Heroes in Training, page 18
“Call me an Elder later,” I’d told the People gathered around me when the last entrance was sealed, and my own painful adjustment to the belowground began. The discussions and arguments about our move down here had lasted half of an entire cycle, and as we argued, many of our People had been lost to the cold and to the predators closing in on us. We were dying of thirst, we were starving, we were freezing. And many of my People were afraid to leave the aboveground.
During that painful half-cycle, unable to perform my duties as a Drinker (my belly tightening and my finger-toes growing weak), I fought hard to make my case.
I called in my friend Oyallohawna to demonstrate how a cave could be sealed from the cold without suffocating its inhabitants. I reminded my People of our inability to protect ourselves from the razorbeasts. I even showed my People the true history of Uolloaway, arranging the metal pages countless times for different audiences, but most of them were unmoved by his tragedy, nor did they understand his choices the way I did. But with each showing of this history, I would see one or two members of the audience gaping at me sideways with their third eye.
They, at last, had remembered the melodies of Uolloaway’s songs.
And, most compelling of all, I showed how I could imbibe the hot waters of the belowground springs with just a tiny bit of filtering, and—contrary to what generations of Elders had told us—I did not die of poisoning.
“Call me an Elder,” I repeated, “after enough cycles have passed to ensure that our People are safe. Call me an Elder after we are certain that I have not doomed us all to a horrible fate here belowground.”
I continued making my case for the move belowground long past all other voices in favor of the move had fallen hoarse. I simply forged on, one step after the other, still a Drinker in my own way, pushing myself until my task was complete. Until we sealed the cave entrances behind us, leaving the aboveground forever.
And to my amazement, though I never would feel the same belowground as I did in the open air (I always felt hunched over, as if waiting for the collected mass of rock and sediment to fall onto my ridged back), we thrived for many cycles belowground. The Diggers created endless tunnels and countless caves, while the Gatherers and Drinkers enjoyed an easier life of accumulating food and filtering spring water. The Stargazers found other roles, the Navigators practiced their songs to keep them committed to memory, while the Elders spent their short-cycles searching the deepest, oldest caves for traces of the Ancestors’ mythic ships.
But in spite of all our best-laid plans, we still had to leave many cycles later, after the food supplies began to dwindle and the Diggers tunneled too deeply. Fortunately, a group of Elders and Drinkers led by Oyallohawna and myself managed to uncover the first of the buried ships of the Ancestors in time.
But that is another story altogether.
(I open my third eye and disperse the shadows of memory haunting my footsteps as I pace around the stacked sleep casks. As we continue chasing the Mother Ship through space, I know of no other way to help me relax other than walking. As I walk, I hope for the best on this green and blue planet the Stargazers found many cycles ahead of us. I pray it is neither too hot nor too cold, and that its People—if we find any—are not hostile to visitors.)
(I close my third eye and try to sleep, and as time becomes more and more fluid, I sink back into the welcoming black metal of this ship built by the Ancestors. Careful not to wake the others around me, I begin to sing the song of Uolloaway softly to myself. My old voice is too weak to distract the singing Navigators high above us, but it is strong enough, for now.)
(I will follow Uolloaway’s song with that of all the Elders since his time, up to and including my own. With each word of the song, I slowly begin to discern the individual scents of my People gathered around me in their sleep casks. They smell of exhilaration, of relief, of hope.)
(I can only hope that these songs of the Wannoshay, unlike Uolloaway’s, will end on a sweet note.)
KING HARROWHELM
Ed Greenwood
The dell filled with a sudden rustling of many disturbed leaves, as twoscore crossbows were thrust forward at once.
Griflet swallowed, staring at his death. Twoscore deaths, sharp and rusty-pointed, stared blindly right back at him.
“That, sirs, was the wrong answer,” said the black knight barring the road, triumphal glee in his voice. A smirk came and went across his hard face like a ripple crossing a still pond. “Harrowhelm is king here now.”
“Harrowhelm?” Sir Daergas growled, bushy gray brows drawing together. “And just who is ’Harrowhelm’?”
