Dark Crusade

by Vaughn Heppner

“T-T-The sun, Cuthred, it rises.”

  Cuthred grabbed Simon by the arm. The vengeful humans wouldn’t rest. Not with the sun to guide them. Simon’s arm felt like iron. Surprised, Cuthred saw that Simon had become rigid, frozen in fear as he stared at the coming dawn. Then tension oozed out of Simon as his features melted into a hideous mask of gut-wrenching horror. As if all the bones had been sucked from his body, Simon fell to the ground. He covered his eyes. “Please…” he whispered, no louder than a child would. “No more light. I hate the light.”

  Cuthred squinted at the brilliant smear on the horizon. He found it hard to concentrate.

  Simon clawed fistfuls of dirt out of the ground as he wept.

  “Simon!”

  Simon felt his hole. Then he crammed his face into it. Spasms washed over him.

  The hackles rose on Cuthred’s neck. He turned from Simon in loathing and disgust. Dawn-light made it hard to think. Then the sun rose and no longer just threw its rays into the night. It actually shone with the barest tip of its dreadful orb. He couldn’t breathe. Air! Air! He needed air! Cuthred fumbled at the straps to his armor, snapping, ripping them off. His armor clanged to the ground. He yanked off the greaves girding his legs and hurled them away. The he snatched up his club and crashed blindly ahead.

  Later, as the sun blazed in the sky, he stopped in a forest. He was deep within its comforting gloom. His feet ached. The heated air—at least to him it was heated—scorched his lungs. He had to reach Glendover Port. There, surely, waited darkspawn behind thick walls of stone, darkspawn who could stop the humans.

  He snatched several hours of fitful sleep. Every time he woke, he prayed to Old Father Night. Later, as the sun sank toward the horizon, he dared the sunlight again. So engrossed was he enduring the sun that he failed to hear the voices that would have normally alerted him.

  He stumbled around a clump of trees and came upon ten haggard humans. Some lay sprawled on the ground, spears and shields beside them. They snored. Two rested with their backs against an oak as they oiled crossbows. One thin man squatted, staring at an anthill.

  Cuthred didn’t know whether to attack or to flee, so he stood there frozen. The squatting man looked up. Only it wasn’t a man. She had dark hair and a keen, alert manner. Something about her seemed familiar.

  “A giant!” shouted a crossbowman. He madly cranked his weapon. Snoring men leapt up in shock.

  Cuthred would have attacked now to save himself, but something in the woman’s eyes stayed him.

  The short man with an eye-patch, and with gnarled fingers, threw away his crank and slapped a bolt into the weapon’s groove. He approached like a crab, slantwise and edgy. Other men followed the one-eyed man, although they hung well behind him.

  “Do we kill him?” the one-eyed man asked the woman.

  Cuthred rumbled low in his throat: his prelude to any attack.

  “Seer?” asked the one-eyed man.

  The woman shook her head.

  The one-eyed man spat on the ground. “The Cap’n General says slay all darkspawn.”

  “The Captain General isn’t here,” she said.

  “We must cleanse the land of evil,” he said, “no matter how unsavory the task.”

  “There is wisdom in your words, Hugo.”

  Then Cuthred knew who she was, but the memory hurt. “Swan,” he said.

  They glanced at him, puzzled.

  “How do you know me?” she asked.

  Tears leaked from Cuthred’s eyes. “Castle Forador,” he said, “long ago, before, before…”

  She moved closer yet, was almost close enough to touch him.

  “Careful,” said the one-eyed man.

  Swan appeared thoughtful. “Cuthred the dog boy?” she asked.

  A shudder went through Cuthred. “I loved my dogs.”

  “Loved?” asked the one-eyed man.

  Tears streaked Cuthred’s grimy cheeks.

  “Get the banner,” said Swan.

  “My Seer…”

  “Hugo, please, will you do as I ask?”

  Hugo hesitated, but then nodded and turned to go. “Watch him,” he told the other crossbowman.

  “Cuthred,” said Swan. “I’m going to ask you to do something very hard.”

  He didn’t like the sound of that.

  “Do you trust me?”

  Her gaze said that she knew he did.

  “Listen to me, Cuthred.”

  He nodded, but he was scared.

  The one called Hugo returned. He held a long pole, a lance, it seemed. Cloth bound the end of the lance. Cuthred’s nervousness blossomed into fear. His gut clenched.

  “Listen to me,” she said earnestly.

  Cuthred wanted to flee. Then an evil thought gripped him. He would snatch her and flee, and later he would twist off her head!

  “Seer,” Hugo said.

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “Cuthred, do you hear me?”

  Cuthred blinked, and he found that his club was in his hands.

  She reached out to touch him.

  Cuthred snarled as something within him—something alien and evil. He raised his club for a killing blow.

  Hugo’s old gnarled hands twisted fast. The lance spun round. The cloth binding the end unfurled. Hugo swung the lance upright, and the Banner of Tulun snapped in the breeze.

  Cuthred squealed.

  “You can be free,” whispered Swan.

  Cuthred mewled in shame. His knees buckled and face-first he fell upon the dirt. “Go away!” he shouted.

