The young woman looked down at Vitus's corpse before turning her dark eyes back to Jacob.
“That's more than can be said for you, fool,” she growled, producing the same sacrificial knife Vitus had used earlier from behind her back and shoving it into the sergeant's throat.
Blood erupted from the wound and Sir Richard looked on in shock, surprised that his sergeant's head didn't fall from his shoulders, the cut was so vicious.
As Jacob fell to his knees Athenais kicked him into the gutter that collected the blood from the their victims, nodding in satisfaction as the thick crimson fluid pumped from the Hospitaller's wound, filling the gutter. “Vitus was nothing more than my puppet,” she laughed. “He was smitten by my occasional sexual favours and the belladonna – amongst other things – that I secretly tipped into his wine to keep him pliable.”
Dagon's High Priestess looked up into Sir Richard's tear-stained face, the bloody dagger held in front of her savage grin. “Now it's your turn to meet Dagon, Sir Knight. Come to me!”
* * *
Behind Athenais the congregation had really begun to panic. Not only was a force of Hospitallers coming at them, swords drawn, but the thumping noises they'd been hearing for weeks deep under their village had begun again only now they were much, much louder. The cavern shook with the thunderous rumbling as Sir Richard faced Father Vitus's supposed housekeeper.
“He is coming,” she laughed. Her face looked innocent and pretty and she smiled like a child enjoying a game. It just added to the horror Sir Richard felt at what was happening around him.
“Arra! Arra! Arra! Dagon! Dagon! Dagon!”
Some of the congregation joined in with her chant but by now the Hospitallers had reached the bottom of the stairs and were moving in amongst them.
“Kill them,” Athenais screamed, her face seeming to glow with joy. “Kill every one of them! Dagon will be here soon to reward your sacrifice!”
The congregation threw themselves at the Hospitallers, hammering their fists, knees, teeth and whatever else they had against their heavily armoured opponents.
Sir Jean de Pagnac looked on from halfway down the stairs, his eyes wide in disbelief. “Take no prisoners!” he roared, making his way down to do his part. “Wipe these blasphemers from God's Earth.”
Athenais grinned even wider, black eyes betraying her joy at the Hospitaller knight's command. “That's it, spill their blood; let it run like water into the pool!”
Sir Richard made to attack her but four of the screaming heretics came for him – empty-handed but with an insane, murderous gleam in their eyes – as she walked forward to stand gazing down into a great hole in the stone floor.
“He is coming!” Athenais screamed, her voice surprisingly powerful, filling the entire cavern and everyone, cultist and Hospitaller alike, stopped as they recognized the portent in her words. “He is coming...”
Something arose from the black opening in the floor. It appeared to be nothing more than smoke at first, but Sir Richard felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise as the terrible outline started to take shape revealing the same hideously long limbs and blank, faceless head that had haunted his dreams. He looked around at his men and wondered if he was hallucinating as none of the other Hospitallers seemed to notice the amorphous shape, all eyes except his own still fixed on the smiling High-Priestess.
“Stand down!” Sir Richard roared, his powerful voice loud enough, just, to reach the men he commanded here. “Stand down! The blood we're spilling is bringing that monstrosity to life!” It was obvious to him that the villagers weren't all here voluntarily – some of them didn't bear the black pupils of the faithful, and many were trying to escape from the cavern now as the knights closed in. But some of the villagers – even if they didn't follow Dagon – hated the Catholic Hospitallers and appeared happy to rise against these knights who'd taken over their island and repressed their own Orthodox Christianity.
Athenais lunged at Sir Richard as he contemplated all this, throwing him back, and he struggled to maintain his footing.
“Your men might butcher my followers,” she shouted over the cacophony that filled the air as the men and women behind her fell to the Hospitallers' blades. “But their lifeblood will resurrect Dagon.” She turned again to her people who, by now, were lost in blood-lust as they sought to defend themselves against the Hospitallers. “Throw yourselves on their swords!” she screamed, grinning maniacally at Sir Richard. “Dagon will resurrect you when he takes form again.”
