Gene Wolfe - The Knight

There was Disira, too. I had never been in love with her. I loved Queen Disiri, always, and nobody else; and if you do not understand that, you will never understand all the things I am going to tell you at all, because that was always the main thing. Just about everything else changed as time went on. I made new friends and lost old ones. Sir Garvaon taught me how to use a sword, and Garsecg showed me how I could be stronger and quicker than I had ever known—quiet sometimes, or so fierce and wild that brave men who saw me ran. But that never changed. I loved Disiri and nobody else but Disiri, and there was never a minute in the whole time when I would not have died for her.

There was one other thing, and I am going to talk about it, too. I knew I was just a kid inside. Toug always did think that I was a man, even when I told him I was not. His father thought I was a man, too (and so did Ulfa), younger than he was, but a man, and I was a lot bigger. I knew it was not true, it was just something Disiri had done, and I was really a kid. There were a lot of times when I wanted to cry. That time when I was coming up on those outlaws and looking for men hiding behind rocks or up in the trees like Aelf with every step I took, that was one of them. There was another one when I really did cry, and I’ll tell you about it in a minute. When you are a kid and you are in a tight place like I was you cannot ever admit it, because if you ever once admit it everything is going to come loose.

So I did not. I just kept going toward the big cave, one slow step at a time, and thinking, well, if they kill me they kill me and it will all be over.

But the main thing was still Disiri. That is how it has always been with me, all through going to Jotunland and the River Battle and everything that happened. I loved her and I wanted her so bad it tore me up.

If you do not understand about Disiri, it will not matter what you understand, because you will not understand a thing. The outlaws were between me and her, and anything that came between us was going to get shoved out of the way and stamped into the mud, and that was the way it always was, the whole time.

I had told Gylf to keep way behind me, and I had told old man Toug to stay back, too; but neither of them were very good at it. The first thing I knew old man Toug was right beside me (and scaring me so much I just about put an arrow through him) trying to whisper something. And when I turned around to see what it was, Gylf sneaked past me, not making hardly any noise but going fast.

“See the black rock?” Old man Toug pointed with his spear. “When we get there, they’ll see us if they’re there, and we’ll see them.”

I pointed behind us. “You see that round rock off to one side?”

He nodded.

“You go back there and wait, or I’ll take away your spear and stick it up your nose. Get going!”

He did, and I stood there and watched until he was all the way to it.

About then Gylf came back. He did not say anything, but I knew from the way he looked and the way he had come back so fast, that the outlaws were right up ahead. I made him get behind me, but he would not go back to the round rock. As soon as I started going forward again, he was right behind me.

Pretty soon something happened that I had not figured on at all. One of them stood up on a big rock maybe fifty paces ahead and asked who I was and did I want peace or a fight. I pulled the arrow back to my ear and let it go so fast he had no time to duck down. It got him in the chest and went right through, and he fell off his big rock.

I still had not seen the rest of them, but they had seen him, and I heard them yell. I ran to the black rock because it looked like I could climb it, and went right up it like a squirrel, scared half to death the whole time and thinking I was going to get an arrow in my back. When I got up on top I lay down flat, sort of hugging the rock.

They came around it, and it was not six or seven like we had been talking about, it was more like twenty. They saw old man Toug standing back there where I had told him to wait, and they went for him, shouting and waving spears and swords. He dropped his spear and ran like two hares, and I got up fast, shot the last one, and got two in front of him, all in a lot less time than it takes me to write the words. The last had a bow and a quiver, and when I saw the quiver I jumped.

It was a long jump. When I think back, I am surprised I did not break a leg, but I did not—just landed with my feet together and fell down. I got his arrows and put them in my own quiver with the ones that did not have heads, and I pulled my arrow out of the dirt and rocks and put the nock to the string. That arrow had blood on it, and the feathers did not look as nice as I would have liked, but the point had not bent and I knew it would still work.

I took back my other arrows, too. One of the men was still alive, but I did not kill him. I could see he was going to die anyway and pretty quickly, and I left him where he lay. The first had not been Seaxneat, and neither of these were, either.

After that I followed the ones chasing old man Toug. I could still hear them yelling, so it was not hard. Pretty soon I found a man almost as big as I was with his head torn off. It was dead, but the fear was still on his face. He had been so scared when he died that I felt sorry for him, although I would have killed him myself.

Maybe I ought to talk about that. Where you are, people kill people all the time just like they do here. Then they talk like it was the worst thing in the world. Here it is murder that is bad, and fighting is just fighting. Our way, people do not feel bad about doing what they had to do; Sir Woddet killed so many Osterlings once that it made him sick for a long time, but killing Osterlings never did bother me. How can you feel bad about killing somebody who would cook and eat you? Killing outlaws never bothered me either.

When Gylf and I found old man Toug, they had hung him upside-down and were throwing their knives at him. I told Gylf to get around on the other side where he could get them if they ran. When he did, I started shooting. They rushed me, and I ran back almost to where the round rock was, and got up on another rock. I stood up straight then and waited for them to catch up, feeling Parka’s string with my fingers. It seemed like it was no thicker than a thread—so thin it almost cut me; but it whispered beneath my fingers with a thousand tongues, and I knew that no matter what happened it would never break.

An outlaw came out of the woods that had a bow too. I let him shoot, and his arrow hit the rock right where I was standing. A couple more outlaws had come out of the trees by that time. I held my bow over my head and shouted, “I am Sir Able of the High Heart!” (Because that was what Parka had said.) “Give up! Swear you’ll be loyal, and I promise not to hurt you!”

The one with the bow had another arrow out, but so did I. I shot him as he was pulling back the bowstring, and my arrow cut his string, went through him, and split a sapling behind him, and it scared the others halfway to Muspel. I was proud of that shot, and I still am. I have made others just about as good as that since, but I have never made a better one.

“Don’t have to stay with me,” old man Toug whispered when I had cut him down and freed his hands and feet.

I told him I was going to anyway, and I cut up the shirt his daughter had made for me for bandages.

“They kill the dog?”

“No,” I said. “Didn’t you see him?”

He tried to smile. “Guess I wasn’t lookin’. Somethin’ troublin’ you?”

“My dog.”

“‘Fraid he won’t come back?”

I was afraid he would, but I built a fire for us there. I could have carried old man Toug back to Glennidam, but it was getting dark and I would have had to put him down fast if we had been jumped. It seemed to me that if he could rest overnight, he might be able to walk in the morning. That would be a big help.