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bluflamingo) wrote2006-04-22 03:00 pm
bluflamingo) wrote2006-04-22 03:00 pm
Entry tags:
Dark Knights fic: In The Beginning (096)
So, this is my first attempt at a short story series, using original characters, for ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
bodyandsoul100.
Dark Knights:
Stolen from their homes across the Empire, the knights were sent to Britain to fight in service to the Roman Empire. There, they were taught Latin, taught to fight and taught to work together in bands of nine knights and a Lieutenant. When the need arises to protect a previously un-manned outpost, a high ranking Roman Commander is sent, with two decuries, to hold it, for six months. What should be an easy posting turns out to be anything but.
Ecri is one of the two co-Lieutenants, fiery tempered, quick to snap but commanding a fierce loyalty from those in his decury.
Guillaume is the second co-Lieutenant, the opposite of Ecri: a calm believer in democracy whose knights are equally loyal. After nearly six years together, they make a perfect team, their decuries working together as one.
Amongst their knights are Yvain, a young, new recruit, observant but still suffering with nerves, and Losak, recruited along with Ecri and Guillaume but not promoted when they were, resentful but loyal.
Title: In the Beginning
Prompt Set: Various 2
Prompt: 096 Author's choice (beginnings)
Rating/Warnings: None
Author's Notes: It may remind you a little of King Arthur, the 2004 movie. This is kind of intentional - it's the same sort of set-up, but not in any way part of the movie (ie don't read this if you're looking for Lancelot or Gawain).
In The Beginning
‘This,’ Ecri said darkly, ‘is not good.’
Guillaume glanced silently over, then returned his gaze to the source of Ecri’s current irritation. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the rest of the knights picking themselves up from the battle, reining their horses in and beginning to regroup.
‘This is not good,’ Ecri repeated.
‘You said that already,’ Guillaume pointed out, earning himself a dark glare from Ecri.
‘I’d say it sums up the situation quite nicely, wouldn’t you?’ Ecri asked.
Guillaume shrugged, unwilling to agree on the principle that disagreeing with Ecri never hurt – that badly – but agreeing anyway.
They both looked back to the ground between them. ‘Well,’ Guillaume offered eventually. ‘It could be worse.’
‘How, exactly?’
Guillaume opened his mouth to reply, but before he could, a voice at his elbow asked sharply, ‘what happened?’
Guillaume caught the flash in Ecri’s eyes and suddenly really, really wanted to be somewhere other than between the two of them. He reminded himself firmly that Knights Lieutenant didn’t back down from anything, no matter how they were tempted.
Ecri whirled on the younger knight. ‘What does it look like happened?’ he demanded. ‘Isn’t it obvious?’
Yvain, not having a reputation as a fearless Lieutenant to uphold, flinched back half a step from Ecri’s vitriol. Beyond that, though, he held his ground, and asked, ‘Why is this such a bad thing?’
Guillaume could practically see the steam coming from Ecri’s ears. ‘Aside from the completely blindingly fucking obvious?’ Ecri demanded. ‘I know the empire’s desperate, but what possessed them to drag you here and force you on the one’s who actually –‘
Guillaume shoved Ecri a few steps back, cutting him off. ‘Shut up!’ he hissed. ‘Before everyone hears you. You’re making things worse.’
For a moment, Ecri’s eyes flashed dark, and Guillaume thought he’d shove back. Then he took a breath and his eyes cleared. He shrugged Guillaume’s hands from him and straightened. ‘Fine.’
‘Um…’ Yvain’s voice came from around Guillaume’s knee, and they both looked down to see him crouched by the body. ‘Did you see this?’
Guillaume didn’t need to look at Ecri to feel that sarcastic retort he was about to make, and he spoke hastily to avoid it. ‘Did we see what?’
Yvain pointed to the arrow sticking out of the body, saying nothing.
‘What about it?’ Guillaume prompted. Sometimes, he really understood Ecri’s impatience.
‘That’s one of our arrows,’ Yvain said.
