Rora

by James Byron Huggins

  Emmanuel proceeded almost casually, almost gravely, knowing that the rest would unfold as it would unfold. Even if he tried, he would not be able to restrain Pianessa's wrath. The marquis had already paid too heavy a price for this battle.

  Distant shots—surprisingly distant—echoed through the thick trees, and Emmanuel knew that the Waldenses were attempting to maintain a guarded retreat. But no retreat was as safe as an attack, and those still capable of fighting would eventually be forced into desperate last stands where they would certainly die or fade into the caves and trails where they would be hunted down like animals.

  Either way, it was over.

  Rora had fallen.

  *

  Chapter 18

  Blake staggered through the woods killing every man he met who wore the coat of Pianessa. He had fallen back from the wall with the rest when Gianavel had called the retreat. But in the chaos he had lost the boys and the captain and, now, even himself.

  He knew only that he was somewhere in a forest and that it was swarming with forces, and he was considered hostile. His mind should have been focused entirely on escape, but he could not deny himself a strange, and even comforting, thought.

  That he was caught in this war by accident was no longer a cause for regret because his decision to stand beside Gianavel had changed him on a profound level that men search for but rarely reach. For the first time in his life Blake did not consider himself a thief or a drunkard or a vagabond. He felt that he was more, and that he had always been more, and he didn't think that even death could turn him from what he now knew and held.

  Yet he knew that death was inevitable if he continued to run blindly through these trees. But he didn't know where he was going or where the others had gone. He searched for—

  "Blake!"

  If they knew his name, they had his allegiance.

  Blake stumbled forward and threw himself headlong into the dark entrance of a cave barely larger than a man.

  He didn't care if he was diving into a stone wall. He hadn't a moment to spare. He was instantly caught in strong arms and recognized Bertino whispering, "Close it! Close it!"

  Sunlight faded from the side and Blake glimpsed a large rock dropped over the tunnel. He knew that above ground the entrance was hidden and had his first thought of safety.

  Then he thought of Gianavel.

  ***

  Gianavel reached the village of Rora to see Pianessa’s militia swarming through homes and buildings, exiting with prisoners only to kill them in the streets.

  No one was spared.

  Rushing across the small space behind Hector's house, his mind was only on Angela and the children. He heard shouting and crashing inside and Gianavel burst through the back door, leveling a rifle in each hand at his waist.

  A soldier of Pianessa, wearing a gleeful smile, turned at the intrusion. The smile vanished as Gianavel blasted him backward across the room. Instantly Gianavel shot the second man, blasting his dead body into a cabinet. Hurling the rifles forward, Gianavel charged to smash his shoulder into a third man. Catching him across the face with his elbow, Gianavel ripped out his pistol and fired point-blank. The man had not even hit the wall as Gianavel turned and scrambled up the stairway.

  "Angela!" he cried, stumbling hard to automatically tear a long poniard from his boot. He reached the crest and was searching by sound and sight at once.

  Empty.

  They had fled.

  Relief flooded through him, but he had to find them.

  Racing down the steps, he met three soldiers in the front who sighted him instantly. No time to think or evade, Gianavel hurled himself into the first man. At the last second he twisted the rifle barrel aside, and then they were bunched in the corner as the other two rifles erupted.

  Gianavel drove his dagger into the first man's chest, and as his hand released, he tore the man's pistol from his own belt and killed the second. The third actually dropped his rifle and shouted for mercy as he threw up his hands in surrender—

  Gianavel showed none.

  With a pistol in each hand Gianavel charged into the street. The fighting was chaotic but soldiers already outnumbered villagers. Everywhere homes were burning and the dead lay in the street, killed indiscriminately. It was clear that Pianessa's orders were to kill everything, man or animal.

  And they were.

  Gianavel could think of only one other place that Angela might have taken the children and ran into the stables, quickly searching, shouting. He was moving along a wall when he saw a shadow moving parallel to him on the other side of the wall, outside the stable itself. And with the unearthly combat sense that comes wide awake when a man is fighting for his life, he knew every detail.

