Hellbound Read online

  To Mom and Dad.

  Thanks for all your love, compassion, and patience.

  The ecstasy of the Master’s declaration of war infected every crevice of Judecca. The slaves whispered it, the captives howled it, and the servants sang of it. Only one did not join in their cacophony: the ancient woman silently shuffling away from the mad choir. She slowly made her way into the silent darkness of the prison of jet-black ice to where the Master’s special projects waited.

  There was no need to search for the prisoner; she had come this way so many times over the centuries that she could simply close her eyes and walk to where he lay. “Wake up,” she called out in a hoarse, croaking voice.

  He did not move; it had been barely a week since their last lesson, but the ice had already swallowed him back up. Only a single frostbitten tuft of his bright-auburn hair remained free, gently shifting in the freezing wind.

  The old woman knelt down to the ice with a groan and cried out in pain as something in her back grated. No one else came remotely close to her age; she was the oldest by far. She had once been dark-skinned and tall, beautiful and graceful, but the years had shrunk her down. Her skin had paled in the absence of the sun into a sickly corpse-white as it tightened to leather, her muscles had atrophied to the point of nonexistence, and her face… It had been a long, long time since she had seen her reflection, but every day she could feel the tendons tightening like an instrument of torture, could feel the fabric of her skin tearing itself apart…

  One day there’ll be nothing left, she thought. Her body would tear and tear until she was finally, utterly gone. But she knew that would never happen; there was always one more step to go, one more piece to lose. An ocean of existence lay before her, and her entire life was nothing but a drop. Even if escape were possible, the Master would never allow it. And so…

  She put a trembling hand to the ice and rubbed away a few water droplets that had not yet frozen. Just as she expected, a face gazed up at her—a hollow-faced young man, trapped in the ice. His eyes slightly widened in panic at the sight of her. She drank in his fear greedily as she rose to her knees with a groan, drew out her makeshift bone pick, and slammed it into the ice. There was a sharp crack, and the young man’s face contorted in terror.

  “What is it today, Grandmother?” he demanded in his irritating singsong tone as soon as she had cleared the ice from his lips. The faux boldness in his voice did not disguise the scent of terror she could sense about him; after so many centuries of having him at her mercy, she could read him like a book. “The whip? The rack?” A manic laugh burst from his lips. “A kiss?”

  “I come from the Master.” She took a special satisfaction in his gasp. “It is time you serve.”

  “Serve?” He tried to give her a lopsided smile, drawing blood from his cracked, withered lips. “And what does the Master want from little old me?”

  She said nothing for a moment, allowing him to hear the distant chanting. “War!” the Master’s mad choir howled, faster and faster, louder and louder. “War! War! War!”

  “No,” the prisoner whispered. “The Rebellion. It’s finally happening.”

  “Aye,” the ancient woman said.

  “What can I possibly give the Master?” he asked. All the crazed insanity was gone from his voice; there was only fear. As well there should be.

  “Everything.” She wrapped an arthritic, skeletal hand around his face.

  He screamed and wept at the images the Master had prepared for him: burning cities, families torn to shreds, entire kingdoms drowned in blood, races and civilizations scoured from the earth, eldritch abominations tearing themselves from the ground, and a thousand other nightmares all joined together by the Master’s single sentence: MY WAR BEGINS. And in the center of it all, four shadowy figures silently emerged from the darkness of the vision. The prisoner saw himself among them, and to his utter shock, recognized another. But the other two were a mystery to him.

  The old woman withdrew her hand from his face and allowed him a few minutes to sob and scream into the darkness. It was fortunate that only his head was free of the ice; she was quite sure that he would have torn his own eyes out if it were possible.

  “There are three others,” she said when he had finally broken back down into sobs. “You will find them and bring them here.”

  He slumped his head as far forward in the ice as it would allow, shrouding his features in darkness.

  “You will do this for the Master,” the woman warned. “You will not fail.”

