by S. A. Swann
But if something was wrong, that could just as easily result in the same fate. He knew enough of the world to know that when inconvenient things happened to important people, saying you had followed orders would not excuse you of being held responsible, no matter how unearned the responsibility.
Deep in the shadows he heard water drip with a sound barely louder than his own breathing. The quiet made the air feel that much heavier, the damp pulling the warmth from the skin on his face and hands.
He needed to know what was happening in the cell.
So he broke his second order.
The door was at the end of the corridor opposite Manfried's post, lurking in the shadows of a narrow vault where the flickering glow of the lanterns barely reached. The door was heavy oak, banded with iron. In the whole keep, only the main siege door was stronger.
Two lanterns kept his guard post lit. Manfried took one lantern from its brass hook and walked down the vaulted corridor, toward the door. It was heavy, the iron bands ocher with rust, studded with egg-sized rivets. A small iron hatch covered a window set at eye level. The flat slab of metal resisted his pulls, grinding with a metallic screech that set Manfried's teeth on edge. Flecks of corrosion fell from the little-used mechanism, dusting the backs of his hands and giving the appearance of some swamp-borne plague.
Does no one use this at all?
He looked through a square barred window that was barely two hands' breadths wide. Beyond, the cell was dark as a well.
“Hello?” he called into the dark, first in Prûsan, then in German.
“Please, help.” Her voice spoke barely audible German.
Manfried lifted the lantern, opened its shutter as wide as he could, and held it up to the portal, shining light into the cell beyond.
He stared in for a long while before he finally whispered, “Jesus wept.”
Sprawled facedown in filth that was unfit for a slaughterhouse was the young woman he had imagined. She was naked, her smooth white skin blemished by the filth she was forced to wallow in, her head hidden by a halo of hair that might once have been long and flowing, but was now defined by ragged layers of encrusted mats.
Seventeen, Manfried thought her age, perhaps eighteen at most. The same as his sister.
In response to the light, she stirred, raising her face from the floor to look at him.
“Please, some water.”
Under the dirt, the face that looked up at him was smooth, unscarred by time or labor.
She had to be of noble birth. It was the only explanation for such unmarked hands, face, and skin. Even his sister, who had married well, had hands that were hard from maintaining a small house that wasn't landed enough to afford servants.
“Do they provide you with nothing?” Manfried muttered more to himself than to the prisoner. She appeared beyond hearing him. Her eyes were unfocused, their unusually deep green hue reflecting into a void that was invisible to him.
Her left leg trailed behind her, and that ankle was caked with blood and rust where a gray-black metal manacle had rubbed it raw. The blood was awful, and the stench worse, the foot swollen with infection and turned at a nasty angle. At some point she had broken the bone, and it looked as if she had collapsed in an attempt to walk toward the door.
The sight was so appalling that he never once considered the fact that he had never heard her cry out in pain.
“By Christ,” he cursed, “is the Order not the Hospital of St. Mary?” Even an unrepentant pagan should not have her wounds fester without succor.
The manacle was connected to an iron chain that seemed more of a weight to anchor a drawbridge or lower a portcullis than something meant to restrain a girl half Manfried's size. Despite its weight, the chain was taut, leading back to a massive staple in the cell floor. Just tripping with that weight could have broken her ankle. As mortified as the flesh was, and how weak she appeared now, it could have happened days ago.
Manfried considered himself a hard man. He had never been one to wince at pain or blood. Pitched battle held no terror for him. But this?
This was not how women were treated.
They were Christians here; they were supposed to be better than the idolaters, better than those who sacrificed their women and infants to their demonic gods, better than those who preyed on the weak, pagan and Christian alike, only to aggrandize themselves.
But he wasn't looking upon the acts of a Christian.
He had no name for this kind of obscenity, but he was certain that it was at the hands of these half-pagan Prûsan brutes. His disdain for them flared into full-blooded hatred.
“Hold on, I'll get you some water.”
Manfried forgot his orders. He might be a soldier serving the Teutonic Order, but he was also a human being.
Chapter 2
Sergeant-at-arms for the garrison of the Hospital of St. Mary of the Germans in Jerusalem at Johannisburg, Günter Sejod, awoke to a bell ringing. It took a moment for him to realize what it was.
The prisoner!
The other soldiers in the barracks were already stirring as Günter erupted from his bed and ran, dodging the other beds. In his head, he simultaneously prayed to Jesus Christ and to the old god Perkunas. He pleaded to both that it was not the cell door, that it was some mechanical failure. Perhaps a rat gnawing the bell cord or maybe it was accidentally pulled by a weak-bladdered subordinate unable to hold his water until Prime.
“No,” Günter whispered as he stepped out the doorway.
Across the hall from the barracks, a niche was set in the wall with a series of bell ropes. This one for the general alarm, this one to call Compline, and this one to sound the opening of the cell door in the lowest levels of the keep.
The latter rope still moved, jerking up and down, causing an asynchronous clanging above him.
This was no accident, no animal gnawing the fibers.