It was impossible for the Hospitallers to stop fighting the villagers without committing suicide. The people came at them, bare-handed but with savage, murderous intent, and the red surcoats of the soldiers became slick with the blood of the crazed – or simply terrified – worshippers.
On the altar lay the book Father Vitus had been reading from in what sounded like Arabic to Sir Richard. As Athenais lunged at him again he side-stepped her blow and punched her in the jaw, sending her sprawling on the ground where she lay, groaning, her sacrificial dagger spinning away to the side.
The knight ran past her and grabbed the book, which felt strangely clammy in his hands and seemed to move as if it were alive. He barely noticed the title on the spine –Necronomicon – as he lifted it and hurled it into the pit.
He'd hoped removing the cursed book would somehow halt the smoky figure's return to corporeal form but it didn't. Dagon, or whatever the thing was, continued to become more substantial and Sir Richard felt the icy grasp of fear grip him.
“Stephen!” Sir Jean's sergeant-at-arms had fought his way to the front of the altar and he turned to face Sir Richard now.
“Sir Jean's done for!” the sergeant cried over the sound of dying. “Went down under half-a-dozen of these lunatics.”
“You have to get out of here,” Sir Richard replied. “Take word to the Grand Master. I don't know what he can do to stop...that...But...he has to return with more men and destroy this whole place! Go – the rest of us'll do our best to hold the bastards off!”
“Look out!”
Stephen's warning cry came just in time. Sir Richard turned and saw just a glimpse of movement coming towards his head. He dodged backwards as Athenais swung a heavy candlestick at him, catching him a glancing blow on the temple, but her momentum carried her forward. As the Hospitaller knight lost consciousness the last thing he saw was the girl, screaming in terror as she fell into the pit with her murderous god.
* * *
“Are you seriously – seriously! – telling me some demon wiped out your entire force? Including a knight? You two and a couple of mercenaries are the only survivors?” Foulques de Villaret looked more bemused than angry, despite his raised voice.
Sir Richard bowed his head in acknowledgement of his disastrous mission and his superior's scathing words. “What I've told you is the truth. Whether we are the only survivors we have no way of knowing without going back to Krymmeni Thesi and searching the cavern. Please,” he looked up at his superior, his voice earnest, “let us lead a force back there, today – now! – to rescue any of our brothers that remain alive, and to avenge Jacob's murder.”
De Villaret stared thoughtfully at the two Englishmen before him, wondering if they'd lost their minds or if their ridiculous tale could possibly be real.
“I thought you didn't believe in all this supernatural nonsense, Richard...?”
The bearded knight looked away uncomfortably before replying. “Before all this happened, if I'd heard the tale from someone else I'd have thought them touched but now...” He met his superior's gaze earnestly. “I have to believe the evidence of my own eyes, Grand Master.”
“You – sergeant!” Stephen snapped to attention as the Grand Master turned his glare on him. “You agree with this story? You saw this demon too?”
The Yorkshireman shook his head slightly, almost apologetically, as if he was betraying the big knight at his side. “No, Grand Master, I didn't see the demon myself, I must admit… But I can vouc
h for Sir Richard's story; everything else happened as he described.”
“Very well,” de Villaret growled after a time. “We'll go to the village and see what's left of our men. But you're not leading this time Richard. I'm coming with you; I want to see for myself what in God's name this is all about.”
A short time later, two hundred Hospitallers, many of them high-ranking knights or sergeants rather than just the mercenaries of the previous mission, rode out of the fortress and headed for the accursed village that had caused their Order so much trouble.
When Sir Richard had passed out in the cavern Stephen had carried him back through the same cramped tunnel the knight had come along with Jacob. It had been a hellish flight as he struggled not to hit Sir Richard's head or legs off the walls, the sounds of fighting slowly dying away as the heretics were killed. As he made it to the way out and breathlessly climbed the stairs that would take him into the church above the distant sounds changed. The screams became ones of terror and despair rather than the ecstatic cries of the crazed, dying worshippers. Horrific thunderous noises filled the air, echoing along the tunnel and causing the ground to shake as if an earthquake was upon them.
