He had already forgotten the man’s name—what did it matter?—but he was a person of import at court. Some distant cousin to the Queen. No surprise there; the man looked to Edgard like the kind of spineless toad who could not have risen to such a high station on his own merits. If this was the sort with whom the King kept counsel these days, Edgard had serious concerns about this impending war against the Norse. It was foolhardy enough in conception; would it be executed in similar fashion?
Nevertheless, it was a good sign that Edward had sent such a man, particularly when Edgard had worried that he might not send anyone at all. It was a sign that the Order still commanded at
least some respect from the King. Though that respect was greatly diminished since King Alfred’s day, it would not be for much longer.
They arrived at the bottom of the stairs and Edgard set his torch into a sconce on the wall. The hallway down here was already lit, though it grew darker as it went, and what lay at its far end was all in shadow. Edgard made a sweeping gesture with his hand for the emissary to accompany him, then started down the hall, the King’s man grumbling as he walked alongside. He had seemed vexed to be here from the moment he had arrived, and now, down here in this dimly lit dungeon, his consternation had only grown more apparent.
“I am sure you realize that the King does not appreciate unwarranted distractions at such a critical time,” said the emissary with a pronounced frown. By Edgard’s estimation, this was the fifth time that the man had pointed this out since he had arrived at the gate.
“Of course,” he replied. “I would not dream of asking for His Majesty’s attention on anything less than a matter of the greatest urgency. I am sure, when you have seen what I have to show you, that you will agree.”
They were halfway down the hallway now, and the emissary’s pace was slowing as perhaps some trepidation set in. From here he could see a small group of armed men standing guard in front of a barred gate at the end of the hall. The torches lit the bars of the cell but did not penetrate beyond them; whatever was inside was cloaked in utter darkness.
Edgard noticed that the emissary had fallen a few steps behind him and turned to see that the man had, in fact, come to a complete halt, staring apprehensively at the cell. “What have you got in there?” he asked.
Edgard smiled. “I assure you, you’re quite safe,” he said.
Warily, the emissary followed Edgard to where the guards awaited. He peered into the cell and saw Wulfric, shackled once more to the oaken table. Seeing that he was securely bound, and
some distance behind the bars, the emissary stepped forward for a closer look, observing Wulfric with grim fascination. His skin, filthy with gray ash, his matted hair and beard, the faraway look in his eyes.
“What is that?” the emissary asked in a lowered voice. “Is that a Norseman?”
“No,” replied Edgard. “Something far more dangerous.”
The emissary could not look away. “He looks barely human.”
“How funny you should say that,” said Edgard knowingly. “He is only part human. The rest is abomination.”
“Abomination?” The emissary appeared bemused. “But he is—”
“We believe that the blight Aethelred brought into this world years ago has somehow grown into a new, and far more dangerous, hybrid form: abominations that appear as men by day, and take on their true form only by night. Perhaps you have heard tales of such things.”
The emissary looked more closely at Wulfric. Edgard’s reading of him suggested that he was skeptical. Not for much longer.
“I have heard of them,” said the emissary. “But the stuff of ghost stories, surely.”
“I used to think the same. No longer. As we speak, this new menace spreads across the land like a plague. How far we cannot know, as this new threat is more difficult to detect than the abominations of old. We captured this one two days ago, but who knows how many more may be out there, hiding among us in plain sight?”
In spite of his doubts, the emissary, Edgard could see, was slowly being drawn in by the tale. The dread was creeping up on him as he kept his gaze fixed on Wulfric. “When night falls . . . he will change?”
Edgard nodded and tried not to smile. He had timed this well. It was only a few minutes until sunset, and then this little man would know what dread truly was.
“Have you eaten much today?”
The emissary appeared flummoxed by such an odd question. “What? No. Why?”
“Because what you are about to witness is best done on an empty stomach.”
