“Oh!” cried Samuel, shattering the silence. “You’re listening for the Hob!”
Horatio’s throat squeezed up toward his skull as he jerked involuntarily at the sudden outburst from his cousin. He felt one of his knees give slightly as he mustered enough strength to refrain from jumping out of his own boots.
“Quiet, you fool!” Horatio hissed, smacking the simpleton on the backside of the head. “You’ll give someone a heart attack! And no, I’m not listening for the Hob, as you put it. There’s no such thing as goblins or ghosts or anything of the sort.”
Horatio wished he was as confident of that fact as he sounded. With all the talk about the hobgoblin that was terrorizing the Christians now occupying the Holy City, even he was beginning to believe it might be true. This, of course, was unthinkable. Horatio was educated. He had no time, nor inclination, to entertain the tales of old wives. He just wished he could convince his own nerves of that.
“But I thought that’s why we were out here tonight.”
“No, we’re out here tonight as lookouts against any possible brigands or heathen that would try to take what belongs to Baron Gregory,” said Horatio, willing himself to overcome the nagging fear that was creeping up his spine.
But who could really blame him? All this talk about a spectral creature made of smoke and mist, shadow and nightmare, stalking the Holy Soldiers of God in the dead of night would have most anyone rattled. The Saracens were calling the creature a djinn, some dark spirit sent by Allah to protect them from the Christian occupation. Horatio had called it hogwash when he first heard about the attacks. Now, he wasn’t so sure. At least thirteen knights and foot soldiers had disappeared without a trace since the Djinn’s attacks had begun six months ago. What if he was wrong? What if the Hob was real? What if Gregory’s excavations of the tunnels below Jerusalem had somehow awakened some ancient spirit that even now sought vengeance upon them?
Yes, even the great knight known as Horatio was having his doubts. But he wasn’t about to let anyone know it.
“But Lord Gregory said…”
“I don’t care what Gregory said. There’s no such thing as hobgoblins, I’m telling you. Especially not here.”
“That’s not what gram said, Horatio. She told me stories. Those hobs are bad business, I tell you.”
Horatio sighed. There simply was no reasoning with the buffoon, so he continued walking.
“She said that the hobs would visit the unwary sinner in his sleep and carry them back to their holes and do all sorts of unspeakable things,” continued Samuel, straining to keep up with Horatio’s long strides. “No one ever returned from a hob hole, it’s said. And Horatio, the very same thing is happening here.”
“If no one ever returned then how on earth do we know such things exist?”
“Well, they say there are some…those with learnin’ in sorcery and such who can speak with them,” Samuel was persistent. “That’s how we know such things.”
Horatio could do nothing but continue walking into the darkness, shaking his head. There really was no convincing the youngster and Horatio wasn’t even sure he should try. All the signs pointed to Samuel’s conclusion. It all seemed so supernatural. The attacks. The disappearances. And in each encounter, it was said that the very shadows around the Djinn’s victims came alive and swallowed them whole. A shiver rattled involuntarily down Horatio’s sweat drenched body.
The torchlight from the city streets no longer reached them out on the outer edge of the walls of Jerusalem. Horatio’s sharp eyes searched the path ahead, looking for any movement in the murk before them. For one brief second, he could have sworn that an amorphous shadow actually slithered against the stone wall, but it was gone as quickly as it appeared.
This is crazy, thought Horatio. The boy’s rattling my nerves. It’s just superstitious nonsense, after all.
“Lord Gregory says this djinn is nothing more than a good ol’ English hobgoblin,” droned Samuel. “And there’s plenty of ways to deal with the likes of him, he says. But I’m not so sure. I think that maybe…urk!”
The prattling rant of his squire ceased with a yelp, spinning Horatio around, sword drawn in one swift motion. Samuel was nowhere to be seen. In the place where he had stood was nothing but a plume of smoke, reeking of brimstone. Horatio spun around again, scanning every nook and shadow that lined Jerusalem’s wall.
