Blackest Knights

by Phipps, C. T.

  Tash followed his uncle’s gaze. Across the road, Tessa was being loaded into a wagon full of other girls. She bucked and screamed, struggling as a soldier shoved her in and locked the tailboard of the wagon into place. There was a shout, then the wagon lurched forward.

  Tash sprang to his feet, but the stock of a crossbow knocked him back to the ground. He lay there, silently screaming into the dirt, clutching his temple as blood spilled down his hands. Tears drained from his eyes. He closed his mouth and gritted his teeth against the pain of failure.

  A man next to him gave an agonized scream, then fell forward over his knees. Tash looked up, taking in the sight of one of the village elders lying dead with a crossbow bolt sunk into his back. Another man screamed and fell to the ground. Then another.

  “Stop!”

  Tash looked up to see his uncle bent over him, shielding him with his own body, one arm thrown up as if to ward off the crossbow trained on his chest.

  Kagen shouted, “Please! The boy’s simple! He can’t speak, but he understands! And he’s strong!”

  The soldier holding the crossbow let the weapon sag slightly, his eyebrows knitting together. Kagen surged to his feet, dragging Tash up after him. He grasped the boy’s arm, holding it up before the soldier.

  “He’s strong, see? He can work! He can’t speak, but he understands!”

  The man frowned and, raising the crossbow back to his shoulder, aimed down the length of the shaft. A soldier beside him swiped out, knocking the weapon aside.

  “He’s a mute.” The soldier nodded in Tash’s direction. “There’s good money for mutes.”

  Tash gaped from one man to the other, failing to comprehend what they were saying. The first soldier raised his crossbow again and squeezed the trigger lever. Tash flinched, his hand darting to his chest. But the bolt hadn’t struck.

  Beside him, he heard a grunt. He turned to see his uncle slump to the ground, the quivering bolt protruding from his chest. Kagen lay there in the dirt, staring up at the sky, his lips moving silently. Tash opened his mouth to scream, but only a sharp hiss of air passed his lips. Then he was roughly jerked away.

  “Come on, then!”

  A soldier dragged him toward a group of children being loaded into a wagon. He fought and twisted against the man’s firm grasp. But all his efforts brought him only a knock in the head that made his vision sparkle and his legs go limp. The soldier continued dragging him across the ground toward the wagon.

  “Sergeant!”

  The vice grip eased on his arm. The man dragging him stopped, turning in the direction of the voice. “Captain?”

  “What the fuck are you doing? That one’s too old!”

  The grip on Tash’s arm eased a fraction more as the soldier restraining him shifted his weight and muttered something.

  Tash looked up at the man, a burly soldier clad in a red brigantine vest with a clover-shaped insignia on his arm. The face beneath the nasal of his helmet was heavily pockmarked, a sure sign he’d survived the plague. The combination of dark brown skin and the black ringlets of sweat-dampened hair marked him as a man of Kurstari descent. Tash took a long look at him, then turned back to the murdered corpses of his kinsmen. His gaze found the prone body of his uncle and stuck there.

  Deep within, a terrible numbness suffused him, welling like a glacial spring that washed up from his gut to saturate every fiber of his being. For a moment, his vision darkened, as if the sunlight had just collapsed into night. He looked up at the Kurstari soldier, then glanced back at the bloodied corpses of the fallen that littered the roadside.

  Red.

  Tash ripped his arm out of the soldier’s grasp and staggered backward. The man whirled, hand diving for his sword. He freed the blade and swept it back over his shoulder, threatening to strike as Tash stopped only paces away, fists clenched into balls at his sides. His chest heaved with every breath, his body quaking in anguish and rage. He stared out through a mat of dark hair as the soldier lowered his blade and strode forward to reclaim him.

  “Red,” he whispered.

