BLACKEST KNIGHTS
An Anthology
Edited by C. T. Phipps
A Mystique Press Production
Mystique Press is an imprint of Crossroad Press
Digital Edition published by Crossroad Press
Smashwords edition published at Smashwords by Crossroad Press
Digital Edition Copyright 2018 by the individual authors
Copyrights:
“If You Seek for El Dorado” – ©2018 David Niall Wilson
“Jane Versus the Black Knight” – ©2018 C. T. Phipps
“Gift of the Gaze” – ©2018 James Alderdice
“Red” – ©2018 M. L. Spencer
“The Black Bastle” – ©2018 Paul Lavender
“The Structural Engineer” – ©2018 Ulff Lehmann
“The Weight of Bliss” – ©2018 A. M. Justice
“Plainswalker” – ©2018 Matthew Johnson
“The King and the Witch” – ©2018 Frank Martin
“He Ain’t Heavy; He’s My Brother” – ©2018 Allan Batchelder
“The Mist Beyond the Circle” – ©2018 Martin Owton
“The Vampire’s Lair” – ©2018 Richard Writhen
“Weathered Soul” – ©2018 Jesse Teller
“Honor is Just a Word” – ©2018 C. T. Phipps
“Death Becomes Him” – ©2018 Matthew Johnson
“The Land of Rott and Cur” – ©2018 Jesse Teller
“Andrew Doran and the Obsidian Key” – ©2018 Matthew Davenport
“Paladin of the Night” – ©2018 Michael Suttkus
“Lost Honor” – ©2018 C. T. Phipps
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BLACKEST KNIGHTS
Table of Contents
Foreword
If You Seek for El Dorado by David Niall Wilson
Jane Versus the Black Knight by C. T. Phipps
Gift of the Gaze by James Alderdice
Red by M. L. Spencer
The Black Bastle by Paul Lavender
The Structural Engineer by Ulff Lehmann
The Weight of Bliss by A. M. Justice
Plainswalker by Matthew Johnson
The King and the Witch by Frank Martin
He Ain’t Heavy; He’s My Brother by Allan Batchelder
The Mist Beyond the Circle by Martin Owton
The Vampire’s Lair by Richard Writhen
Weathered Soul by Jesse Teller
Honor is Just a Word by C. T. Phipps
Death Becomes Him by Matthew Johnson
The Land of Rott and Cur by Jesse Teller
Andrew Doran and the Obsidian Key by Matthew Davenport
Paladin of the Night by Michael Suttkus
Lost Honor by C. T. Phipps
About Our Authors
Foreword
The black knight is an iconic figure in fantasy stories and something that has wormed its way into our collective unconsciousness. Lord Soth, Darth Vader, the Witch King, Mordred, and countless others represent the dark figure who contrasts both a dishonorable rogue with the theoretical embodiment of chivalry. They often possess supernatural powers but sometimes don’t, just being monstrous hypocrites like Jaime Lannister or the Mountain. A few have some semblance of honor left, but this just underscores how far they’ve fallen.
The original Black Knight was a minor character in the story of the Red Knight versus Sir Gareth. The Red Knight possessed supernatural strength that allowed him to kill a vast number of knights who had no chance against his sun-derived power (like an evil Superman). Gareth, of course, defeats him because it’s a heroic story but the character of the Red Knight always stuck with me because it turned out he murdered dozens of knights to draw out Sir Lancelot. You see, he wanted to impress his lady love and killing the most famous knight in the world was the best way to do that.
In real life, the knights of the world were often the exact opposite of chivalry’s champions. Richard the Lionheart, greatest of all Christian Kings according to popular myth, massacred thousands of surrendered Muslim prisoners for no other reason than it was easier than feeding them. Robert the Bruce, liberator of Scotland from the yoke of the English, stabbed a guy to death in a church during a peace negotiation. Why? Because real life is more complicated than chivalric epics would have you believe.
I’ve always had a love for the fallen knights of fiction and the heroes who didn’t prove to be especially good in the end. The desire to see the story from the perspective of Mordor’s champions is what led to the creation of Wraith Knight. Basically, what did the Ringwraiths think of their master and how would they have reacted if they could have escaped Sauron’s yoke? I was not too surprised to find out there were many other authors who shared my desire to write fantasy from the perspective of antiheroes, villains, and rogues.
I also had fun with other antiheroes as Lucifer’s Star was a deconstruction of the feudal future which was popularized by Dune. The protagonist fully believed in things like honor, nobility, chivalry, and other things before realizing they were just excuses for his fellow transhumans to oppress others. It ended up turning him into just another wreck trying to put the pieces of his life back together on a pirate vessel. As for my story set in the Bright Falls Mysteries? That’s just a reminder one man’s hero is another man’s villain.
