Captain said, “Not ones to share your secrets, are you?”
John pointed at Captain’s pipe and changed the subject. “Why do you do that? Does it protect you from those devils?”
Captain said, “Mmm, no,” letting go of the other matter. “This is an herbal remedy that eases my condition. Land sickness, you see.” He cleared his throat. Michael and John shared a dubious expression.
Ditch adjusted his pack. “Whatever, man.”
The sailors stayed close to Michael and John during the long walk north, secrets or not. A sparse forest began to frame the road. The trees were long before their leaves and white, like lonely bones. None grew close enough to touch another. The nights in those woods terrified the sailors. At sea, their ship’s height and cabin doors protected them, but on open land they were vulnerable. Their campfires made long, flickering shadows in the trees that looked like silent bauran lurching from every direction. Michael and John took turns to rest. No sailor slept.
Weeds penetrated cracks in the weathered path’s mortar. Three fires glowed by the roadside but almost everyone huddled around the one near Michael. He sat on his saddle, hunched over a book with a quill pen, taking notes from the sailors’ stories. They spoke in whispers, trying to avoid attracting any attention from what might be wandering in the woods. John lay sleeping with his back to a deserted fire twenty feet away.
Captain said, “Let’s talk about another thing or other. Being out here is one thing. Being out here and talking about them has me crawling out of my skin.”
Drake said, “Uh oh, Captain, a bauran’s gonna get you!” and broke the quiet with a dopey, “Oowoooh”, raising his arms and wiggling his fingers. Everyone stared at him in stark disbelief. Drake slapped his hands over his mouth, realizing he’d been too loud.
Ditch splayed and hissed, “Shut up you dumb stupid!” Other angry sailors shushed Drake and threw things at him. Then, as the group’s shushing grew louder than the offense it punished, John started to snore. It was a phlegm-toothed snarl that gnawed on the edge of the sibilant din, drawing silence and worried glances. Michael got up and stopped it with a swat to John’s boots.
When Michael came back, he pointed at Drake and gave him a hard stare. “Inappropriate.” Drake shied away.
Biggs said, “Yeah, never heard one go oowoooh.”
Ditch apologized for Drake, “He’s a dookus, man.”
Biggs chuckled. “The lot of us seen more’n people oughtta, Michael. Oughtta be nuttier’n a case a’ fruit cakes.”
As usual, Michael had to rely on context for meaning. He picked up his book and tapped his quill in its little ink jar. “You said they eventually stop smoking. How long does that take?”
Biggs poked at the fire. “Not sure, just seen some that don’t, or smoke less I guess. Might be they run out. Been thinkin’ they make it out the parts they don’t need, like little factories.” Michael’s pen scratched the page as Biggs spoke. “Never watched one for longer’n it takes to put a bullet in ‘em, but it’s always the old ones that don’t smoke. The ones that’re real lean and settled down to muscle and bone. The fast ones.”
Captain covered his face and mouthed an ancient nursery rhyme to himself, “A llama, a llama, a llama lying down…” He hoped it would get stuck in his head and leave no room for thoughts about the developmental stages of bauran.
Ditch said, “I hate the fast ones, man. They’re like, spiders, or somethin, you know? Hard to hit.”
Michael said, “I’ve not seen one I’d call fast. I’d say they barely move along.”
Andalynn said, “You have encountered the young. They are uncoordinated and struggle in their own flesh like a straightjacket. We have seen bauran that would be impossible to outrun. It is unsettling.”
Michael thought of the lean horror chained in the Vesper’s hold. “The one in the ship must have been old.”
A twig snapped in the darkness, more alarming than a rifle going off. Michael stood up, dropped his book and pulled his sword. The sailors held their breath. Everyone listened, trying to pick the sound of an approach out of the campfires’ crackle. A bauran wouldn’t wait or be cautious; it would come right at them.
A creature was out there, but it wasn’t what they thought, or anything the sailors had ever heard of. Firelight shined in her eyes, amber, like those of a wolf. She paused after stepping on the twig, realizing it would alert the men by the fire. They smelled of sour milk. She stared at John without blinking and started coiling her strength. He was the most removed from the group. She could drag him out of the light before the others could react.
