by Adam Golden
A ring of black robes formed around the witch and her two Dryad familiars. Arius could just make out the huddled female in the cracks between the onyx vestments. She pulled herself up to her knees, but seemed unable to get any further. Despite that, Fulvia’s spine was straight as a spear. Her eyes blazed challenge, as her chin lifted in arrogant defiance. For a moment, Arius nearly forgot his loathing. She was a creature of the purest evil, of that there could be no doubt, but Fulvia was no coward.
That was when Arius first saw the Abbot. The man slid forward from the circle with the sleek boneless grace of a cat, his hood slid off his bare scalp and over his shoulders without being touched, and Fulvia, the lady of Myra, powerbroker of the mighty, confidant of lords and princes, crumpled with a hopeless, despairing wail.
It didn’t start as an audible noise, more of a vibration in the air, a pulsing which rippled through him. The grass before him swayed despite a lack of breeze, the air shimmered as though with great heat, reality itself seemed to flex, and slowly Arius became aware of the sound. The hum was barely audible at first, but gained steadily in pitch and timber and, as it grew louder, it grew heavy. The noise, a chant rising from the ring of robed specters, pressed on Arius like an actual weight. With every second it grew louder, the oppressive force growing steadily until the old man was pinned flat to the ground, unable to do more than shift his eyeballs in their sockets. Through the curtains of the strange monks’ robes, Arius saw the braided vine forms of the Dryads leap at The Abbot and . . . disintegrate.
One second they were leaping, clawed hands grasping for the man, and the next they were a fine charcoal powder spread on the breeze. The man himself never made a move toward them, or so much as twitched.
Fulvia lay pinned as Arius was himself. Even amidst the chant he could hear her ragged, horrified panting, as though the eerie vocalizations were somehow both more and less than sound. Now and then a whimper or a snarl broke through the panicked breathy exclamations, which grew faster as The Abbot approached her. The priest didn’t hear the words, but he did capture the tone as the leader of this strange group spoke. Whatever the man said he sounded . . . regretful. Arius wasn’t certain if Fulvia responded, he heard nothing from her until the screaming started.
The Abbot, taken to one knee, took the woman by the chin and lowered his head until Arius thought he meant to kiss her. He stopped inches from her face and Fulvia began to scream, a long, hideous, undulating scream that ripped through the wooded hillside and chilled Arius to his core. The old man wanted to look away, wanted to block it out, but he couldn’t. A greyness, like vapor or smoke, rose from the woman’s screaming mouth. Arius didn’t know what it was, but whatever it might be, the Abbot was drawing it from her and consuming it. When the flow of greyish smoke-stuff ceased, the woman’s screams stopped, and she was gone, not just dead but utterly gone. Vanished.
Arius shook off the memory of that hideous scream. Fulvia had looked into the Abbot’s eyes and seen the abyss, he was sure of it. The old man saw the ghoulish ink-clad creature’s strange feeding whenever his eyes closed.
“Forgive my agitation, Brother Abbot,” Arius said, hating the sudden quiver in his voice. “I speak hastily, however, the threat this man offers cannot be underestimated.”
“It is true,” the Abbot said in his strange sibilant accent, “this sorcerer of yours is far more powerful than any the order has encountered in the last century. Even with your lack of experience the combined strength, my brothers lent you, it should have been more than enough to overwhelm him. Still, he has been driven from the city, and his tools and paraphernalia have been left to be discovered by those who would call themselves leaders of the Church. He is exposed and alone. My brothers hunt him even now. Be at ease.”
“No! It has to be me!” Arius snapped, and immediately recoiled at the cold, dead look he received from the other man.
“You have been told before,” the Abbot said smoothly, as though stating that night was brighter than darkness. “We are not tools here for your use, nor are the Saulite Brothers mercenaries to be turned to your petty vengeance. We are the spiritual descendants of Saul, who drove the sorcerers and mediums from Israel by God’s command. Ours is a sacred trust, one we fulfill by our own means and in our own time.” The words were delivered without any hint of emotion, and yet somehow each word was driven home clearly and distinctly, and the message was clear.
