“When we are done here, we shall march to the tombs of the knights of Culieux,” the Red Duke continued. “Then I shall be ready to ride against Duke Gilon and the other traitor-lords who have usurped my dominion. I will rebuild the ruins, recast the land into my Kingdom of…”
The vampire’s voice trailed off, a haunted light coming into his eyes. Renar watched as the Red Duke’s imperious snarl drooped into an expression of shock mingled with fear. The necromancer followed the direction of the vampire’s gaze. Through the dead trees he could see a small mob of knights standing atop one of the nearby barrows.
In the feeble light of Morrslieb, Renar could make out only the outlines of men and horses, the faint gleam of moonlight upon polished armour. He sneered in contempt at the small number of riders. There was no threat to the Red Duke’s formidable host from so few men. Even if each of them were Giles le Breton reborn, they could never hope to overcome the undead legions arrayed behind the vampire’s banner. These men could only observe and report back to Duke Gilon what they had seen. That would actually serve the necromancer’s cause quite nicely. Only despair and terror could greet any report these men could give. The knowledge that the Red Duke was swelling the ranks of his horde with the wights of Dragon’s Hill would hardly bring cheers to the nobles of Aquitaine. It pleased Renar to think of those bold and haughty lords cowering on their thrones, knowing that their doom was marching down upon them, unstoppable and unrelenting. Yes, Renar was disposed to allow these men to escape, to make their heroic ride back to Duke Gilon and announce that the nobles had no hope of stopping the Red Duke. Let them, for once, appreciate what it was to feel helpless and at the mercy of a being who cared nothing for their welfare.
Renar turned to suggest the Red Duke spare the scouts when he noticed the vampire’s agitation. The vampire’s shock had been replaced by a mask of pitiless hate, hate that made Renar’s own loathing of the nobility farcical by comparison.
“I… I will send the ghouls to chase those men off,” Renar said.
“King Louis…” the Red Duke whispered, his eyes blazing as he spoke the name.
From the top of the barrow mound, Sir Leuthere stared for the first time upon the monster his vengeful uncle had called from its grave. An aura of violent evil surrounded the ghastly creature, a palpable sense of malevolent menace that made the young knight’s flesh crawl in revulsion and his heart quiver in fear. The courser he sat upon nickered nervously, stamping its hooves, impatient for its rider to quit this place of horrors.
The Red Duke. This then was the fiend Leuthere had journeyed so far to destroy, the monster who would drown all Aquitaine in a sea of blood. This was the terrible power Earl Gaubert had called upon to pursue his vendetta against the du Maisnes. It was bitterly ironic that by his ruthless prosecution of the feud, Earl Gaubert had instead forced the two families into alliance. Du Maisne and d’Elbiq together, united against the common foe.
Count Ergon’s eyes were moist as he looked down from the hillock, watching as the vampire’s undead legion marched out from the trees. The nobleman’s fist tightened about the hilt of his sword, knuckles cracking from the intensity of his grip. His legs grew tense, poised to dig spurs into the flanks of his steed, to drive the frightened animal straight down into the skeleton horde. Leuthere saw the same obsessed desire for revenge written across Count Ergon’s face as had been on that of his uncle. The observation brought a new anxiety to the young knight’s mind, reopening his concern that Count Ergon would cast aside everything, his fealty to Duke Gilon, his personal honour, the plan to save Aquitaine—all of these he would sacrifice in order to soothe the pain inside him.
Count Ergon slowly relaxed his body. He turned and gave Leuthere a sombre nod of understanding. The older knight was not blind to what was at stake here. His revenge would wait. He would keep to his word.
“Raise the king’s standard high,” Count Ergon told Leuthere. “Make sure that blackguard sees our colours.”
Leuthere lifted the tattered banner of King Louis high over his head, waving it through the air like an Estalian matador goading a bull with his cape.
The Red Duke’s reaction was as violent as that of any bull. The vampire quivered with rage, drawing his sword and sweeping it through the air before him. In answer to the Red Duke’s howls, the undead host surged forwards, wights mounted upon bony steeds galloping towards the barrows.
