by Sean Munger
Theophilus and I told him what had happened. We assumed there were bodies in the infirmary who hadn’t yet reanimated, but we couldn’t be sure. Camytzes asked if there were any other exits, and if we knew of anyone who had been bitten and might have gotten away. We told him no.
“Do we have any idea how it started?” he asked. About this we knew nothing. It stood to reason that someone who had been bitten by a ghoul must have been taken to the infirmary as a casualty. That suggested that there were more ghouls out there in Constantinople somewhere.
“The Emperor should have listened to us,” Camytzes muttered. “All right. You four stay here. You, soldier! Let’s have that detail to go in and clean out the infirmary. We can’t be certain of who is a threat and who is not. Everyone who’s still alive must be quickly and cleanly killed. The heads of all corpses must be destroyed, preferably by crushing. Let’s move!”
The soldier, a young man with olive skin who looked as if he had Saracen blood, was horrified by the order to slay everyone still alive. “I cannot carry out that order,” he said. “There are innocent people in there. How can we destroy them?”
“You don’t understand what we’re up against. In that room are any number of bodies who will reanimate at any time and become ghouls. They must be completely annihilated. The safety of our Empire depends upon it!”
I can’t say I blamed the young man, who had obviously stumbled into a situation he didn’t understand. He and Camytzes argued for several minutes, but the bickering was cut short by another commotion—the shouting voices of monks and the loud clop of a horse’s hooves on stone. A figure, clad in mail and a blue tunic, was riding his horse right up the cloister on the opposite side of the courtyard. I heard Henoch, pursuing the rider, shouting, “No! You’ll ruin our gardens!” but the rider kept coming, heedless of any obstacle in his path. Several rosebushes and a vegetable patch were trampled in short order by the horse, which wore its own sheath of mail. The rider reared back and the horse whinnied as he stopped it just short of Camytzes and the small detail of soldiers. “What is this?” blasted the horse rider. “Why are you all standing about aimlessly? I was told there were Saracens inside the gate!”
The rider, obviously an officer, was imposing. Locks of long gray hair peeked out from under his chain mail hood. His features were rugged, as if weathered by many years on campaign. Just by glancing at him I could tell who he was, for his eyes looked familiar—they were exact duplicates of the piercing orbs that stared out of Camytzes’s face. The elder Camytzes carried a silver goblet of something, wine perhaps. He took a swig from it and said, “Well? What is this dire emergency that required you deserting your post on the wall to come here?”
Before Michael could answer, the young soldier who had argued with him rushed up to the horse. “Droungarios Camytzes, Sir!” he said snappily. “Your son has given us a monstrous order. He wants us to slay the sick and fallen who may be in the infirmary, innocent people—”
“Father,” said Michael, “this is of the utmost importance. You remember I told you about what happened to Domelium? Well, it’s happened again, here, tonight. There are people in that infirmary who will become ghouls in a matter of hours. These brave monks destroyed the ones who already animated—”
“Ghouls?” blasted the elder officer. “What ghouls? All I see are a couple of dead monks and a nun.”
I stepped forward. “Sir, your son is correct. All of us monks standing here before you saw the same thing tonight. These ghouls must be stopped. What your son recommends is the only way to be sure that no more are created.”
“Oh? And who are you to give me orders? I’m Gabriel Camytzes, droungarios of the Anatolikon theme! You’re just a monk. What do you know of these matters?”
“He knows what we’re fighting,” Michael said tersely. “If you don’t believe us, why don’t you go into that infirmary and see for yourself? I’ll come with you—just in case one of those things tries to jump you from behind.”
The officer looked stunned at this dressing-down by his son, but ultimately, as I guessed, he couldn’t turn down the challenge. He drained the silver cup and stuck it into a pouch of the bag across the horse’s saddle. Then, drawing his sword, he got down from the horse. “This is ridiculous,” he muttered. He walked up to one of the ghouls we had slain, the naked man, and kicked the corpse over with his boot. Grunting, he stepped toward the door of the infirmary and stopped to listen. “Ghouls, eh?” he finally said. “I hear nothing.”
“They probably haven’t reanimated yet,” said Michael.
