The Saint And The King
Vinny, Jon and Sister Assumpta stepped out of the London Slipgate, between King’s Cross Dropship Station and the ruins of St Pancras (which had been blown up by PCP-maddened methodist fundamentalists some time in the latter half of the 22nd century, and they’d just never really got round to rebuilding it). Discarded bits of paper and metal blew around the parking lot. The air was grey and heavy with the threat of rain. The underground rattled beneath the pavement.
Vinny sniffed the air.
‘England, eh? Smells old.’ He said.
‘Aye, it is.’ Jon agreed. ‘I was born here. Not actually here, but thou kenn’st what I mean.’
‘Yeah, yeah, I get it.’ Vinny shrugged.
‘I would we do not stay here long.’ Sister Assumpta said, wrapping her habit closer around her against the chill London winter air. ‘Tis no home of mine or my kin.’
‘Fine by me.’ Vinny said, warming his hands on a cigarette. ‘What does Gauss expect us to do anyway? It ain’t as if the Sol system planets, or even earth’s rulers are pally enough to gang up together and pledge allegiance to...whatever we’re calling ourselves.’
‘I know little or nothing of such politics.’ Jon said. ‘But I know there are many good christians on this earth who would be willing to fight against the enemy.’
‘What do we do, knock on all their doors?’ Vinny complained, through a cloud of smoke, condensing in the cold, wet air. ‘Hey guys, want to come and help us stop the resurrection of the ultimate evil Bushthulu or whatever his name was...you might die, by the way.’
‘I do not know.’ Jon said.
‘Whatever tha thinkst good, Brother, but be sure and decide soon.’ Sister Assumpta said.
Just then, a black feathered shape swept out of the sky, and landed on Vinny’s shoulder, scaring the wits out of him.
‘Whassa??’ He jumped a foot in the air.
The raven croaked and dropped a piece of paper from it’s beak into the pocket of his shirt.
‘Tis one of the tower ravens, to be sure.’ Sister Assumpta said, crossing herself. ‘A bird of ill omen, no doubt.’
The raven took off from Vinny’s shoulder, and landed on a piece of the rubble of St Pancras. Then, it appeared to go through some kind of bodily sneeze, and changed into a small, thin, fae-like man with short hair, as black as the raven’s wings had been, wearing an old brown suit and a brown fedora. He perched on the edge of the piece of rubble, legs dangling over the side, nonchalantly.
‘Top o’ th’mornin.’ The raven man said, tipping his hat. He had a marked Belfast accent, unlike Sister Assumpta’s Dublin outskirts. ‘And welcome back t’Gaia.’
‘Morning.’ Vinny tipped his hat likewise, grinning and pulled the piece of paper out of his pocket and unfolded it. ‘What can we do for you?’
‘I assume you’re Vinny.’ The raven-man said, grinning back. ‘Ye fit the description all right. The name’s Diarmuid. Nuthin’ you can do fer me but read the message. I’m a pal o’ Dave’s.’
‘Oh! Dave!’ Light dawned on Vinny’s face. ‘How is the old guy?’
‘He’s well, aye. Now, I came all this way, read.’ Diarmuid insisted.
‘Who is Dave?’ Jon asked.
‘Oh, he’s the barman in Citrus.’ Vinny replied, unfolding the letter and reading.
‘Ah.’ Jon nodded, and looked thoughtful. ‘Aye, he threw me out.’
‘Hey, this looks important.’ Vinny said, and began to read.
‘Dear Vinny,
Congratulations on your engagement. You better invite me to the wedding, you old dog. But on a serious note, the broad of all broads has a few messages for you by way of me. She’s worried, Vinny, big time. As you know, bad things are going down. Very bad things. So she says me to tell you, she’s putting all her warriors at your disposal. If it comes down to a fight, she’ll let them know they’re needed. She also says when the time comes, you’re to ‘Seek the beast within.’ Damned if I know what that means. Lastly, she has a couple of messages for your friends. Someone named Jon should go home to find his people. He’ll know what that means. Someone named Dearbháil is to look in the Cave of St Agnethe. That’s all for now. Good luck.
Your Buddy, Dave.’
‘Holy Mother of God!’ Sister Assumpta clapped her hands to her mouth. ‘How can he know? No-one but my family know the name I had before I took me holy orders!’
‘Gaia, she’s a smart one.’ Diarmuid tapped a finger on his blue-black framed head for emphasis. ‘She knows all the secrets, true. Everything ye hide.’
Sister Assumpta hid her face, an exercise in futility, no doubt.
‘Vincit.’ Diarmuid said, taking off his hat and looking serious. ‘Joking aside, when the time comes, be sure the Raven People and their kin all over the galaxy will follow you, even if no-one else does. The great mother chooses her champions strange, but she chooses right, we have longer memories than some and be sure, we know when someone’s got Wyrd written all over them in great big neon letters.’ He grinned and traced a big V in the air with his finger. ‘Besides, who wants to argue with the reclusive and powerful Grand High Werewolf Mage David-Sees-All-And-Pours-A-Generous-Double-Shot of Citrus, eh?’
Vinny chewed on his cigarette, embarrassed and slightly confused. ‘Eh. Thanks, I guess. I’ll try to do my best by y’all....Grand High Mage???’
‘Aye. Ye never thought he was just yer local landlord, didye? Oh, that’s a classic.’ Diarmuid slapped his thigh, and laughed a high, raucous laugh.
Vinny scowled. ‘Yeah, actually I did.’
Diarmuid fell off his chunk of rubble laughing. Then he picked himself up. ‘Well. I’d best be off. Pleasure meeting ye all.’ Then he leapt into the air, there was a flurry of black feathers and flapped off towards the grey clouds.
‘Well.’ Jon said. ‘He was something of a character, aye brother?’
‘Yeah.’ Vinny said, thoughtfully, looking at Dave’s letter. ‘This ‘follow me into battle’ thing is getting beyond a joke.’ He puffed on the cigarette, and looked up at the cloud. ‘It was okay when it was just you, but now that guy, and this stuff from Dave.’ He grinned. ‘Aw, what the hell. Let’s take it as it comes huh?’
Jon smiled. Sister Assumpta finally uncovered her face.
‘May we go, please?’
‘Sure.’ Vinny waved a paw. ‘Jon, where is ‘home’? Here?’
Jon shook his head, and smiled, light in his demeanour, and a touch of wistful homesickness. ‘No. I was born here, but I was raised elsewhere. Home is the Castle of the Seraphic Order. Home is the Schwarzwald.’
‘The Schwhussawhatzit?’
Jon sighed. ‘The Black Forest.’
‘Well, why didn’t you just say that?’
‘This don’t look like much of a forest.’
‘Aye. Naught hath grown here for three and a half centuries.’
After a short trip to the Stuttgart slipgate and a rather longer trek across country, they had arrived in the foothills of a vast, chilly mountain range. Cold winds buffeted them even as low as they were. The mountains twinkled in the wintry sun, and around them were scattered bits and pieces, mostly junk metal, but here and there, complicated machinery. The place looked like long ago someone had blown up a huge city on top of one of the mountains and the bits and pieces were still strewn around, half buried, poking up out of the earth as if they’d grown there, some sort of metallic fur, coating the entire landscape. It was desolate and cold, but strangely, there was not a cloud in the sky.
Jon looked up into the mountains. ‘Once.’ He said. ‘It was beautiful, a cold garden near the roof of the world, winding away into the snowy alps. A great spiralling city, like a palace of ice was built here, on the highest mountain, a stately pleasure retreat for the rich and powerful, towering among the trees, powered by the destruction of the tiniest of atoms. And then..no-one knows what happened, but one day, people saw from afar, the great palace exploding in a shower of shining metal, and a cold steel rain fell on the mountains. From that day, nothing grew, and it never rained again.’
‘Bummer.’ Vinny said, sadly.
Jon looked at him funny. ‘That is something of an understatement.’
‘Are we going up there?’ Vinny pointed up into the mountains.
‘Aye.’ Jon nodded. ‘To the castle of the Seraphic Order, where mayhap I shall find the remnant of my people.’
‘My order is somewhere there as well.’ Sister Assumpta said. ‘In the Cave of St Agnethe, if the letter said true.’
‘We better move then.’ Vinny said, wrapping his coat tighter around himself.
The followed a dried-up river bed between the hills, and passed into the mountains, the sharply sloped V-shaped valleys littered with metal on either side of them. As they trekked past the ruins of houses, crushed beneath great wedges of metal, Vinny felt something in the air, a thing strange to him, a thing he’d never felt before, not in Citrus, or in Chicago, where he was born. In those places, he had always felt odd, out of place, as if he didn’t belong. This place fit him like a coat. He felt at home, completely and totally. He smiled.
