CHAPTER ONE
Swan’s cell was blackness and stench. It was misery and sickness. As she lay on a damp cot, her skin burned with fever. In her delirium and pain, she called upon Hosar, the Lord of Light.
For a time, nothing happened. Then a strange speck oozed from the ceiling, as if it had taken time journeying this far underground. The speck twinkled like a star on a pitch-black night, and it brightened, shining a ray on Swan’s clammy skin. A foul vapor trickled past her bleeding lips, the vapor increasing each time she exhaled. The ray blazed as if with wrath. Like a snake, the vapor twisted and retreated into her mouth. The speck of light followed the vapor, and the cell became dark again except for a red glow from Swan’s cheeks. She whimpered. She twitched upon damp straw. Then ashy smoke puffed from her mouth as if from a charred house, and she lost her wretched wheeze.
More occurred as Swan’s bleeding lips scabbed in an instant and then grew soft. The sickly hue of her skin became pinkish. Then the speck of light floated from her mouth and soon hovered near the ceiling, although its brightness had diminished. Swan cried out, using a long forgotten language.
The speck blazed with light.
Swan moaned in her feverish sleep, and she began to dream strangely. She dreamed she was a mote of light floating through the subterranean ceiling, leaving her wretched prison cell. As the mote, she passed through stone and dirt and then through a castle. She soared into the air and sped at a passing crow of unusual size. As the mote, she entered the crow.
In this dreamy state or vision, Swam peered out of the crow’s eyes. She became the crow and felt the working of breast and wing muscles and the exhilarating rush of air. Oh, this was like no dream she’d ever had before. It felt real. The flock flew above trees snarled with spidery moss, the trees mired around slimy ponds from which floated fetid odors. They flew toward the bloated orange sun that sank into the horizon.
Swan forced the crow to look around, and through its eyes, she spied an ancient keep of old stones choked with ivy and moss. In the keep’s depths is where they held her body prisoner. A limp flag hung from a broken tower, the lightning-shattered tower seeming more ruin than functioning castle.
Swan cawed in alarm, for she sensed evil, something that had just awakened. It saw her! It stirred, and a smoky dart, a spiritual javelin, flew from the castle and at her. As the crow, she veered wildly, and the bird lost its smooth beat and tumbled out of the formation. The evil manifestation brushed Swan. Like a filthy coating of oil, it soiled her. She no longer felt exhilaration at flying, although the crow regained its beat and flapped hard, rejoining the flock. The feeling of freedom had vanished from Swan, as had the comfort of an otherworldly benevolence. She felt trapped now within the crow, and the sense of foreboding grew until it became a grim certainty that she was about to witness a wicked thing.
Other flocks joined theirs, a grand summoning of crows. Each flock glided toward a swampy clearing. Each flock flew to an assigned hangman tree, the crows alighting onto the twisted, mossy branches. Out of the crow’s eyes, Swan noticed that the flocks peered—
A vile compulsion drew Swan’s gaze. She fought it, hating this overtaking of her will. She soon weakened and stared at a lonely shack. Recognition came, more from repute than ever having seen it before. The shack’s boards were filthy, warped and old. It only had a single door, and smoke trickled out of a hole in the roof. There were no windows. Around the shack, leaning against it, were piles of carefully stacked old branches. The door opened with an eerie creak and out shuffled a humped-shouldered man wearing a sooty cap and coat. He knelt, raised a hatchet and chopped branches. He was the local charcoal-maker, and soon he carted wood into the shed, closing the door with a bang.
Bushes rustled then and Swan knew loathing and horror. A creature with long hairy arms and brutish shoulders shambled toward the shed. It had inhuman features, a snout full of yellowed fangs and—Swan wanted to caw and caw and caw. She tried to scream, but that dreadful compulsion that had originally reached out of the castle yet controlled her. She recognized the creature, or enough of his twisted features to know that once he had been Kerold the Carpenter, strangely vanished seven months ago. What evil had taken hold of his soul and turned him into that? Poor Kerold, he had been a simple man yet always greedy for coin, always ready to believe the worst of anyone.
Before the creature that had once been Kerold the Carpenter reached the shed, the door rattled. The creature made a soft hooting noise, picked up a branch and rushed forward with obvious malice.
Out stepped the charcoal-maker. He raised his head, grunted, hesitated—perhaps in profound shock—and then reached for his belted hatchet. By then it was too late. With a terrible thud, the branch struck him between the eyes and the charcoal-maker collapsed onto the ground. The creature hooted and danced with his bowed, shorter than human legs. He also continued to thump the inert body. Then the creature bounded into the shack. Loud bumps and noises began from within. In seconds smoke billowed out of the roof-hole.
A shriek sounded. The creature shot out of the shed, his fur ablaze. He screamed, tripped, rolled several times and thereby put out the flames. For a moment he lay on the ground, panting. Then he looked up at the silent, watching crows. The thing that had once been Kerold the Carpenter scrambled upright. He hunched his head and shambled away in the direction of the castle.
Smoke poured out of the shack until flames licked the open door. That roasted the charcoal-maker and caused a wicked stench.
Still the crows kept silent. They watched as here and there a black bird ruffled its feathers. Soon orange flames roared. Sparks whirled into the twilight. Wherever they landed, the sparks guttered out with a hiss because of the damp soil. The shed burned as its flames blackened the branch-piles around it, until they too blazed into crackling life. Finally, with a crash of red-glowing wood and a geyser of sparks, the shack fell inward. The blaze grew again, briefly, and then weakened until the spent, charred wood flaked into glowing embers.
It was then the crows stirred. Swan felt the compulsion and although she tried, she couldn’t resist it, nor could she leave this nightmare. Her loathing for the evil under the castle grew, as did her terror of it.
With the rustle of hundreds of wings, the flocks swooped upon the destruction. They landed on hot ashes, and against all sense of self-preservation, they pecked at the embers. Each bird grasped a fiery coal and then exploded into flight. Ten, twenty, thirty crows flew away at a time. The rush of air fanned their embers, yet if anything, they tightened their hold.
Swan nearly fainted at the red-hot agony. She grew nauseated as her beak smoldered. The flocks were like a living stream, beads of fire in the night. Swan wanted to shriek, to caw, to dive into the dark waters below, but that evil force kept her holding onto the ember.
Soon the crows swooped upon a nighttime village, a shabby housing of swamp dwellers. Each hut had a reed roof. A limping watchman with a lantern and hound patrolled the lanes. The first crows winged for the shrine of Hosar, a large hut fronted with a tall post and a spike hammered in it. Like a spent comet, the lead crow thumped upon the shrine’s roof. The bird wiggled its beak, stuffed the ember into straw and broke the coal apart. The ember guttered and died. The next coal brought by the second crow caught with a curl of smoke.
Now the night rained crows. They thumped onto roofs.
A shout went up as the night watchman clanged his bell and his old hound woofed tiredly.
Divested of her coal and with her head fogged with pain, Swan hopped to the edge of the roof. A savant in a black cassock ran out of the shrine. He had a long white beard.
Swan recognized old Ran of Cathal Village. He had headed the delegation against Leng the Scholar, the foreigner she had accused of sorcery. Ran had also argued against the baron’s counter-charge against her of witchery. The savant waved his arms as villagers fled screaming out of their pitiful huts. Dried reed roofs smoked and burned as demented crows swooped upon the people. The mad birds used talons and beaks to grasp and peck.
The vile compulsion tried to make Swan attack the savant. She cawed wildly. She grasped her talons around a reed roof, fighting the summons. Nausea filled her. Dizziness disoriented her. She gathered her resolve like a shredded coat, clutching it as if to garb nakedness. She sensed a weakening of the evil, that it had too many things to control at once, that it had spent itself this dreadful night. Therefore, Swan tried once again to leave the crow, to exit this foul dream.
In that moment, Swan realized this was no dream. Her spirit eased out of the crow. That bewildered her. It was frightening. She looked around, and a beacon of light flared with brilliance. The beacon drew her spirit hard, fast, and she slammed back toward the castle.
A turret rushed near. Guards there rattled dice in an ivory cup. They hunkered under a lantern. Swan wanted to vomit, but as a spirit, she had no stomach. In the yard, gory-handed boys wrung chicken necks for the baron’s supper. A hound barked wildly. Then the Earth gulped her. She sank. In a vault, the wine steward selected a cask. Swan scratched and clawed for purchase, trying to halt her terrible descent deeper underground. Small, subterranean cells held men, or what had once been men. Many of the creatures hooted forlornly. Others snarled more savagely than wolves.
On a lower level, Swan’s spirit came upon the baron in his frock coat, a lanky, yellow-haired man. He set his lantern onto a pile of rubble. Moisture pooled on the low ceiling, dripping into puddles. His eyes were wide and wild, his features twisted into a frozen snarl. The sight shocked her. Swan had always known the baron as an urbane nobleman who read arcane literature and collected ancient artifacts. He often referred to past events that no one else understood. The baron dropped to his knees and clawed at the rubble. His fingernails bled, and his strange intensity…
Something lurched below the baron. It was under the rubble and deeper in the ground. It was evil. It slept in a crypt, and it stirred.
Swan recoiled in horror. She fled this wicked place. She hurled herself toward a last cell in a corridor, the source of the beacon, her own body. Through the heavy, barred door and into the moaning girl she went.
Swan’s eyes flew open in the darkness. She shivered and drew a thin blanket to her chin. She lay on damp straw, and from the cell’s corners rustled cockroaches. She moaned. It had happened again. She hated…had Hosar the Lord of Light sent her a vision? She shook her head. Hosar had surely begun the vision and then something—the thing deep in the crypt—had taken over. Yet this had been more than just a vision, a feverish dream. What she had seen through the crow’s eyes had happened. Her spirit had broken free of her dying body—what had been her dying body down here in the dungeon.
Iron hinges groaned and interrupted her thoughts. The grim sound came from down the corridor. Stone grated against stone. Hooting erupted, barking and snarling.
Swan shuddered. Once those had been cries from pitch sellers, horse traders, eel-fishers and pilgrims. Once they had begged for release and proffered coin, service and then any oath Leng cared to name. She swallowed hard. Kerold the Carpenter—is that what had happened to him?
Boots scraped and stamped along the corridor. Metal jangled. Harshly spoken orders for silence stilled the barking. In its place ruled a cringing quiet. Crackling torches became audible and the flickering light grew. Swan breathed deeply and was amazed that didn’t hurt her lungs. She struggled up and squinted at the painful torchlight. Yet that didn’t make sense. She had just seen through the crow’s eyes, had witnessed the sun’s last rays of daylight. That didn’t seem to matter to her own body, however, to her own eyes.
The torches brought revealing light. Slime clung to her cell’s walls. White cockroaches scurried under straw and through cracks in the bricks.
From the other side of the door, steel slid from scabbards. Visors clicked shut. Someone rattled keys, inserted one and twisted the door’s tumblers.
“You will have to step back, milord.” The jailor grunted, swinging open the door.
There was a shuffle of feet, the clink of mail and the banging of shields. Two knights entered. Each wore a helmet with the visor down and each aimed his sword at her. By their size, these two could only be Sir Durren and Sir Kergan, the baron’s hardiest knights and cousins. Behind followed the stump-footed jailor, with his stubby fingers curled around a torch. Leng stepped in last. He was tall, lean and wore a brown robe like a priest, with a cowl thrown around his head. His eyes were inky pools and he had a beak of a nose. In one pigskin-gloved hand, he held a torch. The other hung onto a chain with a golden pendant that bore a woman’s portrait, the image bringing a curl to Swan’s lips.
“What have you done?” Leng asked. “Tell me. I command it.”
Swan frowned, perplexed by the question. They had incarcerated her here for months. What did he mean, ‘what had she done?’
“Do not play the innocent with me, witch,” Leng said.
Both knights turned toward him.
“Keep watch of her, you fools,” Leng snarled.
Swan chuckled, even though the effort made her shiver. “They are as bemused as I at your charge of witchery against me.”
Leng dared approach and thrust his torch nearer as he held up the golden pendant like a shield.
The heat felt wonderful upon Swan’s cheeks. It had been so long since she had truly been warm.
“Look at her lips,” Leng said, his lean, remote face full of wonder. “They’re smooth. And her skin is no longer splotched, nor does she spew the noxious fumes as before.”
“Kill her,” grunted the biggest knight, a massive man.
Calculation entered Leng’s dark eyes. “She wields power, sir. That is obvious, for otherwise she would have already been dead. It is seldom wise to throw away such power.”
“She is no witch,” the second knight said.
“Perhaps not,” Leng admitted. “But it is clear that she is a mystic.”
“You say this of Swan?” asked the second knight.
“Look at her,” said Leng.
The knight shrugged.
“Can’t you see it?” asked Leng.
“You keep hounds in the dungeon and marvel at a girl’s skin,” said the knight. “What you need is a wench instead of your dusty volumes.”
Swan was amazed. Did Sir Kergan think those howling creatures in the nearby cells were hounds? Didn’t he realize they had once been men?
“Yes,” muttered Leng, who watched her closely. “Your eyes have been opened. What did you just do, eh? Oh, don’t think that I don’t know. None here can practice their mystic arts without my knowing.”
“Then you are a sorcerer,” she said.
Leng stepped back, and he glanced at the two knights sidelong. “See how she plies her subtle words? She is filled with guile, with trickery.”
Swan turned to the knights. “Stop the baron,” she pleaded. “You’ve no idea what he tries to unearth. It is evil beyond calculation.”
Leng laughed in a brittle manner. “Still spewing the same old lies, eh, witch?”
Inspiration struck Swan. “Examine the baron’s fingernails. They will have grown cracked and bloodstained. Tell me, sirs. Why does your learned cousin scratch at the earth like a maniac?”
Leng retreated out of the cell. “She practices her spells. Hurry, get out!”
The jailor almost tripped over his feet in his haste to follow. The knights glanced at one another. Sir Durren shuffled out backward, his sword and shield aimed at her. Sir Kergan touched her throat with the tip of his sword.
“What are you doing?” cried Leng. “You have no idea of the danger you are in.”
Sir Kergan leaned his visor-hidden face closer to her. His words were low-voiced. “Why does our scholar fear you? What can you do to him? Tell me truly, lass.”
Swan reached out a hand.
“Don’t let her touch you!” shouted Leng.
Sir Kergan flinched, his sword point pressing against her throat.
Swan touched the blade as her gaze deepened. “You will meet a knight,” she whispered. “But for you, Sir Kergan, that will not be as dangerous as the knight’s woman.”
“What’s this?” growled Kergan low under his breath. “Are you hexing me?”
Swan tried to peer past his visor, to see his eyes. “Beware of Leng,” she whispered. “He will betray you soon, to your everlasting horror.”
“I’ll gut that weasel at the first sign of treachery,” Sir Kergan said.
“You will not, sir, if the baron digs any deeper into the crypt,” whispered Swan.
“If she bewitches you,” called Leng, “we’ll have to lock you in with her.”
Sir Kergan backed away. Then he turned and strode out of the cell, jostling Leng. “If you ever threaten me again, you Muscovite swine, I’ll gut you like a hog.”
“Shut the door,” said Leng.
The jailor strained, pushing it closed it with a thud and a click.
“Stop the baron!” called Swan. “Don’t let him dig up the evil. We’re all doomed if he does. If you don’t believe me, Sir Kergan, examine the creatures in these cells that you think are hounds. Look at them closely and remember that once they were men.”
“Silence, witch!” shouted Leng. “By the Moon Lady you will not cast your spells on us.” He spoke to the others. “The mystic is sly. She casts enchantments upon your sight. Beware of whatever you see while in the dungeon and remember that it was your cousin who ordered her here.”
Then Leng, the two knights and the jailor hurried down the corridor, the sounds growing fainter and the torchlight dimmer. Soon it was dark again, and the distant stone door shut with a final grate of noise. Only then did the cockroaches scurry back into her cell, and Swan wondered how long until she too was possessed by evil and turned in a hideous creature like Kerold the Carpenter.
CHAPTER TWO
No crickets chirped in this darkening swamp. No frogs croaked from stagnant pools choked with lily pads and slime. With the coming of dusk, no bats screeched nor winged around the crooked dwarf trees. No swamp-bears roared, no mosquitoes whined, not a fly buzzed or flew into sight. Not even the once-abundant salamanders splashed in the puddles sprinkled throughout this sea of weedy grass. The swamp seemed dead, as if it had lost interest in this world and passed beyond to the next.
Then sounds came, sounds muted and strange for this time and place: a saddle creaked, a stallion whickered and armor clanked. The noise came from behind a dead willow tree and showed itself a moment later. A heavy war-horse plodded, making slurping sounds as he lifted iron-shod hooves out of the mire. Red silks adorned the stallion’s sides, while a strong leather saddle provided seating for a knight in armor. Visor down, lance held upright and with a green pennon waving, the knight appeared lost.
Behind him toiled an old man on a mule. The mule-rider wheezed, wore an eye-patch and seemed broken down and useless, although he wore a red and green jacket and a jaunty red and green cap. The old man’s fingers were gnarled and his face a leathery patchwork of scars and bruises. There was nothing old and useless, however, about the heavy crossbow in his hands. The notched steel string touched a squat, ugly-looking bolt that sat in the groove.
Scowling, the old man kicked his heels against the mule’s flanks, until his small mount trotted beside the knight. “Do you remember the witch-storms?” he growled upward. “The ones the Novgorod sorcerers threw at us in the land of Muscovy?”
The knight drew rein, and without lifting his visor, he regarded his squire, Hugo.
“Remember the silence before those storms?” The old man spoke out of the left side of his mouth. Over the years, the right side had grown stiff. “Remember the way nothing seemed alive until those storms hit?”
The knight remained as silent as the swamp. He hated memories of Muscovy, often drank late into the night to drown the memories into oblivion where they belonged.
“There’s sorcery here,” muttered Hugo. “You mark my words.”
The knight slotted his lance in leather saddle-rings. He grasped his helmet and twisted, lifting the red-plumed helm from his head. His sweaty dark hair lay thick on his scalp, and he had a tough, weather-beaten face. It had been hit, slashed and the facial bones broken many times. The big nose lay askew and the skin around his eyes was scarred. He wore a close-cropped beard to hide even worse scars on his lower face.
“Mark your words,” said Sir Gavin.
“Can’t you feel the taint?”
Gavin squinted into the distance, not wanting to feel anything. A maze of thorny hedges and boggy ground spread before him. He twisted in the saddle and saw more of the same behind. Then a bat squealed, startling him. It flapped out of the willow tree. With surprising quickness, Hugo tracked it with his crossbow, but refrained from shooting. Gavin eyed the old tree, unable to spot what had spooked the little creature.
“Let’s turn back,” Hugo said.
“No. I’m sick of mud.”
With a wave of a gnarled, knuckled hand, Hugo indicated the sea of mud before them.
“Maybe it clears up ahead,” Gavin said.
Hugo snorted. He never expected good fortune.
“We know how far back it stretches behind us,” Gavin said.
“True. But at least we know that several leagues later it ends.”
Gavin considered that. Maybe the shortcut through the swamp had been a mistake. Should he have stayed with the noble fops? Their lordly manners had become too grating for him, their idle chatter too reminiscent of—a faint sound drifted near. It came from the direction they traveled. Gavin cocked his head.
Hugo lowered his.
“Sounds like yelling,” Gavin said.
“You can’t tell that.”
“Angry yelling,” Gavin said, “black rage.”
“Bah.”
Gavin picked up his hunting horn, the one dangling by a silken cord around his neck. He fiddled with it, hesitating.
“You mark my words,” muttered Hugo.
The appeal to prudence failed, possibly because the endless mud had turned Gavin stubborn. He blew a piercing note, one audible for miles around. Then he urged his war-horse forward, letting the horn swing against his mail.
Complaining, the words a familiar patter, Hugo followed, the mule working hard to keep up with the stallion.
They skirted shallow, muddy pools and struggled through mire. Then the ground hardened and they entered an area of thorn brush and stunted hangman trees. Gavin ducked branches, although a few leaves slapped his face. Hugo rode hunched over, one hand on his saddle’s cantle, the other arm guarding his precious crossbow.
Hugo looked up, his leathery, one-eyed face registering surprise. “I hear it. You were right. It is yelling.”
The yelling grew as they wound past taller thickets.
“Are you certain this is wise?” asked Hugo.
Gavin had been asking himself that. No, it probably wasn’t wise, but he didn’t want to spend another night outdoors, not in this swamp. He also wanted to dry his undergarments by a fire and have Hugo re-oil his weapons.
“Someone’s in trouble,” he said, his scarred face taking on a stubborn cast.
“If we’re rash we could be the ones in trouble,” Hugo said.
Gavin shrugged, confident that little on this wet island could match a knight on his war-horse. Besides, better to surprise a possible foe than be surprised by him.
“This is unwise,” grumbled Hugo.
Gavin appeared not to hear. He also knew that when Hugo became grumpy his shooting improved.
A dense thicket towered ahead. Beyond it thundered a voice: “Don’t think playing the fool will save you!”
Gavin reined to a halt as his heartbeat quickened. Battle, he hated it, he loved it. Only a fool rushed into a fight; fighting cut though pomp, it cut through airy words and brought everyone down to the level of sinew, reflex and hard courage. As quietly as possible, he dismounted, stepping into mud as his oiled mail make a slithering metallic clink. Leading his stallion by the reins, he crept to the thicket. Hugo also dismounted, cradling his crossbow and limping. Old Hugo favored his lame right foot.
They carefully parted branches and peered into a clearing. An outlaw’s court appeared to be in session. Like a pack of wolves, the jury, a dozen ruffians, circled the judge and his victim. The ruffians were middling-sized men with gaunt faces and crude leather clothing spattered with mud. Each wore an animal-skin cap. Curved knives and cudgels hung from their belts, along with leather sacks. They leered and waited hungrily for the sentence. The judge bore no resemblance to them. He was massive, bigger than Gavin, with a bear-cloak draped over his shoulders. As if he were in a king’s hall, he let the cloak trail in the mud. He had fierce eyes, a loud voice and a crown of white hair. With heavily ringed hands, he bore a great axe with a five-foot haft of ash. He shouted at a cowering youth. The lad was dressed as the men minus an animal-skin cap. The youth’s right boot was torn and his ankle bleeding. Behind him lay three shaggy dogs, nervous and whiny, their tails lashing.
The youth dared raise his head and mutter a plea. The hounds perked up at his voice. The judge, the great brute of a noble, opened wide his eyes. He roared, “I’ll show you mercy!” With a buffet, he struck the boy to the ground. The hounds cowered. The ruffians cheered, elbowing each other.
Eyes blazing, the brute turned on them. They cowered too then, the smiles and leers freezing on their cruel faces. The brute roared orders as he handed his great axe to the nearest man. The ruffians sprang to obey. One whipped out an oily rag and polished the axe-head. Others rushed about and picked up twigs and branches. Another, with flint and tinder, struck sparks against a resin-coated torch. The brute roared again. Twigs and branches flew into a pile. The smoking torch touched it. The wet twigs smoldered and soon crackled with flames. A toothless ruffian with rheumy eyes squatted by the fire as he thrust a knife into it.
“I want it white hot!” shouted the brute.
The old ruffian bent over the fire. He huffed and puffed as smoke billowed into his face.
“What do you think they’re planning?” whispered Hugo.
Gavin, his eyes hard, motioned his squire to silence. As a page and then a squire, he had learned to hate nobles lording it over their underlings. The cruel time in Muscovy had only honed that hate.
The brute paced, trailing his bear cloak behind him. The ruffians watched fearfully, although when they looked at the fallen youth their eyes shone with cruel intent.
The sooty-faced old ruffian jumped up with the dagger glowing red.
“Keep it in the fire, you fool!” roared the brute.
The old ruffian thrust the blade back into the fire…and yelped. In his zeal, he had shoved in his hand. The others laughed until the brute glowered. They fell silent, some choking on the suddenness of it.
The brute gestured imperiously. Two of them sprang to the fallen youth. As they yanked him upright, the youth howled, shook them off and brandished a dagger. The dogs leaped up, their hackles raised. A third ruffian stepped behind the youth and swung his cudgel against the boy’s back. A fourth man, grinning maliciously, clubbed the knife-hand. The youth cried out, staggering, twisting for his fallen weapon. The brute stepped behind him and with a single, stunning blow knocked the defenseless youth to the ground. The brute finished off the rebellion—if that’s what it had been—with three savage kicks to the ribs.
Gavin swore an awful oath. He had seen enough.
“He could be a thief,” whispered Hugo.
Two ruffians thumped a log onto the soggy ground. Another handed the brute his great axe. Others dragged the nearly unconscious youth forward, placing his knife-hand on the chopping block.
Gavin let go of his branch, his arms a-tingle. Maiming penalties—his stomach hardened with resolve. Did it take all these swine to beat up one lone youth? In two bounds, he vaulted onto his war-horse and yanked free his lance.
“We don’t know all the facts,” Hugo pleaded.
“Don’t let that axe touch him,” Gavin said with flat finality.
Hugo muttered under his breath as he pushed his crossbow through the thorny branches. In the clearing, the brute raised his great axe over his head. The crossbow shivered. With a clang—stubby bolt striking polished axe-head—the huge weapon flew out of the brute’s grasp.
Gavin spurred his stallion. The war-horse smashed through the thicket, sharp braches clawing at mail armor.
They appeared as if by magic, huge stallion bearing a knight with his massive lance. The iron-shod hooves clopped, the knight laughed. The terrifying spectacle of the mailed man bearing down on them—the startled ruffians stared only a moment. Then they yelled, scattering like mice. In their haste, some dropped their knives, their clubs. A few sobbed, tripped and sprawled onto the mud, throwing wild glances over their shoulders.
With the blood pounding in his ears, Gavin reined in beside the fallen boy. “Up, up!” he shouted.
Braver than his men, the brute snatched his great axe where it had landed. He roared at his ruffians. The loud voice forced heads to swivel back toward their master.
By clutching onto Gavin’s left stirrup—Gavin leaned down to help—the groaning, swollen-eyed youth dragged himself up. Of the hounds, there was no sign. With a cluck of his tongue, Gavin walked his war-horse backward. The youth staggered with him, biting his lips, probably so he wouldn’t cry out. Gavin liked him because of it. He kept a wary eye on the bear-cloaked brute speaking urgently to his men. Hugo reined in beside him on the mule as he dropped a bolt into the crossbow’s groove.
“That’s Baron Barthek’s man!” shouted the brute, pointing at the youth with his great axe. The ruffians crowded behind him. A few held clubs, some their long curved knifes, one or two hefted stones.
Gavin ingested the news, nodded. “I’m saving the baron’s man from outlaws.”
The brute thumped his massive chest. It was clad in waxy leather armor. “I’m the baron’s cousin, you fool, Sir Kergan of Forador Castle.”
“Let me shoot him,” muttered Hugo. “Let’s be done with it.”
“Hand over the criminal,” said Kergan, daring to step forward.
“No criminal,” whispered the youth. “I…I saved a girl’s life. For that they’re chopping off my hand.”
Gavin examined the youth with his blond hair plastered to a simple-looking, exhausted face. He saw honesty and decided to trust the boy’s story, whatever it might be.
“Old Beron charged…” The youth grew pale and clutched the stirrup. “Beron charged peasants pulling honey out of a tree. He…he tried to claw a little girl. I ran up to save her. Old Beron slashed open my boot. I-I drew my knife and cut him.”
“Old Beron is a bear?” asked Gavin.
“I wasn’t poaching,” said the youth.
Gavin knew the terrible punishments for poaching. He hated such laws and the arrogance of the nobles that lay behind them.
“Sir Knight,” bellowed Kergan, “send me my dog boy!”
“I would know his crime,” Gavin said.
“Knave! I am the seneschal of Castle Forador. Hand over the dog boy or face my wrath!” Spittle flew from Kergan’s mouth as he shook the great axe.
Gavin re-gripped his lance, thinking fast. “Surely you follow the codes of Hosar.”
The brute roared, “That has no bearing—”
“Good seneschal,” Gavin said, “knights are to protect the weak. Thus it is clear—”
“Fan out!” Kergan snarled to his men.
Still hiding behind their huge master, the ruffians glanced at one another. Kergan spun around and glared at them. They took tentative steps from behind his back.
Gavin said, “One more step and my squire will put a bolt into your heart.”
Hugo squinted his one good eye at them, with his crossbow aimed first at one man, then another.
The ruffians blanched and halted, not daring to look up at their lord.
“Sir Kergan?” asked the man-at-arms beside him. At least he appeared to be a man-at-arms, for he had a sword instead of a dagger and wore a helmet instead of a hunting cap.
Kergan’s shaggy white eyebrows thundered together as he eyed the crossbow. “You claim to follow…to follow…”
“Hosar,” Gavin said.
“Yet your squire aims that un-knightly weapon at me. Crossbows are only to be used against the wretches of Muscovy and Novgorod.”
“So it was used,” Gavin said.
“What?” the man-at-arms asked.
Gavin sighed, not wanting to talk about it. Why did it always come down to this? “Hugo and I went crusading to the land of Novgorod and beyond. We fought with the Sword Brothers there.”
Shocked silence filled the glade. The man-at-arms stirred. “Milord, these are honorable men.”
Kergan spat at the mud.
Gavin leaned on his saddle horn, deciding this noble ass needed fleecing instead of killing. To mock the man would likely hurt more deeply. He cleared his throat. “I have a way out of our impasse, sir. For you also must be an honorable man. Why otherwise does your baron keep you as his right-hand fighter? Tomorrow, choose a champion or face me on the jousting yard. The winner decides the dog boy’s fate.”
Glowering, Kergan shook his head.
“Come now, sir,” Gavin said. “Your hair is white, true enough. Yet you’re a giant compared to your men. Surely you don’t fear to face me man-to-man.”
Haughty pride expanded Kergan’s chest. “I am the seneschal of Castle Forador. My word is law in Forador Fief.”
“But I claim a higher law,” Gavin said, having argued a thousand times upon points of honor. His unique pastime demanded it, and his wits in this arena had become almost as sharp as his fighting skills. “A trial by duel will settle this.”
The man-at-arms dared whisper into Kergan’s ear.
“Do you wish to duel to the death?” Kergan asked.
“There is no need for that,” Gavin said. “Let us duel tomorrow until one of us cries quit or is unconscious.”
Kergan appeared thoughtful as he sized up Gavin.
“Beware,” whispered the dog boy. “Sir Kergan plans treachery.”
“Yes!” shouted Kergan. “Tomorrow you’ll face a champion on the jousting yard.”
“You swear this by Hosar?” asked Gavin.
“Knave!” shouted Kergan, his thick features flushing once more. “No one questions me!”
“I question nothing, sir. But an oath, in this situation, only seems wise.”
Sir Kergan breathed heavily and his men cringed.
“Is he a berserker?” muttered Hugo.
Gavin doubted it. Berserkers were rare among knights. They were men who lost all control, all reason, as they foamed at the mouth and fought with fury. The terrible Varangians often fought as berserks.
Sir Kergan raised his axe. “The Great One is my witness.”
“That’s a false oath,” Hugo muttered.
Kergan growled low-throated instructions to his men. They eyed Gavin. A few nodded, a few grew pale. As a group, they edged closer.
“Don’t let them get too close,” Hugo whispered.
Gavin grasped the hunting horn that hung from his neck by a silken cord. He lifted the horn and blew mightily.
Kergan halted, scowling. “What treachery is this?”
“No treachery,” Gavin said lightly, “but a signal to my people.”
“What people?” Kergan asked.
“Surely you do not think that a knight travels alone?”
“Bah,” said Kergan. “You think to trick us.”
This was going to take more than talk. Gavin grinned. Courage thrust into a man’s face, unnerved most. With his heel, he kicked off the dog boy’s hand. Then, as his gut curdled and his arms tingled with pre-battle jitters, he urged his war-horse toward Kergan. Hugo made a quiet sound of dismay as Gavin walked the big stallion forward. The ruffians backed away. Kergan hesitated even as his hands tightened around his axe haft.
Gavin locked his gaze onto the huge seneschal. What he saw in the brute’s eyes almost made him rip out his sword. His stallion snorted, stamping a foreleg. Several of the ruffians stumbled farther back.
“On my honor as a knight,” Gavin said, drawing rein beside Kergan, “I do indeed signal my people.”
Kergan glared up at him.
Madness to fight almost enveloped Gavin. Instead, a last try at cunning moved Gavin’s lips. “I also have coin,” he said. “I will gladly pay for a night’s lodging.”
A vein throbbed in Kergan’s forehead.
“What shall it be, sir?”
The moment stretched, Kergan staring up into Gavin’s seemingly placid features.
“These are honorable men, milord,” said the man-at-arms at Kergan’s side. Sweat dripped from the man’s nose. “Surely the baron would welcome them to his feast.”
Kergan glared at his man, who shrank back.
Gavin laughed. “You are indeed the Berserker Knight, sir. I relish meeting you tomorrow on the field of honor.”
Kergan frowned up at him.
Gavin shook his head: “And to think that I was told that the knights of Erin have no honor.”
Kergan spoke thickly. “You are not of Erin?”
“I am a knight of Bavaria, sir, who has seen many strange sights.”
Something passed across Kergan’s face. Was it doubt, curiosity, fear? He lowered his axe, glanced at his man-at-arms and glanced at the uneasy ruffians. He nodded, and said thickly, “Yes, come with us to Forador Castle.”
CHAPTER THREE
“You took a terrible risk,” muttered Hugo.
Gavin shrugged.
Hugo lips drew down. “What do you think will happen when he sees who your people are? You’ve solved nothing.”
“It’s your good cheer that comforts me,” Gavin said. “And that I’ve learned that fate loves to disprove your gloom.”
Hugo grumbled under his breath and thus kept a sharper eye on the ruffians.
Gavin grinned to himself, although he silently acknowledged that Hugo was right. He was betting on an odd facet of human nature. Once a person decided on a thing, he or she usually disliked changing their opinion or decision, even when new evidence demanded a rethinking. Kergan had invited them to the castle instead of going through with his treachery.
They waited in the glade, Kergan with several of his ruffians and Gavin and Hugo upon their mounts. The rescued dog boy sat on a stump.
“You must realize that he still plans to play us false,” Hugo said.
Sir Kergan had been pacing and now stopped to shout, “Why have you journeyed to Erin? You never did say.”
At that moment, bells jingled from behind the thicket. A lean youth with a red and green jacket pushed through, barely giving them a glance. He bent back the branches and clucked his tongue. Four heavily laden mules squeezed through. After them on horses came a pretty woman who shouted Gavin’s name. He waved, admiring her beauty. The last was an older woman, a thick-limbed lady in a white healer’s tunic. The healer jumped off her mount and hurried to the hurt dog boy. She gently took him under the armpits and whispered into his ear. The dog boy grunted as he rose, staggering to one of the spare horses.
“Where are the others?” asked Kergan, glancing about.
“Why not let your men march in the lead,” Gavin said. Calm often stilled troubled spirits. “You as befits a knight should ride on one of my extra mounts.”
“These are your people?” asked a frowning Kergan.
“Vivian and Joanna,” Gavin said, “and my mule-boy.”
Kergan scratched a cheek and then gave him an ugly grin.
Gavin appeared not to notice as he motioned to the silent youth. The mule-boy cleared off a packhorse and brought it to Kergan.
This was a critical juncture. So Gavin lifted his lance, squinting at it as if something troubled him about it. Thus, he had it ready as he glanced at Kergan. “Do you desire a different horse, sir?”
Kergan hefted his axe, his lips twitching. Then he shrugged and tossed his axe to one of his men. The huge axe wouldn’t be a comfortable weapon to carry while riding, one of the reasons Gavin had offered the horse. The mount soon strained under the seneschal’s weight. The remaining ruffians kept to themselves. They often eyed Hugo’s crossbow. Hugo watched them as he affectionately touched the trigger.
As they traveled and after Gavin had spoken with the ladies, he turned to Kergan with a smile. “You asked why I am here, sir. The answer is that I heard of King Egbert’s boast.”
“Egbert the Mad?” asked Kergan.
Gavin hadn’t heard about this king being mad until they’d landed in Erin. It had been a troubling revelation, but he had talked himself into the belief that it could very well accrue to his benefit. He now said, “He is the king of Erin, sir.”
“No,” said Kergan. “He is the king of Banfrey and possibly the Midlands and the Barrens, but nothing more.”
Gavin scratched his jaw, once more wishing the Erin heralds last winter had told them about the island’s political divisions. He disliked journeying through contested territory.
“You speak of King Egbert’s boast,” said Kergan. “Which one do you mean?”
“Why, that his summer tournament at Banfrey will be the grandest in memory,” Gavin said.
“Tournament?” said Kergan. “You came to our island to joust?”
The pretty woman, Vivian, was raven-haired and had a wide, laughing mouth and ample breasts. She wore stylish leather hunting clothes, had dangling earrings and painted eyes of exceptional beauty.
“Don’t you know who this is?” she asked.
Kergan eyed her rudely and for too long. “You’re from Glendover Port. Why then do you dress like a foreigner and ride your horse like a man?”
Vivian blushed, which surprised Gavin. He had found her impossible to shock.
“You discovered her on Glendover’s Street of Harlots,” Kergan pronounced.
“Gavin!” she cried.
Gavin shifted uncomfortably because of the accuracy of Kergan’s guess.
“You must fight him for my honor!” she cried.
“…Vivian,” Gavin said.
“He called me a harlot.”
“Is she your lady?” asked Kergan with a barely suppressed sneer.
“She…ah, travels with me,” Gavin said delicately, not sure yet how these islanders regarded such things.
“Travels!” said Vivian, as she lifted her chin. “Is that it? I merely travel with you. How dare you.”
“Vivian. Please,” Gavin said. “This isn’t the—”
“He thinks he’s the world’s greatest jouster,” she told Kergan. “He travels from tournament to tournament, fighting fools so he can ransom them for loot.”
“I battle by the accepted rules of tournaments,” Gavin said. He shot her a ‘be quiet’ look.
“Then what about those ‘tricks’ you boasted of?” she asked, ignoring his urgent glance. “Especially the ones the Savernake knights—”
“Vivian! Desist!”
“You joust for gain?” asked Sir Kergan with a disapproving frown.
“For gold, silver and jewels,” Vivian told him.
“Nonsense,” Gavin said. “I sport at war like any knight would, and—”
“And that’s all you’ll be sporting at,” Vivian said.
Gavin threw her a dark glance.
She made a face, drew rein and dropped beside the healer and the bruised dog boy swaying on mule back.
Kergan’s twitching smile was smug, arrogant and overbearing. Several of his men, who had strained to listen, openly laughed.
Because of it, Gavin almost drew his sword and hewed Sir Kergan from the saddle. Ha! They didn’t know how the world really worked. To strap on your sword and ride to war just because your lord demanded it—the wilds of Novgorod and Muscovy had bled such chivalrous nonsense out of him. Lordly asses and high-titled fools had nearly seen him killed a dozen times. Then when his sword and hard fighting had saved them, they had reaped all the laurels and all the rewards and acclaim. He would never let words and airy phrases led him by the nose again. Instead, he bled the lordly ones by taking them at their noble pastime and making them pay.
For a time they traveled in silence as the gloom deepened. The bushes turned into gnarly trees and the knotted, twisted trees half-straightened into crooked oaks.
Then Hugo hissed low under his breath.
Gavin looked up.
“They’ve grown tense again,” whispered Hugo.
They rode across a field of muddy grass and toward a copse of cypress trees.
“There’s movement in the shadows,” whispered Hugo.
Gavin saw it, and he berated himself for becoming complacent. He urged his war-horse faster. The heavy clop-clop possibly warned Kergan, who scowled. Gavin grinned as if he didn’t have a care in the world. He rode near and put his hand on his sword hilt.
Kergan seemed ready to bawl: ‘Treachery!’ The ruffians seemed ready to bolt, but they were still too in the open for Hugo’s crossbow to miss.
Gavin said, “You sneered at my jousting practices before, sir. Let me show you my greatest prize so that you may reconsider your position.”
Kergan’s eyes narrowed.
With a rasp of metal Gavin drew a long silver sword. It glinted in the last sunlight, a weapon for a king or emperor. Even the ruffians nodded in admiration. Kergan grunted.
“It’s of Albion make, I believe,” Gavin said.
“You mean you don’t know?” Kergan asked.
“It belonged to the earl of Albion’s East March. Why we dueled really doesn’t matter. The earl fought well. He cut me most harshly, to the bone, I’m afraid. I still bear the scar.”
With his knees, Gavin guided his war-horse nearer yet. The underbrush and trees drew closer. Gavin saw flashes of red cloth and heard a clink of steel on steel.
“Notice the tracings in the blade,” Gavin said.
Kergan glared at him.
“No, look. They’re there if you squint.”
Kergan seemed distrustful. Then he squinted at the blade. He looked up at once, his bloodshot eyes wide.
“Yes, I spoke the truth,” Gavin said. “The earl wept upon parting with the sword, calling it an heirloom from his ancient past.”
“‘Tis shameful to take a man’s heirloom.”
Gavin’s grin hardened. “‘Tis also a shame to take a nasty cut in the side.” He moved the blade a fraction nearer Kergan’s throat. Then Gavin lowered his voice. “Listen to me, you dumb bastard. The moment your ambush begins, I’ll cut you down or Hugo shoots out your heart. Now you either swear a true oath this instant, in front of your men, or we’ll start this little game right here and now.”
That caught Kergan by surprise.
“Make the oath or die,” whispered Gavin.
They locked stares. Perhaps it was something in Gavin’s eyes that caused Kergan to draw his reins. “Stop!” he bellowed.
The ruffians stopped, glancing at each other, shuffling nervously.
“Know, Sir Gavin, on my honor as a knight of Barthek, that tomorrow my agent or myself will duel you on the jousting field.” Kergan shifted in the saddle, throwing his voice toward the trees. “I had a man slip ahead so he could gather more guards. I wanted you and yours to approach Castle Forador and the baron’s feast in proper style and etiquette.”
The ruffians glanced at each other in surprise and then grinned in relief.
“A feast?” asked Gavin.
“Tonight you feast at the baron’s board,” said Kergan. He cupped his hand by his mouth, roaring, “I said come out!”
The underbrush shook and trembled, and out filed eleven men dressed much as the ruffians and bearing bows and spears.
“On your honor?” muttered Hugo.
“On my honor as a knight,” Kergan said proudly. He pushed Gavin’s sword from his throat. “You no longer need that, sir.”
Uneasy, Gavin sheathed the silver sword. He had been wrong once about this brutish knight. He had misjudged him, had failed to take his measure. Could he trust the man’s word now? Something here was wrong, but he couldn’t identify what exactly, and that troubled him.
***
Cuthred the dog boy groaned as the healer helped him into a wooden tub. He wore a linen bandage around his ribs where Sir Kergan had kicked him. He had a towel over his privates and stitches closing the worst facial cuts. The dirty water told of others who had bathed before him. He was the last to soak, but he didn’t think to complain. The luxury of warm water amazed him and the Laon soap was something he had only used one other time. He had bathed before, of course, using tallow-made soap and cold swamp water. Tallow was the fat from butchered cattle, boiled by scullions, with wood ash mixed in and salt to harden the soap. This wonderful smelling Laon soap was made from olive oil, a luxury item from southern France.
“Scrub,” said the healer.
Her name was Joanna and she had a hard, flat face, thick fingers and powerful-looking forearms. She had rolled back the gown’s sleeves to her elbows. Her lips didn’t seem like the smiling kind, and the way she sucked them inward, showed that she probably only had a few teeth left. She spoke without moving her lips and usually only when he wasn’t watching.
“You’re going to the feast,” she told him. She sat on a stool behind the tub. “So wash your hair.”
He ducked underwater and marveled at the heat on his face. After counting to ten, he eased up and let out his breath. Exhaustion left him limp and it hurt to move. No one had ever beaten him this badly before. A yawn threatened to open his mouth too wide and pull out the stitches.
“Stop that,” she said. “You must stay awake.”
“Why?”
“You need to be alert when Sir Gavin questions you at the feast?”
He craned back to look at her. “Why do you care what happens to me? No one else does.”
She stared at him with eyeballs the color of lead.
He groaned, unable to hold that position, leaning back against the tub.
“I care because Sir Gavin saved you,” she said, speaking now that he wasn’t looking.
“I don’t understand.”
From behind him, Joanna dunked the Laon soap into the tub and began to rub the bar in his thick hair. She scrubbed as if he was a horse. His head twisted this way and that. It bit into his heart with a pang of remembrance of his mother. Joanna lathered his hair so he smelled the olive oil odor. Then she rose with a swish of her heavy woolen dress and returned with a small pail. She gave him a ghost of a smile before she bent down behind him and scooped warm water into her bucket.
“You have a second chance like me,” she said, as soapy water cascaded down his face. “So you and I are linked.”
“Sir Gavin once saved you too?”
“Wash behind your ears,” she said, removing her thick finger from the back of his head.
He obeyed, and he listened to her instructions for the feast. He would stand behind Hugo tonight, yes, that was the one-eyed crossbowman. No, he wouldn’t put his dirty woolens back on. Those were only fit for hogs. Sir Gavin was giving him fresh garments and new boots. Until the joust decided his fate, he must consider himself Sir Gavin’s man.
“Now,” Joanna said, “is there anything you’d like to tell me?”
“Like what?” Cuthred asked, bewildered at this incredible treatment.
“Let us begin with something simple. Where did the baron get all those horses?”
Cuthred recalled that Sir Gavin and his people had been surprised at the number of horses stabled in the castle.
“Those came from the horse traders,” he said.
“The baron bought them all?” asked Joanna.
“No. The horse-traders broke the law and the baron imprisoned them and kept their herd.”
“What law did they break?”
Cuthred frowned. “Someone said they spoke ill about the king.”
“Murderous words?” asked Joanna.
“I don’t recall. All I know is that the baron put them in the dungeon and sent word to King Egbert. The baron is still waiting for a reply.”
“I noticed tinker wagons parked outside the castle. The wagons seemed abandoned.”
“The baron put the tinkers in the dungeon too,” Cuthred said.
“What law did they break?”
“No one told me. I’m usually in the swamps. Running the hounds and helping with hunts. That all happened while I was away.”
“The dungeon must be overflowing,” Joanna said.
Cuthred bobbed his head. “I heard a passing savant say that, yes. The blacksmith told the savant that Castle Forador has bigger dungeons than any other fortress in Erin. It’s an ancient castle. The blacksmith and others say older than the hills. The dungeon has room enough, or so some scullions whispered, for however many thieves and scoundrels the baron wishes to salt away.”
Joanna asked other questions. Cuthred answered as best he could. She left muttering. He gathered his strength and crawled out of the tub. Shivering, with water dripping from him, he felt gloriously clean and completely spent. Smiling numbly, he toweled off, anticipating putting on fresh…no, brand new garments.
A shoe-scuffle alerted him. Cuthred turned lazily as the pretty woman looked in, the one with dark hair, dangling earrings and exotically painted eyes. Cuthred yelled, startled at seeing her while he was naked. He covered himself with the towel.
“Ooh, you’re a strong-looking lad,” she said, standing in the doorway and eyeing him up and down.
He blushed. Her long, raven-colored hair, those intense eyes, the way her breasts strained against her hunting garments, she was beautiful.
“You blush all over,” she said with a wicked smile. “That is quite romantic.”
He wasn’t big like a knight, but he wasn’t hunched like a peasant either. He had a sturdy frame and thick wrists, although everything else about him was lean from always running with the hounds. Some castle scullions had told him before he looked fine. None of them looked like Vivian. He turned away in embarrassment. He had never felt more exposed.
“Would you like a kiss?” She laughed in a musical way as he looked up guiltily. “Your blush is almost purple now.” She clapped. “What a find you are, my handsome dog boy.”
He hid behind a stand of expensive clothes. Sir Gavin and his squire had fitted themselves from this rack. He yanked on his new briefs and then his new leather breeches.
“You have a name, don’t you?” asked Vivian, coming around to stare at him. She wore a long white dress and a small red ruby around her throat. Yellow ribbons bound her hair. Angels couldn’t look better than she did.
“I-I’m Cuthred, milady.”
“Oh, pooh, I’m no lady. Sir Gavin said as much.”
“Is he your knight?”
She clucked her tongue. “He’s arrogant and rude. Don’t you agree?”
“H-He saved my hand, milady.”
“Oh, that was just so he could look brave and bold. I’ve never met anyone who worried more about what people thought of him. There isn’t a more vain man alive.”
Cuthred didn’t know what to say to that.
“What is your baron like?” Vivian asked.
“Milady?”
“He has so many horses and cows. Is your baron rich?”
“He’s the richest man I know.”
She pouted. “But then you’re just a dog boy. Who have you known who’s rich?”
He donned a shirt to hide his embarrassment, and he scowled. He wasn’t a bumpkin. He had kissed girls before, and… He gritted his teeth so the stitches in his face pulled tighter. It wasn’t right for her to talk badly about her knight, especially the knight who had saved his hand.
“Is the baron married?”
“No,” he said, slipping on brand new leather boots.
“Cuthred?” she said.
He looked up. She smiled. It was a radiant thing. She had all her teeth and they were so white and clean. Her smile made his heart ache. It was too bad he was just a dog boy. Now if he were a knight…
“Is Sir Kergan married?” she asked, with her eyes and smile most merry, and yet…
“Y-Yes,” he said.
“Does Sir Kergan have a jealous wife?”
He thought about Lady Wilma. He had seen Wilma box Kergan’s ears because the knight’s eyes had lingered upon a scullion scrubbing the floor. Another time Lady Wilma had taken a whip to him for his straying eye. Of course, Sir Kergan knocked her down sometimes. It depended.
“Lady Wilma is jealous,” he said.
Vivian’s smile turned wicked. She reminded Cuthred then of a man-killing panther.
“Tell me,” Vivian said in a soft voice. “Would you like to see Sir Kergan dead?”
“D-Dead, milady?”
Vivian’s eyes glittered, and she said in flat tone, “Dead as horsemeat.”
Cuthred went cold inside. He didn’t want to see anyone dead. There had been too much killing lately, too much evil.
“Close your mouth, my dear dog boy. Then hurry outside. That’s Hugo you hear yelling for you.” She smiled. “Hurry, now—go.”
Despite his aches and pains, Cuthred ran to obey. This was all very bewildering. Yet, it was a hundred times better than losing his hand.
CHAPTER FOUR
“Do you notice what’s missing?” muttered Hugo, with his gnarled shoulders hunched.
Gavin studied the circular Great Hall. The vast room surprised him, especially as the rest of the castle seemed more like a ruin than a fortress. The torches alone, near a hundred lined along the high halls, seemed an exorbitant expenditure for a swamp lord. Yet an exquisite, oil-burning chandelier hung from the domed ceiling that would have been more typical of a temple. Wooden balconies hung from the walls. Long-tables and benches filled each balcony and held a bewildering array of swamp-hunters, eel-fishers, hunting boys, reed weavers, scullions, trackers and crones. The boards groaned at the weight. The people came apparently not only from Castle Forador but also from outlying towers and forts.
“You won’t find it in the balconies,” Hugo said. He bared his yellowed teeth. “What’s missing is something from the Great Hall proper.”
The Great Hall seethed with swamp-born nobility and the retainers of Baron Barthek’s land and allied fiefs. Knights and ladies, men-at-arms and waiting maids and squires, pages, chief falconers, hunting masters and spearmen sat at the tables, each carefully segregated by station. A riot of colors milled upon the benches. Ladies strolled about in pastel-colored gowns. The men wore breeches and jackets. Knights wore the brightest colors, with Gavin the brightest among them. His shirt was green silk, his marten cape the richest fur and his trousers of fine Albion wool. Only he wore a sword, the impressive silver sword, in its jeweled leather scabbard.
There had been hard words about that. He had said it was part of his costume, in honor of Baron Barthek. He had also whispered that he feared someone stealing it. It was silver and thus he assured them it was quite harmless. The guards had grudgingly admitted it.
The great throng had made Gavin reevaluate Kergan’s baron. This feast was a grand affair, sumptuous and for this area obviously noteworthy. It made him wonder why Kergan had bothered being in the swamp today and why the seneschal should have been nearly berserk on a day when grand gestures and merciful actions would have better captured the tone of these festivities. It was odd, most unsettling.
“What’s missing, you say?” asked Gavin.
“Yes,” whispered Hugo, as he worried his lower lip.
They sat at their own table, far down from where the baron’s throne-like chair stood. The baron had not yet joined them, probably desiring a grand entrance.
Kergan as the presiding seneschal flipped a silver coin to the jongleur finishing the local hero-song.
The chair to the right of the baron’s throne was also empty. Gavin found that interesting. It belonged to someone called Leng, an odd name. He noticed that no one sat near Sir Durren.
“Do you mean that Sir Durren has no woman?” asked Gavin.
The massive knight sat beside Kergan. Sir Durren was a bald dullard with sleepy eyes, but was a head and shoulders taller than anyone here. Cuthred had named him ‘Sir Durren the Strong.’
“What are you two whispering about?” asked Vivian.
She obviously enjoyed the many glances and the longing stares from the assembled men and the calculating studies from the women. Unfortunately, her gaze fell too often upon Sir Kergan, and Gavin expected a nasty surprise from her, knowing that she couldn’t let go of the ‘harlot’ remark.
“What’s missing?” he now asked Vivian. “What isn’t here that should be?”
“Oh. That’s obvious,” she said.
“Well?” asked Gavin.
“There aren’t any devotees of Hosar,” she said.
Gavin glanced openmouthed at Hugo.
Hugo nodded.
“Only a dullard would miss it,” said Vivian.
Gavin studied the masses anew as a cold feeling worked up his spine. “Dog boy,” he said.
Cuthred pushed himself off the wall where he leaned in attendance. “Milord?”
“Why aren’t there any devotees of Hosar?”
“They died,” said Cuthred.
“Through plague?”
“In accidents mostly,” the dog boy said. “A senile wise woman fell into the castle well several weeks ago. Then there was Ran, an old savant who had once been the baron’s tutor. He died in a strange fire. They say crows carried hot embers and set Cathal Village alight.”
“Speak on,” Gavin said, as his unease grew.
Cuthred scratched his chin. “A little over a month ago a monk tried to break up a quarrel. Sir Rudel became so angry with the monk that he drew his sword and stabbed him.”
“What happened to Sir Rudel?”
“He’s in the dungeon with the tinkers and horse traders,” said Cuthred.
Hugo clutched his dinner knife as Gavin waved Cuthred back. “We’ve got to get out of here,” whispered Hugo.
“Tomorrow morning we leave.” Gavin said.
“Now,” Hugo said. His seamed face, the good half, twisted with worry. He lowered the dinner knife under the table and as quietly as possible began stroking it against a sharpening flint that he always carried on his person. “We must leave before they bring in the meal,” he muttered.
Since the baron hadn’t arrived, the feast hadn’t begun. Pages brought fresh bread to the knights and ladies. Everyone else poured wine or ale into growling stomachs. There were going to be some seriously drunk people soon.
“So a few savants and wise women have died,” said Vivian. “Death happens to everyone sooner or later.”
“You don’t understand,” muttered Hugo.
“So tell me,” she said.
Gavin and Hugo exchanged glances.
“Oh,” she said, rolling her eyes. “So it’s more of ‘Please don’t ask me about Muscovy. It was so horrible in Muscovy. Horrible, I tell you. Now pass the wine so I can drink myself into oblivion and forget about the cold wastes.’”
“Don’t mock what you know nothing about,” growled Gavin.
“You two should have been goliards, the way you carry on your act,” she said. “Nothing’s that bad, though. I could tell you stories that would curdle your stomachs. But you don’t see me trying to create a legend about it.”
“Oh?” Gavin said.
“Don’t bother humoring me, milord. Your ‘I’d like to forget about Muscovy play’ is getting tiresome. My grandmother acted more manly than you two cluckers.”
Hugo glared at her. “Ever seen your friend possessed?”
“What do you mean?” said Vivian.
“Ever seen your friend captured, then changed by the sorcerers into…into…” Hugo ground his teeth as beads of sweat dotted his forehead.
“What’s he muttering about?” she said.
“Darkspawn,” Gavin said, grim memories surfacing at the word. Sometimes he wondered if he hadn’t come to Erin because it was the farthest land from those cold pine wastes he could find.
“Darkspawn as in the old Continental legends?” she asked.
“They’re horribly true,” Gavin said. “At least in Novgorod and Muscovy they are. In that cold land they still worship Old Father Night. They worship the Moon Lady, the Lord of Bats and the terrible Death Drummer.”
“What does Hugo mean by his friends changed?”
“Darkspawn,” Gavin said, remembering panting through a frozen pine forest, with monstrous creatures howling for his blood. Each of the furry blasphemies had once been his companions come north with him for the crusading. He now put his hands on the table, staring at them, breathing deeply. That was years ago. It was over, never to happen again. Let it pass, he told himself.
“Do you ever wonder why the others do anything Gavin asks of them?” growled Hugo.
“All the time,” said Vivian.
“Because he saved them from becoming darkspawn,” Hugo said. “He saved them from being possessed and changed. What do you think the blood-drinkers were?”
“You mean the ones in your stories?” said Vivian.
“Don’t mock me, girl,” warned Hugo.
“Oh, so its ‘girl’ now is it?”
Hugo growled an oath, turning from her, concentrating on secretly sharpening his dinner knife.
Gavin put a hand over Vivian’s slender fingers. She was so alive, so filled with the fire of life. The things she made him feel… He wished they didn’t quarrel so often.