Guillaume felt a cold trickle of fear down his spine as he crouched next to the younger knight. Yvain tilted the arrow slightly, the fletchings catching the light, instantly recognisable as the dyed blue feathers the knights always used in their arrows.
He glanced up, catching Ecri’s eye. ‘This,’ he said slowly, ‘is not good.’
*
Leaving the other eighteen knights gathered round the body, Guillaume and Ecri withdrew a few hasty feet and stood, looking at each other over the arrow Guillaume held gingerly.
After a long moment of silence, Guillaume said, ‘it’s definitely one of our arrows.’
‘Yeah.’
‘In our Commander.’
‘Yeah.’
‘In his chest.’
‘Yeah.’
‘From in front. Which is fairly unlikely, even in battle…’ He trailed off, not wanting to finish the thought.
‘Almost like it might not have been entirely an accident,’ Ecri finished it for him.
It wasn’t, Guillaume thought, that he’d disliked their Commander – he’d been better than some of their commanders, even if he had been just like all the others and forced them to speak Latin all the time. It was more that he’d felt indifferent towards the man, far more concerned about the circumstances of his death than the fact of it,
‘What will we tell the command?’ he asked.
Ecri looked up, hi eyes bright with something Guillaume knew he wouldn’t like. ‘Why do we have to tell them?’
‘Well, I suppose we can make up something, but it had better be something good. And the others, some of them will have seen the arrow, it won’t be easy to make sure everyone is saying the same thing.’
‘No, why do we have to tell them he’s dead?’
Guillaume froze, staring at his co-Lieutenant, barely able to believe he’d heard correctly. Ecri grinned, the devil-may-care, you-only-live-once grin that Guillaume recognised from countless, frequently ill-fated, pranks when they’d been new recruits.
‘Why?’ he asked finally.
‘Why not?’ Ecri asked. After a moment of silence, he sighed. ‘What do you think will happen to us if we go back to the fort and ay we got our Commander killed? Even without the arrow. He’s a high ranking Roman Commander and we’re just the knight.’
‘They’d understand about battle.’ Even as he said it, Guillaume knew it was a waste of time.
‘What they’ll understand is that e failed to protect our Commander in a battle none of us fell in,’ Ecri said bitterly. ‘You heard what they were saying before we left.’
Guillaume had.
‘We’ll be lucky if the worst thing that happens is being recalled to the fort and sent south,’ Ecri twirled the arrow between his fingers. ‘You got a better idea?’
Guillaume thrust a hand through his hair, paced in a tight circle, trying to think. ‘We’re only posted out here for six months. What happens then?
‘Six months to create a story they’ll believe… and a few of us are sure to be dead by then.’
‘Nothing like looking on the bright side,’ Guillaume muttered, but he said nothing else. There was nothing else to say, when Ecri was right.
‘Well?’
‘Someone killed him!’ Guillaume hissed. ‘One of us, and you’re suggesting we lie to the Command for six months to stay out here and –‘
‘Do you want to hang for this?’ Ecri demanded. ‘You and me and the rest of the knights? Because that’s what will happen if we go back.’
Guillaume took a deep breath. They’d been appointed Knights-Lieutenant on the same day, each responsible for nine other knights, and promptly placed under the same Commander. They’d already had five years of ‘serving’ together, and most people couldn’t tell the decuries apart, till he and Ecri were more co-Lieutenants than anything else.
The reason it worked so well was that, while Ecri commanded a fierce loyalty, Guillaume earned it through a calm manner, and being the voice of reason.
He sighed, gestured to the assembled knights, most of whom were watching them. ‘Ask them.’
*
‘This is ridiculous.’ Losak took a step towards Guillaume and Ecri as he waved an angry hand. ‘We have a chance at freedom without servitude and you say we should stay?’
Ecri stopped himself from rolling his eyes, just, mostly because he was sick of Guillaume glaring at him every time he did. ‘What would you suggest?’
He still thought giving orders worked better, but Guillaume ran his decury as a democracy, and somehow Ecri had found himself doing the same.
