A call from a voice, exotic and alluring, rose in the night air, and said, “Master Derrek…”

  Derrek Halloway wheeled around and discovered the islander woman, Eillandi, closing in on him in the night. The woman moved in an unearthly grace, gliding across barren ground in her long dress as her dark eyes were marking him. Up close, the edges of her skirt softly brushed against him as she began circling around him. The air around Eillandi smelt of fresh lavender flowers and a hint of the sea. After stopping in front of him, she pouted her violet lips, and asked, “Would you be so kind, sir, to be my escort?”

  “Me?” Derrek asked.

  “Why yes,” she said, “you’re squire to the lord master. Who else?” Her breath was cool and smelt of sea foam.

  He shrugged. “Where to, my lady?”

  She gave a girly laugh and made a small curtsy. “I’m no lady,” she said, “but I’ll always love you for saying so. From where I come across the seas I receive no such respects.” Eillandi deftly slid her arm under his. “Now, my young knight,” she whispered, lips intimately close to his ear, “lead me to the children.”

  Thrusted forward, Derrek began walking. His mind fell in a haze, seemingly acting without thought, as if he was compelled merely due to her beauty. But after a few paces, arm in arm, his wits returned, and he stopped. “My lady,” he asked, confused, “why do you wish to see the children?”

  Eillandi answered, “Captain Thorn needs to know their exact number. And their approximate ages and weight.”

  “For what ends?”

  Eillandi moaned softly. “He wishes to waste no more than he needs.”

  His face was still perplexed.

  “Oh, I see,” Eillandi said, “you don’t know. The lord master has ordered the execution of the children.”

  “Execution?” Derrek was shocked.

  “Between you and I,” Eillandi said, “I would have set them free. But the queen has ruled and the lord master obeys. It cannot be undone. So, Michael is preparing a gentle poison for them.”

  “And his worry is about wasting it?”

  “He can be a tad miserly, I agree. But Micheal is very skilled, you know. There is no one better for this duty. I promise you they shan't feel a thing. They will pass on without knowing.”

  “It’s not the pain that bothers me,” said Derrek. “It’s the final death.”

  She pressed against him, touching her head to his hat. “We shall go through this together, young knight. Let the gods judge our masters and their works. You and I are merely servants.”

  When they came to a rocky place with a dark water stream running through, Derrek stopped. “Hard to see without light.”

  Eillandi slipped from her sleeve and raised a crystal to her lips and blew. The crystal vibrated, then crackled, before giving off a glow. She smiled with her eyes and glossy lips shining in the soft light. “Oh, but we do. A little.”

  Eillandi pointed, “Look, there’s one of those yellow weeds… with a white flower! Intriguing, aren’t they?” She rushed towards it. “The mages have a long name for them, one I will not pretend to pronounce, but the common folk call it ghost grass. They bloom only under moonlight. And only they can grow here, where nothing else can. And do you know why?”

  Derrek shook his head. “No.”

  “Michael says the mages have a theory; the yellow sedges grow where a person dies in the Morglade and the white flower is the soul trying to reach God. But Michael also says it’s all a foolish legend.” Eillandi gracefully crouched down in her dress and plucked the flower with her purple-nailed fingers. After eyeing it with a small, wicked smile, she tucked it away in a sleeve and stood. “It was sad,” Eillandi commented, “when the last squire died. So young, like you. Loyal and dutiful, he seemed. But not cut from the right cloth. He died poorly.”

  Derrek said, “He died in battle, not poorly at all. It proves only fate is fickle.”

  She frowned. “Oh, I see… I see… my good squire, it shouldn’t be me who tells you, but as you deserve to know, you were told falsely. He was executed by orders of Sir Elliot.”

  “What?” Derrek said.

  “For cowardice. He was stricken with fear and ran from the legion, stealing a horse. When he was caught, Otis took his head with that black axe.”

  “But I was told different.”

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  She pushed them in motion again, her arm under his, and now Eillandi was guiding them. “They wished to spare you, I suppose,” Eillandi added.

  “The blue-haired sister told me he died from an arrow.”

  “Oh… that’s the one that lies. Well, lies more. You should be wary dealing with those sisters. Wild women, loyal to other lands… can be treacherous. Heed my words.”

  “I’ll watch them.” He nodded.

  Soon, Derrek and Eillandi came to where the children were being held. Otis and six other Vinndash men, armed and suited in mail, were standing guard. This time, Otis wielded the long black axe, mercy, in his hands.

  “Look at those poor children,” said Eillandi. “If only a knight… one with a good heart… would come.” She hugged the boy and whispered sensuously into his ear, “Someone like you.” Then the islander untangled herself from Derrek and went to the children.

  Derrek crept closer until he clearly saw the children’s eyes. But none of them held eye contact for more than a fleeting second. The youngest, no more than a toddler, was asleep in the arms of a girl with messy brown hair and freckles on her nose. The girl reminded him of a peasant girl who used to sell flowers in front of his father’s shop years ago. One day, she was found dead on the banks of the river—and no one in the township would claim her as their own. Derrek struggled to recall the girl’s name, but it occurred when he was no older than nine years and so long ago. Out of charity, his own father paid for the girl to be buried in a cherry wood casket. A single name was engraved on her modest tomb, but Derrek couldn’t remember it. He wondered if the outlaw children would be given burial at all.

