FOREVER KNIGHTS: #4 Battling Black Roses

Stone Peak, Black Mountains, Battling Border

CHAVIAS

Chavias was nearly asleep when he heard a man’s hysterical shouting in the cave.

“Master! Master! I’ve a vision.”

A voice Chavias didn’t know. He slid off the metal cot and crept to the barred door of his chamber. Now locked since Okine had healed. Chavias leaned against the wall to get the best angle to see toward Radix’s private chambers down the stone hall. Where a dim torch flickered near some fallen rubble.

He saw the gray figure of a pale man shuffling into the cave on all fours.

In his eagerness to hear what he had to say, Radix emerged to meet him in the hall. Looking down at the intruder with his usual deep contempt for humanity.

“Essius.” He acknowledged the creature with an outstretched hand.

The pale man tentatively reached up and took his withered hand. Lapping at it lovingly.

Chavias had to refrain from the urge to wretch at the sight.

“I’ve a vision, Master.”

“I heard you the first time.” Radix waited.

When the man only blinked up at him worshipingly, Radix pressed impatiently. “Well?”

“A Queen. Something. Something happen to her.”

“Who? What? Which Queen?”

How many does he own? Chavias wondered. Not for the first time.

“Her eyes.” Essius waved a white hand before his face.

“What about them?” Radix snapped.

“They go white like me.” He turned his hand over and lifted the back of it for Radix’s inspection as an example.

“What causes it?”

“A man with drink.”

“Poison.” Radix said. “Who?”

“I couldn’t-I can’t…See.”

“Could you tell anything about him?” Radix groaned impatiently.

“Hair.” Essius ran a pale hand lovingly over the side of his head and the top of his shoulder. His thin white fingers trailing over his skin. “Gold. Like wheat. Shiny.”

Repulsive. Chavias thought watching the pale man’s movements. He’s hideous.

Whose he talking about?

“Pathetic.” Radix kicked him in the gut. Making the shuffling man topple back and hit his back against the jagged stone wall.

Apparently, he doesn’t think he’s making any sense either. Chavias grunted.

Essius sobbed in fear and threw his arms up over his face to protect himself.

It wasn’t enough. Radix rained kicks on him. Though Radix’s skinny legs looked frail, Chavias knew the power that’d be behind those strikes. He was fueled by evil and the skinny frame was only a disguise for the demon being within.

He cursed Essius.

The pale man whimpered. “I try. I try.”

Radix stopped and looked down on him hatefully. “Do not bother me again unless you have more! Something of importance. Something with detail! Do. You. Understand. Me, you sniveling wretch!”

“More. More. I understand.” He cowered. Whining like a child.

Chavias shook his head and went back to his cot. Dropping onto it and reaching absentmindedly under it to feel the cloth of the blue cape hidden there.

Calisto’s cape.

Assuring himself it was still there he closed his eyes and tried to rest. Tried to escape the screams, the smell of blood and urine and misery. Tried to ease his body. Tried not to worry that Okine would wake him with a blade in his chest.

Tried to rest.