Shakespeare Vs Cthulhu Page 9

  “Yes, my liege, magic,” the sorcerer said, his eyes gleaming in the dark. “Magic that will alter the doom that threatens your army. Magic that will bring you victory.”

  The King felt an icy fist close about his heart. He’d prayed for a miracle; instead he found himself confronted by sorcery. His mind raced through the wisdom and lore he’d learned from his tutors, recalling the perils of black magic and those who appealed to infernal powers. It was an affront against God and decency to consort with witchcraft.

  The wizard grinned and shook his head. “No, my liege, I am not the Devil. Would it ease your doubts if I told you there is no such being? There is no infernal power seeking to corrupt and tempt the souls of men. Mankind is far too insignificant to be granted such an adversary.”

  As he had before, Henry’s pride rose at the wizard’s mockery, making him forget his fear. “Who are you?” he demanded.

  Walking around the table and its alchemical implements, the wizard answered Henry’s question. “It pleases me at present to wear the name Vashtar. I am a relic, a living echo of a people long-since faded from these lands. Last of that school of men who were the true druids of old. Before the time of French or Roman, before Gaul and Celt, we were here. We built cities of stone and probed the great mysteries, piercing the veils between the mundane experiences of men and the ancient forces that govern existence.” Vashtar’s face curled back in a bitter scowl. “All that was built, all that was learned was cast down, crushed underfoot by ignorant savages incapable of understanding and frightened by the unknown.”

  The druid pointed a gnarled finger at Henry. “You too are frightened. I can see it clouding that energy which you think of as your soul. Yet you refuse to submit to that fear.”

  Henry gestured at the macabre paraphernalia that littered the wizard’s lair. “I came here because you offered my army the hope of victory. That promise is all that interests me, not mysteries and horrors best left to the past.”

  A ghoulish chuckle rattled across Vashtar’s lips. “Yes, it is with the past that we shall treat,” he laughed. “The self-imagined limitations man imposes upon himself that he may constrain his understanding to elements restrained enough to be embraced by his intelligence.

  Place and time are but illusions, my liege, doors that can be flung open if one but has the Key.” He tilted his head to one side, studying the King. “No, you will not believe unless you are shown.” He pointed to a chalked circle marked on the floor. “Stand within that sigil and don’t stir from it. I anticipated the need for a demonstration, and have prepared for it accordingly.”

  Henry hesitated, a feeling of monstrous menace engulfing him. He watched as Vashtar stepped around to a stone pedestal and set upon its surface a large sackcloth bag. Something squirmed within the bag, some trapped creature that struggled to be free. From beneath his cloak, the druid drew a crude knife of obsidian. He looked back at the King.

  “It is elaborate theatre simply to kill you,” Vashtar declared. “Quell your doubts for only a moment and you will see. Then you will know I have spoken truly, that it is in my power to deliver an English victory on the morrow.”

  Thoughts of his army, of all those bold and loyal men who were otherwise certain to perish, moved Henry. If the French were victorious they would kill the yeomanry out of hand. Such was their hatred of the English longbow that no archer would be extended any measure of mercy. Surrender or defeat, the finish would be the same for thousands of brave soldiers. If there was even a chance of averting such a massacre, Henry felt compelled to take it.

  The moment Henry stood within the circle, he felt a gnawing chill rake his body. The cold of desolate places, the void beyond experience, the cosmic nothingness that astrologers described as a celestial sea in which the stars swam. His breath was a freezing mist, the perspiration that dripped from his brow became little fingers of ice. He heard a hammering in his ears and recognized it to be the pounding of his heart.

  Across from him, Vashtar was shouting a glottal cadence, a string of vocal atrocities that were more grunt and yowl than speech. One intonation, however, thrust itself upon the King’s awareness, a slobbering intonation. Yog-Sothoth! Yog-Sothoth!

