Dark North

Thirty-Six

Beyond the doorway wherein Alaric had disappeared lay a downward stair.

“Alaric!” Lucan shouted, hurrying down into a depthless maze of darkened passages. There was a stench like spoiled meat, and as his eyes attuned to the half-light, ghastly objects emerged on all sides — glistening, gelatinous tentacles snaking forward. Each one was padded along its underside with saucer-shaped suckers, and yet at its tip had sprouted an even more horrible appendage; a curled foetal ball which, even as Lucan watched, would slowly unknot itself, straighten up and assume the proportion of a full-grown man. Lucan could only gape in disbelief as, one by one, these figures strode forward. Despite the pulsing root to which each one was still attached, their crude, half-made features swiftly transformed into recognisable humanity. They were even wearing clothes, in some cases mail, and they bore weapons.

“Bedivere…” he whispered, as the closest stepped into the half-light.

And yet he knew immediately that this was not his brother. Bedivere’s patrician features and chestnut curls were unmistakable, but there was no emotion in that bland visage — no love, no frustration, no annoyance. And that was not the way of Bedivere.

Lucan struck at the apparition with his sword. A gout of black ichor sprayed over him. But the thing did not collapse — it grabbed at his arm with one claw-like hand, and with the other attempted to draw its own weapon. Lucan hacked at it in a desperate fury, closing his eyes as Heaven’s Messenger clove his beloved brother’s skull, severed his shoulder, bit deep into his torso. More black foulness erupted over him, but at last the ghoulish facsimile was down, and Lucan spun around to face more enemies. Two of these, Lancelot and Gawaine — he could scarcely believe he was facing such opponents — had already drawn their swords, and by their glint, these were made of real steel.

Sparks flew as the blades clashed. Neither of the two monsters boasted the skill of the knights they imitated, but their blows were relentless and brutal. It was all Lucan could do to fend them off. He found himself backtracking — only for a faint cry to remind him that Alaric was in the grasp of these devils. He lunged forth in earnest, slicing the throat of the Lancelot facsimile and lopping off its left arm at the elbow. The other he disarmed with a backhand slash, before driving his dagger to the hilt in its chest. Undaunted, it reached for his throat with both hands. He struck them off at the wrists, and cut its legs from under it. And yet, as the monstrosities floundered in gore and filth, they began to reform.

The Bedivere facsimile was already reconstructed, though in horrible, disjointed fashion. As it rose to its feet, it was crooked and mangled — the way a battlefield casualty would really be had he been patched together by a butcher rather than a surgeon. Lucan cut the thing down again, striking its cranium with both hands, splitting it to the breastbone. On all sides, more gleaming tentacles slithered forth, familiar shapes blossoming like grotesque flowers on their tips. Lucan barged his way through them, reaching the top of another stair and descending.

At the bottom, the figure that greeted him stopped him in his tracks.

It was tall and slender, its youthful looks offset by its bald pate and long beard. It wore a loose robe belted at the waist, and carried a knotty staff.

“Merlin…” Lucan breathed. For near-fatal seconds, he was transfixed.

Merlin: the sage, druid and foremost counsellor of Arthur’s court. When Lucan had first arrived at Camelot, it was Merlin who had taken him aside and advised that evil was not to be found in a man’s heart as though implanted like a seed, but in his mind — where he had planted it himself, and from whence, if he had the will, he could draw it again like a weed.

“Merlin, I…”

With a corpse-like rictus, the facsimile raised its heavy staff in both hands — and Lucan glimpsed the pulsating tentacle to the rear of it. So he struck first, Heaven’s Messenger slicing the throat and neck and, with a grating crunch, the spine. Merlin’s head toppled, but the blinded abhorrence struck this way and that until Lucan skewered it through the midriff. As it dropped, quivering, into its own black innards, Lucan stepped over it to chop at the tentacle. It comprised thick scale and sinew, but Lucan cut and cut like a madman, and at last it came apart in glutinous strands. The Merlin horror, already attempting to reconstitute itself, immediately transformed into a puddle of oily slime.

