In The Shadow Of The Beast (7 page)

‘
Perfume,’ said
Sigourd.

He eased past the gate and cautiously began
to make his way down the steps into the gloom.

Behind him, Cal removed a guttering torch
from its lead bracket on the wall, held it high and in front trying
to throw its feeble glow as far as he might ahead of them. Even
with the torch they could only see a few meters, their eyes slow to
adjust to the poor light in these warrens so far below the
palace.

They continued to descend for what seemed
like an eternity. The stone steps curving in on themselves, the
turns treacherous in their angle, the stairs themselves treacherous
in their small size and the all pervasive grainy dampness that
seemed to coat everything down here.

‘
If I break my neck on
these damned steps I’m going to be in a most irritable mood,’
quipped Cal.

Sigourd didn’t respond, he was too busy
trying to pick up the scent again, but the pallid breath of the
catacombs had died down and the faint aroma of Isolde’s perfume had
disappeared with it.

Finally, the pair reached the bottom, Cal
bringing up the flickering torch behind Sigourd, its firelight
dancing over stone walls a trickle with melt water and glistening
with mineral deposits. They were within a chamber carved from the
very bowels of the palace, squat stone pillars and stubby archways
lent support to a ceiling so low that Sigourd could almost feel the
crushing pressure of the world above. A constant driving
malevolence trapped in this forgotten place.

Carved directly into the rock walls large
shelves supported ramshackle offerings of bones and skulls, scraps
of rotten fabric lying amongst piles of human remains.

The catacombs were home to hundreds of such
offerings, a throwback to the time when the royalty of Corrinth
Vardis had interred their departed ancestry in these warrens,
before ritual and practice had given way to the mutability of time.
Custom had long since moved on to the consummation of the dead in
the transcendent flame of a sanctified funeral pyre.

The empty eye sockets of Sigourd’s distant
relatives, some who might have lain here undisturbed for millennia,
glared out at him accusingly. He felt the wrongness of the place,
knew that he had infringed upon the rest of the hallowed dead.

‘
I feel it too,’ whispered
Cal, ‘like we’re trespassing.’

‘
It’s just your imagination
old friend,’ said Sigourd. Cal gave him a sideways glance, and
Sigourd could see the lack of reassurance in his friend’s grizzled
face.

The noise and madness that had engulfed the
palace was not even a whisper down here, and Sigourd couldn’t help
but wonder at the state of things in the world above. He was
undoubtedly needed by the palace, his people...his father. He felt
the familiar nag of responsibility tugging at him, but that guilt
was quickly replaced by a more pressing concern, an uncomfortable
knot in his gut that seemed to throb more painfully with every new
second of consideration. He had to find Isolde.

A noise from further up snapped Sigourd’s
attention back into the warren tomb. Something like scraping or
maybe shuffling, Sigourd couldn’t be sure. A nod from Cal confirmed
that it had not been just another innocent gust of sepulchral
breath pulling at the tattered remains of the catacombs’s long dead
inhabitants.

Then the noise came again, and an instant
later the nightingale shot out of the impenetrable gloom to alight
upon one of the corpse shelves. It chirruped encouragingly once
before darting off again.

‘
Quite sure of himself
isn’t he,’ said Cal ‘Which, down here, is more than I can say for
myself.’

Moving with more haste, the pair followed
the flight of the nightingale, tracking the curvature of the
catacombs, the firelight revealing yet more of the shelves stacked
upon one another in even greater profusion the further they went.
Endless empty eyes to witness the pair’s progress as the flickering
light of the torch chased the darkness away, only for that darkness
to pour back in behind them, following like some predator kept at
bay but for the sake of the timid light.

Soon they reached a fork in the tunnel,
branching left and right there seemed to be no indication as to
which way they ought to proceed, not sight nor smell nor sound.

Sigourd was about to suggest they split up
when suddenly it came, echoing distantly out of the long darkness
of the leftward tunnel, a woman’s cry.

