|
A Weekly Serial
by Olly Omani
Editor's Note:
This is the first installment of a webstory I started literally a few days ago. I decided I'd try to put it up with the paper to both keep me motivated and get feedback right away. If you have constructive feedback, especially constructive negative feedback, definitely send it my way. Hope you dudes enjoy! If not, well fuck it, at least it's free, right?
-Olly
1.1 - Rebirth
The last moment of his former life that the Grinning Knight could remember was of fire. However, while the
fire in his memory was of red, orange and white, the torches that illuminated the crumbling stone hallway
he walked down were of an otherworldly purple.
His silhouette was modest, short for a man. His violet cloak, ragged at the ends, dragged behind him as he walked. His armor was gouged and dented, a patchwork pieces of metal covered spots in the armor. All except for a claw-shaped section over his right eye. It bared his amber eye to the world. His helm's faceplate was an overdrawn grinning face, from which he drew his namesake, and the silver-coated longsword hilt at his hip glittered with the ethereal light as he stepped through the archway and into the darkness beyond.
Light or dark, it made no difference to him. He could see in either as clearly as if it were noon. His metallic footfalls echoed hollowly as he passed by a crumbling doorway, its wooden door hanging by a single, rusted hinge. He paid it no mind, approaching a purple-lit stairway at the other end of the room. It must have been a storeroom, for all the crates and pieces of rotting fabric, lumber and tarnished or rusting metal that remained.
He'd barely passed by the door when it was exploded off the hinge, the wood disintegrating in parts. He reeled, and though he was fast, even in armor, the beast that emerged from the portal took up his cloak in one wiry-furred, claw-tipped hand and yanked upward, lifting the Knight off of his feet.
His blade sung through the otherwise silent confines of the room, the crossguard was caught between the maw of the beast as it lurched forward to take off his head. Rows of teeth lined the inside of its mouth, shark-like in formation, circular in growth, extending down the beast's throat beyond where the Knight could see. His sword kept that maw from closing, from reaching his face, even as the fetid breath, rife with the pungent aroma of spoiled meat and spilled bowels hit the Knight's nostrils.
He struggled, slamming both armored feet into the belly of the beast, but to little effect, he rebounded off, swinging like a pendulum in the grasp of the creature's claw. The creature's hide was thick, the muscle below thick and powerful. The beast's other claw wrapped around the back of the Knight's helm, urging him toward it and the Knight's left hand flew to his side. His dagger's blade lashed out, once, twice at the creature's ribs, carving deep furrows into the hide, though little blood spilled. The Knight changed approach and, while struggling with his swordarm to keep his opponent's maw from engulfing his head, began to saw at his own cloak.
The already ragged, tattered cloak came away with a shriek of tearing fabric and the Knight fell from the clutches of the beast. His armor rattled as he impacted with the ground, landing upon his feet, and he lunged forward and to the side, twisting his body to slash across the beast's side with his sword.
Blood spurted from the wound, dark crimson, nearly black and slickened the floor, a spray of it rained upon the Knight's armor even as he lunged in once more and stabbed at the chest of the monster as it turned to follow. The blade bit deeply, but did not penetrate the hide of the beast. The Knight rapidly backpedaled, sword in one hand, dagger in the other as the beast rose up to its full height and expelled a roar that shook the very room they were in, causing small bits of rubble, dust and debris to shower down upon the combatants.
The crumbling stone beneath the creature was stripped away by the claws upon its feet as it dug in and launched itself at the much shorter Knight. The Knight was bowled into and pushed backward, but his feet dug into the floor and he twisted once more, allowing the beast to carry itself passed and into a lurching stumble. It crashed into several rotting crates and barrels, maggot-ridden streams of what must have been spoiled grain flowed down onto the floor.
The Knight moved then, and the world in that moment seemed to slow down for him. Pieces of splintered wood and rusted metal flew passed his small form, glancing off his armor as he drew his shoulder back and thrust his sword forward. The beast turned, as the Knight had hoped it would, and the tip of the Knight's blade drove into the soft, inner lining at the back of the creature's throat. The little Knight slammed his knife down into the creature's shoulder for purchase and arched his body forward, his legs wrapping around the broad sides of the beast as he clung into the monster.
Ichor and blood gushed from the creature's mouth while gurgling, gasping sounds broke the stillness of the room as it choked on its own blood, but the Knight did not relent. He twisted the sword and drove his blade forward until it pierced through the back of the creature's throat.
