by Max Kramer
Konstantin’s reaction had drawn attention. Deirdre was looking from the twins to Konstantin and back. She clearly did not like the conclusions she was drawing. Storming over to the haggard looking Inquisitor, she poked a manicured nail firmly into the center of his chest.
“What do you know?” She demanded. “What do you know about that farmhouse?”
Konstantin lowered his head into his hands, bracing them against his bent knees.
“I was there,” he whispered.
Inquisitor-Brother Frederick Konstantin bowed his head in acknowledgment. “His will be done.”
Dismissed by Father Clement, he carried the squirming bundles back upstairs, afraid of what he must do, and afraid of what it would mean if he didn’t. Stepping gingerly over the gory remains of the man he had shot, he entered the room where the women had been hidden. It was a simple bedroom, with a neatly made bed and a plain dresser. On the wall was a small circle of embroidered fabric lined with pastel flowers. In the center of the scrap a prayer was written. Konstantin read it. May the Lord continually bless you with heaven’s blessings as well as with human joys. He closed his eyes. The Lord had clearly forsaken this house. Praying for guidance, he gently lowered his tiny cargo onto the bed. Unholstering his gun, he slowly reloaded it. The two babies had grown still and were sleeping peacefully, one with a thumb planted firmly in her small mouth. Crossing himself Konstantin took aim. With a prayer for the little one’s souls, he pulled the trigger.
The gun jammed. Staring at his disobedient weapon, Konstantin let out a deep breath. Raising his eyes from the small occupants of the bed toward heaven, he thanked God for watching over his own. Walking from the room, he quietly shut the door on the slumbering infants. Aiming his weapon at the dead man on the ground he pulled the trigger again. The dark hallway filled with the gun’s loud retort. He pulled the trigger again. Again the gun fired, filling the corridor with a flash and the wet thump of the bullet burying itself in the dead body. Holstering his weapon Konstantin hurried down the stairs to rejoin his mentor. Behind the closed door the noise of the gun had awakened the babies. Blind eyes stared out into the darkness.
“You bastard!” Deirdre began punching and kicking the squatting Inquisitor. “It was you! You killed their family and left them to die!”
Konstantin did nothing to defend himself, allowing her to vent her anger. Not even Jim or Brita moved to stop the assault. Help came from an unexpected source. Moving between the irate woman and her target, Hrist and Mist wrapped Konstantin in their little arms.
Deirdre, stop it! Frederick William Konstantin saved us! He might be guilty of many terrible crimes, but our death isn’t one of them!
Ignoring the uncomfortable burn of their barely restrained magic, Konstantin pulled the girls to him in a desperate hug. Rocking back and forth, Inquisitor-Brother Frederick Konstantin held the small witches close.
“I am so sorry little ones. One day I will pay for my sins, not the least being what I did to your family. Until then I will do everything in my power to make it up to you, I swear it.”
***
Eventually, Deirdre calmed down enough to allow the Inquisitor to stand. Gathering the twins protectively, she brought them to sit with her and Naoise where they were talking with the other men around the fire. Giving her brother a sad look, Brita joined them.
Shunned, Konstantin departed the circle of firelight, seeking refuge in solitude. Moving away from the factory ruins he rooted around half-heartedly with his boot in the detritus covering the forest floor. Periodically his scuffing would expose an acorn or mushroom, which he brushed off on his already dirty jacket and popped into his mouth. Chewing thoughtfully, Konstantin sent a silent lament to God, asking for guidance. Like usual, he received no overt answer, but like usual, the act of prayer soothed his roiling thoughts. It could do nothing for his roiling stomach however.
As he was shuffling through the quiet forest, nature summoned. Remembering the jar of lotion in his coat pocket he decided to kill two birds with one stone, and dropping his trousers, began dabbing experimentally at the blisters on his rear. It was at that moment that the men hiding in the trees attacked.
11
As he hopped back to the relative safety of the old factory, trying to avoid death at the hands of a horde of filthy wild men, Konstantin thought two things.
