The Mirror's Truth: A Novel of Manifest Delusions

by Michael R. Fletcher

  A few strides ahead, two men blocked the path with their own horses, two mangy beasts with mad eyes. The men stood ready with drawn weapons.

  “I didn’t see them until it was too late,” said Zukunft, eyes begging forgiveness.

  Both men wore the livery of Gottlos, grey on green, but their uniforms were burnt and blood spattered. The larger of the two caught Bedeckt’s eye. The man was huge and carried a rusted iron cudgel that looked older than Bedeckt. His eyes were dead, devoid of emotion. He stared at Zukunft, never blinking.

  The other, carrying a longsword and bearing the markings of an officer, had eyes only for Bedeckt. The man looked haunted, hollowed by some recent horror. He’s seen death and it broke him.

  “Greeting, good soldiers of Gottlos,” he called to the two men. Then he whispered, “Did your sister show you this?” to Zukunft.

  She shook her head. “She only shows me the farmhouse.”

  The man with the sword spat and said, “Won’t be Gottlos for long.”

  Bedeckt nodded his understanding. Keep them talking. Kill when the chance arises. “War,” he said.

  “Holy war. Nothing can stop the Geborene Geisteskranken. Three of them attacked my troop.”

  The dead-eyed man stared at Zukunft, licking his lips with quick flicks of a wet tongue. He watched her like she was a meal and he starving. Bedeckt wanted to chop him down, split him open, empty him into the dirt.

  “How many did you lose?” asked Bedeckt, pretending to be at ease.

  The officer dropped his gaze and Bedeckt knew that look: Shame.

  “Ran away, didn’t you,” he said. “Left them to die.”

  The officer met Bedeckt’s eyes and bared his teeth. “Things, demons, clawing their way out of my men, tearing them open from the inside. The gods-damned ground rose up against us. I had six thousand men but…you can’t fight…”

  “Sounds bad,” said Bedeckt not bothering to hide the mockery.

  “And they have something following them.” The officer glanced at the sky, eyes flinching from the shadows lurking in the clouds. “It’s big. Killed hundreds in a single pass.”

  “War is tragedy,” agreed Bedeckt. “Now, if you’ll step aside.”

  The officer focussed on Bedeckt, his eyes hardening. “I don’t think so.”

  Bedeckt, still mounted, squared his shoulders and glared down at the man, filling his voice with as much confidence as he could muster. “You don’t want this.” He rested a hand upon his axe.

  “It’s not about wants, right Kot?”

  The big man with the iron cudgel and dead eyes pulled his gaze from Zukunft. He looked dumb with hunger, a hulking brute of a man. He shook his head once and returned his attention to the girl, licking his lips again.

  “Can’t exactly report back to the king, can I? No.” The officer looked past Bedeckt. “I hear Geldangelegenheiten is civilized. If you have money. I can sell your horses. That’s a start.” He nodded toward Zukunft. “If Kot doesn’t accidentally kill her, I can sell her too. Or whatever is left.”

  The man was too calm. He knew Bedeckt offered no real threat. What was this, kindness? Pity?

  Bedeckt ground the remains of his teeth in anger and gestured at Kot with his half hand. “And him? You think he’ll be welcome in the clean streets of Geldangelegenheiten?” He spoke loudly to be sure the big brute heard. “You’re really going to share your ill-gotten gains with a commoner?” He forced a laugh. “Hardly.”

  “Killers are welcome everywhere,” said the officer, “as well you know. Kot will do fine.”

  Remembering an earlier conversation with Zukunft, Bedeckt really did laugh this time. “Zukunft, we have a nobleman here. He’s one of your people. The classy ones. The wealthy elite. He left six thousand farmers and peasants to die and now he’s running away.”

  “He’s not one of mine,” said Zukunft, hiding behind her horse, watching Kot over the beast’s back.

  “Geisteskranken,” snarled the officer, angry. “Something in the gods-damned skies. We couldn’t even see it. It rained death.”

  “Coward,” said Bedeckt. “Funny how little nobility there is in the nobility. Gutless wretches with a sense of entitlement. Thinks he was born to a life of luxury, like it’s owed to him. I’ve killed so many damn officers I can’t even remember most. Step aside, boy.”