  “Look at the banner,” she said.

  He wanted too, but shook his head.

  “You must look,” she said.

  Defeat and despair filled him. “You don’t understand.”

  “I do understand.”

  “I’m darkspawn.”

  “And I stayed in the dungeons for weeks on end.”

  What dungeons did she mean? Then he recalled the evil clawmen who had beat and taunted him. “Kill!” he roared, raising his head. The banner, the bright awful banner, shone with power and checked his rage.

  Then the humans gasped.

  “He comes,” Swan said in awe.

  Who came? Cuthred wondered.

  “Call out to Hosar!” cried Swan.

  At that name, Cuthred cringed.

  “Call out!” she said.

  “Old Father—”

  “No! Call out to Hosar!”

  Cuthred squinted past his tears. A chill bit him. For an instant, he thought to see a being with skin like bronze that glowed in a furnace and with eyes like blazing fire. The being wore a bright robe and a silver sash, and with his right hand, he made a sign. Cuthred gasped, and something cold and clean washed through him. It shriveled the alien thing within him. And without squinting, he could look at the banner. A great freedom filled him. He felt…felt…

  “FREE!” Cuthred roared. “I’M FREE!”

  “He’s raving,” Hugo said, aiming his crossbow.

  “No,” said Swan, her face aglow. “He has been torn from Old Father Night. Darkspawn can be healed.”

  Hugo stared at her in wonder.

  “Drop your club!” said Swan.

  Cuthred dropped his club and bowed before her.

  “Thank Hosar,” she said.

  To the amazement of them all, Cuthred did just that.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  Morose, fearful and sunburned tuskriders urged their nearly dead boars down the steep incline. Leng toiled beside them on his stolen stallion. His guts knotted, twisted, and churned with agony. He had never ridden a horse so far or so fast, so in fear of his life.

  Behind them, perhaps just over the range they had ridden down, came the avenging Captain General of the Crusaders. Leng cursed the man to eternal doom! Although hunger made Leng dizzy and the thirst in his throat made each swallow a lesson in torture, he soon grinned with malicious evil. Behind his horse came a mule, the least weary member of their desperate crew. On the mule swayed a drugged Vivian. H
er wrists were cruelly lashed to her saddle-horn. And every so often, she whispered, “Gavin… Oh, Gavin…”

  “He can’t save you,” said Leng, even though the speech seared this throat. His cracked and bleeding lips made his leer as nasty, as gross and as hateful as his heart.

  Gavin had stolen everything: all his dreams, his work, his careful, long-term scheming. By Old Father Night, he would hurt Gavin worse! This Leng swore. First, he had to get away. Leng cast a fearful glance over his shoulder. He had to get away fast.

  ***

  Sir Gavin, Sir Aelfric, Sir Josserand and forty-seven others persisted in giving chase. They hunched like dead men in their saddles. Their sleep-deprived eyes were more bloodshot and glazed than any darkspawn they had slain. Each rode with a naked, blood-crusted, notched blade. Each bore open wounds. All but Gavin yearned to stop and hurl himself to the ground and sleep for a week.

  “Captain General,” whispered Aelfric.

  Gavin shook his head. His eyes ever scanned the horizon as he touched bloody spurs to his stallion’s flanks. Never did he say a word. Like an avenging hound, he would follow until death if necessary.

  ***

  Leng and his tuskriders topped the last rise at nightfall. Glendover Port hove into view. Through a cloudy haze, Leng made out on the city walls Zon Mezzamalech’s banner. The darkspawn yet held this stronghold of stone.

  “Soon,” he croaked.

  The tuskriders were too tired to nod. But they weren’t too tired to follow him into the city.

  ***

  Somewhere along the road, something happened to the twenty avengers. Once there had been over forty of them. Something happened to those who had remained on the trail. Something grim, hardening, soul searing occurred. They had ridden too long for ordinary flesh to stand—too long in the saddle, too long without rest, without sleep. Puffy, staring eyes, but no longer glassy, had became portals to their souls. And those souls were feral. Swords rose and fell too many times to count. Darkspawn cowering in holes, or lying asleep along the road or crippled and pathetically crawling, crawling, crawling for Glendover Port died swiftly, mercilessly. Each of the avengers had seen the darkspawn in their heyday of evil, when they had raped the humanity out of their captives. The avengers had sworn awful oaths of what they would do some day to balance the scales of justice.

  That day had come.

  No more did they beg Gavin to halt, to let them rest for just one hour. They had reached deep within themselves and supped from the fires raging there. It seared them, changed them and turned them into automatons that seemed more than flesh and bone. The time would come when they would pay for this life-killing pace. For the present, their wills had become more than iron, more than human. They were the avengers, the twenty that yet rode, and they thirsted to hack at the root of this horror: at the sorcerer who had begun it all: Leng.

  No longer did they ride weary stallions. A farm horse left to pasture here, a mule locked in a ruined barn there. A quick halt, saddle-straps unbuckled, a grunt, a heave, and the farm horse, the mule, found itself burdened with a sweaty saddle and upon the road of vengeance.

