The Armored Saint

by Myke Cole

  Heloise’s body betrayed her.

  The fear and worry, the thought of the dead woman’s face, all disappeared. Now, there was only Tone’s arm moving toward Basina, the rest of the world vanishing in a buzzing fog behind it.

  “Get away from her!” Heloise shouted, pushing hard on the leather vambrace, sending Tone tipping sideways and going down hard on his backside, mud smearing his gray cloak.

  Tone scrambled to his feet, leaning on his flail as he rose. “You little . . .” he snarled, lunging for Heloise.

  She shrieked, dancing back a step, and then the heavy bulk of her father was between them, his wide chest against the Pilgrim’s breastplate, hands on his flail.

  Chains jangled as flails came off shoulders and into ready hands. Horses stomped as the other Pilgrims reined them around, spread out. Heloise could see the crowd tighten, fists bunched, eyes angry. Sigir sidestepped toward the pile of weapons under the tower. Barnard stepped in front of Basina, his two big sons behind him.

  “Holy Brother, please,” Samson whispered. But while his words were pleading, his face was as savage as a wild dog. His eyes bored into Tone’s, the muscles in his shoulders trembling.

  Brother Tone’s eyes passed over the crowd, and Heloise thought she saw a glimmer of fear there. The Pilgrims had their weapons and armor, but there were at least three adult villagers for each of them, and that didn’t count the bigger boys like Ingomer and Barnard’s sons. Tone’s eyes returned to Samson’s and the fear in them grew. He shook the flail haft. “Release it,” he said, his voice cracking.

  Samson spread his fingers and then his arms, dropping the flail and stepping back.

  “I know you,” Brother Tone said. “From the road today.”

  Samson said nothing. Heloise could feel the mood of the crowd, like a pot on the verge of a boil. She knew she should feel afraid, but she only felt angry.

  “What is your name?” Tone demanded.

  “Samson Factor, Holy Brother,” her father lifted his chin.

  “I will remember you, Samson Factor,” Tone said, his face as savage as her father’s.

  Then, the savagery melted away into a trouper’s smile. “Very well, I believe the girl. There is no ranger here.” Tone turned to Sigir. “Gather your people. Have them fetch their staves and follow my rider. The Holy Father himself commands it.”

  Sigir stared, pale-faced and sweating, for a moment before bowing and knuckling his forehead. “Yes, Holy Brother.”

  Tone swung back up into the saddle, leaned the flail against his shoulder. The other Pilgrims reined their horses around, dug in spurs, and rode out of the village. Tone hesitated for a moment, pulling back on the reins as his mount pawed the earth, anxious to join the others.

  His eyes met Samson’s once more, and Heloise could see him marking her father’s face, remembering the gray eyes, the thin lips. And then Tone gave the barest nod, hauled the reins back over and dug in his spurs, and suddenly Sigir was shouting for Poch Drover to hitch up his carts and people were running to their homes to fetch their staves and make ready.

  Samson put a hand on Heloise’s shoulder. “Come on, dove. You’re safe now.”

  Heloise looked up at him, eyes wide, her heart pounding. What about you, Papa? she thought as she pictured Tone’s hard eyes, marking her father’s face before he wheeled his horse away.

  What about you?

  Captain-General addressed us today. Said that old Ludhuige’s grandfather was a fallen Palantine, and that his blood was tainted. Said it was preordained that Ludhuige would fly the red banner and take up arms against the Emperor. Says it’s the same for his bitter and jealous men.

  But I’ve been in this war since it started, come face to face with them time and again.

  They don’t look bitter. They look like me.

  —From the journal of Samson Factor

  CHAPTER 4: THE KNITTING

  They left the weapons where they lay.

  The villagers streamed back to the commons, awkwardly shouldering their Knitting staves, each as long as a man was tall, thick around as the haft of the Pilgrim’s flail.

  With the sky still fading to purple-gray, Poch Drover appeared with his heavy horses in harness, the huge logging cart rolling behind. His eldest son, Char, pulled up alongside in the second cart.

  “Right!” Sigir shouted. “In you go! Up, everyone.”

