Gregory Keyes - The Charnel Prince

He cocked back to cleave the man’s naked head off, and suddenly realized he’d forgotten the horse. He dropped and rolled as hooves pawed the air and stamped where he’d just been standing. He backed away from the raging beast and that gave the knight time to regain his feet. He opened his mouth, and Neil suddenly understood that he was about to call for help.

So he did the only thing he could—he threw the sword. It tumbled and struck the man across the chest and face. His shout came out as a yelp, and blood spurted from a crushed nose. Neil charged, ducking under the man’s wild head cut, and punched him in the throat, feeling cartilage crunch. The knight flopped to earth like a scarecrow cut from its pole.

Unwilling to take any chances, Neil picked up the man’s sword and decapitated him. It took two chops.

He turned, panting, to find Austra still whimpering, curled up on the ground.

“Austra? Are you all right?” he asked.

“Stay back,” she gasped. “You’re one of them. You must be.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I saw you die!” she wailed.

“Oh,” he said, suddenly understanding. “No, Austra. The cut wasn’t that bad, and a lady had her men fish me from the water. I almost died, yes, but I’m not a nauschalk.”

“I don’t know that name,” she replied. “But Cazio cut one’s head off, and it was still moving.” She was looking up at him now, her eyes flooded with tears.

Neil glanced back at the man he had just decapitated. He didn’t seem to be moving. “Well, I’m not like that,” he said. “Cut my head off, and I’m dead, I promise you.” He knelt and took her by the shoulders. “Austra,” he said, gently, “I fought them, remember? So you could board the ship. Why would I do that if I were one of them?”

“I—suppose you’re right,” she said. “But the shock, too many shocks, you know. Too much of this. Too much.”

He felt pity for the girl, but he didn’t have time to indulge it. “Austra,” he asked, gently but firmly, “where is Anne?”

“I don’t know,” Austra replied despondently. “She’s supposed to be with Artore and his sons, and they were supposed to be going to Eslen, but then I saw them bring Artore into the camp, and I thought one of the monks must have heard me, though I was a hundred yards away—”

“Austra, are there more of these fellows in the woods?”

She nodded her head.

“Okay, then—quietly, let’s go somewhere safer, and then you’ll tell me everything, yes? Sort it out in your head while we ride.”

“We have to save Cazio,” she mumbled.

“Right. We’ll save everybody, but first I have to know what’s going on, and I don’t think it’s wise we talk here. Come on.”

In a knightly contest, Neil could rightly claim the victor’s arms, armor, and horse as the spoils of victory. And though this battle had been fought on less-than-knightly terms, he reckoned the same still applied.

The fellow’s sword was a pretty nice one, made of good steel and with a better balance and edge than the one he’d purchased in Paldh. In a melancholy mood, he named the new weapon Cuenslec , “Dead Man’s Sword,” and hoped it did not prove to be a prophecy that would continue to fulfill itself.

The byrnie of chain mail fit him, if a bit loosely, as did the breastplate and gauntlets. The greaves were too long, however. The helm was tied to the horse, along with two spears, but the beast was unapproachable.

In fact, the horse was something of a problem. It would probably return to camp, alerting the dead man’s companions to his fate. Of course, they would know eventually, when he failed to return, but later was better than sooner. Still, he didn’t feel like killing the poor beast. Instead he took the rope he tethered Prospect with at night, made a lasso, and after a few tries captured him. Then he tied the other end of the rope to a tree.

Thus equipped, he and Austra returned to Prospect and rode back out of the forest, over a little hill and beyond sight of both the forest and the road, which felt safer than hiding in the woods. There he listened as Austra told her story and described the scene at the seid .

“You shouldn’t have left Anne,” he told her.

“I don’t see how you can say that, after she betrayed you,” Austra snapped. Then, looking chagrined, she went on, “Besides, she was safe, or I thought she was. Cazio and z’Acatto weren’t.”

“Yes, but how did you reckon to take on those knights by yourself?”

“I thought I might sneak in and cut their bonds,” she replied, “but so far I haven’t been able to get close enough.”

“And you haven’t seen Anne at all.”

“No,” Austra said.

“Do you think they’ve killed her?”

“I don’t know,” Austra said miserably. “They’ve got Artore and his sons. They must have killed one of them, because they brought an extra horse. But I counted, and there wasn’t a horse for Anne.”

“So you believe she got away?”

“I hope so,” Austra said. “This is all my fault. She would never have come here except for me.”

“There’s no point in worrying over that,” Neil soothed. “Concentrate on what you can do, not what you could have done.” He was surprised to hear himself say the words, and even more surprised to realize that he actually meant them—not just for Austra, but for himself.

Yes, he had failed, several times now. He would probably fail again, but the thing a man did—the thing his father would have told him to do—was to keep trying.

“If Anne’s alive,” he reasoned, “she’s on the other side of the forest. We can’t go through on the road, or they’ll ambush us the way they did your friends. But we have to go through—we have to find out if she’s still alive.”

“But Cazio—”

“There are at least two knights left, one of them a nauschalk. How many priests and men-at-arms? How many would I have to fight altogether?”

“Some of them come and go,” she said. “But I think maybe five monks and fifteen fighting men.”

“That’s too many,” Neil said. “They’ll kill me, and kill you, and then kill your Cazio and z’Acatto, and we won’t have served the queen—or Anne—very well. Our duty is to them first, do you understand?”

Austra bowed her head. “Yes,” she agreed.

“And you won’t try and run off again?”

“No.”

“Good. Then let’s get going, while we still have the light.”

Austra just nodded again, but continued to stare at the ground. Neil lifted her chin with his finger. “I swear by the saints my people swear by, once we know one way or the other about Anne, I’ll do what I can for your friends.”

“Thank you,” she said.

“Right. Let’s go then.”

He took them into the forest off the road and swung wide around it, keeping his bearings by the sun. To his relief, it was less than a bell before he saw light through the trees. The forest, it seemed, was great in length but narrow in breadth. By that time the sun was setting, but in the dim light he made out a castle—and farther away, a village.

“Do you know that place?” he asked.

She shook her head.

“Well,” he said. “Let’s ask in the village.”

Neil took them warily along the road, though it was all but deserted. They only had two encounters; the first was where the road split into branches headed toward the village and castle respectively. The only light was a crescent moon, but they heard the rumble of a carriage coming from the castle. Neil could only make out a shadow, but reckoned it was still a few hundred yards away. He twitched Prospect onto the town road, and the noise of the carriage soon faded behind them.