One of Those Knights

The distraction wasn’t part of the plan.

            “Thank the gods,” said Carl to the two imperial guards. “Back on imperial ground.” The boy pulled back his hood to reveal his yellow hair and kissed the snowy ground beneath his feet. The light of the brazier between the two men lit the boy’s hair bright orange.

            “What in the emperor’s name are you doing boy?” asked the shorter guard, drawing his gladius. Red armour was pink as it peeked out from the layer of snow that covered the man.

            “Just glad to be alive. They stoned me.” Carl spoke to the ground, still prostrated.

            Carl’s performance was so absorbing that the guard near the brazier didn’t see Fabian sneaking in from the right, or Danielle from the left.

            Fabian’s ornate sword cut the throat of the man by the fire with a silent stroke. The gargles of that dying man drew the attention of the second. As Danielle leapt to kill the other guard Carl’s little knife reached out behind the short man and slit a red line along his neck.

            “We should feed them to the trees, get rid of the bodies,” said Carl.

            “That’s a good idea,” said Danielle.

            “See,” the boy tapped his head, “I’m not just the most handsome boy in the world, I’m also the smartest.”

            “A lot of those stones rattled your head, didn’t they?” Danielle smiled.

            “Shut up both of you and grab a body,” Fabian said with a gloved finger to his lips.

            Together they fed both bodies to the line of trees by the bridge back to Crann Kingdom. As the magical curaduile trees began devouring the bodies with wet crunching sounds the trio grimaced and looked back towards the firelight. Armour sat on the snowy ground, disappearing into the rising drift.

            “That’s two down, only nine hundred and ninety-eight to go.”

            “Shut up Carl.”

            “People say that to me a lot. It never works.”

            “Have they tried stabbing you,” said Fabian Castel, knight of Crann. He pointed his sword at the boy’s throat.

            “Yes, and they were mostly dressed in green. Ouch.” The boy winced as Danielle flicked his head.

The southern gate of Worm’s Mount Castle was no longer a gate but another tree. Danielle remembered gleefully firing the curaduile arrows which had blocked the gate.

            “How do they get down here?” Fabian asked.

            “A rope from the wall above presumably,” said the boy to the knight, looking up into the freezing fog around them.

            “We’re fucked then,” said Danielle, thinking that the defenders would obviously see them climbing the rope and kill them with crossbows or simply cut the rope before they had the chance to do anything.

            “Ever the optimist, aren’t you?” said the boy. “If I put the helmet on, I’m as good as one of them. I’ll kill them and give a tug of the rope to let you know it’s safe to go up.”

            “Why would I trust you?” asked the knight.

            “Because your other option is climbing a sixty-foot wall in freezing weather, in the middle of the night, only to die a few feet from the top when the guards see you.”

            “You’re smarter than you look.”

            “You look like an idiot though.”

            “I choose not to hear that.” Carl retrieved a helmet, slapped it on his head and gave them a spin as if he was in a new outfit and heading for a dance. “What do you think.”

            “I still think you look like an idiot, but I can’t think of a better plan.”

            “Who’s the bigger idiot then,” said the boy. He cupped his hand around his mouth. “HEY, UP ON THE WALL. LET THE ROPE DOWN.”

            “WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU?” asked a voice like Carl’s but gravellier.

            “I’M CARL. OBVIOUSLY.”

            “Where are Hans and Lucas?”

            “Funny story, they tried to piss on one of those evil trees, now they’re inside it.”

            “Where did YOU come from?”

            “Well, when a man and a woman love each other very much a stork visits them. They kill the stork and eat it. Then they have sex. You must have heard of sex? It’s what your wife has with other men while you’re away.”

            “Cheeky shit,” said the voice above them.

            “See, you do know my name!”

            Down came a rope with regular knots.

            “Did that hit you?”

            “No.”

            “Fuck.”

            Up went the scrawny boy in rags, with an imperial helmet on his head and a steak knife in his belt. He huffed and puffed, arms shaking until he was swallowed by the mist.

