ALTDORF (The Forest Knights: Book 1) Read online

  ALTDORF

  a novel of the Forest Knights

  by

  J. K. Swift

  Kindle Edition

  Published by UE Publishing Co.

  Vancouver, BC, Canada

  Copyright© 2011 by J. K. Swift

  All rights reserved.

  Cover design by Chris Ryan, collecula

  www.collecula.com

  Edited by Vincent Hillier

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission from the author.

  www.jkswift.com

  The Forest Knights Official Website

  Acknowledgements

  Many people made my trips to Switzerland and Austria a true pleasure, but I would especially like to thank Peter and Akiko Huber for their kind hospitality. Also to Maya Huber and Thomas Hildebrand, thank you for dragging me through the hills of the Bernese Alps and sharing so many wonderful dinners together. And to Alex Jarosch and Lina Hedinsdottir, thank you for opening up your home to us. Some day I promise to write something where the Austrians are not the bad guys.

  Dedication

  For Phyllis and Roy: a mother who read to me every night, and a father never too busy to cut a piece of wood or plastic pipe into whatever I could imagine. Some children never have a chance, but a few have it all.

  And for Sonja, my muse, who saves me from myself everyday.

  THE BOND

  Be it known to everyone, that the people of the Dale of Uri, the Community of Schwyz, as also the men of the mountains of Unterwald, in consideration of evil times, have full confidently bound themselves, and sworn to help each other with all their power and might, against all who shall do violence to one or any of them.

  That is our Ancient Bond.

  ***

  Excerpt from the Pact of the Eidgenossen (Oathbound), August 1291

  Signed somewhere deep in the forests of modern day Switzerland

  Prologue

  “WHAT WILL you do with all this coin?” Foulques de Villaret, Knight Hospitaller of the Order of Saint John asked as he dropped two large bags on the slab-carved table worn smooth from years of use.

  The village hall in Schwyz was small, but had a peaked roofline and thick post and beam framework that slotted into itself seamlessly. Although simple, it gave off an aura of permanence. The builders had left the interior walls plain and unadorned, yet so much care had gone into selecting the best natural materials from the surrounding forest that only the finest of tapestries could have improved the simple décor.

  The room could accommodate fifty villagers standing shoulder to shoulder, but today it held only five. One woman and three men sat behind the long trestle table at the front of the hall. The villagers were all younger than forty, but those years had not been kind. Their clothing of worn, homespun wool and brown callused hands marked them as farmers, while their knobby limbs and sunken eyes hinted at a hard existence in a densely forested land too mountainous to be tamed by ploughs.

  The woman did not look at the heavy bags in front of her. She stared at the young knight, her hard eyes searching his face, daring him to judge her or the men who sat at her side.

  “We mean to buy animals for our people. Sheep, goats, pigs. Maybe a few oxen. We hope it will give us enough to breed more stock,” she said.

  Foulques de Villaret shook his head. He was a powerfully built man wearing a black surcoat with a large white cross on his chest; a thigh-length chainmail hauberk glistened beneath. As the white cross contrasted against his black clothing, so too did his ice-blue eyes jump out against a mass of wild hair and a full beard of darkness.

  “You could buy much more than a few beasts with that gold. Perhaps you should count it and make sure the sum.”

  The woman’s husband, a gangly man, shifted on his hard stool and exhaled. He stroked the ridge of his brow with his thumbs as he fixed an unfocused gaze on the bags of coin.

  “There is no need,” he said. “You are a Hospitaller Knight and our people are poor. Your Order’s oath to care for the poor and sick is the very reason we chose your brethren over the other orders fighting in the Holy Lands. We believe you mean to honor that oath and treat with us fairly. Did you know, Sir Foulques, the Templar Knights offered half again the number of coins before us?”

  De Villaret nodded and corrected him. “Brother Foulques. I relinquished my title and possessions when I joined the Order.”

  Just as the Templars kept an ever-watchful eye on their rivals the Hospitallers, there was not much the Knights of Saint John did not know about the Templars’ activities. In the war against the Saracen infidels in Outremer, a world away across the Mid-Earth Sea, de Villaret had been witness to more suffering and cruelty than most sane men could bear. But flesh and blood enemies were not to blame for the pain etched in these villagers’ faces.

  Yes, the Austrian ruling family, the Habsburgs, taxed these lands to help support their armies scattered throughout Europe, but the land was so poor it contributed no more than a pittance to the treasury. The real hardships came from the land itself. Carving farmland out of the forested mountain slopes only resulted in stunted crops that struggled through the long winters and short growing season to a single harvest, if any.

  De Villaret felt the woman’s eyes on him, searching, assessing. Attempting by force of will alone to draw out and reveal his innermost flaws, picking at them like a loose thread to see if he would unravel. Was he a man to be trusted? He shifted his weight, his black hair bunching about his shoulders, and addressed the villagers seated before him, making a conscious effort to look at the woman as he spoke.

  “It is not a simple thing you do, but rest assured you have chosen wisely in putting your faith in my order, and in God.”

