Samurai and Other Stories (22 page)

“The place seems empty, Sire,” one of the men said.

The Earl rose. Chain mail rustled. Menzies was amazed that the big man had got up the cliff wearing it. The rest of them had ditched theirs in the sand in favour of leather tunics and desert robes, swapping their longswords for smaller, lighter blades that were more easily carried in the searing heat. But the Earl refused to bow completely to the elements. Although he had ditched most of his armour, he retained the mail beneath a long heavy tunic and had carried the heavy sword all the way from Jerusalem. Now he unsheathed it from its scabbard. Moonlight glinted along the blade. Once more the mail rustled.
 

He must have been near to baking inside there.

But still he’d been the one pushing them all the way, and the first, and fastest man, up the sheer cliff face.

“The Lord wills it,” was all he had ever said when pushed on the matter.

Now the big man stood staring at the tower, and Menzies knew exactly where the
Lord’s will
was going to lead them next.
 

The big man turned to Menzies, and for a second a shadow of fear seemed to slide across his features.

“If I should fall, bury me at home, Menzies. Promise me that at least?”

Menzies nodded.
 

“I have always served you, Sire. I will serve in this matter, too.”

The Earl nodded.

“Then come. Let us see if the truth was told in yon dungeon in Jerusalem.”

*
   
*
   
*

The Earl went first. Behind him the others drew their swords and kept close order. Menzies brought up the rear with David of Hawick. The man leaned on his sword, using it as a walking stick.

“Stay here, man,” Menzies said. “No one will think the less of you.”

The Hawick man laughed, his voice little more than a whisper.

“And let you Melrose men get all the glory? I’d never be able to show my face at home again. Come. Let us see what wonders our liege has led us to.”

The two of them were several yards behind the others as they approached the main entrance to the tower. It had been in deep shadow earlier, but as they approached they saw that a thick wooden door protected the doorway. It was currently closed.

The Earl banged hard on it with the hilt of his sword.

“There are Christian men here seeking succour,” he shouted, his voice echoing in the cliffs.

All fell quiet for the space of five heartbeats, then the door swung open. Around Menzies the men gripped harder at their swords.
 

The Earl had the longsword raised high above his head, ready for any attack, but lowered it when a hooded figure in long grey robes appeared in the doorway. The hood fell forward over the man’s face, obscuring his features in shadow. The only distinguishing mark on the robes was a black circle, crudely painted on at the chest. The robe trailed on the ground so that not even his feet were visible, and his hands were lost in swathes of material that fell in voluminous folds over his arms.

The men did not relax, but there seemed to be no attack forthcoming. The grey robed figure just stood there, blocking the door.

“We are Christian men needing shelter and succour,” the Earl said again. “Will you let us enter?”
 

The grey figure stood still and silent.
 

“Let us enter,” the Earl said, raising his voice. Menzies knew that anger was near the surface now.

The grey figure did not respond.

“Are you daft, man?” the Earl said, and stepped forward.

The robed figure raised a hand and placed it against the Earl’s chest. It seemed innocuous enough, little more than a warning gesture. But the Earl pressed forward, straining. No matter how much effort he put into the act, he was unable to force himself past the man, unable to move the hand from its place on his chest.
 

Still the grey figure did not speak.

“You cannot refuse me,” the Earl shouted. “I do the Lord’s will.”

He stepped back and hacked at the offending arm with a downward blow of the longsword.

There was a dull
thud.

Menzies looked to the ground, for by rights, that was where the arm should lie. The stroke should have cleaved it from the body.

The grey figure had not moved as the sword came down. There was a long cut in the robe, and beneath it pale wrinkled flesh showed.
 

There is no wound. Barely even a scratch.

The Earl raised the sword again. Before he could bring it down the grey figure stepped forward under the blade. A white hand grabbed at the Earl’s tunic and, with as little effort as a child tossing a pebble, threw the Earl backward to land heavily on his hind-end in the dust.
 

