Death Knight

by Vaughn Heppner

  Hugo’s old gnarled hands twisted fast. The lance spun round. The cloth binding the end unfurled. Hugo swung the lance upright, and the Banner of Tulun snapped in the breeze.

  Cuthred squealed.

  “You can be free,” whispered Swan.

  Cuthred mewled in shame. His knees buckled and face-first he fell upon the dirt. “Go away!” he shouted.

  “Look at the banner,” she said.

  He wanted too, but shook his head.

  “You must look,” she said.

  Defeat and despair filled him. “You don’t understand.”

  “I do understand.”

  “I’m darkspawn.”

  “And I stayed in the dungeons for weeks on end.”

  What dungeons did she mean? Then he recalled the evil clawmen who had beat and taunted him. “Kill!” he roared, raising his head. The banner, the bright awful banner, shone with power and checked his rage.

  Then the humans gasped.

  “He comes,” Swan said in awe.

  Who came? Cuthred wondered.

  “Call out to Hosar!” cried Swan.

  At that name, Cuthred cringed.

  “Call out!” she said.

  “Old Father—”

  “No! Call out to Hosar!”

  Cuthred squinted past his tears. A chill bit him. For an instant, he thought to see a being with skin like bronze that glowed in a furnace and with eyes like blazing fire. The being wore a bright robe and a silver sash, and with his right hand, he made a sign. Cuthred gasped, and something cold and clean washed through him. It shriveled the alien thing within him. And without squinting, he could look at the banner. A great freedom filled him. He felt…felt…

  “FREE!” Cuthred roared. “I’M FREE!”

  “He’s raving,” Hugo said, aiming his crossbow.

  “No,” said Swan, her face aglow. “He has been torn from Old Father Night. Darkspawn can be healed.”

  Hugo stared at her in wonder.

  “Drop your club!” said Swan.

  Cuthred dropped his club and bowed before her.

  “Thank Hosar,” she said.

  To the amazement of them all, Cuthred did just that.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  Morose, fearful and sunburned tuskriders urged their nearly dead boars down the steep incline. Leng toiled beside them on his stolen stallion. His guts knotted, twisted, and churned with agony. He had never ridden a horse so far or so fast, so in fear of his life.

  Behind them, perhaps just over the range they had ridden down, came the avenging Captain General of the Crusaders. Leng cursed the man to eternal doom! Although hunger made Leng dizzy and the thirst in his throat made each swallow a lesson in torture, he soon grinned with malicious evil. Behind his horse came a mule, the least weary member of their desperate crew. On the mule swayed a drugged Vivian. Her wrists were cruelly lashed to her saddle-horn. And every so often, she whispered, “Gavin… Oh, Gavin…”

  “He can’t save you,” said Leng, even though the speech seared this throat. His cracked and bleeding lips made his leer as nasty, as gross and as hateful as his heart.

  Gavin had stolen everything: all his dreams, his work, his careful, long-term scheming. By Old Father Night, he would hurt Gavin worse! This Leng swore. First, he had to get away. Leng cast a fearful glance over his shoulder. He had to get away fast.

  ***

  Sir Gavin, Sir Aelfric, Sir Josserand and forty-seven others persisted in giving chase. They hunched like dead men in their saddles. Their sleep-deprived eyes were more bloodshot and glazed than any darkspawn they had slain. Each rode with a naked, blood-crusted, notched blade. Each bore open wounds. All but Gavin yearned to stop and hurl himself to the ground and sleep for a week.

  “Captain General,” whispered Aelfric.

  Gavin shook his head. His eyes ever scanned the horizon as he touched bloody spurs to his stallion’s flanks. Never did he say a word. Like an avenging hound, he would follow until death if necessary.

  ***

  Leng and his tuskriders topped the last rise at nightfall. Glendover Port hove into view. Through a cloudy haze, Leng made out on the city walls Zon Mezzamalech’s banner. The darkspawn yet held this stronghold of stone.

  “Soon,” he croaked.

  The tuskriders were too tired to nod. But they weren’t too tired to follow him into the city.

