The Last Benediction in Steel

by Wright, Kevin

  “What does it say?” Lady Mary closed the door behind.

  “It’s from the King,” I whispered behind a raised hand. “He thinks I’m very handsome.” I fanned myself. “Oh lord, whatever shall I do?”

  “Sure it’s not from the Queen?” Lady Mary sneered.

  “Jesus,” I sniffed, “you snuff the fun out of everything.”

  “Fun?” she deadpanned. “Here? Seriously?”

  “And what about you?”

  “What about me?” Lady Mary crossed her arms daring me to speak.

  “You and the handsome, young, eligible Prince Eventine,” I said. “Play your cards right and you could be queen someday. This,” I raised my hand and slathered it across an imaginary horizon, “could all be yours.”

  “You heard me.” Lady Mary frowned. “The first convent. The very first.”

  “Right,” I said. “Just go easy on Stephan when the time comes, eh?”

  Lady Mary bit something back.

  “Apologies.” I folded the note, tucked it away. “I’ll be on my—”

  “Wait — Sir Luther. Please.” She leaned in, voice low, “What does it say?”

  “It’s a meeting. Soon. Why?”

  “Fine.” Through pursed lips, she carried on. “It’s Ruth, she—”

  “Looks like shit? Worse than her husband? Her dying husband.”

  “She gives her share of food to her children and Abraham.”

  “Want me to force-feed her? I’m sure that’d win her over.”

  “Unlikely.” Lady Mary shook her head. “That ship has sailed, I think.”

  “Yeah. Right to the bottom of the river.” I turned to leave. “She asked me for a bible. I’ll get her one. And whatever extra food I can. If there’s any.”

  “Alright.”

  “If there’s nothing else…?” I asked. “I’ve a pressing engagement.”

  “For what?” She glanced down again at the letter.

  “Probably to get murdered, why?”

  “I thought if anything might jog Ruth from her stupor, it would be the children. Perhaps if something could bolster their spirits, she might be bolstered, as well. Your idea with the books. It was thoughtful. If you could gather more?”

  “Why not ask yourself? Pull some strings with Eventine? I’m sure he’d help.”

  “I’m afraid to leave Ruth, is all.” Lady Mary glanced over her shoulder. “She … she’s so far away right now. Please…”

  “Alright,” I said. “I’ll think of something.”

  “Wait.” She laid a hand on my shoulder. “And watch yourself.”

  I paused. “Are you in love with me, my lady?”

  “What?” She retracted her hand. “Judas Priest, no. I’m concerned.”

  “Concerned about your burgeoning feelings for me?”

  “No.” She scowled, wiping her hand on her skirt. “I’m concerned you might get murdered and leave us all in the lurch.”

  “Well, I guess that’s a start. Here.” I handed her the letter. “Burn it after you read it. And if I do turn up murdered or missing or worse, tell Karl. He’ll probably throw a party.”

  …the fourth night of our stay in Fort Enoch, as we had taken to calling it, when my boon comrade, the steadfast and valiant Sir Kragen, was found slain in the most hideous of…

  —War-Journal of Prince Ulrich of Haeskenburg

  Chapter 24.

  I SWALLOWED as I slid alone through the labyrinth of cool shadow of the Schloss’s refugee camp. Canvas walls rose all around, filtering the sounds but not stink of humanity. Stephan was nowhere to be found. Would’ve been a boon to have him jawing at my side, the word of the Lord and all, but then again, with his altered promises on Sir Gustav’s lashing, I wasn’t sure how solid his footing was with the locals. And the note had said to come alone.

  So I looked around.

  A fine place for an ambush. Couple fellas scheming in concert? Standing behind cloth walls? Brandishing daggers? Even in broad daylight, it’d be a simple thing surprising a bloke, knifing him, muscling him gagging back into oblivion. Might only take a second. They had the forethought to bring a shovel and they wouldn’t need even to lug him. Do some digging out of the sun and shine, a little sweating, a little swearing. Have a nice patch of green come mid-summer and none the wiser.

  Nonetheless, I slid further into its midst, gripping my dagger, watching, waiting, wary. The Schloss loomed above, crooked as an old miner’s spine. Dozens of black windows glared down, any one of which might hold unfriendly eyes. The ever-present clack and clatter of war-training in the yard staccatoed the air. Von Madbury and Gustav, training up some press-ganged recruits.