  The soldier stopped in his tracks, his blade faltering. His eyes widened, as if in surprise, his jaw going slack. A stream of gore leaked from his nose. From his eyes. Flowed down his neck. He took a staggering step forward then dropped to his knees. His sword clattered to the ground. He reached up and tore at the buckle of his chin strap, casting his helm aside, and covered his face with his hands. Blood welled between his fingers, flowing thickly down the vambraces that covered his sleeves.

  The soldier gave a terrible, soul-wrenching cry, then fell over dead.

  The boy’s eyes ticked to the side, coming to rest on the horrified face of the captain.

  “Red.”

  The Black Bastle

  By Paul Lavender

  The two soldiers tied their horses to a tree branch. Around them, the land of Hamerband was changing as the end of winter began to give way to spring. Here and there small patches of snow clung stubbornly to the shaded areas of the forest edge. There was still a chill in the air, and as the soldiers moved, wisps of breath came from their helmets.

  Hamerband was a small kingdom of half-elves that was surrounded on three sides by mountains. The fourth side of the kingdom was heavily forested. The few roads that traversed the forest all led into the area known as the Borderlands. Above, a raven gave out a loud caw as it circled over the two soldiers.

  One of the soldiers adjusted the bow on their back while the other cast a spell of location. It wouldn’t do to lose the horses.

  “Tell me again, what exactly are we doing here?”

  “Oh Melress! My father has had reports of a poacher in the forest, I thought that we could deal with him…”

  “…or her.”

  “Or her. I need to put the training that you’ve been giving me in to practice.”

  “And your father’s all right with that, Bea?”

  Princess Beatrice of Hamerband put a hand on Melress’ shoulder, “Of course! My father thinks you’re a good influence on me, and that you’re a good boy who wouldn’t take advantage of a woman on her own. Now don’t worry so much and let’s get moving.”

  Beatrice crouched down and dipped a finger in the small pool of blood that lay on the carpet of brown leaves and shed pine needles. She turned to her companion with a triumphant smile on her face, “It’s still slightly warm! I knew it was from this direction.”

  Melress rolled his eyes, “Yes, my princess. You are as wise as you are beautiful.”

  Beatrice pouted, “Please don’t take the piss, Mel. I have enough people back in the castle who think a princess’s place is in front of a fire doing fine needlework. It’s not like Hamerband is a huge kingdom either.”

  “I’m not taking the piss, Bea. If it wasn’t so damn cold, I’d offer to show you how beautiful I find you.”

  “Not with that fuzz on your face, Mel. I don’t want to be hauled in front of my father with stubble rash on my neck.”

  “Then I shall remove it, forthwith!”

  Melress removed his helmet to reveal a youthful face, with sand coloured hair and hazel eyes that sparkled with good humour. He could be considered good-looking rather than gorgeous, and since he had met Beatrice, there had only ever been one woman for him. Although the going had been a little bumpy when they had first met. They had both been taken by a nursery rhyme character called The Fading Man and had helped each other kill him and escape from his lair.

  Melress ran a finger over the stubble on his face, and the hairs disappeared where he touched. He could have just willed it away, but he thought this way looked more dashing.

  It was Bea’s turn to roll her eyes, “Smart arse!”

  Mel smiled back, “Well, it’s not bad, but it’s not as good as yours.”

  Bea moved to slap him, but Mel grabbed her arm and quickly moved in for a kiss before he remembered that she still had her helmet on.

  Bea feigned indignation, “How dare you touch a princess, commoner!�
�

  “I dare because I’m nobly born, I dare because I’m a battle mage, and I dare because I love you!”

  “Well, if you love me we need to find this poacher that has been killing my father’s deer.”

  “Yes…And you’re sure that your father was all right.”

  “Sort of.”

  “Sort of?”

  “I didn’t exactly tell him.”

  “What!”

  “I left a note on my pillow saying I had come away with you.”

  Melress paled, “Great! So, your father probably thinks we’ve eloped! He’s no doubt got squads of men out looking to arrest me, which shouldn’t be difficult when the kingdom has mountains on three sides.”

  Bea ran her hands down the sides of her body, “Am I not worth it?”

