An Errant Shape

Part Two

 
     The iron walls of Tenketsburg emerged at the end of the paved dirt road as the knight urged his ox-led wagon down the path. The ox had shuddered and bucked when the knight originally tried to harness it, but now it tamely carried him and his cargo to the town gates.
     Two guardsmen in pointed helms and mail hauberks clanged their halberds together as he approached.
     “Halt! Dismount and state your business,” the left guardsman said in a gruff voice the knight recognized.
     He complied, dropping off the driver’s box. “I’m returning to town for lodging and to return this stolen cargo.” When he saw the guardsman’s face, he realized who he was: Langley, a notorious drunkard and the same idiot who made the knight’s first entry into the town so difficult.
     “Impressive. You leave with nothing but a mace and armor and return with a whole wagon. What’s your secret, knight-errant?”, Langley said, grinning with rotten teeth.
     “I hit hard, and I don’t ask stupid questions,” the knight growled.
     “Hmph. Looks like your visor is a little bent out of shape there,” Langley pointed to the patch where the knight had wrenched the dwarf’s bolt from his helm and forced the gap closed with a pair of pliers he kept on hand. “Suppose you’ll have to see a smith, finally take that armor off.”
     “Suppose so,” the knight grunted, turning back to climb the cart.
     Langley stopped him with a hand on his pauldron, the knight shuddering violently at his uninvited touch. “Oh no, we’re not done. C’mon, take that bucket off now. Show the law that smug face.”
     The knight looked from Langley to his smirking comrade and tapped the front of his helm, a metal face with two eyes cut from clusters of round holes and a mouth of embossed fangs. “This is as much face as you need to see.”
     Langley laughed, “You may think so. It’s true that the magistrate made it so passersby don’t need to provide their names for entrance. Keeps useful, private scoundrels like you from skipping us by, but I’m thinking you’ve overstayed your welcome. ’Specially with all that mess on your chest.” Langley pointed to the explosion of dried blood that the knight had left on his cuirass.
     “Really?” The knight’s hand fell to the handle of his mace. “I think you’ve overestimated your authority, pig-fucker.”
     Langley put both hands on his halberd, but the knight had already punched him in the mouth with his free fist before the threat or blow could come. The guardsman doubled over, at least three teeth falling from his bloody face to the ground. His friend scrambled to grab his weapon as well, but the knight interrupted him, “He got off easy. You won’t.”
     The man grimaced but stayed his hand. “Tenketsburg is a place of laws, knight, his majesty’s laws. You’ll pay for that.” 
     The knight shrugged and climbed back onto his wagon. He would now have to leave town early; that’s all this meant. It mattered little what the townspeople felt toward him. The ox dragged his cart through the gate. Langley’s pained curses formed an unpleasant ambience behind him as he glanced around the town entrance.
     Tenketsburg was an inflated mining outpost, said to have been founded by the dwarf that provided its name. The humans who made up the majority of the town’s population erected a statue in their honor that greeted all entrants, yet that was precisely why the knight doubted their stories, given that he knew the local dwarven hollows found statues abhorrent, blasphemous even.
     Around the statue’s plaza, several vending booths were set up, each selling supplies aimed at travelers, including salted meat, spare clothing, various herbs, and dubious potions. The atmosphere in the mining town, with a white sky overhead marred by a constant stream of smoke from the foundry, was already dismal. However, downcast eyes and limp postures were transformed into furtive glances and raised hackles at the knight’s entrance into their environment.
     He knew people were naturally suspicious toward something they lacked information on, and rumors about him tended to spread like wildfire in each town he visited. This was just another reason he planned to leave the town as soon as possible. If the guardsmen’s halberds didn’t skewer him, the townspeople’s knives would.
     He took the wagon around the plaza and down the main street. Tall timber frame buildings cordoned off the stone street, their gabled roofs just falling short of the immense heights reached by the pines outside the wall. At the end of the main road, the knight could make out the blurry outline of the town magistrate’s estate, reaching higher into the sky than any of its compatriots, even past the steeples of the local church.
     The knight drove the ox to the left at the first intersection, down an alley of craftsmen of every kind, eventually parking his wagon in front of a jeweler’s shop. He hitched the ox to a metal post jutting out of the dirt, slung a leather sack over his shoulder, and headed inside through the wooden door. The shop was decorated in an opulent fashion unfitting for the dreary atmosphere outdoors.  The silver insignia of Tenketsburg was emblazoned on red banners hung from each wall. Iron candelabras set on twin tables set against the left and right walls from the entrance lit the interior. An array of glass display cases housed brilliantly crafted necklaces, rings, brooches, and bracelets laid on crimson cushions atop the store counter. From the next room over, the knight could hear workers shouting and the clanging of metal. 
