Hold Fast the Knight Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Book Details

  Dedication

  Hold Fast the Knight

  About the Author

  Hold Fast the

  Knight

  Lotus Oakes

  Eager to follow in his father's footsteps, Edgar sets off to join the King's Guard and work his way up to knight. Instead, he's offered an alternate route to his goal: rescue the kingdom's only prince, kidnapped by a witch five years ago.

  But when Edgar arrives at the witch's secluded forest home, what he finds isn't at all what he expected...

  Hold Fast the Knight

  By Lotus Oakes

  Published by Less Than Three Press LLC

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission of the publisher, except for the purpose of reviews.

  Edited by James Loke Hale

  Cover designed by Kirby Crow

  This book is a work of fiction and all names, characters, places, and incidents are fictional or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people, places, or events is coincidental.

  First Edition November 2017

  Copyright © 2017 by Lotus Oakes

  Printed in the United States of America

  Digital ISBN 9781684311392

  For Kate, who remains incredibly patient and supportive even when I'm distracted thinking myself into corners.

  Thank you for always holding fast for me

  Hold Fast the

  Knight

  "The King's Guard?" The bartender raised an eyebrow, though her hands never paused in their quick, efficient movements, drying each glass Edgar handed to her and setting it aside into a neat stack. "That's a bit ambitious, isn't it?"

  "Is it?" Edgar frowned down at the sudsy water. When he leaned forward, it came up to his elbows, and it was hot enough to sting. "My father told me that was the best place to start, if I wanted to become a knight."

  Actually, what he'd said was, "It's all a waste, but if you're going to do it, you might as well waste as little time as possible. If you want them to notice you, you go to the King's Guard. They'll pick the best and then do the worst to break you, and if you come out the other side, then you'll be a knight."

  Edgar usually edited that part out when talking to other people.

  The bartender, Eloise-call-me-El, snorted. "That's what you're here for?"

  "Here" was Alusa, the Royal Seat of Power and capital of Farthys. The most beautiful city in the world, it called itself, and Edgar, who had been born in the countryside and was thus unused to cities, was willing to take the advertisements at their word. It had certainly looked impressive as he'd come up on the Salt Road, which had been white and shining under the afternoon sun. He'd imagined it to be a little bigger from his father's stories, but he'd still managed to get lost within half an hour, which was how he'd wound up at El's bar.

  "I don't do charity," she'd told him. "But I'll give you beer and bread if you help me with the dishes."

  "My father was a knight," Edgar said. He paused, half-distracted by a stubborn fragment of sauce on a plate, picking at it with his thumbnail. It was easier than looking at El's face. "He's retired now, but I grew up on his stories."

  El groaned. She took the plate when Edgar finally handed it over, but the look she gave him over it was flat-eyed, pitying. The parish priest, Honored Lise, had looked at Edgar in much the same way before he'd left home. "You're one of those?"

  "I don't know what you mean by that."

  "One of those," she said again, and she gestured with the hand holding the towel. It flopped limply in her grasp. "Listen, kids like you come here every year. And I can't blame 'em; they make it sound like it's some big wonderful thing, you know―join the King's Guard! Prove your worth! Work your way up the ranks, and the very best of you will be knighted by King Xavier himself." She set the next cup down a little too hard, so that all the others rattled with the force of her movement. "Blah, blah, blah."

  Edgar tried not to wince. "But?"

  "But good luck with that." She leaned her elbow on the countertop and her weight on that, still frowning at him. In spite of himself, Edgar stood up a little straighter under the weight of her gaze. At twenty-one, he'd outgrown most, but not all, of his gawkishness; he had muscle from farmwork and height to accommodate it, but he was still not completely settled in his skin. El swept her gaze over him a few more times, then went on: "They haven't done anything like that honestly in years. It's all about whose daddy paid extra under the table, or who lifted their skirts enough to get the attention of the committee." She held out her hand, and Edgar automatically deposited a new wet glass into it. "You'd have better luck going after Prince Arthur."

