March till Death (Hellsong Book 3)

by Shaun O. McCoy

“Hidalgo lives down that way, doesn’t he?” Arturus asked, pointing down a tunnel.

  Galen grunted. “Indeed he does.”

  “We’re so close.” Aaron choked as he said the words.

  “You’ll get to see . . .” Arturus was about to say that Aaron was going to see Alice again, but Aaron had stopped walking.

  Tears were streaming down his face. He turned away from them, as if that would somehow save his dignity. Kelly took a step towards him, but paused, unsure of what to do. Arturus looked to his father, but the man’s face gave no hints about how he felt. Galen could have been as apathetic as the wind, or as caring as an infant’s mother.

  Arturus went to help Aaron, but Aaron waved him away.

  Kelly’s trepidation vanished, and she fell to her knees at Aaron’s side, slinging her thin arms around his neck. “What’s wrong?” she asked in earnest. “Tell me!”

  He sobbed. Arturus looked away. Somehow it wasn’t right for a man like Aaron to cry, not like this. Maybe a man like Rick, that would be one thing, but not a man like Aaron.

  “Tell me!” Kelly demanded.

  “Fuck!” Aaron yelled, his voice echoing off of the far walls.

  Aaron was horribly angry. He leapt up to his feet, casting pebbles and earth that he’d torn up from the ground around him.

  “What’s wrong?” Kelly asked again.

  “None of them!” Aaron shouted, towering over her. His face was red. Tears covered his cheeks and snot was dripping freely from his nose. “None of them.”

  Kelly turned to Arturus, but he had no answers for her. She looked then to Galen.

  “His men,” Galen explained, “he brought none of them back.”

  Aaron’s tears turned to sorrowful laughter after a time, and they were able to travel again. Arturus hadn’t recovered yet from the implications of what Galen had said. They’d left with a man named Mabe, who he’d never really known, who’d fallen amidst the silverlegs. So had Wistan. They’d left with a man named Fitch, who had been slain by a dyitzu. They’d left with a man named Patrick, whose face had been burnt in the tunnels. Whom Avery had slain to keep quiet. There had been Kyle, who they’d left behind. He remembered Duncan, who they’d never seen again after they fled from La’Ferve. And Johnny. And Avery.

  Then they came to the rustrock road. Aaron took the lead, taking them towards Harpsborough. They followed the path for a while, and then Aaron stopped them. Arturus remembered the first time he had walked alone to Harpsborough. He had paused in this chamber also, because the Harpsborough guards were beyond it. That time seemed as if it were a lifetime ago. That Arturus had been a very different person.

  “It’s Aaron,” Aaron announced their presence. “Don’t shoot.”

  They entered the room with the Harpsborough guards. The guards stared at Aaron.

  “Aaron!” one shouted.

  “Check his eyes!” screamed the other, and that one ran up to Aaron.

  Aaron laughed as the person put his face right up next to his.

  “It’s you!” the guard said, jumping. “It’s really fucking you.”

  They embraced him roughly.

  There was a bit of commotion coming from the Harpsborough chamber. Arturus heard the call of some of their questioning voices. “Aaron?”

  And they walked into Harpsborough. All was as he remembered it. The red bricked ceilings that soared overhead, the hovels that pockmarked the stone plain, the steeples of the church which stabbed up through the air, the chimney that rose up from Kylie’s Kiln, the balconies that hung on the side of the tremendous Fore. People, pushing aside their door curtains, were coming out of their homes with sleep clouded eyes. They ran to them, hugging Aaron, Arturus, Galen and, though they didn’t know her, Kelly. The shouts of joy echoed off the ceiling, such a different sound from the desperate wailing sobs that Aaron had issued earlier by the Kingsriver.

  Massan was there, a broad grin on his face, though he was missing a hand, and Kara was by his side.

  Arturus saw Michael appear on the balcony, his jaw hanging open.

  I never did finish that chess set.

  Beside the First Citizen stood the beady eyed Mancini—and even he seemed happy. And then there was a gasp which, somehow, cut through all the noise of all the shouts of the villagers and Citizens of Harpsborough. There, on one of the balconies, was Alice. She had a rag in one hand, but she tossed it aside.