“You aren’t as clever as you think,” he said. “There are things in the world that are old and evil, and filled with wicked guile. Sometimes they roost in the oddest places. This castle—Hugo’s right. I’ve not felt the cold knot in my stomach like this place causes since Muscovy.” He squeezed her hand as she opened her mouth. “Listen to me, Vivian. Please.”
Her plucked eyebrows rose, perhaps at the intensity of his voice.
“Something wrong occurs here,” Gavin said. “Hugo feels it and now I do too.”
“I don’t feel it,” she said.
He gave her a sickly grin.
“I know,” she said with a sigh, “I wasn’t in Muscovy.”
“You’re too quick-witted, Vivian. It makes you think you’re smarter than everyone else.”
“You win all your jousts,” she said. “So you consider yourself a better warrior than others.”
“Point taken,” Gavin said. “You are smart, probably the smartest among us. It’s one of the reasons I…I…”
Her features softened as she leaned against him.
Just then, a trumpet blared.
Gavin, Hugo and Cuthred, everyone in the Great Hall except for Vivian, turned in anticipation. With lips parted, she watched Gavin, no doubt waiting for him to turn back to her. He didn’t. In a moment, she pulled her hand from under his and pouted.
“All rise!” roared Kergan. The heralds along the walls took up his cry.
Hundreds of benches scraped back. Plates and jewelry, belt buckles and clattering rings made a din of noise. Above it all, sounded the trumpet.
A tall thin man strode into the hall. He wore a long trailing robe of black silk, with the collar lined in silver fox fur. His thin face was narrow and sharp like the rest of his body. His black eyes were of extraordinary intensity. They seemed like dark pits, inky pools. He kept his facial expression blank as if he was exceedingly bored.
“That’s Leng,” Cuthred whispered into Gavin’s ear.
Gavin noticed that Kergan glared at the approaching man.
With his big hands, Kergan motioned the people to sit. The heralds should have shouted his instructions. Instead, they looked to Leng. Leng didn’t seem to be in any hurry. If anything, he slowed his step.
“Those two hate each other,” Vivian said into his ear, and there seemed to be a note of triumph in her voice.
A squire with a silver chain dangling from his throat pulled out Leng’s heavy chair. Leng gazed at the nobility standing in his honor. Only dull-eyed Sir Durren was taller.
It was hard to tell at this distance, but Gavin swore that a smile twitched across that lean, remote face.
At last, Leng deigned to sit.
“Be seated!” bellowed the heralds.
There was a great shuffling and clattering as the throng sat.
In a loud voice, Kergan asked, “Where is my cousin the baron?”
Leng raised dark eyebrows.
Kergan waited for an answer and then he flushed. He didn’t look as he had in the swamps. The big seneschal wore white garments, a golden chain, with his face scrubbed, and his white hair carefully combed.
Leng raised a long-fingered hand. Drums rolled.
From the same door he had entered now came a hunchbacked jailer in leathers. The jailer held a leash that snaked to an iron collar. Within the collar was the dirty neck of a hungry-looking woman. Her filthy clothes, disarranged and rather short hair and haunted eyes gave her a mad appearance. The jailer shuffled in what seemed like a foot-hurting gait but the tethered woman strode with an elegance that made a mockery of her attire.
Gavin snapped his fingers for Cuthred and then snapped again. He turned around. Cuthred gazed in shock at the girl, as did everyone else in the Great Hall.
The drum roll ceased. Into the silence rushed the whispered comments of a hundred folk.
“Witch!” said Leng in a commanding voice. “You come to the baron’s feast. Is it to beg forgiveness?”
The chained woman’s chin trembled, but she raised it defiantly.
“She is a proud witch,” said Leng. “You will sit at the end of our table, proud witch.”
The chained woman scanned the throng. Her eyes met Gavin’s eyes.
He sucked in his breath. It wasn’t her beauty. Vivian easily outshone her. But those eyes, he had seen eyes like that in Muscovy, in the winter forests. She had the eyes of a doomed slave in the neck-chains of a sorcerer. Gavin lurched to his feet.
Hundreds of garments rustled. The buzz of whispering rose.
Leng motioned the heralds. “There will be silence!” they bellowed.
“Sit down, Sir Knight,” ordered Leng.
Gavin’s heart hammered. His mouth was dry. This was an evil place, vile. How had he not felt it before? He had to free this girl and flee hard and fast.
“I am a guest,” Gavin said loudly, glad that his words didn’t stumble over each other. Vivian tugged his sleeve, but he ignored her. “As a traveler I have heard of the baron’s grace. Thus it surprises me to see this young woman treated so villainously.”
“Aye!” shouted someone from the balcony.
Leng’s smooth, bored features remained placid. “Who brought this churlish knight to the feast?”
“I did,” said Kergan.
“You?” asked Leng.
Kergan squirmed. “‘Tis a matter of honor.”
With his eyebrows lifted, Leng regarded Gavin anew. “Why is the baron’s dog boy in his company?”
“That is the matter of honor,” said Kergan. “There is to be a joust tomorrow. I have given my word.”
“Sit down, Sir Knight,” said Leng.
“Milord, what of the woman?” asked Gavin.
The buzz of whispering began anew. Leng held up his thin hand. When the noise had lessened, he said, “She is a witch.”
Gavin licked his lips. This was a deadly game. He could accomplish nothing arguing. Yet he stared into those haunted eyes. Something wrenched at his heart.
“Sir Knight,” said Leng.
Hugo rose, saying, “He is Sir Gavin of Ulm, a knight-errant in search of worthy foes.” That said, Hugo quickly resumed his seat.
“I find you wearisome, sir,” said Leng.
“Who judged this woman a witch?” shouted Gavin.
“Seize him,” said Leng.
“No!” bellowed Kergan, standing. “I said he is my guest. I will joust with him tomorrow and make him eat his proud words. Thus he is protected by guest-rights.”
“And after said joust,” Gavin added, “I will champion the lady and prove this base charge of witchery false.”
Leng pursed his lips. Then he laughed. “So be it. Tomorrow you will joust. Now will you sit, Sir Knight?”
Gavin looked to the woman. She nodded. He sat, trying not to tremble.
“You fool!” Vivian hissed into his ear.
Gavin couldn’t reply.
“Do you love her?”
“No,” he said hoarsely.
Leng’s loud voice demanded their attention. “You’ve yet to answer me, witch.”
“I am not a witch,” said the prisoner.
“Ah. So you’re not too proud to speak to the likes of us. Good, good,” said Leng. “Will you join the feast?”
“You’ve starved…”
As Leng scowled, her voice faltered and her shoulders slumped. Her next words were too quiet for Gavin to hear, but he watched the jailer shuffle to the end of the table. The chained woman sat on a stool, and shoveled bread and gulped water.
“What’s her name?” Gavin demanded of Cuthred.
“Swan, milord,” said the dog boy. “Her father was the baron’s liegeman, at least before he died.”
“Why has she been accused of witchery? What did she do?”
Cuthred bent his head in thought and soon lifted his palms.
“Why does Leng hate her?” asked Vivian, who had half-turned from Gavin.
“Swan accused of him sorcery,” said Cuthred.
“What?” Gavin spat, his eyes narrowing. “Leng is a sorcerer?”
Cuthred shook his head. “He is a scholar, milord. At least that’s what the baron said. Baron Barthek told us that only backwoods yokels equate knowledge with sorcery. The baron took it ill that such a noted scholar as Leng should be accused of black magic.”
Gavin scowled, telling himself he had to think, to use his wits. “What kind of scholar is he?”
Cuthred frowned. “He reads books, milord, and studies charts.”
“Is he from here?”
“Oh no, milord, he’s a foreigner.”
“From where?” Gavin said, “what land?”
“From overseas, milord.”
“Why should the maid name him a sorcerer?” asked Hugo. “What act did this Leng do to brand himself so in her eyes?”
Cuthred crunched his eyebrows, before he nodded, saying, “He and the baron began to spend long hours in the dungeons. People said they dug in the deepest vaults.”
“For what did they dig?” asked Gavin.
Cuthred shrugged.
“Did Swan give any proofs for her charge?” asked Vivian.
“Oh yes, milady. She said that the baron grew thinner, which indeed is true. People say that he seldom sleeps. The baron walks the halls at night muttering, angry if anyone interrupts him. Swan said that was due to the practice of Leng’s arts.”
“How is she a witch?” asked Gavin. “What did she do?”
Cuthred grew uneasy, glancing around. “People say she has visions.”
“Witches don’t have visions,” growled Hugo, “but seers touched by Hosar.”
Gavin nodded as he picked up his chalice. He paused, and he sniffed the cup. “Don’t drink the wine,” he said, setting down his cup with a thump. “I want everyone sober.”
Vivian appeared amused. “For such a hardy knight you’re easily upset.”
“Do you think yonder girl is a witch?”
“She’s bewitched you.”
“Oh, oh,” muttered Hugo, “now what?”
Sir Durren rose from his chair, and in a lumbering stride, he approached them. People grew silent as the big knight neared their table.
Gavin scraped back his chair, standing and bowing. “To what do I owe this pleasure, sir?”
“You and I will trade places,” grunted Sir Durren.
“Is this your request, sir?”
The massive knight jerked a thumb over his sloping shoulder. “Leng wants to talk to you.”
“Ah,” Gavin said, “as you wish. May I first introduce to you the Lady Vivian and to my squire, Hugo.”
Sir Durren grunted, ignoring the one-eyed squire but nodding to Vivian as he sat down.
With his gut knotted, Gavin strode to the head table.
Leng studied his approach, and he said in a loud voice, “Who allowed this knight to wear a sword?”
“My grace,” Gavin said, his smile easy, “I donned it in honor of your baron. It has a gaudy blade, true enough, but the hilt as you see is encrusted with gems. If I have outshone your own knights by wearing it I apologize most profusely.”
“You have outshone no one,” growled Kergan, who hunched over his wine cup, with his face flushed.
“Ah,” Gavin said with a bow, “I beg your pardon, sir.”
Leng’s dark eyes seemed to glitter. “Have a seat, sir.”
“Thank you, milord, you are most gracious.” As Gavin sat, he eyed Swan at the end of the table. “Is the bread to your taste, milady?”
She hesitated, with a torn piece halfway to her mouth.
“You are not to speak to her,” said Leng. “She is a witch, and I do not wish for her to bewitch you any more than she already has.”
“A witch,” Gavin said. “Is that why you do not provide her with soap, milord?”
“You are a bold cockerel,” said Leng.
“Some say a fool of a knight,” replied Gavin.
“A great fool,” said Leng. “I notice that your lady is charming indeed, yet you arise to defend this bedraggled witch.”
“His lady is a harlot,” said Kergan. The white-haired seneschal grinned, with his lips stained with wine. “He picked her up in Glendover’s Street of Harlots.”
Gavin was amazed to see Leng blush. Was the man really a sorcerer?
“You have a rash tongue, Sir Kergan,” said Leng. “Have you no fear of this knight?”
“Sir Kergan but jests, milord,” Gavin said.
“Jests?” said Kergan. He lifted his chalice, draining it, banging it onto the table. “I make no jests. I speak the truth and dare any to gainsay me.”
Leng stiffened, and he turned to Gavin with a dour twist of his lips. “Your companion is a harlot?”
“No more than yonder maid is a witch.”
Leng’s long face became even more remote. “You have dishonored my baron by bringing a harlot to the feast.”
Gavin laid his hands flat on the table. Without glancing at Leng and while keeping his voice even, he said, “You are a scholar, are you not?”
“A scholar of antiquities,” said Leng.
“Are you also a man of honor?”
Several nobles hissed in outrage.
Gavin stared into Leng’s dark eyes. “Are you a man of honor, milord?”
“I could have your tongue ripped out for that.”
“Perhaps, but you have failed to answer my question.”
“There is only one answer to such a question, sir.”
“That is true,” Gavin said, “a duel.”
Those near held their breath. Then the faintest of smiles edged onto Leng’s mouth. “Are you challenging me to a duel?”
“Are you naming my lady a harlot?”
“I am,” said Kergan.
“Tomorrow you will learn the folly of that,” Gavin said.
The white-haired seneschal picked up his chalice but found it empty of wine. He roared for more.
From his high-backed chair, Leng studied Vivian, and he pursed his lips. “As of yet I make no claims about your lady—other than that she is fair of face and quite buxom. I wonder if she might find a scholar’s embrace more favorable than a brash knight’s.”
“I do not wonder,” Gavin said.
Leng’s hint of a smile vanished as Kergan bellowed again for wine. The lean scholar snapped spidery-long fingers.
A man in a cowl and with gloved hands set a leaden pitcher at Leng’s elbow. Gavin noticed that Swan looked up white-faced at the heavily robbed servant, who retreated into the shadows. Gavin wondered what was odd about the servant.
“It is time for darker wine,” said Leng. He took the leaden pitcher and splashed sluggish liquid into his brazen cup.
The prisoner’s head swiveled up to stare upon the chandelier.
Gavin followed her gaze and the knot in his stomach tightened. The light…it seemed… He glanced at a wall torch. A black flicker danced within the otherwise bright flame.
“Red wine for meat, black wine for a dark heart,” chanted Leng.
“Is it getting darker in here?” asked a bejeweled lady.
Gavin found himself sluggish, and he struggled to stare at Leng.
“Drink unto oblivion they say,” muttered the scholar.
With effort, with horror bolstering his will, Gavin picked up his chalice. “I’ll have some,” he said with a thick tongue. He thrust his chalice against the leaden pitcher and knocked it out of Leng’s hand. It fell to the boards with a thump and the dark wine spilled like blood. Greater illumination immediately flooded back into the Great Hall.
Leng turned wondering eyes upon Gavin.
Gavin lurched to his feet, bowing, and he almost ripped out his silver sword to hew the sorcerer in his chair. “I’m so sorry, milord. I am a clumsy oaf. I beg your pardon.”
The hall fell silent. The clatter of sounds died.
“Surely I should leave the hall, milord,” Gavin said. “I have disgraced myself.”
Leng shook his head. “No, sir, it was an accident. I would not think of having you leave. No, you are…pardoned.” Leng’s lips seemed bloodless. “Perhaps however you should return to your table.”
“At once, your grace,” Gavin said, deciding that it was death to kill Leng.
As Gavin approached, Sir Durren rose ponderously, lumbering to his former location.
Hugo gripped an arm, “What happened to the light a moment ago? Did you notice?”
The entire Great Hall seemed to have noticed. Everyone was whispering about it.
The servant with the dark cowl spoke into Leng’s ear, soon sliding back into shadows.
“We should leave this instant,” whispered Hugo.
Before Gavin could agree, Leng rose as bells rang. “I have just been informed that the baron asks that I remind you of an eternal truth. The better, I was told, to prepare you for a surprise.”
The whispering turned into silence.
Leng cleared his throat. “On a dark night in the forest men huddled around a campfire. They did so because they feared the darkness. The fire crackled, throwing its lurid glow upon them. The men in the flame’s light became monstrous to look upon. As wolves howled, these men grimaced in fear. A snapped branch surprised them so their mouths opened wide and they readied themselves to scream. They could not see what hid in the darkness. As a matter of course, they fed the fire with twigs and branches. The fire consumed all. At last, they ran out of wood. The fire died. Darkness held sway once more. Tell me. What had the men gained by the firelight? They had gained nothing but a short respite from the night. Without the wood, they were at the mercy of the night, of the darkness around them. What then should they do?”
“Hunt for more wood,” whispered Hugo.
Gavin grew tense. Everything here felt wrong and evil, about to erupt into something unseen since Muscovy. He was unaware of it, but his hand clutched his blade’s hilt.
“No one can tell me,” said Leng, “because in the firelight men have forgotten the lessons of Darkness.”
“Sorcerer!” shouted Swan, leaping to her feet. “You are a sorcerer.” She appealed to the throng. “Slay him before it is too late.”
“Take her away,” said Leng, gesturing angrily.
The jailer jerked her leash and two men-at-arms hurried to help.
People should have gasped or shouted in outrage. None did.
Gavin almost leaped to his feet, but Hugo held him down. “Not yet,” hissed the one-eyed squire. “Leng has them now. We must wait for our chance.”
Gavin eyed the throng. They hung on Leng’s words, the same words which brought nothing but loathing to him. He suspected a spell.
“They’ve been in the castle longer than we have,” whispered Hugo.
“Why should that matter?” whispered Vivian.
“There’s foul sorcery afoot this night,” whispered Hugo.
The jailer and men-at-arms dragged the weeping Swan out of the Great Hall.
Leng raised his voice. “The lessons of Darkness are hard. Yet they are the fountains of wisdom. For Darkness and Night are the twin natures of life. They lead to the true path.”
Leng lifted his left hand, holding the leaden pitcher. He shouted loud words, eerie words, sounds that seemed to rip the air and make their eyes blur and well with tears. Leng lifted his right hand. A woman screamed. Others cried out in terror. The impossible occurred. The flames flickering upon the wall-torches detached themselves from the pitch-smeared ends. The flames cackled and blazed separate from their torch. Each fire leaped over the heads of the wide-eyed, horror-stricken crowd. They leaped like storybook balls of balefire and into Leng’s open right hand. Each addition fed the blaze in the scholar’s palm. Sweat slid down his face. He shouted. The chandelier darkened as its flames also fed the fire in his hand. With a great cry, he stuffed his hand and the blazing fireball into the leaden pitcher. He shoved and pushed. And in that instant, the tears cleared from everyone’s eyes. The blurriness left their vision. They saw with dreadful clarity each torch, each crystalline shard of the chandler flicker out as if doused with water or strange wine, throwing the Great Hall into blinding darkness.
The screams ratcheted in volume.
Above them Leng roared, “Father!”
The darkness became blackness, until it became physical. The chandelier rattled. Plates cracked.
Vivian clung to Gavin. Around them people jumped up in terror. They tripped and bumped against each other. A presence, a vast and brooding monster seemed to descend upon the Great Hall.
“Old Father Night!” howled Leng. “Come and show us your path!”
Gavin wanted to roar, but his throat had locked. Old Father Night was an ancient and dreadful god. Only in Novgorod and Muscovy did they worship the grisly master of the lords and ladies of Darkness and Eternal Night.
“What once was lost has now been found!” howled Leng. “The old and faithful servant awakens! He will stalk the world once more! Guide us, Master! Give us victory over your pale foes! Strengthen your servant so he may devour the land as night devours day. Abase us, Lord Master! Twist us into the creatures of Night!”
A loud and ominous creak sounded. The screaming feasters fell silent, wondering perhaps what thing from the Horde of the Damned had come up this night from the depths of the Earth.
Gavin couldn’t master his terror any better than the others could. A dark light, a green nimbus filled with evil, appeared. The evil green light glowed from a sickly-green amulet upon a man’s vestment. The evil light glowed on the man’s face. It showed foam-flecked lips and staring, almost unseeing eyes.
“The baron!” screamed a woman.
The baron laughed obscenely, his cowl thrown back. Had he been the servant who had given Leng the leaden pitcher? Behind the baron, in the evil glow, appeared bestial, hairy creatures. Following them came lurching men with long blank faces.
“I see Sir Rudel!” cried a man.
“And the pitch traders!” shouted another.
Gavin moaned. Darkspawn. The worst horrors of Muscovy were upon them.
CHAPTER FIVE
The squire with the silver chain, the one who had pulled out Leng’s heavy chair, now lifted that chair above his head. The straining squire shouted wildly and brought the chair crashing upon the head of a rubbery-limbed man in the baron’s train. That one went down in a heap, and everyone in the Great Hall, both feasters and darkspawn, seemed for that instant frozen.
Then, in the hellish green light of the baron’s amulet, the rubbery-limbed man swept away the wreckage of the chair and rose. His half-crushed forehead dripped blood into eyes crazily askew. With long arms, he reached for the stunned, silver-chained squire. With manic strength, he spun the youth, throttling the squire with his own silver chain. The youth’s face turned a bloody shade of red and then purple. His eyes bulged and his hands clawed at the chain wrapped around his throat.
A woman sobbed, and that seemed to be the signal.
Furry, fanged creatures with clawed hands and bestial snouts shot past the baron and leaped upon the startled lords and ladies of Forador Fief. The beasts, the clawmen, seemed smaller than the knights who rose up to meet them, but they had the agility of apes and the strength of wild predators. A vicious swipe of a clawed hand left red ruin where a moment ago had been Lady Wilma’s eyes. Sir Durren the Strong tumbled backward as a clawman careened upon him, snapping, snarling and tearing at the costly garments. Sir Kergan fared better, at least in the initial rush. With a drunken roar, he smashed his chalice into the teeth of a clawman, breaking the fangs and sending the shards rattling across the floor.
The rubbery-limbed men—they were terribly gaunt and much stronger than they appeared—grabbed men and women with equal indifference, bringing them to the baron. The baron touched them. The green glow of his amulet snaked to his shoulder, down his arm and to his hand and into the person. Only then did the gaunt release his victim. Blind Lady Wilma no longer screamed, but as the evil green glow sank into her face, she fell twitching onto the floor.
Pandemonium erupted. The knights and retainers fought with chairs and table knifes, but most of the good folk stumbled away screaming from the swarming, leaping clawmen and lurching gaunts.
“Gavin!” shouted Vivian, swept away by stumbling people.
All around Gavin people moaned and wailed as if in the pits of the netherworld. Some blundered blindly in the dark, crashing against others. Then a new note alerted Gavin. It was a wicked snarl and claws scratching against the floor. Remembering grim lessons from Novgorod’s winter forests, Gavin drew his silver sword and thrust into the darkness. A ghastly howl assaulted his ears. Gavin shouted his battle cry as he shoved forward, twisting the blade. Talons slashed his cheeks. He ripped the blade upward. The howl changed to a whimper.
“To me!” roared Gavin. “We must make a fighting circle!”
A man crashed into him from behind. Gavin pitched forward onto the floor, although he kept hold of his sword. People buffeted him. Someone stepped on his hand.
“Let chaos rule!” howled Leng. “Let Old Father Night walk among us!”
Gavin reached up to a table and clutched what felt like a candleholder. Hot wax dripped onto his hand. Yet how was that possible if the wick no longer burned? He knocked aside the candleholder and the black flame scorched his skin. With a shout, he was on his feet, and no matter how hard he strained he couldn’t see the candle’s flicker.
In this supernatural blackness, but for the baron’s hellish green nimbus, running people overturned a table. Plates and forks shattered or clattered upon the floor. Wine pitchers smashed into splinters. A shard stung Gavin’s cheek. The thud of shoes and boots upon the floorboards made a terrible sound, as did the many shrill cries of trampled people. Then a louder sound, an ominous wood-like groan told of another tragedy. A balcony broke in a thunderous crash. Screams and horrified shouts mingled with moans and the meaty thuds of mangled bodies.
“Help me! Help me!” cried a man.
“Feast Old Father Night!” howled Leng. “Grant us your promised gifts of power!”
Bile rose in Gavin’s throat. To his horror he saw his silent mule-boy spring at the baron. Although he never spoke, the lad always went to the heart of a matter. How the lad had managed to slip past the hunting clawmen and gaunts was a mystery. Despite that, with a dagger in his fist he sprang at the baron. A gaunt intercepted him, and the baron reached out and touched the mule-boy on the head as if blessing him. Green passed from the hand, and the mule-boy screamed as his eyes shone that evil color.
“Make way! Make way!” shouted Gavin.
Three clawmen pulled down Sir Durren, although the knight managed to get his massive hands onto the head of one of them. Sir Durren the Strong twisted savagely. Bones cracked. The clawman yelped and his fanged head faced backward as he died.
Sir Kergan was no longer in sight. Most knights and retainers were down. Gaunts picked up screaming, thrashing people. They brought them to the baron for his dark blessing.
This was just like Muscovy, Gavin realized. To stay was to die. His stomach heaved. He wanted to retch. He loathed the taste of fear in his mouth.
“We must flee,” Hugo said.
It was the first Gavin knew his squire was with him.
“What of Vivian,” Gavin said, “and Joanna and my boy?”
Hugo clutched Gavin’s triceps. “You can do nothing for Vivian now or for your boy. Once free, though…”
A lie, Gavin knew. Yet the lie was enough to give him hope. He turned from the baron and thrust his sword. When he met resistance, he hewed. Twice a man cried in mortal agony, once a darkspawn roared. Anyone who didn’t escape tonight was lost. That was a cruel lesson from Muscovy. Gavin felt along a wall until he came to a door. A thing howled at their heels. He pulled Hugo after him and slammed the door. Something heavy smashed against it. Claws scratched at the wood from the other side.
“Let me in,” demanded the beast.
Gavin dropped the bar. “Go,” he whispered to Hugo.
They stumbled down stairs, going down, down, twisting, turning.
“We’re headed into the dungeons,” Hugo said in a barely recognizable voice.
The hair stood on the back of Gavin’s neck. His sword arm quivered. Blood dripped from the slashes on his cheek. Twice he crashed into a wall.
“Wait,” Gavin whispered. “What’s that?”
They held their breath. The background screams had dwindled, enough so they heard a drop plunk into a puddle. It was cooler down here, damper.
“What did you hear?” asked Hugo.
“I thought—we need light.”
“I grabbed a torch off a wall,” Hugo said.
“Does it yet burn?”
“What?” Hugo said, “of course not. We would have light then.”
Gavin had no desire to explain about the sorcerer’s spell. “Do you think you can light it?”
Hugo released the end of Gavin’s shirt. Metal rattled. Then sparks lit the darkness. The sparks seemed brilliant, each a mote of hope. More sparks flew as Hugo struck his dinner knife against the piece of flint. A spark hissed against the pitch smeared on the torch. The hiss grew into fire, and the dreadful gloom retreated as they stood in a circle of light.
A long, forbidding corridor of stone stretched in both directions. Heavy wooden doors to tiny cells stood ajar. The stench made Gavin wince.
“They made the darkspawn here,” whispered Hugo.
Gavin bent his head. There was that sound again.
Hugo’s eye widened. “Someone sings. Go that way,” he said, pointing the torch.
Her voice was faint and the words…sweet and innocent. Some of Gavin’s fear drained away.
Hugo hurried. A turn, a twist, three steps down, another turn, then a wild shout startled them as a spear-point thrust out of the darkness. Hugo tried to parry with the torch. It spun out of his hand as a razor-sharp point sliced into his forearm. Then the silver sword found the jailer’s throat. The man gurgled and died.
Hugo pulled out a cloth and bound the wound.
“Who’s there?” asked a woman.
Gavin picked up the torch and thrust it at a heavy dungeon door. White fingers gripped rusty bars.
“It is I, milady; the knight from the feast.”
“Praise Hosar,” said she.
“Here are keys,” Hugo said, yanking them off the corpse. He turned the heavy lock and forced open the door.
The woman staggered into Gavin’s arms, weeping.
“We must flee,” he told her, stroking her trembling back.
“The slaughter has begun?” she whispered.
“They make darkspawn, milady.”
She pulled away, wiping her compelling eyes. She wasn’t pretty. Her pale skin and hacked short black hair, no, not pretty, but there was something about her… “I know of a way out of here,” she said.
“A secret passage?” asked Gavin.
“We must hurry,” she said. “Soon they will be finished upstairs. Then they will come looking for us. We must be gone by then.”
He took her hand and followed her into the darkness.
CHAPTER SIX
“Gavin,” a woman wept in the darkness. “Oh Gavin, you must save me.”
That sounded like Vivian, the beautiful woman. Cuthred the dog boy, who hid under a table, screwed up his courage and crawled over shattered plates, forks and sticky blood. Vivian screamed as he touched her, but no one noticed. Too many people screamed amidst groans of agony, howls of despair and bestial cries of joy.
“It is Cuthred the dog boy, milady.”
Vivian’s fingers dug into his flesh and he guided her to his hiding spot under a table. Holding up the tablecloth that draped over them, he studied the hall.
A magical light appeared. A red flame flickered in the palm of Leng’s thin hand. The sorcerer’s long face appeared evilly cunning. The flame also revealed ghastly scenes of clawmen feeding, snarling, quarreling and yanking out bloody entrails. Leng ignored the beasts as he strode about the Great Hall, thrusting his fiery hand at people. Some screamed anew. Others sobbed and plucked at his robes. Those he struck so they crawled away.
“Hold me, Cuthred. Save me.”
He dropped the tablecloth and held Vivian as they shivered under the table.
“Are we going to die?” she whimpered into his ear.
He thought so, but said, “I don’t know.”
She wept pitifully.
He licked dry lips, lifted the tablecloth and wondered how to escape. Leng shuffled from huddled masses to stretched-out corpses, searching, while the baron touched more folk.
“We must leave,” he said.
“No,” pleaded Vivian. “Let us hide here.”
“Leng!” shouted a man, “Leng, save me!”
Cuthred knew the voice. Sir Kergan crawled on hands and knees over the corpse of his man-at-arms, the one who had stood with him in the swamps. Sir Kergan’s florid face had a gash across his nose, dripping blood. He clutched daggers.
A terrible smile stretched Leng’s lips. He strode briskly and thrust his flame near Kergan’s face so the big knight flinched. At the same instant, a clawman leaped upon the seneschal as a knight sometimes does a stallion. Kergan roared, twisting, plunging his daggers into the hairy chest.
“Stand,” said Leng, as if the incident hadn’t occurred.
Kergan gaped at the sorcerer. Then the big knight scrambled to his feet.
“Hold my hand,” said Leng.
“Your hand?” asked Kergan. He stared at the fiery palm.
“My other hand, you dolt.”
Kergan took Leng’s proffered hand, asking, “You’ll protect me?”
“Of course,” said Leng. “Now shut up and follow me.”
It was now or never, Cuthred decided. He crawled from under the table, drawing a reluctant Vivian with him. A shuffle gave him a second’s warning. Then arms like steel bands squeezed the breath from him. The violence of the squeeze and that his arms were pinned left him defenseless. Cuthred’s ribs grated as his vision blurred. He was only half-aware that Vivian desperately pried at the thing’s arms.
A chuckle greeted her efforts.
“Let him live,” Leng told the gaunt. “You, woman, step by me if you value your life.”
With her cheeks wet with tears, Vivian stepped into the evil red light.
“Such beauty,” Leng said approvingly.
“She’s a harlot,” growled Kergan.
Leng’s eyes narrowed. “You would do well to keep silent, sir.”
Kergan blushed, and his knife-hand twitched.
“Take the seneschal’s hand, woman. Perhaps you may be of use to me.”
“Wh-what about the dog boy?” Vivian dared ask.
Leng spoke in an alien tongue.
The gaunt turned a gasping Cuthred toward him. Leng passed two fingers before Cuthred’s face. A red image like a club flickered upon the dog boy’s forehead.
“Ah,” said Leng.
Vivian gaped stupidly as the image faded from view.
“Hold the seneschal’s hand,” Leng ordered.
As something snarled behind her Vivian hurried to obey. Sir Kergan thrust his dagger in his belt, and then he wrapped his huge hand around hers, the skin calloused so it felt like old leather.
Leng spoke again in that evil language. The gaunt holding Cuthred followed as they wound past overturned tables and bleeding bodies and toward the baron.
“Why there?” Kergan asked nervously.
“Silence!” hissed Leng. He made a fist with his flame-hand, and the flame winked out.
They entered the circle of the baron’s evil glow. The flesh sagged on the baron’s face so he hardly seemed human, and his clothes draped upon him loosely. His glowing hand looked skeletal, the veins like old twine. A mass of people writhed on the floor behind him, all those he had touched.
“Master,” said Leng, bowing low.
With green glowing hand outstretched, the baron lurched toward the sorcerer.
Leng leapt away nimbly, crying, “Master. May I not serve you better as a sorcerer of Darkness?”
The baron took another heavy step.
“Old Father Night!” howled Leng, speaking upward. “Save me.”
The darkness above seemed to congeal, until an icy chill like that of an open tomb swirled within the Great Hall. The baron paused. For the first time he seemed to consider Leng. As if rusted, his lips moved and a dead voice droned out of him, “Worm, onto your belly.”
Leng threw himself down.
The baron worked his lips a second time. “I am almost… almost… alive.”
“What is your will?” said Leng, groveling.
The baron seemed confused. “You are a slave?”
“I am your slave, Master.”
“I… grow weary.”
“May I speak, Master?”
“Speak,” droned the baron.
Leng raised himself to his knees and with a sweep of his hand indicated Kergan. “That one is powerful and filled with hate, Master. He would make a mighty vessel. Surely better than the flesh you presently wear; and much better than my ancient bones.”
“Bring him near,” droned the baron.
Leng rose and motioned to an increasingly worried Kergan.
“Come,” said the baron. “Show yourself to me.”
Kergan roared, “Treachery!” and charged Leng. The sorcerer made a clever move, dropping to one knee, ducking low. The massive seneschal flew over him and sprawled onto the floor, his knife clattering into the darkness.
The baron swiveled and let his boot fall in Kergan’s direction. Kergan scrambled to his knees, his face eerily pale. Perhaps he sensed his horrible fate. The baron reached out. Crab-like, Kergan scuttled against an overturned table. The baron’s glowing hand swung nearer. Kergan slithered back, pushing the heavy table.
“No, no,” Kergan shouted. “Stay away!”
In his strange, puppet-fashion and with his boot buckles clinking, the baron drew closer, closer. Kergan leaped upright as the baron’s skeletal hand clamped upon his massive shoulder.
“WORM, I CHOOSE THEE!”
Kergan threw back his head, howling, while the evil glow in the baron’s amulet blazed with infernal fire, cocooning them in a nimbus of unholy union. Ever so slowly, with his left hand, the baron slipped the amulet’s chain from his scrawny neck and put it over Kergan’s bull-like one. When the skeletal hand released the golden chain, the baron collapsed in a rattle of bones and whispery dry flesh. The amulet thumped against Kergan’s chest and caused him to stagger backward. His screaming quit on the instant. To Cuthred, Kergan looked dreadful. His eyes couldn’t focus nor could his legs or arms obey normal commands. Kergan blundered first one way and then another, his arms spasmodically jerking. Finally, intelligence entered his bloodshot eyes. Kergan faced them, fingered his torso in what seemed an obscene way. He fondled his neck and face and then touched his mouth. Perhaps finding what he searched for, he dropped his arms and smiled evilly.
“Yes. Better,” said Kergan, “much better.”
“Master,” said Leng, groveling. “What is your wish?”
Kergan, or what had once been Kergan, eyed the dark hall. “Too much bloodshed, not enough,” he pronounced a strange word.
“Your plan has changed, Master?” asked Leng.
Kergan glanced at Cuthred. “Ah…I need more like him.”
“Indeed,” said Leng.
Kergan spoke. The gaunt stepped forth. Horrified, Cuthred squirmed harder than ever. Pale green light slithered from the amulet and to Kergan’s massive shoulder, down his thick arm and to his ham-like hand. He touched Cuthred, passing the evil witch-green glow into him. Cuthred’s eyelids fluttered as something gross and awful wrenched at his soul. Then he passed out and fell twitching to the floor.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Guilt gnawed Gavin as he parted reeds and splashed through the slime of a midnight-colored bog. His chest heaved. Clawing branches scratched his face and hidden roots tangled his feet. Like a coward, he had fled the castle. Vivian, Joanna, the mule-boy… He was supposed to be their strong right arm, their knight and protector. Instead, he had run like a rabbit. He had sacrificed the others to save his own worthless hide.
Gavin hung his head. Strength drained away. He staggered a few more steps, thrust his sword into the muddy water and leaned his forearm against a mossy trunk. Something winged overhead, an owl or bat perhaps. Frog-croaks ceased, as did insect buzzing. Behind him, Hugo and Swan breathed heavily. Gavin squeezed his fist as hard as he could. He hated this fear. He dreaded becoming an evil, slobbering clawman or a dead-eyed gaunt. His stomach heaved. He had to get out of here, off this wretched island.
Mud slopped. An old and callused hand touched his shoulder. Gavin barely had enough control of himself left not to yell in surprise.
“We’ve got to keep moving,” panted Hugo.
“Tarry a moment,” said Swan, wheezing.
Gavin glanced at the girl. He couldn’t understand why she wasn’t a gibbering wreck. Months locked in a subterranean cell amid such horror. If left him empty thinking about what she had endured. Her oval face was difficult to make out in the starlight. It was dungeon-white but no longer filthy, as she had splashed it in a pool. Her long months of confinement hadn’t prepared her for a night march in the swamp, yet she had never once complained. Her eyes seemed only a little less haunted than before. Yet for all that, she had a powerful presence, almost a calming presence. Gavin found it…hard to accept.
The stars glittered through the breaks in the hunched trees. A cold wind moaned in a lost soul way. Branches creaked.
Gavin felt a strange need to confess his actions to her. “I ran out on my friends.”
She waded closer, staring at him.
“I ran,” he said. “I was afraid.”
“Everyone but you fell into the baron’s trap,” she said. “You also saved Hugo and me. No one else did so much.”
“Vivian, Joanna and the mule-boy…they were my responsibility.”
She nodded. “True, so now you must save them.”
Gavin blinked at her, and the fear returned in a wave.
“I don’t mean tonight,” she said. “That’s impossible. But you—we—must devise a method of rescue.”
“You can’t defeat such creatures.”
“You did tonight. You slew several. Hugo told me he saw others kill darkspawn.”
“We bloodied them. They captured hundreds.”
“They had surprise. Next time we might surprise them.”
“How?” asked Gavin.
“You tell me. You’re the fighting man.”
She was a young girl, barely out of her teens, if that. Yet there was something about her, something of iron, something magnetic, something…
“We don’t have time for self-pity and recrimination,” she said. “A crypt has opened and out of it has a-risen a thing from the grave.”
“From the grave?” asked Hugo, his voice hoarse. He had been wiping Gavin’s sword, scouring with his sleeve any vestiges of mud. A tremor twitched across half his face. The other, stiff half remained steadfast. “How do you know what you say is true?”
Swan spoke solemnly. “I was in the dungeon. There I gained knowledge that will haunt me until I die.”
Hugo wiped away the last speck of mud and handed back the silver sword.
Gavin hefted it. He had slain darkspawn tonight. Her essential logic held. If you could kill one, you could under the right circumstances kill more. Yet the grim lessons of the cold wastes said that the powers of Darkness could always make more darkspawn. The right thing to do was flee, have nothing to do with fighting such creatures. Leng had captured Vivian, Joanna and his mule-boy. Would the sorcerer turn them into darkspawn? The answer was too bitter to answer.
Gavin asked Swan. “Can this…this dead thing be destroyed?”
“I don’t know.”
“Is it immortal?”
She frowned as frogs resumed croaking. “I don’t think so.”
“Mortal or immortal, it’s too powerful for us,” muttered Hugo. “We must escape Erin.”
Trust the squire the state the obvious.
“No!” said Swan.
Her vehemence shocked Gavin, as did the radiance shining in her eyes. What was going on here?
“We must put it down,” she said.
“You intend to fight?” asked Gavin.
“With all my might,” she said. “With everything I have. Yes. I mean to put that thing back in the grave and make sure it stays there forever.”
Gavin grimaced. This girl didn’t know what she was saying.
“You won free from the castle,” she said.
Gavin laughed bleakly.
She clutched his arm. “What could you have done differently this night?”
She had strange eyes, deep and compelling. “I could have ridden on before the feast began and thus saved my people.”
“You couldn’t have known this was going to happen,” she said.
“I felt the evil.”
“I felt it too,” Hugo said.
Swan’s brow creased. Soon she smiled grimly. “Good. That means it isn’t all-powerful. It can’t fully disguise itself. Yes. This gives me hope.”
“Hope?” Gavin said. “There is no hope.”
“There is always hope,” said Swan.
“Not for our friends.”
She pondered that, glanced at Hugo. “What do you think?”
As they had fled through the swamp, Hugo had dropped hints about Novgorod, Muscovy and their ill-fated crusading there.
“I don’t remember the Sword Brothers saying you could save a man after he’s darkspawn,” Hugo said slowly.
“But did they say it was impossible?” she asked.
The old squire shrugged.
“Then we must believe it is possible,” she said. “And if it isn’t… We must warn others. We must raise an army to destroy this evil before it befouls everyone in Erin.”
Gavin laughed.
“You escaped this evening for a reason, Sir Knight. The reason is to destroy this evil. Thus you must vow on your lost comrades to right this wrong.”
The idea of voluntarily fighting darkspawn—it was ridiculous.
Swan dug her fingers into his arm. “You must fight. You must strike back. You must help me kill this thing or Erin is doomed.”
“Milady, if it’s that powerful you need more than a jousting knight.”
“You are more than that,” she said, her voice ringing with conviction.
Gavin turned away. Her eyes, he didn’t like their compelling nature. “I’ll help you escape from here.”
“You must strike back,” she said, with a pleading note, sounding her age then.
“We are striking back,” he said, “by surviving.”
She released his arm.
He felt diminished in her sight, and that troubled him. That’s foolish, he told himself. She’s just a young girl. She’s raving. “I’ll help you to Banfrey. I’ll buy you passage aboard ship to Albion.”
“I accept your help, the part of getting me to Banfrey. The king must hear of this. Yet I ask you to consider my words. You must stop running or you will never conqueror the fears that haunt your life. They are a deep wound and still bled.”
Gavin thrust the silver sword into the scabbard, and he resumed the march, deciding it was the only way to silence her babble.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The nightmare began as a trio of gaunts tore off Cuthred’s clothes and drove him naked down creaking wooden stairs. They prodded him with sharp sticks, their torchlight smoldering upon damp stone corridors. Putrid straw lay strewn in the chosen cell, with beetles scurrying under it as the chief gaunt snapped a manacle onto Cuthred’s ankle. Then the gaunts stepped back, regarding him with ghoulish hunger as drool dripped from their cavernous maws. Reluctantly, with cannibal lusts unfulfilled, they shuffled out and slammed the cell door behind them.
The tormenting hate began the next night as hunger drove Cuthred to crunching the rancid beetles between his teeth. The cold, fear and his aching bones, and the evil worming into his thoughts, made his head beat with pain. He recalled a thousand insults, a thousand sneers and hurts. It hadn’t only been Kergan. The castle bullies had picked on him. Oh, yes, indeed, all the slurs, all the boot-kickings, the pummeling fists and the laughter at his expense, all the things he had endured year after year bubbled in his acute reexamination. He seldom slept. When he did, he dreamed of rapine, bloodshed and sacrificing goats on dark altars. He awoke drenched in sweat, shivering and terrified.
“Why are you doing this to me?” he shouted into the blackness. “Why am I down here? What have I done wrong?”
No one answered. In the eternal dark, no one cared.
Then one day, or night, he knew not which, torchlight proceeded jailers. A key turned in the lock. The door grated open, and he cowered before the light. Two shambling things in the shape of men dragged a mewling, spitting boy into the cell. They snapped fetters to the boy’s wrists. A third man-thing thumped a raw and bloody haunch of horsemeat before Cuthred, along with a huge water-skin. Then the clawmen retreated, taking their hateful light with them.
Ravenous, Cuthred fell upon the meat. Nor did he consider his prodigious appetite unusual. He ate the entire haunch, his belly-skin stretching beyond anything human. Sleep soon overtook him.
In blurring time, the manacle chafed against his skin, rubbing it raw. He fingered his ankle. It didn’t seem swollen. It was impossible the manacle had grown smaller. He didn’t understand. The jailers returned, tossing him more bloody haunches and giving him new water-skins. The boy, hairy now from crown to heel like a panther, gained a modicum of freedom when they unlocked one of his fetters. He too was given raw meat, although not nearly as much as Cuthred.
Then came the day Leng entered the cell. He wore a long black robe with a golden symbol. At a gesture, fish-eyed gaunts approached Cuthred so he cowered. They snapped a new and bigger manacle to his other ankle. Then they sprung the first restraint; it fairly popped off his swollen flesh.
Torchlight flickered across the boy, the one who had never spoken no matter how many times Cuthred had pleaded with him. The boy had grown considerably since last time. His arms and legs had elongated and become lean. His fingernails were claw-like. Worst of all, his mouth protruded in a lion-like manner.
Cuthred fingered his own mouth. It seemed as before. Despite his horrible situation, he thanked… He wrinkled his brow. Once he had called upon the Lord of Light. He shuddered, dreading thinking about that blazing-eyed one who scorched and burned his foes. Cuthred thanked…fate. Yes, thanks be to fate that no change had occurred to him.
In the cackling torchlight, Leng eyed him coldly. “Are you lonely, dog boy?”
Cuthred forced out words, having to concentrate to speak. “Yes,” he said, in a voice deeper than he remembered. The ache of loneliness tormented him. He actually felt thankful for Leng being here.
“I see that you retain too much humanity,” Leng said ominously.
Cuthred didn’t understand.
Leng turned, gesturing. Shambling creatures with wolfish snouts entered the cell. They held heavy clubs.
“Beat him,” said Leng.
Cuthred howled in despair as the clubs fell. He cowered, throwing up his arms. Mercilessly, the clubs thudded upon him. Bones cracked. Blood flowed. When they left, heavy haunches of beef lay around him.
He dreamed of revenge, of a day he would take each clawman and twist off his head. He dreamed of Leng, smashing him against a tree. He wanted to even the score with his tormenters. The chance never came. Instead, they returned and beat him senseless anew. Sometimes the clubs fell on his head. His thoughts grew less each time, more jumbled.
Finally, one dark night after the club-wielders shuffled away, the boy growled in a hideous way, “Why do they beat you?”
Cuthred took a long time answering. The manacle chafed again and the cell seemed smaller than before. Endless darkness and beatings must have warped his thoughts. Then even that much sanity fled as he felt his aches. He roared at the boy, staining against his chains as he tried to reach him. Rend, destroy and beat to death. That’s all he wanted to do, with all his strength.
“Do you hate me?” growled the boy.
“I hate everyone!” roared Cuthred.
“Me too,” growled the boy.
That stilled Cuthred’s ravings. “Who…” The words came hard. His head hurt at such concentration. “Who do you hate the most?”
“Sir Gavin the traitor.”
Cuthred only vaguely recalled the knight. He had no idea how much time had passed, only that the days of Cuthred the dog boy seemed like a lost world, a time he could only recall as faint dreams.
***
The sound of approaching footsteps woke Cuthred. Torchlight flickered outside the cell. He cowered, and he wet himself like a frightened hound. The lock rattled. Leng stepped within. Behind him came clawmen with snouts and heavy shoulders. They resembled the boy chained to the wall. Only they had nothing majestic about them, only baseless mockery of things that had once been human.
The boy, however, had lean limbs like a panther. Where the bestial creatures had hands with wolf-like nails, the boy had true claws. He snarled in a feral manner as they poked him with torches, singeing fur. Like a jungle cat, his claws flickered in and out of skin-sheathes. The tormenters stayed out of range of his feet—one quick kick with those could disembowel any one of them.
“You are almost a fravashi,” Leng said approvingly. “Soon the Master can use you.” The sorcerer faced Cuthred. “Hold out your arms.”
Trembling, Cuthred did as bidden. Reluctantly, two clawmen approached. They snapped heavy cuffs onto his wrists. Only then did the other clawmen shuffle near. Three grasped each chain. Another bent low and unlocked the painful manacle, which flew off his ankle. Cuthred trembled at this freedom and almost attacked them.
“If you’re good,” said Leng, “we’ll take you outside.”
“Outside?” rumbled Cuthred.
“Out of the dungeon in which you were born,” said Leng.
Cuthred rose slowly, and crouched low indeed, so he didn’t bump his head on the ceiling. He hadn’t recalled the cell being so small before. He had to crawl out the door, turning sideways. Claustrophobia gripped him in the narrow confines of the corridors. Then he half-slithered up the creaking stairs and squeezed through another door. He stood upright for the first time in a long time, seeing that he stood in the Great Hall. It had changed since…since then. A huge stone altar stood in the center of the Great Hall. Blood smells lingered, and a horrible presence filled this place.
Cuthred shook with fear.
Thankfully, they took him outside, under the light of bright stars. Strange smells filled him with wonder. He sniffed carefully, naming to himself charcoal, worked metals and animal smells. Hammers rang incessantly, hooves clopped as wheels and gears groaned. Even more strangely, things stood motionless in the darkness. Ranks upon ranks of them waited silently. They had the stink of death, corpses.
The clawmen led him outside the castle to stand beside a huge hole.
“Jump down,” ordered Leng.
Cuthred frowned as he peered into the deep hole. Something…something was different about him. He sensed it, but he couldn’t quite discern what it was.
“In,” said Leng.
Cuthred studied the small clawmen around him. They shrank back. One, however, dared bare his fangs. With malignant cunning, Cuthred nodded to Leng. The clawmen released the chains. Cuthred snatched the fang-barer. He laughed like a demon and jumped into the hole. The clawman howled. He tried to fight. Cuthred grabbed a furry limb in each hand. He yanked, and with a rip and snapped bones, he tore off both arms. He hurled each bloody limb out of the hole. Then he ripped off the head in a single, savage twist, tossing that out too. Finally, he threw out the twitching body. Only then did it occur to him how small the clawman had been. Once they had been bigger than he was.
Cuthred stared at his bloody hands. They seemed…larger than before.
Leng peered down, waiting, watching.
“What’s happened to me?” Cuthred asked dully.
The sorcerer lips twitched in mockery.
“Am I…” Cuthred struggled with the word. “Am I…different?”
“You stupid oaf,” said Leng. “You’re a giant. You’re more than twice as tall as you were, maybe five times as massive, who knows how much stronger.”
As the meaning came home, Cuthred sank into a corner and moaned. He was a giant, a freak. Then he thought of what he had done to the clawman. Evil delight filled him. He stood and raised his huge arms, shaking his fists at the stars. “A giant!” he roared. “I’m a giant!”
They covered his hole with boards, leaving him in darkness.
***
Scratches at the boards woke Cuthred. A tiny chink in the planks indicated that it was daylight outside. That terrified him. He didn’t want anybody to see him like this.
“Cuthred,” it was a whispered word.
He knew that voice. It brought…longing, a bitter ache that had nothing to do with bodily pain. He concentrated, but that made his eyes water.
“Cuthred, are you there? It’s me, Vivian.”
“Vivian?” he said, dimly recalling soft lips against his ear.
“I heard Leng tell…tell whatever Kergan has become that he placed you outside. Are you all right?”
“Yes,” he said. “…you?”
She gave a bitter laugh. “I’m Leng’s toy, so I know why he lets me remain human. Why does he let you stay human?”
He groaned.
“Cuthred, what’s wrong?”
“Vivian,” he moaned. “Vivian!”
“Shhh, keep your voice down.”
“Vivian,” he said more softly, mournfully. “I’m no longer human.” When there was no reply, he said in panic, “Vivian?”
“Shhh. I’m still here. What do you mean you’re not human? You’re not a clawman, are you?”
“No.”
“You can still talk. Few of them can do that.”
“Few of…of what?” he asked.
“Joanna, she’s— Oh, Cuthred, what have they done to you?”
“I’m a giant.”
“A giant?” she said.
“Big. Strong.”
“Oh, Cuthred, I’m so sorry.”
“Me too,” he said.
“Uh-oh. A patrol of clawmen is coming back. They’ve cleaned out the last swamp dwellers. I have to go. But I’ll be back. And Cuthred?”
“What?”
“Will you help me escape if I help you?”
He heard the desperation. Part of him wanted to lie, that yes, he’d help, only to rip her apart the way he had done the clawman. Yet there was another part of him, a vestige of the old Cuthred.
“I’ll help,” he said dully.
“Good-bye, Cuthred. Don’t forget me.”
“No. Not forget.”
“I’ll come back when I can.”
“Bye Vivian.” But there wasn’t any answer. He sank into the corner and fell into another of his horrible nightmares. The time of vengeance would come. He awaited its arrival with relish.
CHAPTER NINE
“You can let go now,” panted Gavin, his legs trembling with fatigue.
Swan murmured incoherently, her hot breath tickling his ear. Several days ago, fevers had struck her and now she rode his back, with her arms around his neck.
He pried her fingers apart and with Hugo’s help gently set her against a cypress tree, careful to perch her on a humped root, out of the sluggish water. Her head lolled to the side as she began to shiver. Hugo draped the marten cape over her and rubbed her hand.
The moon was a silver sheen, high and mocking. Slime squished in Gavin’s boots and damp garments stuck to his skin. The croaking, chirping, branch-creaking sounds of the swamp seemed never ending.
“We must build a fire,” whispered Hugo. “She’s too cold.”
Gavin collapsed against the mossy bole. He ached all over and his stomach growled for something more than a few berries. If she died… She can’t die. He had lost Vivian, Joanna and the mule boy. The muscles of his jaws bulged. Why couldn’t he just let it be? It had happened. It was over. He couldn’t change that terrible night. He was saving the girl. That had to be good enough. Swan simply didn’t understand the madness of building an army to stop darkspawn. The crusaders in Muscovy had paid with their humanity, their very souls trying to beat back the legions of Darkness. They had been powerful lords with mailed knights and crossbow-armed retainers. They had been. Most were dead now, turned into foul monsters and slain by the Sword Brothers who kept watch in their stone fortresses. Who could this girl recruit but deluded farmers and a few hedge knights? She would never convince this king. He wasn’t even a king, but the ruler of a town and some outlying territory. No. He must escape this doomed island, and—
A premonition touched Gavin as goosebumps pimpled his flesh. The feeling of evil…it tightened his belly. He crawled to Swan, flinging the marten cape to Hugo. Then he clamped a hand over her mouth and dragged Swan into the water behind a huge root. Hugo joined them, the sharpened dinner knife in his fist. Gavin scanned the dark reeds and the trees. There! A splash, a grunt, a groan.
Hugo sucked in his breath as Swan squirmed under Gavin’s grip.
The splashing noises grew, but it was hard to see in the moon’s gleam what went on under those cypress trees yonder. Then dark figures entered a glade of moonlit slime. Three beasts wrestled with a bound man, a big man, corpulent and strong. The fat man’s eyes bulged over his gag and his balding head shone with wetness. Gavin’s stomach clenched. Those weren’t wolves. They were shaggy like wolves and had snouts and white fangs. Yet they were manlike, humanoid, walking upright. They had hands, of sorts, with claws like a wolf, but their bodies were twisted and misshapen. Clawmen.
“They’re taking him to the castle,” whispered Hugo.
The fat man wrenched free an arm. He swung, buffeting a clawman, staggering the beast.
An impulse to help the man surged through Gavin. He suppressed it, not knowing how many other darkspawn were in hailing distance. He had sworn to save the girl. He mustn’t risk her for a show of bravado.
The struck clawman snarled, crouching in the reeds like a beast. With a roar he sprang, landing on the fat man’s chest, bearing him down, biting his throat. The other two clawmen who held onto the man splashed into the fetid water, bowled over. Thus three fallen clawmen rose. Their fur dripped and each snarled. The attacker’s fangs were dark with blood. The fat man, a trader in pitch by his rough garments, stayed down. One of the clawman, he with a golden medallion on his chest, lifted the trader’s torso. Blood pumped from the ripped throat.
The medallion-wearer opened fanged jaws and spoke in a tortured manner, half wolf-whine and half human-tongue. “The Master said alive, alive.”
The killer snarled.
The medallion-wearer leapt upon the killer. They tumbled, growling savagely, snapping teeth and using claws. In seconds, the killer went limp as he exposed his throat, whining. The medallion-wearer clamped his jaws around that throat, but didn’t bite down. Instead, he thumped the killer once on the chest and then rose. A moment later the killer stood, but with head and shoulders slumped.
“Drag man back,” snarled the medallion-leader, the pack master apparently.
“Drag dead?” asked the third clawman.
“Let Master stir his corpse so he marches in the Horde of the Damned,” said the leader.
Gavin’s heart went cold. Were they stirring the dead? Had it already gone that far?
“Man too fat to drag. Swamp will rot his corpse.”
“Leave him,” said the killer. “Let us hunt fresh meat.”
The leader plucked at his medallion, growling softly, thinking perhaps. “Swamp almost empty,” he snarled. “Few humans left.”
The killer lifted his snout. “Man smell.”
The other two lifted their snouts, sniffing.
“Yes, man-smell,” said the third clawman.
“And nearby,” said the leader. He bared his fangs. Perhaps it was a smile. “We hunt.” He took a step toward the cypress-tree.
The killer put a claw on the leader’s arm. “Hungry.”
“We hunt,” snarled the leader.
“Hungry,” whined the killer.
The leader turned toward Gavin’s hiding spot.
“Very hungry,” whined the killer, still restraining the leader.
“Yes,” said the third clawman. “We’ve hunted long without meat.”
The leader glared at the other two, but finally nodded. Together they howled over the dead pitch trader. Then they leapt upon the corpse, tearing into it.
Hugo put his lips near Gavin’s ear. “That’s our spoor they smell.”
Swan, who had watched the last half, now looked upon Gavin with feverish intelligence. “Take them after they’ve gorged themselves, when they’re sluggish.”
Gavin watched their grisly feast, loathing the altered creatures. You couldn’t fight such beasts by the accepted rules, the way a knight jousted. Gallant chivalry, storybook boldness—this was a nasty game, with victory going to the most cunning. He had a girl to save and no time to indulge in heroics.
Thus, he led Swan and Hugo over the roots and back into the swamp, away from the meat-gorging clawmen. Only after the hideous gobbling sounds died away did he hoist Swan onto his back.
“I wish I had my crossbow,” muttered Hugo.
They waded knee-deep through slime. Above, the moon shone cold and bright, the palace of the Moon Lady, Queen of Darkness. Gavin paused often, dreading as he listened, dreading to hear padding feet or the snap of teeth. They sloshed through reeds until the silvery disc sank into the swamp. Hugo whittled a branch he had picked up, shaving a point. Gavin staggered now, willing himself to move several more steps, another couple.
