[Heroes 05] - The Red Duke

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

  “Tell me where she is!” the vampire demanded, forcing Iselda to face him by tightening his hold upon her.

  “Dead,” the prophetess told him. As the word was forced from her lips, a feeling of defiance blazed up within her. She knew what her fate would be. She had seen it. There was no escaping it now, so why should she fear this monster. The certainty of her impending death lent her a grim courage.

  “She is dead,” Iselda repeated. “Dead these three hundred years. She is not here to seal you back in your tomb! To wall you up alone with the dark and the thirst!”

  The Red Duke’s face contorted into a vision of rage. He raised his sword. Almost he brought the blade crashing down into the defiant woman’s sneering face. The vampire’s lip curled in a snarl. Brutally, he forced Iselda to turn and face the battlefield.

  “Your magic has weakened my army,” the Red Duke confessed. “But see! There are still enough left to vanquish these gallant fools! And when they are all slain, I will use them to build my army anew. You have not stopped me, witch! You have only delayed the inevitable. Every grave, every tomb, every barrow in Aquitaine will give up its dead. I shall build an army such as Bretonnia has never known and with it I shall crush the Lady and her duplicitous cult.” The vampire’s smile became icy, an inhumanly cruel glint shining in his eye.

  “I will rebuild my army,” the Red Duke said. He turned his head, glaring at the door of Duke Galand’s tomb. “And I will start with your precious champion. How fitting that one of the Lady’s grail knights should be the first of my new slaves’

  Contemptuously, the Red Duke threw Iselda aside. The prophetess smashed against the marble wall of the tomb with such force that she could hear one of her ribs snap inside her. Pain flared through her body, threatening to drive consciousness from her. Only by force of will was she able to stay on her feet. Only through sheer determination was she able to force words past her blood-flecked lips.

  “Go, then, monster,” she snarled at the vampire. “Go and profane the grave of your kin.”

  The Red Duke spun about, his eyes gleaming with a strange and terrible light. Iselda quailed before that look, but she knew the secret must be told. The secret that had been hidden for so long. The secret that would be enough to break the Red Duke.

  “You thought Martinga threw herself from the tower because of you,” Iselda stated, mockery in her tone. “She died to preserve the life of her son… the son she bore nine months after you departed on the crusade. She had hidden him when she became aware of Baron de Gavaudan’s ambitions for the dukedom. By her death, she ensured that the baron and his agents could never find the ducal heir.”

  The vampire’s face twitched with fury. “You lie,” he snarled, his fist clenching about the grip of his sword.

  “The boy’s name was Galand and he was entrusted to the keeping of Lady Isabeau,” Iselda continued. “The secret of his parentage was kept from him, but it was known to a few. Among them was King Louis. The king watched over Galand, ensuring he would become a good and noble knight, that his nephew might atone for the evil his father had committed. After many heroic feats, Galand encountered the Lady and was allowed to drink from the grail. With this final proof of Galand’s goodness, King Louis consented to his marriage to his daughter, thereby restoring to his brother’s bloodline the dukedom Baron de Gavaudan had thought to usurp.”

  “Lies!” the Red Duke roared. “Baron de Gavaudan was my creature! My slave! He would have told me this!”

  “He was your creature,” Iselda said. “You brought him back from the dead as a half-crippled thing, broken in body… and in mind. Your thrall told you only what you wanted him to tell you. His twisted mind could not separate your suspicions from his own confused memories.”

  “No!” the Red Duke raged. “King Louis wanted my lands for his own! He plotted treachery against me! He wanted Aquitaine as a birthright for his children!”

  “A birthright he handed back to his brother’s bloodline. He even told Duke Galand who his father had been before he died. Why else do you think Galand was buried here instead of the family crypt beneath Castle Aquitaine? He wanted to be near the resting place of his father.”

  The vampire shook his head, his entire body trembling with emotion. “No! No! No!” he howled. Gripped by fury, he drove towards Iselda, his blade slashing out. The golden sword smashed into the prophetess’ shoulder, ripping down until it had torn through her lung. Iselda gave a hollow gasp, then sank against the side of the tomb. The Red Duke glared down at her, even the sight of the blood pooling about her body was not enough to stir his mind from the mocking revelations she had made.