Jon, stirred by mountain air, began to sing a hymn to raise his spirits in the desolate wasteland, for what could be coming. Sister Assumpta joined in, a sweet soprano.
‘Guide me, O Thou great Jehovah,
Pilgrim through this barren land.
I am weak, but Thou art mighty;
Hold me with Thy powerful hand.
Bread of heaven, bread of heaven,
Feed me till I want no more;
Feed me till I want no more.’
Vinny laughed. It was almost a bark really. And ran up and down the hillside on all fours, sliding between the rubble like a playful dog.
They climbed into the mountains, leaving the foothills far behind. Soon the metal strewn slopes closed in around them on all sides. Jon led them through a narrow pass into a high valley. They looked across the dry stream bed to the right and towering above where the water had once sprung from the hillside and flowed down, a spraying waterfall, was a great, grey-black stone castle. It was clear it had taken damage, since in places the stone had been repaired with chunks of metal rubble. To the left, the valley curved around among the black crags and rolled away down the path the water had followed to a floor far below, where a zigzagging path traced between interlocking spurs.
They climbed down from the pass, following Jon across the rocks and chunks of metal, plastic and other synthetics, across the bed and up the dry waterfall to the castle, round the side to where the great doorway was.
The dark wooden door was smashed in. Chunks of wood lay scattered around.
Jon stood before the broken door of his childhood home and stared. Here was the final blow. The destruction of the order truly hit home. He had thought this castle impregnable, up here. It was the reason the order had built here, after all, who would come to this poisoned, barren land to bother them? They protected themselves with radiation shields in the castle, and synthesised all their food, but few visitors would risk sickness to come visiting. Here he had learned to use a sword, here he had prayed daily, here he had learned from Master Hendricks and the other Lay-Brothers the god-given powers he had neglected lately. Here he had taken the Ordeal of Knighthood and the Paladinic Oaths. He laid a hand on his sword, remembering.
‘Oh God.’
‘Looks pretty bad, Jon. You think there’ll be anyone inside?’ Vinny asked, worriedly. Jon had that catatonic look about him again. ‘Bro?’
‘Brother Jon.’ Sister Assumpta said, from behind them. ‘This place is haunted.’ She crossed herself. ‘I must go to the Cave of St Agnethe and find if my sisters are safe.’
‘Mm.’ Jon replied.
‘You go.’ Vinny said, looking at her. ‘We’ll catch up with you later. Take care of yourself, Sister.’
‘God be with you.’ Sister Assumpta replied and started back down towards the valley floor.
‘Jon?’ Vinny waved a hand in front of his face. ‘Jon, are you okay?’
Jon shook his head.
‘Talk to me, man.’
‘I cannot go within.’
‘Why not?’
‘I cannot.’
‘Well, I’ll go in then. If I run into anyone, I’ll tell them you’re outside.’ Vinny straightened his hat and stepped into the doorway, vanishing into the darkness.
Jon stood outside in the cold, alone for a moment. Then he shook himself, and ran after Vinny.
Dark shapes slunk out of the shadows of the rubble and followed him.
The place smelled of death, and did indeed feel haunted. Vinny sniffed the air in the hallway. Old blood, maybe a few weeks, rusted metal, cold stone, fervent piety. At lot of people, smelling of blood and metal had passed this way a while back. There were cloth fibres on the stone where someone had been pushed against the wall. He stumbled over something as his eyes adjusted to the darkness. It was the body of a knight. He’d been dead some while, and would have been starting to smell if it wasn’t cold enough up here to preserve him. Vinny smelt Jon run in behind him.
‘Watch out for the dead guy, Jon.’ He said, and walked off, following the blood smell. The reek of fear almost overpowered him. ‘Eeh...sorry, didn’t mean to scare you.’
‘Gah..’
‘This way. I smell something. Where are we heading?’
‘Towards the great hall.’ Jon said. His voice sounded a little more confident now. Vinny passed something which smelled of oil, he assumed it was a burned out lamp. Ahead, a beam of cold bluish light shone through the destroyed remnants of another huge door. He stepped through, avoiding the sharp pieces of wood.
‘Ow.’
‘Oh yeah, watch out for the bits of door.’
‘I cannot see in this light as well as thee, damnable beast.’ Jon complained. ‘Nor do I have thy nose.’
‘Yeah, well, right now you should be happy about that, it don’t smell good in here. And less of the ‘damnable bea....Holy. Fucking. Shit.’ Vinny reeled. Even this old and in the cold, the smell of blood was overpowering, maddening.
He was surrounded by bodies. On the tables, on the chairs, on the floor, all knights and monks, old and young, all slain. The floor was slippery with near-frozen blood. The cold ashes of a fire, weeks old lay in a nearby grate, stirred a little by the wind through the slit windows. Some had been stabbed, others their heads cut off, some looked like they’d been ripped open and even partially eaten.
‘Jon, for fuck’s sake don’t look.’ Vinny said.
There was a pause, and then the sound of someone throwing up and the smell of vomit added to the general reek. Vinny was glad he had a strong stomach. He became aware of shapes, moving on the edge of vision, slinking in from the door behind Jon. Ghosts? Spirits? Animals?
‘Who’s there?’ Vinny asked. ‘Come on, I know you’re there. Quit playing around.’
A low growl came from the shadows near the fireplace.
Vinny answered it with a rumble from his own throat. Animals then? Jon moved in closer to Vinny, wiping vomit from his mouth, and looking a little green. The shapes surrounded them.
‘Sounds like some animal.’ Vinny said.
‘There are no animals here.’ Jon replied, ominously. ‘Nothing lives here. There is nothing to eat.’
‘Except humans.’ A voice said from the shadows. ‘These ones are too long dead, of course, and we have already eaten our fill of them, and those who came to kill them.’ A woman, tattooed in blue on the face and arms, emerged from the darkness, followed by a large grey wolf. She was tall and willowy, with long, dark hair tied up with leather thongs and eyes like black holes. She wore mostly scraps of leather and not much at that. Vinny got a little hotheaded. ‘We do not fear the sickness.’ She said. ‘We eat what wanders into our land, flying or walking.’
The wolf changed into a man, taller and of similar features and tattoos, his hair loose. The two were obviously related. ‘Or throwing up.’ He laughed. They both had a slight german accent. Other wolves appeared from the darkness, surrounding Jon and Vinny.
‘Oh...haha.’ Vinny laughed, nervously. ‘You’re werewolves, right? I get it. Hey, do you guys know Grand High Werewolf Mage David-Sees-All-And-Pours-A-Generous-Double-Shot, of Citrus? He’s a buddy of mine.’
The woman laughed, insanely. Vinny grinned, half hopefully, half worried. ‘American Wolves.’ She said. ‘Such idiotic names..I have never heard of that person. We are a solitary lot. Why do you travel with one of the steel men, deformed one?’
‘Hey!’ Vinny said angrily. ‘Who are you calling ‘deformed’?’
‘Your arms.’
‘Not deformed. Half Zardarkian.’ Vinny snapped, briefly forgetting the mortal peril he was in.
‘Brother, please.’ Jon said, laying his hand on his sword, ready, and standing back to back with Vinny in case it came to a fight. ‘Do try not to anger them.’ He cast a quick know alignment. Everyone registered as some kind of neutral, including Vinny, chaotic as usual.
‘I thought he smelled funny.’ The man said. ‘Half alien. That’s why.’
‘White-Poplar-Woman.’ The woman called to one of the wolves. ‘Is this the one you saw?’
The wolf addressed changed into a fair-haired, blue eyed woman with a pale face, spirals across her arms and legs and a faraway look. ‘It could be.’ She said. ‘Gaia’s vision was not clear.’
‘Wait! You said Gaia.’ Vinny jumped at the sound of something familiar, making Jon twitch behind him. ‘She sent me a message...something about ‘sending her warriors to help in the war’.’
‘That is similar to what I was told.’ White-Poplar-Woman said, thoughtfully.
‘I say we eat them.’ The dark-eyed man said. ‘Start with the tin soldier.’
‘Oh, you just try it, bright boy.’ Vinny growled. The man growled back.
‘You spoke of a great warrior, strong as a bear.’ The dark-eyed woman said to White-Poplar-Woman. ‘He doesn’t look up to much. He’s hardly much bigger than any of us.’
White-Poplar-Woman shrugged. ‘Gaia is not clear. Gaia is rarely ever clear. But she did say he would be a changer, like us. And I have not seen him change.’