Then, like a bear in a cave, John’s snore returned. The creature’s face flared and she shot straight up into the air. She landed scrabbling and bounded away. The sailors exhaled, imagining she’d been a curious deer or some such. Michael kept his sword drawn, though. He gave John’s boots a swat strong enough to wake him up. John yawned and looked around with his eyes closed.
Captain lit a match and held it to his pipe with trembling hands. “Just an animal. That means there’re no bauran about then… right?” He looked to Andalynn.
She said, “Sometimes.”
Captain said, “A puff or two, to give me some ease...”
Ditch said, “Man, grow up. That stuff’s for kids. And it stinks.”
Captain dismissed Ditch with the usual defense, “Mmm, it’s medicinal. I’ve a condition.” He held the smoke in his lungs and passed his pipe to an eager Welles.
Welles said, “I’m sick too.”
Michael took longer to relax, thinking about what was out there, stalking them. At least three books in the church bestiary applied to the woods between Antioch and Meroe. At the sailors’ claims of being sick, however, Michael sheathed his caligan and returned to the conversation. “You’re not ill.” They were in exceptional health. He’d made sure of it.
Sailors snickered and smiled. Captain’s eyes shifted while he waited for the pipe to make its rounds. He didn’t need to explain himself to Michael.
***
Neither hospital nor pipe-smoking could replace sleep. Restless nights made the sailors grumble and drag their feet. They felt like they would never arrive. Then, as one morning’s fog lifted and the forest’s scent was heavy and moist, John and Michael pointed out hazy buildings in the inclining miles ahead where the forest thinned into a field. The sailors were revived.
“Look, everybody!”
“Yeah, man, look out! There it is!”
“At last, Antioch!”
They celebrated, hugging and cheering. Their pace doubled. As they got closer, however, their jubilance gave way to concern and their conversation focused on a glaring hole in the town’s defense.
“No wall? There’s no wall.”
“Not even, like, a fence, man.”
“It is de-fence-less.”
Ditch frowned at Drake. “Man…”
Biggs went to Michael. “Never even thought to ask! We’ll help y’all put up a wall. We all wanna help.” Others supported him on that.
Michael said, “I don’t know what the fellowship is going to do about all this. It’s their city.”
Biggs was surprised. “But, they’ll listen to you, right? I know we’re on our own and all when we get there, but they gotta listen to you guys ‘bout sump’n like this.”
Michael answered the question carefully. “Our influence is… limited. They’re more like our neighbors than anything else.”
Biggs didn’t think Michael was taking the threat seriously enough. “Those things are comin’ here. They find people. And when they do, they aint gon’ wait for you guys to show up.”
Michael nodded, not wanting to appear indifferent. “Of course, I’ll help however I can. A wall seems like a good idea to me.”
Captain tapped himself on the nose. “First, the incinerator.”
Ditch added, “A big one.”
Michael and John looked at each other, sharing unspoken concern over how the fellowship
would respond to the blasphemy of corpse burning, especially on a scale requiring an incinerator larger than the one on the Grace. What such a machine meant for the surrounding population sobered the two healers.
Michael said, “John, I want you to ride ahead and get my father. I’ll walk the sailors in from here.”
John said, “Of course. Here, I’ll bring Ares in too.”
***
A sign beside the road read “Antioch” above a painted bull’s-eye of spiraling rings that represented the town’s streets. The word “Church” labeled a mark in the wide center. Northeast of that, on one of the inner rings, another mark read, “Betheford’s Inn.” On the sign, the inn was slightly more prominent than the church, it was Betheford’s sign after all, but the governing principle of Antioch’s construction was that every building fought for a spot closest to the Circle’s house. The inner rings were the oldest streets.
Townsfolk called out to each other and collected by the hundreds, whispering about the approaching group. They met with cautious curiosity. A human circle of sailors and citizens formed around Michael as he prepared to speak.
The man standing next to Ditch stared at the tattoos. Ditch looked up at him, held out a hand and said, “What’s up, man? I’m Ditch.”