  Heloise clung to Basina’s arm, dragged along in the rush to the side of Poch’s cart. She felt her father boost her up, grabbed hold of the rail, and swung herself over, jostled by the other villagers scrambling to find seats. The staves pointed skyward, a forest of headless spears. She reached back down over the railing, touched her father’s arm. “Papa. I can’t do this.”

  “Be brave, dove,” he said, pulling himself up after her, “and pray to the Throne that it will go lightly.”

  “But do we have to . . .”

  Samson swung a leg over and reached down to help Leuba up. “We do. There’s nothing to be gained from fighting the Order, and no winning if we do. We escaped unharmed this time, but they’ll be back if we don’t move with a quickness, and there will be more of them, and angrier.”

  “Come, poppet,” Barnard called to Basina. “We’re in the other cart.”

  “I want to stay with Heloise!” Basina said. “We’ll be right alongside each other.”

  Heloise nodded so quickly her chin thumped her chest. Barnard looked like he would say something, but at last he kissed his daughter and ran for the other cart. Samson settled on the bench, leaving a spot for Heloise to squeeze in between him and Basina, and the girls clung to one another as the cart got rolling and the village common began to drift away.

  Heloise looked up at her father’s face. Even in the fading light she could see the creases in his brow, the trembling of his lip. She had never seen him like this before, and it frightened her so deeply that she felt a sudden mad urge to run as fast as she could with no direction or purpose.

  “Papa”—she touched his arm—“I’m sorry. I got angry again.” The words broke as they came out. It was her fault the Pilgrim had asked her father’s name. Her fault that he’d taken the long look at her father’s face before he’d ridden away.

  But she couldn’t let Tone hurt Basina. She would never let anyone hurt Basina. Not if it meant her life.

  Samson looked down at her. His brow smoothed and his eyes lost their frightened look. He took a deep breath, and the ones he took after were slower. He looked at her for a long time.

  “No, my dove,” he said. “I’m not angry with you. It was a foolish thing you did, and dangerous, but I’d have done the same.”

  “What’s going to happen now?”

  Samson only shook his head, one ink-stained hand touching his wife’s hair.

  Heloise looked away from him, saw the boulder atop the Giant’s Shoulder growing in the distance. She recognized the road. She had walked it just that morning.

  Hammersdown. Men are soft when it comes to their own.

  “Now you listen well to me, children,” Samson said. “Not sure how bad it’ll be tonight, but . . . well, we have to be ready in case it is. I’ve only seen a Knitting once in my life and then when I was a soldier. It’s a terrible thing, but you have to remember the need. The veil’s all that keeps hell itself from reaching out to snatch us all in.”

  He looked at his knees, sighed. “More than children should have to see,” he said, his hands tightening, “but . . . just remember why this thing is done. Remember it and hold it close. The Knitting is what comes of forgetting.”

  Heloise’s stomach suddenly felt dead, a rotting thing stuck in her belly.

  She looked back to Basina. The girl had turned white.

  The dead woman’s face flashed in Heloise’s mind.

  “It’s because of Churic, Papa. That’s why this is happening.”

  Samson sighed. The frightened look had returned. “Maybe so, dove. Maybe so.”

  “But Papa . . .” Helois
e began. “Churic is simple . . . Jaran said he was no wizard.”

  Samson grabbed Heloise’s chin. “Simple or no, Heloise, you’ll do what needs to be done. By the Emperor you will obey the Pilgrims. Do you understand me?”

  His voice broke at those last words, a tremble in it that Heloise had never heard before. He’s trying not to cry.

  Heloise looked into Samson’s eyes and it was as if the fear bled from him and into her. Her knees shook and her chest felt tight. The sky was suddenly heavy, as if the darkening clouds might fall upon her. She couldn’t breathe. She was out in the open, how could the world feel so small?

  Basina put her arm around Heloise’s shoulders, her warm breath against her ear. “Heloise,” Basina said. “It’s all right. It will all be all right.”

  And just like that, the world was right sized again. Heloise was still afraid, but the fear was a thing she could endure, like a fever or an aching tooth, awful, but not the killing kind. Heloise put her head against Basina’s shoulder and they rode on in silence.

