The Toll of Violence

TW: Swearing

Fire painted illusions of a dying empire. Sir Danielle Longbow watched crowds of screaming men, women and children consumed by the inferno.

            Don’t you remember? Asked the blazing spectre. Don’t you remember who you were? Who was I? Tell me!

            Heat from the Messiah of Fire and Bone set Danielle’s tabard aflame.

            Tell me. Now.

            “I don’t know,” Sir Longbow cried. She stabbed at the undead creature with her sword. The stab passed into the heat haze around the creature’s head. She wanted to roll, to throw herself into water. There was no water, nowhere to go.

            Kill me. Please. The face of a beautiful woman solidified in the fire over the skull.

            “Hold still.” Danielle stabbed her sword through the skull of the woman who had become an infernoste righ. For a moment the black bones beneath the flame froze. The fire solidified into the beautiful smile of a young woman. Sir Longbow’s heart stopped seeing the round face, kind smile and sensuous lips.

            The fire died. Bones fell to lie with the rest on the stairs. The knight remembered she was on fire. Screaming for help she ran into the darkness of the crypt behind her. Rolling in dust, she felt the weight of another knight upon her.

            “Danielle,” said her daughter’s voice. Using her tabard, Nettle smothered the flames on her own.

            “Spears ready,” ordered Sir Anne Hyland. “Hold the doorway. Sir Longbow slew the big one, we’ll hold the rest at bay.”

            “Help me,” screamed Nettle Longbow, still patting her with the green tabard. “She’s burnt all over.”

            Rolling up her tabard, Nettle put it beneath her mother’s legs to elevate them. Trying to remember a manual of healing Danielle’s partner Lupita followed religiously, the daughter talked to her mother until the older knight fell unconscious.

            “Help me get her armour off, she needs to breathe.” Another knight kneeled by Nettle’s side, undoing the buckles that held on the plates of armour over Danielle’s burnt body.

            Danielle convulsed. Vomit pooled in her mouth and dribbled down over her lips. “Help me turn her onto her side,” Nettle ordered her fellow knight. The daughter held her mother’s head to help the sick flow out without choking the patient.

            When the armour lay on the stone floor of the catacomb hallway the daughter of the healer and the knight saw that the burns were blistering all over her mother’s body.

            “I need the bandages. Who has the bandages?” The medical kit packed for the knights by Lupita Smith, witch, and healer, was passed from hand to hand and laid at Nettle’s feet.

            Angry sores were forming on the pink skin all over the unconscious knight. When Nettle’s helper threw up, she called for another. “If you can’t handle this then take a turn holding a spear at the door.” She turned to yell towards the other knights. “I need someone with a strong stomach.”

            Sir Lachlan Donaldson knelt at the young knight’s side and removed his helmet.

            “Anyone else?” Nettle asked.

            “How can I help ye? Just tell me what tae do.” The tall man still filled most of the space, red hair grazing the arched ceiling. His accent rolled every letter r, forgot any letter t in the middle of a word, and under pronounced the letter t at the end of words.

            “I need to take all of her clothes off and bandage her,” she said. She wasn’t sure if Danielle would approve of Lachlan touching her, but it wasn’t a time to be picky.

            “Alright.” He nodded earnestly.

            “I need light,” she said. Pulling Danielle’s sword from the scabbard she spoke to it. “Solasaich.” The blade glowed green, filling the dark corridor with light.

            “Is that how it works? Anyone can say it.” Sir Donaldson stared in wonder at the sword. “Solasaich.” The glow vanished.

            “LACHLAN!” Nettle roared, he leapt back, hitting his head. “Solasaich.” She pointed at the childish knight. “If she dies, I’ll gut you. Help me.”

            He nodded.

            “Don’t burst any of the blisters if you can help it, that can cause infection.”

            Without another word the two undressed the barbequed knight and wrapped her in all the bandages from the rucksack, which weren’t nearly enough. The unconscious knight winced as every bandage was applied.

            “What now?” Lachlan asked.

            “Rip your tabard into strips,” said Nettle, who was already cutting up her own.

