[Heroes 05] - The Red Duke

by C. L. Werner - (ebook by Undead)

  A tiny flicker of hope flashed through the child’s heart. If she could find the castle she could get the knights to help her! They would ride to the village on their white horses, their armour shining in the sun! They would make all the monsters go away and save her mother and everybody else!

  Aimee removed her hands from her ear and from her mouth. She leaned away from the roots and listened to the sounds of the forest. It was important for her to be brave now, because the knights would only listen to a brave girl. She closed her eyes, wiping at her tears. She didn’t know how she would find the castle, but she knew that she had to.

  From overhead, Aimee heard a sharp, hissing sound, like her old granny sucking air through her cracked teeth. The little girl turned her face upwards. Instantly, she was paralysed with fear.

  Looking down at her, crouched upon the largest of the roots like some huge toad, was a fanged ghoul, his yellow eyes peering at her hungrily. The ghoul’s claws dug into the root, tearing into the pulp. A string of spittle dripped from his teeth, a famished growl rumbled from his belly.

  Aimee screamed and leaped from her shelter. The ghoul dropped down from his perch, landing where the girl had been only a second before. His claws slashed at the fleeing child, ripping shreds of homespun from her dress. Growling angrily, the monster took off after her, scrambling across the ground on all fours.

  The little girl raced through the black forest, feeling the stagnant breath of the ghoul at her back. Wild yells and bestial howls rose from the darkness, the sound of naked feet slapping against the dirt. Drawn by her screams and the hungry growls of her pursuer, other ghouls were rushing through the shadows, eager to rend and tear and chew the dainty morsel fleeing through the woods. Aimee could hear their lank bodies crashing through the brush, their sharp claws slashing at branches as they tore their way closer.

  Horror kept her running when every muscle in her body told her to lay down and die. Terror sent the blood pumping through her shivering body, fear forced breath into her burning lungs. The screams of her mother echoed inside her skull.

  The claws of the ghoul behind her slashed out, whipping through her hair. Other monstrous cannibals came loping out from the trees, converging upon Aimee’s course from either side. The girl screamed, crying out to the gods.

  The back of the first ghoul’s hand slammed into the small of Aimee’s back, knocking her to the ground. The monster leered at her, licking his fangs as he saw blood oozing up from the girl’s skinned knee. Other ghouls closed in upon her, forming a cordon around their helpless prey.

  “Foul varlet!” a fierce voice cried out. “Here’s a supper of steel for your foul heart!”

  The lead ghoul shrieked as two feet of steel was thrust into its chest. The creature wilted upon the sword, collapsing as the blade was withdrawn. Aimee looked up with wonder as a towering knight stepped out from the darkness, placing himself between her and the monsters.

  Sir Leuthere glared at the skulking ghouls, watching as the cowardly creatures cringed away from his sword. Like a pack of starving mongrels, the cannibals circled warily around the knight. “Base villains!” Leuthere spat. “You have stomach to chase a little girl, but no spleen for fighting a grown man!”

  The ghouls spat and snarled at Leuthere, but made no move to close upon him. At the same time, the knight did not press forwards. He knew the monsters were only waiting for one of their number to occupy his sword. Then the whole pack would set upon him.

  If such was their plan, the cannibals were in for a ghastly surprise. So fixated were they upon Leuthere and Aimee, they did not notice Count Ergon until the second knight lashed out with his sword, the weapon’s keen edge hewing through the neck of one ghoul and sending its head bouncing into the bushes.

  The unexpected attack broke the feeble courage of the ghouls. Whining like whipped curs, the degenerate cannibals fled, scattering back into the forest. Count Ergon made to chase after the fleeing monsters.

  “No,” Leuthere said. “Let them go. They’re not important and you’d never catch them on foot.”

  Count Ergon gazed down at the shivering little girl clinging to Leuthere’s armoured leg. “Then by the Lady I’ll ride the vermin down!” he swore. “Where’s your man with the horses! Bring up my destrier, you craven knave!”

