The ducal heir cast his eyes skyward, watching as his father circled over the battlefield, waving his flags desperately at the knights below. Duke Gilon was signalling for Richemont to withdraw, for the knights to retreat back across Ceren Field. But it was already too late for that. The undead were overlapping the flanks, slowly encircling the knights. There was no way back. The only path was forward.
Forward to victory or death!
The prophetess Iselda watched as the Red Duke’s warriors lapped around the embattled knights. The vampire and his liches were empowering their undead fighters with unholy energies, driving them with a speed and surety beyond their decayed frames. More quickly than any of the knights could have expected, rank upon rank of zombies and skeletons were surrounding them, locking them inside a cage of spears.
The men were doomed. Iselda did not need her powers of foresight to know there was no escape from the trap the Red Duke had laid for them. It would need a miracle to free them from the destruction that now threatened them.
She closed her eyes, her heart pounding in terror. The holy power of Duke Galand’s tomb flowed through her, pulsing through her body like fingers of lightning and flame. She could harness that power, harness it to far greater effect than she had been. She could give the knights the miracle that would save them.
Tears glistened in Iselda’s eyes as she gazed out over the battlefield. The screams of dying men and horses echoed back to her. On the hills, she could see the archers, their formations in disarray as the Red Duke’s bats swarmed about them. Below, on the field proper, she could see ancient chariots emerge from the flanks of the vampire’s army. Grisly constructions of rotten leather and yellowed bone, drawn by fleshless steeds and crewed by grinning skeletons, the chariots rolled towards the slopes of the hills. It did not need imagination to picture what the scythe-like blades fitted to the wheels of the chariots would do to the embattled bowmen once they crested the hills.
Fighting down the despair and terror that burdened her heart, Iselda allowed her mind to focus upon the sacred image of the Lady and the grail. She knew what she had to do. She had known from the first what her fate must be. She had hoped that by guiding Sir Leuthere and Count Ergon into an early confrontation with the Red Duke she would be able to escape the doom she had foreseen for herself in that dark hour when the vampire was freed.
Iselda could not remain passively emboldening the Aquitainians with the power of Duke Galand’s tomb. She had to fashion the holy energies of the grail into a weapon, a lance of divine power that would strike down the profane undead. She had the power at her fingertips to burn away the vampire’s army with the cleansing purity of the Lady’s justice.
A chill crawled down Iselda’s spine and doubt tugged at her mind once more. Only the least of the vampire’s creatures would be repulsed by the holy light. Others would endure, enraged by the sacred flame, driven into crazed fury by the magical assault. By saving the knights, she would draw the Red Duke’s vengeance upon herself.
The prophetess shook her head. Now, in the moment of her doom, she wished with all her being to cling to life, no matter the consequences. She could not say what would happen after she was gone, whether Duke Gilon would be able to escape with his army back to Castle Aquitaine, whether the Red Duke could still be stopped by Leuthere and Count Ergon.
She only knew that the vampire would find her.
“For Armand! For the pride of the du Maisnes!” Count Ergon roared, driving his sword into the face of an ancient horse lord. With a twist of his wrist, he bisected the monster’s skull, leaving fragments of bone and rotted helm to crumble into its bony shoulders.
The count caught the sweep of another undead rider’s axe against his shield, feeling the sting of the impact throb up through his injured arm. Gritting his teeth against the pain, he drove his horse sidewards, upsetting the lighter undead steed and sending both it and its rider crashing to the ground.
A moment’s respite allowed the count to fully appreciate his situation. He was completely surrounded by the undead now, caught within a circle of fleshless faces and rusted iron blades. Despite the vigour with which he had fought, he seemed no closer to reaching the Red Duke. The vampire’s crimson armour was visible but distant, as tantalizingly close and mockingly unattainable as a desert mirage.
To come so close yet fail in the end was more than Count Ergon could accept. Anger boiled over in his veins. He surged forwards once more, taking the fight to the deathly enemy. His sword slashed outwards, taking the forearm of a mounted skeleton, splitting its ulna and radius like dry kindling.
