02 - Sacred Flesh

by Robin D. Laws - (ebook by Undead)

  “No.”

  He had reached the other side of the tent. He turned and moved toward her in slow, perfectly measured strides. “The chronicles never vary. The gift is always given to the youngest, fairest, most innocent among the sisters of Heiligerberg.” He put his hand gallantly out to her; she took it and rose, as if mesmerised, from the stool.

  “Who could that be, do you think?” he asked her.

  “I could not say. I do not know the sisters of Heiligerberg.”

  Abruptly he took Devorah’s face in his meaty hands and adjusted its angle, so that she peered up at him. She trembled. “Your soul already knows what your mind does not. It is you, sweet girl. You, Mother Devorah, are Shallya’s gift to me.”

  Bernolt Steinhauer gingerly patted his bruised throat. He leaned uneasily against a slab in the subterranean chamber that housed Sister Dema’s reeking alchemical vats. Bernolt did not like this place. It was dank. Inky mould grew in its corners.

  He’d been assigned here, he was sure, as penalty for his failure against Elsbeth’s killers. He wanted to be out with his comrades, scouring the mountainside for the evildoers—especially the one who’d choked him, that deceptively lank Franziskus. Instead he’d been sent down to take orders from the eerie, one-eyed Dema. Yes, his throat still hurt a bit, but a contusion or two did not turn a hammer-brother of Sigmar into an invalid. Bernolt leaned over a vat to peer in, but as an acrid stink penetrated his nostrils, he immediately regretted his curiosity.

  His instructions were to protect the cabinet full of Dema’s tools—not from Angelika and Franziskus, but from yet a third, unconnected miscreant—a man named Ivo with a comical voice and oversized ears. It was ridiculous. For the ninth time, Bernolt strode to the cabinet in question and tested the lock.

  One of the old sisters came stooping into the room, shaking and bobbing her head. Her wimple disguised her features. The sisters, with their stale old woman smell, were all the same to Bernolt. He wished he were nowhere near them. Bernolt wanted to be back in the Empire, fighting Chaos, risking all in service to his warrior god.

  The sister shuffled up behind him. With a thin, sharp blade, she stuck him in the side, between his armour plates. She stabbed repeatedly, twisting the blade to rend tissue and mince organs. Bernolt gurgled; the sister clamped a long-fingered but masculine hand over his lips. She cut Bernolt’s throat for good measure, then swept back to let his body topple. Bernolt fell against a vat; his hand dropped into the flames beneath it, to blacken and scorch.

  Ivo Kirchgeld pulled off his wimple for a better view of the cabinet. It had been difficult, hiding among the wrapped corpses in the mausoleum. He was sure that the sisters would be smart enough to check. But they hadn’t. It must have been reverence for the dead—or perhaps they simply lacked imagination. He scanned the room for something heavy enough to break the lock. Of course—Bernolt’s hammer! He ducked down to pick it up.

  The sky was clear but starless. Franziskus and Angelika shivered, crouching behind an old and crumbling wall they’d found on the sheltering mountain slope that abutted Heiligerberg’s flattened summit. The stand of mortared blocks belonged to some long-ruined outlying building; Angelika did not care to expend her attention guessing what it had been used for.

  They pressed against each other for warmth. They had their hands under each other’s tunics.

  “You’d better not be enjoying this,” said Angelika.

  “There’s no need to say that every single time,” said Franziskus. It was too dark for either to see the expression on the other’s face.

  “Hrmp,” said Angelika.

  “It’s far from the first time we’ve been caught out in the cold, and not been able to light a fire.”

  She growled.

  “If you’re going to make a belittling, threatening joke every time, you could at least make it a new joke.”

  “Objection noted,” said Angelika.

  “I still think we should just start climbing down the mountain.”

  “You’re still free to do so.”

  “All this risk—out of loyalty to a dead woman?”

  “I made a promise.”

  “Krieger asked you to make a much nobler promise, and you refused him.”

  “What does one fact have to do with the other?”

  “And let me ask you this. Let us say the mere presence of her earthly husk can now work miracles. Shouldn’t it be taken to the place where it can do the most good?”

  “Those weren’t her wishes.”

