“Kill him!” shouted Willibrod, but the bandits held still, whispering each to his fellow, fingering the amulets, lowering their bows.
“Or I will kill you!” shrieked Willibrod. “Eloie! Eloie! Isaba—” Bartholomew let the arrow fly.
It ripped through the tattered robes. Willibrod spun backward and slammed into the tent. Canvas ripped as the frame splintered, but he flailed and righted himself, still standing despite the arrow protruding from the center of his chest. He raised his hand to call down the curse.
“Eloie! Eloie!”
Sorrow leaped and got his leg in her jaws. The force of her bite overbalanced him. He staggered. With a horrible shriek he tottered, spun his arms, and lost his footing. His robes fluttered and his veil streamed open; he fell and hit the ground hard as Sorrow, yelping in pain, scrambled backward, shaking her head from side to side as though she had been stung. She buried her muzzle in the dirt.
Silence followed, hard and heavy. No sound of birds, no murmur of wind in the trees, no noise at all broke the unnatural hush.
Willibrod did not move. Around the camp, voices whimpered in fear. An infant squalled and was hushed by its terrified mother.
“Ai, God,” said one of the men.
His voice shattered the spell that held Alain. He knelt beside Willibrod and plucked at his robes. The body beneath shifted, clacked, and rattled. What was left of him? Although Alain sniffed, he smelled nothing like the stench of putrefaction, only a hint of that vinegary tang. Bracing himself against the awful sight he might see, he lifted away the veil and hat to reveal a grinning skull, jaw agape.
Willibrod was gone. Only his skeleton remained, darkening where sunlight soaked into pale bone.
Rage leaped, growling furiously, and Sorrow lunged.
Too late Alain sprang up. A staff smacked into the side of his head. He went down in a heap, hands and legs nerveless, paralyzed by the blow, while all around him he heard the snarling battle of the hounds, outnumbered, and the screams and cries of the bandits, closing in.
“Go,” he murmured, commanding the hounds, but he had no voice. His head was on fire, and the rest of him was numb.
Why had he turned his back? Even for that one moment, thinking that all of them were shocked by Willibrod’s death and disintegration; even that one moment had been too long. Anger and grief boiled up. What had he done to his faithful hounds? Better that they run and save themselves. He stirred, fighting to get up, to protect them, to save them.
A second blow cracked into his back, and a third exploded in pain at the base of his neck, this flare of agony followed by a long, hazy slide as he was caught in the current of a sparkling river flowing toward the sea. Now and again he bobbed to the surface, hearing voices but seeing only a misty dark fog.