The Death Knight's Squire (Finished!)

[dae mec]

"Oh, that's quite the trip," she agrees. Slyrila takes the seat and the tankard with a murmured 'thank you.' She sees no reason not to be honest in response to his question. "I'm looking for someone called the Death Knight," she says simply. "Do you know anything about him?"

She sips the ale but doesn't plan on drinking too much of it unless she knows that it's weak and watered. Slyrila wants to keep a clear head for her journey.

 

[GinkyGotBack]

The old man nods solemnly. "The Death Knight," he says quietly, and leans forward in his chair. "Local legend, they say, but ah..." he trails off as if to dismiss what he was about to say and begins to take a drink from his tankard.

 

[dae mec]

"Local legend?" she prompts. "Could you tell me a little more about him? I couldn't find much about the Death Knight in Orlbar." How strange that everyone seemed so reluctant to talk about him. Sylrila smiled, trying to project calm and confidence.

 

[GinkyGotBack]

He straightens up, looking you straight in the eye. "It's no legend," he says firmly. "I was a boy when they hung him, from the red tree in Weathercote Wood."

The old man goes on to tell you a story. The man who would become the Death Knight was once a good man, who came from a village in the far south. After his wife died from pox, he left his village taking his only son with him as his squire, eager to teach him the ways of the righteous warrior. But a large band of brigands ambushed them on the road, shot the knight with a poison dart, and kidnapped his son. They left a note pinned in the ground with a dagger, demanding the knight plunder the treasury in Orlbar and deliver the gold to them. The knight did so, almost dying in the process, but the town guard pursued him from town.

When the kidnappers saw the Knight coming with the authorities close behind, they killed the poor boy and fled. Upon finding his son's body, the Knight swore vengeance on the bandits and vowed to pursue them onto the ends of the world. Unwilling to be taken by the town guard, the Knight drew his weapon to resist the arrest. The ensuing fight was bloody, but the knight slew all who came against him. When the fight was over, the Knight pursued the bandits deeper into the wood but lost their tracks in the undergrowth. His rage deepened until the bloodlust and madness possessed him entirely, driven insane at the thought of his son’s killers escaping unpunished. None would cross his path and live until the bandits had been brought to justice at the tip of his blade. Eventually more soldiers had to come from Loudwater to capture the insane knight.

"When they finally did," the old man concludes, "they hung him in Weathercote Wood from a Red Tree." The old man looks down. "But his unfulfilled quest to find his son's killers brought him back. As undead. The Death Knight, they call him now. And since then, every few years or so, a boy will go missing... He's looking for a squire, someone to help him on his quest."

 

[dae mec]

Her drink is forgotten as she listens to the tale. Her fists clench tighter as the knight's circumstances grow worse with each twisted event. "Tragic," she finally says, the word heavy.

The Death Knight isn't blameless, but she understands how he might've felt forced down that crumbling path. It's the bandits who started this mess, and it's the bandits who the knight swore vengeance on. Sylrila understands the impulse. But those criminals may be dead from old age or circumstance anyway, and the boys have nothing to do with his sad quest. If anything, he's perpetuating the same cycle that led to his tragedy. She doesn't think she'll convince the knight of that, though she'll probably try. The unquiet dead tend to have their reason warped by the ravages of unlife, and from the sound of it, the Death Knight hadn't been the most stable prior to death anyway.

(This is why you're called to that path, whispers a voice. If someone had punished those bandits to begin with...)

"Is the Death Knight violent to others?" Sylrila asks slowly. "I mean, if he meets someone unrelated to his kidnappings, does he try to harm them?" She purses her lips and looks down at her gauntlets. "And no one knows what happens to those children?"

 

[GinkyGotBack]

The old man shakes his head. "If anyone tries to stop him from taking a squire he does. It's usually nothing more than a minor beating, but he's killed before for sure. As for the children, he takes them back into the woods with him, I reckon. What he does with them there I haven't the faintest clue."

