Word came from Rumen, today. The Sun Eater has destroyed the city, slaughtered the Senate. There is no word of my family. I can only hope they were all at the vineyards on the coast, but it is a forlorn hope. The last time I saw my father, we argued bitterly. There is work to be done - I must find supplies somewhere, to feed my men, but I cannot seem to make my mind work just now.
* The Campaign Journals of General Aurelius, volume II
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10th Day of New Summer’s Moon, 297 AC
So many Kimmerians had come through the gaping wound in the world, that they were not only loosing flaming arrows on the town, but taking every opportunity they could to distract Trist, as well. He whirled away from another strike at the daemon Zepar, slicing an arrow out of the air in two halves. A second shaft flew wide of him, and lodged in the ground, quivering from the force of the impact.
He spared a glance for his father’s men-at-arms: two were down and bleeding, and the line was being pushed back into the burning south end of the village. For the moment, John Granger was holding them together, but Trist could tell that it wouldn’t last. It was time to admit that he’d failed: while he’d killed the initial wave, and held the daemon off, too many mercenaries had come through the portal. They had lost any chance of using it as a choke point. If he kept fighting, he was going to lose every one of the men-at-arms.
Zepar cut at him, but the monster was still too slow. Trist ducked forward, running past the daemon’s sword, then planted his right foot and spun on it, letting his left sweep out behind him describing an arc in the dirt. His longsword moved with him, slicing the unprotected area behind Zepar’s knees. With a roar, the daemon fell to the ground, bracing itself with its left hand while holding the hilt of its sword in the right.
Trist didn’t wait to see how long the wound would keep the monster down: instead, he dashed in behind the line of the Kimmerians, slicing off hands and legs, cutting throats and stabbing up into armpits, the point of his sword thrusting into beating mortal hearts. Half a dozen men died before the line broke, the surviving mercenaries scrambling back toward the portal.
The men-at-arms gave a cheer, but Granger only looked to Trist for his command. “We can’t hold them here, m’lord,” the older man said, pointing to the gate, where additional fighters poured through continually. Already, the men who’d retreated were reforming their line.
“Our duty was to give our people time,” Trist said, raising his voice so that all the men could hear it. “We did that. Bring the wounded, and head for the center of town. Move quickly; we guard our families as they retreat into the Ardenwood.”
The wounded men were lifted by two warriors each, leaving only Trist, John, and a dozen men to fight the retreat. They walked backwards, uphill, and the men kept their shields raised to protect from incoming arrows. For his part, Trist cut anything he could reach out of the air, sometimes two shafts at a time. Despite it all, by the time they reached where the two roads crossed at the center of town, at the foot of the hill upon which the manor house was built, three of the men had to discard their shields, set ablaze by burning arrows. Smoke was thick in the air around them, and the entire southern half of the village was aflame, with sparks already making the leap across the road that ran west from the mill on the river into the Arden. Now that they had secured this side of the portal, the Kimmerians did not seem in any hurry to charge after them into the village, preferring to rely on their archers, rather than to risk further losses.
“Trist,” Granger said from behind. “You need to get over here, m’lord.”
Trist turned from his view of the burning half of Camaret-à-Arden. The master-at-arms was kneeling beside a dead horse, straining to shift its bulk. Just past him was a scorched crater around a second smoking horse, earth blackened from a lightning strike, just like those left during Trist’s duel with the daemon Vinea during the attack on the marching army. He hurried over to the horse, sheathed his sword, and knelt down to lend his muscle to Granger’s efforts.
Yaél was pinned beneath the corpse of her gelding, pale-faced, her eyes closed. “Is she alive?” Trist asked, reaching for his wineskin.
“Aye,” Granger confirmed. “I can feel her breath with my hand, but we need to get the horse off her and have a look at her leg.” He paused. “It won’t be good, m’lord. I’ve seen this happen before. We may have to cut it off.”
“Take her by the shoulders and get ready to pull her out,” Trist said. “And have a knife, in case the stirrups need to be cut loose.”
The master-at-arms nodded, drew his belt knife, and nodded to Trist, signaling that he was ready. Trist crouched, got his gauntlets under the horse and a good grip on the edge of the saddle, and lifted.
The Trist of three moons past could not have done it. He would have strained with everything he had, desperate to save his squire, and failed. They would have needed three or four men to roll the horse off her, probably crushing her leg worse in the process, while Granger waited to pull her out.
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Trist straightened his legs with a cry, the world humming orange in his vision, the burning threads of his Boon straining and searing his muscles. He heaved with his arms, and threw the dead horse off the girl completely. It rolled once, down the hill, and then slid to a stop on the dirt of the road. Trist gasped for breath, stumbled, and nearly fell over. Once the orange had receded from his vision, he knelt next to Granger and Yaél, unslung his wine-skin, and loosed a red, burning thread from his heart.
The fabric of Yaél’s breeches was stained with blood and torn, her leg bending at odd angles. A sickly, yellow-white splinter of bone pierced the skin of her thigh, visible through the hole torn in the fabric.
