The Enterprise of Death

by Jesse Bullington

  Ever since the boys had disappeared Heinrich had enjoyed fertility both in his soil and the bed he shared with his wife and children. Two young daughters joined their elder sister and brother, the aging farmer looking forward to having more hands to put to use. Heinrich even saved enough to purchase a healthy horse to replace their nag, and had almost reimbursed his friend Egon for the cart he had built them.

  The Brothers Grossbart tramped across the field toward the dark house, the rain blotting out whatever moonlight hid above the clouds. Their eyes had long grown accustomed to the night, however, and they could see that the farmer now had a small barn beside his home. They spit simultaneously on his door, and exchanging grins, set to beating the wood.

  “Fire!” yelled Manfried.

  “Fire!” repeated Hegel.

  “Town’s aflame, Heinrich!”

  “Heinrich, bring able hands!”

  In his haste to lend aid to his neighbors Heinrich stumbled out of bed without appreciating the drumming of rain upon his roof and flung open the door. The sputtering rushlight in his hand illuminated not concerned citizens but the scar-cratered visages of the Brothers Grossbart. Heinrich recognized them at once, and with a yelp dropped his light and made to slam the door.

  The Grossbarts were too quick and dragged him into the rain. The farmer struck at Hegel but Manfried kicked the back of Heinrich’s knee before Heinrich landed a blow. Heinrich twisted as he fell and attempted to snatch Manfried when Hegel delivered a sound punch to the yeoman’s neck. Heinrich thrashed in the mud while the two worked him over, but just as he despaired, bleeding from mouth and nose, his wife Gertie emerged from the house with their woodax.

  If Manfried’s nose had not been so flat the blade would have cleaved it open as she slipped in the mire. Hegel tackled her, the two rolling in the mud while her husband groaned and Manfried retrieved the ax. Gertie bit Hegel’s face and clawed his ear but then Hegel saw his brother raise the ax and he rolled free as the blade plummeted into her back. Through the muddy film coating his face Heinrich watched his wife kick and piss herself, the rain slowing to a drizzle as she bled out in the muck.

  Neither brother had ever killed a person before, but neither felt the slightest remorse for the heinous crime. Heinrich crawled to Gertie, Hegel went to the barn, and Manfried entered the house of children’s tears. Hegel latched up the horse, threw Heinrich’s shovel and a convenient sack of turnips into the bed of the cart, and led it around front.

  Inside the darkened house Heinrich’s eldest daughter lunged at Manfried with a knife but he intercepted her charge with the ax. Despite his charitable decision to knock her with the blunt end of the ax head, the metal crumpled in her skull and she collapsed. The two babes cried in the bed, the only son cowering by his fallen sister. Spying a hog-fat tallow beside the small stack of rushlights, Manfried tucked the rare candle into his pocket and lit one of the lard-coated reeds on the hearth coals, inspecting the interior.

  Stripping the blankets off the bed and babes, he tossed the rushlights, the few knives he found, and the tubers roasting on the hearth into the pilfered cloth and tied the bundle with cord. He blew out the rushlight, pocketed it, and stepped over the weeping lad. The horse and cart waited, but his brother and Heinrich were nowhere to be seen.

  Manfried tossed the blankets into the cart and peered about, his eyes rapidly readjusting to the drizzly night. He saw Heinrich fifty paces off, slipping as he ran from the silently pursuing Hegel. Hegel dived at his quarry’s legs and missed, falling on his face in the mud as Heinrich broke away toward town.

  Cupping his hands, Manfried bellowed, “Got the young ones here, Heinrich! Come on back! You run and they’s dead!”

  Heinrich continued a few paces before slowing to a walk on the periphery of Manfried’s vision. Hegel righted himself and scowled at the farmer but knew better than to risk spooking him with further pursuit. Hurrying back to his brother, Hegel muttered in Manfried’s cavernous ear as Heinrich trudged back toward the farm.

  “Gotta be consequences,” Hegel murmured. “Gotta be.”

  “He’d have the whole town on us,” his brother agreed. “Just not right, after his wife tried to murder us.” Manfried touched his long-healed nose.

  “We was just settlin accounts, no call for her bringin axes into it.” Hegel rubbed his scarred posterior.

