The Hoard of Mhorrer

by M. F. W. Curran

  William grimaced. ‘So this is revenge? For what? Why kill me now? You could have let the militia do it at Bastet.’

  ‘I could have,’ Thomas replied. There was hesitation there.

  ‘You don’t want to kill me, do you?’

  ‘If I had the choice, I wouldn’t,’ Thomas replied, and then smiled viciously. ‘But then I don’t have that choice. You have orders, as do I. Mine were to ensure that you destroyed the Rassis and took the Hoard. Then I had to kill you and the lieutenant. With you both dead, your men will proceed with the mission as ordered and attempt to return the prize to Rome. Leaderless, the remains of your poor, poor company will be no match for Baron Horia. An army of one hundred kafalas have landed in Dumyat, Captain Saxon. They will move south to intercept any camel train carrying the Hoard of Mhorrer to Rashid. Against them, your leaderless company will be no match. Horia will spare no one.’

  William coughed, his throat sore and clogged. ‘And what do you get for this service, Thomas?’ he croaked. ‘Immortality?’

  ‘Of course,’ Thomas smiled.

  ‘And Hammid? Will he be given the same?’

  Thomas smiled over to the Arab who waited in the shadows. ‘Alas, he will die of the black poison in his belly. He is being eaten from the inside, yet this cancer is nothing compared with his own cowardice. He was easy to turn back to my side, Captain. Quite easy’

  William dragged Peruzo into the temple, over to one of the pillars, and drew his sword. ‘I won’t be so easy Thomas,’ he said. ‘You know I’ll fight to the death.’

  ‘Yes,’ Thomas recognized, ‘I know you will. I won’t enjoy this, Captain Saxon. I quite liked you. But all friendships must end,’ he said as he came towards him.

  VI

  Jericho found it hard to convince the Bedouins they were in danger. He gestured as clearly as he could to the Arabs who were plundering the Rassis quarters, that the temple was about to explode, but made little impression on them. Even Marco could do nothing but shout until he was reduced to murmurs and hopeless shrugs.

  ‘I know,’ Jericho conceded. ‘They won’t listen to me. What is Arabic for a big bang?’

  Several Suwarka were stealing glances at the two Europeans, one even laughing and pointing to Jericho’s poor state. His shirt was in ribbons, and the rags he had tied about his ears were still hanging by his shoulders.

  As Marco tried again to motion them to go, like trying to shoo a flock of geese about a farm, there was a commotion around the first flight of stairs and several Ayaida appeared, more urgent than the pillaging Suwarka. They had swords drawn and they were coming in Jericho’s direction. Jericho, who was unarmed, froze. For one terrible moment it crossed his mind that the alliance with the Bedouins had been terminated and they had come to claim the Hoard for themselves. But as they approached they lowered their weapons and the foremost warrior handed Jericho a note. He looked over it and shook his head. It was in a language he did not understand, save for the name at the top, ‘William Saxon’, and the signature at the bottom, ‘Sheikh Fahd’.

  ‘What is this?’ he said aloud and handed it to Marco.

  ‘It’s my uncle’s language. English,’ he replied.

  ‘You can read this?’

  Marco shook his head.

  Jericho looked frustrated. ‘Why can’t everyone speak Latin?’ he said and cursed. ‘What shall I do? I cannot urge these men off the mountain, and I cannot read what the sheikh wants!’

  He looked at the warriors before him, still with their swords drawn. ‘I fear something has happened for these men to come to me like this. We must warn the captain.’

  ‘He told us to stay here,’ Marco said. ‘What about the explosion?’

  We must delay it,’ Jericho said gravely. ‘If this sheikh has written so urgently to the Captain, it must be important.’

  VII

  ‘I hoped this would not happen,’ Thomas said as he swung the sword about and struck at William.

  William raised Engrin’s weapon and the blade rebounded off its edge, the momentum tipping him back until he was against the black walls of the temple. ‘I can see the murder in your eyes,’ William replied hoarsely. ‘You’ve always wanted me dead.’

  ‘Not true,’ Thomas replied, stepping back breathlessly. They had been duelling for the past fifteen minutes, yet neither man was in much shape to fight. ‘I had hoped one of the vampyres would have killed you. Or perhaps the Rassis. I didn’t wish to be your executioner.’

