The Red Knight (11 page)

They came to a fork in the trail that was marked by a broken column. The weathered spike of dark stone was etched with faded markings, the meaning of which as forgotten as those who had made them. Alyda took the left fork. The trail was overgrown, and had just enough clearance for them to pass if they lay along their horses’ necks. Thankfully it was short and soon opened up into a large clearing.

A carpet of moss was slowly spreading over the remains of a white, marble floor, of what must have once been a grand hall. The clearing was ringed by a double row of broken columns that reached to the sky like supplicant fingers. Alyda hated it. Bad memories were locked into every stone and bough. She shuddered when she looked at the spot where
it
had died. Nothing had grown there, not the smallest weed had encroached on the blasted ground. After two years, the wound remained.

Shoving her unease aside, Alyda dismounted and tethered her horse loosely to a branch. The Prince did the same. Both horses stood rigidly alert, ears erect, nostrils flaring, questing for scents or any sign of danger.

“It was a spring morning,” she said. The loudness of her voice sounded out of place. Like dancing on a grave, she felt it was somehow wrong to break the silence. She continued, more subdued. “His Majesty had arrived at Trelanlith the day before. He was touring the Guards’ garrisons. I was honoured to be asked by Captain Aysgarthe to escort the royal party on their ride out…”

Alyda was delighted and surprised when the old man told her she’d be riding as escort for the royal party. She kept her excitement in check, remembering her father’s advice to her when she’d been accepted into the 1st, ‘
Be dedicated, confident, and at all times composed.’

The day of the attack came as easily and clearly to mind as though it had happened yesterday. She’d buckled on her spurs in the Great Hall, while trying to ignore the pounding in her skull and the almost overwhelming urge to throw up. Unfortunately her parents had failed to advise her against the dangers of drinking contests—not that she didn’t know them from previous bouts, but somehow that lesson never stayed learnt.

Participating last night had unfortunately been unavoidable. She couldn’t possibly let an outsider beat the Guards, not even if the herald who’d issued the challenge was a member of the King’s retinue. Alyda had won, and saved the Company honour, but the price of victory was a brutal hangover. She shivered; it was unseasonably cold. Hopefully the cold air would clear the fog from her brain.
Never again
she swore and threw her uneaten breakfast to the deer hound that was snuffling around the tables hunting for scraps.

When the royal party were ready to leave, Alyda led the horses onto the parade ground. The King was accompanied by his bodyguards, a man and a woman who didn’t introduce themselves, Commander Trease and Captain Aysgarthe. The King barely marked her presence, but she didn’t escape inspection from the Commander of the Royal Guards. Until that day she’d thought Aysgarthe’s inspections were exacting, but quickly realised he was decidedly lax compared to Trease. She couldn’t have looked as rough as she felt because he didn’t say anything when he finished. He just gave a curt nod, which she took to be a good sign.

The memory was so vivid, she shivered.

The Prince smiled. “…I said this isn’t what I expected. It’s so…peaceful,” he was obviously repeating himself.

“I…er… No, indeed. It hasn’t changed at all,” she said.

She was distracted by old ghosts clamouring for her attention—drawing her back to the past. She paced across the clearing, half expecting to see blood splattered on the broken stones.

“The Commander laid a map out on here.” She ran her hand across a fallen column that lay at the edge of the clearing. It felt smooth. A profound cold reached through her gauntlets, despite the dappled sunlight patterning the ragged edge of the clearing.

Trease and the King were bent over the map, lost in conversation. She was still mounted as was Aysgarthe. The gruff captain was sharing a joke with one of the King’s bodyguards…

Alyda paused, took a breath. Talking about what happened never got any easier. It was so far beyond anything she’d ever experienced, before or after; it was more like reliving a nightmare than an actual event. Though she knew she hid it well, she felt sick and embarrassed.

