by D. J. Butler
And even more than that, he resented the fact that they were clearly right.
“The draug came out at sunset,” one of the soldiers said to the other. He had a nasal whine to his voice. “Not just one or two, I mean. All of them.”
“To attack?” the other asked in a raspy growl. “I get posted facing the river. I see mostly beastkind, day and night both.”
“To take our dead,” Nasal said.
“Beastkind?”
“And Firstborn. I feel sick. They dragged them right back into the trenches.”
“Don’t think about the draug eating them, if it makes you sick. Just imagine they’re buried to life, returned to the Virgin.”
“That’s not it.”
The moaning of the beastkind grew, not in response to anything in particular.
“You’re Reformed, hetar?”
“I’m not religious at all.”
“What is it, then? You’re not troubled about the dead beastkind, are you?”
Nasal sighed, a sound like a heavy rattle.
Luman had been listening with a growing sense of dread, and suddenly found himself jumping into the conversation. “He’s troubled because the draug didn’t eat the bodies. They took them.”
“Exactly.” Nasal spat.
“You mean…” Rasp fell silent as he realized what Nasal intended.
Suddenly, Sarah Elytharias appeared among the beastkind. She walked slowly, as if stiff or exhausted. The blue Imperial army coat she wore dwarfed her. She wore the ragged bandage that covered her magical eye. The beastkind looked up at her. When she arrived at the center of the group, she stopped and raised the patch.
She was alone. Where was her Cavalier general? The Podebradan warrior who stuck to her like a shadow? Her vizier?
Luman doubted such people would leave Sarah alone, if commanded. So she must have eluded them.
His respect for her, already high, rose another notch.
Sarah looked at her beastkind warriors—had she lost a third? half?—slowly, turning to run her gaze over each of them in turn. She paced about the fire to do it, and the beastkind moved with her. They parted to give her space, then followed her until she stopped. The warriors had regrouped themselves in a cluster around her.
She didn’t look once at Luman; nevertheless he felt she was seeing his soul.
She rolled the strip of cloth into a ball, then deliberately threw it into the bonfire.
“My warriors,” she said slowly. “Today we lost members of our pack.”
A growl passed through the beastkind with a wave of rising fur and clenched fists.
“They’re gone,” Sarah continued. “If their bodies rise to fight again, know that those are bodies only, animated by the foul will of the Necromancer. It matters not that the husk returns to earth immediately, or that we must first defeat it and lay it down. Our packmates have fulfilled the measure of their creation and are returned to the river.”
Beastkind heads nodded on all sides.
Sarah removed her blue coat. Underneath, she wore a thin Appalachee shirt and breeches. The shirt showed her arms and neck, which were covered with red welts. A few of the welts had broken her skin and scabbed over—she looked as if she had been beaten with sticks.
“Across the river, in the Great Green Wood, a chick is born this night who fought by our sides at the Serpent Mound. A cub is whelped who marched with us into the Ohio. A kit yaps for the first time who this day roared her last into the face of Imperial guns.”
Luman had no idea what the theology of Sarah’s statements was, but the beastkind purred and growled, a noise of contentment and resolution.
“I’m not entirely comfortable with the direction this is going in here, either,” Nasal said. He and Rasp both edged away from the fire and the crowd.
Luman stayed where he was.
“We will see them again.” For the first time, Sarah’s face broke into a smile. “And when we see them, they will be our foes. We’ll fight them tooth and nail, for that is the thing we were born to do.”
The rumble rose in volume.
The two wardens turned and fled. Watching them go, Luman realized that a ring of Cahokians hid in the shadows around the fire. Their eyes were transfixed, their faces stunned and fascinated.
“Tonight, let us give praise to our fallen companions. Let us celebrate with joy their ferocity and valor, and the success of their lives.”
The low rumble broke into a shout of approval.
Luman’s knees buckled, but he forced himself to stand still.
Sarah threw back her head and howled like a wolf.
The beastkind roared.
