Assassin of the Damned

— 26-

I hid in a trunk-branch wedge of a jungle tree. I would rather have hidden in the water, but I feared that during the day crocodiles might swim by and devour me. That day, I dreamed of the tramp of feet, the clank of armor and the muttered oaths of soldiers. It was closer to a nightmare. The dream passed…

I stirred. And with a start, I raised my head. It was night again. The sun was gone. I crouched in the crotch of a branch and its trunk. I listened. There were squawks, hisses, roars and screams. I relaxed. Those were regular night-jungle sounds.

I jumped down onto trampled ground. Grass, fungi and thorns had been thoroughly crushed into mushy pulp by many men. My dream-had soldiers hunted me?

I turned toward shore. Then I reconsidered. Such trampling obviously meant someone had searched for me. Did Erasmo know how the sun sent Darklings into a lifeless stupor? I slipped through the jungle until I reached virgin ground. Fronds slapped my face. Long, thorny vines with unholy life tried to tangle me. I soon gazed on the Tower of the East. The lake or this inlet of the Adriatic Sea was its moat. I studied the walls. Could I scale those? If not, how would I get within?

The water was placid. The battlements were bare of guards, which reminded me of the moon castle. The only sign of life were lights in some of the towers.

After a thoughtful study, I returned to the trampled ground. Now that I considered it, my dreams had hinted about Orlando Furioso. He must have led the search party. I was grateful the lycanthropes had remained behind. Their noses might have ferreted me out.

I stood where I had last night when I’d tried to shoot Anaximander. Instead of a vacchette, an owl skimmed the water. Maybe I could find a log and float over.

I pondered that. Last night, they had sent out a galley. Despite the lack of visible guards, the tower had watchers. That made sense. An army supposedly waited on the edge of the swamp. It was not technically a siege, and yet…. The quickly sent galley showed me the tower-watchers were nervous. They’d reacted fast.

I began to trek along the muddy shore. I spent a quarter of the night and saw more crocodiles, more vine-lashing trees and more and larger serpents. Some of the serpents had mottled skin. Some had stripes like tigers. A few could have swallowed a bull. No swordsman could have hacked those in half. It would take carpenters with two-man saws. The swamp in and of itself was a defensive rampart with animal guardians. Maybe none of the guardians could effectively stop me, but they would slow a human army.

My marching paid off with sight of the bridge. It spanned from the tower to the mainland. A cavalry troop trotted across it. They went from the tower to the swamp.

I climbed a lightning-smashed tree and considered the tower in light of this knowledge. From this distance, the walls looked smooth. There might be some irregularities, but probably not enough to give me handholds. Had Erasmo conjured vast slabs of obsidian? Or were those bricks? I might drive spikes into mortar and work up the wall like a spider.

Spiders…there was something about spiders that tickled a memory. I set that aside for the moment. My trek had shown me the smooth walls. Of garbage chutes, canal-entrances or tunnels I had seen none. The tower and Venice were unalike in that regard. Erasmo’s sorcery must have effected the changes. My problem was simple. How was I supposed to get past four-hundred-foot walls? I would have to walk through a gate or climb a wall. If bricks formed the walls, I could possibly use spikes. If slabs of obsidian formed the walls, I needed a ladder, a very long one. Or, I needed a rope.

I sneered. How would I carry a four-hundred-foot rope to the tower?

The spider image returned. Spiders crawled. Spiders made webs. It was something about webs. Did I imagine myself spinning webs? No. Webs were like silk. Silk-that was it! Silk came from faraway Cathy. Silk was strong. Silk was light. Could I use a silken rope? The possibility made me re-estimate the wall’s height. I think the walls were closer to three hundred feet than four hundred.

Now, where could I get a silk rope? And get spikes for climbing? Milan was my first answer. For a price, everything could be found in Milan. Unfortunately, Milan was far from here. That would take many nights travel there and back, another night for finding the right merchant and maybe a night for haggling. Time was my enemy.

I watched the cavalry troop leave the bridge and enter the swamp. Fortune favored the bold. If I were daring, I would walk across underwater. Maybe I could even wait the day underwater.

Had Erasmo conjured sea serpents? I told myself that Francesca had survived so far without me, surely she could another night. My ignorance could kill me, and that wouldn’t help her. I needed knowledge. I could ask the Moon Lady through my coin, but she would demand my soul.

