My horse was showing signs of exhaustion when the winding road finally reached the hilltop overlooking the village of Garniol. “We can’t all be fey horses,” I told him, sympathizing with the beast’s plight. He’d served me well these past weeks but I wished it was Monster with me. She never tired, especially when in pursuit, and I couldn’t deny that Aline sending her away had been nagging at me. There had been a strange sort of sympathy between the two broken creatures and I suppose I’d hoped the one might help cure the other.
“Come on, old man,” Dariana said, and I realized that no matter how hard I tried to hide my symptoms from the others, Dariana always took note—and she invariably commented on it.
“Don’t tease him,” Valiana said. “Falcio’s not old. He’s battling a poison that would have killed anyone else long before now.”
“It’s fine,” I said, a little annoyed that an eighteen-year-old girl felt the need to come to my defense, and also because “battling” suggested there was a fight that might be won—as if I just needed to try harder to stave off my otherwise inevitable death.
Saint Birgid, If I have to die, please don’t let it be in shitty little Garniol. I had been here before, twice, and I remembered it as being a simple place, bigger than most of the villages around and yet still smaller than a proper town, which served only to ensure its residents were poor, insular, and self-righteous. It wasn’t just that they didn’t take kindly to Greatcoats; they’d never seen fit to forge bonds with the neighboring towns either. Maybe that’s why the Knights we were pursuing had chosen to attack it.
“I don’t see any fires,” Kest said. “It looks quiet.”
“That’s because you’re blind,” Brasti said, standing in his stirrups and shielding his eyes with one hand as he peered down at Garniol.
From this distance, I could just make out groups of houses, and little streets that all led into a large central square. The people looked like blurry ants to me, but something was glinting in the light of the sun.
“What do you see?” I asked Brasti.
“I see twenty-five—no, thirty Knights in armor. There are scattered mobs of villagers. The Knights are moving together, in formation. They’ve got kite-shields.” He leaned so far forward on his horse I thought he might tip over. “Damn. The damned villagers don’t know how to fight. The Knights haven’t attacked yet; they’re just driving the villagers over to one side of the square.”
“How long before they start to clash?” I asked.
“The way they’re moving? I’d say we’ve got maybe ten minutes before the blood starts flowing.”
“What are the villagers fighting with?”
“Farming implements, mostly, from what I can tell—no, hold on . . . there’s a fair number of proper swords too there. Some spears, and a few people have got hunting bows. Hells—why aren’t they fighting together? The archers are firing straight into the Knights’ damned shields—”
“They’re fools,” Dari said, her voice almost mocking. “Never pull a sword if you don’t know how to use it.”
I restrained a powerful urge to knock her from her horse. “I doubt that the men and women down there would find that to be useful advice right about now.”
“They’re farmers and plowmen,” Valiana said. “Most of them have probably never even held a sword before today.”
Where in all the hells were these people getting steel swords? I doubted any of them could afford forged weapons by themselves.
“Sympathize with them all you want, pretty bird,” Dari said, putting a hand on Valiana’s arm, “but if we run down there into those Knights, they’ll kill the five of us in no time and the villagers will still be dead.”
“But we beat those soldiers at the inn!”
“That was half as many men, fighting around a room full of tables and chairs. This is a battle formation of Knights in full armor with kite-shields. Five of us won’t break their line.”
There was a merciless truth in what she was saying, but Valiana was right too: we had to do something.
Brasti turned to me, his eyes dark and his voice as hard as I’d ever heard it. “Tell us what to do,” he said.
“What—?”
He pointed a finger at me accusingly. “This is what you’re supposed to be good for, Falcio. This is why we follow you. Those people are going to be killed, every single one of them. I can see children down there, Falcio, and I . . . I don’t know how to do this.” His voice cracked. “You’ve got to tell me what to do.”
I looked over at Kest, who shook his head. “We have to break their line, but five is too few, and even Brasti’s arrows won’t get through their shields. We need to pull that formation apart, and even if there were ten of us, I doubt we’d be able to do it with untrained villagers underfoot.”
I shared Brasti’s hatred for the Knights. You’re loving this, aren’t you, you cowards, so secure in your metal hides.
There were five times as many villagers as invaders, so the Knights would see this as an honorable victory, even though the villagers didn’t stand a chance. They could stand there outnumbered, knowing that the villagers didn’t have even the simplest training needed to break their Gods-damned line—and it is simple enough to break such a line with a larger force if you just know the basic principles . . .
I turned to the others. “Listen now. We’re going to go down there, and the first temptation is going to be to try to pick off some of the Knights. Don’t do it. We won’t get anywhere that way.”
“What are we supposed to do then?” Dariana asked.
“We’re going to start on the outside perimeter, near the crowds of villagers. I want you to shout for those with the longer weapons—spears, old halberds, pitchforks, whatever they have.”
Her expression was incredulous. “You want me to get them to form their own line?”