  ‘You are lost!’ William shouted back at him. ‘You will trade every ounce of humanity for something that is nothing. Neither daemon nor human! That is what it is to be vampyre, Thomas. A bastard offspring of neither. Cursed. Repugnant. Reviled. And hated by both sides. Didn’t your master tell you?’

  ‘Tell me what?’ Thomas asked, sounding indifferent.

  ‘That Hell has turned its back on Count Ordrane of Draak,’ William said. ‘Ordrane does not fight for the Devil. He fights only for himself. That is why the Rassis destroyed the vampyres, because they are more of an abomination than the daemons are. Is that what you crave, Thomas? To be something despised by both good and evil?’

  Thomas laughed and raised his sword. ‘I only want immortality, William. Nothing more,’ he said and slashed forward towards William’s left. William pulled up his hand quickly and swung his sword about to clatter along the back of Thomas’s weapon. He then shoved him into the wall of rock and punched him in the kidneys with his left hand. He forgot his own wound and screamed out just as Thomas groaned. Blood spurted from the stumps of his fingers and William hopped back in agony, barely able to grip Engrin’s sword. Thomas in turn staggered around, reaching in vain for his back with his damaged arm. Furiously, he lunged at William and shoulder-barged him, but the contact was light and William was only pushed across the temple towards the steps. He almost fell, and recovered, raising his sword in his right hand, trying to ignore the terrible pain in his left as he dripped blood over the temple floor.

  Thomas leant against a pillar and breathed heavily. ‘We’re in such a state, you and I,’ he said, and looked to William’s hand. ‘Though I fear you’re in poorer shape than I am.’

  ‘You deceive yourself, Thomas,’ William growled back. ‘I am the better swordsman.’

  ‘We shall see,’ Thomas murmured and smiled. Charging again, he brought the sword about, feinted to the left and then dashed right, swinging the blade towards William’s collarbone. William reacted fast, but couldn’t stop the tip of the sword from opening up his cheek, which split and bled profusely down his chin and neck.

  ‘First blood to me, I think,’ Thomas announced as William staggered back to where Peruzo lay. The lieutenant had not moved since Thomas had wounded him. If ever he needed Peruzo’s intervention it was now, but his trusted officer was either out cold or . . .

  ‘He is dead, William,’ Thomas called over. ‘It was a mortal wound I gave Peruzo. Another death for your cause. Doesn’t it feel like a hopeless one?’

  William roared out defiantly and marched forward, furious that Thomas should ruin everything they had made sacrifices for. ‘You. Will. Not. Succeed!’ William shouted and rained down blow after blow on Thomas’s sword. The attacks were unrelenting and drove Richmond to his knees. Brushing aside Thomas’s weapon, William hacked through the makeshift sling and the blade cut through his forearm.

  ‘Damn you, Saxon!’ he cried out in agony.

  ‘Not I, Thomas. Not I,’ William hissed. ‘You damn yourself.’

  Thomas looked up through red eyes, hatred blazing from them. ‘You will not deny me my victory!’ he declared and then kicked William. His boot connected with William’s knee and he too uttered a groan of pain, falling to his side. Thomas dived after him, bleeding from the arm, but still clutching his sword. They grappled at the top of the steps, and traded punches with the hilts of their weapons. Thomas punched William on the cheek, splitting it further, and William swung his sword about in desperation, but the blow was too wild and he los
t his grip on Engrin’s sword once again. It flew across the temple and clattered against the wall near the entrance.

  Elated, Thomas shifted his grip on his sword and leapt on William, pinning him to the floor, trying to use the weapon as a long dagger. William grabbed Thomas’s arm as he strove with all his weight to drive the sword through William’s chest. William felt his hold weakening, and he thrust his knee up between Thomas’s legs, knocking the wind out of him. He seized Thomas’s throat and they tumbled down the steps to the platform, each roll as painful as the last.

  Thomas’s sword fell from his hands and slid past them, clattering across the stone until it came to rest close by the bridge to the Hoard.

  William struggled free and punched Thomas again. The traitor went down hard, but kicked out again and this time struck William’s shin. A shooting pain burned through his knee, and he fell back hard, raking his spine on one of the steps. The pain grew nauseous.

