by S E Zbasnik
“Be careful!” Gavin shouted before resuming his weary work. Hayley dug her toes tight into her shoes, bouncing back and forth as her teeth ground down. Come on. Come on! Calvin was laughing loudly from inside his helmet, swinging up to Catarina’s side as if he hadn’t a care in the world.
The woman nodded a moment in thanks, then slipped a hand to her squire and the pair began to limp through the gap. Oh shit! Their exit was quickly closing, the bloodied and scattered enemy re-surging to pin the last few into their web.
“Run!” Hayley screamed, her eyes growing wider. Catarina did her best to support the squire and fend off blows from the side, but one whipped past too quickly and struck the back of her knees.
“Damn it!” Gavin cursed, launching away from his post towards her. He kicked a man out of the way, arms sliding around Catarina’s shoulders to keep her upright as the three hustled towards the door. “Calvin!” Gavin shouted, “let’s go!”
Hayley dashed from her spot, her hands extended to try and help the last stragglers get free. She kept tugging them back as if to remind the people to hurry up. For a breath, her eyes darted up to her knight who was clearing as much of the mass as he could, but the enemy was swelling over the last knight in their ranks.
In a silver streak, Calvin vanished from their sight. A shield struck him in the back, and the man fell to a knee from an attack. In a breath, the horde eclipsed him. No!
“Master!” Marco screamed just as Hayley got her hands around Catarina. Together, she helped the pair limp towards the gate, trying to get this over with fast.
“Get out of here,” Gavin ordered, his sword cutting through the lines to keep them pinned back, but he wasn’t fighting through to Cal. He was holding the enemy at bay until the rest were free. Cal tumbled again, his head snapping forward from a back-blow. Scattering through the mud rolled his helmet. Hayley whipped back to find his smug face erupted in black bruises. He looked wiped, exhausted, and unreachable.
At the gate, Hayley shoved Catarina under the portcullis, watching both slide down the muddy hill to safety, before she turned and waved to her fellow squire. “Marco, come on.”
The boy stood right where she left him, his bastard sword weaving through the air as if he was mentally cutting down all those in the way. “I have to save him,” Marco whispered.
“Don’t be stupid,” Hayley screamed, “we can leave!”
For a breath, Marco turned back to her. She wished she could say he looked as if he’d follow her, give her his hand, anything. But his entire face was a mask of determination. Despite wearing nothing more than a scrap of plate here and there, Marco raised his sword high and ran through the enemy.
“Marco!” Hayley shrieked again, her voice shattering to pieces as the boy bull-rushed past worn-out men and women to get to his master’s side. It was stupid. It didn’t matter. Calvin was scrabbling in the mud, barely able to make an inch as the bastards kept kicking and smashing their pikes into his metal-encased spine. Each bang slowed him further until Calvin’s grasping fingers stopped reaching and he tucked in tight.
Illuminated by the red fires of hell, a figure in all black strode through the mass of kicking enemy. A great war axe was slung over his shoulder as he stepped up to the downed and useless man trapped on the ground. No, no, no! Hayley squeezed her eyes tight, tears building on her bottom lids. A sting of the blood-soaked breeze wrenched them open, forcing her to watch the executioner dig a foot onto the back of Cal’s neck.
He was paralyzed, trapped, helpless as the murderer swung back the mighty axe aimed for his neck. Hayley held her breath, wishing she could look away, praying for a miracle when the axe began to swing.
Out of nowhere, a bastard sword met the handle of the axe. It was muscle versus muscle, Marco glaring deep into the executioner’s dead eyes as they struggled for supremacy. Grunting broke over the battlefield when the young squire threw back the man’s arms and won. The hefty axe twisted the executioner around, his exposed spine revealed to Marco. It was an easy kill. Fast.
Raising his arms back high, Marco aimed his sword to finish off the man who tried to kill his knight. He grunted something Hayley couldn’t hear, eyes fully upon the waning executioner. Out of the darkness, swiping from the shadows of hell, a blade split clean into Marco’s shoulder.