  Grim, silent, brooding, the avengers topped a hill. Below them spread out Glendover Port. Inhuman smiles stretched their lips. Swords stirred. Much, much later…for some too late to ever matter…swords would have to be pried from hands frozen onto pommels.

  “Death,” whispered Josserand.

  “Kill them all,” agreed Aelfric.

  “Except Leng,” Gavin said. “Him we save for the Seer.”

  In such a manner did the avengers descend upon Glendover Port.

  ***

  Leng lashed the darkspawn with his fear. He drove them with spells, curses and promises of a new night. He told them the dark gods never failed. Sometimes, yes, there were setbacks, but the slaves who remained true to the end would sup the ultimate victory.

  A motley crew of brutes, tuskriders and clawmen groaned under the weight of the treasure room’s contents. There in the citadel, in the Duke’s former treasure room, lay gold bars, diamond-filled sacks, silver ingots and barrels full of rubies. All the northern holds had been sacked to supply these riches.

  “Faster!” shouted Leng. “Faster!” He yearned to lie down and sleep. But he knew that he had little time left. Whatever he could grab now could be used later. He wanted to loot all Glendover and then burn it to the ground—

  “Humans!” cried a bass-voiced lookout.

  “Not yet,” moaned Leng.

  The treasure room was only half-empty. Still, Leng lifted up his robes and ran for the docks. The darkspawn ran, too. Some dropped treasure, others staggered under their heavy loads. As they raced through the empty streets, the moon crawled west. It seemed forever before they bounded over gangplanks and onto their chosen ships. Sweaty brutes leaned against the poles that thrust them from the docks.

  Leng beat his fists against his galley’s railing. More time, he needed more time. Hatred welled in his heart. “Gavin!” He reached into his pockets and pulled out paper. On the parchment, he scribbled fast. This note he fixed to a crossbow bolt. Beside him, a clawman cranked a stolen crossbow and then handed it over.

  A grim band of human avengers stormed onto the stone docks. Darkspawn slower than the others wailed. Swords cut them down.

  “Curse them!” cried Leng. Then his eyes widened in rage and shock.

  The docks! Vivian stood by barrels of wine on the docks. She was drugged, her hands bound. She swayed and was unaware of what went on around her. In the rush, he had forgotten her.

  Leng’s galley dug its oars into the water, pulling the heavy ship farther and farther away. In disbelief, Leng counted the humans. Why so few? For a moment, he considered turning back. Slay this cursed Captain General and reclaim Vivian. Gavin’s silver sword glowed with its terrible tracings then. Courage fled Leng, but not his rage, his malice. He lifted the crossbow. Let Gavin find her dead on the docks. He sighted her, and his eyes roved over her body. He licked his lips in remembrance of their countless nights together.

  “Shoot,” he told himself.

  Near to Vivian, Gavin slew a last brute. Then he saw her. A joyful cry leapt out the Captain General’s throat.

  Leng snarled and slowly squeezed the trigger, squeezed… The steel string snapped. The bolt sped true and thudded into the barrel beside Vivian. She screamed.

  Gavin stopped and stared at Leng.

  Leng made a rude gesture. Then in fury, he strode out of sight. He wasn’t sure why he had let her live, or maybe he wasn’t ready for the truth. He would make them both pay nonetheless, by Old Father Night that he swore.

  ***

  Two weeks after the victory at Bosham Castle, the High Priest watched from the top of a hill, with a bodyguard of knights around him. Below, in the valley, the King’s Army slaughtered the darkspawn that had fled south of the Midlands.

  There were more darkspawn here than he had realized, and these were the dregs of a defeated host.

  “How large was the original army?” the High Priest asked a knight.

  “Ten times what we fought today, your Grace. Or so they say. But that’s impossible.”

  “Nay,” said another knight. “Not for Sir Gavin, the Captain General of Crusaders.”

  The first knight nodded, and dared to smile.

  The High Priest turned away. Even his personal guardsmen looked upon this Sir Gavin in wonder, and they looked upon the crusader’s Seer as Hosar come in the flesh.

  “Curse them,” he whispered.

  “Your Grace?” asked the knight.

  The High Priest shook his head. He would have to wait. Gavin’s name rang too loudly for him to have the former jouster assassinated. And Swan! The populace worshipped her, especially with that the healed giant in her company. Given time, maybe something could be made of that.

  He sighed. The Battle of Lobos had badly hurt the King’s Army, enough so the battle here had been close. And this had just been the dregs of the former host. H
e mounted his horse. He would bide his time, smile and welcome the heroes if they dared march upon Banfrey. What else could he do…for now?

  “It is a glorious victory, your Grace,” said a knight.

  “Indeed,” said the High Priest. “Glorious.”

  “Hosar be praised.”

  “Hmm,” said the High Priest, before he rode away.

  The End

  To the Reader: Thanks! I hope you’ve enjoyed Dark Crusade. If you liked the book and would like to see more of Sir Gavin, please support it by putting up some stars and a review. Let new readers know what’s in store for them.

  —Vaughn Heppner