by Damien Black
‘And what does that involve?’ demanded the squire in a voice still shrill with fear.
Horskram turned from the fire to stare flatly at him. ‘You must go back to sleep.’
‘No, I won’t do it! You’re asking me to give my body and soul to... to that... thing!’
Frowning and taking a deep breath Horskram patiently explained it to the squire for the umpteenth time as Adelko put another log on the fire. The awful hounds had not stopped their baying. Even so, he noticed he was beginning to feel drowsy again.
‘Only by luring the Hag with the promise of another victim can we expose her,’ Horskram said with renewed urgency. ‘In order to feed on a mortal’s life force she must be half in our world, half in hers, so as to kill him with her dream magic.’
‘But you said yourself, I’m the most vulnerable! You and Adelko have psychic powers – why don’t one of you do it?!’
‘Because, as I’ve told you several times already, both of us need to be awake to destroy it. We both need to deliver the recital in order to... oh heavens, sirrah, will you do it or not? If you don’t we are all assuredly doomed in any case – the Fays will keep us here until the firewood runs out and then...’ he gestured meaningfully towards the window. ‘I have performed this operation once before, and it was successful. I do not intend to fail at the second trying – now will you trust me or not?’
The young squire’s shoulders sagged. He was fearless in the field, but their tussle with the forces of nightmare had left him enervated and terrified.
‘I suppose I’ll have to,’ he said mournfully after a long pause. ‘But how do you expect me to sleep anyway? After everything that’s happened!’
‘Oh believe me,’ said Horskram, stifling a yawn. ‘The Hag’s magic will take care of that. In fact I can assure you that your task will be the easiest of all. Just lie down – well away from poor Branas’s remains if it pleases you better – and you won’t be long awake. Now is the time.’
With the greatest reluctance the squire picked the pallet furthest away from his erstwhile master’s mangled corpse and rolled himself up in his cloak again.
‘Lie upright!’ Horskram cautioned him. We must be able to see your face clearly throughout the operation!’
Vaskrian did as he was told. Within a few minutes he was fast asleep, his breathing deep and regular.
Watching his chest rise up and down beneath his soiled travelling cloak Adelko felt his own eyelids growing heavy...
‘Adelko!’ His master nudged him fiercely. ‘I didn’t say you could sleep as well! Don’t nod off – we’re all dead if you do!’
For all his alacrity the old monk looked exhausted; his eyes were hooded with fatigue and blinked spasmodically.
‘We don’t have much time – soon the Hag’s magic will begin to take hold of us again, and we won’t be able to stay awake however much we want to! We must hope the Hag is tempted to strike soon – for only when she does will she be vulnerable to our invocation. Get your scripture book ready – you know the chapters you are to read?’
‘Yes... yes,’ replied Adelko, doing his best to shrug off his drowse. Even as he produced the Holy Book of Psalms and Scriptures and turned to the relevant page, he found himself glancing sidelong at the pallet next to Vaskrian. How much easier it would be to give in, relent, and slip into numb, comforting sleep...
Reaching into his habit Horskram produced his circifix and phial of holy water. Placing the latter down on the rushes next to his foot he stepped lightly over the sleeping squire, gently touching his forehead and chest while intoning the Psalm of Protection.
‘Won’t that scare her away?’ Adelko had to ask. Besides, asking questions kept him awake.
‘Would that it was so powerful against the likes of a hag,’ replied his master. ‘It will bolster his strength but momentarily I fear, and purchase him vital moments. We cannot attack it until it starts attacking him through his nightmare – I want him to emerge from this ordeal as unscathed as possible.’
Adelko gaped. ‘But, you said he’d be perfectly safe! You mean before we can destroy it we have to let it hurt him?’
‘Do you think he would have consented to succumb willingly to its powers if I had not withheld the complete truth from him?’ asked Horskram drily. ‘Another half hour of that ridiculous debate and we would all have been fast asleep again, doomed to share Sir Branas’s fate.’ The old monk stifled another yawn. ‘Now, be silent and stay alert. We must pray that it comes quickly, before we do fall asleep again!’
