March till Death (Hellsong Book 3)

by Shaun O. McCoy

  “Let’s get you moving,” Rick said. “We’ve got to keep the stilling off of you. And besides, it’s time for us to leave, anyway.”

  “Home?”

  “Not yet. I’m sorry, but not yet. We have to go to Harpsborough. The Fore is going to have a meeting in the church. We’re to be put on trial.”

  They’ll sentence us. Just like Cris. They’ll throw us through the Golden Door. Wait! That means we’ll be forced to go after Turi!

  For a second that hope flared up inside her, but it would not hold. Without these Infidel Friend, they would die. With the Infidel Friend, Ellen knew that she would cause them to die.

  I’m not good enough. I didn’t learn fast enough.

  Not like Molly. Molly had spent every minute she could training with the infidels.

  Martin’s hunters surrounded them. Martin looked a little better than the last time she’d seen him. He still looked tired, but he didn’t look like he was about to topple over.

  He must have gotten at least a few hours of sleep.

  “Come on,” Martin said, “let’s get this over with.”

  Massan and Alice shared a look.

  They passed through the wilds of Hell quickly. Ellen noticed that Martin’s men were on edge. She didn’t know if it was because of how long the breach had been open, or if perhaps they were unhappy escorting prisoners which they thought weren’t guilty.

  How could I deserve this? I just got here. How could they think I’d know what was right and what was wrong?

  But maybe her recent arrival is what had let her see what good and evil were here. After all, the Infidel Friend were nothing like she had expected. They seemed to be many things, but they weren’t evil. If anything, they wanted to fight for the wellbeing of all people. How could that be wrong?

  There was a large crowd in Harpsborough. Rumor must have gotten around and drawn the people back in from the wilds. Some looked angry. Others were sad.

  I’m sorry. I know you think I betrayed you, but I didn’t.

  Martin led the way, the crowd parting before him. The hunters did their best to keep the villagers back, but one woman was struggling, and she managed to force her way through.

  “Kara!” Massan shouted.

  The woman threw herself into his arms. Massan looked overwhelmed.

  Martin waved his men back, and their procession stopped.

  “Tell me it’s going to be okay!” she said. “Tell me you did nothing wrong.”

  Massan stepped back so he could look at her, his hands gripping her shoulders. “I’m sorry, Kara. I think I’m in serious trouble. I don’t know, I don’t know if I’ll survive this.”

  Kara looked down at her feet. “They may kill you?”

  “They might. Or exile. Or something worse.”

  “Worse?”

  “It’s true. We conspired with Infidel Friend, I . . .”

  Kara looked back up at him. Ellen was struck by how genuine the woman’s love seemed.

  “Then tell me this,” Kara said, “tell me that you did this while following your heart.”

  Massan wrapped his arms around Kara and held her tightly. “I did. That I promise you.”

  She held him for a long time, then she let go and stepped back. “I love you.”

  “I love you, too, Kara.”

  The hunters looked towards Martin. Martin grimaced and then nodded. Their procession continued. In front of them were the open doors of the Fore, and beyond that, the men who would call themselves her judges.

  They can’t hurt me. I have nothing left.

  She looked at Rick. The man was suffering.

  Except him.

  “Hope you’re a good climber,” George said to Julian.

  “I’m alright.”

  George led him through the prison. It had been some time since they’d finished their day’s labor, so most of the other prisoners were sleeping. Strangely, they’d had no trouble with Kruks even though Edmond, by far the worst Kruk Julian knew of, was in their same cell. Kruks never seemed bother George, for some reason.

  Oh, hell. If he gets baptized by Maab, he’ll deliver us all to Selena.

  Two men stood up as they approached one of the shitholes.

  “It’s okay,” George said.

  They moved aside.

  The shitholes were basically outhouses. Plumbing wasn’t the best, but when they got too full, Selena’s people were able to divert a nearby river through them to clean them out. For a moment Julian feared that they were going to crawl down through all that waste, but then he remembered that the holes were too small for people to fit through. He looked around to see where the secret exit might be.