  "Prince Arthur?" Edgar perked up a little in spite of himself. The crown prince was only a year older than Edgar himself: Edgar's father had been in service at the time of Prince Arthur's birth, and the symmetry appealed to Edgar: just like his father had once served King Xavier, Edgar could serve King Arthur―in spite of El's obvious disapproval, he still couldn't help but like that idea. It would be even better, he knew, if he could convince the prince to sponsor him directly, whether into the King's Guard or higher. "Where would I find him?"

  El stopped again. She frowned. "You don't know?"

  Edgar blinked back at her. "Don't know what?"

  She rolled her eyes as she looked up, her arms half-open. It was the same posture as the statue of St. Marguerite in Edgar's home parish: Lord guide me through my troubles. He thought that was a little rude, but made himself wait for El to gather herself and speak.

  "You really don't know?" she said. "Really?"

  Edgar did not fidget, though he considered it. His ears felt a bit warm, but he didn't want to fold under the weight of El's stare.

  "I grew up in Methis," he said, and that seemed to be enough, because the light of understanding brightened El's face. Compared to Alusa, Methis was larger, but it was also mostly farmland, three day's ride away from the capital. News came to Methis slowly if―apparently―it came at all. El clucked her tongue and leaned forward, lowering her voice to the tone of a shared secret.

  "Prince Arthur was kidnapped years ago," she said. "Like about five or so. A witch fell in love with him on his birthday and spirited him off to the Silver Forest. She keeps him in her castle there, and no one's been able to find them."

  "Kidnapped?!" Edgar's voice rose at that, though he quailed at the look El gave him. "That's terrible! Why hasn't anyone done anything about it?"

  "Well," said El, with another shrug, "you know. They have, just..." She shrugged. "Kind of hard to find a witch in her own territory. And they say that King Xavier wants Arthur to be able to rescue himself. Something about being able to prove himself a competent leader if he can take charge of a bad situation and save himself. I don't know."

  Edgar frowned, leaning his arms deeper into the sink for a moment. His mind was a dizzy whirl of questions. Kidnapped? How? For real? How could that happen without the entire country being mobilized? "That sounds..."

  "Awful, yeah? But that's how it is." El sighed hard enough to puff a few strands of hair from her eyes. "I heard that's why he's cutting out the poors from the recruitment process. It's been years, and he and the queen haven't managed to have another kid. He's gotta find someone he can name an heir, so it might as well be someone who already has the right bloodlines, right?" She put the towel down finally and reached out to pat Edgar's shoulder. "Sorry you came all this way just for that."

  Edgar sat quietly for a moment. He watched soap bubbles pop and fade, only jolting back into action when El nudged him in the side. She kept glancing at him sidelong, her lips pursed like she wanted to
ask him something, but she let the silence drag out, accepting the plates and cups he handed over to her without a word. His thoughts tumbled over each other like falling stones, like puppies, like a dozen different things he couldn't quite give name to.

  Finally, though, Edgar handed El the last dish and took a deep breath.

  "Actually," he said, "I wonder if you could do me a favor."

  She raised an eyebrow. "Yeah?"

  "Could you tell me how to get to the Silver Forest?"

  *~*~*

  After she'd finished staring, El had given him relatively straightforward directions:

  Take the other half of the Salt Road out of the city. Don't worry about turns or anything once you're on it, it goes straight to the Forest. The trick is actually getting there. Don't get killed along the way, okay? There's supposed to be all sorts of dangerous things in those woods. They say it's haunted, and that's not even counting the witch. All her familiars go wandering the roads, looking for victims. One wrong move, and she'll have your soul forever.

  In spite of El's dire warnings, other than a few birds in flight, Edgar saw no other living thing beyond his horse, fat and lazy with age. With its plodding gait, it was easy to let his mind wander.

