by Eric Flint
The shaman said something.
"He says there is spell written all over the man," said Erik.
The Mongol shaman came forward, did what looked like a little dance in place, threw some powder over the man, spat on his finger, and rubbed it on Emil's forehead. Emil gave a choked cry. "Drac. Kill me Drac. Please forgive me, but kill me, for I do not deserve to live. She made me do it. She wanted me to betray you now, again. To take you to her chapel. She draws all that is evil in a man, drives him. I killed her, Drac. I strangled her while Countess watched. Then she lay with me again next to her body. God, I had to have her. I did what she told me."
"Who did you kill?" asked Vlad, although, somehow, he already knew.
"Rosa. The countess was angry about her…"
Vlad felt his blood go cold. His sword-point dropped.
"Forgive me, Drac," the man pleaded.
But Vlad knew that he never would. "God may," he said, bleakly.
The question of what he would do with this man was taken from him, seconds later. He only just had time to raise his sword. Emil, screaming, arms flailing, flung himself at them. He literally impaled himself on three swords.
Vlad's was not one of them.
His sister pressed against him. Put an arm around him.
"We've got to go on, brother," she said.
Vlad did not want to. He was an inner maelstrom of ice and fire, raging. He did not care if he died. But his little sister needed him. He might not know her, but he felt her, bone of his bone, blood of his blood. They were of the same flesh. She needed him, and it was his duty to protect her.
***
They pressed on. Erik saw how Vlad fought now with an almost insane rage and strength. It should have made him easy to kill. But their opponents who had plainly escaped the dungeon were not of any particular caliber. Elizabeth chose her men-at-arms for her 'religion' not martial prowess.
They could win free to the stables, still. And then Erik realised they would not. Not down this passage anyway. The countess had finally stopped fighting them by force of arms and was using her magic.
Something all shadow and ire roared out of the darkness; they all looked to the shaman, who looked to his talismans and powders and then just shrugged. "I do not know this thing," he said. "We must run."
Shadows wrapped it so that it was impossible to see, but there was no doubt that if it got them, it would kill them.
And then the shadows cleared. Whatever this monstrous thing was, it was pushing a wall ahead of it. All they could see was a block of stone, Stone, so tightly fitting the passage that it ripped the sconces from the walls, as it advanced on them at a slow walk. They could only retreat.
Back, back, towards the chapel.
Chapter 73
They had little choice: go into the chapel or be crushed., because whatever was behind that wall was strong obviously strong enough to push them ahead of it or crush them beneath it.
So they backed sidled towards the chapel like a herd of wild cattle, with Dana in the center and swords facing their retreat and the wall.
Earlier only the candles on the altar had burned.
Now candles burned in all the sconces. Black candles.
And Vlad felt a sudden exhaustion. A strange empty numbness, as if somehow, he had been cut off from that black tide of strength that had, unitl now, sustained him.
***
There was no-one there. The place felt oppressive to Erik… as if they had somehow walked into the middle of summer thunderstorm. The moving wall stopped just short of the chapel door. The shaman looked around as they stood hard against the doorway, not wishing to go any further. He shrugged. Took out a little bottle of liquid from his pouch-stash and drank some. A magic potion of some kind?
"Strong brandy," he said and offered the bottle to Eric. "I buy it from the Vlachs. You want some?"
Erik felt that he could use it. But he shook his head. "Give the little girl some. She needs it."
Dana certainly did. She was at least part of the way into the shock that follows after mortal combat, by Erik's judgement. Still, she was a tough young lady. Her teeth clattered slightly on the bottle. She coughed and spluttered a little, but the brandy did put tiny spots of color in her white cheeks.
The shaman got out his little feathered drum and tapped it.
The sound seemed to be absorbed.
"Strong magic," he said.
That was all he said because he-and the rest of them-fell over.
It was as if every bit of strength had drained out of them at the same time that something invisible enclosed them in a skin of stone. Erik found he was unable to move a muscle. He couldn't even breathe, and felt his vision darkening. Then the grip loosened slightly. He could breath. Just not move.
The doors behind them opened. Another door at the back of the chapel did too. The countess's people came in, women in those obscene habits, men in filthy uniform tunics, picked all them up, like so many staves of wood and carried them to center of the chapel.
"Prop them up. I want them to be able to see," said the countess's voice from the shadows.
Something was set behind them. The terrible rigidity of their muscles eased just a tiny fraction.
Elizabeth Bartholdy walked up to them from somewhere out of Eric's line of sight. She looked down at Vlad and his sister. "In here I have taken some long and complex steps to make it safe for me to use magic against you. I was strongly advised not to try it out there." She smiled down on them. It was not a pleasant smile. If Eric could have shuddered, he would have. "Now we can begin."
Why did they always have to talk at times like this? Was it just that they needed an audience to appreciate their cleverness?
