The Silver Knight (6 page)

“Indeed.” Everard looked at him. “And when it is done, what then? Will you leave here, or will you stay awhile?”

Sufyan dropped his gaze, uncertain of what answer he should give. “My duty is to His Grace. I came north on an errand to summon a baron to court, but he ran before I could get to him. My master won't be displeased—he can seize the man's land without trial now—but I must inform His Grace without delay.”

“You will tell him about the blood-fiend, too.”

“Yes.” Sufyan prodded the cold stone figures carved onto the font. “He may give me a reward.”

“And what of me?” Everard's voice was tight.

Sufyan glanced up and forced a smile. “You can retire to your demesne and rebuild your manor.”

Everard gave a soft, wounded snort of laughter. “You make it sound so easy.”

“You've fought this creature for so long. Isn't it time you let go and learned how to live your own life again?”

“If only I could.” Everard stared at him, his expression cryptic. “Sufyan...”

An eerie howl arose, carried on a chill wind that blew into the church and extinguished all but three of the lamps. Sufyan reacted immediately, drawing his scimitars and crouching forward, ready for an attack. He flicked the point of one sword toward the remaining lamps. “Preserve them. We need light if we are to discover the fiend's tomb.”

Everard crossed the nave and reached up for the nearest lamp. As he unhooked it from its sconce, the ghastly shape of the blood-fiend erupted from the darkness of the chapel and tumbled the knight to the floor.

“Everard!” Sufyan ran to help his lover. Rage bubbled inside him when he saw the fiend crouched over the knight. “Get away, you scum! Don't touch him!”

The blood-fiend jerked back, its red eyes blazing with hatred. It hissed and tried to claw at him. Sufyan swung in with his right sword, its point grazing the monster's arm. A strike with the left scimitar, and he caught the fiend in the chest. Dust and fetid air wheezed from it in a noxious cloud. Shrieking, it fell back, abandoning Everard.

“The lamp,” cried Sufyan, “throw it at the fiend and let it burn!”

Everard stumbled to his feet and grabbed the lamp. He flung it at the blood-fiend with a shout of despair. The fiend rolled to avoid it, but the tiny sputter of flame caught on the winding-sheet around its loins. With another shriek, the monster tried to put out the fire. It hurled itself to the cold stone floor, beating at the flame that began to grow and spread.

Sufyan hurled himself on top of the blood-fiend, heedless of the danger. He wrestled the creature to the ground, shoving his knee hard into its back. He felt the same sickening sensation as yesterday when his living flesh met ancient, decaying evil, but this time he held on, determined to finish it.

The blood-fiend bucked and twisted beneath him, trying to throw him off. As its skin smoldered, it squalled and screamed, the noise so high-pitched and horrible, Sufyan thought his ears would run with blood. Grimly he maintained his grip, stabbing his swords into the rotting body beneath him. The monster seemed maddened with fear and fury, its escape attempts becoming ever more violent. It rocked as if ready to split itself apart, and then it managed to turn its head.

Sufyan caught a glimpse of its empty, gaping mouth. He saw two tiny, pointed teeth and remembered Everard's warning of yesterday. He tried to pull free, but the blood-fiend clamped its mouth around his boot and bit him. He felt its teeth penetrate the leather. For a moment, he thought he would be safe, but then he felt it—the tiniest scratch, the slightest graze, a pinprick of pain as the blood-fiend broke his skin.

Disgust churned through him. Sufyan wrenched himself away. With a roar of rage, he brought his foot down on the back of the fiend's head. It shrieked, and he hit it again, this time hacking at it with both swords until the skull cracked and showed the darkness within.

The fiend writhed. Its cries rose to a crescendo of sound so terrified and shrill that Sufyan felt frantic to silence it. He chopped at the exposed vertebrae of the spine, desperate to sever the head from the body. The tiny wound in his leg throbbed, the flesh around the bite burning as if he were on fire.

Their struggle had smothered the flame from the lamp. The stench of cooked flesh hung around them, heavier and fouler than any incense. Sufyan panted, fury rolling through him as he brought his swords down again and again—but still the fiend didn't die, not even when its head was joined to its body only by the smallest sliver of desiccated flesh.