‘We can leave. Our Commander is gone, no one is here to see what we do. We can go home.’
A few of the assembled knights nodded.
‘And where would you have us go?’ Ecri demanded. ‘North to the barbarians or south to the Roman strongholds? Either way is almost certain death.’
‘We are knights. You tell us often, we can defeat anyone, we would fight our way through.’
Out of the corner of his eye, Ecri saw Guillaume step forward. He cut him off. ‘Your faith in our skill notwithstanding, would you expect us to just walk onto a ship home? With no-one questioning eighteen knights of the Empire too young to have served out their term taking ships home?’
Losak shrugged, but he took a step back. ‘It would not be impossible.’
‘We’d be lucky to make it past the Wall,’ Guillaume said quietly. ‘You know our choice, and you’ve trusted us before. We want to go home, just as you do. If your decision is to run for freedom, so be it.’
Ecri looked across at him, surprised. He’d expected Guillaume to allow the discussion to wander on for much longer, but there he was, asking for a decision. He saw his surprise reflected in several of the other knights, and Guillaume must have caught it as well.
‘You all know the situation, and your own minds. It’s not for us to try to persuade you,’ he said. ‘So, those who do not wish to stay with us, gather your things and leave. No-one will think less of you.’
He turned away from the assembled knight, catching Ecri’s eye as he did. Ecri blinked and the expression was gone, but he knew he hadn’t mistaken the calculation in Guillaume’s eyes. His fellow Lieutenant was not so naïve as he sometimes seemed.
He moved away with Guillaume, giving the knights space to make their choice. ‘Well?’ he asked quietly.
Guillaume shrugged. ‘Who can say? Losak may go, but the others…’
‘Losak we can survive without. He could make it home.’
‘No.’ Guillaume shook his head. ‘This won’t be easy,’ he warned. ‘They won’t take orders from us as from the Commander, they won’t be so willing.’
‘No,’ Ecri agreed, feeling a quiver of unease. ‘No, but the alternatives are worse.’
Guillaume was saved from having to answer by a tap on his shoulder. Both Lieutenants turned to see the eighteen knights ranged before them, Losak at the head of the line.
‘We will stay.’
bodyandsoul100. Dark Knights:
Stolen from their homes across the Empire, the knights were sent to Britain to fight in service to the Roman Empire. There, they were taught Latin, taught to fight and taught to work together in bands of nine knights and a Lieutenant. When the need arises to protect a previously un-manned outpost, a high ranking Roman Commander is sent, with two decuries, to hold it, for six months. What should be an easy posting turns out to be anything but.
Ecri is one of the two co-Lieutenants, fiery tempered, quick to snap but commanding a fierce loyalty from those in his decury.
Guillaume is the second co-Lieutenant, the opposite of Ecri: a calm believer in democracy whose knights are equally loyal. After nearly six years together, they make a perfect team, their decuries working together as one.
Amongst their knights are Yvain, a young, new recruit, observant but still suffering with nerves, and Losak, recruited along with Ecri and Guillaume but not promoted when they were, resentful but loyal.
Title: In the Beginning
Prompt Set: Various 2
Prompt: 096 Author's choice (beginnings)
Rating/Warnings: None
Author's Notes: It may remind you a little of King Arthur, the 2004 movie. This is kind of intentional - it's the same sort of set-up, but not in any way part of the movie (ie don't read this if you're looking for Lancelot or Gawain).
In The Beginning
‘This,’ Ecri said darkly, ‘is not good.’
Guillaume glanced silently over, then returned his gaze to the source of Ecri’s current irritation. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the rest of the knights picking themselves up from the battle, reining their horses in and beginning to regroup.
‘This is not good,’ Ecri repeated.
‘You said that already,’ Guillaume pointed out, earning himself a dark glare from Ecri.
‘I’d say it sums up the situation quite nicely, wouldn’t you?’ Ecri asked.
Guillaume shrugged, unwilling to agree on the principle that disagreeing with Ecri never hurt – that badly – but agreeing anyway.
