A Short Story Exclusive (Page 10)

Sworn now to the Church, each served God as both warrior and priest.

Those very duties had drawn Bernard and the others to the gates of Jerusalem.

Through the cries and carnage, the wooden cart rolled at a steady pace. Bernard willed the wheels to turn faster as dread clutched him.

Must hurry . . .

Still, another need rang through him just as urgently. As he marched, blood dripped down the walls around him, ran in rivers across the stones underfoot. The iron saltiness filled his head, misting the very air, igniting a bone-deep hunger. He licked his dry lips, as if trying to taste what was forbidden him.

He wasn’t the only one suffering.

From the dark cage, the beast howled, scenting the bloodshed. Its cries sang to the same monster still hidden inside Bernard—only his monster was not caged by iron, but by oath and blessing. Still, in response to that scream of raw hunger, the points of Bernard’s teeth grew longer and sharper, his craving keener still.

Hearing these screams, his brothers surged forward with renewed strength, as if fleeing their former selves.

The same could not be said for the horse.

As the beast howled, the stallion froze in its harness.

As well it should.

Bernard had captured the caged fiend ten months ago at an abandoned wooden stable outside Avignon in France. Such cursed creatures went by many names over the centuries. Though once men themselves, they were now a scourge that haunted dark places, surviving on the blood of man and beasts.

Once Bernard had the fiend trapped inside the cage, he had swaddled its new prison with layers of thick leather so that not a mote of light could penetrate. The shielding protected the beast from the burning light of day, but such protection came with a price. Bernard kept it ravenous, feeding it only enough blood to survive, but never enough to sate it.

Such hunger would serve God this day.

With their goal agonizingly close, Bernard attempted to get the horse moving again. He stroked a soothing hand down its sweat-stained nose, but the animal would not be calmed. It heaved against one side of the traces, then the other, struggling to break free.

Around him, Sanguinists swirled in the familiar dance of battle. The shrieks of dying men echoed off the uncaring stone. The beast inside the cage beat the leather sides like a drum and screamed to join the slaughter, to taste the blood.

The horse whinnied and threw its head in fright.

By now, smoke rolled out from neighboring streets and alleys. The smell of burnt wool and flesh stung his nostrils. The crusaders had begun to torch sections of the city. Bernard feared they might raze the only part of Jerusalem he needed to reach—the part where the holy weapon might be found.

Recognizing the horse was of no more use, Bernard drew his sword. With a few deft strokes, he severed its leather harness. Freed, the stallion needed no urging. With a leap out of its traces, it knocked aside a Sanguinist and bolted through the carnage.

Godspeed, he willed it.

He moved to the rear of the wagon, knowing none of his brothers could be spared from the battle. These last steps he must take alone.

As Christ had with his heavy cross.

He sheathed his sword and put his shoulder to the back of the cart.

He would push it the remaining distance. In a different life, when his heart still beat, he was a strong, vigorous man. Now he had strength beyond that of any mortal.

With the tang of blood becoming a humid stew in the air, he drew a shaky breath. Red desire ringed the edges of his vision. He wanted to drink from every man, woman, and child in the city. The lust filled him near to bursting.

Instead, he gripped his searing cross, allowing the holy pain to steady him.

He took a slow step, forcing the cart’s wheels forward one revolution, then another. Each turn brought him closer to his goal.

But a gnawing fear grew with every step gained.

Am I already too late?

AS THE SUN sank toward the horizon, Bernard finally spotted his goal. He trembled with exertion, nearly spent of even his fierce strength.

At the end of the street, past where the last of the city’s defenders fought fiercely, the leaden dome of a mosque rose to an indifferent blue sky. Dark blotches of blood marred its white façade. Even from this distance, he heard the frightened heartbeats of men, women, and children sheltering within the mosque’s thick walls.

As he strained against the wagon, he listened to their prayers for mercy from their foreign god. They would find none from the beast in the cart.

Nor from him.

Their small lives counted little against the prize he sought—a weapon that promised to purge all evil from the world.

Distracted by this hope, he failed to stop the front wheel of the cart from falling into a deep crack in the street, lodging stubbornly between the stones. The wagon jolted to a stop.

As if sensing their advantage, the infidels broke through the protective phalanx around the cart. A thin man with wild black hair rushed toward Bernard, a curved blade flashing in the sun, intending to protect his mosque, his family, with his own life.

Bernard took that payment, cutting him down with a lightning stroke of steel.

Hot blood splashed Bernard’s priestly robes. Though it was forbidden except for extreme circumstance and need, he touched the stain and brought his fingers to his lips. He licked crimson from his fingertips. Blood alone would lend him the strength to push forward. He would do penance later, for a hundred years if necessary.

From his tongue, fire ignited through him, stoking renewed strength into his limbs, narrowing his vision to a pinpoint. He leaned his shoulder to the cart and, with a massive heave, got the wagon rolling again.

A prayer crossed his lips—pleading for his strength to hold, for forgiveness for his sin.

He rushed the cart forward as his brothers cleared a path for him.

The doors to the mosque appeared directly ahead, its last defenders dying at the threshold. Bernard abandoned the wagon, crossed the last strides to the mosque, and kicked open the barred door with a strength no mere man could muster.

From within, terrified screams echoed off ornate walls. Heartbeats ran together in fear—too many, too fast to pick out a single one. They melted into one sound, like the roar of the sea. Frightened eyes glowed back at him from the darkness under the dome.

He stood in the doorway that they might see him backlit by the flames of their city. They needed to recognize his priest’s robes and silver cross, to understand that Christians had conquered them.

But more important, they must know that they could not flee.

His fellow Sanguinists reached him, standing shoulder to shoulder behind him in the entrance to the mosque. No one would escape. The smell of terror filled the vast room, from the tiled floor to the vast dome overhead.