Beside Menzies, the Hawick man started to pray.
 

The grey figure withdrew his hand back into the robes and stood, silent and still in the doorway.

The Earl struggled to his feet.

“Kill him,” he shouted.

The four men in front of Menzies raised their swords and attacked. The grey figure let them come. He caught the first swinging sword with his left hand, gripping the blade tight.

There is no blood.

With a tug the robed man pulled the attacker off balance and caught him, one-handed, around the throat. He twisted. The snap of the man’s neck breaking echoed in the hills above them. Another of the Earl’s men fell to the ground. The grey figure stomped on his back, foot crushing all the way through his spine with a crack of bone and a gush of blood that soaked the bottom foot of the robe.

“They are devils,” the Hawick man said. “We cannot fight such as these.”

“We have the Lord on our side,” the Earl said and pushed past Menzies. “We shall prevail.”
 

The two men left in the doorway rained blow after blow on the robed thing before them. Bits of cloth flew. Where the blades found their mark they made only a dull thud, like striking wood instead of flesh.
 

One of the men overreached with a blow. The grey one swatted the sword aside and thrust a hand into the man’s chest, punching all the way through the ribs and out the man’s back. Blood sprayed, and Menzies tasted it in his mouth.

It sent the Earl into a frenzied attack.

The last of the four men who had pressed the attack fell away from the doorway, dead eyes staring accusingly at Menzies.

The Hawick man tugged at Menzies’ tunic. “Come away, James. This is madness,” he said.

But Menzies could not take his eyes from the Earl. The big man pressed an attack with the longsword that would have felled many Saracens in battle, moving fluidly and swiftly, raining blow after blow on the grey figure.

The air was filled with the sound of sword strokes thudding into the body beneath the robes.

Yet still it stood.
 

“Die you devil, die!” the Earl shouted. “In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

The grey figure went still. It raised its head, as if listening. The hood of the robe fell back from its face, revealing a pale ivory visage. Milk-white eyes stared blindly at the Earl. Its mouth opened and closed, revealing yellow teeth and a grey tongue inside, but no sound came. It made no defence as the Earl brought the sword round in one clean sweep that nearly took its head off at the neck.

The body fell to the ground and lay still.
 

Menzies relaxed his grip on his sword. He hadn’t even had a chance to swing it.

*
   
*
   
*

The Earl stood over the robed figure.

“Let us see what manner of thing this is.”

He bent and pulled the robe away.
 

The body below was thin to the point of emaciation, ribcage showing through skin that was almost translucent. The milky-white eyes stared from lidless sockets and when Menzies bent to check the body, the hair felt dry as straw. He touched a cheek. The flesh was cold, but not overly so. It felt too stiff, too unyielding. He rapped his knuckles on an arm. It rang, like a piece of wood.

“What devilry is this?”

“That is not all,” the Earl said. “Look.”

He held up one of the grey figure’s hands. The fingernails were long and pointed, with a deep brown hue that shone in the moonlight where it caught on razor sharp edges.

“Have you ever seen anything like it, Hawick?” Menzies said.

When there was no reply he looked around.

David of Hawick was nowhere to be seen.

The Earl clapped Menzies on the shoulder.

“Never fear, lad. We two are enough for any foe. We have the Lord on our side. Come. Our destiny awaits us.”

Menzies followed the Earl into the tower.

*
   
*
   
*

The doorway led into a large open area. There were carvings, and carved pillars, everywhere Menzies looked.
 

One particular pillar caught his eye. Some eight feet tall and nearly two feet wide, the carvings ran up its length in a loose spiral. Red serpents lay at its base, and dark bat-winged fiends circled its top. In the spiral carving, men screamed in torment as demons fed.

“A pretty place for worship,” the Earl said at his side.

Another set of carvings caught his eye; a naked figure, blindfolded, with cherub’s wings but milky-white eyes. It had one hand on its breast, and another on its right calf. A grey figure, also blindfolded, hung suspended upside down in a tight coil of rope, and a cherub, paler than the rest, sucked hungrily from a bloody heart, while the heart’s owner looked on in horror.

