[Heroes 05] - The Red Duke

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

  Renar shook his head as he heard the Red Duke’s fury. The delusion was upon him again, the sickness that made him think he was still making war against King Louis the Righteous. He’d sent his black knights out to destroy villages that had been razed almost five hundred years ago, to capture people who had been dead and buried for centuries.

  Meanwhile, the vampire’s army was fixed in place, laying siege to the Tower of Wizardry, as vulnerable as a newborn babe should Duke Gilon’s army come charging down upon them. After the trail of destruction they had left behind them, Renar was convinced that Duke Gilon had already sent the clarion call to all his vassals to assemble their knights and men-at-arms. That they had not already given battle to the Red Duke only meant that Duke Gilon was still marshalling his forces.

  By the time they faced Duke Gilon’s knights, Renar hoped to have three thousand undead horse lords marching with them. He wanted the Barrows of Cuileux ripped open and plundered, the ancient knights drawn from their tombs to fight under their new vampiric lord. Most of all, he wanted the Red Duke rational and sane, his brilliant mind concentrated upon the tactics that would crush Duke Gilon’s army. He didn’t need the vampire lost within his own world of memory and illusion.

  Renar stroked his chin as an idea came to him. He glanced over at the grim, wraithlike form of Jacquetta. The Red Duke’s madness was fixed upon visiting revenge upon the long-dead mistress of the tower. What if Renar was able to give him that long-denied vengeance? Just as the Red Duke mistook Maraulf for Baron de Gavaudan, so he might accept Iselda for her predecessor Isabeau. The shock of achieving the victory he had failed to gain five centuries ago might be enough to break the vampire of his delusions.

  Jacquetta was the key to Renar’s plan. While it could take weeks or months to batter down the tower’s thick walls, the banshee needed no breach to effect entrance to the fortress. She could pass right through the stones, find Iselda and kill her. Then there would be no reason for the vampire to maintain his siege.

  The necromancer leaned back, only half listening as the Red Duke continued to berate his dark knight for the failures of Baron de Gavaudan. It would take some cunning to broach his plan in a way that would be acceptable to the Red Duke in his present state of mind. The right alchemy of flattery and deference. Fortunately, if there was one thing any intelligent man born into Bretonnia’s peasant class quickly learned, it was how to be flattering and deferential when conversing with the nobles who ruled the kingdom.

  Count Ergon was at a loss to understand what the Red Duke was doing. The vampire had set much of his undead army to the chore of felling lumber and assembling siege engines, yet several hundred skeletons stood idle on the field, standing passively as archers inside the tower whittled away at them. The vampire’s cavalry had ridden off, scattering in every direction. The count could not speak for the duties entrusted to the other black knights, but those he had seen through the trees were simply galloping between two stretches of lifeless dead ground. Otker suggested that villages might have once stood in these places, long ago. The wights were probably trying to locate the burial grounds that had once served the long vanished communities so that their foul master might resurrect the buried dead as skeleton warriors and swell the ranks of his monstrous army.

  The nobleman looked longingly at the vampire’s encampment. There was no mistaking the Red Duke’s tent, a pavilion of black cloth that looked as though it had been stitched together from burial shrouds. Only a few armoured wights stood guard over their master’s lair, but with hundreds of zombies standing at attention all around the tent, there was small need for them. Count Ergon dismissed the thought of trying to fight his way to the Red Duke. Even mounted upon his warhorse, he knew he would never be able to cut his way through the undead soldiers before they could overwhelm him through sheer numbers. The thought that he should die before avenging his son was physically repugnant to the count.

  No, he would wait, wait for a chance when he could be certain of crossing swords with the vampire.

  “For a brilliant strategist, the Red Duke musters a poor siege,” Sir Leuthere observed. “I’ve seen orcs use better tactics.”

