Epic Knights of Legend and Steel

Chapter Sixteen

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Healey Wood

8.8 miles southeast of Hexham

Mid-November

D ue to terrible weather conditions, including a snowstorm that had blown the white stuff vertically all day and all night, Drake’s travel north with his eighteen hundred-man army had been draggingly slow. His men were properly dressed, as his father was always insistent that the men be taken care of because weak men made for a weak army, so Drake and Devon and Dallan made sure their men were well dressed for the climate, but it still didn’t make for swift travel simply because the weather was working against them most of the time.

Still, Drake made sure that they found shelter every night which, for almost two thousand men, could be quite difficult. Shelter was usually groves of trees, but two nights in a row it was the three barns and outbuildings of a very big farming operation. Drake’s men had slept beneath a roof, surrounded by dry straw and farm animals, but they didn’t seem to mind. It was warm and dry, and that was all that mattered.

As they drew further north, the weather seemed to worsen. The nights seemed longer and colder, and the days more dreary and uncomfortable. The roads were terrible, ruined by freezing rain and snow, so their pace had gone from slow to slower. Sometimes they had to carry the wagons over great ruts because they simply couldn’t be pulled through them. In all, it made for miserable travel and Drake was starting to think that he would never be warm again. He’d forgotten what it felt like. The cold seemed to suck everything out of him except one thing– the memory of Elizaveta with the feel of her body against his. He remembered that very well and happily so. It was the only thing that had given him any comfort over the past forty-one days. Aye, he’d counted the days. There had been little else to do but count them.

Elizaveta was in his thoughts constantly. He kept reliving the short time they’d had together, remembering their wedding, the comical way they’d been introduced (which he found humorous now although he hadn’t particularly at the time), and he wondered how she was passing the time these days. Was she thinking of him as much as he was thinking of her? He hoped she was. He held tight to the memory of her weeping when he’d left Thetford, believing that she truly felt something for him because women did not weep for men they did not care about.

Still, he was afraid to voice any of his thoughts to Devon even though he knew the man would be happy for him. It seemed rather embarrassing for him to admit to his brother that the man had been right about marriage and a wife. Pride was an odd thing and Drake had enough pride to fill a moat. Therefore, his thoughts on Elizaveta were his own. He wouldn’t admit anything, not yet. He liked it that way.

On this eleventh day of November, the de Winter army was trudging up a particularly bad section of the road that hadn’t held up well under the foul weather. It was mid-day under gray skies although there was no rain or snow, for which they were grateful, but Drake looked up into the sky and kept expecting a deluge at any moment. That seemed to be how their luck worked as of late.

The land was relatively flat here except for a few rolling hills, seasonally devoid of color. To their right was a meadow bordering a forest, a line of trees that ran as far as the eye could see. As Drake studied the tree line, he could see that the road up ahead took a turn and disappeared into the forest. He was thinking that it might be a good place for them to bed down and spend the night; according to their scouts, Hexham was just under ten miles away and they could make that easily on the morrow. He was, therefore, thinking of giving his men some extra time to rest after their difficult march north. Devon and Dallan were riding up ahead, at point, and Drake spurred his heavy-boned warmblood forward through the ranks to reach them.

“Look at the heavy canopy of trees up ahead,” he pointed them out. “It might be a very good place to bed the men down for the night.”

Devon and Dallan were looking ahead, seeing the dark line of trees in the distance. “Do you want me to scout out a location, Drake?” Dallan asked. “I will take a few men with me and we can find a good spot.”

Drake glanced at his youngest brother; a tall, young man who had just seen twenty years and two, he had pale eyes and blond hair, and was following very much in his eldest brother’s footsteps in that he enjoyed the company of women a great deal. He was flawless with a blade and shared his brother’s love of pranks as well. Drake had a particular fondness for Dallan and he was very glad his brother had come with him on this journey. He was the baby of the family, a bit immature, and something like this was bound to help him grow.

“Aye,” Drake said. “See if you can find it near a stream. And, Great Bleeding Christ, make sure the men dig the latrines downstream this time. One does not appreciate shite in the water when one is trying to wash one’s hands or face in the morning, as I was a few days ago.”