  His tears died and immediately froze on his cheeks. “Aye,” he agreed between gritted teeth. “For the Master.”

  “But—” She nearly laughed out loud at the shudder that passed through him. “We still have enough time for just one more lesson.”

  “For the Master’s mercy, please,” he begged. But they both knew it was no use. She knelt back down, bone pick in hand. Within seconds, the ice around him was stained a dark red, and his pleas had turned into shrieks. His screams echoed over the plains of ice, through caverns deep and dark, into the depths of the earth, past the celebrating choir, into the very heart of Judecca, where something stirred and smiled at the sound.

  When she was done with the prisoner, the old woman made her way back to the others, a new bounce in her shuffling gait. It was truly a time for celebration, after all; the Master’s plans were finally in motion, and soon all would be well.

  THE FOUR HORSEMEN

  So farewell hope, and with hope farewell fear,

  Farewell remorse: all good to me is lost;

  Evil be thou my good.

  - John Milton, Paradise Lost

  1

  France, 1218

  The bright Mediterranean sun of the south was not to Earl Simon de Montfort’s liking. The bright rays had a habit of reflecting off his polished armor and directly into his eyes, making his head ache. And the heat—he could feel the sweat dripping down his back and pooling at his buttocks. How fitting the heretics should live where it’s hot. The idea amused him enough that he repeated the sentiment aloud for the riders gathered around him.

  His chaplain, Bishop Guy Vaux, laughed. “It falls to the Butcher of God to send the heretics somewhere hotter, I suppose.” The holy man smiled.

  Only the bishop, who had been with Simon since the very beginning—since before Minerve, even—could get away with calling Simon that nickname to his face. And even then… “A butcher kills cattle, Bishop,” Simon corrected him, allowing just the slightest edge to infect his voice. “I merely cleanse Cathars.”

  Vaux was clever enough not to bite the hand that had raised him so high in the Church. “Of course, my lord,” he quickly said. “My apologies.”

  “Cattle or not, there’s too damn many of them in that pen,” Amaury de Montfort complained. Simon’s eldest son, the young man was his father in miniature, from his shock of red hair to the faint sneer that seemed to perpetually cross his lips. “They’ll be running out of food soon enough, most like.”

  “Aye,” Simon agreed.

  He had spent the last decade crushing stronghold after stronghold in France, rooting out thousands of the damned Cathars, and still the heresy persisted. The Church and the Crown had blessed his efforts with armies and gold, and the de Montfort’s family holdings had vastly expanded under his conquests, but it still never failed to enrage him how damn persistent the heretics were. He had slain thousands of them, in battle and otherwise; had spent over a quarter of his life devoted to their complete and utter destruction, and still some of them drew breath!

  But he had learned an important lesson from his campaigns. Destroying a heresy was not something simply accomplished by the blade, the flame, or the whip. Heresy was something more, an idea, and the only way to slay something so ethereal an
d nebulous was through knowledge. And so, from Carcassonne to Paris, the Butcher’s spies lurked in the shadows, reporting any whispers of heresy back to their master.

  “I have a man in Carcassonne,” Simon explained. “As you say, Amaury, the heretics’ supplies are dwindling. I have his word that they plan to make a sally today.”

  Amaury gazed out over the camp of the besieging army. Nearly twenty thousand knights, men-at-arms, and mercenaries from every kingdom in Christendom had answered the Pope’s call to purge the Cathar evil. Most had chosen to follow his father in the siege of Carcassonne, one of the last great heretic strongholds. So far, it had been tediously dull: as far as sieges went, this one had been uneventful for the last six months, barring the odd boulder fired via mangonel by the bored defenders. But something was still wrong.

  “Why isn’t the army ready then, Father?” Amaury demanded. The camp looked as it always did: men were gathered about campfires, trading gossip and flirting with camp followers; merchants sold their wares; a handful of knights were having a ragtag tourney in a nearby field. Nowhere was there any evidence that anyone was aware of the impending attack.

