Mark Teppo - The Mongoliad - Book Two

The attacker’s lance had missed Finn’s body but became involved in the tangle of straps and ropes by which the water vessels were slung over Finn’s shoulders.

With the horse stopped, Finn might have had his opportunity to regain his footing and to disengage himself. But his foe was already in motion. The Mongol swung down out of his saddle. As he did, his long mane of gray hair billowed around him in the morning sun. For a moment, he was on the opposite side of the horse from Finn, but he ducked under the horse’s neck and came up behind Finn and wrapped him in a wrestling hold with the speed of a striking snake. Finn’s brothers and sisters on the hill above let out a cry of horror, shame, and grief.

Alchiq’s massive arms scissored, then relaxed. Finn’s corpse bounced on the ground at Alchiq’s feet.

Alchiq then turned and gazed up calmly toward Feronantus and Istvan, who were headed for him at a full gallop, both bellowing with rage and pain. He reached down and pulled his lance free, then was up on his pony’s back and galloping north with the adroitness that only a veteran Mongol warrior was capable of.

North across the steppe, he was pursued by the vengeful Shield-Brethren, but the only thing swift enough to catch up with him were the wrenching cries of Finn’s companions.

“Do you smell something burning?” Colonna asked, rousing from the meditative mood he had fallen into.

Capocci dropped his latest de-stingered scorpion into the clay jar and raised his head to sniff at the musty air of their underground prison. When they had first arrived in the tunnels and broken corridors beneath the Septizodium, the air had been stale and still, a stagnant miasma undisturbed for many years. The effect of their presence, initially, had stirred up the dust and decay of old Rome, clogging the air with tiny particles that caked the insides of their noses.

Da Capua had sneezed nearly constantly for several days before Colonna had offered to cut off the offending part of his face. He had then started to complain that the stench was eating at his soul-presumably, an item more difficult to remove. Since then, the ambient aroma of the tunnels had settled into a faint but unavoidable effluvium of sweat and charcoal.

But Colonna was correct. There was now a pungent scent of burning matter.

“It troubles me to agree with you, my dear Giovanni,” Capocci said. He fit a plug into the top of his clay jar, trapping the unhappy but harmless scorpions inside, and then stripped the leather glove off his hand. “I think we should go see if someone has set his beard on fire.”

“Oh,” Colonna raised his eyes toward the roof and clutched his hands theatrically to his chest, “ please let it be Fieschi.”

Capocci chuckled as he scooped up the other glove. “As amusing as I would find such a sight, I pray God is not inclined to listen to you today.” He put the gloves and the clay jar into a leather satchel. “The theological ramifications would be even more distressing than the sight of our good cardinal, slightly charred.”

As they walked through the halls, not only did the singed odor increase but wispy tendrils of smoke sluggishly curled along the tunnel’s ceiling. And when they heard shouting, they broke into a run.

The central corridor from which branched several of the cardinals’ chambers was filled with greasy, gray smoke. It billowed along the ceiling, crawling and fuming like a living creature, and farther down the hall, a sullen, smoky red maw gaped and snapped, like a yawning, demonic mouth. The air burned Capocci’s throat, and the disturbingly appetizing taste of charred meat filled his mouth. In the haze, someone was coughing and spitting, trying vainly to clear his lungs of the foul air.

Ducking to keep his head out of the smoke, Capocci waddled toward the distressed man. His fingers touched cloth, and he gathered the fabric into his fist. The man felt Capocci pulling on him and staggered into the cardinal’s arms, as if he were throwing himself on Capocci’s mercy. Capocci fell back, dropping his satchel, and tried to lift up and orient the choking man. Who was he?

It was the new one, the strange one-Rodrigo-his face streaked by soot and tears. His eyes were bright, wide and staring, the whites tinted orange and red in the firelit gloom.

“I have you,” Capocci said, hugging the man tightly. He was surprised how frail the priest felt in his arms. Beneath the heavy robe, there was not much to the man, almost like he was a spirit who had animated a bundle of sticks into a simulacrum of a human body. “Is there anyone else?”

Rodrigo hesitated and then shook his head. “S-s-somer…c-c…” he stuttered.

Capocci peered toward the ruddy light farther down the hall, flicking tongues leaping and cavorting inside the red mouth. He pushed Rodrigo into Colonna’s waiting arms and knelt to locate his satchel. “Go,” he snapped over his shoulder. “Take him to safety. Through Fieschi’s secret exit.” He found his bag and pulled out his heavy gloves.

“There is no hope,” Colonna replied, a tight grip on Rodrigo’s shoulder. “No one could bear that flame.”

Capocci tucked his bag into his belt, securing it so he didn’t lose it a second time. “There is always hope,” he said.

Colonna shook his head grimly and then thrust his chin toward the roaring fire. “God be with you, my friend.” He retreated, dragging the dazed priest with him.

“ Custodi animam meam, quoniam sanctus sum ,” Capocci muttered as he pulled on his leather gloves. “ Salvum fac servum tuum, Deus meus, sperantem in te. ” He punctuated his plea to God by touching his head, his heart, and the two points of his shoulders.

Anointed with prayer, he walked toward the burning mouth of Hell.

The fever had him.

Rodrigo wanted to believe that sustenance and sanctuary had driven out the worst of the spiritual poison that lay siege to him, but now he knew it was not gone entirely. It lurked inside, within the walls of his personal citadel, like a demonic army hiding in his gut, waiting for a chance to break loose and pollute both his body and his soul.

And when that cardinal-the one who had fixed him with his eyes, just as a hawk stares at its terrified prey-came into the chamber where he and Somercotes were quietly discussing scripture, Rodrigo felt the walls inside crack again. A small fracture, but a breach nonetheless, and the poison started to ooze out once again.

After Fieschi and Somercotes had left, Rodrigo had tried to calm himself. If only he could sequester the poison, keep the venom from spreading. The last time, it had eaten almost all of his spirit, and only a fortuitous arrival in Rome-in the company of the waif, Ferenc-had saved him. That, and the presence of the kindly ones in the quorum of cardinals trapped under the city.

They-Somercotes and the two white-haired giants, Capocci and Colona-had treated him with civility and dignity. An image of the four of them formed in his mind. Arm in arm, they walked along a slowly meandering river, a row of silver-leaved trees on their left. The trees swayed and whispered in the light spring breeze.

It was a perfectly lovely fantasy, marred only by the suspiciously generous sun. At first, it cast down on him a most heavenly light, dappling the leaves of the slender trees, but the light reddened, then grew warmer-then hot. And the sun grew larger too, swelling from a tiny dot in the blue-white heavens to an angry red sphere, like a gigantic blot of blood. Flames crawled and leaped across the sun’s mottled surface like dancing imps, and long snake tongues of fire flicked out at random, threatening to span the sky, threatening to drop down to Earth-and touch him. If they did, they would ignite the poison inside, and he and all around him would be blasted to vapor, spreading out over the land to merge with the heat.