“There. The lines descend from the sky and plunge underground, into that hole in the middle of the dancers where the paving stones have been ripped up. I want to get this over with before I lose all courage.”
Alex shook his head. “This is truly Satan’s doing; God help us.”
“I thought you didn’t believe in God.”
“I,” said Alex, making the sign of the cross, “may have been wrong. But He sent you on a fool’s mission, Florian. How will we get to that hole? There’s no way to get there except through the dancers.”
Florian nodded. This had not been in his dream either. But the things he recalled were underground, in a windowless cavern lit with golden braziers so somehow he must make it to the hole. He grabbed his brother’s cloak and pulled him into the square.
“What are you doing?” Alex hissed.
“The entrance is only twenty feet away and these men are in a trance. In my dream, I made it underground. So it has to work.”
“Yes, but what about me? Did I make it too? Was I even in your dream?”
Florian let go, trusting his brother would follow. The Saracens spun on every side and he felt the breeze of their coats as they whirled past, pushing the cold morning wind into his face along with the sensation of ice, pricking his face with millions of frozen grains. He pulled his cloak around him. Florian’s bones ached. He had to act fast, which was always difficult at his age, and the Saracens moved in a coordinated dance, shifting to the side at the same time they twirled, forming a strange mobile obstacle course that he and Alex had to navigate without touching anyone; interfering with the dancers could break their trance. A pistol and sword would be useless, Florian knew. His brother would only kill a few before the dancers pounced, and both would then be put on display like the other corpses they’d seen: on a pike, overlooking the main road. It wasn’t the kind of end he’d imagined.
Now that he was in their midst Florian heard a strange hum, a low single tone that emanated from each man’s chest and resonated at a precise pitch so that it seemed to warble within his ears, dulling his senses and making him dizzy at the same time. He dropped to his knees. The paving stones spun underneath him and Florian had a vague sense that a Saracen was dancing closer, threatening to collide in seconds. And his hands felt as though they’d been glued in place; Florian did his best to crawl out of the way but it was no use and the Saracen grinned through a horrific painted skull, eager to land on the priest and awaken the rest of the dancers for a slaughter.
Without warning his brother’s pistol cracked, sending one of the Saracens to the ground just before Alex pushed Florian into the hole, slamming into him from behind.
“Whatever it is you have to do, get it done!” his brother shouted. “I’ll try and hold them off out here!”
Florian slid headlong down a flight of stone stairs, coated with an inch of ice that scraped against his face. He hit the bottom and curled into a ball. It only took a moment for the pain to recede, after which Florian opened his eyes to find he’d landed in a rough cavern where thousands of stalactites hung in a display of wet, fang-like rock, sparkling in the glow emitted from tall braziers. Tongues of flame licked against the cave’s ceiling. They sent a flickering light throughout the cavern, which disappeared into the distance, reminding Florian of a fanged mouth that extended into an infinite throat.
In the middle of the cavern, a man stood with arms outstretched to either side and his head bent back at such an extreme angle that Florian thought his neck had broken. He wore a white robe. The firelight reflected against the fabric, sometimes making it look red or orange, mesmerizing in the way it constantly shifted in appearance, and it took a moment for Florian to notice that the robe moved on its own. The man stood still. But something underneath the folds of his clothing slid or crept, forming inhuman shapes that Florian couldn’t identify but which made him step back, almost tripping against the stairs at the same time he grabbed his crucifix.
As if in response, the man’s head shot forward. Florian cried out when he saw that it was painted in the same skull pattern that the dancing Saracens used, and when the figure smiled at him, the skull’s grin twisted into a gross caricature of man—somehow threatening Florian and all humanity in one simple expression. Another shot rang out from above. Florian flinched and then listened to the sound of his brother’s sword, which clanged loudly against what he assumed were Saracen blades.
“He won’t survive,” the man said.
Florian noticed the purple filaments. They rose from every part of the man in a thin, almost continuous sheet of light that disappeared into the ceiling, and he imagined them rising from the street overhead, where they would split into an infinite number of lines to streak over the battlefield and into Vienna.
“Your spell is useless on me,” Florian said. “I walk with Him.”
“So you can see it; that’s how you found me.”
“God led me here. Not you.”
The man shrieked, his face shaking before it twisted into an expression of rage. “I know you and your brother. We have special places prepared as soon as my Turks run a sword across his neck. His head will be displayed on a pike, but his soul will be ours forever.”
“You’re no wizard; you’re not even a man.” Florian’s heart went cold with a suspicion of what he faced and it took all the courage he had to hold his crucifix steady. “In nomine patris, et filii . . .”
He nearly dropped his cross at what happened next. The man slowly lowered himself to the ground, contorting his limbs, twisting them around until he faced Florian on all fours with his head bent at an even more impossible angle, converting into a grotesque kind of four-legged spider; the popping of joints and bones sent shivers of imaginary pain. Florian wondered if he should turn and run; the dancing Saracens seemed a safer option.
“You should fear me,” the man said.
“Give me your name,” Florian said. “Pater noster, qui est in Caelis . . .”
