The Red Knight

teeth. The stone of his face – if it was stone – seemed to flow like water. We serve no one.

Thorn would have smiled if he still had the ability to. Instead, he simply cast his binding. Simultaneously, he shielded his mind from the shout that was sure to follow.

The troll stiffened. He screamed, and his teeth clashed like rocks in a flooded stream, and his smooth arms grew hands and talons that reached for Thorn.

The sorcerer didn’t stir. The net of his will settled in sparkling green strands over the creature and tightened, and that quickly it was over.

I will slay you and all your kind in ways too horrible for your mind to encompass.

Thorn turned. ‘No you will not,’ he said. ‘Now, obey. We have more of your kind to find, and a long night ahead of us.’

The troll thrashed in his binding like a wolf in a cage. He screamed, his bell-like voice ringing across the wilderness.

Thorn shook his head minutely. ‘Obey,’ he said again, and pushed a little more of his will into the binding.

The monster resisted, showing – or growing – wicked black in a black mouth. His whole body stretched for Thorn.

To Thorn, it was like arm wrestling with a child. A strong child – but a child nonetheless. He slammed his will down on the troll’s, and it crumbled.

That was the way of the Wild.

The other trolls weren’t hard to find, and the second was considerably easier to press than the first had been . . . but the seventh was much harder than the sixth, and by the time the sun had set he had a tail of mighty trolls and that sense a man gets when he has lifted so much weight that he can no longer lift his arms.

He sat in a narrow gully, and listened to the wind while his blank-faced trolls crouched all around him.

After some time, as the sun began to slip beneath the rim of the world and he felt better, he reached out a tendril of his power toward the dark sun in the distant fortress.

And he recoiled from what he found, because-

Lissen Carak – The Red Knight

The captain was leaning on the wall, the curtain wall that covered the outer gate. He’d walked here almost without volition, because the confines of the Commandery were suddenly too close and airless.

He’d written her a note. Because he was not fifteen he had written one, not ten of them, and he’d placed it in the crotch of the old apple tree. And then, after cursing himself for waiting and hoping she might appear by some sympathetic magic, he’d walked to the wall for some air.

The stars burned in the distant heavens, and there were fires in the Bridge Castle courtyard below him. The Lower Town at the foot of the ridge was empty – a skeleton guard held it and no more. And there was no light.

He looked out at the darkness – the Wild was as dark as the sea.

Something was looking for him. At first it was a prickle in his hair, and then a presentiment of doom, and then, suddenly, he’d never felt so vulnerable in all his life, and he crouched on the battlement fighting a particularly awful childhood memory.

When it didn’t relent, didn’t let up, he took a deep breath and forced himself to his feet. He turned and made himself walk, despite the crushing fear, up the steps set into the wall to the first tower. The second step was so hard he had to use his hands on the fourth and fifth – by the eighth he was crawling. He pushed, made a sword of his will, and pushed through. The feeling relaxed like the grip of an unwelcome suitor as soon as he entered the stone structure.

Bent leaped to his feet, a deck of painted cards in his hand. ‘Captain!’ he shouted, and a dozen archers leaped to their feet and snapped their salutes.

The captain glanced around. ‘At ease,’ he said. ‘Who’s on the walls?’

‘Acrobat,’ Bent answered. ‘Half-Arse on the main curtain, Ser Guillam Longsword and Snot commanding the towers with the engines. Watch changes in a glass.’

‘Double up,’ the captain ordered. He wanted to apologise – Sorry, boys, I have a creepy feeling, so I’m costing a lot of you a night’s sleep. But he’d learned not to apologise when he gave an unpopular order, much less over-explain it. And the successful raid had given him credit in the hard currency of leadership – no commander is ever much better than his last performance.

Bent grimaced, but he started lacing up his embroidered leather jack. Like many of the other veterans, Bent wore his fortune on his body – a subtle brag, a statement of his worth, a willingness to see that fortune taken by his killer. The dark-skinned man looked around, and like true soldiers his fellow gamblers avoided his eye.

‘Hetty, Crank, Larkin, with me. Hetty, if you don’t want the duty, don’t be so obvious about sneaking to the jakes.’ Bent glared at the youngest man in the tower room and then turned back to the captain. ‘That sufficient, m’lord?’

The captain didn’t know Bent very well – he was Ser Jehannes’ man – but he was impressed that his most senior archer would take the trick on the wall himself. ‘Carry on,’ he said coldly, and walked across the room surveying the piles of coins on the tables, and the dice and cards, as he did. He was pretty sure Ser Hugo would never have allowed such overt gambling. So he scratched his beard and beckoned to Bent.

The archer came up like a dog expecting a kick.

The captain pointed at the money on the main table. He didn’t say a thing.

Bent raised an eyebrow and opened his mouth.

‘Save it,’ the captain said. ‘Remind me of the company rule on gambling.’

Bent made a face. ‘Total value of the game not to exceed a day’s pay for the lowest man,’ he recited.

Two rose nobles gleamed up at the captain, with more than a dozen silver leopards and a pile of copper cats by them. The captain put his hand over the pile. ‘Must be mine then,’ he said, ‘I’m the only man in the company who makes this kind of money every day.’

Bent swallowed but his eyes narrowed in anger.

The captain lifted his hand, leaving the pile untouched. He locked eyes with the archer and smiled. ‘You get me, Bent?’

The archer all but sighed with relief. ‘Aye, Captain.’

The captain nodded. ‘Good night, Bent,’ he said, and touched the man’s shoulder, to say, And over is over, unless you dick up. He’d learned from experts, and he wanted to believe he was doing the captain thing well.

He walked out onto the wall, and there it was again – not the fear, but the feeling he was being watched. Scrutinized. He was ready for it this time, and he reached into the round room, and-

– there was Prudentia.

‘He is looking for you,’ she said. ‘His name is Thorn. A Power of the Wild. Do you remember how to avoid being found?’

He stopped to kiss her hand.

‘How do you know it is this Thorn?’ he asked.

‘He has a signature, and he has cast many times tonight, gathering allies. If you would pay attention to the Aethereal, instead of dabbling-’

He smiled. ‘I’m not interested. Too much like hard work.’

The door was open a crack. He often left it that way to give himself fast access to power, and tonight he could feel that searching presence through the crack in the door – more powerfully, if anything, than he had felt it on the wall.

Of course.

He continued past Prudentia and pushed the door firmly shut. The heavy iron latch fell into place with a comforting click.

North-west of Lissen Carak – Thorn