  “But if she’s withholding balm from the people in a time of terrible trouble, her wishes are wrong, are they not?”

  “I won’t let them chop her up and make her into trinkets. I won’t let them put her on display.”

  “Of all people, to suddenly care about the dignity of the dead…”

  “Let me ask you this.”

  “What?”

  “Do I sound as if you’re going to convince me?”

  “Hrmp,” said Franziskus.

  “Go to sleep,” said Angelika.

  He put his head on her shoulders. “Before Richart came in, I had the strangest encounter with Sister Devorah…”

  “I’ll wake you when the night’s half done.”

  As promised, Angelika woke Franziskus in the middle of the night.

  Franziskus, in turn, woke Angelika at the first shudder of pre-dawn. “There’s a commotion up above,” he said.

  Angelika ventured out from the alcove and peered up. Sure enough, the pilgrims at the summit were stirring as a mass, buzzing in collective dismay. “They’re learning the news,” Angelika said. The buzz became a groan. “They know Elsbeth’s dead.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Udo Kramer shook Stefan Recht awake. They’d spent the night under blankets, beside a now-dead fire, a few yards from the abbey wall. Gerhold snoozed beside them. Lemoine, who’d been with them when they fell asleep, was gone.

  “I’m not sure what, but something is happening,” Udo said, taking Gerhold by the shoulder and giving him a careful shake.

  The white-haired friar snuffled into consciousness. He blinked and wetted his lips. “What?” he asked.

  Lemoine ran at them, pushing his way through a gauntlet of pilgrims that surged the other way. “Come quick!” he called, his sandaled feet flying beneath him. His three companions fought the cold from their bones and shuddered to their feet.

  Lemoine tugged on Gerhold’s collar. “She’s dead! Mother Elsbeth is dead!”

  “Shallya be merciful!” cried Gerhold.

  “How did she die?” Stefan inquired.

  “She’s dead,” chorused the roiling throng.

  “What happened to her?” Stefan demanded. He fumbled in his pockets for his splendid cap, but remembered that he’d lost it for good.

  “To come all this way for nothing,” Udo muttered.

  Lemoine hauled on his collar, too. “But there’s still chance for a blessing! They bring the divine remnants out now!”

  The monk’s momentum pulled Udo into the crowd. A beefy elbow, swung high, smacked him in his curly-haired temple. He called out in protest, only to have his foot soundly tromped on by a bovine young woman to his left. Udo retaliated with a two-handed push, sending the offender bowling into a rough-looking fellow beside her. The rough man shoved the woman into a third pilgrim, A fist, emanating from an unrelated scuffle, flew at Udo from the opposite direction; he ducked. The blow hit Lemoine in the shoulder. Udo looked back for Gerhold and Stefan, and saw the silver-tongued advocate stumbling to pick up the friar, who had fallen and was in danger of being trampled by a new cascade of pilgrims coming in behind them.

  Udo and Lemoine reached a clearing in the crowd. They both flailed their hands and elbows with abandon, battling for a forward position. Before them stood a high-wheeled wooden cart, covered with a long white sheet. The obvious shape of a slim human form stood out beneath the sheet.

  “Mother Elsbeth!” a man shrieked, in lido’s ear.


  “It is her!” came a cry from the crowd, as it converged on the cart’s other side. A dozen Sigmarite warriors ringed the cart, their backs against it, alarm dawning on their helmeted faces. One close to Udo deftly drew his axe and whirled it through the air in a parade-ground display. “Get back!” he grunted. His fellows all pulled out their axes too, though they brandished them with less aplomb. “All of you get back!”

  Udo reeled as a sudden fury welled up in his chest. Each of his fists formed itself into a tight, hard ball. He dug his ragged fingernails into the soft flesh of his palms. “We’ve come all this way!” an angry voice proclaimed. Udo was about to call out in agreement when he realised the voice was actually his. It had been him, shouting down the hammer-wielding men. He, Udo Kramer, was drunk with rage. Never had he felt so free, so invincible. “It would be a great injustice to deprive us of her final blessing!” he crowed, flushed with confidence. He widened his eyes into an expression he hoped would seem mad and intimidating, and stomped a slippered foot in the direction of the nearest guard.

