Beyond Redemption

by Michael R. Fletcher

  Two longswords snapped from sheaths with impressive speed and precision. The two women moved as one.

  Stehlen backed away a step, bumping into Wichtig. “Very pretty,” she said. “You must have practiced for a long time.”

  The two guards answered with identical grins.

  Through Bedeckt’s coughing Stehlen heard one strangled word forced through raw vocal cords. “Mehrere.”

  One guard stepped forward as the other retreated, and Stehlen, stepping sideways to make room for Wichtig, snapped a thrown knife into her throat.

  Not grinning now, are you, bitch?

  Six identically armed and armored women stood in the hall before the first hit the floor. They appeared out of nowhere, rushing forward, swords drawn.

  Shite.

  “Is this an illusion?” Wichtig asked.

  Then his swords were drawn and he desperately parried attacks from multiple opponents. They were good. They were very good.

  But they weren’t great.

  Wichtig was great. He danced around attacks, making these deadly Swordswomen seem clumsy in comparison. He killed one with a quick cut to an exposed throat, sending his adversary staggering into her companions, struggling to stem the gushing flow of blood. Wichtig turned to Stehlen to brag and saw she’d already killed three.

  Wichtig snarled a fast “arse-sticking hells” before returning his attention to the Swordswomen. There must have been a dozen of them now. If illusions, they were very good ones.

  They must be teleporting in. Probably for the best; it gave him a chance to catch up with Stehlen. Odd, they all fight left-handed.

  Wichtig’s dance of death became less flourished and decidedly more intense and efficient. Why did people bother with such heavy armor as the hauberk? His every cut found exposed flesh. Here a throat, there a wrist. Slaying four more in rapid succession—or at least removing them from the fight—he spared a quick glance at Stehlen. Enough bodies lay piled at her feet that he couldn’t count them quickly and her opponents had to climb their friends—which they seemed all to willing to do—to reach her. She didn’t wait for them. Stehlen pressed the attack at every opportunity, intent on driving the priestly guards back toward the closed door. Wichtig thought briefly about helping her assailants by wounding Stehlen with a blind-side attack. He didn’t wish her harm, he just wanted to slow her down so he could catch up.

  Not fair, she had a head start!

  Unfortunately, enough opponents were crowding the hall that he wasn’t sure he could kill them all without a healthy Stehlen at his side.

  Four Swordswomen launched a perfectly timed attack, forcing Wichtig back several steps. He saw Stehlen disappear into the mob, swallowed by a throng of left-handed Swordswomen in matching chain hauberk who all fought with an identical style. Their synchronization of bladed expression made them easy to defeat, but creepy.

  Wichtig was forced back another step. “Bedeckt!” he bellowed over his left shoulder while killing another woman with a quick thrust to her throat. “Stop coughing and come help!”

  If Stehlen was dead, they’d be splitting the ransom money only two ways. With Stehlen and her pathetic worship of Bedeckt out of the way, a one-way split became a real possibility. The way Bedeckt sounded, Wichtig wouldn’t even need to stab him in the back. The old bastard might croak all on his own.

  Even over the cacophony of combat, Wichtig heard Bedeckt’s wheezing charge. The old goat sticker sounded like he had one foot in the Afterdeath, but he certainly had spirit.

  Scores of identical women in chain hauberk surrounded Stehlen. At first she’d felt her opponents’ elation as they crowded in around her. But now they understood; she liked it this way. She couldn’t move without touching someone and she couldn’t touch someone without leaving grievous wounds. They’d invited her in only to discover, too late, that she was death. They hampered each other far more than they did her. They seemed unwilling to wound each other, whereas she happily hurt anything and everything. She’d seen Wichtig’s calculating look. Perhaps the half-wit really was the Greatest Swordsman in the World, but he couldn’t hope to match her in this. Unlike Wichtig, she was a killer, pure and true. She killed unclouded by ego or desire. Where Wichtig killed with a thought to where the next death would take him, she killed in the moment for the moment.

  Stehlen’s throwing knives were long gone, lost in the bodies she’d put them in. Her swords had been knocked from her hands, replaced with swords taken from dead opponents, lost again, and once more replaced with different yet identical ones. She kicked a woman in the groin, stabbed another in the face, and felt something tear a hot line along her ribs. She already bled from a dozen similar wounds she didn’t remember receiving.