  Heinrich approached the Brothers, only registering their words on an instinctual level. Every good farmer loves his son even more than his wife, and he knew the Grossbarts would slaughter young Brennen without hesitation. Heinrich broke into a maniacal grin, thinking of how on the morrow the town would rally around his loss, track these dogs down, and hang them from the gibbet.

  The yeoman gave Hegel the hard-eye but Hegel gave it right back, then the Grossbart punched Heinrich in the nose. The farmer’s head swam as he felt himself trussed up like a rebellious sow, the rope biting his ankles and wrists. Heinrich dimly saw Manfried go back into the house, then snapped fully awake when the doorway lit up. Manfried had shifted some of the coals onto the straw bed, the cries of the little girls amplifying as the whole cot ignited. Manfried reappeared with the near-catatonic Brennen in one hand and a turnip in the other.

  “Didn’t have to be this way,” said Manfried. “You’s forced our hands.”

  “Did us wrong twice over,” Hegel concurred.

  “Please.” Heinrich’s bloodshot eyes shifted wildly between the doorway and his son. “I’m sorry, lads, honest. Let him free, and spare the little ones.” The babes screeched all the louder. “In God’s name, have mercy!”

  “Mercy’s a proper virtue,” said Hegel, rubbing the wooden image of the Virgin he had retrieved from a cord around Gertie’s neck. “Show’em mercy, brother.”

  “Sound words indeed,” Manfried conceded, setting the boy gently on his heels facing his father.

  “Yes,” Heinrich gasped, tears eroding the mud on the proud farmer’s cheeks, “the girls, please, let them go!”

  “They’s already on their way,” said Manfried, watching smoke curl out of the roof as he slit the boy’s throat. If Hegel found this judgment harsh he did not say. Night robbed the blood of its sacramental coloring, black liquid spurting onto Heinrich’s face. Brennen pitched forward, confused eyes breaking his father’s heart, lips moving soundlessly in the mud.

  “Bless Mary,” Hegel intoned, kissing the pinched necklace.

  “And bless us, too,” Manfried finished, taking a bite from the warm tuber.

  The babes in the burning house had gone silent when the Grossbarts pulled out of the yard, Hegel atop the horse and Manfried settling into the cart. They had shoved a turnip into Heinrich’s mouth, depriving him of even his prayers. Turning onto the path leading south into the mountains, the rain had stopped as the Brothers casually made their escape.

  II

  Bastards at Large

  Dawn found the smoldering carcass of Heinrich’s house sending plumes of smoke heavenward, summoning the village’s able-bodied men. An hour later most had regained the nerve they had lost at seeing the carnage. Despite his protests Heinrich went into the village to warm his bones and belly if not his soul while the half dozen men who comprised the local jury rode south. They had borrowed horses of varying worth and food to last two days, and the manor lord’s assistant Gunter fetched his three best hounds. Gunter also convinced his lord of the necessity of borrowing several crossbows and a sword, and the others gathered any weapons they could lay their hands on, though all agreed the fugitives should be brought back alive so Heinrich could watch them hang.

  Gunter knew well the Grossbart name, and cursed himself for not suspecting trouble when they had arrived at the manor house the night before. He comforted himself with the knowledge that no good man could predict such evil. Still, he had a wife and three sons of his own, and although he did not count Heinrich amongst his closest friends no man deserved such a loss. He would send his boys to help Heinrich next planting but knew it was a piss-poor substit
ute for one’s own kin.

  They rode as fast as the nags allowed, making good time over field and foothill. The wind chilled the jury but the sun burned off the dismal clouds and dried the mud, where the cart tracks collaborated with the dogs to assure them of their course. Even if the killers fled without resting Gunter knew they could still be overtaken by sundown. He prayed they would surrender at seeing the superior force but he doubted it. These were Grossbarts, after all.

  Being Grossbarts, Hegel and Manfried knew better than to stop, instead driving the horse close to breaking before stopping near dawn. Even had they wanted to continue the trail disappeared among the dark trees and remained invisible until cockcrow. They had reached the thick forest that separated the mountains proper from the rolling hills of their childhood home, and Manfried found a stream to water the frothy horse. He wiped it down while his brother slept and generously offered it a turnip. Turning its long nose up, it instead munched what grass grew on the edge of the wood before also closing its eyes.

