Death's Paladin

by Christopher Donahue

  Voskov nodded and turned to the rest of the company. “We’ll go in on foot, well after dark.”

  Bors paused in his stealthy belly crawl near the manor’s rough stone wall. Voskov froze. Hearing no other sounds, he slowly raised himself to peer above the tall weeds. The manor seemed peaceful. He started to slip up behind Bors when he heard footsteps and loud panting. Some farm boy trotted tiredly to the manor gate and shouted as he drew near. The gate opened.

  The gate closed again before Bors could slip inside. Had someone seen their horses back in the woods? Voskov’s company could only win if they had surprise.

  His head had finally cleared after the fever and wound-poisons left him. Lying the wet weeds, the damp cold made Voskov’s healed leg ache. The reality of the past few weeks crash upon him.

  He had controlled half of the Hykori plains in his rebellion and bought away the emperor’s own kin. Mastery of the Book gave him dozens of spells whenever he chose to open it. Now, he lay freezing in a field, hoping to raid a hill manor and face a centuries-old killing machine.

  He had decided to slip away when the manor gate creaked open. A few Tuskaran armsmen milled at the entrance, the slowmatches of their firearms glowing brightly. A single mailed horseman trotted through them, followed by that cursed Paladin. The pack of armed peasants tried to ape the marching order of the seven Temple fanatics.

  The old gateman watched the Paladin’s band march way from the open gate. The flickers of torches were completely lost before he started to close the gate.

  Bors slipped out of the shadows and silently cut the old man down. Voskov jumped up and ran for the gate, the others rushing behind him. He slipped into the courtyard.

  When all twenty-one men were inside, Voskov ordered the gate closed and barred. The partially paved courtyard led to a three-story manor house. The lower windows were mere slits and the door looked solid, but no one had raised an alarm. The door might even be open.

  “Quietly now. We can all make some noise once we get inside.” Voskov drew Madman, the hiss of steel on the brass lip of the scabbard making an indrawn breath of anticipation. Madman gave a thrill-tingle up his arm whenever he drew it for blood. He grinned to himself and led his fallen nobles across the courtyard for some slaughter and revenge.

  As Bors tugged on an ornate bronze door ring, a noble at the back of the band screamed. Voskov heard the flat snap of bows loosed.

  A young woman shouted, “Take them!” in Tuskaran.

  A shadow flickered past the nearest wall slit. A slowmatch glowed. As the weapon fired, Voskov ducked. The man behind him went down with a crash. Another arquebus fired. Voskov rushed to Bors’s side.

  The rest of the band spread out into an arc facing the manor and expertly sent arrows through the slits in the wall.

  Voskov gripped Bors’s arm. “I’m going to open the door. When we get in, secure some suitable sacrifices and keep them away from me until I’ve sheathed this blade.”

  Bors nodded. He had received that order many times.

  Voskov held Madman close to his face, whispering, “Waken, you wretches. There is work to do and blood to taste. Come and we’ll serve each other.”

  The blade stirred into sudden awareness. Strength poured into Voskov, along with a terrible rage. The hate and frustration within the sword mixed with his own resentment. As the ugly emotions roared through him, his teeth ground and the muscles on his face and neck strained.

  The cold part of Voskov’s mind noted the fury that the locked door engendered in the sword. He attacked the door as though it represented everyone and everything that had ever opposed him. A dozen blows, two dozen and he cut a hole between the valves of the door. In two strokes, he chopped through the wooden bar behind it.

  The roars of arquebuses and men didn’t matter. Voskov howled at the frightened faces he saw through the hole. As his kick threw the door open, he laughed at the pain in his leg. A cloud stinking of spent gunpowder met him.

  Inside, a terrified armsman touched the match to his arquebus. But instead of fire coming out of the bell-like barrel, the weapon itself exploded. The man fell back against the exterior wall, his face a mass of blood and bone splinters. Voskov laughed and rushed at the knot of arquebusiers hurrying to recharge their weapons.

  Arrows flew from behind him, but he no longer cared if his men followed. He could empty this place by himself. Servants and armsmen fell before him in quick succession.

