by Toby Bennett
“We should be going, Sam. They didn’t like the shooting up there in the building, they’ll make a rush any minute if I’m any judge and we won’t be able to hold them off.”
I just hope he doesn’t try to take them all on anyway, Aden prays. I’ve ridden with wild ones before but this man is obviously insane. To Aden’s relief Sam merely nods and helps him climb up on the same horse as the young man. Wait, hadn’t Sam said ‘her’? They had done a good job of hiding her sex but there are too many signs to fool him once he knows what to look for, particularly when she puts her delicate arms around his waist to hold on and presses herself against him so that they can both ride low on the horse. Worse than the pain caused in his side by this uncomfortable position is the dull, never forgotten itch of sexual desire burned and torn away from him by ‘pure’ men like those even now making their way across the street or pouring from the back of the inn. The first bullet to whistle past his head sparks that resentment into a flame and with a cry of defiance, he returns fire, blood blooms from a hole in an Inquisitor’s forehead and two madmen spur their horses out of the alley and into the main streets of Olstop, challenging God or his devils to stand in their way.
Chapter 11:
“Hunter and Hunted.”
It takes such strength as he has stolen to sustain Blake through the wild ride out of town. Even the traces of the Elder’s blood he had gleaned from Nathaniel’s own is only enough to clear his head and prepare him for what he must do. As soon as they are free of Olstop and their pursuers, he seizes the other horses bridle and spurs them onward to the north west. Neither of his companions question his choice, both have little or no idea where they should go next and are content to allow the Pilgrim to choose their route. It is only as night begins to loom and the weakness of both horses and one of the riders is growing critical, that Lillian dares to question where they are heading and by that time Blake has the scent of his prey firmly in his nostrils. Not as potent as the aroma that had hung on the Chief Pardoner’s breath but sustenance, nonetheless and if Yorick was involved Blake knew he would need strength soon. Yorick the Elder was as much a legend amongst the Strigoi as Pellan and his freakish children. Just the thought of the name made Blake nervous. Yorick’s gift was another unconventional one, he was not powerful as most understood it but in his element, he could be called the most powerful Strigoi to ever walk the Bowl and Yorick’s element was time itself .
“Look over there, there is a shelter up ahead.” Blake says, pointing out their destination in order to reassure the other two that he knows where he is leading them. Sure enough there is a thin plume of smoke rising above the trees and Aden allows himself a sigh of relief that he will not have to sleep in the open, with the night’s cold biting at his wound. “I think we should get off the road then make for it once it gets dark but now I must go on alone for a while.” Blake tells them, in a voice made harsh by need and desperation.
“What?” Lillian asks, exasperated. “We have ridden almost all day, if you have been leading us to somewhere we can rest safely, why must we wait?”
“Because he plans to displace whoever is already there.” Aden judges the Pilgrim’s intention by other men he has been forced to ride with. Since few God fearing men would willingly be prepared to keep company with a mutant, those men had often been far from savoury. Even now he can read the bloodlust in the Pilgrim, the tension of a man about to fight and kill.
“There is no need, Sam, I would sooner sleep in the open than steal from or do harm to whoever is living there.”
“You do not understand,” Blake answers coldly. “They to not ‘live’ there. Oh there are a few living, it is they who tend the fires or provide blood when travellers like ourselves are scarce.”
“You mean…” Lillian gasps, suddenly guessing where he has led them.
“Yes! It may seem close to civilization to you but the truth is that is where they are always to be found. The fox stays close to the hens, so must they and despite Leedon’s efforts there are still more foxes than is safe.”
“Then why have you brought us here?” Lillian demands.
“I think you can guess, after what you saw in the inn.”
“You came here to…,” Lillian pales to remember it, “to do what you did to Nathaniel.”
“Worse! I only took his life, perhaps not even that. From these wretches I will take what ever fragments are left of their souls.”
Lillian looks at the white haired Pilgrim in disbelief. It is impossible to decry him or call him monster. There would be little point, his contempt for himself is spelt out in every movement, in every intonation.
“But why have you brought us here now? Why must you do this?”
“I told you I had waited lifetimes in damnation! Now perhaps you understand…. I lost much of my strength in rescuing you both. If I do not hunt soon I will age at a terrible rate and then I will die. God abhors what I am, I have only one way to escape his judgement.”
“So you are the same as them?”
“No, I have told you they are already dead and beyond any hope of salvation. Wait for me off the road, just inside the tree line, do not stray until I get back. It will be dark soon, if you light a fire be sure it can’t be seen from the road.”
Before any more can be said, Blake sets his jaw and cannons his spurs into his tired horse’s sides demanding one last burst of effort that takes him, at reckless speed into the lengthening shadows beneath the trees.
“What does he mean ‘they are dead already’? How can he know?” Aden asks, staring after the man who had saved his life and yet again wondering what he had become involved in.
