The Red Duke Read online

  The reflection of Iselda smiled benignly at the young knight. “There is no offence to be forgiven,” she assured him. “It is I who should apologize for not reaching you sooner. Time grows short for Aquitaine and I fear the delay has already cost us dearly.”

  “Duke Gilon would not credit my warning,” Leuthere said. “His advisors would not believe me when I told them the Red Duke had returned.”

  “They will not listen to you,” Iselda said. “There is only one voice who will make them listen. You must ride to the Chateau du Maisne and warn Count Ergon of his peril. Earl Gaubert evoked the power of the Red Duke to strike down the du Maisnes and it is the vampire’s intention to honour that compact. Count Ergon must be warned. Duke Gilon will listen when he hears the same tale from both a d’Elbiq and a du Maisne.”

  Leuthere shook his head. “I do not know that I can make Count Ergon listen. The feud burns as strongly in his heart as it did in my uncle’s. If I ride to the Chateau du Maisne, I am likely to find only death there.”

  Iselda’s image nodded sadly. “You must both overcome your hate if the Red Duke is to be stopped. This I have seen within my mirrors of prophecy. Unless d’Elbiq and du Maisne stand together, the vampire will complete the circle of blood and Aquitaine will become a land of the living dead.”

  “Then I shall ride to the chateau,” Leuthere said. “Perhaps I can make Count Ergon listen before his retainers hang me.”

  “You must ride quickly,” Iselda urged. “The Red Duke’s power clouds my mirrors, I can see the strand of his fate only when it touches upon those of others. It is difficult to foretell the vampire’s actions, only his intentions. He will march upon the Chateau du Maisne, but I cannot predict when and how. Even now, the Red Duke’s creatures may be closing upon the castle.”

  “I will ride as though the Green Knight himself were hot upon my heels,” Leuthere vowed. “If it is within my power, I will reach Count Ergon and warn him of his peril.”

  Iselda’s reflection smiled at Leuthere’s vow. Slowly the image began to fade, the pond losing its mirrored sheen. Weeds and scum again clouded the surface, frogs and dragonflies haunting its banks. The sense of peace evaporated from Leuthere’s breast, urgency and fear flooding back into his heart.

  The knight turned and dashed back to where Vigor stood with the horses.

  “You saw her?” Vigor asked as he helped Leuthere mount his horse.

  The knight nodded. “She says I must ride to the Chateau du Maisne and warn Count Ergon that he will be the first target of the Red Duke’s wrath. I can only pray to the Lady that he will hear me out before ordering my execution.”

  Vigor shook his head and mounted his pony. Leuthere stared at the peasant in surprise.

  “You need not accompany me,” the knight said. “It is likely I ride to my death.”

  Vigor’s face was solemn as he regarded the knight. “It was because of me that Earl Gaubert consulted Jacquetta,” he said, his voice heavy with guilt. “If not for that, none of this would have happened. I am only a peasant, but I must make amends for what I have done. If that means I will end my life hanging from a rope, then I am willing to accept that as the price I must pay.”

  “Mayhaps you shall get your wish,” Leuthere said, turning his horse back towards the road and digging his spurs into its flanks. It was many leagues to Count Ergon’s lands and Iselda’s warning was still ringing in the knight’s ears. Time was the enemy now.

  If it wasn’t already too late.

  CHAPTER VIII

  Horror filled El Syf’s poisoned heart. There was a venom flowing through his body that made the Arabyan poison seem a plaything for children. He could taste the filth on his lips, feel it burning in his throat.

  The Duke of Aquitaine had been a fighter all his life. It had been expected of the man who would one day rule the most beautiful dukedom in all Bretonnia. His father had pushed him hard, even more so than his younger brother. As the heir, it had been El Syf’s duty to prove his courage and worthiness to rule. Across Aquitaine and far into the hinterlands of Bretonnia, the young El Syf had searched out monsters to slay and wrongs to right. Always he…

  No, those days were past now. There was only death’s cold embrace to succour him in this time of tenor. Yet even death was no easy thing for El Syf to seek out. He could not simply lie in the sand and allow his life to wither away. Every breath, every moment he had to fight to die, fight against the corruption polluting him. As he had struggled to resist the fiery pain of the Arabyan poison, now he bent his will to helping it kill him. If the poison could only work fast enough, there was a chance he could claim a clean death.