That cry decided it instantly, the two men
plunged into the murk, and this time they were running, their feet
pounding over the uneven ground, the sound of their heavy footfalls
pinging with a strange urgency off the darkly glistening
limestone.

Not long after it came again, that woman’s
cry, an undeniable note of terror written in it. It struck such a
chill chord within Sigourd, his mind raced with a multitude of
possible horrors, and each imagined horror caused his thundering
heart to tighten painfully in his chest.

The tunnel, curving steadily the entire way,
suddenly straightened out to reveal a natural stone basin, some
thirty feet in circumference. Its floor sloped to a distant opening
in the rock wall, towards which three figures were struggling to
make their way.

Isolde, fighting with all her might against
two men that were hauling her unceremoniously toward the
opening.

Isolde’s captors were large, powerfully
built beneath long coats fashioned from dark leather, their faces
hidden beneath the shadow of deep hoods. They moved with an almost
animal quality, certainly not in the manner of any race of man
Sigourd was familiar with.

He called out with an authority bred into
him from years of military schooling by the likes of Cal and the
other war masters in his fathers employ; ‘Release her!’ his voice
echoing brazenly around the stone basin.

The two cloaked captors did not turn, did
not even give a moments pause as they continued to drag Isolde
towards the opening at the far side of the basin.

Withouts another moment’s hesitation,
Sigourd’s blade flashed into his hand, and he had thrown himself
down the sloping rock face into the basin.

‘
Hold, my lord!’ called Cal
after him, but Sigourd was past any careful consideration of the
situation, his blood rushing in his ears and the fire of his
passions burning white hot.

He slipped and skidded down down to the
floor of the basin, his feet hitting the solid earth at a run, the
momentum from his breakneck descent throwing him into a full
charge.

To her credit Isolde was putting up as much
of a fight as she could muster, ensuring that their progress was
slow enough so that Sigourd would be upon them in moments. Sensing
the onrushing danger, first one and then the other of the captors
began to turn, the deep shadows within their leather hoods
reminiscent of the watchful empty eye sockets of the grinning
skulls of the catacombs.

Some strange sensation stirred within
Sigourd as he neared the trio. Outrage certainly, at the intrusion
of this mysterious pair, of the apparent kidnapping of a citizen of
his fathers realm and Sigourd’s own lover at that. But also
something more akin to excitement. Even as he charged, he puzzled
at the odd contrast of sensations within him, that even in the face
of this obvious imminent threat he could feel so...alive.

It was then that something large, moving so
fast and so quietly that he didn’t even register it coming out of
the dark, crashed into Sigourd with a bone jarring, teeth
clattering impact. The world spun away from Sigourd in a flash,
consciousness taking flight, and then a second brutal impact as he
hit the ground with a pained grunt.

The something loomed over Sigurd, who lay
upon the floor in a tortured daze, struggling against a darkness
that crept inexorably over him.

He looked up to see what thing had
bludgeoned him from his feet, his vision swimming with the mad
verticality of the rock faces. there was something else there too.
A glistening smile of razor fangs in a mouth salivating with the
anticipation of the kill. That wicked smile seemed to hover there
in the murk of Sigourd’s delirium, floating above him disembodied
and dreamlike in mocking delight.

Sigourd’s end loomed over him, an
ignominious demise for the heir to the land of Atos, slain down
here in the damp and the darkness of these warrens within the
world.

And then Cal was there, his sword dancing
before him, a cry of rage and defiance upon his lips.

The old soldier threw himself between that
glittering wicked smile and his liege lord. In a brief exchange
that Sigourd was only dimly aware of, Cal’s sword danced a duel of
death with the faceless attacker. The polished steel of the old
warriors blade striking sparks as it clashed with talons that cut
the darkness before the looming shadow. That glittering smile now
vanished into the greater darkness of a hulking mass.

