Damsel Knight (17 page)

Only, there’s one problem with that plan. It’s strapped to her back, the hilt poking over her shoulder.

Ness’s eyes fix on it and he leaps forward, past Neven.

Bonnie springs back, the idea of him using her sword to kill Gelert sending shivers down her spine. Gelert can be saved. She knows he can. “Just because he’s killed doesn’t mean he’ll always kill,” she says quickly. The words fall on deaf ears. She understands his position all too well. That’s what makes this so difficult, because if someone were to try to convince her a day ago Gelert shouldn’t be killed she wouldn’t have listened. Then he came to save them. He came when she called just like he always did those years before.

He killed Ness's brothers. He killed her parents. But part of him is still that tiny dragon who stared up at her from the box that day with nothing but love in his eyes. She can’t kill him like all those years of friendship meant nothing.

“He won’t kill,” Ness says, dodging left and right, trying to herd her against the steep hill where she’ll be trapped. “Because I’ll kill him first. Neven can have his true love. You can have your knighthood. And I can have enough gold to bring them back.”

“It’s too late Ness,” she hears Neven say somewhere to her left. “By the time we get to the city they’ll be…”

They’ll be gone. Three days is the maximum time from death to successful resurrection. Or at least, the maximum time before the thing you bring back can no longer be considered human. Even if they rode day and night it would take six to reach the city.

“No!” Ness charges with a sudden burst of speed.

Heart racing, Bonnie darts sideways. Her foot catches on a clump of turf at the bottom of the hill. She stumbles. It’s less than a second of delay, but it’s enough.

He grabs her by her shoulders, reaching for the carved hilt. His body weight destroys what little balance she has left, and she falls heavily, landing on her backside at the foot of the hill.

Bonnie shoves herself back into the grass, leaning to the left to cover the sword as best she can. She rocks from side to side, kicking with her legs and using her hand to keep the hilt in its scabbard where it belongs. A single horrible thought occurs to her. With a little space she could draw her sword and end this fight in an instant. If she thought Ness might see the threat and back off she might consider it, but he’s past that now.

She needs a different plan.

She twists her neck and sees Gelert standing there, sniffing the air above them, waiting for some kind of indication what to do. That’s it. “Fly away Gelert!”

“Stop!” Ness’s hand finds her mouth. It tastes of dirt and blood. His body crushes hers. “Stop it! Don’t you understand? I can bring them back. I won't ask for too much. Not all of them. Only some. I want - I want-”

She bites his fingers hard enough to make him yelp and pull his hand back. “Don’t come back! You hear me! Fly away, and this time don’t come back!”

The ground quakes as Gelert launches himself into the air. His wings throw a gale of wind down at them, kicking up every loose plant and piece of dirt for a hundred metres around. Their clothes flap against their skins, and her short crop of blonde hair buffets madly against her forehead. He flies away, higher than he usually does, Bonnie sees with pride. And when he’s a red dot against the blue sky, she thinks she hears a deep mournful sound travel through the air between them.

“You! You!” Red blazes up Ness’s neck, covering his face. He draws back his fist.

Neven grabs his arm. “Please,” he says, pleading in his voice. “Please stop this.”

It gives Bonnie enough time to buck her hips up, and dislodge Ness from on top of her. He falls onto his back, and she makes short work of rolling onto his chest, pinning down his arms with her knees. Fury races through her as she realises what she’s done. She told Gelert to go away, to never come back. She’d just admitted to herself how much she needs him, and now he’s gone.

Worse Ness knows her secret. He’s always been the perfect boy. Strong of mind and body. Charming, and mindful of his duty to his family. Always ready to point out when she strays from her womanly role. There’s no way he won’t tell people what she used to be. It’ll all be gone. Her freedom to choose her own path, even express her own opinions. Her knighthood. Her life. Gone.

All because he was born a boy, and she a girl.

She hits him on his bloody chin as hard as she can. Pain stabs through her knuckles. She punches him again on the cheek, and this time his head rocks to the side. The skin blazes red. She draws her fist back twice more, each blow throwing a bucket of cool water on the pit of anger burning in her belly.

Someone grabs her arm. It takes her too long to recognise Neven. He's almost crying. Both his hands wrap around her arm, grip iron tight.