“Behold. I am the god of flies. And now your brother joins us.”
Alex fell down the stairs, his sword clattering on the stone and ice until he came to rest behind Florian, almost knocking him over at the same time a group of Saracens shouted on their way down, following. Florian didn’t turn. He stayed focused on the creature and over the noise of his brother’s battle there arose a buzzing, a droning that overwhelmed Florian’s voice and brought with it a stench so horrible that he stopped his prayer, dropping to all fours. Flies filled the cavern. Florian had to swat them away from his face as he struggled back to his feet, and he raised his cross once more, an action that cleared the air around him to form a tunnel of air that linked him and the creature while the insects engulfed them both in a black cloud. The God of flies—a prince of hell, one of the major demons. Whatever it was that faced him was more powerful than he’d realized and his arms went numb with terror, his crucifix shaking with the effort to hold it up. And when Florian finished the Lord’s Prayer the thing sat on the floor, mocking him with its grinning skull.
“Are you finished? The battle is turning against the Viennese and her allies. And your brother will soon fall.”
Florian shook his head. “Silence!”
“Silence? Give up now and I will show you some mercy. The end will be painless.”
She shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel. The thought popped into his head out of nowhere, so real that Florian thought he’d heard a voice again, a gentle song within the hum of flies so that he paused to look around, confused. He whispered the phrase to make sure he understood, and then gasped. As soon as he uttered the words the creature backed away and its face twisted to show a mouth full of teeth, filed to sharp points and from which bits of skin dangled, hinting that it had been feeding on Saracen victims. And where before the purple filaments had glowed with an un-natural light, strong enough to make even Florian doubt his chances, now they flickered—a few disappearing altogether.
Florian gripped his crucifix
tightly and spoke so that his voice was clear over the noise of flies. “Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum . . .”
“You’re nothing more than a drunken whoremonger. Leave and I’ll give you safe passage back to Vienna.”
“Sancta Maria, Mater Dei . . .”
The thing continued to back away and Florian noticed that now the flies disappeared, dying in mid air and dropping to the floor in piles. Alex cried out behind him. “Whatever you’re doing, don’t stop; the Saracens are faltering.”
“We have your parents, priest,” the thing said. “They’ll suffer for everything you’re doing—more than any other soul in our power. But if you stop now we will release them.”
“Silence! You are a lie; return to hell and take the Turks with you.”
He stepped forward. Florian sensed a shift in the cave’s air, a lowering of the pressure that made it easier to breathe, and the smell of rot began to fade, transitioning into something that he recognized as a kind of flower—lavender. His knees no longer ached. Florian’s back straightened and he heard a new strength in his voice, one that made him scared and brave at the same time because a force spoke through him, something unseen and without form but as real as the skin on his hands. The next words boomed throughout the cave, breaking a stalactite loose to smash on the floor.
“Salve, Regina, Mater misericordiæ . . .”
Alex shouted in pain. Without looking, Florian knew that a Saracen blade had found its mark and he stumbled over his prayer, wanting to turn and help but hesitating because he knew that to do so would give the thing a chance to regroup—an option Florian didn’t have. But Alex still fought; the ringing of steel echoed against the rock walls and Florian sighed with relief.
“I’m all right,” his brother said, breathless. “These bastards managed to stab me in the foot. Keep going!”
Florian took another step forward, forcing the creature deeper into the cavern. “Ad te clamamus exsules filii Hevæ . . .”
“This is useless.” The demon’s voice became so quiet that Florian almost thought the words came from inside his head. “Long after you’re gone, we will exist. Who cares if you push me away today? A hundred, two hundred, a thousand years from now we’ll return in greater numbers. Through Rome and all the way to Portugal. The world will be ours. We’ll seduce the nations and gather for battle, in numbers as vast as the sand of the sea. Time is all we need, whoremonger. Just more time.”
“Et Jesum, benedictum fructum ventris tui . . .”
“Who are you to do this!”
“. . .ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc, et in hora mortis nostrae. Amen.”
But before the prayer ended, the creature fled. Florian watched the thing scurry into the tunnel so quickly that he almost missed it, a blur of shadow that made it look as though the demon flew close to the tunnel floor, skimming its way into blackness. He collapsed to his knees. Although his limbs felt light and the braziers flamed upward with a roar to banish any remaining shadows, the air became cold and crisp, bringing with it a sense of exhaustion that flooded over Florian to force his eyes shut. He prayed for his brother. He sensed that the danger wasn’t over yet and knew that there was nothing he could do to assist but a moment later he heard it: the song. At first Florian thought he imagined the melody but as its words became clear, louder, it filtered into the cavern from overhead, soaking through the rock.
“The Poles!” Alex shouted. “They sing Mother of God still!”
Florian’s eyes snapped open. The last few Saracens disengaged from Alex, flying up the stairs, and over the song came the screams of Turkish forces—the noise of a terror-filled retreat through the streets of Perchtoldsdorf above. “The Germans are holding their own. I told you it would be so; when he attacks, Sobieski will win the field and Vienna, and Rome, will be saved.”
