Medi-Evil 3 (21 page)

 
Ramon decided to stop it.

 
He was just about to move in when a knife-point pricked the flesh below his ear. He froze. A brawny arm folded across his throat. He heard de
Vesqui’s
leering voice – the guttural
Lange
d’Oc
thick with scorn.

 
“Not one step,” the dog chuckled. “The Leopard’s son will have his little diversions.”

 
“You
bastaaaa
…” Ramon said, but a third voice cut him dead.

 
“You put a blade to the household
banneret
? You dare! You blasted whoreson!”

 
Ramon felt the arm relax. He lurched away and turned. De
Vesqui
was now rigid with fear,
Thurstan
holding a spear to his neck. Its tapering point was pressed so firmly against the flesh that droplets of blood had appeared.

 
“Drop it!”
Thurstan
barked.

 
De
Vesqui
held his arms aloft, but refused to relinquish his knife. “I’m not part of your damned household!”

 
“
Drop it, or I’ll spit you like a fish!”

 
Reluctantly, de
Vesqui
released the weapon.

 
Ramon whirled back to Ulf and
Joubert
, still going at each other like wild animals, biting and clawing. The squire was giving a reasonable account of himself, though he was the more bloodied of the two; both his lips were burst like ripe plumbs. Ramon now waded in and hauled them apart, kicking Ulf to one side and dragging
Joubert
away by the coif, throwing him heavily in the dust. There were groans of disapproval from the spectators. One or two cursed; some even issued threats.

 
Most outraged was
Joubert
, who clambered to his feet, voice cracking in fury. “You cur!” he squealed.
“I’ll kill you, kill you …”

 
He dived at the nearest man-at-arms, yanked a broadsword from the fellow’s scabbard, and wheeled frenziedly about – only to be dealt a stunning blow to the jaw by a thickly gloved fist.

 
A silence fell over the retinue. They gazed in awe at the Leopard, whose huge right hand was still tightly clenched. He returned their gaze intensely,
focussing
in particular on Ramon. Fleetingly, the knight saw his overlord as he once had been, when they’d fought together, hunted together,
ridden
in the tourney as friends – before the Norse had torn his face apart at Anglesey, before the madness of conquest had grown on him like a fever.

 
“No-one,” the Leopard
said,
his voice a taut whisper, “no-one … dies in this company without my say-so.” He kicked his fallen son.
“Up
sirrah
!
Get up!”

 
Groggily, drooling blood,
Joubert
raised himself onto all fours. “I
should … should
’ve beaten him to death,” he mumbled.

 
The Leopard was unimpressed. “The progress you were making, we’d have been here all day.
Up!
”
He glanced sideways, to where
Thurstan
was still holding his spear at de
Vesqui’s
throat. Their eyes met, and
Thurstan
lowered the weapon. Immediately, de
Vesqui
retrieved his knife and whipped around, dragging a gauntlet from his belt. He was clearly about to issue a challenge to
Thurstan
, when a cry came wavering across the tents towards them. A breathless, haunted cry:
“My Lord!
My
Looooord
!”

 
As one, the band thrust through the encampment to the southern perimeter, where they found Arch-Deacon
d’Etoille
.

 
Once portly, he was now emaciated; tired, wasted flesh hung at his jowls. Once devout, he now knew little for sure, save only that the Crossed Keys of the papal banner were spattered over and over with innocent blood. Even his aggressive intellect had faded; he couldn’t reason in a land where reason no longer prevailed. He stood violently
shaking,
his features wan, peering out into the desert – where
something
awaited them.

 
Where it had come from, they didn’t know; what it was, they had no clue. At first they were too stunned by it to speak. On every head the hair prickled, on
every body
the skin crawled.

 
It was perhaps thirty yards away, a body of sand and dirt spinning at phenomenal speed as if some
spiralling
wind had seized it. It was like the central funnel of a dust-storm, only smaller, more compact – upright by fifteen feet, maybe five-feet across. So dense was it that nothing was visible through it. It swirled with frightful force, giving off a rushing, breathless roar.

 
“What … what in the name of God …” Ramon stammered.

 
But more horror-stricken than anyone was
Hasif
. With a wailing cry, he sank to his knees, hands clasped.
“
Sawfa
nahlik
jamee’an
!
”

 
“What does he say?” the Leopard demanded.
“De
Vesqui
, what does he say?”

 
It took the
Aquitainian
several seconds to regain sufficient composure to speak with their guide, and, when he did, the response he got was broken and tearful.
Hasif
could only peer red-eyed and despairing at the apparition.

 
“
Al-
iblees
khulika
minal
riyah
!
” he stuttered. “
La
tareeq
lil
hiroob
…
”

 
When de
Vesqui
looked back to his overlord, he too had paled. “He says … he says it is
djinn
, sent for us by the Old Man. A spirit of earth and air, charged with our destruction. It will not cease its pursuit until we are all dead.”

 
“It’s a judgment on us!”
d’Etoille
cried, reaching under his tattered purple and drawing out an iron crucifix. “We came here in the name of Christ, and in the name of Christ we slew babes and robbed houses.” He stepped over the line of rocks marking the camp boundary. “We’re brigands, but the worst kind of brigands … for we use God’s holy will as our excuse.”