Edgard had set the stage well. Now all he had to do was wait. Once the emissary had seen the monstrosity Wulfric was about to become, he would return to Winchester, to the King, with word of this new and dire threat to the kingdom. He would convince the King of it, or at least convince him to come here and see Wulfric for himself, and that would surely be enough. Enough for the crown to once again lavish gold upon the Order so that Edgard could rebuild it to its former glory and strength—strength enough to combat this new menace.
What did it matter if the threat was imagined? During the darkest days of the scourge, the Order had been a symbol of hope for a populace living in fear. The scourge might be gone, but the need for symbols remained. People still needed something to fear, for that kept them loyal and dutiful. They still needed hope, for that kept them productive. They still needed someone better than themselves to look up to and respect. And young men still needed a place to come and be trained to fight in service of a higher cause.
Towns and villages all across the land still needed men like those of the Order to welcome as heroes so that they might be touched by reflected glory. It made common folk feel good to lavish Edgard and his brave paladins with gifts of tribute, and free ale, and to introduce their daughters to men as noble and valiant as he. Yes, England still needed the Order. It still needed him.
“My lord.”
Edgard was snapped from his thoughts. One of his guards motioned toward the cell, and Edgard stepped forward to see that Wulfric’s head had lolled to the side, his body slack. It was time. He placed his hand on the shoulder of the emissary, who was rooted to the spot, eyes wide with morbid anticipation. “It will be soon now,” he said. “When it begins, do not run. The beast cannot
escape the chains, and as the King’s eyes, it is important that you see everything.”
Edgard could sense the man’s fear. He was trembling, and though the stone walls of the dungeon made it a cool place, his face was beaded with sweat. And nothing had even happened yet. Yes, this man was going to deliver His Majesty a very good report. Any moment now . . .
Minutes passed. A few of Edgard’s men began to fidget, and the emissary’s agitation was slowly starting to resemble impatience.
“When, exactly . . . ?”
“Any moment,” said Edgard, his own consternation growing. It should not take this long. He was close to worrying that something was wrong when he saw Wulfric begin to quiver and twitch beneath the chains that bound him to the table. He gripped the emissary’s arm firmly. “Now,” he said. “Watch this.”
A final moment passed. And then Wulfric’s jaw fell slack and he began to snore. It was a great, thunderous, rasping sound, not unlike the sound of a blunted saw cutting through a tree, and the stone walls of the cell only amplified it, sending it echoing along the hall.
The emissary shot a look at Edgard. “What is this?”
Edgard scrambled for an answer. “Sometimes the transformation takes longer than . . . if you will only indulge me for a few moments longer . . .”
And so the emissary waited for three more minutes, during which time the cacophony of Wulfric’s snorting and grunting as he slept grew louder and louder. Eventually the emissary turned on his heels and marched back toward the spiral steps. Edgard rushed after him.
“Please, if you will—”
“No, no!” said the emissary with mock seriousness. “I have seen quite enough! I will be sure to inform His Majesty of the great peril that England faces from noisy sleepers! I am certain that when I return and tell him what I have seen here, the King
will waste no time in adjusting the Order’s funding to an amount sufficient to combat this new threat.”
The emissary began making his way up the stairs, and Edgard could see that he had lost the man. He gave up and stormed back down the hall toward the cell in red-faced fury. “Open that gate!”
One of the guards rushed to find the key and unlock the gate before Edgard arrived. As the key turned in the lock, Edgard shoved the man aside and barged into the cell where Wulfric was bound, and still waking the dead with his snoring. Edgard struck him hard across the face, bringing him fast awake.
Wulfric blinked as his eyes focused and found Edgard standing over him.
“Why have you not turned?”
Wulfric said nothing, but looked past Edgard as though he were not there. Edgard clamped his hand around Wulfric’s cheeks and forced him to meet his eyes. “Look at me, and answer!” he bellowed, apoplectic. “Why have you not turned? What about this night is different?”
Nothing. Edgard released his hand and stepped back. He took a breath, controlled. “You will not make a mockery of me before the crown a second time. Tomorrow morning we depart for Winchester. I will take you to the King himself. If you must languish in his dungeon for a month, sooner or later he will see what you truly are. And if he does not, if you are of no use to me, I will bring you back here and bury you in chains beneath twenty feet of stone and you can suffer in darkness long after Indra and I are dust.”
