Chapter two: the Skull
When Damien finally approached the northern city gate of Jaggonath he instantly regretted his rash decision. Whole throngs of people, festively dressed and in a splendid mood, evidently had come to the same conclusion and were heading for a city already overflowing with citizens and visitors. Flags displaying the municipal coat of arms were fluttering merrily in the faint breeze, side by side with the Church's banner with its golden, interlinking circles and a proud standard with the Tarrant family crest that he had so often seen engraved on Gerald's slender knife, the very knife the adept had passed him in the Undying Prince's keep and that had been used by poor, little Jenseny to end her young life.
Memories welled up with a vengeance, and Damien's heart skipped a beat while his throat constricted painfully. So much suffering, so much death, and nobody of those deluded fools who were still celebrating the Hunter's demise would ever honour his companions' bravado in the face of certain death.
Going was slow, and it seemed to take hours until Damien finally rode through the city gate. As if forced by a silent command his gaze moved upwards, and when his mind was finally able to process the visual input his world stopped turning.
The head of a beautiful black horse, perfectly preserved by the artful skills of the embalmers, had been nailed to the gate, right next to a grinning, blackened skull, and to Damien's utmost horror a lot of people spat on the floor while passing under the grisly sight, the act of utter contempt more often than not accompanied by a warding gesture.
For a moment Damien's mind blanked out, and he forgot how to breathe, the excited chattering all around him and the noises of a bustling city drowning in a surge of revulsion and hatred so overwhelming that his sword was already halfway out of its scabbard before his mind caught up with his involuntary movement. Dear God in Heaven, that had to be one of Gerald's sophisticate nightmares, crafted by that unrivalled master of fear to drive him out of his mind with naked dread. Humanity simply couldn't stoop so low, to levels that would have befitted the perverted cravings of the demonic, but not sane people with beating, feeling hearts.
It might have been an olfactory hallucination, a product of his overwrought mind, but Damien's nostrils flared when the repulsive scents of embalming fluids and cold ash, mingling with the sweet-and-sour stench of putrefaction, assaulted his nose, drowning the smells of a sweating crowd, horse shit and hot pastries sold by very busy hawkers. Vryce gagged, and he'd just urged his nervous chestnut mare aside to a spot that was just slightly less packed than the rest of the square when his stomach turned, emptying its contents on the cobblestones.
His helpless retching seemed to last for an eternity, and when he was at long last able to pull himself together and blink the water from his eyes his shirt was sticking to his shaking body. Having forced his clenched fists to let go of the rains Vryce had just wiped his mouth with his handkerchief when a cackling voice was cutting through his wrath and disgust.
"Not a pretty sight, eh, son? But serves him right, it does. Hope that the bastard roasts in hell, right where he belongs. But a seasoned warrior like you should be used to some chopped off heads, considering the mighty sword you've got."
Gritting his teeth to suppress his nausea Damien turned round to face the scrubby, white-haired fellow who was eying him suspiciously.
"Must have eaten a bad bite", Vryce forced out hoarsely, barely managing to move his white, numb lips. He was very well aware that a worked up crowd like this could turn into something much more nasty in a blink, and may God have mercy upon him if somebody rose the suspicion that he might have been in league with the Hunter. As tempting as the oblivion offered by death might have been during the last weeks he wasn't too keen on being ripped apart by a vulking lynch mob.
The old man cackled again, a bit more amicably now. "That ye folks from the country never know how to be careful, son. A lot of people have to be fed during the festivities, and some foul mouthed scandalmongers claim that even the rats are gettin' scarce. What do you think are all those mouth-watering pasties are made of?"
Howling with laughter at his own pun his grating companion patted Damien's left leg sympathetically. "Just a joke, son, just a joke by old Larkin. You don't have to turn white as a sheet again, and don't you dare puking on my nice Sunday shoes."
By now Damien harboured the well-founded suspicion that the ageing process had addled Larkin's brain cells, but keeping matters friendly despite his loathing might be advisable if he wanted to wheedle out some valuable information from the old bugger.
"Don't worry about your shoes, Mer Larkin", the warrior knight forced out between clenched teeth, "I'm all right now." A blatant lie, if there'd ever be one. Damien still felt dizzy and sick to his bones, but he desperately tried to get a grip on himself. Maybe he could sneak back here at the dead of night and rescue Gerald's skull from its abominable resting place to bury it at a secret place deep in the woods, protected by some ancient trees which had always provided shelter and comfort to his unfortunate companion.
