‘Hello, Calard,’ said Bertelis. ‘What a pleasant surprise this is.’
‘What has he done to you, my brother?’ said Calard, standing alone.
‘Nothing that I did not wish for,’ said Bertelis with a grin, loosening the muscles of his neck and shoulders languorously, like a cat stretching. ‘And it feels fantastic.’
‘Finish it quickly,’ hissed Merovech. ‘The time of the conjunction draws near.’
‘I’ve been looking forward to this for a long time, brother,’ spat Bertelis, hefting his sword and moving purposefully across the killing circle.
Reluctantly, Calard drew the Sword of Garamont and stepped out to meet him. He swung his battered shield from his back and secured it on his left arm.
‘It does not have to be like this, brother,’ he said.
‘Oh, it does,’ said Bertelis. ‘It truly does.’
BERTELIS ATTACKED WITH such savagery and speed that Calard was instantly fighting for his life, defending desperately as furious attack after attack rained down on him. It took all his concentration, skill and hard-earned experience just to survive the opening exchange, and such was the power and vitriol behind each blow that he was knocked physically backwards each time his sword met his brother’s.
He was given no opportunity to even consider launching a counter-attack., and his left arm was numb from the jarring blows he took on his shield. He was doing all he could to evade Bertelis’s furious assault, stepping off the line of attack and retreating hastily in an effort to put some distance between them. His brother came after him relentlessly, sword blade flashing as it sliced through the air again and again. Had any of those attacks struck home, they would have been fatal.
Calard knew that he was a vastly superior warrior now than he had been when he first took up the quest, six years earlier. The long years on the road had hardened him, body and soul, forging him anew and honing his killer instincts to a razor’s edge. He was stronger, leaner and faster than he had been, and was confident enough in his own abilities to back himself against any man. Even so, he was struggling now with the pace of battle that Bertelis was setting, and struggling even more with his brother’s unprecedented strength and fury.
Calard and Bertelis had trained together since childhood, and both had been schooled by Gunthar, the old weapon master of Garamont. Growing up, their duels had always been evenly matched, though it had been obvious that Bertelis was the more gifted of the two, a natural swordsman with the perfect blend of strength, balance, speed and instinct. He had always relied too heavily on his natural-born talents, however, and in his youth had been a lax student, earning many stern words from Gunthar. In contrast, Calard had worked hard at his swordsmanship, rising hours before the rest of the household to hone his technique and strengthen his body. It was only after Gunthar’s death that Bertelis began taking his training more seriously, devoting himself to it with a focus bordering on obsession. Only then had he started to show his true potential.
It was clear now that Bertelis had eclipsed those expectations and taken them to a whole new level, reaching a plane that Calard had no hope of matching, and even less of competing with. Bertelis’s skill was bordering the sublime, and Calard could think of few – perhaps only the Grail Knight Reolus, Lady rest his soul – that could have equalled it. The speed of his blade was incomparable, and Calard had rarely crossed blades with one who struck with such power. It was overwhelming how far Bertelis’s blade skill had come in the last six years. Calard felt a child facing a master.
A blow thundered into his shield, wrenching it out of shape, and he winced. He slashed a riposte towards his brother’s neck, but it was batted aside with contemptuous ease. Bertelis grinned and stepped back, allowing Calard a moment to catch his breath. He realised that his brother was toying with him, just as he had his earlier opponent.
‘You have grown soft,’ said Bertelis.
‘Turn from this path, Bertelis,’ said Calard. ‘It leads you only to damnation.’
‘You drove me onto this path, brother,’ snapped Bertelis. ‘You turned your back on me!’
‘And I’m truly sorry,’ said Calard. ‘My words were spoken in haste. I was blinded by grief. I meant not what I said.’
‘It is too late for apologies,’ said Bertelis, and Calard knew he spoke the truth. There was a madness behind his eyes that Calard had never seen before, a simmering, insatiable rage that threatened to consume him. It was as if some wild beast had taken up residence in the flesh of his brother, directing his movements like a puppet.
‘You are no longer the brother I knew and loved,’ said Calard. His breath was ragged from the intensity of the fight, yet Bertelis appeared completely rested, barely having raised a sweat.
