The Shadow Knight (A Shadow Knight Novel Book 1) Read online

  Jonas removed the tunic and cloak from the dead man to inspect him further. His skin was abnormally pale and blue lines like tiny veins spider webbed across his skin. The man, whoever he was, was muscular and had the body of a man who made his living from lifting a shield and sword. “Interesting,” Jonas whispered to himself.

  “What is? What are you looking for?” Bearit was still trying process what had just happened.

  Jonas looked up. “I was expecting to find a servant of the Forsworn, but I found something different. I have never seen anything like this, and this man was a warrior, that much I know.”

  “What’s that?” Bearit asked, pointing to his shoulder.

  Jonas looked over the body at his far shoulder and saw what Bearit had noticed. There was a black sigil of a dragon head with crossed swords behind it. “I don’t know. I’ve never seen a mark like that.” Jonas drew a hunting knife from his side and moved to the opposite side of the body.

  “What are you doing?”

  Jonas looked up again, his eyes a bit harder. “Do you want to carry this body out of here?”

  “No.”

  “Then be quiet for a moment.” Jonas took the razor sharp edge of his knife and sliced the man’s skin, cutting away the sigil in a perfectly symmetrical piece of skin. Then he sliced off a piece of the man’s cloak and placed the skin in it, folding the edges around it.

  Bearit was taken aback, but regardless he commented on something strange. “There be no blood.”

  Jonas was thinking the same thing, staring with interest at the patch of flesh now exposed. The man’s flesh was pinkish, but more pale than red, and not a drop of blood dripped from the wound. “That is strange. And look at this,” he added, pointing to the man’s neck and head with the sharp point of his knife. “I’ve never seen a sigil like that either.” There was a black snake-like mark that wound around the neck, stopping at the top of the skull, the end an intricate pattern of some unknown design.

  “You’re not going to cut off his head and take it with you are you?”

  Jonas stood and smiled. “No, I think this will do,” he replied as he held up the cloth protecting the piece of skin. “Thank you for coming to my aid.”

  Bearit smiled weakly. “It didn’t seem like you needed it.”

  “Perhaps,” Jonas said as he walked over to the area where he had been roped to the wall and went to the corner of the room. There was a pack, leather belt with two knives sheathed sideways front and back, as well as two swords sheathed on either side. Next to it was a leather bandolier holding four throwing knifes. Leaning against the wall was a black bow and a quiver of blue fletched arrows. Jonas put them all on and looked back at Bearit. “You came to my aid, and that tells me much. We need to talk. And I’m sure you have a lot of questions. Grab your axe and follow me.” It wasn’t a question.

  Jonas didn’t wait for a response. He turned with Tulari at his side and moved away into the darkness. Bearit looked about the room, and even though he knew nothing about the man who had just killed nearly ten men, he knew he didn’t want to remain there, so he slung his axe over his shoulder and hastened to keep up with the mysterious warrior. One thing was for certain, he was full of questions.

  ***

  “Here, drink this, it will calm your nerves,” Jonas said as he slid a mug of ale across the table.

  Bearit was still shaken, but he was trying hard not to show it, putting on a brave front. He had killed a man. He had killed a man, he thought over and over again. He could still picture the man’s head split in two in an explosion of blood and brains. He had reacted on impulse, something that was not uncommon for him. He was no stranger to violence. His father was a brawler and had taught him to fight, to survive. And his size seemed to provoke other large men to want to fight him. He was raised tough and lived tough. But he had never killed anyone before and was having a hard time shaking the image from his head.

  “Who ye be, then?” Bearit asked again before he downed the mug of ale hoping it would calm him. After the fight Jonas had led Bearit from the catacombs to the city above where they immediately went to an inn called the Wayward Lady. He already had a room procured and being that is was very late there were few patrons about.

  “My name is Jonas.”

  “That I know, I did hear you the first time. That’s not what I be asking though. I saw your armor glow and you killed all those men so easily. What are you, is my meaning,” he stated again.

