25.

We made our way up the creek again that day, this time staying well out of the narrow rocky bed.  We spotted Orlden Hill after only an hour of riding.  We must have been at the very foot of that hill when Maxmillius fell upon us, and we, blinded by the mist, saw nothing of it.  There was no jovial banter between us that day.  Only Antonio spoke, and that was to whisper his displeasure at having Samuel.  Samuel, for his part, said nothing.  He rode at the rear of our little column, silent and smiling, though his eyes were wide and alert for any danger.

We came to the spot in the creek where we had come across the body of that young child, and Juan paused to seek evidence of what might have happened to the remains.

“It was here,” Juan told Samuel.  “I am sure of it.  It was a slain child we found.  Chewed upon and cast here like a scrap.  But it is gone now, and the rains must have washed the blood away.  Perhaps the animals of these highlands made a feast on what was left?”

“The poor boy,” Samuel said, deep regret plain in his voice.  “Left here – unrescued and unburied in this place.  How we failed him.”

Juan remounted his horse, a queer look across his face.  Like he had just seen or heard something that should have been a clue, but he could not recognize it.  Like having a word or name on the tip our your tongue, and not being able to spit it out.  Of course I would recognize later what had just happened, but at the time my mind was filled with dread at the thought of facing Maxmillius Crowe again this day, and I was not paying attention as I should have been.

We had been allowed to live that first day – served with an admonition.  But here we were again, and I feared our warning had run out.

Within a hundred yards of where we had found the remains we spotted the entrance to the cave at the foot of Orlden Hill.  For some reason, perhaps intuition, I turned to look at Samuel.  His pale face was locked in a grimace of hatred, though it softened when he saw my glance – he even smiled at me.

“Dismount Venatore,” Juan breathed, his dread obvious to us who knew him.  “We have arrived at our destination.”

We Venatore dismounted gracefully, despite our heavy armor.  It was Samuel who had some difficulty, almost slipping and falling on the slippery rocks of the creek.  I had pushed out the dent in my breastplate the day before, and fixed the straps that held it in place, and while it didn’t fit exactly proper now, it still offered the protection I knew I was bound to need.

“Shall we call to him, or enter his lair with stealth?” I asked, drawing my sword from its scabbard.

Samuel produced a short wicked looking blade from beneath his robes, and looked overly eager to jump into any fray.  I however, had my doubts about him.

“We will enter with all the stealth we can muster in this armor, though I have no doubt he already knows of our presence,” Juan answered me, his look had changed from one of dread to one of resolve.

He was our leader, and in our time of need he had found the strength we sought after.

He was our leader, and how I love him now for that.

 

26.

We began to enter the cave, when for no apparent reason; it struck me what we had all missed back there at the bend in the creek.  A chill ran up my spine as we disappeared from the light of the sun under the eave of that cave.

“Stop,” I heard myself utter, the echo of voice ringing faintly through the cave.

Everyone, including Samuel, froze in their tracks.  Slowly I turned to face him – the traitor in our midst.

I still wonder what would have happened that day had I realized his treachery earlier.

I turned to face Samuel the Monk – accusations plain on my face.

“Traitor,” I breathed.  “Treachery from the beginning.  How could we have been so blind to you?”

Juan stepped quickly to my side, as Samuel’s eyes narrowed to slits and his short sword came up in the vague direction of my chest.

“Why do you speak so William?  Tell us your evidence of this treachery,” Juan said confused by my sudden outburst.

But I was sure in my judgment, and I knew Antonio would concur with my finding – even if Juan could not.

“Ask him,” I said, my sword coming up.  “Ask him how he knew that the remains of that child on the creek were of a boy.”

Juan’s eyes narrowed, and Samuel backed up a step, retreating back to the entrance of the cave.

“Answer the question before you Monk,” Juan said stepping forward even as Samuel stepped back.  “Answer this charge – truthfully now.”

Samuel smiled tightly, and held his hands out like a man trying to reason with children.  A muscle at the corner of his eye began to twitch, making his tight smile seem more like a contortion of hatred.

                “I must have misspoke myself, or perhaps you misheard me.  I knew nothing of those remains on the creek.  The first I heard of them was when you yourself spoke of them,” He said in a voice that reminded me more of a cat’s purr than a voice of reason.

                “You lie Monk,” Antonio said, advancing on Samuel until Juan reached out to restrain him.  “It was thee – you killed that poor child.  I charge thee with murder most foul Monk, may your lies fall on deaf ears.”

Antonio struggled in Juan’s grasp, seeking to get at Samuel, who was still smiling and twitching amiably as if nothing had happened.  But the end game was here, and he knew it.

 

27.

There was a moment of complete silence where all eyes turned towards the monk.

