Updated_PerilInTheOldCountry_SamHooker_EbookFormatting_Nook

by Peril in the Old Country (retail) (epub)

  “I’ll not be denied by a boy,” said Vlad.

  A boy. It occurred to Sloot that he’d never seen the Domnitor before. It was a hereditary title, after all, and he rarely ever left his palace.

  “You’re being denied by me,” the boy shouted back. “I am Domnitor Olaf von Donnerhonig, Defender of the Old Country and Hero of the People!”

  So it was true! The Domnitor, long may he reign, was just a boy! Did Roman expect Sloot to murder a child? It hardly seemed sporting, namely for the guards who would need to flex very few of their ample supply of muscles to put a spear through Sloot, as he attempted bare-handed strangulation on an adolescent who―if he were being honest―would probably have the advantage in terms of upper body strength. Sloot Peril was a calculator, not a fighter.

  “You have to have an army to have a war. Everybody knows that. You haven’t brought one. No army, no war!”

  “I don’t need an army to take your city.”

  “Yes, you do. Now go away.”

  “No, I don’t! Open your gates, and I’ll show you!”

  “That would defeat the purpose of having gates,” said the Domnitor. “That’s why you’d need an army, to get them open!”

  “Then come down here and fight me yourself!”

  “Oh, you’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

  “I would, very much! Please and thank you!”

  Sloot was fascinated by the way that the negotiations were shaping up, though he couldn’t see how the Domnitor declining more sarcastically and Vlad threatening more politely would ever end up meeting in the middle. Perhaps with a cold war. Was this how they’d arrived at the current one?

  All of the books available in Salzstadt that had anything to do with the Carpathian conflict were in agreement. The open warfare had ended in a very embarrassing way for Vlad the Invader (the current Vlad’s father), who had tucked tail and run at the head of his army back to Carpathia, never to be seen again in the Old Country. Likewise, the majority of the Domnitor’s forces (this being the current Domnitor’s father, or possibly grandfather) had been shipped off to retirement in undisclosed tropical locations, and never you mind all of those six-foot bundles that the ships are dumping way out along the horizon.

  “Archers!” shouted the Domnitor, who was apparently finished negotiating. Vlad closed the visor on her great horned helm and crouched behind her tower shield.

  “Loose!” shouted someone on the Domnitor’s behalf, who was ostensibly empowered to do so, and several trees’ worth of arrows filled the sky. To the credit of the Old Country’s archers, very few of them missed their mark; however, to the credit of Carpathia’s blacksmiths, not one of them penetrated Vlad’s shield. They succeeded only in staggering her a bit and pushing her several feet backward, her heavy boots digging a pair of trenches in the dirt.

  “You’ll need a lot of arrows to get me back to Carpathia that way,” shouted Vlad.

  “Send the Pride!” shouted the Domnitor, causing everyone on the wall to raise their fists and cheer. The Pride was an elite platoon of Old Country warriors, not a one of whom stood under seven feet tall, though some of that might have been the huge suits of platemail that they always wore.

  Their bronze helmets looked like the heads of lions, and their presence on the battlefield brought great honor to the people of the Old Country, thus fulfilling a smug double entendre for the word “pride.”

  They jogged through the wicket gate in a single file, then formed around Vlad in a semicircle. Vlad cast her shield aside, needing both hands to wield the great sword that she wore on her back. It was nearly as tall as she was.

  “Oh well, you win some, you lose some,” said anyone having placed money on their talking out their differences. This is why those people’s spouses usually held onto the money.

  Sloot’s gaze followed Vlad in a mathematically improbable pattern of retreating and advancing steps. Had he known anything about the grey-breasted thrushes that summer in the eastern steppes of Carpathia, he’d have recognized Vlad’s pattern as being loosely based on their courting dance, which was accompanied by a song of whoops and chirps that are the thrush equivalent of “hey baby, is there a place we can talk where your brothers won’t try to peck my eyes out?”

  But Sloot was a numbers man and had no interest in ornithology. Sticking to the pattern, Vlad had slain all but one of the Pride within about ten minutes.