For a moment Damien closed his eyes and silently prayed to God that wherever Gerald Tarrant was in his afterlife he would never know how his mortal remains had been put on public display by the very church he had founded for the benefit of mankind. Rest in peace, my friend, far, far away from the clutches of human wickedness and ridicule.
Drawing a deep breath to calm himself Damien pushed down his disgust and tried to force the pale ghost of a winning smile on his face. "Please tell me, Mer, what festivities are you talking about? Each and everybody seems to be flocking into town today."
Larkin stared at him wide-eyed, and a glint of suspicion returned to his questioning gaze. "In which bloody backwater have you been hiding for the last months, son? We are celebrating the triumphant return of our valiant crusaders, including a parade and a festive church service in honor of Andrys Tarrant, the Neocount of Merentha."
Taking in Damien's bleak stare the old man pointed upwards. "The brave lad who did away with that accursed monster, God bless him. In about an hour the circlet of the Neocounty will be placed on that pretty head in our famous cathedral. One should think…"
The warrior knight never found out what one should think, because their small talk was interrupted by the shrill blaring of trumpets which effortlessly cut through the general hubbub, announcing the imminent arrival of the crusaders. The seething crowd erupted into a mighty cheer while hats and caps were flung into the air, small children were lifted onto protesting shoulders and a shower of flowers was covering the path of the victorious army.
Damien had been quite sure that things couldn't get any worse, but he had been wrong. When the first rows of riders entered the gate, led by a tall figure clad in white and gold, its armor glittering in the sunlight, thousands of hysterical voices merged into one, rhythmically chanting the name of their hero, and Vryce prayed that the earth might open under him and devour him whole.
Astoundingly the troops stopped dead in their tracks a short way into the packed plaza, the delay accompanied by some agitated gesturing towards the archway's vile adornment and a disgusted outcry of Andrys that could be heard even over the droning of the crowd. Damien couldn't help but looking at the younger Tarrant, the man who'd killed his companion, his friend, the being he'd sworn to kill years ago but had come to cherish albeit their tumultuous relationship.
As Vryce remembered from their short encounter at the Hunter's keep the resemblance was striking, and the warrior knight forgot how to breathe. For a moment he travelled back in time while his feverish imagination replaced Andrys with Gerald himself, King Gannon's strategist returning home from the battlefield with his troops, and Damien allowed himself a short moment of weakness, feasting on the pale, delicate features, a living reminder of Gerald's tired, but still beautiful face during the last, scarce hours of his freshly regained humanity on their fateful way to his domain.
Damien fervently hoped that somehow, someday, that precious memory would erase the atrocious sight of a blackened skull nailed to a city gate and the empty stare of those unseeing, grey eyes that had been haunting him for weeks now, inspiring nightmares beyond anything he had thought possible even after having placed himself as the main course on the Hunter's menu for months on end.
Vryce's knuckles were white around the rains, and tears were running down his weathered face, but he made no attempt to hold them back. Andrys was still wiping his right cheek frantically, and blinking to clear his blurred sight Damien realized with a start that a smear of blood was sullying the young man's face.
His eyes wide with fear the Neocount turned back and fixed the two heads anew, and Damien could have sworn that his lips trembled. What the hell had happened while the troops had passed the gate? The only possible explanation was that either the skull or the embalmed horse head had shed some drops of blood which had found their way onto the Neocount's face, an incredible coincidence that caused Damien's barely settled stomach to spasm uncomfortably anew.
Still perched on his mare the warrior knight had a good view of the strange occurrences, and relying on his warrior instincts he instantly scanned his surroundings for an impending threat when Andrys blanched, his eyes bulging with unspeakable horror. The Neocount swayed in his saddle, and for a moment Damien expected him to drop off his horse, but the young man caught himself at the last possible instant. Following Andrys' line of sight Vryce gasped in stunned surprise.
The sight that greeted him was neither intimidating nor repulsive at all, but rather pleasant to look at: a lithe figure clad in red and black, long, black hair caught in a braid and a pretty, youthful face dominated by those unsettling dark eyes which were staring at Andrys Tarrant with the same detached, dispassionate arrogance they had already displayed on Black Ridge Pass.