“Well, let’s take a look.” I noticed that the elder Camytzes did not sheathe his sword before he started through the doorway. If he truly believed there was no danger, he probably would have.
Following his father, Michael said to the sentries, “We’ll be right back, but stay on your guard. Kill anything that comes out of this doorway unless it’s myself or the droungarios. Make sure no harm comes to the monks.”
The two Camytzes were gone for perhaps five minutes. Theophilus, the other monks and I paced nervously in the cloister, awaiting their return; Gabriel’s horse continued to ruin our gardening, eating several heads of cabbage and defecating into the rosebushes. We heard no sounds of battle coming from the infirmary. All we heard was the elder Camytzes’s voice on two occasions. “Well, they’re all dead,” and a little later, tellingly, “That’s the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen.” Finally they emerged. Gabriel’s sword was sheathed, but Michael’s was not. The son was nearly pale. His father looked completely nonplussed.
“Well, it is unfortunate,” the older officer finally said. “Someone went berserk in the infirmary and killed eleven people, not counting the ones out here, in the most brutal and grotesque fashion imaginable. I grant you, it’s quite a bloody spectacle in there—but what justifies you, my son, abandoning your post on the wall when the Saracens might renew their attack at any moment? Why is this not a case for the civil or ecclesiastical authorities?”
“Every single one of those eleven corpses will be a raging, ravenous ghoul by this time tomorrow,” Michael replied. “If so much as one of them gets loose in Constantinople, the Saracens outside the wall will be the least of our worries.”
“So you say.” I couldn’t believe it but Gabriel said this with a grin. “Nonetheless, since there’s nothing happening here now, might I suggest we return to our posts at the Golden Gate? I believe these monks can clean up the mess.”
I grunted. Michael’s father was being as stubborn and closed-minded as the Emperor had been. Then, quite suddenly, I had an idea. Michael’s mouth opened and he began to retort to his father—“Droungarios—Sir—I respectfully request that you allow a detail to remain—” when I stepped forward again.
“May I make a suggestion?” I said boldly.
“Oh, you wish to give me orders again, young monk?” said Gabriel.
“No, Sir. But I wish to impress upon you the danger of what we’re facing here, and why I called for your son’s help. If proof that the ghouls are real is what you want, I’ll give it to you.” I motioned back toward the doorway. “The door leading into the infirmary wing can be sealed up. Let’s blockade it. We’ll post guards. My brothers and I defended the monastery by ourselves before you rode in here, and we can do it again. Leave one or two of your men here for good measure, and also to prove that we’re not tampering with anything. Then you and Michael return tomorrow and see what’s inside that infirmary. By then we’ll need your help to kill those eleven ghouls.”
“Nonsense,” Gabriel scoffed.
“It shouldn’t be necessary,” said Michael. “But if seeing these ghouls with your own eyes is the only thing that will convince you, Brother Stephen’s suggestion is the best way to proceed—so long as we can be sure that once they reanimate none of them will escape.”
The elder Camytzes suddenly seemed bored by the whole enterprise. “Fine,” he said, vaulting back onto his horse. “Do whatever you want, so long
as you, Michael, are back on the wall in one hour’s time. If not, I will personally court martial you for desertion.” He pulled back the reins of the horse, causing the animal to rear back and crush a hedge with its hoof. At the same moment several dollops of dung dropped from its rear onto the stone pathway. With a clatter of hooves the officer rode away, leaving our gardens ruined in his wake.
Michael Camytzes looked at me. “All right,” he sighed. “Let’s get to work on that barricade. I don’t want any of those ghouls getting loose during the night and wreaking havoc in here.”
“Your father is as thickheaded as the Emperor.”
“Even more so, if that’s possible.” He patted my shoulder. “Don’t worry. I’ll bring back a large contingent of troops tomorrow afternoon. Assuming our barricade holds and those eleven don’t get out of the infirmary, we shouldn’t have too much trouble dispatching them.”
I suddenly felt almost sorry that my plan was being implemented. “Yeah,” I said. “If the barricade holds.”
