by S. A. Swann
“... show that God is merciful as well as strict,” Günter was in the midst of saying. If anything, his words were even flatter now, drained of every hint of humanity. “This child, while equally complicit in her family's actions, will be spared so she can be brought into the full grace and forgiveness of Christ.”
This is mercy? Uldolf thought. Forcing her to watch her family burn? To watch him die, as he watched his sister die?
The man with the robes took Hilde's hands in his own, pulling her forward. Hilde looked up at the pyre, as if just seeing it for the first time. She called out, “Mama! Ulfie!” She tried to run, but the man held her too tightly. He shouted something in German that Günter didn't translate.
The soldiers threw the torches. Uldolf watched as they all cut burning arcs against the night sky trailing sparks. The torches struck the base of the pyre, landing in the tinder at its base, scattering across the platform.
Hilde screamed.
Flames spread around the base of the pyre, and Uldolf could already feel the heat licking his face, the smoke burning his eyes. He looked at his sister, and saw her staring wide-eyed, tears streaming down her cheeks.
Please, Hilde, close your eyes. Don't watch this.
The man holding Hilde spoke, and Günter translated, “Let us all pray now for this child's soul.”
The man started chanting something in Latin, and all the Christians lowered their heads.
Lilly raised hers.
Interlude
Anno Domini 1231
Lilly wrote her master's will across the stronghold of Mejdân, scrawled in the blood of the wicked. She met the enemy in dark narrow hallways, rending limbs and flesh. They swung swords and knives and clubs, but in most cases, simply stepping out of the shadows to show her true form was enough to shock the heathens into ineffectiveness. The panicked blows that did land wouldn't have been mortal even if she had no gift of healing.
She slaughtered her way toward the center of the building, leaving no one alive behind her to raise a warning of God's approaching wrath.
Almost no one.
Even with blood on her lips and the scent of death filling her lungs, she paused at a door. Whatever was behind it had been important enough for a Prûsan guard to block her way, until she relieved him of his head. She could hear breathing behind it, slow and steady. Someone sleeping.
Her clawed hand rested against it, and she made a low growl in her chest that never emerged from her throat. Her claws left small trails of blood smeared across the wood, but before she pushed the door open, the room's occupant groaned in his sleep.
The voice was familiar.
Uldolf?
She snatched her hand away from the door as if it had burst into flame. She stepped back, over the body of the headless Prûsan slumped at the threshold.
No. The one word was all that her confused thoughts could muster. She would not allow her master's will to fall over this one boy. It mattered little, anyway. Her master wanted fear, and dead swordsmen. Both he would have in great measure without Uldolf s body.
“Sleep,” she whispered to the door, turning to tear her way into the heart of the stronghold.
***
It should have ended there.
It should have ended with her half-human, half-lupine palm resting on Uldolf s door. She should have stood there and realized the full measure of what she was, what her master was, and what it meant to serve his God.
Some part of her mind did realize it. Something in her recoiled at the thought that Uldolf was here, in the midst of the damned, condemned by her master's God. Inside her, there was a nine-year-old child named Lilly who understood.
However, there was another Lilly—hunched, red-furred, and snarling; a Lilly born to endure the attentions of her first master; a Lilly who was cold and cared little for pain, or sadness, or joy. This Lilly tasted the blood of man and in it she tasted her master's favor and a vent for her rage.
This was the Lilly who entered the chambers of Reiks Radwen Seigson of Mejdân.
***
Five people were in the chamber when she slammed the door open. Two guards rushed her in a futile charge that ended with their torn limbs scattered in the midst of piles of broken furniture. It left three alive: a woman, a child, and Radwen Seigson himself.
The woman fought as Lilly reached for the child, but one blow tore free the intervening limb, and another tore the woman's face open and dropped her to the ground.
Radwen tried to hide the child behind himself, but Lilly tore the small body from his arms and threw it away, back toward the door.
She slammed the pagan chieftain against the wall and started to tear him apart.
As the warm blood splattered her muzzle, pain slammed through the small of her back, impaling her and causing her muscles to spasm. The pieces of Radwen's body fell to the ground as she spun in a fury, grabbing her attacker's sword arm.
The small limb was torn free from the attacker's body even as she realized who it was.
Everything inside her stopped as the world froze.
Nothing moved except Uldolf, stumbling away from her, blood pouring from his wrecked shoulder. His face shone a pasty white in the lamplight.
He took a step backward, feet tangling in the woman's corpse as he fell backward. He looked at the woman and his mouth opened in a terrible soundless scream as he pushed backward with his feet, smearing a new trail in the blood on the floor.
She stared at the gaping wound of his shoulder as if it had been torn in her own flesh. Her master forgotten, she took a step forward.
He stared at her with eyes wide and empty. He screamed at her, “Stop it! Please, stop it!”
Somewhere inside her, a voice said, God wants this.
“No,” she whispered.
Uldolf stared through her, tears cascading over pasty skin. “Stop it. Please, stop it.”
My master wants this.
She reached out and touched his cheek. Her inhuman fingers left a trail of blood across Uldolf s face. “No. Not you.”
