Moonblood

by Martin Ash

Her eyes were turned beseechingly upwards, her hand raised. ‘Help me!’ she implored. ‘Help me!’

  In that instant, with the vice on its windpipe momentarily eased, the beast rediscovered its strength. It slashed viciously. The dreadful claws ripped into Toromdar’s neck, tearing away flesh and hair and severing the great artery there.

  Toromdar’s lifeblood gushed forth in a great crimson fountain, drenching his assailant. Moonblood screamed. Somehow, Toromdar threw himself forward, in a final effort pushing his weight onto his killer and pinning it to the floor.

  The monster struggled, roaring in triumph, squirming and thrusting to free itself from beneath its now unresisting foe. As Toromdar exhaled his final breath the thing turned covetous eyes on the horrified young girl, and worked itself clear of the dead weight holding it down. From its mouth came a most hideous sound, made all the more dreadful by the fact that it was a word, distorted and gluttonous, yet recognizable as human speech.

  ‘Mine,’ it said, blood and spittle oozing from its jaws. ‘Mine.’

  And it advanced, its yellow eyes aglow with lust and loathing.

  Moonblood stood helpless and distraught, throwing her head from side to side, her arms still reaching out. ‘Oh, no, no, no! Oh, help me, please! Help me! Molgane, help me!’

  Almost instantly, as she mouthed those last words, something began to change. Around Moonblood, barely visible at first, a faint aura of silvered light appeared. The expression of terror upon her face faded. She grew still, and looked suddenly almost tranquil. The silver light around her pulsed more brightly, piercing the dreadful green glow.

  The monster hesitated, tilting its head. For a moment it seemed unsure. Then it vented a terrible snarl and sprang.

  In the same heartbeat I became aware of something else. At Moonblood’s side a ghostly figure had materialized. A woman, clothed in a pale robe and bathed in the same crystalline radiance as Ravenscrag’s daughter. She stood, as did Moonblood, with her hands raised, extended towards the creature.

  And behind this figure, others now appeared, materializing within the very stone of the walls – a host, a phantom assembly, all of them female.

  The silver lucency grew brighter, extending throughout the chamber from its central focus around Moonblood and the ghostly woman at her side. The foetid air was filled with a new sound: women’s voices, chanting in unison. The beast, even as it hurled itself at Moonblood, was held in the air. It slashed and swiped, its claws passing within a finger’s breadth of Moonblood’s face, gnashing its murderous teeth. Moonblood took a step forward, her companion with her. The creature was borne back. It fell, snarling, retreating up against the far wall.

  The light was now bright within the passage; no trace remained of the murky green. The creature cringed, snapping and making half-hearted lunges, but seemingly afraid to attack. Moonblood and her companion moved towards it.

  ‘Back. Your time has passed. You’ve been born, as prophesied, and defeated. Back now whence you came.’

  The beast drew further back against the wall. The glow that surrounded the two women extended to form around the creature, too. Then it parted, so that the monster was isolated within a sheath of radiant silvery luminosity. It raged and struggled, but plainly was bound and confined.

  I threw myself aside as it was pushed back through the smashed door into the cellar. Even as I watched I could see that the monster was diminishing in size.

  The woman at Moonblood’s side had begun to fade, and I understood that this was the ghost of Lord Draremont’s dead wife, Molgane, summoned from death to bring strength and give life in this terrible hour of need. Likewise the phantom assembly, the Sisters of the Hallowed Blood, were losing form and departing, the sounds of their voices diminishing. Moonblood stood alone in the door.

  Her hands remained directed at her cowed adversary. A dark mist, a foul vapour, began to pour from the monster’s flesh. It emerged from the silver membrane to form a cloud which attempted to coalesce into another form, as if with its own volition. It grew reddish in hue, concentrating into a single, large, irregularly shaped mass.

