Dozens of natural windows looked down into the chamber, each crowded with the graveyard’s inhabitants, who bustled for the best vantages.
Calard and Raben were dragged towards a natural stone platform in the centre of the cavern. An empty throne was carved into the rock at the centre of this platform. Hundreds of human skulls were piled up around it.
Seated on the roughly hewn steps below the throne was a figure that Calard at first mistook for a dusty corpse.
Almost imperceptibly, the skeletal figure raised its head to regard their approach. Thick matted clumps of grey hair hung down over an overly long, ashen face. That face was ancient; so deep were its lines that they looked as though they had been carved with a chisel. Clouded eyes glinted in deep sockets.
Calard and Raben were forced to their knees. Their weapons were tossed to the floor nearby, and the clatter they made reverberated sharply off the cavern walls. Chlod tried to hang back, his head low, but he was shoved forwards to stand alongside his master.
‘What have you been keeping from me, you little toad?’ said Calard out of the corner of his mouth. It was the first chance that he had to speak to Chlod since their capture. The hunchbacked manservant made no answer.
‘Quiet,’ said a voice, and Calard was cuffed across the side of the head.
‘How is it you are known here?’ hissed Calard. ‘Answer me!’
Still Chlod offered no explanation, and again Calard was struck, harder this time, knocking him to the ground.
A bone shard, as sharp as a dagger and three inches long, lay on the cavern floor just inches from his nose. He turned onto his side, wriggling, and as he was hauled back to his knees, he picked up the bone shard and secreted it in his clasped hands.
A hush descended over the cavern, broken only by the steady dripping of water. The figure on the steps regarded them in silence, his gaze inscrutable. Calard lifted his head high, eyes blazing.
‘I demand that I be released,’ he said in a low voice.
The grey man’s eyes bored into Calard, but he remained silent.
‘My purpose in this cursed land lies not with you, or your... people,’ said Calard. ‘Release me.’
The ashen-faced figure continued to regard him silently for a moment, then stood, his movements slow and deliberate. He looked as though he was unfolding as he rose to his feet, his limbs looking too long and too thin, like the legs on an insect. His matted hair hung past his thin waist. He wore a threadbare robe of faded majesty, something that might have been worn by a noble lord in a bygone era. Delicate, moth-eaten lace hung from the cuffs of his sleeves like dusty spider webs.
With regal grace he moved in front of the two kneeling knights and the quaking figure of Chlod.
His hands were long and slender, his fingers like ivory needles. He gestured for the two knights to rise, and they were hauled roughly to their feet. Calard stood with his head held high, refusing to be cowed before this pauper king and his tattered court.
The grey man was frail and corpse-thin, and his back was slightly stooped, yet even so he towered over Calard. He walked around the three of them, appraising them.
He came to a halt in front of Chlod. The hunch-backed manservant flinched as the grey man reached out towards him. Thin fingers lifted Chlod’s chin until he was looking up into the ancient face. Tears ran down his face.
The skeletally gaunt figure began to laugh. The sound was deep and hollow.
‘It has been a long time,’ said the grey man, still chuckling. ‘Welcome home, Chlod.’
‘Home?’ hissed Calard, glancing sidewards at his manservant. All colour had drained from Chlod’s face.
‘Allow me to introduce myself,’ said the wasted old man, turning towards Calard. The ghost of a smile played at his ashen lips and the result was unsettling; he resembled nothing more than a grinning corpse.
‘I,’ said the deathly old man, ‘am Grandfather Mortis.’
‘Grandfather Mortis,’ said Calard, dryly.
‘The one and only,’ said the old man, giving Calard a mocking bow.
‘I am Calard of Garamont, a questing knight of Bastonne.’
‘Engaged on the quest, is it?’ said Mortis. ‘And this?’
‘Raben,’ said the outcast knight.
‘Just Raben?’
‘Just Raben.’
‘I see,’ said Mortis. He looked at Raben for moment, then turned away. He stretched his skeletal arms theatrically wide, fingers unfurling. ‘And these,’ he said, ‘these are my children. My loving, trustworthy children.’ He looked pointedly at Chlod, who shrank under his gaze.
