Dagger of the Martyrs

by Steven Savile

  1309

  ON THE ROAD TO BOLOGNA

  Aymeric woke from dreams of running, fleeing something unseen in high, vertiginous places, his heart thundering as hard as if the effort was real and not nightmare fuelled.

  He’d snatched some sleep in a grassy hollow. It was still not quite noon judging by the position of the sun. He’d been intending to wait out the day and travel only by night, but something had woken him. It took a moment to isolate the sound of several hounds, their voices raised in the howl of the chase. The noise got him up and moving fast, running faster than in any dream.

  Dogs. The King must want me badly if they have sent for dogs…

  He ran north, plunging headlong through thin forest, thinking only to put distance between himself and the dogs. Behind him, the howling kept pace with him.

  ◆◆◆

  He’d walked almost ten miles north of where he’d come across the King’s men’s camp the night before when tiredness overtook him. It narrowly beat the dawn. He’d only slept maybe five hours; not enough rest for a wounded man in any circumstances but devastating for a man being harried by chasing hounds. It wasn’t as though he had a choice; there was too many of them to fight, wounded or not.

  A dark thought struck him then:

  They know I am injured, that is why they have called in the dogs; they have got my scent from where I bled on the saddle.

  He needed to find some way of masking the taint of blood, otherwise they would relentlessly hunt him down no matter how far he ran.

  It had been a dry season in the countryside around Rome. There were no rivers to speak of in the forest where he walked. He had seen little in the way of streams, not even a rivulet.

  As he ran, Aymeric tried to gauge the lie of the land, thinking to head for an area with the best chance of having running water, but the forest, although light, was still too thick to see more than a few hundred paces in any direction.

  He found a deer track heading north and followed it, hoping that it might lead him to water.

  The track stopped at a dried-up watering hole, the mud caked hard without the barest hint of moisture. If he stopped and dug deep, he might find the clay beneath to be wetter, but he didn’t have the time.

  The hounds bayed again, closer now.

  Aymeric ran.

  ◆◆◆

  The trail led him to the foot of a tall hill. Going up would be suicide, it was open ground. But to skirt it, he’d be going diagonal to the chasing pack, meaning they would be on him so much quicker.

  He didn’t hesitate or slow, deciding on the run. He veered west, away from where he knew the road lay, opting to take his chances in the woods rather than risk being caught on the open road.

  The baying hounds were much closer already, moving relentlessly on, and alongside their baying he heard the shouts of their handlers, urging the dogs forward for the kill.

  At least they will not be mounted; this is no terrain for horsemen.

  And with that thought, Aymeric had the makings of a plan.

  Assuming they were the same men he had seen in the encampment the night before, they had left their horses somewhere back there, maybe even at the camp itself… It meant doubling back and going back the way he had come, but there was a chance he might steal a horse, and that was a chance he had to take because he couldn’t outrun the hounds forever.

  Gritting his teeth, the young knight forced more speed out of his tiring legs, before he began a slow circle southwards, trusting to his judgement, and luck, that he could find the campsite before the hunters found him.

  1309

  ALAMUT

  Samira was still groggy when they dragged her into an open clearing in the centre of a circle of tents. One of them was considerably larger and grander than the others. The Kahn’s tent. They had bound her hands behind her back. When she tried to kick out, she got a boot in the stomach as a reward. The kick crunched in so hard she lost all her breath, and bent double…which caused the Dagger of the Martyrs to fall from her clothes and land in the dirt at her feet.

  She saw his legs first, bare to the elements from sandals to a short, woven kilt that barely reached his knees; as brown as old leather and corded with muscle, they were the limbs of a runner and fighter.

  The man bent to lift the dagger; on his upper body he wore a leather jerkin, cut at the shoulders to expose arms as solid as trunks of wood, blue veins showing in tough, sun-hardened skin. His face was tanned, creased and beaten by wind and weather, his blue eyes, clear as the tarn in spring. He stared at her.

  “A fine dagger indeed,” he said in his rich dialect, “and far too fine a weapon for a sand rat like you. Or perhaps you are a spy after all? And a thief, I would judge, digging around in this sacred place for plunder?”

  Samira showed no indication of understanding. Instead, she did what she hoped was a fair impression of the thief he thought her to be, caught, frightened and desperate. Her thought process was simple; convince them she was what they thought and with luck they would drop their guard. She would only need one chance to make good.

  The newcomer – their leader, she assumed, or one of them, given the deference being paid to him by the others standing in the circle, slid the dagger into the band of the broad leather belt of his kilt. He lifted Samira by the scruff of the neck, one-handed, and threw her back to the ground, hawking and spitting at her.

  “Thief or spy, no matter; I have no use for either. The problem, for you, is that I cannot allow either possibility to go unpunished. A thief, we cut the hands off, a spy we put the eyes out and cut the tongue out. Like I said, it matters not which fate befalls you, but I would hate for you to suffer the wrong punishment,” and to one of the lithe warriors beside him, the man said, “I know, the cauldron is on the boil... perhaps our new friend will squeal when there’s some heat beneath him.”

