Vaughn Heppner - Assassin of the Damned

“Erasmo?”

Guido cringed as he pissed squirts of urine like a terrified dog. “He-he said I slighted him long ago.”

I remembered. Erasmo had hated my arms instructor. Signor Guido had swaggered wherever he went, a master of the sword and loved by the ladies. It must have eaten Erasmo with jealousy.

“What can I do for you, old friend?” I whispered.

His rump twitched like a hound wagging its tail. “No, no, my prince, it’s what I can do for you. I hate…him.”

“Erasmo?”

He lowered his head. “He-he changed many of us.”

“Wait,” I said. “I thought Erasmo had taken my guise.”

Guido panted, and his deformed face twisted with agony. “Not to us. We know, we know. But never can we say. I was the last…the last-”

“Changed?” I asked.

“Yes, yes,” he said. “I’m the last to…to think of old days, old ways. Oh, I have a hard time with names. But I remember you. I taught you. I once stood as you do now.”

“Ah, Signor Guido,” I said. “Name the favor and I will give it to you.”

He cringed horribly. “They call. They call with their whistles, my prince.”

I’d heard nothing.

“We must find you,” he panted. “We cannot kill, but must tree, must capture.”

“Do you wish a release from this existence?” I asked.

He shrank from me. “No, no, my prince, I–I live. I will lead them away from you. Then you must sneak in and slay the master.”

“Erasmo is here?” I asked.

“Please. Don’t say that name. No. He is not here. But the hunter is here. He whips me and kicks me if I speak words.”

“Does this hunter have a crow’s feather in his cap?”

“Yes, yes, that is him. Will you kill him, please?”

“I swear it, old friend. And I shall slay…the other one for what he has done to you.”

“Thank you, thank you, my prince,” and Guido licked my hand. Then he trotted away, looked back once and then loped into a thicket. Moments later, he howled as a hound who has found the trail.

I hurried in the opposite direction, more determined than ever to make Erasmo pay for his evils.

***

Hours later and countless miles distant, I ran through a pine forest as I heard hooves. I stopped and listened for baying hounds. The hoof-beats neared. Scanning the dark forest revealed nothing new. These hunters forwent lanterns or torches. I thought about the noble with fangs for teeth. Were there sorcerous means for tracking as well as using altered hounds?

I hid, drew my knife and waited.

The hooves drew nearer. I grew tense and tried to count numbers by the drumming against the cold earth. Through the trees, I glimpsed motion. Surely these were minions of Erasmo della Rovere. No ordinary horsemen would dare ride so hard at night without light. The cavalcade thundered past. Soon the sound of hooves dwindled.

I sheathed my blade and stepped out of hiding. A horn blared in the distance. Several heartbeats later, a faint horn answered from even farther away. I was certain they hunted me. After a few moments deliberation, I changed my route and headed into the deeper woods.

Maybe an hour later I grew troubled. I’d missed something important. I slowed. Weasels, owls and bats had completed their night’s work. Dawn approached. Soon, starlings would sing and robins scour the ground for the early worm. I should rejoice. Evil creatures hid during the day. What had I missed?

I advanced cautiously. Something was wrong and I had no idea what or why. I turned in a circle and eyed each pine in sight. With a slow step, I approached a thicket. I wanted to reach Perugia, not hide like a rabbit. I listened. Silence. I brushed my knife-hand against my lips. Despising this cowardice, I eased into the thicket and waited. A dollop of cowardice was better than rash courage that would see me killed. Above all else, Erasmo must die, and that by my hand.

Through the screen of leaves, I scanned the forest. All seemed peaceful and yet a sense of terror filled me. Something grim approached. I felt it in my bones. Was it the lizard-beast? With an effort of will, I stood and looked around.

The first crack of dawn touched my eyes. It sent a wave of weakness through me. I toppled sideways and crashed against branches. The fiery blaze of dawn was several magnitudes too bright for me. I shut my eyes like a bat caught in the light. I needed a cave. Numbly, I recalled Lorelei’s words. The moon was my friend and the sun was my enemy. I might have wept at my fate. I might have raged. Instead, I drew my cloak over my head and hunkered like a hibernating bear.

My thoughts blurred and time jumped. For a single moment, I heard patter on pine needles…later, something chittered near my ear. I tried to rise, but once more fell into a stupor. If I dreamed, the imprints of them vanished upon my awareness later the next twilight.

I eased out of the thicket as stars appeared. I was an evil creature of the night. Like werewolves, vampires and altered hounds, I ran loose when good people locked their doors. How could I lead Perugia’s knights now? Which tournament could I enter? The barons of Perugia would elect a new prince. Its people would find my bolthole, drag me out and kindle flames under my feet. Could I hold Laura, hug the twins, cold as a corpse, a thing that only came out at night? What was I?

With heaviness of soul, I renewed my trek to Perugia.

***

Hooves drummed. Hounds bayed eerily. I flitted like a shadow, used trees, boulders and folds of the earth. Rage boiled in me. I wanted vengeance. It was like a fever and the moon rode high in the night sky.

I backtracked into a fig orchard. It must have been several years since anyone had pruned the trees or yanked out weeds here. I waited as hounds raced past, their human noses sniffing the original trail. Sorry creatures, twisted by sorcery, elongated men who ran naked on their hands and feet. Yet by Signor Guido’s example, a few of them were still capable of nobility. Horsemen followed. They wore cloaks, jerkins and held lanterns. They seemed human enough, but a closer examination proved the lie of that. They had faces like wooden masks and eyes of charcoal. The expressionless men spurred their horses so blood dripped from flanks. None of the men shouted. None laughed, frowned or snarled. They seemed like lifeless puppets, yet they gripped lances or swords and I knew they hunted me. Among them rode the man with fangs for teeth. He had his wide-brimmed hat with its crow’s feather and he grinned. A golden pendant dangled from the chain around his neck. I had no doubt the pendant bore the Cloaked Man.

“Faster!” he shouted. His hoarse voice was all too familiar.

When they galloped out of sight, I emerged from the orchard and headed for the next hill.

I soon darted into another orchard of fig trees, these wilder than those I’d left. That troubled me. These looked like healthy trees, would likely produce a good crop of figs. All a peasant needed to do was prune branches and weed between the rows, and later pick the fruit. These trees implied years of neglect. That implied the plague, Great Mortality, the Black Death, whatever one wished to call it, had swept through the surrounding villages years ago. I could not have ‘slept’ for years. That was too dreadful to contemplate.

Sounds ahead drew me out of my reverie. I climbed a boulder. Branches snapped about fifty feet straight down. Hounds bayed at that. Both sounds came from a narrow ravine thick with brush and brambles.

Something silvery broke out of the brambles below. It was a woman wearing a hood. She glanced wildly over her shoulder. She wore a short tunic that barely concealed her thighs and she gripped a bow. She dashed between two bushes. Moments later, human hounds broke out of the same brambles. They panted and gnashed their teeth in eagerness. None had Signor Guido’s nobility, but seemed hopelessly degraded as they sniffed her trail.