Avempartha trr-2

by Michael J. Sullivan

  “Well, the church doesn’t like to promote unproven theories or random claims, but Rufus is indeed a favorite here. Tonight will prove his words, of course.”

  “Excuse me, your grace?” Tomas said with a bow. He and Thrace stood directly behind Arista, both still appearing as nervous as mice. “Do you happen to know why the village bell was rung?”

  “Hmm? What’s that? The bell? Oh that, I have no idea. Perhaps some quaint method the villagers use to call people to dinner.”

  “But, your grace-” Tomas was cut off.

  “There.” Saldur shouted pointing into the sky as the Gilarabrywn appeared and swooped into the torch light.

  “Oh, here we go!” The archbishop shouted excitedly, clapping his hands. “Everyone pay attention to what you see here tonight, for surely many people will ask how it came to be.”

  The beast descended down to the field and Lord Rufus trotted forward on his horse, which he had the foresight to blind with a cloth bag to prevent it from witnessing the pending horror. With his sword held aloft, he shouted and spurred his mount forward.

  “In the name of Novron, I-the true heir-smite thee.” Rufus rose in the stirrups and thrust at the beast, which seemed startled by the bold confidence of the knight.

  Lord Rufus struck the chest of the creature, but the blow glanced away uselessly. He struck again and again, but it was like striking stone with a stick. Lord Rufus looked shocked and confused. Then the Gilarabrywn slew Rufus and his horse with one casual swipe of a claw.

  “Oh dear lord!” the archbishop cried, rising to his feet in shock. A moment later the shock turned to horror as the beast cast out its wings and, rising up, bathed the hillside in a torrent of fire. Those in the yard staggered backward spilling drinks and knocking over chairs. One of the pavilion legs toppled and the awning fell askew as people began to rush about.

  With the hillside alight, the beast turned toward the castle and, rising up higher, let forth another blast that exploded the wooden stockade walls into sheets of flame. The fire spread from dry log to dry log until the flames swept fully around ringing the castle. It did not take long for those buildings close to the walls, those roofed with thatch, to catch, and soon the bulk of the lower castle and even the walls surrounding the manor house were burning. With the light of fire surrounding them, it was impossible to see where the Gilarabrywn had gone. Blind as to the whereabouts of the flying nightmare and the intensity of the heat growing all around them, the servants, guards, and clerics alike scattered in terror.

  “We need to get to the cellar!” Tomas shouted, but amidst the screams and the roar of the flames devouring the wood, few heard him. Tomas took hold of Thrace and began to pull her back toward the manor. With her free hand Thrace grabbed Arista’s arm, and Tomas pulled both back up the slope.

  In shock, Arista put up no resistance as they dragged her from the yard. She had never experienced anything like this. She saw a man on fire running down the slope screaming, thrashing about as flames spiraled up his body. A moment later, he collapsed, still burning. There were others, living pyres racing blindly about the yard in ghastly brilliance, one by one collapsing on the grass. Out of instinct, Arista looked for the protection of Hilfred, but somewhere in her soup-like mind, she remembered she ordered him to remain on guard in her room. He would be looking for her now.

  Thrace held her arm in a vice grip as the three moved in a human chain. To her left she saw a soldier attempt to breech the wall. He caught on fire and joined the throng of living torches, screaming as his clothes and skin burned away. Somewhere not far off where the fire had spread to the forest, a tree trunk exploded with a tremendous crack! It rattled the building.

  “We have to get down in the cellar.” Tomas insisted. “Quickly! Our only hope is to get underground. We need-”

  Arista felt her hair blowing in a sudden wind.

  Thrump. Thrump.

  Deacon Tomas began praying aloud, as out of the smoke-clouded night sky, the Gilarabrywn descended upon them.

  Chapter 12: Smoke and Ash

  Crawling out of the well into the gray morning light, Hadrian entered into an alien world. Dahlgren was gone. Only patches of ash and some smoldering timber marked the missing homes, but even more startling was the absence of trees. The forest that had hugged the village was gone. In its place was a desolate plain, scorched black. Limbless, leafless poles stood at random, tall dark spikes pointing at the sky. Fed by smoldering piles, smoke hung in the air like a dull gray fog, hiding the sky behind a hazy cloud from which ash fell silently like dirty snow blanketing the land.

