by Bobby Adair
All around him was the commotion of the deserters and the soldiers. The men traded curses and blows. A few drew swords. Frantic cries emanated from the marketplace as passersby sought places to take cover or hide and watch.
Evan tried to move, but couldn’t find his footing. A shout from the doorway spurred him to action.
“Scholar Evan is out there! Don’t let him get away!”
All at once, Evan was on his feet, gasping for breath and darting through the emptying street. Sounds of battle filled the air behind him. He tore past startled merchants and screaming women, knocking into a pushcart, spilling bundles of carrots onto the road. The angered merchant screamed after him. Only when Evan was halfway to the Academy did he slow down. He ducked into an alleyway, fairly certain he’d escaped.
**
Evan gasped for breath. The screams and commotion still rang in his ears, even though he was far enough away that he could no longer hear them. The deserters had been discovered. The Dunlows were gone.
He told himself he’d gotten the least of the injuries.
Maybe the Dunlows fled, he tried telling himself.
Evan couldn’t force himself to believe that lie.
The Dunlows were probably being held in the same place the tongueless man had come from, awaiting torture from Tenbrook. Even without seeing the evidence, Evan knew. He recalled the expression of the pain on the tortured man’s face as he’d been dropped in the dirt.
That look told him that Tenbrook knew everything.
Evan knew he was in the first moments of the end. He needed some last-ditch plan that would give him a chance at living. They’d be looking for him. They’d seen him conspiring with the deserters.
In the slim chance Evan hadn’t been implicated already, he would be soon. The Dunlows would give him up. Either that, or the deserters would. Evan was chicken feed, any way he ran the logic. The Academy would be the first place Tenbrook would look for him. His only hope was to make some final play for his life, in the hopes that he could salvage some scrap of a plan.
Franklin.
Without realizing it, Evan was already running in the direction of the Sanctuary. Thoughts of Franklin’s successful sermon gave him the hopes that the new Bishop might wield enough power to effect some change.
Maybe Franklin could save his life.
Even if Evan was to be killed, he needed someone to know the truth about the torturous monster that had taken over Brighton. He couldn’t leave this world without doing that.
Chapter 77: Winthrop
Winthrop had been walking most of the morning, carrying the message of his god song to the good soldiers who stood behind their piles of dirt. He knelt, looking up the hill at them, and sang. His priestesses joined the chorus. His disciples laid the evidence of their heroic deeds, the demon corpses, in rows, shoulder to shoulder, on their backs in front of the battlements. All through the day, his disciples worked, thousands and thousands of them, marked with the bloody handprint, dusted in dirt, spattered in gore. They built the fires tall. They burned their dead brothers. They laid the carpet of dead demons.
The hill was a heaven of Winthrop’s making, a shrine to him, a prayer for war. The more Blackthorn’s men looked down on the evidence of the victory, the more they took up the chant, climbing through their ditches and coming down to accept the mark from Winthrop’s hands. They became his.
With the sun well past its zenith and the horsemen riding in silly circles out in the grasslands, Winthrop surveyed his domain and realized the most profound thing. Through all those sermons in that dusty temple back in Brighton, appealing to the sleepy hearts of ignorant pig chasers and dirt scratchers, their failure to find the passion of love and devotion in The Word wasn’t his fault, at all. It was that stuffy building. It was the confining circle wall. Men could not be free to follow their war god when walls kept their minds and souls trapped.
Out here in the demon’s realm, surrounded by the carcasses of the unworthy and the unclean, a man’s heart opened, and Winthrop’s words found fertile soil. Nearly all of the men, the working women, and even the harlots atop the hill chanted Winthrop’s god song now.
They were all his children.
It was time to cast out the devil.
Winthrop walked around the hill to the break in the line of the trenches, the road the horsemen followed when they left the hilltop to frolic with their demon brothers in the grasslands. He continued up it with his priestesses following behind.
Men on the uphill side of the defenses, men who’d stopped Winthrop’s disciples from going uphill the night before, now did nothing. They chanted and accepted the disciples among them. They were all brothers and sisters now, children of a new god.
Winthrop crossed the hill, walking toward the highest mound on the otherwise flat hilltop. He passed through the blue shirts arrayed around the minister’s tents. Scuffles broke out behind him as many of the blue shirts resisted the passing of his priestesses and disciples. Winthrop paid them no mind. His followers would soon resolve their differences.
From the top of the hill, Winthrop felt the cold wind flap his robes and clean air blow through his lungs. Behind him, the mountains towered and glistened under the halos of snow blowing off their peaks. In front of him, the ocean spread out to the edge of the world. Around him, the brown grasses and green trees painted patterns among which little horsemen and demons ran, making pretty, living art that reminded Winthrop of flower vines growing and dying, disintegrating and reforming.
Unlike the lowest slopes of the hill, where Winthrop and his children slaughtered the demons in the mud, the hilltop was covered in tall grass that swayed with the breeze around two tents, giant and aloof. One was bigger than the other, larger than any in camp, clean, without a hole to let the rain and cold come in, surrounded by a dozen stern-faced men. It was the home of the devil.