“One minute the world was as it should be. The next…”she groped for the right words. “The air seemed to…thicken. I couldn’t breathe. It felt like I was drowning, choking in the open air. I think I must have started to pass out, and then a powerful blast of wind blew up out of nowhere and Nua threw me.” She didn’t think it necessary to describe how Captain Aysgarthe’s horse had reared and thrown him against a tree. How his skull shattered against the trunk, leaving a bright smear of blood and brains on the pale bark.

“The next thing I remember is opening my eyes and seeing the Commander and your father lying over there by the column. I didn’t know if they were dead or alive. The two bodyguards were the only ones on their feet. They went to your father. Captain Aysgarthe was dead…”

Alyda climbed unsteadily to her feet, narrowly avoiding being trampled by her terrified horse as she bolted down the trail with the other mounts. The bodyguards were shouting at her, but she couldn’t hear what they were saying above the ringing in her ears. It took the raw agony of one of them screaming to shock her from her dazed stupor.

“It was a Shadewalker—that’s what your father’s scholars called it when we described it to them…”

Alyda got her first look at the Shadewalker when it knocked the male bodyguard across the clearing. The nightmare creature was a sickly grey-white and heavily muscled. It stood on all fours, and was almost five feet tall at the shoulder. Its gaping maw bristled with far too many teeth. The bodyguard was still down when the beast sprang at him again. He reached for his sword but it was on him in an instant and tore out his throat with one huge, savage bite.

“He went down fighting.” She didn’t describe how the beast shook its head from side to side with the bodyguard hanging from its jaws like a rag. The memory was so vivid; she could almost taste the iron tang of the guard’s blood that had sprayed across the clearing.

“The other guard charged the beast. I went to see if I could help your father. The Commander was beginning to come round, but the King wasn’t moving. If he hadn’t groaned I would have thought—” She didn’t need to say more.

Talin nodded, his jaw was set in a stony grimace.

“Commander Trease got up and drew his sword, he ordered me to get your father away from there. I started dragging him towards the trail. You know about the Commander’s sword?”

“All I know is that it’s supposed to be Fey-made. You must forgive me, Captain Stenna; I wasn’t the most attentive student of history. My brother is the scholar.”

“No, I understand, Highness. I spent more time in the stables than the classroom. All I can say is that the blade was the only weapon we had that could hurt the cursed creature. When it turned on the second bodyguard, the Commander laid into it….”

The Shadewalker’s tail was thick, and plated with scales, the tip was drawn out into a wicked barb. Trease was on his feet, but still looked dazed. He blocked a vicious tail swipe, but didn’t see it lunge at him with a raking forepaw…

“It slashed the Commander—shredded his mail like it was paper…”

Alyda saw Trease clutch the bloody gashes in his chest, saw him fall. Before the beast could finish him, the bodyguard put herself between it and the wounded Commander. The Shadewalker
laughed.
The guard let her blade speak for her, and sliced the beast across the throat. The strike would have slain any mortal creature, but she didn’t so much as scratch a scale. It lazily swatted at her with a forepaw. She avoided it easily, but the attack had only been a feint. While the guard was distracted, the creature’s tail scythed in low to the ground and flicked up at the last minute like a viper.

“I shouted a warning. I’m not sure if she heard me or if at the last second, she saw the tail strike. Either way, she got her sword up in time to block the barb, but the force of the blow threw her against that column. Her leg twisted under her; I heard it break…”

With Trease and the bodyguards either dead or unconscious; the beast now turned its attention to Alyda and transfixed her with its baleful gaze. In all the fights she’d ever been in she’d never experienced real terror. When she locked eyes with the demon, when those sulphurous eyes glared at her, burning with depthless malice, she understood the true meaning of evil.

The King slipped from her nerveless fingers. She was frozen with fear. It felt like it was daring her,
willing
her, to run. No one would know. She could sprint down the track and leave the King and the others to their fate. It was a simple choice; run and live or stay and die.

