The Forgetting Moon

by Brian Lee Durfee

  “What do you mean?” Liz Hen asked. “What’s happened to my brother?”

  Shawcroft slumped to the ground, his face drooping even more.

  The man had called him son. It was the first and only time Nail had ever heard that word directed at him. He reached down to lift his master up.

  But Shawcroft brushed his hands away. “Follow the Dead Goat Trail. Do not dawdle. Do not leave the main road. Go to the small cabin by the Written Wall. I’ve stashed torches and two more quivers of arrows for you there. Take the Hot Springs Notch behind the cabin to the Roahm Mines. Don’t forget the scarves. They are in Lilly’s pack. You know how skittish the ponies can be in the mines if their eyes are not covered. Once in the mines, make your way to the bridge. You remember the bridge, don’t you?”

  Nail nodded in answer. Yes, he knew the way to the bridge over the chasm—the dark hole deep in the mountain that had no bottom.

  “I once told you that bridge was too dangerous to cross,” Shawcroft said. “But heed me now. It is quite safe. And today you must cross it. Beyond the bridge is an underground pool. The Place of the Skulls—you will know it when you see it. Beyond the pool is a wide hallway. You will find a set of stairs carved into the right-hand wall of the hallway. They lead up to an empty tomb. The way is mostly clear. “If you see silver fluid dripping from the walls, do not touch it.” I’ve already dismantled most of whatever traps were set around the place. But first—the third step up, far left stone, push it in but an inch, and the rest of the stairway above will be free of traps. Once at the top, remove the altar stone in the center of the tomb. There you will find two items. I dared not take them from their resting place myself. I fear that task has now fallen to you. Once you have the items, descend the stairway from the tomb and continue down the wide hallway. It leads upward. Avoid all other staircases and ladders. Stick to the hallway. You will eventually come out on the northeastern range just below the Swithen Wells Trail. You know the trail. Follow it to the abbey. You remember Bishop Godwyn from the abbey, don’t you?”

  Nail nodded somberly. Bishop Hugh Godwyn was the old hermit who lived alone in the Swithen Wells Trail Abbey. Shawcroft and Nail had visited the man a few times.

  Shawcroft said, “Godwyn will lead you to Lord’s Point and then—”

  “Lord’s Point,” Liz Hen blurted. “Why Lord’s Point?”

  “What will we find in the altar stone?” Nail asked.

  Shawcroft’s brow furrowed. “Best you not know until you reach the altar, lest you are captured. Many things are found hidden beneath the ground. Men and kings and ancient warriors and the weapons they forged. All are eventually buried. Ages pass and important truths are hidden, forgotten. Yet most men never look beyond the surface of their farms and forests and within their own castle walls for knowledge. But those who search the deep . . . find salvation.”

  There was now the clear rumble of hooves pounding and dogs barking in the distance. “Remember your stances, Nail,” Shawcroft added. “Remember your footwork, the way you swing a pick. And don’t forget the backswing. Rake with both hands tight. The precision of all I taught—it is now a part of you. It all matters.” Shawcroft pointed up the Dead Goat Trail. “Now go.”

  They were all four winded when they reached the pine tree. Liz Hen and Gisela slumped in exhaustion. Nail leaned against the tree to catch his breath. The pine was skirted with damp green moss about its northern base, but firmly planted into the steep slope. Stefan peered over the edge of a lichen-covered boulder near the tree.

  From where they stood, almost two hundred feet above the sea, a clear view of the town below was revealed. Wispy threads of smoke were rising from the vast Sør Sevier encampment north of town. Parts of Gallows Haven still smoldered. The Grayken Spear was a husk of burnt rubble. The Lady Kindly was sunk in the bay, naught but a dark skeleton of char and ash just visible under the water. Piles of bodies burned on the beach. The village dead would never receive proper funeral rites, Nail realized, never be committed to the ground to be buried with respect, their heads propped up in their graves with dignity, their eyes facing east as was custom. It saddened him.

