The Iscariot Sanction

by Mark Latham

  The curtain behind Lillian billowed, and Ewart leapt from the wings, knife in hand. Lillian had almost been taken unawares, but her response was so fast she surprised herself. She deflected Ewart’s charge, sending him flying into the nearest vampire guard, and used the distraction to leap up onto the table, and propel herself to the sword brackets behind the stage. She dropped the curved dagger, and instead grasped the hilt of a great claymore, tearing it from its iron cradle, and dropping to the ground nimbly. As one, the guards checked their advance. The King roared something unintelligible in a language Lillian had never heard.

  Lillian summoned her wickedest smile.

  The sword was old, an antique, more ornament than effective weapon. Fully five feet long and too heavy for a human to wield comfortably, nonetheless it was deadly in Lillian’s hands. She swept it in a flurry, each great stroke forcing the guards back or tearing into them, sending them flying over the table or staggering through the curtain. Lord Cherleten had once said that vampires were not a great deal stronger than men, that they were only able to ignore fatigue and pain, but Lillian was not so sure this was true. She realised with each sword-stroke that she was certainly stronger than the fledgling vampire guards; her highborn blood accounted for something. She doubted she could match the King himself, but she forced her way inexorably towards him regardless, the claymore hacking off the limbs of human and hunter alike in her merciless fury. With each incapacitated foe, the King’s shouts grew weaker, his choir diminished.

  More vampires were climbing onto the stage, clearly hoping to win their King’s favour by stopping his assailant. Lillian swept the sword about her, faster and harder, creating a dizzying arc of flashing steel. She climbed again upon the table, and moved relentlessly along it, dashing in the brains of any who strayed too close. The King stood now at the head of the table, having gathered himself, his eyes burning into Lillian with fury and disdain.

  He is ordering them to take you alive, de Montfort’s voice said in her head.

  That thought drove Lillian on.

  With a wide sweep of the blade from left to right, she forced back her assailants, and charged headlong at the Nameless King, who now roared in his black tongue. He was a giant, but such details had never held Lillian back before.

  She launched herself from the end of the table, over the heads of two vampire servants who rushed to protect their master, and swung the blade down towards the Nameless King’s head, even as he cursed her.

  Yes! De Montfort sensed triumph, and his glee echoed in Lillian’s head.

  The blade passed into the black mist that clung to the King’s form, and cleaved onwards like there was nothing to resist it. The shadows coalesced into undulating tendrils of purest darkness, split in twain by the ancient claymore, only to be sucked back into one mass of concentrated night in its wake.

  There was nothing beneath the blade. Lillian hit the ground awkwardly; the blade struck the dais so hard the wooden boards splintered and the sword embedded itself in the thick timbers beneath. The smoke dissipated and, three feet away from where he should have been, stood the Nameless King. The croaking in his throat became a foul gargle. At first Lillian thought she had struck him after all, but she realised that the noise was not a death-rattle but a laugh.

  Lillian had often been affronted by laughter from those who thought they had power over her. Many were noble lords and ladies, who felt superior due to their station. For the most part, she had turned the other cheek, and simmered at the humiliation. Others were rogues, spies and ne’er-do-wells, who thought it amusing to be confronted by a woman. Most of those she had killed, or at least wiped the smiles from their thuggish faces. She decided now that the Nameless King would fall into the latter group.

  She felt the change in the air about her as a dozen pairs of strong hands swept towards her. She had but one last opportunity. In a fluid motion, Lillian whipped Ewart’s pistol from her dress, and stepped forward two paces. She fired the gun until it was empty, and threw the revolver into the swirling shadows, screaming with rage.

  She felt de Montfort’s dismay. She sensed he was already retreating, preparing to disavow himself of this failed conspiracy.

  The Nameless King emerged once more from the inveigling supernatural shroud, his gargoyle features poking from the shadow, a taloned hand closing around her throat. Thick, pinkish blood trickled from his mouth. He spat the bullet into Lillian’s face and hoisted her from her feet.