“Exactly. Get those with swords to stand behind them. When the Knights push forward against the spears, have the swordsmen run forward to strike in the gaps between them.”
“Half of them will be killed!” Valiana said.
“Half is better than all,” I said, my voice sounding horribly grim and cold, even to my own ears. Dariana looked as if she might launch into some sort of diatribe, but I stopped her dead and growled, “Just shut up and do as I say or every extra life lost is on your soul.”
“Fine,” she said. “Get them into a line, put the ones with long pointy things in front and send the ones with swords to strike in the openings. Anything else, Commander val Mond?”
I ignored the sarcasm. “Tell the bowmen to get to the south side of the village. They can use the paths and alleys, just keep out of the main square.” I turned to Brasti. “You get to the southern end and tell those twice-damned archers to hold their fire until we’ve created an opening.”
“What about me?” Valiana asked.
“The children,” I said, “you need to get them as far to the west of the village as you can.” When I saw her expression I put up a hand. “I know you can fight, Valiana, but the children will be terrified and they’re more likely to trust your face than mine.”
She nodded and I heaved an inward sigh of relief. At least she can follow logic even if she’s not great on following orders.
“Do you want me to round up the other swordsmen?” Kest asked.
“No, I’m going to do that. If those Knights are smart, when we charge the line a smaller group will break off to outflank the villagers. They’ll try to create as much fear and panic as they can—I need you to keep them occupied. Kest, when you fight them . . .”
I hated myself for what I was about to say.
“What is it?” he asked.
For a brief instant I thought about Ethalia and how, just an hour before and a few miles back, I had been standing at a crossroads where I could have chosen another road. A different Falcio val Mond might have found rest and comfort, and a few final days of love. Instead, I’d chosen bloodshed once again. I had turned away from the road that led to joy and not violence, and peace for Kest, not fire. The red will eat Kest alive, Birgid had said.
And now I hated myself even more as I said quietly, “Kest, when you fight them . . . let the red out.”
His eyes widened for just an instant as he realized what I was asking of him, then he dipped his head in acquiescence and started checking the straps on his horse’s saddle. But Kest wasn’t the only one who felt a red fever burning inside him.
I turned and looked at the others. No speeches. No promises.
“For Carefal,” I said, and spurred my horse straight down the steep dirt road toward the village.
The moment we hit the village the five of us split apart, each following our separate plans. Dariana went right so that she could sneak around the main body of Knights while Brasti went to rally the scattered archers. Most of the villagers were huddling together in small, incoherent clumps, weapons in shaking hands, no idea how to make any headway against the unstoppable machine of thirty Knights with shields and warswords pushing forward in military formation.
The Knights were wearing black tabards. This is a war to them, I thought. They’re here to wage war against their own people.
I leapt off my horse. “Over here,” I shouted to a group of three women and two men crouching nearby. One of the men held a long boar-spear. “You,” I said, “get over to the other side and form up with the other spearmen.” Two of the women held roughly made hunting bows—the string on one was too slack, but they were something to work with. I pointed to the narrow path between the rundown little houses on my left. “You two, go that way. You’ll see a man with red hair and beard, dressed like me. He’ll tell you what to do.”
“And who are you that we should listen?” one of the archers said, turning and aiming the arrow toward my chest. She had long bright yellow hair and a wide face.
“You know how to use that thing?” I asked.
“What do you think?” She pulled back on the string and I brought up the arm of my coat to cover my face just as she turned and fired one of her arrows toward the Knights thirty yards away. It stuck in one of the shields. “I’ve used a bow since I was a girl. I just—”
I grabbed the bow from her hand before she could nock another arrow. “If you know how to shoot so damned well, then why are you wasting your fucking arrows decorating those kite-shields?” I cried. “You asked who I am? I’m Falcio val Mond, First Cantor of the King’s Greatcoats.”
She spat on the ground. “Never heard of you. People here barely remember the Greatcoats, for all the good you’ve done us.”
I smiled and tossed the bow back to her. “Well, I’ve never heard of you either, sister. So how about you stop showing off and do what I’m telling you and maybe one day people will remember both our names.”
The other woman had hair just as blond, though the lines on her forehead marked her a few years older, said, “Come on, Pol, what we’re doing isn’t working. Might as well try—”
“Fine,” she said.
The remaining man and woman were closer to sixty than anything that might be called fighting years, even in poor light. “What should we do?” the woman asked.
I looked at the weapons they were holding: kitchen knives good for nothing but peeling potatoes. “Go and tell everyone you see the same thing I told you: spears and pitchforks to the east side; archers to the south. If you see someone dressed like me, do what they tell you.”
The man stepped forward. “My grandson, Erid, he’s just twelve. Could you—?”
“No,” I said. It was better they understood what war was, since it had come to their door. “You want the boy to live? Then let’s take down those damned Knights.” I turned and left them there and ran across the street toward the next group.
