Faithful

by Michelle Hauck

  Others leaped to my defense, and things got heated. There were some threats on my life. My guards insisted on sleeping in my room—most indecent—until Fronilde stepped forward in her usual kind way and offered to keep me company. A gesture most appreciated as she has such a way with Pietro. The poor dear had been most upset for his dear mummy.

  “Barking his head off,” Julian mumbled. He noted the Northerners continued to give ground as he skipped several paragraph about Pietro’s fits.

  —well, with the election so close, imagine my astonishment. Not only of all the ladies of Colina Hermosa, but of Crueses as well. They voted as they never had before in all our history. Concejal Antonio said he’d never seen such a sight as the lines of skirts waiting to cast their ballots. He most graciously gave me all the credit when I’d only put a few suggestions into the right channels. Imagine my delight at the turnout! Isn’t it wonderful!

  But my dear, very dear, husband, it pains me to say they did not take all my suggestions. It seems the women of Colina Hermosa, and of Crueses—I must give them credit also—made up their own minds. Though I very much hoped their ballots would go to you, it didn’t fall out that way at all. I was shocked. Positively SHOCKED at the results! I blame it all on the number of people running for alcalde. It must have confused the ladies, because they cast their ballots—can you believe—(and you must not frown at me so) I must out with it—they saw fit to elect ME as alcalde of Colina Hermosa.

  Julian’s mouth opened and closed. He checked the words again, but there could be no mistake. Beatriz had underlined “ME” so heavily it tore the paper. He held the letter close and devoured the rest.

  Not only that, dear husband. They also elected ME the alcalde of Crueses. (Juan was a most perplexing purple color at the news, so I heard.)

  I’m informed, though there is no precedent of a female alcalde, it is perfectly legal. Of course, I immediately begged them to turn it over to you, but it seems that is not legal, and would actually go to other people instead. And the ladies seemed so disappointed with the idea of my stepping down—they did so very much for me—that I do feel I must keep it, rather than let Juan be alcalde again.

  I will tell it all when next we meet. I pray to our Lord every day that your battle goes well. Until then I remain your loving and loyal,

  Beatriz

  “It can’t be.” Julian let the pages flutter to the ground.

  Beatriz as alcalde?

  “Is something wrong, sir?” Muño asked, leaning closer. “All is well here. The battle is won. It may not be over yet, but anyone with half an eye can tell. The arrangement of our troops is even keeping any enemy from escaping.”

  “Astonishing.”

  “Pardon, sir. It was your plan and certain to succeed with Aveston’s cooperation, which we have. Has something gone wrong at home?”

  “What? No. Something has gone very, very right. What would you say if I tell you we have a most brilliant—and kissable—new alcalde?”

  “Sir?”

  Julian turned his face up to the waning rays of the rapidly setting afternoon sun and soaked in the warmth. Just a week ago life had seemed hopeless. “I never knew fortune—or God’s favor to turn so fast. I just wish my sons could be here to learn their mother is alcalde.”

  A broad grin stretched across his face, only to be tempered by the smell of rotten flesh that blew from the east. Julian’s nose scrunched. A chill that cancelled the heat of the day sent a prickle across his skin. Julian sat up as his horse shifted, its feet dancing nervously. Like a ripple, the unease spread throughout the fighting as men of both sides paused and looked at the sky. The joy Julian had felt movements ago evaporated, replaced with a scratching at the base of his spine.

  Muño clutched at his elbow. His voice trembled as he asked, “Sir, do you see it?”

  A dark cloud of dust or haze hung over the battle, obscuring the men. Had more Northerners arrived? Fear closed over Julian’s heart like a fist.

  Chapter 35

  Twisted olive trees gave shelter as Telo slunk toward Aveston. Slunk because a scholar and a friar were hardly trained in evading children, let alone professional scouts. Santabe had given them escort out of the army camp, but that scant safety wouldn’t apply if they were caught now. They had no idea what occurred back at the camp—if Ordoño’s body had been discovered and the army fell apart—but they’d come too far to die today.

