Dark Crusade

by Vaughn Heppner

  “If he controls such power,” said Vivian, “why not simply sweep away his foes with a wave of his hand? Why this hiding and sulking? Why has he created an army of darkspawn?”

  Leng laughed, shaking his head. “Weren’t you listening? Much of his will is used in simply being. He must concentrate and use his magic powers to exist such as we do naturally. That will change in time. First, however, all vestiges of his great foe must be destroyed or converted into darkspawn. Hosar… He guards this realm, this little island, from the full powers of Darkness and dark spells. He bars Old Father Night, the Moon Lady, and the others from walking among us in potency. Yet when all the worshipers of Hosar are gone, all the temples and shrines polluted or razed and the fires of genocide have consumed the humans, then will our Master conjure with full thought and bring himself truly and fully back to life.”

  “Old Father Night was among us in Castle Forador?” Vivian asked.

  “For a short time only, and then because of the rift opened by the amulet. Don’t you understand? The old glories of a bygone era are to be summoned by our Master’s spells. He will continue in his ancient enterprise and do that which he long set out to do.”

  “Which is what?”

  Leng chuckled, once more shaking his head. “No. You have learned enough. More is not wise.”

  “Then the Master cannot sweep away his foes with the magic of the amulet?”

  “What do you think the darkspawn are? He works fantastic thaumaturgy. Yet he doesn’t, I’ll admit, practice a single, all-encompassing spell. He changes one person at a time until he has a host, a swarming of darkspawn to defeat all his foes.”

  “I see,” said Vivian.

  “Yes,” said Leng. “I believe you do see. That, of course, is why I told you.” He snorted. “Look at that stupid giant behind you. Cuthred crunches his low-sloped forehead and is yet none the wiser. Fool.”

  “Maybe he is a fool,” said Vivian, “but at least he got to whip you and make you scream and grovel.”

  Leng’s black eyes narrowed.

  “Forgive me,” she said. “I spoke hastily.”

  After a moment, he shrugged.

  “No, Leng, I mean it. I’m sorry I said that. And I want to convince you that you don’t need to do this.”

  “Do what?”

  “Use me for the Master.”

  The sorcerer’s smile returned. “I must use you that way, dear Vivian. You are too perfect, too intelligent not to use. You’re just what I need.”

  “I thought it might be something like that.”

  He studied her. “I must say that you’re taking this remarkably well.”

  Her chin trembled, but she remained silent.

  Leng’s evil grin grew. “After a while the beauty fades, you know. Yes, I suppose you already do know. You’ve seen what happened to Kergan and I’ve just explained why. It will go no differently for you.”

  Tears welled in her eyes. “You’re enjoying this,” she whispered, “and after all we’ve been through together.”

  “Enjoying? No, Vivian, I’m not enjoying it. It’s simply that you’re too clever to keep around. Your questions just now confirm it.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I think you do understand,” he said. “You soak up what you see, yes?”

  She stared at him.

  “And you do all this in order to try to find a way to escape, yes?”

  “No.”

  “No?” he asked.

  She shook her head.

  “Why then?”

  “I want to find your weakness.”

  “I have none, silly woman.”

  “Oh, but you do.”

  He frowned. His frown deepened. “Tell me then why I’ve let you see so much and why I’ve told you the things I have?”

  She glanced back at Cuthred before asking Leng, “Are you sure you wish for him to hear?”

  “The giant?” he asked. “Don’t be absurd.”

  “You’ve let me learn so much because the Master presently seems to be limited by what the amulet-wearer knows or understands. Therefore, you have taught me more so that the Master, when he possesses me, can do more of whatever it is you want him to do.”

  Leng clapped his thin hands. “Very, very good, my dear. Not even some sorcerers I knew would have understood all that without it being carefully explained to them. I’m impressed.”

  “You won’t be impressed by what I have to say next.”

  Leng seemed to tense.

  She laughed, contrived though it sounded. “You’re riding the tiger, Leng. You’re riding it and hoping to control it.”

  Leng’s eyes seemed to glitter.