They both looked back to the ground between them. ‘Well,’ Guillaume offered eventually. ‘It could be worse.’
‘How, exactly?’
Guillaume opened his mouth to reply, but before he could, a voice at his elbow asked sharply, ‘what happened?’
Guillaume caught the flash in Ecri’s eyes and suddenly really, really wanted to be somewhere other than between the two of them. He reminded himself firmly that Knights Lieutenant didn’t back down from anything, no matter how they were tempted.
Ecri whirled on the younger knight. ‘What does it look like happened?’ he demanded. ‘Isn’t it obvious?’
Yvain, not having a reputation as a fearless Lieutenant to uphold, flinched back half a step from Ecri’s vitriol. Beyond that, though, he held his ground, and asked, ‘Why is this such a bad thing?’
Guillaume could practically see the steam coming from Ecri’s ears. ‘Aside from the completely blindingly fucking obvious?’ Ecri demanded. ‘I know the empire’s desperate, but what possessed them to drag you here and force you on the one’s who actually –‘
Guillaume shoved Ecri a few steps back, cutting him off. ‘Shut up!’ he hissed. ‘Before everyone hears you. You’re making things worse.’
For a moment, Ecri’s eyes flashed dark, and Guillaume thought he’d shove back. Then he took a breath and his eyes cleared. He shrugged Guillaume’s hands from him and straightened. ‘Fine.’
‘Um…’ Yvain’s voice came from around Guillaume’s knee, and they both looked down to see him crouched by the body. ‘Did you see this?’
Guillaume didn’t need to look at Ecri to feel that sarcastic retort he was about to make, and he spoke hastily to avoid it. ‘Did we see what?’
Yvain pointed to the arrow sticking out of the body, saying nothing.
‘What about it?’ Guillaume prompted. Sometimes, he really understood Ecri’s impatience.
‘That’s one of our arrows,’ Yvain said.
Guillaume felt a cold trickle of fear down his spine as he crouched next to the younger knight. Yvain tilted the arrow slightly, the fletchings catching the light, instantly recognisable as the dyed blue feathers the knights always used in their arrows.
He glanced up, catching Ecri’s eye. ‘This,’ he said slowly, ‘is not good.’
*
Leaving the other eighteen knights gathered round the body, Guillaume and Ecri withdrew a few hasty feet and stood, looking at each other over the arrow Guillaume held gingerly.
After a long moment of silence, Guillaume said, ‘it’s definitely one of our arrows.’
‘Yeah.’
‘In our Commander.’
‘Yeah.’
‘In his chest.’
‘Yeah.’
‘From in front. Which is fairly unlikely, even in battle…’ He trailed off, not wanting to finish the thought.
‘Almost like it might not have been entirely an accident,’ Ecri finished it for him.
It wasn’t, Guillaume thought, that he’d disliked their Commander – he’d been better than some of their commanders, even if he had been just like all the others and forced them to speak Latin all the time. It was more that he’d felt indifferent towards the man, far more concerned about the circumstances of his death than the fact of it,
‘What will we tell the command?’ he asked.
Ecri looked up, hi eyes bright with something Guillaume knew he wouldn’t like. ‘Why do we have to tell them?’
‘Well, I suppose we can make up something, but it had better be something good. And the others, some of them will have seen the arrow, it won’t be easy to make sure everyone is saying the same thing.’
‘No, why do we have to tell them he’s dead?’
Guillaume froze, staring at his co-Lieutenant, barely able to believe he’d heard correctly. Ecri grinned, the devil-may-care, you-only-live-once grin that Guillaume recognised from countless, frequently ill-fated, pranks when they’d been new recruits.
‘Why?’ he asked finally.
‘Why not?’ Ecri asked. After a moment of silence, he sighed. ‘What do you think will happen to us if we go back to the fort and ay we got our Commander killed? Even without the arrow. He’s a high ranking Roman Commander and we’re just the knight.’
‘They’d understand about battle.’ Even as he said it, Guillaume knew it was a waste of time.
