by Chuck Black
“Foolish peasant.” The Ashen Knight turned Eirwyn's neck so she could see the gruesome mountain raider withdraw his sword and watch Parson fall to the ground on his side. Silent tears spilled from her eyes as she looked down at the crumpled form of her companion and protector.
Parson stirred, moaning incoherently. Bentley backed away from the swords at his chest and went to him. Gently he turned the large man on his back. Bentley had already seen too many wounds in his young life. Parson's would be fatal.
The Ashen Knight spoke only to Eirwyn. “I would love to crush your delicate neck this instant, but I have devised a much more entertaining death for you instead.” He turned her face back to his and leaned closely to her. “I have promised the Lucrums a maiden for their next sacrifice to the lake leviathan. They will be very pleased with my gift.” He laughed uproariously. The other men joined him.
Eirwyn's mouth was open as she strained for air, and the tears continued to flow down her cheeks. Parson wheezed. He looked up at Bentley with panicked eyes and then became still in his arms. Bentley's angered swelled. He laid Parsons large head back to the ground and jumped to his feet. “Stop!”
The Ashen Knight barely blinked. He looked over at Bentley with venomous eyes. “Kill him,” he commanded.
Bentley had only an instant to decide and act. Though fear was a factor, it was not what governed his actions. He knew that Eirwyn would be alive for at least a short time, and he could not help her if he were to suffer the same fate as Parson. He bolted away from the raiders along the river and then into the forest.
Hearing the Ashen Knight laugh loudly again, Bentley looked over his shoulder as he ran and saw the knight release his grip on Eirwyn's neck. He spun her around to see Bentley in his flight.
“There goes your gallant knight, leaving his damsel in the hands of brutish men! Do you see the cowardly actions of a peasant?” he scoffed. “You three—after him. Kill the rat; then rejoin us at the camp of the Lucrums.”
Bentley saw two of the Lucrum raiders immediately begin their pursuit on foot while the third ran to collect the horses. Eirwyn had fallen to her knees near Parson, weeping bitterly. The Ashen Knight turned about and mounted his horse.
“Tie her up and get her on that animal.” He pointed for his remaining two men to unhitch the wagon horse.
The nightmarish scene was quickly obscured with each tree Bentley passed. His mind raced along with his feet, weighing his options as he ran. Although he was unprotected, outnumbered, and without a sword, he did have one slight advantage. His pursuers had no inkling that he was a skilled swordsman. What he needed to do was disarm one of the three.
He continued his flight as fast as his legs would carry him. The mountain raiders’ armor encumbered them somewhat, so Bentley was able to outdistance them.
Ahead, the terrain dropped off suddenly into a shallow ravine that gently sloped up on the other side but ran left and right for as far as Bentley could see. He jumped into the ravine and turned immediately to the left, crouching as he ran so his pursuers could not see which direction he had chosen. He was grateful to realize the ravine curved gently instead of running straight; soon he could no longer see the point where he had entered it.
Bentley followed its path until he calculated that the mountain raiders had also reached the ravine. He found a thick dead branch nearly as long as a poleax and grabbed it. Then he crawled out of the ravine, taking care not to make a sound. He found a thicket of brush and dived into it just as he heard the neigh of a horse a short distance away.
“Have you found him?” he heard the mounted raider call from far to his right.
“Not yet,” a voice called from the ravine just to Bentley's left. “He's got to be in this accursed ditch!”
Good. They'd done just what he'd hoped. The first two had pursued him down the ravine, one in each direction. Their companion with the horses was following behind.
Bentley could hear the nearest raider's footsteps on the twigs and grass in the ravine, and he maneuvered himself about the thicket to keep out of sight until the man passed by. He heard the mounted raider with the horses coming closer. He found a large tree to hide behind and waited. He readied his makeshift weapon.
The three horses were snorting, and Bentley was grateful he had chosen the right tree. There would only be one chance. He saw the head of the man's horse break his plane of view, and he made his move.
