The Forever Knight

21

Crezil.

The word kept going through my mind.

All that morning and into the afternoon we rode south for Isowon. Cricket spent her time talking about frivolous things, trying to draw me out of my sour mood, and avoiding any discussion of what we found in the cave. She bounced along behind me, commenting about the trees and how lovely the day was for riding, and how pleased Marilius would be to see us again, but she never once mentioned the monster or her ability to read the writings in Atarkin’s tomb. I never mentioned it either. I was sick of her memory lapse, sick of her not even trying to remember.

And I was suspicious. For the first time, I feared all her lost memories were nothing but a lie. Yet I knew there was nothing to be done for it. We had our hands full with Diriel’s army and the promise I’d made him to deliver up the monster, and now that I knew the creature’s name, I pondered ways to beat it.

Crezil.

To know it’s name almost put a face on it. I imagined Gahoreth, the hell it called home. In Liiria we had no hell. We had only the Fate, and I didn’t believe in it. Minikin and the Inhumans had cured me of that fairy tale, showing me a world beyond our own, beyond death even, and when she died Malator had taken up my tutoring. But still, it all befuddled me. Every new bit of knowledge called into question the bits I’d learned before.

I pulled my water skin from Zephyr’s side, opened it with my teeth and took a drink. Behind me Cricket started talking to herself, realizing at last that I wasn’t listening. The bruise on her head had turned a dullish blue, and whatever her fall had knocked loose in her skull was still rattling around in there. She might have been on the brink of a breakthrough or an utter collapse; I could no longer tell the difference. All I wanted was to get to Isowon.

We rode on past noon, past the time when Fallon took his midday meal naked by the pool. I looked up at the sun and thought about the last time I’d seen him, balled up like a baby and sniffing that awful smelling spice. For a moment I regretted returning, until I thought of Isowon. Glorious Isowon was a company town; Fallon built it and owned every stick of it, but its people were innocent. I couldn’t abide their slaughter.

“Cricket?”

She snapped out of her daze. “Yeah?”

“My father smoked a pipe.”

“Huh?”

“My father. You’re always asking about my past. He smoked a pipe made of black bronze. Heavy goddamn thing.”

She rode up beside me with a wondering smile. “Oh, yeah?”

“These are the kind of things you remember. Sometimes I can’t even picture his face. I try and try, but I can’t. I have to sneak up on the memory. But that pipe. . that’s what I remember. Him lighting it, puffing on it. That smell, like old leather. He used to blow the smoke into my eyes.”

“Why’d he do that?”

“Because he was a bastard. Some people are born bastards. And their children become bastards. They can’t help it. It’s just what happens.” I looked at her and felt like crying. “You get me?”

Cricket took my words to heart, thinking on them. She said, “People can change. That’s what I believe.”

“That’s what young people believe. That’s what gives them hope.” I looked ahead of us, desperate to see Isowon. “It’s changing other people that’s hard.”

* * *

An hour later we were finally in Isowon, riding through the city’s tree-lined streets. I’d expected to be greeted by soldiers and to see the citizens and merchants out in the sunshine, but instead the streets were deserted. I peered into the homes and saw boarded-up windows and chains on the doors, as if the townsfolk already knew Diriel’s army was coming. Except for the distant churn of the ocean and the stray notes of songbirds, all was a hush. Cricket rode out ahead of me, swiveling her head around at all the locked shops and houses. Fountains still spouted along the avenues, but no children gathered to watch them. Cricket reached into a tree and plucked off a fruit. Never having seen the fruit before, I warned her not to eat it.

“Not gonna,” she said, then tossed it hard at the nearest home, squarely hitting the door. A rustle came from inside the house, then a shadow at the window. Someone peered out from a slit in the boards.

“Hey,” shouted Cricket, “where is everyone? Why you all hiding?”

There was a long, unmoving silence. Then, “Get off the street,” warned a voice. “Get to the palace if you’re soldiers.”

“Why?” I called back. I trotted to the edge of the road. “What happened?”

“Are you stupid? The monster! Now go! I don’t want to talk!”

The shadow left the window. I glanced around the street, but saw no sign of the monster, or even an attack. I could feel eyes watching us from the buildings, but no one echoed the man’s warning. I wheeled Zephyr about.

“The palace.”

Cricket was already ahead of me, racing her pony over the cobblestones. I tucked in after her, studying the towers Fallon had built around his home. As we drew nearer I noticed them crowded with soldiers. A contingent milled inside the gate, coming to life as they heard us. They signaled our approach, but not a single bowman tilted toward us. I heard my name above the din, then a cry to let us enter. The shocked faces of the soldiers greeted us as we stopped to let the giant gates swing wide.

