Evangelium Luciferum (IC / Invite-Only)

[Reverend Norv]

PROLOGUE

Near Sèn Rémi eun Boursa, Val d'Aosta
24 October 1184
Shortly after the Hour of Terce

From all evil and wickedness; from sin; from the crafts
and assaults of the devil; and from everlasting damnation,
Good Lord, deliver us.

They had wanted to make it over the Alps before the first snows.

Just a few hours after the ceremony in Rome at which Alberic de Cerami had received his legatine mandate, a Benedictine monk travelling by ship from Narbonne had delivered a sealed letter to Geoffrey de Bourgogne. It was addressed to Alberic in Occitan, and the dedication was written in a fine, flowing hand; an educated woman's hand.

Alberic had read it quickly when Geoffrey handed it to him. His brow had furrowed, and a shadow had moved across his face: some nameless premonition. Then the monk had turned quietly to Lodewijk, and said: "Get them together at the Porta Flaminia. If we start now, we can still make La Storta by nightfall."

That was exactly thirty days ago. The inquisitor and his friends had followed the Via Francigena in reverse: from Rome to Viterbo, Viterbo to Siena, Siena to Lucca, Lucca to Pavia, Pavia to Aosta. Alberic had explained that a friend in Carcassonne had written to him on an urgent matter, and that he needed to meet with her. He had not explained what the matter concerned, nor what friend a Cistercian could have in that famous den of Cathar heresy. To Lodewijk alone, Alberic confided that his old friend Eleonora of Foix had found a book of great importance - though more than that the monk would not reveal even to his oldest comrade.

They made good time over the Apennines, racing the winter to the Great Saint-Bernard Pass below Mont Blanc. As they climbed into the Val d'Aosta, among the rugged green meadows and the soaring white peaks, the cold dogged them with bitter spite. Constantinos of Alexandria slept ill at night, muttering in his sleep by the fire of the mountain refugio, and awoke to find his skin crawling with a familiar presence. Something old and patient, something in the high places where no grass grew and no foot trod. Waiting.

Bartautas the Balt knew that they had lost their race the morning they set off from Sèn Rémi eun Boursa for the Great St. Bernard Refuge - just over a single league away, but straight up, climbing the scree slopes and snowfields of Mont Blanc. Bartautas smelled the cold in the air, and soon snow confirmed his fears, blowing down the pass by Terce in a suffocating sheet of white. It blinded Lodewijk at the head of the column, and nearly panicked the pack mule that Rebecca led, so that she had to murmur constantly in the frightened animal's ear. Once, Gebrael bar-Ewan almost wandered away from the rest of the group, so foul did visibility become, and Alberic had to dash after him through snow that was now knee-deep, and take the old man by the arm, and guide him back to the trail.

Time slowed. The village disappeared into the snow behind them; ahead, the refuge was invisible on the other side of the apex of the pass. Only the few yards of snow and scree that each traveler could see before their feet existed. The sound of labored breathing mingled with the dull roar of the wind.

It was then that that Lodewijk heard it. It sounded, at first, just like the steady beat of the wind that blew the snow down the pass. But it was too steady. Whump, the sound said. Whump. Whump.

Elovanat Izevel raised her head, and squinted through the billowing white. And suddenly she felt heat on her face, as if someone had opened a furnace door in front of her, and Alberic clubbed her on the shoulder, and as she fell into the snow she felt fire scorch by above her, a great blast of yellow flame that hissed with steam as it turned the snow to vapor.

Shadow covered the trail. Whump-whump, spoke the great scaly wings that beat above the travelers. Rebecca still held the reins of the pack mule, though the beast itself was a charred ruin of smoking meat. An orange eye rolled at Constantinos, its slitted pupil dark with malice.

Alberic staggered to his feet. Smoke hissed from the dragon's nostrils as its head turned to face the monk. Suspended in the air by the beating of its wings, one talon grazed the snow: as thick as a man's calf, and razor sharp.

Alberic met the creature's gaze. He hefted his ironwood staff. The air seemed very still.

"Elovanat, Rebecca, Geoffrey. Find us somewhere to hide." Alberic nodded toward the sheer cliffs that flanked the pass. "The rest of us will try to drive it off."

The dragon's talon scraped the snow again. Its throat worked. Giovanni Bianchi noticed that the scales under its left wing, along its flank, seemed dull and tarnished. Smoke gushed from its nostrils again, and it started to open its mouth.

Alberic's staff hissed through the air and its steel-capped end slammed straight into the dragon's nose, hard enough to break bone. The creature keened, and reared back, and its talons lashed out in fury. The party's youngest members scrambled toward the cliff face, searching for any cave or crevice. And the battle was on.