  Incredibly, the atmosphere within the druid’s lair became even more hostile. Henry closed his eyes against a bright flash of light wrought from no such colour as he had ever seen. When the stinging light was gone, he was aware of figures standing outside the chalked circle. Any demon called from Hell could have been no more horrifying for the King, for the men who’d been conjured by Vashtar’s sorcery were known to him. They were men he’d ordered executed for treason before embarking with his army for France. He was gazing upon the visages of Cambridge, Lord Scroop and Sir Thomas Grey.

  These were no ghosts, no spectres drawn out from their graves. The traitors were living flesh, their faces betraying shock and wonder at their strange surroundings. It was when Grey spotted the King that the traitor recovered from his surprise. Drawing his sword, the nobleman rushed towards Henry. Grey gave no thought to either the bizarre translocation that had come upon him or his unnatural escape from the executioner. All that concerned him was the presence of the King and the prospect of regicide.

  Henry drew back as Grey rushed at him. The traitor’s sword flashed towards him, but amazingly it rebounded from the edge of the chalk circle. Instead of slashing across the King’s body, it merely grazed the side of his head, nicking his ear and scratching his scalp.

  Vashtar’s voice rose in a bestial bellow. Again the strange light flared through the vault. When Henry’s vision cleared, the three traitors were gone, vanished as though they’d never been there at all. Only the blood trickling from his scalp gave proof that what he’d witnessed had been more than an illusion.

  “It was unwise to leave the circle,” Vashtar scolded the King. After the bellowed cry that had dispelled the traitors, the druid’s voice had become a feeble croak. His entire body trembled, shaking as though gripped by an ague. “Had I not opened the Gate and cast your enemies back into their own position within the skein of time-space, their murderous design might have prevailed. Even though all of them were executed before you left England.”

  Henry reached to his head, feeling the blood under his fingers. “I don’t understand. How is it that you can call dead men back from an hour when they yet lived? I cannot deny what I have seen, but the doing of it strains my reason.”

  Vashtar stepped back behind the pedestal. Henry watched the wizard’s fingers close about the handle of the stone knife. At the height of his incantation, the druid had plunged the obsidian blade down into the bag. The creature within it no longer moved. Blood slowly dripped from the bag onto the stone floor.

  “Don’t seek to understand, my liege,” Vashtar warned. “Even among the druids there were those brought to madness by such wisdom. It is enough for you to know that such power is possible. Through Yog-Sothoth the illusions of time and place can be wiped away, for he is both the Key and the Gate.” He pulled the knife from the bloodied bag, wiping its dark blade clean on the furs he wore. “I offer this power to you, to harness to your cause. I can put onto the field a force of arms that will bring the Constable of France to ruin!”

  “And what is the price of such aid?” Henry asked. He had no doubts Vashtar could do what he claimed, but it remained to be seen what the wizard wanted in return. Even before he spoke, Henry knew it would be something monstrous.

  “It is enough for me to see the usurpers brought to destruction,” Vashtar said. “Those who rule now where greater have once dwelt.” He looked down at the pedestal, watching the blood trickling to the floor. “There are rules to what you consider sorcery, esoteric laws that are as strange as they are inviolate. To open the Gate and summon the Key it is needful to make an offering, an offering that must be supplied by one who has dominion over it.” He nodded at the sackcloth bag. “Tonight there is a peasant in Abbeyville with three pieces of silver in his hand and an empty cradle in his hut.
”

  The druid’s eyes gleamed with reptilian coldness when he gazed at Henry. “I will need another offering to open the Gate and summon the Key tomorrow. The celestial harmonies which your Church has designated as St. Crispin’s Day are laden with vast potentialities, allowing a far greater effort than what you’ve witnessed here. But I must still have an offering to render to Yog-Sothoth, an offering which you, as King, are empowered to provide.”

  Henry felt sickness boiling in his stomach. He knew what the wizard meant, and it was a proposal that offended him to the very core of his being. Yet if he refused, if he rejected the druid’s sorcery, then the French would annihilate his army on the morrow. When balanced against the lives of his army, the sacrifice of a single martyr was incontestable. “Take what you need from among my baggage train,” Henry told Vashtar. “Do not speak of this to me again.” He turned and hastened back up the stairs, desperate to be back in the clean air and away from the foulness of the wizard’s lair.