‘No,’ agreed Bertelis. ‘I am something far greater.’
‘Enough!’ hissed Duke Merovech from the edge of the killing circle. ‘Finish it, now!’
Calard’s gaze darted between the fiend that was once his brother and the pale, immortal figure of Duke Merovech. Realisation dawned.
‘It was you who sacked Garamont,’ he said, looking back at Bertelis. ‘It was you who killed Orlando and Montcadas, and butchered my knights.’
‘I would have killed you too,’ said Bertelis, ‘had you been there. Now, the cycle will be complete, and every tie to my former life will at last be severed.’
‘You are not even human,’ said Calard. Bertelis smiled in response, exposing needle-sharp canines.
‘My, you are quick, brother,’ he said. The smile dropped from his face. ‘And now, you die.’
For a moment the brothers regarded each other from opposite sides of the killing circle, before they began closing the distance, swords at the ready.
A deafening roar boomed through the cavernous chamber, echoing loudly and making the windows rattle in their frames. Calard could feel the reverberant sound in his bones. He looked up, the duel momentarily forgotten.
An arched balcony jutted out over the room, thirty feet overhead, and crouched upon its marble balustrade was a monster.
XIII
IT WAS HUGE, easily six times the bulk of a man, and it looked like some monstrous gargoyle come to life. It was hunched, and black matted fur covered its massive shoulders. Immense talons carved furrows in the marble as it tensed its huge arms, bulging with sinew and muscle. It howled at the heavens again, the sound deeply affecting on some primal level, before turning its baleful gaze down into the chamber below.
Its head was huge and wide, a hideous blend of man, bat and wolf. Its lips drew back to expose a terrifying array of fangs, and its snarl rumbled deep in its powerful chest. Its canines were heavily pronounced, and each was easily six inches in length. Its eyes were those of a predator, burning with fury and hunger, and they locked on the pale figure of Duke Merovech, far below.
The monster howled again, spittle flying from its maw, and it launched from its eyrie. Powerful leg muscles propelled it downwards at astonishing speed, and its huge taloned arms extended in front of it, veined membranes of skin unfurling from wrist to hip like vestigial wings.
It hurtled downwards, like a monstrous bird of prey dropping on its quarry, and shouts and screams erupted across the chamber. Calard heard the sound of weapons clashing along with cries of shock and pain, and through the dense crowd he spied the filth-encrusted forms of Grandfather Mortis’s children, leaping and howling as they attacked. Like a frenzied pack, they descended on the crowded chamber, and chaos erupted.
Duke Merovech hurled himself to one side as the monster struck. It slammed down into the floor with titanic force, sending cracks shooting out across the surface of the marble from the impact. Merovech rolled neatly to his feet, a sword in each hand.
People were running across the killing circle in panic, separating Calard and Bertelis. He saw his brother fighting his way through the crowd towards him, his face a mask of fury. A knight slammed into Calard, knocking him back a step, and a heavy blow to his arm knocked the Sword of Garamon
t from his grasp. The ancient heirloom clattered to the ground and was kicked away, spinning just out of reach.
Calard swore and dived after it. Someone tripped over him and fell sprawling, and he grunted as he was kicked and trampled, but he ensured that he kept his eyes locked on the holy sword. He reached for it, and his fingers grazed its hilt tantalisingly, but then it was kicked away again, this time disappearing into the crowd. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw Bertelis storming towards him, hacking down knights, ladies and feral peasants alike, and he swore again.
Fighting back to his feet, he tore the shield from his arm and hurled it aside. He reached up over his back and yanked his hand-and-a-half sword from its scabbard as Bertelis drew close.
Had he been a fraction slower he would have been dead, and he only barely managed to block Bertelis’s blow slicing in at his neck. He was knocked back a step and Bertelis came after him, getting inside the reach of his longer blade.
He was completely outclassed, and they both knew it. Confident that Calard could not match him, Bertelis was now fighting well within his own limits, and his form was slipping. Calard’s anger swelled; he was determined to punish Bertelis for such arrogance, but knew he might only get one chance.
