Young Writers Society

It was a fine young noon, when the shadow of a man fell over the king’s courtyard amidst the midday feast. Necks twisted and eyes shifted to search from whence the shadow had come, for the figure had made quite an impression on the courtyard, so much so as to reduce its vibrant and happy din to a soft, murmuring hum. Armour rusted, dirtied, dented - as though the man had stepped forth from an unknown plane, scolding and hellish, many knights present in the court had never seen such harshly treated metal, many hoped never to again. A squire, uneasy at the silence of the feast-goers, attempted to make solace with the knight: “Good Sir! Remove your helm; come, drink with us!”

Though the rust-armoured fellow stayed silent towards the squire, and he did not take off his helmet, he did take a few steps.

“ King?” He asked in a voice with a similar roughness to the texture of his armour.

“I am the ruler of this small kingdom,” announced the short and fat king who marched proudly forth, and then, in an angrier tone: “what reason do you have that you see it fit to interrupt my feast and silence these happy people?”

“I require a sword” was the short and honest reply.

A small uncomfortable laughter spread throughout the courtyard, and it was now apparent that the man was not lying for he had no scabbard. The king, first turning and smiling at the snickering crowd, walked closer to the battle-worn man and began making a joke of him:

“Are you even truly a knight? You wear armour, rusted and damaged. You wear no kingdom’s tabard and you carry no banner!”, the king turned and made a gesture with his hands, almost as though he was presenting the questionable knight to the crowd, then, with a touch of malice, “and you come into my court, disturbing my peace in order to ask of me a sword! A sword, which is the very essence of knighthood! Why, without a sword and in armour such as that, you are surely a bad knight!”

The slow, polite laughter of the crowd was quickly hushed when the accused bad knight took a step towards the king, closing the distance between them.

“I require a sword.”

The king, feeling threatened and humiliated, took a few steps back before smiling,

“very well then,” he spoke now to the crowd,” who amongst you will give this man your sword?”

After a half-minute, when no-one had responded, the king spoke once more to the bad knight,

“I believe we have none for you, unless perhaps, you,” the king pointed at a guard,”won’t you give this poor fellow your sword?”

The guard, understanding the unspoken words of the king, took a few paces towards the man.

“I require a sword,” the bad knight once more stated to the guard.

The guard drew his sword slowly, the metal shimmering in the noon sun. The tarnished armoured knight put out both his hands, expecting to receive the blade, instead though the guard lunged at him. Despite the coarse and grinding nature of his armour, the bad knight was faster than any man who’d ever been lunged at before, and he had rolled to safety before even the guard had noticed his own failure. The crowd, awestruck and still silent, made no attempt to interfere as the bad knight put the guard to the floor, simultaneously disarming him.

“Thank you,” said the rusted warrior as he span and made his way back out of the courtyard with the guard’s sword.

The king, now humiliated twice, ordered for the rest of his guard to assault the intruder, but his orders fell upon stunned and terrified ears.

Moments passed as the courtyard watched the knight walk a small way into the distance.

Then came a god-forsaking screech and seconds later a thunderous roar which shook the very mountain upon which the king’s reach firmly sat.

“Dragon!” the call of a frightened citizen came as he ran into the courtyard.

The thrice humiliated king was rendered silent and fumbling at the emergence of a dragon upon his castle walls, and so it fell to the guard who had been knocked down to hurry everybody inside the thick stone walls of the king’s keep.

After a few minutes, the horn blew from the eastern watchtower, signifying the eastern walls’ breach, the horn’s thum was felt through the walls of the keep, further scaring the already shivering citizens.

“Sire, what shall we do?” the head guardsman asked of the king.

“We shall do no thing, dragonfire will scorch any man unfortunate enough to face a dragon in combat, this has always been known. Take any guardsmen you can find, go out onto the streets and holler for survivors to make for their nearest church or stone-building.”

“But sire, our homes aren’t made from stone!” the guard exclaimed.

The king, angered at his words being questioned spoke quickly now, “Nor are our bodies!”

The guardsman, still discontented but running out of time, did as was said.

A half-hour passed since the guards had left the keep, all of the horns had now sung, and the only sound to reach the king’s ears besides the crying of babes and women and men, and the occasional atrocious roar, was the deep, crackling hum of the fire on the outside of the keep’s walls, in fact the fire was such that the heat could be felt through the stone. The king had thought to comfort his people, but had not yet found the words to do so. Instead, a young girl whose parents were not to be seen, sang softly a song which someone like a father, uncle or brother had taught her to sing if ever there was a time of trouble. This song engulfed the king’s ears, the girl’s voice was very soothing, unaffected by the sorrow around her, this, coupled with the growing heat in the room and the strangely pleasant smell of smoke caused the king to become drowsy as though he were drunk. He stumbled once, then twice, and then nearly fell, his fall was broken only by the placing of his hand upon the now scorching stone wall. Instantly, the king’s body flowed with pain as though a hundred hornets had each bitten into his flesh at once. Awakened from his drowsy state, he drew his hand off of the wall, leaving behind the majority of the skin and an imprint of his palm and five short, stubby digits.

“The walls are melting!” unthinkingly screamed the king.