Then the dark gaze moved away from Andrys and focused straightly on Damien with a fearsome finality that made Damien's hairs stand on end. No muscle moved in the young face, no smile graced the delicate features, but the knowing eyes locking with his own suddenly burned with an intensity that took Vryce's breath away, and he felt a shiver running down his spine. No, whoever this man was and whatever his intentions were he definitely wasn't either a mere spoiled brat or an innocuous youth on his way to the cathedral.
Vryce was still trying to process the situation when Andrys Tarrant's head turned into his direction as well and his frightened eyes fell on the former priest. A slight frown appeared on the young man's face, but soon enough realization hit, and Tarrant's weary visage, already bereft of colour, took on an ashen tone that remained Damien acutely of his undead ancestor's former hue.
Andrys' panicked gaze darted between Damien and the comely stranger, his mouth working silently, forming words that never found their way out of his heaving chest, and in that instant Damien couldn't help but feeling sorry for that poor soul whose shoulders were apparently burdened with a load much too heavy for them. Then he remembered Gerald's severed head, held up by his blood matted hair that had once been soft and silky, remembered the citizens gloating at the pitiful skull fastened to that bloody city gate, and those horrifying images quenched the soothing glow of empathy which had warmed his heart for a moment like an icy gush of water.
Let him suffer, a primeval part of his brain piped up ever so seductively, suffer like Gerald most certainly had done in the last moments of his mortal life, having to face death all on his own. All on his own because you left him to die, you bloody hypocrite. But how can that vulking bastard dare to strut around in a copy of Gerald's armour, that little impostor and womanizer who'd never ridden into battle, had never led any army except that pompous crusade, and had in fact achieved just one thing in his otherwise meaningless life filled with whoring, drinking and gambling: he had killed a helpless man at the limits of his endurance who had just returned home from saving the world.
A red mist veiled Damien's eyes, and his fingers clutched the hilt of his sword in a death grip while his body instinctively prepared for the deadly attack on its own accord. If the former priest still had been able to think clearly he might have been horrified at the wave of sheer hatred and bloodlust that was washing through him, but all sensible thought had deserted him, and it took him all his remaining resolve not to cut a path through the cheering crowd, still blissfully ignorant of the drama that took place in their midst, and pounce on the young man like a predator on his prey.
'Going berserk is not a recommendable course of action, priest', a dry voice seemed to whisper inside his head, and slowly coming to his senses again Damien froze, petrified by a sure of panic and self-loathing. Dear God in Heaven, what was happening to him? That sickening urge to rid the world of Andrys Tarrant's presence once and for all, to slit the young man's throat and bathe in his blood, was so disgustingly vile and unfitting for a knight of the flame that it defied description, and for a second Damien felt like a man possessed.
Gerald's death at the hands of his last living descendant had been a terrible tragedy and a crushing personal loss, but in a way the execution had been justice, whether Damien liked it or not. Whatever his personal feelings towards the young man Andrys had just been a tool, anyway, and Damien muttered a silent prayer, thanking God he had pulled out of his uncanny bout of feral fury just in time to prevent further damage…
Then Damien realized what had actually stopped him from running amok, and he almost choked on his own breath. Maybe he was a man possessed, after all, because the familiar, acerbic voice that had saved him from committing a heinous deed had belonged to no one but Gerald Tarrant, and that was absolutely impossible. Not even the Hunter could reach out to him from the realms of the dead, link or no link, couldn't he? Suddenly Damien wasn't so sure anymore. The sole alternative, namely going slowly but surely insane from sorrow and guilt, wasn't any more tempting though than the image of Tarrant's restless soul haunting him from the afterlife.
Meanwhile the solemn procession of armored riders had moved on, and looking up Damien realized that the unknown youth was still staring at him with a knowing gaze that did nothing to ease his growing apprehension. Who are you, damn you?
No slight twitch whatsoever marred the perfect repose of the young visage, but to his bewilderment Damien could have sworn that faint hint of amusement was lurking just beneath the serene façade.
For a man of your intelligence you can be astoundingly slow on the uptake, priest.
That was the final straw for Damien. An invisible band of steel seemed to tighten around his chest, and his vision was narrowing to a tunnel while he desperately gasped for air. His stiff, clammy hands let go of the rains, and the racket of the crowd grew fainter and fainter until only a soft murmur remained. Then the world turned black, and Damien was already deeply unconscious as he slid sideward off his mare and hit the ground amidst the startled outcries of the baffled bystanders.