Dark North

Thirty-Five

Trelawna staggered into her bedroom, only to find Gerta still in bed. She tried to rouse her, but the maid was pale of complexion and could only mumble. When her eyes cracked open, they were rheumy and unfocused. Her brow burned to the touch.

She brought the old woman some water, but Gerta only managed a few choking sips. The countess wept as she stepped back, even as she realised this had perhaps been inevitable, with their recent horrors and hardships. She felt as if all companionship had finally abandoned her. She couldn’t even pray. What was it Zalmyra had called her — a common adulteress? And it was true. She had sinned so much that God must have turned His back on her by now, and for what? For the vanity of believing that she deserved better than her severe but comfortable life in Albion’s dark North. She surveyed the small room in which she’d been ensconced. It was the only place in this awful fortress where she felt even close to being safe, and yet it was little more than a prison cell.

A familiar sound distracted her — breathless cries and the ringing of steel on steel.

Trelawna hurried down stairs and along passages until she entered the gallery where last she had spoken to Rufio. He was present again, leaning by an arrow-loop, chewing his bottom lip as he watched the events outside. Trelawna moved to the next loop; down in the courtyard, a mailed, helmeted figure with black wolf-fur swirling around him did battle with four men-at-arms.

Even as she watched, another figure joined the fray. It was Cohortis Bartolo, attacking with gladius in hand. Lucan dispatched his opponent just in time to meet the fresh assault. Like Rufio, Bartolo was from the officer caste. He’d trained in the gymnasium and on the parade square, and was very experienced when it came to issuing commands, but in hand-to-hand combat he was closer to a novice than an expert.

With two strokes, Lucan sent him stumbling backward. Bartolo fended desperately, but only the intervention of another of Bishop Malconi’s bravos saved him. This one, a thickset sergeant called Brutus, ran at Lucan with a morningstar. By fluke, its chain wrapped around the blade of Heaven’s Messenger, and the sword was half-torn from Lucan’s grasp. He released it, but grabbed Brutus by his mail buckler. Falling backward, Lucan stuck a foot into his opponent’s belly and tossed him head over heels. Winded by his fall, Brutus scrabbled for the dagger at his belt, but Lucan was already up and facing him, falchion in hand. A single thrust split Brutus’s nose to the cartilage and shattered the teeth underneath.

The remaining bravos, three including Bartolo, circled Lucan warily.

Bartolo hove in for the next strike, and Lucan deflected the gladius with the falchion, and punched the Roman on the point of his chin, which again sent him staggering. Another bravo lunged, only for Lucan to catch him in the midriff with the point of his blade, ripping through leather and muscle. The bravo sank to his knees, gargling blood.

From the high gallery, Rufio watched with a blanched face, focusing intently on Lucan — his nemesis. Never had he seen such speed, such precision and strength in blows. He felt at his hip, where his own gladius was buckled, and gripped its pommel so tightly that tendons gleamed in his knuckles.

In the courtyard, the one remaining bravo — the youngest — had had enough. He cast down his weapons and fled along the entrance tunnel, halting only to enter a side-chamber where the drawbridge wheels and chains were connected, kick loose the peg, and continue on his way. The timber drawbridge creaked noisily down in front of him. He was halfway across it when a mailed and mounted figure came thundering from the other side.

Alaric never saw the footman until it was too late. They collided at full speed, the horse barely breaking stride as the minuscule figure went screaming into the depths. Alaric entered Castello Malconi, and charged along the tunnel, the echoes of his hoofbeats clattering in his ears.

The first thing he saw in the courtyard was the carnage: slaughtered men lay everywhere. The next thing was Lucan, engaged by one final opponent — a lone Roman officer wearing the apparel of the Fourteenth Legion. The officer retreated under the hail of blows Lucan was raining on him with both falchion and Heaven’s Messenger.

Alaric reined in his beast, its steel-shod hooves skidding across the flagstones. He leapt from the saddle just as Heaven’s Messenger struck Cohortis Bartolo beneath the breastbone, tearing clean through his breastplate with a metallic screech.

In the upper gallery, Rufio bit through his bottom lip completely. Bloody froth sprayed from his mouth as he clamped down on a scream of anguish.

