El Sombra

by Al Ewing

  And so it went. Moritz was constantly showered with all the gifts, love and appreciation that regular, less photogenic children were denied. He would turn up at restaurants with the latest in a series of easy conquests - who, needless to say, thought of themselves as the one who could finally change his ways - and be shown to the best table, even though he had made no appointment. Despite his constant philandering and occasional trysts with married women (the husband of one of whom committed suicide), he was considered a pillar of the community - something of a rogue, perhaps, but certainly deserving of a free drink whenever he happened to be present in the bar. When he chose to join the army - tiring of his many luxuries, as those who have never tasted hardship often do - he was provided with a good overseas posting in the Luftwaffe, in a position of some importance on a vital mission for the future of the German Race. He had expected as much.

  Moritz Dresdner had that quality, and it was most present in his smile - his clean, sparkling white teeth, arranged just so, not quite perfect but perfect in their very imperfection, his eyes that shined and twinkled. He could turn his smile on like a lamp, like the sun, and brighten the lives of any who came near. He had never imagined that it was possible to live any other way, but he had a dim understanding that his face was his fortune. As such, he kept very good care of his teeth and skin and occasionally laid awake at nights, with a fear he could not quite name.

  It was the fear of this very moment.

  The stone smashed into his face, knocking out his front teeth, chipping and shattering the rest, and breaking his nose. The impact cracked his jaw in two places and the sharp facets of the rock carved at his flesh, lacerating his lips. Moritz Dresdner, filled with panic and terror, bucked and jerked his body as he scrabbled at his destroyed face, and thus lost control of his wings.

  The cavorite infused into the structure of the wing-pack was designed to compensate for the weight of the pack and rider, to enable the Luftwaffe to rise from the ground and make them mobile while in the air, but the cavorite ratio of each pack was carefully balanced for the individual rider's weight. Thus, if a wingman wanted to land, he could land. The downside was that if a wingman could not keep from crashing, then he would crash - as surely as a bird shot down from the sky.

  He came down in the crowd. Up until this moment, the massed citizens of Aldea had been standing and watching the show, partly mesmerised at the display, partly afraid of the consequences of moving from the spot. But when Moritz Dresdner wheeled around towards them, desperately clutching at his ruined mouth, the assembled throng scattered in all directions, leaving him to crash down hard in the dirt, the crunch of impact breaking his jaw completely, crushing that handsome face beyond recognition.

  Moritz would survive. He would be shipped out from Aldea, back to Germany, and spend six months in a treatment centre in Bremen before returning to the village of Hegensdorf. And twenty-two months after his return, friendless, deep in debt and awaiting trial for three counts of shoplifting, he would open his wrists with a pearl-handled straight-razor, still not fully comprehending exactly how it was his life could have changed so drastically.

  The stone hit the ground, raising a little cloud of dust.

  The man in the mask smiled. His voice was low and clear.

  "Apologies. My hand slipped."

  Under the stage, Father Santiago huddled and stared at the neatly punched holes, the sun shining through them. The holes where the bullets had gone right through the wood and into the dusty ground.

  Soon, he thought, they will happen to shoot at the piece of stage that I am under, and that will be the end. Or the Oberstleutnant will wake from his dreams and his first act will be to strangle me. Better than being stretched to death, I suppose. Oh Heavenly Father Above, look kindly on your foolish servant now. He did his best and now his life is in the hands of a madman.

  A familiar madman. Father Santiago sat under the stage, working at the ropes at his wrists, gnawing them, and tried to remember where he last heard that voice.

  Dresdner had been the flight leader. There was a moment - a few seconds at the most after he smashed into the ground - when the five other wingmen simply looked at each other, flying in disorder, desperately trying to remember who would be next in line. Moritz, with his inbuilt certainty, had never prepared his unit for what might happen in the event of his face being smashed beyond recognition, and so there was no real second-in-command - it had never been fully decided.