  Melress gazed longingly at the princess, “Let’s just find this poacher while I can still walk!”

  Bea laughed, “Oh dear!”

  Corvey held his breath and pulled back the string on his bow. Sighting down the arrow, he aimed for the front of the small deer that stood two hundred yards away. His stomach growled in anticipation of the meat that he and the others would be feasting on later. His grey-flecked beard was itching, and he really, really needed to scratch the itch. It was driving him mad.

  The deer looked up from the clump of grass it was chewing as if it had heard a noise. Realising that he would miss his opportunity soon, Corvey let out a sigh as he let go of the string and loosed the arrow to find its target. The flint head sped true and thudded into the deer, sinking deep into its flesh.

  The deer gave a high-pitched squeal of pain before staggering a few steps and then sinking down to the forest floor.

  Corvey ran towards the dead deer, finally getting to scratch at the itch that had been driving him mad. He was a man of average height, but he had a heavily muscled upper body gained from a lifetime of using a bow. A long time ago, in another life, he had been a soldier and had used his bow to kill men and women. That had been before…before…

  He had just stopped scratching at his beard when he heard voices not too far away.

  “I’m sure the squeal came from over this way!”

  “If you say so.”

  From what he could tell the voices sounded young, but a bandit didn’t get to live as long as he had by taking unnecessary risks. Anyway, he was out of arrows and had been lucky to find the piece of flint to attach to the one sticking out of the deer.

  Reaching down, he hefted the deer up and draped the still warm corpse over his shoulders and started heading back to the others.

  Corvey ran as fast as he could with the dead deer over his shoulders. He knew he was leaving behind a trail that a blind man could follow, but if it was just a couple of children, then he and the others had nothing to fear. The gang could deal with them, and they would never find the bodies in this forest.

  As he came nearer to the building that the gang had holed up in, Corvey slowed his pace. There would be at least one person on guard, and the last thing he needed was one of Trelve’s precious crossbow bolts through him.

  Entering the small clearing, he noticed that someone had lit a fire and a thin wisp of smoke was rising from the chimney of the building that sat in the centre. The building was made of some sort of local stone that was dark grey with speckles of black that seemed to shine when the sun caught it, most of the stone was covered in moss and lichen. Even the roof was covered in moss, but the building had proven to be dry. It was two stories high and rectangular and in the middle of the ground floor stood a large entrance. Once upon a time a stout, double door would have stood here, but it had long since rotted away to leave the rusty metal hinges attached to the stonework. Above this entrance, there were two small, square outlets where water could be poured onto the door below. Just to the right of the doorway, there was a flight of stone steps that led to a smaller door that was the only entrance to the upper floor. The door to the upper floor had managed to stand firm against the elements, although it had seen better days. The only sources of light on the upper floor were a dozen arrow-slitted windows. Greyman had soon made this level of the building his domicile and told the others to sleep on the ground floor.

  Corvey had seen ruined buildings like these dotted all over the Borderlands, they were from a time when the land was more lawless, and people needed to be able to defend themselves. If he remembered right, they were called bastles and livestock would be herded into the lower level, whilst the people would defend the bastle from the upper level. The upper floor was just one large space with a fireplace at the end farthest from the door.

  As Corvey headed for the lower level of the bastle, several figures began to appear. Jastayn, a half-elf, was the only one of the gang Corvey gave a shit about. The woman had long, auburn hair and the clearest, greenest eyes that he had ever seen. Approaching thirty in human years, she still cut an attractive figure, and once she would have been considered beautiful back before she lost an ear and the side of her face to a burning torch.

  Jealousy had caused the other women of the village to accuse Jastayn of witchcraft and as their cries of “burn her” rose, her house had been burned to the ground. One particularly ugly, wart-faced woman had just put a torch to Jastayn’s face when Corvey had arrived. He had had to stick three arrows into the ex-neighbours before he could haul Jastayn out of there. Ever since then they had been an item… Until Greyman.

