Even Hell Has Knights (Hellsong) Page 5

  He leaned forward and immolated himself.

  Arturus heard the sound of the Mighty Thames, and then, as he came closer, the splashes of the woodstone waterwheel as it turned. It spun quickly, so he knew that the battery had been charged.

  “It’s Arturus,” he announced.

  He crossed the bridge, his steps sounding off against the wooden structure. As he neared the doorway and the graveled floor, he smelled a bit of smoke in the air. That meant that the forge was on. That meant that Galen was home.

  He ran across the gravel, passed the hallway that led to his room, and then turned into the forge. He felt the heat on his face when he entered. Galen’s body armor and pack lay discarded by the room’s entrance. The warrior was adding woodstone to the furnace. Arturus could see his father’s face in profile. Even though Galen had been traveling for several weeks, his beard was as neatly trimmed as ever.

  I’d swear his beard doesn’t grow.

  Galen rose up to his full height, his broad frame blocking the heat from the forge’s furnace.

  “Galen!” Arturus caught him up in an embrace as the man turned.

  “Okay, boy,” Galen told him, “enough.”

  Arturus ignored his father and held on.

  “Enough, Turi, or this will turn into wrestling practice.”

  “You’re home,” Arturus said.

  Arturus finally let go when Galen began extricating himself by force.

  “I heard you had a big day today,” Galen remarked.

  “Wasn’t so big,” Arturus lied. “I went all the way to Harpsborough on my own, and made it back. I got shells and a rifle barrel, want to see?”

  Arturus ignored the man’s protests and rummaged through the pack. For a moment, Arturus saw Galen’s eyes narrow when he produced the AR-15 barrel. “And all I traded was three pounds of dyitzu and a nine millimeter.”

  Galen nodded. “Not a bad deal at all. Well, bathe yourself, boy, and I’ll see you for dinner. Did you run into anything on the road?”

  “No, sir. Not many dyitzu about, and there usually aren’t any corpses near the road anyways.”

  Galen looked back towards the forge’s fire. “Run along, boy, let me finish my work before Rick gets hungry and eats without us.”

  Arturus ran his finger along the edge of the table, feeling one of the depressions on its edge. Rick had outdone himself with Galen’s return meal. He had ground down hound meat, bone, and gristle, and baked it between crusts of honey covered flatbread to make a meat pie. The meat’s juices filled his mouth with every bite, dribbling down his chin. The gristle caught between his teeth, but crunched satisfactorily as he chewed. They ate pickled knowledge fruit and salted devilwheat which had been soaked in dyitzu blood. Rick had wrapped up devilwheat seed in leaves from a hungerleaf tree, and then boiled and salted the wrap in hound’s blood. He’d left spider eggs deep in the Thames for half the afternoon to keep them cool, and served them in small ornate stone bowls which Arturus had last seen during one of his birthday celebrations. He pretended he could feel the baby spiders crawling in his throat as he ate them. They drank cool water and warm hungerleaf tea, sweetened with honey. Arturus ate until he felt he might burst.

  “We’re eating like Citizens,” he told Galen.

  “Better,” Galen said, “for Rick has a far fairer hand at exotics than Patrick the Foodsmith does.”

  “We should eat like this every night.”

  Rick gave Arturus a sharp look as he scooped out some more meat pie with two of his fingers. “I’d rather have my second death,” Rick said, not at all joking. “And besides, you’d be a beggar within the week if we kept eating like this.”

  “But I’d be a fat beggar,” Arturus said.

  Galen laughed, and leaned back in his chair. There was plenty left on his plate. When he traveled for just a week, he would return as hungry as a hellhound. But sometimes, when he’d been gone too long, it would take him a few days to regain his appetite.

  “Did you fight any devils?” Arturus asked.

  Galen smiled, but it was Rick who spoke. “Galen tells you enough stories. You can’t ask a man to make light of his own life and death.”

  “But Galen likes to tell me stories!” Arturus pressed on. “Did you find anything on the road? A pack of hounds? A Nephilim?”