  Count Ergon turned away from his view of the field, careful to lower the branch of the bush he sheltered behind slowly so as not to make any undue noise. “He has the tower sealed up well enough,” the count said. “He doesn’t need all of his troops to keep one lone woman and her servants bottled up. In fact, he may have left such glaring gaps in his deployment on purpose, hoping to draw Iselda out then set upon her as she tried to escape.” He nodded sombrely as he considered the cunning of such a tactic. “The Red Duke’s creatures are probably watching for any hint of someone trying to make a break for it.”

  Leuthere didn’t agree. “We had an easy enough time getting this close to the tower. That speaks poorly for the vigilance of the Red Duke’s troops.”

  “Maybe,” Count Ergon said. “Or maybe it’s just that we’re headed in the wrong direction to interest them. The Red Duke’s monsters seem to need to be told exactly what to do. They don’t have any initiative to act beyond their orders. Remember the skeletons standing out in the field, not even lifting a finger while the bowmen inside the tower kept shooting at them? They didn’t even have enough motivation to move out of range, just standing there letting themselves be shot, waiting for someone to tell them what to do.”

  “Then you think we might be able to get into the tower?” Leuthere wondered. “Even with the Red Duke’s army encamped all around it?”

  “If they haven’t been told to stop anybody from going to the tower,” Count Ergon answered. “And if we can avoid running into any of the Red Duke’s creatures that can think for themselves.”

  Leuthere pulled back a branch, grimacing as he saw the picket line of zombies staggered about the perimeter of the tower. There were gaps in the line large enough to sail a Tilean war galleon through, but Count Ergon’s warning about a trap made him see menace rather than promise from the curious way the vampire had deployed his creatures. If Count Ergon was wrong, they’d be slaughtered.

  The young knight cast his eyes upwards, seeing the balcony high atop the tower. He could see the distant figure of a woman dressed in blue leaning against the rail of the balcony. Despite the distance and the shelter of the forest, Leuthere imagined he could feel her looking straight at him.

  “We have to try,” Leuthere decided, slamming a fist into an open palm. “The Red Duke is laying siege to the tower for a reason. Five hundred years ago, the Prophetess Isabeau pitted her magic against him and took a hand in his defeat. Maybe he is trying to make certain that Iselda can’t do the same.”

  “Then the prophetess must know the secret to destroying this fiend,” Count Ergon hissed, excitement in his voice.

  “Even if she doesn’t, we can’t abandon a woman in such distress,” Leuthere said. “The laws of chivalry would not allow a knight to behave in such a knavish fashion. Whatever it costs us, we have to rescue her from the Red Duke.” The young knight turned and stared at Vigor, Otker and the bowmen.

  “Honour demands that Count Ergon and I give aid to the Prophetess Iselda,” Leuthere said. “If we are wrong about our chances of reaching the tower, then we are walking into certain death. As peasants, you have no honour to offend by staying behind. I will understand if you wish to keep out of this.”

  Otker nodded his head vigorously. “Thank you, my lord,” he said. “What you’ve talked about sounds as mad as a hatter’s ravings. Me and my friends would be just as happy to stay right here.”

  Vigor stepped away from the other peasants, bowing awkwardly before Sir Leuthere. “I may not have a knight’s honour, my lord, but there is a burden upon my soul for which I must atone. Please, allow me to accompany you. If it means death, then at least I may die opposing the evil I helped set loose.”

  Leuthere went cold as he heard Vigor speak. He was touched by the peasant’s display of fortitude, but horrified by his lapse in judgement. He l
ooked aside at Count Ergon, watching the nobleman’s reaction to Vigor’s speech, but the count merely raised an eyebrow at Vigor’s talk of loosing evil upon the land. The chill running down Leuthere’s spine merged with the sick feeling rising in his belly. He knew Count Ergon would remember what Vigor had said. The count might not demand an explanation now, with them preparing to mount a possibly suicidal dash for the tower, but that demand would come. When it did, Leuthere would have to confess the role Earl Gaubert had played in freeing the Red Duke from his tomb. If that did not rekindle the feud between d’Elbiq and du Maisne, nothing would.

