[Heroes 05] - The Red Duke

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

  The second knight ahead of Leuthere fared just as poorly against the supernatural power of the vampire. One of the questing knights equipped with a massive two-handed sword, the knight thrust his blade ahead of him as he forced his horse into a frenzied charge, thinking to use the heavy sword as an improvised lance. Against a normal foe, the tactic would have worked, but Maraulf displayed unnatural speed as he twisted his nightmare from the charging Bretonnian’s path. As the knight passed him, the vampire’s blade lashed out, tearing through the neck of the warhorse then driving upwards to split the armoured belly of the rider. Man and beast collapsed in a jumble of broken flesh and spurting blood.

  Leuthere’s mouth hung open, the young knight awestruck by Maraulf’s grisly display of power and speed.

  The vampire lifted his eyes from the wreckage of his last victim. Stabbing his spurs into the black flesh of his mount, the dark knight galloped towards Leuthere.

  Iselda’s body sagged against the door of the tomb. She felt as though every muscle in her body had become cold as ice. Frost rasped past her lips every time she exhaled, stinging her throat. Her limbs trembled with a nervous ague and she found that she could only focus her vision with a conscious effort. When she reached a quivering hand to her head, five strands of golden hair came away at her touch.

  The power divine was not a thing to be called upon with impunity, even for a sacred prophetess of the grail.

  The woman turned her head with a weariness such as she had never known. A bitter smile crossed her face as she saw the damage she had wrought upon the vampire’s army. Hundreds of the undead had been scorched, reduced to ash by the magic she had turned upon them, but it was less than a tenth of the host the Red Duke had called from their graves.

  Now, Iselda knew, the vampire would come for her. She laid her palm against the frigid door of Duke Galand’s tomb. Even with Duke Gilon’s plan foiled, there was still a chance to break the Red Duke upon Ceren Field. Perhaps it was why Isabeau had advised Duke Galand to erect his tomb upon the battlefield. Perhaps it was why Galand had agreed.

  As the black knights charged towards the tomb, Iselda felt the terror of her own impending destruction seize her once more. She knew that she had already lived beyond the years allotted to a normal woman; the magic of the Lady had sustained her for almost two centuries. Even so, she was greedy for more. She did not want to die. Whatever she had foreseen in her pools and mirrors, she did not want to die.

  Iselda reached down inside herself, drawing upon her own tremendous will. She pictured the marble effigy of Duke Galand inside his tomb, imagined her hand closing about that of the heroic grail knight. She felt her energies uniting with his own, her spirit joining with the ghost of the long-dead hero. Together, they called out with their souls, called out to the Lady to bestow once more the holy essence of her being, to unleash the light of purity and burn away the undead corruption charging across Ceren Field.

  Her prayer was answered. Iselda’s body jerked upright, stiff and rigid as the magic of the Lady burned through her body once more. Blazing light erupted from every pore of her skin, flaring across Ceren Field in a wave of coruscating luminance. The purifying light smashed into the Red Duke and his obscene knights. The undead riders were engulfed in the divine energies, their corrupt bodies flayed by the rage of the goddess. Iselda could see the black knights being incinerated by the light, their bones shattering, their armour crumbling as the evil sustaining them was obliterated.

  Iselda collapsed in a pile at the foot of the tomb, beads of ice covering her body where the sweat had frozen. Blood trickled from the corners of her eyes, her heart throbbed unevenly within her breast, her stomach coiled into a painful knot. Focusing her eyes, she saw that her fingernails were split and blackened where the power had erupted from them. Her body felt like a single open wound, but Iselda rejoiced in the pain. She was alive! She had destroyed the Red Duke and she was alive!

  The sound of hooves continued to assail her. At first she refused to acknowledge the sound, refused to accept this portent of doom. Reluctantly, she turned her head and forced her vision into focus.

  Galloping furiously down the field were two riders, two undead monstrosities of such malignance and power that their terrible wills had sustained them through even the cleansing flame of the Lady’s judgement. One was the ghastly wight of a Bretonnian knight, baleful flames blazing in the sockets of its skull. The other… the other was that figure which promised doom to the prophetess, the crimson shape of the Red Duke himself.