Everyone else within had their own wonderful ideas about what happens when an honorable warrior breaks bad. I think you’ll love the work by David Niall Wilson, M.L. Spencer, Ulff Lehmann, James Alderdice, Jesse Teller, Paul Lavender, A.M. Justice, Matthew Johnson, Frank Martin, Allan Batchelder, Martin Owton, Richard Writhen, Matthew Davenport, and Michael Suttkus.
Blackest Knights is a collection of more than a dozen stories written by some of my favorite writers. These are about antiheroes, fallen heroes, and champions of justice who aren’t very just. I think you’ll find the stories within to be fascinating. Because I like my fantasy like I like my protagonists’ armor and morals: black as night.
If You Seek for El Dorado
By Edgar Allan Poe
(Recorded by David Niall Wilson)
When I stepped through the stone door, leaving behind the long, winding trails of that labyrinth I’d traveled so many times, and through
so many tales, the sun was setting on the pointed tips of a mountain range in the distance. I wore my long coat, as was my custom, and Grimm, my dark and feathered companion, as if he sensed something in the air, rode perched on my shoulder.
The road was paved with dust that had not seen the wheel of a cart or the hooves of horses for some time. Dried leaves blew across the way, but I saw no trees, nor could I guess where they might have fallen, or from what branch. It was a sensation of such isolation that I feared my muse had led me astray, drawing me into the aftermath of a tale long told and forgotten.
I closed my eyes, listening and taking the scent of the place, trying to imagine why I had been summoned. My thoughts, as they are wont, drifted to the shores of a far-away lake, that distance measured both in miles and years and countless dimensions. I saw again the comely shape of the tree, the figure of a woman, trapped and alone, staring out across dark waters. Lenore, who had been taken from me, was silent. The waters of that cursed lake lapped incessantly at the roots of the tree, no abler to breach its armor from without than she from within.
So, lost was I in that moment, and my misery, that the approaching thunder of shodden hooves on caked dirt caught me unaware. Grimm, more alert than I, ruffled his feathers and tugged at the collar of my coat, bringing me to my senses. A guttural cry and the ringing cry of metal sliding over leather completed the task.
I opened my eyes and was greeted by the sight of a man, clad in full―if bedraggled―armor, mounted on a great tired horse that despite its weariness, had reared, hooves poised, facing one of the strangest creatures I’ve ever seen.
It was tall, with dark skin and long hair strung with beads and baubles. Its eyes were too large and too wide, its mouth lined with gleaming sabre teeth, and behind, as if for balance, was a serpentine tail at least six feet in length. It stood upright like a man and bore a sword in each hand, but there was little about it that could be construed human. Then, as if to punctuate my thought, it screamed.
That sound, unlike any I had heard before, or have since, pierced me like a thousand needles of ice. I stood, paralyzed, and if Grimm had not chosen that exact moment to peck sharply at the side of my head, might be standing there still. I tore my gaze from the confrontation on the road, scanned the area, and dashed toward a rocky outcropping behind and to my left. The two combatants paid no attention to me, and I was able to take up a more secure position, climbing a few feet up to peer over the top of the stone formation.
The knight did not react as I to the creature’s scream, and though it shied, the horse stood its ground, eyes wide and ears pricked. There was no hesitation on the creature’s part. As the sound of its voice died away, it sprang, launching several feet into the air and swinging its twin blades at the knight’s helm.
The first glanced off of the man’s shield, and the second was met with a ring of steel and a bellow of rage. The horse side-stepped, and the creature, still in forward motion, stumbled slightly, passing to the knight’s right. He swung his great sword down in a deadly arc and it bit deeply into the creature’s shoulder, sending it sprawling. The reprieve was only momentary, but it was enough.
I saw his eyes then, cold, dark, hungry for—something—but fierce and proud. He cast aside his shield and gripped the haft of a spear sheathed to his mount’s saddle. The two spun as if joined into a single being. The creature had regained its footing but held only one sword. Its wounded arm hung slack and useless at its side.
The knight bellowed and charged. He did not throw the spear, and, perhaps it would have been better had he done so. He charged straight at the thing, the tip of his weapon lowered and steady. It stood, as if defeated, until the spear was within a foot of its chest. Muscles rippled beneath dark, glittering scaled skin, and its great tail lashed out.
Too late, the man saw it coming. There was no way to avoid the strike, driving sideways into the legs of his mount. The horse screamed and danced to the side, avoiding the brunt of the blow, but the momentum of the moment was passing, and already the thing was moving, blade raised, to the attack.
The knight did not hesitate. As the horse leaned, skittering out of the way of that monstrous lashing tail, he launched himself from the saddle. Sword forgotten, he gripped the spear in both hands, driving straight into his attacker’s advance. It caught the thing off guard, and before it could dodge or strike, the man’s weight struck its chest, driving it back, and down.
The spear pierced the thing’s scaly breast and drove into the ground with a sickening sound of crushed bone and spurting blood. The knight grunted, then eased back, wobbling a bit. Grimm fluttered and took another peck at my cheek. I started to turn, to admonish him to silence, then I saw it.
