by Bobby Adair
“Besides the obvious family connection and the fact that Davenport was Ella Barrow’s home, why do you draw that conclusion?”
“Three other villagers were missing—two young boys and a girl, a cousin of Ella Barrow’s. I don’t like the coincidence of the matter. My belief is that Ella Barrow spirited her young cousin out of Davenport before we got there.”
“Did any of the residents of Davenport see Ella or her boy?”
“No,” Swan said. “We went to great lengths to convince them to tell us the truth of the matter. None, not even her aunt and uncle, would admit to seeing her. Either they are all strong people, or Ella made her way into the town and out again, collecting her cousin before anyone else had knowledge of her visit.”
Blackthorn nodded. “Your squadron is still in the field, searching for them?”
“They are,” Swan confirmed. “I brought five riders with me to report to you. I’ll return to my men as soon as you dismiss me.”
“Do you have any guess as to where Ella Barrow went?”
“We have obtained the services of a Warden who claims to be a good tracker. We are searching the area now, looking for a sign of their trail. With luck, we’ll pick it up. Short of that, we are purging the unsanctioned settlements in the area. None have yet provided information about Ella Barrow, but they are all in violation of our law by being out in the forest where the spore will turn them into twisted men. All so far have been slain and burned.”
“Good.” Blackthorn nodded again. “What of the traitorous Fathers Decker and Towson?”
“They have been sent to meet their God.”
Chapter 14: Ella
Ella stuck close to William and Bray as they followed the tracks. For the past few days, she’d been running or chased, subsisting on meager meals and very few hours of sleep. Her mind was rejuvenated by the prospect of survivors.
On the way to Davenport, she’d been driven by a destination, but now she had a new mission: to find the people who survived the ugly massacre. She prayed the people they were following were survivors, and not soldiers, Wardens, or someone else.
She prayed one of the survivors was Melora.
She kept a wary eye on the forest as they walked. Her mind conjured beasts in every direction, and she questioned everything she saw. She blinked away a few snowflakes that landed on her eyelashes.
William chatted excitedly with Bray, each new piece of evidence akin to cherished treasure for the hopeful boy. Broken branches were expensive metals; disturbed rocks were pieces of silver. Their pace was slower than before, but the mood had changed to optimism. The prospect of survivors gave them something to strive for, a goal where there had previously been none. It allowed Ella to forget the home she’d left behind, and that she and William were orphans of the wild.
Their mission kept her from dwelling on the horrors they’d seen.
They wove through miles of thick forest, navigating between tree trunks, over hills, and through ravines. The snow continued to fall through the trees. Several times, they backtracked when William or Bray was thrown off the trail, or when they questioned the origin of the tracks they were following. When they deviated, Bray always explained his reasoning and William absorbed the words. A few times, William provided an opposing view. To Ella’s surprise, Bray listened.
“You’re getting good at this,” Bray told William. “You might as well be a Warden.”
The boy kept his eyes rooted to the ground, but Ella saw him smile. They’d gone a few more miles when the tracks became impressions in the grass. Bray and William halted, pointing at the bent blades.
“Someone was hunched down, hiding in the tall grass,” Bray said, stroking his chin.
“There are more tracks!” William hissed excitedly, pointing next to them.
“These tracks aren’t from grown men,” Bray said. “Adolescents, maybe.”
“Teenagers?” Ella stared at the crushed leaves and grass, trying to visualize the people crouched there. Melora? Imagining her daughter was almost as difficult as imagining demons, before she’d seen one with her own eyes. Why had the survivors stopped? The impressions deepened her anxiety.
“Are they injured?” she asked, afraid of the answer.
Bray shook his head. “It looks like they stopped to rest. They got a little farther than us, probably because they have more energy. They haven’t been running for as many days as we have.”
“I don’t see any blood,” William affirmed. “I’ve been looking.”
Ella sighed and stared at the ground. Bray and William’s words made her feel better, but she longed for proof that someone was alive.
“Keep on the lookout for full boot prints,” Bray suggested. “That’ll give us more insight. The ground in this area was dry when they passed through it, but up ahead, there’s a stream. We might get lucky and find some clear boot impressions in the mud on the banks. I hate to say it, but if we got enough snow to cool the ground, it might collect instead of melting, making the tracking easy.”
“I hope so,” Ella whispered.
Her eyes grazed the ground, and she pictured her daughter resting there, hair long and black like Ella’s. The image brought tears to Ella’s eyes.
Until they caught up with the group, everything was speculation.
“Come on,” Bray said.
They continued for another mile. Soon, the rush of water tickled Ella’s ears, whispering promises of clues. Her heart pounded at the noise. When she squinted, she made out the stream through the trees. The foaming water curled around rocks, dividing the land in half. William darted ahead, leaving Bray and Ella behind.
“Get back here, William!” she called.
Bray chuckled. When she looked over, she caught him smiling.
“He’s adventurous,” Bray said. “Like I was, as a boy.”
“He needs to listen,” Ella countered. “It isn’t safe out here.”