Suddenly there was another fighter beside him, battering away at the closing skeletons with a footman’s mace. Count Ergon was surprised to find that the lone comrade who had joined him was Leuthere’s valet, the crook-backed peasant Vigor. The peasant was slashed and bleeding from dozens of cuts, his hair matted with blood from an ugly scalp wound. The broken tip of a spear protruded from the peasant’s side.
Count Ergon nodded in admiration of Vigor’s persistence and bravery. “Your courage shames better men,” the knight told Vigor.
The peasant smiled at him crookedly. “I must… atone,” he wheezed, forcing each word from his rasping chest. It was then that Count Ergon noticed the dagger clenched in Vigor’s other hand.
“I must atone!” Vigor repeated in a fierce shriek. Before Count Ergon could react, the peasant lunged at him with the dagger. Years of attending Earl Gaubert made Vigor know exactly where to strike. The dagger slipped past the join between thigh and waist, stabbing deep into the knight’s leg.
“Varlet!” the knight snarled, smashing his shield into Vigor’s side. The peasant recoiled, leaving the dagger stuck in the count’s leg. The next instant, a scream of agony burst from Vigor’s body. A skeleton’s spear transfixed the man, lifting him from the saddle.
“I… must… atone…”Vigor gasped, blood bubbling from his mouth.
Count Ergon spurred his horse towards the skeletal spearman, smashing it down with a sweep of his blade. Skeleton and victim both crashed to the earth, sprawled beneath the hooves of the knight’s warhorse.
Other skeletons surged towards Count Ergon, ringing him around with a circle of spears and bill-hooks. The nobleman lashed out at them, seeking to drive them back and gain room to effectively use his sword. Spears glanced against his armour or grated along the painted face of his shield, but the only hurt he suffered was from the dagger embedded in his thigh.
Just as Count Ergon began to despair of fending off his attackers, a blinding white light engulfed him. His entire body was suffused by a sensation of peace and security such as he had never known. It was like the warm embrace of the Lady herself. For an instant, the knight wondered if he had been killed and drawn into the presence of his goddess.
Then the light passed and the world reassumed its dark and dreary hues. Instead of finding himself dead, Count Ergon saw his enemies wilting to the ground, their bony bodies collapsing into a mush of ash and cinder. All across Ceren Field, he could see similar scenes, entire swathes of the undead army disintegrating before the amazed eyes of the beleaguered Bretonnians. Shouts of triumph and prayers of thanksgiving rose from the battered knights.
The battle was far from over, however. The undead army had been crippled by the miraculous light, but it still vastly outnumbered the jubilant Aquitainians. Count Ergon could see dozens of rattling chariots ascending the hills to assault the peasant bowmen. He could see new formations of zombies and skeletons racing forwards to assault the knights once more. Beyond them, a great company of black knights was thundering away from the fight, driving past the embattled Bretonnians and towards the tomb of Duke Galand.
Count Ergon had the impression that the tomb had been the source of the divine fire, that somehow Iselda had brought that purifying flame searing across Ceren Field to rescue the doomed knights. It was an impression that was shared by at least one other combatant.
At the forefront of the black knights, C
ount Ergon could see the crimson figure of the Red Duke. The vampire was leading the charge against Iselda and the tomb!
All injury and fatigue was banished from the Count’s mind as he saw his enemy galloping away. He knew it would be his death to chase after the Red Duke, but his life was a price he was willing to pay if he could cross swords with the fiend and end his evil forever. After that, the vampire’s black knights could avenge their master. The count’s vengeance would be complete.
Other knights were already rushing after the Red Duke, charging their steeds across the crumbling husks of the vanquished undead. Count Ergon set his spurs to the flanks of his own destrier, determined to be the first to reach the vampire.
The horse whinnied in protest, then collapsed. Count Ergon rolled away from the animal as it slumped to the ground, managing to keep his foot from being pinned under the brute’s side. He stifled the curse that was on his lips when he saw the magnitude of the animal’s injuries. That it had bore him so far for so long was evidence of its stout heart.
