Else said a silent prayer and placed himself in the hands of God. “Ghort, you have any idea who these men are?”
“They’re the Emperor’s men. From his own guard. The Braunsknechts. Maybe from Viscesment.” On political maps Ormienden lay within the New Brothen Empire, despite its constituent counties and principalities sometimes owing their first allegiance elsewhere. Viscesment sat on the border between Ormienden and the Connec, on the Ormienden side of the Dechear River. Although the folk of Viscesment spoke the Connecten dialect of Arnhander and everyone in the region considered the city Connecten.
Viscesment lay ninety miles northwest of the ambush site.
The Braunsknechts were not in a bloodthirsty mood. Their captain had orders to avoid making the incident more irksome to Brothe than the actual kidnapping of a Principaté of the Collegium would cause.
“But we’re not headed toward Viscesment,” Else pointed out. “Viscesment would be back that way.”
“Look at the bright side, Pipe,” Ghort said. “We might get to meet the Emperor himself, if we keep on headed this way.” Bo Biogna grumbled, “Pipe, this guy is so contrary I bet he was born feetfirst.”
“How’s that?” Else asked. He was still trying to make sense of what had happened. Why did God keep turning his path away from Brothe?
“Shit, Pipe. When things is goin’ good Ghort don’ do nothin’ but bitch. And when we’re standin’ on our heads in liquid shit, he goes to hummin’ an’ singin’ like he just got laid.”
Ghort said, “That’s because I know all is right with the world, Bo. It’s normal, everyday situation is, throw the dick to Pinkus Ghort. I’m used to that. I’m comfortable with that. I can deal with that. Slip me the pork pole and I strut around grinning.”
Misty rain continued. Else grew nervous for no discernable reason. The nervousness was a state, an intuition, not connected to his current situation. Which, while better than it could have been, did not seem promising. The Braunsknechts tolerated their prisoners, excepting Bronte Doneto. It was clear that Bronte Doneto was what this was all about.
Not keeping up with Doneto really might turn fatal.
But the mist itself was most troubling. Else still felt presences out there more numerous now than before the ambush. Curious. The Braunsknechts were uncomfortable, too. This was the kind of day when the things of the night stayed out and caused mischief.
The west was too tame. Its major shades, all bound into the features of the land now, slept a deep sleep.
In the Holy Lands, the Wells of Ihrian either generated or attracted all the Instrumentalities of the Night. In the Holy Lands you were inundated.
“Hey, Pipe! What the fuck’s the matter with you?”
“Uh? Eh? Oh. Bo. Just lost in my thoughts. We’re not in a good place, here.”
Ghort looked him askance. “Just stay calm, don’t give them no shit, and you’ll be all right. They’ll probably ask us to sign on with Hansel. Where’ve you been working, Pipe?”
Else sighed. He had forgotten to think western. Even in the Holy Lands the Arnhanders employed turncoats recruited from amongst their prisoners. And the Rhûn were even worse. The Rhûn recruited whole tribes to patrol their frontiers.
“The north country isn’t nearly as friendly, Pinkus. They like to sacrifice you to their gods. They burn you or drown you or hang you, or whatever, depending on which god they’re bribing.”
“Bribing?”
“Yes. Their whole way of praying, worshiping, and sacrificing is meant to distract their gods, so they’ll leave the people alone.”
“Sounds primitive.”
“It is. But the Grand Marshes are more intimate with the Instrumentalities of the Night than these tame old lands down here.”
“Whistling past the graveyard, eh?’ Ghort was aware of the shades in the mist around them. Else remained confused. This business made no sense. Yet. Ghort told him, “You’ll catch on. In about a hundred years. It’s all politics.”
Else was baffled by politics back home, where the players were fewer and their motives more transparent.
The Emperor’s men were typical professional soldiers. They worked with calm, quiet efficiency, and no passion. Workaday work. If they had to kill somebody, they would, dispassionately, without regrets. Ghort was right. Given no stress, no provocation, no excuse, they would not behaves badly.
The rain stopped in the afternoon. The sky rose.
