by Harry Piper
in Issue 79, August 2018
Sir Madoc didn’t tarry long at the ruins of his home. For what was the point in staying? A pile of blackened timber and a handful of graves – there was nothing to salvage and nothing more to see.
He’d wept enough tears to fill an ocean when he had first received the news. That had been some weeks ago. Actually coming back – back to the once-handsome hall he’d dreamt of every night in the Holy Land – was, at this point, nothing more than another cold formality to be fulfilled.
Madoc’s hall had been built in a wonderful place. High up on the slopes of Mount Eddlin, it commanded an awe-inspiring view of the land for miles around. Standing there on a clear day in the midst of summer, a man could trace the path of every gleaming river and count each wandering roebuck in the verdant fields below.
To believe in God – in His goodness and love – had been an easy thing at Madoc’s hall.
But now it was winter. The trees were bare, the fields barren and the wind cold and bitter. Madoc shivered in his fur-lined cloak.
After picking through the ruins he had gone to the graves. Staring at the four mounds of earth with their pathetic little stone cairns, Madoc could only feel a great emptiness.
Dull thoughts circulated sluggishly through his mind. A chapel would have to be built. Money left for masses – as many as he could afford.
After a little while he remembered that he ought to say his prayers. When he was finished he left the bodies of his family and returned to his mount.
He had left his destrier, Roland, under an old elm. The great black horse whickered at his approach and gently nuzzled him in greeting. Madoc absently stroked Roland’s neck.
Climbing back into the saddle, Madoc took one last look over the razed grounds. Then he turned west to face the setting sun, and rode into the hills.
* * *
As night fell and the cold light of the stars shone down above his head, Madoc rode aimlessly down a long-abandoned trail through a nameless forest.
It was all Madoc could do to focus on the steady beat of Roland’s hooves against the frozen earth and let fate take him where it would.
To pause and reflect, even for a moment, would be disastrous. But try as he might to avoid thinking on it, he could not block out everything- the clink of his mail and the weight of the shield on his arm were constant reminders to Madoc of his failure.
For he was a knight, and a knight was a protector – that was the calling in its very essence.
The early grief and rage at their deaths had turned from a searing fire to a deadening chill. Now the pain of it was like a shard of ice lodged deep within his breast, and Madoc knew that it could never be removed.
He had no comfort from above. Madoc did little praying anymore – what he most desired was something that could not be granted. He knew that. Knew that no amount of penances or prayers would change it.
Madoc feared that if he were to try to find his way back to his old piety, the inevitable silence from heaven would change his dull acceptance to a cold and unforgiving hatred.
He was interrupted in his thoughts by a sudden flash of light deep within the trees to his right.
Instinct took over. His sword was unsheathed almost before he knew it, and he pulled back hard on the reins. Roland reared and neighed, but quickly become still.
Madoc peered into the darkness, but could see nothing. Pale shafts of moonlight striking through the branches revealed no bandits waiting in ambush – no glint of spearhead or blade.
“Who goes there?” Madoc cried out.
No-one replied. His call echoed out through the trees before fading into silence.
Madoc didn’t move. He waited patiently for something to reveal itself, and was rewarded when the light came again.
It disappeared quickly, but it burned brighter this time, and by its illumination he could see the vague shadow of a structure deep in the trees. It was shrouded by darkness before he could get a better look.
Madoc was puzzled. He knew this land well, but he had never heard of someone living so far out into the wilderness.
Perhaps a hermit? Holy men and women often made their homes in the lonely places of the world.
If so, it would be a great stroke of fortune. To spend the cold winter night indoors with a bed, food and a fire would be welcome.
Madoc dismounted and, taking Roland by the bridle, walked into the trees. He kept his sword unsheathed, however – a man could never be too careful.
Picking his way through the twisted tree roots, Madoc, dulled by grief though he was, found himself looking forward to the prospect of some companionship for the night.
The presence of another person would be enough to stave off the darkness for a time; warm the shard a little.
When Madoc finally emerged from the trees into the clearing containing the structure, he was stunned to find it was not of Cymric or Saxon craft, but Roman.
It was a grand thing, too – a villa of handsome whitewashed stone, red brick and neatly-laid clay tiles on the roof. And remarkably well-preserved – only the creeping ivy covering the walls and a few cracks here and there despoiled the pristine image.
Madoc was baffled. How had such a place remained hidden? And who had made their home inside it?
No holy man or woman, for certain; a place of pagan luxury was hardly an appropriate place for prayer and penance.
It could be just a lonely old madman. Or a wandering poet looking for inspiration. Could be anything.
He cleared his throat and called out –
“I am Sir Madoc. If anyone is there, declare yourselves.”
No answer.
“By God,” Madoc warned, “I’ll have no tricks played on me.”
More silence. Madoc felt a little foolish.
It might still be an ambush. But the opportunity to make camp in such a place was too appealing to ignore. Madoc decided to go in.
As he moved forward towards the entrance Roland proved uncharacteristically nervous; his head went up and his ears flattened as he snorted and pulled back against Madoc’s grip on the bridle.
Madoc, too tired to struggle with the beast, left Roland outside and went in alone.
Dead leaves crunched under his heels as he passed through the doorway and into the atrium. With his shield covering his chest, Madoc cautiously scanned his surroundings.
Faded but still beautiful frescoes depicting scenes of domestic tranquillity covered the walls, while mosaics of intricate craftsmanship lay under his feet. Strands of ivy had crept in here and there, but little else of nature had made inroads into the villa.
No arrows or spears leapt out at him from the shadows. Madoc moved forward slowly, but he didn’t see any obvious sign of inhabitation.
He found himself a little distracted by the images on the walls. Portraits of those who had lived here, he supposed; the family eating together, the mother nursing her child, the father playing with his little boy –
Madoc forced his gaze away.
“Hello?” he called out. “Anyone here?”
No-one replied. Madoc explored the ruin carefully, his sword-arm tense, but after wandering down each corridor and looking into each room it became clear that he was alone.
He hadn’t even seen the black marks of old campfires. Apart from a few shards of broken pottery and some rotting wooden furniture, the place was empty. There was a good chance he was the first man to enter the ruin in centuries.
And if that was the case, then where had the light come from?
The mystery sent a small shiver down his spine, but little else. It was men, not spirits, that you had to be afraid of.
In any case, it had probably been the result of the moonlight reflecting off some piece of errant metal. Something of that nature.
He decided to stay in the atrium. Madoc set a campfire in a corner clear of debris; a small crack in the roof overhead provided a useful chimney.
Madoc tried to coax Roland inside, but the beast refused. Still nervous, he pranced back and forth without responding to Madoc’s entreaties. Irritated, Madoc left him to his own devices.
When the fire was blazing steadily, Madoc spent a while warming his hands over the flames. He had not realised how cold he had been; he could feel life slowly creeping back into his numb fingers.
When he was certain he was in no danger of losing any digits or other extremities, Madoc laid down and waited for sleep to take him.
It would not. Something about the villa was pricking at him, refusing him the luxury of rest. An uneasy and vague apprehension. Almost, but not quite, the feeling of being watched…
His sword lay next to his bedroll. Sighing, Madoc took it up once more. Another patrol, then. Perhaps the exertion would make him tired enough for sleep.
Standing, he made a torch from the crackling fire. He moved off from the campfire into the darkness of the villa before remembering his shield. He turned to pick it up, and froze.
Directly above Madoc’s place before the fire was a fresco, similar to the images he had seen earlier upon entering the villa. How he had missed this one, he had no idea – what it depicted made him almost sick with horror.
A figure in a desolate landscape. An older man in regal dress stood amidst a pile of corpses – men, women and children. The fresco had an awful realism to it that was utterly out of place with the other stylised images of the villa.
The man was bent over with grief, hands clenched tightly over his eyes. His mouth was opened in a scream of terrible agony. At first Madoc thought that he was weeping, but then he noticed the blood seeping out from under the fingers…
Madoc couldn’t look away. The sounds of the fire and the wind outside seemed to fade until a deathly silence reigned.
It was meant for you, an unbidden thought came. You were meant to see it.
It was only after his heartbeat had resumed and his breath returned that the spell was broken.
“Just a picture,” Madoc murmured. He could hear the crackle of the fire and the howl of the wind again, and they assured him of it.
But he was not entirely convinced. The thing was too bizarre and too grotesque to be dismissed so easily.
Just looking at it filled him with a deep fear mixed with loathing. For a strange few moments a kind of madness took over, and Madoc seriously considered hammering the thing into dust; taking the hilt of his sword and beating the thing off the wall and stamping the remnants into oblivion.
But then his reason reasserted itself. Was he a child to be frightened by pictures? Was a knight to be unmanned by a few strokes of paint?
The fear and panic gradually drained away, to be replaced by a faint disgust at himself.
Madoc dropped the torch, laid his sword aside and tried to make himself comfortable in his bedroll once more. He kept his back to the image and his eyes to the flames and, as the fire ate itself away to nothing, he slowly fell asleep.
* * *
Madoc was standing in the villa’s atrium again, but the walls were bare and the floor devoid of any clutter. Everything was lit by a harsh and unsparing white light that set a weak but steady pounding going in his skull.
He knew it was a dream immediately, and that was unusual. Generally, the falseness of them dawned on you just as you were leaving them.
A stranger thing – his mind was totally clear. That shouldn’t have been the case, either. In the world of a dream one was ruled by impulse, fragments of memory and imagination; you were more observer than participant.
He tried to move around a little, only to find it incredibly difficult. There was a great weight on his limbs that made every movement sluggish, clumsy and exaggerated.
“Where are you going?”
The voice, wet and guttural, came from behind him, accompanied by an awful smell – like burning hair.
“Where are you going?” it said again.
Madoc said nothing.
“Speak,” the unseen figure said, “or I shall force the words from you.”
“This is a dream,” Madoc replied, still staring straight ahead. “I won’t waste my breath on phantoms.”
