Tales of the Old World (118 page)

He lowered his disfigured face, his hair brushing against Sir Gilles’ face.
He hissed, opening his tongueless mouth, a string of saliva winding its way down
onto the knight’s forehead. Sir Gilles gazed defiantly upon the witch,
unflinching.

The witch stood up, a rattling, gurgling laugh coming from his throat. He
clicked his fingers. Two beastmen lumbered in, hooves clattering on the rock,
and took Gregory up from his slab. He started to cry, kicking uselessly against
them as they took him from the cave.

“Where are you taking him?” Gilles cried out. “I warn you now, witch! Do not
harm that boy!”

The witch stood in the centre of the room, facing Sir Gilles. He pulled out a
knife. Wide-bladed and so sharp its edges shone, it was inscribed with the
eldritch signs of the witch’s evil master. He held it above his head in both
hands, stumps knotting with the fingers that remained, blade facing the floor.
He brought it down, plunging it into an imaginary victim. His body shook with
deranged, guttural laughter.

The witch strode from the room, dagger at the ready. Desperately, Sir Gilles
began to struggle against his bonds.

In the forest, the cries of the wounded and dying filled the twilight.
Soldiers busied themselves digging graves for the dead men. A pyre was stacked
high with slaughtered horses, the stench of burning meat all pervading. Subdued
and utterly defeated, the men performed their grim duties like automatons. None
of them spoke of the likely fates of those men whose bodies could not be found.

Amidst this pitiful scene, surrounded by a circle of troops, the baron sat on
a rock, staring into space, his grief by now impenetrable.

“The head-count has been completed, my lord,” the sergeant-at-arms said
quietly.

Barely registering the man’s presence, the baron waved a cursory hand at him
to continue.

“Upon the field are the bodies of thirty men, five of them of name. Ten more
are severely wounded and are not expected to live long.”

The baron shuddered, closing his eyes slowly. It was all his fault.

“There is one more disturbing detail,” the sergeant went on. “As well as your
son and Sir Gilles, we could not find the bodies of a further ten retainers.
From the testimony of the men, confused by the chaos of battle though it is,
they appear to have been taken away alive.”

“But why?” the baron demanded, as much of the darkening forest as the
sergeant.

A horse came galloping from the forest, carrying on its back one of the
baron’s scouts. The man pulled his mount to a halt and dismounted. He stood,
panting, trying to find his voice, sweat dripping from his head.

“My lord,” he said, breathlessly. “My lord, I think I have found them!”

Sitting up on the slab, Sir Gilles untied the last of the bonds around his
feet. He swung round and planted his good foot on the cave floor. Wincing, he
limped up the rough slope in the direction the witch had taken. Supporting
himself on the limestone wall, he looked down into another chamber, beyond which
could be seen a moonlit clearing in the forest. A bonfire was burning and the
unholy mutterings of the beastmen could be heard. Somewhere, drums were being
pounded.

Sir Gilles crept out of the cave, hoping that the night and the flickering
shadows of the fire would provide enough cover to prevent his detection. It was
then he heard the first scream.

Squinting in the darkness, Sir Gilles could make out a terrible sight.

With several flat-topped stones arranged around him in a circle, each with
one of the baron’s soldiers lying upon it, the witch stood in his robes, his
knife in one hand, a severed head in the other. Blood trickled down his arm,
glistening in the flames. He moved on to his next victim.

Issuing a silent prayer to the Lady, Sir Gilles called upon his last reserves
of strength and courage and took action. He deftly broke the neck of the nearest
beastman, took its weapon—a rusted broadsword—and went to work.

Swinging rhythmically, lopping off heads, opening throats, he hobbled
forward, screaming out the ancient battle-cries of his order. The beastmen,
drunk and distracted by the blood-letting ceremony, were slow to react. And Sir
Gilles had his righteous anger on his side. Wounded though he was, he was
unstoppable.

More screams rang out as the witch continued to add new heads to the pile at
his feet.

