Dead By Dusk Read online

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  If he were to conquer François, he would make himself an enemy of his own king. And yet he had earned his place here; the king would have to make war on him, and he doubted that, far away in Paris, the king could afford the men and arms he would need to roust Conan from his powerful hold. That mattered little. Seeing the horde before him, the tears, the blood, the strange majesty of the thousands of torches burning in the night, he knew there was no choice.

  "Aye, then, we ride against François," he said.

  "Wait!"

  From the crowd, a cleric rushed forward. It was customary to pray before entering upon the field of battle and death. Yet this fire-eyed priest would demand that he dismount and kneel, were he not to do so of his own volition, and so he did. The priest burst into a spate of Latin so rushed that Conan could not follow, though he, like others of his status, was taught the language as a child. And when the words were done, the priest stepped forward, placing a huge silver cross around his neck. Even as he mounted, he felt himself doused with drops of holy water as the priest intoned more words he could not discern.

  Mounted again, he lifted his hands, and his knights and men fell in beside him, the hordes of people behind them, Normans and natives of the Italian peninsula as well.

  They rode.

  The moon high above them, a strange, cold wind whipping at their mantles.

  They approached Trincia, the village under attack. As they rode, the wind whipped higher, for there was a fog upon the ground, and the wind did not disperse it. They could hear screams and cries, and the unearthly howling of dogs. Riding into the mire at last, they saw the troops of François de Venue emerging through the fog, making a line before them.

  François led.

  Valeria was at his side.

  Dark hair billowing down her shoulders, violet eyes dazed, and yet he thought that the strange glow came from tears. He had loved her so.

  "Get from here, Conan!" François shouted angrily. "I have let you live—go, and be grateful. "

  "Eventually, you will come for me," Conan said. "But that matters not. You've become a warrior against life itself, against God and man, and I will stop you!"

  The dark, handsome face of François de Venue darkened into a scowl of fury. Then he smiled. "Never,"

  he said. "Tonight, Conan, is as good as any night for you to die!"

  "We shall meet in hell then, François. If need be, we shall meet in hell," Conan told him.

  "Valeria!" François roared suddenly.

  She didn't move, but stared at Conan.

  "Remember the child!" François said sharply to Valeria. And he leaned toward her, whispering.

  The wind began to whip anew in an eerie, dark swirl of fog and night. The baying began.

  And the demon dogs came rushing through the throngs of horsemen that flanked François and his troops. And Valeria.

  Conan drew his sword. "For God and man!" he roared.

  The first animal leapt upon him and Hagar. The great war horse staggered. The animal was a dog, and not a dog. It was huge in size, but not a wolf. Its teeth were more those of a great cat, a tiger in the night, than those of a canine. Its shoulder muscles were huge, and its massive paws held cat claws. The sight of the beast, bringing down both Hagar and himself, was so startling that Conan almost missed his instinctive reaction. But he brought his sword forth in powerful fury, and severed the animal's head from its shoulders before its teeth could tear into flesh.

  All around him, he heard the screams of his men as they met the beasts. Slashed, cut, and stabbed, they rose again to attack men and horses. Unseated, Conan fought in a desperate fever himself, fighting in front and behind, striking fur and flesh and bone, only to have the creatures rise again. With a great blow, he severed the head of another creature and realized that death came to the demon dogs only then.

  "The heads! Sever the heads!" he roared to his men.

  And slowly, slowly, with screams of death and despair rising around him all the while, the demon dogs were brought low, and then they were left to battle the men who fell in line behind them.

  Despite the wind, the dark swirl of eerie fog, the forces of Conan de Burgh began to push back the enemy.

  François himself was upon him then, in a rage of energy, his sword swinging with such fever and strength that Conan was incredulous, battling desperately for his life. He had never encountered such power in a man. His men, engaged around him, could do nothing, and he feared that his great efforts would fail, for should he fall, his men would retreat, and the forces of his enemy would follow, and all would be slaughtered in this bloodbath.

  He deflected a mighty blow from François, who was in such a berserk wrath that foam gushed through his thin lips. Down upon the ground, he feared the brutal weight and strength of his enemy would finish him at last. Yet as François lifted his arm to deliver the coup de grace, Conan managed to lift his sword, and the tip of his weapon struck straight into the base of the man's throat, where no helmet or mail protected him. He caught hold of a vein, and the man wavered. Calling upon his last resources, Conan forced the sword deeper, finding his feet against the weight of his own chain and mail, and with a maddened pressure delivered by God or desperation, he pressed the sword with an ever greater fervor.

  Like the demon dogs, he knew somehow that François would perish if his head were severed.