     Behind the counter sat a tall human woman with greying hair tied in a bun and a burgundy shawl wrapped around her shoulders. She stood as the knight entered, regarding him through a telescopic monocle.
     “… You found my cargo, I presume?”, she asked with a pinched pose as she noted the blood on his armor.
     “I did; the wagon is parked outside, and I brought the heads of your thieves, as requested.” He held up the sack, a dark stain growing at its bottom.
     “Hm” The jeweler produced a white sheet and walked out from behind the counter. She set aside one of the candelabras lighting the room and replaced it with the sheet. “Let’s see them then.”
     The knight set the sack on the ground, ignoring the jeweler’s disgusted flinch, and went about setting Flakti, Scoira, and the elf’s heads on the table in that order.
     “Tell me about them,” the jeweler requested as she leaned over to study the wounds on their slack faces.
     The knight tilted his helmet, unused to this kind of question. “The dwarf’s name was Flakti. The human’s name was Scoira. I never heard the elf’s name. There was a fourth person with them, a human man, but he ran off into the forest and was mostly likely eaten by an animal.”
     “Who was leading them, by your reckoning?”
     “They did not seem like a … cohesive group; they were going to meet a buyer who probably hired them just for this theft.” The knight could tell from the jeweler’s pursed lips that his answer did not satisfy her. “… But the dwarf showed the most leadership of them.”
     “Hm. It gets the biggest spit then,” she concluded, going back behind the counter and bringing out three thin iron stakes. “Could you bring them outside for me please?”
     The knight gathered the bare heads in his arms and followed the jeweler out the door. She stuck each stake deep into a patch of gravel outside her storefront, which already hosted two spits holding up decaying skulls.
     “Would you be so kind as to affix these thieves to their posts?”, she asked kindly.
     The knight wordlessly used his strength to drive the heads onto the stakes, brain deep. The jeweler used a handkerchief to wipe off a sheen of grime from a placard tied to one of the old stakes that simply read: “Thieves”. She tossed the handkerchief aside and straightened the sign of her store: “The Red Lapidary”.
     “You have done good work, knight, but I’m afraid I must see my cargo before you receive your payment.”
     The knight nodded and unloaded a crate from the back of the wagon. It had already been cracked open, most likely by one of the thieves. The jeweler sifted through a layer of straw and withdrew a rough rock. To the knight, that was all it was, yet the jeweler was enraptured by the uncut gem, adjusting her monocle to peer into the specks of brilliant blue scattered around the surface of the otherwise unremarkable object.
     “Magnificent. I presume all the stones are accounted for?” The jeweler’s enrapturement occupied her thoughts so much that the knight noticed a strand of saliva drip down to her chin.
     Shivering away his disgust, the knight answered, “As far as I can tell.”
     The jeweler snapped her fingers, and several workers came from the back room to help unload the wagon, “It seems you’ve more than earned your pay. Gorga!”
     A muscular man in an apron carried out a leather pouch with a golden clasp. The knight eagerly took it from him and immediately began counting the iron coins within.
     “All one hundred marks are there; I assure you,” the jeweler stated, “Plus the twenty-five for the thieves’ heads.”
     The knight grunted his thanks and began to walk away, still counting. He finished confirming his new wealth by the time he’d returned to the main road. He looked up at the grey sky. He would not miss this town, with its burning air and greedy inhabitants. The elven king’s marks were a reliable currency though, and he would stay in his kingdom for a while longer before he headed south for the fall.
     He hooked the pouch of coins to his belt, next to a canteen and his pack of pellets. The townspeople occupying the main street regarded him with equal parts revulsion and greed now, so the knight kept his hand on his mace’s pommel as he proceeded. When he reached the plaza, he spied a worrisomely large group of people gathered at the gate.
     As the distance between them shrank, the knight confirmed his suspicion that the group at the gate was a squad of six guardsmen blocking the way with their halberds. He did not smell Langley among them, but could tell that they were on edge, their muscles tensed and eyes unblinking.
     “Stay where you are, knight-errant,” the highest-ranking member of the guard, distinguished by the royal insignia on his chest, commanded.
     “I did not realize that Langley’s teeth were worth such a show of force,” the knight shot back, stopping in the now deserted plaza with his hands on the hilts of his mace and the dagger he’d kept from the elf.
