by Mark Beynon
THE DEVIL'S PLAGUE
The Kryfangan approached stealthily on horseback. They'd got the scent from the silver costume and had picked up the trail not far from the riverbank. Keeping close to the shadows, they had the longing for blood again - as if the flesh from the four thousand Scots hadn't abated their appetite. Their faces were concealed, sunk deep into their hooded cloaks, although one of the Kryfangan was revealed by the stark moonlight as its horse strayed momentarily off course. Two pip-like eyes lurked in the depths of the dark, vacant sockets. They glowed red. Puritan red. Jagged, thin teeth, like those of a rat, overlaid its withered lower lip.
It pulled on the reins harshly, almost snapping the horse's neck. The beast duly obeyed and cantered back onto the concealed path.
The Kryfangan hissed, foul breath misting in the pale moonlight.
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First published in 2007 by Abaddon BooksTM, Rebellion Intellectual Property Limited, Riverside House, Osney Mead, Oxford OX2 0ES UK.
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ISBN (.epub format): 978-1-84997-018-1
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This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.
THE DEVIL'S PLAGUE
Mark Beynon
PROLOGUE
The Gobi Desert - Mongolia
1204
The unrelenting sun baked the blood red sand of the battlefield, forming a burgundy coloured mirage that seemed to shimmer across the wasteland. Dismembered bodies were scattered across its boiling grains as far as the eye could see, no one was left standing or moving, although the occasional spasm would shoot through a corpse as a final act of existence - in this lifetime at least.
Genghis Khan had watched the proceedings from the comfort of his saddle on the built-up rocky precipice that was looming high above the battlefield. He had seen his army tear the Naimans limb from limb, finally defeating the last of the tribes who stood in the way of the unification of Mongolia. Although he was a hardened mercenary, Khan was seldom accustomed to such barbaric savagery, and as he ran a tired hand down his long greying beard, his thoughts turned to his old friend Jamuqa, the traitor, deserter and conspirator. Jamuqa had somehow managed to flee the battlefield and the swords of Khan's Subutai. Khan was loath to allow him to escape and join another clan of rogue Merkits, although he sought comfort in the fact that he couldn't possibly have got far in the blazing heat. And the Subutai would have been hard on his heels, their dark steeds somehow immune to the searing temperatures of the Mongolian desert.
He tugged on the reins of his sandy brown stallion, encouraging it into a trot along the dusty path and down onto the blistering Gobi sand.
The Gobi Desert seemed a most fitting place to have such a beleaguered battle. According to local legend it was created when a Mongolian chief, highly skilful in the art of black magic, was forced to flee his village with the Chinese army in close pursuit. As he left, he muttered 'black words' and the land dried up and died behind him, leaving nothing for the Chinese but a moribund and arid wasteland.
Khan's horse ambled its way back towards the camp on the outskirts of the steppe, its dark brown grassland scorched by the swollen sun. Well aware of the legend of the Gobi and with it in mind, Khan remembered his peculiar meeting in the busy marketplace with the man named Cipher, not one week prior to the battle. Market folk didn't take kindly to outsiders, and his appearance had certainly been different - his pale, ashen countenance, bereft of any hair, was not befitting the archetypal Mongolian. Yet amidst the clamour of market day, no one seemed to notice him, and Khan was left with the strangest feeling that he was the only person to observe him at all. Still, Cipher was fluent in Mongolian and had been true to his word, promising Khan a fearsome army to help him defeat the Naimans. Khan had decided to call them his Subutai, fearing their original name to be heretical.
Indeed, in Mongolian the word Kryfangan was roughly translated as 'dark warriors'. And Khan was still unsure of what he had to offer as payment for such an army.
He couldn't sleep. The heat was too much for Khan to bear, and he found himself tossing and turning in his rough-hewn bed on top of a straw mattress. On the few occasions he had found himself drifting off, he was suddenly struck by the image of Cipher's harrowing face sunk deep in his brown cloak; his ghostly white features and dark, rheumy eyes projecting a deranged, terrifying stare as they looked directly back at him. It jolted him into waking, almost as if his heart had skipped a beat. He attempted to reason with himself, angry that this strange man had forged some sort of demonic hold over him.
His large, expansive tent felt empty, and he soon found himself longing for some companionship to take his mind off the delirium. The slightest noise or rustle from the wilderness outside would make him jump; fearing the vast number of darkened pools that surrounded the tent had something untoward lurking within them. He soon came to the rational conclusion that it was nothing more than a rattlesnake or a jerboa creeping through the sand outside.
