A Tale of Knighthood

This story is set in the world of Warhammer Fantasy, and is a joint endeavor between Neal Litherland and Sam Furlano.

They called this place the Swamp of Sorrow. A sucking mire of standing water and grasping mud, skeletal trees spread their bony branches wide to blot out the sky, and their snarling roots sought to snare any who would try to wade past. Black, biting flies filled the air, droning as they swarmed anything with hot blood pumping through its veins. Scaled creatures moved in the darkness, cutting through the water with quiet splashes that left nothing but ripples in their wakes.

But it was the dead that were the true danger.

There were men down there, of a dozen creeds and nations. They lay cheek by jowl with orcs, dwarves, and a dozen other creatures most men had no names for. Some of them were naught but bones, rotting and sinking into the silt. Others lay as if they were merely asleep, ready to open their eyes and rise once more into the open air. Weighed down by their armor, and the years since they’d fallen, some of the corpses were just that. Others, though, were vessels for hatred given form by the powers that dwelt in the depths of the drowned and sodden land. It was why, when the knight had no other options left, he’d led the pack of beastmen into that dreadful, accursed quag.

The armored man stumbled and splashed, grabbing onto a jutting branch to stop himself from falling. He bit down on a curse as pain rippled up his side, and he tasted blood in his mouth. It had all seemed so simple just a few days ago. He and his horse Artax had come to a border village in Bretonnia too small to warrant appearing on most maps, and he was accepted as the questing knight Guillaume de Lessard. He had met with the village elders, and they had prepared for the coming battle by laying snares, digging man traps, and repairing the holes in the stone walls that surrounded the village proper. There were archers on the hut roofs, and they had hunting horns to signal when they saw something. A huge bonfire had even been lit to light the night, and drive back the darkness.

And when the time had come, it had almost been enough.

An entire herd of beastmen had swept down on them, their horns glistening with fresh blood, and their roars a cacophony that filled the night. They had come with brute violence and terrible force, bellowing prayers to their dark gods, and the knight had met them on the battlefield alongside those brave enough to fight alongside him. The woodsmen’s axes bit through chitin and bone, and the spears of the horned, goatish monsters had driven through the men who stood before them. The knight had fought the herd’s leader, a hulking bestigor with vile mutations that had twisted its form into a knotted, terrible brute. The knight had lost his shield, and nearly his life, to the creature, but his blade had driven between its ribs and pulped the thing’s heart.

The death of their leader had been what saved the village. The moment the corpse fell to the earth, every, single gor had turned its horned head toward the knight. Their eyes gleamed with understanding, and as one they ran toward him. Winded and limping, he’d managed to scramble into Artax’s saddle, and he whipped the old warhorse toward the swamp. The man known as Guillaume de Lessard led the beastmen away from the village, knowing the creatures wouldn’t stop until they’d killed him, or there were no members of the war pack left.

His armor had saved him from the scraping branches, as well as from a scaled beast that had tried to tear him from the saddle. Artax was old, but the horse was sure-footed and experienced. After the ground had become truly treacherous, though, the knight had dismounted and scouted ahead before pulling Artax along with him. He’d avoided looking at the blue corpse lamps that burned to mark the fitful resting places of the dead, and he had relied on his ears to find his way. He heard the splashing and roars of the creatures chasing him, but also the sounds of the swamp claiming them as the fell victim to its dangers. The goat-faced monsters kept coming, though, stepping over the bodies of their comrades and laying about them with jagged blades, refusing to let anything come between them and their prize. At first it had only been one or two of them that managed to catch up, and the knight had fought them off, or pushed them into one of the swamp’s hazards before making good his escape. Soon there were more of them than he could fight, though. He was winded, wounded, and there was little enough left in him.

It was Artax that had saved him then. The warhorse had charged into the swamp, neighing, rising up to kick, and headbutting the creatures with his thick, armored skull. It was a hopeless charge, and the knight knew he could not rescue his companion. He could either die alongside Artax, or lead the pack even deeper into the darkness. He opted for the latter, refusing to acknowledge the tears that tracked down his face, or how they stung his wounds. He vowed that his companion’s sacrifice would not be in vain. That though neither of them would leave this place again, neither would any of the beastmen who had followed horse and rider into the morass.

