Blade of Glass: Chapter 6

The sinner lay in his cage, still out for the count. His lips remained blue despite the swaddling of blankets about him, a bustle of heated rocks within. Geneve didn’t know if he’d live and wasn’t sure if he deserved to.

That’s not for you to decide. The Justiciars will make the call. 

Tristan shifted beneath her, eager to press on despite spending half the night beside a freezing stream in the dark. The horse nickered, raised his front left foot, and tossed his mane.

Geneve concured. Calterburry didn’t agree with her. Not Lord Symonet and his cult, the guard, or the scenery. Even Birdsong Alley hadn’t kept her interest, perhaps because the sinner had lied to her there. He’d picked her to whisper his deceit to, and she wouldn’t forget it.

Gylbard, the short innkeeper, spoke with Israel a distance away. A respectful handful of paces back Vertiline waited, hands clasped before her. The three Knights gathered in the inn’s courtyard, horses saddled and ready. Geneve was the only one mounted.

All wore armor. The burnished surfaces tasted fire in the early morning light. Even Vertiline’s shone, despite her … vigorous evening.

The Chevalier wore a sour look, mouth turned down at the corners, brow pinched. Her hair lay in its customary braid down her back, glass sword at her hip. Her shield was lashed to her horse’s saddlebags. Geneve saw no indication she’d fought last night other than a tiny nick at her hairline.

The people of Calterburry will remember her far longer than she would them. 

Gylbard wore his horrific smile, perhaps unaware of its effect. “Four solars.”

Israel gave a soft cough, leaning closer as if he hadn’t heard correctly. “Did you say four?” He put hands on hips, armor clinking like it was upset. Iz craned to examine the Yellow Mug. The inn stood as it always had. A modest trail of smoke trickled from a chimney, a reminder of the morning’s excellent breakfast. “I could buy a tavern for that.”

Gylbard blinked. “Only if it was already on fire. My inn,” he gestured behind him, “is not aflame. It is missing a front door. Tables, broken. Chairs, reduced to matchwood, or taken by miscreants.” He rubbed his nose. “Miscreants now afoot, because the good lord’s guard are dead or worse.”

“What’s worse than dead?” Vertiline broke her stillness to turn a jaundiced eye on the innkeeper. “Being a guest of your tavern? I’ll remind you of the contract with the Tresward. Safe and secure facilities for holding prisoners. And strong walls, to keep miscreants out.”

“I’ve got this,” Iz said.

“As you say, Valiant.” Tilly’s tone suggested she doubted if Israel had this, or anything at all, really.

“Ah,” Gylbard offered. “To be fair, and Knights are known for their equitable views, our small township isn’t equipped to deal with the Scarlet Shadow.”

Geneve patted Tristan’s neck to calm him. Scarlet Shadow? Here? Is that who stole the sinner away? It made sense. Israel sending her to get the sinner, with him and Vertiline tackling the assassins one on one. Everything is a test, but sometimes tests can be a shield against a greater darkness. 

Israel reached into his belt pouch, retrieving two bars of platinum. “I will offer you two solars.”

Gylbard puffed up like an angry bird. “But—”

“Two solars is more than fair for a door and some tables.” Israel dropped the coins from one hand into the gauntleted palm of the other. They chimed, tink tink. “Would you prefer interdiction?”

The horrific smile arrived back on Gylbard’s lips, like it’d taken a moment for a tryst out the back and was satisfied with affairs. “No, Valiant. Of course not.”

Geneve shifted on her saddle, feeling a twinge from a muscle abused during the sinner’s rescue. Interdiction might be the right approach. Ask the Clerics to root out corruption here, find who was responsible, and burn it to ash with the Light of the Three. But Iz was the senior Knight. It was his call, and in all their time together, she’d never known him to make the wrong one.

Israel gave the coins to Gylbard, who scuttled like a sand crab back inside. The Valiant strode to his black charger, walking like his armor weighed less than gossamer. He paused, hand on pommel. “Something to say?”

“No, Valiant.” Vertiline hadn’t moved.

“I can feel it, Tilly. It seeps from the rocks. It radiates from you like the damn cold in this place.”

Vertiline shifted. “The sinner should be dead.”

Geneve winced, and wished she were somewhere else. Tilly and Iz went back a long, long way. On the road, they were less formal than in a Tresward keep. Friends, sharing the road. Vertiline almost never called Israel Valiant, and she’d just done it twice in as many minutes. His title was reserved for other places policed by Clerics with their robes and musty tomes. “I should … check something. Perhaps out in the main street.” She made to turn Tristan for the courtyard’s exit, bridle clenched in too-tight fingers.

“Hold.” Israel let go of his pommel, walking to Vertiline. They stood two paces apart. Two armored figures, faces impassive, all weakness hidden on the inside. “It’s not your fault.”

“I was on watch.”

“It’s my fault,” Israel continued as if they were discussing the weather. “This sinner is … tricky. A good judge of his fellow man, a better judge of situations, and willing to risk all for a hint of freedom.”