Dallan burst into a big grin. “What’s this you say?” he said, teasing. “The latrines should be dug down stream? I would have never guessed.”

Drake shook his head at his brother as Devon snorted. “That is because you are an idiot,” Drake told Dallan. “I am going to make sure that whatever water you touch from now on has some form of shite in it. Be very, very careful how you bathe or eat the next few days.”

Dallan laughed; it was always great fun to taunt Drake, the King of the Jesters. “You would not dare,” Dallan said. “For if you do, I shall tell Mother and then you will be very sorry.”

Drake pointed a finger at him. “If you tell Mother, I will tie you up and beat you within an inch of your life,” he threatened, hearing Dallan laugh as he spurred his frisky stallion up the road. Drake called after him. “Do you hear me? You are still my little brother and I can still beat on you!”

“Nay, you cannot,” Devon said, grinning.

Drake shook his head as if he had a great and terrible problem on his hands. “Nay, I cannot,” he agreed, resigned. “That lad can throw a punch that will put a grown man unconscious for two days. I have seen it.”

“So have I.”

Drake looked at him. “Then you will help me catch him when I must beat him,” he said. “I will not tackle Dallan alone.”

Devon chortled. “I will not help you,” he said. “You must do your own dirty work.”

Drake was grinning as he watched Dallan gather a few soldiers who were riding ahead of the army. Dallan led them away as his horse galloped down the road towards the forest where he hoped to find shelter for the army. Overhead, thunder began to roll.

“I am glad he came with us,” Drake said, glancing up at the sky. “He spends far too much time with Mother. The lad truly needs to grow up.”

Devon nodded. “That is true,” he said. “But he is her baby, her youngest. It is difficult for her to let him go.”

Drake looked at him. “She did not coddle us the way she coddles him.”

Devon shook his head. “Nay, she did not,” he said. “She seemed to be more than eager to be rid of us. I cannot imagine why.”

Drake had to laugh. “Because we were always fighting each other, tearing the house down,” he said. “I would be eager to be rid of us, too.”

“So would I,” Devon said, glancing at his brother. “But it was great fun, wasn’t it?”

“Absolutely.”

Devon returned his attention to the road before glancing up at the sky, thinking he felt some rain when thunder rolled again. “I wonder if I will be as eager to send my son away to foster as Mother was to send us,” he said.

Drake shrugged. “I suppose we will both find out, if God is good.”

Devon looked at him. There was something in the man’s tone that suggested he was, perhaps, hoping for such a thing. “A son for the future Earl of East Anglia,” he said, noting that Drake was refusing to look at him as he spoke on his marriage and future progeny. “Mayhap several sons. How many times have you bedded your wife since you married her, Drake?”

Drake was losing the battle against the threatening grin. “Several.”

“She is a beautiful woman. Dannie likes her a great deal.”

“ I like her a great deal.”

It slipped out before Drake could stop it and he heard his brother snort. “I deduced as much,” he said. “I am very pleased, Brother. She is a fine woman and you make a fine pair together.”

Drake turned to look at him, waiting for more of a taunt. “Aren’t you going to tell me that you told me so?”

“Told you so what ?”

“That marriage was nothing to fear.”

Devon simply shook his head. “I believe I said that I did not understand your fear,” he said tactfully, for unlike the other brothers, he wasn’t one to gloat. “But you simply did not wish to be married. I defended you to Mother many times to that regard, but she was determined. I am glad her determination has brought you some happiness.”

Drake allowed his grin to emerge, mostly because he was thinking of Elizaveta. Thoughts of her always made him smile.

“Aye,” he said quietly, glancing at his brother with some embarrassment. “It has.”

Devon grinned in return, knowing that would be as close to an admission from Drake that he had been wrong about marriage as anyone would ever hear. But it was good enough for him and he was thrilled for his brother. He had truly wondered if he would ever see the day when Drake would be a settled, content husband and it would seem that the time had finally come.