“You’re right of course,” Samuel laughed then – a sound I still hear in my dreams.  “Twas I who killed the child – all of them.  You Venatore, you Knights of the Vatican – you hold yourselves in such high regard.  But one man, one mere Monk has ruined you.  Yes I killed them, and I killed you and your order here this day – my revenge for his betrayal."

“Traitor,” I screamed in dismay.  “Treachery!  Why would you betray your Church Monk?”

“My Church would have betrayed me soon enough, it will not go unnoticed forever you see –my affliction.  As others age and I remain young and vigorous.  That will not go unnoticed, and they would have branded me heretic – perhaps burned me at the stake.  Oh my Church would have abandoned me soon enough – as they did Crowe.”

“You will die for this Monk,” Juan told him.  “Your treachery here will not go unheeded.  We are the Venatore, and I condemn you to death in the name of God."

Samuel laughed then, his voice hoarse with emotion.

“You condemn me to death Venatore, you are beneath me.  Your precious Venatore is nothing without its chief and founder.  He is fallen.  Betrayed by his own order.”

“Betrayed indeed Monk,” I said then, my disgust resonating in my voice.  “But not by us, or our order.  Perhaps we have doubted, perhaps we have played our part as given us by you, but it is you that has betrayed him.”

“And what would you know of this boy?” Samuel sneered at me, his blade waving in my direction.  “You eunuchs – what would you know of love?  I gave myself to him, to be with him for all time.  To be like him, ageless, flawless, and he resented me for it – spurned me.  He sent me back to my Church and my doom.  Aye, this is my revenge, and sweet as honey it is to me.”

“Sweet?” A deep sad voice came from behind us, from farther in the cave.  “Sweet you say?  Revenge has always been a most bitter drink in my experience Dear Samuel.  Alas, I knew not how the Dracua would warp you, or in my selfishness I was blind to it.”

I turned to face Maxmillius, and Juan’s hand fell from Antonio’s shoulder.

 

28.

Why he did it I’m still not sure, perhaps he felt trapped between the two of them.  Perhaps he just wanted to get at the monster Samuel – for it was surely a monster that could do what had been done to that child on the creek.  Whatever the reason, without warning, Antonio charged Samuel.  His lips were drawn back in a expression of such rage, his hair fanned out, his eyes burning hotly.  I have said before I would always like to remember him as he stood that day in the window of St. Peter’s, sylvan and mythical, but sometimes I remember him as he was then, terrible in his rage – young and strong.

How Samuel withstood that initial barrage I cannot tell you, but it must have been the Dracua. Antonio attacked with a ferocity I never would have believed him capable of, and Samuel was pressed all the way back to the very mouth of the cave.

Beside me Juan drew his sword, and looked this way and that, unsure of which direction to turn his assault.  I believe he expected Maxmillius to enter the fray at any moment, but I never saw Maxmillius flinch.  His proud pale face held a look of sadness as he watched Antonio attack his comrade.  While the sound of metal rang in the air, I was held entranced by that look of profound sorrow on Maximillius’ face.  So entranced I was,  I never heard Juan utter his war cry – I never saw him charge.

“No Venatore,” Maximillius rumbled even as he drew his glittering blade from his scabbard in defense.  “Do this not!”

My mind was numb, I drew my own blade as if by instinct and prepared to wade into the fray against Samuel, when I heard Antonio scream and saw him clutch his stomach.

“Antonio,” I breathed, scarcely more than a whisper.

“Antonio…”

Samuel stepped back leering, the short wicked blade in his hand dripping with my comrades lifeblood.

Antonio staggered back into my waiting arms and I looked down at his still angelic face.  His eyes were wide and panicked, already a bloody froth was issuing from his nose and mouth.  There was fear in his wild eyes as he opened his mouth to speak – but only more bloody foam issued forth.  He was dying, in my arms, and his killer remained there, leering and unremorseful.

“Kill him William,” Antonio coughed out through a great gout of blood.  “Kill that Devil.”

Antonio was dead before he slid from my arms to the hardscrabble floor of the cave.  He looked so young, pale as he was, his lips so red from the blood that still clung to them.  It is not how I wish to remember him, but it is hard no too sometimes.  When the blackness comes over me, and my innards tremble in fear.  Sometimes when I slip into a nightmare and I see him like that.

I half expected Samuel to attack, as I stood there staring to down at Antonio.  I would have been killed easily at that moment because for some reason I could not take my eyes off of my fallen companion.  But Samuel did not attack, he laughed wickedly.  Maybe he wanted to see my shock, my grief.  Perhaps he felt it would unnerve me.  This supposition was incorrect.

 

29.

I do not remember the battle, and cannot recite it.  I only remember the red rage that filled me from toe to ears.  I can remember clearly hearing the melee behind me, the clash of metal, the grunts of effort.  Juan was still alive, but the grunts were louder, more desperate, and over it all, I could hear his harsh labored breathing.  The first thing I remember of my battle was the hot pain in my side, and the look of shock in Samuel’s pale eyes as my blade slid through his middle effortlessly.

