Dreams of Glory

Kael stomped his feet and compacted the snow. Freezing to death hadn't been what he'd had in mind when he'd run away from the farm. He'd envisioned sunny fields, tall knights, brightly colored banners, thunderous tournaments, glory and simpering ladies. Kael's life was anything but.

A slight whoosh yanked Kael back to the present. He scanned the night-shadowed vale. Scrub oak, stripped to their bones by winter's teeth, clung to the rocky knolls rising about their camp.

"Psst -- Dellin, you hear that?"

"Aye--" Dellin pointed. "--'twas over there".

Kael stared out in the general direction Dellin had indicated. All he saw were snow-covered trees, rock and brush.

His gaze turned up nothing. "Pro'lly just an owl."

"Or a hart." Dellin sighed. "What I wouldn't give for a choice bit of roast venison right now."

Kael's stomach rumbled.

The crunch of snow drew Kael's attention towards camp. His breath caught when he saw the tall red-head approaching them. Her emerald eyes trapped Kael's. A new smile etched her face.

"Cold out here isn't it? This'll warm you up. It'd be hard, but you know how it is, you might need your wits about you yet this night." Trysta's smile flickered.

Dellin latched onto the proffered mug of steaming cider, wrapped his spindly fingers about it and inhaled. He took a careful sip and followed it with a deep draft.

"Light, that's fine. Nice you think of us low-lifes."

Trysta's gaze traversed the snow-scape. "Oh, I know how it is. I've done my share of guard duty. You seen anything?"

"Naw," Dellin finished off his cider. "Would've told y' if we had."

A branch snapped in the still, chill air somewhere beyond camp.

"Down!" Trysta dragged the two men to the ground.

A frozen cloud billowed up from where Kael crashed. He reared back spitting snow.

Trysta levered his head back into its frosty cradle. "Stay down!"

Somewhere, a crossbow cracked. Towards camp, allied soldier dropped. The snow splashed crimson.

Kael tried to rise.

Trysta yanked at him. "Not yet!"

Her battle instincts were always right. He ground his teeth against his own nature and burrowed his face in the snow.

There were more fleshy thunks. The brush exploded. Soldiers hurtled past. Men screamed. Swords clashed.

"The girl! Get the girl and run!" Trysta wrest the two men to their feet.

Dellin's bow felled an invader bearing down upon their camp. Kael's sword ripped through another. Two dozen strides brought him to his employer's wife. She huddled over her child, a living shield. She looked up, saucer eyes, beseeching.

Kael fended off a blow meant for her. He bashed the man with his shield and thrust over the top of the woman. The soldier intent on her slaughter fell. Dellin's arrow took another.

"Come on!" Trysta decapitated a soldier and motioned wildly at him. "Bring the girl! Run!"

"The family, I can't get them out!" Kael roared back. Enemy soldiers pressed from all sides.

"Just. Bring. The. Girl!"

"Please--" The woman thrust the blond child towards him. "Please take the Princess to safety!"

"Princess? What Princess?" he bellowed. "She's a Princess?"

"Yes! Take her. Please take her! "

"You're merchants?" He smashed another assailant aside.

"A disguise, hers! A failed deception! Please, take her!"

Another enemy stepped up behind the woman. A different soldier pressed Kael from the side. The woman's husband saved her only to be cut down himself. It did little good. She was smashed to the ground by her next assailant.

Kael bellowed his rage, his grief, his failure. They could have been anyone; his friends, his family, his brother, his wife. He lay about the dying couple with his sword. He didn't even care when a blade slipped past his guard to score his shoulder. That soldier died. Everyone that met Kael's sword died.

Someone grabbed his arm. He whirled, blade poised.

"Stop! Kael! Stop! Kael! Just stop!" Trysta tugged furiously.

Kael blinked. The last few retainers struggled for their lives against the invaders. He, Dellin, Trysta and the Princess were in the clear. He grabbed the Princess's hand and ran.

"Thank the Light," Trysta said in his wake. Dellin fell in behind him and together they crashed headlong into the brush.

Snow and ice catapulted from branches. Limbs clawed his skin and lashed those behind him. Red welts and tears bloomed upon the Princess's cheeks. She did not cry-out. They charged on. Trysta steered them south.

"Slow down!" Dellin barked, sometime later.

Kael staggered to a stop. His heart hammered a blacksmith's cacophony within his ears. Beside him, the Princess dragged at his arm and stumbled to her knees. Trysta slid to an unstable stop and Dellin doubled up gasping.

Kael glanced back the way they had come. They'd raced across the broken landscape for more than a league. There was no sign of pursuit.

"Oh Light, I thought you'd never come." Trysta panted between words and leaned heavily upon his shoulder.

"Trysta, we were supposed to protect them. We -- they were slaughtered."

"We were paid for the girl."

That took a second to sink in. "You knew?" Why hadn't she told him the girl was a Princess? A Princess of where?

"Yeah, I knew."

"Then why by fury didn't you tell us?" Dellin roared.

Trysta gave them all a self-conscious lopsided grin. "Well--" She shrugged. "--I was kind of afraid you might not come along. We've been together so long. I didn't want go it alone."

The plates of his gauntlet compressed within the Princess's grip.

"Trysta? Why would we refuse to help guard a Princess? When have we ever refused a job you've found for us?"

"Well ..." Trysta began.