  There was no plan, really. He had the skeleton of intent―the inklings of an idea that he hadn't really thought through. But ever since it had first occurred to him, he couldn't shake the idea that maybe, just maybe, if he was good and noble and true, he could see this through. Saving a prince wasn't quite traditional, but a prince was still royalty. Wouldn't that be enough?

  Of course it would. Even if he had to make it up as he went along, he'd figure something out. After all, he'd been hoping for something glamorous when he'd first set off from home. The idea of joining the King's Guard and working his way up the ranks had been the steady plan, but surely this would work out better. This was more like the stories he'd grown up hearing.

  Talking about his early time in the King's Guard had been one of the few ways to make Edgar's father Marcus smile, and all of the stories had painted a bright and shining picture. Camaraderie! Danger, but never anything too dangerous―just enough to keep a man watchful and light on his toes. Honor and respect, given and received. All of those stories had all been heavy with promise, which still glowed hot after his father's dismissal, when Edgar had announced his desire to follow that same path.

  You really think you can do it, boy? Don't be stupid. You stay home, where you belong.

  The thought sat more heavily in his stomach than he wanted to admit. Edgar knew nothing about why his father had left his position, only that the shadows in his eyes sat heavy and unmoving, and that he favored his right leg more and more with the passing years. Once in a very, very rare while, he would drink so deeply that he'd start mumbling incoherent speeches to a man he called Xae, and he never elaborated upon them when sober. One of Edgar's sisters had asked once, and he'd screamed until she'd fled the house.

  So his disdain for Edgar's ambitions hadn't been entirely a surprise, but that hadn't stopped Edgar from hoping. Maybe if he could succeed in this, that'd be enough to lighten the weight across his father's shoulders.

  Maybe. And maybe the old beast under him would sprout wings and fly him away to Paradise.

  He and his horse crested a gentle hill and Edgar looked up. He immediately tugged at the horse's reins to urge it to a stop, distracted thoroughly from his gloomy thoughts. As it turned out, the Silver Forest wasn't a misnomer―he'd thought it'd been some poetic thing, like the roads in and out of Alusa, named out of some old king's fit of whimsy.

  Instead, the whole thing shimmered metallic in the late-afternoon sun, and though the light was warm and soft with late summer sun, the forest itself gleamed cold and sharp. It looked less like something alive and more like some strange art piece: the trees were solidly silver from roots to branches, and the undergrowth was similarly frosted, brighter than anything Edgar had ever seen in his life.

  As he approached, though, he could see through the gaps of the silver trees, and the enchanted trees only seemed to go a short distance in. Beyond that initial barrier, the forest was relatively ordinary-looking. The fallen leaves carpeting the undergrowth were mostly soft muted shades of red and brown, broken up by the occasional silvery gleam.

  To his relief, the horse didn't shy or hesitate when they reached the forest proper: it continued on its slow advance, still following the path that cut through the trees. If it even noticed the silver, it showed no sign, occasionally huffing deep in its throat. Everything remained eerily quiet around them, the only sound the horse's footsteps and their breathing. Even the insects were voiceless.

  At first, the path was clear enough: narrow, but still navigable. Eventually, though, the underbrush began to creep further and further onto the road, until Edgar found himself forced to dismount and lead the horse instead. There seemed to be no end to it: he was certain they'd been walking for hours without end. It was difficult to tell for sure; while some sunlight filtered in from overhead, it was impossible to gauge the length of the shadows or the position of the sun. There was just Edgar, his horse, and the never-ending path.

  "It has to go somewhere," he muttered aloud, just as his foot came down on empty air.

  It wasn't much of a drop―no more than what might be expected from a typical stair―but it left Edgar pinwheeling both arms for a moment in a startled attempt to regain his balance. The horse tossed its head and jerked away so that he lost first his grip on the reins, then his footing entirely. He went down with a hard thump on his knees, feeling the jar all the way up his spine.

  For a moment he remained kneeling where he'd fallen, trying to take careful breaths to soothe his rattled nerves. It hurt, though no worse than any other tumbles he'd taken as a child. It was certainly less than the time he'd fallen out of a tree and broken his arm. His horse had sidestepped a few feet away to glare at him, and when he lifted a hand to try and placate it, it bared its teeth at him.

