Knight of the Cross (5 page)

* * *

The Hospitallers had left the tunnel, apologising to the workmen they'd disturbed – Sir Richard even giving the glowering foreman a small donation of silver for their trouble – and made their way back to St Luke's to await dusk. The family of the man who had died in his sleep had gone to stay with relatives according the Father Vitus, leaving his body in the care of the priest to be prepared for the funeral. The Greek quizzed them on their investigation's progress but the knight gave nothing away, simply asking for a meal and some wine before he and Jacob retired to their room for a nap.

They awoke refreshed and ready for their night's work in Krymmeni Thesi. The sun was just setting, its red light throwing sinister shadows across the buildings outside the Hospitaller's bedroom window as they climbed through it into the street rather than alerting Father Vitus to their movements.

Sir Richard didn't believe the priest had anything to do with the disappearances or the strange religion that apparently operated out of the tunnel in Krymmeni Thesi, but he didn't see any reason to tell the secretive little man where they were going tonight. The less people that knew, the better.

That said
, the big knight mused, scratching his beard as they jogged through the street,
our guide from earlier seemed to think Vitus
must
have known about Krymmeni Thesi. So why didn't he tell us when we asked about it?

It was a question for another day – they had enough to worry about that night.

They reached the village soon enough; thankfully the strange figure that had been standing in the field observing them earlier in the day hadn't returned. Sir Richard didn't want the volatile Jacob chasing through a field, sword drawn, to deal with the 'straw man'.

No, the journey was uneventful, although the very air again seemed charged with negative, oppressive energy. Two normal men might have given up and gone home, but the Hospitallers had seen, and done, much fighting for Christ. The idea of devils and demons wasn't enough to stop Sir Richard's investigation.

The houses stood silent and unlit, just as they had the previous night when the Hospitallers had fought and killed two of the black-eyed men. The unearthly, threatening atmosphere that had followed them ever since they'd left St Luke's became almost unbearable as the two soldiers walked silently towards the tunnel entrance they'd visited earlier in the day.

The five workmen from earlier – the very same ones from the look of them – still stood on guard at the top of the stairs, although Sir Richard growled at their incompetence as they again lounged about the low, ancient stone wall that marked the staircase down to the tunnel.

As they watched from the shadows a couple, dressed in dark hooded robes approached the entrance, showed something they wore around their necks to the guards and were waved down and through the entrance without a word passing between any of them.

“Interesting,” Sir Richard muttered to his sergeant. “If we had a couple of those amulets or whatever that was they had we might be able to just walk straight through. But, since we haven't,” he stood up, beckoning Jacob to follow, “we need a diversion to get them away from the entrance.”

Jacob shook his head. “A diversion? What for? They might outnumber us but they're just farmers and labourers. We can take them.”

Sir Richard crept away to a nearby house, gesturing his sergeant to follow.

“We can't just walk up and butcher them,” he replied. “We have no proof they're doing anything wrong and you can be sure their foreman told his superiors that we were sniffing around earlier. If they were all to die violently, without any hard evidence of wrong-doing, the locals will go crazy and the Grand Master'll have our heads.” He halted, peering into the windows of the house, checking no one was around. “Make sure no one appears from a side street like they did before.”

Jacob drew his sword and peered around at the darkness, vowing not to be blind-sided again as Sir Richard drew out his tinderbox and struck flint against steel. There was a wooden outhouse with some damaged old furniture in it attached to the main building and with the suffocating climate on the island it was simple enough to set it alight.

“Come on!”

Jacob followed his master's lead back to the tunnel entrance just as the guards caught the smell of burning in the air.

“What's that?” one of them asked, sniffing loudly. “You smell that?”

The Hospitaller's couldn't fully understand what was being said as the Greeks spoke excitably but the gist of the conversation was obvious and the alarm apparent as the slowly building fire became large enough to cast an orange glow in the sky.

The men began to hurry over to extinguish the blaze before it got out of hand and Sir Richard grinned in satisfaction.

Then there was a shout and the guards halted in their tracks. The foreman berated them, pointing down at the stairs leading to the tunnel. There was some heated argument then, particularly by one guard but the foreman ran over and punched the dissenter hard in the face, knocking him back against the low wall.

The rest of the guardsmen lowered their heads, muttering under their breaths in anger, but they followed their leader's directions and walked back to their positions in front of the tunnel entrance.

Clearly it was more important to make sure no uninvited guests went into the tunnel than it was to extinguish a fire that could, potentially, destroy the whole village.

“They're leaving it to burn!” Jacob muttered in disbelief. “By all that's holy, whatever they're protecting down there must be important...”

Sir Richard nodded in exasperation. Clearly their ruse wasn't going to work. “Draw your weapon,” he ordered, pulling his own fine longsword from its leather sheath. “Looks like we'll have to try your direct route after all.”

Whereas the Hospitallers had travelled with only light clothing earlier in the day, they now wore full chain-mail, covered by the red surcoats with white eight pointed star of their Order proudly emblazoned on the front. They wore no helmets, knowing the darkened conditions and possible close-combat they'd be faced with would only be made more difficult by a heavy lump of steel the wearer could barely see out of.

“Who's that?” The voice was that of the foreman. He didn't sound worried, or frightened by the sight of two shadowy figures approaching, just surprised. “Who's that?” he repeated, louder, when he didn't get a reply.

Sir Richard and Jacob held their swords behind their backs so the torches that guttered by the tunnel entrance, and the fire they'd set – which was already beginning to burn itself out – wouldn't reflect off their blades and warn the workmen of their impending doom.