A sudden, sharp pain in his side. The shock and force of it sent Madoc to his knees, gasping for breath.
When he was finally able to lift his head (slowly and painfully at that) he found a monster standing above him.
It was wearing long tattered robes that had once been regal but were now faded and grey. A long hood obscured the face, but its eyes glowed like twin yellow moons and in their light Madoc could see it had no skin. He was looking at a grinning skull.
“I know you,” it said.
Madoc could only stare.
“I watched you as you stumbled past my home, following a path with no end and no purpose. I saw your pain, and I reached out to you.”
“Why?” Madoc said. “What do you want from me?”
“I want to set you free.”
“Free from what?”
“Your suffering.”
Madoc would have laughed if he hadn’t been in so much pain. “Ah, I’m supposed to believe that you’re an angel? Come to ease my burdens? I thought devils were supposed to be cunning.”
“I am no devil.”
“You are no man.”
“Once. But that is of no consequence.”
“I want nothing from you,” said Madoc.
“This is no offer, knight,” the creature replied.
It leant forward, raising its arm, and the robe fell back to reveal a skeletal hand dripping with a thick black liquid that gave off an immense heat.
Madoc tried frantically to move, but a crushing force held him in place as the creature slowly and almost gently laid its palm on Madoc’s forehead.
The pain was searing. Madoc screamed as his flesh burned.
“You will thank me,” the creature murmured. “Not at first, but you will.”
The pain was not the worst of it – Madoc could feel the corruption of the creature’s touch pushing down past the skin, seeping into his blood, coursing through his veins…
Madoc managed to raise a hand. He grasped the creature’s arm; it was like gripping hot coals. He opened his mouth to cry out as a fresh wave of agony assaulted him…
* * *
Madoc awoke with a start.
He was lying in a cold morning light breaking in through the gap in the roof above. The fire was completely extinguished – not even a handful of embers remained. He was islanded in a sea of shadows that left the rest of the villa pitch-black.
Madoc’s hand immediately went to his forehead, but as he frantically traced the skin he could find no wound, and no mark of any kind.
“Just a dream,” he muttered, when he had regained his breath and composure. “Just a dream, you fool.”
But the words sounded pathetic, even to himself. When had he ever experienced such pain in a mere dream?
And that creature – that figure of death with its eyes like lanterns…
Madoc got to his feet and swiftly packed his things away. The sooner he found Roland and put some distance between himself and the villa, the better.
So intent was he on leaving that it was only after Madoc had taken a few steps into the darkness that he discovered that, overnight, the villa had become a slaughterhouse.
The floor was covered with human debris. Skulls, shattered ribcages, arms, legs and other shards of bone lay strewn in every direction. It looked as if a whole village had been massacred in the atrium.
Dark stains were drawn in violent slashes across the walls. There were countless handprints too, as if the victims had been trying to push the very walls down in their desperation to escape.
The sheer scale of the violence – even dulled by time – was ghastly.
Horrified, Madoc looked back his campfire, to see that the grizzly detritus formed a perfect ring around it.
And the wall above his bedroll was perfectly blank. The image from the night before was gone.
Madoc ran, and didn’t stop until he found a nervous Roland halfway up the slope leading to the road.
He must have ridden at least three leagues before he stopped to allow Roland to catch his breath, and in all that time Madoc never once dared to look back.
While Roland wheezed air back into his lungs, Madoc leant on his neck and tried to calm himself. He was distracted by an ache in his hand.
Removing the glove, he found his skin covered by an angry red burn.
* * *
What else was there to do after that but carry on?
Madoc decided that he had to find a church or a monastery. He was dealing with unearthly powers.
To that end it might have been simpler to ride back the other way, but that would require passing the villa, which was unthinkable.
So Madoc made his way down through a great valley with steep, wooded slopes. Perfect ambush country, but that was a distant concern now. And anyway, who else would be out in the wilderness apart from the mad and the lost?
He counted himself among the latter. The hills here were alien to him – or perhaps he had just forgotten them. He had been away from home a long time.
Madoc kept his blade loose in its scabbard. The creature would come again – of that he was sure. But in what form?
Madoc was afraid; he could admit that to himself. But more – and far worse – than that, he felt utterly helpless.
A knight was supposed to throw himself into battle without a moment’s hesitation; death came easily to a knight but that was the way of things. To fall against an enemy beyond your strength was no misfortune; it was a fine way to die.
But what was he to do against this? An enemy that could mark and hurt him in his dreams? An enemy beyond the touch of steel?
Through its hideous touch the creature had put something in him. Of that Madoc was certain- it had called it a ‘gift’. But what was it?
Madoc felt no different. His vision was unclouded and his thoughts clear. His body suffered no new pangs apart from the burn on his hand (the pain from which had now faded to a weak if steady throbbing).
His armour felt a little heavier than usual, but after a night like the one Madoc had suffered through that was hardly a surprise.
As the day wore on Madoc’s faint hopes of discovering a church, a home or even another person dwindled rapidly. There were no pillars of smoke rising into the air in the distance and no tracks of man, horse or cart in the earth around him. He was alone.
“The mad and the lost,” he muttered bitterly to himself as the sun started to fall behind the hills.
But there was one stroke of fortune. When the time came to make camp Madoc stumbled onto a near-perfect shelter – a small cave next to a quiet stream.
That night Madoc tended the fire as an exhausted Roland slumbered, thinking on what sleep would bring.
It would be in his dreams again. It had not come at him in the day, and was still holding back even after darkness had fallen.
Madoc would not try to stay awake – he would have to sleep eventually, and it would better to do so at a time of his choosing rather than falling straight from the saddle.
He laid himself down by the fire. He was afraid, but the strain of the past day had taken its toll. Almost before he knew it his muscles had gone slack and his eyelids grown heavy.
The dim thought came that he should tend to his prayers, but Madoc dismissed it – he was too weary.
Gradually and uneasily, he let himself drift into sleep.
* * *
This time he was back at Mount Eddlin. In the hall, as it had once stood before the attack. But like the dream in the villa, everything was once again coated with that strange, lifeless white light.
He was standing on the dais. As before, he could not move.
Looking around, Madoc noted the shields on the walls, the spot by the fire the dogs always claimed for themselves, the great tables covered by the stains of a thousand meals… But he felt no longing for any of it.
This place was a convincing likeness, but he knew it was not his own – every inch of it belonged to the creature.
A moment later it appeared before him. Close enough for Madoc to smell the foulness concealed beneath its robes, but far enough to be out of reach.
It was silent for a time. Madoc felt as if it were studying him.
Then it turned to point towards the centre of the hall. “Your loved ones died there – under those very beams.”
Madoc said nothing, but the fear making his heart pound slowly began to turn to hatred.
“You blame yourself for their deaths,” the creature continued. “You think you could have saved them. That you should have been here to defend them.”
Madoc took a single step towards the creature. It was like trying to walk through a waist-high snowdrift strengthened by frost.
“And you are right,” the thing continued. “Your presence may have saved them. But to what end? Death would have come for all of them, in time.
“Do not sorrow over their taking. Lament, rather, that they were not taken sooner. Lament that they were ever brought into this world in the first place.”
Another step. Madoc’s arms remained frozen to his sides. The pain and fury made him tremble.
“For death is the only god this world has ever known. To struggle against it is only to suffer, and suffer pointlessly.”
Madoc managed to raise an arm as he took another step. The creature did not retreat.
“You go on because you think you have a duty to do so. But this is false. Good and evil mean nothing in the face of death. Your oaths, duties, pledges and prayers mean nothing. Everything that breathes will meet the same fate – the endless dark.
“It will all come to nothing in the end – every noble cause, every valiant last stand and every foul act. All will be dust and shadow.”
Invisible chains held Madoc back. His hand trembled in the air inches away from the creature’s head.
“I was like you, once. I believed the lies that men tell themselves. A brutal baptism awoke me to the truth.
“For now I see that death is not the enemy. It is our closest friend, liberating us from this burden we call life. To choose life is to choose the lie. Embrace death, and we embrace the truth.
“This is my gospel, and you may yet be an apostle in its service.”
Madoc tried to speak – tried to roar his defiance – but his mouth would not open.
“I understand you are reluctant. But I will persevere. I have servants in the world, and I have instructed them to help you along in your path – my gift alone may not be enough.”
“You will follow me and repent of your obstinacy. You will have to, by the end.”
* * *
The morning was damp, and colder than the day before. Madoc gave himself some time before attempting to rise, but when he did so he was surprised by how heavy his armour had grown.
It had always been like a second skin to him – over the years one simply got used to the weight. Now it was like a heavy foot planted on his chest.
So Madoc rested for a while longer, waiting until the sun had warmed the ground and dissipated the worst of the morning mist before getting up.
When he was finally saddled on Roland and back on the move he found a surprise waiting for him in the middle of the trail.
A dead fox. Shredded to pieces, with the head being the only recognisable part left; the rest was just a bloody mass of flesh and fur. Madoc dismounted to examine it.
He knew a wolf had done it – Madoc could tell the marks of those savage teeth anywhere – but nothing had been consumed. No scavengers had touched the corpse. Strange.
Looking at the bloody but pristine mass of gore, Madoc felt no horror. Just curiosity. And something else.
He stared into the fox’s dead and empty eyes, and felt a surge of envy.
Did it matter how the thing had died? Its toil had ended. There was no hunger, no striving and no pain. Just sleep.
Indeed, thinking of it that way, the savaged carcass was almost beautiful.
But the feeling swiftly faded, and when it had gone Madoc was left utterly disgusted with himself. Such thoughts were products of a weak mind, or a sick one.
He remounted Roland and went on his way.
As they travelled, a recurrent question dug at him – in his dream of the previous night, the creature had mentioned servants. Of what kind?
The answer came at dusk, when the sun was halfway down behind the hills and the first stars were beginning to creep out –
A series of long, tortured howls echoed down the walls of the valley like a chorus of damned souls in the fires of hell screaming for release.