I turned from the Tower of the East and headed inland. Lorelei had told me before that the priestess of the Moon had articles that had once belonged to olden Darklings. Those were likely assassin tools. I would have to gather them, and talk to the priestess under conditions where she would tell me the things I needed to know.

***

As I headed west, the swamp quickly thickened into a gloomy jungle of cypress trees and others I had no name for, plus creeper vines. The creepers snaked everywhere. They were barbed and choked lesser plants and they sprouted violet flowers that glowed with a weird luminance. Slime and muck mingled in quietly sloshing pools, while a noxious mist several feet higher than my head distorted sights and sounds.

I debated backtracking and circling around the swamp altogether. Strange, beastly groans echoed among the trees together with the angry hisses of what could only be crocodiles.

Then my crust of ground gave way into a fetid pool of quicksand and I found myself hip deep in it. I waded through the morass, using my fist to break apart the deceptive ground. Unfortunately, I concentrated too much upon that and sank into a hidden hole. It angered me, and I continued to plow through until my head broke the surface some time later. It was good that I didn’t need to breathe.

I found a slimy pool and waded into it, cleaning off the quicksand. I’d found throughout the weeks that my Darkling garments were not only tough, but they dried quickly and remained relatively clean if rinsed of mud and gore.

It was then I heard distant shouts, that of men or altered men. With this hateful mist, it was difficult to pinpoint exactly where the sounds originated, although they were ahead of me.

I recalled the cavalry troop I’d seen earlier. Surely neither side wished to fight a night-battle in this poisonous land. And yet, if the so-called rebels wished to besiege the Tower of the East, they had to hack their way through the swamp. It would take soldiers and a commander of extraordinary stubbornness and determination to try. Yet after living through the horror of goat-men and human hounds, the rebels might well have grown bitter enough.

Even though I wasn’t a knight-errant, it behooved me to aid the rebels. Who else marched against Erasmo and dared draw their swords against the old powers of Darkness? The rebellious army forced Erasmo to act against them. To slip into the Tower of the East, I might need such a distraction. But if Erasmo’s soldiers destroyed the human army, he could use all his altered men to hunt for me.

I hurried through the jungle, headed toward the sounds. In time, I discovered unmistakable signs of an army: trampled areas, torn branches and half-covered latrines.

I slunk from tree to tree and often paused to listen. I didn’t want to blunder into Erasmo’s troops. Soon, I heard new sounds. That was…chopping, sawing and hammering. It came from straight ahead. No, it came from my left.

I brushed aside flowering creepers, barely dodged lashing vines. The woody groans of the predatory tree as it leaned toward me convinced me such a plant had never originated on Earth. Or was it a sorcerous experiment? The whitening bones of a large snake lay at the base of the tree.

After I bypassed that, I heard voices mingled among the carpenter sounds. Intrigued and thoroughly sick of this mist, I climbed a large frond tree and saw an amazing sight.

Maybe the many busy bodies disturbed the mist, for it was thinner ahead. It gave the scene a ghostly quality, as if the workers had marched into a land of limbo. Pages and other youths held torches. Beside them, sweaty men swung axes or sawed. Many of the felled trees lay half-submerged in muck. Peasants sloshed around them as they stripped off creepers, fungi and chopped off the branches. Others dragged the branches into piles. There boys selected the right kind of branches, soaked them in tar barrels and readied more torches.

A tree crashed as I watched. Its thump sent up a spray of filthy water. The men worked like ants. Carpenters swung axes into the felled trees and then pushed wedges into the cracks. Big men with mallets drove the wedges deep into the cracks and split the trunks lengthways. That was repeated many times until they had long, crude boards, most with bark on one edge. Those boards were sawed into sections, into planks.

In the middle of all the activity lay the reason for the endless work. Wagons hitched with mules trundled over a plank causeway. Peasants hefted hay bales from the wagons and tossed them onto muddy soil or into shallow puddles. Over that, others laid the planks side-by-side, while others tied the planks together. Huntsmen prowled the outer works with mastiffs.

