The Red Knight

They rode west first, and the road was very familiar. As soon as they reached the edge of the woods, the pages split off, riding ahead, their skirmish line widening and widening to the north. The men-at-arms turned into the woods behind them in a compact mass, and then came the archers. Gelfred rode with the captain, and his scouts were nowhere to be seen.

After enough time to terrify most of the pages, who rode in fear of imminent ambush by unimaginable monsters, the captain’s whistle rang out.

Every man reined in his horse and slipped to the ground.

They were still for a long time.

The captain’s whistle sounded again, two long blasts.

They mounted and rode forward. It was late afternoon. The sky had patches of blue, and a man could be warm from the sun, the weight of his harness, and his nerves.

Or cold, from the same causes.

Men tire quickly when they are scared. A patrol in hostile terrain is the most tiring thing a soldier can do short of violence. The captain blew his whistle each time he had completed a silent count to fifteen hundred. Stopping gave his men a rest.

The sun began to slant more, and the light grew redder. The sky to the west was clear.

They began to climb Gelfred’s ridge, and the tension began to grow.

About halfway up the ridge, the captain’s whistle sounded, and the company dismounted.

The captain motioned to Michael, who stood at his shoulder.

‘Whistle: horseholders.’

Michael nodded. He took off his right gauntlet, picked up the silver whistle on the cord around his neck, and blew three long and three short notes. After a pause, he blew the same call again.

All around them, men-at-arms handed their horses to squires. Behind them, at the base of the hill, every sixth archer took the horses of his mates and led them to the rear.

The captain watched it all, wondering if the pages, who he couldn’t see, were also obeying.

He could feel the enemy. He could smell the green of the Wild. He listened, and he could almost hear them. Idly, he wondered why Amicia smelled like the Wild.

There was a distant trumpeting noise, like the belling of a hart.

‘Jehannes, you have the men-at-arms. I’m going to take command of the pages. Michael, on me.’ He handed his reins to Toby and started up the hill. His harness was almost silent, and he moved fast enough to leave Jehannes’s protests behind.

Bad Tom stepped out and followed him.

The hill was steep, and the pages were two hundred paces further up the ridge. He breathed in relief when he saw them – too clumped up, but all dismounted, and he passed a boy of fifteen with six horses headed down the hill.

Climbing a steep ridge in armour reminded him of just how little sleep he’d had since the first fight, against the wyvern, but through his fatigue he could still feel the place on his fingers where Amicia had touched him.

Michael and Tom had trouble keeping up with him.

He reached the pages. Jacques had them spreading out already. He smiled at the captain.

‘Nice job,’ he whispered.

‘We’re going to the top, I take it?’ asked Jacques.

The captain looked right and left. ‘Yes,’ he said. He motioned to Michael, who gave one whistle blast.

The pages were lightly armed. They weren’t woodsmen, but they slipped up the hill like ghosts, at a pace that left the captain breathless. The hill steepened and steepened as they climbed, until the very top was almost sheer, and the pages hauled themselves up from tree to tree.

There was a scream, a wicked hiss of arrows, a boy of no more than sixteen roared, ‘For God and Saint George!’ and there was the unmistakable sound of steel on steel.

An arrow, nearly spent, rang off the captain’s helmet.

Suddenly, he had the spirit to run to the crest of the hill. The trees were dense, and branches reached for him, but a man in armour can run through a thicket of thorns and not take a scratch. He grabbed a slim oak, pulled with all his strength, and found himself at the top.

There was a small hollow, with a fire hidden by the bulk of the hill, and a dozen men.

Not men.

Irks.

Like men, but thinner and faster, with brown-green skin like bark, almond eyes and pointed teeth like wolves. Even as the captain stopped in surprise, an arrow rang off his breastplate and a dozen pages burst from the trees to the right of the irks around the fire and charged.

The captain lowered his head and ran at the irks, too.

They loosed arrows and fled away north, and the pages gave chase.

The captain stopped and opened his visor. Michael appeared at his side, sword out, buckler on his left hand. He could smell woodsmoke, lots of woodsmoke.

‘We’ve found them!’ Michael said.

‘No. A dozen irks is not an army of darkness,’ said the captain. He looked at the sky.

Tom came up behind him.

‘Tom? We have an hour of good light. The pages are running down their sentries.’ He looked at the veteran man-at-arms. He shrugged. ‘I don’t really know all that much about fighting the Wild,’ he admitted. ‘My instinct is to keep going forward.’