Roland went half-mad with fear, nearly throwing Madoc in the process. He had to roar and strike at the beast in order to get it to submit.
When Roland was back under control, Madoc scanned the treeline for any movement. There was none, but now he knew that they were out there. By the sound of it, a whole pack of them.
There was no camp that night. Madoc stayed in the saddle, only stopping to relieve himself. He kept a lit torch in one hand and his sword in the other, allowing Roland take the lead, knowing that the beast’s fear would drive it forward.
Once in a while, whenever Madoc came close to falling asleep, he would spot something deep in the shadows; blazing yellow eyes, watchful and patient.
Madoc kept his watch, hoping that the dawn would come quickly.
* * *
A cruel wind came with the morning. It set the trees swaying and groaning as it clawed and bit at Madoc’s face, drawing tears from his eyes and making his face numb.
But Madoc was thankful for it. It would keep him awake when he wanted nothing better than to let weariness take its course – to simply slide out of the saddle without a thought or a care for anything in the world.
There was no sign of the creature’s servants. He wondered why they held themselves back.
Even so, Madoc and Roland had made some progress. The walls of the valley were behind them, and they had emerged onto a wooded plain that sloped gently downwards to a series of low hills.
Something troubling was happening to Madoc’s sight. The colour seemed to be seeping from everything. The vitality was gone; it was as if the world were covered by a grey shroud.
Part of the creature’s gift, perhaps. It was nothing compared to the weight of his armour.
A day ago it had been a mere irritant. Now Madoc feared that if they were attacked he would barely have the strength to raise his arm, let alone fight.
It was the damnedest thing. He was not sweating from exertion and he could not feel his muscles trembling beneath the weight. Yet he’d never felt so weary in all his life.
Roland was struggling, too. It was not just the exhaustion – they had been on long marches before, but never against this kind of enemy. Fear was taking its toll on his friend.
They needed to find a town, and soon. Madoc didn’t want to pull innocents into his own battle, but he could not let the creature triumph; his enemy had its own infernal gospel and was set on propagating it. It could not be allowed to do so.
The day passed with nothing to show for it. No demonic creatures spilling out of the trees to attack but no town, either. When evening came Madoc decided to take a gamble.
With Roland, his sword and his shield left below, Madoc climbed up the trunk of an ancient oak, his feet slipping every time he tried to gain purchase and scraping a good deal of skin off his hands as he grasped at the rough and unyielding wood.
It wasn’t the tallest tree he could find, but it looked promising, and in any case Madoc had little time to go hunting for the perfect specimen; already the sun was hovering low above the hills, casting a light with a colour akin to molten bronze across the land.
His enemy, it seemed, could not abide the day; but the nights belonged to it. Madoc had to make his own moves while he still could.
Madoc was a strong man, but by the time he had reached the higher branches he was gasping for breath. His armour seemed to grow heavier by the moment. He felt old and so very, very tired.
He went on. Madoc finally hauled himself up to a place where he had a clear view of the land for leagues in every direction. After regaining his breath, he took a look.
It wasn’t long before he spotted the village.
It wasn’t much – just a collection of cottages, a few pens for cattle and a humble church atop a hill. A few families scratching out a life for themselves in a forgotten part of the world.
Madoc marked the distance as two leagues, as the crow flew. He could even make out a few lonely figures wandering about, lighting bonfires against the coming darkness.
Slowly and carefully, he made his way back down. Almost instinctively, he tried to crush the small flame of hope that had flickered into life in his heart. He had not escaped yet.
He didn’t get back into the saddle this time – Roland had earned a small rest. Indeed, his mount looked exhausted. Madoc took him by the bridle and led the way, thankful that the wind had died down.
The shadows lengthened as they moved forward, but Madoc was guided by the bonfires the townspeople had lit – he could see them on the hill, lining it like a crown of stars.
What would he say to them? Could words even do it justice? Even if he were able to explain what had happened, they would most likely think him insane, and Madoc had to admit he looked the part – unshaven, wild-eyed and miles from anywhere a knight ought to be.
He would head straight for the priest and demand that something be done. What, exactly, he was not sure – now more than ever he left matters of faith to those more secure in it than he was.
When they finally reached the hill – by which time the stars were beginning to creep out – Madoc and Roland were confronted by a final obstacle.
At a distance the hill had seemed unremarkable. But now he was standing at the foot of it, Madoc saw that the slope facing him was steep, and thick with trees and rocks, blocking the village above from view. Climbing it would be a struggle.
Perhaps he should go around? But on further investigation Madoc found that he and Roland had nowhere else to go – there was more thick and tangled forest to their right and left, with no sign of another trail. That left the slope.
Roland wouldn’t make it. He was tired, it was dark and the path had far too many obstacles – one slip and it could very well mean a broken leg.
Madoc knew what he had to do, but he did not want to admit it. The village was so close he could even hear faint snatches of conversation. He called out until his throat ached but there was no answer – too far off.
He turned to Roland. His friend eyed him wearily.
“I’ll be back in a moment,” Roland said, feeling like a child, a fool and a traitor all in the same moment. “I’m not abandoning you.”
The stupid beast didn’t make a sound and didn’t move its gaze. Madoc gently scratched Roland behind the ears before he turned to the slope and began to make his way up.
He left the shield but took his sword; he feared the creature might attempt an assault on the villagers. If that were to be so, he would not be left helpless.
It was hard going – harder than anything he had faced in the Holy Land. He stumbled and tripped on vines, roots and stones; he felt as if the land itself had turned against him.
But it was his armour that was his greatest enemy – it was like a boulder around his neck, dragging him down and pulling him back for every new step that he took.
Madoc kept his eyes on the lights above. He told himself he had a duty to fight, a duty to prevail – he could not let the creature win.
He told himself this even as a calm and reasonable voice in the back of his mind quietly suggested a very different course of action – that of simply halting, and allowing his weariness to take its natural course.
After so much toil and struggle, a hard bed of frozen earth would feel softer than the finest silk. Madoc would not have to wait long before the cold took him.
He had seen men die of it before – it came like a thief in the night, snatching away a man’s breath with so deft a touch that when morning came it seemed as if they were merely sleeping.
Sleep. Sleep without end.
Madoc slowly became aware that he had stopped moving. He stood silently for a few moments, feeling the wind on his back and the cold night air on his skin. Then he resumed his climb.
Soon he found himself on flat ground. Dimly, he saw lights ahead, covered by a thin screen of branches. He could hear conversation and laughter, and saw the shadows of moving figures.
Using his last reserves of strength, he lurched forward, swatted the branches aside and stepped into the village…
Instantly the light died and the sounds of conversation ceased. Bewildered, Madoc had to wait until his eyes adjusted to the sudden darkness to see the truth.
Ruins faced him. Blackened stone covered by ivy was all that was left of the church, with a few impressions in the earth here and there to indicate the homes of the common folk.
There were no people anywhere. No livestock. Madoc stood alone in the dead village.
Despair coupled with complete incomprehension threatened to overwhelm him. Was he going insane?
“This is cruelty, I admit, but it must be done.”
Madoc turned, and found his nemesis standing before him in the moonlight. Its robes drifted a little in the breeze.
“What you saw was of my own making. I drew you here.”
Madoc fell to his knees.
Silence reigned for a time. Then the creature said –
“You are close to the truth. So very close. Your heart and soul cry out for deliverance. I know it.”
Madoc raised his head.
“I am a knight,” he said softly. “I will never join with you. Give me a hundred hills to climb. A thousand – it matters not. I am a soldier of the Lord.”
“Are you still convinced of that?”
He was not, but it changed nothing.
“You are reluctant. I understand. For one great obstacle still remains in your path. Worry not – my servants will remove it.”
A monstrous howl split the night air in the silence following the creature’s words, followed by a horse’s scream.
Madoc drew his sword and lunged at the creature, but it drifted apart like smoke at the steel’s touch.
He did not wait to try again. Spinning on his heels, Madoc threw himself back the way he came, crashing through the trees with reckless abandon, tumbling his way down the hill.
There were more screams from below – the terrible cries of a horse in agony. Tears blinded Madoc’s eyes; not Roland, please God, not the only friend he had left…
The screams stopped just before he emerged back onto the trail, only to see that he was too late.
There were three of them, all busy consuming what was left of his friend.
The creature had changed them. New muscles of grotesque size distended their limbs. Their eyes blazed with an unnatural light. Razor-sharp teeth dripping with ichor crowded muzzles far too small to contain them.
Two noticed his arrival. Growling, one of the wolves went to Madoc’s left and the other to his right. The third, apparently unconcerned, remained behind to feast on Roland.
Madoc knew with a dread certainty that they would not kill him. They would mutilate him; blind him and hobble him so that in the end, he would come crawling to the creature, begging for death…
Madoc struck first.
He darted forward and, as the first wolf leapt, deftly stepped aside and cut its throat with the edge of his sword as it passed; a swift stroke and then an arc of hot blood was falling through the cold night air, steaming where it fell. The wolf fell silently.
Madoc turned to the second just as it dived at him, bearing them both to the ground and knocking his sword away.
They struggled for dominance, Madoc’s hand clamped around the wolf’s neck as its ghastly teeth snapped on air mere inches away from his face. Its breath – a foul smell of disease and corruption – nearly overwhelmed him.
With his free hand Madoc reached desperately for his fallen weapon. Finding the hilt, he clumsily brought it up and stabbed at the wolf’s belly. The blade slid in but the beast just redoubled its efforts, driving itself into a frenzy in its effort to get at Madoc.
Madoc had to force the sword through the wolf’s stomach inch by bloody inch until finally it went limp. He pushed the body away and rose to face his last opponent.
It was almost as large as Roland. Clearly the leader of the pack, and the one most touched by the creature – twisted into a grotesque shape that was more demon than mere animal.
As Madoc advanced towards it, it loosed its grip on Roland’s neck and started to pace around him slowly, keeping itself at a distance.
