by Ben Stivers
“I suspected,” Ham said, “but I am not in a position to raise that objection and neither are you. If they question you further, take your family and leave. Go to Ploor if you choose. There are Templars there. They have established a suggestion of order. Make a new life for yourself. Forget this place.”
“And if they do not question me? You are asking me to give up my life here.”
“Do as you will,” Ham replied. “If you do not give it up, they may well take it from you.”
With that, he opened the door and shoved Lomast back into the night.
The summer days did not cool simply because the first day of rain had passed through the Eastern Mountains. To the contrary, they anchored the air with mugginess.
Shanay sat at a small table in the minimalistic structure that served as their temporary home. The tradesmen had stopped work for the day, though they had labored furiously when they saw the rain vault over the ridge. They had sojourned onward until the lightning made it clear to everyone that they had been warned, and future failures to get to cover might come with a blistering price. Talking around the mounting thunder, she had finally convinced the last two remaining stonemasons to retire the day. Afterward, she had gone inside to dry herself.
Adam had spent much of the day at the blacksmith, working on a new set of boot knives, much like the ones she carried when she traveled. Because of that, she felt a whisper of surprise when he opened the door and came in.
“The lightning is furious out there,” he chuckled, much like his father, unafraid of natural things.
Shanay smiled, and threw him a blanket to brush the water off his hair and arms. “Come, dry yourself.”
After doing that, he said, “The knives are coming along well.”
“Are they? Do you have them?”
He withdrew one from each boot. “The tanner said he will rework the slides tomorrow so that they fit better. It was either that or grind them down more.”
Shanay inspected the blades with her expert eye and admired their balance. “You could be a blacksmith with this type of work.”
He brushed off the compliment, “The smithy helped. I paid for his time by hammering some horseshoes and a few new hooks the stonemasons use to haul stones. They use the same hooks to pull logs out of the forest, did you know?”
“No,” she replied, smiling at her son’s eagerness for learning. “Are you hungry?”
He considered for half a breath and then replied, “I am.”
“There is stew there in that pot next to the fire. Nothing like vagrant stew to stick to your ribs.”
“Vagrant stew?”
“I used to make the stuff a lot before I met Arthur. We eat it when we travel if we are out more than a week. It is a hodgepodge.”
Adam scooped a heaping portion into a hickory bowl and came back to the table. “I have no chores tomorrow. Would you like to go hunting?”
“A mother and son hunting expedition?”
“I am a good hunter,” he replied and wagged his eyebrows. “If I can’t kill them with a sword, I can shoot them with my bow, and if not that, I can trap them. Come with me.”
Shanay knew that he wanted her to go. He had not been hunting since coming to live with them though he talked much about his past expeditions. “I would love to go as long as this lightning withdraws.”
“Even in the rain.”
“Even in the rain,” she replied, “but not in the lightning.”
The rest of the evening, they cogitated what adventures they might have searching through the forest, what animals they might see, and what the day might bring. They did not discuss or consider that hunting sometimes meant hunted.
Chapter 11
Belial perched upon the shattered peak of Sawtooth and peered down upon Overlord City’s broken bones. Though no human could see as far as she, far beyond that miserable squalor of human beings lay the edge of the Black Forest and her new, if unfinished, fortress.
Her earth golems now numbered eleven. Someday, she aspired to have six hundred sixty-six, the exact number she would need to rip down her Father’s creation.
Though erratic and irritating, Mrandor proved useful to her cause. Already he twisted the minds of the men under his command. They wore her brand. They swore their lives, albeit by means of Mrandor’s slippery tongue. Perhaps he might be right, although she would never allow the notion to him from her mouth. He had a way with humans. His plans, though painstakingly detailed, yielded at least intermediary results.
Quite possibly his understanding of how humans should be handled might be the best course of action. She grasped that concept momentarily, and then set further thoughts of Mrandor and his schemes away from her immediate concern.
The new Maze expanded according to her plan. The artesian well had burrowed deeply into the earth and she had used its path as a blueprint for her design. At first, she had the golems cart the largest boulders to the far side of the forest, spreading them, though Mrandor had criticized her decision because of the underbrush they trampled in doing so. Soon, they would begin to retrieve those boulders, and the tower above her abode would far outshine the dilapidated stone overlook her brother had constructed in his tenure.
She tried her hand beyond the golems, using the raw materials of her Father’s children, desiccated, decimated. She had taken perhaps six dozen from various outlying towns and villages. No one noticed. Humans could care less about one another unless circumstance personally touched them. There were always bitter, derelict humans who would gladly surrender their souls if only to watch those better than they suffer.
With her powers, she transformed them. She had waited for several to die before beginning. The Covenant kept her from outright killing them, but once their souls vacated their bodies, she had not successfully reanimated them.
“From dust to dust,” she had heard whispered across the lands, but once that dust became flesh and died, she could not return that flesh to an animated article. With the golems, she extracted them directly from the dirt. They had no soul and only a minimal intelligence. Still, they were fearsome creatures, at least to Mrandor’s men who remained in the Black Forest. Startling them from their wits gave her pleasure during her idle time. She had not yet decided how she might wish to use the golems for the great end, and for the moment that did not matter. Warping and mutilating her Father’s creations amused her more, but did not quench her thirst.
