Of Iron and Devils

by B. H. Young

  "They are hunting you now, your so called brothers and sisters of the Iron," Lucinda said. She sat miffed by the fire, following Godzton with seething eyes as he circled. "And yet you still pursue this, Sylo man. And you think I'm crazy. You are loyal to a fault."

  Godzton slid a glance back to her as he continued around the fire. "As I told you the last hundred times, the law demands that justice be served," he said.

  "The law," she scoffed and pushed along the ground closer to the fire. "According to your two friends that sought to kill you the other day, you're not even of the law anymore. Like I said, a fault."

  "Until I'm dead or released, I am and you are free to leave whenever you want." He stared agitated into the distance and then cut his eyes to her. How could someone as little as the Roltharian have so much energy to nag endlessly? "They were not my friends. My friends are dead as a result of all this."

  "So it's vengeance you seek then?"

  "Not vengeance, justice." He turned back to spreading the ash around the camp. "And closure."

  Overseer Lisbet had betrayed him and now his brothers and sisters of the Iron had turned on him under the false pretense of her order. Their lives gambled away as pawns in a game they knew not they were playing and for what, an ideology, a belief, for coin, he did not know. It was all a ruse to deflect any questions had there been no investigation at all and he knew that now. A hard admission that Lucinda was right about it all befell him. Overseer Lisbet would not get rid of him so easy, but there was not much certainty in clearing his name. Once an Overseer issues an execute order it is not likely that Iron will live long enough to proclaim their innocence if they have any.

  His constant circling around like a vulture and pouring the smoky dust on the ground had finally taken its toll on Lucinda's patience.

  "What in the hell exactly are you doing? What is that stuff?"

  "Withen Wart, it'll keep wildlife miles away from here due to its stench," Godzton said, stopped and gave a hard tap to the bottom of the canister, pushing out the remaining ash.

  "I don't smell anything."

  "It only stings the senses of animals. Not much good against people. Skinvers like it though, good thing they only roam the Dust Lands of Shadengrell," he said then plopped down beside the fire, slid his arms from his coat, and held his palms to the flame.

  They sat in silence a moment, warming their hands, two very different individuals from two sides of life that would not have lasted this long in the company of one another under different circumstances. Lucinda stared him from across the flame and he pretended not to notice. But he could feel the weight of the blue jewels of chaos on him bringing agitation that she may have more critique to offer.

  He rolled his eyes up to her. "What?"

  "Nothing..." she said, "...was just curious how long you've been an Iron?"

  "A long time," he replied with a quick snap and hoped no more talk would come from the Elf, but he knew better.

  "Why? I mean what made you want to become one?"

  Godzton let out a deep sigh, tossed a handful of twigs into the fire, and then said, "Why are you so curious about my life choices? What made you want to become the way you are?"

  Her face twisted and bared a longing gaze. "Was just trying to make small talk is all, never mind," she said, turning her head down from him with a mope.

  It was not his intention to be hateful and though he tried to ignore the pestering voices in his head, he couldn't silence them. She was after all just trying to be sociable and there was no sense in being a complete ass towards her. It is not as if he was trying to make the best of the situation as she was. But to bond with Lucinda Mathayus?

  "My father always said evil finds its place in darkness but applies its trade in the light. Figured it was my duty to serve the people," he said.

  "My father says there is no good or evil, there are only decisions."

  It did not surprise him that Lord Willem Mathayus had such grim words to pass on. "Suppose there may be some truth to that."

  "The Iron High Guard, protectors of the realm and yet you do not fight in the war against Dhunwitch." Lucinda straightened her legs sliding them across the ground and then threw one over the other as she leaned back onto her hands. "I find that odd."

  "We do not fight in political wars. We are neutral in such manners and simply enforce the law within the three unified kingdoms."

  "The King and the stewards have their own laws."

  "They do and that is their right for the titles they hold, but they do not supersede the universal laws enacted by the elders."