  “Sir Lars!” shouted the Domnitor. “He’s my favorite, I’ve got all his cards! Send a regiment to help him!”

  The Domnitor had leaned forward past the edge of the wall just enough for Sloot to catch a glimpse of him. Sure enough, he was just a boy! Sloot stared at him until he remembered that Roman might have sent him there as an assassin. He wasn’t feeling any murderous impulses, but he diverted his eyes quickly just in case.

  Vlad and Sir Lars ducked and weaved, swinging their swords, attacking and blocking. Swing, stab, flurry and riposte. It gave the guards on the ground time to open the gates for the regiment to march through in their formations and join the fight.

  Sloot wasn’t sure what to hope for. He’d grown up hearing about the magnificent daring of the Pride, yet there they were; or rather weren’t, not in any way that would be verified by existentialists. It’s hard to be proud of two dozen corpses, no matter how shiny their armor is. Plus, Vlad was fighting for love, and Myrtle was with Greta. If Vlad were victorious, Myrtle would likely be freed as well!

  Having decided how he felt about things, he wasn’t disappointed to see Sir Lars’ head coaxed from his shoulders by Vlad’s sword just before the regiment was nearly there. He was in the wrong bleachers to start cheering, so he contented himself by thinking “nice one, Vlad!” as emphatically as possible.

  “Now!” shouted Vlad, just as the forward platoon of foot soldiers stepped into striking distance. There was a flash of ghostly red fire over each of the fallen from the Pride, and each of them stood up and turned their swords toward the advancing soldiers (all except Sir Albrecht, whose inconvenient lack of legs hindered him from rising to the occasion).

  Even in death, the warriors of the Pride were each worth a dozen standard-issue Old Country soldiers. To Sloot, who had seen only one death before today and only almost experienced another, watching Vlad and the undead Pride cutting through dozens of soldiers would have been disturbing enough on its own; but then the ghostly red fires started flashing over the bodies of the soldiers, and they rose and fought against the living soldiers as well.

  “Close the gates!” shouted the Domnitor. All of the soldiers atop the wall scattered, many of them running past Sloot, none giving him a second look.

  All of a sudden, there he was: the Domnitor! Sloot panicked and started counting the seconds as they passed, grateful for each one during which he didn’t take a run at the boy and try to throw him off the wall.

  Perhaps Roman hadn’t brainwashed him? Sloot thought about thanking him for that later, but decided it might set the bar a bit too low for their friendship if not programming me to assassinate a child merited thanks.

  Someone’s got to open the gates for Vlad. That’s what Roman had said. Unfortunately, the Domnitor had just ordered them closed. Under normal circumstances, opening the gates without authorization would be frowned upon. Doing so in the face of the Domnitor’s orders would probably count as treason. Just about everything else did.

  But what could he do? He knew where the levers were that worked the heavy chains that opened the gates, and he didn’t imagine that their operation could be too complicated, but he doubted that the guards would just let him have a turn at them because he asked nicely.

  “There you are!” said someone, which was disconcerting. Sloot looked around and found himself alone on the wall.

  “What? No, I’m not! Are you a ghost?”

  “No, it’s me, Nicoleta!”

  “Where are you?”


  Sloot flinched when Nicoleta exploded into existence in front of him, in a great puff of lavender smoke and a hail of hot pink sparks. She said a swear word.

  “I meant to do that in front of a bigger audience, it was my grand entrance! What was that popping sound?”

  “Goblin,” said Sloot, while slowly releasing his white-knuckled grip on his chest.

  “Oh right, the swearing! I’d heard rumors. It’s really true?”

  Sloot nodded. “Only in the Old Country, as far as I know. Hey, that’s the blood star!”

  “Shiny, isn’t it? Horrible bit of necromancy, though. When Roman told me about it, I wanted to bury it in salt and be done with it; but he was right, it turned out to be very useful.”

  “Useful?”

  “You saw all of the soldiers rise and fight again?”