Unconscious, Danielle dreamt of serpents twisting in the sky. A city screamed out for mercy. Fire rose in every direction. Buildings toppled. Roaring filled the air. The roar of flames. The roar of monsters. The swoosh of swooping beasts that blackened the sky, eclipsing the sun. Dragons were beautiful even as they ended her world.

            Pearlescent scales caught her imagination as a casual flick of tail tore through a castle wall. Bricks of sandstone soared through the air. Debris hit fleeing civilians hard enough that some seemed to explode.

            Armoured knights threw spears that hit scales and rebounded like twigs against a wall or missed completely. A beam of white-hot flame turned the men to smoking bones and melted steel.

            The beautiful, terrible face of a dragon yawned in the sky above her. There was light. Then nothing.

Sir Danielle woke, screaming in agony. Every inch of her seemed aflame. Dark beams above her were familiar. Lupita’s warm brown face smiled with joy, looking down.

            “You’re awake. Thank the gods. Danielle, I love you, but I can’t cope with the life you live.” Cool sensations made the knight shiver. She gasped, one form of pain becoming another.

            “Where am I?”

            “Home,” a younger voice. Nettle peered down at her mother, long straw-coloured hair hanging from the sharp jaw. “We carried you to the cart. You were screaming about Godswell in your sleep. What did that thing show you?” Brown eyes were curious in sockets framed by summer freckles.

            “She showed me the city burning, her last moments. How did we escape?”

            “Most of the infernoste wandered off without her coordinating them. A lot of them blew themselves up by setting off the bombs around the graveyard. We held the doorway and killed anything that came close to us for a day. When they stopped coming Anne brought others to us with a yell. We finished them off and carried you back to the horses.”

            “No one else was hurt?” Danielle asked.

            “There are some burns, nothing as bad as yours.” Nettle smiled, light catching freckles on her nose.

            “How long was I out?”

            “We only returned yesterday. Anne gave the other knights a day to see their families. She informed Sir Sorley’s wife about his death.”

            “That was my duty,” Sir Danielle closed her eyes.

            “You’ll get to see the Sorley’s yourself later. They’re coming to see you this afternoon. Some of the knights were convinced you were going to die. They owe me money.” Nettle smiled.

            “They bet money I would die?”

            “No, but they were pretty sure. I told them they owed me a drink if you lived. I’m going to be swimming in their repayments.” Her smile glowed as she thought about it.

            “If you’d not given away the dragon’s blood, I could have healed you perfectly with it,” said Lupita, Hazel eyes focussed on Danielle’s.

            “What did the queen do with it?” Asked the scorched knight.

            “Used most of it for herself and Princess Malin. She had the coven drink the rest.”

            “You drank some?” Danielle sat bolt upright. Every muscle in her stomach berated her. Burns on her stomach and back threw a party of pain.

            “The entire coven did. The magic Dan, you have no idea. At least I can help with these burns a bit. You need to give me time, I learned some new spells from a book we just imported.”

            “You don’t get to use the magic for free,” the wincing warrior protested. “You know that. Think before you spend some of your life to heal wounds that are healing anyway.”

            “The magic doesn’t cost us so much now, Danielle.” Lupita kissed the knight’s raw, pink forehead. “You’ll see.”

            The witch dug through papers in the drawer of her desk, pulling out notebooks and rolls of parchment until her hand grasped a scroll written in her own neat hand. The rolling letters of her quill. From a shelf she pulled down a vial of blood and a brush. Muttering in the King’s Tongue, the old language of the continent, she painted Danielle’s skin with the spell.

            Lupita’s muttering ceased. The blood sank into the knight’s tortured flesh. Pink skin returned to its usual pallor. Hideous blisters scabbed over.

            “That’s saved you a week of healing. You’re welcome. The spell only drew the life from the blood itself. That’s what we can do now. You know some of my healers want to join your ranks?”

            “I didn’t. What will witches and warlocks know about fighting?”

            “Nothing, until you teach them. You have at least one to replace. Having someone to patch you up while you’re hundreds of miles from home isn’t so mad is it?” Lupita kissed Danielle again.

