Knight's Struggle Read online

  CONTENTS

  LMBPN Publishing

  Dedication

  Legal

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Epilogue

  Author Notes - P. J. Cherubino

  Author Notes - Michael Anderle

  Social Links

  P. J. Cherubino

  Michael Anderle Books

  KNIGHT’S STRUGGLE

  Tales of the Wellspring Knight: Book Two

  By P. J. Cherubino and Michael Anderle

  A part of

  The Kurtherian Gambit Universe

  Written and Created

  by Michael Anderle

  The Kurtherian Gambit Universe

  (and what happens within / characters / situations / worlds) are

  Copyright (c) 2015 - 2018 by Michael Anderle and LMPBN Publishing.

  DEDICATION

  From P.J.

  To family and friends: those who were born on the path with me and those who choose to walk together.

  Thank you for helping me live this dream.

  I hope you enjoy the book.

  From Michael

  To Family, Friends and

  Those Who Love

  To Read.

  May We All Enjoy Grace

  To Live The Life We Are

  Called.

  KNIGHT’S STRUGGLE Team

  JIT Readers

  Kelly O’Donnell

  Veronica Torres

  Peter Manis

  Kimberly Boyer

  John Ashmore

  Joshua Ahles

  James Caplan

  Micky Cocker

  Tim Adams

  Paul Westman

  If we missed anyone, please let us know!

  Editor

  Candy Crum

  KNIGHT’S STRUGGLE (this book) is a work of fiction.

  All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Sometimes both.

  This book Copyright © 2018 P. J. Cherubino, Michael T. Anderle, CM Raymond, LE Barbant

  Cover by Ryn Katryn Digital Art

  Cover copyright © LMBPN Publishing

  LMBPN Publishing supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.

  The distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

  LMBPN Publishing

  PMB 196, 2540 South Maryland Pkwy

  Las Vegas, NV 89109

  First US edition, February 2018

  The Kurtherian Gambit (and what happens within / characters / situations / worlds) are copyright © 2015 - 2018 by Michael T. Anderle.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Astrid Says Hello

  Moving through the winter woods at night was the perfect meditation for a Knight of the Well. With a heavy cloud cover subduing a nearly-full moon, the forest, even covered in heavy snow, was a world of black and deep gray.

  Just before she called on the magical energy known to her as the Well, Astrid cast off her heavy furs and buried them under snow at the base of a tall pine. She wouldn’t need them now.

  Her eyes, turned from hazel to black by the magic, no longer needed light to show her the way. The magic was all she needed to ward off the cold.

  The crackling of icy branches in a light, midnight breeze pricked her ears. She was hyper-alert for the signs of the men she hunted. She made no sound as she crept along, far from the well-worn trail.

  It turned out she hadn’t killed all of the mercenaries hired by the evil son of Protector Lungu to murder innocents. Some of them remained to honor their contract, even though Astrid had killed both their leader and the man who hired them. They had taken to the woods to regroup and make plans to finish their work.

  It wasn’t quite respect, but Astrid had some appreciation for how the men stuck to their principles. The real problem was that those principles were so very wrong. Men like them had to be stopped.

  That was a Knight’s job.

  Be ever and always the champion of right and good. The tenth tenet of the Knight’s code came to mind just before she caught a whiff of smoke.

  The camp was close. A few silent footsteps later, she heard them. Crouching low and nearly on all-fours, she crept up to the edge of the clearing where the men made their bivouac.

  They kept two on guard duty. Smart.

  They had built crude log huts in the circular clearing. Astrid counted six structures arranged in a regular, six-sided pattern. How many in those huts? At least two per hut, she guessed.

  Smart again. They could exit their dwellings and face any possible threat from every angle.

  Astrid drew more energy from the Well as she waited to strike. She found her opportunity when one of the night watch decided to move.

  He stomped his feet as he came, trying to use motion to stay warm. Astrid made herself part of the shadows as the man approached.

  Astrid pounced like a snow leopard when the merc was six feet away. Her shoulder hit him in the chest, driving all the air from his lungs. His grunt was cut short by an arm that snapped his neck before his body hit the ground with Astrid on top of him.

  She dragged the body back into the woods quickly. But the second watchman knew something was wrong. He’d heard something, but the snow muffled the sounds of killing.

  It took him a few seconds to realize his companion was gone.

  “Shit,” he exclaimed.

  Astrid charged across the clearing as the man put two fingers in his mouth and whistled.

  She ran in to kill the man by instinct, but when the camp exploded with motion, she discovered that wasn’t really the best move. Astrid found herself at dead-center of the hut arrangement. At least she was behind the buildings. She stopped short as men exploded into the clearing.

