“But look at you,” I loosened Yolanda in her scabbard, “alive and well.”
“Aye,” the King gripped the key hanging around his neck, “but for how long?”
He had a point. I ceded it fair swiftly.
As von Madbury skirted along the wall I pivoted, keeping him my peripheral.
“Sir Luther?” The King held out a hand. “If you would … guide us?”
“Guide…?” I raised an eyebrow. “Yeah. Sure.” I took point beside Karl.
It was our show now. And what a shit-show it was.
Karl grunted as he knelt at the tunnel maw, his boar-spear leveled at the darkness. Air seemed periodically to ooze out from within, a gentle waft as if the tunnel were a living thing breathing. Slow. Heavy. Coarse.
I couldn’t wait to get in there.
The rest of the guards circled round their nervous King. He stood hunched and pale in the dim. Probably the first time he’d led anyone anywhere. And here he was leading fifteen men into an open grave. He cleared his throat, licked his lips, “Onward … men,” he said, pointing with a flaccid throw of his arm.
Rousing stuff. Reminiscent of Charles the Hammer. Charlemagne. Roland the Fartier.
I offered Karl a stilted bow. “After you.”
“How’s it you walk with balls so big?”
I shrugged. “Strains the lower back, truth be bare.”
Karl chuffed a trollish sort of laugh, his voice echoing as he ducked the overhanging row of iron teeth, stepping inside the devil’s maw. I gave a final glance round at the chamber then trudged in after.
The rest’d either follow or they wouldn’t. But they were a thick lot on the whole, and after a moment’s hesitation, communal pride and fear of ridicule overcame fear of death, goading them onward, inward, downward. Always amazed by that. Men. Warriors. Fools. More afraid of what others think than of death.
Now me? Not so much. But I’ve never been considered much of a man. I stepped over a large block of stone, the light we bore carrying us onward in a dim globe that felt somehow protective against the encroaching black.
Behind, someone cursed as he cracked his head on something.
Grit crunched underfoot as the tunnel continued down, wending onward til it forked.
Karl shifted his spear. “Which way?”
“Left,” I said without any hesitation or reason for doing so. But sometimes it pays to look decisive. Feel decisive. Maybe you don’t fool them, but you just might fool yourself.
Karl said nothing, just game me that “Bullshit” look then trudged onward.
“Sir Roderick, keep watch to the rear,” I hissed over my shoulder. Didn’t want something creeping up on us from behind. Old sapper’s trick. Split your waiting force in twain at a break and surround the buggers when they make their play. No fun being the buggers. The waiters, either.
“By what right do you order me?” Sir Roderick hefted his boar-spear, his scowl plainly adding ‘fuck you’ to the discourse.
I turned on him, Karl at my back. I could feel his devil smirk, the lone source of comfort in all this bloody debacle.
“Get in line, Roddy,” Sir Alaric growled.
“Fuck you, old man.”
“Do it,” King Eventine hissed.
Even still, Sir Roderick stood unmoved.
“Fine.” I stepped aside, a magnanimous hand held out, offering all the mysteries of the abyssal beyond. “You can take point, then.”
“Eh—” Sir Roderick glanced past me. Swallowed. The color drained from his face. Poured out the seams of his boots. Pooled across the floor. “Apologies. Th-the rear shall suffice.”
“Yeah,” I turned back to the black, half expecting to sprout steel in my spine, “I thought so.”
We continued down, shouldering through bottlenecks and scraping nitre from the walls as feathery roots that had no right being so deep brushed past our faces. Something snapped underfoot. Some sort of bone? A rib. I kicked it aside as I hunkered behind Karl, our spear-points leveled always to the fore.
Von Madbury barked a curse from behind.
“What?” I turned.
“Nothing. Just hit my head for the tenth fucking time.”
“Oy—” Karl dropped to a knee, jamming the butt of his boar-spear into the floor, angling its point forth.
I was at his side, shouldering in, crowding the way, setting my spear angled likewise. “What?”
“Something’s coming.” Karl gripped his spear. “Coming fast.”
Von Madbury and Sir Alaric followed suit behind, and by the glow of lantern light we four waited, crushed together behind a thicket of war-steel and black iron, waiting for a demon to descend upon us in the dark.
“I can hear—” someone started.