Danielle had just long enough to wonder if the former imperial soldier was betraying them to his former people. Then the body hit the ground at her feet. It was too big to be Carl. The knight and the traitor started climbing.

            Climbing up the swaying rope which lent against the vertical black granite wall was exhausting in armour, with arrows, a bow and a sword strapped to her. Trying to gain a footing on the wall was pointless. Muscles in her stomach ached as she hauled herself up from knot to knot.

            “What took you so long,” asked Carl.

            “I was admiring the view,” she said.

            “The fog is beautiful at this time of night.” The boy nodded.

            “Hurry up,” growled Fabian, below her on the rope.

            They pulled up the rope.

            “Which way now?” asked the knight.

            “The dormitory is in the northern corner. The general will have a bedroom at the top. He’ll have a bunch of Nephilim Knights looking after him.” Carl started walking eastward.

            “What are they?” Danielle asked.

            “You don’t know?” The boy scowled. “They are the best of the best. Veterans of at least a dozen battles who are trained all day every day for five years to serve as bodyguards for the emperor and his generals. They’re giants. They get the best armour, double rations, more money, land, titles. If you don’t even know what they are, we should leave. Now.”

            “How bad could they really be?” Fabian asked, shrugging.

            “Of fuck, we’re going to die.” The boy’s eyes were wide as he looked between the two adults. “They’re bad.” He scratched his yellow hair. “The story I know is that an army betrayed one of the generals out on the western frontier. Thousands of soldiers betrayed a general who only had a hundred Nephilim to protect him.”

            “And?”

            “The Nephilim slaughtered the army and then took revenge on the region they were from, burnt the villages down and killed most of the women and children to send a message.”

            “You like a challenge? Right Danielle?” Fabian asked. His eyes were misting over with the promise of a legendary fight.

            “We should steal some uniforms so that we can sneak up to the nebuliums.” Danielle said.

            “Nephilim,” corrected the boy. They reached a guard tower with a closed door. He knocked. “Open up buttercup. Shift change.”

            “Shift change isn’t for hours,” said the voice beyond the locked door.

            “Fine. I’ll go back to bed if you love watch duty so much.”

            “Hang on. Hang on.” Shuffling footsteps rushed to the door and a key scraped into the lock. Hinges creaked. The swinging door brushed snow aside as it opened.

            Danielle’s sword was through the man’s eyes into his brain before he could speak. His body never hit the stone as she wrapped a hand around his neck and yanked him through the doorway.

            Carl strolled into the tower as if he owned it. He then looked back and put a finger to his lips. He welcomed them inside with a wave of his hand and pointed to a guard sleeping against the wall. Another brazier crackled by the sleeping man. Orange light danced across the black walls.

            “Thank seven gods of seven worlds for incompetence, eh?” whispered the boy. He peered at a ladder, “there will be more up there.”

            Fabian pressed a hand over the sleeper’s mouth and slit his throat. Red poured out of the cut as the eyes opened wide. Whatever sound he tried to make was mumbled.

            The knight of Crann put on the helmet and peeled off the bloody uniform. Danielle

did the same with the other guard. They had too much armour on for imperial foot soldiers, but it was a better disguise than none.

            The night stuck his head out of the narrow window of the tower, looking all around. He then threw the body of his kill. A muffled thump could be heard below. When Danielle looked down, she couldn’t see the ground. She threw the second corpse out and heard a similar sound.

            The two warriors played rock, paper, scissors to decide who was going up the ladder first. Danielle won and had him hold the creaking wood for her as she went up.

            Slowly as she could, she inched up, trying not to make a sound. The weight of her armour seemed to be too much for the rungs of the ladder, and they wanted her, and everyone else in the tower, to know.

            “What are you doing here?” asked a slender man in the same red uniform. His voice was clear and high pitched compared to the rest.

            She looked back at the ladder and saw her friend right behind her. She held up her hand and coughed as if clearing her throat to speak and banged her chest. All she had to do was buy time.

            “Brown eyes,” said another man, short and stout, with a much deeper voice. “He’s got brown eyes.”

            Don’t most people? She wondered. No. Not where they came from. Blue eyes and blonde hair were the genetic uniform. She shook her head and put a hand over her face.

