The Last Knight
A One Shot
Dusk of the Second Day
Matosi's shield was heavy across his back, his helm stifling. Blood, his own, his fallen comrades, and his enemies, smeared his face, his armour, his shield. His greaves bit into his knees when he lifted his legs and dug into his ankles when he lowered them. The pommel of his sword rubbed against his ribs when he climbed. Frost strewn wind grazed his face, cutting through his short beard grown from so many days beyond the walls of civilisation. Blood and mud stained his fingernails poking out from torn leather gloves. Matosi climbed higher, the mangy goats hopping around him, mocking his inability to climb the rugged cliff face, but he was a Knight of the Emerald Drake and he would not fail.
The End
Shoulder to shoulder. Shields interlocking, swords glistening in the winter sun, the Knights of the Emerald Drake waited the approach of the enemy. Ravenous, ferocious, and painted in the blood of sacrificed oxen, the Hu'er came, naked and fearless. The earth thundered. The air crackled. The horizon became a flood of men, screaming and laughing, taunting and shouting. With crimson eyes the brutes crashed into the Knights of the Emerald Drake. A thousand thousand men more animal than human, for now. The Drake would show them the way, in time, but first the Hu'er had to be subdued.
Matosi held his place in the line firm, blocking, stabbing, blocking, stabbing, until the whistle was blown and the man behind him took his place and he fell to the back to recover. The sun swayed in the sky, the moon swift to follow so deep into winter, and Matosi returned to the front, blocking and stabbing, at the same array of blood smeared creatures spitting and snarling. They fought atop the dead, Knights and brutish Hu'er alike, but there was no end to the manic forgotten and the Knights of the Emerald Drake dwindled.
Dark of the Second Day
Fires burned across the plains below, the great host of Hu'er brutes feasting on the fallen Knights and revelling in drunken stupors. Matosi clung to his blood strewn cloak, torn and fraying, refusing to reveal his location for a mere glow of warmth. The cookfires of his enemy dotted the land for as far as he could see, north, south, east, and west. So much flame dimmed the stars above. Raucous shouts boomed through the night, the Hu'er revelling in their victory, in their brutish way. Had victory not been guaranteed by the divine? All the magi had said so and now they were dead, had they read the portents falsely? Wrongly? Matosi clung to his cloak and willed himself to sleep, such thoughts would only lead to despair.
Dawn of the Third Day
Matosi rose to a thousand thousand pillars of smoke choking the sky. The plain had been stripped clean and now a desert remained, he knew not what Hu'er had done, or why, but it was plain they had no care for the land. The host of savages had moved on. Matosi was glad.
The Knight of the Emerald Drake rose on stiff knees and aching back. His water gourd was empty yet he let it hang from his sword belt as a wish for a river, a stream, a clump of old snow. He knew none existed where he was headed but still Matosi wished. Climbing the mountain that once represented the end of the world when Matosi was just a boy-squire he knew he would not need water, not anymore. Nor food, though that did nothing to quell his hunger. He stared at the pale stone beneath his feet, thought trapped by a single question. Has the Drake forsaken me, the last of the Knights? The last of the Knights of the Emerald Drake continued to climb for there was nothing else he could do.
As Matosi neared the summit he remembered his own entry into the Knights. A boy not yet three winters old. Orphaned like most of the others by the Hu'er and for that the defeat stung ever deeper. Young enough to know no different than the life of discipline that was laid out before him, of rising with the sun and laying down deep into the night, of weapons training from dawn till mid-morning and theology from after lunch till supper. The scant free hours were spent practising tradecrafts, smithing, bowyering, and carpentry, when they weren't spent in the kitchens cooking. Matosi lingered near a cairn of fist sized pinkish rocks smooth as slate. His thoughts were of home, the fortress of thick black stone situated atop Carata's Rock in Sunken Frog Lair, once nothing more than a swamp but now a thriving city since the Yellow River shifted course and the land dried a little and became arable. Perhaps he could return, the thought had gnawed at the edge of his awareness for hours. Return and recruit new members, raise a new chapter of Knights, stronger and larger than before to crush the Hu'er. Doubt swiftly followed. Crushing defeat had happened for a reason and Matosi had to know. He climbed higher.
Dusk of the Third Day
Matosi reached the summit. The brisk air carved through his cloak and stole his breath, clouds bobbed along distant peaks depositing rain and sleet in abundance. In every direction the horizon taunted him, goaded him, for he knew that he was the only living soul for a hundred li, a thousand li. The Hu'er had moved on, as they were wont to do, at a break neck pace, driven by hunger, lust, and preternatural rage. To think one million people were crammed within the walls of Sunken Frog Lair while a further two hundred thousand farmed the land, fished the lakes, and hunted the forests around it, but there, around that nameless peak, was a world untouched. The Knight drew his sword and examined its gleam, for all the blood it had spilt it had not weathered, had not dulled, for like all swords of the Knights of the Emerald Drake it had been blessed with draconic tears. He raised the blade to his neck and caught his grey-yellow eyes staring back. He drew the blade across the palm of his left hand and raised it to the sky, blood dribbling down his wrist and being flicked away by the wind.
