Even Hell Has Knights (Hellsong) (5 page)

“It’s the same nightmare each time?”

“Yes, Turi. The same one each night.”

“What is it? Maybe I can help?”

Alice smoothed some wrinkles out of her skirt with her hands. “You can’t stop this one, Turi.”

“Why not? What nightmare is it?”

“The one where I’m damned.”

Arturus watched her as she continued walking. Before Alice had made it all the way to the church, though, she turned and looked at him. She looked sad, but she regained her half-smile briefly as their eyes met. She backed her way through the church
’s open double doors and disappeared into the building.

Galen had told him
what he was supposed to do with a woman after he got her. Some of it sounded really unattractive. He almost felt like it would degrade her. But to kiss her? And hold her? That would be the most beautiful thing. He wondered how he could explain to her the feelings he had. How he could make her understand how well he would treat her since he cared so much for her. Galen would tell him what to say.

Maybe he’s back already.

He walked out of Harpsborough and passed the two guards.

“Hey, Turi
!” the sympathetic guard called after him.

“Yeah?”

“It’s good to see you out on your own, you know.”

Arturus grinned slyly. “It’s nice not to have Galen and Rick around, slowing me down and all.”

The guard gave out a surprised laugh. “Right!”

“See ya,” Arturus said as he headed back into the wilds.

As Hell closed in around him, the rush of visiting Harpsborough rescinded and worry came up in its place.

Please let him be home.

If they recognize me, they’ll kill me.

Pyle lay in the shadows, waiting, watching as the hermit boy made his way through the cavern. The young man was being careful, Pyle would give him that, but he was distracted and in a hurry. There was a pack slung over one of the boy’s shoulders and a box of shells in what was probably his shooting hand.

He could be left handed. Still, he’d be an easy mark, and he’s about the right age.

But even if this was the boy that Carlisle and the Infidel had been looking for, simply kidnapping him would not be enough. Would Maab remove the rustrock lined scars she had branded into the most intimate parts of his person in exchange for the lad’s capture? Not likely.

The Infidel Friend had a saying: “Hell heals all wounds.” Well, they had never met Maab. That woman knew how to make the wounds stick.

No, he was going to have to find out
more than just who Carlisle was looking for. He needed to know why the Infidel himself had gone to such lengths to try and capture the youth in the first place. Then he might have enough information to make a deal with Maab.

Mancini can help me.

But to speak to Mancini he would have to get past the guards and into Harpsborough. And then what was he going to do? Just go traipsing around in there like they hadn’t had him exiled? Some of the people he’d known had to have died off. It had been a couple of years, certainly. Still, some of the villagers would be left, and almost all of the Citizens.

If they recognize me, they’ll kill me.

The young man exited the chamber. Pyle waited for one hundred breaths to make sure the boy did not return.

Then he stood up from the shadows.

They deserved it. Every drop of blood those devils took from Harpsborough was justified three times over.

Pyle drew out a long strip of cloth from his pack and began wrapping it about his face. He hadn’t found any dyitzu near Harpsborough, but pretending that he had been burned by one was the best disguise he could think of.

With his head fully covered, he wrapped up his left hand as well.

I should go to the Kingsriver and check my wrappings in my reflection.

Pyle shook his head, rejecting the idea as one spawned by fear.

I need to be brave.

He moved towards Harpsborough instead, passing through the next few chambers in a daze. There was a time in Pyle’s life when he had walked this very same path each day. He remembered Molly, sweet Molly, who he had kissed for the first time in the room ahead of this one.

Bitch left me.

He walked for another minute before stopping abruptly. Unless things had changed, two of Harpsborough’s hunters would be in the next room, guarding the entrance.

If only I had an ally who could talk to Mancini for me.

But he had no one. Maab’s men hated him almost as much as the people of Harpsborough did.

Poor little Pyle. He has no friends.

He could hear the sound of the village’s guards echoing down the chamber. He closed his eyes and listened.

“
. . . never what I would have thought. I still don’t believe it myself. Besides, these days we get so few lots it wouldn’t even be worth it.”

“They need to double us, at least.”

“Triple, if they want to make it fair.”

“Like that’d ever happen. Then Copperfield would have to lose a few pounds, and the Devil knows that’d be the end of Hell.”

The men shared some laughter.

Pyle reached up and checked his bandages. He adjusted them carefully, trying to make the slit for his eyes as thin as possible. If they saw his un-burnt skin through the slit, they might begin to suspect him. He adjusted his belt, his right hand falling to his short barreled Remington coach gun. The walnut stock felt smooth to his touch. He flicked off its safety.

No. If they recognize me, I’ll kill them.

