Fall of Night: A Templar Chronicles Novel Page 5

  Rather than trying to maneuver around the rock formations, it simply smashed through them with swings of its oversized fists, shattering them into so much rubble. As it drew closer to Riley it lashed out, trying to pulverize him in the same manner.

  This wasn’t Riley’s first rodeo, however. He ducked beneath the swing of that massive arm and then lashed out with his sword, swinging the blade at the exposed edge of the troll’s thigh, hoping to cripple it early in the fight to even the odds a bit.

  But rather than slicing into the creature’s flesh, his sword simply bounced off its hide, jarring Riley’s arms so badly that he almost lost his grip on the weapon.

  Sonofabitch! he thought, as he scurried back away from the beast. Just how tough is this thing?

  He was still pondering that question when the troll brought its arm back the other way like it was swinging a scythe, catching him unaware. The blow lifted Riley off his feet and sent him flying through the air a good five feet before he crashed into one of the stone formations and toppled to the ground.

  Thankfully, he kept hold of his sword throughout it all.

  Riley scrambled to his feet as the troll rushed him, swinging its arms. He parried the creature’s blow with the edge of his sword against the inside of its forearm and this time felt the blade bite deep. The troll jerked its arm backward in surprised pain, nearly taking Riley’s sword with it. The Templar twisted it free at the last moment, a grin of satisfaction on his face as he understood at last how to injure the massive creature.

  Like a turtle with its hard outer shell and soft underbelly, the troll was protected most heavily on the external parts of its body, including its face and chest, and less so on its inside surfaces, like the underside of its arms or the inner portion of its legs. If Riley was going to beat it, he was going to have to get in close.

  Very close.

  Of course, doing so was much easier said than done. The injury didn’t seem to slow the troll down any. In fact, it seemed more determined than ever to smash Riley into the dust. It was all Riley could do to remain standing for the next several minutes as the troll used its arms and legs to smash, stomp, and otherwise try to beat him into the dust. He spent more of his time twisting and dodging away from the troll’s attacks than he did setting up any of his own. The few strikes he was able to land left bleeding cuts on the inside of the troll’s arms and legs, but at this rate it was going to take him days to wear the creature down enough to land a killing blow.

  The troll must have been getting as exasperated as Riley was, for it suddenly changed tactics. Reaching out, it broke off a thick stalagmite growing near it and hurled it Riley’s direction but several feet over his head.

  Riley was about to laugh at the creature’s poor aim when the stalagmite “club” slammed into the ceiling over his head, sending a wave of debris falling down toward him. He had just enough time to throw himself out of the way, taking only a few hard strikes of debris along the length of his body rather than being crushed beneath the rock fall.

  The troll rushed forward in a display of surprising dexterity and was at Riley’s side in mere seconds. The Templar was still pushing himself up off the ground when the troll raised both arms over its head, hands clasped in a makeshift hammer that was about to land a killing blow.

  Fuck me, Riley thought as time seemed to freeze and he realized that the massive creature had, indeed, beaten him. He brought his arms up over his head, instinctively trying to protect himself from the blow that was just beginning its descent, but he knew it wasn’t going to be anywhere near enough to save him.

  That’s when the sound of gunfire erupted around him and the troll recoiled from the impact of multiple semi-automatics firing at it at the same time.

  A glance showed Davis and several other members of his squad firing on the troll, distracting it; giving Riley time to get away from the reach of the troll’s long arms.

  But the Echo Team commander moved closer to the creature instead of getting out of its way. With its arms up over its head, the troll was leaving its side unprotected and Riley had no intention of passing up the opportunity presented to him. He lunged upward with his sword arm extended, driving the blade deep into the soft flesh of the creature’s armpit, severing skin, muscle and tendon until it pierced deep into the troll’s oversized heart.

