The Cursed knight

Kareem Rahman

CHAPTER 1

The countless hills rose and fell over slithering mist, casting far-stretched shadows across ravines that led to riverhand, the northern settlement shrouded by green pine and blood-soaked snow. Half-felled branches crunched beneath the weight of a dozen knight-saddled horses and snow quickly fell from the countless roof like leaves of trees along a winding path.

A cavalry of knights stormed through the forest trail towards the settlement, a self-separated town cut off from the greater machinations of the powers that rule the land of Qatarack.

“Fog is thick as piss, how they live here is beyond me,” yelled the red-bannered knight leading the pack.

“Because they are a sturdy bunch,” replied knight Jurek, riding next to Hector.

“Who else would have settled here at a time before the green hail, some even say they can trace their lineage to the first men. Fantasy, I’m sure, but to be so well suited to such a inhospitable place does require such an amount of time. Imagine men of the south living in lands were dire wolves prowl and fur laced giants sleep. Not to mention the uneasy rise of forbidden practices and black sacrifices among the many cults which we’ve yet to purge.”

“Black sacrifices,” Hector mumbled, his mind beginning to imagine.

Hector, despite his imposing frame and the iron-spiked flail upon his saddle, was more accustomed to the sea-comforted climate of the yellow coasts than the primal dangers of the north. He shrugged, his silver-armored body jerking forward on his black steed.

“Yet our dear king, would send his finest knights to resolve some petty squabble between lords and peasents. Surely, we could better be used else where. Perhaps the sunny coasts to the east, I hear they are in need of patrols.”

“Of course,” said knight Reginald, his blue-striped helm turning to Hector.

“Hector, you came from such a place if I remember last nights conversation. I swear I didn’t have enough to drink to forget what you said. A coastal city, the name close to nebit-”

“Lebit,” said Hector, feeling a silent and pain-riddled nostalgia for his home throughout the developmental stages of his life.

“Yes, that was it. Sunny rays and a strong wind for docking ships. I can hardly understand why you would leave such a place.”

“A life without danger is a life not lived,” he replied, “At least that’s what I tell myself. Honestly, there’s little down there for a young man with eyes fixed on building a name for themselves, and especially for one without skill or passion in mercantile commerce. My place is here among you brave idiots. Also, as you easily forget, it was a hard fought battle to get here.”

They crossed a carrion-littered ravine, splatters of water and mud flying onto their mounts.

“You may still change your mind, age can certainly make a man-”

His words were left unfinished as his body hurtled into the air, much to the shock and surprise of Hector and his fellow knights. Sticking from his silver shattered chest plate was a crossbow bolt, large, bloody, and equal to the size of a mans arm. His horse fled into the mist whilst his body crashed into the snow.

“Ambush” Reginald yelled, unsheathing his sword.

A dozen men leaped from the bushes with axes and blades in hand, surrounding the knights. They wasted no time, encroaching around the men and thrusting their blades into the necks of the nearest stead. Several mounts fell with their knights, forcing them to fight on their feet. Hector, still mounted, saw that these men, bedecked in Armour as black as night, had green writings inscribed upon their surface. He also noted that some of them were maimed and scarred, gibbets of flesh hanging from either limbless stumps or missing eyes.

“Knights,” Reginald screamed, “formation”

His band of knights huddled into a defensive circle, holding ground against their approaching attackers. They fought like cornered dogs, unperturbed by their brothers falling at their feet. One by one, the attackers numbers superseded their skill and stamina, until only Hector and Reginald remained. His flail danced and more attackers died, yet he felt his strength wiegned. Reginald thrust-ed his sword, impaling two attackers skulls. Hector, noticing an opening, one which could easily be traversed on horse back, called his fellow knight.

This hope quickly dwindled. Three swords pierced his horses chest, sending him crashing into the ground. Reginald shifted to Hector’s side.

“No!” Hector yelled, striking his ambusher’s skulls with his flail.

Better one knight reaches them than none, Hector thought, fighting to buy him time. Though apprehensive, he saw a mutual understanding in the other knight’s eyes. His horse spun and fled, knocking two men into the ground in the progress.

Though surrounded, the sole knight fought with the strength and skill spoken of in tales about his order. Despite his best efforts, fatigue took him, and the overwhelming number of the enemy finally won. Unknowing of where and who committed the blow, Hector felt a thundering blow and slipped slowly out of consciousness. His breathes were now shallow and deep, his fingers touching the cold snow while feeling the frost bitten air fill his lungs.

CHAPTER 2

Twisted sounds creaked and moaned, echoing a lament and pain common in the darkest underbelly’s of justice in Qatarack. Iron-clad chains rattled in the wind, its cold steel kissing the soft flesh of countless strung up prisoners. Hector awoke slowly to a dim, dark scene. Harsh cut stone lining up the walls of a cylindrical room and fragmentary rays slipping through tiny cracks. Crude green markings entangled the walls and floor, its slithering lines infecting every corner like roots of a tree.

