by D. J. Butler
Not these particular Clays, of course, but the family.
That meant he didn’t feel the slightest bit bad about stealing two of their horses.
They’d shoot him if they caught him, that was the game. But Cal was good at what he did. He had the patience to sit quietly for a long time, watching the movements of the farmhouse occupants, the beasts, and the moon. He had the self-discipline to count how many slugs that single guard had taken from his bottle, and wait until the man nodded off against the wall. He had half a catfish wrapped in a bit of wool to break into three pieces and throw to the rangy dogs when they raised curious muzzles at his appearance. He had the silent step to creep without being caught to the stable, the muscle control to freeze and escape notice when a late-night visitor to the jakes wandered by, and the wisdom to avoid opening hinged doors that might not be well-oiled.
Jerusalem, if the Clays were half as cunning as Calvin or Iron Andy, they’d deliberately not oil the hinges, precisely to catch rustlers and horse thieves.
So Calvin climbed over the door, a few feet from the sleeping guard, and let himself in. He picked two beasts that looked like fast runners and helped himself to a rope hanging on the stable wall. He cut off a length, tied it with a slipknot, and dropped the loop gently around the drunk and snoring guard.
Mounting up and leading the second animal, he opened the stable door.
With the loud creak, the Clay snoozing under his slouch hat stopped snoring and looked up.
Cal kicked the horses into a gallop. He yanked the rope with him and the Clay guard hit the ground and bounced, dragged in Cal’s wake. He dropped the bottle and, more to the point, his rifle.
The man was too drunk, surprised, and knocked breathless to yell, at least for a few minutes. That was as Cal planned. He dragged the fellow eastward into the forest along a wide path for a mile. At that point, the fellow began to catch his breath and yell, “Horse thief, dammit! Horse thief!”
Cal cut him loose and rode faster.
A mile farther along, where the road plunged through deep shadow on a straightaway, Cal tied half his stolen rope across the path at chest level. He was just beginning to hear the sounds of pursuit behind him.
He tied the second half a mile later, in a bend in the road.
That would make the Clay boys peer really carefully into every patch of darkness before riding through, and take it slow.
Then Cal rode like hell.
He rode to the Memphis Pike. There was the risk he might attract Imperial Foresters, watchful to impose their tariffs and tolls on illicit commercial traffic, but even if he did, he didn’t think they’d try to stop him. He wasn’t carrying anything for sale. If they asked why he was riding so hard, he’d tell them he’d tried and failed to kidnap a bride, and now he had to worry about the girl’s brothers.
He stuck to the paved pike for a couple of miles, and then plunged off into the forest again on a narrow trail he thought he recognized.
No pursuit short of the supernatural would follow his trail over those changes, and if the Clays were willing to use magic to track him, he wasn’t going to get away. Another mile farther on and over the crest of a rocky ridge, Cal let himself slow down.
He rode up the approach to Calhoun Mountain two days and four trades later, riding only a single horse, and that one exhausted. At the foot of the defile leading up to the mountaintop, his fatigue was cracked wide open by familiar shouting.
“Calvin! Calvin Calhoun, hot damn iffen you ain’t come back!”
Red Charlie took Cal’s horse and Caleb gave Cal a shoulder to lean on as he hitched himself up the slope, one ragged step at a time. Caleb was full of questions, as were the younguns who bounced into view at the top, Young Andy at their head.
“You ain’t brought back Aunt Sarah!” Young Andy hollered, announcing the obvious conclusion before anyone could beat him to it. “That mean she’s Empress now?”
Cal grabbed his cousin by the ears and roughed up his hair. “Iffen you don’t know too much, you know too little. I can’t rightly say which it is. No, I don’t expect Sarah is Empress.”
“Queen of the Ohio, at least?” Andy insisted.
“Mebbe that,” Cal conceded.
He crossed the meadows as briskly as he could manage, shooting a loving wave and a grin at every friendly face he saw on the way. When he reached the Elector’s Thinkin’ Shed, he was surprised to see two men standing on the covered dogtrot.