  None of it could be true! None of it! King Louis had cheated and betrayed him! Galand was nothing, just some vagabond knight who had used his status as a grail knight to marry into the royal family! Martinga had died for love of him! Everything that had been stolen from him… all of it was still his to take!

  Growling like a crazed wolf, the Red Duke turned back to the door of the tomb. Raising his bloodied sword, he brought it smashing down upon the holy seals that bound the door. The stone plaque with its depiction of the grail was shattered by the fierceness of his strike, falling in splinters to the ground. The vampire could feel the holy energies of the tomb dissipate, drawn off into the aether as he profaned the sacred symbols.

  With inhuman strength, the Red Duke pushed open the stone doors of the tomb. He stared into the musty darkness, his sharp eyes picking out the marble effigy of the dead knight which stood guard above Duke Galand’s sarcophagus. Drawing the dark forces of his unholy magic into himself, the Red Duke called out to the dead man’s spirit…

  An instant later, the Red Duke was fleeing from the tomb, his eyes wide with horror. Frantically he seized the reins of El Morzillo, leaping into the spectral steed’s saddle. Lashing his undead warhorse, the Red Duke galloped away from the tomb, fleeing into the darkness as though all the daemons of Chaos were upon his heels.

  Lying in her own blood, Iselda managed a strained smile as she watched the vampire flee.

  They had won. Aquitaine was saved.

  The Red Duke’s sudden desertion was the breaking point in the battle. The lesser undead, drawing their very existence from the vampire’s hideous will, collapsed where they stood. Battalions of skeletons and zombies that only a moment before stood ready to massacre the knights of Aquitaine became only so much carrion in the blink of an eye.

  Some of the more powerful undead endured. The wights called from Dragon’s Hill, the liches of the ancient druids, the grave guard that had once defended the Crac de Sang against King Louis, these were able to maintain their unholy vitality despite the flight of their master. But they fought without coordination or cohesion, becoming easy prey for the vengeful knights who prowled Ceren Field.

  Sir Richemont broke away from the battle the instant victory was assured. Securing a horse from one of his captains, he rode at once towards the tomb of Duke Galand. No knight on the battlefield had failed to see Duke Gilon swoop down to confront the Red Duke. No knight on the battlefield had failed to notice that Fulminer never rose back into the sky.

  The ducal heir jumped from his saddle as soon as he came to the tomb. He knelt down beside the body of his father, cradling the dead man’s head in his lap. Tears streamed down Richemont’s face.

  “Do not weep for him, Duke Richemont.”

  The voice was little louder than a whisper, but it caught Richemont’s attention just the same. He turned about, finding the speaker lying against the side of Duke Galand’s tomb. The Prophetess Iselda was a ragged mess, her dress caked in blood, her face drawn and pale. Sir Leuthere crouched beside her, trying to staunch the flow of blood rising from the ghastly wound she had suffered. One glance told Richemont that the young knight’s efforts were futile. The wound was a mortal one.

  “Your father died to save his people,” Iselda continued. A haunted expression came over her and Richemont had the impression that she was gazing somewhere deep in
side herself rather than at anything which anyone else could see. “There is no greater honour than to sacrifice one’s own life to save others.”

  Richemont bowed his head, knowing that Iselda’s words were true. He found it hard to hold the dying woman’s gaze, however. His grief was too great and too personal to spare any for the prophetess. “The questing knights have already set out in pursuit of the vampire. They will avenge my father and bring that fiend’s head back to Castle Aquitaine on a spike.”

  Iselda shook her head. “No, Duke Richemont,” she told him. “They will not catch the vampire.” She raised her hand slowly, closing it about that of Leuthere. “I have seen the men who can destroy the Red Duke.” Her expression darkened, dropping into a frown. “If they can set aside their hate and guilt to work together.”

  Leuthere stared at the ground, colour rushing into his face. His thoughts were of Vigor and the terrible thing the peasant had intended during the battle. “Lady Iselda, we do not even know if Count Ergon survived the battle.”

