Where the Dead Talk (27 page)

"I think I’m ready," he said.

Then you are, came the whisper in his ear. The bloodfire grew brighter. He went to the door and pulled it open, the light from his hands shining on the wood and the iron latch. The night air was chill, but he only noticed it on his face. The dead gathered. As he stepped out, their chatter grew. They parted before him as he walked out of the cabin. Nashoonon shut them out, their calls and yells and cries. He walked around the front of the cabin and crested the small rise. By the wide spruce, he found the path and headed down to the lake The dead trailed him.

He was too late.

Nashoonon reached the end of the path and groaned as he looked out over the lake. The gate was open – wide open – and the winds from the far planes roared up into the sky, blotting out the stars with their darkness. Something else was coming through – he felt it in his bones, heard it in the panicked yells of the dead all around him, saw it in the brightening of the light in his hands and arms. He stepped to the edge of the water. The light from his hands shone on the agitated waves in red diamonds. He looked back over his shoulder. The crowd of the dead that followed him had grown, lining the shore behind him. The soldier was there. Pannalancet stood out from the rest.

He heard it over the din of cries coming from the others. Nashoonon began the first song. He raised his hands out in front of him, seeing the heatless flames dance. When he tried to begin the song, his voice was gone, his throat and mouth dried out in fear. He lifted his hands again and began again.

"Osh to’onah nawenta o’sris cho’ta’qua."

The flames on his hand grew. He repeated the verse, finding his voice. By the sixth repetition, he was singing loudly and could feel the bloodfire running all through him. The dead behind him murmured and cried out. He ignored them and continued chanting. It was the motion that caught his eye – from the lake ahead of him. Bits of darkness breaking away, moving. Coming towards him. Silver eyes, dozens of pairs. More. They rose from the deeper water. The bodies began to slink towards him, slow in the muck of the lake bottom. Nashoonon held his hands out and yelled.

"Wana’ten’tah ah tok’wa!"

They kept coming. A wind ripped across the lake, cold enough to steal the very breath from his chest. The ground shook and a deep distant green color came from the center of the shadow in front of him. Flames danced all around his hands, his body. A memory came to him then, just a fragment but as tart and strong as a cranberry on his tongue. Being led to the edge of the lake, his small hand wrapped safe in the large dry hand that held him. The sun turning the water into shimmering jewels. Looking around, feeling the cool air of October wrap his face, tottering against the wind. Pale blue sky. And looking up at his father.

Time to seal the gate.

He took a step forward, toward the bodies with their bright eyes, toward the cold of furthest space.

A Little Bit of Hell Sprung Loose

The colors of sunset faded. To the north, the darkness loomed over the lake. The militia was in marching formation, the Captain standing at the head of the line. Near the middle, horses pulled four cannon. The wagon was pushed to the far side of the road, where it would continue on east with the women and children. Pomeroy's hands were bound in front of him and a pair of militiamen guarded him. He looked up the line of soldiers stretched along the road. A motley lot. A handful of them looked to be competent soldiers; the bulk of them looked to be craftsmen, farmers, and attorneys – little use in real combat. As the tale that the boy had spun made its way up and down the line, he was faced with ill looks and curses. One thick-necked soldier – looking like he belonged behind a plow, not a 4-pound cannon – hawked up and spit, hitting Pomeroy's shoulder.

"That's for your King," the soldier said.

Pomeroy didn't glance at it, didn't wipe it off. Another soldier smirked.

"You won't be laughing long," Pomeroy said, "not when you see what's waiting for you up ahead."

"They won’t even see us coming," the thick-necked soldier said.

Pomeroy sniffed.

"This is the King's Own Regiment you're facing, boy. We'll cut you down just as fast as we cut down the sorry lot of bumbling farmers in West Bradhill. Look at you. Can't even stand in proper formation."

The men glanced at one another. Pomeroy was amused to see some of them straighten up their muskets.

"If you think you're going to simply march into the woods and demand that we hand over our prisoners without a fight, you're even duller than you look," he said.

Work them up.