  “Shush! Galen’s trip was important.” Rick pointed a hungerleaf wrap at him angrily before turning to the returned warrior. “Did you find the Minotaur? Any news?”

  “So Turi can’t have his story, but you want yours?” Galen asked with a smile.

  “That’s the way it works,” Rick said.

  Arturus took another bite of his meat pie to make sure that he didn’t respond. Again the juices dribbled down his chin. He laughed and wiped them away with his sleeve.

  Galen cleared his throat. “I traveled as far West as the Pole and circled back both North and South of Harpsborough until I came as far as the Carrion. I found nothing. The devils were light everywhere. You almost have to go looking for them to find them.”

  “It is a Minotaur, then?” Rick asked, worry in his eyes.

  Galen shook his head and looked towards the spinning axle that came through the wall from the water wheel. He watched it turn for a few moments. “At first I thought so. I could practically smell a Bullman out there. Every place I looked was full of people and short of meat. But if there was a Minotaur drawing the devils to him, then the devils should have been going somewhere. There should have been a place near the Bullman where they were thickening. I asked around at the Pole, at Riverled and Macon’s Bend to find where they had gone. I even went as far as Carlsbad. I heard nothing but silly rumors. It’s as if all the dyitzu and hounds have just vanished.”

  Arturus munched quietly on his devilwheat seeds, and leaned forward.

  “If I had just arrived here,” Galen went on, “I’d have sworn this place had just been cleaned out by Infidel Friend.”

  “But aren’t they evil?” Arturus asked around the seeds in his mouth.

  “You cannot judge what you do not know,” Galen told him.

  “No Minotaur, then?” Rick asked.

  “None that I could find.”

  “Then the devils’ absence must be like a tide going out,” Rick said. “You know it happens from time to time. The demons ebb and flow. We could be in for a time of great prosperity.”

  “Possibly,” Galen said, nodding his head, “or perhaps there is a Bullman out there and it’s just drawn the devils someplace where I don’t know to look. Either way, we should enjoy the good times while we have them. In the labyrinth they don’t come often, and don’t last long.

  There was a pause in the conversation while they ate.

  “I was thinking I could gather the hungerleaves tomorrow,” Arturus said, looking up from his plate to measure the reactions of both his parents.

  “It’ll be a heavy harvest,” Galen said, “and that’s pretty far out. You sure you want to volunteer?”

  Arturus shrugged. “I made some mistakes when I was traveling to Harpsborough, because I was nervous. I wanted to work on them some. Traveling to the grove seems like the right way to do it.”

  Galen grunted his approval, and Rick was nodding.

  Got it!

  Arturus took another bite of a hungerleaf wrap to celebrate.

  Galen pushed his plate, still half filled with food, towards the center of the table. “Which reminds me, Turi. Rick and I have been discussing you.”

  Arturus stopped mid-chew and looked back and forth between his fathers.

  “Rick told me that he felt safe sending you to Harpsborough. I’m going to be very busy, as hunting for dyitzu is likely to take more time than usual, and the Devil knows I won’t find a hellhound easily. I trust you won’t mind going out with me on occasion?”

  Arturus swallowed and nodded.

  “And since you seem to be able to travel back and forth to Harpsborough,” Galen continued, “I thought it might be nice to get you a jo
b.”

  “A job?” Arturus asked, a little wary.

  “Before I left, the First Citizen let me know that they were getting bored up there in the Fore. They wanted to commission some chess sets. As I will be too busy hunting, I thought I might have you make one.”

  Arturus frowned. “But I don’t have the slightest idea how to make a chess set. I don’t even know how to play the game.”

  Galen smiled, leaned forward in his chair, and scooped up a few spider eggs out of their stone bowl. He chewed them thoroughly before continuing.

  “I’ll show you how,” Galen said. “I know you will be good at it. My only fear is the Harpsborough part.”

  “What do you mean?” Arturus asked.

  “Well, the First Citizen is very particular about projects he commissions. After you finish each piece, you’ll have to take it to Harpsborough to make sure he approves it. You’d end up going back and forth to Harpsborough nearly every day.”

