by David Talon
“Will the governor go against Draco Dominus?”
“Not unless his hand is forced. I do know he’s sent off a message to Lord Tiberius in secret, and he plans to bog down the order in legal maneuverings if they try to take you. But he believes they won’t go that far...provided they have no reason to believe you to be valuable.”
“I know,” I grumbled, “pretend to be timid.”
Alfonzo looked back at me and raised his eyebrows. “Would you prefer to be one of their Wolves instead?” At my confused look, he added, “That’s what they call their Dragons.”
Smoke spoke up from behind me. “I think a wolf’s an excellent animal.”
“No doubt,” Alfonzo replied, looking forward again then pulling back on his horse’s reins, bringing her to a stop. “But there’s nothing excellent about these wolves. They rape and plunder as bad as any pirate, under a captain answerable only to the abbot of the order, and Tomas needs to rein in his boldness so they don’t take him away from us.” He looked around. “Smoke, I think this is a good place to have you wait. Will you hear Tomas if he calls?”
“I’ve already attached a small piece of myself to him, so I’ll hear everything anyone says nearby.”
Turning around, I gave the place where her voice was coming from a puzzled look. “How are you able to do that?”
“How would I know? If I knew I’d tell you, Swamp-rat.”
I grinned at the tartness of her voice. “Do you need any more of my strength?”
“Are you jesting? I already feel as stuffed as your Christmas goose.” Her voice became more serious. “Tomas, I...just be careful tonight, alright?”
She sounded so worried I couldn’t help chuckling. “Said the lady fair to her questing knight, right before he entered the dragon’s den. Next you’ll be plighting me your undying love.” Alfonzo put his heels to his horse’s flanks and we took off at a canter down the beach. I looked back, waiting for Smoke’s parting remark, but she remained silent. “That’s passing strange,” I said as I faced forward. “Smoke never lets me get in the last word.”
Alfonzo raised his dark eyebrows but let the remark pass, looking forward again. “I see there’s a great deal of light in the mission village.”
Beyond the trees and heavy brush jutting out ahead of us was a reddish glow, like the forest was on fire. The cold knot of fear returned to my belly. “What do you think it means?”
“That we’re expected,” he said cryptically.
We passed the jutting vegetation on our left: sand pines, bayberry, the ethereal fairies- breath with its white leaves, the horse’s hooves splashing in the ocean waves as the insects and night animals grew silent at our approach, only to resume their nightly chorus of sounds as we passed. Looking up, I spotted the mission church. It sat on the highest piece of ground available, a hillock barely worth the name. The building was made of the local sea-stone, giving it a white color that gleamed in the moonlight, and roofed with thatch. Surrounding it was a wall of logs, with guard posts at each corner, and a large main gate facing the sea.
From where we were I could see the roof of the stables but little else, the stand of trees between the church and the shore blocking our view. I knew the village well, having passed through it many times, but tonight it was ablaze with torchlight and the sounds of at least a couple hundred people gathered together. The mission church was also well lit I saw, as Alfonzo guided his horse up the narrow trail, its walls illuminated by dragon-globes, glass balls filled with bright-fire, set in each of the guard posts, their white light casting out the darkness around them in a wide area. Alfonzo halted his mount a short distance from the open gate. It stood open, with a large group of Spaniards, soldiers in black breastplates, along with others, standing in and behind the gateway. One large Spaniard strode towards us: Master Gomez, a portly man dressed in a red tunic and blue hose, with a bushy black beard covering the jowls of his face. “What took you so long?”
Alfonzo swung down off his horse with ease. “You told me to bring Tomas after sunset and here I am.” In truth, we could’ve arrived much earlier, but Alfonzo had wished to give me as much time to rest as I could, Smoke having taken a good bit of my strength that morning. He turned and helped me down off the horse, which normally I didn’t need. But tonight I was glad for his support as my leather shoes touched the ground.
Master Gomez snorted. “Next time I shall frame my requests with more care. We are still waiting on the chief and his son to arrive, but the members of Draco Dominus were already here when I arrived.” He lowered his voice. “Including the head of the order.”