The first was that a flight of arrows and spears sounded surprisingly beautiful as they whispered through the air and impacted with the soft ground.
The second was that nowhere in all the stories he had ever read was the protagonist forced to fight for his life with his pants around his ankles and lotion smeared across his blistered butt.
Real life was just not like the stories he supposed. Barely avoiding the raining death, Konstantin dove into camp with his assailants nipping at his heels. He had enough time to shout one frantic warning before a stray spear skipped across the top of his head, knocking him into a roll. He grabbed the spear as he slid, using it as a crutch to pull himself upright whilst his free hand got his pants firmly belted back around his waist. Holding the spear before him, he could see that it was an old garden ho with the blade pounded flat and filed into a wicked point. Twirling it experimentally, he set his feet in time to meet the rush of attackers entering the camp. Pressed to defend himself, he could only wonder if his companions had received ample warning.
The startling roar of firearms behind him did much to answer that question. From what he had seen, the howling mob rushing the camp had only primitive missile weapons, they were instead relying on overwhelming numbers to defeat their prey in hand to hand combat. The crumbling walls of the old building barely slowed their insane rush; there were simply too many gaps for the surprised defenders to barricade.
As the gibbering mass closed in around him, Konstantin found his calm center, quieting his worries and fears. His breath thundered in his ears. He could feel the warm drip of blood leaking from the gash on his scalp. He tightened his grip on the spear.
Everything seemed to slow, the world reduced to hues of gray. A rusty wood axe drifted toward him. Side-stepping, he broke the wielder’s arm with his borrowed weapon. Spinning smoothly, he eviscerated another, the stench of the wound and the man’s horrified scream a distant consideration. Leaping into the air, his boot shattered another man’s jaw. No, he corrected himself; his newest attacker was a woman. At first glance it was near impossible to tell, they were all equally filthy, covered in crude tattoos and bone piercings. Most wore poorly tanned furs around their shoulders and waists. They were barefoot, yet seemed unbothered by the autumn chill. A man fell to his darting blade, and a stomping kick shattered the knee of another. Stabbing down twice he finished off both the man with the broken leg and the woman who was busily choking on blood from her severed jaw. Looking around, Konstantin searched for his sister.
Naoise bulled past him, laughing uproariously as he tossed the smaller attackers aside with great sweeps of his gruesome axe, on his way to protect the shrieking horses. Konstantin realized he had never seen the one-eyed man look happier. James had scurried up a tree, and was laying down a rhythmic stream of fire with his powerful rifle. Still lying in his sleeping bag, Snorri was also releasing a hail of bullets, sweat staining his threadbare shirt and his eyes squinted in concentration. Both were singing enthusiastically. Even in the face of this deadly barrage the tribesmen continued charging in, screaming madly.
Konstantin stabbed a scythe-wielding attacker that ventured too close, his eyes still searching for Brita in the throng. The twins were standing back to back beside the scattered remains of the fire, protected by Deirdre. Whirling like a dervish she seemed everywhere at once, her fists glowing with sorcerous power. Every time she struck somebody there was a small thunderclap and the smell of burnt flesh.
The Inquisitor was beset upon by three wildmen at once, and had to focus fully on protecting himself for the next several minutes. Finally dispatching the last of the immediate threat with a twisting lung
e, he located Brita crouching at the base of the far wall, her eyes shut tight and her fingers jammed into her ears against the sounds of the butchery going around her. Konstantin was relieved to see Felix standing over her, smoothly firing into the roiling crowd with his stolen pistols and verbally abusing the victims of his deadly accuracy.
The long-haired northerner paused his tirade long enough to acknowledge the blood-stained Inquisitor.
“Finally some excitement, eh Konstantin!?” He shook with laughter as he dispatched another shrieking primitive. “Today is a good day!”
His exultation was cut short by a throbbing ball of green flame which smashed into the ground before him, blasting both he and Brita into the air.
An enemy magic-user had entered the battle.