  “If he has, I will find him,” Richemont swore. “You shall both have the finest armour, the best horses, the sharpest blades Aquitaine can bestow upon you.” The new duke clenched his fist. “Only bring me that monster’s head!”

  Duke Richemont was true to his word. He dispatched a hundred men to scour Ceren Field in search of Count Ergon. When the old knight was found, he was brought before the new duke and told of the quest he must undertake. It was an easy matter for Count Ergon to agree to hunt down the Red Duke, but his gaze was cold when he stared at Sir Leuthere. More than an echo of the old feud, there was a cold hate in the nobleman’s eyes that caused Leuthere’s blood to shiver in his veins.

  Iselda was not there to see the two men outfitted for their mission. The prophetess had died of her wound an hour before. Whatever last words or advice and guidance she might have given the knights went unspoken.

  As dusk began to fade into night, the two men set out on the trail of the Red Duke. They rode in silence, the clatter of their horses’ hooves the only sound that passed between them. With the bright orb of Mannslieb shining across the land, the journey was far easier than the desperate race from Dragon’s Hill.

  It was almost midnight when Leuthere finally broke the brooding silence. He could suffer the unspoken disdain of his companion no longer. “How can you follow the fiend’s trail?” he asked Count Ergon. “I can see nothing in this light.”

  “There is no need to follow the vampire,” Count Ergon replied, his voice low and icy. “He will seek out his old fortress in the Massif Orcal.”

  “How can you be so sure?” Leuthere demanded. “Most of the men in Duke Richemont’s camp seemed to think the vampire would flee into the Forest of Châlons knowing few men would pursue him there.”

  “I would pursue that monster into the maw of Chaos,” Count Ergon growled. For the first time since they had set out, he turned in his saddle and set his cheerless eyes on Leuthere. “He may seek to lose the questing knights in the forest, but he will return to his fortress. And I will be there waiting for him.”

  “We will be there,” Leuthere corrected him.

  Count Ergon laughed, but it was a mirthless sound. “I ride to avenge my family, slain by the vampire’s hand. Why do you pursue the vampire? Glory? Honour?” The nobleman’s voice dropped into a hiss of loathing. “Shame?”

  Suddenly there was a dagger in Count Ergon’s fist. Leuthere might have avoided the older man’s thrust had he not been frozen with horror. He recognized that weapon, had seen it last in Vigor’s belt. He’d assumed the peasant had been killed by the undead before he could reach the count. Now, the agonising truth thrust itself into his gut.

  Leuthere dropped from the saddle, crashing to the ground, Vigor’s dagger buried to the hilt in his belly. He writhed weakly, struggling to reach his horse, but Count Ergon had already seized the animal’s reins and drawn it away.

  “The chivalry of the d’Elbiqs,” Count Ergon scoffed, spitting on the ground. “I had a talk with your assassin before he died. He confessed everything to me. It was no accident that the Red Duke attacked my home, slaughtered my family. Your uncle freed him to destroy my kinfolk!”

  Leuthere stretched his hands towards the glowering nobleman. “I tried to make amends. I tried to warn you, but it was too late. All… all I had left was… to atone. To set things right.”

  “Atone?” Count Ergon scoffed. “You do not deserve that chance! You and your vile family can fester with the guilt and shame of the horror you’ve brought upon Aquitaine!”

  Leuthere’s face contorted in pain as he tried to move. He could feel blood and bile bubbling from his wound. He lifted a bloodied hand imploringly to Count Ergon. “I have wronged you… wronged you in a way for which I cannot ask forgiveness… but you must help me. Lady Iselda said only the two of us could destroy the Red Duke! We must face him together!”

  Count Ergon turned his back on the wounded knight. “The prophetess is dead and her prophecy with her,” he said. “I will hunt down the Red Duke and I will destroy him. Alone.”

  “Don’t leave me like this!” Leuthere cried as Count Ergon started to ride away. “Don’t defy the prophecy! We must face the vampire together!”

  “Die in the dirt or crawl to a healer,” the count called back without turning to look upon the stricken knight. “It is all the same to me.”