It took time, even in a small village, to round up the people. Half of those we managed to get into formation broke their own lines even before we engaged the Knights. Some ran, wild from fear, others out of incoherent rage as they faced the bodies of their friends and families, bleeding out all over the village streets.
“It’s almost time,” Kest said, coming up behind me. “The Knights have figured out what we’re doing and they’re going to charge.”
“Hold the line, damn you!” I heard Dariana scream from across the square. “You think those Knights are scary? They’re just men—and they’ll just kill you. Me? I’ll drag your fucking asses outside the village and feed you piece by piece to your own Saints-damned pigs!”
“She’s got an unusual way of motivating her troops,” Kest said.
“Just so long as she makes them hold.”
“Falcio!” Valiana called out. It took me a moment to spot her, thirty feet away down one of the narrow streets. She was standing with a group of children.
I ran over to her. “Is this all of them?” I asked. Most looked like they were between ten and thirteen. “Where are the younger ones?”
One of the boys spoke up. “My ma teaches the littles on field days—they’re in the classroom up there.” He pointed to a two-story barn with a flat roof.
“Should I head over there?” Valiana asked.
“No, just get these out of the village. I’ll deal with the others as soon as it’s safe.”
I looked around for another tall building I could climb and spotted a small water tower with a splintery wooden ladder running from the ground to its peak. I made a run for it, swearing as I skidded on the wet ground where a steady leak had created an unseen stream through the grass. I climbed about twenty-five feet up before I turned to look at the scene below me. On one side I saw Dariana, marshaling the men and women carrying the longer weapons and farming implements. Through her unique combination of motivation and terror I could see she’d managed to get them to hold their position. The Knights were waiting for their commander’s signal to attack.
On the south side Brasti was shouting orders, clearly ignoring mine; instead of assembling all the archers together, he’d put them in pairs and lodged them between buildings. I had to admit that made more sense as a strategy, since it would be harder for the Knights to use their shields to protect one another. On the other hand, it would be impossible for Brasti to control his archers, so he’d have to hope they’d obey his instructions on when and how to fire.
On the east side of the village, Kest stood facing the Knights in formation. His warsword was drawn, the point resting on the ground as he gripped the pommel with both hands. He looked as if he were leaning against it for support.
For a moment I wondered what it must be like for Kest, to feel the red fire inside eating away at him, then I turned my attention back to the Knights. I had my own job to do.
“I call on the Knight-Captain,” I shouted.
One of the Knights standing in the center of the formation lifted the visor of his helm and looked around until he spotted me. He peered up at me. “What is this I see? A strange little brown bird nesting up there on the water tower singing to me.”
He spoke with the careful diction of a nobleman—likely he was the second son of a Lord or Margrave. It didn’t do much to endear him to me. “And who answers me back but a black crow standing where I should see the bright yellow tabard of Luth—or should that be the green of Aramor? Or perhaps the scarlet of Rijou? I see Knights in black tabards without lawful orders making war on their own people. That’s what I see, Knight-Captain.”
“It matters not what a little brown bird spies,” he replied, “if its wings are properly clipped before he can sing his song for anyone else. Is there a tune you would care to sing for me, perhaps?”
I took a breath and hoped that the others would be able to keep their people in line. “I would sing this, Knight-Captain. We surrender.”
There was a brief silence as the Knights looked at their commander.
“You surrender?” the Knight-Captain asked.
“Absolutely and utterly. We ask only for mercy, simple mercy. These people request nothing more than that you spare their lives.”
The Knight-Captain roared with laughter. “Simple mercy? For dogs who bite and snap at their masters’ feet? The only mercy these brigands will receive will be the good God War’s fist crashing down upon their little souls. They have steel weapons, these peasants, taken up against their betters in plain violation of the law.”
“And for that, they will pay. But they haven’t attacked you, and the penalty for possession of a steel weapon is only a fine or imprisonment, not death. I repeat, Knight-Captain, we surrender. These people are—”
“They are animals,” the Knight-Captain said, “and every man, woman, and pig’s child among them dies today.”
“I repeat a third time, Sir Knight, we surrender and ask mercy.” In all the old stories, these things had to be said three times. I thought it best to stick with tradition. A few of the Knights looked troubled, but most didn’t. That was fine; I would settle for what I could get. If even a few of them were beginning to doubt their commander’s honor then we could use their hesitation to our advantage.
“Surrender a thousand times if it pleases you,” the Knight-Captain laughed. “It will make no difference. For a hundred years from today Garniol will be spoken of in terrified whispers by peasants wise enough to know who their betters are.”
“Okay, fine,” I said. “Just thought I’d ask.”
If the Knight-Captain was surprised by my casual response, he didn’t show it. Instead he turned to his men. “Will someone with a crossbow kill that brown bird for me?”
I saw two of them setting down their swords to unhitch the leather straps holding crossbows to their backs.
“Before you fire, there’s something else you should know,” I said.
“Oh? Do you have another song to sing for me?”