  Arturus’ heart leapt. “Every day?”

  “Every day.”

  I’ll get to see Alice. She might finally get to know who I am.

  “Can you handle that, Arturus?” Rick asked him. “This is a big responsibility. We’re asking a lot, more than just that you complete this simple job. We’re asking you to take a serious step towards being an adult. After a few more jobs like this, after you are free to hunt on your own, you won’t be our child anymore.”

  Suddenly Arturus was worried. “Would I have to leave?”

  Galen laughed so loudly that Arturus looked towards the exit, afraid that there might be devils nearby their home which could hear.

  “No,” Rick said, glancing at Galen. “We’d be asking you to be our peer.”

  The young man nodded solemnly.

  I’ll go to Harpsborough every day.

  “I’ll do it!” he said.

  “Now run to bed, Turi,” Galen said. “Rick and I have a few things to discuss.”

  Arturus was so excited that he didn’t even think to protest but instead ran quickly across the gravel hallway to his own room so that he could dream about his future trips.

  She’ll see me dealing with the First Citizen. Aaron won’t be the only one who has connections to the Fore.

  But in his haste, he had forgotten to relieve himself before lying down, and soon he was creeping back out of his chambers towards the river where he would give the Devil his water back.

  He heard the echoed voices of Galen and Rick, who were still speaking in the battery room. From the way they were whispering he knew that this was a conversation he wasn’t supposed to hear.

  “You disapprove,” Rick’s hushed voice was saying.

  “Yes.”

  Arturus looked longingly down the hallway. He needed to piss, certainly, but he wanted to hear the conversation too.

  “He only spoke to Massan. Massan’s a good man. He’s not going to tell anyone. And if he did, the stigma would be on him as much as us.”

  “A 5.56 barrel isn’t something I want Turi associated with,” Galen said. “You and me, that’s one thing. But he’s just a boy.”

  Arturus crossed his arms over his abdomen and shifted from one foot to the other. That single crunch of gravel was enough to silence Galen.

  Eavesdropping would be impossible now, so Arturus made a break for the river.

  The chamber which contained the Hungerleaf Grove was filled with the Kingsriver’s mist. Arturus loved the mists whenever they came. Galen said that they were caused by warm water, which had flowed through fires or been heated by the friction of settling stone. As far as Arturus was concerned, they meant that the water would be perfect for swimming.

  The Harpsborough hunters, though, hated the mists. They liked to hunt along the Kingsriver because its chambers were so large—often miles long and hundreds of feet tall. A dyitzu was easy to spot in such a chamber and was little match for a man with a rifle at such a long range. But the haze would mean that a hunter wouldn’t see any devils until they got close—close enough that the dyitzu’s fire wouldn’t be very easy to dodge.

  Several land bridges connected to the Hungerleaf Grove, which grew out of a large natural island in the midst of one of the Kingsriver’s oxbow lakes. Arturus felt very capable of protecting himself as he made his way across one of those bridges, his lightweight rifle strapped to his back, and his .38 pistol holstered at his side. The hungerleaf trees emerged from the fog as he approached, their long, spindly leaf covered branches reaching out, their scaly grey bark damp from the river’s condensation.

  He breathed in the warm air.

  “Alice,” he called.

  He saw a shadow moving in the haze on the other side of the island.

  “Declare yourself,” he said.

  He heard a girl’s laugh. “You think I’m a corpse, Turi?” It was Alice’s voice.

  As she walked forward her distant grey silhouette slowly transformed into a beautiful blonde girl dressed in a blue skirt and white t-shirt. Her hair had been pulled back into a ponytail. While she tended to wear old world shoes in the village, she had on some dyitzu skin moccasins now. She had sewn them up beautifully but could stand to learn from Galen how to attach soles to them.

  “You might be a corpse,” Turi answered. “How should I know?”

  She held up her hands before her and shambled forward. “Brains. Brains?” She clutched at his shoulders mockingly and began to pretend to eat his face. He felt her body as it brushed against his. She gave him a little shove, laughing.