Time slid by immeasurably. The hounds outside continued their baying, only now Adelko was grateful for it – at least the hideous howling gave him something to focus on, to keep deadly sleep at bay. Horskram’s face remained a mask of intent, his gaze never wavering from Vaskrian’s sleeping face. The squire seemed untroubled, sleeping the deep slumber of an innocent babe, and the novice began to fear that the Hag had anticipated their trap...
Then again, perhaps that meant she wasn’t coming back; he could drift off peacefully too...
Adelko was dimly aware of Vaskrian suddenly spasming on his pallet, his face grimacing with some unseen pain.
‘Now!’ hissed Horskram.
The command cut through Adelko’s fugue like a flaring torch across a darkened room. Fixing the page with eyes that ached he began to read the first words of the Psalm of Revealing: ‘Oh spirit of evil, that hath walked overlong in the shadows of innocent men, come forth into the bright light! Skirt no longer the shores of this troubled bourne, but place thy cursed feet upon its soil, that thy wickedness may be revealed for all honest souls to witness!’
Heeding his cue, Horskram took up the prayer in his strong baritone: ‘Nyx, for too long hast thou poisoned the fruits of blessed Oneira, turning dream into nightmare to trouble the restful sleep of mortals, blighting their peace of mind with fear of darkness and death!’
Reading with lips that trembled Adelko declaimed: ‘Relinquish thy diabolical servant now, for it is the power of the Redeemer that compels thee to give her up to the holy light! The light is the eternal spirit of mortalkind, assailed through the ages but never forsaken!’
Horskram intoned: ‘It is the love of Palomedes for the sinners he saved through pain and sacrifice; it is the essence of the Almighty, one and indivisible; it is as the burning of a thousand suns; it is as the bright wings of the Archangels, before whom all servants of Abaddon quail and tremble! Release thy servant, give her up to the holy light that she may face the justice of her deserts, for it is the power of the Redeemer that compels thee!’
‘IT IS THE POWER OF THE REDEEMER THAT COMPELS THEE!’ both monks shouted together.
Outside the howling had reached an excruciating pitch. Adelko’s ears rang painfully as though a helm had been struck right next to him with a heavy sword.
The two Argolians repeated the passage several times over, each time finishing with the final declamation. Vaskrian continued to writhe on his pallet, although as they continued his convulsions grew weaker.
On the fifth or sixth intonation Adelko began to discern a shape taking form above the squire: a shimmering apparition of negative black light that gradually coalesced into a mutable form. Reaching down Horskram took up the phial of holy water as the loathsome Hag came screeching into the mortal world.
She looked much as she had done in Adelko’s dream, a hunched sick figure garbed in shredded black. Stooping over the still sleeping squire she brandished her yellow talon, which glinted horribly in the firelight...
‘Now, Adelko! Read the passage!’ cried Horskram.
In a stuttering voice Adelko declaimed: ‘Slave of Nyx, turn and face thy doom, that we may look upon thy hideousness before expunging it forever with righteous wrath! Unshielded by the stuff of nightmare, you are undone! The mortal vale you have blighted shall be thy grave – thy cankerous presence shall be cleansed from the good green earth forever!’
With a horrible scream the Hag obeyed Adelko’s command, turning to
face the two friars. She was indeed hideous – every bit as loathsome as in his dream.
Unstoppering the phial Horskram flung a stream of water at the Hag’s leering face, while intoning the final words of the Psalm: ‘Taste now the just fruits of your malfeasance! Drink deeply of our streams, consecrated in the light of the Redeemer by his faithful servants, as you have drunk so deeply of mortal blood! Let this be the last of the Almighty’s creation that ever you touch! Let it sunder you forever from the realm you have no right to encroach upon!’
The stream hit the Hag in the middle of the face. Adelko had expected another scream, but instead she merely groaned; a deep, sorrowful sound that smacked of resignation. Her face collapsed, sloughing off her skeletal frame in vile gobbets of greenish matter. Stepping in closer, Horskram let fly with two more splashes, a second in the face and another to her scrawny chest. A vile putrescence filled the hut as fumes hissed and steamed off the Hag’s shrivelling form, which was melting like a waxwork figurine in a fire. Both monks gagged and wretched, throwing up watery bile as the Hag expired.
