He heard the crunch of gravel.
He leapt for his pistol, his heart a wild thing in his chest, pumping as if powered by the battery. He grabbed the gun off of the counter and raised it.
I promise.
“Hello?” he heard a feminine voice call.
Alice?
“Hello?” The calling voice was high pitched, even for a girl. “Turi?”
Not Alice, but she knows my name.
“Declare yourself,” Arturus shouted.
“Declare myself what?”
Galen would have had a fit at that answer.
“You’re supposed to say your name,” Arturus called out.
“Oh, Ellen.”
“Okay, Ellen, you can come on. . .”
The girl, about Arturus’ own age, entered the battery room and stared at the pistol which Arturus found himself pointing at her face. She held up two empty hands. Arturus looked at her belt, but she appeared unarmed.
“Rick sent me.” She seemed a little terrified. “He said you’d be home. That you could get me some food.”
Arturus took stock of the brunette girl who stood in front of him. She had no weapons, but her clothes were in excellent repair. She even had some make-up on her face. She was dressed as finely as a Citizen, with old world blue jeans, some new looking sneakers, and a thin cotton long-sleeved shirt that was soaked with sweat.
There was something suspicious about her.
“Sure,” Arturus said, “what are you going to trade me for it?”
She burst into tears.
Arturus watched her collapse with a mortified sense of puzzlement.
What’s wrong with her?
“Are you okay?” Arturus asked her.
“Jesus Christ!” she half shouted.
Arturus glanced towards the exit, afraid she might bring demons into their chamber with her noise.
Not like she’s any louder than my grindstone.
“What did He do to you?” Arturus asked.
“What? No!” she shouted.
“It’s okay, I’ll get you some food.” He hoped that the offer would stop her from crying.
It didn’t.
“—and I don’t even know where I am—” Ellen said through her tears, and then covered her mouth with her hands.
“Rick,” his father’s voice reported.
“Arturus,” he shouted back, and since Ellen didn’t seem to be about to declare herself he added, “and Ellen.”
“—and how did I get here. . . was just walking. I was just walking—”
Rick entered the chamber and looked at the fallen Ellen. He gave Arturus an accusing look.
“I didn’t do anything,” Arturus insisted.
“What happened?”
“She just came in and asked for food,” he held his hands out wide, and then realized he was still holding his pistol.
He holstered it quickly.
“I don’t have anything to trade for it, alright?” Ellen shouted at him.
“She’s just been damned,” Rick told him.
“Oh.”
No wonder she looks like a Citizen.
Arturus offered her his hand. “That’s fine,” he said with a smile. “Are you hungry?”
She nodded and stood after taking his hand, wiping snot and tears off of on her cotton shirtsleeve with her free arm.
“The flatbread first,” Rick suggested. “It’ll be the most familiar to her.”
The church, Father Klein often insisted, was built by those same men who had designed the Fore. It was not, and of this he was most certain, designed by Hell’s architect.
Its hallowed halls, made of slick blue marble, were large enough to hold all the Citizens and then nearly all of the villagers of Harpsborough. Its far wall, behind where Father Klein sat now, was marked with the dust and dirt of the villagers who prayed there. Above that line of pollution was a giant woodstone cross which hung down from the fifty foot ceiling. Along the church’s east and west walls were tall Doric pillars, each supporting the high arch of the ceiling with its symmetrical sister. Between each supporting pillar was an ornamental one, which had once been topped with the pagan statues of strange gods and heroes.
Father Klein had made sure those statues were taken down, but even he was afraid to ruin them, and had stored them instead in the small room he called the catacombs. It was the same room where he stored the flatbread and bloodwater. He prayed over them nightly, begging that the body and blood of Christ would make some hopeless sojourn into the bowels of Hell to give the semblance of a communion to his damned flock. Backless stone benches were laid between the pillars, taking the place of pews. Forty-eight of the village’s fifty Citizens sat in them now, not facing the pulpit as a congregation might, but arranged in a half circle, looking towards each other.
