[Heroes 05] - The Red Duke

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

  Without hesitation, Leuthere opened the doors. Beyond them was a room that was ablaze with light. A flaming brazier stood at the centre of the chamber, an aromatic white smoke rising from the golden coals. The walls of the chamber were covered in mirrors of every description and size, from humble panes of polished tin to enormous sheets of crystal bound in frames of silver.

  A huddle of frightened humanity cowered against the far wall of the mirror room, peasant women and children for the most part, though with a few shamefaced men among them. A few servants in the livery of the tower were there too, doing their best to keep the refugees calm.

  Standing apart from them all was Iselda. The prophetess stood a little way from the brazier, staring intently into one of the mirrors on the wall. She looked away when Leuthere stepped into the room. The suggestion of a smile played at the corner of her pursed lips. She waved the men forwards, then gestured for them to remove the coverings that deafened them.

  “Your arrival is most timely,” Iselda told them. “I had expected you, but not quite so soon.”

  “You expected us?” Count Ergon asked, his voice conveying both surprise and doubt.

  Iselda smiled at him. “I sent Sir Leuthere to find you, Count Ergon du Maisne,” she told him. “Your family has an important part to play in destroying the Red Duke.” The prophetess let her smile fade into a frown. “We can discuss all of this later,” she said. “For now, could I please ask you all to stand beside these good people.” She waved her hand towards the huddle of peasants.

  “Lady Iselda,” Leuthere protested. “It is not safe for you, for any of us to stay here.”

  “The banshee?” Iselda asked, a light laugh punctuating her question. “I’m afraid that nasty ghost can’t find us here. The magic of the oracle confounds her dead senses. She can’t even see this room on her own. That’s why I needed you to let her follow you.”

  Leuthere turned around in alarm as Iselda spoke. Count Ergon was already trying to restore the silk binding to his ears. Vigor lunged towards the doorway, vainly hoping that he could shut out the ghost by sealing the doors.

  In the hallway, her face once again nothing but a leering skull, Jacquetta’s spectral figure glided towards the scrying chamber, her jaws open in a keening wail.

  “No!” Iselda snapped at the men who would defend her. “Let the creature come! I cannot destroy her unless she enters this room! Five of my servants have given their lives trying to lure her to me! I will not have their sacrifice wasted.”

  Leuthere and the others drew back, joining Iselda beside the smoking brazier. They could feel the banshee’s cry clawing at their brains, but the pain was far less even than when they had deafened themselves. The sickly chill of black magic was lessened too, barely evoking a single goose pimple. The white magic of Iselda and the divine power of the Lady was retarding the murderous power of the banshee.

  But would it be enough to destroy the nightmarish horror?

  Jacquetta noticed the resistance of those within the mirrored room to her wail. The banshee laughed, a sound more sinister and terrible than her scream. She displayed a fresh sword gripped in her bony hand. The meaning was clear. She didn’t need her shriek to kill.

  Like a fell wind, the banshee streaked across the hallway and into the chamber, her sword raised to cleave Iselda’s beautiful face in two. The prophetess remained impassive, not even flinching as the vengeful spectre came hurtling towards her. Leuthere prepared to lunge between Iselda and the undead witch, but before he could start to move, the trap was sprung.

  As Jacquetta crossed the threshold from the hallway, the mirrors blazed with a brilliant flare of light. Leuthere shielded his eyes, peering through his fingers to see the banshee engulfed in the white light. Like shreds of rotten cloth, the ghost’s ethereal body was torn apart, streamers of her ghastly essence drawn into a dozen separate mirrors. This time, when the banshee screamed, it was a shriek of pain that heralded no death except her own.

  In an instant, the white light was gone again, and with it the horrifying banshee. Jacquetta’s sword, the only thing of solidity the ghost had carried, fell to the floor with a loud crash.

  Iselda leaned her hand against the brazier and used it to support her suddenly weakened body. Leuthere rushed to her side, helping her back to her feet.

  “Thank you,” the prophetess said. “That thing was becoming a nuisance.”