  Only the present existed, the smell of blood and the terror of his victims. As a side thought, Voskov felt his body nearing its limits, but Madman was not close to satiation.

  He danced in blood, bathed in it. He lost himself in Madman and rushed from victim to blood-spraying victim. He no longer cared about the rebellion, only the warm comfort of fresh blood.

  He cut down a pathetic serving boy who rushed him with a carving knife. As he drew Madman from the body, a pair of arms wrapped around him, pinning his arms to his sides.

  The shouting in his ear became words he could understand. It was Bors’s voice. “Master, we must leave now. The Paladin is coming back and most of your men are down. You must prepare to face the Paladin in the yard or escape while you can.” The massive bondsman lifted Voskov’s feet from the ground and shook him; Madman fell from fingers shaking with fatigue.

  With the blade no longer in contact with his living flesh, their link snapped. Released from Madman’s hold, Voskov slumped with exhaustion. The sword keened briefly.

  “Face Karro the Avenger?” he whispered. The bone and tendons in his healed leg burned. His hands shook as he glanced around the wrecked hall. He couldn’t defend the place. The doors were shattered and Tuskars still lurked in the shadows.

  Voskov could do little beyond lifting the sword to sheath it. By their horrified looks, none of the men still standing in the hall would have touched his sword to save their mothers.

  “I’m spent, Bors. Get me from here before the slave of Auros arrives.” Voskov leaned so Bors could half-carry him from the manor.

  A group of Tuskarans, servants and women, rushed from a side door into the hall. A servant fired his weapon and a Shushkachevan fell against Voskov, nearly knocking him over. The nobles sent arrows into the mob as they backed out of the manor. Cries of pain and a woman’s scream rewarded their efforts and the rush faltered.

  Bors ran ahead to unbar the gate. As Voskov searched the darkness for the Paladin, his heart pounded. He sucked in cold air and coughed out the taste of blood.

  Two men trotting on tired mounts led a handful of staggering footmen. The Paladin’s force could no more fight than Voskov’s own.

  Madman had temporarily drawn out all of Voskov’s frustration. He couldn’t even curse at the Paladin. He certainly couldn’t draw Madman again, and the sword remained his only chance to face the Knight of Auros. “Bors, take me back to camp. The rest of you, scatter and meet back by morning. If you get lost, I’ll leave without you.”

  As Voskov’s band melted away, the Tuskarans called out challenges and “Cowards!” in Shushkachevan.

  As Bors half-dragged him uneven fields, Voskov concentrated on keeping on his feet. His head drooped and his breath became ragged. He shivered with cold and fatigue.

  Madman drew so much out of him. The presence hidden behind the maniacs within the sword grew stronger each time Voskov summoned the blade to life. Dread of the Paladin battled fear of his own weapon. That and what he became with Madman in his fist.

  When the hill hiding the camp came into sight, Voskov pushed away from Bors and fell to the ground. “I can go no farther. I’ll rest here and meet you at the camp later. Saddle the horses. We leave at dawn.”

  Viewed from the ground, the loyal man was only a dark shape. Voskov relaxed; Bors would do as commanded.

  Gathering his wits, Voskov went through the restoring and tension-countering routines learned during his exhausting sorcerous endeavors. The calming chants combined with muscle stretching movements soothed the spasms in his leg.
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  He tried to meditate, but each unknown sound could be the vengeful Paladin. Weariness pulled him into a stupor nearly as restful as sleep.

  About an hour before dawn, Voskov staggered to his feet and began the walk uphill. He had covered only a short, draining distance when he sensed he was not alone.

  As four shapes closed in, fear clutched Voskov’s heart. He managed to draw Madman, but left the trapped spirits sleeping. Awakening the sword would surely kill him.

  The chill breeze carried a strange message. The man facing him had to be dead, and not recently. Voskov knew the various scents of the dying, the dead and the long-dead. Whatever these men were, they weren’t anything of Auros.

  One of the shapes approached. It held out a hand and a soft glow appeared in its palm. The figure stood several inches above Voskov’s own unusual height. It was robed in a style seen only in ancient Hykori temple mosaics. As it came near enough to show its pale, emaciated face,, Voskov checked his curse.