  The dead-eyed monster didn’t seem to have heard a thing Bedeckt said. Small unblinking eyes, spaced too far apart, remained locked on Zukunft. Kot groaned soft hunger and reached a hand in her direction as if she’d come to him because he wanted her.

  The officer studied Bedeckt. “You look like you were once something. There was a time when you would have scared the shite out of me,” he admitted with no hint of embarrassment. “But that time is gone. You’re old. You don’t look like you have much life left in you, old man.”

  Bedeckt thought about driving his horse forward, slamming through this little blockade. But Zukunft was dismounted. He’d be leaving her behind.

  Do it. Better yet, turn around and run away. Ride east. Find that Geisteskranken Vergangene said was in Abgeleitete Leute. He realized he never asked Zukunft if that’s what her sister’s name really was. It didn’t matter now.

  “Get off that horse,” said the officer, “and we’ll let you walk away. We have no use for you. No one wants to buy a broken old man.” He grinned, flashing straight white teeth. “You can even keep that monster axe. Just walk away, old man. Go find a nice tree to die under.”

  Old man.

  No one wants a broken old man.

  Bedeckt’s skull groaned, his teeth grinding like stone on stone in his head. Rage. Red, unending, bloody rage. Pulsating anger. He breathed death. Pain was nothing. He would crush this self-important little bastard. And Kot—he hated the way the brainless brute stared at Zukunft. Bedeckt wanted his eyes, wanted to feel their jelly squish between his fingers.

  “Not much life,” said Bedeckt, “but there’s a whole lot more death in me.”

  The officer shook his head in chagrin. “You should have left when you had the chance.”

  Bedeckt hefted his axe and grinned murder.

  And then Arsehole shied and he fell off, landing in the mud on his wounded side and splashing his vision with arcs of fire. His skull filled with the taste of lightning.

  The officer strode forward and kicked Bedeckt in the face, sending a tooth spinning into the muck. Bedeckt pushed himself out of the clinging mud with a roar of rage and the officer kicked him again, smashing his nose and knocking another tooth down his throat.

  The world went black as he collapsed into the suffocating mud.

  “Stupid old man,” he heard the officer say. “I think I killed him.” He sounded distant.

  Someone kicked him in the wounded side but he didn’t feel much beyond the impact moving his body. He remembered working in a butchery as a youth, the rubbery way pig corpses reacted to being hacked apart.

  Cold silence.

  Damp earth sucked the warmth from half Bedeckt’s face, pressed mud into his mouth. He tasted soil and blood. Something moved beneath him, wriggling and wet against his cheek.

  Sounds of struggle. Screaming. Tearing fabric. A girl, pleading, begging. She was fighting, clawing and kicking and biting. He knew those sounds. It wouldn’t help. The brute was huge.

  The mud on Bedeckt’s face felt good, cool and relaxing. He wanted to sink deeper so it covered his ears. He didn’t want to hear any more. Surrender. Who knew it felt so good?

  The ravenous grunting of a starved man about to feed.

  Zukunft screamed. It was the sound someone made when they were opened wide, their guts spilling out onto the floor. Gods, how many times have I heard that very sound?

  An eye cracked open of its own volition.

  Kot pinned Zukunft to the ground, her torn clothes leaving her exposed. She clawed his face and throat repeatedly, gashing deep furrows in his flesh. The big man didn’t care. He bled profusely. The brute didn’t see
m angry, just focussed.

  Bedeckt watched as Kot forced her legs open and she kicked and screamed and begged and fought. Kot’s face, fixed in dumb concentration, didn’t change as she clawed another gash in his neck. Pushing himself between her thighs, the big man fumbled with his breeches. His gaze never left Zukunft’s face.

  The officer stood watching, his back to Bedeckt. “Don’t kill her,” he said. “I’m not sticking dead slash.”

  Bedeckt’s eyes focussed on something nearer: The haft of his axe. It was right there, within arm’s reach. Spitting mud and blood and fragments of teeth, he collected his axe and stood.

  “Get off her,” he said through his crushed nose.

  The officer turned, raising an eyebrow. “Thought you were dead, old man. Should have stayed down.” He drew his sword, calm and unhurried. “This time you will.”

  He lunged, stabbing, and Bedeckt caught the blade in his partial fist, pulling it aside.