Arius was tolerated for his insights into their quarry, but Nicholas was now their quarry and would be handled in their time and by their methods. Arius thought again about Fulvia’s last hideous scream, and wondered if that was such a terrible compromise after all. In the end, he simply bowed his head under The Abbot’s neutral gaze.
“As you say, Brother Abbot.”
If the man was pleased, there was as little sign as there was of his displeasure. “We make for the order’s abbey at Byzantium to gather intelligence and aid. Be prepared to depart at sundown,” the unsettling creature said, and then he swept away without a sound.
Arius dropped to the ground the moment he was gone, couched his head on his arm, and closed his eyes. The Saulites moved quickly and seemed immune to fatigue, but he was not, he’d need all the rest he could get to match their unforgiving pace.
In his sleep he returned to the wooded hillside, the ruined cottage, and the circle of monks. This time when the screaming started, it was Nicholas who wailed and, when the strange grey smoke began to leak from him, it was not The Abbot, but Arius’ own grinning maw that took it in.
—
A wild agonized shriek filled the woods as the black robed figure, who’d been rushing toward Nicholas, burst aflame like a bundle of dried sticks doused in lamp oil. An invisible orb of pure force ripped from the Bishop and drove the wildly careening human torch off his course as Tulio’s heavy knife took another who’d been coming up unseen on Nicholas’ left. Whomever these sorcerous monks were, they seemed to lack a wide repertoire of abilities. Most of what they’d thrown at Nicholas so far had been spells to confuse, blind, hide their movements, or increase their physical abilities. They didn’t seem to have any offensive magics at all. Which put them at a serious disadvantage against Nicholas.
Of the six they’d seen so far, four were down. Prancer was just finishing off the fourth, whom he’d bludgeoned to death with the leg of another he’d killed before tearing the limb free. The undead butcher wielded the grisly club with incredible force and to great effect.
“Above!” Tulio cried, and Nicholas jerked. The monks’ most effective casting so far—the air above and around the fugitives was littered with the ghostly forms of dozens of black cloaks and capes, seemingly empty but furious in their attacks. It was a simple summoning of air elementals, Zephyrs. They were far from harmless, as the dozens of cuts and wounds all over the three fugitives could attest to, but their greatest danger was in bogging Nicholas and his allies down long enough for the monks to gather reinforcements, and so far it was working.
A flight of six of the wind creatures was diving directly at the spot where their three targets stood in a back to back triangle. The Zephyrs didn’t exactly think, but neither were they mindless. They’d already learned that cutting Prancer had no effect so had stopped directing their attacks toward him.
Nicholas set the first three alight with a muttered command and called, “Roll!”
Tulio dove left, Nicholas went right, and the flaming garments slammed into the ground where they’d stood. Both men came back up in a fighting stance. Tulio slashed at a passing drapery and caught it. A long, ragged sound of tearing followed, and the cloak fell limp to the ground. It was a lucky blow. The Zephyr needed something tactile to give them form, but they were fast and agile and could rarely be harmed by conventional means.
The first six were not even handled yet and already Nicholas saw three more flights descending. He couldn’t fight them piecemeal. Too much energy would be expended and then the last two monks would take them apart. He needed something
more . . . definitive.
“Tulio! Prancer! To me!” Nicholas shouted. The two others pressed in close as Nicholas started to chant. His hands worked a complex series of gestures. The wind picked up around them, swirling like a dervish in a summer storm.
The Elementals let out an eerie squeal that made Tulio shiver.
“They do not seem harmed!” the bodyguard shouted.
“They’re wind elementals, if anything this’s the equivalent of a good meal and a night’s sleep for them!” Nicholas called back still casting.
“Then why . . . ?” Tulio started, but Nicholas ignored the question as he started to circle the other two inside the whirling vortex.
The strange jerking, twisting gait of his movements gave them the look of a sort of alien dance. Nicholas’ odd trilling vocalizations rose in pitch and intensity as he moved. His strange, guttural, tongue-twisting sounds seemed almost beckoning. Throughout the entire strange dance, the air inside the violently churning vortex of air grew warmer and warmer, progressing through the sticky unpleasant warmth of a kitchen that had been in operation all day to the dry, oppressive wall of heat one experiences when standing too close to a large blaze.
