Authors: Neil Jackson
The grey
figure stood still and silent.
“
Let us enter,” the Earl said, raising his voice. Menzies knew
that anger was near the surface now.
The grey
figure did not respond.
“
Are you daft man?” the Earl said, and stepped
forward.
The robed
figure raised a hand and placed it against the Earl’s chest. It
seemed innocuous enough, little more than a warning gesture. But
the Earl pressed forward, straining. No matter how much effort he
put into the act, he was unable to force himself past the man,
unable to move the hand from its place on his chest.
Still the
grey figure did not speak.
“
You cannot refuse me,” the Earl shouted. “I do the Lord’s
will.”
He
stepped back and hacked at the offending arm with a downward blow
of the longsword.
There was a dull
thud.
Menzies looked to
the ground, for by rights, that was where the arm should lie. The
stroke should have cleaved it from the body.
The grey
figure had not moved as the sword came down. There was a long cut
in the robe, and beneath it pale wrinkled flesh showed.
There
is no wound. Barely even a scratch.
The
Earl raised the sword again. Before he could bring it down the grey
figure stepped forward under the blade. A white hand grabbed at the
Earl’s tunic and, with as little effort as a child tossing a
pebble, threw the Earl backward to land heavily on his hind-end in
the dust.
Beside
Menzies, the Hawick man started to pray.
The grey
figure withdrew his hand back into the robes and stood, silent and
still in the doorway.
The Earl
struggled to his feet.
“
Kill him,” he shouted.
The four
men in front of Menzies raised their swords and attacked. The grey
figure let them come. He caught the first swinging sword with his
left hand, gripping the blade tight.
There
is no blood.
With a
tug the robed man pulled the attacker off balance and caught him,
one-handed, around the throat. He
twisted
. The
snap
of the man’s neck breaking echoed
in the hills above them. Another of the Earl’s men fell to the
ground. The grey figure
stomped
on his back, foot crushing all the way through his
spine with a crack of bone and a gush of blood that soaked the
bottom foot of the robe.
“
They
are devils,” the Hawick man said. “We cannot fight such as
these.”
“
We
have the Lord on our side,” the Earl said and pushed past Menzies.
“We
shall
prevail.”
The
two men left in the doorway rained blow after blow on the
robed
thing
before
them. Bits of cloth flew. Where the blades found their mark they
made only a dull thud, like striking wood instead of
flesh.
One of the men
overreached with a blow. The grey one swatted the sword aside and
thrust a hand into the man’s chest, punching all the way through
the ribs and out the man’s back. Blood sprayed, and Menzies tasted
it in his mouth.
It sent the Earl
into a frenzied attack.
The last of the
four men who had pressed the attack fell away from the doorway,
dead eyes staring accusingly at Menzies.
The Hawick man
tugged at Menzies’ tunic.
“
Come
away James. This is madness,” he said.
But Menzies could
not take his eyes from the Earl. The big man pressed an attack with
the longsword that would have felled many Saracens in battle,
moving fluidly and swiftly, raining blow after blow on the grey
figure.
The
air was filled with the sound of sword strokes
thudding
into the body beneath the
robes.
Yet
still it stands.
“
Die
you devil, die!” the Earl shouted. “In the name of our Lord Jesus
Christ.”
The grey figure
went still. It raised its head, as if listening. The hood of the
robe fell back from its face, revealing a pale ivory visage.
Milk-white eyes stared blindly at the Earl. Its mouth opened and
closed, revealing yellow teeth and a grey tongue inside, but no
sound came. It made no defence as the Earl brought the sword round
one clean sweep that nearly took its head off at the
neck.
The body fell to
the ground and lay still.
Menzies relaxed
his grip on his sword. He hadn’t even had a chance to swing
it.
The Earl stood
over the robed figure.
“
Let
us see what manner of thing this is.”
He bent and
pulled the robe away.
The body below
was thin to the point of emaciation, ribcage showing through skin
that was almost translucent. The milky-white eyes stared from
lidless sockets and when Menzies bent to check the body, the hair
felt dry as straw. He touched a cheek. The flesh was cold, but not
overly so. It felt too stiff, too unyielding. He rapped his
knuckles on an arm. It rang, like a piece of wood.
“
What
deviltry is this?”
“
That
is not all,” the Earl said. “Look.”
He held up one of
the grey figure’s hands. The fingernails were long and pointed,
with a deep brown hue that shone in the moonlight where it caught
on razor sharp edges.
“
Have
you ever seen anything like it Hawick?” Menzies said.
When there was no
reply he looked around.
David of Hawick
was nowhere to be seen.
The Earl clapped
Menzies on the shoulder.
“
Never
fear lad. We two are enough for any foe. We have the Lord on our
side. Come. Our destiny awaits us.”
Menzies followed
the Earl into the tower.
The doorway led
into a large open area. There were carvings, and carved pillars,
everywhere Menzies looked.
One particular
pillar caught his eye. Some eight feet tall and nearly two feet
wide, the carvings ran up its length in a loose spiral. Red
serpents lay at its base, and dark bat-winged fiends circled its
top. In the spiral carving, men screamed in torment as demons
fed.
“
A
pretty place for worship,” the Earl said at his side.
Another set of
carvings caught his eye; a naked figure, blindfolded, with cherub’s
wings but milky-white eyes, it had one hand on its breast, and
another on its right calf. A grey figure, also blindfolded, hung
suspended upside down in a tight coil of rope, and a cherub, paler
than the rest, sucked hungrily from a bloody heart, while the
heart’s owner looked on in horror.