  The three men took their leave of Otker and crept to the very edge of the forest. They could see the nearest gang of skeletons only a few hundred yards away, the undead labouring to smooth timber into poles and beams for assembly into a trebuchet. The sound of hammers and saws drowned out the noise of their own pounding hearts.

  An ashen-faced Vigor turned to address Leuthere. “Let me go first, my lord,” the crippled peasant asked. “If they… if they come after me, you can figure out another way into the tower.”

  There was logic behind Vigor’s offer, logic that made Leuthere agree to the scheme even while feeling shame that he was allowing a peasant to embrace danger on his behalf. Desperate times, however, often demanded unusual measures. It would be a greater shame to fail and allow Iselda to fall into the Red Duke’s hands.

  The knights watched as Vigor walked out onto the field with slow, faltering steps. The peasant’s crooked body trembled with fear, a soft moan of terror escaping him as he drew closer to the grisly gang of skeletons. Once or twice, Vigor stopped, standing completely still except for the tremor that shivered through his limbs. Not once, however, did the peasant turn and look back. With a resolution worthy of a knight, the guilt-ridden man kept going forwards.

  Leuthere kept watching the skeletons, waiting for them to react to Vigor’s presence. The undead never even lifted their heads, intent upon the task set for them by their sinister master. Before long, the peasant was past the work crew and making his way towards one of the gaps in the picket line.

  “He’s through,” Leuthere breathed, his shoulders slumping in relief.

  “The real test will be if he can get past the pickets,” Count Ergon said. “That will tell us if this mad idea is going to work or not.”

  Both men watched in silence as Vigor drew close to the unmoving formations of zombie soldiers. Even from the cover of the forest, the knights could smell the rotten stink of the creatures, could see the decaying flesh peeling away from their putrid bodies. Vigor paused as he approached the gap between the zombies, wiping his sweaty palms on his breeches, making the sign of Shallya in the air with his fingers.

  Then the peasant was moving forwards again, his pace even and unhurried. Several times he stumbled, awkwardly reaching out with his arms to correct his balance. Leuthere guessed the reason for Vigor’s strange advance. The peasant had closed his eyes lest he be overwhelmed with horror at the sight of the zombies. If the undead pickets were to take notice of him, the man didn’t want to know. He didn’t want to see death coming for him.

  After what seemed an eternity, Vigor was well ahead of the line of rotting sentries. The zombies had not so much as moved a single muscle, one of them even had a crow picking maggots from its scalp without making any sign it was aware of the hungry bird. Vigor was going to make it! He was going to reach the tower! The zombies weren’t going to stop him!

  Leuthere’s jaw dropped open as a sudden realisation hit him. The undead might not keep Vigor from reaching the tower, but the men inside could! There were archers inside that fortress, watching from every window. They had no way of knowing Vigor was a friend, no way of knowing he was anything but another of the Red Duke’s slaves. Indeed, with his stumbling, blind advance, they might even mistake him for one of the undead!

  Leuthere expressed his worry to Count Ergon. The older knight cursed himself for not considering this problem, angrily slapping his left hand against his injured right arm, using the flare of pain as a physical admonishment to his mistake.

  “We have to get out there,” Count Ergon told him. “If those men in the tower see a pair of knights coming towards them, they might hold back.”

  “Unless they think we’re more of the Red Duke’s creatures,” Leuthere pointed out.

  Count Ergon grimaced at the suggestion. “We’ll just have to make sure we march across the field with our eyes open,” he said.

  The two knights quit the forest, striding out into the open. Their gait was bold, stiffened with a confidence neither man really felt. It was the resignation that they were probably going to die that bolstered their courage. If they were to die, then they would at least do so with the dignity of a true knight of Bretonnia.

  They passed the skeletons building the trebuchet without even glancing at the monsters. The eyes of both men were locked on the tower, watching as Vigor blindly stumbled closer to the fortress. Every moment the knights expected the crippled peasant to wither under a volley of arrows, but yard-by-yard Vigor was able to proceed without a single shot protesting his advance.

