The Armored Saint

by Myke Cole

  A shout sounded in front of Heloise, and a man stepped out from between the trees. His head dipped inward, like an egg that had been dropped on its side. Blood coursed from the wound, bits of yellow and gray flowing into his beard. Alna Shepherd, looking for his dog.

  His eye was gone. His speech slurred as her father’s did when he’d drunk too much beer. “You killed us!” he shouted. “You bastards. You killed us.”

  The words fell on Heloise like a hammer. It wasn’t us, she wanted to shout. It was Churic. Papa told you to put him out.

  Alna lifted a short bow, the string long since snapped, and aimed it at Heloise. He tried to pull the broken string, stared in confusion at his hand passing through air. “Done nothing,” he whispered, drooling. “Killed us.”

  And then Brother Tone was behind him, flail moving through the air, the black spikes crashing into Alna’s head, sending him toppling sideways, the light going out of his remaining eye. The iron stuck in his skull, and the Pilgrim put one boot on the man’s back, worked his arms to pull it free. It came away with a wet slurp, spraying blood.

  Heloise watched the red droplets race toward her, saw the solid pieces in the mist, shut her eyes. Oh, no. Please no.

  She felt the hot touch as it splattered across her face, the pieces sliding down her neck behind her dress. She cried out, fell to her knees, her stomach lurching.

  Someone called her name, her father maybe. She looked up to find the sound, saw Brother Tone standing over Alna, his flail rising and falling, rising and falling, as steady as her father chopping wood, bringing it down into the red-gray mush that no longer looked like a man.

  Heloise could hear herself screaming, as if the voice came from a long way off, another girl just like her. She tried to remember her father’s words. It was necessary. The veil must be shut.

  But she looked at the man slowly pounded into the mud, at the Pilgrim’s burning eyes, his teeth bared, bent on the completion of his task. Chopping wood. Pounding dough.

  This wasn’t right. This couldn’t be right.

  More screams. A girl ran from the woods, coming straight toward her. She wasn’t much older than Heloise, her dark hair full of leaves and blood, mud on her face. Her dress was torn away, and she clutched the ragged remains to cover her nakedness. Heloise barely recognized her. It was Austre. Austre who had played with her when she was little. Austre who was going to learn letters from her. Austre who had promised to show her her betrothal dress. Her throat and thighs were bruised, her new breasts poorly covered by one flailing arm.

  Another Pilgrim was hard on her heels. His hood was back, his eyes lit with the same hunger she’d seen before in men. He was a heavy man, in armor meant for riding, and he ran slow and clumsy until at last he stumbled and fell on his face.

  “Stop her!” Brother Tone shouted. He struck out with his flail, missing her by a hair’s breadth.

  Austre pounded toward Heloise, closer and closer. Heloise knew she was supposed to get to her feet, trip her, something. No, this is wrong. Heloise knew it would mean her life to help Austre, but she wasn’t sure she could do otherwise. She tried to stand, but the horror unfolding in her gut made it impossible. She fell forward, vomiting in the dirt.

  Heloise turned, saw her father twitch toward Austre, but his eyes filled with tears and he didn’t move further.

  Austre vaulted over Heloise’s head, and the Pilgrim followed. Heloise fell in her own sick, sprawled on her side. “No,” she tried to say, only mumbled.

  Austre dashed up the path, nearly as fast as Callie. Brother Tone’s voice was lost in the screaming and the roaring fire. Heloise wondered if her father would move to help now, or her mother, but no one did. Brother Tone’s boots let him run over the rocks and roots, but he was older and heavier, and the girl wasn’t wearing armor or carrying a heavy flail. As Heloise got back to her knees, the space between the girl and the Pilgrim widened.

  “Go,” Heloise whispered. “Run.”

  Austre ran, letting her torn dress fall. Brother Tone was panting now, big shoulders heaving. He swung his flail, cutting air behind her.

  Then Austre’s foot came down on a stone, turned sideways, her tiny ankle taking all her weight. She shouted, fell.

  Tone reached her in three steps, bringing his iron-shod boot down on her back, raising the flail’s long shaft and bringing the spiked head swinging into the air over them. Austre lay face down, pale and still, as if she were already dead.