  As I stared, coarse features formed. I thought to myself to be staring at a face, and for one shocking moment I thought it was a distorted image of my own features, reddened and scorched as it was by the fire in which Lord Flarefist had almost sacrificed the monstrous infant. Then the features grew more dense. They formed into a writhing, twisted image, a living mask contorted into an expression of the most venomous hatred. Incandescent eyes glowed yellow, fixed upon the frail figure of the young woman, seeming to contain a power of their own. I was reminded forcefully of Lord Draremont’s account of the terrible vision he had beheld on the night of his death; and of Moonblood’s own distraught recollection of the malign creature, the zinoja brujo, who had haunted her dreams. I had no doubt then, that I gazed upon the embodiment of all the evils that had befallen Ravenscrag, the face of Mososguyne.

  The ruddied lips on the apparition drew back into a mocking snarl, filled with pure loathing. Once more the room resonated with that dreadful sound as a single word was formed: ‘Mine!’

  The thing lunged forward. Moonblood stood firm, unafraid.

  ‘Go!’ she cried, and the image drew suddenly back. The dreadful face held an expression of profound shock. The lips stretched, a glistening red tongue extruded, writhing as though in pain. The eyes widened and bulged, then burst as if from within. An ear-splitting howl rang out. The image was fading, dissolving to pallid vapour and dispersing into the foul air around it until nothing remained to be seen.

  Now the silvery radiance also faded. The passage was lit by the torches on the walls, no vestige of unnatural light lingering.

  Moonblood turned, tears coursing down her ashen cheeks. She rushed forward and threw herself upon the body of the fallen giant, Toromdar. Racked with sobs, she kissed his bloodied face, his lacerated hands. ‘Toromdar, oh, Toromdar. Faithful friend, dear, loyal friend. Forgive me. Forgive me.’

  Beyond, in the depths of the passage, I saw a figure standing. Linvon the Light, dressed in blood-drenched green, a bloodied sword in his hand. He came forward, squeezing carefully by Toromdar’s prone body, and leaned upon the wall beside me, panting hard. His eyes shone with tears as he stared at Moonblood and the lifeless giant.

  ‘It’s over,’ he said.

  I nodded, clutching my ribcage. ‘Aye. And I’m alive, and Toromdar has perished.’

  He swallowed. ‘That is how it was written.’

  ‘Not quite.’

  ‘You’re wrong, Master Dinbig. I believed it might be you that was referred to in the bane, from the moment I witnessed your accident on the road into Ravenscrag. But Toromdar had doubts.’

  I stared hard at him, recalling my accident with the wagons, and the glimpse of a figure in green beneath the trees. ‘You’re not making yourself very clear.’

  Linvon lowered his voice. ‘It was the vision of the Thótan, the giant folk of the north, that a stranger would come from afar, bearing strange knowledge and shattered gifts, and that in lifting the bane the lay upon Ravenscrag, he would pay with his life. And this is what happened.’

  It hit me then, with force. ‘Toromdar?’

  Linvon nodded, his head heavy. ‘He brought knowledge, did he not? And the shattered brooch.’

  ‘And he knew?’

  ‘Not at first. But when he came to give the brooch to Moonblood, and discovered it in pieces, then it struck him. And then you appeared, and you also brought shattered gifts, and he began to wonder again.’

  ‘But wait… No. The bane refers to gifts, in the plural. Toromdar brought only the one.’

  Linvon shook his head with a grave, sorrowful smile. His voice now was barely more than a whisper. ‘No, Master Dinbig, he brought another. And it was one that I didn’t understand until just a few minutes ago. He brought his love.’

  ‘His love?’

  ‘For Moonblood. Toromdar was enamoured of her, just as I am. He had lived with his vision
of her for a lifetime – the equivalent of three lifetimes for you or I. She became the one thing, the one being, who gave purpose to his existence. He lived for her.’ Linvon closed his eyes, squeezing back tears. ‘In other circumstances we would have been rivals, Toromdar and I. But he knew Moonblood could never be his. He was Thótan, she was human. It simply could not be, and he accepted it. Yet he came anyway, knowing this, and he stayed and fought for her, even knowing that he might die. He brought her another shattered gift, his broken heart, though he never spoke of this to her.’ Linvon turned his face to me. ‘That is love in its truest, purest form, would you not agree?’

  I gazed down at the great, bloodied form before me, and nodded, too overcome to speak.

  Linvon put his hand upon my shoulder. ‘Master Dinbig, you too are like this noble giant,Toromdar. You proved yourself a true friend to the young woman I love. You stood with her, believing that you would almost certainly perish. For that you have my undying gratitude.’