The Imperials left the main road. They followed a winding track upward into harsh, precipitous, ice-capped limestone mountains. Those were like nothing Else had seen before. Vegetation was scrubby and the road seldom more than a wide animal track.
Ghort murmured, “I know where we’re at, Pipe. This is the Ownvidian Knot. They’re taking a shortcut. Twenty miles of this and we’ll come out in the Duchy of Plemenza.”
Else reviewed what he knew of northern Firaldia. Ghort could be right. But his estimate of distance sounded optimistic. Forty miles sounded more like it. Bishop Serifs did not like heights. He balked when he saw what lay ahead. The Imperial troops pushed him, showing no respect
Day had begun to fade. The bishop demanded, “When are we going to stop?”
A soldier replied, “We would’ve been there already if you didn’t keep stalling and whining. But you do keep on. So we still have three miles to go.”
That set the bishop off. He stopped. He refused to move. The captain of the band told his men, “Keep going. There’s still enough light. I’ll reason with the priest, then catch you up.”
“Not good,” Ghort whispered to Else. “If you happen to be an asshole bishop.” Else grunted. “He’s about to get spanked.”
Else noted that Principaté Doneto started to argue with the captain, fell silent at a look, then developed a smug little smile. Almost as if he saw a serendipitous answer to an old prayer.
The bishop’s boy whore would not be separated from his patron.
Sometime later, after a mile or so, Else heard a distant cry, short and sharp. It might have been the scream of an eagle. It might have been something else.
The captain did not have the bishop in tow when he caught up. Armand preceded him on foot, running, looking grim and frightened. “How about that?” Pinkus Ghort mused. “The brat weaseled out.”
Bo Biogna observed, “You got to figure a kid like that is gonna be a survivor.”
Ghort whispered. “We might want to set our own watch and keep ready for anything, Pipe. I didn’t think they’d go this far. That captain must be damned sure Hansel will back him up.”
By morning everyone had heard the catamite explain that the bishop, stubbornly refusing to go any further into the mountains, had tried to escape back the way he had come. His horse had lost its footing on a patch of ice. Bishop and beast had gone down the side of the mountain, mostly with the horse on top of its rider.
The Imperial soldiers noted that ice had been spreading throughout the Ownvidian Knot for half a century, never fading during the summers.
“This guy is slick,” Ghort said of the Braunsknecht captain, whose name they had not been able to discover. “Getting somebody else to tell his story for him.”
Else wondered. Osa claimed to be an agent of the Emperor. Maybe he thought that his association with Bishop Serifs had outlived its usefulness.
Breakfast was thin. The Imperials had consumed most of their own rations while waiting to spring their trap. The Principaté’s party had expected to reach another Episcopal stronghold late that afternoon. Else asked, “What’ll happen when we don’t turn up at Dominagua tonight?”
“They’ll send somebody out to look around. When they don’t find us, they’ll go back and panic. What’s the matter? You’re shaking.”
“I’m cold. I hope I’m just cold, not coming down with something.” He had been lucky so far. His only brush with illness, this mission, had been seasickness aboard Vivia Infanti.
After repeating his story several times, Osa Stile joined the rest of th
e prisoners. Else managed a slow, cautious, conversation. “What really happened out there?”
“Almost what I said. Though the bishop’s horse might have had help wandering onto the ice. We weren’t alone, just the three of us. There were things you couldn’t see. They’re all around us now. The Night is very interested in us.”
The Ownvidian Knot was wild and uninhabited and not much visited since the ice began to creep down from the highest peaks. It was the kind of country where the creatures of night fled when civilization pressed. The road had markers each hundred paces, every one charmed, but those spells were old and limited in how much protection they could extend.
Else continued to suffer bouts of the chills. He was relieved when he heard they would stop early. He contributed his share of labor, then bundled up and crowded as close to the prisoners’ fire as he could.
Supper was spare again.
Just Plain Joe did not take kindly to a suggestion that Pig Iron volunteer to become the main ingredient in a mule goulash.
