The Forgetting Moon

by Brian Lee Durfee

  At least a third of the Sør Sevier warriors were women, fierce and ugly. Some had removed their armor and were now watering their mounts from buckets of fresh water. Some were knee deep in the ocean, washing their weaponry free of blood. The beach was streaked red with froth. Another group of female knights were sinking hooks into the hacked bodies still on the beach and dragging them behind their mounts up toward the bonfire. These heaps of tortured flesh were villagers Ava had known her entire life. To look upon them now with their hollow eyes and bloated faces was like a nightmare.

  It could not, Ava told herself, be happening. Yet it was. The gray-visaged Sør Sevier knights standing on Gul Kana soil before her were a reminder of the lessons of arduous truths written in The Way and Truth of Laijon, that the wraiths of death stalk every life, everywhere. Today was her time to die. The trauma of everything she’d just been through was paralyzing. And the shock of it all played with her thoughts. She could feel the vast persistence of the wraiths planning their attack upon her shivering mind. They would soon come a-creeping into her brain with a trembling certainty. They would destroy her like they had destroyed her mother.

  Her mouth was parched, her thirst like a raging saber-toothed mountain lion clawing up her throat. Ava felt she might faint without water. She couldn’t think of a suitable Laijon prayer for what was happening to her. So she just uttered his name over and over and awaited her fate.

  And fate stalked the line of prisoners now.

  Ava braced for death as a pretty, red-haired Sør Sevier warrior woman drew near, flipping a copper coin over and over in her hand. The woman wore leather armor fastened with a gleaming silver breastplate and shoulder plates. Leather greaves and steel armor covered her thighs and shins. She wore thick, dark boots, also studded with steel. The top of a crossbow and quiver of thick, wicked-looking bolts jutted from over her shoulder. A giant tattoo-faced fellow followed her—seven feet tall if an inch, his hair also fire red. The two stopped before the young Gallows Haven boy first in line, asking him his name.

  “My ma was shot with arrows,” the boy answered. Smears of blood encrusted his face. “She’s on the beach.” He nodded toward the water. “Can I go tend to her?”

  The Sør Sevier woman informed the boy that his mother was dead. Then she and the large tattooed fellow moved to the next in line—a Gallows Haven conscript who swayed almost drunkenly on his feet, dented helmet atop his head. Thick streaks of blood covered the fighter’s face. It was dried and crusted on his neck and chest-plate armor too. The red-haired woman ordered the conscript to remove his helm. But the fellow just stood there on wobbly legs.

  “Helm’s been smashed onto his head.” The woman turned to her giant companion. “See if you can’t club it off, Hammerfiss.”

  Hammerfiss. The name terrified Ava. With broad shoulders and muscles like an ox, Hammerfiss looked stouter than a full-grown oak. Bones, fetishes, and bangles were tied into his hair and beard. The blue tattoos covering his face spoke to the evil that Ava felt must surely breed within his soul. He wore a belt lined with a brace of long knives and a leather harness over his silver armor bearing a massive mace that hung at his back.

  With one meaty fist, Hammerfiss smacked the underside of the conscript’s helmet and it popped free, revealing Nail’s face. He stumbled back, landing on his butt in the sand, hands bound behind him. Thick, murky rivulets of dried blood marked Nail’s face, mostly obscuring it. With listless eyes, he looked up at the two warriors from Sør Sevier, then rolled onto his side and barfed in the sand.

  “This one’s useless.” The red-haired woman flipped her copper coin. “Kill him.”

  Ava’s heart plunged as Hammerfiss reached down and latched onto the front of Nail’s armor and yanked him to his feet. “He’ll recover soon, Spades.” The tattooed giant gently slapped the boy’s blood-encrusted cheek. “He seems a stout enough lad.”

  The blue tattoos that covered Hammerfiss did not seem as frightening now as they had before, and Ava’s heart warmed to the giant. In that one gesture from Hammerfiss, she sensed a morsel of concern in him for the prisoners. The tattooed giant now looked more their savior than their killer. He’ll recover soon, Spades. He seems a stout enough lad. For in hearing those few words, Ava knew that they might not all be murdered.