The causeway twisted back toward the west like a writhing snake. It disappeared into the distance, although I spied a wooden stockade, a hastily built affair. Bonfires burned there, near stacks of planks. Maybe they tried to dry them. Crossbowmen walked the ramparts, and that made me believe the captain-general of this army stored supplies there.

The causeway was wide enough for four knights charging in a row, which made it huge. The expense in planks was prodigious. The amount of labor…the time and men needed…this was proof of deadly intent. The desperate night-work implied a need for speed. Surely the swamp boiled with activity during the day.

The sight earlier of Erasmo’s cavalry troop troubled me now more than ever. They hadn’t seemed like altered men, but knights. That suggested Orlando Furioso, likely the best captain in Erasmo’s service. Yes. If I were Erasmo, I’d order my soldiers to attack at night.

I dropped down from the frond tree and slunk nearer the causeway. Ahead of the road, men hacked a path.

I glided through the mist, threaded east in the direction the road headed, and I reached a large open area. Soldiers burned fires there. They had chopped down jungle trees to give themselves a wider perimeter and to give the enemy low-lying obstacles. Anything that attacked would have to charge across the felled trees and across open ground. To add to their defenses, crossbowmen and knights waited behind a circle of mantelets. A mantelet was a siege shield, a big thing normally moved forward by three or more men and set into place. In a sense, here in the swamp, each mantelet was part of a portable wall.

The crossbowmen had placed stands behind the mantelet, stands to give them height so they could shoot down from their wall.

I watched from the trees and estimated nearly one hundred men-arms. That was more than a sizeable guard. I grinned, for I spied Carlo da Canale. With his size, big red beard and loud English accent he was unmistakable.

I hailed him. Immediately, over a dozen crossbowmen trained their weapons in my direction. Soldiers roared orders. A trumpet blared.

“Who calls my name?” Da Canale shouted.

“Do you recall the goat-men?” I shouted. “And how I helped you?”

“Paolo Orsini?” he shouted, using the false name I’d given him.

“Don’t fire!” I stepped out of the tree line. As I did, I heard low growls that sounded suspiciously like human hounds. The sounds emanated from the trees to my left.

If the hounds had charged, I have no doubt the crossbowmen would have feathered all of us with bolts. But I suspected the hounds were scouts for Erasmo’s army, not suicidal creatures.

“I recognize him,” Da Canale told the others. He disappeared behind the mantelets. Men pried one aside, and Carlo da Canale of the White Company stepped out of the fort. He came alone, about thirty feet from the wooden wall. And as before, he shook my hand. He did it so those behind the mantelets could see. This time, he studied my features much too closely.

I lifted an eyebrow.

“I do not mean to be rude, signor. But now I remember where I’ve seen you before. It was in Tuscany, in Avernus, another evil swamp. Do you recall the time?”

I nodded reluctantly.

“You seemed then like one of the living dead. You dodged a crossbow bolt with unnatural ease and you took another in the chest. Then you killed the man who should have killed you. He was a good soldier, a brave lad from York.”

“I regret his death,” I said.

“You freed Magi Filippo.”

“I killed him later.”

Da Canale plucked at his bushy beard. “Ofelia tells a different story.”

“Have you noticed that her stories often lack such simple things like the truth?”

He nodded gravely.

“Altered hounds watch your camp,” I said.

He scowled, and his gaze swept across the misty tree line.

“I believe Orlando Furioso has brought knights to fight you,” I said.

“I’ve heard rumors about him, Charlemagne’s great champion. Such a thing should be impossible. But in this wretched plague, it seems that anything has become possible.” He tried to grin. “Signor, I’ve also heard tales about you.”

“Oh?”

“Ofelia-”

I laughed.

“It is unwise to dismiss her, signor. She has come in the sorceress’ train. She is an attendant and speaks with the sorceress’ authority.”

“What sorceress is this?” I asked.

“She owned the castle where Ofelia sold her…cargoes.”

He meant the priestess of the Moon. “What has Ofelia said about me?”

Da Canale glanced about as if we sat in a crowded tavern and he wished to make certain no one overheard him. He lowered his voice. “She has only told those she can trust. It is the reason Signor Hawkwood sent me up here. Those who can be trusted are to keep a lookout for you. Only they don’t call you Paolo Orsini, but Gian Baglioni. I recall the name, of course. He was a noted soldier, the prince of Perugia.”