[Great Confederacy of Commonwealth States]

The days before this day had been hard. For how long? Since they left the Po valley and headed north into the Alps? Or since they left Rome? Perhaps since he had received that message by his old Protector, or before… Perhaps his life had been an unending stream of misery ever since he left Constantinople.

Constantinos did not bond with the others. He spent the days walking, as he had always done, barely feeling his feet after having traversed two continents. He had always been taken by a wanderlust, and whenever he sat still, all he wanted to do was move on, as if chasing something with a single purpose. As if he could walk for 40 years.

He whispered, too. The others didn’t understand. It was rambling in Latin, Greek and Hebrew, so soft as to become nothing but a light whisper to the ears of others. His hands were clasped perpetually, it seemed. He did not bathe when other were nearby, but even then the markings in his flesh could be seen in his neck, and on his hands when he changed the wrappings around them as if he were a leper. He did not know what others thought. He did not think what others thought. His mind was an ocean, ebbing and flowing in total chaos, striking against the cliffs suddenly or being totally at rest. He hated the sea. It always felt like it was going to engulf him, eat him. The further they were from sea the better.

He knew little about his new companions. They were friends of his Protector, so they would be friends of his, at least in his mind. There were Jews among them, though. Traitors they were, making deals and ruining everything. How the Protector came by them he did not know, but if they were to be claimed by their task he would not leave a single tear, he knew.

Then, whump.

“And the LORD went before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead them along the way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, that they might travel by day and by night!” he exclaimed.

Constantinos was awe-struck as he saw the giant beast wheel overhead. The eye that seemed to pierce his very essence with malevolence seemed a welcome respite from the hardships that the last days had offered him. For the hermit, frail of mind and body after much torment, such an evil presence felt like a sweet rush of eastern hashish. Trudging across mountain paths and up the snowy flanks of the highest mountain Europe had to offer had almost bled his soul white, and the dark presence was exhilarating. He opened his eyes wide as the beast pierced the snow and ice with his talons. The wind of the gargantuan wings combined with the falling gales of the Alps made his robes fly uncontrollably, as he let out a shout and a laugh.

“and they cast down each his rod, and they become monsters!” he cried out, falling to his knees. He felt himself sinking deep into the snow, the cold immediately grasping at his knees. He clasped his hands together, both to protect from the cold and to make silent prayer. His exclamation was followed by the hard thud of his protector’s staff striking the beast’s nose.

“… and the rod of Aaron swalloweth their rods…” he whispered, almost in disappointment. As the creature reared back from the blow, Constantinos could see it in its full glory. All the events of the past days seemed to melt away. There was no thing as sea. There were no Jews, no demons, no bad dreams coming from him at night. The dark man with the sceptre. The insects. The dying cattle. The screams of a million mothers. He closed his eyes, and a single tear rolled down his cheek, almost freezing in the frigid winds of the mountain.

[Germanyt]

The end.

[Rupudska]

Near Sèn Rémi eun Boursa, Val d'Aosta
24 October 1184
Shortly after the Hour of Terce

Rebecca bat Yosef ben Hamon of Naples was not the sort of woman who needed to be told twice to do something that involved avoiding a painful, violent, fiery death. In fact, one could argue she was almost a coward in terms of self-preservation - this was untrue, it was simply that up until then she had yet to encounter someone worth risking her life for. Frankly, at this moment, she was thinking that that would continue. Money was nice, adventure was too, but she would very much appreciate not being attacked by fire-breathing dragons.

Tended to send people much too quickly to the afterlife, you see.

It took her nearly a second to realize that the pack mule had become cooked to an edible degree with her hand still on the reins (and remarkably uncharred), at which point she threw said rains out of her hands as if one moment more of contact would burn her. Something fell out of one of the less singed packs - her dagger - which she quickly grabbed and headed for the cliff nearest to her.

If nothing else, the dragon could use it to pick his teeth when he was done eating everyone. Alternately, it could be used to (badly) shovel snow out of the way of any crevices in the cliff face. Cliffs had holes, right? Mountain wolves had to sleep somewhere, after all, and Rebecca was sure they wouldn't mind a few people hiding there if the choices were letting people stay or risk being eaten by a dragon.

There - it was small, barely visible, but it could prove to be more. She scrabbled up the side of the snowy pass, thanking whoever was listening that the snow was crunchy, and started hacking madly at the snow, trying to get it out of the way of whatever the crack led to. If nothing else, perhaps it had enough room in it for her. Her progress, of course, was slow - all she had was a dagger and her hands, and she didn't really want to risk damaging either.

