Assassin of the Damned

— 27-

The battle began with bestially howls as if from a cardinal’s torture chamber in Avignon. Then creatures bounded out of the forest. They had the form of the various altered men, some with sleek fur and others with mottled skin. They all bellowed, foamed at the mouth and charged the mantelets. They attacked in great bounding leaps. They came from three separate directions. Their speed was fantastic, the leaps incredible. One after another, altered men crashed against the mantelets. Others bounded over and into the protective circle. They hewed manically. Men screamed and died. I stabbed with my deathblade as da Canale shouted orders.

Wood flew in chunks from the mantelets. The various altered men fought with more than ferocious courage. Spit foamed from their fanged maws. They shrugged off terrible wounds. One octo-man yanked down a mantelet with a single tentacle. The other rubbery limb squirmed in the mud, hacked off by a knight. A wild-eyed spearman stabbed a goat-man in the belly. The creature shrieked and surged forward. The spear went deeper into his body and out the back. The crazed madman reached for the spearman. The spearman let go and turned to run. The goat-man stumbled after him. I stabbed the sobbing creature with the deathblade.

The selected altered men were berserk in the truest sense of the word. They were possessed as vile piping drove them to even greater acts of mayhem. Behind them followed the rest of the altered men, those that had watched what had gone on in the tents instead of being part of the sorcerous rite.

I glimpsed the Goat Man as he stood at the edge of the clearing. He danced and played. Sweat dripped from his chin and from his billy-goat beard. Apprentice sorcerers surrounded him, as did several big goat-men with battleaxes.

All around me, mantelets crashed to the ground. A sea of maniacal, altered faces stared with unholy bloodlust. The possessed hurled themselves upon us. The others followed, chanted and butchered the wounded.

“We must retreat!” a knight roared.

Another knight blew a trumpet. Several seconds later, a distant trumpet sounded.

“If that’s help,” I shouted into da Canale’s ear, “it will never reach us in time.”

A frenzied hound leaped at da Canale as he turned to answer me. No. I needed this particular mercenary. I leaped at the human beast, caught it in the air, slammed it down and shoved my deathblade into its snarling teeth.

We broke under the berserk attacks. Some men-at-arms simply ran in panic. Some bore ghastly wounds and remained in the shattered fort. Most of those fought until foaming creatures slaughtered them. Da Canale, a knot of knights, several crossbowmen and I bitterly fought as rearguard as others marched toward the wooden road. I turned often and ducked under wildly slashing weapons, to stab in return. Crossbowmen drilled their heavy bolts. Still, the altered men pulled us down one by one.

Through the mist, I glimpsed a purple-robed apprentice peer out of the jungle. He might have seen me, for he disappeared into the foliage. Moments later, jungle growth jerked there. Then a crocodile shot into sight. There were roars and hisses. Bigger reptilian monsters followed. They charged out of the swamp. It was a terrible sight. The armored crocodiles ran on stumpy legs. They ran with surprising speed.

Knights shouted for spears. Crossbowmen drilled the creatures at pointblank range. One twenty-foot monster bit a knight’s leg and knocked him down. Feathered bolts stuck out of the crocodile’s skin. Swords bounced off its armored hide. The crocodile thrashed and its jaws snapped, and it bit off the armored leg. Men-at-arms tried to help. The mighty tail flailed and knocked several to the ground.

It was too much. The crocodiles broke whatever had been left of our discipline. Everyone fled as a mob. Soon only da Canale, a knight and I were left of the rearguard. I grabbed da Canale’s arm, and I truly ran. I forced him to run faster than I’m sure he ever had.

The clanking knight tried to keep up. He’d lost his helmet, and he panted. Then he snarled, stopped, turned and lifted his sword. He bought us precious seconds as the altered men hacked at him. The clangs were hammer-blows on my soul. I tried to think about Francesca. I did this for her.

The Goat Man’s pipes changed. It might have been a recall. I heard shrill whistles and the crocodiles disappeared.