  “Aaron!” her voice was frantic.

  She did not have the patience to run back into the Fore and descend the stairs. She climbed over the balcony rail and dropped down to the ground below. The people parted to make way for her as she ran to him.

  Aaron was in tears again. Arturus had never seen anyone hug another so desperately, so intensely, as Aaron did now. He clutched her in his arms, pulling her into him as if to let go of her meant that he would lose his life.

  “I’m sorry, Alice. I’m so sorry.”

  “You’re home,” she was crying too.

  Arturus felt an ache in his own heart. There was a twinge of jealousy there because he had wanted her for so long, but that tiny feeling was overpowered by the sudden happiness he had for Aaron—for his friend—for the man who he had fought beside, killed beside, and damn near died beside.

  “I’m sorry,” Aaron repeated. “Your lock of hair, I lost it. I tried to keep it, but the river—”

  Alice silenced him with a kiss. She pulled back, shaking her head violently. She chided him through her tears. “I’ve got more hair, Aaron.”

  Galen was all smiles, the politician again as he had been so long ago when they’d said goodbye to the village, shaking people’s hands and telling them how he could have used their help in the Carrion.

  “Damn, lad!” Massan was saying. “You’ve grown up pretty fast.”

  Arturus hugged him, looking back up towards the Citizens. There was the red headed woman, Chelsea. She was staring down at Aaron and Alice as they shared their embrace.

  She looks so . . . wistful?

  Suddenly there was shouting, and Father Klein burst through the crowd. He was enraged. He grabbed the lapel of Kelly’s lavender robe and tore it aside, baring her breast to the Harpsborough people. He clutched her arm, and held her shoulder up to the people of Harpsborough.

  “Look!” he shouted, waving his hand to them all and then pointing to her tattoo. “Look! This is one of Maab’s priestesses.”

  Father Klein had silenced all of Harpsborough, save Aaron.

  “Take your hands off of her, Klein,” Aaron yelled.

  Arturus grabbed Klein’s hand and twisted it back, stopping just short of locking the joint.

  Kelly had a malicious smile on her cruel lips. Her blue-black eyes stared at Klein like she was about to devour him.

  “She’s good, Father,” Galen said. “She betrayed her own people. Just like you did, when you were Maab’s.”

  Klein shook his head. “You don’t understand, priestesses don’t convert.”

  “She’s in love with my son, Klein.” Galen’s deep voice bellowed.

  Klein’s expression became confused, then angry again, and then, ever so slowly, it turned to wonder. “Is this true?” He asked of Kelly.

  “It is,” Kelly said, the malicious smile leaving her lips. “He has my heart.”

  Arturus let the Father go, and Klein clutched at her again, but this time it was her hand he took. “My apologies, Miss. Some of us, we suffered so much at the hands of Maab.”

  The anger that Arturus felt towards Klein fled. This priest in Hell had done something good, just then. By showing his strongly held doubts, he had addressed the fears that all the people in Harpsborough would have harbored as soon as they learned about Kelly’s past. And then, by casting those doubts aside, Klein had modeled for his flock a behavior of forgiveness they could follow. It wouldn’t change all the villager’s minds, Hell, it might not even be enough in the end, but for now, it was the best Arturus could have hoped for.

  “Come,” Galen said,
“We must go.”

  “But we just got here!” Kelly said.

  Some of the villagers gave similar reactions.

  “This is not our home, Kelly. And Rick, well, he doesn’t even know he’s waiting for us.”

  At the mention of Rick, just as the crowd had parted so that Alice could meet Aaron, so too did they for Galen, Arturus, and Kelly.

  As they walked away, the people of Harpsborough called after them. Demanding that they not stay away for long. Begging them to come back.

  “Galen!” Michael shouted even as they made it to the exit. “Tomorrow evening, we will have a feast. Come. You and all the villagers will eat from the Fore’s stores.”

  There was a great cheer then, and Arturus thought that, at that moment, there must not be a single person in Harpsborough who was not overjoyed—except for some reason, Davel Mancini.

  And perhaps also those who loved the hunters who never returned.