  Pain didn’t matter. Pain was for later.

  If there is a later.

  Stehlen killed another left-handed woman, stomping on her foot and then stabbing the sword into her mouth when it opened in a wail of pain. The same simple tricks worked over and over. The guards seemed incapable of learning or adjusting. This means something.

  Stehlen contemplated as she killed. Slaughter didn’t require cogitation; the conscious mind only got in the way. She killed best when distracted. Bedeckt had said “Mehrere.” They faced a single woman with a split personality. Aren’t Mehrere supposed to appear as different people? She’d never heard of a Mehrere manifesting as multiple copies of a single person. She knew of Abgeleitete Leute, a semimythological city said to be populated solely by thronging copies of a single deranged Mehrere, but each of those copies was supposed to be a distinct person.

  Bedeckt would know more about this, Stehlen grumbled to herself as she killed another left-handed woman. As ever more guards crowded around her she knew one thing: killing more of them would get her nowhere. Unfortunately, as they desperately fought to kill her, she had no choice.

  Stehlen heard Bedeckt’s wheezing battle cry as he entered the fray with all his usual enraged-bull finesse. What took the old man so damned long?

  The mob suddenly compacted and she was pressed tight on all sides by her enemy. For a moment no one could find the space to lift a weapon or make a worthwhile attack, and Stehlen found herself in an intimate embrace with a young woman. She had lovely brown eyes and warm breath smelling of chicken and some spice Stehlen didn’t recognize. They all did. She blew the guard a kiss. When the woman blinked in surprise, Stehlen head-butted her, crushing her nose. She felt each swing of Bedeckt’s ax shudder through the hot crush of bodies. The old bastard was strong, no doubt. Then a sizable portion of the mob turned and surged past her to face Bedeckt and his ax, and once again, she had room to kill.

  Bedeckt stood—apparently unnoticed, hunched forward, hands on knees, breath rattling about in his lungs like a pair of dry bone dice—watching as Stehlen vanished into the ever-increasing crowd of guards. Did she understand the importance of what he’d said? No doubt his shouted warning had gone clear over Wichtig’s head. The only reason the self-centered arse hadn’t already fled was because he’d noticed Stehlen had killed more than he. As was often the case, Wichtig’s monumental ego stopped him from making the intelligent choice. If his egotism continually led to stupidity, how intelligent could the man really be?

  Stehlen disappeared and now Bedeckt watched as a swarm of identical Swordswomen engulfed Wichtig. He coughed up more thick phlegm and thought about the stairs behind him. I should leave, just turn and walk away. No one had even noticed him.

  So why aren’t I leaving?

  Because I can’t make it out of the church without their help.

  Right, a shite excuse.

  The ax hung heavy in his right hand. When had he wrestled it from under his robes? It couldn’t have been easy, and yet he had no memory of the choice or the action. He felt like a mass of scars and ruin, his missing fingers and the lost wedding ring a metaphor for everything missing from his life.

  “Fine time for maudlin,” growled Bedeckt, his throat raw from coughing, his voice little more than a
croak. He clenched the ruin of his left hand into a tight and incomplete fist.

  Hefting the ax, Bedeckt started forward. He’d get close enough for Stehlen to hear what he had to tell her. Only she could stop the Mehrere. He picked up speed as he staggered ever faster toward the warring press of bodies.

  Bedeckt managed one insensate roar of rage, which quickly gave way to an asthmatic wheeze as his voice cracked before he slammed bodily into the crowd.

  The Swordswomen collapsed beneath his onslaught. The ax rose and fell and blood laced the air. With his left hand Bedeckt hammered faces and stabbed at eyes with blunt and scarred fingers. He kneed groins, kicked knees, and elbowed skulls with bloody abandon. No thought of defense, each action, each fraction of a moment, an assault on mortal flesh. His one opponent might outnumber him, but Bedeckt would break the will of this vast and growing entity.

  The Swordswomen broke around Bedeckt like waves crashing against a rock. Each breath was a shuddering fight for air. He couldn’t find enough room in his lungs; they felt full, brimming. The ax caught in someone’s clavicle and Bedeckt fought for a terrifying moment to free it.

