Knightfall: Under the Snail's Banner PT I

Knightfall: Under the Snail’s Banner

By Graham Swanson

Part I

Baldwin kicked out the fire and pulled his horse under the gatehouse. Rain pelted his armor and washed into his eyes. Thunder shook the mountains under his feet as storm clouds poured and the dragons in the distance bathed in its shower.

The promise he made lingered on his lips. He crawled in through a gap where a stained glass mural once was. The tapestries had rotten to green strands. Animals made homes where grass plumed from the fractures in the floor. Large pools sat stagnant where once noble warlords gathered. Baldwin listened to the clink of his armor echo against the high ceiling. He maintained the procedure he was trained to follow a century ago. Visor down. Spear on his shoulder. Emblem of the warrior snail facing the lady of the altar where he made his oath. He pressed a witch's stone against his eye. A marble box appeared on the altar. He marched down the aisle. He passed pillars and broken weapons. Skeletons of the temple's loyal servants lay scattered on the floor. Lightning outside flashed against the steel of his helmet.

The box became an ornate case. Decorated in the sculptures of ancient history. On the lid was the model of a lady in a funeral shroud. Baldwin stepped up to it. It seemed to sink into the floor before him. The relics he placed on the altar remained.

He rested his spear on the floor and knelt before the sarcophagus. Baldwin stepped up to it. It seemed to sink into the floor before him. He drew his ceremonial sword and stabbed it into the floor and mounted the lid. He rocked his body back and forth until it grinded.First it made rough scratching sounds, then dust beganto spill to the floor. Then a loud CRACK ruptured under his thigh. He felt the ridges of broken stone press agaisnt the fabric of his pants. The flowers and goblets fell. He got off, and pushed the lid off on top of them. He pushed so hard that the almost fell in. He tossed out the bones, the shroud, the jewelry, even the crown. He retrieved a dagger that he had once placed in her cold dead hands. Now bones confined the handle. He popped each knuckle to wrench the small weapon free.

The dagger Baldwin took out was now corroded with grime, but it had a magical property he desired. He dusted it off, held it into the light, he touched the point with his gloved finger tip. He nodded, hurled his cape over his shoulder, and crawled back out.

He told Fred as they rode through the golden mist. Sharp cliffs surrounded them. The sky was leaden with dark clouds. Barbed plants grew up the sharp angles of the rocks. Man eating mushrooms drew the attention of aviators with their bright color and snared them before they realized what it was.

"This land was once rich and the people loved their knights. We lived by honor. We protected the legacy of the promised land. Now look at it. We will restore what we lost.

-

The last unicorn slept soundly in the clearing deep within the forest. Baldwin crawled through the broken branches and grass. Fred crept up behind him. They slid through the mud past the tree line. The clearing opened up like a meadow. They both glanced at the gentle weight of a sparkling outline. Rays of sunlight shined from all directions. Nymphs flew in a circle overhead with bark in their mouths. Warmth reflected from the moisture on the blades of grass. The moons aligned.

Baldwin listened to the creature purr as it slept. It kicked as it dreamed of soaring across the heavens. He couldn't believe he actually found it. Legends told of the unicorn going extinct. But here one was. On a platter of soil. Its wings were curled under its body. The alicorn slumped as it rested its head.

Baldwin learned the art of stealth in his courses. He pulled himself through the grass. Gently. Green leaves stuffed the gaps of his armor. Webs from the bugs jammed the air holes in his mouth cover. Very gently. His boots dragged behind him. He saw the bugs nesting in the unicorn's silver fur. The scent of its must flooded his visor. Strawberry. It filled his sinuses until his mouth tasted it. Then he heard it purr as a bird landed on its horn to rest its wings.

Baldwin pounced with the dagger in hand.

He left the meadow tying a sack. He got on Fred and rode off back to camp.

The alicorn was used to make a powerful healing elixir strong enough to bring someone back from the brink of death. Baldwin felt a cold coming on. He sneezed red spray that smelled like strawberry.

He told Fred

"A sacred creature wasted in sleep is a sin. Power exists to be used."

-

Baldwin was feeling hungry. He checked his sack. The mushrooms, the corn, the salted meat bars. All gone. He shrugged. Seemed full last time he checked. turned it inside out, but found no food. He sighed and hung his head until he saw them. Human peasants.

Human peasants walking along a strip of crops. Not a single one had a sword. Their village was wide open, stuffed with dry hay and timber. He thought "A man who refuses a blade refuses his own protection. The world owes him nothing after that". He rallied forth, drew his spear, and trampled down the field.

-

Baldwin bathed Fred in the long winding river of Toast besides the bones of a mammoth. The Toast river rang up the length of the entire continent. Its waters led the earliest humans across the land as they conquered the known world and liberated it from the pointy eared menace. He pondered the many histories and myths of its water. Then he heard a scream.

Baldwin hurried from the sunken bar to where the river washed up tree trunks and debris from the cities. He hurried onto the sand. The shouting came from behind a mesh of moss and webs. He used a fire rune, said "Hail Moloch" to cast its spark to cut through it. He stood on top of a small cove. He looked below into a pool separated from the body of the river. Submerged in the mud, he saw a turned over wagon with a broken wheel. A treasure chest sunk into the mud.

Beneath the wagon, a gnome was pressed down. His face was bruised, his hair was wet, his legs were caught and pinned. The gnome calmed down when he saw Baldwin.

"Oh, thanky, great sir knight. I was sure to perish when.... what are you doing?"

Baldwin cracked the lock of the chest open with his boot.

"Don't get into that!"