  The red-haired woman named Spades had moved on to Polly Mott. “Name?” she ordered. Polly muttered her name. Tears were flowing over the brown mole sitting there like a smudge of mud under the corner of Polly’s left eye. Polly Mott was known more for the unsightly mole on her face than anything else. She was sixteen and scared.

  But Spades had moved on to the next girl in line, Gisela Barnwell, who gave her name, then started crying too. Spades and Hammerfiss moved to Jenko Bruk next. Jenko’s bruised face was dark and unsavory behind sweaty locks of matted hair. There was a murderous look and hunger for vengeance about him—it lay in the angle of his chin and shards of hate sparking from his eyes. He did not say his name when asked.

  “This one will be trouble,” Hammerfiss observed.

  “He can be tamed.” Spades had to look up to meet Jenko’s eyes.

  Now that the red-haired warrior woman was closer, Ava could tell, Spades had a lovely porcelain face with a delicate bone structure behind a spray of bright red curls. There was a tint of innocence to her overall features, but an expression of absolute cunning in her eyes. Indeed, glowing beneath that dainty, freckled skin burned something wicked and furious. Ava hated her more than she had ever hated anything.

  “Do you wish to kill me?” Spade asked Jenko, flicking her coin up one last time, then stuffing it into a hidden pocket of her leather greaves. Jenko glared at her.

  “I see,” Spades said. “You wish to fuck me instead?” The casualness of the statement stunned Ava. For some reason, despite the statement’s preposterousness, rage and jealousy welled up within her. She fought back the sudden urge to lash out. Her mouth was too dry for such an outburst anyway. Nausea overcame her.

  “I recognize the cut and polish of your armor,” Spades said to Jenko. “Was you who stayed with Baron Bruk when he fell. I’m surprised my quarrel didn’t pierce the fool’s helm. Never did find his body. No matter. I’m glad to see that you survived, a bit battered and bruised, though. I sense braveness in you. That will bode well for you in Aeros’ eyes. Was the one who Hammerfiss crushed with his mace your brother? Your father?”

  Then Jenko did what Ava had wanted to. He spat on Spades. But the woman turned her head and what little spray flew from Jenko’s mouth sprinkled her hair, missing her face. Her eyes sparkled as she turned back toward him. “Now I always thought I was charming,” she said with a bemused smile, “but not that charming. See. I knew you wanted to fuck me.” Jenko remained silent, though a dangerous glare remained in his eyes, and those eyes remained on Spades. But she moved away from him with casual ease and examined Tylda Egbert briefly, before stepping up to Ava.

  “Well,” Spades said, looking straight at her. “Aren’t you just an impossibly pretty little thing?” And that was all.

  Spades and Hammerfiss moved past Ava to the very end of the line. Bishop Tolbret was there, hands tied behind him too, stoic in his mud-encrusted cassock, which was torn down the side. The priesthood robe underneath was stark white and pure in comparison to his dirty cassock. He seemed unaffected under the scrutiny of the enemy.

  That is, until Spades drew a dagger and cut the rope that bound his hands, snatched him by the arm, and pulled him from the line. He prayed aloud as he was marched before the other prisoners.

  “Silence!” Spades shoved him to the ground. He kept praying. She yanked him up again and violently tore off his long brown cassock. It puddled at his feet as he prayed louder and louder. The silk priesthood robe he wore underneath covered his torso from neck to knees but was of a flimsy weave, nearly transparent in the sunlight.

  “We’re the most battle-hardened sons of bitches who’ve ever stepped foot on these shores!” the red-haired woman yelled
as the bishop kept praying. “And lest any of you doubt my words, I mean to behead this blasphemer here and now.”

  Tolbret shrank away from her. He bowed his head and prayed more fervently, doing the three-fingered sign of the Laijon Cross over his heart.

  “Let me tear his scrawny cock off first,” Hammerfiss snarled.

  Any affinity Ava had previously felt for the bearded giant vanished as the large man pulled a dirk from his belt and moved toward the bishop, a wide smile developing over his tattooed face. Tolbret instantly cupped his groin protectively, his prayers seemingly at an end.

  “Why do you bother to protect your balls?” Spades laughed. “As a bishop of Gul Kana, you’re not allowed to use them anyway.”

  “Unless he’s twiddling the kids in an Ember Gathering.” Hammerfiss grinned.