“Grandpa.” Cal nodded to show his respect. “Mr. Donelsen.”
Charlie Donelsen showed his missing teeth in a broad grin. “I heard of you afore, Calvin. I have boys as say you’re a pretty impressive hand with a lariat.”
“Lord hates a man as can’t work for a livin’.” Cal shrugged. “I’m right glad that horse I rode up on ain’t wearin’ a Donelsen brand, though.”
“What brand was it?” Donelsen asked.
“I come up from near Memphis at a dead gallop, Mr. Donelsen,” Cal said. “Wearin’ out horses and tradin’ down all the way. I set out with a pair of fine, fresh beasts. I didn’t look too close, but I expect they mighta had Clay brands on their hides. The one I jest turned over to Red Charlie—and I reckon it’s a miracle if she don’t end up in the cookin’ pot—looks like her brand’s been stamped over three or four times.”
“That won’t be a Donelsen animal, then.”
Cal shook his head. “I believe it’s one of Emperor Thomas’s. Used to pull a cook wagon for some Foresters as are camped out about thirty miles west of here, and are happy to git a younger beast.”
Charlie Donelsen laughed. “Iffen it had been one of ours, hell, son, we got bigger fish to fry.”
Iron Andy threw his one arm around Calvin in a tight embrace, dragging the younger, taller man up onto the wooden porch. “Sarah?” The lines in his face looked as deep as rivers.
“Alive,” Cal said. “In Cahokia. Mebbe…mebbe queen, I can’t say for sure. Jest as things was startin’ to git interestin’, I had to leave. Iffen she is, I reckon we’ll hear soon enough. But she’s with good people. William Lee, mebbe you heard of him. Dragoon captain. And the regent of Cahokia, he took her in. And one of the high-rankin’ priestesses.”
Cal felt worse than ever for leaving.
Iron Andy nodded. “And Thalanes? I ain’t heard you mention my old friend.”
Calvin felt a ball of lead in his belly. “He died, grandpa. Savin’ Sarah from a sorcerer as tried to take her soul.”
Iron Andy set his jaw in a straight line. “Full of pepper to the end, I expect.”
“Yessir,” Cal agreed. “Brave as e’er a feller could be, too.”
Iron Andy Calhoun sighed. “Well, come on in, Cal. We got some thinkin’ to do—little Tommy Penn wants a great big war.”
Calvin pressed his hand to the Frenchman’s letter to reassure himself it was still there. “In that case, Grandpa…I might have brought a solid cannonball to heave at the bastard.”
“I like this one!” Charlie Donelsen laughed. “Tell me your name again, son.”
* * *
They called themselves the Village of the Merciful.
Some had argued for Kingdom. There had even been a few votes for the idea that the community should name itself after Chigozie Ukwu—the Ukwites, or the Chigozi. Chigozie himself had pleaded against those options and in favor of a name that sounded more like a church: the Community of Christ, or the Church of Christ the Merciful.
Kort and Ferpa had argued energetically in favor of the word Merciful.
Though Kort never raised a hand in threat or raised his voice, the other beastkind that streamed to join Chigozie’s followers all deferred to him. Was it size? Fearsomeness? A general air of charisma? A reputation he had earned with previous ferocity?
Whatever the source of his influence, Kort’s view carried the day.
Within a week of Christmas, Chigozie had thirty followers. Many of them had been within the walls of Cahokia on the morning of the solstice, the same
morning Kort had been there. Something had happened to them, though none of them could say what. Their madness subsided like a retreating wave, though the wave still carried many of their fellows with it.
And the madness didn’t disappear entirely. When hungry, or afraid, or provoked, the Merciful could still react with energy and even violence.
But mostly, they reacted as Chigozie would have expected any child of Adam to react. Sometimes with mirth, sometimes impatiently, sometimes with a short temper, but mostly with a cheerful decency and a desire to get along. They came to join the Merciful of their own free will; they tried to live in peace.