Exhausted, Sufyan collapsed backward onto the floor, his swords clattering over the pavement. His hands gripped the cold stone and he forced himself up onto his feet again as the blood-fiend crawled toward him. Its neck was broken, its skull caved in, and yet it still came at him, its eyes red as blood. It seemed to laugh at him as it gathered itself for one final lunge.

Sufyan picked up his swords and held them in front of him. The fiend shrieked once and leaped forward. Sufyan caught it on his crossed swords. The weight and speed of its attack hurled him back and he let himself fall, curving his spine and kicking up his legs. He rolled, a perfect backward somersault, and with all his might, he flung the blood-fiend away from him and toward the open font.

The monster smashed against the font with such force that the old stone cracked. Holy water gushed out, soaking the fiend. It screamed in agony, smoke rising from its body as it began to dissolve. The fiend shook, bones rattling as it fell apart. The gobbet of flesh holding its head to its body snapped, and its skull rolled across the nave to rest at the foot of a pillar.

A deathly hush settled upon the church. Sufyan got to his feet, groaning at the sharp reminder of pain from his wound. Still holding his swords, he walked toward the font and looked down at what remained of the blood-fiend. A broken skull, a few long bones, and a scatter of smaller fragments gleamed wetly from the floor. The font continued to leak from the jagged crack in its stonework, the holy water forming a puddle at Sufyan's feet.

He sighed. It was over.

And then he remembered Everard.

Sufyan turned, looking around the church. The last time he'd seen Everard was when the knight had flung the lamp at the blood-fiend. Perhaps Everard had gone to find the fiend's lair, but it seemed an odd thing to do when he must have been able to see how desperate the fight was between Sufyan and the monster.

“Everard.” His voice came out sounding husky. He coughed and tried again, loud enough this time to cause an echo. “Everard!”

Nothing.

Sufyan reasoned that the knight must have gone outside to search the cemetery. He had no right to feel aggrieved or abandoned. Everard had simply followed their plan. But now he had to tell Everard of their success. Sufyan imagined the happiness and relief on Everard's face and the joy they would find in each other's bodies. After all this, he deserved another few hours of slow, languorous lovemaking.

Chuckling at the thought, Sufyan sheathed his scimitars and gingerly collected together the wet bones. He picked up the skull last, hesitating a moment before he set it atop the other bones nestled in the crook of his arm. Then he took one of the remaining lamps, opened the church door, and went outside.

The night was black, the sky clouded over to muffle the moon and stars. Sufyan held up the lamp as he wandered around the graveyard, the blood-fiend's bones clutched to his chest. “Everard!” he called, over and over. “Everard!”

He stayed out there in the darkness for a long time before he went back inside the church. His concern for his lover's safety became anxiety and then fear. A thought, horrible and impossible, nagged at his mind. Sufyan ignored it. He stood in the middle of the nave, the lamplight flickering around him, and waited.

A sound roused him—the slow, steady drip of water. Sufyan blinked, looking around, and then his gaze fell on the puddle beneath the font. There seemed to be less depth to it now, as if the water had found someplace to run to—somewhere lower than the church floor...

Sufyan cursed and strode forward, the bones and skull shifting against his chest as he held on to them. He stood over the grille set into the pavement and looked down. Holy water trickled between his feet and drained away into the chamber cut beneath the church.

“A crypt,” Sufyan muttered. “By God, you ignorant fool!”

He searched the nave again, this time looking for a door. He found it built into the wall within the chapel with the red-paned window. Sufyan curled his fingers tight around the lamp and held it high as he descended into darkness so intense and still it felt almost solid.

The narrow staircase ended in a small room, dank and cold, with wall niches hewn from the rock. On each ledge, several skulls peered out from where they lay scattered upon a jumble of bones. Sufyan had seen such an arrangement before in the churches of the Orthodox Christians, and the sight did not seem odd to him. He deposited the few remaining bones of the blood-fiend in an empty niche and then stood straight. His head brushed the roof of the crypt, and he felt a splash of water. Looking up, he saw the grille above him, and through it, the font.

A whisper stirred the air. Sufyan glanced around the crypt, shining the lamplight over the heaps of bones before he realized something was wrong. In the Orthodox Church, he recalled, the skulls of the dead monks were marked with their names and dates. These skulls were smooth and white, unrecorded and carelessly piled as if they were nothing more than rubbish.