  Is this a trap?

  But surely Selena wouldn’t have bothered with an elaborate ruse. She’d simply torture him. And even if George wanted to beat him up or hurt him on behalf of some Kruk gang, he could have done so without such a complicated lie.

  George knelt by the shithole and pulled up the stone plate. Now there was room for a person to fit.

  “Trust me,” George said, “you’ll want to leave your robe.”

  Damn.

  But Julian was beyond the flesh. If he’d withstood the torture of conversion, he could withstand this. He crawled down after George. Beyond the flesh or not, he puked his guts out.

  When he had finished vomiting, George led him through the shithole’s equivalent of a septic tank. There was a grate where the river would flow through to wash out the refuse, but it had been sawed through. Julian did not envy whoever had done that.

  “This way,” George said.

  There was no light at all after they entered the empty waterway. There weren’t many twists and turns, but even so, Julian wasn’t sure if he could make it back without George’s help. Then George stopped, opening some kind of hatch above him. Julian and he crawled through it and then up into a room.

  Julian was thankful that he could see again. George held up a finger to his lips.

  We’re still in the Carrion.

  George closed the hatch behind him, which looked like normal rock from this side. Then he motioned for Julian to follow him. There was a river nearby. Julian could hear it, and as they walked, it came into view. George dropped, slave clothes and all, into the river. Julian did likewise.

  George swam to the far side.

  Julian followed. He felt the cold Carrion water as it rushed around his body and soaked his clothes. It washed the refuse away.

  George left the river. He removed his grey slave clothes, shameless of his nude body, and then began to wring them out. Julian did likewise, but felt horribly uncomfortable. He would have left his underwear on had Selena provided him with any.

  “Come on,” George said. “It’s not safe to be out in the open like this.”

  George led him down a few more passages. Julian felt his heart beating. It had been a while since he’d roamed the wilds, and even when he lived in Harpsborough, the Carrion had always terrified him.

  And this time I don’t even have a weapon.

  It was a different kind of fear than he faced in Selena’s complex. Dying there would mean martyrdom. Dying out here would be meaningless.

  I’m God’s. I have to remember that.

  George led him to a chute that ran up and out of the room. He climbed it and Julian continued to follow. After a time, the chute leveled off. It reminded him of climbing through the Carrion barrier. The memory unsettled him. He had come into a position of strength through his faith, but remembering all his friends—it made him feel weak.

  And Turi. What happened to him?

  The chute opened up into a small room. There were no bricks here. The entire chamber had been carved out of a single piece of stone.

  George moved to one corner and sat down. “Good time for a nap. We’ll be back in our prison cell before our shift starts, but you’ll be better rested if you catch some sleep now.

  That, Julian knew, would be impossible.

  Ellen had never been insid
e the church before. She was amazed that people could have built such a thing. Its ceiling soared up above her. Open arches near the top let light in from the Harpsborough chamber. Crosses lined those openings, casting their long shadows down across the pews. It seemed like a place where a Harpsborough villager might come to forget about Hell for a while. It would have made her feel safe, too, except that the church was full of Citizens.

  Ellen was surprised how many there were. Their voices coalesced into a single hum as they shared what details about the case they had heard. In a moment, she knew, they were going to start asking questions, and Rick was going to tell the truth again.

  He might as well, there was no use lying now.

  For the moment, they were being left alone. Two hunters stood at the door of the church, guarding their weapons. Ellen had been surprised how hard it was for her to give them up.

  “Rick, you could have consulted us before you started spouting out truth.” Massan’s voice was venomous.

  “I’m truly sorry,” Rick said. “Do you hold it against me?”

  Ellen watched intently as Massan considered this.

  “No,” the trader said finally. “No, I guess I don’t. You know, everyone knows everyone in Harpsborough. Sooner or later the truth was going to come out. I guess the worst they can do is send us through the Golden Door, yeah?”