  Manfried roused them both after the sun appeared, and his brother hitched the horse while he whittled a beard comb from an alder branch. Soon they were winding up a rocky path ill-suited for a farmer’s cart. Each tugged and scratched his beard as they slowly proceeded, both minds occupied on a single matter.

  “Chance they went east,” Hegel said after a few hours.

  “Nah,” Manfried said, stopping the cart to remove a fallen branch from the trail. “They’ll figure us to cut south, what with the scarcity a other towns round here.”

  “So they must be comin on now,” grunted Hegel.

  “If that bastard didn’t get freed earlier, suppose someone must a found’em by now. Probably hollered all night. Had I cut his throat, too, he couldn’t a yelled for help.”

  “Yeah, but then there’d be no one left to learn the lesson, and he had a fat turnip to chew through.”

  “True enough,” Manfried conceded.

  “So they’s definitely on to us.”

  “Yeah,” said Manfried, “and with just horses, they’ll catch us by shut-in.”

  “If not fore that.” Hegel spit on their panting horse.

  “Shouldn’t a bothered with the cart,” said Manfried.

  “You wanna carry them extra blankets? All a them turnips? No thank you. Cart’s only thing good bout a horse. Can pull a cart.” Hegel could never articulate exactly why, but he had always distrusted quadrupeds. Too many legs, he figured.

  “Yeah, and what do you think we’s gonna be eatin when we run out a turnips?”

  “True words, true words.”

  The Brothers shared a laugh, then Manfried turned serious again. “So we got the vantage if we use it, cause we’s ahead and they’s behind. What say we run this cart a bit ahead, lash the horse to a tree and cut back through the wood? Get the pounce on’em.”

  “Nah, not sharp enough. Up through them trees I spied where the trail starts switchin up the face. We wait up there. High ground, brother, only boon we’s gonna get.”

  “Catch as catch can, I suppose. Think I’ll carve us some spears.” Manfried hopped from the cart and walked beside them, peering through the thickets for suitable boughs. The treacherous path advised against speed, allowing Manfried to easily keep pace. After heaping several long branches in the cart, he resumed his seat and set to task.

  Gunter stopped the jury where the path began arcing back and forth up the mountainside, only transient hunters and their more sensible game preventing the trail from being swallowed entirely by the wilds. Even with the prodigious trees to shield them from an avalanche the reduced visibility allowed their quarry any number of ambush spots. The dogs sat as far from the horses as their tethers allowed, and he dismounted to water them.

  The dusk hour would give the jury just enough time and light to reach the pass. With a heavy sigh Gunter freed the hounds from their leashes and watched them dash excitedly up the trail. He had hoped to overtake the murderers before they reached the switchbacks, but the jury had ridden slowly through the forest lest the Grossbarts had broken from the trail. While they might have plunged down the opposite slope rather than lying in wait along the way, Gunter doubted it. They were ruthless, and the only advantage save numbers the townsfolk possessed was a few more hours of sleep the night before.

  “Quick as you can,” Gunter called, “but leave a few horse-lengths twixt you and the man ahead.”

  The thick forest had yielded to scree and hardy pines that seemingly grew directly from the rock. The setting sun shone on the trail that within the week would be salted with snow, and each man carried a heavy fear along with his weapon. Gunter led, his nephew Kurt close behind, then Egon the carpenter, with the farmers Bertram, Hans, and Helmut following after. The dogs bayed as they charged ahead, Gunter following them with his eyes for three bends in the road before they ascended out of view.

  The steepest point of the trail lay near the top, before the incline evened out at the pass. At the last switchback Manfried waited with a large pile of rocks and his spears, a wizened tree and a small boulder providing cover. Brown grass coated the mountainside wherever the scree and rock shelves did not, and on the path halfway down to the next bend Hegel finished his work with the shovel and prybar. He had forced up rocks and dug the hard dirt beneath to provide as many horse-breaking holes as time afforded, and now scurried to conceal them with the dead grass. The hounds rushing up the trail below him were too winded to bark but Hegel sensed their presence all the same.

  Hegel despised dogs more than all other four-legged beasts combined and hefted his shovel. Seeing their prey, the hounds fell upon him. The shovel caught the lead animal in the brow and sent it rolling to the side but before he could swing again the other two leaped. One snapped past his flailing arms and landed behind him, the last latching on to his ankle. Unbalanced, he drove the shovelhead into the neck of the dog on his leg, cracking its spine. The mortal blow did not detach the cur, however, its teeth embedded in his flesh.