Then they danced. With her warriors, Sarah circled the fire. She crouched on all fours to leap forward; she pirouetted around her beastkind; she slunk like a wild cat. She turned and raced directly at the bonfire, leaping over it and drawing another exuberant cry from her warriors.
The heat of the sweating beastmen and beastwives magnified the heat of the fire. Luman shrugged out of his own long coat and laid it aside. He was careful to drape it over a wooden table that looked as if by day it made part of some tradesman’s tent stall on the plaza. An errant beastwife’s hoof would crush valuable arcane supplies; would a watching Cahokian, desperate with hunger and the pressures of the siege, steal the coat?
He’d take the risk.
Luman Walters stepped into the circle of dancing beastkind.
Luman was familiar with the dances of the German Ohio and had taken a few steps in the circle dances of the Haudenosaunee, but he instantly knew that this dance was another thing entirely. It was a race, but a race in a circle with no apparent end. The racers took enormous leaps, spun on one leg, and took short cuts across the bonfire to emulate their queen, either bounding through the licking flames or stampeding across the coals. Beastkind locked limbs and whirled together, or threw each other in violent actions halfway between a wrestling hold and a dance spin.
Luman’s shirt came untucked and sweat poured from his body. He spread his legs as if straddling an invisible horse and barked in answer to the staccato shrieks of a beastman who danced opposite the fire. He entwined his elbow through the arm of a beastwife with a gray, thick-haired hide and eyes like an owl, and briefly did something like the triple-time gliding German waltz, cheek pressed to cheek and stalking through the sparks.
After a climax of howling and breathless stamping of feet, Luman found Sarah’s coat in the corner of the plaza. It was scuffed and dirtied with the tracks of many hooves and feet, so he offered her his own coat instead.
“That’s a bold offer, magician,” she said. The word magician made him smile and stand slightly taller. “Aren’t you afraid I’d take your coat and use it to ensorcel you?”
“Yes,” he admitted. “But you could just as easily order me shot, or feed me to your beastkind.”
At that moment, the beastkind were staggering to the corners of the plaza and flinging themselves down to sleep.
“I don’t know whether they’d eat the flesh of men,” Sarah said. “Some of them, likely, yes.”
“I’m not offering to be the experiment,” Luman said. “But I’m in your power.”
“I see it hasn’t even occurred to you to take my coat and use it to ensorcel me.”
It hadn’t. Luman felt himself blushing. “Your Majesty,” he said, “I have offered you my service. I offer it again now.”
Sarah took her own coat. “Tell me what you hope to gain, Luman Walters.”
“Power to act,” Luman said. “The wisdom to know what to do. An understanding of the nature of the universe.”
“You don’t want to take your Faculty of Abrac to some village outside Cleveland and just make a decent living, hexing barns against fire and shops against theft? There’s honor in that, and enough cash money to keep a person fed.”
“That was my mother’s hope for me,” Luman said. “My father was convinced that if he only woke me up first and kept me in the field longer, my
body would eventually develop the muscles that my brothers all sprouted naturally, and I would be a farmer like him. I, on the other hand, was convinced that his plan would kill me from sheer exhaustion. Mother gave him half the contents of her hope chest to get him to agree that I could be apprenticed to the local schoolteacher instead, and the other half to the schoolteacher. He taught reading, writing, and the Elector Songs, but he was also a famous rodsman.”
“You didn’t follow your mother’s plan.”
“Once I’d mastered the rod—which was the only arcane art that schoolteacher knew—I went back to my father and offered to use it to help him.”
“Let me guess…you failed.”
“No, I found water immediately. We dug a fine well, and when I offered to use the rod to ask other questions he might have, and search his farm for buried treasure, my father simply paid me a rodsman’s wages and sent me on my way.”
“You didn’t dig wells for the neighbors?”
“I decided instead I would learn the secrets of the universe. A person who knew the secrets of the universe would never have to dig wells or pull a plow in his life. Or if he did, it wouldn’t matter—he would have the peace of mind to endure it. The eyes to see, the ears to hear.” He studied Sarah Elytharias’s face closely, and she studied him back.
“You’re looking for initiation,” she said. “Esoteric secrets.”