It was totally silent. Its eyes were fixed on Madoc’s, and in them he could see an unnatural intelligence. He could see the hand of the creature.
Madoc’s sword was lodged too deep in the guts of the other wolf to retrieve it now, but he didn’t care.
A blind fury had descended on him; for Roland, for his family and for himself. He had no wish for a sword or any other weapon – he would use his teeth if he had to.
When Madoc flung himself at the wolf he supposed that it was only surprise that made his insane attack successful.
Man and beast were borne to the ground, Madoc managing to get both hands around the monster’s throat before it could stop him.
The wolf twisted and turned in a frenzied attempt to throw Madoc off. For his own part, Madoc found that the wolf’s throat was corded by muscles like oak; he might as well try to throttle the life out of a bear.
But he didn’t relent in his struggle. Madoc was too far gone to think rationally, or even think at all – his teeth were bared and he was growling wordless obscenities.
The wolf was tenacious, however, and it was not long before it succeeded in getting Madoc’s left arm to slip, just for a moment. Moving swifter than lightening the wolf caught it between its teeth and bit down hard, piercing the mail with ease and digging deep into the flesh beneath.
Madoc screamed. The pain alone was overwhelming, but with it came that terribly familiar infection, violating his body with its foulness…
He hammered the wolf’s muzzle with blows from his free arm, but it didn’t give an inch. It almost seemed to be taking a perverse satisfaction in Madoc’s agony – no longer trying to throw him, it was content with watching him struggle as it held its grip with total equanimity.
At least until Madoc pressed down hard on its right eye with his thumb.
It flinched but didn’t let go, so Madoc ground his thumb in until black blood came pouring out of the wound. With an almost inaudible whine the wolf shuddered and relieved some of the pressure on Madoc’s arm.
In one violent jerk he wrenched it free. The beast was half-blind, and now he fought to finish the deed.
The wolf went wild. It rolled, bucked and snapped at him, but Madoc held on with grim determination. By the time it finally managed to throw him off both eyes were bloody, ragged messes.
Madoc had won.
It took the wolf some time to realise it. It tried to lash out at him, growling and snapping, but it was of no use – he was too quick. Madoc simply retrieved his sword, stood back and let it tire itself out in its wild thrashings.
As Madoc watched its pathetic struggle the rage in him slowly began to cool, before vanishing entirely. The wolf was just a tool; he might as well direct his rage against a bow or spear.
Soon it ceased to struggle. It lay panting on the ground, whining pathetically. Madoc felt sick and tired. He killed it with a single blow to the neck before dropping to his knees at the side of Roland’s body.
His friend was barely recognisable. Savage wounds covered Roland from head to tail. His friend’s eyes were still open, and they displayed naked terror.
Roland had died terrified and alone. Another failure to add to the list.
After a while, he became aware that something soft and cold was gently falling onto his arms and head. Through a blurred vision, he looked up into the night sky.
It was snowing.
* * *
By morning it was up to his ankles, driving hard across the land. The cold had numbed nearly all feeling in him.
Madoc had left the forest behind and was walking across a meadow, one hand clutched tightly to his chest and his sword, loosely held in its scabbard, trailing through the snow behind him.
He had no idea where he was, where he was going or what he was supposed to do.
The sun had risen but the world had stayed the same. Black and white with no colour. His arm was still bleeding, and he let it drop loosely by his side as he walked. Was there any point in making a tourniquet? Madoc didn’t think so.
What’s the point? What’s the point? What’s the point?
The words echoed through his head ceaselessly, like the beat of a marching drum. He had no answer to the question. All he could do was walk, although he doubted his legs would last for much longer.
He had seen glimpses of the creature in the corners of his vision but it had not spoken to him. It just stood and watched. No more wolves either. Probably the creature thought them no longer necessary.
At times it almost seemed that there were two Madocs – one trudging through the snow and the other calmly watching him struggle from a great distance, wondering why he did so.
The weight of his armour had redoubled. Momentarily forgotten in his struggle against the wolves, it had struck back with a vengeance – it had taken him all the night and most of the morning just to go less than three leagues.
It felt like the hand of a giant was slowly pushing him into the ground.
Madoc’s mind was breaking, memory and sense blending together; one moment he was striding through the streets of Jerusalem, feeling the unfamiliar heat on his skin and hearing strange languages being spoken around him.
In the next, he was strolling along the boundaries of Mount Eddlin, his wife and children with him, simply enjoying the peace they had together.
And sometimes he was back in the villa, walking down a long corridor stained with blood to a meeting with a dark figure that waited patiently for him…
Madoc stopped. He had come to a hill. A small, gentle one that a child might have climbed in minutes – but for Madoc it might as well have been a mountain.
He slowly sat down in the snow, cross-legged, and considered his next course of action.
Madoc was exhausted. He wanted rest. Needed rest. But that would mean death. Would that be suicide? A mortal sin that would damn him to hell?
He had tried, after all was said and done – gone beyond the limits of most other men, at the very least.
Would God forgive him for it? There was quite a large part of him that simply did not care, but Madoc’s faith remained, if only in the form of a few glowing embers.
It was possible. He had not given in to the creature. Accepting one’s own limitations was no sin, surely?
And even if it were, perhaps he might still be accepted into Heaven. He would have to burn his sin away in Purgatory for a thousand lifetimes and more, but he might still be saved – and see his family again in a place where nothing could touch them; where no power would ever tear them from him again.
Madoc smiled at the thought. It was a pleasant image, and might even be true, but he found it was difficult to accept as plain fact something he had once believed without question.
So what was he certain of?
Well, after sitting still in the cold for a few hours the breath would leave him, and that would be the end.
His body would not keel over – the cold would keep it frozen in place until the spring thaw. What was left of his flesh would be picked clean by scavengers, leaving only a pile of bone and rusted metal. Perhaps someone might bury what remained if they happened upon it.
These things he was sure of. Anything else – Judgement, Heaven or Hell – was mere speculation. Death was the one unalterable fact of existence.
And if that was so, how could he resist it? Why should he even make the attempt?
Madoc felt a great burden slip from his shoulders as he relaxed into his place in the snow. No more questions. No more struggle. Just rest without end.
He closed his eyes…and heard something.
Close by. Just over the hill. It had sounded like a cry for help, but he wasn’t sure. Then more sounds came, and there could be no mistaking it – there was a commotion. Raised voices, cries, rough laughter – and the scream of a child.
Madoc was on his feet in a moment. The burden returned with cruel strength but he pushed through it, climbing the hill at a slow but steady pace.
At once the creature was at his side, keeping pace with him.
“Turn and walk away. This is but a passing temptation.”
Madoc ignored it. It laid a hand on his arm and held him with a grip like iron.
“You will accomplish nothing. Death is the lord of all things.”
Madoc tore its grip away and continued up the hill.
Madoc reached the summit. There was a road below. A cart loaded with belongings stood halted in the middle of it. Two children, very small, were sat in the back, with a woman in front holding the reins. All three looked terrified.
A man – the father, Madoc guessed – was talking, begging, with the leader of a small group of armed men, who had a broad, open smile on his face.
They had not seen Madoc. As he watched, the bandit captain drew back his hand and threw a heavy punch at the father. He fell to the earth, dazed, with a bloody nose. The woman cried out and the children screamed.
The bandit laughed.
At the sight of that something shifted within Madoc.
Death was merely a fact. But it was a truth, a truth eternal, that the strong should not oppress the weak; a truth, that the helpless required a protector.
It was a truth that in the face of such demands, death was simply an irrelevance.
Madoc’s work was not yet finished. Duty beckoned.
He started down the hill, loosening his sword from its sheath as the creature screamed at him to stop…
* * *
The family was thankful, if wary. Madoc’s first blow had nearly taken the bandit captain’s head clean off, and the others simply ran before this frightening spectre that had emerged from the driving snow.
And who wouldn’t? He was unshaven, his hair was wild, his eyes bloodshot and his armour covered in blood, snow and dirt,
But they offered him a ride in their cart all the same. Madoc thanked them and clambered into it, smiled at the children (who regarded him warily), and settled down to rest.
You’ll never be rid of me, a small and spiteful voice whispered somewhere in the lowest depths of his mind. Toil and heartbreak shall follow you for the rest of your days.
Madoc ignored it and drifted off. He did not dream. When he woke they were in a town. Madoc thanked the family and left them.
After wandering through the streets he found a church and staggered inside. Madoc slumped into a pew, letting his sword clatter to the ground beneath him.
The church was empty. It was still early in the morning, and very cold, though the snowfall had stopped. A few weak beams of sunlight penetrated into the dim interior.
Madoc was unsure of what to do next. Call for the priest? Say his prayers? He lacked the strength.
After a time Madoc found his gaze drifting to the church’s rood screen, and the great carven image of Christ on the cross in the centre of it. He stared at it.
Surely escape had tempted Him? With no more than a word, a legion of angels would have come to His rescue. With the slightest act of will, all His pain and desolation would have ended.
Yet He had hung there, abandoned and betrayed, bereft of all comfort; by His own words, without even the presence of God to succour Him –
Eloi, eloi, lama sabachthani?
No reason for His anguish. No reason at all, so far as He could see in that moment. And deliverance would have been so, so easy…
But His duty had been clear. There was no escaping it. He had hung on, until His wracked breathing had ceased and His heart became still. Only then would He allow Himself to be taken down.
Slowly Madoc realised the wound on his arm no longer ached. He examined it, and found that the bleeding had stopped. Indeed, it looked half-healed.
His gaze returned to the cross.
Eloi, eloi, lama sabachthani?
Madoc stayed a little while longer. He said his prayers. The foreign voice in the depths of his mind growled a little, but it said nothing.
Then Madoc picked up his fallen sword and walked out into the cold winter daylight.