     “Assaulting an enforcer of his majesty’s will is punishable by any degree of force deemed necessary by the presiding magistrate. But fortunately for you, the magistrate wants more from you than a quick gutting in the streets.”
     “He won’t get that, or a hanging, if that’s what he wants. Not without a few more brainless guards.”
     Several halberds lowered to point at the knight, but their captain raised his hand to prevent their attack. “His lordship does not want a trial; he wants to speak with you, to see if something mutually beneficial can be arranged.”
     “He wants to hire me for a job?”
     The captain’s expression seemed to darken at such a vulgar explanation of what was most likely true. “He wants to speak with you, and he shall. Come quietly with us or die here.”
     The knight did not hesitate in his decision. As much strength as he tried to project, he was well aware he could not face down the whole town. His hands left his weapons and extended non-threateningly to the sides.
     “Smart man”, the captain commented. He walked forward, past the knight and down the main street. His men followed slowly, urging the knight on with stern glares and the light glinting off their raised halberds.
   
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     “You didn’t clean him before you brought him into my hall?”, the magistrate clucked from his throne, a chair entirely built from iron with no cushions for its occupant, a design explicitly mandated by the king as a symbol of respect for his elven heritage and the vigilance of his officers. The chair’s ridiculously tall back, set against stained glass windows depicting the kingdom’s foundation, cast a looming shadow down the stairs that cordoned off the hall into two halves, the lower half for those generously given an audience and the upper half meant for the law’s absolute representatives.
     “My apologies, your lordship. I assumed you wanted to speak with him without delay.” The captain bowed low with one hand over his heart and the other tucked behind his back. The knight next to him mirrored his motion awkwardly, reducing the captain’s almost perpendicular bow to barely more than a nod.
     “I appreciate the attempt at courtesy, knight. However, it is difficult to consider sincere as you hide your face behind metal. Remove your helm and state your name.”
     The knight flinched and bowed again, deeper. “My name is Scoira Ebonwood, your lordship. I would remove my helmet, but I was heavily burned as a child, and I would not dare desecrate this place with my ugliness.”
     “Hmmm” The magistrate, a middle-aged human with short blond hair and a clean-shaven face, waved his hand at the elf standing in the shadows between the windows.
     The elf stepped to the top of the steps and looked down at the knight. His green chest was uncovered, as all he was wearing was a pair of grey trousers. An open cut ran from his sternum to his waist. Amber-colored flesh peeked out from it and the shorter cuts flanking it, as well as the perfectly round circular cut intersecting with all three. The knight recognized the bleeding symbol as the mark of a state-sanctioned magus. Little more than slaves in terms of social status, they were carefully raised from birth to suit their purpose and still forced to constantly reopen their brand as a reminder that for all their power, they were still subject to the ever-egalitarian oppression of their king.
     The knight was paralyzed by apprehension as the magus looked down at him. A purple light welled in the black pit of the magus’s pupils. The air behind him thickened and wavered like a concentrated version of heat distortion.
     ‘He is lying. However, it is difficult to read his intentions,’ the magus signed.
     “Is it difficult or can you not do it?” The magistrate clicked his tongue in distaste.
     ‘My deepest apologies … I do not sense malice from … him.’
     The knight and the magus exchange a protracted stare as both wondered about the contents of the other’s head.
     “I do not need your name or face, knight, but deception will not be tolerated in matters outside of your personal details in the task I have for you. Do you understand?”
     “I do.”
     ‘He does,’ the magus commented as their eyes flashed purple again for a moment.
     A vein bulged in the magistrate’s forehead. He waved his hand again at the magus and he stepped back behind the throne. “Then listen closely, knight. I know you have acquired a reputation in my town as someone who accomplishes what he’s ordered. Your lack of respect for the law will be forgiven and your pockets filled if you show me that same competence. Otherwise, you will face the law like any common brigand. Are you interested?”
     “Yes,” the knight replied, fully aware of his true lack of choice.
     “Good. In short, several workers from the mine have gone missing. Around eight by this point. Their equipment and clothes have not been recovered. The workers seem to believe it’s a wyrm and have refused to descend into the caves until it is killed. I don’t care what’s down there, but the iron of Tenketsburg must resume its flow.”
     “May I speak to the miners before attempting to kill whatever beast they’ve angered?”
     “Of course, I want an expedient solution, not a rushed failure. I will lend you my court magus here and you will begin your investigation immediately.”
     “Th-That won’t be necessary.”
