The Knight Who Sought a Crone
Chapter Two

The girl’s screams burned cold through my heart as I rushed awake. I couldn’t help but listen to her final whimpers as I sat upright on the stale hay mattress beneath my ass. I swung my legs around and touched my bare feet onto the dry wooden floor which croaked to the movement of my weight. The air was quiet again. The storm had subsided to a slow trickle pattering upon the solitary window of my room. I couldn’t worry about her. Not her family, nor her employer. I had a job to do.

Empathy was an afterthought, a careless, unmotivated emotion of my commitment. Purged once I took to my Trials. I could only remain. Never a part of the civilian population but instead, a watcher. A guardian if you will. Kings fell in line to my order, their subjects; only collateral to our purpose. I listened for a few moments to the wails of a woman in the room next to me and the following groan of her partner as I dulled my senses back to sleep.

Morning came quick. Rushing to my head like the beating of a fist to my jaw. I shook my head against the pillow before bellowing out a quiet stretch and yawn. Moving to wake, I stood in front of the stool I had rested my clothes on the night before to dry. Feeling the dampness on my shirt, trousers and cloak I had surmised my day’s journey would be rough. Fitting my clothes upon my nakedness, I layered the attire accordingly before fitting the thinly plated armor over my chest before topping off my ensemble with the cloak, concealing the armor beneath it. Reaching under the pillow, I removed my weapon and bound it to the fitted lock in my belt against my left hip.

I knelt to face the window, my voice to the seven gods at my command. I prayed to Skryack so his light may guide my eyes to seek wisdom, to Plavak so my heart will guide my intentions true, to Normana so my breaths will speak truth, to Undonus to wash my sins away, to Molak so my body will be truth in its rightful form, to Nakado so my sword will be guided by justice, and to Cupus so my soul will embody truth. Lastly, I prayed to seek the Divine Man, the Verdun Sadakem, so one day I may bow to him in his mortal return or in my afterlife, the personification of our gods in their purest of forms. I rose, tucking my left wrist in my sleeve to hide the curved rune tattoo symbolizing the water goddess.

I listened to the quiet whispers of a morning trickle crowd in the tavern hall as I took the final steps down the stairs into the main chambers. A serving girl greeted me, morning shift. The tavern owner must have a penchant for svelte girls as this girl appeared no older than twelve from her lack of a chest. She motioned me to a table in the far back where a warm stout had been waiting for me in a clay stein.

“Gery set you her’ as you ’ad request’d last eve’nin.” Her voice whispered like a songbird to my ear in the Low Accent. Pleasant, albeit crude.

“Thank you,” I nodded, reaching for my sword and setting it upon the table to my left as I hefted my hulking frame into the small bench.

She returned a few moments later with a dish of runny eggs, fried pig lard and a juyo fruit. I couldn’t tell where the eggs stopped and the purple mash of the juyo began for the cook took no care to his arrangement of food. I’m expecting too much of the low villages. I savored the meal nonetheless, my first warm meal in many days since leaving Kora. My body ached from the night before and I needn’t look a gift horse in the mouth as the runny eggs swished in my mouth with a sip of stout and the juyo jelly lingered to soften the taste.

I used my blade in a manner unbecoming of the Temple Knights and to which I suffered the price. I sensed the crackling in my bones from the moment I awoke and the sudden nightmare of the final girl’s thoughts and hopes dashed on that muddy floor where several tavern girls remained sopping up all of the blood this morning. I would feel my punishment for several more days, but I couldn’t let it deter me from my task. I have seen far worse than one stranger girl’s dying breaths and I couldn’t allow one man to survive, reveling in chaos over a terse word he took offense to ending in an innocent’s demise. A few days of incessant pain would be a trite inconvenience to the greater conflict which might arise.

As I continued my meal, I caught eye of one or two of the serving girls slinging their eyes towards my table with a coy flip of their hair over their shoulders. I ignored them and slurped my food as it clung to my short beard and washed what I could with the stout I was given. One of them ignored my request the night before and slung her legs into the bench across from me.

