by Paul Finch
He ventured to the boundary, where stones and spears had been set in a makeshift palisade. Nobody patrolled it. He glanced left to right. There was no mistake. The eight guards posted the night before were definitely missing. Once more he surveyed the shifting dunes, half expecting to see that peeping, darting form. Still there was nothing – only twists of billowing sand. And then a hand clamped his shoulder. Ulf whirled around.
Joubert was standing there, his face dark with hatred. “FitzUrz!” he said. “I might’ve guessed an English pig would be at the root of this. Stealing out again to murder our people?”
Ulf gazed at the Leopard’s son, perplexed. He had no idea why, but from the day he’d arrived at Cerne as a stable-lad, he’d found Joubert his enemy. The young nobleman was the worst kind of boor: strong, thick of limb, barrel of body, but famously arrogant, cold and treacherous. He liked nothing better than to brutalise those below him.
“I … I couldn’t sleep, my lord,” Ulf tried to explain.
“Neither could I,” Joubert replied. “Which was fortunate … was it not?”
“I’m no murderer.”
“Like all English, a coward too.”
And at that, Ulf – still dazed, still frightened – was finally stung. “Unlike you Normans, of course, who, after the fall of King Harold, festooned your gibbets with his wounded carls.”
The baron’s son lashed out, slapping Ulf fiercely on the cheek. It was a terrific blow, and the lad was staggered where he stood.
“King Harold was a perjured usurper!” Joubert snarled. “My father can tell you. He was newly-knighted that day. No older than you. Yet he cut his way with ease to your so-called king. He took the royal bollocks on the tip of his sword.”
Ulf spat at Joubert’s feet. “Aye … after the king had already fallen, an arrow-barb buried in his eye! And you Normans have the gall to call us cowards!”
*
Ramon came out from his tent, his ears filled with ribald shouts. He saw members of the mesnie leaping about excitedly as if at a cock-fight or ratting pit. At first he was too fuddled with sleep to realise what was happening – then it struck him that two of the men were fighting, wrestling on the ground like drunken peasants. He stepped forward, only half interested – but was stunned when he saw the flopping yellow mane of Ulf.
“What the devil!” Ramon pushed his way through, only for a second revelation to strike him: Joubert! Dear God!
This was the way it should be, the way all men – from gallant knights to stinking Brabancons – ought to settle quarrels: head to head on the field of honour. But this was no fair duel. Joubert might be an insufferable braggart who rated his powers more highly than he should, but he was still a knight, whereas Ulf was only a squire. Joubert was ruthless enough to go for the kill, because that was the way he had been taught; Ulf, on the other hand, would balk at inflicting serious injury – and rightly so, for his opponent was a magnate-in-waiting.
Ramon decided to stop it.
He was just about to move in when a knife-point pricked the flesh below his ear. He froze. A brawny arm folded across his throat. He heard de Vesqui’s leering voice – the guttural Lange d’Oc thick with scorn.
“Not one step,” the dog chuckled. “The Leopard’s son will have his little diversions.”
“You bastaaaa …” Ramon said, but a third voice cut him dead.
“You put a blade to the household banneret? You dare! You blasted whoreson!”
Ramon felt the arm relax. He lurched away and turned. De Vesqui was now rigid with fear, Thurstan holding a spear to his neck. Its tapering point was pressed so firmly against the flesh that droplets of blood had appeared.
“Drop it!” Thurstan barked.
De Vesqui held his arms aloft, but refused to relinquish his knife. “I’m not part of your damned household!”
“Drop it, or I’ll spit you like a fish!”
Reluctantly, de Vesqui released the weapon.
Ramon whirled back to Ulf and Joubert, still going at each other like wild animals, biting and clawing. The squire was giving a reasonable account of himself, though he was the more bloodied of the two; both his lips were burst like ripe plumbs. Ramon now waded in and hauled them apart, kicking Ulf to one side and dragging Joubert away by the coif, throwing him heavily in the dust. There were groans of disapproval from the spectators. One or two cursed; some even issued threats.
