Devil's Night Dawning: The First Book of the Broken Stone Series

by Damien Black

  The dreadful thing seemed to be inclining its head towards them, and for an instant he feared it had seen him, when suddenly a handful of arrows flew up to meet it. Most of the shafts glanced harmlessly off its thick hide, but one tore through a wing, becoming lodged there. The demon let out a shriek that set Adelko’s gorge rising before turning to descend on the ramparts where a cluster of terrified archers stood trembling.

  Their leader must have been a truly courageous and inspiring serjeant, for the courtyard below was a riot of chaos as knights and soldiers ran to and fro or writhed on the ground, overcome by a terror they could not comprehend. The few who hadn’t succumbed were preparing to receive its attack on foot as best they could, as their panicked warhorses reared and whinnied helplessly.

  Those bowmen who hadn’t descended into madness with their comrades on the walls were rewarded for their fortitude with swift ugly deaths.

  Adelko swallowed back bile as he watched the demon tear the head off one with a single bite, at the same time as it impaled another with its tail: driving it through the screaming archer’s lightly armoured midriff it lifted his quivering body clear of the ramparts before dashing his head into bloody fragments of bone and brain on the battlements. A third archer made to run away, his courage broken. The thing opened its bloodstained maw – what looked like a short suckered tentacle shot out, spitting the same tarry substance Adelko had gagged on in the Laegawood. The gobbet caught the fleeing archer in the back; he gave a piteous scream as he plummeted off the rampart. A thick tendril of smoke rose from his corpse. A fourth archer had collapsed gibbering to the parapet walkway. The fiend put him out of his misery with a rake of its talons as it hovered on wings that buzzed frantically.

  Even now the serjeant refused to give up the fight, discarding his longbow and pulling a short sword from his belt. The demon stared at him for a split second with myriad eyes before opening its maw again. For an instant Adelko thought the horror was going to spit its acidic venom at the serjeant, but instead it caught him a treacherous blow with its tail, transfixing his chest and lifting him up to tear his head off in one fell movement. With a contemptuous flick of its gargantuan tail it sent the headless corpse crashing into two fleeing soldiers in the courtyard below.

  With a twist of its body and another hideous shriek the demon descended to attack.

  ‘Redeemer save us!’ cried Prince Freidhoff, lurching back from the window. ‘Yon horror will slay half the garrison – Torgun! With me – we need to rally the men now!’

  The High Commander sprang over towards his son, grabbing him by his surcoat and yanking him off the floor. ‘Wolmar, as you honour your blood royal, pull yourself together!’ he yelled in his son’s ashen face. Whatever his other failings, Wolmar was no coward – stung by his father’s words he recovered his courage and staggered to his feet.

  Cursing in a manner unbefitting a pious monk, Horskram turned to Adelko. ‘We must go with them, they cannot hope to prevail against this horror with cold steel alone – I hope you’re in the mood for more scripture!’ he cried. ‘Here, first help me get yon squire to his feet – he swore to protect us, now he’ll have a chance to make good on his oath!’

  They pulled Vaskrian up. He was white as a sheet and shivering from head to toe. Adelko felt scarcely better himself. Taking out his circifix and pressing it to the squire’s sweat-soaked forehead, Horskram began reciting the rhyming verses that marked the beginning of the Psalm of Fortitude:

  O Redeemer thy servants shall not quail

  Though shadows make cuts across the land,

  The faithful shall pass through the darkling vale,

  Your light guides our feet and strengthens our hands!

  The works of Abaddon shall share his fate

  As the Cursed City shuddered aeons ago,

  The meek shall rise to topple the great,

  The proud and the wanton shall be brought low!

  My faith is my harness, my spirit a sword,

  Piety my steed and prayers my shield

  In mortal strife let all sins be abjured,

  For I shall not yield, I shall not yield!

  The sacred words had the desired effect. His natural courage augmented by the monk’s blessing, Vaskrian shrugged off the nightmarish effects of the demonic howlings that now filled the courtyard. Yorrick, Aronn and Redrun were also stirring from frightful madness, their spirits bolstered by Horskram’s prayer and Prince Freidhoff’s exhortations.