  Ellen heard the sound of boots thumping across the woodstone bridge as she worked at threshing the devilwheat.

  “Don’t shoot, Rick,” a deep voice called.

  It seemed familiar somehow, like she’d heard it before.

  She looked to Rick, who was cleaning a bowl where he stood behind the counter. He looked like he had been struck by something. There was the crunching of gravel.

  Rick dropped the bowl, overcome suddenly by some great emotion. He looked up at the ceiling, tears welling up in his eyes. He whispered something to the stones above. Ellen couldn’t be certain, but it looked like he had said “thank you.”

  Arturus rushed into the room and caught Rick up in a hug.

  Ellen dropped her devilwheat, stunned.

  Ye swore.

  They had told her that there were no miracles in Hell, but they had lied. There were, and this was one of them. Galen entered the room.

  A man like that, and you can have miracles.

  “Galen!” she shouted, and she ran up to him.

  Rick was a sobbing mess of tears. “I thought you were . . .” But even now, with Arturus in his own arms, he couldn’t say the words.

  Shit, I’ve been kissing Rick. Turi will understand. Rick knows I love his son. He’ll probably have to tell him, but these people aren’t like other people. It won’t matter. I’ll convince him that Alice is no good for him. He’ll learn . . .

  A black haired girl with a purple robe was hanging back in the entrance to the battery room. She was smiling, leaning against the stones there. She was older than Ellen, maybe the same age as Alice. Her eyes were set on Arturus.

  No.

  It was clear, crystal clear, that the woman who stood in the entranceway was in love with Arturus. But he didn’t love her back, of course. Arturus’ heart was a stubborn thing, a willful thing, an oblivious thing. It could not be won simply. And now, after Ellen had spent so much time with El Cid, after she had learned what it was that made a person strong, after she had become the kind of girl, the kind of fighter, that Galen would actually respect—well Arturus would have to fall in love with her. What else could he do? He would . . .

  “This is Kelly,” Galen said, motioning for her to enter. “Arturus met her in the Carrion. They’ve grown quite fond of each other.”

  “All they ever talk about is your cooking!” Kelly said, moving towards Rick.

  Her smile was a knife in Ellen’s gut. The way her hand rested gently on Arturus’ shoulder as she passed sent waves of impotent rage through Ellen’s chest. The woman’s suddenly familiar hug with Rick—

  “Ellen!” Arturus said, a broad grin on his face.

  Ellen had walked, her ankle all but broken, across a root filled swamp full of undead. Ellen had watched her own toes get blasted into mist before hiking a full day through Hell on her way to Tucumcari. Ellen had shoved a shotgun into the exposed belly of a Harpy and fired it until it was empty. Compared to the next three steps she took to meet Arturus, however, those things hadn’t hurt at all. She met his embrace as bravely as she could, and fought the tears back as hard as she could, but this was not a battle she could win. The way his hand patted her on the back, the kind of hug he might have given a male friend, sent a stake deep into her heart. She swallowed the grief that threatened to overwhelm her and did her best to pretend that the tears on her cheeks were those of a joyful friend—not the tears of a stupid idiot girl who’d had a pointless crush on a boy who she barely knew; a crush she’d held so close to her heart that she didn’t know how she would even go on now.

  Say something.

  “I’ve been keeping your room tidy,” Ellen said.

  Arturus laughed. “Kelly, this is Ellen.”

  “I hadn’t heard of you!” Kelly exclaimed as she came forward.

  I hate her.

  “I had just been damned a little while before Arturus left,” Ellen said, cleaning some tears off her face. “I’ve been living here.”

  They hugged as well. The woman was slightly shorter than her, and more slender. Ellen wanted to crush her, to eviscerate her, to murder her in her sleep and claim Turi for her own.

  I’m sorry, I know I shouldn’t, but I hate you.

  But when she saw Rick’s face again, she felt petty. The man’s whole life had been taken away—and restored. He cried as freely as Ellen had ever seen any man do, without shame, his vulnerability open for all to see.

  “How?” Rick said.

  “We got trapped on the other side of some silverlegs,” Galen said, “and I found where the devils had been going, so I had to investigate. Took us a while to get back. I thought it would be simpler to just head down the Lethe and walk around rather than try to dig our way through a barrier.”