©August 2018, Harry Piper
Harry Piper lives in Wales. He has been writing for many years. This is his second story to appear in S&SM.Sir Madoc didn’t tarry long at the ruins of his home. For what was the point in staying? A pile of blackened timber and a handful of graves – there was nothing to salvage and nothing more to see.
He’d wept enough tears to fill an ocean when he had first received the news. That had been some weeks ago. Actually coming back – back to the once-handsome hall he’d dreamt of every night in the Holy Land – was, at this point, nothing more than another cold formality to be fulfilled.
Madoc’s hall had been built in a wonderful place. High up on the slopes of Mount Eddlin, it commanded an awe-inspiring view of the land for miles around. Standing there on a clear day in the midst of summer, a man could trace the path of every gleaming river and count each wandering roebuck in the verdant fields below.
To believe in God – in His goodness and love – had been an easy thing at Madoc’s hall.
But now it was winter. The trees were bare, the fields barren and the wind cold and bitter. Madoc shivered in his fur-lined cloak.
After picking through the ruins he had gone to the graves. Staring at the four mounds of earth with their pathetic little stone cairns, Madoc could only feel a great emptiness.
Dull thoughts circulated sluggishly through his mind. A chapel would have to be built. Money left for masses – as many as he could afford.
After a little while he remembered that he ought to say his prayers. When he was finished he left the bodies of his family and returned to his mount.
He had left his destrier, Roland, under an old elm. The great black horse whickered at his approach and gently nuzzled him in greeting. Madoc absently stroked Roland’s neck.
Climbing back into the saddle, Madoc took one last look over the razed grounds. Then he turned west to face the setting sun, and rode into the hills.
* * *
As night fell and the cold light of the stars shone down above his head, Madoc rode aimlessly down a long-abandoned trail through a nameless forest.
It was all Madoc could do to focus on the steady beat of Roland’s hooves against the frozen earth and let fate take him where it would.
To pause and reflect, even for a moment, would be disastrous. But try as he might to avoid thinking on it, he could not block out everything- the clink of his mail and the weight of the shield on his arm were constant reminders to Madoc of his failure.
For he was a knight, and a knight was a protector – that was the calling in its very essence.
The early grief and rage at their deaths had turned from a searing fire to a deadening chill. Now the pain of it was like a shard of ice lodged deep within his breast, and Madoc knew that it could never be removed.
He had no comfort from above. Madoc did little praying anymore – what he most desired was something that could not be granted. He knew that. Knew that no amount of penances or prayers would change it.
Madoc feared that if he were to try to find his way back to his old piety, the inevitable silence from heaven would change his dull acceptance to a cold and unforgiving hatred.
He was interrupted in his thoughts by a sudden flash of light deep within the trees to his right.
Instinct took over. His sword was unsheathed almost before he knew it, and he pulled back hard on the reins. Roland reared and neighed, but quickly become still.
Madoc peered into the darkness, but could see nothing. Pale shafts of moonlight striking through the branches revealed no bandits waiting in ambush – no glint of spearhead or blade.
“Who goes there?” Madoc cried out.
No-one replied. His call echoed out through the trees before fading into silence.
Madoc didn’t move. He waited patiently for something to reveal itself, and was rewarded when the light came again.
It disappeared quickly, but it burned brighter this time, and by its illumination he could see the vague shadow of a structure deep in the trees. It was shrouded by darkness before he could get a better look.
Madoc was puzzled. He knew this land well, but he had never heard of someone living so far out into the wilderness.
Perhaps a hermit? Holy men and women often made their homes in the lonely places of the world.
If so, it would be a great stroke of fortune. To spend the cold winter night indoors with a bed, food and a fire would be welcome.
Madoc dismounted and, taking Roland by the bridle, walked into the trees. He kept his sword unsheathed, however – a man could never be too careful.
Picking his way through the twisted tree roots, Madoc, dulled by grief though he was, found himself looking forward to the prospect of some companionship for the night.
The presence of another person would be enough to stave off the darkness for a time; warm the shard a little.
When Madoc finally emerged from the trees into the clearing containing the structure, he was stunned to find it was not of Cymric or Saxon craft, but Roman.
It was a grand thing, too – a villa of handsome whitewashed stone, red brick and neatly-laid clay tiles on the roof. And remarkably well-preserved – only the creeping ivy covering the walls and a few cracks here and there despoiled the pristine image.
Madoc was baffled. How had such a place remained hidden? And who had made their home inside it?
No holy man or woman, for certain; a place of pagan luxury was hardly an appropriate place for prayer and penance.
It could be just a lonely old madman. Or a wandering poet looking for inspiration. Could be anything.
He cleared his throat and called out –
“I am Sir Madoc. If anyone is there, declare yourselves.”
No answer.
“By God,” Madoc warned, “I’ll have no tricks played on me.”
More silence. Madoc felt a little foolish.
It might still be an ambush. But the opportunity to make camp in such a place was too appealing to ignore. Madoc decided to go in.
As he moved forward towards the entrance Roland proved uncharacteristically nervous; his head went up and his ears flattened as he snorted and pulled back against Madoc’s grip on the bridle.
Madoc, too tired to struggle with the beast, left Roland outside and went in alone.
Dead leaves crunched under his heels as he passed through the doorway and into the atrium. With his shield covering his chest, Madoc cautiously scanned his surroundings.
Faded but still beautiful frescoes depicting scenes of domestic tranquillity covered the walls, while mosaics of intricate craftsmanship lay under his feet. Strands of ivy had crept in here and there, but little else of nature had made inroads into the villa.
No arrows or spears leapt out at him from the shadows. Madoc moved forward slowly, but he didn’t see any obvious sign of inhabitation.
He found himself a little distracted by the images on the walls. Portraits of those who had lived here, he supposed; the family eating together, the mother nursing her child, the father playing with his little boy –
Madoc forced his gaze away.
“Hello?” he called out. “Anyone here?”
No-one replied. Madoc explored the ruin carefully, his sword-arm tense, but after wandering down each corridor and looking into each room it became clear that he was alone.
He hadn’t even seen the black marks of old campfires. Apart from a few shards of broken pottery and some rotting wooden furniture, the place was empty. There was a good chance he was the first man to enter the ruin in centuries.
And if that was the case, then where had the light come from?
The mystery sent a small shiver down his spine, but little else. It was men, not spirits, that you had to be afraid of.
In any case, it had probably been the result of the moonlight reflecting off some piece of errant metal. Something of that nature.
He decided to stay in the atrium. Madoc set a campfire in a corner clear of debris; a small crack in the roof overhead provided a useful chimney.
Madoc tried to coax Roland inside, but the beast refused. Still nervous, he pranced back and forth without responding to Madoc’s entreaties. Irritated, Madoc left him to his own devices.
When the fire was blazing steadily, Madoc spent a while warming his hands over the flames. He had not realised how cold he had been; he could feel life slowly creeping back into his numb fingers.
When he was certain he was in no danger of losing any digits or other extremities, Madoc laid down and waited for sleep to take him.
It would not. Something about the villa was pricking at him, refusing him the luxury of rest. An uneasy and vague apprehension. Almost, but not quite, the feeling of being watched…
His sword lay next to his bedroll. Sighing, Madoc took it up once more. Another patrol, then. Perhaps the exertion would make him tired enough for sleep.
Standing, he made a torch from the crackling fire. He moved off from the campfire into the darkness of the villa before remembering his shield. He turned to pick it up, and froze.
Directly above Madoc’s place before the fire was a fresco, similar to the images he had seen earlier upon entering the villa. How he had missed this one, he had no idea – what it depicted made him almost sick with horror.
A figure in a desolate landscape. An older man in regal dress stood amidst a pile of corpses – men, women and children. The fresco had an awful realism to it that was utterly out of place with the other stylised images of the villa.
The man was bent over with grief, hands clenched tightly over his eyes. His mouth was opened in a scream of terrible agony. At first Madoc thought that he was weeping, but then he noticed the blood seeping out from under the fingers…
Madoc couldn’t look away. The sounds of the fire and the wind outside seemed to fade until a deathly silence reigned.
It was meant for you, an unbidden thought came. You were meant to see it.
It was only after his heartbeat had resumed and his breath returned that the spell was broken.
“Just a picture,” Madoc murmured. He could hear the crackle of the fire and the howl of the wind again, and they assured him of it.
But he was not entirely convinced. The thing was too bizarre and too grotesque to be dismissed so easily.
Just looking at it filled him with a deep fear mixed with loathing. For a strange few moments a kind of madness took over, and Madoc seriously considered hammering the thing into dust; taking the hilt of his sword and beating the thing off the wall and stamping the remnants into oblivion.
But then his reason reasserted itself. Was he a child to be frightened by pictures? Was a knight to be unmanned by a few strokes of paint?
The fear and panic gradually drained away, to be replaced by a faint disgust at himself.
Madoc dropped the torch, laid his sword aside and tried to make himself comfortable in his bedroll once more. He kept his back to the image and his eyes to the flames and, as the fire ate itself away to nothing, he slowly fell asleep.
* * *
Madoc was standing in the villa’s atrium again, but the walls were bare and the floor devoid of any clutter. Everything was lit by a harsh and unsparing white light that set a weak but steady pounding going in his skull.
He knew it was a dream immediately, and that was unusual. Generally, the falseness of them dawned on you just as you were leaving them.
A stranger thing – his mind was totally clear. That shouldn’t have been the case, either. In the world of a dream one was ruled by impulse, fragments of memory and imagination; you were more observer than participant.
He tried to move around a little, only to find it incredibly difficult. There was a great weight on his limbs that made every movement sluggish, clumsy and exaggerated.
“Where are you going?”
The voice, wet and guttural, came from behind him, accompanied by an awful smell – like burning hair.
“Where are you going?” it said again.
Madoc said nothing.
“Speak,” the unseen figure said, “or I shall force the words from you.”
“This is a dream,” Madoc replied, still staring straight ahead. “I won’t waste my breath on phantoms.”