Then she freezes, because Ness is crying. Big, strong, unflappable Ness lies on the grass beneath her, fat tears rolling down the sides of his face. She's never seen a boy cry before apart from Neven, but even Neven's never cried like this.

He sobs. Harsh uncontrollable sobs like a baby or a girl. He cranes his head to the sky in the direction Gelert left, though she doubts he can see through all his weeping.

She jumps off him like she's been electrified by one of Neven's odd experiments. He doesn't move, not even to curl up or cover his face. He lies there, body shaking with a visceral grief she's only caught glimpses of in women.

"I just want her back," he chokes out. His hand reaches up to swipe at his face as if the words had shocked some vague awareness back into him. "I wouldn't be greedy. Honest. I just - I want my mom back Neven. Neven. Please. I want my mom."

Ness's hand paws at the sky, the action like his words that of a child, not a boy old enough to be considered a man. Neven drops to his knees beside the boy’s head, grabs the hand, then folds himself over Ness, hiding him from view.

Bonnie stares as Ness sobs into the younger boy’s tunic like a baby. It’s odd. Everything that made up her view of life crumbles with each tear, and each heartbroken sound. It’s like watching the world be unmade.

Neven tugs Ness up by his armpits and leans the larger boy against him. Tucking the newly shorn head under his chin, he rocks and murmurs like a mother to a newborn babe. After a moment, he catches her eyes and mouths ‘Go.’

She does, walking back up the hill feeling like she’s in a dream. Once she reaches the top she sits down, facing the distant camp of soldiers. Both of them might hate her, but she’ll make sure they aren’t disturbed.

Chapter 18

Bonnie sits still in the cart as the medic pokes and prods her arm.

“Feel that lad?” The old man asks as he (she assumes) presses somewhere along her arm with his gnarled fingers.

“No,” she says again, keeping her eyes fixed on Alice huddled at the end of the cart.

The princess stares back along King's road with a lost look that doesn’t seem to see the hundred or so old men and boys following them with dogged tiredness on their faces. King's road is flat and straight for miles. Even with darkness pressing in Bonnie imagines she sees the tiny dot of Porthdon in the distance.

That’s not what Alice is looking at. She’s looking beyond that to where they last saw Gelert. It’s strange to not have considered it before, but while she had Gelert for five years, Alice had him for three. In a way he’s both of theirs.

“This?”

“A little,” she says. “There’s a pressure. Nothing more.”

“And what was it you said did this?” He squints at her from beneath bushy white brows. She doubts he sees much. Both his eyes are clouded over with white.

She glances over at Mrs Moore before remembering that it would not do to have the woman answer for her. Mrs Moore meets her eyes anyway, her gaze fierce and somehow reassuring before she looks down at the bottom of the cart. The old man might not be able to see her, but those beside them on horseback might.

“I fell into a pool while playing,” Bonnie says, using the story they’d agreed on when she’d admitted wanting to let someone look at her arm. “It was frozen over.”

“Frozen over?” His mouth gapes open enough to see the rotten stubs he has left for teeth. “In this heat?”

“My mother thinks it’s magic,” Bonnie says, the word ‘mother’ slipping out easily enough. It’s not like it’s a total lie. Mrs Moore has been a mother to her these past four years. “I think she’s right.”

Mrs Moore’s hands tighten their hold on her tunic, holding it so the old man can access the arm and shoulder without having to take the clothing off. At fourteen she’s too old to be able to pass off her chest as a boy’s. They were lucky the man didn’t insist.

“I dare say you’re right lad. I’ve never seen anything like this wound. Blood still flows through the limb, but slower than the rest of the body. The arm holds an unnatural chill that puts me ill at ease, as does the blanching of the skin your mother has described to me.” He shakes his head. “No. I do not like this at all. There is little sensation, yet the fingers have a small twitching of movement left in them. It is magic, that is certain.”

A small twitching. Bonnie pulls the hand to her lap and concentrates. The first two fingers curl ever so slightly. “They didn’t move at all before.”

“Perhaps that is a good sign. Pray to the ancestors it's so. Get your women to pray too. The ancestors favour women in the same way they favour young children and fools." He takes a large strip of brown material out of his cloth bag. His crooked fingers work quickly, folding it into the shape of a sling. "Watch carefully. You'll have to remind your mother how to help you with this. Women are such sweet creatures, but prone to wandering of the mind. Here, like this."

