The Knight (20 page)

Chapter Four

Kendal, Cumbria, England

The palisades had been overrun, their defenders fleeing back to the sheltered walls of Kendal. Little shelter they would find there.

The beastlike, ferocious men of Pictland and the terrible black arrows that came from the skulking shadows that patrolled the gloom, beat the peasant auxiliaries and huscarls back. Sir Henry of Kendal, just twenty-two and in command of the defense of the northern walls, looked out with a grim countenance through the visor of his fine, steel helm. He stood atop the battlements of the wall, overseeing the combat below.

“Open the gate and let these men through! Prepare spears to repel pursuers! Efrick, Sam, prepare the oil. In the name of King Arthur, we hold this line against hell itself!” Henry drew his sword and swung it through the air. It was no cheap gesture, as at his stroke, a volley of arrows soared from the four lines of twenty bowmen each, who stood over the crenelations to fire their arrows and then duck back down, protecting their bodies from return fire. Henry saw a handful of Northmen stagger and fall, their fellows breaking off the chase of the retreating defenders and scurrying back, trying to get out of range before the next sharp rain fell. There was a clanking of steel on steel and Sir Derrick of Liverpool appeared on the spiral stairs leading up to Henry’s vantage point. His face was a sheen of sweat and drying blood, but the crimson fluid did not appear to flow from any wound he himself had sustained, which gladdened Henry’s heart.

“Ho, Sir Henry! The east wall is secure, for now. Some fell men, skin as dark as ash, came over the walls with grapples, but we cut them down with sword and spear. How fare you here?” Derrick was breathing hard as he spoke, and Henry noticed that he was missing a tooth.

“We resist, but we do not prevail. The palisades are lost, and the northern road is overrun, but I do not see how our enemies can breach these walls without great loss of life.” Henry pointed beyond the walls to the flames which were once peasant houses. “They come fore, loose arrows at us and then retreat. So it has been these last two bells of the church tower, by my ken. Still, we have lost few men, which is a blessing. Do you think they mean to starve us out?”

Sir Derrick considered. “Unlikely, I think. They would need a force of ten times what they have to garrison us in, and if we are being attacked so suddenly, then Mordred must know that more forces are being mustered to the south. We need only survive this night, perhaps the next as well, and then we will be sure to see Sir Rhys leading the banners to our aid. Be assured, and fear not.” Henry punched Derrick’s shield with his mailed fist, clanging the metal together where the scarlet livery was scratched and gouged by sword strokes.

“I am glad Liverpool stands with us this night, brother. Kendal has never faced so grim a day.” Henry would have spoken more, but he was cut short by the tolling of the bell at the kirk. Sonorous low notes pealed over the city.

“What new devilry is this?” said Derrick, straightening his tabard, getting ready to fight again. Henry cocked his head to listen.

“The rhythms of the bells say the west wall. Let us go now, with all haste!” Henry ran as fast as his heavy armor would allow, down the spiral stairs from the battlements to where his horse stood, held by his squire, Dylan. The boy was wild-eyed, only thirteen and in fear for his life.

“Strength and duty, lad,” Henry told him as Dylan helped him onto his horse. “Remain here, get to my post on the battlements and order a volley of arrows at anyone you see come within bowshot, understand?”

“Aye, my lord!” the boy stammered, and sprinted up the stone steps. It was too soon for such responsibility to be thrust on him, Henry knew, but this was too much of a strain on all of them. Derrick mounted his charger beside him and the two knights kicked their mounts to motion, cantering through the dirt brown streets of the town. Kendal was not a large settlement, so they reached the walls before the bells had finished raising the alarm. A hundred men at arms and levy militia waited below Henry’s uncle, Lord Melegeant, who stood on the ramparts, and turned to see his nephew arrive.

“Ho, Henry my blood and life. The Vikings are here, and they have not come alone!” he cried.

As if to punctuate his remark, the great west gate shuddered under a huge impact.

“No battering ram is this; none could get so close so speedily,” said Derrick. Melegeant could not hear Derrick’s words, but answered him nonetheless. “It is a trebuchet! It will breach the walls within the hour, or within a minute, I cannot say which. Bear arms! Ready the men!”

Henry saluted his father, and, from his position on his horse towering above the soldiers, he bellowed against the furious crack of stone on wood, and stone on stone.

“Men of Kendal! This gate will fall, but you shall not. Ready your spears! The Viking horde would slay your mothers and fathers and rape your wives, but we shall slay them all for daring to sully our lands with their vileness. Together, we fight! Together we die! For King Arthur, for Lord Melegeant, for Kendal!”