  Iselda moved her hands feebly as the vampire and his seneschal came charging towards her. She could still feel the holy power of Duke Galand’s tomb, but she was far too weak to draw upon it again. She had thrown every ounce of her strength into those two, desperate efforts to destroy the vampire.

  As the Red Duke drew back on the reins of El Morzillo, as the vampire glared down at her with his fiery eyes, as his pale lips pulled back to expose gleaming fangs, Iselda knew she had lost her frantic struggle to escape the doom she had foreseen.

  The Red Duke gloated as the wretched prophetess cowered before him. For all of her magic, all her vaunted foresight, all the blessings the Lady had supposedly bestowed upon her, Isabeau trembled before him just like any other woman.

  She would suffer, this treasonous bitch who had conspired to steal everything he possessed and bestow it upon a fratricidal usurper! She would pay for every ounce of pain the Red Duke had endured, for the ghastly loss of his beloved wife. She would know what it was to be truly damned.

  The vampire dismounted. He would savour the destruction of the prophetess. Her ruin would be no hasty affair, but a plague that would see her bound to him forever in the darkness. He scowled at the whimpering, weary thing cringing against the door of the tomb. Amusement hissed through the Red Duke’s fangs. If the woman sought to join the dead, she was going to get her wish.

  At least for a time.

  Stalking towards the tomb, the Red Duke shielded his eyes against the hateful glare that emanated from the marble walls. He could feel the holy energies straining to repulse him, to force him from the sacred ground. If Isabeau had not tapped the power of this place so recklessly, perhaps the protective aura would have been enough to overpower even the vampire’s fierce determination. As it was, all the emanations evoked was a snarl of anger from the Red Duke.

  “We meet again,” the Red Duke growled at the prostrate woman. “Your goddess has deserted you. Your king has abandoned you. Now you belong to me.” The vampire stood above her, reaching out with his clawed hand.

  Isabeau raised her head, looking up at him with wide, terrified eyes. She fought to look away, but it was too late. She had already been trapped by the Red Duke’s hypnotic gaze. If the world were to crack open at her feet, still she would be gripped by those fiery eyes.

  At the vampire’s gesture, the woman rose to her feet, drawing upon reserves of strength she did not know she possessed. The Red Duke grinned evilly at her, his fangs parted, his wolfish tongue licking his colourless lips hungrily. He started to lean towards her, intent on sinking his fangs into her soft white throat. The vampire caught himself, hurling himself back.

  “No,” he hissed. “For you, it will not be so easy. You will share my curse fully, not as some half-witted vermin like de Gavaudan! You will know the horror that has claimed you, you will appreciate everything you have lost!” The Red Duke’s hand closed about his steel breastplate, tearing it open as though it were nothing but sackcloth, exposing the pallid chest beneath. With his thumb, he gouged the cold flesh, opening a vein from which stagnant blood bubbled.

  “You will drink of me,” the Red Duke said. “You will drink my curse and become one of the damned!”

  The vampire reached for the woman’s neck, to force her lips to his scarred chest. As he reached for her, he hesitated. A faint smile had appeared on Isabeau’s lips, a coy, almost sneering expression of triumph.

  An instant later, a dark shadow fell across the Red Duke. Pow
erful wings smashed against him, battering him to the ground.

  “Unhand that lady, filth!” a furious voice roared. “By the sacred sword of King Giles, I’ll cut you down like the crawling graveworm you are!”

  The Red Duke rolled across the ground as the mighty wings continued to beat at him. The vampire snarled up at his attacker. King Louis the Usurper had deigned to challenge him after all. He was not impressed. His brother had lost all of the elegance and command he’d possessed during those long years campaigning in the desert. He looked like a shabby old man sitting there on the back of his pegasus. Killing him, the Red Duke reflected, might almost be considered an act of charity.

  “You should have stayed a coward, brother,” the vampire’s hate-ridden voice rasped. “That the Lady should choose a maggot such as you to be king is all the evidence I need that she is a false goddess.”

  The eyes of King Louis blazed with righteous outrage behind the visor of his helm. “I claim no kinship to you, tomb-rat! Nor do I claim the crown of our good king! Know that you face Duke Gilon, mad varlet! Duke Gilon, true lord of Aquitaine!”

