Much Fall of Blood-ARC (70 page)

"Elizabeth will suffer for that," said Vlad, grimly.

"No," said Erik, equally grim. "Die, yes. But we are exactly what she is not . . ." He realised that he was dictating about something that had nothing to do with him. "I spoke out of turn, Vlad," he said. "It's your Principality and your sister."

Vlad nodded. "But you spoke well for me. I could be . . . worse than her, fixing it."

"Can we get to the horses?" said Bortai. "You can talk later!"

But by the noise, they'd left it too late already.

* * *

Someone shook Manfred awake. It was Falkenberg, and with him Ritter Von Stael.

"Prince Manfred . . . I am sorry to disturb you . . . But we seem to have been locked in."

"Probably don't want us molesting the nuns," said Manfred, yawning and stretching.

"Possibly, Prince."

"How did you find out?"

"We heard a few odd noises. The guard," Falkenberg gestured at Von Stael, "thought they'd have a look. The door appears locked."

"Could be an innocent measure of security," said Manfred. "But we'll explain in the morning. I'll need a battle-axe."

Falkenberg allowed himself a little smile. "I know you well enough by now, Prince Manfred. I've had one fetched. Should be waiting for us at the door."

It was. So were twenty knights in the final stages of hastily donning full armor.

Manfred raised his eyebrows. "You're taking this seriously, Falkenberg."

"No, Prince Manfred. I'd have them all up and in armor if I was."

Manfred took the axe from the knight who held it out to him.

He swung hard at the wood above the latch.

The door cracked, but held. Manfred swung again, putting his full strength into it.

The heavy oak shivered and split.

And swung open a little way.

But then, it stopped.

Manfred reached forward and pulled it aside.

The candles shone on a wall. A wall of stone blocks each weighing at least a hundredweight. And mortared. Manfred reached through and touched the stone. It was real, and quite solid.

The knights gaped at it.

Manfred turned to Falkenberg. "Full armor. Everyone. And make it fast."

Falkenberg, himself already armored, gave the orders. The knights left at a run. He then accompanied Manfred back to his chamber, to help him get the steel on, and also to talk.

"Those blocks. Are they real, Prince?"

Manfred nodded. "And the mortar is dry. This is magic, Falkenberg. But whatever it is, it is not good."

"So what do we do, Prince?"

Manfred pointed at the floor. "The castle is a stone shell. Those are oaken floorboards. And our ever so beautiful and charming countess is going to do some explaining. "

* * *

Vlad and his tiny party found their way blocked. So they hurried down another passage. And then another.

"We're being herded," said Erik.

"Where to?"

The answer appeared in front of them.

A man—dressed like a well-off peasant, wearing a hat with three feathers in it. He had haunted, desperate eyes, thought Erik.

"I have a way out for you," he said.

In a vast stride, Vlad reached the man, grasped him by the front of his tunic, hauled him up off the ground and slammed him against the wall, holding him there with one hand. "Emil! You traitor."

"I have a way out for you," the man gasped. "Follow me."

"Why did you do this to me?" Vlad hissed, his face contorted with fury—and then he looked at Erik, and Erik looked soberly into those eyes that were dark with a terrible rage, and the fury was replaced by something colder and more rational. He shook himself, like a wet dog, and put his prisoner down. "You have a few seconds to make your peace with God," he said, his tone icy. "I will not execute you un-shriven.

* * *

Vlad had felt the dark tide rising. And then Erik, friend and, dare he say it, conscience, intervened. Vlad was grateful . . . . and still determined. But that wild rage was channeled now. A desire for the truth, the truth at all costs, flowed out of him. The man fell at his feet.

The shaman said something.

"He says there is spell written all over the man," said Erik.

The Mongol shaman came forward, did what looked like a little dance in place, threw some powder over the man, spat on his finger, and rubbed it on Emil's forehead. Emil gave a choked cry. "Drac. Kill me Drac. Please forgive me, but kill me, for I do not deserve to live. She made me do it. She wanted me to betray you now, again. To take you to her chapel. She draws all that is evil in a man, drives him. I killed her, Drac. I strangled her while Countess watched. Then she lay with me again next to her body. God, I had to have her. I did what she told me."