“I do,” I replied, “and it’s a song about Knights, in fact: about the code that the Knights of Tristia once followed. They lived and fought and died by rules that remained unbroken for a thousand years. How many of you, cowering beneath your kite-shields as you prepare to massacre those whom you should be defending, first took up armor and shield dreaming of those better men? Of that better code? How many of you swore you would die heroes one day?” I looked down on them, and though I could not see them clearly, I could imagine their faces. Were they earnest young men here for their first taste of battle, or gray-bearded veterans simply following orders?
“Well?” I shouted. “Tell me, do you feel like heroes today? Do you think those same Knights you heard about in the songs and read about in the stories would call you brother? Or would they instead strike you with their iron-braced gloves and command you to meet them on the dueling field? No, now that I think of it, I don’t think they would agree to duel with you at all. I don’t believe they would consider you worthy.”
The Knights below, secure in their metal carapaces, bristled with rage. I could feel a flood of anger in them, mostly directed at me, of course, but I had to believe that some of them, deep down, had some inkling of how far they’d fallen. Frankly, I didn’t care which it was; what mattered far more was that in a battle like this one, every ounce of distraction or confusion I could sow in the enemy would be worth its weight in gold. Now I just had to wait for a man to shoot me with a crossbow.
One of the Knights stood tall as he came out of the formation with a crossbow in hand. He removed his helmet, lifted the weapon and aimed it toward me. There always a decent chance he would miss, of course, or that the bone plates in my coat would keep the bolt from burying itself in my flesh, but I never did trust my luck at dice.
“Brasti!”
From one of the rooftops along the street outside the main square, I saw Brasti stand, aim, and release, and a moment later the Knight had an arrow sticking out of the back of his neck. He slowly toppled to the ground.
The rest of the Knights roared in anger, but so did the villagers in their lines.
“Forward!” she screamed to her troops: her farmers and plowmen, her beardless boys and young girls in sundresses, holding weapons they’d never been taught to use. And at her command they started to advance, brandishing their spears and halberds and rusty rakes and broken old pitchforks, moving one step at a time toward the fate awaiting them at the practiced hands of hardened military men protected by shining plate-armor.
The Knights advanced too, keeping to their squared-off formation, using their kite-shields to drive the farmers back, until Dariana shouted again, and some of her people in the front line set the bottoms of their weapons and tools against the ground, making it harder for the Knights to press forward, and smaller men and women with swords and hoes and garden rakes ran forward and attacked the kite-shields. Several died, but not all, and some of them managed to pull away the Knights’ protection.
“Archers!” Brasti shouted, and arrows flew from high and low, coming from alleys and rooftops around the square. Most hit only those damned shields, but when a few broke through I let out the breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding in. We didn’t have to win every strike; we just had to kill a few of them.
As the Knights advanced, they now had to do so over some of their fallen comrades. The Knight-Captain, still barking his orders, nearly fell over, tripping on one of his own lying dead at his feet. He screamed in frustration. This was supposed to have been an easy fight for his soldiers—after all, they were facing farmers, peasants, fuzzy-bearded youths, and barely grown girls with their hair in braids. . . . Even a half-trained Knight should be able to wade through a dozen such pathetic opponents without breaking into a sweat. But there weren’t a dozen of them; there were more than a hundred, and every time one of those little girls managed to get a hit, even if she died moments later, spitted on a broadsword or beheaded by a war-ax, the men in armor grew more angry and more anxious.
Saints, what was wrong with me? Was I growing so cold inside that I could so emotionlessly count the bodies of children on a tally?
I raced down the ladder and into the fray.
The Knight-Captain, finally realizing his men were now at serious risk of being overwhelmed, gave the order for five of his Knights to break away from the pack to outflank the villagers and go for Dariana.
That’s it, go for the leader. You military men all think the same way, don’t you?
Kest, who’d been standing as still as a statue so far, suddenly lifted his blade high in the air and rushed forward, sweeping it down in a great arc that brought the whole north wind with it. He crashed down against the top edge of one of the Knights’ shields, very nearly cutting it in half, then without pausing for even an instant, turned his slash into a thrust, pushing straight up into the Knight’s gorget. The strike didn’t break through the metal plate but it bent it inwards, choking the man. He dropped his sword and with his hands grasping ineffectually at his neck, trying in vain to loosen the armor, he fell back into his comrades.
Two more Knights split off and tried to encircle Kest, but an arrow came down from the sky and landed in the back of one of them.
“No!” Kest screamed, his face red with rage and fever. “NO! The next man who takes one of mine meets me on the field when this is done!” He whirled, swinging his sword like a club, and drove it into his opponent even as he dropped down low to avoid attack.
“Falcio!” Dariana shouted, and when I turned I could see her line was breaking. It had held for nearly seven minutes, far longer than I had believed possible, leaving only twelve Knights remaining of the original enemy formation, but these dozen had gathered themselves and reformed and I could see the men and women of the village were fast losing their nerve.