Khan sat upright and threw some water from the stone basin by his bedside over his face. He wasn't surprised to find that even the water was hot, and he quickly dried his face with a discarded robe. The slender moonlight shafted into the tent, and Khan could see the trail of blood that he had left on the robe. He ran his hand over his nose and was surprised to find droplets of blood falling from his nostrils. Another nosebleed, just like the one he had on the night he met Cipher. As he held the robe to his face and lay back down, he could hear another rustle of sand by his ear, his mattress having been pressed hard against the pigskin of the tent. The rustling soon turned into irregular footsteps. Khan sprang from his mattress, placed his fur robe over his muscular body and unsheathed his jagged sword. Ever so gently, he lifted the flap of the tent and eased his way into the warm night. A light rain was beginning to fall from the sky as he shuffled along the width of the pigskin. Strange, he thought to himself, it hasn't rained in months. The moon illuminated a set of uneven footprints in the sand and Khan knew full well that they didn't belong to him.
He clutched the ivory handle of his sword with both hands and inched his way round the corner of the tent, the vast desert opening up before him. There was a sudden, frantic panting and Khan peered into the shadows as a solitary figure slowly emerged.
Khan could scarcely believe his eyes. "Jamuqa?"
Jamuqa collapsed in a heap by Khan's feet; his eyes wide with fear. Beads of sweat ran down his bald head and settled in his beard. He tried to speak, but the words broke apart.
Khan appreciated just how terrified Jamuqa must be for him to seek refuge in his camp, yet at the same time he knew he should
kill the traitor. But he could see from his eyes that he was palpitating with fear, and he felt it best he heard Jamuqa's explanation before deciding his fate. He shook him roughly by the shoulder, hoping that it would propel some sense into him. Jamuqa pointed, trembling, into the gloom and passed out.
Khan peered into the darkness. He couldn't see or hear a thing, not even the sound of wildlife that would usually grace the Gobi night with their chorus of noises. Conscious that his generals and the Subutai were camped on the other side of the rocky steppe, he tapped his sword down onto the remnants of the campfire, the fading orange embers jumping into the air and lighting up the immediate vicinity. He had always requested his privacy, although tonight he wished that the others were close at hand.
In the meagre light of the campfire, Khan was able to discern what appeared to be the outline of a cluster of figures against the sands, not far from the camp. It wasn't until he heard the coarse moaning that resonated from their dead mouths that he felt the prickling of fear creep down his spine. As he looked closely, he was struck with an image that left him as frightened as the shaken man by his feet. He blinked and looked again. His eyes confirmed the very worst of his fears. As the figures became visible, not less than ten yards away, he could see that they were the Naimans, the same army who had been slain in front of him hours earlier. Their improper lurching struck the deepest of fears into the heart of the Khan, and for the first time in his life, he turned to run.
As he clambered up the steppe and passed over its wispy grassland, he knew in his heart that this fearsome horde was Cipher's doing. He looked back over his shoulder and could see the Naimans tearing clumps of flesh from Jamuqa before ransacking his tent. He was unaware that they had already scented him and hungered for his flesh as well.
He was left with the strangest sensation, almost as if a voice in the back of his mind was desperately trying to warn him of something.
Cipher has your soul, he could have sworn he heard it say.
CHAPTER ONE
The Battle of Worcester
3rd September, 1651
The battlefield was stained a dark reddish brown and the once green meadows were littered with corpses. Blood coursed through the Rivers Severn and Teme, whilst the aptly named Red Hill was just that.
Oliver Cromwell surveyed the carnage before him with a wry smile. It was whispered from the narrowest street in London to the vastest field in Edinburgh that Cromwell was the anti-Christ. Closer inspection of the battlefield would only add credence to such rumour mongering. None of those lying dead and decapitated wore red. The Puritans' colour. Cromwell's colour. Instead, almost four thousand Royalist Scots lay lifeless, eight hundred of which came from the Clan MacLeod.
One would have been forgiven for believing that Cromwell had single-handedly slain his enemy as none of his soldiers were in sight, just a handful of his Generals, who had the unenviable task of sifting through the dead in search of one man.
"Have you found him?" Cromwell yelled in the direction of Thomas Harrison, a runtish Major General, aiding those sorting through the nearby body parts.
"No sign of him yet, sir." Harrison hadn't the heart to tell him that those lying dead were so badly mutilated they were virtually indistinguishable from one another.
"Have your men help you."
"My men are sleeping, sir. I fear the scent and sight of blood would set them off again." Harrison spoke with a faint sign of trepidation in his voice.
"Quite right, Harrison," replied Cromwell, reassuringly.
Even though his pact with the Devil had cost him his friendship with his dear friend, Thomas Fairfax, Cromwell's leadership and authority were no longer in question. He was a far cry from the once obscure and inexperienced Cambridgeshire MP - he was now one of the main power brokers in Parliament. Cromwell had played a decisive role in the revolution during the winter of 1649, which saw the trial and execution of King Charles I and the abolition of the Monarchy and the House of Lords.
The rumours circulating in the taverns would hold Cromwell's decision to execute the King as proof of his diabolism. As a result, so they said, the Devil has covered Cromwell's face in hideous warts.