Someone had broken Landkomtur Erhard's silver seals and had started opening the door. Günter grabbed the rope that signaled the main alarm.
Lord Christ, Father Perkunas, have mercy on us all...
Günter had the feeling that he prayed, as always, to deaf gods.
***
The door was almost more than one man could open by himself. Manfried had to lean his whole body back to get it to move. It took several minutes just to open it wide enough to walk through and let some light in from outside.
He set his lantern down just beyond the threshold. He knew better than to bring a canister of flaming oil within reach of a prisoner, no matter how weak. With the same logic, he had already set aside his sword, his keys, and the ornate silver dagger that the sergeant had presented to him on Landkomtur Erhard's behalf.
The dagger was distressingly worldly, despite being engraved with Latin from the psalms. He knew that other men here, probationary brothers who wished to emulate the warrior monks of the Order, were distressed at being given such an ornate weapon, despite their vows to obey the dictates of their superiors in the Order.
Manfried didn't care a fig for its ornateness, or the precious metal. What bothered him was that silver made for an inferior weapon. He might have cared enough to raise the issue with the sergeant if he had expected to see battle. However, that seemed so unlikely that they could have armed him with a sausage, for all the difference it would make.
No lamp, no dagger, no sword—the only thing he was going to bring into the cell was a tin cup of water.
With the door open enough, he reached down and picked up the water. Bending over, he saw what made the door such an effort to move. Something had caught between the flagstone and the lower edge of the door. It had scraped across the stone, leaving gray-white markings. Some sort of soft metal, lead perhaps. He stared, wondering what to make of it—
“Please?”
The voice had regained some of its strength. And it appeared that she could focus on him now. She gazed at him with shining green eyes, and he could see that she was actually quite a lovely creature under th
e filth. Tears had washed tracks of pure white on her cheeks, and as she pushed herself up, she folded her arms across her naked breasts.
Seeing that, Manfried thought that she might be afraid of him. She might think he was here to abuse her.
“No.” He shook his head and held out the cup. “I brought you some water. See?”
She sniffed, as if he might have put something evil in the water. But then she smiled. Her teeth were small, white, and even—a sure sign of noble birth.
“Thank you,” she whispered, holding out her hand for the cup.
He had to take a few steps forward, because the chain on her leg wouldn't let her reach that far. In fact, when she shifted her leg, the broken foot remained stationary. He winced, even though she showed no sign of pain.
When he reached her, she took his hand in hers. The joy he saw in her smile was absolutely glorious.
“Manfried! By all that is sacred, get out of that room!”
Hearing Sergeant Günter's voice filled Manfried with a barely containable rage. He spun around, arm still held by the young girl. “You pathetic, heathen bastard, treating a woman—”
The rage lapsed into confusion as he saw six soldiers in the hall, beyond the door, all clad in full mail and helmets, weapons bared. The soldiers milled about, looking confused, as if they weren't sure about why they were present. But in the sergeant's face he saw something he didn't expect.
Fear.
Her grip tightened on his arm, above the wrist. He dropped the cup and looked down. She pulled him toward her, as if she wanted to say something. She placed her other hand on his chest and smiled up at him.
“Manfried, get out of there n—”
The hand on his chest pushed him away, and Manfried felt a sudden shocking pain that took the air out of his lungs. He grabbed his shoulder as he fell to his knees ...
But all he felt was an empty mail sleeve.
Next to him, the woman stood, tossing aside Manfried's naked right arm.
Manfried felt his life spill out of his wounded shoulder. He dimly heard Günter screaming at his men, followed by men grunting and metal screeching.
He stared up at the prisoner, uncomprehending.
Muscles rippled under her pale flesh, tensing like cables as the flesh itself twisted and turned dark. Her hands twisted and bones stretched as fingernails became claws. Her face twisted and her pretty white-toothed smile grew into a red-furred muzzle.
But the lupine demon still looked at him with the same green eyes.
He choked out, “I was only—”
Her forearm shot out, stealing his voice, his consciousness, and what little remained of his life's blood.
***
“Seal the door!” Günter screamed again. “Seal this damned door!”
Three men were already trying to push the banded door shut. A fourth joined them as the metal screeched against the silver seals wedged at its base. It moved a finger's breadth. Then another.
Beyond it, the creature turned toward them and it almost seemed that its monstrous face was grinning at them. The red-furred thing stood in the center of the cell, hunched behind where Manfried's body had fallen.
“Don't panic!” Günter yelled in a voice that was near panic itself. “That chain is too strong for it to break. It can't reach us.” He spoke more from hope than from knowledge. The manacle on the creature's leg was banded in pure silver, it was supposed to prevent her from becoming this ... thing.
Half human. Half wolf. Its limbs were long and muscular, and even with the stooped, downcast posture it stood upright, as tall as a man. The arms were nearly human, ending in large inhuman hands that flexed fingers ending in curving black claws. Its head was that of a monstrous she-wolf, with jaws that could snap a man's neck in half.
It panted as it stared at him, tongue lolling from its muzzle.
Not waiting for his subordinates, Günter threw his considerable weight into the door. It moved slightly.