Baldwin scooped out the contents and dumped them into a sack. Then he saw something that shocked him. A banner with the warrior snail.

The gnome kept protesting. Baldwin took one look at the gnome, took the banner, then climbed back up with the riches. The gnome began to panic.

“No, don’t go!”

Baldwin did not react. He climbed out of the sink and returned to Fred.

He cleaned the banner and rubbed out the wrinkles. He picked out the thorns and sand cutters.

“The weak aren’t meant to win,” Baldwin said. “They’re meant to be protected.”

He adjusted the banner on his saddle. “And protection requires strength."

Baldwin rode off with Fred with loot and the banner on his saddle.

"That banner does not belong in the mud. It was doomed with that gnome."

-

Baldwin ate his dinner in a cave. Cookies made from the chocolate of the dark empire and fried chicken. Outside dead trees moaned as monsters paraded in the moonlight. When finished he tossed the bones into the fire and watched them burn up. He kept the banner wrapped around his armor. It made him feel warm. It reminded him of his once beloved lord. The oath he took was on the tip of his tongue. To protect the land. To maintain the banner of the warrior snail.

You are exiled for the sake of the realm!

He almost told Fred what happened. He hung his head low, choked, then shrugged and pulled out his pillow.

“I was sworn to this land before it forgot what that meant. Oaths don’t break. Men do.”

-

Baldwin rode Fred down the sandpits and to the gravel lanes where the avalanches seeped snow and volcanic ash to the grounds below. Baldwin saw it in the distance, and pulled the reins to steer towards it. An archway formed by the wind. He circled around and changed course.

This land didn't look like it once did. The ground was white like salt. Dirt flew into his mouth. Graveyards went on for miles. He rode through the tar and smoke from a smoldering volcanic pit. He rode up and down huge fissures in the ground. He heard drums and footsteps in the distance.

Baldwin and Fred came to a camp. Smoke rose from tents, voices sang out the ballads of the chivalrous Neo who led the paladins of old to the promised land and slew the dark army of pointy ears. Baldwin rode forth with the banner of the snail. The knights there didn't raise their spears or horns nor did they ride unto him with their banners. They didn't even notice. The snail banner hadn't flown for ages. They didn't care.

Their armors were dull and unpolished. They had hand axes, not swords or spears. Some even kept their helmets off. They were unbathed, uncaped. With their faces slumped into their fists. They drank beer and said things like

"Back when the Majesty still held, everyone knew their place. Mage, priest, and the rest of them. Roads were cleaner then. Didn’t have errant striders wandering through like they owned the dust."

Baldwin looked at them. His eye bulged against the slots of his helmet. They looked upon him with suspicion. When he waved, they turned their heads or made rude gestures. Some put their noses up. Others cowarded away.

"Good men of faith! I swore my oath here when this valley still held. Game in the brush. Green on the stone. Then the wars came. And with them… everything that follows war. You see what’s left.”

The knights continued ignoring him.

Baldwin noticed an Orc in knight's plate. He jolted in place when he saw his green skin. Calcium deposits instead of facial hair that looked like short studded spikes. The Orc had heard it all before. He just kept chewing the mites out of his cowl.

"Forsooth! We bled to keep their kind beyond the line, and now they ride it in steel?"

"He's an Orc. But he wears the armor."

"That’s how it starts. You make room for one exception… and the rule-"

Then the wind swept hard from above as a shriek loud enough to pierce the sky rang out. A laser beam shot down. Two silver shards rode down it. Within a second the shards and laser manifested into the shape of a winged woman darting to the ground with her spurred boot raised.

Her wings opened and an opposing wind was reflected back onto the knights. She held the dewinging lance in one hand, and a horn in the other. When she landed it sent a shockwave across the land that tossed waves out of the Toast River and caused the dogs to flee the cities.

"Hark! I am Hridmaidra! There's two more of us coming!" She shot back into the sky like a laser beam from a distant planet.

Static filled the air as another laser beam shot from the opposite horizon. This time the Valkyrie skidded her lance across the ground and left a cut deep enough to create electricity. The knights began unbuckling their armor as their hairs raised. Baldwin stood there and watched. The electricity buzzed his armor. If she wanted to kill them, she'd not have let them know she was there at all.

"Hark! I am Vindspjot! There's one more coming!" She said as she circled around them, creating a cyclone of air.

In the center of the cyclone landed one final Valkyrie. Adorned in chrome. Her eyes covered in platinum lenses.

"Hark! I am Himinvodra! Neo is back from the dead. You will want to follow him. He'll tell you to. If you do, there will be hell to pay!" She hurled her flaming lance into the face of a volcano and vaulted back into the heavens.

The ground shook hard enough to throw the tents into the air. The knights bounced on the ground as mud and shards of gravel covered them like a blanket. The blast ruptured their eardrums. A massive back cloud shot out across the sky and covered the sun as flaming meteors pummeled the ground. A volcano blew up. The knights scattered into pieces and fled the land before lava submerged the land.

Baldwin jumped onto Fred and ignored the howling and cries for rescue. They raced away, up a trail that took him to higher elevation. From there he rode until moisture appeared on the ground again. He rode through the night and the morning. Finally found a quiet place to make a fire and rest.

Baldwin brushed Fred and watched the sky where the Valkyries vanished.

“They’ve been saying the same thing for generations,” he muttered.

Then he looked toward the distant horizon. The smoke hadn’t settled. Something. Or someone. Had returned. He adjusted the banner of the snail on his shoulder.

“…If he truly came back,” Baldwin said quietly, “then he’ll remember what this place was meant to be.”



He pulled the reins. Fred turned toward the ash.