     “Nonsense. If you’re relying on the word of rabble you need a tool to sift through their bullshit. Shiikan, accompany the man.”
     The magus, Shiikan, descended the steps with all four arms tucked behind his back. The captain stepped out of the way as he approached, his face a sneered embodiment of disgust. The knight was no more comfortable than him, flinching as Shiikan’s eyes met his gaze.
     “You have your task. I will decide your payment once you bring back proof of victory over whatever beast lurks in our mines. Now get your filthy armor out of my sight.”
     The knight bowed in a purposefully superfluous way and walked toward the door. Shiikan followed him, his bare feet pattering across the cold marble.
  
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     ‘I can detect your discomfort with me. Is it because I am an elf or a magus?’, Shiikan inquired as he strode by the knight’s side between the dilapidated shacks leading up to the mine.
     The knight looked to both sides, his sense of smell overpowered by smoke, making sure that the curious glances being aimed at them were out of earshot. “I have no issue with elves … And I have no more issue with magi than the rest of the country.”
     ‘Which would mean you have quite a large issue with magi, even if that were not a lie,’ Shiikan replied with his sharp teeth bared in a smile.
     “… Children are filled with the stories of what a rogue magus could do since they’re spawned. The one thing that parents of humans, elves, and dwarves have in common is the need to keep that fear alive.”
     ‘Yet you speak of all three as if you are none. Tell me, are you human as the others assumed?’
     The knight internally cursed the magus’s perception. “I am a warrior for hire, and that is all that you need to know.”
     ‘I don’t disagree. I was simply curious. Unlike the stories, we magi are not pure forces of chaos, immune to innocent interests.’
     “In my experience, the stories may not accurately depict the danger of magi, but that is only because your kind’s real danger is harder to conceive than children’s minds are capable of.”
     The corners of Shiikan’s mouth were downturned. ‘In your experience? Meaning that you have encountered rogue magi before?’
     This time, the knight internally cursed his own loose lips. “Anyone can become a magus, technically speaking. It is only natural that some slip through the cracks.”
     ‘Which is why we ordained by his majesty are meant to put those aberrations down.’
     “Hm” The knight glanced around the dismal slums as the billowing smoke grew closer, listening to the almost perpetual sound of children and their mothers coughing from years of abused lungs. “How do you feed your pact, magus?”
     ‘… The same way as all legal magi. We harvest necessary fuel from the imprisoned as approved by our presiding magistrate.’
     “By ‘the imprisoned’, do you mean those set to be hung or any poor soul who runs afoul of the ever-tightening law?”
     ‘The magistrate can designate any prisoner to be harvested that he wishes.’
     “That must be a powerful deterrent. Cross the law and risk losing what you love. Plus, the excuse for any new regulation is often the same: protection from magi. You magi birth the law and strengthen it. One wonders if you don’t control it too.”
     ‘Knowing the capabilities of magi as you do, I would think you would see how ridiculous of a notion that is.’
     “And what limitations are you alluding to?”
     ‘As I said, the magistrates control our harvesting. Thus, they understand and control our power.’
     The knight did not respond, doubting Shiikan silently. He began to run his left thumb between his fingers in an improvised sequence, not a nervous tick, but a conscious defense against an arrested mind.
     The narrow street widened into a clearing at the base of the immense mountain that shielded Tenketsburg’s back. A cave opening the size of a house, held up by many wooden struts, was carved into the mountainside. Near the entrance, a crowd of deposed miners were huddled around a domed smelter, shoveling in whatever trash they could find to fuel its flame.
     The knight and Shiikan approached the miners. They were mostly comprised of humans and dwarves, wearing grey tunics marked with reflective streaks of a silvery powder and hard hats fashioned from molded pitch.
     “Hello, gentleman. The magistrate has sent me to look into your wyrm problem,” the knight greeted, forcing himself to sound cordial.
     A muscular man who appeared to be in his early sixties rose from his stool, his white goatee and ponytail swaying as he stood. “It’s about damned time the magistrate lifted a finger to help us. Our fellows have been disappearing for over a week now and the most he sends us is a knight and his mage, to fight a wyrm?!”
     The other miners echoed his discontent with weak murmurs and nods, clearly more prone to fear from the situation than his anger.
     “The magus is here to advise me. I alone am more than enough to deal with whatever creature has infested your mine,” the knight claimed despite lacking complete confidence in his ability to kill anything above the most average predators of the wilds.
     “Whatever creature? Why can’t you people accept our word? Do you think we dreamt up a wyrm? Killed our own brothers?!” The muscular man strode past his coworkers and straight up to the knight, standing a full head above him.