Pyle squared his shoulders and entered the room. He was relieved to see that he didn’t know either of them.

“Hand off the gun,” one of the hunters ordered.

Pyle took his hand away from his Remington a
nd placed it across his chest—that way it would be closer to the revolver he kept hidden over his heart. “I’m just here to trade.” His voice sounded muffled through the cloth. He spread the wraps open around his lips with his free hand, being careful not to expose too much skin.

“Yeah?” the other hunter asked. “What do you have?”

“Some meat and a few torches.” His voice sounded clearer now.

One of the hunters crossed his arms and sneered. “We’ve got torches.”

“Meat would be nice, though.” The other hunter licked his lips. “What kind? Dyitzu or hound?”

“Dyitzu,” Pyle said. “The same one that took my face.”

“Yeah?” said the cross-armed one. “Let me see the burns.”

Damn.

Pyle shook his head. “My skin’s healed into the cloth. It would hurt too much for me to take it off.”

“Too damn bad.” The hunter uncrossed his arms and let one of his hands rest on his sidearm. “No face, no entry. We’re not kind to all hermits.”

“You let the boy in,” Pyle insisted.

“He had a face,” the hunter said. “For all we know you’re not burnt at all. You might be a corpse-eater. Could have the rot.”

“But the rest of my body is fine,” Pyle protested.

“No face, no entry.”

This isn’t working.

“Fine,” Pyle said. “I’ll let the burns heal a little more. I’ll be back when I can get the wraps off.”

“Good,” said the other hunter, “don’t eat all the meat.”

Pyle wanted to
gun them both down, but then he’d never get into Harpsborough. He left the chamber, took a turn and a dozen steps, then paused. The echoed voices of the guards came to him again.

“How’d he know about Turi?”

“Who cares? He had meat, Avery. We could have let him bribe his way in.”

“Aaron would throw you through the Golden Door as soon as he found out.”

“That’s the point. He wouldn’t find out.”

“I think he would.”

“Why?”

“Because my ass would tell him.”

Pyle clenched his teeth and moved on, heading back into the wilds.

This isn’t over.

The rooms passed by him in a blur.

That idiot hunter. Avery. I’m going to kill him.

There had to be a way in. He could come back during their next shift, and the new guards might let him by. Or he could take the disguise off altogether and try to time it so that he entered Harpsborough while everyone was sleeping.

No. Someone would see me and gun me down.

He stopped when he heard the watery rush of the Kingsriver.

He entered the chamber slowly. There were very few devils around here, but it never hurt to be sure.
  It was empty.

I could shoot my way through the guards.

Pyle admitted to himself that such a thought was just a fantasy. He knew what he had to do.

He set his pack down by the river. The rush of the water helped sooth his nerves. He untied his bag’s draw string and let it spill open. Slowly, he removed one of his torches. He held it aloft, still unlit.

I have to speak to Mancini. Hell heals all wounds.

He knelt by the bank and placed the torch reverently to his right. He met his own gaze in the water. His sister had always bragged about his good looks. About how all her friends had wanted to date him.

Ladykiller.

He fumbled through his pack until he found his firerock brick. The dark, heavy, almost metallic stone felt rough to his fingers. He struck it, hard, against the hellstone by the riverbank. Sparks flew from the brick, showering into the Kingsriver. A few settled on his hand. He let them burn out there. The pain was intense, but he knew it would be nothing compared to what was to come. He reached over
with his free hand and picked up the torch. It took him two more strikes with the firerock before he had the thing lit.

The torchlight shone on the Kingsriver, adding its own ruddy glow to the room’s ambient light. His hands were shaking, and the glow shook with it.

He held the torch up to the level of his eyes. The fire danced there before him. He looked away.

Hell heals all wounds. This is the way.

He couldn’t hold the torch steady. He could feel the flame’s heat on his cheek. The skin on the side of his face tingled with anticipation. The warmth was a good thing, he knew. The fire was his friend. The fire was going to get him into Harpsborough. The fire was going to let him know if that young man was indeed the one Carlisle had been looking for. The fire was going to help him control Maab. Help him get enough leverage to make that bitch restore to him those parts of his body she had taken. Clenching his jaw, he looked back towards the torch.

He leaned forward and immolated himself.

Arturus heard the sound of the Mighty Thames, and then, as he came closer, the splashes of the woodstone waterwheel as it turned. It spun quickly, so he knew that the battery had been charged.

“It’s Arturus,” he announced.

He crossed the bridge, his steps sounding off against the wooden structure. As he neared the doorway and the graveled floor, he smelled a bit of smoke in the air. That meant that the forge was on. That meant that Galen was home.