“Bartolo!” he hissed. “Bartolo…”

Down in the yard, Bartolo toppled away from Lucan, sword lowered. Blood flowed down his battle-skirt. He tried to keep his feet, but swayed and dropped to one knee.

“Another one falls for me,” Rufio whined. He tore at his hair. “Another falls while I cower!” With a rasp of steel, he drew his gladius. “I’ll finish him! This has to end now!”

“Wait, you damn fool!” came a harsh voice.

Zalmyra and Urgol blocked the gallery door. The translucent black gown was plastered to the duchess’s statuesque form with human gore. Her beautiful face was also spattered; ruby droplets dabbled her glossy black hair. Trelawna stared at her, aghast.

“Stay exactly where you are!” Zalmyra said, moving to one of the arrow-loops.

Below, Bartolo crawled away on his belly, smearing a crimson trail behind him. From overhead came a cacophonous rumble of thunder. Lucan glanced up, before turning to face Alaric, who was approaching warily, one hand on his sword-hilt. But before the lad could issue the inevitable challenge, he spotted something to the rear of his lord. Lucan turned: from a nearby door, which had opened behind him, a figure had emerged.

To both their amazement, it was Trelawna — looking dazzlingly beautiful in a fitted gown and kirtle of virginal white. Her joined hands were woven with rosary beads as she prayed and regarded her husband with a look of deep sorrow and remorse.

At first, Lucan could not move. Alaric responded more quickly.

He dashed forward, passing his overlord, drawing his sword in the process. Before he reached the countess, he turned, but continued to back towards her. “Enough is enough, my lord! Your honour must surely be satisfied by now.”

Lucan briefly admired the courage in the youngster he had reared and trained, but then reminded himself that he still had a purpose here. His fist tightened on Heaven’s Messenger’s hilt as he slowly advanced.

“Another step, my lord, and we fight,” Alaric shouted. “I swore an oath.”

Alaric stood directly in front of the countess. If nothing else, he told himself — even if his weapons broke — he would shield her flesh with his own.

That was when she grabbed his neck with a pair of eagle talons — and dragged him back through the door into the darkness beyond.

In the same instant, lightening seared the sky. Thunder reverberated, and the rain followed in cataracts, whipped by a wind that came howling out of nowhere. Lucan stood rigid in the heart of it, eyes riveted on the empty doorway, unable to comprehend what he’d just witnessed. Slowly, astounded, he removed his helmet.

In the high gallery, Rufio was equally dumbfounded, though Trelawna had sensed that something horrible was about to occur when she’d seen her doppelganger first emerge.

“Azdalah,” Zalmyra said with cold satisfaction. “Better known as the ‘Old One’… one of the most feared demons of Babylonian myth. It emerged from my Pit of Souls like some colossal sea-monster. Hundreds of its tentacles now wind their way up through this castle, each one capable of producing at its tip a facsimile by which it can lure its prey.” Her face cracked into a malevolent smile. “Once they are snared, there is no escape. They are dragged down into the very depths of the world, where unimaginable suffering awaits them.”

Down in the yard, rain swept over Lucan in drenching sheets. A dozen yards away, Cohortis Bartolo still slithered on his mangled belly. He knew that he was dying, but he had one last purpose — because a figure he recognised had appeared in a doorway ahead of him. His young wife, Rosa — dressed as though for a summer day in a long toga and sandals, her dark curls filled with blossoms. She beckoned him to crawl out of the rain and nestle in her arms as he breathed his last.

“Rosa…” he gasped, the strength fading in his limbs — though there was still enough left for him to cover those final few yards, at which point Rosa snatched him up, broke his back across her knee with a sound like a splintering branch, and dragged his corpse backward into the darkness.

“There is no way to fight this abhorrence,” Zalmyra chuckled, looking down through the arrow-loop. “Or even control it. It will infest the entire fortress, and from here will depredate the surrounding countryside. But it will be worth it.” She turned a venom-green eye on Trelawna. “Just as it was worth it to shed my own brother’s blood to invoke this horror of horrors. The Black Wolf of the North, my dear, has finally met his match.”