  The grinning, tight-skinned skull locked its dark eyes with him. “You are lost,” it whispered in the precise Hykori only used in the most powerful sorcery.

  “I’m not so lost I’ll forget where my grave is, when the time comes.”

  “Yes, when that time comes. Would you have it be tonight? I sense power within you, power which could prove useful to our queen.”

  The other three figures, blood-spattered Hykori, moved closer. No blood leaked from their sword wounds and entry hole of a ball from a firearm. Voskov shuddered. The Hykori called these creatures the slaves-after-death. Even at the height of his power, the Book had never offered him these products of Hykori necromancy.

  Emboldened by his continued breathing, Voskov said, “I have my own cause. What can you offer me?”

  The tall creature made an abrupt gesture. “I offer you your life. I offer you a place of leadership in the reestablishment of the greatest empire to grace the Plains. I came for you, Duke Voskov, defeated general Voskov, the sorcerer who drew two of Auros’s Knights on the hunt. I offer you a place where a Knight of Auros might not reach you easily.”

  Voskov nodded. “What do you demand in return?”

  Before the creature could answer, Voskov broke into a chuckle that grew into a low, raspy laugh. Nearly every living man in the world has abandoned me or wants me dead. Now the dead want my services. It is good to be so much in demand. “It doesn’t matter. Just tell me what you want today. That and your name.”

  The grin on the pale face widened. “My name has not mattered in centuries. Call me Bringer. My task is to bring back those who are needed.” It turned away from Voskov and pointed uphill. “As for today, you have men who can serve my needs. They may have followed you into exile, but I doubt they will welcome your new allegiance.”

  Voskov sheathed Madman. “I’ll take them east around the hill. We’ll come out near some gray oaks. You do the rest.”

  If I move quickly enough, I may be able to use Bors to conjure that little bat-scout. He limped uphill and into his next level of damnation.

  Chapter Three

  “Auros, protector for the True God, grant me the ability to see truly. Help me discern the healthy from the corrupt.” Karro stood in the manor’s chapel before a small wooden table with Auros’s symbol painted on it, a hawk’s eye overlaying a vertical sword. On the table lay a history of the Knights of Auros. Karro did not need the book to know the form of this request. Beside the book, he placed his scabbarded sword to symbolize the peaceful intent of the plea.

  Karro closed his eyes. A tingling washed over his skin. When he opened his eyes, the chapel’s colors were flat grays and browns. From within his hands came a red pulsating glow and faint white traces of unbroken bone under his skin.

  The chapel door creaked open and sounds of the aftermath of battle flooded in, groans and screams over softer sobbing and urgent whispers. “Cousin, you’re needed in the main hall.” Exhaustion slurred Lokhaz’s words.

  His sight enhanced, Karro studied his kinsman. Most of the young man’s body glowed a healthy red. Scratches and bruises from the skirmish at Southdell had orange or pink casts mixed in the red, clean injuries which would heal in time. Along Lokhaz’s right arm, a sickening purple color swirled over the two bites the ambushing undead creature had driven through his armor. Karro grabbed Lokhaz by the arm and turned it to examine the wound, but the young man jerked away. “If you have the strength after seeing to the others, we can worry about this.”

  In the main hall, bodies lay everywhere. Those on the north wall were dull and lifeless.

  On pallets scattered through the middle of the hall lay dozens of struggling, glowing bodies. Starting with the most severely injured, Karro went to each and searched for clean or dirty wounds. Several servants followed him from pallet to pallet. He gave orders for clean dressing or stitches on simple wounds. On the poisoned wounds, he did the work himself.

  Many of the casualties had been pierced by arrows dipped in filth to turn simple wounds into slow death. Karro gritted his teeth and seethed with anger whenever he found these kinds of injuries. Women and children had been dealt these wounds as often as the armsmen who took such risks as part of their vocation.

  Karro tended the hurt, each new patient re-energizing him. He worked quickly until he reached the pallet where Lokhaz knelt. Undkara lay there barely conscious. Her lastman, Kamarak, hovered nearby, clutching a blood-caked iron mace. Lokhaz bathed her face with a wet towel. Her chest was wrapped in bloody bandages.

