The forest shook.

It was a dangerous mission–sneaking past orcs, dragons and worse just for a peek at what new evil was growing in the blackened, fiery womb of the World’s Spine—and each of them had volunteered regardless, kneeling in those polished halls before the Duchess Ilanza and her wizened magus. How easy it was to brave the concept of torture and death, Marcus reflected, when it was not bearing down upon you on horse-back.

The raspy cackling of their pursuers somewhat ruined his musings. The creatures were gaining on them. Athene’s boulder trap had bought them time, but the monsters were relentless. Marcus could no longer spare even the effort to curse as he crashed through brush and branches, eyes glued ahead for any stray root or shrubbery that could spell an undignified end.

Athene’s slim form darted in and out of his vision, herding their panicked fleeing toward safe haven as best she could. Roots and brambles served no more an obstacle to her than a well-polished floor. She handled Marcus’ crazed pace with ease—in a better state of mind he might have appreciated how easily she could have escaped on her own.

“Oh god oh shit oh god oh shit!” Anthony seemed to have breath to spare despite his own less than graceful flailing around. Lacking Marcus’s considerable frame and Athene’s tightly controlled strength, he kept up by grace of the hastily scrawled sigils along the hem of his coat and shoes. A blue glow, uncomfortably flickering, seemed to pull his steps along the forest floor. Putting a functioning magic system together on the fly was no mean feat; a wizard’s mage craft was a delicate machine, and yesterday’s emergency missive to the fort had been Anthony’s last unbroken tool. “Don’t wanna die, don’t wanna die!”

Cruel laughter, a mockery of humanity, answered his pleas. The riders finally came into view, white phantoms of men astride brutish black horses, a stark contrast. One, two, three… Athene counted, daring to glance back. Five pursuers, the knights of the undead, the fext. Their form was human, their strength monstrous. They knew neither fear nor any weakness of the flesh. Their mounts closed the distance with every step. Athene examined her comrades with a brief look. Marcus was flagging, red in the face and pouring sweat, and who knew how much longer Anthony’s spell work would hold. The larger man had no ammunition left for his arquebus, if the thing even still worked. She was the only one who had a whole blade and the strength to use it. The warrior ran her tongue over dry lips, calculating odds. She cursed.

As if they could hear her, the fext’s cackling broke with triumphant cries and blasphemous exultations. They drew pale swords, absurdly long and curved. A gesture to prove the hopelessness of their escape; undead may have scorned the advances of the age, but they had their own weapons for range.

Athene’s eyes darted back and forth, searching for a solution, and nearly skipped over the cloaked figure that emerged from the forest. The fleeing agents passed him in a second at their pace, stirring up the air to lift the plain brown cloth of his cloak. No—he was walking, calmly but with paradoxical speed, straight toward their pursuers. The hilt of a blade stuck out over his shoulder.

The nearest of the fext roared and spurred its mount into a charge, raising its white blade. The stranger drew his own weapon, a gleaming bastard sword, and brought it to his side. His gait did not change ‘til the beast was upon him, when he slipped by its far longer sickle-sword. He swung upward with a single hand, apparently aiming to disable the horse. The blade found its monstrous neck and carried through to bisect the demon on its back.

“What the Hell!?” Marcus looked back at the terrible crash as the two, rider and mount, fell to the forest floor in four pieces. The swordsman raised his weapon, marred with the black blood of the undead but still shining beautifully, and a voice shook the air.

“You bastards looking for a fight?” It was confident, and sharp. “Then come!” The remaining fext howled their answer and fanned out to encircle this lone man, forgetting their earlier prey for now.

“Eyes ahead!” Marcus snapped back at Athene’s sudden command. The sound of metal striking metal and inhuman shrieking became all he knew of the battle. “We’re not out of danger just yet.” Neither of her companions had the breath left to reply, and she ran them yet harder.

The echoes of the battle grew more distant before fading entirely. A sound like glass breaking, and Anthony’s spell finally failed. Only Athene’s timely intervention saved him from grinding his face off against an exposed root. Marcus made it a few yards farther before he realized the others were no longer with him, and slowed to look back. Athene absently helped Anthony regain his footing, her attention set behind them.