There was another hoarse, and this time agonised, cry — much closer to hand.

Lucan found Alaric on the next level down, still in the grasp of the false Trelawna, though the alluring figure had melted back into something only half human. On his arrival, it sprang upright from where it was crouched over the lad, and Lucan saw that Alaric’s throat was torn open and gouting blood.

With a roar, he charged.

The half-formed horror, its face a lumpen mass, raised both hands, which again were giant talons, and a maw appeared where its mouth should be, broken snags of teeth framed on seething corruption — but Alaric, choking and gasping as his life throbbed out from him, still had the strength to draw his dagger and jam it upward into his captor’s groin. The monster was distracted in time for Heaven’s Messenger to also strike it, shearing the cords between its neck and shoulders, plunging into its festering innards.

It collapsed in a heap, and yet it again attached itself to Alaric, clawing at him, tearing at him. Lucan stepped over it to attack the tentacle. With three heavy blows, it was cloven, and the Trelawna-thing dissolved into a foul, fish-smelling unguent.

“My lord…” Alaric choked, as Lucan tried to aid him. He bled profusely; the ragged hole in his throat had exposed his windpipe.

Lucan cursed as he searched for something with which to staunch the flow. The only thing in reach was Trelawna’s scarf — still knotted around the hilt of Heaven’s Messenger. It was little more now than a rag, thick with gluey filth, though there was sufficient of it to tie around Alaric’s neck. Lucan ripped it loose, using his teeth when his gloved fingers failed him.

“Keep your hand on that,” he said, when he’d fixed it in place.

Alaric mumbled something in response. He’d turned white and his eyelids were fluttering — but he still had the strength to point at something behind Lucan’s back.

Lucan spun around. Turold was standing there, rent and torn as he had been after the baboons had finished with him. He produced a war-axe and raised it on high. Lucan catapulted himself forward, barreling headlong into the figure, knocking it backward over its own muscular tentacle. Lucan smote at this first, laying it open, then turned his sword on Turold, catching him with such a blow that he was severed in two.

Lucan spun back to Alaric, picked him up and threw him over his shoulder.

The journey to the surface was even more terrible than the journey down. Tentacles swarmed after them. From every side, familiar figures offered challenge: Bors, Kay, Lancelot again. Even Wulfstan. Lucan held back, mesmerised by the sight of his old scout, but when the thing shrieked like a bird of prey and jabbed out with a steel-headed lance, he retaliated in kind, driving his blade through the aged, once-trustworthy face, ripping it downward so that the abomination’s entire lower jaw fell off.

Lucan panted and sweated as he twisted and turned, seeking a route up to the light and yet constantly having to battle his way through the imitations of friends. Bors struck his face with a spiked club, knocking him dizzy. Benedict attempted to snatch Alaric from him. Both went down beneath Lucan’s frenzied blows, yet always it seemed the mutilated husks he reduced them to rose back to their feet, reshaping before his eyes into nightmarish parodies of what they once had been.

“Whoresons!” Lucan roared. “Hell spawn!”

The face of Sir Gareth swam into his vision. He smote it. Bedivere stepped into its place again. “They took my hand, Lucan!” he howled, holding up his gory stump.

But in the other hand he held a dagger, and he thrust it at Lucan’s eyes. Lucan shoulder-charged the figure, toppling it down a stairwell.

Now at last there was a doorway through which daylight vented. Lucan stumbled towards it, only for another figure to step into his path. This one wore a white surcoat bearing a red dragon, and a golden crown on his helm. He had a neat beard and moustache, and a sunny-brown, square-cut mane.

It was Arthur himself.

He held a shield in one hand, and in the other a battle-axe, but Lucan could not bring himself to run steel through his lord and King. Perhaps he was too exhausted to think straight. Sweat stung his eyes. Saliva and blood drooled from his mouth. He turned away as their hands reached for him, as their swords struck at him — and he spied another door, only a short distance away. He hobbled drunkenly towards it, Alaric a dead weight. But beyond the second door was a stair, which spiralled upward.

Lucan halted and looked back.

