“Get me a bloody stake! This is my job!”
Fitzsimmons nodded, and called for a stake.
“At least let me say the words. He was a friend of mine for a long time. I’d hate to see him come back.”
Through tears, Martin nodded. When Fitzsimmons was given the stake he passed it to Martin reverentially, as if it was a holy relic.
“Goodbye, old friend,” Martin said, and pushed the stake up under the ribs and into the heart.
He pounded, again and again. And he felt the thick hairs sprout on his arm once more.
The innkeeper put his hand on Martin’s shoulder, and Martin turned on him.
“Stay away, man!” he said. “Can’t you see what I’ve become?” He raised an arm and showed it to Fitzsimmons. Martin could see the black hairs growing, and the talons gleaming in the moonlight, but the innkeeper shook his head.
“What are you saying, lad? I see only a boy in shock. Come, let us put the old man to rest.” Fitzsimmons started to say the words, but Martin had already gone. He threw himself into the midst of the Others, feeling the muscles on his back ripple and the talons grow once more. He broke the neck of the first one he came to, and had killed a second with the stake before the first hit the ground.
Bulb-water fell all around, and Others squealed and died while Martin howled at the moon and killed....again and again and again.
Pictures poured into Sean’s vision—of Sean sitting on a bloody throne, with subjects all around in supplication, Sean feeding from the neck of a beautiful woman, Sean sitting in a room full of gold and gems.
“You don’t know what I want,” he said, and swung the pole above his head.
“Wait…!” William of Rennes shouted.
Sean brought the pole down right between the eyes of Baphomet and ground it hard until he felt it scrape the chalice itself. The head screamed, a howl which echoed around the rafters and sent embers falling from the smouldering wood. Black smoke roiled overhead, and it was becoming difficult to breathe.
“You cannot kill him!” the Other said. “He is immortal!”
“As are we all,” Sean said.
He pulled the pole out, and it sucked wetly as it came. The head continued to scream. Sean drove the pole in once more, lifted the head like an apple speared on a twig, and tossed it into the burning velvet drapes.
William of Rennes screamed and lunged at Sean. Sean stepped to one side and smashed the chalice over the knight’s head, knocking him off-balance to the ground. He kicked the Other in the ribs, twice, then grabbed the longsword from its hand. With one stroke, he took off William of Rennes’ head.
Martin’s world was a frenzy of blood and fangs. When the bulb killed all the Others around him, he merely moved further into the melee. He was distantly aware that he was almost directly under the gate, but still he pushed outward.
All around Others pushed and fought to get to him, to bite him. But Martin was too fast. Like an autumn wind he rushed, stake striking true every time he wielded it.
There was a scream from the far west, a howl of rage, and a ripple ran through the ranks of the Others. The pipes stopped playing, and the great bass drums rumbled once and were silent. The Others stopped acting as one. They were disorganised, as if lacking leadership, and soon a circle of empty ground had appeared around Martin, with no Others willing to approach him.
He growled deep in his throat, and ran his tongue over his new incisors. He could smell every one of the dark things individually, and he wanted to gouge, rip and tear. But none would come close...until he smelled one that he knew well. He turned, just as Rollo walked into the circle.
Martin sniffed him. He was Rollo—but he wasn’t Rollo. He smelled dark and musty and dead. Martin growled again.
“You have the taste of death, my young Thane,” the tall Other said. “You like it, don’t you? Join us, and you can bathe in its glory forever.”
Martin continued to stare at the Other.
“I do believe your mind is broken,” Rollo said. “Look at you...have you no pride?”
Martin looked down at his body, and sniffed. He was smeared with blood, gore and the slime of decomposed Other. He smelled rank, like a charnel house.
Rollo motioned with his hands down his own body. He was wearing an immaculately clean white shirt with frills and lace at collar and sleeve, and a pair of black leather trews.
“Who is the barbarian here, I wonder?” Rollo asked.
Martin leapt forward, the stake ahead of him, but he slipped in a patch of decomposing flesh, and fell heavily. Rollo leapt forward and lowered his head to Martin’s neck—just as Fang and Blackie came bounding out of the darkness and knocked the Other sideways.
The dogs and the Other rolled in the mud, a mass of snarling legs and teeth. There was a loud crack, and Blackie fell to the ground, his back broken. Fang’s frenzy increased, and a splash of Rollo’s blood appeared on the white shirt.
Martin yelled, an animal cry of triumph, but it was short lived. The Other was too strong, and caught the dog in its arms, holding it tight so it couldn’t struggle before biting deep into its neck. The dog whimpered once, then was silent.
Rollo looked over at Martin, his mouth full of blood.
“I think I will take one of my pets back,” he said. “It is only fair. I leave you with Blackie, although I don’t think he’ll be much company for you.”
He kicked the dead dog at his feet.
“I will find you, and I will kill you,” Martin said.
Rollo merely laughed and stepped backwards into the crowd, still carrying the dog.
A shot rang out from the wall above.
“You missed, Father!” Rollo shouted. “Tell Mother I’ll see her soon! I would suckle at her breast just one more time!”
Martin heard Fitzsimmons cursing, and when he looked around the circle, Rollo had melted away into the crowd.