  The Sigmarite shrank back and shook his weapon. “None come near us!” he rasped.

  “Injustice!” cried the crowd, echoing Udo’s words.

  Something hit Udo behind the shoulder blades. He looked back and saw that it was Gerhold, propelled forward by pushing hands behind him. Udo executed a counter-shove to maintain his footing then turned sideways, giving the old friar a spot in his wake.

  The throng howled. “We’ve come all this way!” Their disparate protests sorted themselves into a single, unified chant. “Give us our blessing! Give us our blessing!”

  Another shove pushed Gerhold forward a pace. A Sigmarite feinted the haft of his weapon at him. Udo grabbed out to take the friar by the collar. He turned back to issue commands to the pilgrims behind him. “Stop pushing!” he ordered.

  They kept pushing. Udo held his ground. Gerhold slipped and was thrown out into the no-man’s-land between crowd and guards. Tripping, the friar landed at the feet of the axe-flourishing Sigmarite. The man scowled, baring yellow teeth, and brought the steel pommel of his Weapon down on Gerhold’s head. The blow scraped open Gerhold’s scalp, spraying his blood across the guard’s leggings. Udo screamed the friar’s name and lunged toward the cart, tearing a short sword from the scabbard at his belt. The crowd surged with him, wailing and grunting. A blow caught him in the ear—whether from the front or back he could not tell—and soon he was awash in a sea of squirming, shoving bodies. “Give us our blessing!” the penitents roared. Udo tasted blood in his mouth, and was not sure that it was his.

  Angelika leaned out from the rocks to see what was happening above. She heard screams. She watched as the mob engulfed the cart, rocking it. Then there were so many pilgrims around it that the cart could no longer be seen at all. The mob surged closer to the slope. A man jogged back to extricate himself from the roil of flying limbs, slipped, and fell backwards, falling down onto the rocks directly above Angelika’s head. She winced as he bounced her way. The falling man’s head impacted on a sharp jutting piece of dark limestone. Angelika ducked back as his corpse dropped past her. Above her, the crowd’s caterwauling reached a new crescendo.

  “What’s happening?” Franziskus asked.

  “The next time I ask you why I live in a godforsaken wilderness, far from contact with the great mass of humankind,” said Angelika, “please remind me of this moment.”

  “The riots have begun?”

  Angelika nodded. “I think that’s Elsbeth’s body they’re clawing at.”

  Franziskus leaned out for his own peek. He saw a woman slide slowly down the mountainside, weeping a prayer to Shallya. “What can we do?”

  “From here?” Angelika pulled the decorative dagger from her belt, looking for something to stab. “Nothing!”

  “What of our friends?” Franziskus hefted himself up, as if preparing to scale the rock face. “What if they’re in the middle of it?”

  “Friends?” Angelika sank back into the stone alcove. “We don’t have any.”

  * * *

  Udo’s sword arm met resistance as his blade sank into a torso. A man in a helmet groaned, so he was reasonably sure that it was a Sigmarite he’d stabbed. There was a pilgrim mashed up on either side of him. At least two men pressed against his back, pushing him forward. A woman was lying on the ground, in front of him, her helpless hands held up in a defensive posture. Udo tried to move back, but there was another body on the ground behind him. Viciously elbowing the pilgrim next to him, he forced himself to one side, avoiding the toppling body of the guard he’d run through. Evidently, he’d killed the man. It surprised Udo, that all signs of inner life had so quickly left the man’s face. The Sigmarite landed face-up, right beside his foot. Udo could not resist. He placed the sole of his slipper on the man’s face, his toe on the forehead, his heel on the chin, and pressed down. He felt gratified, and, at the same time, more furious.

  The mob bayed exultantly and Udo saw why: they were tipping the cart over. Its wheels rose into the air, shattered and spinning. The press of pilgrims broke as the crowd ran frantically around the tipped cart to get at the body. Udo whipped his sword backwards so that the rushing penitents would give him a wide berth. He saw that Gerhold lay in the mud, his robe in disarray, his bare legs exposed and dirtied. With his off-hand, he pulled the friar to his feet.

  “Are you hurt?” he asked.