Her eyes were green like shining emeralds and her dark, blonde hair waved a scent of lilac and marigold into my nose. I got the feeling she’d been around with the manner in which she carried her voluptuous hips within her red dress. Probably a favorite among the locals.

“I asked to be alone,” I grumbled.

“You’re the talk of the girls, stranger. What’s your name?” She didn’t hesitate to lean her elbow towards me. Her eyes lit up with a fierce intensity of inquisitive playfulness as she reached for my calloused hand lying next to my sword. I jerked my hand to cover the pommel and slid the scabbard against the table with a roaring tug against the wood.

“I asked to be alone,” I replied.

Her smile was toxic and seductive, “You didn’t have to do what you did for Trissa. In fact, you shouldn’t have.”

Her statement caught my eye as I lifted it to rise to her attention, among other things rising, “How?”

“He’ll pocket your money. The owner, Gery, he uses us for favors to the local gangs. You killed one of them. They’ll return for him, for us. Trissa was a favorite among them.”

“The gangs should have considered that before slicing her face open.”

“She was still workable to them. A scar on her face would have been nothing in their eyes.”

“They trampled her.”

“And another would replace her. Now you’ve put us all in danger.”

“Take it up to your Marshal.”

“The Marshal allows it.”

I rose from my seat, clearly having none of her nonsense as I hoisted my sword to my hip under my cloaks. I could smell the fear leaving her tongue and the fright in her eyes. Her heart quickened inside her buxom chest, I watched the blood flow pace fast beneath her ribcage.

“Help us,” I heard her whisper as a sharp pain streaked through my left arm. I cringed, hiding my suffering from prying eyes as I gripped my right hand around the scarred tattoo below my left wrist. A consequence of using my sword or a call? I looked around to see three of the girls watching this whore who approached me only to hear a click of a lock in the back room behind the kitchen. I looked around to see a pair of loose hoods passing a window by the door and another pair come around to the window on the opposing flank. They must do their killing after breakfast.

I counted four come in from the front and heard another four come in through the back. A taller man led them, balding with blazing green eyes set deep in his skull behind a face of scars and busted ears. A leather cuirass covered his chest with a bandolier of blades strapped along his left shoulder. A tattoo of a boar cut into his whiskery neck. Grimhog.

“Are you the fuck who decided to make business which wasn’t yours?” He cracked his knuckles beneath a pair of leather gloves while three of his lackeys propped their crossbows to aim in my direction behind him.

I said nothing.

“Answer me,” he growled, pointing his nub for an index finger towards me. His breath drew fire from his heart with the stench of rotted meat consumed only an hour before. I looked upon the hearts beating in all of their chests in ethereal vision. The men with crossbows had nervous jitters interrupting their patterns while the men behind me approaching from behind the bar steadied their pulse rates. The man in front of me varied. I looked around to see the tavern girls cowering to corners while the more confident girl at my table steadied behind me out of sight of the men behind the bar.

I returned gaze to the leader’s eyes from looking behind my shoulder, “I only came here for a warm stout. Your turf war was not my concern until you killed that girl.”

“She’s just a loose cunt used for fucking. She isn’t a concern, replaceable. But you killed one of my lieutenants and for that, I can’t let you live.”

“You would be wise to back down and permit me to leave. My business requires a journey north, any setback to said journey will be detrimental to the future of your livelihood.”

I messed up. Too many witnesses last night. Not going to happen today. The gods punish me now. I looked back to the men on my left climbing aside the bar when I reached with my right hand to the sword at my hip and extended my left arm. A rush of wind propelled from my left hand as a surge of nerve pain extended to the extremities of my fingers. Magic. The force of the air racing towards them cascaded them against the shelves smashing them as they fell.

In ensuing purpose, the chink of the cross guards unlocked from the scabbard as I unsheathed my blade with a whistling shriek. Three bolts of crossbows hurtled towards my face only to be split by a single whistle slice from the swipe of my weapon in midair.

