Tales of the Old World Read online

  “Come on…” he whispered as he saw they all moved in perfect concert, as though they were but fragments of a whole… as though orchestrated by a single will.

  He could see that the apparitions were unaware that he could see them in the darkness and continued turning blindly to maintain the deception.

  You’re not the only ones who have the power of illusion, he thought.

  When the nearest creature was an arm’s length from him, Leofric lunged, spearing it with the point of his sword. The multitude cried out in pain as it vanished in a puff of light, but by then Leofric was amongst them, his sword slashing left and right and destroying each creature it cut into. Shrieks and wails of pain filled the hall and Leofric saw the apparitions whip through the air like smoke in a storm.

  “Now, Havelock!” shouted Leofric.

  Once again the rusted hinges squealed as Havelock threw open the door to the banqueting hall and bright moonlight streamed inside. Further illuminated by the light of the night sky, the apparition was bathed in white; its spectral outline limned in glittering light as its ghostly avatars returned to it and became part of the whole once more.

  So this was a Dereliche, thought Leofric. Its features were twisted in hatred as its form grew in power, though Leofric knew he must have hurt it with those he had destroyed.

  With a shriek of rage, the Dereliche hurled itself forward, its arms extended and ending in ghostly talons that reached for his heart. Its speed was astonishing, but Leofric had been expecting its attack and twisted out of its reach and swung his sword for its head.

  His blade cut into the monster and he felt its rage as the Blade of Midnight burned its ethereal body with its keen edge. The Dereliche spun behind him and its claws raked deep into his side as it passed and Leofric cried out in pain as he felt his strength flow from his body and into his foe.

  “Your strength fills me, knight!” laughed the Dereliche. “I will feast well on you.”

  Manic laughter followed him as Leofric spun to face his foe once more, launching a deadly riposte to its body. The sword sailed past the creature and it darted in again with a predatory hiss of hunger.

  The Blade of Midnight snapped up and Leofric shouted, “Lady guide my arm!” as he leapt towards the Dereliche and felt the blade pierce its unnatural flesh.

  It shrieked in agony as the magical blade of the elves dealt it a dreadful wound, the powerful enchantments breaking its hold on the mortal realm. Even as it wailed and spat in its dissolution, Leofric spun his sword until it was held, point down, before him. He dropped to one knee and whispered his thanks to the Lady of the Lake.

  “She will not save you!” hissed the Dereliche. “You are already marked for death, Leofric Carrard.”

  Leofric’s eyes snapped open and he saw the fading form of the Dereliche as it sank slowly to the stone floor of the chamber, its form wavering and fading with each passing second.

  “How do you know my name?” demanded Leofric.

  The Dereliche gave a gurgling chuckle and said, “The Red Duke will rise again in Chalons and his blade will drink deeply of your blood. The realm of the dead already knows your name.”

  Leofric rose to his feet and advanced on the creature, but before he could demand further explanation, its form faded completely until only a dimming shower of sparkling light remained.

  With the Dereliche’s destruction, the last vestiges of the hall’s illusion fell away and Leofric saw it for the faded, forgotten place it truly was. Neglect and despair hung over everything and the wan moonlight only served to highlight the melancholic air of decay.

  He looked up and saw that the stag’s head was still there, looking even more pathetic than it had before, its fur fallen out in clumps and one antler broken. Havelock moved to stand beside him and followed his gaze.

  “Looks like he’s seen better days, my lord.”

  “Haven’t we all?” said Leofric, sheathing his sword and turning from the stag, his thoughts dark and filled with foreboding.

  A light rain fell and Leofric shivered beneath his armour as he rode along the muddy, rutted road north-east from Castle d’Epee towards the squat brutal mountains of the Massif Orcal. He rode a magnificent elven steed, its flanks as white as virgin snow on a mountain top and a mane like fiery copper. Aeneor had consented to be his steed after a great battle in the heart of Athel Loren when his original rider had been killed and Leofric had ridden him into battle to defend the elves of Coeth-Mara.