Those drunken sots would never know how right they were.
"I've found him!" Harrison could barely contain his excitement. He stood triumphantly over a bloodied heap, seemingly identical to thousands of other bloodied heaps. Cromwell flicked the reins of his horse, prompting it to a smart gallop. He marvelled at the thought of being the man responsible for the deaths of two Kings, father and son.
That will send those Royalist bastards back to Edinburgh without a Monarch!
As he dismounted, he examined the evidence - the Royal coat of arms engraved on the man's chest plate. This had to be Charles. The arms of England and France were placed in the first and fourth quarters, the arms of Scotland were placed in the second quarter and the arms of Ireland in the third. The same coat of arms that had belonged to his father, Cromwell noted.
"Well done, Harrison. Well done indeed. We have our man. Send word to the committee that Charles Stuart is dead and the war is over."
However, Cromwell had underestimated his adversary. Little did he know that prior to the battle Charles had switched his armour with a decoy. He had fought side by side with the common man, not leading from the front as a King would. And little did Cromwell know that hiding up in the branches of a nearby oak tree, with the Scottish soldier John Middleton, was none other than Charles Stuart, King of Scotland and rightful heir to the throne of England.
By the time the last of Cromwell's Generals had left the battlefield, a deep hole had been dug and the dead bodies hurled into the dark pit. A vulgar burial not befitting a pauper. The sun was setting in the red sky, mirroring the earth below. It would take months, maybe years for the stains of battle to be washed away.
In the deepest part of the grave, something moved. A twitch at first, the merest of spasms. The dead soldier with his four thousand comrades piled high around him. In him seemed to linger a vivid spark of vitality, some faint sign of consciousness. And then he blinked.
And so did his dead comrade next to him.
CHAPTER TWO
The Mug House, Bewdley
Cave Underhill shivered as the biting Autumnal wind gripped his young bones. He rubbed his hands together furiously in a vain attempt to generate some warmth as the brisk wind blew his thick tousled hair into his eyes. Although only twelve years of age, Underhill's demeanour suggested he was a good deal older.
He could hear the performance from within; several inaudible lines of dialogue followed by a groan of audience disapproval. They were performing Salmacida Spolia tonight, one of William Davenant's own poems, notoriously despised by audiences of rich and poor alike.
Underhill took comfort in the fact that one day he'd be an actor and some other poor bastard could freeze to death as sentry. Yet he knew his place and he owed his life to Davenant for sparing him the ignominy of returning to the Fleet Street poorhouse. As an orphan, Davenant was the closest thing to a father he'd ever had. He never knew his parents, although he later discovered that he had a sister. Underhill had come to the poorhouse a weak and helpless two year old and was forced to work as soon as he could walk.
He smiled contently; it might have been bitterly cold, but keeping watch outside the tavern was paradise in comparison to his previous job. As a Saltpetre Boy he had had to break into premises or dig up latrines to collect as much urine as possible for the manufacture of saltpetre, which in turn was used to make gunpowder. The Saltpetre Company's slogan - 'We're taking the piss' - caused much hilarity amongst the actors, but it was breaking into Davenant's house that had changed Underhill's life. Davenant had found him trying to escape through his loft, took pity on the poor wretch and offered him a job within his troupe of players. He had to endure frequent jibes and keeping guard wasn't much of a job, but he had found a family, and while Cromwell and his Puritan hordes insisted on banning theatre, someone had
to keep a look out.
It was ironic, he thought. Why would a man like Cromwell, a man rumoured to have a close affiliation with the Devil himself, want to close down the theatre, which had long been known as Satan's Chapel? He admired the fine architecture of the building overlooking him: a smart tavern which dominated the narrow street. The theatre might have been abolished, but these buildings left a proud legacy. Intricate carvings depicting bear baiting and cock fighting were embossed in the wooden spandrels. Cromwell had dispensed with those frivolities too, along with 'lewd and heathen' maypole dancing. And Christmas! From the perspective of a child, there was no greater sin. A real killjoy, he thought.
"The rich make full of avarice as pride."
William Davenant stood upon a crudely built stage within the tavern's dingy cellar. The willowy flames of a rough torch hung in an iron bracket revealed the grime and residue clinging to the two-hundred year old stone. The stench of rank ale and sweat was almost too much for Davenant to bear, yet he continued to perform with admirable vigour. His ruggedly handsome quality was well hidden underneath his vulgar, ill-fitted costume and ludicrously garish make-up.
"Like graves, or swallowing seas, unsatisfied." He gestured flamboyantly much to the ridicule of his audience, comprised solely of drunken revellers huddled together in a darkened corner.
"Call yourself an actor? You're bloody 'opeless," bellowed one of the revellers.
Davenant ignored the goading and carried on. "From poor men's fortunes, never from their own."
