Trinidad stopped in front of a tangle of razor-wire that barricaded a little house on the church grounds from the street. Just ahead, the church loomed, its blackened stone menacing in the daylight, its windows barred with rusting sheet metal and peeling wood. Castile wondered how Trinidad had ever found peace here, amid the asphalt and concrete, away from the hunt and the cave. The mountains could be unforgiving, but at least nature was a proper home.
“You come back here like a horse running into a burning barn.” Castile had to force the words out between knocking teeth. He was so cold he felt like his balls were trying to crawl into his belly.
“We need weapons, armor, clothes.” Trinidad seemed well-conditioned to ignore the cold, but shivers jarred him occasionally.
“What about the archwardens?”
“I’m more worried about the snipers on the belltower.” Trinidad nodded toward the tower, but his attention was on the fence. “They have to be in exact position to see us here. We decided we didn’t need to blockade this spot any further for security. Of course, they don’t know what I know, and I couldn’t tell without getting into a lot of trouble.”
He reached through the fence, slow and careful to keep from snagging his skin on the rusted razors soldered to it. A couple of twists of wire, and the fence sprang open, plenty wide enough to admit a person.
Castile grinned. “You naughty boy. You cut a hole in your own fence.”
“When I was too young to know better.”
“Now, why, I wonder, would a young Trinidad do such a thing? Teenaged dalliance or two?”
Trinidad shot him a scowl, but he didn’t have the same ruthless glare as usual.
They managed the back door all right and slipped inside. Father Troy’s house smelled dusty and sour, like onions. It was dim inside, the windows covered with metal plating. Occasional cracks of light sliced through the gloom.
Trinidad led the way through the house and peered between curtains. The window by the door wasn’t barricaded and it faced the church grounds. “The weapons and armor are in the sanctuary building.”
That seemed odd. Wasn’t that where they worshipped? “Why there?”
“Most secure for a standoff or siege,” Trinidad said. All impatience from his voice was gone. “It’s all stone with metal-plated windows.”
Castile settled Wolf on the steps and joined Trinidad, who pointed at the tower, partially blocked by the red tiled roof of the church at this angle. Indeed, the building was thick stone. “Four snipers,” he said. “They can see part of our path, just there, before we get under the cloister.”
“The gate guard can see us from here, too,” Castile said.
“That will be a novice, and he should be looking at the street.” Trinidad let the curtains fall. “There’s a door under the cloister on this end. It’s usually unlocked this time of day. We won’t have much time. Do you think you can get Wolf to go alone? Less of a target and they know him.”
Castile gave Wolf an uncertain look. The boy slumped back against the stairs and stared at nothing. “I don’t know. He’s in deep trance, I think.”
Trinidad sighed. “Come on. Let’s get you clothes first.”
Trinidad led him to a small room with a narrow window, a cot, and a tall, narrow dresser. A hammered metal cross hung over it.
A tingle ran down the back of Castile’s neck. Despite the austerity, it felt of Trinidad. “Is this your room?”
“It used to be.” Trinidad opened the bottom drawer of the dresser and tossed Castile a shirt and trousers. Then he reached under the cot and came up with a worn pair of boots. “Can I have my shirt back now?”
Castile peeled it off and tossed it at him. He rubbed his hands on his bare stomach and thighs where the wool had itched him before pulling Trinidad’s old clothes on, smiling inwardly at Trinidad’s appraising glance.
The trousers hung low on his slim hips and he had to roll them up a couple of times. He sat on the bed to pull on the boots, wincing. Still sore inside. The boots rubbed but would do. He liked going naked as much as the next guy, but he couldn’t deny the relief in getting into warm clothes.
“You still have no boots yourself,” he observed.
“I know. I’ll just have to find some … somewhere.” Trinidad turned to Wolf, who waited on his steps, staring unblinking into space. “You think we can we break him out of it? Wake him up?”
Castile considered. “A bad shock might bring him round, yeah, something that’s so essential to this part of his consciousness that it draws him back out. We’ll have to take him to Aspen. If a high priestess can’t fetch him back, I’d wager no one can.”