“Time to leave,” Leuthere advised Count Ergon. The other knights with them shared Leuthere’s anxiety, yet their valour would not permit a withdrawal until their commander gave the order.
Count Ergon glared down at the Red Duke, unable to tear his gaze from that hateful countenance. Only the whinny of terror that sounded from the horse beneath him snapped him back to the immediacy of the situation. The foremost of the wights had reached the base of the mound and their deathly steeds were beginning the arduous climb. Count Ergon watched them for a moment, then reluctantly slashed his hand through the air, motioning for the knights to retreat.
“To Ceren Field!” Count Ergon shouted, driving his spurs into his steed. “And Lady grant this abomination is mad enough to chase us!”
“Baron de Gavaudan! Sir Corbinian!” the Red Duke’s voice was like the lash of a whip as he called out his sub-officers. The vampire didn’t look aside as the wight-lord and the dark knight who had replaced the baron rode forwards to join him. His eyes were fixed upon the banner he had seen the knights display so boldly upon the top of the barrow. It was a challenge, a gesture of contempt and defiance from King Louis! The usurper was taunting him, mocking him in his own domain! But the king would soon learn that there was only one Duke of Aquitaine, and he did not hold court in Couronne!
“I want those men,” the Red Duke snarled at Sir Corbinian and Sir Maraulf. “Alive or dead, I want them. Bring them to me!”
“It will be a hard ride, your grace,” Maraulf said, bowing his head in deference to his master. “The enemy has chosen ground it will be difficult to cross.”
The Red Duke glared at Maraulf. “Their steeds will tire, yours will not,” he reminded his thrall. “Bring those men to me! I will find out where my treacherous brother has encamped.” The vampire bared his fangs in a hateful grimace. “There is much the good king has to answer for before I allow him the luxury of death.”
Maraulf bowed again, turning away to gather up some of the undead cavalry not already rushing the ancient graves. The Red Duke dismissed the vampire from his thoughts, shifting his attention instead to the skeletal frame of Corbinian.
Before the Red Duke could issue orders to the wight-lord, a shouted protest erupted from Renar.
“It’s a trick!” the necromancer shrieked, unable to contain himself. “King Louis is dead and has been for centuries! That’s not his men up there! It’s all a trick to lead you into a trap!”
The Red Duke glowered at the necromancer. “Speak about matters that concern you, peasant,” he warned. “Leave war to those who know how to fight it.”
Renar rolled his eyes, laughing derisively, the absurdity of the situation overcoming his prudence. “Know how to fight! You damn fool, you’re fighting battles against men who have been dead almost five hundred years!” He waved his hands indicating the barrow mounds before them and the imposing bulk of Dragon’s Hill. “This is where we need to be, not chasing phantoms! We can raise every horse lord in these mounds, then do the same to the vanquished knights of Cuileux! As you said, we can build an army that no lord in all Bretonnia would dare oppose!”
The Red Duke’s armoured hand lashed out, cracking against Renar’s jaw. The necromancer was thrown from his saddle, landing in a tangle of limbs on the ground. Spitting blood, he reared up from the barren earth, drawing upon the dark energies of the barrow mounds to empower a spell that would send the vampire back to his grave.
Before Renar could unleash his spell, bony claws closed about him, pinning his arms to his sides. The necromancer looked about in terror, finding himself in the embrace
of Corbinian’s fleshless hands.
“You dare not kill me!” Renar shouted at the Red Duke. “You need me! You need my magic and my counsel!” The necromancer cringed as he saw the pitiless evil behind the vampire’s eyes. “You’re making a mistake! Try to be sane!” he pleaded.
The Red Duke’s cold flesh drew back in a grin of cruel amusement. “Take this peasant away,” he ordered Corbinian. “But first remove his rebellious tongue. It tires me.”
Renar’s screams collapsed into a wet gurgle as the wight-lord carried out its master’s command. The Red Duke had already dismissed the necromancer from his thoughts, turning his gaze back to the place he had seen Leuthere display the colours of King Louis. He closed his eyes in murderous reverie, imagining the hundred ways he would visit revenge upon his brother. The king would answer for everything the Red Duke had lost to his treachery. Lands and title, honour and fame. But most of all, the king would answer for Martinga’s death.
