02 - Sacred Flesh

by Robin D. Laws - (ebook by Undead)

“If we’re presently on a path no other group would choose, perhaps we should ask ourselves why that would be,” deadpanned Udo, the merchant.

  “Neither choice is lacking in danger,” said Angelika. “The question is, which do you prefer—human or natural?”

  She could not shake them from their preference for a more forgiving landscape, and so, after Rausch pronounced Heilwig’s ankle no worse than the last time she’d wrenched it, they reversed course. The reversal alone would cost them half a day. Devorah slipped up beside her.

  “We would like to thank you,” the young sister said.

  “Who’s we?”

  “All of us. Most of us.”

  “Thank me for what?”

  “For asking us our opinion. Thank you, Angelika.” She dropped back to rejoin the prioress. Angelika did not know whether she ought to take her gratitude at face value, or to see it as a subtle knock against her previous behaviour. She tried to put the question out of her mind, but, as she jumped from stone to stone on their way back out of ridge lands, it preyed on her. It would be a terrible mistake to develop warm feelings for these hapless zealots. They were a business proposition and nothing more. At length she chose to be insulted and her sense of mental equilibrium was restored.

  The rocky hills gave way to softer ground and soon they were once again surrounded by tall, thin pines. They had to walk crosswise down a fairly steep incline. Angelika now knew the general direction but could not be sure where exactly in the pass they’d come out. Also worrying her was the fact that it had been a while since they’d last been attacked. She sniffed the air.

  “Smelling for goblins?”

  It was Richart, walking just behind her, in her blind spot. Angelika did not let him see he’d surprised her. “You should be careful, creeping up like that,” she said.

  “You’re right,” he said. “I wouldn’t want to get cut by that dagger of yours.”

  “I might mistake you for the killer,” Angelika said.

  “Still waiting for him to reveal himself?”

  “I don’t expect any confessions.”

  They walked together. Behind him, the pilgrims were carrying on with their usual murmuring and chattering. Ivo and Gerhold shared a laugh. Gerhold’s bassoon-like guffaws rang loudly through the woods. Angelika turned to shush them, but saw that Franziskus had already moved up to tactfully remind them of the need for quiet.

  “Why can’t they remember for ten minutes that we travel through hostile territory?” Angelika muttered.

  “I’ve been thinking,” said Richart. “The murder must have been connected with that relic Altman had.”

  “If the killer wanted it so badly, why would he palm it off on poor Muller?”

  “I think he got a good look at it and reckoned it wasn’t so valuable after all.”

  Angelika spotted glinting metal under a brown skiff of dead pine needles. She held up her hand to stop Richart in his tracks. “Hand me your sword,” she said. He gave it to her. She swept its tip across the bit of concealed metal, revealing it as a mere pewter plate. She bent to examine it, then flung it aside. “Worthless,” she said.

  Richart. continued, as if there’d been no interruption: “To tell a good relic from a bad one, the killer would have to know a bit about the field.”

  “Are you an expert?”

  “Not remotely. I’m just an interested layman. But have you overheard anyone else going on about the subject?”

  “About religious treasures?”

  “Perhaps I’m wrong. But it seems a question worth asking.”

  An hour later, they proceeded as before, winding through the hills alongside the pass. Angelika took the lead; Richart, the rear. Franziskus, his head now throbbing, took a place in the middle of the procession. Devorah sidled his way, but was pulled back by Heilwig, a firm hand clutched around her wrist. The summoner sped his pace to catch up with Angelika.

  “So,” he said. “Ah. When you reach the abbey at Heiligerberg, do you intend to stay long?”

  “No,” replied Angelika.

  “Ah,” said Waldemar. Angelika increased her speed. Waldemar dropped back into the middle of the pack.

  Half an hour or so into their trek, Angelika called a halt. She whistled for Franziskus and when he arrived, she pointed his attention down into the pass.

  Nine or so bodies, plus the fresh-slain carcasses of five horses, lay spread out on the flatland below. Both men and women numbered among the dead; all were expensively clad and the horses had been fine, well-fed animals.