‘Thou art not a werewolf, brother, surely?’ Jon asked.
Vinny shook his head. ‘Nu-uh.’
‘No?’ The woman said. ‘Very well, let us eat them.’
‘Too right.’ The man grinned. ‘I’ve never eaten a half alien before.’
They and White-Poplar-Woman returned to wolf shape and the pack began to close in.
Jon drew his sword and slid his buckler onto his arm. ‘Brother, if you would be so kind, perhaps you could at least attempt to become a werewolf. As I remember, your ancestor Fendegist was rumoured to be one, so perhaps there is something of a changer in thee. I say this only because I would rather not be eaten if possible.’
At this point, the wolf that had been the dark-eyed man pounced on Jon’s throat. Then the two of them were suddenly buried in furry bodies and snarling, snapping teeth. Vinny struck out wildly with teeth and claws, losing sight of Jon in the fray.
‘Jon!’ It was more of a snarl than a cry.
He was going down. Jaws locked onto his side and arms.
Seek the beast within.
He had an absurd flash of himself tearing Klot’s throat out. The way he felt then, explosive with rage. How dare anyone threaten his friends, his brother!
And something clicked.
The pile of writhing grey bodies exploded outwards, wolves thrown against the walls, stunned. A huge, black, thing, half-wolf, half-bear, easily ten feet tall, reared up, it’s slavering jaws full of a wolf half it’s size. It flung the wolf across the room, and smashed another away from it. Then it tore into the pile, throwing wolves all over the room, uncovering Jon, torn and bleeding.
‘Sweet Jesus.’ Jon breathed, staring terrified from the floor at the thing rearing above him, which was still, bizarrely, wearing Vinny’s hat.
It bent down to him and began to lick his wounds, shielding his body from the wolves with it’s own. It needn’t have bothered, the wolves were slinking, defeated, back into the shadows, licking their wounds, and nudging at their unconscious comrades.
The beast stopped licking and slowly shrank, changing back into Vinny.
‘Eeech.’ He stuck his tongue out. ‘Sorry, Jon, didn’t mean to do that. It was just kinda automatic.’
‘Let it trouble thee not.’ Jon replied, sitting up and, wiping beast-saliva from his arms. ‘I said werewolf. What was that?’
‘I think...’ Vinny said, scratching his head thoughtfully. His hat was askew. Hardly surprising, really. ‘It was an Arcturian Wolf-Bear.’
The woman, human again, knelt down in front of them.
‘That was a fight and a half!’ She laughed. ‘You are truly Gaia’s champion. I have never seen a beast so ferocious as you! What is your name?’
Vincit wiped wolf-blood from his mouth. ‘Wow, from ‘you’re lunch’ to ‘hail mighty champion, what’s your handle’ in one ass-kicking. Who woulda believed it.’ He stood up and dusted himself down, briefly wondering where his clothes had gone when he had changed.
‘I am sorry we tried to eat one such as you.’ The woman said. ‘I am Sun-Heat-Woman. My brother is Vengeance-Bringer.’
All the pack stepped out of the shadows, as humans, full of awe of Vinny. Some were still bleeding, but they seemed to heal fast. Vinny scrambled to his feet, followed by Jon, both bruised and full of teeth marks.
‘I’m Vinny.’ He said, tipping his hat. ‘Vincit. Not Fendegist, because I know someone is going to come out with that sooner or later. This is Jon.’
‘Fendegist?’ White-Poplar-Woman asked. She was nursing a head-wound. She had been the one Vinny had thrown across the room. ‘Fendegist King, the great ancestor?’
‘Oh, you know him? Yeah, he’s like ...my great great x times grandpappy.’
‘Then you are part of our tribe!’ Sun-Heat-Woman threw up her arms and embraced him with joy.
‘Jon too.’ Vinny insisted, pointing at Jon. ‘His x times grandpappy was Fendegist’s brother, Jorgen.’ Vinny left off the ‘saint’ part, unsure how the pack would react, but preferring that they consider Jon some kind of relation, as it might prevent them from hurting him.
‘You must come hunt wandering Romanies with us.’ Vengeance-Bringer grinned toothily, perched on the edge of a table, his elbow on a dead knight’s head. There was a chorus of agreeing yaps and laughs.
‘Wait!’ White-Poplar-Woman held up a pale hand, staring into the distance. ‘Gaia speaks to me!’ The pack all fell silent.
‘Did I hit her head too hard?’ Vinny whispered.
‘Shhh.’ Sun-Heat-Woman put a finger to her lips.
‘Fendegist’s heir must claim his birthright, and Jorgen’s his.’ White-Poplar-Woman’s voice was high, and faraway, with strange harmonics. ‘They must be taken to the Cave of the Lost and undergo the Rite of the Ancestors.’ She stood, staring for a moment, then appeared to collapse, caught by one of the pack.
‘Eh...’ Vinny straightened up his hat, worried. ‘What’s that?’
Sun-Heat-Woman looked at him, eyes wide. ‘It is the rite that shamans like White-Poplar-Woman go through to speak to the spirits and the ancestors. As Gaia speaks, so must it be done, but is a strange request for one who has not trained as a shaman.’
‘As Gaia speaks, so must it be done.’ Vengeance-Bringer agreed. The pack murmured in agreement.
‘Hmm. Jon, are you cool with this?’ Vinny asked.
‘I am apprehensive of heathen rites, but have undergone ordeals before. I will pray for guidance.’ He knelt down and closed his eyes, among the carnage of his fellow knights, the irony apparently lost on him.
Go. Said a voice in his head, and that was all.
I go, Lord, by your command. The response was unquestioning, wired in, if slightly worrying.
‘I go.’ Jon opened his eyes.
‘Nice of God to be so quick.’ Vinny said, grinning. ‘Well, with representation like Gaia and Jon’s God, who’s little old me to argue, huh? Lead on, people.’ He extended an arm towards the door.
A pack of wolves and a huge bear-like thing with a knight apparently only just attached moved at high speed down the waterfall, across the stream bed and up into the mountains on the other side, racing across the upper valleys, up and down and through the crags like some kind of giant grey caterpillar. They ended up outside the mouth of a cave, where there seemed to be a little camp, guarded by a ring of bits of broken glass.
The pack arranged itself around the camp. Mostly lounging, in the way only someone who’s part wolf can. Vinny and Jon sat with Sun-Heat-Woman and Vengeance-Bringer, while White-Poplar-Woman cooked up some herbs in a pot. Previous attempts to brutally murder each other seemed to have been forgotten in the blink of an eye.
‘I think you pulled some of my fur out, you know.’ Vinny complained at Jon.
‘Aye, that will have been when I was clinging on for my dear life when you jumped that ravine.’ Jon said, still twitching slightly.
Sun-Heat-Woman fell over, laughing. She seemed to be quite easily amused. Vengeance Bringer chewed on a hunk of something that looked suspiciously like a human femur. Jon tried not to think about it. Vengeance-Bringer saw him looking at it and offered him some. He politely declined.
White-Poplar-Woman removed her steaming pot from the flames, and blew on it to cool it down. Whatever was in it had a strange smell. Vinny wasn’t really sure he liked it, though it was midly intoxicating.
‘Whassat?’ He asked, his head spinning a little. He briefly wondered why the werewolves weren’t bothered by the smell, but he guessed they were used to it.
‘Woad.’ White-Poplar-Woman replied. As the mixture cooled down, she began to chew the end of a stick to fibres, until it became like a paintbrush.
‘Uh, am I allowed to ask what you’re going to do with that?’ Vinny asked.
Jon, also slightly dizzy, shrugged. ‘Maybe paint us?’
‘Paint a picture of us?’ Vinny asked, drunkenly. ‘Whee!’
‘No. Paint you.’ White-Poplar-Woman said, dipping the stick in the mixture and leaning over Vinny, taking hold of his chin. Tongue poking out of the side of her mouth in concentration, she began to paint on his face. The mixture was pleasantly warm and tingled slightly. Also, W-P-W was pretty attractive and smelled of sweaty woman and leather.
‘Whatcha painting?’ Vinny asked. ‘Betcha painting something stoopid. Jon, is she painting something stupid?’
‘Don’t move.’ W-P-W said. Jon crawled around and peered at Vinny’s face.
‘No. Some..kind of...twisty...three..spirally...thing.’ Jon giggled, and sat down, nearly falling over backwards. Sun-Heat-Woman propped him up. ‘Thanks.’
‘There.’ Said White-Poplar-Woman, sitting back. ‘Don’t touch it till it dries.’