Time lost all meaning as the knight trudged through the mud. He abandoned all attempts at stealth. He let the gors hear him, smell him, and he even let the branches claw at his stained surcoat, pieces of his bright colors marking the trail as surely as the drops of blood he left spattered on the mossy ground behind him. He led them deeper, and still deeper, his entire focus on the grim death march before him. His life was forfeit, but he meant to get good value for it before the sun rose red over the Eastern horizon.

It wasn’t until his boot splashed down into freezing cold that crested to his knee that the knight looked up, and focused his gaze. He had walked out beyond what land there was, and stood in several feet of water. He turned around, meaning to retreat to the land and choose another path, but he’d gone no more than three steps back toward the shore when the beastmen burst from the undergrowth. They were haggard, their fur matted, and their war paint smeared, but murder lived on their faces. They charged the knight where he stood, loosing terrible, ululating cries as each sought to be the first to reach him.

The knight sucked a sharp breath through the vents of his battered great helm, and drew his sword. He shifted his stance, settled his weight in his boots, and waited. As clouds shifted away from the moon, bathing the sodden patch of shore in silver light, the warrior felt time slow. His pain grew quiet, and his aching muscles flooded with adrenaline. His bloody lips drew back over his square teeth, and he smiled. If he was to have a final dance, then he would make it one worthy of tale and song.

The first beastman was too eager, and the water caught his charging hooves. Rather than swinging his weapon, he stumbled, impaling himself on the knight’s upraised blade. Before the dead gor’s weight could drag down the warrior’s arm, though, he withdrew his steel, raising it to slash against a descending war club. Wood and bone splintered, and the knight reversed his movement, his sword tearing out the enemy’s unprotected throat. The beastman went down with a splash, and didn’t surface again. Devoured by the swamp, the battle continued on without him.

The knight ducked and twisted, thrusting and hacking, using every technique he’d learned as a squire, and recalling every harsh lesson he’d endured on a dozen battlefields in the decades since. His sword, notched and bent by the day’s fighting, snapped, and he buried the broken weapon beneath a beastman’s arm, snatching his enemy’s falling battle ax. The warrior shifted his stance, planting himself and only moving when he had to move. The water and mud became his ally, gripping at the gors, tangling their legs and making them easier targets for the whistling ax. The knight moved slowly, stepping over the bodies of his fallen foes as he drew closer and closer to the land he’d left behind.

It was as he stepped back onto the land, muck clinging to his boots and black water streaming from his armor, that the knight realized how quiet the swamp had grown. The swimming beasts had all gone silent, without so much as a ripple to show their movements. The birds that had squawked and cawed had stilled their voices. Even the droning insects had ceased their endless, monotonous conversation. The place held its breath… and that was when the knight heard oncoming footfalls. They shook the very ground he stood on, sending tremors across the puddles as whatever it was drew nearer.

It was his lifetime of instincts that saved him. Because the beast that charged from the undergrowth was no mere gor; it was a towering colossus of muscle and horns, with sinews like bridge cables, and hooves the size of feast platters. Its eyes burned red in the night, and it was only the warrior’s desperate dive that allowed him to avoid the monster’s goring horns. The knight tucked one battered shoulder, rolling to his feet and standing, both hands on the haft of the ax as he surveyed his opponent.

The thing was a minotaur… or it had been, once. The bull-headed giant bore a crown of horns around its skull, and scales as thick as dragon hide grew from one side of its massive neck, and down one arm like some kind of perverse manica. That arm ended in a black-taloned fist that was already encarmined with blood. The creature’s other arm was a long, undulating tendril, slick with with some kind of strange ichor that made it look wet in the moonlight. Even its eyes were mismatched, one a bloodshot red, and the other a black so deep it seemed to suck what little light there was into its depths. As those eyes fell upon the knight, he knew that if that creature left this swamp, it would finish what the rest of the pack had begun.

He could not let that happen.

The horror stamped its hooves, readying itself to charge again, but this time the knight didn’t let it. He ran forward, arm cocked, before swinging his stolen weapon straight at the beast’s foreleg. It managed to move just in time, but the knight reversed the blow, the crude battle ax cleaving through the air fast enough to whistle. The crescent blade bit through matted fur, and dug a furrow through the thing’s hide. An arc of black blood followed the ax. The knight snarled behind his visor. If the thing bled, that meant it could die.