***
Watching his sister’s limp body blown forcefully onto a twisted pile of burnt steel and fallen masonry, something inside Konstantin snapped. His gray world turned red. What had been methodical self-defense became murderous rage. The anger that had awakened inside him with the tiger attack came surging back to the surface, multiplied tenfold. Growling ferociously, he threw himself into the fray, snapping bones like they were made of cardboard and slicing unprotected flesh to ribbons. His dance was both terrible and beautiful in its lethality. Shrugging off the stinging cuts and bruises from their primitive weapons like so many raindrops, he exploded into each pocket of resistance with a vengeance. His was not a merciful Lord. His was a wrathful and bloodthirsty God.
Their confidence shaken, the wildmen focused on the berserk Inquisitor, giving Deirdre and the twins the respite they needed to locate the source of the glowing fireballs. On top of a small pile of fallen stone, a stooped figure danced, howling into the night air. The enemy magician was covered head to toe with a coyote hide, the skull of the animal perched atop its brow like a crude helmet. Each scream from its shadowed mouth brought another of the powerful fires into being, which the creature then scooped up with its claw-like hands and threw into camp. Either its aim was poor, or it cared little for the life of its allies, because the burning balls more often than not struck the wildmen, turning them into shrieking pillars of flame.
James shifted his aim to the attacking witch. His rifle cracked. If his round struck home, there was no sign. The fiery assault continued unabated, shaking the very foundations of the building. Raising her own glowing hands into the air, Deirdre released a keening wail. Crows began rising from the surrounding forest in droves. Funneled into a twisting, flapping mass they spiraled in on the cloaked figure on the wall.
Diverted by the aerial assault, the creature shifted its aim. Too late it realized its mistake, for the birds were merely a feint.
Behind Deirdre, the twins had been compressing a disk of air between themselves so dense it became opaque. Moonlight reflected off of its razor edge. Spinning on her toes Hrist flung their magical projectile like a discus. Cleaving the night with lightning speed it impacted with the body of the enemy witch.
There was a lull in the combat, as everyone looked toward the figure on the pile of bricks and stone. The wild magician stopped its deadly wail. Looking down in shock, it watched ropy coils of intestines slip slowly out of its belly. Coughing blood, it toppled slowly, the top half of its body separated from the lower in a smooth line below the navel.
Wailing in horror at the unanticipated loss of their most powerful ally, the wildmen threw down their weapons and began streaming back into the forest. Blind to the turn in battle, Konstantin followed, cutting down the fleeing tribesmen without mercy.
As the cries of pain and terror receded, Deirdre took stock of the situation. Jim was still perched in his tree, casually cleaning his firearm. Snorri still lay in his sleeping bag, where he had voided his bowels and then passed out. Naoise had miraculously kept all the horses together, more by brute strength than anything else. Trudging up to his wife, he grinned self-consciously, wiping gore off of his fearsome axe. His spiked mohawk looked crooked, bent under the weight of other men’s blood. She quirked an eyebrow, and then leaned in for a quick kiss.
“You sir, are a barbarian.”
“Yes, milady.”
They turned at a yelp of pain. A haggard looking Felix was busy fishing Brita from her tangled nest of metal, and he was collecting some impressive new scars on his arms for his trouble. Finally extricated, the young woman gave him a hug of gratitude before noticing the devastation around them.
“Oh dear Lord…” She sank to her knees, her lithe body wracked with sobs. Felix looked around perplexed, unmoved by the carnage.
“Where are the twins?”
Deirdre swore. The girls were nowhere to be found. James called out, gesturing from his position in the tree.
“Their prints lead off into the forest. I think they went after the Inquisitor.”
Brita looked up, her teary eyes alarmed. “Fred?”
Felix helped her to her feet, gesturing to the mutilated corpses piled throughout camp.
“Ay little one, he is responsible for most of this.” His voice was troubled, “After the beasts ran, he chased after them. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“I’ve heard of it though,” Snorri interjected from the ragged sleeping bag he had yet to exit, “He is one of Odin’s warriors. You brother is a berserker.” He then puked, pooped, and passed out again.