  “As you command, my liege,” Vashtar called after him. “I shall take what is needed from among your baggage train.”

  The English marched out onto the grassy field. Under six thousand men strong, Henry’s force was largely dismounted archers and men-at-arms. Such knights as were among his force had left their horses behind in the camp, for today would offer no provision for gallant forays against the enemy ranks. Even concentrated into a single group, Henry’s knights would be as flies buzzing around a raging lion beside the enormity of the French host.

  Charles d’Albret had amassed a force not less than six times that of Henry’s weary army. Nor were these peasant levies, but rather the cream of French chivalry. Thousands of armoured knights on magnificent warhorses, their thick plate gleaming in the morning sun, stood arrayed in a series of three battles, ready to engage the English. The horses in the first battle had thick barding guarding their heads and backs, protection against descending arrows. Their riders, encased in steel plate, eschewed the use of shields to favour brutal picks and hammers. Of course it would be the lance that brought them thundering into the English line, smashing into Henry’s soldiers with the fury of an avalanche. Disciplined as his yeomen were, they couldn’t match the martial prowess of the French knights. Loyalty and courage could take a man far, but they didn’t have the same resilience as training and experience. The nobility of France measured their status among their peers by their prowess on the battlefield and spent their whole lives honing their military skills.

  Pennants and banners flying above the French ranks proclaimed the presence of many renowned nobles. The Constable of France had positioned himself with the first battle, such was his contempt for the outnumbered English. With him was Duke Charles of Orleans, Duke John of Bourbon and the renowned Marshal Boucicault in command of the vanguard. Count Louis de Vendôme and Sir Clignet de Brebant led small cavalry companies on the wings of d’Albret’s first battle, menacing the flanks of Henry’s force. A second battle of dismounted soldiers followed behind the first, with the standards of Duke Edward III of Bar, Count Phillip II d’Nevers, and Count John d’Alençon. Beyond them, Henry could see a vast reserve of mounted knights and dismounted crossbowmen. The Constable of France had even brought a pair of menacing wide-mouthed cannon to the battlefield, though it seemed d’Albret preferred to destroy the English by force of arms rather than bombardment.

  The terrain was against the French horde. The forests of Agincourt and Tramcourt bordered either side of the field, forcing the French into a narrow frontage where their superior numbers couldn’t be brought to bear. To guard against the menace of enemy cavalry, Henry commanded his archers to set stakes in the ground when they took position, presenting an obstacle that would either repel the warhorses or see the beasts impaled upon them. Henry put blocks of armoured men-at-arms and dismounted knights between the companies of bowmen, Lord Camoys in command on the left and Edward, Duke of York commanding the right. At the centre, the King himself held the ground, supported by Sir Thomas Erpingham and his household guard.

  As the French began their march forwards, Henry tried to quell the fear that swept through his men. He enjoined them to count themselves fortunate that they were present for such a heroic battle, that their deeds would live on in legend and be written into the legacies of England for ages to come. He prevailed upon them that their claim and their cause were just and that it was the will of God, not force of arms, that would in the end decide the course of the battle.

  Even as he delivered his speech, describing the glory of St. Crispin’s Day, Henry felt dread in his heart. After consorting with a creature like Vashtar, could he honestly claim his cause was noble, or that he enjoyed the favour of God? In his despair he’d turned to dark forces and now he felt ashamed to call upon the name of the Most High. For what had he broken faith with all things noble and decent? Where was the druid’s magic now that it was needed?

  The blaring of trumpets and the clamour of drums announced the approach of the French herald. Riding a richly caparisoned palfrey, dressed in bright doublet and plumed cap, Montjoy presented a foppish contrast to the grim warriors of d’Albret’s army. Holding the standard of France high, the herald bowed his head to Henry and then asked if he would surrender. When the King rejected the demand for capitulation, Montjoy asked what ransom the French should ask once Henry was their prisoner. Pride flared within the King’s breast and with a snarl he dismissed the herald, daring the French to wrest what ransom they could from his royal carcass. His show of defiance wrought a cheer from the English line.