Even without the silver seals intact, just getting the barrier closed would be enough to hold the thing. Like the chain, it was much too heavy, even for the strength of ...
“Sergeant!” one of his men screamed.
“Are you children? I told you! The chain—”
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the creature take a limping step forward, over Manfried's body.
Impossible! The manacle is pure silver. The chain is too heavy, too strong. It couldn't break—
It hadn't.
Now that the creature had moved forward, Günter could see something he had missed before. On the floor, connected to the wall by the heaviest chain that the German blacksmiths could forge, wrapped in a silver manacle banded with iron, rested the rotting foot of a seventeen-year-old girl, dismembered above the ankle.
The door slammed open, blowing free from the seal wedged between it and the floor. The door threw Günter backward, and one of his men screamed as the door pinned the man's arm against the wall.
The beast stood in the doorway, its hunched posture uneven because one red-furred leg terminated in a bloody stump. Even as Günter watched, the leg seemed to lengthen, growing toward where the amputated limb should have been.
“Silver!” he yelled at his men. “Use the silver weapons!”
Jacob led a trio of men, jumping over Günter to reach the beast. All three were young, in training to become knights of the Order. They all had the fire in their belly, and Günter expected they would storm the gates of Hell itself.
The way they screamed out to God and Heaven now, it was possible that they believed that was exactly what they were doing.
Jacob reached the beast first and, even in the narrow confines of the corridor, the young man's form was perfect, bringing his sword up and under the beast's reach, cleaving into the torso under the beast's left forearm. The force in the blow would have taken an armored opponent to his knees, cracking the ribs of anyone wearing less than a solid breastplate. Against the naked red-furred torso, the edge cut deep into the side of the chest and should have cleaved a lung at the very least.
But the blade was not silver.
“Damn Erhard,” Günter spat. “Damn him to Hell for this.”
No one heard his cursing in the midst of the shouts and prayers that echoed through the stony halls.
Landkomtur Erhard von Stendal had bequeathed this monster to them. He had told Günter that there was no true danger. He had said that the silver manacle and the silver seals safely bound the creature. He had said that the daggers he gifted the garrison, and the bolts locked upstairs in the armory, were mere precautions.
There was no reason to burden the men, especially those who were recently baptized, with knowledge of the prisoner's nature. Silver-clad swords and axes would raise too many questions, beyond the questions of unseemly extravagance.
Jacob laughed at the beast, obviously convinced he had delivered it a mortal blow. Blood flowed down the blade, foaming at the wound when the thing panted.
“Your dagger,” Günter ordered, even as he realized that Jacob wasn't wearing it. Jacob couldn't accept such unseemly wealth on his belt, the pious idiot.
Günter scrambled to his feet, drawing his own silver weapon from his belt. He charged to save the fool, who didn't even realize he was in mortal danger.
Jacob turned to him with a bemused expression. “Sergeant? I have it—” Jacob's gloating was cut short. His blow should have driven any creature into shock, but not this one. This beast was only given a moment's pause by the sword piercing its side, and when it moved, it showed no sign of pain.
It tore the sword from Jacob's grip, pulling it out of its side, and rammed it, hilt-first, into Jacob's face.
The blow was strong enough to be instantly mortal, and the force of it sent Jacob's lifeless body through the line of advancing men, onto Günter.
Günter fell to the ground, his helmet bouncing off the stone floor hard enough to stun him.
Around him he heard the sounds of screams, and pray
ers, and tearing flesh. His stomach tightened at the smell of blood as he spent a short eternity pushing Jacob's corpse off of him. His hands slid in blood as he tried to regain his feet.
Günter shuddered and took a step back, raising his dagger.
The only other man left alive down here was a softly weeping soldier, one of Günter's fellow Prûsans, who still had his broken arm trapped between the heavy door and the wall. The corpses of five other men sprawled on the floor between Günter and the creature, some in several pieces.
The creature panted, limping down the center of the hallway toward Günter, its forearms and muzzle smeared with blood that glistened black in the lamplight. Günter thought he could see remnants of human flesh caught in its claws.
The beast regarded Günter with pitiless green eyes.
Günter backed up to the wall, holding the tiny silver blade between himself and the creature, praying to Christ, and Perkunas, that he would at least die well.
Again, the gods refused to pay any attention to Günter Sejod. The beast snarled at him and bared its teeth—or maybe it smiled at the impotent blade shaking between them. Then it hunched over and loped past him on three legs, faster than Günter would expect a man to run.
It ran toward the stairs.
Chapter 3
Oytim scrambled down the narrow spiral staircase toward the keep's granary. He carried three crossbows and a canvas bag of, of all things, silver-tipped bolts. The weapons had been in a special locked case in the armory. No one had ever mentioned the case or its contents to him—not until the alarm bells woke him from sleep and Sergeant Günter had grabbed him, handed him the key, and ordered him to retrieve the contents.
As Oytim had rushed toward the armory, Sergeant Günter had led every other soldier barracked in the keep down toward the lower storerooms where the prisoner was kept.