The Red Cross of Gold I:. The Knight of Death (72 page)

Ramsay heard his own voice join with the last
of her dying screams as she slipped from his hand. It was the
fourth time in as many days he had made such a noise. He thought
his heart would stop in horror and God would strike him dead on the
spot. He rolled over onto his back and gazed up at the murky sky
above his head. It was too much. Unbearable. Blackness threatened
to close in around him.

Von Hetz climbed to his feet slowly and then
helped d’Brouchart recover the baculus from the brink of the
precipice. The Master inspected the globe of the baculus for damage
and clutched the staff to his chest protectively. They started away
toward the side of the hill again and the path leading back to the
house. Von Hetz shouted over his shoulder to the Knight of Death to
get up and move before one of the beasts made a building stone of
him. He lay frozen on the hard rock, staring up at the cloudless
sky. The ground continued to shake and roll as the mindless
creatures went about their work oblivious to the human drama
playing out in their midst.

Mark Andrew covered his face with his hands
in despair and squeezed his eyes shut against the vision of
Cecile’s face. This nightmare receded instantly as the breath was
knocked from his lungs when something heavy landed on his chest. He
opened his eyes wide, gasping for air and looked into the face of
Thomas Beaujold. The man just wouldn’t quit. Mark slid his right
arm out sideways, attempting to grab his sword, but it was a few
inches out of reach, lying next to Beaujold’s silver sword where he
had laid them in his haste to assist von Hetz.

The wild-eyed Knight wrapped his hands around
Mark Andrew’s neck, choking him ruthlessly, simultaneously banging
the back of his head against the rock.

Stars danced in front of his eyes where
Valentino’s face had been only seconds before and blackness of a
more physical nature closed in on him. He made a grab for the man’s
ears and saw one of the huge creatures rearing up behind him. With
every bit of strength he had, he pulled on Beaujold’s head rolling
them both over and over on the stone as the crazed Knight of the
Sword refused to let go of his throat. A hissing line of steam
arose very close to them as the worm went about constructing its
portion of the grid. Mark could feel the heat from the chemical
reaction all along his right side. He let go of Beaujold’s head and
punched him on his left side where he knew he had inflicted the
severe wound during their last encounter.

Beaujold loosened his grip and cried out in
pain, grabbing his side with both hands. Mark Andrew hit him again
under his chin and knocked him off balance onto his back directly
onto the steaming line of hot rock. The Knight of the Sword
shrieked anew and scrambled up from the rock while Mark rolled away
from him in the opposite direction, coming up with both swords. The
man stood facing him unarmed, still unwilling to yield.

The worm reared itself above them again,
making ready to spray them both with the searing liquid. Ramsay
slashed out at its bulging underside with Beaujold’s sword. The
thing let go a high-pitched trill and collapsed like a gossamer
balloon made of spider web thin material.

The wind caught the empty shell and draped it
over the Knight of the Sword. The man fell screaming and kicking in
agonized madness under the seemingly harmless looking material that
resembled the collapsing canopy of a parachute. Ramsay stood
staring at the incredible sight unable to comprehend the situation
until another of the things raised up from the pit next to him,
much too close for comfort. He turned and ran toward the rest of
the shocked spectators who stood watching in morbid fascination as
the mythical Insects of Sherma dismantled the bedrock, methodically
cutting and polishing the enormous slabs of stone, making them
ready for the long dead architect and builders of King Solomon’s
Temple.

“What now, Master?!” Simon shouted above the
noise.

“I must send them back where they came from!”
D’Brouchart answered him and then held out the baculus toward the
monstrous insects. He began another incantation while Ramsay left
them quietly and went to find Christopher and Merry.

((((((((((((()))))))))))))

Sir Ramsay caught up with Christopher Stewart
just as he was nearing the entrance to the old bomb shelter. The
ground was still shaking and trembling from the tremendous works
going on atop the hill. Water alternately gushed and trickled from
the opening which was now clogged with tumbled down boulders and
debris.