Winthrop strode up to the devil’s guardians.
A stern man planted himself in Winthrop’s path and put his mouth to work on a language that Winthrop didn’t care to know anymore. It was the talk of mortal simpletons.
Winthrop put a soothing hand on the man’s shoulder and eased the man’s soul with god-speak as he stepped around.
Another guard moved to bring Winthrop to a halt, but god-speak and will kept that man at bay as Winthrop let himself into the devil’s tent.
Chapter 78: Franklin
“Franklin?”
A rap on the door made Franklin pause and set his pen down. He stared at the door. It sounded like Fitzgerald, but he wondered why she would knock.
“I’m here, Fitz. What do you need?”
“Scholar Evan is here. He wants to speak with us.”
Us? he almost replied. Franklin was used to Fitz’s company, but he was aware that most people would prefer to dismiss her, at least when discussing matters of importance.
He watched the door swing open, revealing the ashen face of Scholar Evan and the confused face of Fitzgerald. Evan looked in all directions before entering. He greeted Franklin with a nervous nod. “We need to talk,” Evan said, as if that weren’t already apparent.
“Sure. Come on in.”
“I’m sorry to disturb you in your quarters,” Scholar Evan started.
“It’s no matter,” Franklin said, exchanging a glance with Fitz.
“I pride myself on being perceptive when it comes to matters around me, although it might not always seem like it. As such, I knew that the subject of this meeting would be of importance to both you and Fitzgerald.” Evan glanced from Franklin to Fitz. His gaze showed that he’d guessed the details of their relationship.
Franklin didn’t bother to ask how.
“I appreciate your speaking to both of us, if that is the case,” Franklin said, neither confirming nor denying anything.
“Are you s
ure we can talk safely in here?”
Franklin glanced at the thick wooden door on his quarters. “It should be safe. Just keep your voice low, all the same.”
“What I have to tell you might be a surprise, or it might not,” Evan said, pulling in a nervous breath. “My hope is that I’ve chosen the right people to whom to give this information. If not, my body might be burning on the pyre before the day is out.”
Franklin swallowed at the gravity of Evan’s tone. “We’re both newly-appointed Elders. We’ve always been friends. I promise it won’t leave this room, unless you want it to,” he said.
Fitz bit her lip. “I won’t say a word, either.”
“My hope is that we can work together on some pressing matters.”
Franklin and Fitz remained silent as they waited for whatever Evan had to say.
Evan’s voice was low and nervous as he began his story. He recounted a string of logic and numbers that had led to the conclusion that Blackthorn had inadvertently caused a famine. Before he could go any further, Franklin interrupted.
“I’ve heard these calculations,” Franklin said. “I was in a meeting with Blackthorn and Winthrop when Minister Beck presented your findings. But I wasn’t sure whether to believe them.”
“Oh, they’re accurate,” Evan said with a nod. “But that is not the entirety of it. As a result of these calculations, Beck and I were tasked to give a hypothetical number of people that needed to be eliminated so the rest could be sustained during the suspected oncoming famine. This number—nineteen thousand—was delivered to General Blackthorn directly. That number exactly matches the number that Blackthorn took on his expedition.”
Franklin’s eyes widened as he pieced together what Evan was saying. “Wait a minute. So Blackthorn called up the army not to fight the demons, but to die so a famine could be avoided?”
Evan nodded gravely. “That is what Minister Beck and I suspect. It is as shocking to you as it was to us,” Evan said. “What’s more shocking is that it didn’t seem Blackthorn wanted any of the other Elders to return.”
“So the nineteen thousand are being brought to their death? Including Father Winthrop and Minister Beck?”
“Yes. That’s the gravity of it. These are the ethics of our leadership in Brighton.”
“My God,” gasped Fitz.
“That information led us to a solution of our own. It is a solution that one might view as drastic, but one we felt was necessary. Brighton needs new leadership, people who can lead the townships with intellect instead of brutality.”
Evan’s voice wavered as he broached the next topic. For a few moments, Franklin wondered if the nervous Scholar might walk outside and put himself on the pyre.
“And so Minister Beck and I, knowing our lives were at stake, along with many others, planned a revolt. I was given a task of recruiting a band of deserters from Blackthorn’s army, people who would be sympathetic to the cause. Among those were Tommy and Timmy Dunlow. You’re familiar with the family?”
“Of course. The conflict between the Dunlow family and Blackthorn is a rumor in town,” Franklin said. “Though it is never discussed in the open.”
“I can assure you, it is true.”
“What were the details of the plan?”
“We were to wait until the army was far enough away that they couldn’t make it back quickly. Then, we were to determine when Tenbrook would run his next practice drills. We would strike his personal army unexpectedly. We would convince the remaining soldiers of our intent, and hopefully persuade them to join us.”
“I can’t believe this,” Franklin said, furrowing his brow. “And what of the Clergy?”
“Our intent was never to harm the Clergy,” Evan said. “I need you to believe that, Franklin.”