  I turned away uncomfortably. ‘My circumstances were different. I was given no choice.’

  ‘I do not think it is so simple.’

  Moonblood raised her head and turned her tear-streaked face to us, stretching out a hand. Linvon went to her and held her. Together they wept over the great corpse of their fallen friend.

  No one but I heard the faint sound, like a feeble animal cry, that came from the depths of the cellar. I turned, guardedly, drawing my sword, and moved in pain to the doorway. It was black in there. I took a torch from the wall.

  I advanced gingerly towards the corner where the monstrous creature had been overcome. In the dancing shadows I thought I saw something move.

  My ribs, my whole body ached. It was hard to move, but I crept closer. The torchlight revealed a small mound of mottled grey-black skin, which writhed before my eyes, turning to a dark, sickly vapour which dissipated into the air.

  And beneath this vanishing skin I found the source of the sound I had heard. A tiny babe lay there, naked, kicking its fragile limbs, its head crowned with a growth of flame-red hair.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  I made my way up, painfully, through the castle to the family apartments, carrying my precious charge wrapped in a shirt taken from a dead soldier. Though all seemed quiet now I could not rid myself of the fear that some new horror would crawl from a dark crack in the wall, or leap from around a corner and attack me.

  The slaughter of Shadownight had been truly awful. Between the cellar and Lord Flarefist’s bedchamber I came upon eleven bodies of Ravenscrag soldiers and staff, as well as the mutilated cadavers of rats and ravens. I could not guess how many other corpses littered the castle precincts.

  From Linvon I’d learned that he and Toromdar had been forced to fight the guards as well as the weird creatures that the bane’s magic had spawned. Meeting at the entrance to the tunnel where Moonblood and I had left Linvon, the two of them had gone on through the forest to Moonblood’s dell. There they waited tensely. They saw the tip of the red moon blunted by the shadow. Then, with the first glow of the green luminescence around the castle, and the accompanying sounds of struggle, they had put all caution aside and rushed into the castle in the hope of aiding us. But the troops, seeing Toromdar, had assumed him to be an ally of the monsters materializing in their midst, and had fired upon him without hesitation. By the time Toromdar had reached the cellar passage, there to confront the vile creature that menaced Moonblood, he was already badly wounded and suffering serious loss of blood.

  Passing a ground floor window I glanced out at the night sky. The crescent moon was whole again, surrounded by the brilliance of its pure silver radiance. But there was something unusual that made me pause and watch. A small, fiery body, deep red, was visible a little way below the moon. It flickered and flared erratically, darting in a wild, patternless course like some living, flaming creature in its death throes. Even as I watched, the unnatural thing sputtered, then burned up in a shower of bright particles, and vanished. I walked on, carrying the sleeping babe to its father.

  ~

  ‘Lord Flarefist, I have brought you back your son.’

  The old man lay gaunt upon his pillows, ghastly grey and unmoving. His eyes were closed, the lids trembling as though his mind was beset by troubled dreams. His fleshless chest rose and fell feebly, the breaths shallow, rapid and laboured. Markin, the physician, sat patiently at his side, potions and powders laid out on a tabletop at his elbow.

  I spoke more loudly. ‘Lord Flarefist.’

  Flarefist’s eyes gradually opened and found their focus, settling blearily on me.

  ‘Your son, Lord Flarefist. He has returned. Look.’

  He stared blankly at the tiny babe, then at me again. ‘What?’

  ‘It’s Redlock, Lord Flarefist.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Redlock, your son and heir.’

  He was completely befuddled. His lungs wheezed, a muscle on his cheek twitched. A dribble of saliva spilled from the corner of his pallid lips and stained his nightshirt. His jaw began to make movements, and eventually he said, in a dry, whispery rasp, ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Dinbig. Ronbas Dinbig, from Khimmur. You commissioned me to find your son – and your daughter, too. Moonblood is also safe.’

  ‘What?’

  I felt a light pressure on my arm. Markin drew me aside, shaking his head gravely. ‘He is incapable of grasping anything.’

  ‘His son… He means so much to him. I thought that seeing him and knowing he has returned might give him strength, spur him to recovery.’

