He approached, and soon sawmovement amidst the darkness of the trees. Within, Ragenard could seea shape taking form.It was not his adversary,he realised quickly. It was much too large.Then suddenly the thingsurged towards him, crashing through the branches. Ragenard had toleap out of the way to avoid being crushed. He swiftly regained hisfooting and assumed his stance, holding sword and shield in place.It was not simply areanimated corpse – it was a hulking, heaving worm-likemonstrosity, formed of numerous pieces of dead flesh sewn togetherwith black magic. Its wide, gaping mouth was lined by several dozenbone-shard teeth, and it had many arms and legs, all reaching out andflailing.It threw itself at him,gnashing and thrashing about like a great fish hauled onto land. Itwas faster than it should have been, though – it shattered hisshield, and at one point it came within an inch of tearing rightthrough him.He could not let the fiendand his minions prevail against him, however.It was fast and massive,but decidedly clumsy in its movements. It lunged towards him, and hewas able to dodge out of the way, shearing through the creature’sflank as he went. Its side opened wide, but none of that boiling,stinking vileness was to be found therein. Ragenard leapt at theopportunity presented to him, forcing his way inside the creature –he wagered that it would not be able to assault what was within it.
He was correct. Degradedmuscles pressed and pushed at him, and he could feel the desperatethrashings of the corpse-worm from inside. The smell of sorcery andthe stench of death filled his nostrils and caused him to gag andvomit, but regardless he struck furiously at the creature fromwithin, cutting and stabbing and twisting and wrenching his sworduntil he could see moonlight and smell the night air and the treesagain.Ragenard’sassault on the creature from its inside had caused it grievous harm.The sorcery that had fastened the flesh together faltered, and thething came apart piece by piece.Soon thecreature was nothing but scattered, rotten masses of flesh. Onelarge piece was still twitching and churning about on the ground.Ragenard hacked at it until it had stopped dead.* * *Ragenard stood and waitedamongst the remains of the creature with sword in hand. After a timea bank of clouds drifted over the moon, putting everything intodarkness.The fiend, then, took thatas its opportunity to run.Therewas swift movement at the edge of Ragenard’s vision. A shape –black within black – leapt out and away from the thicket of trees,some thirty feet from where the warrior stood.
Within the span of aheartbeat, Ragenard was chasing it down.In theutter darkness, he gave pursuit: through the graveyard and thenacross the green towards the ruined church. No revenants rose up tomolest him as he chased down the necromancer.Thedistance between them closed steadily. The fiend ran right past thechurch – a place that may have been a sensible spot for alast-stand, had he been a competent fighter – and instead followedthe track that led out of the old ruined village. Still, however, thedistance between them grew shorter and shorter, until finally thefiend turned to face his pursuer and give fight.Both men came to a suddenhalt. The full moon had emerged from behind its blanket of cloud.Thefiend was slight of frame, with a sharp face and hair the colour ofsoot. His eyes were dark but red-ringed, and his pale skin was thecolour of death. His robes, which were similar to those of a friar ora priest, were black, tattered and dusty.He held a long,sinister-looking knife between himself and his adversary, but itcould be seen to shake in his hand.“Well,” Ragenard said.“Here we are, now.”The necromancer’s fierceglare was the only response.
“By the way, about thatfamily of peasants...” Ragenard lowered his sword, as if he didn’treally need it. “The ones that took you in, and who gave you theirhospitality...”“What did you do to them,Ragenard?” The voice was venomous, but edged with great fear.“Whatdo you think I did to them?” he hissed. “I did what I ought tohave done. You left your taint on them, I could smell it. They neededto be cleansed. So I came upon them and burnt them, of course. Andtheir house. And their dog and their pigs.”Ragenard laughed. “I’ma little bit disappointed with you, necromancer. You are makingthings too easy for me. Was that great big flesh-monster the mostformidable creature you had for me? And the church – it would haveserved well as a spot for your stand against me. Much better than outhere, in the wide open.”“Ah, but I remember,now,” Ragenard continued. “You cannot set your foot upon theconsecrated ground of a house of God. You have tried, but you cannot.I know, however, that it is not any divine power that bars your path,but it in fact comes only from yourself. It is your own guilt, ofcourse! Isn’t that interesting?”Ragenard smiled wickedly.His crooked teeth were stark white in the moonlight. “But then,guilt is a divine power, of a sort, is it not? You know more about itthan I.” Suddenly, the warrior’ssmile disappeared. Just as suddenly, then, his sword wrung out,easily cutting the long knife from the necromancer’s hand. Thesword did not stop, though: the warrior swung it around his head andbrought it back around again, cutting deeply across the necromancer’storso.