The warrior gave no ground, swinging with abandon at the monster. Breath tore in and out of his throat, and pain danced through his body, but he would not relent. The ax sliced across the thing’s scaly hand, bashed away its grasping tendril, and nearly sank into the minotaur’s throat. As the knight stepped in, choking up on the weapon and putting his shoulders into the next blow, he was sure he had the beast. Until the minotaur seized the advantage.

The knight had been arrogant. In his exhausted need to end the battle he had poured himself into the attack. He had rushed his enemy, had sacrificed his measure, and had shown his weakness. The minotaur merely tucked its chin, and one of its great horns slammed into the head of the ax hard enough to shatter it. Caught off-balance, the warrior did not have the footing to step aside as the creature’s huge fist hammered into his chest hard enough to lift him from the ground. The knight collapsed, fighting for breath as blackness crept in at the edges of his vision. The corrupt champion stood over him, as if waiting for something. When the knight didn’t rise, though, the monster wrapped its malformed tendril around him, and flung him aside with contempt. He landed half-in and half-out of the water, sputtering and gagging as he tried to lift his body out of the cold grasp of the swamp. As with all those who had fallen before him, though, the swamp dragged him down.

When he saw the light, the warrior was certain he had died. It was a bright gold, cutting through the darkness of the churning muck, shining through the silt. He reached for the light instinctively, his sword arm stretching toward it. He felt a gentle touch along his wrist, and then something slid into his hand. The knight grasped it with the desperation of a drowning man, his fingers clamping down in a death grip. Fire ran through his veins, blasting away the fog of pain that shrouded him. The knight dragged himself from the waters, and stood once more. He strode onto the land again, filled with purpose, and with a familiar weight in his fist.

The minotaur had reached the edge of the trees when the knight emerged. The thing turned, lips peeling back from its massive, sharpened teeth as it caught sight of the enemy it had thought slain. The snarl became a smile as the twisted beast turned to face the man once again, spreading its arms as if in invitation. The knight came on, one step after another. He did not charge. He shouted no battle cry. He approached in a silence that seemed to spin out from him, blanketing the silvered darkness beneath the gleaming moon.

The corrupted creature frowned, its brow drawing down along with the corners of its mouth. Its eyes cut toward the gleaming sword, widening as it took in the double-edged blade, the heavy crossguard, and the golden pommel. Its gaze danced along the characters that ran the length of the weapon, drawn in and repulsed in equal measure. By the time it drew another breath, it realized the knight wielded no mere weapon… but it was too late to flee.

The minotaur roared, feinting with its claws before lashing out with its mutated arm. The knight moved quickly, efficiently, slicing through the flesh as if it were gossamer. Blood arced through the air like a waterspout, sizzling wherever it touched the elegant engravings on the weapon. The beast stepped in, driving a fist toward the warrior. Again he stepped aside, the blade flashing as it cut a deep groove the length of the minotaur’s arm. The creature bellowed, this time in pain rather than with rage.

The dance continued, with the minotaur giving ground, and the knight taking it. The colossal creature thrashed and struck, but it was like trying to fight water. The knight was never there, but the sword always was. He took one of the minotaur’s fingers, and then its hand. He took one horn, and then another as the thing tried to charge him. He took one eye, and then the other. The knight sliced along the back of one leg, and then the other. Once the creature fell to its knees, the knight thrust the sword through its chest, piercing its heart before the blade erupted out through the thing’s back. He withdrew his weapon, and the malformed beast fell face first into the mud. The knight waited a long moment, but the creature did not rise again.

As the knight stood on the edge of the water, breath whistling in and out of his battered and dented helm, a mist began to form all around him. Vapor drifted from the swamp waters like rising ghosts, coalescing into a fog that drank in the moonlight, and seemed to glow from within. The warrior stood transfixed, staring at the sight, the tip of his sword drooping lower, and lower, until it nearly grazed the earth. That was when he heard something from deep in the mist… something that was strange and familiar at the same time. Something that sent a ripple of fear down his spine, and which made his hair try to stand on-end.

“Cadfael…” a soft, feminine voice crooned from inside the mist. “Cadfael…”

“Show yourself!” the knight called. His voice was a raw, barely human thing, and he fell into his well-worn battle stance, raising the sword and gripping the hilt with both hands. He stared into the swirling mists, his eyes straining to catch sight of the source of that voice.