Merry clung to the apprentice desperately and
the young man did his best to comfort her. He could hear
Christopher using the same soothing voice that he most often
employed whenever he was speaking to his pair of deerhound pups
back in Scotland. Mark Andrew took hold of her arm and turned her
around abruptly, eliciting a short shriek before she recognized
him. He looked into her eyes and saw there a mixture of conflicting
emotions. She blinked up at him, frowning in bewildered confusion;
her deceptively innocent beauty seemed permanently marred by an
expression of total fear and incomprehension. He kissed her lightly
on the lips, hugged her briefly and then released her before
repeating the same actions with his apprentice.

It was the embrace of a brother for a sister
and he realized that his feelings for her had changed radically in
a very few short minutes. He still loved her, but his duty to the
Order had crashed in on him and brought him to his senses. No
matter the nature or depth of his feelings for her, there was no
hope and he had buried them in the deepest pit of his mind. It was
the only way he could cope with the present intolerable
situation.

“Take her down to the house,” he told the
young man. “Stay with her until I come for you. Don’t let her
return here.”

Merry caught his arm. “No!” was the only word
she could manage as fresh tears sprang to her eyes. He knew that
she was saying no to more than his return to the top of the hill
and he could do nothing for her. Nothing for himself. Mark Andrew
could not look at her again or he would have taken her and run.

Christopher dutifully took hold of her arm
and pulled her along with him beginning his litany of reassuring
phrases, sounding much like a priest or a father speaking to a
child. She stumbled after him, trying to look back as Mark Andrew
retreated up the trail.

He had to go. There was no other way. Mark
did not dare even the shortest glance back.

When he reached the summit of the trail, the
sight of the devastation appalled him and renewed his own fear of
the magick his Master had wrought here in the bright summer sun.
Huge gleaming blocks of limestone lay neatly arranged in rows of
threes across the flat top of the hill beside a gaping pit from
which wisps of steam drifted. The terrible insects were no longer
working the quarry. The only evidence of their existence was the
flapping, blood-smeared silk that looked like a downed battle flag,
lying directly in front of him. It was the remains of the creature
that he had slashed with Beaujold’s sword. There had been nothing
in the thing, but air… no blood. The blood looked too red, too real
in the brilliant sunshine. This was the place where he had left the
downed Knight of the Sword. The bright red streaks on the white
limestone reminded him of the Templar Cross and white mantel. The
Templar Cross on the white shield. The Templar Cross on the white
disc on his sword. Blood, the color of life and white, the color of
divinity. There was nothing but death and destruction on the hill
top and the sight chilled him to the bone causing a deep shudder to
pass through his soul.

This was the blood of the Chevalier d’Epee
and with a sinking feeling in his stomach he knew that the Knight
was beyond help this time. Even so, someone would have to finish
the job, though he was not sure that it should be him. It was now
up to the Grand Master to decide what would be done.

Sir Edgard d’Brouchart stood with his four
remaining Knights surveying the scene in wonder and awe. The Grand
Master turned to look at Ramsay as he approached them slowly and
the others followed suit. Mark stepped over the lifeless body of
the security agent; his eyes were locked on the big, red-haired man
holding the staff of twisted ivory. He knelt on one knee in front
of the man, laid his golden sword on the ground between them and
bowed his head, exposing his neck for them to do as they would.

He closed his eyes and waited. Rough hands
closed on his shoulders and he was pulled to his feet. He opened
his eyes and saw the face of the Grand Master very close in front
of him. The watery blue eyes searched his face briefly and then he
received the kiss of greeting.

“Brother Ramsay,” d’Brouchart said simply.
“The Chevalier d’Epee has fallen. Attend to his needs.”

Mark Andrew retrieved his sword from the
ground and walked purposefully to where the gossamer strips of the
destroyed insect waved lazily in the light summer breeze. Only the
Knight’s knees and lower legs were exposed as he lay wrapped in the
bulk of the remains. Sir Ramsay used the Knight’s silver sword to
cut away the light fluff around the man’s upper body. It floated
away on the breeze, disappearing like wisps of steam or ghosts of
tormented spirits, fleeing in the heat of the noonday sun. He had
to close his eyes as he steeled himself mentally against the sight
of the Knight’s face and fought down the waves of nausea that
threatened to overwhelm him. He crossed himself and knelt beside
the inert body.