“Hold her head up,” Trist gasped, panting, and Granger did so, cradling the young squire in his lap. Trist tipped the wineskin into her mouth, calling upon the Boon he earned by drinking from Auberon’s Graal. The watered wine splashed around Yaél’s mouth, running down her neck and staining her gambeson. A moment later, she coughed, opened her eyes, and then screamed. There was a snapping, grinding sound as the bones in her legs straightened.
“Take this,” Trist said, shoving the wineskin into her chest. “Keep drinking. John, get her into the woods. Take her to my wife, or one of the monks if you can’t find Clarisant.”
“Trist,” Yaél moaned. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry I couldn’t stop it.”
Trist shushed her like he would a horse. “You have nothing to apologize for. You fought bravely.”
“Vinea,” the girl said. “It was Vinea. Followed Claire into the woods. I’m sorry, Trist. Your father…” Her eyelids fluttered shut.
“I’ve got her,” Granger told him. He slung the girl’s arm across his shoulders and lifted her easily.
Trist rose. “Two daemons here. That explains the lightning strike. If it's followed them into the Arden, I need to get there.” He took two steps over to the scorched horse, dead inside the lightning-crater, and then stopped. All sound faded away, leaving him in a silent, still world.
Sir Rience du Camaret-à-Arden lay where he’d been thrown, not in the crater itself, but off to the side, in the small flower-garden between the road and the shop owned by the Chapman family. There was smoke rising from his clothing, and along his neck and face, strange red traceries that reminded Trist of winter frost crawling along a glass window pane, or the roots of a tree.
It looked, he realized as the world returned, just like the shape of lightning.
“Father!” Trist cried, and rushed over to kneel down, crushing the bright blue and purple irises beneath his boots.
“Trist,” Rience slurred, opening his eyes. “Feels like… a horse is standing on my chest.”
“Come with me,” Trist said. He took his father by the arm, pulling his body up, and scooped the fully-armored man up onto his shoulders, resting behind his neck. He swayed for a moment: the weight wasn’t more than he could bear, even with the armor, but riding through the night, fighting, lifting the horse, and now carrying his father - it was all catching up with him.
“Move!” Trist ordered the men still lingering. The fire had crossed the road now, wind-blown sparks and fire arrows conspiring together to bridge the divide. Putting action to his own words, Trist took one step, then another along the road west to the Ardenwood. Once he was certain he had his father settled and that the old man wasn’t going to fall, Trist forced himself to speed up into a jog.
If the route hadn’t been as familiar to him as the manor he’d grown up in, Trist would have fallen a dozen times. As it was, he couldn’t lift his eyes from the road. He counted his breaths, just like he’d taught Yaél: in, in out. In, in out. One foot after the other. Don’t stop. Get to the edge of the woods, and get a wineskin so that he could save his father.
“This way, m’lord.” A hand on his shoulder, and he raised his head to see Brother Alberic. “Everyone’s gone to the old ruined chapel. I believe you know the way.”
“I need a wineskin,” Trist said, gasping.
“Here.” Alberic unslung one from around his shoulder. Trist set his father down, where the woodsman’s path ended among the fresh-cut stumps and the newly grown saplings. He put his hand in front of his father’s mouth; he thought there might be the faintest breath. Trist took the wineskin from his old teacher’s hands and unspooled the thread of his Boon again, shoving hot red power into the watered-wine, suffusing it so that it could heal his father.
“Drink this,” he said, cradling his father in his arms and holding the wineskin to the old man’s lips. Sir Rience coughed, but the red traceries on his skin, left by the lightning strike, began to fade.
“Trist,” the wounded knight gasped. “Can’t breathe. Get the armor off, I can’t breathe.”
“He should be healed,” Trist said, desperately, turning to Alberic. “What’s wrong? Why isn’t it working?”
“I’ve seen it before,” the monk said, grimly. “It’s his heart, Trist. His heart is failing.”
“What do we do?” Trist asked. “Medicine?”
“A willow bark tea, if we had time to brew it,” Alberic said. “But even that is no guarantee he would survive.”
Rience grimaced in pain. “I understand. It’s… it’s alright, Trist. I’m an old man. Get… get your sword out.”
Trist drew his sword, placing the hilt in his father’s hand, but Sir Rience shook his head.
“Use it,” he gasped between shallow breaths. “Like you told me.”
“What is he talking about?” Alberic asked, but Trist wasn’t listening to the monk any longer.
“No,” he said. “I can’t do that.”
“I want it,” Rience insisted. “So that I can… help you. Do it quick. And… call on me soon. Things I need to tell you.”
Trist shook his head, but his father weakly shoved the hilt of the sword back at him, and groped for Trist’s hand.
“Do it,” Sir Rience said again.
Trist rose, and lifted his sword, placing the tip under his father’s armpit, where there was only chainmail and the padded gambeson, not plate.
“You’re a good son,” Rience du Camaret-à-Arden said. “I’m proud of you.”
Trist thrust the sword into his father’s body. The old knight sucked in a single, last breath. A trickle of blood ran out of his mouth, his body shuddered once, and then was still.