‘Your children,’ said Calard, ‘are cannibalistic inbreds.’
‘In lean times, needs must, and so forth and so on,’ said Mortis with a shrug.
‘To eat the flesh of one’s fellow man is an abomination,’ said Calard. ‘These peasants would be better off dead.’
‘Keep your moral outrage, it means nothing here,’ said Mortis. ‘My children live, and that is itself a triumph in this gods-forsaken land.’
‘This is no life,’ said Calard, looking around him. ‘I’d sooner die that live like this.’
‘That is a most interesting notion,’ said Mortis. ‘There’s good meat on your bones.’
‘Are you going to kill us?’ said Chlod, tears still running down his face.
‘Kill you?’ said Mortis, reaching out a hand to stroke Chlod’s face. ‘These others, maybe. But you? Of course not, child! This is where you belong. All your sins will be forgiven, in time. You will be punished, of course, but you are home, and that is what matters.’
At the mention of punishment, Chlod paled. Turning from him, Mortis jabbed a finger towards Raben.
‘This is one of the duke’s knights,’ he said. ‘Why is it not dead?’
‘This knight is under my protection,’ said Calard. ‘He is not to be harmed.’
‘Is that so?’ said Mortis. ‘What are you doing here in Mousillon, Calard of Garamont? What brings you to our cursed realm?’
‘The Lady herself has led me here.’
‘Why?’
‘What does it matter?’ said Calard.
‘Curiosity,’ said Mortis. ‘Indulge an old man.’
‘I came to find someone,’ said Calard. ‘And when I do, I intend to kill him.’
Raben smirked at that.
‘You came here to kill him?’ he said. ‘You are more of a fool than I thought! He cannot be killed, not by one such as you.’
‘Any man can be killed,’ said Calard.
‘Merovech is no man,’ said Raben.
‘Man, fiend, devil; I care not,’ said Calard. ‘I will kill him.’
Mortis lashed out, grabbing Calard around the throat. His nails bit deep into his flesh, drawing blood.
‘Merovech?’ Mortis said, enunciating the name clearly so there could be no misunderstanding. ‘You came here to kill Duke Merovech?’
Before anyone could react, Calard’s hands were free, the tough cord falling away from his wrists. No one had noticed him cutting his bindings, and in the blink of an eye he had the razor-sharp bone shard he had retrieved from the ground pressed to Mortis’s neck.
The old man released him, and held up both hands in a sign of submission. The cavern erupted in shouts and hisses. Hands tightened the noose around his neck, but Calard increased the pressure on the bone held to Mortis’s throat.
‘Call them off, or you die,’ hissed Calard.
The old man made a sound like he was clearing his throat, and the peasants drew back, tense and uneasy.
‘I am no friend of Duke Merovech’s, Calard of Garamont,’ said Mortis with a deathly grin. ‘And the enemy of one’s enemy is one’s friend, no?’
‘MEROVECH THE MAD,’ said Mortis. ‘The fool is obsessed with regaining Mousillon’s lost prestige, and in doing so, eradicating all he sees as vermin. Namely my children and I. You don’t mind if I sit?’
Calard had the Sword of Garamont in his hand, its point lev
elled at Mortis’s skeletal chest. At Calard’s order, Chlod had released Raben from his bonds, and retrieved their weapons. His shield and bastard sword were strapped to his back, and behind him stood Raben, blade drawn, eyeing the hostile peasants warily. Chlod stood nearby, wringing his hands.
Mortis lowered himself onto the stone steps below the throne with a sigh. At a guess, Calard judged the old man to be perhaps ninety years of age. Still, as frail as the old man appeared, Calard was not about to underestimate him. His mind was clearly still as sharp as a razor, and he had but to speak the word and the onlooking peasants would tear them limb from limb.
‘Five years Merovech has waged war upon us. Always in that time, we have been protected by our lord,’ said Mortis, gesturing towards the empty throne. ‘But he is gone now, captured three nights past on the Shadow-Moors. Without him, we are lost.’
‘The ancient one is gone?’ gasped Chlod. Mortis nodded grimly.