The militia Captain walked over, Brewster and Morrill with him. He couldn't read their faces.

"Major Pomeroy," Adams said, "you will lead us to the British encampment, under guard. If you attempt to flee or signal to them, you'll be shot on the spot."

"Listen to me, Captain whoever-you-are – you don't have a prayer," Pomeroy said. "The smartest thing you could do would be to turn about and march straight away."

"Hardly, Major – we'll not turn and run after what your men have done. I'll be happy to serve them a taste of their own."

"We’ll see about that, won’t we," Pomeroy said.

The column of men and cannon began their march, up and down the low rises and turns of the road. The darkness came on quickly. They prodded Pomeroy along at the head of the column, a pair of bayonets at his back. He scanned the dark road for familiar landmarks; he was looking for a thick chestnut on the northern side of the road that marked the trail that would eventually lead to that tumbled mossy cabin near the lake. Of course, now he wished the boy were here. They'd sent him along with Carolyn and the others.

Dark trees and meadows stretched away on either side, the road showing pale. Blast it if it didn’t all look alike. He scanned the trees on the north side of the road. In the darkness, one tree was much like every other tree, he found. The wind rose, stirring the trees and tossing his cloak about. He peered forward. The blackness in the sky above the lake was lost in the night and the branches. Going much further would be too far – it had to be close. He turned to the north side of the road and paced along the edge, scanning darkness that bordered it. The guards followed him, exchanging a look. The rest of the company snaked up behind.

"Path," he said, "Where is the bloody path?"

One of the guards bumped him with the tip of his weapon.

"Easy," Pomeroy said.

"Stay where I can see you," the guard said, a tall fellow with a hook of a nose.

"Don’t go getting all –" Pomeroy began. A pale face leered out at him from the darkness between tall trees. The two guards had their back to it. The face disappeared, darting back into the blackness.

"Ah," Pomeroy said, "here we are."

Adams gave the orders, moving down the line of troops. Pomeroy stood with Morrill and Jude at the head of the trail, black as a tunnel through a mountain as it entered the thick fir trees.

"Well, gentlemen," he said, keeping his voice low, "this is it. As soon as we get into the woods, we bolt to the right. Lose them in the dark and try to catch up with the others."

Wind slid through the trees with a murmur. He almost stopped himself from saying anything more – almost did just as he would have at any other point in his scampish days. Almost lived down to his father’s low expectations of him, once again. Instead, he went on.

"Or," he said, keeping his voice low, "we could see what four cannon and a score and a half of muskets can do to help out young master Chase's Indian friend out by the lake."

"But –" Jude said.

"No buts, no ifs, no whys. We have an opportunity – but it means walking into danger instead of running to safety."

"We got some fightin' men now," Morrill said.

"I’d be surprised if three of them were fightin’ men, Morrill – the others are just scared farmers," Pomeroy said, "but they all have weapons, and there are a lot of them. I have more than a passing familiarity with artillery – the one thing the King's army ever found me useful for."

Captain Adams was making his way back to them.

"What say ye?" Pomeroy said.

Morrill nodded his head.

"We do it," he said.

"Brewster?" Pomeroy said.

"Running isn’t going to make it go away," he said, "and a chance like this isn’t going to happen again."

Pomeroy looked back and forth between them. Finally, he nodded.

"We stay," he said, "and Lord help us. Young Master Chase can thank us later."

"You’re a better man than you give yourself credit for, Major," Jude said.

"Or the biggest fool to wear the uniform of this King or any other," Pomeroy said.

They headed into the woods, careful to stay on the narrow trail. Pomeroy and Morrill had two of the militia men with them, their weapons trained on Pomeroy. Jude and Captain Adams followed; behind them, the line of men trailed back. The teams and cannon came up behind. Only starlight illuminated the path, faint through the trees that grew thick the further in they went. The air was changing. Pomeroy recognized it as the way it felt when they were around – the walking corpses. From back down the line, a horse snorted. A few whispers floated on the air, but the bulk of the men were silent.