The hundred spears raised to the sky and their bearers roared their bloodlust. They were invincible with two great knights with them, their liege lord on the walls, and their families at their backs. With the sound of thunder in their hearts, they turned to the great west gate of Kendal, ready to kill whoever, whatever came through the breach. A whipping noise like the dying of dreams rent the air, and the trebuchet fired again. The rock flew true, too true, and struck the gate hard. Showers of wooden splinters as long as the palm of a man flew, piercing many of the soldiers.

“Raise your shields! Hold them to the ready!” Henry called loudly over the din.

“The crew of this weapon know their craft,” stated Derrick. “I doubt even King Arthur’s best siege engineer could make two shots like that with a trebuchet, and so quickly too!”

“Look, there is more than one—here comes another shot!” cried a soldier, pointing to the sky.

Henry looked, and a rock was hurtling through the air, wreathed in flames of green. Green fire; a fiend fire. His heart sank. Vikings were no witches, although they were thought to consult runes and seers.
They have not come alone
. He looked up at his uncle, ordering volleys of arrows. The rock launched by the trebuchet streaked through the air, a baleful, falling star, smashing into the very ramparts where Lord Melegeant stood. The wall of Kendal exploded, a force of air pushing men onto their backs. Henry’s horse reared and whinnied, but stayed aright. The brick dust took what seemed a century to clear, and when it did, the Lord of Kendal lay rent on his broken battlement.

“Uncle!” Henry shouted, but he knew it was too late for his lord now. Through the dust and the gap hewn in the wall came screaming Viking berserkers, and some of the ash-skinned men Derrick had seen. They were not men, that was clear. Their movements too graceful, their blades curved and spiked in wicked artistry that no man could have wrought. At the head of these interlopers stood their leader, ash of skin with a black crown atop his head. He bore a long spear, with blades at both ends of an intricately jeweled shaft. There was silence as he approached.

“I am Erandur, King of the Dark Elves. I am the wailing doom. I am your death.”

His voice cut like winter winds, and fear gripped at Henry’s heart right through his tabard, breastplate and mail. He shook himself and met the devil’s red eye.

“For King Arthur! For Kendal!” he cried, and spurred his horse to charge, Derrick at his side.

Chapter Five

Earth

“This is the epitome of the word impossible!” spat Minerva, as she sat on the bough of a favored tree that responded to her touch by blooming fresh sweet fruits in moments.

The faerie ignored the proffered gifts in her doldrums. A night and a day and another night on Earth can be an eternity for faefolk with a task. Not given to perseverance or diligence by nature, Minerva was typical of her kind. She wished that she was off with the other fae, whispering dreams to mortal men, turning their minds to take up arms and head north to bolster the forces opposed to Oberon and Mordred. She wished she was back at the court of Eon, or in the high libraries, or anywhere else. Rinnah had not been seen in a generation of her kind, which was many generations of mortal lives.

“Perhaps a bit more cheeriness, my friend Minerva!” said Naida, violet eyes twinkling. “Though we have the hardest task, do you not see that we are fated to succeed?”

“Fate! I can tell you stories about fate that would curl your hair, if your hair wasn’t so curly already. Be true to me now, friend. Do you
really
believe that your human boy is
Nestaron
? There is precious little time for lollygagging on his part or ours, and he rides into the very teeth of destruction itself.” Minerva immediately regretted her words as she saw Naida’s eyes grow large and weepy. “I’m sorry, Naida. That was unkind.”

“It is alright, Minerva. I just haven’t heard any word from Rhys. I thought I heard him call my name into the water last night, but there was nothing there. I fear Oberon or some bedeviled Arcadian warlock has severed our connection,” Naida said, and looked sadly into the pond on the banks of which they stood.

“I doubt that is the truth. We are on Earth, silly one! In body and mind! We cannot speak through pools or manifest ourselves in the elements while we are whole and on this side of the terrestrial veil. Now, I would see your countenance change. Melancholia was a friend of mine, but she suits you ill.” Minerva smiled, and threw an apple from the tree to Naida, who caught it.

They had covered many miles, sometimes listening to the stories the rivers told, as it was well known that they carried the tales of all trees that drank from them. Sometimes they were as mice, hearing the humans speak of their woes, rumors of darkness and fierce fighting in the north. They moved on from the pool and the tree, and crossed the land on fleet feet that bounded over fields and villages. While they had no way of knowing exactly where Rinnah and her orchard might be, Minerva was convinced that by following her instincts, she would come across some sign of her.