“Disperse!” I yelled back to her, and the moment she gave the order the villagers turned and ran, many dropping their cumbersome weapons as they fled. A few seconds later, only Dariana was left. She put one hand on her hip, gave the Knights a wink, and then turned and ran into one of the side streets.
The attackers were left with no one to attack. They could either stand where they were, doing a great job of guarding each other with their shields but not doing much actual fighting, or they could break up their smart formation and find people to fight. They chose the latter.
Good. If everyone stays out of the square then our archers can attack at will.
Out of the shadows came two figures. Great, yet again my orders have been ignored. Why do people keep demanding that I come up with brilliant plans if they have no fucking intention of following them? Brasti, Intemperance in hand, walked toward the Knight with a young boy perhaps twelve years of age in tow. The boy held a quiver in one hand and an arrow in the other.
“Brasti, what are you doing?” I shouted.
If he heard me, he gave no sign. “No more armor,” he said firmly, and fired an arrow straight into the chestplate of one of the Knights. The piercing of metal echoed in the large square. The boy had drawn another arrow from the quiver and handed it to Brasti before another Knight started charging them, but Brasti was faster; he nocked, pulled and fired in one smooth motion and the Knight fell to the ground.
“No more armor,” he repeated.
The remaining Knights quickly regrouped, trying to get their shield wall up in time to stave off Brasti’s attacks, but even as they did, Dariana raced out from the alley between the houses, hammered the point of her sword into the back of one man’s knee and fled again before anyone had time to react. The injured Knight went down, screaming like a stuck pig, and crashed into one of his comrades, conveniently opening a gap between the shields.
“No more armor,” Brasti said a third time, taking out one of the few Knights still alive.
The rest didn’t hang around to be picked off by the madman with the huge bow; as they dispersed, glowering, I ran toward the main square. Sooner or later someone would figure out the ridiculously easy solution to the problem he presented, so I nominated myself to guard Brasti’s flank. Sure enough, three Knights—one the Knight-Captain himself—were busy sneaking around to get behind Brasti and the boy holding his arrows. It looked like the Knight-Captain wasn’t entirely stupid: his true target was the boy. Once they’d taken him out, Brasti’s arrows would fall to the ground and the Knights could overwhelm him before he had time to pick one up.
That was their plan, anyway, and just as I reached them, I saw a warsword come up high and begin its inevitable downward arc toward the boy’s head. I crossed my rapiers and jumped toward him, landing hard on my knees but holding my blades up, crossed, just in time to feel the full weight of the warsword crash down on them. The Knight’s weapon stopped barely an inch from the boy’s head—but neither the boy nor Brasti appeared to have noticed how close he’d come to being headless.
“No more armor,” I heard Brasti say again as he nocked and let fly into the square.
“No more Knights,” the boy said in answer, handing him another two-and-a-half-foot-long steel-tipped arrow.
The Knight-Captain gave a roar and came for me.
I was still on the ground, on my knees, as the Knight’s sword lifted free of my blades. Get on your feet, damn it, I told myself sternly, but before I could follow my own orders a red haze appeared on the left-hand side of my peripheral vision, and Kest leapt in front of me, bashing one of my attackers’ swords away and squaring off against the other.
For some reason the sight of the blood-red Saint of Swords made the Knight-Captain reconsider his position. So much for honor, I had time to think as he grabbed the shoulder of the Knight next to him and pushed him toward Kest before taking off at a run down the square. I rose to my feet to help fight off the two remaining Knights, but Kest swore, “Get the hells out of here and stay away from me, Falcio!”
I ran back into the center of the square. Thanks to Kest’s maniacal swordwork, Brasti’s single-minded shooting, and Dariana’s firm handling of the villagers, the Knights were broken. In front of me a small mob of villagers was moving to overwhelm a single opponent, and to the right, I could see Dariana withdrawing her blade from an opponent’s neck. Suddenly there were only two men in armor still standing.
“Surrender!” one of them shouted, and both men dropped their weapons and fell to their knees. “We surrender!”
Brasti walked up to the two men. As if the Gods themselves willed it, he had just two arrows left: one nocked and ready and one left in the hand of the boy. “No more armor,” Brasti said. “No more Knights.”
“We surrender!” the men repeated, their voices sounding increasingly desperate.
I felt a terrible urge to stand there and watch as Brasti pulled back his arm, sighted and sent his long arrow driving with the force of a gale through the chest of the Knight standing just a few feet away. I wanted to remember this. I wanted to be able to play this moment out over and over as these men died for what they’d done.
“Did you say ‘we surrender’?” Brasti asked. “Is that what you said?”
“Please!” one of the Knights begged. He was a younger man; I didn’t think he was much over twenty years old. He wasn’t crying. I wanted him to cry.
“Your armor,” Brasti said.
“Please!”
“Take off your armor.”