When they had both recovered they cautiously approached her shabby black mantle, lying on the rushes in a crumpled heap. Taking up his quarterstaff Horskram gingerly moved it aside, but all that remained of the apparition was a fast-congealing puddle of slimy ooze. Outside, the hounds had stopped their howling and fallen back into ominous silence.
Stepping over to Vaskrian, Adelko placed his ear close to him... he was still breathing. Making the sign, he pulled back his cloak.
‘Careful,’ cautioned Horskram. ‘We don’t want to wake him suddenly. He has survived the Hag’s assault, so he should be allowed to return to normal sleep. That way he has more chance of forgetting whatever horror she chose to visit on him, which will be just as well for him.’
‘But... what if he’s hurt?’ asked Adelko fearfully, remembering his own experience. Horskram had bandaged the cut in his side with a fragment of Branas’s cloak, but it still stung painfully.
‘Well, he doesn’t appear to have been lacerated,’ frowned Horskram, after examining him gingerly. ‘I think we acted swiftly enough to preserve him from the worst. Good work, Adelko, very good work.’
His master clapped him on the shoulder with a wan smile. Despite his exhaustion Adelko had enough energy to feel a surge of pride – before remembering that was a sin and suppressing it.
‘So what do we do now?’ he asked.
As if in answer to his question, they suddenly became aware of a light from outside. Stepping over to the window the two friars peered out of it timorously. The old sylvan glow was returning to the forest, growing steadily stronger. Gazing about the clearing they could see no sign of the hellhounds.
‘It is as I fathomed,’ said Horskram. ‘The Fays have set us a task, and we have performed it for them. Now we must hope they will be in a generous mood.’
CHAPTER V
A Theft And A Betrayal
Balthor Lautstimme’s face was grim as he dismounted in the courtyard of the outer ward with the half dozen knights the Eorl had sent with him. His unruly ginger hair made for an odd contrast with his neatly trimmed beard, although both were tainted with the dust and dirt of the road.
Urist Stronghand knew from the look on his old rival’s face that they had been spent in vain. Nonetheless he kept to protocol as Sir Balthor approached him with a curt nod. ‘Graukolos salutes your safe return, Balthor – how did you speed on your mission?’
The nod quickly changed to a perfunctory shake of the head. ‘Nothing,’ replied the other knight. ‘We made a good clean sweep of the area, for miles around the castle, but no one has seen or heard of anything untoward in the last three days. It would help if we knew how to describe what we were looking for.’
Sir Urist’s frown deepened as he studied his rival’s face in the torchlight. Both men were powerfully built, although Balthor was slightly shorter and somewhat thicker about the shoulders. Urist felt a twinge in his thigh, the way he often did in the presence of the man who had unhorsed him so spectacularly and put an end to his run as Dulsinor’s greatest knight.
Truth to tell, Urist rarely troubled himself about such trifles – he was still Marshal of Graukolos, with duties to perform and sons to raise – but no true knight, however humble, could ever set that kind of defeat aside altogether.
‘Few men have ever looked upon such a thing,’ replied Urist in a subdued voice. ‘And it were better that fewer still did. We had best go and give your news to the Stonefist, though it will please him ill to hear it.’
‘For myself I ask nothing, but my men have been long on the road today and are hungry,’ put in Balthor. There was an abrasiveness in his voice that Urist disliked – indeed, he had never liked the way his rival spoke to him. One day perhaps he would remind him that, whoever couched the better lance, he was still in charge of Graukolos.
‘Yes, of course,’ he replied flatly, meeting Balthor’s steely gaze. Though it was dusk, the ward was still a hubbub of activity. The resident craftsmen and artisans were packing up their stalls for the night, while the master of stables Orick and his assistants were busy seeing to their horses. A handful of servants were scurrying around as well, the mighty walls of Graukolos making ants of them beneath the deepening blue skies.
