[Knights of Bretonnia 02.1] - Rest Eternal

by Anthony Reynolds - (ebook by Undead)

  Show ourselves, he says! laughed one, rough and masculine.

  If that is what you desire, said another, giggling.

  You’ll be with us soon, said a woman’s voice, filled with sadness.

  A deafening sound crashed in on Calard, filled with unholy screams of agony and madness. In that fraction of a second he saw figures all around him: loathsome, terrifying men and women, their flesh flayed and their muscles exposed to the elements. They stood around him in a numberless horde, eyeballs rolling loosely in their sockets, and bloodied hands clutched at him.

  As quickly as it came, the vision was gone, taking with it the hellish taunting.

  Calard cried out, his body shaking uncontrollably, the knife clasped in his sweaty hand quivering.

  “Lady of mercy, give me strength,” he breathed.

  I’m going to kill you, said a child’s voice in his ear.

  Calard turned around on the spot and saw the bones.

  He didn’t know how he had not seen them straight away. He was certain they had not been there before.

  Beside the blood-pool was the immense skeleton of a wyvern. Calard made his way around the pool towards it, moving warily. There was not a scrap of flesh or skin left on it. The bones were as dry as tinder. It was as if it had been dead for centuries.

  We are all dead, came a whispered voice behind him, and Calard’s hackles rose.

  Calard’s sword was protruding from one of the empty eye sockets of the wyvern’s skull, and he moved towards it, stepping cautiously. He sheathed his knife at his waist before gingerly lifting his sword clear. It was exactly the same as it had been when he had last held it, and the weight of it was reassuring in his hands.

  He turned around on the spot once more before coming to his decision.

  He strapped his sword across his back alongside the roll of oiled leather that contained the wood and tinder that Chlod had prepared for him, and, suppressing the disgust that he felt, he began wading back into the blood-pool.

  Taking a deep breath, readying himself for the difficult swim back, he dipped his head below the surface of the congealing gore. Diving down, kicking hard, he struck rock. In confusion, he felt around with his hands, thinking that perhaps he had risen up through a hole or a tunnel. Feeling around blindly, he could find no such entrance.

  He rose to the surface of the pool, sucked in a searing breath and dived again. Over and over he dived, searching frantically for the way back. After half an hour he gave up, despairing. Pulling himself out of the quagmire of vital fluids, he cried his horror and anguish to the heavens. Laughter all around mocked him.

  Calard sank to his knees in the red sand and prayed.

  Chlod sat staring at the icy pool of water, biting his lip. It had been two days now since his master had disappeared beneath its surface. He must be dead, he thought.

  He didn’t feel any particular grief at the thought, though it certainly made him reassess his options. During his time in Calard’s service, he had never wanted for food. Now he was alone again, he would be forced to fend for himself. Still, he had a mule, and enough supplies to last him a good week or two. He could always sell the mule if need be. Or eat it.

  Chlod grinned. Things were working out rather well.

  “Well, that’s that then,” he said to the ageing rat perched upon his knee, who twitched its nose in response. “I reckon we’ve given him enough time. He ain’t comin’ back, so it seems, so we’d best be off.”

  Chlod had wanted to make sure that Calard would not return before he abandoned him. In the past five years, he had learnt enough of his master to know that he would not look kindly upon him had he returned to find his manservant departed with all the food. He would not have put it past him to track him down, no matter how long it took, just to see him hang.

  Two days he’d waited. Chlod felt confident that Calard was not coming back.

  With that decided, he stood up, shoving his pet back into the deep pocket on the front of his tunic.

  Leading his mule, Chlod moved towards the cave entrance. He wouldn’t return to Bretonnia, he decided. He would travel back into the Empire, back to one of the enormous cities that he had visited with his former master—Altdorf perhaps.

  He was feeling quite cheery as he strode out into the snow. The storm had died down the day before, and the air was crisp and clear. He breathed in deeply, savouring the near absolute silence.

  The slight breeze changed direction, and his mule suddenly reared, nostrils flaring and ears flattening against its head.

