by S E Zbasnik
Hayley clacked her teeth, unable to scrounge up an answer, when Finn released his hold and slithered off the horse. “I was teaching her some trick riding lessons,” he declared. Both Hayley and Gavin turned to him, the latter glaring while she smiled impotently.
“You should have informed me of your intentions to leave the estate,” Gavin thundered, not willing to give in.
“I didn’t think that…” she began, when Finn interrupted.
“It was my idea. Copper here needed a bit of exercise.”
Gavin swung his judging eyes from Finn down to Hayley. She could lie like the best of them, but for once truth was on her side — it had been Finn’s idea, what with the kidnapping and all. Holding her head high, she stared stone-faced at the man.
That was enough to cause him to groan and part a hand over his hair, “Well, it’s good you’re back. Go and collect your things.”
“What?” Was he sending her away? Because she didn’t have a damn choice in being kidnapped? Because she wasn’t around for a few hours? She’d done all her chores, every god damn thing that was asked of her. “Why?”
Shrouded eyes darted up to the girl still on her high horse. A breath filled his nostrils as a chill crept through the gates to illuminate Gavin’s words, “We’re riding to war.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Clouds pocked the sky, causing beams of unholy sunlight to narrow down in rays. One stubbornly landed right in Hayley’s eyes. She tried shutting them, on the assumption the clouds would shift it. But when her heart thudded deep inside, reminding her where she stood, her eyes flared open wide. Too wide. Ouch.
“Hold, Squire,” a voice above commanded her. Hayley didn’t twitch her head but gazed upward at her knight perched upon the warhorse. Gringolet glistened like a river, gleaming armor protecting the head, neck, and body. Thankfully, Gavin took care of dressing his own horse. Either he figured out Hayley had a severe mistrust of horses, or he didn’t want anyone else to do it.
She did, however, have to learn how to dress him in his armor. Bracers, greaves, cuirasses, breastplates, boots of the shiniest metal in the kingdom. He wore no helmet, save a leather cap which shielded his shaved scalp from the sun. It took her nearly an hour the first time to get him dressed, Gavin trying to calmly explain what went where. By now she had it down to twenty minutes, Hayley quickly knotting each scrap onto the laces dangling off his special wool shirt. First time she saw it she thought he let a cat unravel sections of a sweater from the shoulders to the hems.
Her knight coughed once, giving the less than clear signal she was supposed to keep staring forward. No doubt to him perched high on a horse, sword at the side, he could see far towards the embankments currently flooded with soldiers and knights. All Hayley saw was a man’s waxing backside. He seemed to be incapable of finding hose that fit, giving her a double moon shot while death could be coming at any second.
The first day she was terrified, her fingers wrapped tight to a pike she should hand to Gavin on his say. That was the extent of his instructions, stand in line and wait. So they all did. Every knight — of which there were a lot and growing larger — stepped out of their tent into the morning sun, mounted on a horse, and formed a great line of glinting death around a castle.
There were average soldiers mixed in as well, most dressed in boiled leathers and whatever wool padding they could find. They tended to clump together like mud clods while the knights fanned out in perfect formation. Green banners, the snake heads whipping in the wind, circled as far as Hayley could see.
When glancing around she spotted Marco holding a mighty banner, the ends of the fabric nearly touching to the ground from its impressive ten-foot start. His eyes were stern and unreadable, the giant body locked in place while that knight of his…C something, kept trying to maintain his horse. Gavin glanced over once and muttered something about how the boy was too young for such a place of importance.
Hayley at first sneered, as if holding up a stick was something only a person over twenty could handle. But after standing still for a few hours, she realized that in a sea of unending glinting metal and brown, all the archer eyes would land upon that green breaking through the sky itself and whoever was holding it. God was she glad she was so short. Her plan, if and when fighting broke out, was to run as fast as she could.