The people’s hysteria was then at a climax, those who were not previously screaming now joined in as drips of molten stone fell from the ceiling. The king dropped to his knees and began to pray to the God who he had long since neglected. He attempted to hurriedly make amends with his maker, though found he had nothing if naught to apologise for, he had been a good king, if not a wise one. Every noon he invited every family in his castle to join him in his courtyard for a laugh and a feast and a bellyful of drink. He had been faithful to his queen before and after her death, and had read to his children the good book every night before bed. He wondered if perhaps this was punishment for gluttony or because he had passed judgement on criminals where it was not his place to judge. With his eyes shut and his hands clasped above his head in readiness to pray, and in the absence of his guardsmen’s warning, he had not noticed that every other soul who was with him in the keep had fled from it as it was melting and crumbling and on the outside the fire was receding. He made for the door, but he was growing old and he was fat and he slipped upon the scorching floor. The molten walls of the keep engulfed him, and his screams rang through the castle perhaps louder than the dragon's. He burst from the floor, his skin bubbling and fusing with the stone. Upon exiting the now melted keep, he ran faster than ever his fat little legs had carried him before, inspired by the searing pain of the thick-layer of stone on his skin.

“Guardsmen aid me!” he shrieked, before liquid stone had frozen his lips and his legs, halting him from advancing any farther. Before his eyes were burned all-through, he saw not his guardsmen nor his citizens in front of him, but smouldering piles of ash where houses once stood, and crumbled distorted ruins where castle walls had once stood, and charred and blackened cadavers littering the streets where happy people had once stood, of all the buildings in the land, all of the strong men in his kingdom, not one was before him standing. Amidst the destroyed kingdom and the remaining flames, the king saw the destroyer, the dragon: it still stood, roaring at the red-orange sky in triumph at the centre of its conquest. Before his dying breath, he marveled, in a way, at the magnificence of the fifty-foot beast: its black scales, which seemed to glow reddish in the fires, covered everywhere but its belly,its horned back, jagged and sharp as stakes, its deep yellow-green eyes, which projected pure hatred,sat deep within a large, elongated, head, which, not including its protruding and menacing fangs, was reminiscent of the head of a stallion. Its wings stretched a full hundred feet as it were now, with them spread toward the sky, roaring its heavy and smokey lungs.

And then the king was dead, and his eyes scorched and his skin coated in the stone of his keep so that he was firm on the spot, a statue. Though the king’s eyes could no more see, if they could have, they would have witnessed a glorious struggle, as another figure walked forth from the flames, the bad knight had returned. The few remaining survivors, including the kings head guardsman, watched from afar behind smoking piles of debris, as the bad knight drew sword against the demon. Although to their knowledge simply a man, the effect on the observers of the bad knight’s arrival was as though a second dragon had come forth and they lay hushed awaiting the outcome. His battle-cry was of a language foreign to them, and when he made it, the dragon turned to him as though he were a flea, the terrible black-scaled dragon spouted a quick puff of dragonfire from his nostrils, which engulfed the bad knight, but he kept walking, though, now his armour was afire. Only now did the observers understand the nature of his armour, perhaps it was more difficult to burn that which has already been burnt. The dragon, shocked at the arrival of an opponent capable of withstanding her breath, failed to fly away before the bad knight was upon her. He stabbed at her flesh between her scales and began to climb using the sword and the scales to grip. The dragon began to fly, though the strength of the bad knight seemed unwavering and he climbed as he had done on the ground despite the immense winds. The few observers remaining in the city rejoiced as they saw the dragon flee. They watched as it swooped low over the pristine waters of the nearby lake, spraying flame all the way, and they heard its final cry as the bad knight stabbed its eyeballs and slit its throat, dropping it into the lake where they stared until nightfall, and from whence it did not arise again.

The castle burned for a month, and the people from the surrounding farming villages came to help rescue those people who had survived the dragonfire, more and more of whom were found underneath rubble as time crept on.

The king was set in stone, but his eldest daughter was of age and wisdom to make a good queen, and when the castle was rebuilt he was placed at the centre of it by her word, that his statue may remind the people of the town that he watched over them, that another drake may not escape from the heavens and lay fire upon the land. Though the people knew where their real faith did lie, on a bad knight who was just passing by. Philosophers and story-tellers and bards came together several evenings after the event to try and discuss the divine meaning of the bad knight, if his visit had any, or perhaps just his origins and intentions. Several amongst the philosophers believed it was logical that he should one day return and explain himself, but the bards preferred to sing songs of a man born in the heat of dragonfire, his skin fused into his burnt and rusted armour so that he might defeat any adversary. A small few believed he was an angel, others a demon, many thought him still alive despite his immense fall into the lakewaters. After time took its toll, the bad knight was near forgotten, all that remained of him was a small song which would sometimes echo through the castle-halls or the mountain-tops.

A man born unto the western flames,

began to walk eastbound, not for glory nor fame.

But for a chance and a will and a way,

to find romance, to be still and to stay.

Though the man born in fire,

was made by the old God not for desire,

only to hunt and be hunted by Dragons galore,

so beware when a bad knight knocks on the door,

and be pleasant, be kind, when he asks for a sword,

then drop to your knees and pray to the Lord.

For dragons are coming! Demons with wings,

sent by the old God to test this poor thing.

For on he should walk, he, rusted and broken,

learning but one thing of all languages spoken:

how to ask for a king, a sword and how to give thanks,

for that's all he needs, the man of no rank,

As east he does walk, away from war's wrath,

though behind him he lays a smoldering path.

His destiny doomed to bring strife and sorrow,

how many souls will feel dragonfire tomorrow?

And slowly it comes, to him of the rust,

that soon is the time to do what he must.

As finally he sees the easternmost city off,

he drops his sword, his armour turns soft.

And on he does walk to the edge of the world,

and away he does leap, his body is hurled.

Now gone is the man, who did slay the beasts,

and gone are the dragons who chased him far east.

But perhaps this is not the end of the tale,

and today, that bad knight, on a strange wind does sail,

doing battle with dragons in a land far from here,

keeping us safe, from that which we fear.

So if ever a bad knight comes knocking upon your door,

do give him your luck, a prayer and a sword.