steel carried in the hand.
“We are not alone down here,” Raphael said.
CHAPTER 33:
AND THEN THERE WAS LIGHT…
The monastery gate was as weak as Finn surmised, the timbers splintering after three strong kicks from Finn’s boot. Using his spear as a wedge, he ripped and tore the rotted wood away until there was a large enough hole to pass through. After ducking and looking, he went first, leaping nimbly through the gap. Cnan followed, more readily and eagerly than she had anticipated, and Yasper came close on her heels.
Seeing the slaughtering grounds up close, Cnan was repelled at the number of bodies strewn about the ground. Blood, caked and dried to a black tar, was smeared everywhere, and in some places, it still had a sheen of dampness. Black clouds of flies hovered over carcasses, and some of the bodies wriggled with a false skin of maggots. The noise of the flies was a drone in the air.
Had she been by herself, she would not have been able to compose herself in time to address the approach of the two Livonians guards. However, Finn and Yasper were not as incapacitated, and as the two Livonians charged, the Shield-Brethren were ready.
The first Livonian never reached them. Finn’s thrown spear struck him forcefully in the throat, lifting him off his feet. He collapsed, squirming and clutching at the shaft of wood protruding from his neck, his bright blood spattering on the ground.
The second, sensing the sudden disappearance of his comrade, hesitated, and Yasper flung out his left hand. The Livonian cried out, ducking his head as something flew into his eyes. He never saw Yasper’s quick sword thrust.
Finn went to retrieve his spear, twisting it slightly to finish his man. “Come,” he said. “Let us not tarry to meet the monks who haunt this place.” He led them toward the well house.
It seemed almost too easy, and Cnan eyed the monastery buildings with some suspicion as they ran toward the tiny shack. She couldn’t help but wonder about the residents. Were there more? Where were they hiding? And were they allies of the Livonians or were they like the rest of the locals—frightened and eager to please?
Finn yanked open the door of the well house and ducked inside. Yasper waited at the door, panting slightly. “Awfully quiet,” he said as she reached the well house. The glee he had exhibited earlier was gone, and his face was a mask of shadowed grooves.
In spite of the tense silence in the courtyard, Cnan was gladdened by the Dutchman’s concern.
“It’s very dark,” Finn announced, appearing in the narrow doorway of the well house. “And there is no well.”
“Ah yes, in that case, the Virgin has blessed us and our inquiry,” Yasper smiled.
Someone screamed, and even though they had heard this voice—this cry—before, they flinched. They were much closer to the throat from which it originated, and the howl was such a blend of human and beast that they could not tell from which type of throat it issued.
The scream was a signal, for out of the other buildings poured a host of ragged men. They were more than filthy, their threadbare robes encrusted with shit and blood. Hair and beard were tangled and matted into one another, and their mouths were dark holes. Arms and legs, streaked with raw wounds that looked as if the skin had been flayed off by a ragged whip, poked out of the robes like broken sticks. They carried all manner of implement: knives, sticks, scythes, cudgels, awls, anything that could cut, smash, or tear an enemy’s flesh.
“Defilers,” the screamer shouted in heavily accented Latin, his voice like the wail of a dozen frightened children. “They must not interfere with God’s holy warriors.” He raised a long stave; mounted on its end was the horned skull of a ram, doused in some black, slick substance that dripped ichor onto the ground.
“Well,” Yasper noted dryly, “I guess that settles—”
From within the building, another monk emerged, a lit torch clutched in his bony hands. He lifted the torch toward the end of the apparition’s staff, and with a
“Oh,” Yasper noted, “how clever.”
“Inside,” Cnan shouted. “Now!” Grabbing a handful of the alchemist’s tunic, she dragged him toward the shack.
Finn was waiting for them inside, and she stumbled as her feet collided with a hard surface. Her eyes adjusted maddeningly slowly to the dimness. Finn had said there was no well, and what she found was a ring of raised stones. Rough steps, hewn out of the rock, led down into nothingness.
Finn pulled the door shut, hiding everything in darkness, and Yasper bumbled into her. “Careful,” she snapped as she stumbled again on the edge of the stairwell. “There’s a hole.”
“Of course there is a hole,” he replied, fumbling around in the dark. “How else would the Livonians have slipped away?”
Finn grunted as something slammed against the well house door.
Muttering under his breath, Yasper tripped over the lip of stone and managed to not fall down the stairs. Cnan heard his feet slap against the steps as he began to descend into the utter darkness. “I will see what I can do about light,” he called back, his voice floating in the void. “Keep them back as best you can.”
“And how are we going to do that?” Cnan grumbled, regretting she had ever acquiesced to their plan.
Finn bumped into her, and his hand found her arm. “Down,” he said, his mouth close to her ear. “They can only come a few at a time. Kill enough of them, maybe they leave.” He chuckled, low in his throat. “Or maybe not. We’ll see, hmm?”
A body slammed against the door again, and Cnan—abruptly aware that Finn was no longer beside the door —let out a tiny cry of despair. But the door remained closed, and Finn had not let go of her. “Down,” he said again, tugging at her arm. “There was a beam to block the door. It will hold for a little while.”
Mollified, Cnan began to descend the stair, her right hand tracing along the rock wall. The staircase was an impossibly tight spiral, straight down. By the time she thought to count her steps, she had already gone far enough she couldn’t remember how many lay above her. Eventually her right hand slipped off the wall, trailing into empty space, and with her heart in her mouth, she took two more steps and found herself on solid ground.
A thin green light bobbled in front of her, and as she stood at the base of the stair, terrified but unable to know which way to run, the glow drew nearer.
It was Yasper, holding a tiny piece of curved glass in his hand. The surface shifted and shimmered as he walked, and the light was bright enough for her to see the nature of the catacombs in which they stood.
The chamber extended farther than the illumination offered by Yasper’s witch light. A nearby wall was inset with niches from floor to ceiling, extending endlessly in either direction. Cnan swallowed, seeing in each the bones of the long dead, some beneath cloth so thin as to be transparent under the gleam of Yasper’s light. Empty eye sockets stared at her, and skeletal mouths gaped—expressions frozen somewhere between awe and terror.
“Where’s Finn?” Yasper asked, peering over Cnan’s shoulder.
“He said something about forcing them to attack him one at a time.”
“Not on the stairs,” Yasper sighed. “Finn,” he hissed, trying to catch the hunter’s attention, “down here. Where it is flat.”
Cnan stared at the liquid in the tiny bowl, trying to ken how it generated light. It was a mystery—one of Yasper’s alchemical tricks—and most likely well beyond her knowledge. But staring at the light was more agreeable than gazing upon the staring eyes of the dead.
They heard Finn coming, his feet light and quick against the stone. Yasper grunted and motioned for her to follow. Holding his witch light carefully, he led them deeper into the catacombs.
