Elarris, the Ill Made Knight

The sun hung low in the sky, a hint of red dusting the dying light. He tugged lightly on the worn leather reigns and the half-starved destrier clip clopped gratefully towards the roadside, cropping the bleached grass with the experience of an old campaigner taking any food available.

He swung painfully down from the saddle and eased himself onto the low bank that ran alongside the road. He shifted his mail shirt and gambeson to expose the bandage. A long slim line of deep red at the centre of the nun’s carefully applied dressing curved along his right side. He touched it gingerly. Slightly damp.

Impatiently, he pulled his dagger from his boot and cut through the soft white gauze, letting the cool evening breeze blow across the exposed wound.

After some time - he wasn’t sure how long, but the edge of the sun was sinking below the horizon - he hauled himself back up to his feet and leaned on his horse’s flank as he rummaged through the battered leather saddlebags.

Nothing.

He rummaged again, searching for the two spare bandages he knew he had seen this morning. Was it this morning? When was he at the convent again?

He was so tired.

He closed his eyes briefly, holding on to the saddle to stay upright, then opened them rapidly as he heard the whisper of wood on hemp.

He turned as fast as he could. At the top of the bank, half hidden in the shadows cast by the twilight trees, a cloaked figure regarded him. His hand reached for his sword, then fell to his side as the figure raised their longbow, arrow already nocked.

He raised his arms and stepped away from the horses, too weary to fight.

“You are hurt,” it was a woman’s voice.

He nodded.

“On this road?”

He shook his head. “Many years ago.”

The figure paused, lowered the bow. “Many years ago? The wound is fresh.”

“It is always fresh. It will never heal. It is a dolorous wound, the first of my curses.”

The figure regarded him curiously for a moment, let the bow string slacken and slipped the arrow back into its quiver. “Can you get up this slope? Can your horse?”

He smiled grimly. “We can, lady.”

She laughed. “I am no lady. Follow me.”

He took hold of the bridle and clambered painfully up after her, noticing as he reached the top that the soft glow of a banked fire was just visible a little way into the trees. He hadn’t seen it from the road. She had some woodcraft then.

He followed her to the small clearing, the low light revealing her a little – she had more weapons than a professional assassin strapped to sturdy leather armour, and her face was hidden by a bandana across her mouth.

They watched each other for a moment. His battered chainmail glinted in the firelight, his tattered grey cloak falling over his shoulders like a shroud. Her eyes ran over him, and he felt dissected, his body and his sword given expert attention. Finally, she nodded, pulled down her bandana and pointed to a tree stump to his right.

“Sorrel Darkfire, at your service and your family’s,” she spoke softly but with a hint of menace. “These roads are safe enough, but I would not advise travelling them with such a wound. You will meet worse than me.”

He bowed his head. “Elarris de l’Etan, and the greatest service you can do my family is to see me on my way as fast as possible. They would not be grateful if you hindered my flight. Although I am grateful for a few moments rest.”

She knelt and seemed to pluck a handful of berries from the air which she began pressing and mashing into a poultice. “Hopefully I can offer a little more than a few moments rest. This is strong healing. With food and sleep it should help knit your flesh in a few hours.”

He shook his head. “My thanks, but nothing will heal this. I told you it was my curse. I have had ministrations from every sawbones, priest and snake oil salesman in… in my city… and nothing helps.”

If she noticed him avoiding naming his city she gave no sign. She finished working the paste into a soft cloth, folded it over and stepped slowly towards him, her hands held out before her so show she held no weapon.

“Give it a try anyway,” she shrugged. “I’ve made it now. It would be a shame to waste it.”

He laughed, took the moist purse of herbs and berries and held it to his side. She pulled a bandage from her backpack and he tied it tightly in place. He could feel warmth flood into him, soothing his torn skin.

“This is good. Thank you.”

“I serve the goddess. It is by her mercy that I was here. I don’t know how far you would have got tonight without a dressing. There are few bandits now, but still some who would like a sword as fine as that if the owner looked unable to keep it.”

“I still have a little fight,” he began, then winced as he sat down. “Are you passing the night here? I have a little coin and some bread I could share.”

