Robert Rhodes

         When he opened his eyes, a donkey stood over him in the moonlight. 

         "Agh—saints and shadows..." He lifted his hand to an egg of flesh on his brow, which throbbed as if its pain would hatch.  He winced and, looking at the beast again, his breath caught.

         "You—you're not Gorhaun!  Where is my horse?"  He sat up and clenched his teeth.  His entire skull felt like an egg, pressured in a bone-troll's fist.  The donkey lowered its head to nuzzle him, but he grunted and turned it away.  His hand, returning, came to rest on his thigh.  Through the cloth of his breeches—breeches?—he could feel his hand. 

         "No!" he whispered.  He touched his chest and felt, above his breastbone and homespun shirt, the prodding of his fingertips.  "Ah, my armor!"  His hand flew to his side.  "Volbrin!  My sword!" 

         His gaze swept the poplar-fringed clearing.  He crawled over the damp grass and squinted past the donkey's legs.  There!  A long shadow where none should be.  He lunged with a rush of triumph.

         Which became a chill of horror as he touched not balanced adamant, but weathered wood.  He lifted the shaft in the moonlight.  A wedge of black iron protruded from the other end, and he—the Champion of the Pearl Dais—found himself kneeling beside a common beast, unarmored and holding a peasant's axe. 

         The pounding in his brow surged into a war-beat.  Beyond it, silvered bursts of air—a strummed lyre—and a bard's thundering chant echoed in his mind.  His lips moved with the song.

         Upon his steed, he joined the fray,

         This holy knight, the arm of Good,

         And with bright Volbrin did that day

         Lay low them all like rotten wood

         He flexed his hands while the donkey, ears twitching, searched the forest with wide black eyes.  A pile of logs rested on its back, bound with a woolen blanket and rope. 

         He nodded and hefted the axe.  The symbols of his rank stolen and replaced with the things of a simple woodcutter; his proud warhorse, a gift from the Oracle of Nine Chimes herself, swapped with a log-laden beast....

         "They did this," he growled.  The accursed bandits who had raided the nearby villages these last weeks of spring, always vanishing into this forest.  "They set an ambush and robbed me.  They taunt me now, clothing me like this, thinking me helpless without my armor and sword."

         He genuflected, laying his hands on the axe.  "O Arvanna," he whispered, moonlight glowing beyond his closed eyelids, "Queen of Queens, may the price of their folly be paid in your court.  May your servant again honor you in his deeds."

         He stood, unfastened the rope and blanket, and lifted the logs from the donkey.  He folded the blanket into a saddle, then looped the rope into a crude bridle before climbing onto the beast's back. 

         He tugged the rope.  "This way.  I suspect where they must be hiding."  The donkey snorted and trod into the dim forest.  He laid the axe across its shoulders and again remembered the bard's fierce song. 

         It mattered not where Evil fled

         Nor in what darkness it might hide;

         An arrow blazing in the night—

         So swiftly would the Champion ride

         The Broken Forest soon proved true to its name as the ground rose and fell and stone outcroppings shone gray and dun in the moonlight.  He dismounted and led the beast onto a narrow, upcurving path.  A hollow opened beneath him, beside the hill, where a stream murmured like a babe and the tang of wood smoke lingered.  He tracked the hillface to the ground, where a cluster of embers glowed like freshly forged coins.

         There.

         He crouched and crept lower.  A group of horses—six massive shadows—encircled a tree beside the hill.  None stood as high or as nobly as Gorhaun.  He likely kicked one and escaped, or else died a warrior's death.  His fist tightened on the axe.

         He met the villains face to face,

         And soon their blood rained on the earth;

         One man alone would leave that place;

         One man alone would prove his worth

         If he were a Night's Ferryman, he'd slink beside them and slice their throats—or the tendons of wrist and ankle, if he sought information before their deaths.  But the Champion of the Pearl Dais resembled a Ferryman only as one of the King's wolfhounds did a rabid fox.  Both could kill, yet beyond that....

         He stood and balanced his feet on the path.

         "Villains, awake!  Stand and face the judgment for your crimes!" 