  “You think the Master is just another demon. No, not just any demon, not after what you just told me. He’s the prince of demons, and you’ve summoned him or helped unleash him in order to do what all sorcerers try to do: to make the monster do your bidding. Perhaps at times you slip. Getting whipped was one of those times. When the knights almost swept into the apple orchard, yes, that was another time. But you plan to use or control the Master for your own ends. What you don’t realize is that I’ve told myself over and over and over again: Remember that Leng is trying to trap the Master. He’s trying to control the Master. Leng thinks that he is the Master. At least he’s trying to bring the Master to heel.”

  Leng’s eyes narrowed dangerously.

  Vivian licked her lips as sweat glistened upon her forehead. “If I become the Master, Leng, I’m going to remember that you’re trying to use me. You’re not Old Father Night’s servant as the Master is. You’re an old sorcerer from Godomar who thinks he can wield the powers of Darkness like any wand or spell. If you help turn me into the Master, Leng, I promise with everything I have to insure that you will never bind the spirit of Zon Mezzamalech or gain control of the amulet.”

  Leng shook his head. “That won’t work. Kergan when he became the Master didn’t do anything to harm me, and I tricked him terribly. If anyone had cause to try and do me ill, it would have been him.”

  “That’s because the spirit in the amulet wouldn’t let Kergan hurt you because you gave it what it wanted. But I can show it in a hundred different ways how you’re trying to suborn its will and power. I know you, Leng. I know you’re trying to bind the Master even as you grovel before him.”

  Leng stood very still. He appeared to be thinking. “It’s too late even if I wanted to change things. You’re the only human left in Glendover, besides me. Unless a new host is found, the Master will perish. I’m sorry, Vivian. I will have to chance your ire or risk becoming the Master myself.”

  “That’s not true,” she whispered.

  “What isn’t?”

  “There are more humans in Glendover.” She choked up, and although she tried to continue speaking, she seemed incapable of speech.

  “Speak, woman, I command you.”

  Her voice came out low and throaty. “There are more humans in Glendover Port than just us.”

  “What?”

  She hung her head. “Deep in the dungeons below the citadel…” She swallowed hard. “That first night when we stormed Glendover, I saved a handful of people. Cuthred has been feeding them for me ever since.”

  “Cuthred!” snapped Leng. “Is this true?”

  “Yes,” rumbled Cuthred.

  Something akin to awe filled Leng’s face. “You’ve done that, girl. You really have?”

  “I’m not proud of it.”

  “No, no, of course not,” he said, while stroking his chin. “You probably hoped to save them if you could. But now you’re going to sell at least one of them to me. You’re going to buy a few more weeks with one of them. Is that what you’re offering?”

  “Yes,” she whispered, as tears brimmed in her eyes.

  Leng shook his head. “You amaze me. You truly amaze me. There is more to you than just beauty.”

  Vivian looked up as the tears trickled down her cheeks.

  “Who are these dupes?
” he asked.

  “The Duke’s daughters,” whispered Vivian, “all three of them.”

  “Interesting. Tell me, do they hate King Egbert?”

  “I believe so.”

  Leng pursed his lips as he studied Vivian. “Why shouldn’t I have your throat slit and be done with you?”

  Vivian straightened in Cuthred’s grip as she smiled seductively. “Can’t you think of a reason, my lord?”

  Leng’s eyes became lust-filled. At last, he spun on his heels and hurried from the chamber.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  “My advice is simple,” Gavin said.

  Swan and Ullrick stood beside him in the wooden corridor. Swan wore a white gown with a white fillet across her forehead. From her neck hung a silver chain, upon which dangled a golden flame symbol. Ullrick wore a blue silk shirt, blue trousers and black boots. His oiled beard was combed, and he wore a rakish felt hat.

  From the mayor’s chamber came the loud banging of a gavel. Arguing sounds subsided. A red-caped page leaned out the door and told them to be ready. The mayor was about to announce them.

  After their foray north, with yet more physical evidence of darkspawn and many eyewitness accounts, they had returned to Castle Wyvis. Fanning out from there, pigeons and heralds had gone in all directions. In the mayor of Tara’s office met the leaders of the factions who had answered positively. An alliance had been hammered out, an army hastily assembled, at least on parchment. Now a strategy was being formed.