  Muffled behind the stretch of canvas, voices muttered low all around, occult, oblique, unintelligible.

  I slid further in, stepping carefully over a guy line, ducking another, moving behind one of the taller tents, a sodden affair, masking me from the Schloss but leaving me fair exposed to anyone atop the walls. I glared up. The fella manning the gate tower, Taran, had his feet propped up and head down and was earning his keep the old-fashioned way, hoping no one noticed him shirking duty.

  Someone behind cleared their throat.

  I stiffened, waiting on a knife thrust. A quick punch to the kidney. The spine. A rip across the neck. When none came, I turned, forced a breath, then another, could still feel Rudiger’s arms constricting my chest, crushing me down, helpless, weak, small.

  “Anyone see you come?” a man, not more than a shadow, asked from inside the slit-door of a tent.

  “No,” I lied. The whole fucking castle might’ve seen me, but it’s always best to start off with your best foot forward and mine was lying rotten through my teeth. “Took the long way.” I pointed off. Somewhere. “Round the stables, kept to the wall, the shadows under the walk.” I raised an eyebrow up at Taran. “Sleeping Beauty’s sawing wood.”

  Shadow shifted, hovering just out of sight. “Can hear him from here.”

  “Can hardly blame him.” I mindfully released the grip of my dagger, finger by finger squealing in rusty protest, let my arm hang loose, natural, ready. “Exhausting work. Obviously.” I glanced around. Nothing but tents as far as the eye could see. “You coming out? Want me to come in?”

  Shadow sniffed, shifted, considered. “Naw. Best we both stay put.”

  “You don’t trust me.”

  “No.”

  “You ain’t stupid. Good.” Someone inside the tent at my back shifted, the zip of something dragging lightly across fabric. It could have been a blackguard aiming a crossbow at my spine. Could’ve been some poniard-wielding bugger looking to add some murder-holes to my kidneys. Or it could’ve been some young maid suckling her young. “What is it you want?”

  “You seem a good chap,” Shadow said, “for a knight.”

  “And you seem quite the handsome fellow,” I said, “for a shadow.”

  “Huh?”

  “Forget it,” I breathed. “So why is it you think I’m so good?”

  “Saw you last week with your brother, at the scourging. Standing up to them. And then helping out Lianna the other day.”

  “Lianna…?” I drew a blank.

  “Young girl. Blondish. Pretty. Was hoofing it across the yard when that one-eyed son of a bitch took notice. Could tell he was set on taking more.”

  I shrugged. “Anything to blacken his eye.”

  “The man’s filth. Or worse…”

  “They say you can always judge a book by its cover.”

  “That what they say?”

  “No. But fuck them, it’s true. Mostly. What is it you want?”

  “To help you.”

  “Truly? Got a ship I can borrow? A horse that can hoof it through the swamps? Over the pass?”

  “Huh? What?”

  “Whiskey, then?”

  “No.” Shadow paused, shifted, gathering himself. “You know about Husk?”

  “I’m learning,” I said.

  “They say you’re one of them
fellas what went hunting for the murderer up the old keep.”

  “Yeah. Sure.” My hand had found my dagger again, all of its own accord. “Rudiger.”

  “Rudiger, eh?” Shadow said. “That what he’s calling his self nowadays?”

  “Was.”

  “Huh?”

  “He’s dead.”

  “Oh, aye? How?”

  “Running with scissors,” I explained. “Should’ve listened to his mother.”

  “You sure?”

  “Sir Alaric gutted him,” I said. “So, yeah, fairly sure.”

  Shadow considered. “He been disappearing folk up there some time.” The man chuffed a cold laugh.

  “What’s funny?”

  “Up there sounds like it’s only up at the old keep.”

  “Yeah?” I sniffed. “So what’s that mean? So what?”

  “Been folk disappeared all around.”

  “The Grey-Lark Forest camp. Yeah. I heard. We’re looking into it.”

  “Was one last night, too. Here.”

  “Here?” I looked around at the riot of tents. “You sure?”

  “Aye. Happened a couple tents away. Young fella. Name of Crispin.”

  “Crispin?” Fuck. “Anyone know?”

