Prologue

THE HALBERD IS A DIFFICULT weapon to use in combat. You need real strength in your arms to wield it. Without enough power in your shoulders you cannot direct it down at the correct angle and move it swiftly enough to kill your enemy. You’d be cleaved in two yourself before you’d have time to use it. Some say it’s an old-fashioned weapon, a slow and ponderous one. It’s not the weapon of choice of the soldier of today. Other weapons have replaced it, smaller, lighter and more efficient ones. But this is not a battlefield. There is no Papist enemy rushing towards you screaming in blood lust. No deafening explosions of artillery surround you. There is no blind confusion and deafening roars. None of the panic of battle, none of the fear, no desperate cries. There is none of the shit and piss and rambling confessions of men and boys before the attack. No last testaments scribbled by those who can write, preparing to find themselves, perhaps in the next minute or second, in Heaven or Hell, or some other place.

This is not a battlefield. This is a chamber under the city of Edinburgh in the kingdom of Scotland. To wield such a long weapon in a confined space feels wrong. It feels like there is not enough room to swing it properly, despite the vaulted ceiling being a good twenty feet above your head; it’s still constrictive. You must be careful not to strike the roof and upset the weapon’s motion. At least there is no need to judge the distance of the charge. You can take your time down here. You have all the time in the world. The enemy is not a cavalry man bearing down on you, or an infantryman with raised sword preparing to slash you. The enemy is strapped to a wooden chair a few feet in front of you. The enemy is bound and gagged. He cannot curse you or spit on you. But you can see terror in his eyes. You have dragged him from the streets above. A few minutes ago, he was sharing a cup of ale with cronies in a tavern. He was laughing at lewd jokes, discussing a political point or boasting about the conquest of a lass, while he munched on a pie. Disbelief is evident in his eyes. He has no idea what this is all about. He does not know who has ordered his removal from the world above and demanded his presence in the one beneath. He is unable to take in what is happening to him; his sudden descent into the underworld to be faced with a beast, a monster from his nightmares. A monster wielding a halberd. That is the way it must be in this place. The hair mask, the great horns on the helmet, the furs over your shoulders, transforming you into a monster from the world of nightmares. You can smell the piss on his breeks now. The urine pools and steams on the stone floor around the chair. Even the bravest man is brought low by closeness to death. No, it is not your weapon of choice. But it is a weapon of theatre. For in this battle, theatre is everything. You have learned that. You must put on a good show. The other one, the younger one held in the corner, is also gagged. He is a witness to the gore. He will return to the world above. He will spread a story about a monster beneath the city. Most will not believe him, but a few will wonder. A dagger to rip the throat or a sword to open the chest would make more sense. It would be much quicker and easier, but where is the theatre in that?

Do you feel any sympathy for the creature in front of you? Does he have a wife and children? Is he a good man or a bad one? Should he be punished for his sins or was he a saint who should be praised? You know nothing about him. You do not want to know. But if you do not act you will find yourself like this poor creature, despite your experience of killing.

You have waited long enough in the damp chamber. You stand for a few moments more, allowing them to take in the horror, letting them linger in silence. Behold a monster from the deep! It is so far below the city his screams will not be heard above. They will echo through the subterranean labyrinth of this other world, a world dug out over hundreds, perhaps thousands of years, a world you now claim as your own. For few others can claim it. Few others possess the fury to claim it as you have. You stand in a chamber of death under the foundations of churches and manses, where ministers preach and elders pontificate. This is another world in which the kirk session has no power. Here the nobles hold no sway, the King is an ordinary mortal and all the generals in the army are powerless. You are lord in this subterranean country. In this land, you are King.

You can smell his shit now. The creature knows he is about to die. He realises his last moments will be ones of unimaginable horror. The end which you are about to bring to fruition is more disturbing than any death on the battlefield, where a soldier is taken by blade, bullet or shrapnel. At least in battle you die with honour and you leave that honour behind for your family. But this is a time of peace, or at least relative peace. The city is quiet for now, folk above are going about their business; writers writing instruments, merchants making deals, fleshers slashing meat, coopers building barrels. And here you perform your business. The business of killing. It’s a profession few can pursue. You cannot change your work now. You have chosen this path, the route of slaughter. You have chosen the life of gore. There is only one law in this world, in this Hades, in this Hell. You must kill or be killed. You must do everything to survive. It is the simple rule you have followed since you were a boy – all politics and religion and universities and schools are nothing compared to this brutal law which has governed your life since you were left an orphan, starving and alone, but hungry to survive.

It is time to end it. You are godlike in this moment. Whether to wait a minute longer, ten minutes, an hour, suspend time, extend life, prolong the horror of his last pitiful moments. Let him speak a few words, allow him to scream and beg, give him time for a last prayer, one final confession of his sins, perhaps. But not this time. You are tired of waiting. You swing the weapon. You remember the feel of it on the battlefield. The tip of the halberd is only a few feet from the vaulted ceiling at its apex. You are not a creature entirely without sentiment, without some shred of morality. For some dark creatures would have teased him, tempted him with hope, prolonged the agony. They might have tortured him for one reason only – that they were able to do so. But you are not like them. You have a slither of humanity in your black soul. You want to get it done, now. The blade whistles through the air. The blade slices down, thunderously. The blade cleaves straight through him as if he is not there. No need for much pressure, just the weight of the weapon in its arc through the fetid air and the sharpness of the blade. Clean through flesh and bone. An explosion of tissue. An attempt to scream through the gag for an instant. The shudder of death through the body. And it is done. Your work is done. Blood gushes onto the floor, a red burn in spate, surrounding the chair, spreading into a crimson flower. The man is gone to another place, the place some call Heaven and some call Hell, or that other place called Nothing, the place you believe in, despite the rantings of the men of God. The kingdom of mighty Nothing is where all creatures must resort after their days are done. Does it matter how or when you arrive in that place? Does it matter on which day you find yourself there? You do not think it does. The man’s head drops forward as the life fluid seeps from severed vessels, ripped tissue and fractured bones. You always have the same thought when you watch the moment of death on the battlefield or in the slaughter house. One day it will be you. That day draws closer. That day is one day closer. You cannot escape mighty Nothing. It will have you soon enough. But until that day, you will fight it. You will fight with blood, until that day when you, like him, sit on the throne of death waiting for the halberd to fall.