When Camytzes returned to his post near the Golden Gate, Theophilus and I took charge of the defense of St. Stoudios Monastery against the demons that were soon to ravage it from within. Michael left two guards with us, but was also kind enough to give us a few extra swords, figuring they would be more useful than our primitive pig-roasting spits. Since the ghouls were not yet reanimated, we had a rare and fortunate chance to prepare thoroughly. I ordered that dozens of new torches be lit and placed around the courtyard so we could be certain that no ghouls would creep upon us in the dark. The main door to the infirmary was blocked with many heavy timbers into which we drove huge iron spikes. Brother Honorius, the physically largest of the monks at St. Stoudios at almost seven feet tall, hurled his three-hundred-pound body against the door to test its strength. It did not give a millimeter. We posted sentries in all points around the infirmary, armed with pig spits (Theophilus and I took the swords). Plates of bread and flagons of watered-down wine were brought to the defenders in the courtyard. I admit that organizing the defense was diverting, and I relished the chance to finally be doing something useful. “You know,” said Father Rhetorios to me as we patrolled the trampled gardens, “if you weren’t an iconographer, you might have made a fair military man.” I took this as a tremendous compliment.
I slept little that night, retiring to my cell only for an hour to catch a nap. Even then my sleep was interrupted. Henoch came to my cell shortly before dawn. “Excuse me, Brother Stephen?” he said. “We’ve begun to hear sounds from the infirmary. We thought you should be informed.”
I went back down into the courtyard and accompanied the two soldiers to the barricaded door of the nightmare chamber. From behind it we could hear the moaning of ghouls and the scrabbling of fingernails. “I wouldn’t have thought it possible!” one of the soldiers gasped. I listened carefully, pressing my ear against the door.
“How many?” Theophilus asked me.
“Sounds like one. There’ll be more soon enough.” I backed away from the door, sword in hand. “All right—everybody stay vigilant. I don’t think these demons will get out of there, but we have to be ready in case they do.”
As the light from the east spread into the sky, the moaning and scraping of one ghoul at the infirmary door soon multiplied. We couldn’t tell just from listening if all eleven corpses in the infirmary had reanimated, or only some of them; but the exercise, nerve-racking as it was, at least illustrated in no uncertain terms the dangers posed by massed ghouls. By midmorning the door, braced so sturdily and tested by Brother Honorius’s bulk, bowed outward and recoiled visibly when several ghouls smashed against it at the same time. I surmised that the ghouls probably could have knocked down the door with their combined strength if they had the wits to communicate or cooperate; clearly they had none. The sentries we had carefully posted in the cloisters and grounds surrounding the infirmary were thankfully not needed.
The vigil continued throughout the day. Due to the urgency of the situation, Hegoumenos Rhetorios released me from my duties in the tannery, but, as my presence at the door of the infirmary wasn’t needed all the time, I was able to steal way to my cell a few times during the morning and early afternoon and work on the secret icon. I wasn’t yet ready to begin painting, but I’d selected some boards to use as the diptych canvas, and I must say that my first attempt at carpentry turned out quite well. Every hour or so I’d return to the infirmary door to see if the situation had changed. Meanwhile, outside, the smoke rising from the wall told us that the skirmishing with the Saracens continued. Camytzes’s casual explanation that the siege hadn’t really started yet, and would not until the Saracens brought their ships, made me quite uneasy. Aside from stocking the warehouses with extra grain and draping our hides over the breastworks atop the walls it didn’t seem like the Emperor was making a tremendous amount of effort to protect his capital.
In the middle of the afternoon, without any advance warning, a body of troops descended upon St. Stoudios. I happened to be in the courtyard listening to the moan and rasp of the ghouls behind the door when Henoch rushed from the cloister. “They’re here!” he said excitedly. “They’ve come!” The two Camytzes rode mail-clad horses at the head of a phalanx of perhaps twenty-five infantry, bearing shields and carrying swords that glinted brilliantly in the hot August sun. This time they were kind enough not to ride their horses through our courtyard, but the detail of troops kept their formation impressively as they marched up to the infirmary door. Michael’s father planted himself in front of me. His mouth opened as if to say something but then I saw his head swivel as he stared at the door, pounding outward with the press of the ghouls behind it. For the first time he seemed genuinely surprised.