Dellin's face blanched. "The ambush was yours. That's how you knew they wouldn't kill us on the ground. They were on our side from the beginning and we let those people die. People we ate, drank and traveled with. People who thought we were protecting them!" He shoved his face in Trysta's and jabbed a finger at the Princess. "We're to kidnap her!"

"Dellin, Back off!" He shouldered between Trysta and Dellin. "That wasn't the plan. Right, Trysta?"

"Actually..." Trysta shrugged.

Dellin snarled. "Who we givin' her to?"

"Glaven."

"And you're?"

The girl's voice was small. "Avelsen."

Kael stepped away from Trysta. He drew the Princess closer. "Trysta, no."

Trysta took a hesitant step towards Kael. When he retreated further she began to tremble.

"There's always politics, there's always war. We can't live like that, not forever, someday death will catch up." Trysta wrung her hands. "This'll be our last job. She's worth enough to get out. Enough to live. We can buy a farm and leave this all behind. We can buy three farms."

"Yes, yes you can," said a voice as cold as winter itself. "I see you've brought King Daren's spindly spawn as agreed."

The Princess yelped. Kael flinched. Trysta sagged. As one they turned to face the newcomer.

Even though mounted, it was easy to see the newcomer was tall. His ashen tabard was of Glaven and he was flanked by five soldiers, their crossbows cocked, aimed and ready.

Trysta sucked in a heavy breath. "Sir Horace, I was beginning to think we might have to run all the way to Stonebrook with the child."

"You would've never made it." His voice, like his eyes, was flat and humorless. "Now, if you'd hand over the brat I'll be on my way."

Trysta held out a hand. "Our pay?"

Kael pulled the girl behind him. "Trysta, no!"

"Of course." A weighty bag of gold scrunched into the snow at her feet.

Dellin gasped.

It was easy to see why. There was gold enough within that sack to buy three farms with a respectable hoard leftover. Instinct moved Kael to retrieve some of the spillage. Only the Princess's grip held him back.

"Trysta, this is not right." His voice caught. "We can't sell the Princess to him. She's just a girl."

"She's a royal. She's the job." Trysta's eyes never left the Knight's. "We've butchered royals before. It's not like we're killing her." There was an unmistakable not now note in her voice.

"That was war!"

Dellin cleared his throat. "Trysta, those wars were started by others. Never by us. Not 'till now. We've never started a war before."

"And she's only a child!" Kael voice crescendoed. "Did you wonder what might happen to her?"

Sir Horace shifted in his saddle. "How droll. I would have never guessed you people had such qualms. War's good for business when you're a soldier-for-hire." He turned to his arms-men. "Get the girl. Kill the others."

Crossbows snapped, launching their missiles. Trysta dove forward under the onslaught. One smacked into Kael's shield. Another he knocked off course with its edge. The remainder passed through Dellin's chest. Still, first one and then a second, soldier sprouted fletching from their throats before Dellin collapsed.

"No!" Trysta's long blade flashed. A soldier, stunned expression on his face, lost his head. The next dropped his crossbow only to be run-through before he'd grasped the hilt of his sword. The third planted a bolt in her thigh as he too lost his life. She lunged at the knight but her leg betrayed her.

Sir Horace rose in his stirrups above Trysta. Trysta's blade caught the lightening descent of her enemy's sword. Her pierced leg buckled and she went to her knees. Horace danced his horse forward for another blow.

Kael launched himself. Muscle and steel collided. Momentum staggered the horse and it, its rider and Kael went down in a tangle of battering limbs.

The horse rolled knocking Kael aside and Horace regained his feet first. His boot rammed Kael's chest back into the snow.

A moonlight flash interrupted the death stroke meant for him. An exchange of lightning flashes danced before Kael's eyes. Steel grated on steel. Horace and Trysta exchanged swords, both taking their new blades in the chest. They bore each-other to the ground.

"Trysta!" Kael rolled her from atop Horace's carcass. More than ever, freckles punctuated her corpse pale skin. "Trysta!"

Here green eyes flicked opened, dilated, and slowly focused on him. Her smile hurt him.

"Kael--" Blood flecked her lips. Her voice was that of a ghost's. "--you're okay."

"Yes." He choked on the simple word.

"I would've liked to have had a farm." She turned away, her eyes loosing focus, as though gazing on him were too difficult. "Like the one you grew up on."

"You still can."

She smiled wistfully. "I'd have liked to have had kids. Little Kaels."

Her name came out as a sob. "Trysta."

She didn't look at him. Kael's world darkened.

"Trysta?"

Kael didn't know how many times his heart broke before he became aware of the presence beside him. A small hand rested on his shoulder. He looked up. The Princess's storm-cloud eyes were dark and somber.

"I'm sorry, sir knight."

"I'm no knight. I kill for cash."

Great, childish, grey eyes studied his blue. "You saved me. A Princess. In Avelsen that makes you a knight."

A vision of a sunny field and bright flags passed before his mind's eye. His burnished armor shone like the sun. A lady blessed him with her favor. She had fire hair and freckles. A tear tracked down his cheek.

Kael forced the vision away, reached out a gauntleted hand and gently closed Trysta's staring eyes. He picked her up, laid her beside Dellin and prayed the Light receive them. He then lifted the Princess' slight form into the saddle of Sir Horace's horse. The beast shifted nervously as he climbed up behind. Taking up the reigns, he turned their mount's head towards Avelsen.

The horse plodded. The wind whistled. The stars turned in the sky. Tears froze upon his face.

"Sir Knight," the Princess said, "will you be my Champion? I've always wanted a Champion."