“As I said, these backward folk took not to the ministration. They believed their fell idol superior to the one true God. And they challenged our own Christian God for primacy. It turned to war. War on a small scale, perhaps, but war, nonetheless. Personal. Ugly. Wasteful.”
“What war’s all about,” I said.
“Yes, yes,” Father Gregorius fingered the cross around his neck, “now tell them what happened next.”
“Settle down,” I scowled.
“The Teutonic Master accepted the challenge. And so he and the good Prince led a sortie deep into the caverns of this Blood-God. For a day and a night, they crawled and struggled, lost in darkness, breathing putrid fumes, clambering through filth, feeling their way blind. On the morning of the second day, in a deep cavern, atop a hill of bones, they found the lair of the Blood-God and did battle.
“The Grandmaster sustained a mortal wound, as did so many others, and it fell to Prince Ulrich to slay the clan-holt’s blood god. And he did. Somehow. He alone bore the head of the demon back, to burn it for all to see.”
“How’d that go over?” I asked.
“Not well. Not well, indeed. Prince Ulrich and the army laid siege to the clan-holt. Invaded it. Burning. Slaughtering. Driving the clan-folk out into the desolate wilds. Those who didn’t flee? They died in droves. Being slaughtered, tortured,” Prince Palatine glared down into the yard, “broken on the wheel. A tradition carried back.” He swallowed. “All suffered. Man, woman, child.”
“Just like Jesus taught.” How the church’d taken Jesus Christ’s message of ‘love thy neighbor’ and warped it into bureaucratic genocide had always impressed the hell out of me. It was all about knowing limits. Like a carpenter bending a piece of wood, doing so by degree, patiently, incrementally, tightening clamps just enough, a little here, a little there, that the wood bows just shy of breaking. “Was that from the sermon on the mount? Or the one with all the fish?”
Father Gregorius said nothing. What the hell was there to say?
“Yet these folk, these survivors from beyond the forest, regrouped, and they retaliated,” Prince Palatine said. “They used whatever means lay at their disposal. Striking in the night. Slitting throats. Poisoning their own wells. Burning the food-shares and what livestock was left. Slaying the Teutonics but also themselves in the process. They were a hard folk. A proud folk. A folk suited to those vast wilds. But they stood no chance, bereft of their Blood-God. Not against the engines of modern war.
“And yet, still the war lasted longer than by any right it should have, but it ended the way it was ordained to. And when it did, the last person alive was a crone. A bitty, tattered old thing. All bird bones and cackles and rags.”
Sir Alaric took another swig and fixed me a dead eye. There was no warmth left in him. No candor. No nothing.
“But still they broke her across that wheel. An old lady,” Prince Palatine whispered. “Can you imagine?”
“Yeah,” I said, “and ain’t it a sight.”
“They left her like that. Alive. Crucified. Mangled. My God. And as they marched on out of the clan-holt, with her dying breath, the old crone cursed them. Cursed them all to hell.”
“You blame her?” I asked.
“No.” Prince Palatine pursed his lips. “That first night the army spent out in the wilderness, marching back to civilization, Hell it was that came calling. A month later and not a single man marched out alive, except Prince Ulrich. And it was written that when he finally returned, he had … changed.”
“How?”
Prince Palatine paused, considering his next words carefully. “The history is nebulous. It changes authors to Prince Ulrich’s brother, Gaston. But he writes that Prince Ulrich, now King Ulrich, retreated deep beneath the old keep, the crypts, and was wont never to set foot again in the light of day.”
“War can do strange things to a man’s mind,” I said.
“Aye. If only that were solely it.” Prince Palatine looked to his brother, gripping a massive key on a chain around his neck. “Some claimed to have seen him stalking the streets at night. Tall. Gaunt. Twisted. It … it was then that folk started disappearing. Initially, it was only around the anniversary of King Ulrich’s return. Later, the disappearances became … more frequent.”
“How frequent?”
The four men gathered made it a point to look down, away, skyward, wayward. Anywhere but at me.
“Fairly frequent then,” I answered my own question.
