by Richard Nell
Soon he’d send more men to guard the bridge and kill anyone who tried to flee cross. Then he’d wait at least a day for the fire to spread and burn the tribesman out. Then he’d bring the best, the hardest, and the cruelest batch of murderers in his whole damned, abandoned army, and he’d march them through the ashes. He’d slaughter nine out of every ten survivors he found. He would let the Helvati see ash and blood smeared destroyers marching through the graveyard of their homeland, and hope they remembered it for two generations. Then he’d see about Clara’s temple.
* * *
“You…you can’t.”
Kurt leaned over his desk, splashing water from his basin to wash the smoke from his hair and face.
“I already did, Miss Lehmann. Can’t you smell it?”
Clara shook her head. Her skin had a notable tinge of white still from the poison, which made Kurt smile.
“The forest is huge. It can’t possibly spread and do all you hope. And…God in heaven, if it does…couldn’t it jump the river? Couldn’t the wind change?”
Kurt nodded, the dangers and variables swirling in his mind.
“Oh yes. Anything could change. Everything. At any time. We started a hundred fires. We’re all at risk.” His smile widened with her eyes. “But then, disease could rot you from your next sip of water. Or a wild boar could burst from the trees and skewer you where you stand. You’re at risk, Miss Lehmann, in this world you’re always at risk, you’ve just convinced yourself otherwise.”
She stepped away but still watched him closely, whatever fear she felt initially seeming to fade.
“So…what now?”
“Whatever I say.” He snapped and not on purpose, thinking perhaps it was the failure to terrify her that annoyed him. “We wait. Then we cross the water and find my gold, and if you’re lucky, maybe your weapon.” He tossed away the rag. “I think it might be time you told me exactly what I’m looking for.”
Her chin lifted ever so slightly as she hesitated, and he sneered.
“Now might be the time to remember you’ve cost me ten men, and what I’ll do if I think you’re lying.”
Again he could see his threats didn’t frighten her. So why can’t I stop making them?
“I can tell you it will be easy to transport. But we’ll need good, strong and…brave men to help take it. Five, maybe ten. I’m not sure, exactly.”
Kurt gripped the wash basin and threw it hard across the tent. Water sprayed the cloth and the clay cracked on the ground.
“You won’t believe me,” Clara whispered, looking resigned and helpless. He met her eyes, and whatever fear lay inside, he thought, was not for her life.
“You’d best try before I decide the fire was adequate. Crossing that river is dangerous, Miss Lehmann, and getting less and less appealing.”
She swallowed, clenching and unclenching her hands. Kurt could tell she wanted to call his bluff, to see what he’d do if she refused him and kept silent. Instead she walked calmly to his desk, close enough he could reach out to her. She smelled like sweat and mud but still better than anything else Kurt smelled. He tried to ignore it, just as he tried not to watch her lips as she lifted the bottle and filled two glasses, drinking one back and filling it again.
She closed her eyes—no doubt her stomach was already queesy.
“You’ll know of the Knights of Vendia, I assume. The God-King and his demons.”
Kurt squinted. “Yes. Men wrapped in myths across the sea. I’ve heard of imps and and fairies, as well.”
“The demons aren’t myths. The magic powers. I swear to God it’s the truth. The man they call the Demon-King is three hundred years old, some of his knights a century, or older, and they look like young men. I have seen warriors so strong they could bend steel in their bare hands.”
Kurt took a deep breath and sipped his drink.
“Well, you were right. I don’t believe you.”
“The Emperor himself believes it. He has spies. Proof. The God-King and his knights derive their power from…creatures. Creatures they capture and bind to their flesh. They have men whose sole profession is to learn this process.”
“Fine. The truth and my belief are irrelevant. What are we after?”
“One such creature. The Vendians call them demons. The Helvati have one. They worship it, or maybe it’s their prisoner, I don’t know. But they have one, I’m sure of it.”