The light eclipsed from her eyes, Hayley looking up. She expected to watch the tea-stained clouds drift by, but it was a great hawk flying overhead. Its shadowed wings stretched from Marco’s knight clear towards Hayley and Gavin, blanketing a good twenty soldiers. With hundreds of people standing still in the summer sun, the air stank not only of sweat but fear and bloodlust. Everyone was rigid wanting this stalemate to break one way or another.
Her teeth practically sparked at the tension in the air.
Gavin placed a hand to his forehead and gazed upward. He must have sensed the hawk as well, but he didn’t point towards the bird already hightailing it away from a bunch of humans about to spill their guts on the ground. “The flag has lowered,” he declared loud enough the other knights beside him looked too.
Scrabbling higher on her toes, Hayley tried to get a glimpse beyond peasant butt. A red and black banner flapped upon the castle’s highest tower, the flag always in stark contrast to the ice blue sky. Slowly, it was pulled down by cautious fingers causing every breath on the would-be battlefield to lock in tight.
Fingers wrenched to grips, axe handles, bows, staves. Chests lifted higher, nostrils flaring to take in what could be the last pure gust of air before blood filled it. Eyes all burned upon that empty metal pole, waiting and wondering what would happen next.
Stupid. She could die here today. Trampled by a horse, right after she finally managed to ride on the back of one (not that she didn’t mentally curse the entire week’s trip). Stabbed through the guts because she didn’t know how to do anything with a sword. Or beheaded for being caught deserting, which was her only hope of survival.
Why didn’t she run when she had the chance?
Something of a strangled despair-groan must have burned out of her throat because a hand covered in leather and enough metal to craft fifteen spoons landed on her shoulder. She turned from not seeing the flag pole to glance up at her knight. He looked steady, as certain as a mountain that’d survived countless centuries undisturbed and would last for many more. Smiling with a strain, Hayley tipped her head in thanks, when a cry reverberated from the front of the lines back.
Both squire and knight whipped their heads up to find a blue flag whipping off the pole. “Damn it!” Hayley cursed along with everyone else sadly shuffling back to the army of tents beyond the battlefield. There would be no fight today, there would be no peace either. Whatever arguments were occurring within the castle would continue for yet another day.
Clicking his tongue, Gavin tugged his horse in a circle to begin the trip back with everyone else. He could have easily pulled ahead of Hayley who was taking her time in stomping back. She didn’t see a reason to hurry if they were just going to do the same damn thing tomorrow.
“You seem upset, Squire,” Gavin said, his head bobbing and weaving through the clouds.
She didn’t bother looking up but kept a wide berth from Gringolet while tucking the staff under her arm. “I’m not the only one,” Hayley spat, her hand waving towards the others cursing up a storm in far more colorful language. Some were standing right by the wall, before the other line of soldiers, spitting or dropping their hose and flashing a full view of pale hams.
“Indeed,” her knight sighed, his eyes narrowed as if he was unimpressed with such vulgarity. “Are you upset for the same reason they are?”
She shrugged, stumbling through the ruts dug up by the horse hooves. There were a lot clomping back and forth over the field, Hayley having to keep her eyes sharp for piles of droppings. The fetid air stank of both ends of horse. “Maybe. Probably,” she kept talking more to herself as they happened over the hill to the town of tents.
&n
bsp; Nestled in a small valley between two of the great hills were colorful tents that housed each knight and their squire. The middle of the tents bulged high into the air, easily ten feet from where it attached to the top pole, while the sides all bowed down to around five feet tall. Ribbons the color of the various orders dangled from the ends, the coordinating causing each of the knight’s orders to clump together. The green Seven Serpents nestled near a blue one. Hayley didn’t hear the name, but she caught that they were big into stars and moons from the crest. One cast a quick eye at her, noticed the symbol on her chest, then stomped away laughing. After that, she decided it was best to stick close to the Serpent tents.
Sliding down the hill, by the time Hayley reached the tent her knight showed her how to prop up, Gavin was already dismounted. Despite the massive metal suckered to his body, he moved easily, feeding a few treats to Gringolet and unhooking the armor from the horse first.
