The group rides through the back roads of the wilderness reflecting on the past few days. Once they were far enough away from the capital for Stephan’s comfort, they rested. Aero then convinced the group to head toward Bellum. A strategy that no one in the capital would consider an option. Stephan had Will send in his first falsified report, and Matthew found a drink. The stress of the group has been relieved.
Having refreshed their supplies from the crossroads community of Son a couple of days ago, the group meanders towards the large town of Broglin. It is about midday as they ride the road.
Rich, Stephan’s squire, comes riding back to the group from scouting ahead.
“Trouble up ahead. A woman is crying over her murdered husband!” Rich exclaims.
Immediately Aero and Matthew rush forward. Stephan must stay close to the heir. Will doesn’t care.
The woman’s screams can be heard from the distance. Those screams push Aero and Matthew forward even more. As they arrive, they dismount and approach the woman. She is young with light brown skin and dark hair. Tears flowing from her eyes.
She sees them “Stay back! You’ve already killed him; you can’t take nothing else from me!”
“Ma’am, we are not your enemy. I am Prince Aero a knight of the royal family. Are you injured?”
She looks him over, his dress is fancy. He could be a prince, but she knows not to trust knights.
“I don’t care who you are, some knights killed him for our money. Stay away from me.”
The wagon pulls up. All she sees is more knights ready to hurt her. Her fear is great; with her husband, money and carriage gone she has nothing to pacify them with, other than her body. She believes these men intend to rape her.
“Ma’am, you are safe with us, we just want to help.” Aero explains.
“So did the last group of knights, who killed Jose. They helped themselves to all of my possessions.”
“How long ago did they do this, which direction did they go?
“Less than an hour ago, they went that way.” She says as she points. “please don’t hurt me, I have nothing to give you.”
“We are not that kind of knights, ma’am. I give you my word as a knight bound by honor, we will protect you.” Stephan states as he walks up.
“Stephan, her attackers were knights. They did this less than an hour ago, we need to hunt them down quickly.” Aero states.
“No, we have the mission.” Stephan responds.
The two quietly discuss the options amongst themselves. As they do, David approaches the lady.
“May I come near?” he asks
The lady looks him up and down and doesn’t see anything threatening about him. She allows him to come closer.
“What’s your name?”
“Roasa”
“Roasa, I’m Dave, and this is your husband Jose correct?” pointing at the body she is holding.
“Yes.”
“Roasa, we would like to help you. What can we do? We can dig a grave for you, take his body wherever you need us to…”
“You can hunt down the men who did this!”
“Okay, what can you tell us about these men? How many were there? What did they look like?”
“There were six of them. The leader had black armor with a red horn on top of the helmet.”
Aero and Stephan stop arguing. They know this knight, the Red Horn they call him. He is one of the most notorious knights in all the land.
“Okay, Matt, Rich and Will you are with me…” Aero starts before being interrupted by Stephan
“No, they are with me. You will stay here and do my duties until I return. You have a mission that must be completed.”
“Fine”
“Please do me one favor!” Roasa asks.
“Name it ma’am.” Stephan responds.
“Bring back the horned one alive, so I can kill him myself.”
“We will do our best.”
Immediately, the four men charge out after the knights.
Aero looks down at Roasa and David.
“Roasa, what do you want to do with your husband? I can load him into the wagon, or I can dig a grave right here.” He asks.
“You can dig him a grave.” Roasa says as she bursts back into tears.
“Dave, why don’t you take Roasa to the wagon while I do this, I’ll come get you when I’m done.”
David and Roasa walk to the wagon and climb in the back, as Aero begins digging.
On the path racing away from them, Stephan and his group are in pursuit.
They come over a hill to see a camp at the bottom.
They ride in hard. Stephan calls out to them. As they arrive at the bottom, they are not greeted by travelers as they expected but by eight knights.
“We are looking for the Red Horn and his men.” Stephan yells as he dismounts.
“Ya, who’s asking?” comes a voice from the large tent. A man of formidable size walks out of the largest tent wearing black armor.
“The men who are going to avenge the murder from down the road.”
“You are fighting for that road rat bitch? Well dying for her…” he states as he puts on his horned helmet.
“We shall see.” Stephan responds.
“Yes, we shall. Only an insane person would attack nine knights with four men. But you are just a dumb burnt one…”
The derogatory name doesn’t faze Stephan at all, he has heard this talk all his life and he always rises above it. Instead of responding, Stephan unsheathes his sword. His party follows suit.
“It’s the broken sword!” A man on the far end screams before running away. The man next to him follows.
Matthew breaks the standoff by lunging at the man closest to him, impaling him in the chest. In one motion, he continues by spinning and cutting the next guys leg off and finally pivoting with a back-slashing motion cutting off the third. With everyone watching Matthew then returns to the second guy, and slowly stabs him in the heart putting him out of his misery.