  “You wait here and keep the others in line,” Angelika instructed.

  “Should you take the physic?”

  “No, I think they’re all past his help.” Then she was off. Franziskus watched her as she found a spot where the hillside was not so steep and clambered down it, sideways. When she hit the bottom of the pass she crouched and looked in all directions. Then, still bent down, she scurried to the place of slaughter. Angelika moved cautiously from body to body, making a general survey before touching anything. Then she moved to the large packs strewn about the scene, moving methodically from one to the next. She started with one that was only a burlap bag, tied at the top with a noose. She dumped its contents on a bare patch of ground and laid the sack itself out flat, like a blanket. Minutely examining certain objects and quickly discarding others, Angelika sorted efficiently through the pile, then moved onto the next sack, her head swivelling regularly for any sign of approaching danger.

  “What is she doing?” said a voice at Franziskus’ ear. It was Stefan, the advocate, his mouth pursed up into a tiny, disapproving circle.

  “Plying her trade,” said Franziskus.

  The prioress came up on his other side. “What do you mean?”

  “She’s searching for valuables,” Franziskus explained. “Salvaging their gear.”

  “She warned us she might do this,” Stefan told the prioress.

  “She said something of the sort, but to actually behold it is another matter entirely.” The prioress snapped her head to face Franziskus. “And you approve of this?”

  “Do you see me down there with her?”

  “I demand you stop her!”

  Angelika had now sorted her way through a quarter of the packs. Franziskus braced himself, knowing that the worst was yet to come.

  Rausch nosed his way into their little conclave, his handsome features running quickly from curiosity to outrage. “What’s this?” he asked.

  The conversation repeated itself: Franziskus told him what Angelika was doing and Stefan pointed out that it was all part of the bargain they’d made.

  “You must stop her,” Rausch told Franziskus. “We are tainted by association! How can we expect to have miracles worked on our behalf, if we sanction such evil?”

  The young Stirlander shrugged. “Whatever argument you care to marshal, I can promise you I’ve already tried it.”

  “But Shallya would never approve of this!”

  Franziskus left them to their fuming and went looking for a good place to sit, knowing that Angelika would take at least half an hour with the pilgrims’ bodies. Rausch and Heilwig stayed hard at his heels.

  Franziskus walked over to a mossy log. He bent down to feel its surface, concluding that it would stain the seat of his trousers if he sat down on it. He waited for further protests. He turned around. He saw the physic and the prioress marching down the slope toward Angelika. Franziskus sighed and hopped after them.

  “It’s best that you turn back,” he called.

  He heard one of them respond with an affronted snort. He was not sure whether it was Rausch or the prioress.

  “This can only lead to trouble!” he called. Behind him, others had noticed the fuss and now approached: Waldemar, Gerhold and Richart. Franziskus caught Richart’s eye, telling him to go back and keep an eye on the others.

  As Franziskus and the others followed after the prioress, Richart reluctantly turned back to obey.

  Down in the pass, Ra
usch and Heilwig stormed at Angelika. “Get back,” Angelika said, raising her head.

  “We must have a word with you!” the prioress proclaimed.

  “This is wrong and immoral!” Rausch cried.

  Angelika ignored them, finishing up the last of the packs. The newcomers stopped, taking in the details of the carnage. Franziskus, at the head of the approaching group of pilgrims, had already perfected the art of looking away.

  The prioress leapt back, realising that the dirty orb near her feet was a decapitated head. She let out a yelp as she trotted backwards, nearly stepping on a severed hand. She shrieked and covered her mouth with her hands.

  Rausch’s gaze was locked on the body of an old woman. She lay twisted on her side, her torso slashed open. Her attacker had taken hold of her intestines and strewn them about the field. Another of the slain pilgrims had been dismembered and stuffed inside the ribcage of a slaughtered horse. Rausch turned pale and dashed behind a boulder, where, loudly and at great length, he heaved up his most recent meal.

  Angelika moved to the dead horse with the murdered pilgrim inside. Leaning to avoid the gore, she stretched out to unbuckle a pair of saddlebags.

