The War Hound and The World

Chapter XI

THE SUN WAS improbably hot. Out of the dust came a press of mounted ruffians clad in all manner of crude finery. Klosterheim still directed them. I almost lost my guard in my astonishment, wondering how the knights of Arioch had turned into these far less impressive creatures. But there were yet a good many more of them than could be easily dealt with. I coughed as the dust found my throat and nostrils. Sedenko and I were surrounded by what seemed a veritable forest of steel, and our horses and ourselves were cut with a myriad of minor wounds. Yet we had killed five or six within almost as many minutes and this caused the rest to proceed more warily. Behind them I could hear Klosterheim's voice, high with temper and eager bloodlust, urging them on.

I had a strong sense that my grimoires would be of no use here and that we had passed out of the Middle Marches and into our own world. Overhead the sun was strong and I glimpsed small trees and dry grass which reminded me of my journeys through Spain.

The rogues were pressing us hard. I saw Klosterheim's face now. He was relishing our defeat. We were being forced slowly off the road towards a precipice with a drop of some fifteen feet…quite enough to break our bones and those of our horses.

Sedenko shouted something to me but I did not catch it. The next moment he had vanished and I was fighting on my own. I could not believe he had abandoned me in order to save himself and yet it was the only sensible conclusion.

The snapguzzlers closed in tighter and I was moments from death when I heard Klosterheim's strangled tones from behind me. Suddenly my enemies had fallen away.

"Stop!"

Sedenko had Klosterheim by the throat. The witch-seeker's face writhed with anger and frustration.

"Stop, you oafs!"

The Kazak's steel was against Klosterheim's adam's apple and had already drawn a thin line of blood. "Oh, Sedenko," he swore, "you might have been spared. But not now. Not if I can come back from Hell to destroy you."

I was laughing. I am not sure that I knew my reasons for mirth. "What? Is Duke Arioch not here to save you?" said I. "Why are his men all vanished?"

I kept my sword out as I rode up to Sedenko. Klosterheim's eyes had that mad, inturned look I had seen on more than a few denizens of Hell.

"Kill one of us," I said, "and we kill your master. If he dies, as you well know, you are doomed, every one. Go back up the road until you are out of sight."

The survivors became shifty, but another touch of the Kazak sabre had Klosterheim raving at them to obey. He knew what death meant for him. It was worse than anything he had threatened for me. He would hold onto life while there was the faintest chance. Pride and honour must be discarded, but anything was better than giving up his black soul to Him who owned it.

"Obey them!" called Klosterheim.

The survivors began to drag themselves away. I saw mountains behind them, but they were not the high peaks of the Mittelmarch. These were grassy and low.

Limping, leading their mounts, swearing at us, nursing wounds, the bewildered rogues retreated. We watched. When they were a good distance from us we saw that their breath began to steam and they showed signs of cold, shivering and stamping their feet, looking about them in some surprise. They had gone into the Mittelmarch. Then they vanished.

"Duke Arioch's warriors could not follow us," I suggested. "And you had those men waiting if we succeeded in returning to this world. The damned can no more enter the Earth than the innocent can enter the Mittelmarch."

Klosterheim was shaking. "Are you going to kill me, Von Bek?"

"I would be wise to kill you," I said. "And all my better judgement tells me to do so. But I am aware of what killing you means, and unless I am fighting you I cannot easily bring myself to kill you, Klosterheim."

He found my charity disgusting, it was plain, but he accepted it. He feared death more than anyone I had ever seen.

"Where are we now?" I asked him.

"Why should I tell you?"

"Because I could still summon enough anger, perhaps, to do what I know should really be done to cleanse the world of an obscenity."

"You are in Italy," he said. "On the road to Venice."

"So those mountains behind us would be the Venetian Alps?"

"What else?"

"We must go west," I said to Sedenko. "Towards Milan. Groot said that our goal ties in the west."

Klosterheim's pale features became tense as Sedenko wrenched the sword from his fingers and threw it away.

"Dismount," I said. "Your horses are fresher than ours."

We tied Klosterheim to a tree by the side of the road and transferred our saddles to his beast and another which had belonged to a dead ruffian. We kept our own horses and packed the remainder of our gear on them.

"We should not leave him alive," said Sedenko. "Shall I cut his throat, captain?"

I shook my head. "I have told you that I cannot easily consign any soul to the fate which inevitably awaits Klosterheim."

"You are a fool not to kill me," said the solder-priest. "I am your greatest enemy. And I can conquer yet, von Bek. I have powerful allies in Hell."

"Not as powerful, surely, as mine," I said. Again I spoke in High German, which Sedenko could not understand.

Klosterheim replied in the same tongue. "Indeed they could now be more powerful. Lucifer has lost Himself. Most of His Dukes do not want Reconciliation with Heaven."

"There is no certainty that it will come about, Johannes Klosterheim. Lucifer's plans are mysterious. God's Will is equally mysterious. How can any of us judge what is actually taking place?"

"Lucifer plans to betray His own," said Klosterheim. "That is all I know. It is all that is necessary to know."

"You have simplified yourself," I said. "But perhaps that is how one must be if one follows your vocation."

"We are betrayed by God and Lucifer both," said Klosterheim. "You should understand that, von Bek. We are abandoned. We have nothing we can trust…even damnation! We can only play a game and hope to win."

"But we do not know the rules."

"We must invent them. Join me, von Bek. Let Lucifer find His own Grail!"

We got up onto our horses.

"I have given my word," I said. "It is all I have. I hardly understand this talk of games, of loyalties, of betrayals. I have promised to find the Cure for the World's Pain if I can. And that is what I hope to achieve. It is your world, Klosterheim, which is a world of moves and countermoves. But such gamesmanship robs life of its savour and destroys the intellect. I'll have as little part of it as I can."

As we rode away Klosterheim shouted fiercely at me:

"Be warned, war hound! All that is fantastic leagues against you!"

It was a chilling threat. Even Sedenko, who did not understand the words, shuddered.