The Errantry of Bantam Flyn Read online

  When all was accounted for, Ingelbert walked back to where Worm Chewer waited and shut the ledger, his charcoal tucked securely between the pages. The Knight Sergeant spat in the dust and with a grunt, led Ingelbert out of the yard in the direction of the Middle Bailey. Ingelbert knew the way, of course, but it did not matter. He never went anywhere without escort.

  The Roost was a vast stronghold of halls, towers, barbicans and keeps, all stoutly perched atop an imposing escarpment. Such a castle should have been a hive of activity, but Ingelbert and Worm Chewer encountered no one between the yard and the Bailey. The gruagach had murdered eight of the castle's denizens. Fear had claimed the rest. Now the daily functions of the castle limped along with barely a quarter of the manpower needed to maintain the needs of the Order. Productivity was further retarded by the need for every human servant to be constantly guarded by at least one armed squire. As annalist, Ingelbert merited the protection of a member of the Knights Sergeant. The last man to hold his position was discovered to be an impostor and slain. The body of the actual chronicler was never found.

  Ingelbert had come to the Roost to record the deeds of the knights, preserve their history and maintain the castle library. However, the servants' mass desertion forced him to perform more than his titular duties. He spent the rest of the morning in the chandlery, dipping wicks. Worm Chewer sat on a barrel, performing the ghastly habit that gave him his name. Some of the other Knights Sergeant often helped Ingelbert in his daily tasks, especially Yewly the Salted who was an old sailor and loathed to be idle. Not so with Worm Chewer. After several hours, Ingelbert gathered up a bundle of finished candles for his own use and left the chandlery.

  A lazy spring rain had begun to fall, the drops slow and swollen. It did nothing to cool the day. When Ingelbert and Worm Chewer entered the Campaign Hall, the air was heavy and close, the stone walls slick with moisture. Ingelbert's chambers were located beneath the hall, in a large storeroom converted for his use. He took a heavy iron key from his belt and unlocked the thick oaken door that was the only entrance. Worm Chewer stepped in first to ensure the room was indeed empty before stepping back into the corridor. Ingelbert entered and closed the door, locking it once more with the key and throwing the large bolt. He undid the clasp of the squint and slid the small iron door aside. Worm Chewer peered at him through the bars.

  “Will you be wanting supper brought?” the knight asked with little interest.

  “No, um, no, no need,” Ingelbert told him.

  The coburn nodded, spit and turned away. Ingelbert heard his spurs clicking on the stones as he left.

  Closing the squint, Ingelbert took a deep breath and immediately removed the collar of nails. Another day done. No one would bother him further, at least until the morning. It was scarcely past midday, but the knights had taken to leaving Ingelbert to his tasks as chronicler without a guard, so long as he kept the door locked and barred. Feeling some of the tension flee his body, he turned and faced his haven.

  After the shape-changers' attempt to set fire to the library, the Grand Master ordered the more important contents moved. The storeroom was quite spacious, but after transporting the multitude of scrolls, tomes, ledgers and maps, along with all the tables and shelves necessary to house them, the room shrunk considerably. Now it was something of a warren, choked with stacks of dusty parchment, piles of musty books and colonies of furled charts. Ingelbert hated the Roost, but here, here in this room, he gained a sense of safety. It was foolish, he knew, for one was never truly safe from the duplicitous terror that stalked the castle. But here, he was safe from the fallacies of verbal interaction. He might very well have caused the long established alliance between the Knights of the Valiant Spur and the Dal Riata to crumble today, all because he spoke and, as always, spoke poorly. He envied the servants who had fled. He shared their fear, but his fear did not grant him the courage to run. Here, at least, in his storeroom amongst the books where there was no need for speech, here he could do some good.

  Ingelbert deposited his collar and the fresh candles on a desk already buried and sat down in his chair. There were messages from the Knights Errant to record, come from all across the Tin Isles. Most had taken months to arrive, the news old and largely unconfirmed, but Ingelbert carefully scrutinized each one, cataloging the information in a system of his own invention. Now he could immerse himself in comparing the newest missives with older reports, tracking the individual knights' movements, mark his maps and cross reference their words with their fellows to glean a clearer picture of the current state of the Isles.

