The crunch of bone and wooden shield rang out as the horses did their terrible work. Hooves stomped and legs kicked as men broke and folded onto the trampled ground. Like a dust storm, Alexander’s Companions grinded into the Persian ranks.
“There!” Alexander shouted, pointing with his lance for all the cavalry to see.
Ahead was the magnificent scarlet and gold Persian banner of Darius. Hephaestion kicked his horse, lunging forward. Jabbing each enemy with his lance, he pushed against the wedge of cavalry behind him. Keeping an eye out for Alex’s plumed helmet, Hephaestion continued to fight and charge and stab and stomp.
The royal guardsmen, swathed in purple and gold, stormed into Alexander with scimitars swinging. Bucephalus took several of the blades to his hooves and ribs, but nothing would slow down the steed’s charge when Alexander was on his back.
The Persian troops folded in, trapping themselves in close quarters with the Companions to bring them down. Alexander had ridden too far ahead, and Hephaestion could barely see him above the blades and kicked-up dust. Flashing, blinding, screeching chaos overwhelmed him, blotting out his awareness of his surroundings. And a woman’s pair of strong hands reached through the confusion and scooped him up.
Chapter 25
“Time to move,” Boudica rasped from the darkness that enveloped Hephaestion. Her voice crackled, broken and wet.
With effort, he opened his eyes. Smoke blurred the world, and fire hissed around him. A figure loomed, burnt beyond recognition—her lips, hair, and eyelids completely gone. But the blue glow of her deep tattoos wove through the sooty fog.
A tight grin stretched her charred skin, her teeth and eyes the only color in her face.
“You were spared the fire, but impaled. We’ve crashed, and from the surrounding cold, I think we’re somewhere in the Glutton’s Circle.” The heat from her cooked body steamed in the frigid air. “I dug out the beam from your chest, and you’ve taken a day or two to heal up. How do you feel?”
“Like I died.”
“There’s nothing like it. Can you walk? Your leg was crushed, and I set it, so let’s test it out.”
Grunting, Hephaestion pushed up to his knees and slowly rocked back onto his heels. The smoldering wreckage stretched for at least a league. Flesh and wood smoked and sizzled, assaulting his nose, a plank here and an arm there. The dragon-ship must have crashed and tumbled into pieces on impact, scattering detritus as far as the eye could see.
“Is Yitz all right?” Hephaestion asked as his memories returned.
“Currently, he’s fine—scavenging the wreckage. He didn’t even lose his yarmulke in the crash. When Adina finds out he didn’t arrive on the other side of New Dis, she’ll be so worried that she’ll kill him on sight.”
Hephaestion grinned, finding comfort in Yitz’s courage. If Yitz could find the spine to dive into such uncertainty, then Hephaestion could follow his example.
“Did Mom make it?” he asked, worry cinching his chest.
“Last I saw, she was floating away as we went down. Whoever was steering the enemy airship did a solid job, though. That, or we were lucky they managed to crash this high up in the pit. Also…” Boudica held Hephaestion’s satchel up. “Your things made it through just fine. Yitz found them while digging around. Make no mistake, Hephaestion. Someone has been looking out for you.” Boudica punctuated her sentence with a finger pointed toward the void above.
First one foot, then the other, and Hephaestion stood. With a groan, he felt his joints pop, and his back ease into place.
“My shield?” he asked.
“Right here, but I couldn’t find your sword. And that amazing spear of yours is most likely lost forever.”
Hephaestion nodded in acceptance. “You should head up,” he continued. “I can’t risk being attacked again by a force this large. Descending is now or never for me.”
“Without the monks as protection?”
“It will have to be the case. Returning to New Dis will just make me vulnerable to a thousand more dangers, especially if the Jesuits or anyone else is willing to launch an attack of this scale. Now is my chance to slip away.”
“Yitz and I climb our way out, then,” Boudica said, pointing toward the red cliffs in the distance, covered by swirling mists. “I suspect whoever deployed this ship will come looking for it soon. Best you not be here when they find it.”