  Duke Gilon’s outburst caused the vampire to stagger momentarily. The Red Duke clutched at his head, trying to squeeze the confusion from his brain, vainly attempting to silence the voices screaming within his mind.

  Chivalry would have demanded Duke Gilon to wait until his foe had recovered enough to defend himself, but the laws of chivalry could hardly be extended to a butchering monster risen from the grave. With a great shout, the knight urged Fulminer forwards and raised his sword overhead, both hands closed about it. He would bring that blade cleaving down through the vampire’s skull and end the horror that had haunted Aquitaine for so long.

  Before Duke Gilon could strike, Fulminer stumbled and shrieked in pain. The staggering pegasus managed to stay standing, awkwardly turning about to face the creature that had assaulted it. Duke Gilon could see that its hind leg had been hideously gashed, cleft down to the bone, bits of corroded metal sinking maliciously into the grisly wound. Fulminer’s attacker leered before the stricken pegasus, the animal’s blood dripping from his rusty sword.

  Fixating upon destroying the Red Duke and protecting Iselda, Duke Gilon had forgotten the vampire’s seneschal. The wight-lord glared at the knight, the unholy lights glowing from the sockets of its skull. Grimly, Sir Corbinian struck out with his mouldering sword, slashing one of Fulminer’s mighty wings.

  The pegasus shrieked in agony as the wight’s blade shattered its wing. Duke Gilon urged Fulminer forwards, trusting that the natural ferocity of the pegasus would make it lash out at its attacker. The great beast reared back, angrily flailing its hooves and its uninjured wing. The flailing hooves cracked against the wight-lord’s chest, collapsing the undead champion’s ribs and spilling the monster to the earth.

  Sir Corbinian started to rise despite the hideous damage visited upon him by the enraged Fulminer. But now the wight-lord was within reach of Duke Gilon’s vengeful sword. The knight’s blade came whistling down in a murderous arc, crunching through the wight-lord’s decayed helm and splitting his skull down to the jawline. For an instant, the angry flames blazing in the sockets of Corbinian’s skull flared even more malignantly, then they cooled, evaporating into a wisp of foulness that was borne away by the autumn breeze.

  Duke Gilon spared only a momentary glance at the vanquished monster. Gently, he urged the injured Fulminer to turn back around. There was still another fiend he had to destroy.

  The Red Duke stood before the tomb, awaiting Duke Gilon’s return. The vampire saluted the knight. “You may not be King Louis, the man who stole my title and my lands,” the vampire hissed, “but you bear the rewards of his treachery. For that, Gilon, you will die.”

  Without further preamble, the Red Duke lunged at his foe. Duke Gilon had never seen anything move so swiftly. In the blink of an eye, the vampire was upon him. Fulminer lashed out at the fiend with its hooves. The pegasus shrieked as the Red Duke’s sword slashed clean through its flailing limb, sending its foreleg spinning away across the field. Duke Gilon chopped down at the malignant undead, but the pained panic of his steed made him miss his foe entirely.

  Neighing in agony, Fulminer tried to quit the battlefield, its single wing beating frantically at the air as it vainly tried to return to the sky. Duke Gilon desperately tried to recover some control of the pegasus, to turn it about so he could face his enemy. What success he might have had was undone when the Red Duke’s flashing sword clove into the animal’s flank. Fulminer reared back with such violence that its rider was hurled from the saddle.

  Duke Gilon landed in a jangle of armour. He felt a sharp stab of pain rush through him as one of his legs snapped beneath his thrown body. Furiously he struggled to draw breath back into his winded lungs, then groped about in the dirt for the sword that had been knocked from his grasp.

  A pale, lifeless visage glared down at the prostrate knight. Duke Gilon looked up helplessly as the Red Duke bared his fangs in an ugly leer.

  “No quarter for a traitor,” the vampire declared, burying his sword in Duke Gilon’s chest, skewering the knight like a boar upon a spit.

  Sir Leuthere knew he was about to die. As the dark knight charged towards him upon his ghastly nightmare, Leuthere knew he faced a foe he could not defeat. The gory spectacle of Sir Maraulf’s first victims left him with no delusions that he could overwhelm the vampire through force of arms and a stout heart.

