Out of those with Sir Hring who set about the burial and the blessing of it, one was Sir Clovis of Salisville, who liked that task most for this reason. He was a doughty knight who had fought in those wars when Percy and Diodore, those wide-ruling kings, did each what he could to topple the other, unwilling to hold less sway than he might. And when that knight lived through it, both the battles that were hard on many and the peace that was heavier for some, he gave the praise for that not to his vigor or skill, though in either he surpassed many, but to his luck, which was no merit of his own but a boon from that Lord to whom all knights must yield and give praise. Therefore he was not slow to do works of piety for all that there were adventures before him.
Sir Hring led that body and had with him his son Sir Hroar, his erstwhile squire Sir Mikkel, his friend's son Sir Taskay, and more beside who were not from Krystila, but from Ampherae and other places. Sir Micah joined too, who cared more for doing right than going home, the more so since he had learned his knighthood in Luros but had his birth and his family elsewhere.
A stream lowered itself to water the harbor that Cuculna once oversaw, and the knights followed it inland, for that people shunned ready water such as that made the land stranger than they were able to believe. When they climbed the hills ringing the inlet to a more level country beyond, Sir Johan of Ampherae had this to say. “We hold this as a thing surer than the course of the sun that the befouled land around that castle is unworthy of the living and the dead alike. We hoped to see a church close by, but I do not, though my eyesight is not the worst. When we find a priest, how far will we carry the corpses, one by one, and how long will it take? Friends, I have this spade. The knights of Ampherae, if I may boast there is something of war we understand well, are used to work. I put forward this plan, that while you search, some stay here and begin the burying.”
So he said, and the knights heard him and thought it good to carry the dead there before they went farther. Two knights stayed which were Sir Johan and Sir Clovis, who said, “This pick I have was made to pierce steel and skin, but loves rocks and hard earth little enough for this task.” Those two knights marked out a plot suited in size and started the digging, as full of vigor for that as ever they had for the fight.
The glad sun looked down on that work and liked it much so that they had hardship from its hotness. They did off their mail and set it down, and their greaves, and all else of metal they had, and ceased their attack on the ever-still earth only to ask the stream for its ever-moving mercy. Levelness gave way under their labor to a hole deeper than the knee, which was well done by the knights but soon was woe to them when men came upon them who had no mind to overlook gain, whatever claims bravery or piety made on them.
Spears they had in hand, man-slaying daggers at their sides, and their bodies were guarded by leather hardened for rough use in work which honest men might resist, and ought to, for they were brigands who feared Cuculna less than any place where law was upheld. And what they feared less than that was the test of spears against two knights without their mail, whatever puissance they had, for there were a dozen men that shunned the right there, and more if they called out.
The knights weened there was never any chance for them to reach their arms and do them on before the unequal fight was brought to them, a thing hard enough had the brigands not arrived on the side where was piled their steel, but beyond man's doing as it was. The pair raised themselves from the half-made grave, and that meant the end of their lives almost, for the bandits ran near during that. Neither Sir Johan nor Sir Clovis thought it shameful then to flee, any more than does a bird that flies from its nest when the many-branched tree beneath it begins to burn with lightning as the cause rather than stay and beat back the flames with wings too weak for that. Rather there was shame only in losing the footrace.
They were swift, those knights who ran races and overleapt hurdles at home, and boxed and wrestled, and otherwise trained themselves when not wielding their weapons to the grief of their foes. Courses of grasses and pebbles were not so smooth and clear as the tracks where drills were done, but for all that no stumble slowed Sir Johan, nor was Sir Clovis less deft. The brigands for their part were used to the chase in that country and did not fall behind.
The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
The earth farther along the rabbit-road came under leaf-crowned trees that sent lordly roots all over, unwilling that any part of their lands should go ignored. Above the ground as well they showed themselves, not afeared to go among their people like good rulers who are loved and know it, though the knights loved them the less for that. Just as when a city suffers colonists to go elsewhere and live there, and henceforth the two peoples of those cities both thrive but have no more to do with each other save when trade is done or else a young man travels to learn his knighthood under a far-famed knight or some other art practiced better in the founding city, so too did Sir Johan change his course while Sir Clovis ran on straight, trusting in his luck to choose for him the route that was best. The brigands saw that and pursued both in their greed, five after each, for two among them had yielded the chase already, their lack of wind forcing them to it.
The land Sir Clovis crossed was made that men and women were able to lay up in their households grains and fruits enough for servants, their children, and any guest who came, wearied by the road's hardships. Such was the purpose of that fruitful terrain, but the dreadful king who had ruled nearby with sorcery instead of justice and law-upholding might chased away the good by the threat of him so that animals and pests only thrived there. Yet such lengths they ran, the knight and those brigands, that they reached places less in wildness than those they left behind. Pastures they passed at first, well-sheeped, and then farms where the crops men like were raised by careful hands, but none such workers were about then. Or if any had been, at the sight of those brigands they looked to their families and kept them hid.
Sir Clovis sought no aid or hoped for it from any house there, but he saw orchards that were nothing common in size or denseness and went among them. Amid those he found what he guessed was there, which was a manor house in such a state that some lord or man of means must have cared for it who left no inch unpainted or stone poorly fit, which proved sloth had no place there. The knight, who was of a mind that risk earns a pardon for rudeness, vaulted the low wall built more to hinder foxes and greedy wolves than to ward off men bent on doing ill.
He rounded that house in search of its door, which he found open. Never had a guest in there acted in such a way, to hurry inside looking left and right not for the master to greet him, but for means to fight the foe, some javelin or life-warding shield to give one hope against five. Or rather against three. For the brigands knew that house and what doors it had, which were two, so that a pair of them went without words whither their foe might flee, were he aware of his chance, while the rest of their number followed the knight to a long and wide table in a room big enough for it, a board where many might eat or plan their course in peace or in war.
But not then. No men of good name and wit sat there behind dishes or maps of roads and rivers. What was on that table was only one thing, which Sir Clovis took for a shield, though he was not sure of that because of the shape of it, which was not round, or tall and curved, or such as some men liked which was broad at the top but narrowed farther down. Instead the edge of it curved unsteadily like the line of the shore, or else like a blotch a youth sent to learn painting might strive to hide with more color for fear his master will see it and chide him. Even with that, he judged it enough in width for rough use, and a handle for carrying had been fixed to it.
The table, carved well and polished as it was, then made nothing but a hurdle for him, and he leapt over it, took up the shield, and kicked his hurdle on its side to help him more. That startled the brigands close behind, not long, but one had no more time than that, for a knight-swung pick cracked his bones and left no life within them.
The others cried out at that, and howled, and thrust their wrathful spears across the sideways table. One thrust high and did little against the knight's new shield. The other thrust low, too low for so small a shield and too fast for so big a one, but Sir Clovis met that threat by leaping again over his wooden wall before he buried his pick in the brigand's side. He wrenched it loose and left the room, where the unhurt bandit followed to his woe, for his spear fared ill there and failed its wielder, who died. The last living of the three leaned heavy on his weapon. “Yield,” Sir Clovis said. The brigand did and dropped his spear, then he fell too and never rose, for he had more of wounds than man can bear.