The Saracen: Land of the Infidel by Robert Shea (best fiction books to read .TXT) 📗

Dizzily Simon remembered tug-of-war games when he had been a page at the royal palace.

When one side lets go, everyone on the other side falls down.

With his last bit of consciousness, Simon squeezed his whole body into a crouch, then sprang up and backward, like a bow released.

His mail-clad weight and the attacker's momentum threw them both backward. They crashed together against shelving, and Simon heard porcelain shatter. Clouds of ground spices enveloped them, and they fell sideways to the floor, Simon on top of his attacker.

He heard a gasp as the man's breath was knocked out of him. And now he could breathe. He choked on air saturated with cinnamon and curry, but the cord was loose.

The fall had knocked his scimitar out of his hand. Anguished, he felt for it, but it was as if it had fallen into a well.

"Simon! Where are you?" Friar Mathieu shouted.

"Ah! Ah!" Simon let his breath out and sucked it in, gasping. He wanted to cry for help, but he could not use his voice. His body shook with terror.

And he felt the body under him moving with swift and terrible power. The cord snapped tight again.

But not before Simon got his right hand under it. The killer gave a vicious jerk on the thin cord, and it felt as if it might slice through his fingers. But Simon pushed against it with all the strength in his right arm, and loosened the cord enough to be able to pull air into his throat. He worked his other hand under it.

His shout burst from his throat. "M'aidez! Help me! Here! Here!"

Boots pounded toward him. He felt men around him. He heard them coughing and sneezing from the spices that filled the air. A sword poked him through his mail.

"Under me! Stab! Stab! You cannot hurt me!"

The cord went lax. The attacker had let go of it. Simon drew air frantically through his tortured windpipe.

Before he could get to his feet, an arm, hard as if clad in mail, whipped around his neck, clamping him to his enemy. He felt the edge of a dagger at his throat.

Simon could hear the devil's breathing right by his ear. Frantic,[465] he jerked his head forward and drove it back, ramming the back of his head into his attacker's face, slamming the enemy's head against the stone floor. Simon felt stunned, but the other must have been stunned, too. He heard a whispered gasp.

How can the devil be so silent?

He heard men speaking above him and feet shuffling around him, but despite his command, no swords were jabbing downward. They were afraid of stabbing him, even though he was wearing mail.

He arched his body and brought all his mailed weight down hard. He felt the edge of the enemy's dagger scrape across the chain around his neck. A bolt of terror shot through him. If not for that medallion, he would be bleeding to death right now. Simon thrust his steel-encased elbows into his enemy's ribs. The gasp was louder this time, and with a violent heave he freed himself.

He twisted over, arms reaching to wrap around his enemy.

I have to pin him down. I cannot let him get loose in this room again.

But the knees below him drew up and the feet kicked against him, throwing him back.

"Right in front of me!" Simon cried. "Get him!" And then he realized despairingly that none of the armed men on his side could understand him.

And no one, it seemed, had flint and steel to strike a light. He knew he was carrying none. Such a simple thing, yet tonight its lack might be his death.

His foot kicked something that rang against the stone floor. His sword. He swooped down on it, seized it, and thrust blindly straight ahead. The point struck a stone wall, and he felt the blade bend. He checked his thrust just in time to keep the scimitar from breaking.

He heard a movement to his left and stabbed again. Again he struck blank stone.

The devil is somewhere in this part of the room.

"The door!" Simon shouted. "Mathieu, get the door open."

He heard the iron bolt shoved back, the creak of hinges, the scrape of a body being pushed aside.

But the blackness remained absolute.

He must have put out the candle in the cellar before he broke in here.

Simon heard running footsteps outside the spice pantry. Sandals slapping up wooden stairs. The creaking of the trapdoor at the top[466] of the cellar steps. And then there was light. Gray, faint, but after what seemed like hours spent in utter darkness, it was as if the sun had suddenly risen.

God bless you, Mathieu.

