“How’d you lose that finger?”
John shook his head, realizing Daniel hadn’t been listening. Then he held up his hand. “My little devil’s mark? I got this from a nasty pest that was fouling a farmer’s well - by living in it! Poor fellow’s wife refused to come home until it was gone. This thing was like a frog and a man all jumbled up into one. And slimy? You wouldn’t believe.”
“Yeeuuh…” Of all the devils John had told him about, Daniel thought a slimy frog-man who would live in your well was the most disgusting by far. He didn’t want to think about what it did in the water.
“Mmm, I’ve never seen another one like it. Dying breed I suppose. Well, I was green at the time and had this notion it would be a lot easier to put him to sleep first. So, I gave the bucket-line a tug and here he comes, scrabbling up out of the dark, all claws and teeth. About the size of a dog, I’d say. I thought, simple enough, reached in there and grabbed him.”
Daniel’s eyes bulged.
John felt a pinch at the knuckle, remembering it. “Only, he didn’t want to hold still for hospital. And those teeth, those were sharp. That was an important lesson for me. If you want to kill something, keep your hands sheathed and use a sword.”
“Did you get him?”
“No, he got the best of me. But, I think I scared him near to death, yanking him out of the well like that. He certainly cleared off to find a safer place to live! The farmer got his water back anyway and his wife. And, if I remember, gave me a sack of apricots for my trouble.” John looked at his hand again. “Poor trade.”
***
“Uncle John… Uncle John, wake up. It’s time to get up. The smoke’s gone.”
The haze had blown away. John was relieved. He had trouble getting to sleep that morning, worried Daniel wouldn’t be able to keep a good watch in those thick trees, but the threat of a forest fire seemed to be over. They headed west before one-thirty that afternoon and by three o’clock found the ruins of a small village, where the haze had come from.
The cottages were reduced to blackened frames and ash. A few broken heaps still smoldered, but the violence was over. Villagers lie dead in the lanes dividing the wreckage.
John wanted to shield Daniel from the sight, to take him away from there, but he knew there might be people in need. He couldn’t leave the boy alone. Daniel would have to come with him and be branded by the tragic scene.
Daniel gaped at the indiscriminate casualties, men, women and children. “Was this Golgotha?”
“No. We won’t reach Golgotha for another few days. That’s an old city, made of stone, larger than this and on a hilltop. I don’t know what this place was, a newer settlement, maybe. This is terrible…”
Daniel started thinking out loud. “We were too slow. The bauran got here ahead of us because I couldn’t handle waking up and we lost that day.” He started to cry.
“No, son, don’t say that. Let’s think. This doesn’t look like bauran to me. They don’t leave bodies behind. I don’t know what’s happened here yet, but maybe there’s someone we can help.” Daniel nodded, sniffling.
They called out as they walked their animals through the ruins, searching, but no one answered. The buildings had been burned with torches and oil. The people had been slashed and run through. It was the work of men.
John had seen enough. “There’s nothing we can do. This was over yesterday.” The sun came through the trees to the west. “We’re losing light. I don’t want to be anywhere near here after dark.” Daniel agreed.
A broad track led away from the village in the direction they were headed, the first thing close to a road since Antioch. It made an easy way for them and they followed it to make better time. But as they went, they couldn’t help watching its ends and feeling it was more dangerous on it than off.
Less than an hour from the slaughtered village, four men on horses guarded the way ahead. They wore sleek, black uniforms with silver crosses threaded into their chests, striking against the forestial greens. They didn’t notice John and Daniel.
Daniel whispered, frightened, “Uncle John…”
John was frightened too. On his own he feared very little, but with Daniel, danger had a different meaning entirely. He didn’t know if they should back up and try to take cover, thereby looking suspicious if spotted, or make themselves known by calling out. His uncertainty was short-lived. The horsemen started shouting in a language other than Meroan, drew out thin, silvery rapiers and charged.
John felt his filly close to bolting. He did the only thing he could think of to protect Daniel. He leapt to the ground. “Get off the cow! They’ll ride you down!” Daniel jumped. With the horsemen only seconds away at a furious gallop, John shouted, “Hold on to the tree!”