Cal was an expert with the blade. Be it
knife or axe or sword, he maintained a masterful discipline with
them all, and had used them all to cut short the lives of more foes
than he could begin to count. Across countless battlefields
littered with the maimed and the dying Cal had managed to slice and
stab and sever his way through every conflict. He was one of the
finest killers in The Regents stable.

It counted for nothing.

The exchange was quick, and its brutal end
seemed quicker still as those talons battered aside Cal’s blade,
and tore out his throat in a rushing geyser of blood that sprayed
across the floor of the cave. Sigourd could feel the hot richness
of Cal’s life’s blood splash across his face.

The faithful retainer fell to the floor
beside his lord, gurgling bubbles of blood from a throat that
wasn’t there anymore, replaced instead by a vicious ragged wound
rent in the flesh of his neck.

Like a sliver of moon appearing from behind
black clouds, that razor smile appeared once more to hover over
Sigourd. He reached out feebly to try to grab at that teasing
smirk, to snatch it from his sight.

Somewhere distantly he could hear Isolde
crying out as she struggled with her captors.

‘
It saddens me no small
measure that tonight will not be an end of you, young prince,’
spoke the glittering smile in a voice as cruel as the bitter cold
of midwinter, ‘but soon enough. Do not fear death, half man. It is
but a small step in the direction of the greater good.’

Suddenly, Sigourd was struck another hammer
blow, this time across the side of his head. In that instant
everything flashed like the white of that malicious floating grin,
and Sigourd knew no more.

CHAPTER 5

The final
word...

In the red sky racing clouds swirl like
clotted blood down a sink hole, moving through the vast expanse
above with unnatural speed.

Eyes in the dark glitter from the shadows,
many pairs of golden eyes that watch from the unlight between
arthritically twisted trees.

The thing, the nameless dread is nearly upon
him, but he is done running. He will face down this horror even if
it is to be his doom.

He stops to face his pursuer, a shadow
racing across the desolate wastes like a wraith, it gains with such
inhuman rapidity.

He can make out details within the dark blur
that rushes toward him, a hood covering a face he cannot see, hands
that are thick with muscle yet gnarled like the roots of the old
trees. Brutal looking talons that will tear his flesh like a hand
waved casually through the gossamer of a spider’s web.

The shadow is almost upon him, mere feet
from away and as it readies itself to pounce he catches sight of a
smile, a wicked, mocking grin that floats in the darkness of this
nightmare thing. A mouth full of razors, the guarantee of an
agonizing death...

Sigourd awoke with a start, gasping for air
as if drowning. In an instant he is lanced with an agony that
reaches into his bones, his face, his head. The reality of his
injured state settling upon him in a flourish of pain.

A hand lain gently across his chest, a
soothing voice in his ear gives him pause, ‘Lie still Sigourd,
you’ve been through much. Your wounds are not grievous. They
probably trouble a concerned mother more to witness than her
bruised son to bear’

Sigourd’s head was filled with a splitting
ache. He struggled to focus on the person the voice belonged to,
realizing before long that he is in his bedchamber surrounded by
familiar faces. The voice is his mother’s. She sits beside him, a
look of grave concern upon her face. That look is shared by The
Regent, who stands next to his wife, his hand resting upon her
shoulder, his expression like thunder.

Standing quietly and attentively in a corner
of the room is a housemaid, one that Sigourd knows has been in the
service of his family for many years, and someone else is there
too. Someone that he cannot see but knows is standing in the
shadows at the edge of his sight.

‘
What happened my son?’
asked theRegent, his voice leaden with concern.

‘
I-I’m not sure. How did
you know to look for me?’ came Sigourd’s pained
response.

‘
You were missing most of
the day. We used hounds to track your scent, they discovered you
lying unconscious in the catacombs beneath the castle. What were
you doing down there Sigourd?

Sigourd was slow to respond, he felt like
he’d been asleep for a hundred years.

‘
They snatched her father,’
said Sigourd..

‘
Who son?’ asked
Veronique.

‘
There were three of them,
hooded and cloaked. That smile, it glittered like
moonlight.’