  “Where’s Stefan?” replied Gerhold, his face scraped raw, his scalp still bleeding freely from where he’d been hit with the axe pommel.

  Together, their heads turned, and they saw Stefan, in his dark finery, running around the cart with the rest of the pack. Udo grabbed Gerhold by the arm and pulled him along, in the same direction.

  “We must—”

  panted Gerhold, as Udo belaboured his fellow pilgrims with the flat of his sword, smacking rumps, shoulders, arms and skulls, parting the mob like a curtain. Dazed, Gerhold allowed himself to be pulled into the fray, muttering. “We must touch the sacred body,” he said. “Merely touch. To be blessed…”

  They cleared the corner of the cart and Gerhold, shocked out of his stunned reverie, drew back in horror. The pilgrims had set upon Elsbeth’s body, unrolling it from its snow-white shroud. At least a dozen of them pawed her naked flesh with their filthy hands. Most held their heads back, their eyes fluttering skywards in ecstatic transport. Others readied knives and swords, or merely pulled and twisted at her toes and fingers. And there, amid the blaspheming horde, crouched Stefan Recht, his face puffed and sweaty, his eyes wide. He held the dead abbess by the wrist, drawing his knife.

  “No!” Gerhold shouted, hurling himself at the advocate. He hit Recht in the side, bowling him over, knocking the blade away. His thumbs flew to Recht’s throat. “Blasphemous rogue!” he shouted, grinding them into Stefan’s thyroid cartilage.

  Stefan seized the friar’s hands and pulled himself free of them, gasping. Gerhold leapt on him, punching wildly. Stefan’s groped at the friar’s face, and pushed him away, eventually manoeuvring him into a headlock. “What are you doing, you old fool?”

  “Stopping you from committing the basest act Of—”

  Stefan caught him with a sudden blow to the chest, knocking the air from his lungs. Gerhold let his weight drop onto the advocate, pinning him against the frosty ground. Stefan kicked and struggled to be free. “Dunderhead!” he sputtered. “She’s no ordinary corpse, to be respected with flowers and pieties! She’s a veritable mine of precious relics!”

  “Sacrilege!”

  Stefan grabbed a hank of his hair and pulled. “You know it to be true! We must get our share before they do! Look!”

  Gerhold turned his head and saw that a massive, bosomy matron standing over the body with a captured axe raised above her head. She was ready to strike, presumably to lop the abbess’ lolling head from her shoulders.

  “Stop her!” the friar cried, catching Udo’s eye. Udo nodded and bulled his way in. Gerhold cried, “Not like that!�
�� as Lido caromed his sword into the woman’s neck, opening an artery. The shocked woman clamped a fat hand to her neck then her legs gave way beneath her. Udo stooped to disentangle the axe-haft from her dead fingers.

  “Yes, Udo!” exhorted a smiling Gerhold. “Heel the rest of these slavering curs till the guards return!”

  Udo took the axe and chopped off Elsbeth’s right hand, severing it just below her already-mutilated wrist.

  “No!” wailed Gerhold.

  Two other pilgrims, one ruddy-faced and balding, the other young and muscular, dived simultaneously to fight for possession of the lopped-off hand.

  Udo sank the axe deep into the young pilgrim’s back. Stefan leapt into the melee, taking the balding man from behind and wrapping an elbow around his throat.

  “You mustn’t!” Gerhold called.

  “We’ve earned our claim to it!” Recht grunted.

  Udo reached down to snatch up the hand. A stout stick of severed bone protruded slightly from its torn flesh. “I hold here the holiest of relics! Do you have any concept of its worth, old friar? Ten thousand crowns, at least!”

  “A hundred thousand!” said Stefan, as he scrambled backwards in the dirt, pushed by the ruddy-faced man, who tried to free himself of the lawyer’s grip by rolling to one side.

  Hungry-eyed pilgrims surrounded Udo, grabbing for the hand. He swung the axe in a wide arc, driving them back.

  “Let go of it,” Gerhold begged, on hands and knees.

  Stefan’s pilgrim flipped the advocate onto his back and climbed up on him. He planted his knees on his brocaded chest and flailed laboriously at his face with heavy fists. Stefan slipped his arms between his chin and the rain of incoming blows.