  “What’s your taste, boys or girls?” Spades asked Tolbret.

  “More like the goats and chickens, I wager,” Hammerfiss said gleefully.

  “Indeed,” Spades said. “I’ve heard that the bishops in this land have a certain affinity for the beasts and the fowl and the fishes. I hear you give Ember Gathering to the ducks and seagulls and preach your Way and Truth of Laijon to the saber-toothed lions. Some have said you bishops even flagellate your cocks before the goats and geese.”

  “It’s the worshippers of Raijael who pervert the will of Laijon.” Bishop Tolbret’s shaky voice rose. “It is you demons from Sør Sevier who blaspheme against Laijon!”

  “And what about the hundreds of years of Gul Kana oppression heaped upon Sør Sevier in the name of your church? Was Wyn Darrè not raped and stolen from us? Why are there no women priests in Gul Kana? Why no women warriors?”

  Despite his vulnerable position, it appeared as if Tolbret was starting to compose himself. He held his head high and answered. “Women are too emotional to do the will of Laijon. They’ve little bravery. The Ember Gathering confirms their feeblemindedness.”

  “Feeblemindedness,” Spades repeated flatly, appraising the bishop, touching his silken robe. “Your silly white costume is an affront to Raijael. Will it truly protect you from harm? Is this ridiculous belief in magical robes the kind of nonsense you brave and manly idol worshippers believe?”

  “They are sacred!” Dokie Liddle stepped forward, hands tied behind his back. He stood as tall and proud as he could. “They are the robes of Laijon’s priesthood!”

  Spades appraised the boy with some admiration in her stony countenance. “Sacred?” she asked, eyebrow raised. “Or just plain fucking stupid?”

  “You would not understand,” Dokie said haughtily. “His robe was blessed and anointed by Grand Vicar Denarius himself—”

  “Under whose authority?” Spades cut him off, looking angrily at Tolbret. “Certainly not that of our great Laijon. For the power of Laijon resides in the seed of Raijael.”

  “Denarius is Laijon’s holy prophet.” Young Dokie was standing taller now, a proud lift to his chin. “  ’Twas he who anointed Bishop Tolbret’s robe with holy oils and then placed it over his body in the Royal Cathedral upon his confirmation into the priesthood. It is a protection meant only for Laijon’s servants. I will not see you insult it. Or Bishop Tolbret.”

  “Indeed, you seem quite attached to the bishop . . . and his clothing.”

  “I have seen Laijon’s power manifested in Bishop Tolbret,” Dokie said proudly. “You could never understand.”

  “I pray you, tell me. I’m curious.”

  Bishop Tolbret interjected, “You needn’t speak on my behalf, son.”

  “The boy will speak if he so pleases,” Spades said.

  Dokie straightened. “I was struck by lightning. After he healed me, the bishop told me a story of the priesthood robes’ strength. In Hopewell, when Bishop Tolbret was but a boy, he witnessed the most astonishing of miracles.” Dokie spoke as if giving this foreign warrior woman an Eighth Day sermon of his own. “There was a fire in the chapel’s dormitory, and one of the bishops perished in the flame. When they pulled his body from the charred wreckage, his limbs and head were burnt off. Yet under his priesthood robe nary a hair was singed or a scratch found. So Bishop Tolbret told me.”

  “A miracle then,” Spades commented flatly.

  Dokie performed the three-fingered sign of the Laijon Cross over his heart. “Under the sacred robe not a burn was found.”

  “But his head was gone.” Spades cocked her brow.

  Dokie’s eyes were wide. “The story proves the robes offer bodily protection to the worthy by the will of Laijon.”

  Spades’ words were rapid and rich with sarcasm. “So you really believe the priesthood robe will protect your good bishop from physical harm?” A hint of a smile tugged at her lips.

  “Indeed,” Dokie said without pause. The bishop’s countenance, on the other hand, went through a remarkable change. Color drained from his face.

  “Let’s test your theory, boy.” Spades pulled the crossbow from over her shoulder and walked away from Tolbret, nocking a quarrel into the weapon as she went.

  Bishop Tolbret’s face blanched, but he remained rooted in place. There was a stillness that fell upon the beach for a moment. The prisoners watched him, eyes wide, as if they were about to witness something truly miraculous.