  Tulari, now the size of a big dog, was curled up at his feet under the table. It had taken Jonas a few coins but he had eventually persuaded the owner of the establishment to allow Tulari inside. The beast seemed mellow and obedient, the complete antithesis of what she had been only an hour before.

  When Jonas had been a cavalier, Tulari was his steed, given to him by Shyann, the Goddess whom he served. However, during the war with Malbeck, Jonas was captured and brutally and sadistically tortured by clerics in service to Dykreel. Though Jonas’ friends did eventually find him, he was no longer the same.

  During his imprisonment, the clerics had placed in his chest a barbed halo, cursed with the dark magic of Dykreel, an evil god of Kraawn, which then leeched from the talisman and into his body. The stain of Dykreel took his body over, and in order for him to survive he had to seek refuge within his own mind, protecting the part of him that made up his very essence. Elven wizards had eventually helped him, sealing off the dark magic inside the talisman, though they had to leave it embedded in his flesh. However, while they made him whole once again, he would never again be a cavalier. The magic the wizards used to seal off Dykreel’s blight also broke Jonas’s connection to Shyann. Nevertheless, though he would never again be her cavalier, she still had plans for him. Shyann made Jonas her Shadow

  Knight, a warrior capable of going places undetected -places that a cavalier could never go openly. Places such as the room he had been in tonight. To support him in his secret travels, she had also given Jonas Tulari again, but this time she was in the form of a giant and rare night wolf, a beast capable of changing its size. There were few predators as rare and deadly as night wolves.

  Jonas sighed. This was always the difficult part, explaining who he was and what he was doing there. It had been six years since Malbeck’s defeat, and four of those years were spent training and traveling with Allindrian, the half-elf Bladesinger. She had trained him to be silent in the woods, to merge with shadows, to become invisible unless he wanted to be seen. Jonas’s skill with the bow had been more than proficient, but now it was beyond what most humans could achieve. She had taught him much in the years they had been together. She was forced to finally head home and Shyann had then called upon his service, knowing that he was now ready to take on the mantle of his new role. He was her Shadow Knight, whose job was to travel the lands and search for men and women on the verge of slipping into the black pit of evil. His job was to stop their progression towards evil and to help those, who if left alone, would eventually become the very evil he was sworn to fight.

  “Bearit, listen to me. I was in that room on purpose. I let those men capture me.”

  “Why would you do that?”

  “First, let’s eat some food. My guess is that you have not eaten a full meal in a few days at least. Then we will get you a bath.”

  Bearit’s expression was all too clear. He was embarrassed by his appearance and he was hungry, starving really, and he was not able to hide that fact. “True, I be hungry,” he said slowly, as if he was ashamed. “And a bath be nice. It has been a while,” he finished, looking down at the ground.

  “Being hungry is nothing to be ashamed of,” Jonas said as he put his forearms on the table, flinching where he had been burned. They had beaten him pretty good and despite the fact that he had already wiped the blood from his armor and face, his right eye was swollen and purple and his left cheek was scraped and red. Not to mention his lip was cut and swollen. He didn’t look great to say the least. But he knew from experience that
it could have been much worse.

  “You look to be hurt. We should get you a salve. Some be good for burns,” Bearit suggested.

  “I will take care of them. Let us eat first.” With that, Jonas motioned for a serving girl who was standing near the bar. There were very few patrons about and she was eager to make herself useful. She moved to the table quickly and Jonas ordered a cold meal of cured ham, cheese, and warm bread with honey and butter. She inadvertently stepped away from Bearit, wrinkling her nose in disgust but trying her best to hide her discomfort. They had already ordered ale but Jonas ordered another round. She seemed nervous, glancing at Jonas’s wounds before averting her eyes. Jonas knew the severity of his injuries looked unsettling and he eased her tension by telling her that he had been mugged in an alley. He also ordered a bath for them both after dinner and she readily agreed to prepare them. She nodded to them both and left quickly with their order.

  “Now, let us talk,” Jonas said. “Why were you in that room? Although I have yet to determine who they were, it was clear they were agents of evil, and you were watching them torture me. Why?”