Gasping a prayer of thanks to God, Stephen at last made it back to the church, his burden causing his arms to burn as he hurried past the incongruously normal looking pews and out into the night. Sobbing in desperation he struggled to haul the unconscious knight onto the big destrier that stood tied up by the door, its nostrils flaring fearfully at the sounds and tremors from underground.
He had freed the second beast then pulled himself up behind Sir Richard and kicked his heels into their mount which was only too happy to race out of Krymmeni Thesi and back to the fortress despite its burden. As he'd passed the tunnel entrance Stephen had screamed at the two young mercenaries who'd been left to guard the horses there to follow him back to the citadel.
“Is that horse of yours all right?” de Villaret asked, watching Sir Richard's mount as they approached the village again now. “Looks a bit nervous.”
“He'll be fine, Grand Master,” the knight replied, patting the destrier's neck comfortingly. “He's been in battles before.”
“Not with a demon, he hasn't,” Stephen muttered under his breath. The English sergeant-at-arms, his own master murdered by the devil-worshippers, had taken up position beside Sir Richard since Jacob was also lying dead beneath Krymmeni Thesi.
The Grand Master made a dismissive sound, but his eyes turned to look into the field they were passing. “What the hell's that man doing?”
“It's a straw man,” Sir Richard replied without looking over.
De Villaret shrugged and the enormous force of armoured men rode into the village as the sun sat high in the sky overhead, making the air almost unbearably hot for those amongst the Knights that had grown up in colder climes.
Krymmeni Thesi bustled; all appeared normal. Just a village like any other on the island. The women and children gazed up fearfully at the mounted soldiers while the men at work in the streets looked at them warily as they passed by, heading for the church.
“I have to say,” de Villaret said. “This place doesn't look like a demon was brought to life here only a few hours ago.”
They reached the church and dismounted. Sir Richard didn't answer the Grand Master and neither did Stephen; both men were apprehensive at going back into the cavern to find...what?
“Well there's no way we can get all these men down here at once,” de Villaret noted as the big English knight took him beneath the church to the tunnel entrance. “But I hear no sounds of fighting, or screams of dying men, or growls from devils. I believe we'll be safe enough without an escort. You and the sergeant wait here while we” – he gestured to five other high-ranking knights to follow – “search this cavern of yours.”
“Arrogant prick,” Stephen grumbled as the Hospitaller's leader entered the tunnel with supreme confidence.
Sir Richard gave a nervous smile in reply. The Grand Master was an arrogant bastard he thought – one of these days it would come back to haunt him.
A short time later the sound of men running came to them and Sir Richard drew his sword, licking his lips as he stared at the doorway. “Swords at the ready, men,” he ordered, feeling no safer despite the presence of so many hard fighting men right behind him.
Foulques de Villaret appeared, his chosen knights close on his heels, every one of the small party with faces pale and eyes wide in shock.
“Close it up!” the Grand Master shouted, nervously glancing back over his shoulder apparently for signs of pursuit. “Close this entrance up, now, so no one else will ever be able to use it! Block the tunnel with stones, rubble, those pews – anything you can find! Then seal the entrance with cement and burn this place to the ground along with everything in it. We'll remove the stone it's built with over time. I want nothing left of this accursed place!”
“Sir? What did you see? Did the blasphemers kill all our men?”
“Stop wasting time and follow my orders!” the Grand Master snapped back at Sir Richard. “All the men are dead, yes, although I don't think any human could have done...that to their bodies...”
He and his small retinue stumbled out onto the street, some of them retching, and Sir Richard looked over at Stephen and the rest of the men. “You heard him, get to work!”
The Hospitallers spent the rest of the morning blocking the tunnel before they set alight to the church, watching as the wooden roof collapsed upon itself. Then they moved on to the other entrance, the one Sir Richard and Jacob had first discovered and sealed that off with rubble and cement too.