  “You do.”

  “Anyone with teeth?”

  “You’re a knight. You’ve teeth.”

  “I’m naught but a trumped-up hedge knight wallowing on sabbatical. Sir Alaric’s leading the glorious charge. Why not bark up his tree?”

  “Twenty years ago? Well, mayhap. Aye.” Shadow drew in a long breath. “Nowadays? Man’s a drunken old sot.”

  “Easy. That’s what I’m aiming to be someday.”

  “How about my brother?” I glanced around. “He’s living here. Somewhere.”

  “After what happened with Sir Gustav?” He snorted. “Or didn’t, I should say. Anyways. You know about this … this Rudiger?”

  “Sure. See him nowadays, he’s leaking like sieve.”

  “Mayhap not so much as you think.”

  “Oh?”

  “I see’d him yesterday, glooming down round his old haunt, the big lumber mill off Archer. On the Tooth.”

  “What were you doing down there?”

  “Taking shit that wasn’t mine. Anything useful I could lay hands on. Stealing. Surviving. Starving. Like everyone else round here.”

  “Couldn’t have been him.”

  “Except it were.”

  I licked my lips. “Convince me.”

  “I see’d him up at the old keep a few weeks past, too. Why me and mine left it. Came here. And I recognized him, only … only Rudiger weren’t his name back when I knew him. From afore. Last summer. Name when I knew him was Crennick. And aye, I’ll never forget his cursed face.”

  “Yeah? Why’s that?”

  “He was murdering back then, too. Year back, come summer. It were my niece he done killed. Elouise. A winsome lass. It were … a bloody thing. A bloody, awful thing.” His voice cracked, and he took a moment to regroup. “T-T’was your man hunted Rudiger down and brought him in.”

  “My man?” I started. “Red, you mean? Sir Alaric?”

  “Aye. Him.”

  I straightened as though from a blow. “You absolutely sure?”

  “Aye. Sure. For certain. He and Brother Miles frog-marched him in. Half the folk down on the Tooth seen it happen. I was one.” But a stone’s throw from where hanging priests was suddenly all the rage. “Days later, manacled and busted to shit, King and company walk-o’-shamed him on past half the town. Up the road to the old keep. Folks cheering the whole way. I was one.”

  “So what happened?” I asked. “Slap on the wrist? King Eckhardt’s a mite soft for a king maybe,” I looked around, “but even he’d drop the hammer on a child-killer.”

  A breeze kicked the tent door almost open. “Word was ole’ King Eckhardt had him done in.” He made the noise people make when they draw an imaginary knife across their throat.

  “Public execution?”

  “Execution, aye, but not public. No one seen it happen.”

  “Seems like a complete waste of gory spectacle.”

  “Way it’s done round here now. Didn’t used to be. No sir. Used to be they breaked ‘em on the wheel. Left ‘em to the crows and rot.”

  “Ah, the good old days.”

  Shadow said nothing.

  I could hear him breathing. “Any idea what they do to them now?”

  “King beheads ‘em up at the old keep. The old gaol. Him and that one-eyed fuck. Gustav, too, sometimes. Down in a tunnel.”

  “Really…?” I frowned. “Alright. Well, factoring in the obvious, if what you say’s true, he didn’t execute Rudiger. Or Crennick. Or whoever he is.” I scratched my beard. “So he must’ve escaped.”

  “Sure. Must’ve.”

  “And you saw him stalking around down the Tooth. The big lumber mill, yeah? Yesterday?” I squinted into the dark. “You weren’t all fucked-up drinking?” I asked cause I wasn’t sold. Well, it was cause I was an asshole, and I wasn’t sold, but it was also cause eye-witnesses were about as useful as tits on a windmill.

  “No, sir.” Shadow put his fist to his chest. “Ain’t had nothing to drink.”

  “You’d stake your life on it?”

  “I’d stake my life, my body, my soul.”

  “Then show me your face,” I said.

  For a moment, I thought we were done. Thought maybe he’d bolt out the tent’s arse end. But he drew the flap back. “Lianna’s father,” I said. It was a guess, but a fair-good one. He had her hair color, her eyes, her features. Though they looked a fair sight better on her.

  “Aye.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Giles.”

