“The greatest swordsman in Aquitaine?” the Red Duke laughed. “Is that what you call yourself, Durand? Too bad you chose to pit your steel against the greatest swordsman in all Bretonnia!”
The vampire matched deeds to words. With contemptuous ease, the Red Duke mounted a counter-parry as he caught Armand’s blade upon his steel. The fiend’s sword slashed across the knight’s vambrace, splitting the couter guarding his elbow. Mail was shredded by the cruel edge of the Red Duke’s sword. Armand cried out as he felt the vampire’s blade cut into the tendons of his arm.
Snarling, the Red Duke spun his body around, describing a graceful arc as he brought his sword low. This time it was Armand’s knee that was slashed by the inhumanly powerful blow, the fan-plate above the poleyn bent out of shape by the malignant force behind the Red Duke’s blade.
“The greatest swordsman in Aquitaine,” the Red Duke hissed, glowering at his bleeding foe. The vampire licked his fangs, hunger burning within him as he saw the blood leaking down the knight’s armour. “I think I will reclaim that title from you, Durand.”
Armand gritted his teeth, forcing his maimed body into motion. “I am not Durand!” the knight yelled. Locking both hands about the grip of his sword, he lunged at the Red Duke, throwing his entire body behind one last, desperate effort to skewer the vampire upon his sword.
The Red Duke did not seek to dodge the assault. He merely caught the front of Armand’s sword in his mailed fist, arresting the motion of both man and blade with his superhuman strength. Terror and despair filled Armand’s face as the vampire began to bend the point of his sword back upon itself, the scream of bending steel filling the gallery.
“No,” the vampire hissed as he glared at the bleeding knight. “You are not Durand. You are dinner.”
CHAPTER IX
The Red Duke glared at the Tower of Wizardry. The vampire shook his fist at the woman staring down at him from the balcony high above the battlefield. The magic of Isabeau had defied every strategy the Red Duke had devised to bring down the fortress and destroy the prophetess who had defied him and refused to recognize his claim on Aquitaine.
Siege towers had been bowled over by hurricane gales that came from nowhere to sweep across the battlefield. Iron picks had bent and buckled when driven against the enchanted masonry of the stronghold. The sappers he had dispatched to undermine the tower had become utterly disoriented, driving their tunnels instead beneath Lake Tranquil and flooding their excavations. Trebuchets and mangonels fell apart as they loosed stones against Isabeau, their mechanisms corroded by the prophetess’ spells.
Only main force was left to the Red Duke’s army, to break down the walls from sheer strength and obstinacy. At first, the vampire had raged over the failure of his knights to ride down the peasants as they fled into the tower for sanctuary. The bodies of three of the most defiant of his men still swung from a tree outside the vampire’s pavilion. Now, however, he looked upon the escape of the peasants as fortuitous. With only herself and her retainers to feed, Isabeau might have rationed the tower’s store of provisions for a year. But with seven hundred starving peasants to succour, the store would quickly be played out.
If he could not smash his way in, then the Red Duke would starve the tower’s defenders out. His own army could easily outlast Isabeau, almost three-quarters of the vampire’s troops were skeletons and zombies, things that needed neither food or sleep to keep them going. Leaving the undead to hold Isabeau inside the tower, the mortal elements of the army could safely forage for provisions in the abandoned farms and villages.
The tower would fall. It was only a matter of time.
The Red Duke turned his back to the Tower of Wizardry and marched back to his pavilion. Even with an overcast sky to shield him, the vampire felt discomfort from the unseen sun. He was eager to slink back into the comforting darkness beneath his pavilion of black silk and crimson banners.
A messenger stopped the vampire as he swept aside his tent’s door-flap. The young soldier bent his knee to the Red Duke, genuflecting before the creature to which his family had bound themselves with oaths of loyalty. The Red Duke could not place the boy’s name, but he could see the mark of nobility in his manner and quality of armour. A squire from one of the northern lords, those men whose ideas of honour had caused them to prefer their rightful master to Louis the Usurper.
