I froze, barely, willfully, incrementally. Sir Alaric’s face was purple.
I shoved him back.
Rubbing his neck, rasping breaths, eyes bulging and teeth bared anew, Sir Alaric tottered for his fallen sword.
I laid a hand to his shoulder, “Quiet—” and he swatted my hand and belted me. His hooking fist crashed off my temple, and I should’ve dropped but didn’t, so I struck back, a quick right cross to the chin, dropping him solid.
“What in the Lord’s name—” Stephan hissed, catching the old man, cradling him comatose to the floor.
“Shit…” I rubbed my knuckles.
The Grey-Lady cast the carcass aside and sprang like a hell-cat at Lazarus. Pike lowered, another scourger stepped in, catching her through the midsection, skewering her through and through. It barely slowed her. Up the pike, she clambered, hand over hand, nails biting into wood, pulling it through her, scrabbling toward the beleaguered scourger, still holding on, too scared, too shocked, too frozen to let go as the Grey-Lady’s clawed hand buried into his mouth, grabbing his chin, rip-twisting it to shard.
“Fiend!” Lazarus lashed out.
Others barrel-assed in, jabbing with pikes. Lazarus raised his lash and brought it down across the she-demon’s back. Her neck. Her head. Grimacing pink, she dodged a lash and lunged forth quick as an asp, wood splintering, pike-heads snapping off, taking Lazarus in the chest and off his feet, pinning him to the mud by his throat.
“Easy, Red.” Stephan covered Sir Alaric’s gibbering mouth. “Shh… Easy. Relax—”
“Please—” Sir Alaric gurgled.
“Quiet.” I pinned him down.
“Brother,” Stephan reached out reflexively, “ease up.”
“Then keep him fucking quiet.” I let go and Sir Alaric gasped.
Stephan spoke low in his ear, Sir Alaric’s eyes welling, wide, far-seeing.
“Sister!” boomed a voice from beyond the torchlight. From the serpent of torch-fire winding up the road, the Nazarene strode forth, a massive crucifix borne across his broad shoulders. “Release him!”
The Grey-Lady froze, poised like a hunted lioness, glaring back. Viscera dangled from a wound in her abdomen, fouling what was left of the tattered rags that once upon a time had been a noble woman’s finery.
“Jesus Christ—” I sheathed Yolanda, unslung my crossbow.
Stephan glared up. “What?”
I shoved a foot in the crossbow’s stirrup and drew the string back. “Show’s on.”
“Her end is foregone.” Stephan stared off in horror. “There’ll be no final acts of mercy.”
“Ain’t jawing about her.” I set a bolt in the crossbow’s groove. It was a flesh arrow, wide and barbed and merciless sharp. There’d be no digging the fucker free.
“A pyre, my brothers!” the Nazarene bellowed into the night. “Raise it high!”
The scourgers set about bashing in the windows and doors of the cottage across the street, flinging in torch after torch after torch. Black smoke began boiling from its guts.
“Lad?” Karl crept down the staircase, his eyes narrowing on Sir Alaric.
“Having a fit or something. Don’t know.” I nodded toward the kitchen. “Watch the back. Keep it clear.”
Karl gripped his thane-axe. “Aye.”
“Release him!” the Nazarene boomed, the flame behind him mounting. “Release him, and I shall release you!”
The chant changed, morphing to something lower, harsher, darker.
The Grey-Lady half-stood, poised as though in confusion, eyes glimmering the color of a waning moon, a line of liquid crimson wobbling from her ragged maw. Lazarus scurried free from her distracted grasp.
“Good! Come now, sister!” The Nazarene shrugged the cross off his shoulders, thudding to the ground, and beckoned with arms wide-open as the world. “And I shall shrive thee.”
The scourger horde deformed, parting in schism, fissuring open like a gangrenous wound all the way to the Nazarene. Taking a tentative half-step, as though drawn by unseen shackles, she twitched a giggle, letting loose a sad lonely peal that silenced the night all but for the crackle of flame.
I swiped detritus off the sill, laid my crossbow across it, steadying her, waiting for the open shot.
“Red?” Stephan whispered behind. “Can you hear me? Can you move?”
Sir Alaric groaned.
