A Joust of Knights

  Guards snapped to attention as Gwen exited the chamber, pushing open the heavy oak door. She strode past them, down the dimly lit stone corridors of the castle, torches still burning from the night.

  Gwen reached the end of the corridor and ascended a set of spiral stone stairs, Krohn on her heels, until she reached the upper floors, where she knew the King’s throne room to be, already becoming familiar with this castle. She hurried down another hall, and was about to pass through an arched opening in the stone when she sensed motion out of the corner of her eye. She flinched, surprised to see a person standing in the shadows.

  “Gwendolyn?” he said, his voice smooth, too polished, emerging from the shadows with a smug, small smile on his face.

  Gwendolyn blinked, taken aback, and it took her moment to remember who he was. She had been introduced to so many people these last few days, it had all become quite a blur.

  But this was one face she could not forget. It was, she realized, the King’s son, the other twin, the one with the hair, who had spoken out against her.

  “You’re the King’s son,” she said, remembering aloud. “The third eldest.”

  He grinned, a sly grin which she did not like, as he took another step forward.

  “The second eldest, actually,” he corrected. “We are twins, but I came first.”

  Gwen looked him over as he took a step closer, and noticed he was immaculately dressed and shaven, his hair coiffed, smelling like perfume and oil, dressed in the finest clothes she’d seen. He wore a smug look, and he reeked of arrogance and self-importance.

  “I prefer not to be thought of as the twin,” he continued. “I am my own man. Mardig is my name. It is just my lot in life to be born a twin, one I could not control. The lot, one could say, of crowns,” he concluded, philosophically.

  Gwen did not like being in his presence, still smarting from his treatment the night before, and she felt Krohn tense up at her side, the hairs on his neck rising as he rubbed up against her leg. She felt impatient to know what he wanted.

  “Do you always linger in the shadows of these corridors?” she asked.

  Mardig smirked as he stepped closer, a bit too close for her.

  “It is my castle, after all,” he replied, territorially. “I’ve been known to wander about it.”

  “Your castle?” she asked. “And not your father’s?”

  His expression darkened.

  “Everything in time,” he replied cryptically, and took another step forward.

  Gwendolyn found herself involuntarily taking a step back, not liking the feel of his presence, as Krohn began to snarl.

  Mardig looked down at Krohn disparagingly.

  “You know that animals do not sleep in our castle?” he replied.

  Gwen frowned, annoyed.

  “Your father had no qualms.”

  “My father does not enforce the rules,” he replied. “I do. And the King’s guard is under my command.”

  She frowned, frustrated.

  “Is that why you’ve stopped me here?” she asked, annoyed. “To enforce animal control?”

  He frowned back, realizing, perhaps, that he’d met his match. He stared at her, his eyes locking on hers, as if summing her up.

  “There is not a woman in the Ridge who does not long for me,” he said. “And yet I see no passion in your eyes.”

  Gwen gaped at him, horrified, as she finally realized what this was all about.

  “Passion?” she repeated, mortified. “And why would I? I am married, and the love of my life will soon return to my side.”

  Mardig laughed aloud.

  “Is that so?” he asked. “From what I hear, he is long dead. Or so far lost to you, he will never return.”

  Gwendolyn scowled, her anger mounting.

  “And even if he should never return,” she said, “I would never be with another. And certainly not you.”

  His expression darkened.

  She turned to go, but he reached out and grabbed her arm. Krohn snarled.

  “I don’t ask for what I want here,” he said. “I take it. You are in a foreign kingdom, at the mercy of a foreign host. It would best be wise for you to oblige your captors. After all, without our hospitality, you will be cast into the waste. And there are a great many unfortunate circumstances which can accidentally befall a guest—even with the most well-intentioned of hosts.”

  She scowled, having seen too many real threats in her life to be afraid of his petty warnings.

  “Captors?” she said. “Is that what you call us? I am a free woman, in case you haven’t noticed. I can leave here right now if I choose.”

  He laughed, an ugly sound.

