Death Knight

by Vaughn Heppner

  Gavin collapsed against the mossy bole. He ached all over and his stomach growled for something more than a few berries. If she died… She can’t die. He had lost Vivian, Joanna and the mule boy. The muscles of his jaws bulged. Why couldn’t he just let it be? It had happened. It was over. He couldn’t change that terrible night. He was saving the girl. That had to be good enough. Swan simply didn’t understand the madness of building an army to stop darkspawn. The crusaders in Muscovy had paid with their humanity, their very souls trying to beat back the legions of Darkness. They had been powerful lords with mailed knights and crossbow-armed retainers. They had been. Most were dead now, turned into foul monsters and slain by the Sword Brothers who kept watch in their stone fortresses. Who could this girl recruit but deluded farmers and a few hedge knights? She would never convince this king. He wasn’t even a king, but the ruler of a town and some outlying territory. No. He must escape this doomed island, and—

  A premonition touched Gavin as goosebumps pimpled his flesh. The feeling of evil…it tightened his belly. He crawled to Swan, flinging the marten cape to Hugo. Then he clamped a hand over her mouth and dragged Swan into the water behind a huge root. Hugo joined them, the sharpened dinner knife in his fist. Gavin scanned the dark reeds and the trees. There! A splash, a grunt, a groan.

  Hugo sucked in his breath as Swan squirmed under Gavin’s grip.

  The splashing noises grew, but it was hard to see in the moon’s gleam what went on under those cypress trees yonder. Then dark figures entered a glade of moonlit slime. Three beasts wrestled with a bound man, a big man, corpulent and strong. The fat man’s eyes bulged over his gag and his balding head shone with wetness. Gavin’s stomach clenched. Those weren’t wolves. They were shaggy like wolves and had snouts and white fangs. Yet they were manlike, humanoid, walking upright. They had hands, of sorts, with claws like a wolf, but their bodies were twisted and misshapen. Clawmen.

  “They’re taking him to the castle,” whispered Hugo.

  The fat man wrenched free an arm. He swung, buffeting a clawman, staggering the beast.

  An impulse to help the man surged through Gavin. He suppressed it, not knowing how many other darkspawn were in hailing distance. He had sworn to save the girl. He mustn’t risk her for a show of bravado.

  The struck clawman snarled, crouching in the reeds like a beast. With a roar he sprang, landing on the fat man’s chest, bearing him down, biting his throat. The other two clawmen who held onto the man splashed into the fetid water, bowled over. Thus three fallen clawmen rose. Their fur dripped and each snarled. The attacker’s fangs were dark with blood. The fat man, a trader in pitch by his rough garments, stayed down. One of the clawman, he with a golden medallion on his chest, lifted the trader’s torso. Blood pumped from the ripped throat.

  The medallion-wearer opened fanged jaws and spoke in a tortured manner, half wolf-whine and half human-tongue. “The Master said alive, alive.”

  The killer snarled.

  The medallion-wearer leapt upon the killer. They tumbled, growling savagely, snapping teeth and using claws. In seconds, the killer went limp as he exposed his throat, whining. The medallion-wearer clamped his jaws around that throat, but didn’t bite down. Instead, he thumped the killer once on the chest and then rose. A moment later the killer stood, but with head and shoulders slumped.

  “Drag man back,” snarled the medallion-leader, the pack master apparently.

  “Drag dead?” asked the third clawman.

  “Let Master stir his corpse so he marches in the Horde of the Damned,” said the leader.

  Gavin’s heart went cold. Were they stirring the dead? Had it already gone that far?

  “Man too fat to drag. Swamp will rot his corpse.”

  “Leave him,” said the killer. “Let us hunt fresh meat.”

  The leader plucked at his medallion, growling softly, thinking perhaps. “Swamp almost empty,” he snarled. “Few humans left.”

  The killer lifted his snout. “Man smell.”

  The other two lifted their snouts, sniffing.

  “Yes, man-smell,” said the third clawman.

  “And nearby,” said the leader. He bared his fangs. Perhaps it was a smile. “We hunt.” He took a step toward the cypress-tree.

  The killer put a claw on the leader’s arm. “Hungry.”

  “We hunt,” snarled the leader.

  “Hungry,” whined the killer.