  Even the thing that had put this curse upon him had told the duke as much.

  Bit by bit, the duke could feel himself dying. He longed for the strength to reach out and seize the curved dagger clutched in the sheik’s dead hand, but the power to move even a single finger was beyond him. It was a tortuous ordeal simply to blink his eyes, an effort that El Syf found more arduous than his fiercest battles. He could see the vultures circling overhead, drawn by the stink of carrion. Inwardly, he begged the scavengers to descend, to set upon him with beak and talon, to tear from his flesh the taint of the undead.

  The first vultures swooped down upon the body of the sheik. Others landed upon the butchered Bedouins. One scraggly bird with grey feathers and a white ruff about the base of its leathery neck came hopping towards El Syf, croaking hungrily as it closed upon him.

  Suddenly all of the scavenger birds took wing, squawking angrily as they fled back into the desert sky. The poisoned knight groaned as he watched the vultures flee. The sound of pounding hooves and rattling armour crashed down around him. The duke could not turn his head to see the riders as they hastened to the battlefield, but he could tell from their frantic voices that they were Bretonnians.

  Armour clattered around him as knights rushed to his aide. El Syf could hear the frantic voice of Marquis Galafre d’Elbiq. The marquis had ridden hard for the crusader encampment to bring back help after the ambush. Unfortunately, that help had come much too late.

  The weather-beaten face of Earl Durand du Maisne filled the duke’s vision, staring down at him. Earl Durand had been his vassal for decades, but the duke had never seen a look of such grave concern upon the knight’s face before. Earl Durand bent over the duke’s body, pressing his ear against El Syf’s chest. For many minutes, he listened, straining to hear the sluggish pulse of the duke’s heart.

  All the torments of hell ravaged El Syf’s body as he forced a whisper to wheeze through his paralysed lips. “Leave me,” the duke commanded his vassal. “I am already dead.”

  Earl Durand rose and stared down at the duke, an expression of shock on his face now. El Syf was certain the knight had heard his plea. He blinked his eyes, trying to reaffirm his command.

  Earl Durand turned away quickly. For a moment, he stood there, his back to his dying lord. Then he began shouting orders to the other crusaders who had ridden to rescue the embattled Duke of Aquitaine.

  “He is still alive!” Earl Durand cried, relief and triumph in his tone. “We must get him back to camp and allow the king’s physicians to attend his wounds!”

  Tears rose up in the duke’s eyes, a silent scream howled through his mind.

  “Let me die,” El Syf struggled to shout to his men, but not even the faintest moan sounded from his lifeless lips.

  “Your children will beg for death, Durand, and I shall not listen.”

  The Red Duke sat astride his spectral horse, glaring at the walls of the Chateau du Maisne. He watched the flicker of firelight playing at the castle windows, listened to the sounds of laughter and revelry seeping from the fortress, intruding upon the night.

  “My lord.” Renar flinched as the vampire stared clown at him, eyes red with anger. “Your grace,” the necromancer hurriedly corrected himself. “Is it wise to attack the castle now? Surely we do not have enough men to mount a siege…”

  The Red Duk
e scowled at the gaunt man, exposing his gleaming fangs. “I do not lead men,” the vampire growled. “Those days are past,” he added with bitterness in his voice. “What is left to me are carrion and scavengers.” He extended his armoured hand, indicating the silent ranks mustered in the woods behind him, the grisly formations of bleached skeletons called up from the crypts beneath Crac de Sang and the degenerate ghouls that had infested the vampire’s castle.

  “We will never get past the walls,” protested Renar. “We need trebuchets and siege towers, the troops to crew them. It would take an army of thousands to besiege the castle and breach its walls. We have only two hundred.” Renar cringed as he brought his last point up. The way the vampire’s mind wandered, it was possible the Red Duke wasn’t even aware of the size of his force, believing himself at the fore of a crusader army of a thousand knights ready to break the sultan’s army at Lashiek.