  Pearl came out of the well. Not surprisingly, she said nothing as she wandered about the scorched world stooping to turn over a charred bit of wood then staring up at the sky as if surprised to find it still there now that the world had been cast upside down.

  “How did this happen?” Russell Bothwick asked to no one in particular, and no one answered.

  “Thrace!” Theron yelled as he emerged from the well, his eyes focusing on the smoking ruins atop the hill. Soon everyone was running up the slope.

  Like the village, the castle was a burned out hull, the walls gone as were the smaller buildings. The great manor house was a charred pile. Bodies lay scattered, blackened by fire, torn and twisted. The corpses still smoked.

  “Thrace!” Theron cried in desperation as he dug furiously into the pile of rubble that had been the manor house. All of the village men, including Royce, Hadrian, and even Magnus dug in the debris more out of sympathy than hope.

  Magnus directed them to the southeast corner muttering something about the ‘earth speaking with a hollow voice.’ They cleared away walls and a fallen staircase and heard a faint sound below. They dug down revealing the remains of the old kitchen and the cellar beneath.

  As if from the grave itself, they pulled forth Deacon Tomas, who looked battered but otherwise unharmed. Just as the villagers had, Tomas wiped his eyes, squinting in the morning light at the devastation around him.

  “Deacon!” Theron shook the cleric. “Where is Thrace?”

  Tomas looked at the farmer and tears welled in his eyes. “I couldn’t save her, Theron,” he said in a choked voice. “I tried, I tried so hard. You have to believe me, you must.”

  “What happened, you old fool?”

  “I tried. I tried. I was leading them to this cellar, but it caught us. I prayed. I prayed so hard, and I swear it listened! Then I heard it laugh. It actually laughed.” Tomas’ eyes filled with tears. “It ignored me and took them.”

  “Took them?” Theron asked frantically. “What do you mean?”

  “It spoke to me,” Tomas said. “It spoke with a voice like death, like pain. My legs wouldn’t hold me up anymore and I fell before it.”

  “What did it say?” Royce asked.

  The deacon paused to wipe his face leaving dark streaks of soot on his cheeks. “It didn’t make sense, perhaps in my fear I lost my mind.”

  “What do you think it said?” Royce pressed.

  “It spoke in the ancient speech of the church. I thought it said something about a weapon, a sword, something about trading it for the women. Said it would return tomorrow night for it. Then it flew away with Thrace and the princess. It doesn’t make any sense at all, I’m probably mad now.”

  “The princess?” Hadrian asked.

  “Yes, the princess Arista of Melengar. She was with us. I was trying to save them both-I was trying to-but-and now…” Tomas broke down crying again.

  Royce exchanged looks with Hadrian and the two quickly moved away from the others to talk. Theron promptly followed.

  “You two know something,” he accused. “You got in didn’t you. You took it. Royce got the sword, after all. That’s what it wants.”

  Royce nodded.

  “You have to give it back,” the farmer said.

  “I don’t think giving it back will save your daughter,” Royce told him. “This thing, this Gilarabrywn, is a lot more cunning than we knew. It w
ill-”

  “Thrace hired you to bring me that sword,” Theron growled. “That was your job. Remember? You were supposed to steal it and give it to me, so hand it over.”

  “Theron, listen-”

  “Give it to me now!” the old farmer shouted as he towered menacingly over the thief.

  Royce sighed and drew out the broken blade.

  Theron took it with a puzzled look, turning the metal over in his hands. “Where’s the rest?”

  “This is all I could find.”

  “Then it will have to do,” the old man said firmly.

  “Theron, I don’t think you can trust this creature. I think even if you hand this over it will still kill your daughter, the princess, and you.”

  “It’s a risk I am willing to take!” he shouted at them. “You two don’t have to be here. You got the sword-you did your job. You’re done. You can leave any time you want. Go on, get out!”

  “Theron,” Hadrian began, “we are not your enemy. Do you think either of us wants Thrace to die?”

  Theron started to speak, then closed his mouth, swallowed, and took a breath. “No,” he sighed, “you’re right. I know that, it’s just…” he looked into Hadrian’s eyes with a look of horrible pain. “She’s all I’ve got left, and I won’t stand for anything that can get her killed. I’ll trade myself to the bloody monster if it will let her live.”