She stared down at Vlad, pondering a moment. "For the bloodletting rite to be performed, I learned that you had to be willing innocents. Mindaug says that actual virginity may not be necessary, but that you should be willing is." She nodded, her attention no longer on Vlad, as if now she was talking to herself. "I shall take no chances. I have both of you. One virginal, and one not. And by the time I am finished with you, you will be willing to perform my will. As for innocence, Mindaug assures me-and I do not think him wrong this time-that that is what allows you independence. You will take part in our little Sabbat tonight. And I will call on my master to bind your wills. I gather nothing less will do it."
She smiled another of those terrible smiles, her attention on Vlad again. "My little grandson Emeric will be so pleased."
She waited, her head cocked to the side, in an listening attitude, then laughed mockingly. "Ah. Of course. You can't reply. This is such an effective spell. I had to be careful, with you consorting with those vile knights. This magic is particularly good against men and Christians."
Her glance slipped to Eric. "Well, let us prepare. Then I will come and fetch the first sacrifice from your company. This young woman here has all the right qualities." She kicked Bortai. "It's her or your sister, Vlad of Valahia. And I need your sister's virginity." She said it in Frankish. She obviously wanted them to understand.
She walked away, and stood sharpening a knife next to the altar. Cages were carried in. A cat. A black rooster. A goat was led in. And then a row of five young terrified children, boys and girls ranging in age from about eight through to the edge of puberty, who were dragged to the points of the star.
Erik looked on in sick horror, and prayed. Begged for strength for his arms and legs, just for an instant.
The satanists began chanting-a depraved, vile perversion of a Gregorian chant. The huge crowd began a bizarre, obscene dance, writhing and stroking their own and each others' bodies, except for those who held the victims. Some began coupling on the floor.
And Erik saw a little striped field-mouse crawl out of the shaman Kaltegg's tunic. It very purposefully darted down to his pouch, burrowed into it, and emerged with a large feather. A hawk's pinion feather. The mouse dragged it over to Bortai.
In the meanwhile Elizabeth had proceeded
with her butchery. She was cruelly and brutally methodical. To Erik it looked as if the walls behind her seemed to glow red. But perhaps it was just his rage and desperation.
And then they came for Bortai. Dragged her, limp and unstruggling to the blood-wet altar. Pulled her, spread-eagled onto it. The dwarf, like some evil misshapen gargoyle, his swollen manhood exposed through a cutaway in the priest's cassock he wore, clambered onto the altar. The chanting had stopped now. The other victims were being spread-eagled too. Erik prayed. Prayed as he had never done before.
The field mouse dragged the wing-pinion across his hand. It felt like the worst pins-and-needles he'd ever had. The dwarf walked up his victim's body and then knelt to tear her deel.
Bortai head-butted him so hard that you could hear his nasal bones crack across the room. He fell back. And Erik, still feeling as weak as a newborn kitten, staggered to his feet. It was at least twenty yards to the altar. His new 'Algonquin' hatchet flew. Elizabeth Bartholdy was obscured. But the man holding Bortai's wrist was not. And if she could head-butt…
As the man holding Bortai fell over, Eric staggered desperately towards them, trying to get his sword up.
***
Elizabeth watched, stunned, as Ficzko fell back off the altar, onto his overlarge head. The girl kicked Dorko in the stomach. Mascon fell, an axe in his back, and the Mongol girl's right hand was free. Anna had lost her grip on the other leg, and Ilona got flung right over the altar. And the Mongol girl had a knife. And staggering up toward the dias was the blond man, with Vlad and another Mongol leaning on their swords, but getting there.
Elizabeth was trapped between them, but they were plainly still weak. So would the girl be. And there was only one of her.
"I am not a man, and my windhorse is strong. Stronger than your magic," said the girl who had been going to be her victim.
A pagan. The spell that she'd used to paralyse would be weaker on her. No matter! The room was full of her followers. And Elisabeth had her magic. She called on the lesser demons that she had bound to do will. She would turn this victim into a burnt offering.
Nothing happened.
With a gasp of disbelief, Elizabeth called forth her nails. Her deadly toxic nails.
Nothing happened.
And then she knew real fear. And came to the horrible realization that activating a spell to cut Vlad off from his source of power… had left her in the same position.
No matter! Elizabeth still had a knife. And she had used it for many sacrifices.
Too late, as her sacrificial knife went spinning, and her intended victim's knife entered her chest, did she realize that the sacrifices didn't usually have the chance to fight back.
***
Erik had hewed one of the countess's sacrificial assistants down and managed to get behind Elizabeth… trying to raise his sword again, when Bortai pushed her own blade right into Elizabeth's heart.
Erik wasn't taking any chances. He managed a thrust anyway.
In his years of fighting, he'd had a sword go into flesh often enough before.
This time it slid in far more easily than it ought to. Bortai was slashing at Elizabeth's perfect throat as the countess fell.
Only it wasn't a perfect throat.
It was the wattled neck of an old crone. An incredibly fragile old crone. And she hit the floor, as Erik pulled his sword free, and her round stomach spilled maggots and putrefaction.
There was silence.
And then terrible screams of horror from her acolytes.
***
On the hills the wolves felt her barrier fall. They surged in a great pack towards the castle.