  Bretonnian steeds were widely regarded as the finest mounts of the Old World, but even the mightiest horse in the king’s stables would be humbled by Aeneor’s beauty and power.

  Havelock rode behind him on a considerably less imposing beast, grumbling and miserable as the rain soaked through his oiled leather cape.

  Castle d’Epee was many miles behind them and Leofric was glad to see the back of it. Upon presenting the mouldering stag’s head to Lord d’Epee, the man had hurled it to the floor and screamed at the pair of them that they had brought him the wrong one.

  Manners forbade Leofric from responding, but even had the vow he had sworn upon embarking on his quest for the Grail not forbidden him to rest more than a single night in any one place, he would not have remained for fear of his temper causing an unforgivable breach of etiquette.

  He and Havelock had ridden from the castle as soon as the sun rose over the World’s Edge Mountains, a distant smudge of dark rock on the eastern horizon. Castle d’Epee was now several days behind them, and they had made good time until the rains from the coast had closed in, turning Bretonnian roads to thick, cloying mud. The grim weather suited Leofric’s mood perfectly and he had brooded long over the last words the Dereliche had said to him.

  Normally he would give no credence to the utterances of a creature of evil, but it had known his name and spoken of the Red Duke, and such things were not to be taken lightly.

  As they had made camp on their first night away from Castle d’Epee, Havelock had started a fire and begun polishing Leofric’s armour. Leofric himself had found a nearby spring and offered prayers of thanks to the Lady for protecting them from the foul Dereliche.

  The sky above was dark by the time Havelock had prepared a thin stew for him and as he sat on his riding blanket, Havelock said, “This Red Duke, who’s he then? Someone you crossed before?”

  Leofric shook his head, blowing to cool the hot stew. “No, Havelock, he’s not. He’s something far worse. I’m surprised you haven’t heard of him. He was quite the terror of Aquitaine in his day.”

  “Maybe he was, but I’m from Gisoreux and we got enough troubles of our own to bother with them quarrelsome types from Aquitaine.”

  “And you’ve never heard the Lay of the Red Duke?” asked Leofric.

  Havelock shook his head. “Can’t says I have, my lord. Me and mine, well, we worked the land, didn’t we? All we had was a red horse and a black pig. Didn’t have no time for fancy stories like that.”

  Leofric hadn’t known exactly what the reference to coloured farm animals meant, but assumed it was some Gisoren expression for poverty. Havelock was of peasant stock and Leofric had to remind himself that his squire was unlikely to have been exposed to any culture or heard any courtly tales.

  “So who was he then, my lord?” asked Havelock.

  “The Red Duke was a monster,” began Leofric, wishing he remembered more of the flowery passages of the Lay, “one of the blood drinkers. A vampire knight. No one really remembers where he came from, but he terrorised this land over a thousand years ago, murdering hundreds of innocents and slaying any who dared to stand against him, then raising them up to join his army of the dead.”

  “Sounds like a right bad sort,” said Havelock, making the sign of the horns to ward off any evil spirits that might be attracted by such tales of dark creatures of the night.

  “He was,” agreed Leofric. “His blood drenched debaucheries are said to have shamed the Dark Gods themselves.”

  “So what became of him
?”

  “Like all creatures of evil, he was eventually defeated,” said Leofric. “The noble knights of the day fought the great battle of Ceren Field and the king himself skewered the fiend on the end of his lance.”

  “So he’s dead and gone then?” asked Havelock, scooping up the last of his stew with his fingers and wiping his mouth with his sleeve.

  “So they say,” said Leofric, grimacing at Havelock’s lack of manners. Uncouth and peasant born he most certainly was, but he was a fine squire and was the only other human that Aeneor allowed near him. “It’s said that he rose again nearly five hundred years later, but he was defeated once again, though the Duke of Aquitaine was killed in the battle on the edge of the Forest of Chalons. Accounts of the battle differ, but some say that the Red Duke’s spirit escaped the battle and fled into the depths of the forest, where it remains to this day.”

  “And that ghost thing you killed says he’s going to rise again? That don’t sound good.”

