The Knight's Tale by Jonathan Moeller

The Knight's Tale

    In the Year of Our Lord 1468, Ridmark Arban rode
alone through the hills of the Northerland. The road wound its way
through the green-mantled hills, the air silent save for the buzz
of insects and the cries of birds. To the west flowed the broad
expanse of the River Moradel, the waters heavy and slow.
    Ridmark was eighteen years old, the youngest son of
Leogrance of the Arbanii, the Dux of Taliand. On the day of his
eighteenth birthday, Ridmark had taken vows as a Knight of the
Soulblade before the Well in the High King’s seat of Tarlion, and
received the soulblade Heartwarden, which had been borne by
seventeen Swordbearers before Ridmark.
    As a new-sworn Swordbearer, the Master of the Order
had bestowed Ridmark’s first task. He was to travel to the seat of
Dux Gareth Licinius of the Northerland at Castra Marcaine and obey
him in all things. For the Northerland was the northernmost march
of the High King’s realm of Andomhaim, and in the Wilderland beyond
the borders of Northerland waited tribes of pagan orcs, petty
kingdoms of dark elves, the horrors of the Nightmane Forest, the
lairs of lurking urdmordar…and, perhaps, worse things yet.
    But Ridmark was still a week’s ride from Castra
Marcaine. Currently he rode along the road that marked the border
between the Northerland and Khaluusk, a small orcish kingdom that
accepted both the High King and baptism after the final defeat of
the dread Frostborn two and a half centuries past. Once great
battles had been fought here, but now the river and the forest were
silent.
    Then Ridmark heard the shouting.
    Through the trees he heard a man frantically arguing,
while several other men tried to shout him down.
    The first voice spoke Latin…but the others, Ridmark
thought, were speaking orcish. Perhaps pagan orcs had come from the
Wilderland to raid and kill. If so, they would regret it. A
Swordbearer was sworn to defend the realm of Andomhaim from all
danger.
    Ridmark gave his horse a gentle tap with his spurs,
rode around the bend in the road, and found himself in the middle
of an argument.
    A dozen orcish men stood in the road, carrying clubs,
pitchforks, and scythes. For a moment Ridmark reached for
Heartwarden’s hilt, fearing they were indeed pagan orcs from
Vhaluusk, but to judge from their clothing, the orcish men were
farmers, which meant they were from Khaluusk and therefore subjects
of the High King.
    The orcs confronted a man in the black robe of a
village priest, a wooden cross hanging from a cord around his neck.
The priest was stocky, with the thickset build of a man accustomed
to hard labor, and his face had turned almost purple with
anger.
    The orcs themselves looked equally furious.
    “What is this?” snarled the largest of the orcish men
in heavily accented Latin. His hair was white, and most of his left
ear was gone, the left side of his face marred by a scar that
looked like it should have killed him. A pattern of dark tattoos
denoting the headman of an Khaluuskan orcish clan covered the right
side of his face. “You say these lies about us, Father Linus? You
say these slanderous lies about us?”
    “Say whatever you want,” said Linus, “but you cannot
change the facts. Five children from the village of Victrix are
missing.”
    The orcish headman growled, his black eyes starting
to gleam red with the battle rage of orcish blood. “You say that
Ulacht is a liar? You say this, Father Linus? You think that we
took your children? That we kidnapped them and sacrificed them to
the old blood gods? Ulacht says otherwise!” Because of a
peculiarity of their dialect, orcs from Kothluusk almost always
referred to themselves in the third person when speaking Latin.
Ulacht thumped his chest with a fist. “Bah! We of Khaluusk are
subjects of the High King and baptized sons of the Church!” He
leveled a finger at the priest. “And you have taken our
children!”
    “We have done nothing of the sort!” said Linus.
    “Seven of our children