The head of Baphomet was still screaming, but it was burning among the drapes, and Sean didn’t think he had anything to fear from it.
“Laddie,” Campbell’s voice said. “Are you there?”
The room was filled with smoke and flame, and Sean could only just make out the figure of the Scotsman slumped against the altar. He ran to the man’s side and knelt down.
There was blood on the Scotsman’s lips, and when he coughed, a fresh flood of red poured down his chin.
“The bastard staved me in,” he said, “I thought he wouldn’t move, so I tried to take Mary. He hit me, hard, and I went down. That’s when he did it...he jumped on my chest, like a child killing a spider. I’m broken, man...badly broken.”
“Hush, man,” Sean said, “We have to get you out of here.”
The Scotsman shook his head, bringing a fresh look of pain in his eyes, and new bubbles of blood at his lips.
“You forget...I’m bitten. Stake me, man. Do it quick, and get after her.”
Sean made to lift the wounded man, but Campbell screamed in pain.
“In Christ’s name, man, what are you trying to do...kill me?”
He tried to laugh, but it was obvious that the pain was too much.
“Drink from me,” Sean said. “Maybe the woodsman’s blood...”
“No. I am not yet turned. It will not work.”
“We should try.”
“No!” Campbell said, shouting now. “We agreed. Stake me now, and find Mary. The ceremony didn’t happen, so the child is still safe. Remember these names...Linlithgow, Falkland, Stirling...they’ll take her to one of them.” Sean had tears in his eyes as the Scotsman handed him a short wooden pole with a ragged end.
“Do it now, laddie,” the man said. “For I can feel the blackness coming, and I don’t want to come back.”
Sean took the pole and placed it over the man’s heart.
Campbell nodded, and Sean pounded the stake in using the hilt of the longsword as a hammer.
Campbell didn’t struggle, didn’t even move.
Sean leaned forward and closed t
he Scotsman’s eyes.
He rolled the man in the wolf’s cloak, and quickly said the words. The Scotsman’s dagger was on the floor beside the body, and Sean took it, sliding it down inside his boot.
There were heavy tears in his eyes as he strode over to the still screaming, still burning, head of Baphomet…and cleaved it in two with the black sword.
He left the sword on the floor—he needed a weapon, but refused to use that one. He ran out of the chapel and didn’t look back, even when the roof finally gave in to the fire and collapsed in an explosion of sparks and embers.
Out in the darkness beyond Derby, there was another high wail which echoed in the night for long seconds.
“Fight me!” Martin shouted, but the Others were drifting away from him into the darkness. The black army faded into the night.
The cannon fell silent, then the church bells.
Martin knelt in the remains of Others, cradling the dead dog in his arms until Fitzsimmons and Barclay came to carry him back inside the gate. He almost fell when he caught sight of Menzies’ body, but Fitzsimmons held him up.
“Courage, man,” Barclay whispered in his ear, and Martin straightened his back, not wanting his men to see him reduced to a state of funk.
But his men wouldn’t look him in the eye.
There was one word on their lips.
Berserker!
Sean ran down the long street. Pale mind-slaves wandered in the road, and fled from him when he smiled.
Behind him, Edinburgh Castle burned.
End
CULLODEN!
Book Three of the Watchers Trilogy
By William Meikle
Chapter 1
NOVEMBER 10, 1745 DERBY
“Sit still, lad,” Fitz said. “It is many years since I had to do stitch-work, and I would not want to leave you with a bad scar.”
They were in Martin’s billet, and the innkeeper was working on the younger man’s head wound. Martin knew it was a bad wound, and guessed that the work was bloody and nauseating, but Fitz kept up a steady stream of chat, as if he was merely fixing a darn in a shirt. Martin only took in snatches of it.
“The Duke has sent out search parties, but rumor has it that the Boy-King and his army have fled north...five hundred lost at the south-wall...Megan has been sedated, but she’ll be all right...Barclay has control of the west wall and has ordered the gate repaired...they say yon Other you sent to the true death was over a thousand years old, from the land of the Magyar, and that he’d killed over two thousand men-and-only-men single-handed...and it’s said Rollo was seen fleeing the field...I will not miss him the next time.”
Martin sat and stared at his hands. He turned them over, again and again, as if not believing they belonged to him. Am I yet man and only man? he wondered, for maybe the tenth time that morning.
He stopped Fitz in mid-stitch.
“Tell me again,” he said. “When I staked the old man...what did you see?”
Fitz finished the stitch he was working on and moved so that he was eye to eye with Martin.
“Leave it be, lad...it does no good to go over it again...it won’t bring anything, or anyone, back.”
“Tell me!” Martin ordered.
The innkeeper sighed deeply.
“As I’ve already said...you raised your arms, as if to show me something. You were raving, telling me to keep away from you, that you would only tear me limb from limb. But I could not see what you wanted me to see. I saw only your bare arms. Then you jumped up and....”
“Aye,” Martin said in disgust. “I remember the rest.”
“You say you were...what’s the word...transformed?”
“Aye,” Martin said, “into a wolf...and I suspect it to be the self-same beast that I killed on the other side of the wall. ’Tis the woodsman’s doing, some magic that I cannot fathom.”