  ***

  Somewhere along the road, something happened to the twenty avengers. Once there had been over forty of them. Something happened to those who had remained on the trail. Something grim, hardening, soul searing occurred. They had ridden too long for ordinary flesh to stand—too long in the saddle, too long without rest, without sleep. Puffy, staring eyes, but no longer glassy, had became portals to their souls. And those souls were feral. Swords rose and fell too many times to count. Darkspawn cowering in holes, or lying asleep along the road or crippled and pathetically crawling, crawling, crawling for Glendover Port died swiftly, mercilessly. Each of the avengers had seen the darkspawn in their heyday of evil, when they had raped the humanity out of their captives. The avengers had sworn awful oaths of what they would do some day to balance the scales of justice.

  That day had come.

  No more did they beg Gavin to halt, to let them rest for just one hour. They had reached deep within themselves and supped from the fires raging there. It seared them, changed them and turned them into automatons that seemed more than flesh and bone. The time would come when they would pay for this life-killing pace. For the present, their wills had become more than iron, more than human. They were the avengers, the twenty that yet rode, and they thirsted to hack at the root of this horror: at the sorcerer who had begun it all: Leng.

  No longer did they ride weary stallions. A farm horse left to pasture here, a mule locked in a ruined barn there. A quick halt, saddle-straps unbuckled, a grunt, a heave, and the farm horse, the mule, found itself burdened with a sweaty saddle and upon the road of vengeance.

  Grim, silent, brooding, the avengers topped a hill. Below them spread out Glendover Port. Inhuman smiles stretched their lips. Swords stirred. Much, much later…for some too late to ever matter…swords would have to be pried from hands frozen onto pommels.

  “Death,” whispered Josserand.

  “Kill them all,” agreed Aelfric.

  “Except Leng,” Gavin said. “Him we save for the Seer.”

  In such a manner did the avengers descend upon Glendover Port.

  ***

  Leng lashed the darkspawn with his fear. He drove them with spells, curses and promises of a new night. He told them the dark gods never failed. Sometimes, yes, there were setbacks, but the slaves who remained true to the end would sup the ultimate victory.

  A motley crew of brutes, tuskriders and clawmen groaned under the weight of the treasure room’s contents. There in the citadel, in the Duke’s former treasure room, lay gold bars, diamond-filled sacks, silver ingots and barrels full of rubies. All the northern holds had been sacked to supply these riches.

  “Faster!” shouted Leng. “Faster!” He yearned to lie down and sleep. But he knew that he had little time left. Whatever he could grab now could be used later. He wanted to loot all Glendover and then burn it to the ground—

  “Humans!” cried a bass-voiced lookout.

  “Not yet,” moaned Leng.

  The treasure room was only half-empty. Still, Leng lifted up his robes and ran for the docks. The darkspawn ran, too. Some dropped treasure, others staggered under their heavy loads. As they raced through the empty streets, the moon crawled west. It seemed forever before they bounded over gangplanks and onto their chosen ships. Sweaty brutes leaned against the poles that thrust them from the docks.

  Leng beat his fists against his galley’s railing. More time, he needed more time. Hatred welled in his heart. “Gavin!” He reached into his pockets and pulled out paper. On the parchment, he scribbled fast. This note he fixed to a crossbow bolt. Beside him, a clawman cranked a stolen crossbow
and then handed it over.

  A grim band of human avengers stormed onto the stone docks. Darkspawn slower than the others wailed. Swords cut them down.

  “Curse them!” cried Leng. Then his eyes widened in rage and shock.

  The docks! Vivian stood by barrels of wine on the docks. She was drugged, her hands bound. She swayed and was unaware of what went on around her. In the rush, he had forgotten her.

  Leng’s galley dug its oars into the water, pulling the heavy ship farther and farther away. In disbelief, Leng counted the humans. Why so few? For a moment, he considered turning back. Slay this cursed Captain General and reclaim Vivian. Gavin’s silver sword glowed with its terrible tracings then. Courage fled Leng, but not his rage, his malice. He lifted the crossbow. Let Gavin find her dead on the docks. He sighted her, and his eyes roved over her body. He licked his lips in remembrance of their countless nights together.

  “Shoot,” he told himself.

  Near to Vivian, Gavin slew a last brute. Then he saw her. A joyful cry leapt out the Captain General’s throat.

  Leng snarled and slowly squeezed the trigger, squeezed… The steel string snapped. The bolt sped true and thudded into the barrel beside Vivian. She screamed.