“Your grace,” the messenger began, gasping for breath. The dust of the road covered his armour and a tatter of bloodied cloth bound his right arm. “My father, Count Froissart is sore beset by the king’s forces in the wine fiefs! Castle Aquin has fallen and Marquis d’Elbiq has betrayed us in the south and joined the Duke of Quenelles against us!”
The Red Duke’s eyes blazed with fury, his armoured hand shot out, closing upon the throat of the messenger. A brutal turn of the vampire’s wrist and he snapped the squire’s neck.
The vampire shook his fist at the Tower of Wizardry. This was the witch’s doing! Isabeau had kept his forces occupied here long enough for King Louis and his allies to invade Aquitaine from north and south! Already the western half of his realm was beset by the Usurper’s troops!
A cold smile crept across the vampire’s dead flesh. Louis had tricked him, but the Red Duke would still win the war. He had always been the greater strategist during the crusade against Araby. Now the king would get a gruesome reminder that he owed his victory against Sultan Jaffar not to the Lady, but to the tactics of the rightful Duke of Aquitaine.
“De Gavaudan!” the Red Duke snarled. His twisted thrall emerged from the darkness of the pavilion, hissing spitefully at the dreary grey afternoon, shielding his eyes with his good hand.
The Red Duke ignored his slave’s discomfort. He had a job for the filthy creature, a task the vampire was unwilling to entrust to one of his mortal servants. The example of the Marquis d’Elbiq was reminder enough that the loyalties of his knights might falter when forced to choose between their duke and their king.
“Gather my black knights,” the Red Duke told Baron de Gavaudan. He glanced up at the hanging tree and the rotting bodies dangling from its branches. “Have the necromancers cut those two down and add them to the company. Ride southward, putting to the torch every village and farm. That will draw out Louis.” The vampire smiled, imagining the king’s reaction to the brutal campaign of terror Baron de Gavaudan and four-hundred undead knights would unleash. The king would be moved to protect the peasants, his advisors would urge him to attack the black knights while they were ranging ahead of the Red Duke’s infantry. Like almost all Bretonnians, they would never consider that a commander would use his knights as merely a diversion, that the infantry would be his real weapon.
King Louis would expect to find the Red Duke with Baron de Gavaudan and the wights. Therefore he would be taken by surprise when the Red Duke flanked the king’s army with his infantry. De Gavaudan would draw the king out, the Red Duke would close the trap upon him.
“Stand fast at the village of Mercal,” the Red Duke told his slave. “If the king’s forces reach you, hold them at Mercal. I shall march my troops against the rear of the army, trapping them between us.”
Baron de Gavaudan nodded his head in understanding. The vampire thrall looked askance at one of the mortal men-at-arms bearing a net of fish towards the camp stores. “The living ones will slow you down,” the decayed vampire warned.
The Red Duke turned his head and watched the man in question labouring under his burden. He intended to keep the mortal knights with him to give him a reserve of cavalry when the black knights rode off with Baron de Gavaudan. But his slave was right, living infantry would tire and slow his force down.
“Have the necromancers attend to them as well,” the Red Duke ordered. “Warn them to be thorough. I want no man left behind when we quit this place.”
The sight of crows circling above the Chateau du Maisne was the first inkling that Sir Leuthere was too late in bringing his warning to Count Ergon. As the knight and Vigor rode towa
rds the castle, the open gate left no question that something was wrong. A mangy wolf came slinking out from the gateway as the two men rode up, scampering off into the brush, a severed human hand clenched in its jaws.
The scene within the courtyard was enough to turn even a knight’s stomach. The half-eaten bodies of men and women were scattered throughout, crows picking at what other scavengers had left behind. The corpses of several ghouls, their unclean flesh feathered with arrows, sprawled near the stables, their faces pulled back in a rictus that exposed their sharpened teeth. Oddly enough, the sound of stamping hooves and anxious whinnies rose from the building beyond the ghouls. Apparently the massacre had not spread to the horses.
“We’re too late,” Vigor shuddered, turning his face from the ghastly scene. “The Red Duke has already been here. We’re too late!”
