Echoes of Avalon (Tales of Avalon Book 1) (27 page)

#

“McFowler seemed none too pleased with our joke this evening,” the night watchman said to his fellow guard, who agreed. The night watch was the longest and most uneventful of duties.

Behind them, the moonlight cast a shadow on the wall. The shadow grew in size. It spread in all directions, and then started to grow upwards as well as outward like no shadow should. Soon it was a fully formed entity behind the watchmen.

One of them finally noticed it from the corner of his eye. “Eh?” he muttered, then grabbed his colleague, his eyes widening with panic. The other saw it, and when he did, the thing lunged at them.

They screamed and ran.

The shadow chased the knights who were unsuccessfully trying to draw their swords and run and sound an alarm at the same time. The three figures disappeared around a bend in the wall as the toady Minion appeared in the stairwell at the gate and made his way to the mechanism. He released the lever that brought the gate up and the bridge down. The courtyard had been filling with other shadow creatures seeping through the stone walls, but now the pound of physical feet rumbled on the drawbridge.

Minion jumped excitedly.

#

A knock at Patrick's door startled him into wakefulness, and he realized that he had fallen asleep. The knock came again, louder, and then the visitor barged in. It was Trent of Jersey followed closely by William. They were white as ghosts.

“Sir Gawain!” Trent exclaimed. “There are...
things
in the courtyard. They're attacking us!”

Patrick sat up groggily. “Really boys, I'm not in the mood for this.”

“No, really, look!” William shouted, pointing to the window. Just then, cries came from the wall. He raced to the window and threw open the shutters. There were indeed dark figures running amok. He cursed. He couldn't quite make them out, but they were chasing and swinging weapons at servants and the night watchmen down on the grounds and walls.

Patrick grabbed Trent and William and pushed them out the door. “Willy, go straight down stairs and lock the door, and Trent, you go floor to floor, room to room, and tell everyone to meet in the bottom lounge. Now go!”

Next he ran to Gregory's room and found him still dressed in his mail shirt like himself. Evidently he couldn't sleep, either. After a brief explanation, they ran to Sir Jon's room and woke him and told him the news. In a few moments, the sleepy Englishman looked absolutely silly in a nightgown, sword, and shield, but was ready for a fight.

They ran for the stairs to meet their Guests, but those same Guests came hurtling down the corridor at them like a tidal wave. Willy and Trent were at their forefront.

“They already got inside! They're coming this way!” they yelled.

Patrick seized command. “Jon, lead the Guests down the stairs and out the back door. Take them to the main keep, and then the cellar where I'm sure the other Guests and servants are being taken. Gregory and I will stay here and hold them off. We'll follow as soon as we're able.”

Jon called to the Guests and they followed after him. Patrick and Gregory waded through the crowd to the stairwell entrance.

It wasn't long before they came. The creatures were dark, leathery skinned things with wide mouths, slitted eyes, sharp teeth, scraggly hair and pointy ears. They were short of stature and walked upright like men. They wielded rusty old weapons and wore battered armor and bucket helm.

The Irishman remembered old folk tales. “Goblins!” he cried.

He and Gregory held them back with sword slashes and shield buffets. The clang of metal reverberated and shouts of knights and goblins alike echoed in the corridor. The things streamed up the stairwell, but couldn't advance through the door.

It became obvious that the same narrow corridor that served as a bottleneck for the goblins also prevented the two knights from optimizing their effectiveness.

“Let's go, Gawain! Jon will need us as he crosses to the main keep!”

The Irishman reluctantly pulled himself away from the melee and followed.

#

Father Benis was also restless. Late into the night, he hovered over the tome of historical writings that he had shared with Patrick Gawain. Something was nagging at his mind. Something that concerned their Guest, the Viscount Loki. Something about the man reminded Benis of an entry in the book, but he couldn’t recall exactly which one or why. Not one to leave a puzzle incomplete, he had been perusing the voluminous pages since sunset. At last, he came to a series of entries, one on the land of Jotunheim.

“Jotunheim!” he mused out loud. The article entry described a place of legend, not an actual country. According to the entry, it was the home of the Jotuns, or giants—the enemies of the gods of the Norse—the Aesir.