            The all too familiar sound of a sword being drawn from its scabbard met her ears. The big one was arming himself as the thin one approached with more concern than hostility.

            “Bullshit. None of us has brown eyes.”

            “Exactly Gerard. Think about it.”

            “None of us has brown eyes,” said Carl from down the ladder. “How dare you question our purity.”

            “Open your eyes then and show me,” said the stout one with a growl.

            “Of course. I’ll be right up.”

The sound of a second sword being drawn in front of her made the traitor swear internally. Carl should have gone up first. The little shit was good at distractions.

            “Stay back. I warn you,” said the big man. He had his feet spread for a good stance.

            “This is all a big misunderstanding,” Carl was saying as Fabian got up into the room and drew his sword.

            The clash of blades would be loud. It would alert half the castle. They had to be quiet.

            Carl hauled himself from the ladder and took off his helmet. “Look. Blonde hair, blue eyes. See? He had some dirt thrown in his eyes in battle,” the boy pointed at Danielle. “And he is an impure heathen, from a very respectable family.

            “Brown eyes aren’t meant to be in the army,” said the gruff, chubby man with his sword drawn.

            “Well, he’s a eunuch, obviously. They don’t want one like that breeding, but he’s an exceptional fighter. They didn’t want to waste him. Nothing wrong with one heathen killing others, am I right?” Carl was too casual with those words. They were death sentences within the empire.

            “A eunuch? Really.”

            “Absolutely,” Carl turned back and winked. “No bollocks on him at all. Very sensitive about it.”

            “Fuck me,” said the big man, rubbing the stubble on his chins with a free hand.

            “Rather not if you don’t mind? Anyway. Word is that the idiots by the bridge got eaten pissing near one of those trees. You two are to take over for them and we’ll take watch here.” He was convincing, supremely confident. Carl was a very talented liar.

            “Why us?” asked the skinny man.

            “Because he’s got the fancy family and that means we get the good shifts. Sorry boys.”

            “If I’m a boy, what does that make you? A wet behind the ears pup?”

            “If I had a tail for every time I’ve heard that,” he screwed up his face thinking about it, “well, I’d be a freakish sight wouldn’t I?” Carl shook his head.

            “Fuck this.” Fabian stabbed his blade into the throat of the skinny man in a lightning-fast move and then stepped forwards and put the blade through the eye slit of the other man’s helmet until the blade made a tinging sound against the far side of the helmet.

            The knight wiped his blood from his sword on the red uniform of one body.

Fabian tossed the big man out of the window as he had before. The difference was that the last body hadn’t been wearing armour. The metal of the armour hit the wall on the way down and rang out with the sound of a badly made bell.

            “You fucking idiot,” Carl hissed, looking up the next ladder, which was far longer.

            A hatch opened in the ceiling high above. A head popped through. The head disappeared; the hatch slammed shut. A horn blared out.

            “We’re dead,” said the boy. His shoulders sagged.

            “Here, take a sword.” The knight gave the boy an imperial gladius.

            “How kind, now I feel guilty, I didn’t get you anything.”

            “Will we run to the northern quarters? We might be able to take them by surprise if we’re quick.”

            “Don’t know about you mister knight, but I’ve never run so fast time went backwards so-”

            “Shut up Carl. You’re in this mess as well. You’ve spilt imperial blood. Let’s see how much more we can spill. Who knows, we might just pull off a miracle.”

Danielle slid down the ladder to the wall top. She locked the door to the southern wall and unlocked the eastern door. They ran over the gate, blocked completely by a monstrous tree. She could see the black shadows up the upper branches on either side of the wall through the fog.

            Running towards her were four regular imperial soldiers, not a problem, and-

            “What by all the gods is that?” she asked, looking at a knight in golden armour that stood over the other men as if they were infants. He was seven foot tall if he was an inch and wore armour that was no doubt making Fabian envious.

            “That’s a Nephilim,” said Carl. “That’s how we die.”

            “Ever the optimist, aren’t you?” Danielle smiled.