Sedenko cried out suddenly: "Look! Look back!"
We turned our heads.
Beyond the bridge, beyond the hills, a great, dark cloud had gathered and was moving.
"It is Klosterheim and the Forces of Hell," said Philander Groot simply. "You must make haste now, Captain von Bek. They pursue only you."
"So many?" I said.
He smiled quietly. "Are you not flattered?"
"They will kill you, Philander Groot," said Sedenko. "I insist that you ride pillion with me."
"I love life," said the magus. "I will accept your offer, Muscovite."
And so we continued our journey, with Philander Groot clinging to SedenkoХs back. We travelled far more slowly than our urgent hearts demanded, with the black cloud looming larger, it seemed, with every step. And soon we felt the ground trembling beneath us, as though an earthquake had begun, yet we ignored it as the far horizon became filled with blue-green haze.
Soon it seemed that half the world was dark and half was light. Behind us were the Forces of Hell and Klosterheim; ahead lay Heaven, which we could not enter. We were in a kind of timeless Limbo, the last three mortals caught between adversaries in a mysterious and meaningless War which threatened to destroy all the Realms of Earth.
We were still several miles from the forest when we heard shouts in our rear and saw about a dozen riders bearing down on us. Outriders from KlosterheimХs main army.
These were fearfully hideous looking warriors with distorted, disease-racked faces…some with half the flesh missing from their bones. All of them grinned the familiar grins of the decomposing dead.
Out came our swords and we were at once in battle, our effectiveness impaired by the fact that Groot not only was a passenger but was now unarmed. Neither were our spirits improved by the awful giggling noises which escaped the lips of our attackers whenever our swords struck them.
Round and round us they galloped, making it impossible for us to progress, while I racked my memory for a spell to hamper them. Groot it was who succeeded, with:
"Brothers! Why do you not pursue von Bek? He will destroy you if he succeeds. See…there he is now, almost at the forest!"
As they turned lustreless eyes in the direction he pointed, he murmured to me: "I find that the dead are in the main a dull-witted breed."
The riders ceased their giggling and began to confer amongst themselves, whereupon we were again spurring our horses towards the blue-green haze. Behind us we could see an army stretching the length of the horizon and above them the blackness which now crept towards the sun. Soon it would be blotted from view.
A coldness came from the east now, like a wind yet with no power. It was more reminiscent, I thought, of a vacuum which threatened to suck us in. We shivered as we laboured on, the Hell-creatures once more in pursuit.
"Duke Arioch spreads his wings," said Groot of the black cloud. "He has put his entire army at Klosterheim's disposal."
Dead flesh stank in our nostrils; dead hands reached out for us. And more came up behind the first riders: running things, half-ape, half-man, in knotted leather with spears and hardwood clubs, their teeth like tusks. And behind them came thin-faced, long-bodied warriors with waving grey hair, in green-and-white livery and no armour. These carried great two-handed blades and guided their thick-bodied mounts with their thighs. And to one side of them were demons, all horns and warts, on demon-horses, and there were women with filed teeth, and women with the snouts of pigs, and apparitions whose flesh ran liquid on their bodies, and there were lizards bearing monkey-riders, and ostriches carrying lepers in arms, and hooded things which cawed at us…and still we galloped, barely in front of them, while Sedenko set up a wailing and a crying out to God, the Tsar and Saint Sophia for their aid and Groot was pale, exhausted, no longer able to maintain his poise.
The gabbling, squeaking and giggling din filled our ears. It atone might have driven us mad, just as the smell brought us close to fainting. Our horses were tiring. I saw Sedenko stumble once and almost dislodge the magus. It seemed to me that Philander Groot was as frightened as I was, that he had spent all his resources. Yet now he had no option but to run with us in the faint hope that the forest might offer at least some temporary sanctuary.
We were not far enough ahead of our pursuers. Little by little they caught up with us again and began to surround us.
"O God, have mercy on me. I repent! I repent!" shouted Sedenko, even as he slashed with his sword at a demon and took off its head. "I confess that I am a sinner and a rogue!" Another head went clear of a body. Blood spattered the Kazak's face. He was weeping, pale with fear, scarcely conscious, I guessed, that he prayed even as he killed. "Mother of God, take me to thy bosom!"
The stinking press grew tighter and tighter. Yet not a single sword had cut at us. Not one blow had landed on us. I realised that Klosterheim had ordered that we be taken alive. His nature was such that he would be gratified only if he could supervise our deaths.
"The grimoire!" cried Sedenko to me. "There must be something in the grimoire!"
I drew out first one and then another. I called out words of power. I chanted the spell which had previously commanded Duke Arioch's forces. But nothing affected those Hell-creatures now. It spoke much for Arioch's growing strength and for Lucifer's waning authority. I flung the grimoires at laughing, hideous faces. I flung my maps at Klosterheim even as his horse parted the ranks and he rode slowly, stiff-backed, towards us, a little smile upon his thin lips, a slight swagger to his shoulders. He reached out a hand and caught the map-case, emptying it onto the ground. He shrugged. "Now you are mine, von Bek," he said.
It was then that Philander Groot quietly dismounted and placed himself between me and my old enemy.
"Klosterheim," he said in a quiet, small voice which nonetheless carried enormous weight, "thou art the personification of intellectual poverty."
Klosterheim sneered. "Yet here I am, Philander Groot, in the ascendant, while all you can hope for is a merciful death. Perhaps you would argue that there is no justice. I would argue that the strong make their own justice, through action and through the gathering of power to themselves."
"You have been granted power, Johannes Klosterheim, because Duke Arioch finds it worth his while to grant it. But when you have no further use, Johannes Klosterheim, you will be discarded."
"I command all this!" Klosterheim swept his hand to indicate the endless ranks of the damned. "Lucifer Himself trembles. See! We have reached the borders of Heaven itself. When we have done with you, we shall march upon the Holy City, if we so decide. We lay siege to the feeble, decadent old God residing there. We lay siege to His idiot Son. Duke Arioch uses me, it is true, but he uses me as Lucifer uses von Bek. For my courage. For my mortal courage!"
"In von Bek it is courage," said Philander Groot. "In you, Johannes Klosterheim, it is madness."
"Madness? To seek power and to hold it? No!"
"Despair leads to many forms of thought," said the magus, "and many kinds of action. Despair drives some to greater sanity, towards an analysis of the world as it is and what it might be. Others it drives to deep and dangerous insanity, towards an imposition of their own desires upon reality. I sympathise with your despair, Johannes Klosterheim, because it has no solace, in the end. Your despair is the worst there is to know. And yet men often look upon the likes of you and envy you, as you doubtless envy Duke Arioch, as Duke Arioch doubtless envies his master Lucifer, whom he would betray, and perhaps as Lucifer envied God. And what does God envy, I wonder? Perhaps he envies the simple mortal who is content with his lot and envies nobody."
"I'll not listen to this drivel," said Klosterheim. "You become boring, Philander Groot. I shall kill you all the sooner if you bore me!"