LXII

 

 

IT WAS FEAR of failure that gripped Tancred. Fear of losing what God had promised him. Because God could not be wrong. God could not be mistaken. And yet... And yet... For an instant, he had felt that terrible uncertainty flicker within him – the self-questioning that he had once seen as a virtue, and which now was utterly alien to him. But it was a flicker, and no more. In another instant, he had conquered it. Conviction once more filled his soul and gave strength to his arm. He raised the mace high.

As he did so, the box shuddered and jumped. Then it jolted with sudden violence, ringing like an anvil struck by a hammer. A burst of white powder exploded outward and upward, covering Tancred and his knights and forming a cloud that settled slowly about them. They coughed, choking on the dust. Tancred – white as a ghost, caked in the stuff – wrenched back the lid of the box.

Empty. It was empty. “No...” he uttered in disbelief. “No!”

The prisoners would pay now.

Before he could turn, he heard the first cries of pain. Around him, it seemed the white dust was now rising off his men in coiling trails, like wispy, ephemeral phantoms – as if their spirits were fleeing their corporeal shells. But it wasn’t dust. It was smoke. He blinked hard – then he too began to burn. At first, it stung his eyes, then his skin. The stinging became a fire. Then he was plunged into the flames of Hell.

Quicklime. Burning him, eating into his flesh and that of his men. They began to panic. Blinded, steaming and smoking – the quicklime reacting with their hair, skin and clothes, still wet from the rain – they clawed at their faces, writhed on the ground, ran wildly into each other, some with weapons drawn, inflicting terrible wounds. Their flesh peeling, their lungs on fire.

The last thing Tancred saw was Gisburne, free, sword in hand, and his own clutching fingers, blistering, bubbling, being consumed.