To Kill A Warlock (The Holy Warriors Book 2), page 1
TO KILL A WARLOCK
HOLY WARRIORS
CHRISTOPHER PATTERSON
To my history teachers for teaching me to love history and learn how to understand it
Faith must trample under foot all reason, sense, and understanding
MARTIN LUTHER
To Kill A Warlock
Copyright © 2023 Christopher Patterson. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or retransmitted in any form or by nay means without the written permission of the publisher.
Rabbit Hole Publishing
Tucson, Arizona, USA
CONTENTS
Foreword
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Before You Go!
About the Author
Also by Christopher Patterson
FOREWORD
Excerpt from the Brittanica.com The Emergence of France by T.N. Bisson and Jeremy David Popkin, Professor of History, University of Kentucky, Lexington
From the 9th to the 11th century the peoples and lands dominated by western Frankish kings were transformed. The Carolingian protectorate of local order collapsed under the pressures of external invasions and internal usurpations of power. Growing populations and quickening economies were reorganized in principalities whose leaders struggled to carry on the old programs of kings, bishops, and monks; one of these lands, centred on the Paris-Orléans axis and later known as the Île-de-France, was the nucleus of a new dynastic kingdom of France. This kingdom may be spoken of as Capetian France (the first king of the new dynasty having been Hugh Capet), but it was not until the 13th century that this France came to approximate the modern nation in territorial extent. The emergence of a greater France as a social and cultural entity preceded the political expansion of Capetian France; already in the 12th century Crusaders, when speaking of “Franks” from Romance-speaking lands, meant something like “Frenchmen,” while the persistence of old boundaries between populations of Romance and Germanic speech perpetuated the idea of a greater West Frankland.
A foremost circumstance of the later 9th and the 10th century was the inability of the western Frankish Carolingian kings to keep order. The royal estates that had theretofore supported them, mostly in the north and east, were depleted through grants to retainers uncompensated by new acquisitions. Hindered by poor communications, the kings lost touch with lesser counts and bishops, while the greater counts and dukes strove to forge regional clienteles in fidelity to themselves. These princes (as they were called) were not rebels. More often allied with the king than not, they exercised regalian powers of justice, command, and constraint; it was typically they who undertook to defend local settlements and churches from the ravages of Magyars invading from the east, of Muslims on Mediterranean coasts, and of Vikings from northern waters.
Of these invaders, the Northmen, as contemporaries called the Vikings, were the most destructive. They raided landed estates and monasteries, seizing provisions and movable wealth. Striking as far inland as Paris by 845, they attacked Bordeaux, Toulouse, Orléans, and Angers between 863 and 875. From a base in the Somme estuary, they pillaged Amiens, Cambrai, Reims, and Soissons. But they were drawn especially to the Seine valley. Between 856 and 860 they laid waste the country around its lower reaches and repeatedly attacked Paris thereafter. Sometimes they were turned back by defenses but more often by payments of tribute. After 896 the invaders began to settle permanently in the lower Seine valley, whence they spread west to form the duchy of Normandy. Maritime raiding continued into the 10th century, then subsided.
Lords such as the counts of Flanders, Paris, Angers, and Provence were well situated to prosper in the crisis. They were often descended from or related to Carolingian kings. Adding protectorates over churches to their inherited offices, domains, and fiefs while acquiring other lordships and counties through marriage, they built up principalities that were as precarious as they were powerful. The lords tried to avoid dismemberment of the patrimony by limiting their children’s right of succession and marriage, but it was only in the 12th century that these dynastic principles came to prevail in the French aristocracy. The princes, moreover, found it almost as hard as the kings to secure their power administratively. They exploited their lands through servants valued less for competence than for fidelity; these servants, however, were men who tended to think of themselves as lords rather than agents. This tendency was especially marked among the masters of castles (castellans), who by the year 1000 were claiming the power to command and punish as well as the right to retain the revenues generated from the exercise of such power. In this way was completed a devolution of power from the undivided empire of the 9th century to a checkerboard of lordships in the 11th—lordships in which the control of castles was the chief determinant of success.
The devolution of power led to a fragmented polity; at every level lords depended on the services of sworn retainers who were usually rewarded with the tenures of lordship called fiefs (feuda). In the 9th century fiefs were not yet numerous enough to undermine the public order protected by kings and their delegates. Indeed, fiefs were at first rewards for public service made from fiscal (royal) lands; this practice persisted in the south into the 11th century. By then, however, castles, knights, and knights’ fiefs were multiplying beyond all control, resulting in a fracturing of power that few princes succeeded in reversing before 1100. Counts were unwilling to admit that their counties were fiefs or that they owed the same sort of allegiance to kings or dukes as their vassals did to them. Tainted with servility as well as with the brutality of needy knights on the make, vassalage was slow to gain respectability. The multiplication of fiefs was a violent process of subjugating free peasants and abusing churches.