“Now why would Lord Loki claim to hail from such a place?” Benis asked the empty room. “Is that his sense of humor, perhaps?”

Tired from long hours of hunching over the book, but not yet satisfied, Father Benis licked his fingers and paged backwards to the front of the book among the entries that commenced with the letter A.

“Asgard, Andvari, Alfheim…ah, Aesir!”

Benis was grateful that Gaius Cornelius Tacitus, author of the
Germania
, was a meticulous scholar. A pagan, albeit, but nobody was perfect.

Father Benis found a list of the Norse Gods, the Aesir, and their corresponding Roman names, and he blinked in surprise when he saw the name Loki among them. Unlike the other gods in the list, several notations were made next to Loki. There were two corresponding Roman gods for the entry, which were Dis and Bacchus, which, if Benis was not mistaken, were two gods from the opposite ends of the spectrum; Dis being the god of the gloomy underworld, and Bacchus being the god of wine and merrymaking. As if the chronicler was not sure himself, Tacitus added a question mark after each. Benis’s frown deepened. Another notation pointed out that Loki was not truly a god among the Aesir...but a Jotun.

The priest squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed the bridge of his nose, feeling fatigue weighing him down. He was starting to forget why he had even started this research and was certain he was missing something. Although an amateur scholar, he was prone to letting his curiosity get the better of him, allowing one bit of information to lead him to another and then to another until he realized much of the day was gone.

“Why name a child after an ambiguous god?” Benis murmured. Perhaps, he thought, like Jotunheim, the name wasn’t real, but selected.

Of course it wasn’t his real name. It was an alias. He was a nobleman who had come to Greensprings, like many of the residents from nobility, in search of a safe haven from the outside world for any number of reasons—precisely one of the purposes the Benefactors had in mind when they commissioned the keep on Avalon.

He chided himself for having not respected the fellow’s privacy and trying to discern his origins. Still, Benis was pleased with himself for having satisfied a nagging curiosity on his mind, and he was about to close the tome and put it back on the shelf, when on a whim, he turned the page.

“How is this possible?” Benis whispered to himself.

There on the page was an imprint of a woodcut, the central character bearing a striking resemblance to Greenspring’s Loki, right down to the characteristic pointy ears and pock-marks. In the picture, Loki lay naked and bound by chains in a cave. Above him a serpent dripped venom over his face, but a woman stood over him, catching the drops in a bowl. Benis read the caption to the picture. “Giants in the earth,” he breathed, recalling his conversation with the Irishman, when he had made what he thought were just fanciful speculations.

No sooner had this revelation come over him when the horns blew in the keep. He had heard them only a few times in the past. Even then, only as practice. They were alarms.

He walked over to the window, opened it, and looked out to see mayhem erupting in the courtyard. He gasped and raced to the library doors. He swung them closed and struggled with the wooden crossbar. A shadow blocked the lantern light from behind him and a black silky arm reached over his body, its hand grasping the crossbar. It belonged to the Viscount Loki.

“May I help you with that?” the Viscount asked, smiling.

#

Jon ran ahead of the Guests barefooted. The grounds were in absolute chaos. Avangarde were everywhere in varying stages of dress and armament. The gargoyle-like creatures swarmed like ants. Some seemed to be thin as shadows, and others seemed all too dangerously real. Horses cried out, a building was ablaze, and a contingent of Avangarde was circling the gates of the Hall for Lady Guests with a picket fence of lances.

One of the goblins jumped in Jon's path, slavering and howling. Jon put up his shield to ward off the thing's blow, and then slashed at it. It split in two.

Jon looked at his sword. “Wow,” he said. “I did that?”

“Alright Sir Jon!” Willy shouted.

Jon smiled and kicked the next goblin that came at them. He sent it hurtling.

“Jon, let's go! Stop fooling around.” Sir Gawain and the Englishman had appeared. The trio of knights led the Guests through the combat, through the gardens and into the keep. There they met up with a stream of servants running for the cellars. The Reservists escorted them all to the trap door by the kitchens and made sure they entered safely.