  “You don’t mean that―”

  “Yeah,” said Nicoleta. “It gives me the willies, but it gets around the curse. They’re not enlisted soldiers. They’re not technically people at all.”

  “You’ve got to be alive to be a person?”

  “Seems that way. Now how do we open the gates?”

  “There’s a guardhouse down by the gate, I’m pretty sure you just throw the levers inside of it.”

  “You’re pretty sure?”

  “I haven’t done it myself! The hard part is going to be getting past the guards. The Domnitor’s ordered the gates closed, as you can imagine.”

  “I can handle the gates,” said Nicoleta. “Where’s the wedding?”

  “In the cathedral. It’s the big building at the end of the main road with all the cherubs and gold leaf, you can’t miss it. It should be starting any time now.”

  “All right. You go and stall them. Keep them there!”

  ***

  On the island nation of Kaldakos, which can be reached by ship from the Port of Salzstadt in just over a week if the weather is fair, one will find a plurality of the greatest athletes the world has to offer. They believe that their gods are very keen on sport, and that phenomenal displays of athleticism convince them not to stir up the volcanoes underneath their feet. Kaldakosi athletes train year round, except for Saturdays, when they lie around on beaches to keep up with their bronzing.

  They have several different words for running. There’s one for the give-it-everything-you’ve-got sort of running that sprinters do, one for the make-it-last sort that the long-distance runners do, and even a specific one for spectators who don’t want to miss anything but have had too many cold ones to ignore nature’s call any longer.

  There are dozens more than those, but not one of them fits neatly around whatever it was that Sloot was doing. It was the unrehearsed flailing of an accountant who’d never given serious thought into how he might propel himself quickly from one place to another, recognizable by the spastic employment of all available muscles in what seemed a random order. It was the sort of running you might expect to see if the brain refused to have anything to do with it, and the knees were deemed most capable of filling in.

  His steadfast dedication to the avoidance of athleticism would have left him gasping for breath if he had simply run that far, but his artistic interpretation of running required a lot more effort. He collapsed in a sweaty heap on the steps of the cathedral.

  “You’re very nearly late,” said Olga.

  “Then I’m on time.”

  “Don’t sass me, Peril. On your feet.”

  “I need a moment to catch my breath.”

  “You can do it while we walk.”

  “No, I can’t! I think I’m dying.”

  If Olga’s wand arm was tired from the thrashing she gave Sloot all the way up the steps, she didn’t let on. It occurred to Sloot that the sort of upper body strength and endurance she displayed required the sort of training that would distract one from studying higher mathematics. His smugness helped to shield him from the humiliation of the beating. If trigonometry were weaponized, he could have vaporized her with a thought.

  The inside of the cathedral looked different from the way that Sloot remembered it. To be fair, he wasn’t particularly religious, so it could have been that he’d only been inside on special occasions before. Perhaps the usual workaday decorations were skulls, black candles, chalices filled with blood, and black banners with silver snakes painted on.

  The pews were nearly full, and everyone was wearing black robes with hoods drawn up. They were engaged in the susurrus of idle chit-chat that traditionally precedes someone important taking the stage and saying, “All right, settle down now, if we don’t get started we’ll be here all day.”

  “Put this on,” instructed Olga, shoving a black cloak into Sloot’s hands. His face was dripping with sweat and hot enough for frying eggs. He gave a little whimper, which only seemed to fuel Olga’s enthusiasm for wand whacking. He donned the cloak and concentrated on not keeling over.

  “Now follow me,” said Olga, “and do try not to vomit on anything.”

  They walked up the side aisle and onto the dais where the altar stood. Olga put him between two other hooded figures and left without thrashing him any further. He could tell she wanted to, though.

  Sloot stood there, feeling miserable. His heart was still thundering in his chest, and he was panting and sweating under the heavy velvet cloak. A groan slipped out of him, one that was half whimper on its father’s side.

  “Sloot, is that you?” asked the figure on his left.

  “Roman?”

  “Yes, keep your voice down!”

  “How’d you know it was me?”