  The clatter of hooves and the nervous whinny of horses sounded from the darkness. Vigor strode out from behind the trees, leading a small herd of animals. To his own pony and Leuthere’s destrier had been added a pair of fleet-footed coursers and a heavy-limbed packhorse taken from the du Maisne stables, as well as the enormous black warhorse bearing the arms of the count himself. Count Ergon wiped the blood from his blade and sheathed his sword as he marched towards his steed.

  “We can’t leave the girl,” Leuthere protested as Count Ergon climbed into his destrier’s saddle.

  “Let your man take care of her,” the count answered, his voice bristling with impatience. “By the grail, don’t you realize this scum may put us back on the vampire’s trail!”

  Leuthere glowered at the count. “I’ll not abandon a child to the night for sake of vengeance,” he said. Turning his back to the bristling count, Leuthere focused his attention on Aimee. “What are you doing alone in the woods, little one?” he asked. “Where is your home?”

  Aimee stifled her tears. She had to be brave now, because the knights wouldn’t listen to her if she was afraid. Stiffening her back, choking back her fear, the little girl answered Leuthere. “I’m from Mercal, but nobody’s there now. The holy knight said we should all go to the chapel because bad monsters were coming. But when they came they got into the chapel too and everybody had to run away.” Despite her effort at control, fresh tears began to stream down her cheeks. “Please, you have to go help my mummy! She’s in the graveyard and the monsters will get her!”

  Count Ergon bit his lip, fury filling his face. “By the Lady, I’ll cut down every last grave-cheating abomination and leave its bones for the crows!” He spurred his horse forwards, marching it so that he loomed over Leuthere. Aimee cringed away from the fearsome destrier, hiding behind the younger knight.

  “Leave the girl to your man, d’Elbiq,” Count Ergon said. “We have to catch these animals while the trail’s still hot.”

  Leuthere slowly rose. Gently he led Aimee towards Vigor and the horses. The little girl was uncertain of the crook-backed servant, but after an injunction from Leuthere to be brave, she allowed the man to lift her up onto the back of his pony.

  “Don’t worry about the trail going cold,” Leuthere told Count Ergon as he climbed into the saddle of his own warhorse. “I know where the Red Duke is going. This holy knight she speaks of must be Sir Maraulf, guardian of the Chapel Sereine. He told me the Red Duke would strike at Mercal. He said the vampire left something in the chapel, something he was going to come back for.”

  “Then we ride for the chapel,” Count Ergon snarled.

  “The two of us? Alone?” Leuthere asked. “I know you want to avenge your family. I know you want to take revenge for your son’s death…”

  “You have no idea how I feel, d’Elbiq!” Count Ergon snapped.

  Leuthere’s gaze was like ice as he glared at the nobleman. “Yes I do. I know what it means to lose a son because I watched that poison eat away at my uncle everyday. I watched Earl Gaubert’s mind become more and more twisted until there was nothing left but the thought of revenge. And I saw where that terrible bloodlust led him.”

  “Then you know better than to try and stop me.”

  Leuthere waved his hands in exasperation. “Think!” he pleaded. “We can’t fight the Red Duke and his army alone! However many of them we destroy, they will overwhelm us in the end!”

  Count Ergon sneered at the younger knight. “I only need to kill the vampire,” he said. “Stay behind with the peasants if your courage fails you. The d’Elbiqs were ever a pack of yellow-bellied cowards.” The nobleman did not spare further words on Leuthere. Digging his spurs into th
e flanks of his steed, he set off at a gallop along the forest path.

  Leuthere cursed under his breath. “Stay here with the girl,” he told Vigor. “If we’re not back before dawn or if you hear anything moving among the trees that isn’t a horse, then get out of here and take her someplace safe.”

  Vigor waved at the knight as he galloped off into the darkness in pursuit of Count Ergon. The peasant felt a pang of disappointment at being left behind. He knew Leuthere was riding into certain death and he knew it was not concern for Count Ergon that drove him to such desperation. He knew, because the same mix of shame and guilt burdened his own heart.

