The Infernal Battalion

by Django Wexler

  “None of them seem to be wounded,” Abraham said. “Poisoned, maybe?”

  “There’s another.” Winter pointed. A man in a long gray coat sat slumped against a leafless trunk, head lolling. “It looks pretty intact. Abraham, do you think you could figure out how he died?”

  Alex made a face, but Abraham nodded. “If something’s killing people out here, I think we ought to know what it is.”

  They trudged through the muck of dead leaves to the body. It had been an older man, with a huge, wild white beard and a fur cap. A hunter, Winter guessed, by his clothing. There was no blood on him, and his posture gave no indication that he’d been in pain. He must have died relatively recently, since there was still a hint of color in his flesh.

  Abraham poked the corpse with his stick, and it wobbled. He grunted. “Still fresh.”

  Winter knelt next to it. The eyes were open, staring off to the east. Have they all been looking east? She felt like every body they’d found had been facing them, more or less. Something about the rising sun—

  The dead face twitched, eyes blinking once. Winter startled, falling backward. She scrambled on her backside away from the thing, her mind filling with visions of a temple under the Khandarai sands. Corpses rising, their eyes filled with green light, smoke leaking from their mouths...

  These eyes weren’t green. They were red, glowing from within. The man’s head wobbled, struggling to face Winter. His lips moved, flesh splitting as they formed silent words.

  Winter, the nearly dead man mouthed, and the eyes glowed brighter. Found. You.

  Then the lights faded.

  “Winter!” Abraham had rushed to her side, stick raised, looking at the corpse. “What happened?”

  “Not dead,” Winter said, breathing fast. The sight of those crimson eyes had sent her back to that horrible night in Elysium. “Not...”

  “Looks dead now,” Alex said, darkness shrouding her hands as she approached. “Want me to spear him to make sure?”

  “He was one of them,” Winter said. “A red-​eye. The Beast.”

  “Oh.” Abraham’s voice was very quiet.

  There was a crunch as a spear of pure shadow flashed from Alex’s hand, impaling the man’s skull and the tree behind it.

  “Just to be sure,” she said.

  But Winter knew the damage was already done. She could picture it all too clearly—​in her mind’s eye, hundreds of heads snapped around, hundreds of pairs of glowing red eyes narrowed. Found you.

  “It’s the Beast,” she said. “All the bodies. It’s been sending them into the woods to watch for me. Just letting them wait until they freeze.” She forced herself to take a long, slow breath. “It knows we’re here.”

  “Balls of the Beast,” Alex swore, then frowned. “I mean, fuck. What now?”

  “Now we run,” Abraham said softly.

  Winter nodded, heart thudding in her chest. Across the dead forest, she imagined the baying of hounds.

  *

  This far north, the nights were coming early. Up until now, they’d camped at dusk, keeping a relatively leisurely pace. There was a lot of ground to cover, and rushing it early on would only risk injury.

  No more time for that, though. Her lungs were on fire and her legs were lead weights, but she pushed on, switch​backing up the rocky slopes as they climbed toward the range of hills that separated the two rivers. Alex kept up, but Abraham was starting to flag, leaning on his stick. Winter pressed on until the sun dropped below the horizon, painting the clouds a fiery orange, and then called a halt.

  “Give me a moment,” Abraham said, leaning against a tree. “I’ll be fine.”

  “We can’t keep running forever.” Winter wasn’t sure if she could press on much longer. “Even if the Beast knows where we were, it doesn’t know where we’re going. Depending on how close its other bodies are, it may not be able to follow.”

  “We’ll have to keep a watch,” Alex said, looking around in the gathering darkness. “And no fire.”

  Winter nodded glumly. Despite the lifting of the magical cold, the autumn chill was rapidly setting in, with nightly freezes. At least it’s still dry. Pushing through wind and snow had nearly gotten her whole company killed once, and she wasn’t eager to try it again.

  They had a tent, a clever, lightweight thing from the stores at the Mountain, but they’d been keeping it stowed. The Eldest had provided thick wool blankets, and while Winter begrudged their size in her pack, they’d turned out to be worth their weight in gold. Alex unfolded one, while Abraham shucked his pack and slid to a seat with a sigh.