  Taller than Angela ... Shadow of a rifle ... In clear view of the street and still moving ... Not afraid of being seen ...

  In the same breath Gianavel cocked and raised and leveled the pistol at the head of the shadow. Without hesitation he instantly placed the barrel flush against the thin board and fired and heard a man fall to the ground. He was out the door as quick and lifted the dead man's rifle. He began to ...

  "Gianavel!"

  Spinning and dropping with the rifle raised, Gianavel instantly recognized Descombie. The priest staggered through the battle, holding Jacob in his arms. The boy was crying and screaming for Gianavel.

  As Descombie collapsed, Gianavel caught Jacob from his arms. He didn't listen to his child's cries as the priest struggled for breath, bleeding profusely from the chest.

  "Descombie!" Gianavel shouted, knowing there was nothing that could be done to save him. "Where's Angela! The girls!"

  "Pianessa!" Descombie shouted painfully and fell forward with a groan. "Captured!"

  Gianavel's face twisted in pain and rage.

  The priest pushed Gianavel. "Go! Go!" He coughed fitfully, surged up to his knees to grab Gianavel's shirt. His voice was coarse. "Go! If you live, we live! Hurry!"

  Without a word Gianavel stared in horror over the village. What had been dozens of soldiers were now over a hundred with more streaming in like locusts from every trail and path. In seconds the village would be completely surrounded and conquered.

  "Hurry!" Descombie cried and slumped to the ground.

  Gianavel lifted Jacob and turned from his friend, whom he knew would be dead in seconds. He snatched out his dagger and instantly slashed a piece of cloth from the stable wall.

  He quickly hooked Jacob with an arm and pulled the small boy onto his back. Then he threw the cloth over Jacob and tied it across his chest, securing the child in the makeshift harness. Even if Jacob released his tight hold on Gianavel's neck, he would not fall.

  A last second, Gianavel searched the streets, not to insure that Pianessa was victorious this day but for any sign or hope that Descombie had been wrong and his wife and children might be free in this swirling maelstrom of battle.

  No...

  Turning swiftly, Gianavel loped down the alley between two homes when another soldier emerged at the end. The man had time only to raise his rifle before Gianavel's outstretched hand touched it with the barest end of a single finger, turning it mere inches to shoot past him and his son. In the next breath Gianavel crouched and his dagger found the man's stomach, and Gianavel twisted it hard as he drew it free.

  The man was dead on his feet.

  Ripping out his sword and last dagger, Gianavel raced along the homes toward the thickest wall of forest that might give him a fighting chance to get his son to safety. Jacob was screaming, but he didn't have time to respond as a titanic image in black armor mounted upon a black horse erupted before him.

  The Marquis de Pianessa thundered darkly into Gianavel's path as if forces beyond this world had ordained this battle.

  Their eyes met.

  Pianessa roared, "Take him!"

  Gianavel's eyes blazed.

  Within seconds a half-dozen soldiers raced around the close edge of the building and Gianavel killed the first with a lunge of
his sword before the man could even identify the threat.

  Gianavel attacked, lunging into the second man.

  He did what they did not expect, what they were not prepared to deal with. They knew a dozen tactics to wear down a man in retreat, slashing his legs or arms, surrounding him, taking him a piece at a time because he fought to survive.

  But Gianavel was in their face, killing the second one and then pushing another into the wall before killing a third, only to step from the wall and stab again, dropping the fourth. The other two had used the moment to recover and might have retreated before the fury of Gianavel's rage but for the presence of Pianessa.

  They paused, then attacked, and Gianavel took them one at a time, parrying one sword with a powerful slash that threw the man off-balance and twisting to avoid the other saber. Gianavel's backhand slash caught the other in the neck, and the last man gave a respectable but short fight before he fell back with his throat pierced.

  Gianavel registered everything at once.

