Excerpt from The Time of Tears

 The Knight looked in wonder. He had never seen anything like this before. Children were rare enough at castle Ritholon, the Castle of the Light, where the Dawnguard had their keep, and King Silvanus sat on the Morning Throne, but he had never expected to see this. A babe, by the look of him, born only hours ago, yet the child’s eyes were open, and looking around himself in awe at the world he had entered. The forest was cool at this time of yet, and the babe was bare, but the child did not seem to mind the chill. The Knight took a few steps towards the child, looking about for the mother or father. He saw no one. 

“What happened to you?” he wondered aloud, the knight often spoke his thoughts, kneeling down next to the child and touching him. The babe shivered, feeling the difference between his cold body and the warmth of the knight’s hand. The child closed his small pink mouth and squeezed its eyes shut, and began a shrill cry into the cold morning air. Its arms quivered in the air, the tiny fingers clenched into a small fist. The babe shook, desiring the warmth he felt. The knight drew back his hand in surprise. He had not expected this reaction. He looked deeply at the babe, as his cry wavered, and he shivered with the cold. He realized parts of the babe had frost covering them. 

“It is a wonder you are still alive child,” he thought aloud again. Then another shrill scream jolted him back to reality. Quickly, he reached down and picked the babe up in his broad arms. He closed it into his chest, surrounding it with his arms. He took his scarf and wrapped it around the child, trying to warm it. The babe still shivered, but gradually its cries lessened. 

“What are you doing?” 

The Knight turned quickly, his hand reaching for his dagger as he saw a man with a drawn sword standing nearby. He had never seen this man before. The man wore a black robe to keep out the cold, and an even blacker chest plate over the robe. A spiked helm rested on his head, and the angle of his face, pale as the frost around him, was as sharp as a mountainside. A hood was pulled up over his head, clothing his face in shadows, so the only real part of his face you could see was the chin and nose. And the eyes. The pair of eyes, a sort of yellow. Like a wolf's eyes. His voice was not that of a peasant, lacking the country droll, but more like that of a cultured man, perhaps a merchant, a higher craftsman, or a nobleman. 

The Knight did not like the look of him. 

“Who are you?” The Knight demanded, pulling the dagger from his sheath, and holding the child in his spare hand. “And where do you hail from?” 

“With what authority do you command me?” the man answered. He did not sneer, or growl. “I have power behind me greater than you could ever dream of, and I demand again, what are you doing?”

“I am an anointed knight of the Dawnguard,” the Knight returned. “Do not cross me, especially so close to the sacred keep of Ritholon!” 

The man’s wolf-like eyes flickered in the direction of the castle, but before the Knight could even blink were back on him. The castle was a good distance off, the Knight liked long walks, and only the Dawngaurd’s keep could still be seen rising far above the trees. 

“The child.”

It was all the man said. The Knight immediately knew from the tone what the man wanted, and also instinctively knew that he should not give the child to him. Indeed, it would be a sin to do so, one that he would have to spend many hours with old Priest Lashan to atone for. 

“No.”

“You deny me.”

“Yes.”

“Then you shall pay.”

It was not aggressive, it was a statement. The man held up his sword, the point leveled at the Knight.

The Knight laughed.

“You are a fool if you think you can best one of the Dawnguard in battle! You will die before you can strike once with that blade!”

Red lightning flashed from the hilt! Spiraling up the blade it flashed in an insidious burning bolt toward the knight’s head! The Knight just barely was able to dodge it, the blast scorching his sleeve and setting it on fire. Dropping the child, who begin screaming lusty screams of terror, he rolled on the frost, putting out the flames eating at his shirt! 

Another blast.

Just barely a miss. 

Only a few steps away, he had been rolling towards the man.

On his feet.

Stab with the blade. 

The man screamed, and then smashed a flaming fist into the Knight’s head! 

Both stumbled away, screaming in pain. The Knight’s hair was on fire, blood pouring out from the sorcerer’s neck. The Knight fell heavily onto the frost, rolling, again not conscious of what he was doing, then sprang to his feet. He couldn’t see out of one eye, and his face hurt like the time he had been knocked unconscious in a practice bout with another knight. 

The sorcerer lay crumpled on the floor, the white frost stained bright red with trails of blood where the sorcerer had tried to crawl away. A red circle was around his head. Turning away from the corpse, the Knight dropped to one knee among the bloodied frost and picked up the babe. The child screamed angrily at him for dropping him, waving a tiny fist. The Knight chuckled, holding the baby’s face with his hand. The baby bit down with a toothless mouth on the knight’s finger, sucking eagerly. 

“We better get you back to the castle, I’m sure we can find a nurse for you there,” the Knight whispered. Bundling the babe back up in his scarf, he strode away from the body. The body lay in its own blood. Then the head shifted. The sorcerer looked around. The Knight was gone, no longer in sight. He stood, without trembling or groaning in the least. His neck, which had been slashed and mangled, connecting his head to his body by only strands, was whole. He strode away from the bloodied ground. He had failed in his errand, but another time would come. Then revenge could be savored!