Kurt sagged into his chair and uncocked his pistol. He did his best not to scratch his side, and tried to blink the redness from his eyes. Finally he glanced at Clara, looking for any sign of madness or deception or religious fanaticism. He couldn’t know, couldn’t be sure. At last he shook his head, and laughed.
“This isn’t a joke.” Clara tensed and balled a fist.
“Life is one long, tasteless joke, Miss Lehmann. Surely all a man can do is laugh.” Kurt blew one of his nostrils into a new rag, then took a sip of brandy. “In any case I’m not laughing at you, per se. I’ve decided to help you. I find this amusing. And together we’re going to go down into some God forsaken savage pit. And when we do there’s going to be a demon, or there isn’t. And in either case, one of is going to look very stupid.”
Clara considered this, and managed to smile—at least a little.
“I suppose you’re right.”
Kurt nodded, and sipped his drink.
“Of course, if it’s you, I’m certainly going to blow your brains out.”
The small, pretty corners of Clara’s lips flattened again. Kurt grinned.
* * *
Throughout the day, if anything, the wind picked up. Kurt’s men went to their work, hurrying on the bridge as they watched smoke rise. He sent half his infantry to guard the Helvati bridge as planned, and sent scouts too to patrol the river. Despite the smoke he couldn’t know for sure how the fire progressed, and once or twice in weaker moments considered sending men across to look. Then he saw the birds.
In twos and threes and then swarms they fought the wind, screeching as they crossed the river and quarreled over trees and branches to rest. Then came smaller tree-dwellers, then deer and rabbits and finally wolves, and even a bear. Few dared cross the river. Most crept to its edge and drank and shook off their terror, predator and prey for a moment equals in their flight from destruction.
Kurt ordered his archers up. Later, when Helvati stragglers came like the animals—mostly women and children—Kurt ordered his archers to fire if they got too close. He made sure Clara was in earshot when he gave the order.
“These people don’t drink, Rald. Understood? Tell Celtus to patrol the banks East and West. Not one Helvati drinks from this river today. Not within five miles of me.”
“Yes, sir.”
To stress his point he wore the mask of cold, ruthless rage he always wore in a slaughter. He paced and waited, mock anger growing like a storm, until he and Harmon picked their thirty killers and told them the plan.
He made sure the men he’d bring through the ruin had enough to eat and drink, and that they restocked their kit and had cloth ready for face-masks to help protect them from the smoke. He kept them from bridge duty, and that night toasted them and told the others to keep working while they were gone. He’d need them to guard the camp and be ready if the men came in with an army of savages on their tail.
“Aye, we’ll be ready sir. We’ll be watching.”
Kurt clapped the sergeant of the watch on the shoulder and met each man’s eyes, nodding dramatically with every one. Satisfied, he’d gone to his rest early.
Deep in the night, even through the thick canvas of his tent, he’d seen the flicker of light in the distance—like a red sun rising in the twilight. Life is the flame, he thought, touching the rough cloth. One moment it’s controlled, even beautiful, then in the next, chaos.
He closed his eyes, and slept without dreams.
“It’s time, sir.”
Rald woke him at dawn. The camp guard stomped their feet and pounded their cups as Kurt and hi
s men gathered and readied the boats.
“Ready Miss Lehmann?”
He smiled at the sight of her in full soldier’s kit. This time he’d even given her a sword, too, as well as a leather cuirass and iron helm.
“Yes,” she said, settling herself onto the seat, looking tiny and ridiculous next to the five veterans lined next to her.
“Good. I feel safer already.”
The men chuckled and Kurt leapt inside. Four cavalrymen pushed them into the river, and, using oars and the ropes strung across the width, they paddled and pulled themselves across the current.
Once safely across, they stepped in groups from their boats without words, then formed a loose skirmish line with Kurt and Clara in the center. Without instruction the men wrapped their cloth masks around their heads and took positions with weapons ready. Kurt couldn’t help but look on them with pride.
