In The Shadow Of The Beast (38 page)

Then it started to rain. It rained so hard
that in minutes the ground was turned to a muddy, bloody slurry,
churned underfoot by human and wulfen alike as the wholesale
slaughter began to ebb and flow.

In spite of the downpour, the fires
throughout the city burned brighter still, as if in defiance of the
elements. Vengeance would not be denied the wulfen on this day.

Bael had taken a cohort of his chosen,
leading them through the city in the direction of one place. His
intention was not the mindless slaughter of the peasantry. Leave
that to his brothers and sisters. Oh no, he had a far grander
target to reach. He would storm the palace itself, he would
personally oversee the slaughter of the thrice accursed
Fellhammers.

To deprive a nation of its ruling elite
would be to deprive it of the ability to function as a united
entity. Far easier then to drag that nation into confusion and
chaos. Take the head, and the body will die.

Bael had to admit that even given the
flawless execution of his plan to enter the city, he had found the
resistance to the invasion somewhat less engaging than he’d
anticipated. Significantly so. He had expected the defense of the
city to be fierce, but it was as if the majority of the defenders
were absent. Instead of masses of well regimented and well armored
soldiers struggling to hold back the marauding wulfen, he found
little more than a rag tag skeleton force of guardsmen and
numberless screaming peasants.

Nevertheless, he would not question the good
favors of fortune. He had managed to penetrate easily enough the
walls of the inner palace, where inside the organized resistance
was somewhat more substantial.

The fighting down through the corridors had
been fiercest in the direction of the throne room. The remaining
Baratiis 75th, disciplined and well drilled, had managed to
barricade and fortify access to that part of the palace. They had
held their defenses staunchly, their blades and shields coming into
play against the razor teeth and dagger claws of Bael and his
brethren. Both sides met there in the tight confines of those
narrow, dark corridors. The fighting was stiflingly close as sword
clashed with talon, and mailed fists and snatching claws struck out
in the mad fury of the struggle. But men, even those as well
appointed as the Baratiis, were no match for the savage ferocity of
the wulfen at close quarters. Armor was rent and flesh was torn
like silk as claws and teeth flashed. More blood flowed.

Mortaron had not envisaged this. He had not
foreseen such a monumental twist of fate laying all his grand
schemes to waste. His careful designs, their foundations carefully
laid over the course of decades, had risen so steadily. Brick by
brick he had watched his towering ambitions soaring above the
mediocrity of his peers. He had given everything he had to ensure
that he would one day sit upon the throne of the city of Corrinth
Vardis. That he alone would rule the land of Atos. That he would be
the one to hold sway over its considerable wealth and indomitable
armies.

It was all slipping away before his very
eyes.

The creatures were unstoppable. They were
cleaving through barricades and guardsmen alike with unremitting
ferocity. The Baron could see them beyond the threshold of the
throne room, driving down the central corridor toward him. It would
only be a matter of minutes before they found their way into the
throne room itself. And then Mortaron would be dead.

The throne room was the most secure location
in the palace. The heavy doors and thick walls meant that breaching
the chamber would a nigh on impossible task to accomplish quickly.
Consequently members of court, nobles, ministers and the like, as
well as a gathering of the household staff had come straight here
when the attack had begun. Here they all remained trapped like rats
on a sinking ship.

The last of the Baratiis were falling back
through the great doors to form a protective ring around their
liege lord.They where sworn to protect their baron and it was here
that they would make a determined last stand. Even if it was their
doom to die there, their limbs torn from their bodies and their
faces slashed.

Beyond the great doors, several of The
Baron’s men were fighting to the death in an attempt to hold the
monsters at bay. Their futile struggle was possessed of a desperate
nobility. Warriors courageously holding the line in defense of
their sworn duty. Mortaron couldn’t care less.

