Miles Cameron - The Dread Wyrm

It crouched, ready to attack, back bent at an unnatural angle, at least to a man, with back-hinged arms and legs.

They both emerged from their palaces together to look at what he had wrought.

“What is that thing?” Ser Gavin asked. “I thought I’d seen-everything.”

Ser Gabriel shrugged. “I suspect that the Wild is much bigger than our notions of everything ,” he said. “What is it? It’s the thing that came for our horses last night. Good shooting, Canny. Next time, kill it.”

He clapped his hands and the sparkling monster vanished and the arrow fell into his hands. He handed it to Wilful Murder. “Put that head on a shaft,” he said. “And keep it to hand.”

“An’ I know why,” Wilful said. He was pleased to have been picked-it showed.

The captain got on his riding horse, the last fires were put out, and the column began to ride. Wilful was one of the last men at the fires, and then he used the goodwife’s breakfast fire to get his resin soft. He didn’t leave the clearing until the sheep herd was moving, and he waved to Tom as he cantered past, leaving a mother and twelve scared-looking children alone with the Wild.

He handed the completed arrow to the captain, and Ser Gabriel took it, said a few terse words in Archaic, and handed it back to Wilful, who put it head up through his belt.

Six miles on, where the old West Road-really just a trail, and scarcely that-branched towards the tiny settlement at Wilmurt and the Great Rock Lake before plunging north into the High Adnacrags and eventually reaching Ticondaga, the scouts found a man, or the ruins of one. He’d been skinned and put on the trail, a stake through his rectum and emerging from his mouth. His arms and legs were gone.

Count Zac frowned. “I’ll have the poor bastard cut down and buried,” he said.

The captain shook his head. “Not until after the column rides past,” he said. “I want them all to see.”

Ser Michael caught his eye. “The hunter?” he asked quietly.

Ser Gabriel sighed. “Hell. I didn’t even think. Oh, the poor woman.”

Ser Michael nodded.

“I’ll go,” Father Arnaud said. He snapped his fingers and Lord Wimarc, who had joined them with word of the council at the Inn of Dorling, brought him his great helm.

The captain thought a moment. “Yes. Take Wilful. Get the body down and decently shrouded. Father, offer to take the family with you. Best take a wagon. Drat. This will cost me the day.”

“It might save your soul,” Father Arnaud said.

Their gazes crossed.

“I have to consider the greater good of the greater number,” the captain said calmly.

“Really?” asked Father Arnaud. “Am I addressing the Red Knight or the Duke of Thrake?”

The two men sat on their horses, eyes locked.

“Michael, can you think of a way I can tell the good father that he’s right and still appear all powerful?” He laughed. “Very well, Father. I am suitably chastened. War horse and helmet. Ser Michael, you have the command. If my memory serves there’s a wagon circle about half a league on, just after crossing good water. Give me one of the empty wagons and I’ll take Zac and half his lads.”

“And me,” Ser Gavin said.

The captain smiled impishly. “Knights errant,” he said. “Mercy mild. Father Arnaud, Gavin, our lances, and Zac.” He put a hand up. “No more!”

Other knights volunteered, and Sauce thought they were a pack of tomfools. So did Bad Tom when he came up.

The “empty” wagons proved to be full to bursting with the loot of southern Thrake, and some very red-faced archers-and men-at-arms-watched their belongings unloaded onto the wet stone road.

The captain was scathing. “A fine thing if they were to hit us right now,” he said. “Ripped to pieces because we had too much loot. Get it put away, gentlemen. Or dump it in the ditch.” He saluted Ser Michael.

Ser Michael did not sound like the nice young man they all knew. He sounded like the son of a great noble.

“Well, gentlemen?” they heard him say. “Time’s passing. I’ll just say a prayer for the captain’s success. And when I’m done, I’ll ask Mag to set fire to anything left on the road. Understand?”

Mag smiled.

Sauce laughed. Ten minutes later, moving again, she looked up at the wise woman. “Would you have burned it?” she asked.

Mag laughed. “With pleasure,” she said.

Sauce swore. “He sounds like the captain,” she said, waving at Ser Michael.

Mag laughed again. “He went to all the best schools,” she said.

The captain took his command lances; Atcourt, Foliak, de Beause and Laternum, as well as the new Occitan knights, Danved Lanval and Bertran Stofal. With Father Arnaud’s lance and Ser Gavin’s and his own, he had a powerful force, and the spring sun glittered on their red and gold as they rode back down the road towards the Hole. Count Zac rode ahead, the red foxtail of his personal standard shining in the sun, and half a dozen of his steppe riders spread through the trees on either side.

The company archers rode on either side of the wagon. They were all veterans, and Cully, the captain’s archer, was the company master archer. He rode a fine steppe horse and his eyes were everywhere. All of the archers had their bows strung and in their hands. Ricard Lantorn, despite being mounted, had an arrow on the string of his war bow.

The pages brought up the rear. In the captain’s household, even the pages had bows and light armour, and they, too, were strung and ready. The captain’s caution had communicated itself fully.

The spring day was pleasant. The sun was high, and the world and the woods seemed at peace. Robins sang in the high branches of the beech wood through which the Royal Road ran. A woodpecker began his endless hammering, searching for early bugs on a tall dead tree. A few early insects droned along the column. The weather was cool enough to make an arming coat and a few pounds of mail and plate seem comfortable. At the clearing, they could see the loom of the Adnacrags in the north-low hills, dark with trees, in the foreground, and farther, the sharper shapes of the high peaks-snow capped, streaked in the dark lines of distant streams.

The captain rode with his senses stretched.

His brother glanced over at him.

“Asleep?” he asked with a smile.

Gabriel shrugged. “Something is troubling me.”

“Beyond that we are riding into an ambush?” Ser Gavin asked.

“That thing-whatever the hell it was,” Gabriel said. “I wish I’d had a corpse. But it’s not from here. ” He struggled for words. “And when I think about the things Master Smythe said-I wonder what that means.”

Gavin gave him a look that suggested that his brother thought that watching the woods for ambush might be more productive.

“I need to-never mind. I’m not going to be very communicative for a few minutes.” Gabriel shrugged his shoulders, moving the weight of his harness off his hips for a moment.

“Should we change horses?” Gavin asked.

Gabriel looked around. “Not yet. I want my charger fresh.”

All around him were excellent knights who had killed very powerful things. He

turned inside himself and went into his palace. Everything was there, and he bowed to Prudentia, who smiled.

“Watch for me, Pru,” he said. “I need to go in there.”

She turned her ivory head and glanced at the door. “On your head be it,” she said. “It should be safe enough.”

Very cautiously, like a man approaching a sleeping tiger, Gabriel walked over to the red door. With a deep breath that had no real meaning in the aethereal , he put his hand on the knob and pushed it open.