“Let me carry her,” whispered Hugo. “You need a rest.”
Gavin halted, pearls of sweat sliding down his cheek. Hugo looked awful, had taken to using the makeshift spear as a cane. Yet by the bitter rules learned in the cold pine forests of the north, Hugo was right. Gavin lowered Swan and helped the old squire hoist her onto his back. Gavin then took the spear as they resumed the grueling march.
***
The fever stole Swan’s wits. She shivered uncontrollably, wet and tired, heated only by the body carrying her.
Icy motes twinkled above in the black sky. It seemed all she had to do to gain a fortune was to pluck the stars like cherries. Then the stars spun. She wanted to vomit. The spinning stars merged into a swirl of light and it felt as if she or her consciousness sped upward into the void. Oh, she didn’t want to go. This time the visions were going to be bad. She knew that, and she didn’t know how she knew. She struggled against leaving her body, but the pull was strong. She finally went with it, speeding from her shivering body and toward Castle Forador.
No! Don’t go there.
Despite her resistance, her spirit entered the castle, and then evil struck, pitch-darkness. She wanted to scream. She was blind, and it felt as if she was sinking, and for a moment, heat prickled her. The moment passed and the heat turned into the chill of a tomb as a hideous green color began to pulse. A face looked out of that green. It had twin motes for eyes. The eyes searched…for her, she realized with horror.
“Who are you?” spoke a grave voice, remote, as if twisting words unsuited to its lips.
Swan kept silent, crouching in the darkness.
“You…escaped me,” came the dreary words.
Swan licked her lips. She wanted to flee, but she wanted to know what the baron had dug up out of the crypt?
“Yes…draw near to me,” spoke the cold words. “Embrace your fate.”
In the darkness, Swan crept nearer, growing accustomed to the green pulse, seeing into it. A thin man sat upon a golden throne. Was that the image of his soul? He had the paleness of death and dark circles ringed his eyes. He wore a purple robe and in his bony fist, he held onto a scepter. His head, he wore an obsidian crown. It was of a great serpent biting its tail. The terrible eyes focused upon her, and she felt a dreadful weight. He smiled, with vampire fangs. She scrambled back, searching for greater darkness in which to hide.
“Return to me,” he called.
Swan fled.
“Return,” he droned, “Zon Mezzamalech commands you.”
***
Weary and afraid, the spirit of Swan flew back to a dismal swamp. A man plucked hanging moss from a tree. He dried the strands in the pale sun and then fed the mess into a fire. Swan closed her eyes, and by degrees, she woke later. Chills racked her as an old man with an eye-patch snored by the fire. Nearby, leaning against a tree, was a big knight, with a bared silver sword across his knees.
The knight noticed her staring. “The beasts don’t like the sun. They burrow and hide during daylight.”
What beasts was he talking about, and who was he?
Swan closed her eyes. The swamp faded. Her spirit or senses raced once more through an awful void. Gore burned in her throat. Oh. Oh, yes. Zon Mezzamalech…at least she knew his name. Now she needed to know more. The visions returned. They were horrible, too much. She fled them, and somewhere in a swamp, she began to scream.
***
Gavin awoke with a start. The sun hung low over the horizon, creating a blood-red sea of slime and waving grasses. They camped on a grassy mound, low mountains in the distance—their destination. Swan had said before that it was home to the Cragsmen, the original owners of Erin, pushed back by successive waves of sea-borne invaders.
Gavin sheathed his sword. At Swan’s scream and his start, he had reflexively drawn it. He was supposed to have been on guard duty yet had fallen asleep. He rubbed his eyes, his body dull with fatigue.
On her bed of crushed grasses, Swan shivered, with his marten cape pulled up to her chin. She was wan, sweaty, her mouth silently working, perhaps to scream again.
“Swan,” he said, gently shaking her.
Her eyes flew open. They were glassy, peering through him as if he wasn’t there. Horror twisted her white features. She whispered about someone called Zon Mezzamalech. Then her ramblings made no sense. It was as if she spoke another language. He patted her arm, and was relieved when she shut her eyes and her breathing become more even. He put his hand on her forehead. Hot! They had to find her fresh water to drink.
He pulled a spear out of the smoldering ashes, checking the whittled point that Hugo fire-hardened. With a grimace, he thrust the point back into the pit Hugo had dug earlier with his dagger. Iron-tipped spears and crossbow bolts deep in the vitals of those beasts, only such would stop them, not pricks with these wooden-tipped playthings. Gavin squatted on his heels, studying the swamp and the cypress trees in the distance. A hard march tonight should take them out of this reedy plain, this bog that belched strange gases.
A sound of sucking slop heralded Hugo’s return. The old squire climbed onto the mound with two dangling vipers minus their heads. They leaked blood, leaving a trail like oil. With a grunt, Hugo squatted beside the fire. Dark circles marked his eyes and the leathery ridges in his face had deepened. He checked the spear, adding a second one. Then he fed more mossy strands into the fire before he set to work slicing the long bellies and peeling away mottled skin. Shards of pale snake-meat he poked onto sticks and set over the fire.
“The clawmen will smell that for miles,” Gavin said.
Hugo gave him the barest of nods. Then he took the viper heads out of his pouch. Carefully, he pried them open, milking the poison from their hollow fangs and smearing that onto the fire-hardened points.
Gavin grunted in appreciation and peered into the swamp. The clawmen were coming. They both knew that, but better to fight with hot food in your belly than on a shriveled stomach, and better perhaps to lead them here while they fled elsewhere. They ate stringy viper-meat in silence. It was divine, delicious and seemed to pour life into Gavin’s limbs. Afterward, Hugo bathed the girl’s face with a wet rag. She awoke, her eyes burning with fever but this time with coherence. She clutched Hugo’s arm.
“Mhu Thulan lies under the ice,” she whispered.
Hugo touched the wet rag to her cheeks with a tenderness that amazed Gavin.
“Zon Mezzamalech has raised the Damned,” she raved.
Hugo turned an agonizing eye to Gavin.
Gavin hunched beside her. “Swan, it will be night soon. That means the clawmen are coming. You must stay quiet. You must cling to my back. Do you understand?”
She stared at him, stared, then nodded.
“Help her up,” Gavin said.
With the feverish girl on his back, he strode into the swamp. Hugo gathered his poison-tipped spears and followed.
CHAPTER TEN
They waded through mud, slogging for higher ground. The stars and crescent moon shone dully as wisps of clouds rode high in the night sky. Gavin’s legs quivered. His mouth was parched. Darkspawn had driven him before, but in the bitter cold and with howling winds. These beasts weren’t going to get Swan. He would die before he gave her up. He had lost…he could name many people, too many of them friends. The lords of Darkness weren’t getting this one, no, not Swan. She was different. She had survived months in a dungeon where others had been transmuted into creatures of Darkness. Why hadn’t they changed her? There had to be a reason.
Hugo hissed in alarm.
With Swan on his back, Gavin swiveled around. Three blots darker than the night loped after them.
Hugo thrust the butt-ends of his spears into the mud, saving the last for himself.
“Swan,” Gavin said. “Wake up.”
She lifted her chin off his neck.
“I must set you in the mud,” he said.
“Take the medallion from the leader,” she whispered, “as evidence.”
“They’re coming fast,” Hugo said.
Gavin drew his sword, his long silver blade. Yes, one of the shaggy beasts wore a medallion of gold. It flopped on his hairy chest. The clawman’s eyes glowed and his fangs gleamed in the moonlight.
“Come no nearer!” shouted Gavin, lifting his sword.
They slowed, clumping together, until the trio halted twenty feet away.
“Give us girl,” said the beast wearing the medallion.
“Yes,” said another. “Give us girl and you go free.”
“Is that your wolfish cunning?” laughed Gavin. By the Lord of Light, he hated them, foul creatures. “Be gone! The girl is mine.”
“Foolish man, you will die.”
“And I’ll part your head from your torso,” Gavin said.
“Boastful words,” growled the clawman. “Know, O man, I will drag your corpse to Master. You shall dance forever in the Horde of the Damned.”
Gavin dreaded the curse, his hand tightening around his hilt.
Breathing hard, Swan lurched beside Hugo, plucking a spear out of the mud. “Did you finally sate your greed, Kerold?” she asked the lead beast. “Was it worth your humanity?”
The clawman’s wolfish ears lay flat as he lifted his head and howled. Gavin shifted his sword to his left hand, plucked up a spear and heaved. The makeshift weapon gouged the medallion-wearing beast. He snarled, leaping in amazingly greater bounds at Gavin. The silver sword blurred, chunking into the hairy neck. With a twist of his shoulder, Gavin deflected the dead body as it smashed against him. He gutted the next darkspawn, driving the beast into the mud as the creature snapped its teeth. The third bounded past as Gavin yanked free his sword. The creature leapt for Swan. She shouted, thrusting. He brushed aside her spear and crashed upon her, snapping and snarling as Hugo jumped on its back.
The mud sucked at Gavin’s boots as he strained to reach Swan. Then a furry hand clutched his ankle. The beast that had been Kerold, with blood gushing from his neck, grinned up at him.
“You never win. Master will—”
The silver blade ended the speech. Then Gavin jumped near Swan, grabbed a back full of fur and yanked the thrashing clawman off her. A final stab ended it.
“Swan!” shouted Hugo as he scrambled out of the mud.
Gavin hacked off each bestial head. Who knew what recuperative powers these creatures had or if some magic spell might yet give them life.
“He bit her!” shouted Hugo.
Gavin swore as defeat welled in his gut. He had survived again, while those around him died. Couldn’t he keep anyone alive? Must they always die? He wiped his sword on a furry hide, and as an afterthought, he took the golden medallion from the leader, pocketing it. It was the girl’s dying wish that in crusading he try to stop this wickedness. Well, he wasn’t going to do that, but he’d show this king the medallion and tell him a tale.
Hugo looked up from where he crouched over Swan. “We must find clean water and build her a fire.”
Gavin shrugged.
Hugo jumped up, his cadaverous face animated. “We can save her! But we must bathe her wounds in clean water.”
Gavin didn’t like Hugo’s wild look. The squire had always kept his head before. Was he going to lose Hugo, too? Those who cared too much always died. Still, he hoisted Swan onto his back and resumed the grueling trek.
***
It was the middle of the morning when they came to a clean stream in the foothills, a thin trickle of mountain water running over smooth stones. Gavin laid Swan down and felt her forehead. Hotter than ever, and she had a nasty cut along her cheek that had infected.
Hugo clattered stones into a circle, piled up old moss and worked with flint and tinder to make a fire. Gavin took a spear, one free of viper poison, and went along the stream in search of game. He returned with two rabbits. Hugo skinned those while Gavin stretched out by the fire and slept as one dead.
Later, before the sun sank into the hills, Gavin and Hugo sat by the moaning girl. She hadn’t been able to keep anything down and shivered dreadfully.
“She said speed was our only chance,” muttered Hugo.
Gavin warmed his hands over the fire, pretending that he didn’t care she was dying. “Look at us, my friend.” Their clothes were tatters and slime soiled. “No king or baron will listen to us. We’ll be worse than outlaws to the high and mighty.”
“Our seer might move them.”
Gavin peered at Swan. She mumbled, her sweaty face twitching.
“She’ll live,” Hugo assured him. “The Lord of Light has touched her.”
Gavin shifted uncomfortably, not used to religious fervor from his squire. In the past, they had laughed at such folk. “Supposing she lives and we brutes drag her into the king’s presence, can she truly touch his royal heart?”
“If the king orders his men-at-arms to whip us from his presence you must draw your sword. No outlaw or beggar would hold such a prize, but only a true knight.”
Gavin shook his head. “I must look like a knight before they think I’m one.”
“You have the jewels in your scabbard.”
“Enough to equip us?” Gavin said.
Hugo grunted a negative.
“Your eloquence states the problem well.” Gavin glanced at Swan, before adding, “Her feverish mutterings would convince few. Supposing she lives, it would have to be done another way.”
“You’ll help her?”
Gavin mistrusted the hope in Hugo’s voice and the obvious direction of his squire’s thinking. “Help her get to Albion, yes.”
“She’ll never board ship, never leave Erin. Haven’t you been listening to her?”
“She’s delirious,”
Hugo touched a rag to her cheek. “It’s a seer’s trance.”
“Nonsense. She raves.”
“Help her gain an audience with the king. You can do that much.”
“We barely survived the swamp.”
“We survived Muscovy,” Hugo said. “You marched in as a condemned thief and left those cold lands a rich knight. Don’t tell me you can’t do it again.”
“Won’t that stain her crusading?”
“She needs a healer,” Hugo said, not rising to the sarcasm. “That takes coin. Go. I’ll take care of her and follow when I can.”
“That means Muscovite Rules,” Gavin said.
Hugo bit his lip…nodded.
Gavin drank from the stream and scrubbed himself with sand and cold water. He adjusted his sword belt and studied the moaning girl. “If she dies before I return, wait here.”
“The Lord of Light has touched her. She won’t die by this stream.”
“Good luck then,” Gavin said.
“Hosar bless you,” Hugo said.
Gavin cocked an eyebrow, but refrained from more words. He set off in a distance-eating stride.
He worked under Muscovite Rules, meaning that he lived like a wolf, like any wild predator. He would run from the strong, prey on the weak and always use cunning. There would be nothing noble about this, or said another way, the only nobility under Muscovite Rules was survival.
Several miles later, Gavin spotted a shepherd on a hill. The small man leaned on a staff as two big dogs stood nearby. Sheep milled below, nibbling grass. The Cragsman whistled. The barking dogs herded the sheep over the hill and out of sight.
Gavin increased his pace.
In the darkest part of the night, Gavin slept against a boulder. A forest waited in the distance. He wanted to enter it during daylight. A howl awoke him before morning. He rubbed his face and set out. As the sun rose, he recalled the medallion. It was of double weight, pure gold, stamped on one side with a crowned king and strange script. On the other side was a beauty in profile, with eerie symbols around her and a huge moon to the left.
“The Moon Lady,” he said, feeling then as if someone watched him.
He had never seen a coin of this sort, and he had seen many coinage in his jousting, his ransoms gained. He pocketed the medallion and entered the woods an hour later. Toward noon he reached a rutted track that led toward the swamp, perhaps that led all the way back to Forador Castle. He traveled in the opposite direction.
Merchant bells warned him three hours later. He hid behind an oak tree and counted nine mules heavy with baggage. Three spear-armed men walked guard. Behind them followed a hard-bitten peddler on a mule, while a horseman brought up the rear, by the crossbow in his lap a mercenary rather than a knight.
Gavin remained silent even though they headed toward Forador Swamp. He couldn’t chance the possibility they would rob and perhaps kill him. Many backwoods peddlers were thieves by inclination and had the hearts of brigands.
When the sound of bells dwindled, he once again took to the muddy trail. By mid-afternoon, low clouds threatened rain. That’s all he needed. A quarter hour later as several drops splattered his cheeks he was surprised to find that the rutted track turned into a cobbled lane. He knelt, touching a brick. Someone had paid for each one and painstakingly laid them down. They built such roads through forests and across wastelands on the continent, but not, he had thought, on any of the Western Islands. He hurried, certain this road meant nearby civilization. The woods thinned and he heard a trickling stream. Soon he spied a small arched bridge and on the other side a booth. He frowned. Two armed men talked by a chain that barred their side. Most likely, they demanded a toll for anyone using the crossing.
He noticed a nearby castle. It stood on a lone peak, the turrets half of mortar and stone and the other half, rocky formations. Gavin tapped his teeth. His beard had been short and well groomed before Castle Forador. Now it was shaggy and with his exhaustion and the impacted grime on his face, he was certain he looked wild.
Aha! He spied a horseman cantering along the castle road—the cobbled lane. The rider rode toward the toll bridge.
Gavin slipped back into the forest, jogging for a time. When he judged that he had gone far enough, he loosened the blade in its scabbard. Then he reconsidered. Looking about, he found a heavy branch. He put his boot to it and yanked, hefting a stout, lengthy piece of wood just the right size.
The clopping hooves warned him of the rider’s approach. He peered around trees and spied a lean rider. The man wore leather garments, a long knife, a sword and a pouch that could only contain coins. By his green cape Gavin judged him to be a forester, a man who hounded peasants if they slew their lord’s rabbits, deer, boar and such. This then would be a wary man, alert for forest sounds, for peasants blundering through the brush. One of the rider’s hands loosely held the reins; the other was under his tunic, no doubt scratching his belly.
Gavin roared a battle cry, leaping from hiding. The forester yelled in surprise as the branch connected with a mighty wallop. The forester tumbled onto the road. Gavin came on fast. The forester rolled out of the club’s path and scrambled under his horse. He jumped to his feet on the other side and looked ready to run. Gavin drew his sword and rushed in. The forester yanked out his blade.
“Who are you, man?”
Gavin leveled the silver sword. “Drop your coin pouch and your sword and I’ll let you live.”
The forester’s eyes widened as he looked at Gavin’s weapon. “Is that blade silver?”
“Never mind about that.”
The forester looked Gavin in the face. “You’re no outlaw.”
“Decide!”
The forester nodded grimly. “Come on then.”
Their blades rang once, twice, three times. The forester was good. Then his eyes grew round with fear as he realized that Gavin was better. Gavin stepped back and indicated that the forester lay down his weapon.
The forester swallowed. “You’ll kill me anyway.”
“You have my word that I won’t.”
“How can I believe you?”
“I am a knight of Ulm.”
The forester seemed to consider it. Then with a desperate cry, he charged. Despite his resolve to govern his actions by Muscovite Rules, Gavin attempted a foolish scheme. He parried hard so sparks flew, and then he stepped in close. The forester had a knife in his other hand, which he had kept hidden until them. He stabbed upward. Gavin blocked wrist against wrist. Then, before the forester could leap out of range, Gavin struck him on the side of the head with his sword’s pommel, knocking the man unconscious. Gavin stripped him, bound his wrists and gagged him. The forester soon came to, propped against a boulder near the trail. Gavin sat on the man’s horse.
“When you free yourself, tell your lord not to go into the swamp unless he wishes to battle darkspawn. If he doesn’t know what those are, tell him to ask his devotee of Hosar.” With a nod, Gavin headed back the way he had come.
He found Hugo and Swan the next morning. With the horse, they made better time, even though a summer rain soaked them. The second horse came as Hugo and he bounded into a nighttime camp. They tied a lady and her secret lover together, and thanked them for the small leather tent. Two days later, they came to Ennis. It was a middling-sized village for Erin. No one spoke about darkspawn at the inn, although one man said it was unhealthy to enter Forador Swamp. No swamp dwellers had sold their eel ropes for a fortnight.
That night a fire startled the innkeeper and his guests. The blaze roared nicely, chasing everyone into the muddy streets. The Ennis mayor rang the fire bell. In time, wagons rattled back and forth. Men dipped buckets into the wagon-troughs as the fire-line of peasants fought the flames. Luckily, there seemed to have been more smoke than fire. Only a quarter of the inn burned down.
The only guests to have died seemed to have been the feverish girl, the one-eyed man and the big warrior guarding them. For no one could find them. Then a knight ran into the Town Square. He shouted that his stallion, arms and armor were missing, as well as the bag of coins he had hidden under his bed.
***
Several miles outside of Ennis, Swan’s fever broke. She was thin and looked dreadful, but her eyes were clear at last. She stared at the smoke billowing into the moonlit sky.
“That was ill done,” Swan said.
Upon his new steed, Gavin shrugged mail-clad shoulders.
“No more thievery or arson,” she said. “We are crusaders.”
Gavin decided not to remind her just yet that he wasn’t going to help her build a fool’s army. “No more thieveries,” he agreed. He had enough equipment to joust for whatever more he needed.
“I know your heart is right, Sir Gavin, but we mustn’t use ruses or theft or we shall become the darkness we battle.”
Gavin looked away.
Swan pursed her lips, glanced a last time at the smoky night and then clucked her tongue, urging her palfrey down the trail. “We go to Banfrey!”
“To see the king,” Hugo said.
To flee Erin, Gavin told himself.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
No birds winged over Forador Castle. The usual kingfishers, swallows and crows had departed the swamp fortress. Perhaps it was because a miasma of death drifted from the gory pits in the yard. Or maybe it was because in places blood had splashed upon the barracks walls, or perhaps it was the clawmen who snatched any living thing they could find, crunching bird bones and picking their fangs with the quill of flight feathers.
Deep in the main keep, out of sight of the greedy wolf-men and away from the stench of the gory pits, revulsion twisted Vivian’s stomach. Her hands trembled as she held onto the former baron’s cured skin.
The thing that had once been Joanna the Healer lifted her waxen features. They were devoid of emotion, devoid of any facial movement, twitch or tick. When the healer moved her body or limbs, it was mechanically, with a puppet’s jerkiness.
Joanna opened her mouth like the jaws of an animal-trap. “Hold tight. I must cut exactly.” With scissors, she cut along the tattooed line of the baron’s leathery skin.
Vivian couldn’t fathom why Leng had sent her here to help. The terrible transformations horrified her. A squire she had spoken with before the feast had become a clawman. A once gangling page stood rotting in the ranks of the undead. Leng had named Gavin’s mule boy a fravashi. Why had the sorcerer sent her here? What was his hidden purpose? She had learned more about him than she cared to know.
In time, Leng ushered Joanna and her into the castle’s sanctum. A massive stone altar stained by gore dominated the fouled Great Hall. Gaunts waited, holding trembling swamp dwellers.
Numbed by premonition, Vivian swooned, as it were, while standing. In her stultified state, she didn’t witness the strange rites or hear the screams. She heard, however, Leng cry out, “Take up your sticks, Death Drummer!”
Joanna stretched out her hand, taking the sticks from on the heart-stained altar. She beat once upon the drum, the one made with the baron’s skin. It caused a wicked thrum to vibrate through Vivian. The sound woke her, woke her to the scattered hearts, one yet thumping and bleeding, and it woke her to wretched smells.
Vivian shrieked, and she fled. She sprinted, panting, her feet pounding on the bricks. She ran crazed with fear, crazed by the wicked sights and feeling a foul magic. She ran down stairs, through the yard and past the gatehouse and over the drawbridge. She fled weeping to Cuthred’s boarded hole, sobbing upon the planks. He awoke with a bellow, an incredibly loud sound, too loud for any man to make.
It was there the clawmen caught her, and despite her protests, they dragged her to a sweat-soaked Leng. He sat in his room, a tiny cubicle above the Great Hall where once the baron’s chief devotee of Hosar had slept. The room had a narrow slit window, a bed, an oval rug, a table and two ornate cedar chairs. Clad in a sarong, Leng showed off his skeletal body, the ribs sticking out like a starvation victim, parchment-thin skin and wasted, stringy muscles. He shouldn’t have been able to stand, but only slump against a tavern wall as he begged for food.
A candle burned on the table, one strewn with papers whose symbols bore no meaning for Vivian. A half-filled wine bottle stood by the candle. The goblet in Leng’s hand and the gleam in his eyes indicated that he had already been drinking.
“Join me,” he said.
Her hands shook as she poured so red drops splashed onto a paper. He remained silent. Before, he had beaten her for touching one of his parchments. She lifted the cup, her breath so fast that it was almost like hiccups. Swiftly, she drained the cup, and she felt a heady stirring of alcohol, a soothing of her nerves.
“Again,” he said.
She poured steadier, and she drained this goblet, too. Her breathing slowed to something normal.
He smiled, asking, “Do you wonder at your strength?”
She stared at him.
“Most people seeing what you have would have retreated into madness or been driven into apathetic despair.”
A bitter laugh tore from her throat. She tossed back more wine.
“I’m quite serious,” he said. “You have an amazing strength of character. Perhaps as a harlot, you’ve become hardened to adversity.”
She didn’t like his slurs. “What are you, Leng?”
“What you see.”
The wine gave her courage. “A sorcerer?” she asked.
“Nothing more, nothing less,” he said.
She raked her gaze across his emaciated torso. “I’d say more.”
His smile became sly.
“I have no effect upon you,” she said.
“Quite untrue, I assure you.”
“When we’re together, you do not act like other men. So I ask: What are you?”
His remote face lost its smile. The inky eyes became brooding. “That will be enough.”
She was reckless with wine. “You fawn and grovel to Kergan, yet sometimes I think—”
He slapped her across the face, a hard blow, and he waited, watching her.
She touched her lip, staring at the blood, and she retreated to the bed, sitting on the edge.
He donned his robe, and he told her, “The campaign will soon begin. So sleep well while you can, harlot.” Then he strode from the room.
Her cheek throbbed, and a fierce resolve filled her. No one slapped her with impunity. As the wine continued to fuel her courage, she vowed to watch, learn, and wait for her one chance to strike back. For she remembered something Gavin had once said. You always got at least one chance. He had meant it during a joust, but surely, it worked just as well for real life. She soured thinking about the knight-errant. Running out on her to save the girl, the one that he had risen for at the feast, that bastard. All his words of love had been lies.
She poured a last cup. Let Leng throw all the horrors he could think of at her. Somehow, in some manner, she was going to hurt the sorcerer and then she was going to find and hurt that dishonorable knight, Sir Gavin.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Gavin, Hugo and Swan rode through the Midlands and into the Redwald Range. Gavin hated the pine tree scent, for it reminded him of the cold wastes. They reached the headwaters of the Fangohr River, following it as the days passed and the Fangohr deepened as the tributaries Aine, Lokkur and Nye emptied into it. In the early mornings before the sun burned away the mists, fishermen in leather coracles plied the shores. Out of their round little boats the fishermen cast nets and dragged in grayling, shad, perch and eels. During the day and along dusty paths, teams of oxen drew flat-bottomed barges that hauled cargoes of pine, flax, quarry stone and ingots of iron. A few times, riverboats with a billowing sail cruised through the middle of the ever-widening stream.
The countryside became smoother and soon cultivated fields appeared. Fences protected alternating strips of wheat, barley, oats and fallow ground, and those fields surrounded villages of stone-built cottages. Watermills also appeared. Most were wooden-built, maybe a quarter of them fashioned out of quarry stone. The giant wheels spun endlessly, propelled by the river’s current. Most of the mills crushed wheat and sieved flour. Others fulled cloth, beating it with water-driven bats. Where the stench was strongest, Gavin was certain they used the mills for tanning, turning cow and sheep hides into leather. One mill in particular clattered noisily and chugged black fumes into the air. Gears transferred the power of the giant waterwheel into rising and lowering hammer forges for blacksmith work. At one stop where the beer was cheap, Gavin learned that the mill activated bellows for the flames that heated the vats in which beer was brewed. The woods they passed changed from pines and evergreens to oak, beech and birch. These woods were smaller and contained less brush than the Redwald Range. Foresters no doubt cleared the forests, while verderers enforced the poaching laws. During the day, village-owned pigs scavenged through the woods searching for acorns, beechmast and the occasional truffles. Swan warned Gavin and Hugo from butchering any of the pigs.
“We must be above theft,” she said.
“During war it’s called foraging,” Gavin said.
Swan shook her head. “We must pay for whatever we take. Otherwise the common folk and merchants will never rally to us.”
Every so often, a proud manor house or castle arose in the distance. Bow-armed watchmen guarded crenellated roofs. Spike-collared mastiffs prowled the fenced yards.
What had originally been a mountain path became over the days a broad rutted road. Shabby inns and well-tended abbeys made their appearances, while other rutted tracks merged into this main thoroughfare. Peasants with mule-drawn carts clattered their way to Banfrey. Pilgrims went afoot with a gray hood, cloak and staff and reverently spoke of touching the Shrine of Tulun. Some claimed they were bound for Albion, to there see the Holy Spire of Aelfwine. Sometimes royal sheriffs or a baron and his retainers in a mounted cavalcade greeted them, wishing Gavin luck at the tourney. Once they came upon a vast, eight-wheeled wagon. Each wheel was taller than Swan and had spear-thick, spokes. Sixteen oxen drew the monstrosity. The wagon had wooden walls, windows and a roof, a veritable barracks on wheels. It reminded Gavin of the yurts of the Far Southern Steppe. This wagon was shelter to a troupe of traveling actors and acrobats.
They made an odd sight. Some were very tall and a few unbelievably fat. Jugglers practiced as they walked. Some of the acrobats did cartwheels, handstands and summersaults. They all argued, shouted and gestured wildly. A few made lordly pronouncements. Soon Gavin realized that they practiced their lines. He heard famous dialogues from the plays Eustace the Pirate and the beloved King Rhymer and the Princess.
They needed to rest the horses anyway. So Gavin dismounted, stretching his legs as he walked, listening and thinking of better times as he stayed near the actors.
“Are you a connoisseur of the theater, milord?”
Gavin turned. A tall, sad-looking commoner trudged behind him. The man had a drooping nose, lank hair and surprisingly wore a cloak of many colors. No doubt, the man was an actor.
Gavin pointed out a striking, red-haired girl who spoke to a lad leaning out an open wagon window. “She practices the part of Princess Melisende as she talks herself into poisoning the king.”
The sad man nodded, quoting: “Let King Rhymer taste my fury and devour my hate. Let him choke on the weeds of vengeance! Only then will my brother’s ghost lay down to final rest.”
“Maybe her brother’s ghost will find peace at last,” Gavin said, “but not the princess’ conscience.”
The man’s long face brightened without smiling. It was a twisting of his eyebrows. “You are no mere brute in an iron cocoon, milord, but a true and chivalrous knight.”
“I have been to a hundred tourneys and probably listened to a thousand plays,” Gavin said.
“Are there indeed a thousand, milord?”
“I have been told that each rendition is unique, making every play worthy of witnessing.”
The tall man laughed sourly. “That is a lie, milord. An actor must have said it.”
“No. As I recall it was a guild master of actors.”
This time the thin man laughed sharply as he swept a cloth cap from his head and bowed. “I am Odo the Sword-eater, milord, and the guild master of this troupe.”
“Then you have me at odds, my good fellow. If you are an actor then your words might be a lie. But if you are indeed the guild master then I have insulted you.”
“Not at all, milord, I am an actor, a guild master and a great liar, and ‘tis impossible to insult me.”
“Ah, now I know you lie, for all men may be insulted.”
They continued to talk. Odo the Sword-eater owned the wagon and paid the wages of the actors and acrobats. He proved himself observant and keen-witted, and the troupe hurried to Banfrey for the King’s Tourney. Odo worried, however, that the town by now surely swarmed with his kind. Perhaps he should head north.
“Not north,” Gavin said. “Grave trouble brews there. And on all account stay out of Forador Swamp.”
With long fingers, Odo rubbed his chin as he gave Gavin a sidelong glance. “I’ve heard a strange rumor or two lately, and I have no intention of heading to Forador Swamp. But it’s a rare lord who warns a commoner. So I’d like to return the favor.”
“You’re most kind.”
“No, no, it’s simply good manners, as my mother would have said. From your questions I take it that you haven’t been to court during our gracious king’s reign.”
“You’re observant,” Gavin said.
“No matter, most of us haven’t. The thing to remember is that King Egbert is peculiar in his likes and dislikes. He isn’t keen on wit or logic, if you know what I mean.”
“I’ve heard it said that he’s mad.”
Odo grimaced. “You lords have a way of speaking that wouldn’t be wise for a commoner like me. Mad? The king has his good days and bad. But then don’t we all. My suggestion, milord, if you happen to talk with him, is to appeal to his tastes.”
“Which are?”
Odo fluttered his fingers. “The king likes shiny things, feats of strength and the dramatic.” He grinned for the first time, and then once again become somber. “Don’t expect to win his affection for long. They say he listens to whoever speaks with him last.”
“For a commoner you’re well-informed.”
Odo nodded. “‘Tis the fate of a wagon-master, of a guild master of actors.”
At that moment, an angry woman wearing a white kerchief and waving a cudgel hurried toward them.
“Ah, if you’ll excuse me, milord, it seems Mantilla has finally discovered my morning’s indiscretion.” Odo thereupon strode behind the eight-wheeled wagon and hurried out of sight.
The woman ran past, giving Gavin a scowl, yelling louder than ever as she raced after the long-limbed guild master.
Gavin remounted, signaled Hugo and Swan and they resumed the fast pace.
***
“At last,” said Swan. “I see it.”
Gavin squinted into the distance.
They plodded along the King’s Highway, a raised levee where peasants pushed handcarts full of carrots and cabbage, shuffling aside as nobles cantered by on their caparisoned palfreys. Pilgrims also used the highway and swarms of merchants and shepherds herding goats.
Well-tilled fields rose up and down the rolling hills. Hedgerows marked boundaries. On the hilltops turned sail like vanes attached to windmills. Vineyards and orchards abounded. This was a prosperous land. The peasants wore clean woolens and had the round faces of the well fed.
It was grim to think that in several months all this could become a land of horror. Snarls would replace smiles, greetings of hello with shrieks of terror. The wise man bought passage to Albion and escaped all that. A shiver ran down Gavin’s back at the thought of returning to Forador Castle, of voluntarily riding north to face darkspawn. What madness. How could Hugo even consider it?
“There,” Swan told Hugo as she pointed south. “It’s that sparkle of light, the gleam of brightness.”
Hugo squinted.
“Do you see it, Gavin?” she asked.
Around them pilgrims shouted in joy, pointing south.
“The star of folly,” he said.
Swan frowned. It pulled the scar on her cheek, the poorly healed scratch of the clawman. “Those are ill-chosen words, Sir Knight.”
“Yes, I see it now,” Hugo said. He gave Gavin a crooked grin. “It reminds me of your silver sword when the sun catches it just so.”
“The Shrine of Tulun,” said Swan, her eyes alight. “It is always the first sight of Banfrey.”
Whenever she told them about Saint Tulun, she swept back her hair, smoothed her dress and fixed her lips in a beatific smile. Even now, the pilgrims shared the story among themselves.
Gavin wondered how much of it was truth and how much silly fable. Still, darkspawn were real. Why not then the story of a saint whose life-blood had put out fires?
The King’s Highway followed the Fangohr. Smacks and wherries rode low in the water, their oarsmen struggling to keep up with sail-billowing barges.
In time, the spire glittered plainly. Then Banfrey’s inner town became visible. The wall was built on the hill where Saint Tulun had died and the wall seemed to glow. It was most extraordinary. Gavin had spoken earlier with stonemasons. They said the walls were built from local limestone quarries. The stone was soft yellow and sometimes a pinkish white. Sunlight lingered and flashed across such limestone and shadows merged. Gavin admitted that the masons had been right in saying it gave Banfrey a feeling of lightness and grace.
The lower, outer town also had walls of stone. Circling those walls was a moat fed by the Banfrey River. The Banfrey merged into the Fangohr. Reeds grew along the moat, and as they neared, frogs croaked and the young boys yelled who chased them for supper.
Traffic slowed and people thronged to enter the Mule Gate. Gaining entrance was a simple matter of a few copper marks. They rode across the bridge and through the gloomy archway of Braying Tower. On the other side began Banfrey’s outer town.
It was a world of noise, tall wooden houses with peaked roofs and lanes little bigger than corridors. Pigeons wheeled overhead. Men and women shouted their wares. Town criers with clanging bells bellowed the latest news. Here sharp corners often led to collisions. Bread carts, fish carts and pastries slammed into a knight’s party or up against a throng of overdressed merchants. The sumptuary laws said that only nobility could wear fur-lined garments or fur cloaks. These rich burghers flouted the statute. Some even wore flashing rings of silver or gold. Swan noticed it with a frown, shaking her head. Pigs rooted everywhere, let out by their owners to forage during the day. Milk-goats bleated. Children raced past. Ill-clad sweepers with huge rakes stirred and moved the filth tossed out the shops and homes.
The three of them worked toward the Banfrey Bridge. It crossed the river of that name and led into the upper, inner town. That part of town loomed before them, three buildings in particular standing above the walls. There was the Shrine of Tulun. High arches supported a white dome and a tall silvery spire. Doves seemed to be in perpetual flight above it, Swan said like a halo. To Gavin’s right the vast Temple of Banfrey stood along the river wall. The temple was huge, heavy and square, home to the High Priest of Erin. Squeezed against it, or nearly so, was the White Tower, the King’s Seat. From its turrets fluttered a hundred pennons.
Gavin, Hugo and Swan moved through the streets, asking directions. There were no signs. Each lane was filled with guild workers of the same occupation. There was Butcher Street, Baker Lane and Tanner Alley. There was a separate street for silver workers, ironmongers and beer brewers.
“Go through Cat Alley,” said a goldsmith, “turn right on Rope-Maker Lane and when you see the Church of Saint When the bridge will be to your left.”
As they neared the bridge, the smell of fish, wool and beer became overpowering. Boatmen shouted and fishmongers and their wives yelled out their wares. At landing-stairs plied a host of watercraft. Big men hefted sacks of wheat and flax, while others rolled barrels of salted eels.
As they crossed the bridge, watermills clacked. Row by row and under the bridge’s arches the watermills supplied something greater than muscle power. Down there people waited their turn to grind grain, while harlots tugged at the sleeves of the better-dressed men.
The sounds of craft workers dwindled. Here lived the King and his court and the High Priest and his prelates and the divines of Tulun. The White Tower was a great pile of stones, built when the knights of Albion had first carved a kingdom from the Cragsmen. An apple orchard and vineyard stood next to a coursing track. Gabled houses with tiled roofs rose up. Vying with royalty were many churches, their fronts chiseled with scenes from Holy Writ. Bells clanged as monks called the roster of their parish saints.
Gavin and Hugo had stabled the horses in the lower town. They had gone to the baths and then to clothiers for suitable attire. On the city wall, Gavin viewed the tents across the Fangohr. The tournament needed large fields for knights and their steeds and room for cheering crowds. Nowhere in Banfrey could this be found. So across the river in Cenwulf Meadow rose colorful tents. King Egbert’s red silk tent dominated them. Gavin noticed carpenters sawing and hammering. The tournament hadn’t yet begun in earnest.
Before seeing the King, Swan wished to speak with the Sisters of Hosar. She’d said, “Once I convince them they will gain me admittance to the King.”
Gavin had his doubts. But then he had worked out another plan for her that included the gentlemen adventurers of Albion who had sailed with him across the Sea of Nuada. They had parted company in Glendover Port, promising to meet again at the tournament.
First, he escorted Swan to the red brick plaza where pilgrims swarmed. He shouldered through, begging pardon, smiling and nodding and dragging Swan after him.
In front of the shrine, a divine in a white robe stood on a platform and blessed the kneeling pilgrims.
Gavin shouldered his way to the roped-off area. Stern-eyed divines armed with staffs blocked the entrance. Only the pure were allowed within. Each applicant knelt and whispered to an old Wisdom sitting on a stool, putting forth their pleas of purity. It was well known that a man of war and bloodshed never fit that description. Pilgrims thus gave Gavin a hostile glance.
“Don’t you harm the sisters,” warned a hooded man, by the thickness of his wrists a blacksmith.
Gavin went to one knee and bowed his head.
Swan knelt beside him, and she took one of the old withered hands and placed it over her heart. She gazed into the Wisdom’s eyes, and she whispered into the woman’s ear.
To the amazement of those watching, the old divine turned sharply and motioned one of the staff-wielders. Swan rose and followed the staff-wielder into the shrine.
“You have done your duty,” the Wisdom told Gavin. “May Hosar bless you as go your way.”
The throng of kneeling pilgrims smiled. The blacksmith squeezed his arm. Gavin smiled back and worked his way out of the crowd.
“You can’t leave her in there,” Hugo said.
“I’m not,” Gavin said. “Or you’re not. Wait for her.”
“Where are you going?”
Gavin pressed coins into Hugo’s hands and told him to rent a room. “Her way to the King is doubtful. But my way follows Muscovite Rules.”
“You mustn’t tarnish Swan’s purity,” Hugo said.
Gavin gave his squire a single glance and then went on his way.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Gavin knew this game. He had practiced many variations of it. He returned to the clothiers and bought red silk hose and felt shoes buckled with gold. He purchased a green silk bliaut, a tunic he pulled over his head like a shirt, and he bought a gorgeous mantle lined with marten. He finished his shopping with a silver chain and green pedant. When he viewed himself before a mirror, he believed himself a perfect peacock.
He preferred leather and woolens, but to beat lords at their favorite pastime one had to out-chivalry the chivalrous. He jingled his coin pouch. The rest must go to the purchase of a fine stallion, jousting saddle, lances, golden spurs and great helmet.
He hired a herald who shouted his name as he rode through the streets of the lower town. He boarded a ferry and crossed to Cenwulf Meadow.
It was the brisk season of tournaments. From Accession Day to the Feast of Saint When the nobility of the continent and Albion practiced this knightly passion. In Albion, France and the Low Countries, Saxony and the northern parts of Bavaria, the younger sons of barons, earls, dukes and chevaliers flocked to the jousting fields. To win fame inflamed them. To impress a young lady and win her hand, and inherit her lands and gain station, ah, that made their young hearts pound. Some were like Gavin, gaining wealth through game. Some wished to heighten a wedding or seal a pact by proclaiming a tourney and giving away great prizes.
To host a tournament took vast sums. Usually they were held at the great courts, the semi-annual meetings of a king or baron with his vassals. France and the Low Countries were the heart of courtly love and tournaments. But lately the knights of Albion had vied for that honor. Gavin had plied the tournament circuit many a year there. That was why he had come to Erin, to milk new prey. The law of the tourney was similar to that of the battlefield. A winner captured the loser, gaining his costly warhorse, armor, weapons and person. To gain them back the loser must pay ransom. It was a deadly game, a chancy occupation. Broken collar and arm bones vied in frequency with teeth spat out a jouster’s mouth.
It looked as if an army encamped upon Cenwulf Meadow. Besides the nobles came horse dealers, armorers, haberdashers, usurers, mimes, storytellers, actors, acrobats, harlots and goliards. The last were churchmen who had fled their training and turned themselves into singers, belting out bawdy songs for their meals. It was a swarming crowd, with carpenters still sawing and hammering upon the lodges.
Gavin followed the sound of clapping and the playing of viols. Lords and ladies danced upon the greensward. They didn’t dance as commoners. Such grabbed a girl’s hands and twirled in a circle. These nobles danced the chaplet.
Gavin moved to the edge of the crowd as the dance ended with each knight kissing his lady partner on the cheek.
At a shout from a white-haired baron, the viol players struck up a livelier tune, a toruant.
“It’s Sir Gavin!” cried a knight. “Look, sirs, the bold rascal has arrived.”
The gentlemen adventurers who had crossed the Sea of Nuada with him rushed to welcome him. It interrupted the dance as he had hoped it might.
Foreign knights whetted the gossip of local folk. Gavin’s original plan had been to stay away from the young bloods of Albion—it was why he had parted company with them in Glendover Port. By remaining anonymous, he could milk the Erin knights. Now he sought out these Albion nobles. Young men boasted and bragged. He would use that by being the opposite of what they expected.
They asked what had delayed him. He kept silent.
“What ails thee, sir?” asked Sir Hunneric.
Gavin sighed. “Please, don’t let me spoil the dance.”
“You must join the dance!” cried Sir Hunneric. “We shall find you a lady.”
Gavin looked away, and without a word took his leave.
The gentlemen from Albion came to him that evening, trying to ply him with wine, women and song.
“Come, man, we’ve boasted about you. Why, you’re the model of chivalry. Show some spirit!”
Gavin spoke little, and always in a monotone.
Later, as he sat before a bonfire, Gavin overhead Erin knights asking the adventurers if this grim and silent knight, who didn’t even acknowledge the ladies, could truly be as good a jouster as they had bragged.
Rumors spread and messengers came to Gavin, squatting beside him or taking his hand and asking him his dilemma. The most he gave was another mournful sigh. As the Albion knights debated what had caused this change—Gavin had been a delightful shipboard companion—the mystery of the silent knight took hold of the local imagination. South Erin knights begged him to join them at feast. Ladies wondered aloud if poetry readings wouldn’t cure his heart. Gavin watched the practice jousts, acrobats and contortionists. He sat among revelers and shook his head when anyone offered him wine. Several knights questioned his courage. He stared up at the stars.
“Does he mock us?” cried Sir Ullrick, Banfrey’s hardiest knight. He was known as ‘the Bear,’ both for his shaggy beard and axe blows.
The gentlemen adventurers muttered among themselves. They wore linen surcoats and walked in felt shoes. Many bore rings of silver or gold or chains studded with gems. The majority were eldest sons of rich lords, recently knighted. On their return home most would spend the rest of their lives on their father’s estates, taking over when he died. Among them were choice friends, loud and brash young men avid for their patron’s glory.
These Albion knights were not seasoned campaigners or hardened veterans, yet they were vain and dangerous, highly trained in swordsmanship and lancing and attended by vicious warriors and thegns. Thegns were mounted fighting men like knights, but of ignoble birth.
Sir Hunneric shook his head. “He does not mock us, sir. Something has happened to Sir Gavin.”
Ullrick the Bear scowled with hairy eyebrows. “I think he mocks us. I think he makes sport of us.”
“That is a grave charge, sir,” said Hunneric.
“Do you say that I’m wrong?” growled Ullrick.
The trio who protected young Sir Hunneric looked away from Odo swallowing a sword and carefully gauged the mighty Banfrey champion.
Others did likewise, but Hunneric seemed not to notice. “Yes. You are wrong, good sir. I’d stake my very honor on it. Sir Gavin is the model of a knight. For him to turn sullen at the beginning of the tournament—he has seen something terrible, I assure you.”
Meanwhile, in the Shrine of Tulun, Swan recounted her visions to a plump woman in her fifties. Swan’s earnestness and the passing of certain tests convinced the old woman that Swan spoke the truth.
When the High Priest of Hosar heard of Swan and learned that Gavin had escorted her to Banfrey, he sent for Sir Ullrick the Bear and began to devise a trap.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Last night ladies had sent their maids to Gavin as he slept beside the fire. He had refused their queries and thus created even more rumors. Now he strolled with Odo the sword-eater. They moved among the many-tented lanes, observing and being observed. There were horse dealers selling replacement mounts, busy tailors stitching with their needles and overburdened armorers hammering at their forges.
“You’ve created quite a stir, milord,” said Odo.
Gavin shrugged mail-clad shoulders, his golden spurs jingling as he walked.
“Ah,” said Odo. “Trouble at last.” He glanced at Gavin. “Is this what you’ve been waiting for?”
Sir Ullrick the Bear strode like a champion, a warrior certain of his prowess and trailing a bright red cloak. Behind him followed several of the gentlemen adventurers. Upon seeing Gavin, Ullrick scowled.
“Sir!” shouted the loud-voiced champion.
Gavin paused, while Odo quietly slipped back several steps.
With a barrel gait almost like that of a bear and with his wide face flushed, Ullrick led the knight-errants to Gavin. There he planted himself, speaking loudly, “I think you mock us, sir.”
Gavin sighed as if with weariness, as if he was too troubled with his own inner woes to notice such a mighty fighter. He began to walk around Ullrick.
The champion of Banfrey put a heavy hand on Gavin’s chest. “I challenge you to single combat, sir. I’ve grown weary of your churlish manner.”
Gavin sidestepped the hand.
“Ho!” cried Ullrick, glancing at the gentlemen adventurers before giving Gavin his loudest boast yet. “You’ll not escape my wrath so easily, sir.” With three thick fingers, the Bear touched Gavin on the cheek.
Gavin squinted.
“In two hours!” shouted Ullrick.
Gavin nodded.
Heralds ran through the tented lanes, shouting the news, even though this had been declared a day of feasting, of resting because the first day of practice jousts had produced more injuries than expected. Nevertheless, a huge throng gathered in the jousting yard.
At the appointed hour, Sir Ullrick appeared at one end of the list and on a mighty charger, a piebald steed with evil eyes. Ullrick wore a great helmet and glittering mail. None wielded a heavier lance or carried a thicker shield. The device on the shield was that of a roaring bear, while the lance, as befitted a jousting contest, had the normal two-foot shaft of razor-sharp steel removed. It had been blunted.
On a restive black stallion, Gavin entered the other end of the field. He brandished a blunted ash lance purchased from a French merchant far from home. He bore no emblem upon his great helmet nor did he have any device upon his triangular shield. His well-oiled mail seemed dull compared to Ullrick’s.
They signaled their readiness by lifting their lances. The flag, held by Sir Hunneric’s squire in the middle of the lane, dipped. Hooves thundered. Both lances splintered against opposing shields. On the second encounter, with the clash of steel and a terrific thud, Sir Ullrick rolled upon the ground as his steed trotted away.
A cheer arose from the gentlemen adventurers.
Gavin cantered beside the hunched over Sir Ullrick, whose squire ran onto the lane and yanked off his master’s helmet. Blood dripped from Ullrick’s thick nose, staining his beard. His eyes were glazed.
“Nobly done, sir,” groaned Sir Ullrick. “For my pains I now pray for a request.”
With the great helmet yet on his head, Gavin remained silent and staring.
“Tell us what ails you,” cried Ullrick.
Gavin tore off his helmet and hurled it to the ground. Mock tears fell from his eyes. “I weep for Erin!” he shouted to the startled crowd. “I weep that as we play at war the darkspawn march across the isle in conquest. I’ve met them. Now I know you must stop them.” Gavin turned his stallion and galloped from the field and back to his spot by the bonfire. There he waited as the rumors built anew.
“Darkspawn?”
“Is he mad?”
“What does he mean?”
After a host of pleas from curious knights and their ladies, the King ordered Gavin to appear at the red silk tent. Gavin came with Hugo, who had fetched Swan as bidden. The vast tent was packed with the lords and ladies of Banfrey, with devotees of Hosar, South Erin knights in armor and the richest merchants together with their wives. The feasting tables and benches had been thrust to the sides. Those of lesser rank stood on those tables so they could see. A long red carpet divided the tent in two. The carpet trailed up a wooden dais where the King sat on a big cedar chair. A small man in a white gown sat behind him, while a loud-voiced herald shouted for everyone to fall silent.
A herald introduced Gavin to the assembly. He bowed at the waist to the nervous, black-bearded man on the dais, King Egbert. The middle-aged king seemed troubled and his eyes roved everywhere, as if he knew himself inadequate and watched to see if anyone else noticed.
Gavin spoke well, turning now and again to those around him but mainly facing the King. He first asked forgiveness for his preoccupation. There was a reason, a reason he would now explain. He spoke about how he had come upon the ruffians ready to chop off Cuthred’s hand and how he had risen at Baron Barthek’s feast on Swan’s behalf.
The crowd studied Swan, noting her youngness and gauging whether she indeed had the purity that Gavin implied. She swayed under their undivided attention, leaning against Hugo and whispering in his ear. The old, one-eyed squire smiled, patting her hand, muttering assurances. The throng grew silent as Gavin spoke about Leng, the descent of darkness at the baron’s feast, how Baron Barthek had entered in the company of darkspawn. Gavin told of his drawing of the silver sword and battling his way into the dungeons, freeing Swan and escaping through the depths of Forador Swamp. Sir Gavin pleaded with the king that scouts be sent at once to Forador Castle to validate the truth of his tale.
At that point, Sir Ullrick the Bear thrust up from his chair near the dais. “Your adventures have driven you mad, sir!”
The crowd buzzed with whispers, and the white-robed man behind the King grinned and nodded to Sir Ullrick.
Young Sir Hunneric lurched to his feet. “Come now, sir. That is no way to speak to the man who unhorsed you. Our Gavin is a gifted warrior, a knight-errant of the purest motives and perhaps the hardiest fighter in all Erin. If he says this strange adventure has happened then it must be so.”
That only increased the whisperings and mutterings, of many in the crowd to turn and give his or her opinion to their neighbor.
The King looked troubled, and he glanced at the small man behind the throne. That one motioned to the herald, who banged a metal staff against the wooden dais.
“The King bids quiet!” shouted the herald.
As the tent again grew silent, as the herald banged his staff yet again, the King made ready to rise. Before he could, Swan stepped up, touching Gavin on the arm and with her eyes bidding him to step back.
She raised her arms so her wide white sleeves fell back, exposing the paleness of her forearms. It seemed in that moment as if everyone stopped breathing. She indeed looked innocent in her long white gown, with a golden cord around her waist. Her short dark hair, her pale yet sturdy features and the scar on her cheek, it lent her a quality that was difficult to describe. Her eyes seemed to shine, and when she spoke, her fervency made it clear that she had been touched in the head or Hosar had touched her.
She spoke about the darkspawn, about Baron Barthek’s mad quest in the dungeons underneath ancient Forador Castle. She told them something about Leng the Sorcerer and an amulet forged by one named Zon Mezzamalech eons ago. She told of his wretched fate and his spirit’s rebirth here in Erin lo these past weeks. Unless they moved now, with speed and ruthless urgency, and slew these fiends, all Erin would fall to Old Father Night and the pantheon of Darkness. Clawman, gaunt, undead and blood-drinker, these hideous fates awaited each of them. None would be immune from being born into darkness, from becoming a horrible creature of the night.
“We must band together as crusaders,” she said, her voice high-pitched and urgent. “If we wait we are finished. O my lords and ladies of Banfrey, how will you meet this challenge? Will you scoff in unbelief and doubt and do Old Father Night’s bidding for him, or will you rise up and fight for your very lives?”
Silence greeted her words, shock, disbelief, worry, and doubt.
“You must pick up the sword and lance and the crusader’s banner!” cried Swan.
“How do you know these things to be true?” asked the small man on the chair behind the King, the High Priest of Hosar. He asked in a tone that implied she couldn’t know.
“I have seen with mine own eyes,” said Swan, “and I have been given visions.”
Those in the tent seemed to gasp in unison.
“Blasphemy!” cried a priest.
“No!” said Swan. “I speak the truth, but do you have the courage to listen to it?”
Eyes went to the throne. The small man in the white gown, the High Priest, leaned near the King, whispering.
Hugo slipped beside Gavin and muttered, “If they burn her as a heretic we’ll surely burn too because we’re foreigners.”
Gavin moved as if stung. He shouted, “I have further proof of the darkspawn!” From his pouch, he drew the golden medallion once worn by the clawman. “This is a coin from ancient times, taken off one of the creature of Darkness that I slew. On the coin’s back is the likeness of the dreaded Moon Lady, the evil goddess of Night and Seduction. On the coin’s front is the likeness of a sorcerer from Hyperborea, an ancient realm of legend. I say to you that this coin was dug up from the grave of that hideous and olden Hyperborean sorcerer, Zon Mezzamalech.”
The King’s eyes grew wide as he looked at the shiny coin.
Gavin clanked to him, handing him the double weight gold piece.
With trembling fingers, the King plucked the medallion from Gavin’s gasp, inspecting it. “It has the symbol of the moon,” said the monarch.
“Evil!” cried a priest. “Sire, you must not touch it.”
The King hesitated a moment, then he thrust the coin at Gavin, who held it up for all to see.
“Sire!” said Swan, nearly overcome with emotion. “Unless you put down these creatures of Darkness all Erin will perish in bloodshed and rapine. O my lord King, I beg you not to let this happen.” She ran weeping to him, throwing herself upon the dais and clutching the King’s foot, kissing it.
“I will not let this evil happen,” said King Egbert, his eyes also shining.
With tears running down her face, Swan looked up at him. “Let me lead a crusading of nobles and hard fighting men into the heart of this wickedness, your Highness.”
“You?” asked the King. “You are a maid.”
“I have been given these visions, my lord King.”
“Yes!” said the King. “Yes, you shall crush the darkspawn for us.”
“Your Majesty,” said the High Priest behind him. “We must test these foreigners before we give them such authority.”
“Test?” asked the King, a hint of worry in his eyes.
“This will be the test,” shouted Gavin. “When the darkspawn swarm Banfrey because we have been slow in going onto the attack, then we will know that the maid was right. Is that the sort of test you desire?”
Knights roared before the High Priest could reply.
Grinning at such wild acclaim and emotion, the King clapped his hands, nodding, shouting and jumping to his feet: “We will attack!” Then he lifted Swan to her feet. “And this pure maid will lead them.”
***
That afternoon scouts rode for Forador Swamp and the tournament was postponed. At the High Priest’s request, the Matron Innocence called for Swan’s further testing, and to the Shrine of Tulun Swan went, guarded by men-at-arms and surrounded by amazed and wondering crowds. Knowledge of her speech had spread throughout the city. In the shrine, in a small room where everyone sat on stools, several old Wisdoms tested Swan on her orthodoxy, questioning her sharply.
Meanwhile, the High Priest summoned Gavin to a meeting. It was in a plain tent behind the king’s large red one. The small High Priest sat at a table, parchments and inkpots spread before him. He wore a tall hat and white robes, and except for his hard, weasel-like eyes, he seemed a simple, unassuming man.
Gavin knew that was a disguise. Here was the guiding hand or the hidden hand of the kingdom.
“Please sit, sir,” said the High Priest.
Gavin did in a wooden chair. He noted that heavily armed men-at-arms stood outside, and that the sounds of the tournament couldn’t be heard here.
“I congratulate you, sir, on your performance before the King.”
Gavin remained silent.
“Yet I wonder if you truly believe that I will let you lead the King’s host into battle?”
“Not me, your lordship, but the young maid.”
The High Priest grinned tightly. “A useful figurehead, I suppose. But even from your account, it’s clear that you did the fighting and the planning. No, the King’s hosts aren’t given to adventurers with fancy tales, of that I assure you.”
“If you won’t let me lead the host, then I beg your lordship that you let me ride with you.”
The High Priest seemed to measure Gavin, as if by staring he could discern who and what Gavin was. With a sneer, he asked, “Darkspawn have risen among us? Is that correct?”
