Damsel Knight (3 page)
Authors: Sam Austin
Bonnie steps in the boat, causing it to bob up and down in anger. She sets to work moving boxes to make a space under the cloth. After a while she stops to look over her shoulder and glance at Neven. "Hurry up."
He steps forward, nothing but a twitching shadow in the scant moonlight. He's heard the tales as she has, but he was always one to focus on dangers rather than adventures. "This is a really bad idea. Can't we just stick to the road?"
She knows the road he means. The one that leads from Porthdon all the way east to King's city. Going to the city isn't a bad idea. There are enough orphans scurrying the narrow alleyways that two more won't be noticed. Whether they'll be able to avoid the soldiers patrolling the city long enough to avoid whatever danger they're recruiting for is another matter. But no. Either way the road won't do. "The soldiers will go that way. And I don't fancy striking out on goat trails and getting lost. The water's our only way."
Neven bows his head. He knows it too. Still, he glances at the other boats tied to the mud caked dock before putting a hesitant foot in the boat. It lurches forward against the rope, causing him to balance precariously, arms pinwheeling before it stills. With eyes squinted shut like he expects the wood to eat him, he puts the other foot in the boat.
"See it's not so bad," Bonnie says, ducking beneath the cloth. The air is stale under here and tastes of rot. But there's enough space for her and Neven both. Enough for them to crouch between the boxes long enough for the boat to get up the coast and away from here.
"Right," Neven says, sounding like he's going to be sick. Unlike her, who hassles fishermen for a trip along the coast, this is the first time Neven has stepped foot inside a boat. She hopes he's not going to turn out to be seasick. It would be ironic given how devoted he is to the Gods if his stomach protested his travel across where the line between their world and this world is the thinnest.
A large hand reaches out of the darkness and closes around Neven's throat. He yelps, but any further noise is cut off when a second hand touches a savage looking knife to his neck. The shadow towers over him, and over Bonnie.
"What're you doing on my boat, boy?" The gruff voice rolls over them both along with warm breath smelling strongly of cider. "Stealing? You been stealing my things?!"
Neven cringes away from the hand, his adam’s apple bobbing too close to the knife for comfort. His body trembles, and the colour drains from his face.
"Jack put him down," Bonnie says, standing up from beneath the cloth. It's a struggle, but she makes sure to leave her sword under there before she exits. No sense escalating things. "You're scaring him half to death."
The knife is removed from Neven's throat, but his legs stay dangling several feet off the boat. Jack bends down to squint at Bonnie through the darkness. He's a giant of a man. Nearly seven feet tall, and almost half as wide. A thick fur vest covers his barrel chest even in this warm weather, and the skin not covered is about as hairy. His eyes are not small, but his oversized jaw and wide broken nose make them seem so.
"I know you?" His gruff voice holds more confusion than menace now.
"Picture longer hair," she says, attempting a smile. It's strained. Jack may be a friend of a sort, but trusting him with this secret was stretching that friendship to its limit. "And a dress covered in fish guts."
"Bless my whiskers," Jack says, releasing his hold on Neven. He falls to the deck with an audible thump. "Bonnie Ceana. What are you doing looking like that? Did someone steal your clothes? You can tell me lass. I'll deal with those scoundrels. Got a druid I know who's looking for a couple fresh organs. Liver, kidney and such like. Not too picky where they come from either."
Neven scurries away to Bonnie's side. Once free, terror quickly turns into anger as the man's words seem to catch up with him. "You snuck us on a black market boat?!"
"Just a little one," Bonnie says, holding her thumb and forefinger a short distance apart. "And Jack's a good guy," she turns back to Jack with a polite smile. "No thank you. We don't need you to kill anyone today."
"When you have to remind him not to kill people, he's not a good guy." Neven pauses, looking warily up at Jack. "I thought he was the puppeteer you liked. The one who told really scary stories."