The Citizens had not always held their votes here. Even into the first year of Michael Baker’s reign they had made their votes in the Fore’s parlor. Now that there were fifty of them, the parlor’s confines were too small. Father Klein had been only too happy to put them up in his church. It had been his suggestion, in fact.
First Citizen Michael Baker and Davel Mancini were the last two Citizens to enter the church, and the buzz of quiet conversation died down at their entrance. Mancini’s booted feet could be heard clopping along the center aisle, echoing in the close stone confines of God’s building.
Michael’s footfalls, perhaps owing to his previous post of Lead Hunter, were much softer, and the room fell into silence as Mancini took his seat. Michael continued towards the pulpit. Unlike Father Klein, he did not dare stand behind it, lest his words be confused with God’s.
Father Klein stood up from on one of the benches, and intoned the beginning of their meeting. “We came to Hell as Wolves. We denied our Lord God, in thought, word, and deed. In His magnificent judgment, He has damned us to Hell. We are contemptible men, deserving of our Fate. Though it is too late for our Salvation, let us leave Hell as Sheep, that we may do in Death what we failed to do in Life. Lord, if you see fit, guide us in our Damnation with Your Wisdom.”
“Amen,” came the Citizens’ reply.
Mancini wasted no time in getting to business. “Alright, as you have undoubtedly noticed, the villagers aren’t eating very well. Certainly you have seen the decline in our stores of meat. You have definitely resented the pressure we’ve given you to keep your villager’s visits to the Fore at an absolute minimum.”
He looked about the room at that, and received a few scattered laughs. “Particularly when a villager would eat a dyitzu whole if we let them.” A few more laughs. “But I would argue that, by and large, this is actually a period of great prosperity. Times are tough in the village, sure, but there are more villagers than ever before. We may have had to cut down just a little in the Fore, but it hasn’t been out of what we eat, it’s been out of what we share. So long as we don’t add any more Citizens, we’ll be fine. I suggest then, that we keep today’s business focused and not get sidetracked on the food issue.”
Ben Staunten, the Master of Stores, stood up from his seat. “Davel must have been drinking too much of his own bloodwater,” he said, his voice a resonant baritone. “We’re eating through our dried foodstuffs. Keep on the way we’re going and sooner or later we’ll have to cut back.”
“Devils haven’t always been this scarce,” Mancini responded. “We’d be foolish to expect them not to return.”
Father Klein nodded. “I have been in Hell the longest of us, and I can agree with Mancini. I have never seen the devils as thin as they are now, but Hell definitely has a balance. That balance will be restored.”
“I think we can all agree that we cannot feed the villagers from the Fore’s storeroom,” Ben Staunten chimed in.
“Of course,” Michael said. “No villager would brave the wilds, looking for new sources of food, if he didn’t think there was a Citizenship in it for him.”
Chelsea, who had been playing with her long, red braid sto
od, letting it fall down one shoulder. “It’s not just the meat. Our villagers are on the edge of starvation. Sure, there is enough to feed them now, but the produce of the wilds is not always constant.”
She sat down quickly and resumed toying with her hair.
Aaron spoke next, “It’s true. I mean, look at little Julian. He feeds over one hundred of our villagers with his devilwheat. What would happen without him?”
“He’s a bright kid. He’ll be fine,” Copperfield, who made Harpsborough’s torches, said loudly.
“He might stay alive or he might not.” Mancini stood up from his bench and walked along his row towards the center of the Citizens. “Can we afford to lose him?”
Staunten shook his head.
“Then we should have him followed,” Mancini suggested. “We should demand that he show us where he roams, and where he finds this devilwheat. If it is so important, then the Fore should control it.”
“No!” shouted Michael. “I will not let it happen. We would break our trust with the villagers. They trust us to protect their right to their own findings. I will not have that compromised.”
“And if he dies?” Copperfield asked.