  News from surrounding Albain was regular, provided more by the human clans than the Knights Errant, few of whom quested so close to the Roost. Middangeard warriors continued to plague the Isles, but Blood Yolk reported engaging several of their ships off Albain's eastern coast, while Pitch Feather repelled a raiding party in the lowlands. To the south, in Ingelbert's homeland of Sasana, there was little of note, though Sir Barn Lochlan had sent disturbing word of an entire village massacred and the corpses of the slain eaten. The knight could not say what had done the slaughter, only that it appeared the work of several large creatures. Little trickled in from Kymbru, but that was unsurprising as the knight they called Poorly Well was nigh illiterate. Nothing from Outborders either, but that was expected. The Dread Cockerel never sent word.

  The source of the most anticipated news, however, came from across the water to the west, where lay Airlann, the Source Isle. Many of the knights were occupied there, lending aid in the aftermath of a Red Cap uprising. Though Torcan Swinehelm and the majority of his army were slain at the ruins of Castle Gaunt, the goblin general had left a large contingent to hold Black Pool, a city he had taken with support from Middangeard reavers. Reports from Black Pool were regular. Two of the Knights Errant, Bronze Wattle and Sir Girart the Wake, had pledged their swords to the city's liberation.

  A core of resistance had formed amongst the populace not long after the walls fell, bolstered by sellswords paid by the deep coffers of Black Pool's enigmatic leader, the Lord of the Pile. Ingelbert had varying reports about this goblin potentate. Originally, he was said to have been executed by Torcan Swinehelm, but now Bronze Wattle wrote of his return, rallying the people of the city to push the Red Caps out. Whatever the truth, the resistance had gained much ground. Fully half the city had now been reclaimed, harkening back to a period in Black Pool's long history when the city was divided amongst warring factions.

  The coburn penchant for colorful sobriquets withstanding, they did a great deal of good in the world and though Ingelbert had served the Order only a short time, he had quickly come to respect the mission of the Knights Errant. He knew only their names, for they returned to the Roost once every two years and Ingelbert had arrived at the castle in the middle of the latest errantry. He delved into their messages, hoped for their success and yearned for fresh reports, but he had only seen one in the flesh, Sir Pikard the Lucky, the aging knight that recruited him. Soon, he would meet the rest. The two years were nearing an end.

  There were no windows in the storeroom, but Ingelbert had grown accustomed to reckoning time in his paper strewn den. The sun would be down, the watch posted and the castle filling with shadows. The pall of fear that draped the fortress during the day would now solidify into calcareous dread. A companion by day encountered alone in a corridor at night was to be feared. An alteration in the action or mannerism of a friend was something to be distrusted. The company of others was to be shunned since anyone could be a monster wearing familiar flesh. Alone, no one could harm you. Alone, no one could help you.

  Ingelbert stayed immersed in his work until the bitter watches. At last, when his heavy lids could no longer stay perched above his dust reddened eyes, he retired to the small alcove that contained his bed. The night did little to abate the heat. Ingelbert slept fitfully and fought a losing battle with his damp bed linens. Resigned to restlessness, Ingelbert rose and returned to his desk. He needed to occupy the final
hours before dawn in order to keep the trepidation that dwelt ever in his mind at bay. He reached into the chaos of his work and plucked a heavy volume from the nest of parchment.

  It was a prodigious work, bound in green leather darkened to near black with the oil of countless palms, the pages curled and stained with the curiosity of ages. Ingelbert had discovered the book in the library after the fire, when he and half dozen squires were tasked with moving the annals to a safer location. It had no title that Ingelbert could discern and was written in a runic script that he knew to be the archaic language from which the tongue of Middangeard was descended. Many sleepless nights had been whiled away staring at its pages, the tedious translation of which had yielded little more than mundane lists. Yet Ingelbert returned to the task more nights than not, finding the numbing exercise was a balm to his regularly troubled thoughts. He spoke the tongue of Middangeard, but the words contained within this discarded book were only distantly related. He found the translation of each individual word not unlike untangling a ridiculously overwrought knot. So long as he continued to worry at, eventually it would unravel. The banality of the discovered words never seemed to dampen his satisfaction.