  “My advice is simple,” Gavin said again.

  “What is it?” asked Ullrick. He had changed since the foray north. He smiled less, frowned more, and he kept his opinions to himself.

  “Are you listening?” Gavin asked Swan.

  She nodded nervously, plucking at her gown. This was her big moment.

  “We should race to Banfrey,” Gavin said. “There we should all board ship and flee to Elban. We might survive that way. This way…” He shrugged. “You realize we can’t win, don’t you? You realize almost everyone we speak with today has only weeks left as a human.”

  “Your joke is in poor taste,” said Swan.

  “He’s not joking,” Ullrick said grimly.

  Swan frowned at Gavin. “You swore an oath.”

  Gavin shrugged once again, although he seemed troubled.

  Then the page beckoned.

  A forest of occupied chairs had been stuffed before the mayor’s dais. Many important barons wearing fox-lined mantles and their ladies with marten capes sat in them. Crammed benches lined the walls. Hanging from those paneled walls were ornate guild-shields of Tara. From Forador Swamp south to Oswald Ferry and from the Crags east to Bosham Castle by the Sea they had come. Mayors and Guild Masters from the important towns of Tara, Ware and Kildare sat in attendance. The barons of castles Wyvis, Kleve, Kells, Dagda and Callach had come with their retinues. Brown and yellow-robed devotees of Hosar from Thoron and Bede eagerly awaited Swan’s words. Hedge knights grouped by region made sure their voices would be heard today.

  One of the largest groups was Swan’s Crusaders. The foray north had added warriors to her banner. Now a small contingent of fast-moving and hard-hitting horsemen roamed north of the swamp, rescuing whom they could. These homeless but hardy souls naturally gravitated toward her. Still in shock, usually physically ill and terrified by their ordeal, many survivors drank her courageous words as if they had a raging thirst. They wanted to hurt the darkspawn captains. The spirit of Zon Mezzamalech had taken everything they had ever cared for. Those toughened by their calamities took Swan’s proffered hope and told each other that they believed in her promise of victory.

  Swan made her entrance as people clapped and cheered. She gave a speech and pointed out to them her crusading commanders in their blue surcoats with the yellow sun symbol sewn onto the chests. She said a few more words and then opened the floor to debate. The arguments started small, quickly grew larger, become heated and then divided the august company into three factions. Lady Pavia championed the Wait Tough Group, the biggest. In essence, she said drill everyone, peasants, bandits, city dwellers and knights, marshal a huge army, and then smash the darkspawn in a defensive battle when they dared to come south of the swamp. Swan and Aelfric pleaded the Fight Them North Strategy. Most of the northern survivors and the crusaders leaned that way. The last and final group was discovered when Lady Pavia pointed out that they had yet to hear from the Captain General. Gavin gave them the Grand Unity Plan. Plead with the Cragsmen to join them and beg the King or the High Priest to fight alongside everyone else. If need be retreat until the entire island could be marshaled into one host. Then retreat and retreat again, and then retreat some more and yet again.

  “Why all this retreating?” asked Lady Pavia.

  “So the undead wear out,” Gavin said. “I’ve been north. I’ve seen the bones of undead as they rot and fall apart. They only last so long.” Sir Aelfric nodded at that, muttering agreement. Gavin continued, “The spirit of Zon Mezzamalech uses the undead to grab fast. Later, I suppose, he’ll use the other darkspawn. What we need to do now is to wait until the present undead rot away, while at the same time not giving them opportunity to make more.”

  “Can we retreat long enough?” asked Lady Pavia.

  “To Elban is my suggestion,” Gavin said.

  That caused pandemonium, and it lost the Captain General whatever support he had gained. “That’s impossible,” he was told more than once.

