4.0 - The Last Command

by Bobby Adair

  Oliver worked his way around the slope so that he'd come up again closer to Winthrop's tent. To his dismay, the slope of the hill grew steeper, falling away to the rocky river far below. Oliver looked down, but the height was frightening. He shivered, unsure whether it was the decreasing temperature or distance to the rocks below. He looked up and pressed on.

  Far down the canyon, the demon howls that had been growing through the late part of the afternoon seemed to double, as though the band of demons down there had been joined by another horde. Oliver was glad he wasn't at that end of the valley. He feared how things might turn out, even with Winthrop's brave peacocks strutting around his fire.

  Hundreds of horses' hooves suddenly rumbled the dirt under Oliver's feet. Officers shouted commands, and Oliver saw a column of cavalrymen gallop down the hill, heading back up river in the direction of the coming horde.

  Climbing to the top of the hill, raising his head above the height of the bushes again, Oliver realized why Blackthorn had chosen the hill for his camp. Oliver saw the whole army in the fading light, those up river, and those around the curve in the valley down river.

  It was a magnificent sight that gave Oliver pause. In his entire life, he'd never seen further than when he looked across the fields to the circle wall. From time to time he'd climbed a tall roof to get a view over the wall and see the endless forest and the snowcapped mountains in the distance. But none of that seemed real. It was too far away, too unreachable. Below him, running up and down the valley, were men and women, part of a vast army that might be the most powerful thing the world had ever seen.

  A coughing man brought Oliver's attention back to his task as he sank lower into the bushes to keep himself hidden. He looked around and spied the tent that had to be Winthrop's. Guards stood nearby—eight of them. None were watching the tent, though. Five were staring upriver, watching the squadrons of cavalry gallop away. The other three were watching downriver where it looked like the bulk of the army was camped in row upon row of tents with hundreds of cook fires glowing among them.

  With the guards distracted by the cavalry, and with the rumble of horses' hooves still drowning out most other sounds, Oliver figured the best time to sneak into Winthrop's tent was at hand. He hurried between the bushes, crouching as he ran, looking right and left, keeping watch on the guards. When he got close, he dropped to his hands and knees and crawled quickly, still hearing the horses and feeling with his hands the power of their hooves beating the earth.

  When Oliver reached the last of the bushes, he was only a quick dash of ten or twelve paces from the back of the tent. Because he was so close, and because Winthrop's tent was so large, Oliver was able to see only two guards, apparently stationed to keep watch on the rear corner of the tent. But they weren't. They were watching the cavalry head upriver.

  With the sound of the cavalry diminishing, Oliver felt an urgency to finish his task.

  He heaved two quick breaths to shore up his courage and sprinted across the gap, dropped to the ground beside the tent, lifted the canvas, and rolled inside. He froze in the dim light of a single candle, feeling fur under his hands and smelling the familiar odor of Winthrop stench.

  He'd chosen the right tent.

  Before Oliver's eyes adjusted to the light in the tent, he rolled to get himself away from the canvas wall. He sat up and looked around. The candle burned on a short pole hammered into the ground at the center of the tent, which was two to three times the size of the room Oliver shared with Franklin back in the temple. Most of the tent was hidden in shadows, though, too dark for Oliver's eyes to yet make out.

  Someone coughed.

  Oliver froze.

  Was that the guard again?

  It sounded like it came from the shadow to his left. Oliver studied the shadow, ready to flee if he saw someone there.

  Would the guard's voices, their coughs, and sneezes sound so close through the canvas?

  No. They should be muffled, at least. Oliver found himself caught between the choice to run or stay.

  A man's voice said, "What are you doing in here, boy?"

  Chapter 39: Blackthorn

  Blackthorn heard the sound of fighting before the last of his cavalry was off the hill. It was a sound so familiar, he'd have known it if it had been coming from twice as far away, five times as far. Demons shrieked their guttural cry of war. Men yelled to lie to themselves that they had courage that wasn't within them. Others screamed as they took flight, like injured women discarding their dignity with their last breath. Those kind of men sickened Blackthorn. Those were the men who had so much cowardice in their hearts it shamed them not to throw it on their brothers after they'd proven to those very same men that they'd let them down. Weak men. Useless men. The kind of men that deserved to die.