  But there was a more immediate threat just below. The mounted Sør Sevier knights had reached the two boulders that marked the Dead Goat trailhead. The barking of many dogs and the clatter and thunder of the horses’ steel-shod hooves echoed up the craggy slope. Shawcroft had been right: Nail counted around fifty mounted knights, all of them wearing light leather armor, some clad in simple breastplates; very few wore helmets. Their palfreys were unarmored too, smaller than the gruesome chargers they’d ridden yesterday. Still, these men and the beasts they rode were built for killing and death. How could the villagers not have seen that yestermorn? Why didn’t they all just run for the hills at the first sighting of the warships?

  Sunlight bled through the trees and pooled on the Dead Goat Trail around Shawcroft. A lump found its way into Nail’s throat; it grew as he watched his master awaiting death. The approaching knights were formed in several columns. At the head of the middle column rode a dark-haired, bearded man in a mail shirt with a patch over his right eye, the only knight on a tall white charger. He reined his steed sharply as he reached the two boulders, as did the knights behind him. With a shout, the one-eyed knight silenced the dogs. The notch between the boulders was not wide, perhaps enough for a wagon to pass through, but that was all. The knights waited before it.

  From so high up, the words exchanged between Shawcroft and the knight with the eye patch were indistinguishable, but Nail got the gist of the conversation when Shawcroft braced his stance and brandished his sword. One of the knights lowered his spear and set heels to flanks and plunged his steed through the notch at a breakneck pace.

  Shawcroft easily dodged the low-hung spear. He stabbed his sword into the chest of the speeding palfrey, pulled his weapon free, and swung high, decapitating the falling rider as the horse folded to the ground, dead.

  Shawcroft’s rapid dispatch of the first knight sent a ripple through the other Sør Sevier men. Their eye-patched leader sent another knight through the notch. Shawcroft killed that man and horse too. Again Nail was taken aback with both shock and, dare he admit, pride at how good his master was with a sword. Even sorely injured, Shawcroft was a deadly fighter. And there was something indefinably familiar in the way his master was fighting.

  Nail glanced at Stefan. His friend placed the quiver of arrows on the rock before him, then unstrapped his armor. Stefan wore a threadbare, sleeveless tunic underneath. He picked up the Dayknight bow and flexed it once, twice, testing its tightness, fear in his eyes.

  Below, the leader of the Sør Sevier knights made a sweeping motion with his arm, and twenty of his fellow fighters dismounted. They drew their swords and rushed through the notch at Shawcroft. He fought off the initial surge, killing some, knocking others to the ground, his sword a whirling steel curtain before him. More knights poured through the gap, barking dogs on their heels.

  Stefan nocked an arrow. His muscles strained as he pulled back on the bow, the knuckles on his fingers whitening as he held the arrow in place. Jubal Bruk had once taught the boys the exact drop of an arrow in fifty-foot increments. But from so high up, it was the distance that was uncertain; that and the steep angle rendered the arrow’s drop and all of Jubal’s lessons moot. The updraft rising from the trail might give the arrow lift. Stefan appeared to be calculating such things in his mind as he sighted down the shaft.

  Moments passed. Nail willed his friend to fire. Shawcroft was fighting for their lives down below. Still, Stefan hesitated. Nail needed only look at the throbbing veins on Stefan’s neck and the sweat forming on his forehead to know that his friend was scared.

  “Shoot the bastards already,” Liz Hen urged through clenched teeth.

  Stefan let the arrow fly. It zoomed away, plummeting over a hundred feet in the blink of an eye. The arrow caromed off one of the tall boulders below and caught one knight in the hind part of his leg, d
ropping him. Stefan nocked another arrow, sighted down the shaft, and fired again. His second arrow sailed true, hitting the knight nearest Shawcroft. The force of the impact plunged the arrow into the fighter’s breastplate, hurling him to the ground. Liz Hen yelped in triumph. After that second shot flew true, Stefan leaned and spat, nocked another arrow, and fired again, striking another knight in the stomach. He plucked the next arrow from his quiver with more confidence and let it fly. It struck a knight about to stab at Shawcroft. The knight released his hold on the sword, clawing at the arrow now buried in his arm.

  More than a handful of Sør Sevier knights now littered the ground at Shawcroft’s feet. And Nail could tell that his master now fought with more vigor. Shawcroft’s initial surge of energy seemed bolstered further by the sight of the many dead around him.

  Stefan continued to launch shaft after shaft down into the fray. Several knights were now pointing with their swords up toward the source of the arrows. Soon the knights began loosing arrows of their own. But their arrows lost speed and fell against the mountain far short of Nail’s perch.