  ‘He’s beyond that. I don’t expect him to live through to the day.’

  ‘Has he been aware of what has happened tonight?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Were you? Did the creatures come here?’

  ‘There was a greenish light, and apparently the guards encountered and fought off some dreadful thing outside the door. I heard the commotion but saw nothing. What of you? I should examine you?’

  ‘I am cut and bruised, nothing more, I think.’

  I left, handing Redlock into Markin’s care. The physician had already dispatched a servant to summon Blonna, that the child might be given suck. Stiffly, for I was in some considerable pain from the blows I’d received in the cellar, I went on through the castle, seeking out Lady Sheerquine.

  I came upon her at length in the Great Hall. She stood alone at one end beside the cavernous fireplace, sunk in a reverie. She glanced up as I approached to stand before her. Her expression was strained and severe, her pupils pinpoints.

  ‘Master Dinbig.’

  ‘Your children are safe, Lady Sheerquine. Both of them. You must be overjoyed.’

  ‘Quite so. You have performed admirably. For returning my children to me you have my intense gratitude.’

  ‘I imagine you rushed to be with them the moment you learned that they had returned unharmed.’

  She drew up her shoulders. The torchlight flickered upon her face. ‘Save your sarcasm, Master Dinbig. This has been a terrible night. I’ve had many things to attend to. Parental devotion must at times take second place to duties of station.’

  ‘A terrible night indeed. We’re fortunate, all of us, to have survived. But Ravenscrag has overcome its bane, and has done so despite my being constantly hampered and discouraged, and in the end almost slain in the pursuance of my commission. Tell me, why did you order my murder?’

  Her chin went up. ‘My orders were that you should be taken into custody and brought back to the castle. I was told you were trying to escape.’

  ‘Captain Monsard seems to have placed a different interpretation on them.’

  ‘He can be a little over-zealous at times, as you know.’

  ‘He – or one of his men – killed your brother, Hectal. It was, I think, a tragic mis-shot. The shaft was meant for me.’

  Lady Sheerquine glanced away. ‘Captain Monsard told me that you murdered Hectal as he tried to prevent your escape. He says he tried to arrest you
but you made off, killing one of his men in the process. He also stated that you had kidnapped my daughter.’

  ‘Did Monsard truly say those things, Lady Sheerquine? If he did, then plainly you do not believe him or you would have called the guard and had me arrested now. My feeling is that Captain Monsard had been given certain information, pertaining to his wife and myself, which ensured that he would pursue me with murderous intent.’

  She looked at me icily. I said, ‘Would it interest you to know what really happened?’

  ‘Whatever happened in the forest is irrelevant now, Master Dinbig. I have said that I am grateful for what you’ve done. Ravenscrag is saved, my children are alive and well. Therefore you are now free to leave. Your wagons and goods will be released from impoundage forthwith. All restrictions on your men will be lifted. I am sure that you will want to depart at the earliest opportunity.’

  ‘Indeed, I will be gone as soon as I may. But there are a few things I would like to clear up to my own satisfaction. I’m intrigued, by the prophecy, the bane, and the extraordinary and dreadful events that have overtaken us all. Those ancient writings gave us so much in cryptic form. I believe I’ve successfully deciphered most of it, but one or two things remain unexplained.’

  ‘I have said before, both the Ravenscrag prophecy and – particularly – the bane, are obscure and defiant of rational explanation. I do not think that I, or anyone else here, can help you any further.’

  ‘On the contrary, Lady Sheerquine. I think that you personally may be able to help some considerable light on those aspects which continue to elude me.’

  Sheerquine took a sudden step to the side, turning her body so that she no longer faced me. I said, paraphrasing the words of the bane, ‘ “Through the power of the woman’s sin and the woman’s wound, corruption shall be born.” I have wondered a great deal about those two elements: the sin and the wound. What was meant by them? By roundabout means I came to understand the latter to be the ‘wound’ borne by all women, the periodic letting of blood which concurs with the cycle of the moon. In Moonblood’s case, of course, it held a very special significance. But what of the sin, I wondered. Is this a reference to all women, or again, might it refer to one in particular? What would be your opinion, Lady Sheerquine?’’