  “We must lure the heretics out,” Simon explained. “The bastards are cunning, tricky beasts—if they even catch a whiff that we’re ready for them, they’ll scamper back into their holes and we’ll be here for another six months. No, like any prey, they need bait.” And the unsuspecting camp that lay below them was the perfect lure.

  “But our men,” Amaury started to protest. “Father, why wasn’t I informed?”

  “You don’t think the heretics have spies of their own?” Simon asked scornfully. He pointed to a ridge on the opposite side of the camp. “I have two thousand mounted knights posted behind that hill. When the time is right, we’ll exterminate the rabble.”

  “What of the men in the camp? Father, some of them have served you for years…”

  Bishop Vaux coughed awkwardly. “If you’ll excuse me….” He began to back away, clearly eager to escape the conversation.

  Simon ignored the bishop and turned in his saddle to glare at his son. “War is built on sacrifice, boy. I thought I taught you that.”

  “Father, I don’t mean—” Amaury stammered and tried again. “Please, many of the men have families down there—women and children. This siege is already as good as won. Why put them at risk?”

  “They are whores, camp followers, and war orphans,” Simon snapped. “They will be no great loss, especially if we take the city. The damned heresy is finally on the brink of collapse. I am willing to make any fucking sacrifice if it means we can finally expunge them!”

  His son flinched at his words and stared down at his saddle for a moment. His face contorted with some inner struggle.

  Simon drummed his fingers on his breastplate as he waited; this argument had been brewing for a long, long time. “Leave us,” he ordered the handful of knights gathered about. His bodyguards dutifully lowered their heads and retreated; they knew better than to contradict their lord.

  “Father,” Amaury said slowly, as though he were carefully considering every word. “Please. If we are truly soldiers of Christ, then should we not show His mercy to our own, let alone the heretics? If we—”

  The needling, whining tone in Amaury’s voice infuriated Simon even more than his words. He’s so much like his mother, he thought in disgust. “Heresy deserves no mercy, boy,” he snapped. “I learned that lesson years ago, and God has rewarded me for it. That horse you ride on, that armor you wear, even the ground you take a piss on: God gave it to you. I gave it to you—because I do what must be done.”

  “You think I don’t know that?” Amaury softly asked. The hidden venom in his voice momentarily took Simon aback; his son had never dared to speak to him like this before. “Our house is built on a mountain of corpses. Even a butcher leaves enough cattle to sustain a herd, but you, Father—you’re worse.”

  For a moment, there was nothing but the sound of the wind rustling through their hair.

  “Choose your words carefully, boy,” Simon said in a very low voice.

  “You’ve nearly ended the heresy before, Father,” Amaury said. “Termes was supposed to be the end. Béziers was supposed to be the end. But it always goes on.” His pale face flushed a deep crimson as the words flooded out of him in a torrent. “Don’t you see? This Crusade will never end—we’ll just keep killing and killing until we’re all drowned in the dead!”

  Too late, Simon realized his teeth were so tightly clenched together that the iron taste of blood poured into his mouth. He has been talking to that little noble brat again, he seethed. What was her name? Agatha? Angela? No matter; he would have her tongue ripped out by the end of the day. But his heart betrayed him; on the wind, it suddenly seemed that he could smell the faintest whiff of burning bodies.

  “Enough,” Simon growled, and suddenly Amaury’s nose exploded. His son weakly toppled off his horse onto the ground below. Simon looked down at his fist in surprise and saw that his steel gauntlet was flecked with his son’s blood. Damn.

  One of his knights started to ride back in alarm, but Simon stopped him dead in his tracks with a cold glare. My son fights his own battles. He glared down at Amaury’s motionless body. “It’s time you became a man, boy. Now lie there like a coward or stand up.”

  Still, Amaury did not move.

  “Craven,” Simon growled, but he could not help but feel a cold chill run down his back. The boy was fine, he told himself, just playing dead, too cowardly to stand back up and face his father.