“Drag his arse out.” I was close enough for a clean shot, but far enough that the ensuing foot race might not be a foregone conclusion.
Sir Alaric rolled over to his knees at the wall, the window, shaking, sobbing. “Please…” He laid a hand to my shoulder.
“Get him out of here.” I shrugged free, took aim.
He pawed at me again, and I shoved him back.
“Please,” he moaned, “l-let her be.”
“Ain’t her I’m aiming for, Red.”
“Brother—” Stephan turned.
“You didn’t have to come.” I scowled. Turned. Aimed. Forced my breathing slow. “I told you not to come.”
A screech, a scream, and the Grey-Lady tore on as though compelled, staggering along through the gauntlet, pounding barefoot across dirt and grit, down its gullet, each scourger taking a rip at her, slashing across her back, her head, her legs. She stumbled, splashing into the muck, black fingers clawing furrows.
“Rise!” The Nazarene stood silhouetted against the mounting blaze, smoking like some hellfire devil. “Shrive thyself of sins, sister!”
The Grey-Lady moaned and wailed, her voice changing somehow. “Please,” she cried, “I beg of you, no—”
“Absolution is at hand!”
My fingertips touched the trigger. I took a deep breath and lined up the fat bastard, feeling my heartbeat through palm and fingertip, pulsing, bobbing the weapon ever so gently to the rhythm of my empty heart.
“You don’t have to do this,” Stephan said.
“Pain shall be your succor!” Arms outstretched like Christ on the cross. A perfect target. ‘X’ marks the spot. “Your salvation!”
I squeezed the trigger, “Fucker—!” then released it, stopping shy as sky-scraping Lazarus lurched from the line, blocking my shot.
Skeletal death himself, Lazarus snatched the Grey-Lady by a fistful of hair and yanked her squealing to her feet, casting her stumbling down the line, scourges cracking, flaying, spraying blood and flesh in her wake as the Nazarene engulfed her in his vast embrace. Skin split upon his broad shoulders, scorched black with lightning crackles of raw pink as he hoisted her high.
Feet kicking, she struggled and wailed and sobbed.
“Come with me, sister!” The Nazarene stepped back towards the flames. “Walk with me a while. Let me show you the light!”
“No—!” Sir Alaric clambered for the front door, but Stephan collared him, clamping a hand across his mouth, wrestling him back.
I lowered the crossbow. “What in the hells…?”
Flames licked over the Nazarene’s shoulders, scorching black tendrils licking blistered skin, grasping, caressing, blackening, burning. Her legs kicked and kicked, but the Nazarene’s vast girth held her fast and bore them both step by step back towards Hell. Whatever’d happened, to make her do what she’d done, be what she’d been, in that last moment, with the moon-glow caul over her eyes shorn lucid-clear, she was human once more. I knew it for truth because it was so awful. So unthinkable. And something so awful and unthinkable couldn’t help but be true.
As the flames poured out like wyrm’s breath, the Nazarene hurled her forth into blazing hell, and she screamed black bloody-murder.
I didn’t blame her.
…that a melee broke out in the midst of the gathering. Hochmeister Gaunt, a giant of a man versus Arboleth, no less keen a weapon for his gray hame, came to blows before a great bale-fire. It seemed some sort of biblical battle of Jacob versus Esau, Gilgamesh versus Enkidu, the Archangel Michael versus…
—War-Journal of Prince Ulrich of Haeskenburg
&nbs
p; Chapter 30.
SIR ALARIC WAS THREE SHEETS to the wind and dragging anchor across rocky shoals. At best. It was plain even in the gloom of the Half-King. Scrunched up against his table, his head rose, rheumy eyes squinting. “Huh?” He reached for his sword, found only empty scabbard, settled back when he saw it was me. “How’d you find me?”
“Wasn’t hard.” I eased the door shut. “Just followed the scent of impotence, desperation, and bitter disappointment.” I held two fingers up to Sweet Billie, toiling away behind the bar.
“An alluring scent.” Sir Alaric rubbed one eye. “Familiar with it?”
“Intimately.” I shook the wet from my cloak, folded it aside, took a seat. “Ask me about my wedding night sometime I’m drunker than you.”