“Yes, your lordship.”
“And your proof is that maid and your coin?”
From his pouch, Gavin drew the medallion. The High Priest indicated that he drop it onto the table. With a clink, Gavin did so.
The High Priest sat back, tapping his chin, studying the gold coin. He learned forward, using an ink-stained reed to lift the golden chain, drawing the gold piece nearer. “I don’t recognize the script or the writing around the ruler’s head.”
“And you must see plenty of various coinage,” Gavin said.
The High Priest glanced up sharply. “Is that supposed to be witty?”
“A simple observation, milord.”
The High Priest turned the coin, studying the profile of the Moon Lady and the outlined moon. “I shall keep this.”
“As you wish your lordship.”
“You have no objection?”
Gavin shook his head.
“Wouldn’t it have been better to bring us the head of a… What did you call them, those beasts that chased you in the swamp?”
“Clawmen,” Gavin said.
“Why not bring us the head of one?”
“We barely survived the swamp, your lordship. I’m afraid we weren’t thinking so far ahead.”
“At least you didn’t slay a wolf and chop off its head and try and convince us with it.”
“I don’t need fraud, your lordship. The truth is hideous enough.”
“The truth that simpleton told us?”
Gavin’s eyes tightened. “Perhaps in the heart of Banfrey, home to sophistication and cleverness, grimiest evil seems but a fancy.”
The High Priest laughed. “Oh, you’ve a quick tongue, sir, and you sling words like arrows. And even though you know that I need merely snap my fingers and my soldiers will rush in to slay you, you dare bandy words with me. Yes, you are likeable if what one desires is a rogue. But to ask me to believe these visions…” The High Priest shook his head. “No. I simply cannot do it. For you must understand, sir, that I—er, the King drew up the Anno Charta for a reason. No baron or mayor may raise a host without express permission from the King. South Erin is restless, and the Duke of Glendover plays a cagey game against King Egbert. Now it is said that you traveled first through the Duke’s fiefdoms.”
“We landed on Erin at Glendover Port, yes, your lordship.”
“Perhaps the Duke has hired you and this maid.”
“If you believed that, your lordship, you would already have had us slain.”
“After you stirred up the crowds with your performance? No, I don’t think so.”
“Swan isn’t from Glendover Port, your lordship, but from Forador Castle. What then would be her sense in lying to the King?”
The High Priest’s false smile vanished as his eyes became predatory. “That is why you’re here, Sir Gavin. You have roused my curiosity. Yes, I admire clever ploys. That wound on her cheek, for instance. It was artfully done. I congratulate you.”
“Far better, your lordship, if you lent us a thousand men-at-arms and we razed Forador Castle to the ground.”
“Ah, not only are you a keen lancer, schemer and orator, but now you prove to be a jester, too.”
“Surely you must realize that this is no jest, your lordship.”
The High Priest nodded. “Quite right, sir. It is time for truth.” He pursed his thin lips. “I know your type, Sir Gavin. Handy with a blade, quick-witted and graced with handsome features, you believe yourself a match for anyone. Then you find a raving girl and decide: Yes, I believe I shall become King Egbert’s Constable. I’ll trick him into giving me an army and then I shall rule Erin.”
“Before long, your lordship, there will be nothing to rule. The darkspawn will see to that.”
The High Priest drummed the table with his fingers. He studied the top of the tent, staring for a time and then shaking his head. “You have played your role well, and I suppose you realize that. You have roused the city with your prattle. It seems therefore that I must enter into the lists, so to speak, on your terms. Very well, I accept the challenge.” He picked up a bell and rang it.
Gavin twisted around, wondering if men-at-arms might rush in with swords drawn. He tensed when the tent flap drew back and the Matron Innocence, an even older Wisdom in a coarse cloak and Swan entered. Men-at-arms followed, carrying chairs and placing them beside Gavin. The men-at-arms then retreated outside.
Gavin let out his breath, letting go of the dagger hidden under his jacket.
“What do you think, Inga?” asked the High Priest.
“Swan has the power of Hosar,” said the Matron Innocence. “We know the Lord of Light safeguards humanity from the powers of Darkness. At times, some are touched by visions in order to help us in this grim struggle. It seems to me that Swan truly is a seer.”
“Seems?” asked the High Priest.
“It isn’t wise to be hasty in these matters,” said the Matron Innocence, “although I am quite unwilling to say she lies.”
“How did you come to be imprisoned in your liege’s dungeon?” the High Priest asked Swan.
She told them the story of her accusing Leng of sorcery and Baron Barthek counter-accusing her of witchery.
“How do we know that she isn’t a witch?” asked the High Priest.
Gavin was surprised when the ancient Wisdom spoke up. She was toothless and shook with age. “I listened well as she told us her story, your lordship. This one is no witch. A seer, I believe, as Sir Gavin’s esquire says and our Matron Innocence suspects.”
“You are quick with your praise, Wisdom,” said the High Priest.
“Begging your pardon, your lordship, but I saw her sincerity and the urgency of real fear. And she is a virgin.”
The High Priest grew thoughtful, rubbing his jowls.
“She is not playing us false,” said the Matron Innocence. “I believe her.”
“Are you a witch?” the High Priest snapped at Swan.
“No, your lordship,” said Swan. “We must halt the darkspawn. I beg you to unleash your hosts and ride to Forador Castle while there is yet time.”
“Not my hosts, girl, but King Egbert’s.”
“Yet he has entrusted them to you,” said Swan. “You are his head councilor, the chief servant of the kingdom.”
The High Priest drummed his fingers on the table. “You spoke of an ancient sorcerer…”
“Yes,” said Swan. “Zon Mezzamalech.”
“He’s the one who imprisoned you?”
“No, your lordship. Leng did that.”
“Who exactly is this Leng? You’ve given us very little to go on.”
“Leng is not of Erin, your lordship. He comes from across the sea.”
“Just like your Sir Gavin has done,” pointed out the High Priest.
“Leng comes from farther away, your lordship, from the evil land of Muscovy.”
The High Priest nodded as if that were as it should be.
“But that isn’t the worst of it, your lordship,” said Swan. “Like Zon Mezzamalech once did, Leng defies time. He’s lived longer than his normal span by using foul arts and by making a pact with Old Father Night. With those extra years Leng has gathered much dark knowledge, including the location of Zon Mezzamalech’s amulet.”
The High Priest peered at Swan as if looking at a new animal, at something he had never seen before. He shook his head, turning to the Matron Innocence. “Do you believe all this, Inga?”
“I do.”
“And you?” the High Priest asked the ancient Wisdom.
“With all my heart, your lordship,” she said.
The High Priest sat back, soon smiling bleakly. “I shall grant you your request, Sir Gavin. You will be allowed to travel with Sir Ullrick, the King’s own champion, as he rides to Forador Castle on royal business.”
“May I ask how many men you intend to send?” asked Swan.
“Fifty riders should be sufficient,” said the High Priest, “along with whoever else you two can connive.”
Swan, already pale, grew whiter yet.
“Fifty is a joke,” Gavin said, regretting letting Hugo talk him into this foolishness. “We shall all be killed.”
“Nonsense,” said the High Priest. “Fifty doughty warriors a-horse should easily be able to capture enough darkspawn to convince all Erin to go crusading.”
“You were not in Forador Castle’s feast hall, my lord,” Gavin said. “You are unaware what it is like in the swamps with howling darkspawn on your trial.”
The High Priest sat forward. “Fifty or none at all, sir.”
Swan signaled Gavin to accept. He bent his head in thought.
“Do you truly think that will that be enough men?” asked a troubled Inga. “I think you should send more.”
The High Priest smiled smoothly. “That will be enough for the moment. Sir Ullrick will be instructed to make a quick strike, thereby upsetting the enemy’s plans. Remember, Inga, these are not just fifty peasants I’m sending, but fifty knights. Believe me, they will keep the darkspawn busy—if darkspawn there really are—as we ready Banfrey and warn the rest of the kingdom. Or are you unwilling to go?” the High Priest asked Gavin.
“I will ride,” Gavin said, thinking himself a fool.
“Excellent,” said the High Priest.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The crusaders thundered out of Banfrey, following the King’s Highway and the Fangohr upstream. They traveled fast because of Swan’s urgent premonitions. In his saddlebags, Sir Ullrick the Bear held a writ from the King demanding aid from the baron of Wyvis Keep: the closest baronial neighbor to Baron Barthek.
Sir Hunneric and his small company from Albion rode with them. Gavin had convinced the rich knight that he could win more glory killing darkspawn than he could on the jousting field. None of the other gentlemen adventurers had been convinced likewise. Hugo had also roused a few men-at-arms in a tavern. Otherwise the troop was composed of Sir Ullrick’s retainers and mercenaries paid by the High Priest. Those were hard-bitten warriors, killers for hire, with well-worn harnesses and a handy way with weapons.
“They remind me of the blackhearts,” Hugo said one evening while on night watch.
“No,” Gavin said. “They are men the High Priest knows will obey him no matter what sort of ugly orders he gives.”
The next day Hugo said, “I think the High Priest means to secretly put us down in the swamps, to do the deed far from prying eyes.”
Knight and squire rode in the vanguard. They cantered past tall beech trees and their saddles creaked as the river gurgled beside them. The Fangohr had become much narrower and flowed faster here and the land had turned hilly. Fewer cultivated fields were spotted, although more deer, wolves and rabbits ran wild.
Hugo pointed out a lean knight with dark hair, bright mail and weapons of wonderfully crafted workmanship. No one rode near this knight, and his long, lean face seemed strangely blank. Gavin had watched him once or twice during their nightly stops as the man practiced his swordsmanship. That one had terrible quickness and intensity. At those times, the blankness left the thin face and man’s eyes gleamed with something akin to murder-lust. The knight seldom spoke, and if he did, his lips remained motionless. The other mercenaries feared him, growing silent if he happened by.
Hugo said, “Do you know how Sir Josserand gained his knighthood?”
“I’ve not heard,” Gavin said.
“He was a clerk from France, come to Banfrey to see the Shrine of Tulun.”
“A clerk?” asked Gavin. “How did he become a knight?”
“Several years ago, according to one of his men, Josserand came to Banfrey and rented a room in the outer town and at the shoddiest inn. By day, he went to the Shrine of Tulun, using charcoal and parchment. The Wisdom from his city wanted to build a similar shrine. At night, Josserand sipped wine, studying his drawings by the inn’s fireplace and making cryptic notes along the margins. Then one day before dusk, three of the provost’s thegns who frequented the area, supposedly as guardians of the King’s peace but actually as robbers, stealing from drunks and the unlucky, came upon Josserand with his parchments tucked under his arm. According to the man who told me, Josserand wandered home with a distracted air. He only noticed the provost’s thegns when their swords pricked his chest. The three robbers took his drawings and stripped him of his clothes, laughing as they let him go. Speaking not a word in reproach, Josserand went back to his lodging while dressed only in his shirt. He snatched up a crossbow and ordered a child to carry his sword. He longer had a belt or breeches to hold the scabbard. He soon caught sight of the thieves and shouted that he planned to kill them. As they ran, he aimed the crossbow, shooting one through the heart. Then he took the sword from the child and gave chase. One thegn tried to crawl through a hedge in a garden. Josserand severed the man’s legs at the knees and then skewered him. The other hammered at a door to a house of strangers. Josserand slew him as the man of the house opened the door.
“The next day the provost of Banfrey captured Josserand and threw him into the White Tower’s dungeon. He was to be hanged. But the High Priest heard of the case, and he sent his men and took Josserand from the provost and to his palace. There, the High Priest offered to have Josserand knighted if he agreed to serve him. Soon thereafter Josserand won his spurs, and it is said that now he will do anything that the High Priest bids.”
Gavin grew thoughtful.
“What I wonder,” Hugo said, “is why the High Priest would send such a one crusading? The likeliest answer is to murder us in the swamps. Or more to the point: to kill Swan and have done with the visionary.”
Gavin grinned.
“I find nothing humorous about that,” Hugo said.
“No?”
“They wish harm to our Seer.”
“Of course,” Gavin said. “So we must stay alive long enough to meet the darkspawn. Then we’ll be glad to have one such as Sir Josserand.”
Hugo pondered that, muttering, and from then on kept a closer watch on Josserand.
***
Gavin grew uneasy as they approached Wyvis Keep. He recognized the fortress, the strangest he had seen in Erin. It had been built with mountain and masonry married together with uncanny skill. Turrets topped rocky ridges. In places, sheer drops were better protection than any wall. Beyond the keep, a brick road ran to a toll bridge in the distance and then to a forest beyond that that would merge later into Forador Swamp. Gavin hoped the forester he had once robbed was away on other business. And he brooded on the fact that if he had slain the man—if he hadn’t been merciful—that none of this could pose a problem.
With Sir Ullrick holding his writ, the troop clattered up the mountain path to the main portcullis. A short, hard debate took place between the Wyvis seneschal behind a parapet and Sir Ullrick in his saddle, angrily shaking the parchment with the King’s seal. Reluctantly, they lifted the iron grate with a rattle of chains.
As the trail-weary crusaders entered the main cobbled courtyard, Gavin understood why. A small army bivouacked here, one obviously formed against the rules of the Anno Charta.
Tents rose everywhere in the huge courtyard. The ring of blacksmith’s hammers told of repaired mail-links, new shields and re-forged swords. To the sides, men-at-arms practiced their swordsmanship and others their archery. Puffing pages carted sloshing buckets to new-built troughs so the many horses could drink. An angry knight marched up to them, shouting at someone else about where to put all these extra men and mounts. The castle was too crowded as it was!
“A hosting,” muttered Hugo.
“One many times larger than what Ullrick has brought with us,” Gavin said.
Squires and pages ran to help them with their horses, taking the mounts around a huge hay pile that must have been recently dumped into the courtyard.
Once it was learned that Sir Ullrick the Bear from Banfrey had come, a herald ran out to beg them to join Baron Wyvis for supper.
They washed away the trail-dirt in a cubicle to the side of the feasting hall, rinsing their hands in washbasins and combing dust out of their hair. Chainmail harnesses and swords were divested in a side room. Gavin, however, had taken to wearing the silver sword wherever he went and thus kept it with him.
At the head table of a feast hall much larger than Forador Castle’s, sat a bent and trembling ancient with withered hands. He bid them welcome, old Baron Wyvis. He told them that strange trouble brewed in Forador Swamp, the reason for this feudal call-up. He had of course sent word to King Egbert. After sipping wine, Wyvis begged Ullrick, when he went back to Banfrey, to reassure his Majesty that they were loyal to the King. This host was simply to garrison the keep and protect the surrounding fiefs from increasingly strange depredations.
Ullrick rose from his table and ran thick fingers through his beard. “Let us eat before we speak of this further, milord.” The Bear was known for his prodigious appetite, and the boar roasting in the fireplace on a spit smelled delicious.
Gavin piled up on potatoes and peas and slapped on thick slabs of pork. He quaffed ale and felt his warmed stomach stretch comfortably. A knight was judged by the extent of his hearty appetite. Here, however, unlike the jousting field, Ullrick proved the victor.
By the time Gavin slipped scraps to the hounds milling about the tables, an intense whispering campaign finally came to a head.
The feasting hall was packed shoulder to shoulder with men and women. Not as many torches blazed upon the walls as had in Forador on that awful night. Instead, flickering light came from a roaring fireplace and from several cunningly placed mirrors.
“Sir Wyvis,” said Ullrick, belching into his hand, “I thank you for that excellent meal.”
The old baron struggled to rise before sinking back with a wheeze. His younger and amply endowed wife rose in his stead. She had gray hair, wide hips and brawny arms. An axe in her capable hands could surely have dashed many a smaller knight to the ground. Her fine linen dress and broad golden jewelry did nothing to soften her features, although it showed that she loved the riches her old baron had bestowed upon her. Over dinner, Gavin had heard that a costly clothing allowance had been part of the marital agreement, which had only been signed last winter.
“We thank you for your kind words, Sir Ullrick,” Lady Pavia said in a loud voice. She paused as a priest beside her tugged on her vast, linen sleeve. Behind a cupped hand, the priest whispered into her ear. She nodded, then said to Ullrick, “I notice one in your train who bears a strange sword.”
“Ah,” said Ullrick. “You must mean Sir Gavin.”
“I do not know him by name,” said Lady Pavia.
“Then let me present to you, Sir Gavin the Knight-errant, from Ulm of Bavaria, one wise in the ways of chivalry.”
Gavin stood, bowed and made ready to say something witty.
“That’s him!” shouted a green-cloaked man, leaping up from a table lower down the board. “It was a silver sword! I’ll never forget it!”
To Gavin’s dismay, the forester he had once robbed pointed a shaking finger at him. Confusion abounded in the hall, until Lady Pavia’s shouts brought everyone back under control.
“Pray tell us your tale, Welf,” she said.
“I cannot, milady,” said Welf, “for he is a knight-errant.”
“‘Tis no matter. This is my hall…” Lady Pavia coughed into a ham-like fist. “This is my husband’s hall, I mean. You may speak freely, Welf.”
The old baron nodded in agreement.
“I object!” said Sir Hunneric, rising to his feet. “Yonder man is no noble, but a mere forester. Who is he to speak ill of Sir Gavin?”
“Listen to his tale, good knight,” said Lady Pavia. “Then dare to speak well of your chivalrous knight, if you still can.”
“Gavin,” hissed Hugo, “what are we going to do?”
Gavin fingered his sword’s hilt, wondering upon the ways of mercy.
The forester told his tale to the shocked crowd. Many threw murderous glances at Gavin, while Ullrick grinned and whispered to Josserand. That one’s blank face never changed.
“And after I freed myself,” Welf said in conclusion, “I wondered upon the knight’s strange advice. Thus, I gathered three stout lads and we dared the swamp. Nowhere did we find sign of swamp dwellers, although we found signs of struggles. Soon, we fled the swamp, for it no longer felt…well, it no longer felt natural. If you know what I mean?”
Welf bowed and sat down.
Ullrick rose slowly. He plucked at his massive beard, his face unreadable. “You speak harshly, fellow. How do we know if it’s the truth or not?”
“Ask your knight-errant,” suggested Lady Pavia.
Ullrick thundered his bushy eyebrows. To ask a knight if a baseborn fellow’s words were true concerning your un-knightly actions…it simply wasn’t done. He glanced at Gavin.
Gavin rose, his hand on his hilt. “The forester speaks the truth.”
Angry murmurs arose. Ullrick sat down, grinning at Josserand, whispering into his ear.
“Wait!” shouted Swan, standing. “Lady Pavia, do you recognize me?”
“Of course I do, child. You’re Sir Bremen’s only daughter, may his soul rest forever. Let us first settle this matter, however, and then—”
“Milady!” said Swan. “I speak exactly to this matter.”
“I see,” said Lady Pavia. “Baron Barthek is your liege.” She fingered her necklace, make of square cuts of gold that clattered whenever she moved.
“Baron Barthek is no more,” said Swan. “He, like the swamp dwellers, has been captured by the creatures of Darkness, captured by Old Father Night.”
The devotee of Hosar cried out at that evil name.
Swan, with her bearing intent, began to tell them about her visions, about Leng and Zon Mezzamalech and what had occurred in Baron Barthek’s Great Hall. Then she told them about their escape through the swamp and how she had gained many terrible visions.
“O my lords and ladies,” said Swan, “this vicious evil is what we must destroy. We are here as crusaders to root out this ancient and wicked malice. The darkspawn have cleared the swamp of its men and women. That is what Sir Gavin wages war against. Now it is true that Sir Gavin of Ulm ignobly stole Welf’s horse and sword. Nor do I say that it was right to commit wrong for a just cause. But I do ask that you forgive Sir Gavin his crimes so he may yet use his silver sword against the enemy. I tell you, we must drop our old grudges to unite against this horrible enemy. Otherwise, we are doomed. Otherwise, we will all march in the Horde of the Damned. Otherwise, Erin will sink into depravity and degradation as one fortress after another is stormed and its inhabitants turned into darkspawn.”
Swan then collapsed onto her bench, sipping at a goblet of wine poured her by Hugo.
“You speak well,” Lady Pavia said into the silence.
Swan rose again. “Not well, milady. I speak the truth!”
“Truth?” asked Lady Pavia.
“As you know in your heart that I speak,” said Swan.
“Those are bold words. Wait! Hear me out,” said Lady Pavia. “I, after all, listened to you.”
Swan nodded, sitting back down.
“I know you, Swan,” said Lady Pavia. “You grew up in your father’s tower, which is less than five leagues from here. I must admit, I never heard of your speaking abilities then. Tell me, child, when did you start to see visions? Was it after your father’s death perhaps? I heard he died under a Cragsman’s spear, and that he died in front of you. That is a terrible thing for a child to see. Tell me, did you begin having your visions then?”
“Not then, milady,” said Swan.
“No?”
“No, milady. The first vision came the night Leng led Baron Barthek into the dungeon and lifted a long hidden grate.”
“A hidden grate, you say?”
“That led into a deeper dungeon, milady. There, hidden under rubble, from underground vaults that had long ago collapsed—it took many nights for my baron to find the unholy amulet.”
“Come now, child. Be truthful with us.”
“They stirred an ancient evil, milady. I remember it well. I knelt in the castle’s chapel, praying that Hosar bring me deliverance.”
“Deliverance from what?” asked Lady Pavia.
“First, that he deliver me out of Baron Barthek’s hands, milady,” said Swan.
“He was your liege, child.”
“‘Tis true, but he was an evil man, nevertheless.”
“Child, it is not right to speak ill of your sworn liege.”
“My father swore to him, milady. But I never did.”
“Then you were doubly wrong.”
“Wrong, milady?” asked Swan. “Wrong when Baron Barthek sent me to the dungeons for naming Leng a sorcerer? Wrong when it was he, in his lust for power, who dug up the amulet of Zon Mezzamalech and began this whole horrible tragedy? No, milady, I was not wrong. While I do not claim to be without flaw, I can recognize evil when I see it. Baron Barthek was an evil man, vile. You know it, milady, as anyone here does who knew him.”
Brawny Lady Pavia appeared thoughtful. The priest tried once more to whisper into her ear. She pushed him away, causing her golden necklace to clank and clatter. “What you say is most incredible, child… No, you are a child no longer. You are Swan. You have the makings of a Wisdom, I think.”
“No!” shouted Hugo, as he leapt to his feet.
The old, one-eyed squire didn’t stand tall the way Ullrick or Gavin did. He was simply a gnarled old soldier with a seamed face and a black eye-patch. His fingers were crooked, and his right leg was no longer able to straighten all the way. Everyone recognized him for what he was, and thus he astounded the assembled with his words.
“I’m no speech-maker,” Hugo said. “But I’ll tell you this. This lady is a seer. She is one who sees with Hosar’s light, who hunts for facts no matter where they lead. Sir Gavin and I found her in the dungeons, singing. Aye. Her sweet voice guided us to her, and since then she’s guided us to safety. No Wisdom. The lady is a seer! She’s our only chance for defeating the darkspawn.”
With that, Hugo abruptly sat down.
Gavin put a hand on Hugo’s trembling arm. His squire gave him a nervous grin.
“What do you suggest we do?” Lady Pavia asked Swan.
“Have the King’s scouts returned from the swamp?” asked Swan.
“No. No word since they crossed the toll bridge.”
Swan nodded. “I think we must march on Castle Forador, but only with horsemen who can ride fast in and fast out. Bold warriors will be needed, milady, well armored and ready to deal death.”
“What will you find?” asked Lady Pavia.
“I do not know, milady, although I think that Zon Mezzamalech and Leng are no longer at Castle Forador. They have left a sentry, that I know, but it is a strange sort of…” Swan shook her head. “Whatever we do, we must do quickly.”
Lady Pavia nodded before eyeing Gavin. “Would you pay restitution, sir?”
“I would,” Gavin said.
“And take me with you?” asked Welf.
“Why, man?” asked Gavin.
Welf looked abashed. “No one fights like you, milord. I would have you teach me better swordsmanship.”
“Done!” Gavin said.
Lady Pavia slapped the table, her necklace clattering. “Then let us plan.”
***
Swan wanted volunteers. She wanted no cowards. Thus, only fifty-three warriors knelt in the chapel the next morning, taking oath to Swan as Seer. They swore to obey her and help obliterate the darkspawn.
Soon thereafter, fifty-three horsemen clopped over the drawbridge. Gear rattled as the men spoke in hushed whispers. Thunder rumbled in the cloud-heavy sky and a chill wind bade the horsemen to keep a tight hold of their cloaks. Somberly, they rode over the toll bridge and into the forest. With bowed heads, they endured a downpour. Soggy clothing did nothing to cheer a cheerless enterprise. When the sun finally shone before dusk, Swan called a halt and ordered fires made. There, the warriors hung their garments on long sticks to dry. Early next morning, they edged to the swamp, a vast sea of grasses and muddy slime and sometimes knotted cypress trees with eerily hanging mosses. The trail was a dirt causeway, a snaking path several horsemen wide and three or four feet higher than the surrounding terrain.
“Ride fast,” said Swan.
In a long file, eyes peeled and nerves taunt, the horsemen rode. They heard splashing at times, but couldn’t see what caused it. Then strange barks and growls made heads whip about. Hisses made their skin crawl while clouds grew darker the deeper they plunged into the swamp. Bit by bit, the grasses grew less, the slime more and then more cypress trees pressed together.
“By Hosar’s Beard!” roared Ullrick, pulling up.
“What’s wrong?” asked Gavin.
The Banfrey champion had gone pale. “Those trees yonder, did you see?”
Gavin eyed them. They were bent old things. Their branches were more crooked than usual and the leaves much too dark. A sinister aura hung about them, as if spilled blood lay nearby.
Ullrick shook his head. “This place gets to you.”
Swan bid them move. To the castle and back before dark, that was the plan.
They rode warily and the trees seemed to grow worse. After another mile, it was obvious. The trees had become twisted things with black leaves, while the grasses were rusty and vile-seeming, although still resilient.
“This is an accursed place,” muttered Welf.
Later, when the trees seemed to sway when there was no wind, and as dark clouds turned the day into seeming evening, men balked. Before it could turn into outright rebellion, Gavin called a halt. Men dismounted, and some kicked together stray wood and crouched around a fire. Others ate cold meats and cheese. There was mumbling and hard looks at the black sky.
“What was that?” shouted Osric, a muscle-bound man, one who had been acting as scout.
“What?”
“Over there! I saw movement.” Osric, a Wyvis thegn, pointed his spear Never Miss at some trees. “Come on, lads.” He jumped down the causeway and splashed through the slime, others reluctant to follow him. He must have felt it, for the thegn looked back and found that none had joined him.
“Osric! In front of you!”
The thegn whirled around, and those on the causeway shouted oaths and curses. For shambling out of a stand of trees and at the thegn was a tall, long-limbed creature wearing rags. Its arms and legs seemed rubbery, and even in the gloom its skin was clearly mottled, diseased seeming. It had no hair and where the nose should have been were twin slits in its skull-like head.
The thegn stared at the thing in shock.
“Kill it, Osric!”
Osric moved at the last moment. He tried to bring up his spear Never Miss. The creature, a gaunt, knocked it away with a swipe of its long arm. Then it lurched at the thegn and picked him up, squeezing.
Osric screamed.
As Gavin and Josserand jumped off the causeway, swords drawn and running to the man, the gaunt bit the thegn’s face. The thegn thrashed and squirmed, but the creature proved stronger. Then the gaunt bit again and gnawed on Osric’s face as his thrashing grew less.
“Beast!” roared Gavin. Josserand’s dark eyes gleamed.
The screaming quit, and the creature dropped the dead thegn with a splash. It turned to face them.
On the causeway, a bow twanged and an arrow sprouted from the gaunt’s shoulder. The creature, as if picking lice, plucked the arrow from it, looking at it and then pitching away the arrow. Two more arrows hissed, one hitting the creature’s chest—to no effect.
“Weapons can’t harm it!” wailed a man.
Gavin and Josserand slowed, glancing at one another.
Hugo, who splashed through the slime after Gavin, slid to a halt, bent to one knee and aimed his heavy crossbow. The bolt smashed into the gaunt’s forehead, knocking it down as it squealed.
Everyone one the causeway expected it to rise and shamble away. It didn’t. The creature lay there, unmoving.
Hugo rose, madly cranking his crossbow, dropping in another bolt.
Warily, Gavin and Josserand neared the creature. Behind them, more men jumped down from the causeway.
“It’s dead,” Gavin said, poking it with the silver sword.
“So is Osric,” said Josserand.
As the men hurried to them, Gavin eyed the High Priest’s knight. “You’re supposed to murder us in the swamp, aren’t you, sir? That’s why the High Priest sent you.”
Josserand’s face went blank as his eyes took in Gavin’s drawn blade.
With it, Gavin pointed at the gaunt. “He was a man once, probably a fisherman or a woodsman. They turned him into that.”
Josserand said nothing, merely stared at Gavin.
Gavin sheathed his weapon and squatted, lifting the gaunt’s head, with Hugo’s bolt sticking out of it. “Take a good look, sir. It’s what either of us might become if we fail.”
Josserand gave him the barest of nods, then stepped aside as the others rushed near.
Gavin shouted orders, and teams fanned out, looking for more of the creatures. They didn’t find any and soon they stood back on the causeway, drying their leggings by the fires.
“This is an evil place,” said many.
“We’re fools to ride on,” said others.
If anything, the men looked more rebellious now than before the halt.
Swan formed them into a circle. Hard-eyed and scared, they studied her. Lightning jagged just then. Heavy, accompanying thunder filled them with fear and almost spooked the mounts.
“We are the crusaders!” shouted Swan. The cold wind whipped her hair. Her mail and fearless expression gave her a martial air. She, noble-born and bred, handled her mount with ease. “I dare to ride against those who would turn us into darkspawn,” she said. “What of you warriors—what do you oath-takers dare?”
Few met her gaze, although one man shouted, “Osric dared, and he’s dead.”
Swan nodded to Hugo. He went to his mount and drew a long pole, twisting the wood to unfurl a triangular-shaped banner of blue silk. It had a yellow silk flame in the center.
“That was given me by the Matron Innocence of Banfrey,” said Swan. “It was taken out the holy place of the Shrine of Tulun. The Matron Innocence told me that as long as it was aloft the archenemy of Old Father Night would aid us. Think on that. Hosar hates Darkness. He will guard us from the spells of evil. And lo, I name you Hugo, Standard Bearer of the Banner of Hosar!”
She gazed upon the men. Some doubted. Others watched with interest. Many had fiery eyes, blazing with wonder and hope.
“Shout!” she told them. “Let them know the crusaders are coming.”
Sir Hunneric raised a mailed fist. “We are knights of Hosar!”
“Aye!” bellowed Welf.
Gavin studied the warriors as they shouted. He looked to Hugo, his old and grizzled companion. He thought he had understood his friend, his boon sword brother. No speech in Muscovy had ever moved Hugo. Yet there Hugo stood: his one eye shining and his mouth agape, cheering with the rest of these easily led louts. Gavin shook his head, wondering why he didn’t feel what these men did. He saw only death ahead, and more death. Some of these brave warriors would be changed into darkspawn. He and Hugo knew that. Perhaps his bitterness was at the loss of his squire. Hugo was Swan’s now. He should have seen it coming.
Then, because it wasn’t wise amongst warriors to be the outsider, Gavin yelled with the rest of them.
***
So it was that Swan under the Banner of Hosar led them through the evil swamp, the corrupted land, and brought them to awful Castle Forador. It sat like a rock in a bog. It was a fortress of stones piled one atop the other, with turrets, a raised drawbridge and dark, moss-lined walls. No lights shone from the castle, although darkness in places seemed thicker than elsewhere, and from those spots… Someone or something watched them. They all felt it. They felt hatred, a yearning for blood—theirs—to be sucked out of them until they were lifeless husks.
The horses whinnied in terror, their ears lying flat.
“Dismount!” shouted Gavin.
Under his direction, they formed a shield wall, a circle, with the horses in the center together with Swan and the Standard Bearer.
Black leaves rustled in the gloom. A chill wind, heavy with the feel of rain and malice, threatened to turn dusk into watery night.
Gavin nodded to Josserand, and together on foot, they scouted around the castle. They found deep pits filled with bones and gory rubbish, and they hurried across oddly sticky ground. Josserand paused, touching the soil, crumbling the dirt with his fingers.
“Blood,” he said. “Much spilled blood here.”
Gavin shuddered. They increased their pace, their armor jangling. Gavin tested the postern gate. He pushed it open, although neither of them walked through into the courtyard.
“Something is in there,” whispered Josserand. He seemed tense, like a bent sword under tremendous pressure.
Gavin squinted into the dark courtyard, but saw nothing moving. Still, a bad feeling worked up and down his back, like a hairy spider crawling across his skin.
They retraced their path to the shield wall, grim-eyed men studying the castle and the swaying trees.
Gavin ordered torches lit and passed around. “Let’s do what needs doing,” he told them.
No one broke from the shield wall. Everyone remained in place. Many looked mulish, frightened-stubborn.
“Shadows can’t harm us,” Gavin said.
Sir Ullrick drew his axe, clutching it with a white-knuckled grip. His breathing deepened. It seemed as if he wanted to step out of the shield wall. Soon he scowled, turning away, his big shoulders hunching.
“It could be a trap,” said Hunneric.
Gavin studied the castle. The big pile of stones radiated terrible menace.
A man-at-arms cried out, pointing a trembling finger, “Look! Look! On the walls!”
Men scanned the ramparts as thunder rolled across the underbelly of the clouds.
Swan, while a-horse, had been studying the fortress, with her features paler than ever. She moved her lips without making a sound. Sweat glistened on her face and she shivered as when she had the fever. Then she swung a leg over the saddle horn and slid to the ground, marched to Hugo’s stallion and drew the banner, unfurling it, raising it high.
Men shouted in wonder. The yellow silk flame seemed alight, and as the wind rippled the banner, the flame seemed to waver, as would any fire.
Swan handed the banner to Hugo. He grinned tightly, waving it back and forth. Then, beckoning Gavin beside her, Swan led the crusaders to the postern gate.
“We must take back what is ours,” she told them. She plunged through the opening, with Hugo hurrying on her heels. The men followed, albeit reluctantly, with a clack and clattering of mail armor and iron-shod shoes.
It was a ghost of a place, without a soul to greet them. Gruesome stains marred the courtyard bricks. Offal and worse horribly stank from pits and befouled cisterns. Torture racks and whipping posts had been built and used. Thick, congealed blood lay in gross puddles. Perhaps the worst were the bones littered everywhere, some half-gnawed. Many of the men grew faint. A few vomited.
With her torch, Swan pointed at the main keep. It was a square tower, and from it radiated the worst wickedness.
“There lies the evil,” she whispered.
Men tightened the grips upon their swords, spears, shield handles and licked their lips.
“We must enter and destroy the malice,” she told them.
Ullrick had grown deathly pale. He now objected. “We have no sorcerers, no spell-casters to aid us.”
“We have the banner,” said Swan, “and stout hearts and blades of steel.”
Josserand smiled crookedly. Gavin found that his palms had grown sweaty and his throat dry. He didn’t want to reenter that awful place where he had witnessed such grim and inhuman butchery.
Swan clapped Hugo on the shoulder, making him flinch. He took a deep breath and ran ahead, kicking open the main door, entering with the banner into the darkness. A foul odor wafted out and many men hung back. Others gagged. Only the bravest—a mere handful—clanked into the former Great Hall after the Standard Bearer. Their torchlight flickered off a hundred bones scattered across the room. Bizarre, grotesque paintings on the walls sickened them. Dominating the huge hall, the only remaining furniture as it were, was a black altar bespattered with gore.
For a moment none spoke, so the crackling torches seemed unnaturally loud.
Then a lean, remote man stepped from behind the altar, startling them. He wore an odd gown that was unlike anything seen in Erin for a millennium.
“Zon Mezzamalech,” whispered Swan.
Gavin felt his hair stand on end in supernatural dread.
The man, Zon Mezzamalech, smiled evilly. He lifted long, thin arms. He began to chant in a tongue that none of them except for Swan in her visions had ever heard.
Sir Hunneric shouted wildly, half-berserk. He drew his sword and charged the sorcerer.
“No!” shouted Swan. “Wait!”
Young Sir Hunneric gave his battle cry and swept his blade at the sorcerer. The sword passed harmlessly through Zon Mezzamalech, to shatter against the stone altar, shivering into several pieces.
The sorcerer, if such he was, stepped near, clutching Sir Hunneric by the throat, lifting him off his feet. That hand glowed eerily green, and that glow passed into the young knight. Hunneric screamed as if hot brands had been shoved into his belly.
A bolt flew from Hugo’s crossbow, also passing harmlessly through the sorcerer.
“Is he real?” roared Ullrick, spittle flying from his lips and with madness in his eyes.
“Draw your sword!” Swan shouted at Gavin. “Draw your enchanted silver blade.”
Gavin did so: horrified as Sir Hunneric kicked his legs and vainly tried to free himself from the glowing grip.
Swan clutched Gavin by the sleeve, leading him toward the sorcerer.
“How do you slay a wraith?” shouted Ullrick, trailing behind.
Gavin was amazed to see bright tracings running up and down his blade.
The sorcerer or wraith holding aloft Hunneric saw it too. “No!” it hissed. “Keep away.”
“Strike the altar,” Swan whispered in his ear.
“And shatter my sword?” asked Gavin, as if in a daze.
“Strike, Sir Gavin! Be bold! Trust for once in your life.”
Gavin didn’t know if it was her words or Hunneric choking out his life. He swung as the apparition screamed. The silver blade touched the altar. Thunder boomed, blue lightning erupted and the altar stones burst apart.
Hunneric collapsed onto the ground with a thud. The sorcerer, wraith, whatever it was, vanished.
Dumbly, Gavin stared at his sword. It no longer had those frightening glyphs, the glowing magic runes. No notch marred it, and it was whole. Most surprising of all, as the dust settled, he saw that the altar had been shattered. It was askew, chunks of it fallen free.
“Look at Sir Hunneric,” hissed Josserand.
To their horror, the young knight metamorphosed before them. Furry hair sprouted all over his face as his mouth lengthened into a wolfish snout and his teeth into fangs. His fingernails grew long and hardened into claws.
“Help me,” pleaded Sir Hunneric. Then he snarled, struggling to rise.
With his sword and before anyone could stop him, Josserand ran him through the chest, so Hunneric or the beast he had become staggered back against the broken altar. Blood gushed. And the thing that had been Sir Hunneric slumped back in death and no longer breathed.
The men stared at one another in horror. A few sobbed unashamedly.
Then the dead thing stirred—although his chest didn’t rise to take in air. He raised his bestial head with coal red eyes like the fires of hell, and he opened his mouth so that wicked laughter issued out that did not seem to be his own. “Fools! You shall never leave this swamp alive! This night will you join the Horde of the Damned and dance a death jig for my amusement.”
It would have spoken more. But as the others watched in frozen terror and loathing, Gavin swung, decapitating the grisly head. He turned to the others, shouting, “Get out! Run!”
Swan shook her head in bewilderment. “No. We must burn this place to the ground.”
Gavin backed away from the broken altar, his eyes wild. He heard flapping and thin squeals. With a flicker of his blade, he struck two bats, cutting them from the air. Another bat fell from the rafters and attached itself to Sir Ullrick’s cheek. The Bear roared in rage and terror, ripping it from him, throwing it down and stomping it with his heel. At that, they broke and ran, Hugo grabbing a reluctant Swan. Outside, from the clouds above, grew a strange sound, a rustling that came from many dark blots.
“More bats!” shouted Gavin. “Run to the horses! We must ride!”
They ran, and soon mounted. With blades drawn and horses neighing, the company thundered for the causeway. Bats dropped from the sky, hundreds of them. Later, strangely altered bears, wolf-things, and creatures that once had been snakes hopped and slithered out of the swamp to attack them. The crusaders hewed, they slashed, and they rode from Forador Castle, killing and being killed.
The next morning less than thirty reached the toll bridge, all of them stained to the soul by the horrors they had witnessed. Each now knew that they doomfared in earnest.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Cuthred trembled as he clutched a bloodied whip.
The emaciated Master sat upon the Duke’s throne. The Master had the same height as the former seneschal of Castle Forador, the same shock of thick white hair. But the face was no longer fleshly and full. The body lacked Kergan’s once deep chest and heavy arms and legs. The face was skull-like, the raging eyes deep within the sockets. The limbs were skeletal, the hands particles of liver-spotted flesh, tendons and bones. Upon the wreckage of his body, the Master wore a fine-spun Bavarian robe. Upon his sunken chest radiated the eerie amulet.
The throne room’s windows were sealed, the torches and vast fireplace unlit. A green glow emanated from twin braziers beside the throne, matching the nimbus around the Master’s amulet. The smoky incense of the braziers also helped mask the smell of decay that the Master wore like a rotting cloak.
The braziers dimly illuminated Leng groveling at the foot of the throne, with his brown robe shredded, his back stained with blood. Vivian watched to the side, she watched with purple-painted eyes wide with fear. Her bound hair was fixed high in an ancient style, with deep red rouge streaked upon her cheeks and with black lipstick. She wore costly rings, a silk gown that trailed at her feet and a necklace of Muscovite amber.
“They destroyed the enchantment,” said the Master. With his bony fist, he hammered the arm of the throne, splintering it. “They shattered my spell!”
“Master,” said Leng, from upon a Saxon rug. “I can repair this damage. By the Moon Lady, I swear it.”
The Master turned his decaying eyes upon Cuthred. “Again, and strike harder this time. You are forbidden to pull your strokes.”
Cuthred’s huge arm moved ponderously, whirling in an arc. Whip-leather hissed through the air and slashed the sorcerer’s flesh.
From upon the rug, Leng howled.
Vivian shrank back, groaning in dread.
Cuthred grinned, showing off horse-sized teeth. He swung once more.
***
After the Rape of Glendover, the Master had moved into the Duke’s vacated apartments in the citadel. There the bloodiest fighting had taken place, the former Duke leading the defense. Presently, the now lifeless Duke marched in the Horde of the Damned, scaling the walls of nearby castles. Each evening, Death Drummer Joanna took her horde on yet another conquest, refilling her chopped-up ranks with more complete, fleshier recruits. By now, those who had become undead at Castle Forador tottered with their last shreds of flesh. More than one simply collapsed on the march as the last retaining muscles rotted away.
The Moon Ships had worked to perfection as they had sat offshore that victorious night. Many Glendover folk might have survived the slaughter, but they had hesitated to board ship and face the ghostly sea-warriors. So with daylight and the moon ships’ disappearance, more than one doomed human had known great bitterness.
Glendover became the Master’s stronghold. Behind the huge stone walls, the darkspawn were safe during the day. Except that a day not so long ago, as dusk fell, the Master hurried to the docks to examine his cogs and galleys, the ones left by the humans. He and Leng had argued over the best use of the fleet, Erin’s biggest.
As he had hurried, outpacing his brutish guards, a lone human arose. The haggard woman, wild-eyed and dirty, her rags torn, screamed from her secret hiding spot. She screamed and launched herself upon the Master, a spear in her death-grip. She refused to look into the Master’s eyes. She screamed so she couldn’t hear his words. She drove the spear into his belly and shouted in triumph—only to see that triumph turn into disaster as the Master, with a horrible grunt, yanked the spear from his belly and turned it upon her.
She, too, along with the brave Duke, now marched in the Horde of the Damned.
With his spells, the Master had stanched the flow of blood. But the withering of his flesh had accelerated. And he had decided that his brute guard had failed him. They now hung by their heels upon the city walls, writhing in the daylight and moaning at night.
Cuthred became the Master’s new bodyguard. It was a dubious honor even to the giant’s dull-witted understanding. Only Vivian’s presence brought any relief.
***
The Master now rose from his throne, tottering to a nearby window. He unlatched the shutter and gazed over the nighttime city. In the streets below new armies of clawmen, tuskriders, brutes, blood-drinkers and a handful of giants metamorphosed into being.
“Broken,” the Master said. “The enchanted was shattered.”
“H-How?” whispered Leng, who still lay on the costly Saxon rug.
“You dare ask me that?” said the Master. “They have opened the swamp route. Nothing now bars their way from reinforcing the North.”
“Surely no one in Erin is powerful enough to have broken that enchantment, Lord.”
“Now you question the certainty of my knowledge? You are brazen as well as willfully stupid.” The Master raised a bony finger.
“Mercy, Master!” Leng groveled. “Have mercy, O Great One. Let me repair my errors. Let me redeem what my foolishness has caused.”
“Repair?” the Master sneered. “How could you, a fledgling sorcerer, rebuild such a powerful enchantment? Tell me this secret. Come, let me learn from you.”
Leng licked his lips and winced as he lifted his head. “Do you know who broke this spell, Lord?”
“Yes,” said the Master. “And it is another of your failures. You had her in your grasp, but your greed, your lack of wit allowed her to escape.”
“Swan broke the enchantment?” asked Leng.
The Master fingered his amulet, frowning.
Cuthred cocked his huge head. That frown—Seneschal Kergan used to frown like that. Cuthred’s oversized features, the eyebrows like a horse’s mane, the big blunt nose, as big as two fists pressed together, and the puffy lips, twisted thoughtfully. Some of old Kergan yet lingered in the Master. Some—Cuthred’s massive chest tightened. This dark room now seemed cloying and the smell of incense choking.
Cuthred hated that he had loved the battle in the city. He didn’t know why he kept thinking of that and why now. On the day that they had first conquered Glendover, on the docks as sunlight rose and as people cursed with fear and grief, he had known shame. He had wiped the human blood from his hands. He had slunk from the rising sun like a beaten hound. The shame…it had prodded him, troubled his slumber. He washed his hands every time he woke up and each time he lay down to sleep. Often, when the Master slept, he crept outside and from deep shadows dared peer at the sun. He wanted to remind himself that once he had been human, once he had frolicked under that fiery orb in the sky. He fueled his shame by said deed and couldn’t understand why he did so.
He had seen something similar in Durren-brute. It had been on that same day, on the morning of Glendover’s rape. Durren-brute’s face had softened as a child had begged for mercy. Durren-brute had lowered his gory sword. He had turned away, unable to strike the child who had looked so much like his long-dead daughter.
Cuthred peered at the Kergan-frown, and loathing filled him. Loathing for the Master and loathing at what he had become. Yet…he also thrilled to use his strength beating Leng. Ha-ha! The sorcerer wasn’t so smart after all. He squirted blood just like any puny human. He… Cuthred shook his head, shame and joy co-mingling together.
“Swan leads them,” said the Master. “She has given them—” He stroked the amulet as he frowned. “It seems Hosar has found his dupe. He has given Swan an ancient banner to lead warriors to insane acts of bravery.”
“But the enchantment, Lord…” said Leng. “Could a banner have broken such a powerful spell?”
“A sword that I’ve not seen before did the actual breaking,” said the Master.
“What kind of sword, Lord?”
A scowl appeared on the Master’s ravaged face. “I know not.”
“Who wields this sword, Lord?”
“One named, Sir Gavin.”
Vivian cried sharply. An instant later, as the Master and Leng turned toward her, she put a ringed hand over her mouth.
“Yes,” said the Master. “You know this Gavin, don’t you, Harlot? What of his sword?”
“It is silver,” whispered Vivian.
“Silver and fire are ever Hosar’s tools against Darkness,” said Leng.
“An obvious truism,” said the Master. “Harlot, tell me more about the sword.
“That’s all I know about it,” she whispered.
“Our problem is solved, Lord,” said Leng. “Slay Sir Gavin and steal his silver sword.”
“The enchantment is still broken,” said the Master. “You have solved nothing.”
Leng wet his lips, staring at the rug. Then he looked up, a sly smile on his face. “Perhaps the broken enchantment doesn’t matter as much as we think it does, Lord. We have one of the only two ways off the island. One more throw of Fate’s dice, to capture Lobos Port, will seal up Erin for good. Then you can take the fools at your leisure.”
The Master shook his head. “A mere silver sword could not have shattered the enchantment. Swan must have blessed this weapon, or perhaps through her Hosar did it. I care nothing for your guesses and your wild hunches. Your advice has proven worthless too many times. Swan, the one you let live, led knights into the swamp, into Castle Forador. You said that no one would dare to do that.”
“Hosar raised up a champion, Lord. So you yourself have said. Therefore, yes, one of my moves has been checked. I had thought to keep Hosar’s champion in bondage, and I suspected she might be the one. My studies on our great foe led me to conclude that he only rises up one such champion each time that he dares move openly against Darkness. Sir Gavin and his sword upset my calculation. I admit that. I will not quibble with you, Lord, on who is most the most dangerous of our enemies.”
“What will you quibble with me on?” the Master asked softly.
Leng hung his head. “On nothing, Lord, for I am the servant and you are the Master.”
The amulet glowed, bathing the Master in an eerie radiance. For a moment, his eyes seemed to burn and the shreds of flesh shrink upon his skull. “Speak on,” he whispered.
Leng had grown pale, and it seemed with effort that he moved his tongue. “They have checked the weakest of our moves, Lord, a fantastic feat for them. Truly, this silver sword is troublesome. So why not use the fravashi upon Sir Gavin and remove the sword? And while the fravashi strikes, make the final bold move, Lord.”
The Master bent his ravaged head to peer into the city. He soon shook his head. “No. You are wrong on two counts. It is the woman, the Seer, who is the true danger. The fravashi must be used upon her. The knight and his sword are mere tools. I must first remove Hosar’s champion. As to this bold stroke that you urge of me. I think not. It makes me uneasy.”
“But the gains, Lord.”
“Yes. Capturing Lobos Port gives us great gains. But the risk! I must think on this a little longer.”
Leng waited, before he said, “Should I release the fravashi, Lord?”
“Yes, release it. Send it at Swan.”
Leng dipped his head.
“Go now,” said the Master. “Carry this whipping as chastisement. It will be but a foretaste of what will happen to you if you fail me again.”
“Yes, Lord.”
“First, be sure to wash the blood from your back. Otherwise, you will drive the fravashi mad. Wait. Your wounds will do that in any case. Take the giant. Have him hold the fravashi as you give him his commands. Then hurry back. We have one more matter to discuss.”
“As you will it, Lord,” said Leng, gathering his tattered robes around him and beckoning Cuthred to follow.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The council debate proved bitter.
They met in the packed main hall of Castle Wyvis. The fire roared while servants threw open window-shutters to admit the sunlight. Knights and thegns sat on benches at the long oaken tables. They tore off hunks of break and cheese and quaffed it down with watery wine. Lady Pavia hadn’t wanted any drunken quarrels and had ordered the steward to mix four parts water to one part wine. Hounds roamed underfoot and two cats swished their tails from upon the rafters above.
The fighters from Banfrey mingled with those from Castle Wyvis and other nearby fiefs and baronies. Carrier pigeons had been tossed into the air and fast riders sent out to bear grim tidings. Midland barons had already begun to arrive, while some had sent heralds or pigeons with a return message. Alas, a herald had come last night from Banfrey. It’s what had started the heated debate.
Unsurprisingly, Sir Ullrick said that he had no choice. As he spoke, he pounded the oaken table with his fist, saying that King Egbert ruled South Erin. Therefore, because his High Priest and Lord Chancellor had summoned them back to Banfrey, they had to leave at once.
“What about the High Priest’s other order?” asked Lady Pavia.
Sir Ullrick the Bear shifted in his high-backed chair. The lordliest nobles sat on such instead of the benches.
“The High Priest demands that we disband our host,” said Lady Pavia. “Do you agree with that, Sir Ullrick? Should we leave ourselves defenseless?”
Swan rose. She wore a blue dirndl-skirted dress. It was the kind peasant girls wore and it contrasted with everyone else’s finery and also added to the feeling that here indeed was one pure in spirit. Swan reminded them once again—as she had been for days—of the swamp’s emptiness and of what they had discovered at Castle Forador. Clearly, the darkspawn had marched north in strength. But by shattering the foul altar to Old Father Night, the enchantment that had held the swamp in dark thrall had been destroyed. When Lady Pavia asked if she saw that through visions, Swan admitted she didn’t. It was educated guesswork.
“Has your power deserted you then?” asked Lady Pavia.
Angry murmurs arose from the crusaders: the knights who had sworn on the Banner of Tulun to follow the Seer anywhere. Although they were few in numbers, they made up for it in zeal. They wore newly fashioned surcoats dyed blue and with a yellow flame symbol sewn onto the fronts and backs.
Swan ignored Lady Pavia’s question. Instead, her gaze swept around the room, to those seated at the long oaken tables and to those standing against the walls. “The darkspawn marched north. Why then haven’t we heard cries of help from those in the North? I believe because the darkspawn have surprised them and gained wicked victories. Perhaps they even besiege the Duke’s lords and ladies in their castles. Our brothers and sisters of North Erin face the darkspawn alone, and if they have lost battles, we know that the spirit of Zon Mezzamalech will take the captives and make yet more darkspawn. Shall we wait until all North Erin swarms with darkspawn? Shall we bicker and fight among ourselves and let the terrible foe marshal his strength and slaughter our natural allies? I say no!”
“No!” shouted several crusaders.
Swan put her palms on the table, leaning forward, letting her gaze once more sweep those both seated and standing. “Here then is what we must do: head north through the swamp route, for it is the quickest way, and ride to help our fellow man. Remember, united we stand and divided we fall.”
“No, no, milady” said Ullrick.
Swan took her seat, her eyebrows raised.
“Let me assure you that the High Priest disguises his threats very thinly indeed,” said Ullrick. “If I and my men don’t return to Banfrey” —he glanced sharply at Sir Josserand— “he will think that we’ve joined the rebellion.”
“We are not rebels!” cried Lady Pavia.
“Tell that to the High Priest,” said Ullrick. He quaffed his goblet of watery wine, staring at it, soon blowing through his mustache and looking around the table. “He will believe that I’ve joined you. Then he will stir the King with lies and raise the King’s Army. They will march against us to do battle. Perhaps as bad, before that and in my absence, I’ll be stripped of my ancestral lands and castles and be named an outlaw.”
The others looked dismayed, although perhaps more for the thought of the King’s Army marching against them than for the Bear’s troubles.
“This news should bring smiles not frowns,” said Swan. “Oh, this is good news indeed.”
Sir Ullrick looked stricken, while Lady Pavia asked, “Good?”
“Yes,” said Swan. “By the time the King’s Army arrives, the darkspawn will have marched south. If our timing is exact then we shall ride to the King, do homage and together in unity crush the enemy.”
Several people grew pale.
Sir Ullrick shook his head. “That is a dangerous and vain idea, milady.”
“We wish for no war against Banfrey,” added Lady Pavia.
“I must leave for the city at once,” said Ullrick. “I beg your forgiveness, but I have no choice in the matter.”
Swan laid a hand on Ullrick’s thick wrist. “I ask you to do this, sir. Wait a week while I ride north. When I return you can take several sacks of darkspawn heads with you to hurl at the High Priest’s feet and thereby show him and the King the falseness of these charges.”
“You can’t go north,” said Lady Pavia. “It’s madness to even speak of reentering the swamp. The bats and evil serpents and strangely altered beasts that harried your flanks on your death ride out of the swamp will once more lie in wait.”
“No, milady, you’re wrong,” said Swan. “The evil of Forador Castle has been purged. The altar to Old Father Night was shattered, the wicked enchantment broken. The beasts have already slunk away. This I know as fact.”
Ullrick plucked at his beard as others digested the news. Soon the Bear turned on a silent Gavin. “What do you say, sir? What is the knight-errant’s opinion?”
“I follow Swan,” Gavin said. “But since you lack the courage to do likewise, sir, I suggest that you scurry back to your master like a good cur and lick his hand so he may yet pet you.”
Ullrick slammed his knuckles against the table.
“Please, Sir Gavin,” said Swan, “do not slur the honor of this noble knight. He must follow his conscience, as we all must do.”
“Do you call me a coward, sir?” asked Ullrick.
“A base coward,” Gavin said.
Ullrick reached for his scabbard, making to draw his sword. But all of them had agreed to enter the council chamber unarmed.
Gavin grinned. “I once disproved your charge of cowardice against me on the jousting field. How will you disprove my charge against you now?”
Ullrick’s thick lips curled. “I’ll ride wherever you dare, sir!”
“Very good,” Gavin said. “We leave for North Erin in the morning.”
***
“You shouldn’t maneuver him through his pride,” Swan later chided Gavin. They stood by a well in the courtyard, with cups of cold water. A white dove was perched on Swan’s shoulder, cooing softly.
“If I hadn’t spoken up,” Gavin said, “Ullrick would have left. He would have taken some of our best fighters with him.”
“That’s not the issue. It’s the manner in which you use people. We are crusaders, not mere soldiers. We must follow the ways of Hosar.”
“The princely fools who went crusading in Muscovy thought likewise. ‘We follow Hosar,’ they said. ‘How can we lose?’ In the cold pine forests, they lost everything. Thus, I learned that only keen generalship and stout fighting will see us through. Your courage is beyond question, milady. You are indeed the star of courage. Your radiance gives others hope. You gave me hope, and I watch repeatedly as you infuse hardheaded swordsmen with true faith. That, I deem a miracle. Otherwise, I must admit that I and everyone else around you are dupes and fools.”
“You are no fool.”
Gavin grimaced. “I rode back into the swamp. I watched Sir Hunneric transform into a monster before me. I swung my sword against a stone altar. I’d say I was a fool.”
“Your sword shattered the enchantment.”