  Leuthere continued to cry out, begging the count not to abandon him, pleading with him to heed the words of Iselda. But the nobleman was deaf to his entreaties. His mind was fixated upon the memory of his son’s mutilated body and the courtyard of his castle heaped with his slain household. He would find the Red Duke.

  Lady willing he would have his revenge.

  EPILOGUE

  The Circle of Blood was closed when the Red Duke was again defeated upon Ceren Field. The vampire fled, pursued by the bravest of Aquitaine’s knights, but though they searched for many years, the final fate of the monster was never certain.

  Sir Leuthere d’Elbiq survived long enough to be discovered by one of the knights hunting the Red Duke. The mortally wounded Leuthere was returned to the Chateau d’Elbiq, where he related his tale to others of his clan, and in so doing reignited the ancient feud against the du Maisnes. To this day, the feud persists, becoming known as the most bloodthirsty and bitter of all Aquitaine’s querulous nobles.

  Count Ergon du Maisne, after striking down Leuthere, held true to his word and pursued his trail of vengeance alone. He was seen by a shepherd riding up into the hills overlooking the Forest of Châlons, that haunted region where the Red Duke’s fortress had been built. It was the last time any trace of Count Ergon was ever found. To this day, the fate of the avenging knight remains a mystery.

  Many different tales are told of the Red Duke, stories that he continues to haunt the Forest of Châlons, lurking hidden in the shadows, awaiting his chance for revenge against the people of Aquitaine. Certainly his is the darkest and most savage account of vampirism in a land that has been largely free of the depredations of nosferatu.

  One of the most striking accounts of the Red Duke’s survival into modern times comes from the famed troubadour Jacques le Thorand who claimed to have been visited by the vampire while staying at an inn bordering the Forest of Châlons. According to Jacques, the Red Duke spent the night relating to him the true facts of his atrocities. Certainly, when Jacques afterwards rewrote his Ballad of the Red Duke, the tale little resembled that expounded by historians and songsters. Accepted history would have the Prophetess Iselda killed at the Tower of Wizardry long before the Second Battle of Ceren Field and Sir Richemont’s deeds at the River Morceaux were far more successful than those claimed by Jacques.

  Still, there is a disturbing veracity in Jacques’ account, whether it really came from the Red Duke himself or no. It is an easily confirmed fact that a determined effort has been made by the lords of Aquitaine to efface the name of the Red Duke from all histories, monuments and records, such that it
becomes impossible to verify if he was indeed the brother of King Louis the Righteous. The idea that he was also the father of Duke Galand of Aquitaine is one that is violently rejected by the knights of that land—often at the point of a sword. The thought that the ruling family of a Bretonnian dukedom could share their heritage with the infamous vampire would be akin to claiming Emperor Karl-Franz was descended from the Reikerbahn Butcher.

  Jacques le Thorand never recovered from whatever dark epiphany claimed him that night on the border of the forest. From a healthy, robust traveller renowned for his handsome looks and gentle mien, he became pale, listless and reclusive, shutting himself in a garret in Quenelles. Never more would he wander the green fields of Bretonnia or visit the grand courts of the kingdom. It was whispered that a curious madness had taken hold of the once renowned troubadour, a peculiar malady that caused him to slowly waste away, unable to stir from his squalid lodgings. To the end, Jacques spent what small coin he possessed on copious supplies of candles and his garret could always be seen fairly glowing with light from dusk until dawn until the day when he finally succumbed to his illness and died.

  I present this volume, drawn from the Ballad of the Red Duke as revised by Jacques le Thorand before his death and make no assertions as to its truth or lack thereof. The events described occurred in the year 1932 of the Imperial reckoning, over five hundred years ago, yet the legend of the Red Duke persists. A wise man wonders if this grim tale could remain so fresh in the minds of illiterate peasants if there were not some current and persistent influence still acting upon them.

  There are things in the night. Things which are to be feared.

  Ehrhard Stoecker

  Parravon

  I. C. 2506

  Scanning, formatting and

  proofing by Flandrel,

  additional formatting and

  proofing by Undead.