Morgan Rice - A Joust of Knights

Gwen stared at him, shocked.

“Your son ?” she asked.

The King nodded back, his eyes moist.

“I am ashamed to admit,” he replied. “My son is all but lost to me. But perhaps he shall listen to you, an outsider. I implore. It is a father’s wish. And it is for the sake of the Ridge.”

As overwhelmed as she was, feeling as if she had just been thrust into the middle of a political and family drama, Gwen still felt infused with a sense of mission.

“I will do whatever I can to help you,” she said, meaning it.

A look of relief crossed his face.

“Is that all you wish from me?” she asked. “It seems a simple task.”

He shook his head.

“If the prophecies speak truly,” he said, his voice grave, “then we will fail. The Ridge will fail. All that you see here before you will be destroyed.”

She felt a chill at his words, and felt them to be true as he uttered them.

“The destruction is coming sooner than we may think. And then, I will need you most. When I die, my people will be a shepherd without a flock. Of course, my sons will inherit and they will rule well. But the prophecies speak of even them dying. And if they do not survive, if we are ruler-less, I will need you to lead my people away from here. To safety.”

Gwen shook her head slowly, sadly.

“You speak of tragic prophecies,” she said. “Prophecies which I pray shall never come to pass.”

“Vow to me,” he said, grasping her wrist, his eyes aglow with intensity. “Vow to me that you will save my people.”

She stared back for a long time, listening to the howling of the desert winds, then finally, she knew she could not refuse the pleadings of a desperate, dying father.

She nodded back, and as she did, she felt with certainty that her life was about to change dramatically.

Kendrick galloped out in front of his half-dozen Silver, Brandt and Atme beside him, while beside them charged the knights of the Ridge, led by Koldo, all riding together, as they had been all day, deeper and deeper into the limitless waste. Kendrick looked down as they went, watching the trail that he and Gwendolyn and the others had left, amazed it stretched as far as it did. He had never imagined that they had actually trekked that far; he did not see how it was physically possible beneath these suns. The thought of it was staggering. Even on horseback, charging at full speed, it was taking nearly the entire day. It made him realize what the human body and mind could do when pressed to their limits.

Each time Kendrick glanced down and expected the trail to finally end, it kept going. He was beginning to feel a deepening sense of foreboding in his stomach; being back out here was bringing back bad memories, still fresh, ones he did not wish to relive. He just wanted this trail to end already, to turn back with the sweepers and begin heading back to the Ridge.

Kendrick did not like the way things were going: he trusted some of these Ridge men, and respected the King’s sons, but others he was uncertain of—and some he outright loathed, such as Naten. He wondered if they would have his back if it came down to it. There was nothing worse than heading into battle unsure of the loyalty of the men at your side.

“Up ahead!” shouted a voice.

Kendrick peered down, wiping sweat from his brow, and still saw the trail, and was unsure what the others were speaking of. But then he saw the other men looking not down but up, and as he did, he saw it: there, on the horizon, stood a twisted black tree, its branches so thick with thorns that one could not see through them. As he saw it he had a flashback: he recalled him and Gwendolyn and the others all collapsing beneath that tree, beneath its flimsy shade, resting there for he did not know how long, until somehow they finally managed the strength to go on again. He recalled a brutal sandstorm had swept through while they were lying there, and their spending the night riding it out. He remembered waking the next morning, looking behind him, and being amazed to see that the sandstorm had erased their entire trail behind them, as if they had never existed.

They had all woken too tired to go on, and yet somehow, they did. He knew that if they had not gotten up from beneath it, all of them would have died there.

The horses now slowed, coming to a stop beneath the tree, and they all dismounted, breathing hard, covered in dust, giving their horses drink. It felt good to stand and stretch his legs, and he leaned back and drank long and hard from his sack, the water now warm, but refreshing nonetheless.

Kendrick stood there beside Brandt and Atme and looked up the tree, its branches made of long thorns, all twisted from too many desert storms. Kendrick looked out, past the tree, at the smooth sands of the desert beyond and saw that they were pristine. Untraceable.

Their trail ended here.

Koldo came up beside Kendrick and motioned to him at the sands beyond, examining them.

“It appears your trail ends here,” he said to Kendrick, puzzled.

Kendrick nodded.

“A storm swept through here,” he replied.

“You are lucky to have lived,” Ludvig chimed in.

Koldo nodded, satisfied.

“Very good,” he said. “Then this is where we shall begin our sweep—from here back to the Ridge.”

“And what if he is wrong?” came a voice.

Kendrick turned to see Naten staring back at him angrily.

“What if their trail picks up again, out there somewhere?” Naten added.

Koldo frowned.

“Of course the trail picks up somewhere,” Koldo replied, curt. “But what matters is that it does not lead all the way to this spot. There is a break in it, and that is what matters. From this spot, as far as I can see, there is nothing. Do you see something I do not?”

Naten frowned, turned, and walked away, clearly unable to respond.

“Prepare your sweepers!” Koldo commanded firmly, then turned and headed back to his horse.

His men broke into action, each extracting from their saddles long sweepers, poles with a smooth, rake-like attachment at one end, wide and flat, and attached them to the back of their horses. They were flexible, sweeping in different directions, so as not to give a uniform look to any sweeping they did, and completely erasing any possible trail. Kendrick admired them: they were clearly ingenious devices.

“We still have time to return to the Ridge before dark falls,” Koldo said, turning and looking back with hope toward the Ridge.

“There better be,” Naten said, coming up beside Kendrick. “If we don’t, we’re going to spend a long night out in this desert—and it’s all going to be your fault.”

Kendrick scowled, fed up.

“What is your problem with me?” he demanded.

Naten scowled back, confronting him.

“Our lives were perfect,” he said. “Before you showed up.”

“I haven’t ruined your precious Ridge,” Kendrick snapped.

“It seems like you’ve ruined every place you’ve come from,” Naten countered.

“You lack respect,” Kendrick replied. “And hospitality. Two sacred virtues. As much as I dislike you, I would have welcomed you into my homeland, a stranger. I would have even fought for you.”

Naten scoffed.

“Then we are very different people,” he replied. “I would not fight for you—and if I had my choice, I would never let you into our—”

Suddenly, a shriek cut through the air, interrupting them, raising the hair on the back of Kendrick’s spine.

And then, complete chaos.

Before Kendrick could grasp what was happening, he heard a man cry out in pain, an awful shriek, and out of the corner of his eye, he saw something dark and hairy drop down from the sky and land on his throat.