  Instead of flying into a rage, the Red Duke smiled indulgently at the necromancer. “I do not need an army to breach the walls of Durand’s castle. I need only one slave to penetrate the castle and open its gates for us. Then we shall test the quality of this Count Ergon’s steel.”

  Unlike many of the castles peppered among the green fields and lush vineyards of Aquitaine, the gates of the Chateau du Maisne were kept closed at night. Guards patrolled the battlements day and night, ever on the watch for enemies. The du Maisnes did not need orcs and beastmen to threaten their lives. For their family had the ancient hate of the d’Elbiq’s to menace them.

  The men-at-arms who patrolled the walls of the castle had served the du Maisne family all their lives, peasants who had been elevated from working in the fields to protecting the lives and property of their noble lords. It was about as prestigious a position as a common-born peasant could aspire to and the gratitude of the soldiers towards their patrons engendered in them a loyalty gold could not buy.

  Gaspard was such a man, the son of a swineherd in the village of Bezonvaux. His brawn had drawn the attention of the Reeve of Bezonvaux—a life spent hefting the hogs his father kept had made the young Gaspard the strongest man in the village by the time he was sixteen. Eager to please his lord, the reeve had dispatched Gaspard to the Chateau du Maisne to answer a call for more soldiers. Gaspard had never been back to Bezonvaux and never regretted the life he had left behind. He was content in his new life as a soldier in service to Count Ergon du Maisne, despite the dangers it entailed. He’d been wounded once by a d’Elbiq archer during a skirmish between the feuding families and come close to losing an arm from the injury. It was as close to death as he had ever come.

  At least, until the moment Gaspard turned the corner of the castle gatehouse and found himself confronted by a strange figure. The figure was that of a shapely young woman, her voluptuous body scarcely concealed by a diaphanous robe that danced about her body in the cool night breeze. Long locks of coal-black hair waved in the wind, seeming almost to reach out to him.

  The guard’s first reaction was one of amorous curiosity regarding who the woman was and why she was prowling the battlements at night in such attire. Gaspard’s thoughts instantly turned toward fright. There was something unnatural about the woman, her entire body, even her long black hair possessing a luminous quality that made her almost appear to glow against the backdrop of grey stone crenellations and the black night sky. Goosebumps pimpled the sentry’s arms as a chill of terror crawled through his body.

  The woman turned towards Gaspard, her face beautiful and lascivious. Then the face collapsed, washed away like a footprint on a beach. Gaspard opened his mouth to scream as he found himself staring into a ghostly skull, but no sound rose from his paralysed throat.

  Crippling pain stabbed through the guard’s brain as the keening wail of the banshee burned into him, a spectral shriek only the ears of Jacquetta’s victim could hear. Gaspard fell to his knees, his halberd falling from his hands. He tore the iron kettle helm from his head, struggled to remove the mail coif beneath. Blood streamed from the sides of his head, dripped from his nose. Crimson tears stained his cheeks as vessels in his eyes burst.

  The banshee regarded her victim with the hateful envy of the undead towards the living. She waited until the man’s armoured boots thrashed against the parapet, watching as the final death spasm shivered through the rest of his body. Then the spiteful apparition continued on her way towards the gatehouse, flitting along the wall like a scrap of linen caught by a gust of wind.

  There would be more guards inside the gatehouse. Jacquetta could feel the warmth of their life-force even through the thick stone walls. The windlass that raised and lowered the castle’s portcullis would be there too. One of those guards would raise the gate for her.

  Before he died.

  “By the Lady!” cursed Sir Folcard as he emerged from the castle stables. His prize destrier had been feeling sickly and the knight had taken it upon himself to supervise the ministrations of the stable master and the farriers. He might trust a mere peasant to treat his wife for stomach pains, but he’d be damned if he was going to trust his horse to some low-born wastrel.

  The object of the knight’s ire was the yawning space below the castle’s gatehouse. For some reason, the portcullis had been raised—in direct violation of Count Ergon’s orders. With the recent death of Earl Gaubert’s last son, the count had imposed strict measure to protect against any vengeful measures initiated by the d’Elbiqs. Foremost among these was keeping the castle gates closed after dark.