 
“What the devil are you doing?”
Thurstan
shouted, trying to grab him.

 
“Lord Jesus!” Arch-Deacon
d’Etoille
prayed, advancing out of reach, his crucifix held high. “I beg you to take into your bosom the soul of this
Thine
servant, who today dies accursed in a hellish place.”

 
“My lord!” de
Vesqui
hissed. “We must get away from here.”

 
He even clutched his overlord’s arm, but the Leopard shook him off, regarding the spectacle with morbid fascination.

 
“I entreat you,” the priest beseeched, “deliver me not into the hands of Satan …”

 
But his words ended mid-sentence in a shrill and prolonged scream, for the thing suddenly rushed upon him. The rest of the company watched aghast as he was enveloped. He clamped his hands to his face as if to protect his eyes, but was buffeted back and forth, and a second later yanked upwards from his feet in a horizontal levitation, whence he began to spin and spin at ever greater speed. Within moments he was a purple blur, and then he was gone – he winked out like a candle-flame.

 
A stupefied silence followed, the remaining men too
mesmerised
to react – before the abomination spat something out, which thudded into the sand close to their feet. It was Father
d‘Etoille’s
crucifix, now a twisted knot of melted iron.

 
At that they went amok. With wild shrieks, they fell over each other to get to the horses. Tents were knocked flat, cooking-pots kicked over, backpacks and weapons left strewn.

*

The swirling monstrosity gave no immediate or hurried chase – almost as if it knew it could bide its time.

 
If the thing actually had a mind, their panic-stricken flight gave it a keen advantage. Supplies had been lost, horses scattered. Many men were separated from the main party, and highly likely the supernatural foe went on to pick these off one by one, for within four hours Ulf found himself part of a fellowship comprising only himself,
Thurstan
, Ramon,
Joubert
, de
Vesqui
, the Leopard and
Hasif
, and in possession only of the items they’d been wearing or carrying in their bolsters.

 
Regardless of missing friends, they continued to ride fast and hard for the remainder of that day, pushing blindly on through bleak emptiness, but now in frantic disorder. When they finally slowed to a walk, breathless and sweating, their horses lathered, there were no words between them. Ordinarily in such circumstances there might have been regret at the reckless haste, shame at the apparent cowardice – now there were only frightened glances, whispered prayers. They pitched camp in a high rocky place, but, without tents and bedrolls, were mercilessly exposed to the raw desert night. None of them slept, and when the morning came they were sorely tired. The temptation was to stay and doze, but common sense forbade it; if the stalking daemon didn’t dispatch them, the sun surely would.

 
“Are we sure this thing is real?” Ramon asked as they rode on.

 
“You saw if for yourself,”
Thurstan
replied.

 
“I think we’ve had lotus crushed in our water stock. Such devils don’t exist.”

 
Thurstan
shook his head. “Pagan lands … pagan things.”

 
Ramon turned in his saddle. “Is it following us?”

 
“You want to stay to find out?” de
Vesqui
wondered. “You saw what it did to
d’Etoille
.”

 
“I saw you leading the charge to get away from it,” Ramon said.

 
De
Vesqui
glared round with fresh fury, but the Leopard interjected. “Real or not, we have our penance to perform.”

 
“We do?” Ramon whispered to
Thurstan
. Even with the company decimated, it seemed the quest went on. “Tell me this isn’t complete folly.”

 
“Still questioning me, Ramon?”

 
“Forgive me, my lord. I thought that by now we might have paid God His dues.”

 
“We haven’t,” the Leopard assured him, but again he glanced over his shoulder, and Ulf saw further apprehension in his ravaged face, maybe even fear.

 
The next morning they followed a parched riverbed, and by noon came across stunted trees where some modicum of shelter was had. The tan crags of mountains were starting to emerge in the northeast. Ulf wondered which range it was. It struck him as ludicrous that none of them knew where they were, and hadn’t done for days. They were completely in the hands of a Moslem prisoner, who had every reason to despise them – though at present
Hasif
seemed more afraid than devious. When he wasn’t riding, he passed the time cowering on his prayer mat, or glancing fearfully behind them.

 
The thing he dreaded, the
djinn
or wind-daemon, or whatever it was, at present chose to remain hidden, though none of them doubted it was close at hand. Why it didn’t attack was anyone’s guess. Ulf’s premonition dreams – for he’d decided this was what they were – had also faded, though in truth he slept only fitfully, protected solely by his cloak in the frozen night and spending the daylight in fatigued delirium. A week later, when a sandstorm blew up, he bore through it in drugged, careless fashion. The morning after that, when the Leopard announced that their water and bread was now virtually used, he made no comment. He wondered if he was close to death – and even at that prospect, he felt strangely unconcerned.

 
Uncountable hours of this torture passed before, suddenly – without warning – there was grass on the hills again; dry, prickly grass, but still grass. A day later they were seeing cork oaks, olive trees, even clumps of cedar. And then the news came that they were near their goal. De
Vesqui
delivered it. Ulf,
Thurstan
and Ramon were lagging far behind the others, moving at a snail’s pace, when the Leopard’s bodyguard came galloping back towards them.