Vampire Outlaw (The Immortal Knight Chronicles Book 2) Read online

  VAMPIRE OUTLAW

  The Immortal Knight Chronicles

  Book 2

  Richard of Ashbury

  and the invasion of England

  May 1216 to September 1217

  Dan Davis

  Copyright © 2016 Dan Davis

  All rights reserved.

  For HEMA researchers, instructors, students and aficionados all over the world.

  Plot Summary

  Robin Hood. Vampires. The invasion of England.

  Richard of Ashbury is attacked by vampires. The trail leads to Sherwood and to a Green Knight, a king of the outlaws and so-called lord of Eden. Richard is certain that his old enemy, William de Ferrers has returned to England.

  But England is in turmoil. The barons have erupted into armed rebellion against King John. What is more, a French army has invaded the south, intent on installing a French prince as the King of England.

  Richard must do his duty and fight to save England. And he must journey deep into the dark heart of Sherwood Forest to kill William and rescue the Lady Marian.

  Table of Contents

  Plot Summary

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One – Archer Hunt

  Chapter Two – Ambushed

  Chapter Three – The Lady Marian

  Chapter Four – Brother Tuck

  Chapter Five – England Invaded

  Chapter Six – The Weald

  Chapter Seven – The Poison Plot

  Chapter Eight – The Death of the King

  Chapter Nine – Outlawed

  Chapter Ten – The Great Dover Raid

  Chapter Eleven – The Battle of Lincoln

  Chapter Twelve – Into Sherwood

  Chapter Thirteen – Heart of Eden

  Chapter Fourteen – Tree of Knowledge

  Chapter Fifteen – Tree of Life

  Chapter Sixteen – Cast Out

  Chapter One – Archer Hunt

  When you want to attack a hall and kill those inside, it is best to do it in the hours before dawn. Your victims will be sleeping at their deepest and will be easy prey. I have carried out such attacks myself on many a dark night over the centuries.

  One late spring night in 1216 it was my own hall that was attacked. It was I that slept inside when William’s blood drinking monsters came to burn my home to the ground. My home was the manor house of Ashbury in Derbyshire, England. I was still the lord there but I would not be for very much longer.

  “Richard,” Jocelyn said. He shook me awake. “Richard, wake up, you drunken sod.”

  “Get off me,” I said to the man-shaped shadow above me. My head pounded. My throat was full of wine-flavoured bile. I had been sleeping heavily, dead to the world.

  “We are attacked,” Jocelyn cried. “Arm yourself before they force their way inside.”

  It was dark but for Jocelyn’s lamp, held high by his head. The shadows it cast on his face made him look older than his thirty-one years.

  I rolled from my bed and pulled myself upright on his arm. “Out of my way.”

  Usually, I slept naked but I had fallen into bed without fully undressing the night before so I wore a long shirt and hose. I staggered to my swords. Always, I have kept at least one near me when I slept. Keep your weapons within reach at all times, or else why even keep them? I grabbed the best blade from the stand in the corner and the familiar feel of a hilt against my palm brought me to my senses.

  A man was shouting outside. A sharp thud echoed through the building. Then another. It was coming from the ground floor, just below my bedchamber.

  “What is happening?” I growled at Jocelyn as I pushed my bare feet into a pair of shoes. “What is that fellow yelling about?”

  “Sounds as though he is urging us to wake up,” Jocelyn said. “And the banging noise, I assume, means they are attempting to break down the hall door.”

  I grunted. I had made sure that the main door into my hall was reinforced with iron bands and heavy timbers. “They are welcome to try. What of Emma?” I asked him.

  “I checked on her. She said her door is barred and she had armed herself behind it.” Jocelyn shrugged. “What she is armed with, I can only imagine. A stern word, perhaps.”

  “Where is Anselm?” I asked as I pushed by Jocelyn. He was not tall but he was as broad at the shoulder as an ox.