“Lukien!” cried a man who took my horse. Another grabbed my hand. Cricket jostled her pony through the swarm. Not only soldiers crammed the palace but townsfolk and their children, too.

“What’s happening?” I asked. I looked around for a friendly face, but they were all strangers to me. “Where’s Marilius?”

A one-handed man with a dented helmet pushed toward me through the crowd. “You’re back too late! It’s done and over!”

“What is?”

“You had hours! You come now?”

I dismounted, jumping down in front of him. “Was it the monster?”

“Yes! Your monster, Liirian. The one you were supposed to kill!”

“Mine?” I pushed the man so hard he tumbled. “Where’s Marilius? Someone bloody tell me!”

The noise stopped, and all their ghastly faces stared at me. Cricket got down from her pony to stand beside me.

“What’s wrong with you all?” I shouted. “You’re all struck stupid suddenly?”

“Lukien.”

A man came toward us from the edge of the yard. It took a moment for me to realize it was Marilius. He was almost staggering, favoring a bandaged leg and supporting himself with a homemade cane. Blood spattered his arms and cape, even his face. The breath he took rattled from his lungs. Cricket raced to help him.

“Marilius!” She wrapped herself around his arm. “What happened?”

“Last night,” said Marilius. He could barely catch his breath. “In the hall.”

“Fallon?” I asked.

“Alive.”

I couldn’t tell if he was relieved or disgusted. He let Cricket help him back toward the palace entrance, wincing with every step. “It was almost dawn by the time it came. Half of us were asleep. The gate, the towers. . bloody useless. No one even saw it until it was near the hall.”

“What’d it look like, Marilius?”

Marilius shook his head. “I can’t even describe it. Like a sack of old skins. Animals, people. . it wasn’t bones this time. Just skins, like it was wearing them.”

“Mother-whore. But it didn’t reach Fallon?”

“A damn miracle,” said Marilius. “The men tossed themselves at it. We couldn’t get out of the hall. We were trapped. You need to see for yourself.”

We walked into the palace, past all the shocked soldiers and shopkeepers and confused little kids, deep into the wing where I’d last seen Fallon. Another group of soldiers stood guard just outside the great hall. Marilius waved them away. The noise of the crowds dropped off behind us as we rounded the corner and the hall echoed before us. Sunlight gushed in from the towering windows, touching the golden pillars and alabaster tiles and human wreckage.

Cricket gasped.

“Oh, Fate. .” I stepped around to block her way. “Marilius, take her out of here.”

Cricket pushed me off. “No!”

“I don’t want you here,” I said, but it was too late anyway. She’d already seen it.

The hall looked like a battlefield, the kind I’d seen a hundred times. Dozens of corpses spread out along the floor, some with horror-stricken faces, others with their heads caved in. Men with sliced bellies and missing limbs lay atop each other, oozing stomach juices across the polished tiles. Blood trickled down the walls and dripped from the ceiling. A pair of arms hung from a chandelier, the dead fingers still clutching the wrought iron. A shattered fountain in the center of the hall spread water and dead goldfish over the tiles. Every gentle statue had been toppled. Down at my feet an eyeball sloshed. I kicked it aside before Cricket could see it.

It was an image of hell, worse than the painting of Gahoreth. Next to me, Marilius made a whimpering noise. Amazingly, Cricket found the guts to put her arm around him. She didn’t even look away.

Guts, I thought proudly.

“They didn’t break,” said Marilius. “They stayed. All the way until the sun came up.”

“What happened to it, Marilius?” I asked. I’d hoped to see the monster laying dead among the mercenaries. “Did you wound it at least? How’d you drive it off?”

Marilius pointed to the giant windows. “The sun drove it off, not us. Once the light came it ran.”

“Ran? Where?”

“How should I know? We didn’t go after it! Fuck, Lukien, look around! It’s unstoppable!”

“But it stopped,” I mused. I looked back down the hall. No one had tried to keep it from escaping. I turned to see the other end of the hall where Fallon’s private chamber waited. The door was open, but I was sure it had been locked up tight last night. “So you were trapped in here, guarding him. Is he in there?”

“He won’t come out,” said Marilius. “I can’t even get him to talk to me.”

“He has to talk,” I said. “Now.”

I trekked straight through the hall, over the pools of blood and stinking entrails, heading for Fallon. Marilius called at me to stop.

“Forget it,” I snapped. “He’s got more troubles then he knows.”

I reached the chamber and peered inside. The room was just the same as I’d left it days ago. Only now Fallon looked worse. He’d obviously sniffed up all his purple spice, because only the residue of it stained the table. Fallon had his head down and his arms spread out across the tabletop. I thought he was asleep until he turned his bloodshot eyes to face me. He’d been weeping. Trails of dried tears streaked his dirty face. I pictured him cowering in his sanctuary while his men were ripped to shreds just beyond the door. Surprisingly, I pitied him.