"Someone help me dig!" she half-shouted, half-hissed out in what she hoped was passable Dutch. She didn't have time to focus on making it sound right, nor did anyone have time to try and figure out what she was saying if she had used, say, Neapolitan.

[Khasinkonia]

Near Sèn Rémi eun Boursa, Val d'Aosta
24 October 1184
Shortly after the Hour of Terce

Rebecca bat Yosef ben Hamon of Naples was not the sort of woman who needed to be told twice to do something that involved avoiding a painful, violent, fiery death. In fact, one could argue she was almost a coward in terms of self-preservation - this was untrue, it was simply that up until then she had yet to encounter someone worth risking her life for. Frankly, at this moment, she was thinking that that would continue. Money was nice, adventure was too, but she would very much appreciate not being attacked by fire-breathing dragons.

Tended to send people much too quickly to the afterlife, you see.

It took her nearly a second to realize that the pack mule had become cooked to an edible degree with her hand still on the reins (and remarkably uncharred), at which point she threw said rains out of her hands as if one moment more of contact would burn her. Something fell out of one of the less singed packs - her dagger - which she quickly grabbed and headed for the cliff nearest to her.

If nothing else, the dragon could use it to pick his teeth when he was done eating everyone. Alternately, it could be used to (badly) shovel snow out of the way of any crevices in the cliff face. Cliffs had holes, right? Mountain wolves had to sleep somewhere, after all, and Rebecca was sure they wouldn't mind a few people hiding there if the choices were letting people stay or risk being eaten by a dragon.

There - it was small, barely visible, but it could prove to be more. She scrabbled up the side of the snowy pass, thanking whoever was listening that the snow was crunchy, and started hacking madly at the snow, trying to get it out of the way of whatever the crack led to. If nothing else, perhaps it had enough room in it for her. Her progress, of course, was slow - all she had was a dagger and her hands, and she didn't really want to risk damaging either.

"Someone help me dig!" she half-shouted, half-hissed out in what she hoped was passable Dutch. She didn't have time to focus on making it sound right, nor did anyone have time to try and figure out what she was saying if she had used, say, Neapolitan.

אֶלֹוַנַת אִיזֶבֶל
בְּצִדְקָתְךָ, תַּצִּילֵנִי וּתְפַלְּטֵנִי; הַטֵּה-אֵלַי אָזְנְךָ, וְהוֹשִׁיעֵנִי.

The frigid cold of the Alps was not something I was much suited to, for I was a denizen of low and rainy lands. The winds and darkness of the mountains were not too unfamiliar to my Breton roots, but the bitter cold and snow would only grace my homeland on rare occasion. Even rarer did we see dragons, as Brittany seemed more attractive to the great serpents which roamed the waves, morgens, and the creatures of the deep forests than to great sky beasts such as dragons. Such things were of more extreme environments, such as the alps.

Naturally, at the time, my inner dialogue was quickly shifting from musing on the weather with my arms and lower face retracted into my coat to cling to whatever warmth existed in this desolate rocky blizzard-world, as Alberic saved me from incineration. My face, for the briefest moment, tasted a pleasant warmth before it slammed into the snow nearby. Rebecca, the Burgundian, and I were to find us refuge through any means necessary, as I understood.

I slid my arms back out my sleeves faster than I usually did, and scurried to my feet. Perhaps it would have been wiser to burrow in the deep snow drift that grew by the hour, though one could not be sure, as the sun was blotted out. I squinted and saw Rebecca close by, trying to burrow with her knife. I nearly yelled in Hebrew to my fellow Jew—nearly shouted at her to “stop digging a fool’s burrow, for we haven’t enough time.”

I believed it would be better to press on, with hope that the sheer rock face would have some crevice or cave we might seek refuge in. It was then I understood what she was doing, as her thinking was the same as mine. I could see more clearly now that she was up against the cliff face, digging for dear life. I had but a dagger, like her, but perhaps I could help by scouring the nearby cliff face for a more open spot she might have missed. A cursory glance revealed naught, but all was not lost, as the dense air obscured what lay beyond a few pace’s sight, no more than 5 paces, certainly.

I began to creep along the rock face, and finally what Rebecca had exclaimed in a semblance of Dutch made sense to me. She probably found something or had at least an inkling that some preëxisting burrow or crevice lay beneath the snow. I stumbled through the snow back towards her, and started shovelling with my dagger as soon as I was near enough to do so.