         His voice seemed the cry of a shining saint, roaring beyond the forest's edge.  The horses lifted their long heads; flecks of moonlight gleamed in their eyes. 

         He waited, and then... a boot scuffing on rock, a whisper, the rasp of a blade sliding from its metal scabbard.  Further whispers, quick and heated. 

         Moments later, two shadows crept out of the hillside.  They stalked beside the dying campfire, each with a readied spike of moonlit steel.

         He leapt. 

         One shadow broke his fall.  He swung his elbow, and a cheekbone cracked.  He rolled away from the second man's sword, came to a knee and swept the axe.  The man screamed and fell, clutching his shattered shin. 

         Two.  He started to stand, but curses and boots sounded from the cave-mouth.  He snatched Shinbone by the back of the tunic and crouched behind him.  The darkness hissed, and something hard, invisible with speed, grazed his earlobe. 

         Shinbone jerked in his grasp.  He reached around with his weapon-hand and touched the man's chest.  His knuckles brushed metal and, pressing closer, the man's slick blood.  Blood trickled from his own ear, tickling his jaw like a feather of the Black Sera's wing.  Throwing knives, he thought with disgust.  Almost, but the Queen favors the just....

         Again he hefted Shinbone, limp and gurgling, before him and faced the cave-mouth.  "Will it be more knives," he called, "or will you face me like men?"

         And some cried ‘Mercy' at the last;

         He raised his sword and gravely said,

         "I give that given in the past,

         The same you showed to those now dead."

         Four figures emerged from the cave-mouth.  One, lean and light-haired, stepped forward.  A cloak swirled past his calves, and his saber-guard was ornately curved. 

         "Who is the fool who asks us?"  The man's voice was dry and languid with the air of nobility.  "And why has he chosen this night to die?"

         "You know.  You know well."  Shinbone quivered in his grasp.  "Now return my armor, sword and horse, and surrender to the King's justice.  Now, in the King's good name."

         The bandits looked at one another until the leader, Longcloak, sighed.  "Good fellow, I can tell you nothing of your belongings.  You see, we don't know you.  Nor from where you've come, nor why you've attacked us in the night.  I assure you we've no armor worthy of the name, and as for swords and horses, who can say?  If my men have such things, perhaps they acquired them honestly."  He twisted the saber so that moonlight danced along the blade.

         "As for the King's justice...."  Longcloak laughed, a deep trill of contempt.  "I've also seen nothing worthy of the name.  Quite the opposite, when a man of high birth is, by royal decree, stripped of his lands and goods on account of his cousin's—aye, cousin's—conspiracy of treason."  His left hand knifed the air.  "An alleged conspiracy, a shadow in the sight of a quail-hearted king who finds shadows in every corner.  Justice?  No, my nameless fellow.  With such a milk-blooded king, there's neither justice nor injustice.  How, then, can we have committed any crimes?  With such a worthless king—"

         "Enough."  Such foolishness and slander could not continue, and the others were moving to flank him.  "Your crimes end now, your mockery ends now, for I am—"

         "Slain!" cried Longcloak.  His saber slashed the darkness, and the bandits charged. 

         He pushed Shinbone into the path of one, who grunted and stumbled back.  Then in the night, the dance of final darkness began—and began well, for he had no fear of striking an ally.  But when his axe bit into one's neck, that advantage waned.  Worse, he tired, and the axe felt slow and clumsy in his grip as the bard's voice rang in his mind once more—

         He never faltered in the field

         Nor ever shrank from wingèd Death;

         With heart aflame and muscles steeled,

         He fought until his final breath

         But his forearm burned with pain—the chill of a knife into muscle, scraping bone—and the axe tumbled from his hand.  He stepped back and fell over a body. 

         When he opened his eyes, Longcloak's saber, a pitiless moonbeam, hovered above his throat. 

         "Of course," said the outlaw, "it would be proper to consider your last requests.  But since this is a land without justice, the last request will be mine."  The two others who still lived returned, chuckling, to their leader's side.

         "Your name," demanded Longcloak.

