Brenner: The Gospel of Madness (Book 5 of 6)

by Georg Bruckmann

  Milan

  “Be careful when you go in there, you hear,” Milan instructed his two scouts, who have since played their role with enthusiasm. Yes, you’re fine little hunting dogs. “Everyone else: Spread out and secure the area. I want to know which way they left from here.” Milan watched his scouts get off their horses and disappear into the house, the western half of which lay in ruins. All the others did as he commanded. He himself looked up into the sky for a short moment, noticed that it cleared up a bit, and then waited. It didn’t take long for the two scouts to be the first, and soon after them the others came back to him. In the house, the scouts reported, the ghost had placed two more booby traps, but fortunately the now over-cautious men had discovered them instead of stumbling directly into the tripwires. Milan felt tempted to give instructions to take the explosives with them. However, this would violate the Cardinal’s commandments and it was too dangerous to manipulate them if one did not know exactly how they worked. “How long do you think they were here? How close are we to them?” Milan turned to his two scouts. They started to answer at the same time, but when Rico spoke a little faster than dark-haired Franz, this fell silent. “Well, in one room it was still pretty warm and one was shit all over. I don’t think they’re particularly far away. There were also two empty gas burners. I guess they just rested a little and then moved on pretty fast. One of the trip wires was stretched in the hallway, the other on the basement stairs.” The scout had pressed out that last words with a touch of pride and breathlessness, and Milan granted him his tiny triumph. Go on, praise the puppy. “Good. Very good, Rico. Okay, we’ll rest another ten minutes and then we’ll go get them. Eat something, drink, and then get ready.” Milan took another piece of tongue. Then he remembered that he had something else of Viktor’s with him. The poison he had used to give his arrows their lethal aftertaste. Milan stuck his tongue back into the dog’s skin and took out the small round plastic container with the disgusting smelling resinous substance. One after the other, he pushed one of his arrows into it. It did not stick to the tips as well as the nature of the paste had made Milan expect. Probably needs heat to make it stick, he thought. But I think it’ll work still out well enough. When he had treated all his arrows in this way, he waved one of his men over and pressed the can into his hand. “Let that go around until it is empty. We will take no risks and use every advantage we have.” The man in question nodded diligently and Milan watched as his people obeyed the order with an expressionless face. As the stuff stank, it had to be a natural product and thus it was in conformity with the Cardinal’s commandments. However, the fact that Viktor had used a plastic can to store it displayed the man´s weakness all too clearly. The Cardinal would have preferred a pot of clay or a hollowed out branch, that would have been good. Milan couldn’t help the fact that Viktor had been an unworthy worm. When it was done and the plastic can was empty, he urged his people to hurry. Milan rode behind his two scouts at the head of his main squad as they followed the tracks across the feral field and headed for the forest line. When they reached the first row of trees, he stopped. Inside, he cursed. The advantage the horses had given them so far would be gone in the forest, and in addition there was the fact that ... “Everybody down. Two men stay here with the animals. The rest of you come with me. We’ll keep to the sides of their footsteps. Watch out for those damn booby traps. Once you see that a single person has moved away from the main group, be extra careful. Maybe someone just wanted to relieve himself. But it can also be that someone is lying in wait and wants us to march past him so that he can fall into our backs. Or it was that cursed son of a bitch planting one of his traps.” For a second Milan was still looking at the forest in front of him. Then he decided to split up his hunting group. One half would wander through the forest to the right of the footprints of the ghost and his wretched few, the other half to the left.