“Your doom,” the knight snapped. The sudden slash of his hand heralded the uneven thunder of all the bows loosing at once.
Sir Galagars had already whirled in his saddle to glare at Griflet, sitting on his horse in the way of any retreat. Shield coming up, he shouted, “Ride, boy! Get gone!”
Gaping at him, Griflet had no time to obey, even if his mount had been willing. As things befell, it was too busy rearing and neighing.
Crossbow quarrels do not hiss like arrows. They snarl like eager wolves, in the instant before they thud home in shield or plate or flesh—and grunting, gasping men reel in their saddles and start to fall.
Horses screamed and bucked, hooves lashing out wildly. Lifeless bodies toppled, Daergas wearing a quarrel in one eye and Sir Nalorhands choking around the quarrel that had torn out his throat, as he went to the trampled earth in a long, wet gurgle.
Sir Baudwin of the Blue Hawk cursed and threw his sword—and the black knight clutched his own throat, made the same horrible wet sounds as Sir Nalorhands, and fell.
The road was suddenly clear, armsmen frantically cranking windlasses to ready their bows again. With a roar, Baudwin and Brastias spurred forward, plunging to freedom.
The surviving knights followed, the boy Griflet among them, pelting along the road, out of the trees into rolling farmland that should have been east-ernmost Northgalis, where Thaborn was king—or perhaps had until recently been king, if men were now guarding roads in the name of Harrowhelm.
The fields seemed deserted, and the knights slowed their frantic galloping.
“Dark devils take all kings!” Galagars raged to the skies. “And false knights, too!”
“Slowly!” the deep voice of Hervise de Revel boomed from behind them, standing in his saddle. “Slowly!”
Knights hauled on their reins in a brief, cursing confusion, and halted, ere he spoke again. “Not so harsh, Gars. The man may well have believed this road was safe; he came by way of it, not two days gone.”
“Precisely,” Sir Galagars snarled, wheeling his war-mount. “Come to us from this Harrowhelm, no doubt, with orders to lure knights hither! Daergas down, and Nalorhands—and Ulphonses, too!” He barked like a dog in sheer anger, and spat, “All these ten lawless winters since the death of Great Arthur have been better than this one summer of too many kings!”
“Aye,” Sir Brastias agreed. “This Harrowhelm’s not the first to seek the blood of passing knights! I heard—”
“Why?” Griflet blurted out, without thinking. His clear, high voice soared over the angry growls, and helmed heads turned to glare. He frowned back at furious faces in utter bewilderment, too excited in the wake of someone trying to slay him to know prudence. “Why kill knights?”
“To win regard,” Galagars snapped.
“To become feared,” Baudwin said more bluntly.
“To strike down champions knighted by another,” old Hervise de Revel boomed, “and win their armor and blazons, to put on men loyal to you and claim them to be the men you’ve slain, now pledged to your cause. Knights seek men to lead them, and will rally to a leader—who’ll then reach for a crown.”
Griflet stared around at them all, informed but unenlightened. “So,” he asked hesitantly, “what do we do now?”
Brastias laughed bitterly. “Do? Why, what we’ve always done, lad! Ride and fight and die, as our king bids us! That’s what knights do.”
“And the bidding is what kings do,” Galagars added grimly. “Good and bad, bold and foolish, wicked and o’er-innocent. We are the dogs and wolves throned fools send into battle to save themselves the peril of swinging their own swords.”
“ ‘Dogs and wolves’?” Griflet echoed. “Why both?”
“Some of us obey well,” Sir Hervise rumbled, “and so are dogs. Some, loosed upon the land, savage and chase as we please—or are swept away by our own bloodlust: wolves.”
“And you are—?”
“At this moment, Sir Squire of Many Questions,” Baudwin snapped, “we are fast becoming wolves.” He swung in his saddle to point across the hills, and added, “Let us ride behind yon stand of trees, and there parley where Harrowhelm’s eyes cannot so easily watch.”
The sun was a flood of flame low in the western sky, and the creakers had already begun their song. It would be a warm night, and none of the knights had bothered to gather wood for a fire. Griflet could not keep his eyes off the distant dark line that marked the edge of Harrowhelm’s forest.