It wasn’t hard to find Chigozie. He didn’t try to hide. On the hill with two springs of fresh water where they made their camp, he erected a twelve-foot-tall wooden cross. At dawn, the Merciful gathered to face eastward and sing the songs Chigozie taught them.
Many thought he should have a title. Again they tried King, but also Lord, General, Prophet, and Duke. Chigozie demurred, though at the title Bishop his heart broke and he very nearly agreed to be called Priest…which, after all, he was.
But he held fast. “Call me Brother,” he insisted, whenever anyone showed the slightest hint of an intent to do otherwise. “Brother Chigozie. As I call you Sister Ferpa, and Brother Kort, and Sister Lanani. We are all children of Adam. We are all creatures of the same God.”
The hill was theirs to occupy because the village and castle adjoining had been destroyed. Chigozie resisted suggestions that he move into the remaining roofed rooms of the castle—instead, when any of the Merciful were injured or ill, he housed them there, beside a large fire. They came to refer to the three connected rooms (formerly a dining hall, a kitchen, and a pantry, though most of the stores had been depredated before the Merciful arrived) specifically and the ruined castle generally as the Houses of Healing.
Chigozie built a small shelter for himself to live in. It was simple, as he had no art in the matter, and he was only able to do it at all because he could salvage planks and tables from ruined houses of the village.
He lay down a rectangle of bricks. On top of that, out of flooring stolen from elsewhere—tabletops, and stray planks—he stitched together a rough floor. At this point, the Merciful ignored his insistence that he do it alone and helped him raise walls and a peaked roof. A salvaged iron stove provided warmth. Chigozie hung blankets and furs on all the walls, with a twice-folded wool blanket hanging in the doorway.
The structure had no windows. To circulate the air inside, Chigozie had to open the door to the winter’s blast. But it gave decent shelter, and no one had been killed inside it.
After burying his club, Kort had lost his taste for theological dispute. He grunted assent to Chigozie’s statements that they worshipped God the Son, God in the Bread, and after the morning hymn he drank from the bowl of blessed water and ate a fragment of the blessed loaf Chigozie passed around.
If they gained too many more adherents, he’d have to appoint a suffragan to help him with the morning liturgy. The thought gave Chigozie pause—it would introduce rank, something he’d been steadfastly resisting. Fortunately, the numbers of the Merciful grew slowly. After an initial influx of beastkind who had participated in the assault on Cahokia, they reached an essentially stable size.
Kort now seemed to live to do two things: serve his fellows with manual labor, and sing.
Come, we that love the Lord
And let our joys be known
Join in a song with sweet accord
And thus surround the throne
Let those refuse to sing
Who never knew our God
But children of the heav’nly King
May speak their joys abroad
Chigozie stood on a boulder on a low knob of earth two thirds of the way up the hill, facing the Merciful. They sang with a call and response technique, because other than the words to a few Christmas songs they’d worn out in the first week, Chigozie was the only one who knew any hymns.
The hill of Zion yields
A thousand sacred sweets
Before we reach the heav’nly fields
Or walk the golden streets
He was preparing to begin the song’s fourth verse when a bugle interrupted him. To his surprise, soldiers in sallet helmets and red cloaks rode out of the forest at the base of the hill and began to climb. A pack of hounds accompanied them, racing ahead as well as following behind.
Several of the beastkind hooted and pawed the earth in anxiety, fear, or perhaps bloodlust.
“No!” Kort bellowed. “We are the Merciful.”
Chigozie swallowed his own fear and waited.
The Merciful far outnumbered the men who rode to the edge of the gathering. Nevertheless, a thick energy burned below the surface among the beastkind as the newcomers arrived. They numbered twenty, and they were dressed like riders, with tall black boots, black trousers, and black coats, and then over the top a broad-brimmed red hat and a long red cloak. They wore breastplates and also armor on their thighs. The armor appeared to be carved of lacquered red wood. They carried a short rifle or carbine holstered alongside their saddles and pistols. They rode in two files—the second rider of one of the files carried a banner. Chigozie didn’t recognize it, but thought the black image against a red field might have been a cuckoo wearing a crown.