‘
Seal the doors!’ he
bellowed. Some of the Baratiis hesitated, for to seal the doors
would be to trap their brethren out there with the horrors.
Mortaron drew his side arm, an exquisitely crafted flint-lock
pistol of polished brass and cherry wood, and with a flash bang he
discharged the weapon into the chest of the sergeant at arms. In a
puff of singed blood and tissue, the man was slapped from his feet
to fall dead upon the floor.

The remaining Baratiis within the throne
room rushed to obey their lords command, two or three of them for
each of the massive oak doors. They pulled with the desperation of
men who were very possibly savoring their last moments in this
life. Slowly, inexorably, the great doors began to move. They
groaned and squealed in protestation as they began to swing
closed.

Suddenly, a massive armored figure loomed in
the gap between those grinding doors. Interposing himself, Huron
braced the doors open, heaving with every sinew beneath his skin,
while pushing the Lady Veronique into the chamber through the
meagre space.

The knight slipped into the throne room just
as the doors slammed shut with a resounding boom that echoed around
the stone worked pillars of the old chamber. The sound lingered
amongst the latticework of beams in the high roof like butterflies
trapped in a glass bell.

Soon there were so many dead soldiers
choking the corridors that Bael and the others were sloshing
through shallows of blood that had collected around their feet.

Eventually, the architect of the destruction
of not only his own community, but the city of Corrinth Vardis,
caught a glimpse of the doors of the distant throne room, and the
royalty that cowered beyond them. What members of the interior
guard remained were falling back in disciplined order. They were
withdrawing into the throne room, trying to seal the chamber.
Standing ankle deep in the life blood of his fallen foes, Bael beat
his chest and rent his hair in anger as those heavy oak doors,
reinforced with a near impenetrable lattice of iron grille work,
slammed shut, denying him for the moment his final prize.

‘
You!’ boomed Mortaron,
stepping from behind his cordon of Baratiis to stand before the
bewildered Veronique, his finger pointing straight at the lady in
stark accusation. His face was the deep red of one who was on the
verge of losing control of himself entirely, ‘You have done this.
You have brought this ruin down upon our heads!’

Veronique was almost sanguine in her
response, ‘We both have, brother. This is the sins of our past
returned to visit a well earned doom upon us.’

Was there even the hint of a smile playing
over her lips as she spoke? Was there even a glimmer of light
twinkling defiantly in her large dark eyes?

Mortaron’s lips thinned to a pale slit in a
face throbbing with rage. When he spoke again, his voice was a low
hiss, and his eyes never left those of his sister, ‘Huron, the Lady
Veronique is a traitor to the realm. She has brought these fell
horrors to our lands and in the name of the law she must be put to
death. Take this whore’s head from her shoulders.’

Huron’s knuckles were white upon the haft of
his war axe, but he did not move from his position beside
Veronique. The Baron turned to his enforcer, rancid malevolence
coming off his person in waves, ‘What are you waiting for you dull
witted whoreson!? I have commanded you to execute this
traitor!’

Huron’s response was a quiet rumble, ‘I will
not, Lord.’

Slowly, The Barons expression turned as
understanding came to him. A wry, knowing smile propped up the
corners of his thin mouth, but the malevolence never left his
eyes.

‘
So, it appears that not
even you are inured to love’s insipid caress,’ said The Baron to
the nightmare knight. ‘How tragically predictable.’

Without warning, The Baron drew his blade in
a sudden flourish, he swept the sword up to bring it down across
the neck of the startled Veronique, the glinting steel of his
weapon catching the light of the candles scattered around the
chamber. It glittered briefly, dazzlingly fast, but it never landed
to draw the blood of its intended target.

There was another flash as the war axe bit
deep. It traveled through flesh and bone and chain mail as if they
possessed the consistency of warm goose fat. Huron’s weapon passed
clean through The Baron, cleaving into him at the shoulder and
leaving his body at a point only slightly above the opposite
hip.The Baron blinked once in surprise before the two halves of him
fell away in an explosive decompression of blood. Bisected like a
side of beef, the separate parts of Vincenzo Mortaron simply
flopped upon the floor with the hard, wet slap of meat on
stone.

