The Knight's Dog

Part VII.

THE NEXT MORNING Garamund helped Dern buy a horse. She was an old nag, but still the best horse for sale in Brookford, and she seemed happy enough to be saddled instead of hitched to a plow. They wrapped the knight’s sword and shield in blankets and lashed them to the back of the saddle beneath Dern’s pack, then bid farewell to each other. Dern thanked his friend and gave him a silver crown, even though he knew it would all be spent in the tavern.

The dog had no trouble keeping up with the horse, especially with Dern so unaccustomed to being in the saddle. He’d only ridden one other horse before, a farm horse Kyler had stolen somewhere in the westlands. They’d taken turns riding it, but didn’t have any food to feed it and they ended up eating it when it died several days later in the mountains.

They reached Stonetown well before midday and stopped only to water the horse. The dog drank out of the horse trough beside it. When they were away from the town on the road again, Dern became anxious, knowing they were heading towards the knight’s grave. And the dead man he’d called father.

“We never decided on your name, dog,” Dern said, trying to keep the thought of Kyler’s corpse from his mind. “I’ll shout out names. When you hear one you like, bark.” Dern began stating names. The dog trotted happily along ignoring him.

They came upon the knight’s cairn more quickly than Dern had expected. He was relieved to see that Kyler’s body was gone, along with the horse’s. The wolves got their meal in the end. The cairn remained as he had left it.

Dern paused briefly to note the landmarks in the area as Garamund had advised him to, in case the King wanted to send men to retrieve the knight’s bones and armor. Once he had the surrounding landscape set in his mind, he hurried the horse on to be away. He slowed several miles later and dismounted to walk the horse. The dog was panting, and gladly took the opportunity to piss on more trees.

“Jack,” Dern said, resuming the name game. The dog ignored him. After a while Dern began to run out of names. “Maclure… Seamus… Jager… Fleabag… Dog.”

The dog’s ears pricked up.

“What? You want to be called Dog?”

The dog didn’t seem to be paying attention to him. It sniffed the air, growled, then suddenly dashed into the woods with its hackles raised. Wolves. Dern pulled his dented axe from his pack and tightened his grip on the horse’s reigns. He didn’t know whether it was better to be mounted or not. He wasn’t a good rider, so decided it was best to stay on foot.

The road had veered east, away from the grasslands of Stonetown and Brookford and fully into the woods. There were wolves in the area to be sure, but it seemed a more likely place for—

A twanging sound emanated from the trees and suddenly Dern was on the ground, pain burning through his left leg. His horse reared and nearly trampled him as it bolted away. Dern tried to stand and go after it, but the pain in his leg sent him to the ground again, sobbing in pain. He opened his teary eyes and looked down to see that he’d been shot in the thigh with an arrow; the tip had gone clean through and jutted from his inner leg no more than an inch below his balls. He grabbed them to make sure they were still there.

A man emerged from the trees. He carried a bow and had another arrow notched.

“Bastard!” Dern yelled at him. “You shot me.”

“You best thank the gods I was only aiming for your leg,” he replied. Two more men walked from the trees behind him. They were armed with short swords and one of them had a filthy, bloody bandage covering half his head and his left eye.

Brigands. They murdered the knight.

“My horse…” Dern began.

“Is too nice for a beggar like you,” the man with the bow finished. “Where did you get it?”

Dern looked down the road and saw that another brigand had caught his horse and was leading it back towards them. Four of them, but they’d kept the horse from getting away at least. Amuse them. Pretend you’re no threat and they’ll let you live.

“I stole her,” Dern said in a more childish voice than he intended. The pain in his leg was making it hard to breathe. “From Brookford. She’s mine.”

“You’re a thief then?”

“Aye, and if you don’t give my horse back and leave me be, I’ll steal your britches and shove them up your arses.”

The man with the bow laughed, then nudged the arrow protruding from Dern’s leg with his toe. Dern cried out in earnest and fresh tears streamed down his face. “Check his saddlebags,” the man said. The others obeyed. They found the coin purse first, then the shield and sword, causing them to whisper to one another. Of course, they would recognize the shield.

“Where did you get all this?” the bowman demanded. “Don’t tell me you stole them with the horse.”

Dern shook his head. “No. I killed a knight.”

One of the other brigands snorted. “Stole them from his corpse more likely.”

“I killed him,” Dern insisted. “He had a couple of arrows in him, sure, but I finished him off with my axe. I wouldn’t steal no sword from a dead man and get a curse on me.”

The man with the bandage on his head grabbed Dern’s axe from the ground and inspected it. “It has been notched by a sword.”

“Was there a savage hell hound with him?” another of the brigands asked, holding up a hand newly missing its pinky and ring fingers.

“Aye,” Dern said. “My horse kicked him in the head.”

The man with the bow examined Dern’s axe, then the sword and shield. “What were you planning on doing with these things, boy?”

“Selling them, of course. They’ll fetch a good amount of coin, I suspect.”

The man nodded in agreement. “True enough. You’ll have to split the coin five ways now. Along with the coin in the purse.”

“But I’m the one that killed him,” Dern protested.

“We’re the ones who shot him full of arrows.”

Dern kept silent, as if to consider the offer.

“Your other choice is an arrow in the head,” the man warned.

“Alright,” Dern agreed, still clutching at his leg. “But only if you help me pull this arrow out.”