[Ceannairceach]

Bartautas had indeed smelled the cold before he felt it. The unique scent of winter air filled his lungs as they began the climb to what Alberic had called the Great St. Bernard Refuge, on the Mont Blanc. It was not long after that when the first thrusts of snowfall came for their party, blown down the mountain with considerable force by the wild winds that circled the peaks of the Alps. Though the bitter cold wall that slammed into their weary group of travellers was a bane to the southerners, some of whom he was sure had never seen so much as a flake of snow, but for the Balt among them, it was a welcome familiarity. As the drifts piled atop one another in an ever-growing sloped field of white, Bartautas, light on his feet, was barely falling through what was knee- to waist-high snow for the others, but worries past even through his mind as their journey slogged onward, with the Refuge still not in sight through the gray horizon ahead of them.

Lost in that expanse for too long, he had not heard the rhythmic thumping that permeated through the howling mountain wind. It was not until the beast was upon them that he could even begin to comprehend its form, but when his eyes spoke their truth to his mind, he exhaled his whole breath with the shocked exclamation in the old Northman tongue: "Dreki!" He hurriedly and falteringly crossed himself as Alberic had taught him to do, stumbling back into the snowdrifts, sinking slightly into a deep embankment. He had heard the stories of the dragon-kind - Níðhöggr, Fáfnir and Jörmungandr the MIdgard Serpent, to name only a few - but he had never dreamed he might one day see one, nor that one might see him back.

Bartautas regained his courage long enough to process Alberic's orders: he sent the Jewesses and Geoffrey towards the cliff face, in a desperate effort to find their party somewhere to hide from the dragon's fiery gaze. That left the other men and himself to fend off the serpent. Steeling himself for battle, he swore beneath his breath, "Perkūns, make my legs like lightning." He crossed himself again, properly this time. "Protect me from this servant of Peckols." With that, he was at his feet again, wrapped fist-fulls of snow in each hand as he began to run along the beasts right flank.

Packing together the snow as quickly as he could, he slowed for only a moment to take aim before hurling the icy missile at the dragon's scaly snout. His aim was good, and he reasoned that even with his gait he could land a shot like that, but he did not wait to find out, as his hands were already down again into the snow to get another volley. Around the other side of the flying linnormr, he could see the womenfolk desperately digging and searching for a place to hide among the rocks. He did not put much hope in their efforts, and so launched another snowball at the beast, this time aimed for maximum force to distract the mighty creature from Alberic's charges.

Another snowball ready in his hands, he shouted out to the dragon - and his companions - in his best, sloppy Greek, a proper language he figured a mighty beast such as this might know: "Face me, drákon, show us that belly of yours!" All that was left was to whisper silent prayers to whatever Gods would hear them, as he prepared to dodge whatever retaliation the foul spawn of hell had for him...

[Cylarn]

1184
Sir Lodewijk of Utretcht, Knight of Saint John
In the Service of Brother Alberic Cerami
Currently in transit to the Val d'Aosta

He wished for desert. He wished for the heat to cause his bulky assortment of armor and cloaks and furs to cook his body with heat, to coax the sweat from his body. Another wish that Lodewijk coveted, was to see the sun.

In the blistering cold and the blinding torrents of snowflakes descending upon Mount Blanc, Lodewijk could see nothing as he led the party forward. A wall of white was before him; albeit one he could phase through, yet his eyes squinted as he attempted to discern his path. The cold wracked his joints as he lifted his bundled legs above the snow with every step, occasionally pausing to surmount some hidden obstacle, be they rocks or small holes concealed under the cold and white blanket. His left hand was practically frozen to the handle of his long sword, while his right hand grasped the reigns of a stocky grey Percheron.

His movement unceasing, Lodewijk flicked his sight to his rear. Even amid the blizzard, the silhouettes of his party were still visible. After they had almost lost Gebrael to the storm, Alberic and Lodewijk had been doubly vigilant of pace and cohesion in the thick of the blizzard. The Frisian slowed his pace, and turned his head back to the mountain path.

"God above, bring an end to this damning cold," he muttered in his native Frisian tongue while wiggling his gloved fingers free of the handle, followed by the rest of his hand.

As Lodewijk reached towards a suspicious skin hanging just behind his sheathed longsword, the wind changed its sound. That change captured the attention of Lodewijk, and he slowed his pace to a labored, much slower tempo. He scanned the skies above; the wind was too uniform. This is unnatural, Lodewijk thought.

What came next, was a frightening coindence to his request to God. A precise, surgical torrent of flame suddenly appeared from the white darkness, simultaneously incinerating their pack mule and sending the Percheron into panic. Captivated with terror at the sight, Lodewijk was unprepared for the horse to escape his grasp, quickly dashing past him into the blizzard and pulling him into the snow, face-first. His right hand, almost without choice, relinquished the reins, allowing his horse to escape.