The Hob had struck. It had taken poor Samuel in a flash of hellfire and Horatio had been unable to do anything against it. Panic welled up in the knight’s chest. He knew the creature still lurked somewhere nearby and unseen.
“Come out!” Horatio cried, angered that his voice trembled with each syllable.
The knight spun left, then right, his sword extended out from his body, ready to strike at anything that moved against him. The reek of brimstone burned his nostrils and he struggled not to retch. The stench was ghastly. Nothing can smell as bad as this, Horatio thought, as he tried to compose himself.
“I say come out, coward!”
A soft breeze blew across his face, the beads of sweat rolled over his brow like the icy fingertips of death. Horatio placed his helmet on top of his head once more and stepped toward the spot where Samuel had only seconds ago stood.
The wary knight looked down to examine the ground. A weird black powder scorched the earth near his squire’s footprints.
“Odd,” Horatio said aloud.
Crouching down, the knight dipped his finger into the powder. Bringing the residue to his face, his nose wrinkled in disgust. There was no doubt about it. Brimstone. The nausea washed over the knight’s senses again. He felt dizzy.
“Foul odor,” he muttered. “The vestiges of hell itself.”
“Not exactly,” said a cold muffled voice from somewhere behind Horatio.
The knight spun around. A sharp hiss shot out from the darkness and Horatio felt the frigid bite of unseen tendrils snaking around his ankle. A jerk from above, and the knight’s foot flew up into the sky pulling the rest of his body with it. His sword slipped from his grasp, clanging as it struck the hard, dry earth and Horatio found himself hanging upside down, five feet off the ground.
A gleefully malicious cackle resonated from somewhere in the darkness.
The Hob.
Twisting his head around to look for the source of his sudden misfortune, Horatio let out a single whimper. Sheer, unadulterated terror wrapped around his body like spiny tentacles, threatening to squeeze the life from his lungs.
Standing mere inches from the upended knight stood a creature as dark as the night itself. Its black turban—what the Saracens call a tagelmust—flapped in the warm breeze, blending itself perfectly into the darkness. Horatio reckoned it stood a full ten feet tall if it stood an inch, and hid its horrible features behind a shroud of black cloth. Long leather boots reached above its knees and the broad curved scimitar clutched in the creature’s clawed hand glistened in the light of the moon. Its other hand held a strange cord that stretched up and around a wooden awning that stretched out from the city’s wall and descended again around Horatio’s ankle.
The Hob leaned forward. Horatio struggled against the bindings around his ankle, trying desperately to free himself…to flee…but it was no use. The dark spirit had cast its accursed spell against him and the knight hung helplessly in midair…frozen with dread.
The Hob glided over; its outstretched claw caressing the frightened knight’s face, pulling his head up to look Horatio square in the eyes.
Those eyes. Horatio could not recall ever seeing such horribly dark eyes. Eyes of vengeance. Eyes of malice. Eyes that glowed with green ethereal fire as though reflecting the very flames of Hell itself.
“Nay, not quite from hell,” the Hob said as if reading his mind. “But I’ve been there.”
Horatio wasn’t quite sure what the creature meant. He wasn’t quite sure of anything, actually, except for the suffocating horror that coursed through his blood at that moment.
“Wh-what
do you want with me?” Horatio managed with a great deal of effort. “What do you want?”
The creature paused for several seconds in thought. Its head tilted slightly, looking up into the night sky in thought. It turned to face the knight again.
“It’s simple. I’ve come to free the prisoners your lord uses as slave labor to dig his tunnels. You know…the ones you are standing sentry for.”
“Prisoners? I have no idea what you’re talking about?”
A snarl from the creature told Horatio he wasn’t buying the lie.
“All right, all right,” said Horatio, a voice squeaking. “I do know, but it’ll do you no bit of good. They're heavily guarded. You’ll not be getting close enough to even glance at them, much less free them."
Another chuckle erupted from the creature's bowels.