Sweat poured from Nicholas’ brow, Tulio sagged with momentary weakness, only Prancer stood unmoved. He stood impassive, still swathed in his heavy woolen robe and cowl, cradling his revolting leg club in the crook of his arm, and seemingly content to wait forever in the furnace Nicholas was building moment by moment.
The Zephyr creatures, emboldened by the strength bled from Nicholas’ vortex, shrieked and dove all around, looking for any weakness in the spinning wall of air that kept them from their targets.
Inside the funnel, Tulio was wilting, the rugged fighter barely able to keep his feet. The air around them was heavy, shimmering with heat. Every breath came as a ragged gasp and felt as though it might scorch his lungs. The stalwart manservant looked to Nicholas, whose odd gyration had become a patchwork of stumbling, groaning exclamations. The man looked ready to drop.
“Nikki . . .” The word came out in a barely audible croak, Tulio’s throat was dry as baked clay and he couldn’t summon a drop of saliva to help lubricate the words. “Nik . . .”
Nicholas staggered to a halt, drew in a lungful of the searing, stale air, and cried out a single rough utterance as he drove his black knife tip down into the ground at his feet. The writhing funnel of screaming air burst aflame like dry hay doused in lamp oil. Suddenly a whirling dervish of white hot fire twisted and crackled around the three fugitives, it’s speed growing with every passing second.
Outside, the elementals shrieked again, their pleasure turning to panic as the force of the funnel’s oscillations dragged the insubstantial creatures toward itself. Their ethereal screenings reached a fever pitch as the invisible air creatures flapped at their cloaks like wings, desperate to pull themselves away from the looming flames. They were consumed in batches of three, four, and five cloaks, capes, and mantles at a time. The living draperies struggled to escape the pull of the twisting wall of flames but were unable to draw away.
It took only moments to purge the fluttering menaces from the skies. When the funnel finished its work, not even ash remained of the strange enemy. With the last unearthly wail silenced, the twisting column of liquid flame was snuffed as abruptly as a blown candle.
Nicholas and Tulio lay prone and gasping, desperately sucking cool air into their dried and straining lungs. Both the party’s living occupants had been mere moments from death inside the spinning column of fire and, despite his mandate to keep Nicholas safe, the creature Prancer was impotent to act. Now, with the flames snuffed, the revenant could finally act. It tossed aside it’s makeshift club, grabbed each man by the back of his tunic, heaved them up like small children, and raced away at the speed of a galloping horse. It gave no thought to where it was taking them, it was incapable of such thoughts. The creature that was Prancer knew only that safety lay in movement, and so it moved.
Of Escapes and Evasions
Tulio’s alarmed squawk turned to a hideously filthy curse as he descended. The pragmatic old fighter did his best to protect his head and made himself as rigid as possible seconds before his speeding body slammed into the knot of men streaming out from the cover of a copse of cedar beside the road. The monster had thrown him, like a hunk of stone launched from a ballista. One second they’d been racing along, Tulio and Nicholas dangling in the abomination’s grip as it ran, and the next Tulio was airborne, streaking toward the ragged band of armed men. They looked rushed, likely racing to close the trap and complete their ambush before they were passed by.
Tulio struck with the full force of nearly two hundred pounds of compact muscle and sinew launched by an inhumanly strong arm. At least four of the would-be bandits were knocked to the ground under his weight, the imagined line of attack was left shattered and in disarray. Tulio hadn’t even cleared the blur from his vision before Prancer was among the bandits and the screaming had begun.
Nicholas’ trusty manservant pushed aside his pride as he crawled on hands and knees to free himself from the tangle of bandits. The Bishop’s undead protector had a man nearly twice his size hefted over his cowled head in one hand as he kicked a second hard enough that Tulio actually saw the creature’s foot impact the chest and get lodged inside.