  “We must get you to safety,” Sir Leuthere argued. The knight was hard-pressed to keep up with Iselda as she marched down the long hallway. “The Red Duke has sent one of his creatures to kill you. He will try again.”

  Iselda shook her head. “The Red Duke doesn’t even know I exist,” she told Leuthere. “He’s too busy trying to kill my honoured predecessor Isabeau to care about me.”

  Leuthere’s brow knitted in confusion. “That doesn’t make any sense,” he observed.

  “No, it doesn’t,” she told him. “That is why it took me so long to understand what the vampire is doing.” Iselda stared hard into Leuthere’s face, then shifted her gaze to Count Ergon, who had followed them into the hall.

  “You see, my lords, the Red Duke is insane,” Iselda told them. “Isabeau sealed him away inside the monument King Louis unwisely raised to honour the man the vampire had once been. For almost five hundred years, the Red Duke has been trapped inside his own tomb. Unable to escape. Unable to die. That’s enough to drive even a vampire to madness.”

  Count Ergon shook his head, striking his fist against his side. “I don’t care about any of that,” he told the prophetess, annoyance in his voice. “I only want to know how to destroy this monster.”

  “Come with me, and I will show you,” Iselda said. The prophetess led the two knights further down the hall. Throwing open one of the oak doors, she beckoned them out onto the high balcony which overlooked Lake Tranquil and the field upon which the Red Duke’s army was encamped. The two knights drew in a horrified gasp. From this height, they could see the magnitude of the army the vampire had assembled. Not hundreds, not even thousands, but tens of thousands of skeleton warriors were arrayed across the fields. Nor were these the only troops under the Red Duke’s command. Hundreds of zombies remained in the picket line, hundreds more stood in statuesque silence about the vampire’s black pavilion. Packs of flesh-eating ghouls roamed through the undead camp like hungry curs. The trees near the Red Duke’s encampment were covered in black, leathery shapes—bats drawn from their cavern lairs by the vampire’s dark sorcery.

  Iselda ignored all of these, directing the attention of the two men to the grisly undead knights who served the Red Duke. These were scattered across the plains, prowling about in a disordered manner. From this height, the confusion of the black knights was obvious. Before, Leuthere had imagined the wights were seeking old graves their master could plunder, but now he was not so sure. It seemed to him as if the monsters were busy trying to find something else. Something that wasn’t where they had expected—or been told—it would be found.

  “They seek villages to slaughter in the name of their loathsome master,” Iselda explained. “They have been ordered to raze the same villages the Red Duke destroyed when he made war against Lady Isabeau centuries ago. Those villages were never rebuilt, the land abandoned by those few who escaped. In time, even the ruins were obliterated by the elements. The dark riders hunt for something that no longer exists.”

  “The Red Duke is doomed to fight his past,” Leuthere said, a shiver in his voice. He saw the questioning look Iselda and Count Ergon turned upon him. “Something the vampire we destroyed in Mercal said,” he explained. “It was listening to us talk as we tried to force our way into the Chapel Sereine. When it learned our names, the creature said something about all of the ‘old enemies’ and that the Red Duke was ‘doomed to fight his past’. It didn’t make much sense to me then,” Leuthere confessed with a shrug.

  Iselda swept forwards, taking the knight’s hands in hers. “It is the only thing that does make sense,” s
he said excitedly. “Long have I gazed in the scrying pools, trying to predict the Red Duke’s plans. Nothing I did would allow me to see the monster’s intentions, his plans for the future. It is because of the vampire’s madness. I can not predict his future because the Red Duke’s mind is locked in his own past. Except for brief spells of lucidity, the Red Duke truly believes he is in the past, not merely recreating the battles of long ago, but actually refighting them!”

  “Then by following history, we can do what your magic cannot,” Count Ergon said. “We can predict where the vampire is going and what he plans to do!”

  “If we can get this information to Duke Gilon, we can strike the vampire when he is at his most vulnerable!” Leuthere exclaimed. The young knight’s jubilation quickly turned to a scowl. He slammed his fist against the rail. “But we can’t do a thing while the Red Duke has us trapped inside this tower! And we can’t fight our way through his army!”