  He stomped after me out of my chamber and through what was called the solar, or the day room, that led to the stairs down into the hall below. Two other doors led off the solar, Jocelyn’s bedchamber and his sister Emma’s bedchamber. Both very small rooms but I could never have afforded to build anything larger.

  “Stay in your chamber, Emma,” I shouted as we stomped through.

  She shouted something I did not hear but no doubt it was very witty.

  Jocelyn answered my earlier question. “Anselm is carrying our shields to the hall.” He spoke French, as we did when talking amongst ourselves.

  “Good man,” I said, meaning his squire.

  Two more thuds in quick succession resounded on the timbers downstairs.

  The shouting man outside the hall fell silent. Yet the massive thudding continued as I clattered down the stairway into the rear of the hall. A dozen of my servants waited down there in the parlour, gathered together like frightened geese. All but two were men. Some faces were young, most were old. They smelled of stale smoke and the shivering-sweat stink of fresh fear.

  “Do not be concerned,” I said to the servants in English as I descended the stairs. “It sounds as though we have a few drunken robbers attempting a raid.” I looked at each face in turn. “We must suppose that they do not know who is the lord here. If they know this is the manor house of Sir Richard of Ashbury then they are desperate outlaws indeed, are they not?”

  I was never particularly gifted when it came to levity. A few of them chuckled but they were nervous. Everyone in Ashbury remembered the attack on the manor house twenty-five years earlier when the lord, his family and almost all the servants had been slaughtered in the night by William de Ferrers and his knights. The lord back then had been my brother Henry. My half-brother, as I had discovered, although no one in Ashbury knew I was a bastard. So they feared the Ashbury family curse had returned. A few of the people before me had lost family of their own in that same attack.

  A huge blow from the fellows pounding and hacking on the door shook the timbers again. A couple of servants jumped, startled at the sound. They had been woken from where they slept in the hall, were shivering in thin shifts and undergarments under their cloaks or blankets. Most were ashen-faced in the candlelight.

  Yet, Old Cuthbert, my faithful, sour-faced steward, clutched a splitting axe to his chest and had his ancient iron helm jammed down upon his narrow head. Others had grabbed their spears. Those without true weapons had their daggers in their hands, even the women who clutched tight to their husbands.

  “Look at you all,” I said. “You brave souls would strike terror into any man who broke in here. I could almost pity them. Perhaps we should pray for them, what do you say?”

  The pounding continued. There was a crack as one of the door timbers split.

  Jocelyn pushed past me and through the servants and strode into the hall, calling to his squire, Anselm.

  “They must be hungry indeed to attempt such an attack as this,” I said to my servants, speaking lightly. “We must ensure we give them a proper welcome. Cuthbert, see that the hearth fire is started. Light plenty of lamps and candles and have them placed throughout the hall, especially by the door. Do so as quickly as you can and then wait together at the back of the hall where I can see yo
u all.”

  “Yes, my lord,” Old Cuthbert said and turned to the others, his weasel face pinched with concern. “Right then, you heard the lord. Let’s prepare for visitors.” He snapped out orders like a veteran commander so I left him to it and followed Jocelyn into the darkness of my hall.

  At the far end was Jocelyn’s squire, Anselm, who was sixteen years’ old and full to the brim with a powerful sense of duty. Anselm held a lamp aloft, casting a faint ring of yellow light about him and Jocelyn.

  “Your shield,” Jocelyn said and generously held it for me while I threaded my arm into the strap. It was kite-shaped, with a flat top. Jocelyn favoured the old fashioned sort with the longer, tapered shape, like a beech leaf to better protect his left leg when on horseback.

  “Shall I bring your hauberks, my lords?” Anselm asked, his eyes wide in the torchlight. The lad was, strictly speaking, Sir Jocelyn’s squire alone but the boy was performing double duty. I decided I had to hurry up and accept a new squire. It was not fair on Anselm to look after two knights.