  He’s exhausted. Alex was evidently more used to this kind of travel than the young healer. She walked half the length of Murnsk with a hole in her side to get to me, after all. Still, fatigue was evident in her movements. Winter found a rock to sit on and shrugged out of her own pack, shoulders aching.

  “I’ll take first watch,” she said. “Get some sleep.”

  “I’m not going to object,” Alex said. “Wake me in a few hours.”

  Winter nodded. Abraham already had his eyes closed, head tipped back against the tree. With practiced ease, Alex slid in close beside him and pulled the blanket tight around them both. Within minutes, she was asleep.

  There was a closeness between them that made Winter a little envious. It wasn’t romantic—​more like long familiarity and a history of shared hardships. She couldn’t help but wonder what they’d gone through before reaching the Mountain. Someday I may get the chance to ask. She pulled out her own blanket, wrapped it around her shoulders, and settled in.

  Not falling asleep was a challenge. The wool made a warm, tight bubble in the chilly darkness, and Winter wanted nothing more than to hunch in on herself and let consciousness drift away. She forced herself to shift position occasionally, letting drafts of cold infiltrate her cocoon. The pain in her legs and shoulders subsided to a dull, throbbing ache, and the sweat that had sheathed her skin turned cold as the sunlight faded away.

  There wasn’t much to see after the light leeched out of the world, but she didn’t dare close her eyes. Overhead, the sky was a solid mass of stars, cut by the bone-​like bare branches of the trees all around. To the east, the mountains made a jagged line on the horizon.

  What the hell am I doing? She’d forced herself into motion when the Steel Ghost had returned, but everything still felt wrong. Unreal, somehow. Even when she’d been freezing to death, before Alex had guided them to the Mountain, she’d felt like she’d known what she was doing it for. Janus had explained everything—​the war, the Priests of the Black, the desperate need to reach Elysium and put an end to it once and for all. Standing in his tent, it had all seemed so clear.

  Now Janus was gone, and her certainty had gone with him. The plans she’d made with the Eldest and the Steel Ghost seemed like a thin reed in comparison, sandcastles built by children in ignorance of the tide. The Beast of Judgment was out there, getting stronger. The idea that she could stand against it—​stand up to the terrible wall of human flesh that had come for her in Elysium—

  God. Tears dried on her cheeks, cold in the night breeze. What I wouldn’t give for a nice set of orders. No need to worry about purpose or direction, just a point on a map to aim for. And good soldiers to march with, good officers to command...

  And Cyte. The thought of what they’d had, so briefly, made Winter’s chest hurt like she’d been run through with a bayonet. She’d never had those feelings for anyone but Jane, never thought she could. After Jane’s betrayal had torn her apart, she’d thrown herself into her responsibility to her soldiers, certain that it was all she had left. Cyte showed me there’s more than that. The way she’d shaken when they’d first kissed, desperate and terrified at the same time. The way she’d grabbed at Winter, pulling her close like a drowning man clutching driftwood.

  Now Cyte was a thousand miles away, if she was still alive. And Jane’s body is being used by a thing that wants to destroy the entire human race.

/>   Maybe I should have stayed at Mrs. Wilmore’s. If Janus had died in the desert, maybe none of this would have happened. She felt Infernivore shift deep inside her. How bad could it be, being a farmer’s wife? Half the world seems to manage it. She tried to imagine herself kissing a fat, bearded man, cooking his meals, raising his children. My children. The images felt impossibly alien, like something happening on the far side of the moon.

  Infernivore shifted again. It was uneasy in the presence of Alex and Abraham, who both had powerful demons of their own. Though it seems to have gotten used to them—

  Her eyes snapped fully open. Something’s out there.

  Wood went crunch, very faintly.

  Slowly, Winter extracted one arm from the blanket and fumbled her pack open. There was a pistol there, buried under the wad of her extra shirts, and beside it a tin box of cartridges. She pulled out first one, then the other. Then, freeing her other arm, she went through the familiar ritual—​pull out the paper cartridge, bite off the end with the ball, sprinkle powder into the pan and make sure it closed, pour the rest down the barrel, spit the ball after it, and jam the whole mess home with the small ramrod. She’d done it so often her hands worked automatically, the salty tang of powder on her lips as familiar as the taste of blood. When it was done she got to her feet, the gun leveled, her thumb on the hammer.