In moments the sling cradles her arm to her chest. It feels better, less likely to flop around like a dead fish. It'll be out of the way too, the next time she gets in a fight. She twitches her fingers experimentally, heart fluttering as they move.

The man sways, almost falling forward into Mrs Moore's lap. He catches himself at the last second on stick thin arms.

Mrs Moore catches her eye, and she remembers she's a boy now. A woman touching a strange man would be improper, but she doesn't have to worry about those rules any more. A thin thread of exhilaration runs through her, as it always does when she's reminded of her new freedoms.

Grabbing his arm, she levers him to upright. The soldiers around them shout to each other, but none seems to notice the old man's fall.

"Thank you lad," he says grasping her shoulder to keep himself steady. His dark wrinkled skin has a grey tone that wasn't there before. He wipes his brow with the back of a hand. "I came over faint all of a sudden. Never get old. It's the darkest kind of magic, taking and taking everything you love and giving nothing in return. I hope you never have to go through it."

It's such an odd idea that she has to blink several times before she understands. Farmers get old, as do farmer's wives, but knights who prove themselves in battle don't have to. That could be her, earning the right to live forever in perfect health.

A knight forever. All she needs to do is impress Sir Julius, and keep her secret.

Instinctively she looks over Alice's huddled form to the dishevelled mass of old men and boys following them. Ness and Neven are in there somewhere. Neven won't tell. She has no doubt of that. But Ness - she's not so sure. She's not sure of anything about Ness anymore.

He's seen him stand up for the twins enough times to know he's no coward, but he cried. Is there some secret world where men can cry, just as women can get away with fierceness when there are no men about? Can she cry and still be considered a boy?

The thoughts hold a foreign feeling she's not sure she likes. She'd been so sure Ness would tell everyone what she used to be, but he hasn't. She beat up Ness and got away with it. Sweet obedient Alice defied boys and saw no punishment. Ness cried.

If girls can fight, and boys can cry, then what's the real difference between them?

"When we get back to the city you'll have to see a druid about that arm. Many left with the other soldiers, so you may have trouble finding one." He sets his bag upon his hunched back, grimacing as he does so. "I'd help if I could, but I was not honoured with the chance to learn magic. A man with a birth such as mine does not have the mind for it. I hope you remember me though, humble as I am. I'm a hard worker, and faithful - ever faithful. I've served the Fair King since I was a young pot boy, and hope to serve him for many, many more years."

There's a note of pleading in his voice, and those gnarled hands open and close in his lap, as if he's fighting to urge to cling to her and beg. It's his life he's begging for, she realises with a hollow feeling in her stomach.

The maladies of old age are a small matter scrubbed away every day with the ease of wiping away a cobweb. His eyes could be returned to him, along with his health and a pain free body. If she becomes powerful enough, a word from her could go a long way toward him earning enough gold or favour to curing any ailment in his withered body.

Only, she's not sure she can do anything. A knight's word only goes so far, and she has her own to look out for.

"I'll remember," she says anyway.

"Bless you child." There's a sheen to his blind eyes she might've ignored if Ness's tears weren't so clear in her memory. "Oh bless you."

"Boone?"

If the voice makes her turn, it makes the old man spin around, mouth agape. None of Alice's earlier defiance is left in her voice, but the mere act of talking while men are is disrespectful.

"You're welcome to stay on the cart if you need the rest," Bonnie says quickly.

The words do the trick as she thought they might. His focus returns to her, and his nose wrinkles in distaste. "I'm not dead yet. I'll walk."

He yells for the cart to stop, and it does. There's no driver, but the large grey horse that pulls it follows along with the road sedately enough, and stops and starts when asked. Whether it's magic or just good training Bonnie doesn't know.

The medic shuffles off the end of the cart with frustrating slowness, but none of them move to help. It's one thing to be given a hand up after falling, it's another to imply he needs help with such a basic task, or to insist he stays on the cart like a wounded or a woman. By the time he limps away the more able bodied recruits have caught up with them.

Bonnie waits until the cart leaves them behind before she sits on the back next to Alice, feet dangling over the edge. If she times it right she'll appear nothing more than a boy amusing himself by jumping off the cart while it's moving. If not people will start to wonder why a boy would want to ride with the women.

