XXIX
Maria ignored the screams and the panicked flight of the people in her path. She had to get out of this place, away from these people. In the confined spaces of the stronghold, she couldn’t outrun the booted feet that chased her. Their pursuit drove her higher into the stronghold.
Toward the sound of Darien’s growls.
Five stories up, she pushed through a door, out into open air rank with the smell of blood. She stood on a causeway that looked over the inner wall of the castle, meant for defenders to fire arrows or drop debris down on an attacking force.
But that attacking force had made it up here. She stepped out onto the narrow balcony and the pads of her feet made small tearing sounds as they stuck to the blood-soaked floor. Three swords were cast down at random, one still grasped by a naked forearm that had been torn free at the joint.
She turned to face the growls—down the causeway, toward the opposite end of the stronghold.
He stood there, his back to her, rippling muscle and blood-soaked fur, his gore-drenched muzzle snarling, claws tearing the life from the remaining defender.
“Darien!”
The man in Darien’s claws lived long enough to scream as he fell over the wall.
Darien turned to face her, a grotesque lupine smile slashing his face. “You have returned to me.”
“What are you doing? Stop it!”
“Stop? Did anyone yell stop as they put my family to the fire?”
She stared at him, her breath burning in her throat. The mist chilled her skin, even under her fur. She breathed deep and could smell the extent of the slaughter. She could distinguish the blood from five, from ten, from a dozen different men.
“You have me,” she growled at him. “There’s no need to go on with this.”
He licked his gory muzzle and said, “For what they’ve done to me, for what they’ve done to you, everyone in this place must die.”
Then Darien leapt at her.
Josef was at the rear of the cadre of knights as they chased the monster up through the halls of the stronghold. He slowly fell behind, hampered by his injury. Every fifty steps or so he paused to check himself, to make sure he hadn’t again torn open the wound in his gut. But despite the throbbing, the new stitches held.
She had held him together throughout the night.
He forced himself not to think about that. It had all been a deception. She was a creature of Satan.
Then why was he still alive? And why had they passed a score of men and women, all panicked and yet unharmed?
Why did she flee?
She was a creature of Satan, but she had worn a silver cross. She called herself Christian.
As he caught up with his brothers on the other side of an arched doorway, a breeze blew in, carrying the chill misting rain, the smell of blood, and the sound of growls. He saw a pair of brother knights step out, swords drawn, as a low monstrous voice said, “Everyone in this place must die.”
The two men in the lead did not have an opportunity to use their weapons. A yellow blur leapt across the open doorway and one man went tumbling, screaming, over the wall. The other sailed backward through the open doorway, scattering the brothers and falling at Josef’s feet to stare up at him with half a face. Josef bent down to grab the silvered sword from the dead knight’s twitching hand.
Josef stood as the scattered brethren tried to close the gap in front of the door. Even with the silver weapons, they were at a disadvantage against the blood-drenched demon. It stood, blocking the diffuse white light from the doorway, just a pace beyond the threshold. The doorway was meant to be defensible in a breach, so it was small—shorter than the lupine silhouette beyond it. One knight could charge though it, but the choke point made a swinging attack impossible, and a charge at the thing, point first, would be suicidal even with a silvered sword.
The creature was also smart enough to recognize that passing the constricted threshold would be its own suicide. With six swords at the ready, even its speed and strength wouldn’t prevent a mortal wound.
Two seconds into the standoff, Josef knew in his heart why he had lived, and why God had spared him. He changed his grip on his borrowed sword and screamed at his countrymen, “Make way!” as he charged at the beast.
As Darien leapt at her, Maria crouched, expecting him to take his bottomless fury out on her. But he passed above and to the right, landing behind her. She spun to follow his motion and saw two knights of the Order, swords raised at her back.
Darien landed between them. One clawed hand swung up between one swordsman’s legs, lifting him up and over the outside wall in a single motion. The other arm came down in a brutal backhand that clawed through the other’s face as it knocked him back through the open doorway.
A half second later, she heard a sickening crunch from below that silenced the falling knight’s screams. She felt the impact in the pit of her stomach. She had seen death, and she had seen the aftermath of battle, but neither compared to the sickness that filled her heart at such casual brutality. Darien had struck at these men with no more concern than he had attacked the elk.
Less.
The world froze except for her racing heart. Darien faced the shadows beyond the door, and her tongue dried in her mouth. If he was what she was to become, how could she deny Josef’s claims that she was a soulless demon?
Two words broke her paralysis. From inside, she heard Josef cry, “Make way!”
In response, Darien spread his arms as if to greet him.
“Enough!” Maria screamed. She leapt at Darien, slamming him into the floor past the doorway. “Enough of this!” She landed on top of him, her clawed hands digging into his blood-spattered fur.
She looked down at him from above. He snarled and snapped and pulled his legs up under her. His paws slammed into her gut with a tearing impact, sending her tumbling back, tripping over something, clutching handfuls of bloody golden fur.
The eight parallel gouges in her stomach were sealing shut even as she sprang to her feet. Her eyes widened when she saw what she had stumbled over. Josef had been knocked to the ground by her passage. On his knees between them, he was attempting to push himself up with one hand, holding his sword with the other.
