[Demonworld #4] Shepherd of Wolves

by Kyle B. Stiff

  “No,” said Zach. “They have everything that any human could ever want… but they’re too soft to use their power to make the world a better place.”

  Virgil nodded slowly. “We’re not doing so well. You know, Wodan might end up being our best hope yet.”

  “No,” Edwar’s voice cut them off. “He’s not our best hope.” The two turned and saw him staring at them through the darkness. “Please meet with me and Fortunata. We have something we need to discuss.” He left them, and the two exchanged a look.

  Many men formed a loose circle on the deck and Fortunata, the former Ugly prostitute who escaped Pontius with Edwar, sat before them. Her face was very hard and regal, full of experience and a sort of worn beauty. Edwar sat near her side. When all were still, she spoke.

  “Gentlemen, we have had no luck in gathering reinforcements. Soon, we will meet up with envoys sent to Greeley. Knowing that they have the devil at their door, they will have no one available to help us. Without reinforcements, Pontius will fall. I have seen the invading horde, just as most of you have, and I say again that without reinforcements, Pontius will fall. You all know it as well as I.

  “I left Pontius once before. I did it to save my soul. Now, I propose that we leave it again, so that we can save our very lives.”

  There was great commotion among the soldiers and Virgil shouted something lost in the din, but Fortunata raised her hand and eventually they grew calm once again.

  “The invaders intent on the destruction of Pontius are not even the worst of our troubles. Demons are forming into armies, and against them no human nation can stand. Pontius is only the first; civilization itself will fall. I propose that all of us start our own colony, hidden somewhere, far from the eyes of demons and men. We will not survive past our generation. But we, at least, will survive. I will be mother and lover to all of you. We will warm one another as the rest of the world grows cold and silent.

  “We will hide somewhere, safe for a while. Eventually, the demons will find us. I will have a child by one of you, and in order to survive we may have to sacrifice it to a demon so that we may live another day. I have had to abandon children before, long before they were ever born, in order to continue my work for the devils in Pontius. I was strong enough to survive that, each and every time… just as I hope that you will have the strength to abandon the child Pontius that the wasteland is set to abort.

  “You fight to save Pontius now, but it has never wanted us, not any of us. Judge Rosebudd, Detective Virgil, you have fought to maintain the Law, but you have never been able to keep Pontius from gorging itself on murder. Miss Oliver, you have spent your whole life in business, upholding Pontius – but you have had to do so in secret, by whispers in dark rooms and away from petty thugs who resent your vitality and intellect. My man Edwar had his creation stolen and nearly lost his life to that city. King Zach, and all you men of Hargis, you have had your own nation rejected, chewed up, and spat out by the world. All of us are unwanted by the very thing we fight to protect. So, I propose a new life. Life for one more day, at least, but life all the same.”

  There was deep silence. No one shouted as they considered the strange offer.

  “Woman,” said Zach, “that’s just the sort of nonsensical fantasizing that we saw from Haven’s Prime Minister. In wishing his problems away, he wished us away, too, and may have sentenced us to death. He was a despicable man. If we copy that trait from him - life for one more day, but in exchange for our souls - then we reject the few good people in Pontius. We reject their work and their effort, just as that villain rejected us! No, more than that, we reject the goodness in ourselves. We reject our nobility, reject our will, even reject the very thing that makes us human! The thing that makes us better than the demons, and better than the invaders!

  “As long as I live, then I am king of Hargis. And Hargis is no nation of cowards. If our nobility casts us into oblivion, then so be it. But we will not cling to life without considering the cost.”

  “The airship belongs to me,” said Edwar. “Without it, will Hargis be of any use?”

  “Hargis gave you sanctuary,” Zach shouted, “when the rest of the world rejected you, and even wanted you dead! Would you pay our goodness back with craven cowardice?”

  Edwar cast his eyes down.