Alfonzo grabbed his arm as he hissed, “Lord Marcus, here? Have you lost your wits?”
Master Gomez snatched his arm away. “I did not expect him to be here. I...”
“Gentlemen,” one of the soldiers said in an easy voice, “we are all friends here. Come into the protection of these walls and be welcome.” Alfonzo gave Master Gomez a dark look but subsided as the soldier motioned at one of the other soldiers behind him. “Take the good captain’s horse and stable him with Master Gomez’s.”
The soldier came out of the gateway and took the reins from Alfonzo, leading the animal toward the small stable, a stone’s throw from the church. As we walked toward the gateway, I got my first good look at the men I knew must all be Draco Dominus. To my surprise they stood in two very different groups. The ones on the right looked like normal Spanish soldiers, except they all had black, shiny, Artifact breastplates and leg armor, each of them wearing tunics underneath with long, puffy sleeves. Each breastplate had a snarling wolf carved upon it, most of the designs enameled with a red coating of some kind, although two of them were enameled in silver.
The soldier with the easy voice had a wolf enameled in gold. He was tall, with a short, pointed beard, and as we approached he gave us a courtly bow. “Knight-General Montejo, cousin to the Montejo’s of the Yucatan, at your service.”
From the soldier beside him I was amazed to hear a woman’s voice. “Leon, you never told me the boy was comely.” Behind her, a totally different group of soldiers began to laugh. They were a mixed group, mostly natives or half-bloods, but with a few Spaniards, a couple large men from Africa, and one man pale as an Englishman, his head totally bald and covered in scars. All of them save the woman and the pale man, wore badly stained cotton padded armor, with pieces of Artifact plate sewn into the material. The woman and the pale man wore a coat of plates: thick pieces of black Artifact plate held together by black rings of chainmail, and both suits looked badly scarred. The woman was half-Spanish, with black hair tied in a braid, an old scar on the side of her face near her eye, and another on her chin marring an otherwise comely face, in frame lean as a wolf herself. An older wolf, I amended; she looked to be in her late-thirty’s, if she was a day.
General Montejo gave her a disgusted look. “Captain Cholula, we did not come here for you to indulge your pleasures.”
Captain Cholula spoke in a husky voice. “Why not? At least I’d have something to do besides standing around looking fierce.” The three of us reached the gateway, and she stepped in front of me. “I take it you’re the healer known as Tomas?” I nodded, and she moved closer to inspect me, her breath smelling of rum as she felt my arms and frame with hands tough as old tree roots. She wore an Artifact cutlass at each hip, carried a steel dagger at her cracked leather belt, and had another sticking out of each boot. “Too thin,” she continued, “but he’s got muscles.” She ran her thumb over my palm. “And callouses.”
Alfonzo pulled me away from her. “He got them from his apothecary work.”
“Oh really,” Captain Cholula said with a hard smile. “When I was a young girl, growing up in New Spain, the first piece of advice my mother gave me about men was...they lie. Every single man not a Dragon will lie to you with a straight face.”
“Mistress,” I blurted out, “it’s not a lie.”
She turned her smile on me, and it became...hungry. “You don’
t have to call me mistress, just captain, at least until you’re sharing my bunk. Then I’ll tell you what you can call me.”
I froze in shock as Alfonzo pulled me back beside him, his hand on his sword hilt. “Tomas and I came here to heal the chief’s son, not for you to paw him like a sailor’s whore.”
An angry mutter began from the men behind her as the pale man stepped out to meet him. Strapped to his back, the bald man had two Artifact weapons: an axe with a curved spike on the other side, and a military hammer with a straight spike. He had a hand on the shaft of each, and kept them there as Alfonzo stopped, the pale man stopping too, his eyes never leaving Alfonzo’s face. Alfonzo took his hand away from the sword hilt and the pale man let go of his weapons and folded his arms.
To my complete surprise Captain Cholula didn’t seem the least bit upset, but only chuckled. “Not very creative, are you? Captain Alfonso, meet Karl the Hammer, a mercenary of sinister reputation but absolute honor, if you can believe it. He’s my personal armsman.” She stepped between them. “Before Tomas goes one more step, I need but one more thing from him.” She spoke to the empty air beside her. “Shadow-viper, if you would?”
