by Eric Flint
A fairly mild sense, though, compared to the horror that he could also sense approaching.
He tucked the volume into his hassock. Looking around, he saw that the Lion and the archimandrite were both scanning the skies, alert for the nearing enemy—they, too, could sense its coming.
As if even a devil would launch an attack through the air into a place guarded by the Winged Lion of St. Mark!
Granted, devils and demons usually sported wings of some kind. That didn’t mean they were obliged to use them.
“I’d keep an eye on the ground, myself,” the count said loudly.
As if that were a cue, a low hillock toward one side of the island suddenly erupted. Water and steam spewed up as if it were a geyser, but what actually emerged from the soil was a horrid behemoth.
Very large—even larger than the Lion, though not by much. A round head with only a short snout, but a snout that sported a pair of tusks that would have been the envy of any boar. They made the razor-sharp teeth that filled the rest of the demon’s maw seem puny.
There was a red, glaring eye under a looming brow. Incongruously, the other eye was covered by an eye patch. Bat wings were now uncurling. Two raptorlike limbs ended in huge talons; scaled like a reptile’s, not feathered like a bird. Much smaller forelimbs—still massive—were similarly shaped.
“It’s a malebranche,” Von Stebbens said grimly. He gripped his huge sword with both hands and raised it high. Apparently he’d decided his shield would be of little assistance here—a judgment Mindaug concurred in.
The Lion bellowed his fury. It was as if the island was being shaken by an earthquake.
Bellowed—and pounced. The seconds which followed made clear to Mindaug that the ancient Etrurian guardian had not much use for the fine points of combat. Bite—claw—strike—rend: that was pretty much the Lion’s repertoire.
The malebranche was given to no greater tactical subtlety. Bite—gouge—rend—tear.
Von Stebbens issued a great shout, charged the devil and struck it a mighty blow with his sword. Had that strike landed on a human, even an armored one, he’d have been hewed down; possibly even cut in half.
Here, against the malebranche’s scaled hide, the sword did no worse than leave a shallow gash. It did succeed in infuriating the devil, though, which resulted in a blow from a clawed forelimb that sent the knight reeling backward. He didn’t fall, but he did slip down to one knee—which may have saved his life, since the malebranche’s backswing passed just over his head instead of striking full on his neck and taking the head off altogether. As if was, the helmet was knocked askew.
Von Stebbens was effectively blind now. He dropped his sword and wrestled frantically with the helmet, trying to bring the visor back into position so he could see again.
He wouldn’t have made it in time to avoid another blow, except that Mindaug uttered a prepared spell that briefly shrouded the archimandrite in a coruscating ball of light. Now striking blindly, the malebranche’s blow went amiss—hammering Von Stebbens on the shoulder and knocking him down, but not killing him or even badly wounding him. The design of the armor favored by the Knights of the Holy Trinity featured especially robust pauldrons.
The red glare was now turned on Mindaug. The malebranche surged toward him. The count turned and raced off, running as fast as his short legs could manage.
Which was nowhere nearly fast enough, of course. A man, even one far more athletic than Mindaug, had no more chance of outrunning a malebranche over a short distance than he did a bear.
But Mindaug understood the true calculations. He didn’t have to outrun the malebranche, he just had to stay ahead of it long enough for—
An incredible bellow announced the arrival of the Lion, followed almost instantly by the meaty sound of its claws tearing into the flesh of the malebranche—using the term “flesh” liberally. The substance was actually more akin to xylem or phloem than to meat.
Mindaug flung himself to the ground, then twisted to see what was happening.
Then, he hurriedly scrambled to his knees and flung himself closer to the shore. The Lion and the malebranche were now tangled into a knot of snarling fury that was rolling toward him. He had to fling himself to the side twice more in order to avoid being crushed by them.
The count was getting worried. As immensely powerful as the Lion was, here in his own demesne, it was becoming clear than he was probably outmatched by a devil as mighty as a malebranche—an old one, too, to make things worse. There was no danger of the Lion being defeated quickly…but over time…he’d already suffered a bad gash on his flank from one of the devil’s tusks.