'Hear me, O Great and Terrible Drake. I, Matosi of the Third Chapter, Chrysalis of the Fourth Rank, loyal servant of thee, summon you to this unnamed mountain!' Matosi watched the sun through his fingers as a crimson ribbon laced down his arm. The wind wailed and whipped him, the sun brightened and blinded him, the dust upon the plateau lifted up and shook. 'Hear me, Emerald Drake, Scourge of Faguro, Menace to Makano-yo, succour me, thy faithful servant, may your divine wing shield me from forces known and unknown, may your wisdom guide my actions forever more!'
A shadow split the sun in half. A roar shook the earth and the floating dust slammed down upon the mountain plateau. The wind stilled and then twisted about Matosi making his cloak billow and slap. The four-winged shadow circled once overhead and then dove. Matosi fought his instinct to cower and raise his sword knowing such actions would only bring scorn, instead he stood tall and firm, clenching his bloodied fist.
The Emerald Drake crashed down before Matosi, roaring and spreading its four wings wide enough to cast the world in shadow. 'Ye Knight of little renown who dares to summon me, speak your wishes and wants before I claim thy sacrifice.' Mist billowed between sworded teeth, the drake's seven eyes seizing Matosi in his place. The final light of day glistened deep green across the drake.
Matosi stood firm, his blood dripping down his own sword in his hand, 'We Knights of the Emerald Drake fought for you, prayed to you, sacrificed to you, yet I am all who is left. Why!' the words tumbled out of him with venomous intent.
The Emerald Drake stretched its neck toward Matosi, its warm and oddly sweet breath washing over the last Knight like a summer breeze. The drake spoke without words or movement of any kind, 'For you had all lost thy way.'
'Lost? We lost nothing!' hot rage boiled in Matosi's belly. 'The stone, green and magnificent, upon which your laws and portents are written still mount the altar in Carata's Rock. Our magi sacrificed to you daily. All the Knights prayed daily. All learned and studied your ways every day.'
'And yet you lost,' the rumbling voice boomed inside Matosi's head.
'You forsook us! Out on that field against the Hu'er of all the beastly men of this world!' Matosi pointed up at the Emerald Drake with his blessed sword.
'I forsook nothing,' the Emerald Drake blinked, each eye closing one-by-one, and Matosi's sword became rust upon the wind.
Matosi grabbed for the sword but there was nothing to catch. He gasped and staggered forward. 'Why?' He fell to his knees. 'Why did I survive, alone?'
'Ye already know why,' the Emerald Drake stretched its head to the sky and roared. The clouds spread apart to form a ring above them. The sun quivered as it dipped below the horizon and the first stars appeared in the east. 'I impart new portents upon the stones, portents you will adhere to, portents that will confuse you, perhaps then you will understand. Perhaps.'
'Am I to become like the Friars of Halasion who came from the west? Who forgo all food but bread and wear rags? Or am I to become as the Bao who seclude themselves in the southern forests waiting for their tree gods to rise again? Or...' Matosi felt the earth between his fingers, dry and arid.
'Silence,' the drake's voice sent shivers down Matosi's spine. 'I will not see ye become as those fools. Discipline and zeal remain thine burdens and thine reward. Ye will not suffer, nor rejoice, alone. As I said, ye already know what you must do.' The Emerald Drake stared upwards, waiting for something.
'A new chapter? A new generation of Knights?' Matosi gazed upwards, his arms limp at his side as he knelt in the dirt.
'Yes,' the word stretched out into a rumbling hiss.
'I, a lowly Chrysalis?'
'Yes,' the drake hissed again, this time with a note of joy. 'Cease thy questions, the time has come. Return to Carata's Rock, learn the new ways, and recruit new adherents, then and only then will I answer thy summons.' The Emerald Drake spread its four wings. A single star appeared in the ring of clouds above and the drake took flight, headed directly upward.
Matosi was buffeted by wind and sand. When the drake became nothing more than a fleck in the sky he looked down to find his blessed sword in the dirt as gleaming as the day he had received it. He picked it up, sheathed it, and rose to his feet. With a steeled heart he descended the mountain and returned to Carata's Rock.
Many thanks for reading!
Nice!!!! I enjoyed reading.
Thanks.