“I curse thee to Hell traitor,” I breathed into his ear as he slid off of my blade and fell awkwardly to the cave floor.

His face betrayed a look of utter shock as he examined the blood pouring from the red gash in his robes just below his breastbone.  I had killed him I supposed then, but as I turned to aid Juan in his contest, only then did I realize the seriousness of my own wound.  My right leg failed to work as I turned and went to the ground on one knee.  Fearfully I looked down at my side.  There, above my hipbone, jutted the handle of Samuel’s blade.

“I shall meet you in Hell young William,” Samuel laughed.  “We will enter its gates together you and I.”

He was correct, I was killed as sure as I sit here writing this account my wound was mortal.

Again I tried to make it to my feet, only to find the weakness spreading from my leg throughout my body.  I craned my head up in time to see Maxmillius deftly parry a slow heavy blow by Juan.

Juan’s strength was failing.  He was never a match for Maxmillius.  Maxmillius toyed with him, wearing him down – hoping to avert disaster I think now.  He had no desire to kill Juan, for he could have at any time, yet he restrained himself even in the heat of battle.

“Juan,” I heard myself say, a touch of panic in my voice.

But Juan did not look up; it was Maxmillius who turned those ice blue eyes of his in my direction.  Only then did Juan score a blow on Maxmillius.  It was a blow that would have dire repercussions.

It was just a nick really, but it was enough to draw blood – blood and ire.  Juan’s sword connected with Maxmillius= arm, and I think even before Maxmillius knew what he had done, he brought his blade down sharply at an angle, cutting deep into the nape of Juan’s neck and wedging against his spine.  With a gasp, Juan went to his knees, his sword slipping from his now useless right hand.

Blood surged forth like a river, never in my life had I seen so much blood at once.  Like a fountain of ochre it spewed from Juan’s wound.

“Oh Juan,” I said again as I began to crawl towards him dragging my numbed leg behind me.  “Oh Dear Juan.”

Maxmillius watched Juan go to his knees, first with the fire of battle in his eyes, then with disgust – disgust at Juan, God, and himself.

“Damn you Venatore,” Maxmillius said not unkindly as Juan toppled back into my arms.  “How I tried to spare you this end.  Were that you could have heeded my warning, but your sense of duty – your pride that made you what you are was at last your undoing."

Maxmillius bowed his head then, his raven hair falling forward to cover his beautiful face, and I knew he paid homage to us – to what he had been.  To the Venatore he paid his tribute.

I stroked back Juan’s hair and looked into his dark brown eyes, where just a fluttering spark of life remained.

He was our leader – our true mentor.  He was our friend, and I could find no words to ease his passing as that spark flickered and went cold.  A tear spilled down my cheek as I continued to hold him, it was then I knew how wrong about him I had been.  He had been the bravest among us.  For he knew doubt, and he knew fear, yet he faced them with a war cry on his lips and a sword in his hand.  There was no false sense of arrogance.  No inflated ego.  Just a man – a real man with all the doubts and fears real men have.  He was Venatore, and I am humbled by his bravery, and proud to have counted him among my friends.

 

30.

“To Hell with you Venatore – death to you all,” Samuel spat from where he lay in his growing pool of blood.  “Help me now Crowe, I am in need of your aid.”

I tried to ignore his rants – bitter gall from a mad traitor it was.  I tried to ignore it, for it served no purpose to be more angered by it.  Instead of anger I felt only sadness, sadness that even lying there in his own blood, Samuel could not seek redemption.  My tears doubled, and I nuzzled my face into Juan’s robes.  My companions were gone, slain by the treachery of this man, and all he had for us were his curses.  I was somewhat consoled by the fact that I would soon be joining them, for even as my tears fell, my heart thudded erratically in my chest, and my limbs grew cold.

“Silence Samuel,” Maxmillius said softly, his head still bowed in grief.  “For months I have turned my head to your actions – hoping your madness would pass.  But today your treachery has damned us all.  Damned me, if I was not already.”

“Damned!” Samuel screeched in a high-pitched voice.  “To Hell with you too then.  Was it not I that offered to stay with you for eternity?  I, who gave myself to you, only to have you turn your back on me.”

“Yes Samuel you did, and I never should have allowed it.  I did you a disservice.  Alas my loneliness got the best of me,” Maxmillius said raising his head and looking over me at Samuel who still lay at the cave entrance.  “Ultimately, this treachery has its beginnings with me.”

He stepped past Juan and I with light catlike steps, and knelt down beside Samuel.

“I should have stopped you long ago my friend,” Maxmillius told Samuel softly.  “The humanity that remains in this black heart should have seen the madness in your soul, but I did not, and for that I apologize.”

