4.0 - The Last Command

by Bobby Adair

  Still, the monster was close.

  The hand on Winthrop's shoulder let go as the priestess ran past him, into the snapping jaws of the demon.

  The demon grabbed her, bent her backward and sank his teeth into her flesh. Blood gushed. The woman added her scream to the pyre song. The demon stood tall and howled its victory at the sky.

  Too soon.

  The bleeding woman wrapped her arms around the monster's waist and pushed it off balance. Driving her legs as the demon tried to understand what was happening, the two fell into the heart of the bonfire. Then the pyre song trilled in earnest.

  I am a god.

  Chapter 47: Oliver

  Oliver ate his fill while he and Minister Beck talked about life in the Academy and about Oliver's life before he'd come into the service of Father Winthrop. Despite the difference in age, despite the difference in station, the conversation started to feel like a talk with a friend, like a talk with Franklin when the two were sitting in their dorm room, sure that Father Winthrop had gone to sleep.

  It was strange, one of the strangest yet most comfortable times in Oliver's short life.

  "I think you may get to sleep here tonight, after all." Minister Beck cocked his head with an open-mouthed smile. "Do you hear?"

  Oliver had stopped paying attention to the battle. He'd let the false security of the tent walls shield him from a world where cruelty lived in every man's heart, and death was raging by the thousands up the valley to kill every child, woman, and man. But the sound was nearly gone.

  "Do you hear?" Beck asked again.

  "We're victorious?" Oliver asked.

  Beck laughed and shrugged. "Or all the soldiers are dead, and the beasts are running up here to slay us as I speak."

  Oliver looked around and thought about his escape route: under the tent flap, through the blueberry bushes, down the hill, into the river. It ran fast around the bend below. He could lose any chasing demons there and climb the tumble of rocks on the far side of the river. It had to be full of crannies small enough to hide a boy his size.

  "Victory," said Beck. "I'm sure it is victory. I don't hear the demons howling like they were before the fighting started."

  Oliver nodded.

  Beck stood up. "I'll check." He walked to the flaps covering the tent's entry and let himself out.

  Oliver heard conversation outside though he couldn't quite make out what was being said.

  A moment later, Beck came back into the tent, bringing with him a cold wind that chilled the comfort of the tent. "Our army has won again. The only demons left up the river are running away."

  "And around the bend going down river, at the front of the army?" Oliver asked.

  "No demons came that way. The soldiers there are resting and telling each other false stories about conquests in love and war."

  Oliver laughed, near giddy to have the threat of death gone again, at least for a while. "Why do men tell lies, when the truth is interesting enough?"

  "When you get old enough to feel desperate to impress a woman, tell me then."

  "There are no woman up there with the army," said Oliver. "They're all back with the camp followers."

  "Habit, I suppose."

  "May I ask you a question?" Oliver straightened up.

  "Your curiosity has no bounds."

  "I apologize."

  "Don't," said Beck. "It was an observation, not a judgment. I wish more people were as curious as you."

  "Really?"

  "Truly. What do you want to ask?"

  "When Scholar Evan convinced me to join in his conspiracy, he told me that I might one day be able to leave Father Winthrop's service and join the Academy. He said I was a smart boy. Was that true, or was Scholar Evan lying to me to get his way?"

  "About that, Oliver, he was telling the truth. I've observed you from afar for some time now."

  "You watch me?" Oliver figured that had to be a lie.

  "I watch everyone I happen to find myself in a room with. You know, for those times when men tell lies and other men pretend to believe, I only pretend to listen. Instead, I watch others to see what they're doing, how they're reacting, and what they're saying. You came to my attention some time ago. I've known for a long time that you were intelligent. Until tonight, I had no idea how bright you were. I wish I'd have brought you into the Academy long ago. I wish on that day when your parents were taken to the pyre, your father had asked me to accept you as a Scholar. Unfortunately, he asked Father Winthrop to take you as a novice."

  Oliver didn't believe Beck. "I've seen you on the dais from my place in the square when I was younger. I've heard mothers and fathers make that request of you many times. I may be wrong, but you've never taken any peasant child into the Academy."