Then, the break happened. As the two giants spun around, still grappling each other with their claws and talons, the malebranche threw out one of its wings and pressed it to the ground, in order to maintain its balance.
Seeing his opportunity, Von Stebbens shouted something incoherent—to Mindaug anyway; the cry might have meant something to another Knight of the Holy Trinity—and leapt toward the malebranche.
He actually leapt—in full armor. Mindaug was astonished. As he flew through the air, the archimandrite raised the sword in both hands, the blade pointing down. As he landed, he used his own weight as well as his strength to drive the sword blade right through the bat wing, pinning it to the ground. Whether by design or luck, the blade passed between the wing’s carpus and its immensely long phalanges. It was as if a human had been crucified in one of his wrists.
The malebranche screeched as its own furious attempt to pull free caused still greater damage to the wing. It was immobilized…just partially, but enough—long enough—to give the Lion the opening he’d been looking for. The favored killing maneuver of the great cats—in this, the ancient Etrurian guardian was no different—was to clamp its jaws over the throat of its opponent, thereby suffocating it.
The huge leonine maw closed over the malebranche’s neck and the Lion applied a bite pressure that Mindaug could only estimate. It must have made even a crocodile’s bite seem like a nibble. The jaws of the malebranche gaped wide—as did its one flaming eye—but no sound emerged. Not even a wheeze.
The monster struggled furiously, even shredding its own wing in its desperate attempt to pull free from the death grip of the Lion. But it now had no more chance than a deer to escape.
Suddenly, with a great poof of air and a swirling black cloud, the malebranche vanished. Vanished as if it had never existed. In the corner of his eye, Mindaug could see the ruptured soil from whence the devil had emerged folding itself back into its previous state.
The Lion spit, partly from fury and partly from—
“Tastes horrible!” he roared.
Mindaug nodded. “Well, yes, it would. It’s a devil, after all.”
The Lion bellowed his fury again. Then, glaring about, he snarled: “It cheated!”
Mindaug nodded. “Well, yes, it would. It’s a devil, after all.”
Von Stebbens came up, carrying his sword. “What happened?” he asked. “Is it coming back?”
Mindaug shook his head. “No, it won’t be back.” He pointed to the patch of now apparently undisturbed soil. “Once it was clear the malebranche was doomed, his master recalled his beast to the pit.”
Von Stebbens grunted. “I suppose even Satan watches over his underlings.”
Mindaug made no reply. In point of fact, the Prince of Darkness would have summoned back the malebranche to punish it for its failure. The creature was in for a very long period of what human criminals would have called “hard time.”
But the count saw no reason to dispel the archimandrite’s tender illusions.
Chapter 57
Venice
The delegation from Milan arrived two weeks later. It consisted of Duke Carlo Sforza and a small Milanese bodyguard, along with Duke Cosimo and his niece Violetta. The Tuscan ruler’s bodyguard was considerably more numerous than Sforza’s. This did not reflect distrust on the part of the Tuscans, since the bodyguard was no
larger than one would expect. The contrast with the Milanese escort was entirely due to Sforza’s discretion. The Milanese duke’s escort was purely a token formality since, if violence did erupt, there was no way they could have fended off the forces the Doge of Venice could bring down upon them in his own city.
But no one feared violence—or, indeed, any sort of unpleasantness. From the standpoint of four of the five major parties attending the convocation called by Patriarch Michael, the outcome of their deliberations seemed well-nigh certain to be positive.
Those four parties being Venice, Tuscany, Milan and the Church. The oddball, the outlier, the one party who was exceedingly and vocally skeptical of the outcome of the deliberations, was Ferrara.
More precisely, the Duke of Ferrara, Enrico Dell’este. Had most inhabitants of Ferrara been asked their opinion, they would have been quite positive in their responses.
But Enrico was a sullen man, a sour man, a disgruntled man…and, as had been true his entire life, was not at all hesitant in expressing his opinion.