There were so many of them that they stumbled and tripped over the mass of slippery, fleshy tentacles lying back and forth across the floor. The closest was Sir Griflet; Lucan parried his blow and sundered his breastbone. The next was Wulfstan, still missing his lower jaw, what remained of his human features collapsing inward like melting wax, though he now lashed at Lucan with a morningstar. Lucan caught the chain around his forearm, and cut his friend down again, tearing him open from gullet to crotch. But always more of them stepped into the gaps, hedging the room thick with moaning, gibbering, blood- and ichor-spattered abominations. There was only one option. He commenced the arduous ascent, his back bowing beneath the burden of his unconscious friend.

Streaks of lightning split the sky. Thunder bellowed through the mountains. The rain lashed incessantly, rivers gushing from every roof and gutter. It was no weather to be travelling, but Duchess Zalmyra had made up her mind.

“Be warned,” she said. “Stay close to me as we descend to the undercroft.”

She had produced a wand made from rowan wood, a jade orb fixed at one end, from which an emerald light burned; she held it aloft as they hurried down the switchback stair. Zalmyra walked at the front, and Urgol brought up the rear, a huge, iron-headed club at his shoulder. In between, Trelawna and Rufio struggled with Gerta, who they had managed to rouse, but only with difficulty. They reached ground level, where a narrow door opened into the courtyard. Trelawna glanced through as the sky again flashed with celestial fire. Cacophonous thunder rolled. The deluge intensified.

“Not that way,” Rufio said. He indicated an internal door, and a stair descending beyond it; Zalmyra’s green light was already receding into the regions below.

Trelawna adjusted Gerta at her shoulder and was about to follow, when movement caught her eye on the far side of the castle. She looked once, and then again.

It was Lucan. He’d emerged on an upper gantry, maybe thirty feet above the courtyard. He had a body draped over one shoulder — to Trelawna’s horror, it looked like Alaric — and was now backing along the battlement, using one hand to fend off a horde of slowly pursuing figures. Though he wielded Heaven’s Messenger with his usual might, cutting them down like chaff, they always rose to their feet again and continued. He had perhaps another five yards in which he could retreat and then, aside from a single flagpole flying the Boar’s Head pennon, he’d be at a dead-end.

Rufio reappeared at her shoulder. “What are you doing? Mother’s patience is…”

“Your mother can rot in Hell!” Trelawna snapped. “Look!”

Rufio gazed across the courtyard — in time to see a fleshy tentacle grope from a cellar window and slide serpent-like up the wall towards Lucan, a humanoid figure riding on its tip.

“That looks like Arthur,” Trelawna said with disbelief.

The King alighted on the battlements.

Lucan had now retreated as far as he could, and laid Alaric down next to the flagpole. Once again, he was confronted by his lord and sovereign. Arthur’s visor was raised, but the face below it was solemn. “You are a great warrior, Lucan,” he said softly, “but evil is rooted in your soul. It’s a burden you were born with, but even so, everyone at Camelot hates and fears you in equal measure.”

“You’re lying!” Lucan shouted, his throat sore with gasping.

“I tolerate you, Lucan, because you direct your wrath at my foes. But one day my foes will be dead, and your usefulness will be done. Hell will be grateful to receive you!”

“You’re not my King!” Lucan roared, but still, when he struck at the figure, it was with the pommel of his sword rather than its point.

The first blow dented the King’s shield. The King retaliated with a stroke of his axe. Lucan parried, severing the axe-haft. More by instinct than design, he followed this through with a lethal backstroke, which ripped through the King’s aventail and sliced his throat. The figure staggered back, arterial black gore spurting outward.

“You are not my King!” Lucan wept. He kicked the wounded figure in the chest, toppling it through the embrasure.

With renewed howls, the others launched themselves forward. Lucan hewed an alleyway through them. Benedict went down with face cloven, Bors with neck sheared, Griflet with lungs and heart exposed.