Scimitar at the ready, Simon swept the room with his gaze.

A shadowy figure stood halfway along one of the side walls, holding something out before him in both hands. A miniature crossbow, a vicious-looking thing. Simon turned to see where it was pointed.

He saw John Chagan on the other side of the pantry facing the killer.

He heard a snap.

But Grigor, the Armenian who had been hurt outside the spice pantry, had stepped between John and the crossbow, and he took the bolt in his leather cuirass. Simon felt his mind moving much more slowly than things were happening, trying to grasp it all.

Grigor's eyes opened wide. Perhaps, Simon thought, he had expected that a bolt from such a little bow would merely bounce off his hardened leather armor. Or perhaps he knew that it would kill him.

In the semidarkness Simon could not see the hole in the cuirass, but Grigor's hand went to his chest, and then he toppled over.

The Tartar Philip had picked up a bow from the floor, and so had the other Armenian. Both raised their weapons toward the man in black.

Now we have him cornered and in a moment I will rip off his mask and know who he is.

The stalker's black-gloved hand flashed upward and he threw a tiny, round object into the pile of broken wooden shelves on the floor. A roar deafened Simon, and a blaze of white flame blinded him. The wooden shelves were afire, the flames feeding on the powdered spices that floated in the air. Heat seared Simon's face.

Death of God! He truly is a devil!

By the time Simon and the others had recovered from the burst of fire, the enemy was out the door and running for the cellar stairs. Simon cried out wordlessly in frustrated rage. He must not get away, not after all he had done to them.

As the man in black reached the foot of the stairs, Philip stepped into the doorway, drew his bow as calmly and carefully as if he were hunting, and loosed an arrow. The man in black jerked to a[467] stop. Simon could see the shaft of the arrow protruding from his right thigh.

The man reached down and with a sudden movement snapped away the arrow shaft. He drew a dagger with a strange blade that did not gleam; it was dead black. He raced on up the stairs, limping, but with inhuman strength and speed. Two more arrows flew at him, but missed, clattering against the cellar walls.

Friar Mathieu stood at the top of the stairs. He held his arms out, a lit white candle in one hand, blocking the stalker's path. The man came at him with the dagger.

"No!" Simon screamed.

With a sweep of his arm the man in black threw Friar Mathieu down from the banisterless stairs. The old priest fell six feet to the cellar floor, struck with a loud, sickening thump, and lay there, still.

And the enemy was gone.

By the time Simon and the others had climbed up to the kitchen, the man in black had vanished into the maze of dark rooms on the first floor of the palace.

Simon, wild with rage and grief, forced himself to think. He was alive, God be thanked, and he had saved the Tartars, but just for this moment. The man in black, seemingly routed, might renew his attack at any time.

And Friar Mathieu. Dear God, don't let him be dead!

What was the creature Simon had fought in the darkness? Christian? Saracen? Or, as his most frightening imaginings hinted, a being from hell itself?

Clearly it was not some Filippeschi bravo who had somehow broken through the palace's defenses. Simon's inspiration on the battlements had been right; the Filippeschi attack had been only a diversion.

If a demon of this sort opposed the alliance, Simon felt more than ever determined that the alliance must succeed. This was the hidden enemy whose presence he had sensed since coming to Orvieto. The force determined to prevent the alliance of Christians and Tartars. The one who had incited Orvieto's people against the Tartars when they first came. Who had set that poor devil of a heretic to draw his dagger against them in the cathedral. Alain's murderer. Stalker. Enemy. Killer. Devil.

Hatred blazed up within Simon.

If only he could have killed the man in black or caught him before[468] he escaped. Now he must guard against an enemy as evil as Satan. An enemy powerful enough to throw an army against a fortified palace, subtle enough to reach into an impregnable chamber and strike at his intended victims. A being whose strength and skills made him seem more than human. Cruel and pitiless, ready to murder anyone who stood in his way.

It was as certain as the judgment of God that they would fight again. This was war to the death.