She came out of the fog like something from a dream. A woman of grace and beauty, garbed in spun moonlight, and crowned by a mane of silver. Her eyes gleamed like mercury, and her lips were liquid sable. She walked across the surface of the water, her gown and hair floating as if she stood beneath the waves. When her gaze landed on the knight, he winced, but did not back away.

“What are you?” the knight demanded. “A spirit? Some trick of chaos?”

“I am the wellspring from which these waters flow,” she said, and though her lips moved, her voice echoed in the knight’s mind. “I am the lady whose favor sits heavy in your fist. Now lower that blade, Cadfael.”

The knight hesitated for a moment, but he lowered the sword. He clumsily removed the sheath from his belt, and slid the shining blade home into its confines. As the steel was covered, it was as if the strength it had granted flowed out of the knight once more. His hands shook with exhaustion, but he managed to lower himself to a knee with a modicum of grace. He bowed his head, resting an arm on his knee.

“I am sorry, my lady,” he said through half-numbed lips. “I meant no offense.”

“None is taken,” the vision intoned, idly waving one hand. “Nothing of myself could do harm to myself. I come to you because you have proven yourself and your purpose, and for this, I would grant you a boon.”

“You have my gratitude,” the knight said, licking his split, chapped lips. “But I would ask nothing of you.”

“Nor should you,” the lady said, amusement in her strangely echoing voice. “For what I have can only be given, never sought.”

The figure held out a hand, and from the waters at her feet, a chalice rose on a spout of water. A cup of hammered silver covered in delicate iconography, it depicted fleeing stags and strange huntsmen with such attention to detail that they seemed nearly alive. The lady took the cup in both hands, and favored the warrior with a smile.

“I wish to grant you a drink from the heart of the waters,” she said. “A blessing few knights have ever been allowed.”

The warrior reached for his helm, unbuckling the straps that held it in place. He tugged at the battered, bent steel, finally managing to remove it. The face he raised to the lady had been handsome once, and some might still think it so in a certain light. A deep scar grooved over his jaw, and his nose had thickened between his eyes from where it had been broken and reset many times. His hair, streaked with silver and damp with sweat, hung in his face. His eyes, though full of pain and exhaustion, remained clear as he looked at the vision before him.

“I cannot accept,” Cadfael said, swallowing as he bowed his head once more. “It would not be right. I… I am no knight.”

He had expected scorn, disdain, or rage. Cadfael had prepared himself for all those things for when his secret was eventually forced into the light. What he had not been prepared for was the laughter he heard. It chimed like bells on the air, echoing from the mist and ringing from the trees. It sounded as if the swamp was joining its mistress in her mirth. When Cadfael raised his head, though, her smile bore no malice, and her eyes were alight with merriment.

“Do you think I cannot see into your heart, oh sword of man?” she asked, taking a single, floating step closer. “That I do not know your past, or your future?”

Cadfael had no answer for that. He held his tongue, and watched the lady. The air grew pregnant as she regarded him, as if seeing the threads that would draw him in a thousand different directions. Finally, she eased her smile from her lips, though it still lingered in her gaze.

“You are right to stand on ceremony, however. It is another mark of the man you are, despite what you may believe about yourself.” She took one hand off the grail she held, and gestured without looking. The mists swirled at her back, and a shadow began to walk forward.

Cadfael’s eyes widened. The figure who strode from the mist was tall, with broad shoulders, and a head of streaming white hair. Its face was broad, and its hooded eyes gleamed. It wore a cloak that rippled in a wind that blew from some other place, and the smile on its face was one the warrior never thought he’d see again. It was Guillaume de Lessard as he had been in life, when the old knight had first taken Cadfael to squire.

“Sir,” Cadfael said, the single word choking him as tears welled in his eyes. The specter shook his head slowly, and held up a hand.

“We do not have time, Cadfael,” he said, his voice the same, rich baritone that had never deserted him, even as he lay dying in his squire’s arms. “Give me your sword, that I may do now what I did not have the strength to do before.”

Cadfael held the blade out hilt first, and spirit or no, his old master drew the steel with ease. He held it for a moment, admiring the blade, before he turned his gaze to Cadfael.