She had taken live humans, sludge from the bottom of humanity, and formed them into slim-downed versions of her brother’s trolls. She held their souls in an inescapable misery. Still, she had not been satisfied with that derision. What satisfaction could be gained from a mockery of a dead-for-eternity brother? He could not hate her. He could not admire her.
Though the Snipes pleased her, she wanted recognition beyond mimicking her brother’s imagination. Therefore, she had created what the murmurings called, “Alones.”
The spell took a pliant human as the base material, ripped away the bones, and turned them into teeth. The mind turned to hunger, feeding not as much on living flesh, as the nourishment of an individual’s solitude. Alones took the saddest, most despairing people and devoured them. Doing so, they digested their victim’s body and soul and could multiply themselves by as many as five. Reproduction of anguish fed her singular goal.
That did not set aside her admiration for her Snipes. Snipes did something that she could not do. Having once been human, like Mrandor, they could kill men as quickly as they chose to find them. Because of that, she had sent Snipes and Alones forth into the Black Forest to hunt passersby, but she had failed to constrain them. They had migrated to Hellsgate. Set down their hunting ground. She sensed each kill that they made, felt them multiply.
Now, she waited. Eventually, time would pass and she would need Mrandor and his plodding stratagems no more. Her children would thrive unto the end of the world. That end would set her upon the throne of Heaven.
Mrandor knelt at the altar, not so
much for reverence, but convenience. For nearly half a day, he had prepared one of the first spells of his own creation, a spell that if it failed, could kill him and hurry Belial’s destruction from “never” to a “matter-of-days.”
This spell would be black as night. On the altar, he laid a hand-drawn map of Backswain, carefully sketching every border, every building, and every road. The enchantment would be passed through the forest soil, through the roots of the trees he designated when the time came, and would follow him to Backswain. From there, the trees would release their pollen. The inhabitants would inhale the enchantment. They would follow as one the direction back through the forest; linger near the altar until they died, or until Belial used them for whatever she had in mind for them. The action served his cause, but more important, it would complete his vengeance upon the town that had wronged him.
He suspected that she believed he did not know of the Alones and Snipes, but he had received word through his messengers. He had sent a thaumaturgic amulet, held by a silver necklace for each of his men. The amulet would ward the diabolic creatures off should Belial’s assurances that no more of his men would be harmed confirm his notion that she lied. The amulet itself would also diminish her ability to influence his hirelings, though not completely. Their own particular vices could not be dissuaded.
He had studied long and hard as Lucifer’s familiar. He knew the weaknesses that demons exhibited and he had taken steps to exploit those, knowing the repercussions should his actions be discovered.
Until he began weaving his Backswain spell on her behalf, those outcomes he expected would be another round of tongue lashings, but the spell he wove for Backswain held another subliminal spell as well, a spell that should he need it, could bind Belial to his service, or at least prohibit her from harming him. Binding could not cleave her permanently, but he continued to construct the plan to kill her. When the time came, he would snuff out her pathetic, monstrous half-life like a candle in a hurricane. Though his tactics progressed as he wished, Belial had proved troublesome. Eventually, one of them must exit the crowded stage. Only one god could rule.
He called upon her. “Hear me, Belial. Connect my threads to these things.” He slashed his palm with a sharp blade and held it over the map on the altar. Feeling the pleasure of the sweet agony of the steel, he dropped exactly seven drops onto the image of Backswain.
Belial instantly presented herself as he had expected. “I offer you this town, and these people as you have asked. Enjoin our threads that they may hear my call.”
Belial’s front row of teeth shined and her white and black wings tipped forward toward the altar until they touched the blood. The red flowed into the feathers until the map was clear and with that, his binding spell as well. That, however, he would save until needed. If it faltered, then his entire plan would fail. That was a chance he believed acceptable.
With the tip of his knife, he crossed the first slash of his palm with another, bowed to her, and stalked away into the forest, touching each tree he passed, leaving a blood trail in his wake.
“In three days, they will arrive,” he said over his shoulder without looking back.
Aerilius sauntered out of the Haunted Virgin with his remaining six men in tow. Single-minded determinedness to find that greater-than-thou whore poured salt into the open wound of his resolve to unearth, punish, and then kill her.
Hellsgate hid the sniveling bitch. The one thing he felt for certain. She had found refuge in the town and most likely, she had found her sympathy at the Dead Whore Tavern, or down at the stable where Aerilius and his men had boarded their horses.
The man at that establishment’s name was Sab. Sab—what a waste of breath that name. He ran the stables, but he did not own them. He shoveled horseshit for a living and thanked the gods for the opportunity to do so. A miserable, disgusting way to make one’s way in the world, Aerilius could almost thank Rome for pillaging its way across the world.
Except for the Downs, the one place that had thwarted his attempts to pry, the only other places that money flowed freely were the Dark Embrace, which he frequented—they would not shelter the whore—and the Dead Whore Tavern, a fitting name for the business he and his men were about to explore.