  The woman stood so quickly her chair shot out behind her and toppled to the floor, causing everyone to jump, including the young knight.

  “Desperation is not faith,” she said, leveling a thin finger at de Villaret. “We put no faith in you or your kind—only in our own people.” She jerked her head towards the door, her eyes never leaving his face. “Go now, before we come to our senses.”

  Upon becoming a Knight of the Order of Saint John, besides taking vows of chastity and poverty, de Villaret had sworn to accept the poor as his Lords. But being born into a noble French family, he was unaccustomed to being dismissed by a peasant, nevertheless a woman. He hesitated and looked to the other men. Their downward cast eyes told him who held sway in these lands.

  He willed his clenched hands to unfold.

  It mattered not. He had what he wanted. He bowed his head, ever so slightly, and without a word strode to the exit, his chainmail making a metallic rustle. He threw open the door and stepped out into the summer’s early morning light.

  The quiet was disconcerting, unnatural, for it should have been deafening.

  Spread before him, overflowing the town square, were five hundred children lined up in flawless marching formation. They varied in age from five to thirteen-years-old. All orphans or second sons sold by their families or villages. Fifteen of de Villaret’s fellow Hospitallers, knights clad in the same black surcoats and cloaks, and grizzled sergeant men-at-arms dressed in brown, all with white crosses displayed on the chest, were interspersed amongst the orderly group. The few men stood out like giants as they were head and shoulders above even their tallest charges.

  Without a backwards glance into the village hall, de Vill
aret strode to take his place at the front of the column, next to a knight leading a string of pack mules, aware with every step that the woman’s eyes were still locked upon him. Burning, boring deep into his being.

  The column began its long winding journey toward Saint Gotthard’s Pass. It was the fastest route de Villaret could take to cross the treacherous Alps, jagged abominations the Devil himself had placed in the middle of Europe in his continuous efforts to divide faithful Christians. Eventually, God willing, they would descend into northern Italia, and make their way to Genoa and the shores of the Mid-Earth Sea. There, he would load his new charges onto ships and set sail for the Holy Land.

  He glanced over his shoulder and took in his army of children stretched along the narrow road as far as the eye could see. These were no common slaves he had purchased. Every child was dressed in a new cloak and laden with the best traveling gear their families or villages could afford. Although, in most cases, that accounted for little more than an eating knife and a walking stick, perhaps new shoes for some. The children were still fresh and bore the difficulties of the road well. But that would change soon enough.

  May the Good Lord protect us all.

  Chapter 1

  LIKE SHEPHERDS FROM HELL, the demons drove their flock of evil spirits and twisted minions over the Alps far into the valleys below, spreading disease, insanity, and chaos. The only warning of their approach was the föhn, a warm, dry wind that preceded the horde’s arrival. It was not superstition or myth to the locals, but simply an event that occurred a scattering of times every year, and the föhn in the late winter of 1314 was longer and warmer than any could remember.

  At first, as the warm breeze reduced great banks of snow to puddles, it was a welcome respite to a hard winter. But as the air continued to warm and the moisture was wicked out of the countryside, throats dried out, and animals became uneasy. Once the people recognized it for a föhn, the wise ones hastened to the safety of their homes to latch their shutters and bar the doors.

  They knew what chased the wind.

  Erich felt ill at ease, but he could not be sure whether the cause was the föhn or the six horsemen that had appeared with it. He had shadowed them from the woods for the past hour.

  Their mounts were great long-legged beasts, with heads held high and chins tucked in; not the sturdy mountain ponies that fared better in this land of hills and steep mountain passes. At first he thought they might be soldiers on patrol to Einsiedeln, or one of the other wealthy monasteries in the area under protection of the Holy Roman Empire, but they were not dressed like any Austrians Erich had ever seen.

  Unlike the heavy wool and sackcloth garments Erich had on, the riders wore layers of simple dark clothing of lightweight fabrics, the likes of which Erich had never seen. In addition, each man wore a black chainmail shirt, the mesh so fine and light, it seemed more a vest than armor.

  A single one of the mail shirts would fetch a price large enough to keep a family in these parts fed for years. But first it would need to be removed from the man wearing it, and that, Erich knew through experience and by looking at the weapons each man wore at his side, could only be accomplished one way.

  He waved to a man concealed in the woods a hundred yards up the road, who in turn, relayed the signal to more men hiding beyond a bend in the road ahead.

  Brigands. Highwaymen. Desperate men turned predators, who singled out the weak to provide for their own existence. Now in his late twenties, Erich had made his life amongst men such as these for nearly fifteen years. His band of almost thirty men was one of the most lucrative gangs working the road leading north out of Saint Gotthard’s Pass. Traffic had been good of late, and by targeting nobles with insufficient escorts, the occasional small trade caravan, and local peasants as poor as the raiders themselves, Erich’s group managed a comfortable existence, unlike most in the settlements surrounding the Great Lake.

  But they never ascended far up into the pass. The craggy peaks were the domain of demons, and were to be avoided lest one risk the corruption of his soul. And, besides, there was no profit to be had on the other side.