He looked up, seeing his limbs hanging loosely in cold iron. The chains shook and echoed as he pulled, trying to escape. He looked down, blood markings smeared on the cold floor, describing signs of a violent struggle .

Hector felt something warm trickle down his forehead and drop across his right eye. His helmet was gone and his chest guard removed. His hair, once brown and cut-short, was stained crimson and reached his shoulders. His face was no longer the clean cut strong jaw he had worn for years, but a worn and bearded one.

A door in the distance creaked with the sound of fumbling keys and falling locks. From this entrance, two shadowy figures approached the chained knight, one in front and the other trailing behind. Candle lights flickered and large shadows loomed and danced upon the black walls. Hector, straining for strength, looked at them, trickling blood beginning to seep into the corner of his eye.

“It has been sometime, hasn’t it, Hector?”

The man who spoke was tall and regal, his pointed nose and sullenly-pale skin giving a sickly and scholarly appearance. He stared with the weight of a judge before a suspect and pondered, his slender hands grasping his short chin. Dressed in fine gold and black tunic, which seemed better suited for the courts of the magisterial city than a dungeon, his eyes, a piercing golden glare, drifted across Hector’s body as if to admire some handiwork.

“How – do you know my name?” said Hector with heavy breathes.

“I’ve come to learn a great many things about you, sir hector. Things you would never tell anyone but your most personal of friends, or lovers, even then maybe not. You have lived a far more colorful life then I would have expected from one of your order. Oh yes, the many twists and turns, the many names and the many personas taken. Why its a tale in its self. Did your brothers know, the other dead knights?”

“What the hell did you do to me, you-”

“Now now,”

Without dropping his gentlemanly demeanor, he slapped him across the face, drawing a small trickle of blood over his lips. Hector, dull from whatever pain had existed before, could not distinguish it, pain was pain and it was ever present.

“I dare say, you and I will have much more to discuss over the coming days. The changes are bound to occur soon.”

“What changes, what in the gods are you babbling on about.”

“Very well, I’ll be direct. I suppose you’ve earned that. I’ve been experimenting on you for some time now,Hector. Well, not just you. A hundred or so willing and not so willing volunteers sacrificed for the greater goals of furthering my own knowledge. Oh, come now don’t look glimp, I’ll explain. You see the markings on the walls, the very same marking on my men, who you may have seen when they slaughtered your brothers. They are imbued with magic, pure, primal magic from a time before the green hail. These symbols grant great power into depths untouched by even the greatest sorcerers. But those, cowards, in the the halls of the prima wouldn’t dare to endeaver on such a path. Only me, and, now you.”

“And what exactly have you done to me-”

Hector’s body jerked violently, a strange devil-birthed convulsion rising inside him.

“Oh, Dung,” snapped the sorcerer, “stop being useless and start taking notes.”

The frail man beside him whimpered forward and bowed to the sorcerer. His bleach-white scalp became exposed in what little light there was in the cell, revealing a series of flesh-violated markings and stitches. His face was long, taut and lifeless, a large and boiled nose extended before hollow opaque eyes.

Hector immediately recognized the man as one of the settlers of the riverhand, his stocky dwarfish being a dead give away. The servile-man pulled out a book bound in animal skin and touched the thin end of a quill onto the surface of its pages.

“Verbatim this time,” hissed the sorcerer, throwing the dwarf a pointed look.

“Yes, your eminence”

Hector felt another sharp convulsion, followed quickly by unspeakable pain. It took all endurance not to scream at its first agony-bathed sensation, yet he quickly succumbed.

“The subject’s skin seems to shift in color as the marking start grow, furthermore the muscle tissue around associated limbs seems to grow and shrink rapidly, indicating increasing strength though this too must be tested”

The sorcerers words began to fade as the pain increased, his precise and articulate vocal notes becoming little more than whispers among the green-marked knights screams.

“Enough,” said the sorcerer, disappointment seething behind his voice.

As Hector heard the words, the pain slowly subsided. Unaware of what transpired in his thoughts, the sorcerer watched the prisoner with a keen and focused interest.

“We’ll have to continue tomorrow, and maybe the day after that, and so on and so forth until you either expire or my hypothesis proves true.”

Hector started to chuckle.

“If- you, as you previously said, looked into my mind and had me reveal who I was, then you should know that I can and will kill you for this”

The regal man gave a yellow-stained and toothy grin.

“Oh, and why is that,” he asked, stepping closer.

“Will this be a repeat of the bladed moss, of the town of samperfolk, or will you conjour an army of idiots to fight and die on your behalf like in a gladendale, much to your shame. Why someone like you would choose to become a knight is beyond even what I can understand. Over the coming days you will have to tell me why, for even magic could not get that answer from you. It would make for interesting conversation.”

“You best take off these chains now, I may be a knight in title, but you know I won’t back from steeping into my old ways. Take them off and let his people go”

Hector gestured to the servant at the sorcerers side.