  "What if a King or one of the stewards breaks your law?"

  "Then they answer for it, simple as that."

  She shot out a chuckle and tossed her hair over a shoulder. "I do not think King Norindale the type to allow anyone to question him."

  "He would have no say in the matter. Kings are not all bad, but a Freethinker such as him has no tolerance for things outside his own selfish manner. He cares not for the things set in place by the ancient world."

  Peering absent into the dark as the wind flowed through her hair Lucinda looked to him lowering her head, but keeping her eyes stitched to him. "Godzton, if your Overseer has pulled a coup then who will be left to show the Blackphisk to?" The concern in her voice was as apparent as the chilled air of the night.

  "There is still the Iron High Guard's of Dyerwin and Northanos," he said. "I plan to get word to the Royal Overseers in Northanos." He looked to her with sure filled eyes. "She gained control with deceit I'm sure of it, and I will remove her mask so others may see the truth and the Blackphisk can help do that... you can help do that."

  "Seems like the fault of an archaic set of standards, to even allow one to take control so easily."

  The Roltharian was right and he hated that. "They are, but it is those same rules that will grant her a standing without question, ensuring she pays the debt."

  Lucinda stared entranced in the fire lingering with a need of admission. "I'm a coward," she said with a dull voice.

  An odd confession for someone to make, he thought, even more so for her and it seemed to upset her in doing so. "Why would you say that?"

  "When that bastard killed my brother I just ran. I wanted to fight... but I just ran," she said, gazing with lost thoughts into the flame.

  "It is not cowardly to admit a foe is better skilled and refrain from entering into a quarrel. Too often people deny such admittance and charge in blindly. It is ignorant to do so, I should know, I have the scars to prove it." He saw a struggling smile creep at her lips, but she tried to hide it. "It is wisdom, Lucinda, not cowardice."

  "What of the one you chase?"

  "He... he is something entirely different and he's already bested me once."

  "So you'll run into certain death, for pride?"

  "No, for duty."

  "Stupid bastard," she muttered as if almost angry with his reply.

  Godzton had wondered where the stupid bastard went; it would appear he was here all along. He pushed up his lips, nodding, tossed another branch into the fire and then stretched out along the ground and tucked his hands behind his head. He'd had enough conversing with the Elf and the voices in his head now.

  "Let's get some sleep," he said and shut his eyes.

  No sooner than he did, with leisure, Lucinda slid in beside him and laid her arm over his chest as if he wouldn't mind. Startling him, he downturned his chin squinting at the curly hair of raven tucked into his chest.

  "Lucinda, what are you doing?" he said with a shaky voice.

  "Keeping warm," she replied.

  He tried to rise up, but she pressed into him harder. "That's what the fire is for!"

  "That piss poor fire couldn't keep a rat's ass warm tonight and I'd rather not freeze to death if it's alright with you. Don't worry bastard, I'm not going to bite you."

  "Lucinda, get up," he grunted.

  The touch of the Elf brought a feeling he did not want to admit to.
A quivering in his body that began to convene in his groin with a formation. It angered him that it was even there, more so that he couldn't stop it.

  "No," she said. "We need to keep warm. Just shut up and go to sleep." She hooked her leg over his.

  She was right, stubborn as hell, but right and he knew it, but lying huddled with Lucinda Mathayus was not something he was at ease with. Tired and drained he did not want to spend hours arguing with her, but he would vent his anguish.

  "The next town we come to tomorrow I'm getting you your own damn horse."

  Lucinda squeezed her arm over him and adjusted her head on his chest. "No. You have no more money."

  More thought he had put to questioning her motives towards him than he cared to remember over the last few days. Her forceful nature reminded him of Martha, but Martha was different, kinder. But they both shared strong wills and dedication in their pursuits. Though what the Elf's pursuits were, he'd dare not even fathom. As he slipped into sleep, he wondered of Martha. What would she think of him now, the company he keeps, what he had done and to whom?