Darien glared at her with a fury beyond even what he had shown the Germans. “I say what is enough!”
Darien raised a forearm to strike Josef down, and Maria leapt at him again, this time slamming him into the crenellated wall at the end of the balcony.
He growled at her, their cheeks touching, so that she could feel his lips move along the whole length of her muzzle. “Fool. You think they might return your mercy? He raises his sword against you yet.” He pushed, and they rolled sideways until she was the one pressed into the wall. Past Darien’s shoulder, she saw Josef readying to strike.
As the sword came down, Maria pushed Darien back so that they rolled again, Josef’s stroke missing Darien’s head to slam ineffectively against the wall.
Please, Josef …
“They would have your head as well as mine.” He pushed her off him again, this time with enough force that she slammed into the stronghold wall before her feet touched the ground.
She landed as Josef swung another blow in Darien’s direction. Darien moved quickly out of the way, and Maria saw Darien’s jaws open, about to come down on the back of Josef’s unprotected neck.
In the chaos of pain, growls, blood, and fur, Josef was aware of one thing: the black-furred monster was Maria. Whatever else he knew, or thought he knew, the black lupine demon was still her.
Still the woman he loved.
The knowledge stayed his hand when they grappled and she was in harm’s way, but once the golden one pushed her away, he had no hesitation—the golden one was unquestionably Satan personified in tooth and claw.
Only his swing came too late, slamming his sword with jarring force into the wall. He felt the impact in his wounded gut. He swung again, his sword missing where the wolf’s head had been. His arms still followed through on the ineffective stroke, and he felt carrion breath on the side of his neck, and saw gaping jaws and a lolling tongue in the corner of his eye.
Something unseen slammed into his back, knocking the sword out of his hand.
As he hit the blood-soaked floor, he thought he heard that satanic maw snap shut. He tried to roll over and get up, but a massive black paw stepped on his chest, pressing him to the ground.
Maria crouched above him on impossibly large canine legs, a hideous snarl creasing her muzzle as she faced the larger wolf thing.
“Do not take what is mine, bitch!”
“He is not yours. Not if you want me.”
“You are mine!”
A feral growl rose, and the words she spoke were barely human: “Only if I say so, Darien.”
“You can’t defy me like this!”
“You can have me or these men.” She shifted her weight so that her foot left Josef’s chest. She straddled him, paying him no attention at all. He fumbled for his sword.
“Step aside.” The golden monster, the one she called Darien, was focused completely on her. Disturbingly to the point of arousal.
Her growling voice had lowered to little more than a whisper. “Do you love their blood so much more than mine? Or do you just doubt that you can take me?”
Darien gave vent to an inarticulate howl. If any sense was borne within it, it was inaudible to human ears. Maria moved, and Josef rolled to grab his sword. He lifted it, but she was already running the length of the balcony, away from him. She passed right by Darien as if to taunt him. He grabbed for her, but she moved even more quickly than he.
Josef’s surviving brothers ran from the open doorway, one crossbowman falling to his knee next to Josef. Even as he brought the weapon to bear, Maria stood upon the wall overlooking the front of the stronghold. Josef watched the man take aim, and his heart pulled taut and still like a skin of a drum.
The man fired.
And Maria leapt.
The bolt embedded itself in the wall where she had stood, and Darien followed her over.
Josef scrambled to the wall and looked down at where the two monsters had landed. The ground was nearly invisible through the mist, but through the gauzy shroud of gray he saw a quick black shadow move, climbing over the inner wall and vanishing into the invisible buildings of Gród Narew. Close behind, a larger, lighter-colored shadow followed.
He saw a pair of crossbow bolts sail after the moving shadows, but to no effect.
Josef leaned against the wall, letting the brick merlon support his weight, the surface cold, rough, damp with condensation, and in some spots sticky with blood. His dead comrade’s sword hung loose in his hand, trembling slightly. He stared into the gray mist and prayed to God for strength and for wisdom.
If they are both servants of Satan, why do they fight?
Why had she saved him? And not only saved him but drawn the beast Darien away from this place? Why didn’t she kill, like he did?
“What work of the Devil has been wrought here?” Heinrich’s voice came from the doorway. Josef didn’t turn to face him, because he doubted he could look at his master straight on. He was only probationary anyway, soon to leave the Order. The question wasn’t directed at him.
One of the surviving knights related the battle. Josef half-listened to the details. The knight spoke truth, though the knight’s truth put more weight on Josef’s attack than was warranted, and omitted the wolves’ conversation.
But perhaps the knight hadn’t heard it for the growls.
Of course, Brother Heinrich had a pat answer for the monsters’ behavior: “Two demons fighting over whose life and whose soul to claim.”
Josef clutched his stomach and tried to tell himself that the pain he felt was only the wound in his belly.
He winced when a hand came down on his naked shoulder. “You’ve acquitted yourself well, Brother Josef.”
Josef turned to look at Heinrich to tell him that he was no longer part of the Order, but something in those hard gray eyes stopped him.
“You will come with us, this last time at least.”
“Where?”
“To track this new beast home.”