  Rolf

  The forest would help them to keep the distance between themselves and their pursuers constant. Again and again they had crossed forest roads and once also a highway, which crossed their path more or less right-angled and cut through the forest in this way. Every time Rolf had felt uncomfortable to be that exposed again, but there was no other way. In this respect, Rolf was quite satisfied with his decisions. But he knew very well that it was not a permanent option to just keep on fleeing. The people he had freed were on the verge of falling over, and he himself felt the efforts of last night more than clearly. They would soon have to rest properly, he thought, ignoring his body’s desire for more stimulants. You made bad decisions when you were high. He believed that they were just somewhere between Rosbach and Wehrheim. Basically, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to hole up somewhere in this forest. After all, there was the possibility that they would simply overlook them. But no, that was too uncontrollable. Too uncontrollable and too naive. They were disgusting creatures, but not idiots. Especially when it came to manhunts. Then what? Continuing until they would meet a community that could resist and protect the degenerates? What would be the result of such action? Sooner or later this settlement, which they hadn’t even found, would be overrun just like the main station - and it would have been him who had led the Degs to it in the first place. No, first they had to somehow manage to shake off their hunters. Another option would be to trap their pursuers and kill them down to the last man and woman. For this, however, they had to be rested and ... “What are you thinking about?” Rolf looked to the left. The girl was walking next to him and I just ducked under a branch. “Our options. Keep going or rest? If we rest, where? That’s the kind of thing I think about.” They kept going for a minute. Maria had not answered, but he could see how she too was thinking. After all, she was trying to make a contribution. Unlike the others, when René, who always kept close to Maria, was left out. The others simply did what they were told. Rolf wondered what they would do if he wasn’t there. Just sit on the floor and wait for them to die? No. He was being unfair. Since he had equipped them, he had seen on several occasions how some of them had stared at their weapons and turned them in their bony hands. Rolf had believed to see a touch of a thirst for revenge in this or that pair of eyes. That was good, he told himself, even though they were still missing the final impulse. There were still some steps to be taken in their minds and it would take quite a while before these people were ready to rediscover their own will to full extent. As soon as Rolf had formulated these thoughts in his head, Maria stopped and pointed forward: “Back there! What’s that?” Rolf found her sharp eyes remarkable. It had also been Maria who had been the first to discover the fence. “No idea, I don’t know. Let’s go and have a look.” What shone whitish and bright through the trees turned out to be the highest of about ten terraces of a quarry about two hundred meters wide. It stretched before them like an ossified wound cut into the world by giants. “Shall we bypass it?” “Yes, to the east,” Rolf replied to Maria’s question and bowed his head briefly to the right to clarify his instruction. “Wait … aren’t there often some kind of buildings in a quarry? What if we hide in one of them? We split up guards and get some rest?” “It’s too soon for that. It’s not even noon yet and...” Rolf broke off his answer. Couldn’t this be a good opportunity for them? Not to rest, but to give their pursuers a bloody welcome that earned that name? Maybe there was even a working vehicle down there? One that could carry all of them? A dump truck or something? In the city he had still assumed that he would free thirty to forty people – for those it should have been a public bus or something like that. The horseman attack and the following hail of arrows had changed this and reduced the number of those he had to take care of. Apart from that, he hadn’t expected to deal with more than just the few degenerate guards who had stayed in the house. But now, with a big pack of rabid Degs on their heels? It was worth a try. “Okay. Forget what I just said. We’re going down there and have a look.” Rolf wanted to avoid raising their hopes for a long break and explained that he believed that they possibly would find a suitable veh
icle somewhere on the quarry site, which first of all could still be made to run somehow, and secondly had enough fuel in the tank to bring at least a few additional kilometers between them and their pursuers. “Do you really think so?” René doubted the chances of success of Rolf’s projects. Rightly so, Rolf thought and said: “Yes. Of course.” They reached the abandoned administrative buildings of the quarry without any significant difficulties. Only Huber stumbled when a loose stone broke away under his foot and René went to help him. Rolf noticed that Maria didn’t seem to like seeing the two being together very much. Again and again she turned to them with a pinched face and then quickly looked away again. They cautiously moved between the functional office buildings, the arrangement of which resulted in a kind of open courtyard to which two long, opposing barracks were connected to the west. Rolf sent René out to search the low, elongated aisle of barracks. He had hoped that he would be able to get rid of Huber in this way, but Huber hadn’t twisted his foot as badly as he initially thought and went with him. Well, after all I tried. Rolf turned to Maria and the others. “Stay here. Rest for a moment. I’m going up to the roof...” He pointed to the more northern of the two administrative buildings. “… and try to get a better overview. Right now, we’ve got a north-south perimeter here. René and Huber secure west. Who’s fit enough to do the same in the east? Nobody? Maria? She nodded barely and went off along the muddy road that led to the actual quarry. Rolf let his gaze glide once more over the people he had saved. Saved? Did I really? Did I do it for them or for myself? Two of them, he thought it was Lennart and Julian, he hadn’t remembered their names that well, looked at him as if they wanted to say something, while the others were busy putting down their loads and digging up food and some of the little plastic bottles of water he had distributed with each of the bags before he had gone to free them. Rolf returned their looks in a friendly way. “Yes?” Julian lowered his eyes and looked away. Lennart, on the other hand, almost whispered when he said: “Do not trust that little bitch. She ...” Lennart’s voice broke and he fell completely silent when the woman, the old Marianne, who was sitting next to him, gave him a rough push in the ribs. Rolf tilted his head and looked Lennart straight in the eye for a second or two, but that eluded the gaze and remained silent. “Very well. If there’s something to say, say it. But first of all, we’re in this together, so we should stick together. I do not know what you have endured in detail, but I know what these pigs do to their prisoners. We can’t afford to beat each other up. It’s hard enough as it is.” Again he took a break and looked at one after the other. “I’m gonna go up there now and look around. When I get back, we’ll move on. Use the time well.” Rolf left. Now, being alone with his thoughts and away from the people before whom he had to show strength, to be an example to them and to encourage them, he admitted that even he, who had not had to starve, would soon have reached the end of his strength. It was not exactly easy for him to climb the high steel lattice staircase that meandered up the outer wall of the administration building. Finally he arrived on the flat roof. The layers of corrugated iron that formed its surface did not inspire much confidence in Rolf, and he stayed close above the skeleton of steel girders that carried the corrugated sheets, the course of which could be seen here and there through gaps in the roof. There hadn’t been a vehicle near the administration. Not even a car or a motorcycle. Further back, towards the north-east, Rolf recognized the skeletal outlines of a crushing plant with conveyor belts. If there was a truck standing around somewhere, it was there. He couldn’t see one, though. Oh, shit. Suppressing his growing disappointment, Rolf searched square meter by square meter with his eyes. What’s that? Something was wrong with the way the quarry presented itself to him. Rolf didn’t immediately realize what was bothering him about the overall picture. Only after almost a minute did he realize that the deep furrows that had been dug into the ground by decades of work before the war, and that were still visible even under the blanket of melting snow, were crossed here and there by traces that could not have come from a truck or another work vehicle. They were too narrow and too close together. They weren’t that deep either. Newer. Fresher. That was a much smaller vehicle. Recently. He searched for a while longer and racked his head. But he neither found anything that could help them, nor did he come to an explanation about the unusual track marks. At some point, he gave up. For a few seconds he stared south. He could not perceive any movement in the strip of forest they had crossed. The C4 booby trap in a nail-filled steel pipe - the penultimate load he had with him, and the last one with a mechanical detonator - which he had laid out behind the group approximately in the middle of the forest strip, was not yet detonated. But that didn’t necessarily mean the Degs weren’t there and that they were not coming closer. Somehow he had the uncomfortable feeling that time was melting faster and faster between their fingers and that their lead was decreasing more and more. He hoped he hadn’t made another wrong decision instead of pushing it forward by coming here. He left the roof in a greater hurry than he had climbed up.

