The old man coughed and gasped, and Cormac's skin prickled strangely. Too many of the things Fabricus said seemed to stir strange memories in his Gaelic racial soul.
"Rest easy, old man," he said. "This temple-this Outpost, as you call it, shall not remain standing."
"Aye," grunted Wulfhere, strangely moved. "Every stone in this place shall be cast into the pit that lies beneath!"
Cormac, too, felt an unaccustomed sadness-why he knew not, for often had he seen death before. "Christian or no, your's is a brave soul, old man. You shall be avenged…"
"Nay!" Fabricus held up a trembling, bloodless hand; his face seemed to shine with a mystic intensity. "I die, and vengeance means naught to my departing soul. I came to this evil place bearing the cross and speaking the cleansing words of our Lord, willing to die if only this world might be purged of that Dark One who has so foully slain so many and who plotted the Second Downfall of us all. And God has answered my prayers, for He has sent you here and you have slain the Serpent; now the Serpent's goat-minions can but flee to the wooded hills, and the Shoggoth return to the dark bowels of Hell whence it came." Fabricus gripped Cormac's right hand with his left, Wulfhere's with his right; then he said: "Gael-Norse-fellow humans you be, though of different races, different beliefs… Look now!" His countenance seemed to shine with a strange light as he feebly raised himself on one elbow. "It is as our Lord told me-all difference between us pale before the menace of the Dark Powers-aye, we be all brothers…"
Then the mystic, far-seeing eyes of Fabricus rolled upward and closed-in death. Cormac stood in grim silence, gripping his naked sword, then drew breath deeply and relaxed.
"What meant the man?" he grunted at last.
Wulfhere shook his shaggy mane. "I know not. He was mad, and his madness led him to his doom. Yet he had courage, for did he not go forth fearless, even as goes the berserker into battle, careless of death? He was a brave man-but this temple is an evil place that were better quitted…"
"Aye-and the sooner the better!"
Cormac sheathed his sword with a clang; again he breathed deeply.
"On to Wessex," he growled. "We'll clean our steel in good Saxon blood."