  Thomas crawled away and sat at the other side of the steps, nursing his bleeding arm. He looked over at William with contempt.

  William could only feel sorrow and loss. ‘Why, Thomas?’ he murmured. ‘Why did it come to this?’

  ‘Because the Hoard is mine,’ Thomas replied as he pulled himself from the steps. ‘You cannot prevent that.’

  ‘I can, and I will,’ William replied doggedly and managed to stand, nursing the mangled mess of his left hand, and retching with nausea. His head swam and his eyes blurred as the light of the Scarimadaen fractured the shadows. The Scarimadaen, he thought suddenly, feeling blood dripping from his chin. The Hoard was a matter of feet from both men, who were shedding blood freely. It was only a miracle that not one drop had reached the side of a pyramid, releasing the daemon within.

  He crawled away from the platform and up the steps, hoping that Thomas would do the same. Does he know the danger? William asked himself. If he did, he chose not to fear it. Instead Thomas looked ready to fight on, grinning stupidly through the dirt and blood that smeared his face.

  William raised his right fist and stood threateningly. He needed a weapon, but his lay up the steps and out of reach.

  As for Thomas’s sword . . . William looked about and found it lying precariously at the edge of the chasm. He glanced over atThomas, and he too had seen it, resting between them. William might have rushed for the sword as soon as he saw it, but the pain in his hand was too great and the threat of the Scarimadaen far too real. He stared at Thomas, waiting for him to make the first move as the chorus of the Hoard grew louder:it could sense a victor. It could sense blood.

  ‘So . . .’ Thomas slurred, ‘. . . It comes down to this.’

  ‘Take it,’ William goaded him. ‘Go for the sword, Thomas. I won’t stop you.’

  Thomas looked at William long and hard. ‘Why so eager to face your death, William?’

  ‘I’ve faced death more times than you’ll ever know,’ William replied, ready to charge at Thomas the moment he went for the weapon. Just a quick shoulder-barge while the bastard bent down to retrieve his sword; a quick push into the chasm to the right and it would all be over.

  As both men faced each other, neither ready to expose himself with the first move, they didn’t notice another man enter until he calmly walked between them, bent down and picked up Thomas’s sword.

  ‘Hammid?’ William gasped.

  ‘Hammid!’ Thomas repeated joyfully.

  ‘Give me the sword, Hammid,’ William called to him.

  ‘Why would he?’ Thomas chuckled. ‘I have promised him much. More than you ever could. You can’t compete with me, William.’

  Hammid looked over to the captain of the Order. ‘Hammid . . . Don’t do it . . . He’s lied to you. He’s lied to all of us . . .’ William pleaded, shaking his head.

  Weighing Thomas’s sword in his hand, Hammid stared at William and began to back away.

  ‘Hammid please!’ William said hopelessly as the Arab stepped closer to Thomas.

  ‘He can’t understand you, William,’ Thomas mocked as he opened his arms to Hammid. ‘Admit it, you have lost! There are some causes that are worth fighting for. Was yours worth dying for, Captain William Saxon?’

  William sagged as Hammid took the sword to Thomas, who laughed triumphantly as he reached out to take the weapon. Hammid offered it up . . . Then turned it about and drove it through Thomas’s chest. He choked as the cold steel pierced through rib and lung and emerged on the other side.

  ‘Ha . . . mmid . . .’

  ‘LIAR!’ Hammid yelled in Arabic as he held on to the hilt of the sword, driving it deeper.

  Blood frothed over Thomas Richmond’s lips, seeping down each corner, and he tottered for a moment, staring blankly into the Arab’s eyes. Then he grabbed Hammid by the throat, and with laboured and struggling movements he shoved him backward. Hammid lost his footing and the Arab’s look of victory turned into horror as he stumbled and clawed the air, falling over the side of the chasm. William could do nothing but watch Hammid tumble away, his cries echoing up from the dark abyss below.

  As Hammid’s screams faded into oblivion, Thomas stood swaying on his feet, ready to follow Hammid into the darkness. More blood poured over his lips, and he staggered down the last steps, but at the final one he managed to stumble away and began to lurch over the bridge to the Hoard of Mhorrer. In turn the Scarimadaen’s voices grew terrible and discordant. A babble of shrieks and pleading burst from every one of the two hundred and fifty pyramids. Light flickered over their surfaces in their longing for a host.

