Knight's Shadow (32 page)

‘Well now,’ I said, my voice light, ‘what a fine looking flock of ducks we have here today! Shall we play then, and see who is the finest duckling of all?’ The children barely noticed my presence, let alone heard my question. ‘Come on,’ I said, trying my best to make it sound as if they risked missing out on the best thing ever, ‘when I get scared, I always fancy a game of Ducklings.’

‘Do you mock me?’ the Knight-Captain said, yanking on one of the ropes and setting the little boy on the end screaming.

‘I’ll be with you in a moment, Sir Knight.’ I turned my gaze back down to the boys and girls. There were seven in all: that would be enough, I hoped. Just enough.

‘Come now, you all remember the rules, don’t you?’

‘I want to play Ducklings.’ It was the little girl I’d brought up from the second floor. I looked at her face and saw the wide eyes, the eyebrows pinched up at the centre. She was terrified, but she was doing her best to be brave.

‘Well then, good Ducklings always follow their mama, don’t they? When Mama says, “flock”, they “flock” – remember? And when she says “slumber”, they get down on their bellies and close their eyes, don’t they? Now, you never want to be the last duckling to flock or slumber, because if you are, you lose the game, right? Are you ready to play?’

The Knight-Captain looked at me and laughed, sounding so menacing that the children renewed their frantic sobbing. ‘You seek to calm them? To take away their fear before they die? You are soft, Trattari, just like the rest of this country. What good—?’

‘Flock!’ I shouted.

All at once the children all ran towards me, and almost instantly, the ropes pulled taut. ‘Flock!’ I repeated, doing my level best to keep my voice cheery and calm, as if we really were just playing. ‘The last one to flock loses the game,’ I called.

It was only as the children rushed towards me the second time that the Knight-Captain started to understand. He tried in vain to release some of the ropes he’d tied to himself; one came free, then another, but it was too late to stop the children’s momentum and he toppled forward onto his belly.

‘Slumber!’ I shouted and the children instantly dropped to the floor and closed their eyes. ‘Now stay sleeping, my ducklings!’ I slipped a hand into my coat and withdrew one of my daggers, leapt over their small bodies and landed on the Knight-Captain’s back even as he struggled to push himself up. With all my strength I drove the blade of my short knife into the back of his neck, right up into his skull, all the way to the hilt, and then I twisted it viciously, although there was no need by that time – the madman was dead.

For a moment, there was blissful silence, then I heard the soft sound of the breeze and then the crackling of the flames below and I had to accept that the world had not frozen in place. My right hand was trembling and I dimly realised I was still pushing the knife into the back of the Knight-Captain’s skull. With more effort than I would have thought possible I managed to stop myself pushing. Slowly I withdrew the blade, then quickly pulled the back of the Knight’s tabard up to cover the wound and the blood already flowing from it. I cut each of the ropes tethering the children to his body and then walked over to the edge of the roof.

Brasti and Dariana were waiting below with the ladder.

‘Flock,’ I said, and the children rose up and ran to me, hugging me so fiercely I had to brace myself to keep them from bowling me over the edge of the roof.
That would be a terrible end to this story
, I thought to myself.

‘Come on,’ I said as Brasti’s head appeared over the roof, ‘we have a new mama duck here and he’s going to carry you down one at a time.’

‘Mama duck?’ Brasti asked as I handed him one of the girls.

A little boy of maybe five years old walked over to the body of the Knight-Captain. ‘You’re not supposed to still be sleeping,’ he said firmly. ‘You didn’t flock. You lose the game.’

Chapter Twenty-Six

The Departure

Minutes after we got the last of the children down from the roof, the barn went up like a pyre. Villagers ran to dig trenches and pour water to keep the fire from spreading, though I didn’t hold out much hope that they’d be able to save the buildings on either side. Bodies were lying in the streets and the square, most dead, but there were a few alive and needing treatment from those with the skills to help them. And, of course, there was still a monumental anger that risked blazing out of control at any moment.

