The Last Benediction in Steel

by Wright, Kevin

  “Your Highness. Lady. Elona. Don’t.”

  She looked up. “Don’t what?”

  “Don’t relive it.”

  “Relive what? Her death? I don’t even know that she died. She was sick for a long while which was difficult enough. And then she simply…” her voice cracked, “she simply disappeared. Vanished. The very line of demarcation in my existence. There was before that day, and there was every day after. My every waking moment a nightmare consumed by it. I relive it constantly. The hurt. The loss. The … everything. Have you ever lost anyone close, Sir Luther? Anyone dear?”

  “One or two,” I said.

  “You garnered some form of closure then, despite the pain.”

  “Yeah, I suppose, sure.”

  “But us?” Her chin quivered. “Me? Never knowing? Questions ever baying at the back of my mind. Was she murdered? Was she another who disappeared? Or perhaps she thought to mitigate our anguish at her slow demise. I pray every day still. Pray that perhaps she came to her senses. That she retrieved her health. That she … that she simply abandoned us.” She glanced up, grim, sad, beautiful, as tears cut a swath down her face. “Perhaps she’s the Queen of Bohemia even now? Attending balls with lords and kings…”

  “I’ve met the King of Bohemia, and he has no balls,” I said.

  She smiled at that. Almost.

  “And she loved your father,” I said. “Stayed with him. For him. That ain’t nothing. And that kind of love can maybe make even a shit-hole like Haeskenburg seem like Elysium.”

  “Elysium…? Have you stood downwind of him as of late?” The Queen shook her head. “They ignored me, did you know?” Her eyes glazed over again, threatening to spill free. “Set me aside. Told me to do my duty. Comfort my father, drowning in his grief. His cups. How? How does a child bear that burden? That responsibility. And my sister, Jane?”

  “I remember her, too.” Elona had always been in the company of her younger sister, invariably holding her hand, whispering words of encouragement, wiping tears, fighting through her own sorrow to make the young girl smile, even if for the briefest of moments. “And I remember you doing what you could.”

  “What I could? Yes. And still, it fell woefully shy.” The Queen shook her head slowly. “Jane took after my mother. A true beauty. She would have married into some great house. Could have…” She sniffed. “She’d not have been stuck here.”

  I swallowed. Said nothing.

  “Jane’s soul died the day my mother disappeared,” the Queen said. “An empty, hollow thing from that day forth. I tried to fill her with … something. Something of worth. Of value. Of purpose. To be her strong, older, wiser sister, but…” I could feel her breath on my face. “It was only later when she took her own life that the ledger was finally balanced. My family lost, gone, washed away.” She swallowed. “I was suffering the same loss as they but could find no succor. Anywhere. My father, a broken man, yes, but at least, grown. But me? Still but a child? Who did I have? What did I have?” She wiped her cheek. “How can they expect you to be a whole person when so much of you is lost?

  “And then you came. And at my wedding reception, you made me laugh. Japing. Joking with the hounds. I think it the only time…” The Queen reached forth and squeezed my hand. “The only time I laughed. I thank you for that. Thank you for taking the time to make a useless, insipid girl laugh on a cold autumn night so many decades ago.”

  “What’s insipid mean?” I asked.

  She smiled finally, at that one. “Thank you for showing me that there is still some good in this world, something beyond duty and sorrow. And if you would forgive my behavior at dinner. I had been drinking to excess—”

  “Is there another way?”

  “As of late?” She shook her head. “No. And I’ve found that the ill will I harbor toward my husband is a vessel which often overflows. I’d not—”

  Outside my door, the sound of feet padded by along with furtive whispers.

  “Shhh—” I touched a finger to her lips. They were warm. Soft.

  Servants, most likely, but a servant’s word could spark flame quick as tinder. And if that flame spread…

  I swallowed after they passed, retracting my hand. She wasn’t breathing. Neither was I. Her eyes shone by the light through cracks in the door. They were blue, they were broken, they were beautiful.

  “It brings me pleasure to know I offered you some small measure of comfort in your hour of darkness.” I peeled her fingers, one by one, gently, from mine. Her hands trembling. Or was it mine? “But you must go, Elona. If you were found here—”

  She kissed me then, on tiptoe, gripping my shirt, drawing in tight, and purveyor of sane choices that I am, I didn’t stop her.

