The Templar Chronicles (68 page)

An occasional streetlamp pushed back the darkness, their green-blue flames dancing and weaving inside domes of fuzzy glass.

Riley looked around with distaste. “How are we going to find Duncan in this place?”

“I think our best bet is to just keep moving.”

Before he could say anything more, shouts erupted from close by. He turned toward the sound, his hand on the hilt of his weapon, and was nearly bowled over when someone dashed out of a nearby alley and slammed into him.

As he disentangled himself from the newcomer, Cade was astonished to see that it was a young girl. She couldn’t have been more than six or seven, with long dark hair bound up in pigtails. She wore a grey shift that hung loosely on her frame and it was clear, from the mud and food stains upon its surface, that it hadn’t been washed in some time.

She looked up into their surprised faces and must have seen something reassuring, for she immediately moved to put them between herself and the direction from which she had come and said in a frightened voice, “Don’t let them get me!”

Before either of them could say anything, her pursuers arrived on the scene.

There were two of them, big, hulking brutes at least seven feet tall, and they looked like they meant business. Both wore stylized metal masks covering the lower half of their faces and rose up to surround their blood red eyes, masks that appeared to be bolted directly into the skin and bone beneath. Above the masks, their bare scalps were crisscrossed with a web of thick red scars.

A network of similar scars ran across their bare chests and heavily muscled arms, giving the impression that they had been repeatedly whipped at some point in the recent past. Long armored skirts covered their lower extremities all the way down to their booted feet. Both were armed with large curved blades that resembled oversized scimitars. Despite their brutish appearance, they had an aura of authority that was hard to dismiss.

If this is what the city was using for law enforcement, Cade would be quite happy to stay on their good side.

At the sight of her pursuers, the girl cowered.

Enforcer #1 barked something in a language neither Cade nor Riley could understand. When he saw that he wasn’t being understood, he raised his weapon in a menacing gesture.

A common language wasn’t needed to understand that message.

Out of the corner of his eye, Cade saw Riley’s hand drift toward the hilt of his weapon in response. “This isn’t our fight,” Cade said, though he didn’t take his eyes off of the enforcers.

But even as he said it, Cade knew that Riley wasn’t going to see things that way. He’d never been to the Beyond, didn’t understand that sometimes the most vile creatures were often those that hid under innocent guises. He saw only a defenseless girl being harassed by two bullies, rather than the possibility that the girl, despite her innocent appearance, might actually be the greater danger.

Enforcer # 1 had apparently had enough. He strode forward and reached out for the girl with his free hand, ignoring the Templar warriors completely, as if he knew they wouldn’t dare defy him.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

“Get up! It’s time to go.”

The command was accompanied by a swift kick to his already broken ribs and Duncan did what he could to stifle a groan of pain. The thin smile of triumph that graced his captor’s face seconds later let him know he hadn’t been entirely successful.

Just wait, you son of a bitch, wait until I get my hands on you… But he knew that right now he wasn’t getting his hands on anyone, no matter how badly he wanted to, as they were still bound in the set of manacles that Bishop had slapped on them the night before. He hadn’t been imagining things either; the metal still felt cold and greasy to the touch, just as it had last night, and seemed to squirm against his flesh with a life of its own. It made him sick to his stomach if he thought about it, so he did his best to ignore it and think about other things.

Like how the heck to get out of here.

He rolled over, the chains clanking against each other as he climbed to his feet. His legs were unsteady beneath him and he again wondered if his physical condition was simply a result of being here in the Beyond or if Bishop was surreptitiously feeding on him in the dead of night. Either way, it was clear that something was going on. He hadn’t felt this weak in years. His sight was fuzzy, his balance shot, and he couldn’t seem to keep track of his thoughts for more than a few minutes no matter how hard he tried.

There was a knock on the door of their room. Bishop opened it slightly, looked out, and then said something to whoever was outside. Duncan could make out the quiet murmur of another voice answering him, but he couldn’t understand what was said. Bishop must have been satisfied with the response, however, for he hauled on the length of chain attached to Duncan’s manacles and the captive had no choice but to follow.