“I don’t know how he knows, but I believe him. I have seen too many terrible things recently not to.”
“So what do you say? Do we ride on while we have the chance to be free of him? Or do we wait as he says?”
“We wait.” Lillian does not pause for thought. The same quite voice that asked why she had stolen the book in the first place stirs at this answer but she suppresses it with little effort. “Whatever I’ve got myself mixed up in, he seems to know all the right things to help,” she says, giving the explanation for the mutant’s benefit rather than her own. “Besides, Yorick said that we would need to follow him to the Ruins of Silversnow…” Lillian drops the last part casually but her senses are straining seeking any reaction to the name of the mysterious thief from the man in front of her.
Aden merely wrinkles his oversized brow in confusion at the mention of the name.
“Who is Yorick?”
“You don’t know? He mentioned you in a letter to me, which he left in the Hitching Post. It seems strange that I should meet you only minutes later and outside the same inn.”
“Strange, I’ll grant you, but I have no idea who we are talking about and I’d be grateful if we could get down from this damned horse before we start discussing it or anything else for that matter.”
“Fair enough, if you feel up to it we’ll walk the rest of the way.” Lillian relinquishes her grip on Aden’s waist and groans as she urges stiff muscles into action. Although close enough to touch him, she had been unable to read anything from his reaction to the name ‘Yorick’. As she pulls her arms back and sees the dark stain on her sleeve she realizes that the wound in the mutant’s side might, indeed, be serious. Aden notices her sharp intake of breath
“Don’t worry, it looks worse than in is,” Aden reassures her, wincing as he twists in the saddle. Quickly she scrambles to the ground and helps him down. It takes a few staggered steps before Aden can stand up straight but when he does he favours her with a broad grin.
“Just stiff that’s all, if this had been more than a flesh wound I would have collapsed a ways back.”
He lifts his blood-stiffened shirt to reveal a livid wound in his side that starts to bleed slightly as it is opened to the air. Aden twists his body in an attempt to look over his shoulder, but the effort causes him too much pain. “Would you mind?” he asks L
illian, holding his shirt up and turning his back to her. Sure enough there is a corresponding wound slightly higher up on his back.
“You’re in luck,” she says, leaning down to examine the exit wound, “we won’t need to go digging for the bullet and I don’t think it hit anything major on its way out.” Lillian pauses at this point struck by a sudden thought.
“At least…” she trails off
“At least you don’t think it hit anything vital, so long as I’m put together like everyone else.” Aden finishes for her. “Don’t worry, as far as I’ve ever been able to tell, there isn’t all that much different about me on the inside; there’s an irony in that since there have been many times in my life when I would rather have had two hearts than seven fingers.”
“Three eyes can’t have helped, either, how is it that you were not exposed as a child?” Lillian wonders aloud.
Aden stiffens at the off- handed way she asks the question, but instead of getting angry he sighs, the girl is young and obviously used to not having to apologise so he lets it slide.
“I was lucky, we lived away from any major settlements and the third eye took longer to open than the other two. By the time anyone realized that my head was more than just misshapen my mother had died, my father lived alone and couldn’t bring himself to lose his only son, however malformed, so soon on the heels of losing his wife. As I grew older he quickly realized that there were advantages to having a son who almost never missed with a rifle. He kept me hidden from anyone who visited our homestead and I kept us well fed. It was only after he died that I made the mistake of going into a city without hiding my eye well enough.” Aden pauses, struggling to keep the old pain and resentment bottled, ‘but all that is ancient history… since then I’ve learned from men like your friend Sam and I can usually take care of myself, even in a big town like Olstop. People don’t mind the fingers so much in the west and I would not normally come this far east but someone offered to pay me more money than I would usually see in a year and I was too stupid to say no.”
“We’d better make sure the wound is clean.” Lillian reaches up into the saddle bags and draws out a bottle of strong clear liquor.
“Sam insisted on buying this when we traded for the horses and clothes, he said we’d use it in a situation like this, so I hope he wasn’t really planning to drink it!”
Aden lets her apply a drizzle of the sharp smelling liquid to both wounds while he stands stoically not making a sound, despite the obvious pain involved. He stops her as she begins to reach into the saddle bags for bandages.
“No, if it’s stopped bleeding then I’d rather leave it to get some air for the moment,” he says, “you can bind it before we have to ride again.”
“Alright,” Lillian agrees, trusting the gunman’s experience. “Sam isn’t my friend by the way,” she says, returning the bottle to its place in the saddle bag, “he’s just saved my life a couple of times.”
“So why did you say we should wait, if he is not your friend?”
“Like I said, he knows more than I do about all the strange things that have been happening to me and he has saved my life.”
“Mine too! Looks like we have that in common at least,” Aden smiles.
They take a couple more steps in silence before Aden recalls the question he had asked before they dismounted.
“You said you believed him when he said the people up there were undead?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Are they possessed like the lost souls you sometimes encounter in the desert? Or the ones the Church is always on about, the blood suckers?”