Carlo da Canale and I didn’t stop to see why. We sprinted through the mist and through the hacked out trail that led back to the causeway. The thud of our feet was loud in my ears, and Canale sobbed with effort.

We along with a few others finally stumbled to the causeway. All work had stopped. Some carpenters nervously stood together and clutched axes. They almost hacked at us. Others held torches or heavy mallets.

Our few survivors collapsed, exhausted.

“Run!” I shouted. “Flee to the stockade.” I couldn’t fathom why the altered men had stopped. I distrusted this lull.

Many of the workers already streamed toward the stockade. They must have fled at the sound of battle. Their footsteps drummed with frantic haste on the laid-down planks.

The axe-men hesitated. They were brave, but I knew they could not stand up against the altered berserks.

“I can’t go on,” Da Canale gasped.

I glanced east into the mist. Wild cries came out of it. I glanced west at those pounding down the causeway. Despite this lull, there was about to be a slaughter. I sensed it. So I dragged da Canale off the causeway and past the many tree stumps. We crashed through heavy foliage and wet leaves.

“Down,” I hissed.

Da Canale collapsed and gasped for air. I knelt and peered past a frond back at the ground we’d just covered. Incredibly, some of the axe-men yet waited.

Then the mist vomited Signor Orlando and his thirty knights. They galloped at the axe-men. Beastly men holding crackling torches ran with the knights. The knights lowered their lances. Their huge war-horses thundered upon the muddy ground. A horn blared. It was too much. The axe-men turned and ran. Most dropped their weapons. Two who stood their ground died as lances split their chests like melons.

It was murder, not war, and I understood now the reason for the lull. It had no doubt taken time for Orlando to work his way through the dark army.

The knights charged the workers running for the stockade. Crazed altered men followed hard on their heels and butchered any they caught.

Beside me, an exhausted da Canale wept silently.

It galled me to have flee. It shamed me. But I was the Darkling, not a knight-errant. I had vowed to become ruthless like an assassin. Now I practiced ruthlessness and it left a foul taste in my soul.

***

I watched the best I could, but mist drifted in the way, the stockade was a goodly distance and I remained crouched. I only saw a little of what occurred but could surmise the rest.

The knights led the charge. Thirty trained killers encased in heavy armor, astride massive steeds and with the best lances and swords in the world, they rode through the workers like the living embodiment of the plague. I suspect only the first workers to flee made it to the stockade.

If the crossbowmen I’d seen walking the ramparts earlier had opened the gate for those survivors, those in the fort would have quickly died. Enemy knights might have dismounted and run through before the gate closed, or altered men would have done so. The stockade held. That told me the crossbowmen had either thrown down ropes or left the pitiful survivors to their own courage.

The wooden walls would protect the crossbowmen from the crocodiles and from the knights on horse. Were any of the possessed left? How long would they remain berserk?

Screams, metallic bangs and roared orders told me the fight was in earnest over there.

“I’m going to climb a tree and see how they fare,” I whispered.

Da Canale put a trembling hand on my arm. He pointed to my right.

I squinted into the misty foliage. Something large moved over there. How had da Canale sensed it and I hadn’t? We waited, and we witnessed apprentice sorcerers with whistles leading hissing crocodiles. The giant creatures trotted in their obscene manner and they followed like dogs. The sorcerers plunged into the foliage all around the clearing and in various directions. It made me suspect they laid a trap. Or maybe they hunted for me.

“We must try to slip out of here,” I whispered.

Da Canale turned a horrified face toward me. “They broke into the stockade,” he whispered. “Listen.”

A ferocious ‘Hurrah’ echoed through the swamp. It was a victorious sound. Had the possessed leaped onto the ramparts? Had those vile altered men clawed their way upward in the hail of crossbow fire?

Smoke chugged into the starry sky. Fires grew and soon threatened to set the swamp on fire. Yet that seemed unlikely. The enemy burned the stockade and probably burned the laboriously gathered planks. The swamp itself was too wet to burn.

