Apostate Konstantin

by Max Kramer

  Karl felt his jaw hit his chest.

  “N’oh my god.”

  Enemy troops had completely encircled them, and now stood menacingly, like bizarre menhirs around the edge of the crater.

  Unlike the threadbare rags of Karl and his companions, these men were fully encased in a thick armor carapace, though in most cases it was heavily pitted and scarred from near constant battle. The gentle hiss of air through their rebreather apparatuses could be heard over the pervasive sounds of the city’s death. Infrared lenses in their helmet’s face shields glowed in the waning light.

  To Karl, the hulking figures looked more like fearsome war gods than mortal men, but mortal he knew them to be. While their armor made them horrendously durable, it was heavy, and slowed their movements significantly. They were vulnerable to improvised explosive devices, which Karl’s people employed with devastating results. A skilled marksman could also penetrate the weak parts in their battle plate, most notably around the neck and armpit.

  Karl’s hand reached to where his gun sat propped against a rock beside him. A dozen rifles tracked his progress. His hand stopped. Who was he kidding? He was no marksman.

  There was movement inside the bowl. His companions had noticed their predicament, but unlike Karl they made the mistake of leaping for their weapons. They never got off a round.

  The green armored soldiers fired into the pit methodically, shredding through Sgt. Danzig’s men like they were made of paper Mache. It was over quickly.

  So much for the heroes of the republic, Karl thought sadly. He raised his hands slowly.

  “I surrender.”

  ***

  After the injured man delivered his cryptic message, Deirdre had Felix move him to a nearby basement, where she and Brita began tending to his wounds. The twins were instructed to put their heads together and track any movement in the area. Konstantin helped the American sniper keep a more mundane watch.

  At one point during the night the man awoke briefly and conferred with the dark skinned witch and her men. From their place on the narrow stairway, Konstantin and James could not hear what was said, but Deirdre’s expression spoke volumes. Whatever his news was, it was not good.

  “Who is he?” Konstantin was curious.

  “One of our sailors,” Jim explained, “Deirdre’s people live further north and west of here. We always sail in whenever the lady has business to conduct on the mainland. We usually run the blockade into the city to drop off much needed food supplies. Not all of the locals who remain are soldiers. There are civilians starving in this ruin. In return for what foodstuffs we can supply them with, the Greys hide and protect our ship while we travel in the southlands. To return home, we’ll need our ship. The problem is we seem to be missing a crew at the moment.”

  The Inquisitor wondered just what business the witch and her men had in the southlands. He doubted they risked regularly entering church territory just to visit Felix at his club in Munich. That information was something his superiors would covet greatly, maybe enough for a pardon. He tried to ignore the thought. His duty was to Brita now. But perhaps afterward…

  Snorri ducked into the stairwell. He was worried about something, the extent of which became apparent when he answered Konstantin’s queries with none of his customary jibes or snide remarks.

  “We’re in trouble, there’s no mistake. The Greens captured our boys a few weeks back.”

  James swore harshly. “What were they doing away from the boat? They shouldn’t have even been in the city.”

  “They tried another resupply run. We’ve been gone longer than anticipated. Billy was out scouting when the raid went down, but he’s been able to piece together some of what happened. The Greens didn’t kill our men because they somehow caught wind that they’re foreigners, but they have them imprisoned for questioning. The good news is that Bill knows where they’re being kept.”

  Konstantin glanced to where Deirdre and Naoise were drawing plans in the dust on the cellar floor. “What’s the bad news?”

  Snorri winced. “They’re in the old city library.”

  James sat wearily on a step. “That’s deep in the Green zone. We’re never going to be able to get them out of there.”

  “I think you’re probably right, but Deirdre disagrees. She’s already sent Bill back to prep the ship. We’re going in after the rest.”

  14

  The armored commandos stripped Karl efficiently, leaving him to shiver in his tattered briefs. They were so confident he would not cause trouble that no one bothered to bind his hands or hobble his feet. The men moved with the crisp discipline of trained warriors, something completely alien to Karl’s military experience.