Alex dropped to the ground next to him. The man’s hair had turned ash white and when Florian reached out to touch it, strands crumbled into dust, floating toward the floor and drifting away. His brother inhaled with a wheeze. But when he looked at Florian, he grinned and then laughed, hugging him in an embrace that threatened to crush his ribs so that Florian had to beat Alex away.
“I can’t breathe.”
“He is real!” Alex shouted. “And that was a demon?”
Florian brushed dust from his cloak. “Of course He is real. But you won’t be so happy when you see what the experience has done to your hair; it’s bone white now, burned and blowing away into nothing. It was a greater demon. And you saw it without the protection of God.”
“Bah.” Alex waved a hand at his brother, dropping his sword to the floor with a clang. “It doesn’t matter. They impaled them, Florian. Alive. All I can see are the bodies of the innocent . . .”
Florian saw tears form as his brother’s voice trailed off. He reached out again, resting a hand on Alex’s shoulder. “This practice is the Khazouk. A favorite method of execution of the Turks.”
“But their victims are alive when it happens? Even children?”
“Yes. But those murdered by Janissaries are in Heaven now and beyond pain; joy is all they know—especially the children. Let that give you peace.”
Alex grabbed his sword. He used it as a cane, pushing down on it to shift weight onto his uninjured foot, and then reached down to grab his brother’s arm, helping him to his feet. Florian shivered. He gathered his cloak and wrapped it around him more tightly as the pair shuffled toward the rough stairs, climbing them slowly. When they reached the street, Florian breathed deeply and sighed.
“I am sorry,” he said.
“For what?”
Florian looked at the sky—making sure the filaments had vanished and relieved when he saw nothing. “For what I did to ruin our family. For everything.”
“Nonsense.”
Alex wrapped an arm around his brother’s shoulder, walking them northward toward Vienna. For a long while they trudged in silence. A morning breeze made a low moaning sound as it coursed through the open windows of abandoned homes, reminding Florian of a the cries of ghosts, a kind of mourning song offered by the dead as their souls rose toward Heaven. Vienna seemed so far away. He barely saw the city walls through a light fog that drifted close to the ground, a mist that broke in places to show that the ramparts had filled with cheering people—Viennese who had come out to watch the fighting unfold. Once Florian and Alex cleared Perchtoldsdorf, cracks of gunfire became clear in the distance, and the sounds of Turkish screams over the rumble of German cavalry drifted toward them on the wind; it was just like the noise of an approaching thunderstorm.
“Forget your affair with the woman, Florian; you are forgiven. And what you returned to me is far more valuable than anything I lost,” Alex said.
“What did I return to you?”
Alex grinned. He slid his sword into its sheath and sped up his limping gate. “Faith. Now hurry; the Poles might attack and mistake us for a pair of filthy Saracens.”
* * *
T.C. McCarthy is an award-winning and critically acclaimed southern author whose short fiction has appeared in Story Quarterly, Nature, and in the anthologies Operation Arcana (ed. by John Joseph Adams) and War Stories (ed. by Jaym Gates and Andrew Liptak). His debut novel, Germline, and its sequels, Exogene and Chimera, are available worldwide. In addition to being an author, T.C. is a PhD scientist, a Fulbright Fellow, and a Howard Hughes Biomedical Research Scholar. Visit him at http://www.tcmccarthy.com or watch him on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/user/therealtcmccarthy/).
At my request, he provided this afterword.
This story, “Saracens,” has nothing obvious to do with David Drake. But it’s all about David Drake. The first time I met him, I had just won the Compton Crook Award and was invited to Mark Van Name’s house for a party, where tons of cool people (mostly fans and aspiring writers) showed up. But there was no sign of Drake—until a few minutes after Mark asked me to give a speech about military science fiction.
That’s when Dave s
howed up.
So I gave a little talk about how to write, all the while thinking why the hell am I the one giving this speech when David Drake and Mark Van Name are here, IN THE SAME ROOM? I knew all about Hammer’s Slammers; I’m a military gamer with tons of Hammer’s Slammers figures, and my basement workshop looks like a future battlefield in miniature. And I knew all about Mark; his house looks like a museum of science fiction. So that had to be the worst “speech” I’d ever given and I still have no idea what I said.
Little would I know that I’d walk away from that night as friends with Dave and that despite not being able to see him on a frequent or regular basis he would always offer help, advice—whatever I wanted or needed. He isn’t a normal human being; he’s superhuman. Dave is a thoughtful, brilliant, intelligent, guy who has no problem saying exactly what he means and who was built without fear (as far as I can tell).
And that’s why this story has nothing to do with Dave. The first ideas I had for this anthology were imitations of Hammer’s Slammers, or something equally inane, so that it eventually hit me that my story had to be totally unrelated to him; there’s nothing worthy I could write in tribute to someone like Drake. “Saracens” is the result of free association, a reflection and/or mixture of current events in the Middle East and faith, written as well as I could do it and given as an offering to one of the masters of SFF. And then as soon as I turned it in I realized: Mark had done it again. He’d asked me to give another “speech” on military SFF to David Drake.
Onward, Drake! - eARC Page 16