02 - Taint of Evil

by Neil McIntosh - (ebook by Undead)

  “How many?” Stefan asked.

  “Hard to be sure, but at least half a dozen.”

  Stefan said a silent prayer for the dead of the village and climbed back into the saddle.

  “You might want to think about staying here for now,” he said to Bea. “We have to go after the mutants.”

  But Bea was already back on her horse, following Bruno out towards the woods. “I’d rather take my chances with you than stay here alone. Besides,” she added, “you may have need of me before long.”

  “Wait a minute,” Stefan caught up with the other horse and took hold of the reins, bringing the animal to a halt. “Whatever we’re about to get into, it’s going to be dangerous,” he said. “You’ll need something to protect yourself at the very least. Here,” he slid a blade from the saddlebag slung at the side of his horse. “Take this. It’s light enough to wield, and it could save your life.”

  The healer looked at the blade held out before her and seemed, Stefan thought, to back away from it. “It’s all right,” she replied at last. She patted a side pocket with the flat of her hand. “I carry my own weapon,” she said. “One I’m used to. I’ll be fine with that.”

  Stefan was unconvinced, and looked towards Bruno. His comrade turned his horse back on to the path. “We need to get moving,” he urged. “They already have a head start on us. Don’t worry,” he said to Bea. “We’ll see you safe.”

  She smiled. “I know you will,” she said. “Come on. Bruno’s right. We need to get going.”

  They followed the tracks through to the far side of the wood and back out onto the open plain. By now day had given way to night, the two moons shining like ghostly orbs through a thin curtain of mist spread low across the empty land. The hoof prints they were following cut a trail across the thin grass then disappeared abruptly as the grass gave way to stone.

  “We’ve lost them,” Bruno declared. Stefan searched the desolate landscape, looking for any clue left by the riders. Just when it seemed their pursuit was to end in frustration, a shout rang out across the plain. A shout, followed by two long notes on a hunting horn.

  The three riders raced towards the sound, closing the distance between them and their quarry. The horn sounded again, two, three more times. Soon they could hear voices and the unmistakable sound of clashing steel. Stefan had no idea exactly what they were riding into, what kind of men or monsters they were about to encounter, or how many. But at the moment that didn’t matter. After weeks of futile searching they had found a purpose again. The creatures who destroyed the village would not elude them now.

  The mist had thickened to a choking fog, snuffing out all light from the moons. Stefan could barely see Bruno riding five yards ahead of him. Then, out of the gloom, came the outline of a horseman riding hard towards them, his progress marked by a flaming torch held low by his side.

  Stefan felt his heart pounding in his chest as his body tensed itself for the coming battle. Moonlight glinted on polished steel as he drew his sword from out of its scabbard. Had the other rider not seen them? If he had, the sight of Stefan and Bruno closing in upon him had given him cause to vary neither his course nor the thunderous pace of his horse. Inevitably, the thought flashed through Stefan’s mind: could it be him?

  The possibility vanished almost as quickly as it appeared. Too small, too lightly built. This was not Alexei Zucharov. But if this horseman had been with those who had ridden into the village of Grunwald, then Stefan would kill him all the same.

  “Hold fast,” he shouted to Bruno. “Here he comes!”

  At the last moment the other rider looked up, and seemed to see Stefan and the others as if for the first time. He called out, words that were lost in the wind. But as Stefan swung his sword, ready to aim the first strike, he heard Bruno call-out to him.

  “Don’t strike, Stefan!”

  Stefan pulled back from the blow, and the rider thundered past. There was a flash of vivid red, and a shouted cry.

  Stefan now saw the ugly gash that was causing the rider to clutch his side just below his ribs. Blood was flowing freely from the wound, all but invisible against the bright scarlet tunic that he wore over his chainmail vest. A moment later the rider lost control of his horse and tumbled from the saddle onto the ground.

  The rider lay, groaning in pain, then twisted his body round to look up at Stefan and Bruno. The look of anguish in his face suggested he was unsure whether they were going to attack him or not, but his strength was all but spent. He sagged forward, clutching feebly at the fallen torch with one hand, and pointing back the way he had come with the other.