  “Shallya preserve us!” choked Friar Gerhold. “Who could have done this monstrous thing?”

  “Monsters, of course,” said Angelika. Opening a saddlebag, she found a dinner fork with a cracked enamel handle. She tossed it onto her discard pile.

  “It looks like the work of beastmen,” Franziskus told Gerhold. “We’ve encountered them in the pass before.”

  The very word sent a chill through the assembled pilgrims. They’d all heard of beastmen, the misshapen half-man, half-animal warriors of Chaos. But none had ever seen one, or hoped to. The mere sight of the things was said to be enough to drive a healthy mind to acts of madness.

  “These ones were bold, to come right out into the open in broad daylight,” Angelika said. “You should all get back up under cover. The things could be watching us right now.”

  She’s only saying that to scare them, Franziskus thought. If there really were beastmen about, they’d sense it. Their skins would be crawling. They’d feel light-headed. The edges of the world would seem unnoticeably wrong.

  Gerhold rocked back on his heels, stunned. He’d noticed that all of the pilgrims had their tongues torn out. Then he saw the tongues, arranged in a neat row, on top of a log. “Why,” he stammered, “why do they do this?”

  Angelika shrugged. “Because they are Chaos?” She bent down over the remains of a burly pilgrim, rolling him from back to front. The prioress moaned at the sight of his pulped face and torn throat.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “You’re slowing me down. Go back.” Angelika’s fingers darted in near the man’s ruined neck. She had found a gold chain and was working around the back of his neck to find its clasp. Though her fingers were wet with his blood, she deftly got it loose. She held it up to the sunlight. A dark gem, set in filigreed gold, hung from the chain. “Garnet,” she said to Franziskus, indifferently. She held it out for him, but he wouldn’t take it. She dropped it into her keeper pile. Then she returned to her work, pulling the corpse’s trousers down.

  “This is outrageous!” the prioress said.

  “Indecent!” the physic chorused.

  “How can you allow this?” the friar demanded of Franziskus.

  Angelika tugged at a leather belt strapped to the man’s thigh like a phylactery. It came loose and she saw that it contained a dozen gold crowns, each neatly tucked into a slot of its own. She thumbed each coin from its hiding place, clanked them together in her cupped hand, then moved them into her open purse. The belt she threw onto the discard pile; it lay there like a fresh-killed snake.

  Angelika arranged herself over the man’s right leg. She clamped her hands around his ankle and pulled on the boot.

  Rausch put his hand on her shoulder. “We’ll have no more of this. Stop that right now!”

  Angelika whirled, knocking Rausch’s legs out from under him. She was atop him in an instant, her knee in his chest, a dagger at his eye. She bared her teeth at him. “Have you grown tired of living?” she asked.

  Gerhold took a step in their direction. He looked to Franziskus, who shook his head, warning him off. The friar backed away.

  “Answer my question!” hissed Angelika.

  “No,” said the physic. “No.”

  Angelika moved the dagger an eighth of an inch closer to Rausch’s eye. He whimpered. Angelika shifted more of her weight onto his chest. “Then you’ll never again interfere with me. Do you understand?”

  “Very clearly,” Rausch said.

  She rolled off him and up to her feet. She brandished the dagger at Heilwig and Gerhold. “This is my profession,” she said.

  Heilwig regarded her stonily. “You even steal their boots?”

  Angelika came at her. “No—sometimes they hide items of value there. I would.”

  Heilwig did not falter. “It is grossly immoral. Eternal damnation awaits you if you do not immediately repent these vicious sins.”

  Angelika turned her back on the pilgrims and went over to another body. It was that of a gaunt, dark-haired woman who appeared to be missing much of her brain. “Get them out of here, Franziskus,” she said.

  Franziskus took Heilwig by the arm and led her off. She pulled it away, but then meekly accompanied him as he took her back toward the hills. Rausch followed, walking with a peculiar gait. Franziskus saw why: the physic had stained his trousers.