Rustling a hand through the black mane, Gavin brushed down the spotted white flank for a moment. He didn’t speak to his horse the way Finn did, though if Gavin ever used baby-talk Hayley’d probably fall down dead from a heart attack. But he seemed to communicate with Gringolet silently, the pair often staring at each other, especially after Hayley said or did something stupid.
“There.” Gavin declared his horse free to roam about the already picked clean grounds to find something to gnaw upon. It was his turn next.
Hayley reached under the left pauldron, fiddling with the knots she put in. Her knight remained stoic in stance and almost bored, letting her forget she was touching all over a man’s body to try and get him sort-of undressed. At least she could forget until she’d accidentally grip onto a muscle, or have the scent of his body waft on the breeze. In this heat, there was a lot of sweat off of them all, but Gavin seemed to use one of those juniper oils to soften his hair and skin. She didn’t notice it until she was climbing all over him, unhooking and unlatching chunks of metal.
Another breath of the green peppery oil wafted near her nose as she drifted towards the shoes. At that moment, Gavin picked back up the dropped conversation. “Are you hoping for bloodshed?”
“What?” her eyes widened, Hayley’s fingers dug in deep to the knees of the greaves, struggling to unhook the cuisse. “No,” she whipped her head around, almost losing the pins for the damn armor in the process. “No, I don’t want…why would I want to-to fight? Why would anyone want to?”
Her knight, who’d been dressed three times for a battle that never happened, stilled. His amber eyes darted to the girl hunched over at his feet trying to yank off the last bits and free him. No doubt he was wondering what she was doing here if she wasn’t itching to lob heads off. That seemed to be the first requirement for being a squire, after being great at knots apparently.
“I mean,” Hayley hurled the last bits of metal into a pile. It all clumped like the discards from a blacksmith. She knew she’d have to sort it for the next day, but that thought just made her guts roil harder. “What’s the bloody point? Get everyone here, make them dress up fancy in armor, stand around for a few hours, then all head back to do it tomorrow? It’s stupid.”
Gavin yanked off the leather cap, sending it skittering with the pile as he scratched against the hair that was already prodding up through his scalp. He’d shaved it when they first left the estate and already it was turning into some knotted curls on the sides. How long had they been at this?
“We stand because we are ordered to,” he said slowly, walking around freely and trying to air out the wool shirt no longer trapped inside baking metal.
“While what, we wait for someone inside to think, ‘Huh, I’m getting a bit bored watching all the soldiers stand around a bit, think I’ll run up the black flag today for a bit of fun?’” She was fuming to herself. The first day Hayley nearly wet herself in terror, never knowing what could come next, her knight being unable to say. No one knew. And, when they all hung upon the precipice, eyes burning into the flagpole, it ended in a wet fart. Each time it kept happening the impact lessened and her annoyance grew.
“Our duty is to protect those we are sworn to,” Gavin repeated what a few had passed around the camp. Tired of it all, Hayley snorted, crossed her arms, and turned away.
That damn hand landed on her shoulder and she stiffened for a lecture, but his voice was soft and weary, “We stand to remind those inside that there are lives on the line. We stand so they know that their enemies are not without teeth. We stand because it is asked of us.”
“Who gets to decide who does the asking?”
Gavin’s eyes opened in surprise, his head shaking from the simple question. He brushed a hand against the nape of his neck, clearly trying to decide how to answer, when both spotted the hawk circling around the army. It seemed really interested in the humans below, appearing daily to check the group out before flying back to the forest.
She was about to point it out, wanting to talk about anything else that wouldn’t get her a dressing down, when Gavin sighed, “The vultures are already circling. Seems they are more privy to the facts than we are.”
Vultures? Hayley tried to stare higher at the hawk, scrutinizing the silhouette, but it was gone. Rubbing a palm over his eyes, her knight said, “Go to the main forward tent and fetch my missives.” Before Hayley could ask anything he stumbled wearily into their tent leaving her alone in the mass of un-battle.