It is what I am.
Uldolf violently shook his head, escaping her touch. His voice was weaker. “Stop it. Please, stop it!”
“I wasn't supposed to hurt you, Uldolf.”
It is what we are.
“No, it isn't.”
You as much as I, child.
Lilly shook her head, her own tears mixing with the blood on her face. She turned and ran.
***
When her master came for her, she had recovered from the shock. Her thoughts of the boy Uldolf were locked away safely, along with the feelings of the other Lilly—the one who remembered lullabies and who had learned to swim. The one who idly thought that the weak pink body she wore now was somehow “real.”
Lilly told herself that she was no longer a child, and she would never cry again.
Over the following years, she served her master very well, the wrath of his God personified. She knew nothing of mercy or remorse, and told herself that she cared for nothing, much less the village of Mejdân and the boy who had lived there.
***
Then, eight years later, Lilly sat in the rear of a wagon, the kind used by farmers and merchants, enclosed on three sides by unpainted wooden sides high enough to hide the contents in the flat bed. The inside was dim. A canvas sheet above her softened the dawn light and cast the interior into shadow.
She rested in one corner, wearing the plain surcoat, chemise, and skirts of a Prûsan peasant woman. Her hair was unbound, falling across her shoulders. She sat on the thick straw bedding with her legs drawn up so she could rest her cheek against her knees. Under her skirt was a silver manacle on her ankle, its chain leading to a hole in the wagon floor that was hidden under the straw.
She watched as her master unlatched the rear gate and lowered it. He stared a moment at her meal. Resting in the center of the floor, just within her arm's reach, was the leg of a hind the Christians had taken and gutted two days ago. The flesh was half
eaten, the red-stained bone visible up to the first joint.
He looked at the leg of venison and asked her, “You haven't eaten very much. Do you feel ill?”
“No, I saved it for the journey.” When he frowned, she asked, “Have I displeased you?”
“No, Lilly. If you wish to worry your meal, you may do so.”
She turned her face away and looked up at the canvas above her. “Have we reached the pagans yet?” It was what little she had to look forward to.
“No, there's been a delay. I've been called away to Marienwerder. I can't bring you that deep into Christian lands, so I am going to place you in a nearby village, Johannisburg.”
“They are not pagans?”
“No. It was one of the first towns you helped bring to God. Its pagan name was Mejdân.”
She lowered her face until her chin touched her knees. Her hair obscured her face from Erhard. “Mejdân?” The word sent a chill through her body, a fear that she shouldn't be feeling.
“Do you remember it?”
After a long time, she lied. “No, I do not recall it.”
Compline
Anno Domini 1239
Iudicabit in nationibus, implebit ruinas;
conquassabit capita in terra multorum.
He shall judge among the heathen, he shall fill the places
with the dead bodies;
He shall wound the heads over many countries.
—Psalms 110:6
Chapter 31
On the pyre, Lilly raised her head, releasing the broken tore she had been holding in place with her chin. The silver wrapping her neck separated and fell open in front of her, breaking into two half-circles when it struck the platform. Between the call to prayer and the obscuring flames, no one took notice.
She exhaled and let her muscles go limp as she flattened herself against the stake. The ropes binding her went slack, and she could feel the leather straps slide down her legs under the burlap. Behind her back, she slid her arm out of the leather bonds she had stretched out inside her cell.
The bishop's Latin continued.
No one outside the flames noticed her shift in position. The ropes still bound her, but loosely. She slid down slightly, placing her hips below her bonds, and moved her arms around in front so she could grab the top two lengths of rope.
She listened to the bishop's prayer and whispered, “Pray for your own sorry souls.”
***
Uldolf strained to watch as Lilly raised her head. Her silhouette against the flames had lost all trace of submission or fear. Her profile had turned to iron. Even before the tore tumbled off her neck to break in half at her feet, Uldolf realized that until now she had been acting.
She might have been ready to submit to Uldolf s judgment, but she wasn't about to accept the Order's. Something in him was glad for that. Should anyone be judged here, it was the armed men facing them, not her.
Was I wrong?
She moved slightly and seemed to collapse against the stake. He saw her feet move closer together, and the ropes wrapping her torso seemed to sag slightly. By her feet, Uldolf saw a few remnants of the leather straps he had used to bind her.
If she had freed herself from those bonds, why did she let them tie her to the stake? She could have escaped. What is she doing?
Uldolf looked toward the crowd, but sheets of flame, smoke, and heat obscured his view. Staring through the fire made his eyes water, and he couldn't tell if anyone had taken note of Lilly's movement. The crackling flames were so loud now that he could barely hear the Christian prayer spoken beyond them.
The four of them were isolated in their own tiny Hell—a shrinking bubble wrapped in fire.
“Pray for your own sorry souls,” he heard Lilly whisper. He turned to look in her direction.
Her head was bent forward again, but this time it was in the midst of effort, not resignation. The ropes were taut again, angled forward and down. Uldolf could see her legs bent under the burlap sheet, and he could see the cloth vibrate as the muscles underneath trembled.