The hallway was empty when they emerged from the room; whoever had been there was gone. They descended to the main floor and passed through several rooms before reaching another staircase. Unlike the first one, this one descended into the depths of the cellar beneath the structure. No sooner had they reached the bottom of that staircase that they entered a series of tunnels carved from the earth itself, marching ahead into the darkness and quickly leaving the light behind.

The tunnels were cold, dark, and narrow. Despite the lack of illumination Bishop moved unerringly through their depths, hauling Duncan along with him, unmindful of the fact that the other man couldn’t see. Time and time again Duncan slammed into the walls as Bishop turned into narrow side passages without giving his captive any warning and before long Duncan had lost all sense of direction, the need to keep from smashing his head into an unseen obstacle requiring all of his concentration and preventing him from memorizing the turns they’d taken thus far.

By the time light from somewhere up ahead began to filter back down the tunnel to them, Duncan was too exhausted to do anything but follow his captor.

The light grew brighter and it wasn’t long before they emerged from the tunnel and found themselves on a beach of black sand, facing the open sea. Six-foot torches were jammed into the ground in a semi-circle around the cave from which they emerged, their flames burning that strange green-silver color that Duncan had seen back in the camp.

The sight of the ship anchored out in the harbor brought him to a stumbling halt.

It was like something out of the history books, a three-masted sailing vessel with high sides and square stern. Gun ports could be seen running along the side facing the harbor and Duncan found himself wondering about the sorts of beings that might be manning those weapons in a place like this. The ship rode low in the water, though whether from the style of its construction or because it was heavy with cargo, he couldn’t tell. It dawned on him that the torches had been set up as a signal for those aboard the vessel and sure enough, a second, smaller light on the water showed them a longboat halfway between the galleon and the beach. It was clearly headed in their direction and upon seeing it, Bishop smiled in satisfaction.

Duncan realized that he was either going to be handed off to the men in the ship or the two of them were going to take a trip somewhere together.

It turned out to be the later.

Bishop dragged him down to the waterline and there they waited for the longboat to reach them. As it drew closer Duncan could see that there were two men working the oars, while a third stood in the prow holding a lantern, lighting the way.

When they reached the beach the oarsmen jumped out and dragged the vessel up into the beach, allowing the other to disembark without setting foot in the water. The leader strode across the sand and greeted Bishop in a language Duncan didn’t understand. The other man obviously did though, for he responded in the same tongue.

He was quite large, seven feet at least, Duncan guessed, with the girth to match. He was dressed in clothes that belonged in another century, high-waisted pants and a ruffled shirt, with sailor’s boots on his feet and a thick cloak with a hood tied about his neck to complete the image.

Duncan couldn’t see his face but when the other turned in his direction he could see eyes of blazing red there in the darkness beneath the hood. The Templar knight was suddenly happy that that was all that he could see.

Bishop and the newcomer conversed for a few minutes, with Bishop growing angrier with each response he received, until at last he was shouting.

The other man refused to budge, however, and Bishop finally had no choice but to give in.

Calling the other man a thief and a whore beneath his breath, Bishop reached inside his shirt and produced a small cloth pouch which he then handed to the newcomer. The other man, if that was indeed what he actually was, slipped it into the pocket of his cloak without opening it and then gestured toward the longboat behind him.

It was clearly an invitation.

With a harsh yank on the chains, which forced Duncan to stumble forward to keep up, Bishop strode down the beach and stepped aboard the boat.

No sooner were they aboard than the crew pushed the boat back out into the surf, jumped aboard, and headed back toward the galleon waiting in deeper waters.

“You’ve heard of the Flying Dutchman?” Bishop asked, while staring out across the bay.

Duncan nodded, not taking his eyes off the ship that was rapidly looming closer. Having grown up on the coast and having spent considerable time on the water as a child, the legend of that spectral ship forever doomed to sail the world’s oceans was one he’d learned of at an early age.