"Every man needs something to pay the bills, and something that makes their heart sing." Jack tilts his giant head, finally pocketing the knife. "Sometimes life is cruel and they're not the same thing."
Neven's eyes stay fixed on Jack's large stomach. She can guess what he's thinking: cruel or not, smuggling seems like it pays well. "What if he sells us as slaves, or decides to take our organs instead."
Jack raises a bushy eyebrow. "Nervous little thing, isn't he?"
"Well," Bonnie says, tilting her head. "This is his first time to the docks, and you did just put a knife to his throat."
"Traditional greeting where I'm from," Jack said with a shrug. "What're you two doing here in the dead of night anyway?"
Bonnie stands up straight, trying to look older than her fourteen summers.. "I hear you're going to Dragon's Bay."
Jack frowns at her for a moment before his eyes widen in understanding. "Oh no. No way, no how. Going out on this ship is no place for a lady."
"You say that like you haven't taken me sailing already," Bonnie says. "And it's only a couple of days away, hugging the coast the whole way."
"One, a couple trips around the bay is not sailing," Jack says, getting out his knife again and waving it through the air for emphasis. Though that's not true. There was one time long ago when she'd been bundled in his boat, the newly orphaned daughter of a knight, and carried down a river, then along the coast past what's now Dragon's Bay, and to this nondescript little market town. "And two, what would your foster family think? They'd be distraught. Nice little girl like you out in the big nasty world. Doesn't bear to think about."
Bonnie looks to Neven, but the boy looks away. His shoulders slouch like he's just been kicked.
"There's nothing to go back to Jack," she says. It's a balance deciding how much to say. Jack's a nice enough guy, and she's watched his puppet shows and peppered him with questions about the stories since she first came here, but he also works Dragon's Bay. That means he works for the King. "I wouldn't ask if I had any other choice."
Jack peers at them from under his bushy brows. "Does this have anything to do with the soldiers I've been hearing about? Word is a recruitment went wrong in one of the villages nearby. Things got bloody."
"No," she says hurriedly. Asking a favour is one thing. Asking a man to go against the one who filled his purse with coin is another. "We just-"
"We need to run away," Neven says quickly. "To er, seek our fortunes."
"To Dragon's Bay?" Jack asks.
"If you were going someplace else we'd ask to go there," Bonnie says, forcing the words to come out firm and even. Many men would give her a slap for that, but Jack had never scolded her for speaking her mind. That's why she liked him. "Things are changed now. I'm no little girl. I've got no one except Neven. Now I live and die by my sword."
"Right," Jack raises an eyebrow. He looks her up and down. Last winter had treated her badly, leaving her more skinny than usual. She had seen her reflection in the water. Her shorn blond hair left her face looking too gaunt, skin tight against her cheekbones causing them to stick out. "Expect you'll be dying then. World's a lot harder than it sounds in stories. Now out of my boat, the pair of you."
Neven shuffles, looking like there's nothing on earth he wants to do as badly as that. Bonnie doesn't move, her chin held high and her eyes fixed on Jack's.
"I can't go back," Bonnie says. "You know what the village will do to me looking like this." Her heart jolts in her chest at the words. It's not like she didn't realise what she was doing, cutting off her hair. She did. A girl can't travel with only the protection of a boy and expect to get anywhere in this world alive or unhurt. A boy can. But if anyone were to realise she's a girl under the clothes and shorn hair then it'll be a quick trip to the nearest council and the first available bonfire.
A grey fog of panic settles over her as Jack only stares at her, any expression lost under his bushy eyebrows and uneven beard. Maybe she should've gone by the road, or even the goat trails, but she'd thought Jack was her safest bet. Which he was, unless he decided to turn her in.
She swallows, her palms sweating.
"We stop at Dragon's bay, then go onto the City," Jack says slowly, not looking happy about it. "There you keep your head down until your hair grows back. And you best think up a more convincing name than Bonnie. People look for skirts with a name like that."