She jogged ahead, closing the gap between her and William. Bray followed alongside her. They cleared the remaining trees, catching a glimpse of William kneeling by the bank of the stream. His neck was bent. He was staring intently at something. A second later he cried out and scooted away from the water.
“What is it, William?”
Ella’s heart leapt in her chest. She tore to his side and grabbed his arm, ready to protect him from whatever it was. She recoiled when she saw the source of his shock. A demon was floating in the water, caught in a cluster of rocks. Its eyes stared at the sky; its head bobbed with the current. Its lips were blue. It took her a moment to determine it was dead.
Bray lowered his sword.
“Is it drowned?” William asked the Warden.
“Yes.”
“I didn’t know they could drown,” William admitted. “I thought you had to kill them with a sword.”
“If they swallow enough water, they’ll die, same as you or me,” Bray said.
Ella stared at the creature, entranced by its movement on the water ripples. She kept her sword ready, as if the demon would somehow spring to life and clamber to shore. Its body was even more gruesome in death: wart-covered, bloated, and pale.
“It came from there,” William said, motioning further up the banks.
William scrambled to his feet. He kept walking. She noticed he was more cautious than he’d been moments earlier. She and Bray followed. They continued for a half a mile, until the trickle of the stream became a roar. The land sloped upward. Ella followed the contour of the land until she saw what was at the top.
A surge of water cascaded over the edge of a precipice.
Ella covered her mouth at the sight of the waterfall. The rushing water was both beautiful and dangerous. She’d heard stories of waterfalls, but she’d never seen one herself—neither in Davenport nor Brighton. Bray watched her reaction.
After a few more steps, William cried out. “Boot prints! Full ones!”
Bray and Ella ran alongside him and studied his findings. The prints were round and unmistakably human, but overlaid with the bare tracks of demons. Ella shuddered with fear.
“They’re being chased,” Bray concluded. “Three survivors, judging by the prints. And several demons.”
Ella considered the demon they’d seen in the water. Hopefully the other monsters had shared its fate. They pushed on, hiking up the bank, following the prints in the wet ground and the slippery moss. The tracks were scuffed and frantic. Midway up the incline, Bray stopped and pointed at the imprint of a hand.
William had already forged past it. Bray shouted his name, and the boy doubled back. They stared at the wet earth. Ella traced the outline of a palm, the indent of thin fingers in the mud.
It looked like a girl’s. Or maybe Ella just wanted to believe that. It could just as easily be a young boy’s.
Ella took the lead. She charged up the incline, as if the survivors might be waiting for them at the top. Her boots slipped in the wet soil. She sensed Bray and William behind her, following her closely. Her sword and her bag swung wildly, but she tore on, stopping only when she’d reached level ground.
The river’s current raged over the falls. Trees lined the bank, leaning out over the water. She scoured the shores, hoping to find survivors, demons, or any answers to her questions.
Please don’t let us find bodies.
But she found nothing, save more footprints to follow.
Ella continued at a frantic pace. Her pulse quickened. Each demon footprint was a reminder of the fate that might’ve met the survivors.
The fate that might’ve met Melora.
Chapter 15: Blackthorn
Blackthorn stood on the dais, looking out over rows of farmers, tailors, cobblers, and merchants too poor to buy themselves or their sons out of service to the militia. They stood in ragged rows in the square—six hundred men, drilling with axes, scythes, and swords, most weapons and tools that had been passed from father to son for generations. They followed commands with a sloppy laziness that exposed their true thoughts. They hated the drills. They believed they were a waste of time. Because of that, a day would come when the beasts would gather in tromping hordes and rush at the line of them. The militia’s petulant attitude toward their training would be paid for when that day came. It was only through training, commitment, and experience that men could be transformed from individual pig chasers into a solid, unbeatable mass. Sure, some would stand—a few warriors, brave of heart. But the rest would run. Many would even shed their weapons to lighten their load. It wouldn’t matter. They’d all die.
That was the point, wasn’t it?
They’d die, so that the lucky townsfolk who remained behind might live rather than starve. A sacrifice for the greater good.
Blackthorn’s only other hope was that, in the coming slaughter, enough would remember their training that their lives would be traded for a goodly number of beasts.
All of these men had been training since the day of their seventeenth birthday. Militia participation was compulsory. They all drilled for a solid week at least twice a year with their six-hundred-man cohort. Each cohort could be activated within half a day. That was the heart of the system that Blackthorn had instituted. After the last great demon war, he swore that the townships would never be at the mercy of a cavalry of too few men, and the wavering bravery of volunteer farmers.
Across the three townships and the twenty-seven villages—twenty-six villages, now that Davenport had been dealt with, thanks to Ella Barrow—twenty-two cohorts could be mustered, equaling thirteen thousand men. Add to that the eighteen hundred men in the city guards, and the elite of them all, the cavalry, and Blackthorn had over fifteen thousand men to take to war on the demon hordes.