  Seconds later it collapsed, dead, at Riley’s feet.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  It was just after dusk when the chopper landed back at the Ravensgate Commandery. Riley waited until the wounded were unloaded and on their way to the infirmary before disembarking himself. After seeing to the rest of his men, he turned, intending to grab a quick shower and then some much deserved rack time, only to find himself facing a squad of four men led by a fifth in the black clothing and white dog collar of a Catholic priest.

  “Matthew Riley?” the priest asked, even though it was clear from both his tone and the expression on his face that he knew exactly who he was talking to.

  Riley glanced at the red piping around the man’s collar, piping that indicated that he was a member of the Holy Office of the Sacred Propagation of the Faith, otherwise known as the Inquisition. Riley knew that his day had just gone from bad to worse.

  As in centuries past, the Inquisition existed as a separate office of the Vatican, reporting directly to the Pope. Their days of hunting witches were over – ironically that task now fell to the Templars – and they operated in much the same way that the Internal Affairs division of a modern police department did; responsible for rooting out corruption and illegal behavior among the thousands of departments and organizations overseen by the Vatican. They weren’t very popular, by any stretch of the imagination, but that was neither here nor there in Riley’s opinion. Provided they were doing their jobs he didn’t have any beef with them.

  Then again, he’d never been the focus of their attention.

  Davis must have seen the man’s rank as well, for Riley felt him stiffen beside him, but he waved his second in command off with a subtle hand signal, not wanting Davis to get involved in whatever hot water he was about to find himself dropped into.

  “Yes, I’m Riley,” he answered in a weary tone, not wanting to give the men facing him any reason to get excited. Internally his nerves were vibrating like high-tension wires – just what the hell does the Inquisition want with me? – but outwardly he was just another tired soldier answering a question from non-frontline personnel.

  “My name is Daniels. I have orders to escort you to the council chamber immediately. If you’ll follow me?”

  “The council chamber?” Riley asked, annoyed at the summons. “On whose authority? If you haven’t noticed I just came off a combat mission and need—”

  He didn’t get any further.

  “On Preceptor Johannson’s authority,” the priest interrupted. “I was told to be sure that you arrive, not what condition you should be in when you do so. Given that, we can do this the easy way or the hard way, it’s entirely your choice.”

  A smile accompanied the threat and for a moment Riley was filled with the urge to smash the man’s teeth in just over the general principle of the matter. He didn’t like being threatened, least of all by one of Johannson’s apparent flunkies, but he knew the guards wouldn’t let him get away with cold-cocking the man; they’d be all over him the moment he raised his first. Better to go along with things for now until he knew what this was all about; he could always push back if he needed to later.

  If I’m still in a position to push back at that point, the voice of his conscience chimed up, but he ignored it, preferring to believe that things wouldn’t get that bad.

  “Alright, alright. Cool your jets. No need to get huffy,” Riley said. He glanced down at his uniform, stained dark with Croatan blood. “Let me have five minutes to change-“

  Again the priest interrupted. “Now means now, Riley. Not five minutes from now.”

  Riley stared at the man, letting him see his annoyance. Normally that was
enough to get most people to back down, given Riley’s six foot three inches of height and two hundred seventy-five pounds of solid muscle, but this guy wasn’t having any of it. He stood his ground, staring calmly back at the Echo Team’s acting commander, as if daring him to lose his temper.

  But Riley had been around the block a time or two and he wasn’t going to let some rear-echelon yahoo goad him into doing something stupid.

  He took a step back and smiled, spreading his hands out in front of him palms up at the same time as if to say, no problem here. “I hear you. Orders are orders, right?” Without waiting for a response, he turned to Davis and said, “See that my gear gets squared away, will you? I’ll be down to help with the after-action report as soon as I can.”

  Davis nodded. “Of course, Knight Captain,” he said, stressing Riley’s rank, giving him the respect his position deserved, respect the priest had been deliberately ignoring since his arrival.

