Dragonslayer

Vesian II

Deep within the ancient forest stood a ruined stone keep. Perched atop a hillock in what was once a clearing, the crumbling structure had long been home to only crows and the occasional fieldmouse. Recently, new denizens had moved in, disturbing the long-held quiet that reigned beneath the green canopy. Day and night, great bonfires burned in the overgrown stone husk, both to welcome and see off raiding parties that ventured from the forest. The fires burned with sorcerous fury, casting long, dancing shadows across the cracked walls that echoed with bestial cries and war chants.

But in the noontime sun that pierced the branches of centuries-old oaks, the keep stood unnervingly quiet. The forest sounded only with the songs of birds, carried on a light summertime breeze.

Softly clinking with each step, a pair of mailed feet climbed the twisting stone steps to the keep's front door. They bore a veteran knight, nearly forty and scarred with many a battle. Sir Bertrand de Guyse held an arming sword with a jeweled pommel in one hand and with the other he brushed away the choking vines and thorns that still shrouded the stairway. He stopped on a landing and looked to the open gateway at the keep's gatehouse.

There was no door in the portal, though the rusted remains of a portcullis still hung above the threshold. From beneath the raised visor of his houndskull bascinet, Bertrand could see through the arrowslits above the door. Nothing moved within the gatehouse halls. Steeling himself, Sir Bertrand crept closer.

A flutter of wings drew his attention and his gaze snapped to a pair of crows that noisily alit atop an old, rotting beam over the gate. The two birds squawked between themselves as they fixed their yellow eyes on the knight. Bertrand considered them carefully. Shaking his head, he unslung a shield from over his shoulder. It was a thick piece of oak, rimmed in iron and painted with a white boar's head on green; the symbol of Duke Conon de Niys, lord of these lands. Bertrand raised the shield before him and began to climb the last steps to the gatehouse door.

Looking to the ceiling for murderholes, Bertrand grew uneasy. There was no sign of the raiders he had been warned of. They are hiding, like the cravens they are, he told himself. But he had a mission to complete. He passed through the darkened gatehouse and stepped into a courtyard. It was as overgrown as everything else here, with both vines and tufts of grass pushing their way up through cracked flagstones. A burnt out firepit sat in the center of the courtyard, surrounded by animal bones and other refuse. Behind the firepit was an old well, its roof removed and replaced with a long, thick chain of iron that rose from the well's depths and climbed over an oaken beam to a winch on the parapet above. Bertrand looked to the well with concern and crept closer.

He was five paces from it when suddenly, everything sprang into motion. From the sides of the courtyard, four orcs burst from the shadows. They were tall and broad-shouldered, hulking slabs of muscle clad in rude furs and hides. Each of the brutes hefted a crude but fearsome iron saber in its hand, snarling through their yellow tusks as they closed in.

At the same time, the iron chain in the well began to clatter and the winch spun at the behest of an unseen hand. From the well's depths rose a cage, built as if for a great bird. Bertrand stopped as the cage rose into view, for within was the maiden daughter of his master, Lady Alienor. The poor young woman was naked, her beautiful long blonde hair flowing loose over her bare shoulders as she clutched at the cage's bars for balance. At the sight of Sir Bertrand, she cried out in desperation and fear.

"Sir Bertrand! Thank the gods you came!"

"Fear not, my lady," Sir Bertrand began, but before he could finish, the orcs were upon him. He fended off one blow with his shield, and batted aside another with his blade. The sight of the maiden had left him off-guard, and he took a blow to the helmet in the rush. His head rang and his vision spun, but Bertrand was an old hand. He regained his senses and struck back, forcing his foes onto the defensive for a moment while he recovered.

Ducking beneath another blow, he retreated two steps to put all the orcs in front of him. The brutes were both strong and brave, but favored an aggressive attack over teamwork. They came at him all at once, running into each other as they did. Bertrand kept his shield raised, striking with the sword's point from behind it. His sword lashed out twice from the cover of his shield, each time surprising the orcs and drawing blood. He backed away as the orcs came on, leaving their wounded brethren to stagger behind them.