I asked, “He?”

“You, if you prefer,” Da Canale said. “Ofelia told me this prince died and changed into the Darkling. The sorceress wishes you captured at any cost. The reward is great.”

“You are a mercenary,” I said.

Da Canale looked pained. “Please, signor, among knights such as us, that is a churlish suggestion.”

“Then I will apologize, signor.”

“No, no, there is no need for that. I’ve thought much about what Ofelia has said about you. And I’ve thought even more about what you did for us when you fought the demon lord. I owe you my life, and Carlo da Canale pays his debts.”

I clapped him on the shoulder and nodded my appreciation.

“The causeway is a desperate measure,” I said.

“Signor Hawkwood is our captain-general,” Da Canale said, as if that explained everything. “He is the commander of the White Company, and the lords have wisely given him full command. The sorceress says time is our enemy. So we push hard to reach the Tower of the East. This post, unfortunately, is not only hazardous, but I suspect suicidal.” He tapped his nose. “I can smell the enemy.”

“Like a human hound?” I asked.

He laughed. “No, signor, I sense them. I can feel them waiting for us. Signor Hawkwood is aware of my ability and my steadfastness. -Can I ask you a favor?”

I hesitated only a moment before nodding.

“You are the Darkling. From what Ofelia says, this makes you the master assassin. Could you scout the jungle, see if an army awaits us? I fear going myself. We sent huntsmen earlier, but they never returned.”

I glanced into the misty foliage. These were brave soldiers, likely doomed ones. But then I too was doomed.

“I will do this,” I said, “for a favor in return.”

“You need but ask.”

“You are a man of honor,” I said.

Da Canale understood. “I swear by Saint George to say nothing about what you ask me. If it is honorable for me to grant your request, I will swear to complete it.”

I liked Carlo da Canale, and I told him my request. It troubled him, but at last, he nodded and swore by his patron saint. It meant that I’d need him alive, and he might have understood that, too. He looked like a bear but I suspect he had a fox’s cunning.

“I will slip into the jungle over there,” I said, jutting my chin. “What I suggest you do, is lead out a team of halberd-men toward the forest over there.” It’s where I’d heard the hounds.

“I agree,” he said.

We shook hands. Then I waited as da Canale hurried back to the mantelets.

***

Da Canale led the halberd-men. The halberd was a murderous weapon. It was eight feet long, with a heavy head that came to a point. On the front it had a blade like an axe and in back a wicked hook. It was a ponderous weapon, but with a strong soldier could cleave helmets, shields, even mail armor as if they were parchment. As they marched toward the forest, with crossbowmen behind them, I slipped into the jungle in the opposite direction.

A pang of loneliness gripped me as I glided through the mist and between twisted trunks. I longed to lead men-at-arms like da Canale. My private existence as the prince of Shadows…the prolonged silences…with only my thoughts as a companion-I began to loathe this existence. Speaking with da Canale had shown me how barren my life had become.

I ducked under a frond and froze as I squinted into the mist. That had sounded like claws scratching wood. I advanced slowly and spied two human hounds that stared with dreadful intensity into the clearing. I slunk near enough to hear them mutter.

“The heart is the best.” The hound had a torn ear and it chuckled softly. “Once you tear open the chest, shove your muzzle into the heart as it beats warm blood. Ah, nothing tastes so good.”

“No, you’re wrong,” the other human hound growled. “Yanking out intestines, chewing them while the man screams, nothing tastes like that.”

I slid my deathblade free and came upon them like a shadow. Then I dragged the corpses several feet and covered them with creeper vines. Foul creatures.

I crept through the leafy maze and found a pack headed east. I followed them, and knew a moment of fear when the leader stopped and lifted his nose. He sniffed experimentally.

“We must hurry,” another growled.

The altered men, with their naked backs high in the air, trotted faster on all fours. I noted the direction they took and followed at a distance. Sooner than expected, I found the enemy camp.

Its size told me a battle must be in the offering. Strangely, three large tents stood in their jungle clearing. Octo-men with vile tentacles stood around one tent. Satyrs or goat-men milled around the second, while an odd assortment of altered creatures, some with wolf-like snouts, crouched around the third. It was a veritable menagerie of evil, maybe two hundred all told.