  He had just dug the word for honey from amongst the runes when he heard the noise in the corridor.

  Ingelbert tensed.

  It was not yet dawn, he was certain. His appointed escort never arrived before the sun. He sat frozen at his desk, listening, waiting for the sound to have been an invention of his ears, but it continued. Steps on the flagstones and coming closer. Ingelbert groped around his piles for the dagger he knew to be present, though rarely seen. He tried to make a silent search, but when the weapon remained hidden, panic infused his movements and soon paper and books were thrown noisily to the floor. The footsteps were just outside the door when his hand at last fell upon the weapon's sheath underneath a stack of maps. The sudden, forceful knock caused him to jump, knocking the dagger off the desk to fall between it and an overburdened bookshelf.

  Ingelbert did not move. He stared at the door, unwilling to take his eyes off of it to look for the fallen dagger. The knock came again, louder.

  “Master Crane,” an unfamiliar voice issued through the door.

  Ingelbert remained where he was. What could he do? Continue to stand here shaking like a frightened child and hoping whoever was without would go away? He could wait for one of the Knights Sergeant to arrive and—

  “Master Crane,” the voice punched through, punctuated by a strong fist on the door.

  Wiping the sweat from his forehead, Ingelbert approached the door and with a shaking hand unclasped the squint. He slid it aside and found two coburn in the hall. The younger one stood bearing a torch behind the older who regarded Ingelbert through the opening with a placid expression. Both wore iron collars about their necks.

  “Ingelbert Crane?” the older coburn asked.

  “Yes?” Ingelbert managed.

  “Pardons for waking you,” the coburn said. “But as is custom, we would have our names recorded in the castle book.”

  “Names?”

  “Sir Corc and Squire Flyn.”

  “Bantam Flyn,” the younger of the pair added, laughter in his voice.

  A hint of annoyance played across the older coburn's brow before he returned his attention to Ingelbert.

  “We have returned.”

  TWO

  Dawn was minutes away when Flyn rolled the barrel directly down the center of the squires' barracks. The heavy tub thundered across the floor, the mail shirt within slapping sharply with each rotation. Curses, shouts of alarm and groggy protests flew at Flyn from both sides as the squires shot up in their bunks. When Flyn reached the end of the barracks he hopped over the barrel and turned to face the long, low room. Two dozen rudely-roused faces glared at him. Flyn gave them a hearty wave.

  “Top o' the morning, my young struts!”

  With a laugh, Flyn bent back to the barrel and started pushing it down the aisle between the beds once more. This time, the complaints were followed by several flung objects, mostly surcoats and skullcaps, but one pewter mug sailed past, missing widely thanks to sleep-addled aim. The haphazard missiles did nothing to curb Flyn's progress or his laughter. The squires regained enough of their wits to add words to the rough din of complaints.

  “Who the blazes?!”

  “Jackanapes!”

  “Get out!'

  “Pardons, boys!” Flyn replied without remorse. “Have to get this armor clean. Make the Order proud and all that!”

  A large, clawed foot stamped down over the barrel, causing Flyn to come to an abrupt stop. He looked down at the long talons between his hands. They flexed, leaving deep scratches in the wood as they gripped the curve of the barrel. A foot that size could belong to only one coburn.

  “Hello Gulver,” Flyn said without looking up.

  The barracks had gone quiet.

  Flyn straightened and found his eyes level with a breastplate.

  “Had the late watch, then?” Flyn said, looking up the rest of the way to meet Gulver's face.

  Of all the coburn in the castle, Gulver was by the far the biggest. None in the ranks of the squires or the Knight's Sergeant came close. Among the Knights Errant, only the Mad Capon rivaled Gulver in size, but where the knight was notoriously fat, Gulver was a walking mass of muscle. When last Flyn saw him, he was lying senseless in the mud of the tourney field, the result of a quarterstaff strike to the head. A strike Flyn had delivered.