  “I know that, Theron,” Hadrian said.

  “I just don’t think it will honor the trade,” Royce said.

  “We found another over here!” Dillon McDern shouted as he hauled the foppish scholar, Tobis Rentinual, out of the remains of the smokehouse. The skinny courtier, covered from head to foot in dirt, collapsed on the grass coughing and sputtering.

  “The soil was soft in the cellar…” Tobis managed then sputtered and coughed. “we-dug into it with our-with our hands.”

  “How many?” Dillon asked.

  “Five,” Tobis replied, “a woodsman, a castle guard I think, Sir Erlic, and two others. The guard-” Tobis entered into a coughing fit for a minute than sat up, doubled over and spat on the grass.

  “Arvid fetch water from the well!” Dillon ordered his son.

  “The guard was badly burned,” Tobis continued. “Two young men dragged him to the smokehouse, saying it had a cellar. Everything around us was on fire except the smokehouse so the woodsman, Sir Erlic, and I all ran there too. The dirt floor was loose, so we started burrowing. Then something hit the shed and the whole thing came down on us. A beam caught my leg. I think it’s broken.”

  The villagers excavated the collapsed shed. They pulled off a wall and dug into the wreckage, peeling back the fragments. They reached the bottom where they found the others buried alive.

  They dragged them out into the light. Sir Erlic and the woodsman looked near dead as they coughed and spit. The burned guard was worse. He was unconscious, but still alive. The last two pulled from the smokehouse ruins were Mauvin and Fanen Pickering, who like Tobis, were unable to speak for a time, but other than numerous cuts and bruises, were all right.

  “Is Hilfred alive?” Fanen asked after having a chance to breathe fresh air and drink a cup of water.

  “Who’s Hilfred?” Lena Bothwick asked holding the cup of water Verna brought. Fanen pointed to the burned guard across from him and Lena nodded. “He’s not awake, but he’s alive.”

  Search parties spread out and combed the rest of the area, finding many more bodies, mostly would-be contestants. They also discovered the remains of Archbishop Galien. The old man appeared to have died, not from fire, but by being trampled to death. His servant Carlton lay inside the manor, apparently not content to die by his master’s side. Arista’s handmaid Bernice was also found inside the manor, crushed when the house collapsed. They found no one else alive.

  The villagers created stretchers to carry Tobis and Hilfred out of the smoky ruins to the well where the women tended their wounds. The old common green was a charred patch of black. The great bell, having fallen, lay on its side in the ash.

  “What happened?” Hadrian asked, sitting down next to Mauvin. The two brothers huddled where Pearl had once grazed pigs. Both sat hunched, sipping from cups of water, their faces stained with soot.

  “We were outside the walls when the attack came,” he said, his voice soft, not much louder than a strained whisper. He hooked his thumb at his brother. “I told him we were going home but Fanen, the genius that he is, decided he wanted his shot at the beast, his chance at glory.”

  Fanen drooped his head lower.

  “He tried to sneak out, thought he’d give me the slip. I caught him outside the gate and a little way down the hill. I told him it was suicide-he insisted-we got into a fight. It ended when we saw the hill catch on fire. We ran back. Before we reached the front gate, a couple of carriages and a bunch of horses went by at full gallop. I spotted Saldur’s face peeking out from one of the windows. They didn’t even slow down.

  “We went looking for Arista and found Hilfred on the ground just out front of the burning manor house. His hair was gone, skin coming off in sheets, but he was still breathing so we grabbed him and just ran for the smokehouse. It was the last building still standing that wasn’t burning. The dirt floor was soft and loose like it had recently been dug up, so we just started burrowing with our hands like moles, you know. That Tobis guy, Erlic, and Danthen followed us in. We only managed to dig a few feet when the whole thing came down on us.”

  “Did you find Arista?” Fanen asked. “Is she…”

  “We don’t know,” Hadrian replied. “The deacon says it took her and Theron’s daughter. She might still be alive.”

  The women of the village tended the wounds of those found at the castle, while the men began gathering what supplies, tools, and food stores they could find into a pile at the well. They were a motley bunch, haggard and dirty like a band of shipwrecked travelers left on a desert island. Few of them spoke and when they did, it was always in whispered tones. From time to time, someone would weep softly, kick a scorched board, or merely wander off a ways only to drop to their knees and shake.