  She tried to strike the Nameless King with a fist, but he knocked her hand aside, and held her out at arm’s length. Such was his sheer size that she could not reach him even to kick him. He lowered her roughly to the ground, maintaining his grip upon her neck, as two vampire guards rushed to flank her, securing her arms, curved swords drawn, points aimed firmly at Lillian’s temples. The Nameless King laughed again.

  Still restraining her with a long, skeletal arm, he turned and waved away the onlookers from the dais, who reluctantly went back to their places in the hall. Lillian struggled, but she knew she was defeated. More guards took to the stage, others were dragged away, limbs missing or throats slit. Lillian took some solace in the damage she had inflicted.

  ‘It appears we have an assassin in our midst,’ the King said. ‘This wench has broken the code that has held our people together for two millennia. A code that has seen the Knights Iscariot thrive where other shadow societies have fractured. We kill not our own!’

  Some in the crowd repeated this phrase solemnly.

  ‘Many of you warned that a product of the Iscariot Sanction could not be trusted, and it seems that you were right. I, your king, am not infallible after all.’

  Hush descended upon the hall.

  ‘Now, girl, if you wish to live, you will give up your secrets to me,’ the Nameless King said, and leaned in, staring hard at Lillian with his bright, sunken eyes.

  Lillian waited for instruction from de Montfort, but heard nothing. Indeed, she could not sense his presence at all; it felt as though a fug had lifted from her mind, a niggling voice in her head that was finally silent.

  The King recoiled, and straightened. ‘This creature is not of my blood!’ he announced.

  A great commotion rippled through the hall—shock, disgust and outrage.

  The Nameless King scraped a long claw down Lillian’s cheek, and dipped his fingertip in the pinkish fluid that emerged. He sucked the pale blood from his finger, and his shrunken face contorted into a snarl.

  ‘Heresy! Treason!’ he roared, and his sudden loss of composure was answered in kind by the assembled vampires. ‘She is made of the blood of the elders. Viscount Blesington, if I am not mistaken. And where is he? My most loyal cousin, one of the oldest of the Inner Circle. He would not betray his king, not in a thousand lifetimes. He has been murdered—murdered to bring this blasphemy into the world!’

  Masked ladies screeched and wailed. Twisted lords bellowed outrage. Behind the Nameless King, Lillian saw Valayar Shah gesturing theatrically, stirring up the crowd like an agitator at a riot. Prince Leopold sat nearby, in a pile of severed limbs and a great pool of blood, looking as though his world had capsized.

  ‘Lord De Montfort has created an abomination that neither of us can control.’ The King turned to Lillian. ‘I have a mind to let you kill him, for I sense that you would like to, very much. But de Montfort’s crime is no matter for such games. He has committed the ultimate atrocity against his own blood, and for that he will suffer the greatest agony before his time on this earth is spent.’ He looked again at the crowd. ‘Where is he? Bring Lord de Montfort forth, that he may pay the price for his treachery.’

  Scores of vampires began to look at one another, and a great clamour rose up. But de Montfort was gone, and his hunters with him.

  ‘Search the castle!’ the King proclaimed. ‘Leave no stone unturned. I want de Montfort alive to answer for his crimes.’

  Courtiers, guards and servants alike filed from the hall, some laughing giddily in anticipation of
the chase. Hunters scurried up the stone walls, climbing spider-like onto narrow balconies above.

  ‘I had not expected de Montfort to be so audacious,’ the King said to Lillian. ‘You were a fool to trust him. Even had you succeeded, there are enough loyal followers in my court to avenge me. His plan was foolish, and you will both die for it; very publicly, and very painfully.’

  ‘You should do it now,’ Lillian said, good sense lost to her hatred of the King and all of his kind. ‘For if I am given half a chance, I shall finish what I started.’