  …received a letter from my mother querying after the fate of the campaign, myself, and, of course, dearest Father.

  —War-Journal of Prince Ulrich of Haeskenburg

  Chapter 18.

  A SLIVER OF GREY SUN peeked over the horizon, casting shards of light across Father Demtry’s corpse, dangling, twirling ever so gently from a frayed rope looped over a long horizontal branch grown seemingly for the specific purpose of hanging poor, bloody bastards. And Father Demtry was the poorest. The bloodiest. His head crooked horribly, plastered to one side, neck obviously broken and then some, tongue lolling out, desiccated and cracked like some fat black slug, stifled halfway through its crawl to freedom.

  “Good hanging tree.” Karl spat aside in keen appreciation.

  “Yeah.” I took a step back, shielding my eyes, looking up, taking it all in. “Like the Good Lord himself crafted it just so.” The tor overlooked the bay and the town. “Daresay a lovely spot, even.”

  “Perhaps you two can build a cottage here and retire?” Stephan squinted up.

  Karl split a grin, “You do make me proud now and again, lad.”

  “Something bothering you, brother?” I asked. “Like maybe sleeping outside on the cold hard ground?”

  With a look like he’d swallowed a gallon of bile, Stephan muttered something and crossed himself.

  “Jesus…” I’d thought it the priest’s vestments dangling til I realized it was his skin. From the waist up, it’d been flayed off, flensed down in ragged strips, his front, his back, his everything. “Sure gave it to him good.”

  “Crows’ve got at him,” Karl grunted.

  “Can always count on crows.” I spread a horse blanket on the ground beneath the dangling horror.

  Stephan covered his mouth with a handkerchief. “Let’s get him down.”

  Karl was already on it. With his thane-axe, he chopped the rope, and the carcass crashed down in a muddled heap.

  Stephan shook his head.

  Karl shrugged, “Dunna think he’ll mind.”

  I glanced over at Sir Alaric, seated in the front of the wagon. “You could help.”

  “Could’s a loaded word, and for sure,” Sir Alaric chewed his pipe, “but being an old fucker’s got to be good somewhere. I’m picking here.”

  “Awesome.” Karl and I each took corners of the horse blanket and hefted Father Demtry, “One… Two… Three—” and hurled him into the bed of the wagon.

  “Are you two serious?” Stephan hissed.

  I looked at Karl and he at me. “Occasionally.”

  Sir Alaric slid aside and Stephan, hunched and muttering, snatched the reins. Karl and I lounged in the back with the clearly departed. I craned my neck, avoiding Sir Alaric’s keen gaze, fearing he’d somehow sense what happened the night before between me and his daughter. I ran a finger along the collar of my coat-of-plate shirt, digging into my neck. “See anyone yet?”

  “Been watching us since we left the Schloss.” Sir Alaric pointed with the stem of his pipe. “And whilst you were pruning the Good Lord’s own rotten fruit, a hand-full of ‘em slithered out the town’s walls.”

  “Fat Jesus one of them?”

  “Wha—” Sir Alaric coughed.

  “The Nazarene,” I clarified.

&nbs
p; “Eh? Oh.” Sir Alaric scratched his nose. “Nay. Saw a tall fella, though, rail-thin.”

  We started down the hill. First thing this morning, King Eckhardt had announced by crier at the camps and decrees nailed to town gates that Father Demtry’s corpse was to be cut down and buried properly. This morning. On hallowed ground as befitted his priestly station. Between the lines, what the decree stated was King Eckhardt was growing some sack and reasserting his kingly authority.

  We figured on a response.

  And we figured on responding to that response.

  “Aye, yar, I see ‘em.” Karl adjusted his thane-axe. “And they us.”

  “Where?”

  “Beyond that great willow.”

  I squinted, trying to suss shadow from shape, “Yeah. Alright.”

  Sir Alaric took a long pull on that pipe, gathered up his crossbow, stuck a foot in the stirrup, bent his back and groaned, muscling the string back.

  “Need a hand, old man?” I asked.

  “I’ll manage.” Sir Alaric winced, locking the string back in place.