“I have been initiated,” Luman answered. “More than once. I’m looking for knowledge.”
“From any source?”
“From true messengers,” he said, looking into her unnaturally pale eye. “I tend to find that the truest messengers are the strangest-looking ones.”
Sarah laughed once, a sharp bark. “I’m looking for knowledge, too,” she said. “And initiation. I don’t suppose you’re already a Grand Master of Cahokian royal throne lore?”
Luman’s breath came faster. “No. But I would like to know it.”
“So would I,” Sarah said. “In fact, I think I need to know it. And I’m starting to think not only does no one alive know what I want to know, but maybe the dead don’t know it, either.”
“The dangers of an esoteric tradition,” Luman said. “Distortion in transmission. Misunderstanding. Corruption. Failure.”
Sarah studied his face with her piercing gaze. “Alright then, Luman Walters. Stick close to me. I’m going on a trip in the morning, and you’re coming along.”
* * *
“Your Majesty,” Bill said. “I cannot insist. But I beg you to regard this Zadok as a potential threat. He stands now at the edge of the burial field, shouting things that many another queen would regard as directly seditious.”
“I do regard him as a threat,” Sarah said. “And I will not go to a funeral rite accompanied by a troop of beastkind. Not here, not in my city. Not in Her city. Not in front of my people. Our warriors must stand outside the burial ground.”
They stood beside the Temple of the Sun. Behind Sarah stood a file of priestesses. She and they wore simple linen dresses, despite the cold. The only decoration the linen bore was a stitched pattern with thread that was itself white and therefore almost invisible; the thread appeared to create entwined serpents over the priestesses’ breasts. Ceremonial garb, Bill thought.
“Then I will be at your side,” he said. “Should half the city attack, at least I will be there to defend you.”
“If he incites a mob that size to attack me, General, even you will be powerless to stop them.”
“Yes,” he agreed. “But I will not be powerless entirely. I will have the power to kill that son of a bitch Zadok.”
Sarah hesitated, which was as it should be. Bill wasn’t sure her life was at risk, but he didn’t want to take any chances.
“Not you, Sir William,” she said softly. “Not today, not at this. Whatever you have to do, you stand outside.”
“I will stand by your side, then,” Yedera offered.
The Podebradan wore her scale mail and rested a hand on the hilt of her scimitar. Bill didn’t think the Firstborn warrior looked any less offensive then he did to funerary ritual, but for some reason, Sarah evidently saw it differently.
“Yes, Your Majesty.” Bill tried to sound dignified and not stiff. He bowed and descended the mound in advance of the priestesses, clearing the way for the ritual procession. He leaned on two sticks and groaned at each step.
“The pain in your thighs is bearable, suh,” he ground through his teeth to himself, but he feared what might be coming. Discreetly, halfway down the Great Mound, he took two swallows from a flask he kept in his coat pocket. The brandy inside was extremely cheap and tasted of cherries, but he had spiked it with Gazelem Zomas’s Paracelsian Tincture.
By the time he reached the foot of the mound, the pain in his legs had dulled.
He knew no way to blow the Heron King’s horn softly, so he leaned to Chikaak at the foot of the Great Mound. “Softly,” he said, “but have the men fall in.”
Then he levered himself into the saddle. Chikaak mutely offered a hand, and Bill took it without comment.
Heeding Chikaak’s gentle yips, the surviving twenty beastkind marched behind Bill. He threw his chest out proudly, knowing without looking that the beastkind walked in two parallel lines, as crisply as a platoon could whose members didn’t all possess the same number of walking limbs.
He didn’t look back until they reached the Sunrise Mound. Sarah had designated a flat space beside the low mound as a Field of Life, and an honor guard of wardens stood in a ring that encompassed both the field and the mound. It was as large an honor guard as Bill believed the city could afford, comprised of men not currently on duty on the Treewall, but it didn’t create a solid barrier.
Fortunately, most of the city’s people—it did seem that the entire city had turned out, packing the open space just within the Treewall on all sides of the field and mound—respected the notional line the wardens created.