“You’re about to board the vessel on which the legend is based. She’s known as the Black Rose and if ever there was a ship that was damned, this is it.” Bishop turned to face him, a sneer plastered across his face. “You should be honored. You’re the first passenger they’ve had in more than five hundred years. Living passenger, that is.”

Apparently the crew understood the joke for they all laughed along with Bishop and the sound made Duncan’s skin crawl.

It didn’t take them long to cross the bay and reach the galleon. As they came abreast of the ship, a rope was thrown over the side and caught by Red Eyes where he stood in the prow. Without a word to his passengers he turned and hauled himself up to the deck high above. The remaining crew members stared at Bishop and Duncan, making it clear that they were expected to board the ship in the same fashion.

Duncan lifted his hands toward Bishop.

“There’s no way I can climb that rope while wearing these things. If you want me to get up there, you’re gonna have to unlock them.”

Bishop laughed. “You can climb or you can die. Your choice.” Reaching behind him, he grabbed the rope and quickly climbed out of reach.

“Son of a….” Duncan fumed, but there was little that he could do. Knowing the crew would probably toss him overboard if he didn’t follow orders, he grabbed the rope, planted one foot against the side of the boat, and started upward.

His injured shoulder screamed at him, but he ignored it as much as he could. He didn’t have any choice. He knew the others wouldn’t wait forever; at some point they were going to get annoyed and simply cut the rope, letting him drop, chains and all, into the water below. If that happened, he was dead. The weight of the chains would drag him under and he’d drown. He had to reach the top, by whatever means possible, before that happened.

By leaning back against the rope and shifting his hands slowly upward a few inches at a time, he found he could walk himself, one step at a time, up the side of the ship. The weight of the chains pulled at him, threatened to peel him right off the side of the ship, but he gritted his teeth against the pain and shouldered on.

When he reached the top, rough hands grabbed him and pulled him over the rail. He collapsed in exhaustion, the sweat pouring off him and his arms straining from the pain.

The two crew members who’d brought them back from the beach swarmed up the sides of the ship and the longboat itself was hauled up immediately after them.

Captain Red Eyes strode to the middle of the deck and gave a hoarse shout and the crew jumped to obey his command. Deck hands scrambled up the masts, unfurling great black sails that flapped in the breeze that had suddenly sprung up from nowhere as if at the captain’s command, and the navigator spun the wheel to take advantage of it.

A strange sound caught Duncan’s attention. It was coming from somewhere above him and when he looked up to see what it was, he couldn’t help but gasp.

Faces could be seen in the surface of the sails. Faces of men, women, and children, rising to the surface and disappearing again into the depths, faces of the damned screaming in pain and horror and it was their cries that he’d heard.

For the first time since he’d been captured he had the feeling that he was on his own. Not even God seemed to hear him in this hellish place. As he listened to the cries of the damned and watched the ship carve its way through the seas, he wondered if this was it, if the last thing he would ever see would be the faces of the infernal crew around him.

CHAPTER THIRTY

As the first of the guards reached past Cade for the girl hiding behind him, the Templar warrior made his decision. He didn’t know if the girl was simply a girl, or something more, but right now the guardsmen posed a much bigger threat than she did.

Maybe the guard didn’t expect resistance. Maybe he was stupid. Maybe he was just used to getting his own way. Whatever the reason, he was completely unprepared for what happened next.

As the brute reached past Cade, intent on getting a good grip on his intended quarry, the Templar knight drew his weapon and, stepping back, brought it slashing down at the man’s exposed arm.

There was a moment of resistance and then the guard’s severed arm dropped to the pavement with a wet plop.

For a second there was silence.

Then all hell broke loose.

Blood spurted from what was left of the man’s arm, drenching Cade’s stolen robe in a fountain of gore. A scream burst from the man’s mouth at the same time but Cade was already in motion, having expected it. He kicked the man’s legs out from under him, reversed his grip on his sword in one fluid motion, and then drove the blade downward through the man’s mouth and out the back of his skull, cutting the sound off in mid-cry.