Tales of the Old World Read online

  The sun had now dropped behind the horizon and Leofric felt a cold weight settle in his belly as he realised that this warrior was protected from harm by powerful dark magic.

  “My lord,” begged Havelock from behind him. “We must flee. Please, I don’t want to die here.”

  “No, I will not run from this evil. I will defeat it,” said Leofric with a confidence he did not feel. Before the pall of fear that still sought to crush his courage could take hold, he attacked once more, a cry for aid from the Lady of the Lake bursting from his lips. Once again, Leofric’s white blade and the warrior’s black swords traded blows. The champion’s skill was great, but so too was Leofric’s and he bore the enchanted blade of the Hound of Winter.

  They fought within the circle of the undead warriors, Leofric finding his attacks thwarted time and time again by the skill of his foe and the unnatural magic that protected it.

  When the end came it was sudden, Leofric raising his sword to block a lightning riposte a fraction of a second too late. The black blade glittered with evil runes and Leofric cried out in agony as it smashed through the waist lames of his breastplate. Numbing cold and pain spread from the wound, the hurt increased tenfold by the spiteful runes inscribed onto the champion’s blade. Leofric swayed in the saddle as his vision greyed and only Havelock’s grip and Aeneor’s sure footing kept him from falling.

  Aching cold spread from where the champion’s blow had landed, blood streaming down the buckled strips of laminated plate that had protected his midriff.

  “You have great skill for a mortal,” hissed the undead warrior. “You will make a fine addition to the Red Duke’s army.”

  “No…” whispered Leofric, attempting to lift his sword, but his arm was leaden and useless.

  “Yes,” promised the champion, its grinning skull face alight with triumph as it drew back its arm to deliver the deathblow. Leofric felt the fear that had threatened to seize him earlier rise in a suffocating wave at the thought of rising to become one of the living dead.

  But before the undead warrior could strike Havelock cried, “Aeneor! Ride! Carry us away!”

  The elven steed reared once more, his lashing hooves forcing the champion back, before turning and galloping towards the ring of skeletal warriors who stood sentinel around the duel. Havelock held Leofric tightly as the steed thundered onwards and closed his eyes as he felt the horse surge into the air.

  Aeneor smashed through the ranks of the dead with the clang of metal and the snap of bone as he crushed those he landed upon and scattered the others with the power of his charge. Swords and spears stabbed, but none could touch the fast moving steed as it battered its way clear of its rider’s enemies.

  Then they were clear and Leofric felt a measure of his senses returning as they rode clear of the dark fear that filled the air around the undead.

  He raised his head and said, “We have to go back and fight!”

  “With all due respect,” wheezed Havelock, “don’t be a fool! Don’t listen to him, Aeneor, keep going!”

  Leofric wanted to protest, but his strength was gone. He gripped his sword hilt tightly and looked down at his wound, where blood pumped weakly down his leg. He had suffered worse in his time as a knight, but the real damage had been done—and was still being done—by the evil magic worked into the champion’s blade.

  He heard the mournful howl of wolves echoing from the furthest reaches of the forest and knew that the minions of the Red Duke were not about to let him escape that easily.

  “Havelock…” gasped Leofric.

  “My lord?” said his squire.

  “Get me clear of this place…”

  “That’s what I’m doing, my lord,” confirmed Havelock as the elven steed thundered through the forest and away from the domain of the undead. “Though I think Aeneor’s doing a better job of it than I am.”

  Leofric nodded weakly as the cold spread to his chest and he felt the pain deep in his heart. “We have to warn the lord of Aquitaine…”

  Aeneor galloped onwards.

  How long they had ridden for, Leofric could not say; his only memories blurred and pain-filled. Deathly cold filled his limbs and his every movement felt like it would be his last. He was dimly aware of the forest flashing past him and the howling of wolves in the night. The passage of time became meaningless to him as the pain of his wound threatened to overwhelm him.