  An hour later, Angelika returned to the temporary camp, weaving under the weight of a single heavy pack. This whole pilgrimage business presented a series of problems she had not properly considered. It had never occurred to her that pilgrimage could be more lucrative than war, but it was now clear that everyday citizens killed en route to a shrine carried goods that put all but the richest soldiers to shame. Just from this one windfall, she’d collected so much swag she’d have trouble carrying it all. She might have to detour off in search of a hiding place where she could safely cache her take. She would also have to beware of the others in her own party. No matter how self-righteous they made themselves out to be, there were surely one or two of them who might find an excuse to pilfer her newfound riches.

  The pilgrims stood and surrounded her as she approached. She thunked her sack down near Franziskus’. Her stomach rumbled. Sitting cross-legged, she reached into her trail pack, groping around for a wedge of cheese. Paring knife in hand, she cut away its protective layer of mould and began to gnaw at it. The pilgrims milled around her, apparently waiting for Angelika to say something.

  Finally Rausch spoke. “We have taken a vote,” he said.

  “Congratulations,” replied Angelika. She frowned; the cheese was leaving a nasty coating on her tongue. She spat it out. It landed at Brother Lemoine’s feet.

  “We can’t be a party to your grave-robbing,” Rausch continued.

  “Fair enough,” said Angelika, sorting through her pack in search of camping sausage. She was sure she had a good chunk of it left, but had trouble locating it. “So what have you decided?”

  “We present you with this ultimatum: unless you utterly renounce this vile activity, we will be forced to discharge you as our guide.”

  “Must I renounce it for all eternity, or only while you employ me?”

  Rausch appeared unprepared for this question. He leaned back to speak to Heilwig.

  She pushed him aside. “Each of us must see to our own souls. What you do after you’ve left our service is not our concern.”

  “Not our direct concern,” amended Brother Lemoine. “In the broader sense, it is every faithful man’s responsibility to—”

  “Shut up, Lemoine,” said the prioress.

  Angelika found her piece of sausage and cut a disk of meat off the end. “So I have to promise not to do any more scavenging until I get you to the shrine?” She popped the sausage bit into her mouth and chewed it appreciativel
y.

  “Yes,” said the prioress.

  “Forget it,” said Angelika. She stood and hefted her belongings. “Goodbye.”

  “Goodbye?” asked Ivo Kirchgeld.

  “I dislike ultimatums,” Angelika said, buckling her pack on. “And I don’t like people who agree to arrangements and then want to change them. Are you coming, Franziskus?”

  Franziskus addressed Rausch and the prioress. “If you think she’s bluffing, I can tell you she isn’t.”

  Rausch wavered. The prioress silenced him with a wrathful look.

  Franziskus looked at Angelika, then at Devorah.

  “You know your way around these parts,” Stefan Recht said to Franziskus. “We’ll hire you to take us to the mountain.”

  Franziskus shook his head. “I made a vow to stay at her side. I cannot break that oath.”

  “Sure you can,” Angelika said. Franziskus picked up his own pack. He looked back at the pilgrims. “Your decision is a principled one, but still I beg you to relent. This place will not forgive mistakes.”

  The prioress crossed her arms. “It is not I who must relent.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Franziskus followed Angelika down the slope and into the pass. Behind them, they heard a new procession of pilgrims, driving a half-dozen canvas-covered carts, protected by a phalanx of mercenaries, clad in varicoloured outfits and brandishing enormous halberds. The procession stopped briefly at the site of the beastman attack, then sped onwards. Their carts kicked up dust. It blew over Franziskus and Angelika.

  He raised a hand to his face, shielding it from the cloud of dirt. “We’re heading to Heiligerberg on our own, I take it?”

  Angelika clanked her bag of loot. “There’s more where this came from,” she said.

  They walked. The day was growing warmer. Franziskus removed his hat and fanned himself with it.

  “It’s going to be like that, is it?” Angelika said.

  “Like what?”

  “The silent reproach.”

  “I’m not reproaching you.”

  “So you approve?”

  Franziskus contemplated.