Bertrand darted aside from one stroke, but caught it on his shoulder all the same. The blade cut through his surcoat and screeched across his mail. He would be sore for a time, but no worse for the wear. His attacker, however, would regret his reckless stroke. Bertrand spun on his heel and plunged his blade into the hip of the orc who had struck him. The brute howled in pain and fell to one knee. He turned his ugly, one-eyed head to stare hatefully at the knight, who merely turned to the last remaining orc and stabbed at the brute's leg.

The orc darted back, his eyes drawn to the arming sword such that he was slow to react when Bertrand struck him in the face with the ironbound rim of his shield. The orc's head snapped back, his free hand going to a nose that was surely broken. But it was the least of his worries, for Bertrand's swordpoint quickly found the orc's throat and tore it out. The orc on one knee fell to his backside and began to scrabble away.

His two injured compatriots froze in fear for a moment, their eyes going from their dead companion to their wounded companion, then to Bertrand and back to the dead orc. Bertrand did not give them time to think. He rushed forward and struck. One orc tried to run and fell on his wounded leg. The other offered a limp defense before he was spitted on the knight's blade. His fallen companion tried his best to crawl away but received a mortal blow for his trouble.

The last orc stopped scrabbling, his back to the courtyard's wall. He clutched his wounded leg and sneered at Bertrand as he approached.

"There's more of us," he promised as Bertrand loomed over him.

"Good," Bertrand replied, "A mere four deaths will not slake the duke's thirst for orcish blood."

Before the orc could reply, Bertrand stabbed him through the heart and twisted the blade. Satisfied for the moment, he turned toward Alienor.

With the orcs now dead, Alienor bolted up in the cage, her bare feet splayed across the bars as she leaned against the walls and caused the whole cage to tilt forward.

"Quickly!" she cried, "before she comes back!"

Bertrand gulped as she stood up. Her naked body was on full display, and the knight who had watched her a court for many years could not tear his eyes away. She had always been a beauty, moving gracefully about the court in gowns of brocade often trimmed with fur. Bertrand had long envied whichever man would call her wife, harboring dreams that it would be him. When she had disappeared and the duke had sent forth his knights, Bertrand had dared to believed that his time had come. Now, with her standing before him nude and pleading, he let his mind wander.

Despite his years at court, he had never before been blessed to see her naked. Her young body, only recently a woman, was pale and supple, with narrow hips and small breasts. She was smudged with dirt in many places, but her tear-streaked face had never been more beautiful to Bertrand. He took a step forward, but his eyes were drawn to between her legs, where he sensed her shaven sex calling to him.

"Please, sir, we must go quickly. There is no time to search for a key to my cage, you must break the lock."

Bertrand swallowed his lust and met her pretty blue eyes, which were wide with fright. He looked to the wide mouth of the well. If he bashed open the cage and it tipped her into the depths of the well to die, he would never forgive himself.

"Hold on, my lady, there must be a safer way to get you out of here."

"No, no," she pleaded, "she will be back any moment!"

"She?" Bertrand inquired, "who is she?"

"Who indeed," replied a voice from above. Alienor whirled around in panic and Bertrand's eyes followed hers to the parapet. There stood a woman, clad in a cloak of deep red wool that showed only her beautiful, pale face and her raven hair flowing from beneath her hood. One bare white arm extended from her cloak to clutch a tall staff of gnarled wood. Bertrand's eyes narrowed in recognition.

"Yvaine... You did this?" he demanded.

"Indeed," the sorceress replied. "Your lord denied me what was rightfully mine, so I took what was his. And now I offer a trade."

"You steal his daughter and now offer to trade?! I ought to hew your head from your shoulders and deliver the two of you to His Grace."

"Think a moment before you do anything rash," the sorceress replied coldly. "I have more than enough orcs for the duke to slaughter, and they are the least of my minions."

"Kill me if you wish, sorceress. His Grace commands the loyalty of a hundred knights, most more skilled at seeking than I. The Lady Alienor will be brought home, and you will die."

"Damned fool you are," Yvaine spat from the parapet. "I want my chalice, and the duke can have his precious girl back. Otherwise it's the cold ground for you, and perhaps I'll keep her around to entertain my orcs. They've been asking me to let her out of the cage anyway."

Bertrand felt his blood boil. Images of the dear, innocent Lady Alienor being passed naked around a camp of the ugly green brutes flashed through his mind. Clutching his sword in his hand, he ran toward a stone staircase that led to the parapet. Yvaine screamed with fury.