  “And where would you go? Back into the Waste?”

  He smiled and shook his head.

  “You might be technically free to go,” he added. “But let me ask you: when the world is a hostile place, where does that leave you?”

  Krohn snarled viciously, and Gwen could feel him ready to pounce. She shook Mardgi’s hand off of her arm indignantly, and reached down and laid a hand on Krohn’s head, holding him back. And then, as she glared back at Mardig, she had a sudden insight.

  “Tell me something, Mardig,” she said, her voice hard and cold. “Why is it you are not out there, fighting with your brothers in the desert? Why is it that you are the only one who remains behind? Is it fear that drives you?”

  He smiled, but beneath his smile she could sense cowardice.

  “Chivalry is for fools,” he replied. “Convenient fools, that pave the way for the rest of us to have whatever we want. Dangle the term ‘chivalry,’ and they can be used like puppets. I myself cannot be used so easily.”

  She looked at him, disgusted.

  “My husband and our Silver would laugh at a man like you,” she said. “You wouldn’t last two minutes in the Ring.”

  Gwen looked from him to the entrance he was blocking.

  “You have two choices,” she said. “You can move out of my way, or Krohn here can have the breakfast he so heartily desires. I think you are about the perfect size.”

  He glanced down at Krohn, and she saw his lip quiver. He stepped aside.

  But she did not go just yet. Instead, she stepped up, close to him, sneering, wanting to have her point made.

  “You might be in command of your little castle,” she snarled darkly, “but do not forget that you speak to a Queen. A free Queen. I will never answer to you, never answer to anyone else as long as I live. I am through with that. And that makes me very dangerous—far more dangerous than you.”

  The Prince stared back, and to her surprise, he smiled.

  “I like you, Queen Gwendolyn,” he replied. “Much more than I thought.”

  Gwendolyn, heart pounding, watched him turn and walk away, slithering back into the blackness, disappearing down the corridor. As his footsteps echoed and faded away, she wondered: what dangers lurked in this court?

  CHAPTER THREE

  Kendrick charged across the arid desert landscape, Brandt and Atme by his side, his half-dozen Silver beside them, all that remained of the brotherhood of the Ring, riding together like old times. As they rode, venturing out deeper and deeper into the Great Waste, Kendrick felt weighed down by nostalgia and sadness; it made him remember his heyday in the Ring, surrounded by Silver, by brothers in arms, riding out into battle, alongside thousands of men. He had ridden with the finest knights the kingdom had to offer, each a greater warrior than the next, and everywhere he had ridden, trumpets had sounded and villagers had rushed out to greet him. He and his men had been welcome everywhere, and they had always stayed up late into the night, recounting stories of battle, of valor, of skirmishes with monsters that emerged from the canyon—or worse, from beyond the wild.

  Kendrick blinked, dust in his eyes, snapping out of it. He was in a different time now, a different place. He looked over and saw the eight men of the Silver, and expected to see thousands more alongside them. But reality slowly sank in, as he realized
the eight of them were all of what was left, and he realized how much had changed. Would those days of glory ever be restored?

  Kendrick’s idea of what made a warrior had shifted over the years, and these days, he found himself feeling that what made a warrior was not only skill and honor—but perseverance. The ability to go on. Life had a way of showering you with so many obstacles, calamities, tragedies, losses—and most of all, so much change; he had lost more friends than he could count, and the King he had lived his life for no longer even lived. His very homeland had disappeared. And yet still, he went on, even when he didn’t know what for. He was searching for it, he knew. And it was that ability to go on, perhaps most of all, that made a warrior, that made a man stand the test of time when so many others fell away. It was what separated true warriors from fleeting ones.

  “SAND WALL AHEAD!” shouted a voice.

  It was a foreign voice, one that Kendrick was still getting used to, and he looked over to see Koldo, the King’s eldest son, his black skin standing out amongst the group, leading the pack of soldiers from the Ridge. In the brief time Kendrick had known him, he had already come to respect Koldo, watching the way he led his men, and the way they looked up to him. He was a knight whom Kendrick was proud to ride beside.