He ran across the gravel, passed the hallway that led to his room, and then turned into the forge. He felt the heat on his face when he entered. Galen’s body armor and pack lay discarded by the room’s entrance. The warrior was adding woodstone to the furnace. Arturus could see his father’s face in profile. Even though Galen had been traveling for several weeks, his beard was as neatly trimmed as ever.

I’d swear his beard doesn’t grow.

Galen rose up to his full height, his broad frame blocking the heat from the forge’s furnace.

“Galen!” Arturus caught him up in an embrace as the man turned.

“Okay, boy,” Galen told him, “enough.”

Arturus ignored his father and held on.

“Enough, Turi, or this will turn into wrestling practice.”

“You’re home,” Arturus said.

Arturus finally let go when Galen began extricating himself by force.

“I heard you had a big day today,” Galen remarked.

“Wasn’t so big,” Arturus lied. “I went all the way to Harpsborough on my own, and made it back. I got shells and a rifle barrel, want to see?”

Arturus ignored the man’s protests and rummaged through the pack. For a moment, Arturus saw Galen’s eyes narrow when he produced the AR-15 barrel. “And all I traded wa
s three pounds of dyitzu and a nine millimeter.”

Galen nodded. “Not a bad deal at all. Well, bathe yourself, boy, and I’ll see you for dinner. Did you run into anything on the road?”

“No, sir. Not many dyitzu about, and there usually aren’t any corpses near the road anyways.”

Galen
looked back towards the forge’s fire. “Run along, boy, let me finish my work before Rick gets hungry and eats without us.”

Arturus ran his finger along the edge of the table, feeling one of the depressions on its edge. Rick had outdone himself with Galen’s return meal. He had ground down hound meat, bone, and gristle, and baked it between crusts of honey covered flatbread to make a meat pie. The meat’s juices filled his mouth with every bite, dribbling down his chin. The gristle caught between his teeth, but crunched satisfactorily as he chewed. They ate pickled knowledge fruit and salted devilwheat which had been soaked in dyitzu blood. Rick had wrapped up devilwheat seed in leaves from a hungerleaf tree, and then boiled and salted the wrap in hound’s blood. He’d left spider eggs deep in the Thames for half the afternoon to keep them cool, and served them in small ornate stone bowls which Arturus had last seen during one of his birthday celebrations. He pretended he could feel the baby spiders crawling in his throat as he ate them. They drank cool water and warm hungerleaf tea, sweetened with honey. Arturus ate until he felt he might burst.

“We’re eating like Citizens,” he told Galen.

“Better,” Galen said, “for Rick has a far fairer hand at exotics than Patrick the Foodsmith does.”

“We should eat like this every night.”

Rick gave Arturus a sharp look as he scooped out some more meat pie with two of his fingers. “I’d rather have my second death,” Rick said, not at all joking. “And besides, you’d be a beggar within the week if we kept eating like this.”

“But I’d be a fat beggar,” Arturus said.

Galen laughed, and leaned back in his chair. There was plenty left on his plate. When he traveled for just a week, he would return as hungry as a hellhound. But sometimes, when he’d been gone too long, it would take him a few days to regain his appetite.

“Did you fight any devils?” Arturus asked.

Galen smiled, but it was Rick who spoke. “Galen tells you enough stories. You can’t ask a man to make light of his own life and death.”

“But Galen likes to tell me stories!” Arturus pressed on. “Did you find anything on the road? A pack of hounds? A Nephilim?”

“Shush! Galen’s trip was important.” Rick pointed a hungerleaf wrap at him angrily before turning to the returned warrior. “Did you find the Minotaur? Any news?”

“So Turi can’t have his story, but you want yours?” Galen asked with a smile.

“That’s the way it works,” Rick said.

Arturus took another bite of his meat pie to make sure that he didn’t respond. Again the juices dribbled down his chin. He laughed and wiped them away with his sleeve.

Galen cleared his throat. “I traveled as far West as the Pole and circled back both North and South of Harpsborough until I came as far as the Carrion. I found nothing. The devils were light everywhere. You almost have to go looking for them to find them.”

“It is a Minotaur, then?” Rick asked, worry in his eyes.

Galen shook his head and looked towards the spinning axle that came through the wall from the water wheel. He watched it turn for a few moments. “At first I thought so. I could practically smell a Bullman out there. Every place I looked was full of people and short of meat. But if there was a Minotaur drawing the devils to him, then the devils should have been going somewhere. There should have been a place near the Bullman where they were thickening. I asked around at the Pole, at Riverled and Macon’s Bend to find where they had gone. I even went as far as Carlsbad. I heard nothing but silly rumors. It’s as if all the dyitzu and hounds have just vanished.”

Arturus munched quietly on his devilwheat seeds, and leaned forward.