Count Ergon turned away from his dying steed and looked to the fleeing Red Duke. The other knights seemed certain to reach the monster before he could gain the tomb. There were only a handful of knights to face the vampire and the three dozen wights riding alongside him, but perhaps one might break through to face the Red Duke. He smiled as he noted the colours of Leuthere among the riders. If he could not destroy the vampire himself, it was fitting that it should be the young d’Elbiq.
“I… must… atone…” a garbled voice croaked. Count Ergon turned his gaze downwards, discovering the body of Vigor crushed beneath the warhorse. The peasant’s eyes were glazed with blindness, his breath coming in ragged gasps. Death was only a matter of moments from taking him into its fold.
Suspicion flared in the count’s mind, the old animosity between du Maisne and d’Elbiq rising once more to the fore. It was the second instance when Leuthere’s valet had mentioned atoning for something. What, the knight wondered, was the misdeed that so plagued Vigor? What drive was it that could move a peasant to murder a nobleman in the midst of battle?
Count Ergon knelt beside the dying peasant, speaking to him in soft, soothing tones.
Determined to find out Vigor’s secret while there was still time.
CHAPTER XIX
El Syf lay upon the sand, the Arabyan poison burning through his veins. The black-robed nomads circled about him like a pack of hungry hyenas, eager to claim the kill as soon as they were satisfied their prey lacked the strength to strike back.
Suddenly a black shape was among the Arabyans, hewing right and left with a monstrous sword. The murderous nomads were cleft asunder by the shadow’s blade, their bodies butchered like swine at a slaughterhouse. The shrieks of the nomads resonated with terror, a horror beyond simply the fear of death. They did not even consider standing their ground against the dark intruder, but turned to flee into the dunes.
The black stranger did not allow them the luxury of flight. With amazing speed, he swept down upon them, catching each man in his turn. The nomads were cut to ribbons by the razored edge of the lone warrior’s giant sword, their blood spraying across the sands in great gleaming arcs.
The Duke of Aquitaine smiled a bitter smile. He might die, but at least he had been avenged. No Arabyan would slip back to his tent and boast that he had murdered the great El Syf. No nomad would cut off his ears and bear them, back to his tribe as a keepsake.
He closed his eyes, whispering am entreaty to the Lady that she would keep Duchess Martinga safe and watch over her when he was gone. A feeling of peace began to close about El Syf’s heart as death drew him into its embrace.
The duke’s eyes opened again, round with fright, his skin prickling with a crawling fear. Standing over him, staring down at him, was the black stranger.
Arabyan blood dripped from the stranger’s ornate, fat-bladed sword, forming little streams in the yellow sand. The man wore a suit of plates, its steel enamelled with some pigment that made it impossibly dark, as though a piece of midnight had been torn from the sky and hammered into armour. The breastplate and greaves were richly gilded with symbols and letters strange to Bretonnian eyes, as unlike the swirling script of Araby as the sharp runes of the dwarfs. The open-faced helmet was both ornate and archaic; if it had been crafted of leather instead of steel, the duke might have thought it had been looted from the barrow of a horse lord.
A cold smile was on the stranger’s pale face as he regarded the dying knight. The man’s features were as exotic as his armour, fine and precise, yet with a stamp of arrogance and pride. The man’s flesh was almost colourless, reminding the duke of a corpse laid out for a wake. The eyes, however, were far from dead. Great dark pools, depthless and sinister, they bored into the duke’s with a predatory intensity, probing down into the dying man’s very soul.
“You are of the Bretonni?” the stranger asked, his voice a deep growl, his accent possessing a curious nasal inflection. The duke was too weak to answer, but his interrogator seemed to divine the answer just the same. “It is many, many years since I last visited those shores,” he said, his face growing contemplative. “Such times they were. I should visit your land, someday. I imagine Giles is long dead and my word to him satisfied.”
El Syf heard the stranger’s words only vaguely, his attention focused upon the ground at the warrior’s feet. Despite the brilliance of the sun, the man cast no shadow upon the sand.