Surprised by the mean-looking little stranger’s friendliness, the citizen shook hands with him and interpreted the unfamiliar greeting. “Oh my, excuse me! How do you do?”
Michael shouted, “Everyone, listen to me!” The crowd shushed each other to hear. Michael waited for their attention and then said, “These people are from oversea!” He had to shout over gasps and murmurs after that. “By the grace of God, they’ve found you! You are their sanctuary! They’ve traveled very far. They’re tired and hungry! Please, do for them as you would have them do for you!”
Questions swelled from all around about the sailors and Meroe. Guesses and rumors had stemmed from John’s brief visit two weeks before, when he’d left Daniel at the Cauldron, but neither any news of the tragedy nor any bauran had yet come to Antioch. Michael’s repetitive response, trying to add incentive to housing the sailors, was that they could tell the whole story.
As he redirected attention to the sailors, Michael searched the milling crowd for his father. There was John. Next to him stood an older, bearded version of Michael in Antioch’s brown and white, Deacon Betheford. They pushed toward each other for a close conversation. Betheford listened and nodded.
Michael felt some relief then, for the sailors at least. He left. John followed him. The citizens discussed the announcement with astonishment and the sailors held their breath.
The crew of the Grace had known that moment would come. There was no room for fifty people at the church. Having been at the mercy of the smoke, the sea and the Circle, they were finally at the mercy of the fellowship.
They had little time for worry, though. Betheford took the crowd’s attention and made a show of offering rooms at his inn to ten sailors, including Drake, Ditch and Biggs. Others followed his example and came forward, offering places in their homes. Captain chose then to light his pipe, receiving appreciative oohs and aahs and a prompt invitation from the candle maker, Bing. Margot, a basket of vegetables on her hip, asked Andalynn to take the extra bed in Sarah’s room.
As sailors waved goodbye to one another and followed their hosts into the city, Biggs and Andalynn made plans to meet the following morning.
***
Andalynn chose a seat at the far end of the table from Marabbas in the Cauldron’s otherwise empty common room. Margot went into the kitchen. When Margot returned, with cider, bread, cheese and stew, Marabbas had moved down. Andalynn was rigid and tight lipped, suspecting that he’d sniffed her.
Margot set out the food and drinks gently. “It’s a good life here, dear.” She sat and started slicing apples onto a plate. “We’ll do right by you and your friends. You’ll see.”
Andalynn gave her a mechanical smile.
Margot said, “You know, people have been arguing forever over whether anyone was really oversea. I’ve heard stories about pirates coming to shore at night and mollygoddling folk out to the water for wicked revelries, but that’s always sounded to me like they’d too much to drink and passed out on the beach.”
Andalynn took a careful bite of the stew. She melted. The dish was an enchantment of hearty, tender meat, potatoes and carrots in a rich, beefy broth - homemade food. That bite ended a year of death and flight. She said, “Delicious.”
Margot beamed. “Oh yes, Fergus is a wizard. That’s my husband. His food’s the only part of him I can get out of the kitchen! You should take a pull of that cider, dear. That’s mine. Fergus says my brewing’s why he married me.”
Andalynn drank the cider and dipped the bread in the stew. The cheese was firm and tangy with a pan-seared crust. She ate chunks of it on sweet, crisp apple wedges. Andalynn abandoned her guard with Margot and even smiled at that hairy sniffer, Marabbas. Sarah, Fergus and Daniel came in gawking. Andalynn’s blonde hair and copper skin were unlike anything they’d ever seen. They ate together before business picked up at five o’clock.
Guests gathered around and exchanged stories with Andalynn for hours. She had already learned much about them from Michael and John and heard those tales again. The fellowship was a religious community that had fled from persecution in the north a hundred years before. Despite a sad and bloody history, they’d made a peaceful and happy home in the south when they’d found the church.
They marveled at her tales of fallen civilizations and of encounters with the living dead on the high sea. It was of continual surprise to Andalynn how they handled it all. They believed no harm would come to them, she assumed because of the church.
The bell rang and greeting shouts of, “Davies!” vaulted from the room.