  A cruel smile twisted the lean features of Renar’s face as he looked out across the ranks of undead cavalry inarching behind the Red Duke’s banner. The black knights were fearsome apparitions, their skeletal bodies draped in mouldering burial shrouds, rusting breastplates and corroded helmets clinging to their bones, crumbling scraps of barding dangling about their fleshless steeds. Here, the necromancer thought, was a force that would pay the arrogant knights of Aquitaine back in their own coin. He was almost eager to see the Red Duke unleash his mounted wights upon Duke Gilon’s army.

  The necromancer glanced nervously at the black clad knight riding beside the Red Duke. Somehow, he had expected the knight’s aura of menace to lessen after he became a vampiric thrall of the Red Duke. Instead, Renar found himself even more anxious around the fledgling vampire. In life, the knight’s purpose had been to kill men like Renar. The necromancer couldn’t shake the impression that even as one of the undead, the same idea was fixed in the dark knight’s mind.

  Renar bit down on his anxiety and pushed his way through the decayed ranks of zombie foot soldiers to join the Red Duke and his entourage. He cursed for the thousandth time the loss of the horse he had taken from the Chateau du Maisne. His steed now was a shivering old plough horse from Mercal, an animal so decrepit it could only become more limber as a zombie.

  “Your grace,” the necromancer addressed the Red Duke as he rode up alongside the vampire. He was careful to place the Red Duke between himself and the dark knight. “If we continue along this road we shall reach the barrow mounds of the horse lords. The ancient kings were buried with their entire households. Horses, chariots, entire companies of warriors, all walled up inside the mounds by the old druids.”

  Renar smiled, imagining the bones of the ancients marching alongside their army. With the horse lords summoned from their barrows the Red Duke would be in command of an undead horde such as Bretonnia had never seen. The vampire would be able to extend his Kingdom of Blood beyond Aquitaine. He could conquer Quenelles and Brionne, perhaps even Bordeleaux and Carcassonne. He could seize the graves of the vanquished Cuileux and summon those bold knights from their crypts. With such a host they would be able to sweep every noble in Bretonnia into the sea.

  It was a plan that had inspired the necromancer as he watched the dead of Mercal rise from their graves. The very presence of the Red Duke seemed to augment Renar’s own powers. Never before had he been able to summon and maintain so many skeletons and zombies. This, he thought, was what true power felt like.

  As they marched from the Chapel Sereine, he had broached his plan to the Red Duke. Then, the vampire had been pleased by the plan, almost excited by the prospect of smashing Duke Gilon with a legion of the ancient dead.

  Now, the vampire only scowled at Renar.

  “I do not need the hoary dead to march under my banner,” the vampire snarled. “When I have the support of the Prophetess Isabeau, every able man in Aquitaine will be forced to recognize me as their rightful lord. The Usurper King will have no claim upon my lands. He cannot question the word of the prophetess. To do so would be to deny the Fay Enchantress and the Lady of the Lake herself. Even a treacherous king like Louis would not dare such an outrage.”

  Renar sagged in the saddle, all the air draining out of him in a long sigh. “Your grace, Isabeau has been dead three hundred years and more. Iselda is now the Prophetess of the Tower.”

  The vampire sneered at Renar, displaying his fangs. “What does a mere peasant know of such matters?” The Red Duke raised an eyebrow as he noted that the necromancer was mounted. “And why do you ride beside your betters?”

  “The horse was distempered, your grace,” was Renar’s snide reply. “It would be unseemly to risk injury to a noble by having them ride an unbroken beast.”

  The Red Duke waved aside Renar’s reply. “See that the horse is returned to its owner when its disposition improves,” the vampire said. Suddenly he sat straight in his saddle, staring with some confusion at the road ahead. “This is not the way to Lake Tranquil and the Tower of Wizardry!”

  “It is a short cut, your grace,” Renar said.

  “Don’t you think I know the lay of my own domain?” the Red Duke snarled. He raised his armoured hand, motioning the column to halt. The clatter of fleshless bones on rusty armour was almost deafening as the marching undead came to rest.

  The Red Duke studied the fields and forest around them, his supernaturally keen vision piercing the veil of night as though the land were lit by the noonday sun. The vampire pointed his fist towards the northeast. “The tower lies in that direction,” he declared, spurring El Morzillo forwards. With blind obedience, the rest of the undead left the road and followed their master across the dusty fields.