‘What is it?’ Vinny asked.
‘The spiral of life, death and rebirth. You can see it here.’ White-Poplar-Woman said, turning her left cheek to face him. ‘It was given to me by the shaman who trained me, Flies-With-The-Clouds, and now at Gaia’s command, I give it to you and your brother, as I will give it again to the one I train.’
‘Pretty. Howdja know Jon’s my..?’
‘Gaia told me.’ W-P-W turned to Jon, and collected some more of the blue paint, whilst Sun-Heat-Woman and Vengeance-Bringer held him still.
‘Hey.’ Vinny frowned. ‘Don’t hurt Jon. I get real mad when someone hurts Jon.’
‘We wouldn’t dream of it.’ White-Poplar-Woman said, as she painted. ‘You should go into the cave now. We swear we will not hurt him, but you must go alone.’
Vinny shrugged. ‘Okay. Later, Jon. Be good for the werewolves.’
‘Later, Vinny.’ Jon laughed again, imitating Vinny’s accent.
‘Watch it.’ Vinny pointed, grinning and wandered off into the mouth of the cave.
At this point, it would be sensible to tell you a little about woad. The extract has several properties. It dyes the skin a deep blue, right down to the proliferating layers. It is slightly antiseptic and antibacterial, therefore useful for dealing with wounds. And it is a CNS stimulant and hallucinogen.
All this means that as Vinny walked into the cave, the walls were turning bright colours and a lot of little dancing fireflies were sing ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’ at him.
He laughed and ran into the darkness, buzzing with energy, no longer sure what he was. Running, leaping, jumping around rocks and down passageways, following a feeling he wasn’t quite sure of, but in his euphoria, it didn’t really matter. He was on top of the world, Jon, Windsong, everything forgotten, invincible. Finally, panting, he came to a rest outside a vast, underground cavern.
It briefly occurred to him, as he scratched behind his ear with a huge hindlimb, that he had no-idea of where he was, and his face was starting to sting a little. He lumbered into the cavern and noted, atop a pile of shining gold, a very sharp shiny thing. He climbed onto the gold, which shifted beneath his weight and nosed at it. It sang to him in a language he barely understood, rattling his brain with tales of glory. He tried to pick it up in a giant paw, but failed. He sat back, stumped for a moment, before remembering he could make himself smaller if he wanted. So he did, and regained some semblance of humanity. Now he could make out what the shining thing was. It was some kind of gauntlet (not that Vinny knew what a gauntlet was), with, long, serrated claws, far longer that his own, wicked sharp shining things, big enough to disembowel someone with a flick of the wrist. The back of the hand and the hinged part which covered the wrist and lower forearm was decorated with scenes of wolves tearing at meat and humans in battle. And it was clearly designed for a left-handed person, which Vinny was. He lifted it up, a tearing creature of steel and death, and slid his left paw into it. It fitted almost perfectly around his claw, extending it into a weapon a hundred times stronger and more lethal. Vinny roared with mad laughter, and held his arm above his head, causing him to overbalance and roll down the pile of gold. He picked himself up, still laughing and made some practise slashes with the metal claw. It was much better than the one Joel had given him, and plus he could take it off when he wanted. Underneath the claw was what he had thought was some kind of cloth, but it turned out to be a huge bearskin cloak, lined with silver fur and trimmed with ermine (again, not that Vinny recognised any of this, he just thought it looked good). He pulled it out from under the gold, and wrapped it round himself, then danced around in the gold (which he had barely noticed). Then, still ignoring the gold, he followed the scent trail of warm woad he had left back out of the cave.
The werewolves and Jon watched a streak of silver and black emerge from the cave and whizz past them out of the camp, leap with inhuman strength over the barrier of glass shards surrounding the camp, and race away down towards the valley floor below.
‘Where is he off to?’ Jon asked, standing up, and reeling slightly. The woad triple-spiral on his face was just drying.
‘Who knows?’ White-Poplar-Woman said. ‘When I took the Rite of the Ancestors, I ran wild in the forest for a week. Hey, where are you going? Be careful!’
Jon was already running off in the direction he’d seen Vinny disappear.
Also being high, he laughed as he careened down the slope. He hadn’t been this happy for a long time. The night mountain air was in his lungs, the wind was cool and fresh, and he felt inexplicably glad. He’d totally forgotten the earlier events of the day.
‘I’m FLYYYYYYYYYIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIING!’
Jon tripped over a piece of plastic and rolled the rest of the way to the bottom, finishing up, giggling, propped up against what looked like a battered console. He pulled himself to his feet and noticed he was alone, at the bottom of a desolate valley. This seemed incredibly funny. He laughed till his stomach hurt. Then he began to wander through the valley, calling out for Vinny. It was cold and silent as space. A mood swing kicked in and suddenly he was terrified, seeing dark shapes moving behind every chunk of metal, every piece of plastic sticking out of the earth. In the distance, there was a piercing howl. Jon shivered, paralysed with fear. He heard something panting, coming closer and closer, then a shadow broke out of the darkness and pounced on him. Jon screamed.
‘Hiya Jon.’ Vinny said, grinning, and pinning the terrified paladin to the floor. ‘Gotcha.’
‘Thou hast near scared my wits away!’
‘Sorry?’
‘I forgive thee.’ Jon smiled and batted Vinny’s hair out of his face.
‘Knew ya would. Gimme a hug, bro.’
‘Aright.’ Jon said, attaching himself around Vinny’s neck. Vinny flung him over and nearly broke his ribs.
Jon coughed, detached himself from Vinny and sat up. ‘Be careful...I don’t have Miriam to fix me anymore.’ He said. ‘I miss Miriam.’ He sniffed.
‘Aw, you’ll see her again soon.’ Vinny patted him on the head. It hadn’t been shaved in so long that a spiky layer of blond hair was growing back.
‘I suppose so.’
Vinny’s head was beginning to clear. He metabolised fast, and his memories of the past fifteen minutes are so were becoming hazy. He felt mildly annoyed that the euphoria was fading and the little fireflies weren’t singing any more. He glanced at his left hand.
‘Hey, Jon, look at this..’ He said.
Jon peered at the claw. ‘Shiny.’ He said. He traced his finger along some runes Vinny had been to intoxicated to notice. ‘It says ‘This is the Claw of Fendegist. Woe to all who stand against it’.’ He said. ‘Oooh. I like thy cloak.’
Vinny noticed the bearskin around his shoulder. ‘I don’t remember where I got this, either.’ He put a hand to his head. ‘Augh...the werewolves did something...painted on me.’ He felt his face, where the woad had dried to a crust.
‘I have one of those too.’ Jon said, and pointed to his face. ‘Master Hendricks would go mad. He hated it when I had the one on the back of my neck, and worse the ones on my arms and hands....but Master...Hendricks...is.....’ His voice trailed off. ‘Dead. They’re all dead. Oh, God they’re all dead.’ Jon buried his face in his arms. Vinny wished he was still feeling uninhibited enough to hug him again.
‘Yeah, but they’re in heaven, right?’ He suggested.
‘That is a good point.’ Jon said, looking up, brightly. ‘Of course they are. Am I not a fool?’
‘Nah, you’re just completely keshed, bro.’
‘So I am.’ Jon frowned. ‘Or..I was...I don’t remember.’
‘It’s wearing off?’
‘Aye.’
‘So I should hope.’ Said someone behind them. ‘How could we talk to you like that?’
Jon and Vinny both turned around. Sitting on the edge of the nearest chunk of metal behind them were two men who looked oddly familiar. One was small, with curly blond hair and was dressed in a thick leather jerkin and furs. He leaned against the rock next to him was a sword that looked exactly like Jon’s. The other was a brutish giant of a man, curling black locks cascading down his back, wrapped in a cloak exactly like the one Vinny was wearing, a flash of metal poked out from under where the left hand would be. He was grinning, and it could be seen that his teeth were filed to points. Both were heavily tattooed.
‘Oh, I wonder who you could be.’ Vinny said, sarcastically, propping himself against a rock and straightening his hat, which against all odds was still on his head. ‘Mm, let me see, what a puzzler...does it begin with J and F?’
The giant roared with laughter.
Jon, who had been trying to get up, had fallen to his knees, his hands in a prayer position. ‘St Jorgen!’
‘Oh hark at the boy.’ The small man said, joining his brother in laughter. ‘St Jorgen, he calls me!’
‘Aye.’ The giant agreed. It was then that Vinny and Jon noticed that neither of them was in fact speaking english, but nevertheless, they could understand them perfectly well. ‘I’ll warrant no saint has had as many wenches and drunk as much ale as you, Jorgen.’