Davies, the milkman, was twenty-eight years old and had arms like corded steel from squeezing teats. “Ha, ha, yes! I heard you’ve got a sailor over here! Everywhere that does is packed!”
“You won’t believe it!”
“They’re just like us oversea!”
“But look! She wears pants!”
Davies smiled like he’d heard an interesting joke. “She?” Then he saw Andalynn’s hair and, “Yellow!” burst out of his mouth.
She raised an eyebrow at him. That simple, common expression told Davies everything he needed to know about sailors. He boomed laughter and shouted, “Well, that’s Fergus! First contact and he grabs a dishwasher!” The room laughed with him. Then he told her, “No offense.”
Andalynn was puzzled. The man seemed to be taunting her.
The room treated Davies like a hero, offering him seats and information. Someone put a mug in his hand. He sat down opposite Andalynn, who was no longer in conversation with anyone. The milkman drank cider and tried to respond to his peers’ flooding, excited explanations. “No, I didn’t know that. I’ve been at work all day, not gossiping! What’s that about Meroe? Oh, well, they’ll be in our prayers. Breahg? Pfft, who cares about them?”
Jacob, a blacksmith as burly as the milkman, had been in the Cauldron for an hour by then and had met with Michael and John at the church before that. He raised an informed yet friendly challenge to Davies’ quick dismissal of Breahg. “Meroe’d make for Breahg to get away from these bauran devils, wouldn’t they? That’s probably where they all are. Breahg’s close to Meroe and always ready for a fight.” He held up a meaty fist.
Davies grimaced. “Breahg. Fwah. Better Meroe made for the woods! The clan’s worse than a few booyah devils. Savages and thieves. Everybody knows there’s gunder in their blood.”
Andalynn saw the makings of an altercation and flashed a look at Marabbas, who still sat next to her. She’d discovered earlier he was known as a gunder. Marabbas, however, didn’t mind the insult that Davies had made no attempt to hide.
Daniel glared from the kitchen. “I hate Davies.”
Fergus laughed. “I know you do!”
“He’s
out there right now saying Breahg’s got gunder blood!”
Fergus held out a potato to him. “Here, see if you can hit him in the mouth.” Daniel reached for it and Fergus pulled it away, amused to have been taken seriously. “Daniel! Don’t waste a good potato on Davies!” Fergus tossed the spud back in the sack and went to tend his coals.
Daniel swiped his hand through the air at Davies as if to say forget you! Then he picked up a rag and twisted it. “Where’s Uncle John? How come he didn’t come over here before some sailor?”
“I’m sure he’s in that church, boy, kneeling.” Fergus stepped on a clever pedal beneath his grill’s basin and the rack rose up on a pole in the center, exposing the coals - Jacob’s work.
Fergus said, “Trouble in Meroe, devils, sailors, this is all going to require hours and hours of kneeling.” He pulled his chin into his throat, trying to look stuffy. “Hmm, something’s happened, old boy. We’d better kneel and give that some thought. Ah.” He turned the coals with his poker and tossed in a piece of apple wood. “Don’t worry, he’ll come,” then, grinning, added, “at the very least to eat.” Daniel frowned at him.
Davies smirked at Andalynn. “So, you’ll be staying here then?”
She kept a polite tone. “I will, as long as they choose to extend their hospitality to me.”
He set his mug in front of her and leaned back in his chair, hands behind his head. “Well, get us a drink then, dearie, I’m dry!” Jacob chuckled at his friend’s mischief and watched Andalynn for a reaction. A few men in the room did some chortling and some ooh-woo’ing.
She was speechless. Here was this milkman, relaxing and smirking, hoping she would do something rash, like throwing the mug at him. She saw it. Davies enjoyed causing people to lose their tempers, especially women, and considered it a great victory when he did so. Andalynn stood, picked up his mug… and took it toward the kitchen.
Sarah scooted after her. “Wow, I thought you were going to throw it at him!”
Andalynn said, “Would that have been the appropriate response? What you would have done?”
“I guess. I don’t know. No, not really, but I would have liked to see someone else do it. I’d have at least cussed him and I for sure wouldn’t get him the drink!” Sarah had mixed feelings about Davies. Her sister, Beth, was married to him.