“The witch’s?”
That would make sense. Robert nodded. “How did you know?”
“It fits. If she is a witch, then she may know what is to happen here this night. We should try to save her.”
“We should,” Robert said and hit him as hard as he could.
The first blow went to the man’s face, the second and third were punches to the stomach, the fourth tried to knock the sword from his hand but—as the stranger doubled over—went too high and caught him on the shoulder. The fifth was an uppercut aimed for the face but missed completely, as his target slumped to the floor. Robert pulled back his leg to kick hard at where he knew the man’s head must be, and pain exploded in the knee that carried all his weight. Bone and cartilage crunched, he was thrown off balance, and fell.
He hit the ground badly, trying to break his fall with one arm, sending ugly shocks up the bone to his shoulder. He tried to roll away, realized too late he’d chosen the wrong direction, and a moment later had the breath knocked out of him as the stranger’s bulk crashed down onto his chest, pinning him down. The curved end of the sword’s blade pressed hard into his flank, below the ribs, ready to gut him. The stranger’s outline loomed overhead. Blood from a broken noise dripped onto his cheek.
“Who told you I was your enemy?” the man hissed. Robert made a token effort to throw him off, but felt the sword’s point break through his clothes to his skin. He gave up the struggle.
“My brother.” Another prod. “Edward.”
“Good,” and the weight was off him. The stranger was on his feet, holding out a hand to help Robert up. “Your brother I knew about, but I needed to be sure about you. What did he tell you?”
“He said a stranger would come tonight. He told me you were in thrall to the beast, and I must find you and stop you.”
“What would your brother be doing while you sought me out?”
“He would be calling on God’s power to banish the beast.”
The roof of the priest’s house collapsed inwards, sending fire shooting at the sky. There were more screams in the distance. The sudden light revealed the pilgrim’s face and the grim realization on it.
“God speaks to him? Since the Crusade?”
“So he says. He calls it his blessing and says it has given him the power of an Apostle.”
“Something speaks to him,” the pilgrim said, “but it is not our Lord. He has been tricked, as a friend of mine was tricked, but he can be saved. Do you trust me?”
Maybe. “Yes.”
“Then come with me.” He stooped to offer Robert his hand and Robert grasped it to pull himself up, noting with a soldier’s eye how the man took the weight on his right leg. Behind them, villagers were leaving their houses and running towards the church. The fire was spreading, moving from cottage to cottage, illuminating the village.
“Where are we going?”
“To the river. There’s a ford?”
“Yes.”
“It makes sense,” the pilgrim said. “A ritual where ancient channels cross their paths.”
Robert nodded silently, inwardly happy. His brother had been right. The sequence was being followed.
The stranger broke into a jog, and Robert followed, keeping a pace or two behind. Their feet beat a rhythm on the flagstones of the ancient road. The man’s limp was more pronounced now, the injury clearly at the knee. Robert smiled to himself.
Behind them something roared, the sound cracking the night with the cry of a predator sighting its prey. The stranger increased his pace, moving out of the circle illuminated by the burning village and into the edges of the wood. He was limping harder now. To anyone already in the dark they would be obvious targets, silhouetted against the fires. But ahead of them something else glowed through the trees with a strange shadowless aura.
Another sound. Heavy footfalls were approaching from behind them, large and catching up. Robert pushed his legs harder, drawing ahead of the stranger.
“Stay back!” the stranger cried. “You do not know what lies ahead!”
Robert ignored him, sprinting on. He did know what lay ahead: the ford, where his brother was waiting for him.
The light grew as the trees widened out where the road approached the river, with scrub along the bank. The surface of the river was afire. Pale flames flickered on the water as it approached the old ford, growing a foot high where the Roman road dipped under the river, and then dying away as they floated downstream on the current. In the centre of the water-fire, thigh-deep in the river, stood a figure he knew well.