"All I desire is my chalice, but if you want to die for him, so be it!"

But her words fell on deaf ears, but Bertrand charged up the stairs, taking them two at a time, with only thoughts of bloody justice in his head. The sorceress threw back her head and began to intone the dread words of sorcery. Black tendrils curled around her bare arm, stretching out toward the top of the stairs where they formed a thicket of thorny vines made of shadow.

Bertrand jumped up the last three steps in one bound. With two hands, he brought his sword down on the black vines in a mighty blow. Three of the vines cut, but as his sword slashed lower, it became entangled in more vines and soon enough he was caught fast. He tugged at the blade, sliding it partway loose as it cut through more of the vines, but to his fury, he saw those he had already cut drawing together and then reforming themselves before his very eyes. From the courtyard below, he heard poor Lady Alienor cry out in wordless fear for him.

Yvaine cried out once more in the forgotten tongues of ancient sorcerers, and a ray of sickly green fire sprang from her hand. Bertrand dropped low before it left her palm, and the ray carved a slice through the stone behind him. But Yvaine walked it lower, slashing through her own vines as it descended toward Bertrand's helmeted head. Bertrand slid backwards on the stairs, scrabbling himself to keep out of reach of her deadly new spell. The demise of the black vines was little comfort to him as he saw the green ray cut through the old stones in its quest to cleave him in two.

But the spell sputtered, and Yvaine lost control of it. It flickered and scattered, and the sorceress dismissed it before it could rage out of control. As she struggled to regain control of her magic, Bertrand seized his moment. He surged up the steps, tearing through the dying vines even as their thorns bit at his surcoat, and bore down on the sorceress.

She looked to him in restrained fear, her staff thrust out in a feeble effort to ward off his blade. Again, she called out in the ancient tongues, but this time no spell was conjured forth. Bertrand knocked aside the staff and slammed her to the stone walk with his shield. The sorceress spilled from her cloak and Bertrand saw that beneath it she was naked except for a wide belt of gold and gems. Her bare white legs folded underneath her as she tried to rise, but Bertrand knocked her down once again. Below, he heard Alienor cry out in delight. The sorceress looked up to him with hateful fury on her face. Bertrand raised his sword for the killing blow.

"Won't the duke be pleased to see your face again," he sneered. But no sooner than the words left his mouth did he stop, for through the trees around him came the roar of a great wind. Bertrand looked to the source of the sound, then to Yvaine again.

"What spell is this?" he demanded, and the sorceress smiled a wolf's smile.

"No spell," answered she, "but I told you I had more allies than orcs."

Bertrand felt his heart stop. There had been rumors, of course, but there were always rumors. Peasants told tale of a red sorceress who delved the ancient secrets, searching for lost bits of lore in old ruins and caverns. They claimed she had found something long lost, a song forgotten by the ages, and mastered it for herself.

"I found it in the Lost Country," she said, as if she could read his thoughts, "engraved in a bronze tablet buried under a statue of the Wyrmfather. It took me years to decipher the script, and more to learn the words, but in the end, I learned to sing the dragonsong. Now, behold! Khythrix, spawn of Srash the Winged Dread!"

Bertrand's arms had long since fallen limp with defeat and dread, his sword clattering uselessly to the stone below. The trees outside the keep cracked and wavered in the wind. The air turned hot around Bertrand and the rushing wind caused him to squint against it. From just beyond the trees came a terrifying roar that shook him to his bones and made his knees go weak. He felt something drip down his face and realized that he was crying. Me, a knight and veteran of a hundred battles, he thought.

There was a another, stronger gust of wind that staggered him on his weak knees, and then the tree canopy was torn aside by a great pair of scaly claws. Through the opening, Bertrand saw the terrible form of the dragon. A hundred feet from wingtip to wingtip, and as long from head to tail, the massive form of Khythrix loomed in the sudden sunlight, casting a deadly shadow over the keep. Alienor screamed from somewhere down below, but Bertrand could no longer think of her, of the future he imagined where the duke rewarded his daring rescue by providing him with her hand. All he could think of was the serpentine face of the dragon and its malevolent yellow eyes.

The dragon's long neck lashed out, its maw opening to reveal rows of razor sharp teeth, and tore Bertrand from the parapet with a roar of triumph. Down he went through the dragon's gullet.