The army continued along in relative silence as the sky above grew darker and the thunder grew more frequent. Big, fat drops of freezing rain began to fall and Drake knew he had to find shelter for the men before the deluge began. It would be much more difficult to erect shelters, even in the trees, with the wind howling and the rain falling. He had Devon pass the word down the column to pick up the pace and de Wolfe, at the very rear of the troops, took up the cry and began encouraging the men to hurry in the choicest language possible.

De Wolfe could curse with the best of them, they had come to discover, and when he began shouting that the men were beastly, deformed hedge-pigs with beastly, deformed legs that wouldn’t move very fast, Drake and Devon laughed so hard that they were weeping. They began howling with laughter when de Wolfe, hearing their snickers, called one of the men a dull-eyed maggot simply because the man tripped over his own feet in his haste to pick up the pace.

Fortunately, however, the soldiers began laughing, too, because de Wolfe’s insults were truly hilarious and it made the travel far less miserable if they were laughing. He called them onion-eyed pizzles or flap-mouthed harlots, which was extraordinarily entertaining when boomed in his loud and commanding voice. Drake and Devon began to suspect that was what de Wolfe was doing all along. He was simply entertaining the men with insults so they wouldn’t be quite so dismal as they practically ran to make it to the shielding forest before the storm broke.

The sheltering trees welcomed the army as the men made it beneath the canopy which, thick as it was, offered a fair amount of shelter. The foliage was quite thick and they could hear Dallan and his soldiers off to the north in the trees, shouting to each other. Soon enough, Dallan reappeared and indicated for the army to follow him as he’d found a particularly heavy growth of canopy that had nearly no rain on the ground beneath it.

Men began to trudge through the undergrowth and the wagons were diverted off of the road, struggling through the heavy brush as soldiers pushed from behind, helping them through the thicket. Drake had brought four provisions wagons with him, so it was a struggle to move them off the road and into the area indicated by Dallan, but the trouble was worth it. The area was truly nearly dry and well-protected. Drake ordered tents pitched and fires started, and his men moved swiftly to settle in for the night.

Dismounting his horse, Drake turned it over to one of de Wolfe’s squires for tending, the young man who was his sister’s son, and he went to one of the provisions wagons and began removing his possessions. His quartermaster already had his tent mostly raised, a dark blue, somewhat small tent that had once belonged to his father.

The tent held Drake, Devon, and Dallan, and little else, but it was well constructed and warm. As he pulled his brazier and raised cot off the wagon, he could hear the thunder roll overhead and more droplets of rain made it through the canopy, which told him there was a truly nasty storm going on. He could see the vertical rain blowing on the edges of the forest and considered himself lucky that they had been able to find this sheltered haven. He looked forward to a quiet and restful night.

But that was until he heard some commotion off to the north. It sounded like yelling, he thought, but it was distant. Curious, he set the brazier down and looked to the northern edge of their small clearing to see what was going on and was thoroughly surprised to see Dallan, and a few soldiers on horseback, burst into the clearing with an entire group of poorly-dressed men on foot rushing after them.

But Drake’s surprise was only momentary; after that, his training kicked in. They were being attacked by a group of unknown accosters and Drake rushed to the wagon where Lespada lay in its scabbard. He began bellowing for his horse but he knew the animal was too far away, probably already stripped of his saddle. Therefore, Drake had to face this attack on foot, as did most of his men. He was still in full armor, and still completely armed, so he grasped the sword of his forefathers and headed towards the attack.

His men, well-trained, were also heavily armed and rushing to meet the incoming tide of men. As Drake ran closer, he could see his men already engaging what looked to be Scots. They were clearly wearing the Scots manner of dress of very long tunics, with no armor that he could see, and they were using pikes and axes rather than swords. There were no archers that he could see, thankfully. Swiftly assessing the situation, and not stopping to wonder why Scots were pouring out of an English forest, he lifted Lespada to the first enemy he came across and heads began to roll.

“Scots, Drake!”

Devon raced up behind him as Drake finished off a second man. For a moment, Drake and Devon studied the men Drake had just killed, seeing that they were, quite clearly, Scots. Then they looked around them, seeing the fighting and killing. Everyone who wasn’t a de Winter soldier was dressed in the traditional Scots dress of long tunics, down to their knees, and the baggy braies , or baggy hose, underneath.