  It was Greyman who had found the two of them, it was Greyman who led the group of bandits, and it was Greyman who had Jastayn to keep him warm at night. That bothered Corvey because Greyman was dangerous.

  The rest of the gang started to lick their lips when they saw the deer draped over Corvey’s shoulders.

  Oh, they would all eat tonight, even though none of the lazy bastards had caught shit since they had arrived. Not Adie or his brother Edie. Not Stick, who was over six feet tall and with the build of a blade of grass. Not Trelve with his oh so precious crossbow, and certainly not Greyman!

  Corvey was beginning to think it was time to cut loose from these idiots, especially now that he had some meat. If he could dry some of it over the fire, he was, he decided, leaving tonight.

  He shrugged the carcass of the deer of his shoulders and on to the paved floor of the bastle. Taking out his knife he got to work.

  Beatrice and Melress had had no problem following the tracks of the poacher and had found some bushes on the edge of the clearing from where they could observe the group. The bush had been covered in red, spiky leaves that Melress had simply parted with a wave of his hand. Once inside, he had let the outer leaves close back over to leave them totally hidden.

  “So much for your poacher. We have to get back to your father and tell him he’s got a bigger problem.” Melress whispered.

  “If we leave them they might move on to a new place.”

  “We can’t take all of them on, Bea, we’re only two and sixteen!”

  “Pfft! You’re a battle mage and I’m a…”

  “You’re a princess! Your dad will have me strung up by my danglies if anything happens to you.”

  “And I won’t go anywhere near your danglies if you don’t help me. I need to be able to protect my people when I’m older, and I can’t do that with a darning needle. So, what is it going to be?”

  As they were talking, one of the bandits started to prepare a fire outside the building. The man’s hands and arms were covered in blood.

  Melress gulped, “All right, All right. Let’s wait until they’ve eaten and then hopefully they’ll get sleepy. That’s when we will attack tonight.”

  Bea smiled, “There you go, that wasn’t so hard now, was it?”

  Corvey was slicing off the cooked outer flesh of the deer when a shadow passed over him. Putting the strip of meat onto a wooden platter, he looked up to see Jastayn standing there wringing her hands, “Are you happy, Corv?”

  “I’m as happy as I’m going to get, Jas.”

  She sighed, “So not ver
y?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s just that you don’t look happy and I hate to see you like that.”

  “Yeah, well, every night I’m down here with the snore crew listening to you rutting with that bastard.”

  “Oh Corv, you know how it is, Greyman would have killed you if I hadn’t gone willingly, and I’d still have been with him.”

  “So, you’re saying that you’re sleeping with him to keep me alive? Well, that’s real kind of you, but I don’t need you to help me! Now go away, I’m busy.”

  Jastayn shook her head in dismay before turning and walking towards the steps that led to the upper floor.

  Corvey watched her go through eyes shining with tears that refused to flow before turning back to slicing the meat off with more vigour than before.

  Greyman ran the whetstone along the curved blade of his axe. The long, measured strokes always seemed to calm his nerves, and he smiled contentedly as he gave the whetstone one last run. Putting the stone down he pressed his finger to the blade and winced as a small trickle of blood ran down. He quickly put his finger in his mouth and licked the blood off.

  Greyman had been born with grey hair, grey eyes and grey skin, he considered himself extremely lucky to have reached the ripe old age of forty years. Of course, being different had gotten him into fights more times than he cared to think, and his nose had been broken many times.

  Everything had changed when the plague had come to the village where he had lived with his parents. Half of the village had died, including both his mother and father and soon the survivors began to blame him for bringing the plague to their doors. One night, he had been attacked, and his knife had ended up in someone’s ribs. He had been a bandit ever since. A price had been put on his head by the local lord, and he had fled farther north where they didn’t know who he was, picking up people like him as he went, he formed a small gang. They had attacked and robbed a merchant and his guards. In the middle of looting the cart, soldiers had turned up, and they had to flee north again.