  The wagon trundled down the hill, creaking and moaning and shuddering almost as much as Sir Alaric.

  “We shouldn’t have come.” Stephan shook his head.

  “No. You shouldn’t have come,” I growled. “Jesus. Always aiming to save the damned world.”

  “As opposed to what you’re set to do?”

  “And what’s that?”

  “Take the easy route.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m like water in that regard.”

  “First, he reneges on punishing Sir Gustav, now this.” Teeth bared, Stephan snapped the reigns.

  “Sir Gustav’s down there waiting to spring the trap,” Sir Alaric said. “Wouldn’t do to punish one of your best fighting men, lad. Not in this clime. Not afore a fight.”

  “He promised.” Stephan glared at me. “And you promised you’d talk to him.”

  “Ain’t the time for squabbling,” I said. “And holding his feet to the fire didn’t seem prudent.”

  “Granted. But they say this Nazarene can heal the sick.” Stephan chopped with an emphatic hand. “They say he can raise the dead. Miracles, Lou. Just imagine. If he’s able to perform them, we can’t kill him. We can’t.” He looked to Karl and Sir Alaric for agreement. Sympathy. Humanity. He found none. “Am I the only one who sees that?”

  “You’re in the wrong wagon, brother,” I said. Cause he was. Sir Alaric was under orders to end this religious prick. As was I. Head of the snake, and all. And Karl was Karl. Killing was the only thing he was good for.

  “But if the light of the Lord shines within him—”

  “We’re to arrest him, lad.” Sir Alaric patted the warrant in his coat pocket.

  “And when he doesn’t cede to your demand?”

  Sir Alaric said nothing; he just smoked his pipe and cradled his crossbow, humming softly.

  “We’ll see if he can raise himself?” I offered.

  “The Lord’s gifts would not be bestowed upon a man of evil intent.”

  I pointedly ignored him. “How many down there, old man?”

  “Five.”

  Karl methodically sharpened the edge of his thane-axe. Shunk… Shunk… Shunk… It was a noise that over the years had come to bolster me through troubled times. And these were those.

  “They’ll be on us soon as we hit the gate.” Stephan worked the reins, cooing to soothe the skittish horse. “Easy, girl. Easy.”

  “That’s the plan.”

  Saint Wenceslaus’ Church sat at the foot of Gallow’s Tor, a stone-throw outside the confines of Husk’s wall, looming through the trees. It was a small church, little more than a shrine set amidst a graveyard. We got there in short shrift.

  “Here they come,” Karl said.

  As we rounded a bend, five scourgers barred our passage. They looked beat and frayed and worn to hell, all effigies of our crucified Lord in differing stages of molt and malnourishment, but a lunatic shine glowed with an unnerving verve in their collective eye.

  A tall, thin blackguard lurched haphazard to the fore. “Halt, you heathen dogs!” It was Skeleton, from the other night, the one inciting riot in the courtyard. “Turn back!”

  Stephan tugged on the reins, “Whoa!”

  “By order of the Lord, our God,” Skeleton spat, “you’re to turn back and return the blasted pederast where you found him.”

  I leaned over to Sir Alaric. “I think he’s talking about you.”

  Sir Alaric knocked out his pipe and said nothing.

  Skeleton rose to his full height and fury, his head big, awful, ungainly. “Be gone!” A stiff wind might’ve bowled him over. “Now!”

  “Jesus, I can see your nipples.” I squinted. “Mister, I don’t know your name, but it’s tough taking a bloke serious as such.”

  “By order of His Majesty, King Eckhardt Haesken the Third of his name,” Sir Alaric barked, “you’re to disperse immediately and discontinue these seditious actions. Refusal will result in swift and exacting punishment.”

  “We have the authority of the Lord Almighty.” Skeleton gripped the handle of his scourge.

  “Please, good sirs,” Stephan raised a hand, “our sole desire is to perform our Christian duty and lay this godly man to rest.”

  “Godly?” Skeleton’s sneer revealed teeth as brown as his robes. “Did you not hear? The man was a sinner.”

  “Please, sir, if I may—?” Stephan pleaded, warned, cajoled, cause he knew what was coming.

  Skeleton ripped his scourge from across his neck and let it dangle from his fist.

