The Thirteenth Skull (Alfred Kropp #3)(65)

I didn’t answer. Of course I knew who he was and of course he knew I knew who he was. I had the feeling he had been practicing for this moment, had rehearsed it over and over in his mind ever since our meeting in Knoxville. He was following a script he had written and rewritten until he knew every line by heart.

“I am the son of the man you murdered here.”

“And I’m the son of the man he murdered in Játiva,” I said.

“Yes, the last son of the house of Lancelot. Tell me something, Alfred Kropp, do you know from which house I descend?”

I didn’t. No one had ever told me which knight Mogart had come from.

“From the house of Mordred,” Jourdain said. “Mordred, the only son of Arthur. I am the true heir to the king, the true heir to the throne of Camelot. Do you understand now why my father sought to claim the Sword? It was rightfully his.”

“Mordred killed Arthur,” I pointed out.

“He took his mortal life. It was your ancestor who betrayed him, killed his spirit and sent him into the arms of Mordred’s mother. If not for Lancelot, Camelot would not have fallen.”

He raised his sword in both hands, bringing the blade against his chest.

“In a dream the Lady came to me,” he said. “Your blood will bring an end to the curse upon Arthur’s house, Camelot will rise again, and the Archangel shall return the Sword—to me, the last son of Arthur.

“Let us end, Alfred Kropp, what a thousand years ago our forebears began.”

Jourdain Garmot rushed toward me. I brought my sword up just in time, as his came whistling down toward the top of my head. The black blades met with a ringing crash and my knees quivered with the impact. Little shards of glittering metal exploded from our blades, spinning away into the shadows.

He forced his sword downward. I reached between us with my left hand and grabbed the wrist of his blade hand. I yanked his arm across his body, freeing my sword, and then plunged it into his side. The blade hit something hard: his rib, which turned it away from his chest and sent it down, toward his stomach. His eyes went wide.

He stepped back. I stayed put. He stood panting in front of me, his white shirt glimmering with blood.

“That’s it, okay?” I asked. “We don’t owe our fathers anything, Jourdain. They’re dead. All the knights are dead. The castle is just a bunch of rocks and in another thousand years even those rocks will be gone. The Sword isn’t coming back. Let it go.”

He switched his sword to his left hand and came at me again. I slapped the blade away and slashed back to the right. The tip of my sword ripped through his shirt, opening up a two-inch-deep gash in his exposed stomach.

And I heard his father’s voice echoing inside my head:

Did noble Bennacio tell you how your father met his fate? . . . I tortured him. I cut him a thousand times, until upon his knees he begged me to finish it, to end his miserable life . . .

Jourdain’s mouth came open, as if he had something to say. He staggered backward, but I didn’t follow.

“I don’t want to kill you,” I said. “I never wanted anyone to die—not even your dad, but I didn’t have a choice. But I have one now and so do you, Jourdain. You can let it go. We can both let it go.”

He still didn’t say anything. We were off script. This wasn’t the way he imagined it, the way it was supposed to go.

“Let me save you,” I whispered to Jourdain Garmot.

He came at me a final time, right arm dangling uselessly by his bloody side, his left swinging the sword crazily back and forth. I sidestepped to his right, pivoted, slung my left arm around his neck, pulled his head back against my chest, and rammed my sword into him, all the way to the hilt.

His body went stiff against me. His fingers loosened on the black blade and it fell to the ground. After that all I could hear was his breath and my breath and the distant wailing of the wind.

I pulled the sword from his body and tossed it away. Then I gently lowered him to the floor, going down with him and then resting his head on my thigh. His eyes were open and his mouth moved soundlessly as he looked up into my face.

“Forgive,” I told him.

“God’s business!” he choked out.

I picked up his father’s sword and sliced open the palm of my left hand.

“We’ll see whose business it is, Jourdain,” I said. “I know this will heal your body. But the real wound is a lot deeper.”

I pressed my bleeding hand into his side. “In the name of the Archangel,” I said. “Prince of Light.”

His eyes rolled to the back of his head. I could feel my blood flowing into him.

“May he bring you peace.”

00:04:47:19

He was too weak to walk, so I carried him up the narrow slope of the dragon’s throat, cradling him like a baby, past the glittering teeth of its mouth, into the upper chamber, the cave of skulls, where Vosch was waiting. When he saw us emerge from the cleft in the rock, he pulled his gun and pointed it at my face.

“No,” Jourdain gasped. “Put it away.”

Vosch lowered his gun.

“He’s going to be all right,” I said. I didn’t know if Vosch believed me: Jourdain was covered head to foot in blood. I lowered him to the floor and leaned him against the wall opposite the skulls. I sank to the floor on the other side of the chamber and rested against the rock shelf, the circle of grinning skulls over my head.