  No soldiers close ... Pianessa still here ... Jacob secure on my back and he hasn't been hurt yet ...

  Rora is lost...

  Spurring his horse for quick distance, Pianessa gained a space on the prince of the Vaudois and swung his broadsword in a circle, shouting for more soldiers.

  Gianavel saw the forest—only a few steps. He saw a dozen soldiers racing to answer Pianessa's call—coming fast. He spent a single second to raise his sword and pointed it directly at Pianessa, who beheld the movement and backed away.

  Before the soldiers were close Gianavel stepped behind the wall and shots rang out. He raced quickly to the wood line and was within it before clear shouts could be heard, and in another ten minutes he was deep inside the forest.

  A few soldiers encountered him as he erupted from foliage or forest in a full run—an inhuman thing who turned into them and not away from them in retreat.

  No, no, it purposefully came for them like some unleashed beast, murder in its eyes.

  An hour later Gianavel reached the Cave de Casette located south of the Roc de Due where more than seventy of Rora's defenders had already taken refuge. They greeted him with wild cries of relief and concern and Gianavel collapsed across the cold stone.

  He knew that hands had lifted Jacob, who was still screaming and crying from the ordeal. Gianavel, kneeling on his knees, gasped, "Leave him with me."

  Instantly Jacob ran back into his arms and Gianavel held him for a long time. Held him until the shooting faded in the area of the village and the air grew gray and then black with homes and fields burning. Held him as the sound of angry patrols faded and natural night blanketed the night that had lasted through the day.

  ***

  Blake was accustomed now to not knowing where he was, where he had been, or where he was going.

  At the moment he knew he was traveling through some natural tunnel system that ranged from cavern to cavern in this valley. It was incredible what use the Waldenses had made of them. It was extensive and well supplied with food, blankets, and weapons much like an underground home—indeed, an underground village.

  It took little to recognize that these caverns had been prepared for days, even years. In fact, moving steadily through them, Blake had the distinct impression that they had been prepared for centuries. Some of the shelves where candles burned had been carved out of the calcite walls, and the tunnels were well stocked with extra torches and candles so that no one would be without light regardless of the journey.

  An entire nation could subsist down here for as long as food stores lasted. And from the volume of stocked wheat, dried fruit, jerky, and the thick red jelly these Vaudois seemed to put on everything they consumed, that might be a while. But Blake also knew the tragic history of these caverns.

  As Gianavel had explained, the caves were safe only so long as the fugitives remained undiscovered. But, if discovered, the caverns were a death trap. It was simply too easy to build a bonfire in the cavern entrance and suffocate all those within, or pile stones to block escape. Although the tunnels were well stocked, the food stores were not unlimited. Or, as Gianavel had put it, better to risk the forest, where there are always paths of retreat, rather than a fortified position, because no fortified position can indefinitely withstand an attack.

  But today there was no choice.

  Pianessa's soldiers were riding down those caught in the open field and tracking down those who had escaped into the trails. Without the faintest human sentiment they were raping, murdering, torturing, and burning both homes and bodies. Those who were killed in battle were far more fortunate than those captured.

  Then, with surprising swiftness, Blake found himself in the exit of the tunnel. It seemed incredible that they had left a gigantic cathedral chamber moments earlier.

  "I see nothing," Bertino muttered, staring out the entrance ."We should leave quickly."

  Blake turned his head. "Leave for what?"

  "The Cassette is only a short distance."

  "The Cassette?"

  "Another cave." Bertino looked at the rest. "Stay in the trees. And if you're caught, don't run for the cave. Better for everyone that you take your chances in the open field than lead them to the others."

  No disputes were offered, and they began to slide from the cavern entrance. Soon after true dark Blake made the journey beside Bertino, neither of them making more than a whisper of sound, to finally reach a narrow sliver of utter black in a rock wall. Even in the day, the cave would have been almost impossible to find.