  Waking dreams plagued him in which he saw Helene once more, alive and wrapped in her favourite red dress as she danced for him and held his son, Beren, out before her. He wept to see such visions and though they showed him wondrous memories, he cast them from his thoughts as he knew they were the vanguard of the journey to Morr’s embrace.

  In moments of lucidity, he tried to converse with Havelock and ask of the health of Aeneor, but each time he tried to speak, he found his words slurred and unintelligible.

  An eternity or a heartbeat passed in silent, cold agony and it was with a start Leofric opened his eyes to see that they were no longer beneath the oppressive branches of the forest. Golden fields of corn stretched away for miles in all directions and warm sunlight streamed from the sky.

  He smiled as he wondered if this was what it was like to die. He had heard that Morr’s realm was cold, but he felt the warmth of the sun on his skin as a sweet nepenthe.

  Thin columns of smoke rose from a pleasant looking walled hamlet in the distance and he wondered what fine fellows dwelled within. He realised that he was still riding a horse, feeling the grip of another holding him upright and with that realisation came the pain again.

  He groaned, remembering the battle in the forest and the dire warning they had to bring to the knights of Aquitaine.

  “Havelock…” he gasped, seeing a handful of hooded peasants walking towards them from the direction of the hamlet.

  “I see them,” said Havelock.

  Leofric squinted through the bright sunshine and his heart sank as he saw that the men were all carrying longbows fashioned from yew.

  And as his consciousness finally slipped away, he saw that every arrowhead was aimed unerringly towards him.

  When next Leofric opened his eyes, he saw woven straw bound by twine above him and the animal stench of livestock was thick in his nostrils. He blinked, his eyes gummed by sleep and his mouth felt unbearably dry. His head rested on a pillow of wadded hessian and he saw that a thin blanket covered his body.

  He lay still for several moments, piecing together the events of the last few… days?

  How long had he lain here?

  And where was here?

  Leofric rolled his head to the side, seeing that he lay in a small room with a floor of hard-packed earth and walls formed from wattle and daub. His armour lay neatly stacked in the corner of the room and the Blade of Midnight stood propped against one wall.

  He tried to rise, but a wave of nausea rose and threatened to make him vomit, so he lay back down and marshalled his strength as memories began to return to him. He remembered the fight against the undead warrior and reached below the blanket to where he recalled the monster’s diabolical sword had cut him.

  He could feel the wound was stitched, and that it was no more than a couple of days old. Of the flight from the undead, he remembered almost nothing, save a frantic ride through the dark groves of the forest towards what he supposed was safety.

  “So where in the name of the Lady am I?” he whispered.

  From the look of the room, he surmised he was in a peasant village somewhere near the edge of the Forest of Chalons, but which one he had no idea. Perhaps Havelock would know…

  Havelock!

  What had become of his squire? Leofric was overcome by a sudden horror that Havelock had met the same fate as Baudel, and vowed that never again would he ride into danger with a squire.

  Even as the thought formed, a shadow moved at the entrance to the room and the blanket that covered the door and afforded him a little privacy moved aside and Havelock entered, carrying a st
eaming bowl that smelled delicious.

  “Havelock!” cried Leofric. “You’re alive!”

  “Well, begging your pardon, my lord, of course I am,” replied Havelock. “It’s you that almost didn’t make it out of the forest in one piece.”

  Leofric smiled to see his squire alive and well, pushing himself slowly upright. He winced at the numb stiffness in his side, but could already feel that it was a fading hurt. Havelock sat at the end of the cot bed and handed him the bowl, together with a hunk of hard bread. He saw the bowl was filled with a thin soup and dipped the bread in to moisten it before chewing it slowly.

  He said nothing for a while, content just to wolf down the soup and bread, feeling stronger already as it reached his stomach. At last he put aside the bowl and said, “How long have I lain here?”

  “Two days,” replied Havelock. “You were unconscious before I brought you in.”

  “I was badly hurt,” said Leofric, again touching the stitches in his side.