  “We won’t have to,” Iselda assured Leuthere. “Eventually the Red Duke will become lucid again. Something will snap his mind back to the present. When that happens, he will realize how vulnerable his army is here and he will break the siege off on his own.”

  “And what if the vampire remains locked in his delusion?” asked Count Ergon.

  Iselda shrugged. “The original siege lasted only a few weeks before the Red Duke pulled his army away to deal with the invasion of the wine country by King Louis. At some point, the vampire will believe he must leave to respond to the king’s attack.”

  The prophetess gestured to the sinister army below. “We must be patient, my lords. Time is our ally now… and it will betray the Red Duke one way or another.”

  The Red Duke scowled as Sir Maraulf strode into his pavilion. The vampire regarded his dark knight with open contempt. “Where are my prisoners?” he hissed. “I need them to break the will of that witch Isabeau. When she sees her peasant friends slowly dying beneath her very window, she will throw open her gates and beg my mercy.”

  Renar leaned back against one of the posts that supported the heavy tent cloth. This was going to be somewhat amusing. If he had to suffer the Red Duke’s insanity, then at least he would be entertained by it. The necromancer had sensed the destruction of Jacquetta. He wasn’t sure how Iselda had managed to vanquish a banshee, but it did make him quite determined to leave breaking into the tower entirely up to the Red Duke.

  For now, Renar would just sit back and watch Sir Maraulf squirm under the Red Duke’s thumb.

  “We have scoured the countryside, your grace,” the dark knight reported. There is no trace of a single village. No one has lived in this area in generations’

  The Red Duke’s face contorted into a mask of fury, lips pulling away from serpent-like fangs. The vampire crossed to where his thrall stood, his hand poised to strike the undead knight. Suddenly, he stopped, bewilderment in his expression. The Red Duke stared keenly into Maraulf’s pale face, then shifted his gaze to the knight’s left arm.

  Renar’s interest in the scene suddenly became one of more than amusement. He studied every flicker of emotion that crossed the Red Duke’s face. He realizes Maraulf isn’t Baron de Gavaudan, Renar thought. If that was true, then perhaps more of the vampire’s madness would fade away.

  “My knights have found… no one?” the Red Duke repeated, confusion still in his eyes.

  “There is no one to find, your grace,” Maraulf answered.

  Renar saw the confusion continue to grow in the Red Duke’s face. Quickly, the necromancer stepped forwards, determined to seize the opportunity before it could pass.

  “Your army has caused the wretches to flee, your grace,” Renar declared. “They go to hide with Duke Gilon, knowing that the Prophetess Iselda is powerless to oppose you and cannot protect them.”

  The vampire turned and regarded Renar. At first the Red Duke’s expression was harsh and imperious, but as the necromancer continued to speak, the vampire began to soften. The names “Gilon” and “Iselda” had no meaning to the vampire’s delusion of the past, but they were links to the present. A present the Red Duke’s mind was gradually returning to.

  “The roads will be choked with refugees,” Renar continued. “All of them heading for Castle Aquitaine and Duke Gilon’s protection. Even if the duke has assembled his army, they will be forced to slow their progress while dealing with the refugees. That will give us time to bolster our own forces.”

  “My forces,” the Red Duke snapped. “Do not forget your place, deathmaster!” He turned, snarling orders at Sir Maraulf and Sir Corbinian. “Gather the troops. We break camp at once.”

  Renar smiled despite the reprimand the Red Duke had given him. At least the vampire appreciated his value in this state of mind. “You should head south and east, your grace,” Renar suggested. “Dragon Hill and the barrows of the horse lords are in that direction. We can plunder the mounds at our leisure while Duke Gilon is still trying to move his knights out of the wine country.”

  “With the horse lords and the knights of Cuileux under my command, I will sweep away this Duke Gilon like an insect,” the Red Duke vowed. The vampire’s eyes blazed with bloodlust. “Then all Aquitaine shall be mine again! A Kingdom of Blood that shall last a thousand years!”