Then a shaggy form he had seen before leaped from the bushes beside the road, took two long loping strides, and hit him sideways with the impact of a carthorse. He slammed into the paving stones, the rough surface scraping skin from his face and arms, his sword flying away into the undergrowth. An instant later his world filled with matted black fur and the smell of raw meat. It had him in its grasp, pressing his face against its pelt, suffocating him. He struggled, flailing, pushing against it, feeling its huge arms crushing the air from his lungs.
Something about the smell reminded him of the desert.
It was no good.
He was dying.
The beast atop him lurched to one side, and then further. Its grip loosened. Something spilled down across Robert’s face, hot and acrid. He pushed against the beast one more time and it fell away from him to sprawl across the road. Its body was not as big as it had expected, and then he realised its bestial head was lying six feet away. The skin around the face was bubbled and raw, one eye the colour of a boiled egg. Dark blood or something like it covered the flagstones.
Beyond it the pilgrim stood in profile, sword raised.
Beyond him, a second beast.
From where Robert lay on the ground, staring up at them, the two figures looked like things of myth, giants of legend, representatives of the ageless, eternal conflict between virtue and evil. He believed he had left that war behind on the bloodied sands of the Holy Land. He had been wrong.
Ribs and joints scraped in pain, but he pushed himself to his knees, then to his feet. The beast did not turn its head to look at him, but he knew it was watching him to see if he was still a threat. With no weapon, his lungs still aching and his body bruised, he didn’t feel like much of one.
At that moment the song began.
It was a weird high sound, a rising and falling like a shawm or crumhorn, but vocal and ululatory. It did not come from the tongue or the throat but somewhere else, deeper in the body. It came from behind him, from the figure stood in the river. From Edward.
The flames on the river blazed up, and the beast hurled itself at the pilgrim.
Robert waited for the man to raise his sword, to fend off the blow or slice at his attacker, but the man did not. He half-turned and ducked down, presenting his shoulders and back to the beast. The thing flung its jaws wide and bit down on the pilgrim.
The man flipped his sword in his hand and threw it, low and hilt-first, at Robert. Startled, he fumbled the catch. The sword clattered to the stones and it took him a second to scoop it up and adjust his hand to the unfamiliar grip. When he looked up he expected to see the pilgrim torn in half, the beast ripping into his corpse. Instead they seemed locked together. Then the weird light from the river glinted off the myriad metal badges, the silver scallop-shells and saints and crucifixes, so close together that the leather of the cloak was almost hidden from view, and he understood.
Not a mark of faith or penance, but armour.
“Strike!” the stranger shouted, and Robert struck. The blade buried itself in the creature’s shoulder and it turned and roared, the movement wrenching the sword from his grip. Beyond the beast, the pilgrim threw his cloak off and backwards, covering the monster’s head.
The creature ripped the garment away, but the distraction was long enough for Robert to grab the sword and pull it free. A gout of ichor followed its exit. Beyond, the stranger ran into the ford, his legs kicking up sprays
of water and cold fire. The song did not cease. Then the beast lunged again, and all his attention was on this fight.
Even with the wound in the beast’s shoulder, it was the hardest opponent Robert had ever fought. It deflected his sword-blows with disdain and came back at him with blows so solid that parrying was like striking the sword against a tree. A claw caught him across the arm, ripping through his jerkin to the flesh, and a few seconds later a thick fist slammed his ribs, throwing him several paces back..
It was not like fighting a man, but not like fighting a creature like a wolf or a bear either. It had reason and cunning, it blocked and feinted, and it used the length of its arms like a cudgel, but there was a pure ferocity to its attacks that transcended any intelligence. Its body, muscles, claws, instinct, essence were created to overpower and destroy men like him.
And at his back was his brother, in a struggle of his own.
The creature came at him again and he turned its first two blows away, knowing already that his sword would be too high and wide to parry the third. The end was inevitable. The creature’s left arm was poised to swing in and gut him, there was nothing he could do to block or duck. The fight was over, and so was he.
