The Red Cross of Gold I:. The Knight of Death (61 page)

For all he knew there were bogs and swamps
just down the road. This unsettling thought brought to mind the
misfortunate time he had witnessed their beloved Knight of Death
weighting down the body of a man he had beheaded in Romania. Ramsay
had sunk the corpse in a stagnant lake full of murky, black water
after stuffing the dead man's mouth full of garlic, jamming an ash
stake through his heart and sprinkling him with Holy Water. It
would be sad to report to the Grand Master that his Chevalier du
Morte had lived up to his title by killing the Healer, the Ritter,
the Knight of the Golden Eagle and his own apprentice along with
two civilian women and a man. It would be sad, but it would
certainly support Beaujold’s stance on the matter of what to do
with the traitorous Knight of Death. Beaujold knew that he had the
support of at least two of the other French Knights on the Council
when it came to his feelings about Mark Ramsay. Ramsay could kill
them all, one by one, and collect their secrets for himself and
then he would be of such immense power; he could easily conquer the
world. And who knew what that brooding mind cooked up along with
his putrid chemicals and fumes in his dark laboratory in the
Scottish lowlands. The Knight of the Sword was convinced that the
Key of Death would be much safer in the hands of one of his
countrymen. James Argonne, for example would make a much trustier
custodian.

((((((((((((()))))))))))))

Merry jumped up and caught hold of the broken
chain again. Each time she put her full weight on it, the rusty
links began to inch slowly toward the cog. If they could just get
the last link hooked on one of the teeth, they could start cranking
the door open again.

The water in the corridor with them was
already several inches deep. If they waited much longer, they would
have to abandon the cave altogether and there would be no hope of
opening the door before the water subsided again and outside, the
storm showed no sign of abating. Her hands were wet and slippery
and the chain was slick with a sort of rusty paste created by the
rain and the action of her hands. Each time they almost got the
chain to close on the cog, she would slip off and they would have
to start the process over again. Her hands burned and her arms and
shoulders ached unmercifully and she had already hurt two fingers
in the links.

“You must try harder,” Dambretti told her as
she slipped off yet again.

“Must I?” she asked in exasperation. “Why? So
they can come out and kill Mark Andrew?”

“They won’t kill him, signorina,” he told
her. “I am sure of it.”

“I can’t tell!” she snapped and leaned
against the wall, opening and closing her abused hands. “I saw you
in the basement! You didn’t look too friendly to me.”

“Mark Andrew Ramsay is not only my Brother,
he is my friend,” Lucio told her. “I have known him for a very long
time. He has saved my life more than once and I would do nothing to
harm him though I would sometimes like to wring his stubborn
neck.”

“You are here with the others looking for
him,” she told him. “You would take him back with you whether he
wants to go or not.”

“It is the Will of God,” Dambretti told her,
irritating her beyond measure. “He must go back. There is no
alternative. He will come to his senses. I know he will.”

“Everything is the Will of God to you,” she
said scornfully. “Why? Can’t a person actually have a will of their
own?”

“Of course,” he waved one hand in the dim
light of the small flashlight. “Man has his own free will, but
whatever he chooses has already been seen by God and is, therefore,
the Will of God. There is nothing a man can do but the Will of
God.”

“That is a circular argument, sir,” she shook
her head. The light was growing dimmer as the battery in the
flashlight faded.

Dambretti unwrapped the bandages on his hands
as he spoke in a calm voice.

“Circles are good. Spirals are better. I will
help you,” he told her and reached for her hands. She watched as he
pulled the bloody gauze from his hands. “This will give you better
traction and protect your delicate skin.” He smiled at her. Somehow
the comment coming from him did not seem belittling or insulting,
just thoughtful. He took her hands and turned them over before
kissing her palms gently.

“Thank you,” she said quietly, ashamed now of
talking to him in such rude tones.

“Do you love Mark Andrew?” he asked her
casually as he wrapped the bloody cloth around her hands.

The question startled her.

“No,” she answered too quickly.

“Then why are you so angry with him?” The
quizzical Italian asked her and looked into her eyes. “You would
not care one way or another if he left, unless you care for
him.”

