Neal Stephenson - The Mongoliad - Book One

In spite of the tense silence in the courtyard, Cnán was gladdened by the Dutchman’s concern.

“It’s very dark,” Finn announced, appearing in the narrow doorway of the well house. “And there is no well.”

“Ah yes, in that case, the Virgin has blessed us and our inquiry,” Yasper smiled.

Someone screamed, and even though they had heard this voice—this cry—before, they flinched. They were much closer to the throat from which it originated, and the howl was such a blend of human and beast that they could not tell from which type of throat it issued. It had to come from a man , Cnán found herself hoping as she caught sight of the black-robed apparition who had emerged from one of the buildings. To believe otherwise would be to believe in monsters.

The scream was a signal, for out of the other buildings poured a host of ragged men. They were more than filthy, their threadbare robes encrusted with shit and blood. Hair and beard were tangled and matted into one another, and their mouths were dark holes. Arms and legs, streaked with raw wounds that looked as if the skin had been flayed off by a ragged whip, poked out of the robes like broken sticks. They carried all manner of implement: knives, sticks, scythes, cudgels, awls, anything that could cut, smash, or tear an enemy’s flesh.

“Defilers,” the screamer shouted in heavily accented Latin, his voice like the wail of a dozen frightened children. “They must not interfere with God’s holy warriors.” He raised a long stave; mounted on its end was the horned skull of a ram, doused in some black, slick substance that dripped ichor onto the ground.

“Well,” Yasper noted dryly, “I guess that settles—”

From within the building, another monk emerged, a lit torch clutched in his bony hands. He lifted the torch toward the end of the apparition’s staff, and with a whuff , the ram skull burst into flame.

“Oh,” Yasper noted, “how clever.”

“Inside,” Cnán shouted. “Now!” Grabbing a handful of the alchemist’s tunic, she dragged him toward the shack.

Finn was waiting for them inside, and she stumbled as her feet collided with a hard surface. Her eyes adjusted maddeningly slowly to the dimness. Finn had said there was no well, and what she found was a ring of raised stones. Rough steps, hewn out of the rock, led down into nothingness.

Finn pulled the door shut, hiding everything in darkness, and Yasper bumbled into her. “Careful,” she snapped as she stumbled again on the edge of the stairwell. “There’s a hole.”

“Of course there is a hole,” he replied, fumbling around in the dark. “How else would the Livonians have slipped away?”

Finn grunted as something slammed against the well house door.

Muttering under his breath, Yasper tripped over the lip of stone and managed to not fall down the stairs. Cnán heard his feet slap against the steps as he began to descend into the utter darkness. “I will see what I can do about light,” he called back, his voice floating in the void. “Keep them back as best you can.”

“And how are we going to do that?” Cnán grumbled, regretting she had ever acquiesced to their plan.

Finn bumped into her, and his hand found her arm. “Down,” he said, his mouth close to her ear. “They can only come a few at a time. Kill enough of them, maybe they leave.” He chuckled, low in his throat. “Or maybe not. We’ll see, hmm?”

A body slammed against the door again, and Cnán—abruptly aware that Finn was no longer beside the door—let out a tiny cry of despair. But the door remained closed, and Finn had not let go of her. “Down,” he said again, tugging at her arm. “There was a beam to block the door. It will hold for a little while.”

Mollified, Cnán began to descend the stair, her right hand tracing along the rock wall. The staircase was an impossibly tight spiral, straight down. By the time she thought to count her steps, she had already gone far enough she couldn’t remember how many lay above her. Eventually her right hand slipped off the wall, trailing into empty space, and with her heart in her mouth, she took two more steps and found herself on solid ground.

A thin green light bobbled in front of her, and as she stood at the base of the stair, terrified but unable to know which way to run, the glow drew nearer.

It was Yasper, holding a tiny piece of curved glass in his hand. The surface shifted and shimmered as he walked, and the light was bright enough for her to see the nature of the catacombs in which they stood.

The chamber extended farther than the illumination offered by Yasper’s witch light. A nearby wall was inset with niches from floor to ceiling, extending endlessly in either direction. Cnán swallowed, seeing in each the bones of the long dead, some beneath cloth so thin as to be transparent under the gleam of Yasper’s light. Empty eye sockets stared at her, and skeletal mouths gaped—expressions frozen somewhere between awe and terror.

“Where’s Finn?” Yasper asked, peering over Cnán’s shoulder.

“He said something about forcing them to attack him one at a time.”

“Not on the stairs,” Yasper sighed. “Finn,” he hissed, trying to catch the hunter’s attention, “down here. Where it is flat.”

Cnán stared at the liquid in the tiny bowl, trying to ken how it generated light. It was a mystery—one of Yasper’s alchemical tricks—and most likely well beyond her knowledge. But staring at the light was more agreeable than gazing upon the staring eyes of the dead.

They heard Finn coming, his feet light and quick against the stone. Yasper grunted and motioned for her to follow. Holding his witch light carefully, he led them deeper into the catacombs.

As they reached an archway, Cnán realized she could see more of the room, and their shadows were stretching, eager to run down the hall before them. She glanced over her shoulder and saw why: the yellow glow of torchlight spilling out of the stairwell.

“Here they come,” Finn said, shoving her lightly. “Into the tunnel.”

Yasper complied, and they departed the burial chamber. The tunnel ceiling was even lower, and with her head canted forward, Cnán took note of the smoothness of the floor. Worn down by the passage of innumerable feet, over the course of countless years. How many generations had brought their dead down here? she wondered.

When they reached the first corner, Finn hung back, ready to face their pursuers.

The first died without a sound, Finn’s spear thrust driving through his ragged robe and into his chest. The hunter shoved the monk off his weapon and moved to the right side of the tunnel to await his next victim.

The monk had been carrying a cudgel, and the wooden club lay in the tunnel, not far from Finn’s feet. Cnán stared at it, her fear warring with her desperate desire to uphold her Binder vows. But she had killed once already, she reasoned, there was already blood on her hands. Her mind flashed to the slaughtered animals aboveground and the persistent stain of their blood on everything.

At some point, the amount of blood no longer mattered.

The second man came around the corner and took Finn’s spear low in the belly. He collapsed in a heap, writhing and moaning, until Finn dispatched him with a quick flick of the spear tip.

Cnán darted forward, snatching up the club. She positioned herself on the other side of the tunnel, ready to bring the weapon down on the head of the first man foolish enough to stick it around the corner.

Behind them, Yasper cursed. Cnán dared to look and saw nothing but shadow. Yasper’s tiny light had gone out.

Finn grunted, and she whirled around to stare into the face of one of the filthy monks. His eyes were bulging and his mouth was opening and closing. His breath— how could it be possible?— was even worse than the corpse-rot stink of the courtyard. His hands scrabbled feebly at the ash shaft of Finn’s spear, protruding from his chest. He grunted and strained, broken Latin spewing from his mouth. Cnán caught a few words— vengeance and reclaiming among them—and then the breath rattled in his throat.