Assassin of the Damned

— 18-

A bat stretched furry wings and let go of its perch. Because it had slept hanging upside-down, the little creature dropped. Before it struck the floorboards, it shot out the arch and into the starry night.

I eased up and peered toward the city gate.

The black knight saddled his horse. Half again larger than lions, the lycanthropes paced. One growled what sounded like words. The distance made it impossible to understand his speech.

The knight hoisted himself into the saddle. It was the first time I’d really seen him move. He mounted with grace, with strength, as the real Orlando might have done. He flicked the reins and cantered toward the gate. The lycanthropes slunk after him.

I hurried down the stairs. Maybe an hour later, I heard the knight and his horse and I climbed a pitted wall. Like a vulture, I crouched on a slate roof, hidden by a gargoyle statue.

The lycanthropes padded into view. They were thinner than lions, but had a big cat’s silky way of trotting. They sniffed wolf-like and growled among themselves, giving off the sense of speech. The knight followed on his horse. He held his morningstar and a triangular black shield. His hellish eyes glowed with sinister purpose and he glanced back and forth. The clop of hooves echoed in the ruins, and they passed underneath my gargoyle, the lycanthropes first.

I tensed and slowly drew my deathblade. I could drop like a vampire onto the knight, knock him off the horse and stab between the bars of his visor. But the armor looked sturdy, and I dreaded the idea of snapping my knife against it. Suppose he turned his head, or suppose he was really Orlando Furioso, the world’s greatest knight. The fight might take time. Would the lycanthropes simply watch?

The horse clopped past my hiding spot. The spike on the knight’s helmet looked sharp. I sheathed the deathblade. After they turned the corner, I dropped onto the street and hurried after them. I would have to whittle down the odds before I faced the black knight.

It galled me to slink like a thief in my own city, but I trailed them. I knew the shortcuts. That helped. I wanted to ring the city bells and call out the guard, but the guards were dead and someone had stolen the bells. So I peered around corners, climbed buildings and watched from glassless windows.

Once, the lycanthropes howled in chorus. I lay on a roof across from the Golden Inn. An eight-foot giant with a grotesque face and great hairy shoulders slunk out of the inn. His apish arms almost dangled to his knees. He would be a formidable foe. He held the silver knife, Lorelei’s keepsake. He held it by the end of the hilt as if it was poisonous. He flung it so it clattered onto paving.

“Who held it?” asked the knight.

The giant shrugged furry shoulders. Was he a lycanthrope? Were they shape-changers?

“Did a man or a woman hold it?” the knight asked.

The primitive giant cast a hateful glance at the knife. The lycanthropes, the other two, kept far from it. I suspected then that it was true what people said about silver weapons. They had a deadlier effect on such creatures than regular iron.

“Sniff it,” the knight said.

The giant made a face. But he bent down, put his hairy palms on the paving and leaned his nose near the knife. From where I lay, I heard him sniff.

“I sense a woman,” the giant growled.

“Is there any blood?” asked the knight.

“No.”

“Why did she leave it?”

“I’m not an astrologer,” the giant said. He sounded angry.

The knight chuckled, which I thought odd.

“Is your laughter a slur?” the giant asked.

“You can’t slur dogs.”

The giant hunched his shoulders, and he growled.

“Instead of calling you a dog, would you rather I called you a wizard?” the knight asked.

“We three are brothers of the fang,” the giant said. “We are hunters.”

“Dogs,” the knight said.

The giant snarled. One of the others snarled back. The humanoid beast stood to his imposing height. “Dogs are hunters. Dogs are good. Wizards hide behind spells.”

“Dogs hunt,” the knight agreed.

“Then you did not insult me?”

As if bored with the conversation, the knight stood up in the stirrups and scanned the street.

As he watched the knight, the giant’s lips drew back. He stepped toward the armored man.

I cursed under my breath. I was across the street and atop a building. If they fought among themselves, this was my chance. I debated jumping down and attacking.

The horse’s head swiveled around then. The giant stopped and flexed his grotesque hands, hesitating. The knight settled back in his saddle, patted the horse’s neck and chuckled. He did it in a way that said he knew exactly what was going on. The giant fell into a crouch, and in the shadows, he blurred. A moment later, he trotted away in beast form.

“Dogs,” the knight said. He clucked his tongue. The horse followed the sniffing pack.

I crept down the stairs and hurried out the back. I had a good idea which way they went. Maybe I could finally ambush them. Unfortunately, I guessed wrong, and was forced to continue my shadowy game. They dissected the ruins in efficient patterns, and after scouring one district, they began in another. Like a persistent cough, I remained near them throughout, waiting for my chance.