‘Back!’ a young voice screamed from behind me, and I turned to see the commotion at the centre of the village square: Sir Orn, the elder of the two remaining Knights, was on the ground, his throat slit, and two burly young men, one holding a bloody sword, were attempting to get to Sir Vezier past a small figure brandishing a single arrow like a dagger to keep them at bay. It was the boy who’d held Brasti’s quiver for him.

‘He gets a trial,’ the boy shouted. ‘The Archer said so. He gets a trial.’

‘Get out of the way,’ one of the men said, reaching out to grab at the boy, and a second later pulled his now-bleeding hand back. ‘You little bastard!’ he shouted and lifted up his sword.

I started running, but I already knew I was moving too damn slowly.

I’m not going to make it—

But Sir Vezier had risen from the ground and now he stepped in front of the boy. Most of his armour was gone, but he still had on his metal gauntlets and he could have caught the clumsy thrust. Instead he spread his arms wide and closed his eyes as the blade drove into his belly.

The Knight stood like that for a moment, his body held up by the sword inside him. The eyes of the burly young man holding the weapon went wide, and then Sir Vezier’s body began tipping towards him. Disgusted, he pushed the Knight away and he slipped backwards, the blade withdrawing from his body as it hit the ground.

I ran to Sir Vezier and knelt down to examine his wound. The young boy who’d tried to protect him said, ‘I’ll go and get the healer – she’ll fix him. There has to be a trial, the Archer said so.’

I knew the healer wouldn’t come; there were others in need and she’d have little time for a man who’d come here to kill her people.

‘It’s all right,’ Sir Vezier said. There was a trickle of blood leaking from the side of his mouth.

‘Why?’ I asked. ‘Why did you come here?’

‘Orders. A Knight follows orders. We thought . . .’ He grabbed my arm and pulled me close. ‘There are more of us. Hundreds.’

‘To what purpose? Who leads the black tabards? Is it Trin?’

‘No,’ Sir Vezier said. ‘The Dukes have failed us – all of them. They treat us like servants . . . and the country gets worse and worse each year. There has to be order. We have to show people that there could be order.’

A terrible thought occurred to me. ‘Sir Vezier, where were you going next?’ I asked. ‘What was your next target?’ His eyes closed, so I squeezed hard on his shoulders to bring him back to me. ‘What was the next target?’ I repeated urgently. ‘Another village like Garniol? Like Carefal?’

He tried to speak, but instead he started spitting up more blood. At last he managed, ‘Rijou. The Knight-Captain said we would go to Rijou next.’

‘What village?’ I asked.

‘Rijou itself,’ he said. ‘The capital.’

How in all the hells could they ever hope to take the capital city? Duke Jillard had the most secure seat in the world – his own palace was a fortress better protected even than Castle Aramor.

Sir Vezier lifted a hand towards me as if he expected me to take it. I didn’t. ‘What were we supposed to do?’ he asked. ‘There has to be order, doesn’t there?’ His grip slackened and his hand slid down the arm of my coat. Blood flowed both from the wound in his belly and from his mouth, and Sir Vezier died.

The young man who’d killed him was still standing behind me. He turned to the few people nearby who weren’t occupied with the fire. ‘I . . . I did it,’ he said. ‘I killed one of the bastards.’

My heart sank at his words and the look of pride slowly emerging on his face. It wasn’t that I pitied Sir Vezier for I didn’t: he’d been part of this attack and in all likelihood part of the massacre at Carefal. I was glad he’d saved the boy, but how many had he killed before he’d seen the madness inside the man he had followed this far? What broke my spirit was the thought of watching this young villager walk around, his chin high, believing himself a hero: he’d been ready to strike down a boy who was trying to protect an unarmed man – and not just any boy but one of their own. I wondered how his story would change after a few nights and a few beers. I wondered if the other villagers, desperate to embellish their own tales, would come to believe his.

‘It’s not their fault,’ a woman’s voice said from behind me. Valiana’s hair was dishevelled and she had dirt on her face and a cut on her cheek. The children she’d protected stood a little way behind her.