“Shut it,” Karl grunted.
I heard it then, scrambling toward us. The sound of movement, swift, concerted, powerful. A body sliding past stone. Claws ripping through dirt. The rasp of ragged breath. A stench preceded it, the same tunnel-stench we’d become inured to, but by its efforts suddenly redoubled.
“Hail Mary, full of grace…” someone warbled.
I could hear Squire Morley, teeth chattering, could smell him, or someone else, piss themselves.
“It’s a bleedin’ hell-hound…” Squire Morley’s arm shook as he brandished the lantern, the light wavering like some will o’ the-wisp.
“Hold her steady, you damned fool,” Sir Alaric hissed.
Squire Morley swallowed and did. Somewhat.
Someone muttered a paternoster.
“Rear-guard,” I hissed, “stay sharp!”
The King clutched the wall, eyes wide, panting fast, just short of panic. He wasn’t alone.
The thing ahead skidded to a halt just shy of our lantern light, breath hissing as ragged as a punctured lung, a snuffing, slurping, whuffing sound. Two red glints hovered in the darkness beyond our feeble glow. “What in hell’s name?” Whatever it was pawed the ground, scraping its claws across stone, snuffling its muzzle like some blind thing catching scent of a kill.
“It isn’t coming,” von Madbury breathed.
“Sure it is.” Karl adjusted his stance. “Just it ain’t stupid.”
“Not as stupid as us,” I said.
“We do take the cake.”
“Morley,” I whispered without looking back, “it’s your show.”
Some jostling behind and Squire Morley pressed in.
“It’s tight,” Squire Morley breathed.
“It’s a fucking tunnel.” Gritting my teeth, I slid aside as best I could while Squire Morley set his foot in the crossbow’s stirrup and cranked the line back, staves groaning under the pull.
“Jesus,” I hissed, “next time maybe don’t paint its fucking portrait.”
“A-Aye.” With trembling fingers, Squire Morley set a broad-head in the groove.
“Then throw it.”
Squire Morley leveled his crossbow, let loose a pent-up breath, and let fly. Thwock! The bolt jumped like lightning from the groove and hissed down the tunnel, thudding into flesh unseen. A squeal ripped through the ether, followed by a warbled growl, somehow rat-like as whatever it was spasmed beyond the light. For the half-beat of a heart, I thought it was dead. Hoped it was. Prayed it was.
But it came at us, scrabbling fast, a glimpse of rancid pale fur and weeping pink eyes, all chittering teeth and black bloody murder. And in that instant, before it struck, so too, did another.
But it came from behind.
“‘Ware behind!” Karl yelled.
It was still too late.
The two things attacked in a pincer movement, fore and aft, the sapper’s trick I’d feared from the outset. I caught a glimpse of something, the aspect of a monstrous rat. Gargantuan. Albino. Twisted beyond hellish comparison. It’s sniveling nose and whiskers whiffing scent, its blind eyes weeping treacle, glaring with idiot malice.
“Holy mother—!” Sir Roderick’s cry strangled off behind, swift as a noose snaps neck. His lantern expl
oded in an orange whoof against the ground. Sir Aravand roared in pain, in madness, in death.
The tunnel snuffed black to the sound of chisel-teeth gnashing and flesh tearing, mail rings popping, pinging in quick succession as the thing barreled headlong into our shiltron. Like a wave crashing, it slammed into our thicket of spear. Mine burst into kindling, but the others held, three-fold spears’ lugs holding the monstrosity at bay. Claws whisked past my face, knocking my helm flying as I cast my broken spear aside and drew Yolanda, fighting her free in the crush, half-swording her, gripping hilt and blade, stabbing forth and ripping, attacking the darkness.
The thing, the horror, the hell-hound, let loose a squeal of pain and rage as my blade bit, driving deep, a piercing high-pitched stiletto vibrating through my mind. Flesh tendril squirmed like coils of snake, scraping past my face, round my neck, my arms, as I stabbed again and again, ripping into damp rancid fur—
“Forward, you fuckers!” Karl drove forth on stumpy legs, forcing the thing back on the end of his boar-spear. Von Madbury swore beneath his breath as he and Sir Alaric followed.
I stumbled to a knee as the horror lurched back, releasing me. My neck was screaming raw, wet from rasp and slather, but I could breathe. Move. Think.