         His breath quickened, but he fought to slow it, to speak clearly before the Black Sera descended for his soul.  "I do not know why, even now, you continue this farce.  But my name has known honor, and I will say it once more.  I am the Champion of the Pearl Dais and a Knight of the Wreath.  I am Artemir of Hawk's Field"—he met each man's eye—"and justice still dwells in my land."

         Longcloak's mouth opened; his saber shimmered.  "Impossible!  You're—" 

         Something slammed into Longcloak's chest, and he toppled backward.  Another bandit dropped to his knees, holding his belly.  The third bolted toward the horses until a shard of darkness pierced his neck.  He pitched forward and was still.

         Artemir shivered and drew himself up.  He touched his forearm, the bitter coldness pulsing from the knife.  From the forest strode two figures, tall and cloaked, with longbows drawn.  Wardens.  Their eyes glowed with the light of their runecraft, gleaming like the eyes of hunting cats.  Arvanna, your servant thanks you.

         The shorter of the pair nudged Longcloak's head with her boot.  "Lord Tristan—the former Lord Tristan.  I saw him three years ago at the winter tournament in Snowhaven."

         The taller grunted.  He stood before the kneeling man, who clutched the arrow in his gut. 

         "Mercy... have mercy," the bandit said with blood trickling down his chin.  The warden nodded and eased the tension of his bow, then withdrew the arrow and returned it to his quiver.  He nodded again and, in one movement, whirled with a longknife and slashed the bandit's throat.  Dark droplets stippled the moonlight then vanished.

         The shivering grew in Artemir's body as if his arm had turned to ice.  The forest spun, and he moaned as the earth buffeted his cheek and a hand shifted him onto his back. 

         The wardens hovered over him, the man standing, the woman on a knee.  Stars haloed the shadows of their faces, and their eyes glowed like emerald moons.  She spoke, her words blending with the murmur of the stream.  In a moment, stars and moons dissolved in the darkness, and he heard only the languid water.  Fingers pressed into his jaw, and a cordial tasting of honey and cloves trickled down his throat.

         A moment later, he walked the starless desert of oblivion.

         His eyes opened to a blaze of daylight framed by wooden shutters.  He caught his breath and lifted his hand.

         "Mama, Mama!  He's awake!"

         A bed and pillow embraced him.  Between his fingers he glimpsed a young boy with wild, sandy hair.  The boy pointed at him, hopping about like a grasshopper in a bowl.

         He lowered his hand.  I know you, he was about to say when a woman rushed to the bedside.  She was slim and clad in a homespun frock and apron.  A reddish braid swung behind her, and the shadows beneath her eyes did not dim their sky-blue brightness. 

         Suddenly her face shone in his mind—smiling shyly across the village green; laughing as she danced round a bonfire; staring into his eyes as she spoke solemnly, her hair crowned with white flowers.  His heart took flight.

         "Cora!" he said as she laid her cheek on his chest and wept. 

         "Aram!  O Aram, I thought you dead!"  He moved to stroke her hair, but she raised her head and froze him with an ice-blue glare.  Her fingernails dug into his shoulder.  "I thought you dead, you fool!  By the White and Black Seras and the High Queen Herself, are you mad?  Bandits, Aram?  Bandits!  You've never fought in your life!  Why do you think I love you, you ox?  Did you think they were trees you could fell?  Trees don't move, Aram.  Trees don't have swords and knives!"

         "Bandits?  I—"  The night—the entire night—flashed across his mind.  He remembered.

         "I—I'd loaded my day's work on Barley," he said, rubbing his brow, "but I looked too long over my shoulder for the bandits, and it was darker than I liked.  I stepped into a rabbit hole, I think, and fell on my axe-head.  Saints, I almost brained myself!" 

         "You did it, papa!" the boy—their son, Jerem—shouted, shaking Aram's leg with both hands.  "You killed the bandits!"  An edge of Cora's mouth lifted, and she laid a hand on Jerem's shoulder until the shaking ceased.

         "I—" Aram stammered.  Goddess, I did—at least one of them.  "I was there, son, but it was more the wardens' work.  Are they here?" he asked his wife.