  “I’m not brave,” Heloise said. “I’m frightened.”

  “You were very brave back there with the Pilgrim,” Basina said. “You protected me.”

  Heloise surprised herself by laughing. “I’ve never been so frightened in my life.”

  Basina flashed her a smile. “Father says being brave isn’t not being frightened, it’s doing a thing even though you are.”

  Heloise shut her eyes and inhaled the smell of Basina’s skin, pretended that Basina wasn’t going to marry Randal, and instead they were promised to one another. She knew the thought was impossible, but it felt right. It helped her to be strong.

  After a while, Heloise looked up and saw Brother Tone standing in the road.

  Heloise recognized the narrow carter’s track that wound its way through the thickness of the forest. Hammersdown was just through the woods beyond.

  “I don’t see any wizard-blight,” Heloise said to Basina. According to the Writ, the woods would be dark and rotten, full of strange sounds, plants and animals twisted by hell’s touch.

  But it was only normal ground, scattered stones and young trees, just a few years grown back from the last timber harvest.

  The Pilgrim raised his hand and the drover reined the horses to a stop.

  “Come on!” Tone yelled. “Out! There’s not much time.”

  The villagers came stumbling out of the cart, nearly stepping on one another in their rush to obey. Heloise stood with the children, watching as each adult villager assembled, staves planted in the ground before them. Heloise waited for Tone to speak to her father, her heart pounding, but his eyes passed over Samson as if he were not there.

  Heloise saw Barnard helping his wife to the ground.

  “Father!” Basina waved.

  “Go with your family,” Tone said to Basina. “Second cart takes the east side.”

  “Can she stay with me?” Heloise blurted out. The thought of facing what was coming without her best friend made her stomach clench.

  She heard Samson suck in his breath, and the Pilgrim fixed his eyes on Basina. “Go with your family, I won’t ask you again.”

  Basina took Heloise’s hand and didn’t move.

  The Pilgrim’s eyes blazed. He turned to Barnard. “Your child is willful. I would whip her if I had time.”

  He’d said nearly the same thing to Samson when they met on the road to Hammersdown, but Barnard was not her father. The tinker’s arm twitched as he took a step forward. “You would . . .”

  The Pilgrim let his flail slide into his hand, the iron chain jingling. “One more step and I will make time.”

  Barnard looked as if he would say more, then he jerked Basina’s hand, dragging her away.

  “It’s all right,” Basina called to Heloise as she was towed along behind her father. “You’ll be all right!”

  Tone nodded in satisfaction, then turned to the assembled villagers. “Attend me! Hold the pole like this,” he held his flail crosswise, his arms extended, the shaft resting on his thighs. “Leave a man’s span between each of you.”

  The villagers did as they were ordered, and the Pilgrim walked among them, moving this man here and this woman there, until they stood in a line disappearing into the trees to either side of Heloise. Again, he passed right by her father, and again did nothing more than give Samson a sharp glare.

  Heloise stood between her parents as Brother Tone gave a final grunt and pointed into the woods. “There lies Hammersdown. Pious subjects of the Emperor, sheltering beneath the might of His Holy Writ.”

  The trips between each turning of the moon, her hand in her father’s. Hammersdown had been part of her life for as long as she could remember.

  “But some among them thought they knew better,” the Pilgrim went on. “They thought they could reach beyond the veil and hide it from the Righteous Throne. The Emperor sees all! To His unblinking eye, the wizard is a fire burning in the dark. The Throne’s justice is swift, and it is merciless. One of the folk of Hammersdown dabbled in the dark fire, made himself strong beyond the reach of mortal men. He saw the night as if it were day, he ran swift as the deer. He grew younger.”

  Heloise’s stomach turned over. It’s not true, she wanted to yell, but what good would it do? She felt her useless empty hands, opening and closing on air.

  “Hell gave all this to him and more,” Brother Tone went on, “so much that Hammersdown could not fail to see, but they were weak, and frightened, and they did not cry out to us. They waited until the Emperor’s gaze fell upon them, and by then His heart was hardened against them.”

