Chapter 7
The full moon has risen. The dilapidated hall was half-darkened. Moonlight penetrated the crevices of the windows, making the outlines of the walls and vaults ghostly. It was necessary to make it before dawn, as long as the darkness empowering the sorcerer dissipated with the first rays of the sun.
The play of shadows on the stone walls, dark figures gliding silently in the semi-darkness. His faithful servants, who looked like ghosts in long, somber robes, brought and placed something that looked like a pile of rags on the altar in the center of the hall. They lit five braziers of coals around the stone pedestal. Sparks of flame soared upwards, twisting and dancing. The Baron gave a barely perceptible nod. His maids threw back the shroud, and de Bellem finally saw what he had longed to see.
It wasn't as bad as he'd imagined. The body was obviously severely damaged, but the face was almost intact. The Baron slowly approached the altar. His eyes remained fixed on the mortal remains of the one who had so recently terrorized his dark soul. Someone he had both hatred and fear for at the same time. He was the only one who almost succeeded in sending Baron de Bellem to hell. And it was only thanks to the patronage of the thrice-great Azrael that the black wizard was able to return to this world.
-So where are you now, Loxley? What's become of you? You are lying in front of me on this rock, maimed and out of breath, and I am stronger and more powerful than ever before! - said the sorcerer pensively.
The wizard grinned, his serpentine gaze fixed on his enemy's haggard face. The head of the man known in life as Robin of Locksley, King of Sherwood Forest, hung limply sideways. Long, dark strands of hair, slick with blood and dirt, fell over a high, smooth forehead and tightly closed eyelids, shading the waxy pallor of his skin. A brown crust now covered his cheek and chin where blood had once flowed freely from his mouth. The baron's expectation was that death would distort the noble features of his face beyond recognition, but it did not. On the contrary, the dead Loxley had a strangely calm and peaceful appearance. De Bellem reached out slowly and touched his bloodstained cheek lightly, almost caressingly, running his fingers over it, feeling the grave coldness of the marble skin. Suddenly, an unwelcome vision appeared in his mind's eye like a bright flash. These were the last moments of the life of the free gunner. When the sheriff and his posse arrived at the scene, he was still alive and breathing. The brutalized soldiers were furious. They wanted to tear their mortally wounded victim apart. They wanted to take revenge on him for the holy terror they had experienced the day before at the sight of him and his arrows. They wanted reprisals. And de Renault was not going to stop them. The soul of Elric's son left his exhausted body and ascended to the heavens before they were finished.
-Free, -a deep voice, like the striking of a bell, rumbled through the head of Simon de Bellem.
-He is free now.
The Baron flinched involuntarily and jerked his hand away sharply. He recognized the voice. A wave of fierce hatred and rage swept over him for a moment. Then it left him, giving way to his previous icy indifference.
-Free? Whatever, you horned forest bogeyman! Only I, Simon de Bellem, by the power vested in me by the mighty Azrael, prince of demons, will be the judge of when he will be free! You stupid old satyr, do you hear me? Soon, I'll own his soul and you can't stop me! - the sorcerer shouted angrily into the darkness.
The Baron's servants stripped Robin's body of its bloody clothes. The deep wounds left by the arrows that had pierced him were exposed. Some of the sheriff's soldiers ruthlessly and roughly tore the arrows from his back, his chest, and his sides, along with his flesh. His body was cut and bruised by sharp stones as he was dragged along the ground from the place of execution to Nottingham.
The Baron's maids began to cover his body with a glowing greenish ointment that resembled swamp slime. This elixir made the wounds and cuts on Loxley's body instantly heal, leaving behind fresh scars. Flesh was being reborn, over which new skin was growing.
The wind howled in the vaults of the castle, breaking the sepulchral silence of the gloomy action, its sharp gust almost extinguished the fires of the braziers. The deathly silence was broken by the sound of footsteps; Azrael's servant went to the nave of the castle to begin the ritual.
Putting steel shackles on the hands and feet of the outlaw, the dark figures of the attendants walked away, bowing their heads low in front of their master.