  The ax came free and the woman dropped with a wet sob sounding suspiciously like gratitude. Maybe Bedeckt had made the noise. His arms felt like heat-softened lead.

  Move forward. Find Stehlen. Tell her . . . tell her . . . tell her what?

  I am the rock. They broke around him and he killed. Always forward, always attacking.

  The sword entered low in Bedeckt’s back and felt like it grated along his spine. His bones rang in sympathy like a tuning fork. He pushed forward, and this time, when the sword dragged clear, the sob was definitely his.

  Perhaps it’s time to start defending.

  Bedeckt blocked a wildly swung sword and kicked at another opponent who managed to avoid his clumsy attack. The other foot slipped on the gore-spattered floor and his knee buckled. Bedeckt lay on the floor, looking up at the massed Swordswomen, who in turn stared down at him. He’d lost his ax in the fall.

  “Shite,” he croaked.

  And then they were on him. His entire universe became sharp swords, heavily booted feet crushing exposed ribs, and endless oceans of pain. With tearing teeth and clawed fingers he fought.

  Wichtig felt the force of Bedeckt’s onslaught through the tight crush of bodies and laughed in the face of the nearest Swordswoman.

  “You bastards are in trouble now.”

  Another guard fell before his whirling blades, spattering him in sanguine gore. They hadn’t even touched him. With this many opponents pressed this close, they should at least be able to land a lucky blow, but there had been nothing. I am just too gods-damned good! The fates smiled upon him and he laughed and killed another left-handed Swordswoman.

  Destiny, that’s why they can’t hurt me. He had a destiny. He would be the World’s Greatest Swordsman. Bedeckt thought Wichtig didn’t understand what the Geborene sought to accomplish with their little man-made god, but he was wrong. Wichtig understood. If the Geborene could create a god by convincing a bunch of peasants to worship some random brat, then surely he, Wichtig, would become a god when enough people worshiped him as the World’s Greatest Swordsman.

  How’s Stehlen? Still alive?

  “Hey! You alive?” Wichtig yelled in the direction he’d seen her vanish.

  “Moron!” She sounded tired.

  “How many?” Wichtig asked between opponents. He didn’t hear her answer as he caught sight of Bedeckt being dragged down by a mass of sword-wielding women. Sometimes the fates were just too kind; they spoiled him. He’d save Bedeckt—thereby showing what a true friend he really was—and get to rub it in the old goat’s face afterward. Sure, he’d been thinking of double-crossing the old bastard a moment ago, but this would be far more entertaining! A chance to prove Bedeckt wrong and feel smugly superior was worth more than gold.

  Wichtig fought his way to Bedeckt, killing enough Swordswomen that the others momentarily backed away in fear. Bedeckt was covered in blood, and unfortunately most of it looked to be his own. The remains of his already mangled left ear had been hewn from his hoary skull.

  “Where’s your ax, you lazy old bastard?”

  Bedeckt cracked a swollen eye open, coughed bright arterial blood, and glared at Wichtig standing over him. “Tell Stehlen to kill the original,” he bubbled from between crushed lips. The ugly lout had lost a few more of his already scarce teeth.

  The original? What the hells did that mean? Wichtig turned to face the massed priests blocking the hall. Twice as many corpses lay scattered on the floor. He couldn’t see Stehlen but could hear her fighting and cursing somewhere in the swarm. The Swordswomen facing him shuffled forward. They’d finally learned some respect. Wichtig, standing over Bedeckt, fixed his hair and bowed with a flourish to the advancing mob.

  “Stehlen,” he bellowed. “Kill the original!”

  Kill the original? How the hells was she supposed to do that? They looked identical. Stehlen thought and fought furiously. Where will the original be? Well, somewhere safe, obviously. Probably at the back of the pack. She changed strategies and stopped killing. Instead she began ducking and dodging and working her way toward the rear of the massed guards. As she moved she watched the faces of her opponents. Though physically identical, they showed different expressions. If she kicked one in the groin, they didn’t all look hurt. This, she thought, might be useful.