“Do you swear to uphold the teachings you learned at my side,” he asked. “To defend the weak, and to protect the defenseless? To serve others before yourself, and to guard the lives of your fellow man against the terrors of the dark, and the foulness of corruption?”

“Yes,” Cadfael said, his voice a fierce declaration. Guillaume smiled, and nodded.

“Then I bestow upon you the burden of duty,” the spirit said, touching Cadfael on one shoulder with the flat of the blade. It lingered there for a moment, before his old master lifted it above Cadfael’s head to touch the other shoulder. “And the charge to carry your own name from this day forth.”

“I will, Sir,” Cadfael said. His master nodded once, the spirit’s face taking on the stern, stony countenance Cadfael remembered. Guillaume revered the grip, and offered Cadfael the weapon once more.

“Then take up your blade, Sir Cadfael,” he said. Cadfael grasped the hilt, and Guillaume briefly put his hand over the living’s knight’s wrist. The spirit’s touch was warm, though it grew more insubstantial by the moment. When he spoke again, it was whisper soft. “You have made me proud.”

Guillaume’s touch lingered another moment, before the spirit withdrew. He was fading, the skull showing through his face, and bones peeking through his hands. He floated back, but stood on the edge of the fog bank, his gaze lingering on the man his squire had become. The lady stepped to the edge of the water, and proffered her grail.

“Now then, Sir Cadfael,” she said, her voice more formal than before. “I ask you again… will you accept the second of my gifts?”

Cadfael tilted his head back, and the spirit brought the cup to his lips. Rather than the brackish waters polluted with the bitter rot of the dead, he sipped a clear, cool, perfect drink. The water slid down his throat, cooling the pain that still throbbed in his body. He took a second sip, and then a third, before the lady withdrew the grail. Cadfael gasped, and only then did he realize that in the moment of frozen eternity he had forgotten to breathe.

“Rise, Sir knight,” the mistress of the waters said, raising her hand. “You will find it easier than you thought.”

Cadfael braced himself, but as he stood the expected pain never came. He flexed his fingers, and his shoulders. He touched his cheeks, but found there were no wounds. He faced the lady, and raised his sword in salute, touching his forehead to the crossguard.

“I could never repay your generosity, my lady,” Cadfael said.

“You can, and you will,” she said with an enigmatic smile. “However, my blessings come in threes, Cadfael. I would not send you back to your duties alone.”

Before he could ask what she meant, Cadfael heard the splash of water, and the drumming of hooves. He turned, his hair and cloak whipping with the speed of his movement, and his eyes widened. A powerful stallion trotted from the shadows, tossing his head in the moonlight. Silver glinted from his bridle, the engravings along the edges of his leather saddle, and in the beast’s eyes. Cadfael’s mouth dropped open, and he held up his empty hand.

“Artax?” he said, his voice trembling as the horse pressed its head up against his hand. Cadfael ran his hands over the beast, his heart hammering against his ribs. It was Artax… but as he had been so long ago. When they’d both been young, and they had seemed equal to the weight of the world. The knight turned back to the dark waters, but found they were empty save for a few wisps of fog. As he stared, something dove into the swamp, swimming noisily before it dove deep. The bugs resumed their crooning, and the night birds took up their muted conversations. The lady and her ghostly retinue were gone.

Cadfael looked down at the sword in his hand, half expecting it to disappear. It was as real as it had ever been, beautiful and balanced seemingly for his hand alone. The stallion made the same low, grumbling sound in his deep chest that he always had, and bumped Cadfael with his shoulder. Cadfael turned, and Artax snorted at him. Cadfael sheathed his weapon, patted his horse on the side of the neck, and took the beast’s reins.

“Come on, old friend,” Cadfael said as a cloud scudded across the moon. “There’s much yet for us to do.”

More Stories of Wrath And Glory!

For those who enjoyed this tale, make sure you check out Pyramid Scheme, Part 1 and Part 2, which was also a piece written by these authors. For those who enjoy the grim darkness of Warhammer 40K, the following stories also feature the work of Neal Litherland and Sam Furlano.

For more stories by Neal Litherland, check out his contributions to Fiction here on Vocal.Media, and find him on Patreon under the name The Literary Mercenary. A reminder, following him there is free!