Alfred ordered the throne room cleared of all but his guards and closest ealdormen before he interrogated the Archbishop about the horror he had just witnessed. Aethelred calmly explained that while he had taken care to ensure the scrolls’ incantations had been translated accurately, their precise recitation was still something of a work-in-progress. If the guardsmen had not slain the beast, it likely would have died within minutes anyway, as had the other test subjects on which he had performed the rite on in Canterbury. But he was confident that with more time, and a meager portion of the kingdom’s resources, he could perfect the process and thereby transform the common creatures of the realm into an army of savage war beasts that would strike fear into the hearts of the Norse. In time, he went on, these beasts could be brought under control and trained to kill not just the Danes but any enemies of England who might yet present themselves.

Alfred, still fuming, had the Archbishop escorted to his chambers while he convened with his ealdormen to seek their counsel. And though none of them denied the abhorrent nature of what they had all witnessed, the great majority nonetheless argued that what Aethelred had brought before them should not be rejected out of hand. They all shared Alfred’s concerns about fresh hostilities with the Norse, particularly in light of recent whisperings of Guthrum’s ill health. And though Alfred had done much to bolster the kingdom against future attack, Wessex still bore the wounds of its long conflict with the Danes and could scarcely afford another open war so soon after, in blood or treasure. The council’s advice to Alfred was near unanimous: as sworn defenders of the realm, it was as much their duty to be strong in stomach as in purpose. However intense it may be, they could not allow their distaste for Aethelred’s proposed methods—unconventional, one ealdorman euphemistically called them—to curtail what could be a potent opportunity to secure a peaceful future for Wessex, and for all England. So powerful was the promise of what Aethelred had brought them that, in all their conversation, no man present dared utter the one word that privately haunted each one of them. Witchcraft.

And so Alfred reluctantly agreed. Aethelred and his entourage from Canterbury were to be quartered at Winchester and provided with whatever they needed to perfect their arcanery, the castle’s courtyard cleared and given over to their work.

That was now five months ago, and God only knew how many poor beasts had suffered and died in the Archbishop’s twisted experiments since then. Alfred had lost count long ago, when he could no longer stand the sight of the wretched abominations Aethelred conjured up daily. At first none of them had lived long. The malformed things borne out of each dog and mule and horse on which Aethelred practiced his art either collapsed and died after a few minutes or had to be speared by pikemen when they turned on Aethelred or one of his assistants. Over time, as Aethelred made refinements and corrections to his pronunciation and cadence of the incantations written in the ancient scrolls and to the accompanying hand gestures that they described, the monsters he brought forth began to live longer. At first for hours, then days, then indefinitely. But one thing did not change. In every case, no matter how long they lived, the beasts were viciously aggressive from the moment they were birthed. They would attack anything without provocation, even each other. Aethelred once watched as two Labrador retrievers, brothers from the same litter who had never shown any aggression toward each other, were transformed by the rite into a pair of scaly, ridge-backed hellhounds that proceeded immediately to tear each other apart. Fascinated, he had made a detailed note of it in his journal.

Aethelred also discovered that with subtle changes to each sum- moning, he could create many and varied forms of beast from each base subject. He could turn a swine into the same quasi-arachnid that he had created in Alfred’s throne room that first day or with a minor rephrasing bring about a kind of horrific, beak-nosed, oily-skinned jackal from the very same animal. All of these were carefully documented by Aethelred’s apprentices in an ever-growing bestiary. Practicing tirelessly each day for months on end, Aethelred created dozens of variations until he was satisfied he had exhausted all the possible permutations for each base subject. A cat could only become so many things, he had learned, and when there was no longer anything new to be created from it he would start again on a goose or a badger or whatever poor, unsuspecting creature was next on his list. In time he learned to bring forth all manner of creatures with flawless specificity, down to the length of the tail and the manner in which it breathed fire. The ones that breathed fire were his favorites; the day he discovered that particular variation made for one of his most enthusiastic journal entries, and that genus now warranted its own section in the bestiary.