He picked his head up and looked out forward. His mouth opened, a curse prepared - until the shadow cloaked the party. At this, his heart dropped. UP! UP NOW, OR YOU DIE! Lodewijk forced himself past his fear, to his feet, and bore witness to the terrible serpent hovering above. Alberic stood before the beast, his staff at the ready. Lodewijk's eyes grew wide, terrible premonitions running through his mind as muscle memory - and something else - forced his right arm and hand towards the grip of his sword, while his right foot positioned itself farther behind his left. Alberic shouted orders, and Lodewijk discerned very little amid his own personal terror. What was clear, is that he and Alberic and the other abled-body members of the party were to fend the beast off.

A demon, from the pits of Hell itself. By far, it was the most fearsome demon that Lodewijk had ever borne witness to. The entity defied God by bringing hellfire unto the Earth. As furious as its yellow, slitted eyes may have been, Lodewijk cast the beast an equally wrathful glare. A slight smirk formed on his face - pride. They were obligated to slay this beast, to rid the world of perhaps a particular lieutenant of Lucifer. You shall fall this day, beast!

Alberic made the first move, driving his staff upwards into the snout of the dragon. By this moment, Lodewijk had his sword drawn, his hands clenched tightly around the grip, blade pointed forward at the beast. He watched carefully, taking two steps forward, parallel with Alberic's left flank and ready to move in with his blade at the moment it might attempt to seize the monk. The beast reared back in pain, talon grasping for Alberic. Lodewijk brought the point of his blade low as he flanked the foot.

With a mighty heft upwards, he attempted to cut into the bottom of the foot of the beast. He kept his stance wide as he delivered the uppercut, prepared to dive to his left in the event that the beast would turn its attention to him. Lodewijk was terrified, but not petrified. I will not die a coward.

[Wolfenium]

Near Sèn Rémi eun Boursa, Val d'Aosta
24 October 1184
Shortly after the Hour of Terce

"Dragons! Why did it have to be dragons!?"

Gebrael bar-Ewan was no fighter. Never was. A man of decent intellect in the medical arts, Gabrael had always been one to save lives. But to be compelled to take them, even if those lives were but wretched spawns of the Deceiver himself, was asking for too much. He was old, decrepit, far past his prime. And his age was already showing as he stayed under cover, grasping his backpack lest anyone required his immediate attention.

"God," he blurted underneath the dragon's din, panting heavily as he shuffled from cover to cover, "God!"

What spirits had possessed him to dare face such abominable creatures? What delusions had he harboured to consider being part of this harrowing journey? Even he did not know for sure. One thing was certain, however. If that thing went after him, he was not going to survive.

-Rebecca bat Yosef ben Hamon-

"Good God," cursed the hapless physician, shuffling over to the Jewish companions as he got on his knees, digging with a disc-sized, flat rock. He was no stranger to YHWH's children. The Lord and Saviour himself was born among them, after all. Their folk were quite welcome in the lands of the Mohammedans, though often subject to the petty whims of their overlords. This was not the time for trifling, either way. He had to dig.

[Reverend Norv]

Constantinos of Alexandria fell to his knees in the snow, and for a moment the dragon's eye passed over him, and Constantinos could see some vast understanding study him, inside and out - and recognize what it saw, and accept it. And then the beast's gaze moved on.

Rebecca and Elovanat scraped at the snowy rock with their daggers until they had revealed a crack in the mountain's face: a little less than a man's height, and only about six inches wide. As the ice chipped away under the knives of the young women, the countless small stones that had frozen the crevice shut began to come loose. Geoffrey de Bourgogne staggered toward them through the snow, wallowing to his knees in the white morass, and began hammering at the remaining obstructions with his monk's staff; a moment later, Gebrael bar-Ewan dropped to his knees next to Geoffrey and attacked the crack with a flat rock. Soon, the four travelers had forced the crevice clear: a long, narrow window into some darkness under the mountain.

"Alberic!" Elovanat screamed over the howl of the wind. "We found a refuge!"

The monk did not reply. The dragon had lashed out at Alberic de Cerami with one giant, taloned foot - but before the blow could land, a well-aimed snowball smacked into the creature's left eye. The dragon's head turned, and as it stared at Bartautas the Balt, it blinked away the snow with an astonishingly human expression of incredulity. Alberic took advantage of his foe's distraction: he flung up his staff in both hands and blocked the dragon's kick, warding the razor-sharp talons away from his gut. The impact alone, though, still knocked the monk onto his back in the snow.