  "I've taken some," said Beck. "But not in a long time. When a parent's dying wish is that I accept their child, I most often agree, but I have to evaluate the child for aptitude before I allow them into the Academy. Sadly, most children are mentally capable of nothing more challenging that planting seeds and hauling wheat at harvest time. You're different. I'd have lied to your father that I would accept you, but then after evaluating you, I'd have made that lie into a truth."

  Oliver smiled, pretty sure the compliment was sincere.

  Chapter 48: Blackthorn

  The sun had long since set. The last of the demons had run back up the canyon with the echo of hoof beats branding terror into their fungal brains. Two fresh cohorts of militia were in place to guard the rear, in case more demons came down the canyon for what remained of the night. The cowards that ran when the demons first attacked, or what was left of them, Blackthorn put to work hauling the bodies of their comrades to the funeral pyres. Those fires would burn through the night and into the next day, long after Blackthorn marched the army out the other end of the pass.

  As for the camp followers, Blackthorn could only guess at the number who'd died. Maybe a third of them. It sickened Blackthorn that the militia could be so weak of heart as to let the demons run past them to slay the wives and mothers of their comrades. Thankfully, that choice had cost most of those militiamen their lives. It would save Blackthorn the trouble of seeing to their early demise.

  That left Winthrop's blood-bedazzled lackeys. Judging by the number of them walking among the dead, and by the few Blackthorn saw lying dead in the mud, they had not paid much of a price for their insubordination.

  Blackthorn wanted all thousand of their heads on spikes to line the road of the canyon from end to end, a reminder to everyone who passed what price was to be paid for failing your brothers in arms. And that was what they did. When the time came for them to raise their swords and axes to fight the demons as others were fleeing, they did nothing but listen to that lard Winthrop moan at the fire.

  They'd finally chosen to enter the battle once the cavalry had broken the back of the demon charge and half of the demons were fleeing. With overwhelming numbers relative to those demons still in the fight, of course, Winthrop's handprint brothers had lost so few; no wonder they felt victorious. But their victory was a lie. They were little more than wash maids, cleaning up the battlefield after the cavalry had done its work.

  Of Blackthorn's two squadrons, two hundred experienced horsemen, nineteen were dead and nearly that many were wounded. Some of those could still ride. Some of those would die of infection in the coming days.

  The remainder of General Blackthorn's two squadrons followed him down the road and trotted into the meadow, where Winthrop's imbeciles were on their knees among the bodies of their kills, dipping their hands in demons' blood and covering one another with handprints.

  Blackthorn ordered his men to draw their weapons, line up across the end of the meadow, and wait. It angered him that his arm had been injured and he was unable to unsheathe his own sword. With only twenty of his horsemen following him, Blackthorn rode into the morass of bloody, worshipping fools.

  Some of the fools stood and watched Blackthorn's horses come among them. So
me looked at the lethal cavalry lined up across the end of the meadow. Some of Winthrop's worshipers were so enthralled with their work that they didn't notice Blackthorn's horses coming their way. Those mesmerized worshipers paid for inattention when a hoof came down and broke their legs or crushed their skulls.

  Blackthorn's twenty horsemen, trotting in the chevron formation so favored by his father, were callous toward the fools in front of them.

  At the center of the meadow, the bonfire had been restocked and cast a flickering orange and yellow light outward. Beside it, Winthrop stood and chanted. His arms were red to the elbows with the blood of the demon corpses surrounding him. Several dozen women knelt in a semi-circle behind him, all with bloody handprints on their faces.

  At the edge of the open ground that was Winthrop's court, Blackthorn raised a hand to halt his cavalry. They formed their own semicircle around the fire.

  Blackthorn, without a word to Father Winthrop, walked the big horse around the fire and into Winthrop, knocking him down.

  Winthrop fell onto the bodies of the demons behind him. He huffed and spat and tried to get up.

  Blackthorn kept his horse moving at a steady walk and knocked Winthrop down again.

  Winthrop tumbled onto a row of his priestesses who skittered away.