‘What they’ll understand is that e failed to protect our Commander in a battle none of us fell in,’ Ecri said bitterly. ‘You heard what they were saying before we left.’
Guillaume had.
‘We’ll be lucky if the worst thing that happens is being recalled to the fort and sent south,’ Ecri twirled the arrow between his fingers. ‘You got a better idea?’
Guillaume thrust a hand through his hair, paced in a tight circle, trying to think. ‘We’re only posted out here for six months. What happens then?
‘Six months to create a story they’ll believe… and a few of us are sure to be dead by then.’
‘Nothing like looking on the bright side,’ Guillaume muttered, but he said nothing else. There was nothing else to say, when Ecri was right.
‘Well?’
‘Someone killed him!’ Guillaume hissed. ‘One of us, and you’re suggesting we lie to the Command for six months to stay out here and –‘
‘Do you want to hang for this?’ Ecri demanded. ‘You and me and the rest of the knights? Because that’s what will happen if we go back.’
Guillaume took a deep breath. They’d been appointed Knights-Lieutenant on the same day, each responsible for nine other knights, and promptly placed under the same Commander. They’d already had five years of ‘serving’ together, and most people couldn’t tell the decuries apart, till he and Ecri were more co-Lieutenants than anything else.
The reason it worked so well was that, while Ecri commanded a fierce loyalty, Guillaume earned it through a calm manner, and being the voice of reason.
He sighed, gestured to the assembled knights, most of whom were watching them. ‘Ask them.’
*
‘This is ridiculous.’ Losak took a step towards Guillaume and Ecri as he waved an angry hand. ‘We have a chance at freedom without servitude and you say we should stay?’
Ecri stopped himself from rolling his eyes, just, mostly because he was sick of Guillaume glaring at him every time he did. ‘What would you suggest?’
He still thought giving orders worked better, but Guillaume ran his decury as a democracy, and somehow Ecri had found himself doing the same.
‘We can leave. Our Commander is gone, no one is here to see what we do. We can go home.’
A few of the assembled knights nodded.
‘And where would you have us go?’ Ecri demanded. ‘North to the barbarians or south to the Roman strongholds? Either way is almost certain death.’
‘We are knights. You tell us often, we can defeat anyone, we would fight our way through.’
Out of the corner of his eye, Ecri saw Guillaume step forward. He cut him off. ‘Your faith in our skill notwithstanding, would you expect us to just walk onto a ship home? With no-one questioning eighteen knights of the Empire too young to have served out their term taking ships home?’
Losak shrugged, but he took a step back. ‘It would not be impossible.’
‘We’d be lucky to make it past the Wall,’ Guillaume said quietly. ‘You know our choice, and you’ve trusted us before. We want to go home, just as you do. If your decision is to run for freedom, so be it.’
Ecri looked across at him, surprised. He’d expected Guillaume to allow the discussion to wander on for much longer, but there he was, asking for a decision. He saw his surprise reflected in several of the other knights, and Guillaume must have caught it as well.
‘You all know the situation, and your own minds. It’s not for us to try to persuade you,’ he said. ‘So, those who do not wish to stay with us, gather your things and leave. No-one will think less of you.’
He turned away from the assembled knight, catching Ecri’s eye as he did. Ecri blinked and the expression was gone, but he knew he hadn’t mistaken the calculation in Guillaume’s eyes. His fellow Lieutenant was not so naïve as he sometimes seemed.
He moved away with Guillaume, giving the knights space to make their choice. ‘Well?’ he asked quietly.
Guillaume shrugged. ‘Who can say? Losak may go, but the others…’
‘Losak we can survive without. He could make it home.’
‘No.’ Guillaume shook his head. ‘This won’t be easy,’ he warned. ‘They won’t take orders from us as from the Commander, they won’t be so willing.’
‘No,’ Ecri agreed, feeling a quiver of unease. ‘No, but the alternatives are worse.’
Guillaume was saved from having to answer by a tap on his shoulder. Both Lieutenants turned to see the eighteen knights ranged before them, Losak at the head of the line.
‘We will stay.’