Paul Finch - Dark North

In the courtyard, the one remaining bravo — the youngest — had had enough. He cast down his weapons and fled along the entrance tunnel, halting only to enter a side-chamber where the drawbridge wheels and chains were connected, kick loose the peg, and continue on his way. The timber drawbridge creaked noisily down in front of him. He was halfway across it when a mailed and mounted figure came thundering from the other side.

Alaric never saw the footman until it was too late. They collided at full speed, the horse barely breaking stride as the minuscule figure went screaming into the depths. Alaric entered Castello Malconi, and charged along the tunnel, the echoes of his hoofbeats clattering in his ears.

The first thing he saw in the courtyard was the carnage: slaughtered men lay everywhere. The next thing was Lucan, engaged by one final opponent — a lone Roman officer wearing the apparel of the Fourteenth Legion. The officer retreated under the hail of blows Lucan was raining on him with both falchion and Heaven’s Messenger .

Alaric reined in his beast, its steel-shod hooves skidding across the flagstones. He leapt from the saddle just as Heaven’s Messenger struck Cohortis Bartolo beneath the breastbone, tearing clean through his breastplate with a metallic screech.

In the upper gallery, Rufio bit through his bottom lip completely. Bloody froth sprayed from his mouth as he clamped down on a scream of anguish.

“Bartolo!” he hissed. “Bartolo…”

Down in the yard, Bartolo toppled away from Lucan, sword lowered. Blood flowed down his battle-skirt. He tried to keep his feet, but swayed and dropped to one knee.

“Another one falls for me,” Rufio whined. He tore at his hair. “Another falls while I cower!” With a rasp of steel, he drew his gladius . “I’ll finish him! This has to end now!”

“Wait, you damn fool!” came a harsh voice.

Zalmyra and Urgol blocked the gallery door. The translucent black gown was plastered to the duchess’s statuesque form with human gore. Her beautiful face was also spattered; ruby droplets dabbled her glossy black hair. Trelawna stared at her, aghast.

“Stay exactly where you are!” Zalmyra said, moving to one of the arrow-loops.

Below, Bartolo crawled away on his belly, smearing a crimson trail behind him. From overhead came a cacophonous rumble of thunder. Lucan glanced up, before turning to face Alaric, who was approaching warily, one hand on his sword-hilt. But before the lad could issue the inevitable challenge, he spotted something to the rear of his lord. Lucan turned: from a nearby door, which had opened behind him, a figure had emerged.

To both their amazement, it was Trelawna — looking dazzlingly beautiful in a fitted gown and kirtle of virginal white. Her joined hands were woven with rosary beads as she prayed and regarded her husband with a look of deep sorrow and remorse.

At first, Lucan could not move. Alaric responded more quickly.

He dashed forward, passing his overlord, drawing his sword in the process. Before he reached the countess, he turned, but continued to back towards her. “Enough is enough, my lord! Your honour must surely be satisfied by now.”

Lucan briefly admired the courage in the youngster he had reared and trained, but then reminded himself that he still had a purpose here. His fist tightened on Heaven’s Messenger’s hilt as he slowly advanced.

“Another step, my lord, and we fight,” Alaric shouted. “I swore an oath.”

Alaric stood directly in front of the countess. If nothing else, he told himself — even if his weapons broke — he would shield her flesh with his own.

That was when she grabbed his neck with a pair of eagle talons — and dragged him back through the door into the darkness beyond.

In the same instant, lightening seared the sky. Thunder reverberated, and the rain followed in cataracts, whipped by a wind that came howling out of nowhere. Lucan stood rigid in the heart of it, eyes riveted on the empty doorway, unable to comprehend what he’d just witnessed. Slowly, astounded, he removed his helmet.

In the high gallery, Rufio was equally dumbfounded, though Trelawna had sensed that something horrible was about to occur when she’d seen her doppelganger first emerge.

“Azdalah,” Zalmyra said with cold satisfaction. “Better known as the ‘Old One’… one of the most feared demons of Babylonian myth. It emerged from my Pit of Souls like some colossal sea-monster. Hundreds of its tentacles now wind their way up through this castle, each one capable of producing at its tip a facsimile by which it can lure its prey.” Her face cracked into a malevolent smile. “Once they are snared, there is no escape. They are dragged down into the very depths of the world, where unimaginable suffering awaits them.”

Down in the yard, rain swept over Lucan in drenching sheets. A dozen yards away, Cohortis Bartolo still slithered on his mangled belly. He knew that he was dying, but he had one last purpose — because a figure he recognised had appeared in a doorway ahead of him. His young wife, Rosa — dressed as though for a summer day in a long toga and sandals, her dark curls filled with blossoms. She beckoned him to crawl out of the rain and nestle in her arms as he breathed his last.

“Rosa…” he gasped, the strength fading in his limbs — though there was still enough left for him to cover those final few yards, at which point Rosa snatched him up, broke his back across her knee with a sound like a splintering branch, and dragged his corpse backward into the darkness.

“There is no way to fight this abhorrence,” Zalmyra chuckled, looking down through the arrow-loop. “Or even control it. It will infest the entire fortress, and from here will depredate the surrounding countryside. But it will be worth it.” She turned a venom-green eye on Trelawna. “Just as it was worth it to shed my own brother’s blood to invoke this horror of horrors. The Black Wolf of the North, my dear, has finally met his match.”

Beyond the doorway wherein Alaric had disappeared lay a downward stair.

“Alaric!” Lucan shouted, hurrying down into a depthless maze of darkened passages. There was a stench like spoiled meat, and as his eyes attuned to the half-light, ghastly objects emerged on all sides — glistening, gelatinous tentacles snaking forward. Each one was padded along its underside with saucer-shaped suckers, and yet at its tip had sprouted an even more horrible appendage; a curled foetal ball which, even as Lucan watched, would slowly unknot itself, straighten up and assume the proportion of a full-grown man. Lucan could only gape in disbelief as, one by one, these figures strode forward. Despite the pulsing root to which each one was still attached, their crude, half-made features swiftly transformed into recognisable humanity. They were even wearing clothes, in some cases mail, and they bore weapons.

“Bedivere…” he whispered, as the closest stepped into the half-light.

And yet he knew immediately that this was not his brother. Bedivere’s patrician features and chestnut curls were unmistakable, but there was no emotion in that bland visage — no love, no frustration, no annoyance. And that was not the way of Bedivere.

Lucan struck at the apparition with his sword. A gout of black ichor sprayed over him. But the thing did not collapse — it grabbed at his arm with one claw-like hand, and with the other attempted to draw its own weapon. Lucan hacked at it in a desperate fury, closing his eyes as Heaven’s Messenger clove his beloved brother’s skull, severed his shoulder, bit deep into his torso. More black foulness erupted over him, but at last the ghoulish facsimile was down, and Lucan spun around to face more enemies. Two of these, Lancelot and Gawaine — he could scarcely believe he was facing such opponents — had already drawn their swords, and by their glint, these were made of real steel.