Not ten leagues from the ruined keep, on the road that wound its way over the placid fields and through the villages of Duke Conon's fief, a young knight and his squire were making their way north. The knight tall and muscular, with ruddy cheeks and fair hair. His look was boyish, with an easy smile always on his face and green eyes that darted to and fro across the idyllic landscape. The knight wore a blue surcoat over mail with a shield slung over his back, emblazoned with a white lion rampant on red. Between his knees trotted a tall courser clad in mail barding and a deep blue caparison, with tack of oiled black leather.

Behind him, on a black horse, rode a shorter man. Black-haired like his steed, stocky, and slightly older than his knight, the squire led a sumpter horse laden with many saddlebags. He wore a jack coat and an iron skullcap, though his legs were covered only in quilted cloth leggings. Both men carried swords at their hips, and the squire also carried his master's lance, an eleven-foot shaft of ash wood topped with lancehead a foot long.

Both men were in good spirits, moving easily down the road in the mid-morning sun. The road ran through villages, fields, and small woods for miles, and by midday they came to a wooden bridge over a small creek. Beside the bridge were three wagons laden with sundry goods bound for village markets. A half dozen merchants were gathered around the last wagon, removing its broken wheel. As Vesian approached, one of the men cried out in pain and stepped away.

"Are you alright?" asked a man in a long green coat of wool.

"I've afraid I've hurt myself," the injured man wailed, falling to his rump in the middle of the road as he clutched his back. "Damn! We should have unloaded the wagons first!"

Vesian pulled his horse to a halt, hiding a half-smile as he did. He dismounted and approached the merchants with his reins in one hand.

"Pardon me, sirrah," he called out. "Perhaps I can be of assistance?"

The merchants turned to him as he approached, their eyes drawn to his armor and the crest of the Order of the Griffon on his surcoat.

"Well, isn't that a gift from above!" cried the man in the coat. "A knight errant, just when we need one! I would greatly appreciate your help, sir! We broke a wheel coming over this bridge and are having just the worst time trying to fix it."

"Two more helping hands ought to do the job," Vesian said, waving to Thibault to join him. somewhat grumpily, the squire dismounted and moved up next to him. He handed the horses' reins to the injured merchant, who sheepishly seated himself on an upturned crate, out of the way. Vesian and Thibault took their places at the wagon and heaved when called. The wagon went up, and a young woman darted in and propped it up with a stout barrel, allowing the others to remove the wheel.

"I thank you, sir," the merchant in the green coat said. "It's past noon, and all this has gotten me a little hungry. Would you care to share our midday meal with us before you go on?"

"I suppose I will," Vesian replied. "We are in no hurry. Isn't that right, Thibault?"

"Not anymore, sir," the squire replied. The merchants eagerly abandoned the wagon repairs to break out their food instead. As they climbed into the wagons to retrieve their rations, Vesian was left standing alone in the road. The young woman appeared at Vesian's side, holding a loaf of bread in one hand and twirling her long chestnut hair with the other.

"How fortunate we are to meet a knight just in our time of need," she said, flashing her pretty blue eyes at him. "I often find myself wishing I had a handsome knight with me."

"Oh?" Vesian replied, taking the bread she offered. The woman drew closer to him, putting a delicate hand on his mailed arm. "When might you need a handsome knight?"

"On cold nights," she replied huskily, "Or hot nights. Sometimes during the day, while this wagon bumps its way up and down the roads. All this traveling is terribly boring, and I could use a bit of enjoyment."

Vesian put his hand on hers. "I do enjoy myself quite often."

"And others?" she asked, her voice low and insistent.

"I do enjoy others from time to time. Perhaps in a field, or under a wagon?"

She smiled coyly and bit her lower lip, but suddenly a fat merchant in a dark red vest and a coat of deep blue broke into their conversation and gave Vesian a hearty slap on the shoulder.

"I see you've met my daughter, sir! Well, my dear Aurengarde will talk your ear off if you let her. Come, join us!" He pulled them both to the makeshift benches the merchants had arranged beyond the wagons and seated them down. "I am Jaspert, and these are the members of my company. We winter in Bordonne, and travel all around the kingdom during the warmer months. That's Berenger with the pulled back, you've already met my daughter and Anglebert in the blue, the others are Gilbert, Hugues, and Thietmar."