  Just in time, Stefan heard the heavy pounding of horses, riding in hard pursuit. The beasts and their riders materialised out of nowhere to appear on the path ahead of them. These were the living, breathing incarnations of the body left behind in the village. Stefan thrust out his sword to fend off a blow. Somewhere to his left he heard Bruno cry out, and the sound of metal slicing the air. In the next moment four—no, five—riders streaked past them, creatures clearly marked by the hand of Chaos. They rode upon hideous, altered steeds: horses with cloven hooves and eyes that glowed like burning coals.

  The mutants thundered past, disappearing into the fog. The drumming of hooves receded, then grew louder again, beating a pounding tattoo upon the hard earth.

  “Get ready!” Stefan shouted. “They’re coming back.”

  This time he was ready for them, but the mutants rode with astonishing speed. His blade cut nothing but thin air, but the answering blow found its mark, razor sharp steel cutting a line across Stefan’s cheek. As the riders sped past he had a fleeting glimpse of a gaunt, bloodless face, and an arm that looked more like the claw of a crab. Then they were gone again, melted into the murky gloom. Stefan heard the hooves recede, then turn to launch yet another assault.

  Blood from the cut on his cheek dribbled into his mouth, a warm, metallic taste of mortality. Stefan spat and cursed. Again the pounding beat of onrushing hooves. Stefan held his nerve as the hideous riders bore down upon them yet again, at the last possible moment striking out with his sword. He made only glancing contact, unseating one rider from its monstrous steed.

  The mutant bellowed its rage at Stefan. It had the body and features of a man, but the pale, almost translucent flesh of one arm tapered off into a curved claw-like blade where the hand should have been. The sinuous limb flexed and lashed at Stefan, the claw-end missing his face by inches. Stefan pressed home his attack. Still the mutant fought back, coiling and unleashing the tentacle-like limb in a single movement. Stefan met the blow and cut cleanly through the creature’s arm, severing the lethal claw. The mutant pulled away, but Stefan blocked its retreat and aimed another blow square into the creature’s neck. A gout of dark blood sprayed from the creature’s mouth, and the mutant crumpled upon the ground.

  Stefan cast his gaze about, ready for the next attack. But the mutant riders had vanished yet again.

  “The scum are losing their appetite for killing,” Bruno commented, sourly.

  “Any sign?” Stefan asked “Have they gone?”

  “Not gone,” Bea said. “They’re still out there, watching. Waiting.” She got down from her horse and picked up the still burning torch that lay beside the dead soldier. She turned her head slowly from side to side, as if following an invisible line. “That way!” she shouted suddenly, leaping back onto her horse and gathering the reins. “Over there!”

  Without further warning, she surged forward, Stefan and Bruno close behind. Bea rode straight ahead a few yards further, then swung her horse about, drawing a wide circle around her body with the burning torch. At that moment the clouds drew back from the moons, and a wash of light pierced the smothering fog. Where before there had been only darkness, they now saw four or five riders approaching, towering mutant steeds closing fast upon Bea.

  “Come on,” Stefan urged Bruno. “They won’t hide from us now.”

  The mutants howled, determined to avenge their fallen
comrade. The four riders converged in a pincer movement, but Bea moved with astonishing agility, steering her horse through the gap between two attackers. Two mutants collided in a tangled mass of flesh and steel. A third wheeled around, straight into Bruno’s path. Bruno held firm on a collision course with the mutant, at the last moment jinking to the left, his sword cutting through the mutant’s guard. The blade sliced cleanly through the creature’s neck, slicing its ugly, deformed head from its shoulders.

  The remaining two mutants turned back towards Stefan in a last desperate attempt to break free. Stefan felled the first, a pale creature with a glistening pig-like face, cutting him down with a single stroke as he rode past. The second held his ground, parried Stefan’s first strike, and aimed a blow at the horse’s flank. Stefan’s horse reared up, unseating him. The last of the mutants now charged down at him, wringing the last ounce of speed from its ghastly horse.

  Stefan scrambled to his feet as the apparition bore down upon him. Moments before he was trampled beneath the hooves he dodged to one side. As the mutant horse thundered past he grabbed at the rider, and pulled the mutant from the saddle.

