Assassin of the Damned

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I groaned in agony as the hurled spear sank into my belly. I crashed back onto the tree stump altar. The bastards had chained me to it, although I’d managed to snap a rusty link, freeing an arm. It was one of the reasons they’d taken off running. I clutched the spear and dragged it out of my belly. Fiery pain lanced through me as I struggled to sit up.

In the moonlight, the cowards fled through the reeds. Some of them were hairy, a blasphemy against nature. The wretch I hated most wore priestly garments, a lapsed cardinal from Avignon.

I almost hurled the spear after them. Instead, as I sat upon the pagan altar, as blood poured out my belly, I feebly stabbed at the confining chains.

I was in a swamp. I had a throbbing knot on the back of my head. Erasmo della Rovere, the one-time priest, had clouted me from behind earlier. We had searched for deathbane together, a deadly flower of the swamp. While I was unconscious, the treacherous cur had chained me to this wooden altar.

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