“This should be fine,” she said. “We can rest here.”

“Are-are you sure?” Anthony seemed to be trying to hide himself in Athene’s silhouette. “Are we safe?” She stepped away from to lean against a nearby tree, eyes still looking back where they came.

“Yes.”

Marcus, who had been making his way to rejoin them, sighed in relief. Then he collapsed, groaning. “Ohhh, my everything…” His head lolled around to look at their guide. “So, what just happened?” he asked, breathing still ragged. “Who was that?”

“Perhaps you can ask him yourself,” Athene replied. Marcus blinked. The tone…it took him a moment to realize she sounded amused. He wasn’t sure he had heard anything resembling good humor from the woman in the three weeks they had been traveling together. It was more surprising than how certain she seemed their unexpected back-up was still alive.

“Shouldn’t we be hiding or something?” Anthony said. It might have come across as peevish, if he weren’t shaking. A branch snapped, and the young wizard nearly leapt out of his shoes. “Oh god, it’s too late, I told you-”

But it was a figure in a brown cloak who came through the brush. The cloak was torn in places and splattered with black blood, but the man appeared uninjured. Shaking leaves from his shoulders, he pulled back the hood to reveal an earnest face. And more importantly to Marcus, a definitively human one. There was a pregnant pause as they observed each other, and then Anthony sagged to the ground, his relief undercutting whatever had kept him up thus far. The stranger’s gaze followed him down, dark brow furrowed in mild concern. Quickly he looked up to catch Athene’s gaze, his head tilted.

“He’s fine,” she said. “Just tired. We all are.” She extended a hand, and the stranger reached out to grasp her at the elbow in a firm shake. “It’s been awhile. I appreciate the save.” Marcus couldn’t see her expression from where he lay, but he could hear the good humor in her words. Perhaps that was how she expressed her own relief. However, it also sounded like Athene knew this man.

Marcus struggled to his feet, getting his arms properly underneath himself. “Oof.” He brushed the dirt from his sides and half-limped over to their savior, who regarded him quizzically. “Aye, I can’t thank your friend enough, Miss Athene.” He held out a hand. “Marcus Reallia, at your service. I’ve seen amazing things throughout my journeys, but that was a spectacular showing.” He tried the most charming smile he was willing to use with other men. “I rather wish I could have seen the rest of it, but I was, ah, preoccupied.”

The other man returned a softer smile, and accepted Marcus’ hand in a more casual handshake. The stranger waved his hand back and forth, as if to knock the praise from the air.

“Yeah, fucking outstanding.” Anthony had managed a sitting position, giving the swordsman the stink eye. “Would’ve been even better without the last possible moment dramatic bullshit-“

“Wow, you know, we really thought a lot about the timing,” the stranger interrupted him—no, Marcus realized, his lips weren’t moving. “How about next time we wait until they eat one of you? Would that be more to your taste?” It was the same voice that had called out the challenge to the fext, but its sharpness and high pitch didn’t fit the man before him at all. Anthony openly gaped, apparently blindsided. But he wasn’t looking quite at the stranger, Marcus noticed, rather the bare steel of his sword where it stuck out from over his shoulder. Then the blade turned around of its own volition, the sheathe lifting slightly under the folds of the stranger’s cloak. “Hey, ‘Thene, who are these squishies anyway?”

Athene might have smirked. “Orna, meet Marcus and Anthony. Marcus and Anthony, meet Orna, the preferred weapon of my acquaintance here.” She gestured to the stranger, who waved again. “You can call him John.”

“Er,” Marcus replied.

“That sword talks…” Legs shaking from exhaustion, Anthony stood properly. “That’s incredible!” He limped toward John, who eased back without quite taking a step. “How? There’s no mechanism to animate—does it use some sort of psychokinesis to bend the air directly? And to impart even a limited consciousness to an inanimate object is-”

“Who’re you calling ‘limited,” jelly legs?”

Anthony laughed, giddy. “Fantastic!” He looked to John. “How many phrases does it know? Or is it capable of procedurally generating responses?” The swordsman made increasingly complex gestures, frantically fending off an increasingly aggressive interrogation related to mage craft. The sword sighed, a sound not unlike a blade cutting through the air.