Among thirty-five thousand women and children, that would leave a sparse two or three thousand adult men across the townships, none of whom could swing a blade. Or so they claimed. Blackthorn knew most of those were merchants, or sons of wealthy merchants who supported Blackthorn politically and financially, to avoid their military duty. The question for Blackthorn was how many of his precious cavalry, how many of the city guard, and how many of the militia he could leave behind, and still avert a famine for those who stayed.
To answer that question, Captain Tenbrook walked beside Minister Beck along the far edge of the square, Scholar Evan in tow. They were coming to deliver Tenbrook’s assessment of Beck’s famine prediction. They were coming to deliver the dire news of how many needed to die, so that the rest could live.
Blackthorn turned his attention back to his rows of militiamen and waited.
Chapter 16: Beck
Through a light flurry, under pillowy gray clouds, Beck walked into the square. Lines of militiamen stood rigidly at attention. He turned to Tenbrook. “This isn’t the time of year for drills. These men should be all in the field, harvesting what they can before the early freeze.”
Shaking his head, Tenbrook said, “Superstition wins.”
“They still don’t believe they can harvest until the full moon, despite the snow?” Beck asked, rhetorically. He snorted. “Ignorance will kill us all.”
“It’s what they believe,” offered Tenbrook.
“Will General Blackthorn do nothing to force them?”
“Though most of us would like to believe otherwise, General Blackthorn’s power is not absolute.”
Beck shook his head and looked back to Evan. “How pervasive is this devotion to superstition?”
Evan’s face turned thoughtful. “Interestingly, Novice Franklin came to me with a similar question.”
“And?” Beck asked, irritated to have to ask twice.
“I don’t have a full answer yet. It’s not as black and white as it seems. May I provide you with some conclusions in a day or two?”
Beck frowned and looked back at Tenbrook.
Tenbrook took the opportunity to switch topics. “While I was sitting with Scholar Evan this morning, he spoke of his ideas about mortality rates and population levels.”
“Oh?”
“Yes, due to punitive measures taken to enforce our laws.”
Beck glanced harshly at Evan. He’d have preferred not to have this discussion with any of Blackthorn’s lackeys. It was on the table, though, so it made no sense to avoid it. He stopped walking and turned to Tenbrook. “Evan told you how excess executions in one generation leads to smaller populations in subsequent generations?”
“Yes.”
“What about that do you question?”
Tenbrook looked at Evan and said, “My understanding is that, if not for the excess executions, we’d have more people alive to fight off any demon horde that might come before our walls. At least, according to your scholar, here.”
Scholar Evan stood quietly, hands at his sides.
“Yes,” Beck said, nodding. “It follows that more people will give us all a greater chance for survival during a war.”
“Yet, we face famine,” said Tenbrook. “We can’t feed the people we have. It seems the executions have been good for us. If not for them, famine would have come to our doorstep many years ago.”
Beck hadn’t thought of the two contradictory problems in that light. Perhaps this Tenbrook was smarter than he’d given him credit for. He looked at Evan. “What are your thoughts?”
“It would have made no difference,” Evan answered.
“How is that possible?” Tenbrook scoffed.
Evan looked at Beck, waiting for permission to speak. Beck nodded.
“You see,” Beck began, “if a thousand more people were alive right now, some would be soldiers, some would be merchants, and some would be farmers. More farmers produce more food. It is simply a questi
on of proportion. We would still face the problem we face, only we would have more people to face it with.”
Shaking his head, Tenbrook said, “Why do we face this problem now, after three hundred years? What has changed?”
Beck cut in, “As well-read as you are, you know this isn’t the first time we have faced famine.”
“No,” answered Tenbrook, “but on the other occasions, there was some proximate cause, was there not? One time an infestation of rats ate through the grain stores. One time a demon horde came over the wall in winter and ruined our supplies. There has always been some specific event. True?”
Beck nodded. It was true.
“The only proximate event we have is the weather.” Tenbrook held out his hand, letting a snowflake alight his palm. “We have always had weather fluctuations. Why is this cycle so different?”
“Proportion is the proximate cause,” Evan answered. “After the last great demon war, General Blackthorn reprioritized military service. My belief is that an unintended consequence of this was a larger clergy class to shepherd the souls of men whose consciences were not hardened for war. It also resulted in a more influential and larger merchant class as a support system for the general’s militarization.”
“Please explain further,” Beck told him.
“Yes,” Tenbrook agreed.
Evan rubbed his palms together, a nervous habit that preceded something he’d rather not say.
“You opened this line of questioning,” Beck told him, “Out with it, man.”
Evan looked at the ground, “Let me start with a hypothetical. Suppose you have a lone village of a hundred men, women and children—twenty-five men, twenty-five women, and fifty children of various ages.”
“Roughly the proportional mix of our population, right?” Tenbrook asked.
“Roughly,” Evan confirmed. “The children do what they do. They help with the chores. They eat. They play. Some learn, but most don’t. The women tend to the children, prepare the meals, assist in the fields, and see to the needs of their men. The men are the farmers or soldiers or merchants.” Evan looked at each of the other two.