to aid you in your efforts?” Dominique yelled. He ducked. Another slash of steel whooshed over his head.
“Aid me? Is that what you call murder then?”
“Murder? I no more wish to murder you than I wish my own heart to cease beating. Which it yet may if you are successful in this twisted attack. Cease, man! I surrender.”
“There is no surrender but death!”
The heavy blade of his opponent’s steel skimmed Dominique’s thigh. Pain-heat pinged and shivered in his serrated flesh. The blade had sliced through his leather braies.
Still the attack did not cease. “Did you hear me? I don’t wish you harm. I’ve been sent by a higher power to ensure the black knight succeeds in exterminating the de Morte clan.”
This time the angry d’Ange heard. He tried to stop a forceful swing, but the sword pulled him forward, and he had to jab the tip into the snow to break his attack. “A higher power? You speak insanity.”
“You think I am Lucifer de Morte’s mercenary?”
“Can you prove otherwise?”
“Nay.” What did the man require? A letter de cachet? The sacrifice of his head? “I do not work for the devil. How dare you? I was called to serve the black knight by one who wishes him success. It is your puny hide I’ve been sent to protect. And I see now why I was needed.”
“A higher power—” Antoine d’Ange spat out. He paused, huffing in exertion “—has sent you to see the de Mortes are murdered?”
“I have been instructed not to interfere in your quest, only to navigate and to provide protection on your journey from one de Morte to the next.”
“What is this nonsense? A higher power? Do you speak of God?” Forgetting his sword, the man splayed his arms before him and declared to all, “Murder cannot be sanctioned by the church. What sort of god do you serve?”
“A god that tires of watching the de Mortes reign over the innocent men, women, and children of France. A god that confuses me as well, for he has chosen a gangly misfit of a man to bring down his greatest enemies. Are you sure you are the black knight?” He looked to Baldwin. “He is not, is he?”
The squire stepped to his mount and lifted a wool blanket slung over the leather saddlebags. Beneath was revealed a collection of shimmering black armor.
It took an unnatural amount of control to keep his jaw from dropping at such a sight. Dominique swung back on his aggressor, who stood lean and lithe, yet heaving from a simple tryst of matched steel. Much as he could not believe it—did not want to believe it—this man truly was the legend whispered of in villages stretching from southern Corbeil to Paris and beyond. He’d expected a great and hulking man, virile and strong. A warrior. Not…this.
“I need no protection.” D’Ange turned, retrieved his sword that had been stuck into the packed snow, and gestured to his squire that he mount. “Take your sacrilegious beliefs and be gone with you. Creil is but a day’s ride. Abaddon de Morte awaits the end of his cruel reign.”
Had he known the black knight would be so obstinate, Dominique might have refused the delectable offer the Oracle had used to coax him to such a task. But the fact remained, he had accepted. And he never surrendered to opposition. “Tell me, black knight, how much do you know about Abaddon de Morte?”
“I know he is a bloodthirsty bastard, and the devil’s brother; there is nothing more necessary.”
How had this fool man succeeded in murdering two de Mortes thus far? Dominique felt sure Abaddon would not be the third. Not when this knight planned to blindly ride into de Morte’s fortress of clever ambushes and ensorceled traps.
“So you are aware of the man’s penchant for booby traps?”
Already mounted, the knight regarded Dominique with a cold-air huff, and a nod to the squire to get on with it and mount as well.
“You think you can just march into the man’s castle and slay him in his own bed?”
Dominique felt laughter most appropriate, and answered the call of humor. It felt good to draw in the cold air and fill his lungs. But this moment of mirth was oddly bittersweet.
“What need I know about Abaddon de Morte that you cherish so to your breast?”
Dominique crossed his arms over his chest. “I will tell you, if you will allow me to protect you.”
“Never.”
“My lord.” Baldwin’s voice sliced a sharp edge through the chill air. “Perhaps it would do to hear the man out. If he knows things about Abaddon—”
“Damnation! Already you’ve turned my squire against me, San Juste. And you wish me to put trust in you after such?”
Dominique tilted his head back to meet the traveler’s eyes, shadowed by the dullness of cloud cover. “Abaddon de Morte has many strengths—both physical and occult—that will keep your blade far from his neck. He has a weakness as well.”
The knight’s brow lifted. Considering. He smirked, pressed his thick lips together. Not a shadow of beard on the man’s face. Could he be much more than a child? Insanity! That the people’s legend was a mere, why a mere—Dare he think it?
“How do you know so much?” rasped out of the black knight’s throat. “Explain exactly why I should trust you and your misguided God.”
Certainly the Oracle had not provided a means to ingratiate himself into the black knight’s trust. But trust was not necessary to provide protection. Though tolerance would be a fine trade-off.
“I cannot say why, or even if trust is necessary. Only that you must take benefit of the knowledge I possess. We have a common goal, to see the de Morte clan terminated. You have taken down two-fifths thus far, I shall join you in the final rounds.”
“And how do you know what lies ahead? Have you spies? Inside the de Morte lairs?”
“Of a sort. Difficult to believe,” Dominique offered, at surprised looks from both his traveling companions, “but necessary.”
“Then why has nothing been done to stop the de Mortes until now?” The knight’s steed pawed the ground, impatient as his master. Power and cold air pressed out from the horse’s nostrils with each puff of breath. Counterbalance to its master’s fiery demeanor. With d’Ange’s smoothing glove to its neck, the horse settled and turned its master back to face Dominique. “Why? When so many have suffered and died at the hands of such demons?”
Dominique felt the pain in the black knight’s voice as he rasped out his tirade. ’Twas akin to the pain that clutched his own heart, a pain that had forced him to accept this one final mercenary mission. He just wanted to know why.
“You hold your tongue to keep me from success. I do not believe you, Sir San Juste. Ride on!” D’Ange hiked a spur to his horse’s flanks. “I’ve a mission, and I’ll not have you underfoot to hinder it.”
“Abaddon de Morte’s castle is a veritable cache of booby traps,” Dominique called, as d’Ange pressed his horse toward the trail where he and