Both Knights frantically began removing their armor, trying clumsily to unfasten the clasps at the shoulder, the buckles at the sides of their chest-plates. It’s no simple matter to take off a suit of armor when you’re sitting at home after a hard day’s fighting. When you’re staring at death in the form of a thirty-inch-long fletched shaft tipped with sharp steel, it was even harder.
After a few seconds the two Knights started to help each other.
Too slow, I thought, and suddenly I felt as if I finally understood the Saint’s Fever that filled Kest. Come on, I silently urged Brasti, shoot them!
But there was another voice inside me, a quieter voice, barely a whisper: I’ve called out to you, she said, always when the victory was won but before the final blow was struck.
No, I thought, no. This is right. This is justice.
But it wasn’t. This was vengeance, pure and simple.
It was a sublime, righteous vengeance, admittedly, but still vengeance and not justice.
Why does a trial matter when there are no questions of fact to be determined and no mitigating factors to be considered? What does it matter whether the blade falls now or after a verdict?
Because the law only matters if we hold it higher than ourselves, I thought. My coat suddenly felt very heavy on my shoulders.
The Knights weren’t even halfway to removing all their plate when Brasti pulled back on his bowstring.
“Brasti,” I said. My voice was quiet. I didn’t need to shout because somewhere deep inside himself, he was waiting for me to put a stop to this. “Enough.”
At first I wasn’t sure what he would do. Had he wanted me to tell him to withdraw just so he could fire the arrow anyway and show me that he no longer followed my orders? The two Knights were still furiously unbuckling and unclasping and prying pieces of their armor from their bodies. The people of the village had begun to assemble around us, more than a hundred of them, packing in closer and closer, waiting to see the arrows fly.
“Brasti,” I said. “Stop.”
With a slow, almost imperceptible motion, Brasti’s bow moved down to his side and the tension of the string eased until the arrow was loose in his hand.
One of the villagers shouted, “Kill them!” at us.
“They get a trial,” Brasti said.
A man stepped forward. His bloodied right arm hung by his side, but he was still gripping a small hatchet. “Why? Why should they get a trial after what they’ve done?”
“I don’t know,” Brasti said, his eyes on me. “They just do.”
There were rumblings within the crowd, bitter growls of outrage clashing with the moans and weeping of the injured, but I ignored them all. Instead, I looked around for Dariana. “Where’s Kest?”
“He took off after the battle ended,” she said, pointing to the hilltop behind us.
Someone was missing. I looked around, past the mob gathered at the village square. Bodies littered the ground, Knights and villagers. Thirty Knights had come to Garniol to destroy it; only these two were left. “Valiana?”
“She’s with the older children on the other side, near the entrance to the village.”
Again I looked at the bodies of the dead Knights, lying there in their black tabards, trying to work out what I was missing—and only then did I realize what it was—or rather, whom. “The Knight-Captain!” I said. “I saw him flee—did you kill him?”
As Dariana shook her head I swore and started, “Go and find Kest. Tell him to look for—”
“Cowards!” a voice bellowed.
At first I thought the shout had come from the crowd, then I heard a woman scream and as I turned to trace the sound something fell from the top of the two-story barn at the far end of the square. Only when it hit the hard ground below did I see it was a young woman. The sound of her neck snapping reverberated through the square.
Oh Gods, let it not be her—I told her not to go there . . . But as I ran toward the woman I saw with a relief that made me ashamed that it wasn’t Valiana. The Knight-Captain stood on the roof of the two-story building. He had hastily tied ropes around his arms, his torso, and even legs, and the other end of each rope was attached to a child. Young boys and girls—the littles, I realized—sobbed as they tried to pull away, but the Knight-Captain yanked their ropes and drew them back to him. He’s turned the children into a shield—no, I thought, into armor. He’s using them as armor.
“Cowards!” the Knight-Captain yelled and now it was clear he was screaming at his two men. “Put your armor back on and fight! Knights do not retreat!”
The younger of the two Knights called out, “Sir Learis, stop! This isn’t—”
“Silence! We came to pacify this village, and pacify it we will. We must show them our resolve, Sir Vezier.” His voice rose as if he were giving a lesson to a group of wayward students. “The peasants need to see this doesn’t end until they kneel before us.”
Brasti aimed an arrow. “You’re a dead man.”
“Am I?” The Knight-Captain stepped forward, the children pulled close to him. “Which of these will feel the bite of your arrow as you try to reach me?” He yanked hard on one of the ropes and a small girl slipped and started swinging over the corner edge of the building.
“Eila!” a man yelled. “Please! No!”
“Come on, then!” the Knight-Captain shouted. He hauled the girl back onto the roof next to him. “Fire, archer: maybe you can hit me without hitting the children. Come on. Show your skill.”
Brasti’s arm pulled back, but I stopped him. “Don’t. He’s got the children tied to him and he’s standing on the corner of the roof on purpose. If you shoot, even if he falls backward, there’s a good chance he’ll go over the edge and drag the children with him to their deaths.”