Gagging for breath, Lucan fell back again. He had bought himself but a fleeting respite. He glanced over his shoulder and saw Alaric’s lifeless form. If he could just get the lad away from this place… but there was no time. Lancelot ghosted towards him with a maul in one hand and a mattock in the other. Lucan blocked both blows, and chopped Lancelot’s legs from under him, and the horde of horrors was held in brief abeyance as the corpses in front melded themselves back together. Lucan swung around and cut the flagpole rope.

From the other side of the castle yard, it seemed a futile, almost pathetic gesture — the Malconi pennon collapsing in the rain. But then Trelawna saw Lucan pull down the rope and vanish below the battlements — she wondered if he was attempting to escape, before realising the truth. The lifeless figure he’d been carrying — Alaric, definitely Alaric — was now propped upright in an embrasure, the rope looped around his body. As quickly as he could, Lucan lowered him down towards the courtyard. But there was no movement from the lad; he would land heavily and awkwardly. Trelawna laid Gerta against the door-jamb, and rushed outside.

“Trelawna!” Rufio shouted. “Don’t be a fool…”

“She’s chosen which side she’s on,” Zalmyra said, returning to his side.

“But she’s… she’s…”

“There’s nothing to be done about it. Come. Urgol is preparing the carriage.”

Rufio shook his head. “You go…”

“She has chosen death before you, Felix! I’d have thought even a moon-calf of your sort would find that sufficient reason to move on. But as always…” Zalmyra backed away. “The decision is yours.”

She descended the lower stair again. Rufio delayed, torn with indecision. Gerta watched him through weak, watering eyes.

“My mistress is a woman of judgment after all,” she said hoarsely.

Rufio glared down at her. “You old crone! We could have had a good life together!”

“She already had a good life. She just needed to realise it.”

“The Devil take the pair of you!” Rufio said. “And he will!”

He dashed down the stair. On the next level stood a junction of vaulted passages, where he found his mother, her path blocked — astoundingly — by Emperor Lucius. Clad once again in his polished black plate with its silver enamel workings, the Emperor’s visor was drawn up, and his eyes ablaze with indignation. He wore a gladius at his hip, but was making no move towards them; Zalmyra held him back with her wand, the jade orb burning with intense radiance.

Rufio could scarcely believe what he was seeing. Slowly, he turned. From the adjoining passages, more tentacles slithered into view, forming equally recognisable figures. He was dumbfounded to see his Uncle Severin, naked and pallid, his throat slit and chest rent open. The bishop held out a pleading hand. Yet when Rufio looked closely, that hand was curved like an animal’s claw, with long, yellow fingernails. Rufio drew his gladius and slashed at it, severing the hand at its wrist. Black ichor spurted, and the abomination leapt at him. In its other hand it clasped a crooked-bladed dagger. It was not a weapon Rufio had seen before, though of course he’d never been party to the sacrifices in his mother’s Pit of Souls. Even now it flashed too quickly for him to visualise, penetrating his battle-skirt, plunging to half its length in the right side of his groin. Rufio gave a gasping screech. The facsimile withdrew the blade and raised it high, grinning dementedly — only for Zalmyra to poke its chest with her green orb. There was a crackle of discharging energy, and the ghastly figure folded up on itself, curling into a blackened, smoldering ball. The tentacle to which it was attached withdrew from view. But there were others circling around them.

“Mother!” Rufio choked, his voice shrill. He doubled up beside her, but she kept hold of his collar to prevent him falling, and began to incant in an ancient tongue.

The Lucius apparition advanced with its own gladius drawn. Again Zalmyra held up her green light to ward it off. But this time there was no need. A mighty blow struck the figure from behind, delivered with a colossal iron-headed club, crushing it with such force that its body burst out on all sides in a porridge of black bile and putrid, half-made organs.

Urgol stepped into view, and kicked the butchered tentacle into a recess to their left. “Mistress… your carriage awaits!”

Zalmyra hurried past, allowing him to shield her with his vast, hairy body. She dragged Rufio, though he could only stagger, one hand clasped to his wound.