  Bearit looked away, not wanting to look Jonas in the eye. He was ashamed and he didn’t know what to say, so he told him the truth. “I’m starving. I have no money and I haven’t eaten a good meal in months. They promised me as much food and drink as I wanted as well as shelter.”

  “In exchange for what?”

  Bearit shook his head. “They didn’t really say. They hinted at the fact that they would be taking me somewhere to meet their master. It sounded like a job.”

  Jonas leaned back in his chair. He wasn’t sure what to make of it. He needed to learn more about who these men were. Jonas knew that the Forsworn, as well as Shyann, were not commonly worshipped this far west. In fact, many people here still worshiped the old gods.

  “How did you feel watching them torture me?”

  Bearit frowned. “Disgusted. That is why I helped you.”

  Jonas nodded. “I saw something in you, Bearit. Sometimes no one helps, too far gone in their own greed and desire to help anyone else. They often want to make someone pay for their lot in life. Other times I get three or four to help. Tonight I got one; you.”

  Bearit leaned back in his chair, confusion upon his face. “Sometimes you get no one? You’ve done this before then?”

  Jonas nodded. “Yes.”

  Bearit shook his head, dumbfounded. “Why?”

  “It is what I do. I was a cavalier once, warrior to Shyann. Do you know of her?”

  Bearit nodded. “Yes. She be known here, but most do not worship her. My father, he said she is the goddess of the hunt.” He paused, as if he heard him for the first time. “You were a cavalier?”

  “I was.”

  “I have never met a cavalier before. Is that where you learned to fight?”

  “Partly,” Jonas said. “During Malbeck’s War, I was captured and tortured, and the injuries I sustained were severe enough to make it impossible to be a cavalier any longer.” Jonas saw Bearit’s confused expression. “It’s a long story,” he added, “for another time. But needless to say Shyann did not abandon me. I am now her Shadow Knight, blessed to wear her armor and carry her weapons, upholding the righteous and her will. It was her symbol that you saw flare brightly from my armor when I attacked.”

  “It looked like a glowing tree.”

  “It was.”

  Bearit looked at his biceps. “What are those marks?”

  Jonas’s God Mark had grown over the last few years, expanding over his shoulders and down his arms, the branches wrapping around his biceps. “That is part of my God Mark,” and before Bearit could ask more, Jonas cut him off, “also a story for another time.”

  Just then the food and drink arrived and they paused their conversation until their bellies were full of food and warm from the ale. Bearit was starving, and the first few moments were occupied with him shoving food down his throat, drinking quickly to wash it down so he could shovel more into his mouth. Once most of the food was gone, he slowed some, glancing sheepishly at Jonas. “I’m sorry. It’s really good. It has been a long time since I’ve eaten well.”

  “It is alright.”

  “So,” he said curiously. “What is a Shadow Knight? There be others like you? And what kind of beast is this?” he asked, nodding towards Tulari. “The creature was as big as a horse and now it looks to be a dog.” Tulari lifted her head from the floor and growled.

  Jonas smiled as he reached down and patted the side of her neck. She returned her big head to the floor, seemingly ignoring them. “As far as I know I am the first,” he said, taking a drink of ale. “As a cavalier I was a beacon of hope and a symbol of all that is good. My very presence instilled in others a desire to be good, but with all that power came its limitations. I could not go anywhere without being noticed, without being seen for who I was. Now, I can pass for anyone.”

  “Is that how you got taken?”

  “Yes. And the beast at my feet is a night wolf, very rare and powerful. Her name is Tulari and she too was given to me by Shyann, to replace my cavalier steed.”

  “So cavaliers really do get their mounts from their gods?”

  “They do,” Jonas answered, continuing with his story. “I came into town four days ago and it didn’t take me long to find out what was happening.”

  “And what was that?”

  “I went to questionable establishments and dark alleys. In the first night alone I witnessed two drunken men taken from shadowed and stinking alleys. On the second night I followed a man as he stumbled from a bar and made his way to the lake’s edge. There he was accosted and dragged away by three men in black. On the third night I watched two black clothed men talk with a young boy in an alley, luring him away with the promise of bread and ale.”