‘Tis true.’ Jorgen grinned. ‘I am no pious monk.’
‘Well, you guys must be the ancestors the werewolves were talking about.’ Vinny said, also grinning. ‘Must say, it’s good to finally meet you, after hearing so much about you from Dumla. After he mistook us for you, anyway.’
‘Dumla.’ Jorgen said, wistfully. ‘How is Dumla?’
‘Old.’ Vinny replied. Jon was in a holy stupor. ‘He still remembers you though.’
‘He never forgot anything.’ Fendegist said, chuckling. ‘Especially not when you owed him gold.’
‘Can we swap descendants, Fendegist?’ Jorgen asked. ‘I like yours better. Mine seems to be a bit of an idiot.’ He waved his hand in front of Jon, who frowned, wrestling his own reverence for the saint against his anger at being called an idiot by said saint.
‘Not surprising, Jorgen.’ Fendegist quipped. Jorgen smacked him upside the head, but gently. Fendegist returned the cuff and they started up a minor scuffle.
Vinny sighed, and pulled a cigarette from wherever on his person he was keeping them at the moment, lit it and began smoking waiting for them to finish.
‘Look, Jorgen, he’s on fire.’ Fendegist pointed out.
‘Strange.’
‘Sheesh.’ Vinny said, taking the cigarette out of his mouth. ‘I forgot how old you guys are. You want to try it?’ He offered the cigarette. Jorgen turned it down, but Fendegist took it and stuck it in his mouth, a little too far. He tried to breathe in and failed, which began a fit of coughing, and blasted the cigarette off somewhere into the distance.
‘It burns.’ He choked. ‘You do that out of choice?’
‘You get used to it.’ Vinny shrugged, produced another cigarette and began again. ‘What can we do for you guys anyway?’ He asked, through a mouthful of smoke.
‘Where are we here again?’ Jorgen asked Fendegist.
‘Impart...*cough* wisdom.’ Fendegist coughed.
‘What, again?’
‘Yes *cough*.’
‘No-one ever comes for a chat.’
‘They *cough* tend not to, Jor-*cough*gen.’
‘Oh well. Draw your...my...that sword, boy.’ Jorgen said, standing up and picking up his version of the sword
Jon knelt for a while, slightly dumbfounded, then drew the sword. Jorgen swung for him. Jon barely had time to block, he was so astonished before Jorgen attacked again. Jon woke up, and realised he had just been challenged to a duel. His fighting instincts booted his piety out of the way and took control.
Vinny shuffled out of the way of the duelling pair, circled around and took up the place where Jorgen had been sitting moments before.
‘Does he do that a lot?’ He asked Fendegist.
Fendegist shook his head.
‘Okay. Whatcha want to ‘impart’?’
‘What do you want to know?’
‘Is there any way I can get a whole lot of money very fast?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘What’s this.’ Vinny tapped the claw, still on his left hand.
‘My claw. You think people like us use swords? Dumla forged it for me at the same time as Jorgen’s sword. They were our coming of age presents.’
‘Okay. I’ll try to take care of it.’
‘It’s a weapon. Weapons get damaged. Don’t worry.’
‘I guess. People keep telling me I’m king. What does that mean?’
‘You’ll find out soon.’
‘Jon says you ran away and gave the kingship to Jorgen. Why?’
‘Ah...’ Fendegist frowned. ‘That is a good question. And one that ties in with the last. The answer is: I did not listen to my people. I was furious they had betrayed Odin for the son of the desert god. Do not underestimate the power of shining Balder, the Sun Lord. He has many beguiling faces.’
‘Note for future reference: Don’t underestimate Balder. ‘Kay.’
Fendegist looked at the starry night sky. ‘I wanted to force my people to remain with Odin, not turn to Yeshua, but Yeshua was the only way they could survive. Jorgen tried to persuade me, but I would not listen. I realised that I was the wrong man for kingship, but I could not follow Yeshua. It was too much of a betrayal. I buried my claw and all that is mine and left. It was the only thing I could do. I should never have been the king. Jorgen was the king. He knew what the people needed.’
‘What makes you think I wouldn’t do that?’ Vinny asked, puffing thoughtfully.
‘That remains to be seen.’ Fendegist replied. ‘Come with me. They’ll be at it for a while.’ He slid off his seat and led Vinny away from where Jorgen and Jon were still fencing, intense with concentration.
‘What about Jon?’
‘He has things he must do, just as you do.’ Something shining flashed past Vinny’s face. He was suddenly aware of his left cheek bleeding. The woad that was still wet beneath the surface seeped into the wound and stung him, violently. Blood dripped off Fendegist’s claw.
‘Hey, what was that for?!!!’ Vinny said angrily, touching his left cheek with his right hand and wincing. There were three slashes across the woad-spirals.
‘You have the wrong mark. Now it’s right.’ Fendegist turned his left cheek to face Vinny and he saw three long scars across it, partially obscuring a triple spiral. ‘You are not the shaman. You are beyond the shaman. Now you learn the meaning. Survive, boy. The people need you.’
And he vanished. Vinny stood alone in the darkness, no-one around, with his face dripping blood, the wound stinging. Pure hallucinogenic seeped directly into his bloodstream. His head span. His legs no longer supported him and he fell on his back. The stars above him danced and span in circles. The pain from his face spread to his head and his whole body, till he felt like he was made up of stinging, and shivering, but unable to move.
As his vision began to blur, a loud voice rang through his head, something like Miriam, something like the voice of the 14thMPOITU, something like something else.
So you would be king?
I don’t know...I can’t think...it hurts too much!
Do you understand what it meant to be king? What it means?
No, no I don’t.
You will.
A vision of the red-headed girl who Windsong had killed in the alley appeared before him, outlined against the spinning stars and spoke.
‘You...I came to you for help and you let me die...you killed me, then you slept with my killer! You bastard!’ She screamed. Her voice set his teeth on edge.
‘I’m sorry! I don’t have any excuse! I’m an asshole!’
The girl’s face changed into Windsong’s.
‘I’m only fourteen, Vinny. Fourteen...how could you do it?’
‘I love you!’
‘I’m just a child.’
‘I didn’t want to.’
‘Yes you did. You wanted it more than anything.’
‘All right, yes, I’m a terrible person, I just said! I’m an asshole.’
And then every guy Vinny had done wrong to, every dame he had used showed up and all started screaming at him. The noise was shattering his mind. He clapped his hands over his ears, but he couldn’t make it shut up. He screamed and yelled and rolled, leaving the cloak and the claw behind him, shaking them off, but the voices wouldn’t go away. The loud voice rang through the din.
All your deeds come back to haunt you. You think you can be king? When you cannot even help a child who comes to you for aid? You can make the ultimate sacrifice?
I don’t understand...please make them stop! For fuck’s sake!
You will make the ultimate sacrifice?
I don’t understand, what is that?!
In the days long before the cities of metal, before the desert god, before any of this, in those days, who was the King?
I don’t know!
He was the one who died to heal the land. When the crops did not grow and the rain did not fall and the cattle sickened and died. Then the King’s blood was spilled and he died and became the soil and gave life to it. He gave up his life and went down into the underworld to beg the Goddess of the Darkness to bring the rain and spare the lives of his people. Will you die so that the creation is healed? Will you be King?
There was silence.
And realisation dawned on Vincit. Something awoke deep within him.
Yes.
A figure in a hood appeared. For a second he though he saw Jon’s face beneath the robe. Then something sharp plunged into his chest and his head exploded with pain.
He howled, an unearthly cry of loss, death and anguish.
It began to snow.
After a sparring match in which they had been almost evenly matched, Jorgen had Jon pinned to the floor, the blade at his throat. Jon glared up at the saint, fearful of what might come next. Would the ghost slay him? Could the ghost of a saint slay him?
‘Well, boy.’ Jorgen said. ‘Time to decide. Can you lead the orders against the ravages of chaos? They will look to you, as my heir. You saw what was left of the last Grandmaster.’ Jorgen laughed.
‘If I must.’ Jon replied.
‘Oh, if you ‘must’.’ Jorgen snapped. ‘Is it all about obligation with you, don’t you get to choose?’
‘I do not choose.’ Jon said. ‘I serve my God.’
‘Then who will choose if you lead the orders? Who will choose when to fight and who may die? You know God will not choose for you.’
‘He may.’
Jorgen snarled. ‘Do you know who I was?’ He said. ‘Before I was king and grandmaster?’ He turned his left cheek to face Jon’s and there was a matching blue spiral tattoo on it. ‘I was the shaman. The healer, the one who speaks with the spirits. I should have advised my brother, not ruled in his place.’