  Now that he was out of the crater, he recalled it almost fondly, wishing he could return. The starvation diet. The freezing weather. The sadistic sniper. Those were the days.

  He held out little hope of rescue. Prisoner transfers and parley in this conflict had long ago gone the way of the dinosaur, unicorn, and monarch butterfly.

  His guard’s helmet com-link buzzed. The trooper gestured menacingly with his assault rifle. They were moving out.

  The Green squad split into two columns and lumbered east, with Karl positioned near the center of the unit. Their heavy boots crushed through the frost, which lay heavy in the shadows of bombed out buildings, to sink into the mud beneath. The column set a slow pace, but progressed steadily, moving over, around, or through any obstacles. The soldiers scanned their surroundings constantly, prepared for an attack that never came.

  Karl soon began to falter, his malnourished body unable to keep up the inexorable march. He fell often, scraping hands and knees painfully, his breath rasping, only to be dragged upright by his silent wardens. His captors seemed tireless.

  The further they moved east, the harder Karl shivered, partially from the cold and partially from his mind numbing fear. If they made it to one of the Green’s hidden tunnel entrances, all was lost. Once underground in Green territory, there would be no coming back up. He wished that they would stumble across a Grey position. A swift death in a firefight would be preferable to the horrors that awaited him behind enemy lines. He wished he was brave enough to make a run for it.

  No position was stumbled across. No run was made. If it weren’t for the chatter of gunfire in the distance and the omnipresent rumble of mortars, he could have mistaken the city for abandoned. Even the ubiquitous rats seemed suspiciously absent. All the life he could see consisted of himself, his automaton-like captors, and the glossy black crows lining the walls around them. Corvus Corvax he mentally noted, not crows exactly, but ravens. He gave them what attention his sleep deprived brain could spare.

  While he knew that there was plenty of opportunity for scavenging in the vast concrete battlefield, he couldn’t recall ever seeing the creatures in such numbers before. He gave his captors a surreptitious scan. They had not yet noticed their avian observers. He concentrated on keeping his protesting legs moving for a time. He was probably just imagining things.

  Prruk-prruk-prruk. One of the glossy black birds hopped beside him, grumbling insistently.

  “Shoo,” Karl kicked spasmodically. The raven fluttered off with an indignant squawk, scolding the troubled librarian loudly, before darting back to peck viciously at his exposed ankles. Tripped up by his feathery adversary, Karl pitched forward, his jaw clenched in anticipation. The rocky ground was coming up fast.

  ***

  Prruk-prruk-prruk. The stupid bird seemed to be gloating. Inquisitor-Brother Solomon Rex swung his hammer. It stopped gloating.

  Sounding their distress, the rest of the carrion birds took wing, flitting up into the relative safety of the trees. Solomon watched their flapping retreat with intense pleasure. Soon…

  The child was pawing through the meager belongings of one of the bloated corpses somebody had piled outside the crumbling building. The shaven Inquisitor grimaced in distaste, absently telling his beads with his free hand, his good mood forgotten. Wha
tever happened here, it had been a one-sided massacre. Some of the bodies had been ripped apart violently; others showed no injury at all, both telltale signs of fearsome magics.

  He whistled shrilly, summoning the boy to his side. The youth was his only traveling companion; he had eschewed the Lord Bishop’s offer of a troop escort. The cleric-prince of Munich would have offered anything to get the tattooed inquisitor out of his city. Solomon Rex had done nothing to hide his derision for the man.

  Solomon Rex had no need for soldiers. Alone in the wilds, the driven witch-hunter had made excellent time, relying heavily on the child’s considerable tracking talents. His quarry was mounted, but heavily laden horses could not outpace a fit man over a long distance. The devastation he had discovered this morning was still fresh. Not even the wolves had yet been in to investigate the carnage. Solomon Rex was getting close.

  ***

  There was a flower. Karl noted this detail with some amazement as he fell to the unyielding ground. He lay stunned for a moment, his face pressed against the cold concrete, completely winded from the jarring impact. He had somehow missed squashing the feeble bloom as he fell, instead coming to rest with it inches from his nose.