Bonnie gives a relieved smile and holds out a hand. Her legs feel like they're made of water. "Call me Boone."
Jack wraps his massive hand around her dainty one and shakes. He hitches a shoulder in a half shrug. "It'll do," he says. "But best mind yourself Boone. Dragon's bay is nothing more than a place to go to die. You stick close to me. No going near that castle."
Bonnie gives a placating smile, but beneath it all her muscles are coiled with tension. Jack's job makes it best for him to travel the coast in ways that attract least notice, but there's another reason for her picking him. It has to do with one of the many stories he's entertained the kids of Porthdon with, and the kids of many a town with.
It's a story of a dragon with scales as red as blood, and eyes so dark you felt they'd swallow you whole. The beautiful princess he guards, and the prize awaiting anyone with enough bravery to slay him. The red beast with black eyes who killed so many that its footsteps crack on a carpet of bones.
It's a small cove. A short stretch of sand that quickly gives way to grass. To her right the Dark Forest goes on and on as far as she can see. The trees are densely packed together like they're whispering about the secrets they hide. Straight ahead the hill gets steeper and greener with every step.
Somewhere over that hill is the castle. It's the only building on the bay. From the stories the fishermen told her it's supposed to be on the outer tip of the island overlooking the sea. Of course, it's not really an island. Everyone just says that because it might as well be with the only ways out being the sea and through the forest.
All the champions that come here to slay the dragon arrive by sea. No one comes through the forest, not even knights.
Neven steps out of the boat and falls to the ground on his hands and knees. He grips the wet sand with fervour. "Land!" He shouts, tears in his eyes. "I'm sorry I left you. Please never leave me."
"Get out of my way lad!" Jack stares at Neven with an expression part way between frustration and astonishment. "I have to pull the boat in."
The past two days have not been a happy time for Neven or Jack. Turns out Neven does get sea sick, and it turns out Jack is allergic to whining. Bonnie's just glad that what happened in the village hasn't taken all of Neven's spirit, though sometimes when he thinks she's sleeping, she'll catch him staring over the edge at the water with a haunted look on his face.
Neven scurries out of the way, moving up the hill to admire the grass. Jack pulls the boat up the small beach, muttering. Bonnie does her best to help.
"Are you going to bring that to the castle?" Bonnie asks as Jack heaves one of the boxes up the hill. She has her sword and her pack. She's a little hopeful. It would be a good excuse to get close to the castle, and the dragon.
"No one goes near that castle," Jack says, giving her a hard look over the wooden box. "Least, not anyone not half mad for gold, glory, and the girl."
Neven looks up from his spot on the hill, a wistful expression on his face. She's only ever seen him look like that when he's thinking up an experiment he wants to try. "The princess is supposed to be very beautiful, isn't she?"
Jack snorts, dropping the box heavily beside a gnarled looking tree that sits at the top of the small hill. The contents clatter. "Not sure how they can say that when she's been locked in that castle since she was a child. But I'd wager they're right. The King has more than enough gold to buy beauty for his daughter. And he has no problems buying magic to serve any of his other whims. I hear he brought his jester back to life when he couldn't find a good enough replacement. Course I imagine he's a lot less funny now being undead and all."
Bonnie frowns at the crate. "So how do you get that to the castle?"
"This does it for me," Jack pats the gnarled trunk with a certain fondness. "Magic my lad Boone. Watch."
Bonnie and Neven watch as Jack pries off the lid. Unease washes over her. She can't help but think of the crate her father brought back from one of his quests for the King. That one little crate that changed everything, and led her here today with her father's sword over her shoulder and neither of her parents by her side.
With a practised movement Jack eases off the lid, letting them see the contents. Neven screws up his nose, face turning as green as it had in the boat. "Are those teeth?"
"What did you think I'd be delivering to the castle?" Jack asks with a raised eyebrow. "Cream cakes and pasties?"