"You misunderstand, sir knight," it hissed. "The deed is already done. They have already been freed and the few guards that survived have been taken as my own prisoners."
Horatio's throat went dry at the news.
"Taken?" he asked. "Like the others?"
The Djinn merely nodded.
"So, d-do you plan to take me as well? Did…did you take my squire too?”
The creature stared at his captive for several long seconds. He seemed to be savoring the knight’s ordeal. Horatio felt the sudden urge to vomit, but willed himself against it.
“Have no fear, sir knight,” said the creature. “You will better serve me in other ways. I want to give you a message to relay to your lord.”
“A…a message?” Horatio could hardly control his voice. “What message?”
“It’s simple. I want Gregory’s mad quest to end. I want him and those who follow him to leave this land. But most importantly, I want Gregory’s personal quest to cease.”
That confirmed it. Only a creature in league with the devil would desire God’s holy army to withdraw from such a noble mission. The baron and his knights had been sanctioned by the Pope himself…sent to Jerusalem for a very special task. They had the blessing of God Himself. Any creature who sought to undermine such a sacred endeavor could only come from the Evil One.
Horatio felt his fear waning. Righteous indignation burned in his breast and contempt for the demonic beast before him outweighed any dread he had once harbored.
“Never, foul creature!” said Horatio. “We will never surrender to the devil or his henchmen. I’m not sure what Baron Gregory is searching for, but I’m sure it is to honor the Most High God!”
The Hob glared at the upside down knight. To the knight’s surprise, a roar of laughter erupted from the creature’s throat—not a menacing evil laugh as the Hob had released before, but one of genuine mirth. Horatio wasn’t sure he liked this laughter any better. It was completely unexpected and it unnerved the beleaguered knight beyond what he would have thought possible.
The creature sheathed its sword in a leather scabbard, stretched his arm back and brought it swiftly across Horatio’s backside. It wasn’t a brutal hit at all, but one that comrades in arms might land when goading the other in jest.
“I like you, sir knight!” the creature said. “Aye, I like you a great deal. You have a spine after all. It’s something your fellow crusaders should learn from you.”
The Hob’s other hand suddenly released the cord and Horatio fell helplessly to the ground in a blur of motion. The knight wasn’t sure he was better off having been released from his aerial prison. Upon standing up from the dirt, he found himself surrounded by a maelstrom of smoke and brimstone, cutting off all light and breathable air. Horatio gagged on the rancid fumes as he tried desperately to retrieve his fallen sword.
But the creature had disappeared. Terror gripped Horatio’s heart once more. Would the Hob strike now that his guard was down? Would he finally be carried away to the dark recesses of the earth that hobs were known to dwell?
“Tell Gregory this,” said the Hob’s strange and distant voice. Horatio couldn’t make out where it was coming from. It sounded as if it was coming from inside his own head. “Tell him that the Djinn has marked him for his treacheries. Tell him that I know of his plans and will not allow him to carry them out. Tell him to leave now or he will face me soon enough.”
Horatio could only hack at the sulfurous smoke now burning a path to his lungs.
“And dear Horatio,” said the voice, “remain steadfast, young knight, and you may one day see the truth for what it is…not what you wish it to be.”
With a flurry of wind, the presence of the Hob was gone—the lingering plumes of brimstone the only evidence that it had ever been there at all. Horatio had survived. He had encountered the grim spirit and lived to tell the tale. He could think of nothing but to fall to his knees and thank the Lord for his deliverance.
His praises were soon interrupted by a strange murmuring from behind a large boulder to Horatio’s right. The knight stood, drew his blade once more and carefully tread around the stone—cautious of an ambush.
But a smile quickly replaced the scowl he’d been wearing since first encountering the Djinn at the sight of Samuel, trussed up by ropes and gagged with a cloth strip and laying prone on the ground. Despite a few bumps and abrasions, his poor squire appeared to be fine. Just one more thing for the knight to be grateful for. Despite the boy’s irritating ways, Horatio truly cared for Samuel. He was pleased to find him safe and not stuffed waste deep in some dank hob hole.
