Vampire Crusader (The Immortal Knight Chronicles Book 1)

by Dan Davis

  All together there were eight of William’s men. Ralph the Reaper standing over my servants, the six armed and armoured men tormenting my men and William himself standing tall and terrible at the far end beyond his men.

  My two men leaned upon each other breathing heavily. Neither could provide me with help in a fight. The servants would be worse than useless. Those that were not tied up in the hall were probably already dead.

  I regretted not riding hard for Jaffa with Alice. Perhaps there was yet time, I thought, and edged backward toward the corridor.

  “You cannot run,” William said, as if he was disappointed in me. He stalked forward with his sword still sheathed at his hip. “My men have your horses. They are praying for you to make an attempt for them.”

  I wanted to scream in frustration. “There is no need for you to do this,” I said.

  William stopped, his face a mask of pretended shock. “No need? Need? What need have you to ask after me through all the towns and cities of Outremer? Well, seek me no longer for here I am.” He flung his arms wide. “So, you want to kill me, Richard?”

  “I seek you no longer,” I said and he scoffed. Some of his men chuckled. “You murdered my brother and his family. And so many others. I swore to bring you to justice. But I gave up my search. I would never have bothered you again.”

  “Truly?” William asked, as if he was surprised. “But why would you give up you duty to your dear brother?” He spat out the last word as if the taste of it were repulsive.

  I did not want to speak to William of my happiness. “I gave up,” I said.

  “Ah,” William said, nodding to his men as if everything made sense now. “So you are suggesting that I allow you to live because you are incompetent? Or because you are lazy?” His men laughed. Ralph the Reaper cackled like a madman.

  “Leave us in peace,” I hefted the war sword in my right hand and Walter’s dagger in my left. “Save yourself the trouble.”

  “But trouble is what we are here for, brother,” William said and laughed. Again, his men laughed with him. He sighed. “I hoped for a long time that you and I could become friends.”

  William nodded at his six men. They hacked my men down with brutal efficiency. Neither men had time to utter a sound before they were dead. William’s new soldiers spread out away from the bodies. They encircled me to cut me off from the corridor behind.

  I recalled Henry’s body, beheaded, dismembered. His torso laying upon a jumble of shit-stinking guts trailing from a great black wound slashed from hip to hip.

  The men were grim. Their eyes had the dead gaze of those that who have seen too much of war.

  Doing the unexpected in a fight can often keep you alive. Nevertheless, when I darted forward, stark naked, into the centre of those six battle-hardened, armoured men I knew I was charging to my death.

  Speed was the single advantage I had. Or so I thought.

  William bellowed a warning but by then I was already upon the two men in the centre of the curving line of six. The one on the right held a spear that I could get inside the reach of. He had time enough to raise it and step back once before I was beyond the head of it and I stabbed the point of my sword through the bridge of his nose. He fell back, screaming and dying, his spear flung away clattering on the floor and my blade was already out and moving, my feet carrying me away from the attack I sensed coming.

  The man next to the spearman swung his mace back handed, round in an arc and upwards to smash the side of my jaw but I leaned down so it whooshed over my ear and I stabbed my long blade through his unarmoured knee. Crunching through the joint, my blade scraped on the edges of the bones. I moved forward to finish him but the others were closing so I danced back out of the way.

  From nowhere, Ralph the Reaper was there at my elbow and he slashed overarm with a wicked curved dagger. By God, he was fast. Too fast for me to even flinch and it sliced deep into my skin along my bare upper arm before I could pull away. I snarled and lunged at him. For I was fast, too, and in his panic to retreat he tripped over the bound servants underfoot. Ralph fell amongst them and I kicked the knife over in desperate hope any servant could free themselves and skipped away across the room from the other knights moving up behind me.

  Too late I realised how they had herded me away from the hall entrance. I watched aghast as William slipped into the corridor that lead to my bed chamber.

  He was going for Alice.

  I moved to chase him but those men moved like cats pouncing and they cut me off, weapons up.

  “Alice!” I bellowed. “Alice, run!”

  The one chance I had was to cut through them but when I charged forward they backed away leaving two men covering the corridor doorway, where William had gone. There was no way through. When I advanced on them I exposed my back to the others and spun to deflect the blows aimed at my back. Every man there was faster than they had a right to be. I barely got back into the hall without being gutted.

  Ralph the Reaper regained his feet and joined them so there were five around me plus the man wounded in the knee who stayed down, groaning and bleeding near the servants who were crawling back out of the way leaving trails of blood from their slashed feet.

  I had to save Alice.

  I barrelled toward the one with an axe and as he scurried back he stumbled on the severed arm of one of my men and fell. I was on him and slashed down on his helmet so hard it bent the steel and I stomped my heel down on his face hard, hoping he would choke on his teeth. The bones of his face cut my foot open but I hardly felt it as I ducked away from the others and swung my blade at one who came too close. I was surprised to feel the edge of my blade crush that man’s throat and he went down without uttering a noise and suffocated, his heels drumming upon the floor.

  Three, now. Three men who waited calmly for me to come to them. Two stood between me and Alice and they knew all they had to do was keep me in the hall rather than fight me. Ralph the Reaper stood to one side, grinning.