  Renar rolled his eyes but urged his horse to follow the vampire. Later, when the Red Duke was capable of listening to reason, he’d be able to steer the vampire back towards the barrow mounds and Renar’s plan. Until then, Renar would have to just make the best of the situation and wait for this fit of madness to pass.

  At least there would be no lack of opportunity to practise his black art, the necromancer reflected. When the Red Duke was like this, he had the endearing habit of razing any village they passed which he did not recognize, decrying the inhabitants as intruders and trespassers. And after nearly five hundred years, there were few villages in Aquitaine the vampire would still recognize.

  Sir Leuthere tethered Gaigun to a withered tree at the edge of the forest. Count Ergon’s huge black destrier was similarly tied only a few feet away. Cautiously, Leuthere drew his sword and crept out from the trees.

  The cemetery was eerily silent. All across the graveyard Leuthere could see the marks of battle: the trenches and earthworks built by the peasants, pools of blood, severed limbs, and the chewed remains of those caught beneath the teeth of the ghouls. But of a whole body there was no sign, despite the evidence of what must have been a horrible fray. The knight didn’t like to think about why the bodies had been removed. Or how.

  Sounds rose from behind the lonely marble facade of the chapel itself. Leuthere circled warily around the structure, bracing himself for any manner of monstrous foe. He breathed a little easier when he saw that the pounding noise came from Count Ergon. The nobleman was banging upon the heavy stone doors of the chapel with his sword, trying to force his way inside. The scrape of Leuthere’s boot on a gravestone brought the older knight spinning around in alarm.

  “No sign of the Red Duke, I take it?” Leuthere asked.

  Count Ergon shrugged his shoulder towards the stone doors. “Not unless he’s down there.” He turned and squinted at the horizon. “Sun will be coming up soon. The graveworm may have gone to ground.”

  Leuthere pointed to a patch of black clouds away to their south. “The old stories say the Red Duke could cloak himself inside a storm so the sun wouldn’t harm him.”

  “I want to check this place just the same,” Count Ergon said, returning his attentions to the heavy doors. Already the blows from his sword had chipped away the grail carved into the stone panels. “I need to be sure,” he added between grunts as he began hammering away again.

  “Let me help you,” Leuthere said, sheathing his blade and walking over to join Count Ergon.

  “I need no charity from a d’Elbiq,” Count Ergon snapped.

  “And I have none to give a
du Maisne,” Leuthere returned. “Sir Maraulf said the Red Duke wanted something inside the chapel. Before we leave here, I want to find out what it was.”

  The younger knight pressed his back against the heavy door and exerted his full strength. It began to shift. A sour expression came upon Count Ergon’s face. He slammed his sword back into its sheath with a frustrated oath, then helped Leuthere push against the door.

  Slowly, with jerks and shudders, the door began to swing inwards, its bottom grinding against the marble floor of the chapel. Chips of stone clattered into the darkness, echoing from the chapel’s cold walls.

  As soon as the doorway swung open, both knights were bowled over as a tremendous force slammed into them. The two men crashed to the ground, the breath driven from their lungs by the furious impact. A bestial voice snarled down at them.

  “My gratitude, fools! My master left me to starve, but instead I find two succulent morsels to quench my thirst!”

  Leuthere looked up to see the grisly creature looming over them. It was pale and withered, the blackened armour of a knight hanging loose about its shrivelled husk. One arm was curled against its chest, even more scrawny than the rest of its wasted frame. Half of the creature’s face was contorted into a hungry leer, the other half dripped in idiot fashion.

  “Vampire!” Leuthere decried the creature.

  “But not the Red Duke!” cursed Count Ergon.

  A tittering giggle rasped from the vampire’s withered face. “The Red Duke,” the vampire repeated. “His enemies gather all around him.” The creature pointed its emaciated claw at Leuthere. “A d’Elbiq,” it pronounced. “And a du Maisne,” it added, gesturing at Count Ergon. The vampire tapped its own chest. “And the Baron de Gavaudan. All the old enemies. The Red Duke is doomed to fight his past.”