  Bedeckt grinned ruin and chopped the man down, splitting his skull and neck to the breast bone. The corpse toppled away, dragging the sword with it. Three feet of razor sharp steel slid through Bedeckt’s hand like fire.

  Kot stared at Bedeckt from atop Zukunft, small eyes unblinking. He grunted once and stood. Grinning—for the first time showing emotion—he stooped to collect his cudgel.

  Shite. The idiot looks happy. That’s the last thing Bedeckt wanted to see. Apparently Kot liked killing even more than he liked rape.

  Bleak fear shredded Bedeckt’s rage like a tornado through a tent village. Emptiness and devastation remained in its wake. He’d seen men like this before. Kot felt no rage, needed no killing frenzy. He never lost control. Kot was a cold, calculating killer. He’d snuff a man as soon as crush a fly and with the same lack of empathy.

  Bedeckt’s axe hung heavy, tried to drag him back to the mud. His knees wobbled, threatened to give.

  I’ve been run through the gut, kicked and beaten. I can’t fight this man, he’ll end me.

  Bedeckt glanced at his side. Fresh blood leaked from under the leather straps binding his filthy sleeping roll over the wound. His own gore soaked him from armpit to knees. If he couldn’t smell the festering rot it was because that damned officer kicked his nose flat. Again. His head rang and buzzed, a hollow bell filled with swarming hornets threatening to drown his vision in black.

  I can’t stand against this mountain.

  Kot took his time approaching. He stepped over Zukunft, ignoring her as she kicked at him and grabbed at his legs, trying to slow him. He was stone, a wall of muscle with a hunting cat’s single-minded will to kill. Nothing would deflect him from his purpose. Bedeckt knew this man, knew his kind. Such a monomaniacal fixation defined its reality.

  This was exactly the right fight to run away from. He’d done it dozens of times, more than he could count. He ran in Sinnlos, and ran from the Therianthropes in Neidrig. Sometimes, running was life.

  Bedeckt glanced over his shoulder and knew helpless anger. Thick mud sucked at his boots. Kot’s attention was fixed. The bastard would follow. No way an old man with bad knees and a festering gut wound would outrun him. Returning his attention to Kot, he saw Zukunft huddled in the muck, collecting together the torn rags of her clothes. Once the brute killed Bedeckt, he’d return to have his way with her. He’d kill her. Not on purpose, and through no malice or forethought. She simply wouldn’t survive his attentions. Kot would literally rape her to death.

  “It’s on my list,” said Bedeckt, hefting his axe. Gods it was heavy.

  Kot cocked his head but said nothing as he moved closer.

  “You don’t hurt women,” said Bedeckt. “You don’t hurt children.”

  Kot looked confused, like he couldn’t possibly see the point of such a list.

  But protecting women and children was never on the list.

  Was it on the list now? Bedeckt didn’t know. The list had somehow become blurred, indistinct. It was supposed to be the few things he wouldn’t do, the few crimes he would not commit. It was easier than listing the ones he would. How had the stupid list brought him to this?

  “Guilt, you goat-sticking moron,” said Stehlen.

  “Shush,” said Bedeckt and Kot finally blinked, pausing in his approach.

  “This is the best chance you’re ever going to get,” said Stehlen. “Turn and run you stupid old drunk.”

  “I can’t,” said Bedeckt.

  “Why not?” she demanded.

  “Nowhere to run. Nothing to run to.”

  Kot watched Bedeckt through narrowed eyes, suspicious.

  “More stupid old man philosophy,” said Stehlen. Then she spat on his boot.

  Bedeckt threw his axe with deadly precision.

  Kot ducked under the throw. Again expressionless he resumed stalking his prey. Tiny eyes watched Bedeckt, alert for tricks.

  Sorry, that was it.

  The cudgel, a bar of solid iron with a jagged and rusting iron head the size of Bedeckt’s meaty fist, swung in Kot’s hand like it was nothing. The brute grinned, clearly imagining what Bedeckt’s brains would look like spattered all over the nearby trees. He stopped two paces from Bedeckt, easily within killing distance. He examined Bedeckt’s skull as if deciding which part to hit with an eye for causing maximum carnage.

  Lunge now, while he’s deciding how to kill you.