  The guard had dumped Telo and Teresa on the opposite side of the camp from Aveston. It had taken several hours to double back around and approach the city, listening all the while for the sounds of battle, and afraid of being overtaken from behind. The sun had sunk low behind the trees, ready to steal the last of the daylight.

  “It makes no sense. Why would she kill Ordoño?” Telo asked, the words spoken aloud more from frustration than any expectation of an answer. He should be drunk with joy at seeing the Northern leader dead—yet all he felt was dread.

  Teresa grasped a tree trunk, standing still for a moment. Her breath came in little huffs from the pace he’d set and the uneven ground. “Obviously, we’re missing information, but it has to tie in with their religion. Something to do with an afterlife and proving themselves.” Teresa sounded scattered. “Their views are so different, but why would she kill him before their army wiped us out? I suspect there’s something we don’t know. Either that or she’s purely mad. Does it matter? The goal was accomplished and we actually got out alive. I never expected that.”

  Telo had not either. The victory, however, felt hollow. He couldn’t believe Santabe insane. She was a sadist, but not mad. What didn’t they know? Why did she believe they would all die horribly? He couldn’t forget the sight of her standing over Ordoño with the red Diviner in hand. Did it work the same as the other? Why have another color? “I—”

  The first gory survivor lurched from the trees and died at their feet. Blood covered him from head to toe so completely it was impossible to tell the color of his uniform. Slices in his flesh crisscrossed his body.

  Telo touched heart, mind, liver, and spleen and began the words for the dead, but Teresa pulled on his belt. “Come back and do it later. The battle must be over or we’d have heard some kind of noise. We need to see what happened—if we won. A delay won’t matter to this poor soul.”

  He let Teresa lead him on. With Ordoño in charge there had been a logic to the enemy’s movements. Ordoño followed strategy like an Acorraloar player. Unfortunately for all their sakes, there would be no guessing at Santabe’s reasoning. She might do anything, including return to their homeland—or change her mind and send the army after all. Urgency sped him on. Maybe they could reach Alcalde Julian with a warning.

  They soon passed other bloody victims in the same condition. Most looked as if they had been crawling from the fight. “Is this what a battle looks like?” he mused aloud. Then the trees ended and they stumbled into a nightmare.

  The city of Aveston rose in the distance, less than a mile away. On the flat plain before them, spread a horror show. The battle had taken place near the groves. Bodies lay everywhere, in all positions. Impossibly, armor was rent right through. Flesh fragmented. Red smears of blood covered everything. Horses torn apart or split open—many of them were the precious, dappled-gray caballos de guerra that came only from Colina Hermosa. Not a man stood, Northern or Southern. An eerie silence prevailed broken only by a few moans.

  Telo stared, sickened.

  Where were the victors? Why had no one from the city come to offer help?

  “Water,” someone pleaded in a broken whisper. Telo glanced down to see a blood-drenched man, clutching a canteen, flat upon his back. Most of his left leg was gone below the knee. Teresa knelt and pulled the water skin from his hand to hold it to the man’s lips, but he paid no heed, continuing to plead for a drink even as Teresa poured it over his lips. His eyes glazed as life fled.

  Chills chased themselves over Telo’s body. “This is not the way a battle looks.” He had no experi
ence, but reason said he spoke true. Survivors from the winning side should be checking for wounded. Officers, who had hung well back during the fight, should be handing out orders. The only thing moving was the wind.

  Everyone from both sides had been flattened down to the last soul.

  “Look,” Teresa said, standing and shading her eyes. Two horses crossed the plain from the direction of the city, riders low on their backs.

  They had to pick their way through the gore to meet the riders, trying their best to step carefully. In spots, the dead were so packed together they had no choice but to tread on them, scattering clouds of flies. Banners of Colina Hermosa, Aveston, and Crueses matted with blood, clung to broken flagpoles. The stench of death covered everything with a nauseating miasma.