“I didn’t say I didn’t care for him,” she
retorted. “I said I didn’t love him.”

“But you do.” He touched her chin with one
finger and brought her eyes back to him in the fading light. “I can
see it in your… eyes. You have a beautiful soul. Unlike any
other.”

She said nothing, but looked down at the rags
on her hands.

“Did he tell you that he loves you?” he asked
her.

She nodded.

“And so he does and that is too bad, but it
doesn’t change anything,” he said. “Now hurry. Our Brothers are
drowning.”

She sighed and leaped once more for the
chains. The gauze helped more than she would have imagined.
Dambretti managed to hook the chain link over the cog and they were
in business. They took turns cranking the handle. Blood oozed from
the Knight’s hands, but he did not complain. Merry figured he
chalked it up to the Will of God.

The higher the door rose, the faster the
water poured out of the adjoining room. It was soon above their
knees and rising rapidly.

Merry looked about in panic at the rising
deluge. There was, apparently, more water inside the chamber than
outside.

“What will happen?” she whispered as they
cranked on the rusted thing in unison.

“Who knows but God?” He shrugged and she
cringed.

When the water reached their waists, they had
to abandon the cave before they were trapped.

“They won’t drown, right?” she asked him as
they waded toward the rapidly closing space between the lower
levels and the upper cave.

“Come on, give me your hand,” he pulled her
along more quickly.

“You didn’t answer my question,” she said as
the water rose toward her neck.

“The apprentice is not immortal, if that is
what you are asking,” he said simply. “He could die.”

((((((((((((()))))))))))))

As soon as Mark Andrew reached the rusty
metal door in the side of the hill, he knew something was terribly
wrong. Water flowed out of the cave and ran away down the hill
behind him. He dropped the chain on the ground and peered into the
darkness.

“Merry! Lucio!” he shouted into the dark
opening, but his voice no longer echoed in the passage. It was
filling with water. He knelt near the entrance and looked for
footprints, but the water was sheeting over the sandy soil behind
the boulders, completely obliterating any signs of their passage.
He waded down into the cave and was unable to go more than few
dozen feet before the water was at neck level.

They couldn’t have stayed down there. He
sloshed back out the entrance and looked about in the rain,
squinting against the water pouring down his face into his eyes.
The lightning was diminishing somewhat and he had to wait for the
intermittent flashes to light the area.

“Damn you, Lucio! Where have you taken her?”
he said aloud and brushed at his face futilely with his left hand.
The lightning glinted off the blade of the golden sword now in his
right hand.

“Have you also taken up cursing as well?” a
voice spoke to him from his left. He spun around, slinging water
out from his hair and clothing. He only got a glimpse of Beaujold,
standing near the pile of boulders with his sword raised.

“What have you done with them?!” he shouted
at the fleeting figure.

“I might ask you the same, Brother,” the
man’s voice was muffled by the rain. The lightning flashed and
Beaujold lunged at him with his broadsword.

Mark jumped back as the sword slashed through
the rain, missing his chest by less than a hairsbreadth. He
stumbled back and pulled the dagger from his pocket with
difficulty. The lightning worked against him as he raced around the
opposite side of the boulder. He drew up short when the Knight of
the Sword appeared in front of him again. He had to duck quickly as
the heavy broadsword swooped over his head. He fell on one knee and
jabbed at the man’s ankle. The blade entered the Knight’s boot just
above the ankle causing him to scream and jerk backwards. Mark held
onto the dagger long enough to pull it free and then scrambled
away, slipping in the mud as the broadsword’s blade came down in
another deadly swing. The tip of the sword struck the ground
directly in front of him and then darkness engulfed them.

Mark continued to crab backwards in the dark
until he felt the rock wall behind his back. He pushed himself up,
waiting for the next flash of light to find his adversary. When the
light came it was brief and he saw nothing of the man. The rain
fell in slanted streaks. Mark blinked rapidly and looked about.
Nothing. He did not know which way to go. He closed his eyes
briefly and then began to slide along the rock face to his right.
Right was always his choice. The devil was left-handed. He came
against an obstructing block of limestone and edged out to go
around it. The next bolt of lightning illuminated the Knight of the
Sword, once again, standing directly in front of him and to his
right, proving his theory about the devil. Beaujold had moved to
his left which put him directly in front of the Knight of Death.
The silver blade struck the limestone where Mark’s head had been
only a split second before and darkness engulfed them again.