“Clever little brown bird—smart enough to know these little ducklings won’t fly.” The Knight-Captain’s gaze went across the crowd. “Now,” he said, “kneel.”
“Do it,” I said.
The men and women of Garniol dropped to their knees, and those few who tried to remain defiant, mostly young men, were pulled down. Brasti and I knelt as well, and Dariana hesitated but finally joined us.
“Good,” the Knight-Captain said, “very good. Obedient hounds. You see that, Sir Vezier? Sir Orn? This is the power of true command. More than a hundred of them and they bow before one righteous Knight.”
“What do you want?” I asked.
The Knight-Captain ignored me. Instead, he spoke once again to his men. “Sir Vezier. Sir Orn. You will take up your swords. You will go from dog to dog in this whining pack of mongrels, and you will strike their heads from their bodies.”
The man was grinning from ear to ear as if he truly believed these people would simply kneel and give up their lives, even knowing that those of their children would surely follow.
The older of the two Knights looked around uncertainly but began to rise. The younger—Sir Vezier—grabbed him by the shoulder and held him down. “No, Knight-Captain,” he said. “This isn’t what we . . . This isn’t worthy of a Knight.”
“No? Feckless boy. Are you afraid they’ll rise up against you? A Knight? Then you don’t deserve the title. Sir Orn, you will take up your sword and do as I’ve commanded. You will begin with Sir Vezier.”
This time the older man stayed where he was, his eyes fixed firmly on the ground in front of him.
“We seem to be at an impasse, Knight-Captain,” I called out.
“Are we? Very well then, let us see how long this impasse holds. Watch and wait and you will see what true courage looks like: you will see that a true son of War does not flinch when the fire comes.”
“What’s his game?” Brasti asked.
“I don’t know.”
Knights don’t do well with losing a battle at the best of times, but this man was clearly out of his mind with rage. If he’d planned to throw the children off the roof, he could have done it by now, but that didn’t feel like it would be enough for him. He was going to make a point, and he wanted us to watch—
Damn all the Gods, I thought, and I looked at the barn beneath his feet. Sure enough, smoke was beginning to emerge from the wood-slat windows. “He’s lit a fire in the barn,” I said. “He’s going to immolate himself with the children.”
A woman rose from her knees and tried to run through the crowd, but a man cried out, “No!” and others grabbed her before she could run into the burning building.
“Come,” the Knight-Captain shouted, roaring with laughter, “who will join me?”
Shit. We couldn’t kill him and we couldn’t wait for the fire to reach them. “Me,” I said softly.
“Are you mad?” Dariana asked. “You can’t run in there. You’ll burn alive.”
I flipped up the collar of my coat and tied the straps tight, imagining I looked like a highwayman coming to rob a carriage. “The leather and bone of the coat will protect me from the heat and the silk in the collar will block out some of the smoke,” I muttered hopefully.
“And what the hells do you do when you get to the top?” Brasti asked. “If you try to rush him he’ll just jump—and besides, even if you do make it to the roof, there’s no way you’ll get back down through the fire.”
“There’s a ladder attached to the water tower,” I said. “You and Dariana, go and get it.”
“Falcio, you don’t have a plan! You’re going to die for nothing!”
I smiled. Always smile when you’re terrified. “I always have a plan, Brasti. It’s just that sometimes it’s not a very good one.” I rose to my feet. “On the other hand, I wouldn’t be averse to a miracle, so you’d better have that ladder ready just in case.”
The first floor of the barn felt oddly peaceful. The flames were still small enough that it looked as if someone had lit braziers to set the scene for a romantic dinner. But I could see the smoldering bales of hay were beginning to catch alight, and the smoke was starting to hang heavy in the air.
I ran up the stairs to the second floor, but the smoke was rising and now it was almost impossible to see more than two feet in front of me. If it hadn’t been for the sound of her crying, I never would have known the girl was there.
All I could really see of her as she sat huddled in a corner was her dark brown hair for her head was buried in her knees.
“Run downstairs and out of the barn,” I said, my voice low. “Go on!”
The girl sobbed and held her arms out to me.
“I can’t go with you—I’ve got to go up. Please, just run down the stairs and get out now!”
She shook her head and her crying grew louder as her arms kept reaching for me. I started coughing uncontrollably. Damn it all . . . as if this wasn’t difficult enough already. I put one arm around the child and lifted her to me. “It’s time to be very brave,” I said to her. “You can stay with me, but you’re not going to cry, all right?”
I started up the second set of stairs that led to the roof.
I felt the girl’s face nuzzle into my hair. “’m scared,” she said.
“I know that, sweetheart, but it’s not the time to be scared right now.”
“What’s your name?” I asked as we were halfway up the stairs.
The girl hesitated, then said, “’m not telling. Da says don’t trust no strangers.”
“Good plan,” I said.
We reached the top and I stepped quietly onto the wooden rooftop. I didn’t want to risk startling the madman so I said, “I’m here.”