  Davis knew the score and Riley was confident that the other man wouldn’t let him disappear into the quagmire that Templar politics had become since Johannson had stepped into the power vacuum left behind in the wake of the Grand Master’s sudden illness. If he wasn’t back in a reasonable time frame, Riley was confident that Davis would come looking for him and that made his decision to accompany the Inquisitor and his guard detail a little bit easier.

  He looked back at the priest and said, “Lead on.”

  But the other man wasn’t finished with his petty display of power. He pointed past Riley’s head to the hilt of his sword, jutting up as it did behind his right shoulder.

  “You’ll need to surrender your sword, first.”

  Surrender my sword? What the fuck?

  A Templar rarely surrendered his weapon and usually only in the gravest of circumstances. To be asked to do so, without any indication of what he’d done wrong or what he was about to face, was a clear insult. Riley knew it, Davis knew it, and the Inquisitor knew it.

  Which, of course, is why he’s asking, Riley thought.

  Refusing to give the other man the satisfaction of seeing him upset, Riley did what he was asked, unbuckling the belts that kept the weapon strapped diagonally across his chest and extending the whole rig toward the priest. Apparently being given a bloodstained weapon covered in dried troll blood wasn’t what the man had been expecting, for he grimaced a bit as he handed it over to one of the guards, and Riley smiled a little at the man’s obvious discomfort. After that there was nothing else to do but to fall in behind the priest as he turned and headed for the entrance to the commandery, with the guards bringing up the rear.

  As they walked, Riley thought about the changes that had come to his beloved Order in the few short weeks since the defeat of the Adversary. It should have been a time for celebration – one of the Templars’ foremost enemies had finally been defeated. It turned out to be anything but.

  First, Knight Commander Williams had disappeared just a few short days after the Adversary’s defeat. Many of the other men believed that Cade left the Order of his own accord, wanting to avoid having to answer for the aid he’d given the Adversary when the fallen angel had possessed his wife, Gabrielle’s, body. They never particularly liked Cade and believing that he was a traitor was a damn sight easier than trying to understand what really happened. In some ways Riley didn’t blame them; he hadn’t believed Cade at first either. But Riley had been there in the end and he, of all people, knew what Cade had sacrificed in order to destroy the Adversary once and for all. Cade would have left the Order, yes, but he wouldn’t have vanished. Not without saying goodbye, at least.

  But the issue of where Williams had gone was quickly overshadowed when Grand Master Devereaux collapsed unexpectedly during a meeting two days later. Riley suspected the Grand Master had suffered a stroke or a heart attack – he was in his late seventies, after all – but those in the Order’s high command were playing their cards close to their vests and hadn’t yet released an official statement concerning his condition, so no one really knew. That, of course, had set the rumor mill to running wild with speculation over the cause.

  A sudden rash of supernatural activity had kept Echo Team in the field for the last week and a half. Riley hadn’t given the situation with Devereaux more than a passing thought during that time, but now he was wondering if perhaps he should have kept his ear to the ground. After all, it hadn’t been that long since Knight Commander Williams had been imprisoned by Johannson on suspicion of trying to assassinate the Grand Master. Knowing the charges were false, Riley had helped Cade break out of confinement, an act which ultimately led to the demise of the Adversary. In the aftermath, those in command had been too busy to call him to task for his part in it. Now he was wondering if that particular ballyhoo was coming back to haunt him.

  He didn’t understand why that would involve a member of the Inquisition, however.

  Only one way to find out, I suppose.

  His escort led him inside the commandery, up the stairs, and toward the council chambers on the far side of the building. The halls they passed through were unusually empty, making Riley wonder if they had been intentionally cleared. It was still early evening; the halls should have been a hive of activity at this time of night. And if they had been cleared, why? Just what was he headed into?

  He glanced at the faces of the men around him, realizing only then that he didn’t recognize any of them. That, in and of itself, wasn’t all that unusual, for there were thousands of Templars the world over and Riley couldn’t possibly know all of them. But he’d been stationed at this particular commandery for nearly a decade and the place was only so big; he knew most of the regulars and even a fair number of the new recruits.