Samuel began to blubber and cry like a child then as he grasped for Maxmillius= cape.

“It is forgiven my love,” Samuel cried.  “Help me Crowe, and we will leave this place – just you and I.”

“I will help you Dear Samuel,” Maxmillius told him softly as he placed his gauntleted hand on Samuel’s cheek.  “I will heal this madness on you, and your soul will be free at last.”

“Oh thank you my love.  I am so sorry – I don’t know what came over me to do these things. I was so angry with you, but that is all over now,” Samuel stuttered through his wet sniffles.

I saw Maxmillius= hand close around the hilt of the sword that lay beside him, and I knew what was to be done.  Indeed Maxmillius would cure Samuel of his madness.  He would free his soul, and without another word, only a kind look down at his companion, he did just that.  Samuel never even uttered a cry; he never saw the blade coming.  Never realized until his head left his body.

Only now can I appreciate the will it took for Maxmillius to put an end to Samuel – to relegate himself to a life of eternal loneliness.

 

31.

Again Maxmillius bowed his head in grief as he let the sword fall from his grasp and clatter to the cold stone floor.  I sat there in stunned disbelief, the tears drying on my pale cheeks as I rocked the mortal remains of Juan Diego de Gonzales in my arms.  I too expected to die here, though somehow it seemed a shame to leave Maxmillius alone.  Such a tragic figure he seemed to me then, as my life inexorably seeped around the hilt of Samuel’s blade.  We were all tragic there that fateful day.

“He was not always as you knew him,” Maxmillius said hoarsely, the emotion plain in his voice.

It seemed so odd that he would speak to me like we were old friends – there, with my companions dead around me.  It seemed strange, but right somehow that we let the stories be told, for they were stories that needed telling, and who else was left but us?

"He was a kind man once – a gentle man.  He cared for me despite this affliction of mine – despite the Dracua.  But he was never a strong man.  Never strong of will, purpose, or mind, and the Dracua he willingly accepted from me undid him.  Whose treachery is this now?” Maxmillius told me.

I said nothing.  There was nothing to say, the bodies were enough of an accusation, and in a way it pained me to see this fantasy mentor of mine in such pain.

At last, after a long pause, I started to say something – something inane no doubt, but was instead hit by a racking cough that felt as though it were tearing my insides out.

“You are wounded to death I fear,” Maxmillius told me as he hurried over and knelt beside me.

He slid me out from under Juan and examined my wound.

“You could save me,” I said quietly, almost under my breath.

"No," he said shortly.  "I would not damn another."

“I am Venatore,” I told him.  “My will, mind, and sense of purpose are strong.  The madness of the Dracua would not have the sway over me it did Samuel.”

Maxmillius said nothing; he simply stared into my eyes and seemed to probe deep into my mind.  No testing or training of the Venatore matched the test I received that day as I lay dying.

“It is possible your wounds could heal of their own accord,” he told me finally.  “I’ve seen injury that looked ill in battle, amount to not when it came to the death bed.”

“The betrayal of Samuel does not end here Maxmillius,” I told him.  My breathing was becoming labored now, and my abdomen felt tight.

I knew my time was short.

There were things he needed to know, and whether or not he would give me this gift or curse of his, I was determined to tell him.  I felt I owed him that much.

“Your guilt of these crimes, and your location has been reported back to the Vatican.  You are not safe here any longer,” I forced out through my shallow breaths.  “And though I know the truth of it now, it will serve you not if I die here this day.”

He stroked back the hair out of my eyes and smiled then, a beautiful smile full of wisdom, pain, and regret.

“It will serve me not in any case young Venatore; my sentence was determined over one hundred years ago.  Murder or no, I am guilty of far worse,” He told me kindly.  “How old are you?”

“I have eighteen years under my belt, over ten of those spent in the seminary and training,” I told him, though it was hard for me to get my breath.

His face changed then, something touched him, stirred in him like a hot coal flaring to life deep in cold ashes.

“I was eighteen when I first accompanied Richard on the Third Crusade,” He told me distantly.

I think about it today and I cannot accurately tell what was going through his mind.  Mine was filled with fear – fear of death.  I keenly felt my mortality, and I would have made a bad bargain with the devil at that moment.  I lost consciousness then I think, for I remember no more for a long time.

 

32.

As I sit here in my small apartment, looking out on the five o’clock traffic of Los Angeles through the scope of this .308 rifle – this coward’s weapon, I wonder what became of him.  For I never saw him again, but I know he is gone.  I feel it as sure as I can feel this puckered scar on my right side, just above the point of my hip.  As sure as I can feel the madness creeping over me – worse now after almost six hundred years.

The police sirens wail brings that giddy feeling of fear.  My isolation reminds me of that dreary day on that creek.  We were all damned, he told me that day in the cave, and in my ears at least, truer words have never been spoken.