“Thanks for not arguing about bringing him.”
“Wolf is better off with us anyway. I have a feeling about him.” A bad, suspicious feeling, actually. He signed the Horns with his fist and pressed it to his shoulder, thinking of the oft-felt Presence at his back. He was more and more certain the gods had some purpose for Wolf and he was reasonably sure Trinidad wouldn’t like it.
Trinidad turned his attention back to the problem at hand. “Just walk quickly, like you know where you’re going. I’ll send you first and I’ll bring Wolf. He’s given up fighting me, and from a distance, a marksman won’t necessarily know it’s me, just an archwarden with a novice.”
“If he’s not looking through his scope,” Castile said.
“I’m hoping we’ll move quicker than he can get a gun to his eye, and he has no reason to examine someone on church grounds.”
No heads peeked around the battlements on the tower and the churchyard was empty but for a cold wind scuttling leaves and twigs across the labyrinth. Castile saw movement through the windows of the auxiliary building, and two guards shivered in the gate house, their backs to the churchyard. It made sense all the guards would be focused outside the church grounds, but he barely had dared to hope. He went out first, trying to move with purpose but feeling like a fleeing deer. Trinidad was right. The door was unlocked.
The blackened stone façade hadn’t prepared him for the sheer beauty of the interior. Candles in lanterns lit the place, shedding their glow on grand wooden steps and a big table at the back wall. Quiet benches rested in rows and wide beams soared overhead, supporting a curved roofline with arched wooden beams. Stone pillars supported each beam, bigger around than two men could reach.
The steps beckoned. He climbed them and stared up. Over the altar, a cabinet of gleaming wood climbed to the bottom of a giant, round colored glass window covered on the outside with metal plating. Even in the gloom, Castile could see it would be stunning should sunlight be allowed to shine through it. It must be made of thousands of pieces of colored glass. On either side, upright metal pipes were suspended over more benches. Winged people perched on the tops of pillars. Crosses were carved into stone. Four white statues rested in alcoves over the carved table.
The door opened again, letting in a slice of daylight and snuffing it just as quick. Trinidad eased Wolf down to the steps, took a knee before the table, and bowed his head. When he lifted it, he signed something over his heart.
“He’s gone,” Trinidad said.
“Who?”
“Paul. His body. They took him away.” For a moment, Castile thought he might say more, but he stood and walked to one of the walls on the side. He pressed his hand against a wall and a door hidden in the paneling opened toward him.
The tiny armory was dark as Castile’s cave but Trinidad picked up a taper from the big, ornate table and lit it from a burning votive. Inside, he waved it around the windowless storage closet, revealing rifles hanging from pegs, shelves of short blades and old swords, buckets of ammunition, discarded pieces of armor. A complete armor harness hung neatly from hooks.
Castile’s mouth opened and then he shut it, blinking.
“No clever comment this time, I see,” Trinidad said. “Find some armor and suit up.” He reached for the harness on the hooks and slipped the upper arm and shoulder protection over his hea
d, settling it on his shoulders and buckling the straps over his chest. Next went his front and back plates.
Castile secured an old, scarred bracer on his left arm.
“I wore that when I was eighteen,” Trinidad noted, picking up the other bracer and turning it over in his hands.
“All right, stop gloating about being bigger than me. I can still kick your ass,” Castile said, holding out his other arm so he could snap it on. The bracers were heavier than they looked, laced with steel ribbing.
“It’s old, but it’ll stop a full-on sword strike,” Trinidad said, fixing the bracer.
“Looks like it already did a few times.”
“Indigos,” Trinidad said. “When blades didn’t work they got out their bows instead. That’s why there’s only one greave. Arrow broke the other.”
“What happened to your leg underneath?” Castile said.
Trinidad shrugged and turned away to buckle on his sword, doubling the belt around his hips and putting on the rest of his armor. As he slipped bullets into a magazine, Castile peered around his shoulder. “Binaries?”