While the dragon's foot was still outstretched from its attack, Lodewijk of Utrecht stepped into range and brought his sword up in an awkward raking motion. The soft scales on the sole of the dragon's talon parted under the crusader's blade, and black ichor sprayed the snow, hissing with molten heat. The dragon shrieked in rage, an awful sound that brought small rocks tumbling from the peaks of the surrounding mountains. Then its head turned on its long neck, and it lunged at Lodewijk, its vast maw snapping with teeth the length of a man's forearm. Lodewijk managed to bring his shield up in time, and the dragon's head slammed into it, lifting the knight off the ground and flinging him twenty feet through the air to land at the feet of Rebecca and Elovanat.

Steaming gore spurted in regular pulses from the dragon's foot. It turned back to Alberic and fixed its slitted orange eyes upon the monk, who staggered to his feet and readied his staff. And then Giovanni Bianchi raised his crossbow, and took careful aim at the patch of dull scales beneath the dragon's left wing, and fired.

The quarrel punched through the dragon's side and sank in up to its fletching. The creature's left wing abruptly ceased to beat, and it crashed to earth in a choking cloud of upcast snow; the dragon's roar shook the mountains once again, and Elovanat had to press herself against the exposed rock to avoid a sudden avalanche of ice that came crashing down the slope of Mont Blanc. Alberic stumbled back, one hand raised, and shouted: "Get out of here! Get into the mountain!" He forced a path through the snow with his staff, and seized Constantinos by the shoulder, and shoved him toward the crevice where Rebecca and the others waited. "Go! Everyone! Go!"

The snow that had been smashed into the air by the dragon's impact still hid the beast from the travelers' eyes. One by one, they squirmed their way sidelong through the crack in the mountain's face and into the darkness beyond; Lodewijk almost got stuck, and had to be dragged through by Gebrael and Geoffrey. Alberic pushed Constantinos through in front of him, and then turned to look back over his shoulder.

The cloud of snow had cleared. The dragon crouched upon the ground, the snow beneath it stained with molten black ichor, its nostrils reeking smoke. In front of it, alone, his grey hair blown behind him by the storm wind, stood Giovanni Bianchi.

The mercenary looked at Alberic, and through the crevice behind the monk at his unseen friends. "Let this be my atonement!" His voice carried over the howl of the wind. "For all my greed and lust and blood. For this deed, Alberic - when the last trumpet sounds, will it call me home?"

The monk's knuckles were white upon his staff. His throat worked. Wordlessly, he nodded.

A smile of pure contentment spread across Giovanni's weathered face, and he let out a deep sigh. The old man raised his crossbow, and loosed his quarrel, and the broad arrowhead sliced across the left side of the dragon's face and tore out its terrible orange eye in a spray of black blood. And in the next heartbeat, the giant creature reared up and opened its mouth, and Giovanni Bianchi disappeared in a blast of searing yellow furnace-flame.

Alberic turned away. He forced his way through the crevice in the rock face, feeling freezing stone press upon his chest and his back. He felt friendly hands pull him through into a more open space beyond, and closed his eyes in the complete blackness, and saw the burning afterimages of Giovanni's immolation dance and float in the dark.

For a moment, there was silence, but for the labored breathing of eight men and women. Alberic opened his eyes. It made no difference. Under the mountain, the darkness was absolute.

Rebecca of Naples spoke. "Lodewijk?"

The knight made a pained grunt. "Do you still have that rag you use to clean your armor?" Rebecca asked.

A pause, and then the crusader said: "Here." After a moment's blind fumbling, the rag changed hands. Rebecca's flint and steel sparked in the dark, and then the oil-soaked rag flared to light, awkwardly held on the point of Rebecca's dagger.

In the dim yellow light, the travelers looked around. They were in a cave, and a somewhat larger one than the narrow crevice might have indicated: it resembled a long tunnel, perhaps twenty feet wide and eight high, stretching ahead of them into the dark. On one wall, Rebecca's makeshift torch revealed markings - no, drawings, unmistakably drawings. Great strange bull-like creatures raced across the stone in sweeping, stylized strokes, pursued by shadowy human figures wielding spears.

With a stifled groan, Gebrael bar-Ewan bent over and picked up something at his feet: a torch, ice-cold and wrapped in centuries' worth of cobwebs. Wordlessly, Rebecca touched the burning rag to it, and the head of the torch reluctantly caught. The light grew stronger, but the shadows at the edge of the tunnel only deepened. Directly ahead, deeper into the mountain, something glinted in the shadows on the wall - something polished, and intricate.

Constantinos of Alexandria suddenly felt it. Presence; immediacy. The pillars of cloud and fire. Whatever had been waiting for them high in these terrible dead peaks had found them at last.

