The Savage Knight

He strode relentlessly towards the horde, blind anger giving him strength, the stink of their blood driving him on. There was no room in his head for conscious thought, or in his heart for compassion. Maybe half of them were dead, but he wanted them all dead, would not stop until he had cut the life from every last one of them.

They cowered and backed away, sensing his righteous fury, looking around urgently as though seeking a means of escape. One tried to rally the rest by letting out a howl and throwing itself at him, and he spun on his heel and slammed the flat of his shield into its face. It took a few faltering steps back, and Dodinal thrust the sword deep into its eye. The creature went stiff as he pulled the blade free, dead before it hit the ground.

And then the earth shook.

Dodinal felt it tremble under his boots.

It shook again, as if struck a massive blow.

None of the creatures moved. They were no longer looking at him. Their heads were turned, gazing intensely up the bank towards the unknowable dark of the forest. Dodinal swallowed hard.

Another percussive blow, which rattled his teeth and shook his bones, followed by a great splintering, tearing and crashing. It sounded like the trees were being torn up by their roots.

Something was coming. Dodinal edged towards Owain. He had no idea what it was. Surely there was no creature on earth capable of making the earth shake in such a way. Whatever it was, he wanted the child out of the way before it got any closer.

The ground convulsed. Trees swayed and groaned.

Dodinal cut through the vine that held the boy’s foot.

A dark, monstrous shape emerged from the forest with a great clattering of branches, and came to a shuddering halt at the depression’s edge. He saw it well enough in the moonlight to know it was bigger than any living thing he had ever set eyes on before. He cast out his senses and immediately recoiled. What they had touched was ancient and cold, not malevolent but uncaring, like nature itself. Dodinal had sensed it before. It had unnerved him then. Now, when it was almost close enough to spit on, its presence was like fuel on the flames of his anger.

It was unnatural, an abomination, just like the creatures. This was what must have sent them out to steal the children. Judging from the bones on the ground, it had an insatiable taste for human young.

Now the adults swooped into sight, dropping from the trees near the beast and scurrying down the bank ahead of it. There were eight of them, one was badly burned. Another was much smaller, presumably drawn from the ranks of the young to make up for the absence of the adult he and Gerwyn had slain.

They could not have missed Dodinal, his back to the slab only yards from them, yet they paid him no attention. Instead, they waited behind the cowering young, their heads bowed. The forest was as silent as the church where Dodinal had often sought peace.

He frowned. A church…

Understanding struck him like a physical blow.

Whatever it was, these twisted creatures worshipped it.

It was their god. And they had brought it sacrifices.

The monstrous shape juddered; Dodinal saw movement in the darkness around it and had the impression of a long thin neck raised skywards so the beast could peer down at him and the boy. Then, moving slowly and carefully, it lowered itself into the depression, earth and rock cascading as the bank gave way under its weight. With each thunderous step, the very world seemed to tremble. Visions of giants filled Dodinal’s head again, but he shook them off. This was no giant, no mythical beast out of a child’s story.

Whatever it was, it was real.

It stepped beyond the shadow of the forest, into the moonlight.

Dodinal saw it clearly, but he did not believe what he saw.

Its body was that of a leopard, the haunches those of a lion, and the feet a hart’s. It had a serpent’s neck and head, which swayed in time with its leonine tail as it lumbered across the ground, passing the assembled throng of creatures watching its every move. Dodinal stepped cautiously away as it came to a juddering halt before him, his mind struggling to comprehend what he saw. It beggared belief. It challenged everything he had ever known. There was man and there was nature, nothing else. Yet here, standing within touching distance, was living proof that there was something else.

Sir Palomides, the Saracen, had often spoken of such a creature. The Questing Beast,¹² he had named it, and dedicated his life to hunting it down. Camelot’s knights, Dodinal amongst them, had humoured him and wished him well, but between themselves had dismissed it as a fool’s errand. Such a chimera could be found nowhere but the realm of myth. If it existed, they argued, why had it not been found?

The beast lowered its sinuous neck and thrust it towards him, its mouth opened wide and its forked tongue flicked out. A sound like the baying of three score hounds poured forth from its belly. Dodinal flinched, remembering the old man’s story. The baying of hounds that long-ago summer had been the harbinger of disaster.

He continued to step away, moving slowly, until he felt the hard edge of the slab press into his back. There he stood, raised to his full height. He held the sword with both hands at chest height, the blade raised to the stars. To reach the child the beast would first have to get past him, and he would cut its head from its body.

The Questing Beast roared again but did not move. What was it waiting for? Dodinal was torn by indecision. Part of him wanted to stand his ground. Another felt compelled to attack.

The adults moved before he could, fanning out around the young, yelping and barking in what Dodinal now recognised was a feeble attempt to emulate the voice of their god, trying to herd the child-creatures across to where Dodinal waited. The young shuffled and whined and cast anxious glances at each other, and at their siblings lying broken and bleeding on the ground.

Without warning, one of the adults broke away from the rest and loped towards the slab. The Questing Beast opened its mouth and again came that hideous baying. The gargoyle creature stumbled and looked around as though uncertain of its actions, then seemed to shrug off any misgivings and continued its headlong rush. At the last second it coiled and leapt over Dodinal, landing on the farthest edge of the slab. Dodinal spun around to face it, the Questing Beast and its horde of worshippers forgotten.

The creature turned to face its kin, and then bent and thrust a hand towards Owain’s chest.

Dodinal twisted and hurled the shield, clipping the thing’s skull and stunning it. Then he lashed out with the sword and took its arm off above the elbow. The creature howled and flung itself away from him, losing its footing and falling from the slab’s edge.

A furious shrieking filled the air as Dodinal slashed through the last of the bindings and lifted Owain away from the rock. The boy wrapped his arms so tightly around his neck that the knight could scarcely breathe. He tried to put him down and push him towards the bank, but Owain refused to let go.

Dodinal spun around. The Questing Beast had still not moved, but the creatures were closing in on him, the adults now leading the way, the young following tremulously behind them.

He could not fight them all.

Dodinal lifted the blade and rested the metal against Owain’s throat. It would be kinder this way, a mercy killing. The boy must have known what was going to happen, but didn’t flinch. He was brave, no doubt about that. His mother was right to be proud of him.

The creatures were almost within reach. Dodinal smelled their foul carrion breath as they yelped and howled.

He shook his head. He could not do it. Could not take an innocent life even if it was for the best. Very well, he would take out as many of them as he could and go down fighting. At least neither he nor the boy would die alone.

The creatures stumbled to a standstill and fell silent.

Their eyes, Dodinal saw, no longer reflected the moonlight, but swum with a rich amber glow.

Tall shadows danced on the cliff face as orange light bathed the bowl, casting the stunted trees into sharp relief. Now the creatures had ceased their shrieking and hollering, he could hear the rush of the wind through the branches. Smoke, dense and choking, gusted over him, over them all.

Dodinal turned his head. The trees were now pillars of fire, and the flames were spreading. Burning tendrils reached out across the dark spaces of the forest.

Dodinal could barely draw breath, between the smoke and the child around his neck, but laughed all the