  The leader turned toward Gavin’s hiding spot.

  “Very hungry,” whined the killer, still restraining the leader.

  “Yes,” said the third clawman. “We’ve hunted long without meat.”

  The leader glared at the other two, but finally nodded. Together they howled over the dead pitch trader. Then they leapt upon the corpse, tearing into it.

  Hugo put his lips near Gavin’s ear. “That’s our spoor they smell.”

  Swan, who had watched the last half, now looked upon Gavin with feverish intelligence. “Take them after they’ve gorged themselves, when they’re sluggish.”

  Gavin watched their grisly feast, loathing the altered creatures. You couldn’t fight such beasts by the accepted rules, the way a knight jousted. Gallant chivalry, storybook boldness—this was a nasty game, with victory going to the most cunning. He had a girl to save and no time to indulge in heroics.

  Thus, he led Swan and Hugo over the roots and back into the swamp, away from the meat-gorging clawmen. Only after the hideous gobbling sounds died away did he hoist Swan onto his back.

  “I wish I had my crossbow,” muttered Hugo.

  They waded knee-deep through slime. Above, the moon shone cold and bright, the palace of the Moon Lady, Queen of Darkness. Gavin paused often, dreading as he listened, dreading to hear padding feet or the snap of teeth. They sloshed through reeds until the silvery disc sank into the swamp. Hugo whittled a branch he had picked up, shaving a point. Gavin staggered now, willing himself to move several more steps, another couple.

  “Let me carry her,” whispered Hugo. “You need a rest.”

  Gavin halted, pearls of sweat sliding down his cheek. Hugo looked awful, had taken to using the makeshift spear as a cane. Yet by the bitter rules learned in the cold pine forests of the north, Hugo was right. Gavin lowered Swan and helped the old squire hoist her onto his back. Gavin then took the spear as they resumed the grueling march.

  ***

  The fever stole Swan’s wits. She shivered uncontrollably, wet and tired, heated only by the body carrying her.

  Icy motes twinkled above in the black sky. It seemed all she had to do to gain a fortune was to pluck the stars like cherries. Then the stars spun. She wanted to vomit. The spinning stars merged into a swirl of light and it felt as if she or her consciousness sped upward into the void. Oh, she didn’t want to go. This time the visions were going to be bad. She knew that, and she didn’t know how she knew. She struggled against leaving her body, but the pull was strong. She finally went with it, speeding from her shivering body and toward Castle Forador.

  No! Don’t go there.

  Despite her resistance, her spirit entered the castle, and then evil struck, pitch-darkness. She wanted to scream. She was blind, and it felt as if she was sinking, and for a moment, heat prickled her. The moment passed and the heat turned into the chill of a tomb as a hideous green color began to pulse. A face looked out of that green. It had twin motes for eyes. The eyes searched…for her, she realized with horror.

  “Who are you?” spoke a grave voice, remote, as if twisting words unsuited to its lips.

  Swan kept silent, crouching in the darkness.

  “You…escaped me,” came the dreary words.

  Swan licked her lips. She wanted to flee, but she wanted to know what the baron had dug up out of the crypt?

  “Yes…draw near to me,” spoke the cold words. “Embrace your fate.”

  In the darkness, Swan crept nearer, growing accustomed to the green pulse, seeing into it. A thin man sat upon a golden throne. Was that the ima
ge of his soul? He had the paleness of death and dark circles ringed his eyes. He wore a purple robe and in his bony fist, he held onto a scepter. His head, he wore an obsidian crown. It was of a great serpent biting its tail. The terrible eyes focused upon her, and she felt a dreadful weight. He smiled, with vampire fangs. She scrambled back, searching for greater darkness in which to hide.

  “Return to me,” he called.

  Swan fled.

  “Return,” he droned, “Zon Mezzamalech commands you.”

  ***

  Weary and afraid, the spirit of Swan flew back to a dismal swamp. A man plucked hanging moss from a tree. He dried the strands in the pale sun and then fed the mess into a fire. Swan closed her eyes, and by degrees, she woke later. Chills racked her as an old man with an eye-patch snored by the fire. Nearby, leaning against a tree, was a big knight, with a bared silver sword across his knees.

  The knight noticed her staring. “The beasts don’t like the sun. They burrow and hide during daylight.”