***
In his own chambers, Count Mindaug shrugged philosophically. Elizabeth's recklessness had ended the way such folly usually did. He had warned her, after all, as was his duty. Well. Admittedly, the warnings had been very subtle.
Time, now, to escape. To Buda, he decided. As distasteful as he found the prospect of working for Emeric, the king of Hungary seemed his best option.
A moment later, Mindaug was gone. The chamber was filled with a cloud of smoke and, oddly, a single mirror hanging suspended in the middle. The count enjoyed his little jokes.
Chapter 74
There was silence. And a nothingness, except for a hall of mirrors before her. Elizabeth's agony didn't come from the wounds. Her whole body hurt. And, in the mirrors from which there was no escaping, she could see that the body was old. Not even that of a crone. So decrepit it almost looked like a corpse.
And then Crocell came stumping forward.
"This was not my bargain," she croaked.
"Oh, I think you will find that it was," said Crocell.
"I was going to be young and beautiful forever! You betrayed me. You lied."
"Of course. That is what we do. This is the way all such bargains end."
"But I was his loyal servant! You were too!"
Crocell shrugged. "In our master's house there are many slave kennels. There is nothing else. You should know that Mindaug had betrayed you anyway."
"Curse him!"
"He is accursed, but your curses no longer have any effect."
"What did he do?"
"You set about a great binding spell. One of deep demonic compulsion, with the perquisite sacrifices and atrocities that you humans require. Vlad and his sister are not ordinary mortals to be easily bound to your will. But he had successfully arranged for you to perform the rite of Cthasares, which nullifies all workings of magic and the drawing on powers within the sphere of protection. Of course all workings performed outside, even on objects within the sphere, still work. But not spells cast within it. You should have been outside, but in your folly, you were inside with them. Therefore your binding of their will would not have worked, despite you following all the forms and rituals precisely. The moment that Vlad and his sister were out of there, they would have both drawn on their bond with the land. I think they might possibly have been driven mad by what you planned them to witness. They would have woken the wildfire. Called the winds down. Shaken the earth. Probably killed themselves, and you. But under no circumstances would they have gone near the place of stones. And for them to stay away was precisely what Count Mindaug wanted."
"But he wanted a corrupted compact. He showed me how to do it!"
"No. He wanted to destroy the compact that already exists. End the truce between the forest, earth and fire and man. The old ones would lose eventually, of course. In the process, he found rituals and spells to take control of members of each faerie group. But they are protected thus far by the compact, because they share."
Crocell waved his hand. "However, that is all behind you now. It is time to begin your eternity of beauty."
Elizabeth looked at herself in the endless hall of mirrors, knowing that what was to come would be torment without relief. "The prisoners cannot leave the sphere of Cthasares without me. They are trapped there until they join me here. The place is bespelled to resist the Knights of the Holy Trinity too."
The thought did not offer her any comfort. And soon she was hardly thinking at all.
Chapter 75
The floor of the wing in which they had been imprisoned was made of sound eight inch oak boards, laid on even thicker joists. Good oak was common just over the mountains.
They were no match for a determined Manfred and several other axe wielders.
Hauling timbers clear, they tried shining a light down, but couldn't see what was below them. Eventually they settled on sending down David tied on a rope, with a candle. "At least if it is a cistern we can pull you back up, boy. Wouldn't like to try it with Manfred," said Von Gherens.
It proved to be a refectory, some fifteen feet below. David tried to haul a table under the hole. But even without his injured arm, it was too heavy. So they lowered the next knight. And the next. Then David, with the candle, found the the pantry and the pantry ladder, which, on top of the table made the descent plausible for the armored men.
David had, by this time, peered out into the passage, as it suddenly occurred to him that someone should be curious about the noise they were making.
It was very dark. Not a brand nor a candle to be seen.
"Tell someone we will need candles," he sent the message to the last knights up in their quarters. In the meantime he raided the pantry. Looking for candles, of course. He found some tallow dips, and a pasty.
The knights stepped out into the passage, with candles…
Which promptly went out.
They returned to the refectory, and lit them again. The candle went out as soon as it was in the passage. "Brothers," said Falkenberg. "There is some form of dark magic afoot in this place. Let us try a good psalm."
"And surround them with steel and the sign of the Cross," said Von Stael.
As long as they kept the candles or tallow dips inside the phalanx of steel, as long as the singing continued, they had light. It did mean that they weren't going to be able sneak up on anyone.
Before long they started finding dead bodies.
"No one we know, is it?"
Manfred turned the woman's body over with his boot. Looked at what she was wearing. "I really don't think so," he said. David, from the center of the phalanx was glad that he couldn't see it, by the sounds of Manfred's voice.
And then they heard the chanting.
"Sounds like a Gregorian chant. But there is something very wrong with it," said Von Stael, as the rest of the knights kept up their singing.
"Well, let's go and see just what it is. "
But it was very clear that they were being opposed somehow. Misled down passages that took them away. They arrived at the refectory again. "Cruciform swords… and we will walk widdershins. Not try to follow the sound."