Shit!
Blood splattered from the wound, his entire right arm collapsing as only a scrap of flesh and mail held it in place. His scream ripped straight through Hayley’s soul, pinning her eyes in place to memorize every inch of his shattered shoulder. Below the crimsons of bloodied flesh and flayed muscle was a bright white glare. It cast off the stars and moonlight, the exposed bone of his shoulder glowing like a beacon. She couldn’t tear her eyes away even as the arm and sword both ripped free of his body and collapsed to the ground.
“No!” Hayley began to run forward, tears streaming from her eyes as Marco tumbled to his knees. The executioner was coming back around, the war axe raised. Her eyes drew up to it, watching the gleaming edge. If she was fast, if she could just…
Hands grabbed her shoulders. She lifted her elbow to try and bash into whoever dared to touch her, when a voice shouted, “Squire! We have to leave.”
“No! I can’t!” She fought as hard as possible, but Gavin had her tight in his grip. He kept tugging her further away. She could do something. She could help! Damn it! Marco rested on his knees, his head bent down. Blood gushed from his arm, his skin turning white as a sheet, but he wasn’t screaming anymore. He wasn’t saying anything. He wasn’t even crying.
“Please,” Hayley whimpered, doing the crying for both of them, “please let me.”
For a moment, her knight stared back at the two left behind. The two who had to pay for this. “No,” he said, his voice colder than the grave.
“You bastard!” She tried to punch him, but Gavin twisted her around and kicked her in the ass. Hayley’s feet scattered forward, her head nearly colliding with the bottom of the gate. She paused, about to turn to face him, when the sound she knew she’d never forget ripped apart every noise in the castle.
A sucked in breath, a massive blade slicing through the air, skin and bone forever severed, and the triple bounce of a decapitated head tumbling through the grass. Hayley’s legs started running, not to turn back to save him, but away. Fear turned her from the sight, fear kept her from watching as the executioner moved from the dead squire to finish the job with the knight.
God, take them all!
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Anger reigned over the camp. Voices lifted in rage at the slightest provocation, squire and knight hollering at each other from one edge of the tent line to the other. Hayley was among them, her throat ragged after she screamed in torment at Gavin for stopping her. For pulling her away from what would have been her own death just so they could make it to the safety of a pike line. No one came flooding out of the castle to resume the attack, the enemy remaining behind their safe walls. She’d have preferred another fight to the silent glares, the grinding of teeth, and — as the blood-soaked sun climbed the sky — Gavin kicking so hard into his helmet it bounced into a tree and nearly dented in half.
Silence followed the screams as if death itself swept through the camp and stole away their breath too. Voices barely lifted above a whisper, eyes darted too and fro to avoid each other. Slop was spooned into bowls and passed out, but no one wanted to eat. Every filled bowl made a round, shifting hand to hand, until it wound up back beside the cauldron — cold and unwanted. They all shifted solemnly as if they’d failed, as if they were as much at fault as Hayley for this.
She didn’t fall into a fugue state, didn’t crumple into a ball and cry. The tears dried up the moment Gavin dropped her to the ground. Dumb and numb, she moved through her duties as if they were back at the estate. As if all she was expected to do, all she had to do was feed some geese, polish a sword, and keep her head down.
Why was that so hard?!
When a horn blared from the
castle, Hayley jerked with a start, but all of the knights rose as if it was expected. Shuffling like people trapped between the waking and dream world, every bruised and battered man and woman walked towards the open gates. Hayley’s entire body froze as she watched her knight follow them. Was this what happened next? Did they willingly go to their capture or deaths for failing in battle?
She should have given chase, asked him what was happening, but after that night — after her complete failure to make a god damn difference — Hayley couldn’t move. Her heart was stuffed deep inside a locked box and crammed into her stomach. All emotion drained down to a dull throb because otherwise, she doubted she’d last another day.
Perhaps an hour passed, maybe less, before the string of knights came back from their trip to the castle. Most were either carrying or dragging something, causing Hayley to leap to her feet and run closer. The other squires remained with heads bowed, while that stupid idiot who knew nothing nearly ran right up to Gavin.