“I left him to—”

“And when we’re with the Justiciars, sinner in their care, I will make a report.” He looked to the sky, watching thin wisps of cloud for a few heartbeats. “They’ll understand who made a bad call.”

Vertiline unclasped her hands. “I wanted—”

“You wanted to take his hope but leave him kindness. A few days of mercy before the end. There is no crime in the eyes of the Three for that, Tilly.” He bowed his head a fraction, as if in acquiescence to something unspoken between them. “There are greater crimes.”

The moment held. Vertiline, her hands empty of a blade but ready for action. Israel, still and quiet, massive and strong. Then Tristan tossed his head, chuffing. Israel looked, then laughed. “Young Tristan has the idea.” He strode for his charger, vaulting to the saddle in a single, fluid motion. 

Vertiline nodded, sparing a single glance for the sinner in his cage. Her face was hard, but her eyes didn’t hold their usual coldness. She put a foot in a stirrup, getting astride her chestnut with the fluidity of a levitating sorcerer. Israel led the way from the Yellow Mug’s courtyard, Vertiline in tow. The oxen, sensing a change in the winds, followed without urging. The cage jostled atop its bed of wood.

Geneve was left alone in the courtyard. It was time to put this town behind them. They had their sinner and putting Calterburry to rights could wait for another group of Knights.

* * *

They made camp on the road. The day’s journey was long. Geneve felt thin and pale like too-stretched taffy, transparent and bright in places, thick and slow in others. Her saddle did nothing to soften the road, especially with twenty kilos of Smithsteel on her back, and she thought wistfully of the Yellow Mug’s beds.

The sinner was awake, lips no longer blue. She rummaged around the cart and by proxy his cage, hunting for tents and supplies. “Do I get one?” His voice was raw, cracked with remembered cold, but held a little more warmth than she thought she deserved.

“One what?” Geneve met his eyes. Blue, set in a pale face. They held fear, and hope, and made her look away.

“Tent. Fire. Food.” His hands found the bars. They were clean, not a callus in sight. A far cry from her own, used to swinging steel to part a person’s soul from their body.

“All of that, yes.” She almost shifted away, then held herself still. “We put a tarp over your cage.”

“My cage, is it?” He leaned back, staring about as if examining a fine room. “I see you’ve spared no expense.”

Geneve snorted, about to reply when Israel’s call brought her about. “It’s time.”

“By the Three,” she whispered. “Can it not be?”

“I heard that,” Israel said. “It’s always time.”

“Time for what?” the sinner asked.

Geneve shook her head, tramping back to Israel with weary feet. Their campsite was off the road’s shoulder, a small hillock hiding them from other travelers. The grass seemed well used to this treatment, a small trail leading here from the rutted roadway. A circle of charcoal and ash remembered a previous fire. 

Tristan was enjoying dew-sweet grass, grazing beneath a tree. Chesterfield, Israel’s monstrous beast, shouldered next to Troubles, Tilly’s chestnut mare. It looked to Geneve as if the two didn’t care if their masters squabbled. They’d be friends anyway.

Israel and Vertiline waited by the circle of black in the clearing’s middle. Israel held a deck of cards out. “Who’s first?”

Vertiline reached for a card with a growl. “Three’s mercy.” She tossed the card to the ground, face up. It showed a Challenge of Might: a figure and a horse engaged in tug o’ war.

Geneve took a second card. “Oh, come on.” A figure on the card was frozen in an eternal sprint, a wind devil nipping their heels. Of all the Challenges of Speed, and I draw sprints.

Israel fingered the deck, then drew a card. His face broke into a grin of delight. “Cophine smiles, friends.” He tossed a Challenge of Endurance atop the other card: three figures, one face-down, one crouched, and one leaping, hands in the air. 

Vertiline wheeled on him. “This game is rigged. Every time—and I mean every time—you draw Prisoner’s Punishment.”

Vertiline and Geneve drew one more card each, completing the Challenges of Agility and Flexibility—summersaults and splits. Geneve dropped her load of camping supplies, reaching to unbuckle her armor. Israel shook his head. “Full armor.”

Vertiline rolled her eyes. “Of course.” She went to get a rope.

Geneve retrieved a rope from her own saddlebags. The Challenges were a Tresward game used to keep the body fresh on the road. The deck was officially called Destiny’s Supplicant, and more enthusiastically known as Three’s Bastard. It held a range of exercises to be done at the end of each day. The only escape was injury, and even then the leading Knight would often find … creative options for an injured warrior. If your arm was in a sling, you got one-armed push-ups instead of the regulation form.

Israel once told her it encouraged the right mindset going into battle. She thought that sounded like a special kind of bullshit invented by a group of sadists but held her peace. 

The last rays of the sun kept them company while they exercised. The ropes were tied to saddles, and each Knight tried tug-o-war with their horse. The horses, for their part, appeared to find this hilarious. Tristan dragged Geneve through the clearing, her armored feet digging up grass and loam while she gritted her teeth, sweat streaming beneath metal.