  Milan

  “Easy now. You see that? That one on the roof - that’s the ghost.” Milan had one of his two scouts next to him. They had crawled on their stomachs to the tree line, anxious not to be discovered. Milan himself had led half of his hunting group east of the traces of the ghost and his people. Now that he was in sight, and Milan felt that the hunt would soon come to an end, he fervently hoped that Erik, who led the second heap, would not do something stupid and draw the attention of the spirit to them. “Just a man,” Milan’s sidekick said dryly. He was right. But a man who carried two sub-machine guns and a hunting rifle. They had to be extremely careful. He’s in range, Milan thought. But it wouldn’t be a safe shot. An arrow might fly far enough, but to kill the ghost safely and quickly with a single shot, poison back or forth - no, you had to be very lucky. Milan turned his head to the left. He was looking for a way to get closer without being seen. He found it in a few seconds. “Do you see that crippled tree? To your left. Maybe forty meters.” The scout followed his gaze. “Yes.” he gave a brief answer. “Behind it is a kind of small valley … a ... sink. That’s where we’re going. Then we sneak up on the south building. That’s where we meet. Our half comes around the west side into the courtyard. The others around the east side. Then we’ll have them in our hands! And best of all, they won’t have any time to react. We’ll be in their midst before they have a chance to see us!” Yes, the plan was great, Milan congratulated himself in spirit. He only hoped that his people in the second group would understand what he was up to even without verbal commands. He thought for a moment. Then he decided to send the scout to the other group. That would make loud shouting obsolete. Should he instruct them. Milan felt the excitement of the hunt take possession of him. He would have loved to have eaten the rest of Viktor’s traitor tongue to calm his nerves, but he suppressed the impulse. Once they had left the forest, they had to cross about forty or fifty meters of open terrain. A critical point. But the ghost wouldn’t stay on the roof forever, and if he was down again, their prey would have no eyes looking in that direction. The plan just had to succeed. It had to be! Milan crawled away, still on his stomach. He would kill the ghost - and everyone else would die with him.