He carried a great bundle in his arms, a tarp covering whatever it was that dragged down even his might. Hayley tried to reach out as if to help when Gavin’s foot tripped on a molehill. The tarp in his arms ripped away to reveal the nearly cleaved-through throat of Ser Calvin. The skin was whiter than ash, a swollen purple tongue dangled in a dislocated jaw, and blue blood was smeared from the ripped apart neck over the chin and distended cheeks.
Yelping, Hayley spun away, burying both her knuckles into her eyes. More came, knights burdened with carrying their dead comrades out of the enemy’s hands, and somewhere in there she knew was Marco. It should have been her who carried him out, but… Hayley crumpled to her knees, her weary hands thudding against wet grass. She wasn’t even strong enough to watch him die. How could she look upon him now?
With the graves filled, dirt hiding away the wounded and broken visages of old friends, and men and women at arms, grief stormed through the camp like a plague. The knights clung together, arms braided in life-giving hugs while tears fell. Men, women, they all sobbed together from the death that nearly claimed them. They survived while those others, those they counted on, those they cared for, did not.
And it was all Hayley’s fault.
If she hadn’t caught that bird. If she hadn’t lost that message. If she hadn’t…if she was never chosen to be a squire then none of that would have happened. Calvin would still be alive. Marco would…would…
Damn it. Her leg gave out, toppling her to the ground again right outside the Council’s tents. She’d been walking pointlessly from one end of the camp to the other, unable to stop. Dawn to dusk, back and forth never catching anyone’s eye because they’d all hate her, and they’d all be right to.
“This was a disaster!” a knight thundered from inside. “We never should have attempted to take the castle.”
“The Knight-Commander…” another voice piped up.
“Also told us not to do it, but we went in anyway. Why? Where’s that god damn Master of Birds? He should have known it was all a trick. Or that piece of shit squire who started it all?”
Hayley wrapped her hands tighter to her knees, her head burying deep to the top of them.
“The Council agreed.” It was Erin sounding as if she was trying to defend Hayley. Or maybe the Master of Birds. “The Council voted that we move.”
“Then the Council has blood on its head!”
“We all do, Michael. You think you come away from this clean?”
“Do not test me, Knight-Captain. How many of our order did we bury today? How many have we lost compared to the serpents who failed in their duty in the first place?” The voice was low, dripping in menace. Hayley braced herself for the sound of fists being loosed, but the tent flap flew open and three knights in scowls stomped away. One of them turned to glare at the knees and elbows on the ground, causing Hayley to skitter to her feet.
For a moment, the woman stared hard at Hayley’s face as if trying to place it before her eyes drifted down to the stained seven serpents on her chest. Snarling curses from the islands beyond the shore, the woman chased after her fellow blue guardians leaving Hayley alone.
“Squire,” Erin’s voice wheezed from inside.
Shit. She didn’t mean to be exposed. Hayley moved to try and dodge away, but there was no point. The Knight-Captain knew she was here, knew she was watching. Knew she heard everything.
“Yes?” Hayley didn’t lift her head, her neck in a permeant hunch.
“Go and find your knight. He took some damage in the fight and will require tending.”
“Yes,” Hayley muttered, trying to slink away. Gavin hadn’t told her anything about his wounds. He hadn’t even glanced her way since dropping her into the dirt behind their barricade. It seemed doubtful he could ever look at her again.
“And squire,” Erin’s normally uncrossable voice softened to a whisper. It was so shocking, Hayley actually turned to watch the worn woman sink into a chair. With her eyes shut, she finished, “No matter what caused it, no matter the reason, if not for your quick thinking that gravesite would be much larger today. Cling to that fact, because blame will try to bludgeon it all away.”
Pursing her thin lips tight, Hayley bobbed her head fast as if she understood any of that. Most of it couldn’t make it past the whine in her ears. It sang like nails being chewed apart by metal jaws, and it wouldn’t stop. Even when she was curled up on her pallet, trying to will herself to the freedom of sleep, it rang on inside of her brain. If she stilled her breath she could almost hear what sounded like a cacophony of screams trying to breach below it.