  “Aye, my lord,” nodded Havelock. “That you were. I stitched the wound easy enough, but there was something about that wound that I couldn’t fix.”

  “The undead warrior,” said Leofric. “He carried a blade of dark magic. I should be dead. Why am I not dead?”

  “Always looking for the cloud around every silver lining, eh?” smiled Havelock. “There’s a woman here, knows her herbs and a thing or two about the human body. More than a thing or two in her younger years, if you take my meaning.”

  “What?” said Leofric, utterly nonplussed.

  Havelock sighed. “Sometimes I swear trying to get the nobles to understand something simple’s like duelling an avalanche.”

  “What are you talking about, Havelock?”

  “I’m saying that there’s a grandmother here with more than a touch of the fay about her,” whispered Havelock conspiratorially. “Her eyes are different colours and she’s as quick on her feet as a Bordeleaux tavern wench.”

  “What about her?” asked Leofric. “What did she do?”

  “Well I don’t know,” shrugged Havelock. “You don’t go asking about those with the fay upon them, you just accept it and hope they don’t turn you into a frog. She dug up some herbs from the edge of the forest and made you some kind of poultice. Rubbed it on your wound and mumbled some mumbo-jumbo I never ever heard before. Fair put the wind up me.”

  “Put the wind up you?”

  “Aye, my lord,” nodded Havelock, appearing more reluctant to continue. “Once she’d finished, you was raving for the whole night, shouting about Morr’s gate and… well… how you had to get back to Athel Loren to save her…”

  Leofric lay back down on the bed, well able to imagine how his ravings must have appeared to one who knew that his wife was dead.

  “But anyway,” continued Havelock. “Whatever it was she did seems to have worked, eh?”

  “So it would appear,” agreed Leofric, sitting upright again as another thought occurred to him. “Two days? The undead? Is there any sign of them?”

  “No,” said Havelock. “We got away from them. I think Aeneor would have outrun Glorfinial himself.”

  “Aeneor!” cried Leofric.

  Havelock held up a hand and said, “He’s fine. I took care of him myself. He’s a tough old beast that one, the hard muscles of his chest kept the spear from going too deep. He’ll have a nasty scar to show off, but he’ll live.”

  Relieved beyond words, Leofric swung his legs from the bed and said, “My thanks, Havelock, you have done me proud. I’ll not forget this. Nor the kindness of the peasants of… actually, where are we?”

  “Ah…” said Havelock. “Funny you should ask that.”

  “Funny?” said Leofric. “Funny how?”

  Havelock was spared from answering by the arrival of another man at the door, his build powerful and his bearing martial. Dressed in the rough clothing of a huntsman, he carried a quiver of arrows over his shoulder and had a long bladed sword partially concealed beneath his hooded cloak. Beneath his peaked and feathered hunter’s cap, his face was rakishly handsome and Leofric saw a glint of mischief there that he instantly disliked.

  “Who are you?” asked Leofric. “And where am I?”

  The man smiled. “My name is Carlomax and you are in the Free Peasant Republic of Derrevin Libre.”

  Leofric sat on the wall on the edge of the village, his breath coming in shallow gasps as he walked the circumference of the village to regain his strength. He wore his armour, for a knight of Bretonnia had to be able to fight in his armour as though it weighed nothing at all, though he felt very far from such fitness.

  The blade of the undead champion had wounded him grievously, and despite the healing power of this village’s fay woman, it was going to take time for his strength to fully return. He set off again, feeling stronger with each step and casting an eye around the village of Derrevin Libre.

  Two score buildings of a reddish orange wattle and daub comprised the village, though at its centre stood a largely dismantled stone building that must once have belonged to the noble lord of this village. Only the nobles of Bretonnia were permitted to use stone in their dwellings, but such laws obviously held no sway in this place as Leofric watched gangs of peasants chipping away the mortar and ferrying the stone to the ground via a complicated series of block and tackle.