He turned, pulling the children with him. “Ah, my little brown bird—and I see you’ve brought my wayward duckling. How gracious of you.”
I set the girl down and she grabbed at my leg. I gently pried her fingers apart and moved away. “Time to be brave now,” I reminded her.
The Knight-Captain scoffed. “Bravery? Without honor what is bravery but the impulses of a dog? The animal has no honor. Whether scared or angry, it simply does as its base instincts command.”
“I am getting seriously tired of men who murder children preaching to me about honor,” I said.
The Knight-Captain’s face grew grim. “And I am weary of watching this country fall to the lesser nature of those who lack honor. The King was a tyrant, the Dukes have failed in their commitment to their own Knights, and the peasants and townsfolk fail to obey us as is our Gods-given right. Only we precious few remain to maintain the strength of this country.”
“So you act in defiance of the law, in defiance even of your own Dukes?”
“Some of us have come to the conclusion that the Dukes are false rulers,” he said. “It is time for a change.”
Well, at least there was one thing we agreed on. The Knight-Captain was looking at me as if he was daring me to debate him. Saints, he thinks I will! He actually believes we’re going to stand here and talk about the will of the Gods and Saints and the nature of honor. Well, sorry, Sir Knight, but I have more pressing concerns.
I looked at the children tied to the Knight-Captain, all sobbing and wailing, so full of fear that some were even clutching at him as if he were a stout tree. Ducklings, he called them, as if he’s calling out the game we all played as children—or no . . . not all of us, I suddenly realized. Only poor children ever played that game. You didn’t need toys or balls or anything to play Ducklings, just a group of children.
“Well now,” I said, my voice light, “what a fine looking flock of ducks we have here today! Shall we play then, and see who is the finest duckling of all?” The children barely noticed my presence, let alone heard my question. “Come on,” I said, trying my best to make it sound as if they risked missing out on the best thing ever, “when I get scared, I always fancy a game of Ducklings.”
“Do you mock me?” the Knight-Captain said, yanking on one of the ropes and setting the little boy on the end screaming.
“I’ll be with you in a moment, Sir Knight.” I turned my gaze back down to the boys and girls. There were seven in all: that would be enough, I hoped. Just enough.
“Come now, you all remember the rules, don’t you?”
“I want to play Ducklings.” It was the little girl I’d brought up from the second floor. I looked at her face and saw the wide eyes, the eyebrows pinched up at the center. She was terrified, but she was doing her best to be brave.
“Well then, good ducklings always follow their mama, don’t they? When Mama says, ‘flock’, they ‘flock’—remember? And when she says ‘slumber’, they get down on their bellies and close their eyes, don’t they? Now, you never want to be the last duckling to flock or slumber, because if you are, you lose the game, right? Are you ready to play?”
The Knight-Captain looked at me and laughed, sounding so menacing that the children renewed their frantic sobbing. “You seek to calm them? To take away their fear before they die? You are soft, Trattari, just like the rest of this country. What good—?”
“Flock!” I shouted.
All at once the children all ran toward me, and almost instantly, the ropes pulled taut. “Flock!” I repeated, doing my level best to keep my voice cheery and calm, as if we really were just playing. “The last one to flock loses the game,” I called.
It was only as the children rushed toward me the second time that the Knight-Captain started to understand. He tried in vain to release some of the ropes he’d tied to himself; one came free, then another, but it was too late to stop the children’s momentum and he toppled forward onto his belly.
“Slumber!” I shouted and the children instantly dropped to the floor and closed their eyes. “Now stay sleeping, my ducklings!” I slipped a hand into my coat and withdrew one of my daggers, leapt over their small bodies and landed on the Knight-Captain’s back even as he struggled to push himself up. With all my strength I drove the blade of my short knife into the back of his neck, right up into his skull, all the way to the hilt, and then I twisted it viciously, although there was no need by that time; the madman was dead.
For a moment, there was blissful silence, then I heard the soft sound of the breeze and then the crackling of the flames below and I had to accept that the world had not frozen in place. My right hand was trembling and I dimly realized I was still pushing the knife into the back of the Knight-Captain’s skull. With more effort than I would have thought possible I managed to stop myself pushing. Slowly I withdrew the blade, then quickly pulled the back of the Knight’s tabard up to cover the wound and the blood already flowing from it. I cut each of the ropes tethering the children to his body and then walked over to the edge of the roof.
Brasti and Dariana were waiting below with the ladder.
“Flock,” I said, and the children rose up and ran to me, hugging me so fiercely I had to brace myself to keep them from bowling me over the edge of the roof. That would be a terrible end to this story, I thought to myself.
“Come on,” I said as Brasti’s head appeared over the roof, “we have a new mama duck here and he’s going to carry you down one at a time.”
“Mama duck?” Brasti asked as I handed him one of the girls.
A little boy of maybe five years old walked over to the body of the Knight-Captain. “You’re not supposed to still be sleeping,” he said firmly. “You didn’t flock. You lose the game.”