After a few more passes, Bertelis lunged. Calard sidestepped neatly, turning side-on to let Bertelis’s momentum take him past him. His brother’s blade slid by him, a hair’s-breadth from his throat. With a grunt of exertion, he rammed his sword’s heavy pommel into the side of Bertelis’s head, putting his whole armoured weight behind it.
The move was expertly delivered, his timing perfect, and it should have caved Bertelis’s skull in. His brother’s head snapped back, but he did not fall. Calard used the moment to step back, adopting a ready stance with his blade held high, its point levelled at Bertelis.
A trickle of blood ran from Bertelis’s temple, but he appeared otherwise unaffected by the blow. He reached up to the wound, and then licked the blood from his finger tips.
‘For that, I’m going to make this really hurt,’ said Bertelis.
Calard lunged at him and Bertelis danced out of the way. Calard turned, sweeping his blade overhead and bringing it crashing down in a heavy, diagonal strike. Bertelis parried it early and leapt in under the blade to grab Calard by the throat. He moved so fast, he was little more than a blur. His grip was like iron, and his snarling face was close. Up close, he looked barely human at all, his eyes glinting with fathomless hunger and madness, his skin almost translucent, and his expression twisted and bestial.
‘Orlando’s blood was so sweet, so innocent,’ he hissed. ‘It was like nectar on my lips, sweeter than the finest wine.’
Bertelis lifted Calard off his feet, holding him aloft with one hand before tossing him aside like a child. Calard slammed into one of Merovech’s knights, bowling him over, and they fell in a tangled heap. Calard was up first, and as the knight grappled with him, he pummelled his elbow into the man’s face, dropping him instantly.
Calard staggered to his feet, dragging his sword up. Bertelis’s boot slammed down on it hard, snapping the blade halfway up its length, and Calard reeled back.
A knight lunged at him with a drawn sword, and Calard swayed to the side, avoiding the killing thrust. He stabbed the jagged end of his shattered sword into the man’s face, and he fell away with a strangled cry. Another knight swung at him from behind, but Calard sidestepped neatly. Grabbing the man’s arm as he came around, he pulled him off-balance, shoving him into Bertelis’s path.
Without blinking, Bertelis ran the knight through, and the tip of Bertelis’s blade burst from his back. He dragged his sword clear, and hurled the man aside.
Calard took a moment to survey his surroundings. The attack by Mortis’s feral brood had taken the knights by surprise, but they were fighting back now, gathering into tight huddles to support each other, and both sides were taking heavy casualties. Bodies were strewn across the chamber floor, and more than a few of the hunched peasants had dropped to the ground to feed, unable to restrain their hunger amid the sight and smell of so much blood.
He saw Mortis standing alone, up on the balcony where the monster had appeared, watching the mayhem unfold.
The immense beast and Duke Merovech had taken their fight up onto the raised dais where the five statues sat enthroned, separating themselves from the chaotic melee below.
The creature was bleeding from a dozen wounds, but it did not appear to be slowing. Merovech danced and weaved like a dervish, ducking under blows that would have torn him in half, twin blades flashing. He moved with preternatural speed, but the monster he fought was almost as quick, despite its bulk. As he watched, he saw the beast catch Merovech a glancing blow that sent the duke skittering across the dais like a rag doll, crashing into the central altar holding the huge, dark chalice with bone-jarring force.
The beast roared in victory and leapt after him but Merovech recovered quickly, and rolled under the blade-like talons that hammered down towards him. As he came to his feet, both blades carved bloody furrows across the monster’s chest, and it hissed in pain.
Using the immense beast’s arm like a ladder, Merovech turned and leapt lightly up his enemy’s body, spinning both swords around in his hands so that they were pointed downwards, like daggers. Kicking off the beast’s chest, he turned in mid-air and plunged both swords into its neck.
The monster bellowed. Both swords were embedded to the hilt, and Calard could see their tips protruding from the back of its neck as it thrashed around in pain. It reached up and ripped both weapons free, hurling them away from it, and blood gushed from the wounds. Such a blow ought to have been fatal, but the beast merely shook its head and dropped to all fours, and began stalking towards the now unarmed Duke Merovech.
‘Your master’s going to die,’ said Calard as Bertelis closed the distance between them.