“If I had just arrived here,” Galen went on, “I’d have sworn this place had just been cleaned out by Infidel Friend.”

“But aren’t they evil?” Arturus asked around the seeds in his mouth.

“You cannot judge what you do not know,” Galen told him.

“No Minotaur, then?” Rick asked.

“None that I could find.”

“Then the devils’ absence must be like a tide going out,” Rick said. “You know it happens from time to time. The demons ebb and flow. We could be in for a time of great prosperity.”

“Possibly,” Galen said, nodding his head, “or perhaps there is a Bullman out there and it’s just drawn the devils someplace where I don’t know to look. Either way, we should enjoy the good times while we have them. In the labyrinth they don’t come often, and don’t last long.

There was a pause in the conversation while they ate.

“I was thinking I could gather the hungerleaves tomorrow,” Arturus said, looking up from his plate to measure the reactions of both his parents.

“It’ll be a heavy harvest,” Galen said, “and that’s pretty far out. You sure you want to volunteer?”

Arturus shrugged. “I made some mistakes when I was traveling to Harpsborough, because I was nervous. I wanted to work on them some. Traveling to the grove seems like the right way to do it.”

Galen grunted his approval, and Rick was nodding.

Got it!

Arturus took another bite of a hungerleaf wrap to celebrate.

Galen pushed his plate, still half filled with food, towards the center of the table. “Which reminds me, Turi. Rick and I have been discussing you.”

Arturus stopped mid-chew and looked back and forth between his fathers.

“Rick told me that he felt safe sending you to Harpsborough. I’m going to be very busy, as hunting for dyitzu is likely to take more time than usual, and the Devil knows I won’t find a hellhound easily. I trust you won’t mind going out with me on occasion?”

Arturus swallowed and nodded.

“And since you seem to be able to travel back and forth to Harpsborough,” Galen continued, “I thought it might be nice to get you a job.”

“A job?” Arturus asked, a little wary.

“Before I left, the First Citizen let me know that they were getting bored up there in the Fore. They wanted to commission some chess sets. As I will be too busy hunting, I thought I might have you make one.”

Arturus frowned. “But I don’t have the slightest idea how to make a chess set. I don’t even know how to play the game.”

Galen smiled, leaned forward in his chair, and scooped up a few spider eggs out of their stone bowl. He chewed them thoroughly before continuing.

“I’ll show you how,” Galen said. “I know you will be good at it. My only fear is the Harpsborough part.”

“What do you mean?” Arturus asked.

“Well, the First Citizen is very particular about projects he commissions. After you finish each piece, you’ll have to take it to Harpsborough to make sure he approves it. You’d end up going back and forth to Harpsborough nearly every day.”

Arturus’ heart leapt. “Every day?”

“Every day.”

I’ll get to see Alice. She might finally get to know who I am.

“Can you handle that, Arturus?” Rick asked him. “This is a big responsibility. We’re asking a lot, more than just that you complete this simple job. We’re asking you to take a serious step towards being an adult. After a few more jobs like this, after you are free to hunt on your own, you won’t be our child anymore.”

Suddenly Arturus was worried. “Would I have to leave?”

Galen laughed so loudly that Arturus looked towards the exit, afraid that there might be devils nearby their home which could hear.

“No,” Rick said, glancing at Galen. “We’d be asking you to be our peer.”

The young man nodded solemnly.

I’ll go to Harpsborough every day.

“I’ll do it!” he said.

“Now run to bed, Turi,” Galen said. “Rick and I have a few things to discuss.”

Arturus was so excited that he didn’t even think to protest but
instead ran quickly across the gravel hallway to his own room so that he could dream about his future trips.

She’ll see me dealing with the First Citizen. Aaron won’t be the only one who has connections to the Fore.

But in his haste, he had forgotten to relieve himself before lying down, and soon he was creeping back out of his chambers towards the river where he would give the Devil his water back.

He heard the echoed voices of Galen and Rick, who were still speaking in the battery room. From the way they were whispering he knew that this was a conversation he wasn’t supposed to hear.

“You disapprove,”
Rick’s hushed voice was saying.

“Yes.”

Arturus looked longingly down the hallway. He needed to piss, certainly, but he wanted to hear the conversation too.

“He only spoke to Massan. Massan’s a good man. He’s not going to tell anyone. And if he did, the stigma would be on him as much as us.”

“A 5.56 barrel isn’t something I want Turi associated with,”
Galen said.
“You and me, that’s one thing. But he’s just a boy.”

Arturus crossed his arms over his abdomen and shifted from one foot to the other. That single crunch of gravel was enough to silence Galen.

Eavesdropping would be impossible now, so Arturus made a break for the river.