Stunned, shattered, I clutched the wall for support. Realized everyone behind was dead. Bodies lay contorted, a cadre of tin soldiers smashed across tunnel floor. Some poor fucker I hardly knew lay slathered against the wall, neck broken, lantern smashed, oil burning in a small pool the lone source of light.
Sir Roderick lay broken, a tangle of twisted limb and torn mail. Squire Morley’s face was … just gone.
Down the tunnel, the shiltron kept moving.
“Your Highness?” I called out through the failing light.
But the King was gone.
So were the rest.
I froze as something shifted in the blackness beyond the charnel ruin, the sound of something licking its dripping chops, teeth scraping across teeth. And that rotten smell… Then a moan, someone begging, pleading, praying. Sir Aravand? King Eventine? “Oh please, dear God, no—”
I could have advanced, maybe saved the poor bastard, maybe done something, anything, but I didn’t. I turned and I ran.
…the deeper darkness, my ancestors’ crypt has become my home, for my kin have seen what I am become and have forsaken me.
They are right to do so.
—Journal of King Ulrich of Haeskenburg
Chapter 49.
I STAGGERED BLINDLY ONWARD, downward, Yolanda gripped blade-back in my left fist, my right out, scrabbling along the tunnel’s side, fingertips dancing, palm slathering through dirt and root and stone, feeling along, praying I wouldn’t charge headfirst into some hidden horror or bottomless pit. Dirt and grit cascaded. Roots brushed past my head, but in my mind were the long grasping appendages of those … those things. Plodding on, the rasp of my breath, my whole world. Afraid to pause. Afraid to turn. Afraid that whatever lay behind was drooling down my neck.
Screams pierced the gloom.
I skidded to a halt.
Gasped.
Jesus Christ.
Blood pumping in my ears. Lungs burning. Doubled over. Had I actually heard it? Or were they but echoes in my mind? No. It sounded again. Behind. A man screaming. Wailing. The sputter of a smashed lantern, eclipsed suddenly by monstrous shadow.
I swallowed, turned, redoubled my pace, my right hand my lifeline. The ground beneath my feet dipped then turned. Five steps later the tunnel walls disappeared, and I tripped over something, stumbling to the floor.
Daylight blared from above. I blinked. Mother of Mary. I could see. Somehow.
Shielding my eyes against the glare, I kicked over, aiming Yolanda back at the passageway. My arms quivered. My curse reverberated. The tunnel glared back like the empty eye socket of some eons-dead cyclops’s.
I wiped drool from my mouth. Spat grit. Waited. Watched.
Blood pounded like war-drums in my ears. The rasp of ragged breath. The iron band constricting round my chest. But it meant squat cause that thing was coming. I pushed myself up, focused on the tunnel but offering quick takes of the cavern, the chamber, the hall. Worked stone. Hewn rock. Dungeon-works. A pile of something in the corner. And the far walls, if there were any, lay unseen, limned in liquid shadow. From a crucifix-shaped hole far above, a blade of harsh blue sunlight stabbed down upon a tomb set in the center of the chamber.
Only then did I realize what I’d stumbled over. Sir Alaric. Lying prone in a pool of his own blood. But he was breathing.
I didn’t hazard it a chronic condition.
“By the hound,” Sir Alaric’s eyes cracked open, “thank God.”
“A first for me.” I knelt by his side. “Where you bleeding?”
“T-That thing…” he clutched at me, slurring, slobbering, blood oozing down his chin. “P-Please. D-Don’t leave me.”
“I won’t, Red.” I wrestled free. “Where are you bleeding?”
“I’m … Heh … Red all over.”
“Jesus. Fuck.” I snatched him by the collar, dragged him back toward the light just as I got that feeling. That feeling of swimming in dark water, deep water, of prey, the instant before the thing slunk free of the passageway.
“Ooof!” Sir Alaric’s head clocked off stone as I jump-stepped back, bringing Yolanda up to the long guard.
“What the hell…?”
It cramped my mind just looking at it. What’d they call it? A hell-hound. As good a name as any. Though more rodent than dog, in truth. Shades of a disease-wracked gutter rat but … wrong. Monstrous wrong. Mangy hair sprouted in tufts, pink scaly flesh where it didn’t. A tail dragging behind. Two more sprouting crooked and bent. One from its neck, another its side, and more. Its mouth opened and, Lord, teeth.