“Any other survivors?”
“None that I allowed,” she replied.
A thought wandered into Hephaestion’s mind. “Lightning? That’s your power granted by Heaven?”
“No, I grant my own power. As does Adina and Minu. We all grant ourselves our power.”
“What is Minu’s power?”
“Altering the perceptions of the people around her. She can dull your pain or help you forget you ever met her. By far, she is the most powerful of the three of us.”
“And your sword? Is it lightning that makes it so hot?”
“No.” Boudica’s eyes rolled to the side of her charred head, drool dribbling from the corners of her mouth. “My girls knew I wouldn’t let go of my anger easily. My rage. So they helped me forge all my hate into this sword. I hammered it in. And just like anger, I keep it sheathed. That is, until I need it. Then ire serves me, and I use it.”
The two evaluated the smoldering landscape of wreckage, lost in their individual thoughts.
Abruptly, Boudica turned to Hephaestion. “Perhaps it is not merely providence that you and I have met, Hephaestion. Maybe it isn’t just your journey that is occurring here. I said earlier to you, in the car, that you will need to let go of some things.” Her bony, blackened fingers unfastened her sword’s sheath from her belt. She held the blade out to him. “I will take my own advice. Use it when you need it. And trust me, you will. You’re in Hell, now. Hell. There are no more kind souls to be found down here.”
Hephaestion took the sword from her, even the hilt hot to the touch.
“Thank y—”
“Don’t.” She held up a hand. “Don’t thank me for giving you my burden.”
Scanning the ruin of the dragon ship, Hephaestion spied Yitz stumbling through the ruined rigging, wearing a tattered black cloak he had scrounged from somewhere. Recognizing the fashion—thin chainmail beneath thick layers to provide stealth and mobility—Hephaestion knew how heavy it must be. “Yitz, you won’t be able to climb up the cliff face with all that extra weight. I myself would have a hard time.”
“I’m not climbing back,” the small man stated resolutely as Hephaestion approached him.
“If you stay here, the only rescue party you’ll meet will make an end of you.”
“I’m going with you.” His brown eyes met Hephaestion’s without hesitation.
Hephaestion glanced Boudica, sharing her disbelief.
“I’m going into Hell, Yitz,” Hephaestion enunciated carefully. “In case that wasn’t clear.”
“Where my boy is. This is my chance to see him. I’m already part way there, anyhow, and we can find him together. Besides, you’re no good on your own, Samson. I find myself constantly coming to your rescue.” Yitz tossed Hephaestion’s spent pistol to him.
Hephaestion caught the small weapon with ease. “You’re a good man, and surprisingly handy with a spear or powder weapon, but you won’t make it.”
“Are you afraid I’ll slow you down?” Yitz said, his brows converging in consternation.
“Partly, yes. There are obstacles in the pit I’ve trained decades for.” Hephaestion shrugged. “You haven’t.”
“I made it through a flaming wreck smashing into the pit of Hell better than either one of you!”
Hephaestion sighed. Yitz was no soldier or tracker, but the man had an indistinguishable quality of survival. An irrational resistance rose in Hephaestion, and he spent a silent moment exploring it. A par
t of him longed for the quiet solitude of the coming descent. New Dis had unsettled him with its unexpected consequences and benefits, and Yitz tagging along would be like the city itself hung around his neck.
But most of all, Hephaestion didn’t want anyone with him when he rescued Alexander. Why? Was he determined to receive all of the praise and credit, and reinforce in a single sweeping gesture that he was the most dedicated soul Alexander had ever known? Maybe, and why not? It was his mission, after all, that had gotten him this far.
Stubborn determination formed a firm denial on his lips. The man would end up dead at this rate; he couldn’t rely on his lucky survival forever. Then he debated: if he removed Yitz’s heart and gave him into Boudica’s care, he’d say he was protecting him from himself...
