A Joust of Knights

His expression darkened.

She turned to go, but he reached out and grabbed her arm. Krohn snarled.

“I don’t ask for what I want here,” he said. “I take it. You are in a foreign kingdom, at the mercy of a foreign host. It would best be wise for you to oblige your captors. After all, without our hospitality, you will be cast into the waste. And there are a great many unfortunate circumstances which can accidentally befall a guest – even with the most well-intentioned of hosts.”

She scowled, having seen too many real threats in her life to be afraid of his petty warnings.

“Captors?” she said. “Is that what you call us? I am a free woman, in case you haven’t noticed. I can leave here right now if I choose.”

He laughed, an ugly sound.

“And where would you go? Back into the Waste?”

He smiled and shook his head.

“You might be technically free to go,” he added. “But let me ask you: when the world is a hostile place, where does that leave you?”

Krohn snarled viciously, and Gwen could feel him ready to pounce. She shook Mardgi’s hand off of her arm indignantly, and reached down and laid a hand on Krohn’s head, holding him back. And then, as she glared back at Mardig, she had a sudden insight.

“Tell me something, Mardig,” she said, her voice hard and cold. “Why is it you are not out there, fighting with your brothers in the desert? Why is it that you are the only one who remains behind? Is it fear that drives you?”

He smiled, but beneath his smile she could sense cowardice.

“Chivalry is for fools,” he replied. “Convenient fools, that pave the way for the rest of us to have whatever we want. Dangle the term ‘chivalry,’ and they can be used like puppets. I myself cannot be used so easily.”

She looked at him, disgusted.

“My husband and our Silver would laugh at a man like you,” she said. “You wouldn’t last two minutes in the Ring.”

Gwen looked from him to the entrance he was blocking.

“You have two choices,” she said. “You can move out of my way, or Krohn here can have the breakfast he so heartily desires. I think you are about the perfect size.”

He glanced down at Krohn, and she saw his lip quiver. He stepped aside.

But she did not go just yet. Instead, she stepped up, close to him, sneering, wanting to have her point made.

“You might be in command of your little castle,” she snarled darkly, “but do not forget that you speak to a Queen. A free Queen. I will never answer to you, never answer to anyone else as long as I live. I am through with that. And that makes me very dangerous – far more dangerous than you.”

The Prince stared back, and to her surprise, he smiled.

“I like you, Queen Gwendolyn,” he replied. “Much more than I thought.”

Gwendolyn, heart pounding, watched him turn and walk away, slithering back into the blackness, disappearing down the corridor. As his footsteps echoed and faded away, she wondered: what dangers lurked in this court?

Chapter Three

Kendrick charged across the arid desert landscape, Brandt and Atme by his side, his half-dozen Silver beside them, all that remained of the brotherhood of the Ring, riding together like old times. As they rode, venturing out deeper and deeper into the Great Waste, Kendrick felt weighed down by nostalgia and sadness; it made him remember his heyday in the Ring, surrounded by Silver, by brothers in arms, riding out into battle, alongside thousands of men. He had ridden with the finest knights the kingdom had to offer, each a greater warrior than the next, and everywhere he had ridden, trumpets had sounded and villagers had rushed out to greet him. He and his men had been welcome everywhere, and they had always stayed up late into the night, recounting stories of battle, of valor, of skirmishes with monsters that emerged from the canyon – or worse, from beyond the wild.

Kendrick blinked, dust in his eyes, snapping out of it. He was in a different time now, a different place. He looked over and saw the eight men of the Silver, and expected to see thousands more alongside them. But reality slowly sank in, as he realized the eight of them were all of what was left, and he realized how much had changed. Would those days of glory ever be restored?

Kendrick’s idea of what made a warrior had shifted over the years, and these days, he found himself feeling that what made a warrior was not only skill and honor – but perseverance. The ability to go on. Life had a way of showering you with so many obstacles, calamities, tragedies, losses – and most of all, so much change; he had lost more friends than he could count, and the King he had lived his life for no longer even lived. His very homeland had disappeared. And yet still, he went on, even when he didn’t know what for. He was searching for it, he knew. And it was that ability to go on, perhaps most of all, that made a warrior, that made a man stand the test of time when so many others fell away. It was what separated true warriors from fleeting ones.

