by T. C. Rypel
Then, in the placid post-meal silence, a rotund, one-armed hunter named Hugh Thibedeau began to ramble sullenly.
“Evil everywhere in Burgundy. Monsters. Wolves and satyrs and the walking undead. Bats the size of cattle. But that ain’t the worst of it. You just know it could be a whole lot worse. And they don’t even show their muscle until they’re opposed. Non…They hit you with their foul magic only after you show you won’t join ‘em. They’re smart. They don’t waste any power they don’t have to…
“Every season knows its own special evil. New shapes, new patterns. We’ve seen ‘em. We’ve sat up here and watched for a long time. The spring? That’s their courting season. Satyrs with their filthy seductions. The one that married the duke’s young daughter is worst of all, they say. Oui…busted lives and busted loves. That’s how they win acolytes. Life loses its meaning. There ain’t nowhere else to go, so…The Courting of Evil.
“The summertime, that’s when they get tough. The time of the rams and jackals. Now they bust up people.” He pushed forward the stump of his arm for emphasis. “You give us trouble, we know how to fix you, eh? Join us or fight. Friend or foe. Violence. Evil charms in the skies. No one walks the roads at night…
“Now the autumn—I think that’s their favorite, eh, Andre? Here is our power! Join us—Hell’s immortals! That’s when they hold their—their saturnalia. Black rites. Sacrifices no one cares to think about, much less try to stop. Like they were building up a storehouse of evil sorcery for the winter. Flying horrors, haunters in the night. Wait till you see the moon in those days, young wolf cub! That’s when they win over new followers for the Dark Angel. People can stand no more fear. They see no deliverance. They start to wear that goddamn wolf crest. And then they’re lost to humanity. They’ve got their immortality, eh?
“But now winter,” the hunter rasped, eyes alight with fervent emotion, “that’s the worst. That’s their season of hunger—the season when our world is lost to us and another takes its place…but you’ve seen that, I gather.”
“Oui,” Simon replied as Hugh’s eyes now fixed on him alone for the first time. “I’ve seen your winter, and I’ve survived it thus far.”
Uncle Andre bellowed a laugh that echoed in the upper reaches of the cave. “Oui, my nephew has survived, and now he’s here among us. And together we break the power of these evil usurpers, whatever shapes they see fit to clothe themselves in, n’est-ce pas, Simon?”
Normal conversation broke out here and there once again, and Andre sat on the damp floor beside Simon. “We may be few in number, but we’re tough,” he said to his nephew in a more intimate voice. “They’ve known the sting of our opposition. And anyway, we’re not alone. There is this Wunderknechten underground—you’ve heard of them, I see. I thought as much. Many tales connect you with them and this…Far Eastern wanderer who they say leads them.”
“They’re your allies here?”
“Mmm. They’ve been officially condemned, you know. Anyone who can say that is our ally. I believe their secret activities are all that hold the people together in the towns.”
“I never thought much of them before,” Simon admitted. “I ignored them the last time I was here. Refused to believe them worthwhile. This business of compromising the true faith—do you accept them as brothers in Christ, uncle?”
“Why not? Aren’t they? And they’re good fighters. Right now, that’s all that counts, given the nature of our enemy. They have this warrior code they swear by…bushido. Do you know about that?”
Simon smiled thinly. “My little samurai friend would be smugly delighted. Uncle—in Lamorisse, there’s a woman. Claire Dejordy. Do you or any of your friends have knowledge of her condition? Do you know whether she’s safe?”
Andre grunted thoughtfully. “Haven’t been to Lamorisse in some time. Pierre, here, is from Lamorisse, but he moved his family from there some time ago. This girl, her father is—what, a tanner?”
“A fellmonger,” Pierre corrected.
“Was,” Simon said morosely.
“Ah, oui, but I don’t know about the girl,” Andre told him sympathetically. “If you need to know, we’ll find out, only…”
“Oui?” Simon encouraged anxiously.