“Go,” I turned to the woman sitting at the table, “Go, take your girls with you.” I didn’t see her move before I blocked the oncoming attack from one of the crossbowmen striking at me. Within moments, I faced four swords. Four swords who had no concept of who I was. With each strike of their steel blades, my sword blocked with quick reflexive action guiding my hand. I acted not of my own impulse, but guided by the spiritual blessings of my covenant. Ethereal instincts took over as I sliced through two of the swords in one stroke, swinging my whole body inward to the first man and slamming the pommel of my blade into his jaw.

He buckled over, crashing onto his back as the second man attacked me with the stump of his steel. I weaved back, arching my spine to avoid his swing before gripping his wrist with my left hand, jerking it aside, twisting his elbow and with a full revolution to my own weight, countered his assault by slamming the pommel into his temple. Watching him fall, I twisted my hilt back into proper grip as the third man lunged for me. I swung low, sliding upon the floor behind his reach and in one simultaneous motion, grabbing the scabbard, sheathing my sword and lifting the back of his kneecap with the blunt of the strike. Riding the momentum of my slide, I stood up, taking him with me as he fell upon his backside with the heft of my sheath lifting him from the back of his thigh. Slamming him back first into the ground, I punched his chest with the chape of my sheath as their leader proceeded to attack. I still had to tend to those behind the bar.

Their leader swung at me with his hefty axe. I ducked his side swing, then jabbed the chape into his right rib cage, buckling him over as I leapt towards the bar. Using the flat surface as leverage, I swung my hips around, preparing my right foot to roundhouse the first man standing up from the cavalcade of shelving which had collapsed upon him. Contact. His jaw crackled like a wooden post. The second man behind him lunged his blade for me, he fell forward. I dodged wide right, smashing my scabbard square into a pressure point in his lower spine. I could hear the nerves unraveling like cut cords within his back. The third man behind the bar stood in awe only to be met by a single fist to his jaw, reeling him to crash through the lifting door, shattering it to several splinters.

Slice. I felt a sting burn into my right arm as the head of a quiver lodged through my muscle tissue from behind. My sword arm. I winced to the pain, grappling the offending projectile as I turned to see the barkeep from the night before holding a crossbow and loading his second bolt. He hid no fear in his hazel eyes. The scars on his balding head told me he was a gang member himself. I missed this cue from last night. This dumb fucker doesn’t know what he’s doing, but I’m now outnumbered without the use of my weapon hand. Two against one. I live for these odds.

“You’re not going to escape with my girls.” The rune throbbed beneath my left sleeve as he aimed his next bolt at my eye. One shot and one of us would die. Trigger pull. Reaction. I thrust my left hand to oppose the bolt as a singing, invisible fire consumed it in midair mere inches in front of my hand leaving only the iron head collapsing to the ground in glowing orange heat. I could see the heat rising between us to dissipate just as quickly. I needed to flee. I pulled the scabbard across my backside and looped the strap over my shoulder and in hastened move, darted towards the bulky leader man who managed to lift his axe to strike at me one more time. I clenched my left fist and spread my fingers in a wide arc in front of me, sweeping right to left and in a quick flash of light, the hefty man dropped his axe to the ground, clutching his eyes proclaiming the stinging burn as white goo dripped from his fingers. The others on the floor reacted in same, those who managed to huff and breathe now found themselves struggling to scream as the flesh of their eyes singed out of their sockets. Light burn; like looking into the sun.

In their memories I heard their screams as I darted out the front door, breaking off the end point of the bolt and sliding the rear out of my flesh. Exhausted, I listened to the muffled whimpers fading their most recent memory flooding their minds to be consumed in total darkness. I was not a part of it. As for the owner of the tavern, I didn’t glance back only to listen to the faded beats of a dying heart draining inside his chest and deflating like a billow sack. No witnesses.