Sir Gilles was by now on the other side of the bonfire and could see the
witch and his unholy ritual clearly now. The prince was tied to a tree, slumped
unconscious, arms above his head and feet crossed over like a martyr of old. The
witch was working on the last of the men. The knife, blunted on the other
victims, hacked laboriously through windpipe and bone, sending blood rising
through the darkness. Occupied with fending off beastmen, Gilles could only
listen helplessly to the strangulated cries of the man’s prolonged agony.

Standing back, the last of the heads in his hands, the witch held both arms
aloft, the power of his sacrifices flowing through him. He moved towards
Gregory.

A beastman came out of the darkness at Sir Gilles, its large hooves kicking
up cinders and dead twigs. One arm was a lashing tentacle, the other a thick,
almost-human arm, wielding a large club. Its head was that of a horse. Deep-set
eyes glowed with rage. Its mouth was crowded with needle-sharp teeth. Expertly
side-stepping Sir Gilles’ first lunge, it retaliated with an unexpectedly swift
upswing that caught the knight in the stomach. Winded, he staggered backwards.
The beastman leapt at him.

Beyond the horse-creature, Sir Gilles could see that the witch had not yet
harmed Gregory. He stood instead by the tree, freeing Gregory from his bonds, no
doubt in preparation for moving him to one of the plinths.

Blocking club with sword, Sir Gilles pulled his arm back ready to punch, but
found it held fast by the tentacle. The beast dropped the club and gripped the
knight’s sword arm instead. Its strength was too great. Sir Gilles felt the
blood fleeing his fingers. He dropped his weapon.

A cracking noise. The beastman let its lower jaw dislocate like a snake’s,
the bone hanging loose in stretching skin. The teeth, coated in spittle,
glistened in the flames.

Sir Gilles tried to struggle but the beast held him fast. He prayed to the
Lady.
Not this way. Not like this.

With a roar the horse-head sank its teeth into his neck and bit down hard.
Then stopped.

The tentacle uncoiled itself, and the fingers around his sword arm went
slack. The beastman pitched forward, a dead weight.

Scrabbling back out from under the monstrosity, one hand to his neck to stem
the flow of blood, Sir Gilles saw that an arrow protruded from the back of the
creature’s neck, lost in the mane.

Not having time to question his good fortune, and losing blood fast, Sir
Gilles drew on the last reserves of strength and pounded across to the witch.

Lowering Gregory to the ground, the fiend did not see him.

Gilles knocked him to the side, rolled over with him, pinned him to the
ground. One punch destroyed his nose.

Choking on blood that flowed down his throat, the witch stared up at the
Grail Knight. His eyes were wild with shock and, though Sir Gilles dare not
think it, what looked like fear.

Starting to lose consciousness, Sir Gilles brought his fist down once again.
The witch went limp.

More arrows flew out of the darkness, bringing beastmen down as they closed
in on Sir Gilles. The others stopped to sniff the air.

Clambering off the witch, Sir Gilles went to Gregory. Felt for a pulse. The
boy still lived.

The beastmen started baying in alarm. A crashing of undergrowth. Horses’
hooves. The clank of armour. The glint of weapons in the flames. The baron had
arrived.

The slaughter was great. Not a beastman was permitted to live. Though the
fire burnt still in the centre of the clearing, the baron ordered that their
bodies should be left to rot, their heads put upon spikes as a warning to others
of their kind. To prevent desecration, the bodies of the ten sacrificed soldiers
were taken back to the Chambourt, together with the witch. For him, the flames
awaited.

It was a stark, cold morning. The entire town was assembled outside the
castle grounds. For a week now, the pyre that would claim the life of the witch
had been under construction. Every household had contributed wood. Many trees
had been felled. It towered above the crowd, in competition with the castle
itself, a man-made cousin to the peaks beyond. A scaffold had been built around
it, enabling the chaos-worshipping fiend to be marched up to the stake at the
summit.

Having been put to the torture for the entire time his execution was being
prepared, he was at last a broken figure. Pale and hunched, head scabbed over
where his hair had been burnt off in a bucket of hot coals, he stumbled upwards,
each step an agony. From a platform at the base of the pyre, the baron noted
with grim satisfaction that the witch’s eyes, where defiance had burned so long,
now seemed confused and bovine.