  For a long moment there was silence. Winter might have thought she’d imagined the sound, but the growing restlessness of the demon in her soul was unmistakable. Infernivore couldn’t quite detect the Beast the way it could find other demons—​probably because the Beast was spread among so many bodies—​but it still sensed something when the creature got close. She held her pose, turning slowly, eyes searching among the faint shadows cast by starlight.

  Two points of red blossomed in the darkness, as bright as twin fires.

  “Found you.” An old man’s voice, speaking in Vordanai, his tone singsong. “Knew you’d have to come out. Couldn’t hide forever. Not Winter Ihernglass.”

  Winter pulled the hammer back and slid her finger around the trigger. There could be more than one. She kept the gun aimed at the glowing eyes as she backed toward Alex and Abraham.

  “Did they tell you it was your duty to come for me? Your destiny?” The Beast’s laugh was more of a strangled cough from a desiccated throat. “Maxwell knew a great deal about the Eldest and his people. They love to talk about duty, don’t they?” The creature coughed again. “Fools.”

  “Alex?” Winter murmured. When she got no response, she kicked the girl with her heel. Alex yelped. “Get up. It’s found us.”

  Fuck was Alex’s first coherent word. She struggled to free herself from the blanket. “How many?”

  “Don’t know,” Winter said. “Get ready to run.”

  “What’s the point?” the Beast said. The red-​eyes were getting closer. “You know how this has to end. You can kill and kill until you stand atop a hill of corpses. Run to the ends of the earth. What’s it going to gain you?” Another snap, a twig somewhere breaking. “Better to let me take you. That’s what Jane wanted, you know. The chance to be with you forever. Would it be so terrible?”

  “I’d rather die,” Alex said, pushing to her feet.

  “So would I,” Winter said.

  Would you? said a tiny, traitor voice. Giving up control would be so easy. No more decisions. No more weight on your shoulders.

  “You’ll get the chance,” the Beast said. “We’re a little too far out for me to eat you. So unless you come along quietly, you’ll have to make do with being torn to pieces.” Another coughing laugh. “Poor Jane will be so disappointed.”

  Winter gripped the pistol tighter. She heard the blanket rustle behind her and guessed that Alex and Abraham were on their feet. She sighted carefully on the red eyes—

  Another twig snapped, off to the right. Winter spun on her heel, straightened her arm, and fired. The shot was shatteringly loud in the still forest, echoing over and over, and the flash partially obscured Winter’s vision. She could see that she’d been on target, though—​a woman who’d broken from cover a dozen yards away had taken the ball high in the chest and gone down. She was stick ​thin, dressed in rags, with long, wild gray hair and open sores on her arms. Another one of the Beast’s bodies. She must have been out here for some time already. It doesn’t even bother to give them proper clothes...

  Winter’s body was moving faster than her stunned brain. Her saber was tied to the side of her pack; she reached down, scooped up the bag, and tore the weapon free. More people, at least half a dozen, emerged from the trees all around them, closing from every direction. Winter tossed the useless pistol away and raised her blade.

  “Alex! Watch my back!”

  “On it!” Alex said, followed by the hiss-​crunch of her power spearing through flesh and bone.

  One man was coming straight at her, while two more figures closed in from the sides. Winter, slashing in a diagonal arc, stepped forward to meet the attack rather than be trapped between them. The heavy blade connected with the man’s face, raking across one glowing red eye and through his nose in a spray of gore. His hands came up, grabbing for the weapon, and Winter hastily yanked it back, slashing off two fingers.

  Saints and fucking martyrs. The pain from wounds like that would put an ordinary person on the ground, but the red-​eye didn’t flinch, just came forward again with blood still spraying from the cuts. Aware she had only a moment before she was surrounded, Winter feinted high, then kicked him in the chest when he reached up for the sword again. He staggered backward, losing his footing on the slippery ground, and she spun away just in time for two pairs of groping arms to miss her. Another man, in the leathers of a hunter, collided with a teenage girl in the tattered remains of a parti-​color dress. They both turned on her, and Winter gave ground. Oh, Karis Almighty...