“Simon…do not be too sure of a woman in these times. I mean…ofttimes they can let you down…when you need it least. Or just plain die on you. That’s what your aunt did to me…Listen, don’t look at me like that. Forget I said it. We need each other. There’s much to do, and we must remain strong. When Simon—your father—died…well, you know how I swore I’d avenge him. I was just a boy. I thought I’d have to face that devil cult alone someday. Now you’ve come, and we’ll do it together, eh? Only we’ve got to stay alive. And strong. Nothing must weaken our resolve. No matter of the heart. No personal scar. Strong. With an eye to the destruction of this cult from the netherworld. Now drink. Then we rest and plan. We’ve got to fatten you up, eh?”
Simon became one of them. One of the mountain folk who struggled for freedom from the terrorism wrought by invaders from another world. Like the mountain men, he became one of the hunted who turned on their hunters. They wreaked havoc among the predators and rogues who ran roughshod over the forests and plains under the direction of the Farouche Clan, who played a sinister game of control and power perversion in Burgundy, their ultimate purpose disguised by their machinations.
The mountain men roamed the territory, protecting the innocent and rescuing the oppressed, disrupting black magic rituals and razing the ubiquitous symbols of demonic power where they found them—cabalistic tracings, Farouche crests drawn in human blood, goat-headed staffs raised over sacrificial altars. It seemed the Farouche drew sorcerous power in much the same fashion as had the evil wizard Mord, whose manipulations had destroyed Vedun. They gathered strength both from the perverse faith of their followers and the dynamic energy derived from living sacrifices, human and animal. Realizing this, Simon soon turned the rebels’ attention toward ambushing mercenary patrols bearing the wolf-charge banner, for these paid acolytes would be the mainstays of Farouche military strength and sorcerous faith.
The seasons passed, the shapes of evil changing even as Hugh Thibedeau had said. The rapacious stalking beasts of the fierce winter were gradually supplanted by the shadows of cunning horned forms in the dripping spring forests; by frightening prints of cloven hooves under the burgeoning bower; by huge, dark swooping forms in the treetops and slithering sinuous creatures that churned the pungent marshes and meadows in mockery of the teeming life that burst from the earth’s womb.
A doorway had been opened, and Burgundy had become the Devil’s playground.
Despite their noble efforts, their sparing of regular French troops in their forays against the Farouche, and their attempts at justifying their purpose, the mountain men learned that with each passing season the price on their heads increased, from both the Crown and the invading usurpers of the territory.
Simon knew the Farouche Clan was aware of his presence. He was cheered to realize how vexing it must be to Grimmolech to have his demonic son’s lupine strength and craftiness turned against him. But Simon did not employ the great golden werewolf form as he settled into his vigilante existence. He feared that by virtue of some aspect of the Beast’s unleashed life, the Farouche might contrive to search him out and entrap him.
He continued leading his ascetic life-style, even keeping his distance from his uncle’s band, for the most part. The mountain men assisted him in his evasions of the werewolf transformations by appointing a cave in the Alpine slopes in the manner he had found most useful. They fastened into the walls of the cave a series of enormous manacles by which he might be bound during the full of the moon until the Beast had impotently spent its violent rage of first release. Someone would free Simon the next morning. With this denial of blood-spilling in the full of the moon, Sim
on would be spared the agonizing, despised transmutations until the next full moon.
As spring became summer, animal violence randomly erupted in the province Simon loved, both in the withering heat of the day and the cloaking mantle of night. And the ensorceled warrior became emboldened by his longing to find the woman he loved.
For he learned at last that she had flown from Lamorisse.
None could, or would, say where, though he effected shaky confidences with several people by dint of his obvious resemblance to the Farouche. He could only wonder how many had kept their trembling vows of silence.
It was by gradual stages that Simon Sardonis took to drinking heavily. His feeling of good fellowship for Uncle Andre’s bunch had quickly ushered him into sharing their love of the grape. At first, he drank in moderation, both out of a lifetime’s cultivation of the solemn dignity with which he carried his curse and a deep-seated fear of what he might do once he had relinquished control.