But for all Aethelred’s accomplishments, the problem of control remained. He had enlisted all of Alfred’s most skilled animal handlers, men who had broken the wildest horses and could train a feral wolf to eat from the palm of their hand, but none could tame any of his creations. Increasingly it seemed as though these beasts were beyond any form of mastery, though Aethelred himself stubbornly refused to accept that. But while he insisted that he could eventually control them, Alfred’s discomfort and impatience with him grew with each passing week. Finally, the King, already haunted nightly by visions of the things he saw in the courtyard each day, decided that he had seen enough after a leathery, reptilian monster that had once been a fox pounced on the handler who was attempting to feed it a haunch of meat and took the man’s arm off at the shoulder instead. Alfred went into a fury, telling the Archbishop that he wished to see no more of his “progress” until he could prove to him that the beasts could be controlled. Otherwise, what use were they in battle? They were just as likely to attack their own handlers as any enemy they might be set upon. As the King stormed out of the courtyard that day, he warned Aethelred that if he could not solve this final problem, and quickly, he would put an end to his experimentation altogether.

Now, two months later, Alfred had returned, albeit with reluctance. Just being here unsettled him. He had seen many horrors in war, but none of it compared to what he had witnessed here in his own courtyard since the Archbishop had begun his experiments. The ground was scarred and pockmarked like a battlefield and stained dark by great swaths of dried blood. The timbers of many of the surrounding structures were charred black and white by fire. And more noticeable than any of it was the nauseating stench of sulfur that hung ever-present in the air. The entire courtyard was rank with it. Alfred pulled from his sleeve a cloth that he kept for these unhappy visits, holding it over his nose and mouth as he strode across the bloodstained quadrangle. Even the strong perfume in which his apothecary had soaked the cloth in was not enough to mask the smell entirely.

Aethelred was there, waiting for him, dressed as always in the ecclesiastical finery befitting his high station. Alfred had not seen him in weeks, but there was an air of confidence about him today; the Archbishop had kept to Alfred’s command, not once requesting his presence since that poor trainer had been maimed, and so Alfred assumed he must have good cause for doing so now. He found himself wondering what he hoped for. Did he want Aethelred to have succeeded in finding a way to attain mastery over these beasts, and by extension, England’s enemies? Or did he wish that Aethelred had failed, finally giving him reason to shut down this whole loathsome undertaking for good and unseat Aethelred from Canterbury? Something I should have done long ago, Alfred told himself once again.

 “Thank you for joining me, your majesty,” Aethelred said as the King approached.  

“After the failure of your last demonstration, I assume you would not ask me here without good reason,” Alfred replied.  

Aethelred ignored the slight and simply nodded. “Indeed. I think you will be most pleased with our progress since you were here last.”

Alfred sighed, in no mood for a preamble. “Can you control them or not?”

“I doubt we shall ever be domesticating them as pets, but for their intended purpose—as weapons of war—yes, I believe I can now control them. It has not been easy, but this is the breakthrough I have been working toward.”

Alfred just looked at Aethelred expectantly. If the Archbishop was fishing for a compliment, some kind of recognition for the hours he had dedicated to creating these heinous aberrations, it would not be forthcoming. “Very well then!” Aethelred declared as he turned to the guards standing nearby. “Stand ready, if you please!” A dozen of Alfred’s best and most battle-seasoned pikemen were already in position, their arms drawn. They were all hard men, but from their expressions it was clear that they would sooner be patrolling the Danelaw border, freezing in some remote watchtower, or mucking out the castle’s pig sties than be here. Anywhere but here. Nobody wanted this duty, and those who were assigned it rarely slept well.

Close to them was a small troop of servants carrying buckets filled with water, ready to douse anything that Aethelred’s beast might belch fire onto and set ablaze. That lesson had been learned hard, when one of his first “infernals,” as he liked to call them, put a torch to the courtyard’s old wooden stables with a single breath. The fire might have spread and consumed the castle’s kitchens and library but for the fast response of a hastily improvised bucket brigade. The stable was beyond salvage but, on Alfred’s orders, its blackened timbers were left standing as a reminder, and now the dousers stood ready before every incantation.

Satisfied that all was ready, Aethelred gave a signal to one of his apprentices across the yard who manned the gate to the pen that held his test animals. The apprentice raised the latch on the gate and as it swung open with a rusty groan, Alfred shuddered; he had come to abhor that sound. He had heard it many times: it was the sound that came shortly before the squawking and screaming started, as Aethelred’s words would begin to contort and transform whatever poor, damned creature emerged from within. What manner of beast has he selected for today’s bloody show? Alfred wondered.