Bartautas the Balt abruptly turned, his breath smoking in the cold air, and stared straight into the shadows beyond the torch's glow. "Something moved," he growled in Danish. "We are not alone."

Alberic's fingers flexed on his staff. Geoffrey de Bourgogne nodded, and stepped forward.

"Non vos oportet adesse." The voice was a rasp of dead bones, and somehow it came from all around the travelers at once.

"Geoffrey, get back," Alberic hissed.

The novice squinted into the shadows, and reached out a hand. His voice was brittle. "I see - "

There was a soft noise. Something silver extended from the darkness, and moved. Geoffrey's severed head struck the cave floor with a heavy sound, and rolled away into the darkness near the glinting thing at the tunnel's end.

"Non vos oportet adesse." Bartautas saw something move in the shadows again, and this time he could make it out: a figure of some sort, gaunt and bleached-grey.

"Custos sigilli sum." The figure emerged into the circle of light cast by the torch. Tall and skeletal it was, its outline somehow blurred and flickering, but still recognizable: a man in archaic mail and wielding a longsword of truly ancient make.

Alberic leveled his staff. "Keep it busy," he said quietly to his companions. "I will have to try to exorcise this thing."

"Custos sigilli sum," the ghost repeated. It moved its sword: a strange, courtly salute. Its eyes were milky white as it smiled. "Et nunc morientes eritis."

[Cylarn]

The blade of the longsword caught the scales of the dragon in a moment of weakness. The cut was shallow, the sharp tip of the sword however sliding between the scales and slicing into the flesh beneath. As the beast gave a mighty, mountain-shaking roar in its recoil from the slash, Lodewijk brought his blade to his right side, his left hand fumbling for the shield on his back. The angry eyes of the beast were now upon him; he could see the saliva dripping from the daggers hanging from its jaw. The Frisian knight gritted his teeth, eyes going wide with fear as his fingers wrapped around one of the leather straps of the shield.

Possessed with a swift spirit of aggression in his movement, Lodewijk brought the shield to bear just as the maw of daggers lunged at him. His heart raced; Lodewijk had a serious doubt that the shield would do much, and dread cascaded into his mind and heart. His eyes closed shut, and he muttered something in his Frisian tongue under his breath.

"God grant me a-"

Before he could finish those words, he was in the air. His right hand stayed clenched, his blade still in hand, but by the time that he felt the ground beneath him be violently jerked away, his shield was free of his hand. With a loud scream, now almost as frightened by his sudden flight as he was by the maw of the dragon, Lodewijk recklessly flew through the air and kept his eyes shut, hoping that the ground would be delivered to his feet soon.

His helmet made contact with a rock, shielding Lodewijk from what would have been a nasty wound, as he slammed into the piles of snow and rock just mere feet from four of his companions. He looked in front of him, at the sword lying in the snow before him. Get your weapon and get on your feet - this is far from over. Lodewijk quickly mounted to his feet and rushed over to his blade, once again taking control of it with two hands. He turned to the path, squinting amid the snow in order to see the dragon, or Alberic. A mighty crash staggered him, but Lodewijk took slowly, careful steps as he attempted to Wade back into the fray.

"Go! Everyone! Go!"

Lodewijk gave a faint smile as he turned back, their leader still alive. He looked over his shoulder, to witness two figures approaching behind. Picking up his pace, Lodewijk rushed for the hole.

"Where is the beast?" he shouted in Latin, as he rejoined the group. He looked down into the hole, the one dug by Rebecca and Elovanat had dug. It was a tight squeeze, especially for a man in armor. Was it a better fate, to be stuck in a crevice, than to be incinerated? Lodewijk decided upon the latter, although neither fate was to his liking. Sheathing his sword, the Frisian followed the others into the hole. His body and equipment argued with him amid the cramped rock of the cave.

Four hands took hold of Lodewijk by various parts and limbs, and with a lot of grunting involved, he tumbled down onto dry rock. Laying on the ground and breathing relief, he looked up at his saviors - the Scholar and the Novice. He gave a wry smile, and sat upright as he looked at the men.

"Like pulling a stuck book off the shelf," he muttered to them in Dutch, not expecting a response due to the language barrier. He leaned his back against the rock, staring into the darkness as he removed his helmet and pulled his mail coif down to his neck. And he breathed.

"Lodewijk? Do you still have that rag you use to clean your armor?"

He nodded, and pulled free a red rag from his belt. He held it out front of himself, waiting for Rebecca to relieve him of the rag. As though they were trying to use their minds to navigate through the darkness, the Jewish woman and the Frisian awkwardly attempted to pass the rag off, with eventual success. Lodewijk frowned, however, when she used the rag to light up the cavern. At least we can see, now.