  Henry’s insolence roused the French. No sooner had Montjoy withdrawn past the second battle, than the French began their advance. The cavalry on the flanks of the first battle came galloping forwards. As Henry had feared, the volley of arrows loosed from the English longbows failed to bring down more than a couple of the barded warhorses and utterly failed to pierce the plate worn by the knights. In a thunder of hooves, the wings of d’Albret’s army closed in upon the English.

  Before the French could come crashing down upon the English line, a voice like thunder boomed out across the battlefield. Henry felt his insides turn to ice as he recognized the glottal intonations of Vashtar’s spell. An obscene stench spilled down upon the field, causing men to retch and horses to panic. The uncanny light flared once more, a luminance of no earthly hue. Instead of dissipating as it had in the wizard’s lair, the light pulsated with mounting intensity. Henry blinked against the glamour, stunned by the enormity of the druid’s conjuring. If the brief flicker he’d seen in the vault had summoned the Southampton plotters, then what might be called by this still mightier magic? The bowmen who’d routed the French at Crécy perhaps, or the triumphant soldiers who’d won at Poitiers?

  As the intensity of the light faded, Henry felt his gaze drawn upward. Above the battlefield, a jagged blemish marked the sky, a tear through the air itself. Darkness undulated beyond that rent, glistening with a brooding menace. The French, their charge disrupted by the panic of their horses, looked skyward at the marvellous manifestation, shouts of disbelief and amazement ringing out from behind their visored helms.

  Wonder turned to terror as a ropey coil dropped down through the tear in the sky. To Henry it seemed a thing built of bubbles, vine-like in its outlines and shining with a dazzling discord of colours. Yards long, thicker around than a man’s leg, the growth whipped earthward, twining around one of the French knights and his steed. From man and beast alike there rose a shriek of agony. Henry could only stare in horror as the knight and his horse disintegrated into dust, flesh and bone and armour crumbling to powder as the pulsating coil of bubbles grasped them.

  More of the vines now dropped down from the tear in the sky, some far more slender than the first, others of such monstrous dimensions that they were thicker around than a church steeple. Slim or fat, the bubbly tendrils struck at the French warriors, visiting upon them a ghastly riot of destruction. Some of the French disintegrated in the same fashion as the first k
night had, others suffered a weird diminishment, shrivelling up inside their armour, wilting in horrible and unspeakable fashion. When Henry saw one of the massive warhorses reduced to the dimensions of a newborn foal, he realized the awful destruction the thing from the sky was bringing to d’Albret’s army. It was adding and retracting years from those it struck, heaping such enormous age upon some so that they became dust, taking away from others until they collapsed into an abominable foetal sludge.

  Nor was its power constrained to visit but one manifestation upon its prey. Henry saw one French duke caught up in the bubbly coils with the left side of his body crumbling to dust while his right side withered into an infantile husk.

  Beside him, Henry heard the awed gasp of the Duke of Gloucester. “It is the avenging angel of God!” Similar exclamations rang out from across the English lines. The King knew better. It was no manifestation of God they witnessed, but the hideous force evoked by a monstrous wizard. Henry could still hear Vashtar’s cry rising above the terror and agony of the stricken French.

  “Yog-Sothoth! Yog-Sothoth!”

  The reeling French horsemen turned about, such of them as remained, and fled back into the vanguard of d’Albret’s first battle.

  The thing in the sky pursued them, more of its eldritch mass seeping down from the tear. Now it was the first battle that was struck by the bubbly tendrils, the knights and soldiers of d’Albret’s vanguard who perished in such grotesque fashion. Valiantly the Constable of France urged his soldiers forwards to help his vanguard, but the effort to reinforce his men was for naught. Sword and axe seemed incapable of working any true harm against the devilish tendrils. A stout swing of a sword might burst a single bubble, bathing the attacker in a shimmering slime that corroded his armour and seared his flesh.