  Time to change up the plan, she thought.

  Their fright and confusion gave Astrid two or three precious seconds. She jumped eight feet from a standing position to the top of the nearest roof.

  Another jump sent her sailing high above enemy heads. On the way back down, she put her rope weapon to work.

  The egg-shaped, steel dart shattered the skull of the nearest mercenary as Astrid landed in a spinning crouch. The line wrapped back around her waist as she continued the motion, rising to extend her leg.

  The heel of her boot slammed into the jaw of the foe beside the first kill. His head nearly spun around in a three-sixty. He was dead before he hit the ground.

  She was impressed by how they came at her with cold,
professional fury. It wasn’t until she killed three more that they broke discipline and started shouting insults.

  “I’m gonna kill you, bitch!” a man screamed as he charged forward.

  “Anyone can dream,” Astrid shouted back.

  She lunged for him and let the rope slide down along her arm. He dodged to the outside of the rope’s arc and tried to run Astrid through. She simply continued the motion and the steel dart came up and around to crush his head.

  Astrid jumped over his body as she let the line wrap her abdomen again. She casually slung the rope over her shoulder and drove her fist into the chest of the nearest merc. She felt the sternum crack. By the geyser of blood that exploded past his lips, Astrid guessed broken ribs had torn through his heart and lungs.

  She sidestepped the gore, spun and delivered a backfist that unfortunately, missed. This guy was fast. He managed to slash at her arm with the sword. The blade bit deep, cutting into the thick muscle of her bicep.

  She managed to pull the arm into her body, but it wasn’t much use for a few seconds while the Well energy healed her. It didn’t matter much.

  Astrid ducked another sword strike that tried to take off her head. She brought the edge of her foot down on the knee of the man who cut her arm. The leg snapped sideways and he fell screaming.

  She had miscounted and now she was surrounded. There were closer to twenty men in the camp.

  “All that man meat,” she thought. “Those huts must be smelly.” The incongruous thought made her stifle a giggle. The joy of combat sometimes made her feel silly.

  The would-be decapitator, emboldened by a false sense of security, lunged in again. His sword sliced into the leather of her chest piece as she turned to the side. She felt the blade cut into the flesh above her left ribs, but she was lucky. The blade didn’t sink into anything vital.

  Astrid locked eyes with the enemy. She saw the entire fight like a game of chess where she knew every move.

  She planted her right foot behind her and ducked as another man tried to take off her head. The cut on her arm was fully healed, so she reached out as the sword nearly parted her hair.

  Grabbing the man’s arm, she continued the swing towards the enemy directly ahead. The sword gave him a second, gory red smile across the neck.

  Now, Astrid had a sword. The shocked attacker simply let it go when he realized his own arm had killed one of his friends. Astrid killed him with an elbow that caved in his forehead.

  She hadn’t fought with a sword for three years. She’d vowed never to do so since her family sword was taken by Minister Kostoff.

  That was a stupid vow. Swords were quite useful. She was grateful for this one.

  She’d taken nearly half their number. That’s what it took for them to show caution.

  “I don’t know what the fuck you are,” one of the bigger, meaner-looking men said. “But we’re gonna rip your guts out and decorate the trees.”

  Astrid rose from her battle-crouch, rising to her full six-feet. She pointed at them with the tip of the sword.

  “You sir,” Astrid declared. “Are a sick little shit waffle. I am here to put you down.”

  The man bellowed and charged forward. She blocked his overhand strike with her borrowed sword. He was trying to split her in half.

  Astrid simply brought the rope off her shoulder and swung out low. The line wrapped around the middle of his leg. When she pulled, his foot came up to where his face was and he hit the ground hard.

  She didn’t have time to kill him, but she saw how the back of his head slammed into the frozen, rock-hard ground. He would be no good for a while. She put him on the list.

  She crouched down quickly as men closed in on her from all sides. Uncoiling her powerful legs, she jumped ten feet into the air to land outside of what had become a scrum when the men ran into each other in her sudden absence.

  “Oh, come on,” Astrid laughed, taunting them with the sword. She hung the rope dart back over her shoulder. “Aren’t you supposed to be tough guys? This is a comedy show.”

  That seemed to do the trick. Rage took them. They untangled themselves and charged her. She counted two seconds before the wave of men broke over her.

  Astrid planted her feet and cut a hole through the charging line. She cut a head in half, then brought the sword around to take an arm. She silenced the screaming with a ridge-hand to the neck.

  The circle of men around her was much smaller now. She lost count of the small injuries she took to get close to them. At one point, she held a man in a deadly embrace, using him as a shield as his alleged friends tried to kill her. They ended up killing her shield instead.