"Well, yeah," Neven says, sitting up straighter on the grass. He frowns at the gleaming contents of the crate. Disgust falls away to interest on his face. "Is it a trade? I thought you needed gold for that?"
Jack scoops up a handful of teeth, dropping them into a deep hollow in the centre of the gnarled trunk. There's no sound of them hitting wood, like they're falling forever. The crate is filled up to the very top, and there's a pang in her chest as she notices most are small; children's teeth. How did he get so many?
"Gold, teeth, bone, blood, honey, children," Jack shrugs a massive shoulder, depositing another handful. "Magic isn't too picky as long as it thinks it's got a fair trade. It's when it you don't give enough when you get problems. Then it'll just take and take."
Bonnie swallows, nervous. Neven shifts. There're stories about what magic does to people when they play with it too much. Men who ask for wealth and wake up in a bed of gold with all their limbs missing. Women who ask for youth and have their children taken as payment. Magic is for the wealthy, and no one in the villages has wealth enough to get the training to devote their lives to magic. So all they had were stories passed on by traders and fishermen to be whispered and used to scare small children.
Until now, seeing all those teeth, the stories gain a solidity that turns her speechless.
"You've traded your tucked away village for an ugly world Bonnie," Jack says, looking between her and the teeth, using her real name for the first time since they left the dock. His expression softens slightly. "You children best go and play whilst you still have the chance. Don't go far, and don't go near the castle. If that beast so much as smells you he won't stop chasing until you're dead. Killing is all a dragon thinks about, that one more than most."
Neven gets to his feet, starting up the hill. It's now or never.
"You should stay here Neven," Bonnie says with forced casualness. "I know you like to see how things work."
Neven pauses, turning back to her. "Are you sure?" He asks, his brow screwed up in puzzlement. "What about you?"
"I'll be fine. I'm just going to practice some footwork." She gives a smile that she hopes looks believable. "You stay and help Jack. It's not like you'll be able to see magic this close again."
"You're right," Neven says, near running down the hill. He stops himself on the magic tree, then gasps and looks down at his fingers. "I feel it working. It tingles."
"Just don't go sticking your hand down inside the tree," Jack says, chucking another handful into the hole. "Else you'll get mistaken for teeth."
Bonnie turns to go up the hill, her sword feeling heavier than before. Then she stops, something nagging at her.
"Jack? Have you ever known a dragon that wasn't a killer?" She asks, choosing her words carefully. Some desperate feeling uncoils itself in her chest. It screams at her, screams and screams and screams like she did the day her parents died. "A dragon that was nice?"
"A nice dragon?" He tilts back his head and laughs, the sounds booming. Finally he gets himself under control, wiping away a tear. "I'd forgotten what fancies children have. My dear Boone, take it from me I lived most of my life on the borders of the north, just outside the circle, where dragons still fly down from the mountains when winter makes their food scarce. Dragons are the cruellest, most vile creatures alive. They know nothing of mercy. They burn whole villages to the ground for the joy of it. No, mark my words, the only thing a dragon can be is a killer."
Bonnie nods, all the excitement she'd felt earlier draining away. She holds her father's sword tight and makes her way up the hill.
"Remember," Jack calls after them. "This place is magic. When the sun is high the island will push my boat back out to sea. If you aren't in it there won't be another boat coming until the next full moon."
"I'll be there," she says, hoping that it's the truth.
***
It takes hardly any time at all to see the tower of the castle. It takes an hour of brisk walking after that before said tower becomes something more than a tiny thing on the horizon, no bigger than her thumb.
The way is steep hill followed by small valley followed by even steeper hill. With every step she contemplates lightening her burden by leaving something behind. The sword is the most awkward thing to carry, but she can't very well slay the dragon without it. The wooden shield raps against her back and arm, but she'll need whatever flimsy defence it can offer. And what if she leaves her pack, and some creature makes off with the rest of her food? If the boat leaves without her, then that food will have to tide her over until she finds something else to eat on this island.