They approached the guards who stood up, knowing something was obviously wrong, and the Hospitallers roared their battle-cries into the charred air of the ghost town.

Sir Richard thrust the point of his longsword down and into the thigh of the first worker to engage him. The man collapsed, screaming in shock as thick blood spurted from the fatal wound which he tried to close, uselessly, with a shaking hand.

Without slowing, the knight brought his blade round and up by his right shoulder, ready to swing it down into the head of his next target. The guard instinctively dodged to the left, thinking he was a step ahead of the big Hospitaller but before he could aim a blow of his own he felt the boot of Sir Richard battering into the side of his knee and he collapsed instantly.

The knight's blade was thrust into the guard's heart and, as the man died, Sir Richard looked up to see his sergeant-at-arms fighting off the remaining three men.

One of them was crouching, bleeding profusely from a terrible wound across the midriff, so the knight jumped forward and ran the point of his sword into the man's face which exploded in a spray of blood and bone while Jacob dispatched another with a thrust to the heart.

The foreman panicked as he realized he was the last of his comrades still standing. He half-ran, half-fell down the stairs to raise the alarm but Sir Richard had guessed his intentions and was able to reach him before he hauled the door open, slamming the man's head against the stone wall before impaling him on his sword.

“Now,” the Knight of Rhodes grunted into the inky darkness, breathing heavily after the exertion, “we find out what these people are doing down there.”

* * *

Again, as it had before, the stench of decay and some half-remembered damp horror pervaded the air of the tunnel and Sir Richard began to think of it as more of a tomb.

This time, though, there was something else in the air: the sound of a large number of people congregated and chanting together as one. The Hospitallers couldn't make out the words through the dark caverns so they slowly made their way along the tunnel again as they had previously, only this time they held their bloodied swords defensively before them, ready for whatever this unholy place might throw at them.

They passed the blasphemous wall-carvings, trying not to look too closely as the sound of chanting grew louder and the walls seemed to close in around them. Every so often one of the Hospitallers would turn with a low cry as they heard a footstep behind them or a whispered laugh in their ear, but they could see nothing in the gloom and the knight assumed it was some trick of the tunnel's construction that was causing the sounds.

Eventually, Sir Richard grasped his sergeant by the arm, slowing their progress as the passage gave way onto a great cavern lit by dozens of torches and they spotted another guard, his back turned to them. It was a measure of their anxiety that the Hospitallers were glad to see a human enemy standing in the tunnel.

“There may be more of them,” the knight whispered, gesturing Jacob back into a shadowy alcove in the tunnel wall.

The pair stood and watched to get an idea of the guard's routine, if any, or if there were any more of the silent watchers. The chanting continued and, although it was meaningless to the Christian Hospitallers, the words became recognizable eventually.

“Arra, Arra, Arra, Dagon, Dagon, Dagon...”

The chant repeated over and over and, despite its obviously blasphemous intent, Sir Richard found the refrain hypnotic and he stood, spellbound for long moments until Jacob nudged him gently.

“What do we do now?”

Sir Richard looked at him in confusion before the realisation of where they were came back to him and he motioned forward.

“We remove that guard and see for ourselves what the hell's going on in that cavern.”

They padded forward, the chant masking any sound they might have made, and the knight grasped the guard from behind, bringing his dagger around, slicing it deep across the man's throat, sending a spurt of blood showering over the blade.

It's hungry tonight
, Sir Richard thought, smiling at his blade before he caught himself in disgust, wondering where such a monstrous notion had come from. The chant, the cavern, the ancient obscene bas-reliefs...it was enough to send a man mad.

Jacob had moved to deal with the only other guard that seemed to be around, silencing him quickly with a sword thrust to the kidney and a couple of cracks on the skull with his pommel. He crossed back to stand with his master and they gazed down on the scene below, the chants of “Arra! Dagon!” filling the huge cavern as they rose in intensity.

“Look,” Sir Richard growled, pointing to two separate places behind the great stone altar.

Jacob squinted into the gloomy haze beneath them, trying to see what his master had spotted before his eyes widened in anger.

Three red surcoats bearing white, eight-pointed crosses, hung from long poles like trophies.

“At least we know what happened to our brothers,” the knight muttered, before he shrank back out of the light as something seemed to be happening at last beneath them.

A figure at the rear of the room, well-lit by the large candles and torches on the altar before it although its face was hidden by a crude mask, stepped forward and raised its arms to the worshipping throng which seemed to hold its collective breath reverentially.

Silence reigned for long moments and, as time extended, Sir Richard felt the uncontrollable urge to cough.

He looked at Jacob, staring at him in horror, his face turning scarlet, fists clenched tightly, but at last the knight couldn't hold it in any longer, even though it would give them away to the gathered worshippers and he opened his mouth, a hacking cough bursting from his lips.

“Welcome!” The priest shouted, raising his arms and the gathered mass of people gleefully returned his greeting, filling the cavern with their voices.

Offering a grateful prayer of thanks to God the Hospitallers settled down to watch proceedings as the priest continued his oration in Greek. Occasionally the people replied in kind, obviously well-versed in whatever black mass this whole event constituted but the two Englishmen couldn't keep up and had no idea what was going on.

Eventually the congregation took up the “Arra! Arra! Arra! Dagon! Dagon! Dagon!” chant again, this time with even more enthusiasm, the syllables cascading horrifically around the ceiling of the centuried cavern. A movement off to the side caught the watchers' eyes and they stared in shock as a young couple were dragged through the throng who shouted and laughed in joy as the man and woman passed, crying and screaming as they went.