The Knight's Dog

Part VIII.

THE LEADER OF THE BRIGANDS—the one who’d shot Dern with the bow—was named Bralen; the one with the bandage on his head was Quat; the one with the missing fingers Marl; and the last was named Tarly. Their camp was in a clearing a half-mile east of the road. They had several horses tethered to the trees at the edge of the clearing and a wagon they’d stolen from a farmer they killed several days before. The wagon had a cask of ale in it from which the brigands started drinking as soon as they returned. Bralen offered Dern a horn of the brew he gladly accepted. They’d pulled the arrow from his leg for him, and he’d wrapped the wound with a piece of cloth torn from his cloak, but it still throbbed horribly.

The brigands were a boisterous lot that bragged and cursed, and more so the more they drank. Bralen had shot a pheasant earlier in the day and as the dark envelope of night closed in around them they gathered around their cook fire to eat and drink more. The fowl was good, as was the ale, but Dern only sipped at the ale. Let them drink all they want and I’ll slip away when they’re passed out snoring.

The tales they told were cruel. The farmer whose wagon they stole had met an easy death—an arrow through the eye—but others—merchants with money, especially, and those of noble birth—were tortured, raped if they were women. Dern pretended to be impressed, and even amused them with a few stories of how he’d stolen from rich merchants in the big cities. They particularly enjoyed the story of how Dern had gotten covered in shit while crawling through Lord Labat’s privy shaft.

Eventually the talk turned to the slain knight. Marl told how Bralen shot him in the chest with an arrow and they all attacked. There’d been seven of them. The knight killed two and almost brained Quat. The dog killed another and took Marl’s fingers before Bralen could get another arrow into him and two into his horse.

“I thought his horse would go down, or at least panic and throw him,” Bralen marveled, “But it was a well-trained horse. It took one in the chest, another in the rump and my quiver was empty. I had to call the retreat.”

Dern had not seen an arrow in the horse’s chest, but figured the horse must have chewed the shaft off. A chest wound would explain why it had died in the night.

It was silent, Dern realized, and all the brigands were staring at him. They want to know how I managed to kill him when seven of them failed. Dern took a swig from his horn and looked into the fire.

“His horse was dead when I came across him on the road. When he saw me coming he demanded I give him my horse. The one I’d stolen. He called me an idiot serf boy. I could see he’d been bleeding from the arrows in him and his face was all white so I wasn’t scared of him. I told him to ride that ugly dog of his if he was in such a hurry. That made him mad and he tried hitting me with his sword, but I blocked it with my axe, and that’s when the dog rushed in. My horse spooked and all I could do was hold on. She was jumping up and around in circles. It did the job. She stepped on the dog until it quit moving and knocked the knight onto his arse. He tried scrambling after his sword, but he wasn’t moving too fast with those arrows in him. I jumped off the horse and hit him in the back of the head before he ever got there.”

“The first man you ever killed?” Marl asked.

Dern nodded.

“How’d it feel?”

“Better than him lopping off my head,” Dern said, looking up from the fire and smiling. “A lot better than Bralen’s damned arrow in my leg, that’s for sure.”

They all laughed at that and the conversation thankfully moved on to other, less recent stories. They believed me, Dern marveled as he sat watching them drink like it were a race. Even Bralen, who’d had his eye on him the whole time was drinking much and laughing. Eventually, they began to nod off beside the fire one by one. Bralen and Tarley kept talking for a long time of plans for the morrow, but Tarley fell asleep mid-sentence and Dern was left the only one awake besides Bralen.