  The mutant hit the ground hard, but sprang back onto its feet almost instantaneously. It turned and growled at Stefan, a yellow, gangrenous venom dripping from its open jaw. The mutant’s face bore acquaintance with humanity, but the black, beaded eyes and scale-crusted flesh had more in common with a lizard than a man.

  For an instant the two stood motionless, facing each other. Stefan held his sword low, leaving his guard temptingly open. It was a temptation the mutant could not resist. It lunged forward, torso flexing in a single, snake-like movement as a clawed limb raked at Stefan’s face.

  For the second time Stefan tasted blood as the talons tore at his face, but he made sure the opportunity cost the mutant dearly. He drove his sword up into a fold of blistered flesh at the base of the creature’s neck. There was a sound halfway between a scream and a rush of air as the reptilian face split open. A foul spray misted the air as the creature toppled back, clutching at its throat. It lay upon the ground, its body twitching and juddering.

  Stefan sank to one knee, resting his weight upon the hilt of his sword.

  If I kill a thousand of your kind, he reflected, there will still be more. He got to his feet, wiping the putrid gore from his jerkin and legs. It would never be enough. No matter if he killed a thousand, or ten thousand abominations such as this, it would still never be enough. Each small victory was an attempt to balance the scales of natural justice, an act of retribution for the dead of villages like Odensk, like Grunwald. But, for Stefan, the sense of justice earned was always short-lived. It could never be enough, and that thought troubled him deeply.

  He felt Bruno’s hand on his shoulder. “You all right?” his friend asked.

  Stefan gripped his comrade’s arm. “I’m fine,” he said.

  Both men looked round at the sound of a horse approaching. Bea’s expression was neutral, neither elated nor fearful. Only the tremor in her voice betrayed the ordeal she had come through.

  “Well,” she said. “I’m glad that’s over.”

  Stefan reached up and took her hand.

  “Well done,” he said. “Truly well fought.”

  “It was the two of you who did the fighting,” Bea corrected him. “I just stayed out of the way. I told you before,” she said. “I’ve a talent for making myself vanish.”

  Bruno fixed the girl with a look of honest admiration. “Well,” he replied. “Don’t plan on vanishing on us just yet.”

  “Don’t worry,” she assured him. “I won’t. Whatever—”

  Her words were cut short by the sounds of voices and clashing steel, the unmistakable music of conflict. Somewhere close by, battle was being joined. Stefan reached again for his second sword, and offered it across to Bea. “No excuses this time,” he told her. “You’re going to need this.”

  Bruno tracked the direction of the sounds. “Just over the brow of that hill,” he announced. “Quite close I think.”

  Bea fixed her gaze upon Stefan. “The man—the one you’re looking for,” she said, “do you think he could have had anything to do with this?”

  Stefan gave no answer. Perhaps it wasn’t a question he was ready to answer. Not yet. Instead he gathered up the reins and turned his horse about to face the sounds of battle.

  “Come on,” he urged his companions. “This isn’t over yet.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The Common Cause

  In the end, the mutants had not got far beyond the village. Barely two miles north of Grunwald, Stefan and his comrades rode into the heart of a pitched battle. A dozen more scarlet riders bearing torches were fighting shadows, locked in a life or death struggle with the night-cloaked phantoms. The odds favouring the soldiers were at best even. Their bravery could not be doubted, but it was far from clear that they would win through.

  Bea pulled ahead of Stefan, snatching the burning torch from his hand as she passed him. “Let me be your pathfinder,” she shouted. “I’ll draw them on—you can do the rest.”

  She left him little chance to protest, riding like the wind into the thick of the battle. Stefan followed hard on her heels, pushing his horse hard to sustain the furious pace. Out of nowhere, a mutant rider materialised in front of Stefan, intent upon striking out at Bea. It didn’t see Stefan until much too late. Stefan saw the brief flicker of shock in the cold eyes before his blade slashed away the mutant’s sword arm and sent the creature spinning from the saddle, the mutant’s horse going down beneath it.