  “See lads,” Flyn said, clapping Gulver companionably on the shoulder and turning to address the entire room. “The leech was worried, but I told him...Gulver has not any brains to scatter.”

  Flyn was rewarded with a few chuckles.

  “Well, go on then,” Flyn said to Gulver, keeping his hand on his shoulder as he stepped around the barrel. “Give it a good kick and help a fellow out.”

  Gulver did as suggested. The barrel bounced mightily across the floor before careening into one of the bunk posts, causing the occupant to swear loudly as the impact rocked his bed. After the crash, the only sound in the barracks was the steady hiss of sand escaping the burst slats of the barrel.

  “You should not be here, Flyn,” Gulver rumbled, shrugging away from Flyn's touch. “You should be in the Campaign Hall, waiting for the others to return from their errantry.”

  Flyn found himself surprised at the lack of anger in Gulver's voice. Even as the big coburn walked away from him, there was a noted absence of aggression in his movements. Coburn males were known for their posturing, especially within the ranks of the squires, where everyone was on the look-out to prove their prowess. Destroying the barrel had not been a challenge, then. Gulver had simply called his bluff.

  “I am not spurred yet,” Flyn replied, keeping his tone light. “I am afraid you must still count me amongst your company. Just another bantam!”

  “No,” said a squire Flyn did not know. He stepped into the aisle, glaring with flinty eyes. “You are the bantam. Bantam Flyn! Count yourself so great, you title yourself with the name the Knights Sergeant use to demean us. The first of us. The best of us.”

  Flyn knew when he was being mocked. And this stranger had all the physical clues of challenge that Gulver lacked. This was inevitable, though Flyn was surprised at the source.

  “What is your name?” he asked.

  “Drincoin,” the squire answered, placing far too much pride in the response.

  “Drincoin,” Flyn repeated, affecting a hushed reverence. “You have squired, what? A year?”

  “Eight months,” the youth replied without hesitation, confident even in his lack of experience.

  Flyn was no longer surprised. This is where he should have expected the challenge. From himself. A fresh squire, too sure, too foolish to be of much use to anyone save his own overinflated sense of prowess. But there the similarities ended. This Drincoin was not Flyn. The way he stood, the placement of his hands, the weight of his body shifted too far to his le
ft shoulder, his beak lifted too high. This fight would be over quickly. The trick would not be to win it, the trick would be to teach these others watching, so that he was not challenged again.

  “Well, Drincoin,” Flyn said. “You seem eager to show me what you have learned in so lengthy a tutelage.”

  “Eager to show an over-stuffed braggart where his jests are not welcome,” Drincoin said striding forward.

  Gulver extended his monstrous arm, blocking the squire's path.

  “You lot have watches to post,” Gulver said to the entire barracks. “And drills to work. Do not keep the Knights Sergeant waiting. To it, now.”

  The big squire had barely raised his voice and Flyn was impressed to see the squires scramble with alacrity at his words. All save Drincoin, who continued to stare over Gulver's arm at Flyn. Gulver leaned down until his beak was very close to the brash squire's face.

  “To it.”

  Drincoin blinked, gave Gulver a respectful nod and withdrew.

  “My gratitude,” Flyn said once the squires had filtered out of the barracks.

  “I did you no favor, Bantam Flyn,” Gulver said, wearily setting about the chore of removing his armor. “The Order needs every able body. I did not need you killing some young strut. Even if he is a green fool.”

  “I would not have harmed him overmuch,” Flyn replied. He took a step forward and began helping Gulver with his pauldron straps. The brute tensed for half moment, then gave a grunt of appreciation, slumping heavily onto the nearest bunk. Flyn worked quickly and soon had Gulver free of his harness. He hung the various components on hooks along the barracks wall and then sat on the bunk opposite the huge squire. The two regarded each other for a long time and Flyn could not help but recall all the times they done just this after hard days of training. He smiled.