  And so it was. His enemy fell to his knees, gurgling through the blood that spurted from his throat.

  Conan strained harder, and François was forced down on his back, and still his eyes were alive with fury and hatred, and some strange glint of knowing.

  "Valeria! Valeria! Valeria!"

  The chant had gone up from those around them, as great as the field of torches and lights that had filled the field of battle.

  "They have her!" Conan heard, and saw that Raoul had never faltered, had fought at his side all along, while others had rushed forward.

  François de Venue remained on the ground, fingers around his throat, choking on his blood.

  "His head. Sever his head!" Conan commanded. He was already moving. He had to reach Valeria. They meant to kill her.

  They had fought at the village in the valley at the base of great cliffs. And as he looked up now, he saw that the men had taken Valeria, that she was laden down with silver chains, and a large silver cross swung between the valley of her breasts. Giovanni da Silva had her high up on the tor of a cliff. She was being forced to her knees. Da Silva was ready to deliver an executioner's blow upon her neck.

  "No!" Conan roared the word, casting off his helmet as he raced the distance to the cliffs, threw himself upon the rock, and began to climb.

  "By God, she must die!" da Silva called back.

  By some insane mercy, Conan reached the cliff and the outcrop of rock where Valeria had been taken.

  The little plateau might have been a strange, sacrificial altar, the way it protruded high above the ground and jutted out over the battlefield.

  Da Silva drew his sword high, and Conan crawled atop the rock and found his footing just in time. He grasped the man's arm, with Valeria at his knees, and there they locked in a magnificent struggle.

  Conan glanced down. And he saw her eyes.

  And for a second, he was frozen in the midst of his very struggle.

  "Conan de Burgh!" came a roar, and he was distracted to the edge of the tor, where he saw that François de Venue, incredibly, had crawled as well, his life's blood still streaming down his throat. By all rights of nature, the man should have been dead!

  Da Silva screamed out, crying to God, and to the heavens, and to all that was holy.

  A great sound suddenly filled the night, a rumbling of the earth, a schism in time and place and being, in the very world.

  A cracking… fracturing…

  And suddenly, the tor upon which they stood began to shake, and all were thrown to
the earth. The rumbling continued until…

  Strewn upon the ground, helpless against the explosion of the earth, Conan heard a whisper. "My love…

  !"

  She crawled to him, violet eyes huge. Stunned, he felt the shattering of ground.

  And one more thing.

  Her tears upon his face.

  Her lips… against his flesh.

  The earth, the rock, the very ground upon which they stood began to break and crumble. It seemed that there was another howl in the night—the horrible, dying shriek of a demon dog.

  And then the earth exploded, and the cliffs themselves tore apart and fell…

  François, covered in blood and still at the edge of the precipice, toppled first. Down… down to the earth below them.

  Then the rock shattered like glass, and all who had stood upon it came crashing down to earth.

  People, shrubs, creatures, rocks, and trees… all crumbled and fell. And as dust and earth and bits and pieces of rock came tumbling after, the dawn came.

  Streaked with gold, yet heavily laden with the crimson of spilled blood.

  And beneath great piles, tons of rock, lay the bodies of those who had struggled.

  The godly and determined Giovanni da Silva.

  The beautiful Valeria.

  And the great and powerful Conan de Burgh.

  His men wept openly.

  Had he only let da Silva behead the witch Valeria, as was right, he would have survived to enjoy the bounty of goodness and life left to those he had led.

  But now…

  Alas. He had loved the evil beauty far too deeply.

  Yet she was his again.

  For beneath the rock, they were entombed together forever.

  Or, at the very least, centuries to come.

  Chapter 1

  "The others will certainly join you by tomorrow," Arturo Agnazzi said, eyes bright, words cheerful, smile exuberant.

  Exhausted and exasperated, Stephanie Cahill stared at him blankly. "I'm sorry. Could you explain all this to me one more time, please?" It had been a ridiculously long day. The last thing that had gone right had been her flight from Chicago to Rome. Then, there had been a glitch in the flight from Rome to Naples.

  When she'd arrived in Naples, the car that was to pick her up and bring her to the southeast part of the country had failed to show up. Her international phone had failed to work. It had seemed that all the Italian she knew—and that was not at all what it should have been when she had agreed to accept this job—flew out of her head. When she tried to ask for help at the airport, words in other foreign languages would pop into her head. At last, she had gotten through to Bella Vista and Reggia Café, and discovered that her driver had arrived to get her at the airport, but hadn't found her, and after a few espressos at a coffee bar in Naples, had shrugged and headed on back.