Most outraged was Joubert, who clambered to his feet, voice cracking in fury. “You cur!” he squealed. “I’ll kill you, kill you …”
He dived at the nearest man-at-arms, yanked a broadsword from the fellow’s scabbard, and wheeled frenziedly about – only to be dealt a stunning blow to the jaw by a thickly gloved fist.
A silence fell over the retinue. They gazed in awe at the Leopard, whose huge right hand was still tightly clenched. He returned their gaze intensely, focussing in particular on Ramon. Fleetingly, the knight saw his overlord as he once had been, when they’d fought together, hunted together, ridden in the tourney as friends – before the Norse had torn his face apart at Anglesey, before the madness of conquest had grown on him like a fever.
“No-one,” the Leopard said, his voice a taut whisper, “no-one … dies in this company without my say-so.” He kicked his fallen son. “Up sirrah! Get up!”
Groggily, drooling blood, Joubert raised himself onto all fours. “I should … should’ve beaten him to death,” he mumbled.
The Leopard was unimpressed. “The progress you were making, we’d have been here all day. Up!” He glanced sideways, to where Thurstan was still holding his spear at de Vesqui’s throat. Their eyes met, and Thurstan lowered the weapon. Immediately, de Vesqui retrieved his knife and whipped around, dragging a gauntlet from his belt. He was clearly about to issue a challenge to Thurstan, when a cry came wavering across the tents towards them. A breathless, haunted cry: “My Lord! My Looooord!”
As one, the band thrust through the encampment to the southern perimeter, where they found Arch-Deacon d’Etoille.
Once portly, he was now emaciated; tired, wasted flesh hung at his jowls. Once devout, he now knew little for sure, save only that the Crossed Keys of the papal banner were spattered over and over with innocent blood. Even his aggressive intellect had faded; he couldn’t reason in a land where reason no longer prevailed. He stood violently shaking, his features wan, peering out into the desert – where something awaited them.
Where it had come from, they didn’t know; what it was, they had no clue. At first they were too stunned by it to speak. On every head the hair prickled, on every body the skin crawled.
It was perhaps thirty yards away, a body of sand and dirt spinning at phenomenal speed as if some spiralling wind had seized it. It was like the central funnel of a dust-storm, only smaller, more compact – upright by fifteen feet, maybe five-feet across. So dense was it that nothing was visible through it. It swirled with frightful force, giving off a rushing, breathless roar.
“What … what in the name of God …” Ramon stammered.
But more horror-stricken than anyone was Hasif. With a wailing cry, he sank to his knees, hands clasped. “Sawfa nahlik jamee’an!”
“What does he say?” the Leopard demanded. “De Vesqui, what does he say?”
It took the Aquitainian several seconds to regain sufficient composure to speak with their guide, and, when he did, the response he got was broken and tearful. Hasif could only peer red-eyed and despairing at the apparition.
“Al-iblees khulika minal riyah!” he stuttered. “La tareeq lil hiroob …”
When de Vesqui looked back to his overlord, he too had paled. “He says … he says it is djinn, sent for us by the Old Man. A spirit of earth and air, charged with our destruction. It will not cease its pursuit until we are all dead.”
“It’s a judgment on us!” d’Etoille cried, reaching under his tattered purple and drawing out an iron crucifix. “We came here in the name of Christ, and in the name of Christ we slew babes and robbe
d houses.” He stepped over the line of rocks marking the camp boundary. “We’re brigands, but the worst kind of brigands … for we use God’s holy will as our excuse.”
“What the devil are you doing?” Thurstan shouted, trying to grab him.
“Lord Jesus!” Arch-Deacon d’Etoille prayed, advancing out of reach, his crucifix held high. “I beg you to take into your bosom the soul of this Thine servant, who today dies accursed in a hellish place.”
“My lord!” de Vesqui hissed. “We must get away from here.”
He even clutched his overlord’s arm, but the Leopard shook him off, regarding the spectacle with morbid fascination.
“I entreat you,” the priest beseeched, “deliver me not into the hands of Satan …”
But his words ended mid-sentence in a shrill and prolonged scream, for the thing suddenly rushed upon him. The rest of the company watched aghast as he was enveloped. He clamped his hands to his face as if to protect his eyes, but was buffeted back and forth, and a second later yanked upwards from his feet in a horizontal levitation, whence he began to spin and spin at ever greater speed. Within moments he was a purple blur, and then he was gone – he winked out like a candle-flame.