“Unlikely, they are important to my work here, a small settlement of short hoopleheads that I can bend to my will. Cut off from any major city with an expert in magic. The perfect place for a sorcerer looking to venture into new grounds. Besides, what would they do if I were not here, toil away in their pointless lives. No, furthering my research is a far more dignified life. Isn’t it”

His servant whimpered as his master raised his hands, pretending to smack.

“See, under my control they will be far more useful”

“They’re not tools for the goals of some fallen academic. I can tell you seek dark knowledge but are more willing to pay for it with their lives and not your own. Let me guess, the sorcerers at prima, heard your sick proposal and threw you out. Rightly so. Your nothing more than a spiteful outcast looking to prove someone wr-”

A sharp jolt stopped him mid-sentence.

“Careful,” seethed the sorcerer, “I do not like being goaded or lectured. You are the one whose secrets and failures will be shared.”

“I’ll nail you to this cell wall, you magic cunt. Then I’ll show you your guts.”

The sorcerer turned to the door, starting to laugh.

CHAPTER 3

The metal of chains rattled against the green-lined walls, singing an unpleasant tune throughout the cell. A rat scurried and squeaked along the stone floor, fleeing through the open door. Hector, with his arms strapped to chains above, hanged limp in the air, his scarred toes grazing the emerald-lighted circle beneath him. His torturer, the new master of river-hand, with his hand holding his chin, examined the spent body of his dying experiment. A defiant chuckle escaped the knights lips and the sorcerer laughed.

“Again, you’ve exceeded my expectations knight, nearly a year I’ve had you here and sill you persist. Though, and I say this with some respect. You certainly don’t look as well as you once did. Soon you’ll give me the answer which I seek.”

The dwarfish servant entered the room, bending low to his master.

“Master,” he said, his voice coated with a servile tone. “the farmers have returned.”

The sorcerer’s cold expression melted into a small, cruel smile.

“Oh – good, pity we can’t continue today Hector, though something tells me we’ll spend plenty more time together later.”

He faced the knight and noticed a defiant sigh come out of him.

“Master - “

“What - what is it”

“The farmers are asking for more time. They haven’t been able to secure enough for your stocks”

“What!”

Anger burned behind the sorcerers pale eyes, an inferno of hate born from being denied. The servant shriveled back to the moon-lit door, keeping his head bowed and cowering as if expecting to be struck. Hector, despite his wounds, lifted his head and watched the sorcerer’s raging intensify.

“They-” the servant started.

“I heard you, dog. Those blasted plebs think they’re lives are more important than my research. I’ll feed them their hearts, those insects. Come with me and watch me deal with them. Their corpses will be made useful for future experiments!”

Cold-touched chains rattled around Hector’s bound wrists. A light force tugged down on them to break their hold. Hector awoke to the sight of the servant propped upon a wooden stool, working the locks to the chains.

“Sir – sir,” the dwarfish man whispered in panic.

“What,” Hector groaned, still groggy from previous wounds and lack of sleep.

“We don’t have much time”

“Why are you helping me. Don’t you follow your master?”

The servant went silent as a mouse, his eyes focused on the locks. Hector looked at him, searching for signs of potential treachery, he found none.

“That devil thinks he owns us,” the dwarf said. “Thinks he’s entitled to our lives. He’s killed so many of my people, children, women, all of us are expendable. And for what, for asking that he not steal what remained of their food. They’’d starve otherwise. He won’t stop. Those farmers, what he did to those farmers was unforgivable.”

The wrist irons fell to the ground and Hector felt his feet touch the earth for the first time in months.

“There,” said the servant, excitement in his voice.

“Now, follow me.”

They stalked the countless torched-lit halls, avoiding guardsman and hounds alike during their escape. A procession of stoned tunnels and metal grates met them at every turn, yet none was the one the dwarf seeked. Finally, the sound of rushing water echoed in the distance and the smell of the forest became fresh. A moonlight-touched grate sat in the distance, a stream of vile water dribbling out into the great river beneath a black night. The dwarf gasped in relief and aided Hector towards it.

“It flows out to the river. If what I’ve read from the masters notes are true, than the fall should prove nothing to -”

He paused, not finishing his sentence. A shadow had loomed over them for some time and only now did he recognize it. Behind them stood the sorcerer, his eyes glowing red in the dark.

“So you think you can undermine me. Brave, so brave. I should have slit your throat the moment I saw you – you rat. No matter, I’ll find another among the village to take your place.”

The dwarf shuddered, his eyes wide with fear. Slowly, he turned to Hector.

“Go,” he whispered.

The dwarf pushed the knight out of the gate, where he fell down towards the rushing stream. The knight crashed into its waters as a pain-struck scream pierced the air, sending crows flying. The last chilling words the knight heard before touching submerging were from the sorcerer.

“Find him!”

CHAPTER 4 - COMING SOON