  The knights were crossing the open ground between the skeleton labourers and the picket line when they saw Vigor finally reach the base of the tower. They saw the peasant stumble against the rock foundation of the fortress. He picked himself off the ground a moment later. His eyes must have been open at that point, for the knights could hear a distant yelp of triumph and see Vigor’s fist strike out into the air. The peasant glanced about, sighting the barred entryway into the tower. He scrambled over the uneven jumble of stones arrayed around the tower’s base and made for the massive steel door.

  Leuthere had no time to see how Vigor progressed from that point. A sharp whisper from Count Ergon drew his attention back to the picket line. The men were within twenty yards of the closest zombies. The undead soldiers stood stiffly at attention, their decayed faces staring straight towards the tower. Each of the zombies held a crude spear or a rusty halberd in its rotting hand; many of them even wore battered kettle helms or strips of mail. Leuthere was shocked to find that not all of the zombies were men, but that a large number of them were women and children. When the Red Duke inducted the dead into his army, the vampire took everything that could lift a weapon.

  Unconsciously, the knights slowed their pace as they passed the menacing ranks of the undead. Each man clenched his sword tightly, wary of any move on the part of the zombies. But the creatures paid them no notice, staring with unblinking eyes at the tower they had been told to guard.

  The knights vented a sigh of relief as they passed the picket line without being challenged. As Count Ergon had predicted, the creatures had been ordered to keep people from leaving the tower. No provision had been given them about what to do if somebody tried to get inside.

  That changed all too soon. A sharp cry rose from behind the picket line. Simultaneously, Leuthere and Count Ergon turned their heads to find the source of the shout. What they saw was a gaunt, cadaverous man dressed in a long black coat. He was stamping his foot in fury, waving his hands over his head.

  This was no mindless creature of the vampire’s, but rather a living man who had damned his soul by allying himself to the Red Duke.

  “Idiots! Worm-crawling carrion!” Renar raged, shaking his fists at the still unmoving zombies. “They’re walking right into the tower!” The necromancer cursed the still-unmoving zombies, quickly guessing the reason for their lethargy. He closed his eyes, drawing into himself the dark power of Dhar, weaving the fell energy into a spell that would place the zombies under his direct control.

  The knights did not wait around to see how successfully Renar would rouse the undead from their stupor. Breaking into a run, the men dashed towards the tower. The possibility of being struck down by the archers inside the fortress was one that plagued them at every step, but at least it would be a quicker death than being butchered by a hundred zombies.

  Behind them, Rena
r continued to rage and curse. The necromancer could see that the pickets he had seized control over would never catch the fleeing knights. Exerting more of his dark power, he forced the lumbering zombies into a magically-charged run, driving them to greater and greater effort. Some of the most rotten of the sentries collapsed as their decayed bodies broke from the strain, wormy legs snapping, brittle bones cracking, bloated organs ripping through desiccated skin. But enough of the zombies were whole enough to withstand the sorcerous punishment.

  Enough to drag down the knights and make them regret their heroics. A cold smile was on Renar’s face as he thought about what he would do to the knights once they were in his power. He would take his time about killing them, of that he was determined. He would make the men die a little for every year he had grovelled at the feet of their kind. He would make them suffer as he had suffered and when they could suffer no more, he would infuse their dead carcasses with a semblance of life so that they might wait upon him and serve him as he had once been forced to serve.

  Distracted by his vengeful daydream, Renar failed to bolster his zombies for the last sprint that would allow them to close with the knights. He scowled when he noticed his error, watching as the zombies reverted to their usual lumbering shuffle and the knights dashed ahead of them to the base of the tower.

  Renar was about to infuse the zombies with a fresh burst of magical energy when he noticed something amusing. The steel door of the tower was still shut. There was a crook-backed peasant standing their arguing with the warden inside, but it seemed the man inside wasn’t about to be swayed. The door remained shut.

  A cruel smile worked itself onto Renar’s face. No reason to waste his energy now. Let the knights reach the tower. Let them beg and plead and cry trying to get inside. They’d be trapped out there, trapped against the wall when Renar’s zombies came for them. Inches from safety, their destruction would be all the more crushing.