“By the hound…”
“Don’t worry,” I sniffed, took a step forward, interposing myself. “I’ve got it.”
“The hell you do—”
The hell-hound shifted beneath a cloak of darkness, creeping towards me, its eyes squeezing nigh on closed in anticipation of the pounce. Tumors glistened off its head, red and tumescent. Dripping. Sir Alaric scuttled for purchase, reaching for his boar-spear.
I kicked it back toward him.
“By the hound—” Sir Alaric mumbled.
The hell-hound pounced, jagging past like lightning, snatching Sir Alaric and ripping him back into the passage. “Lad!” Only the boar-spear caught on either side of the passage and Sir Alaric’s skinny arms, clutching on for dear life, saved him.
Ducking the boar-spear and sliding into the maw past the struggling knight, I lunged, thrusting Yolanda into darkness. Into it.
Then again. And again. And again.
It squealed like something halfway between a baby and skinned rabbit. Awful. So awful I almost stopped. So awful I almost pissed myself. I twisted the hilt, kicked, half-pulled my blade, re-angled and thrust again. A tendril-tail ripped past my face and neck, skin rough, rubbing me raw. I lunged forward, driving Yolanda in to the hilt, the thing squealing.
“Fuck off!” I yelled cause maybe that’d work.
Squealing mad, it caught itself, claws digging in, teeth gnashing at my mail as I tore Yolanda free and swung, but the passage was too tight and I shanked her off the wall, sparks flying as I lost her. I stumbled back, drawing a dagger. My fingers found the passage edge, and I tore myself out into the hall.
“Red!” I hissed and there was Sir Alaric trying to wrap his belt around his thigh. A glimpse of his lower leg just … gone. A jagged end of flensed bone. Blood spurting. His hands fumbling. Eyes bulging.
An appendage grasped my leg, tearing me back.
“Yolanda!” My voice cracked.
“Here—” Sir Alaric tossed his blade, sailing past as the thing tripped me, dragging me back.
I rolled, kicked free, scraped across flagstone floor, my hand somehow lighting upon Sir Alaric’s boar-spear. As the thing pounced, I snatched up the
spear, turned and stabbed. Once. Twice. Three times and it let go, keening raw, its nightmare tails thrashing.
I scrambled back, huffing, gagging, boar-spear aimed forth.
In the open, stalking forth, tails twitching like a stalking cat, the hell-hound paused.
I swallowed. Gasped. Was it the spear? The light?
“What—?” I slid back, got my footing as it exploded forth, tenfold gnashing teeth aimed for my face, and saw only black.
…for years now the strigoi has preyed upon the populace, overcoming any and all attempts to constrain it. It seems finally that some other avenue must be…
—King Gaston’s Ledger
Chapter 50.
IT WAS A HORRIBLE THING,” someone muttered, “and I’ve seen horrible things. Done … horrible things.”
I came to with crushing chest pain. Cracked an eye, rolled over. Barely able to breathe. Gasping. Grunting. My blood-crusted mouth clicking as I stretched it. “Red?” It sounded like him. Jesus. “Red, that … that you?”
“Sure and it is, lad.” Sir Alaric sat leaning against the wall, splayed out, pale and gasping, his belt wound tight round his thigh. And below it? Nothing.
“You look like shit,” I said.
He didn’t argue the point.
Sir Alaric fumbled his empty pipe trembling to his mouth. “You ever have nightmares, lad?”
“Right now count?”
A pause as he considered, followed by a nod. “I’ll allow it.”
“Generous.”
“We…” Sir Alaric rubbed his eyes with a crimson fist, “we had a talk earlier, you and me. And I … I wasn’t as forthcoming as I might o’ been.”
“Please.” I dragged Yolanda over, scraping across the flagstone floor, over to his side. “Do go on.”
“Well now, the rest of the tale’s one for the backroom, you ken? Don’t want you bringing it up come supper time.”
“I’ll try to think of something else.”
“Listen now, lad.” Sir Alaric licked his pallid lips. “I don’t know. I … I just wanted to tell you I never got a look at that Rudiger-fella’s face.”
“It doesn’t matter now, Red.”
The Last Benediction in Steel Page 29