  The hum of the Citizens ebbed for a moment before returning, perhaps louder than before.

  “You think we’re going to be okay?” Massan asked.

  “I don’t know,” Rick said.

  I have got to talk to him about lying at some point.

  A table had been set up in front of the pulpit. A line of Citizens were walking towards it. Ellen recognized a few of them. The red haired woman, she remembered, was Chelsea. And father Klein was there. Mancini ascended the stairs next. Then came a large man whose name she thought she knew.

  Copperton? Something like that, anyway.

  Michael entered from a side room. His face was serious, stern. He looked like he was a man ready to do battle.

  But against us? We’re at his mercy already.

  He sat down at the center of the table. The voices of the Citizens died away. One coughed, and the sound echoed throughout the church. Michael raised a granite orb as if he was going to slam it down into the table, but as the room had already quieted, he simply set it down.

  Michael looked at them. “Now, you have all been accused of aiding infidels. Additionally, you were said to have helped Molly, who was confined to Harpsborough by order of the Fore and who escaped by assaulting one of our hunters. Furthermore, it is said that you had foreknowledge of the theft from the Fore. Lastly, it is said that you endangered Harpsborough through a combination of all the above listed actions. How do you plead?”

  “I plead guilty, and I ask for your mercy,” Rick said.

  Alice stepped forward. “I am guilty. I ask for your mercy.”

  Massan stepped forward. “I am guilty. I ask for your mercy.”

  “I am guilty of those things, except the last one,” Ellen said. “I would never endanger you guys. I care for you very much.”

  Mancini snorted. “You think bringing Infidel Friend to Harpsborough was somehow not endangering it?”

  “There was no way she could know, Mancini,” Rick said. “She was only in Hell for a month, and staying with me for that time. I did not give her enough information for her to be able to make that determination.”

  Mancini shrugged. “Well, they’ve pled guilty. I guess it’s not necessary that we go through any testimony.”

  The Citizens murmured their agreement, but Chelsea cut them short. “So you say, but these are people we know well. Who here hasn’t done business with Massan? Who here hasn’t been surprised by his honesty? And Rick, for God’s sake. This is Rick we’re talking about. The man just came back from helping fill the breach.”

  Mancini rolled his eyes. “He’d already been caught and confessed. Good behavior is no surprise from a prisoner who knows he’s about to be sentenced.”

  Michael cleared his throat. “Mancini, I think Rick would have helped anyway. You weren’t here then, but when we first came out of the Carrion, almost all of the barriers were in disrepair, and Rick helped us build them. There was a time when a settling knocked a couple down, and Rick was right there. Rick helped us fill Julian’s breach in too. Not to mention the time when he helped hunt the Icanitzu. If you’re looking for good behavior, this man’s got it in spades.”

  “As always,” Mancini said, “I must tell you I wasn’t here in the beginning, so I can’t begin to understand how you feel about these things. All I can do is tell you what I see from my new perspective. Weigh it as you will, but Rick hasn’t done anything for us lately that we couldn’t have done ourselves.”

  Chelsea shrugged. “Nor has anyone. We’re a community. The point is that Rick volunteered. We had to pay the people of Harpsborough to help fill in Julian’s barrier, and they wouldn’t even do that until they knew we’d bricked up the far side. Rick didn’t get a single ration. He didn’t ask for one. You know why? Because Rick’s always got our best interests at heart.”

  Father Klein sighed. “A fool can have the best intentions, but if he intends to remain a fool after he’s committed his wrongdoing, he must be stopped. Rick, I ask you, do you think the infidels are evil?”

  Ellen looked at Rick.

  Now would be a great time to learn how to lie.

  “Like all men,” Rick said, “they are a mixture of both good and evil. The only difference is that they don’t hold God in their heart.”