A stupefied silence followed, the remaining men too mesmerised to react – before the abomination spat something out, which thudded into the sand close to their feet. It was Father d‘Etoille’s crucifix, now a twisted knot of melted iron.
At that they went amok. With wild shrieks, they fell over each other to get to the horses. Tents were knocked flat, cooking-pots kicked over, backpacks and weapons left strewn.
*
The swirling monstrosity gave no immediate or hurried chase – almost as if it knew it could bide its time.
If the thing actually had a mind, their panic-stricken flight gave it a keen advantage. Supplies had been lost, horses scattered. Many men were separated from the main party, and highly likely the supernatural foe went on to pick these off one by one, for within four hours Ulf found himself part of a fellowship comprising only himself, Thurstan, Ramon, Joubert, de Vesqui, the Leopard and Hasif, and in possession only of the items they’d been wearing or carrying in their bolsters.
Regardless of missing friends, they continued to ride fast and hard for the remainder of that day, pushing blindly on through bleak emptiness, but now in frantic disorder. When they finally slowed to a walk, breathless and sweating, their horses lathered, there were no words between them. Ordinarily in such circumstances there might have been regret at the reckless haste, shame at the apparent cowardice – now there were only frightened glances, whispered prayers. They pitched camp in a high rocky place, but, without tents and bedrolls, were mercilessly exposed to the raw desert night. None of them slept, and when the morning came they were sorely tired. The temptation was to stay and doze, but common sense forbade it; if the stalking daemon didn’t dispatch them, the sun surely would.
“Are we sure this thing is real?” Ramon asked as they rode on.
“You saw if for yourself,” Thurstan replied.
“I think we’ve had lotus crushed in our water stock. Such devils don’t exist.”
Thurstan shook his head. “Pagan lands … pagan things.”
Ramon turned in his saddle. “Is it following us?”
“You want to stay to find out?” de Vesqui wondered. “You saw what it did to d’Etoille.”
“I saw you leading the charge to get away from it,” Ramon said.
De Vesqui glared round with fresh fury, but the Leopard interjected. “Real or not, we have our penance to perform.”
“We do?” Ramon whispered to Thurstan. Even with the company decimated, it seemed the quest went on. “Tell me this isn’t complete folly.”
“Still questioning me, Ramon?”
“Forgive me, my lord. I thought that by now we might have paid God His dues.”
“We haven’t,” the Leopard assured him, but again he glanced over his shoulder, and Ulf saw further apprehension in his ravaged face, maybe even fear.
The next morning they followed a parched riverbed, and by noon came across stunted trees where some modicum of shelter was had. The tan crags of mountains were starting to emerge in the northeast. Ulf wondered which range it was. It struck him as ludicrous that none of them knew where they were, and hadn’t done for days. They were completely in the hands of a Moslem prisoner, who had every reason to despise them – though at present Hasif seemed more afraid than devious. When he wasn’t riding, he passed the time cowering on his prayer mat, or glancing fearfully behind them.
The thing he dreaded, the djinn or wind-daemon, or whatever it was, at present chose to remain hidden, though none of them doubted it was close at hand. Why it didn’t attack was anyone’s guess. Ulf’s premonition dreams – for he’d decided this was what they were – had also faded, though in truth he slept only fitfully, protected solely by his cloak in the frozen night and spending the daylight in fatigued delirium. A week later, when a sandstorm blew up, he bore through it in drugged, careless fashion. The morning after that, when the Leopard announced that their water and bread was now virtually used, he made no comment. He wondered if he was close to death – and even at that prospect, he felt strangely unconcerned.
Uncountable hours of this torture passed before, suddenly – without warning – there was grass on the hills again; dry, prickly grass, but still grass. A day later they were seeing cork oaks, olive trees, even clumps of cedar. And then the news came that they were near their goal. De Vesqui delivered it. Ulf, Thurstan and Ramon were lagging far behind the others, moving at a snail’s pace, when the Leopard’s bodyguard came galloping back towards them.