  Heloise could hear distant shouting. Another Pilgrim was giving the same speech further down the line. There were screams of fear and anger deeper in the woods. She smelled smoke.

  “By then, the veil was torn,” Tone continued. “Had they cried out to us, had they followed the Holy Writ, we might not be here today. But they did not.

  “What are the words?”

  “Suffer no wizard to live,” the villagers said as one.

  “And today, all of Hammersdown is wizard-touched. Wizardry is seeped into the stones. The trees drink from it. The birds stretch their wings and course on its currents.

  She glanced up at her father. He had said he’d hoped it wouldn’t be bad, but this sounded bad. This sounded very bad.

  “Now, we Knit the veil!” Tone went on. “Now, we close the fracture that would have the devils walk amongst you once again. Now we scourge the very earth until no shred of the contagion remains.

  “Women you will see today, and children. Men weeping. Some you will know. They will cry their innocence. They will beg you to stand aside.

  “You will not. No one gets past you. You are the border of the wickedness that plagues this place. It shall not escape, or the Knitting shall expand until it encompasses even your own homes.”

  Brother Tone turned, looking at each of the younger villagers sprinkled between their parents. “You bear no staves, but do not think that because you are not yet grown that this task does not also fall to you. There are not enough men and women grown to cover all the ground we must. You must be the eyes and ears of your parents. Keep a sharp lookout, and warn them of the approach of the tainted. Do not let them pass.”

  As Brother Tone’s eyes met hers, Heloise’s fear grew so intense that she felt as if she were hovering above herself, looking down on a different Heloise. It couldn’t be her who was standing in this line, about to help kill people she had known all her life. It was someone else. It had to be someone else.

  Shadows moved in the woods behind the Pilgrim. Heloise could see peaks of flame above the trees. She could hear screams coming louder now, felt her skin break out in gooseflesh. The smell of smoke grew stronger, bringing strangely tasty smells. Cooked meat, fish oil. She swallowed back bile. She wished the anger would come now, would give her the strength to defy Brother Tone, but it didn’t. There was only the sick fear, making her limbs feel heavy, rooting her t
o the spot.

  “Hold, damn you! For the Emperor!” Brother Tone turned his back, raised his flail, and disappeared into the wood before them.

  The villagers stood, eyes straight ahead, waiting. Nothing happened for a long while.

  “Papa,” Heloise whispered to her father. “Is it going to be bad?”

  Samson looked at her, his eyes huge.

  There were shouts, the sound of clashing metal, but nothing moved in the wood save the dancing flames, their roar rising until it was nearly as loud as the screams. Then, a scrabbling in the trees. The underbrush shivered, went still, then exploded.

  A herding dog ran out of the wood, eyes wide with terror. Its hide smoked, its tail trailed fire. It yipped, whined.

  Heloise knew that dog. She had scratched its ears and thrown sticks for it to set at her feet, barking until she threw them again. Alna Shepherd’s animal. Callie.

  The dog pawed at the ground, long front legs digging in. Callie was a herding dog born and bred, made to run.

  She bolted straight toward Heloise before skidding sideways as she saw the other villagers. She paced the line, yelping, turning back and forth, desperate for a way through.

  “Get!” Samson shouted, striking at Callie with his staff. The dog flinched, tucking her burning tail between trembling legs.

  Heloise realized that she was crying now, felt the hot tears tracking down her cheeks, though she couldn’t hear her own weeping over the sound of the roaring flames. The dog turned, faced Heloise’s mother, tucked her head. Heloise knew Callie had made her decision.

  The dog jerked left, then dove right, racing toward the gap between Heloise and Leuba. Heloise moved toward it, frightened that Brother Tone might see her letting it go, but her heart wasn’t in it, and she was much too slow. Leuba cried out, swatting the creature on its fetlocks and falling on her backside. The dog howled and bolted through the line, disappearing into the woods behind them.

  No one spoke. All behaved as if the dog had never gotten through, eyes fixed on the wood, straining to see if the Pilgrims had noticed.