Unease stirred in Gavin’s eyes. “You are gifted, milady. None can gainsay it. But this idea of letting Ullrick and his stout fighters leave…” Gavin shook his head. “It makes me wonder if you have the generalship to claim ultimate victory.”
“Do you?” she shot back, startling the dove. It circled and landed at her feet, walking around Swan as it cooed.
“What do you mean?” asked Gavin.
Sawn smiled, stretching the scar on her cheek. “I mean that you have been promoted, sir. You are no longer my champion, but my Captain General, military leader of the crusaders. I shall supply you with the stout hearts, as you say. You in turn must supply me with generalship.”
Gavin scratched under his beard. “The others won’t like that.” He wasn’t sure he liked it himself.
She smiled serenely, and the dove no longer cooed as it eyed Gavin.
He scowled. “How many ride with us tomorrow?”
“A little over a hundred,” she said.
“What of Lady Pavia?”
“She implores her noble neighbors to ignore the High Priest’s warning, to ignore the Anno Charta and to field their warriors and retainers and join us. So far, only Baron Bain, their closest neighbor, has agreed to ride with us.”
“Bain is the knight with the famous morningstar?”
“Him,” said Swan. “When we return, I suspect more like Baron Bain will have rallied to us. Perhaps as good, many of the town mayors have promised to sway their burghers to join us. Then we will field a real army to defend the Midlands.”
“A mob, more likely,” muttered Gavin. “That’s what town militiamen really are, along with most of these castle louts. The High Priest’s mercenaries are the only really dangerous men in Erin.” He shrugged. “I don’t know if you’ve given me true faith or beguiled me with your sweet ways. I fear that in the end we’ll all die a fool’s death in this far-western island. Our trick will be to die cleanly.”
“I don’t understand.”
His grimace turned even sourer. “Better a quick death by the sword than captured and turned into a darkspawn like Sir Hunneric.”
***
When morning came, Gavin clopped his palfrey to five wagons hitched with mules. Drivers hunched upon the buckboards as the castle’s front-gate chains rattled and the portcullis inched higher.
“What are those for?” asked Gavin.
“For any wounded we find in the North,” said Swan.
Gavin shook his head, explaining that wagon wheels became too easily mired in mud, especially swamp mud. Mules by themselves were better.
“Without the wagons we won’t be able to carry away as many wounded,” said Swan.
“If we have more mules we could.”
Swan must have seen the wisdom of that. So she gave in to her Captain General. Departure was thus delayed a day in order to round up more mules from the outlaying villages.
***
That night, Hugo stirred uneasily. He slept in the common room of the Tower de Duc. Over a hundred years ago and under the direction of a foreign stonemason from France, and from the province of Duc, the tower had been chiseled out of the very mountain. Crusaders lying on reed mats snored all around Hugo, while in a corner a hound whined in its sleep. In the fireplace, dying embers gave a soft red glow to the huge room. When the last coal died, the windowless room would be as dark as a tax-gatherer’s heart.
Hugo lay on a pallet of straw, a heavy quilt pulled over him. With his tongue, he kept testing his teeth and sucking air over them, wincing each time. He had tender teeth and never ate honey or sweetmeats. As a boy, honey-in-the-comb had been his favorite treat. It still was. He just never ate it. Tonight his teeth ached and kept him awake even when he knew that tomorrow would be a hard day. He shifted and tried breathing through his nose. His left nostril whistled. He loathed that, and knew that he would never fall asleep listening to it.
He stared into the ruddy darkness. Swan slept several floors above him. She was alone in an upstairs cubicle. He imagined that she knelt by her cot praying to Hosar. Maybe white light from heaven highlighted her. She was so pure, so good. He had never known anyone like her. He had been bitter for so long, had always been knocked around before Gavin saved him from those Muscovite hunchbacks. He shivered at the memory. That had been a terrible time. Afterward, he had admired and watched Gavin take the noble fools at their own game. It had been a pleasure to see. But now it was different. Swan was truly good. She truly followed Hosar. She made him see that his old ways were grubby. It made him ashamed, and he still couldn’t believe that he was the Standard Bearer. He was the one who held the Banner of Tulun. He wasn’t pure. He was an old, crooked man with a shriveled heart. But he would try to do what was right. He had given oath to Hosar.
Ah! His tooth, he breathed through his mouth again.
He shifted on the straw, and blinked, his senses alert as he came wide awake. Something moved in the darkness. It moved on stealthy feet. He couldn’t see it. He felt it. Then he saw a form tiptoeing past sleeping men. The hound whined in its sleep again, but it didn’t awaken. None of the dogs stirred. Hugo went rigid with fear. Had a darkspawn slipped into the tower? He couldn’t move because of his terror.
His eyes opened wider. Swan! The darkspawn must want Swan.
He tried to move, but his fears were like shackles.
The dark form headed for the spiral stairs that led up to Swan’s cubicle.
Ah! His tooth, it ached. He rubbed his jaw, and that movement broke the paralysis.
Hugo scrambled out of the cot, reaching under it and picking up his crossbow. He hurried for the stairs, winding the cord and slipping a bolt into the groove. He couldn’t fathom how a darkspawn had gotten this deep into Wyvis Keep. Then it occurred to him that Gavin had said the High Priest wouldn’t let this hosting go so easily. A man like the High Priest had more than one way to solve a problem. The hair on Hugo’s arms rose. The thing was barely ahead of him. He heard the shuffle of shoe leather. On silent feet honed in grim Muscovy, Hugo followed.
He reached the head of the spiral stone stairs as something scratched at Swan’s bolted door.
Seconds stretched until candlelight flickered under the door jam. “Who’s there?” Swan asked from the other side.
“A message from Gavin, milady,” replied a gravelly voice.
“Gavin?” asked Swan, clattering back the bolt. She opened the door as her candle flickered.
Hugo raised his crossbow and saw the bald assassin in the same instant. The assassin moved as lithe as a cat, ripping out a dagger. Before Swan had time to scream, a ka-chunk sounded. The assassin pitched forward, slamming into Swan, knocking the candle from her grasp.
“Milady!” shouted Hugo.
Somehow, the candle remained lit and Swan squirmed out from under the dead man’s body. On the floor, the dagger glistened with what had to be poison. Hugo’s crossbow bolt stuck out of the assassin’s back.
“Don’t touch it,” hissed Hugo, as Swan reached for the dagger.
She blinked at him, her features pale.
Hugo knelt, and he put one of his rough’s hands on her cheek. “I’m going to get Gavin. He’ll know what to do. You must bolt the door and not open it until you hear my voice again. Do you understand?”
She nodded, and there was fear in her eyes.
It made Hugo ache. He took her hands and helped her stand. “You’re safe, milady. Old Hugo won’t let anything hurt you.”
She picked up the candle and regarded the dead man. Something shifted upon her face. “Hurry,” she said. “Bring me Sir Gavin.”
Gavin came, and he told them what they must do.
Hugo wasn’t sure he liked the cunning of Gavin’s plan. They did Hosar’s work.
Later, Ullrick raised a lantern over the dead man. He shook his head, saying, “No. I don’t know.”
“Is he the High Priest’s man?” asked Swan.
The Bear flushed. “I just told you I don’t know. What happened here? Why is this man dead?”
Hugo told him.
Ullrick scowled as he spat curses, saying what a despicable deed assassination was.
Gavin told him he could leave and to be sure to say nothing about this to anyone.
A half-hour after that Josserand stood in the room, telling them a different story.
“That’s Gentile,” Josserand said. The man had taken time to don his mail-shirt and had a fighting dirk belted at his side. The High Priest’s mercenary glanced at each of them in turn. “Gentile was born a guttersnipe in faraway Constantinople and rose to be an alchemist’s apprentice. Had to flee far and fast, I heard. He stole from his master and failed to kill the alchemist when he discovered the theft. Gentile was knowledgeable about poisons and greedy for gold. He’s the High Priest’s special envoy for night work. Rest assured that there are others and that the High Priest will strike again, if not through envenomed blades than with golden bribes.”
“Does Sir Ullrick know Gentile?” asked Gavin.
Josserand hesitated a moment before nodding.
“Does Ullrick know that Gentile is the High Priest’s assassin?”
“Of course.”
“So Ullrick lied to us,” Hugo said after Josserand had left.
“Not necessarily,” Gavin said, who held the poisoned blade, studying it.
They sat in Swan’s bedroom. The dead assassin had been removed. A shawl covered her shoulders as she stared out a slit window.
Hugo protested, “But Josserand just said—”
“I don’t believe him,” interrupted Gavin.
Hugo arched his eyebrows. “Josserand is a crusader now. He swore an oath to Swan. He wouldn’t lie to us.”
“You’ve never known a man to swear a false oath?” asked Gavin.
“That is a base charge to make against a crusader,” Hugo said angrily.
Swan turned to study Gavin.
“Perhaps it is base,” Gavin said, “and if that is the case then I’ve another mark against my soul.” He wrapped the knife in a cloth, stuffing it in his belt. “Let us not forget that Josserand was the High Priest’s keenest sword. A few muttered words don’t necessarily change such a thing.”
“Josserand swore on the banner!” Hugo said, striking a fist into his palm. “He knows that we fight for our very lives.”
Gavin turned to Swan. “By your leave, milady.”
She studied him a moment longer before permitting him to go. Soon thereafter, Hugo went back to his pallet to try to sleep the remainder of the night.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The next morning, Swan forbade any angry letters to be sent to Banfrey. Let the High Priest wonder and brood. That might delay his gathering of the King’s Army.
Soon thereafter, they rode out of the castle and took the swamp route. Three grueling days took them through it. It was odd, but the swamp didn’t seem as bad as before. It rained on them and some of the trees were black, but the grim presence… It had departed.
The first night north of the swamp, Gavin posted heavy guards and instructed that they build large campfires. Many of the men had trouble sleeping, as they lay wrapped in their campaign cloaks. Sensing their fear, Swan walked among them and sang sweet melodies. Soon they smiled, and one by one, they nodded off.
Gavin left the fires, whistling softly, pausing and whistling again, until he heard the return whistle. He soon squatted beside Hugo in the dark. The old crossbowman crouched behind a boulder, his one good eye scanning the night. Moonlit grasses waved as crickets chirped nearby. In the distance, a wolf howled.
Hugo cocked his head and then shook his seamed face. “That ain’t no wolf.”
“Just like Muscovy, eh?”
Hugo adjusted his leather hunting cap, grunting.
“Muscovite Rules,” Gavin said softly.
Hugo glanced at him. “Those are rules for blackhearts. We’re the crusaders, Swan’s crusaders. You’ve her reputation to think about.”
“Reputations don’t help dead men.”
“Don’t you understand? Men fight when they believe in something. They’ll flock to a seer leading them crusading, but they won’t flock to a rogue filled with guile.”
“Is that how you see her?” asked Gavin.
“She’s a seer.”
“Yes. Our Seer,” Gavin said. “And that’s my point. As you did the other night with the assassin, I’ll do with the army she’s given me. To save her, I’ll shoot a man in the back.”
Hugo shifted uneasily. “That was different.”
With a cool breeze on his cheeks, Gavin eyed the night, the silvery grasses and the twinkle of distant stars. “We battle darkspawn, old friend. I know you understand what that means.”
Hugo grunted once more. “You saved many of us in Muscovy, aye, I’ve never forgotten that.”
“I saved a handful. Maybe we can save another handful.” Gavin brooded. “You saw Forador Castle, or what it had become. Vivian, Joanna and the boy weren’t there. Surely they must be dead by now.”
“Or turned into darkspawn,” Hugo said. “But we can save them.”
“You believe that?” asked Gavin, his rugged face one of surprise. “I surely do not.”
“Our Seer can save them.”
“That isn’t how it went in Muscovy.” Gavin lowered his voice. “We burned them at the stake, remember? That was the only salvation left them.” Before Hugo could answer, Gavin pushed off the boulder and strode back to camp, wrapping himself in a cloak and lying by a fire. He stared at the flames, hearing again in his memory the screams and howls of those they had burned. He shuddered. Fighting darkspawn was always ugly. There was nothing noble in it. One way or another, it stained you. He yawned.
Much too soon, Welf shook him awake.
Men shouted and dashed about, picking up spears or clanking and rattling as they donned armor. The dwindling campfires threw lurid light. Baron Bain shouted at his squire, bellowing for the fellow to bring him his morning star. It was a wicked-looking weapon: three spiked balls dangling by chains. Gavin had heard it said before that a warrior who used a morning star wasn’t right in the head. It was a murderous weapon. One unlucky swing and a ball could whip back to smash the wielder.
The moon yet shone, although low on the horizon. It grinned like a demon. In the distance, Gavin heard squealing like that from a herd of boars. He accepted a shield and his sword. Men hoisted themselves into the saddle. Others ran to do likewise. Would they gallop into the darkness and blunder into gullies or break their horses’ legs over hidden rocks?
The horrid pig-squeals floated on the night wind.
“Monsters!” cried Welf.
As Gavin buckled on armor, he shouted, “Foresters, squires and men-at-arms will stay afoot! All footmen will carry shields and torches. If you can’t find a torch, grab a brand out of the fire. Only knights and thegns are to be a-horse!”
From bitter experience, Gavin knew that night fighting was risky. Darkness hid too much. A deer trampling in the woods became through panicked imagination a fire-breathing beast. Darkness also hid cowardice. A man was usually brave with someone to see it and he was often cowardly when he thought no one watched. In the dark, an army could turn into a frightened mob. He wanted the most battle-tested warriors on the steadiest steeds.
Hugo cantered up, the banner waving in the breeze. Soon, twenty knights walked their stallions behind eighty footmen. The torches and fiery brands crackled and smoked. The pig-squeals sounded closer, to their left.
“We should mount up,” said Baron Bain. He was a middle-aged knight with thinning hair and close-set eyes, scowling fiercely as he held onto his morning star.
Gavin shouted the order, mounting up and rising in the stirrups to get a better view. Tall waving grasses spread out before the footmen. A knot of shadowy oak trees rose beyond that. Galloping past the oaks raced horsemen on wild-eyed mounts, moonlight glinting off their armor.
“Horses,” said Welf. “What then makes the pig-squeals?”
“Sound the trumpet!” cried Gavin.
Welf blew mightily.
“Advance on the run,” Gavin told the footmen.
A bellow rose from the ranks as those afoot surged into the darkness, their torches blazing at the rush of air. Their shields clattered and their feet thudded. Behind them, the knights on their mighty chargers followed at a trot.
Grotesque squeals heralded a murky, wicked sight. Massive boars, their short legs pumping, galloped from behind the trees and after the fleeing horsemen. Upon the bristly boars rode man-shaped things, tuskriders. They were hard to make out in the moonlight.
“Hosar save us!” shouted Baron Bain. “What are they?”
“Darkspawn,” said Swan, “our sworn foes.”
Gavin judged the situation. The enemy had more fighters than he had knights. Yet the tuskriders had become strung out. He shouted orders and the footmen divided under their leaders, running to the left and to the right, creating a lane.
“Sound the charge,” Gavin said, as he settled his great helm over his head.
Welf blew the trumpet and twenty crusaders spurred their stallions. Armor clanked, shields rattled and the heavy wooden saddles creaked ominously. The massive chargers, also called high horses, picked up speed as their iron-shod hooves drummed like thunder. The humans who fled from the tuskriders veered away from the glittering lance-points. The nearest tuskriders lowered slender spears as they tried to form ranks.
Gavin grinned within his helmet at the familiar tingle in his arms. His knights shouted and then he had no time to think. A crouching tuskrider aimed a spear at him. With a brutal shock, Gavin’s lance, longer than the enemy’s, pierced the tuskrider so it squealed. Gavin shook his lance free and re-aimed it at the next tuskrider. The lance splintered on the enemy’s shield. The monster grunted at the impact and flew from its saddle. Hurling away the broken lance, drawing his silver sword, Gavin barely shifted his triangular shield in time. The point of an enemy spear screeched across it. Gavin swung at the passing tuskrider, and then he was through their ranks. He yanked on the reins, wheeling his snorting stallion and roaring for Welf to sound the recall.
A tuskrider flashed at him from his blind side, swinging a curved saber. Josserand rose in his stirrups, hurling his lance, spitting the tuskrider in the back.
Gavin barely had time to glance at Josserand. “My thanks, sir! You saved me.”
Josserand drew his sword and wheeled to face the rest of the tuskriders as they fled for their lives into the darkness. The darkspawn didn’t have any more stomach for this. A weird and warbling sound arose from their horns. On their bestial mounts, the enemy fled out of the torchlight.
***
The humans who had escaped from the tuskriders seemed like walking dead. They had immobile masks instead of faces, glassy eyes and an inability to string out more than four words together. Gavin bade them sit at the bonfires and then plied them with wine, watching them drink mechanically as they stared transfixed at the flames. One by one, they slumped over and fell into an exhausted slumber.
One of them, however, refused to go down. He gulped his wine, and that brought a semblance of wit to his eyes. White hair hung from his head, and he had a lantern-shaped jaw. From the rings on his fingers and the quality of his sword, it was clear that once he had been a man of substance.
“I’m Baron Aelfric,” he whispered, his back straightening at his title. For an older man, he had thick shoulders.
“The Duke’s champion,” said Ullrick.
The blood drained from Aelfric’s leathery face as he turned haunted eyes upon the Bear.
“Easy, man,” Ullrick said uneasily.
“Rest,” said Swan, draping a blanket onto the baron’s broad shoulders. She touched his hair as if he were a little boy. “It will be better in the morning.”
Aelfric closed his eyes. They flew open a moment later as he wailed in despair.
“He’s mad,” whispered Baron Bain. His morningstar was tucked under his belt. Clotted tuskrider blood and tissue yet clung to the spiked balls.
“Mad?” said Aelfric, spittle drooling from his mouth. “Have you seen what I’ve seen?”
Gavin held out a goblet of brandy.
With a convulsive jerk, Aelfric slapped it away, spraying costly brandy onto the grass.
“What did you see, sir?” Gavin asked gently.
Aelfric shook his head.
“Sir Aelfric.”
Again that sudden headshake.
“Tell us,” Gavin said, grabbing the front of the baron’s tunic.
“Leave him alone, man!” shouted Ullrick. “He’s been to the Netherworld and back.”
“Speak, Sir Aelfric,” Gavin said, dragging the older man to his feet. “Tell us what you saw.”
Aelfric, a big, strong man, struggled to get away as tears leaked from his eyes.
“Unhand him,” said Ullrick, grabbing one of Gavin’s biceps.
“Get him out of here!” snarled Gavin.
Sir Josserand and Baron Bain hustled away a protesting Ullrick.
“You’re the knight,” Gavin told Aelfric. “You’re these people’s protector. Teach me about the darkspawn, sir.”
Sir Aelfric gaped at Gavin. Then his lips moved, but he could not speak.
Swan moved to interfere. Hugo touched her elbow and whispered into her ear until she stepped back.
“Sir Aelfric,” Gavin said, “on the Duke’s authority, I order you to speak.”
Something happened behind Aelfric’s eyes. The hysteria drained from his wan features and he nodded ever so slightly. In a husky, low-toned voice, he began to tell them his tale.
Strange rumors had come of things that marched in the night. Villages had been swept clean of people. Traveling merchants had disappeared. So he had gathered his retainers to investigate and found a misty apple orchard out of which flew huge sections of tree trunks. He knew now that giants had done that. These terrible giants had gone on to win the brief Siege of Glendover. Since then it had been the horrible undead who had taken castles, towns, villages and fortified temples. Waves upon waves of undead, marching, hammering, slaughtering, always to the accompaniment of a wretched drum beat. Aelfric threatened to go under again as he trembled.
“The worst of it,” he whispered, “is when you see your own in those ghastly ranks. The Duke marches in their horde. My wife…” Aelfric shook his head as tears streamed from his eyes. “People refuse to leave their castles. They wait. They man the walls. They ready oil. They fix old catapults. Then at night, they reap the dreadful harvest of undead. The undead keep coming and coming, chopping open doors, marching over burning corpses, slaying everything in their path. They keep coming until everyone is slain.” The Duke’s champion shuddered, whispering now. “Then the drum sounds once more. And the new undead arise to take the place of the old. Ye gods! You never want to see such a sight!”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” Gavin said. “That’s exactly what I want to see.”
***
“I must scout out the enemy for myself,” said the Captain General.
“Yes,” said Swan. “It’s the reason we rode north.” They stood alone by a bonfire, the hissing and crackling matching the leaping flames. The moon no longer rode the night sky, stars alone twinkled.
“I said scout out the enemy.” Gavin still wore his chainmail from the skirmish. A link chaffed against his back where a tuskrider had slashed him with a saber. Swan had wrapped herself in a brown campaigner’s cloak. It was too big for her, making her look so young, and with her thick, dark hair… Ointment concealed the scar on her cheek.
What force does this young woman yield that she commands us? Is it only her hope? Does Hosar truly guide her? Gavin scowled. “You will return to Wyvis Keep while I head farther north.”
“Just four of you?” she asked.
“I must see this new kind of darkspawn, milady. I must judge their tactics myself.”
“That’s madness. You’ll be killed.”
“You mean: I’ll lose the silver sword. Don’t worry. I’m leaving it with Hugo. Let Sir Josserand wield it if I don’t return.”
“But…”
“This is the only way to learn the enemy’s ways, milady, to find a way to defeat the spirit of Zon Mezzamalech. Stout hearts and courage must be infused with knowledge and sound strategy. I must see for myself so that I can devise a method for victory. That is what being a general is all about.”
Swan stared into his eyes. “I shall pray for your return, Captain-General, and take it very ill if you fail.”
He grinned, but it seemed false. “Believe me, milady, I’ll take it even worse than you.”
***
They rode coursers, lean horses built for speed and endurance, not for carrying a heavily armored knight into battle. Gavin, Welf the Forester, the Bear and his squire, a fierce, muscular lad, shed themselves of chainmail and lances to don leather jerkins, swords and crossbows. Welf led the way during the day, keeping to forest trials and stony high ground. He paused often to sniff the air, dismounting, and crouching by trail-sign, studying it. They rode warily, alert to any sound, loaded crossbows ready. Birds, bats, dogs and wolves, each time they spotted anything moving they hid behind trees or boulders or gutted-out, burned buildings. Once, a mouth-foaming sheepdog streaked across a fallow field, its eyes alight with a weird yellow shine. They had dismounted, stretching their legs. The squire turned and gave out a yell, pawing at his dagger. The Bear whirled with an oath and barely swung his axe in time, cleaving the sheepdog’s head. Noxious fumes drifted from the beast’s mouth. When the Bear yanked out his axe and wiped off the gore, he noticed small-pitted marks on the iron, as if made by an alchemist.
At night, they hid in the deepest woods or on hard-to-reach peaks. They lit no fires and kept troubled watches. Often they heard warbling cries and shrill screams. Once, far in the distance, they heard a terrible thud.
“The Death Drummer,” whispered Gavin.
Sir Ullrick plucked at his massive beard. In the starlight, a shudder ran across his broad shoulders. “It is an evil sound.”
“To the dead, it is a delight, apparently,” Gavin said.
The sound, the thud, the doom as from a drum, occurred again and then again and again.
“Sorcery!” hissed Ullrick. His fingers clenched into fists, the heavy knuckles white and straining.
“It is a thing unleashed from the pits of the Netherworld,” whispered Gavin. “All darkspawn are demons, hideous creatures that do not belong on the Earth. Old Father Night, the Moon Lady—”
“Please,” said Ullrick, “do not speak those names tonight, not in the dark and in sound of that drum.”
They hid behind rocks on a high hill. Gavin sat crouched, his arms wrapped around his knees. He listened to that drum and his thoughts drifted back to Muscovy. Wretched sights…knights blubbering…thegns crying for their mothers…demons walking aboard to butcher and to drag down into darkness any unlucky soul they could find. He spat on the ground, and he recalled all that Sir Aelfric had told them about the undead.
In the morning, they came upon corpses on a rutted trail, black, smoky, burned wheat fields all around them. Each corpse lay headfirst in the direction they had heard the drum. Each corpse, more a skeleton really, with shreds of rotted flesh and showing plenty of bone, had tattered rags so that it was impossible to tell if they had been peasants, merchants or knights. A few of the dead clutched rusty knives, one a bent and worthless axe. Others had hacked off hands.
“As if something tore out their weapons,” said Welf.
Gavin inspected the first seven, until they came to a smoldering castle. Smoke drifted from the charred remains. The sky above was gray-cast because of it. The air was heavy with a charnel stench. Undead lay thick before the walls and the main smashed gate and almost as thick in the courtyard. There were no corpses of the defenders.
Sir Ullrick moaned in the gory main hall. He sank onto a bench and began to tremble. His face was wan and his eyes bleak and full of despair. “They…they took the, the…”
“The fresh dead joined the horde,” Gavin said in a tired voice. “Yes, that’s what I think, too. But the undead perish or become useless once they’ve rotted too much. It seems that skeletons cannot be made to fight under the Dark Banner.”
The Bear clenched and unclenched his thick fingers. He bit his lower lip, and it seemed that he forced himself to quit trembling. With a grunt, he lurched to his feet. “I’ve seen enough. This…this is horror beyond horror.”
Flies were thick on the gore and crawling over the blood splashed on the walls. The smell… Gavin led them to the courtyard. They mounted and rode out of the ruined castle.
“Back to Forador Swamp?” asked a pale-faced Welf.
Gavin shook his head.
“What’s wrong with you, man?” cried the Bear. “This is an evil land. We must flee before we’re taken in.”
Gavin eyed the huge knight. Sir Ullrick was brave, but this was something greater than mere courage could face. There was a plague upon North Erin, a sense of doom, of darkness, of the infernal Netherworld opened and its denizens unleashed upon the Earth.
“Don’t you understand?” asked Gavin. “This is what waits for all Erin. We must push on and see these undead in action. That way we shall be able to devise a method of victory when they finally march against us.”
Ullrick’s thick nostrils flared. Sweat dotted his lined brow. He had wild eyes like a horse ready to bolt. “Lead on,” he said. “Where you go, I shall follow.”
***
That night they crept up a grassy hill as a soul-wrenching doom-doom, doom-doom shook their courage. The squire waited below in the bushes and with the horses. Gavin, Welf and Sir Ullrick crawled on hands and knees, thistles trying to snag their clothing. From the other side of the hill came the crash of unified feet and then a most dreadful pause. Then there began hideous scratching.
“Please, Sir Gavin, let us flee this wicked place,” whispered a sweating Sir Ullrick.
Gavin ignored him as he battled his own fears.
“No,” wept the Bear, clutching at Gavin’s foot. “They’ll see you and then come and take us.”
Gavin kicked off the Bear’s paw. Panting, his heart thudding, he slithered uphill to peer past a mossy boulder. In the dark valley below seethed masses of undead, a carpet of walking corpses wielding swords, axes and hammers. On many of them, their clothes were still whole. By them, he could tell which were former knights, ladies, commoners and beggars. In their animated death, they surged united against a castle where torches waved on the walls, boiling oil gushed and catapults thumped fiery gifts. Droves of undead burned and fell apart under falling rocks, spears and arrows. Still more lumbered forward, demanding entrance into the castle.
“They’re without end,” whispered Ullrick.
Gavin gnashed his teeth. “Look there.”
“Wh-Where?”
Gavin stared into the center of the horde. Neither Welf nor Ullrick understood his horror. A crackling catapult-ball blazed over the horde. Joanna beat the dreadful drum. Gavin saw the stiffness to her torso, her baleful gaze, and he sensed the POWER in her. He buried his face in the grass, biting dirt so he wouldn’t scream. Joanna: the sweet, tough and never-complaining healer. In Muscovy, she had washed the sores and drained the pus from those who had suffered most. Dedicated to Hosar, Joanna had never married, but had helped the poor, the hungry and the diseased. Four years she had traveled with him, always saying that she still owed him for saving her from the horrors of Muscovy. O Joanna.
“Sir Gavin, what’s wrong?”
He heard the dread in Ullrick’s voice.
“What ails thee?” asked the Bear.
Gavin raised his face from the loam and stared at the stricken Ullrick. Dirt fell from his lips as he said, “Forget chivalry, sir, and learn Muscovite Rules. Our only hope lies upon that path and no other.”
“We must flee this place,” begged Ullrick.
Gavin wanted to ask this Banfrey champion how the blackhearts had survived Muscovy. Or the few of them who had made it out alive. The blackhearts had learned the enemy’s tricks by tramping through the snow and learning from everything they had seen. They had not survived by acting knightly. They had to crawl in the dirt and study their foe. They had used whatever means to survive. That’s how blackhearts fought, and that’s what he still was.
“Please,” Ullrick whispered. “We must flee.”
“Yes,” Gavin said. “I’ve seen enough.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
“Cuthred!”
Cuthred gave a guilty start, bumping the back of his head against an upper windowpane. Eyes watering, he yanked his head within and slammed shut the wooden shutters, throwing the corridor back into gloom.
Leng strode up the plush corridor, his black robe trailing.
They were in Glendover, in the citadel. The Master slumbered. His condition made it impossible for him to walk unless it was near midnight.
“You were looking outside,” Leng said in wonder.
Cuthred hung his head. The corridors in the citadel were huge, big enough so that Cuthred could stand straight and with his head upright.
“You were staring at the sun,” said Leng.
Cuthred knotted his huge hands over each other. He felt shame for what he had become, shame for his bestial nature and shame at doing something dirty and unclean like staring at the fiery orb of day. At least, looking at the sun made him feel that way.
“Tell me you were staring at the sun.”
Cuthred scowled. A week ago, he had beaten the sorcerer. Now the Master once again trusted Leng. It was confusing.
“Cuthred!”
“What?”
The sorcerer took a step back. “What goes on here?”
Cuthred hunched his massive shoulders. His spiked club, which dangled from his belt by a thong, thumped against his hairy leg.
“You are bound to me, giant. Say it!”
“I…I am bound to you,” rumbled Cuthred.
“Were you staring at the sun?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“To see…” Cuthred scrunched his heavy eyebrows. “To see how far I’ve fallen.”
For a moment, Leng’s eyeballs glittered with malice, making Cuthred uneasy.
“Who taught you to say that? Vivian?”
“No one taught me,” Cuthred said in his slow way.
“Vivian did it,” said the sorcerer, nodding. An evil grin stretched his parchment-like skin. “She won’t be doing that much longer.” Leng snapped his spider-like fingers. “Follow me!”
Cuthred shambled after Leng. One of the unfortunate things about being a giant, he had found, was painful feet. His always hurt. It was worse when they marched.
A short shamble brought them to an ornate set of doors. Standing guard in front of the doors stood two brutes in plate armor. One of them was Durren-brute, still the captain of the heavily armed darkspawn. A flicker of…of…Durren-brute opened his mouth to reveal horse-sized teeth. He had a flat, wide face with a spread-out nose. He frowned. The flicker in his eyes seemed to rise. Then it subsided until he looked away from Cuthred and focused on Leng.
“Open the door,” said Leng.
Durren-brute heaved against the door that the Duke had built so only three strong men could possibly hope to budge. As if he was a bull, Durren-brute snorted. With his ironclad feet, he pawed at the carpet. The solid brass door grated against the floor, opening inch by inch.
“Good enough,” said Leng.
Durren-brute fell back gasping.
“Cuthred.”
Cuthred shuffled forward, and with an arm, he pushed open the door the rest of the way. He followed Leng into the Duke’s former treasure room. Sacks of gold and silver, ingots of platinum, velvet-covered trays of rubies and emeralds, displays of pearl necklaces and diamond rings, bolts of silk, imported teak, several sacks of pepper and a bag of cloves completed the chamber’s riches. A lantern shone over a sleeping Vivian. A silk cover barely concealed her form. With her sleek body, long dark hair and an angel’s face, Vivian stirred something in Cuthred.
“Vivian!” said Leng.
Her eyes opened.
Leng stepped to the bed and slid his hand across her bare torso. Despite a sleepy face, she batted her eyelashes.
“Shameless,” said Leng.
“For you,” she purred.
Leng smirked and then he turned and motioned to Cuthred.
“What is it?” she asked, slipping into a red silk robe.
“Hold her arms,” said Leng.
“Leng?” she asked, as Cuthred shuffled around the bed and wrapped his huge hands around each of her arms.
“My dear,” said Leng, “it’s time you learned why you’re here.”
Her green eyes grew wide as she paled and began to tremble.
“Vivian, Vivian,” chided Leng. “Whatever is wrong?”
She glared at him. “I know your plan,” she said, the quaver now in her voice.
He arched razor-thin eyebrows.
“You…” She turned an ashen shade of gray. She squeezed her eyelids tight and whispered under her breath, “The Master is almost finished with his latest body.”
“Ah,” said Leng. “You are observant.”
“Only a fool couldn’t divine your plan.”
“Oh?”
“You need a carrier, a wearer, someone the amulet can drain even as it…”
“Go on,” said Leng.
“What more need I say?”
“Say it anyway.”
She shrugged: a difficult gesture with Cuthred imprisoning her slender arms. “I’m the only human left in the city—besides you, of course. And I don’t think you wish to enter the Master’s service in quite that way.”
Leng smiled evilly.
“So you’ve kept someone else near him at all times. Me.”
“As you say, that is an obvious deduction. Why haven’t you tried to escape then? Or is it that you wish to become the Master?”
“Don’t be absurd.”
“No,” said Leng. “I suppose you can see well enough what happens to said person.”
“Why does everyone the Master possess, shrivel and waste into nothing?” asked Vivian. “I thought you said before that he was the world’s greatest sorcerer. That the gods themselves fear and feared his magic talisman.”
“The gods do fear it. To bask in the amulet’s warmth—waves of magic flows from it. If you have the training and sensitively as I do, then to stand near the amulet is breathtaking and marvelous. Ah, to own such a magic source… It is the mightiest force of arcane power this world has ever seen, or at least that I know about. In the days of yore, Zon Mezzamalech forged more than he knew. Why, it is the very path unto…” Leng smiled, showing his sharp, white teeth. “The host shrivels because of the very fact that the amulet is so powerful, and because of the spell our Master uses to animate himself with life. It is unbelievably consuming of magic and intense will. The flow of such magic…” Leng shook his head. “No mortal shell can contain it for long. What the Master does—it is frankly impossible. Yet with the amulet, with the talisman of ultimate thaumaturgy, the impossible has become possible.”
“If he controls such power,” said Vivian, “why not simply sweep away his foes with a wave of his hand? Why this hiding and sulking? Why has he created an army of darkspawn?”
Leng laughed, shaking his head. “Weren’t you listening? Much of his will is used in simply being. He must concentrate and use his magic powers to exist such as we do naturally. That will change in time. First, however, all vestiges of his great foe must be destroyed or converted into darkspawn. Hosar… He guards this realm, this little island, from the full powers of Darkness and dark spells. He bars Old Father Night, the Moon Lady, and the others from walking among us in potency. Yet when all the worshipers of Hosar are gone, all the temples and shrines polluted or razed and the fires of genocide have consumed the humans, then will our Master conjure with full thought and bring himself truly and fully back to life.”
“Old Father Night was among us in Castle Forador?” Vivian asked.
“For a short time only, and then because of the rift opened by the amulet. Don’t you understand? The old glories of a bygone era are to be summoned by our Master’s spells. He will continue in his ancient enterprise and do that which he long set out to do.”
“Which is what?”
Leng chuckled, once more shaking his head. “No. You have learned enough. More is not wise.”
“Then the Master cannot sweep away his foes with the magic of the amulet?”
“What do you think the darkspawn are? He works fantastic thaumaturgy. Yet he doesn’t, I’ll admit, practice a single, all-encompassing spell. He changes one person at a time until he has a host, a swarming of darkspawn to defeat all his foes.”
“I see,” said Vivian.
“Yes,” said Leng. “I believe you do see. That, of course, is why I told you.” He snorted. “Look at that stupid giant behind you. Cuthred crunches his low-sloped forehead and is yet none the wiser. Fool.”
“Maybe he is a fool,” said Vivian, “but at least he got to whip you and make you scream and grovel.”
Leng’s black eyes narrowed.
“Forgive me,” she said. “I spoke hastily.”
After a moment, he shrugged.
“No, Leng, I mean it. I’m sorry I said that. And I want to convince you that you don’t need to do this.”
“Do what?”
“Use me for the Master.”
The sorcerer’s smile returned. “I must use you that way, dear Vivian. You are too perfect, too intelligent not to use. You’re just what I need.”
“I thought it might be something like that.”
He studied her. “I must say that you’re taking this remarkably well.”
Her chin trembled, but she remained silent.
Leng’s evil grin grew. “After a while the beauty fades, you know. Yes, I suppose you already do know. You’ve seen what happened to Kergan and I’ve just explained why. It will go no differently for you.”
Tears welled in her eyes. “You’re enjoying this,” she whispered, “and after all we’ve been through together.”
“Enjoying? No, Vivian, I’m not enjoying it. It’s simply that you’re too clever to keep around. Your questions just now confirm it.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I think you do understand,” he said. “You soak up what you see, yes?”
She stared at him.
“And you do all this in order to try to find a way to escape, yes?”
“No.”
“No?” he asked.
She shook her head.
“Why then?”
“I want to find your weakness.”
“I have none, silly woman.”
“Oh, but you do.”
He frowned. His frown deepened. “Tell me then why I’ve let you see so much and why I’ve told you the things I have?”
She glanced back at Cuthred before asking Leng, “Are you sure you wish for him to hear?”
“The giant?” he asked. “Don’t be absurd.”
“You’ve let me learn so much because the Master presently seems to be limited by what the amulet-wearer knows or understands. Therefore, you have taught me more so that the Master, when he possesses me, can do more of whatever it is you want him to do.”
Leng clapped his thin hands. “Very, very good, my dear. Not even some sorcerers I knew would have understood all that without it being carefully explained to them. I’m impressed.”
“You won’t be impressed by what I have to say next.”
Leng seemed to tense.
She laughed, contrived though it sounded. “You’re riding the tiger, Leng. You’re riding it and hoping to control it.”
Leng’s eyes seemed to glitter.
“You think the Master is just another demon. No, not just any demon, not after what you just told me. He’s the prince of demons, and you’ve summoned him or helped unleash him in order to do what all sorcerers try to do: to make the monster do your bidding. Perhaps at times you slip. Getting whipped was one of those times. When the knights almost swept into the apple orchard, yes, that was another time. But you plan to use or control the Master for your own ends. What you don’t realize is that I’ve told myself over and over and over again: Remember that Leng is trying to trap the Master. He’s trying to control the Master. Leng thinks that he is the Master. At least he’s trying to bring the Master to heel.”
Leng’s eyes narrowed dangerously.
Vivian licked her lips as sweat glistened upon her forehead. “If I become the Master, Leng, I’m going to remember that you’re trying to use me. You’re not Old Father Night’s servant as the Master is. You’re an old sorcerer from Muscovy who thinks he can wield the powers of Darkness like any wand or spell. If you help turn me into the Master, Leng, I promise with everything I have to insure that you will never bind the spirit of Zon Mezzamalech or gain control of the amulet.”
Leng shook his head. “That won’t work. Kergan when he became the Master didn’t do anything to harm me, and I tricked him terribly. If anyone had cause to try and do me ill, it would have been him.”
“That’s because the spirit in the amulet wouldn’t let Kergan hurt you because you gave it what it wanted. But I can show it in a hundred different ways how you’re trying to suborn its will and power. I know you, Leng. I know you’re trying to bind the Master even as you grovel before him.”
Leng stood very still. He appeared to be thinking. “It’s too late even if I wanted to change things. You’re the only human left in Glendover, besides me. Unless a new host is found, the Master will perish. I’m sorry, Vivian. I will have to chance your ire or risk becoming the Master myself.”
“That’s not true,” she whispered.
“What isn’t?”
“There are more humans in Glendover.” She choked up, and although she tried to continue speaking, she seemed incapable of speech.
“Speak, woman, I command you.”
Her voice came out low and throaty. “There are more humans in Glendover Port than just us.”
“What?”
She hung her head. “Deep in the dungeons below the citadel…” She swallowed hard. “That first night when we stormed Glendover, I saved a handful of people. Cuthred has been feeding them for me ever since.”
“Cuthred!” snapped Leng. “Is this true?”
“Yes,” rumbled Cuthred.
Something akin to awe filled Leng’s face. “You’ve done that, girl. You really have?”
“I’m not proud of it.”
“No, no, of course not,” he said, while stroking his chin. “You probably hoped to save them if you could. But now you’re going to sell at least one of them to me. You’re going to buy a few more weeks with one of them. Is that what you’re offering?”
“Yes,” she whispered, as tears brimmed in her eyes.
Leng shook his head. “You amaze me. You truly amaze me. There is more to you than just beauty.”
Vivian looked up as the tears trickled down her cheeks.
“Who are these dupes?” he asked.
“The Duke’s daughters,” whispered Vivian, “all three of them.”
“Interesting. Tell me, do they hate King Egbert?”
“I believe so.”
Leng pursed his lips as he studied Vivian. “Why shouldn’t I have your throat slit and be done with you?”
Vivian straightened in Cuthred’s grip as she smiled seductively. “Can’t you think of a reason, my lord?”
Leng’s eyes became lust-filled. At last, he spun on his heels and hurried from the chamber.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
“My advice is simple,” Gavin said.
Swan and Ullrick stood beside him in the wooden corridor. Swan wore a white gown with a white fillet across her forehead. From her neck hung a silver chain, upon which dangled a golden flame symbol. Ullrick wore a blue silk shirt, blue trousers and black boots. His oiled beard was combed, and he wore a rakish felt hat.
From the mayor’s chamber came the loud banging of a gavel. Arguing sounds subsided. A red-caped page leaned out the door and told them to be ready. The mayor was about to announce them.
After their foray north, with yet more physical evidence of darkspawn and many eyewitness accounts, they had returned to Castle Wyvis. Fanning out from there, pigeons and heralds had gone in all directions. In the mayor of Tara’s office met the leaders of the factions who had answered positively. An alliance had been hammered out, an army hastily assembled, at least on parchment. Now a strategy was being formed.
“My advice is simple,” Gavin said again.
“What is it?” asked Ullrick. He had changed since the foray north. He smiled less, frowned more, and he kept his opinions to himself.
“Are you listening?” Gavin asked Swan.
She nodded nervously, plucking at her gown. This was her big moment.
“We should race to Banfrey,” Gavin said. “There we should all board ship and flee to Albion. We might survive that way. This way…” He shrugged. “You realize we can’t win, don’t you? You realize almost everyone we speak with today has only weeks left as a human.”
“Your joke is in poor taste,” said Swan.
“He’s not joking,” Ullrick said grimly.
Swan frowned at Gavin. “You swore an oath.”
Gavin shrugged once again, although he seemed troubled.
Then the page beckoned.
A forest of occupied chairs had been stuffed before the mayor’s dais. Many important barons wearing fox-lined mantles and their ladies with marten capes sat in them. Crammed benches lined the walls. Hanging from those paneled walls were ornate guild-shields of Tara. From Forador Swamp south to Oswald Ferry and from the Crags east to Bosham Castle by the Sea they had come. Mayors and Guild Masters from the important towns of Tara, Ware and Kildare sat in attendance. The barons of castles Wyvis, Kleve, Kells, Dagda and Callach had come with their retinues. Brown and yellow-robed devotees of Hosar from Thoron and Bede eagerly awaited Swan’s words. Hedge knights grouped by region made sure their voices would be heard today.
One of the largest groups was Swan’s Crusaders. The foray north had added warriors to her banner. Now a small contingent of fast-moving and hard-hitting horsemen roamed north of the swamp, rescuing whom they could. These homeless but hardy souls naturally gravitated toward her. Still in shock, usually physically ill and terrified by their ordeal, many survivors drank her courageous words as if they had a raging thirst. They wanted to hurt the darkspawn captains. The spirit of Zon Mezzamalech had taken everything they had ever cared for. Those toughened by their calamities took Swan’s proffered hope and told each other that they believed in her promise of victory.
Swan made her entrance as people clapped and cheered. She gave a speech and pointed out to them her crusading commanders in their blue surcoats with the yellow sun symbol sewn onto the chests. She said a few more words and then opened the floor to debate. The arguments started small, quickly grew larger, become heated and then divided the august company into three factions. Lady Pavia championed the Wait Tough Group, the biggest. In essence, she said drill everyone, peasants, bandits, city dwellers and knights, marshal a huge army, and then smash the darkspawn in a defensive battle when they dared to come south of the swamp. Swan and Aelfric pleaded the Fight Them North Strategy. Most of the northern survivors and the crusaders leaned that way. The last and final group was discovered when Lady Pavia pointed out that they had yet to hear from the Captain General. Gavin gave them the Grand Unity Plan. Plead with the Cragsmen to join them and beg the King or the High Priest to fight alongside everyone else. If need be retreat until the entire island could be marshaled into one host. Then retreat and retreat again, and then retreat some more and yet again.
“Why all this retreating?” asked Lady Pavia.
“So the undead wear out,” Gavin said. “I’ve been north. I’ve seen the bones of undead as they rot and fall apart. They only last so long.” Sir Aelfric nodded at that, muttering agreement. Gavin continued, “The spirit of Zon Mezzamalech uses the undead to grab fast. Later, I suppose, he’ll use the other darkspawn. What we need to do now is to wait until the present undead rot away, while at the same time not giving them opportunity to make more.”
“Can we retreat long enough?” asked Lady Pavia.
“To Albion is my suggestion,” Gavin said.
That caused pandemonium, and it lost the Captain General whatever support he had gained. “That’s impossible,” he was told more than once.
In the end, after another four hours of discussion, Lady Pavia’s strategy was agreed upon. In detail, that meant several things. First, they must keep the swamp route open to rescue more of the northern people, until the darkspawn tried to follow through the swamp in strength. Once that happened, catapults behind a vast log wall across the swamp-route and bolstered by wood-wise foresters, mercenary crossbowmen and a core of well-armored thegns should be able to seal that opening. Meanwhile, everyone else would head to Bosham Castle by the Sea. That ancient fortress guarded the thin strip of land along the coast, the usual invasion route between North and South Erin.
At Swan’s suggestion, heralds would be sent to the Cragsmen and to the King. The bigger the army the better, for it looked as if the spirit of Zon Mezzamalech had a huge horde in North Erin.
Gavin made one last speech. “We had better send word to the High Priest to guard his galleys. If he’s wise, he’ll commandeer anything that floats. I think the spirit of Zon Mezzamalech took Glendover Port so none of us could escape Erin. To close the trap, he has to take Banfrey or more precisely, Lobos Port.”
“Ships leave elsewhere,” said a rich merchant.
“Small fishing boats do,” Gavin said. “Big merchant ships can only put in at Glendover and at Lobos.”
“Let us hear no more about ships and trying to flee to Albion,” said Lady Pavia. A chorus of agreement greeted her words.
Thus, little else was said about the High Priest’s galleys. In any case, no one really believed darkspawn would cross the open sea. The old legends said they never dared. Only the Marauders, humans in darkspawn employ, had ever sailed upon the sea in force. Lady Pavia, who had been reading up on the old legends, told them as much. Several withered Wisdoms from the Emma Shrine read from huge, leather-bound books to confirm her words. Besides reading the legends, Lady Pavia had scoured the temples and shrines for devotees of Hosar with power. So far, an old monk with a crooked staff who could make water ripple when he mumbled was all she had found.
After the meeting, Swan and Gavin left he mayor’s palace with Hugo trailing behind. As they strode down the long flight of steps that led to the main market square, Swan spoke with an urgency that made her voice quaver. “You’re making it difficult for me to keep you on as my Captain General. So from now on, you must keep your opinions to yourself.”
“You’ll need a different captain general then,” Gavin said stiffly.
She peered at him. He clanked about in his martial array of mail armor. A long scabbard, with gems sewn into the leather, slapped at his left leg. His knightly spurs jangled at each step. He held his helmet in the crook of his burly arm. None of that compared in military bearing to his hard features. He had tight lips, a short cut beard, askew nose and calculating, oh-so-shrewd eyes.
“You could have worked them better,” she said. “I’ve seen you take noble crowds and twist them to your way of thinking. You’ve made an art of it.”
He shrugged with a clink of sound.
“No. I think you deliberately acted cowardly. You want to run away.”
“Most definitely I do.”
“I don’t understand you,” she said.
“I thought I made myself plain enough.”
“No one is braver than you, Sir Gavin.”
He laughed.
“No. Don’t laugh. You know it’s true.”
“Hardly,” he said.
“Hardly?” she asked. “Tell me who went on a four-man scouting expedition into the heart of Zon Mezzamalech’s domain? Or who gave up their silver sword when it would be needed most? Who, pray tell, does everyone look to when things are grimmest?”
“That would be you, milady.”
Swan shook her head. “Not in the middle of a fight, sir. And speaking of fights… Who, as far as I know, has been the only one to give the darkspawn a defeat? Why, that’s you again, Sir Gavin. Yet every time you speak, at least lately, you make people nervous. At every turn you counsel running away.”
“We’re doomed,” he said. “Anyone who wants to live and who understands the reality of that runs away.”
“You could have run before, sir. You were at Banfrey. It would have been easy enough to book passage to Albion. Yet you came back. What did you see on your scouting expedition? You’ve become gloomy since then, defeatist.”
Gavin hadn’t told anyone about Joanna, not even Hugo. Guilt ate at him too much for that. He had failed Joanna, run out on her. He had failed the others, too. He wasn’t sure he could take more failure, more blood on his hands. If Joanna could become darkspawn…what hope was there for the rest of them?
“Don’t you want to hurt those who have hurt yours?” asked Swan.
“For a seer, you have quite the bloodthirsty attitude.”
“I’m at war, Sir Gavin. What game are you playing at?”
“Survival,” he said.
“Is that what you do best?”
“It must be. I’m still here.”
She shook her head.
“Do you want my sword?” he asked.
“What?” she asked.
“Do you want me to resign my Captain Generalship?”
“No! I want you to defeat the enemy. But first you’re going to have to believe it’s possible again.”
“That will take a miracle.”
Swan took his hand as her face softened. “Do you know what I think about when I start worrying?”
He grew uneasy. The way she stared into his eyes… It made him forget about Vivian. It had been too long since he had been with a woman. He eased closer so she brushed against him. “What do you think about?”
“How you looked at me at Leng’s feast. How you stood and spoke up for me when no one else would.”
He moistened his lips and wondered at the fluttery feeling in his gut.
Hugo coughed discreetly.
They glanced up at the Standard Bearer six steps above them.
“Your commanders are coming,” Hugo said.
Gavin stepped away from Swan, uncertain what he truly felt for her.
She released his hand. “Let us leave the market place.”
Gavin nodded agreement, and together they fled down the steps.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Iron-nailed boots crashed on the plaza’s cobblestones. Lanterns rattled against pikes. Bristle-bearded night-watchmen grumbled foul oaths as they made their rounds in groups of fifteen or more. Their hounds whined and barked and shields clattered against clumsily held weapons.
The town of Tara overflowed with Midland men-at-arms and peasants with exalted ideas. They brought whores, thieves and gamblers with them, those who preyed upon the drunken and unwary. They made life difficult for the night watch. Hoarse shouts to halt usually sent culprits running. That meant an extended chase through the narrow lanes that often ended with nothing but red faces and shouts from angry burghers to quit making so much noise. Fortunately, the mayor promised that things would go back to normal once the crusaders set out to Bosham Castle by the Sea. The night-watch counted the hours to their departure.
At the moment, a band clattered down cobble-stoned Noble Lane, the hounds whining and for no apparent reason tucking their tails between their legs. A sinister taint hung in the air. It made the hackles rise on the bravest dogs. The odor was akin to the huge jungle cats of the Far South and a mixture of something that might have been conceived in the terrible Netherworld below.
A beast hid in nearby shrubbery. The beast, a thing with red eyes, watched the clumsy night watchmen depart. It waited in bushes that grew beside the Hotel de Gaem. The hotel was a large brick building, built by a baron for when he brought his retinue to Tara. Riotous sounds of revelry came from within. It was the last night in town before weary days of marching and then probably boring garrison duty.
As the beast listened to the drunken sounds, needle-sharp claws slid from his finger-pads. He yearned to leap into the Hotel de Gaem and rip out everyone’s innards. Slow-witted vermin, they were an infestation of unwarranted arrogance. They thought themselves the height of creation. They deserved nothing but death, swift extinction as only he could provide. The beast growled low under his breath and let his claws slide back into their skin sheaths. The commands given him by Leng still controlled his will. First, slay Swan. Then kill Sir Gavin. And then… Then he could run wild to his heart’s delight. Then he could slash and hew everything that moved on two legs.
Long, long ago as a pup he had suckled on a wolf’s teat. He had eaten raw meat. In those days when those with two legs had seen him, they had hurled rocks and driven him from them. Maybe later other beings came, other two legs, ones who fed him and tried to teach him human speech. They pretended to be nice, like Gavin the traitor! O, he yearned to rip out that one’s heart and feast upon it even as it gushed forth blood. Yes. He yearned to do that above all else. Above— No! First, slay Swan. Then kill Sir Gavin. Then he could run wild to his heart’s delight.
He had spent weeks on the blood-trail, weeks south of the swamp and in enemy territory. Now, word by courier bat (one of the Lord of Bats’ pets) had informed him she had been north the entire time. North! Rage roiled within his breast. He had held back his savage passions for too long. He had sniffed the cold trails and hidden himself from the weak, two-legged vermin for much too long a time. Now…tonight…
The fravashi, he who had once been a young boy, who had shared a cell with the giant Cuthred, he bounded fast across the street. Swan! He knew her scent, had a rag with her odor wrapped around his silky neck. His nostrils dilated as he ducked under a beam, ran on all fours across a lane, then leaped incredibly ten feet into the air, scrambling onto a blacksmith’s shingled shed and then onto the main roof. First, slay Swan. Then kill Sir Gavin. He opened his snout to reveal baboon-like fangs. He was the fravashi. Of all the darkspawn, he was the fastest and deadliest. Not even blood-drinkers could compare to him. Leaping into the alleyway, landing lightly on all fours, he spied through a window a soft white shoulder. It was on the third story of this fortress-like hotel. The woman turned, peering into the night. Swan!
His claws snicked out of their sheaths as he began to scale the old brick wall.
***
Hugo shivered. Ever since the High Priest’s assassination attempt, he had taken charge of Swan’s safety. He loved her. She gave him what he had craved for so long: meaning. If only Gavin could see that. He well knew the bitter knight, the disillusioned warrior. Gavin was a one-of-a-kind swordsman and Swan needed him. The people of Erin needed him. With his sly tricks, his sideways method of seeing things, Gavin could surely find a way to defeat the spirit of Zon Mezzamalech and his horde of darkspawn. If only Gavin would trust the Seer.
Hugo sighed, wiping a greasy rag across his crossbow. He stiffened then. An odd feeling worked down his bowed back. It was hard to straighten his old spine anymore. The twinge said that something didn’t quite fit. Something—Swan!
Hugo cranked the crossbow, slotted one of his ever-ready bolts into the groove and hurried to her door, hammering at it.
“…yes?” she asked in a tired voice.
Hugo hesitated. He knew her schedule. Barons, knights, squires, priests, divines, sisters of Hosar, old peasants, frightened blacksmiths, mothers terrified for their children, Swan saw them all, gave each a kind word. When did the Seer find time to rest? She needed moments alone. Hugo turned to go.
The twinge worked his back again. He set his jaw. “Swan,” he said, with his mouth by the door. “Can I come in?” The other guards were at their posts downstairs and down the hall, while outside the hotel prowled yet more men led by Sir Josserand and his tough mercenaries. He was being foolish. He knew that.
“Is this important?”
Hugo frowned. What would he tell her? He… Trust your guts, you old fool. That’s what Gavin does. Without permission, Hugo opened the door and barged in. She stood by the window, wearing only a slip. Ye gods, but she had a fine figure. He shook his head, grimacing at his lechery.
“Git away from that window,” he growled.
She smiled. “Poor Hugo, you see shadows everywhere.”
“Please, milady, move now.” He winced as the twinge bit hard. He raised his crossbow. He loved it. Even though he was old, without the speed or strength of youth, if he aimed this heavy thing at something and squeezed the trigger…well, not even Gavin could pack as much punch as this thing.
“I’m safe up here,” she said.
“Please, milady, move to a safer—”
Glass shards sprayed at Swan as the window crashed inward. She screamed. Something dark hurdled toward her. For that split-second Hugo froze, with his good eye wide. Then he tracked and squeezed. He didn’t yank the trigger like a frightened fool. His training was too deep for that. He squeezed like the professional crossbowman he was. The heavy weapon shivered. The bolt flung itself with terrific velocity. But the blur, the dark thing, moved faster than humanly possible. It twisted, but not quite fast enough. The bolt ripped through furry flesh. The squat missile should have gone through the thing’s chest. Hugo had aimed perfectly. Instead, it tore through a shoulder, spraying gristle and bone and spinning the creature.
An awful howl issued from a demonically fanged mouth. The beast staggered back, clawing at its shoulder.
“Run!” Hugo shouted as he threw himself at the beast.
Swan turned and ran.
The thing, the beast, its eyes blazed a hellish red. It roared like a jungle cat and leaped after her. Hugo swung the crossbow. The beast’s good arm blurred. Leather armor parted like silk as talons opened Hugo’s chest and stomach. The old squire sank with a groan as blackness filled his vision.
***
At the beastly howl, Gavin’s head snapped up.
“Gavin?” asked the woman beside him.
A candle burned in the room. Armor and weapons lay scattered about. He had drunk just enough earlier to yearn for Vivian. The woman resting beside him on his couch had long dark hair like hers. So he had found a few swift minutes of…well, maybe not peace, but at least release from his constant guilt of failure.