“Will they come for us?” he asked Baudwin, who was nearest.
The knight smiled thinly, hefted his brush-axe in his hand, and shook his head. “Nay. They’d have sent men hence, creeping and peering, if it was in their minds to come after us. Watch for any fires or lights, lad; mayhap we’ll go after them.”
“We need bows,” Griflet said, remembering the air thrumming around him with death.
“Knights do not use bows,” Baudwin snapped, giving him a dark look.
“But how—” Griflet began, and then remembered the best tales he’d heard. “Merlin! He—”
“Nor spells,” the knight replied, his voice even colder. “Wizards are to be trusted even less than kings and their sneak-knife knaves. True knights use the lance, and the sword, and their fists.”
Hervise de Revel chuckled as he lifted his dripping face from the stream they’d found, and added, “Plus the odd dagger and hurled tankard. ’Twas in my mind to use such smaller fangs on this Harrowhelm, after a little stroll through the trees.”
“No armor?” Galagars asked slowly, frowning. “That might be best, at that.”
Griflet’s heart leaped. “Can I go with you? And—and . . . how will you know King Harrowhelm when you’ve found him?”
Sir Brastias of the Green Shield and Sir Hervise chuckled in unison, this time, but it was not a sound that held much mirth.
“He’ll be the one hiding behind everyone else so he need not fight us,” Baudwin said darkly, “and no, Sir Tongueloose Squire, you’ll not go with us. If this is lordless country, someone must stay with the horses.”
“One lad with a knife to guard them?” Brastias murmured, shaking his head, but Galagars strode forward to stand with Griflet.
“We promised Mercel,” he reminded Baudwin. “The lad is to be trained as a knight. So if knights go creeping through the night . . .”
Baudwin shook his head grimly, and gave Griflet a dark glare. Then he looked to the other knights.
Only to see slow nods of agreement with Galagars.
“Right, then,” the Knight of the Blue Hawk said reluctantly, rounding on the squire, “but no screaming! Squeak and rouse them, and I’ll slay you even before they do! Heed?”
Griflet swallowed, nodded, and managed to voice a reply that was not—quite—a squeak. “Y-yes. Sir.”
“Heh. Settled. Now, we’d best hasten,” Hervise growled, wrapping his cloak around the blade of his drawn sword and reaching for the buckles of his armor. “The moon will be up soon.”
“They fear no nightly knightly attack,” Galagars quipped in a wry murmur, as all that was left of the Knights of the Table Round paced cautiously through the trees.
Ahead, the night danced with bright flame. A dozen blazes, or more, burned atop broken, crumbling watchtowers, along a broken, overgrown line that had once been stout battlements. A dark stone keep rose beyond the blazes. Aside from the fires, all seemed silent and deserted.
“Let’s teach them a little fear, then,” Baudwin muttered, peering this way and that through the dark tree-trunks, shaking his head in obvious disbelief at the lack of sentries.
The damp leaves were quiet underfoot, and Hervise had been firm that they should walk in pairs, a little way apart, with the lone squire following behind.
Griflet clutched his dagger so tightly that his fingers were burning and tried to keep silent, putting his feet just where Sir Hervise had trod. The knights seldom looked back, and when their heads did turn, Griflet sensed they were listening more than trying to see into the night.
The moon was reaching forth its first pale fingers, the trees casting inky shadows . . . and the knights were but silent black shapes moving among them, shadows among the shadows. Griflet glanced behind himself often, fearing prowling wolves more than men with crossbows.
They were very close to the fires, now, and he found his mouth very dry. Griflet swallowed, put his dagger into his other hand so he could wriggle fingers gone numb from clutching it too tight, and drew in a deep breath. Glancing back into the forest out of habit, he froze, heart suddenly hammering.
There was another black, moving shadow behind him. Close, and impossibly tall, gliding nearer in utter silence—nay; ’twas flying!
Griflet opened his mouth to shout, and so win his own death under Sir Baudwin’s blade—and discovered he was frozen with fear.