  “Whoa!” shouted Chlod, trying to calm the beast. Then his blood ran cold as he heard a low growl from nearby.

  Chlod turned slowly to see a massive, shaggy-coated animal padding towards him. It was the size of a draught horse, and its fur was pale and thick. A mane the colour of virgin snow encircled its heavily-muscled neck, and a pair of curving teeth, each the length of a short sword, emerged from its snarling mouth.

  A growl to his left announced the presence of a second cat, and he saw a third moving up to his right. He could see dark stripes upon the flanks of the snow-coloured predators, and their massive paws left deep indentations in the snow as they moved towards him.

  Chlod turned tail and ran.

  He heard his mule’s tortured scream as the cats bore it to the ground behind him. That scream was cut short, and Chlod dared not turn to see if they were now leaping for him. Expecting sabre teeth to close around his neck at any moment, Chlod fled back into the cave, the sound of crunching bones echoing around him.

  Ducking down behind a rock some way in, he turned, breathing hard, to see if the mountain cats were following him. One of the beasts came loping in after him. Its predatory gaze was fixed on his hiding place.

  Chlod fled further into the cave, falling back as far as he was able. On the cat came, unhurried and following him inexorably. As it closed, it was joined by its pack, which instinctively fanned out to cut off any chance of escape. Chlod backed into the black pool of water.

  “Cats don’t like water,” he murmured, hoping against hope that he was correct. Perhaps if he waded in deep enough they would leave him be. That faint hope was shattered as the biggest of the sabre-tusks came straight in after him, a deep growl rumbling within its chest.

  Seeing no other option, Chlod sucked in a deep breath and turned his back on the sabre-tusks. He heard them roar, and then splash towards him, and with that he dived into the black water.

  Calard’s eyes flicked open, the prayer dying on his lips as a shape rose from the blood-pool. In an instant he was on his feet, swinging his bastard sword up in readiness of attack.

  At first he thought he was having another horrific vision, seeing again one of the daemonic things that whispered in his ear. It was covered from head to toe in blood, and its thick, malformed body struggled as it tried to pull itself clear of the foul, clinging gore. It looked straight at him, eyes wide and full of terror, and Calard lowered his guard a little.

  “Peasant?” he said. “Is that you?”

  “Master!” cried Chlod, dragging himself out of the blood-pool to fall at his feet. “Praise Ranald, I thought you were dead!”

  We are all dead, whispered a voice in Calard’s ear, but if Chlod heard it too, he didn’t make any reaction.

  “Not yet,” said Calard, answering both.

  “You’ve been gone so long, I was worried, and then there were these sabre-cats and they…” His words trailed off as he seemed finally to register his surroundings, and his eyes went wide. The hunchbacked peasant looked around him in dawning horror, and a pitiful moan escaped his lips.

  “Gone so long?” said Calard. “I’ve only been here for… what, an hour perhaps?”

  “An hour?” said Chlod, looking up at him. The peasant shook his head. “You’ve been gone for two days, master.”

  You are dead, said a voice. You just don’t know it.

  “Did you hear that?” said Calard. Chlod was starting to shake, and tears were running
down his cheeks. Calard could see that the peasant’s sanity was close to breaking.

  “Peasant!” he snapped, and Chlod jerked, looking up at him with haunted eyes. “Did you hear that voice?”

  “Voice?” said Chlod.

  “Never mind,” said Calard.

  “What’s in there?” said Chlod pointing.

  “What?” said Calard. “There’s nothing there…”

  His voice trailed off as he followed Chlod’s gesture and saw that there was something nearby, something that had not been there before. Or at least, something he had not seen.

  It was a pile of large red boulders, about a hundred yards away, and it looked akin to an old burial cairn. A way in to the cairn was formed by two tall boulders that leant against each other, forming a crude portal. The inside was dark.

  Calard wondered how he had not seen it before.

  Your eyes are closed, said a voice in his ear. You blind yourself with lies, denying yourself, deluding yourself.

  “Oh, and Chlod doesn’t?” said Calard aloud.