“SAND WALL AHEAD!” shouted a voice.

It was a foreign voice, one that Kendrick was still getting used to, and he looked over to see Koldo, the King’s eldest son, his black skin standing out amongst the group, leading the pack of soldiers from the Ridge. In the brief time Kendrick had known him, he had already come to respect Koldo, watching the way he led his men, and the way they looked up to him. He was a knight whom Kendrick was proud to ride beside.

Koldo pointed to the horizon and Kendrick looked out and saw what he was pointing to – in fact, he heard it before he saw it. It was a shrill whistling, like a windstorm, and Kendrick recalled his time in the Waste, being dragged through it semi-conscious. He recalled the raging sands, churning like a tornado that never went away, forming a solid wall and rising to the sky. It had looked impermeable, like a real wall, and it helped obscure the Ridge from the rest of the Empire.

As the whistling grew louder, Kendrick dreaded re-entering.

“SCARVES!” commanded a voice.

Kendrick saw Ludvig, the elder of the King’s twins, stretching out a long, mesh white cloth and wrapping it over his face. One by one the other soldiers followed his lead and did the same.

There came riding up beside Kendrick the soldier who had introduced himself as Naten, a man Kendrick recalled taking an instant dislike to. He was rebellious of Kendrick’s assigned command, and disrespectful.

Naten smirked over at Kendrick and his men as he rode closer.

“You think you lead this mission,” he said, “just because the King assigned you. Yet you don’t even know enough to cover your men from the Sand Wall.”

Kendrick glared back at the man, seeing in his eyes that he held an unprovoked hatred for him. At first Kendrick had thought that perhaps he had just been threatened by him, an outsider – but now he could see that this was just a man who loved to hate.

“Give him the scarves!” Koldo yelled out to Naten, impatient.

After some more time passed and the wall came even closer, the sands raging, Naten finally reached down and threw the sack of scarves at Kendrick, hitting him roughly in the chest as he rode.

“Distribute these to your men,” he said, “or end up cut up by the wall. It’s your choice – I don’t really care.”

Naten rode off, veering back to his men, and Kendrick quickly distributed the scarves to his men, riding up beside each one and handing them off. Kendrick then wrapped his own scarf about his head and face, as the others from the Ridge did, wrapping it around again and again, until he felt secure yet could still breathe. He could barely see through it, the world obscured, blurry in the light.

Kendrick braced himself as they charged closer and the sounds of the swirling sands became deafening. Already fifty yard away, the air was filled with the sound of sand bouncing off armor. A moment later, he felt it.

Kendrick plunged into the Sand Wall, and it was like immersing himself in a churning ocean of sand. The noise was so loud he could barely hear the pounding of his own heart in his ears, as the sand embraced every inch of his body, fighting to get in, to tear him apart. The swirling sands were so intense, he could not even see Brandt or Atme, just a few feet beside him.

“KEEP RIDING!” Kendrick called out to his men, wondering if any of them could even hear him, reassuring himself as much as them. The horses were neighing like crazy, slowing down, acting oddly, and Kendrick looked down and saw the sand getting in their eyes. He kicked harder, praying his horse didn’t stop where it was.

Kendrick kept charging and charging, thinking it would never end – and then, finally, gratefully, he emerged. He charged out the other side, his men beside him, back out into the Great Waste, open sky and emptiness waiting to greet him on the other side. The Sand Wall gradually calmed as they rode further, and as calm was restored, Kendrick noticed the men of the Ridge looking at him and his men with surprise.

“Didn’t think we’d survive?” Kendrick asked Naten as he gaped back.

Naten shrugged.

“I wouldn’t care either way,” he said, and rode off with his men.

Kendrick exchanged a look with Brandt and Atme, as they all wondered again about these men from the Ridge. Kendrick sensed it would be a long and hard road to earn their trust. After all, he and his men were outsiders, and they had been the ones who had created this trail and caused them trouble.

“Up ahead!” Koldo yelled.