  The knights frantically busied themselves rearming from a rack against the wall where they had placed their swords – members of the Order were instructed never to be far from a weapon at any time. Watching them Vaskrian realised he was once again weaponless – the last time he’d seen his sword and dirk they were being handed over to the guards in the courtyard. He wondered grimly if they would be making much use of them now.

  Freidhoff flung open the door. Outside in the corridor the sentry was writhing on the floor babbling. Stepping over him the seven knights made a dash for the stairwell, making a great hue and cry. At Horskram’s behest they followed, but not before the squire had grabbed the sentry’s discarded spear. It wasn’t a sword, but it would have to do – at least it was his next best weapon after a blade, although he was more accustomed to using one on horseback as a lance.

  The ten of them dashed back down to the antechamber. On the way they found many more soldiers and menials out of their wits, and one or two knights besides.

  But not all had succumbed to the terror. By the time they reached the courtyard their numbers had swelled around them. Some thirty knights and footsoldiers stepped out into the torchlit precinct with the two friars, to do battle as best they could. Among them was the castle chaplain, a stern military priest if ever Adelko saw one, dressed in full armour like his fellows but wearing a large iron circifix around his neck.

  The courtyard was a scene of pandemonium. Several dozen men and horses lay dead, dying or wounded, their blood spattered in pools and streams across the bailey’s dirt floor. Those that had not shrugged off the terror were clustered about the base of the walls or the parapets above, curled up against the cold unyielding stone as they shook uncontrollably.

  Those who had mastered their fear had done so only enough to substitute retreat for rout: one cluster of knights and soldiers huddled behind an overturned wayn, another group cowered in the armoury, whilst a third was assembling in the forge. Those who had proved bold enough to stand their ground had quickly shared the fate of the archers on the walls. One young knight screamed pitifully as his entrails dribbled out of his torn midriff and onto the blood-soaked dirt; a serjeant gaped at the bleeding stumps where his sword arm and both legs had been, too stunned even to cry the last of his life away. Another warrior, a great gory rent where his face should have been, moaned feebly as he tried to crawl away from the demon.

  Atop the splintered wreckage of two carts it squatted, a loathsome horror; beneath the shattered wayns a dying horse added its screams to the awful soundscape of pain and suffering. The demon was bent low, its mandibles moving left and right as it feasted on a corpse. It was impossible to tell whether he had been a knight or serjeant in life, for the demon’s acidic spittle had robbed his sloughing flesh of all mutable form: acrid smoke rose from the amorphous mass of fused muscle, bone, metal and clothing as it tore off great strips and swallowed them whole. Several of the knights and men-at-arms in their company were sick on the spot; a handful more relapsed into gibbering madness straight away. The rest gripped their weapons with trembling hands, their faces ashen in the yellow torchlight. At this range the creature’s stench was overpowering.

  They were at least spared the hideous sight of the demon feasting further. The thing turned its blasphemous head towards them, cocking it in a way a madman might have found comical. Adelko could feel its myriad eyes scrutinising their company with a malignancy far beyond any mortal villain’s.

  ‘It sees us!’ said Horskram in a hoarse voice. ‘It knows it has it
s prey – High Commander, only the power of prayer can hope to abjure this dread thing! You and your men must defend us and buy us enough time to banish it!’

  ‘Very well, Master Horskram!’ the Prince shouted above the screams of the dying. ‘But you had better have the Redeemer on your side, else we are all doomed!’ Turning to a serjeant he barked an order: ‘Varo! Take the rest of the footsoldiers and get the wounded into the keep – reconnoitre with the others in the armoury and forge and behind yonder wayn and get them to help you!’

  Then, tearing a shield from a nearby corpse he held his sword aloft and addressed the rest of his men: ‘Knights of the White Valravyn – shield the monks from yon horror! Let their holy prayers be your succour and your strength! They must not be harmed!’