  Blackthorn called orders to rally the militiamen camped beside the road as he galloped past.

  Conflicting goals battled in his heart, just as the battle was reaching a fury far ahead. From the sound of the men's voices, he knew his weak, poorly trained militiamen were being overrun. That urged him to spur his stallion to run faster, to rescue those he could, to form a defense that would stand against a demon horde.

  But Blackthorn's goal in bringing nineteen thousand feeding mouths into the wilderness was to get them killed so that Brighton would survive the coming famine. To meet that goal, he'd be better served turning his squadrons around and racing back to the top of the hill. If he did that, he knew in his heart that everyone upriver of the hill, everyone that he was riding past in their tents or by their fires, would die before morning.

  But Blackthorn had the soul of a soldier. He couldn't stand aside and allow the slaughter.

  Something's got to matter.

  The cavalry charged past Winthrop's disciples, all standing by the road, looking upriver toward the battle as though they had no understanding of what was going on, as if they had no responsibility to pick up a weapon and run ahead to defend their brothers.

  They sickened Blackthorn, too. Peacocks and braggarts.

  A flood of women, old men, and apprenticed boys crowded the road and the open ground between the cliff and the river. The camp followers knew what was happening behind them. They had few weapons to defend themselves from the coming demons, and they were terrified.

  Spurring his horse, Blackthorn charged into the fray.

  Chapter 40: Oliver

  Oliver recognized the voice of Minister Beck in the tent. He panicked. The voice was one of the sounds of Cleansing Day, one of the voices that sent men and women to the pyre. As softly spoken as Beck's words were, they carried the chill of death.

  "Speak, boy."

  Not knowing what to say, Oliver chose manipulation. Maybe Beck had some pity in his heart. Oliver whimpered, "I was cold."

  "You're dressed warmly enough." Beck shuffled and sat up. "Come closer to the candle so that I can see you clearly."

  Oliver looked at the tent wall behind him. He could roll back out the way he came, run into the bushes and be halfway down the hill before any of the distracted guards thought to turn around.

  "I mean you no harm."

  "That's a lie." Oliver hadn't meant for that thought to turn into words. It just did. Like they all did.

  Beck laughed. "Why do you say that?"

  Oliver didn't answer. He'd made a mistake with his quick, sharp tongue. He looked back at the tent wall. He knew he should run.

  "Come, boy." Beck got onto his knees and moved into the candlelight. "I'll make you a deal. I won't call out to the guards. Come into the light and let's talk."

  "I'd rather not." Oliver shuffled away until his back was touching the canvas.

  "You can leave if you like." Beck sighed. "But I'd thought you were smarter than that. More curious, at least. You don't need to come into the light. I know who you are."

  "How?" Oliver was confident Beck was lying.

  "Your voice. I've heard it before. You're Winthrop's youngest novice, Oliver."

  Ol
iver slumped. He'd been outwitted. He knew Beck was smart. Everybody said he was, but Oliver thought he could match wits with the minister. He'd let his arrogance convince him to stay when he should have slipped beneath the canvas and run at the first uttered syllable. He'd let his voice betray him.

  "Go, if you like." Beck retreated into the shadows, and Oliver heard him lay back down. "Go."

  "You know who I am. You can have the guards find me."

  "Not if you run now. I have no doubt you could get away."

  "They'll find me in the camp in the morning, or when we march tomorrow."

  "You're telling me you'd be stupid enough to stay with the army, knowing the soldiers would be searching for you? Why not run into the forest? Be done with this folly. Be done with Brighton and its ignorance and cruelty."

  That seemed like an odd segue of questions. Oliver didn't run. "Cruel and ignorant?"

  "You're smart enough to agree on that at least."

  Oliver paused, then asked, "Did you send Evan to recruit me?"