“Now what?” Sir Jon asked. He and Gregory looked to Patrick, who had thus far been giving the orders.

Patrick seemed just as confused, “Well, I don—ah, hell, how about you stay here, Jon, and guard the cellar while we go find some help.”

They didn't argue, and Patrick and Gregory departed.

#

“Why thank you, Viscount,” Benis said after the slender nobleman had helped him move the large timber onto the door mounts. There was an awkward moment while the priest and Loki stood face to face without saying anything. “Shouldn't you be with the other Guests, under the protection of the Avangarde?” Benis said at last, a trace of nervousness in his voice. Sir Gawain was right, the man made your skin crawl.

“Shouldn't you?” Loki returned.

The priest moved nervously to the opposite side of the round study table. “In times of emergency, I am required to stay here and look after the keep library. It is very important, you know.”

“No doubt,” Loki said, slowly making his way around the table towards the priest. Benis countered his move in the opposite direction. “Well, I was on my way to search the protection of the Avangarde when I said to myself, 'Loki, I wager that poor old librarian is probably all alone and needs some looking after.'And so, here I am.”

“How thoughtful of you,” Benis said.

By now Loki was standing over the book that was open on the table.

“Very interesting,” he said, gazing intently at the picture. He touched the image of the woman, a thoughtful look coming into his face. “How often I’m surprised at the extent of man’s memory.”

Loki glanced up again—and his eyes, though only briefly, were luminescent and lavender. Benis took out his prayer beads and held the cross out as if to ward off evil.

“I know who you are.”

Loki laughed at the gesture, his eyes normal again. “Indeed?”

#

Well into the keep, Gregory and Patrick approached a pair of double wooden doors. Long before they could reach to open them, however, they exploded. When the shards of wood had stopped falling, they uncovered their heads and saw a giant goblin looming in the threshold. Its eyes blazed red and it wielded a lance longer than both men put together.

It snorted, and fire shot out from its nostrils. The ground shook as it took a step towards them.

“Jesus Christ!” the two knights exclaimed simultaneously. They turned, and on the run made the Sign of the Holy Cross to repent for taking the Lord’s name in vain...and for protection against the creature.

They ran through the corridors, zigzagging at every turn to lose the monster, but its footsteps thundered close behind them.

They finally reached the darkened throne room and huddled in the stairwell, which was concealed behind a hanging tapestry.

“You think it will find us?” Gregory whispered.

“I don't know,” Patrick replied.

“Should we go find help?”

“Mm, let's wait a bit, shall we?”

Something grabbed them out of the darkness. They screamed and thrashed about like scared children being dragged from underneath a bed.

“Quiet you bloody fools!” McFowler hissed. He was wearing nothing but his kilt and his huge claymore. He was covered in blood and black ichor.

“Where are the rest?” he asked. They told him of the cellar. “Splendid! You are a credit to the Order, both of you. Let's go have some fun then!” He grabbed the two junior knights by their surcoats and dragged them in the direction of the fighting.

“But Jason, there is a really big one roaming about here!” Gregory protested.

“Yes lad, I've seen the beast.”

“But it breathes fire...” Gregory continued.

“And it's really ugly,” Patrick added.

Jason looked somewhat disappointed. “Look lads, you won't make your fame and fortune being timid. You must take the fight to the enemy. Now let's go!”

#

When McFowler, Patrick, and Gregory found the Avangarde, they were gathered in front of the church. Many Avangarde were throwing their shoulders against the church doors and King Mark shouted commands. The courtyard was a mess, but the fighting was done.

“What is going on?” Patrick said.

“It would appear that the goblins and their Goblin King have barricaded themselves inside the church. We've won the battle,” Gregory said.

Jason grimaced. “We've won nothing yet. If they are indeed trapped inside there, then they are like cornered animals; all the more dangerous. They won't give up with out a fight.”

A handful of knights carried in a large piece of timber and commenced to use it as a battering ram.

“Shouldn't we help?” Patrick asked. The other knights stood back and waited, weapons drawn.

“I have a better idea,” McFowler said. “Do you boys want to be heroes?” McFowler asked. Patrick and Gregory nodded excitedly. “Good, then follow me.”