  Before he’d finished talking, two men grabbed Samira by the arms and dragged her off toward one of the tents. A large metal pot sat atop a roaring fire, steam rising from inside it. It demanded all of Samira’s training not to lose her wits at the thought of going in there, kicking and screaming. She slumped in the men’s arms, closing off the fight or flight instinct. She banked on them thinking she had fainted at the prospect of being boiled alive and let then carry her closer to the fire.

  As she’d hoped, they unbound her, intending to strip her clothing before submerging her in the boiling water.

  She let her body go limp and fell toward the ground as the first knot slipped.

  One of her two guards let out an oath and bent to pick her up.

  With no weapons beyond her hands and feet Samira was still a lethal foe; she straight-fingered him, hard, in the left eye, gouging her index finger in deep with the broken nail doing serious damage, and kneed him even harder in the bollocks as he buckled, making sure he wasn’t getting up in a hurry.

  She pivoted to face the other man, driving her forehead into his face even as he recoiled. He was faster than she’d anticipated, her blow catching him on the broad plain of his forehead rather than the soft stuff of his nose. It hurt, but it wasn’t about to blind him with pain.

  He grabbed at her, trying to envelop her in a huge bear hug and drag her in close where she couldn’t hurt him, but she was too fast for him. He grabbed a hold of her robes, and as she twisted, tore them away from her shoulder to her waist.

  “Stop!” a voice bellowed, the word echoing around the valley for seconds after all else fell into silence.

  Any hope of escape was lost; Samira stood inside a close-packed ring of tribesmen, naked from the waist up.

  ◆◆◆

  The Khan strode forward to stand face to face with her.

  He pulled the covering away from her face to reveal her hair.

  “A girl, and a not a horse at that,” he said. He held the point of her chin so that she looked him in the eye.

  Samira spat in his face.

  He let it run off this cheek and smiled.

 
“But, like the most spirited horse, easily broken. We shall need to find a goat for the pot now. We don’t kill women unless we really have no choice… we have better uses for them.”

  Samira kept up her act, pretending ignorance of his language. That only earned another laugh from the gathered crowd who liked the idea that she had no inkling what the night held in store.

  “You will understand me well enough later, woman. You have my promise on that.”

  She didn’t doubt him for a second. There was something unutterably vile about the man and the way he threatened sexual violence as a tool of power.

  If he touched her, she would kill him, her promise to Javed be damned.

  Another tribesman entered the circle of men, joining the Khan; unlike the others who were dressed like the Khan in kilts and leather, this one, despite the blistering heat, wore head to toe furs, orange and black, from some great beast Samira could barely imagine. The man’s skin was pale and pock-marked where the others were weathered, clean-shaven with scraps of wispy hair eked over a bald head. His mouth was too wet, too red, and when he spoke it was with a heavy lisp. He had no teeth, only a weeping sore the length of both gums.

  “This is a bad omen, my Khan,” he said, waving a skeletal hand towards Samira, his dirt-ingrained nails stabbing the air. “I have seen the girl and that dagger in my dreams. We must leave this place immediately.”

  “Doom and death, that is all you ever see, shaman,” the Khan replied. He still hadn’t taken his eyes off Samira. She had no liking for what she saw when she met his gaze; a naked lust and fire she had no idea how to quench.

  “She must die,” the shaman repeated, insistent.

  “We do not kill women, shaman.”

  “And yet we must kill this one. And do it now. I have seen this.”

  The Kahn shook his head. “You wish me to break our laws for the sake of a girl and a dagger? What madness is this?”

  “I can show you,” the shaman replied. “Fetch a horse and I will read. You have always trusted my readings, have you not?”

  Finally, the Khan took his gaze away from Samira.

  “So be it. You have not failed me before now,” he said. “See that you do not begin now.” The Khan clapped his hands and a moment later a fine stallion was led into the circle. It was a beautiful creature; one of the finest of the horde. The Khan soothed the skittish animal, gentling it with a kindly touch, stroking its neck even as he spoke soft words in its ear… then bent rammed the Dagger of the Martyrs through its thick hide, gutting the horse from chest to pizzle with one sooth swiping cut.

  “A fine blade indeed,” he said, even as the horse’s innards slithered and roiled in a steaming pile on the dirt.

  ◆◆◆

  The shaman knelt, the hem of his furs deep in the gore, and ran his hands through the guts, red soaking him from fingertips to elbow as he worked through them reading whatever fate he imagined in the bloody loops. He lifted a long white-slick coil to his lips, sniffed then licked it, caressing the intestine before he took another loop between his hands and tore it apart; the stench was overwhelming.

  The shaman smeared shit and blood and slime all over his cheeks then turned to the Khan, grinning wildly.

  “You see, my Khan? The reading is all too clear. The girl must die. If she lives, then you will never leave this valley. The spirit animals mark this as the truth.”

  The Khan grunted, looked at Samira, then back at the shaman.

  “You would really have me break one of our most sacred laws?” he asked, shaking his head like he couldn’t quite believe what was being demanded of him by the holy man. He still had the Dagger of the Martyrs in his hand.

  “It is necessary, my Khan,” the shaman said, still caressing a long coil of bloody intestine like it was the finest treasure he knew.