But as he became disheartened over the growing certainty that he had lost Claire, he took to slugging at his wine when apart from them, soon preferring to drink alone. Rum and ale casks took their places next to his wine stores, and in time the energumen inside him began to panic more when Simon caught up a goblet, than a dirk, for some episode of self-torture.
Strong spirits, Simon learned, exercised a sedative effect on the creature that cohabited his soul’s space. And that became a justification to drink more heavily. Though Simon himself suffered dearly in lost faculties, it soon became a daily ritual for him to engage in righteous swilling, melting away the presence of his personal demon with the trickling warmth of his cups.
But sweet victory was short-lived under the burden of a heavy brow. For soon he was left alone to his maudlin thoughts.
Claire was lost to him. Gonji was never going to return. Never trust a woman or a heathen. Never…
Almost—almost, in those moments before merciful sleep overcame him, the notion would come to fullness: Even the taunting of the demon spirit might sometimes be preferred to the terrible emptiness he felt.
CHAPTER TWO
A tigress wind thrashed all but the hardiest trees as storm clouds swallowed the orb of the moon. Hulking shadows and swarming shapes loomed about the onrushing beast, its fell purpose undaunted.
Indeed, its drunken resolve was fortified by the fury of the coming midsummer storm. Its mad bellows burst forth from the roiling lust in its belly, inflaming the night with evil passion. Predatory creatures, drawn by instinct and anticipation of imminent violence, took up the chase, gathering in its wake.
He had been warned against this by his fellows. But in his yearning for the girl he had cast aside the fetters of control, assumed the form of the mighty bipedal wolf, and foregone the constraints against strong drink. The rum had done its work well. Reason fled before the lash of animal passion.
The werewolf broke through the edge of the pine stand as the first sheet of hot rain slanted across the environs of the solitary farm, whipped by a banshee wind. Lightning inflamed the night. The penned cattle bleated and puled in primitive terror, crashing through their fences. Horses kicked and whinnied in their stalls inside the gambrel-roofed barn.
But the beast had eyes only for the two-storied farmhouse, flickering lamplight beckoning to it from the windows.
* * * *
In the upper story, the children began to cry in their beds.
Hercule Cochieu steeled himself as he fumbled with the loading and charging of his musket and pistol, sweating, grinding out imprecations through clenched teeth.
“Mon Dieu—O mon Dieu!” his eldest daughter cried, trembling at the window.
“Get away from there,” Cochieu shouted. He brought his voice under control and moved beside Nadine, easing her from the window with a firm hand and peering outside. “Now, girl, go up and see to the children. Quietly.”
“Non, mon pere. They’re safe. It is me that he wants.” Her words were laced with hitching sobs.
“What?” Cochieu turned from staring at the growling two-legged beast that preened itself on the path, strutting eerily in the rain as if engaged in some unthinkable mating ritual. “What in God’s name are you talking about?”
There was a thump and an outcry over their heads—one of the three children had fallen out of bed to shriek more insistently now.
“It is—it is Rene Farouche, father. I spurned him. He said—he said—” She couldn’t finish, averting her eyes from the slow-spreading rage that tinged her father’s features.
“Get upstairs and see to the children,” he said, paternal ire coming to a boil as his daughter’s words sank in. “I kept us here too long. I should have moved you all to the town—get upstairs!” He raised his wheel-lock pistol beside his jaw and strained to see through the driving rain and huddling darkness, out beyond the spattered window to where the monster bellowed at the door.
“Non, I stay here to fight beside you,” she railed. “I am the cause of this.”
“Damned stubborn girl!”
A thunderous shock rattled the door—the heavy bar held the portal in place under the shoulder charge of the beast. But now it pounded the oaken planks with shuddersome blows. Nadine rushed to a back room and returned with an axe and her father’s rapier. She tossed the latter on the floor at his feet and hefted the axe defiantly.