Those conscious and capable of movement were completely out of sight before the monster managed to free it’s trapped foot from the ribcage of the still twitching corpse. The man it held aloft was wild with panic but unable to break the creature’s preternatural grip. He died with a strangled scream and a loud snap as Prancer broke his spine over its knee like a green branch. The whole encounter couldn’t have taken a full minute.
Tulio concentrated on staggering away on wobbly feet as Prancer busied itself among the corpses. The man fervently wished to have no idea what the popping and tearing noises that sounded behind his back signified. When Tulio finally caught sight of Nicholas, on the edge of a large hedge, he noticed that the mage was not looking at the collection of bodies beyond as well.
“It threw me!” Tulio called angrily to his friend and master. “Just chucked me like a damned sling stone!”
“And you acquitted yourself beautifully,” Nicholas said, laughing as his old friend stumped toward him. “A complete natural! You missed your calling. You should have been a professional projectile.”
“Very amusing. If it ever grabs me like that again I’ll . . .” Tulio started.
“Get thrown again?” Nicholas asked with another laugh that made his friend grumble under his breath, which made Nicholas laugh all the harder. “Oh, come now,” he said once his hilarity had tapered off, “you’re no worse for wear, the bandits have been dealt with, we’re free to carry on, and haven’t yet been caught up by our black-robed friends. I think, all considered, things are looking up. Wouldn’t you say?”
“Looking up? Not precisely how I would put it, no,” Tulio answered, “but I suppose if you mean by ‘looking up’ that we haven’t yet been brutally murdered by some kind of magical cult then yes, looking up indeed.” He was silent for a moment as he gave his old friend a long, appraising sideways glance. “You know nothing of these people that track us?” he finally asked.
The smile slipped from Nicholas’ lips and he shook his head. “I do not think so. They are strange. I sense a reasonable amount of power from them, and even some skill. They are practiced at the things they do but their range of abilities seems strangely limited.”
Nicholas could see that his friend didn’t understand what confused him. “Imagine a swordsman,” he said. “Obviously not a master, but he has excellent footwork, is comfortable with his weapon, and seems knowledgeable.” Tulio nodded. “Now, imagine that when you begin to spar, he only uses the same two cuts. Again and again. No matter what you do, what openings you leave, he always uses the same two cuts. Do you see what I mean?”
I do,” Tulio said. “Is it possible that they’re simply
not as widely studied as you are?”
“I would say, perhaps immodestly,” Nicholas answered, “that is all but a certainty, but no. Even if they had no study beyond the tricks they’ve demonstrated, practitioners of their ability should have experimented more than they seem to have, come up with some things of their own . . . I just don’t understand why these haven’t. Unless they’re being prevented somehow. Some stricture of the group?”
Tulio saw his master’s eyes widen in surprise, and perhaps a little alarm. “Or might it be shame?” Nicholas asked. “Perhaps they limit their use of the power to absolute necessity out of some aversion to it?”
“A group of practitioners against the practice of magic?” Tulio asked, as incredulous as Nicholas looked.
“Imagine our swordsman again, a talented fighter who has sworn off fighting but is forced to do so for some reason, vengeance, honor, duty or some such. Does it stand to reason he’d do only what he had to do, to achieve whatever his aims were? That he would be uncertain, even halting in his attacks?”
Tulio nodded again, it was possible. “Still, what sort of coven is filled with ill at ease practitioners?”
“One filled with Christian priests?” Nicholas asked, and Tulio knew the look on his face was plain incredulous shock.
“What? Is there such a thing?” he asked. The church’s position on witchcraft had always been absolute and severe, the idea of a sanctioned order of magical practitioners was madness.
“I never thought so,” Nicholas explained. “There have been rumors for centuries of a group of mystical witch hunters. No proper name is known, but some call them The Devil’s Monks, or The Black Cross, or other such foolishness. I’ve searched exhaustively for them over the years but never found even a hint of them. If they do exist, and these are they, it could be very bad indeed. The legends say they’re quite zealous in their belief that witchcraft must be purged. These have felt my strength. If they are who I suppose, they won’t be content to chase us off. They’ll keep coming until I’ve killed them all.”
