Morgarten (Book 2 of the Forest Knights) (26 page)

***

Leopold had been in his armor for less than half a
day and already it chafed his neck and hips. He could not wait to
get out of it. When this day was over, he swore he would not don it
again.

What was the point anyway?

He had no intention of being anywhere near the
battle, if there even was one. The leather collars dangling from
his horse’s saddle were for show. Nothing more. The thought of
trying to slip a strap around a sweating, bleeding, Schwyzer
repulsed him to no end. Although, perhaps he could attach a line to
his horse and drag the peasants behind. That would be good for
morale when they entered Zug on their return trip.

Far away, the sound of another mountain horn called
out. Two long, mewling notes, like a calf calling for its mother.
The horns had been sounding all morning. Ever since they set out
from Zug. Leopold closed his eyes and shook his head, which was
beginning to ache.

When he looked up he saw a man. A very old man with
white hair. Preoccupied with his thoughts, he had not realized that
Klaus had brought the column to a halt. He had one hand on the
bridle of Leopold’s horse.

“What is this?” Leopold asked.

“It is an old man blocking the road,” Klaus
said.

“Ah, thank you.”

It was not actually the old man who blocked the
road, but rather, it was the score of felled trees crisscrossing it
that made the way impassable. The old man just happened to be
sitting atop that pile.

The old man wore a dull, colorless robe that may
have been brown at one time. But his hair was white as bone and
glistened when the sun’s rays found it through the trees. He chewed
on a long piece of grass and seemed to be completely unaware of the
Austrians’ presence.

***

As Seraina approached the center of the Mythen, the
white-robed figures encircling the cross began to chant. Seraina
recognized it immediately. It was a lesser verse, called
A
Greeting to the Weave
, and was a precursor for more powerful
incantations.

One of the figures, an older woman, her blond hair
heavily streaked with gray, broke away from the circle and stepped
toward Seraina.

“Blessed be the Weave, daughter.” She touched her
forehead and her heart, and smiled at Seraina.

Seraina bowed her head and held her right palm over
her womb. “Blessed be the knowledge of the Weave as passed through
the Elders,” she said.

“Do you remember me, child?”

“Of course, Elder Orlina. Gildas and I stayed with
you often when I was young.”

The woman placed her hands on Seraina’s shoulders.
“I should have known. You never forgot anything as a child. Why
should that have changed?”

“Thank you for coming,” Seraina said, her voice
cracking.

Emotion swelled into the back of her throat. She
looked at the circle of druids, the last of their kind, all come to
help the Helvetii. As though they could read her thoughts, one by
one, they turned and smiled at Seraina. They continued chanting.
She recognized a few of the faces under the white hoods, but most
were unknown to Seraina. The Weave only knew how far they had
traveled to be here.

“Thank you…” Seraina said again.

Orlina shook her head. “Those who do the bidding of
the Weave require no gratitude. We do what we do so that life can
go on.”

“Even though none of you are Helvetii?”

“We are all of the Old Blood, Seraina. We are all
Celts. And today,” she fanned her arm in the direction of the druid
circle, “we shall all be Helvetii.”

The chanting suddenly stopped. A cloud passed over
the sun and a shiver that began in Seraina’s stomach fluttered out
through every limb.

“Come,” Orlina said. “It is time to awaken the
Mythen. We will need your strength, as you will have need of
ours.”

Orlina took Seraina’s hand and led her to the edge
of the circle. The druids there spread out to allow them room.
Seraina looked at the base of the cross for the goat, for a ritual
of this magnitude would need a sacrifice. But there was no tethered
animal. Puzzled, she looked at Orlina.

The older woman pursed her lips and tried to smile,
but her eyes crinkled with sadness. She gripped Seraina’s left hand
tighter, and the man on Seraina’s other side took her right hand in
his own. The other druids, likewise, grasped one another’s hands,
making a human chain around the cross. All save for two men
opposite Seraina. They stepped aside, and Oppid padded silently
into their center.

What is he doing here?

“Oppid!” The wolf looked at Seraina when she called
his name. His golden eyes flashed and he whimpered once.