  A big gray dog, much bigger than the rest, darted through the notch far below and tore into the face of a knight at Shawcroft’s flank. “It’s Beer Mug!” Liz Hen yelled. “Zane’s dog’s down there!” The dog leaped from knight to knight in a snarling streak, ripping at throats, hamstringing legs. The dogs belonging to the knights leaped and bounded at Beer Mug, trying to bring the larger dog down. Yet Beer Mug was a brute, big and fast, shrugging off the smaller dogs as if they were of no account. Soon the knights and dogs backed off, leaving Nail’s master and Beer Mug standing alone among the dead.

  The fighting stopped, and Nail wondered if his master might indeed prevail.

  That was when the man in black leather arrived and slid from his ink-black stallion. A Bloodwood! Nail’s mind reeled. The man sauntered confidently through the milling knights and straight between the cleft of the boulders. His red-eyed steed, like a sinister statue, remained rooted in place. The man walked right up before Shawcroft and Beer Mug and stood there. Confident. Cool.

  A few muffled words were exchanged between Shawcroft and the newcomer.

  There was a brief moment of stillness . . . and then the lithe darkness struck. Like black lightning, blades with the glimmer of midnight. So fast was the man, Beer Mug had no chance to react to the whirl of movement and flickering daggers.

  Nail didn’t fully see it, but Shawcroft fell to his knees, arms and torso crisscrossed with many red, welling wounds. Beer Mug darted backward with a sharp bark that echoed up the cliff. The fiend in black backed away from the dog.

  Stefan fired his last arrow. It smacked into the leather-armored shoulder of the black-clad Bloodwood and glanced away harmlessly. The man looked up the cliff face once, nodded toward Nail, Stefan, Gisela, and Liz Hen, then stepped forward and plunged his final dagger deep into Shawcroft’s chest. The blade tore a bloody path downward through Shawcroft’s stomach, ripping him open.

  Nail’s master folded sideways to the ground, coming to rest on his back. Beer Mug sniffed at Shawcroft whilst the dark killer turned and walked toward his demon steed without a backward glance and rode casually back toward Gallows Haven.

  Nail could no longer watch as the remaining knights galloped their mounts through the notch over Shawcroft’s body.

  “Well, that was something,” Stefan said, tears in his eyes. “But your master was right. They’ll have a bloody hard time following us up here.” A hollow look was on Stefan’s face as he gathered his armor. He sprinted up the Dead Goat Trail, Dayknight bow in hand, Liz Hen and Gisela on his heels.

  They found Zane and Dokie waiting in a meadow at the top of the trail. With them were Shawcroft’s two chestnut ponies, Lilly and Bedford Boy, both munching grass. Next to the meadow were the ruins of an old fort. Its walls were crumbled in spots and covered in growths of ivy. The terrain was sprinkled with large rocks and pines and a layer of moss and fern and dewy undergrowth.

  “Look at you,” Liz Hen said to her brother. “You are hurt.”

  Zane’s eyes, usually laughing, were tightly closed, his face a grimace of pain as he tenderly favored his left side. From mid-chest down, the left side of his armor was coated in a sheet of dried blood. There was a gash in his armor and an open, seeping wound underneath. “I tried to help Ma and Pa flee into the mountains,” he said. “But some of them knights caught up to us before we even reached Puddleman Pond. I didn’t fare well in the fight . . . neither did Ma. Pa fought like a bear. But he was kilt. After I got struck, I played dead. Not that heroic, really. But I’m alive, I reckon.”

  “Ma and Pa.” Liz Hen looked resigned to the news. “At least they’re with Laijon now, together with the great One and Only.”

  “What about my folks?” Gisela asked, eyes wide and worried. “Did anyone see them? What about my little brother?”

  “We should go back,” Dokie said, scratching his own rear end vigorously. “See if anyone is looking for us.” He favored his leg, wincing as he limped around Bedford Boy. Dokie had been hit with the arrow on the beach. But the thin boy seemed in much better shape than Zane, even with the row of teeth marks crossing his chest and back, the wounds barely visible under his ramshackle armor and torn tunic. Any evidence of the lightning strike was long gone.