  Bedeckt drew his long knife with his half-hand, fumbling, and dropping it at Kot’s feet. He’d drawn that knife that way a thousand times and not once dropped it. Glancing at his hand he stared in dumb fascination at what remained. Where the hells is my finger? He hadn’t felt its loss. Another part of me gone back to the mud. His forefinger and thumb were all that remained.

  “Won’t matter soon, old man,” said Stehlen over his shoulder.

  Bedeckt snarled in anger and dove at Kot, thinking to tackle the big man to the mud. The bastard would still beat him to death, but at least his brains wouldn’t paint the trees. His left knee gave as his feet slid in the muck and he landed on his knees at Kot’s feet, staring at the big brutes undone belt buckle.

  Kot raised his cudgel. Bedeckt watched strands of murky water fall away from the iron head in swirling pirouettes, soon to be commingled with his own blood and grey matter.

  The brute grunted an interrogative “Hmn?” and stared down at Bedeckt, finally blinking a second time. Small eyes narrowed in dim confusion. Zukunft stood behind Kot, a small knife buried in his lower back. She twisted it and he said “Oh.”

  “Now is the time to get your knife,” said Stehlen.

  “Knife?”

  “The one you dropped in the mud. It’s right in front of you.”

  Bedeckt looked down, spotting the gleam of bright metal. Using his whole hand, he grabbed the knife and drove it into Kot’s belly. He dragged the blade sideways, spilling the man’s guts into the sucking mud and splashing himself with gore and blood.

  Kot remembered Bedeckt and returned his attention to the old man, still showing no more emotion than mild puzzlement.

  Blinking through a haze of blood and viscera, Bedeckt clubbed the big man in the back of the knees, dropping him. Crawling through Kot’s innards, he climbed atop him. Grabbing the brute’s head, Bedeckt slammed it over and over against the ground beneath. He crushed it to the ground until the back of Kot’s skull became soft like moss.

  “He’s dead,” said Zukunft. “You can stop.”

  Leaning close, Bedeckt whispered into the corpse’s ear, “When I find you in the Afterdeath, I will kill you again. I’ll follow you to whatever waits after that. I’ll kill you there too. Anywhere your shite soul flees I will follow.”

  Rolling off the dead man, he lay sprawled in the mud. Sink in. Sink away.

  “Are you hurt?” asked Zukunft.

  Bedeckt coughed a groan of laughter. “Gods yes.”

  “I mean worse than you were,” she said.

  “Still yes,” he said. He cracked an eye open and glanced at her. Red washed his vision a bloody smear
. “You?”

  “I’ll survive.”

  That makes one of us.

  She laughed then, a mad cackle tinged with hysteria. “You’re bleeding all over the place. Gods, your face.” She crawled to his side, lay in the mud beside him. “And I thought you were ugly before.”

  “Ah,” said Bedeckt. “The callow honesty of youth.”

  “Just because you saved me from being raped and my clothes are tatters,” she said, still giggling and fighting back choking sobs, “doesn’t mean you can ogle my arse any time you want.”

  “Fine. Anyway, I think you saved me.”

  Zukunft lay her head on his chest. “So you owe me one then, right?”

  “I guess so,” said Bedeckt. “I guess so.”

  “Good.” She rose to her feet, as graceful as ever. “Let’s get you back on your horse.” She held out a hand as if offering to pull Bedeckt from the clinging muck and he stared at it.

  “Thought I might lie here for a moment,” he said.

  Zukunft shook her head. Her hair, caked with gore and mud, clung to her face and he wanted to wipe it clear. “We have to go,” she said.

  With her help, he made it to his knees and stopped there to rest, panting and wheezing. He glanced sideways at her. “Have my choices been sane?”

  “What choices?”

  “Staying with you.”

  Zukunft pursed her lips, examining him. Something behind her eyes retreated, grew hard and distant. “I’m going to get you killed. I told you it ends badly. I told you I murdered my sister and she wants to punish me. I told you I want her to. You’re a stupid old man. You follow me like a love-lorn puppy, hoping I’ll let you stick me. I’m using you and you know I’m using you. What sane person would stay with someone like that?”

  “I’m sane,” said Bedeckt.

  “Fine,” she said. “Get on your damned horse.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  I can no longer pretend the future doesn’t terrify me. The philosophers say that, in this responsive reality, we are the authors of our own fate. Could there be a more damning curse? I look at the choices I have made and I see that I have carefully constructed my own failure.