The least experienced man amongst his raiders had been a soldier for a decade. Most of their faded uniforms had as much patch as original cloth. Their boots had been replaced a dozen times from dead recruits, their weapons and insignias a motley mix of preference and opportunity stretching over a career of looting, practice, and war. All had been wounded, some badly. All had killed and fled and fought at Kurt’s and each other’s sides, had saved each other, or had been saved. The iron and leather hanging from their bodies now looked as comfortable as clothes. Their eyes scanned the woods with purpose, not with fear.
Kurt breathed his last few lung-fulls of clean woodland air. He waited until the men all looked to him, the thrill of their loyalty wrapping him in armor, knowing here and now, when all their lives were at greatest risk, here he was truly the master of the East army—the colonel he pretended to be.
“With me, brothers.” He drew the heavy cavalry sabre he had wielded all his life, checked the four, oiled and loaded pistols on his belt and chest-strap, then stepped into the trees.
Beyond the busy river bank, the first corpse they found was one of theirs. The savages had taken the body of Private Tedrick, disemboweled it, and hung it from a tree with rope. Official military policy was to gather all Keevish corpses and bury them, burning them only if a truce with the enemy wasn’t convenient within three days.
Kurt slowed long enough to dip his finger into the dead man’s body. He wiped the congealed blood in a line down both his cheeks like tears, then he walked on without a word. Some of the men did the same. No one cut him down.
After many long minutes of marching through the hazy woods, Kurt glanced at Clara, letting the darkness he felt creep into his voice.
“You’ll tell us if we’re going the wrong way, I trust.”
“Yes. But with the smoke, it’s difficult, and if the trees are burnt, perhaps…”
She met Kurt’s stare, and her words trailed away. Then she pushed at the strap on her almost comical iron helm and squared her shoulders.
“It’s not far. The ground should rise away North. The temple’s on a hill.”
Kurt nodded, enjoying at least a measure of her pride and courage. He picked up his pace. Time passed in the familiar, measured boot-falls of his men, the forest eerily silent with the near absence of life. The air grew increasingly heavy with smoke, too dry and hot for the sun and season. Some of the trees now had scorched canopies, and cracked, wilted leaves lay about their feet like the withered rose-petals thrown at the feet of a conquering army.
“Eck thaar!”
Kurt’s sword was in his hand, as if he’d felt the ambush a moment before it came.
“Together!”
He spun and lifted his sabre as he scanned the trees around him. More shouts rose from the hill, and painted tribesmen swept leaves as they raced down the elevated ground.
Kurt grabbed Clara’s back and pushed her towards the formation’s center. Some of the veteran’s raised and fired muskets or loosed arrows. Others drew swords and halberds, spears and shields, forming into a curved line in seconds.
Tribesmen howled and charged with axes and clubs, most of them alone and separated—no doubt on purpose to seize individual glory.
The veterans met each two or three at a time. Spears and halberds broke the charge of most not blasted with musket fire, and soon the tribesmen were the ones holding their ground at the edge of spear-point. They hacked at the shafts and tried in vain to push in for the kill, and sabre-armed veterans wrapped around them.
Those that held found themselves attacked from three sides. If they turned, they were pierced from the front. If they engaged either flank, they were hacked down from behind. Those that withdrew were shot.
Kurt felt Clara try and pull away, as if she meant to charge out and aid the veterans fight. He hissed and gripped her collar, and she glared at him, eyes rolling up and down his drawn sword, as if to ask ‘why aren’t you fighting with your men?’ He didn’t bother explaining.
Instead he watched the enemy. Now that the tribesmen were close he could see they weren’t ‘painted’, but smeared with soot. He could hear their ragged breaths, see the agony on their faces, the wild fatigue of a sleepness night spent in helpless terror. All were young—no doubt the only healthy enough after so many hours of breathing smoke.
“Die.”
Kurt smiled as he watched Harmon hiss and catch a Helvati axe on his parrying dagger. His feet spun as he whirled forward and cut the boy’s throat, then with the barest of movement, stepped past to plunge his sabre through the chest of an unsure warrior behind.