Veronique stood shivering, too stunned to
frame a response. She looked down at the bloody remains of her late
brother.

He had fallen merely feet from the object of
his secret and ultimately fatal compulsion. The throne of The
Regent of Corrinth Vardis.

Huron stepped closer to her, putting himself
between the lady and the remaining Baratiis.

‘
Forgive me, my lady. I
could not allow him to harm you,’ said the knight, who now leveled
his axe at the former Baron’s sworn guardians in case they were
inclined toward a bit of quick vengeance for the brutal slaying of
their lord.

The knight and the gathering of Baratiis
eyed each other wearily from behind their raised weapons. Huron was
outnumbered six to one, but even such odds didn’t necessarily speak
in favor of the soldiers of the 75th, a fact of which they were
only too aware.

But there would never be an opportunity to
see first hand which course the struggle might have taken, for as
both parties stood ready to deal further death, a cry went up from
across the room.

‘
Up there, they’re coming
in!’

Veronique looked to the source of the alarm,
where several of the near two dozen cowering servants and minor
royals were looking and pointing to the high ceiling in terror.

Impossibly, the monsters had gained access
to the throne room and were loping and swinging between the lattice
work of thick beams with simian agility. They clung to the heavy
war banners and ancient tapestries that hung from the beams,
digging their talons into the thick fabric and using those to drop
from the great arching roof. There were so many of them.
Dozens.

How had they found their way into the
chamber? But of course, mused Veronique, the throne room was built
to withstand attack from mortal men who would not possess the
ability to scale walls and climb chimneys and clamber through roof
vents. Mortal men who would not be able to drop from that roof with
such terrible grace even if they had managed to climb so far in the
first place. The wulfen fell upon the terrified onlookers and upon
the heads of the remaining Baratiis, their screams rising to fill
the chamber.

Huron motioned to Veronique that she should
stay behind him, pressing her back up the steps of the dais, his
axe held out before him like some holy relic to ward off
demons.

As one by one the remaining members of
court, and the household staff and the surviving Baratiis fell
silent to the rending claws and teeth of the wulfen, those demons
turned their attention upon the towering Huron and the Lady
Veronique, who sheltered behind him.

There were close to thirty of the monsters
in the chamber now. Their yellow eyes, pinned black, fixed hungrily
on the last living humans in the chamber. Slowly, they began to
advance.

They boxed the pair in from all sides,
forcing Huron to back pedal further up the steps of the dais. One
of the wulfen pounced, clearing the ample space between himself and
Veronique in a single bound. Before the snarling creature had even
touched the ground, Huron’s war axe swung once more, singing
through the air. A snarling, fanged head rolled free of its
body.

The remaining wulfen howled in rage at this,
pressing ever closer to the object of their murderous desire.
However, they approached the knight more cautiously now, weary of
the undeniable threat he posed even outnumbered as he was.

The next attack to come was more
coordinated, as two of the wulfen lunged in. Huron’s reactions were
almost preternaturally fast. He splintered the teeth of one of his
attackers with the flat of his axe, sending the creature skidding
across the floor, its jaw hanging loose. The other was able to
clamp its fanged maw around Huron’s left forearm. Teeth as wicked
sharp as an assassins dagger punched through the steel plate of the
knight’s vambrace. Only the slightest hiss passed Huron’s lips
through gritted teeth as he tried unsuccessfully to shake the beast
loose. Changing tact, Huron jerked his arm up, causing the wulfen
clamped there to expose itself to another decisive swing of the war
axe.

The lower half of the wulfen, from the
center of the torso down, slumped to the cold stone floor amidst a
wash of blood.

The rest of the beast, from the base of the
sternum up, hung limp and dead from that raised vambrace like a
sack from a tree branch. Huron shook it free so that it too dropped
to the floor with a wet thud.

The gathered wulfen howled again, in dismay
as much as rage at the fate of their brethren. Huron gripped his
axe tighter, ready for the onslaught. The wulfen of the Eastern
Fringes threw themselves at the nightmare knight.