A long, thin scream made the hairs on the back of his neck rise. A man roared in pain.
Gavin leapt up. Old scars crisscrossed his rugged frame. Big, jagged, chewed-up tissue snaked where swords had sliced, while puckered, twisty scars sat where spear-tips or arrows had once lodged. His big bones were connected by ropy tendons and lean, flat muscles that had vibrant power.
“Don’t go,” pleaded the woman on the couch.
Gavin picked up the silver sword and in a bound opened the door. Crashes and screams came from down the hall. He ran across the wooden floor. Turning the corner, he spied a scene from the Netherworld. Swan limped badly through the common room as she fled from a monstrous beast. As if by magic, men in armor rose up to bar the darkspawn’s path.
The beast leaped over their heads. The men turned and swung. No blades touched the beast, however. It was already out of range. Swan dove under a table and kicked down a chair. She madly crawled for safety. The beast, in a blur, followed her, kicking chairs out of the way and slithering faster than a lizard. Mail-clad warriors blundered into each other as they raced after the hell-beast. Their swords hacked out pieces of table-wood. With a whistle of rage, the beast turned at bay. Its arm blurred. Warriors screamed, blood splashing from underneath their helmets. As Gavin raced down the stairs, he saw the men-at-arms clawing at their now eyeless faces.
Nothing should be able to move that fast.
“Swan!” he shouted.
The beast, upon a table as it crouched on all fours, whipped its ghastly head about. For an instant, Gavin stared into those burning eyes. Recognition came. His boy!
The beast roared.
Gavin, jumping down the stairs, landing in the main room, saw the crossbow bolt in the shoulder but no sign of his old squire. “Did you slay Hugo?”
The beast roared again, savagely, as men hung back from it.
Tears welled in Gavin’s eyes. “Didn’t you know that he loved you more than anyone?”
Once more, the beast roared, and it seemed as if anguish lay behind the awful sound.
Crossbows twanged. The beast rolled too fast for the eye to follow. Bolts smashed into the walls. One tore out a man’s throat. Swan, her face tight, her eyes hard, rose from hiding and sprinted toward Gavin. The few remaining guardsmen raced to block the beast from intercepting her. It snarled, spitting hate, and bounded at the doomed Seer.
Gavin wore no armor, shield or even shirt. One swipe from the beast and his entrails would spill across the sawdust-littered floor. He laughed then. Everything he touched died, or it was ground up and spit out as darkspawn. Swan’s face, never beautiful like Vivian’s, was screwed up in grim determination. There wasn’t panicked fear on that face. The scar on her cheek flamed a bright red. Swift calculation and belief in victory, despite the beast at her back, drove her relentlessly. That was insanity.
Gavin bellowed with calculated rage. He snatched up a stool, hoping he could time this exactly—it was his only chance. He hurled the stool at Swan. Her eyes went wide, but with superb reflexes, as Gavin had hoped she would, she dove for the floor. By the thickness of a fingernail, the stool missed her skull. The beast, hot on her trail, saw the stool only as she ducked. Even so, the beast twisted with uncanny reflexes. The stool thus passed the beast and crashed into a guardsman running after it. The stool knocked the guardsman against others so they fell with a crash of chainmail and shields. Gavin, timing everything, hoping he had guessed right, skipped over Swan and thrust the silver sword. He thrust where he judged the beast would be after it had dodged the stool.
Too late, the beast saw the cunning tactic. Yet still it twisted in its catlike way. So instead of skewering it through the chest as Gavin had planned, he only cut its side. The fiery tracings in the sword, however, blazed into life. A blue spark jumped from the sword and into the beast. The spark, like a butcher’s clever, ate a hole into its side. The beast screamed, and as if receiving a blow from a sledgehammer, it staggered backward. Yet even from this, it recovered inhumanly fast. With its side pouring blood and gore, it cried out as if a tiger were given speech.
It snarled, “Gavin!”
Half demented with grief, Sir Gavin gripped his sword with two hands and hewed. The beast’s head thumped onto the floor. The body gave a single spasm and then flopped alongside its head.
For a moment no one moved, although blind men sobbed.
A soft hand touched Gavin’s shoulder. He spun round. Swan, greased with sweat, whispered, “Thank you.”
Gavin panted and his mouth hung open.
“Gavin?”
A wild sound issued from his mouth. His sword clattered to the floor. “Thank you?” he shouted. “You spout thank you?”
She stepped away from him.
“I just killed my son!”
Her gaze flickered to the headless darkspawn. Understanding swept over her. “The boy,” she whispered.
“Don’t you see?” Gavin cried. “He killed Hugo, who loved him more than anyone. Now I killed him.”
“Hugo!” she shouted. She turned and raced up the stairs.
On unsteady legs, Gavin followed. He found them in Swan’s room, the cold wind blowing through the broken window. She knelt by Hugo’s corpse.
Gavin clenched his teeth. Rage knifed through him. It slew his guilt. He roared, “Here’s your precious crusading! Here! Death, lady! Death and more death! My friend is dead because none of you would listen to me when I said to flee! We should all flee. That’s all that’s left. Why won’t you listen to me?”
Swan lifted red-rimmed eyes.
“The crusading is madness,” he said, as Josserand entered the room. “It’s a path unto slaughter and more slaughter. Why doesn’t your precious Hosar help us?”
“You rage at the wrong person,” she said.
“Do I?”
“You should hate the darkspawn, the spirit of Zon Mezzamalech and Old Father Night.”
“Don’t preach at me, woman. Not now.”
“No,” she whispered. “No preaching. Only action will do now.” Swan rose, went to the bed and dragged out the banner, unfurling it. Gently, she laid the silk over Hugo’s torn body. A few others stood near Josserand in the doorway. They looked as confused as Gavin. Swan placed her hands on the banner and over Hugo’s chest. She closed her eyes. “O Hosar, give us back our Standard Bearer. Give back Sir Gavin his heart.”
A sob tore out of Gavin.
The wind died.
“Listen,” whispered Josserand.
Gavin heard it, a faint sound. It was musical, a voice sweet and innocent. The banner, with its flame symbol, began to glow with an unearthly color. The singing increased so that Gavin clamped his hands over his ears and squeezed shut his eyes. The room grew unbearably bright. He dropped to his knees as he trembled. He felt dirty and unclean. Whatever was happening terrified him worse than the darkspawn, worse than Muscovy.
“No,” he whispered. “No. Go away.”
Then both singing and blazing light stopped.
Gavin opened his eyes and took his hands from his ears. His mouth fell open. A woman behind him gasped. Josserand sputtered.
Hugo sat and blinked as if awakening from a deep sleep. The grizzled old veteran smiled as a weeping Swan hugged him. Between them, draped over his arm and her shoulder hung the Banner of Tulun.
It was a miracle.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The High Priest of the Banfrey Temple, the King’s chief councilor, toiled like any clerk in his ornate study. The interior room was silent but for the scratching of his quill. A small man, he sat perched on a stool and was bent over a raised and angled writing board. A thick piece of parchment was pinned to the board, and the ink in his pot glittered most golden. It was his most expensive ink, saved for his most important documents. He wrote with exquisite letters, tall and cursive, beautiful, as near to a work of art as he had ever produced.
Before he had risen through the temple hierarchy to become High Priest, he had begun as a scribe, a clerk in a cloister, taking old books and copying new editions. He felt peace as he dipped the quill into the golden ink and painted another sentence onto the parchment. He wondered if life mightn’t have been simpler and more pleasant if he had remained a scribe, reading and copying the great works of the masters of the past.
He lay down the quill and slid off the stool, carefully wiping his ink-stained fingers on a cloth. Only then did he rub his eyes.
The room was lit by an open window, where outside larks trilled in a garden. Many books lined one wall. The greatest paintings in South Erin except for those in the King’s gallery decorated the other walls. He massaged his eyes once more as he began to pace across the thick Magyar carpet, clasping his fine-boned hands behind his back. A small man, he wore a white gown and comfortable slippers. He paced back and forth before a mighty desk. On the desk was a silver candleholder from Novgorod the Great. Hanging from the candle in the holder was the golden medallion of the Moon Lady. He had pulled one of his tomes from his library and found script similar as to that on the double weight gold coin given him by Sir Gavin. That deadly knight and that strange Swan had been correct. The coin held the Moon Lady on one side and Hyperborean hieroglyphics on the other. The only other item on the otherwise empty desk was an open parchment.
The High Priest picked it up, scanning the lettering for perhaps the tenth time.
It was the Tara Charta, dictated by Swan the so-called Chief Crusader of Erin, Truth-Teller and Seer of Hosar. It called the people of Erin to defensive arms against the darkspawn of Old Father Night. It rang with references to the “spirit of Zon Mezzamalech” and “the silver sword” and “in the defense of all humanity.” He had studied it carefully. It deeply troubled him. What he knew of the Moon Lady and the fearsome hints of legendary Hyperborea… Might the darkspawn truly be the terror that she spoke about?
The High Priest’s upper lip curled. He tossed the Tara Charta back onto his desk and marched to his stool, climbing up it, taking his quill and dipping it into the golden ink. With sure, swift flourishes, he finished the missive. He read it over to himself and picked up a handful of sand, sprinkling it over the lettering. He heated red wax, poured it to the bottom of the parchment and pressed the King’s stamp upon it. He pinned two blue ribbons against it. When all had dried and hardened, he used his fingernails to work out the tacks, rolled up the freed parchment, tied it with a red ribbon, sealed it with wax, using the King’s stamp once more, and then worked it into a royal message tube.
He then sat at his desk, slumping in exhaustion as he closed his eyes.
Later, a tap at the door stirred him.
“Come,” he said.
His chamberlain brought in a young knight, the leader of the Albion gentlemen adventurers. The talk was brief, the young knight bordering on rudeness and then soon sent on his way. The fool had actually wished to ride north and join the crusaders.
After that came more men, many of them messengers, two of them assassins given new assignments and one a bent old woman said to possess the second sight. The High Priest locked the doors and spoke with her in low whispers. From her many layers of clothing she produced strange cards, shuffling and fanning them and then bidding him to pick three. With a trembling hand, he did so. He had once ordered witches like her to be burned at the stake, trying to rid the kingdom of them. Yet the need was great, and his fear and uncertainty more than usual.
The witch nodded as she studied the tarots, smiling, revealing that she was missing many teeth. “A fight, Your Excellency, but then you will be victorious.”
“What of Swan?”
“She will fall.”
He grinned, lurching from his chair, staring out of the window.
After a time the old woman coughed into a withered hand.
With a start, he turned, went to his desk, pulled open a drawer and dribbled silver coins into her pouch. He ordered her to speak to no one about this session.
After she had gone, he drummed his fine-boned fingers on his desk as he stared at the message tube.
Another tap came at the door.
“Come.”
“Your Excellency,” said his chamberlain, “The Matron Innocence is waiting to see you.”
The High Priest blinked at his chamberlain as his stomach turned queasy. “Usher her in.”
The chamberlain bowed and retreated, closing the doors. The High Priest took his place behind the desk. With a start, he grabbed the medallion, putting it away into a drawer.
The double doors to his study opened and the chamberlain said, “The Matron Innocence of the Shrine of Tulun to see you, Your Excellency.”
A plump woman in her fifties, in a blue gown and fiery crown of office, with deep blue eyes and a serene smile allowed herself to be guided into a cushioned chair in front of the desk. The High Priest nodded to the chamberlain, who silently took his leave. The High Priest gave his full, grave attention to the Matron Innocence, the most powerful religious leader in the kingdom after himself.
“What is this urgent request for a meeting about?” she asked.
He picked up the Tara Charta. “Have you heard of this?”
“The letter from Swan?” she asked.
He lofted his eyebrows. He had thought his missive the only copy. “It will save time if you’ve already read it.”
“Time is critical, I agree,” she said.
“You do? I’m surprised. You were most fond of the girl, if I recall.”
Inga frowned. “I think you misunderstand me. Swan has been proved right. There are indeed darkspawn and they have conquered the Duke’s territory.”
“Nonsense!”
The Matron Innocence seemed bewildered. “Have you actually read the charta?”
“This inflammatory summons to open rebellion, yes, I’ve read it.”
“Your Excellency, you surprise me. I know the King’s spies report to you.”
“Spies, Inga? No. Loyal supporters to the King report about misdeeds and outlawry in the Midlands.”
The Matron Innocence licked her lips, frowning, seeming to gather herself. “If you will notice, Your Excellency, Sir Ullrick, the King’s champion, signed the charta, as did Baron Wyvis, Bain and Aelfric the Duke’s champion, as well as the mayors of Tara, Ware and Kildare, among others.”
“The rebellion has flared openly, yes, I understand that. And that is why we must move quickly. You, I’m afraid, must now make just as open a move for the King as they have for rebellion. For you are responsible for much of this.”
“I do not understand your thinking.”
The High Priest folded his hands on the desk, staring into her eyes. “Did you not give this Swan the Banner of Tulun?”
“What are you saying?”
“I do not believe you gained the King’s permission in doing what you did.”
“I am the Matron Innocence of the Shrine of Tulun. My first loyalty is to Hosar—as yours should be, Your Excellency. My conscience is quite clear about what I did.”
A wintry smile touched his face. “We shall not bandy words, you and I.” He put a hand on the message tube. “The Midlands has flamed into open revolt. Many townsmen, mayors and Midland barons have leapt at this chance to challenge the King. The great feudatories, however, remain loyal. In particular, Count Ranulf of the Barrens, old Nine Fingers himself, foe of the Cragsmen, will raze the lands of these rebels and soon put an end to their rebellion. And if that doesn’t suffice, then the King will lead in person with the main army and put down these rebels.”
The Matron Innocence had grown pale. “Your Excellency, I urge you to reconsider. They are most certainly not rebels. They gather themselves in order to defeat the darkspawn. Most of North Erin has fallen. The Duke of Glendover Port is no more. Think about that, Your Excellency. The Duke of Glendover Port was a powerful man with a strong walled city and many fine knights. To brush aside this idea of darkspawn as being but petty brigands is utter foolishness, the very height of folly. For once, you must lay aside your schemes. You must sound the alarm and bring the King’s Army to the Midlands. We must unite the remainder of Erin and defeat this terrible menace. Otherwise, you, I and everyone else in the kingdom will soon march in the Horde of the Damned.”
“Ah, Inga, you disappoint me. Swan says all this to be so in her Tara Charta. Yet it is obviously full of lies, full of hypocrisy. She is a seer, I’ll grant you, seeking to overthrow the kingdom! No. I will not be party to it and I will not let you be party to it. You have been duped by her from the beginning—either that or the two of you plotted most carefully.”
“How dare you accuse me of that.”
“How dare I?” asked the High Priest. “You gave them the Banner of Tulun, the very key to this rebellion, a stamp of your approval. Now you spout fear to me, urging me to fall under the waif’s spell.”
The Matron Innocence sat back, turning thoughtful. “You sent Sir Ullrick and Sir Josserand with them. Are you not then just as responsible as I?”
The High Priest’s smile turned hard. “Indeed I did send those two, and they may yet regain the King’s goodwill. But as for you, my dear.” He shook his head. “I find you intransigent. I find you willfully spiteful and stubbornly set against the good of the realm.”
She rose, with anger and fear flashing across her face. “Tread carefully, High Priest. To threaten me is to threaten my entire Sisterhood.”
“Do you really think so?” He pulled a cord. The doors opened and hard-eyed men in chainmail marched within. “Guide her below,” he said. “Let her rest securely in solitude so she may meditate upon her decisions.”
“Do not dare to touch me,” she told them.
“Don’t be tedious, my dear woman. Resist and it shall go worse with you. Cooperate and you may yet gain the King’s forgiveness.”
She glared at him. Then, before the armored men laid hands on her, she lifted her gown and with a nod bid them to show her the way.
When the doors closed and the High Priest was alone again, he sank into his chair with a groan, massaging his forehead. A knot welled in his stomach. Just how dangerous were the darkspawn? Surely, there had not been enough of them to conquer Glendover Port. That had to be sheer fabrication on the rebels’ part. Still… He nodded to himself. The Duke’s territory was undoubtedly in turmoil. So if he maneuvered the situation to best effect, perhaps it would be possible to sweep both the rebels and to launch an attack north of Forador Swamp. He could unite all Erin under the King’s crown. It had been over a hundred years since the entire island was ruled from Banfrey. First, however, before he could consider such grand dreams, he must squash this idea that the Tara Charta had any basis in fact. He must push the King into marshalling the main host. It wouldn’t be wise to rest everything on Nine Fingers.
***
“…in conclusion, Your Majesty,” the High Priest said as he strode about the palace courtroom. “We must call out the knights, gather the men-at-arms and order the crossbowmen to the royal standard. Then we must march north to put down these dangerous, clever rebels.”
Silence greeted the words. The King frowned from on his throne upon the dais. His lords sitting on either side of the hall and on cushioned chairs shifted uneasily. Many older lords in their velvet robes and golden chains of office avoided the High Priest’s eyes. A few of the younger knights, dressed in hose, tabard and long silken capes, dared to stare at him in wonder.
Finally, an old, fat knight stirred, the Constable of the Kingdom. The Constable dyed his hair red with henna and wore a vast robe to hide the extent of his girth. The only article proclaiming his office was the vine baton he fiddled with in his pudgy hands. The Constable now cleared his throat and grunted as he struggled to his feet.
“Yes?” asked the High Priest.
“What about the darkspawn, your lordship?” wheezed the Constable.
“That is a hoax,” said the High Priest. His smile grew tight as the King’s guards armed with loaded crossbows did as he had instructed. They stood perched on an upper balcony, fixing their attention onto any that spoke against the plan.
“B-But the reports, your lordship,” wheezed the Constable.
“Oh, I’ll grant you there may be a few of these darkspawn,” said the High Priest. “But an army of them, one that has swept the Duke’s territory? I cannot believe that. Can you, Your Majesty?”
King Egbert looked confused. He shook his head.
“We must stamp out these rebels, Your Majesty. Isn’t that so?” asked the High Priest.
The King nodded.
The High Priest smiled pointedly at the Constable. “Who here gainsays the King?”
A few knights appeared uncomfortable. The Constable gripped his baton, fingering it, working his nonexistent eyebrows. A cleared throat from a knight beside him caused the Constable to glance up at the crossbows. His eyes grew wide. His fat neck swiveled as he looked from guard to guard. Each crossbowman eyed him closely. The Constable hurriedly sat down.
“Is it decided then, Your Majesty?” asked the High Priest.
“Yes,” said the King.
“Then should not the Constable begin to call out the troops.”
“Let it be so,” said the King.
The fat old knight, the Constable, yet hesitated. He had once been a brave man. With a rattling sigh, he rose once more to his feet. He saluted the King with his baton, turned and saluted the High Priest and then shuffled for the door.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Ten days later, as the motley collection of knights, town militiamen and sullen-eyed peasants first attempted military evolutions at Bosham Castle by the Sea, heralds from Count Ranulf of the Barrens, old Nine Fingers, boldly rode into camp. The three heralds on caparisoned stallions clattered into the castle courtyard, shouting for the whereabouts of the one named Swan.
The heralds wore costly gear: gold-inlaid tabards, ermine-trimmed cloaks and jeweled rings. Their bearing was haughty as befitted their lord the Count. The youngest herald bore a flag. Upon the flag was the silver outline of two hands that clutched the throat of a choking Cragsman. The ring finger of the right hand was missing. It was the flag of Nine Fingers and showed his avowed purpose.
In the Count’s youth, the High King of the Crags had captured him, cut off his ring finger, and stolen the family signet. Since then, after paying his ransom and gaining his freedom from the Cragsmen, “Nine Fingers” had become a savage warrior, usually raiding into the Crags each summer with fire and sword. In his old age, he had become a sullen fighter, known for his fearlessness.
“Don’t let the heralds speak,” warned Josserand.
He had whispered to Gavin, who hurried with Swan and Hugo into the courtyard.
“We don’t fear their words,” Hugo said. Since his rebirth, he had taken to wearing a white tunic with the symbol of Hosar upon his breast and belted by a white rope. Instead of shoes, he wore sandals. The only other article upon his person was a strap across his chest and slung over his shoulder. It held his faithful crossbow upon his back and a round cylinder of bolts.
“You would do well to remember,” Josserand said blandly, “that Nine Fingers is cousin to the King.”
“The heralds do sit arrogantly,” Gavin said. “They peer about as if someone waved a shovelful of dung under their noses. Perhaps you’re right.”
“Sir Josserand is not right,” said Swan. “They are heralds. They are under the lawful protection of Hosar.”
“As you wish, milady,” Gavin said.
Midland barons, mayors and higher-ranked knights who had joined the crusading hurried toward the three heralds. The chief herald, a handsome man with white hair down to his shoulders, put a tissue of cloth-of-gold upon his head as if it were a hat. He then signaled the other two.
The beefiest herald put a silver trumpet to his lips and blew a mighty blast. The one with the flag waved it back and forth. Then all three of them clucked their tongues and caused their fine steeds to high step their hooves upon the cobbles, as they slowly turned round in a circle.
“How lovely,” said Josserand.
Everyone in the courtyard stopped what he or she was doing.
“Where is the one named Swan?” bellowed the herald with the tissue of cloth-of-gold upon his head.
“You wish to speak to the Seer?” shouted Hugo.
The herald blinked.
The barons and mayors joined Swan and Gavin.
“This is the chief servant of Hosar,” Hugo said, “Seer of Truth and leader of the Crusading.” He knelt before Swan, bowing his head.
“Get up, Hugo,” she whispered. “You’re embarrassing me.”
“Yon waif is your leader?” asked the herald in his booming voice.
Gavin stepped up, grabbing the horse’s bridle. “Have a care how speak about the Seer, sir.”
The herald raised his chin. “I am the herald of Count Ranulf, lord of the Barrens and cousin to the King. You would do well to unhand my horse, sir. Or do you not recognize the laws of the land?”
“You are granted safety,” said Swan. “Heralds are immune to harm. We recognize you, sir.”
The herald barely nodded, and as Gavin let go of the bridle the herald made a subtle signal. Once more, the trumpeter blasted upon his silver instrument.
The chief herald thereupon cleared his throat and spoke loudly. “Count Ranulf of the Barrens, cousin to the King and known abroad as Nine Fingers the Scourge of the Cragsmen, bids me to urge you to wisdom and proper featly. Be it known that Nine Fingers stands with his cousin the King. He deplores this breach of the Anno Charta and pleads with his fellow lords to remember who rules in Erin. Yet my lord Nine Fingers knows that sometimes barons and their retainers lose their wit under the pretense of troubles. ‘Crusading in South Erin?’ he asks. Can Nine Fingers have heard a right? Nay, my lords, this is a plot against the King, and the Count will not stand for it.
“Know, sirs and lady fair, that Count Ranulf, cousin to the King, also known to the foul Cragsmen as Nine Fingers the Destroyer—know that the Army of the Barrens has even now been assembled. Let every baron who rebels watch to his castles and keeps. Nine Fingers shall besiege and burn each stronghold to the ground. He will raid the rebellious fiefdoms, slaughter the peasants and take all cattle and booty for his own.”
The herald eyed the throng with a haughty sneer. Then he pointed to one in the crowd. “You: Baron Bain. My lord Nine Fingers bade me give you this personal missive. ‘Your lands will fall first, sir. I will dung your wells and ravage your wife and daughters fair. I will—’”
“Knave!” roared Baron Bain, drawing his morningstar and beginning to whirl the three spiked balls above his head. “I’ll give you my personal answer right here and now!”
“I am a herald!” shouted the herald. “I am free from harm!”
“Hold, Baron,” said Swan.
Baron Bain was red-faced and panting, but he slowed the swirl of those deadly balls.
The herald nodded to no one in particular, and drew his breath to speak again.
“No more,” Gavin said. “We have heard your message.”
“I think not, sir,” said the herald. “I have yet more to say.”
“You are finished talking.”
“Are you a knight, sir, or a knave? Yon waif, your leader, has given me leave to speak.”
Once more Gavin grabbed the bridle, and a knife appeared in his hand. With a slash, he cut the straps binding the saddle to the stallion. Before the herald could protest, Gavin shoved the loosened saddle, toppling the man from his perch. The herald fell heavily and his cloth-of-gold tissue fluttered to the ground, all to the laughter of those in the courtyard.
“I am a herald!” bellowed the man.
Gavin slapped the stallion’s rump so the fine steed pranced out of the way. He knelt by the white-faced, stunned herald. “I grant your title, sir. But you are done speaking.”
The herald glanced at the knife and into Gavin’s eyes. “Yes,” he agreed. “I have delivered my message in full.”
***
That afternoon Gavin spoke earnestly with Swan as they rode downhill to the camp full of North Erin refugees. The camp lay near a stream. The camp was a maze of tents and ill-built shanties. Children and dogs ran wild among the lanes. Old people sat outside their tents or lean-tos, staring at nothing, sometimes knitting or whittling. Peasants had dug latrine pits at random and hammered together ramshackle outhouses. Flies buzzed everywhere and a fierce stench hung about the misery. Swan had given orders that no one gather water downstream of the camp. She also insured that rye bread and potatoes were daily delivered there.
Behind Swan and Gavin rode several armored knights led by lean Josserand. At Gavin’s orders, they had stayed around Swan whenever she visited the camp. The first time that had happened, she had ordered them away. But Josserand had politely refused. She had had hard words with Gavin about it later. She went to the camp on a mission of mercy, not to flaunt her power. Gavin had listened and then said, “One dagger by one assassin ends the crusading, milady. If I were a darkspawn or even the High Priest, I would watch your daily rounds and then plant my killer among the weak and dispirited.”
That had ended that particular argument.
Gavin now said, “The heralds bring ill news, milady. Many crusaders have already begun murmuring because of it.”
“We cannot disband our host,” said Swan.
“Of course not,” Gavin said. “But we cannot simply ignore this. The good news is that Ullrick believes the High Priest put Nine Fingers up to it.”
“What differences does that make?”
“The difference is how much heart Nine Fingers will have for his task. It makes a difference in how easy or hard it will be to change his mind.”
“I don’t think you know Nine Fingers if you believe that. No one changes that man’s mind once it’s made up. He’s the most stubborn man in Erin.”
“That may well be,” Gavin said, “but change his mind we must.”
“How?” asked Swan.
“We could always ask him.”
Swan glanced at him sharply, laughed and reached over, clapping him on the arm. “Yes, we could ask. Do you think I should see him myself?”
Gavin gave her a twisted smile. “I think you misunderstand me, milady. If we ask it must be at the head of an army.”
Swan shook her head. “No. When darkspawn are abroad, men must not fight men.”
“That is an admirable belief. Events, however, have overridden your adage.”
Swan frowned at him. She never seemed to like his witticisms. For a time, she rode in silence. Then she studied him. “Nine Fingers hates the Cragsmen. This is well known. What if we and the Cragsmen were allies? Then the Count wouldn’t dare to fulfill his boast.”
“How will you achieve this magic feat?” asked Gavin.
“I have no idea. I leave that in the hands of my Captain General.”
“Me?” asked Gavin.
“I wish you to leave at once and arrange this pact. Otherwise, as you have implied, our host will likely splinter into its various parts, as they ride to their castles. If they do that, then we are lost.”
***
Two days after the herald’s haughty pronouncement, Sir Ullrick thundered with a contingent of knights, Baron Aelfric among them. They galloped with rein-chains jangling and shields clattering. Each warrior had a sword within easy reach and scowled fiercely. Dust lined the Bear’s massive beard. Dust billowed as the stallions pounded along the oak-lined path. Wagon wheels marked the dirt, the fleeing wagons of Baron Bain of the morningstar.
A shout went up as the knights spotted the lumbering wagon train. Men-at-arms rode them, women, some children and the bulk of Baron Bain’s supplies.
Peasants with hoes looked up from the surrounding fields. A flight of crows cawed loudly overhead.
Sir Ullrick wrapped his gauntleted hand around the haft of his battleaxe, lifting it, waving the knights on. They thundered for the wagon train. The men upon them glanced back in worry. One driver whipped his horses, flicking the reins. Other men reached for crossbows, some of them picked up pikes.
Sir Ullrick, his eyes ablaze and his dusty beard bristling, drew rein before the lead wagon. “Halt!” he shouted, pointing his axe at the driver with his whip hand raised. The Bear’s knights clattered into formation behind him. The stallions’ sides heaved as sweat slicked their glossy hides.
Men-at-arms now jumped down from the wagons. They, too, wore hard expressions. Some laced up their leather jerkins. Some cranked crossbows. Some had white-knuckled grips upon their pikes.
“What is the meaning of this?” shouted Ullrick.
A red-haired fellow in leather barding pointed behind Ullrick. “My lord is coming, sir. Why not ask him?”
The knights with Ullrick shifted their horses around to face Baron Bain. The rattling cavalcade with its chainmail armor, buckled swords and jiggling saddle bells drew near. The heavy hooves stirred more dust. Baron Bain’s knights and squires seemed uneasy. Two donned helmets. The baron, who rode at the head, spat at the rutted path and snarled something over his shoulder at his retainers. Soon thereafter, he brought his steed to a clattering halt before the Bear.
“Where do you ride, sir?” asked Ullrick.
The knights and squires of Bain were half in number of those with Ullrick, although the grumbling men-at-arms of the wagon train evened out the odds.
Baron Bain, with his awful morningstar tucked in a saddle holster, scowled. “Who are you, sir, to demand my comings and goings?”
“I am your fellow ally against the darkspawn,” said Ullrick.
“The darkspawn be damned,” said Bain. “Nine Fingers threatens my home. Will I let it be burned down around my ears while I sit like a fool at Bosham?”
“What does that matter, sir, when in several weeks’ time your ladies and kin will howl like the beasts of the field?”
“Bah,” said Bain. “I will stand in Kleve Castle and none shall pass, neither Nine Fingers nor beasts.”
“More fool you,” said Aelfric, the Duke’s white-haired champion. “Kleve will fall like all the other castles have in North Erin.”
“Fool is it?” asked Bain with a sneer. “You name me that when you were chased out of your lands like a lowborn cur?”
Aelfric’s sword leaped from its sheath. Those around him also drew steel so there appeared a forest of knightly blades.
“You must return with us,” Ullrick said ominously.
“I go where I will,” said Bain, squaring his armored shoulders. He drew his morningstar, the spiked balls dangling in readiness.
The Bear hesitated as anger smoldered in his eyes. The metal of his gauntlet creaked as he tightened his grip.
“Look, Bear,” said one of his knights.
Ullrick shifted in the saddle. A dust-cloud billowed along the path. “Who comes?” he said. “Who can tell me?”
A crossbowman standing on a wagon shaded his eyes. He almost choked on the words as he said, “They fly the Banner of Tulun.”
Baron Bain paled. Baron Aelfric and those around him lowered their swords, while Bain’s men-at-arms stepped down from the wagons and glanced abashed at each other.
Swan soon arrived. She went bareheaded, with her short dark hair tussled by the ride. She wore a jerkin of leather and a white cape with a yellow flame symbol. She had boots like any man and riding breeches. Hugo, dressed in white and holding aloft the banner, cantered at her side.
“You should not ride alone, milady,” chided Ullrick. “What if outriders of the darkspawn had found you?”
“What is this I see?” said she, ignoring Ullrick. “Do crusaders draw blades against one another?”
“Milady,” said Bain, urging his steed nearer. “Nine Fingers threatens to burn me out, to burn out all of us. Can we stand here meekly while all our homes go up in flames?”
“He threatens,” said Swan. “But will he truly do this deed?”
Bain laughed bleakly. “When did Nine Fingers ever utter a threat he didn’t follow through? He is lord of the Barrens and cousin to the King.” Bain waved his hand to indicate all of them. “We must garrison our castles and fight from our homes, milady. Let the King’s Army deal with the darkspawn. For if we have not the King’s leave to marshal our men, than we are indeed rebels.”
Swan urged her steed nearer the baron, reaching out, grasping his wrist. “Will you not at least wait a week, sir? It is wrong for us to be moved from our sworn path by mere words. We must fix our resolve and save our island from destruction.”
“In a week I will be beggared and named wolf outlaw,” said Bain. “I must ride today, milady.”
“No,” said Ullrick, lifting his axe. “You swore an oath on the banner. If you foreswear than I name you dog and a coward.”
Anger colored Bain’s cheeks. He made to disengage his wrist.
“Give us a week,” said Swan, holding tight.
“And then what?” Bain said in a passion. “What can you possibly achieve in a week?”
“Only this,” said Swan. “The word of Nine Fingers to leave your castle and your lands untouched.”
“You swear this?” asked Bain, amazed. “How can it be done?”
Swan’s eyes flashed in anger as she let him go. “Swear, sir? I deplore the art. My yes is yes and my no is no. Give me a week, this I ask.”
“But milady,” said Bain. He gestured helplessly.
“Sir Gavin rides west, Baron Bain. More than this I will not say.”
“West?” asked Bain. “I grant you that the man is an extraordinary swordsman and knight. Yet what can even Sir Gavin do to stop Nine Fingers?”
“Give me a week’s time and then you shall know,” said Swan.
Baron Bain eyed Swan, the Banner of Tulun and the Standard Bearer who had risen from the dead. Then he eyed the hard-faced knights with drawn steel beside and around him. He nodded. “Very well, milady, I give you a week. But by all that’s holy, I pray that you are right.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Something grim and unyielding solidified in Gavin as he rode west with Josserand and forty of the hardiest crusaders. The miracle of Hugo’s rebirth lay at the root of this new resolve. He suspected, however, that their form of travel also had something to do with it. They rode fast and without rest: each of them with a string of seven or eight horses, the pick of the crusaders.
He’d known a Scythian nomad in Muscovy. The clever nomad had taught him how they did things on the Steppes. In those wastelands, the nomads often traveled vast distances in short amounts of time. There, they customarily traveled with eight or more mounts per warrior, switching in rapid fashion so they could cover hundreds of miles in a matter of days. During such swift forays, the nomads lived off thin strips of jerky they kept warm by hiding them under their saddles. They drank alcoholic milk called kumis that they curdled in small leather bags, and they nourished themselves by the blood of their nimble steeds. They opened a vein in the foreleg and drank, binding the wound when finished and resuming the ride.
The forty crusaders paused every several miles and hurriedly saddled the next horse in the string, mounting again and riding hard for the Crags.
The Scythian had taught Gavin one of their customs, how to bind one’s stomach for hard riding. Thick leather straps wrapped tightly around their torsos now aided each of the crusaders. Yet each felt the relentless pace. They set their teeth and bit back their groans, telling each other that what they did west would determine whether they had an army east to fight the darkspawn. Unless they succeeded, the host at Bosham Castle might well melt away as knights and squires rushed to defend their castles and lands from the depredations of a raiding Count Ranulf, old Nine Fingers, cousin to the King.
By such hard and relentless riding, they soon picked their way through the western foothills of the Crags. The lonely heights held few trees, many rocks and boulders and carpets of heather and short, sheep-sheered grass. Thus, from the pinnacles of the higher peaks, they could see for miles in all directions.
“I still don’t understand how you plan to gain the Cragsmen’s trust,” said Josserand. “They’re not known for their easy ways.”
Gavin had been mulling that over. A more clannish, distrustful people were not known in all Erin. Of course, the Cragsmen had every right and reason to hate the feudalistic invaders of their ancestral lands. Cragsmen, when found outside their mountains, were treated as kin to wolves. Only the bleakness and sheer ruggedness of the Crags had kept the knights and their men-at-arms from trying to conquer and hold such territory—the last ditch savagery of the Cragsmen also had something to do with it. Gavin thus wondered if another miracle might be needed. So when one of the men claimed from a peak to see something odd, Gavin asked quickly, “What do you see?”
“Brigands, I think,” said the youth. “They drive a line of captives.”
It was near dusk. They had been traveling nonstop ever since leaving Bosham Castle by the Sea. The horses were weary and dust-stained and the men more so. Yet Gavin recalled something Swan had told him about the darkspawn. As Old Father Night gained more creatures and beasts beholden to him, the darkspawn would gain in power and soon be able to fare during the day. Wouldn’t they first learn to fare a little before dusk? Such seemed logical.
“Pick your least blown horse,” Gavin said. “You three will guard the herd,” he told the most tired. “The rest of you…” He grinned bleakly. “If I’m right, it’s time to slay darkspawn and purchase us some goodwill.”
Josserand frowned, but soon they galloped over hill and dale, at a point to intercept those that the far-sighted youth had seen.
***
Angella of Cynwyth Cliffs refused to weep. The tight leather collar twisted around her delectable neck choked her most of the time. The beasts had ripped off her woolen shrift, so naked she stumbled along with the other neck-leashed captives. Many of them wept silently, numbed by terror and goaded by lashing whips or the dread that next they would be chosen as meat.
The beasts, the wolf-men, snarled among themselves. Angella was amazed that sometimes she understood what they said. They were hairy and deformed, ugly and incredibly strong. Some of them wore knightly belts over their furry pelts, hanging from them captured swords and daggers and awful wallets of putrid meat. These creatures ate man or beast, anything they slew. They ate like animals, never draining the blood. Angella shuddered and coughed as she tried to draw down air. The twisted collar choked her as she stumbled along. Twenty of these creatures drove three times as many people of the Crags, men mostly, some women, but no children. The beasts had devoured the children. Angella shuddered again. She had been one of the first captured and had witnessed all the varied horrors. She was her father’s favorite, his first born, he the chieftain of the Black Hawks. She could sling a stone as well as any man and had once hurled a javelin at a raiding lowlander. Her lithe form now bore many welts from beatings. She wondered if she should rejoice that these creatures weren’t human. Otherwise, she was certain she would have been raped many times by now. She was the village beauty, although her mother had taught her not to let that go to her head. Too soon, women of the Crags lost their youthful charms through a toilsome life and many sorrows.
Angella worked her wrists each day, trying to loosen the thongs that bound them. She could no longer feel her fingers. They had long ago grown numb. Wisely, the wolf-men had bound her wrists and everyone else’s behind their backs. Otherwise, her strong teeth would long ago have chewed through the bindings.
The creatures now snarled angrily at one another, motioning in a way that all of them had come to understand as ‘move faster.’
The people of the Crags did, weeping and stumbling, their feet cut and bleeding. They left bloody footprints upon shale, rock and grass. All the captives were naked, dirty and glassy-eyed.
“Run!” snarled the lead beast, he with a golden medallion.
The captive line jogged and staggered, snaking through the ravines, heading in the direction of Forador Swamp.
Later, they halted in a bottom junction between several hills. All the captives panted, huddling together for warmth, weeping and wondering what horrible fate lay in store for them.
Angella slid near the beasts, trying to overhear what they said. One opened his wallet. She almost gagged. The stench was wicked. She pressed her nose against her shoulder, trying not to vomit. Whatever these creatures didn’t eat right away, they tossed into their wallets. Upon opening them as they did now, they always ate the oldest meat first.
She slid away from them, unable to bear the stench.
Soon the beasts stopped tossing putrid morsels into their fanged maws. Their ears perked up like dogs. They drew swords, daggers and stolen Cragsman hatchets. They eyed the captives and snarled among themselves as if debating plans.
“Up! Run!” snarled the medallion-wearing beast.
With a groan the line of captives, about sixty strong, rose, stumbled and ran.
Angella heard what the beasts must have already heard: the metallic clink of chainmail, the iron links riveted together that lowlander knights wore, that and the pounding of hooves and the clatter of shields.
A trumpet blast froze everyone, both captives and beasts. On a hill, knights reined in their stallions. As the sun sank into the horizon, a cavalcade of lowlander horseman shouted in rage. They drew their terrible iron swords, readied their long lances and charged after them.
The medallion-wearing beast howled as others among the wolf-men snarled in bafflement. Several of the beasts bolted, bounding away in terror. Others turned on the captive line and began hewing, stabbing men and women in the belly.
“Charge the wolf-men!” shouted Angella. “Swarm the beasts.”
No one heeded her. As one, the captives, starving, dehydrated and sickened by the long march, shrank back from the foaming creatures of evil that stabbed and hewed as they barked in glee.
Angella dodged a dagger by leaping back, dragging another captive into the blade’s line. That man wept in fear, and the dagger slashed open his belly.
The thunder of hooves became loud and the trumpet once more blasted its call.
Under the howls and snarls of the medallion-wearer, the beasts dared marshal themselves to face the terrible men of iron. For the first time in her life, Angella was glad the knights were such fearsome warriors. As she lay on the ground, trembling, she watched in awe a particular knight who wielded a silver sword.
***
Hundreds of years ago, the Cragsmen had lived throughout all Erin. Then the first knightly invaders from Albion had landed on their shores. It was during the time of one called Sir Strongbow that the most critical Cragsmen defeats took place. They had been driven from the forests and the fertile lowlands and into the empty fastness of the Western Crags. Foot-fighters: slingers and javelineers and known as ferocious hand-to-hand knifemen, the Cragsmen had been unable to stand against the tall iron men on their mighty chargers. Yet the Cragsmen were fiercely independent, lovers of song and daylong ballads. They seldom united en mass, too stubborn to do so, but they often raided the lowlands in bands of twenty or more. Smaller than the lowlanders, they were as wiry and nimble as he-goats. So when armies of knights came to retaliate, they fled to the higher mountains, driving their cattle and sheep before them. Once the knights retreated, the Cragsmen returned to their burnt homes, building their wattle huts and low-walled wooden palisades in a week. Their very poverty, in knightly terms, and their civilian mobility, kept them free from the feudalism of lord and serf. The pride of their personal freedom was both their bane and their salvation.
It was these people that Gavin, and through him Swan, hoped to use against Nine Fingers, Count of the Barrens, the cousin of the King and the protector of the realm from the incursion of these very Cragsmen.
“Ask this High King of the Crags,” Swan had instructed Gavin, “to join with us in our fight against the darkspawn. Then you must go together with the High King and speak with Nine Fingers, warning him of our unity and begging him to understand the horror of the darkspawn. If he marches on one of us, he marches on us both and will feel the wrath of us united.”
“The High King will never agree to that,” said Angella on the ride from the darkspawn defeat and to her father’s palisade.
Gavin and his forty crusaders had butchered the clawmen. They had freed the captives, at least those that lived. That is when Angella, the daughter to the chieftain of the Black Hawks, rose and told them who she was. On the ride to her father’s palisade, Angella listened to what Swan had instructed.
“No,” said the girl of the Crags. “The High King will never agree to that. He is known as ‘the Wily One’ for a reason. He will never believe you. It is a known fact that all lowlanders always lie to those of the Crags.”
“What about the heads of these clawmen?” Josserand asked. He slapped a gory sack tied to his saddle pommel.
“The High King is the wily one,” Angella repeated. “He will never believe it. I’m not sure I believe it myself. It all seems like a nightmare now that is better left forgotten.” She tugged at her lower lip. Then she looked up and grinned. “Nine Fingers led a cunning raid into the Crags six months ago. He captured the High King’s totems and put them up in his hall in Krum Keep. If Nine Fingers rides in strength against you crusaders, then now would be the time to attempt a lightning raid against Krum Keep. Yet whatever you say the High King will expect is a lie. For as I’ve said: he knows that no lowlander tells the truth to a Cragsman. Therefore, you must beg the High King not to attack the Count.”
“Why would we beg that?” asked a befuddled Gavin.
“Because you must tell the High King that Count Nine Fingers is your ally. Instead of talking about the Count invading your lands, you must say that Nine Fingers is coming to aid you in your war against the darkspawn.”
Josserand said sourly, “You have a devious mind, girl.”
She blushed, and Gavin realized that the amazing mountain girl took it as a compliment.
So it was that before they rode into the Black Hawk camp that Gavin decided to trust the girl.
“You’re mad,” said Josserand. “It will never work.”
A day later, Gavin and his men sat in the palisade of Angella’s father: the chieftain of the Black Hawk Tribe. After listening to his daughter’s account and all that Gavin had been through, the chief agreed to take them to the High Court of the Crags, to there speak with the High King of the Cragsmen.
Soon, Gavin and Josserand sat in the High King’s palace. A low stone wall protected his larger than usual camp and a log house, long and low to the ground, with the floor dug down, was the palace for the High King. The floor was dirt, the fire encircled by rough stones and the smoke trickled through a hole in the ceiling. Thin log benches were the only seating but for the High King. He sat on a cedar stool. Thin, stunted warriors in furs and dirty woolens, with long curved daggers and javelins, made up the majority of the room’s occupants. The chieftain of the Black Hawks was among them, with his daughter Angella sitting at his feet. The High King indeed looked like a crafty fellow, and was young, with dark hair down to his shoulders. He had a way of squinting so you never saw his eyes. As Gavin spoke, the High King held a javelin in his right fist and kept hitting his knee with his left.
Gavin told of all his adventures in Erin and some of what had taken place in far-off Muscovy. He showed them a letter written by Swan, approving his status as herald. He pleaded with the High King to desist from all attacks in the low country during this terrible time of peril. But more importantly, Gavin begged the High King to join their island-wide alliance.
An old woman began to cackle. She tended the fire, poking it with a charred stick. She rose, and rattled because of all the strung bones she wore as necklaces and wristlets. She wore fine linen, but was horribly wrinkled.
“Do you lowlanders think we follow your puling Hosar?” She spat in the fire, causing hissing. “I give that to your Hosar. We follow the Old Woman of Bones. She will protect us from the deities of the Night—or perhaps she will urge us to join them!”
“Quiet, old woman,” said the High King. “Tend to your fire and leave the plotting to me.” He smiled at Gavin, although he still squinted and thus hid his eyes. “Tell us more about Nine Fingers. When does he come to join you?”
Gavin spun a tale, and the High King nodded, from time to time pounding his thin knee. At last he stood, jabbing his spear into the dirt floor. “I agree with thee. Let there be a truce with the lowlanders. By Esus, I say this is so.”
The small warriors around the fire stirred, smiling, nodding and whispering among themselves.
“Now go,” said the High King. “Tell your crusader woman this good news.”
Outside Josserand told Gavin, “Failure, sir. You outfoxed yourself.”
As they saddled up, ready to ride, Angella slipped near. She took Gavin’s hand, pressing it against her lips. “Good luck to you, good knight.”
He sighed, and he decided the girl had counseled him to the best of her understanding.
“What is wrong?” she asked.
“The High King agreed to the alliance,” he said.
She laughed. “Is that what you think?”
“Your High King swore by his god to agree to the truce.”
“You are a mighty warrior, lowlander, but you don’t know anything about our gods. Esus is the god of craft and cunning. By swearing upon him, everyone knew the High King used guile on you. In other words, he mocked you and Nine Fingers. It was most cleverly done.”
Gavin stared at Josserand. Josserand let a rare smile touch his lips.
“Hurry,” said Angella. “You must ride before the High King decides to ambush you. Even now, the hotter-headed warriors urge him to do so. Only my father’s pleading and the sack of clawmen heads is holding them at bay.”
So the forty crusaders mounted up and yelled for the gate to be opened. Then they thundered out of the High King’s palisade.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Cuthred pushed open the oaken doors and shuffled into the conjuring room. Harsh-smelling incense burned from the tapers lining the walls. The flames cast Leng into sinister shadows and showed the paraphernalia he used for his supernatural delving. Upon a nearby table rested strangely bound tomes of forbidden knowledge, along with alembics, caskets, vials and elixirs. His lean head never moved, and his evil eyes peered intently into a shallow bronze brazier. Ink lay like spilled blood in the brazier: sluggish, thick and putrid.
“Well?” asked the Mistress, who had followed Cuthred into the room.
Leng didn’t move or allow his gaze to shift from the ink, nor did he make any gesture that showed he acknowledged the Mistress’ presence.
Cuthred knew that Kergan/Master would have become enraged at such behavior from Leng. The new Mistress, however… She was slight of build, with stick-like arms, a scrawny neck and thin red hair. Freckles lay thick across her nose. She wore tight-fitting hunting clothes, with a whip curled on her belt. The leathers showed her to be unlovely and graceless. Mistress-ship had not changed that. From her flat chest, glowed the pale green amulet. Its chilly aura gave this princess all the power she needed. Or to be more precise, the amulet had found a new and temporary home in this ugly Duke’s daughter.
Cuthred, for all his dullness, understood that Vivian had avoided this fate because the Duke’s daughter had taken her place. It made him like Vivian less than before.
“Knowledge, Sorcerer, only upon that can a cunning strategy be formulated. To proceed blindly is folly—as your fravashi blundered when he attacked Swan in Tara.”
Leng raised a lean hand. His fingers fluttered as he softly intoned, “Lord of Bats, we beseech thee. Let us see with your eyes, O Lord. Let us know the things that transpire afar. O Lord of Bats, long have I brought you human blood, fresh and in vast quantities. Grant me this request, O Lord, that your work may fly abroad.” Leng chanted evilly in a tongue long forgotten.
“Ah…” said the Mistress.
Cuthred peered over her shoulder. Incredibly, a window in the ink seemed to open. For a moment, a flicker in time, a darkly handsome and evil face appeared. He wore a high-necked collar and smiled sardonically as a king of vampires might. Then the scene, the image in the window, changed. A stout tuskrider hunched upon a massive boar. Around him sat several lancers, while a dark banner waved in the breeze. The stars glittered above, and they reflected off the swamp-water around the riders.
The stout tuskrider lifted a warthog head as he gestured curtly. Ram-horns were raised to thick lips. Cuthred imagined their thin, piercing sounds. Beyond the stout tuskrider and splashing through the swamp, charged clawmen. Starlight painted their spears and short curved swords. Before them stood a log wall that had been mortared with dried slime. Fireballs arched over the wall. Like a horde of angry bees, the crackling balls hissed down at the darkspawn, as dour-faced crossbowmen appeared atop the wall. They sighted, and let their missiles fly. Clawmen flopped into the mire. Then, like meteors, the fireballs landed. More clawmen died. A few scrambled up the log wall to attack. Spearmen greeted them with iron-tipped points.
The picture went back to the stout tuskrider, a commander. He shook his warthog head, saying something to his brothers. They urged their mounts away from the wall, away from the fireballs that came seeking them.
“I’ve seen enough,” said the Mistress.
Leng chanted anew. A different picture came into focus. It showed a torch-lit courtyard. Knights in armor milled about. King Egbert appeared on a balcony above them. He shook his fist as he shouted. The knights cheered, although through the inky window the sounds remained unheard. The King stepped back. The High Priest stepped onto the balcony. He spoke. The knights cheered again. Then the pictures changed more rapidly. Men-at-arms hacked at posts. Archers shot at hay-backed targets. Peasant levies marched back and forth with spears held at the ready. The snapshot pictures went faster and faster in this city of torches, the biggest city in Erin. Everywhere it showed warriors, a veritable army massing together.
“The King marshals his host,” said the Mistress.
“To chastise those he considers rebels,” said Leng. “To scourge those who bar our way out of the swamp, and who guard the East March between North and South Erin.”
“You believe that drivel?” asked the Mistress.
“King Egbert is mad,” said Leng.
“But the High Priest isn’t. No. If the Banfrey Host marches to the Midlands, it will be to fight against us, not against Swan’s Crusaders. Your spies are wrong in that regard.”
“I’m unsure,” said Leng.
“While I’m not,” said the Mistress.
“My lady, please consider—”
“No! My mind is made up. I will hear no more upon it.”
After a brief moment, Leng inclined his head. “Would you see more, my lady?”
“Yes. Show me this Sir Gavin.”
Leng creased his tall forehead.
“Well?” asked the Mistress.
“There… Something guards Sir Gavin, my lady.”
“You’ve tried to scry him before this?”
“I have.”
“And failed?”
Leng inclined his head once more.
The Mistress stepped closer to the brazier, touching it. An eerie green color shone from the amulet. The inky substance in the brazier rippled and then grew still, and a large knight with a tough face stood before men sitting on bales of hay. The knight held a spear, apparently showing the men the correct way to thrust it. Then the men on the bales leaped up, and the sword strapped to the knight’s side seemed to shine within its scabbard. Hints of bright light made a glow around the silver hilt. The knight with the close-cropped beard and shrewd eyes drew his sword. Blue glyphs pulsed up and down the blade.
The ink in the brazier rippled once more. The amulet on the Mistress’ chest shone an eldritch green. She jerked her hand off the brazier. A rivulet of smoke trickled from it. She panted, while sticky ooze, like sweat, stained her face. It stank horribly.
Cuthred coughed, shuffling back, holding his big nose.
The Mistress mopped her face with a rag. She seemed thoughtful. “Show me Bosham Castle.”
“Alas,” said Leng, who had watched the interplay with avid interest. “I cannot.”
“Why not?” said she.
“Interfering powers lie there, too, my lady.”
“Hosar’s power?” she asked.
“Mayhap. I’m uncertain.” Leng shook his head. “The truth is I can’t tell you. The power masks itself from my spells and it is even more powerful than when I tried to view Sir Gavin.”
The Mistress touched her amulet. “Our stroke must fall at Bosham Castle then. For there is the heart of my opposition.”
“My lady,” said Leng, “do you truly think that is wise?”
The ugly, scrawny Mistress turned eyes as cold as death upon Leng. “Explain yourself.”
Leng bowed in a servile and abject manner. “To pitch strength against strength, my lady, is sometimes very costly. Why not let your powers and influence grow? Bypass this single fortress of strength and shatter the roots that support it?”
“Do you seek to teach me strategy, O worker of spells?”
“Never, my lady,” said Leng. “I merely supposed that your powers might be too engaged in bringing your full return. Why then spend magic against these fools? Perhaps if your darkspawn forced a passage through the swamp and then your main host swung toward Oswald Ferry, cutting off the Midlands from all future assistance… Then the King and the crusaders would be unable to unite. Perhaps even, the hordes ravaging the various castles and towns would split the crusaders and cause them to go away from Bosham Castle, as each separate baron or mayor rushed to defend his own home.”
“Your idea has merit, I admit.”
“Divide the crusaders, my lady, by threatening their interior homes, by threatening their castles, towns and villages. And all the while, make more darkspawn.”
“The idea has merit, but the crusaders guard this swamp-route as we’ve just seen. And making more darkspawn is so draining. No. I learned once to my sorrow that leaving the main enemy foe alone is dangerous in the extreme. Crush all opposition and pollute Hosar’s shrines and this weight I feel—I shall be able once again to concentrate on the great task.”
“Please reconsider this, my lady. They guard the swamp-route against a small attack only. Surely they could not face a full assault led by the undead.”
“And how will you feed this army, Sorcerer?”
“The undead need no food.”
“That is true,” said the Mistress. “But unless they are closely watched, many of the undead will mire themselves in the bogs and rot away before they can be freed. The swamp, with so many thousands of corpses in the Death Drummer’s horde, becomes for us a trap. It is not as before, when we marched out of Forador Castle with a small army. Such numbers as those, as we have just seen, wouldn’t force that wooden rampart. The crusaders have heavily guarded the swamp-route.”
“Use clawmen to force the passage.”
“Again I ask you: How will you feed them? For the swamp path is narrow and the beasts have either been slaughtered or fled faraway. To bring enough meat for the clawmen as they mill before the wall and as fireballs fall among them. No, no. The swamp-route is a trap. It is a killing field against us. Our enemies have cleverly blocked that route.”
“Then use blood-drinkers to first disorganize the defenders. That way you will need less clawmen.”
“Number me our blood-drinkers, Sorcerer.”
“There are less than twenty, my lady.”
“Too few,” she said.
“Surely you jest, my lady. Twenty blood-drinkers would shatter defender morale long enough for the clawmen to scale the wall in force.”
“Twenty blood-drinkers, yes,” she said. “But you said less than twenty. Those few I will use elsewhere.”
“May I ask where, my lady?”
The cold dead eyes studied Leng. He bowed low, groveling. The Mistress touched the amulet. “I grow weary of strategy and plots and your insinuating suggestions. O to call down a cloud of soul-devouring, as in the day of old. Or to hear the shrieks of the night-hags as they fly upon my foes, to suck dry their blood and steal their courage. What need then of marching monsters, of giants, brutes and clawmen, of the undead in their masses? You spew me maneuvers, a hearth-mage from a land of barbarous wallow, where hunchbacks scamper through cold pine forests against fools in armor shivering in their dank holds of stone. O but to conjure black nights of slaying or dooms demonical, to bid the gods of Darkness to harry my enemies and to bark like dogs against my foes and then savage them, such I should be doing. These small matters you think so consequential… To one like Zon Mezzamalech they are spites only, the concern of children and the sons of mere kings.”
Leng had thrown his cloak over his head, trembling. He felt the magical power emanating from the amulet and dreaded that the spirit of Zon Mezzamalech had truly awoken. He groveled, but he dared not pray to Old Father Night. This ancient sorcerer before him might well feel such calls.
Leng peeked from under his cloak.
The Mistress’ hand had fallen away from the amulet. The ancient talisman now looked dull and dark. She stared mutely at the brazier.
Leng dared draw back his cloak and rise to a sitting position.
The Mistress turned to him. “I shall pin down the island King.”
“I do not understand, my lady.”
“No matter,” she said. “What does matter is that you will march with me to Bosham Castle. That is where my hardest blow will fall. Destroy it, and the army defending it, and Erin is mine. Then…ah, then Erin will become the Black Isle. Then I shall fully rise again, Sorcerer. Then the world will know again the fell power of Zon Mezzamalech reborn!”
“My lady, Hosar’s champion lies at Bosham Castle, as does that terrible silver sword.”
“My legions vastly outnumber theirs.”
“When gathered, my lady, agreed. Such a gathering as you know takes time.”