“Hrrm… Unlikely to be anytime soon.” He chuffed a laugh, muttered to himself, took a swig of wine.
“How’s the jaw?” It was swollen a purplish-red.
He worked his jaw back and forth. “Clicks a bit.”
“Sorry about that.” I nodded thanks to Louisa as she set a couple of flagons down. “You look like shit.”
“Thanks.” He grimaced. “You don’t look much better.”
“Don’t want to outshine the boss.”
“Aye and for sure.” Sir Alaric held his bottle out to me. “Here.”
“Straight from the bottle?” I raised an eyebrow.
“The one great relief. Take a few pulls, I’ll look grand as Saint Peter.”
“Total bullshit, I’d imagine,” I wiped the mouth of the bottle, “but just to be safe,” I took a swig, swished, sloshed, swallowed, “cause I heard Saint Peter’s an easy ten.”
Sir Alaric grinned, his beard scraggly, nose purple-dark, eyes fighting for focus. “Better?”
I laid a hand to my heart, “Marry me.”
“Already spoken for.” Sir Alaric snatched back the bottle. “Besides … heard yer wedding night tactics need some work.”
“A bloody lie.” I puffed up my chest then deflated. “Ain’t just wedding nights.”
“Not overly,” he burped, “excuse me, reassuring.”
“Consistency should count for something.”
Sir Alaric looked set to keel over. “What’d I tell you the first day I saw you?”
“Well,” I screwed my eyes shut, “that was quite a while back.”
“Oooo…” Sir Alaric stretched out a leg. “Getting old.”
“You were reminiscing about my Uncle Charles. The good old days.”
“Nay. Piss on the good old days.” He wiped a hand down his face. “I damned-well told you to ship back out.” He sneered down, shaking his head, a palsied dog. “But you didn’t listen. She didn’t listen. No one ever listens…” He shook his head to himself. “But then, I’m an old geezer now and ain’t that the truth? By the hound, I still feel like a lad of eighteen summers in here.” He tapped his temple. “Just every time I wake in the morning, try to move, take a piss, a shit … I remember it then. Remember it hard.” His hand balled into a fist. “Did ya think I was jesting?”
“Wasn’t sure, I suppose.” I shrugged. “Didn’t have much choice either way.”
“How about now?”
“Soon. Ulysses is near done.”
“Aye,” was all he said.
I took a pull on my ale. “How’s the stock at the Schloss?”
“Near gone.”
I took a breath. “Gonna get rough.”
“Ain’t rough already?”
“Long as you’re drawing breath, can always get rougher.”
“Aye, and for sure, words to live by.” Sir Alaric slumped. “Words to die by…”
“Amen.” I stared off into the hearth. “Red, what the hell’s going on?”
“Can you hand me my pipe?”
I slid it across. “Mixing poisons?”
“I’ll get lucky one of these days.” His veiny hands trembled as he tamped pipe-weed in. “Choose the right combination.”
“What happened last night?”
Sir Alaric lit his pipe. “What do you mean?”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I hissed. “I mean the woman. The Grey-Lady, for God’s sake.”
Sir Alaric’s closed his eyes. “Don’t want to talk about her.”
I throttled my hand into a fist. “What about you, then? Losing your shit?”
He shook his head, took a drink.
“Rudiger then,” I said. “He was fair spry for a fella stabbed clean through the gut.”
“Well, we’re a sturdy folk, these parts.”
“And his teeth? Her teeth. They look normal to you?” I slapped the table. “Jesus! The bite marks on Brown Cloak? You putting any of this together?”
Sir Alaric flinched at the slap.
“They say you caught him before.”
He straightened at that. “Err … who?”
“Rudiger.”
“Wha—?” Sir Alaric scowled. “Who says?”
“Fella insistent on secrecy. Said it was last summer. Said he went by Crennick then. A child-murderer. Little girl from the mills. Shit. What was her name? Louise? No. Elouise. Yeah. Ring any bells?”
“We’re a sturdy folk, aye, but all a bunch of liars, don’t you ken that?”
“Sure. And then some, but why lie about this?”
“Who the hell knows?”
“Well…?” I asked. “Is it true?”
“How can it be?”
“The King going soft on crime? Maybe he branded this Crennick or Rudiger instead of execution? I don’t know. Or maybe banished him and he returned?”