  What beasts was he talking about, and who was he?

  Swan closed her eyes. The swamp faded. Her spirit or senses raced once more through an awful void. Gore burned in her throat. Oh. Oh, yes. Zon Mezzamalech…at least she knew his name. Now she needed to know more. The visions returned. They were horrible, too much. She fled them, and somewhere in a swamp, she began to scream.

  ***

  Gavin awoke with a start. The sun hung low over the horizon, creating a blood-red sea of slime and waving grasses. They camped on a grassy mound, low mountains in the distance—their destination. Swan had said before that it was home to the Cragsmen, the original owners of Erin, pushed back by successive waves of sea-borne invaders.

  Gavin sheathed his sword. At Swan’s scream and his start, he had reflexively drawn it. He was supposed to have been on guard duty yet had fallen asleep. He rubbed his eyes, his body dull with fatigue.

  On her bed of crushed grasses, Swan shivered, with his marten cape pulled up to her chin. She was wan, sweaty, her mouth silently working, perhaps to scream again.

  “Swan,” he said, gently shaking her.

  Her eyes flew open. They were glassy, peering through him as if he wasn’t there. Horror twisted her white features. She whispered about someone called Zon Mezzamalech. Then her ramblings made no sense. It was as if she spoke another language. He patted her arm, and was relieved when she shut her eyes and her breathing become more even. He put his hand on her forehead. Hot! They had to find her fresh water to drink.

  He pulled a spear out of the smoldering ashes, checking the whittled point that Hugo fire-hardened. With a grimace, he thrust the point back into the pit Hugo had dug earlier with his dagger. Iron-tipped spears and crossbow bolts deep in the vitals of those beasts, only such would stop them, not pricks with these wooden-tipped playthings. Gavin squatted on his heels, studying the swamp and the cypress trees in the distance. A hard march tonight should take them out of this reedy plain, this bog that belched strange gases.

  A sound of sucking slop heralded Hugo’s return. The old squire climbed onto the mound with two dangling vipers minus their heads. They leaked blood, leaving a trail like oil. With a grunt, Hugo squatted beside the fire. Dark circles marked his eyes and the leathery ridges in his face had deepened. He checked the spear, adding a second one. Then he fed more mossy strands into the fire before he set to work slicing the long bellies and peeling away mottled skin. Shards of pale snake-meat he poked onto sticks and set over the fire.

  “The clawmen will smell that for miles,” Gavin said.

  Hugo gave him the barest of nods. Then he took the viper heads out of his pouch. Carefully, he pried them open, milking the poison from their hollow fangs and smearing that onto the fire-hardened points.

  Gavin grunted in appreciation and peered into the swamp. The clawmen were coming. They both knew that, but better to fight with hot food in your belly than on a shriveled stomach, and better perhaps to lead them here while they fled elsewhere. They ate stringy viper-meat in silence. It was divine, delicious and seemed to pour life into Gavin’s limbs. Afterward, Hugo bathed the girl’s face with a wet rag. She awoke, her eyes burning with fever but this time with coherence. She clutched Hugo’s arm.

  “Mhu Thulan lies under the ice,” she whispered.

  Hugo touched the wet rag to her cheeks with a tenderness that amazed Gavin.

  “Zon Mezzamalech has raised the Damned,” she raved.

  Hugo turned an agonizing eye to Gavin.

  Gavin hunched beside her. “Swan, it will be night soon. That means the clawmen are coming. You must stay quiet. You must cling to my back. Do you understand?”

  She stared at him, stared, then nodded.

  “Help her up,” Gavin said.

  With the feverish girl on his back, he strode into the swamp. Hugo gathered his poison-tipped spears and followed.

  CHAPTER TEN

  They waded through mud, slogging for higher ground. The stars and crescent moon shone dully as wisps of clouds rode high in the night sky. Gavin’s legs quivered. His mouth was parched. Darkspawn had driven him before, but in the bitter cold and with howling winds. These beasts weren’t going to get Swan. He would die before he gave her up. He had lost…he could name many people, too many of them friends. The lords of Darkness weren’t getting this one, no, not Swan. She was different. She had survived months in a dungeon where others had been transmuted into creatures of Darkness. Why hadn’t they changed her? There had to be a reason.

  Hugo hissed in alarm.