  ‘No, Thomas!’ William implored, realizing his intentions.

  Peruzo opened his eyes a fraction. He vaguely heard the tumult of struggle about him, vaguely heard the goading and the torment. He even heard the death cries of one, but could not tell who it had been.

  And now there were more sounds, of voices calling him, not from the Scarimadaen, but from outside. Raised voices calling his and William’s names. He parted his bloodied lips, but the weak breath from his punctured lung could barely make a sound. He groaned, moved his head and looked to the entrance, just as William shouted out below.

  ‘There’s another way, Thomas!’ William shouted out to him.

  Thomas Richmond looked over his shoulder, and shook his head. He stood mere feet from the Scarimadaen, which now seemed to shriek in approval, a wave of excited voices that rocked the temple with anticipation as Thomas took hold of the sword jammed into his chest. He knew there was no victory for him, but nor would he let William win the day. With a look of triumphant defiance, Thomas drew out the sword. His blood sprayed over the Scarimadaen before him.

  William turned away and flung himself doggedly up the steps, driven by the dreadful shriek behind and the fear of what was to come. William had seen enough possessions before to know that a Scarimadaen would reach for its victim and incinerate his soul as it invaded him, but with the multitude of pyramids before Thomas, William could only guess at the effect of so many released Scarimadaen.

  He got to the top step and lurched over to Peruzo. As he reached his side, The entrance to the temple was suddenly alive with Bedouins, led by Jericho and Marco.

  ‘Uncle!’ Marco shouted out and ran into William’s arms.

  Jericho looked over to the screams and bursts of lightning that came from the centre of the temple, and the colour drained from his face. He saw a nest of viperous filaments of azure light writhing above the form of Thomas Richmond. Where his blood had sprayed upon the Hoard, the light of the Scarimadaen drank deep on those warm beads, and hungrily dozens of tendrils sought out more of it. Thomas appeared to fall sideways, his body almost drained of life, but the strands of light coiled themselves about the torso and held him on the bridge, searing through his flesh. Thomas’s clothes caught fire and he ignited as the nest of light writhed again, one strand more vibrant than the rest licking the air and stretching from the gathering tentacles of incandescence. It swung about, dipped and thrust itself down Thomas’s throat to the joyous chorus of the Sca
rimadaen.

  Jericho turned away in disgust, while William was comfortable only to hear Thomas’s screams cut short as his soul was burnt to ash. He had no love for Thomas Richmond now, but once there had been a friendship there – an affinity that William could not discard as easily as Thomas had. It was this that forced William to turn away from the terrible torture and the rending of flesh and bone that suddenly occurred. It stopped him from looking on as Thomas’s body was rent apart, stretched and cauterized out of all recognition, bloated and deformed into a horror twice as tall, and infinitely more terrifying.

  Peruzo reached up through the din and whispered to William: ‘The fuse . . .’

  William got to his feet and took Marco’s sword from him. He staggered down the steps and hacked the fuse through, tossing one end over the side and down into the abyss before the flames from the burning body could light it prematurely. As he did so, he looked up and the remaining colour drained from his face as he saw the abomination that had been Thomas Richmond.

  It was erect and gigantic, a beast nearly twelve feet in height. The warping of the host’s body had ripped open vein and sinew, knitting them back in a weave of blackened and smouldering flesh and muscle, so that the legs were like poles of matted cartilage, twice as long as before; the arms were thin and fine, fused into a knotwork of bone and tissue. The head had suffered disfigurement as great and appalling as the rest of the body. The skull was split open, stretched on a distended collar so that it hung behind the column of twisted neck, the weight of its swollen face and jaw keeping it from lolling backwards completely. The chops were loose, flapping wildly amid huge rolls of smoke and sparks of blue light. Fire flashed across what once had been teeth, licking up the side of the mouth over the smoking remains of Thomas’s beard. The light continued to flare down through the torn nasal cavities, while above the nose, teardrops of flame leaked from the haemorrhaged eye-sockets, each the size of a fist. The fire burned itself out before it hit the ground and turned into balls of smoke that scattered before it.