just the arrival of horses that was strange. The riders were dressed in dull, iron-coloured armour with ornate writing carved into the metal, a runic writing so old and so secret no one would have recognised it.
The man in the middle was tall and strong, though not as stocky as the others. He had the beginnings of a beard that would have been grey if he’d let it go further. His hair was black and grey, and long and greasy, and he kept it swept back, out of his way. His face was handsomely chiselled, if you could see it under the dirt and the occasional scars. He had not washed for days. He had been on the road a long time.
“This is it,” he said to the other men. “The time is now.” His voice was deep and painted with an English accent.
He looked to a taller Englishman, who nodded. The tall one gave the others a grave smile and said, “Aldric is right. Let’s not give the wretch time to think.”
The men put on their helmets. They were now covered head to toe in armour.
Each helmet was an angular box with tiny slits for the eyes, in the crusader style. They were marked with a small symbol looking like a cross mixed with the fleur-de-lis; every warrior’s symbol was a different colour.
The horses were in an awful state of agitation. They fidgeted backwards and side to side, preparing themselves for the fight ahead.
Ahead of them lay a stone wall and a wrought-iron gate, and a stone house taller than the others nearby. The place looked haunted. It had two round turrets with long windows, though the curtains were always pulled shut. Rarely did sunlight enter this home.
The trees in the yard were dead and rotting. Beetles swarmed around their exposed roots. The twisted branches were home to the skeletal remains of many birds that had died in them as soon as they landed. The house itself smelt rancid and whoever did the gardening, such as it was, constantly replanted perennials to cover the stink, but these flowers always died.
The riders moved forward and the lead man pulled at his horse so that it reared up and smashed open the gate with its huge front legs. There was no point in being silent. A surprise attack was virtually impossible. The thing at the heart of the house would have known they were coming no matter what. Its teeth would have started to ache the moment the men came within a hundred yards. It could sense them closing in.
The horses clomped across the dead yellow grass. It was getting hot now. The men were sweating in their armour. Each carried a long metal lance, which they raised into position.
The lead horseman pushed open the front door with his lance and urged his horse forward. The others followed close behind.
The house had a long entryway and then a set of stairs. Little could be seen in the dim light. The smell was almost overpowering. The thing had not moved from this place in years.
“It’s not coming out,” said one of the horsemen. He was Irish. “We’ll have to ferret him out.”
“He’s coming,” said the leader.
“Indeed I am,” said a chilling voice. It seemed to come from their right, and then their left, and even behind them, offering no clues to the beast’s whereabouts.
“Come out, worm,” said the leader. “This waiting is pointless.”
“On the contrary,” said the voice, and again it was as if the walls themselves were talking. “I can smell the fear on you. It is growing minute by minute. You never really lose that fear, do you? Just a hazard of the job, I suppose …”
The lead man, Aldric, rode his horse deeper into the house. Now the light from the doorway no longer helped him to see.
“Do I seem fearful to you?” he said to the darkness.
“Oh, do be brave,” whispered the thing, mockingly. “Do come in closer. And by all means, do rush forward valiantly.”
The lead horseman hit a trigger on his lance and an iron cylinder shot into the room. It was a kind of white flare and it lit up with more intensity than any ordinary light could ever manage. But there was nothing to be seen. The voice was coming from nowhere.
“I’m not here, brave warrior,” said the voice. “I am sending you my voice from far away and your search has been in vain. I have already fled to the caves of a South American country and you have come all this way for nothing. You will have to begin again.”
Inside their helmets, the horsemen looked crestfallen. If this was true, untold hours had been wasted tracking and hunting this disgusting beast. Starting over would not be easy. Their hearts sank.
The lead man held his nervous horse. “You are a perfect liar,” he said.
“Yes, I am,” said the voice, and from out of nowhere a rush of heat knocked into the horse, which squealed terribly – and the man was nearly knocked from his mount. A claw had torn into his arm, right through his armour. The thing would not materialise, but the men could feel its heat and could see smoky, wavy lines like that of a mirage where the creature’s invisibility magic was wearing thin.
“Oh, but our games are fun,” said the creature.
The man was thinking they were anything but fun. Through his helmet, he could see waves of smoky heat ahead of him, marking the creature’s trail. His boots jabbed at his horse and, as they rushed down the hall, his lance slashed into the space just ahead of the smoky heat marks. Whatever was there made a splunking noise, as if the lance had struck against some kind of flesh, and the wall behind it collapsed. The sound that came out of that space was horrible, like a set of furious, squealing hogs, joined together with the cry of an eagle and the roar of a lion.
To the man it was beautiful, the sound of a wretched and terrible thing dying.
The man on the horse could not believe his luck. It had never been this easy before. His enemy must be an old one. Older than he thought, and frail.
“Be careful, Aldric,” said the tall man behind him. “Let me handle this.”
The knight growled back, “No, Ormand, the thing is mine.”
But Ormand went past him, rushing on foot into the wall’s broken space.
Aldric followed behind him, trotting his horse forward into the hole in the wall. He was now in the kitchen.
He could hear the wheezing breath of the wounded creature. Still, its magic was strong enough to keep it largely invisible. That might not wear off until hours after its death. It was not easy to be sure where the dead ones were. Sometimes the smell was the only thing you had to go by.
The kitchen was filled with the stink of rotting meat. The creature liked to let the meat go bad for weeks before it ate any of it. The man could smell pungent spices and sickly odours best left undescribed.
Above the kitchen counter, ironwork held pots and pans and dozens of sharp, sharp knives and cleavers and meat forks. They rattled and scraped as if trying to get loose. Then they did get loose. Six knives flew at the tall man and another four hit the man on the horse. The blades clanged off the armour, falling to the floor.
This was the last of the thing’s magic.
The engravings on the knightly armour glowed dimly, as if fighting to regain its magical strength. Each battle wore
