Knight of the Tenebral Sword

Miall trooped back to the tavern with all the enthusiasm of a condemned prisoner. Padraic had surely noticed her talking to Imeltha and would be rude about it. He thought women useful for very little beyond entertaining him. The crash of crockery breaking warned her before she opened the barn door. She ducked as she entered avoiding the brunt of a hurled tankard.

It shattered against the jamb showering her with pottery fragments. The taproom was a battlefield. The scout scrambled away as a drunken man reeled towards her with his arms flailing. Someone from amid the scrum threw a bench across the room to smash into the ale kegs. There was a veritable howl from the publican who vaulted the bar and set to with a broken bottle. It was chaos.

There was no doubt in her mind Padraic had started it. He was in the thick of the brawl, obvious with his ginger hair. Miall shouldered her way over to him earning a clout across the back of the head and someone’s elbow in her ribs. Her comrade was currently pummelling the stuffing out of a middle-aged man in a sober dark grey tunic.

“This is not the way to behave!” She yelled in his ear loudly enough to penetrate whatever haze dulled Padraic’s mind. He let his victim fall to the floor and stomped a hod-nailed boot down hard onto the man’s stomach to prevent him crawling away. The tracker rounded on Miall. The pupils of his pale blue eyes were pinpoints.

“Get from me, ye damned pixie bitch!” The highlander snarled and shoved her roughly away before returning to the middle aged man. Miall sprawled backwards cannoning into a pudgy farmer who smelled of pig. He went over a bench with a wincing crunch into a drover who stumbled into a barmaid. The tavern had not employed the lass for her kindly nature. She hit him over the head with a tray.

The scout got up, made two knuckle-fists and jabbed Padraic in the kidneys. He let out a bull’s bellow and released his prey. The tracker whirled around swinging. Miall ducked. The blow meant for her smacked into a large man in a hooded cloak. There was a distinct metallic clang when Padraic connected. She smirked. It served the highlander right for picking on someone in armour.

Miall bent to retrieve the tracker’s victim. The middle-aged man was semi-conscious. If he was seriously hurt he or his friends might swear a warrant against Padraic and that would be very inconvenient. She dragged the recumbent man under a table to inspect him for injuries. The scout found two things to alarm her. One was the swelling dark bruise on the side of his neck.

The other was the heavy silver disk embossed with the holy symbol of the Celestial Guardian. She had just saved a Templar. Miall crawled out from under the table at speed only to have Padraic see her and barrel towards her. The scout dropped into a fighting stance. He had her cornered against the table else she would have dodged aside.

This was not the first time the tracker had got rowdy with her. He had once said afterwards he liked to keep in practise. Miall thought privately he was too drunk to know the difference between friend and foe. Usually she kept out of his way when he was in an aggressive mood. If that was not possible the scout was entirely prepared to use violence to get him to see reason.

The intercession of the hooded man saved her from striking her comrade again. The armoured person tackled the tracker and knocked him to the ground. They wrestled, scattering nearby brawlers and covering themselves in the detritus littering the floor. Neither could escape or get a firm hold on the other so they flailed and punched like amateurs.

The scout stood aside ready to go to Padraic’s defence if he looked likely to sustain serious injury or stop him if he seemed intent on murder. It was then she smelled smoke. Miall looked up and saw flickering fingers of fire coursing along the tarred roof beams. She yelled the alarm and seized her struggling comrade, who elbowed her in the face for her efforts.

Blinking and tasting blood, the scout bunched her fists together and brought them down with all her strength on the back of Padraic’s head. He subsided with a grunt and she pulled him away from the armoured man. The hood had fallen back revealing a hard, unlovely face enlivened with protruding tusks and blood red eyes. He was a sakoi; a savage from the barrens.

Her gaze jerked from his face to his shoulder and the pin holding his cloak. It was a finely wrought gold spear enamelled in red and green. Miall had seen a drawing of that badge when first dispatched on the chase. The archaic emblem was rare at court being the symbol of a holy order whose members defended the heir to the crown when the Royal Guard could not.

“A Templar of the Autumn Spear?” The scout spoke aloud so great was her surprise. The Order’s services had been unnecessary for generations and it was only her field commander’s thoroughness that had included the badge in the sketches shown to them. The sakoi seemed stunned at her reaction. He opened his mouth to say something.

His words were drowned out by a roared curse as someone shoved Miall violently from behind. She slipped on the muddy floor and stumbled over the knight’s prone form. The scout twisted trying to regain her balance but the muck conspired against her. She slammed forwards into the edge of the table striking her head. Everything went dark.