She snorted. “I killed four coneys an hour ago and gathered an armful of birch leaves and elderflowers. There’s jelly ear, a handful or two of mushrooms and plenty of hazelnuts. You can keep your bread for tomorrow, monsieur de l’Etan. I will trade you all you can eat for a story. I’ve been on the road a week now and yours is the first voice I’ve heard that wasn’t screaming.”

He frowned, uncertain, but hunger spoke for him. “That’s a fair trade. I have many stories…”

“I want only one. Your wound. Your journey. They are linked, I am sure. What are you doing here? Where are you going and why?”

“Those are many stories, but you are right, they all begin in the same place. And I am so hungry.”

He gazed into the glow of the banked fire, watching her skin and fry four young rabbits, his mouth watering at the smell of the meat.

“Well then,” he said eventually. “I am the son of a woman of some power and prestige. Great things were expected of me, and I was not inclined to deliver them, so I found my own rewards in lower places. In due course, I fell foul of the wrong sort of person and had need of ready money to cover some unfortunate debts. Which is when the Twins found me.”

He shuddered.

“They were so beautiful they made my head spin – a brother and sister, identical and different and both and neither. Their hair was white as snow and their blue eyes looked into my very soul. They had a job, a simple one for a man of my talents. There was a castle, a tower and a dragons horde looted by a warlord from the lair of a long dead black dragon with a name too evil to even whisper. All they needed was a cup, carved from obsidian and set about with rubies, that had been stolen from their grandfather many years ago.”

He stopped speaking long enough to wolf down the plate of food she laid on his lap, grabbing at it and stuffing it into his mouth like a man on the brink of starvation.

She moved around the makeshift camp, cleaning her cooking gear with rhubarb leaves and a splash of water then packing it away neatly in her backpack. She took his empty plate when he’d finished, handed him her canteen and then dipped his plate in the sandy sump before scrubbing it with cedar leaves.

The water danced down his parched throat like the first mountain stream of spring washing through a dried out river bed. He pulled it from his lips with a soft gasp and gazed up at the moon, which seemed to glow brighter here than he remembered. He shook his head and smiled his thanks.

“I stole a horse and rode the route they suggested. It was a long and arduous path. The land hovered on the edge of despair, I could feel it, and the people I met were like empty husks, just holding on. I saw some terrible things as well. Strange creatures that burrowed and gnawed and shunned the light. There were bandits on that road, but I have enough training to see off a few ill prepared thugs. And so, the days passed slowly but I pressed on.”

He took another, shorter, swig of water and wiped his mouth.

“Finally I came to a valley that seemed blessed by mother nature herself. The grass was thick and green, the meadow flowers bright and cheerful, the trees arching over to shade the path from sun or rain, bearing apples or berries that were so full and ripe I almost laughed out loud for the joy of it all. And at the end of the valley, the castle. A fair castle, if ever I saw one. Flags and banners waving in the breeze, roofs of burnished copper gleaming like gold, and the people coming and going like a market fair crowd dressed in their finest.”

He touched the bandage and didn’t wince. The pain was dulled, and he gave a soft smile, feeling the tension leave his shoulders just a little.

“The lord of the castle was a king wise and fair. He had a smile that caught you and lifted your spirits as soon as you saw it and he embraced me as soon as he laid eyes on me, declaring me the image of his son lost many years ago but now brought back to life, as it were, by my arrival. He ordered a feast prepared, and I was taken to the bathhouse by his daughters who washed me down with soft hands and warm laughs. I floated in the steaming pool for what seemed like hours before they called me to supper, and I ate the finest fare I have sampled in a life of eating well.”

He drifted off, his eyes glazing over as he remembered the joy of the feast.

“They gave me sweet wines, but I was crafty and merely sipped at my glass, pouring away the wine when no-one was looking into an earthenware vase where tall flowers were carefully arranged. And so, when the company staggered to their rooms late in the evening, I behaved as if I too were in my cups and flopped onto the soft bed they had prepared for me. But when the doors were closed and the servants’ footsteps had died away, I slipped out of my room, leaving my armour and weapons behind. I was minded to move stealthily and steel would not serve my need for silence.”