  When Winthrop tried to get out of the horse's way, Blackthorn turned and bumped Winthrop again, knocking him over, herding him to the river.

  All of Winthrop's minions were on their feet. Some had hands on swords, but none had the courage to raise a blade. Blackthorn almost wished one would. He decided he'd like to pit the remains of his cavalry against these thousand men. He'd kill them all and spike their heads.

  Winthrop fell over again, sputtering something about being a god. Blackthorn didn't care. No words Winthrop could utter would make a difference to anything of consequence in Blackthorn's mind. Winthrop was no god. He was a bipedal pig.

  When Blackthorn's horse bumped Winthrop into the river, Winthrop shrieked with the voice of a startled crone, "It's cold!" He got precariously to his feet to look at the rushing water at his knees.

  Blackthorn stepped his horse into the water to knock Winthrop onto his butt.

  Winthrop shrieked again.

  Blackthorn leaned down, fixing Winthrop with a hateful glare. At that moment, had Blackthorn been able to raise his arm, he'd have cleaved Winthrop in two and watched his intestines and brains float over the rapids as they went downriver. "If your flock ever refuses to fight when I call, I'll stake you to your fire and burn you on the spot."

  Blackthorn wheeled his stallion and galloped away.

  Chapter 49: Winthrop

  Winthrop sat in the river as a thousand eyes stared at him. He watched Blackthorn go. Blackthorn, the blasphemer. Blackthorn, the heretic. Blackthorn the devil.

  I am a god.

  The mouths of his followers were silent. Their eyes were humiliated for him. Their faith was shaken. The god fire he put in their souls, the demon-blood invincibility he marked on their chests, would fail without faith.

  Winthrop felt his night ghosts swimming in the darkness over his head. He felt them sliming through the icy cold water, dragging their dead skin against his. They wanted to pull him into the rapids. They wanted to take his life. They thought Blackthorn's humiliation had exposed his weak soul.

  I am a god.

  Spit-drenched syllables dribbled out of Winthrop's mouth.

  Sounds became words. Words turned into sentences, none of which sounded like language to Winthrop, but the words didn't come from his head. Winthrop looked at the sky. Somewhere up there, his god brothers and sisters lived with the stars and the moon, and they were speaking to him. They were speaking through him.

  But Winthrop wasn't understanding.

  He'd felt their touch. He'd been one with them. His divinity flowed through him and out to the faithful, and through their faith, they'd conquered the demon horde.

  The water around Winthrop's legs and butt lost its cold. In fact, he felt nothing at all but the pleasant wash of the current on his skin.

  More sounds came, god-speak. He didn't understand it with his head. He had to understand it with his faith. That's where he'd become weak. When Blackthorn's black beast horse had startled him out of his trance, he'd lost the grip on his faith. He'd fallen from god to man. He'd turned back into the weak, fearful thing he'd been in Brighton before god-speak and demons' blood freed him.

  Winthrop jumped to his feet and raised his hands to the sky. He shouted, "Victory!"

  The move surprised the onlookers.

  Winthrop turned and marched farther into the river. He stopped when the water was at his waist and the current threatened to pull him downstream. He dunked himself in the cold, grabbing onto a large rock to hold himself to the bottom, while his face and chest felt the freezing water. He stayed on the bottom while his lungs urged him to surface. They burned. They told him he was no god. He was a man who needed to breathe. He was mortal and they were going to prove it.

  But that changed. His skin stopped feeling the cold. He was a god again.

  Winthrop jumped to his feet, cleansed of dirt and blood by the river's current.

  I am a god.

  He started to chant. "Victory!"

  Men on the shore joined in, some with enthusiasm, some not.

  Dozens of the priestesses waded into the water. They dove in around him. When they each surfaced, they stood and braced themselves against the current and sang Winthrop's victory chant.

  More men on shore took up the song.

  Winthrop felt the fire of inspiration in his god voice and he bellowed, "The demon came for us when the moon was high. We killed him."

  "VICTORY!"

  "He came this night in a horde, like the stars in the sky."

  "VICTORY!"

  "Like the grass on the prairie."

  "VICTORY!"