With shock, Hephaestion realized that delivering violence upon a man who’d saved his life—and been loyal to him without needing a reason—was actually an option he was willing to consider. Defeated, Hephaestion hung his head, ashamed of his selfishness.
“All right,” Boudica inserted. “I’ll return home and tell Adina where you both are. I hope she doesn’t melt me on the spot.” Boudica’s sounded bewildered. “Stay together. Do what you must.” With that, she turned toward the distant cliff face, calling over her shoulder, “No matter how ready you think or feel you are, you aren’t.”
She trudged off, her arms wrapped around her cooked frame as she strode beyond the warming fires of the dragon-ship’s wreckage towards her high climb to New Dis far above.
The opposite direction held the goal for Hephaestion and Yitz, and a pallid fog hung over everything ahead. Hephaestion, silent, bound the hot sword to his hip, braced his arm with his shield, and limped into the unknown with Yitz bundled up at his side.
Chapter 26
Hephaestion had experienced brutal winters. He had once witnessed the moisture on the trees freeze to the point of exploding, shards of wooden shrapnel imbedding in men and horses as they marched by.
But the winters of Earth were different in that they held the promise of spring, and no matter how many noses and ears were lost to the frostbite, everyone knew they would see the birds again and hear the rivers and creeks once more.
Hell, however, was not Earth. The brackish ice carried frozen waste and feces, and the still air held not a flake of snow or echoing crackle of ice. No landmarks guided him, and his bearings relied on the cliff face behind him.
Through the milky, frigid murk, Hephaestion examined Yitz. The cloak he had repurposed from the wreck bundled about his body and head nearly twice. The sleeves drooped past his hands, and he hid his fingers inside to keep them warm.
Hephaestion clutched Boudica’s sheathed sword to his chest, the blade’s heat radiating through his fingers and arms. The temptation to withdraw the steel and bask in its invisible flames nipped at him much like the biting cold. But Hephaestion knew the real danger here, and it wasn’t the cruel frost.
It was the bloody paw print on the black ice before them.
“Oh no,” Yitz whispered. “I’ve heard tales…”
Hephaestion knelt down to get a better look. As large as the print of an elephant but with claws that had chipped the ice with its long stride, the print stuck out among others heading counter of the circle’s rotation. He figured that the best way to avoid the monster was to remain behind it. He pulled his astrolabe from his satchel and laid the disc flat on the ice to get his bearings.
“We can get through if we keep quiet. My research told me that if we don’t act like food, we won’t be treated like food. It has plenty of gluttons to keep itself busy with anyhow.”
“Is it just the one hound?” Yitz asked, his eyes traveling over the depressions in the frigid ground.
“I’m not sure. There couldn’t possibly be only one with the number of gluttons here. Maybe they spawn in proportion to the number of sinners,” Hephaestion mused as he tinkered with the astrolabe.
Still perplexed by the device, he fiddled with its dials, hoping to find a landmark to align the astrolabe to. Miraculously, the complex map did so itself. One of the rings rotated, followed by the others, causing Hephaestion to spring away from the thing. Was it magnetic? Did the momentum of the ring moving somehow fuel it?
“Heh, figures,” Yitz remarked as though half-expecting the astrolabe’s apparent magic. “That Euclid is a master of motion and magnetics. That little dial knows where we are better than we do.”
Smoothly and silently the rings shifted, the center ones spinning far faster than the outer ones. Hephaestion was delighted as the tiny etched landmarks spun past each other; if he could find something familiar, he’d be oriented.
Now where to go? If they followed the beast to steer clear of its threat, they’d lose their only bearing. Alternatively, they could follow his original plan, attempting to head straight forward to the next ring.
Packing the astrolabe into his bag, Hephaestion stood. Holding Boudica’s blade close, he marched forward in his initial direction. “We’d best keep quiet,” he whispered.
The ice had little fluctuation, making the landscape fairly easy to travel. Step after step, they lost track of time and the white blanket of nothingness before them became hypnotic.