  The worst part was walking past the few wounded. With no supplies or medical training, there was no way to help such horrific injuries. At some point, Teresa started retching and couldn’t stop, still valiantly keeping pace even while gagging with tears streaming down her round cheeks. Telo held his sleeve over his nose and mouth, feeling guilty for benefiting from that small relief when so many others had suffered or continued to suffer.

  “What happened here, Father?” the first rider on a chestnut mare demanded in greeting as soon as they reached shouting distance.

  “We were hoping you could tell us.” Telo’s voice boomed across the field of death, chasing echoes. “We’ve just arrived. We were prisoners in the main Northern army. They’re camped barely an hour’s walk. Did we lose?”

  The scout held out empty hands, apparently too numb to react to their warning. “We were winning. Every member of our fighting men went to help—even the gate guards. Our men joined the other pelotónes. We pushed them back against the trees. Then the orderly lines disappeared. From the walls, we could see a red cloud of haze and naught much else. When it cleared . . . this.”

  “All dead. We took triple pay to come see up close,” the second scout offered as he pulled up. “No one would do it for less. Haunts. Or magic. Maybe them Northerners got their own witches.” He kept his horse well back from the nearest dead, eyes too wide on both mount and rider. “No telling if it’s over or if it will start up again . . . with us.”

  No shadow of fear grew in Telo at the scout’s apprehension, only a great gaping hole of sorrow and loss. The hole that came from thousands of souls taken too soon, never to finish the course of their lives. Telo stared at the city, trying to find understanding for this disaster. Unlike Colina Hermosa, Aveston didn’t favor stucco and whitewash, but gray stone. Their walls gave off no welcome radiance when haloed by the sun sinking behind it. The sinking sun . . .

  A sun god.

  “Dal,” he said, and then bit his tongue. Santabe had warned against saying the name aloud, though she used the name herself. He glanced at the decapitated corpse of a Northerner at his feet. Next to him, the orange uniform of Crueses, the man split open from collarbone to pelvis. The death-blow injuries seemed random but all the victims bore the same deep slices across faces, torsos, appendages—caused by the same source. Who knew the priestess had meant this could happen? He’d just reasoned out the missing information and it terrified him. This is what was meant by Dal manifesting. Suddenly, Santabe’s apathy to use the army made sense. Then he remembered what he knew of Dal. “I believe it is over. Safe until morning at least. Summon your healers. Bring help! Supplies! Hurry!”

  “Hi-ya, sir.” The second scout wheeled his horses in a gallop back to the city, only too glad to escape.

  “He’s manifested,” Teresa said, also reaching understanding. “This is what she meant. Oh saints.” She moaned, shifting her feet among the carnage. “I’ve seen this before. Not this exactly, but this sort of wasteful killing, only with animals. A god kills for the Northerners.”

  Telo shook his head. It felt like he’d run full tilt and face-first into a brick wall. Why did the Lord permit this to happen? How were they to defeat a god? A being incomprehensible and all-powerful. It had been bad enough when it was only the Northern army to face. He hung on to the only good news he could find. “It killed their men as well. We should be safe until sunrise,” he added as much to reassure himself as the others.

  Calm. He had to stay calm.

  He picked his way forward until he stood on clean grass by the remaining scout. “You said Aveston sent all their soldiers. How about the other cities?”

  “Everything. We counted the pelotónes. They brought all but maybe one unit from Colina Hermosa. Everything Crueses had was here, though I didn’t see men from Suseph. All the other ciudades-estado are tiny by comparison.” The man looked stricken. “Are we finished?”

  Telo touched mind and heart, but it brought no comfort. All their best leadership, their best fighters would have been here. The capitáns. Alcalde Julian. Was he here? All dead. Who would lead them now? It was all he could do not to join the scout in panicking. “Only the Lord can say. Where was the command positioned?”

  The scout pointed to a small rise, separated by a short space from the larger battle. Bodies lay atop it. Telo hiked up his robe to hold it out of the gore as he strode back into the killing field. With a shake of his head, he dropped it. Too late. His robe had absorbed blood from the ground like a sponge. Too late, just like all else.