  So the masked man had a brief window of opportunity, and he used it. His hand took a stone, and then the stone left his hand. He picked up another and it left his hand too and then his hand found a third, as easily and quickly as thinking the words. It was beyond thought - as the action was conceived, it was carried out. Things merely were what they were and occurred in the order they occurred. Events took their place. He was in his element, and the world fitted around him like a glove. All past mistakes and triumphs were simply the causes that led to the current events. Things were what they were at any moment - and he filled that moment with the precise action needed.

  Do you understand?

  He did.

  He had learned this concept in the desert, after his soul had shrieked at itself and torn itself apart with bloody claws for what seemed like a thousand years, and it was his total understanding of it that made him the most dangerous man on the planet.

  The stone left his hand, joining the other two in flight.

  The first stone hit Konrad Zumwald in the ribs, cracking one. The second smashed into the same rib, and the stabbing pain forced him to double over, aiming himself towards the ground. He saw the dangers and tried to pull up, against the screaming of his shattered rib, desperately attempting to right himself despite the agony.

  Wolfgang Rader growled in anger, swooping forward for the kill, readying his own pistol. He pointed the gun directly at the masked man's heart as the third stone flew.

  This was the stone that did the damage. It hurtled into Konrad's balls, impacting hard against the testicles, ringing them like bells. Konrad gasped then screamed loud at the stabbing pain that ripped into his belly. He veered upwards, in front of Wolfgang Rader, at the same moment the other man pulled the trigger. A single bullet tore into the back of Konrad's neck, erupting through his throat in a gusher of hot blood, the crimson drops falling to earth like rain. Konrad's eyes went wide, glassy. He tumbled to the ground like a leaf.

  Wolfgang was shaking, stiff, drifting in the air. Thirty minutes earlier he had been slapping Konrad on the back, promising him a beer in the mess hall to make up the rest of the debt he owed. A day before that, Konrad was grinning and pocketing the seventeen marks he had won from Wolfgang in the poker game and reminding his fellow wingman that he owed three more. Eight months before that, Wolfgang was teaching Konrad how the game of Seven Card Stud was played and the hierarchy of the winning hands. Three years before that, Wolfgang Rader was shaking the hand of Konrad Zumwald, originally from a district in Bonn, whose father was a doctor. "Welcome to the unit," he had said.

  Konrad Zumwald hit the ground hard, the light fading from his eyes. The flesh of his throat flapped, ragged from the bullet that had torn through it. Wolfgang Rader dropped his gun and stared with eyes that didn't see.

  He was thinking about a secret the two men had shared. A secret that would never be told to anyone, that was theirs alone. And now belonged to only him.

  The man in the mask hurled himself left as three Luger shots hit the wood of the stage, passing through the space he had so recently vacated. He reached out and let his fingertips find coiled leather - the bullwhip, still stained with Santiago's blood. His fist closed and jerked as he rolled up onto his knees, arm snapping out hard, the whip following -

  - CRACK! The sound of domination! -

  - and the tip of the whip curled around Marcel Renoux's Luger and tore it from his hand, fracturing the bones of the index and middle fingers. Marcel Renoux had been born in France, but moved to Germany at the age of eig
hteen with the express purpose of joining the Ultimate Reich. Life in Paris was too small, too chic, too petty. The obsession with Le Nouvelle Vague - it turned the stomach. Marcel dreamed of steel instead of silk, of fire and raised fists instead of cigarette smoke and clever words. He dreamed of what it might be like for the Ultimate Reich to march in his streets, to stride through Paris, to occupy it and bend it to their rule. His grandfather had died fighting back the Nazis on the Maginot Line, but there were always, and always would be, those who felt more than a little sympathy with the Führer's ideals.