“Where are—” the man began to say.
Bentley stepped from behind the tree, swinging the stick with all of his force at the torso of the mounted raider. The man yelled, dropped the reins of the horses in tow, and put his hand up to deflect the stick, but it was too late. Bentley's blow landed powerfully on the raider's shoulder and neck. The man fell backward onto the hind section of his horse, who shied and reared. Bentley quickly grabbed the raider from the back and slammed him to the ground with a thud that dazed him even more. The three horses spooked and ran into the forest.
There was not much time, for the noise of the skirmish would quickly bring the other two raiders. Bentley planted his left knee into the man's neck and reached for his sword. He withdrew it from its scabbard and, with a quick downward thrust, ended the fight. Bentley now stood armed with a weapon that felt good in his hand. It had been months since he had even held a sword, and though he wished for the perfect balance and edge of his own, this would do.
The nearest raider in the ravine had crawled out and was now just a few paces away. “Roz, over here!” he shouted as he saw his fallen comrade, then Bentley. Not waiting for the reinforcement, he launched himself into attack. Bentley thwarted multiple cuts and deflected a poorly timed thrust that opened the man up to a deadly counterthrust. The man dropped his sword and stared at Bentley in disbelief. Then he fell to the forest floor.
Bentley turned about just in time to see the blade of the third raider arcing toward him from the left. The man yelled as he put all his strength into what could very well be a deathblow, for Bentley had no armor to hinder the edge of the raider's blade.
Bentley brought his sword to bear, but the deadly sword crashed into his and continued on into his left shoulder. The raider finished the slice by pulling his sword inward, and Bentley felt his flesh split open. He rolled with the slicing motion of the blade and fell to the ground. As he hit the ground, he continued his roll toward the raider, bringing his sword around in a backward slice that cut through the man's right leg. He too fell to the ground, and each man scrambled to recover before the other.
Bentley was first to his feet and executed a final slice, which put his third adversary down. Only then did he look at his shoulder. Blood oozed down his arm from the deep cut. But the blade had only partially penetrated his muscle, and though the wound was painful, it was not as serious as it might have been.
Bentley took a deep breath and allowed the rush of the fights to leave him. He stood wounded in the midst of three fallen raiders and feared for the fate of his newfound love. There was no time to waste, yet the horses of the fallen raiders were nowhere to be seen.
He needed Silverwood.
CAMP OF THE
LUCRUMS
Bentley set his course to the river. The terrain rose sharply, and he heard the falls just south of his position. When he reached the river, he followed it upstream until he came to a secluded bridge and a less traveled road that took him beneath the limbs of the Brimwood Forest and out into the open country. The sun was nearly set, and though evening would soon be upon him, there would be enough light to travel for several hours.
He found it difficult to pace himself and not expend all his energy at once as he thought of Eirwyn in the hands of evil brutes. Before too long, he was running with all he had left down the shallow valley to the cottage where he hoped to find Sir Demus. He neared the cottage and began to shout.
“Sir Demus, are you still here?”
Before he reached the cottage, Demus appeared at the door, and Bentley was greatly relieved. Demus's hand went
to his sword when he saw the blood flowing down Bentley's arm. He looked behind Bentley for pursuers, but Bentley grabbed him and embraced his old friend. He took a moment to catch his breath.
“Thank the King… you are still here!”
“I would not go without you,” he replied in his broken speech. “You are my mission just as Holbrook is yours.”
Bentley hesitated for a moment but did not dare to spend the time needed to fully understand the implication of that statement. Still out of breath, he tried to convey what had transpired over the past weeks while Demus set to bandaging his arm. Bentley continued to talk as Demus helped Bentley don his armor. Though not a full suit of battle armor, it would have to do.
Demus handed Bentley's sword to him, and Bentley paused in their urgent preparation. He slid the sword from its scabbard and held the brilliant weapon before him. The King's seal was imprinted in the pommel, the same seal that signified that he was a knight whose heart belonged to the King… and now to His Son, the Prince.