  “Wait here,” he told the scout and Teresa absently. Teresa had bent over a survivor, offering what comfort she could with no healing supplies or bandages, ripping strips from her poncho.

  The sunset. That must be why some survived. The sunset had chased off Dal before he finished the job. But who knew? Maybe he had simply grown bored and gone elsewhere. Could you even assign sex to a god? Telo’s mind lurched at straws, grasping at wasteful thoughts that didn’t matter.

  Nothing moved on the small rise as Telo reached it. Here, there were no Northern uniforms. No one to have caused the devastation he witnessed. These wounds weren’t cause by any enemy blade. He must face facts: It was the hand of a depraved god. He recognized faces of some of the capitáns, like Captain Muño with his curly beard, as well as other officers and enlisted men who must have been runners for sending orders to the field. But he saw no man without a uniform and most wore armor. Surely, Alcalde Julian would be here in the midst of the action.

  Telo moved among the dead, checking each face. Clouds of flies began to gather for the feast. Broken horses lay everywhere. The only clear ground lay where a stallion had pushed bodies aside in its death agony. Its chest and belly had been split wide open, the skin peeled back as though by a death surgeon.

  He surveyed each face, then turned back to try again, not finding the one he sought. How were they to survive without Alcalde Julian’s wisdom? “Lord, let him not be here.”

  A small hope rose until he spotted the curl and twist in a horse’s body. It lay upon something. Telo ran to it, sinking upon his knees.

  The horse had fallen on a man’s legs and torso. The animal had acted like a shield, protecting from the god’s wrath. No cuts prevented the identification of Alcalde Julian. The wise face so many came to for reassurance had gone still.

  “Ah, my friend,” Telo said sadly. “That it should come to this.” He fumbled for Julian’s hand and found it warm, not cooling. A thready pulse answered his frantic search. The horse hadn’t completely crushed Julian.

  “Hurry! Bring your horse!” Telo shouted to the remaining scout. They would need help to shift the dead animal. Life remained. Perhaps all was not lost for their chances.

  Chapter 36

  Ramiro stood in the gray world of fog. A part of him knew his body remained on Sancha, dozing as she took him toward Colina Hermosa, then there was nothing but the fog. It shut out everything but his hand before his face—and Salvador.

  His brother didn’t stand watching this time. He walked with his back turned toward Ramiro. A tug pulled at Ramiro, dragging him along with his brother. He took a step and almost fell. A fall to end him. Unlike before when the ground in the gray world was
made up of sand or wet ground, this time his foot touched nothing.

  Nothing. No ground below. It was as though they moved in the clouds.

  Yet, he remained in place.

  Salvador kept moving and something said his brother would not wait. If Ramiro were to see what brought him here, he must follow. Thank the saints, the fog concealed whatever waited below, covering his body from the waist downward. At least he didn’t have to see it. He pushed down the fear to venture another step. Again his foot touched nothing, but this time, he didn’t falter. The tug coming from Salvador held him upright.

  As was the way in dreams, Ramiro accepted it all without surprise, any oddity seeming perfectly normal. He kept pace behind Salvador, never drawing nearer or farther, always two steps back. Never able to move faster than a steady pace.

  To his left, the fog unveiled a transparent window, revealing a type of city he’d never seen before—a city of wood. More wood than existed in the entire swamp. The beams of the outer wall were three times the size of the largest oak tree. The houses were wood—all the buildings—built of thin planks hammered over more wood with no stone or stucco to be seen. Guards in yellow and black stood atop the wall to keep people out, while priests in white robes stood outside, red Diviners at their waist, to keep people in.

  The sun rode high in the sky and strange sandy-haired people went about their business. In a public square, a priest waved a hand and soldiers struck off the hands and head of a kneeling supplicant, blood splashing into awaiting bowls. A cut appeared across the priest’s face. Then a soldier fell with a slice across his back. All over the city of wood, people cried out as their flesh yielded to invisible thrusts—a massacre that murdered the old, the young, the innocent with the guilty and even the animals. As more blood flowed, the people retreating inside became victims as the killing force moved through walls and windows.