  Taking in the faintness of her glow, Karro felt a chill. Green poison traces boiled through the orange aura above the wound. “Lokhaz, help me. I must reopen the wound and get the foulness out or Undkara will be dead by morning. Hold her down. This will hurt.”

  With every cry Undkara gave as Karro worked, Kamarak hissed. Blood seeped from the lastman’s wounds and coated his hands. The lastman had removed the arrow from his mistress but had not known what more to look for.

  Karro opened the ugly wound and probed, pressed and flushed the wound clear with her blood. He kept cleaning until no green taint remained. Her red aura flickered faintly. She passed out before Karro finished, but the poison was purged. He stretched his tight back muscles but Auros’s gift held exhaustion at bay.

  When Karro completed re-wrapping Undkara’s wound, he turned his attention to Lokhaz.

  The man had fallen unconscious during Karro’s work on Undkara. The evil purple stretched the length of Lokhaz’s right arm. Karro forced his head to clear and snapped the links of Lokhaz’s armor at the shoulder.

  Pushing the mail away, Karro sliced open the flesh along the line of darkest purple. Thick brown blood oozed from the cut, the stink nearly overwhelming. Karro grabbed the nearest rag and wiped the fluid away. As with Undkara, he pressed and squeezed until the blood flowed red and clean. Still the purple remained in traces in the flesh, corruption spreading back along Lokhaz’s skin even as Karro wiped away the clean blood. He would not wait and repeat the process until Lokhaz bled dry. He cut away the flesh at the points of the bites. That Lokhaz would no longer be able to lift a sword with this arm was less important than saving his life. Once done, Karro could stem the purple glow and attend to his cousin’s more mundane wounds.

  Dawn passed before Karro rested. The people of Kulkas Hold had either been cleaned of poisons or were dead. Karro looked sadly at the file of dead bodies lining the long wall.

  He summoned Undkara’s lastman. The worn man slipped away from her and sat near Karro, each with his back against a cool stone pillar.

  Lastmen made Karro uncomfortable. They were a result of the constant raiding between Tuskaran border folk and the pressing Shushkachevan clans when between formal wars. Rarely could Shushkachevan raiders capture Tuskaran women alive and they never returned Tuskaran girls. Injured warriors or captured boys were sometimes sold back after being castrated. Buying back those men became a stopgap at best for the dwindling Tuskarans, but the practice encouraged more Shushkachevan raids
as a new avenue of profit.

  Judging by the lack of facial hair and generally fine pores in Kamarak’s face, the lastman was probably been taken as a child. Lastmen were often assigned to serve and guard young noblewomen. They were unmatched in loyalty to their charges, their devotion being the only legacy they had left to give.

  Karro closed his eyes and rested his head against the pillar. “Were there any Hykori among the attackers? It seems too much coincidence for us to be drawn away to that hamlet before the raiders came.” When he opened his eyes to look at the lastman, the hall had become brighter. Karro no longer saw auras of health or injury. He sent a silent prayer of thanks to Auros for the aid given earlier.

  Kamarak gave a concise tale of the attack and the demonic warrior that hewed through doors and cut down anyone who came near. He left out mention of his injuries or the blood and brains still adhering to his iron mace.

  With the pillar propping him up, Karro settled in to watch over the hall. But exhaustion overwhelmed him. When he woke, sunlight streamed weakly through the western windows with approaching dusk. He pushed to his feet, not bothering with self-reproach. The gift of Auros came with a price.

  He checked the wounds of Undkara and Lokhaz first. Both slept deeply and without the stink of rotting wounds. He joined the manor’s priest and the few remaining older warriors in dressing seeping wounds. With the lessened urgency, Karro took time to show the priest and veterans some of the healing skills he had learned on far too many battlefields.

  When he finished, the young seneschal approached. “Lord Kulkas, we need your decision on what to do with our prisoners.”

  Karro wiped his hands and refocused his thoughts from healing to justice. He was not Lord of the manor, but Lokhaz needed rest. Dispensing justice was one of the tasks Karro had accepted from Auros long ago.

  The seneschal led him from the hall to a wine cellar. The guard, a cudgel-bearing servant, opened the door and stood aside.