“Which is why I have ordered that the fleet be readied,” she said. “We must not allow our enemies to unite their two main armies. It is very fortunate for us that the Cragsmen have boiled out of the hills. That they besiege Krum Keep is an amazingly lucky boon, no doubt the workings of the agents of the Dark Gods.”
“The fleet?” asked Leng, bewildered.
Cuthred stirred. He knew that several days ago there had been a discussion about the fleet. Vivian had carefully explained it to him. Several days ago, Leng had urged the new Mistress to put the elite troops along with Joanna the Death Drummer aboard ship and sail to Lobos Port. Once capturing the port connected by the Fangohr River to Banfrey, and raising new corpses for a new undead horde, they could march on and storm the capital city as they had once done to Glendover Port. The Mistress, although as the Duke’s former daughter had been a bitter enemy of the King, had wanted no part of such a plan.
“One bold stroke and all is won,” had argued Leng.
“One storm while we sail and all is lost,” had been the Mistress’ reply.
“Surely a simple spell will insure…”
The Mistress, as Vivian had described it to Cuthred, had several days ago mocked Leng. “What you suggest is a fool’s gamble, Sorcerer, which is decidedly not boldness. It is called folly. My powers will soon give me everything. To rush that victory at great risk—No! There will be no sea-borne invasions. I forbid it.”
Yet now, today, the Mistress had apparently readied the fleet. Cuthred was as confused as Leng appeared to be.
“The fleet?” asked Leng again. “I thought you said we shall make no sea-borne invasions.”
“A particle of my horde used to pin down more than half of the enemy’s numbers is worth a small risk. That, even, is worth the entire lot of blood-drinkers.”
“Yes, my lady.”
The Mistress frowned as she studied Leng. “It is time to gather the horde, to bring back all the darkspawn. I will crush Hosar’s Army, these crusaders, and then perhaps it will soon be time for the Great Conjuring as I sweep these pitiful islanders into an age of blackest magic.”
“Yes, my lady.”
“Come, giant, attend me.”
Cuthred stepped aside for the scrawny, ugly Mistress. Then he squeezed through the small door after her and shuffled down the corridor on his aching feet. He couldn’t get the image out of his mind of the silver sword that had blazed with power. It had made him feel as he did staring at the sun. It had made him feel ashamed. He hated the feeling. It would be good to kill that knight and break his sword. Cuthred grinned. It would be very good.
***
Outside Kleve Castle, home to Baron Bain of the morningstar, Count Nine Fingers’ carpenters hammered together catapults and other siege engines. The entire countryside roiled with smoke from a hundred blazing fields, sheds and village huts. Besieging tents flapped in the breeze and sat around the doomed castle. To this rode a frenzied messenger on a foaming steed. He galloped through the camp, shouting, “Nine Fingers! Nine Fingers! I have a message for Nine Fingers!”
Squires captured the messenger’s wild mount and hauled the man down. “Take me to the Count!” he shouted.
“What’s wrong?”
“The Barrens is aflame! The Cragsmen pour out of the hills. They squat around Krum Keep, after having first tried to boil over the walls. I barely made it out of their lines. I must speak with Nine Fingers.”
The messenger was led to a stooped old man with blazing eyes. The Count listened to the youth speak, and as he did the old man’s upper lip curled like a snarling hound’s might. He began to pace, stroking his jutting chin with a maimed hand, one missing a finger, one long ago cut off by the father of the present High King of the Crags. He snapped his fingers and demanded to see the High Priest’s letter. A clerk ran into a tent and ran back out. He handed the missive to Nine Fingers, Count of the Barrens and lord of Krum Keep. The old Count scanned the letter anew. Then he snarled, crumpling it with his maimed hand.
“Let the High Priest fight my neighbors. I will go home and crush these Cragsmen. I will hunt them until all are chased into the sea and drowned!”
Soon the carpenters’ hammers pounded no more. The tents came down and the army of Count Nine Fingers tramped out of the Midlands and back for the Barrens.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
During a long walk along the cliffs of Bosham, with ocean breakers crashing upon boulders and a stiff breeze ruffling his cloak, Gavin pondered all that he had seen. He recalled that awful night in the Great Hall, how handfuls of darkspawn had slain countless humans. He thought about Swan, Hugo and he in the swamp facing hunting clawmen. He reconsidered the ride to empty Forador Castle and the gaunt in the swamp, the wraith of Zon Mezzamalech and the dreadful death of Sir Hunneric. He thought, too, about the bats and the hopping things that had attacked them on the gallop back to Wyvis Keep. Gavin growled low in his throat at the thought of Joanna. He shuddered at the remembered sight of armed clawmen butchering bound and helpless people of the Crags. Man for man, being for being, most folk were no match for an individual darkspawn. What the enemy did was take ordinary people and turn them into monstrous creatures that no similar number of normal folk could hope to face, let alone defeat in combat.
Combat at night, Gavin amended. Perhaps there lay the answer to the puzzle of beating back the darkspawn. Fight them during the day.
He spoke later that evening to Josserand. They sat in his tent pitched on the edge of the training field outside the huge castle. It was perhaps the biggest fortress in all Erin, excepting the cities of Glendover and Banfrey. The tent held a central pole, a chest with a few of his belongings, a field cot where lay the silver sword and a table where the two of them sat at. Cold meats and cheese lay in slices on a board, together with a flagon of wine and goblets. Underneath the board was a map of Erin, with the Midlands and the East March highlighted.
Gavin spoke to blank-faced Sir Josserand about his ruminations. The mercenary knight was as lean as ever, his long face unreadable. Sometimes, Gavin thought of Josserand as the Sad Knight. The dark-haired fellow seldom smiled, but wore a frown behind which he kept his ideas hidden. Tonight, Josserand wore a jeweled green clasp pinned to his black cloak.
“The darkspawn are unbeatable,” Gavin said.
Josserand sipped from his goblet.
“Knights can slay them,” Gavin said, “but there are never enough knights.”
“The cry of all kings and their councilors,” muttered Josserand.
Gavin nodded. “A kingdom’s reputation rests upon the exploits of its knights, upon its gentlemen of valor. ‘Send for the knights!’ That is an old and well-known adage. Thus, when men like the High Priest find men like you, why, they dub them knights.”
Josserand set down his goblet.
“The militiamen, the peasants and the outlaws seeking reprieve,” Gavin shook his head. “They are no match for these terrible creatures of Darkness. At the first onslaught, our footmen will run screaming from the battlefield and leave the knights to face alone the dark horde.”
“A problem,” admitted Josserand.
Gavin snorted, pouring himself more wine.
“I think I have a solution,” said Josserand.
Gavin raised an eyebrow.
“Turn these simple folk into knights.”
“Or soldiers,” Gavin said, ignoring the sarcasm. He pursed his lips and swirled the contents of his goblet. “Once I was a blackheart. We fought the hunchbacks and Varangian Marauders in the depths of Muscovy. Our plan then was simple: stay alive. Yet if I recall a-right, our commander said something interesting, something perhaps that could pertain to us.”
Josserand appeared uninterested.
“‘Never fight them one-on-one, lads,’ he told us, ‘but gang up on them like town bullies.’”
“That’s sage advice for just about any fighter,” said Josserand.
Gavin slapped the table, making the meat board jump.
A flicker of interest appeared in Josserand’s otherwise blank eyes.
Gavin stood, setting down his goblet. “The darkspawn fight like beasts. They do not war like true men. They are not formation fighters.”
“The clawmen we faced in the Crags fought together.”
“Yes, like wolves might in a hunt or like the lions of the south.”
“I have never been south or seen lions,” said Josserand.
“The darkspawn are beasts more than they are men.”
“Does that matter?” asked Josserand.
“I think it might.”
***
The next day, after first making a few preparations, Gavin called the commanders of footmen together. They were a ragged group of mercenary crossbowmen, militia masters-at-arms and several knights who had been talked into the assignment. Some sat on hay bales. Others stood to the side with folded arms. Behind them towered huge Castle Bosham, flags whipping in the stiff ocean breeze.
Gavin first spoke about the darkspawn and their fighting prowess and propensity to fight as beasts. “What they lack, however,” he told them, “is human intelligence, the ability to coordinate the way men sometimes do. That is the advantage we must drill and hammer into our footmen. No one must face darkspawn individually, but in teams of three or four.”
“They outnumber us, I’m told,” said a gray-bearded crossbowman.
“That’s true,” Gavin said. “So when we fight, we must fight intelligently and maneuver them in such a way that we tackle each beast with three or four humans against one.”
“Easy to say,” said a young knight, “now how will we do it?”
Gavin called up four men he had coached earlier this morning. They held shields and spears. Shields were the most rudimentary of defensive items and all that many of the peasants had been able to acquire. Spears had been handed out to those who lacked any arms at all. A sword was much more costly than a spear, taking more iron to make and greater skill to fashion and use. Thus, because of their availability, spears proved to be the footmen’s weapon of choice. Gavin had these four men demonstrate various formations, the first the ‘engagement in meeting,’ where he played the darkspawn. One man with shield and spear approached him, the other flanking back and to the left, ready to charge at any opening. The commander, the third man, cocked his spear for a quick cast. The fourth watched the field to see if more darkspawn approached. If any did, the fourth man would run forward and provide cover for the others to retire.
“When will any four of our footmen face a single clawman?” asked the young knight.
“Perhaps never,” Gavin said. “The point is to teach our men to operate together as a group. In the swamp, Osric the Wyvis thegn went to investigate alone and died alone to a single gaunt. Our group, a squad, would not have moved alone, but together. Your task, as the foot commanders, will be to divide the men into squads of four, choosing which of them will be the leader. I suggest that you put men together who are friends or neighbors or known already to each other. Each squad will be part of a larger group. To each group of eighty will be added ten crossbowmen and five net-men. The crossbowmen’s task will be to slay any darkspawn that break through the group. The net-men will take care of bats or any other flying creatures sent by the enemy.”
“That sounds complicated,” said the gray-bearded crossbowmen.
“Each group of eighty will have a standard, a flag around which to rally,” Gavin said. “Our Seer will bless that flag and each man will then take an oath to defend it to the death.”
“Seems like she should bless all our weapons,” said the young knight.
Gavin nodded thoughtfully. “The key to all this—what I want you commanders of foot to remember—is to train our men to think and to fight together in their squads of four. It is as important that they have a way to handle the darkspawn as that the way actually works.”
“What do you mean?” asked the young knight.
“Our footmen must not flee on the day of battle,” Gavin said. “That would be disastrous. Yet we all know that in any local war between barons, that the footmen almost universally flee a charge of knights.”
“They would be fools and dead men if they didn’t,” said the young knight.
“Indeed,” Gavin said. “Thus, our footmen are practiced at fleeing. They expect to be placed behind walls and other outworks.”
“Isn’t that how we’re going to face the darkspawn?” asked the graybeard. “Fighting behind a wall, like the one that blocks the swamp-route?”
“I don’t know,” Gavin said. “But I do know it’s foolish to only be able to fight one way. What our footmen need at the very least is confidence. That way they might stay around long enough when the time comes to actually swing a sword or stab a spear at the enemy.”
A few of the foot commanders chuckled.
“If they do stay, then our footmen need to know how to fight, how to actually harm the enemy. This splitting into squads and giving of battle-flags and training in special tactics will help give them that confidence.” Gavin scanned the ragtag group, wondering if he had convinced any of them. “So far the men have run at straw dummies, been taught how to hold their spears and how to march in line. That is all good. Now they need unity, belief in one another and belief in a way that they are convinced will see them through on that horrible day of battle.”
“I still think they’ll run,” said the young knight.
Gavin hooked his thumbs through his sword belt. “Will you run, sir?”
The young knight stiffened and bolted up off his hay bale, as his cheeks burned red. “You insult me, Captain General.”
Gavin swept his eyes over his foot commanders before focusing again on the angry young knight. “I want the men you train to learn to have a similar sense of honor as you’ve just shown me. Infuse them about the disgrace of running away from their flag, of being cowards when they have a way to defeat the darkspawn. Most of all, sir, make them feel that the three other men they train with in their squad depend on them, that if they run out on them that they are worse than beasts, that they are base cowards and traitors to their oaths.”
The young knight crunched his eyebrows together, soon sitting down.
“Seems like the best way to make them feel like that is to give them some practice winning,” said the graybeard.
“First things first,” Gavin said. “Are there any questions?”
There were plenty, but afterward, Gavin sent them away to begin implementing his plan.
***
Going with Swan and Hugo among the refugees who had fled North Erin, Gavin quizzed everyone who had faced darkspawn. Gavin searched for an enigma, an insight or a different way of viewing the enemy. It was all in an effort to devise a stratagem or strategy that might give them hope of victory.
“How can we defeat the darkspawn?” he asked Hugo one morning.
They stood atop the tallest battlement of Bosham Castle, the most southern of a line of fortresses guarding the invasion route between North and South Erin. This was the East March: the individual castles and keeps belonging to the marcher lords. Once the East March had been like the Barrens, ruled by a single count beholden to the King. But that had been over fifty years ago. The aging count of that time had six sons, each holding a castle or keep upon his death. They refused to hand over the keys to the eldest, and each in time became his own independent lord. These Marcher Castles were considered impenetrable, the best on the island. Bosham Castle was perhaps the strongest and the most famed among them.
The battlement Gavin and Hugo stood upon gave them a bird’s eye view of the Sea of Nuada on one side and of the main valley thoroughfare on the other. If the dark horde planned to march from North to South Erin this was the likeliest way they must go.
Flags snapped in the stiff ocean breeze and Gavin shivered, pulling his cloak tighter about himself. Hugo appeared indifferent to the cold. He wore a white linen shirt, white wool breeches and sandals. Since the miracle, dirt had become abhorrent to him and he had also become more withdrawn and thoughtful—and cold seemed not to bother him at all.
“Swan will show us the way,” Hugo said.
Gavin eyed his old friend. They had drifted apart since the miracle. The leathery-faced squire had doted on the Seer before. Now he seldom left her side.
“What do we do until then?” asked Gavin.
“Train,” Hugo said. “Seek the power of Hosar. Abstain from evil and all forms of guile.”
Gavin suspected that the last was specially directed at him. Swan had disproved of his diplomatic maneuverings with the High King of the Crags and his outright lies. But like everyone else, she had been pleased that talk about leaving Bosham Castle to protect their hereditary lands had ceased among the knights, mayors and men-at-arms.
“Do you remember how in Muscovy they told us that Hosar marched with us?” asked Gavin. “And the Sword Brothers, they were much as Swan is now. Yet we crusaders in Muscovy lost the bulk of our army in the cold pine forests. The enemy defeated us and drove us back to the border forts. Only a few blackhearts survived. And how did they survive? They lived by wielding deadly blades, by refusing to give up and by plenty of luck. Your new life is a miracle, my friend. And I think that now you see things the rest of us cannot. But don’t tell me to pin my hopes on a girl having visions. I need a plan, a strategy, a way to defeat the darkspawn.”
“Who else can give us that way than the Seer?” asked Hugo. “She is closer to Hosar than any of us.”
“Don’t the old legends say that an evil kingdom flourished in the distant North?”
“That kingdom fell before the Great Ice,” Hugo said.
“You’re missing my point.”
Hugo squinted at him, and Gavin wondered why Hugo’s bad eye had not been healed in the miracle.
“Some folk must have fought against the sorcerers of Hyperborea, folk who trusted Hosar and surely had their own seers,” Gavin said. “Yet they still fell before the powers of Darkness.”
Hugo’s squint turned into a scowl.
“I want to know the secret to victory, old friend. Not victory everywhere, but victory for us, here, in this time and place.”
“I told you: train, seek the power of Hosar and abstain from evil.”
“You forgot one thing,” Gavin said.
“The forgoing of guile?” asked Hugo.
“No. Oil your crossbow and keep it ready. I think before this is over I’m going to need your keen aim.”
***
Gavin quizzed survivors of encounters with darkspawn. He sent scouts north and listened to their reports at whatever time they returned, whether it was morning, noon or midnight. He and his commanders debated ideas in his tent and he had long talks with Josserand. The mercenary knight and he practiced fencing. Gavin was stronger, swifter and had greater endurance. Josserand had grim bitterness and determination, and sometimes, when his eyes glowed with a wild light Josserand sped up and penetrated Gavin’s steely web of parries. All who watched agreed that here indeed were the crusaders’ two best swordsmen.
“If I fall you must pick up the silver sword and lead the charge,” Gavin said.
“If you fall then we are certainly doomed,” grumbled Josserand.
Gavin laughed, shaking his head, toweling sweat from his face.
Josserand ticked off his fingers one by one. “You freed the Seer from Forador Castle, beat the King’s champion in Banfrey and thereby gained men enough for the beginning of the crusading. And you slew the fravashi.”
“Now explain to me how I’m supposed to destroy the growing horde of darkspawn,” Gavin said. “We lack the numbers, and instead of sending heralds to tell us he joins us, the King soon marches north to put us down.”
“Troubling news,” said Josserand.
Gavin reached out, taking Josserand by the arm. “Check the footmen for me. Test some of them. I must speak with the Seer…” He looked up at the sun as it approached noon. “I must speak with her in less than an hour.”
“Remind her that she should bless the weapons.”
Gavin was surprised. “I didn’t think you believed in such things.”
Josserand shook his head. “I don’t, but the men do. And as you say, with increased confidence they might stick around long enough to thrust their spears.”
At the appointed hour, Gavin rode into the castle, joining Swan in a room strewn with books. There were hanging tapestries of former seers and several doves cooing on the sill of an open window. Swan looked weary in her white gown. Her eyes were red-rimmed and a thick book was on her lap.
“I’m happy to see you in here, resting,” Gavin said, as he sat on a stool by a table. He picked an apple out of a bowl, rubbing it against his shirt. “You spend to much time tending to the wounds of strangers and outcasts.”
“From victims fleeing the darkspawn,” she said. She shut the book and rubbed her eyes. “I wish I did rest.”
With a crunch, he bit into the apple.
Swan rose, joining him at the table, cutting a slice of bread and using her thumb to spread butter. “Sometimes I wonder on the ways of Hosar.”
“Oh?”
She smiled sadly. “I try to force visions.” She frowned, rubbing at the scar on her cheek. “Do you think strenuous exercise, peril or sickness heightens the possibly of visions?”
“I have no idea.”
Swan thoughtfully chewed her bread. “My most interesting visions came while I traveled on your back.”
“I remember.”
“Can we defeat them, my Captain General?”
“You ask me,” he said. “I have come to ask you.”
“I look into the faces of those fleeing south,” she said. “I see despair and hopelessness, and I wonder if I tell them rightly to trust, to have faith, that Hosar will yet raise up a champion.”
“You are our champion,” Gavin said.
“I am the Seer. You are the strong right arm.”
“You must bless our weapons,” he said, uncomfortable with this praise and the way she looked at him.
Swan shook her head. “There is no potency in my blessing.”
“If a soldier believes his sword is blessed and he fights harder because of that, isn’t that a true blessing?”
Swan pursed her lips. “Maybe you’re right, but that way starts the beginning of hypocrisy.”
He rose, and he took her hands in his. “You’re weary. You must rest more. Without you, the crusading ends. Then Erin will be plunged into bitter darkness. Every human here will be sacrificed to hideous evil or changed into darkspawn.”
“How can I rest when I know that the spirit of Zon Mezzamalech marches south? And coming to meet him and us the King will soon march north. We shall be cracked in the middle like a walnut. O Gavin, I need more hope. Where shall we gain hope?”
Gavin left later, unsettled. She was human after all, he told himself, and he strode the parade ground angrily. There had to be a way, a secret, a thing that he wasn’t considering. It would give him victory over vastly superior forces that fought in the dead of night. Should he try to attack them during the day? Maybe instead of sending scouts north he should send raiders. He smiled grimly, deciding to test the idea two nights from now by riding north himself and in force.
That night, an hour after midnight, he heard shouts, challenges and the clank of armor. Springing from his cot, drawing his sword, he was surprised when Hugo swept back the tent cloth and said, “The Seer approaches.”
Swan, with her eyes shining and with a strange serene smile, and while holding a lantern, seemed to glide into the tent. She said nothing about being sorry for waking him or the commotion she had just caused. She set down her lantern and glided to him, taking his hands, peering deeply into his eyes.
“They came,” she said.
“Who did?”
“My visions,” she said.
“I shall guard outside, milady,” Hugo said. “You will be undisturbed.”
She appeared not to hear. “Do you know what I saw?”
Gavin shook his head.
She let go of his hands and picked up the silver sword where he had laid it down. “The Sword Glamore, the silver sword, etched with the slivery runes of power!”
“What are you talking about?”
Reverently, she set down the sword. “Would you hear the tale, milord?”
“What tale?” he asked, sleepy, not understanding any of this.
“Tonight I saw how Glamore came into being. Oh, Gavin, it is the answer, the answer.”
“The answer to what?” he asked.
“How to defeat the darkspawn,” she said.
That got his attention. He forced his eyes wide and sat on his warm cot.
“I’ll be brief,” Swan said. She thought a moment, and then began to speak. “The sorcerers of Hyperborea, the terrible servants of the lords of Darkness, once sent raiding ships into what they called the Uncharted Lands. Those ships sailed to ancient Iceland, Erin and Albion. The Hyperborean soldiers captured men and women for the slave marts and as sacrifices to Old Father Night. Whenever the ancient peoples of those islands tried to make a stand, Hyperborean sorcerers practiced their foul spells.”
“You’ve said as much before,” Gavin said.
“Listen,” said Swan. “The people of legendary Avalon lived during that time. They followed Hosar, and they warred against the Hyperboreans. Instead of spells, they forged powerful swords and spears. The greatest weapon was Glamore, the sword you presently carry. It was forged to fight against Darkness and against the sorcerers of Hyperborea in particular.”
“Forged how?” Gavin asked.
Swan frowned and then shook her head. “Does it matter how? We have the ancient sword. That is enough.”
Gavin picked up his sword, with Swan’s lantern-light shining off the bright blade. “Avalon was real?”
“With this sword of Avalon we have strength to face the enemy and a champion to slay our dark foe.”
“I must slay the spirit of Zon Mezzamalech?”
“You must destroy the amulet,” she said.
Gavin twisted the blade this way and that. “Do you think the sword can cut such a talisman?”
“If it cannot then we are doomed.”
He nodded, and deep lines furrowed on his brow. “How does one…summon the blue lightning?”
“I don’t know.”
“It flared at the altar and it slew the fravashi,” Gavin said. “But otherwise the runes have never shone.”
“Perhaps the sword senses in some way great powers of Darkness, and then its powers are stirred.”
“Is the sword sentient?” asked Gavin.
“No. I don’t believe so. Rather, it must react to great powers of Darkness, as I’ve said.”
Gavin was bemused. “It was the heirloom of an earl of Albion. He wept on parting with it.”
“He was a fool to wager it. And yet, perhaps it was destiny that you won it.”
“Or luck,” he said.
“Our good luck,” Swan said with a smile.
Gavin set the sword on the table, his mind awhirl on possible new stratagems and strategies.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
“We can’t wait for them to marshal all their strength,” Gavin told his assembled commanders. The men sat on hay bales, with a bonfire crackling behind Gavin and the morning sun finally beginning to heat up the day. Around the grassy valley, peasant soldiers sat around similar fires, slurping porridge out of wooden bowls. The tents of the encampment fluttered with the salty ocean breeze. From farther away, stallions nickered in roped-off areas. Already the horses had to be taken farther a-field each day to forage. Gavin didn’t want to hay-feed the horses until the darkspawn army was almost upon them.
Gavin cleared his throat. “The King, as you’ve heard, will soon set out of Banfrey to ride north against us. Heralds and ambassadors from us shall of course be sent to him, to reason with his Majesty and the High Priest, his most persistent councilor against us.” Gavin wanted to shrug but refused too. If the King and the spirit of Zon Mezzamalech attacked in any sort of coordination, whether in happenstance or through policy, then the crusading was doomed. But that wasn’t something he could tell his men. So he grinned bravely and told them, “We’re going to upset our enemy’s timing and thin his ranks in the process, and through that we’re going to give our lads more training time.”
So Gavin chose two hundred hardy riders: knights, thegns and squires. Each man was given three mounts. The battle-stallions would only be mounted when they intended to fight. The palfreys would do the man-carrying the rest of the time. With these raiders he rode north up the East March, north up the invasion route. They galloped past the grim Marcher Castles. Trumpets blared from those high parapets. Gavin ordered his buglers to greet them in return.
Josserand, Aelfric and Welf rode with the raiders. Sir Ullrick remained behind to see to the training. Gavin had also forbidden Hugo and the banner to go with them.
“Our two gifts are my sword and the banner,” had been his explanation. “I will not risk both unless it is on the last battlefield.”
They rode into a land of smoke and ruin, of gutted castles and burned villages and towns. In places, the grasses had turned black or shone the color of iron and the trees had become deformed and stunted. Too many times rotting corpses hung from ropes that were tied to the branches. Strange dogs with yellow eyes that shone in the daylight as a wolf’s did at night and with slavering fangs bayed and gave chase. Bites from those hounds caused skin to blacken, swell and turn gangrene. Four men died because of it. Three others cut out the blackened skin and lived. From then on, crossbows shot down weasel, cat or wolf, any animal that approached them. Gavin banned everyone from eating the flesh of the slain beasts. Occasionally, a slain darkspawn was sighted. At one castle, a pit had been filled with darkspawn. There, the humans had been nailed to all the available wooden walls.
“It’s as if a hell-gate has been opened onto the Earth,” whispered Welf, “and all the horrors of the Netherworld have been let loose.”
Raiders muttered agreement. They burned dark wood at a night camp. The wood gave off wicked fumes. A quarter of the men at a time prowled as sentries. They started at almost any noise. Howls in the night, screams and the far-off snarl of a cat-thing, it made hardy knights shiver in dread and clutch their weapons tighter.
Bleary-eyed and tense, the men mounted up in the morning. Their features had become grim. The muscles around their eyes tightened. Cold had settled into their guts.
“How do you fight such evil?” asked Aelfric.
“It’s not the fighting that bothers me,” said Josserand. “I want to know how you win.”
“Maybe you can’t win,” muttered Gavin. “But you can hurt them.”
Several knights nodded agreement. Others paled.
Gavin drew rein. It seemed as if the smoke from a hundred villages had turned the sky slate-colored. Dread hung over the land. A dog-pack saw them, bayed, and raced toward them.
Seventeen crossbowmen slid from their saddles, knelt and cranked their squat weapons. Other men also jumped down, drawing blades and unlimbering their shields. Several guarded each kneeling marksman.
As the foaming beasts streaked across the black grasses, steel cords snapped and stubby iron bolts dropped the evil hounds. In a thrice the danger was no more.
“There!” Gavin said, turning his horse to face the others. “That’s how we win, one fight at a time. If I have to spend the next twenty years going up and down Erin, slaying a band or a pack at a time, I will do it. Yes! After seeing the horrors we’ve witnessed, it feels good to hit back.”
The men considered his words.
“I said it feels good to hit back!” shouted Gavin. “You had better damn well cheer when I say that.”
A few men cheered raggedly.
Gavin drew the silver sword, standing up in the stirrups. “Cheer, you! Let yourself hear the sound of victorious warriors! Let this dead land hear the sound of living knights and thegns! One, two, three—”
“Hurrah!” they shouted. Under this iron-colored sky, that was an odd sound.
“Now let’s find some more of these bastards to butcher,” Gavin said.
They looked, and found more horror, more unspeakable atrocities. A night later, as they debated where to set up camp, they heard a chorus of howls and yips and evil cries. It chilled them. Then more cries pitched in.
“No pack that,” said Josserand. “It’s one of those bands you’ve been speaking about.”
Gavin sent Welf ahead with three others, ordering them to be careful above all else. Into the gloom of twilight, the four horsemen raced ahead. Each wore leather instead of chainmail, with rags stuffed in their scabbards so their swords wouldn’t rattle and betray them.
As the rest of the raiders walked their mounts toward a forest in the distance, Welf raced back and reported a horde not a band.
“A mass of clawmen dance around twin altars,” said Welf. “They sacrifice goats and among themselves perform wicked deeds.”
“Here’s our chance,” whispered Gavin.
The crusaders mounted the war-stallions, and quietly as possible, they followed Welf and the other scouts. Through dark trees they filed, until Welf led them to the lip of a small vale. Fires roared below and clawmen danced, cavorted and practiced bizarre rites as the goat-sacrificing continued.
Gavin chopped down with the silver sword. Buglers blasted the charge. Down the battle-stallions thundered. Knights, thegns and squires bellowed themselves hoarse. All the fear and loathing boiled into a type of frenzy. They hit the screaming, milling throng of clawmen. The crusaders hewed and trampled many. Uncounted clawmen scattered. A few faced the knights so the swords clove through their teeth instead of the backs of their skulls.
Then thunder boomed from low clouds and it began to rain. The bonfires hissed. Fortunately, before the firelight went out the fight was over. Gavin called the retreat and all that night they rode for the East March.
A last piece of luck helped them. Two days later shortly after the noon hour, they discovered barns filled with sun-hiding gaunts and pre-positioned undead. Those barns soon burned with cleansing fire and swords finished the darkspawn squealing and stumbling under the bright sun.
“That should stick in the spirit of Zon Mezzamalech’s craw, if he has one,” Gavin said. “That will surely give him pause. Now let’s hurry home and see how things stand with the King.”
***
As Gavin and the raiding crusaders returned to Bosham Castle, eleven ships wallowed out to sea. Eleven hulks of creaking timber showed no signs of life. Waves lapped against the hulls. Oars, in five specially decked galleys, rattled in their tholepins. Sails, tied securely with inexpert knots, propelled these seeming ghost ships not at all. The sun burned above, scorching the salt-encrusted decks. However, no debris lay scattered about the ships. Ropes were coiled tight. Guidelines hummed in perfect tension. Steering oars were lashed securely. All, in fact, seemed to be in order. Then, as waves pushed the apparently empty vessels apart, ropes rose out of the water and stretched tight between them. A massive cog, an 800-ton cornship, pulled two galleys attached by these hidden ropes back toward it. They would not be allowed to drift away.
On the nearest galley, a hatch creaked open. Through the slit peered two cat-like eyes. The creature hissed, closing the hatch. Then all was as before.
***
It was only as the sun sank into the cooling sea that life stirred aboard the eleven ships. With the appearance of stars, hatches banged open and clawmen boiled out. Oars slid into the sea. Haphazardly, sails came down to catch the wind. A gust on the 800-ton cog flapped the huge sail. Clawmen screamed, whipped off the rigging and into space. The few who had attempted to learn how to sail thudded onto the deck, snapping bones and splitting open skin.
The captain, a blood-drinker with a black cape and ivory white fangs, gave harsh orders. The boards over the main hatch were torn away. Out of the hold crawled a giant. Unsteadily, the giant used the mainmast to stand upright. As the giant lurched about this way and that because of the waves, he pulled down the sail and gave the ropes to new clawmen to knot.
In fits and starts, the eleven-ship flotilla resumed its bumbling voyage to Lobos Port. One ship, its entire crew seasick, fell farther and farther behind. The blood-drinker captain grew uneasy. At last, she shrugged in fatalistic resignation. Like the Mistress, she knew this to be a wild gamble. But it was a gamble where her head would roll for failure…or worse, the humans would impale her and jeer at her twitching corpse.
Humans!
Oh how she loathed them.
Her worry grew as the night wore on. They had to land, marshal their forces and storm the port before daylight. Her stomach knotted and her need for fresh blood grew strong. At last, with half the night spent, she realized she would have to gamble to have any chance of success. Another day floating at sea, this close to Lobos, was simply too great a risk.
Employing signaling drums, she had the ropes between ships hacked off and she brought the five galleys near her. Then, by spending more precious time, she had them tie heavy ropes to the cog. She needed the newly made giants above all else. She then gave the order. The five galleys dragged the behemoth cog. The other merchant ships with their clawmen cargoes comprising half the invading army would have to make it to Lobos when the wind picked up.
With night fast waning, she at last spied Lobos Port on the dark horizon. A fire on the headland, a well-known beacon, guided her toward the other major port after Glendover. She made a swift calculation. Lobos Port was divided in two by the Fangohr River. Joining the two city halves was a fortified bridge with towers on both ends of it. Control of the bridge gave one control of Fangohr mouth.
With so little night left, she would need a fortified position in order to withstand any counterattacks from the humans during the day.
Humans! By the Lord of Bats, she despised them.
She snarled new orders. The five galleys aimed themselves at the largest docks where four of the King’s biremes lay. The ropes attached to the 800-ton cog hummed taut. The dark seaport loomed closer and closer.
Sick with dread, the blood-drinker captain checked the sky. Night dwindled, and she had a town to take. “Help me, Lord of Bats,” she hissed. “Grant us your power. Do so, O Mighty Lord of Bats, and I will sacrifice a hundred virgins on your altars.”
Crossbow bolts arched from the docks as a ragged line of mercenaries fired at them.
Wood crumbled as the galleys’ bronze beaks broke apart on the stone docks. The blood-drinker captain staggered at the impact. She righted herself swiftly and hissed orders. Knowing that their time was short, the clawmen boiled onto the docks and swept the mercenaries before them. Ahead, however, the massive gate that guarded Lobos from just such sea-borne invasions closed shut with a slamming bang.
The blood-drinker hissed to her brethren. Black like night, the seventeen blood-drinkers bounded to the city seawall and like spiders scrambled up it. In an orgy of bloodshed, they murdered the tower guards. The huge gate creaked open and admitted the howling clawmen. Humans, unfortunately, rose up to fight them. Once the cog landed and the giants led the knot of brutes, the tide of battle turned decisively in darkspawn favor.
Thus as the sun peeked over the horizon, half of Lobos Port lay in darkspawn hands. The humans still held the bridge and from their half of the city they launched two galleys out to sea. The blood-drinker captain, her arm bandaged after a savage knife-thrust, knew keen regret. She never expected to see the rest of her fleet again. She wondered how badly she would need the reinforcements before this siege was over.
As the sun rose and drove back the night, she felt the Lord of Bats depart. Success now rested solely upon the sword-arms of brutes and the clubs of giants. She hoped they would prove enough until Darkness granted them the power to attack once more.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
On a lathered stallion and by a weary herald, word came to Bosham Castle that the darkspawn had struck at Lobos Port. The King’s Army had thus turned aside from its ride north and now besieged the stricken port town. The atrocities committed on the hapless citizens were too awful to repeat and word of this new darkspawn, those that drank blood and had the cunning and cruelty of spiders, the blood-drinkers, gave many pause for fearful rumination.
Before a bonfire, the knights who had ridden into the dark north caroused and quaffed ale, clinking cups and staring drunkenly at the flames or roaring out bold ditties.
As was his habit, Josserand sat alone, sipping, brooding, his face as bland as a stump of wood.
“Can’t you rejoice?” Gavin said, slumping onto the cold ground as he gnawed on a turkey leg. “We’ve only one army to face, no longer two.”
“How many did we slay during our ride north?” muttered Josserand.
“Maybe four or five hundred darkspawn,” Gavin said.
Josserand snapped his long fingers. “What is that to this dark sorcerer, he who makes the darkspawn? It is nothing. Why, he sends an entire army south to fight the King even as he marches against us.”
“What a precious gift you possess. You can find gloom in every bright spot.”
“Do you call it bright that the darkspawn have closed the jaws of a trap?”
Gavin gnawed on his turkey leg.
Sir Ullrick, his strong teeth tearing from a joint of beef in one hand and quaffing from a jack of ale in the other, belched loudly as he strode up to them. “If it is the jaws of a trap, then may this sorcerer break his teeth upon us and the King. All we must do is ride through the sorcerer’s horde and slay him. Our knight-errant with his shiny sword thinks he will do it, but I claim the right to first attempt this prodigious feat.”
“Like Sir Hunneric attempted it?” asked Josserand.
Ullrick scowled, shaking his head, tossing ale down his gullet and dashing the jack to the ground. He snatched up his double-bladed axe. “The lad attacked a wraith. Let Death-Biter touch Zon Mezzamalech and our troubles shall be over.”
“How do you know this?” asked Josserand.
The Bear lofted his bushy eyebrows. “Hasn’t the knight-errant claimed such?”
“The spirit of Zon Mezzamalech creates darkspawn through his amulet,” Gavin said. “Such I saw. Thus it stands to reason that if you slay him victory is ours.”
“Perhaps,” said Josserand. “Though if reason is your guide, then it tells us that all we’ll destroy is his ability to create darkspawn. Tell me, how many has he made already?”
“Too many!” shouted Ullrick. “Next time, Captain General, I’m riding north with you.”
“To kill more fleas?” asked Josserand.
“Bah!” said Ullrick. “There’s no pleasing you. I see now why the High Priest loved you.” The Bear strode off, shouting for more ale, from his mouth spewing meat in all directions.
Josserand sipped from his cup, his black eyes reflecting the bonfire’s dancing flames. “The trap has closed. No one on Erin can escape.”
“Then let us fight,” Gavin said.
“Yes, but how do you defeat an enemy who creates more soldiers every time he captures any of ours?”
“Swan asks the same thing, as does Hugo. They think by driving out the evil that creates the darkspawn that they can reclaim the creatures for Light.”
Josserand looked up. “Can this be done?”
Gavin scowled, thinking of those that he had known who had been captured and turned into darkspawn. He remembered Muscovy and burning darkspawn at the stake. The priests of Hosar had said the fire drove out the evil, so that at the last moment the former darkspawn perished as a human. Gavin jumped up. “No,” he said. “It is impossible to save darkspawn.”
“How do you know?”
Gavin stared at Josserand, the Sad Knight, the mercenary killer. “Once they corrupt you there is no turning back. It is a fool’s dream to think otherwise. We must slaughter the enemy or he will destroy our souls. It’s as simple as that. Give me one moment with Zon Mezzamalech, that’s all I ask and that is all we should strive for.”
“Your vaunted plan, eh?”
“Give me another if you don’t like mine.”
Josserand turned away to stare at the flames. After a time he lifted his goblet, sipping wine.
***
The next morning Gavin rode back into North Erin, to fall into an ambush by tuskriders during the early second dusk. By dint of hard fighting the crusaders won, but they had lost too many knights and thegns. With several tuskriders as captives, they returned to Bosham Castle, where Gavin drilled the mounted men each day.
“Why isn’t Hugo here?” Gavin said one morning on the practice field. “The Standard Bearer knows this is the full dress rehearsal. I want everyone to know their part perfectly.”
Sir Ullrick opened his visor. His massive beard was bunched up, making him look decidedly uncomfortable.
“The Standard Bearer is with Swan,” said Ullrick.
“So I gathered,” Gavin said. “Do you know why?”
“They attempt to heal darkspawn.”
“What?” Gavin scowled. “Are they alone?”
“They have no warriors, if that’s what you mean. Only those with enough faith can attend. Thus, Sir Josserand and I were sent away. The few others with them are priests and sisters of Hosar.”
Gavin swore. “Are they fools? We brought back the tuskriders to question, not to attempt the impossible with and maybe get our Seer slain. Take over!”
“Has your faith grown enough to attend their ceremony?” asked the Bear.
Gavin spurred his stallion, galloping for the hill he had seen Ullrick ride down. His mount struggled up the slope as shale slid out from the iron-shod hooves. Behind him in the valley horsemen galloped to the sound of bugles. For all her innocence, Gavin knew the Seer to be wise in the ways of darkspawn, while Hugo…the old squire from Muscovy would have known better than to attempt such foolishness as re-conversion of one twisted by Darkness. This new squire a-risen from death—Hugo had become a mystery to him. With a snort, the huge seventeen-hand stallion scrambled onto the grassy plateau. Three cloaked and cowled creatures stood in chains amidst a knot of priests and sisters of Hosar. Swan, in a white gown, with her face intent, held a silver spike above her head.
“Call out to Hosar,” she called. “Beg him to turn back the spells of Darkness, to undo what Old Father Night has done to you.”
The three heavily cloaked tuskriders snarled and spat profanities, struggling so their arm-chains clinked. The nervous, brown-cloaked priests holding onto the other end of the chains staggered back and forth, as they sought to control the creatures.
“Tap into the power of Hosar,” said Swan, serene, holding forth the silver spike. It glittered with sunlight.
The bestial darkspawn squealed, holding deformed, hairy hands before their eyes, before warthog-like snouts. One staggered back, and with a convulsive jerk ripped the chains out of the priests’ grasp. It squealed anew, with hate, and blindly charged the Seer. Swan lifted the spike higher, and the silver flashed. The tuskrider howled as if a spear had been thrust into its guts. It shuffled away from Swan, mewling in fright. A priest reached for a chain. The tuskrider, swathed in cloaks so none of its skin was visible to the sun, snarled, jerking away the chain, grasping it and whipping the chain across the priest’s face, knocking the man to the sward. The gnarled darkspawn then pivoted and on short, bowed legs made an awkward run for freedom. It looked like a hunchbacked fool, a court jester dressed in mockery as a priest. Robes flapped and the cowl almost slipped off the ugly head. It bent its head and with twisted fingers, it insured that the cowl protected it from the hated orb of day. Chains rattled and clanked behind it.
“Come back!” shouted Swan. “Don’t run from the Light.”
Hooves thundered as Gavin’s stallion closed the distance. He drew his sword with a shing of steel. He felt pity for this thing. It but scrambled for a crevice or a hole, anywhere the light didn’t shine. Once, the tuskrider had been a man, a peasant most likely. He would have worked his fields in drudgery, mowing hay for his lord and toiling in his lord’s orchards during picking season. The thing before him, the squat tuskrider, threw an agonized glance back over his deformed shoulder. Dread shone wetly in those hideous eyes. Gavin set his teeth and swung. The nightmare for the tuskrider, he, who had once been Peasant Graf of Lake Shire, ended with a sharp and terrible pain and then nothing.
Gavin dismounted and wiped his gory blade on the tuskrider’s cloak. He then clanked to the whey-faced devotees. The remaining two tuskriders cowered like beggars. Hugo, in his sandals and white tunic, stepped protectively before them.
“That was ill done,” said Swan.
“He was darkspawn,” Gavin said.
“He was a living thing,” said Swan. “There was yet hope for him.”
Gavin struggled to control his anger. “In Muscovy we saved the darkspawn for the flames. Only thus, at the last moment, said the priests, was the evil driven from them. They died in pain, but they died in peace, if you can believe that burning to death is peaceful. If you feel mercy for these two, burn them like we did in Muscovy.”
“Is that the mercy you would show an old friend?” asked Hugo.
Gavin thought of Joanna, how she led the Horde of Damned. He nodded.
“Then I pray you never give me mercy,” Hugo said.
“Those are hard words, old friend.”
“True words,” Hugo said.
“I see.”
“You do not see,” said the one-eye Standard Bearer. “You hold to bitterness and call it insight. You cannot accept that there is another path to victory. It is a path filled with hope. Step onto that path, Sir Gavin. Let go of your bitterness so you may open your eyes and see Hosar.”
“We have no time for that,” Gavin said.
“When is the time?” asked Swan.
“After we destroy the spirit of Zon Mezzamalech and his army,” Gavin said.
“What about those two?” she asked.
“Kill them. Otherwise, in some nefarious manner, the spirit of Zon Mezzamalech or Old Father Night will use them against us as he once used Sir Hunneric.”
“It is because of Sir Hunneric that I strive to learn how to take back what has been taken,” said Swan.
“It cannot be done,” Gavin said.
“How do you know?”
“Because it has never been done before,” he said. He thought that should be obvious.
“I tell you that is because no one has ever really had faith enough in the power of Hosar before to try,” she said. Her eyes were alight and her face…what power did she have?
Despite his unease, Gavin shook his head. “I find that difficult to believe, milady. In Novgorod and Muscovy, the Sword Brothers and the power-filled sisters were as devoted as any. Yet they could not do this thing.”
“Do you dare to call the Seer a liar?” growled Hugo.
“Of course not,” Gavin said. “I merely think that she is mistaken.”
“Watch then,” said Swan. She turned to the cowering creatures. In her raised hand, the silver spike gleamed. She began to sing in her sweet voice, the same voice that had given Gavin hope deep in the dungeons of Castle Forador.
Hugo rushed to the nearest tuskrider. He knelt beside the shivering creature and put his gnarled hands on the thing’s shoulders. Whatever words he spoke were too soft for any but the tuskrider to hear. Gently, Hugo pulled away the cowl. Coarse hair sprouted from the ugly head. Two tusks curved out of the mouth. Hugo took the face and aimed it at the spike.
“Open your eyes,” said Swan.
Hugo, as a father might to a child, stroked the tuskrider’s awful hair.
The tuskrider dared open his eyes. He became entranced as he peered at the spike. Then a dreadful tremor washed through him. His mouth fell agape and he threw back his head and howled. Hugo tried to calm him. The tuskrider shook him off. The priests and sisters of Hosar backed away.
“Call out to Hosar!” shouted Swan.
“Aeeeiii!” cried the tuskrider, leaping to its feet. He thrust Hugo to the ground, then beat his chest as he screamed, “I’m unclean!”
The darkspawn reached down and tore Hugo’s knife from the scabbard, its eyes wild as it snarled at Swan.
—A silver sword sprouted from the creature’s chest. With a last rattle, the tuskrider slumped to the sward. From behind the thing, Gavin drew out his blade. Before anyone could stop him, he strode to the last tuskrider and slew him with a single stroke.
“I give them mercy,” he told Swan. “For only death can give them release. Anything else is simply torture, showing them what they can never again be.” Before either Swan or Hugo could reply, he strode to his stallion. “I expect you on the battlefield in a half hour, Standard Bearer. Be there, or be ready to give up your banner to someone who’s ready to fight the coming darkspawn.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
Like some giant behemoth, the darkspawn horde lumbered down the East March. It smashed everything in its path. Only at the last minute did the independent lords of the Marcher Castles agree to join the crusading. They sent their old, infirm and young to Bosham Castle. From there most traveled for Tara or Ware. But the marcher lords and their men refused to believe that their castles could fall.
Gavin shrugged at a war-council meeting, saying, “Maybe they’re right.”
“They’re not right,” said Aelfric, pounding a table with his fist. “We’ve seen the enemy in their masses, as they carpet the plains during their night marches. At the point of the sword, sir, you should force the marcher lords to abandon their castles and stand with us. We must all fight together under the Banner of Tulun. It is our only hope for victory.”
“Perhaps you’re right,” Gavin said. “But the marcher lords are proud and stubborn. Let us use that for our advantage rather than making bitter enemies.”
“You would condemn them to horrible deaths?” asked Aelfric.
“No,” Gavin said. “I let them wage war on their own terms.”
“Seer,” said Aelfric, turning to Swan. “The marcher lords have opened their castles to us. We must therefore drag them away and save them for the last battle.”
Swan frowned, apparently unwilling to gainsay her Captain General.
“Listen to me,” Gavin told his assembled commanders. “As you all know, this is a death struggle for the soul of Erin. Therefore, we must fight ruthlessly and with utter disregard for losses—if those losses will help grant us victory. That, gentlemen, is our only standard by which to judge right and wrong in this war.”
Swan looked more troubled than ever, and Hugo sat brooding.
“We must bleed the darkspawn,” Gavin said. “As it is, their numbers outweigh any generalship. So then, if these marcher lords insist on fighting in their castles, yes, we will agree to it. Why? So that they slaughter the darkspawn as the spirit of Zon Mezzamalech pours his forces against them. It is the sorcerer’s way to smash through, to disregard losses. And why not, for he can always eventually make more. The trick this time is in that eventually. The marcher lords’ sacrifices will help give us victory by temporarily thinning the enemy ranks. Then the last battle will occur, we dearly hope, before the sorcerer can make good those losses.”
Aelfric shook his head, muttering. But Gavin carried the day.
Thus, grim-faced knights, thegns and marcher men-at-arms awaited the darkspawn in their old, impenetrable fortresses. Stiguard Castle, the most northern sentinel, fell in a night of horrendous enemy bloodshed. Enraged clawmen who first broke through the walls stripped and tortured the few Stiguard survivors, cutting open their bellies and leading the knights around by their entrails, or burning the entrails to make the knights dance. The defenders of Castle Arras, perched on its pinnacle of stone, fought off the undead the first wretched night. During the next day wet with Moon Mist, the defenders sallied forth and smashed eleven darkspawn catapults. Then tuskriders dashed from hiding, in the Moon Mist spurring their squealing boars. They beat the Arras band to the drawbridge, cutting off the way of escape. Howling clawmen arose from scrub and holes in the ground and hurled a shower of javelins. Bull-shouldered brutes clanked in formation to finish the work, splitting helmets with ferocious axe blows. Back on the walls, among the castle garrison, the young Arras heir fought with berserk valor. His father had died in the sally. In the end, the heir and his men fell before the wall-scaling horde. This time the survivors and the freshly dead joined the unholy ranks of the undead. Two nights later, darkspawn outriders found Alamut Tower empty, as they found Castle Innocent the night after that devoid of defenders. The marcher lords had seen the way the wind blew and had finally hurried to join the crusaders at Bosham Castle.
The darkspawn journeyed by night and slept by day. Moon Mist covered the sleepers, protected by hastily built palisades. Zon Mezzamalech had recalled this procedure from his conquering days of old. Gavin countered with wheeled ballista, a form of giant crossbows. The ballistae bounced and clattered along the rutted road, pulled by horses and raced near the enemy’s wooden palisades. The tips of the iron javelins were gummed with tar and other combustibles and then touched with torches. The ballistae shook and the flaming missiles arced two hundred yards to thud into the palisades. Two such fortresses were fired. Screaming darkspawn poured from them. Archers cut them down. Then the raiders mounted up and whipped their steeds, galloping away from a weird conjuring of evil. They attempted the same trick two days later. As soldiers pushed the ballistae into firing range, a green cloud formed above them and sank suddenly like a stone. Those caught in the green cloud choked, unable to breathe. As their faces turned red and then blue, Gavin shouted himself hoarse as he ordered men to rush into the cloud and grab their fellows. As another cloud began to form above them, a weird hissing came from it. Knights, thegns and squires mounted up and fled. A third of the men caught in the first cloud were saved. All the ballistae were lost, and two-thirds of the unlucky group died with bloated faces and bleeding eyes.
Gavin changed tactics. There would be no more surprise raids. Instead, he ordered trenches dug and filled with hay and oil. With a handful of scouts, Gavin remained behind in the bushes. That night during the enemy march, at a precisely timed moment, the trenches were lit. Fire raced within the trenches and five hundred undead become walking torches. The ensuing nights and days were filled with continuing brutality as ingenuity was strained. Yet the horde remorselessly advanced, absorbing the losses.
Swan, Hugo and teams of devotees blessed the weapons. Amid the training times, the army knelt on the coming field of battle and prayed for victory. Holy fervor gripped the crusaders, along with growing fear and terror.
“We should fight from behind the walls of Bosham Castle,” said many.
Gavin always shook his head. His plan called for open-field battle and maneuver. To cut through to the sorcerer and slay him was the only basis for victory.
“I must kill him,” said the Captain General.
“Or one of us must do it,” said the Bear.
“You’re welcome to try,” said Josserand.
“You won’t?” asked the Bear.
“I remember too well what happened to Sir Hunneric,” said Josserand. “The thought of standing near this thing called Zon Mezzamalech freezes my blood to ice.”
The Bear guffawed. “That changes nothing then. All you have in your veins is ice. Didn’t the High Priest say as much many a time.”
Sir Josserand gave the Bear a bland stare.
“What I wonder,” said white-haired Baron Aelfric, “is how we have any hope of defeating the masses of undead. There are simply too many of them. Perhaps Sir Gavin’s original idea of retreating until they wear out is the correct one.”
“It’s too late to retreat,” Gavin said. “We must stand and win here. The closing of Lobos Port was the nail to that idea.”
“Worry not, Sir Aelfric. Burning oil works miracles,” said Welf, who had proved himself handy with the ballista and Gavin’s new wonder-weapon: the French trebuchet.
“Can you douse them all with oil?” asked Aelfric.
“We shall not win by oil,” Gavin said, “though oil and trebuchets will aid us. Victory will come by our sword-strokes.”
“And by my axe,” growled the Bear.
Gavin grinned, clapping the massive man on the shoulder. Then he turned to his commanders. “Steel is the key, propelled by hardened muscles and iron guts. So sharpen your blades, my lords, and gird your courage. Determine to live or die gloriously. Our days of talk are ending. Now only fighting is left us.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Vivian in her rich furs, silks and high-bound hair sought out Cuthred in the last encampment. Leng was busy and had sent her away. He had told her to quit bothering him. She loathed being alone among these…these creatures. The seething masses of darkspawn terrified her. She should have been used to them by now. But how did one become used to bands of clawmen tearing into a sheep’s carcass like wolves? They snarled and snapped at each other as they fed. They hunched on all fours with bloody muzzles. Or how could one become inured to the deathless stares of rotting and bizarrely animated corpses? Flies buzzed off them. Maggots, in some, burrowed through corrupt flesh. She shivered. Shambling gaunts, taller than any but the giants, gnawed off the remains of useless undead. Or what about the tuskriders who grunted like pigs, snorting and endlessly scratching themselves. Because they rode during daylight more than the others did, huge, pink swaths of skin peeled from them.
Vivian tightened her purple cloak as she hurried through a wooden gate. Within the various palisades, darkspawn by the thousands huddled in their burrows. Leather sheets had been tossed over them. From over one palisade wall came the terrified lowing of cattle, food on the hoof.
The march down the valley had been a nightmare. Now, only a few miles away, Gavin and his knights awaited them. Her secret fear was that in some way she had been changed, turned into one of these hideous creatures of the Night. For in the back of her mind, buried way down deep, was the hope that she could escape. She had slept with Leng and had thrown herself into the degradations he had demanded all in order to keep him interested, all in order to avoid a deathless oblivion. But the fear, the horror that her efforts had turned her into a darkspawn gave her nightmares. She couldn’t ask Leng if it had happened. He would laugh at her, or become delighted at the prospect and make it so.
She closed her eyes as she leaned against the palisade wall. Her forehead was hot. She felt faint. A fever, that’s all it was… she hoped. O Moon Lady—No! No. O Hosar! Don’t let me change into...into...into one of those hideous creatures of the Night! Save me from becoming darkspawn.
Vivian opened her eyes. Her mouth was dry.
“Water,” she croaked. She lurched from her spot, hunting for the giants, for the bigger mounds where they lay. Cuthred always kept a water-skin for her. She shivered, and she hoped Sir Gavin’s knights didn’t slay Cuthred. Yet how could that possibly happen? No one could stand against the giants on an open field of battle. How could the humans of Erin possibly win? The humans of South Erin were as doomed as the ones in North Erin. Gavin was doomed. How then could she escape the darkspawn?
Vivian squinted in the murk, making out a huge looming shape. A tremulous smile touched her. Cuthred leaned against the wooden stakes of the palisade. He cradled his monstrous club, using sandstone to sharpen the spike that had been hammered through the tip of the knotted club. Bands of iron had been fitted around the club, making it stronger, heavier and thus more deadly when Cuthred swung it. Heaped beside him in several sacks were armor plates and a vast shield riveted with iron.
“Vivian,” he rumbled.
Cuthred saw much better in the dark than she did. That was a good sign. It meant she wasn’t like them.
As she neared, Cuthred stuck out his feet. “They hurt,” he said.
Vivian grimaced, but accepted the chore. He was her only friend in this forsaken horde. With a grunt, she wrestled off one of his leather shoes. Then she began to massage the sole of his foot. It was so impossibly huge. His big toe was wider than her hand.
Cuthred groaned in pleasure.
“Do you have any water?” she asked.
He picked up a dirty leather jug, setting it by her.
She uncorked it and carefully tilted it, swallowing the warm liquid.
“My other foot hurts, too,” he said.
Vivian massaged the leathery sole as Cuthred made the wood he leaned again creak. How much did he weigh? More than four or five men she suspected. His strength was unbelievable.
She stepped away from his feet, wiping her hands with a silk cloth. “Lower your head,” she said.
He grinned wider than ever, bending forward.
She took an ivory comb and began to run it through the vast tangle of his hair. “Cuthred,” she said, “wipe your mouth. You have blood stains there.”
“Sorry, Vivian, I forgot,” he said, rubbing with a huge hand.
“You’re not a beast, Cuthred,” she said, wrestling with a hairy knot.
“What I am then?”
“You’re Cuthred the dog boy. You’re a man.”
He barely shook his head. He loved to have his hair combed. “I’m not a man. I’m too big.”
“Well, maybe you are big, but you’re not a beast.”
“Yes, Vivian.”
“You’re human, Cuthred. You’re better than the others. Who else has dared to look at the sun?”
“Leng got mad at me for that.”
“What do you care what such a foul sorcerer thinks?” she asked.
Cuthred considered that. “Leng talks to the Mistress. The Mistress might hurt me.”
“You’re a giant, Cuthred. No one can hurt you if fight them. You must be brave. You’re a champion.”
“Brave, Vivian?”
“You’re not a beast, a thing like a clawman or a dead worm like the undead. You’re Cuthred the Giant, and I like you.”
Cuthred sat up. He frowned. He frowned hard.
“What’s wrong, Cuthred?”
“Will you do me a favor?”
“Of course I will.”
“Tell me again that you like me, only whisper it in my ear.”
“In your ear?” asked Vivian.
“Like you whispered to me in the castle. Like you did the first time,” he said.
What castle, she almost asked. Then she realized that it had to be Forador Castle, when they had been hiding under the table.
“You remember that?” she asked.