  ‘You dare…’ the King began, and then chuckled, though the laugh sounded more like a fit of consumption. He ran a sharp talon across Lillian’s jaw, and pulled her chin upwards to look at him. ‘I admire your spirit, girl. There may be a place in my household for you yet, though I should think the court Majestics shall have to subdue you a little first. You will learn to obey your king, if you wish to live.’

  Lillian was about to defy him once more, but a hue and cry from one of the balconies cut her short.

  ‘Enemies sighted! We are under attack!’ a voice screeched. The King wheeled about; the vampires who had remained in the hall, indecisive, now began to push their way towards the great doors, realising perhaps that this All Hallows was not to be the great celebration they had expected.

  ‘Who dares attack Scarrowfall?’ the King rasped. ‘De Montfort?’

  ‘Humans, sire!’ the voice called back. ‘They come by sea.’

  ‘So, de Montfort has shown his true colours,’ the King said, more quietly.

  Valayar Shah, who alone among the nobles had stayed beside the King, stepped forward and said, ‘Your Majesty, Lord de Montfort would not stoop so low.’

  ‘Then what are they doing here?’ asked the Nameless King.

  ‘Seeking revenge,’ Lillian said, her words dripping malice.

  The King glared at her. ‘I offered them peace,’ he said. ‘They have chosen war. These walls shall hold, and England will find itself beset from enemies within and without. And they can expect no aid from their former allies. The major powers of Europe are indebted to me now.’

  ‘Not any more,’ Lillian said. ‘When the Knights Iscariot opened the Rift, they poisoned the world. I doubt even the most opportunistic monarch will stand with you now. I may die here, I may even die as one of you. But it shall give me great satisfaction to know that I shan’t die alone.’

  ‘You—’ the King began, but at that moment the entire castle shook, and great noise like a peal of thunder crashed all around. Masonry fell from the vaulted ceiling of the great hall. One of the acrobatic entertainers fell crashing to the marble floor in a bloody heap as his chains became dislodged.

  ‘What were you saying about your walls?’ Lillian scoffed.

  The King paused for but a moment, and looked as though his patience was gone. He drew back a clawed hand, and Lillian prepared herself for the end.

  Instead, she heard a hiss, and sensed the blades positioned either side of her relax as something attracted the guards’ attention. The King flailed, and as he spun away from Lillian she saw the hilt of a dagger protruding from the crow-feather mantle at the nape of his neck.

  ‘I spoke truth, Majesty,’ Valayar Shah said, drawing a second blade. ‘De Montfort would not stoop so low, but I would. His cause is just, and he has shown us the way. But it is I, Valayar Shah, who shall end your reign.’

  The guards stepped towards Shah, sheer confusion slowing them.

  Another shell rocked the castle; naval guns were pounding the walls, if Lillian was not mistaken.

  By the time the guards had reached Shah, he had already slashed the King across the throat, causing the Nameless King to strike out in a wild flurry. For a second, Lillian thought Shah’s blade had been true, and that the King would die. Yet he gathered his strength and composure to him visibly, and the King’s great hands closed around the eastern prince’s head. Valayar Shah’s head came away from his shoulders in the King’s hands. In that very moment, the banqueting table was smashed asunder by falling masonry. Lillian was already on her feet. She extended both arms and tore the throats from the two guards. The King spun around, clutching at the dagger in his back. He was apparently dimly aware of Lillian’s advance, summoning about himself his shadow-cloak, though not quickly enough.

  Lillian had secreted one weapon from her captors, hidden it for such a time as this. She drove her knee into the back of the King as the garrotte from her silver locket bit deep into his puckered gizzard, where Shah’s blade had struck.

  She pulled as hard as she could, feeling the garrotte strike bone. The King weakened. She let the wire retract into the locket and released her grip, dashing back to the slain guards and taking up a scimitar. While his head was attached to his shoulders, she did not think he could die.

  The King’s head tipped back, revealing a gaping wound; his face contorted once again into a grotesque maw, with great fangs clacking uncontrollably, like the mandibles of some gigantic insect.