Without purpose, Hayley wandered away from the mass of angry knights. Most had dried their tears on a glove of vengeance, swearing to make those inside the castle pay. Others were yet numb, the older members of the Order keeping quiet while the young raged about what was proper and right. The squires circled around them like smaller dogs hoping for scraps to fall from the big dog’s mouths. Hayley wasn’t around them long enough to hear their thoughts, but she could guess it amounted to the same. More death, more blood, more swords and steel.
Past the lonely tent where Gringolet and Copper nosed through a mostly empty food trough, Hayley eyed up the kitchen area. It was quiet but not empty. All of those lost-squires, the ones who’d been pinning their hopes on a big win remained where they began. Squatting at the lone table, everyone passed the pinecone back and forth, saying not a word. Even Larissa was there, her thin finger scraping against the splinters of the table, head cast down.
Further on was the Man of Birds himself. He’d been angry, having been accused by many of either failing in his duties for not noticing the Knight-Commander’s proper seal, or working with the enemy. Either one caused Glomen to burn red in rage. At the moment, he was turning it all on the messenger who appeared in the middle of the night. The Master of Birds found it quite convenient that the true message didn’t arrive until it was too late. Every lip sung conspiracy, but no one knew who was to blame. The Council? The Master of Birds? The Commander himself? Or was it God? Had God turned so far from them all that they were being picked off in cruel irony?
Away from the knights, the bickering, the empty squires, the braying, Hayley walked. Her legs carried her towards the cliffside. Perched almost right where she leapt down to the rocks below was her knight. He’d torn off his gambeson and the wool livery. Wrenched away every scrap that labeled him a knight of the Order and dressed in nothing more than a single linen tunic and leggings. With legs crossed and hands pressed against his thighs, Gavin looked as if he was deep in thought. Perhaps she shouldn’t disturb him. Let him sit and…and just be.
“Squire,” the voice was ragged, a wheeze erupting from his nose.
“The Knight-Captain, she, uh…” Hayley gulped, her teeth chattering. “She told me to check on you.”
Something like what she’d have called a laugh before this nightmare occurred broke from Gavin, “Did she now?” His hands slid off his thighs and the steady head turned to look ov
er his shoulder at her. “You should sit,” he said, “before you fall down.”
“I’m…” Fine. She was fine. She was always fine, had always been fine because she never let herself care. Open up that fickle heart, let something else inside — even if it was just a fat ol’ house cat you’d slip a bit of gristle to — and it’d all go to shit. Wake up one day, eight-year-old legs stumbling through chores to find the grey fur pounded into the road by a wheel or hoof. Don’t cry, never cry, not over anything stupid like some dead cat. That made them all mad. They wanted their slaves happy.
“Hayley…” Gavin’s eyes burned through hers and she gasped, realizing he was washed away in tears.
“Damn it.” She tried to wipe them away fast with her hands, but the knight below grabbed onto her fingers. Slowly, he pulled them down from her assault on the proof she wept. “I…I shouldn’t be. I don’t want to… God damn it all.”
“Sit,” he said, the wheezing whisper voice snapping into an order.
Hayley’s legs bunched up and she landed hard on the grass. Once she was situated near him, Gavin released his hold and dropped both his hands safe into his lap. Her own hands were still burned from the rope, red and white gashes of her skin drawing her eyes to the reminder. The pain of the abrasion was in the distance; it was hearing Marco’s voice cheering her on that drew daggers into her heart.
“My fault,” Hayley whispered, her hands folding up into fists. “I shouldn’t have…”
“If you had not come, many of us would have died,” Gavin said as if he could read her thoughts. Or maybe he had to tell himself that lie to keep from hurling her over the cliff. She’d let him without any fuss.
“No,” Hayley whipped her head back and forth hard, “no, no, no. He shouldn’t have followed. He should have stayed back with the others. Then he’d… He’d still be…”