The man to the right of the banner-carrier raised a bugle and blew his call again as the riders came to a stop. Their posture was alert but not threatening, close enough to attack the Merciful but far enough back to turn and ride away.
Curiously, the faces of the men might have been pulled from a New Orleans dance hall. Some had the pale features and dark hair of the Eldritch; others were Indians, though Chigozie could not have identified a specific tribe; still others looked like they might have Bantu blood in their veins.
He raised his arms and voice. “Welcome. Did you come to sing?”
One of the riders at the front of the troop took off his hat and wiped sweat from his brow. He had a broad face and wide nose, skin that was slightly dusky, and straw-blond hair. Some kind of German, or part-German Creole?
Chigozie couldn’t place these soldiers, and that made him uncomfortable.
“We don’t know the words, preacher.”
“I sing them first, and then the congregation sings. You don’t need to know words. You only—”
“Stop!” The rider waved Chigozie into silence with his hat. “This is Zomas land.”
Chigozie pointed at the rubble on the adjacent hill. “Until three weeks ago, this land was claimed by a man calling himself Baron McClane.”
The rider snorted. “Welcome to the Missouri, preacher. Any idiot who could pile one stone on another has been claiming noble status around here for decades. Well, no longer. My name is Captain Naares Stoach. Turim Zomas the second, Lord of the White Towers, sends me to tell you that you must vacate this land or submit.”
A hound with wolfish features and a thick leather collar planted itself at the side of Stoach’s horse and growled, as if in punctuation.
An angry mutter ran through the Merciful. Kort raised a hand and they fell silent.
“What does ‘submit’ mean?” Chigozie asked.
Captain Stoach replaced his hat on his head. “In a more peaceful time, it would merely mean ‘agree to pay taxes.’ One fifth of all your produce. We would begin by taking one fifth of what you now possess.”
Chigozie stroked his chin. “That seems a little high. Though you might find the fifth part of what we currently possess to be disappointingly little.”
“Understand that what you produce includes your young. If you submit to Zomas, we will begin by taking one in five of you to work in our slave camps.”
A beastman with the upper body of an ape shrieked in protest. Kort spun and thrust his heavy face close into the space of his fellow, roaring a dull roar that left no room for disagreement.
Despite Kort’s bellow, the beastkind shifted back and forth from one fo
ot or hoof to another and grumbled. But Chigozie didn’t want to provoke an open battle. The riders would simply shoot his people.
“I see,” he said. “Since we live in a less peaceful time, does that mean you will leave us all our possessions and all our people?”
Captain Stoach shook his head. “We will return tomorrow. If you are still here, we will take one fifth of you into slavery. We are reasonable. We’ll let you choose. We’ll send the brutes, the idiots, those with the broadest shoulders and the tiniest brains into the slave camps to work the fields and the mines.
“The rest of you will join the Host of the White Towers. You will serve Zomas in this conflict that now overtakes us.”
“We are peaceful people,” Chigozie said.
Naares Stoach let his gaze wander over the Merciful. “You may be peaceful, but I think you could be terribly effective in combat. Since we battle to fight off rampaging beasts on our land, the Lord of the White Towers will be especially satisfied to have fighters such as you in his service. And consider that it would mean dependable food and warm places to sleep. And pay.”
“And death,” Kort rumbled. “And murder. We have no use for your pay.”
“Don’t be so quick to decide,” Stoach said. “Have you been to Memphis, or New Orleans? Many enticing things can be had for money, even when the coin is iron rather than silver.”
“We’re not warriors, Captain,” Chigozie said. “We’re peaceful people. We’re just looking for a place to be left alone.”
“Then tomorrow morning, you’d better not be here. I’m a merciful man, but I’m willing to kill.”
* * *
The Firstborn had treated Miqui’s wound, pulling the bullet from his thigh and then stopping the bleeding with a linen bandage and heavy and thick yellow salve. The boy lay on a flat wooden cot hanging from a wall in the same cell as Montserrat, sleeping.
