The Red Knight полностью

Tunxis emerged from the oaks to the east at a run, his long, heavily muscled legs beautiful at the fullness of his stride, his body leaning far forward, balanced by the heavy armoured tail that characterized his kind. His chest looked deceptively human, if an unlikely shade of blue-green, and his arms and shoulders were also very man-like. His face had an angelic beauty – large, deep eyes slanted slightly, open and innocent, with a ridge of bone between them that rose into the elegant helmet crest that differentiated the male and female among them. His beak was polished to a mirror-brightness and inlaid with lapis lazuli and gold to mark his social rank, and he wore a sword that few mere human men could even lift.

He was angry – but Tunxis was at the age when young males are always angry.

‘Why do you summon me?’ he shrieked.

Thorn nodded. ‘Because I need you,’ he answered.

Tunxis clacked his beak in contempt. ‘Perhaps I do not need you. Or your games.’

‘It was my games that allowed you to kill the witch.’ Thorn didn’t smile. He had lost the ability to, but he smiled inwardly, because Tunxis was so young.

The beak clacked again. ‘She was nothing.’ Clacked again, in deep satisfaction. ‘You wanted her dead. And she was too young. You offered me a banquet and gave me a scrap. A nothing.’

Thorn handled his staff. ‘She is certainly nothing now.’ His friend had asked for the death. Layers of treason. Layers of favours asked, and owed. The Wild. His attention threatened to slip away from the daemon. It had probably been a mistake to let Tunxis kill in the valley.

‘My cousin says there are armed men riding in the valley. In our valley.’ Tunxis slurred the words, as all his people did when moved by great emotion.

Thorn leaned forward, suddenly very interested. ‘Mogan saw them?’ he asked.

‘Smelled them. Watched them. Counted their horses.’ Tunxis moved his eyebrows the way daemons did. It was like a smile, but it caused the beak to close – something like the satisfaction of a good meal.

Thorn had had many years in which to study the daemons. They were his closest allies, his not-trusted lieutenants. ‘How many?’ Thorn asked patiently.

‘Many,’ Tunxis said, already bored. ‘I will find them and kill them.’

‘You will not.’ Thorn leaned forward and slowly, carefully, rose to his feet, his heavy head brushing against the middling branches of the ancient oak. ‘Where has she found soldiers?’ he asked out loud. One of the hazards of living alone in the Wild was that you voiced things aloud. He was growing used to talking to himself aloud. It didn’t trouble him as it had at first.

‘They came from the east,’ Tunxis said. ‘I will hunt them and kill them.’

Thorn sighed. ‘No. You will find them and watch them. You will watch them from afar. We will learn their strengths and weaknesses. Chances are they will pass away south over the bridge, or join the lady as a garrison. It is no concern of ours.’

‘No concern of yours, Turncoat. Our land. Our valley. Our hills. Our fortress. Our power. Because you are weak-’ Tunxis’ beak made three distinct clacks.

Thorn rolled his hand over, long thin fingers flashing, and the daemon fell flat on the ground as if all his sinews had been cut.

Thorn’s voice became the hiss of a serpent.

‘I am weak? The soldiers are many? They came from the east? You are a fool and a child, Tunxis. I could rip your soul from your body and eat it, and you couldn’t lift a claw to stop me. Even now you cannot move, cannot summon power. You are like a hatchling in the rushing water as the salmon comes to take him. Yes? And you tell me “many” like a lord throwing crumbs to peasants. Many?’ he leaned down over the prone daemon and thrust his heavy staff into the creature’s stomach. ‘How many exactly, you little fool?’

‘I don’t know,’ Tunxis managed.

‘From the east, the south-east? From Harndon and the king? From over the mountains? Do you know?’ he hissed.

‘No,’ Tunxis said, cringing.

‘Tunxis, I like to be polite. To act like-’ He sought for a concept that could link him to the alien intelligence. ‘To act like we are allies. Who share common goals.’

‘You treat us like servants! We serve no master!’ spat the daemon. ‘We are not like your men, who lie and lie and say these pretty things. We are Qwethnethogs!’

Thorn pushed his staff deeper into the young daemon’s gut. ‘Sometimes I tire of the Wild and the endless struggle. I am trying to help you and your people reclaim your valley. Your goal is my goal. So I am not going to eat you. However tempting that might be just now.’ He withdrew the staff.

‘My cousin says I should never trust you. That whatever body you wear, you are just another man.’ Tunxis sat up, rolled to his feet with a pure and fluid grace.

‘Whatever I am, without me you have no chance against the forces of the Rock. You will never reclaim your place.’

‘Men are weak,’ Tunxis spat.