  Alice screamed. It was a cry of anguish and anger and it was the worst sound I ever heard.

  I charged forward for the doorway. The two in front closed in on me and I checked my dash, meaning to duck to one side and force one man into the other to get around them.

  But the blood welling from my wounded heel caused my foot to slip and my leading leg slid forward. A deep down reflex caused me to throw my arms out wide to keep my balance and I watched in surprise as one of the men ran me through with his sword.

  It was like being punched in the stomach but I watched the point of the sword snick through the skin of my stomach and I could not stop myself from moving forward and down and it kept on pushing through until the cross guard slammed into my body.

  Even back then when I was young I had seen a great number of men killed; one of shock and disbelief. As though every man was thinking the same thought. This cannot be happening to me. The fact that I was naked and could see precisely how the blade pushed the skin deep into the wound made the fact of my death inescapable. Yet I have no doubt I was wearing that same expression when the man who had run his sword through my belly butted his helm into my face and the blow crushed my nose and knocked me out.

  A wound of such severity as impalement by a thirty-inch sword is a significant shock for the body. But was nothing to what I felt when I was slapped awake.

  Two of William’s men held me upright, while Ralph the Reaper stood to one side held a dagger to my throat. My blood was flowing from my wound to soak my stomach, loins and legs in shining dark blood.

  Before me, both facing me; William stood behind Alice, towering over her. He held her upright with mailed fists digging tight into the bare flesh of her upper arms.

  The children lay sobbing on the floor next to her, both had been struck and Jocelyn had been beaten bloody. Both were scarcely conscious. The boy, especially seemed badly hurt.

  Alice’s eyes were filled with tears and hatred. Hatred for William and the men in her hall. And, I am sure, hatred for
me for bringing them down upon her and her children.

  “You cannot die yet, Richard,” William cried as I blinked away tears. “You must witness me feast upon your wife. For the Lord God has commanded me to eat the flesh of a thousand women. And He has commanded me to eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters. And when the time is come, all men shall eat the flesh of their neighbours and devote to destruction all that they have. Do not spare them, He has commanded, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey. You mortals shall present your bodies to me as living sacrifice. The old has passed away. Behold, the new has come. I am the resurrection and the life. Whomsoever feeds me with their flesh, though he die, yet shall he live in me, and everyone who lives and feeds me shall never die but help me grow stronger with every feast of living flesh from this day until the coming end of days.”

  He bared his teeth like a rabid dog and threw down his jaws upon Alice’s neck. She screamed and writhed but William’s fingers dug into her and blood welled from her throat and flowed down her shift. Emma screamed and buried her face against her brother’s chest.

  The men holding me had the kind of strength that only seasoned warriors can ever obtain. An iron steadiness that comes after years of holding up a shield and swinging a sword every day while wearing heavy armour. I had lost pints of blood and more pumped steadily from my guts. My face was mangled so much I struggled to draw breath.

  But rage filled my arms with strength.

  I roared and grabbed the men who held me and heaved backwards and down, leaning back from Ralph’s dagger and rowing backward with my arms to drag them down off their feet with me. Their animal instinct took over and they released my arms to brace their fall. The pain of hitting the floor took my breath away but they were caught off guard and were wearing armour so fell heavier than I did.

  The man on my right twisted away and fell out of reach but the one of the left was laying half under me. I reached across his body and drew the sword from his scabbard. In the same motion I swung it back hand over and down into the other man’s face so the edge cracked through his skull across the eye sockets, crushing his eyes and face into pulp. I dropped the sword, rolled over and pulled that man’s dagger from his waist and rolled back to thrust it into the other man’s temple. It ground against bone and my hands were too weak and slippery with blood to free the blade.

  As I struggled, Ralph the Reaper leapt on top of me, straddling my hips, laughing like a maniac. He stabbed me once, twice and a third time in the chest before I could grab the back of his head with one hand and punch my thumb into his eyeball, bursting it.

  He screamed and dropped his dagger to hold his destroyed eye socket. I grabbed his dagger and hacked into the veins of his neck, drenching me with hot blood as he flopped onto me in panic, not realising that he was already dead. The blood gushing from his neck spewed into my face and into my mouth and I could not avoid swallowing many mouthfuls of his blood before I pushed his body off me. I felt the hot liquid sliding down my throat and the warmth of it churned in my stomach. I wiped it from my eyes.

  It was not until later that I discovered that ingesting human blood heals my body. Perhaps it was Ralph’s blood that gave me the strength to stand after being stabbed repeatedly in the lungs. But all I knew was that instead of dying I was able to climb to my feet.

  Alice still held upright by William but was drenched with her own blood and her head was flopped forward. Her hair hung wet with blood in ribbons over her face. She seemed dead.

  William looked up, his face dripping with my wife’s blood. His eyes were wide and he dropped Alice to the ground. She fell heavily and her head cracked into the floor by her children. She lay still.

  William backed away from her, drawing his sword.

  “How is it that you yet stand?” William’s voice sounded far away. He gestured at my chest, my guts. “You should be dead.”

