Squire Hayseed

A Squire

She was dead, a rotted corpse hanging out of a gibbet. Mulch chewed up to fertilize some mayor's favorite begonias. Deader than the flattest nail in the kingdom, but her mind refused to focus on that glaring fact. The others huddled around the weapons rack, eyes peeled as all the nobs in shiny armor began to bicker over who got the best pig at market. Hayley originally thought this wouldn't be too hard. A little smooching of the backside, some indiscriminate bowing, and she'd be able to hightail it out from under the Knight's eyes before sundown.

With one hand cradling the massive welt puffed off her shoulder, she felt the narrowed eyes of guards standing at the only exit to this arena. They looked calm, as if they had all the time in the world. The others paid them no heed, either used to having a few armored men around or thinking it a compliment, but Hayley's palms itched at the sight. Her stomach churned on instinct if she smelled armor polish.

Out of ideas, her head tipped back towards the wall. Even if her shoulder wasn't shredded pork at this point, she'd have no chance to climb it. Smooth as a waterfall, the dingy grey stone gave no one trespass. Hayley bit on her lip, about to turn away when she noticed a dent in the wall. Peering closer a splash of dirty brown-crimson stood out from the neutral wall.

Shit.

Whipping her head back to the scene, Hayley did her best to not imagine all the ways one could wind up smearing blood into a cracked section of stone. There were a lot of options because people were creative when push came to shove. In swallowing down the lump she caught Larissa huffing in a breath and raising her head higher.

She'd been moping since putting her staff back, acting as if Hayley somehow pissed on her family gravestone. Sure, she was the one wronged — the one without any bruises, any abrasions, and somewhere to go back to when this was over. Poor Larissa. Hayley'd offer to light her a candle for her suffering, but she doubted she'd be trusted anywhere near a church — unless it was in a coffin.

Did people like her even get funerals? Or coffins?

Her teeth chattered like vengeful squirrels at the thought. She'd never wondered before, but now she couldn't stop trying to picture what would mark her grave.

"Recruits," the Knight-Captain's voice drew everyone to attention. Even Hayley felt her shoulders slip back despite having no idea how you were supposed to salute a knight.

Extending a hand towards the assembled knights, Erin continued, "The Seven Serpents have come to a decision." Six heads nodded at the Knight-Captain. They were of such varying appearance it was hard to think they had anything to do with each other. Wide noses, skinny noses that'd break in a wind, long snouts, short pushed in ones. Lips thinner than a strand of spaghetti, others thicker than beef. Skin colors dipping across that tan colored rainbow. But they all shared one thing in common, their eyes gleamed like a diamond at the bottom of a coin purse.

It was a look that caused Hayley's legs to quiver. She tried to reach for her knees to silence them, but that drew the Knight-Captain's attention. At the beam of both confusion and annoyance Hayley laughed, shrugged her shoulders, and wrapped both her hands around the back of her neck. She looked like a dung-licking idiot with her elbows flapping about, but she was out of ideas.

"Knight-Lieutenant Calvin," Erin waved to a man who stepped forward. He had his dusky blonde hair swept back in waves that crested like the ocean. His cheeks were slightly tinged by a rosy blush, but the rest of his face was a pallid pale that looked even sicklier under the cloud cover. The features themselves were pleasant, a wide jaw, a nose that swooped more than a falcon. But it was the cocksure attitude as the man swung one hip forward, his leg planted in the dirt that gave him an aura that drew people in. He looked as if he knew what he was doing.