Demus put his hand on Bentley's arm and met his eyes. “It is time, my brother. The Prince has called you to defend the weak and tear down the strongholds of Lucius.”
Bentley nodded as he made the final adjustments. “I must follow Eirwyn now, but there will be too many for me to rescue her alone.”
“You find Eirwyn, and I will ride to the haven at Thecia to seek help from the Knights of the Prince there. We will come to you as fast as possible.”
Bentley nodded again. It wasn't much of a plan, but there wasn't time for a better one. They hurried to the stable and prepared Silver-wood for the urgent journey ahead. Demus gave Bentley directions to where he believed the Lucrums dwelt in the Boundary Mountains. Just before Bentley mounted, Demus grabbed his arm.
“Be careful, Bentley. We are battling forces of wickedness in high places.”
“You be careful too, old friend.” Bentley mounted in haste, painfully aware that for each moment he delayed, Eirwyn would be taken farther away by the Ashen Knight and his evil men. With a final nod to Demus, he pressed Silverwood into a full gallop and rode east toward the Boundary Mountains.
He guessed that by now he was at least two hours behind the raiders. His best chance to rescue Eirwyn would be before they arrived at the camp of the Lucrums. If that wasn't possible, all he could do was hope that Demus and his men would arrive in time.
He rode into the night until it was too dark and too dangerous to continue. Then he rolled up in the blanket from his saddlebags and slept a fitful few hours under a spreading oak. Before the upper rim of the sun had broken the horizon the next morning, Bentley was mounted and pressing onward toward the looming and majestic Boundary Mountains.
With each stride that Silverwood took, the peaks of the mountains seemed to grow. They stood like ominous giants, guarding the vast unknown beyond them. Bentley strained to see some sign that he was gaining on the Ashen Knight, but the landscape was too rugged to allow it. For all he knew, they might be right beside him, or they might have already arrived at their camp.
As Bentley drew closer to the foothills, another worry nagged at him. How could he possibly locate the camp of the Lucrums? He had only very general directions, and the mountains stretched north and south for as far as the eye could see. Bentley had no idea which direction he should journey.
“Like looking for a needle in a haystack, Silverwood. How will I ever find them?” Silverwood snorted and seemed to sympathize with his master. Time was passing quickly. It had taken Bentley all of the morning and most of the afternoon to reach the mountains. Each delay heightened his concern for Eirwyn.
Bentley rode to the top of one foothill, which was crowned with a tall, jagged rock. He tied Silverwood to a tree and took the time to climb to the top of the formation. From here, it seemed to Bentley that he could see forever. Behind him, the greenery of the trees flowed over the kingdom like a patched blanket, giving way at places to softer plains to the south and rugged formations to the north. He could faintly make out the meandering line of the Crimson River and followed it until it disappeared in the distance. He turned and looked south, hoping for some evidence of the Lucrum habitation, but he saw no sign. He knelt down on one knee, discouraged.
“My Prince,” he whispered. “I have sworn to serve You, and I now journey to save the life of a maiden who is merciful to Your people. Help me not fail her or You.”
When he could not stand to be still any longer, he prepared to descend. He placed his foot into a rocky foothold and then froze. Just below him, on the opposite side of where he had tied Silverwood, he saw two men dragging an antlered deer. They were of similar appearance to the men who had accompanied the Ashen Knight when Eirwyn was kidnapped, but they spoke in a strange dialect that Bentley struggled to understand.
He crouched lower, hoping they would not look upward and that Silverwood would remain quiet. Bentley projected the path of their travel and noted the distinct mountain peak along that line. He waited until they were out of sight and far enough away not to hear his descent. Then he hurried to recover Silverwood and followed at a distance.
