The Man With A Thousand Faces: Eleven
by redmoon
Eleven

9 July, 1173, 8 miles East of Myriocephalon, Byzantine Empire

Alexius shouted hoarsely and raised his left hand, and the sword in it, high above his head. His throat hurt from shouting so much. There were so many to kill. It was only now becoming light out. His sword carved down through the air with a whistling sound and cleaved the demon in two. There was no steel showing on the prince’s sword this morning, only the black of the creatures’ blood.

As the knights of Byzantium had rode through the ranks of the enemy, it had been clear that it was not just one demon they were fighting. Suddenly forty five cavalrymen seemed like an impossibly small force. But the surprise seemed to have been with them as they charged among the rows of demons, scattering and clustering them into confusion and disarray. There seemed to be no captains, no commanders. Just the General who appeared and disappeared amid the battle in his damned green light, each time managing to kill another brave knight of Alexius’ company.

But the battle was going well for Christendom; more than three quarters of the demon foe were slaughtered, laying broken and cleaved on the field, never having managed to leave from the base of the cliff. They were unlike any earthly army Alexius had ever fought. They seemed only warrior-like in their savage nature and cruelty, not at all in strategy or determination. They fled wailing when charged; they abandoned their General when he appeared near them, as if they knew he would draw them to their deaths; they lingered over their kills, dwelling on the corpses instead of returning to the battle; and they never once shed a tear for their fallen comrades.

Now they were beaten; the last of them rounded up and cut to pieces, none begging for mercy or surrender. They spat and feigned attack even while being slain for mercy’s sake.

Alexius turned his horse for the encampment, noticing a group of monks on horseback approaching the field from the pass. He almost smiled. Now that we have the academic evidence they are vulnerable to the sword, he thought, Tarnis will no doubt give his consent to an attack.

These words were still in the prince’s head when the dark horseman appeared beside him in a blur of green light. He had only time enough to raise his left arm to block the creature’s blow with his sword. The demon had quickly taken to the sort of fighting that was done in this realm; salvaging a sword from a fallen knight and using his immense strength and skill of transience to elude and kill Alexius’ best men.

Now the sword of the demon came down with a shower of sparks onto the prince’s own blade. The force was of such crushing magnitude that it threw the prince from his horse, again. Landing this time on a soft corpse, Alexius broke nothing, but he still cried out in fear as the demon with the notch in his left horn jumped from his horse, kicking away one of his own dead soldiers, and stalked towards the fallen prince, bloodied weapon in hand.

This time, Alexius had the confidence of experience. This demon still bled from their last encounter. The prince scrambled to his feet and, holding his broken arm out for balance, lunged with his sword to the creature approaching.

The demon parried, the reverberations of the blow to the steel making Alexius’ left arm hurt. With a shout of defiance, he swung right, bringing his blade through the air where, an instant ago, the demon’s face had been.

The bite of steel caught Alexius in the shoulder from behind. He cried out in pain, dropping his sword, just as the sound of approaching horses filled his ears. He stood defenselessly, his injured arms at his sides as the demon raised his sword for the kill.

“Aabrun morthii,” chanted Tarnis, dropping off his horse and approaching the two. The demon flinched, his raised sword wavering as the words enacted some fission inside him.

“Aabrun desocrii,” the priest continued. He was holding a collection of parchments which he occasionally glanced at. The demon dropped the sword and doubled over, placing a hand to his massive chest. He groaned in agony. “Archolludai rhet moru desocrii,” Tarnis was now joined by several other monks. They all chanted with him in unison. “Desocrii artum!” they finished, sending a green pulse of light from the demon’s chest. He bellowed and fell to the ground, writhing in pain. Everyone backed up, including the prince, who had now reclaimed his sword. There was a moment of silence while the green energy subsided, then the demon moaned and slowly got to his feet.

Alexius looked confusedly to the monks, who were apparently at a loss, then gave a shout of havoc and charged with his sword at the disoriented demon. His first swing took off the demon’s left arm at the shoulder, his second swing, the right arm at the elbow. A round swing brought the blade underneath him and severed the demon’s left leg below the knee.

The demon snarled and howled falling backwards in pain and rage, betrayed by the subdued entity inside him. Alexius raised the sword above his head, his eyes filled with fury, ready to drive the black steel into this enemy of Christ. The hand of Tarnis caught his, however, before he could strike.

Alexius fixed the priest with a cold stare, conveying the need for this creature’s death. Tarnis took the stare and returned one of gentle understanding. After a moment’s silence, punctuated only by the moans of the injured demon, Tarnis brought the prince’s sword to its sheath.

“Follow me,” he ordered, turning to his monks, “bring the creature.”

With the creature strapped across the flanks of Alexius’ horse, like a hart he had slain, he and the monks and Tarnis the priest galloped to the small river which ran out of the nearby pass, behind a row of cedars, close to the encampment.

Alexius dropped the moaning, writhing body unceremoniously onto the grass on the bank of the river. Tarnis was looking through his pages, reading over again the fruits of his research. Much of what he had learned was hearsay and myth. Much of it was invented, constructed from other similar traditions, though none truly seemed similar enough to this.

“Release me,” the demon hissed, his voice thick with an unfamiliar tone. “Or I promise you death.”

Tarnis pointed to the demon. Haargan and two other monks took the body and pulled it into the river, letting the black blood stain the waters. They held him still as he struggled, preventing him from drifting with the current.

“I will find it,” the demon thrashed in the water, soaking the monks and the priest. The prince retreated slightly so as not to be drenched. “I will find it again,” the creature continued, his voice faltering as his strength gave. “Take it where you will. I will-”

“Aabrun acunii,” Tarnis commanded calmly. The demon shrieked. There was a pealing, like a high pitched bell, and the three monks lunged from the water as it began to boil. Steam rose all around and within it, a faint green glow. The turbulence of the water lasted only a brief moment, and when it was clear again, the body of the demon had gone. The water itself, however, glittered with a beautiful green effervescence, as if a moon had risen and reflected now in the waters.

Tarnis bowed his head slightly, then glanced to his monks and pointed to the water. In a frenzy of action, they took a broad, deep, clay pot from one of the larger saddle bags and dipped it in the river, drawing in the green glow.

Tarnis turned to the prince, wringing his sleeves of the water from the river. It soaked him to the bone. The prince was gazing with a frown at his surroundings.

He looked to the priest as if surprised to see him there. “What are we doing at the river, your grace?”

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