‘Then that is what I will do, if it is my birthright.’ Jon said. ‘Shaman or Priest.’
‘You think you can get out of deciding that way? You think the Orders will follow Fendegist’s get? They will not. Decide! Lead and Fight and risk being the death of brave men, or follow and hope....and pray.’
Jon shook his head. The blade pressed closer to his throat.
‘And why not. Boy?’ Jorgen asked, his face full of fury.
Jon couldn’t take it any more. ‘It’s not my place! It’s not for me to decide! I am not worthy!’
‘Aha! Now we get to the root of it. You are unworthy, so I shall slay you.’ Jorgen laughed, and pulled back the sword ready for the killing blow.
A deathly, empty, piercing howl echoed across the valley.
‘Vincit!’ I must get to him! Jon thought, and woke up from his dream of worthlessness. He struck like a snake while Jorgen was distracted, knocking the sword from his hand, and hitting Jorgen with the blade of his own, knocking the smaller man to the floor.
‘Perhaps I am worthless, “Saint” Jorgen.’ Jon spat the word, leaning over the man on the floor, as the snowflakes began to land. ‘But my brother does not think so, and I will fight by his side to the end, aye, and lead the orders if need be, as priest, shaman, knight, whatever need demands and God commands.’ He stormed off to find Vinny.
Jorgen wiped the blood away from his mouth and smiled. ‘Attaboy.’ He said.
He lay, his life seeping away as the figure vanished. He was alone and cold, lying on a pedestal of freezing rock. Blood flowing, into the earth, dying slowly. He had forgotten everything in dying, as if his memories had run away with his life-blood. He no longer remembered who he was, where he was from, only that he was dying to give life. He was terribly, terribly cold and getting colder.
Jon ran through the snow, gentle flakes landing in his eyelashes and clothes, following the sound of the howl, wishing he had Vinny’s sense of smell. At last he came upon his brother, lying close to death on the ground, dull red eyes staring into nothing, bleeding from a stab wound to the heart.
‘Oh Lord, Vincit, what has happened!’
Vinny said nothing. He didn’t even recognise the words.
Jon had nothing to bind up the wounds with, and the pool of blood soaking into the ground looked big. There was nothing to do but a healing spell. He wished he’d paid attention in class when they’d been speaking of those, rather than being more interested in destructive magic. He wished he had Miriam here, she would have done it so much quicker and more effortlessly. He knelt down by Vincit, laid his hands on the wound and prayed.
White light trickled from his fingers.
Lost in a darkened wilderness, alone and sacrificed, Vincit felt life begin to flow back into him. He blinked and saw the face of his killer, deep in concentration. He briefly contemplated strangling him, but decided against it.
‘Vincit?’ Jon saw a flicker of life in Vinny’s face.
Is that my name? Vinny wondered. Must be.
‘Yeah. I guess so.’ The reply came out as a whisper. Memories began to run back with the heat. ‘Jon?’
‘Aye, tis I.’ Jon said, relieved. ‘You have taken a grevious wound.’ Under his fingers, the wound was closing, helped by Vinny’s rapid metabolism.
‘Had to.’ Vinny said, trying to sit up. He fell back down, far too weak. The snow was carpeting the ground with white. Jon hadn’t even noticed it. He was feeling weak with exertion, his life force drained. He felt more like he’d healed an entire battlefield than one injured person.
‘Vincit, I am very tired.’ He said.
‘Heh. Me too.’ Vinny replied. ‘We should sleep.’
‘We would freeze to death in the snow.’ Jon said. Something in his mind poked at ‘snow’ but he ignored it.
‘Get Fendegist’s cloak.’ Vinny said, trying to raise a hand and point. ‘Over there.’
Jon staggered on all fours and pulled the heavy cloak over to them. In an inhuman effort of will, Vinny raised himself off the ground, and wrapped both of them up in the bearskin.
Jon buried himself in the already-warming fur. Vinny curled around him.
Soon they both lost consciousness.
The snow fell, gently covering the black pile.
It fell on the bloodstain on the ground, and became stained with crimson red as it melted, water on the parched earth.
Slowly, oh so slowly, a tiny green shoot emerged from the earth and opened into a delicate white flower.
A pale man in a dirty plastic mac, bedraggled, with lank hair came upon the white hump in the snow. He poked at it. It moved, then opened up like a giant maw, releasing a wash of heat into the cold air, and dislodging a shower of snow. The world was white, obscuring the junk with a layer of all-consuming brightness.
Vinny yawned and stretched. He opened his eyes and looked at the man.
‘Hi.’ He said. ‘Can I help you?’
‘It snowed.’ Said the man, gesturing at the ground.
‘I see that.’
‘It never snows here.’
‘Really? Well, I guess that’s changed.’
‘It has.’ The man appeared to listen to something in the air near his head. ‘The little wisps say you did it.’
‘I think they might be right.’ Vinny smiled, and looked at the hole in his shirt.
Jon stirred, the cold poking him out of sleep. ‘Mmmf? Who is this?’
‘Dunno.’ Vinny said. ‘I’m Vinny. This is Jon.’
‘I’m No-one.’ The man said.
‘Well, okay, No-one. Thanks for the wakeup call. I suppose we’d better go find...I dunno, people, hey Jon?’
Jon nodded, yawned and stood up. ‘Tis cold. Where is No-one?’
‘I don’t know. He was here a second ago.’ No-one had indeed, vanished.
Vinny picked the cloak up and slung it back on his shoulders. ‘Let’s go find the werewolves. Or the Sisters. Whoever we find first, anyway.’
Kara was getting bored. The werewolf tribe and the knights had been bickering for two hours straight. The warrior-nuns were mostly just walking along in a leather and white clad huddle doing nothing in particular.
Sun-Heat-Woman and a noble looking man, greying at the temples seemed to be having a fierce argument concerning ‘some heathen rite’.
Kara was not concerned about this thing. All the concerned her was that the wolves were tracking her target, and it was a lot easier than doing it herself, and so following them, slipping in between the rocks and junk (and of course, always staying downwind) was her plan for the moment.
Moebius was pleased with her. After she had assassinated the baron’s daughter, he had given her the ultimate mission. Kill the beast man, and if possible the knight he travelled with. Apparently the beast man was a currently a great threat to Moebius’ plans. With this, she was sure, he would reveal the location of her father to her. She trusted Moebius, because he had often been mentioned in a favourable light by her father when she was younger.
Damn, it was cold here. The radiation levels were extremely dangerous as well. She hoped she wouldn’t have to remain much longer, though her people’s physiology was quite resistant to rad damage.
When it began to snow, all the bickering briefly stopped, replaced by shock, bemusement and finally wonder. Kara wondered why, but didn’t let it bother her.
Then came the unearthly howl, which made everyone’s ears prick up, and the leading wolf, who she vaguely remembered being called Vengeance-Bringer flicked into human shape just long enough to shout ‘this way!’ and raced off on four legs again. The whole party followed, leaving the humans trailing behind.
They wandered a few more hours, Kara remaining a little behind, a mulatto shadow, always downwind.
At last, a strain of song echoed on the wind, a faint tenor voice singing the words of Psalm 23:
‘The Lord's my shepherd, I'll not want.
He makes me down to lie
In pastures green: he leadeth me
the quiet waters by.
My soul he doth restore again;
and me to walk doth make
Within the paths of righteousness,
ev'n for his own name's sake.
Yea, though I walk in death's dark vale,
yet will I fear none ill:
For thou art with me; and thy rod
and staff me comfort still.
My table thou hast furnished
in presence of my foes;
My head thou dost with oil anoint,
and my cup overflows.
Goodness and mercy all my life
shall surely follow me:
And in God's house for evermore
my dwelling-place shall be.’
.....accompanied by howls, vaguely in tune, wound across the valley.
The wolves answered the howls. One of the knights laughed and said something about the ‘wolf lying down with the lamb’ and was glared at by his superiors. They followed the sounds, Kara not too close behind, a little confused as to what was going on, till they finally came upon a huge hunk of shining, perspex-like substance, perhaps once part of a huge window. Sat on the top were a hulking great brute, a wild-looking thing wrapped up in a bearskin, and a knight, his sword across his lap.
Kara saw one of the nuns emerge from the crowd, and call to the knight on the top. He slid down and hugged her in greeting. There was a fast discourse where she pointed at his face, marked with a blue triple spiral, but he shook his head and seemed to tell her not to worry.