     “Have you seen the wyrm yourself?”, the knight replied, unfazed.
     “Of course I have!”
     ‘He’s lying,’ Shiikan signed.
     “What’s the weed saying?”
     The knight ignored his prejudice. “You haven’t seen this wyrm yourself. Why do you think it’s a wyrm?”
     The muscular miner flinched and paused, the silence of his compatriots intensifying in the void. “I did not see it, but one of us did. Haroghaz! Would you please come over here?”
     A short, spindly man with a wholly shaven head got up from his seat and strode over to meet them, his gait exuding confidence. “Hello sirs.”
     “Haroghaz, would you please tell them what you told us?”
     The knight made note of the muscular miner’s apparent respect for Haroghaz as he began to earnestly listen to his story.
     “After Jacen died, that being the latest of eight, I decided we needed to at least learn what was picking us off. I rallied a few of the boys to form an expedition to the deepest parts of the mine, where the first to disappear never came back from. We got a decent way down together, but the guys I took with me were … cautious about going further. I don’t blame ’em; they’ve got wives ’n’ such. But I don’t, so I had ’em hook their ropes to my belt and stay behind me to drag me out if I ran into trouble.
     “Turned out to be a good idea in its own right. When I reached the end of Jacen’s route, where he had stopped making headway into the rock, that’s when it attacked me. Wyrm burst out of the dead end second I got there. Fucker coiled around me, tried to drag me into its burrow, but thankfully my yells caused my friends to yank on the rope. Second I reached them, the cowardly creature left me alone, slithered back into the deep. Seems I was just more fortunate than the others.”
     The knight’s fingers continued their ritual through Haroghaz’s entire story. When it concluded, his fingers willfully paused for a moment as he asked his follow-up question, “What exactly did it look like? This wyrm?”
     “Pale, ghostly even. A long body with an eyeless, scarlet head and a cluster of razors for teeth, just like you hear in the stories.”
     “And where exactly did this happen.”
     “Deepest part of the mine, as I said. If you head straight down and take no detours off the main path, you’ll get there eventually.”
     The knight nodded, “Thank you for your help, sirs. If that’s all you can tell me about the creature, then I will get to work soon.”
     The muscular miner glanced at Haroghaz, who smiled slightly and bowed before he spoke, “That’s all I remember about the thing. ’Cept how quick it was, and quiet. Just the rumbling of rock and its purring as it wrapped around me … Good luck to you both.”
     The miners walked back to their circle, the group continuing to cast glances at the strange pair. The knight led Shiikan a few more yards aware from them before softly asking him a question.
     “Was any of that a lie?”
     ‘He believed it to be true, and I sensed no malice from him.’
     “Did you get any impressions from the other miners?”
     ‘Just fear if you’re asking about commonalities.’
     The knight looked at the mine and the overwhelming darkness in its opening cavern. “Is there any evidence of Haroghaz’s mind being influenced?”
     Shiikan titled his head quizzically and then resumed his gestures. ‘No, I detected nothing that would suggest tampering.’
     “… Then a wyrm it is. Sounds like a juvenile, given that he was able to escape at all. Ambush predator too, shouldn’t be much of an issue.” The knight broadcast supreme confidence, but internally he debated whether the constricting behavior that the miner described could do the damage that the thieves’ bladed weapons had failed to inflict.
     ‘I can be of great assistance in a fight, especially with an unintelligent beast.’
     “No. Your magistrate said you were here to help me confirm the miners’ story. You’ve done that. Return to your post,” the knight replied in no uncertain terms.
     Shiikan frowned. However, his sour mood faded away with a single, four shouldered shrug. ‘Suit yourself. I hope you survive, whatever you might be.’
     The magus walked away, back into the slums, leaving the knight with his quest. He checked his pouches, confirming his equipment. He felt prepared, even with just his mace, dagger, and pellets, so he immediately strode toward the mine.
     “What the hell do you think you’re doing?!”, one of the miners called out.
     The knight stopped and returned the group’s confused glares. He then realized why they were looking at him with utter disbelief. He was about to enter the dark mine without any source of light. The knight awkwardly took an unlit torch from a holder to the left of the entrance. He carried it past the ring of miners and stuck it just far enough into the mouth of the smelter to ignite its head.

「This is a work of fiction. Any references to real places, real people, or historical events are used fictitiously. Other characters, names, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events, places, or people, living or deceased, is purely coincidental.」

Copyright © 2021 Matthew Cammarano
All rights reserved.