Farther back Orlando and thirty knights checked their horses. Despite the jungle, the knights wore plate armor and carried lances, swords and mauls. It told me they meant to fight in the open, which meant either the clearing or the causeway. Signor Orlando spoke to his knights. By his tone, he extorted them. Then he reached for a sword, the scabbard strapped to his saddle. Orlando drew a large sword that glowed in the dark. The knights stirred. Several cheered.

I shook my head in awe. I knew the tales, the poems and minstrel songs. That had to be the magic sword Durendal. The legends of mad Orlando told how he had sought Durendal and Angelica. Ah. I’d also overhead Erasmo in Perugia. He’d spoken about the sword and the woman as Orlando’s payment for service. So why had Erasmo already paid him with Durendal? Maybe it meant Erasmo was desperate. Perhaps he was hurt worse than anyone realized. Tonight it meant that Signor Orlando would be like a god of war. The legends of him and his sword-I had to warn da Canale. He had to warn Hawkwood.

I almost slipped away then, but I saw the Goat Man, the muscular satyr I’d fought before. He strode toward the tents and he wore a turban. I could only suppose the crossbow bolt was still lodged in his forehead. He must have wished that hidden.

At the sight of him, the many kinds of altered men grew tense. Some flapped their tentacles. Others bleated fearfully, while others gnashed fangs. They watched the Goat Man. What looked like apprentice sorcerers-they wore purple robes-hurried after him. Two lugged a heavy chest. One reverently carried an ivory case. That one opened the case and proffered it to the Goat Man.

I craned for a better look. So did many altered men. They grew restless, maybe nervous. The Goat Man raised his hated pipes.

Apprentice sorcerers opened the chest and wrestled out a large idol of the Cloaked Man. By its weight and the way firelight glimmered off it, it appeared to be a golden idol. Countless octo-men, satyrs and beastly men bowed to it. The human hounds barked softly or moaned in dread.

The apprentices staggered while they carried the idol into the largest tent. The Goat Man licked his lips. His grip tightened around his pipes. In a sudden, jerky move, he turned and lunged into the tent after the apprentices.

I waited. The altered men waited. Many shook with fear. I wondered how this helped them prepare to fight.

Eerie piping began. It was a horrible sound, like something from the depths of Hell. Shrieks erupted from within the tent, possibly from the apprentices. A reddish flash illuminated the leathery innards of the tent. The apprentice sorcerers were outlined against the tent wall. The bigger Goat Man danced an obscene jig as he played his pipes. He seemed to face the golden idol. Smoke drifted from the tent flaps and it reeked of brimstone.

Savage-eyed apprentices soon staggered out, their faces a mixture of horror and evil cruelty. They grabbed the nearest octo-men by their tentacles. The pitiful altered men moaned. Two snarled, and I thought they would wrap their rubbery limbs around the apprentices like octopi and squeeze them to death. Instead, the apprentices spoke sharply. The angry octo-men wilted. Each of the chosen meekly followed the apprentices into the tent.

The Goat Man, his hairy chest slick with sweat, bounded out of the tent and to the next one. There he repeated his performance. Apprentices had carted a Cloaked Man idol into each. Those apprentices dragged other hounds, goat-men and those with fangs for teeth into the tents.

The combined sounds were ghastly, and the feel of evil grew. Then I sensed a grim presence, and something like a dark cloud descended on each tent. The tents shook as if in a gale, flapping madly. Howls and shrieks erupted, the cries of lost souls. Soon, the gale-like flapping stopped. Every altered man outside the tents lay prostrate and trembling. Then a tent-flap opened. Octo-men staggered out. They seemed blind or stupefied and dripped with sweat. Limp apprentices staggered out after them. They hurried to piles of swords, spears and axes and shoved a weapon into each altered man’s grasp. Then the apprentices aimed the dazed creatures west toward the jungle.

A tent-flap moved again. The turbaned Goat Man emerged. He wore the evilest smile I’d ever seen.

Apprentices now ran to the trees and pulled back vines. They plunged into the jungle and the Goat Man began to play his pipes. The chosen altered men followed like automatons.

I’d seen enough. I raced through the jungle ahead of them. Fronds slapped me. Mist parted and roots vainly tried to trip me. I had to warn da Canale and his men about what was going to happen.