She was a brave woman, had turned at bay and fought to the very last. I admired that.
“You cannot defeat Erasmo as you are,” she whispered. “He holds the Tower of the East. He-” She coughed blood, too much.
“Be at ease,” I said. “I will do as you ask.”
She looked at me with glazed eyes. Then she died. I brushed my palm across her eyes and closed them. I was sick of running like a frightened peasant. I wanted the hunter who had sent hounds after a young maid and who’d kicked Guido in the side. Signor Fangs for Teeth thought it a joke to fling rocks at my head.
I studied the grim tableau around me, arose and thought about Magi Filippo. It was time to set a trap of my own.
***
I waited in the boulders above the ravine. Riders came on fast. Through the trees, I heard the jangle of their equipment and saw the bob of lanterns. My coin grew heavy then.
“Hold!” a man shouted. His voice came through the foliage and the jangling sounds quit as horses whinnied.
Return to the castle. You must not risk capture, my Darkling.
“That way,” Signor Fangs for Teeth said. “He’s over there.”
I knew then that the hunter was a sorcerer, at least enough of one to sense when the Moon Lady communed with me and in what direction.
I took out the coin and whispered, “You’re giving me away.” Prudence stopped me from saying more.
I tucked away the coin and saw the lanterns approaching. They were supposed to have followed the hounds’ trail and to have found the slain moon maiden. While they examined the dead, I would have crept near enough to strike.
I slid from my perch and couched behind the boulder. I had the advantage of a steep and brambly slope. They could not ride their horses up it and I might possibly attack them one-by-one if they dared climb on foot.
I wondered if the Moon Lady knew the hunter could track through her coin, at least when she attempted to communicate with me. If she knew, then she was trying to scare me off. If she didn’t know, it meant the dark gods had limitations.
Like wild boars and with a great shaking of leaves, the band broke into the open. Dead-faced men rode in the van and in the back. Signor Fangs for Teeth was in the middle. He held up his hand. Riders drew rein and woodenly slid out swords. None bothered looking upslope, but waited like statues. I couldn’t decide if they were true dead men or under a wicked spell.
The hunter removed his wide-brimmed hat and mopped his forehead with a cloth. He fiddled with the crow’s feather, put on the hat and adjusted it to a rakish angle. Then he leaned forward, with both hands on the saddle’s pommel. Leather creaked as he peered up. I saw him smile and expose his signature fangs.
“It has been a good hunt.” He scanned the ridgeline. “But now my master wishes to see you, Darkling. It’s rather urgent.”
I crept from behind my boulder and eased behind brambles. Carefully, I began to descend down-slope.
“He prefers you intact, undamaged. But if you resist too frantically, we’re allowed….” His grin widened. “I shan’t say ‘kill you’, as that’s rather redundant. But I’m sure you understand the drift of my thoughts, signor. It’s said that once you were a gentleman of the highest quality.”
Something crackled down to my left. I peered intently. A dead-faced man crept uphill. I scanned the brambles. There were others. Oh, the hunter was clever. I hadn’t seen them dismount and slip into cover.
I heard a whine behind me uphill.
“Hsst, keep quiet,” a human hound growled.
“It’s odd living in the dark,” the hunter said. “The old ways, they die hard. Perhaps that is why I was at the bonfire with the flagellants. I remember before the change occurred-” The hunter shrugged, and he raised his voice. “Walk down like a gentleman, signor. It won’t be pleasant for you if I unleash the hounds.”
I drew my deathblade. I’d often practiced knife throwing as a squire and had attained a degree of skill. But to trust all on a single cast and possibly lose my deathblade, it was risky. Yet I remembered what had happened to the bondlings when I’d slain Magi Filippo. I slid farther down-slope.
“Here,” a hound howled from the ridge. “Here, here, here, he’s here, master.”
The hunter laughed triumphantly and reached into a saddlebag.
I slid down-slope faster yet. Then dead-faced men dismounted, five of them with swords. They formed a shield wall at the foot of the slope.
I stood up, about halfway down.
The hunter pulled his hand from the saddlebag and raised a thin stick. “You’re wise,” he said. “Now walk down into the lantern-light.”
“You made a mistake,” I said.
“If you mean Guido the hound,” he said, “it’s you who are mistaken. Once I learned of his treachery, others spiked his paws onto wood while I flayed him alive. It was an instructive time.”
I flipped my deathblade and caught it by the tip. “You not only live in the dark,” I said, “but the dark has flooded your soul.”
The hunter pinched the brim of his hat and tipped it. “Well spoken, signor. Now if you’d hurry, we have a long journey ahead of us.”
“Your mistake is in thinking this is a hunt,” I said.
“Do you prefer the word ‘chase’?”
“No. War.” My arm snapped forward. The knife whirled, and I heard a wet thud. The hunter’s mouth sagged. His stick fell from his grasp. Then he toppled from the saddle to crash onto the ground.
Around me, in the brambles and below, dead-faced men collapsed as if someone had cut puppet-strings. While as before, the hounds bayed as if their skin had caught fire, and they fled.
I worked down the rest of the way, put my foot on the hunter’s chest and yanked out the blade. Smoke trickled from the wound, and his medallion winked as if sunlight had struck it. I crouched beside the body and peered at the golden pedant. It was of the Cloaked Man. I reached for the thin stick, thought better of that and searched for an ordinary twig. With it, I prodded the medallion.
“Erasmo della Rovere,” I said, directing my speech toward it. “Can you hear me?”
I waited, but nothing happened. I prodded the medallion again, considered taking it, but rejected the idea. If the hunter had been able to trace me through my coin, surely the Lord of Night could do so with a Cloaked Man medallion.
I forced a grin. “How’s your foot, Erasmo?” I glanced around to see if anyone was near. No one was. I bent low and whispered, “In the swamp, you shouldn’t have run away. You should have fought me like a knight. I had a terrible wound. You might have won. But then the Good Book says, ‘The wicked flee when no man pursueth’.”
I rose abruptly, and I kicked the corpse. Erasmo held my wife and children. I stared at the medallion, wondering if it was true that a sorcerer could retrieve images from it. Had Erasmo heard my words? I did not know. Then I continued the journey to Perugia.
— 16-
Halfway through the next night I reached the southern end of Lake Trasimene. Stars glittered on the still waters. Fishermen had surely retired at dusk and now slept in their cottages, their boats secured until morning.
Long ago Hannibal of Carthage had invaded these lands. He’d lured a Roman consular army into a trap along the northern shore of Lake Trasimene. According to ancient accounts, Consul Flaminius had marched the legions on the road to Perugia. Wily Hannibal had conjured a mist, hidden his troops near the lake and demanded silence. Hours later, the legions had tramped unsuspecting along the lakeshore, with their gear a-jangle. At the precise moment, Hannibal swept aside the fog. With a thunderous hurrah, his army charged down on the strung-out Romans. The sorcerer of Carthage slaughtered fifteen thousand legionaries that day, along with Consul Flaminius.
Thinking grim thoughts, I trod upon bricks laid down by those ancient legionaries. It made me wonder. How long ago had I ridden out at the head of my horsemen?