  Her laughter sounded beautiful in the mists.

  He noticed she was almost exactly the same height as he. “What do you mean, brains?”

  “Everyone knows corpses eat brains.”

  “No they don’t,” he said, puzzled.

  She just laughed harder. “I can tell you were born here, sometimes. Did you bring the food?”

  He unslung his backpack and held it up. “Yes.”

  “I brought something, too. It’s not much, but it’s wrong for friends not to share with each other. Follow me, we’ll go get it.”

  Her blue skirt swished back and forth as she walked through the Hungerleaf Grove. One of the branches caught on her shoulder, and he had to duck to avoid it. Galen had been wrong, he noticed; there wasn’t going to be much of a harvest. Many of the lower leaves had been taken already. It was possible that Rick had managed to get a run in recently, but it probably meant that the villagers were stealing from them.

  They’re so hungry in Harpsborough, I doubt Galen will even be mad.

  She knelt down by a stump where she must have been waiting for him and picked up a satchel. It was definitely old world, and had a white kitten with a pink bow as decoration.

  “What’s in it?” he asked.

  She opened the satchel a bit, and he leaned forward. She shut it suddenly. “You’ll see.”

  “No! What is it?”

  “Come on, where do you want to eat?”

  He made a grab for the satchel, but she turned around and held it over her head.

  “I was thinking here,” he said. “Maybe we could go swimming.”

  He stopped suddenly, hearing something in the mist. Making sure to keep his body in front of Alice’s, he drew his gun and looked out over the Kingsriver. A figure was standing at the far bank, looking at them from across the water. He couldn’t make out the details of the thing, but it was almost too still to be a human.

  “Declare yourself!” Arturus shouted.

  No response.

  “I’ll get it,” Alice said, stepping up beside him and drawing her pistol.

  “Declare yourself!” Arturus tried again.

  “It’s dead, Turi.”

  Arturus gauged the distance. “That’s a long shot for a pistol.”

  She took careful aim, and fired two rounds. Both hit, and the figure toppled back into the fog.

  “Nice shooting,” he said.

  She nodded in satisfaction. “Well, maybe we shouldn’t eat here. How
about the Bordonelles?”

  Arturus looked across the river, waiting to see if the corpse would get back up. “But the hunters won’t go there.

  Isn’t it dangerous?”

  “No! You’re so young.”

  Arturus was crushed. “Am not.”

  “Maybe. Did your parents ever tell you not to go there?”

  Arturus thought about this, eyeing her satchel in hopes of getting a clue as to what it contained. “No.”

  “That’s because it’s not dangerous at all. It’s just a superstition from after your father killed the Icanitzu there. Martin’s got them all afraid. Thinks he’s seen a banshee.”

  “A banshee?”

  “If Martin saw a banshee, he’d be dead.”

  He nodded. That was pretty good logic, actually. And besides, she had already said he seemed young. He didn’t want to make that any worse. “Alright, let’s go.”

  She flashed him a half-smile. “Follow me.”

  The Bordonelles were series of hollow cylindrical chambers which were connected to each other by narrow crawlways. Galen had shown him how to get to the Bordonelles, once, from the rustrock road. Alice led him in from a chamber off of the Kingsriver. He hadn’t realized how close this part of the Kingsriver got to the road until now.

  The crawlway she took him to was about three and a half feet tall.

  “This way,” she said, bending down and getting on her hands and knees.

  Arturus did his best not to watch the effect this motion had on her skirt and followed after. “Do we need any light?”

  “No, trust me.”

  She led him down a set of crawlways which he made sure to memorize. He didn’t think that they would have any problems getting out, but it helped to make sure. The right side of the passage gave way to one of the cylindrical rooms, but she kept on moving, leading them farther into the darkness. After a quick turn, Arturus could no longer see.

  “Almost there.”

  They entered into a room whose walls had collapsed. Light was streaming down from an opening near the ceiling. Unlike the smooth walls in the other Bordonelles chambers, these were now rugged and uneven. Much of the rock had fallen in and lay strewn about the floor.