  The order came not a moment too soon. With a dreadful cry the demon launched itself up into the air, its wings buzzing horribly as it curled down in an arc towards the monks with terrifying speed. Desperately the knights scrambled to form a circle around Horskram and Adelko; several of the more quick-witted including Torgun and Wolmar had also availed themselves of shields – they now pressed towards the front, holding them aloft to defend the monks from an aerial attack.

  Some fifteen knights met the thing with a ring of steel as it lunged through the half-darkness at them, its talons raking aside the shields of the two foremost as it snapped at Horskram with its maw.

  It would have severed his head clean off his shoulders had he not held his circifix aloft at that moment and begun to recite the Psalm of Abjuration: confronted with the sudden spectacle of the holy rood the thing shied back, just as Torgun struck the base of its neck. It was a mighty blow and well placed: the thing shrieked as steaming ichor bubbled from a rent where two parts of its carapace joined. With a flick of its wings the demon lurched upwards again, out of range of the knights’ questing swords, circling as it glared balefully down at them with its many eyes.

  Pressing their temporary advantage, Horskram continued to recite the same words he had uttered in Landebert’s hut on the Brenning Wold, Adelko quickly joining in. Next to them the castle chaplain chorused their words as he brandished a sword, his circifix clutched in his other hand. An ordinary perfect would not be able to channel the sacred power of the words as well as a trained Argolian, but all the same the novice was grateful. Right now they needed all the help they could get.

  Surrounded by heavily armoured fighters, with only his tattered brigandine and a footsoldier’s spear to protect him, Vaskrian felt virtually naked. Though he wasn’t pious by nature, he felt the words of the Redeemer warm him as no fire could: they were being recited by initiates of an Order that some said had the ear of the Almighty Himself. He’d never paid much heed to that until now – now it seemed a comforting thought.

  Around him the raven knights seemed similarly emboldened, and standing fast amidst their dying and deranged comrades they shook their spears and swords as they uttered the war cry of the White Valravyn, defying the demon to descend again.

  But the thing that had pursued Adelko and his mentor across half the realm was not so easily goaded. It reared back, its mouth yawning open to reveal a hideous rubbery tongue. No, not a tongue… With an instinct born of terrifying experience Vaskrian realised what was about to happen.

  ‘It’s going to spit venom at us!’ he yelled. ‘We need more shields!’

  A jet of thick tarry substance shot from the devil’s mouth, catching one of the knights in the face and chest. The scream he uttered was mercifully soon silenced as his face dissolved, the flesh dripping off his skull as he collapsed to the ground in a quivering heap.

  If he’d had his hands free Vaskrian would have made the sign – this encounter was doing wonders for his piety. He watched helplessly as the demon turned towards the monks, seeking another target…

  Absorbed in prayer, Adelko could do nothing to avert the next gobbet as it came flying towards him. Torgun threw his shield in the way, barging Redrun to one side as he did. The kite-shaped board hissed and steamed as pieces of it sloughed off. Adelko and the knights nearest him gagged, their eyes streaming. Wolmar and Tarlquist launched a frenzied counter attack from either side of the devil, their blades bouncing harmlessly off its thick carapace just as it sent the High Commander crashing to the ground with a sidewise swipe of its tail and speared another knight in the chest in quick succession. He fell to the ground with a cry. In the light of the torches Adelko could see the agonised face of Sir Yorrick, contorted in an ugly grimace of death.

  Rearing evilly over the monks and their beleaguered defenders the demon drew back its head and prepared to spit venom at them again. They were saved by a fresh sortie of knights: these were from the armoury and fully equipped, a fact not lost on their seasoned commander.

  ‘All men with shields form a defensive ring with me around the monks!’ yelled Prince Freidhoff. ‘All those lacking shields get over to the armoury on the double!’

  The knights and men-at-arms scrambled to obey his order. A flurry of limbs saw most of the guard around the friars changed – only Torgun, Wolmar and the High Commander remained from the original circle. Another gobbet of acidic spittle went flying through the night air. Another man fell screaming, his flesh and armour sizzling.

  Adelko barely had time to register this as he and Horskram ploughed on with their scriptural mantras, reciting the Prophet’s thousand-year-old words and repeating the refrain again and again: It is the power of the Redeemer that compels thee, it is the power of the Redeemer that compels thee!

