I hid, drew my knife and waited.
The hooves drew nearer. I grew tense and tried to count numbers by the drumming against the cold earth. Through the trees, I glimpsed motion. Surely these were minions of Erasmo della Rovere. No ordinary horsemen would dare ride so hard at night without light. The cavalcade thundered past. Soon the sound of hooves dwindled.
I sheathed my blade and stepped out of hiding. A horn blared in the distance. Several heartbeats later, a faint horn answered from even farther away. I was certain they hunted me. After a few moments deliberation, I changed my route and headed into the deeper woods.
Maybe an hour later I grew troubled. I’d missed something important. I slowed. Weasels, owls and bats had completed their night’s work. Dawn approached. Soon, starlings would sing and robins scour the ground for the early worm. I should rejoice. Evil creatures hid during the day. What had I missed?
I advanced cautiously. Something was wrong and I had no idea what or why. I turned in a circle and eyed each pine in sight. With a slow step, I approached a thicket. I wanted to reach Perugia, not hide like a rabbit. I listened. Silence. I brushed my knife-hand against my lips. Despising this cowardice, I eased into the thicket and waited. A dollop of cowardice was better than rash courage that would see me killed. Above all else, Erasmo must die, and that by my hand.
Through the screen of leaves, I scanned the forest. All seemed peaceful and yet a sense of terror filled me. Something grim approached. I felt it in my bones. Was it the lizard-beast? With an effort of will, I stood and looked around.
The first crack of dawn touched my eyes. It sent a wave of weakness through me. I toppled sideways and crashed against branches. The fiery blaze of dawn was several magnitudes too bright for me. I shut my eyes like a bat caught in the light. I needed a cave. Numbly, I recalled Lorelei’s words. The moon was my friend and the sun was my enemy. I might have wept at my fate. I might have raged. Instead, I drew my cloak over my head and hunkered like a hibernating bear.
My thoughts blurred and time jumped. For a single moment, I heard patter on pine needles…later, something chittered near my ear. I tried to rise, but once more fell into a stupor. If I dreamed, the imprints of them vanished upon my awareness later the next twilight.
I eased out of the thicket as stars appeared. I was an evil creature of the night. Like werewolves, vampires and altered hounds, I ran loose when good people locked their doors. How could I lead Perugia’s knights now? Which tournament could I enter? The barons of Perugia would elect a new prince. Its people would find my bolthole, drag me out and kindle flames under my feet. Could I hold Laura, hug the twins, cold as a corpse, a thing that only came out at night? What was I?
With heaviness of soul, I renewed my trek to Perugia.
***
Hooves drummed. Hounds bayed eerily. I flitted like a shadow, used trees, boulders and folds of the earth. Rage boiled in me. I wanted vengeance. It was like a fever and the moon rode high in the night sky.
I backtracked into a fig orchard. It must have been several years since anyone had pruned the trees or yanked out weeds here. I waited as hounds raced past, their human noses sniffing the original trail. Sorry creatures, twisted by sorcery, elongated men who ran naked on their hands and feet. Yet by Signor Guido’s example, a few of them were still capable of nobility. Horsemen followed. They wore cloaks, jerkins and held lanterns. They seemed human enough, but a closer examination proved the lie of that. They had faces like wooden masks and eyes of charcoal. The expressionless men spurred their horses so blood dripped from flanks. None of the men shouted. None laughed, frowned or snarled. They seemed like lifeless puppets, yet they gripped lances or swords and I knew they hunted me. Among them rode the man with fangs for teeth. He had his wide-brimmed hat with its crow’s feather and he grinned. A golden pendant dangled from the chain around his neck. I had no doubt the pendant bore the Cloaked Man.
“Faster!” he shouted. His hoarse voice was all too familiar.
When they galloped out of sight, I emerged from the orchard and headed for the next hill.
I soon darted into another orchard of fig trees, these wilder than those I’d left. That troubled me. These looked like healthy trees, would likely produce a good crop of figs. All a peasant needed to do was prune branches and weed between the rows, and later pick the fruit. These trees implied years of neglect. That implied the plague, Great Mortality, the Black Death, whatever one wished to call it, had swept through the surrounding villages years ago. I could not have ‘slept’ for years. That was too dreadful to contemplate.
Sounds ahead drew me out of my reverie. I climbed a boulder. Branches snapped about fifty feet straight down. Hounds bayed at that. Both sounds came from a narrow ravine thick with brush and brambles.
Something silvery broke out of the brambles below. It was a woman wearing a hood. She glanced wildly over her shoulder. She wore a short tunic that barely concealed her thighs and she gripped a bow. She dashed between two bushes. Moments later, human hounds broke out of the same brambles. They panted and gnashed their teeth in eagerness. None had Signor Guido’s nobility, but seemed hopelessly degraded as they sniffed her trail.
I leaped from my boulder and found myself crashing through bushes, plunging down the steep grade after them. My garments resisted the thorns and branches almost as well as chainmail. Then I was through and sprinted in the ravine.
Hounds bayed, and then came a terrible scream.
I drew my knife and burst into a glade. The woman stood at the end of it. She held her bow and sent an arrow at the pack baying to reach her. One hound dragged its hind legs, with an arrow in its side. She missed, coolly notched another arrow and sent it humming into a hound’s mouth. Then the twisted, elongated humans were upon her. They sank human-like teeth into her flesh. They punched, slapped and clawed. It was a horrifying performance. She fought back with a knife and wounded one. Then a hound ripped the knife from her. I expected it to stab flesh. Maybe the creature had forgotten how. Like wolves, they ravaged with teeth.
I shouted the Perugian war cry.
A human hound whirled around. I slashed. Smoke billowed from its face. Then I became like a lion among jackals. Teeth flashed at me. Fists and fingernails hit and cut. I thrust and hacked, and I realized my deathblade was exactly that. Each wound poured smoke. Each cut brought a howl from the twisted creatures. Soon I thrust my knife into the last one’s throat, heard it gurgle and hurled it off the woman.
A horn blared faintly in the distance. Could the others have heard the howls? Of course, they had heard. I knelt by the woman. She bled profusely from three bad bites. The worst poured blood like a maiden pouring water from a pitcher.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
Her silvery garments told me she belonged to the Moon Lady.
“Shhh,” I said.
She groped for my hand. I took hers.
“I’ve been looking for you,” she whispered. Blood stained her teeth.
“Let me bind your wounds,” I said.
“Listen,” she pleaded. “I’m dying. I know it. I must complete my task.”
I nodded.
“You must return to the castle,” she whispered. “You must complete the ceremony and become the Darkling. Lorelei lied to you.”
What could I say to that? “I suspected as much,” I said. I wanted to ease the woman’s passing.
“The Lord of Night is cunning,” she whispered. “Erasmo has summoned Orlando Furioso, the black knight. You must beware the black knight. If you’re to survive, you must gain all your Darkling powers.”
“Yes,” I said.
“Return to the castle,” she pleaded.