Eric Flint - The Shadow of the Lion

They halted. The guide slipped forward on foot. He returned to report that there were some hundred or so cavalrymen breakfasting on the edge of a field of peas.

"Right." Manfred took a deep breath. "We don't want to lose the time fighting the troops and let Ursula get into that fort. If we defeat every one of them and she and her henchmen get in… we've failed. Remember that chapel. That is what we're dealing with, not some Italian mercenaries. Erik, you tell them how you want to run this. That way you can't complain if I get it wrong."

Erik nodded. Skirmish combat against wild tribes in Vinland was something he had three years of experience with. And more than that in the similar type of warfare which plagued clan-ridden Iceland.

"Knight-Proctor Von Oderberg, you are going to take care of the troops. Manfred, Von Gherens, Etten, and I will keep riding, with Lopez and his companions. Don't get your horses among the peas?you'll lose mobility. If you keep those Scaliger mercenaries dismounted and busy, Von Oderberg, that'll be fine. You don't have to do more than that. Try to tell our fellow Knights you have orders from Sachs to turn them back. But if need be, cut them down."

They caught sight of the little band bearing the casket not three hundred yards from the fortress's walls. By the sounds of it, Von Oderberg was butchering the escort. Or being butchered. Erik didn't turn around to look; he just bent low over his horse's neck.

One of the monks did turn, perhaps alerted by the sudden thunder of hooves. He shouted something.

The monks and sister Ursula stopped. Erik could see that Sister Ursula was scrawling something in the dust with a long staff. Wind, laden with grit and debris leapt at them. Horses reared and screamed. Ritter Etten and Father Diego fell. Erik struggled to stay on his horse. Hastily, almost falling himself, he managed to dismount. The horse fled.

Erik, Manfred, and Von Gherens, now dismounted, formed a phalanx of steel around Lopez and Father Pierre. As they began to advance, lightnings crackled off the steel. Behind them, Eric heard Lopez saying: "Let that which cannot abide the name of Jesus, begone."

And somehow… the resistance eased. They continued plodding forward. Etten came up to join them. "Father Diego is too dazed from his fall," he muttered to Erik. "We won't have his help."

Erik saw that Sister Ursula was ordering the monks to lower the casket to the ground. As they drew closer, he could see that the casket no longer carried its heavy chains and securing locks. Nothing held the lid down beyond its own weight.

They were ten yards away, now. Ursula stood next to the casket at the center of the circle she had scrawled, her staff held upright in one hand, with the four monks standing like guardian statues at the cardinal points. The circle seemed to sparkle.

The nun's wimple had fallen and her hair was revealed: a great mane of it, in a dark corona around her white face. The face itself seemed to bear no expression at all. It might have been the face of a statue, if marble could blink its eyes and move its lips.

"You cannot prevail, Vessel of Chernobog!" said Lopez. "Repent and save your soul. I am Eneko Lopez, Legate of the Grand Metropolitan and master of Holy magic. You cannot prevail. Let your darkness begone! Fiat lux!"

Light leapt even from the stones… Except inside the circle.

Ursula laughed. The sound was mocking, but empty?as if an actress were feigning an emotion she had never understood, or had forgotten. "I might even be afraid, Lopez. Lucrezia told me that she failed to find the chink that most men have in their armor. Foolish woman. She thought she was as powerful as I. Impossible, when she refused to join herself fully with the Great Lord."

Erik's flesh crawled. Everything about the way the woman spoke was empty. The nun's habit fell aside. The body that was revealed wore clinging black silk. The half-transparent silk hid little; in fact, it seemed designed to tantalize rather than to conceal. But, again, the display was empty. There was no woman there to give the shapely flesh any real allure. Erik finally understood how completely Chernobog had consumed the creature.

She reached forward, and tapped the casket. "And I have my little friend here."

"Servants of the Holy Trinity, see what you have in your midst!" shouted Lopez.

The monks didn't move. They stood like statues, arms outstretched, warding.

"They are mine, body and soul," said Ursula. "Unlike Lucrezia I insist on total control."

"She stinks of ice and Chernobog," said Pierre.

It was true, thought Erik. That was what the smell reminded him of. Breaking sea ice, with a sickly sweetness over it. It was very strong now.

Suddenly, the Savoyard priest clutched at his crucifix and sat down, gasping. A moment later his eyes rolled back and he slumped on his side, unconscious.

Manfred ignored Pierre's collapse. He glanced at Erik and said lazily, "I heard she was fat as a sow when she joined the order. Sold her soul for a pair of tits."

Erik realized what Manfred was doing: Exactly what the Venetian swordmaster, Giuliano, had taught them. Unbalance your enemy, make them angry. It was a dangerous game. Erik was not prepared to leave him to play it alone. "She got cheated," he sneered. "She's still too ugly to get customers anywhere except the docks."

But the gibes seemed to have no effect on Ursula at all. Erik caught the tiny, tell-tale signs of Manfred tensing. When he lunged forward, so did Erik. So did Von Gherens and Etten.

Erik's sword struck the air above the circle. It was like hitting a wall. He caught a glimpse of Ursula swinging her staff. A huge and shadowy hand swung towards him. It didn't actually make contact, but fear and pain washed though Erik. He wanted to scream, to turn and run. Von Gherens stumbled and fell; Etten whimpered; Manfred grunted and tried to press forward?but was driven back.

Ursula shrieked words Erik did not recognize. Small biting, pinching imps leapt out of the air. They turned to ashes as they struck armor, but there were so many it impossible to see or move.

Then Lopez shouted: "Reverse your swords! Hold them like a crucifix! And ground the tips in the honest earth."

Erik and Manfred immediately obeyed. Staggering back onto his feet, so did Von Gherens. Etten tried, but the sword slipped out of his hands. Lopez began to chant in Latin. Immediately, the imps were immobilized in the air, then began to shrink, then vanish into wisps of smoke. The monk guardians began to crumple.

Ursula shrieked again. Another command of some sort. The four monks seemed to summon their fading strength and began scuffing the soil with their sandals. Within a moment, the circle which Ursula had scratched was broken at the four cardinal points. At the broken points, hot air seemed to eddy out of the circle and wash over Erik and Manfred and the others. The same hot air, swirling at the four compass points like miniature cyclones, sucked the monks dry in an instant; four skin-bags full of bones collapsed to the ground. The heated air seemed to glow and darken simultaneously, as if drawing power and form from its consumption of the monks.

"No closer!" warned Ursula. She laid a hand on the casket's lid. "No closer or I will release the Woden."

Lopez walked forward, coming to stand next to Erik. He held a very small crucifix in his hand. "This is a fragment of the true cross, witch. Evil cannot prevail against it."

Lopez's words seemed to have no effect. Ursula's lips curled in what Erik would have called a sneer, had it not been for the emptiness of the face which framed it. A woman can sneer; a vessel cannot.

"Besides, if you open that casket," said Manfred, "your plot is at naught."

At that moment, Ursula's face underwent a transformation. A horrid one. The face thickened, grew heavy; the shapely cheeks sagged into jowls; the fair brow swelled, looming now over sunken eye sockets. Inside the orbs, a woman's dark eyes became slits of pure black. And now, for the first time, emotion filled the face. Anger and cruelty, overlaid by triumph.