Unless a boat is sent when the dragon is killed? That would make sense. The champion has to get to the palace with the princess somehow.
'Whoever slays the dragon shall win my daughter's hand, be knighted by my sword, and inherit my throne, kingdom and fortunes when I step down.'
What other way could a girl hope to become a knight?
Jack said over two hundred champions had come here over the past three years to try and win the princess's hand. None of them came back, and they were men. All of them strong, brave, and MEN! She's just a little girl playing at being a boy. How can she hope to compete?
The morning is too quiet. Just her, the grass beneath her rough shoes, and the sun pounding down relentlessly from above. For a moment she wishes she'd brought Neven, then she mentally shakes her head. This is her task. Her dream. To drag him along would be unfair to him.
She'll share her reward with him of course. He can live with her on her lands, or she can give him enough gold to decide what he wants to be. Farmer, blacksmith, scholar, nothing will be out of reach for him. And maybe she'll hire Ness, as a jester of course. Nothing else would suit him more.
The thoughts are a welcome diversion from what's about to happen, but as the tower gets closer they get harder to hold onto. If Neven were here, and somehow not cowering in fear, he'd know the right words to put her at ease.
"They say he breathes flames as hot as the sun," she'd say.
Neven would wave off the comment. "They also say that no one who meets him comes back alive. So who exactly do they think is coming up with all these stories?"
"Claws as sharp as knives," she'd say.
Neven would grin. "And the size of toothpicks I'll bet. You've got a sword. Yours is bigger."
"But I'm just a girl."
Here's where her imaginary Neven breaks off from the real one, because there's no way he'd ever dispute the shortcomings of that. In fact real Neven would quake, and pull at her hand, and say anything to get her to stop this foolish idea.
Imaginary Neven somehow knows exactly why she must do this. "You're not just a girl," he says. "Because you know this isn't just any dragon."
She hefts the sword up higher, trying to ignore the aches in her arm. Two hundred champions, two thousand. It doesn't matter, because she has an edge they never had. She's met this dragon before.
It was small then. The size of a large hound. Maybe the tales were false, and the knights had simply taken one look at it and turned away in pity. No. She knows that's not right. No matter its size it's something to fear, but the thoughts have given her hope. Maybe the dragon isn't as dangerous as the tales make him sound.
She doesn't see the white rock until it's too late. She trips, sword flying from her grasp. Arms flailing she tries to keep her balance but the next step takes her over the top of the hill. Her foot lands wrong on the uneven ground and she topples down the slope, rolling down head over heels.
She catches short snatches of sky and grass before the hill throws her violently onto the flat ground below. But it isn't ground.
She scrambles backwards, scattering the bones beneath her hands. Her foot lands on a charred skull and it collapses with a crunch. She half crawls over the field of bones, back to the grass of the hill. Her breath comes in pants.
The bones extend far into the distance. There must be hundreds of them. Some are full skeletons, but most are scattered pieces. Most have been charred, and all have been picked clean. She shudders, hoping that it was by time and birds, not the dragon. She can't bear to think of him eating people like that - like a monster.
"So much for him not being dangerous," Bonnie says when her voice comes back.
"And so much for not breathing fire."
***
Everything about her turns weak as she stares at the hill of charred bones. There's nothing she wants more than to turn back. Her legs are as weak and watery as the patches of quick mud that surround her village. Part of her knows this is folly. A girl against a dragon. But another part wants to bury the point of her father's sword deep in the monster's throat.
That's her duty as a daughter. And she could never be a knight of honour like her father without that duty carried out.
So she pushes herself to her feet, and walks unsteadily back into the field of bones to retrieve her sword. The bones are packed so tightly together that she can't avoid stepping on them. They snap under her feet, and she tries to pretend they're just twigs, not people. The sword sticks up out of the field like some peculiar flower, the blade caught in a ribcage. She tugs but it won't come free, so she puts her foot on the skeleton, closes her eyes and pulls until it does.