“I knew the tower I sought – my instructions were clear – and I found it easily enough. The stairs were wide and well-lit and wound around in a steady spiral up beyond the highest peak of the steeples and spires that surrounded it. At the top, a wooden door – but not locked, as the Twins had promised. I opened it carefully and my heart almost stopped.”

“There was the richest treasure trove you or I have ever seen, stranger, and I have some measure of you, so I guess you have seen more gold than most. There were rings and bracelets, gold plates and goblets, silver coins and helmets, and sword-hilts studded with jewels. The glow of the gold lit the room as if it were ablaze and for a time I simply stood and marvelled at the wealth of several kingdoms gathered in one room.”

“But I had a job to do. on a pile of furs and other soft fabrics I could see the goblet. Above it, hanging from some cord I could not see, was a sword, its blade of black steel absorbing the light that danced around the room.”

“This was unexpected, the Twins had not mentioned the blade, but my task was only for the cup, so I stepped carefully over the piles of treasure until I reached the furs spread out like the sweep of a forest surrounded by the glowing sands of a burning desert. It was within my grasp, so I reached for it when…”

He fell into a reverie, his eyes lost and cold. She pulled open a hessian sack and took out a corked bottle half full of honey coloured spirit, tugged the cork with her teeth and splashed a measure into a tin cup which she placed gently in his scarred hand. He looked down, saw the drink and downed it in one, shivering as its sharp fire slid into his belly. He reached with cup, begging another dram and she filled it for him before corking the bottle and pulling the drawstring tight on sack.

“The king was in the doorway,” his voice faltered. “I turned, ashamed, but his smile was still fixed in place like a mechanical doll. Behind him, I could see his daughters, but they were changing and swelling, their soft hands shiny and slippery, with palpitating lips that slobbered around long, wet tongues, and their long fingers were webbed and pale…” he shuddered again. “And behind them, something darker, something blacker than the night. Some horror that I could not name… I cannot name!”

He was shaking now, and she took his hands, clasping them tightly and murmuring words of power that cast protections on him from the fears of the night. Slowly, he returned from wherever his soul had been and bowed his head until it rested against hers. They stayed like that for a little while, until he had regained his strength, then she helped him to his feet and walked with him to a soft bed of fern and leaves that she had prepared and laid him down with her blanket over him for comfort more than warmth.

His hand still clutched hers, but he let his fingers uncurl. And he laid his head back on the mossy pillow.

“I took the sword,” he said at last. “It was calling to me. I reached out for it and it leaped into my hand. And I struck at them with such terror that the blade tore through the king with one sweeping blow, cutting into his side and slicing up through his heart so that he fell to the floor, his grin unmoved, his eyes fixed on mine. Then I passed out, from shock or fear or some magic I do not know. But when I awoke, the castle was gone, and the valley was bleak and lifeless as if famine had laid waste to it many centuries ago.”

His hand reached down and took hold of the hilt of his sword.

“All I had was this sword and the cup. Naked I lay as the sun beat down, until I could get to my feet and make my way slowly to the shade of some rocks. There I rested, found a stream of water that wasn’t too foul and took a few mouthfuls.” “Eventually I summoned the strength to walk, and I made my way back through the land. Some people helped me a little, others tried to stop me but this sword spoke for me and they fled or they died. Finally, I reached the meeting place, and the Twins were there. They wept to see me, and it was then I felt the wound, in the very place I had struck the king. They said they had no idea, but I knew this was their plan and she could see I had guessed their game. Before they left, I saw her shiver and change, and I could almost see great wings unfurl from her back, like a dragon in flight. And then she kissed me, and some power passed into me. ‘I cannot heal you, but I can help you stave off your fate until you can finish your journey’ she said. And they were gone.”

His eyes closed for a few seconds, then opened again, sleep already clouding them. “And so, each day I can heal myself twice, but twice only, and always the wound reopens. This sword will not leave me. It speaks for me in battle and bestows such rage that I do not know myself. My family no longer want me, and my country has denied me, so I wander wherever this sword takes me. And now it is taking me to a city called Daring Heights. Do you know it?”

She nodded. “I do know it. You are not far away. But it is a perilous place my friend. Do not enter it lightly.”

He found her eyes one last time as sleep stole over him.

“What choice do I have?”