‘You would be doing me a great favour if you succeeded in slaying the duke,’ said Mortis, his skeletal fingers drumming on the stone steps. ‘Though it would not be easily achieved.’
‘The Lady is with me,’ said Calard grimly. ‘The duke will die by my blade, you have my oath on it.’
‘Let’s just get out of here,’ said Raben over his shoulder.
Mortis’s fingers drummed upon the dusty stone surface of the steps.
‘Leave that one with us,’ he said, gesturing towards Raben, ‘and you are free to leave.’
Raben flashed Calard an alarmed look.
‘Take me with you,’ said Raben swiftly. ‘I’ll get you close to Merovech. You won’t get within a hundred yards of him without me.’
Calard considered his decision.
‘He comes with me,’ he said finally.
‘He is one of the duke’s sworn knights,’ said Mortis. ‘You think you can trust his word?’
‘Not for a moment,’ said Calard. ‘He is an outcast and has no honour, but he may prove useful.’
The sound of a bell tolling in the distance echoed down through the catacombs, and Mortis looked up.
The bats on the ceiling erupted into flight, the beat of their wings and their high-pitched cries deafening. They swirled around the cavern in a dense cloud, like a school of shoaling fish, then hurtled through an opening in the ceiling and were gone. The doleful bell continued to sound.
‘What is it?’ said Calard.
‘A warning. They have come to end it,’ said Mortis. The peasants all around began shouting and wailing, hissing and gnashing their teeth.
‘I don’t like this,’ said Raben. ‘We have to go!’
‘Merovech marches against us,’ said Mortis. ‘The Warren is no longer a safe haven.’
‘He is here?’ said Calard, eyes lighting up. ‘Merovech is here?’
‘He would not sully his hands in person,’ said Mortis, shaking his head.
‘How can you be sure?’ said Calard. ‘This could end now.’
‘He is not here,’ said Raben, firmly. ‘He waits at the palace. A victory banquet has been prepared to welcome back his captains in two nights’ time.’
‘And how would you know that?’ said Calard.
‘I was invited,’ said Raben with a sardonic smile.
‘Enough talk. We leave now,’ said Mortis.
‘We?’ said Calard.
‘I’ll get you inside the city,’ said Grandfather Mortis.
VIII
‘GODS, HAVE YOU ever smelt anything fouler?’ growled Raben. Calard had to admit that he hadn’t. Even with a cloth anointed with perfumed oil tied around his mouth and nose, he could barely keep from gagging.
They were moving single file through a narrow sewer tunnel, choosing their steps carefully. Mortis’s peasants led the way, picking the safest and most direct route. Every surface was slick with filth, from the curving walls to the narrow shelf beneath their boots. Beside them was a foetid flow, barely moving and stagnant. Pale things wriggled within, making Calard’s stomach heave. They passed countless floating bodies, their flesh rotting and bloated.
The torches they carried filled the narrow tunnels with sickly black smoke. Spider webs crackled as they were consumed by flame, and rats the size of small dogs scurried into the darkness, where they stopped and stared back at these interlopers into their realm, eyes glittering like malignant red jewels.
They were beneath the walled city of Mousillon, drawing ever nearer their goal. It had taken them almost three days to get here. Calard longed to see daylight and be away from Mortis and his repulsive brood.
At sluice junctions, places where the water flowed more swiftly, they encountered peasants fishing out bodies and floating junk with long poles. They clasped their muddy hats in their hands and bowed their heads respectfully as Grandfather Mortis passed by.
‘You were telling me of L’Anguille,’ said Calard. Calard was certain that the rebel knight was omitting many facts, but even so, he painted a bleak picture of the events leading to his becoming an outcast.
Raben sighed. ‘I slit the bastard’s throat. His death was quicker than he deserved.’
‘He was your liege lord, whom you were sworn to protect and serve,’ said Calard. They turned a corner, and rats scurried away from their light.
‘Earl Barahir was a debauched fiend and a murderer,’ said Raben. ‘He had no honour. He got what he deserved.’
Calard remained silent. In truth, he could not say that he would have done differently had he been in Raben’s place.