  He'd emigrated seven years ago, at the age of eighteen, head shaven, denim on his back, a cloud of contemptuous Gauloise smoke infesting his lungs. As he crossed the border, it was as though the air had become clean again. Immediately he marched into the nearest recruiting office and joined up. Sliding his feet into the jackboots had given him an erection, as is often the case when small men achieve small dreams of being controlled by big systems. The sound of domination was familiar and sweet to Marcel Renoux.

  Two years ago, after a long, hard climb through the ranks, he had been transferred to Aldea. In his mind, it was his dream of a conquered Paris made real - and he strode through it with a smile of triumph, his leather boots creaking. He was a god, an Aryan, in a world that made sense to him.

  Much more than a gun had been taken from Marcel Renoux. Such is often the way with men who worship power - they will bark and strut and snarl on command, but a crack of the whip will show them where the power really lies.

  The whip cracked twice more, yanking the guns from the hands of the other two wingmen still airborne. The masked man caught the last one, whirled it around his finger and fired, a whirl of motion. The bullet sailed through the air, missing by a vast distance. The man in the mask looked down at the gun, a vexed expression on his face with the merest hint of humiliation.

  The masked man had been in the desert for nine years. He had his sword with him. He had stones. He had his fists and his feet and the phantoms of his mind and he had time. Most importantly, he had the spark of madness, the fire of vengeance - and the understanding that all things were possible.

  He had not had a gun.

  Aiming one was a lot harder than it looked.

  Perhaps in the future he would have a spare moment to practice. Not now. Now there was only time for action. His sword was in one hand, the whip in the other, and in the sky the wingmen were drawing their own swords, sharp as razors, swooping like eagles to move in for the kill.

  He smiled, flicking the Luger back by its barrel.

  The gun left his hand.

  Underneath the stage, Father Santiago had managed to free his hands. His wrists burnt and ached from the ropes and the agony in his back was starting to make his vision blur. He could feel the trickle of fresh blood coursing down his spine every time he moved. He kept still, watching the bullets pound through the wood of the stage, getting closer to where he was, burying in the dirt inches from his feet.

  Alexis murmured thickly, and began to stir.

  Otto Baum was a simple man of simple pleasures. Out of all the members of the unit, he was the least complicated. He simply did as he was told. He was a big man, tall and skinny - if a soldier was too heavy, the cavorite would not be enough to help him achieve flight - and he packed a hard punch. His swordsmanship was proficient, and he had learned the hard art of air duelling with the simple, slogging perseverance with which he learned everything else. He was among the best of the Luftwaffe in this respect, which was obvious from his stance as he swooped in, ready to calmly chop off the masked man's head.

  Which was why the butt of the hurled pistol slammed hard into the space between his eyes.

  The masked man drew his own sword as Otto continued his fall, positioning the blade carefully. The gun hadn't hit hard enough to kill, but Otto's vision blanked and blurred and all he could think of was pain. It was only for an instant - three seconds at the very most.

  That was long enough for Otto to fall onto the masked man's sword.

  The point slid between the ribs and carved through one of the lungs, then slid out. Otto collapsed on the floor, choking blood before the blade chopped neatly down again, severing his spine at the base of the neck. After that, Otto Baum was even simpler, and he needed no pleasures at all.

  The man in the mask looked up at his attackers and smiled. It was the kind of smile a gallant suitor might use to entice a fair señorita to dance, but it was contrasted by an icy gaze that promised quick death. Such a look might have worked to the swordsman's advantage had Wolfgang Rader not barrelled into him from the side, a mass of fists and tears, snarling and sobbing.

  The death of Konrad Zumwald had driven Wolfgang to the brink of madness and beyond. Later, his fellow members of the Luftwaffe would wonder what it was the two men had shared that would make Rader attack so recklessly. Various theories would be expounded on the subject in the mess hall and in the dormitories, some of them scandalous, others simply scurrilous. The most common was that Konrad Zumwald and Wolfgang Rader had been having a sexual affair. Such things were uncommon among the soldiery for obvious reasons - the consequences for such a thing would be ignominy and death. But the very danger of such a punishment made such affairs, when they did occur, matters of deep and undeniable emotion. To risk death for a true love was something many soldiers could half-heartedly respect - even if they were, of course, disgusted and appalled and horrified, et cetera, that such a devil's practice could go on among proud soldiers of the Reich. They were quite wrong, anyway. Konrad Zumwald and Wolfgang Rader had not had any form of sexual contact whatsoever.