  Soon, there was just Astrid and three men. One of them was the guy she had pulled to the ground with her rope.

  “Hi there,” Astrid said to the big man. “Usually, the men I sweep off their feet are too shy to come back for more.”

  Someone attacked while Astrid taunted, and then there were just two men left and another man leaking steaming blood into the snow.

  The two remaining enemies came together shoulder-to-shoulder.

  “You and me,” the smaller man said. “Let’s kill this bitch.”

  “You first,” the big man said to his friend.

  That’s when he did the unexpected. As they both charged forward, the bigger man grabbed the smaller and threw him at Astrid. She stumbled as she brought the sword across his neck in an awkward, close-in swing.

  The falling body knocked her off balance as the big man came in with a lunge. Astrid dropped the sword. In a flash, she brought her left palm across the broad side of the blade and her right palm against the other side. It was a leverage strike usually used on a punching arm, but it did the trick.

  The sword, wrenched from the attacker’s grasp, spun off into the woods. Astrid smashed the shocked look off his face with a backfist. She finished him with the edge of her hand on the back of his neck as he fell.

  It took her nearly an hour to drag all the bodies to the center of the dwellings. She smashed the makeshift buildings with her hands and feet, then piled the debris atop the pile of corpses.

  It was hard finding dry kindling under all the snow, but the resulting bonfire was entirely worth it.

  “That’s about twenty more items off my ‘to-do’ list,” Astrid said as the flames warmed her. “But my task list is very long.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Recon Mission to Keep 52

  The next night, a full moon painted the snow-covered woods as sharp divisions between silvery light and deep shadow. Astrid breathed deep, pulling in frigid, midnight air that felt electric and smelled of ozone to her heightened senses. She attuned herself to the energy of the world around her as she rode along.

  Inside the security perimeter around Argan Village, the icy, well-trodden path crunched under her horse’s hooves. A month ago, she didn’t know the tight-knit team that surrounded her. Now, she felt like she had known them her whole life.

  They called themselves the Dregs. To Protector Lungu and his magic-using Movers, Astrid and her crew were the bottom of the barrel.

  But as far as Astrid and her crew were concerned, the dregs were the best part of the brew.

  She smiled and recited in her mind the first of ten principles that defined her order: Trust in the Well and observe its intention, as the Well sustains all life.

  Though her home was gone, and her house destroyed, Astrid knew she was still a Knight of the Well. Nothing could take that away from her. Following her code led her to this place as well as to her friends. It was up to her to lead them to victory over all that was wrong in this part of the world.

  One of those new friends was Gormer, who rode ahead of her looking unwell.

  “You’re shivering,” she observed. As she moved, her hood cast off its brim of tiny icicles formed from her frozen breath.

  “You d-don’t miss a clue,” Gormer sneered back. “M-mind like a s-steel trap.” His chattering teeth added extra syllables.

&
nbsp; The Forge Monk, Tarkon, rode up behind them a bit faster, and Astrid dropped back to give them room. The small man pinched up his light-brown, weathered face at Gormer and glared. Gormer locked hard, blue eyes with him for a moment before Tarkon had even spoken a word.

  “You drank too much alcohol before we left,” Tarkon declared.

  “Liquor keeps you warm,” Gormer replied defensively. “Besides, I’m allowed. It’s not opium, so—”

  “I don’t care about that,” Tarkon snapped. “Alcohol just makes you feel warm. It really makes your blood too thin and slows your body down so it can’t make heat as well when you shiver.”

  Gormer cursed under his breath. Tarkon sighed, pulled off his thick wool cap and handed it to Gormer.

  “I’m fine,” Gormer said. The momentary heat of his cranky pride seemed to warm him.

  “Take it, before it freezes,” Tarkon said, thrusting the hat at Gormer.

  “My hood is warm enough,” Gormer lied.

  “Bullshit. Just take the damn thing,” Moxy called back over her shoulder.

  Her tiny frame was totally lost in furs. It looked as if her horse were carrying a bundle of hides with a small, white-haired doll head on top. Her people were known as Pixies, because they’d lived in the forest for so long that magic had practically made them part of the wilderness.

  “Your head needs to stay warm, too,” Gormer said, finally admitting his real problem with taking the hat. “No reason for you to freeze because I messed up.”

  “Don’t be an idiot all your life,” Tarkon growled with a harsh smile. He slapped Gormer on the shoulder and thrust the hat into his hands. Their horses rode together touching shoulders and enjoying the communal warmth. “Besides, I’m a human furnace. I can make my own damn heat.”