  He’d never seen these men before.

  Most likely part of Johannson’s gorilla squad, he thought sourly.

  For years, the Preceptor’s security detail had been a position of honor, awarded to those who proved themselves in combat and who excelled in demonstrating the day-to-day virtues held in esteem by the Templar Order. Riley had been asked but never accepted the position – he’d always preferred the action of being on the front line - but that didn’t mean he didn’t respect those who, like his former squad mate, Sean Duncan, had joined the detail. Duncan would probably still be serving there today in fact if Cade hadn’t requested his transfer to the Echo Team in the wake of the attacks on the Order by the Council of Nine the year before.

  Preceptor Johannson had been staffing his detail with some of the less savory elements within the Templar hierarchy. Men who, if you asked Riley, seemed more dedicated to following the Preceptor’s desires rather than the dictates of the Order. Given the amount of power the seven continental preceptors were granted, the situation had the potential of turning ugly in a big way. All it would take would be one guy with delusions of grandeur and the muscle to back it up…

  Riley shook his head, not liking the direction of his thoughts. The Order had persevered for hundreds of years and even with man’s seemingly inexhaustible penchant for screwing things up there was no reason to think that anything had changed. If it could survive the egos of men like Beethoven, Jefferson, and Churchill, then it could survive a man like Johannson.

  Besides, he thought, the other Preceptors would never let such a scenario play out. They’d nip any potential rebellion in the bud before it could get out of hand.

  A few moments later Riley and his escort arrived outside the doors to the council chamber. The priest slipped inside, leaving Riley to cool his heels in the hallway with his guards. He took the opportunity to see if he could get any more information about the situation in which he found himself.

  “So what’s this about anyway?” he asked the guy closest to him.

  The guard, a broad-shouldered man nearly as tall as Riley, glanced at him but didn’t say anything in reply.

  His expression spoke volumes, though; Riley’s stomach did a slow roll at the look of disgust the man tossed in his direction.

  Rile
y looked over at the others and found them watching him with similar expressions. One of them turned, spat on the floor behind him, and said something under his breath that sounded to Riley like, “Fucking tailor.”

  No, not tailor, he realized.

  Traitor.

  Before he could say anything in turn, the door behind him opened and the Inquisitor reappeared. “The tribunal is ready for you now, Knight Captain,” the man said.

  Tribunal?

  That sour feeling in Riley’s gut suddenly got worse.

  With no other option but to see what lay in store for him, Riley squared his shoulders and stepped into the room with his head held high.

  He immediately saw that a semi-circular platform had been erected at the back of the room, facing a single chair sitting all alone in the center of the room. Seated behind the platform and facing in his direction were three individuals, all of whom he recognized. The first was Johannson, Riley’s immediate supervisor and Preceptor of the North American region. The short, dark-skinned man sitting next to him was Colonel Damian Mombasa, commander of the mainline combat units here at Ravensgate. Last but not least was the silver-haired fellow with the permanent scowl sitting to Mombasa’s left; Hugh Ochoba, Preceptor of the European region. The three of them had become as thick as thieves in recent months so Riley wasn’t surprised to see them here together. What was surprising was the identity of the fourth man standing behind the other three, looking on the proceedings with interest.

  Seneschal Colin Ferguson.

  What the heck is he doing here?

  The Seneschal spent most of his time at Templar headquarters in Roslin, Scotland. It had been there, in fact, that Riley had last seen him a little over two months ago. Someone had tried to assassinate Grand Master Devereaux at the time and Johannson had blamed the attack on Cade, ordering him locked up in solitary confinement in the dungeons beneath Rosslyn Castle until the matter could be investigated further. Riley suspected that Johannson would have been happy to let Cade rot down there and had been trying to figure out a way to get him free when Ferguson had got involved. He helped Riley break Cade free of confinement and provided them both with the means to get out of the country before Johannson caught on to what they’d done.