Claws tore fresh lines across the Knight's armor at his back and sides as the beast struggled, bucked and ultimately collapsed with one final, choked death rattle. Silence reigned once more, interrupted only by the Knight's frantic breathing as he remained atop the fallen creature's form.
He withdrew the blade from the maw of the slain beast and stepped away from its body. He wiped his dagger and sword in turn on the torn off piece of his cloak and sheathed each. He lifted the faceplate of his helm and withdrew a flask from his belt. He swallowed its contents, sweet, honeyed mead and wiped his mouth. His breathing began to slow as he scanned his surroundings, a set of scars around his right eye that matched the missing section of his faceplate.
The flask was hung upon his belt, his faceplate swung down to cover his visage and he stepped forward, walking toward the purple-lit stairs. He did not know why he had been drawn to this crumbling, ancient Keep. He did not know why the beast behind him seemed so familiar. The questions he had about his past he hoped would be uncovered if he followed the pull he felt from deep within.
A step crumbled under his foot and he stumbled, caught himself with both hands, one to either wall and resumed his progress upward. At the top of the stairway was a door. It too was rotting, though it bore an engraving of a largely eroded coat of arms. One quadrant remained readable and it revealed a scythe. It was upon seeing that piece of the coat of arms that the Grinning Knight knew, or rather felt, that he had come home.
***
A scene swam in the Grinning Knight's vision as he entered a room near the top of the keep. He'd passed through several corridors and rooms since his battle with the creature in the storeroom. The rotting, moldering tapestries bore coats of arms that were similar to the ones he'd encountered engraved on the doorway. The tapestries, though immensely faded, were of the same color as his cloak, with faded black used to outline each coat of arms.
The room he stepped into was a ruin. At its center was a pile of old wood and fabric, of the same black and purple colors that seemed to adorn the rest of the keep. Reality shifted and he instead saw a canopied bed, extremely large. A slim, fiery haired woman sat upon its mattress, holding a toddler with auburn hair. They were laughing, and a short man with dark hair was putting on a show with finely carved wooden toys. The images shifted and the fiery haired woman was naked, bare breasts pressed to the short, dark haired man's chest as they lay tangled in the throes of passion, blankets protecting most of their modesty.
The Grinning Knight's gauntlet made a harsh sound as he slumped to one side, the dark, dusty room of reality returned as his palm hit the wall, the stone in the room crumbling, as it had been elsewhere within the structure. His head lowered, and he felt his heart racing. The woman was familiar to him. The child as well. But he couldn't remember. Scattered images, both within this room and elsewhere flew through his mind, the memories faded and full of holes. Sometimes he could see the woman and the child in his mind, sometimes he could only hear their voices or laughter. He could smell the scent of her hair, the taste of her lips, but her name... it was just out of his reach.
The Knight pushed himself upward and off from the wall, dust and bits of rock fell away from where his hand had been and he moved further within the room. Little remained. Metal sconces with torches, all illuminated with the same oddly colored flames were spaced along the walls. What must have been a wardrobe stood in one corner, collapsed in upon itself. There seemed to be little actual damage. It was as though everything had simply decayed.
His eyes fell upon a bundle in one corner and he approached it. A pile of moth-eaten cloth and something else. Bone, it seemed, as he drew closer to it. He bent down and pulled the cloth away, chunks of it fell away and a small, starved looking rat scurried out from the pile, causing the Knight to momentarily recoil and settle his hand upon his sword.
He turned his faceplate back to the pile and drew the cloth the rest of the way to reveal the macabre sight beneath.
Still dressed in clothing, a dress, most likely, as well as the clothing of a little lord, were two skeletons. One was clearly of a child, the other was taller, but fine-boned and short of stature. Strands of fiery hair lay atop and even within the skeleton. Its flesh was utterly bare.
While it was hard to be certain how the pair had died, he noted the brownish, rust-red coloring around slitted holes in what remained of the skeletons' clothing. The pair had died violently, likely at sword or dagger point. He wanted to think the skeleton of what must have been the woman from his vision had died protecting the boy. But he found it equally likely that the boy had been the first to fall, and the woman struck while she grieved over his corpse. The bodies were too old for him to be certain.
The Knight turned away. A deep feeling of sorrow filled him. He considered, for a moment, on taking the bones outside to bury them. But he instead strode from the room. Whatever the people had meant to him, they were long dead, and he felt pulled elsewhere.
In the hall, he was greeted by the form of the boy from his vision. The boy was short as well, dressed tidily, his hair well combed, the auburn locks shining in light that simply was not being cast in the hall. Once again, the Knight's hand fell upon the hilt of his sword. The boy tilted his head and turned, walking in no particular hurry away from him. His footsteps made no sound. The Knight followed.