A young woman’s voice, soft and silky, came from the air in front of me. “Well met, Tomas. With your permission, I’d like to taste a little of your life essence, so I will know for certain you’ve not been in contact with any of the Dark Sisters, and learn...other things as well.”
I felt like a boy trying to cross the marsh at night without a dragon-globe or a torch. “I suppose it’s alright,” I said as I held out my arm.
Delicate fangs perhaps a little larger than Smoke’s pierced my flesh, only to be withdrawn a moment later, the spot where they’d touched me barely getting a chill. Shadow-viper’s voice sounded smug as she spoke from the air next to my ear. “Cholula, my love, you truly want this one.”
I would’ve bolted for St. Augustine right then and there, had it not been for Alfonzo’s hand on my shoulder. “Tomas is not yours.”
“Once again,” General Montejo said in an exasperated voice, “Captain Cholula has made a dog’s dinner out of a fine meal.” He turned to Alfonzo, speaking to him in a more reasonable tone. “My good captain, Lord Marcus understands the situation in St. Augustine, and the fine things Tomas has done for your fair town. Truly, we are not here to steal him away. All we wish to do is talk.”
Alfonzo looked at me for a long moment before turning back towards General Montejo. “If that’s all Lord Marcus wants then we shall talk.”
General Montejo smiled, making a sweeping gesture with his hand towards the open door of the church. “Then let us proceed inside. Captain Cholula, I do not want your men milling around. Send them back to your ship.”
Captain Cholula raised her eyebrows. “Do you think that wise?”
He glared back at her. “Five minutes alone out here and your men will be searching for willing women among the natives.”
“Only five? Very well; Too-Tall Henry, take the lads back. But keep a weather eye out, and stay ready after you’re aboard.”
“Aye, captain,” the tallest of the Africans said, and he got her soldiers marching, more or less, out the gate while General Montejo led Alfonzo and me into the church. Captain Cholula and Karl the Hammer followed at our heels, while Master Gomez and the two soldiers with silver wolves on their breastplates brought up the rear. The rest of the soldiers remained outside, one of them closing the door behind us with a hollow boom.
The inside of the church was surprisingly well lit from the four dragon-globes hanging down from the ceiling in woven baskets. At the rear of the church the wooden altar stood against the white wall, a mural of the crucifixion drawn in bloody detail upon it. Row after row of wooden benches stood on either side. To one side rested a wooden baptismal font, around which three men in fine Artifact coat-of-plate armor and long, black cloaks, stood talking.
Their voices went silent as we entered, and they watched us with dark eyes as Shadow-viper’s voice whispered in my ear. “Those three are called the Elders, Dragons next in line for Lord Marcus’s position as Knight-Abbott. None of them are favored above the others, though all know that Sebastian has all but secured the election for himself...when Lord Marcus is dead, of course.”
Alfonzo heard, for he muttered, “Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.”
Captain Cholula gave a low chuckle. “Indeed.”
We walked up the center aisle towards a man sitting in the second row, facing the altar, who turned his head to watch us approach. He was lean, his wrinkled face close to being skeletal, with a bald head marred by brown spots, and he stared at us with eyes shrunken into his skull like dark pits. But his voice was firm as he hailed us. “Ah, Captain Alfonzo; I feared you were not coming. And you must be young Tomas.” He slid over on the bench and patted the surface beside him. “Come sit with me.”
There was naught in the world I wanted to do less. But I did as he asked, sitting on the bench as far away from him as I could, as General Montejo bowed to him. “Sir, the heathen chief and his son have yet to arrive.”
The old man shrugged. “We clearly told their envoy sunset today. Very well: once we have concluded our business here, we shall adjourn to the ships.” Master Gomez made a strangled sound, and the old man looked at him. “You are troubled, master merchant?”
Master Gomez was sweating. “Ah, a little, milord.”
“They are the ones who broke faith this time, not you, and in front of witnesses. I would say the score is settled, at least where honor is concerned. Would you not agree?” Master Gomez bobbed his head and the old man looked at me. “So tell me, Tomas, who am I?”