“Rabbits, foxes and rats,” a lycanthrope said later.

I peered from a window on a third floor. It was an ancient tenement building from Roman times. Tanners had lived here, workers in the leather guild. It was in the Bettona District, a former stronghold of republican sentiment and a hotbed for those hostile to Baglioni rule.

“You’re certain you haven’t smelled a woman’s tracks?” the knight asked.

All three lycanthropes shook their heads. All three were in animal form.

The knight leaned toward them and spoke in a dangerous voice. “Have you smelled anything else?”

“Rabbits, foxes-”

The knight made a curt gesture. “Forget about animals.”

“There is a dead thing-”

“You fool!” the knight said. “What dead thing?”

The three lycanthropes exchanged glances.

“None may insult us,” the chief lycanthrope said.

The red eyes behind the knight’s visor seemed to glow hotter.

“…It is very faint,” the chief lycanthrope said, “hints of a dead thing. You said to tell of scents.”

“So tell me,” the knight said.

“Why worry about carrion?”

In the third storey room, I flexed my hands. They were powerful, whole. If the lycanthrope spoke about my scent, he was wrong. I’d seen carrion before, rotted flesh. I had nothing in common with it.

The knight peered down the street; he peered up it. He examined the relics of buildings. “Your noses are legendary,” he told the beasts. “You can track anything. But you lack wit. If you desire to return home with important scalps, you must tell me everything.”

“Even dead things?” the lycanthrope asked.

“Did you smell it in more than one place?” the knight asked.

“It is faint.”

“You mean it’s an old scent?” the knight asked.

“It’s like a whisper that is hard to hear.”

“Is it old?”

“It is hard because here there are many dead scents.”

“You’re the lycanthropes,” the knight said.

“That is why it is hard to explain it to you. Death once squatted here and has tainted the trails.” The lycanthrope shook his head. “This is an evil place with haunted scents.”

“But among them,” the knight said, “you smell this dead thing?”

“That is so.”

“Is the scent in many places?”

“It is very faint,” the lycanthrope said.

“Answer my question, beast.”

The lycanthrope’s eyes became dark. “We are not beasts. We are shape-changers, the Chosen.”

“And your noses are legendary,” the knight said. “Did you smell this thing in many places?”

“…It is possible.”

The horse snorted and shook its head.

“A predator likely dragged the carrion,” the lycanthrope said. “That is why we smelled it in-”

“What predator?” the knight asked in a contemptuous voice.

“This world has many predators. This we know. Bears, leopards, wolves-”

“What predators have you smelled here?”

“The carrion must-”

“What hunters?” the knight demanded.

“Foxes, owls and-”

“Foxes dragged this so-called carrion? Is that what you’re saying?”

The lycanthrope blinked. Then he turned to his brothers of the fang. They snarled back and forth between themselves.

The knight whistled sharply so the lycanthropes spun toward him.

“Our paymaster has deadly enemies both open and hidden,” the knight said. “Among them are powers unwise to name. Some do not approve of his ends. Among them are those who can cause the dead to walk.”

“This is ill news,” the lycanthrope said.

“To the superstitious it may be,” the knight said. “Dead or alive, all things fall to me. Since you are with me, you need not fear dead things. But you must tell me what you smell, even if it is faint.”

“We only hunt the living. We fear nothing that lives.”

“Your courage is legendary, of course. I want to know what this faint smell means. We will track it and find out.”

“Spells are needed against dead-things-that-walk. But only weaklings use spells. Lycanthropes are strong. Forget the faint scent. That is my advice.”

“The paymaster did not seek you because this thing is easy,” the knight said. “Honor comes from great exploits. It is faint, you say. Maybe what made it is gone. Maybe it is here, hidden like a wraith, watching us.”

I needed a crossbow, a heavy one. Then I could put a bolt through the knight’s brain.

The lycanthrope lowered his head, and he snarled at his companions. They traded sly glances and soon snarled softly.

“We hunt,” the lycanthrope agreed.

I heard the deceit. They feared me as most normal people had so far. No doubt, the black knight also heard their deceit. He sat back in his saddle. After a time, he slotted the morningstar and scratched the horse’s neck.

“Did you smell this faint scent on the silver knife?” the knight asked.

“…Yes,” the lycanthrope said.

The knight lowered his helmeted head. Then he looked up sharply at my building.

With slow deliberation, I eased back out of sight. When I heard a jangle and clank of armor, I eased forward to the window.

The knight had dismounted. He unbuckled a saddlebag and withdrew three objects: a clothbound thing, a scroll and an ivory box.

