* * *
Ragenard stood and waited amongst the remains of the creature with sword in hand. After a time a bank of clouds drifted over the moon, putting everything into darkness.
The fiend, then, took that as its opportunity to run.
There was swift movement at the edge of Ragenard’s vision. A shape – black within black – leapt out and away from the thicket of trees, some thirty feet from where the warrior stood.
Within the span of a heartbeat, Ragenard was chasing it down.
In the utter darkness, he gave pursuit: through the graveyard and then across the green towards the ruined church. No revenants rose up to molest him as he chased down the necromancer.
The distance between them closed steadily. The fiend ran right past the church – a place that may have been a sensible spot for a last-stand, had he been a competent fighter – and instead followed the track that led out of the old ruined village. Still, however, the distance between them grew shorter and shorter, until finally the fiend turned to face his pursuer and give fight.
Both men came to a sudden halt. The full moon had emerged from behind its blanket of cloud.
The fiend was slight of frame, with a sharp face and hair the colour of soot. His eyes were dark but red-ringed, and his pale skin was the colour of death. His robes, which were similar to those of a friar or a priest, were black, tattered and dusty.
He held a long, sinister-looking knife between himself and his adversary, but it could be seen to shake in his hand.
“Well,” Ragenard said. “Here we are, now.”
The necromancer’s fierce glare was the only response.
“By the way, about that family of peasants...” Ragenard lowered his sword, as if he didn’t really need it. “The ones that took you in, and who gave you their hospitality...”
“What did you do to them, Ragenard?” The voice was venomous, but edged with great fear.
“What do you think I did to them?” he hissed. “I did what I ought to have done. You left your taint on them, I could smell it. They needed to be cleansed. So I came upon them and burnt them, of course. And their house. And their dog and their pigs.”
Ragenard laughed. “I’m a little bit disappointed with you, necromancer. You are making things too easy for me. Was that great big flesh-monster the most formidable creature you had for me? And the church – it would have served well as a spot for your stand against me. Much better than out here, in the wide open.”
“Ah, but I remember, now,” Ragenard continued. “You cannot set your foot upon the consecrated ground of a house of God. You have tried, but you cannot. I know, however, that it is not any divine power that bars your path, but it in fact comes only from yourself. It is your own guilt, of course! Isn’t that interesting?”
Ragenard smiled wickedly. His crooked teeth were stark white in the moonlight. “But then, guilt is a divine power, of a sort, is it not? You know more about it than I.”
Suddenly, the warrior’s smile disappeared. Just as suddenly, then, his sword wrung out, easily cutting the long knife from the necromancer’s hand. The sword did not stop, though: the warrior swung it around his head and brought it back around again, cutting deeply across the necromancer’s torso.
The necromancer fell back into the dirt. Within a moment, however, Ragenard had set a heavy foot onto his chest.
He looked up at the warrior. His dark eyes were clear; a fierce and bitter resolve was contained within them.
“You can kill me,” he said, “but know that I do not fear death. How can I fear death when I am so well acquainted with it?”
“No.” Ragenard took his foot away. “You do not fear death, dear friend, you fear what comes after.”
He brought his sword down, sending it deep into the necromancer’s stomach.
The black magician screamed. It was a ghastly and thoroughly inhuman sound but Ragenard relished it all the same..
The warrior twisted the sword – one way, then the other. He pulled it out and then thrust it right back in again, then again and again.
He stood there, for a time, looking at the screaming, dying man at his feet. Blood, red and hot, gushed forth from the wounds. Ragenard was almost surprised that it was not, in fact, black.
Finally he made the cross-sign, and brought his sword down one last time.