  Heloise didn’t scream this time. She had no screaming left in her. The sickness was a low buzz in her belly. Her arms and legs felt weak and heavy. She closed her eyes, but it didn’t stop her ears, which heard the wet crunch as the Pilgrim brought the flail down again, and again, and again.

  There was silence, then. The crackle of the flames behind Heloise were almost soothing, warming her shoulders, the back of her neck.

  Crunching of boots, a shadow falling on her. “You let her go.”

  Heloise opened her eyes. Brother Tone’s cloak was soaked with gore, the wet fabric sinking into the gaps between his pauldrons and breastplate. His hood had fallen back, his face covered in blood, so that he looked made of red, save the bright blue of his eyes.

  This is what a devil looks like, Heloise thought. This is what you see before they take you.

  “You let her go,” Brother Tone said again, and now Heloise realized that he was speaking to her father at last. Tone shifted the flail from his shoulder into his hands, swinging the head. “I see the portal in your eye now. You are a gateway to hell. Wizard-tainted. You betrayed the Emperor.”

  And then, in barely more than a whisper, “And you don’t have your village mob to help you now.”

  He’s going to kill my father.

  She could hear her heart beating, a slow pounding in her ears in time with her breathing, as loud and close as the bellows in Barnard’s workshop. The Pilgrim’s flail swept before him as he raised the shaft.

  Sounds loud in her ears. Her mother shrieking. Her father shouting She was just a little girl. She could hear Brother Tone’s boots hitting on the ground as he raced for her father. Don’t hurt my papa, she thought. But she couldn’t speak. Couldn’t move. Now, when she needed her anger most, it would not come.

  She heard the crash of wood against wood over her head as two shafts met, the sound jolting her onto her backside. Her father and Brother Tone snarled at one another, knuckles white on their lengths of wood. Heloise fumbled with her fingers, scrabbling over the roots and rocks, heedless of the thick wetness that covered everything.

  “You, dare!” Tone hissed at her father, pressing the flail haft in and down, trying to free the spiked head enough to swing it at him.

  Heloise’s hand closed on a loose rock. It was small, a skipping-stone really, not big enough to hurt anyone. She choked back tears for a battle cry and brought it down on the top of Brother Tone’s boot. The leather was so hard that she might as well have struck iron, but Tone cursed and looked down, eyes leaving Samson’s for just a moment.

  And then Brother Tone was falling back, reaching out with the flail to stop himself from landing on his back.

  Her father followed him. The bristle on his face was gray, and his stomach hung over his belt, but his shoulders were wide and his eyes clear. He held his staff like a pike, thrusting to catch the Pilgrim as he tried to get his balance. The pole struck Tone’s cheek loud enough for Heloise to hear. The gray cloak tangled the Pilgrim’s arm and Tone stumbled back, finally stopping his fall with the flail. A dark bruise was already showing on his face, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth.

  Heloise’s father came after him, trying to keep him off balance, but the Pilgrim had his wind now, and knocked the pole aside. Samson rocked back on his heels and slid smoothly into a wide stance, holding the pole over his head, pointing at the Pilgrim. “You killed a little girl, you bastard.”

  Tone looked at Samson’s stance. “You’re a veteran, aren’t you?”

  “Come on, damn yo
u,” her father said.

  The Pilgrim smiled, a white line across his red face. “This isn’t the Old War, and that’s not a pike.” He spun the flail’s head.

  “And he’s not alone,” Sigir said, stepping out of the line, holding his pole just like her father.

  Brother Tone looked left and right. He was wearing armor, and his spiked flail looked a lot stronger than the wooden poles. “So be it,” he said, smiling.

  “Aye,” Barnard said, stepping out of the line, raising his own pole. “So be it, Pilgrim, and may the Sacred Throne bear witness.”

  Brother Tone’s eyes widened, then narrowed. He walked backward, ignoring Barnard and Sigir, looking at the man who had given him the bruise.

  “I’ll be back for you,” he said to Samson, then turned and disappeared into the wood.