  “No, it does not, and as a knight sworn to the quest it is my duty to see if there is any truth to what it said. And if evil is rising there, I must defeat it.”

  Fine words, remembered Leofric as a droplet of rain fell into his eye and roused him from the memory of his recounting of the Red Duke’s infamy. The Forest of Chalons was still some days distant and there were more uncomfortable days ahead. Leofric had no clear idea of where to seek the Red Duke, but the Barrows of Cuileux lay crumbling and forgotten in the south-western skirts of the mountain forests, and such a place was as good as any to seek the undead.

  A low mist hugged the ground as the rain eased off and Leofric caught a scent of woodsmoke carried on the evening’s breeze. The landscape around him was undulating, but mostly flat and devoid of landmarks to help him find his bearings.

  “Havelock?” said Leofric, turning in the saddle. “Do you know where we are? What villages are around here?”

  His squire stood high in the saddle, cupping his hand over his eyes as he surveyed the bleak landscape around him.

  “I’m not rightly sure, my lord,” apologised Havelock. “I don’t know this part of the country, but I think this road, more or less, follows the border between Aquitaine and Quenelles.”

  Leofric felt homesick as he looked eastwards towards the realm of his birth, the lands that had once been his, and the heartbreaking memory of his family.

  “So that means there’s maybe a few villages a few miles north of here, round the edges of the Forest of Chalons. Maybe even…” said Havelock, his voice trailing off.

  Leofric heard the faint longing in Havelock’s voice and said, “Maybe even what?”

  “Nothing, my lord,” said his squire, staring at the mud.

  “Don’t lie to me, Havelock,” warned Leofric.

  “It’s nothing, my lord, just something the servants at Castle d’Epee were talking about.”

  “And what might that be?” demanded Leofric, tiring of Havelock’s reticence. “Out with it, man!”

  “A village they talked about,” said Havelock. “A place they called Derrevin Libre.”

  The name rang a bell for Leofric, but he couldn’t place it until he remembered the long, rambling discourses of Lord d’Epee. The man had mentioned something about the place, but his ravings had been too nonsensical to take much of it in. Clearly the servants had been talking about it too, and probably with more sense.

  “Well, what did they say about it?”

  Havelock was clearly uncomfortable talking about what he’d heard and Leofric supposed some peasant code of honour kept his tongue in check.

  He wheeled Aeneor to face his squire and said, “Tell me.”

  They made camp for the evening and after finishing a meal of black bread and cheese, Havelock told him what he’d heard in the sculleries of Castle d’Epee. Derrevin Libre, it turned out, was indeed a village on the southern edge of the Forest of Chalons, but it was a most remarkable village. Some six months ago, Havelock said, the peasants there had risen up in revolt and overthrown their rightful lord and master before killing him. Once over his initial hesitation, his squire had relished the chance to tell the tale of the peasant revolt, embellishing his tale with lurid details of how truly repellent the local lord had been, even going so far as to link the man with the dark gods of the north.

  Leofric sighed as Havelock continued with yet more details of the lord’s vileness in an attempt to justify the overthrow of the natural order of things.

  “So why didn’t the local lords just ride in and crush the rebellion?” interrupted Leofric. “Why aren’t those peasants strung up by their necks from the top of the Lace Tower?”

  “They would have been, you see,” said Havelock, wagging his finger at Leofric, before a stern glance warned him not to continue doing so. “Aye, they would have been, except that the local lords was in the middle of not one, not two, but three different feuds! You know how these Aquitaine folks are, they don’t have to fight for their land so they fight each other.”

  That at least was true, reflected Leofric. The nobles of Aquitaine were ever in the grip of some internal feud or war and no sooner would one die down than a new one would flare up.

  “So the peasants were just left to rule the village themselves?” said Leofric, horrified at the idea of such a thing. Were word of this to travel beyond the borders of Aquitaine, who knew what might happen if peasants were allowed to get the idea that their noble masters could be overthrown at will…

  “More or less,” agreed Havelock. “Though Lord d’Epee’s scullion told me that they’d managed to attract the attention of a few bands of Herrimaults to help them fight to keep their freedom.”