  Stefan jerked on the reins, pulling his horse out of the way. For the moment he had lost sight both of Bea and Bruno. A soldier loomed out of the darkness towards him, his gashed and bloodied armour testimony to a long and desperate battle. Their eyes met in a brief, unspoken acknowledgement. Before Stefan could speak, the soldier turned away, reacting to something Stefan could not see. The soldier raised his guard, reacting quickly, but not quickly enough. Stefan heard the man scream, then saw light glinting off the blade that seemed to come out of nowhere, piercing the thin mail corselet in a single, fatal thrust.

  Stefan pushed forward into the mutant’s path. He aimed his sword into thin air, but it found a solid mark, cleaving a path between flesh and bone. Stefan drew the blade back and struck again. He had a momentary glimpse of a figure with the proportions of a man with scaly, black skin. The mutant reeled under the force of Stefan’s blow. Before it could melt back into the night, Stefan connected with a third stroke of his sword. The scaly-fleshed warrior toppled back in the saddle and its horse wheeled away, carrying its dead cargo away into the night.

  “Stefan, behind you!”

  Stefan reacted instinctively at the sound of Bruno’s voice, dropping his head and pulling his horse away to one side. He felt a rush of air come towards him, then something strike the flank of the horse like a battering ram. Stefan gripped tight but could not hold on. There was a moment of confusion as he was thrown clear then a sudden impact as he struck the hard ground. Creatures—horses, men and mutants—thundered around him in every direction. Stefan looked up, but his horse was gone. He was marooned, as likely to be trampled to death as cut down by a sword. There was a rush of hooves and Bruno appeared, a half-man, half-bird mutant falling beneath his sword.

  Stefan shouted his comrade’s name. To his relief, Bruno heard him and turned, reaching out to haul Stefan up into the saddle behind him. In the confusion Stefan had lost his sword, but a replacement was soon offered.

  “You can do more with this than I can,” Bea shouted to him. “Take it!” she insisted, holding out the blade. Stefan took the sword. “Slow down a moment,” he told Bruno. He climbed from Bruno’s horse onto Bea’s, and they rejoined the battle. Another two mutants were put to the sword, but still they came on.

  But their presence had given visible heart to their new allies. The men in scarlet were fighting with a renewed vigour, turning defence to attack as more and more of the shado
wy creatures fell to their blades. The odds moved in their favour. Now the mutants sought escape, not conquest. But there was no longer any hiding; no shelter to be found within the shadows. The barren landscape would become their burial ground. Blood raced in Stefan’s veins as he sent the last of the mutants to the Gates of Morr.

  The battle was over, the victory won. Stefan recovered his horse, which had been wandering aimlessly at the edge of the battle field. Scattered fires flickered like beacons where the soldiers were burning the broken bodies of the mutants. Only when Stefan was satisfied that the creatures were truly all dead did he seek out the leader of the scarlet-clad soldiers. As yet, he had not the slightest idea who their allies might be, or, more importantly, where they had come from.

  Half the soldiers lay dead or dying where they had fallen in battle. The survivors stood clustered around one of their injured comrades, trying to tend to his wounds. Stefan watched them, unsure now of how far he should intrude. He knew little of the surgeon’s art, but it seemed clear that what remained of the soldier’s life would be measured in minutes rather than years if nothing could be done.

  He sheathed his sword and stepped forward. The soldier who seemed to be in command looked up.

  “He’s dying,” the man announced, briskly. “Can you help him?”

  “No. He can’t.” Bea pushed past Stefan and approached the wounded soldier. “He can’t,” she reaffirmed. “But maybe I can.”

  The soldiers regarded Bea with a mixture of curiosity and suspicion, but they let her through, standing back as she stooped low over the wounded man. She worked quickly and silently, cutting away the remains of the blood-soaked tunic to expose the ruptured flesh. She laid her hands firmly upon the open wound, and closed her eyes. Her lips moved around the words of a prayer.

  “I hope she knows what she’s doing,” the man who’d first spoken to Stefan commented.

  “Can you do any better?” Stefan asked him. The soldier said nothing, but shook his head slowly, then stood back to watch. The wounded man’s cries subsided a little. Bea stayed at his side, pressing her hands to his chest. When at last she moved it was to look up, and seek out Bruno.