The fragmentation of political power resulting from the decline of the Carolingians meant that the kings of France were forced into rivalries, alliances, and conflicts with the princes, who were for many generations the real rulers of their territories. Even after a new dynasty, the Capetians, took over the crown in 987, it took several centuries before they were able to impose their authority on most of present-day France.
At the same time that society and the church underwent reform and expansion, they also faced the first expressions of popular heresy since late antiquity. In the early 11th century, episodes of heresy occurred in Aquitaine, Arras, Orléans, and Vertus. The heretics, possibly influenced by foreign missionaries and certainly reacting against the abuses of the church and failures of reform, rejected the church and its sacraments, abstained from sexual intercourse and eating meat, and lived pious lives. By the mid-11th century the church had successfully repressed the heretics, burning a dozen or so at Orléans under order of the king. Heresy disappeared until the early 12th century, when a number of heretical leaders, such as Peter of Bruys and Henry of Lausanne, developed large followings in various cities. These leaders, again reacting to the flaws of the church and inadequacies of reform, rejected the church, its ministers, and its sacraments and advocated lives of simple piety in imitation of the Apostles.
Religious faith began to assume a new coloration after 1000 and evolved along those lines in the 11th and 12th centuries. Whether in the countryside or in town, a new, more evangelical Christianity emerged that emphasized the human Jesus over the transcendent Lord. The Crusading impulse was kept alive in France by the desire to vindicate the true faith against Muslim infidels and Byzantine schismatics. More intense Christian faith was also reflected in hostility toward France’s Jewish communities. As early as 1010 Jews had suffered persecution and were forced to choose between conversion or exile. Anti-Jewish sentiment grew during the next two centuries and led to further offenses. Expelled from royal territories by Philip II Augustus in 1182, Jews were readmitted in 1198 but suffered further persecutions, including a formal condemnation of the Talmud under Louis IX. Philip IV (the Fair) renewed the policy of expulsion in 1306.
CHAPTER ONE
As if a thick mist had slowly cleared, the man came into focus. His skin pale, teeth white as bone, he held his chin high and he was handsome, yet his eyes held a glint of cruelty. His hair, as black as midnight, partially spilled over his shoulders, the remainder held off his face in a tail, held by a woven cord. As the room lightened, as if the sun had slowly revealed that which had been cloaked by the cover of night, Thaddeus Christopoulos could see the man was not alone, the room full of peopl
“You again,” Thaddeus muttered, as he pulled the handsome man’s name from his memory.
Galen, the erstwhile companion of Renata, the witch who had held England in her icy grip. He remembered Galen’s presence as he fought Renata in Count Stephen’s quarters. He had sensed the man’s power then, just as he did now.
“Galen!” Thaddeus shouted, readying himself to fight, but his words fell on deaf ears. He tried again, but when no one responded, he realized he couldn’t be heard, or even seen.
“Come to me, ma chérie.”
Galen’s voice like a father to a child, he extended a hand to a young woman sitting against a wall. While dirty, her face remained pretty, her clothing little better than rags. She hesitated, seeming frightened, but when he bade her one more time—the hint of red brightening his eyes—she stood and took the warlock’s hand.
“Good girl. I want you to meet my friend, the Baron Florin.”
Galen’s pale-faced companion smiled, stepping forward as he reached up with long fingers. The fingernails well-manicured, to grab the girl’s chin. As he turned her face this way and that, she whimpered, but gave no resistance. He ran a finger along the collar of the girl’s dirt-smattered dress, roughly pulling it aside, revealing a shoulder and breast. His smile widened as he rubbed two fingers along her throat. As they slid over her skin like thin snakes to the side of her neck, his red lips parted and he revealed his teeth. His canines were long and pointed and the girl, her eyes wide, sought to pull away, but his grip was too strong.
“Vampire,” Thaddeus gasped.
He had only seen one other vampire in his long life, although he had heard of them often. In his ancient homeland of Laconia, they were known as Empusa or Lamia, but the understanding of what vampires were had changed over time. Most of Christendom assumed vampires were undead, working for the devil and charged with leading legions of demons, but in Greece, they weren’t. Empusa were very much alive and, although they worked in concert with other foul creatures, they were equally independent and sought to serve their own devious ends.