  Manfried chewed his lip, eyes darting between his brother and the horsemen he saw riding up the switchbacks below. Hegel spun as the dog behind him jumped, parrying it with the haft of his tool but losing his balance; he fell. At seeing Hegel stumble on the dead dog fastened to his leg Manfried slid down the side of the slope. The beast Hegel had first laid out regained its feet as Manfried jumped down to the trail, prybar in hand.

  Manfried heard the riders but the horizontal Hegel heard only the growling of the dog attacking his face. Hegel jerked back so it merely tore at his ear and scalp, and as a testament to his utter hatred of the creature, he clamped both arms around its torso and bit into the mangy fur of its throat. The confused hound yelped and struggled to get away but he pulled it closer, chewing through its coat and into the meat. Gagging on muddy, stinking dog, he opened his mouth wider and got his teeth around the veins.

  In his descent Manfried had wrapped a swath of blanket around his lower left arm, and easily coaxed his wounded foe into biting. He cooed to the beast until it lunged at his waving appendage, and no sooner did it bite than he brained it with his prybar. Tucking the weapon into his belt, he hefted the hound’s shuddering corpse and rushed to the edge of the trail. Recognizing Gunter on the trail below, he hurled the dead dog at him and dashed back up the trail to his roost.

  “Move your legs, brother!” Manfried wheezed.

  Hegel had broken the jaw of the murdered cur on his ankle, and the throat-bitten hound rapidly bled out on the ground beside it. Hearing hooves, he limped as quickly as he could after his brother. Having chosen their ambush location for its sheer walls and steep ascent, Hegel had no hope of reaching the switchback Manfried rounded before the horsemen caught him. He threw himself behind a boulder just as Gunter appeared around the bend below.

  Gunter’s favorite bitch had nearly knocked him from his horse, and had his steed been fresh it surely would have bolted in fear. His tunic slick with dog blood and his shoulder bruising, he kicked the horse and called to
his men, “We’re on them, lads!”

  Seeing the next piece of trail empty save for another of his fallen hounds and several boulders, Gunter pushed his mount harder up the incline. The sure footed stallion avoided the holes Hegel had excavated and clipped past the crouched Grossbart, reaching the next bend. From the edge of his eye Gunter caught sight of Hegel but before he could double back the murderers made their move.

  Following his uncle, Kurt noticed Hegel just as the shovel dug into his hip bone and sent him toppling. The startled horse reared back, stepped into a hole and, snapping its fetlock, fell onto Kurt before he could blink. The horse pinned him, crushing his legs as it frantically rolled and kicked. Hegel saw another rider rounding the bend below and scampered around the fallen, crazed horse to relieve the trapped rider of his crossbow, which had skittered out of reach. Not that Kurt noticed, having had the wind knocked from him, his legs broken, and a horse mashing his lower half into pulp against the stony path.

  The crossbow Gunter aimed at Hegel fell clattering on the stones when a rock hurled by the hidden Manfried collided with his temple. Blood running into his eye, Gunter quickly dismounted the nervous horse and put it between himself and his unseen attacker. He snatched up the crossbow as another stone hit his horse hard enough to make it lunge up the trail, and Gunter dropped the reins lest he be dragged after. Loading another quarrel, Gunter squinted his good eye and made out Manfried through the deepening dusk.

  Egon stopped his horse at the curve, shocked to see Kurt’s horse thrashing on top of the boy, a dark figure creeping over him. Unsure how to proceed and armed with only an ax, he dismounted and tied his horse to a stunted tree. Bertram rode past the confused carpenter, driving his horse as close to a gallop as the steep trail allowed. Unlike the others, he had served on several such juries and had no doubts as to an appropriate action: he saw a Grossbart, and he would ride that Grossbart down.

  Hegel hefted Kurt’s crossbow, miraculously intact but unloaded. Bertram bore toward him and Hegel waited, muscles tensed. When horse and rider had almost reached him he dived backward between the flailing legs of Kurt’s felled horse and rolled across the trail. Bertram spurred his horse to leap over its crippled kin, but the confused beast instead angled to pass beside it. The narrow edge of the trail gave way under hoof, man and horse giving the illusion of riding straight down the mountainside before they began tumbling over each other to the trail below.