  Koldo pointed to the horizon and Kendrick looked out and saw what he was pointing to—in fact, he heard it before he saw it. It was a shrill whistling, like a windstorm, and Kendrick recalled his time in the Waste, being dragged through it semi-conscious. He recalled the raging sands, churning like a tornado that never went away, forming a solid wall and rising to the sky. It had looked impermeable, like a real wall, and it helped obscure the Ridge from the rest of the Empire.

  As the whistling grew louder, Kendrick dreaded re-entering.

  “SCARVES!” commanded a voice.

  Kendrick saw Ludvig, the elder of the King’s twins, stretching out a long, mesh white cloth and wrapping it over his face. One by one the other soldiers followed his lead and did the same.

  There came riding up beside Kendrick the soldier who had introduced himself as Naten, a man Kendrick recalled taking an instant dislike to. He was rebellious of Kendrick’s assigned command, and disrespectful.

  Naten smirked over at Kendrick and his men as he rode closer.

  “You think you lead this mission,” he said, “just because the King assigned you. Yet you don’t even know enough to cover your men from the Sand Wall.”

  Kendrick glared back at the man, seeing in his eyes that he held an unprovoked hatred for him. At first Kendrick had thought that perhaps he had just been threatened by him, an outsider—but now he could see that this was just a man who loved to hate.

  “Give him the scarves!” Koldo yelled out to Naten, impatient.

  After some more time passed and the wall came even closer, the sands raging, Naten finally reached down and threw the sack of scarves at Kendrick, hitting him roughly in the chest as he rode.

  “Distribute these to your men,” he said, “or end up cut up by the wall. It’s your choice—I don’t really care.”

  Naten rode off, veering back to his men, and Kendrick quickly distributed the scarves to his men, riding up beside each one and handing them off. Kendrick then wrapped his own scarf about his head and face, as the others from the Ridge did, wrapping it around again and again, until he felt secure yet could still breathe. He could barely see through it, the world obscured, blurry in the light.

  Kendrick braced himself as they charged closer and the sounds of the swirling sands became deafening. Already fifty yard away, the air was filled with the sound of sand bouncing off armor. A moment later, he felt it.

  Kendrick plunged into the Sand Wall, and it was like immersing himself in a churning ocean of sand. The noise was so loud he could barely hear the pounding of his own heart in his ears, as the sand embraced every inch of his body, fighting to get in, to tear him apart. The swirling sands were so intense, he could not even see Brandt or Atme, just a few feet beside him.

  “KEEP RIDING!” Kendrick called out to his men, wondering if any of them could even hear him, reassuring himself as much as them. The horses were neighing like crazy, slowing down, acting oddly, and Kendrick looked down and saw the sand getting in their eyes. He kicked harder, praying his horse didn’t stop where it was.

  Kendrick kept charging and charging, thinking it would never end—and then, finally, gratefully, he emerged. He charged out the other side, his men beside him, back out into the Great Waste, open sky and emptiness waiting to greet him on the other side. The Sand Wall gradually calmed as they rode further, and as calm was restored, Kendrick noticed the men of the Ridge looking at him and his men with surprise.

  “Didn’t think we’d survive?” Kendrick asked Naten as he gaped back.

  Naten shrugged.

  “I wouldn’t care either way,” he said, and rode off with his men.

  Kendrick exchanged a look with Brandt and Atme, as they all wondered again about these men from the Ridge. Kendrick sensed it would be a long and hard road to earn their trust. After all, he and his men were outsiders, and they had been the ones who had created this trail and caused them trouble.

  “Up ahead!” Koldo yelled.

  Kendrick looked up and saw there, in the desert, the trail left by him and the others of the Ring. He saw all their footsteps, now hardened in the sand, leading off to the horizon.

  Koldo came to a stop where they ended, pausing, and all the others did, too, their horses breathing hard. They all looked down, studying them.