Leuthere merely nodded, afraid if he spoke he would find the same panic expressed by the peasant sounding in his own voice. The knight cast his gaze across the bodies, trying to find Count Ergon or Sir Armand among the dead. He felt his gorge rise as his scrutiny found the mangled body of a woman, only the silver band locked about her wrist able to testify that the gnawed remains were those of the Countess du Maisne.
“We’re too late!” Vigor cried.
Leuthere fixed the peasant with a stern look. “Go quiet the horses,” the knight ordered, nodding at the stables. “I’ll have a look inside the castle.”
“They’re all dead!” Vigor protested. “The Red Duke is going to kill us all!”
“Go tend to the horses,” Leuthere repeated, his tone even more authoritative. A lifetime of service overcame Vigor’s rising panic and the peasant responded to the knight’s command. Leuthere felt some relief when the crippled peasant dismounted and made his way towards the stables. The chore would give Vigor something to occupy his mind and keep him from letting his fear overwhelm him.
The knight dismounted as well, marching across the courtyard to where the doors of the keep had once stood. They were splintered and smashed now, one hanging limply from its fastenings, another thrown deep into the main hall of the keep. As Leuthere entered the hall, he could see the bodies of armoured men strewn everywhere. Some bore the marks of spear and sword, others had their skulls caved in by maces and hammers; still more bore no mark of violence except for the blood staining their ears and the expressions of abject horror frozen on their dead faces.
Here and there, Leuthere found some sign of the creatures that had visited such destruction upon the chateau. A rusty dagger, the corroded strap of a boot or vambrace, a bit of crumbling armour. Once he stumbled upon a fleshless skeleton draped across a table, its bones bleached by time and the elements, its skull shattered by some blow which had rendered the body beyond even a vampire’s power to restore to obscene life.
About the stairway leading up to the gallery overlooking the main hall, Leuthere found the butchered remains of Sir Armand. The knight knew he looked upon the handiwork of the Red Duke himself. Only that monster could have mutilated the great swordsman in such a fashion. Armand’s back and neck had been broken, the thumbs cut from his hands and the eyes gouged from his once handsome face. Leuthere was reminded of the inhuman savagery that had left his uncle’s mangled body impaled above the cemetery at Ceren Field.
Leuthere tore a tapestry from the wall and draped it across Armand’s body. In life, the warrior had been the bane of his family, the terrible swordsman who had fought to such great effect in the centuries-old feud between d’Elbiq and du Maisne. Earl Gaubert had struggled to impart a pathological hatred of the killer of his sons into every man who owed fealty to him. Some of that hatred had lingered in Leuthere’s heart even as he rode to warn Count Ergon. Now, all he could feel was a sense of loss. In death, Leuthere could recognize Armand’s bravery and honour, he could respect the warrior who had fought so fiercely and so well for his family. Such a man had not deserved to die this way, his body abused by an inhuman fiend.
Moans echoed about the lifeless hall. Leuthere turned, ripping his sword from its sheath. His eyes scoured the shadowy hall, hunting the darkness for any sign of motion. His heart drummed against his ribs, fear coursed through his veins. Perhaps the vampire had not left after committing his atrocities. Perhaps the Red Duke was yet within the walls of the Chateau du Maisne!
Cautiously, Leuthere walked into the darkness, heading towards the source of the sounds. He hesitated as he saw a body lying amid the jumble of a shattered table. He kept his sword at the ready, not knowing if what he gazed upon was man or monster. There was no guessing to what dishonourable deceit a vampire would stoop.
The moaning shape lifted a hand, painfully trying to pull itself out from the splintered wreckage of the table. As the figure moved, it lifted its head into what little light penetrated the hall.
Leuthere’s hand clenched tighter about his sword. The face was that of Count Ergon du Maisne, patriarch of the d’Elbiq’s hated enemies!
The instinctive hate slowly drained from Leuthere’s heart. There were more important things now than the ancient feud. Besides, Count Ergon was hurt and helpless. Even in the name of feud, Leuthere would not attack a man who could not defend himself.
Leuthere sheathed his blade and moved to assist Count Ergon in extricating himself from the wreckage. The nobleman locked his arm around Leuthere’s, using the knight as leverage to kick his way free of the splintered planks. Count Ergon stood unsteadily on his feet and turned to thank his rescuer.