“Well, Father?” said Michael. “Still ready to court martial me?”
Gabriel approached the door. “I don’t believe it.” With his gauntlet-sheathed hand he reached forward, but recoiled when the door pounded suddenly. He looked at me. “Is this some sort of trick?”
“No, Sir,” I replied. “There are eleven ghouls behind that door. The first one reanimated toward dawn. Thankfully the barricade held.”
“You give me your word, then, that this door was not opened since last night?”
“I’ll swear an oath before God to that effect, if that’s what will convince you.”
It was clear to me that Gabriel Camytzes wasn’t used to being addressed in any tone that wasn’t totally obsequious. His eyes grew a shade colder and he stepped backwards from the door. “Not necessary,” he said. He glanced at his son. “Well? What’s your recommendation?”
“Recommend we break down the door and dispatch the ghouls, Sir.”
Gabriel rolled his eyes. “Well, of course. How do we do it?”
“Quickly, and in force. Aim for the heads. Decapitate them first. The heads themselves must be crushed to be absolutely certain of their destruction, but that’s much easier to do when it’s just their heads lying around trying to bite you than whole bodies coming at you. Any man who is bitten must be destroyed immediately in the same manner.”
Gabriel looked taken aback. “Execute our own wounded, is that your recommendation?”
“Yes, Sir. Any casualty of a ghoul attack will become a ghoul themselves, as this exercise has demonstrated.”
I saw a few of the soldiers in the detail glance at each other uneasily from under their helmets. I wasn’t unconcerned for them, but I thought the danger to the troops was far less than the peril we monks had faced last night. The troops, after all, were clad in heavy chain mail. A ghoul’s teeth were no match for armor that deflected Saracen swords and arrows.
“Very well,” said the droungarios with a sweep of his arm. “Take charge of the operation.”
Michael did not hesitate. “Bring a battering ram!” he called to his troops. As four of them ran to retrieve it, Camytzes patted my shoulder. “I’ll take it from here. Thank you for your industry and your vigilance, my friend.”
So we, the monks
of St. Stoudios, stood back and let the soldiers do their bloody work. Michael Camytzes, sword drawn, gave the order to batter down the door. It splintered in seconds under the military’s heavy bronze-headed ram as if the door were nothing but a sheet of bark. The detail marched in, swords flashing. Within five seconds several of the ghouls had been decapitated. One hideous head, still chewing a mouthful of human flesh, bounced against the archway of the door and rolled out into the cloister. Arms and legs were cleaved and fell in bloody piles to the floor. Once the troops were far inside the infirmary, we couldn’t see much of the slaughter from where we stood in the courtyard, but Theophilus, Thomas, Alexius and I stood back listening to the dreadful din. We were relieved that someone other than ourselves was making a stand against the demons. In the garden, Gabriel Camytzes paced, occasionally glancing at the ominous doorway, but never for very long.
The battle lasted less than three minutes. I didn’t expect that eleven mindless ghouls would last long against a battalion of Byzantine troops. The soldiers emerged from the infirmary, their tunics and chain mail splashed with blood, their swords wet and dripping with gore. “Well done, men,” said Michael as he stepped into the cloister, sheathing his sword. “Now we’ll need a cleanup detail. I want all of these corpses, and all pieces of them, gathered together in a pile for burning.”
At that moment Camytzes happened to be standing right over the severed ghoul’s head, still animate, that had bounced out of the infirmary and rolled to a halt. Its jaw was opening and closing, its waxy gray eyes seeing nothing. It was the head of a middle-aged man with dark hair. Camytzes paused a moment, then reached down and picked up the head by its hair. Instantly the ghoul’s teeth clamped down on the chain mail of his arm and tried to devour it. I thought at first that Camytzes would unsheathe his sword and pierce the head with it in front of all of us, a sight of gratuitous uneasiness that I didn’t look forward to seeing. However it seemed he had other plans. “Brother Stephen!” he called, looking over at me. “You work in the tannery, do you not? How about fetching me a large glass jar filled with some brine solution?”