For a moment, nothing happened. Alfred was puzzled; usually the penned animal emerged immediately into the yard, happy to be released from its confinement, unaware of the grim fate that awaited it. He glanced at Aethelred, who appeared briefly embarrassed before gesturing impatiently at his apprentice. The apprentice looked at first hesitant, but as the Archbishop’s glare bored into him, he reluctantly stepped inside the pen to coax out its occupant. He disappeared briefly from view, but Alfred could hear him cajoling the beast. Get out there, go on. Go on! The Archbishop is waiting! Don’t you dare embarrass me or I’ll see you gutted!

Alfred blinked in puzzlement as another man now emerged from within the pen. Stripped to the waist, bare-footed, rib-thin and pale, he looked as though he had not eaten in days. The apprentice was behind him, shoving him in the back to spur him toward the center of the yard.

Alfred turned to Aethelred. “What is this?”

“A breakthrough,” replied the Archbishop.

Alfred looked back at the half-naked man, and now he recognized the signs: the emaciation, the faraway look, the whip scars across his back. The leggings were those worn by his own infantrymen. The man was a captured deserter, one of many who routinely languished in the castle’s stockade. Desertions had risen lately, particularly here at Winchester, as men increasingly decided they would rather take their chances on the run than risk being assigned to yard duty under Aethelred and be subjected to the same nightmares that had traumatized so many of their comrades.

“Explain this now,” Alfred demanded.

“I have observed that transformation greatly diminishes the base subject’s cognitive faculty,” said Aethelred. “A dumb animal, even a well-trained one, cannot retain enough intelligence to recognize even basic commands. But a man . . . a man can survive the process with intelligence to spare. Enough, I believe, to be reliably controlled.”

Alfred’s face turned a paler shade as he stared at Aethelred, aghast. “You cannot be serious.”

“Our mistake was using animals to begin with,” said Aethelred. “We learned much that was useful, but this practice was never intended for use on the lower forms of life. I am sure of that now.”  

Alfred glowered at Aethelred sternly. “I will not permit this.”

“Sire, must I remind you of what is at stake here? The godless barbarians in the Danelaw have been growing in strength, waiting for their moment to launch a fresh attack upon us. With Guthrum dead or dying, that moment will surely come soon. We must use every means at our disposal to defend this realm and our faith, or risk seeing them both destroyed by a race of heathen savages.”

 “I was uncomfortable enough with you experimenting on beasts,” said Alfred. “I will not abide this . . . this witchcraft to be practiced upon men!”

Aethelred raised an eyebrow. “Witchcraft? Your Majesty, this is the very farthest thing from it. The discovery of the scrolls was no accident. It was a gift from God Himself. He favors us with this knowledge—this power—and intends for us to use it. He has seen the crimes these Danish heretics have perpetrated against His Church. Monasteries razed to the ground, holy relics destroyed, good men of cloth put to the stake and burned. Theirs is a war against God Himself, and so He has blessed us with the means to smite them in His name.”

“The God I believe in would never mean for such blasphemies to walk upon His earth,” said Alfred. “Whatever the origin of those scrolls, this cannot be their purpose.” He had by now grown tired of his word being challenged by this impertinent priest. He turned to the pikemen standing nearby, gesturing to the ragged prisoner standing in the center of the yard. “Send this man back to the stockade. And see that he gets a hot meal.”

As the pikemen moved to take the prisoner away, Aethelred drew back his arms, fingers oddly contorted, and began an incantation, reciting the words quickly. He had become well practiced in them, more than proficient enough to say all that was needed in just a few moments. Alfred was fast to realize what Aethelred was doing, but not fast enough. “Stop him!” he shouted at the guards closest to him, who now moved quickly toward the Archbishop. But Alfred could see that the prisoner’s body was already contorting, wracked by a sudden onset of painful convulsions. Aethelred completed the incantation just as the guards seized him by the arms. He did not resist, his eyes locked on his subject, now doubled over in agony. The poor man’s eyes bulged as though they might burst, and he opened his mouth wide, letting out a tortured scream.

Alfred hurried to Aethelred and grabbed him by the collar. The deserter was on his knees now, arms folded tight around his midsection as he stared blindly at the ground, apparently trying to cough up some- thing caught in his throat.