“You came back,” he whispered. He smiled without a trace of joy. “What does it want, Lukien? Why won’t it leave me alone?”

“I’m not sure yet,” I said.

“Did you go to Diriel?”

I nodded. “Yeah.”

“I was right about him, wasn’t I?”

“You were right,” I admitted. “All of Akyre’s an asylum.” Cricket and Marilius finally came up behind me in the threshold. I stepped into Fallon’s sanctuary. “He’s coming after you, Anton,” I said. “He’s got an army. The Legion of the Lost. He gave us seven days to make ready. That was three days ago.”

Fallon didn’t bother lifting his cheek off the dirty table. “I don’t have his money.”

“He knows that,” I said. “It’s not the money he wants. It’s you. And he wants the monster. He thinks I can get it for him. I told him I would, to buy some time. You need to get ready, get your men ready.”

Marilius asked, “Lukien, are you bloody blind? We can’t fight an army!”

“You are an army!” I shouted back. “You’re soldiers. It’s time to fight-men this time, not monsters.”

“Men that are monsters, you mean,” said Marilius. “You saw them yourself. They’re not human anymore.”

“They can be killed, and we’re going to kill them,” I argued. “So they have no souls, so what? They have bodies and bodies can die.”

“It’s hopeless,” groaned Fallon. “We can’t fight them. We don’t have enough men.”

I went and stooped down to face him. “Anton, listen to me. Diriel doesn’t have a regular army, not the way a country does. They’re a mismatched group of soldiers and sheep herders, and not all of them have used the mummia. His country’s a wasteland. He can’t even feed an army. They get one shot at this. We drive them back, and they’re finished.”

Fallon managed to lift himself up. “A hundred men are dead out there,” he said as he pointed to the hall. “Can’t you smell that? That blood? Maybe more than a hundred. I can’t even tell because they’re in pieces!”

“Find more men, then. Buy them, bribe them-do whatever you have to but get them here. Get them here now.”

“How can I pay for them? I told you, Lukien-I’m finished! I can’t even pay back Diriel.”

“No one’s going to come here now anyway, no matter how much he pays them,” said Marilius. “Not after what happened. Even the men we have won’t stay. Many have left and others are talking about it.”

“What about Drin?” asked Cricket.

We all blinked at her innocent question. “Drin?” I asked.

“They’re fighting Diriel too, right? That’s what I keep hearing. Maybe they can help.”

“But I can’t pay them!” roared Fallon.

“No, no, she’s right,” I said. “What about that, Marilius? The Drin are fighting, right? What if they came here to join us? This is their last chance-if Isowon falls they’re finished. They must know that.”

Marilius thought about it. “I don’t know,” he shrugged. “Maybe.”

“How many men do they have? Are they a big army?”

“No, they can’t be,” said Marilius. “Some of the other mercenaries come from Drin, but it’s a small country. There’s been some fighting, I know that. But Diriel was after Kasse.”

“Yes, Kasse first,” I said. “But Diriel’s not going to stop. The Drin are on his supper plate, too. If we can bring them here, get them to listen-”

“Hey,” barked Fallon, banging on the table. “Are you forgetting something? The monster? I told you, we can’t fight with that thing on top of us!”

“He’s right,” said Marilius. “How can we build a defense? We can’t even leave the palace.”

“Marilius, bring the men into the hall,” I said. “As many as you can. I want to talk to them.”

“Why?”

“Because they need to hear me. Go. Get them into the hall. I want them to take a good look at what happened to their friends.”

Marilius shook his head as he shuffled out of the chamber. Fallon looked confused.

“Anton, stand up,” I said.

“Are you going to hit me?”

I grabbed his arm and pulled him to his feet. “You’re filthy,” I said, smoothing down his shirt. “Wipe your face. You look like you’ve had your head in a bucket of mud. Cricket, can you do something with his hair?”

“Huh?”

“Use your fingers or something. Try to make him look presentable.”

“What is this?” Fallon complained.

“Your men aren’t going to follow you unless they believe in you. They may be mercenaries but they’re soldiers too, and soldiers won’t respect a man who doesn’t respect himself. I’m going to talk to them, but you’re the one they’re going to see.”

Cricket went to work, reaching up and combing his tangled hair with her fingers. “What are you going to say, Lukien?”

“You’ll see. Bring him into the hall when he’s ready.”

I left them behind in the shabby little room, stepping back out into the desecrated hall. Marilius rounded the corner with a couple dozen men behind him and more on the way. I climbed onto the remains of the broken fountain so everyone could see. The mercenaries muttered and pointed, still shocked by the horrors in the hall. Some bent to touch their fallen friends. I saw Cricket and Fallon appear and waved them closer. Fallon looked about to faint. Marilius stepped forward, leaning painfully on his cane. I heard the hope in his voice. “We’re listening, Lukien.”