Only Israel looked happy. He went through the motions of Prisoner’s Punishment like getting face-first on the dirt, climbing to his feet, and jumping was the thing he liked most in the world. His enthusiasm was infectious. Israel wore forty or fifty summers on him, yet grinned as he jumped or ran. Geneve tried to keep up, breath ragged, but couldn’t manage it.

The sun’s setting behind hills marked the end of Three’s Bastard. Geneve tore her breastplate free with relish, the buckles difficult to manage in shaky hands. The cool of the night cut through the sweat of her undergarments, and she arched her back, breathing hard, relishing the wind’s touch.

Vertiline collapsed on the ground in a clatter of metal, groaning. Israel stood by them, armor glinting in the sun’s fading light. “I’ll make dinner.”

“Gods, no,” Vertiline whimpered. Israel answered with a laugh, unbuckling his breastplate, and bustling about for supplies.

Geneve bent, setting a fire. She spared a glance for the sinner, silent through all, his eyes wide like he watched the special works of the criminally insane. She turned away, a smile teasing the corners of her mouth. The smile faded as she remembered his role in all this, and the destination that awaited him.

Tossing wood on her fledgling blaze, she stood and walked away from the cage and the accusation hidden within. Tonight, she’d brush the horses down. Anything to get away from those silent, accusing eyes.

* * *

They sat about the fire, drinking tea. It was bitter, the taste rounding off residual hunger like a file against metal burrs. Not that Geneve had good reason to be hungry. Calterburry Keep’s quartermaster restocked their provisions, which meant fresh food. Israel roasted a whole chicken over the fire while they shared weary silence.

She still felt warm from the Supplicant but sweat no longer beaded her skin. A quick splash in a brook nearby reminded her of what the sinner must have gone through in his escape. Geneve made herself wash despite the cold, thinking it’s because I don’t want to reek like a three-day-dead dog tomorrow, but wondering within the silence of her heart, is it because I feel his pain? The Tresward said empathy was important, but…

But nothing. He’s a sinner.

So, she sipped her tea, and kept her thoughts to herself. The sinner had eaten too, but within his cage, because he’d proved resourceful, and none of the Knights wanted to chase a rabbit through the dark.

She had first watch. Geneve eyed her armor, breastplate gleaming in the firelight, then shook her head. It felt like too much for a place this small and cold. The Vhemin wouldn’t come this far south. She struggled her way into a chain shirt, put Requiem and Tribunal in their holsters at her back, and stood staring at the dark.

* * *

“’Ware!” Vertiline’s cry jerked Geneve awake. She’d fallen asleep, kneeling on the ground where she’d stood watch earlier. Her face felt numb, her lips heavy. She staggered upright, swaying, then spun to the sinner’s cage.

Empty.

She almost fell as she spun, but flung a hand out. Sorcery? Poison? A malaise held her, limbs wooden, sluggish in response.

The rumble of many feet drew her eye. Through the trees came the horde, gray-green skin, eyes gleaming, horror teeth showing in snarls of rage. Heavy swords and motley armor, but that didn’t matter. Not for these invaders. Their numbers alone were fearsome, but it was their kind that sent Geneve’s blood cold.

The Vhemin are here!

She dragged Requiem from it scabbard, shouting a war cry, and charged. A Vhemin crossbow bolt hissed through the darkness. Requiem found it, slicing it in two. She vaulted the campfire’s ember glow, dashing past Vertiline, who still struggled to raise Israel. The big man seemed slow, dopey almost, but Geneve had no time for that.

This was her watch. She’d failed, and her brother and sister Knights would pay for her mistake.

The first of the Vhemin met her with a snarl and a clash of steel. It towered an extra two hands over her. In the darkness it seemed black, only the red of its snake eyes giving any color. Its strike shuddered down Geneve’s arms, Requiem shivering as it took the blow.

She ducked under the counter swing she knew was coming, rising into a strike that took both its hands off. Geneve dashed on, leaving the Vhemin to bawl behind her. 

Holding Requiem in one hand, she drew Tribunal. The scattergun roared into the night, boom boom, and then it was empty. She dropped it, stepping into the throng of attackers.

Her limbs still felt lethargic, and she almost missed dodging the strike even a Novice could see coming. A rusty edge whistled past her face, taking a lock of red hair with it. She kicked low, boot hitting groin, but it had little effect. Her blade followed, eviscerating a Vhemin.

A strike came from her right. She brought Requiem about, but too slow by far, her limbs still stuck in treacle. The strike was from a club, the blow immense. Geneve should have dodged, not parried, but she couldn’t think right. She couldn’t find the perfect steps.

The club caught her in her shoulder, dislocating it. She screamed, Requiem falling to the trampled grass.

The Vhemin to her left backhanded her across the face. She spun, spreading her length upon the ground. Booted, massive feet ran past her. Something trod on her, and she felt the pop of a rib giving way. She struggled to rise, but a wheezing, slurring darkness pulled her back down.

Down, where she couldn’t remember her failure. Down, to death, and judgment by the Three.

If you enjoyed this, consider supporting me on Ko-Fi or hopping on my mailing list.

Miss the other parts of Blade of Glass?

[First Chapter] | [Previous Chapter] | [Next Chapter] (Live 17 July 2024)