  “We should see who’s left alive down there,” Gisela said.

  Nail’s mind flew immediately to Ava Shay. Is she still alive? Or was she now as dead as Polly Mott, a spear in her back? I could have saved her. . . .

  “Everyone is dead or captured,” Liz Hen snapped. “We should flee as Shawcroft wanted. Those knights still chase us.”

  “Shawcroft killed fifteen of those knights himself,” Stefan said.

  “You probably killed ten too,” Nail added, and then wished he hadn’t, for his words brought immediate tears to Stefan’s eyes. Nail felt a lump well in his own throat now, thinking of his master. A shudder rippled through him as a vision of the Bloodwood sprang forth. He shook it off, looked at Zane. “Your dog was down there.”

  “Beer Mug?” Zane asked with hope-filled eyes.

  “He fought alongside Shawcroft,” Nail said, his voice cracking.

  “What a good boy, that dog.” Zane smiled, but that smile only slightly covered the pained look in his face. “I hope he wasn’t hurt. I’d sure love to see him again.”

  “Shawcroft won’t be coming with us,” Stefan cried. “He’s dead.”

  Stefan’s words were met with a grim silence. Nail fought back the tears. He didn’t want the others to see him cry. His master had taught him that crying was for fools and the feebleminded. “We must keep going,” he said.

  But Stefan folded to the ground at Gisela’s feet and wept. “Why should so many men have died just for us to escape?” he asked, his face a mask of grief. “I killed so many. How can I ever live with that? And Shawcroft dead too. For us. Why?”

  “You did what you could to save him,” Nail offered, knowing they should flee this open meadow. “He wanted as few men hunting us as possible.”

  “Why would they want to hunt us?” Dokie asked. “What have we ever done to them? What do we mean to them?”

  “Was Laijon who allowed our escape,” Liz Hen said, staring right at Nail, as if she truly believed all of this was his fault. “Our Lord is great and he is merciful. He will not allow those men to find us. Jenko doubted Laijon. And now look where he is, still enslaved.”

  “My sister has the right of it,” Zane said. “Laijon will see us to safety, or Laijon will see us dead. His will guides us now.”

  Stefan stood and wiped the tears from his eyes. “Those knights still follow us. We’ve wasted much time gabbing.”

  “We’ll need weapons.” Liz Hen began rummaging through the bags strapped to the ponies. Soon she was chirping instructions to everyone, ordering them to help her search. Gisela immediately joined in. Nail silently urged the girls to speed their inventory of the supplies. But curiosity and hu
nger got the better of him, and he soon found himself rummaging through the bags. Bedford Boy carried sacks of flour, dried beans, and smoked elk jerky along with a handful of empty rawhide water skins. He handed out strips of jerky to everyone. They all began gnawing on it with great relish. On Lilly’s back was a parcel of bedrolls and wolf-hide blankets, a cooking kettle, flint and matches, four daggers, and a hatchet. Stefan took one of the daggers and buckled it to his belt and handed another to Dokie. Zane took a dagger too, as did Nail.

  “I should have a weapon.” Liz Hen snatched the dagger from Dokie and slipped it into the twine belt circling her shift. Gisela, not to be left out, untied the hatchet from Lilly’s back and slipped it through her thin belt.

  Then they were off, moving as quickly as they could. Nail led the group, Liz Hen right behind him, guiding Bedford Boy. Dokie, limping a little and using Lilly for support, followed next. Stefan and Gisela walked hand in hand. Zane brought up the rear, lumbering along slower than the rest. The Dead Goat Trail bore them through the meadow toward the higher ridges of the Autumn Range in the distance.

  Nail looked back. Their tracks were just the palest of disturbances on the trail. Still, easy enough to follow, even for the most inexperienced of trackers. And Nail was sure that the Sør Sevier knights crawling up the trail behind them were far from inexperienced. The very thought that he was possibly responsible for the deaths of so many was almost too much to bear. Why would they want to hunt us? Dokie’s question plagued his mind. What have we ever done to them?

  Around midafternoon they reached Sabor Creek, not having seen any sign of the knights or their dogs. The creek was swollen from the spring thaws, churning and roiling. It was the first fresh water they had come upon. All of them took long drinks. Stefan filled the rawhide water skins.