In general, the tent town was ordered, fires cropped up around the outskirts more for cooking food than remaining warm. Someone brought in stores so that Hayley had yet to skip a meal, but as more knights and soldiers kept appearing on the horizon she wondered how long that would last. Circling the small clusters of tents belonging to each order was the main one. You knew it was important by the fact its pole towered nearly fifteen-feet high. Three different canvases stretched off the pole, each slotting together open to form a massive tent for the knights to flit back and forth through.
Hayley slipped in between a pair of women both wearing the blue crest. They’d been standing together, silently passing a sword back and forth while trying to etch their names into it. “Watch it!” one cried, raising the blade up to the sky.
“Sorry,” Hayley tried to throw out, already skittering deeper through the masses towards the door, “on a mission for my knight.”
“Squires,” one of the women rolled her eyes but didn’t give chase or drag Hayley off. Sometimes that little crest on her chest gave her a surprising amount of leeway.
Just before Hayley was about to yank up the door she heard a call from far above her head. Craning her neck and squinting she spotted a black scourge of feathers perched upon the highest pole. Its head twisted around, eyeing up every knight and squire milling about below as if trying to decide which livers it’d be dining on later. A chill crawled up Hayley’s spine, her jaw clattering, when a finger jammed into her back.
“Get going or move aside!” it ordered and she ducked quickly into the canvas world of the Order.
Filling up the tent were battle stations devoted to the crests. Banners dangled from pikes, which were all nearly obscured by the knights running about in front of them. Luckily, she spotted a handful of serpents heading towards the far left. Voices screeched through the mass, easily fifty heads crammed inside. Despite being out of the sun, Hayley’s body began to burn. She tried to waft her tunic back and forth to create circulation, but the damn tight neck barely offered any give.
Bumping along past the hordes, easily sliding around gaps most of the others couldn’t fit through, she sidled up beside the table of the Seven Serpents. A harried man she’d never met before stood behind the table. He kept bending over, a quill dragging lines of ink over parchment before the man would roll it up and toss it onto a growing pile. That had to be the missives.
With a raise of her head, Hayley said, “I require Knight Gavin’s messages.”
“Hm?” The man glanced up from the work, red-lined eyes whipping over to find Hayley. He was younger than
she expected. Most of the men weighed down in parchment she ever ran into had skin more yellowed and cracked than the vellum they worked with.
“The missives? He asked me to fetch them for him,” Hayley stuttered, growing more aware that there were people shoving along behind her.
“Oh,” he waved his hand towards a pile on the dirt behind the table, “they’re in there somewhere. Pick them out yourself.”
Well, if he insisted. Most didn’t invite her to just take whatever she wanted. Sliding around the table, Hayley bent down to the folded, smashed, and sometimes rolled up piles. A few were sealed with wax, some had twine around them, most were just slapped together. She, however, had one rather sticking problem.
“How do I know which are his?” Hayley asked, turning to the man who was now working two quills at once.
“What? Important message from Lord…” he mumbled to himself before casting a quickly wearying eye at her. “His name’s on them. Lord Daffshire of, no he’s from Daffshire. It’s Lord…”
The blood drained clean out of Hayley’s face. There were easily a hundred letters piled up on the ground and scattered into various piles. Did the piles mean something? She twisted one of the letters sealed in wax in her palm. A handful of lines marked the outside, but nothing that told her it was for Gavin. Come on, think. Maybe if there was his symbol, the star. That could give her a hint of what to look for.
Snatching up two of the sealed ones, Hayley spun both around to find that they were sealed with an imprint of a wolf’s paw and a lizard. Damn it. Maybe she could ask the man to show her…
“Hey!” Someone snapped their fingers, and she spun to find herself staring at a red-faced fellow squire. It wasn’t one from the arena, but she recognized the livery. This man looked to be about 17 or 18 and as impatient as a goose sensing breakfast. “Grab your damn master’s missives and get out of the way. We all have shit to do,” he hollered. Hayley peered back to find another four squires standing behind. One of them was Marco, who at catching her eye limply lifted his massive hand and gave a tiny wave.