  Gavin stopped and stared at Leng.

  Leng made a rude gesture. Then in fury, he strode out of sight. He wasn’t sure why he had let her live, or maybe he wasn’t ready for the truth. He would make them both pay nonetheless, by Old Father Night that he swore.

  ***

  Two weeks after the victory at Bosham Castle, the High Priest watched from the top of a hill, with a bodyguard of knights around him. Below, in the valley, the King’s Army slaughtered the darkspawn that had fled south of the Midlands.

  There were more darkspawn here than he had realized, and these were the dregs of a defeated host.

  “How large was the original army?” the High Priest asked a knight.

  “Ten times what we fought today, your Grace. Or so they say. But that’s impossible.”

  “Nay,” said another knight. “Not for Sir Gavin, the Captain General of Crusaders.”

  The first knight nodded, and dared to smile.

  The High Priest turned away. Even his personal guardsmen looked upon this Sir Gavin in wonder, and they looked upon the crusader’s Seer as Hosar come in the flesh.

  “Curse them,” he whispered.

  “Your Grace?” asked the knight.

  The High Priest shook his head. He would have to wait. Gavin’s name rang too loudly for him to have the former jouster assassinated. And Swan! The populace worshipped her, especially with that the healed giant in her company. Given time, maybe something could be made of that.

  He sighed. The Battle of Lobos had badly hurt the King’s Army, enough so the battle here had been close. And this had just been the dregs of the former host. He mounted his horse. He would bide his time, smile and welcome the heroes if they dared march upon Banfrey. What else could he do…for now?

  “It is a glorious victory, your Grace,” said a knight.

  “Indeed,” said the High Priest. “Glorious.”

  “Hosar be praised.”

  “Hmm,” said the High Priest, before he rode away.

  The End

  If you enjoyed Death Knight, you might also enjoy another Dark Gods novel: Assassin of the Damned. Read on for an exciting excerpt.

  Assassin of the Damned

  Foreword

  There are endless Alternate Earths. The possibilities and variations stagger the imagination. Julius Caesar survives the Ides of March. Attila the Hun destroys the Roman Empire or Genghis Khan dies early on the wall of China.

  In ASSASSIN OF THE DAMNED, the Black Death originates from witchcraft, not the diseased fleas riding piggyback on ship-borne rats. Here, the pantheon of Darkness slumbers—Old Father Night, the Moon Lady and the Lord of Bats.

  The time is 1348 and the place is Italy. Sorcery is all too real and the ambitions of some men are about to plunge Europe into the depths of infernal Darkness.

  -1-

  I groaned in agony as the hurled spear sank into my belly. I crashed back onto the tree stump altar. The bastards had chained me to it, although I’d managed to snap a rusty link, freeing an arm. It was one of the reasons they’d taken off running. I clutched the spear and dragged it out of my belly. Fiery pain lanced through me as I struggled to sit up.

  In the moonlight, the cowards fled through the reeds. Some of them were hairy, a blasphemy against nature. The wretch I hated most wore priestly garments, a lapsed cardinal from Avignon.

  I almost hurled the spear after them. Instead, as I sat upon the pagan altar, as blood poured out my belly, I feebly stabbed at the confining chains.

  I was in a swamp. I had a throbbing knot on the back of my head. Erasmo della Rovere, the one-time priest, had clouted me from behind earlier. We had searched for deathbane together, a deadly flower of the swamp. While I was unconscious, the treacherous cur had chained me to this wooden altar.

  I shuddered as coldness blossomed from my torn stomach. My strength oozed away with my blood. The spear fell from my fingers, clattered against the altar and thumped on the ground. I slumped back onto the tree stump so my chainmail harness clinked.

  It was then I realized I was dying.

  “No,” I whispered. I kicked my legs, made the rusty links jangle.

  What had Erasmo said before? The gloating wretch was from Perugia like me—Perugia of the mountains, in the Romagna, part of the Papal States in Italy. He’d told me he was going to….

  I groaned. A terrible, numbing cold gripped my lungs. The coldness crept to my throat and turned my breathing into pitiful wheezes.

  Erasmo had threatened my wife, my children, my city and my name. He said he’d discovered ancient, slumbering gods, dark deities of the past. He’d said my ancestry connected me to the evil pantheon, but I knew he lied. Erasmo was a child of the Devil.

