Dark Crusade

by Vaughn Heppner

“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 Anor. 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 Anor 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 Since the miracle, dirt had become abhorrent to him and he had also become more withdrawn and thoughtful—and cold seemed not to bother him at all.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 Godomar 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 Godomar 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 Anor 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 shal
l 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, Anor and Elban. 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 Elban. 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.”

&n
bsp; 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 Anor, 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.”