  “Herrimaults?” snapped Leofric, spitting into the fire. “I might have known. Criminals and revolutionaries, the lot of them.”

  “But sir,” said Havelock. “They’s good men, the Herrimaults. They only rob from them’s as can afford the loss and give what they take to feed the poor. They’s good men.”

  Leofric could see the admiration in Havelock’s eyes, and shook his head.

  “No, Havelock, they are nothing more than bandits who no doubt perpetuate the stories of their code of honour and reputation as underdog heroes to gullible people like you in order to secure their help in keeping them beyond the reach of the law. Honestly, Havelock, if a dwarf asked you to invest in the Loren Logging Company you’d say yes.”

  The smile fell from Havelock’s face at Leofric’s dressing down, but Leofric could still see the spark of defiance there, fuelled by the romantic notion of peasants casting off their noble masters, and knew he had to crush it.

  “Very well, Havelock,” said Leofric. “I have no issue with people wishing a better life for themselves, but there is a natural order to things that cannot be upset or the land will descend into anarchy. If every peasant wanted to rule his village who would till the fields, gather the crops or rear the animals? Nobles rule and peasants work the land, that’s the proper order of things.”

  “But, that’s not—”

  Leofric held up his hand to stifle Havelock’s protests and said, “Let me tell you of the last time a peasant tried to rise above his station. He was a young man of Gisoreux, and though you say you never had time for fancy stories, I think you’ll know it.”

  “You’re talking about Huebald, my lord?” said Havelock.

  “I am indeed. Yes, he was a brave and handsome young man who saved the Duke of Gisoreux’s bride from the terrible beasts of the forest, but the thanks of the fair Lady Ariadne should have been enough for him. Instead he used his friendship with the lady to have her go begging to her husband to dub him a knight of the realm. A peasant becoming a knight, I mean whoever heard of such a thing?”

  “I don’t think that’s quite what happened,” said Havelock, clearly hesitant about contradicting a questing knight.

  “Of course it is,” said Leofric, “This Huebald, despite the armour, weapons and squire he was gifted with by the duke, was still a peasant at h
eart and his true nature was what was to undo him when he sought to move in higher circles. With the noble knights of Gisoreux, he rode into battle against a horde of beasts and was slain as he fled the field of battle.”

  “My lord, with respect, I do know this story, and if I might be so bold as to say so, I think you might have heard a different version from mine.”

  “Oh?” said Leofric. “And what happens in your version?”

  “The way I heard it,” said Havelock, “was that Huebald was shot in the back by his squire as he charged the monsters.”

  “Shot by his squire?” exclaimed Leofric. “Why in the world would a squire shoot his knight?”

  “Rumour has it the nobles paid him to do it,” shrugged Havelock. “Gave him a gold coin, more wealth than anyone like him would see in five lifetimes, to do it. The nobles didn’t want some uppity peasant thinking he could be as good as them and they put him back down in the mud with the rest of us.”

  “I had not heard that version of the story,” said Leofric.

  “Well you wouldn’t have, would you, my lord,” said Havelock, absently stirring the embers of the fire. “You nobles hear your version ’cause it puts us peasants in our place, and we hear our version and it gives us something to hope for. Something better than grubbing in the mud and shit, which is what we normally do.”

  “So which version do you think is true?” asked Leofric.

  Havelock shrugged, “Honestly? I don’t know, probably somewhere in the middle, but that doesn’t matter, does it? All that matters is we each have our own version that keeps us happy I suppose.”

  Leofric said nothing, staring at Havelock with a little more respect than he had done before. When Havelock had come to him and begged to be his squire, Leofric had initially refused, for a questing knight traditionally travelled alone, but something in Havelock’s demeanour had changed his mind. Perhaps it was his newly acquired sense for things yet to pass that had made him change his mind, a disquieting gift, he presumed, of his time spent beneath the boughs of Athel Loren. Whatever the reason, he had allowed Havelock to accompany him and, thus far, had no cause to regret the decision.