  “Master?” said Chlod, eyes darting around to see whom Calard spoke with.

  He is a simple creature. He knows what he is. His eyes are open. He does not try to be something he is not.

  “And I do?” said Calard.

  You are dead! said the voice vehemently, the words spoken with hatred.

  Chlod was looking at Calard strangely. Ignoring him, Calard moved towards the cairn.

  Did he lie to himself? Calard wondered as he made his progress across the searing red sand. He knew the answer, of course. He always had. For years he had tried to be something that he wasn’t. For years he had tried to live up to hopeless expectations: his father’s, his own.

  He heard laughter then, filled with self-satisfaction, and Calard pushed the sound and his doubts away as he reached the cairn. This place was insidious, preying upon his mind. He must not let himself succumb to the voices.

  With his sword drawn, he stepped inside the cairn.

  A man was kneeling in front of a crude shrine, his back to Calard. He was dressed in plate armour, though it was battered and old, covered in a layer of red dust. His hair was long and lined with silver, and he wore a tattered cloak over one shoulder.

  Calard held his sword tightly in his hands, standing over the vulnerable figure. He could cut him down so easily.

  Do it, urged a voice, making him start.

  The man looked normal enough, but Calard knew that nothing in this hellish realm could be trusted. He shuddered as he thought of the other visions he had already seen, the teeming hordes of skinless, hateful daemons that he still felt crowding in around him, just beyond the veil of reality. Was this figure one of them, merely in a guise that might make him lower his guard? If it turned around would its face be missing, nothing but red-raw exposed muscle and veins?

  Calard clenched his teeth, his muscles tensing as the urge to cut the man down took a hold of him. This is no man, he thought. This is a daemon. His heart beat furiously in his chest, and he could hear the pumping of blood in his head, deafening him and blotting out rational thought.

  Calard tightened his grip on the hilt of his sword as a savage madness took him, and he stepped forward to strike the man down, his face twisting into a snarl.

  As he lifted his sword up for the killing blow, he was momentarily distracted by something glinting in the shadows. His gaze was drawn to a small icon standing upright upon the crude shrine before which the man knelt, and as his gaze focused on that pendant, the blood-fury that had claimed him receded.

  With a shake of his head, Calard cleared the last vestiges of the savage rage that had almost overcome him. He lowered his sword, hearing disappointed murmurs and bitter whispering all around him, wondering if this was merely some new vision.

  The icon was a small brass statuette attached to a necklace. It was perched upright, leaning upon a rock, and depicted a female figure, a large goblet held in her hands over her head.

  “The Lady of the Lake,” he breathed, in awe.

  Dead, said a voice in his ear.

  The kneeling figure lurched to his feet at Calard’s voice, swinging a sword around in a gleaming arc. Calard’s own blade flashed, and the two swords came together with a sharp clash, and the two knights were locked together for a moment, staring into each other’s eyes.

  The knight’s face was not that of some hateful daemon; it was the face of a man, though it had the hollow, haunted look of one that had seen more than his sanity was capable of enduring.

  “The goddess be praised,” said the strange knight, his voice cracked and dry. He collapsed to his knees, and tears of relief ran down his ashen cheeks. “She has answered my prayers at last.”

  Calard stood there, helpless and in shock, looking at a man who was undoubtedly a fellow knight of Bretonnia.

  “There is only the one beast, reborn time and time again,” said the knight, his voice lifeless and hollow. His name was Orderic of Montforte and, like Calard, he was a questing knight, seeking the Lady’s blessing. His armour was of an antiquated style unfamiliar to Calard.

  He sat with the knight upon a pair of rocks outside the crude cairn-like structure. Chlod knelt in the sand at Calard’s knee, shuddering and whimpering, glancing around him fearfully.

  “I… I cannot recall how many times it has risen,” Orderic said. “A dozen times? A hundred? I don’t remember. It’s all a fog…”

  The haunted knight’s voice trailed off and his eyes clouded over, lost in his vague memories. The knight seemed confused when Calard asked him how he had gotten here.