“That’s enough,” Else said when tempers started to heat. “Bo, you’re a hill country boy.” So Biogna had claimed, when he was not telling one of several other tall tales about his origins. “Suppose you ask our hosts to join you in a nighttime goat hunt?” Else had seen wild goats during the day. “The moon should rise early tonight.”
“Hate to disappoint you, Pipe,” Biogna replied. “But my ass is gonna starve before I go out there in the dark. Anyways, by the time moonrise comes, it’s gonna be snowin’.”
“I see. And, no doubt, those goats would be too tough to eat, anyway.”
“Hell, no. They’s probably tastier ‘n shit. But it’s a fact. It’s gonna be as dark and cold as a whore’s heart and this ain’t country where you wanna be wanderin’ away from camp after the sun goes down.”
“You’re probably right.” He stroked the invisible thing on his wrist and wondered if its presence had dulled his thinking. “In that case, make noises like a nanny in heat and wait for some stupid billy to come running.”
“That wouldn’t work, Pipe.” Sometimes Bo’s thinking was too literal.
Else studied his captors. They were a little larger, a little healthier, and a lot more professional than the mob he had accompanied to Antieux. Still, they joked and grumbled and bitched around their own fire, and generally agreed that the natural order was all wrong because, obviously, the farther you had your head up your own ass the higher you soared in the chain of command.
Another bout of shivering took Else. He wriggled closer to the fire.
***
ELSE DID NOT DREAM OFTEN. NOT THAT HE REMEMBERED. BUT that night he did. And remembered.
He dreamed that trouble was coming. Major trouble, down from the ice, out of the night so cold. The Instrumentalities of the Night had become focused upon the Ownvidian Knot. Something old was awakening out there. And its attention was focused on the Braunsknechts’ camp.
Else awakened. His wrist ached. His amulet felt hot. He felt terribly cold himself. Everyone else was asleep. His own sentry, the Braunsknechts sentries, all were sound asleep. The fires had burned low. The warding posts put out to protect the encampment leaned drunkenly or had fallen.
Even Pig Iron snored like a mule.
Not good. Not good at all.
Ignoring his pain, Else crept across a dusting of snow to shake Principaté Doneto. He could not imagine anyone else who offered any hope against what was coming. This night resembled the one in Esther’s Wood, amongst the Wells of Ihrian. But now he had no falcon, no treasure chest, and no inspiration.
Bronte Doneto did not want to wake up. Else shook and shook. His wrist hurt worse and worse. The Principaté groaned but remained asleep. And now he began to sense a second something, possibly even more terrible than the darkness close at hand.
Else pinched Doneto vigorously, in tender places, still to no effect. Grinding his thumb into the sensitive spot between left hand middle and ring finger finally got results.
The Principaté leapt to his feet, instantly awake and immediately sensing wrongness. “Go away.”
Else stole away, found a place where snow had collected. He crushed that against his wrist, hugged his stomach, folded up around the pain. Which became the center of his being. Then, gradually, it began to go away. Reason crept back into his mind.
Still clutching his wrist, Else got up onto his knees and looked around. Little had changed. The snow was falling more heavily. Doneto was on his hands and knees, but staggering anyway, heaving his guts up like a man who had tried to chug a gallon of cheap wine.
The sense of a great dread gathering had begun to fade away. Reluctantly. Powerfully angry at having been thwarted. And behind and beyond, afar, something faintly smug and satisfied.
As was often the case in encounters with the things of the night, at no time was there ever anything to be seen.
The nameless Braunsknecht captain was first to waken. He discovered his sentries snoring and his protective charms down, saw the state of Doneto and Else. Groggily, he kicked his men awake.
The sense of presence beyond the rim of firelight continued to fade.
Vaguely, Else heard the captain muttering, “What happened to our wards? There shouldn’t be anything strong enough to overcome our wards. Not in this part of the world.”
Soldiers and prisoners all had suffered nightmares like Else’s, consisting of an overpowering impression of approaching menace, with an added certainty that escape was impossible.
“But you woke up,” Pinkus Ghort said. Ghort remained disoriented.
