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"The hell I'm not!" I said, trying to steady the horse. "We don't have two hours before sunrise. Draw your sword!"
She tried to turn to speak to me, but I was already driving the horse forward. And she drew her sword as I'd told her to do, her little hand knotted around it as firmly as that of a man.
Of course, the thing would flee as soon as we reached the copse, I was sure of that. I mean the damned thing had never done anything but turn tail and run. And I was furious that it had frightened my mount, and that it was frightening Gabrielle.
With a sharp kick, and the full force of my mental persuasion, I sent the horse racing straight ahead to the bridge.
I locked my hand to the weapon. I bent low with Gabrielle beneath me. I was breathing rage as if I were a dragon, and when the mare's hooves hit the hollow wood over the water, I saw them, the demons, for the first time!
White faces and white arms above us, glimpsed for no more than a second, and out of their mouths the most horrid shrieking as they shook the branches sending down on us a shower of leaves.
"Damn you, you pack of harpies!" I shouted as we reached the sloping bank on the other side, but Gabrielle had let out a scream.
Something had landed on the horse behind me, and the horse was slipping in the damp earth, and the thing had hold of my shoulder and the arm with which I tried to swing the sword.
Whipping the sword over Gabrielle's head and down past my left arm, I chopped at the creature furiously, and saw it fly off, a white blur in the darkness, while another one sprang at us with hands like claws. Gabrielle's blade sliced right through its outstretched arm. I saw the arm go up into the air, the blood spurting as if from a fountain. The screams became a searing wail. I wanted to slash every one of them to pieces. I turned the horse back too sharply so that it reared and almost fell.
But Gabrielle had hold of the horse's mane and she drove it again towards the open road.
As we raced for the tower, we could hear them screaming as they came on. And when the mare gave out, we abandoned her and ran, hand in hand, towards the gates.
I knew we had to get through the secret passage to the inner chamber before they climbed the outside wall. They must not see us take the stone out of place.
And locking the gates and doors behind me as fast as I could, I carried Gabrielle up the stairs.
By the time we reached the secret room and pushed the stone into place again, I heard their howling and shrieking below and their first scraping against the walls.
I snatched up an armful of firewood and threw it beneath the window.
"Hurry, the kindling," I said.
But there were half a dozen white faces already at the bars. Their shrieks echoed monstrously in the little cell. For one moment I could only stare at them as I backed away.
They clung to the iron grating like so many bats, but they weren't bats. They were vampires, and vampires as we were vampires, in human form.
Dark eyes peered at us from under mops of filthy hair, howls growing louder and fiercer, the fingers that clung to the grating caked with filth. Such clothing as I could see was no more than colorless rags. And the stench coming from them was the graveyard stench.
Gabrielle pitched the kindling at the wall, and she jumped away as they reached to catch hold of her. They bared their fangs. They screeched. Hands struggled to pick up the firewood and throw it back at us. All together they pulled at the grating as if they might free it from the stone.
"Get the tinderbox," I shouted. I grabbed up one of the stouter pieces of wood and thrust it right at the closest face, easily flinging the creature out and off the wall. Weak things. I heard its scream as it fell, but the others had clamped their hands on the wood and they struggled with me now as I dislodged another dirty little demon. But by this time Gabrielle had lighted the kindling.
The flames shot upwards. The howling stopped in a frenzy of ordinary speech:
"It's fire, get back, get down, get out of the way, you idiots! Down, down. The bars are hot! Move away quickly!"
Perfectly regular French! In fact an ever increasing flood of pretty vernacular curse words.
I burst out laughing, stomping my foot and pointing to them, as I looked at Gabrielle.
"A curse on you, blasphemer!" one of them screamed. Then the fire licked at his hands and he howled, falling backwards.
"A curse on the profaners, the outlaws!" came screams from below. It caught on quickly and became a regular chorus. "A curse on the outlaws who dared to enter the House of God!" But they were scrambling down to the ground. The heavy timbers were catching, and the fire was roaring to the ceiling.
"Go back to the graveyard where you came from, you pack of pranksters!" I said. I would have thrown the fire down on them if I could have gotten near the window.
Gabrielle stood still with her eyes narrow, obviously listening.
Cries and howls continued from below. A new anthem of curses upon those who broke the sacred laws, blasphemed, provoked the wrath of God and Satan. They were pulling on the gates and lower windows. They were doing stupid things like throwing rocks at the wall.