A center plank split high on the door, just below the lintel.
Cochieu mouthed a desperate prayer, cast a glance up at the ceiling in response to a scream from the bedchamber above. He threw aside the shutter and crashed a stool through the window. Leaning out into the rain, he caught sight of the werewolf s jaws, agape with deadly promise. Red-veined silver eyes. A flash of black talons—
Cochieu’s pistol barked and fumed, hissing in the rain spatter. But the shot fired truly. The beast was struck full in the chest, the impact knocking it backward. It howled maniacally, slipped in the mud and fell, scrabbling back up and spinning in its pain as it clawed at the darkly leaking wound.
It lunged for the broken window, lurched through—its shoulders wouldn’t pass the aperture, though it strained and raked savage gouges in the frame.
Cochieu swore, staving off his terror. He grabbed up his rapier, stutter-stepped forward a pace. Two paces. He slashed at the werewolf with his slim blade, scoring its muzzle and forearm deeply. Nadine screamed sharply behind him, still gripping the axe, shuffling anxiously.
“Leave us alone!” she shrilled.
The monster bellowed in pain and fled the window as Cochieu tossed aside the rapier and brought his heavy musket to bead on its canine head.
It disappeared into the rain a moment. Hercule and his daughter eyed each other, thinking the same thought.
“The rear—”
“Bolted!”
“Are you sure?”
A thud. The rasp of claws against the side of the house. A window exploded above them. A chorus of children’s screams—
“Jesus God Almighty—”
Before they could move, a jackal leaped through the broken parlor window.
* * * *
The vigilante band out of Lamorisse had been hastily raised in response to hysterical word of a rampaging night beast terrorizing farms on the outskirts of town. As usual the small garrison of French regulars had responded in lackluster fashion, receiving the alarm with sullen disinterest, a small squad being dispatched in the wrong direction. And the townsfolk were told to report such information to the shire-reeve, Lyle Farouche, in the future.
Thus, there no longer being any hope in appealing to the powers that held control of Burgundy, the Knights of Wonder took matters into their own hands.
A dozen men pounded along the rain-rutted southeast track under the command of Jacques Moreau, who outwardly exuded the confidence he knew th
e others needed to see but was internally troubled on many fronts. The worst of it was that he’d been intercepted by his friends while returning from an evening visit. There had been no time to escort his son safely home. So young Guy now rode along at the center of the pack, bundled against the storm in his father’s cavalry jack, wild-eyed with childish anticipation of seeing the men he so admired in armed clash with Satan’s goblins.
“There—listen,” someone grated as they all reined in. “Must be Cochieu’s place.”
An electric thrill coursed through them to hear the bellowing of the werewolf a mile off, even through the woods and the wind and the rain.
Moreau mopped his brow and sniffed, spitting into the muddy road. “All right…All right, let’s go. Guy—ride close to the Richards now, garcon.”
Moreau swallowed hard, his eyes glazing with a sudden fear of what lay ahead, and kicked his steed into a gallop.
* * * *
A tremulous murmur escaping her throat as she ran, Nadine bounded up the stairs in three lissome strides, brandishing the axe before her. Her fear turned to blind rage and concern for her sisters and brother. Despite the prickling terror that threatened to paralyze her legs, she snarled out a defiant threat and came on flailing at the huge monstrosity that had fractured part of the window frame and wedged itself into the aperture.
Little Clarice, huddled into a corner of the bedchamber, eyes blank with shock, was nearly in reach of a scraping, straining, taloned paw.
Nadine’s father lurched into the room behind her, roaring for her to clear the way. But she was galvanized by the children’s trenchant wailing. She swung the axe in scything arcs, inching ever closer to the wetly snapping jaws of the werewolf.
“Nadine,” the creature hissed, flinching back.
She froze. Her heart seized up, to hear her name pronounced in that horrible, unearthly voice.