  “I told you, Giles, Sir Alaric punched him in to the hilt.” I patted Yolanda. “Through and through. Think anyone could shake that off?”

  In my mind’s eye, the Nazarene grimaced as he slipped his hand inside Lazarus’s dead flesh, groping around in the warm wet red til his fat fingers found the bolt-head skewered through layers of skin and fat, through cage-bars of bone, lodged solid in dense heart muscle. And when he yanked it out, Lazarus opened his eyes and hollered to God.

  “Don’t seem he knows how to die,” Giles said.

  “He’s an ignorant bastard, I’ll grant you,” I nodded, “but sometimes all it takes is a second lesson.”

  …Kragen’s corpse was found buried within brush on the outskirts of the clan-holt. He’d been emasculated with one of the many tools we’d brought to win over their hearts and…

  —War-Journal of Prince Ulrich of Haeskenburg

  Chapter 25.

  IT WAS A BIG BASTARD, there was no denying it.

  “That’s the one, yeah?” I glared at the mill laid out along the river like a dead giant.

  “Whew…” Sir Alaric stopped, gripping his side, wincing. “By the hound.” He didn’t look so good. He was pale. Sweaty. Old. “Aye lad, that it is.” He lifted an arm as though it were made of lead and pointed. “Down along yonder, the near side, might be best.”

  The mill itself was a beast. A rectangle-shaped footprint, walls of brick and mortar that went on for ages of eons.

  “Shit,” I commented, looking up at the wall, its sagging roof just visible in the dying twilight.

  “Yar…” Karl unshouldered his axe.

  “Hey Red,” I fixed him the eye, “how about me and Karl do the heavy lifting on this one?”

  “Truly lad,” Sir Alaric chewed his pipe, “I ought go in with you.”

  “Fair enough. I’d just rather your dead-eye was out here.” I patted Karl on the top of the head. “Have me and the troll play the hounds to your hunter.” I pointed toward a row of derelict houses down the way, commanding a view of the mill’s far side. “Flush the bastard out and right to you.” I dusted off my hands. “Voilà.”

  Sir Alaric laid a hand on my shoulder, and mumbled, “Thanks, lads.” It was his turn to fix us both the eye,
“You damn well watch yourselves,” and ambled off into the dark.

  “Well,” I breathed away a sudden tightening in my chest, “no time like the present.”

  “Tomorrow’d work, too,” Karl rumbled.

  “Yeah. Hell. Next day might be even better.”

  But we both trudged forth.

  The Abraxas flowed by, south to north, rippling along, its current unseen but still turning the enormous wheel set in the mill’s side. Unseen gears rumbled the ground beneath our feet, massive drive-shafts of squared timber rotating, working reciprocating saws up and down and up. Mundane most days, but here, alone, amid a ghost town with naught but that occult rumble? Unsettling. Like God grumbling down from on high. Or something equally ungracious up from below.

  But it’d cover our approach, so there was that.

  The door looked to be of the fair-stout variety.

  “You smell it?” Karl asked.

  “Dribs. Drabs. But yeah.” He was talking on the death-reek emanating from inside. I’d smelled it before Sir Alaric’d split. “You ready?”

  “Yeah.” I drew Yolanda. “Locked?”

  Karl laid a paw on the doorknob, gave it a surreptitious twist, shook his head, No. Karl shouldered his axe.

  “Wait.” Deep breath. “Let me.”

  “You feelin’ alright?”

  “Fuck off.” I adjusted my shield. Having a half-inch of oak embossed with iron between me and this fucker seemed the height of sound reasoning. But I’d been wrong before. “I’m good.”

  Karl twisted the knob, and I shouldered through, shield leading, gut wrenching, Yolanda waiting in the wings.

  The air was alive with the swirl of millstone dust and reciprocating saws. But that was all that was alive. The stench hit like a hammer. An abattoir stink. Fresh death. Blood and piss and shit. Lances of moonlight shone in through the high thin windows, knifing down, illuminating things best left unseen.

  “Bloody hell…” I slid forth.

  It was like the tunnel but worse. No old bones. Just … all fresh.

  “Watch it.” Karl kicked something aside that once was human.

  “Yeah.” I breathed through my mouth.

  The mill was mostly empty space except for structural posts and the squared-timber machine shafts intruding from the riverside.