            “I suppose not.”

            “Always so resistant to change.”

            “Change in my life usually means things getting worse.” The knight raised herself off the table and dressed. The cool feeling of her underclothes was a blessing after the hot agony of the burns. “Fine. Send me your healers. I’ll make warriors out of them. I need a real army to go up against the things in Gennadius. You should have seen them.”

            “Nettle’s told me all about the infernoste,” the witch’s hand took hers.

            “They’re so fucking fast, its unreal.” The freckled knight scratched her nose. “Poor Calum Sorley didn’t stand a chance.”

            Danielle wasn’t having that. “He did. If the idiot hadn’t wandered off on his own, he’d be back with us. We’ll call him a hero, but I need all the Nameless Knights to remember stupidity got him killed. I’m not having any more of that.” The healing soldier took her armour from the stand and began strapping it on piece by piece. “Did your father get my designs?” She asked of Atwanda Smith, who was in charge of Leonor’s army of blacksmiths.

            “The scribbles?” Lupita Smith asked. “He got them. He even understood a few. They’ll take time. Some of what you were asking for wasn’t possible. He’s finding a way to make it work. He also said that it’s time to leave your shields. They don’t offer much more protection than the armour and they weigh you down. Pistol in one hand, sword in the other. That’s the new way.”

            “I hate change,” Danielle grimaced. “I’ll need to thank Atwanda. He’s right about the shields.” She picked up her sword. The plain leather scabbard had words of luck written across it. “Solasaich.” Pulling the blade from its home the soft glow brought back the memory of another monster. Another dance along the border between life and death.

            When she said the word again, the glow vanished. The cold steel and silver slid back into its pouch.

Sir Calum Sorley’s widow, Sheena, came to the door with their son, Aaron. Danielle and Nettle wore their armour for the meeting.

            Thinking the widow would attack her with screaming hatred, the healed knight braced herself. Instead, Sheena threw herself at Danielle and hugged the giant woman.

            “Thank you for being there with him. I’m glad he had company when he went,” she looked at her infant son. “You know.”

            Not knowing what lie Anne Hyland had told, Sir Longbow teased out the story. “I’m not sure how much Sir Hyland told you already?”

            “Just that you were swarmed by a mob of monsters. That he fought well and got attacked from behind.”

            “He was brave to the end. Told me to give his love to both of you,” lied the leader of the Nameless Knights. She put a hand on the blonde hair of the dead man’s child. Like his mother he had blue eyes but there were hints of brown and the boy’s jawline had come from Calum.

            “I want to be a knight, just like papa,” said the little boy. He had the freckles on his face that Nettle did.

            Danielle picked him up and held him in front of her, as if inspecting him. “Someday you will.” She pulled him closer to hug him. His mother was crying. Sir Longbow mouthed to Sheena; I will make sure he never fights monsters, don’t worry.

            “Thank you, I’m glad to hear that,” said the mother of the silent oath.

            “What’s your family trade?” Danielle asked the boy in her arms.

            “We’re fishers, we fish the Serpent’s Tail River.” His high-pitched voice did not recall the grief of his father’s loss.

            “I bet you’re good at that.”

            “We are. I’m the best.”

            “My mother was a fisher as well,” said the knight. “Know where Fisher’s Gasp was?” Aaron shook his blonde hair. “Never mind. Just keep fishing and when you’re old enough to fight, I’ll come and get you right away. Until then, be the best fisher you can be. Learning to gut a fish is good practice for using a sword.”

            “You’ll come and get me?” He asked, his grin cutting through chubby cheeks from ear to ear.

            “I’ll come and get you. Only if you’re the best fisher in the land. Understand?”

            He nodded.

            “We should be going Aaron. Sir Longbow is a busy woman.” Sheena looked at Nettle. “They both are.” She winced as more tears leaked from her eyes.

            “I’ll make sure all of his fees are paid and you’ll receive his salary.”

            “Very kind of you, Sir Longbow.” Aaron’s mother couldn’t make eye contact with the knight anymore.

            “The least I can do. I owe my life to Sir Calum Sorley.”