The Silver Knight Read Online Free PDF

been lucky. The idea that something inhuman could get the better of him made Sufyan furious.
    He calmed when he felt Everard's hand on his shoulder. “Don't,” said the knight. “You must be patient with the fiend. This is only the first night of our battle.”
    “I'll rip its head off,” Sufyan muttered. “I'll flay its skin and crush its bones. I'll grind its sinews. I'll—I'll—”
    He subsided into silence and allowed Everard to lead him to the font, where they waited, nursing their swords, for the next few hours. Their vigil was undisturbed, and by the time the dawn peered through the narrow windows, Sufyan felt blear-eyed and weary.
    “Sunrise,” Everard said, sheathing his blade and stretching his arms above his head with a tired sigh. “The fiend will have hidden itself in its tomb by now. The villagers are safe until tonight, and I must leave.”
    Sufyan rubbed his face. “Where will you go?”
    “Not far. I will return later this afternoon. And you?”
    “I don't know.” Sufyan replaced his scimitars in their scabbards and yawned. “I think I'll go back to the tavern and sleep.”
    Everard smiled. “If they let you.” He hesitated, his smile fading, and then asked, “Will I see you this evening?”
    Sufyan looked at him, backlit against the warmth of the rising sun, and felt desire mount within him. He would battle a dozen blood-fiends for the chance to see Everard de Montparnasse again.
    “Yes,” he said. “You will see me tonight.”
    * * * *
    By late afternoon, Sufyan had wearied of repeating his story of the previous night's events to the awestruck villagers. They kept knocking on the door of the room he'd rented, so he hid himself in the stables with his horse and managed to snatch a few hours of sleep before the miller found him and pulled him into the tavern to tell his tale yet again.
    While the sun still traveled west, Sufyan bought a meat pie and a flagon of ale from the tavern wench and set off to investigate the land around the church. The wood encroached right up to the graveyard wall on three sides, and during his exploration, Sufyan found a sheltered spot that caught the best of the afternoon sun. Long grass, wildflowers, and bracken grew in abundance beneath oak and birch trees, all within spitting distance of the boundary wall.
    He lay in the grass and found it soft and fragrant. The distant music of birdsong formed a pleasant counterpoint to the whisper of the breeze through the branches. Sufyan cushioned his head on his hands and stretched out, enjoying this most simple of pleasures for a moment.
    Recalling himself to his task, he hid the pie and ale in the bracken, and continued his investigation of the churchyard. He picked up a stick, which he poked into any suspicious-looking fissures around the graves, but after a couple of hours all he'd found were rabbit holes and a regurgitated owl pellet lying on the slab of a tomb.
    Sufyan sat on the boundary wall and looked down toward Kirkfield. Even from this distance, he could see a few figures crossing the village green amongst the pigs and sheep. The millwheel turned in the race, reminding him of a conversation he'd had with the villagers earlier that day.
    “Everard de Montparnasse,” he'd said to the miller. “Do you know the name?”
    The miller had looked blank. “The silver knight is called Montparnasse? Can't say I recall the name.”
    He asked every villager he met, but it seemed no one had ever heard of Everard de Montparnasse until Sufyan had gone into the tavern kitchen to collect his flagon of ale. In a corner, an old crone sat on a stool, sucking her toothless gums and humming to herself as she carded a handful of wool. She looked up when she heard the name.
    “Montparnasse,” she'd said, her voice frail with accumulated memories. “They owned the demesne north of here. Dead, now, of course—all of them dead. So sad! The old baron and his wife had a son, their only child, who went off to fight in the