“No. Not inparish. Too many people.”
Castile released a hissing breath. “So, you think we’re stuck in the walls for a while.”
“Getting out might be a challenge, especially with Wolf.”
Castile clenched his bruised jaw, finished with the armor, and strapped a belt with knives sheathed on it around his middle.
Herne, he thought, I will happily die should it be my day. But, be it Your failure or mine, I cannot go back to the Christian prison. He felt a chill against the back of his neck, like the Horned One Himself had moved his hair aside and whispered against his skin.
Maybe he sensed Castile’s tension or maybe it was for no reason at all, but Trinidad’s fingers paused while loading the magazine and he looked up.
Castile spoke quickly, trying to hide his terror. He wasn’t sure if he was talking to Trinidad or the Horned One, or both. “If this goes south, don’t let them capture me. Swear you’ll kill me instead.”
“Castile, no. I can’t do that. My vows—”
“Fuck your vows.” Castile embraced the growing chill of certainty, of the sheer horror of his recent abuse. “Threefold Bane means I won’t get out of this so easily and I’m only down two.”
“What did you do?”
“I was convicted for ecoterr—”
“No.” The word sounded like a gunshot in the close room. “What did you do?”
Castile swallowed. Maybe Trinidad was the third bane. “Stop trying to change the subject. Just swear you’ll kill me if it gets close.”
“I can’t. I just … can’t, Cas.”
His terror tasted sour. It shamed him but he couldn’t help himself. “You have to. I need to know I won’t go back there. I can’t go through that again.”
Trinidad fell very still. His eyes glistened. At last he twitched a nod.
“Thank you.” Castile took his hand, meaning to draw him close into an embrace. But the door of a dray slammed outside, muffled by the stone of the church.
Trinidad’s grip tightened, making Castile painfully aware of the strength in the archwarden’s sword hand. A frown deepened the cleft in Trinidad’s chin and his gleaming eyes narrowed into his fighter’s mask again. He blew out the taper and strode to the altar and blew those out too, leaving them in near darkness.
Castile thought with an inward chill what it felt to have that glare pointed at him. I’m glad we’re on the same side. Thank you, Herne. I think. I just hope we don’t have to make good on our little hand-fasting right away.
THIRTY-FOUR
The crusader’s camp was tense after the bombing and the coming night would make things worse. Malachi still hadn’t reported in from scouting the bomb sites and Bishop Marius paced in the little house they’d confiscated, annoyed at the lack of word. James guarded her, unmoving by the door, but a commotion outside made them both turn.
He opened the door, hand on his hilt, steel glinting between crossguard and scabbard. Two marshals held an Indigo woman by the arms. She was wiry in the way so many Indigos were, betraying deep-set hunger, but she had the lopsidedly broad shoulders of a spearguard and archer. Each eyebrow had several notches plucked bare, giving her face a strangely mechanical look. A copper ring hung from her nasal septum and a couple of fine-linked chains had been woven into her locked braids.
“Have you disarmed her?” James asked, his bulk between the visitors and the bishop, so that Marius had peer around his shoulder. She fingered the bronze cross she wore over her armor.
A third guard held up two blades to show James she’d been searched.
The Indigo didn’t struggle, just gave Marius a brazen smile. “You’re gonna want to talk to me. About Trinidad. Tell him to fuckin leave off.”
“She says her name is Javelot, Your Grace,” the marshal said. “She’s the second in command to Reine d’Esprit of the Indigo clan, out on Old Superior lands.”
Marius nodded. “I’ll hear what she has to say.”
The marshals let her go. They’d bound her hands behind her back, but she was able to climb the steps with no trouble. James audibly drew his sword and hovered the point near the Indigo’s kidneys. She didn’t kneel, of course, but she twitched her head in a nod. Marius supposed that was about as formal as it got with county folk.
“What’s this about Trinidad?” she asked.
“I saw him and Castile runnin from the jail. Half-naked, the two of them, but they looked sound enough.”