Mark ended up sitting on the slippery ground
with his back to the wall. He stayed down and slid forward, away
from the rock face, past his foe, swiping blindly at his side with
the golden sword as he went. He felt the blade strike a glancing
blow on the Knight’s ribs and heard the man cry out in pain again.
Ramsay continued down the hill, slipping and sliding in the loose
rock and rubble mixed with water as far as he dared before
stopping. He turned on his stomach and jabbed the dagger in the
earth for a handhold, trying to catch a glimpse of the man behind
him. A stream of rubble and mud washed against him, blinding him
momentarily, but he saw nothing of the Frenchman. He had moved…
somewhere. Mark crouched on the ground turning around and around
holding up his sword and dagger defensively, allowing the drenching
ran to wash the mud from his face and eyes. Could the Knight of the
Sword see in the dark? Was night vision one of his mysteries?

Let their habitation be desolate.

Merry stumbled up the path, finally clearing the tumble of rocks
and brush, she stopped on the relatively flat ground at the top of
the hill. Normally, the view would have been spectacular here,
overlooking the valley below, but the rain sheeted relentlessly
over the land, cutting the visibility almost to zero. Lucio slipped
along behind her, gingerly trying to keep his balance, trying to
avoid grabbing onto the bushes and rocks with his injured hands.
She had tied one of the gauze strips to their wrists to keep from
losing him in the dark since he was also having trouble with the
oversized trousers that had become like lead weights around his
legs. Twice, he had to stop and pull them up when they fell to his
ankles. Had not their situation been so desperate, it might have
been comical. At the moment, he was dangerously slowing their pace.
Merry was afraid half the hillside would give way in the flashflood
if the rain continued. She had seen it happen before. They could be
buried under tons of rock and mud. Worse yet, she knew that Mark
Andrew was somewhere below them without the slightest idea of where
they had gone for safety.

“This way!” Merry shouted to him above the
drumming rain.

She led him across the hill top to a strange
little building that looked like a big thimble or an upended cup
sitting on the barren landscape.

“What is that?” He asked her when he caught
up with her on the smoother ground. He cinched up his belt yet
again and grimaced at the thought of how he must have looked. His
hair hung in ringlets around his face and his boots were filled
with water.

“It used to be part of the shelter,” she told
him. “There was a bunch of equipment in there for the ventilation
and wiring, but we took it out and made an observatory out of
it.”

“An observatory?” he asked as they hurried
along. It was a good place for a watch tower.

She unhooked the latch on the wooden door and
pulled it open. It was dark inside, but relatively dry and much
warmer. The lightning, which continued to strike the rocks and
surrounding hillsides showed a narrow wooden staircase spiraling up
the walls of the circular structure. She shined the light all
around the dirt floor and the steps. When he asked what she was
looking for, she said “tarantulas and scorpions” and his heart
skipped a beat. He could handle snakes, frogs, flies, mosquitoes
and any number of wild creatures, but of all the things that God
had created why these two? Big hairy spiders. Scorpions! Just what
they needed to make the evening complete.

Finding none in residence, they clumped up
the steps, feeling their way between flashes until they reached a
trap door at the top of the stairs. She unlatched the door and it
swung down to meet them. The last leg of the climb was a short
ladder attached to the wall. They climbed into the top of the
building and Lucio saw the roof was made of glass. He fell onto the
floor on his back and looked up at the clouds and the rain as bolts
of lightning streaked across the stormy sky showing a roiling storm
raging above them. Merry went immediately to a cabinet built into
the wall and rummaged about in the drawers and shelves. Presently,
she returned with a small lantern and a striker. Soon they were
sitting on the wooden floor staring at each other in the yellow
light of a antique kerosene lantern. The water continued to drip
from the tendrils of their hair into their faces and a cool breeze
wafted through under the open eaves. Merry blew the water from her
upper lip and shook her head, slinging water from her hair.