‘What isn’t their fault?’ I asked her.

‘They don’t know how to be like you.’

‘I don’t want them to be like me,’ I said. ‘I’m not some—’

‘Yes,’ she said, and knelt down next to me. She put a hand on my chest. ‘You are. Stop insisting there’s nothing special about you, Falcio. It makes the rest of us feel worthless.’

I thought about what Dariana had tried to tell me before, and Brasti, too. Hells, probably everyone had been warning me. ‘You don’t have to get yourself killed to be like me, Valiana. In fact, I hardly ever get myself killed.’

‘Not for lack of trying,’ she said.

‘That’s not—’

She held up a hand. ‘I know – and I’m not trying to die, I promise. But I want to make my life mean something. I want to be – I don’t know. Brave. Heroic.’ She gave me a defiant grin. ‘And you’re the only example I’ve got in this horrible world. So whether you like it or not, I’m going to live up to the name you gave me.’ She leaned forward and hugged me fiercely. ‘I’m Valiana val Mond, damn it, and I’m going to make that count.’

I hugged her back. We must have made an odd picture, kneeling on the ground and holding each other over the body of a dead Knight. ‘Well, then, we’re probably all screwed, aren’t we,’ I said.

The weight of everything suddenly caught up with me and the terror that had kept me going through the fight and the fire and that mad Knight ready to pull those children with him into his own hell finally overtook my need to pretend I was strong enough to endure. I felt tears dripping down my cheeks and I started to say something, but whatever it was came out as a sob.

Saints, I’m no better than those children were on the roof, terrified out of their minds and paralysed with fear
. I’d spent the last years chasing my own death and now, thanks to the neatha and the paralysis that was pulling me deeper every day, it was coming. ‘I don’t want to die,’ I said.

*

We slept that night in Garniol, in the beds of men and women who had died in the battle. Whether our accommodations were simple practicality or a reminder from the villagers that we had failed to save forty-three of their people, I wasn’t sure.

I awoke with the increasingly familiar numbness and inability to move. I couldn’t feel my fingers or toes, or anything on my skin. My eyes wouldn’t open and the world was a boundless grey. At first it was almost a pleasant surprise – usually the morning after a battle is an endless vista of cuts and bruises and vicious aches and pains. But the neatha kept me from feeling any of those things and so for a few brief moments I experienced serenity . . . then I felt the burning inside my chest and a sense of emptiness in my lungs and all I could think was,
I’m not breathing
. It wasn’t that my lungs couldn’t function, but rather that whatever part of the mind that is supposed to command the lungs to take in air simply wasn’t there.

Breathe
, I told myself, though I had no idea what one did to force oneself to do so.
Breathe
. It seems such a simple thing, but only because we never have to think of the steps involved.

I began to see little spots of light winking in and out of existence even though my eyes were still closed.
No
, I tried to shout,
not today. I’m not ready
.
Please
.

Pressure appeared on my chest and then disappeared. Was I doing something right?
Breathe. You work for me, you stupid lungs. Breathe.

I heard a loud rasping hiss in my ears like the sound of metal being dragged across a stone floor, and an instant later I tasted air rushing into me like a flood. That sound had been my throat opening up and sucking the air into my lungs. My eyes fluttered open. Above me stood Brasti. He had both his hands on my chest.

‘Saints, Falcio! You suddenly stopped breathing – it was like . . . it was like your chest was trying to move, but it was stuck. I tried to push it down and up but— Are you all right?’

I gave a faint nod and he sat down heavily on the chair next to my bed. I was surprised to see him; normally it was Kest or Valiana who tended to watch over me in the mornings.

‘Kest?’ I asked.

Brasti looked a little stricken. ‘He’s here – I mean, in the village. He’s still trying to . . . Actually, I don’t know what he’s trying to do. It has something to do with that bloody red glow of his.’

‘Others?’ I croaked.