Marius leaned forward. “How do you know Castile?”
“Fuckin who don’t? He came the other night, wantin to savvy. Got us to catch Trinidad for him a few nights ago.”
Marius turned her back on the Indigo and crossed to her map table, giving herself a moment to absorb that. Trinidad had lied—she’d known it, of course. But how deeply the lie had gone, she’d had no idea. “Do you know what Castile wanted with him?”
“Friends from way back. Trinidad was a Wiccan,” Javelot answered promptly. “I asked around. Reine, she just takes the goods and goes off. She never sees the real payout. But I thought you might be interested, since it’s different from what Reine knows.”
Marius settled herself behind the map table and folded her hands. “Trinidad’s heritage is well known in Christian circles, so you’ll have to do better than that to keep my attention. Where did they go?”
“I won’t say until we have a savvy,” Javelot said. When Marius didn’t answer right away, she added, “They did find that boy with the scars.”
“Wolf.”
“That’s what they call him by. We call him somethin else.”
Marius held off taking that bait for the moment. “Why should I care about any of this?”
“Trinidad had hardly any clothes. He was barefoot. Some bruises on him and dirt. No armor rig, no sword. I figure he was a prisoner at your jail.”
Marius gave up her bluff. “I’ll have archwardens see to their recapture, then, and thanks. James, would you escort Javelot to—”
“No! There’s more.” Javelot settled her shoulders and stood up straighter. “Can’t go back home yet. Reine’ll kill me.”
Marius steepled her fingers beneath her chin. “That’s why you’re here, betraying your tribe? Because your queen kicked you out.”
Javelot straightened. “Fuckin no. I’m takin queen now and I’m protectin my freehold.”
“By giving your enemies information,” Marius said.
“And I got more than just this, lady. But not till we got a savvy.”
“You realize we could just torture you for information,” Marius said.
Javelot grinned, baring stained, chipped teeth. “Why make an enemy when you can make a friend?”
“I assume you want us to stop the crusade.”
“Lady, you can crusade all over the Western Territories for all I care. I’ll even throw you Reine, if you want a quit from us. Fuckin I’ll take a knee to y
ou. I just want my freehold. I just want what’s mine.”
Ambition could be a dangerous tool, but a useful one. Marius settled back into her seat and crossed one leg over the other.
“Loyalty to the parish requires taxes. Crops from your lands. Tithes, they’re called. To the Church. To do that, you’ll need us to front seeds and animals, I’m sure. Reine does seem to worry about feeding your tribe, which tells me you’ve eaten your stores dry. It’s a little more complicated than our accidentally strolling around your freehold instead of marching through it.”
Javelot shrugged. “Figure we have to do some wicked to make it look honest, lady.”
Marius bit back a laugh. If Javelot only knew. “I already have a perfectly serviceable alliance with your sister, who is still queen, if she yet lives?” She went on at Javelot’s grudging nod. “Why would I throw that away for whatever information you might have?”
Javelot didn’t miss a beat. “Because that savvy is over. She’s gunnin for you now that Paul’s dead. All broke up about it.” An ugly smile as she observed Bishop Marius’ lips press together. “You not know? Your archwarden Paul and Reine had a thing. I can’t let her stay queen. She never was much good, but she lost it after she saw Paul dead at the church. Couldn’t even set a bomb right.”
Marius gave herself a moment to compose herself. The words still came out harder than she anticipated. “She set off the bombs?”
“Fuckin had Israel do it. You know, your kid they call Wolf? With all the burns. He’s Trinidad’s real brother, not just a fake one. He was a sleeper who took out the jail for us. Was supposed to set himself off too. But fuckin Trinidad and Castile found him and carried him off. And there’s more info where that came from, like where they went to hide. Now. Do we have savvy or what?”
Marius stared at the Indigo, with her broken teeth and scars, her notched eyebrows and piercings. She smelled of ash and sweat, of unwashed clothes, and unburied feces. Marius found her ignorant, ugly, and refreshingly honest.
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