Gratitude withered as Count Ergon’s face hardened. His hand clutched at the empty scabbard hanging from his belt.
“That was my reaction when I saw who it was trapped under the table,” Leuthere said. “I am Sir Leuthere d’Elbiq, at your service, my lord.”
“You are a d’Elbiq,” Count Ergon agreed, making the name sound like an obscenity. “There’s no hiding that weasel-taint in your face. I should not be surprised to see you here! Earl Gaubert sending his jackals out to pick over the monster’s leavings! Give me a sword and I’ll settle with that villain for once and all!”
“My uncle is dead,” Leuthere said, answering the count’s outburst with a voice both low and grave. “He was murdered by the same fiend who did this.”
Count Ergon shook his head, staring at the carnage around him, wincing as he saw his servants and soldiers strewn about the hall. The impact was enough to make him forget his long nourished hate. For the moment, it was enough that Leuthere was a man, another living soul in this charnel house of destruction.
“It was a vampire,” Count Ergon said. “A creature in red armour riding a skeleton horse. It claimed to be the Red Duke, vanquished these many centuries by good King Louis’
“He is the Red Duke,” Leuthere told the count. “Risen from his secret tomb at Ceren Field. Risen to reclaim Aquitaine for his Kingdom of Blood.”
Count Ergon shuddered, nodding as the knight spoke. Easily the nobleman could believe what Leuthere told him. The ferocious monster could have been no less a horror than the infamous Red Duke.
“I tried to fight him,” Count Ergon said. “He handled me as though I were a child, ripped the sword from my fingers and seized me by the throat. I should have died, but at that moment my son challenged the monster. The Red Duke tossed me aside, threw me like a rag-doll off the gallery…” Abject terror consumed the nobleman. Frantically, he began rushing to the bodies lifting their heads, staring into their faces.
Leuthere knew what the desperate nobleman was looking for. “Sir Armand is there,” the knight said, pointing to the mutilated body at the foot of the stairs. Count Ergon ran to the sorry corpse, crying out in agony when he saw the havoc that had been done to his son’s body. “He must have acquitted himself well against the vampire for the Red Duke to do that to him,” Leuthere said.
Tears streamed from Count Ergon’s eyes as he knelt beside Armand’s body. He leaned over and brushed his fingers across the cold forehead, pushing back a stray lock of hair.
“He was a truer
knight than any I have known,” Count Ergon said. A flash of pain passed across his features. “I never told him that. I never told him how proud I was to call him my son.”
“I am certain you did not need to,” Leuthere said, breaking the mournful silence. The knight shifted his shoulders, his flesh crawling as he considered the unpleasant duty before him. “Count Ergon, though I am a d’Elbiq, please believe me when I tell you how unwelcome it is to bear such tidings. Sir Armand, I fear, is not the only loss your house has suffered.”
The count clenched his eyes as fresh pain swelled within him, a piteous groan rising from his throat. “Elaine did not escape?”
Leuthere shook his head. “The fiends must have been waiting for the countess and her attendants. I saw no evidence that any escaped.”
“Then it is all gone,” Count Ergon cursed, rising to his feet. “The ancient house of du Maisne is no more.” He glared at Leuthere, and laughed bitterly. “This is a banner day for the d’Elbiqs. You have finally won the feud.”
“Only a low-born varlet would take any satisfaction from what was done here,” Leuthere said. “I ride to stop this monster. I swear before the Lady, on the sacred grail itself, that I will not rest until the Red Duke is returned to his grave.”
“A noble purpose,” Count Ergon commented, sarcasm in his tone. “Sir Armand was the greatest blade in all Aquitaine and here he lies at my feet, broken by the Red Duke. What hope do you have of destroying the vampire?”
“None,” admitted Leuthere. “Only the knowledge that my purpose is just and my faith that the Lady will not allow this evil to endure.”
The knight’s words impressed Count Ergon and the nobleman would have taken back his scorn of a moment before. A hopeless fight was the kind a knight was most obligated to pursue if he were worthy of his rank.
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