  With Swan on his back, Gavin swiveled around. Three blots darker than the night loped after them.

  Hugo thrust the butt-ends of his spears into the mud, saving the last for himself.

  “Swan,” Gavin said. “Wake up.”

  She lifted her chin off his neck.

  “I must set you in the mud,” he said.

  “Take the medallion from the leader,” she whispered, “as evidence.”

  “They’re coming fast,” Hugo said.

  Gavin drew his sword, his long silver blade. Yes, one of the shaggy beasts wore a medallion of gold. It flopped on his hairy chest. The clawman’s eyes glowed and his fangs gleamed in the moonlight.

  “Come no nearer!” shouted Gavin, lifting his sword.

  They slowed, clumping together, until the trio halted twenty feet away.

  “Give us girl,” said the beast wearing the medallion.

  “Yes,” said another. “Give us girl and you go free.”

  “Is that your wolfish cunning?” laughed Gavin. By the Lord of Light, he hated them, foul creatures. “Be gone! The girl is mine.”

  “Foolish man, you will die.”

  “And I’ll part your head from your torso,” Gavin said.

  “Boastful words,” growled the clawman. “Know, O man, I will drag your corpse to Master. You shall dance forever in the Horde of the Damned.”

  Gavin dreaded the curse, his hand tightening around his hilt.

  Breathing hard, Swan lurched beside Hugo, plucking a spear out of the mud. “Did you finally sate your greed, Kerold?” she asked the lead beast. “Was it worth your humanity?”

  The clawman’s wolfish ears lay flat as he lifted his head and howled. Gavin shifted his sword to his left hand, plucked up a spear and heaved. The makeshift weapon gouged the medallion-wearing beast. He snarled, leaping in amazingly greater bounds at Gavin. The silver sword blurred, chunking into the hairy neck. With a twist of his shoulder, Gavin deflected the dead body as it smashed against him. He gutted the next darkspawn, driving the beast into the mud as the creature snapped its teeth. The third bounded past as Gavin yanked free his sword. The creature leapt for Swan. She shouted, thrusting. He brushed aside her spear and crashed upon her, snapping and snarling as Hugo jumped on its back.

  The mud sucked at Gavin’s boots as he strained to reach Swan. Then a furry hand clutched his ankle. The beast that had been Kerold, with blood gushing from his neck, grinned up at him.

  “You neve
r win. Master will—”

  The silver blade ended the speech. Then Gavin jumped near Swan, grabbed a back full of fur and yanked the thrashing clawman off her. A final stab ended it.

  “Swan!” shouted Hugo as he scrambled out of the mud.

  Gavin hacked off each bestial head. Who knew what recuperative powers these creatures had or if some magic spell might yet give them life.

  “He bit her!” shouted Hugo.

  Gavin swore as defeat welled in his gut. He had survived again, while those around him died. Couldn’t he keep anyone alive? Must they always die? He wiped his sword on a furry hide, and as an afterthought, he took the golden medallion from the leader, pocketing it. It was the girl’s dying wish that in crusading he try to stop this wickedness. Well, he wasn’t going to do that, but he’d show this king the medallion and tell him a tale.

  Hugo looked up from where he crouched over Swan. “We must find clean water and build her a fire.”

  Gavin shrugged.

  Hugo jumped up, his cadaverous face animated. “We can save her! But we must bathe her wounds in clean water.”

  Gavin didn’t like Hugo’s wild look. The squire had always kept his head before. Was he going to lose Hugo, too? Those who cared too much always died. Still, he hoisted Swan onto his back and resumed the grueling trek.

  ***

  It was the middle of the morning when they came to a clean stream in the foothills, a thin trickle of mountain water running over smooth stones. Gavin laid Swan down and felt her forehead. Hotter than ever, and she had a nasty cut along her cheek that had infected.

  Hugo clattered stones into a circle, piled up old moss and worked with flint and tinder to make a fire. Gavin took a spear, one free of viper poison, and went along the stream in search of game. He returned with two rabbits. Hugo skinned those while Gavin stretched out by the fire and slept as one dead.

  Later, before the sun sank into the hills, Gavin and Hugo sat by the moaning girl. She hadn’t been able to keep anything down and shivered dreadfully.

  “She said speed was our only chance,” muttered Hugo.