Her theory would probably have proven to be more true, but so many fae were now abroad in the land that divining the location of magic and magical beings had become quite troublesome. She was also having problems gathering her bearings in order to pinpoint some of the landmarks she had seen in her vision. There had been a wide land mass that looked like a tidal plain, but it shored up to a very wide river. People traversed the gap by means of a fantastic bridge which was wide and strong enough for wagons and teams of horses to cross it and there seemed to be some sort of holy place there as well. Mists had surrounded it, rolling upriver from the open sea in blankets of thick fog. Behind the fog, a tall citadel had stood shining in the dim sunlight and the apple trees that had surrounded Rinnah’s silver one had stood within those golden city walls.

With her poor knowledge of Earth, Minerva had left the navigating to Naida but she now had reservations, and guessed correctly that part of their haphazard course and endless meandering was due to Naida’s constant quest for news, any fragment of hearsay that would tell her how her beloved—the one she believed to be
Nestaron
, the Dragon himself—fared against the combined forces of Mordred, Arcadia and the Unseelie Court combined.

Minerva feared for her, sure as she was that no mortal man could hope to stand victorious against such a force, less still a boy as young as Rhys. A mere blink of an eye in the life of a fae; that was all he had lived. The world of the fae would continue, she knew, and the realm of men would also go on, one way or another, in darkness or not, in peace or not. She felt most likely not, given the garrulous nature of mankind.
To you, I entrust the great quest of our time.
The words of Queen Mab came back to her. How long could she bite her tongue and allow Naida to lead? Minerva looked down as they soared between two clouds that bloomed pregnant and gray; the water in them whispered songs of the ocean, of longing to soak into the earth. She saw ragtag bands of men, armed with roughly-hewn swords and pitchforks, the occasional bowman. Her brothers and sisters were clearly hard at work spreading the news of the war to come. Would it be enough? Minerva found it hard to believe that it would be. She looked back up to Naida, skipping ahead on a breath of air she had asked the wind to blow for them.

“I’ve seen it, you know; the location of the orchard,” Minerva finally admitted as they soared ahead.

“What? Why haven’t you said anything?”

“I saw it in a vision at the Everlasting Pool on the day we left Eon together. I was shown landmarks, things to look for, but I have no idea where in this wretched land to find them, so it’s hardly useful at all.”

“I see.”

“I don’t know Earth half as well as you do, Naida, and you have a much stronger instinct for things than I do. I didn’t want to dilute that with what I had seen.”

“I understand. Don’t be worried, my friend. We will find it.”

Naida thought of nothing more after that; she only listened to the bellows of the north zephyrs. Could she just fly north and see Rhys herself, right now? She would like that more than anything, more than to see Rinnah reveal her orchard. More than life and death and water and earth and fire; she wished that she could, that she did not have this burden. Why had Mab chosen her for this? She was not the most powerful fae; far from it. Wouldn’t the Fire-Drake or the Wisp be a better hunter of a faerie who was legendary for both her terrible prowess and diligent solitude? She flipped onto her back, riding the currents, and dropped like a stone to the ground. She did not know why she decided here was a good place; just that it felt portentous. Below, she saw a copse of trees, which may have been an orchard, in the grounds of a small church where she knew humans liked to gather. She landed as lightly as a grasshopper on wheat, touching down on a single toe. Minerva joined her.

“What is it, Naida? Do you feel something?” she asked.

“I can’t say,” said Naida. Looking around they saw the low stones that marked the resting places of the human dead, separated by a wall of rock delineating the graveyard from the orchard, for so the collection of trees indeed were.

“Rinnah! Guardian of the Orchard! Come out to me. My name is Naida of Mab’s own
Brannon vuin
,” Naida sang, in her high sweet voice. There was no answer. The church seemed deserted; no priest or man stirred.

“Do you hear that?” said Minerva. Naida took her meaning right away.

“There’s no sound. No birdsong, even the leaves are silent. You are wise to the speech of insects; are there any of their songs to hear?” Naida turned on the spot, suddenly filled with trepidation.

“Nothing. I do not think this is Rinnah’s Orchard, cousin. I fear we are in grave danger here.” Minerva took Naida’s hand gently. “Let us leave immediately and be gone from this place!”