  A number of years past the Duke of Milan had purchased the area and built a great fortification, the Castelgrande, which sat atop a rock bluff overlooking the southern approach to the Saint Gotthard Pass. Regular patrols from the castle had almost eliminated all banditry in the valleys on the south side of the pass. However, once the merchants managed the winding climb from the narrow valley floor out of the tree line and over the barren summit, which was covered in snow eight months of the year, they were in Austrian lands, and there were no longer any Milanese patrols to protect them. Austrian patrols were rarely seen this far south.

  It was this pass that the six men had recently climbed, and they now rode slowly, relaxed. The weary slump to their shoulders told of a great distance traveled. Although tired of the road, they exchanged easy banter and laughed often, with one man standing out by his immense size.

  Clean-shaven and blonde, he sat astride one of the largest horses Erich had ever seen; yet the animal seemed no more than a pony the way the man’s legs dangled around its torso. He talked non-stop, emphasizing his words and laughter with grand gestures from his brazier-sized hands.

  The fair-haired man was such a spectacle that Erich was surprised to find his attention always drifting to the darker man riding beside him. Though he appeared small compared to the giant, Erich could tell he was taller than most men. He wore his chestnut brown, neck-length hair untied, and although beardless, his face was darkly stubbled, except for the area that a long, jagged scar passed through. The thick, pale tissue started under the man’s left eye and ran down his face in a graceful curve to fold over the line of his jaw.

  He led a riderless spare horse, two hands taller than his own, saddled and ready to be mounted. On his belt he wore a long knife, and hanging off his saddle was a mace with a heavy flanged head. His movements were relaxed and his eyes never once left the road ahead to search the woods on either side, but there was an uneasiness about the way the man sat straight in his saddle that bothered Erich.

  Erich scanned the woods for his three hidden archers. He could not see them but he knew they would be ready. Around the bend ahead the road narrowed with thick stands of pine on either side. At his signal, he and his archers would open fire on the horsemen from the rear and then the bulk of his men would emerge from the woods to chase them, leaving the riders with no option but to flee straight up the road. More men would be waiting with ropes stretched across the road that would unhorse the men from their galloping mounts. It was a tried and true system that had passed many a test.

  Erich nocked a noisemaker arrow to his bowstring, aimed into the sky, and let fly. A piercing whistle shrilled through the air. Seconds passed—nothing happened.

  Where are my archers? A sinking feeling sifted through him and settled in his guts. Something was wrong.

  He scanned the woods to see twenty of his men scrambling out of the trees, shouting and screaming as they charged up the road towards the six horsemen. For bandits, they were well armed with heavy clubs or decent swords taken from previous conquests. Some wore unmatched pieces of armor, usually leather, but the occasional gleam of chainmail could be spotted when one of the intermittent patches of sunlight found it through the trees.

  Erich tried to wave them off but to no avail. They were too caught up with adrenalin and bloodlust to spot him in the foliage as they rushed by, each man mindlessly intent on being the first to reach the victims.

  At the sound of the screams from behind, the six horsemen turned their mounts and formed up in a single line, the road just wide enough to accommodate all of the large horses. Their movements were precise and unhurried. As one, they drew their weapons. The tall man said something and held his mace high into the air. He turned his head and looked directly to Erich’s hiding spot; his features obscured by the forest’s shadows save for the long pale line, which even at this distance, seemed to pulsate wit
h a cool white light.

  He reined in the riderless destrier close to his side with one hand, and lowered his mace in the other to point at the attackers running up the road. The horsemen seemed to merge together into a single, multi-headed beast as they began to trot ahead, each man’s knees close enough to touch the man’s next to him. Then, as one, the great warhorses leapt into a full gallop.

  Destriers bred and trained for this very situation, they snorted with excitement as they gathered speed and charged through the band of brigands as though they were nothing more than tall blades of grass. Men screamed as they tried to dive out of the path of the frenzied animals. Bodies were blown aside like leaves in a maelstrom; bones snapped, shoulders dislocated, and chests caved in under the heavy iron-shod hooves. Once through the tangled maze of bodies, the riders turned their mounts with their legs and formed up for another charge.

  The road was littered with men on hands and knees, some still and lifeless, others groaning, crawling, trying to pull themselves to the safety of the woods. Those that were fortunate enough to have avoided the charge stood on trembling legs, their eyes darting from their trampled comrades to the demons on horseback readying their mounts for another charge.

  The horsemen were only twenty yards from Erich now. He stood and nocked an arrow. The tall man held his hand high again as the warhorses snorted and pawed at the earth. Erich took aim at the leader’s throat and pulled his bowstring back.

  “Hold,” came a whisper so close to Erich’s ear he felt the word’s heat. A sharp point contacted the back of his neck and he felt the coolness of blood trickle from the scratch.

  “Lower the bow and let that shaft fall to the ground,” the voice said softly.

  The riderless horse.

  Erich grimaced. There were seven—he had led his men into a trap. Erich’s back muscles trembled with exertion as he eased back the string and dropped the weapon. The arrow slithered beneath a tangle of scrub still brown from the winter snows, and disappeared.