Struggling to reclaim his dignity, Bronte Doneto leaned on Just Plain Joe and said, “You woke up, Hecht. In time. How did you manage that?”
“I don’t know. It was the stomach cramps, I guess. The pain... It was instinct, mostly. Once I was awake enough I knew something supernatural was going on and I didn’t know what to do. So I woke you up. How did you make it go away?”
“I prayed.” Doneto’s tone suggested that he did not expect to be taken seriously. The fact that he belonged to the Collegium was no secret. Many members of the Collegium were accomplished sorcerers.
The Braunsknecht captain invited himself into the conversation. “Principaté. Can you explain what just happened?”
“Something from the dawn of time woke up. Something that must have been put to sleep before the old empire came in. But why would it wake up tonight? Did someone wake it up on purpose? Because of us? What’s special about us? Or about you?”
“That will be the question, won’t it?”
Else held his aching wrist to his stomach and grimaced. He did not need to become part of any investigation. His amulet could not possibly evade notice during a close examination. He did not mention sensing a second supernatural presence.
Ghort suggested, “Maybe it was the bishop.”
“What?” That from half a dozen mouths. “I was just thinking, maybe whatever was coming after us was one of those old-time gods that wanted human sacrifices. It was almost dark when the bishop fell down and killed himself. Maybe that woke it up.”
“That’s as good a hypothesis as any,” Doneto said. “But suppose we just let ourselves recover? Let’s fuss about it later. Hecht. Will you be all right?”
“I passed some gas. The pain isn’t as bad now.”
Ghort snorted. “Swamp Boy passes gas. The rest of us fart or cut the cheese.”
***
DESPITE GOOD INTENTIONS AND A UNIVERSAL LUST TO GET THE hell out of the Knot, movement did not commence until noon.
Everyone needed to recuperate. Else felt drained of will and strength.
Last night had been no simple brush with a mischievous sprite or malign minor shade. That presence was the dreadful equal of the thing in Esther’s Wood. And it had not been vanquished.
Darkness threatened again before they exited the Ownvidian Knot on its northeastern side. Prisoners and captors had redefined their relationship, somewhat, though, as Ghort ob
served, “I don’t hear nobody making wedding plans.”
Plemenza maintained a small garrison in a watchtower on the Knot side of a village named Tampas. A dozen Imperial soldiers waited there, guarding supplies.
The Braunsknecht captain disappeared immediately. Professional to his core, he would prepare a report for his superiors. His own needs he would see to later.
After an enthusiastic meal, Bronte Doneto bellowed, “Hecht! Ghort! Come here.”
Else and Ghort joined Doneto away from the others. Doneto said, “Something remarkable happened last night. A thing called a bogon came after us. Luck or God’s favor saw us through. Which doesn’t matter. What does is, the Instrumentalities of the Night fear one Episcopal Principaté enough to raise something ancient to attack him. Which doesn’t happen in modern times. I’m astounded to see it anywhere outside of Scripture.”
Else was pleased. Let Doneto think that whatever happened had to be about him. And that just might be. He asked, “You sure the darkness did that on its own.”
“What do you mean, Hecht?”
“I was wondering if some unfriendly sorcerer was behind it.”
Doneto took time to consider. “That’s plausible. But I don’t see how it could be managed. I don’t know of anyone powerful enough to do it.”
Ghort volunteered, “Maybe you pissed off one of the gods.”
Doneto’s face darkened. He was a prince of the Church. That Church acknowledged the existence of only one God. “Excuse me,” Ghort said. “Amend that to say some devil or demon.” Else nodded. “Slick, Pinkus.” His own coreligionists handled the matter that way. There was the One God, the Merciful, the True God, There Is No Other, and everything else out there belonged to that vast host of lesser supernatural beings sworn to serve the Adversary.
Bronte Doneto relaxed. “You could be right, Ghort. Having endured the impossible already, we shouldn’t discount any possibility.”
“An open mind is a mind that has a chance to see the one path leading through darkness to tomorrow’s safety.”
“Of course. A child’s lesson.”
Else tried not to look baffled but failed.