  The stalwart posy was hardly flourishing, its stem was a sickly brown-green and its dark leathery leaves were ragged and stunted, and yet it clung tenaciously to life amidst the violence.

  There was a lesson there somewhere Karl supposed. Being a city dweller, and an agoraphobe at that, his encyclopedic knowledge did not include much in the way of plant life, but he resolved to learn the name of this particular bud. If he was to ever return to his beloved library. If it still existed.

  The plant had established itself in a deep crack in the pavement, one long hairy stem thrusting bravely up from a base of tri-lobed leaves toward the weak sun. Atop this sat a delicate bloom of purple petals surrounding a bright yellow and white center.

  “Beautiful…” he breathed, reaching a grimy finger out to brush one of the heavy petals. A bullet snapped past his outstretched hand before he made contact, neatly snipping the flower’s stem near the base, and sending a shower of rock fragments flying where it hit the road surface.

  Karl howled angrily through a face full of gravel, partially blinded by airborne grit. An armored boot stomped past him as he lay prostrate, flattening the already mangled bloom. One of his captors fell at his side, blood gushing from under his helmet, panicked orders crackling over the man’s com-link.

  Karl squinted, trying to clear his watery vision. They were under attack! Had the Greys mounted a rescue mission? He sat up, ready to thank his saviors for their timely intervention.

  As he rose, a wild-eyed giant with a flowing beard thundered past him, laughing uproariously as he charged the surprised Greens. Beside him strode another titan, this one even bigger, with a spiky ridge of dyed hair, wielding an enormous axe. Behind them a smaller man lurked, whipcord thin and oozing mean. Karl lay back down. Those definitely weren’t local soldiers.

  He hunkered next to the fallen soldier, utilizing his dead bulk as a shield against any more stray bullets. The strange attackers had somehow caught the ever vigilant Green column in a deadly crossfire, brutally efficient sniper fire causing heavy casualties before the soldiers realized they were being ambushed. The Greens’ initial shock wore off just as their assailants broke cover and charged, which in Karl’s opinion was an unwise tactical decision. He had seen hordes of his people shatter like matchsticks against the armored bulk of a Green skirmish line. To go head to head with one was suicide.

  Karl winced in anticipation for the imminent slaughter.

  When it came, he was surprised at the direction it took. For all their size, the ambushers moved with breathtaking speed, darting among the well equipped soldiers before they could bring their heavy weapons to bear. The one-eyed lunatic with the axe swung wildly, separating a Green trooper’s head from his shoulders. His long haired ally dove in low, knocking another soldier from his feet. Straining mightily he lifted the armored man into the air before dropping him head first to the concrete, the force of the fall driving his helmet up between his shoulder plates, compressing his spine like an accordion.

  Karl foamed at the mouth, his eyes rolling madly as he witnessed the bizarre warriors in action. The Green soldiers were built and armored like miniature tanks, and the one man had just lifted a corporal in full battle plate above his head like a sack of grain. The sinister man with the dark eyes slid through the ranks like a matador baiting bulls, nimble fingers driving a long knife deep into the seams in their armor, severing something vital with every thrust. He didn’t even have a gun.

  A fourth man, bearing a familial resemblance to the two oversized barbarians currently ripping apart the Green formation entered the fray, appropriating one of the fallen infantrymen’s heavy machine guns. With an angry bear roar, he turned the weapon on a knot of enemies, its depleted uranium slugs perforating their breastplates like they were made of hot wax. When a pair of troopers made a break for a bombed out department store, the hidden sniper went to work, punching holes through the glowing lenses in their facemasks.

  When it was over, only one Green soldier still moved, and he was busy desperately trying to reattach the lower half of his left leg. The dark haired man, who, to Karl, evoked visions of Ichabod Crane, knelt beside the fallen soldier, his lips twitching. Karl thought he might be praying. His prayer finished, he turned his head slowly, pinning Karl with his dark gaze. Maintaining eye contact with the horrified librarian he calmly drove his blade up under the wounded man’s chin, leaving it lodged deep in his brain.