  I took a step toward him. “Not until…” I started to say until blood welled up from my lungs and choked me. I could not take a breath. My head swam and I fell to one knee but I forced myself to my feet.

  William lowered the point of his sword, his head tilted to one side as he regarded me.

  I lunged forward, waving my dagger at him.

  William scoffed and backed away to the door.

  “I think that you will die,” William said to me, hesitantly.

  My vision blurred and I dropped to one knee, leaning on it. My head dropped and I could see the state of my chest and gut, with blood weeping from my body. The chest wounds bubbled and sucked with air. It was not possible that I lived.

  Two men came into the hall from outside and William spoke to them but I was dying and my sight and hearing were failing. One of the men I am sure was Hugo the Giant. They stooped to the floor and carried things away with them.

  I hauled myself upright and opened my mouth to curse him but blood ran from my lips and I coughed and fought for breath. It was as though my chest had iron bands around it.

  William laughed and stepped backwards into the doorway that lead outside into the night. Was he afraid of me?

  I sank to one knee again. William was just a streak of colour in my blurring vision. The darkness crept inward from the outside.

  “I will not desecrate your corpse,” William’s shape said to me before he vanished. “I will leave some of your servants to bury you. I owe you that much.”

  I inched across the floor to my wife. Alice was dead. Her eyes stared up, empty of life yet filled with accusation.

  Jocelyn and Emma were gone. William had taken her children.

  I drowned in blood.

  Chapter Seven - Rebirth

  I awoke to screams and confused faces. Then I slept and woke and slept.

  Light speared through the shuttered windows across my bed and onto the blankets that covered me. Alice was not next to me and then I remembered and I despaired.

  Servants clattered and banged in the house and out in the stables. Someone was sawing wood. There was the regular thwack of a pick digging into the hard earth.

  I slid from my bed and stood. Someone had dressed me in a clean, long loose shirt. I pulled it off to inspect my wounds.

  My body was healed. There was not a scratch upon the skin of my chest or my stomach. Not even a scar.

  In fact, I felt strong, fast, and more alert than I ever had before.

  Opening the shutters, the sun bathed me in heat. It felt glorious. My skin was alive with the light and the warm wind blew upon my face.

  It was all so strange that I held on to a faint hope that it had all been a nightmare. Pulling on my shirt I walked to my hall.

  In the corridor there was the damage to the wall from my duel with Walter and a huge blood stain. When I walked into the hall itself my servants stopped washing the floor and came toward me and fell to their knees.

  It had not been a nightmare.

  For a time I kept to my bed and drank wine. Someone sent a physician from Jaffa and I had to growl and threaten to stop him from examining my body. Because he did not know what else to do he looked closely at my urine. I would not let him bleed me.

  A few days later the King himself came to visit me.

  “The physician tells me that you died,” Richard of England said, standing over my bed, his fair hair filled with golden light from the window.

  “That tells you everything you need to know about physicians.”

  That made him laugh. “God save us from the pissprophets. They will be the death of us all. Still, you were pierced through the chest many times. Your servants were actually burying you when you took a breath. Scared the life right out of the poor bastards.” He laughed again. He was nervous.

  “So I heard,” I said.

  The survivors of the attack had told me and everyone else what a miracle my survival was. The ones who had been tied up in the hall had seen me kill most of the enemy. In their eyes I had driven William and the rest away.

 
; My grave had already been dug, set apart from the graves of my servants as was proper, when I sat up.

  “God must have plans for you on earth,” King Richard said, with the confidence of a man who had been so honoured since the moment that his father’s seed had quickened in his mother’s womb.

  “Perhaps He did not want me in Heaven,” I said, morose and unappreciative that the most lauded king of Christendom had taken the time to travel to my estate and was being kind and generous to me. His guards lurked in the background and I could feel their silent displeasure radiating across the room.

  “Come with me to England,” Richard said, sitting upon the bed next to my legs. “My dear little brother is being rather troublesome and I need good men with me to put things right.” His eyes took on a faraway look. “In truth, there is trouble in many of my lands. Plenty of work for a man of your abilities. And evident gifts.”

  “Why would you want me?” I said, ungraciously.

  Richard was not a man to be trifled with and for a moment I saw his face cloud with anger. But then he smiled.

  “There is no man I would rather have by my side in battle,” Richard the Lionheart said to me. This remains one of the finest compliment I ever had.

  “And besides,” he leaned over and punched a fist into my shoulder as if making a joke. “You recover from wounds that would kill a bull. Perhaps you can teach me your secret.” He coughed to cover his embarrassment at his clumsy joke but of course he was intrigued by my recovery.

  “I have a task, my lord,” I said, embarrassed by his affection. “One I should have completed long ago.”

  He shrugged. “I have left instructions for Henry. I am certain that you heard how my nephew Henry has married the queen of Jerusalem. That means he is now the king and the most powerful Christian in the Holy Land. Once I am gone. Henry will provide you with guides and men. After all, it is in their interest to round up such a villain. You shall finally bring William de Ferrers to justice. I simply regret I shall not be able to witness his punishment.”