“Undo it now!” the King commanded.

“I cannot,” answered Aethelred, as he watched his stricken subject with fascination. “It must take its course.”

Helpless, Alfred looked back at the prisoner. All eyes in the yard were on that man now. He had fallen onto his side, convulsing, legs kicking wildly in the dirt as he clawed at himself. His fingernails drew blood as he raked them across his chest and neck, as though trying to crawl out from inside of his own fevered skin.

And then he did exactly that. His ribcage swelled against his chest and burst clean through it like the points of a dozen bone swords. One of the fire-dousers dropped his bucket of water and fled, the others backing away in horror as the prisoner’s entire torso seemed to turn itself inside out. He wailed in agony, his organs spilling out onto the dirt as some dark wet thing now emerged in their place. And then the rest of him began to split open and come apart, the skin of his arms, legs, and head tearing and peeling away as pulsating, bloody shapes sprouted from within.

Alfred stared at the thing that just moments ago had been a human man. It reared up on what were now its new hind legs as a half-dozen tentacled appendages slithered and unfurled, feeling around at the ground beneath them, a newborn finding its surroundings. The man no longer had a head, but instead a tangled cluster of long, saliva-coated tongues protruding from the stump where his head had once been. They licked and lashed around the beast’s shoulders, which were now covered by some kind of armored bone plating. What little was still recognizable as a man hung limp around the creature’s misshapen waist, a macabre belt of flayed human skin.

The beast lumbered forward and made a sound not of this world, a dreadful, tormented howl. On hearing it Alfred felt as though an ice- cold stone was growing in the pit of his stomach. “Kill it,” he cried out. “For God’s sake, kill it!”

Several guardsmen moved to surround the abominable creature, pikes thrusting outward to hold it at bay. It roared at the provocation and lashed out with a tentacle that wrapped around the staff of the closest pike and pulled it inward, bringing the pikeman along with it. Before he could retreat, the tentacle coiled around his waist and squeezed, crushing the man’s ribs. He let out a strangled, gurgling cry, muffled as another fat, wet tentacle wrapped around his face before tearing his head from his body. Blood spewed from the pikeman’s neck as the beast tossed his lifeless body aside. His head was given to the tongues, which grasped at it and pulled it down inside the monster’s neck, swallowing it greedily like a mother bird feeding its young.

The other pikemen were stabbing at it now, giving their all to kill it. But this was not like the pig-thing, or any of the other creatures Aethelred had conjured before. This one was heavily armored, and the pike-heads merely glanced off its thick hide.

The beast whirled around and took another man, this time with a boned claw that skewered clean through his chest and out his back. He slid backward and fell, dead before he hit the ground, as the remainder of them tried ever more desperately to at least wound the thing. A third pikeman was grabbed around the ankle and flung across the yard with such force that Alfred heard the man’s bones break when he hit the stone wall. Five men still surrounded the beast, but it was still unhurt, and only becoming more enraged.

“Let me stop it!” Aethelred cried. “Before it kills us all!”

Alfred was loathe to let the man free even for a moment, but he knew he must act quickly, and had few other options. He nodded to the guards to release him. Shrugging free of their grip, Aethelred quickly raised his hands in his contorted sorcerer’s grip and shouted a command that neither Alfred nor any man present could understand, though they all recognized it as the same arcane language he used in his incantations.

The beast stopped instantly. It had two men cornered and would surely have killed them both within moments, but instead it turned to face Aethelred, suddenly subdued and docile. Aethelred spoke in the strange tongue again and the beast approached, seemingly compliant. As it shambled toward the Archbishop, Alfred and the other men standing nearby took a cautious step back, but Aethelred raised a hand to reassure them. “It is all right,” he said. “It will not harm anyone else—unless I command it to. It is perfectly under my control, of no danger to us or our troops in battle. But set against the Danish horde . . . a very different matter.”

The beast stood at least seven feet tall and towered over Aethelred, and yet he showed no fear of it. Alfred stiffened as the Archbishop reached out and petted the horrendous creature with all the affection that one might show for a beloved pet. In response, the beast let out a miserable whimper. To any sane man, the sight of this vile, wretched thing would inspire a combination of fear, pity, and disgust. Alfred saw the way Aethelred looked at it in admiration, and he knew: he has gone mad.