  Sleep did come, but it did not come alone. He sat with his knees planted to the dirt and his hands tied behind his back. The air was stiff with smoke, a lingering char danced at his tongue, and the green tint hinted in his eyes. There were others bound and kneeled he saw, Dwarve, Elf, and Man. A conglomerate of wicked armor on boots and horse shuffled around them all, as orders carried out, echoing loudly within themselves, unseen and in a language, he did not know. The fire pierced every so often through the burnt sky sending a splurge of embers dancing away.

  Two Beings stood across the ash laced ground with their backs to him. One a cloaked figure dressed in full plate with five scepters sprawling from its back that stood waving its clawed metal glove out as if reaching for something that was not there. The other, a shadow of armor graced in a tattered long coat, stood just off to the side observing. The small colored jewels near the tops of the scepters began to blink and glow in a song with no words as The Being pulled its metal-clawed fingers at the air. Beyond its grasping hand, the world rippled and emanated small tears where the tundra gave way to a shadowed land.

  Godzton watched as the world split open, folding back at the edges like parchment. The great show beyond revealed mountains and a city cut in black, breaking at the amethyst sky as the half-moon, streaked in scarlet, stood watch. Sulfur reeked at his senses and his heart skipped erratically as if it had forgotten its rhythm. Soldiers marched over to the bound, pulling them from the dirt and leading them into the portal, he could hear their screams faintly over the unseen roaring that trembled all around.

  Godzton locked his eyes to the observing Being, burning at its back. He tried to look away, tried to shut his eyes, but could not. The Being half turned slow, answering the summons of his forceful gaze as if it knew, he was watching it. Godzton's frazzled eyes had seen the ghastly figure before, reaching for him in Spero as he slept. The Red King's tentacled faceplate peered over its shoulder to him for a moment and then he turned fully and began walking towards Godzton.

  He woke reaching for breath, stabbing his eyes at the failing stars. Lucinda still drifted in dreams on his chest and had not moved an inch the entire night. He took in a deep lung of the cool air and with the back of his hand, reached up, and wiped the sweat from his brow. It was cold, too cold to sweat yet he did and he could feel the slipperiness on his chest below his doublet where the Roltharian laid her head. It surprised him the war drumming of his heart had not woken her before him, it's all he could hear.

  The shriek sliced across his ears unexpectedly, snapping him into a tremble and for a moment, his heart stood still. He stared shaken across the charred logs to the small frame owl perched at the edge of the stump, clenching a rat in its right talon. The owl tilted its head at him with a studying look and then let out another cry. Its shaded feathers bled into one another, mixing it into the rustic surrounding of the willows. It can't be the same damn owl, he thought.

  "It's just a little bird, bastard," Lucinda moaned out, still slumbering, as she shifted her head and caused him to jump his attention to her.

  The night begun to fade into dawn, but he would not be going back to sleep. Many questions now plagued him with no real answer he could find. Justice was all that mattered. Sylo is all that mattered, he told himself. Niset was where it started and Niset was where it would end. But Sylo had two killers of his own, equally deadly and for all he had was a horse and a willful Elf, whom he would secure safely before proceeding into Niset.

  He tilted down to Lucinda's head, still peacefully strapped along his chest. She would surely present challenge of the tongue, but he will not lead her to where he must go. Could it have all played out differently or was it always going to end this way he wondered. One would wake in a new day to find life would carry on, but he knew better, knew there was not much certainty he would see the sun set this day. Sylo's men would get him in a rush, he had made peace with that, but he would stay the course and aim for the big man. He'd be leaving this world, but Sylo would be going with him.