“You’re all a bunch of damn fools,” he said again. “Sforza will stab you in the back within a year—most likely before the summer is out.”
By the time the delegations from Milan and Florence arrived, however, the duke of Ferrara had outlived his welcome. Long since outlived it, to be honest. Under the best of circumstances, even people a lot more saintly than the ones already assembled in Venice would have tired of the old man’s constant warnings and predictions of disaster. Given that no one had ever suspected Petro Dorma of being a saint—such status was pretty much ruled out from the beginning for a Venetian doge—and Patriarch Michael was too rigidly orthodox in his theological views to make much of a diplomat, tempers had gotten rather badly frayed.
All the more so since the one person in that august group who did have a disposition that bordered on saintliness—that would be the great doctor Marco Valdosta—was in a, for him, unusual mood. He was quite grouchy, this sentiment being occasioned by the slowly healing wound in his side.
The Winged Lion could shrug off most injuries. Indeed, by the time he returned his human aspect to his normal state, most injuries had already been healed. But a deep gash caused by the tusk of a malebranche is hardly what one would call a “normal wound,” and it was taking its own sweet time to heal.
At the best of times, it itched fiercely. Usually it hurt—and it always stank a little. As one might expect from a serious wound inflicted by one of the great powers of damnation, it was prone to infection.
No, not simply infection. It was also prone to rot, decay, pustulence—it was quite the horrid business.
So, unusually for him, Marco Valdosta was in a foul mood. Every bit as foul a mood as that of Duke Enrico—and, unlike the duke of Ferrara, when he chose to be, Marco was also the embodiment of a huge, unbelievably powerful and ferocious, ancient guardian spirit.
“WILL YOU JUST SHUT UP ABOUT SFORZA!”
When the windows stopped rattling, Marco continued in a more normal tone of voice: “Just shut up about it! Nobody agrees with you, old man! I’m sick of hearing your carping and whining!”
The footman who’d entered the chamber half a minute before decided he had an opening. “Duke Cosimo and Duke Carlo have arrived, Your Grace,” he announced in a most sprightly manner. Then, hurriedly and without waiting for the Doge’s instructions, he opened the door wide to allow the newcomers to enter.
* * *
Violetta was the first to speak the moment she took a seat. The chairs had been arranged in a circle, thereby avoiding the awkwardness of making any one person present the overseer of the meeting.
“The duke of Milan has asked me to marry him and I have agreed,” she said. Then, moving at once to the ungainly aspect of the business, she looked at Patriarch Michael.
“The Church will have to annul his marriage to Lucia Maria del Maino, of course. Unless you choose the option of declaring her to be dead—which, for all practical purposes, she is.”
The patriarch made a face. Michael was generally inclined to be cautious when it came to theological issues; very attentive to the rules.
“Ah…” he said. Then, clearing his throat, he looked to Father Thomas Lüber, whom he had come to rely upon for doctrinal advice. “Would you agree that the Del Maino woman is deceased?”
Lüber shook his head. “Oh, no, she’s certainly not dead. Dying, yes, according to Count Mindaug. But it will be quite some time before she is no longer alive.”
He looked at the Lithuanian sorcerer. “Is that not correct?”
Mindaug puffed out his mustache. “Yes—allowing for some gray area as time passes. She’ll not die for several centuries, but toward the end she’ll barely be what you’d call ‘living.’ And, in any event, the time passing will seem much shorter to her than it will to us.”
The patriarch looked startled. “Do you mean to tell us that you can actually see her in that”—he made a vague, uncertain gesture—“whatever you call that place you sent her.”
“I think the term ‘scry’ is more accurate than ‘see,’” replied Mindaug. “But, yes, I can observe her. So long as I’m still alive, at any rate.” He made a gesture that was not quite as vague and uncertain. “But by then, I’m confident I can train others to maintain the observation.”
Michael tugged at his beard. “So, clearly the duke of Milan cannot be declared a widower. As for the possibility of annulling the marriage…”
He eyed Sforza cautiously. “Is there any chance the marriage was not consummated?”