  Karl Franz wet his pants.

  ***

  Brita laid a gentle hand across the skinny man’s forehead. She guessed him to be in his twenties, although his battered body looked much older.

  “Are you alright?” she asked softly, checking his vitals with a nurse’s professionalism. Most of his injuries seemed superficial, although one of his ribs might be broken. For the most part he seemed malnourished and overtired. The man shivered violently, his eyes staring unblinkingly somewhere in front of him. Leaning closer, she tracked his gaze to where it rested on her brother, who was staring blankly back.

  Brita grunted in disgust, waving Frederick off from his bullying. She swore sometimes he just enjoyed being creepy.

  “Hey,” She shook the man out of his trance, “are you alright?”

  With a visible effort he focused on Brita, realizing for the first time that she was in fact a young woman. Avoiding her blue eyed gaze, he stammered meekly with a suddenly thick tongue. Embarrassed, he cleared his throat and tried again.

  “I’ll be okay I think, Oh!” His eyes widened in surprise. When her brother’s back was turned, Brita had sent a trickle of magical warmth into the young man’s emaciated body. He moaned softly, relief evident on his drawn features. “Thank you… My name is Karl. Volksgrenadier Karl Franz.” Smiling shyly, he offered Brita the mutilated remains of the flower he had salvaged.

  Delighted by the simple gesture, Brita tucked the crooked stem behind one ear, along with some stray locks of her growing hair.

  “So you are a soldier then?” She asked politely. The young man looked embarrassed once again.

  “Not much of one. I’m really just a librarian. Or I was, before all this.” He gestured to the smoking city around them.

  Brita raised a shapely eyebrow.

  “Reaaaally.” She stood, offering him a delicate hand. “Can you move?”

  Karl took the offered hand, and with her help wobbled back to his feet. “I think so. Probably not far though.”

  Supporting the battered soldier, Brita helped him limp over to where her companions had gathered. His arrival garnered a mixture of mild interest or, in the case of Naoise and her brother, complete indifference.

  “Everybody, this is Karl Franz. He’s a librarian.”

  That got their attention.

  Brita could see that Karl did not quite know what to make of their
ragtag band. That they were foreign was painfully obvious. They all looked well fed.

  Karl viewed the northern warriors with a mixture of awe and fear. He took Deirdre in with a series of quick glances, visibly moved by her tight leather and exposed cleavage despite his weakened condition. He refused to acknowledge Konstantin’s existence at all, a detail the Inquisitor took great pleasure in. The twins just seemed to confuse him.

  As introductions were made Karl became visibly upset, shifting against Brita’s comforting grip to look over his shoulder with increasing frequency.

  “Something troubling you little man?” Felix asked dryly.

  “I think the wind is picking up.”

  Felix nodded sagely; Brita could tell he was fighting to keep a smirk from spreading across his face.

  “You’re probably more than a little chilly out here in your skivvies aren’t you buddy?”

  Karl gave him an annoyed glance, not appreciating the big foreigner’s quips.

  “It’s not that, Mr. Magnusson.” A spot of ash drifted on the light breeze, horrifying Karl when it settled on his cheek. His panic was comical to the foreign companions, who, not understanding his trepidation, watched bemused while he wiped frantically at the spot, succeeding only in smearing black soot across his face.

  Staring at his blackened fingers, the blood drained from his already pale face.

  Felix coughed uncomfortably, sharing a look with the others.

  “Hey, uh, is something wrong bud?”

  When Karl spoke, his voice was nearly inaudible.

  “It’s a firestorm.”

  ***

  “We need to get underground, now!” Karl cried, tugging insistently on Brita’s coat sleeve.

  A dull roaring rose at the edges of Konstantin’s hearing, similar to the sound of the ocean trapped in conch shells. By the look in his eye, Konstantin could tell the librarian heard it too, and had come to a far less pleasant conclusion.