“Help me to the window, Gregory,” Sir Gilles said in a faint voice. “I wish
to watch the monster’s final moments.”

Pale, drawn and confined to his bed, the Grail Knight’s health had
deteriorated since his ordeal. His leg had not set well and the bite mark,
through which he had lost a lot of blood, was not healing satisfactorily. That
morning, Blampel, the old fool, had muttered something indistinct about a
possible infection.

In contrast, Gregory, his cheeks ruddy with the flush of youth, was as sturdy
as ever before.

He lifted the old retainer from his bed and supported him while he hobbled on
his broken leg to the window. Sir Gilles rested himself against the sill, his
breathing shallow, his thoughts scattered and vague. If this was a taste of old
age, he said to himself, then he prayed that his end would not be long in
coming.

Tapestries lifted in the wind as Gregory opened the windows. A low rumble of
conversation drifted upwards from the crowd. The occasional cry of a hawker
advertising his wares.

The window was level with the top of the pyre, towards which the crippled
figure was being marched. The gaoler tied the witch to the stake and made his
way back down the steps.

Sir Gilles stared, unblinking, at his hated enemy.

The monster strained forward from the stake, feebly struggling, the filth on
his face streaked with tears. A distressed shrieking came from his empty mouth.
He seemed more like a child than a man.

The gaoler handed the baron a flaming brand. All chatter in the crowd died.
The witch was screaming down at the baron, neck fully outstretched, eyes
bulging, demented. Though his words could not be understood, it was clear he was
pleading for mercy. At last, thought the baron. At last.

Making sure he maintained eye contact with his enemy, the baron slowly put
the torch at the base of the pyre.

With a crackle of dry tinder, the hungry flames leapt up.

At the sight of the orange glow far beneath him, the witch hysterically
started to repeat the same word over and over.

The same word, over and over… Sir Gilles felt the hairs on the back of his
neck and arms bristle. A prickling sensation came to his face. The word. The
word sounded like—

He turned to look at Gregory. He stood, arms folded, impassively surveying
the grim scene. His mouth was curled into a sneering smile. Sir Gilles started
to shake.

The wind brought the scent of burning flesh into the room. Arms still folded,
Gregory waved a dismissive hand at the knight. “Die,” he commanded.

The flames licked up. The baron forced himself to keep his eyes on the witch.
The fire seared his flesh now, billowing through his clothes. Still he screamed
out the same word, rasping and harsh.

Sir Gilles staggered back from the window. He dropped to his knees. Felt the
air fleeing his lungs. A sharp pain in his head. Tears in his eyes. Blood in his
mouth.

Deadly malice flashing in his eyes, Gregory paced around him in a circle.

“Old fool. You did not think to question the nature, the purpose of the
ceremony.” The Grail Knight started to shake.

“The ceremony, the deaths of those ten men, wasn’t merely to satisfy my
blood-lust. It had a purpose.”

“No…” Sir Gilles croaked. “No…”

“That night, by the unholy power of my dark master I took the body of the
baron’s son.” The man that called himself Gregory came close to Sir Gilles’
ear. “And bequeathed him mine.”

Outside, the screaming had stopped. Framed by the small window, Sir Gilles
could see all that remained of the witch’s body, a column of black smoke.

The darkness of death crowding in on his mind, Sir Gilles locked his hands
together in desperate prayer. He knew now what the word had been.

It was over. The people were still silent, awe-struck by the terrible sight
they had witnessed. The flames roared on, hungrily consuming the last of the
wood.

Suddenly exhausted, the baron let his head drop. The acrid smoke stung his
eyes. He moved towards the edge of the platform, his guards stepping aside to
allow him onto the steps.

The crowd cheered him as he walked, but he barely heard it. An inexplicable
sorrow hung heavily on his heart. He cared nothing for his land, nor his
faithful subjects. Only one thing mattered to him now. His son, his heir:
Gregory.

Watching the dead knight, his aged face contorted with the anguish of his
final moments, the witch’s eyes flashed with triumph.

The sound of the baron’s approaching footsteps on the cold stone echoed along
the corridor.

Transforming Gregory’s features into a suitable mask of sorrow, the witch
opened the door and fell into his father’s arms.