  When, at last, the men were bandaged and the supplies stacked, Tomas, who had cleaned himself up, stood and said a few words over the dead and they all observed a moment of silence. Then Vince Griffin stood up and addressed them.

  “I was the first to settle here,” he said with a sad voice. “My house stood right there, the closest to this here well. I remember when most of you were considered newcomers, strangers even. I had great hopes for this place. I donated eight bushels of barley every year to the village church, though all I seen come of it was this here bell. I stayed here through the hard frost five years ago and I stayed here when people started to go missing. Like the rest ’a you, I thought I could live with it. People die tragically everywhere, be it from the pox, the plague, starvation, the cold, or a blade. Sure, Dahlgren seemed cursed, and maybe it is, but it was still the best place I’d ever lived. Maybe the best place I ever will live, mostly because of you all and the fact that the nobles hardly ever bothered us, but all that’s over now. There’s nothing here no more, not even the trees that was here before we came, and I don’t fancy spending another night in the well.” He wiped his eyes clear. “I’m leaving Dahlgren, I ’spose many ’a you will be too, and I just wanted to say that when you all came here I saw you as strangers, but as I am leaving, I feel I’m gonna be saying goodbye to family, a family that has gone through a lot together. I…I just wanted you all to know that.”

  Everyone nodded in agreement and exchanged muttered conversations with the person nearest them. It was decided by all that Dahlgren was dead and that they would leave. There was talk about trying to stay together, but it was only talk. They would travel as a group, including Sir Erlic and the woodsman Danthen south at least as far as Alburn where some would turn west hoping to find relatives while others would continue south hoping to find a new start.

  “So much for the church’s help,”
Dillon McDern said to Hadrian. “They were here two nights and look.”

  Dillon and Russell Bothwick walked over to where Theron sat against a blackened stump.

  “’Spect you’ll be staying to find Thrace?” Dillon asked.

  Theron nodded. The big man had not bothered to wash and he was coated in dirt and soot. He had the broken blade on his lap and stared at it.

  “You think it’ll be back tonight, do ya?” Russell asked.

  “I think so. It wants this. Maybe if I give it back, it will give Thrace to me.”

  The two men nodded.

  “You want us to stay behind and give you hand?” Russell asked.

  “A hand with what?” the old farmer asked. “Nothing you can do, either of ’ya. Go on, you both have families of your own. Get out while you can. Enough good people have died here.”

  The two men nodded again.

  “Good luck to you, Theron,” Dillon said.

  “We’ll wait a while in Alburn to see if you show up,” Russell told him. “Good luck.”

  Russell and Tad fashioned a sled from charred saplings and loaded what little they had on it. Lena mashed up a salve, which she applied to Hilfred’s burns, and left it and a pile of bandages with Tomas who took it on himself to stay with the soldier. And so it was, that with only a few things to pack up and carry with them, the bulk of the villagers were on their way westward by early afternoon. No one wanted to be anywhere near Dahlgren after sunset.

  ***

  “What are we doing here?” Royce asked Hadrian as the two sat on a partially burned tree trunk. They were just up the old village path from the well near where the Caswell’s two little wooden grave markers used to be. Like everything else, they were gone, nothing left to mark their passing. They could see Deacon Tomas sitting with Hilfred who still lay unconscious.

  “This job has cost us two horses, over a week’s worth of provisions, and for what?” Royce went on, and with a sigh broke off a bit of charred bark and absently tossed it. “We should head out with the rest of them. The girl is likely dead already. I mean why would it keep her alive? The Gilarabrywn holds all the cards. It can kill us at will, but we can’t harm it. It has hostages, while all we have is half a sword that it doesn’t really need, but apparently would just like to have. If we had both parts of the sword Magnus could put them back together and we could at least bargain from a position of some strength. We could even have the dwarf make us all swords, and maybe even spears with the right name on it. Then we could have a go at the bastard, but right now, we have nothing. We are no threat to it at all. Theron thinks he’s going to bargain, but he doesn’t have anything to bargain with. The Gilarabrywn set this up only to save itself the tedium of hunting for that sword.”