  “How long have you been here?” said Calard, breaking the silence that had fallen between them as the knight tried to remember. Orderic jerked and looked at him in surprise, as if he had forgotten that he was not alone.

  “I… I don’t know. A while. There is no night here, so it is hard to judge. A week? A year? I don’t know… The Lady led me. Just as she led you.”

  “So it would seem,” said Calard, looking around him warily. “But I cannot see why she would bring me here.”

  “I know why you came,” said the knight vehemently. “She brought you here that you might relieve me of my vigil. It is your time now to stand guard over the beast, and to slay it when it next rises.”

  “What?” said Calard. “No. That is not why I have been brought here. That can’t be the reason.”

  “You have to take up my vigil,” said the knight. “I’ve been here too long. I… I am losing myself in this place.”

  “But I am embarked on the quest,” said Calard.

  “As am I,” said Orderic. “Though I was close to accepting defeat. I have been delayed here too long. Many nights have I prayed for someone to come to relieve me. Those prayers have now been answered.”

  Calard bit his lip and looked down. The Lady had led him here. Was this her will? Was this then to be his fate, to take up the knight’s vigil, slowly losing himself to madness until another knight arrived to replace him? Was he to become a pale, haunted shell of a man like Orderic?

  “Why did you take up the quest?” asked Orderic suddenly.

  “What?” said Calard, frowning, as if the question was ludicrous. “What do you mean?”

  “Why did you take up the quest? I took it up for glory,” said Orderic, laughing hollowly. “And this is where it led me. I realise now that I took up the quest for the wrong reason. The search for glory is not noble. That is why the Lady brought me here. This vigil has been my penance. What did you do to be brought here to this hell?”

  “I… I took up the quest to prove that my blood was free of taint,” said Calard, surprised that he had never realised it in such simple terms before. “To prove it to myself, and to my knights. And to prove myself to my father. To make him proud.”

  He realised how stupid that was as soon as he said it, for his father was dead and could never give him the acceptance he so craved.

  “You are questing for the wrong reason,” said Order
ic. “You will never reach your goal until your realise that reason.”

  “What is it?” said Calard, but Orderic merely shrugged, smiling without warmth.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “But I have learnt that the quest is more than a feat of arms. It takes more than just killing a monster to be granted the Lady’s visitation. It is a quest of faith—of faith in the Lady, faith in your belief, faith in yourself.”

  “Faith in yourself,” echoed Calard, brow creasing as he pondered the knight’s words.

  “You have to take up my vigil,” said Orderic, pleading, desperate. “Please take up my vigil. I… I cannot go on anymore.”

  The knight’s gaze dropped, and he merely stared blankly into nothingness. Calard did not know what to say.

  “I have denied death for so long waiting for you to come,” breathed the knight. “My quest is unfinished. I cannot die before it is completed. I cannot. Let me finish it.”

  Roiling blood-red clouds rolled across the fiery heavens with unnatural speed, and Calard eyed them nervously as ruby lightning lit them from within. Chlod was rocking back and forth on his haunches, speaking softly to himself, and Orderic continued to merely stare into space. Things flickered at the edge of Calard’s vision, as if in agitation at the brewing storm, and the first drops of rain began to patter down onto the red desert sand.

  The light shower grew heavier and Calard blinked as it began to run down his face, and only then did he realise that this was no normal rain.

  “Blood,” said Calard in horror as warm rivulets ran down his armour and face.

  “It begins again…” said Orderic, suddenly coming out of his stupor. He drew his sword as he rose wearily to his feet.

  “What is it?” said Calard, standing and drawing his own blade.

  “The beast is reborn,” said Orderic, moving in the direction of the blood-pool and the wyvern’s skeleton. His shoulders were slumped in defeat and exhaustion.

  Chlod was still rocking to and fro on the ground, and Calard gave him a quick glance before hurrying after Orderic. As he got closer to the blood-pool, he could see that it was bubbling furiously. His eyes widened and he gripped the hilt of his sword tightly as he looked upon the skeleton of the wyvern.