  Just as they reached the part that said the penitent shall kneel before His godly grace they bent their knees to the ground, allowing the knights to defend them more effectively from a standing position. Adelko felt the demon’s spittle splash past his face a couple of times as it bounced off the knights’ interlocked shields, now woven in a tight upwards-facing circle around them. Beyond this a second ring of knights and serjeants arriving from the forge knelt to protect the interior ring from any treacherous attacks from the demon’s tail.

  However unused it was to fighting denizens of the Other Side, the Order of the White Valravyn was learning fast.

  Yet even so their defence was far from impregnable. The fighters who had dashed over from the forge were less well equipped than their brethren from the armoury, and several gaps presented inviting targets: by the time their fellows returned to bolster the second ring of protection, several more knights and serjeants had perished beneath its lashing sting.

  But Adelko could sense that their stubborn defence was beginning to fluster the demon, if such a thing could ever be said to feel flustered, and he could feel its discomfort growing as the Redeemer’s words began to penetrate its psyche. Round and round it circled, now spitting another gobbet of spittle, now lashing out with its tail or a swipe of its talons. But its assaults, though still vicious, were steadily growing weaker: the gobbets less copious, the swipes less fearsome.

  Sir Toric and Sir Tarlquist had each taken charge of another sortie that crouched in wait around the defensive circle of knights in the middle: every time the winged devil flew down to attack the monks and their defenders, the group nearest would launch a counter strike from behind.

  Most of these proved fruitless until, ducking under its lashing tail, Tarlquist thrust a spear deep into a chink in its exoskeleton. The thing screeched and buzzed with rage as ichor bubbled up out of the wound; with an awful speed it turned and lashed out with its razor-sharp teeth. Tarlquist threw his shield up to parry, falling back into the dirt with the force of the blow. The knight next to him was not so lucky. Bringing its tail around lightning-quick the demon lopped off both his legs above the knee. Screaming, he fell to the ground in pieces.

  Vaskrian found himself in the sortie led by Sir Toric. His muscles tensed as he gripped his spear in both hands, waiting for an opening. Soon he had it. The demon suddenly changed tactics, flying down to grip the double ring of shields with its talons. Its tail arched high, the deadly point qui
vering directly above the aperture created by the inner circle...

  Grasping his spear he launched himself forwards, striking at the point where its body tapered off into its tail. It proved an inspired move: here the exoskeleton was less thick, and the thing screeched again as his spear-point pierced deep into its foul-smelling hide. Flinging its head upwards it aborted its lethal attack on the Argolians.

  I’ll stay true to my vow yet, he thought feverishly as he yanked his spear free of the hissing wound. He had no time to appreciate his skill and daring. The demon lashed out with a sideways flick of its tail, sending him flying across the courtyard into a serjeant in the next sortie. The pair of them collapsed in a heap on the ground, both too stunned to move. Vaskrian felt a stabbing pain shoot up his side as he groaned in the dust.

  Just then Sir Toric and his men threw themselves at the demon, whilst knights and serjeants in the outer ring nearest it risked breaking ranks to launch a rear attack. Faced with determined foes on two fronts the thing retreated, flying up to circle above them again.

  After that its attacks became less frequent and determined, as the monks’ clear voices rang out into the night air, calling upon the power of the Redeemer to protect them. The old chaplain, who had joined Vaskrian’s sortie after arming himself with a shield at the High Commander’s order, still chanted the words with them.

  Other knights and men-at-arms who had succumbed to the demon-fear began to recover their old courage, as if sensing a turn in the tide, and either joined the fray or helped to get the wounded into the keep. And as courage returned to the Order of the White Valravyn, fear – or something akin to it – seemed to grow apace within the demon.

  Adelko’s voice sounded hoarse in his ears and his throat felt raw. Channelling the Redeemer’s power was enervating work – it took all a man’s spiritual fortitude to recite his words again and again with the proper conviction. They had to break the demon’s will soon – how much longer could they keep this up?