After a few turns , the boy walked through a pair of wooden doors. One was still in place, though it had chunks of it broken off, or simply rotted out. The other lay flat upon the floor, its rusted hinges broken. The Knight stepped through the archway and once more a feeling of unreality overcame him. The dark, gray, dusty room beyond was replaced with one alight with ordinary torchlight. Numerous faces he did not recognize sat about an enormous table, the kind used when matters of state or war were discussed. Most of the people within and seated were men, but there were some women. Almost all had chalices or cups. The vision played without sound. There was an argument between some of the members, others seemed to be discussing other matters. It was difficult for the Knight to follow the events within.
His uncertainty soon left him as the occupants of the room began to choke. One or two to begin with, then almost all of the rest. Foamy, white-pink fluid gushed from their eyes and mouth, they convulsed, thrashed with each other. Panic and fear seemed to be the most common expression the Knight could ascertain.
Only one among those seated remain untouched. A knight in black armor, embossed with gold. His hair was long, lustrous and golden as well. He turned over his glass onto the table and servants and guardsmen alike moved with him from the room. The vision faded.
When the Grinning Knight came out of the vision, he was not in the room, nor was he even in the Keep. Instead, he stood outside its main gateway. The auburn haired toddler stood beside him. The Knight looked away from the boy to the blasted landscape around him. Nothing, it seemed, was alive. The trees were twisted and broken, the ground dusty, free of grass. The sky overhead was nothing but a swath of gray cloud that seemed to stretch from one horizon to the next, casting the entire world in a grayish tone. Far in the distance, he saw a mountain, and at its peak was a castle, or perhaps a fortress. Its towers stood up beyond the mountain itself, piercing the heavens.
The toddler's hand wrapped around the Knight's gauntlet, and though it had no corporeal form to actually grip his fingers, when the toddlers fingers made contact with his, the world was replaced, he was certain, with how it had been. The trees were green and alive. Grass grew along either side of dirt roadways that led from the Keep behind him, onward toward the Castle on the Cliffs, and elsewhere in the distance. The Golden Haired Man stepped through the Knight then, from behind and climbed astride a stallion of white. A retinue of guardsman followed the man, and only once he was seated did they, too, take to their horses.
They began to ride away at a relaxed pace and the Knight could not understand what was happening, nor why the child was showing him this. Almost as soon as that thought had crossed his mind, the toddler's other hand lifted and pointed. The Knight did not so much adjust his gaze, as much as the vision magnified, as if the point the toddler had indicated were suddenly right before the Knight's eyes. The gloves of the Golden Man were wet with blood, and locks of hair sprang from a chunk of flesh and drying blood that clung to one of his trouser legs, the hair lightly rippling in the air until the pace of the horse was of enough speed to dislodge it, where it fluttered and fell to the road, forgotten.
The vision faded, replaced once more with the decaying, barren landscape. The Knight felt as if he'd just had the wind knocked from him. Emotions swirled in him that he could barely identify, and could not understand the source. Grief, sadness, anger. Betrayal? He turned the grinning faceplate of his helm down to the toddler.
The toddler had changed. Its eyes were gone, replaced with raw, wet, bloody holes. The front of his tunic was awash in blood from numerous stab wounds and both of his hands were wrapped around the Knight's gauntlet. The boy seemed to be screaming or shouting something, but the Knight heard nothing but the whistle of a breeze in the air. The sight staggered him backward and though he yanked his arm back, there was little need. The toddler's hands had no more hold on him than the cling of mist might.
The Knight turned his faceplate back toward the Castle on the Cliffs, and the pull he had felt inside, directing him to the Keep, seemed to change course, instead coming from that Castle. He began to walk away from the Keep, its dead residents and the shade of the murdered boy. He had no horse, no companions. He tried not to look back, he did not want to see the ruin of the child's face, but as he passed under the skeletal remains of the branches that seemed to interlace above the roadway leading to the Castle, he did turn to cast one look back at the boy.
But the boy was gone. Only the decrepit, decaying Keep remained. In that brief moment of a pause, however, a raven dove from the heavens and clamped its talons over the Knight's shoulder. He reared his hand back and prepared to bat the bird away, but its eyes caught his, and he felt an intelligence in those eyes. Were they, perhaps, the same color as the boy's had been?
The Knight's hand fell, the sound of metal on metal briefly broke the silence of the world as his gauntlet hit his armored side and he pondered that as he began his slow, inexorable trudge toward the Castle, what remained of his cloak billowing in the breeze that whispered through the dead and dying trees all around him.