 

[dae mec]

"I see," she says. Well, that's interesting. During life, he'd flown into a near-indiscriminate rage of violence before his death. Now, though, it has been tempered... by what, exactly? His undead 'life'? The children themselves? "This Red Tree you mentioned earlier... is it in a small patch of wood jutting from the western side of the woods?"

 

[GinkyGotBack]

"Nay, the tree itself lies in the middle of the wood itself. It's great in size, the only one of its kind I've seen in those woods. The bark is as red as a drunkard's nose and the leaves as red as cherries. Or was it the other way around? I often forget."

 

[dae mec]

Sylrila smiles with amusement at the comment and then nods. It'd be best to see the tree first and then go to the patch of woods the captain has mentioned. "Thank you," she says. "As you might've guessed, I'm searching for the Death Knight. I'll look around there." She pauses, a bit sheepish, and adds, "Could I get some food from your tavern before I go? I have coin, of course."

 

[GinkyGotBack]

"Bah, there's no need for you to pay here. After all, if you're looking for the Death Knight it could very well be your last meal!" The old man gives quite the hearty laugh after making a dark joke such as that. Old people are often like that. "Order whatever you'd like, don't be stingy now. And if you do happen to come back alive, I'm sure you'd be more than willing to spread the good word about how nice and hospitable we are here."

 

[dae mec]

Sylrila gives an undignified snort. "Well, warm stew seems like a good memory to go out on," she says wryly. "Though anything hot and hearty will do. And no worries, I'll be sure to trumpet the good name of..." With a start, she realizes that she knows neither the name of the inn or the old man, and she hasn't bothered to introduce herself. "Sorry, I've been real rude." A bit of her country speech slips out just a tad as she imagines her mother's scolding, but she reigns it in. "I'm Sylrila of Grensvile, Paladin of Tyr. I guess I need to know your name and the inn's before I can trumpet it."

 

[GinkyGotBack]

"Fredvur Crestbrace is the name. Father of the owner and the namesake of 'The Old Cock'! My boy tries to pretend he didn't name the place after me, but I'm not so old that he can slip one past me yet!" As your stew arrives Fredvur exchanges stories with you as you eat, telling you of wars past and amusing anecdotes from his life. One involving a fish and an old dwarf's smithing hammer. When your stew has finished and the old man has grown tired, you bid each other a good evening as you continue your travels to Weathercote Wood.

It is late when you finally reach Weathercote Wood some 55 miles east of Orlbar. There, on the wood's edge, you camp and let your horse run free. You won't be needing him for a while.

Weathercote Wood is thick, the foliage dense, towering walls of green. And in there somewhere, if the information you have is to be trusted is the boy Darek Brewmont. You settle down in your bedroll, the embers of your fire keeping you warm well into the night. After a full day's riding and the meal you'd just had at The Old Cock, it doesn't take long for you to fall into a deep slumber, the sound of a nearby river lulling you to sleep.

You wake just before the dawn, fully rested. But a noise instantly puts you on guard; from somewhere nearby comes a wet, slavering sound.

 

[dae mec]

Sylrila stands up, shrugging on her chain, one hand going to her sword and the other to her shield. "Hello?" she calls out, looking around for the source of the noise. Sylrila glances in the direction of the river. Perhaps it's just an aquatic creature of some sort... though she knows how her luck usually goes.

 

[GinkyGotBack]

You can hear the noise coming, not from the direction of the river, but from the direction of where you had let your horse roam free. The sound is coming from what seems like a little more than a hundred feet away.

 

[dae mec]

Oh, not Daisy, thinks Sylrila with dread. She hesitates for a moment but heads in that direction, opposite from her destination it might be. If there's some sort of beast roaming the forest, causing destruction, she has an obligation to put it down... and if she ignores it, whatever it is might come after her anyway, hoping for a meal.

 

[GinkyGotBack]

You pick up your weapons and move forward toward the sound, not so stealthily. When you are some hundred or so feet away, whatever is lurking catches your scent, and you can hear it running away quickly. Only dim starlight shows any detail, and even with your darkvision all you can see is a darkened shape moving through the night, towards the wood. You have just enough time to shoot it or perhaps throw something at it before it disappears into the trees.

