Dark Crusade

by Vaughn Heppner

  “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 Anor. 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.

&nbs
p; “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 Neetivian 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 Anor possibly win? The humans of South Anor were as doomed as the ones in North Anor. 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 ti
me. 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.