I took a deep breath to settle my nerves. “I’d say you’re Lord Marcus, head of the order Draco Dominus. At least the chapter in the New World,” I amended quickly, adding, “I mean, who else could you be?”
He chuckled,” Who else, indeed? Now tell me, what do you know of our order?”
I chose my words with care. “Only what my foster-mother’s told me.”
“And I can well imagine just what she has said, considering the Draco Dominus, under a different Knight-Abbot of course, helped in the destruction of Fort Caroline. She has told you we were once part of the Templar knights, has she not?” I gave him a tentative nod and he continued. “We alone of the Templars survived the great purge, and only because we could call upon our dragon-spirits in our defense. So his Holiness spared our order and made it independent. But there was a price. Since the Templars had built themselves great fortresses and had amassed an enormous amount of wealth, corrupting themselves in the endeavor, we were ordered to never follow in their footsteps. Thus, we are only allowed temporary places of shelter. For example, two years ago his Holiness, Pope Paul, ordered all the Draco Dominus to abandon their fortresses, so I had our chapter destroy the fortress we held on Hispaniola and re-establish ourselves on the island of Jamaica. We did this without a word of complaint, for we are an order of wandering knight-monks, obedient to his Holiness at all times.” He gave me a shrewd look. “Now tell me, since we are a wandering order, what refuge do we have that no one can take away from us?” I shook my head and he said, “Take a moment to look at Captain Cholula and think.”
I turned my head to look at the captain, imagining her on the deck of her...”Ships,” I blurted out in sudden realization. “If your order always has to wander then they’re perfect, because a ship’s always travelling.” I looked back at Lord Marcus. “You wander the seas in your own floating fortresses, and no one can take them away, because you’re following the letter of the law.”
Lord Marcus gave me a pleased look. “Cholula said you had a full set of wits about you, and once again she speaks the truth. You have the right of it: our order does wander the waves, hunting pirates and those out of favor with his Holiness, heretics and the like.” His face became severe. “But our true mission is seeking out and destroying Shadowmen and those Dragons who have given themselves over
to evil, the dragon-spirits known to their kind as the Dark Sisters.”
“Lord Tiberius told me about them when he renewed my license,” I said, beginning to forget my fear. “He said they have the ability to turn men into golems. Is that true?”
“They are not truly golems,” Lord Marcus replied, “although the Draco Magistris calls them such, and while Tiberius believes they are created through the Dark Sisters, no one truly knows how they come into being. In essence: Shadowmen are humans neither alive nor dead. They cannot die of natural causes, but neither can they heal from their wounds, and they can only eat the flesh of men and women, choking on any other food they try to eat. Also wine, or any other kind of alcoholic spirit, will poison them.”
“Our blood’s like wine to them,” Captain Cholula said. “Shadowmen retain their wits and their earthly lusts, but they cannot be killed with ordinary steel unless hacked apart.”
“Artifact weapons kill them,” Karl the Hammer said. His voice was rough, as if a stone were given speech. “They’re stronger than a normal man but slow, especially when the sun’s out. And their Dragon’s die like normal men, since a dragon-ghost can’t get strength out of a Shadowman.”
I gaped at him. “You’ve fought them, man to man?”
He nodded. “Captain Thorne, master of the ship ‘The Black Narwhale’, is reaving the seas around the Bahamas short a few crewmembers these days.”
Captain Cholula’s face grew serious. “The next time we find them they’re going to join the ones we’ve already sent to hell.”
Lord Marcus raised his hand in a calming gesture and Cholula subsided. “My dear Captain Cholula,” Lord Marcus’s face turning back towards mine, “was searching for them when I called her back to perform another duty for the order, one she is especially good at...as an Inquisitor.” The knot of fear returned three-fold, and must’ve shown on my face, for Lord Marcus laid a hand upon my shoulder. “Cholula is not an Inquisitor in the old sense, someone looking to purify the heretic’s soul by fire. Rather, she is as Inquisitor’s were meant to be: someone who investigates.”