  Blake entered the cavern to see nothing, but there was unnatural warmth to the air. The last cave had been noticeably cooler, and Blake pondered that it perhaps had been the exiting breeze or even his fear. Then he realized that the warmth was the body heat of a dozen men standing in pure darkness just inside the entrance.

  Tenderly and without words or sound, Blake slid through them and five minutes later rounded a corner with Bertino leading by torchlight to see Gianavel before a fire. Burning deep within the cavern, the flames could not be seen from outside, neither would the smoke from the dry wood leave much trace even in the day.

  Almost immediately, Blake noted the fallen countenance of the great champion of the Vaudois. Gianavel did not raise his face, and his eyes reminded Blake of the eyes of a trapped wolf he had once seen.

  Caught in a snare, the wolf had been unable to chew off its leg and had simply sat in the snow, eyes dead, alive only in the physical sense. Whatever was life in it was at a dead center that felt no pity for itself. There was only knowledge of a grave injury stoically accepted, as if death were simply the meaningless end of life.

  Yes, they had lost the village but Gianavel's spirit seemed struck by more than that. But Blake did not possess the emotional energy to contemplate it further or even ask. Exhausted, he sat on a blanket and leaned sideways against the wall. Surrounded by this shocked and shattered group, he thought about what he had been a lifetime ago—before this war.

  What he could recall was a gray, faceless, soundless panorama of lies and deceit. Yes, he was guilty of lies and deceit, of theft and betrayal and exchanging his integrity for whatever seemed easiest. But none of that wounded him as much as what he knew had been the greatest sin of all— that of a wasted life.

  Until today.

  ***

  The illusion of some gigantic black curtain descending from heaven enclosed the village of Rora, the village itself bright as day with burning buildings and bodies.

  True to his word, Inquisitor General Thomas Incomel had spared no one. Not the oldest nor the youngest, neither the very few who did renounce their faith, in the end, nor those who refused. All had shared the same fate with a handful of prisoners taken for the sake of appearance and posterity.

  Incomel wore a grave and serious air as if his task had been somehow difficult and regrettable and void of victory. Flocked by a dozen additional Inquisitors, he moved from body to body, gesturing with his crucifix as he intoned in solemn Latin. W
atching him, Emmanuel could not help but feel fear of someone whose conscience was so cold.

  If a man could do this, he was powerful in a manner most men never knew. Even the worst men had vestiges of guilt; no one was completely evil. But a man who was so absolutely beyond the self-imposed restraints men exercised even in war was dangerous, indeed. That kind of bestial indifference gave a man a black advantage.

  Emmanuel knew he did not possess it. He had never known a man that possessed it. Despite Pianessa's blood-thirst for war, he was, for the most part, simply greedy. He did not run around crucifying people on a whim or setting them ablaze to wager how long they might live. Pianessa was a killer, it was true, but he was first and foremost a soldier and even Pianessa respected the rules of war.

  The rules of a siege were clearly understood.

  If a castle or village were attacked, terms of surrender were customarily offered. If those terms were refused, then the ensuing battle, as long as it was not too severe and no beloved commanders had been killed could be terminated by a later acceptance of amended terms. However, if the attacking party was forced to suffer terrific losses before they finally stormed the wall, then no one was spared and nothing was sacred.

  By the rules of war, Rora certainly deserved no mercy. They had fought to the very last, even brandishing sticks and bottles in the street, a resistance utterly futile and even sad. Not that Emmanuel had felt any particular compassion; he had paid a great price for this victory. Although Pianessa led the Militia of Piedmont, he was merely a general in Savoy s army. It was the Duke of Savoy’s treasury that recruited men, trained them, equipped and paid them.

  Not that they could not be replaced, but Gianavel's last stand had been particularly devastating to the rank commanders. No less than two hundred above the station of sergeant major had been killed, and experienced men were far more difficult to find. Despite what Pianessa openly admitted as he finally stood inside the village, saying it was doomed from the beginning, Emmanuel knew the peasants had come within a hairsbreadth of winning.