The knight climbed to his feet, his left hand moving with practice as it fastened the straps of his helmet to his belt. His eyes wandered about the illuminated chamber. Narrow, confining, like a tunnel to Hell. Lodewijk stayed by the light as if he were a moth, observing the nigh-endless series of ancient paintings on the walls. Pagan tribes, long since passed. Ancient beasts...they outlast them all. Lodewijk wondered if the ancient tribes of this mountain had once revered the beast.

As the party progressed, Gebrael contributed to the illumination with the discovery of a long-forgotten torch. There was something up ahead, shimmering in the dim light. Lodewijk squinted, trying to grasp a better glimpse of what was ahead.Probably water, glistening off of the rocks. He came to a halt just as the Northman, Bartautus, stopped in his tracks. Lodewijk processed none of the gibberish uttered by the barbarian, but he fully understood the tone. His heart rate picked up, his focus kicking in at the hint of danger from his companion.

The novice, Geoffrey, moved forward to confront the sound, sliding past Lodewijk as he did so. The knight wrapped his right arm around his body, his hand grasping the grip of his sword. He heard something; whispers in the air. It has to be forward. Do not look around. Lodewijk fixed his gaze on Geoffrey, and silently began to slide his blade from the sheath.

"I see-"

Lodewijk's eyes grew wide as a silver glint unexpectedly freed the Novice's head from his shoulders, yet by the time that poor Geoffrey's head had tumbled to the ground, Lodewijk had his sword drawn. What he saw before him was a revenant beast, clad in the armor of an era long-dead, yet still echoed. The knight felt a chill throughout his body, at the sight of this creature. He could see Alberic's staff from his peripherals.

"Keep it busy. I will have to try to exorcise this thing."

Lodewijk nodded, and turned his head to Alberic.

"Do what you must, and I will entertain this...whatever you'd like to call it," he said to the monk, in Latin. He motioned to the rest of the group with his left hand, signalling to keep their distance.

The Latin spoken by the fallen warrior, on the other hand, was more archaic than Lodewijk could discern. I am the guardian of the seal. What could he be speaking of? Lodewijk swallowed his fear, and planted the blade of his sword on the stone beneath his feet, and he took a step forward, his gaze focused on the revenant as he maintained their separation. That fear, the chill coursing through his body, was almost maddening. What Lodewijk considered to be more pressing, however, was his fear of showing weakness to the creature. Weakness is an invitation. His stance was strong, his back straight and his feet spread shoulder-width apart. Lodewijk rested his right hand on the pommel of his blade, while his left hand pressed against his side, elbow sticking out to the side.

"The guardian, you say?" the knight spoke, mustering up veins of confidence. "What is your name, and from where do you hail?"

[Wolfenium]

Cavern, Near Sèn Rémi eun Boursa, Val d'Aosta
24 October 1184
Shortly after the Hour of Terce

One down... One down already. It was all that dogged the poor old man's mind, clutching the ancient torch nervously, piercing the consuming darkness with its faint, vulnerable glow. He had not known Giovanni very well. While the two had a lot to talk about regarding their ventures in the Levant, he never really considered himself close to the Genoese soldier of fortune. Still, watching his afterimage in the dragon's hellish flames still haunted him to end.

"Atonement," Gebrael cursed in fear, "what 'atonement' was that?..."

But their ordeal was far from over.

Proceeding deeper into the caverns, the elder kept behind his younger companions, trying not to get in their way while keeping the faint light illuminating them from the shadows. For a moment, it seemed like the flame was burning brighter than ever. But this was but a fleeting hope. Something was ahead, another of the Deceiver's spawns.

"Boy, what're you doing," he whispered towards Geoffrey, his back fading into the darkness, "stick close. Boy, don't-"

It was too late. Seeing his faint image falling into the shadows, the old man can sense his doom. But if Gebrael had any doubts of the blueblood's passing, his severed, horrified head certainly sealed the deal. His mouth agape as the slain Burgundian, the old man struggled not to scream. Fortunately or not, his advanced age stifled what strength he had in releasing his horror. Unfortunately, he was not sure his heart could take the shock.

Gebrael could hear it whisper, the same ancient Roman tongue used to inscribe the Lord's Word. He... It called itself the guardian of a seal, and proclaimed its duty to end them. Staying back as Alberic and Lodewijk moved ahead, all he could do was watch as the Frisian attempt to reason with the unreasonable, while the monk did his work.

"Ludovicus, what are you doing," whispered Gebrael in Latin, his voice hushed and hoarse, "its soul is long lost to sin. Let the monk do his work."