  “Move, damn you,” Simon roared. He stood up in his saddle to get a better angle to look down at his son, and gasped in horror at what he saw—the bloodstained rock Amaury’s unprotected head had struck, the pool of blood, and the emptiness in his son’s eyes.

  “A—a healer,” Simon tried to call out, but his commanding voice had suddenly become nothing more than a weak croak. Oh, God.

  As if in response, the church bells of Carcassonne began to ring, and the distant defenders on the wall gave a great cheer as a mass of armed men exploded from the city gates. In the besieging camp, men and women frantically scurried about like ants as the great host bore down on them.

  Lord Simon de Montfort had been right. The heretics were attacking.

  2

  St. Petersburg, 1881

  “CHUG! CHUG! CHUG!” the drunken crowd roared. It was barely sunrise on a Tuesday morning, but trivial things like work and schedules had never bothered the denizens of the Traktir na Pyatnitskoy.

  Vera Figner was more than happy to accommodate. With a cry of triumph, she seized the last final glass of vodka just before her opponent could reach it and downed it in a single gulp. It burned like fire all the way down and made her head swim, but it was worth it just to see the look of astonishment on Lieutenant Krakowsky’s pudgy face.

  “Holy shit,” he slurred as he staggered back from the table. “I think I’m in love.”

  “Of course you are,” Vera taunted, and, just to add insult to injury, she reached over and finished off the dregs in the glasses that he had claimed. The crowd roared its approval one last time, and collectively turned to watch the next drinking contest: two babushkas even older than sin facing off against each other.

  And now to lay the trap. Vera gave Lieutenant Krakowsky her most beguiling smile and twirled a curl in her hair. “Shall we go another round, handsome?”

  “Oh Jesus.” The lieutenant groaned. He looked as if he were about to vomit; clearly the man could not hold his alcohol. “I think I’m—”

  “Let’s go upstairs,” Vera cooed. She took his arm and he blushed, though that may have simply been the vodka reddening his face. “I’ll get you all cleaned up.” He mumbled something under his breath but weakly complied, leaning on her for support as they made their way up the stairs to the room Vera had rented just for the occasion. “The next round’s on him!” she called over her shoulder, and the crowd cheered again.

  “I have
important business today,” the lieutenant muttered as Vera closed the door to her room behind them. “Very important. I can’t—” The rest of his words died off in a garbled yawn.

  “Important business?” Vera asked as she walked the lieutenant to the bed. He slumped down on it like a dying man. “What sort of business?”

  “The kind that involves the government,” he said with a conspiratorial smile that he probably thought was handsome but that Vera found repellent.

  Nevertheless, she began to slip off her coat and overshirt—she didn’t want her clothes to get too dirty. Gun or knife? she wondered.

  “His Majesty—well, I shouldn’t say.”

  “His Majesty?” Vera made her eyes comically huge and slapped both hands on her cheeks in mock surprise. “Truly?”

  “Yes,” the drunk man bragged. He was far past the ability to sense sarcasm. “There are big things happening today—His Majesty is coming here, of all places, for a surprise visit! And I shall be one of the honor guard for his arrival.”

  Today. That was sooner than expected; she’d have to move up her plans. “An honor guard?” she asked in the tone of a confused child. “When and where?” Give me the time, you wretch.

  “You shouldn’t ask that.” Krakowsky belched. “It’s a matter of state security.” He began to attempt to slip his shirt off his ample gut. “Shouldn’t we be fucking now?”

  Lecherous fool. The time for half-measures was gone; she was certain that he was too drunk to call out for help, but she still took a special pleasure in lying on the bed beside him and suddenly slamming a pillow over his droopy-eyed face. “I need a time, Lieutenant,” she whispered in his ear as he began to weakly struggle in confusion. “When does the train arrive?”

  “Wha—?” the idiot mumbled in confusion through the pillow. “Vera, please—” He began to struggle more seriously as it slowly dawned on him that she was on the verge of suffocating him.