Brita wasn’t certain if her devoutly Christian brother would appreciate being described as the chosen warrior of an ancient pagan god, but she did have to admit there was something very strange about him. There always had been.
***
“Girls!” Deirdre yelled in relief. The twins had just stepped through one of the low points in the wall, dragging a chagrined looking Konstantin between them. Running over to the adventurous youngsters, she began berating them for running off after the blood crazed Inquisitor. Squeezing their pale hands in apology, Konstantin whispered to his young wards.
“Let’s not tell them. It could be our little secret.”
Agreed.
He was a shocking sight. His clothes were in tatters and he was covered from head to boot tip in gore. The blood from his head wound had dried and crusted, leaving his hair spiky and disheveled. His eyes contained a haunted look, like a caged wild animal who has not yet forgotten the taste of freedom. Even the stoic Naoise gave him a long stare when he trudged over to where the others were painfully clearing the camp of dead bodies.
Shrugging off the looks of his companions, which ranged from suspicion, to awe, to outright fear, he grabbed the wrists of a mangled wild man, dragging him to the closest gap in the wall.
Their attackers had been small and malnourished, many with varying degrees of mutation. They carried little, usually only their weapons and crude ornamentation fashioned from human bones, which meant their lair had to be nearby. Most of the bone decorations had teeth marks on them.
“Cannibals.” Felix grunted in disgust. Of all the denizens of the wilds, the eaters of the dead were the most loathed. Usually plagued with madness and disease, they were more animal than man, and generally considered worse than both.
Konstantin dropped his dripping burden beside the grisly remains of the enemy magician. The twin’s counter attack had completely separated the top half of the body from the legs, cutting through flesh and bone unhindered.
Konstantin scratched thoughtfully at the dry blood on his chin. Nudging with his boot he pushed the coyote skull cap off of the dead witch’s face. He stared for a long time.
“This witch is a man.”
James struggled past him, dragging another mutilated corpse.
“What’s your point bud?”
Konstantin poked sourly at the dead body with a stick. “We are taught that magic users are always women. All witchcraft comes from carnal lust, which in women is insatiable.” He quoted the Malleus Maleficarum. “Only women are inclined to witchcraft, because of their many weaknesses.”
James wheezed a laugh. “Don’t let Deirdre hear you s
ay that, big guy. I have a feeling she might take offense to being called weak. Besides, that legless wonder there technically isn’t a witch. He’s a warlock.”
“A warlock?”
“Warlock, shaman, magician. A male witch, buddy. Exceedingly rare. A magic user is a force of nature, a person in tune with the world and its radiant emissions of power. They can tap into this invisible energy all around us, big time mojo stuff. That is what Deirdre and the twins do. It’s also what your sister does. Sorry, I know. I estimate that nowadays almost one in a hundred-thousand women have this innate ability to some degree. For men, it is more like one in a million, and of those, most usually die at a young age or go completely mad, and then die anyway. Nobody really understands what it is about a woman’s constitution, or genetic markers, or brain patterns or whatever that makes them more sensitive to this power, or better able to channel it without frying.”
Konstantin frowned at that. “So this magic, supposedly, has nothing to do with the Devil. It’s just some invisible power radiating from the earth? And some people, usually women, can harness it to varying degrees.”
“Bingo.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
James met his friend’s eye. “I’ve got to tell you Konstantin, I’ve met plenty of witches. Like all people, some are evil. Some are good. I’ve felt their power first hand. I know it exists. I have never, however, met a big red guy with horns and hooves and a tail, bent on tempting mankind to ruin, so I’m afraid you’re going to have to count old Satan out of this equation. It’s a bummer, it really is.”
Konstantin glared at the chatty American. He did not like that his faith was being questioned of late. He glanced at the dead Warlock. He really did not like that some of those blasphemous arguments appeared to have proof.
