Vaughn Heppner - Assassin of the Damned

I fingered the hilt of my deathblade. This strangeness spoke of sorcery. The black knight was supposedly one of Erasmo’s champions and he had entered my ancestral village. That seemed ominous. With a swirl of my cloak, I glided toward Velluti to investigate.

***

A haunted place meant ghosts or demons. Velluti was dead, without even a moan to suggest lost souls. I passed the village-well, the smithy and sheds. They seemed faded, washed of essence. I spied a rake in the middle of a lane. Elsewhere I saw a hoe and two sickles as if they’d been dropped so their owners could flee faster. In the moonlight, I glided like a shadow from building to building. I stepped over a spool of thread and saw a knife stuck in a shed. In the center of town, I found a smashed church. Every other house or shed had been intact. Here it seemed as if a giant had kicked out the church’s walls. They lay flat, with cracked bricks strewn beyond.

I slunk closer, knelt and let my fingers hover over a hoofprint. My hackles stirred as something growled. In the silent town, the sound was as deadly as the thud of a headman’s axe. The growl came from the ruined church, yet nothing was there, not even a ghost. Then the clarity of the growl registered.

I snapped my fingers. They still sounded muted.

The invisible creature snarled again-a louder sound than before. Then two green eyes like poison fire appeared in the middle of the ruin. Claws slashed air and disappeared.

I froze in my crouch and time ticked with agonizing slowness. What had that been? A ghost? I strained to hear more. Then a new sensation prickled my neck. I swiveled my head.

The black knight sat on his horse about ten paces from me. Bars blocked his helmeted face and it seemed as if his eyes lacked pupils and were all of one hellish red color. With a muted creak of metal, he nodded.

I stood and faced him.

“So you’re the assassin,” he said. His voice sounded distant. “From what the sorcerer says, you’ve left an impressive trail of bodies.”

“I’m the prince of Perugia, signor. This town is part of my land and you’re trespassing.”

“The Lord of Night would disagree.”

“Name yourself,” I said.

“Death,” he said, “to whoever annoys me.”

“You’re also Erasmo della Rovere’s man?”

He laughed harshly. “He calls you the Darkling, the Moon Lady’s champion. But you don’t look dangerous to me. Still, this is an age of weaklings. I suppose anything is possible.”

“Step down from your horse,” I suggested. “Let us test my weakness.”

A snarl from the ruined church interrupted his reply.

I strode from the noise, and glanced at the knight. His eyes glowed hotter and then flickered back to their fainter red hue.

He turned to me. “You didn’t like that.”

“What is it?”

“Stay and find out, O beggarly prince.”

I hawked in my throat and spat on the ground. “You’re a boor, signor, a black-armored braggart.”

He slid the handle of his morningstar from its holder and began to whirl the spiked ball. The warhorse’s flanks quivered as if it would spring into a trot.

“I was going to wait until the sorcerer upped the price of your destruction,” he said. “Now I find you an annoyance. Better draw your knife, O prince.”

Before he charged, the loudest snarl of all came from the ruin. Green eyes blazed, and a spitting thing like a monstrous cat appeared. The beast wriggled as if trying to slither through a hole. Then it spied me and roared.

“The lycanthrope doesn’t like you,” the knight said.

The lycanthrope flickered, appearing and disappearing like a ghost struggling to exist.

The knight no longer rotated the morningstar, but watched the catlike beast. The beast stared at me with avid longing, and it snarled and wriggled harder than ever.

“You came to collect it,” I said.

The knight shrugged with a creak of metal.

A second catlike creature appeared, and a third. I stepped back.

“Not so brave now, are you, O prince?”

“We shall meet again,” I said.

“When we do,” the knight said, “you’ll wish we hadn’t.”

A lycanthrope howled with rage, and it appeared to be solidifying. I nodded curtly to the knight and took my leave.

I refused the evidence. Perugia, Perugia, eagle of the mountains, home to heroes. My city lay in ruins, a ghost town of overgrown vines, rubble and creaking shutters. Skeletons were strewn like fallen leaves. In the great piazza, I found overturned wagons, smashed barrels and skulls. Looters had ransacked my palace. Lichen grew on the walls.

I sat on the lip of a broken fountain, the pigeon-stained statute of Mars minus its arms. After all my haste to return, Perugia was dead. What had become of my old companions in arms? The merchants, the priests, the tanners…they were gone. By the evidence, they might have been gone for years. No. I could not have lain in the swamp for years.

I swiveled my head. A rat scurried across the weedy bricks of the piazza. Motion caught my eye to the right. An owl swooped down. At the last moment, the rat squealed, darted aside and the owl lofted upward as its talons grasped nothing but air.

What had happened to my wife? Where were Francesca and Astorre? I stared at the nearest skeleton. A snake slithered through its ribs. That reminded me that grass had grown through my chainmail. If I’d lain in the swamp years, how had my body survived?

I stood, picked up a chunk of masonry, raised it above my head and hurled it at Mars so it clanged. I lifted another and heaved so the masonry shattered, and I gouged the bronze statue. I drew the deathblade. The dagger was oily and dark. I set the razor-tip against my chest, over my heart. I frowned. My heart no longer beat. Would plunging the deathblade into it kill me? I set the edge against my neck and vaguely realized that it might prove impossible for a man to hew off his own head. I sheathed the knife, took out the silver coin and hefted it. It was my spark of life. Why should I bother to exist if my Laura, my children-

I howled and shook my fist. The urge to hurl the coin pulsed through me. It was an ache, a need, and with a roar, I flung it. The coin glittered in the dark, and it clinked against a ruin across the street.

I gasped, and a spasm caused me to sink to my knees. Good, let me perish. Let me fade into nonexistence. Oh, Laura, oh my darling Francesca. Had Erasmo slit my daughter’s throat? What grim evils had he committed upon my son?

Erasmo! He had done this. He had lured me to the swamp. He had planned revenge, and to become a Lord a Night, a ruler of this broken world. He had-

The coin glittered strangely. I heard its siren call. I began to crawl. Maybe Laura lived. Maybe my children had survived Erasmo’s treachery. Yes, Perugia lay ruined. But maybe sorcery had done this in a day. Maybe I hadn’t been gone years. I ground my teeth together in fury. There was another place where Erasmo ruled. He held the Tower of the East, whatever that was. Maybe Laura and my children were there.

As I neared the coin, strength flowed into me. I climbed to my feet, hurried to it and picked it off the bricks. I would find this Tower of the East. I would-

A terrible premonition touched me. I glanced at the starry sky. Dawn threatened. What would have happened if the sun had caught me in the open without the coin? I hurried to my old palace, to hide in the dungeon for the day. I would make plans tomorrow night when I revived.

***

I rose the next night and drifted through the ruins until my sorrow hardened into rage. I picked up a skull and stared into the sockets. Erasmo had done this. I set the skull on a table within a house. Rats scurried at the clunk. Vermin ruled Perugia now.