When they were done the prior performed a mass for the souls of their fallen brothers, buried beneath the village for the rest of time.
The ceremony ended and Foulques de Villaret beckoned Sir Richard over to him as the sun began to sink in the sky, the relentless, hellish heat giving way to a refreshing easterly breeze.
“The devil-worshippers,” he said, “you reported that they have black eyes, am I right? Their pupils are so wide they cover almost the entire eyeball?”
The Englishman nodded, thinking back over the recent days' events. “Aye, Grand Master, all of them had that queer look about them.”
De Villaret nodded. “Good. You and the sergeant may return to the fortress; your investigation is finished.”
“Grand Master? Are you not coming with us? What about the men? What are we going to do about Dagon?”
“The men will stay with me. We have more work to do here.”
“Work? What do” –
“You've already seen enough, Sir Richard,” de Villaret broke in. “What happened in that cavern cannot be blamed on you. So I'm sparing you any further mental anguish. Return to the city. When I come back we will look at finding a new posting for you, perhaps back in your homeland.”
The English knight inclined his head, cursing inwardly, and moved towards his horse, calling for Stephen to follow him.
* * *
As the two Englishmen rode from the village Grand Master Foulques de Villaret gave orders to his knights. The Hospitallers then moved from house to house, searching them for anyone who carried the strange eyes Sir Richard had described.
Not many were found; no more than twenty or so. De Villaret surmised most of them had been cut down during the previous night's perverted underground ceremony.
“Bind them,” he told the knights. “And bring them with us.”
The villagers cried out for mercy. The black-eyed people that had been arrested were their husbands, wives, mothers, fathers, children....
The thought of these families being infested by the unholy sect terrified de Villaret who had seen the fearsome power of this blasphemous religion in the cavern beneath the sand he stood on now.
This cult had to be destroyed without mercy.
“Move out!” he roared, mounting his enormous warhorse. “If any of these people try to stop you, cut them down!”
The column slowly wound its way back towards the city, leaving behind the wailing villagers whom de Villaret ordered be stopped from following them.
When they reached the field with the sinister straw man in it the Grand Master called a halt, grunting to himself as he noticed the straw effigy was no longer standing there. A chill ran down his neck, and he raised his voice, desperate for this whole thing to be done with.
“Take these people into the field and behead them,” he ordered. “Then burn the bodies.”
Sir Raymond de Balben nodded. He too had been in the cavern. “What about the children?”
“Them too.”
* * *
The ship creaked and groaned as it picked up speed and left Rhodes behind on its long journey back to England. Stephen felt sick already and even Sir Richard felt apprehensive at the unfamiliar sounds and sensations sea travel brought.
Grand Master de Villaret had, after talking to his Turcopolier Thomas L'Archer – a friend of Sir Richard's – decided to give the English knight command of the preceptory at Kirklees in Yorkshire, where he had family ties; indeed, his wife and two young sons were living with family there right now and the knight was looking forward tremendously to seeing them all again.
De Villaret also assigned Stephen to replace Jacob as the English knight's new sergeant-at-arms.
The pair stood now in the glorious sunshine, leaning on the ship's railing and gazing back across the sparkling blue waves at Rhodes as the ship rolled on the gentle waves, the ruins of the Colossus still dominating the scene even though most of the great monument had been destroyed by an earthquake generations ago.
“You glad to be leaving the island?” Stephen asked, more to take his mind off the nausea he felt at the rocking motion of the ship than from any desire to make small-talk.
Sir Richard nodded firmly. “Aye, I am. I'd have liked to carry on the investigation but the Grand Master wants to erase the whole thing from history. He's ordered the entire population of Krymmeni Thesi to be dispersed around other settlements so he can wipe the place from the face of the Earth. I'm happy to leave Rhodes for now and go back to my family – you heard what that villager from Kailithies reported this morning.”
Knight of the Cross Page 7