  “Perhaps not,” the Khan said. “Though if I must break a holy law, I prefer to break this one.” He stepped forward and rammed the blade into the shaman’s gut, an inch above his cock, and drew it up in a single swift stroke that matched the one that had killed the horse. Even as the man stared, unbelieving at his own blood coursing, the Khan tore off the furs and reaching in, opened the shaman’s pale distended belly, letting his guts spill alongside those of the dead horse.

  “I like this reading better,” the Khan said, wiping the dagger clean on the discarded fur. He put it back in his belt before addressing Samira. “You shall be brought to me later, little one. I have payment to extract; you owe me a horse.”

  1309

  ON THE ROAD TO BOLOGNA

  Aymeric managed to stay ahead of the chasing pack the whole afternoon, sometimes by doubling back on his track to confuse the scent, other times by putting on sustained bursts of speed which gained him time, but drained his strength.

  He gained more time when he chanced upon a verdant patch of wild mint and garlic, in which he rolled, and gathered clumps of flowers and leaves to bind against his wound, masking the smell of blood. It stung every bit as sharply as the bite of a blade, but the wound was still bleeding, and as long as it did the hounds would follow the scent.

  By mid-afternoon he came across a stream heading south that he was able to follow for several miles, wading at a fast walk to avoid the noises of splashing.

  The sounds of pursuit faded into the distance and Aymeric made good time. The passage of the sun and his internal compass always leading him south.

  After another hour he began to recognise the terrain, the shape of a hill, or a tumbled tree he remembered negotiating on his way north. He slowed, not wanting to stumble into a lookout unawares. All was quiet. There wasn’t even the distant baying of the hounds to disturb the forest. He’d gained more time. He could only hope that it was enough.

  He unsheathed his sword and walked forward, alert to the smallest sound or movement.

  He found the campsite.

  ◆◆◆

  Aymeric crept forward, eyes on the clearing ahead. The cover was good. Plenty of thick undergrowth, brambles and bushes to hide him.

  There were more than a dozen horses, his own included, tethered to a tumbled tree on the far side of the clearing.

  He saw the lookouts, two men, both sitting with their backs to him, huddled over a stewing pot on a small fire. It would have been a simple enough matter for him to make off with his horse. But he wouldn’t get far before they raised the alarm.

  He considered his options. Subduing two men in silence was never going to be an easy task, wounded, even with the element of surprise, it harboured considerable risk. It would be easier if he simply crept up behind the nearest one and ran him through; these were King’s men after all and deserved little in the way of favours. But that did not sit well with him. Aymeric killed in cold blood before, back at the door to Bernard Gui’s quarters in Paris; but that had been deliberate, sending a message to the Inquisitor. Here, was different. There was no message. It was cold-blooded murder, and Aymeric found he did not have the stomach for it.

  He stepped out from his cover and walked towards the fire, getting to within four paces of the men before he was seen.

  The leftmost man nearly jumped out of his skin, scrambling backwards into the fire, and spilling the stewing pot into the flames—which were quenched with a steaming hiss that sounded impossibly loud in the quiet glade.

  Aymeric showed them his sword.

  Both men were armed, but had their own weapons sheathed. The time it took to draw them was more than enough to see them enter the afterlife. They didn’t reach for their swords.

  “Wise,” Aymeric said. “I am going to bind and gag you, and take my horse now,” Aymeric said, keeping his voice calm and soft. “If you don’t do anything stupid, you live. I trust you are fond of life?”

  The two men did not speak, but Aymeric saw their fear plain enough. This particular battle was won without spilling a drop of blood.

  ◆◆◆

  He had them sit back-to-back and bound them quickly, tying their hands and feet wit
h rope he found in one of the saddlebags. Gagged, he ensured there were still no signs of pursuit, then rifled the campsite searching for anything that might be scavenged. He found bread, cheese and a full wineskin, all of which he stashed in his own saddlebags with his bedroll across the back of the horse.

  He found two mail shirts, both decent, but both too small for his frame, so he left them be.

  Aymeric considered returning south now, to reclaim his abandoned armour, but decided against it. Too much risk involved backtracking that far. He walked down the line of tethers, liberating each of the horses, then scattered them with harsh slaps on the rump to drive them off, before got on his mount, offering the two gagged guards a salute with his sword, and rode off through the undergrowth, heading north.

  There were no sounds of pursuit.

  1309

  ALAMUT

  Samira was taken into a large tent adjoining that of the Khan. There were twenty of more women inside, none any older than Samira as far as she could tell.

  She was watched closely by the two brutish tribesmen guarding the main entrance, but Samira had no thought of escape, not yet, not when the Khan still wore the Dagger of the Martyrs in his belt.

  That the Khan was a killer wasn’t a surprise; she’d seen no remorse, no hint of pity in his eyes as he’d dragged the blade free. He’d killed the shaman as easily as he’d killed the horse.

  He will be a hard man to best in a fair fight.

  She almost heard Javed’s chuckle at that thought, and knew what her Master’s response would be.

  Fair fight? There is no such thing. There is only your will against theirs. Always ensure that yours is the stronger, little fish. Always.