He hadn't gone far when he spotted the men lifting their game onto the back of one of their horses. Bentley continued following them into steeper terrain, where they navigated between two high ridges. Bentley began to see other signs that people had traveled this same route, and he became extremely cautious. Eventually he hung back so far he lost sight of them altogether. But by then he was no longer concerned about the location of their habitation. He was certain that the sparkling stream that flowed between the bases of these mountain ridges flowed from the mountain lake Walsch had first told him about—presumably the home of the “lake leviathan” the Ashen Knight had mentioned.
The base of the ridge they were following curved to the south. And then the mountains opened to a scene of primitive yet stunning beauty—a circle of rugged mountains cradling a lush valley and a sparkling sapphire lake that filled over half of the open area. A waterfall ten times as large as the Crimson River falls in the Brimwood Forest spilled into the lake with a distant, thunderous concussion. Bentley had been told that this lake was bottomless, for no rushing river flowed from it, only the small stream that he had followed.
Bentley stayed to the cover of the trees and maneuvered until he could clearly see the habitation of the Lucrums on the western edge of the lake. They had carved steps and homes into the rocky cliffs of the exposed face of the mountainside. Below these, near the valley floor, there were other strangely shaped dwellings made of mud and wood. Bentley found a lofty vantage point and watched as the two Lucrums he had been following entered the peculiar mountain village. By the number of caves and huts, Bentley estimated that perhaps a thousand people lived here.
Bentley decided his best hope of getting closer to the village was to backtrack and circumnavigate the southern mountain ridge. He plotted his course, taking a mental picture of the landscape and calculating how it would look from a more southerly approach. Bentley led Silverwood back down to the base of the ridge, unsaddled him, and fed him a measure of grain. Then he hobbled him near a small stream before setting off on foot.
He began an arduous climb up and over the ridge that would allow him to come close to the village without being spotted. As he climbed, he noted that the rocky landscape on the ridges southern side was full of caverns and crevasses that would provide excellent cover should he succeed in procuring Eirwyn's escape. Finally he crawled to the top of the ridge where he could look down into the heart of the Lucrums’ village.
The closer he got, the more dreadful a place it seemed to be. Big piles of rotting garbage lined the outskirts of the settlement. The buildings appeared crude and primitive, garishly decorated with gold and silver booty from many raids. Screams and shouts punctuated the air at regular intervals, though no one seemed to notice. The appearance of the women and children was as rough and ghastly as that of the men.
Bentley thought of Eirwyn in this place and pitied her
for the fear she must be experiencing. He had no idea how he could possibly save her from whatever dreadful demise was planned. He only knew that he would give his life to do so.
Bentley soon became aware of some frenzied activity at the far end of the village. The Ashen Knight rode on horseback through the center of the village, holding a rope that drooped down and back toward a prisoner… Eirwyn. Bentley hoped she would be taken to a prison of some sort. Come evening he would devise a plan to break her free.
The Lucrums came out from their homes and began to dance about Eirwyn, chanting some strange incantation. Drums began to beat out an eerie rhythm as the Ashen Knight led her through the village. The women and children came close to Eirwyn and touched her arms, sides, and hair as if she were an artifact of great treasure and beauty. At first she recoiled from them, but there were too many, and eventually she slumped in resignation.
The Ashen Knight continued to lead her through the village and on toward the lake nearby, and Bentley began to fear the worst. It looked as though her sacrifice would happen immediately. Eirwyn passed close by Bentley's vantage point, and the look of anguish on her face made him clench his teeth in fury and frustration.
Not far from the village, at the southwest corner of the lake, a rock cliff bordered the water's edge, looming twice as tall as a man above the level of the lake. On the rim of this cliff, the Lucrums had fashioned a wooden balcony that jutted out over the edge of the lake. The balcony was two paces wide and followed the curved cliff edge for nearly forty paces. Angled supports rose up from indentations in the cliff wall to the underside of the wooden balcony. One section of the balcony widened to form a platform.
Bentley didn't understand why the balcony and platform were there. But if the rumors of a lake leviathan were true, he suspected that the rock cliff kept the creature away from the village and the balcony was a way for the people to view the spectacle of their lake leviathan sacrifices more clearly.