  “Stand down.” Sir Alaric set a foot on the buckboard and took aim. “Take a walk, friend. Don’t look back.”

  “Ain’t your friend,” Skeleton growled and he and his comrades started forth. “By the Lord God I christen thee—” Skeleton cocked his arm back to flay Stephan, and in that instant, Sir Alaric calmly squeezed the trigger and the crossbow staves jumped — thunk!

  Point blank, his bolt buried to the birds in Skeleton’s chest. Staggering back, he grunted, a look of astonishment bulging his mad eyes as he gasped, mouth working, no words forthcoming, only an empty hollow ‘O’ as he tripped over the low wall and toppled backward.

  The four left made to charge when Karl leaped out, landing in the muck, feet spread, his thane-axe hungry. I was by his side in an instant, Yolanda gleaming bare. We said nothing.

  But they got the gist.

  Pipe clenched between gritted teeth, Sir Alaric deftly reloaded. No groaning this time. No moaning. Just staid, practiced movement, done a thousand times.

  Stephan gathered his aid-bag and vaulted from the wagon. “Let me have a look—”

  “Get back!” I collared him, yanking him nearly off his feet.

  “He’s dying.” Stephan tried to shrug free.

  I bore down. “So fucking let him.”

  “Let. Me. Go.”

  I hurled him back against the wagon.

  “No, he’s — Lord … no.” Stephan slumped in defeat when he looked. Really looked.

  The four scourgers glanced at one another.

  I stepped to the fore, Yolanda at my shoulder. “My brother’s trying to save you,” I explained. “I’m not. So you can go, or we can see how this shakes out, yeah?” Not much argument against a loaded crossbow and bared bastard blade, not to mention Karl the homicidal dwarf. Begging maybe? Or they could hang their hopes on superior numbers. But if they’d the stones to stand tall someone’d be eating iron, and these blokes were sporting burlap wraps rather than mail. “Fuck off. Take a stroll back to somewhere that ain’t here. Start a farm. Fuck some sheep. Live.”

  Skeleton moaned softly, fingers plucking at the bolt-feathers dead center in his chest. A fine shot. His fingers stopped moving after a tense moment, then so too did the rest of him. The other four lowered their scourges, seeming uncertain, teetering on the edge. All’s they needed was a little nudge.

  “Shit.” I glared past them.

&n
bsp; Here came that nudge.

  Through the trees, down the path, from the town, came chanting.

  A moment later, devil-smirks slithered across cracked lips. “Our brothers come to cast judgment upon thee!” One of the four bellowed to the sky, dropping to his knees, his brethren following suit.

  “Through the trees,” Stephan pointed, “more coming. A lot more.”

  “Shit. Yeah. I see them.”

  “Let ‘em,” Karl planted his feet.

  The scourger horde came stomping down the road, through the trees and around the church, a long foul procession of brown and grey and ragged madness. Crucifix and banner were hefted haphazard on pike and rod and bent tree limb. The Tome-Bearer stumbled along, leading the raucous march, the withered old geezer’s hair frizzed out like a lightning-struck bird’s nest, a wild gleam in his eye as he toiled, grunting under the massive burden chained to his neck.

  “Lad,” Sir Alaric warned, “might want to signal Sir Gustav.”

  I glanced over at the church. “Best keep them under wraps til there’s a clean shot.”

  “Rabble,” Karl spat.

  “Mad rabble,” Sir Alaric countered.

  “Fair enough.” I swallowed. “How many?”

  “Judas priest,” Stephan’s lips moved, counting beneath his breath, “a lot.”

  Shit. “About what I counted, too.”

  Sir Alaric knelt, taking careful aim. I could hear him breathing slow, smooth. Beside me, Karl was grinning mad. He loved this shit. Which was reassuring. Sort of.

  Three scraggly Jesus-urchins clambered from the pack and collapsed, heads down to their raw hands and knobby knees, penitent in the cold muck. The Tome-Bearer staggered forth behind and flopped his tome across their backs, slapping like a dead fish, knocking one unconscious. Leering like an inbred pedophile, he tore open the cover, yawning like the mouth of some fell beast, the spine squealing, creaking, crackling in protest.