The beast on the rock howled, joyfully, and the pack answered it, almost as one changing into humans. The noise echoed around the valley. Kara moved in closer. Her targets were together, and in a prime position. It was now or never. She would strike quickly on the back of the neck, sever the spine. However amazing his healing, he wouldn’t heal from that.
‘Brother Jon!’ She heard the noble-looking knight call out.
‘Master Hendricks! I thought you dead!’ Jon replied, relief very evident in him.
‘Nay, not I. The council did not believe us when we warned of the attack, but those of us who could slipped away and took refuge with the Holy Sisters in the Cave of St Agnethe.’ Master Hendricks replied.
‘God be praised!’ Sister Assumpta said. ‘I found them just where the letter said they would be. Truly, the Lord’s hand is in this.’
‘The Lord. Gaia. Whatever.’ Sun-Heat-Woman shrugged, gaining glares from the knights and nuns. ‘Vincit King, get of Fendegist.’ She called up to Vinny. ‘Will you not come down and join us?’
Vinny turned his face towards them, and Sun-Heat-Woman saw the bright red slashes, where the scars had almost healed, across his face. He looked at her sadly, and his dulled eyes were those of a man ancient before his time.
He grinned, sharp white teeth sparkling like the snow, and they fired up, lit red again.
‘Whatever you say, sweetheart.’ He said, picked his hat up from beside him, stuck on his head and slid down from his perch, landing on all fours in the snow, laughing. ‘Hey, by the way, we met this guy in the woods. He called himself ‘No-one’. You know him?’
Sun-Heat-Woman looked thoughtful. ‘Yes, we know that one. He is Nevin, which is ‘no-one’ in some language or other I remember him saying. We do not talk or meet much. He has been here as long as I remember and before then. He is a blood drinker, and feeds on the travellers and romanies who pass through here, as we do.’
‘Blood drinker? Vampire?’ Vinny looked a little surprised.
‘That is what you call them, yes.’ Sun-Heat-Woman replied.
‘Look out!’ Someone yelled. Vinny stood up and twisted automatically, just in time to dodge a black and brown streak. A blade whizzed past his neck. Kara just had time to curse, before a claw picked her up by the scruff of the neck, and she was dangling in mid air.
Vinny scrutinised the small, pale brown girl he was holding in the air, with little apparent effort.
‘What do you think you’re playing at, eh?’ She smelled of corruption, anger and fear. She was carefully reaching for her left leg. ‘Don’t even think about it.’ The hand stopped. Vinny put his other claw to her throat. Time seemed to have briefly frozen. No-one was moving.
Kara didn’t move. She hadn’t expected this at all, to be at the mercy of her prey. Damnit! Who had warned him? She was going to die. Her throat would be torn out by the beast. The irony, of course, was lost on her. He was clearly furious, she’d never seen eyes that bright a red before.
‘Well?’ Vinny barked. ‘Say something! Before I have to choke you to death.’
Being held up by the neck is not conducive to anyone’s health. Kara was actually starting to choke, losing her breath. She had lost, failed Moebius. She would never find her father.
‘Father...’ She coughed, her eyes closing. ‘I’m sorry....’
Then Vinny looked into her eyes, saw beneath the layers of icy hardness, another lost child, orphaned by chaos.
He let go. Kara fell in a heap on the floor, clutching at her throat.
Vinny looked at her, and she looked up at him, seemingly towering over her. The merciful beast.
‘Why?’
‘Go, kid. Run away, before I change my mind.’
Kara needed no second warning. She scrambled to her feet and ran.
Time started again.
‘Pity.’ Vengeance-Bringer said. ‘She looked young and succulent.’ The humans edged away from the wolves slightly. Vinny gave him a warning glance. Vengeance-Bringer grinned.
Something struck Vinny. ‘Hey..somebody warned me..who was it?’
There was a general shaking of heads. Vinny looked over in the direction the shout had come from. ‘Be right back.’ He said, and raced away, leaving a bewildered bunch of people and wolves behind him.
Jon shook his head and laughed. ‘Truly, he is a one.’ He said.
There was nervous laughter.
Vinny ran through the woods, following the scent of dirty plastic, sweat, blood and wetness. Ahead, he finally saw a shadow, sliding among the rubble. He put on a spurt of speed to catch up.
‘Hey! Wait!’
Images and sounds exploded in his head, in a spurt, like a slap across the face, knocking him to the floor, leaving him dazed and confused, unsure of where he was. There was a laugh, high and raucous like a hyena, then something pounced on him. Furious, he twisted and rolled it under him. Another blast of madness sent him reeling, accompanied by a strong smell of sweat and blood and plastic. He swore and dragged himself back to his feet.
‘Quit that, damnit, I just want to thank you, not kill and eat you!’
‘I know.’ The vampire chuckled. ‘Did you think maybe I want to eat you?’
‘I don’t taste good.’ Vinny said.
‘You smell good. Strong.’ Madness again, bursting in Vinny’s head and then teeth sinking into his neck before he could recover. Then a scream, and the teeth removed, hastily.
‘Don’t taste good! DON’T TASTE GOOD???!! YOU BURN!!’
Vinny sat up and grinned. The vampire was clutching his mouth, wiping the blood away desperately with snow and his coat.
‘Warned ya.’ Vinny shrugged, slightly mystified as to why he burned. Probably what was left of the 14mpoitu in his system. ‘And speaking of warning, why did you warn me?’
‘I just wanted a little taste....The wisps say the dragon doesn’t want you to die.’ Nevin said, sullenly. ‘Dragon wants you alive. Dragon likes the chaos you bring. Upsetting everything.’
Vinny raised an eyebrow. ‘You really are totally crazy, aren’t you.’ Nevertheless, it did make partial sense.
‘Yeessssss.’ Nevin rolled onto his back and grinned. ‘Always and ever. Okay. I don’t eat you, you don’t eat me, deal?’
‘Deal.’
‘Got something to show you, burny-wolf-king.’ Nevin said, excitedly rolling to his feet, taking hold of Vinny’s arm and pulling him to his feet in one superhumanly fast movement.
‘The name’s Vincit. What?’
Nevin tapped his nose. ‘I been here forever. Since before the tower fell, I was here when the green died and there was no more food. I was here when the tin-men moved into their castle that was empty before. I been here long enough to see little brown girls sneaky sneaky around when they think they’re so good with shiny knives. And never, since the green died, never has the white snow falled. Never. People have lived and people have died, and the snow has never fallen. Then you came. I saw you and your brother. I watched you, talking to no-one, fighting with no-one. Not me. Other no-ones. I saw nothing stab you and nothing cut your face. I smelled the blood, I followed it, oh so strong. The burning blood fell on the ground and then....it snowed.’
Vincit looked at the ground, gulped and tried not to remember, the penetrating cold and the bleeding. ‘Ah...that’s complicated.’ He said.
‘Don’t need to tell me.’ Nevin said. He appeared to listen to something floating near his left ear. ‘They say, it’s because the King is back. The King is dead, long live the King.’ Nevin laughed. ‘You’re alive and you’re the King.’
‘That’s about it, yeah.’
‘I’m not.’
‘I see that.’
‘You said that about the snow.’
‘So I did.’
‘Put your hands on the ground.’
Vincit did so.
‘Can you feel it?’
‘I feel cold snow.’
‘Deeper than that.’
‘What am I looking for?’
‘Your blood. The land’s blood. The heartbeat.’
Vinny felt. The smallest of rumblings deep within the earth. A flowing, beating, pulse.
‘You feel it?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Now come and see.’ Nevin dragged Vincit to his feet and across the valley, with vampiric speed. No human would have been able to keep up with them without some kind of speed spell. Vincit thought the place looked familiar. They passed the place where Jorgen and Fendegist had sat, and came to the hollow in the snow, where the mark left by Jon and Vincit and the cloak remained in the snow.
‘Yeah, this is where you found us.’ Vincit said. ‘So what?’
‘You forgot that, by the way.’ Nevin said, ignoring the question and pointed to where the Claw lay forlorn, half obscured by snow.
Vincit had totally forgotten about it, and after he’d told Fendegist he’d take care of it. He slapped his head at his own stupidity, then remembered that he’d been a little preoccupied at the time. He picked it up and put it one.
‘Thanks.’ He said to Nevin.
‘There’s more.’ The vampire said, waving a finger at Vincit. ‘Look.’ He knelt down and pushed the snow back nearby. Underneath the surface, there was a patch of red snow, and in the middle, the snowdrop stood, growing quietly.
‘Pretty.’ Vincit said. ‘What about it?...hey...you said nothing grows here.’
