Death Knight Page 25

  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 cloa
ked 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.