  In the end, after another four hours of discussion, Lady Pavia’s strategy was agreed upon. In detail, that meant several things. First, they must keep the swamp route open to rescue more of the northern people, until the darkspawn tried to follow through the swamp in strength. Once that happened, catapults behind a vast log wall across the swamp-route and bolstered by wood-wise foresters, mercenary crossbowmen and a core of well-armored thegns should be able to seal that opening. Meanwhile, everyone else would head to Bosham Castle by the Sea. That ancient fortress guarded the thin strip of land along the coast, the usual invasion route between North and South Anor.

  At Swan’s suggestion, heralds would be sent to the Cragsmen and to the King. The bigger the army the better, for it looked as if the spirit of Zon Mezzamalech had a huge horde in North Anor.

  Gavin made one last speech. “We had better send word to the High Priest to guard his galleys. If he’s wise, he’ll commandeer anything that floats. I think the spirit of Zon Mezzamalech took Glendover Port so none of us could escape Anor. To close the trap, he has to take Banfrey or more precisely, Lobos Port.”

  “Ships leave elsewhere,” said a rich merchant.

  “Small fishing boats do,” Gavin said. “Big merchant ships can only put in at Glendover and at Lobos.”

  “Let us hear no more about ships and trying to flee to Elban,” said Lady Pavia. A chorus of agreement greeted her words.

  Thus, little else was said about the High Priest’s galleys. In any case, no one really believed darkspawn would cross the open sea. The old legends said they never dared. Only the Marauders, humans in darkspawn employ, had ever sailed upon the sea in force. Lady Pavia, who had been reading up on the old legends, told them as much. Several withered Wisdoms from the Emma Shrine read from huge, leather-bound books to confirm her words. Besides reading the legends, Lady Pavia had scoured the temples and shrines for devotees of Hosar with power. So far, an old monk with a crooked staff who could make water ripple when he mumbled was all she had found.

  After the meeting, Swan and Gavin left he mayor’s palace with Hugo trailing behind. As they strode down the long flight of steps that led to the main market square, Swan spoke with an urgency that made her voice quaver. “You’re making it difficult for me to keep you on as my Captain General. So from now on, you must keep your opinions to yourself.”

  “You’ll need a different captain general then,” Gavin said stiffly.

  She peered at him. He clanked about in his martial array of mail armor. A long scabbard, with ge
ms sewn into the leather, slapped at his left leg. His knightly spurs jangled at each step. He held his helmet in the crook of his burly arm. None of that compared in military bearing to his hard features. He had tight lips, a short cut beard, askew nose and calculating, oh-so-shrewd eyes.

  “You could have worked them better,” she said. “I’ve seen you take noble crowds and twist them to your way of thinking. You’ve made an art of it.”

  He shrugged with a clink of sound.

  “No. I think you deliberately acted cowardly. You want to run away.”

  “Most definitely I do.”

  “I don’t understand you,” she said.

  “I thought I made myself plain enough.”

  “No one is braver than you, Sir Gavin.”

  He laughed.

  “No. Don’t laugh. You know it’s true.”

  “Hardly,” he said.

  “Hardly?” she asked. “Tell me who went on a four-man scouting expedition into the heart of Zon Mezzamalech’s domain? Or who gave up their silver sword when it would be needed most? Who, pray tell, does everyone look to when things are grimmest?”

  “That would be you, milady.”

  Swan shook her head. “Not in the middle of a fight, sir. And speaking of fights… Who, as far as I know, has been the only one to give the darkspawn a defeat? Why, that’s you again, Sir Gavin. Yet every time you speak, at least lately, you make people nervous. At every turn you counsel running away.”

  “We’re doomed,” he said. “Anyone who wants to live and who understands the reality of that runs away.”

  “You could have run before, sir. You were at Banfrey. It would have been easy enough to book passage to Elban. Yet you came back. What did you see on your scouting expedition? You’ve become gloomy since then, defeatist.”

  Gavin hadn’t told anyone about Joanna, not even Hugo. Guilt ate at him too much for that. He had failed Joanna, run out on her. He had failed the others, too. He wasn’t sure he could take more failure, more blood on his hands. If Joanna could become darkspawn…what hope was there for the rest of them?

  “Don’t you want to hurt those who have hurt yours?” asked Swan.