A sudden, sharp pain in his side. The shock and force of it sent Madoc to his knees, gasping for breath.
When he was finally able to lift his head (slowly and painfully at that) he found a monster standing above him.
It was wearing long tattered robes that had once been regal but were now faded and grey. A long hood obscured the face, but its eyes glowed like twin yellow moons and in their light Madoc could see it had no skin. He was looking at a grinning skull.
“I know you,” it said.
Madoc could only stare.
“I watched you as you stumbled past my home, following a path with no end and no purpose. I saw your pain, and I reached out to you.”
“Why?” Madoc said. “What do you want from me?”
“I want to set you free.”
“Free from what?”
“Your suffering.”
Madoc would have laughed if he hadn’t been in so much pain. “Ah, I’m supposed to believe that you’re an angel? Come to ease my burdens? I thought devils were supposed to be cunning.”
“I am no devil.”
“You are no man.”
“Once. But that is of no consequence.”
“I want nothing from you,” said Madoc.
“This is no offer, knight,” the creature replied.
It leant forward, raising its arm, and the robe fell back to reveal a skeletal hand dripping with a thick black liquid that gave off an immense heat.
Madoc tried frantically to move, but a crushing force held him in place as the creature slowly and almost gently laid its palm on Madoc’s forehead.
The pain was searing. Madoc screamed as his flesh burned.
“You will thank me,” the creature murmured. “Not at first, but you will.”
The pain was not the worst of it – Madoc could feel the corruption of the creature’s touch pushing down past the skin, seeping into his blood, coursing through his veins…
Madoc managed to raise a hand. He grasped the creature’s arm; it was like gripping hot coals. He opened his mouth to cry out as a fresh wave of agony assaulted him…
* * *
Madoc awoke with a start.
He was lying in a cold morning light breaking in through the gap in the roof above. The fire was completely extinguished – not even a handful of embers remained. He was islanded in a sea of shadows that left the rest of the villa pitch-black.
Madoc’s hand immediately went to his forehead, but as he frantically traced the skin he could find no wound, and no mark of any kind.
“Just a dream,” he muttered, when he had regained his breath and composure. “Just a dream, you fool.”
But the words sounded pathetic, even to himself. When had he ever experienced such pain in a mere dream?
And that creature – that figure of death with its eyes like lanterns…
Madoc got to his feet and swiftly packed his things away. The sooner he found Roland and put some distance between himself and the villa, the better.
So intent was he on leaving that it was only after Madoc had taken a few steps into the darkness that he discovered that, overnight, the villa had become a slaughterhouse.
The floor was covered with human debris. Skulls, shattered ribcages, arms, legs and other shards of bone lay strewn in every direction. It looked as if a whole village had been massacred in the atrium.
Dark stains were drawn in violent slashes across the walls. There were countless handprints too, as if the victims had been trying to push the very walls down in their desperation to escape.
The sheer scale of the violence – even dulled by time – was ghastly.
Horrified, Madoc looked back his campfire, to see that the grizzly detritus formed a perfect ring around it.
And the wall above his bedroll was perfectly blank. The image from the night before was gone.
Madoc ran, and didn’t stop until he found a nervous Roland halfway up the slope leading to the road.
He must have ridden at least three leagues before he stopped to allow Roland to catch his breath, and in all that time Madoc never once dared to look back.
While Roland wheezed air back into his lungs, Madoc leant on his neck and tried to calm himself. He was distracted by an ache in his hand.
Removing the glove, he found his skin covered by an angry red burn.
* * *
What else was there to do after that but carry on?
Madoc decided that he had to find a church or a monastery. He was dealing with unearthly powers.
To that end it might have been simpler to ride back the other way, but that would require passing the villa, which was unthinkable.
So Madoc made his way down through a great valley with steep, wooded slopes. Perfect ambush country, but that was a distant concern now. And anyway, who else would be out in the wilderness apart from the mad and the lost?
He counted himself among the latter. The hills here were alien to him – or perhaps he had just forgotten them. He had been away from home a long time.
Madoc kept his blade loose in its scabbard. The creature would come again – of that he was sure. But in what form?
Madoc was afraid; he could admit that to himself. But more – and far worse – than that, he felt utterly helpless.
A knight was supposed to throw himself into battle without a moment’s hesitation; death came easily to a knight but that was the way of things. To fall against an enemy beyond your strength was no misfortune; it was a fine way to die.
But what was he to do against this? An enemy that could mark and hurt him in his dreams? An enemy beyond the touch of steel?
Through its hideous touch the creature had put something in him. Of that Madoc was certain- it had called it a ‘gift’. But what was it?
Madoc felt no different. His vision was unclouded and his thoughts clear. His body suffered no new pangs apart from the burn on his hand (the pain from which had now faded to a weak if steady throbbing).
His armour felt a little heavier than usual, but after a night like the one Madoc had suffered through that was hardly a surprise.
As the day wore on Madoc’s faint hopes of discovering a church, a home or even another person dwindled rapidly. There were no pillars of smoke rising into the air in the distance and no tracks of man, horse or cart in the earth around him. He was alone.
“The mad and the lost,” he muttered bitterly to himself as the sun started to fall behind the hills.
But there was one stroke of fortune. When the time came to make camp Madoc stumbled onto a near-perfect shelter – a small cave next to a quiet stream.
That night Madoc tended the fire as an exhausted Roland slumbered, thinking on what sleep would bring.
It would be in his dreams again. It had not come at him in the day, and was still holding back even after darkness had fallen.
Madoc would not try to stay awake – he would have to sleep eventually, and it would better to do so at a time of his choosing rather than falling straight from the saddle.
He laid himself down by the fire. He was afraid, but the strain of the past day had taken its toll. Almost before he knew it his muscles had gone slack and his eyelids grown heavy.
The dim thought came that he should tend to his prayers, but Madoc dismissed it – he was too weary.
Gradually and uneasily, he let himself drift into sleep.
* * *
This time he was back at Mount Eddlin. In the hall, as it had once stood before the attack. But like the dream in the villa, everything was once again coated with that strange, lifeless white light.
He was standing on the dais. As before, he could not move.
Looking around, Madoc noted the shields on the walls, the spot by the fire the dogs always claimed for themselves, the great tables covered by the stains of a thousand meals… But he felt no longing for any of it.
This place was a convincing likeness, but he knew it was not his own – every inch of it belonged to the creature.
A moment later it appeared before him. Close enough for Madoc to smell the foulness concealed beneath its robes, but far enough to be out of reach.
It was silent for a time. Madoc felt as if it were studying him.
Then it turned to point towards the centre of the hall. “Your loved ones died there – under those very beams.”
Madoc said nothing, but the fear making his heart pound slowly began to turn to hatred.
“You blame yourself for their deaths,” the creature continued. “You think you could have saved them. That you should have been here to defend them.”
Madoc took a single step towards the creature. It was like trying to walk through a waist-high snowdrift strengthened by frost.
“And you are right,” the thing continued. “Your presence may have saved them. But to what end? Death would have come for all of them, in time.
“Do not sorrow over their taking. Lament, rather, that they were not taken sooner. Lament that they were ever brought into this world in the first place.”
Another step. Madoc’s arms remained frozen to his sides. The pain and fury made him tremble.
“For death is the only god this world has ever known. To struggle against it is only to suffer, and suffer pointlessly.”
Madoc managed to raise an arm as he took another step. The creature did not retreat.
“You go on because you think you have a duty to do so. But this is false. Good and evil mean nothing in the face of death. Your oaths, duties, pledges and prayers mean nothing. Everything that breathes will meet the same fate – the endless dark.
“It will all come to nothing in the end – every noble cause, every valiant last stand and every foul act. All will be dust and shadow.”
Invisible chains held Madoc back. His hand trembled in the air inches away from the creature’s head.
“I was like you, once. I believed the lies that men tell themselves. A brutal baptism awoke me to the truth.
“For now I see that death is not the enemy. It is our closest friend, liberating us from this burden we call life. To choose life is to choose the lie. Embrace death, and we embrace the truth.
“This is my gospel, and you may yet be an apostle in its service.”
Madoc tried to speak – tried to roar his defiance – but his mouth would not open.
“I understand you are reluctant. But I will persevere. I have servants in the world, and I have instructed them to help you along in your path – my gift alone may not be enough.”
“You will follow me and repent of your obstinacy. You will have to, by the end.”
* * *
The morning was damp, and colder than the day before. Madoc gave himself some time before attempting to rise, but when he did so he was surprised by how heavy his armour had grown.
It had always been like a second skin to him – over the years one simply got used to the weight. Now it was like a heavy foot planted on his chest.
So Madoc rested for a while longer, waiting until the sun had warmed the ground and dissipated the worst of the morning mist before getting up.
When he was finally saddled on Roland and back on the move he found a surprise waiting for him in the middle of the trail.
A dead fox. Shredded to pieces, with the head being the only recognisable part left; the rest was just a bloody mass of flesh and fur. Madoc dismounted to examine it.
He knew a wolf had done it – Madoc could tell the marks of those savage teeth anywhere – but nothing had been consumed. No scavengers had touched the corpse. Strange.
Looking at the bloody but pristine mass of gore, Madoc felt no horror. Just curiosity. And something else.
He stared into the fox’s dead and empty eyes, and felt a surge of envy.
Did it matter how the thing had died? Its toil had ended. There was no hunger, no striving and no pain. Just sleep.
Indeed, thinking of it that way, the savaged carcass was almost beautiful.
But the feeling swiftly faded, and when it had gone Madoc was left utterly disgusted with himself. Such thoughts were products of a weak mind, or a sick one.
He remounted Roland and went on his way.
As they travelled, a recurrent question dug at him – in his dream of the previous night, the creature had mentioned servants. Of what kind?
The answer came at dusk, when the sun was halfway down behind the hills and the first stars were beginning to creep out –
A series of long, tortured howls echoed down the walls of the valley like a chorus of damned souls in the fires of hell screaming for release.