  “I would have expected the desert to wash them away,” Kendrick said, surprised.

  Naten sneered back at him.

  “This desert doesn’t wash anything away. It never rains—and it remembers everything. These prints of yours would have led them right to us—and would have led to the downfall of the Ridge.”

  “Stop riding him,” Koldo said to Naten darkly, his voice stern with authority.

  They all turned to see him close by, and Kendrick felt a rush of gratitude toward him.

  “Why should I?” Naten replied. “These people created this problem. I could be back, safe and sound, in the Ridge right now.”

  “Keep it up,” Koldo said, “and I will send you home right now. You will be kicked off our mission and will explain to the King why you treated his appointed commander with disrespect.”

  Naten, finally humbled, looked down and rode off to the other side of the group.

  Koldo looked over to Kendrick, nodding at him with respect, one commander to another.

  “I apologize for my men’s insubordination,” he said. “As I am sure you know, a commander cannot always speak for all of his men.”

  Kendrick nodded back in respect, admiring Koldo more than ever.

  “Is this then the trail of your people?” Koldo asked, looking down.

  Kendrick nodded.

  “Apparently so.”

  Koldo sighed, turning and following it.

  “We shall follow it until it ends,” he said. “Once we reach its end, we will backtrack and erase it.”

  Kendrick was puzzled.

  “But won’t we leave a trail of our own upon coming back?”

  Koldo gestured, and Kendrick followed his glance to see, affixed to the back of his men’s horses, several devices that looked like rakes.

  “Sweepers,” Ludvig explained, coming up beside Koldo. “They will erase our trail as we ride.”

  Koldo smiled.

  “This is what has kept the Ridge invisible from our enemies for centuries.”

  Kendrick admired the ingenious devices, and there came a shout as the men all kicked their horses, turned and followed the trail, galloping through the desert, back into the Waste, toward a horizon of emptiness. Despite himself, Kendrick glanced back as they went, took one last look at the Sand Wall, and for some reason, was overcome by a feeling that they would never, ever, return.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Erec stood at the bow of the ship,
Alistair and Strom beside him, and looked out at the narrowing river with worry. Following close behind was his small fleet, all that remained of what had set out from the Southern Isles, all snaking their way up this endless river, deeper and deeper into the heart of the Empire. At some points this river had been as wide as an ocean, its banks no longer in sight, and its waters clear; but now Erec saw, on the horizon, it narrowed, closing into a chokepoint of perhaps only twenty yards wide, and its waters becoming murky.

  The professional soldier within Erec was on high alert. He did not like confined spaces when leading men, and the narrowing river, he knew, would leave his fleet more susceptible to ambush. Erec glanced back over his shoulder and saw no sign of the massive Empire fleet they had escaped at sea; but that didn’t mean they weren’t out there, somewhere. He knew they would never give up the pursuit until they had found him.

  Hands on his hips, Erec turned back and narrowed his eyes, studying the forlorn Empire lands on either side, stretching endlessly, a ground of dried sand and hard rock, lacking trees, lacking any sign of any civilization. Erec scanned the river banks and was grateful, at least, to spot no forts or Empire battalions positioned alongside the river. He wanted to sail his fleet upriver to Volusia as quickly as possible, find Gwendolyn and the others, and liberate them—and get out of here. He would sail them back across the sea to the safety of the Southern Isles, where he could protect them. He didn’t want any distractions along the way.

  Yet on the other hand, the ominous silence, the desolate landscape, also left him to worry: was the Empire hiding out there, waiting in ambush?

  There was an even greater danger out there, Erec knew, than a pending attack by the enemy, and that was starving to death. It was a much more pressing concern. They were crossing what was essentially a desert wasteland, and all their provisions below had nearly run out. As Erec stood there, he could feel the grumbling in his belly, having rationed himself and the others to one meal a day for far too many days. He knew that if some bounty didn’t appear on the landscape soon, they would have a much bigger problem on their hands. Would this river ever end? he wondered. What if they never found Volusia?