         She shook her head.  "They carried you out of the forest near the millpond.  I was waiting by sunrise, just as the bard told me.  It was... strange.  They brought you and Barley here and promised you'd live, then were gone like the wind—but look, Aram!  Look what they left..."

         She slipped a small, folded parchment from her apron and smoothed it upon his chest.  Below two jagged lines of charcoal script glowed a bright green rune. 

         "A letter of credit on the king's own treasury—for sixty marks, they said!  Sixty marks, Aram!  If we use them wisely—Aram?  Why are you frowning?"  She let go of the parchment and touched his arm.

         "Why did you say as the bard told you?"

         "Well—why, because of him, no one looked for you last night.  I was worried to death when you didn't come home.  I went to the inn to fetch Bran and the others, but the bard—he never moved from the hearthside, just sat strumming his fancy lyre—he told me you were on an errand and to meet you by the millpond.  Errand, fah!  I never dreamed—"

         He bolted upright, ignoring the pain in his head and arm.  "I never went on an errand for him!  All I did was listen to him the other night, just like everyone else.  He sang The Deeds of Artemir, of course, after you left, and—"  He felt his mouth still hanging open; he shut it, slid his feet free of the blanket and set them on the floor. 

         Cora's palm struck his chest.  "Aram!  What are you doing?"

         He took her hand away and held it between his own.  "Is he here?  Is he still at the inn?"

         "I suppose so—how should I know?"  She stood as he did, struggling to free her hand.  "Aram!  Where are you going?  You're not well!"

         He raised her fingers to his lips before striding for the door.  "I'm fine, love—I have to find him!"  He loped into the morning sunlight, his head clouded but not spinning, and veered toward the inn.  His bare feet seemed to float across the dew-damp grass of the village common, while Cora's voice echoed behind him as in a fading dream.  A neighbor, too, called his name out of the sunlight while a hound barked, but Aram ran on. 

         In moments he reached the center of Hawk's Field and slowed, as he often did, in the presence of Artemir.  The edges of the sunlit statue had been dulled by time, the most persistent of crows, yet Artemir's likeness looked ready to lift his sword and vanquish in the Goddess's name.  How did he, so long ago, ascend from these distant farmlands to the Pearl Dais and song?

         How did I fight the bandits last night?

         The thought spurred him.  With a nod to the statue, he hurried to The Champion's Rest, two stories of fieldstone and tight thatching.  A log propped the weathered door open, and as Aram hurried into the common room, he almost collided with Bran in mid-sweep.

         "Aram!"  The gray-whiskered innkeeper grinned and shifted his broom to one hand, clapping Aram's shoulder with the other.  "It's good to see you, lad.  We've been wondering about that errand of yours.  All he'd tell us was, Many hear the song, but few dance with honor in the night, and—saints, what happened to your arm?"

         Aram shook his head, already heading for the staircase.  "Is he still here?"

         Bran's brow furrowed.  "Should be, unless he leapt out the window without breakfast—wait now, lad!  What're you doing?"

         Aram bounded up the wooden steps and left the question behind.  He strode to the end of the narrow hall and pounded on the door of Bran's largest room.  The walls shuddered around him, but no one answered, and he pounded again.

         "Shhhh!  Saints and shadows, lad!" Bran hissed from the top of the stairs.  "What's wrong with you?  Don't you want him to come back one day?"

         Aram bowed his head.  His hand closed on the doorknob and shoved it.  The door, unlatched and unbarred, flew open and slammed into the inner wall.

         The room was empty, the bedding smooth as fresh snow—yet the shutters were thrown wide, and on the windowsill, balanced between the gust from the door and the morning air, lay a single feather as long as a sword-blade and black as a moonless night.

         Aram shivered.  "No.  But I know he will," he said as the feather spun and fell away into the sunlight.  He stared into the abandoned room and thought how he would tell Bran—how he would tell his wife, but not his son—that his night in the forest had proved the old saying true.

         Of all who sing in the High Queen's court, men hear most clearly the deep voice of the Black Sera, the bringer of death.

 

Copyright 2006, Robert Rhodes