  When thirty paces separated Spades from the bishop, she whirled around and aimed the crossbow and its thick bolt straight at him. The girth of the bolt’s shaft looked as big and round as a grown man’s thumb. “If you’re correct, boy, and his holy robe saves him from my quarrel, then I say the armies of Sør Sevier will leave these shores and never return.” Then she pulled the trigger.

  There was a metallic snap! And Tolbret was launched backward through the air, heels skimming the beach as he flew, his back plowing a furrow into the sand where he landed. “No!” Dokie screamed. The bishop expelled a terror-filled cry of his own as he sat up, clutching at the crossbow bolt in his stomach. He doubled over and fell sideways into the sand, blood pooling under him.

  Spades returned her crossbow to the harness on her back and walked up to Dokie. “I reckon your bishop’s miserable robe proved as useless as a rack of bloody paper shields.”

  Hammerfiss yanked Tolbret roughly to his feet. Spades stepped forward and gripped the shaft of the quarrel lodged in his stomach. “It looks as if the armies of Aeros Raijael will remain in these lands.” And with a yank, she tore the bolt free. The bishop cried out as his gut ruptured. Entrails slithered from his rent robe like snakes from a gunnysack. Hammerfiss stepped back. Tolbret dropped to his knees and wailed. His hands scrabbled among his own spilled guts, trying desperately to hold the glistening slithery coils of his intestines in. But the shimmering purple loops slipped through his fingers to the sand, the tide licking them up.

  Horror dropped like a shawl over Ava’s shoulders. Tolbret now seemed no longer human, no longer a man of Laijon at all, but a fleshy pink sack of raw guts and blood—just a fellow townsman filled with terror and despair, the thin white robe about his legs dripping brown with feces.

  “What we’ve got here is a rather wretched situation.” Spades spoke loudly to the line of prisoners. “It does seem a horrible crime that you have all been saddled with such feeble company as ourselves. I’m sorry to burden you with the formalities of warfare, but we need to discuss some issues without rancor.” She paused, pacing before them. “We can either put you to death or—”

  “Not.” Hammerfiss finished the sentence for her.

  “So you feel there must indeed be some divine purpose to this madness?”

  “I don’t claim any divine purpose, nor do I think their situation is entirely hopeless.”

  “Indeed, nothing is hopeless.” Spades’ eyes were on the bishop. Tolbret moaned, crawling through the surf after a clump of his entrails that the incoming tide had taken.

  Spades turned from the bishop to Hammerfiss. “Since we’ve already established that we have no qualms about speaking frankly, what say you of their fate?”

&nbs
p; Hammerfiss’ mouth spread into a mad grin. “I’ve always felt that some previously useless lives can be converted to a better purpose. That being said, I say that the children of Gallows Haven are now the property of Sør Sevier! You are to be adopted into the covenant of Raijael and raised up in true righteousness and faith as citizens of Sør Sevier and believers in Aeros Raijael, your true One and Only!”

  Though Hammerfiss was shouting now, it was difficult for Ava to hear him. Bishop Tolbret was kneeling in the lapping waves of the beach, crying out in thunderous gasps, his attempts to gather his own guts and stuff them back into his stomach a lost cause as they swam around him in the water like eels.

  Hammerfiss continued to shout over the bishop’s cries. “And those of you older than twelve are now slaves, under the control and whims of our armies! You will serve as our pack mules, armor polishers, and errand runners as we conquer your lands!”

  There was crying from the prisoners, whether they were cries of relief at being spared or cries of despair at becoming slaves, Ava couldn’t tell. She remained stoic and unfeeling, stunned, really. And above it all, Tolbret continued to create an awful shrill racket in the water with ear-piercing wails and screeches.

  “Holy shit, man!” Hammerfiss bellowed. “I can’t hear my own self speak!” Pulling a long knife from his belt, he tromped over to the bishop, who was still lying half in the water. Planting his knee right in the bishop’s back, the red-bearded giant sliced Tolbret’s throat clear to the spine, then shoved the dying man face-first into the surf. Red water lapped up against the bishop’s body as Hammerfiss walked away.

  Dokie Liddle ran. In bare feet, he ran, sprinting awkwardly down the beach in the direction of Gallows Haven, hands tied behind him, legs churning, feet kicking up sand.