‘Valiana is out in the fields with Dari, practising swordplay, if you can believe it. I would have expected them to take a break after yesterday, but Valiana said she misgauged a Knight’s attack and took a cut on her cheek before she killed him, so now she’s got Dari trying all sorts of feints on her.’

I was amazed that Valiana had managed to defeat a Knight on her own, especially while she was trying to protect the children. She hadn’t even mentioned it to me.

‘Do you want something to drink?’ Brasti asked.

‘Min . . . ute,’ I said, trying to make the word come out as individual syllables. ‘Few min . . . utes.’

Brasti sat back down on the chair and picked something up from the floor. I turned my head and watched as he took a thick iron needle to the shoulder of his greatcoat. At first I thought he must be trying to repair a tear, but after a bit I saw there was no thread on his needle. He was pulling a stitch out.

‘Whatreyoudoin?’ I asked.
Better
, I thought.
Like a man who’s only half drunk.

‘Fifteen years I’ve been wearing a greatcoat and that damn right sleeve always gets in the way of my shooting. Taking out these Gods-damned stitches is like trying to pick ore out of a piece of rock, by the way.’

I’d never seen Brasti miss so I wondered how much of an impact that sleeve could possibly be having. What bothered me was that it felt like an act of desecration for him to tear out the stitches.

‘Stop looking at me like that,’ he said. ‘I just want to take off one sleeve. The rest still gives me more than enough protection.’

I could feel the prickling sensation that meant my arms and legs were coming back to life and took a chance at pushing myself up to a sitting position in the bed. The result was ungainly, but ultimately successful. When Brasti saw I didn’t need help, he turned his attention back to his coat sleeve.

‘Whyareyou—?’

‘I was wrong,’ he said suddenly. ‘In Carefal. I was . . . I don’t know what I was. But I took it out on you and it was wrong of me.’

‘It’s fine.’

‘No, it’s not. What you did yesterday . . .’ He shook his head. ‘When we were standing at the top of that hill I thought, “This is it. Every one of those people is going to die. The damned God of War himself could rise up from the fires of whichever hell he makes his home and all he could do is tell us we were screwed.” But you found a way, Falcio: you gave us our orders and you led us down there and against all the odds we saved most of the village.’

It wasn’t enough
, I was about to say, but he didn’t wait for me to speak.

‘And even when that mad Knight was up there with those children, I couldn’t bring myself to shoot – I was just too damned scared of hitting one of the children or having the Knight fall forward and drag them all to their deaths. But you . . . you just ran up there and by the time you hit the top you had a
plan
.’ He stopped talking for a while, grimacing as the needle in his hands tore at the threads holding the sleeve on his coat. Finally he stopped and set the coat down on his lap and turned to face me again. ‘All these years I’ve always told myself that you and the King and all your little talks about strategy and tactics . . . I always told myself it was just shit. In the end what matters are instincts. I’ve got good instincts, Falcio, I know I have – but my instincts were all telling me to race down to the village on my horse and just kill as many Knights as I could, and if I’d done that, all those villagers would be dead now.’ He looked down at the sleeve in his lap, then said, ‘You . . . I don’t know, Falcio. I wish I could think like you.’

‘You could—’

‘Don’t,’ he said. ‘I’m not complaining, not really. I spent most of my life as a poacher before I became a magistrate and my instincts served me well for both. I’m an archer, and no matter what anyone else thinks, I know I’m as good with a bow as Kest is with a sword and you are with those clever plans of yours. I don’t begrudge you your talent.’ He smiled at last. ‘That boy, yesterday? The one who was handing me arrows? He came up to me this morning, him and seven other kids, and they had five adults with them too. Some already had bows themselves and some had picked them up from the dead and they all wanted me to show them how to shoot. Can you believe that? I asked if they wanted to go and learn the sword with Kest instead, but one of them said, “Why would I want to fight with a stupid old sword?” and the rest all agreed.’

I smiled at that as well: Brasti’s finest hour, finally having other people agree with him that the bow is better than the sword.

‘I’m leaving, Falcio,’ Brasti said, setting his coat and needle aside.