“We know about where he ranges,” Aaron said. “It’s pretty close. Give my hunters a few days and we’d be able to find his stash.”
“And if you can’t?” Davel asked.
“Aaron’s assurance is good enough for me,” Michael said.
Chelsea stood again. “That’s not the problem. The problem is that there are too many of us. Citizens never die. We keep the rule of one for every ten, but what happens if we start losing villagers to this famine? We Citizens grow our number when we can, but when we need to shrink, we can’t. I know a thing or two about hunting from the old world. If you harvest an area too hard, you run out of game. Why can’t you comprehend that this is happening here?”
“What are you suggesting?” Staunten snapped back. “That we’ll kill off all the devils in Hell?”
“Of course not. Just all the devils here. If we want them to return, we should stop hunting them for a while. Almost all the meat is being eaten in the Fore. The villagers don’t eat hardly any. If we just eat as they do for a little while and let the wilds recover—”
“This is ludicrous!” Mancini shouted. “Hell is far too vast for us to deplete it. If we could, what kind of damnation would this be?”
“It does sound ridiculous,” Michael told Chelsea, leaning back against the pulpit. “Aaron, is there any truth in your mind to what she says? It has been some time since I’ve been in the wilds.”
“We’re never going to run out of demons,” Aaron answered. “But something does have to change. My men are ranging as far as they can within their restrictions. If you want us to pull in more meat, then you have to let us go out farther.”
“Now who’s the one drinking bloodwater?” Mancini joked with Staunten.
“It’s true,” Aaron said.
“I know your heart is in the right place,” Michael said, “and I know you never saw the slaughter. I and my best hunters were out ranging when Pyle led the devils into Harpsborough. Father Klein and a few others were able to survive here, and most of the Citizens were holed up the Fore. You didn’t see the corpses get into our food stores, or starve alongside us when the food rotted. If I had been there with my hunters, we would have been able to protect the villagers.”
“That was the day he became First Citizen,” Father Klein chimed in, “as most of you remember.”
“And my first law was that no hunting group would be gone longer than a day. That way we would not be vulnerable for these night attacks.”
“But we’re still gone,” Aaron said, his arms held wide in frustration. “It’s not like they can’t attack during the day.”
“Well, of course they can,” Mancini was walking down the aisle again, “but why leave ourselves more vulnerable than we have to? You say you want to expand the range? Let’s do it. Maybe we should start ranging up along the Thames?”
“Galen and Rick are up that way,” Aaron said. “And there are precious few dyitzu there, anyway.”
“They never seem to be left wanting.”
“Yeah, well Galen doesn’t have to be back by bedtime.”
“Enough,” Michael cut in. “I will not have our men running all over the Thames. We have plenty of area to cover on the Kingsriver. Galen has proved himself an ally to Harpsborough and her Citizens. He saved my own life when we were afflicted with the Icanitzu. He has shown his worth again by guiding Aaron to the place of the settling. Also, I know from my own experience that there’s hardly anything to kill up there.”
Copperfield shook his head. “We’ve taken in the ranges of almost all of our other hermits. Even Hidalgo has considered moving into the city. Why not them?”
“You want to add more mouths?” Aaron asked. “And my hunters are hungry. If we aren’t allowed to travel for more than a day, then we need more rations.”
A murmur of disagreement passed through the church.
“My men burn more calories than anyone else in the village,” Aaron shouted, “or the Fore. To get any meat at all we have to run half the day out, and run half the day back, laden down by our kills—”
“Which have been precious few,” Mancini cut in. “If Baker were still Lead Hunter, we wouldn’t have this problem.”
Aaron blanched. “Maybe not, but my men are fed only by lot. And with so few kills they eat less than ever. We need another system.”
“I’ve heard they eat more than that,” a Citizen shouted.
“What do you mean?” Aaron asked.
“Isn’t it true that you let your men eat some of the kills?” Copperfield accused.