“
What
are we looking for?” Menzies whispered. “For I would like to find
it quickly, and leave this place.”
The Earl did not
reply. He started to make his way around the chamber, tapping on
the stone with the hilt of his sword, looking for hidden
spaces.
For the next half
an hour they searched the chamber, but there was only the stone and
the carvings.
Outside the moon
went behind a cloud and the gloom deepened such that it was almost
impossible to make out anything beyond the position of the exterior
doorway and the high windows.
“
We
cannot stay,” Menzies whispered. “There may be more of those grey
demons here somewhere. In this darkness it would be folly to
attempt such a thing.”
The Earl
nodded.
“
It
will be dawn soon enough, and we will return.”
They made for the
door, but never reached it. The moon threw shadows across the
threshold as four tall grey figures came inside. Menzies recognised
them immediately despite their milky-white stares. The last time
he’d seen them they’d been lying on the ground dead. Even in the
gloom he could make out the bloody hole in the chest of the first
through the door.
On the far side
of the chamber a section of the wall slid aside, stone grating
against stone. Someone stood in the new doorway, backlit by
flickering torches beyond. This one was taller by a hand than any
of the others, and wore a white robe, but still with the crude
black circle emblazoned on the chest. He raised an arm.
The four figures
at the doorway came forward, slowly, deliberately.
Menzies and the
Earl moved so that they stood back to back.
“
We’re
in a tight spot sire,” Menzies said.
“
Near
as bad as yon whorehouse in Nicosia,” the Earl replied.
They were still
laughing when the first of the four moved forward to
attack.
Seconds later
Menzies was fighting for his life, against men who had been his
companions just an hour before, men who showed no recognition, just
stared at him from dead white eyes.
The
Earl was able to keep his two at bay by using the length of the
longsword to his advantage, but Menzies struggled. His sword was
good for close quarters, for stabbing opponents in their soft
tissues at stomach and groin. But the
things
that attacked him were far from
soft.
A cold hand
grabbed him at the left bicep and started to squeeze. The pain sent
white heat lancing through Menzies. He threw himself away to one
side, lashing out with the sword as he hit the ground. A lucky blow
caught his attacker behind the knee, hobbling him and bringing the
body crashing to the floor. The Earl was quick to spot the
opportunity. The longsword took the head off at the
neck.
“
Don’t
get up,” the Earl shouted, whirling the sword around him at head
height. “You hamstring them, I’ll do the rest.”
The plan proved
more effective than Menzies could have hoped. The grey things were
strong, but seemed to lack any intelligence. Even as one fell, cut
through the calf, another stepped forward within easy reach. It was
hard work, and the sword had grown heavy, his arm jarred from the
weight of blows necessary to get the job done.
Minutes later
Menzies stood beside the Earl. They were both breathing heavily,
but neither had taken a serious injury. Four bodies, twice dead
now, lay at their feet. Menzies gave the nearest a hefty kick in
the ribs. It didn’t move.
“
I
think its dead. I have taken its head off,” the Earl said
laughing.
Menzies kicked
the body again.
“
And
it has a hole in its chest you can see straight through.
That
didn’t slow it down
much.”
The Earl kicked
one of the heads. It rolled away across the floor towards the
opening where the newcomer had stood. Menzies’ gaze followed the
path of the rolling head. The doorway was empty. Firelight
flickered beyond, but there was no other movement, no other
sound.
“
What
say you,” the Earl asked. “Shall we finish what we came to
do?”
Menzies hefted
his sword.
“
After
you my lord.”
The chamber
beyond was obviously the reason the tower had been built in this
place. It was a vast natural cavern in the side of the cliff, the
torchlight sending shadows dancing overheard until they merged with
the darkness above, where the ceiling was too high to be seen in
the gloom. On the far side of the cavern, some thirty paces away,
the white robed figure stood in front of a plain wooden cross that
towered high over him. Beside the cross sat a stone plinth.
Something lay on top of the stone, but Menzies was as yet too far
away to make out what it was.
The floor between
the men and the cross was laid out in a huge circular mosaic, a
pattern that spiralled in towards the centre. Latin inscriptions
ran alongside miniature figures. Menzies had no schooling, but the
Earl had spent many a year in the cloisters of the Abbey with the
monks. The Earl started to walk the spiral, mumbling to
himself.
“
Calgary… our Lord… King of the Jews. A storm… a crown for the
king. He dies…”
Menzies got
another cold chill up his spine. Suddenly he had no desire to see
what lay on the plinth.
The Earl kept
mumbling.
“
The
crown is taken, spirited away…a safe place, high in the mountains…
”
He was almost at
the centre of the spiral now.
“
The
Brotherhood of the Thorns… guardians.”
He reached the
centre of the spiral. He looked at his feet, then at the black
circle painted on the white robe.
“
I
know what it is,” he whispered.
He motioned
Menzies over to join him. Menzies looked down.
A
crown of thorns.
The Earl stared
rapt, at the stone plinth.
“
The
crown worn by our Lord during his passion,” he said. “The thorns
are stained with his blood.”
He turned back to
Menzies.
“
With
this, we can retake the Holy City. With the Lord’s blood in our
hands, we can wipe the heathen from the face of the earth. We can
make the world Christian.”