Alice wraps her arms tighter around her legs. Her eyes are wide and worried in her dirty face. "I thought I saw. Look. Just look over there."

She points past the crowd of men and boys, far down the road to where the last traces of sun glow where ground meets sky.

No. That isn't right. It's not wide enough to be the sun, and it's in the wrong direction. The remains of the sun is disappearing to their right, behind the latest in a long line of villages nestled by the road. So what if it's not the sun, what is it?

Understanding hits her like a punch to the stomach. "Porthdon. It's burning."

"You don't think it was..."

She doesn't have to finish the sentence. Bonnie shakes her head firmly. "No. Not Gelert."

"All those people Boone," Alice says softly. Her hands fist in the fabric of her dress. "There were so many people."

"I bet there still are," Bonnie says, trying to force down the rising panic. "I bet they're fighting right now, and winning."

"It's OK." Alice's eyes reflect that distant glow, brighter now. "I'm not scared. You don't have to lie."

That's funny, because girl or boy, Bonnie is scared. Fear grips her insides, its clutch as cold as the lost ones. First her village burned, now Porthdon, and if she's right about how long they've been recruiting soldiers that's the end of a long list. A list she thinks is about to get a lot longer.

***

Each day starts with Sir Julius's voice booming at them all to wake up and start moving. Half asleep Bonnie readies his horse, then runs to Alice and Mrs Moore to fetch a bowl of porridge each for her and the knight. By the time she's reached him, she's already bolted down hers, and she jogs beside his horse until he hands her the finished bowl.

Bowls delivered to the now moving cart, she spends the rest of the day filling water-skins from a mysterious never ending barrel stored on the woman's cart. Night brings fire, every day a little brighter, a little closer. By the time they stop it's full dark. No one bothers with tents. They collapse where they stop, and some don't even get up to grab whatever there is for evening ration.

Sir Julius talks little about the fires with her. He talks little with her at all. His time is spent in tense discussion with some of the soldiers on horseback, and riding back to the crowds of people to shout at them to hurry up. When they start to lag too much for his liking he tells them nicely that the five slowest can ride with the women and children in the carts. No one lags after that.

"Almost there," Bonnie says, more for her own benefit than Alice's. The girl's weight makes her back ache, but she thinks her legs are finally getting used to it. Not her feet though. Her thin shoes have worn their way through to skin. If the road weren't so smooth and the soles of her feet so tough she'd be leaving a trail of bloody prints behind her like some of the men.

"I know," Alice whispers in her ear. There's excitement in her voice. "I recognise it. I do."

Bonnie recognises it too. It'll be hard not to. The road - up until now wide and flat, but an unremarkable grey - takes on a gold sheen. The change is small at first, a shining stone here and there, but as they walk they multiply. Some of the children who have never been near the city before climb down from their carts to see. One boy of around ten, dressed in an over-sized soldiers uniform, crouches with a look of concentration, trying to pry one loose.

She'd tried the same once when out with her father. He'd explained why it wouldn't work. The road was forged with magic and would take greater strength than a child to break it. And if someone were to chip a piece off, they would find themselves with nothing more than an ordinary piece of grey stone. The road only looks like gold. Looking like something is not the same as being something.

"Tell them about the berries Boone," Alice shifts in the sling Neven had pieced together out of some broken belts. "Oh please Boone. They don't know."

Bonnie rolls her eyes, but she picks up her pace to catch up with the bedraggled army of makeshift carts overflowing with women and children. Not all the villages they'd passed chose to stay put once they'd been told what was causing the fires. Apart from the druid school on far east of the circle, the city holds the highest concentration of druids. And before King Robin sent men out to recruit and face the dragon, it had held the highest concentration of knights and soldiers.

If you're looking for a safe place to hole up, then you could choose worse than the city.

Bonnie carries Alice from cart to cart, acting as the girl's voice to tell the crowds of women, young children, and the odd crippled man that from this point on all the fruit hanging from the bushes along the road are edible. Not only edible, Alice corrects her softly, but delicious and will only get more delicious and plentiful with every step closer to the city gates.

The younger boys and girls cheer and scamper off to taste for themselves. The women only duck their heads, showing their gratitude through their silence.

"Boy!" Sir Julius's voice cuts through the clamour of excitement like dragon steel through soft flesh.