  For a second Ellen was shocked, not because Rick had lied, but because he hadn’t. He had answered in a way that Father Klein would certainly misinterpret. Klein would think that Rick meant the infidels were evil because the alternative meaning was unthinkable. The alternative was that Rick didn’t think a godless heart was a bad one.

  We’re all in Hell. Here, all hearts are godless.

  “It doesn’t matter what they say,” Mancini announced. “What matters is that there is no way that we can be sure they aren’t lying to us. There’s no way that we can be sure they won’t do something like this again.”

  I have something to say.

  Ellen raised her hand.

  It looked like Father Klein and Mancini were about to say something, but they both stopped and looked at her curiously, as if stunned by her gesture.

  “Go ahead,” Michael said softly. “You can speak.”

  “If you’re looking to know that we’ll never do anything like that again, I can tell you why.”

  Father Klein nodded. “It would fill my heart with joy.”

  “I didn’t know enough when we started the journey to know that we were doing wrong. But these other people did, and they are good people. You must be at least a little confused as to why such good people would do such things?”

  She looked around. She had every Citizen’s complete attention. Even Mancini seemed intent on what she had to say.

  “But if you think about it, all of us, even Molly before she left, all had something in common.” She paused. No one spoke, so she continued. “We all have lost someone we love. Or in Massan’s case, feared it. Alice watched Aaron go into the Carrion and never come back. Rick and I, we watched Galen and Turi leave. Molly had seen Cris exiled through the Golden Door. When Molly came to us it was just after we’d found the corpse eater. Do you remember?” They were nodding. “Massan knew, we all knew, that there was something terrible out in the wilds. Molly had spoken to Cris, and she told us—and we believed her—that the source of that evil was in the Carrion.”

  Chelsea nodded. “And in fact, it was.”

  “It was,” Ellen said. “Normally danger would have never made Rick do what he did. He would have worked with you all to defeat it. It’s just that the infidels represented more than just a reprieve from danger. They were our hope. We cried together, he and I, about the decision to get them. It was my fau
lt because he didn’t want to have hope that Turi would come back, and I did.” Ellen fought to keep her voice steady. “I told him it was okay. I said that we’d hope for just a little while. That we’d let it go before . . .” She had to stop. She just couldn’t say any more.

  The Citizens were silent.

  “It doesn’t change the fact that they are guilty,” Mancini said. “they confessed.”

  “Maybe not,” Chelsea’s voice was sweet and compassionate, “but there is more to this trial than just a guilty or not guilty verdict. Once we declare them guilty, Michael has to decide a punishment. I think what they had to say was very important because our judge has to decide what leniency to give them.”

  Ellen decided that she liked Chelsea.

  “Very well,” Michael said, “raise your hand for a guilty vote.”

  As one, the Citizens raised their hands.

  Michael looked at them. Ellen realized now why he’d been preparing to fight a battle earlier. It wasn’t a battle against her and Rick. It was a battle against Mancini and Klein and Copperton and whomever else was bloodthirsty and intolerant amongst the ranks of his followers. And knowing those people, it must have seemed like a terrible battle to fight indeed.

  I hope I helped you.

  “Very well, guilty you are,” Michael said. “I have decided the sentences. Rick and Ellen, what you did was foolish, but it was done out of love. We all had someone we care about disappear in the Carrion. For that reason, I’ll grant you as much leniency as I can. We ceded to you the Hungerleaf Grove for services rendered long ago. It will now be returned to the Fore. Alice, I know how much Aaron meant to you. I know that you would have done anything to bring him back. Your actions are, therefore, understandable. I sentence you to six months indentured servitude to the Fore.”

  Alice’s head bowed under the weight of the proclamation. Her blonde hair fell over her face, covering her blue eyes.

  “Massan. You are a good man, and I know you want to keep Kara safe, but what you did endangered her and the rest of us. I give you a choice. You can either be exiled through the Golden Door or you can lose your hand.”

  Alice’s head snapped back up.