Poetry in motion.
Stephan uses this distraction to take out the guy nearest him. One of the other knights gets scared and tries to run away but trips over the support wire to the tent and falls on his sword, injuring himself badly.
Stephan engages the Red Horn; the armor of the knight slows him down but not enough for Stephan to overwhelm him. They battle to a stalemate. Each parry is met, each counter is stopped. The battle rages.
As the two world class knights crash into each other, Ser Matthew walks over to the injured knight, and takes pity on him with an instant kill.
Just as this happens, Ser Stephan rolls his ankle over a log in the camp, the Red Horn lead him into position.
“Legends do die, dark knight!” The Red Horn yells as he raises his sword for the killing blow, He swings his sword down to end the legendary knight but is met with the steel of Ser Matthew.
“You have to kill me to kill him.” Matthew states
“Deal!” Exclaims the Red Horn.
Their swords meet in the first clash, Matthew side steps the heavy armor weighted knight throwing the point of his sword between armor joints into the back of the knee of the Horn. He collapses in pain. Matthew holds him at sword point.
Matthew had the Horn on the ground before Stephan could stand.
Rich had been sparring with the last knight, but when he saw the Red Horn on the ground he surrendered.
Stephan calls for Will to collect Roasa’s wagon, as he does so Stephan and Matthew bind the knight’s hands and feet. They throw him in the wagon.
“What about this one?” Rich asks.
“Oh, I forgot about him.” Matthew says.
Matthew walks over to the knight, pulls out a knife and cuts his throat and walks away.
Stephan, Rich and the Horn stare at Matthew in disbelief. Who knew?
“Do you want me to chase the last two?” Matthew asks Stephan who is rebinding the Horn.
“No, we need to keep moving.” Stephan replies.
“They identified you, they could report back to the capital.”
“I think they will be running from us as hard as we fled the capital. By the time they get a report back, we will be long gone and can send a report explaining the unforeseen detour we had to take.” Stephan explains.
“You killed a defenseless man.” Rich says to Matthew.
“Yes, but how many defenseless men did he kill?” Stephan responds.
Rich walks away not fully understanding why Matthew killed the knight. Stephan makes a note to speak to his squire about the mandate of hunting down these evil knights later.
“Hey Matthew, I have wondered why Aero knighted you since he did. I always saw you as a drunk and nothing more. Today, I see what Aero saw in you. You are a true knight and am honored to have fought beside you.” Stephan says as he extends his hand to Matthew.
“I’ve always been good at killing, never had to learn. I just knew. Some say that’s why I drink because it erases the faces of the men I killed… I don’t know… They tend to visit me at night.” Matthew says as he shakes Stephan’s hand.
“Then we will make sure to have something for you every night.”
“Thank you.”
The men ride back to Roasa with their prisoner. Aero is placing the final piles of dirt on top of the grave. David is standing near the bride as she pays her final respects.
“We have him!” Will shouts.
He hops off the wagon, and helps Matthew pull him out of the back.
“Tie him to the tree!” Roasa states pointing to the tree beside her husband’s grave.
They do so. All the men are standing around as Roasa spits, slaps, and curses the man.
“Do you have a bow?” She asks
“Yes. It’s in our wagon.” Matthew states as he walks to get it.
Roasa looks at the knight who has fear in his eyes and her spit running down his face.
“I’ll make a deal with you; I get one arrow. If I miss you go free.” She states.
“Wait a minute.” Stephan interjects.
“This is my kill, my decision.”
“As you wish.”
Aero leans into Stephan and whispers “just because she lets him go doesn’t mean we have to.”
Stephan nods.
Roasa walks back to Matthew who is climbing out of the wagon with the bow and quiver. She takes it from him, turns and draws.
“You’re a hundred yards away, you need to get closer.” Matthew states.
“No, here is good.”
Everyone tries to stop her; they try to explain why she will never make that shot. How they couldn’t make that shot, and how she needs to move up.
While this is going on the Red Horn Knight is hopeful that she will miss.
She finally draws back while everyone is arguing with her and lets loose her arrow.
Silence overcomes the group. All eyes on the arrow as it falls out of the sky and hits the knight in the right eye. She stands admiring her work for a moment. She tosses the bow to Matthew and says she will be in the wagon.
All the men are shocked, silent and unmoved for a minute. Finally, Matthew grabs an arrow out of the quiver and takes a shot. He misses by ten yards.
David explains that he promised her she could join them on their journey. Everyone just nods due the shock of the events.
Stephan pulls Aero to the side.
“I saw Matthew fight today; he is a knight. I was wrong, I never understood why you knighted him until now. I also promised to keep him some ale in stock. When we get some time, I would like to know more about him.” Stephan says as he mounts his horse.
Aero smiles and nods his head in agreement. The party continues on the road with their new member…
Relics of the Old Age 