Still quivering with anger, he turned to his senior officer, a stocky, bull-necked man who trained initiates in unarmed combat and was known for going especially hard on them. “Unchain him and see that he remembers what I have said. Make sure he remembers it well.”
The bull-necked man nodded and cocked his head toward the cell, gesturing for his men to follow him. Edgard watched as they
unchained Wulfric from the table and lifted him from it. When the first punches began to land, Edgard turned and made for the stairs. He had no desire to watch.
This is a necessary evil
, he told himself as he walked away,
but I am not an evil man
.
Dawn came. The King’s emissary had departed for Winchester, and Edgard’s men were working in the stables, readying horses for the same journey. A wagon that held an iron cage was hitched to a pole that would allow two strong horses to draw it between them. The cage had been built to house abominations captured in the field to be returned to Canterbury for study, but had been used rarely as capturing a live specimen had proven all but impossible. They usually died fighting. Well, Edgard had found a purpose for it now. As the sun rose over Canterbury, a stableman moved around inside the cage, spilling straw from a sack onto the floor and spreading it about with his feet. He spread more than he would have for an animal; he knew that the cage’s occupant would be human, for at least some of the time.
Meanwhile, four men moved down the spiral steps and into the gloom of the cathedral’s dungeon, torches lighting their way along the corridor. Two of them carried a length of heavy chain. The foremost guard, a ring of keys jangling in his fist, barked at Wulfric to wake up and get on his feet; two of the others had been present for the previous night’s beating and knew it would take more than that. They would probably have to carry him out, still unconscious.
The light from their torches did not extend far beyond the iron gate. They could see the bolted oak table and spots of dried blood
on the flagstones around it, but the far recesses of the cell were cloaked in darkness. There was no sign of the prisoner, who was no doubt curled up in one of those dark corners.
The guard with the keys rapped the heavy iron ring against the bars noisily. “I said wake up! On your feet!”
There was a low grunt from the far corner of the cell and they saw something in the darkness as the prisoner began to move. Though no more than an indistinct shape amidst the gloom, he seemed only to be shifting his weight, a man turning restlessly in his sleep rather than one attempting to rise from it.
“Up and off your arse, now!” barked the key guard, losing patience.
It was the man standing beside him who first noticed that something was wrong. He had seen Wulfric before and knew that he was not a small man, but the shape in the darkness was too big. Far too big. It shifted again, still low to the ground, and made another guttural sound. And though it always smelled rank down here, it had never been this bad. Never like—
“Right, that’s it.” The lead guard jammed the key in the lock and was about to turn it when the man beside him grabbed his hand. “Wait! Something’s—”
The tongue shot out from the darkened corner of the cell and between the bars of the gate, coiling itself around the throat of the man with the keys like a noose and constricting. Its coating of corrosive saliva boiled through the man’s neck so swiftly he had no chance to scream. He let out a strained, breathless gurgle as his head came away from his body and fell at his own feet, a red geyser pumping from his neck.
The two guards behind him cried out and drew back in terror as the tongue recoiled into the darkness, but the one standing beside him was too paralyzed by shock to move away. He startled only when the thing that hid in the darkness leapt forward and into the light, and by then it was too late. The beast flung its great black body against the bars with such force that they bent outward,
knocking the man on the other side clean off his feet and sending him crashing to the floor several feet away, unconscious.
The two remaining men retreated another step but did not flee. The bars of the cell had bent but held; the beast was still contained behind them, prowling in the darkness. They watched as its clawed limbs probed methodically at the bars, reaching around and through them as though looking for some weakness. The sight of this unsettled them greatly. This was not the behavior of the mindless abominations to which they were accustomed. Those were naught but animals, driven only by savage ferocity. There was deliberation in the way this one moved. Purpose. Intelligence. It was almost human.