Children of the Knight by Michael J. Bowler

abandoned parking lot. They had to break the padlock on the storm drain gate, but that was, by this time, a simple task with the basic crowbar Lance had found in a dumpster.
    Working their way toward the waterfront with only the clop, clop sound of Llamrei’s hooves as accompaniment, Arthur and Lance glanced around at the water and the ships and the factory smoke stacks spewing pollution and the ghetto surrounding them. The houses and apartment buildings looked battered and dilapidated, with dead or overgrown lawns and trash littering the streets.
    “I never been here before,” Lance whispered. “Man, this looks worse than Lennox by a mile.”
    Arthur nodded, sadness welling up within him at the poverty. How could there be so much obvious grandeur in this country and yet this pervasive poverty? As High King his responsibility was to care for his people, to maintain such order that prosperity could be had by all. Did not this government feel a similar responsibility?
    From what he understood of the American Constitution, which he’d studied upon awakening from his deep slumber, the government’s primary duty, besides protection of the people, was to provide any and all opportunities for commerce and prosperity. What had happened in the intervening years to change that ever-so-excellent ideal?
    Suddenly Lance tapped Arthur on the shoulder and pointed to a vacant lot just up the block. Arthur stopped Llamrei in the shadows so they could watch without being spotted. Up ahead two thuggish-looking teen boys dressed in baggy jeans and brown hoodies harassed and mocked a very small boy who appeared to Lance to be about five or six years old. The little boy’s unkempt blond hair was dirty, as were his face and clothes, and Lance surmised at once the child was likely homeless. Memories of his own abandonment welled into anger at the boy’s predicament.
    The teens had a tattered and worn old coat they kept waving in front of the little boy as though they were matadors and he the bull. The small, skinny boy, clad only in shorts and an old tank top, chased after the mocking youths, who merely danced away and waved the coat up out of reach. Each time the boy lunged for it, one teen would snatch it back and toss it to the other.
    The taller of the two sneered. “You don’ need this, little white boy. It’s too big for ya anyway.” Then he laughed, finding his own joke terribly funny.
    The shorter, stockier teen taunted the boy, as well. “’Sides, now ya can show off all them muscles.”
    Both teens laughed uproariously, high-fiving each other, dancing around the little boy, and tossing the coat back and forth until the child began to cry.
    “Give it back, give it back!” the little one snuffled. “It’s all I got.”
    The tall boy merely snorted like a pig. “Aaaah, too bad. It’s mine, now, ya little shit.”
    Fury boiled up within Lance. He’d seen enough. Before Arthur could stop him, he leapt from the horse’s back, right onto his skateboard in one fluid motion, surged forward into the empty lot, and plowed into the taller teen.
    Completely blindsided, the teen could barely grunt out “Son of a—” before he flew hard a few feet and crumpled to the ground in a tangled heap. Whizzing past, Lance snatched the coat from the boy’s startled grasp. The stockier of the two, caught off guard by Lance’s sudden arrival, made a lunge for the newcomer. Lance whirled around on his board and leapt off it, simultaneously whipping out a small, short-handled dirk he’d borrowed from Arthur.
    “Ya wanna take on somebody yer own size, huh, shitheads?” Lance practically screamed. His venomous fury startled even Arthur, who watched the scene appraisingly from the street. “Well, here I am, come an’ git me!”
    The two teens eyed the waving knife blade uncertainly, exchanging a look between them as the tall one regained his feet, rubbing his arm and shoulder. They held back, obviously reluctant to take on someone with a