Daniel didn’t understand - which tree? John seized him from behind by the collar and the belt and swung him into the air. The world lurched. Daniel hit the sticky bark of a pine, fifteen feet off the ground, and latched on out of instinct.
Below, the rush of hooves arrived. John’s caligan struck flesh and rang four times in the length of a heartbeat. Then there was squealing, hollering and a rolling crash like a landslide.
Daniel inched and twisted to see, not knowing what he’d heard. The riders were staggering up from the ground. An unimaginable volume of blood leapt in arterial rhythm from their dying mounts. John had struck down the horses.
One rider landed on his feet, sharp and poised to fight, as though his mount had been cut out from under him a thousand times before. He took a bow from his shoulder, nocked an arrow and shot in one flawless motion. The shaft stopped with a thud in John’s chest.
John looked down at it, said, “Oh?” and took a threatening step forward with his bloody sword. The sharp fighter took a step back. The other men shouted some more and then all four ran away into the woods.
Daniel shouted from the tree. “You killed the horses!? Why’d you kill the horses!?”
John tore out the arrow with a blast of light. He looked up and shouted back. “I don’t know who those men are! Better to kill a horse if you’ve got a choice!”
Daniel slipped and clutched, feeling like he was going to cry again. “Those… those are the ones who did the village that way!”
“We don’t know that! Did you understand anything they said?”
“No!”
“Well, neither did I!”
“You killed the horses!”
“Fwah! Get down from there! We need to get out of here!” The pinto hadn’t gone far. John ran out to catch her.
***
They didn’t make a fire that night and settled down far away from the road. John knelt and watched. Daniel wept in his blankets. They knew they were being followed.
Daniel whispered, “Why did you kill the horses? You could’ve gotten them right then.”
John said, “Son, what if those men were from the village?” Daniel hadn’t considered that. He doubted it, but it made him think. John had second thoughts as well. “I did the best I could.”
The four unhorsed men kept their distance, whispering their different language in the bushes. The one named Fagan said, “Did you see how he threw that kid into the tree? That man isn’t normal. He could have killed all of us if he’d wanted to, even you, Judas. You hit him dead-center!”
Judas didn’t agree. “We’ll see. I’ll hit him in the face next time. I just couldn’t resist that yellow circle. It was too much of a target.”
“Next time? Doesn’t it mean anything to you that he spared your life?”
“It means he has questionable judgment. I would have killed me.”
Fagan couldn’t argue with that. “I want to find out more about them. If he wouldn’t kill us, I doubt he’s going to cause any trouble in town. We’ll follow them in and tell Bishop what we saw.”
Judas shrugged. “It’s your decision. Bishop is going to be angry with you. You’ve found another reason to disobey orders.”
“It’s not my fault! We’re done here without the horses.
Besides, Pierce’s arm is broken.” Fagan motioned at Pierce, who sat with his arm in his lap and his face dripping with sweat. He’d fallen badly from his horse. Fagan said, “We need to get out of these damned woods.”
Judas calculated everything. “True.”
Over the following two days, those men regretted having forced John and Daniel off the road into the wilderness. They didn’t have any milk or bacon or pickled apples stowed in those handsome black and silver uniforms. They were exhausted, thirsty and brush-beaten when they finally came home to their tall, stone city.
And the sky burned red at sunset. From another way around, John and Daniel stopped at the foot of Golgotha’s hill. Tall crosses made of pine picketed the rocky incline. Hanging in the centers of those looming, black shapes were the shadows of the crucified.
John bowed his head. “This is an evil place.” He feared it was wrong to have brought Daniel along and thought of the life the boy could have had in Antioch.
Daniel couldn’t look away. “These people are devils. We ought to let the bauran have them.”
22 Angelus Bells
A gray sky spanned cold over the cobblestones and made them slick with drizzle. There were no more windows in Antioch; all had been boarded over. Ditch and Captain walked together, the only two people on the street. Each had a rifle on his shoulder. It was noon on a Tuesday.