“It was mostly folk on the fringes,” Prince Palatine frowned. “Those who’d not be missed. Their bodies found out in the bog, or stuffed up the trunk of some hollow. Fished up from the bank of the Abraxas, withered as though sucked dry of all humors. In time, folk connected Ulrich’s midnight ramblings with the disappearances. The murders. Ulrich’s brother, Prince Gaston, writes that men had a name for the creature that stalked the night. A name that came back from the Carpathians. From the old country.” Prince Palatine ran a hand through his hair. “They called it strigoi.”
“Ken now why folk call it Husk, lad?” Sir Alaric’s voice was so soft I could scarcely hear it.
“I’m slow, but I’m getting there.” I turned to Prince Palatine. “Finish it.”
“Gaston, King Gaston at this point, sought to stop this monstrosity by whatever means necessary.” Prince Palatine’s clenched fist struck the cover of his family treatise. “King Gaston writes of a quest. A journey deep into darkness, bringing with him the greatest warriors of the realm to fell his own brother, the strigoi king.”
“And when that failed?” I asked.
“But it didn’t fail,” King Eventine blurted. “They felled the nightmare king. King Gaston brought back Ulrich’s head and burned it upon a pyre for all to see.”
“Then why’re folk still disappearing?” I asked. “And Rudiger? The Grey-Lady? They were strigoi, yeah? Where the hell’d they come from?”
With a grimace, Sir Alaric killed his dregs then hurled the bottle over the parapet.
Prince Palatine looked me in the eye. “I don’t know.”
“Well, I do.” The old keep’s chapel flashed before my eyes. The crypt. The tunnel veering off into the distance, the darkness, toward the old gaol, the execution chamber. “Your ancestors lied. Your father lied. They all lied. They came from the old keep. The execution chamber. Whatever the hell was down there still is.”
Prince Palatine paled. “Regrettably, Sir Luther, I fear you speak truth…”
“Nay, Palatine,” Father Gregorius raised a hand, “your King—”
“Shut your trap.” I stomped past him, nearly shoving him off the roof, and looked King Eventine in the eye. “All those poor bastards crucified?” I held up a hand. “It was these bloody creatures. These strigoi. Whatever they are that killed them.”
In my mind’s eye, the Nazarene hurled the Grey-Lady back and into the burning building. I could see his scourgers gathering in a congealed mob of justified hatred, closing like a noose round Rudiger. Could see them pounding nails, staking him to a crucifix, hoisting him up for all the world to see. “Stephan was right. The Nazarene was the only one doing what needed be done, wasn’t he? He was hunting the strigoi. Killing them. Jesus Christ. Shriving the bodies so they’d not rise, too.”
King Eventine’s lip quivered. “My father lied b-because he had to.”
“Had to what?”
King Eventine looked again to his brother, eyes yearning for escape.
“Day one, and you’re already one chicken-shit of a king,” I snarled.
“Only he was to bear this terrible burden,” King Eventine spat.
“Burden?” I scoffed. “He wasn’t the one getting husked.”
“Sir Luther,” Prince Palatine hobbled between us, “my father sought to shield us from his … transgressions.” Prince Palatine laid a hand upon his family’s tome. “My father was its most recent custodian. I shared its contents with my brother and Father Gregorius and Sir Alaric. And now I share it with
you. And now we all know it must be stopped. Now. Forever.”
“Strigoi,” I grimaced.
“Yes.” Prince Palatine nodded. “A plague upon this town. A scourge. And at its heart, as you said, it festers still down in the bowels of the old keep.”
I turned, looked out over the dying town, the intersticed docks, the river beyond. I stifled a gasp. A small cog was moored on the far bank, nearly hidden behind the mill buildings lining the Tooth.
“We need someone to delve into the old keep. As King Gaston had done.” Prince Palatine hadn’t seen the cog. None of them had. “Someone to put an end to this story, this misery, this abomination.”
“You mean me.” It wasn’t a question.
“Who else is there?” King Eventine demanded. “And we’ll — I’ll send others, too, whoever is able. Whoever we can spare.”
“Spare, huh? Might not want to sell it to them that way,” I said.