‘I was stripped of my land and titles and imprisoned. I did not resist, assured that my family would be spared if I gave myself in willingly. They were not,’ said Raben, bitterly. ‘My wife was flogged and forced into the fields with the twins. I was due to hang, but guilt over what I brought upon my wife and daughters consumed me. Bribing my gaoler, I escaped, but the pox had already done its work. Perhaps it was a blessing that they did not suffer long. My daughters would have been on the cusp of womanhood by now, had they lived.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Calard.
In the gloom, he saw Raben shrug.
‘And so you came to Mousillon?’ prompted Calard.
‘And so I came to Mousillon,’ said Raben. ‘I had nothing to live for, but not the courage to end it. I was hunted as an outlaw, but my pursuers dropped off once I came here. That was nine years ago.’
They continued along in silence for some time, until word was passed back along the line that they were nearing to their destination.
‘Thank the Lady for small mercies,’ said Calard. Raben scoffed at his piety, and Calard glared at him.
‘What?’ said Raben, looking back at Calard. ‘Worship of the Lady is a sham. Just because one of our forefathers thought he saw some watery tart doesn’t mean–’
The outcast knight’s words were cut short as he slipped in an overflow of effluent. He would have fallen into the befouled waters had not Calard grabbed him under one arm and hauled him back, dumping him unceremoniously on the ground.
Even so, one of Raben’s boots broke the surface of the stinking flow. In the blink of an eye, a decaying corpse floating face down nearby lurched at him. Worms writhed in its throat as its mouth gaped open, and fingers that had rotted down to the bone latched onto Raben’s leg.
The outcast knight cried out in shock, kicking at the horrid dead thing. Calard’s sword carved into its head with a wet, squelching sound and it slipped back into the mire, releasing its grip. Raben scrambled back away from the edge and hauled himself to his feet, clearly shaken.
‘The dead do not rest easy in Mousillon,’ said Grandfather Mortis with an evil grin, materialising like a wraith out of the gloom. ‘Come. This is where we part ways.’
THE HEAVY SEWER grate was dragged aside, and Calard lifted himself up from the darkness, eyeing his surroundings. He was in a shadowy, refuse-strewn alley no more than three feet wide. Rats were feasting on the body of a dead cat nearby, and they hissed at him aggressively as he inter
rupted their meal. The smell was hardly any better here than it was down in the sewer, but at least he was no longer below ground.
Calard turned and helped Raben out, then looked back down into the darkness.
‘Hurry, peasant,’ he said. ‘We have not got much time.’
Down at bottom of the rusted ladder, unseen by Calard, Grandfather Mortis had a tight hold of Chlod and was speaking to him in a low, threatening voice. The hunchbacked peasant’s face was pale.
‘Do this one thing and your past crimes will be forgotten,’ hissed Mortis.
Chlod nodded vigorously, and Mortis released him. Straightening, he stepped backwards and was swallowed by the darkness.
‘Do not fail me,’ came his deep, hollow voice.
Shaking, Chlod climbed up towards street level. Calard grabbed him by the shirt front and lifted him up the last few feet.
Calard had not wished to take the peasant with him, but Mortis had been insistent.
‘He is no longer yours to command,’ the old man had said. ‘He is mine, and mine alone, but he accompanies you to the palace.’
The idea of being abandoned beneath the city had not been an appealing one, for he doubted that he would have ever gotten out, and he had reluctantly agreed.
The sewer grate was dragged back into place, and Calard pulled his hood down low over his face.
‘Let’s end this,’ he said.
NEVER HAD CALARD walked the streets of a city more wretched, threatening or foul.
Every building was dark and oppressive, and so twisted beyond its original construction that it looked as though it was contorted in silent agony. Timbers were warped and swollen with moisture, and brickwork was bulging and uneven. The foundations of some had sunk, while others had seemingly given up completely and collapsed in upon themselves.
The smell of rot was heavy in the air and mould covered every surface. A foetid yellow fog filled the streets, reducing visibility to little more than a dozen yards, deadening all sound. The ground was rutted and undulating, and refuse and filth was piled up high against the walls.
Hammer and Bolter - Issue 1 Page 23