“East clear,” he called, the soldierly mix of anger and satisfaction clear in his voice.
“And West,” called another veteran.
The elite of East Army panted and re-loaded their guns, calmly waiting for orders. Kurt listened and heard nothing except the cries and whimpers of a few dying men. He walked calmly behind the half-circle of his men, counting ten dead Helvati. None of his soldiers had even been wounded.
“Forward march.”
He tried not to scratch his side, then stepped out again towards the slope and the temple and perhaps some terrible mythical beast. Or enough gold to turn my valley into a small city—a free city, he thought, away from kings and bureaucrats, a place built on strength and blood, her walls manned by the killers who created her. He stepped over a Helvati corpse, too pleased to point out they hadn’t let one live to tell the tale.
Chapter 9
Kurt and his soldiers stood on a rise above the Helvati ‘temple’, gazes sweeping the half-burned woods for danger.
“It’s there,” Clara pointed. “Your gold is beneath, as promised.”
Kurt leaned on his knee and inspected the small creek at the edge of the tribesman’s temple. From his vantage point he could see the sheer cliff on its Southern flank, see that they’d chopped down every tree within a wide radius, and that the hill sloped from every angle to the pallisade of wooden spikes. It was exactly where Kurt would have chosen, had he built the fort. It had good access to water, lumber, and perhaps even an escape into the woods, as well as being protected from attack, and fire. But not from smoke. He smiled. At least not as much as they must have had last night.
“Your temple looks more like a fort.”
Clara shrugged.
“Should we check the perimeter, sir?”
“We’ll climb the gate. I need five volunteers.”
The men exchanged looks. Harmon shook his head.
“And the defenders?”
“There aren’t any.”
Kurt descended the rise before the men had time to ask any questions. He climbed the temple hill with the others behind him. Then he strode past archer range without hesitation—in plain sight across the open ground—directly to the gate. He glanced at the soldiers lingering cautiously in his wake, and raised a brow.
“Sorry, sir.”
Harmon and four men took coils of hemp rope and climbing hooks from their kit. They swung and tossed them over the wall, then with a boost from the others moved carefully over the spikes—one or two catching their p
ants and swearing as the cloth tore. Without a shout, nor an arrow fired from the enemy, they dropped to the other side.
Wood shuffled and clicked, an old joint creaked, and the gate swung open. Harmon stood behind in the open bowing like a courtier, and the men laughed.
“Be wary, boys.” Kurt strolled inside with all his weapons sheathed, hands resting on his belt. “I expect we’ll find savages lurking under the occasional rock.”
The men drew their swords and formed a protective circle around him with two small lines on either side. He knew they would adjust as he moved without instruction.
Inside, the fort seemed entirely abandoned. Kurt saw no cooking fires burning, no villagers or even signs of any in the open spaces or pathways. A haphazard cluster of thatched houses formed a loose barrier around a larger hall, all now stained and blackened by soot.
“The big one, I assume?”
Clara nodded absently, and Kurt stared at her and saw real fear. Or maybe excitement. The thought disturbed him, but he led the men forward halfway to the temple before he changed his mind. Instead he turned and threw open a door to one of the smaller houses, then drew a pistol and stepped inside.
At first he saw only outlines of tables and chairs in the gloom. But his eyes soon adjusted, and he stalked further into the house looking for some kind of cellar. He found only two women huddled in a corner, one perhaps a teenager, the other likely her mother. He saw the three children beneath them—children who’d shoved their small, pale faces into the lowest slope of the wooden floor, and stained the floor beneath them with urine. The scent of death and filth mixed with the smoke.
Kurt didn’t look away—he didn’t need to, not anymore. He imagined their desperation as the night of horror got worse. He imagined the disbelief, the helplessness, the prayers that went unanswered, wondering briefly where the men had gone. Then he stooped to inspect the floor and walls, and noticed a doll made of perhaps human hair discarded near the youngest girl’s limp hand. He lifted it, then walked out and slammed the door without a word.