“Keep quiet,” he told the lycanthropes. “Don’t ask questions until I’m done. This is delicate work and I can’t afford any mistakes. Do you understand?”

“Should we hunt?”

“No,” the knight said. “Just keep out of my way and don’t make noise.”

The three beasts slunk to the broken fountain of Mars where they crouched and muttered together.

The knight took off his gauntlets, knelt and opened the scroll, weighing down the ends with stones. He unwound the cloth to reveal a dagger and scratched lines into the cobblestones that soon took on an elaborate shape. Then he opened the ivory box and took out six candles. He set them in various places, rose, stretched and crackled his knuckles. Finally, he took a long stick from the saddlebag and scratched the tip against paving. The tip burst into flame.

The lycanthropes had quit muttering. They lay by the fountain, their necks stretched as they watched the proceedings.

The knight lit each candle in turn, maybe in a special sequence. He shook out the lit stick and picked up the scroll. The massive horse clopped to him and peered over his shoulder.

I caught a whiff of the candles. They smelled like burnt human. Worse, I heard faint screams, and I thought in one of the flickers to see a tortured ghost-face.

The knight cleared his throat and read aloud from the scroll. A flame whooshed from the tallest candle. It flickered high and the wax melted and flowed into the etched lines. Then the air above the etching became hazy and filled with billowing smoke. The smoke began to take shape as if under a sculptor’s chisel. A forehead appeared, the bridge of a nose, lips, chin-no, it was a spade-shaped beard.

With a start, I realized it was my face, although I presently lacked a beard. Had the knight used a spell to locate me?

Before I could flee, the smoke-face opened its eyes. It smiled. What a sly smile. What an arrogant stare. Then it came to me. The smoke-face wasn’t mine. Well, it was. But it showed Erasmo in my likeness. The lips parted. He spoke with a puff of smoke as on a wintry day.

“The ruins are secure?” Erasmo asked.

The knight bowed his helmeted head as one does to a high official. “The lycanthropes have prowled Perugia, signor. They found a silver knife, but no traces of a woman’s trail.”

“Indeed,” Erasmo said. “And…?”

“They smelled a faint trace of what they called ‘a dead thing’.”

The smoky lips compressed and the smoky eyes narrowed.

“The lycanthropes refuse to track it, signor.”

“Is it the Darkling?”

“The lycanthropes say it is a faint scent.”

“You doubt the lycanthropes?” Erasmo asked.

“They fear these ruins, signor.”

A smoke-hand appeared and stroked the rippling beard. “Can I trust you, Signor Orlando?”

“I desire Durendal and Angelica’s whereabouts, Your Excellency.”

The wavering face broke into an evil smile. “I must live for you to gain those,” Erasmo said.

“You will live, signor. This I assure you.”

“How long will the portal burn?”

The knight glanced at the etching, shrugged.

The smoky hand vanished. The head nodded. “Give me ten minutes.”

“That will be cutting it very near,” the knight said.

“I need to gather an amulet and a key. They’re in the high tower. Make certain I face no unwarranted surprises.”

“How many will you bring, signor?”

“I have you and you have the lycanthropes. That will be enough.”

“They won’t dig,” the knight said.

The head laughed, and then the smoke dissipated.

Erasmo came to Perugia? I flexed my hands as a bitter smile stretched my lips. I would throttle him until his face turned purple.

The black knight called the lycanthropes. They raced to him. He spoke urgently, but too quietly for me to hear. A lycanthrope glanced up at my building. The knight spoke curtly. The lycanthrope lowered his head.

In seven swift strides, I stood before another window ninety degrees from the one I’d just used. I leaped and landed in a crouch atop a two-storey ruin. Unfortunately, the wall complained.

Lycanthropes shouted from within my former building. They were fast, but I’d been faster.

I scuttled like a crab on all fours. My foot shot through rotted roofing. I lay flat, slithered out of danger and made it to the other side. I leaped again, dangled from the new roof and dropped into the alley. I dodged around corners and shimmied up a lead pipe attached to a church. The church had angled roofs. I hid among them and listened, but heard nothing.

Had I lost them? Possibly.

Erasmo was coming. And he had called the knight Signor Orlando. That was flatly impossible. Yet they had spoken about Durendal. Durendal was the name of Orlando’s magic sword. I’d often read about it in the poems concerning the greatest of legendary knights. Was the black knight the same paladin then who had fought in Charlemagne’s host? If so, how had he survived the centuries? Was he immortal like Lorelei? Whoever this Orlando was, the lycanthropes feared him and Erasmo employed him.

Erasmo was coming to Perugia.

I eased from my position and soon dropped into another alley. I had to act before Erasmo came. Now more than ever, I needed to whittle down the odds.