  Lillian closed both hands around the grip of the sword, and delivered a two-handed stroke to the King’s neck. Blood, now deep red from the feast Collins had provided, gushed upwards. The King’s body hit the dais; his grotesque head rolled away and came to a rest beside the terrified, huddled form of Prince Leopold.

  TWENTY-THREE

  John pulled once more on the chains, and the guard breathed his last, rolling onto the flagstones, eyes bulging.

  John slumped to the ground, exhausted. Blood ran from the claw-marks across his body. He gulped ragged breaths into his lungs and tried to steady his shaking hands. In the passageway outside his former cell, two human guards lay dead—one strangled, the other with a knife protruding from beneath his ribs. A vampire also lay motionless, skin blackened from the electric rays of the Tesla pistol, which John now took up in his trembling hands and cranked another charge into. It had been a gift indeed from Smythe, and John had had to fight hard for it, for the gun had landed within reach of his cellmate, the ravenous ghoul. He looked at his left arm and winced at the depth of the gash. He shuddered to think what infection those noisome claws carried; but that was of small concern now.

  John tore off a strip of his ragged shirt and made a tourniquet for his arm. He tried on both the guards’ shoes, and took the pair that fitted best, before donning one of their tatty, over-large coats. Lastly, he gathered his weapons, tucked a stolen revolver into his belt, and set off along the passage.

  John stole past five doors, all solid, studded with iron, with vision-slits at head-height. There was nothing but pitch darkness behind each one, though at one he heard a low sobbing. His stomach knotted as he thought of Hetty, and he almost went back to find a key to the door, when he saw a brief flash of violet eyes in the darkness. Regardless of whether the vampire was the source of the crying, or a feral guardian like the one in John’s own cell, he could not risk another fight.

  He crept onwards. The end of the corridor terminated at a junction, at which a torch blazed in a rusted sconce. No other guards had been attracted by his battle, but that did not mean more were not on their way.

  As John skulked in the shadows, his condition making him more cautious than was customary, he heard the distant report of heavy guns, muffled by the castle’s thick walls, and followed almost immediately by a deafening explosion. The ground shook and John crouched low—the incredible sound had prompted shouts, slamming doors and heavy footfalls that seemed to come from all directions. He had almost determined to dash through the tunnels when he was forced to check his advance; a vampire swept past the end of the corridor, oblivious to John’s presence, moving swiftly down the left passage.

  Another explosion, and every cell revealed its occupants, moaning, screaming, or roaring in bestial fury. Pale hands, some tipped with long, yellow claws, forced their way through the vision slits, raking the smoky air of the passage beyond. John stepped away from them. He knew there might be innocents within some of those cells, but he could not help them.
John thought of Hetty; he thought of Cottam’s wife, Maud, and of the assertion that ‘No one’s goes to Scarrowfall ever comes back.’ He hoped he would have the chance to return, though he knew in his heart it was unlikely. The bombardment had begun; the soldiers would be here soon.

  John had little time. He had to find Lillian, and the prince. He marched forward and took the torch from its bracket. Steeling himself, he took the left turn, and followed in the wake of the vampire he had seen, hoping to find a way out of the accursed dungeon.

  * * *

  Lillian swung the scimitar in a graceful arc, slicing through the neck of a screeching vampiress that flew at her from a side passage. The blade was beginning to dull, and the woman’s head was severed from its neck only by virtue of Lillian’s sheer strength. Lillian’s arms ached—there had still been several loyal supporters of the Nameless King in the hall, and they had tried to avenge their fallen monarch.

  Lillian felt a tug on her left arm, and heard a piteous cry, like a child’s. She looked down at Prince Leopold, whom she had dragged through the hall by his hair.

  ‘Stop your snivelling!’ she snapped, ‘Be thankful I didn’t take your head while I was about it.’

  The prince was a broken man. Lillian cared not. She took the hilt of the stiletto dagger that stuck out of her thigh, and pulled it out with no more than a grunt and wince. In truth it hurt little, but the blade must have torn through muscle, for her leg buckled beneath her when she put weight upon it.