  A tall palisade wall of logs with sharpened tops formed a defensive wall around the village and Leofric knew that this was higher and stronger than most villages could hope for. Having climbed to the top of the wall earlier, he had seen a bare swathe of the forest where the logs had come from and knew that the revolting peasants had put their brief time of freedom to good use in preparing for the inevitable counterattack. Hooded Herrimaults with longbows patrolled the walls and land beyond the village, alert and ready for the attack from the local lords that must surely come soon.

  The village was thronged with laughing peasants and Leofric found the effect quite unsettling. Men and women worked in the fields beyond the walls and children played in the earthen streets, chasing hoops of cane or teasing the local dogs. The villages Leofric remembered from Quenelles were a far cry from Derrevin Libre, their peasants surly and hunched with their faces to the soil.

  The sun was hot and he could feel his skin reddening, though he had refused Havelock’s offer of a hooded Herrimault cloak, seeing it as an acceptance of what had happened here. The few people he encountered in his slow circuit of the village were amiable, if wary of him, as they had good right to be. For Leofric represented exactly what they had rebelled against six months ago.

  Leofric still found it hard to believe that a peasant revolt had managed to survive this long, but if there was anywhere it could do so, it was the fractious dukedom of Aquitaine. He did not know the names of the local lords, but knew it was only a matter of time until they came with fire and sword and put an end to this futile dream of freedom. Strangely, the thought of the status quo being restored here did not give him as much comfort as he expected it would. People would die and the ringleader of this revolution would be hanged.

  Speaking of the ringleaders, he saw Carlomax, the charismatic Herrimault who appeared to be the self-appointed leader of this revolt walking towards him, a longbow clutched in one hand, while his other hand gripped the hilt of his sword.

  “Mind if I walk with you?” asked Carlomax.

  “Do I have a choice?” asked Leofric.

  “This is Derrevin Libre,” smiled Carlomax. “Everyone has a choice.”

  “Did the local lord have a choice before your little revolution killed him?”

  Carlomax’s lips pursed and Leofric saw him bite back a retort before his easy composure reasserted itself. “You are angry with me, yet I have done nothing to you, sir knight.”

  “You are a revolutionary, that is enough to make me angry.”

  “A revolutionary?” said Carlomax. “Yes, I suppose I am. But if I am, then I fight for honour and justice, that is the true revolution
here.”

  “Honour and justice now includes murder does it?” spat Leofric.

  Again Carlomax struggled to stay calm, and said, “If you’ll allow me to show you something, I think you might change your mind.”

  “Show me what?”

  “Come,” said Carlomax, indicating that Leofric should follow him. “It’s easier if you see it first.”

  The ice room of the former lord of Derrevin Libre was dug deep into the earth, far below ground level, and as Leofric descended the stairs he relished the drop in temperature after the heat of the day. A compact room of rough-hewn stone blocks, there was, of course, no ice left, but it was still nevertheless pleasantly cool though the shelves were empty of meat and vegetables as he might have expected.

  In fact the room was empty save for the bloated shape of the corpse concealed beneath a large blanket. Despite the cool air, the stench was appalling and Leofric was forced to cover his nose and mouth to keep it at bay.

  “You kept the body?” said Leofric, aghast. “Why?”

  “You’ll see,” promised Carlomax. “Take a look.”

  Against his better judgement Leofric approached the covered body, keeping one hand pressed over his mouth as Carlomax took hold of the blanket and pulled it back to reveal the dead body beneath.

  Leofric dropped to his knees at the horror that was revealed, his stomach turning in loops as he fought to prevent himself from vomiting. The body was that of a man, but a man so bloated and repellent that Leofric could barely believe such a thing was human. Sagging folds of flab hung slackly from the man’s frame, his skin discoloured and ruptured in numerous places, each long gash encrusted with filth and dried pustules. The man had clearly been diseased and he backed away lest some contagion remained in the rotted flesh.

  “You need to burn this,” said Leofric. “It has become rank with corruption.”

  “No,” said Carlomax. “The body has not changed since we killed him.”