“I… I…” King Eventine fiddled with the massive key.
“Able, huh?” I strolled to the opposite side, all eyes on me, away from the river, the town, the cog bearing all my nascent hopes. “Well, maybe I’d rather be Cain in this scenario? Take a walk.” Or a boat ride. “Wander the land of Nod. Hear Nod’s nice this time of year.”
King Eventine stomped forward, pressing a skinny finger toward my face. “You will do this, Sir Luther. You must.”
Crossing my arms, I leaned against the parapet and fixed him a glare. “Look who’s growing some stones?”
King Eventine met my glare. “You. Will. Go.”
“Fine, you Highness. Alright. You win. I’ll go,” I spat. “But you’re coming down with me.”
…such choices made in those days of yore plague me still. Hence it is, I awaken in a cold sweat beside my wife and love and rue that I did not willfully cauterize the festering wound, the disease, the curse that I had become.
But I was selfish then. I was ignorant. I was human.
—Journal of King Ulrich of Haeskenburg
Chapter 47.
RUTH KNELT, broken wrist wrapped up, mechanically dipping a washcloth in water then wringing it out. Clenching it white-knuckled, hand trembling, she dabbed it across her dead husband’s forehead. Tears streaming, humming shards of shattered prayer, she broke down piecemeal with each whispered word. Sarah and Joshua huddled by her side, watching, waiting, weeping, she clutching a water bucket, he, her skirts.
“This gonna take long?” I asked.
“She doesn’t want to see you.” Lady Mary shoved the door closed, forcing me back into the hall. “She was quite plain. And they’re saying goodbye. It’ll take as long as it takes.”
“Yeah, well, make sure it doesn’t take too long,” I breathed.
“Rose of Sharon, they’re saying goodbye.”
I pursed my lips, took a deep breath, relented. “Apologies.”
“This crypt-venture is a fool’s errand,” Lady Mary spat. “You know that, yes?”
“Yeah. Sure. But fool’s errands are the only work that suits me.”
Lady Mary shook her head, “You can’t go down there after—”
“Look, I don’t want to. Jesus.” I lowered my voice. “Believe me. Tunnels are bad enough on their own without throwing blood-sucking demons in them.”
“I’m more concerned with von Madbury and the rest of them.”
Lady Mary had a point and not just the one on the end of her hook.
“Better he’s down there with me than up here with you.”
She had no retort to that. Just a grimace. A shake of the head. A muttered expletive. “You’re set on abandoning us.”
I nodded toward Ruth. She was carefully drying Abraham’s face.
“You think she’ll leave if it’s with me?” I asked. “Truthfully?”
“Rose of Sharon, I don’t—”
“She hates me. You said so yourself. And with fair-good reason.” I glanced down the hallway. “No. It’ll be easier to convince her to get rolling without me in the equation.”
“I’m not sure it shall be possible under any circumstances.”
“Tell her it’s the only way to save her kids. Cause it is. And if that doesn’t work, tell her I’m dead. You catch more flies with honey, yeah?”
“Even so—”
“Look. The King wants me to go.”
“Then tell him no.”
“Already said yes.”
“Why? What in Heaven’s breadth do you have to gain?”
“Look—” I thrust an arm through the cracked door, past her pretty face, toward the window. “Von Madbury has the gates. And along the northern wall? Brother Miles. East stand Sir Roderick and Harwin, the toad twins. The poxy fella with the crossbow’s guarding south.
“Felmarsh,” Lady Mary said. “Gideon Felmarsh. And I don’t see your point.”
“My point? My point is when we go marching toward oblivion, and the King and von Madbury go down along with us, at least half of those fuckers standing watch out there’ll come along for the ride. Means less eyes on the wall. Less eyes on you.” I looked to Ruth, to the children. “And soon as we head down, you slip the wall and beat feet for that ship. You up for that?”
Lady Mary fingered her hook. “And how do you know we can gain passage?”
“Because you’re such a fine, smart lady that you’ll work it out.” I pulled my coin purse from my belt. It was damn-near full. I slapped it into her hand. “And if this doesn’t work? Negotiate. Demand. Kick and scream. Whatever it takes. Horrify them with that damned hook if it comes to it.”