“I don’t really know the difference, but with all his talk of damnation and the Church I would guess the blood suckers.” Lillian admits.
“The Church isn’t happy with either,” Aden chuckles, “but I was afraid you’d say that. I don’t pretend to know much myself but from what I’ve been told, the wretches that wander in from the desert with empty eyes are different to the Strigoi that the Crusaders claim to have destroyed along when they broke the power of the barons. I once saw a man possessed out near Silverstop, he was surely raving, though whether he was mad or truly filled with devils like the preacher claimed I couldn’t tell you. He was scary enough, with those white eyes and he could see; even though the only other man I’ve seen with eyes that white was blind from birth. They said he had killed a woman and her husband while they slept. Kept saying she was his woman but anyone could have wandered without water in the desert long enough and believed that. Point is I’ve seen one o’ them, the lost souls, the possessed and I’ve met others with stories just the same as my own, it’s why we have to show our eyes when we come to a new town, why my blind friend can’t travel for fear of being stoned by those who don’t know him. Many people have seen the wretches the Church calls possessed, spirit, devil or man, they were all creeped sure as I was. But…”
“But what?”
“But there are so few people outside the Inquisition even claim to have seen one of these creatures, that no one is sure if they were more than an excuse. I’ve ridden with men who refuse to admit that they are more than nightmares used to frighten children and I tend to agree with them. Men like Sam scare me as much as that poor bastard with the white eyes, because they’re both plain crazy and there’s no telling who they might hurt… I mean I’ve never seen any sorcery in the world but I have seen crazy. Is there really more than just a few wood cutters up there in the hills? And what will Sam do to them?”
“They exist! I have seen them for myself,” Lillian says abruptly.
“The blood suckers?”
“The Strigoi, yes, I’ve seen them.”
“But that’s just it, how can you be sure? They say that they look like anyone else, they are not the mindless undead or the shells of mad prospectors who come into town raving and murderously jealous of the living, they are insidious; if the Crusaders are to be believed, undying predators; corpses animated by the devil himself, sent amongst us to do his will.” Aden trails off. Years of persecution by the Inquisition and their like had left him with a large degree of cynicism for anything involving the Church. Far from laughing at his exaggerated prose Lillian seems to be taking every word as true and her jaw is tight with tension.
“You can’t tell me you believe all this, it’s just what the Church tells us to keep everyone in line. The Christ man! Satan! It’s all made up.”
“Perhaps,” Lillian answers somberly. “I have never seen Jesus or Satan but I have seen a Strigoi and he only looked like everyone else when he wanted to.”
Aden simply nods, there is no point in arguing, the girl is clearly as mad as her companion. No need to antagonize them until he is fit enough to strike out on his own again.
“As you say, there are many strange things to be found in the Bowl and who am I to say what is there and what is not? I take it from what he was saying, that despite having left the Crusade, Sam has not abandoned his faith in God and the existence of the Devil?”
“It is not faith, not like the priests I have known anyway. It is certainty, even though I have only known him for a few days I can tell that.” Lillian pauses at the edge of the treeline, unwilling to talk about the Pilgrim in the shadows between the thick pine trunks. “He is sure he is damned for everything he has done and worse, he thinks he damns himself further by unnaturally prolonging his life.”
“Unnaturally prolonging his life by taking the souls of the undead?”
“The blood.”
“He seemed to think it was more than that when he left, but I understand, I think, I’ve run from enough magistrates to know the irony of having to break the law further to avoid its judgement.”
They pass into the trees in silence.
“Are you sure you don’t know any one called Yorick?” Lillian asks at last.
“No and I have no idea why someone I have never heard of would refer to me by name.”
“Who was it who offered you the money to come to Olstop?”
“I don’t know. It was all arranged through an associate of mine and I was on my way to meet the parties involved when the Pardoners stopped me.”
“So, for all you know, this Yorick could have been the one who brought you to Olstop?”
“For all I know, yes.” Aden answers, settling himself so that his uninjured side is resting against a tree, “but then for all I know, it was the Chief Pardoner himself!” He adds ruefully.
As it gets darker and Sam shows no signs of returning, Lillian follows Sam’s suggestion and makes a small fire.
“You’re sure it won’t be seen from the road?”
“We should keep it low.” Aden warns half heartedly but his need for warmth has already overcome his natural caution and he throws another branch on the growing fire even as he says it.
“Even if we aren’t directly visible from the road, surely the glow will be noticeable?”
“We’ve got the trees to give us extra shelter, besides if they had decided to give chase immediately the Inquisitors would have ridden past us by now. More likely they’ll be taking their time, making sure we haven’t pulled a fast one.”
“So doesn’t that mean they might be coming along the road later?”
“If they are going more slowly they’ll hardly be tracking us in the dark. I’m more worried about Sam’s friends up the hill… I don’t imagine he is making us any friends.”