“What are we looking for?” Menzies whispered. “For I would like to find it quickly, and leave this place.”

The Earl did not reply. He started to make his way around the chamber, tapping on the stone with the hilt of his sword, looking for hidden spaces.

For the next half an hour they searched the chamber, but there was only the stone and the carvings.

Outside the moon went behind a cloud and the gloom deepened such that it was almost impossible to make out anything beyond the position of the exterior doorway and the high windows.

“We cannot stay,” Menzies whispered. “There may be more of those grey demons here somewhere. In this darkness it would be folly to attempt such a thing.”

The Earl nodded.

“It will be dawn soon enough, and we will return.”

They made for the door, but never reached it. The moon threw shadows across the threshold as four tall grey figures came inside. Menzies recognised them immediately despite their milky-white stares. The last time he’d seen them they’d been lying on the ground dead. Even in the gloom he could make out the bloody hole in the chest of the first through the door.

*
   
*
   
*

On the far side of the chamber a section of the wall slid aside, stone grating against stone. Someone stood in the new doorway, backlit by flickering torches beyond. This one was taller by a hand than any of the others, and wore a white robe, but still with the crude black circle emblazoned on the chest. He raised an arm.

The four figures at the doorway came forward, slowly, deliberately.

Menzies and the Earl moved so that they stood back to back.

“We’re in a tight spot, Sire,” Menzies said.

“Near as bad as yon whorehouse in Nicosia,” the Earl replied.

They were still laughing when the first of the four moved forward to attack.

Seconds later Menzies was fighting for his life, against men who had been his companions just an hour before, men who showed no recognition, just stared at him from dead white eyes.

The Earl was able to keep his two at bay by using the length of the longsword to his advantage, but Menzies struggled. His sword was good for close quarters, for stabbing opponents in their soft tissues at stomach and groin. But the things that attacked him were far from soft.

A cold hand grabbed him at the left bicep and started to squeeze. The pain sent white heat lancing through Menzies. He threw himself away to one side, lashing out with the sword as he hit the ground. A lucky blow caught his attacker behind the knee, hobbling him and bringing the body crashing to the floor. The Earl was quick to spot the opportunity. The longsword took the head off at the neck.

“Don’t get up,” the Earl shouted, whirling the sword around him at head height. “You hamstring them, I’ll do the rest.”

The plan proved more effective than Menzies could have hoped. The grey things were strong, but seemed to lack any intelligence. Even as one fell, cut through the calf, another stepped forward within easy reach. It was hard work, and the sword had grown heavy, his arm jarred from the weight of blows necessary to get the job done.
 

Minutes later Menzies stood beside the Earl. They were both breathing heavily, but neither had taken a serious injury. Four bodies, twice dead now, lay at their feet. Menzies gave the nearest a hefty kick in the ribs. It didn’t move.

“I think its dead. I have taken its head off,” the Earl said laughing.
 

Menzies kicked the body again.

“And it has a hole in its chest you can see straight through. That didn’t slow it down much.”

The Earl kicked one of the heads. It rolled away across the floor towards the opening where the newcomer had stood. Menzies’ gaze followed the path of the rolling head. The doorway was empty. Firelight flickered beyond, but there was no other movement, no other sound.

“What say you,” the Earl asked, “shall we finish what we came to do?”

Menzies hefted his sword.

“After you, my lord.”

*
   
*
   
*

The chamber beyond was obviously the reason the tower had been built in this place. It was a vast natural cavern in the side of the cliff, the torchlight sending shadows dancing overheard until they merged with the darkness above, where the ceiling was too high to be seen in the gloom. On the far side of the cavern, some thirty paces away, the white robed figure stood in front of a plain wooden cross that towered high over him. Beside the cross sat a stone plinth. Something lay on top of the stone, but Menzies was as yet too far away to make out what it was.