The necromancer fell backinto the dirt. Within a moment, however, Ragenard had set a heavyfoot onto his chest.He looked up at thewarrior. His dark eyes were clear; a fierce and bitter resolve wascontained within them. “You can kill me,” hesaid, “but know that I do not fear death. How can I fear death whenI am so well acquainted with it?”“No.” Ragenard took hisfoot away. “You do not fear death, dear friend, you fear what comesafter.”He brought his sword down,sending it deep into the necromancer’s stomach.The black magicianscreamed. It was a ghastly and thoroughly inhuman sound but Ragenardrelished it all the same..The warrior twisted thesword – one way, then the other. He pulled it out and then thrustit right back in again, then again and again.He stood there, for a time,looking at the screaming, dying man at his feet. Blood, red and hot,gushed forth from the wounds. Ragenard was almost surprised that itwas not, in fact, black.Finally he made thecross-sign, and brought his sword down one last time.
* * *He made his way through thespring night, smiling all the way. The eastern horizon was growingsteadily brighter. Christendom would remember him, he fancied, forall time. It was his hope that both the chroniclers and the minstrelswould write about his exploits, and place him amongst the hallowedranks of the great saintly warriors of Christendom.He turned his face to theheavens, and then surveyed the countryside about him.Yes. He knew where he was,now. He had tread through this place earlier in the night, but hadnot yet recognized it then for what it actually was, or what hadhappened there. He understood that he was within half a day’s rideto both the cities of Tours and Poitiers. He knew he was closest,though, to the tiny hamlet of Moussais – better known as Moussaisof the Battle. Looking carefully, he could even see the hovels andthe church in the distance.His smile deepened.It was in this place –some two hundred years earlier – where a force of Franks, under thecommand of the mighty Charles the Hammer, had done battle against thevile Saracen host. They had come up out of Iberia, but Charles hadsmashed them – forever halting the heathen’s savage encroachmentinto Christendom. Had Charles the Hammer not prevailed on that day,the faith of Christ that Ragenard kept so fiercely would have perhapsbeen extinguished, replaced with the worship of the vile Saracendemons Termagant, Mahoun and Apollyon.
He turned his face to theheavens again and laughed heartily. What better place was there,then, to have victory against his own abhorrent foe? He hoped thathis forebears – those who had fought and died here in the year ofOur Lord 732 – would be proud of his achievement, however modest itwas by comparison.He dropped to one knee, soas to take the earth and grasp it in his hands. It was then, however,that the smell of sorcery reached his nostrils.He rose to his feetimmediately, and put a hand to his sword-hilt.Somewhere behind him, heheard the sound of movement and rumbling and scraping. He spunaround. It was not just behind him, though, it was all about him.Ahideous ghoul sprung from the earth somewhere before him, and he drewhis sword and cleaved it in two. But then two more took its place,followed by another four. He slashed and kicked through themfuriously. But still more and more emerged – within only minutes,there was an army of them, and they had utterly surrounded him –some clambered out of the ground, some climbed out of what seemed tobe pure shadow. Two-hundred-year-old fingers – many dozens of them– tore and dug at his face. Heavy bones and corroded pieces of ironclubbed and bashed at his head and shards of bone punctured throughhis chain shirt and stuck deep into the flesh below. His sword-handhad been bitten into and his weapon ripped away. There were dozens ofthem, then soon over a hundred. Some among them were deeply wrong intheir construction – some had two heads or two pairs of arms orlegs, some were even made of both man parts and horse parts together.Suddenly they had allhalted, as if frozen. They did not move, and neither did Ragenard –his arms and legs were held now firmly in place by several ghoulseach.