  Column marched over the Castle Rock yesterday, and took up the King’s Highway. Came across a Kipti band living in their wagons.

  They sharpened our pike heads for us, and mended cartwheels. Good job of it, too. They say every Kipti is at least half-tinker.

  The levy Pilgrim was furious that we gave custom to heretics, but that didn’t scare the Captain. “Writ won’t fix our wheels,” he said, “nor make our weapons sharp.”

  Saw the Pilgrim later, when he thought no one was looking, having one of the heretics mend a locket some sweetheart had given him.

  —From the journal of Samson Factor

  CHAPTER 5: WE DIDN’T HAVE TO DO IT

  The sun was beginning to rise when another Pilgrim stumbled wearily out of the drifting smoke and dismissed them with a wave.

  No more people were driven their way. There was a scream here and there, but most of the night was spent standing in silence, squinting through the drifting ash and boiling smoke.

  They climbed back into the cart, exhausted, eyes down. It was silent for the jostling ride back, the same look on every face. Exhaustion, mostly, but also something that looked like shame. No one spoke of the dog who had escaped, or of the girl who hadn’t.

  Samson’s brow was furrowed, his cheeks purple. He didn’t talk about his fight with Brother Tone, and Heloise knew it would be unwise to bring it up. Heloise wanted to shout at them all, at herself. This is our fault. We did this.

  “Had to be done,” Samson said. “I told Jaran to shut that simpleton up.”

  Heloise didn’t realize he was speaking to her until Leuba put a hand on his shoulder. “Husband—”

  “It had to be done,” Samson repeated, cutting her off. “You have to remember that. A Knitting is a terrible thing, but the devils are worse. The Emperor did it for us once, now it’s for us to do it for ourselves. That’s our strength, His gift to us.”

  It didn’t feel like a gift. Churic was simple. He wasn’t a wizard.

  “If even one had gotten through,” Samson tapped Heloise’s knee, “it could have been worse.”

  Then what about Callie? Heloise thought. Her father was lying, not just to her, but to himself. Worst of all, he expected her to repeat the lies, to act as though up was down of her own free will. It was a stupid, wicked way to live, and the smoke still smudging the darkening sky showed how it ended.

  “Had to be done,” her father said, straightening and looking away. But the words had an upward lilt at the end, like he was asking a question.

  At last, the cart rocked to a stop, and Heloise looked up to see them back on the village common. Her arms and legs felt like they’d been filled with metal. She sat as the cart slowly emptied, her parents slumping to the ground. Samson turned back to Heloise. “Come on, girl.” Heloise wasn’t ready to move yet, her mind still whirling.

  “Leave her.” Sigir’s voice. “I’ll send her along in a moment.”

  Heloise heard her father hesitate, then grunt assent. Her parents’ steps dwindled in the distance, and still Heloise sat, feeling the cart rock as the people left, until suddenly it was still, and she knew she was alone.

  “Come on, child,” Sigir said from the ground beside her. The grief in his tone was honest, and it gave her the strength to stand.

  The Maior looked tiny from his place beside the cart, as thin as the poles they’d carried, his ash-streaked face shadowed by the growing darkness, eyes bruised-looking from exhaustion. He held up a skinny hand. “Come down, now. It’s over.”

  “Papa says we had to do it,” Heloise said. “He says if we hadn’t, the devils would have come.”

  Sigir said nothing as she took his hand and jumped down to the ground. She looked up at him, saw the horror on his face, the deep lines the day’s events had cut in him.

  “Did we have to do it?” she asked.

  “No,” he answered, his voice breaking, tears falling into his beard to turn the flakes of ash to gray slush. “No, child. We didn’t.”

  Heloise thought she should feel angry at his words, but when she searched her heart, she could only find fatigue. “Then why did we?”

  “Because they would have killed us if we refused,” he answered. “Because it would have been our village, our fields, our families they Knit.”

  “Why us? If they’re so worried about wizard-blight, they can use the army.”

  Sigir shook his head. “The army has other tasks. Old Ludhuige may be rotting in his grave, but his generals still fly the red banners. This work falls to the Order.”