Nodding, she felt the heft of the purse, squeezing it, tendons stark on her slender wrist. “How’d you come upon this?”
“Been pulling double shifts alongside Wenelda.” I pumped my hands up and down.
“Just what is wrong with you?”
“A lot. Yeah. Anyways.” I ran a hand through my hair. “Look. Town’s got no food. No goods. No nothing. All’s it’s got is coin. Coin you can’t buy anything with.”
“Except mercenaries.”
“Shitty mercenaries. I demanded hazard pay upfront and the good King Eventine was willing. It’ll sweeten the pot if chivalry falls short. Which it inevitably does.”
Lady Mary peered out the window. “Where’s Stephan?”
“The leper-house still, I think. The King wants someone keeping an eye on the scourgers. He’ll send word when he thinks they’re coming. Hopefully, you’re long gone before then.”
“Alright.”
“Once me and Karl leave, you find a way over the wall. Under it. Through it. I stashed some rope in my room. A grappling hook. Some daggers. Just do whatever it takes.” I dug under my belt. “Anyways. Here’s the key. Avar has one, too.”
“Avar?” Lady Mary took the key. “How is he?”
“An empty husk of his former self.”
“So he fits right in with the rest of us?”
“Yeah. Something like that.” I smirked. “Look. Meet Stephan in the cellar of the house behind the Half-King Tavern. He’ll help convince Ruth. Of course,” I leaned in, lowering my voice, “things go sideways, you get on that ship and screw.”
“Excuse me?”
“Don’t wait for us. Or him. Or her. Or anyone.”
“I know what you meant.”
“Alright…”
Lady Mary slashed a hiss, “Why is it you assume I have no honor?”
“Because … uh … you don’t.”
“On the contrary, you simply fail to recognize it because it’s not an infantile, excuse-based decision-making process based on pride, ignorance and — excuse me, but — the size disparity between the true length of your manhood versus what you imagine.”
“Huh?”
“Lord above—” Lady Mary grimaced. “But if—”
“But if nothing.” My finger was in her face. “You beg, borrow, steal your way on that ship and you go. And don’t look back. And if the captain wants to ship out immediately, which if he’s sane he’ll do, yo
u go, too. All of you. Any of you. Or just you if it comes to it. Any way. Karl and I are big and ugly enough to take care of ourselves.”
“And what about this ancient abomination festering practically underneath our noses?”
Blood draining from my face, I forced a fallow grin, “Better off killing old, decrepit things, my lady. Less running involved.”
…see it in my every move, my every word, my every instinct.
Even my young wife and child shun me, and so I retreat deeper and deeper, for longer and longer, arising on occasion only to…
—Journal of King Ulrich of Haeskenburg
Chapter 48.
FINALITY IN THE FORM of a boar-spear weighed heavy in my grip, the wooden haft smooth, its head an ugly jag of steel, angular black, suffused by a patina of old rust red. Lead by von Madbury, one by one, mail shirts rustling in the dark, King Eventine’s guard filtered into the Execution Tunnel, their glares invariably drifting my way.
I kept my eyes alive, my back to the wall, my expectations low.
“See anything?” I squinted into the gloom. The Execution Tunnel. The Long Walk.
“Nay, Sir Luther.” King Eventine cast a sidewise glare as the last of his blackguards filled the chamber. He lowered his voice. “This venture shan’t raise their opinion of me.”
“Can only go one way, Your Highness,” I said. Truthfully.
Like the maw of some subterranean beast, the Execution Tunnel lay bare before us, teeth of a portcullis jagging down as though waiting to snap shut on some jackass fool enough to dare set foot beyond. I glanced around. We weren’t short on jackasses. Fools, either. The tunnel traveled onward and downward and out of sight, seeming in its journey to fairly devour the light of our feeble lanterns.
King Eventine adjusted his crowned helm. “Father Gregorius gave me a tongue lashing for agreeing to accompany you.”
The Last Benediction in Steel Page 28