Abomination. Gary Whitta

      Four guards raced up the tower steps. One of them carried a length of strong rope and a cloth for a gag. They did not understand their orders, but there was no question of their captain’s urgency. They took the steps three at a time.

      They arrived at the top of the stairs to find the cell door at the end of the short hallway wide open and hanging half off its hinges as if it had been beaten down with bare hands, its heavy oak beams splintered and smeared with blood. But no ten men could have broken down that door. Stranger still, it looked as though it had been broken into from the outside.

      They approached gingerly, swords drawn, calling out the names of Barrick and Harding to no response. The torch that lit the hallway had been broken free of its iron housing and lay on the floor, flickering. The frontmost guard picked it up and held it out to shine inside the darkened cell.

      Something warm and wet encircled his arm. He dropped the torch in shock—and was pulled suddenly forward, disappearing into the darkness of the cell. And then came the screaming, while the man’s helpless thrashing was cast in shadow on the cell walls by the light of the fallen torch.

      The screaming ended almost as quickly as it had begun; the shadows went still. For a moment, silence. The three guards outside the cell now had their swords drawn, yet dared not venture farther, their hearts pounding in their chests. And then they jumped back in alarm as their fellow guardsman fell forward out of the darkness and collapsed, blood spilling from a gash across his neck so deep that his head hung to one side, askew.

      Barrick emerged from the darkness behind him. Or what had once been Barrick. Now he—it—was some kind of wolf-like monstrosity, its sinewy body covered in gray, matted fur. It walked on its hind legs with four more limbs to spare—long muscular arms with great razor-clawed hands.

      What was once Harding slithered out from behind the wolf-thing and up the wall. Some kind of giant two-headed lizard, its leathery skin was covered with sharp, bristling spines, and a clubbed tail swished lazily back and forth as it crept toward the three guardsmen.

      The closest of them panicked and foolishly lunged at it with his sword. The lizard easily dodged the blow, then responded by spitting a gob of sputum that burned like acid through the man’s breastplate. The guard dropped his sword, screaming, trying desperately to unbuckle his armor, but before he could unfasten even one strap, the acid was through to his flesh and he collapsed to the ground, writhing helplessly, his final screams echoing along the stone hallway.

      The two remaining guardsmen looked at their fallen friends in horror. And then Aethelred stepped out from the cell.

      He smiled.

      “Drop your swords, and you have my word that you will not die here today.”

      They did as he commanded. Aethelred raised his hands and, looking into the eyes of the two men before him, began to recite the words he had spent months perfecting.

      And within moments, they were his as well.

      THREE

      Two horsemen arrived atop a gentle hill and looked down at the open country before them, a sprawling valley of fields and farmland, dotted by a few modest cottages that could barely be called a village.

      “This can’t be it,” said the first rider.

      “The bloke back at the inn said this was it,” said the other. “Five miles along the only road east, you’ll see it when you get to the hilltop.”

      “I know what a knight’s estate looks like. If there were one here, we’d be seeing it, believe me.”

      They saw a lone man below, pushing a plow through one of the small farm plots the land was divided into.

      “Let’s ask him.”

      They rode down the craggy hillside, careful to avoid the rocks and divots. Many parts of England’s rolling countryside were picturesque and pleasant to ride; this was not one of them. One wrong footing on this terrain could mean a broken ankle for a horse and perhaps a broken neck for its rider.

      Arriving at the valley floor, they cantered over to the man working the field, a powerful sweat on him as he drove a deep furrow through the earth with the plow. Cast in heavy iron, it looked better suited to be drawn by a horse, but the man pushed it along unaided, as though he knew no better. The two men on horseback exchanged a look of amusement. Farmhands were not renowned for their intellect, but one that did not even know how to work such a basic tool? Wonders never ceased.

      The peasant was turned away from the hillside and, consumed by his laborious task, seemed oblivious to the riders who had just arrived behind him, even as one of their horses gave a loud snort.

      “Oi! You!”

      The plow stopped. The peasant turned and raised his hand, both to shield his eyes from the sun and to wipe away the sweat that soaked his temple. He appeared a particularly uncivilized specimen, his face smeared with dirt, his long hair a stringy, tousled mess.

      “What?” he said.

      The two riders shared another look, this time not amused but annoyed. Did this peasant not recognize their uniforms? The royal insignia on their tunics?

      “‘What?’” the first rider said. “Is that any way for a commoner to address two of the King’s men?”

      The peasant took a step forward, out of the glare of the sun. He could see them better now.

      “Oh. Right you are.”

      The riders waited for some gesture of respect or humility to accompany the peasant’s realization of who they were, but none came. He simply stood there, squinting up at them, as though his original question still stood. Well, what?

      Now the second rider spoke. “You do know that plow is meant to be pulled by a horse?”

      “Of course. I’m not an idiot,” said the peasant. “The horse is sick. He has a bellyache.”

      The first rider was growing impatient. “We are in search of—”

      “I should have known those carrots were suspect.”

      “Stop talking. Where is Sir Wulfric’s estate?”

      The peasant chortled to himself. “I’d hardly call it an estate.”

      “So you do know of it?”

      The man turned and pointed to the far side of the field he was working. Smoke drifted from the chimney of a modest farmhouse at the edge of the village beyond. Both horsemen looked puzzled, and the first one spurred his horse closer, glowering down from the saddle impatiently.

      “We are in no mood for games, friend.”

      “What games? That’s his house there.”

      Now the second rider spoke again. “That house is far too meager to be the seat of a knight.”

      “Well, to be fair, Wulfric also owns this field, and that one there, and that one over there,” said the peasant, pointing. “All rich soil, good crops. Not bad if you ask me.”

      “Sir Wulfric,