Lucan used his last ounce of strength to lower Alaric. He tried to ignore the blows raining on his back, although steel now bit through his fur and mail. If he could just get Alaric to the courtyard without dropping him…

A hand gripped Lucan’s coif and yanked. He resisted, but then felt the rope slacken. The lad must have touched the ground, if sooner than Lucan had anticipated. He released the rope and swept around, swinging Heaven’s Messenger in a great, butchering arc. Limbs fell this way and that. Caradoc lost both arms from the elbows down, black juice jetting from his stumps. Gawaine had lost one arm, but still aimed a pick-axe with the other. Lucan deflected it and drove his steel at the facsimile’s face, only to see it parried.

He was exhausted.

The embrasure stood immediately to his rear. It would be a quicker death, surely, falling thirty feet onto flagstones, than being torn apart by these horrors? Though the outcome would be the same. Suicide meant certain damnation — as if his soul wasn’t already damned enough. Spurred by that thought, he struck at them again. An upward thrust eviscerated Gawaine; a swift backhand sheared through Bedivere’s neck, the head dropping backward on strands of tissue. More black filth exploded over Lucan, but still they pressed against him, now trying to take hold of him rather than inflict wounds. And then he heard a terrible wailing: “Alaric! Alaaaric!”

He managed to turn and peer down through the embrasure.

Alaric’s soft landing in the courtyard was explained.

The ragged, rain-soaked figure of Trelawna’s maid staggered, as though drunk, across the courtyard. But closer, at the foot of the battlements, was Trelawna herself. She was seated on the floor, holding Alaric in her arms, crying out his name, sobbing.

It was a brief, harrowing moment, though Lucan knew that he should not be surprised. No-one could have survived such a wound for long. And there was certainly no time to lament it — not when those responsible were still within sword’s length.

His strength revived by hatred, Lucan spun around and launched himself into the horde of abominations. His steel sang as it smote them, laying twitching, limbless forms on all sides. Those struggling to rise were sundered again. Those not yet stricken were impaled, or beheaded, or butchered where they stood.

“Come one, come all!” Lucan roared. “I summon all monsters to their doom!”

At first he thought they were falling back because his onslaught was too much for them, but then he realised they were not falling back, but clearing a passage through their mewling ranks — a passage along which, with slow, purposeful steps, a new figure was now approaching.

In all ways it was larger than Lucan — taller, stouter of limb, broader at chest and shoulder. Yet it wore the same dark mail and black livery, and the same cloak of black fur was draped down its back. Like Lucan, the newcomer had removed its helmet and pulled back its coif to shake out oil-black locks. It might at one time have been as wolfishly handsome as he was, though now those features had been obliterated by a mask of hideous scar tissue. Its eyes were tarnished sapphires, glinting through holes in parchment. The mouth was a lipless tear, the nose a scorched and flattened patch.

Lucan’s sword almost fell from his hand as the vision glided towards him.

A gleaming tentacle oozed behind it. Like all the rest, it was the construct of a demonic mind, and yet there was no mistaking it. Even after so many years of tumult, Lucan recollected every detail of the human dragon monster that had once been Duke Corneus, his father. With slow deliberation, the imitation drew its own version of Heaven’s Messenger from its back; this one still bore the unholy runes along its blade. Lucan failed to move, failed to respond in any way. He was mesmerised by the distorted form that had haunted so many of his worst nightmares.

“Still… a weakling… boy?” it rasped, in that voice of twisting, tortured wood. “Still… a milksop? No guts… no spine… couldn’t even… father a child…”

“Murderer,” Lucan whispered.

“Were going… to kill me… were you not?” The atrocious mouth laughed its terrible, heartless laugh — a laugh Lucan had heard down the decades, echoing from those many places where, without any writ from the King, Duke Corneus’s foes had been hanged, or garroted, or drawn apart by horses, or nailed to the doors of their own castles.

“Words… boy?” The imitation duke lofted the imitation sword to his massive shoulder. “Only… words? Well… if not battle… prepare for… slaughter. Unless… you beg. Like that weak-spirited… mother of yours. Begging… pleading…. each morn… before her penance…”

“Murderer!” Lucan shouted, raising his own sword.

With the speed of a viper, Duke Corneus lunged.