  “You would be a mother to us?” said Zach, staring into Fortunata. “Hargis needs no mother. Hargis needs no safety. Hargis needs to fight, and maybe die, by taking a stand against the very monsters that demand we be cowards in the first place. I am not a child. I need no mother. I will not betray the trust that others have placed in me, in my office. And I will not betray my friend Wodan. Ingrates! Do you think that Wodan is looking for a safe place to hide right now? No! He’s giving his life to save yours! Would you reject him in exchange for the promise of warmth from a mother who’s willing to sacrifice her children to monsters?”

  Zach stalked back and forth and his soldiers snapped to attention. “We fly to San Ktari. Our chances of finding help there are even worse than elsewhere, I know full well. But we have to try! Anyone who calls himself a man must always try, even if the odds are against him!

  “And a mother,” said Zach, turning to Fortunata, “should not be so quick to reject her children.”

  Zach left and withdrew to his quarters belowdecks. The soldiers of Hargis stood at attention for a long time. Fortunata felt Miss Oliver watching her, but when she turned to look, Miss Oliver looked away.

  Chapter Twelve

  Bridge over the Abyss

  The seven boys stood at the edge of the gorge and looked down. The moon was nearly full, and while it was strong enough to reach across space and light their way, it could not reach the bottom of the ravine. Days ago, Wodan wondered if their long journey could possibly end with them all accidentally driving into the thing. Now he knew that there was no chance of that happening; they could see the gorge long before they reached it, a black strip of nothingness that grew and grew, and when they finally reached it, the far side seemed like a dim afterthought in the creation of the world. The gorge, the great line, truly was the edge of the world, a great divide leading down into darkness and emptiness.

  “This thing freaking it is big,” said Justinas.

  “Wonder what’s at the bottom,” said Wodan.

  Chris prodded him in the back, said, “Find out, man!”

  “Someone actually believes,” said Jake, “that they can get an army over this?”

  “Without the land bridges, they probably couldn’t,” said Wodan. “Cedrik, any idea where those bridges are?”

  Cedrik raised his brow, then shook his head.

  “You don’t know?” said Chris.

  “Naw, man. I never been more than a few miles outta Pontius.”

  “Shit!”

  “I just know enough to point us south, keep us from gettin’ off course. I don’t know about this shit, man.”

  “We’ll just have to ride until we find them,” said Wodan. “Remember, this is the most important part of our journey. If we can take out at least some of those bridges, it’ll buy Pontius a lot of time.”

  “It’s a few hours to dawn, yet,” said Cedrik. “You all wanna keep on?”

  Chris plopped back onto his bike, and said, “If taking out those bridges means we can go home, I’m not afraid to lose some sleep. Let’s knock ’em out before we have to deal with some dogmen bitin’ our asses.”

  “It was a mistake to not use zeppelins for this,” said Wodan, staring into the gorge.

  “What do you mean?” said Jon. “Can’t use zeppelins for stealth shit. If they get caught, they can get blown outta the sky, easy.”

  “I’m starting to think it was… tactically unsound for the city officials to think we could do anything more than blow up these bridges. Zeppelins could have made the trip a lot faster.” Wodan shook his head, then went back to his bike and mounted up. “Let’s just find those bridges before the invaders do.”

  Sylas laughed,
then he and Wodan exchanged a look. They both knew that the zeppelins were out doing the important work - gathering reinforcements that were actually capable of stopping an invading army. They both knew that this group of kids, the Suicide Contracts, were only a joker in the deck, a desperate plan most likely only thrown together by the Businessmen in order to keep up the appearance of “doing something” about a problem.

  They rode along the gorge angling northeast and the sky shifted blue, then pink bled into it, and when the sun tore through the folds of sand on the horizon none of them signaled to stop. In the light of day the far side of the gorge shone meat-red with veins of blue and gray, impossibly far away, as if the axe of some god had dragged across the world. Wodan slowed, let the others trail ahead, then stopped near the edge. Far below, he saw was only mist, milky and thick and unmoving and unimaginably far below. He blasted his engine and caught up with the others.