  "All right," he said, and he tucked that arm back close to his chest before it could actually snap. "All right, I'm sorry. That hurt. Where are we?"

  He looked around. He'd stumbled―quite literally―onto a wide-open clearing. Sunlight streamed in overhead unfiltered, and it was significantly warmer here than the surrounding forest. The space was mostly occupied by a sturdy wooden cabin, so familiar in its style and build that Edgar half-expected to see his mother come out of the front door. Smoke curled in thin white puffs out of the chimney. A small and neatly-tended vegetable garden wrapped itself around the house.

  Sitting in front of the house was a girl with a spinning wheel. She was quite pretty, with long loose curls of black hair and wide hazel-green eyes and warm brown skin. Though her dress was plain blue cotton, without any visible embellishment, she sat with a perfect regal poise, like a woman pulled straight from a painting. Edgar had never seen Queen Gabrielle with his own eyes, but he imagined that she must sit in a similar way.

  She stared straight at Edgar. A spindle was in her hands, and she gripped it tightly. He knew from experience that the point wasn't that sharp, but it looked awfully intimidating in her hands.

  Edgar stared back for a little too long before he realized how it must look: a stranger in tattered clothes, tumbling into her yard and then sniping at his horse. He scrambled to his feet, ignoring the twinge in his knees, and after another moment of hesitation, he bowed. That seemed like the properly apologetic thing to do.

  "Sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to startle you. I'm looking for the witch's house."

  The girl continued to stare for a long moment. Finally, she said, "Are you?"

  She had a pleasant voice, low and husky. Edgar wondered for a moment if she sang. "I am."

  "Why are you looking for the witch's house?" the girl asked. She sat back from her spinning wheel and crossed her arms. They curved with some nicely obvious muscle. It wasn't quite an aggressive pose, though Edgar wouldn't be surprised if she threatened him w
ith that spindle for real in a moment.

  "Well." He scuffed the toes of one foot against the ground for a moment. He should have prepared some kind of speech beforehand, he thought with some chagrin. "I'm here to rescue Prince Arthur."

  That got a peculiar expression out of her: her eyes went wide, then narrow. Her lip curled. Her cheeks and ears went red and her fists clenched. The muscles in her arms tightened and flexed. Her next questions were clipped, sharp, as sharp as the edge of a sword. "Are you? Who sent you?"

  Belatedly, he wondered if he should have said something else instead. What if she was the witch? She didn't look particularly witchlike, but then, Edgar had never really met a witch before. For all he knew, he knew nothing at all.

  "No one, really," he said. He felt the slow crawl of embarrassment down his back; it was worse than the physical pain in some ways. How petty it sounded, laid out like this. "I sort of sent myself."

  "Why?" It was sharper this time, the sharp staccato sound of a whip cracking.

  "Why... because it seemed like a good idea?" He cringed a little at the look on her face. The rest of his explanation came in a breathless rush―anything to explain himself and hopefully get her to stop looking at him like that. "I want to be a knight―my father was one, or he used to be one, and I guess he left and he never said why, but he always told me it was the best time of his life, and I thought, it'd be nice to be able to help people, so I came to Alusa and the lady at the bar―El, her name was El―she told me―"

  The girl raised one hand and made a sharp slicing gesture. Edgar closed his mouth so fast that his teeth clicked together.

  "All right," she said. "Say then that I believe you. But if you want to be a knight, why come here? Why not just join the King's Guard?"

  "I was going to." Edgar rubbed the back of his neck, glancing to the side. When he looked back at her again, she didn't look terribly impressed, but at least she no longer looked oddly angry. "El, the bartender, she said that it wouldn't do any good if I did. You need money if you want to get noticed. People like me, they get kind of forgotten along the way. I guess after Prince Arthur disappeared, they're hoping to find someone to replace him?"