Their other companions stood to the side, watching. Thoughts still scattered, Marcus was briefly glad for the young wizard; Anthony had been increasingly surly and panicked the longer he was away from his books and lab. His excitement at latching onto anything he could categorize as research, as safe, was almost contagious. Marcus coughed, gathering his wits and drawing conclusions. “So, he doesn’t talk much, does he?” A glance over at Athene, who spared him a dry look.

“What do you think?”

“I think,” Marcus paused, watching Anthony harass the wielder of the talking sword, who had slain almost half a dozen of the worst creatures necromancers had ever profaned into unlife. “That we were saved by the Silent Knight.” Her unladylike snort rather ruined the drama, and Marcus flushed. He wasn’t the one who made up the name!

“Is that what he’s being called now?” Athene said. “I suppose it’s not the worst epithet I’ve ever heard. Certainly still beats the ‘Mute Marauder.’” From anyone else he might have assumed that was a joke, but he could see a nostalgic light in her eyes.

“The-” Marcus faltered. This swordsman sat among a legendary few, capable of superhuman feats by sheer dedication. “Did they really call him that?” Even a hero might have a hard time if he couldn’t speak up for himself, he supposed.

“One particularly loquacious bard, at least,” she replied. “It’s hardly less accurate, though. He would make a lousy knight.” Marcus looked plainly baffled, but Athene offered no explanation. Her faint smile returned to a neutral line. “Get some rest while you can. I want to make it to Fort Riviera by sunset.”

#

   Once Anthony had realized John was physically incapable of answering his questions, he turned to the sword. The young wizard carefully and slowly enunciated his questions, broken down into the simplest pieces he could conceive to test the depth of Orna’s own knowledge of its creation. The sword had promptly told him to fuck off. However, some unknowable exchanged between wielder and weapon seemed to convince it to share some answers. Vague and unhelpful often to the point of being contradictory, but technically, answers about it origin and age.

But for a wizard, any magical being that wasn’t trying to rip out your soul was a treat. By the time they had started walking again Anthony was happily leafing through pages and pages of notes, searching for kernels of knowledge among the ocean of bullshit. His coat and boots, more carefully re-engraved with mage craft to guide his feet to Athene’s rigorous standards, kept him just behind the ranger herself despite his distraction.

John seemed content to hang back, nodding absent-mindedly to his sword’s occasional rambling. This suited Marcus just fine, who discreetly retreated some steps to match the swordsman. Lacking Anthony’s magic or Athene’s astonishingly varied, and frequently violent, skill set, Marcus was offered a place in this mission for his knowledge. Of the geography, local cultures, the nature of possible enemies and monsters—Marcus was a man who knew a great many things, in part thanks to an insatiable curiosity.

And before him now was a most famous enigma. “So, John,” he said, arranging a genial smile. The swordsman made no response, apparently absorbed in his sword’s long list of complaints about getting blood in its scabbard. “Excuse me, John?” he tried again, louder this time, but careful to keep his expression friendly. The other man blinked, turning his head to face Marcus before pointing at himself. It took a moment to figure out the meaning: ‘You mean me?’

“Eh, yes,” Marcus replied. “I’m sorry, I thought Miss Athene said your name was John. Did I mishear?” The swordsman shrugged, lips quirked in a half-smile.

“You people call Partner all sorts of things,” the sword said. “Just pick one.”

“What about your,” Marcus paused and looked to the sword, feeling exceedingly silly, “uh, his actual name?” He couldn’t help the impression of rolling eyes from the weapon.

“Partner is Partner,” it answered. Marcus quickly looked back to the swordsman, who shrugged again.

“So should I call you ‘Partner?’” he asked, smirking.  Orna rose almost halfway out its sheath, the blade reflecting more light than he would have expected in the thick of a forest.

“Hey!” Marcus flinched; he had expected a reaction, but how strange an experience it was to be yelled at by a sword. “Partner is my partner, go find your own, you scum-sucking-” The swordsman slammed his weapon back into the sheath, muffling the invectives. He regarded Marcus casually, his posture even while walking making the one hand on his weapon seem almost normal.