  It was something quite different.

  The masked man kept his grip on the sword, turning to meet the threat, slicing in a hard, quick, stroke, then sidestepping Wolfgang Rader's body as it flew on its way. The head of Wolfgang Rader arced up in a slow turn, lips working, gasping like a fish, then rolled along the stage to drop off the edge. The last thought in his severed mind before the blackness came was that he dearly wanted to tell his secret - the terrible secret, the long-held heart-deep secret that burned his lips every single day - but then there was the hard crunch of cracking bone and after that there were no thoughts at all.

  So much for secrets.

  Rader had sacrificed his life to give the two remaining men in the unit an opening. They took it, swords flashing, ready to carve up the masked man-like beef.

  Father Santiago's mouth went dry as Alexis' eyes opened. At first there was confusion in the blue eyes, and then rage - terrible, burning rage, deep as the sea. He rolled over, and the expression on his face made Jesus Santiago clench his bladder for fear of wetting himself.

  "Priest!"

  Alexis snarled the word, spitting it. Slowly, he reached to his belt, gripping the sharp, cruel hunting knife he kept there. The blade was cut with seven notches. Seven kills. Alexis looked at it and grinned.

  He smiled as the priest began to scramble backwards. "You like that swastika I drew on your back? There'll be another on your face in a moment, and two for your chest, and a nice big one for down between your..."

  A severed head rolled off the stage and smacked hard into the back of Alexis' skull, hard enough to make a sound like bone cracking. Alexis went out like a light, slumping forward. He was lucky not to impale himself on his knife.

  Santiago's eyes widened. He stared at the severed head, the eyes already rolling back. The lips twitched a couple of times, as though the head was trying to say something, to tell him something terrible and wonderful and strange.

  It was down to Marcel Renoux and Hugo Stahl, and Hugo Stahl was the finest air duellist the Luftwaffe had produced.

  The secret to air duelling is to combine the skills of the jousting knights of old with the killing instincts of the eagle swooping to catch prey. Two combatants dive, weave and spin on their metal wings, swords ready to murder, each aiming to strike their killing blow through the eye of their opponent's defence. The practice is bloody and sav
age, frowned upon by most of the officer class for its lack of discipline. The penalty for conducting an unauthorised air duel is six months in the stockade, or a year if there has been a fatality, with a fine of more than two hundred marks. Hardly small potatoes. Of his ten years with the Luftwaffe, Stahl had spent four years in the stockade for offences relating to air duelling.

  That said, an air duel in progress is a strange and fascinating sight, a display of dazzling flight that requires the utmost skill from the combatants. So the Luftwaffe trained its wingmen scrupulously in the art of air duelling, and held mock-duels with blunt-tipped fencing foils each Sunday. Hugo Stahl routinely won these, and won the larger events that were held yearly (at least, during those times when he wasn't sitting in the stockade).

  As a result, the wingmen of the Luftwaffe were accomplished swordsmen, used to the additional complexities and nuances of conducting sword-fights in the infinite arena of the sky. To face one of them on the ground and survive for sixty seconds would be a challenge that would push the finest duellist to his limits.

  To face two was suicide.

  The masked man smiled.

  Renoux charged first, aiming his sword in a wide arc at neck height. The masked man held his ground, both hands gripping the pommel of his sword, shifting the blade to block the stroke and then aiming forward, attempting to plunge the point of the blade into Renoux's eye. Renoux reacted quickly, turning the masked man's blade aside and countering.