By Ardwynna’s Word, no….

Seraina tried to shake her hands free, but the
druids tightened their grip. She looked at Orlina, who only shook
her head and stared at Oppid. “Orlina, no, please…”

Orlina closed her eyes, and her chest heaved with a
heavy breath. “The Mysts will not come without a great sacrifice,
my child. Balance must be maintained.”

Oppid sat down at the base of the cross, next to a
large, flat rock that someone had put there for a very specific
purpose.

The druids began to sing. The melody slow and
mournful.

“No! There must be some other way. Not Oppid…
please, Orlina.”

This time it was the older druid’s voice that
cracked.

“No, Seraina.
Not
Oppid.”

Then Orlina’s words failed her, and all she could do
was thrust her chin out to point in Oppid’s direction. Tears
streamed down her cheeks. She shook her head and began to sing. Her
voice quavered, but soon it was picked up and carried by the sounds
of the others.

Seraina turned her head, and for the first time,
noticed what was placed on the flat rock at Oppid’s side. Folded
ever so neatly was the white robe of a druid, and placed next to it
was a walking stick. A peeled piece of oak, crooked and polished
smooth with memories.

She screamed, her legs gave out, and she tried to
curl into a ball. But Orlina and the other druid holding her hands
would not let her fall. She stood there and cried, her body
writhing, and still they would not release their hold, or let her
fall.

Oppid howled.

Seraina answered the wolf with a scream. And
sometime later, still wracked with sobs, Seraina began to sing.

***

“You there!” Landenberg shouted. “What happened
here? Who cut down those trees?”

The old man looked up and his eyes went wide, as
though he had, until that very moment, been oblivious to the fact
that an army thousands strong was less than fifty paces away.

“You came!” he said, pushing himself to his
feet.

“What are you talking about? Come down off there,”
Landenberg said.

The old man chewed on his blade of grass, then
pulled it out of his mouth and stared at it for a moment before
throwing it away. Then he began walking down off the pile of trees,
without once crouching or reaching out to balance himself by
grabbing a branch. In a few seconds he stood on the ground, next to
the exposed roots of a giant oak, and beckoned to the men to come
closer.

“It is against the King’s Law to cut down that many
trees,” Landenberg said.

The old man stroked one of the soil-covered roots
next to him. “Do these look like they were felled with an ax, Vogt
Landenberg?”

“If you know who I am, then you must know who this
is as well.” He gestured toward Duke Leopold.

“I do. And I have a message for your Duke,” the old
man said.

“Very well,” Leopold said. “Go ahead. Tell me what
you will.”

The old man shook his head. “It is for your ears
only, I am afraid.”

Once again he gestured with his hand for Leopold to
come near.

Leopold had already nudged his horse forward a
couple steps before he felt Klaus’s arm on his own. “My lord, it
could be some form of trap.”

Leopold blinked once and looked at Klaus. He was
surprised that the two of them were already twenty feet away from
Landenberg, Franco Roemer, and the other captains of his army. The
old man beckoned again.

“Nonsense,” Leopold said. “Look at him. He is even
older than you. But accompany me if you must.”

Leopold walked his horse forward. The old man smiled
and began taking slow steps toward the two men. A strong wind blew
at the old man’s back, whipping his hair and beard about his face.
He closed his eyes, and his lips began to move. Something told
Leopold to stop, and he yanked back on his horse’s reins.

“My lord? Is something—,”

The old man’s arms shot up toward the sky and the
very air around Leopold seemed to scream. His horse reared up on
its hind legs, its nostrils flaring in fear, and Leopold felt
himself catapulted out of the saddle. He hit the ground hard and
the air burst forth from his lungs.

He could hear laughter. A mad, gleeful cackle that
ushered forth from the old man’s lips. He stood there pointing and
laughing at the Duke, while the wind swirled around the old man,
plucking at his gray robe like dozens of giant fingers. Leopold
pushed himself to his elbows. He wheezed and gasped, trying to coax
even the smallest bit of life-giving air back into his body.