Carlo grimaced. “Sadly, no.”
“Um.”
Perhaps unwisely, Benito chose that moment to intervene. “As long as we’re on the subject,” he said, “I think it’s long past time the Church agreed to marry Maria and me. The…ah…situation that you found questionable no longer exists, so there shouldn’t be any problem.”
Stoutly, he added: “Let bygones be bygones, I say.”
“I agree,” chimed in Maria, very firmly.
Benito gave Enrico Dell’este a look that bordered on an outright glare. “Tell him,” he commanded.
The duke of Ferrara scowled, but spoke without any hesitation. “As I already told you, Patriarch, I plan to declare Benito to be my heir.”
Hearing that, Carlo Sforza got a very intent expression on his face. You could practically see the condottiere making the political calculations. Fortunately, Dell’este was not looking his way at the time.
Instead, he had now transferred the glare to Patriarch Michael. “So if you refuse to marry Benito and Maria—this whole thing was never more than damn foolishness on the part of the Church to begin with—then after my death, Ferrara will no longer have a legally clear line of succession. Is that really something you want to deal with, Patriarch? As if Italy hasn’t had enough succession crises over the centuries! That’s got to be the cause of half our wars, you know.”
“Um.” Michael cleared his throat. “Well, it’s all very complicated and it will take quite a bit of deliberation—”
The whole palace seem to shake. The Lion had manifested himself and roared his fury.
Then, roared again.
“JUST DO IT, YOU WRETCHED LAWYER! JUST DO IT!”
The debate got much more focused after that—and certainly briefer. Father Lüber’s hurriedly proffered doctrinal advice proved most helpful in the matter.
“I knew the Church would see its way clear,” said the Doge, quite cheerfully.
* * *
That evening, Benito did his best to settle accounts with Enrico Dell’este.
“Just get over it, Grandfather,” he said. “I don’t care if you want to keep hating the man—and I’m quite sure he cares even less. The fact is that Carlo Sforza was not responsible for killing your daughter and”—he glanced at Marco—“our mother. He simply didn’t do it, that’s all. We know who murdered her, and that man is dead.”
“He’s right, Grandfather,” chimed in Marco.
“So just get over it,” Benito repeated. “The feud with Sforza is over. Whatever wrongs he committed in the past to our mother”—he nodded toward Marco—“or him, or me, Sforza made up for, by rescuing my daughter.”
“He certainly did,” said Marco.
Dell’este’s expression was still sullen. But he said nothing. Benito knew his grandfather very well by now. That silence meant…not agreement, certainly. But it did signify acquiescence.
Good enough. He turned in his chair and bestowed a huge smile on Maria, who had ’Lessi perched on her lap. “So. Have you given any thought yet to the wedding?”
Maria frowned. “Something modest. Money doesn’t grow on trees, you know.”
“Be serious,” said Benito, and Marco, and Enrico Dell’este.
* * *
Elsewhere in the ducal palace, a more cold-blooded political discussion was taking place. The participants here were Petro Dorma, Duke Cosimo of Tuscany and Violetta, Carlo Sforza—and Prince Manfred, who was perhaps the most critical person present.
“Nothing less,” Violetta was saying. “An outright alliance—a military alliance, mind you, with duties and obligations precisely spelled out, not some vague and namby-pamby political mishmash.” Her expression grew fierce. “The sort of treaty that has no more room for sleazy lawyers and diplomats than the stones in a flour mill. Crush them into a bloody paste if they try to squiggle.”
Sforza grinned coldly. “Nicely put.”
Cosimo tried to visualize a diplomat being fed into a flour mill. The huge, heavy stones slowly turning, driven by a great waterwheel…the shrieks of the fellow as his flesh was drawn into…
The image was horrendous. He suspected his niece would make a poor diplomat herself.
Until you needed something resolved, anyway.
“A four-part alliance,” mused the Doge of Venice. “Do you really think you can get Enrico Dell’este to agree?” Petro glanced at Sforza. “You know how strongly the duke of Ferrara feels about… ah…”