The bite began to throb again. Sufyan cursed it and swung around, the lamp held in front of him, as he advanced into the darkest corner of the crypt. Something lay against the wall—something long, draped with a sheet. As he got closer, Sufyan felt cold fear worm up his spine. The cloth was a shroud, and beneath it lay a body.

He didn't want to touch it. He didn't want to see. He knew he should turn from this place and go, run up the stairs and slam the door behind him, run to the village and take his horse and flee far, far from this church—but Sufyan couldn't turn away. Not now. Not yet. He had to know, even if the truth destroyed him.

His hand was steady as he reached out and took hold of the shroud. Sufyan pulled it away from the body and let it fall to the ground. He gasped.

The lamp's flame burned brighter, its golden light flickering over the cold, beautiful features of the effigy on top of the tomb. Sufyan stared at the life-sized polished stone figure, taking in every detail—the delicate tracery of mail, the folds of the surcoat, and the emblem of the serpent and the oak tree upon his breast; the perfect mouth and the pointed chin; the sword held in front of him and his helm at his feet, crossed at the ankle.

The mason who had made the effigy had been a master of his craft. Sufyan had never seen anything so exquisite. Sorrow overwhelmed him as he read the scrolling Latin inscription alongside the knight's body.

Everard de Montparnasse. Died in the year of Our Lord 1099
.

Sufyan brushed gentle fingers over the effigy, letting his touch linger on its lips, its cheek. “Everard,” he whispered, his voice catching with emotion, “I didn't understand when you told me that you had darkness within you. If only I'd realized—if only I'd known... oh, my angel, I never would have killed you.”

He leaned down and kissed the cold, pale lips of the effigy.

A chill wind blew around him, and the door to the crypt slammed shut. Sufyan straightened, the back of his neck prickling with awareness.

“I told you before,” Everard said from darkness, “you cannot kill what is already dead.”

Sufyan raised the lamp and turned around, keeping his back to the effigy. Everard stood in front of him, whole and beautiful and otherworldly, his skin white as the marble of his tomb, his eyes dark as the shadows licking around the glow from the light.

“I was right.” Sufyan kept his voice steady. “You are the Angel of Death.”

“Not an angel. Just a cursed creature, one divided into man and monster.” Everard smiled, and this time Sufyan saw two sharp fangs—just like the blood-fiend's teeth. “For years I have fought the darkness inside me, trying to deny what I had become.”

“You are the blood-fiend and the silver knight both.” Sufyan set down the lamp on the side of the tomb and stared at him. “How did this happen?”

Everard sighed and ventured closer. “It was on the way to the Holy Land. Something happened.” His expression darkened, became troubled. “I don't remember—there was a battle... Someone saved me. He made me into this monster. He asked me to stay with him, but I couldn't. I wanted to come home to my parents, to my land—to the things I recognized and knew. I didn't want to be companion to a cursed blood-drinking creature out there in the wilderness, where the sun blasts the earth and the only flesh to feed upon was the corpses of my fallen comrades!”

“So you came home,” Sufyan murmured, “and your world had changed.”

“In more ways than one.” Everard gave a bitter smile. “It took a long time for me to return home. In those days, I could only travel at night, and I struggled with the necessity of feeding. The creature that made me like this warned me—he said if I didn't accept my changed condition, I would fracture and become divided. I didn't believe him. And then I woke one eve to find I'd become two—myself and the blood-fiend.”

He came closer again, his head tilted up so he could look into Sufyan's eyes. “The blood-fiend has no qualms about feeding from innocent people. It has no sense of morality, of good or evil. It lives to fulfil the basest of urges. It enables me to survive.”

“By denying those urges, you made it a separate creature.” Sufyan exhaled. “I have heard of such things happening before. The division of flesh from the soul shouldn't happen in this lifetime, not until the hour of a man's death. You spoke of me being doubly-damned, but you should look to yourself first!”

Everard took a step closer and reached out. “But Sufyan, don't you see? You defeated the blood-fiend! You're the first man to help me—who
wanted
to help me—since I became like this.”