  He took a deep breath, then spoke again. “And making us complicit means we will never call them to account for the crime.”

  “But what if we fought them? Papa hit that Pilgrim in the face and . . .” And I hit him in the boot with a stone, though no one saw.

  “Your father is very brave and he loves you very much. I pray that he will not be made to pay for that. It is one thing for a man to fight another man, it is another for a village of men to try to stop the might of the Order.”

  “But we have tipstaffs and the Tinkers have weap—”

  He covered her mouth with his hand, not roughly, just enough to stop her speaking. His palm smelled like smoke and burned meat. “We have both spoken heresy today. That’s a dangerous thing, Heloise. I’ll answer your question, and then we’ll speak no more of this, and you have to promise me that you’ll remember that while your thoughts are your own, the words you let past your lips belong to the world, and the world will not always take the meaning you intended.”

  She nodded.

  “Most men in this village fought against Ludhuige in the Old War. I knew your father then. He was a brave man, and strong. He would fight like a lion to protect his home and hearth.

  “But war also taught me odds. How many men and how many swords you need, how much time must be spent in the drill yard learning to hold a line, to shore pikes and stand against a charge.

  “We would lose, Heloise. We would lose quickly and utterly and the wages would be just as bad as a Knitting. Maybe worse. We are farmers and smiths and wheelwrights. The Order speaks of ministry, but it is the paint over the board. The wood beneath is killing. It is what they train to do, it is what they are equipped to do, it is all they do.”

  They stood in silence for a moment, Sigir slowly mastering his tears. At last he brushed a lock of her hair back behind her ear and sighed. “I am sorry, Heloise. The world is not as I would have it. Go tell your father to come to me. We must decide what to do now.”

  Heloise turned to go, but Sigir called her back. “Remember never to speak of what was said here tonight. The pious might take it amiss, and we will have trouble enough with what your father has done.”

  He left her, then, and the world that had been so full of smoke and flame and screaming was replaced by the last shreds of cool night, stars beginning to fade as the sun banished the moon, the soft, warm glow of the hearth coals dancing in the windows of her home.

  “Heloise!” Her father, his voice rising. “Come now, girl.”

  She ran to her father. Once again, he was in danger because of her. He should be angry.

  But he wasn’t. He caught her around the
shoulders as she came through the door, pulling her in. She tensed, expecting a scolding, but instead felt the soft surface of her mother’s bosom, her father’s hand on her back. She blinked, realization dawning. He was holding them. Heloise could feel his breath coming in short gasps. He’s trying not to cry. The thought terrified her.

  “It’s all right, Papa,” Heloise said. “It’s all right.”

  “It’s not all right. My little girl,” Samson sighed. “It will never be all right.”

  He held them for another moment, then stood away, an arm on each of their shoulders. “You are dear to me, the both of you. You should remember that.”

  Leuba nodded silently. After a moment, Heloise did the same.

  “It’s over,” he said, though he looked like the one who needed comforting. “It’s over now.”

  “Not my first Knitting,” Leuba said. “We’re alive and we’re together, and that’s what matters.”

  They were silent for a while after that, and then Samson shook his head and took his wife’s hand. “Aye, wife. It’s so. We’ll speak no more of it.”

  “The Maior wants to see you,” Heloise said. “He says you have to figure out what to do now that you hit that Pilgrim.”

  The kindness winked out of Samson’s face. “I said we’ll speak no more of it.”

  “But Papa, Sigi—”

  “Enough!” Her father’s cheeks reddened.

  “Samson,” Leuba laid her hand on his arm. “They will come for you. You must flee.”

  “Flee where, woman? I am a factor, not a trapper. I cannot feed myself in the wild with winter coming on. And if I do escape? What then? Where will I go? Who would take me in with the Order set against me? Who will give me custom? I would be a beggar.”

  Leuba took a deep breath, spoke slowly. “Better a living beggar than a dead factor.”

  “The Factors have lived in this village since before the veil was shut. This is my home.”

  “Samson,” Leuba said. “You must . . .”

  The door banged open.

  “What are you still doing here?” Sigir said through clenched teeth, storming in. “They are coming for you!”