Hephaestion would occasionally flex his face to keep from freezing; the crinkling ice flaking from his skin filled the misty space around him. Yitz remained silent, wrapped in his dark cloak.
A ripple caught Hephaestion’s unfocused gaze. Something small. A single human rib, icy strings of meat clinging to the curve. Yitz wandered on, trailing the dribbles of blood. A larger carcass lay discarded—gnawed, minced, and devoured beyond recognition. Steam seeped from the cooling bits. Hephaestion’s brain was too numb to dissuade him.
Crimson paw prints circled the body.
Hephaestion stilled, his breaths held, and scanned the horizon—or lack thereof. Yitz stood beside him, transfixed on the nothingness.
He heard sobbing. More than one soul. Blubbering and whimpering echoed around them, and as they shook off their frigid hypnosis, they were surrounded by dozens of the weeping damned, as far as they could see.
Something snarled, growled, and then a violent, wet crack echoed like a fowl’s cooked leg being torn from its body. The beast crept nearby, and Hephaestion had no spear.
Yitz dove to the ground, but his dark cloak prevented him from hiding.
In Hephaestion’s research over the decades, he’d encountered conflicting reports regarding the three-headed hound known as “Cerberus” of the frozen gluttonous wastes. Some said there was only one, while others said there were hundreds of monsters prowling about. Many speculated that if there were more than one beast, they would be territorial and spend their eternity devouring the damned and shitting them out to reform for another inevitable consumption. Some gluttons supposedly tried to dig into the ice or bury themselves in the meat and feces that they could find, but, in the end, everyone met their end, and the beast would sooner or later find its prey.
No matter the truth behind the beast’s numbers, its size had not been exaggerated. Their best hope was to slip by as it noisily gobbled a poor soul.
Crouched low, Hephaestion tugged at Yitz’s robes. With a finger to his mouth, he commanded Yitz to be silent and follow him. Moving with as much stealth as his shivering frame would allow, Hephaestion continued in his intended direction with Yitz slinking behind. Cerberus’s feeding was just off to their left, but Hephaestion dared not change course for fear of losing their bearing.
Slinking ahead, he saw a large shape, slumped on the ice, head down. As Hephaestion moved closer, her outline yielded to an enormous woman, her shoulders quivering from either the cold or silent sobbing.
Hephaestion sidestepped cautiously around the woman. Soon he found another, and then another: men and women with their heads hung low. Some cradled their faces in their hands while others lay on their
sides. As oppressive as the cold was, none of them huddled together for warmth. Each resembled a fleshy, frosted mountain on a flat sea of ice, isolated in their misery.
One looked up—a man, hair twisted and frozen, his beard covered in the icicles of his tears. Hephaestion glanced over just as Yitz made eye contact with the glutton, and the massive man pointed and glared.
“Stop!” the sinner rasped.
Yitz halted, and Hephaestion curled his fingers around his sword’s handle.
“You will listen to my confession, or I’ll call the hound!”
Hephaestion pondered charging the man and taking his head off—or trying to outrun the beast. Yitz dropped to his knees and shuffled toward the man, his palms held open.
“You have my ears,” Yitz said.
A massive, grizzled shadow stirred in the cold veil, glowing blue eyes fixed in their direction.
“Come here, or I scream, and the thing eats us all!”
Yitz crawled closer, just out of arm’s length. The man’s skin had frozen black in patches, and his fingernails had fallen off long ago.
Cerebus’s menacing glare glimmered in the distance, proving their luck was running thin. The other heads gnawed the fat out of the quivering prey beneath its massive paw. Yitz’s attention fixated on the glutton, which Hephaestion considered the better focus.
“I will listen,” Yitz said.
“I await my turn again,” the glutton said. “To be eaten as my punishment.” His language sounded round and rich with vowels as the words fell from his tongue. No matter the region, wealth always had its own discernable lilt. “You recognize me?”
Trampling in the Land of Woe Page 15