Roland went half-mad with fear, nearly throwing Madoc in the process. He had to roar and strike at the beast in order to get it to submit.
When Roland was back under control, Madoc scanned the treeline for any movement. There was none, but now he knew that they were out there. By the sound of it, a whole pack of them.
There was no camp that night. Madoc stayed in the saddle, only stopping to relieve himself. He kept a lit torch in one hand and his sword in the other, allowing Roland take the lead, knowing that the beast’s fear would drive it forward.
Once in a while, whenever Madoc came close to falling asleep, he would spot something deep in the shadows; blazing yellow eyes, watchful and patient.
Madoc kept his watch, hoping that the dawn would come quickly.
* * *
A cruel wind came with the morning. It set the trees swaying and groaning as it clawed and bit at Madoc’s face, drawing tears from his eyes and making his face numb.
But Madoc was thankful for it. It would keep him awake when he wanted nothing better than to let weariness take its course – to simply slide out of the saddle without a thought or a care for anything in the world.
There was no sign of the creature’s servants. He wondered why they held themselves back.
Even so, Madoc and Roland had made some progress. The walls of the valley were behind them, and they had emerged onto a wooded plain that sloped gently downwards to a series of low hills.
Something troubling was happening to Madoc’s sight. The colour seemed to be seeping from everything. The vitality was gone; it was as if the world were covered by a grey shroud.
Part of the creature’s gift, perhaps. It was nothing compared to the weight of his armour.
A day ago it had been a mere irritant. Now Madoc feared that if they were attacked he would barely have the strength to raise his arm, let alone fight.
It was the damnedest thing. He was not sweating from exertion and he could not feel his muscles trembling beneath the weight. Yet he’d never felt so weary in all his life.
Roland was struggling, too. It was not just the exhaustion – they had been on long marches before, but never against this kind of enemy. Fear was taking its toll on his friend.
They needed to find a town, and soon. Madoc didn’t want to pull innocents into his own battle, but he could not let the creature triumph; his enemy had its own infernal gospel and was set on propagating it. It could not be allowed to do so.
The day passed with nothing to show for it. No demonic creatures spilling out of the trees to attack but no town, either. When evening came Madoc decided to take a gamble.
With Roland, his sword and his shield left below, Madoc climbed up the trunk of an ancient oak, his feet slipping every time he tried to gain purchase and scraping a good deal of skin off his hands as he grasped at the rough and unyielding wood.
It wasn’t the tallest tree he could find, but it looked promising, and in any case Madoc had little time to go hunting for the perfect specimen; already the sun was hovering low above the hills, casting a light with a colour akin to molten bronze across the land.
His enemy, it seemed, could not abide the day; but the nights belonged to it. Madoc had to make his own moves while he still could.
Madoc was a strong man, but by the time he had reached the higher branches he was gasping for breath. His armour seemed to grow heavier by the moment. He felt old and so very, very tired.
He went on. Madoc finally hauled himself up to a place where he had a clear view of the land for leagues in every direction. After regaining his breath, he took a look.
It wasn’t long before he spotted the village.
It wasn’t much – just a collection of cottages, a few pens for cattle and a humble church atop a hill. A few families scratching out a life for themselves in a forgotten part of the world.
Madoc marked the distance as two leagues, as the crow flew. He could even make out a few lonely figures wandering about, lighting bonfires against the coming darkness.
Slowly and carefully, he made his way back down. Almost instinctively, he tried to crush the small flame of hope that had flickered into life in his heart. He had not escaped yet.
He didn’t get back into the saddle this time – Roland had earned a small rest. Indeed, his mount looked exhausted. Madoc took him by the bridle and led the way, thankful that the wind had died down.
The shadows lengthened as they moved forward, but Madoc was guided by the bonfires the townspeople had lit – he could see them on the hill, lining it like a crown of stars.
What would he say to them? Could words even do it justice? Even if he were able to explain what had happened, they would most likely think him insane, and Madoc had to admit he looked the part – unshaven, wild-eyed and miles from anywhere a knight ought to be.
He would head straight for the priest and demand that something be done. What, exactly, he was not sure – now more than ever he left matters of faith to those more secure in it than he was.
When they finally reached the hill – by which time the stars were beginning to creep out – Madoc and Roland were confronted by a final obstacle.
At a distance the hill had seemed unremarkable. But now he was standing at the foot of it, Madoc saw that the slope facing him was steep, and thick with trees and rocks, blocking the village above from view. Climbing it would be a struggle.
Perhaps he should go around? But on further investigation Madoc found that he and Roland had nowhere else to go – there was more thick and tangled forest to their right and left, with no sign of another trail. That left the slope.
Roland wouldn’t make it. He was tired, it was dark and the path had far too many obstacles – one slip and it could very well mean a broken leg.
Madoc knew what he had to do, but he did not want to admit it. The village was so close he could even hear faint snatches of conversation. He called out until his throat ached but there was no answer – too far off.
He turned to Roland. His friend eyed him wearily.
“I’ll be back in a moment,” Roland said, feeling like a child, a fool and a traitor all in the same moment. “I’m not abandoning you.”
The stupid beast didn’t make a sound and didn’t move its gaze. Madoc gently scratched Roland behind the ears before he turned to the slope and began to make his way up.
He left the shield but took his sword; he feared the creature might attempt an assault on the villagers. If that were to be so, he would not be left helpless.
It was hard going – harder than anything he had faced in the Holy Land. He stumbled and tripped on vines, roots and stones; he felt as if the land itself had turned against him.
But it was his armour that was his greatest enemy – it was like a boulder around his neck, dragging him down and pulling him back for every new step that he took.
Madoc kept his eyes on the lights above. He told himself he had a duty to fight, a duty to prevail – he could not let the creature win.
He told himself this even as a calm and reasonable voice in the back of his mind quietly suggested a very different course of action – that of simply halting, and allowing his weariness to take its natural course.
After so much toil and struggle, a hard bed of frozen earth would feel softer than the finest silk. Madoc would not have to wait long before the cold took him.
He had seen men die of it before – it came like a thief in the night, snatching away a man’s breath with so deft a touch that when morning came it seemed as if they were merely sleeping.
Sleep. Sleep without end.
Madoc slowly became aware that he had stopped moving. He stood silently for a few moments, feeling the wind on his back and the cold night air on his skin. Then he resumed his climb.
Soon he found himself on flat ground. Dimly, he saw lights ahead, covered by a thin screen of branches. He could hear conversation and laughter, and saw the shadows of moving figures.
Using his last reserves of strength, he lurched forward, swatted the branches aside and stepped into the village…
Instantly the light died and the sounds of conversation ceased. Bewildered, Madoc had to wait until his eyes adjusted to the sudden darkness to see the truth.
Ruins faced him. Blackened stone covered by ivy was all that was left of the church, with a few impressions in the earth here and there to indicate the homes of the common folk.
There were no people anywhere. No livestock. Madoc stood alone in the dead village.
Despair coupled with complete incomprehension threatened to overwhelm him. Was he going insane?
“This is cruelty, I admit, but it must be done.”
Madoc turned, and found his nemesis standing before him in the moonlight. Its robes drifted a little in the breeze.
“What you saw was of my own making. I drew you here.”
Madoc fell to his knees.
Silence reigned for a time. Then the creature said –
“You are close to the truth. So very close. Your heart and soul cry out for deliverance. I know it.”
Madoc raised his head.
“I am a knight,” he said softly. “I will never join with you. Give me a hundred hills to climb. A thousand – it matters not. I am a soldier of the Lord.”
“Are you still convinced of that?”
He was not, but it changed nothing.
“You are reluctant. I understand. For one great obstacle still remains in your path. Worry not – my servants will remove it.”
A monstrous howl split the night air in the silence following the creature’s words, followed by a horse’s scream.
Madoc drew his sword and lunged at the creature, but it drifted apart like smoke at the steel’s touch.
He did not wait to try again. Spinning on his heels, Madoc threw himself back the way he came, crashing through the trees with reckless abandon, tumbling his way down the hill.
There were more screams from below – the terrible cries of a horse in agony. Tears blinded Madoc’s eyes; not Roland, please God, not the only friend he had left…
The screams stopped just before he emerged back onto the trail, only to see that he was too late.
There were three of them, all busy consuming what was left of his friend.
The creature had changed them. New muscles of grotesque size distended their limbs. Their eyes blazed with an unnatural light. Razor-sharp teeth dripping with ichor crowded muzzles far too small to contain them.
Two noticed his arrival. Growling, one of the wolves went to Madoc’s left and the other to his right. The third, apparently unconcerned, remained behind to feast on Roland.
Madoc knew with a dread certainty that they would not kill him. They would mutilate him; blind him and hobble him so that in the end, he would come crawling to the creature, begging for death…
Madoc struck first.
He darted forward and, as the first wolf leapt, deftly stepped aside and cut its throat with the edge of his sword as it passed; a swift stroke and then an arc of hot blood was falling through the cold night air, steaming where it fell. The wolf fell silently.
Madoc turned to the second just as it dived at him, bearing them both to the ground and knocking his sword away.
They struggled for dominance, Madoc’s hand clamped around the wolf’s neck as its ghastly teeth snapped on air mere inches away from his face. Its breath – a foul smell of disease and corruption – nearly overwhelmed him.
With his free hand Madoc reached desperately for his fallen weapon. Finding the hilt, he clumsily brought it up and stabbed at the wolf’s belly. The blade slid in but the beast just redoubled its efforts, driving itself into a frenzy in its effort to get at Madoc.
Madoc had to force the sword through the wolf’s stomach inch by bloody inch until finally it went limp. He pushed the body away and rose to face his last opponent.
It was almost as large as Roland. Clearly the leader of the pack, and the one most touched by the creature – twisted into a grotesque shape that was more demon than mere animal.
As Madoc advanced towards it, it loosed its grip on Roland’s neck and started to pace around him slowly, keeping itself at a distance.