The shadow was very near, now. Griflet could see it was a man in a black robe, face hidden in its cowl, drifting along upright in the air, soft-booted feet not touching the ground. Closer it came, barely three trees away . . . and then seemed to sense or see his regard. It turned sharply aside, cloak swirling, and was gone behind thick trees.
The squire trembled, more terrified than he’d ever been in his life before—and that was when he heard a soft grunt of effort from the watchfire-lit battlements, a brief rustling, and then a queer sigh.
Griflet whirled around, dagger up and ready, in time to see a knight up on the line of tumbled stones let a dark form slump at his feet, and then straighten and move along the battlements.
A short, choked-off cry arose, several watchfires away, followed by a shout: “ ’Ware! We’re under attack ! To arms!”
Ahead of Griflet, Hervise cursed softly and broke into a lumbering run, abandoning stealth. Shouldered-aside branches crackled and snapped.
A howling, agonized scream split the night, and a dark figure pitched past merrily leaping flames with steel glinting in its throat to thud heavily to the earth. There were more shouts, and the trees ahead of Griflet suddenly seemed alive with racing, leaping men, firelight gleaming on the helms of anxious armsmen.
“Throw some burning brands yonder!” someone ordered. “There, into the trees!”
Someone cried out at another place along the wall, and toppled—and behind the falling man, Griflet saw Sir Galagars wave a sword that glistened with dark blood. The knight spun away to lunge at someone else.
A horn sounded, loud in the night. Hervise de Revel cursed, and steel rang on steel, startlingly loud. There was a heavy thump and a shower of sparks as an armsman fell dead or dying into a fire, and the horn called again.
It was answered by many startled, sleepy shouts, and torches came bobbing along the ruined walls. In their light, Griflet saw the Knights of the Table Round hurrying here and there along the battlements, stabbing and hacking, swords flashing as they dealt death.
He trotted closer, afraid to go out of the trees to where crossbows could reach—but even more afraid to linger in the forest with the flying black shadow lurking somewhere close behind him.
The first crossbow cracked just as he rounded the last tree. The fires were burning like beacons along the old, tumbled wall—and in their leaping light he could see dark, wet ribbons of fresh blood descending the mossy stones.
Griflet swallowed, took a last look back into the dark trees, and then darted forward, into a gap in the old wall where no firelight reached.
Dead men were sprawled ahead of him, and he could smell blood. As Griflet swallowed, baring his teeth in distaste, a quarrel snarled overhead, to fall and shiver somewhere in the forest beyond the castle grounds. Griflet peered up; the bow had been fired from the keep, a lone tower rising into the moonlight. It commanded a small courtyard whose far wall rose high and unbroken, that held only the sagging remnants of a stable and a well where dead armsmen lay heaped thickly. King Harrowhelm was paying dearly for his harvest of three stranger-knights on the road.
More armsmen burst out of the keep, faces tight with fear and ready crossbows in their hands. Torches blazed in plenty, and there was much shouting and pointing and firing. Three quarrels met in one mailed figure and hurled it back from the well—but it was an armsman, already dead, raised up on the blade of a crouching Sir Galagars.
Furiously swung steel rang on clanging steel, hard by the keep door, and men whirled with startled curses. Crossbows bucked as they fired, someone screamed, and more men fell. Griflet saw Hervise de Revel staggering back along the wall with a quarrel through his arm, hacking at armsmen all the way and grimly shedding their bodies one by one.
Farther along the wall a knight threw up his hands, and Griflet ducked back through the wall to see better.
It was Sir Brastias, a quarrel standing out of his neck, as he staggered back out into the night, into the trees. As the sorely wounded knight stumbled through a tangle of branches, Griflet saw the black-robed shadow again, drifting out from behind a great oak to glide after the Knight of the Green Shield.
Two more crossbows fired—and missed, their quarrels humming far into the night before splintering amid faint, distant crashes. That must have left no bowman ready, because Sir Baudwin, Sir Galagars, and Sir Hervise roared wordless defiance and charged, hacking and chopping like madmen.