  “I’ve heard your whimper often enough,” whispered Roman. Sloot could hear him smiling in a smug sort of way.

  “What happens now?” whispered Sloot.

  “We’re Willie’s wedding party,” whispered Roman. “We just stand here and look ominous, I suppose. What happened on the wall?”

  “Vlad’s here, though I suppose you know that already.”

  “No, but I figured. Did you talk to her?”

  “To Nicoleta. She’s opening the gates, she told me to stall.”

  “How’re you going to do that?”

  “I don’t know!”

  “Shhh!”

  Just then, the organ started belting out an eerie, discordant tune. Truly awful by any measure, which probably meant that it was art, which probably meant that it was expensive. Everyone stood up from their pews and started singing along in a language that Sloot didn’t recognize. The doors of the transepts opened, and a column of black-hooded figures walked out from each of them. They formed a ring around the altar. Then a single figure (also wearing a black cloak with the hood up, to Sloot’s lack of surprise) approached the altar, turned to face the audience, and held his hands out above his head. The organ and the singing abruptly ceased.

  “We gather now, brothers and sisters, to witness the joining of two of our number in the necessity of matrimony. Bring forth the bridegroom!”

  The figure on Sloot’s right stepped forward and pulled back his hood. It was Willie, wearing his most pompous smirk.

  “Bring forth the bride!” said the officiant.

  “That’s old Constantin speaking, isn’t it?” whispered Sloot to Roman.

  Roman nodded.

  “According to what I’ve read, he’s the Eye of the Serpent. That’s the living leader.”

  “As opposed to the dead one?”

  “Actually yes,” whispered Sloot, choosing to ignore Roman’s sarcastic tone. “The dead one is the Soul of the Serpent.”

  “I hope he’s not here,” said Roman with a shiver.

  “She,” said Sloot. “Not entirely archaic, these arcane evil types.”

  Several people were walking toward the altar from the narthex. The one in front was clearly the bride, or possibly a latecomer with a flair for upstaging
.

  No, it was the bride, followed by several hooded figures. Sloot had heard that wedding gowns were generally uncomfortable, but having her arms bound at her sides and being prodded forward at knifepoint took the trope beyond its usual bounds. Constantin waited until everyone had taken their places at the altar before continuing.

  “Honored guests, who shall remain anonymous, we are gathered here today to witness the nuptials of Wilhelm Hapsgalt and Greta Urmacher. So that none may contest their union in perpetuity, attorneys have been appointed to speak for them, provided at no cost by the Three Bells Shipping Company, a completely independent party with no interest in the matter.”

  A chuckle drifted through the pews.

  Constantin droned on at length about the nature of marriage. It’s a mandatory tradition, as inevitable as flatulence during lulls in conversation. Even the officiant would rather have a couple of quick “I dos” and get straight to figuring out which uncle would embarrass themselves the most at the open bar, but that’s not the way it works.

  Sloot may have been the only person in the room who breathed a sigh of relief every time a long pause turned out not to be the end of Constantin’s droning, but a break to draw in a breath.

  What was that? The ring of steel on steel! It came from outside the church, barely audible beneath Constantin’s agitated recitation of the virtues of patience. Even though he was hurrying through it, maybe it would take long enough for Vlad to intercede.

  “Bring them forth,” said Constantin. Willie stepped toward him, as did Greta at the gentle coaxing of the knife between her shoulders. “Now join hands, and we’ll hear opening remarks.”

  Greta growled from beneath her veils. Her arms were still bound at her sides, so she didn’t move. Standing an arm’s length from her, Willie bent over at the waist and reached forward to interlock his fingers with hers. It looked uncomfortable, but Sloot had seen some of the poses that Willie had affected in the name of fashion. This was nothing compared to the Funky Egret or the Hotshot Marmot.

  “If it pleases the church,” said the hooded figure acting as Willie’s lawyer, “we would enter into wedlock one Wilhelm Hapsgalt, being of sound mind and, in his own words,” he paused and sighed, “devastating handsomeness.”