Something moved in the darkness ahead of them. The path was a lighter channel moving through the black of the trees. There was a shadow. It stood motionless, a pale spot visible about head-height where a stray fall of starlight passed through the branches.

"The children are waiting for you, yes. They want to hug you and tell you secrets. Come along and don’t disappoint."

The voice was a cruel whisper, a whisper that knew that they were there, knew that they were listening. The shadow moved.

"We’re all watching you."

And suddenly it was gone. Men had their muskets raised, swinging them about. Nothing but wind.

"The hell was that?" one of the militia said.

"They’re taunting you," Pomeroy said. "Try not to wet your breeches."

The thick woods were alive with shadow.

Good Christ.

The militia pushed their way forward, coming out next to a granite outcropping. The lake was full of bodies, more than two score of them, near as Pomeroy could tell. The water around them was dotted with more bodies – floating bodies of animals; in some cases, they appeared as random humps of fur on a back or a side, while some were larger and clearer to make out: the antlers of a moose, a handful of deer, a wolf, dozens of raccoon and beaver and coyote and fisher cat. And that wasn’t what worried him. He stared at what was happening in the middle of the lake. He couldn’t even formulate a thought about it – just an emotion. Fear. Above the lake, the sky was blotted out. No moon, no stars. In their place was a swirling mass of darkness. Looking at it was like watching a pool of blackest printer's ink slowly turning down a drain. Streaks of color moved through it in irregular patterns, some thin like lightning, some wider, churning waves. The colors – sometimes faint, sometimes bright – made him feel ill. The sickly light from the sky lit up the scene below.

There was a hole in the middle of the lake. It was huge, bigger than West Bradhill's village green. On the other side, a spindly shape rose up. Pomeroy stared at it for several long moments before he realized that it was made of water itself. It rose up from the edge of the hole. He craned his neck to see how high it went. It the confusion of the sky above, it was hard to see – but he put it at two hundred feet, easily. It branched out into smaller parts and reminded him of the tree-like structure of arteries and veins he’d seen removed by butchers. A stream of shadows shot up into the darkness above, ragged and tearing and moving quickly. The effect brought to mind the tops of some of the giant waves he’d seen during a horrific night storm on his Atlantic crossing; the winds had been so strong that the foaming white caps had been ripped straight off of them in howling spindrift. And he’d had a similar feeling then about the situation. It wasn’t a good feeling.

"We are so stupid," Pomeroy said.

"What is that?" Brewster said.

"A little bit of Hell sprung loose, it would appear."

"But what –"

"I don’t know."

"But how could –"

"Really, I don’t know," Pomeroy said.

Brewster looked at him.

"Then what in the hell are we going to do?" he said.

"Well," Pomeroy said, "we look for a good spot to put the guns, and keep the men distracted – and away from seeing any of this business."

He pointed to another outcropping of rock fifty yards to their right. The water reflected the lights from above onto the granite.

"If we put the four guns there, then line up the men every few feet in the cover along the shore coming this way, we can hit most of the bodies on the flank. Just the way we’d prefer," he said. He slid back from the edge, back into the relative comfort of the dark trees. Brewster followed.

"You think the cannon can take care of those things?" Brewster said.

"I bloody well killed one with a spent musket. Cannon are sure to do something useful."

The ground began shaking beneath them.

The horses wouldn’t be able to pull the guns through the dip and rise before the outcropping – Pomeroy was able to see it once the first horse went down the slope, so he suggested that the cannon be unlimbered. Captain Adams and some of the men turned to him.

"What did you just say?" Adam said.

"Look, the horses will never get up that with them – but the men can."

"You're our prisoner, sir."

"Indeed. A prisoner who's led artillery companies far more experienced than this, through terrain far worse. But do as you wish, Captain."

Adams walked the slope, and saw for himself that Pomeroy was correct. He broke the men up into teams to have them pull the guns by hand up over the other ridge. In short order, the first of the guns was free from its limber and being half-rolled, half-carried towards the ridge. There were eight men heaving and lifting the gun up the short but steep incline, their feet slipping on the forest floor.