“Half a day,” he said, reining up. “Our Saracen pet assures us. Half a day to the river, and beyond that … Uruk.” They said nothing, which seemed to displease him. “You’ve come this far, you ought at least to be glad we’ve arrived!”
Thurstan spat.
“You miserable dogs,” de Vesqui sneered. “The wealth of ages awaits us … the treasure house of Persia … gold, silver. Mountains of it and all you can do is …” His words tailed off; he seemed as bewildered as he was sickened. “To Hell with you all!”
He wheeled his horse about and cantered back. The trio plodded on in weary silence, though soon Ulf began to chuckle. “I always suspected our overlord was only partially a penitent man?”
“What does it matter?” Ramon grunted. “We swore fealty?”
“We’ve followed him half way across the world,” the boy replied. “I think we’ve exercised our fealty.”
“It’s not your place to think, Ulf.”
“No, of course not, when there are so many others here thinking for me.” Suddenly Ulf was choking back tears – or would have been if there’d been sufficient moisture left in his body. “We raided Jerusalem in God’s name, but there were too many thieves to make it pay; so in the guise of penance we now raid Uruk.” He shook his head. “The search for Eden … I actually believed that!”
“There is no Uruk,” Thurstan said. “How could there be? A city older than Babylon? I’d be surprised if one brick stood on another.”
“So what are we doing here?” Ulf asked.
“I’d suggest you go back,” Ramon said. “I’d even knight you to make it lawful … but I don’t know which way is back. And then, of course …” and now it was his turn to chuckle; a crazy fluting sound, “then of course, our daemonic friend is back there somewhere.”
“I’m scarcely worried about that thing,” Ulf snorted. “It’s probably in awe of us, demoralised … it found out what we did in Jerusalem and realises it can’t compete …”
“Enough ranting!” Thurstan snapped. “Enough of it! Just save your breath. You might need it.”
Ulf hung his head and said no more. Neither of the men spoke either. Hours passed as they swayed aimlessly along, the sun a sphere of burnished brass directly above them. Only the crunch and crackle of broken, cinder-dry stones beneath their horses’ h
ooves could be heard – that and the occasional haunting cry of eagle or buzzard. Ahead, the horizon rippled as if oiled by the heat. The Leopard and his group were ghost-like in it, elongated, cut up into fragments, flattened and consumed as they crested some ridge and bore down the other side.
And it was then, roughly, that the first silvery chuckles of water made themselves known. The sound alone was refreshing, revitalising.
Ulf glanced up, his dusty mouth curved in a curious frown. “Is that … ?”
“I think it is,” Ramon said. “God’s bread, that dog de Vesqui was telling the truth!” He urged his horse forward.
“Only about the river,” Thurstan cautioned, hanging back.
Ramon broke into a gallop. “The river’s enough.”
Ulf followed him and five minutes later they mounted a low ridge and beheld a wide shallow valley in the centre of which a river flowed – an enormous river; the mythical Euphrates, vast and brown and deeply swollen, but gliding mirror-smooth between steep shingle banks.
“Thank you, oh Lord, thank you!” Ulf prayed.
“Don’t thank Him yet,” Ramon said in a tight voice. He pointed down the slope. “What is that?”
Thurstan, who had come up behind them, shielded his eyes and spurred his horse downhill in order to get a closer look. The others went too, but had only descended a dozen feet before the full ghastliness of what they were seeing became clear.
Thirty-four wooden poles, all about twelve feet tall, had been erected in a row on the river’s nearest shore. From the top of each was suspended the body of a man. The first eight were battlefield corpses, the men killed in the fight with the Ashishin – now decayed to carrion and thick with dust, for they’d been removed from their graves. The remaining twenty-seven were more recognisable. Arch-Deacon d’Etoille was among them, along with others who’d vanished during the trek across Arabia. These had been more freshly slain, and in most cases more brutally. Torn and ripped, as if by giant claws, they hung in blood-soaked tatters. Bird-pecked entrails were visible, shreds of muscle and sinew; spears of snapped bone jutted from jagged wounds.