In time, Orlando’s knights cantered past. Their helmets rested on their saddle pommels. The sweaty-faced killers jested with each other. They laughed and bragged about their deeds. In the rear rode Orlando Furioso. He yet wore his helmet, although he had sheathed Durendal.

One of the knights turned and asked, “Here, signor?”

Orlando waved them on beyond the causeway, toward the hacked-out trail.

By almost leaning out of my hiding spot, I saw several of the knights dismount. The hidden crocodiles and now the knights waiting-

Altered men began to arrive from the stockade. Many bore crossbow wounds. Some dripped with blood. Some gnawed on severed body parts. Like the knights, they bragged about their exploits, even the human hounds with bloody faces.

In the distance, through the jungle, sounded approaching horns.

Da Canale lifted his head, and he gripped my forearm. “Reinforcements come,” he whispered. “They’ll butcher these curs.”

“The enemy is setting a trap,” I whispered.

Da Canale stared at me. Some of the fear that had gripped him earlier had drained away. “We must warn them, signor.”

“And have Ofelia demand my capture?” I asked.

Da Canale murmured something vague, a promise, I suppose. Yet he was right. I had to warn them.

“You must move as quietly as possible,” I said.

He grinned at me in a ghastly manner. “I was a childhood thief, signor. It’s how I survived London’s bitter winters. Lead on, I can follow.”

A thief and a Darkling, we were a matched pair.

***

We made a wide circuit, too wide as it turned out. And we, or I, misjudged the reinforcements.

Naturally, they marched on the causeway. They advanced like a human snake, a long winding column of knights, men-at-arms and crossbowmen. I suspect the plan had been to feed the reinforcements into the advance guard where da Canale had begun the evening. One hundred men-at-arms behind mantelets should have been able to hold off three or four times their numbers. My mistake was in thinking Signor Hawkwood knew his trade. I had heard of him, and da Canale loved to bray about the captain-general’s exploits. I would have sent footmen first, a shield-wall of footmen and with others to carry torches and lanterns for light.

Signor Hawkwood sent the knights first. Perhaps he did not have a choice. I’ll grant him that. Even among some mercenaries, the privilege of nobility held sway. Most knights demanded the place of honor in battle-the front. Signor Hawkwood was a mercenary, an Englishman. Many in his host were the knights of Milan, Bologna and other Lombard cities. Despite his protests, they might have shoved their way to the fore.

It meant knights on horses led, and knights on horses usually advanced faster than footmen. There was my miscalculation. By the sounds of their original horns, I’d thought I had enough time to circle wide and reach them before they blundered into the trap.

The sounds of battle told me otherwise, the crash of armored knights as their bodies clanked against sod, the loud and painful neigh of huge war-horses as crocodiles broke their legs. The shrill whistles of sorcerers, human hounds baying bloodlust and the weirdly sea-like cries of octo-men meant the enemy had closed the trap.

“Run!” I shouted at da Canale.

Then I did. Leaves slapped at me and branches tried to claw off my cloak. Soon trees were a blur of motion. Our circuit had been wide. My run took time. Finally, I burst onto a chaotic scene. The stockade roared with flame and gave both hosts all the light they needed. Giant flickering shadows however and charred and roasting corpses in the crackling stockade played havoc on superstitious men.

Some Lombard knights yet remained on horse. They must have fought their way out of the trap and reached the van of those on foot. Unfortunately, those knights were a pitiful few. Fortunately, they had turned to fight. They battled Orlando’s knights or they died as Orlando hewed with his witch-glowing Durendal. Altered men fought to the right and left of Orlando and his knights. They faced desperate men-at-arms in a contest of push and shove and hack and stab.

Even after trapping and destroying most of the knights, the numbers were still highly uneven. There were five times more men, but most of the men still marched on the causeway toward the fight. They marched into those doing the fighting and caused a mob of confusion there.

That could spell disaster. Night fighting was normally terrifying. If anything went wrong, courage often wilted. The stockade-sized bonfire helped. The wretched swamp did not, nor that most of the humans stayed on the plank road. Their horrible foes made it worse.