"Who did you kill?" asked Vlad, although, somehow, he already knew.

"Rosa. The countess was angry about her . . ."

Vlad felt his blood go cold. His sword-point dropped.

"Forgive me, Drac," the man pleaded.

But Vlad knew that he never would. "God may," he said, bleakly.

The question of what he would do with this man was taken from him, seconds later. He only just had time to raise his sword. Emil, screaming, arms flailing, flung himself at them. He literally impaled himself on three swords.

Vlad's was not one of them.

His sister pressed against him. Put an arm around him.

"We've got to go on, brother," she said.

Vlad did not want to. He was an inner maelstrom of ice and fire, raging. He did not care if he died. But his little sister needed him. He might not know her, but he
felt
her, bone of his bone, blood of his blood. They were of the same flesh. She needed him, and it was his duty to protect her.

* * *

They pressed on. Erik saw how Vlad fought now with an almost insane rage and strength. It should have made him easy to kill. But their opponents who had plainly escaped the dungeon were not of any particular caliber. Elizabeth chose her men-at-arms for her 'religion' not martial prowess.

They could win free to the stables, still. And then Erik realised they would not. Not down this passage anyway. The countess had finally stopped fighting them by force of arms and was using her magic.

Something all shadow and ire roared out of the darkness; they all looked to the shaman, who looked to his talismans and powders and then just shrugged. "I do not know this thing," he said. "We must run."

Shadows wrapped it so that it was impossible to see, but there was no doubt that if it got them, it would kill them.

And then the shadows cleared. Whatever this monstrous thing was, it was pushing a wall ahead of it. All they could see was a block of stone, Stone, so tightly fitting the passage that it ripped the sconces from the walls, as it advanced on them at a slow walk. They could only retreat.

Back, back, towards the chapel.

They had little choice: go into the chapel or be crushed., because whatever was behind that wall was strong obviously strong enough to push them ahead of it or crush them beneath it.

So they backed sidled towards the chapel like a herd of wild cattle, with Dana in the center and swords facing their retreat and the wall.

Earlier only the candles on the altar had burned.

Now candles burned in all the sconces. Black candles.

And Vlad felt a sudden exhaustion. A strange empty numbness, as if somehow, he had been cut off from that black tide of strength that had, unitl now, sustained him.

* * *

There was no-one there. The place felt oppressive to Erik . . . as if they had somehow walked into the middle of summer thunderstorm. The moving wall stopped just short of the chapel door. The shaman looked around as they stood hard against the doorway, not wishing to go any further. He shrugged. Took out a little bottle of liquid from his pouch-stash and drank some. A magic potion of some kind?

"Strong brandy," he said and offered the bottle to Eric. "I buy it from the Vlachs. You want some?"

Erik felt that he could use it. But he shook his head. "Give the little girl some. She needs it."

Dana certainly did. She was at least part of the way into the shock that follows after mortal combat, by Erik's judgement. Still, she was a tough young lady. Her teeth clattered slightly on the bottle. She coughed and spluttered a little, but the brandy did put tiny spots of color in her white cheeks.

The shaman got out his little feathered drum and tapped it.

The sound seemed to be absorbed.

"Strong magic," he said.

That was all he said because he—and the rest of them—fell over.

It was as if every bit of strength had drained out of them at the same time that something invisible enclosed them in a skin of stone. Erik found he was unable to move a muscle. He couldn't even breathe, and felt his vision darkening. Then the grip loosened slightly. He could breath. Just not move.

The doors behind them opened. Another door at the back of the chapel did too. The countess's people came in, women in those obscene habits, men in filthy uniform tunics, picked all them up, like so many staves of wood and carried them to center of the chapel.

"Prop them up. I want them to be able to see," said the countess's voice from the shadows.

Something was set behind them. The terrible rigidity of their muscles eased just a tiny fraction.