  Some peasant-soldier was going to be flogged for this oversight, that was the thought smouldering in Sir Folcard’s mind as he stormed across the courtyard towards the gatehouse. He started to shout obscenities at the men-at-arms stationed in the gatehouse, his annoyance rising when no one appeared at the narrow windows in response to his tirade.

  Then the knight noticed movement in the dark, tunnel-like corridor beneath the gatehouse. He stood for a moment, an unaccountable fear running down his spine as he watched the motion resolve itself into the shape of a rider. As the intruder emerged into the courtyard, Sir Folcard’s blood turned to ice. The rider bore only a twisted resemblance to humanity, his feature sharp and hungry, his skin as pale and lifeless as that of a corpse. Red armour enclosed his monstrous frame, a black cape billowing about his shoulders. Beneath him, the steed he rode was a thing of glowing bone and rusted armour, witchfires smoking in the pits of its skull.

  The Red Duke smiled at the frightened knight. Slowly the vampire raised his finger and pointed at Sir Folcard. A pack of slavering things rushed out from the darkness of the gateway, falling upon the knight before he could take more than a few frantic steps back towards the stables. The ghouls bore the man to the ground, rending his body with their sharpened fangs and poisoned claws.

  Sir Folcard’s screams brought startled men rushing to the doors and windows of the castle. They stared down in stunned horror as the ghouls feasted upon the shrieking man. Cries of alarm, shouts of terror spread through the castle, replacing the merriment that had so lately echoed into the night.

  The Red Duke waved his armoured fist, motioning the silent ranks behind him towards the castle keep. The du Maisnes would be there, at the heart of the castle. They would try to make a stand, to defend their home against the undead invaders. That would be their mistake.

  “Take the zombies and secure the postern,” the Red Duke snarled at Renar. “If any make it past you, I can promise you will envy the dead before I am through with you.”

  The necromancer bowed his head in reluctant obeisance. Renar was no warrior, no battlefield commander. He was an evil wizard who tried to steal the secret of immortality from the dead. He knew nothing of war and command. But he did know it was unwise to question the draconian edicts of the Red Duke. Reluctantly, Renar led the decaying ranks of his troops towards the postern gate.

  “Sir Corbinian,” the Red Duke hissed. “Take your men and hold the escape tunnel.” The vampire closed his eyes, recalling the details of the Chateau du Ma
isne when his vassal Earl Durand had given him a tour of the fortress. “You will find the entrance beneath the blacksmith’s forge,” the Red Duke said.

  The fleshless wight raised its sword in salute and marched away, its skeleton warriors following after it with almost mechanical precision. With the departure of the wight and Renar, the Red Duke was left with the ghouls and fifty skeleton warriors.

  The vampire felt a rush of contempt for his enemies as he watched them close the keep’s great doors, barricading them against the Red Duke’s attack. Even when he was mortal, such a feeble defence wouldn’t have held him back. But now, with the powers of darkness at his command, the efforts of the defenders only filled the vampire’s heart with contempt. These men were already dead, they just didn’t know it.

  Arrows stabbed down from the windows and hoardings of the keep, skewering several ghouls on their barbed heads. The remaining cannibals scattered, fleeing back into the darkness, abandoning their own dead and wounded. The archers at the windows cheered as the ghouls fled, for the moment forgetting the imposing figure in red armour seated upon his skeletal steed.

  It was their last mistake.

  The Red Duke drew the fell energies of Old Night from the air around him, weaving the raw essence of dark magic with an instinctual facility beyond the ability of all but the most powerful sorcerers. His black soul bound the power to his indomitable will, enslaving it to his command. He stretched forth his hand, clawed fingers reaching into the night sky, and with a piercing howl the Red Duke unleashed his spell.

  The bestial roar thundered across the courtyard, snapping the archers from their premature celebration. Instantly the dreadful sound became the focus for the keep’s defenders, the fearful note shivering through their flesh. Trembling, the bowmen trained their weapons upon the Red Duke, thirty-six Bretonnian longbows with arrows nocked took aim.