  CHAPTER XV

  The smell of fire intruded upon El Syf’s dreams. The Duke of Aquitaine struggled to keep his mind from rising out of the comforting darkness, but his senses refused to submit to his desire for oblivion. Shouts and snarls, the crash of metal against metal, the sickening crunch of steel hewing through bone, the screams of dying men, these were sounds the duke’s ears refused to deafen themselves to.

  Slowly, El Syf opened his eyes. The hot light of the sun seared into his face like the touch of a torch. He cried out in pain, wincing against the sharp stab of agony pulsing through his body.

  “The duke lives!”

  The voice was that of Earl Durand du Maisne, ringing out clearly above the crash of battle. El Syf was not surprised that his stout-hearted vassal was here, fighting to defend his debilitated lord. Durand’s loyalty was the stuff of song and ballad, a fiery determination to sacrifice himself in the name of chivalry. Dim memories flickered through the duke’s mind, images of Durand lowering his paralysed body from the sinking ship, visions of Durand bursting into his tent to save him from the claws and fangs of the ratmen. What danger was it that Durand would now protect him from? Could it be any worse than the menace he feared was even now coursing through his veins?

  “He won’t be for long! None of us will be!”

  The despairing shout was given by Marquis Galafre d’Elbiq. El Syf found it strange to hear the cool, calculating Galafre abandoned to such a bleak humour. Even in the heat of battle against the heathen, Galafre had always been the one to see a way to turn disaster to his benefit. He was a man with a keen sense of how to trick fate when it seemed the odds were stacked against him. Galafre was a man who always could find a way to escape the toils of doom.

  El Syf determined to discover what it was that could make the opportunistic marquis give voice to despair. Despite the pain the sun caused him, he forced his eyes open again. At first, everything was just a white blur, but gradually, as the duke forced himself to suffer the stinging pain, shapes began to resolve themselves.

  He was resting upon a wooden bier, his body swaddled in heavy blankets. All around him he could see craggy grey mounds of rock, their summits crowned with clumps of brown brambles and thorny cactus. El Syf had seen this sort of terrain before, on the long march south to free Magritta from the armies of Jaffar. Wherever he was, it was someplace in the dry, desolate hinterlands of Estalia.

  The small patch of level ground between the rocky hills was littered with the tattered scraps of tents, the bright heraldry of Aquitaine’s nobility lying torn and bloodied in the Estalian dust. The duke could see the ragged remnants of his own pavilion sagging brokenly from a few poles, several bodies strewn about its perimeter. He felt a pang of remorse for these men,
both peasant and noble. The manner of their death was obvious. They had died defending the pavilion while Durand and Galafre moved his paralysed husk out, making a desperate gambit to get their lord to safety.

  Brutal barks and bestial grunts drowned out even the crash of swords. El Syf knew those inhuman voices well. Any man who had fought in the Massif Orcal could not fail to have that sound burned upon his memory. There was no reason to speculate on who had attacked his small retinue or why. Only orcs could possess such deep, bellowing voices, and orcs needed no more reason to attack than a fish needs a reason to swim.

  The duke focused his eyes on the inhuman attackers. There were at least two dozen of the monsters, the smallest a full head taller than himself and each possessing the bullish bulk of an Argonian boar. The orcs were roughly human in shape, covering their leathery green hides with piece-meal armour scavenged from those they had slain in battle or crudely forged by goblins deep below the earth. Each of the greenskins wielded a massive axe-like blade, something neither meat cleaver nor falchion, but possessing all the uglier aspects of both. Many of the orcs bore fresh wounds, nasty gouges that wept syrupy green-black treacle, rancid-smelling filth that served them in place of blood.

  Only a few men yet stood against the orcs. Besides Durand and Galafre, the duke could see only six men-at-arms, a few unarmoured valets and a pair of knights in battered plate. As he watched, a hulking brute of an orc smashed his cleaver-like blade into the breastplate of one of the knights, the impact denting the steel armour so badly that he could hear the knight’s ribs crack. Before the wounded knight could even stagger away from the crippling blow, the orc grabbed him by the helm with his free hand. With a savage wrench, the orc twisted the helmet, snapping the neck of the man within the armour.