A solid minority, though, stood with Zadok. The Metropolitan of Cahokia had positioned himself at the edge of the cleared avenue leading to the field of life, just a few steps from the field. He stood with his back to the avenue now, addressing a wedge of Firstborn who stared at him intently. The Cahokians watching Zadok had marked their faces with ash, and Zadok addressed them.
“The Lord God cannot look with any allowance on such wickedness!” Zadok wailed. “He said unto His servant Amos, ‘That drink wine in bowls, and anoint themselves with the chief ointments: but they are not grieved for the affliction of Joseph. Therefore now shall they go captive with the first that go captive, and the banquet of them that stretched themselves shall be removed.’”
“Sergeant.” Bill spoke loudly enough to be heard by the priest. “Accommodate the men over there.” He indicated a space just across the avenue from Zadok.
“And again, to Ezekiel, ‘Son of man, wail for the multitude of Egypt, and cast them down, even her, and the daughters of the famous nations, unto the nether parts of the earth, with them that go down into the pit.’”
The Firstborn, whether out of fear of Sarah’s warriors or respect for their sacrifice, made room. They had a strong ability to squeeze tightly together, packed like salted fish in a barrel.
Bill needed someone to hold his mount, and the animal was uncomfortable with the beastkind. He missed Calvin Calhoun and his sergeant Jake, but there was no point pining for what he couldn’t have. Bill dismounted and found a young man standing alone in the crowd. “Do you know horses?” he asked.
The young man shook his head, but didn’t shrink away.
Bill handed him the horse’s reins and two shriveled apples. “Just stay here until I come back. One apple is for the horse.”
Then he took one of his walking sticks and stumped over to the priest.
Zadok was still speaking. “But I fear we have a Pharaoh…or a witch…who knows not Joseph. Did Onandagos not say, when he lay upon his deathbed, ‘Remember always that the serpent is the conquered one. And whe
n the sons of the conqueror shall willingly wear the yoke of the conquered, then shall their servitude become an eternal burden’?”
The Metropolitan’s followers groaned.
“Metropolitan Tarami.” Bill leaned over the priest to bully him and put a hand into one of his coat’s deep pockets. The feel of the horse pistol butt there was reassuring. “You may say all you like of banquets and ointments, but that is where you must draw your line.”
Zadok turned to look up at Bill. He, too, had smeared ash on his face. “Do you presume to silence the words of the Lord?”
“No,” Bill said. “Only the words of Mr. Zadok Tarami, and then only when he begins to talk of conquest and servitude. Keep your words to exhortations to repentance, and you and I may remain friends.”
“And if the repentance I must preach is the repentance of the queen?” Zadok asked. He didn’t look intimidated in the slightest. With the crowd staring at him, Bill suddenly wondered whether he’d chosen a battle he couldn’t win.
He didn’t lose his nerve. But he doubted his own wisdom.
“Metropolitan.” Bill sighed. “We are surrounded by enemies on two sides. More enemies arrive daily. Pray let us be united in our defense of this people and its rightful queen.”
“I have anointed no Queen,” Zadok said. “But I recognize the Regent-Minister, and I love this people. And I am here because I grieve for my people’s idolatry and wish us to repent.”
Damned old man looks as if he really means it. “And also, you are here because you grieve for the sacrifice required of some of the noble sons of this fair city. And grieving with them and their families, you would never dream of bringing dishonor on their interment.”
“I do mourn their deaths,” Zadok said, finally giving an inch. “And I celebrate their heroism and willingness to sacrifice.”
It would have to do. “I believe I shall watch the procession with you, suh.” Bill turned his back to the crowd, forcing several of Zadok’s followers to scuttle backward. He gripped his pistol firmly.
Sarah came at the head of her priestesses. They walked in three files; the central file followed directly behind Sarah, and each of them—including Sarah—held an unadorned jar made of fired brown clay and not so much as glazed. The files to the right and left played musical instruments: sistra, flutes, and hand drums. Ancient instruments, it seemed to Bill, and not the guitars or banjos or three-stringed Cahokian lutes that accompanied modern song.