‘Now it does.’ Nevin said. ‘NOW IT DOES!!’ He shrieked and laughed his hyaena’s laugh. ‘For three hundred and fifty years never, but now it does! Look here, look everywhere!’ He dusted snow away wildly, seemingly at random, and everywhere he revealed a green shoot, sprouting out of the snow. ‘You bled and you became the land and then your brother healed you and he healed the land too. You did it!’
The earth shuddered beneath them. An earthquake? No, all around, growing at unnatural speed, green saplings began to grow from the earth, reaching up into the sky. Vinny had to step out of the way to avoid one coming up underneath him. Soon they were trees, spiralling branches, leaves and needles opening in the light of the dawn sun. The sky lit up, bright red and orange.
There was a rumble of thunder in the distance, crashing around the mountains. The sun vanished.
Nevin danced around, jumping in circles and laughing, raucously, singing about how all the animals and the people would come back now. Vinny just stood, dumbfounded.
It began to rain.
‘....So that is all that has happened so far...’ Jon finished. Master Hendricks looked thoughtful.
‘You are a long way from the boy that I knew, Jon.’ He said. ‘Much has happened. I see we must fight now, in the vastness of space, against the enemies of God. We must find those of us who are still loyal to the Father and stand against the darkness.’
‘We fight with you, because Gaia decrees it.’ Sun-Heat-Woman said. ‘And damned if we shall let the Ravens outdo us.’ She twitched and sniffed the air. ‘Something is happening.’ She said.
The thunder rolled.
‘Thor is hunting.’ Sun-Heat-Woman said. ‘I hear Mjolnir crashing against the sky.’
‘What is this?’ Master Hendricks asked, looking at the sky. ‘First snow, now thunder?’
And it rained.
The wolves howled. The holy people sang praises to God.
‘This is impossible.’ Master Hendricks said.
‘Nothing is impossible.’ Sun-Heat-Woman said, smiling genuinely joyful, not her usual wolves’ grin.. ‘And if you want impossible, look at your feet.’
Master Hendricks looked down. Grass was beginning to grow on the ground.
He looked up and saw Jon, looking at the sky, happily, rain splashing on his body, the sun behind him forming an aura of light, making him look as if outlined in radiance. The knights and the nuns gazed upon him in awe.
‘Are you responsible for this, Jon?’ Master Hendricks asked, in wonderment.
‘Of course he is.’ Sun-Heat-Woman said. ‘He and his brother. Why else did they come here? Ah. Speak not of Loki in case appears...’
Vinny came splashing through the puddles, dodging in between the sprouting trees.
‘Everything’s alive again!’ He shouted. Rain dripped off his hair. His head was soaking wet, but luckily the cloak was pretty much waterproof. He skidded to a halt on the grass, panting. Trickles of purple, excess woad mixed with blood ran down his face, leaving the blue-stained pattern underneath.
‘Aye, brother, we have seen.’ Jon said.
‘Vincit King.’ Sun-Heat-Woman said, pulling off a lazy salute. ‘Here we live and here we remain, but when the war begins, send for us and we will come.’
‘That’s right.’ Vengeance-Bringer said, appearing out of no-where, scratching his ear. ‘Make it soon, okay. As you can tell, we’ve been pretty bored lately. Though this rain and stuff is new and interesting.’
‘Okay, man.’ Vinny slapped V-B on the back. V-B choked, and grinned.
‘Jon.’ Master Hendricks said. ‘Take also our pledge of allegiance to the alliance. We will send out the remnants of the orders. We owe vengeance on Damocles, and we will have it.’
‘Mission accomplished.’ Vinny said. ‘Gimme five, Jon.’ He held up his hand. Jon looked confused.
‘Never mind. Let’s go. Hey, Sister A, you coming?’ He called to Sister Assumpta. She shook her head and indicated she would stay with her order for now and would join them later. ‘Kay then. See you guys later.’
They walked away down towards the foot hill, and eventually, they could no longer see their people saluting them farewell.
Kara raced through the rain, unsure of where she was going, her head a whirl of thoughts. Why had the beast man spared her? What had seen when he looked at her, what had caused that change in his face? She ran on, as the trees grew around her.
Something fell out of a tree, laughing madly and landed on her. She screamed, but no-one could have heard her through the rain.
‘Sneaky sneaky little brown girl not so sneaky anymore, are you? Just scared!’ It said, chuckling.
Kara whipped a knife from somewhere on her person, and stabbed the thing where she guessed it’s heart was. It yelled, and jumped back. She rolled to her feet in one quick motion and stood in a guard position.
‘Come any closer and I’ll kill you.’
‘What? Again? Too late.’ The thing chuckled, revealed now as a thin man with sharp canines and lank, dirty white hair. ‘No more kill for you. No-one stopped that. Not allowed to kill him.’
‘You? You warned him. Why?’
‘Dragon says he mustn’t be killed. Your master is doing things wrong.’ The man twitched and batted at some invisible things flying round his head. ‘Shut up! All of you shut up, don’t all talk at once.’
Kara blinked. The man was clearly completely nuts. But he knew things he couldn’t know.
‘They say..’ He continued. ‘They say he won’t tell you where your father is...never will.’ A slow smile spread across his face. ‘Oh reaaaaaaalllly? Her father is, is he? That is iiiinnnnteresting.’
‘What? What is my father?’
‘Shan’t tell you.’ The man said, tapping his nose and grinning, secretively. ‘No-one knows, doesn’t he, but he doesn’t tell, not without a price, what you want to know.’
‘What do you want in return?’ Kara asked. She didn’t have any money or food.
‘No-one is hungry.’ The man said, licking his lips. ‘Last thing he tried to eat burnt, and now he’s hungrier than ever.’
‘I don’t have any food.’ Kara said.
‘You have plenty of food. Tasty food, inside you.’ Then he seemed to vanish in a blur, and she was enveloped from behind in a reek of wet plastic and sweat.
‘Just under the surface.’ He whispered in her ear, laying a delicate finger on her pulse.
Kara shivered, reviled. Well, if it meant finding out about her father, she would have to be brave. ‘Go on.’ She said, swallowing drily.
Cold breath on her throat. Sharp teeth penetrated her neck and she began to feel a sense of dizzy euphoria and pleasure as the vampire drank, sinking into the embrace. This wasn’t so bad. She was slipping away, paralysed and weak. It seemed to go on forever, and then it stopped, and she was almost reluctant, and nearly asked him to carry on, before reality and disgust hit her in the face.
‘I wouldn’t kill you, not after I’ve made a promise. The wisps say...’ She heard the voice in her ear again, softly. ‘That the dragon tells them your father is a blood drinker like me...only much much worse, much more powerful, his blood is full of tiny metal ants. And he’s making more, oh so many more.’
Kara gasped. ‘No...’
‘Yes. Remember old Nevin No-one to him, will you. In case he wants another soldier. I imagine in the army of a powerful one like that, there would be plenty of....spoils. If you know what I mean. I think you do.’
Kara pulled herself out of his grip, dismayed. He did not try to hold her back.
‘When he turns you.’ Nevin chuckled. ‘Come back and visit. Maybe we’ll share a romany or two.’
Kara ran. Mocking , hyaena laughter followed her through the rain.
As Jon was about to step through the slipgate in Stuttgart, someone tapped him on the shoulder. He turned around.
‘Excuse me. Brother Jon Krigsley?’ It was a courier, an unassuming man in the livery of the Vatican. Jon looked confused.
‘Aye.’
‘Special delivery from his Holiness Pope Pius the 346th.’ The courier handed him a letter, bowed and left.
‘Whassat?’ Vinny asked.
‘I know not.’ Jon said, opening it. He saw the pope’s seal on the bottom.
Brother Jonathan,
Kindest regards from the office of the Vatican. It has come to our notice that some time in this past week you performed a miracle of some importance in the area of the Schwarzwald, and also that you have recently been blessed with visions of a saint and the Virgin. Investigators sent to the aforementioned area have recorded that the levels of radiation there have fallen to a level not known for some four centuries. They inform me that this eventuality is not possible with today’s technology, and can only be the work of God. Therefore, in accordance with procedure, we now confer upon you the title of ‘Saint’. If you perform any further miracles, please keep the Vatican updated.
The Lord be with you,
His Holiness, Pope Pius the 346th
‘They made you a saint?’ Vinny asked.
‘Aye. I have been canonised.’ Jon replied, and fainted with shock.
Vinny sighed, slung the prone paladin over his shoulder and with a wink at the girl in the queue next to him, stepped through the slipgate, briefly hoping he remembered where they had parked the ship.
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