It was totally silent. Its eyes were fixed on Madoc’s, and in them he could see an unnatural intelligence. He could see the hand of the creature.
Madoc’s sword was lodged too deep in the guts of the other wolf to retrieve it now, but he didn’t care.
A blind fury had descended on him; for Roland, for his family and for himself. He had no wish for a sword or any other weapon – he would use his teeth if he had to.
When Madoc flung himself at the wolf he supposed that it was only surprise that made his insane attack successful.
Man and beast were borne to the ground, Madoc managing to get both hands around the monster’s throat before it could stop him.
The wolf twisted and turned in a frenzied attempt to throw Madoc off. For his own part, Madoc found that the wolf’s throat was corded by muscles like oak; he might as well try to throttle the life out of a bear.
But he didn’t relent in his struggle. Madoc was too far gone to think rationally, or even think at all – his teeth were bared and he was growling wordless obscenities.
The wolf was tenacious, however, and it was not long before it succeeded in getting Madoc’s left arm to slip, just for a moment. Moving swifter than lightening the wolf caught it between its teeth and bit down hard, piercing the mail with ease and digging deep into the flesh beneath.
Madoc screamed. The pain alone was overwhelming, but with it came that terribly familiar infection, violating his body with its foulness…
He hammered the wolf’s muzzle with blows from his free arm, but it didn’t give an inch. It almost seemed to be taking a perverse satisfaction in Madoc’s agony – no longer trying to throw him, it was content with watching him struggle as it held its grip with total equanimity.
At least until Madoc pressed down hard on its right eye with his thumb.
It flinched but didn’t let go, so Madoc ground his thumb in until black blood came pouring out of the wound. With an almost inaudible whine the wolf shuddered and relieved some of the pressure on Madoc’s arm.
In one violent jerk he wrenched it free. The beast was half-blind, and now he fought to finish the deed.
The wolf went wild. It rolled, bucked and snapped at him, but Madoc held on with grim determination. By the time it finally managed to throw him off both eyes were bloody, ragged messes.
Madoc had won.
It took the wolf some time to realise it. It tried to lash out at him, growling and snapping, but it was of no use – he was too quick. Madoc simply retrieved his sword, stood back and let it tire itself out in its wild thrashings.
As Madoc watched its pathetic struggle the rage in him slowly began to cool, before vanishing entirely. The wolf was just a tool; he might as well direct his rage against a bow or spear.
Soon it ceased to struggle. It lay panting on the ground, whining pathetically. Madoc felt sick and tired. He killed it with a single blow to the neck before dropping to his knees at the side of Roland’s body.
His friend was barely recognisable. Savage wounds covered Roland from head to tail. His friend’s eyes were still open, and they displayed naked terror.
Roland had died terrified and alone. Another failure to add to the list.
After a while, he became aware that something soft and cold was gently falling onto his arms and head. Through a blurred vision, he looked up into the night sky.
It was snowing.
* * *
By morning it was up to his ankles, driving hard across the land. The cold had numbed nearly all feeling in him.
Madoc had left the forest behind and was walking across a meadow, one hand clutched tightly to his chest and his sword, loosely held in its scabbard, trailing through the snow behind him.
He had no idea where he was, where he was going or what he was supposed to do.
The sun had risen but the world had stayed the same. Black and white with no colour. His arm was still bleeding, and he let it drop loosely by his side as he walked. Was there any point in making a tourniquet? Madoc didn’t think so.
What’s the point? What’s the point? What’s the point?
The words echoed through his head ceaselessly, like the beat of a marching drum. He had no answer to the question. All he could do was walk, although he doubted his legs would last for much longer.
He had seen glimpses of the creature in the corners of his vision but it had not spoken to him. It just stood and watched. No more wolves either. Probably the creature thought them no longer necessary.
At times it almost seemed that there were two Madocs – one trudging through the snow and the other calmly watching him struggle from a great distance, wondering why he did so.
The weight of his armour had redoubled. Momentarily forgotten in his struggle against the wolves, it had struck back with a vengeance – it had taken him all the night and most of the morning just to go less than three leagues.
It felt like the hand of a giant was slowly pushing him into the ground.
Madoc’s mind was breaking, memory and sense blending together; one moment he was striding through the streets of Jerusalem, feeling the unfamiliar heat on his skin and hearing strange languages being spoken around him.
In the next, he was strolling along the boundaries of Mount Eddlin, his wife and children with him, simply enjoying the peace they had together.
And sometimes he was back in the villa, walking down a long corridor stained with blood to a meeting with a dark figure that waited patiently for him…
Madoc stopped. He had come to a hill. A small, gentle one that a child might have climbed in minutes – but for Madoc it might as well have been a mountain.
He slowly sat down in the snow, cross-legged, and considered his next course of action.
Madoc was exhausted. He wanted rest. Needed rest. But that would mean death. Would that be suicide? A mortal sin that would damn him to hell?
He had tried, after all was said and done – gone beyond the limits of most other men, at the very least.
Would God forgive him for it? There was quite a large part of him that simply did not care, but Madoc’s faith remained, if only in the form of a few glowing embers.
It was possible. He had not given in to the creature. Accepting one’s own limitations was no sin, surely?
And even if it were, perhaps he might still be accepted into Heaven. He would have to burn his sin away in Purgatory for a thousand lifetimes and more, but he might still be saved – and see his family again in a place where nothing could touch them; where no power would ever tear them from him again.
Madoc smiled at the thought. It was a pleasant image, and might even be true, but he found it was difficult to accept as plain fact something he had once believed without question.
So what was he certain of?
Well, after sitting still in the cold for a few hours the breath would leave him, and that would be the end.
His body would not keel over – the cold would keep it frozen in place until the spring thaw. What was left of his flesh would be picked clean by scavengers, leaving only a pile of bone and rusted metal. Perhaps someone might bury what remained if they happened upon it.
These things he was sure of. Anything else – Judgement, Heaven or Hell – was mere speculation. Death was the one unalterable fact of existence.
And if that was so, how could he resist it? Why should he even make the attempt?
Madoc felt a great burden slip from his shoulders as he relaxed into his place in the snow. No more questions. No more struggle. Just rest without end.
He closed his eyes…and heard something.
Close by. Just over the hill. It had sounded like a cry for help, but he wasn’t sure. Then more sounds came, and there could be no mistaking it – there was a commotion. Raised voices, cries, rough laughter – and the scream of a child.
Madoc was on his feet in a moment. The burden returned with cruel strength but he pushed through it, climbing the hill at a slow but steady pace.
At once the creature was at his side, keeping pace with him.
“Turn and walk away. This is but a passing temptation.”
Madoc ignored it. It laid a hand on his arm and held him with a grip like iron.
“You will accomplish nothing. Death is the lord of all things.”
Madoc tore its grip away and continued up the hill.
Madoc reached the summit. There was a road below. A cart loaded with belongings stood halted in the middle of it. Two children, very small, were sat in the back, with a woman in front holding the reins. All three looked terrified.
A man – the father, Madoc guessed – was talking, begging, with the leader of a small group of armed men, who had a broad, open smile on his face.
They had not seen Madoc. As he watched, the bandit captain drew back his hand and threw a heavy punch at the father. He fell to the earth, dazed, with a bloody nose. The woman cried out and the children screamed.
The bandit laughed.
At the sight of that something shifted within Madoc.
Death was merely a fact. But it was a truth, a truth eternal, that the strong should not oppress the weak; a truth, that the helpless required a protector.
It was a truth that in the face of such demands, death was simply an irrelevance.
Madoc’s work was not yet finished. Duty beckoned.
He started down the hill, loosening his sword from its sheath as the creature screamed at him to stop…
* * *
The family was thankful, if wary. Madoc’s first blow had nearly taken the bandit captain’s head clean off, and the others simply ran before this frightening spectre that had emerged from the driving snow.
And who wouldn’t? He was unshaven, his hair was wild, his eyes bloodshot and his armour covered in blood, snow and dirt,
But they offered him a ride in their cart all the same. Madoc thanked them and clambered into it, smiled at the children (who regarded him warily), and settled down to rest.
You’ll never be rid of me, a small and spiteful voice whispered somewhere in the lowest depths of his mind. Toil and heartbreak shall follow you for the rest of your days.
Madoc ignored it and drifted off. He did not dream. When he woke they were in a town. Madoc thanked the family and left them.
After wandering through the streets he found a church and staggered inside. Madoc slumped into a pew, letting his sword clatter to the ground beneath him.
The church was empty. It was still early in the morning, and very cold, though the snowfall had stopped. A few weak beams of sunlight penetrated into the dim interior.
Madoc was unsure of what to do next. Call for the priest? Say his prayers? He lacked the strength.
After a time Madoc found his gaze drifting to the church’s rood screen, and the great carven image of Christ on the cross in the centre of it. He stared at it.
Surely escape had tempted Him? With no more than a word, a legion of angels would have come to His rescue. With the slightest act of will, all His pain and desolation would have ended.
Yet He had hung there, abandoned and betrayed, bereft of all comfort; by His own words, without even the presence of God to succour Him –
Eloi, eloi, lama sabachthani?
No reason for His anguish. No reason at all, so far as He could see in that moment. And deliverance would have been so, so easy…
But His duty had been clear. There was no escaping it. He had hung on, until His wracked breathing had ceased and His heart became still. Only then would He allow Himself to be taken down.
Slowly Madoc realised the wound on his arm no longer ached. He examined it, and found that the bleeding had stopped. Indeed, it looked half-healed.
His gaze returned to the cross.
Eloi, eloi, lama sabachthani?
Madoc stayed a little while longer. He said his prayers. The foreign voice in the depths of his mind growled a little, but it said nothing.
Then Madoc picked up his fallen sword and walked out into the cold winter daylight.
©August 2018, Harry Piper
Harry Piper lives in Wales. He has been writing for many years. This is his second story to appear in S&SM.