Then there was a great splash, the fires on the river flared and the chanting ceased abruptly. The beast hesitated for an instant, but an instant was enough for Robert to bring his arm downwards in a scything hack and watch as the stranger’s blade sank deep into his attacker’s neck. He let go of the sword and stepped back as the beast faltered in its swing. It reached up with one claw to grasp at the blade, trying to pull it loose. Then its legs crumpled and it toppled backwards. On the ground, it twitched. Thick fluid poured from the wound.
Robert stepped forward and bent to pull the sword free. The beast’s eyes blinked and fixed on him as he did, and its expression curved in a rictus that could almost have been a sneer. The sword came away with a burst of blood, and the beast shook and died.
He stared into its hideous animal face. Its eyes, he could see now, were black flecked with gold. There was a disdain to them, something that spoke of contempt, of how little this death mattered, how little he—the beast’s killer—could understand of the sequence in which he had played his tiny part. You are insignificant, the eyes said. My death is as immaterial as you are. The sequence continues.
Robert spat into its dead eyes and turned to the river.
The water still glowed with cold light, but the fire had gone. In the shallows on the far side two men were fighting: Edward and the stranger. Both were warriors, both accustomed to battle in many forms. The stranger was winning.
Robert started to splash his way across the ford, watching as the stranger landed two punches to Edward’s upper body. Edward swung in retaliation, missed, and took a full-force blow to the face. He went down with a spray of water. The stranger jumped after him, grasping him around the neck to drag him half out of the river. Then he bent, grabbed Edward by the lapels of his jerkin, lifted his head up, and shouted, the same phrase over and over. On the third repeat Robert was able to make out the words.
“Who taught you the chant? Who taught you the chant?”
He was nearly there. The stranger was shaking Edward, making his head bob, water running from his dark hair. If his brother said anything Robert did not hear it.
“Who taught you the chant? Who taught you the chant?”
Robert came up out of the water and ran a few short paces down the bank to where the two figures were. Neither looked at him.
“Who taught you the chant?” the stranger demanded again. Robert kicked him on the injured knee with all his strength. The leg collapsed and with a shout the man fell back into the river with a mighty splash. The waters closed over him.
Robert looked down at his brother, and Edward looked up, caught his brother’s eye and smiled. His eyes were dark and knowing.
It was the smile that Robert had seen on the face of the dead beast on the other side of the river.
“Remember the sequence,” Edward said.
Without knowing why he did it, without thinking of anything at all, Richard raised the pilgrim’s sword, brought it down with all his force, and beheaded his brother.
Arterial blood, red and bright, rushed from Edward’s neck. The severed head rolled onto the slope of the bank and trundled down with increasing speed until it met the river with a muffled splash. The moment it did the last of the light in the water vanished and the night enveloped them. The darkness was broken by the stars, the flames of the burning cottages in the distant village, and lights that bobbed and moved among the trees on the other side of the river. People were coming, bearing torches.
The stranger had hauled himself up out of the water. He tested his weight on the leg Robert had kicked, and winced. Then he noticed the torches.
“We haven’t much time,” he said. “Will they believe that your brother summoned the beasts?”
Robert felt his grip on the world returning. “They may,” he said, “if we tell them so. He has been changed since we returned from the Holy Land.” They will believe you killed him too, he thought, my word against yours, and nobody here knows you from Adam. But as he looked at the man’s face in the faint light he had a sudden flash of how he would have looked with the dust of the desert and the long fruitless road to Jerusalem on his skin, a gold badge from Jaffa on his cloak, and thought again.
“He was your older brother?” the pilgrim asked.
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry. You travelled back from the crusade with him?”
“Yes.”
“Did he visit towns or villages, or meet people on the way, that seemed odd to you?”
Robert stared at him. “Is this what you do?” he asked. “Walk the roads, chasing ghosts, killing for scraps of information? Who are you?”