  “That is what happened to me,” Bearit said. “I was freezing and hungry, sitting under the edge of a roof in a dirty alley. Two men found me there. They promised me food if I would work for them. I knew something wasn’t right, but - I was starving,” Bearit stumbled, trying to find the words to justify his actions.

  Jonas interrupted his thoughts. “Bearit, it’s not your fault. That’s how they work. They prey on people who have nothing left. What matters is that you came to my aid when the others did not. You recognized the evil and did not succumb to it.”

  Bearit smiled wanly. “Perhaps.”

  “It was simple enough to be lured away last night. I think they recognized me as a warrior. Maybe they thought I had deserted, I do not know. I think they wanted to make an example of me, or perhaps just have some fun and entertain the others, luring them into their evil ways. It’s not uncommon for followers of the Forsworn to resort to such tactics to slowly mold their disciples to their will…to slide them down the path of evil so to speak.”

  “Didn’t turn out so well for them.” This time Bearit’s smile wasn’t forced.

  Jonas shrugged and drank from his ale, his mood serious. “I do have another question. Do you know magic as well?”

  Jonas looked up from his cup. “Are you referring to my sword flying through the air?”

  “I am. I have not seen anything like that. He was held against the wall and your sword flew through the air to impale him, there is no doubt. That must be magic.”

  “Not really,” Jonas said. “I am a cognivant, are you familiar with that term?”

  “No.”

  “The elves refer to someone with my skill as an Ishmian. It is a very rare inherent ability. Sometimes it manifests as being able to read minds, but in my case I can mentally move things. I am able to see all things that make up our world, and I can control them.”

  “I do not understand,” Bearit said.

  Jonas smiled knowingly. “Not to worry, I’m not sure if I do either. The best way I can explain it is when I focus on this ability, that I see the world differently. Everything that makes up who we are, what this table is, or this chair, is the same thing. It’s like
they are made up of small particles, and to some degree I can reach out and touch them with my mind, even if they are far away.”

  “I’ve never heard of this before,” Bearit exclaimed in surprise.

  “It is very rare. And it has its limitations. If I overuse the power it can bring debilitating headaches. I must be sparing in its use.”

  Bearit ate some more food as he let Jonas’s words sink in. Then he looked up. “Now what will you do?”

  Jonas ripped off a piece of bread and dipped it into the bowl of honey, popping it into his mouth. “I’m going to find out what is happening here. Who these black clad pale men are and why they are taking people away. Something evil is happening and I’m going to find out what it is. Shyann led me here for a reason.”

  Bearit placed his massive forearms on the edge of the table and leaned in, his dark eyes serious. “Let me help you.” Before Jonas could respond he continued. “I am strong and I be a hard worker. I can help you.” Jonas looked at him, his own eyes just as serious, contemplating his request. “Please,” Bearit said. “Don’t save me this night to leave me to face another alone. Give me work. I can help,” he said adamantly.

  Jonas leaned back in his chair. There was something about the young man. He wasn’t sure what it was but he had seen it before, in men and women he had known throughout his life. The young man’s eyes reflected strength, a need to correct wrongs, a core of humanity supported with an iron resolve. His friend Fil had it, as well Allindrian, the half-elf Bladesinger, and his mentor and friend, Kiln. His mind drifted to images of his friend, Hagar, the ogrillian who had given his life defending the gates of Finarth because it was the right thing to do. Kromm’s stern visage danced in his mind’s eye as the battle king of Tarsis fought the dragon at Finarth. He had never met a man who embodied an indomitable will and charisma like King Kromm. And he could never forget Taleen. She had come to his rescue and helped him and Kiln kill the Greever, a powerful demon that would’ve likely killed him if not for her aid. She had taught him what it meant to be a cavalier and the pain of her death still weighed on his heart like a stone. These men and women, who it was his honor to have served with, had strength of heart that could not be subdued, and he now saw that same strength in the young man before him. If he could do something to make sure that that strength would not be crushed by the evil they fought, then he had to do it.