  "We killed him. We killed them all."

  "VICTORY!"

  "Children of the gods."

  "VICTORY!"

  "My children."

  "VICTORY!"

  "Come to the water. Wash away your weakness. Wash away your fear."

  Men walked into the water.

  "Wash away the devil's grip on your souls."

  The river filled with men walking in and dunking themselves in the cold water.

  "Follow me to divinity. Let us be gods together."

  Winthrop trudged out of the river, dripping and chanting, energized by the faith of his priestesses and men.

  They love me.

  I'm a god.

  When he got to the side of the fire, Winthrop looked down at his robes, cleaner and whiter than he'd seen them in a long, long time. The caked mud was gone. The demon's blood was gone. He looked like a beautiful white god, come to save the weak-minded pig chasers and dirt scratchers, his flock, his worshipers.

  VICTORY.

  But Winthrop was not a white god. He was a god of vengeance and death. He was a war god, a slayer of demons, a killer of devils. Winthrop glared at the hilltop downriver where Blackthorn's tent stood, pristine and apart.

  Devils must die.

  "Blood me."

  The priestesses knelt and put their hands on the dead demons at their feet, pushing their fingers into open wounds, squeezing their hands to cover them with blood. They put their hands on Winthrop's flowing white robe, covering it with prints.

  I am a war god!

  "Blood the clean souls. Blood them all!"

  Chapter 50: Oliver

  Oliver slipped out of Beck's tent before the sun rose. He'd had his fill of sleep. He took the rest of the food from the platter and packed it in his bag.

  The guards didn't see Oliver as he was leaving, though they seemed to be paying more attention to Beck's tent than they were to what might be coming to kill its occupant. It became apparent to Oliver that Beck was Blackthorn's prisoner. A curious circumstance. The politics of Brighton were laced with hidden plots and agendas of which Oliver h
ad only seen the surface. As complex as the politics were, Oliver was going to simplify them by taking Winthrop's life.

  He needed to figure out how.

  Oliver's first choice for assassinating the loathsome lard had been to sneak into Winthrop's tent and run the dagger through Winthrop's throat. That plan seemed to be off the table. As far as Oliver could tell, Winthrop hadn't slept a wink since they'd left Brighton.

  Oliver hadn't seen Winthrop take a single bite of food. Neither had he seen Winthrop drink. But surely Winthrop had to be drinking something. Oliver just didn't know what, or when. Unfortunately, with Winthrop putting no food in his mouth, he wouldn't be going to the bathroom, which meant Oliver couldn't plant his dagger while Winthrop was privately attending to his personal needs.

  Frustration.

  Oliver spent the early morning hours scouting the road—not the road ahead of the army, but the road around which the army was camped. As Oliver walked among soldiers preparing their morning meals and tearing down their tents, he couldn't help but hear the rumors burning through their ranks: General Blackthorn had nearly drowned Winthrop the night before. Winthrop's brigade of the faithful had beaten back a horde ten thousand strong and saved the army from certain death. Winthrop walked on the water across the river, and Blackthorn's horse drowned. Blackthorn's arm had been bitten off by a demon. The cavalry was dead. The camp followers were all dead, but Winthrop had brought most of them back to life.

  The only piece of certainty Oliver got was that Blackthorn and Winthrop were feuding, and some factions of the militia were choosing sides between them. Those that chose Blackthorn cited his reputation for killing demons since before most of them were born. Those that chose Winthrop argued their faith in The Word. Given the feud, Oliver felt certain that Winthrop would not be riding at the head of the column with Blackthorn and Beck.

  He'd be in the rear with his followers.

  As Oliver scouted the road, he looked for narrow spots where the trees grew thick on both sides, or the cliffs towered above. He looked for places where he could pounce out and jam his knife through Winthrop's throat before anyone could react. He looked for places from which he could roll down heavy rocks to crush Winthrop. He needed a place that looked promising but had an escape route. As much as Oliver wanted Winthrop dead, he wasn't willing to trade his life for the pleasure, and he certainly didn't want to stand on a pyre to feel the fire burn his flesh away.