The Red Duke opened his eyes again and stared out across his silent legion. There was no need to chase after the king’s banner. He knew where he was destined to face the king’s army. He could see it in his mind as clearly as if the battle had already been fought.
The vampire raised his sword, stabbing it high into the air.
“We march!” the Red Duke roared. “We march to Ceren Field!”
Three days’ hard ride brought Sir Leuthere and Duke Gilon to the River Morceaux. It had been a perilous journey, and made at such a pace that taxed both man and beast. Without the remounts sent by Duke Gilon, staggered across their return route in relays, the knights knew they would never have managed. The Red Duke’s unholy forces pursued them both night and day. Swarms of bats tormented them by night and by day, swooping out of the shadows to slap at their faces with leathery wings or snap at their eyes with needle-sharp teeth. So regular had become these attacks that the knights had been forced to keep the visors of their helmets lowered despite the almost unendurable heat and discomfort.
The bats had been the least of their worries however. Soon after quitting the region of Dragon’s Hill and the barrows of the horse lords, their small band had been beset by a new foe—undead knights upon skeletal steeds. Leading them was a monster Leuthere was horrified to find himself recognizing: Sir Maraulf, the holy knight of Mercal. The once noble champion of Aquitaine had been corrupted by the evil of the Red Duke, restored to a villainous mockery of life as a vampire. It was this dark knight who led the chase, driving his prey before him like a country lord hounding foxes across his estate.
Two of the valiant knights who had accompanied Leuthere and Count Ergon were lost to the vampire’s blade, cut down by the undead monster from ambush. While the rotting steeds of Maraulf’s wights could not match the speed of living horses, some profane vitality burned within the vampire’s horse, allowing him to overtake them whenever the sun retreated from the sky. Only by force of arms and invoking the name of the Lady had they been able to drive the vampire off. Though it pained them to do so, they had left their dead behind, not daring even the brief respite required to attend their comrades.
At last, the River Morceaux appeared before them, stretching from behind the forest like a shimmering ribbon of crushed sapphire. A sense of triumph swelled the hearts of the knights as they drove through the last of the trees, spurring their coursers down towards the stone bridge that spanned the river. They were surprised when the formerly ferocious bats abandoned them, flittering back into the dark of the forest.
Another surprise awaited them as they drew closer to the bridge. A large body of knights, over a hundred strong, were arrayed about the end of the bridge. As Leuthere rode closer, he could see that the knights bore no devices upon their shields, instead sporting the plain coloured fields of men who had not yet won their coat of arms. These were knights errant, young warriors eager to prove themselves upon the field of battle. Leuthere had never seen so many of the fledgling knights gathered in one place before. The sheen from their bare steel armour was almost blinding and the colourful pennants fitted to their lances seemed like a field of blooming flowers as they snapped in the breeze.
One of the knights guarding the bridge rode forwards as Leuthere and his comrades advanced towards the river. A half-dozen knights quickly formed up around the lone rider. Leuthere was surprised to see the fleur-de-lys emblazoned upon their shields and the caparisons clothing their horses. These were no humble knights errant, but knights who had forsaken their titles and positions to take up the grail quest. They would wander the land, righting wrongs and fighting monsters whatever their foul shape in hopes that through such chivalrous deeds they might be led to the grail by the Fay Enchantress and be deemed worthy of sipping from that holy vessel.
Their leader, the man around whom the questing knights had formed, had not taken up the grail quest. He still wore the heraldry of his family, the colours of Duke Gilon’s own household. Sir Richemont raised a hand in salutation as Leuthere rode towards him. His eyes lingered up on the banner of King Louis, then shifted to Leuthere. There was no missing the question in his gaze.
“The plan worked,” Leuthere told him. “The Red Duke’s minions have been at our heels for three days and three nights.”
“If we had kicked our boots into a beehive, we could not have received a more violent reception,” Count Ergon said, riding up beside Leuthere. “The vampire went wild when he saw the king’s standard.”