He became dimly aware of movement to his right.
Klaus’s horse ran by and mud from its hooves sprayed Leopold’s
face. The next thing he saw was the old man’s head hitting the
forest floor, the bloody stump of its neck picking up pine needles
as it rolled. The laughter stopped and the woods went silent.

The headless body, however, remained standing with
its arm raised and finger pointing at Leopold. Until Klaus yelled,
and from his saddle, stretched out one of his long legs and kicked
it over.

Klaus and several soldiers ran to the Duke, but
Franco Roemer was already there, helping him sit up. Leopold’s air
returned, eventually, but the sunlight that had been streaming
though the trees only minutes before, had deserted them completely.
After a tense few minutes they had Leopold back in the saddle of a
different horse. Leopold slapped at Klaus’s hand as he attempted to
steady his lord.

“Stop fussing over me! I am quite all right,”
Leopold said. He kicked his horse and began heading east, away from
the deadfall.

The captain of the Sturmritter pulled up beside
Klaus and asked, “What do we do with the old man?”

“Leave him to the wolves,” Klaus said. Then he
spurred his own mount ahead to catch up with Leopold.

Franco felt it took forever for their long column to
scramble over the poorly maintained road. Mountain streams
regularly crossed their path, some of them so wide that Leopold
would have to stop the entire column and send a scout on ahead to
determine the safest point to cross. But finally, shortly after
noon, the trees opened up, and they sighted the rebel forces.

Leopold signaled his army to a halt. Two mounted men
waited in the middle of a lush, green field. One caught Franco’s
eye immediately, for he was dressed in a red tunic with the
distinctive eight-pointed Hospitaller cross on his chest. Behind
them, Franco could see a long line of men crowning a hill far in
the distance. Their clothes and armor were the dull, motley
assortment of grays and browns common in peasant armies, but Franco
saw a few more of the bright red tunics amongst their number.

“What is a knight of Saint John doing here?” Franco
could not stop himself from asking.

“That is no knight,” Leopold said. “Only a
pretender. A blasphemer dressed beyond his station. Pay him no
mind, Sir Roemer.”

That was easier said than done, Franco thought.

“Forgive me, my lord, but the Hospitallers are the
Pope’s holy soldiers. My men will have reservations, you
understand.”

Leopold turned on him. “They are no longer
Hospitallers. The Order has discharged them all. They are deserters
turned mercenary, and now they have sold their services to a rebel
army. Tell your men that.”

Leaving the column behind, Leopold, Franco,
Landenberg, and Klaus trotted out to meet the two rebels.

Franco kept his eyes on the Hospitaller the whole
time. He had never met one of the Black Knights in a tournament. He
found himself wishing Leopold was wrong about this man being a
pretender. The prospect of facing a Hospitaller knight on the
field, especially one in his full red battle tunic, appealed to
Franco’s competitive spirit. A shiver went through his lance arm.
It had been a long time since he had felt that sensation.

He watched the Hospitaller carefully as they
approached. By the time they brought their horses to a stop in
front of the two men, Franco felt he had a fair understanding of
the man’s abilities. He had no doubt the Hospitaller would prove a
formidable opponent when his feet were planted on firm ground, but
he was no horseman. His mount, a beautiful, spirited animal with
the chiseled features of a true Egyptian breed, stamped its feet
and threw its head around. The man was constantly jerking his
reins, trying to keep the horse under his control.

“Hello Melchthal. I have been waiting for this day,”
Landenberg said, his lips settling into a twisted smile. He
breathed noisily through his mouth, and Franco saw saliva spray
through the cool air when he spoke.

The young rebel leader remained composed and did not
reward the Vogt of Unterwalden with even a glance. Instead, he
looked directly at Leopold. With no preamble, and certainly no
respect for the fact he addressed a Prince of the Holy Roman
Empire, he began to speak.

“These are our terms. Turn around and march back to
your homes.”

“You grossly overestimate your own worth if you
think—,” Leopold began.

“I am not finished. Before you leave, your men will
drop all their weapons and equipment on the ground at their feet.
We shall accept that as a toll for coming onto our land
unannounced.”