  Beck laughed. "These tent walls give us some privacy, but don't make the mistake that a determined listener would not hear all that goes on inside."

  Oliver found Beck frustrating. "Talking to you is not like talking to Father Winthrop."

  "Because you can't toy with me the way you toy with him?"

  "No," Oliver lied. It was a defense.

  "You do. I've seen you do it, on occasion. I've heard rumors that you do it frequently."

  Caught in the lie, Oliver deflected. "I go unnoticed when I'm in the company of the ministers, standing by the wall with Franklin, or filling your cups with wine, but I've seen you do it, too. More so than me. And you're cruel about it as well."

  Beck laughed again, so long and so loud that a guard pulled the flap at the tent's doorway partially open and called in, "Minister Beck, are you okay?"

  "Go away," Beck ordered. "I'm reading an old book. Leave me be."

  The tent closed up.

  Beck got off his pallet and came to sit in the light of the candle. "Yes, young Oliver. I am cruel to Father Winthrop, overtly, as you've seen, because I want him to know the disdain I hold for his superstitious ignorance. But I wrap my barbs in kind-sounding words as well, just as you do with yours. We are both pitiless to him. To me, he can only sputter and turn red in the face. For your cruelty, he beats you. Is that true?"

  "It is," Oliver admitted.

  "Yet you continue. Am I right?"

  "You are."

  "You don't enjoy the beatings, do you?"

  "I don't."

  "Why not remain quiet?" Beck asked. "You're a bright boy. Why not cloak your insults so fully that Winthrop doesn't understand them?"

  Oliver thought about his motives before answering. The behavior had become as much a habit as anything. "I suppose I want him to feel humiliation. Whether he admits it or not, I want him to feel the embarrassment of his hypocrisy and stupidity. I want him to know that despite being a boy, I'm so much smarter than him that I can toy with him."

  "And the beatings, they're worth it?"

  Oliver thought about the scars on his back and the pain he'd endured while earning them. He realized that the beatings weren't worth the satisfaction he felt at belittling Father Winthrop. In Oliver's asymmetrical war with Father Winthrop, the blubbery hypocrite had won a long time ago. That was why Oliver had chosen finally to abandon sharp words and take up a sharp blade.

  The insinuation in Beck's question was true.

  The beatings weren't worth it.

  Chapter 41: Blackthorn

  Militiamen ran for their lives, diving out of the way as a double-file column of cavalry charged up the road. Demons were among the fleeing men, chasing and killing. Few men were fighting.

  Leading the charge, Blackthorn raised his sword and swung hard to cut the neck of a demon racing beside the road. Blood sprayed. The demon's head spun through the air and bounced on the ground. Blackthorn felt the worries of his old, weak body wash away. He spurred his horse and swung his sword again.

  He kept fighting until there were no more running militiamen. The cavalry had charged into the midst of the demon horde. The monsters were in the grass fields, thick in the trees, and wading at the edge of the river. Those in the road got trampled by horses, which were trained to do just that. The demons near the road caught blades and lost their arms, hands, or heads.

  Being at a narrow part of the valley with no room to maneuver, there was little Blackthorn could do to save the militiamen he'd passed except kill demons coming in their direction. He pursued the only tactic available to him, to continue charging straight down the road, slaughtering as many twisted men as he could find. The militia behind him was getting further by the second. They'd have to find the courage in their hearts to stand and fight, or at least, defend their lives from the demons in their midst.

  When the horde thinned and the valley widened into a meadow big enough for the column to make a galloping turn, Blackthorn led them off the road. He kept them running. To stop and turn the column around would be to lose momentum and to risk being overwhelmed by demons from every direction. Blackthorn veered right, away from the river, and over the grass.

  Demons fell.

  With only a hundred or so monsters spread across the field, getting confused about circling horsemen and the changing direction of the column, it was easy cutting most of them down, even easier than when they were running away in fright. Even fearful demons had the good sense to look over their shoulders and dodge the blades. Confused demons didn't.