Richemont scratched his chin, sighing as he heard the news. “I had hoped the Red Duke might show some caution,” he stated. “Every hour he marches gives us more time for help to arrive. After you left, Duke Gilon received messages from Quenelles and Brionne. Knights from both dukedoms are riding to help in the battle against the Red Duke. Within a fortnight, we could have another thousand swords at our side.”
Leuthere shook his head. “I fear we did not have the time to dally,” he told Richemont. “We reached the Red Duke just as his army was advancing upon Dragon’s Hill. There can be no question that if he’d been left to his own devices, he would have called all of the ancient dead entombed within the barrows to fight for him.”
“There are other ways of holding the vampire back,” Richemont declared. He gestured over his shoulder to the bridge behind him. “The prophetess tells us that this is the bridge the Red Duke used to cross the Morceaux before. She is not certain if he will use it again,” here the knight clapped a hand against his chest, “but I am betting that he will.”
“What do you have planned?” Count Ergon asked, a note of concern in his voice.
Richemont smiled, clearly pleased to explain the merits of his plan. “I intend to hold the bridge and prevent the Red Duke from crossing. If he is as obsessed by the past as you say, then he will stay and fight for this bridge and no other. We can hold him here until reinforcements are in place at Ceren Field.”
Count Ergon shook his head. The nobleman was showing the effects of three days in the saddle, but he refused to leave his doubts unspoken. “It might be dangerous to expect the vampire to follow the exact pattern he did before. He might be drawn to the same places, but do not rely upon him slavishly doing what he did before.”
“I’m not,” Richemont said. He gestured once again to the bridge. “We only need to hold the bridge for a few more hours. My father has dispatched teams of sappers to demolish the bridge and they will be here before nightfall.”
Leuthere frowned as he heard Richemont describe the destruction of the bridge. “If the Red Duke can’t cross, he may snap back to reality.”
Count Ergon gave the worried knight a tired slap on the back. “If that happens, we’ll just have to ride back out to him and wave the standard under his nose again.”
The grim jest brought a few feeble chuckles from the men who had survived the journey to Dragon’s Hill. Brave as they were, none of them wanted to repeat the experience.
“You can rest your horses on the other side of the river,” Richemont declared. He looked over the exh
austed men. “And you’d better get some sleep for yourselves. As run down as you are now, I doubt you could account for a dozen zombies if the Red Duke were to attack.”
Leuthere was in accord with Richemont’s sentiment. Even Count Ergon did not naysay the young knight’s words. For once, the old nobleman’s prodigious endurance had been taxed beyond its limits. Not even his thirst for revenge could sustain him. Solemnly, the small band of knights rode their haggard steeds across the old stone bridge.
It was noon when the undead arrived at the river. The mounted wights that had pursued Leuthere and the others from Dragon’s Hill emerged from the forest, a ghastly wall of bleached bone and rusty armour. The skeletal monsters stared at Sir Richemont and his knights, silent and unmoving as a phalanx of gravestones.
The quiet was broken when a sinister rider pushed his way through the skeletal cavalry. The dark knight’s black armour and surcoat seemed like a piece of midnight that refused to be vanquished by the sun. A faint wisp of smoke rose from Sir Maraulf’s armour, carrying with it the sickly smell of burnt flesh. So recently inducted into the ranks of the undead, the dark knight did not need the powerful sorceries of the Red Duke to sustain him by day. There was still enough of an echo of life about him that the dark knight wasn’t condemned to hide in his grave until nightfall. But the vampire could not entirely ignore the hostile gaze of the sun. If the purifying light was not enough to destroy him, it was enough to scorch his unclean flesh and fill his unholy body with pain.
Tormented by the sun, compelled to accomplish the commands of his master, the dark knight glared in fury at the knights who defended the bridge. He could see the banner of King Louis on the far shore, standing above the tent in whose shade Sir Leuthere and Count Ergon rested. The Red Duke wanted that banner and the men who bore it. Maraulf would let nothing, not even his own agony, stop him from meeting that obligation.
The Red Duke Page 28