Ditch shrugged. “They called me The Assassin.”
Captain wore his long, auburn waves tied back in a loose tail and had a handsome cut of brown and white under his coat. “Oh, aye? Who did that?”
“Nobody... that’s what I’m sayin, man. We picked our own nicknames. It was stupid. I picked assassin, just like everybody else, cause it’s like, sinister, or whatever. But when there’s a dozen assassins runnin’ around, it kind a’ loses its punch, you know? When I got in the cage, the announcer’d be all, in this corner, Ditch, The Assassin! And, that’s cool, but not if he’s like, and in the other corner, whoever, the assassin.”
“Aye, indeed.”
“Some of ‘em saw we’re all callin’ ourselves that, so they’d stick somethin’ in the front to change it up. There was a Murder-Face Assassin and a Peewee Assassin and the Honkin-Dogone-Tonk Assassin. That guy was dooked.”
Captain repeated the last one, tasting the words. “Honkin-Dogone-Tonk.”
“I don’t know, maybe that one’s legit. Still, that’s a lot a’ assassins. Guys shouldn’t be pickin’ their own nicknames.”
Captain smiled. “Did you ever find yourself staring across the cage into the eyes of another cold-blooded assassin?”
“Yeah, one time.”
“Did you win?”
“Nah, man, I got DQ’d for low blows. That guy was a crybaby. He’s all, waaah, ref! Waaah, ref! Pfft. Suck it up, you know? Be a man. Don’t cry to the referee, crybaby.”
Captain laughed. “The Crybaby Assassin. Did Drake have a nickname?”
“No...” It was a lie. In the old world, if a professional fighter could take a lot of punishment while still coming forward, they were called a zombie, as a compliment to their toughness. The term had come from a time when the idea of such a creature was a fantasy and even a joke. Drake earned that nickname in his first amateur fight, because of the beating he took without giving up. Dang man, you’re a zombie! Ditch respected it but hated the thought of it in conversation. “He was just trainin, you know, gettin’ started.”
Captain nodded. “Too bad, too bad and too bad for everyone, across the board.”
“It’s weird. I didn’t know I’d miss him.”
“There’s a brotherhood that comes from being at sea, all packed in together like that. You get to know the breadth of good and bad in a man instead of what he wants you to know. Sailors are like a family that way.”
Ditch nodded. “That’s the truth. I was locked in that bathroom with him for all that time too.”
Oh aye, here it comes. Captain knew Ditch liked to brag about how long he’d been in the bathroom. Twenty-three days was it, Ditch? “I’d forgotten about that. You were in there for what, three days?”
“Twenty-three days, man!”
Captain drew back. “Twenty-three days! That’s a hell!”
“Yeah, kept markin’ the stall with a pocket knife, you know, keepin’ score. We knew we were dead, just wanted to see how long we could go. One last fight. Every day we’d check on each other to see if we’re still kickin.”
Captain tapped himself on the nose. “Mmm, terrible. Still, people have been known to go a lot longer than twenty-three days without food.”
Ditch frowned at him. “Man, what would you know about it? I bet you never been one day without somethin’ to eat.”
Captain tried to remember if he had. “You might be right about that. Still, people have been known to fast for forty and fifty days at a time, if they’ve access to water. Twenty-three isn’t so much compared to that. And, you were in a bathroom.”
“Man, whatever, man! You know… You’re a real know-it-all, you know?”
Captain laughed at him. “I’d say I’m more of a know-a-lot.” Then he patted his stomach and smacked his lips. “You’re making me hungry. Where is this place?”
“You’re sick. It’s right over here.”
Captain bowed with a flourish. “My thanks for the escort.”
“Yeah, whatever, man. Where you been?”
“Establishing my financial future. I’m now partners with the chandler. We’re making a killing on matchsticks.”
“That’s gross. Go pull some shifts on the wall. Biggs is on it double-time.”
“How much does it pay?”
“It pays respect. That’s what it pays.”
Captain jingled his hand in his pocket. “I’ve already made a purse-full of this town’s respect. Are you sure I can’t buy you lunch?”