  They’re already dead. No minds inside those bodies. The girl’s pale, dirty face was something out of Winter’s days at Mrs. Wilmore’s, grubbing with the other inmates in the gardens or scrubbing the floors. Except it’s not a girl. It’s the Beast, the Beast, the Beast.

  It took her a moment to realize she was shouting. The girl came at her, and Winter grabbed her bony wrist with her off hand, pulling her forward and off-​balance. A smooth blow of the saber ripped across the girl’s neck, and her head lolled back with a spray of arterial blood. She tottered, fell to her knees, and then collapsed, arms groping toward Winter’s feet.

  Dead is still dead. These weren’t the monsters of the temple, whose broken bodies had been animated by magic. They were human, more or less, with their souls hollowed out and replaced by the Beast’s controlling intelligence. They might not feel pain, but they bled and their bodies failed.

  The hunter shifted to the left, trying to force Winter to move in the other direction. A quick glance told her that the first man, one remaining eye still aglow, was crawling toward her, leaving a sticky trail of blood. Winter went the other way instead, ducking under the hunter’s outstretched arms and letting her trailing hand slash him across the belly. She kicked him from behind as he stumbled forward, and he fell among his own viscera, twitching like a landed fish.

  “Winter.” Abraham’s voice. “I think we need to leave.”

  Winter looked up. Three more people lay dead off to her left, speared neatly through the head. Alex was gathering up her pack, and Abraham already had his on. He was pointing down the hill, into the valley, and Winter turned in that direction.

  Red lights, like distant torches, but always in pairs. Dozens of them, spread through the forest, flickering as they moved among the trees. Glowing eyes, every gaze locked in one direction.

  We’re dead. There were too many, far too many. The sea of lights went on and on.

  “Winter!” Alex said nervously.

  “Higher,” Winter said. “If we can get over the hill, maybe we can lose them on the downslope. Find somewhere to hide.” She looked from Alex to Abraham, and both of
them looked back at her with trust in their eyes. They think I know what to do. Winter wanted to laugh and cry at the same time.

  *

  The night seemed to last forever.

  At some point, Winter realized the Beast was driving them, chivying them as it had back in Elysium. The red lights were always visible, a cordon of flickering eyes, behind them but drawing ever closer. It didn’t have to show its position that way; it could hide the glow. But it served the Beast’s purpose that they exhaust themselves running.

  Unfortunately, it’s damned good tactics. Winter, Abraham, and Alex could tire and fall. The Beast’s bodies would push themselves to the physical limits of exhaustion, and if they collapsed, there were always more.

  They climbed until they reached the spine of the hills, breath puffing in the chill night air as they scrambled across patches of bare rock to reach the line of the forest on the other side. During the day, at a leisurely pace, the change from ascent to descent might have represented some relief, but now it only made things more difficult. Starlight barely picked out the ground ahead, and revealed nothing but slippery mud or shifting rocks that could easily swallow an ankle.

  For a time they lost sight of their pursuers, and Winter allowed herself a splinter of hope. Then, pausing for a desperate swig from her canteen, she saw the flicker of red on the hilltop.

  Abraham had long ago gone silent, his face pale and limbs trembling. Even Alex was panting for breath, her short hair spiky with sweat.

  “We should... find somewhere... to make a stand,” Alex said. “Make sure they can only come... one way. We could hold them off.”

  “Forever?” Winter shook her head. “If we stop moving, it’ll just bring up more bodies.”

  “We can’t keep this up, either.” Alex watched the red lights disappear momentarily, then emerge again. “Maybe we can double back? Punch through them?”

  “Maybe.” But Winter didn’t think there was much chance. The problem was that the Beast was a single opponent, not a collection of individuals. Individuals would get confused, in the cold and dark. She could try to bluff them, disorient them. But the Beast... “We can’t punch through. If even one of them sees us, it’ll know what we’re trying. We need somewhere to hide. Look for a... a cave, or something.”