“Great Bleeding Christ,” Drake hissed in disbelief. “What are Scots doing this far south?”

Devon couldn’t answer him. Soon enough, they were set upon by a large concentration of Scots and they were quickly fighting for their lives. But more de Winter soldiers rushed to their aid, chasing them off, and forming a kind of circle around them, fending off any Scots that came too close. There were far more de Winter soldiers so the fighting was going on in pockets, not on the whole, and Drake and Devon rushed into the trees because they could hear de Wolfe bellowing angrily. By the time they got there, de Wolfe’s horse had been killed by pikes to the chest and de Wolfe was fending off several angry Scots.

Drake and Devon plowed into the group, killing anything in a tunic. The Scots, seeing an onslaught of de Winter troops, began to retreat with the de Winter men pursuing. Some of the mounted soldiers had found their horses and were riding after the retreating Scots, killing them before they could get away.

As quickly as the attack started, it seemed to trickle off. Left in its wake was a great bloody mess in the trees, a massacre or sorts, with Drake and Devon and de Wolfe eventually going around killing any Scot that was still twitching. Even so, Drake wanted some answers. He wanted to know who these men were and why they had come so far south. It was very odd for Scots to venture this far south into England; more than that, this wasn’t just a few marauding Scots. This had been a fairly sizable force and their attack had seemed semi-well planned. They had made a point of going for the knights or those who were giving order. Nay, this wasn’t a random raid in the least.

Ordering his men to gather a few prisoners that could talk, Drake went about with Devon and de Wolfe to quell any more pockets of fighting. As he was running to catch up with his brother, a big horse suddenly bolted past him. Looking up, he saw that it was Dallan’s bloodied horse.

And it was riderless.

Panic set in. “Devon!” he bellowed. “Find Dallan! He is without his horse!”

Devon turned swiftly to see the bloodied horse rushing off. Realizing what his brother had meant, he began screaming Dallan’s name, running in the direction the horse had come from, with Drake and de Wolfe on his heels. They were all calling for Dallan, looking at the dead and wounded, seeing if they could spy the remaining de Winter brother.

It was a harried flight through the foliage, battling through pockets of fighting, stepping on men who were clearly dead, struggling to locate the last remaining knight. Dallan . Drake struggled not to curse himself for letting his younger brother out of his sight, but he knew it was foolish to shoulder any blame. Dallan had been on horseback, fighting with a group of men, and presumably well protected.

Moreover, Dallan was a powerful knight, smart and skilled… surely he had only fallen from his horse and nothing more. Surely he was around here, somewhere, dispatching the wounded. On a whim, Drake took a look down a small ravine that cut through the trees, ending somewhere near their encampment. As he passed a glance over the heavy undergrown at the bottom, he caught sight of an arm sticking up out of the leaves.

An armored hand that he recognized.

“Devon!” he screamed.

Drake slid down the side of the gully, crashing through the growth and tripping on vines in his haste to reach the bottom. As he neared the hand, Devon and de Wolfe appeared at the top and, seeing what Drake saw, began sliding and running down the side of the hill as well. But Drake reached the hand first and grabbed it, pulling it up only to realize his worst nightmare. It was Dallan’s hand and the man was covered in dirt and blood, ghostly white. Drake fell to his knees, clutching his baby brother against his chest as Devon and de Wolfe reached him.

“I cannot see where he is injured,” Drake said, his voice trembling. “There’s blood everywhere. Find his wound!”

Devon was in a panic, gasping as he struggled to get a look at Dallan’s body to find the injury. De Wolfe was doing the same thing, inspecting the man’s torso and lower extremities, trying to find the source of the blood. All the while, Drake held Dallan against him, tears in his eyes.

“We have you, Dallan,” he said hoarsely. “We have found you. You will be well again, I swear it. Can you hear me, Dallan?”

Dallan groaned, struggling to come around as Drake wiped away the mud on the man’s face. “D-Drake?” he muttered. “Drake?”

Drake gazed down into his brother’s face, struggling to appear confident and comforting. But the tears were finding their way out of his eyes and onto his face.

“I am here,” he repeated. “Devon is here. We will take care of you.”