  Visibly exhausted, overwhelmed, and happier than Ellen had ever seen anyone before, Rick collapsed onto a barrel by the table.

  “I should have known,” he said. “Galen, you bastard, I should have known you’d come back.”

  Arturus sat down on one of the seats, and Kelly sat beside him. She was gorgeous. Her features were sharp and even. She had the look of a woman you’d see on old world magazine cover. It was an unrealistic beauty that was not normally bestowed upon humans. Kelly’s eyes weren’t like the empty eyes of the women of Harpsborough either. They were alert, active, intelligent.

  Almost like an infidel’s, but crueler.

  Her skin was a pale, pure ivory. She was strong too, wiry in the way that El Cid had been.

  I can’t compete with her.

  Ellen looked at Turi, really looked at him, perhaps for the first time. His face seemed different, somehow. More adult? His facial hair was thicker, a rough dark stubble where before it had been peach fuzz. His eyes were different also, more like Galen’s than before. When she had known Turi, he had carried with him an air of boyishness which—capable as he might have been—gave her the impression that he needed to be taken care of. This Turi was different.

  “You’re not the same,” she said aloud without really meaning to.

  Arturus looked at her, curious. The manner of his inquisitiveness proved her point. There was so much Galen in him now.

  The Carrion is horrible, they say. The parts that weren’t Galen probably burned away.

  “You’re not either,” Arturus said. “Not by a long shot. In a good way, I mean.”

  That night, after Rick had fed them until Ellen feared she’d burst, after Galen had helped her move her things out of Arturus’ room and into the empty one next to the forge, after she had pretended to be so happy that Kelly would be staying with Arturus in his room, she thought about what he’d said.

  I’m not the same.

  The Ellen Turi had known hadn’t been able to fire a gun. Hadn’t been able to identify a dirkenwood tree from a hungerleaf. Hadn’t been able to kill a corpse on her own.

  No wonder he didn’t love me.

  He shouldn’t have judged her for these things. The old world hadn’t taught her how to survive in Hell, and he couldn’t have expected it to. He should have done exactly what he d
id do. He should have waited for her to mature, to see what kind of person this Hell would make her, before letting his heart decide. Only somehow it had gone all wrong. She couldn’t think of anything that had ever gone more wrong. She cried as silently as she could.

  Rick entered her room.

  She looked away from him.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  She didn’t want to lash out, but she did anyway. “I don’t want your sympathy.”

  “No, Ellen. I’m sorry that I was so overwhelmed by seeing my son again that I didn’t think about how you must have felt. I’m sure you’ve dreamed about him coming home, and I know that Kelly wasn’t in those dreams.”

  Ellen looked away from him, trying to hide her tears. “I was just so stupid. I was lost and helpless and damned. I was a foolish little girl who let a crush get the best of her. I’m better than that now.”

  Rick put his arms around her. “Ellen, you and I aren’t strong like Galen. Not all people can be. But that doesn’t mean that we aren’t strong in our own way. You and I, we’re strong because we admit our feelings and express them openly. We’re strong because we’re full of forgiveness and love. We’re strong because we admit our sorrow and we can share it with the world.”

  Ellen hugged him back and choked. “It hurts,” she admitted. “It hurts so bad.”

  He held her for a long time, but the pain didn’t seem to decrease.

  “Say something,” she said. “Say something wise. Say something that will make the pain go away.”

  “I don’t know that they make words like that, Ellen.”

  “Then pretend,” she said. “Tell me a story, anything.”

  Rick spoke after a few moments. “There was once a Sultan that had many Magi, and the least among them was a Magi named Ferdowsi. Now this Sultan . . .”

  Time had no meaning to Avery. In the beginning, the pain hadn’t been so bad. Maybe his body had been in shock. Maybe the nerves which would have alerted him to his pain were severed. However, now, the pain was incessant. It was unbearable, except that he had nothing to do but bear it. His canteen was empty, and he didn’t know how long it had been so. He’d eaten all his food, too. That had happened slightly more recently. He could feel the food in his stomach, trying to get out, but he had no way to shit.