Elizabeth Bartholdy walked up to them from somewhere out of Eric's line of sight. She looked down at Vlad and his sister. "In here I have taken some long and complex steps to make it safe for me to use magic against you. I was strongly advised not to try it out there." She smiled down on them. It was not a pleasant smile. If Eric could have shuddered, he would have. "Now we can begin."

Why did they always have to
talk
at times like this? Was it just that they needed an audience to appreciate their cleverness?

She stared down at Vlad, pondering a moment. "For the bloodletting rite to be performed, I learned that you had to be willing innocents. Mindaug says that actual virginity may not be necessary, but that you should be willing is." She nodded, her attention no longer on Vlad, as if now she was talking to herself. "I shall take no chances. I have both of you. One virginal, and one not. And by the time I am finished with you, you will be willing to perform my will. As for innocence, Mindaug assures me—and I do not think him wrong this time—that that is what allows you independence. You will take part in our little Sabbat tonight. And I will call on my master to bind your wills. I gather nothing less will do it."

She smiled another of those terrible smiles, her attention on Vlad again. "My little grandson Emeric will be so pleased."

She waited, her head cocked to the side, in an listening attitude, then laughed mockingly. "Ah. Of course. You can't reply. This is such an effective spell. I had to be careful, with you consorting with those vile knights. This magic is particularly good against men and Christians."

Her glance slipped to Eric. "Well, let us prepare. Then I will come and fetch the first sacrifice from your company. This young woman here has all the right qualities." She kicked Bortai. "It's her or your sister, Vlad of Valahia. And I need your sister's virginity." She said it in Frankish. She obviously wanted them to understand.

She walked away, and stood sharpening a knife next to the altar. Cages were carried in. A cat. A black rooster. A goat was led in. And then a row of five young terrified children, boys and girls ranging in age from about eight through to the edge of puberty, who were dragged to the points of the star.

Erik looked on in sick horror, and prayed. Begged for strength for his arms and legs, just for an instant.

The satanists began chanting—a depraved, vile perversion of a Gregorian chant. The huge crowd began a bizarre, obscene dance, writhing and stroking their own and each others' bodies, except for those who held the victims. Some began coupling on the floor.

And Erik saw a little striped field-mouse crawl out of the shaman Kaltegg's tunic. It very purposefully darted down to his pouch, burrowed into it, and emerged with a large feather. A hawk's pinion feather. The mouse dragged it over to Bortai.

In the meanwhile Elizabeth had proceeded with her butchery. She was cruelly and brutally methodical. To Erik it looked as if the walls behind her seemed to glow red. But perhaps it was just his rage and desperation.

And then they came for Bortai. Dragged her, limp and unstruggling to the blood-wet altar. Pulled her, spread-eagled onto it. The dwarf, like some evil misshapen gargoyle, his swollen manhood exposed through a cutaway in the priest's cassock he wore, clambered onto the altar. The chanting had stopped now. The other victims were being spread-eagled too. Erik prayed. Prayed as he had never done before.

The field mouse dragged the wing-pinion across his hand. It felt like the worst pins-and-needles he'd ever had. The dwarf walked up his victim's body and then knelt to tear her deel.

Bortai head-butted him so hard that you could hear his nasal bones crack across the room. He fell back. And Erik, still feeling as weak as a newborn kitten, staggered to his feet. It was at least twenty yards to the altar. His new 'Algonquin' hatchet flew. Elizabeth Bartholdy was obscured. But the man holding Bortai's wrist was not. And if she could head-butt . . .

As the man holding Bortai fell over, Eric staggered desperately towards them, trying to get his sword up.

* * *

Elizabeth watched, stunned, as Ficzko fell back off the altar, onto his overlarge head. The girl kicked Dorko in the stomach. Mascon fell, an axe in his back, and the Mongol girl's right hand was free. Anna had lost her grip on the other leg, and Ilona got flung right over the altar. And the Mongol girl had a knife. And staggering up toward the dias was the blond man, with Vlad and another Mongol leaning on their swords, but getting there.

Elizabeth was trapped between them, but they were plainly still weak. So would the girl be. And there was only one of her.

"I am not a man, and my windhorse is strong. Stronger than your magic," said the girl who had been going to be her victim.