Dallan’s eyes opened and he stared up into the canopy above, dazed, as Devon, inspecting the upper portion of Dallan’s back where Drake’s arm held him, suddenly gasped.

“Here,” he said, his features washing with horror. “Oh, God… here it is. It looks like an axe wound. Drake, it’s in the center of his back between the shoulders and runs from one shoulder to the other. It… it… cut deep, through his spine. It… it… oh, sweet Jesus….”

He couldn’t finish, dropping his head and bursting into quiet tears, and Drake knew at that moment that his youngest brother would not survive. He had no idea what to say to the lad, who was staring up at the sky and who, so far, had yet to say more than a couple of words. Drake’s eyes filled with an ocean of tears and his throat tightened, making it difficult for him to speak. He tightened his grip on his brother.

“Dallan,” he said quietly, tears falling onto the young knight’s neck. “Do you hear me? Feel me holding you now. Devon and I are holding you so tightly. You are our brother and we love you very much. Dallan, do you hear me?”

Dallan blinked and swallowed, a labored gesture. “I… I cannot feel anything.”

Drake nodded, sniffling, as Devon laid his head upon Dallan’s chest, sobbing quietly. “I know,” he murmured. “Do not be afraid, Dallan. Devon and I are with you. You are not alone.”

Dallan blinked again, his eyes finding Drake. When their gazes met, Drake forced a smile but it was an odd gesture when coupled with the tears falling from his eyes.

“Mother,” Dallan said, labored, because he had lost the ability to control his lungs with the severed spine. More than that, both lungs were cut by the deep axe strike. “You must tell Mother than I will be well again. Will you tell her?”

Drake couldn’t hold back the sob as his face crumpled. “I will,” he whispered.

“W-Will you tell her that I was magnificent in battle?”

Drake nodded fervently. “I will,” he swore. “She will be very proud of you, Dallan. You are a great knight.”

Dallan stared at his eldest brother. “Greater than you?”

Drake saw the weak glimmer of mirth in his brother’s eyes and his laughter joined the tears. “Aye, greater than me,” he said. “Greater than Devon, too, although that is no difficult feat.”

Devon, who had been weeping deeply upon Dallan’s chest, lifted his head when he heard the insult. It was a light moment when there should not have been one, the last humorous moment the three brothers would share in this life. It was a memory that Drake and Devon would cherish for the rest of their lives.

“If I could think of any of de Wolfe’s insults at the moment, I would say them to both of you,” Devon said, positioning himself so he could look Dallan in the eye. “Of course you are greater than Drake is and even greater than I am. You always have been. It is a privilege to be your brother, Dallan.”

Dallan’s lips flickered with a smile, looking up at his twin brothers, mirror images of one another. It seemed as if he wanted to say more but couldn’t manage it. His lips worked but his chest was heaving oddly, tremulously, and the light in his eyes began to fade. He was still looking at Devon when he spoke for the last time.

“Mother….,” he whispered, out of breath. “My… I want to see my Mother….”

With that, he drew his last breath. His body twitched and his eyes flickered, but the light went out of them completely as he was left open-eyed, staring at his brother. Devon, seeing the life pass from his brother, burst into quite sobs again and lay his head on Dallan’s chest once more, wrapping his arms around the man to hold him close.

Drake, too, lost the battle against sobs and buried his face in the top of Dallan’s head. He and Devon held their brother as he passed from this life, whispering of their love for him, telling him that it was all right to go. The youngest de Winter brother with the bright future ahead of him would never know his destiny. It ended in a Scots ambush at the bottom of a muddy ravine.

And that was how young Dallan de Winter died.

De Wolfe had watched all of it, tears in his eyes as Drake and Devon held their brother as he died. William had two brothers himself, both of them young and both of them knights, so he could sympathize with what he was witnessing. It made him sick and angry and devastated. Such a damnable waste , he thought. There was nothing he could do for Dallan de Winter that Drake and Devon weren’t already doing, but there was something more he could do to help the brothers in their moment of sorrow.

He could find out who was behind the ambush.

Leaving the de Winter brothers to their grief, he made his way back up the ravine in search of prisoners to interrogate.

God help the first man he came to.