Naida made to answer, but her voice stopped in her throat. Stepping out from behind a gravestone that could not possibly have hidden its whole form was a terror that stilled the blood in her veins. It was a cambion, she knew. She felt Minerva stiffen with fear; there were few things that could harm faefolk, no mortal blade for sure. A cambion was no mortal and bore no blades, but it was one creature that could annihilate a faery with one well-placed spell.

“Fear not, fae-childer, I will do you no harm, yes-sss?” The cambion slunk toward them, and Minerva and Naida stepped back. The low wall between them would not hold the creature up for longer than a second if he chose to strike.

“We trust your words not, snake!” cried Minerva, braver than she felt. “We know your master; we know what you are here for. You bring death, trouble and woe! Step away, and leave us be.”

The cambion feigned a wound at the words.

“I have no quarrel with Eon, nor with the great Queen Mab. I merely by chance happened to be walking in the cool sss-shade of these graves when you happened upon my repose. I care not for the wars of men, but I am wondering; what brings two fae, wingless babes as such, to Earth during these times of strife? Tell friend Anebos; perhaps he can help.” He mewled his words sweetly, this creature, in an attempt at a coquettish manner that brought revulsion to Minerva’s stomach. The wight stepped another foot closer, and put his hand on the wall in an utterly menacing and yet relaxed manner.

“Anebos, wight, cambion and most loathed, feeder on death and skulked of form, leave us be, or by our power we shall crush you,” Minerva hissed her words through her teeth. She was sure that the villain meant to deal them death.

Naida steadied her hand and whispered to her friend. “What if he can help us? He passes through shadows, fire and blood. He may have seen…
her.
Or even him!”

Minerva took her meaning, but was too slow to quiet Naida’s excited hope, or warn her that a cambion had the ears of a dozen foxes. Anebos smiled, all fangs and venom. “Help you, yes, I can help you find your lost loves, yes? For that is who you seek. A lady you search for, yes-sss, and a boy to whom this purple-eyed pretty is sworn? I see many things, faerie girls. I see the truth in things and the lies in others, the right and the wrong and the good and the bad. I know whom you seek, and I have seen them both, oh yes-sss.”

“You lie!” screeched Minerva, and with her free hand, she took the forgotten song of a sleeping toad and shaped it into an arrow of wind. She did not unleash it, but held the air-dart over her head, ready to strike. Naida broke away from contact with her.

“Minerva, hold! Do not loose it!” she cried. “Monster, speak the truth to us and let us go in peace. What do you know of the Orchard?”

Minerva’s heart sank.
Naida, you fool!

“This is not the place we seek, Naida. I don’t see any wide river with the remarkable bridge; in fact, there isn’t a river for miles. We should also be closer to the sea and there certainly isn’t any fog or shining city either.”

“You saw all those things?” Naida asked.

Minerva nodded, not wanting to reveal anything more in the presence of the foul being. The cambion cackled and hackled with glee. Minerva knew well enough that you could never put trust in those beings that life itself had rejected, but Naida was too young, too naïve and too in love to take heed of the danger. The cambion sat on the wall, but neither of the two faeries saw him move. He was mere feet from them now, still relaxed as an adder is relaxed when the field mouse steps on his tail.

“Orchard, yes, my pretties, the orchard of Rinnah I have seen. Your human love I have seen, I have seen many things. Would you see him first, or her? I wonder which you would choose. What if you could sss-see one, but not the other?” He flipped his hand from palm facing down to facing up to illustrate. “I could show you one, and you would be joined in the twitch of a tail.”

Minerva felt Naida’s heart leap, and saw her take a step forward toward the uncanny deathless fiend. She seemed entranced, her violet eyes locked to his red ones, and then she realized the trap that they had fallen into. There was no time to warn Naida that the creature had subtly hexed her, that he had hooked her mind with his devious spell. She gathered her wind arrow and flung it with all her fury and protection. Anebos’ eyes glinted and in the palm of his hand there was a wall of fire that swallowed the arrow and used its air to fuel it higher, but his spell on Naida was broken. Minerva wasted no time, and leapt forward, clutching Naida’s hand and with all her strength, propelling her into the sky, returning her to the care of the winds.

“Remember what you are looking for, Naida,” she called after her.

Naida looked down as she rose into the air, her senses returning to her. The cambion’s words had felt so soothing. How desperate she had been to find Rinnah and to see her beloved Rhys again. Then, she screamed in terror and agony as she saw the black shape of Anebos fall. Minerva had left herself entirely open to attack in order to save Naida from certain death, and now she was to take her place. The wicked fangs of Anebos fell, and the sparkling blood of a faerie fell on Earth for the first time in centuries.