‘I think not,’ said his brother. ‘No devolved varghulf is a match for him.’
Bertelis lunged, feinting high and coming in low with a brutal attack intended to disembowel him. Calard saw it coming, and dropped his guard to block the vicious attack, but Bertelis had already shifted the angle of his attack once more.
Spinning on his heel, Bertelis turned quickly, his head whipping around and his body following. His sword slashed across Calard’s shoulder, striking just under his pauldron. The blow hacked through his chainmail and padding, and bit deep into flesh before striking bone.
Before Calard could even cry out, Bertelis spun back around the way he had come and rammed his blade into Calard’s body. The tip penetrated just inside his hip, slipping through the slender gap under his breastplate.
Calard gasped, and his shattered sword-blade dropped from his hands. He fell to one knee, and Bertelis loomed above him, his blade slick with blood.
‘Goodbye, brother,’ said Bertelis, drawing his sword back for the killing thrust.
A knight burst from the crowd nearby. He had a sword in each hand, and he shouted at the top of his lungs as he charged.
‘Calard!’ Raben cried, tossing one of the blades towards him.
Calard caught the sword, his fingers closing around the familiar hilt.
Raben swung a two-handed blow at Bertelis, who turned and blocked the attack with one of his own. Dropping to one knee, Bertelis slashed from right to left across Raben’s stomach, carving through his chain hauberk and the muscle beneath, then rose and kicked the outcast away.
With a snarl, Bertelis rounded on Calard, but his eyes went wide as the Sword of Garamont impaled him.
Calard was on his feet now, and he grunted with effort as gave his sword another shove, ramming it up into Bertelis’s body.
Blood gushed from the fatal wound, and Bertelis’s face became increasingly gaunt, as if all the moisture in his body was being sucked out of him. His features became ever more skeletal and inhuman as his translucent flesh withered, his lips drawing back to expose his savage fangs. Calard stepped back, a look of disgust on his face, and
slid his blade free.
The Sword of Garamont was glowing with an aura of white light, and Calard looked upon it in wonder. Bertelis’s blood spattered off it, leaving the blade spotless. The shimmering radiance felt like sunlight on Calard’s face, and despite the mayhem surrounding him, he felt a sense of calm and assurance envelop him.
Bertelis fell to his knees, blood pooling beneath him. His flesh continued to shrink upon his skull, until he looked barely human at all. His hands had withered to little more than talons, and their veins, purple and blue, stood out sharply. He glared up at Calard then. Hatred and fury burnt in his eyes, but also fear. He hissed like a cornered animal, teeth bared, as if he were devolving before Calard’s eyes.
The luminosity of the sword in Calard’s hands intensified, glowing hot and pure, and Bertelis’s skin began to blacken and blister beneath its glare. He held his hands up, shielding his eyes, and they too began to burn. A pitiful wail emitted from his throat.
‘Lady, give him peace,’ murmured Calard, clasping his sword in both hands. Without pause, he stepped forwards and beheaded the creature that had once been Bertelis.
Raben was lying on the ground nearby, clutching at his stomach, and he smiled wryly as his gaze met Calard’s.
‘Thank you,’ said Calard.
Raben grunted. ‘That was your brother?’ he said, indicating towards Bertelis’s corpse with his chin.
‘No,’ said Calard. ‘My brother died a long time ago.’
A roar of pain and fury dragged Calard’s attention up towards the raised dais. The immense, loathsome beast that Bertelis had called a varghulf was down, blood pooling beneath it. Its flesh was slashed and torn, hanging from it in bloody tatters.
Duke Merovech stood before it, sword in hand. He too was injured. One of his pauldrons had been ripped away, exposing his shoulder, which was covered in blood. Four bloody rents were carved through his breastplate. Nevertheless, Duke Merovech stood victorious, and Calard shook his head in wonderment. Could nothing kill him?
The varghulf’s powerful legs bunched for one final spring, but it was never given the chance. Duke Merovech hurled his sword aside and leapt towards his enemy with a blood-curdling battle cry, hands extended like claws. He grabbed the immense creature by the head, grappling with it, and with a roar of effort, he wrenched it upwards, exposing its neck.
Hammer and Bolter Year One Page 26