The thing lay very still… at least the part in the knight’s view, but that tail—that coiling serpentine tail, still moved. Slowly, inching its way back away from the man standing over it, that deadly appendage grew taut, like the strand of a whip. I should have stayed where I was. It was not my fight. I did not know but that the knight would turn on me and run me through as well, but I there was no time to hesitate.
The sword lay where he’d flung it, and I ran to it in silence. I tried to remember the brief military training of my youth, but those years and that pursuit had proven disastrous. I grabbed the blade, turned, and, with a cry of my own, dove forward and brought it down hard against the creature’s flesh, half-severing the tail and causing it to arch from its feigned throes of death and snarl, reaching for the knight with clawed, leathery hands.
The man staggered back, stunned and exhausted. The thing missed him and turned its attention to me. I had overbalanced, the weight of the sword drawing me forward and down, and though the tail had been rendered useless, the back claws were tipped with talon-like nails the length of a spearhead, one cocked and ready to lash out at my back.
In that instant, Grimm struck. Where he dropped from, I did not see, but he dove directly into the things face, drew up at the last second into a short whirling spin and drove his talons into a soft, glittering eye. Then the bird was up and gone, and all that remained in the socket were strands of gore, trailing over the things ruined face. I regained my balance and backed away, and the knight, finally grasping the situation fully, took the blade from my hand. He turned, and with one might swing clove the monster’s head from its body. Then, without a word, the man took a single step, swung halfway around to face me and dropped to the ground with a heavy thud.
Eyeing the creature, not quite trusting that, even headless, it would not find a way to strike me down, I hurried to his side. The horse had trotted off a short distance but was working its way slowly back. I saw its flanks quiver and knew it felt as I—that death was a thing no longer to be trusted.
I knelt and gently pulled the helmet from his head. His hair, matted with sweat, was tied back in a long braid, draping down over one shoulder. His eyes were closed. I lifted him gently onto my knee and saw a flutter of consciousness return.
He stared up at me.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“A traveler,” I replied. “A pilgrim, of sorts. I only happened to be here when that creature attacked you. I’m afraid I’ve never seen its like.”
“It is—was—the last of its kind,” the man said. “It has hunted me for at least a week, probably longer. The days and nights on the road—they blur. I was not aware there was a pilgrimage to make in this desolate place. I was surprised enough to find a road.”
“Where are you bound?” I asked. There was no sign of civilization in any direction. The surrounding desolation robbed my senses of even the notion of home, or hearth, and the sun was dropping rapidly toward the mountains, its light draining down them like brilliant crimson blood.
The knight turned his head, and I followed his gaze, completing the illusion that I stared into a mirror, for he wore my face, lined and weathered from different roads, loves, and dreams, but so familiar I reached within myself seeking answers to my own questions.
“I
have quested,” he said, “for an eternity. There is a city where the streets are paved in gold. The walls of the buildings, the armor of the guards, and the toys of the children—bright and shining with it. Wealth beyond imagining… El Dorado. I have sought it since I was a young man, following long roads through many lands, chasing legends and folklore, communing with shamans and praying with priests.”
“It is a story,” I said. “It is a fairy tale gold to steal the hearts of the gullible. There could be no such city… though lives have been lost in its pursuit. A man I know of, a knight and adventurer, spent his life in the search, and came up empty.”
“There is such a place,” the knight said. “I have vowed to find it, to stand on its streets, and to experience the magic only El Dorado could provide.”
“Wealth is not magic,” I said. “There are those, likely the priests you prayed with, who would blame the evils of the world on nothing more.”
“And they would be correct,” the knight said softly. “But think… if all was gold. If there was no need to seek wealth because it was so abundant you could eat off of it and make tables of it, where would be the incentive for war? Who would kill another man for something he could have without asking? What heart would be broken for the sake of a thing taken for granted by all? I tell you, pilgrim, if that is truly what you are—there is no greater place in any world than El Dorado.”
I did not answer immediately. There was some truth in what he said, but reality itched at the corners of my mind and chipped away the veneer of his vision. It was not the wealth. It was not gold. It was man himself who tarnished dreams. It was jealousy and greed, lust and gluttony. It was the sense of inadequacy that caused one to believe another held in higher esteem, or better, or more loved. The gold was but a symbol. I started to tell him, but his eyes—they were so tired. His hair, unlike my own that seemed forever locked in ebon darkness, had gone gray at the temples. To explain my thoughts, even were I correct in my conclusions, would be like telling a dying man of God he had wasted his life, and I could not bring the words to my lips. I had wished, before that day, that I could have expressed the same sentiments to Sir Walter Raleigh but had—instead—only penned a poem in memory. My curse, it seems, is to record things I cannot change, and to remember things that bring me pain.
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