  Derrek stepped gently forward and bent down. “What is your name?” He asked the freckled girl.

  She hesitated at first, watching his eyes, but soon she answered quietly, “Anna.”

  Derrek said, “Like the seventh star.”

  She nodded back.

  Derrek hoped he would never forget that name.

  “Squire,” a brash voice spoke, “you have a task here?”

  Derrek turned to see the giant, Otis, glaring and brandishing the dark axe in his hands. He stared into the reflection on the axe’s steel blade and answered, “No.”

  “Then be gone,” barked Otis.

  When Derrek searched for Eillandi, the islander woman was already gone. He spotted her at a distance, arm in arm, with another soldier escorting her. The boy shrugged and went his way alone.

  Later, at Captain Thorn’s pavilion, the mage was outside inspecting the night sky with a spyglass. Eillandi approached and announced herself, “Master.”

  “Flower,” Thorn said, veering through the spyglass, “you can almost see the throne of god on a night like this.” He then snickered subtly, lowering the spyglass from his face.

  “Your initial estimations were correct,” reported Eillandi.

  Thorn put away his device, placing it under a fold in his vest. “Ah,” he said, “then we may proceed.”

  As Eillandi came close to him, Thorn held out his hand and asked, “How did you find the new squire?”

  Before answering, Eillandi gracefully took his hand and kissed it gently. “Good-hearted… but naive.”

  “Oh… I see. We’ll see how long he lasts then.” As Thorn attempted to guide Eillandi into the pavilion, she stopped him. He faced her, raising an eyebrow, and said, “You have more work this night?”

  She nodded.

  “Ah. Then I will see you in the morn, flower.”

  Back at the lord master’s pavilion, Derrek walked in to discover the inside was dark. Only a small, lonely candle was burning on a bronze plate in the far corner. For a moment, the boy thought he was alone. Then a voice sounded out of the darkness. “Squire.”

  After Derrek’s eyes adjusted, he saw a brooding figure on his knees, in front of the candle. The lord master said, “I thought you had gone.”

  “Gone where, sir?”

  Elliot shook his head before taking the plate with the candle and slowly rising to his feet. “The casks have been open. Why aren’t you with them?”

  “I mean to speak with you, sir.”

  The dying candlelight faintly glowed in Elliot’s eyes. “And what say you, squire?”

  Derrek straightened his back and breathed in. “Many things. But first, I must ask you—do you really mean to execute those children?”

  Elliot raised an eyebrow. “You as well?” The lord master grumbled, “Now, my own squire rebels.”

  “I do not mean to rebel, sir,” said Derrek. “Only, I was told you were honorable, a merciful man, a man of virtue. A knight in the order of the paladins. That’s why I came here—to serve you. The Paladin. Are you not that man?”

  “You heard tales…” Elliot carried the candle where he could see the boy’s face clearly and he stared with an icy scowl. “I will forgive you—only once. Never speak to me again about the order of the paladins. Consider yourself forewarned.”

  He handed the plate to Derrek. “You know the paladins are no more. But you may not know how they met their end. I was a boy, younger than you, when my father took me to join them. The paladins were only few then, whittled down over the centuries, to no more than three hundred. The order had fallen, and it could barely be hidden from my eyes. It was in a state of debauchery. Men drunk in the halls and collapsing downstairs. Whores spread over the shield altar. Murmurings everywhere of knights secretly fallen to the whisperer. And some…” Elliot’s voice turned more bitter. “Some… so wretched, they drank themselves into a stupor and dueled to the death for no reason but pride.”

  “I was there when the white citadel fell. When Grieves Ballessteer and his abominations from the midnight lands came. But the order, itself, was already dead when the mage’s monsters arrived. There was no resistance. I saw knights running like cowards and forgetting their oaths. And by doing so… consigning those in the citadel to death and sealing the fate of the entire realm.”

  Derrek said, “I heard they fell from grace, Sir Elliot. Everyone has. But I heard you were a true one, a last one.”

  “Listen to me. The war—all of it—the death, the chaos, all because those men broke their oaths and ran. Never again call me one of them again.” He glared down with his cool blue eyes.

  Derrek said, “I meant no offense, sir.”

  Elliot informed the boy, “The legion will bring order. Men will be held to their oaths. Those who abandon theirs will be slain. Honor will be restored where it was lost. That is our task.”

  “I see,” Derrek said, “we poison children for honor.”

  A shadow came over the lord master’s face. He stepped to the boy, looking him down. The plate in Derrek’s hand began to shake. The glare lasted for a terrible second, his grey-blue eyes burning into the boy. Then Elliot snatched the plate from Derrek’s hands. “GO—have a drink of wine, squire. Accept the queen’s courtesy—a reward for our good work.”

  As Derrek hustled out of the tent, he heard the lord master speak once more. “The legion is more than you believe.”