“Yes, well,” Marcus was off-his game, and he knew it. “Ah! I have a few reams of paper if you wouldn’t mind-” The other man waved him off, shaking his head. Marcus blinked. “You don’t—well, I wouldn’t want to inconvenience you, but-” The swordsman shook his head again. He raised his hand, posed like he was gripping a quill, and mimed writing on the air. Then he shook his head, and the light went off in Marcus’ mind. “Not won’t…but can’t?” The swordsman nodded.

The Silent Knight was illiterate. It shouldn’t have been that surprising. Many places around the continent still lacked anything like modern schools. Marcus supposed that answered a number of questions about his mystery. No voice, out loud or on paper, to tell anyone his story. Or even his name.

The swordsman, ‘John,’ still watched him patiently. It had not been a struggle for him to admit his ignorance. He even looked slightly apologetic, but above all he waited for Marcus to finish asking him whatever it was he wanted to know. He would probably do his best to answer with those little gestures, maybe coax his surly weapon into speaking up for him. Marcus’ mouth went dry.

“Excuse me,” he said finally. “I just recalled something of our route I need to discuss with Miss Athene.” John nodded, smiling briefly, and Marcus beat a polite retreat. He told himself it was to buy time to think. This would require a new approach, and there would be plenty of opportunities to corner their new ally some time later.

#

   Footing became easier as the forest thinned out. It wasn’t long before the stalwart towers of Riviera appeared on the horizon, a glorious view after weeks of peril. Men on horses came into view soon after. Knights in plain steel atop soft brown mounts, Marcus noted with some relief. Looking up from his papers where Athene pulled him to a stop, Anthony was significantly less composed. The exhausted young wizard shrieked, throwing his notes in the air, then choked on it when the bright colors of the fort registered in his mind.

Marcus paid him no mind while he waved the knights down, the bright gold token of the Duchess Ilanza’s confidence shining in his hand. The men slowed their mounts to a gallop. Ten of them, armed to the teeth with sword and gun. One rode ahead, a blond knight in expensively engraved half-plate, and came to a stop before Marcus.

“Are you well and uninjured?” he said, eyes surveying the group. He stopped briefly to incline his head to Athene. “When we received your message this morning we expected to find you running ahead of a dozen or more of the Dark’s foul creatures…” or dead, he went politely without saying.

Marcus decided to speak up before Anthony had the chance for a bitter rejoinder anyway. “You very nearly did,” he said. “But we here made it out safely thanks to his sacrifice, and the timely arrival of the escort you sent ahead.” Marcus waved behind him, smiling grimly. “After what we’ve learned, it’s a relief to have warriors like him on our side.” The blond knight blinked.

“Escort?” He looked back around, following Marcus’ hand. “We never dared to send anyone by himself.”

“What?” A strange feeling settled in his gut when Athene burst out laughing beside him. He turned, looking from one end of the horizon to the other. John was nowhere to be seen.

“The little bastard must have wandered off once we could see the fort.” Athene spoke through a grin. It was perhaps self-deprecating, but broad nonetheless. “‘Surely, it couldn’t just be a coincidence this time,’” she said quietly, but not quite to herself.

Marcus turned back to the thoroughly confused knight. “He was here just a moment ago!” he said. “You can’t tell me the Silent Knight just happened to come upon us while we were being chased by the fext in the middle of a forest!” The knight gaped.

“You met someone like that on the way?” he asked. The other men started muttering on their horses. “And you didn’t—do you have any idea how much we need manpower like that!?”

Marcus barely resisted pulling his hair out. “We thought that-” he didn’t bother finishing. Instead, he looked to Athene.

“I’ll go track him down,” she said. Her face was fighting a losing battle against her own smile. “I doubt he’s gone far. Probably just figured we’d be fine on our own from here.” She left at a run that put Marcus and Anthony’s mad dash to shame, and still made it look easy.

The knight captain pointed out two of his men. “You and you, go with her. Impress upon him the severity of our need, I don’t care if you need to weep at his feet, get the Silent Knight to come to the fort.” They nodded, one cheeky and the other with more considerable gravitas. He turned back to Marcus and Anthony, who could only stare back at the forest looking baffled. “You two come with me. The commander will still want to hear your full report.