“Tell me the towns you visited!”
“What happened here? What was my brother doing?” Robert shouted. “Did we stop it?”
“I don’t know!” the pilgrim cried. “I must find out! There is a great darkness coming and I must know how to stop it!”
“It is no good,” Robert said. “They are here.”
The men from the village were splashing their way across the ford. Silently Robert handed the bloody sword back to the stranger and turned to face them. The light from their torches cast jumping shadows across the banks of the river. His father John led the group, his sword drawn. Many of others carried staves or cudgels.
“Robert!” John shouted. “Where is Edward?”
“Here,” Robert said. He moved aside so his father could see the body. There was a confusion in his mind on how his brother had died.
“God’s blood!” John said. “What happened here?” Then the light from his torch fell on the pilgrim’s face. “You!” he said.
“You know him, father?” Robert said. “He saved Lug. What is his name?”
“He has no name,” John said. “Sir Geoffrey took it from him, along with his title and lands. This is the man who killed his son.”
“Killed Thomas Wilton? In Acre, on the crusade?” Robert had heard the stories and the rumours, the tales of sorcery and intrigue, of blasphemous doings and a funeral at midnight.
“I did not kill Thomas,” the pilgrim said in a low, sad voice. “If I had, Sir Geoffrey would have had me executed. Thomas was my friend and bosom companion, led from righteousness by—” His voice petered out.
“Geoffrey could not prove you killed Thomas. But he still stripped you and made you an outlaw. And now you have killed my son.” John stood over the body of Edward, his pose rigid with hate, waiting for an excuse to strike the strange man who stood opposite him. The energy and power that had sustained the pilgrim were gone, and he stood like a man awaiting the gallows.
“He did not kill Edward,” Robert spoke up.
“No? Then who did?”
“The beast did,” the pilgrim said. John looked at him with disbelief, then at the shaggy corpse on the far side of
the river.
“The beast?” he said. “Robert, is this true?”
“Yes,” Robert said. It seemed the easiest answer. Perhaps it was true.
John gave another to the far bank. “Who killed the beasts?”
“We did.”
“He saved my life,” Robert said.
John exhaled slowly, turning so he did not have to look at the body of his dead son. “This is a sorry state,” he said. “I hope the dawn will make all things clearer. Meanwhile,” he turned to the pilgrim, “you are a wanted man, but I owe you a debt for saving Robert. I cannot let you go, but I cannot let you stay.” He paused and stared at the pilgrim. The man looked back but said nothing. “Tell me why I should let you live.”
The stranger said nothing for a long time. Then: “I am as you see me: a pilgrim. I travel to the holy shrines to atone for my deeds, and to learn from the scholars. In Acre we met a power of evil that killed Thomas and set me on this path. The beasts are part of it. Your son was too. I live to defeat it. That is why I came here: I heard of your beast and recognised the signs. Such is my existence. If you end my life, that which I fight will grow stronger.”
John was silent, thinking. “Well then,” he said finally. “As I am the reeve you are in my custody, and if you escape then it is on my head. Go now. At dawn my men will come after you, and if they catch you then you will answer to Sir Geoffrey. Do we have an understanding?”
“We do.”
“Then go.” He pointed down the road that led into the wood.
“No,” the pilgrim said. “That way leads to Wilton and I cannot go there yet. My cloak and pack lie in your village and I shall go that way.” He moved away, wading into the river, pushing against the water, and Robert watched him go. He could see the man was limping hard.
“I think I met him in the Holy Land,” he said to his father. “Maybe Edward met him there too.” He realised his father was not standing beside him. John Kiteley had retrieved Edward’s head from the river and was kneeling over it, head down, weeping silent tears. Robert watched him. Suddenly the night and the deed crashed in on him. His brother. The song. The beast. The river. The sword. The blood. His brother. He fell to his knees and wept too.
The New Hero Volume 2 Page 11