“I don’t know what to say.” Franklin shook his head. He was stunned. He’d known Evan for years. He never would’ve expected him to be entangled in such a plot. “Why wasn’t the clergy approached?”
“We needed fighting men to do battle, not men of The Word.” Evan looked down.
“No one in the Clergy knows? Not even Winthrop?”
“Winthrop is as much to blame for this situation as Blackthorn. His blatant abuse of The Word has contributed to our plight.”
Franklin nodded, chewing his lip as he processed what Evan was telling him. “I remember how he dismissed the numbers you gave him about the famine.”
Evan nodded grimly. “I can see that you are apprehensive about my loyalties. If you need further proof of my intentions to spare the Clergy, I can offer you something else. Someone you are close with was involved in this plot.”
Franklin furrowed his brow as he tried to make a guess. “I thought you said no one in the Clergy knew about this.”
“No one you’d suspect.”
“Who, then?”
“Novice Oliver.”
Fitzgerald gasped. “Oliver? Why would he be involved in this?” Fitz jumped from her chair. “What have you done?”
“I recruited him into it.” Evan hung his head as he explained how he’d befriended Oliver and used him to deliver messages.
“You borrowed him to go to the market that time,” Franklin put together. “That was when these meetings started.”
“Again, please be assured that I never intended any harm to come to him.”
“He’s just a child!” Fitz’s face twisted in anger as she waved a finger at him. “How could you involve him in this?”
“I admit I was upset to learn he’d gone out with the army,” Evan said solemnly. “That wasn’t my intention.”
“He probably did that to escape the danger you put him in! He probably fled Brighton so he wouldn’t be burned!” Fitzgerald steamed.
Evan didn’t disagree. It looked like he had more explaining to do. “If you’ll listen, I’ll explain the rest. I thought he fled, at first. But now I’m thinking that he left for other reasons. Reasons for which I might also be responsible.” Evan bit his lip. “A few days ago, Tenbrook called me to his house for a meeting. According to Tenbrook, a confidential source revealed that a plot had been hatched to overthrow the government. He asked me to find out what was going on. In hindsight, I think Tenbrook already knew. I think Oliver told him before he left with the army.”
Franklin felt a surge of panic and anger. Fitz opened her mouth, but couldn’t formulate any words.
“You think Oliver gave you up?” Franklin shook his head in disbelief. But that might explain why Oliver had been so insistent on going out with the army.
“It’s possible.” Evan explained how he’d visited the Dunlows, and how the Dunlows had disappeared. He described how one of the deserters had been tortured and dropped in front of the house without his tongue. He went on to explain how he’d been injured, and how he’d escaped.
“In essence, I believe Tenbrook has uncovered our plan.” His face beaded with sweat as he said, “Tenbrook is a violent, vicious man. Maybe even more cruel than Blackthorn. A revolt is more necessary than we knew. That is why I’ve come to you for help. As two of the three Elders, we need to work together and strike at Tenbrook before he comes at us.”
The room fell silent for a moment.
“You mean comes at you?” Fitz spat. “That’s the only reason you’re here. To save your life!”
“I won’t lie that my life is at stake. But that isn’t the primary reason. If Tenbrook is allowed to rule, I think Brighton will see the darkest age it has ever seen. Quite frankly, I’m not sure anyone will survive.”
Having finished his story, Evan sat with his hands folded. It looked as if he’d expended the last of his energy in telling his tale, and was waiting for a final pronouncement of life or death.
“I don’t know what to say.” Franklin shook his head. “These things yo
u’ve told me are horrific. But how do we know what’s true and what isn’t? How do we know this isn’t part of some scheme to overthrow the Clergy?”
“My assurances are all I can give. That, and my guarantee that if you decide not to help me, I will never repeat this information.”
“What about Oliver? How will you make right what you’ve done?” Fitzgerald’s face still burned with anger. “What if Tenbrook killed him?”
“My guess is that he’s safe.”
“How do you know that?” Fitz demanded.
“I saw him leave with the army,” Franklin said. “I’m pretty sure he’s gone.”
“That doesn’t mean he’s safe,” Fitz countered. “Not in the wild. Even if Tenbrook didn’t take him.”
They fell into an uneasy silence. Evan’s story was a demon in the room, snarling and swiping, preparing to pull them down and feast on their innards.
A knock sounded on the door. Franklin, Fitzgerald, and Evan jumped.
“Who is it?” Franklin asked, unable to hide the fright in his voice.
“It’s Novice Joseph, Father.”
“Come in.”
Joseph peered through the door. “Tenbrook has called a meeting.”
“With the Elders?”
“No, a meeting in the square.”
“What’s it about?”
“I don’t know. He only said that the entire town should be there, and that it should happen right away. That’s the only explanation I got. Soldiers are outside to escort all of us.”
Franklin stared at Joseph, as if the boy might produce some more answers, but there were no more answers left to give. Franklin dismissed him, watching the novice hurry down the hall, disappearing around a corner and knocking on the next batch of doors.