  Then, before the dark knight could close upon Leuthere, a blinding blast of light emanated from the tomb of Duke Galand. Leuthere felt a wave of warmth and peace engulf him and knew that this was the holy light of the Lady, called forth again by the Prophetess Iselda. His faith in the goddess reached out to the light, drawing it inside him, filling his body with the Lady of the Lake’s divine power.

  The effect upon the undead was instantaneous and dramatically different. The black knights following Maraulf crumbled even as they charged towards the Bretonnians, the skeletons of both steeds and riders flaking apart like clots of dried mud. As their decaying bodies struck the ground, they exploded into clouds of rancid dust.

  Where a dozen wights had been there was now only piles of ash. Alone of the undead, Maraulf remained, the vampire’s terrible will strong enough to defy the purifying rays of the Lady’s light. Yet even the vampire was not untouched by the holy firestorm that swept about him. His armour was charred, his surcoat hanging from his body in scorched strips. The nightmare he rode no longer galloped across Ceren Field in search of blood, but limped about in a crippled fashion.

  Bolstered by the grace of the Lady, emboldened by the dark knight’s weakened state, Leuthere urged his warhorse to the attack.

  Maraulf met the young knight’s charge. The vampire’s sword crashed against Leuthere’s shield, denting the wood but failing to wreak the havoc he had dealt Sir Richemont at the river. The dark knight’s strength was still formidable, but it was no longer superhuman.

  The vampire’s reflexes proved slower as well. Slashing his sword at the dark knight’s throat, Leuthere was able to cleave through the gorget, sending the twisted scrap of armour glancing off into the darkness. Maraulf twisted his sword around to intercept the blow too late to parry the attack. Dark blood began to stream from the vampire’s gashed neck.

  The smell of his own blood seemed to drive Maraulf into a bestial fury. He leapt from the saddle, pouncing upon Leuthere like some beast of the forest. Knight and vampire tumbled across the earth, the rattle of steel against stone drowning out the pained grunts and growls of the two combatants.

  The tumble across the ground ended with both fighters locked in a deadly embrace. In his fall, Maraulf had lost his sword while Leuthere retained his. Each warrior struggled for control of the sword, striving to turn it against the breast of his enemy.

  A momentary horror gripped Leuthere as he met the malignant, inhuman gaze of Maraulf’s eyes. There was nothing left of the hermit knight who had tended his uncle’s bo
dy and advised Leuthere how he might atone for the evil Earl Gaubert had unleashed. The thing glaring at him from inside the black steel helmet was nothing human, however much it claimed a human shape.

  The vampire hissed in triumph as Leuthere’s grip slackened and the sword began to turn towards the knight’s chest. Leuthere clenched his eyes shut, blocking out the hateful glare of Maraulf’s gaze. He prayed to the Lady, drawing upon the divine warmth that he could still feel coursing through him.

  A shriek split the darkness, then a low, gasping moan.

  Leuthere stared at the now truly lifeless shape sprawled on the ground beside him. The sword had been turned about at the last, driven through the dark knight’s side to pierce his black heart. The monster was gone. When Leuthere looked into the dead eyes behind the black helmet, he saw no trace of the inhuman hate that had smouldered there before. All he saw was an expression of peace and gratitude.

  The Red Duke stalked away from Duke Gilon’s twitching corpse. He licked the dead knight’s blood from his blade, savouring the taste of terror and despair that permeated it. He grinned as he drew towards the woman still crumpled against the door of the tomb.

  Iselda tried not to scream as the vampire fell upon her, but despite all her magic, all the holy secrets that had been entrusted to her, she was still mortal and suffered all of a mortal’s fear.

  The Red Duke seized her long blonde hair in his mailed fist, twisting it about his fingers as he savagely jerked Iselda to her feet. “Not Isabeau, but one of her sister-witches,” he growled. “Tell me where that traitorous harlot is and I will make your death a quick one.”

  Iselda struggled to turn her face from the Red Duke’s terrifying visage, his gleaming fangs, his mouth smeared with blood, his eyes burning like balefires. Never in all her life had she really understood true fear.