 

[dae mec]

Sylrila mentally berates herself for being so foolish—she should've moved more quietly. Sure, she's not used to sneaking about, but she doesn't need to crash through the undergrowth like an oaf. Stupid, stupid... why did she even try to be a paladin? Sylrila forces those thoughts aside as the creature runs away, knowing that she has only moments to act.

She doesn't want to attack whatever it is without knowing what it is. She grimaces. It's foolish, probably, but Sylrila cups her hands around her mouth and shouts, "Hey!"

 

[GinkyGotBack]

Whatever it is, it doesn't stop at your call. It crashes through the trees and into the woods, and you lose all sight of it after that.

 

[dae mec]

Sylrila sighs and walks to where she saw the creature, wondering if she'll find tracks or something left that can help her follow or identify the creature. She's not much of a hunter, but she knows a little bit from her upbringing near the country.

 

[GinkyGotBack]

You can't see any tracks or disturbances in the grass that would help you find where the creature ran into the woods, let alone what it may have been. As you walk forward to where the beast had been before, you see there, twitching in its death throes, is your horse Daisy.

 

[dae mec]

"Oh, Daisy," she murmurs, pained at the thought that she'd been right.

Anger flares, both at herself for not attacking the beast and the beast itself. She forcibly quells the emotion. It's useless now, and Sylrila refuses to be the kind of person who attacks without justification. Well, she has her justification now. There's no helping her poor horse. With her head bowed, she draws a blade and puts Daisy out of her misery. Sylrila won't let her steed suffer because of cowardice again. (For the last time.)

Sylrila heads back the way she came, significantly more alert. She scans her surrounding, hoping to catch a glimpse of the creature again. Or anything else. It would be nice if her journey through the forest was unimpeded, but the dim hopes she has of that are definitely dashed. It's already dawn, so after packing her bedroll, she plans on continuing through the forest. She'll stay vigilant, with one hand on her sword.

 

[GinkyGotBack]

The first rays of dawn begin to creep into the sky. The morning is peaceful, in contrast to the savagery you have just witnessed, and a chorus of birds greet the dawn with calls that echo off the low hills of the surrounding landscape. As you near Weathercote Wood and down the single path that leads into its depths, you see that little light seems to penetrate in through the canopy. Night still hides beneath the mossy boughs and dark green vines that thread the ancient trees together.

You step onto the path and enter Weathercote Wood... who knows what fate awaits you within these shadowed depths...

You move ahead, deeper into the wood, and it almost seems as if the trees themselves are watching your progress. Indeed, as you go on, you really do get the feeling you are being watched. You pause for a second, thinking you heard something. But no, it was just some bird flapping off out of cover. You watch it rise into the canopy and then look around at the three paths that lead off from here.

The three different paths go off into three directions. North, East, and West. Or of course, you can go South back to where you came, should you choose to give up on your quest.

 

[dae mec]

Sylrila considers which way to go. She's heard nothing about the Death Knight in the eastern part of the forest, so she immediately crosses that off as on option. That leaves the northern path, which is most likely to lead to the Red Tree in the center, or the western path, which should lead her to the area that the captain mentioned. Sylrila thinks the northern path is her best bet. She can always cut west after going north, but it might be more difficult to try it the other way around. She peers down each path first, though, just to make sure she isn't missing anything.

As she contemplates, Sylrila thinks of poor Darek, stuck with an insane undead knight. She hopes she can find him alive and well. Sylrila promised that she'd bring him back... but she doesn't want to bring back a body.

 

[GinkyGotBack]

The paths are long, and leave no lasting impression visually. Down the eastern path, you can't discern anything notable. The northern path looks to be the longest and you think it may veer to the east somewhat. On the western path, you think you can see something... A structure made of grey stone.

 

[dae mec]

If the northern path veers to the east, then perhaps it would be best to go west and cut across instead. Plus, the glimpse of the odd structure down the other path makes her both curious and suspicious since the Death Knight apparently lurks in that direction. Sylrila changes her mind and heads down the western path.