The vampire took note of the duke’s observation. He smiled, and in that smile was all the malice and pride of his many-centuried existence. “Yes,” he said. “I have conquered many of the weaknesses of my condition since leaving my vanished homeland, but some remain.” A gleam of cruel amusement crept into the vampire’s eyes. “Perhaps, in time, you will conquer these weaknesses too.”
The words sent a thrill of terror surging through the duke’s body. He struggled to crawl away, to flee this ghastly vulture that had descended upon him, promising a fate worse than a shameful death. In the vampire’s cold voice, El Syf heard the threat of damnation eternal.
The vampire watched his prey squirm in the sand. When he tired of the sport, he set his steel boot upon the duke’s shoulder and held him still. “Your battle with the Arabyans was magnificent,” the monster announced. “I watched you from the dunes. I am something of a connoisseur of war, you might say. It has given me purpose down these many centuries, the pursuit of excellence in arms. The Bretonni were always a fierce people. You do your ancestors proud.” The vampire’s lips curled back in a regretful expression. “A pity to allow such skill to end upon the knives of cowards.”
Before El Syf’s horrified eyes, the vampire drew off one of his ornate gauntlets, baring his pallid hand. The creature leaned his head down and sank his fangs into the exposed palm. Dark blood bubbled from the wound. Crouching down over the dying duke, the vampire pressed his bleeding palm against the knight’s mouth, holding it there until some of his blood dripped past the man’s lips.
“I do not know if you will survive,” the vampire said as he rose from the shuddering knight. “It may be that the Arabyan poison has already done its work and you will die. It may be that the influence of the sun will oppose the gift I have bestowed upon you and you will shrivel up and perish.”
The vampire’s smile tightened and his voice became a malignant hiss. “I do not think you will die,” he said. “The warrior spirit inside you will fight to survive, even if your mind begs for death. Even for one who has lived since the days of Alcadizzar and Lahmizzash, I have seldom seen a warrior with a greater affinity for the sword. You were destined to ascend from the frailty of mortal flesh and become something greater.
“To become the get of Abhorash.”
The vampire laughed as he mounted his mummified steed and vanished back into the dunes. Behind him, he left the Duke of Aquitaine to live or die as fate and the knight’s defiant spirit decreed.
The small group of knights urged their horses onwards, determi
ned to reach the vampire’s cavalry before the undead could defile the tomb of Duke Galand or bring harm to the Prophetess Iselda. Both tomb and damsel were sacred to the Lady of the Lake, and their faith in the goddess fired their hearts as even the defence of their homes had failed to stir them.
Sir Leuthere was among the foremost of the knights, spurring his destrier towards the evil his uncle had loosed from its tomb. The Red Duke’s destruction would redeem the honour of the d’Elbiqs and even the thought of serving the Lady herself did not make him forget the terrible sin Earl Gaubert had committed.
The Red Duke took note of the pursuit halfway across the field. The vampire snarled as he twisted about in the saddle, glaring at the few men desperately trying to intercept him. For an instant, his eyes locked with Leuthere’s, then the vampire raised his armoured hand, snapping orders to his undead slaves.
A third of the black knights followed the Red Duke’s gesture, wheeling away to confront the pursuing Bretonnians. Leuthere was horrified to see the black figure of Sir Maraulf leading the wights. In life, Maraulf had been a formidable warrior, but as a vampire, his strength had become monstrous. Leuthere felt a shudder pass through him as he recalled the awful might of Baron de Gavaudan at the Chapel Sereine and the terrible prowess of Maraulf during the frantic retreat from Dragon’s Hill.
Maraulf spurred his nightmarish steed into a charge, outpacing the slower wights and their skeletal horses. The dark knight was upon the foremost of the Bretonnians in an instant, his sword sweeping out in a deadly arc before the Aquitainian could even begin to raise his shield to ward off the blow. The blade caught the Bretonnian in the neck, shearing clean through in a burst of gore. The dead knight’s head leapt from his shoulders as though it had been flung by a catapult. Leuthere watched in horror as the grisly wreckage bounced across the field.
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