“Banished? Heh. Wish he’d banished me.”
“You didn’t recognize him?”
“It was dark down there.” Sir Alaric took a drink, wiped his mouth. “At the mill, too. And both times it happened so fast I didn’t get a square look. Coulda been my own father and I’d not have known him.”
“If you’re done?” I snatched back the wine.
“Go on.” He shrugged. “I hate wine.”
“Yeah, me, too.” I bent the bottle back. There was naught but a trickle. “More folk disappearing all the time. Some last night. Back up at the old keep. You hear that?”
“Aye, and for sure.” Sir Alaric waved a lazy hand. “Can’t do nothing about it, but I heard.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, how’s anyone to know where folk are going? Disappearing each day? Could be leaving of their own accord. Hop the wall. Sally forth out the gates. Head off to the other camps. Or going back to their homes. Squatting. Or what have you.”
“Dangerous here, too.”
“You got me.” Sir Alaric shook an imaginary pair of dice, blew smoke across them, and rolled. “Why they call the game of dicing hazard, lad. There’s hazards everywhere. And if there is some heavenly spot shorn all free of danger, I bet you it’s still cold and wet. And there ain’t no food. And somewhere, out there, plague’s waiting on fuming in.”
“You forgetting some of the disappeared folk, your folk, reappeared?” I asked. “Parts of them, anyways? Cause even if you forgot, I keep getting keen reminders in the form of abattoirs in unexpected places.”
“Well, I am old.”
“But not fucking blind.”
“All the same.” Sir Alaric reached into his shirt and withdrew a paper. “Here.”
I took it, glanced it over. King Eckhardt’s seal held it shut. “What is it?”
“You’re a real educated bastard, ain’t ya? Can read and write and all? You tell me.”
“I’d rather hear it from you.”
“King wants you taking over lead as justiciar.”
“Me…?”
“You’re a mite slow for an educated fuck, ain’t ya?”
I straightened. “I don’t want it.”
“He’s the King,” Sir Alaric drained the last of the bottle, “he don’t give two shits about what you want.”
…did not take long for war-madness to infect the rest of the two par
ties.
Monstrous fiends against the flower of Haeskenburg’s nobility and the Teutonic Knighthood’s most able…
—War-Journal of Prince Ulrich of Haeskenburg
Chapter 31.
KING ECKHARDT’S WARDROOM was a dank hole on the third floor of the Schloss. The rafters sagged and water dripped even though it’d stopped raining hours past. The smell of mold and decay hung thick, cloying in the air. We stood huddled around a small table, King Eckhardt at its head. Sir Alaric was in attendance, physically at least, as were Prince Eventine, Sir Gustav, Father Gregorius, and von Madbury.
“And so yet again, you failed to bring my father the head you promised,” Prince Eventine sniffed, fighting off a glance to the man sitting to his left. But I caught it. Von Madbury, naturally.
“It ain’t baking a cake, kid,” I said.
“I’m no child.” Prince Eventine drew up. “I am a prince of the blood, heir apparent, and you shall refer to me as such.”
“Don’t make me throw you over my knee,” I deadpanned, meaning every single word.
“Why I—” Prince Eventine gawped. “You could never—”
“Gentlemen!” King Eckhardt barked. “Please. Eventine. Enough. Sit. Everyone, by the book, sit.” He lowered his hands. “This news is troubling, to be sure. This Grey-Lady, you say? And Rudiger? Or Crennick, rather?”
“Take your pick.” I’d broached the Crennick conundrum in private with His Highest Majesty. And His Highest Majesty had admitted to recalling Crennick. His crime. His capture. His execution. He’d waved off the rest.
“You claim that he, that they were,” King Haesken struggled, “something more than human?”
“Something less, but yeah, that’s the gist.” I glanced Sir Alaric’s way for support.
Sir Alaric took a bored swig of something, glowered, grumbled into his cup.
I smacked the table, “Think you could maybe—”
King Eckhardt cut me off, “It seems likely to me that these two aberrants, for lack of a better term, must be some form of progeny of this blasted Nazarene. How else could they have survived such egregious wounds?” He turned to Father Gregorius. “Would it not seem so to you, Father?”
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