  Once back on the road, the job got easier. Most of the demons were running toward the screaming carnage ahead, trying to get a mouthful of slaughtered man-flesh before their brothers tasted all the warm blood for themselves. In their noisy running, panting, and howling, they didn't realize the cavalry was behind them.

  It was simpler, but less satisfying work, cutting them down from behind. Blackthorn liked the feeling of killing a beast intent on ripping out his throat.

  The column passed a pair of horses swarmed by demons and didn't slow to attempt a rescue of downed comrades. To do so would have cost many more lives. The cavalry's strength lay in their speed and the momentum of their galloping horses. To give that up was tantamount to suicide in a battle with the raging hordes.

  Soon the cavalry charged through the thickest of the horde and came out on the other side among the routed militia. Just ahead, demons were rampaging among the weaker, unarmed women and old men, the fleeing camp followers. Angry over the collapse of the rearguard, Blackthorn searched for a place to wheel the cavalry around again, to make the charge back into the attacking mass.

  Chapter 42: Franklin

  Franklin walked nervously through the Sanctuary, noticing how empty it looked without rows of people to fill the pews. His footsteps echoed off the walls as he strode onto the stage. He stopped and inspected the room. Tomorrow, he'd give the first sermon since Father Winthrop left.

  He hoped he was ready.

  He'd picked his passages and practiced his readings in front of Fitz, but reading them in front of the congregation was a different thing.

  Father Winthrop's chair sat in its usual spot, a lingering tribute to the foul, evil man. Franklin sucked in a breath as memories he'd rather forget came back to him. He envisioned Winthrop sitting in that chair, giving orders, looking down his pointed nose at his congregates. Worse, Franklin saw him sitting there as he gave Franklin the order to whip Oliver. That memory was the worst.

  The chair's plush cushion bore the shape of Winthrop's gigantic backside. A wisp of fermenting sweat gave Franklin a shudder.

  Franklin envisioned hacking that chair to pieces, burning it on the pyre. He clenched and unclenched his fists. Fear of Winthrop's return was the only thing that kept him from acting on that fantasy.

  Movement in the back of the room distracted him. Startled, Franklin looked up and found Novice Joseph—one of the younger novices—scurrying in the other direction. He was
holding a rag and a bucket. It looked like he'd been watching Franklin.

  "Wait!" Franklin called, loud enough to panic the fleeing boy.

  Joseph stopped and spun as if he'd been caught digging in the coffers. He stood in place, waiting for a scolding. His eyes were wide.

  "Come here," Franklin beckoned. "It's all right."

  Joseph obeyed slowly, carrying the bucket in front of him as if it might save him from a blow. He stopped before the stage.

  "Come up here," Franklin said, waving him up.

  Joseph hesitated before following his instructions.

  "What are the rag and bucket for?" Franklin asked.

  "I'm cleaning the windowsills, sir. Father Winthrop told me to do it before and after each sermon."

  Franklin grimaced as he recognized another of Winthrop's petty punishments. "That seems excessive." He paused before adding, "Father Winthrop is gone."

  "I wasn't sure when he'd be back. I didn't want to disobey," Joseph said, gazing at the floor.

  "I know the feeling." Franklin sighed. "What offense did you commit?"

  Sensing that he wasn't going to be beaten, Joseph set down the bucket, his courage growing as he said, "He caught me eating the crust of his bread from the trash. Even though it was being thrown out, he said it was disrespectful to eat the remnants of another's meal."

  Franklin shook his head. "I know how difficult it is to get enough food around here. Are you hungry?"

  Joseph looked around the church as if he were being ensnared. He looked back at Franklin.

  "A little," he admitted.

  "I'll tell you what. When you collect my meal from the cooks, tell them I'm especially hungry, and that I'll eat it in my quarters. I'll split it with you."

  "You will?" Joseph's eyes showed his disbelief.

  "Yes. But you need to keep it between us." Franklin knew the ramifications of appearing too generous in front of the other clergymen. He projected a warning into his stare.