She weighed her life against her honour and for all that she wished it was otherwise, the scales refused to tip in the coward’s favour. A monstrous laugh bubbled from the beast’s throat when she stepped over the King’s prone form and set her guard. It advanced slowly, apparently in no hurry to finish her. Alyda tried to draw a deep breath, but her throat was tight, her chest filled with the thunder of her pounding heart. She had to control her fear. The beast opened its dripping maw and smiled.
Hard as iron and as cold as stone. You’re a Royal Guard, the best of the best.
She told herself
. Cold as…as… Stop shaking!
The beast took a step towards her.
She was paralysed with fear.
I’m going to die…

“Stenna!”

She snapped her head round and saw Trease. He was up on his knees, his face was ashen, and blood was pouring from his chest. With a mighty effort, he threw his sword to Alyda. She dropped her own weapon and caught the Commander’s mid-flight, and thankfully, hilt first. Furious, the beast roared and leapt at her. She sidestepped as much as she dared without leaving the King exposed. The beast twisted and tried to rake her with all four sets of claws. Alyda pivoted on her heel, and lashed out with her sword letting the momentum of the spin throw the blade out in a wide, horizontal arc. The shock jarred her arm as the blade ripped open the Shadewalker’s stomach. A single claw caught her, cut through her armour and peeled the skin from her shoulder, its tail whipped across the back of her leg, just above the knee.

She went down. White hot pain burned her senses; the world tilted, and shrank to a dim tunnel. She was falling. Desperate not to die face down, she thrust the Commander’s blade into the ground, fracturing the brittle crust of marble. The earth shuddered, her vision blurred.
Hard as iron… Damn it! Do not pass out!

The Shadewalker crashed to the ground about eight feet away and let out a high-pitched squeal. Black blood and steaming innards spilled from the gaping wound in its stomach, the beast shuddered then lay still. The only noise in the glade was the sound of her laboured breathing, she sagged against the sword.

The beast twitched.

Her breath caught in her throat. She looked up. Its eyes snapped open; locked on hers. Horrified, she watched it drag its legs beneath it and stand up. Its guts trailed in the dirt. It gathered its hindquarters and prepared to leap. The ground seemed to tremble; all she could do was hold onto the sword and wait for death. The beast leapt…

Talin broke the spell. “How did you kill it?”

“A lucky blow, Highness.” The answer was close enough to a lie to make her feel uncomfortable, but the truth was far more difficult to explain.

She didn’t remember killing it.

Her last memory was of seeing it leap. Her next recollection was of there being a great weight on her, pinning her to the ground…

She opened her eyes. The beast was lying across her, its skull almost cleaved in two. Its head was inches from her face; its rank breath was hot against her cheek, its great yellow eyes still burned with fevered hatred. There was another presence staring out at her from behind those dying eyes, one that was filled with the malevolence of the Void.

The Shadewalker drew a last, shuddering breath and was still. Before she had chance to thank the gods, a reedy tendril of smoke rose off the body, swiftly followed by another, and another. The damn thing was starting to burn. Even though it was dead, the bastard was intent on killing her. She tried to squirm from beneath the carcass, but her left arm and leg were pinned. She would have cut her way out but she’d lost the sword. She craned her neck and saw the Commander’s blade lying tantalisingly close. Faint hope turned to despair as even at full stretch, it was just beyond her reach. The Shadewalker’s body began to swell; there was a loud hissing followed by a soft
whump
. Stinking, burning fat bubbled over the curve of its flank. It dripped on her, sizzled against her armour. Flames began to light along its back, hungrily devouring scales that had been impervious to steel. Alyda yelled her frustration and pummelled the carcass.

It moved—but she hadn’t moved it.

Terrified, she again strained to reach the Commander’s sword. Desperation lent her a fingertip of extra stretch, and she was able to touch the blade, but it wasn’t enough. The beast lurched; its ruined head lolled drunkenly against her. A forepaw hung in the air above her, claws poised.
How can it? The damn thing’s on fire—ho…?
An armoured hand grabbed the dangling paw and yanked it back out of sight. The pale face of Commander Trease appeared above the beast, followed by that of the bodyguard who reached through the flames and grabbed hold of the Shadewalkers back leg. The bodyguard coughed, but her armour protected her from the heat.