  Long before midday the sweat was boiling them stupid in their suits and they were never sure whether to keep their helmets on until the sweat rolled down like flies eating their eyes, or take off their helmets and feel the cool wind as well as an endless assault of stinging sand. The wasteland could have tortured them all day long, but each of the boys would have been ashamed to call it quits in front of the others.

  They came to one of the bridges, a long and slender thing in the distance, and Wodan’s heart fell because he knew that finding the thing after only a few hours of searching along the thousand mile-long gorge must mean that many similar bridges were spread out all across the great ravine. If they could be easily found by them, then they could be easily found by the invaders.

  They stopped and stared at the thing. No way is it natural, Wodan thought. No way.

  The bridge was slender and curved upward and was smooth at its top. If the gorge had been born by cataclysm then such a bridge was an impossibility. But there it was all the same, and it was not in the nature of the wasteland to offer any explanation. The wind whipped hard at them and Wodan wondered if anything could make it across the thing without being tossed into the abyss to die of fear long before the bottom wrote the last sentence of the victim’s eulogy. They stared in wonder for a long time, wondering at the beautiful, slender mystery before them.

  “Let’s blow this damn thing up,” said Jon.

  Wodan smiled, thinking that the bridge’s origin might be a mystery – but its fate was written in stone.

  They climbed into the truck, giddy and exhausted and excited about the prospect of seeing an explosion. Justinas looked over their gear and passed out boxes of dynamite and fuses.

  “Justy,” said Jake. “How do you know how much to use?”

  Justinas shrugged.

  Jake blinked. “Uh... don’t the Smiths have some kind of system for something like this? An equation, or like, a ratio between explosives and the weight of the target?”

  “Maybe, my friend!” said Justinas, smiling. “Perhaps we should have brought along a Smith wiser than this one, yes?”

  They gathered the gear into a large pile and Justinas shifted through the equipment, then said, “Strong Cedrik, Jon, carry many things and I will lead. Good Wodan, you will accompany and keep friend Justinas from falling to death.”

  They scampered onto the land bridge. Just then a gust of wind hit them. Wodan stumbled to the side and saw milky emptiness stretching out on all sides. Wodan laughed even as he grabbed onto Justinas for support.

  “I thank for support,” said Justinas. “But do not grab so rough!”

  Wodan looked back and the others were smoking and shaking with quiet laughter. He saw Chris saying something to the others, but the words were lost in the winds that raged over the abyss.

  They stopped somewhere near the middle and the vertigo kicking in Wodan’s gut was mind-numbing. He and Cedrik crouched and looked at one another; Cedrik’s eyes were wide and white and his mouth hung open stupidly and they both laughed at one another, shaking their heads. Jon covered his fear of the nothingness below with a hardened mask. Justinas directed them in the various complicated arrangements and Wodan could only do as he was told, his mind mostly empty of everything but fear and a sense of hysteria. He zoned out and when he came to they were already walking back to the others, hunched against the wind.

  “How was it?” said Chris, smiling.

  “Easy!” Jon snapped, his hands clenched into fists.

  Justinas sat over a radio set. “Hey Justy,” said Chris. “Ain’t you gotta light a wick or something? Where is it?”

  “Who will hold wick steady over bridge?” said Justinas. “Who will check on wick if it goes out? One stick of dynamite, that will have a wick and that will blow a dogman’s hand off if he is kind enough to hold it for you. No, I make a giant bomb, Chris, for I must blow up giant thing, and I set giant bomb to specific radio frequency, as Smiths teach to do. And now - I am ready.”

  Justinas gestured to the bridge and everyone regarded it. “Now,” said Justinas, “let us have the moment of a silence for beautiful land bridge make by nature thousand of years ago.”

  They all sighed, relaxed, and looked at the bridge in order personalize and commit to memory this moment that was, in a sense, the end of their journey - but half a second after Justinas spoke, the world erupted with a sharp blast, dust leaped off the bridge in a cloud of violence, and everyone jumped and hollered and covered their ears as a sharp crack reported off the sides of the gorge. The dust was torn away by the raging winds and as the howl died down they could hear Justinas laughing. While they had been too busy with fear to see anything fall, there was indeed a gap between two long, arching segments of stone that hung out over the abyss.

