The Red Knight

The one that had spoken jumped forward, shouldering past two of its own kind.

‘I am Thurkan of the Qwethenog,’ it said.

She hadn’t intended to come out onto the wall.

Her place was in the infirmary and wounded men were coming through the gate.

She told herself that she would only look. Only a moment. People were cheering.

She ran barefoot through the infirmary’s second floor balcony doors, and leaped lightly from the stone balustrade, between a pair of gargoyles that decorated the lower gable ends, and skinned her thigh on the slates as she slid down to the curtain wall. She’d taken this path a thousand times to go out after the nuns blew out the last lights.

She was a level above the gatehouse. She skidded to a stop when she saw that a section of curtain wall was simply gone, and her left foot hovered over empty space.

Below her the hillside was bathed in a cruel white light.

When she was young, her Outwaller family had called them guardians and worshipped them. North of the wall she had thought they were angels.

Now a mighty one stood on the cobbled road, facing the Red Knight.

How she hated that substitute for a name. The Red Knight.

He looked tired. And heroic.

She couldn’t watch.

She couldn’t look away.

The guardian struck with two axes, cutting with both at the same time – something a mere man could never hope to do.

He stepped forward and to the right, and smashed an axe to the ground; the guardian stepped back. She saw it draw power. Guardians were not like men in any way except for their love of beauty. It took in power as if breathing – a natural movement – and then it snapped its working at the knight.

Who turned it. Then he stepped forward, and raised his sword slowly, an elaborate gesture like a salute.

Achieved his guard.

And froze.

The guardian raised its axes.

And froze.

Time stopped.

She couldn’t breathe.

When one of them moved, it would be over.

The Ings of the Albin – Ranald Lachlan

Donald came and sat on a rock by Ranald’s tiny fire. Half their force was out on picket – the men cooking breakfast spoke in low tones.

‘I’ve a notion,’ Donald said.

Ranald ate a piece of bacon, and raised an eyebrow. He was feeling better. More alive. Ian the Old had made him angry, pissing in the stream where they got drinking water.

Yesterday nothing had made him angry, so he savoured that anger as a sign he was alive.

All those thoughts flitted through his head while he chewed, and then he nodded. ‘I thought I smelled smoke,’ he said, and managed a smile – another triumph.

Donald leaned back. ‘None of yer sass, now. And you half my age.’ He grinned. ‘I think we should push the herd for Albinkirk. It is only twelve leagues, or like enough as makes no difference.’

Ranald was alive enough, and enough of a hillman, to be taken with the boldness of it. ‘Right over the same terrain where we fought the Sossag?’ he said. He shrugged.

‘They’re gone, Ranald. Nobody’s seen dick of them for three days. Not a feather, not a scout, not a bare buttock. It’s their way. They don’t hold ground.’ Donald leaned forward. ‘What’s the herd worth at the Inn? A silver penny a head or less? And it’s a far longer walk to the Inn than it is to Albinkirk.’

Ranald stared into the flames of his small birch bark fire. He added leaves from a pouch at his belt to his copper cup full of water, stirred honey in, drank it, and gave a quiet thanks to God. His belief in God had suffered – or maybe not. He wasn’t entirely sure.

I was dead.

Hard to take. Better not to think of it. Except that, in some horrible way, he could remember the deadness. He didn’t want to be dead again.

He sighed. ‘Daring,’ he said. But from Albinkirk he could send a messenger to the king. He owed the king that much. More. He sighed.

Donald’s eyes sparkled. ‘Let’s do it.’

Ranald knew that the older man needed to perform a deed of arms if only to justify the fact that he had lived and Hector had died.

But deep inside, he shared the feeling. And if they could get the herd through – why, then Sarah Lachlan would be rich, and all the little crofters and herders in the Hills would get their shares, and the Death of Hector Lachlan would be a song with a happy ending.

He drank off the last of his scalding tea, and watched the stream. ‘We’re loons. And some of the boys may “decline to accompany us”.’ He gave the last words a distinctive Alban accent.

Donald chortled. ‘Good to see you coming back to yourself. Faeries brought my Godmother back from dead – did you know that? Took her months to laugh again, but then she was dead a whole day.’ He shrugged.

Ranald gave a little shudder. ‘Ouch,’ he muttered.

‘Oh, no. She said that having been dead, life was always sweet.’ He nodded.

Ranald was still thinking of that when the herd lumbered into motion, headed west. The boys had muttered about it but none of them turned for home.