The Silver Knight Read Online Free PDF Page A

church. You know it better than I do. You'll be able to find tinder. I'll stay here.”
    Everard's spine stiffened and a look of injured pride flashed across his face. “You believe me a coward, incapable of the task of guarding the fiend?”
    “ In'al yomuk! Do not argue with me, Christian!” Sufyan lowered his swords and stared at the knight with all the hauteur he could summon.
    “And may you curse the day you were born, too,” Everard snapped. He turned on his heel and marched back toward the church door.
    Sufyan sighed and then spun around, startled. Everard understood Arabic. Twice now he'd known what Sufyan had said. The first time could have been a coincidence—even Christians knew the name that Muslims used for God, after all—but to understand a humble curse...
    Behind him, he heard the fiend shift in the rafters of the lychgate. He turned back, pointing his scimitars up at the skeletal monster. “Come on,” he coaxed. “Perish in the flames or die again on my swords, it makes no difference to me.”
    The fiend hissed at him.
    A few minutes later, Everard returned. “The lamps are all out and there's no tinder to be found. One of us would have to go to the village for help, and the villagers won't open their doors until morning.”
    “Then we will stand here for the rest of the night,” Sufyan said.
    Everard touched his arm. “Summoner...”
    “My name is Sufyan.”
    “Sufyan.” Everard made his name sound like a caress. “Sufyan, I think we should return to the church. At least there we have more chance of capturing the fiend with holy water.”
    Sufyan gave him a puzzled look. “But we have it captured now.”
    “Do we?” Everard pointed up at the roof of the lychgate. Where moments ago there had been the snarling face of the blood-fiend, now the ghostly white shape of the screech owl fluttered.
    Sufyan swore. “How does it keep escaping from us?”
    “Because you are distracted. It knows this.” Everard did not look at him. “Do not make the mistake of thinking the blood-fiend is a mindless creature. It has some rough intelligence and animal cunning. I believe it can sense a man's true feelings. I have acted alone in all the years I have fought this fiend. This year, you joined me, unasked for but welcome. You made it confused.”
    “Confused,” Sufyan repeated, feeling foolish.
    Everard glanced over and gave him a half-smile. “It knows me. It does not know you, and so it is trying to find your measure. It seeks for a way to defeat you, to exploit any weaknesses you may have. And already it knows you are easily distracted.”
    Sufyan snorted and shook his head. “If I am easily distracted, it is because I, too, am used to working alone. Your fighting technique is crude and your armor makes a noise whenever you move. Of course I am distracted. Also, you are argumentative and cannot follow orders...”
    He stopped as Everard began to shake, and then he realized the knight was laughing silently.
    “I am argumentative?” Everard gasped before he dissolved into laughter again.
    Sufyan glared at him. “Yes, you are. And you sprinkled me with holy water.”
    Everard met his gaze with a mischievous expression. “Oh, Sufyan, did you think you would melt?”
    “No, I— “ Sufyan was saved from having to think of an appropriate reply by the sudden charge of the blood-fiend, which hurled itself from a yew tree with a horrific shriek. Both men parried its attack and fought their way back to the church, giving ground in the face of the fiend's savagery. If it had been difficult to kill before, now it thrashed at them like a creature possessed by Satan himself.
    They slammed the door behind them. Everard leaned against it while Sufyan dropped the bolt. The blood-fiend banged its fists on the wood, baying a challenge for them to come out. Sufyan yelled back at it, feeling impotent rage consume him. Nothing human had ever beaten him so far, except for the Prince Bishop of Durham, who'd simply