“But how can that be?” Fitz said. “I saw nothing but your own flesh.”
“I have a suspicion,” Martin replied.
He started unrolling the bandage on his left arm.
“Maybe you should leave that alone,” Fitz said.
“What...so that Menzies can tend to me later?” Martin replied, and sobbed. “Besides, I have to see it...I need to know.”
Fitz gasped as the bandage fell away.
“Not a pretty sight...is it?” Martin said.
His arm was a mass of scar tissue, rough ridges running through new pink skin. But there were no thick hairs, and Martin let out a sigh of relief.
“A sore wound, indeed,” Fitz said.
“You should have seen it last week,” Martin said. “Menzies thought I would certainly lose the arm.”
“Surely not?” the innkeeper said. “The wounds are indeed bad...but not that bad.” Fitz held up his stump. “Remember, lad, I have some experience in these matters myself.”
Martin nodded.
“Maybe not now...but they were grim. Very grim. I was delirious for a long time. But it seems the magic is potent. I have healed much more than old Menzies ever anticipated.”
“Then let us hope the magic is still working,” Fitz said, returning to his examination of Martin’s head wound. “Your skull is intact but your scalp is badly torn, and you’ve lost the top part of your ear.”
“Mayhap I’ll grow a new one,” Martin said, and laughed grimly again. He fell silent once more as Fitz went back to his stitching.
His mind was full of images from the night before...Gord at the gate...the dark army marching slowly towards them...the huge bear-like Other biting into Menzies’ neck.
Tears rolled down his cheeks, but his eyes were cold as flints.
“It is done,” Fitz said a while later, “But it is not pretty. I fear you will have a scar...and I’ve had to take off a lot of your hair to get at the wound.”
“I do not have to look at it,” Martin said, “But the men do...Tell me. Will they still follow me after last night?”
Fitz looked embarrassed.
“Some will...but too many will not,” he said. “They say that no man-and-only-man could have survived for so long in that throng of Others.”
“A Berserker is not to be trusted...is that it?” Martin said.
“They say you are more than that...they think you are in league with Auld Nick himself. But you’re no Berserker, lad,” Fitz said. “You were simply over-wrought after the old man’s death and...”
“No,” Martin said. “We both know it is more. I don’t yet know quite what it is...but it is still growing, still taking form, of that I’m sure. The woodsmen called it a gift, but I am not so sure.”
“I am,” Fitz replied. “It is no bad thing...from what Menzies told us, the woodsmen have no bad in them.”
Martin shook his head.
“I am not so certain. It may not seem bad to them, but it is so different to our Christian way of doing things that it might not be compatible. Whichever way it goes, if the men will not follow me, I cannot command. I must go to the Duke.”
He stood, and a wave of dizziness and nausea ran through him. His knees threatened to buckle, and it was only force of will that kept him upright.
“It can wait. You need to rest, lad,” Fitz said, and made to push Martin back into the seat. Martin pushed him away.
“No. It must be done now...if it is to be done at all it is best done sooner,” he said. He managed to steady himself and stepped out of the tent.
The men in the courtyard went quiet, and all eyes looked at him. Several of them poked their fingers at him...the sign against the evil eye. When Martin walked through the yard the men parted in front of him, as if they didn’t want to get too close.
The Duke was already in conference with his other officers in the billet under the north wall.
“Ah, the young hero,” the Duke said as Martin was shown into the tent. “I was told you were mortally wounded.”
Martin moved his hair aside and showed the man his new scar.
“It was a close thing,”
he said, “But I am still here.”
“And glad I am of it,” the Duke said. “For I have a task for you, if you will take it. Come...let us hold counsel together.”
Over the next half-hour Martin heard just how close the city had come to falling. Nearly a thousand of the Duke’s army had been killed, and two hundred more were missing. The south wall had been breached, and only the sudden retreat of the dark army had saved the city from being infested and overrun.
“And why did they fall back?” Martin asked. “For surely they had us beat.”
The Duke stared directly at Martin.
“They say in the ranks that you were the cause of that,” he said, “There is talk of a twelve-foot Other with demon’s eyes which killed a hundred before you slew it.”
Martin started to protest, but the Duke stopped him.
“I know...it was fat and bloated and slow, and your training was too good for it. I have heard your excuses before...do not be so quick to decry your achievements.”
Two of the other officers were mumbling in the corner, but the Duke paid them no attention.
“Whatever you did, it was your act in holding the West Gate that stopped the certain destruction of the town. But many Others managed to enter, especially by the South Gate. We have teams out staking the dead,” the Duke said. “But we cannot be sure we have got them all. We have to abandon the city.”
The other officers complained loudly until Martin spoke up.
“The Duke has it right,” he said. “If any Others remain in the city, they will cause havoc after nightfall. We cannot take the chance.”
“And what would you know...Berserker?” one of the officers said, then stepped back quickly as Martin advanced on him, eyes blazing.
“I killed more than I can count last night,” he said. “I have no compunction about adding another to the list.”
“That’s enough,” the Duke said. “I will not have us fighting amongst ourselves.”
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