Aethelred was so besotted with his creation that he did not notice that the pikemen had now regrouped and were taking position behind the beast. With a nod, Alfred gave them the order they were waiting for. They lunged as one, driving their blades hard into the creature’s back, finding the tender muscle and flesh between its thick plates of bone. The beast let out a hideous screech and sank to the ground as its limbs gave way beneath it. Before it could recover, the pikemen were climbing up onto its back to stab it again and again, driving their pikes deep. Aethelred protested for them to stop, but none were listening. The beast finally slumped forward onto its belly, its tongues thrashing like rattlesnake tails for a moment longer. And then, at last, it was dead.

More pikemen rushed into the yard, attracted by all the screaming and commotion. Alfred knew immediately how to direct them, pointing to Aethelred. “Take this man and place him in the tower under guard,” he ordered. The pikemen quickly surrounded the Archbishop, taking him firmly by each arm.

“You did not need to kill it,” said Aethelred, still thinking more about his precious experiment than the four men who now lay dead. “There was much we could have learned from it.” 

Alfred marched forward to confront him, barely able to contain his fury. “I have learned all I needed to today. I learned that I have allowed these experiments of yours to go much too far. Well now I am putting an end to it. To all of it!”

“And discard all the progress we have made here?” Aethelred protested. “This was my most successful subject yet. If you will only hear me out—”

“Nothing you can offer could possibly justify this atrocity!” Alfred bellowed, red with rage. “How many others have there been? How many men did you mutilate before this poor bastard here?”

 “None that you would not have put to death anyway,” said Aethelred. “All came from the lists of condemned men.”

 “I would never condemn any man to such a fate as this! I tolerated this foul enterprise only because of your assurance that it would allow us to wage war without spilling the blood of Englishmen!”

 “Sire, one man transformed is worth twenty of any other! In strength, in resilience, in aggression! See here what this single one did, and imagine the havoc that a hundred such beasts could wreak upon our enemies! A mere hundred, compared to the thousands we might lose in a conventional battle.”

Alfred’s tone lowered but remained no less resolute. “I will not suffer this curse to be put upon even one more man, be they condemned or not.”

“The transformation need not be permanent,” offered Aethelred. “I assure you that, given more time, I can also find a way to reverse the effect, to restore them to their original form when they return from battle.”

 With a heavy sigh, Alfred rubbed his brow. “I’ve had about as many of your assurances as I can take. Guards, see the Archbishop to the tower. There he will stay, until I decide what to do with him.”

The pikemen marched Aethelred away, leaving Alfred to survey the carnage in the yard before him. He shook his head and walked away, cursing himself for being so foolish as to believe that this could ever have come to any good.

It was Barrick and Harding, the two largest and least obliging of Alfred’s jailors, who had been given the task of taking Aethelred to the tower and guarding him there. They marched him roughly up the stone steps of the spiral staircase, torchlight flickering on the walls as Barrick unlocked the heavy oak door to the solitary cell atop the tower and Harding tossed the Archbishop inside. He landed in a pile of dank straw and barely had time to right himself before the door slammed closed again and he heard the key turn in the lock.

He dusted himself off and straightened his robe. For a moment he just sat there, listening to the idle chatter of the two guards who now stood post outside. And in the pale sunlight shafting through the cell’s narrow slot of a window, a smile could be seen to play across his lips. Alfred is even more blind than I thought, he delighted in thinking to himself. After all that he has seen, he actually thinks that he can cage me.

Alfred had convened his ealdormen and other senior counselors in the war room. All by now had heard of the slaughter in the yard; some had seen it for themselves. Though months ago they had all voted to explore Aethelred’s proposal, like Alfred, they had grown increasingly uneasy with where it was leading them. Today’s events had been the final straw. None of them needed convincing that it was time for this ill-advised episode to be brought to a close; Alfred had already ordered all record of it destroyed, including the accursed scrolls that had begun it all. The only question now was what to do with the Archbishop of Canterbury himself.

“He is finished as Archbishop, and in the church. That much is certain,” the King declared to unanimous nods of approval. “The senior clergy will not dispute it. Many of them were also uncomfortable with what Aethelred was doing here. For that, I will apologize and ask them to put forward a successor of their choosing.”