***
The raven barely moved or uttered a sound as the Knight traveled. He did not know if it would turn out to be a friend or a foe, but in his world, a world so quiet and full of death, he took what companionship he could find.
The skies never seemed to grow darker, nor lighter, and it was difficult for him to track the time as he progressed down the road. At times, he was forced to circle around where a sinkhole had opened within the earth, or where trees had fallen down to impede the way forward. He felt hunger, but they encounter no one and no thing as they went and his flask of mead was running dry. From time to time he would sit to rest, but it seemed almost more out of habit than necessity, such was his desire to keep putting one foot in front of the other, to reach his destination.
It was as if the life of the land had been drained away. Even the trees, such as they were, were blackened and dead, leafless branches reaching toward a gray sky that gazed down upon them with cold dispassion. At one point, they crossed over a short, stone bridge that must have once allowed passage over a sizeable river. But the riverbed was dry, cracked, full of rocks, bone and other detritus. The sounds of the world seemed to be gone as well, only the rustling of branches and dry, half-rotten leaves caught in the slight breeze broke the silence of the world.
The road wound its way around a sheer cliff face and as the Knight and the Raven followed the road, they were greeted with the first obvious signs of life the Knight had seen in quite some time, excluding the Beast of the Keep and and his feathered companion. Plumes of smoke rose in the distance of what appeared to be a town of thrown together shacks and a wall of blackened wood.
The Knight was more watchful now, his eyes scanned the landscape for ambush. He doubted he would encounter a pitfall, tripwire or other traps while sticking to the road, but he was cautious of them all the same. He found little at first, but as he approached the town there were things that caught his attention.
Large patches of rust-brown stained the earth darker than its surrounding dirt in many places. Bones, human and inhuman alike littered these seas of dried blood, arrows, broken weapons and pieces of rusting armor were evident as well. Beyond these seas, nearer still to the town, he was able to locate a few traps, and had little doubt that there were many more he had not. Fortunately, he encountered none upon the road and soon stood a scant twenty yards from the entrance to the town, which was barred by a large wooden gate, reinforced with patchwork sheets of thick metal.
The wall that surrounded the town was strange to him. He had little doubt that they were carved from the trunks of the blackened trees of the area, for there were hundreds of stumps near the wall. However, the denizens of the town must have deemed the trees as not hardy enough, for they had adorned the wall with items likely meant to reinforce it or to intimidate. Barbed wire was the most common. Largely rusted, it encircled the wall and, at points, held other pieces to the wall. He observed what must have been a noble's dinner table top on one section, held in with heavy nails. Shields, often rusted or damaged, were almost woven together in yet another section. Farm tools were crossed along yet another, scythes, hoes, pitchforks and other tools of the trade.
His diversion into the state of the wall was interrupted by the sharp whistle of an object in the air. An arrow buried itself into the road just to the right and behind him. The Knight drew his blade with a ring of steel on leather as the Raven flew upward with a cry of what the Knight could only assume was surprise. He heard a distant thrum and, on instinct, turned to the side to make himself an even smaller target. Fortune was on his side and another arrow hit the side of his armored shoulder and glanced off harmlessly, broken in two pieces.
“Who are you?! Why are you here?!” came the voice of a woman. The Knight could see someone through a narrow, rectangular hole in the gate itself, an arrowhead thrust through, the arrow not yet loosed.
Voice dry from lack of drink, and vocal cords rusty from lack of use, the Knight raised his voice to yell, “A traveler. I am going to the Castle on the Cliffs. I will go through your town or around it, but I have no ill intent for you.”
The archer did not lower her arrow. She was quiet for some few seconds, then called out, “Sheathe your blade, sir.” and her arrow withdrew from the hole in the wall and the hole abruptly closed.
The Knight sheathed his sword, though he kept his fingers around its hilt. The gate began to open, creaking on strained hinges, it opened barely over the width of his body and then stopped. He tilted his head to the side and thought perhaps it had become stuck. The wide, round face of the archer appeared in the crack between the doors of the gate and she called, “Come on, are you waiting for a written invitation?” with exasperation.
The Knight strode forward and the Raven flew down to land upon his shoulder once more. As he approached the crack in the gate and stepped through, he asked the archer beyond, “What is this place, and who are you?”
The archer signaled and a burly man working a winch drew the gate closed once more as the archer responded, “My name is Lorna and this,” she raised her arms to indicate the ramshackle shacks and twisting streets, “Is Chudd.”
To Be Continued Next Issue
|