  My thoughts grew numb, and I found myself staring at the moon, at its pockmarked features. For a wild moment, I couldn’t remember who I was or why I’d trekked into this foul swamp.

  “I am Gian Baglioni,” I whispered.

  According to Erasmo, this hoary altar belonged to Old Father Night, one of those slumbering deities. Shaggy hangman trees with hunchbacked trunks leaned over me. They seemed like thirsty demons longing to drink my blood, to witness my death. Their branches groaned in the wind. Their thin dark leaves rustled with seeming glee. They mocked my passing, laughed at my vain oaths.

  I gnashed my teeth. Damn scheming Erasmo and his twisted plots—the priest had duped me. We used to be friends. I panted in loathing at the idea of dying here on this foul altar. Erasmo had tried to sacrifice my soul!

  I swallowed in a dry throat and tried to concentrate. The moonlight shined painfully bright. Moonlight…the moon…Erasmo had taunted me about it. He’d said the moon was the reason…the reason—

  I licked dry lips, squinted at the ancient white orb high in the heavens. Old Father Night hated the one represented by the moon. Erasmo had boasted about it. According to him, the dark deities, the slumbering ones, had once feuded bitterly. They’d sounded like Italian princes, each jealous of his or her prerogatives. I could understand that because I was the prince of Perugia.

  The moon with its craters wavered strangely, or maybe my vision was failing. The pale moon seemed to take on the form of a woman’s face, with a mocking and achingly seductive smile. I strained mightily and lifted a hand. I heard the rattle of a chain. My eyesight dimmed as I lay on the altar. Blood continued to pump out my ruined stomach.

  “If you hate Erasmo,” I wheezed, speaking to the moon or the one represented by it, “aid me. If you loathe Erasmo’s master, drag me off this pagan stump.”

  The moon with its silvery light watched me with callous indifference. There were no dark deities. Erasmo had simply been a madman, a dupe of the Devil.

  My strength failed. My hand dropped back beside me. I no longer heard the rustling
leaves, the groans of wood. The world dimmed as one by one the stars began to fade. Only the silvery glare of the moon remained, my unblinking gaze focused on it.

  I mumbled words that I cannot recall. I spoke them in haste, in fear and with hate. Finally, my words ceased and even the moonlight dimmed into darkness. There seemed to be motion and faraway sounds. I struggled to understand their meaning. I refused to die, to let Erasmo win. I summoned my will, and I recall a final shout. Maybe it was my voice, I no longer know. Then there was darkness, nothingness, a cessation of thought and maybe even life.

  ***

  Abruptly there was something, although it was faint. My thoughts sluggishly returned, or a portion of them did. It was as if I clung to a rope in a deep well. Someone high above cranked the handle that drew the rope out of a subterranean cavern. The handle turned and turned. I heard its creak. No, the creaks sounded like branches. Yes, thousands of leaves rubbed together. Wind moaned. A new sensation bloomed. It was a feathery feeling. It brought another sense: that I was. The feathery feeling—something crawled across my cheek.

  My eyes snapped open. A beetle parted its shell and flew off my face. I lay on my back under the stars. Tall grass waved beside me. Stars…they appeared behind thousands of shimmering leaves. Then it came to me: I no longer lay on the altar but on the cold ground. I grinned fiercely, I know not why. The grinning moved my mouth and moved something in it. The something clicked against my teeth. I clamped my teeth onto the metallic thing. It was round, flat, with tiny ridges along the edge. It was a…a coin. I angrily spat it out. The coin tumbled past my cheek and thudded beside my ear on the grass.

  Why had a coin been in my mouth?

  Fear lanced through my chest. Peasants in backwoods regions put a coin in a corpse’s mouth so he or she could pay the ferryman. It was a pagan custom from olden times. In a moment, anger replaced the fear. That was a foul trick.

  I tried to sit up, and failed. Something held me fast. I tried to move my arms. They were also stuck as if tied down by ropes. Alarmed, I turned my head. I still wore my chainmail harness, but it had horribly rusted. Many times worse, however, tall blades of grass sprouted through the individual links. Together, the many blades of grass interwoven through my mail held me down like a thousand fingers.