  It was a long ride before the smells of smoke and a hearty copper began to fill the morning air. The seven cabin village stood dormant, scorched and in ruin. The village of Paisley, but one would be hard-pressed to know it now. Not far from the border, the village was not beholden to any Great House to find itself a victim in war. Yet here it stood, prey to something. Godzton trekked his horse down the street peering in disbelief and allowed his mind to drift. The homes that were still standing, smoldered a dying breath of fire with blackened bodies half gone while others were claimed fully by the passed inferno. The ground sat infested with horse prints and boots trailing at their side, stamped into the ash-riddled ground. Lucinda's arms tightened around his waist as the dreadful tree greeted them in the square standing with its limbs lumbering and dangling with a dozen bodies in the rolling smoke. But it was not the ornaments of souls on display that chilled Godzton's spine but instead, the owl's that crowded the branches among the dead. An army, of every kind the world had ever known, he thought, perched wing-to-wing stuffing the naked crown, but remaining silent as the dead who hung below them.

  "I would have expected vultures," she said.

  So many eyes stared to him that he could not greet them all. Though, vultures would have been a welcomed sight. "Let's keep moving," he said.

  "Seems father's war is starting to spread," Lucinda muttered.

  War would be the simpler explanation but not the truthful one. "This was not of war."

  "Then what?"

  His memory lit like wildfire with flashes of the visions he'd been forced to stand witness to these last few days. He tried to ignore them, and ignore the unnaturalness of what lay out in front of his eyes, ignore the questions the voices were screaming. Justice is all that matters, he told them all, to silence their bickering.

  "Something else... I don't know," he said and kicked the horse and turned away from the carnage.

  The flood of people had dissipated from the roads by the time they made their way over Deadback Bluff reaching the Knight's Road. Just the cold hardened land beneath the arching wall of trees. The road served as the main thoroughfare through Morthet with smaller trails branching off leading to every main stead, it was the most straightforward path from the border to Niset.

  Distraught eyes dried in the bitter air and Godzton's chest hollowed with a gaping boom as he sat frozen atop his horse. The lifeless bodies on the road could have been anyone else at a distance. Unknown commoners, merchants, or farmers, but they were not anyone else; they were not faceless, no. They were the ones he had hunted all this time, lying in ruin, lifeless and cold as if they had never presented a danger to the world. He rolled from his horse absent of breath and stood for a moment burdened with disbelief at Sylo's large body slumped against a tree, his soulless head tucked to his chest, his large arms draped at his sides, as his men sprawled out on the road.

  He picked a stray ar
row from the ground and rolled it between his fingers. It was a makeshift arrow of crudely carved wood, twisted with no finesses of skilled craftsmen. Only bandits and raiders use such arrows. The blowing wind howled between the trees pushing at his stance chilling him as Lucinda climbed down beside him, standing calm and quiet. He crossed over to Sylo. The man he hunted, who murdered Province Stewards unseen and unheard like a ghost now laid here in front of him, dispatched by common scum. He could not help but to breathe with relief. Lucinda's words of certain death would have turned true had he found them alive. He had always known that before the Elf thought to mention it. Pushing away the fear was never as easy as pushing away other emotions.

  Lucinda stood close to the horse holding its bridle. "Who is it?"

  He knelt down in front of Sylo, and laid fingers to his broad neck. They burned at the touch of the wintry body. He scooped a handful of dirt and let it flow between his fingers, cold it was. Curious in what turns an Iron from his path; what misdeeds were sentenced on Sylo to twist him into something the world could do without.

  "The one I came for," Godzton replied with a low voice.

  He looked on with hard eyes. In that moment, self-questioning thoughts became clearer to him and a veil of fog lifted from his mind. Justice would not always come from righteous hands or entitled spirits, but it would come. Filth eats filth, the world seeks its own justice, and it does not move out of the way for anyone or anything. The air seemed thicker drawing into his lungs and deadness covered him like a blanket. Godzton glanced down at the satchel hanging at his hip and squeezed at the Blackphisk through the dried leather with numbed fingers. The actions of this killer had caused much pain and misery, soaking the very ground in it. But he was just a tool, used by a higher enemy, one whose plan had been successful.