  Stehlen heard Wichtig again yell, “You still alive?” from somewhere behind her. Too much to ask that the idiot get in here and give her a hand. Stupid arsehole was probably telling the Swordswomen back there how he would be the Greatest Pigsticker in the World. But even as she thought that, an idea occurred to her. It was worth a try.

  “Still alive!” She watched the faces of the guards, trying to see as many as possible. She faked her best triumphant grin and yelled, “I know which one it is!”

  She saw one of the women blink in surprise and back farther into the crowd.

  Gotcha!

  Stehlen kept an eye on the retreating woman as she fought her way, bobbing and weaving through the crowd, toward her. The Swordswoman wouldn’t fall for the same ruse twice, and if Stehlen lost her she was dead. The swarming guards panicked when they realized what she was doing, and what martial skill they’d possessed fell away in their mad attempt to stop her. She became a killing blur. Surrounded on all sides, she couldn’t help but wound enemies as she cut through them . . . and no matter how unskilled they’d become in their panic, they couldn’t help but find her with their swords.

  One moment the hall was full of Swordswomen approaching Wichtig and Bedeckt with menacing intent, and the next only littered corpses remained.

  Bedeckt, staring up from the floor, watched Wichtig blink in surprise, examine the hall of corpses, and frown in annoyance. Scores of dead littered the floor; far more than Bedeckt and Wichtig could account for.

  Wichtig glanced down at Bedeckt. “I killed most of those.”

  “Liar,” grunted Bedeckt through gritted teeth. Gods, everything hurt. He felt torn inside.

  Wichtig shrugged philosophically and glanced again to the killing grounds. “I don’t see Stehlen.”

  “Go find her.”

  “Notice how I’m the only one still standing?” Wichtig sheathed his swords and crossed his arms. “Not a cut on me. Not even a bruise. You look like shite. A child could finish you.”

  Is this it? Was this the moment Bedeckt had always known would come? He tried to push himself up but his partial hand slipped on the blood-slicked stone and he collapsed with a pained groan. Wichtig stood over him. The bastard wasn’t even breathing hard.

  “So,” said Bedeckt, “this is where we find out who you really are.”

  “I suppose it is.” Wichtig cocked an eyebrow. “Care to serve me in the Afterdeath?” He scanned the piled bodies. “Let me find you your ax.”

  “So I can die with a weapon in hand?”

  Wichtig snorted derisively. “
So you can use it as a crutch, you crotchety old goat. In case you hadn’t noticed—and I admit you seem pretty busy bleeding out all over the floor—I just saved your life. You can thank me later.” He found Bedeckt’s ax buried in a body and returned with it held out in offering. “You’re my friend. I am your friend.” He smiled sadly. “Someday you’ll understand.”

  Bedeckt stared mutely at the proffered ax, aware of Wichtig watching him closely.

  “Hurt your feelings, did I?” grumbled Bedeckt. “I’m not falling for that.”

  Wichtig tutted in mock disgust. “Let’s see if we can find Stehlen.”

  They found Stehlen sitting, back against the single door at the far end of the hall. A young, brown-eyed woman seemed to be taking a nap with her head resting in Stehlen’s lap. Stehlen stroked the Swordswoman’s short hair. As Wichtig approached with Bedeckt leaning heavily against him she looked up, face drawn and exhausted.

  “Don’t even bother,” she snarled. “You know I killed more than you did.”

  Wichtig laughed happily as if it didn’t matter. “Maybe. But I saved Bedeckt’s life while you cuddled corpses.” He looked again at the Swordswoman. He saw no visible wounds on the body. “She is dead, right?”

  “Stabbed her in the back as she tried to flee. I saved both of you by killing the original,” she pointed out.

  “You only knew to kill her because I told you to,” said Wichtig, ignoring the fact Bedeckt had told him in the first place.

  “Is he okay?” she asked, nodding toward Bedeckt, who was making the surrounding floor slick with blood at an alarming rate.

  “I’m fine,” slurred Bedeckt, realizing a long stream of sanguine drool was hanging from his open mouth and past his wobbling knees. If Wichtig released him, he’d collapse to the floor.

  “He’s fine,” agreed Wichtig. “He’s just pissed off I saved his life. And he seems to have caught a wee sniffle.”