“Then listen well,” I said loudly. “And look around. Look at your dead companions! Because this whole town is going to wind up like this if you turn tail and run. There’s an army coming. In a few days it’ll be here. You all know what I’m talking about. Diriel’s legion isn’t a myth. I’ve seen it. You think you’ve seen death? You’re all hard men? You think you’ve seen rape? You haven’t seen shit. All of Isowon is going to look like this hall-unless we stop them.”

“How?” cried one of the men. He pushed past Marilius, almost knocking him over. “You got one good eye-you look around! Why should we end up slaughtered? Not me! I’m going.”

He snorted as he spun on his heels. A few of his comrades did the same.

“You leave, and I’ll kill you,” I said.

The man stopped dead. “Eh?”

“You think I’m joking?” I pulled out the Sword of Angels and jumped down from the fountain. “Any man who walks out of this hall before I have my say gets a blade though his belly. You want to cut and run after I’m through with you, go ahead. But know this: Diriel’s not going to stop. After Isowon it’ll be Drin. And after Drin he’ll be on the march to your towns. I saw it in his eyes. Now, I know none of you are cowards. If you were, you would have left already. We’ve got a chance to stop Diriel right here, right now. This is the only chance-there won’t be another.”

“Lukien, what about the monster?” asked Marilius. “We can’t kill it.”

“That’s right you can’t,” I said. “You can’t kill it, because I’m going to kill it.”

“What?” Cricket blurted. “You’re not!”

I tried to ignore her. “Marilius, take some men and ride for Drin. Tell them this is where to make their stand. Tell them to get here as fast as possible. There’ll be food and water waiting for them when they get here. We need everyone, not just a token. You ride and tell them that.”

Cricket clawed my shirt. “Damn you, Lukien, no! If you go after that thing it’ll kill you! For sure this time!”

“What if they won’t listen?” asked Marilius.

“How am I going to pay for this?” shrieked Fallon.

“Beg them, threaten them, anything you have to do,” I told Marilius. “Just get them here, all right? You have to, Marilius. The rest of you,” I climbed back onto the broken fountain, “listen to me-you’ll be safe from the monster. It’s not coming back. I’ll see to that.”

“Why should we stay?” asked another man. He was a big fellow, a Norvan from the cut of his cape, the skin on his face carved up from battle. “What are you going to pay us with?”

“You’ll be paid,” I promised. “You’ll get paid double for staying and seeing this through.”

“What?” Fallon screeched. “How can I afford that? I told you, I’m broke!”

“You want your trade routes open again?” I asked. “Then you’ll pay these men double for saving you. Otherwise you won’t just be out of business, Fallon, you’ll be dead.”

“Lukien. .” Cricket’s brooding face caught me through all the noise. She couldn’t finish speaking. Around us the room erupted in arguments. Fallon was still screaming at me. Cricket shook her head and turned away.

“Cricket, wait.”

“I’m not listening,” she said. “You’ve been lying to me all this time. You promised to take me to Sky Falls. You promised to help me.”

“I will, Cricket, I will!” I grabbed her arm to keep her from leaving the hall. “But I can’t do anything yet. Not until I beat this monster. Who else can do it? Only I can kill it. I have to!”

“Why?”

“Because it will kill you if I don’t!”

“It won’t!” she railed. “You’ll protect me! Just stay here with me, please!”

“Cricket, no!” Though I knew I would bungle it, I tried to explain. “I saw Crezil when we were still in Jador. Malator drew a picture of it in the sand. And when my neck was broken I saw it again. Malator told me not to bring you here. He warned me! I have to kill this thing before it can hurt you, Cricket. I have to go. Now!”

My artless explanation stunned her. A face as young as hers should never show so much contempt. “This whole time?” She shook her head, disgusted. “Go, then. Go and get yourself killed. I’m not gonna help you anymore. I’m not gonna be your squire.”

She stormed away before I could catch her, weaving through the mercenaries and the dead until all I saw was her rass skin cape disappearing in the crowd. Marilius almost went after her, but I stopped him.

“Let her go,” I told him. “There’s no time. Marilius, you need to leave for Drin.”

Marilius nodded. “I’ll go, but I’m not sure they’ll listen.”

“Make them listen,” I urged. “Bring them here no matter what.”

“What about Cricket?” he asked.

I looked into the crowd. Cricket was already long gone.

“There’s nowhere for her to go,” I said. “She just needs to cool off.”

I was sure I was right-Cricket just needed time. That’s what I convinced myself to believe.