The knights already butchered in the trap and those dying now to Orlando might decide the battle at any movement. If the last knights and the men-at-arms around them should turn and run, the battle could turn into another slaughter as men milled in a confused horde. They would become like sheep-the causeway itself had become a trap.

On their giant horses, the knights, the heroes of each side, hammered at each other. Sword and maul crashed against shields or plate armor. It sounded like a smithy. Yet knight after knight went down before the glowing sword. Durendal became a living wand in Orlando’s hands. He was a god of war. He was death. He was the black knight and he was invincible.

I scooped up a fallen pike. It was huge, heavy and unwieldy. I ran and I heaved. The twelve-foot pike wobbled in the air. It sailed over the knights and at Orlando, or more accurately, at Orlando’s prized stallion. Was it luck? I was the damned one. I’d thrown to pierce the animal’s side. Instead, the pike slithered between its legs as the stallion cantered forward. The pike snapped. That’s all I saw, other than the prized stallion pitch to the side and Orlando go flying.

Da Canale staggered up to me. His face was pale and his red beard glistened with sweat.

I grabbed him by the collar and roared orders into his ear. He nodded, sucked down a large breath of air and began to shout orders. Other mercenary captains must have understood. For soon, they beat at the bunched-up soldiers to leave the causeway and form a line, even a line into the swamp.

We had to bring our numbers to bear.

Orlando regained his seat, but that momentary respite had brought hope to many a man-at-arms. The black knight could lose.

Crocodiles attacked then. Some were sluggish, however, with bulging gullets. They must have feasted on the dead earlier. Still, many men wept in terror of the giant swamp creatures. Our front on the causeway wavered.

That’s when I saw the priestess of the Moon. The men-at-arms streaming into lines on either side of the causeway had lessened the mob bunched behind the front-fighters. Other, tough-looking soldiers had finally been able to form a second line. The priestess directed them, pointing here and there. Small Ofelia stood near her, and she looked petrified.

The thirty knights who followed Orlando, nearer twenty now, had awed our knights. The glowing sword terrified. Some of our men-at-arms clawed to get away from that sword.

Fortunately, for the army and for me, the priestess not only employed tough men-at-arms, but ruthless ones. They had formed a second line, a shield-wall. When the last of what must have been the original knights tried to burst through the shield wall to escape Durendal, the ruthless men-at-arms hacked them down. It was brutal, but it might have saved the night. For if those knights had streamed through, they might have jammed into men marching up the causeway and created debilitating confusion, a mob, in other words.

The priestess stood behind her picked guard. Under her direction, Ofelia and other maids in long silver gowns set up a stand and a brazier and poured hot coals into it. The priestess climbed onto a stand. She pitched fistfuls of powder into the stirred fire. Then she waved her arms in complex motions. Her chanted shrieks rose above the din of battle.

She jumped down. Maids in silver staggered to her. Each clutched one end of a carrying pole attached to a silver chest. The priestess produced a key. She unlocked the chest and lifted the lid. She shrieked again, and she wrestled something heavy from the chest.

A silvery ball the color of the moon rose by jerks and sways. It rose above the heads of fighting men. The priestess lifted her arms. She implored. Her hands shone silvery. And suddenly the ball poured out light. The light was bright like a full moon.

Men shouted. They cheered. The light revealed altered men who slunk through the jungle toward them. Men-at-arms charged the surprised goat-men. The goat-men scampered back into the swamp.

On the causeway, men-at-arms, knights and others surged around the thirty, now less than twenty enemy knights. Signor Orlando hacked two more times. Then he savagely sawed the reins. He turned his mount and galloped back in the direction of the Tower of the East. His remaining knights followed. No one among our host had the courage to chase them.

Using the moon-bright light, men slew crocodiles in teams. Then the battlefield emptied of enemies. The besieging host had driven off Erasmo’s force, but at a wretched cost.