  The door thudded and cracked again. There were angry voices outside, beyond the door. Likely, it was no more than two or three men, I thought. I could hear no other voices through the timber walls to either side of the hall.

  The axe blade on the other side squeaked as it was wiggled from the cleft it had gouged into my door.

  “We have plenty of time to put on our hauberks, Richard,” Jocelyn said, seeing my hesitation. “They would need an army with a battering ram to break down that ridiculous door.”

  My servants busied themselves behind me, whispering to each other as they lit lamps and tallow candles. Few of them understood French well enough to know what Jocelyn was saying.

  “No need for us to be armoured,” I said, loudly and in English for my servant’s benefit. “It is no more than a handful of desperate peasants. We could deal with them in our underwear.”

  Jocelyn looked unconvinced. Of course, he was quite right. I was being an arrogant fool, as usual.

  The door shuddered again. The reinforced frame shook.

  “He’s strong,” I said, appreciatively.

  Jocelyn grunted. “Still take them forever to get through it. What are we going to do with ourselves until then?”

  It was light enough in the hall to see by. My servants gathered at the back of the hall by the top table, as far from the door as possible.

  “Do not be absurd, man,” I said to Jocelyn. “I am not allowing them to damage that door any more than they already have. Do you know how much that timber cost me? I had to send Cuthbert all the way to Nottingham to buy the iron for the hinges. We shall open it and let them in.”

  “I understand your reasoning with regards to preserving the door,” Jocelyn said. “But have no knowledge of what is on the other side of it. You yourself have said to me that knowledge of your enemy should be the first place that you strike.”

  “I have never uttered anything as absurd as that. Go on, Jocelyn, stand by the door and be ready to lift the bar,” I said and drew my sword. I swung it in arcs to loosen my arm. “I should have taken a piss,” I said.

  Jocelyn shook his head. “I have not seen you this happy since Normandy.”

  “Men are breaking into my home,” I said. “I am not happy.”

  He snorted and went to the door, leaving his squire standing by my side.

  “What should I do, my lord?” Jocelyn’s squire Anselm asked.

  “You know your duty,” Jocelyn said from the shaking door.

  I glanced at the boy. His eyes shone in the candlelight. He was brave and strong but I remembered well what it was like to be young. “Stand by Jocelyn’s side, with your sword and shield held ready. Remember your training. Anselm, have I ever told you that you are as fine a squire as I have ever known?”

  There was just enough light to see his face flushed. “No, sir.”

  “You’ll do well. “

  “Yes, sir.”

  The door cracked again, shaking under the power of the blow.

  “He is not tiring, is he,” Jocelyn said and he spat on his hands and rubbed them on his tunic. His sword was sheathed and hanging from his belt and he slung his shield on his back by the shoulder strap.

  “If it goes against us and we fall,” I added to Anselm. “You run to the Lady Emma’s bedchamber and defend her door against intruders. Understand?”

  “I shall defend her with my life, my lord,” Anselm said, swallowing hard.

  “Good lad.”

  I nodded to Jocelyn. He waited until the centre of the door resounded once more from a blow and he lifted the locking beam out of its iron hooks. It was a heavy thing, thick enough for a castle keep, but Jocelyn was strong and he pulled it up and tossed it aside, it bouncing and rolling to a stop.

  Jocelyn yanked the door open wide.

  When that door opened, I expected to find two or three starving peasants, shivering in the night air. I expected the largest of them to be holding a woodman’s axe. I would see them cast in the lamplight from my hall and hopefully they would be blinded by it. My intention was to charge into the men there and knock them senseless. I was hoping that they would not give up without, at least, having a go at me. Depending on how well they fought, I would either knock them senseless or spill their guts onto my doorstep.

  So I was not afraid.

  And despite all that, I lifted my up shield.

  It was a reflex. It was the most natural thing in the world. I had trained for years to hold my shield high and head low at the beginning of combat. It was as natural as taking a deep breath before plunging into a cold lake.