Taverns did not alarm him. Even so, he had heard how the last mission to the distant town of Ploor had ended, not exactly how events had unfolded. Mrandor’s other hirelings pled ignorance of the matter. If they did know, they made no mention. What he knew was that twice the number of loud-mouthed, amateur, so-called, mercenaries had been sent down there to locate and exterminate Bornshire. None had returned. Thus, he had been told only to find Bornshire, or news of him, and return to the forest.
Rumors ran a fairly thin layer as rumors went in Mrandor’s cadre. He did not take well to them, and if one repeated them and were found out, the end of life with a tongue might be over, eating gruel from a wooden spoon, a damning fate—at least that was the rumor. He smiled at his festered humor.
If the men had failed, Aerilius could only modestly appreciate why. Soldier. General. Priest. Murderer. Bornshire’s reputation outran any expectation of what the man could possibly be. No matter what he had been during the reign of Rome, years tended to catch up to men who let their skills lie in the rain to rust.
Aerilius had been sent to locate Bornshire and report back to Mrandor, not kill him. Yet, should the opportunity present itself, Belial had promised Aerilius both wealth and Mrandor’s seat at the table. He would be foolish to set that particular notion aside.
The sun had dragged the sky halfway to midday before they exited the Virgin and strolled out onto Pagan’s Way. The clouds that passed lightning around like a drunken wench, and then migrated west. Heat squeezed the sweat out of them as soon as they stepped into the drying street.
Vendors skittered out of their way, and some began to pack, feeling trouble brewed. They had smelled danger enough times to know that particular stew.
Aerilius’ men sloshed through the muck, ignored the puddles, their weapons securely on their belts, swords, knives and short axes. All wore cloth over-shirts and canvas britches. They saw no need for armor, or if they did, they wore it under their clothes, giving no hint to their defense.
Aerilius had given his attention to the alley down which he intended to travel, but suddenly at the branch in the road on the porch of the Dark Embrace stood a man and woman. Both were of the same trade as he. One knew one’s kind.
The man was tall, and the woman shorter. The man stood, leaning against a post that supported the balcony above it. The woman sat on the porch, but as Aerilius’ gaze touched her, she stood up, strong and confident.
Aerilius had found who he was looking for. Luck had delivered Belial’s desire and placed it at his feet.
“Bornshire!”
He yelled toward them, but the two gave no hint from their emotionless expression that seven-on two-would give them a problem. Instead, they turned and walked briskly around the far corner, out of sight, at the head road to the Downs.
“After them!” he ordered and signaled with his hand before breaking out into a run.
Arthur perched at the top of a clear and sparkling waterfall. The sun shined down on him and looking over the waterfall, the sun painted a broad spectrum of colors in the veil of mist as it tumbled down the mist into the vast lake far, far below.
The lake lay in the middle of a spacious meadow where several deer grazed, and sitting down next to the shore sat Shanay and Adam. From his position, he could not determine if they were fishing, or simply talking, but in either event, he imagined his woman had her feet in the water, wiggling her toes and forsaking her boots for the thrill that chilled water gave her feet. He took in the rest of the scene, a wide stream wound crookedly across the flatlands for as far as he could see. The edge of the sky was jagged where trees pinned blue to the earth and not a single cloud intruded.
He felt peaceful, but unconsciously his hand drifted to his belt. He had left Gideon’s s
word behind. In fact, he carried no weapons—not one.
That felt wrong. Completely unsound.
He looked back across the landscape, realizing for the first time that the stream led directly to the Sawtooth and upon the peak stood the same angel that he had seen in his dream.
His dream.
His—
His eyes fluttered open with a start, the sun spearing through the small upstairs windows and his disorientation gnawed at him. He swung his feet off the bed and heard voices. Downstairs, Scralz and Wolf spoke in low tones.
Pulling on his boots, he stood, lifted his sword from the hook on the wall and stepped forward. He heard Scralz say, “He’s up.”
If they said anything while he jaunted down the stairs, he did not hear it, but they all exchanged good mornings and Scralz said, “You look like hell.”
“Thanks,” he replied. Plucking a wet towel from the top of the bar, sniffing it, he decided it was not rotten, and wiped his face clean as the rag would allow.
He tossed it back on the bar and Scralz remarked, “You’re welcome. I’m sure my customers would love knowing I wiped my mugs clean with your grimy face.”
Wolf nearly choked on the ale that he drank as Scralz threw the towel back into a barrel of greasy water and watched it until it sank.
She turned back to Arthur. “So, your friend here has this idea of drinking tea. I convinced him tea was a woman’s drink, so he’s having ale. How about you? You too sophisticated to have ale for breakfast?”
“No,” Arthur replied and pushed himself up on a stool. “What’s to eat?”
“Flat cakes!” came Anthony’s answer from the back room. With that, Arthur heard the batter awaken the pan. “We have been waiting to see if you were dead or just determined to actually sleep the morning.”
The dream drifted back toward Arthur’s memory, but Wolf swept it away saying, “Detur and Morm are going to the Black Forest. They will quietly scout around.”