It wasn’t in his homeland that Thaddeus had seen a vampire, however. It was in Britannia, when he was serving as a Centurion in the Roman army, in the deep woods of what was now Scotland. Thaddeus confronted a shaman woman, living with the Picts, who drank the blood of young men, women, and children in order to retain her youth. She was very much alive, until Thaddeus removed her head from her body.
Vampires were rare and solitary beings, powerful and egotistical, so much so that two such creatures had to live miles and miles apart, lest they wage war on one another. So to see one here, in the company of Galen, was shocking.
“She will do well with the other livestock,” said the vampire.
“Is she not beautiful?” Galen asked. “My good Baron Florin, surely she is worth more than food?”
The vampire grabbed the woman by the waist and pulled her to him. He leaned down and sniffed at her neck. Clearly petrified, she involuntarily tilted her head to the side. Florin sniffed deeply, taking in her scent.
“So many of these peasant girls are spoiled,” Florin said, pushing the girl away, “barely worth the blood coursing through their veins; but yes, this one is special.”
Florin looked over his shoulder, making eye contact with a broad-shouldered, burly man with long, matted, dark hair and a wild, bushy beard.
“Take her, Elias,” Florin commanded.
“Yes, my lord,” the burly man—Elias—said with a stiff bow, grabbing the woman by the wrist, roughly pulling her to him, and tying her hands together with a leather cord.
There was something about this other man, Elias, but Thaddeus couldn’t put a finger on it. He seemed wild, animalistic almost, and his eyes had a yellowish tint. His fingernails, the opposite of the vampire’s, were misshapen and dirty, but still appeared to be pointed.
“I do not get away much anymore, but I do enjoy my trips to Burgundy,” Florin said with a malicious smile. “You certainly make the journey worthwhile.”
“France,” Thaddeus muttered to himself.
“My thanks for the kind words,” Galen said. “Indeed, it is a pleasure doing business with an old friend. Now, in the matter of business…”
“Of course,” Florin said, still wearing an insincere smile. He lifted his hand up, a bag floating from his belt and stopping, hovering, in front of Galen.
Galen lifted a hand so that it was just under the bag, and it promptly dropped into his palm with an audible clink of coin.
“This feels a little heavier,” Galen said.
“A little extra,” Florin said with a crude wink, “for the unspoiled girl and the robust livestock.”
Galen smirked and bowed. Florin turned to Elias and two other hooded men, clothed in black robes.
“Take them,” Florin said. He looked to the young peasant girl. “Make sure, Elias, this one stays unspoiled.”
Thaddeus now realized the other people in the room all sat bound with rope.
“Stand,” Florin said, his voice hard. “You are now my servants. To belong to Baron Florin is an honored thing, but if you choose to disobey me, defy me, or simply lose my favor…”
Florin looked at Elias. The burly man gave the vampire a tired look, but reluctantly shrugged his shoulders. He closed his yellow eyes and the muscles under his cheeks undulated and with a pained expression, his face took on a different shape. His nose extending into a snout, his ears elongating, dark fur began growing from his skin.
Thaddeus couldn’t help but be revulsed as the man’s body convulsed, the transformation violent and cruel, his clothes ripping and tearing, until a hideous creature—one that looked half man and half beast—stood before the others in the room, snarling and drooling, bearing long fangs. Some of the women screamed, others whimpered, and all looked away in both fear and disgust.
Lycanthrope.
Thaddeus knew these creatures, which could take on several forms, usually shared a familiarity with some sort of beast, normally wolves. The Saxons called them werewolves—which literally mean man-wolf—but Thaddeus had also seen a lycanthrope that shared characteristics with a bear in Germania and in Italy, he came across a clan of lycanthropes who would change themselves into giant rats. He was far more familiar with lycanthropes than vampires, and the former were a dangerous and unpredictable lot.
Florin gave Galen one last glance.
“Until next time, Galen,” Florin said.
“Until next time, Baron,” Galen replied, and as he turned away, his body shimmered and faded and darkness returned.
It was then that Thaddeus realized he hadn’t been sleeping and this was no dream. This was a vision, of something that had happened. Or was happening elsewhere.
CHAPTER TWO
Thaddeus opened his eyes, staring at the Scottish sky, dark but with hints of purples and blues as the sun prepared its ascent into the sky. The dawn air was cold, despite the springtime, and the fire had died to little more than embers. The centuries-old centurion sat up. Gunnar, Asaf, and Alden were all still asleep, although Alden had begun to stir. The newest addition to their group, Alden was a Saxon, whereas the other two were from Sweden and Jerusalem respectively. After Thaddeus, Alden was the earliest riser in their party, tending to the horses and making food to break their fast.