Sir Urist beckoned to one. ‘You there! Take these men to the Great Hall and put in a word at the kitchens – they are to be fed immediately.’ Turning to Balthor he added: ‘Now, sirrah, if you will, it is time we spoke to the Eorl – as you well know, Wilhelm is a man who insists on hearing bad news at once.’
The two men crossed the outer ward in silence. To either side of them the walls loomed, the height of twenty men and tall ones at that. The thick oak beams of the stables ran the whole length of the courtyard: home to more than two hundred horses, a muffled cacophony of whinnying and stamping could be heard from within, along with the hollering of the craftsmen and clamour of the kitchens on the opposite side of the ward. Steam filtering from the window slits of the latter mingled vaporously with smoke from the torches, whose yellow light flickered playfully across the grey corbels that supported the upper level above the kitchens and pantry where the scullions and other servants slept.
A partition wall divided the outer and middle wards. This was guarded by a gatehouse, although its double doors were nearly always left open except in times of war. The partition was a third of the height of the main walls; Goriath Stonecrafty had built it with the eventual lords of Graukolos in mind, so they could look across their vast grounds and view arrivals at a glance from the donjon in the castle’s eastern wing.
Two great long-axes stood to either side of the yawning entrance. Atop these a pair of buttresses that reinforced the corners of the upper section of the gatehouse sported two carved warrior angels, their stone greatswords pointing inwards to form a stylised gable atop the gateway’s curving arch. The gatehouse summit was slung with shields, each one bearing the Markward coat of arms. There was one for every Eorl of that noble house who had reigned over Graukolos: nine black fists clenched pugnaciously at the lowering skies.
A pair of men-at-arms stood to either side of the gateway, their iron-rimmed shields and polished hauberks catching the light from the torches in the tunnel behind them. Balthor and Urist passed through this before emerging into the middle ward. This was a similarly sprawling affair, and the northern portion was given over to the training yard. Even now, with the day nearly done, men were fighting, their blunted swords gleaming dully in the torchlight.
Glancing over, Sir Urist recognised the combatants. Sir Agravine and Sir Ruttgur, good knights both. The younger sons of landed vassals, they’d taken service in Wilhelm’s household as his sworn swords and lances. When the day was done they would take their rest on the floor of the Great Hall directly south of the yard along with the rest of the Eorl’s knights.
About a hundred were landless bachelors like Agravine and Ruttgur and served the castle for life, but the other forty chang
ed each month: these were vassals of the Eorl, men like those who had fathered the two worthies now striking at each other in the dust, come to pay feudal service to their liege in return for the lands he had given them.
A dozen or so men-at-arms and knights were watching Ruttgur and Agravine fight, every now and then cheering on a favourite. Urist allowed himself a half-smile as he saw Ruttgur press Agravine back towards the wall of the armoury on the far north side with a relentless salvo of fierce strokes. Though Agravine was the more personable and courteous of the two, and therefore more popular, Urist had often mused that in times of strife he would wish for Ruttgur at his back the sooner.
Both knights were young and relatively new to the garrison, having been spotted at the Chalice Bridge Tourney the previous year. Both couched a solid lance but it was Agravine’s flourishes that had won the crowds over, saluting and bowing in the saddle after a successful tilt with an elegance that a Pangonian might envy.
Neither had made it to the final, both knights being dislodged in the penultimate round by Sir Balthor and Sir Corus, a mountain of a man who served Lord Rothstein, the baron giving the tourney.
But Urist had been quick to recognise potential when he saw it, not least because he had gone down before Ruttgur in a previous round. Their performance in the melee the next day had shown them to be doughty enough at close quarters as well – the Marshal of Graukolos had put in a word with the Eorl and had them taken into service, before another lord did.
Balthor for his part had been quick only to boast of his eventual win over Sir Corus in the joust – despite losing his prize money to a ransom in the melee the very next day. His vanquisher had been none other than Corus himself, who had been only too pleased to have his revenge, knocking Balthor from his horse with a great iron mace and breaking several of his ribs in the process.
Balthor didn’t boast too loudly of that part of the tourney to the damsels and serving wenches at Graukolos, Urist noticed. But then that was typical of the man.