Aaron came to his feet. “No! I would never act against the Fore. I’m a Citizen, God damn it!”
Father Klein also leapt to his feet, and his voice overpowered all, even Michael Baker’s.
“We are in God’s house, and though He may never choose to visit it, should He wish to I would shudder for Him to have heard those words. You will not take His name in vain again in this house.”
Aaron bowed his head. “Forgive me.”
“Tell him what you found out, Staunten,” Copperfield shouted across the hall to the Master of Stores.
“Your men are using more ammo than usual,” Ben Staunten said. “So you expect us to believe that they are doing this while making fewer kills?”
“I do!” Aaron said. “I told you my men are starving. I did not say they were craven. We’re soldiers, we obey orders. We are not eating the dyitzu we slay.”
“I’m not disagreeing with you,” Chelsea answered in a soft voice, “but how do you explain the extra ammo?”
Aaron reddened.
The answer to her question came from one of the Citizens who did not usually speak. He was called Patrick Foodsmith, and he had been made a Citizen as much for his wisdom as for the culinary skill which had given him his nickname.
“Aaron speaks the truth,” Patrick said. “His soldiers have not been stealing kills. What they have been doing is reporting shots they have not made, and then bartering their Fore issued shells for devilwheat.”
“And they should be punished!” Mancini said. “Maybe it’s not eating meat illegally, but it’s still robbing the Fore.”
“They’re starving!” Aaron said. “And they fight each day for you. If another attack comes, God prevent it, they will be the ones who defend the Fore. They deserve special rations.”
No one spoke for a moment.
Michael cleared his throat. “I’ve heard enough, and I have made my decisions. Right now, with the weight being applied on the Fore, I can’t authorize a vote which would assign extra rations to the hunters. . . yet. I don’t want the punishment for those hunters who bartered their stolen shells to be severe, but make an example out of somebody. They can’t be allowed to break our laws. Something does have to change. I am going to lead a grand hunt. I intend to take a few of th
e best hunters out with me. We’ll go out a little farther than a day, as you suggested. I intend to return with a lot of meat and distribute that amongst the poor. I’ll refill our stores, too. If it is as dead out there as you claim, Aaron, and there is little for me to hunt, then I will authorize your vote at the next meeting.”
“First Citizen,” Mancini said, returning to his seat. “I know that you and I have spoken of this before, but I must make my case again. We can’t afford to lose your leadership at this time. Are you going on your own, or will you put this to a vote?”
Michael stood straight, ceasing to lean back upon the dais. “It will be voted upon.”
“Then I fear I must vote against you.” Mancini said.
“Why should we send you out?” The voice was Kylie’s, Michael’s mistress.
“Because we only have Aaron’s word that the hunting is so bad,” Staunten said. “And he leads a gang of criminals. There is far too much meat amongst the villagers, and I believe he and his men are robbing the Fore of their kills. We’ve earned Citizenship with our hard work, and his men are stealing it away.”
“I don’t feel quite so strongly, Aaron,” Mancini said. “But at the least your soldiers are guilty of smuggling.”
“This is not an issue of trust,” Michael shouted. “This is an issue of skill. I know Aaron is trying as hard as he can. I trained him. I know him. You’re foolish to doubt him. The reason why my hunt might succeed is because of skill. That is why you must vote me into the wilds. I will have no Citizen doubting Aaron. Staunten, tally the vote.”
There were thirty abstentions, two against, and eighteen for, when all the votes were counted.
“Now this is one of those meetings,” Michael said after the vote, “where things get a little uncomfortable at the Fore for a while. Remember the words your peers spoke were in haste, and made in the heat of the moment. Try not to take any of this home with you.”
Chelsea caught Aaron’s eyes and gave him a smile. He grimaced as a response.
“Take Ellen to your room, Arturus,” Galen ordered as he returned home, “then come back out here.”
Even Hell Has Knights (Hellsong) Page 9