“What, though, is to be his fate beyond ex-communication?” asked Cromwell, one of Alfred’s high reeves and a trusted military advisor. “Is he to be charged with a crime? Is there to be a trial?”

“If Aethelred is guilty of a crime then I am equally as guilty for condoning it this long,” Alfred said. “And a public trial of such a . . . bizarre nature would only spread superstition and fear throughout the kingdom.”

There was a long pause before anyone spoke again. It was Chiswick, another of Alfred’s war counselors. His special responsibility was to manage the army’s apparatus of spies and subterfuge, and as such he could often be relied upon to suggest unconventional solutions to difficult problems.

“Perhaps, then . . . an accident?”

 Alfred and all the others looked at him.

“It is well known from here to Canterbury that the Archbishop was engaged in some dangerous work, though not the exact nature of it,” Chiswick went on. “Perhaps he simply died in faithful service to his church and his king. Aethelred is largely unloved. I doubt many would pry too hard into the truth of things.”

All now looked to Alfred, who was disquieted by the notion. “I have love for the man least of all, but to simply execute him . . .”

Chiswick leaned forward. “It seems to me your options are few, Your Majesty. He cannot continue as Archbishop, and a trial, as you rightly say, would be a catastrophe. And he certainly cannot be simply set free; this dark knowledge he possesses makes him far too dangerous.”

A cold shiver ran down Alfred’s backbone as he realized, Yes it does, doesn’t it? How could I have been so stupid? He turned to the guard captain standing nearby, a sudden urgency in his tone. “Triple the guard on the tower! And I want the Archbishop gagged and his hands bound! Do it now!”

The four guards raced up the tower steps. One of them carried a length of strong rope and a balled-up cloth for the gag. They did not understand the orders their captain had given them, but there was no question about their urgency. They took the steps three at a time, fast as they could manage.

They arrived at the top of the stairs to find the cell door at the end of the short hallway hanging half off its hinges, wide open. It looked as though it had been beaten down with bare hands, its heavy oak beams splintered and smeared with blood. But that was impossible; no ten men could break down that door. Stranger still, it looked as though it had been broken into from the outside.

They approached gingerly, swords drawn, calling out the names of Barrick and Harding but getting no response. The torch that lit the hallway had been broken free of its iron housing and lay on the floor, flickering. The frontmost guard picked it up and held it before him, trying to cast some light inside the darkened cell as he arrived at the doorway.

He felt something warm and wet encircle his arm, causing him to drop the torch in shock—and suddenly he was being pulled forward. The other three guards jolted back as the man disappeared before them, yanked into the darkness of the cell. And then the screaming began, the elongated shadows of thrashing limbs cast on the wall by the torchlight on the floor.

For a moment, silence. The three men still outside the cell had their swords drawn now but dared not venture any farther, their hearts pounding in their chests. And then the guard who had been pulled inside fell forward out of the darkness and collapsed to the floor, blood pooling out from a broad gash across his neck, so deep that his head hung off to the side, askew.

Barrick emerged from the darkness behind him. Or what had once been Barrick. Now he—it—was some kind of wolf-like monstrosity, its sinewy body covered in gray, matted fur. It walked on its hind legs, with four more limbs to spare—long, muscular arms with great razor-clawed hands. Drool escaped from its mouth to the floor as it bared its rows of yellowing fangs.

What-was-once-Harding slithered out from behind the wolf-thing and up onto the wall. Some kind of giant two-headed lizard, its leathery skin was covered with sharp, bristling spines, its clubbed tail swishing lazily back and forth as it moved toward the three guardsmen to examine them. One of them panicked and foolishly lunged forward, taking a swing at it with his sword. The lizard easily dodged the blow then responded by spitting a gob of sputum that burned like acid through the man’s breastplate. He dropped his sword, screaming, trying desperately to unbuckle his armor; but before he could unfasten even one strap, the acid was burning through his flesh. He collapsed to the ground, writhing helplessly, his screams permeating the room.

The two remaining guardsmen looked at their fallen friend in horror as Aethelred stepped out from inside the cell. He smiled.

“Drop your swords, and you have my word that you will not die here today.”

They did as he commanded. Aethelred raised his hands and began to recite the words he had spent months perfecting, looking into the eyes of the two men before him.

And within moments, they were his as well.

Next Chapter: Chapter 3