She was leaning forward, against the stake.
What is she trying to do?
The whole wooden structure of the pyre groaned, the creaking wood louder than the crackling flames. Uldolf stared at her face in the firelight. Her eyes narrowed to slits, her jaw clenched, and a trickle of blood dripped from the corner of her mouth. Her nostrils flared, and the cords stood out on her neck, the veins so prominent that it seemed they might burst. Above her, the top of the stake leaned slightly. The creaking increased in volume.
He heard his mother's voice from what seemed an eternity ago, “She's stronger than she looks.”
***
Lillyy had her forearms against the rope wrapping her as she strained forward. She pushed as hard as she could, every muscle in her body taut and trembling. She heard the rope groan, the wood creak, and felt her own muscles vibrate as if they might tear free from the bone. She tasted blood in her mouth.
She had forced her human body to the edge. Her breathing was so labored it felt as if she was already sucking flames down her throat. But the rope was way too heavy for her to break. She pushed against it with all she had—more than she had—and all she managed was to shift the wooden stake slightly forward.
But she had expected that.
When the groaning in the wood behind her reached its apex, she thought, Now.
***
Uldolf watched, horrified, as the muscles in Lilly's neck suddenly began swelling and writhing. The pulsing veins grew, branching, and spidering under the darkening skin. Her cheeks lengthened and her nose flattened as her clenched teeth pushed forward, sharpening under snarling lips that thinned to invisibility.
Her shoulders broadened, and Uldolf saw claws poke through the burlap, between the ropes in front of her. Below her, the front of her feet splayed out into massive paws whose claws dug into the wood surface of the platform.
The groaning increased in volume, and Lilly jerked forward. Someone beyond the fire shouted in German.
Two bolts erupted from the stake, near her head. One grazed her neck, the other tore through the flesh of her ear on the other side.
The whole platform shook with a massive snap, as if God himself was cracking a whip to scourge the heathens. Even the flames danced in response, rolling up with an eruption of smoke and embers. The top half of
Lilly's stake toppled forward as more bolts thudded into the platform around her. Uldolf felt a pain in his shoulder and momentarily thought he had been hit by one of the bolts.
He looked down and saw that it wasn't a bolt, but a massive wood splinter, about the length of his hand, sticking out of his right shoulder. He glanced up and saw the bottom half of Lilly's stake, split and broken, with a pile of shredded burlap and leather at its base. For a few moments, he didn't see where Lilly had fallen.
***
Günter numbly watched the proceedings. He knew that what he felt right now was probably matched by all the Prûsan eyes focused on the flames in front of the keep. The Order had promised that a Prûsan who accepted the Christian God would be the same as any Christian; that the Church would respect a convert's life and property.
The bishop's pyre argued otherwise.
It was as if the last eight years had not happened. How many times would the Church insist on demonstrations of fealty?
Uldolf and his family weren't any less Christian than Günter was, any less than most of the Prûsans here. But the bishop was showing that baptism, and worship of the Christian God, wasn't enough.
How many of us still respect the old gods?
Uldolf himself had returned the creature to the Germans, and now he faced a horrid death for his efforts. Günter looked at the bishop next to him, who was holding Gedim's screaming daughter as he shouted a prayer in Latin. Günter, bishop, and child stood in the clearing between the pyre and the curved line of soldiers.
If this is your path to salvation, Günter thought, then let me be damned.
“The creature is moving!” someone shouted in German.
Günter turned to face the pyre. It was hard to see through the glare. The four stakes were rippling silhouettes behind heat and flame. But there was something happening in front, where the monster had been tied. He saw a shadow there, half crouching.
He also heard a creak underneath the crackling flames, as if a long-unused door was opening.
He heard the snap of crossbows firing from the line of soldiers behind him. He didn't see where the bolts went, but right after the first ones fired, he heard a sudden massive crash, as if the opening door had slammed shut.
The monster's stake collapsed to the platform, and the flames belched rolling smoke and embers toward the sky. Günter felt burning heat wash across his face and his eyes watered. As the flames died down, he saw that all that remained of the monster's stake was a splintered stump pointing crookedly at the sky.
The bishop stopped praying.
More bolts sailed into the flames, but Günter didn't see their target.
It's using the flames for cover. The crossbowmen can't see well enough to aim
Suddenly a monstrous lupine shadow moved behind the flames. It raised a five-foot length of splintered wood above its head—the top half of the creature's stake.
The splintered log sailed out of the flames and arced over Günter, Hilde, and the bishop to slam into one of the crossbow-men, knocking him back into the crowd of Prûsans.
“Kill it!” the bishop screamed in German. “Shoot the thing.”
More bolts sailed into the pyre, to what effect Günter couldn't tell.
The shadow moved behind the flames, too fast for him to follow. Günter had horrid visions of the fight in the keep. This thing will not die ...
The bishop was wrong. This was not a tool of the Christian Satan, something subject to the wrath of the Christian God. This creature was serving the lord of the dead Pikuolis, come to punish the Prûsans for turning away from the old gods.