl lying beside Rufuc. Even an hour after her death, she was still pretty, one might say, pretty but for the strange mole under one eye. The unfortunately large blemish, Gault surmised, no doubt caused the girl much torment in life. How could it not? Any boy worth his salt would be hard-pressed to overlook such an unsightly splotch on a woman.

  Gault followed Aeros through the open doors of the Gallows Haven chapel, stepping into a stench-filled gloom. Aeros’ white cloak skimmed across the floor as he walked, stirring the soot, setting it awhirl in smoky spirals behind him. The Angel Prince wore Sky Reaver this morning. Gault examined the black-scorched walls of the church. Everything within the chapel
had been eaten by flame. Small fires still licked at the blackened bits of scattered benches and rugs. Acrid smoke lingered, hanging in oily clouds above.

  In Sør Sevier, the closest thing one could find to a structure devoted to Laijon were tiny prayer lodges, but those were mere wattle-and-daub, thatch-roofed affairs found only in remote wilderness areas. In Sør Sevier, it was taught, buildings such as this Gallows Haven chapel were for idol worshippers.

  Every abbey, chapel, and cathedral in Adin Wyte and Wyn Darrè had been destroyed by Aeros’ armies. Gault had taken part in their destruction. But such pointless pillaging left him feeling hollow over time. Aeros promised he would desecrate each place of idol worship in Gul Kana, too. He preached to his armies that the followers of the grand vicar in Amadon were superstitious fools in need of purging. And he would begin by destroying their majestic places of worship and blasphemous statues. He railed against the stupidity of the holy white robes of their bishops and their insane flagellation ceremonies. He claimed their works and flagellations would not save them. Only the grace of Laijon could save one’s soul. The followers of Raijael need only study The Chivalric Illuminations and believe in Laijon and swear fealty to his rightful heir, Raijael. One was saved by the Atonement Tree of Laijon, not by Ember Gatherings and works of goodness and flagellation ceremonies and idol worship inside opulent cathedrals.

  For Gault’s part, he’d seen too much blood and death in the name of both Laijon and Raijael to care much about the intricacies of belief. He still held to what his mother, Princess Evalyn Van Hester of Saint Only, had taught him of religion. No one belief system should be trusted. Her faith had been simple. The weapons and stones of the Five Warrior Angels would one day return to the Five Isles and rid the world of war and sin. And that was what Gault fought for. To see his mother’s dream fulfilled. That Aeros might have found one of those stones on the battlefield in Wyn Darrè only added to his inner conflict. Though he admired his lord, he did not believe Aeros Raijael, under any circumstance, could possibly be the one to rid the world of suffering and war. King Aevrett had bred nothing but bloodthirstiness and savagery into his only son.