The Silver Knight Read Online Free

rise again.”
    Beneath the lamplight, Everard's pale face seemed to go whiter still. He reached across the font to grasp Sufyan's sleeve. “You know about such things?”
    Sufyan felt a jolt of awareness at the touch. By God, he was thinking with the wrong head! If he weren't careful, his desire would get him killed. He looked away from Everard's beguiling face and scanned the interior of the church, half-expecting a gang of ruffians to leap out at him from behind the pillars.
    When he felt certain they were still alone, he replied, “I have heard stories of revenants in the Greek isles and of the restless dead in the kingdom of Hungary. How strange it is that these blood-fiends seem to develop only from the corpses of Christians. You are a heathen people.”
    “And you are uttering blasphemies in the House of God.”
    Sufyan smiled. “But I know how to rid this parish of its menace, and I have the seal of the Prince Bishop to approve the deed. You need me more than I need you, Everard de Montparnasse.”
    Everard gazed at him. “Perhaps you are right.”
    Sufyan thought he should ask about the smugglers. They were cunning men indeed to appoint this beautiful boy as their leader. No one would suspect such an innocent-looking youth of wrongdoing. He wondered if Everard would deny it all or stand and fight. Sufyan hoped he would fight. He wanted an excuse to wrestle with Everard, to pin him down and hold him close. In Sufyan's opinion, fighting was the next best thing to sex.
    Before he could ask his first question, a ghastly shriek sounded in the air around them. Startled, Sufyan stepped back from the font and turned slowly, relaxing into a fighting stance. The shriek was the same noise he'd heard earlier in the woods.
    “The fiend?” he asked unnecessarily.
    “Yes.” Everard's voice came as a gentle whisper. “Waiting for it to show itself is always the worst part.”
    Sufyan glanced over at the knight and saw his pale, resolute expression. “It can enter the church?”
    Everard nodded.
    “Has your Christ no power to stop a creature of evil?”
    “Hush! It comes.”
    Sufyan fell silent, senses straining as he listened for footsteps. In his knowledge of the Christian faith, gained partially from his master's learned discussions and mostly from idle chatter in alehouses throughout Europe, supernatural beings could not walk over consecrated ground and tended to flee in terror from the Crucifix, holy water, saintly relics, and the open pages of the Bible.
    But now here was Everard telling him the blood-fiend could do the impossible, that it could cross the threshold into the church. Sufyan felt certain that his guess was right—the fiend was nothing more than a man, perhaps dressed in a frightening costume. Everard's words were meant to scare him away before he could reveal the truth to the villagers.
    He gave a grim smile as he reached back to unsheathe his scimitars. Behind him, Everard gasped and protested, “For shame, summoner! Drawing steel in the sight of Our Lord!”
    “Your god, not mine.” Sufyan hefted the blades, forcing warmth into his arms. His fingers felt cold from the dank chill surrounding them. He didn't want to make any mistakes when he faced the fiend. He thought of the Prince Bishop's gratitude at his solving of the mystery, and then he imagined a dozen enjoyable ways in which he would question Everard about this business once the conniving smugglers had been safely captured or killed.
    And then all such pleasant thoughts went out of his head as the church door crashed open to admit the blood-fiend.
    Sufyan had a clear view of it in the moments before the lamps went out. His breath froze in his throat and he felt a prickle of fear. This was no man in costume. This was something extraordinary, a creature pulled from the earth with the stench of decay thick around it. He had never seen anything like it, and after today, he never wanted to see its kind again.
    The blood-fiend crouched in the