  And a lucky thing it was, too.

  An arrow shot through the door before it was halfway open. It thudded into the top of my shield, sheering off to the side but hitting with power enough to knock the rim back to strike me upon the forehead.

  It hurt.

  I kicked myself for not taking the time to dress for war. Why would I not take the time to put on a helmet or a mail coif or even an arming doublet? Sheer arrogance. My anger boiled up and I stepped forward to murder that bastard bloody peasant archer.

  A man charged through the door, two-handed axe raised over his head. He came right at me, screaming a wordless challenge. His hair and beard were wild, matted and filthy. The fellow was soaked, his dark green clothes heavy with rain.

  For a big, heavy man he was faster than he had any right to be.

  I let him come to me. He swung the axe at an angle, down and round at my head in a wide arc. Instead of taking such a wild, log-splitting blow upon my shield, I stepped back. His axe whooshed past my face leaving him overbalanced, his mouth snarled up behind his beard. I braced and smashed the side of his body with my shield.

  With my incredible strength, a thump like that would knock most men down, sprawling, dazed, and weeping. Instead, with that huge hairy madman, it was like bashing a stone wall. He rocked back, shook his head like a bull and swung again.

  His hand speed was fast. But he was swinging for power, not for swiftness. His strike came from down low, up toward my balls but he assumed that I would stand and wait for the blow to fall, as if I were a tree trunk or a hall door.

  I stepped forward and drove the point of my sword through his chest, punching through his clothes, skin and flesh up the crosspiece, which I punched into him and bore him down. My blade was as sharp as the devil’s tongue and I yanked the steel out of his body without catching on ribs or cloth, before the point touched the floor. Blood gushed and bubbled out of his chest, front and back. I had managed to run him through the heart, or close enough. The smell of that fresh blood was delicious. I wanted to bury my face in the body, to close my mouth about the frothing wound and drink it down. Instead, I resisted and came to my senses.

  To shouting and the clash of arms.

  A second man drove Jocelyn back away from the doorway, snarling and smacking against his shield with a huge blade. Jocelyn was trying to turn the attacker, stepping sideways as h
e retreated.

  Anselm shuffled away in a guard position to give his master room to fight. My servants shouted encouragement and screamed in terror behind me.

  Another arrow flashed from the darkness beyond the open doorway.

  I raised my shield and the thing thudded hard through the layered wood and leather. The whole arrowhead, barbs and all, punched through. The wicked point on it stopped an inch from my eyeball.

  I peered over the rim.

  Two bowmen lurked outside in the dark, ten yards beyond the doorway on the path. Little more than shadows in the shade.

  “I’ll gut you bastards,” I roared, shaking my sword and shield like a madman. I strode toward them.

  The archers fled. They flitted like black-grey birds and ran. I reached the doorway in time to see them swarming up and over the ten-foot high gateway like rats. Then they were gone.

  They moved with a speed and manner the like of which I had not seen for more than twenty years and a thousand miles.

  Full with the blood lust, I ran back inside to the remaining attacker. That man hacked at Jocelyn’s shield with the widest falchion I had ever seen. It was a cross between a sword and a meat cleaver.

  “Out of the way, Anselm,” I shouted at the squire, who should have been running the attacker through instead of standing back from him.

  Despite his attempts at clever footwork, Jocelyn had cornered himself. His shield was being chopped to pieces by the huge blade that the man smashed down over and over with an animal ferocity. His shield all but gone, Jocelyn was parrying with his blade.

  “Now you die,” I said to the man as I came within range of a strike.

  He spun like a whip and his blade slashed at me, roaring in anger with his reeking, rotten mouth. I was expecting it, wanted it, but he was faster than any man I had fought in years. Faster even that the axemen I had felled. The blade cut the air over my head but he was hugely overextended and before he could recover, I straightened to smash the pommel of my sword into the top of his head. It cracked his skull in and his legs buckled.