****
Twenty-three minutes later, he and his dazed squire found themselves stumbling into Lord Gregory’s palace.
He’s definitely not going to like this, was all that Horatio could think as he made his way through the vast hallway toward his master’s study. He’s not going to like this one bit.
2
Baron Gregory De L’Ombre hated Palestine. He hated the unbearable heat. He hated the stench and beasts of burden that perpetuated their foul odor wherever one might breath. He despised the people—whether the few remaining Jews that still resided in the land or Muslim; or even Christian for that matter. He loathed its history and the ridiculous fanaticism that came with it.
Though he never vocalized it, the truth was, Gregory longed to see the wet, cool shores of home once again…to be rid of this God-forsaken place forever. His beautiful and loving daughter, Isabella, had never seen the land of her fathers. She had been born here in Outremer and had never known the pleasures of truly civilized life. It was his single greatest regret since the death of her mother—attempting to raise such a precious child in so horrid a place. He could not wait to return home and introduce her to the land where God—if such a being existed—truly dwelt. France.
But that simply wasn’t to be. At least, not yet. The baron still had things to accomplish and he could not move forward with his plans until he found the secret that would secure the Christians’ position in Jerusalem forever. And once he had it…now that would change everything. The world would be a vastly different place and he, for his part in the discovery, would be made nothing less than an emperor.
He’d long ago given up on the Pope’s promise him. His Holiness had sent him here personally, along with his traitorous brother William, for the most trivial of matters and for the most ridiculous of rewards. But Gregory was no simpleton. He would not be manipulated by the Holy See as so many before him had been. He had plans of his own and would not be denied.
Still, the papal commission itself came with immense benefits. Benefits that Gregory intended to use to his full advantage. But his own plans could not be realized until he found what he’d been searching for. Found the two items that would give him almost limitless power. Quite literally, power as limitless as the very sands of the Outremer.
But apparently, now was not the time to reflect on his mission. No. Now was the time for inane superstitions and bumbling fools.
This Djinn was truly becoming a nuisance. At first, Gregory had found the very notion rather quaint. He had toyed with the gullible minds of his knights with tales o
f goblins from back home and had even encouraged them to seek out the vile spirit for the sake of God’s kingdom. In hindsight, perhaps, not the best of ideas. But he had felt that such a supernatural enemy would keep the men sharp and more alert than they had been of late. After all, Saladin, the Sultan of Egypt, was amassing power and had his eyes fixed on the Holy City. Already, a handful of Muslim tribes aligned with the Saracen war-chief had begun sacking minor villages throughout the kingdom. Gregory’s knights had to be prepared for anything until he’d succeeded in his quest and an evil specter was just the thing to keep the men on edge.
But the legend was growing out of control and nothing seemed to stop it. The Djinn seemed to be everywhere now. Waylaying a traveling textile merchant from Antioch. Viciously attacking a squad of weary foot soldiers trudging through the desert from Damascus. And now this attack on one of his most trusted knights and the caravan transporting his recently acquired slaves.
Thankfully, he’d had the foresight to transfer the Essene monk by different route. If the Djinn had managed to free him, Gregory’s plans would have sorely been hindered. After all, it was the Essenes that guarded the secret he’d been seeking for so long now. Guardians of an ancient knowledge that would completely decimate his enemies. And it was the baron’s hope that this one monk would, with no little persuasion from his mercenary Gerard, reveal those same secrets to him.
But if this Djinn continued with its own personal crusade, all of his planning and hard work would be for naught.
The baron sighed as he looked up from his writing desk at the cowering knight before him. “Let me get this straight,” Gregory said to Horatio standing at attention in the center of his great hall. “You are actually telling me that this evil spirit swooped down from the sky, levitated you six feet in the air, and told you to warn me away from my post? Is that what you’re telling me?”
The Djinn (The Order of the Knightshades Book 1) Page 2