Cuthred bent his head. “Tell me you like me, Vivian, and tell me I’m brave.”
She cupped her hand near that monstrous ear, and she whispered, “You’re a brave man, Cuthred, and I like you very much.”
He grunted, and he laid one of his huge hands upon her head. “I like you, too, Vivian. Will you stay with me tonight?”
“Why tonight?”
He looked away and was silent for a time. Finally, he said, “I’m afraid. And I’m lonely.”
As she sat beside him, she said, “You and I must always stay friends, Cuthred. We must promise.”
“Yes,” he said. “I do promise.”
She closed her eyes, wondering whom he had made the promise by. If by Old Father Night, she wondered how good the promise would hold. Oh, she had to get out of here before she became one of them.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
In the main courtyard, in the deepening gloom, Gavin shrugged on his chainmail-shirt. Around him, knights and thegns grimly did likewise. The darkspawn horde marched the last league toward Bosham Castle. Even now, scouts dogged their flanks.
“To a bloody fight, milord!” a square-faced squire shouted at Gavin.
Gavin saluted him. That particular squire along with a few others had been knighted for excellent performance during training. This evening, they wore heavy armor. They would fight with the knights. The other squires longed for the same glorious honor. In such a manner, he hoped to whip the squires into the proper battle frenzy. He had even knighted a few thegns yesterday for the same reason, knighted them over the objections of the barons and knight-commanders.
Snobbish fools to the end, Gavin thought to himself, strapping on the silver sword Glamore. But they stood in the courtyard with him. He gave them that. Fools, saints, sinners and wise men, they were all ready to follow him to death or glory.
“The sun has disappeared!” a man cried in despair. “Hosar save us!”
“Shut that man up!” snarled Gavin. A knight ran to obey.
Gavin accepted a cup of wine from a page, quaffed it and handed back the goblet. He hoped these noblemen would listen to him when the heat of battle stole their reason. His army’s worst flaw was that it was made up of individual retainers from various lords. They still acted like many independent teams, not as one united whole that he needed this night.
“Riders to your mounts!” shouted Ullrick.
As he donned his gauntlets, Gavin inspected the cream of the army, the striking force of riders: knights, thegns and squires. Battle-trained and hardened, upon them rested the real hope. As they mounted up, the riders guided their heavy chargers through lanes of parked trebuchets and mounds of rock-piles, the ammunition.
The French trebuchet or mangonel was a marvelous machine of great ingenuity that he had recalled from Muscovy. If they won tonight, these siege engines would be instrumental in the gaining of it. Regular catapults and ballista relied upon torsion or tension for firing power. Geared winches twisted a thick skein of cords. A latch released the strain, hurling the missile. The trebuchet, on the other hand, used the power of dropping weights. The huge machine was simple in construction: heavily built uprights held a pivot, upon which balanced a tree-long pole. It was like a giant sea-saw, only instead of pivoted in the middle, it was pivoted almost near the end of one length. On the short end had been built a wooden tub filled with boulders. The long end was pulled to the ground by gears and winches and then a missile put in the leather sling on the tip. When the catch was released, the heavy wooden tub of boulders sank fast, whipping up the longer end and hurling the missile with terrific velocity. The trebuchet had much greater range than any catapult or ballista.
A scout galloped through one of the castle’s open gates. He rode a lathered stallion and came to a neighing halt before Gavin. “Captain General!” he shouted, his eyes wild.
“Well?” asked Gavin.
“The undead approach us, Captain General! Oh milord, they’re endless. Endless!”
Gavin nodded calmly and pointed to a squire. The lad grabbed hold of the bridle of the scout’s horse and led the raving man away.
“Endless undead?” asked a nervous baron. “Ar-are you certain open field battle is wise, Captain General?”
Gavin smiled to show the baron his confidence. Certain? Who could ever be certain in a battle? “Of course I’m certain,” he said.
Ullrick smiled grimly. So did Baron Aelfric.
Soon another scout lashed his mount into the courtyard. He also reined in front of Gavin, his face pale, his lips trembling. “Milord, th-the undead…we must flee to the hills!”
“Flee?” asked a knight, who wore a panther pelt around his neck.
“We’re doomed!” shouted the scout.
“Enough,” Gavin said.
The knight-commanders shot him worried looks, while the same squire as before led away this scout, too.
“Did you hear him?” asked the knight with the panther pelt. “What chance do we have if a man like Danner thinks we’re doomed?”
For an answer, Gavin accepted his helmet. Like his armor, it had been silvered. He wanted everyone to know who he was during the battle so they would follow wherever he led.
“Remember the oaths you took on the Banner of Tulun,” he said. “And think too on this: You have the finest mounts, the best armor and the sharpest swords. Trust them and trust your war-skills.”
Gavin peered at the spearmen. They waited grimly, the bulk of the field army. He hoped the past weeks of training had given them enough spine. He needed them to stick around. Mercenary crossbowmen with bandit and forester archers made up the missile troops and thus completed the host. This was all he had to defeat thousands of—
“Darkspawn!” cried a lookout. “I see the darkspawn!”
“Can we really win?” asked Josserand.
“Let’s find out,” Gavin said, and he waved Glamore.
***
Cuthred hefted his iron-banded club. Gird in heavy iron plates and iron shoes, he clanked whenever he moved. Around him, other giants clanked similarly. He stood near the Mistress and near her brute guard. He saw over the massed ranks. Thousands upon thousands of darkspawn carpeted the narrow valley. The clawmen in their hordes snarled and snapped, the band captains waving black iron scimitars. Gaunts moved in their long-loping manner. They swiveled their heads on necks that seemed spongy and rubbery. Tuskriders trotted upon great boars. Their lances glittered in the moonlight. Thousands upon thousands of darkspawn shuffled, strode, trotted and shambled toward the same goal. Far in the distance was the triangular-shaped human fortress: Bosham Castle by the Sea.
The Death Drummer’s doom-doom drumming made Cuthred shiver. The vast array of undead marched in the van. Like an army of gigantic ants, they moved en masse. Thousands of rotting corpses clutched swords, knives, clubs and axes. They marched mechanically upon the doomed castle by the seaside cliffs. There was so many, countless, shuffling and all to the beat of that dreadful drum. She, the Death Drummer, marched amidst her dead minions. Her sticks and that vile talisman animated the unknowing, unthinking army. It was awful, gruesome and utterly unbeatable.
Cuthred groaned and he ground his massive molars together. He hated his fear. He loathed it. He hated the frightened knot in his gut. His teeth made a grinding sound like millstones rubbing together. Fear, hate and rage boiled in him. Rage masked the fear. It drove it away. Ah! Now he remembered why he was here. All his life knights and their squires had mocked him. Tonight, just like before at Glendover Port, he would get to kill and slaughter his blood foes. A touch of shame bit him, but he shook his huge head and the iron helm that protected his skull. Forget shame and forget worry and fear of the sun. Tonight red ruin, slaughter and the crunch of enemy bones…ah, the pulping of knightly flesh…it was hard to wait. So he lifted his arms. He shouted, bellowed and roared foul curses. The other giants followed suit. He was their captain.
“Hush,” said the Mistress. “Let me think.”
Cuthred lowered his club and he shifted, clanking and clattering. Even though his feet hurt, he was eager for the battle to begin. He yearned to kill the puny men.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Lady Pavia trembled as she stood atop the castle’s highest tower. The undead marched toward them, a carpet of bobbing heads and rasping weapons, a sea of infernal foes stepping in time to that dreadful doom-doom, doom-doom. Priests, Wisdoms, knights, ladies, cobblers, tanners, washerwomen, bandits, shepherds, the dark horde contained them all: all dead, all driven by the Death Drummer. They spread out before her, a sea of death and coldly hideous eyes and wormy mouths. They wore rotting clothes and tatters of cloaks and shreds of coats and dresses and some bits of mail armor.
“They’re dreadful!”
“Steady,” said Welf, who had turned pale beside her.
She was taller and had wider shoulders than the forester. Nearby lay an axe. If the darkspawn made it into the castle, she would swing and hew until the bitter end.
“Look,” said Welf, pointing with a trembling hand.
Pavia squinted until she saw straining groups of clawmen dragging what looked like catapults on sleds. The clawmen stopped as the masses of undead filed past them. The wolf-like beasts furiously cranked levers. Others struggled to load the cupped ends with rounded stones. In a moment ominous thud, thud, thuds sounded as wooden arms struck crossbars. Large stones whistled through the air and cracked against the tower, spraying rock chips and masonry. Those around Lady Pavia cried out in fear.
On the battlefield, the wicked beat changed tempo. Undead lurched faster at the castle, raising siege ladders high above their cold heads.
Lady Pavia turned and shouted into the courtyard.
Down there, twenty men pressed twenty crackling fiery brands against twenty fuses. Lady Pavia counted one heartbeat, two. Twenty huge wooden trebuchet tubs fell earthward. Twenty tree-long poles whipped up, flinging twenty missiles high into the night sky. Up, up toward the stars arched the missiles, higher and higher, until at last the balls reached their apogee. They began to fall. But something most amazing happened. Huge sheets drifted up from the falling balls. The wind whipped into the sheets, inflating them like sails. The cargo drifted now instead of falling, their fuses yet hissing. Then the first fuse touched tar and burst into blazing light. Three, four more balls did likewise. Then all twenty crackled brightly, lighting up the battlefield.
Welf studied the enemy. He had proved the most adept with siege engines. The rest of the trebuchets were under his direction.
“Two degrees north!” he shouted.
Soon the loudest-voiced herald of that loud breed shouted up from the courtyard: “Ready, sir!” Gavin had knighted Welf for this important task.
Welf eyed the human riders as they trotted onto the battlefield. Gavin in his silvered armor rode in the lead.
“Now!” shouted Welf.
***
On his huge stallion, Gavin cantered at the very apex of the wedge-shape cavalry formation. Before him were the swarms of undead, a veritable sea of foes who oddly lurched and staggered as if drunk. They were creatures with dead masks for faces. Gavin laughed horribly as cries of “For Hosar!” sounded all around him. Floating firelight gleamed off lances, chainmail and shields. Then boulders rained upon the undead, mercilessly cutting them down. The rocks didn’t just fall straight down. Gavin had made sure Welf understood the plan. The boulders sleeted like hail in a furious storm, flying in at an angle. They hit and rolled, crushing masses of dead men, making rotted limbs fly and creating lanes through the seeming endless horde.
Gavin’s thighs tightened around his stallion’s barrel belly. In the middle of the dead horde, a woman with burly arms beat an awful and wicked drum.
“Well?” asked Josserand. “Is it time?”
Gavin drew Glamore. Buglers sounded the charge.
Hooves drummed and the battle-stallions gained speed. A forest of lances dipped parallel with the ground, the points aimed at undead torsos. With a shock, the mighty chargers struck the shambling horde. Enemy swords, axes and picks clumsily rose. The animated corpses did nothing in a lively manner. It was their inexorable advance and their numbers that was most terrifying. The living dead also clumsily and often too slowly raised shields to ward off blows. The mailed riders, strong, yelling and splintering their lances against packed throngs, drawing swords or axes and hewing, drove into that milling crowd of zombies. Yet there were thousands of undead, and they neither feared nor cared if they were destroyed. They were already dead. They shambled at the riders, clutching legs, swinging blades, moving at the tall iron men in their heavy wooden saddles. Too many horsemen lost momentum among that horde. Fortunately, twenty heroes, Sir Ullrick the Bear, Baron Aelfric the Duke’s Champion and Sir Josserand among them, stayed with Gavin as he strained toward the Death Drummer. The champions hewed to the right and to the left of them.
“It’s impossible!” cried Josserand.
Ullrick chanted, his heavy axe biting left and then to the right. Aelfric foamed at the mouth. Gavin, his arm already weary from the butchery, yet urged his charger at Joanna’s pale form. She peered at him across her ranks of undead. There wasn’t any fear in her, but there was recognition. She grinned hideously as she beat her drum. The sound, like ocean waves, washed upon the knights and set their teeth to aching.
“There’s too many of them!” shouted Josserand. His sword was notched like a saw blade and blood from a wound trickled down his arm.
Gavin dug his spurs into his stallion. The huge war-horse snorted with rage, and plowed his massive chest against the nearest undead.
The champions fought and some died, and the crush and press of the living dead made it a surging sea of motion. Then the Death Drummer was only a few lance-lengths from Gavin. He glanced around. Ten knights still rode with him. The rest of the riders were separated by hundreds of undead. He hadn’t really expected to get this close and so soon. Joanna opened her mouth and brayed evil mockery. Her terrible sticks thudded faster. The undead between her and him moaned, rustling against one another as they tried harder to respond to her bidding.
Gavin slew a former blacksmith, a hermit and a washerwoman. His stallion shouldered aside three others. He came face to face with the Death Drummer, even as other dead clanked toward him. She peered up, with her face as lifeless as any of theirs. As he shivered, Gavin saw something flicker in her lead-colored eyes, perhaps a haunted knowledge of what she had become or what she had once been.
“Knight,” she droned, “you are doomed.”
For a sick instant, he believed her. Then he howled in order to hide his terror, and he stood up in the stirrups and swung down overhand. The Death Drummer screamed as Glamore bit through her skull and down to her teeth. It was the most natural sound she had made for a long time. As Joanna slumped to the cold ground, Gavin slid down into the seething horde of undead.
“Behind you!” shouted Josserand.
Gavin spun, throwing up his sword, barely catching an axe from a burly dead man. The attack surprised him, and the force of the blow knocked him down to one knee. The big undead raised its axe for a death-stroke. Behind the living corpse, Josserand on his stallion swung his notched sword, cutting down the dead foe.
“Once again I’ve saved you!” shouted Josserand.
Gavin had no time to speak. As the masses of undead turned at him, turned toward Joanna’s drum, he stood and hewed aside an animated corpse and then swung at the wicked instrument of Death. Gavin hoped Swan’s visions were true. Then his sword crackled with blue fire. As Glamore touched the drum, the evil instrument burst apart with a clap of thunder. At that instant, all across the battlefield, clatters and clanks told of thousands of swords dropped upon thousands of shields and axes. Swaying one, two, four thousand or more undead collapsed onto the ground. A few twitched. The rest became an unmoving mass of rotting, stinking flesh.
As that occurred, the human infantry toiled out of the castle and onto the battlefield. The mercenary crossbowmen, the best trained of the foot troops, quick-marched across the valley and toward the silent hills. Beside them ran spearmen. Following them were the bandit and forester archers. Lastly, nearest to the castle, straggled the least trained: a mass of spearmen sprinkled with a leavening of men-at-arms. Swan marched with them, the Banner of Tulun held high by Hugo, who marched beside her.
A large formation of gaunts had loped onto the hillside flank of the undead. At the sudden destruction of the largest darkspawn formation—the undead—the gaunts stopped fearfully. They were the only darkspawn presently on the field facing the humans. They now hesitated, looking back for the rest of the horde.
The crossbowmen ran at them, and at a shouted command, the trained professionals stopped a hundred yards short of the gaunts. The front rank of marksmen knelt, taking careful aim. Moans of dismay turned into shrieks as the nearest gaunts fell under a blast of whirring bolts. The shambling creatures, those that survived, turned and clawed at one another to flee these horrible foes. The crossbowmen rose and cranked their weapons, reloading. They were unhurried, calm, professionals to the core.
Sir Philip of Alamut Tower, one of the marcher lords, pointed with his sword at the fleeing gaunts. Although the trumpets blared for all the riders to reform under the cavalry banner, a good fourth of the knights, thegns and squires, those who were on the edges of the fallen undead horde, followed Sir Philip. They followed him as he madly charged after the fleeing gaunts.
The rest of the cavalry cheered them on.
“Dismount and walk your horses out of the corpse-field!” roared Gavin. He dreaded the fallen dead laming the mounts, and he dreaded losing control of the striking arm of the army. Fortunately, the majority of the riders had dismounted. They now guided their snorting, snuffing chargers through the carpet of rotting bodies that thankfully no longer moved. Nor would they ever move again.
***
Vivian cringed as the stick-like Mistress shoved Leng toward a conjuring block of carved obsidian. It was bigger than a millstone, with eerie glyphs and symbols etched upon the sides. On the smooth, black-glossy surface the Mistress had long-ago painted lines and runes of power.
“Why me, my lady?” whined Leng, as he stepped up onto the block. He wore brown robes like a priest, with a wavy dagger belted at his side. His long, lean face with its parchment-like skin wasn’t remote now. It was twisted with fear, with sweat glistening on his tall forehead. “Mistress, no, no, not me,” he pleaded. “Let Vivian have this honor. Let me practice spells to aid the battle.”
“Silence,” hissed the Mistress. She wore hunting leathers, her ugliness heightened by the retreat of her eyes deeper into their sockets. As the Duke’s daughter, she had been lean, now she was like a stick figure. The amulet shone with its witch-green glow, illuminating her stark features. She strode to the human captives held by huge grinning brutes. With terse commands, she bade the brutes to hold aloft the captives, stretching them out as if upon a bed. Then the former Duke’s daughter went to each squirming captive, hewing with a wavy-bladed dagger similar to Leng’s. She screamed to the Moon Lady as the amulet blazed with its foul light. She chanted as she cut out the beating hearts.
Vivian moaned, cringing in the background.
A most unholy thing began to occur as the Mistress pitched the quivering hearts against the conjuring block. A weird white light, like a globe, encircled Leng’s head. He clawed at this throat. The white light misted. The sorcerer swayed drunkenly, his features hidden in what was a perfect likeness of a miniature moon. Then Leng stood very still, like a statue.
Vivian gasped as a mighty cry arose from the remaining darkspawn. Above them, in the darkness, bright white lines etched themselves into a shape. The lines swirled and moved. And soon an outline of a head appeared high in the night sky. Its eyes were black pits, with pale green motes for pupils. The head had Leng’s features.
“The Moon Lady is with you!” it said from the sky.
Clawmen howled with hope and began to beat their scimitars against their shields.
***
Gavin gnashed his teeth. The fools, the fools, why couldn’t these knights hold their bloodlust long enough to win a battle?
Sir Philip and those following him butchered the fleeing gaunts. The long-limbed creatures fled, their gangly arms swaying like ropes. Behind them knights swung swords, hewing heads as if on a practice field, laughing at the ease of victory. But so intent were the knights upon this delight that they failed to notice in the nearby darkness tuskriders forming on their flank. Now enemy bugles sounded. Huge boars squealed in glee and moon-bright lances were leveled at Sir Philip and his fools. Philip slew useless gaunts—they already fled—and thereby made a quarter of the precious cavalry targets for a darkspawn ambush.
Gavin groaned at the uselessness of it.
Then a thegn shouted, “The sky, the sky, milord, look at the sky!”
Gavin squinted at the strange manifestation. A head! A terrible head loomed in the night sky above the darkspawn. The head seemed familiar.
“It’s Leng!” shouted the Bear. “How did that bastard do that?”
Gavin nodded. Yes, it was Leng, and the sorcerer gave the darkspawn directions. Gavin looked around wildly. Most of the remaining horsemen were almost out of the corpse-field. He thus roared, “Mount up!” and he pointed Glamore at the tuskriders battling Sir Philip and his knights. “Charge!” he thundered. “Let us slay more darkspawn!”
***
From the heights of the sky, Leng studied the battlefield. The feeling was god-like. The main enemy horse, led by the knight with the silver sword, smashed into the tuskriders who had flanked other riders. In doing so, the humans opened a wide gap between all their horsemen and the toiling infantry behind. It was a very wide gap indeed.
Leng grinned, and from his position in the sky, he showed the clawmen commanders his will. “Go!” he told them.
The clawmen howled in glee as the giants led them into the gap.
Soon the human infantry halted in confusion, although leaders urged them on. Leng had to avert his gaze. A champion, a standard-bearer, waved a glowing banner. Sight of it hurt Leng’s eyes.
***
Everyone trembled in fear around Swan and Hugo. Towering giants clanked in iron plate toward them. With each stride, the giants covered much ground. Among the legs of the giants ran clawmen waving black curved swords. The panic in the human host leapt from one man to the next. Then a raw and pleading cry of “Hosar!” tore from Hugo’s throat. He barged through the ranks until he stood alone before the spearmen. He faced the approaching darkspawn, the howling masses and the dreadful, clanking giants. By an effort of will, one-eyed Hugo gathered saliva in his dry mouth and he spat on the ground.
A few men cheered.
“Attack!” roared Hugo, waving the blue silk banner back and forth. It shone with fiery radiance. “Attack!” he roared again. The enemy came at them. Hugo, however, was the Risen One. Hosar protected him. “Attack!” he roared a third time, running alone at the enemy, with the banner snapping in the breeze. For a stunned moment, both armies watched the lone madman. Then, in a great shout and with a rattle of weapons and armor, the crusaders of Hosar charged after him.
The two foot-forces neared. Like mighty ships, giants led thousands of clawmen. Then a withering blast of crossbow bolts sleeted into their ranks and arrows arched into the masses. Trebuchet rocks tore wide gaps. None of that, however, really mattered now. Not even corpses tripping warriors mattered. Like an avalanche and vastly outnumbering the humans, the clawmen and giants set upon the enemies of Old Father Night.
The shock of their impact reached Leng in the heavens. Incredibly, rigidly held spears decimated the front rank of clawmen. Yet other snarling beasts flung themselves forward. Leng grinned. Religious fervor drove his darkspawn as their god watched. And if that wasn’t sufficient, a last reserve of tuskriders smashed into the human flank. The human infantry had marched beyond the castle walls, thus the castle no longer anchored that flank.
Screaming spearmen died. A few men pitched aside their weapons and fled. Against the main human host that stayed and fought, giants swung massive clubs, a blood-curdling Cuthred doing the greatest damage. He had lost his helmet. He roared, shouted, and snarled as his shoulder muscles bunched. The heavy club swept gaps in the human line. It was like a peasant mowing grass with a scythe. Cuthred’s wide, dull features had been transformed into a mask of hate and howling rage. A crossbow bolt tore a gash in his cheek. He smashed men in return, the spike punching through and pinning men to the ground. He had to step on one man and rip his club free. With a howl and while shaking his gory club toward the night sky, Cuthred exalted in the dreadful savagery. Nothing could stop him. For once, he was doing the stomping. “You’re not going to cut off my hand!” he thundered. “No! Never!” And he swished his club once more, leading the giants into the packed fray.
“Save us Hosar!” cried the Standard Bearer. Around him, men fought with a religious frenzy exceeding that of the darkspawn. Elsewhere, however, wherever the banner’s blue radiance didn’t reach, the humans fell back before the press of darkspawn. It was only a matter of time before the evil horde bent, broke and then destroyed the crusaders of Erin.
***
With lances, on fresh stallions and during the light of day, the heavy cavalry might have smashed through the brutes. Weighted with chainmail and riding chargers, few things could withstand the devastating shock of the iron knights of Erin. Gavin’s men, however, had already charged twice in the past half-hour. He had just reformed them after breaking the tuskriders. None of the knights now had lances. Few, in fact, were without wounds of some kind. The massive, over-muscled stallions, bred to carry a knight with all his panoply, weren’t bred for long endurance like steppe ponies. Grimly, in the poor light, the horsemen eyed the monsters looming before them. There was no sense going back into the sea of clawmen, only forward to reach Zon Mezzamalech.
The brutes were smaller than giants, but they were bigger than men. They wore steel caps and chest-plates, bore heavy shields, thick swords, and had muscles much stronger than human. The brutes, as the evil apparition in the sky looked over their shoulders, croaked like monstrous bullfrogs.
This time the cavalry couldn’t sweep their opponents. Instead, at the last instant, stallions dug their hooves into the ground. They couldn’t bowl over these steel-clad brutes. The war-horses milled before the croaking line as knights, thegns and squires leaned over their saddles to hew. The tall brutes swung back. It was a mass of deafening steel banging against steel and bloody confusion, a wicked game of push and shove and clanking.
With his blue-blazing sword as deadly with brutes as with undead and tuskriders, Gavin cleared a space. He then rose in the stirrups to study the overall situation.
Clawmen, giants and tuskriders hid Swan’s half of the army. Gavin shook sweat out of his eyes. Then he went back to fighting.
***
“Fire!” shouted Pavia.
But no rocks sailed heavenward from the trebuchets.
“Fire!” she shouted into the courtyard.
“We can’t!” yelled a man. “We’re out of rocks.”
Pavia glanced at Welf.
Pale, trembling, the former forester watched the slaughter below the castle walls.
“What now?” she cried.
“Doom,” whispered Welf. “The Captain General’s plan has failed.”
Pavia grabbed Welf by his mail-shirt. “What now? Tell me!”
“We’re doomed.”
Lady Pavia stared at the battlefield below. Despite the destruction of all the undead, the battlefield yet swam with foes. Then she chanced to look upon the Banner of Tulun. It radiated blue light. It radiated hope. And it thereby stiffened the Lady Pavia’s spine. Snatching up the nearby axe, she knew what she had to do.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Vivian watched the battle from atop a reserve catapult. Nearby her stood the statue-still Leng, with the moon-globe around his head. A little beyond him the Mistress paced in anger as the brutes fought the knights.
A war raged in Vivian’s heart. She loathed Leng. She hated the Mistress. But she desperately wanted to survive. To die: the idea stole her strength.
Vivian swallowed and for a moment, across the battlefield, she caught a glimpse of the Banner of Tulun. In that instant, Vivian saw her own wickedness, how far she had fallen in order to live just a few more days. Staring up at Leng’s face in the sky, all her shame and hate welled into a tight knot in her chest. She leaped onto the ground. No one guarded Leng now. All fought against the knights. Now was that one chance she had been waiting for. She had to take it.
***
The knights and brutes waged a fierce struggle. Many died on each side. Although the brutes were bigger and stronger, the knights were better trained. A lifetime with swords and stallions gave them cunning and an understanding of edges upon armor. They used all their skill to bash at jointed spots, where enemy armor was weakest. Still, the brutes were stronger. If not for the stallions, which equaled the height between them, the brutes would have slaughtered the knights and thegns.
Aelfric and Ullrick fought on one side of Gavin. Josserand fought on the other.
“We must win through them!” cried the Bear.
“Can’t be done!” shouted Josserand. “They’re too steady.”
“I can end everything if I reach Zon Mezzamalech!” shouted Gavin.
“Not if I reach her first!” shouted the Bear.
“You’re both welcome to her,” said Josserand.
Then they swung and defended, too busy to talk.
***
Leng knew peace. The human infantry were all but slaughtered. The brutes held the knights at bay. Yes, the Standard Bearer stood bravely perhaps. Then he chanced to spy Vivian, her features screwed into a mask of loathing. She picked up a wavy-bladed dagger and charged his still form.
Leng, the dark sky god, howled with fear. He bowed his head and in the blink of an eye, the outline of his head in the starry sky disappeared.
***
Swan, who had been separated from Hugo and fought in an ever-dwindling circle of defenders, picked up a fallen and loaded crossbow. She sighted the giant who reaped their ranks. He seemed oddly familiar and roared something about his hand. As she aimed at his forehead, the giant moaned in fear and fell back. Swan didn’t understand why.
“Look!” cried a spearman beside her. “The dark sky god has left.”
Swan gazed up into the darkness. All she saw were stars. Then she understood. The evil apparition was gone!
At that same moment, yelling caused her to turn. A column of humans, led by an armored Lady Pavia and Welf, hewed their way through the darkspawn to join them, more than tripling their numbers. Joy filled Swan. There was yet hope. Amid a sea of carnage, she and Pavia hugged.
“What now?” Welf asked.
Swan judged the mass of darkspawn. They were but momentarily dazed by the loss of their sky god. “This way!” she shouted, pointing at the blue nimbus that shone behind the backs of the darkspawn they faced. “Let us at least die under Hosar’s Banner.”
***
Like frogs, the brutes croaked in dismay. Many fell back from the knights.
Gavin saw it right away. There was no sky god to guide them. He spurred his stallion, shouting, “At them, lads!” Ullrick, his huge axe raised in one hand, followed to his right. To Gavin’s left Josserand wielded a spear. Knights yelled and charged. Some brutes fought back. Others shied away, trying to understand where their sky god had gone.
“Fools!” thundered the Mistress from the rear ranks. “Fight them!”
Brutes looked back at her. She radiated with Zon Mezzamalech’s power. They grinned stupidly and attacked anew.
“It’s now or never!” roared Gavin.
“At her,” agreed Josserand.
But it was Sir Ullrick the Bear who won through. All the terror, the fear, the rage, all plied him with inhuman power. He went berserk, his iron battleaxe rising and falling, smashing brute-armor like a blacksmith at his anvil. Then he was past them. The Bear, with his mighty beard bristling, urged his war-horse at the ugly Duke’s daughter.
The Mistress raised her hand, a green ball of balefire flaming in her palm. She hurled the ball. In flight, it sizzled and hissed. Her aim, however, was off. It missed Sir Ullrick and exploded full in the face of a recently knighted squire who followed close behind. That man screamed as green fire consumed him. The Bear, with his hair standing on end, yet thundered straight at the Mistress. His eyes were riveted upon her. He was the champion of Banfrey. He was the champion of Erin. This would prove it for all time. His battleaxe was raised for the perfect blow and his stallion ran smoothly. With a bellow, Sir Ullrick the Bear swung, burying the blade of his huge axe it in the Mistress’ forehead. She crumbled to the ground.
Sir Ullrick reined in his foaming steed. He shouted in victory, a true knight. Now he must claim the prize, her head on a spear so all could see that he was the champion. He leaped beside the evil queen.
“I slew Zon Mezzamalech!” cried the Bear. He wrenched his battleaxe free from her forehead.
“No!” shouted Gavin. “Ullrick, beware!”
The amulet and its chain, as if a living thing, a very snake, loosed itself from the Mistress. In an odd, bizarre way, it leaped, hurling itself off the corpse and onto Sir Ullrick’s arm. He shouted, trying to shake it off. It slithered up his arm and sprang again. The Bear screamed in horror as the golden chain whipped up over his hairy head. Then the amulet slid down onto his armored chest.
Sir Ullrick went rigid, his eyes bulging. He staggered to the left and to the right. He foamed at the mouth and fell to the ground, shaking. A moment later, he grinned evilly, looking about. He jumped up and picked up his battleaxe. The amulet on his chest began to glow a hideous green.
***
The moon-globe faded from around Leng’s head. His statue-like stiffness dropped away. His shoulders slumped. He whipped open his eyes. Terror as he hadn’t known in centuries filled him. He twisted as a wavy-bladed dagger flashed at him. Searing agony exploded in his left arm. He howled, leaping out of range of Vivian’s backhanded slash, leaping off the obsidian conjuring block.
She laughed insanely, her eyes wild.
He raised his good hand as he fought off the pain and the waves of nausea. He concentrated his power. “I can kill you,” he whispered.
In face of his certainty, Vivian hesitated.
Then a terrible cry broke through their tableau. Ullrick shouted in exhalation, with the amulet blazing eerily upon his chest.
***
Gavin launched himself from his stallion as the amulet-wearing Sir Ullrick strode at him. Motes of light played up and down Glamore. They were like tiny lightning bolts, but inside the sword, not outside. The silver blade glowed almost as brightly as the banner across the battlefield. Terrified brutes stepped away from Gavin, shielding their eyes from the sword’s light.
“You!” shouted Gavin.
What had recently been Sir Ullrick the Bear turned hellish eyes upon him. “Come, Champion of Light,” it said. “Come and taste Old Father Night’s wrath.” The amulet grew dark, and the axe became a thing of ultimate shadow, a blot of evil. “O little Hosar, a godling of sunshine, flowered fields and laughter. How can he fare against death, against the crush of hate and the ecstasy of darkest night?”
Gavin felt his cuts and his aches. He hesitated. The thing that had been Ullrick seemed unbeatable.
“Come, little one,” it said. “Taste death. March forever in my horde. Become the lord of the new undead.”
Gavin knew that if the dark axe touched him… He took a step back.
He who had just been Ullrick laughed. “Yes. Finally, you know wisdom. Darkness ever conquers Light. It is inevitable.”
Then Gavin felt the familiar tingle in his arms.
“You are doomed,” said he who wore the ancient amulet of Zon Mezzamalech. “Your time is over.”
***
The blue circuit of light from the Banner of Tulun protected Hugo’s last defenders. Like wolves around a fire, the howling mob of darkspawn didn’t quite dare to close for the final clutch. Since their sky god had departed, they knew fear. Soon, however, despite everything…
“We’re not dead yet!” shouted Hugo.
There came a return cry. A column of warriors broke through the sea of howling darkspawn. At their head marched the Seer, her sword bloody, her face aglow.
“For Hosar!” she cried.
The dismounted knights, militiamen, men-at-arms and crossbowmen cheered.
“Attack the darkspawn!” roared Hugo.
***
Gavin skipped back. Sweat poured from his face. He who had just been Sir Ullrick panted like a spent hound.
“We end it now,” Gavin said.
The one wearing the ancient amulet of Zon Mezzamalech swore with rage and charged. Gavin, as he only rarely did on the joust field, sidestepped the rush and thrust out his foot. His enemy tripped and sprawled full-length onto the bloody earth. Gavin pivoted, clutched Glamore with two hands and swung once to part the head from the body. Then he swung a second time, against the amulet. He didn’t want it to slither away or leap onto him.
As the blade touched the green amulet—a flash, a shriek, a column of billowing dark smoke rose. The old evil spirit of Zon Mezzamalech howled. It was a sickening sound. It stilled everyone on the battlefield. The amulet cracked. A blaze of darkness gushed upward from it. The darkness flowed up and up, more and more, faster and faster in a seemingly never-ending torrent. All the black magical power that Zon Mezzamalech had stored eons ago now shot up like a geyser and in a massive surge. The howl, which turned into a shriek of mind-numbing horror, now dwindled. And a black thing, ugly and evil, shadowy and mean, slithered from the land of the living as it sped down into the pits of the Netherworld that had long awaited its coming.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Lo, the spirit of the darkspawn fell before the silver sword Glamore. Then did the crusaders fall upon the mazed creatures of the Night and rout them.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
The stars waned. The night seemed spent, not quite as dark as it had been just moments before. Cuthred shuddered. His legs ached. His feet hurt. He was tired. Beside him, Simon the giant clutched his side as his face screwed up in pain.
“T-T-The sun, Cuthred, it rises.”
Cuthred grabbed Simon by the arm. The vengeful humans wouldn’t rest. Not with the sun to guide them. Simon’s arm felt like iron. Surprised, Cuthred saw that Simon had become rigid, frozen in fear as he stared at the coming dawn. Then tension oozed out of Simon as his features melted into a hideous mask of gut-wrenching horror. As if all the bones had been sucked from his body, Simon fell to the ground. He covered his eyes. “Please…” he whispered, no louder than a child would. “No more light. I hate the light.”
Cuthred squinted at the brilliant smear on the horizon. He found it hard to concentrate.
Simon clawed fistfuls of dirt out of the ground as he wept.
“Simon!”
Simon felt his hole. Then he crammed his face into it. Spasms washed over him.
The hackles rose on Cuthred’s neck. He turned from Simon in loathing and disgust. Dawn-light made it hard to think. Then the sun rose and no longer just threw its rays into the night. It actually shone with the barest tip of its dreadful orb. He couldn’t breathe. Air! Air! He needed air! Cuthred fumbled at the straps to his armor, snapping, ripping them off. His armor clanged to the ground. He yanked off the greaves girding his legs and hurled them away. The he snatched up his club and crashed blindly ahead.
Later, as the sun blazed in the sky, he stopped in a forest. He was deep within its comforting gloom. His feet ached. The heated air—at least to him it was heated—scorched his lungs. He had to reach Glendover Port. There, surely, waited darkspawn behind thick walls of stone, darkspawn who could stop the humans.
He snatched several hours of fitful sleep. Every time he woke, he prayed to Old Father Night. Later, as the sun sank toward the horizon, he dared the sunlight again. So engrossed was he enduring the sun that he failed to hear the voices that would have normally alerted him.
He stumbled around a clump of trees and came upon ten haggard humans. Some lay sprawled on the ground, spears and shields beside them. They snored. Two rested with their backs against an oak as they oiled crossbows. One thin man squatted, staring at an anthill.
Cuthred didn’t know whether to attack or to flee, so he stood there frozen. The squatting man looked up. Only it wasn’t a man. She had dark hair and a keen, alert manner. Something about her seemed familiar.
“A giant!” shouted a crossbowman. He madly cranked his weapon. Snoring men leapt up in shock.
Cuthred would have attacked now to save himself, but something in the woman’s eyes stayed him.
The short man with an eye-patch, and with gnarled fingers, threw away his crank and slapped a bolt into the weapon’s groove. He approached like a crab, slantwise and edgy. Other men followed the one-eyed man, although they hung well behind him.
“Do we kill him?” the one-eyed man asked the woman.
Cuthred rumbled low in his throat: his prelude to any attack.
“Seer?” asked the one-eyed man.
The woman shook her head.
The one-eyed man spat on the ground. “The Cap’n General says slay all darkspawn.”
“The Captain General isn’t here,” she said.
“We must cleanse the land of evil,” he said, “no matter how unsavory the task.”
“There is wisdom in your words, Hugo.”
Then Cuthred knew who she was, but the memory hurt. “Swan,” he said.
They glanced at him, puzzled.
“How do you know me?” she asked.
Tears leaked from Cuthred’s eyes. “Castle Forador,” he said, “long ago, before, before…”
She moved closer yet, was almost close enough to touch him.
“Careful,” said the one-eyed man.
Swan appeared thoughtful. “Cuthred the dog boy?” she asked.
A shudder went through Cuthred. “I loved my dogs.”
“Loved?” asked the one-eyed man.
Tears streaked Cuthred’s grimy cheeks.
“Get the banner,” said Swan.
“My Seer…”
“Hugo, please, will you do as I ask?”
Hugo hesitated, but then nodded and turned to go. “Watch him,” he told the other crossbowman.
“Cuthred,” said Swan. “I’m going to ask you to do something very hard.”
He didn’t like the sound of that.
“Do you trust me?”
Her gaze said that she knew he did.
“Listen to me, Cuthred.”
He nodded, but he was scared.
The one called Hugo returned. He held a long pole, a lance, it seemed. Cloth bound the end of the lance. Cuthred’s nervousness blossomed into fear. His gut clenched.
“Listen to me,” she said earnestly.
Cuthred wanted to flee. Then an evil thought gripped him. He would snatch her and flee, and later he would twist off her head!
“Seer,” Hugo said.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “Cuthred, do you hear me?”
Cuthred blinked, and he found that his club was in his hands.
She reached out to touch him.
Cuthred snarled as something within him—something alien and evil. He raised his club for a killing blow.
Hugo’s old gnarled hands twisted fast. The lance spun round. The cloth binding the end unfurled. Hugo swung the lance upright, and the Banner of Tulun snapped in the breeze.
Cuthred squealed.
“You can be free,” whispered Swan.
Cuthred mewled in shame. His knees buckled and face-first he fell upon the dirt. “Go away!” he shouted.
“Look at the banner,” she said.
He wanted too, but shook his head.
“You must look,” she said.
Defeat and despair filled him. “You don’t understand.”
“I do understand.”
“I’m darkspawn.”
“And I stayed in the dungeons for weeks on end.”
What dungeons did she mean? Then he recalled the evil clawmen who had beat and taunted him. “Kill!” he roared, raising his head. The banner, the bright awful banner, shone with power and checked his rage.
Then the humans gasped.
“He comes,” Swan said in awe.
Who came? Cuthred wondered.
“Call out to Hosar!” cried Swan.
At that name, Cuthred cringed.
“Call out!” she said.
“Old Father—”
“No! Call out to Hosar!”
Cuthred squinted past his tears. A chill bit him. For an instant, he thought to see a being with skin like bronze that glowed in a furnace and with eyes like blazing fire. The being wore a bright robe and a silver sash, and with his right hand, he made a sign. Cuthred gasped, and something cold and clean washed through him. It shriveled the alien thing within him. And without squinting, he could look at the banner. A great freedom filled him. He felt…felt…
“FREE!” Cuthred roared. “I’M FREE!”
“He’s raving,” Hugo said, aiming his crossbow.
“No,” said Swan, her face aglow. “He has been torn from Old Father Night. Darkspawn can be healed.”
Hugo stared at her in wonder.
“Drop your club!” said Swan.
Cuthred dropped his club and bowed before her.
“Thank Hosar,” she said.
To the amazement of them all, Cuthred did just that.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Morose, fearful and sunburned tuskriders urged their nearly dead boars down the steep incline. Leng toiled beside them on his stolen stallion. His guts knotted, twisted, and churned with agony. He had never ridden a horse so far or so fast, so in fear of his life.
Behind them, perhaps just over the range they had ridden down, came the avenging Captain General of the Crusaders. Leng cursed the man to eternal doom! Although hunger made Leng dizzy and the thirst in his throat made each swallow a lesson in torture, he soon grinned with malicious evil. Behind his horse came a mule, the least weary member of their desperate crew. On the mule swayed a drugged Vivian. Her wrists were cruelly lashed to her saddle-horn. And every so often, she whispered, “Gavin… Oh, Gavin…”
“He can’t save you,” said Leng, even though the speech seared this throat. His cracked and bleeding lips made his leer as nasty, as gross and as hateful as his heart.
Gavin had stolen everything: all his dreams, his work, his careful, long-term scheming. By Old Father Night, he would hurt Gavin worse! This Leng swore. First, he had to get away. Leng cast a fearful glance over his shoulder. He had to get away fast.
***
Sir Gavin, Sir Aelfric, Sir Josserand and forty-seven others persisted in giving chase. They hunched like dead men in their saddles. Their sleep-deprived eyes were more bloodshot and glazed than any darkspawn they had slain. Each rode with a naked, blood-crusted, notched blade. Each bore open wounds. All but Gavin yearned to stop and hurl himself to the ground and sleep for a week.
“Captain General,” whispered Aelfric.
Gavin shook his head. His eyes ever scanned the horizon as he touched bloody spurs to his stallion’s flanks. Never did he say a word. Like an avenging hound, he would follow until death if necessary.
***
Leng and his tuskriders topped the last rise at nightfall. Glendover Port hove into view. Through a cloudy haze, Leng made out on the city walls Zon Mezzamalech’s banner. The darkspawn yet held this stronghold of stone.
“Soon,” he croaked.
The tuskriders were too tired to nod. But they weren’t too tired to follow him into the city.
***
Somewhere along the road, something happened to the twenty avengers. Once there had been over forty of them. Something happened to those who had remained on the trail. Something grim, hardening, soul searing occurred. They had ridden too long for ordinary flesh to stand—too long in the saddle, too long without rest, without sleep. Puffy, staring eyes, but no longer glassy, had became portals to their souls. And those souls were feral. Swords rose and fell too many times to count. Darkspawn cowering in holes, or lying asleep along the road or crippled and pathetically crawling, crawling, crawling for Glendover Port died swiftly, mercilessly. Each of the avengers had seen the darkspawn in their heyday of evil, when they had raped the humanity out of their captives. The avengers had sworn awful oaths of what they would do some day to balance the scales of justice.
That day had come.
No more did they beg Gavin to halt, to let them rest for just one hour. They had reached deep within themselves and supped from the fires raging there. It seared them, changed them and turned them into automatons that seemed more than flesh and bone. The time would come when they would pay for this life-killing pace. For the present, their wills had become more than iron, more than human. They were the avengers, the twenty that yet rode, and they thirsted to hack at the root of this horror: at the sorcerer who had begun it all: Leng.
No longer did they ride weary stallions. A farm horse left to pasture here, a mule locked in a ruined barn there. A quick halt, saddle-straps unbuckled, a grunt, a heave, and the farm horse, the mule, found itself burdened with a sweaty saddle and upon the road of vengeance.
Grim, silent, brooding, the avengers topped a hill. Below them spread out Glendover Port. Inhuman smiles stretched their lips. Swords stirred. Much, much later…for some too late to ever matter…swords would have to be pried from hands frozen onto pommels.
“Death,” whispered Josserand.
“Kill them all,” agreed Aelfric.
“Except Leng,” Gavin said. “Him we save for the Seer.”
In such a manner did the avengers descend upon Glendover Port.
***
Leng lashed the darkspawn with his fear. He drove them with spells, curses and promises of a new night. He told them the dark gods never failed. Sometimes, yes, there were setbacks, but the slaves who remained true to the end would sup the ultimate victory.
A motley crew of brutes, tuskriders and clawmen groaned under the weight of the treasure room’s contents. There in the citadel, in the Duke’s former treasure room, lay gold bars, diamond-filled sacks, silver ingots and barrels full of rubies. All the northern holds had been sacked to supply these riches.
“Faster!” shouted Leng. “Faster!” He yearned to lie down and sleep. But he knew that he had little time left. Whatever he could grab now could be used later. He wanted to loot all Glendover and then burn it to the ground—
“Humans!” cried a bass-voiced lookout.
“Not yet,” moaned Leng.
The treasure room was only half-empty. Still, Leng lifted up his robes and ran for the docks. The darkspawn ran, too. Some dropped treasure, others staggered under their heavy loads. As they raced through the empty streets, the moon crawled west. It seemed forever before they bounded over gangplanks and onto their chosen ships. Sweaty brutes leaned against the poles that thrust them from the docks.
Leng beat his fists against his galley’s railing. More time, he needed more time. Hatred welled in his heart. “Gavin!” He reached into his pockets and pulled out paper. On the parchment, he scribbled fast. This note he fixed to a crossbow bolt. Beside him, a clawman cranked a stolen crossbow and then handed it over.
A grim band of human avengers stormed onto the stone docks. Darkspawn slower than the others wailed. Swords cut them down.
“Curse them!” cried Leng. Then his eyes widened in rage and shock.
The docks! Vivian stood by barrels of wine on the docks. She was drugged, her hands bound. She swayed and was unaware of what went on around her. In the rush, he had forgotten her.
Leng’s galley dug its oars into the water, pulling the heavy ship farther and farther away. In disbelief, Leng counted the humans. Why so few? For a moment, he considered turning back. Slay this cursed Captain General and reclaim Vivian. Gavin’s silver sword glowed with its terrible tracings then. Courage fled Leng, but not his rage, his malice. He lifted the crossbow. Let Gavin find her dead on the docks. He sighted her, and his eyes roved over her body. He licked his lips in remembrance of their countless nights together.
“Shoot,” he told himself.
Near to Vivian, Gavin slew a last brute. Then he saw her. A joyful cry leapt out the Captain General’s throat.
Leng snarled and slowly squeezed the trigger, squeezed… The steel string snapped. The bolt sped true and thudded into the barrel beside Vivian. She screamed.
Gavin stopped and stared at Leng.
Leng made a rude gesture. Then in fury, he strode out of sight. He wasn’t sure why he had let her live, or maybe he wasn’t ready for the truth. He would make them both pay nonetheless, by Old Father Night that he swore.
***
Two weeks after the victory at Bosham Castle, the High Priest watched from the top of a hill, with a bodyguard of knights around him. Below, in the valley, the King’s Army slaughtered the darkspawn that had fled south of the Midlands.
There were more darkspawn here than he had realized, and these were the dregs of a defeated host.
“How large was the original army?” the High Priest asked a knight.
“Ten times what we fought today, your Grace. Or so they say. But that’s impossible.”
“Nay,” said another knight. “Not for Sir Gavin, the Captain General of Crusaders.”
The first knight nodded, and dared to smile.
The High Priest turned away. Even his personal guardsmen looked upon this Sir Gavin in wonder, and they looked upon the crusader’s Seer as Hosar come in the flesh.
“Curse them,” he whispered.
“Your Grace?” asked the knight.
The High Priest shook his head. He would have to wait. Gavin’s name rang too loudly for him to have the former jouster assassinated. And Swan! The populace worshipped her, especially with that the healed giant in her company. Given time, maybe something could be made of that.
He sighed. The Battle of Lobos had badly hurt the King’s Army, enough so the battle here had been close. And this had just been the dregs of the former host. He mounted his horse. He would bide his time, smile and welcome the heroes if they dared march upon Banfrey. What else could he do…for now?
“It is a glorious victory, your Grace,” said a knight.
“Indeed,” said the High Priest. “Glorious.”
“Hosar be praised.”
“Hmm,” said the High Priest, before he rode away.
The End
If you enjoyed Death Knight, you might also enjoy another Dark Gods novel: Assassin of the Damned. Read on for an exciting excerpt.
Assassin of the Damned
Foreword
There are endless Alternate Earths. The possibilities and variations stagger the imagination. Julius Caesar survives the Ides of March. Attila the Hun destroys the Roman Empire or Genghis Khan dies early on the wall of China.
In ASSASSIN OF THE DAMNED, the Black Death originates from witchcraft, not the diseased fleas riding piggyback on ship-borne rats. Here, the pantheon of Darkness slumbers—Old Father Night, the Moon Lady and the Lord of Bats.
The time is 1348 and the place is Italy. Sorcery is all too real and the ambitions of some men are about to plunge Europe into the depths of infernal Darkness.
-1-
I groaned in agony as the hurled spear sank into my belly. I crashed back onto the tree stump altar. The bastards had chained me to it, although I’d managed to snap a rusty link, freeing an arm. It was one of the reasons they’d taken off running. I clutched the spear and dragged it out of my belly. Fiery pain lanced through me as I struggled to sit up.
In the moonlight, the cowards fled through the reeds. Some of them were hairy, a blasphemy against nature. The wretch I hated most wore priestly garments, a lapsed cardinal from Avignon.
I almost hurled the spear after them. Instead, as I sat upon the pagan altar, as blood poured out my belly, I feebly stabbed at the confining chains.
I was in a swamp. I had a throbbing knot on the back of my head. Erasmo della Rovere, the one-time priest, had clouted me from behind earlier. We had searched for deathbane together, a deadly flower of the swamp. While I was unconscious, the treacherous cur had chained me to this wooden altar.
I shuddered as coldness blossomed from my torn stomach. My strength oozed away with my blood. The spear fell from my fingers, clattered against the altar and thumped on the ground. I slumped back onto the tree stump so my chainmail harness clinked.
It was then I realized I was dying.
“No,” I whispered. I kicked my legs, made the rusty links jangle.
What had Erasmo said before? The gloating wretch was from Perugia like me—Perugia of the mountains, in the Romagna, part of the Papal States in Italy. He’d told me he was going to….
I groaned. A terrible, numbing cold gripped my lungs. The coldness crept to my throat and turned my breathing into pitiful wheezes.
Erasmo had threatened my wife, my children, my city and my name. He said he’d discovered ancient, slumbering gods, dark deities of the past. He’d said my ancestry connected me to the evil pantheon, but I knew he lied. Erasmo was a child of the Devil.
My thoughts grew numb, and I found myself staring at the moon, at its pockmarked features. For a wild moment, I couldn’t remember who I was or why I’d trekked into this foul swamp.
“I am Gian Baglioni,” I whispered.
According to Erasmo, this hoary altar belonged to Old Father Night, one of those slumbering deities. Shaggy hangman trees with hunchbacked trunks leaned over me. They seemed like thirsty demons longing to drink my blood, to witness my death. Their branches groaned in the wind. Their thin dark leaves rustled with seeming glee. They mocked my passing, laughed at my vain oaths.
I gnashed my teeth. Damn scheming Erasmo and his twisted plots—the priest had duped me. We used to be friends. I panted in loathing at the idea of dying here on this foul altar. Erasmo had tried to sacrifice my soul!
I swallowed in a dry throat and tried to concentrate. The moonlight shined painfully bright. Moonlight…the moon…Erasmo had taunted me about it. He’d said the moon was the reason…the reason—
I licked dry lips, squinted at the ancient white orb high in the heavens. Old Father Night hated the one represented by the moon. Erasmo had boasted about it. According to him, the dark deities, the slumbering ones, had once feuded bitterly. They’d sounded like Italian princes, each jealous of his or her prerogatives. I could understand that because I was the prince of Perugia.
The moon with its craters wavered strangely, or maybe my vision was failing. The pale moon seemed to take on the form of a woman’s face, with a mocking and achingly seductive smile. I strained mightily and lifted a hand. I heard the rattle of a chain. My eyesight dimmed as I lay on the altar. Blood continued to pump out my ruined stomach.
“If you hate Erasmo,” I wheezed, speaking to the moon or the one represented by it, “aid me. If you loathe Erasmo’s master, drag me off this pagan stump.”
The moon with its silvery light watched me with callous indifference. There were no dark deities. Erasmo had simply been a madman, a dupe of the Devil.
My strength failed. My hand dropped back beside me. I no longer heard the rustling leaves, the groans of wood. The world dimmed as one by one the stars began to fade. Only the silvery glare of the moon remained, my unblinking gaze focused on it.
I mumbled words that I cannot recall. I spoke them in haste, in fear and with hate. Finally, my words ceased and even the moonlight dimmed into darkness. There seemed to be motion and faraway sounds. I struggled to understand their meaning. I refused to die, to let Erasmo win. I summoned my will, and I recall a final shout. Maybe it was my voice, I no longer know. Then there was darkness, nothingness, a cessation of thought and maybe even life.
***
Abruptly there was something, although it was faint. My thoughts sluggishly returned, or a portion of them did. It was as if I clung to a rope in a deep well. Someone high above cranked the handle that drew the rope out of a subterranean cavern. The handle turned and turned. I heard its creak. No, the creaks sounded like branches. Yes, thousands of leaves rubbed together. Wind moaned. A new sensation bloomed. It was a feathery feeling. It brought another sense: that I was. The feathery feeling—something crawled across my cheek.
My eyes snapped open. A beetle parted its shell and flew off my face. I lay on my back under the stars. Tall grass waved beside me. Stars…they appeared behind thousands of shimmering leaves. Then it came to me: I no longer lay on the altar but on the cold ground. I grinned fiercely, I know not why. The grinning moved my mouth and moved something in it. The something clicked against my teeth. I clamped my teeth onto the metallic thing. It was round, flat, with tiny ridges along the edge. It was a…a coin. I angrily spat it out. The coin tumbled past my cheek and thudded beside my ear on the grass.
Why had a coin been in my mouth?
Fear lanced through my chest. Peasants in backwoods regions put a coin in a corpse’s mouth so he or she could pay the ferryman. It was a pagan custom from olden times. In a moment, anger replaced the fear. That was a foul trick.
I tried to sit up, and failed. Something held me fast. I tried to move my arms. They were also stuck as if tied down by ropes. Alarmed, I turned my head. I still wore my chainmail harness, but it had horribly rusted. Many times worse, however, tall blades of grass sprouted through the individual links. Together, the many blades of grass interwoven through my mail held me down like a thousand fingers.
How long had I lain here for grass to grow up through the armor?
I tried to surge up, but the combined blades of grass held me down, although my head lifted. Grass even grew through my leggings. The tallest blades fluttered in the breeze.
I bellowed and wrenched my right arm with fierce strength. Grasses tore and roots pulled out of the ground. I yanked harder, freeing my right arm. Soon, I ripped my other arm free and clawed at my sides, tearing more grass. I began wrenching my legs. Finally, with a feeling of triumph, I surged to my feet. I beat at my mail so it clinked as I knocked lodged dirt, roots and grass. I stamped the ground with my feet. Then I stopped, horrified. The grass where I’d lain was dead white.
Terror threatened to unman me. How could I have lain there so long the grass under me had died and yet I was still alive?
“I am alive,” I said, in a hoarse voice, one that startled me.
The coin I’d spit out of my mouth glowed faintly with a silvery light. Shocked, I knelt and picked it up. It was the size of a florin, the standard coin of the merchants of Florence. The engraving on one side showed mountainous Perugia, with a prominent moon above the city.
I froze. I was Gian Baglioni, the prince of Perugia. I had an enemy, Erasmo della Rovere. He had hurled a spear into my belly. I shook my head, not wanting to think about that just yet. While I had lain dying—at least, I’d thought I’d been dying—I’d spoken to the moon.
I looked up and through the leaves saw a smattering of stars. There was no moon this night. Something about the stars troubled me. I glanced around. I saw each indentation of bark on the nearest cypress trees. I frowned. It was night. At night, you needed a torch to see this well. I stared at the bark as dread stole my ability to move. This was vile sorcery. Yes, I’d been ensorcelled, possibly enslaved to a foul sorcerer or to one of Erasmo’s dark deities.
I turned the coin. It showed an engraving of an achingly beautiful woman. She looked just like the lady in the moon I’d seen before…before passing out.
I clutched the coin. “Erasmo.” I spoke his name with hatred, with the desire to slay. This was his doing. We had come to the swamp….
I couldn’t remember why. I realized with a shock that I’d forgotten things.
Something tugged my hand. I frowned. It tugged again. I opened my hand. The coin…by some dark witchery it wanted me to go…to a place where I could gain help. That’s what seemed to whisper in my mind.
My lips twisted into a sneer. This was witchery indeed, dark sorcery. Although I’d been ensorcelled so I could see at night like a demon, I still had my will. I was Gian Baglioni, the rightful prince of Perugia. The grass through my armor showed me I’d lain here for some time. Erasmo had long departed, of that I was certain. I wanted this spell taken from me. Therefore, I would allow the coin to tug me. Then…a fierce desire to right these hideous wrongs broke the loathing that had locked my limbs. I would free myself of sorcery, hunt down Erasmo and kill him.
Only then did I consider the spear. It had pierced my belly. Forcing myself to it, I inspected my mailcoat around my stomach. There was a tear in the middle of my gut. Much of the rust might have been dried blood. I reached around and fingered smashed links in the small of my back. The implications—the spear had gone completely through me—I leaped up and ran in a gibbering panic, sickened at the idea that I was already dead.