Sir Thomas Beaujold was no longer
recognizable as the man he had been for so many years. There was no
skin and very little flesh left on his upper body. His blue eyes
were exposed in hollowed sockets and his teeth grinned up in a
skeletal caricature of his former self. Bare white bone made up his
forehead and scalp and his ears were missing along with his nose.
His arms and chest and everything else that had been touched by the
skin of the worm were bloody masses of muscles, tendons, exposed
ribs and breastbone. The man’s breath rattled in his chest and even
his lungs could be glimpsed expanding and contracting through open
slits between his ribs. He still breathed, but how could it be so?
Why did it have to be he who looked upon his Brother’s dying
moments?

Ramsay caught his breath sharply as the light
blue eyes moved in their sockets. Not only alive, but
conscious!

“No!” he said aloud and brought one hand up
to cover his mouth.

“God is merciful! God is merciful!” he said
the words that he no longer believed and almost bolted when a
bloody, bony hand suddenly took hold of his collar, pulling him
down over the grotesque face. Sir Thomas was trying to speak to
him. He leaned closer and held his ear very close the lipless
mouth.

Three raspy words rattled in the man’s throat
and escaped through his teeth.

“Shrive me, Brother.”

The hand dropped away. Ramsay scrambled away
from him and stood on his knees beside him with his forehead
pressed against the hilt of the Flaming Sword of the Cherubim,
breathing hard, trying to master control of his emotions. He had
seen nothing like this in ages. The Knight of Death inhaled deeply
and then leaned over his downed Brother.

He tapped him lightly on the shoulder and
nodded before saying “Your sins are absolved, Brother. Go in
peace.”

“Forgive?” one last word rattled from the
Knight’s throat along with his final breath. Mark Andrew knew he
would have only twelve minutes to complete the ceremony before…

He raised his eyes to the bright, blue sky
and then held the sword in both hands, point up.

“I am he that liveth and was dead and behold,
I am alive forever more in God, the Creator of the Universe. I hold
the key of Death. I have seen the work of thy labors and have been
witness to the devotion of thy trust, O Brother. By this act I
commend thy soul to the Creator of the Universe and set thee free
of this broken body. Until we shall meet again in Paradise, I bid
thee farewell. Dominus vobiscum. Pax vobiscum.”

He bent over the Knight of the Sword and
kissed the bare teeth before making the sign of the cross on the
bare bone forehead. His Brother’s blood was all over him and the
cross stood out in stark relief against the ghastly background, a
reminder in blood and bone of the Order he served. He had seen many
things, but this qualified as one of the worst so far. He placed
his hand on the cold surface over the red cross and paused as the
knowledge of the Secret of the Knight of the Sword was transferred
from the dying man’s mind into his own. In the heat of the
battlefield, this would be one of his most vulnerable moments, when
he could do nothing but sink into several moments of complete
oblivion to the world around him.

The weight of the Chevalier d’Epee’s mystery
bore down on him as if one of the limestone blocks were crushing
him temporarily and then subsided as the knowledge made a space in
his head. He released his hold and got wearily to his feet. When he
raised the gleaming sword above his head, the sun flashed off the
blade as he brought it down in one resounding blow, slicing cleanly
through the man’s neck and well into the rocky ground beneath him.
The sword’s song of death wafted eerily across the space between
the Knight of Death and the tiny band of mourners, waiting near the
trail’s head.

Ramsay turned away, took two steps and sank
to the ground. He looked up at the clear sky and spoke directly to
God “Reproach hath broken my heart; and I am full of heaviness.
Forgive me, O Lord, for I am lost.”

Brother Simon and Brother von Hetz were
beside him suddenly, helping him up and literally dragging him away
from the scene. He remembered nothing more until he opened his eyes
again sometime later. The blue sky was above his head and he lay on
the flat boulder near the mouth of the collapsed tunnel leading
down into the ruined hillside. Pushing himself up tiredly, he found
his sword lying next to him. He was alone. They had left him. A
good sign at least that he would be welcomed back into the fold,
though his penance might be heavy, it would be bearable and then he
would go home to Scotland. To his home.