Ditch was refusing (he still didn’t want anything to do with Fergus) when the Cauldron’s doorbell rang. Marabbas came out under the sign, about twenty yards down. Captain’s mouth fell open at the sight of him, the gunder’s legs and step. Ditch waved. Marabbas waved back and then bounded away, toward the center of town.
Captain said, “That’s… That’s…”
Ditch helped him out. “Marabbas. He’s one a’ them hairy dummies, gunders, you know?”
“Fascinating…”
“You gotta get out more. Look, the wall’s over that way for now.” Ditch pointed northwest. “Think about it, man. See you around.” Ditch tapped him with a back-hand to the chest and then jogged toward the construction site, leaving Captain alone in the dreary lane.
From the center of town, the new church bell tolled - Ka-Kang, Kang. Ka-Kang, Kang. It was Michael, bringing in the dead. The bell sounded in the morning, at midday and in the evening but not to mark the hour. It was intended to attract any bauran wandering in or around the city.
Captain shook out a chill and crossed to the restaurant’s door. It was already locked. Ka-Kang, Kang. He knocked and watched up and down the way, tapping himself on the nose. Ka-Kang, Kang.
The latch’s - click - gave him a rush of relief. Margot opened up, smiling. “Ooh, the black man! You must be Captain. Come in, come in!”
Captain said, “Aye, indeed. My thanks, madam.” The door locked behind him. He turned and smiled at her. “And you’re Margot.”
“I am! It’s a pleasure to have you. We’ve heard so much about you from Andalynn and Biggs since they moved in. I’ve been looking forward to a visit. They’ve made you out to be a right pirate!”
“Arrr...”
Margot waited three seconds and then asked, “Are what?”
Captain left his little foreign joke at that. “Any pleasure in our meeting, dear lady, is entirely mine.” He bowed and then looked around the low, dark common room. The smell of sour milk lurked in its nooks and crannies. “Reminds me of home.”
“What a nice thing to say!”
His eyes adjusted to the firelight and he found the bowls of ap
ples on the table. “Ah, Malus. May I?”
“Help yourself!”
“Here’s a nice, round fruit.” He sank his teeth into it and broke a chunk away with a snap. Tart, sweet juice and saliva flooded his mouth. “Mmm, wonderful genus.” He sighed and grounded himself with its flavor and texture. “I’ve just beheld my first gunder. It’s comforting to know that wherever you go, some things stay mercifully the same, no matter a cataclysm around them.”
“Ooh, such a pretty way to talk. You’ve some extra luck then too. We’ve got fried chickens!”
Captain looked over the apple at her and chewed, contemplating what she’d said. There had been a stereotype in the old world that black men were abnormally fond of fried chicken. It was a strange leftover from the race-wars before the unification of the Great Nations, long before the Fall. Though a fairly harmless notion, considering some of the others, still… No, there are no black men left in the world, other than the few of us sailors. She must’ve meant something else.
Margot said, “Biggs has gone on and on about how much you black men love fried chickens! It’s his recipe Fergus is playing with. It might just be fate that’s brought you by, seeing as we have them.” She nodded and winked.
Captain cleared his throat. “Madam, everyone loves fried chicken.”
“Ooh, I know. It’s grand! Shall I get you a plate?”
Amused by her innocence, he took a seat. “Please, that would be lovely. I’m just glad it’s not ham. I hate ham.”
“I’m fond of a pork chop, myself.”
Fergus called out from the kitchen, “Pepper, have we got a guest?”
Margot put her fists on her hips and shouted down the hall. “Fergus! It’s Biggs’ friend, Captain!”
Fergus shouted back, “The black man? Tell him we’ve got fried chickens!”
She said, “I have!” and Fergus hoo-hoo’d as he got busy on the meal.
Captain tapped himself on the nose until she faced him again. “Margot, it’s neither fate nor fried chicken that’s brought me here today.”
“No? What was it?”
“My old friend, Biggs. He’s told me this is the only place in town worthy of celebrating an occasion with a cider.”
“He’s right! What are you celebrating?”
“My birthday.”