  * * *

  They resumed riding by night as they made their way across the length of the gorge. They rode longer hours than before, not stopping until the sun was up and beginning well before sundown. They found more of the strange land bridges, and as they blew them up one by one, Justinas’s skill grew with each detonation and he was able to use less materials for more bang. They angled east and north, reasoning that if the invaders were intent on reaching Pontius then they would have to go deep into the southwest in order to find more bridges, or possibly skirt around the entire gorge in the northeast. Either way, the boys hoped that the army would wear itself out and consume all of its supplies long before reaching Pontius.

  Many times, before setting out or going to sleep, Wodan stood at the edge of the abyss. Despite the mist that hung below and moved only sluggishly, wind blasted up from the deep and blew his greasy hair away from his face. He had not bathed in weeks, and he knew that he stank horribly. His sickness was growing worse. It was not as debilitating as it was in the foglands, and he no longer suffered from coughing fits, but his head hurt continually and he felt nausea and an unreasonable thirst. He only hid it from the others with great difficulty. He often turned to the others and watched them joking as they set up or broke down camp. He watched Jon and Chris argue, saw Sylas being quiet, helpful, unapproachable. He could hear endless misunderstandings between Cedrik and Justinas, the Pontius farmer’s dialect and Greeley accent seemingly completely incompatible and resulting only in laughter from the onlookers. He could dimly make out Jake’s high-pitched nasal tone setting off Jon’s temper and Chris’s laughter. Wodan wondered how much longer he would live. He wondered if these boys fumbling with manhood would have to bring back his body to present to a city that had only grudgingly accepted his presence in the first place.

  He felt awful, and craved sleep, and in a haze of discomfort it was a wonder to him that he somehow felt physically stronger than ever before. He knew that the people in his family were typically “late bloomers”, but he pushed aside the idea that he was only just now on the verge of manhood. Such thoughts were an idle waste of time when it was a fact that his life was slowly ending, so he let himself be absorbed in the journey itself, in the riding of his motorcycle, in the enduring of the sun and the cold, and in the joy of an explosion after a long
hunt.

  One bright moonlit night when the sand shone rich and blue, they stopped to drink some water from the truck and Cedrik and Sylas spoke quietly, then announced that they were surely near the end of the gorge. Not even an hour later, the boys came to a remarkable sight: No less than three bridges spanned the gorge within sight of one another. Two wear nearby, while the third hung in the distance. Justinas decided that they would blow up all three simultaneously in celebration of their journey’s success.

  The first land bridge connected to a slender wall of stone that stood perched over the ground. Wodan monkeyed up the wall of stone easily, then Chris rose to join him. Cedrik pushed Justinas up, then tossed the explosives up to Chris piece by piece, then climbed up himself and the four laced up the bridge. They returned and, after helping Justinas down, Chris said, “We’re gonna chill up here while you all get the other two bridges. Then we’ll reconnoiter for an extended chill session.”

  “I second such motions,” said Justinas. “But, my friends, let us not jerk one another off until after we are a successful of the plan, I think.”

  Wodan rolled up cigarettes for Chris and Cedrik and then they smoked and talked with newfound relief.

  “It’s gonna be a lot easier goin’ home than comin’ from,” said Chris. “Once we head back to the hills and toss all the mines outta the truck, the only thing we’ll have to worry about is what we’re gonna do with all that money.” Cedrik smiled and tapped his fist against Chris’s, then Chris added, “Ced, with all that money, you can be bangin’ a different freak every day o’ the week.”

  “I pretty much already do that, man.”

  “I’m talkin’ hot guys, young guys, guys with wigs...”

  “You can’t get all that on a farm,” said Wodan.

  “Goats, pigs, but ol’ chickens with their wings a-flappin’...”

  Cedrik laughed, then rolled onto his stomach and placed his elbow on the ground; Chris did the same and they arm-wrestled silently. Cedrik put Chris down many times while Wodan leaned back and finished his smoke.