Stefan cast his gaze about, ready for the next attack. But the mutant riders
had vanished yet again.
“The scum are losing their appetite for killing,” Bruno commented, sourly.
“Any sign?” Stefan asked “Have they gone?”
“Not gone,” Bea said. “They’re still out there, watching. Waiting.” She got
down from her horse and picked up the still burning torch that lay beside the
dead soldier. She turned her head slowly from side to side, as if following an
invisible line. “That way!” she shouted suddenly, leaping back onto her horse and
gathering the reins. “Over there!”
Without further warning, she surged forward, Stefan and Bruno close behind.
Bea rode straight ahead a few yards further, then swung her horse about, drawing
a wide circle around her body with the burning torch. At that moment the clouds
drew back from the moons, and a wash of light pierced the smothering fog. Where
before there had been only darkness, they now saw four or five riders
approaching, towering mutant steeds closing fast upon Bea.
“Come on,” Stefan urged Bruno. “They won’t hide from us now.”
The mutants howled, determined to avenge their fallen comrade. The four
riders converged in a pincer movement, but Bea moved with astonishing agility,
steering her horse through the gap between two attackers. Two mutants collided
in a tangled mass of flesh and steel. A third wheeled around, straight into
Bruno’s path. Bruno held firm on a collision course with the mutant, at the last
moment jinking to the left, his sword cutting through the mutant’s guard. The
blade sliced cleanly through the creature’s neck, slicing its ugly, deformed
head from its shoulders.
The remaining two mutants turned back towards Stefan in a last desperate
attempt to break free. Stefan felled the first, a pale creature with a
glistening pig-like face, cutting him down with a single stroke as he rode past.
The second held his ground, parried Stefan’s first strike, and aimed a blow at
the horse’s flank. Stefan’s horse reared up, unseating him. The last of the
mutants now charged down at him, wringing the last ounce of speed from its
ghastly horse.
Stefan scrambled to his feet as the apparition bore down upon him. Moments
before he was trampled beneath the hooves he dodged to one side. As the mutant
horse thundered past he grabbed at the rider, and pulled the mutant from the
saddle.
The mutant hit the ground hard, but sprang back onto its feet almost
instantaneously. It turned and growled at Stefan, a yellow, gangrenous venom
dripping from its open jaw. The mutant’s face bore acquaintance with humanity,
but the black, beaded eyes and scale-crusted flesh had more in common with a
lizard than a man.
For an instant the two stood motionless, facing each other. Stefan held his
sword low, leaving his guard temptingly open. It was a temptation the mutant
could not resist. It lunged forward, torso flexing in a single, snake-like
movement as a clawed limb raked at Stefan’s face.
For the second time Stefan tasted blood as the talons tore at his face, but
he made sure the opportunity cost the mutant dearly. He drove his sword up into
a fold of blistered flesh at the base of the creature’s neck. There was a sound
halfway between a scream and a rush of air as the reptilian face split open. A foul spray misted the air as the creature toppled back,
clutching at its throat. It lay upon the ground, its body twitching and
juddering.
Stefan sank to one knee, resting his weight upon the hilt of his sword.
If I kill a thousand of your kind, he reflected, there will still be more. He
got to his feet, wiping the putrid gore from his jerkin and legs. It would never
be enough. No matter if he killed a thousand, or ten thousand abominations such
as this, it would still never be enough. Each small victory was an attempt to
balance the scales of natural justice, an act of retribution for the dead of
villages like Odensk, like Grunwald. But, for Stefan, the sense of justice
earned was always short-lived. It could never be enough, and that thought
troubled him deeply.
He felt Bruno’s hand on his shoulder. “You all right?” his friend asked.
Stefan gripped his comrade’s arm. “I’m fine,” he said.
Both men looked round at the sound of a horse approaching. Bea’s expression
was neutral, neither elated nor fearful. Only the tremor in her voice betrayed
the ordeal she had come through.
“Well,” she said. “I’m glad that’s over.”
Stefan reached up and took her hand.
“Well done,” he said. “Truly well fought.”
“It was the two of you who did the fighting,” Bea corrected him. “I just
stayed out of the way. I told you before,” she said. “I’ve a talent for making
myself vanish.”
Bruno fixed the girl with a look of honest admiration. “Well,” he replied.
“Don’t plan on vanishing on us just yet.”
“Don’t worry,” she assured him. “I won’t. Whatever—”
Her words were cut short by the sounds of voices and clashing steel, the
unmistakable music of conflict. Somewhere close by, battle was being joined.
Stefan reached again for his second sword, and offered it across to Bea. “No
excuses this time,” he told her. “You’re going to need this.”
Bruno tracked the direction of the sounds. “Just over the brow of that hill,”
he announced. “Quite close I think.”
Bea fixed her gaze upon Stefan. “The man—the one you’re looking for,” she
said, “do you think he could have had anything to do with this?”
Stefan gave no answer. Perhaps it wasn’t a question he was ready to answer.
Not yet. Instead he gathered up the reins and turned his horse about to face the
sounds of battle.
“Come on,” he urged his companions. “This isn’t over yet.”
In the end, the mutants had not got far beyond the village. Barely two miles
north of Grunwald, Stefan and his comrades rode into the heart of a pitched
battle. A dozen more scarlet riders bearing torches were fighting shadows,
locked in a life or death struggle with the night-cloaked phantoms. The odds
favouring the soldiers were at best even. Their bravery could not be doubted,
but it was far from clear that they would win through.
Bea pulled ahead of Stefan, snatching the burning torch from his hand as she
passed him. “Let me be your pathfinder,” she shouted. “I’ll draw them on—you
can do the rest.”
She left him little chance to protest, riding like the wind into the thick of
the battle. Stefan followed hard on her heels, pushing his horse hard to sustain
the furious pace. Out of nowhere, a mutant rider materialised in front of
Stefan, intent upon striking out at Bea. It didn’t see Stefan until much too
late. Stefan saw the brief flicker of shock in the cold eyes before his blade
slashed away the mutant’s sword arm and sent the creature spinning from the
saddle, the mutant’s horse going down beneath it.
Stefan jerked on the reins, pulling his horse out of the way. For the moment
he had lost sight both of Bea and Bruno. A soldier loomed out of the darkness
towards him, his gashed and bloodied armour testimony to a long and desperate
battle. Their eyes met in a brief, unspoken acknowledgement. Before Stefan could
speak, the soldier turned away, reacting to something Stefan could not see. The
soldier raised his guard, reacting quickly, but not quickly enough. Stefan heard
the man scream, then saw light glinting off the blade that seemed to come out of
nowhere, piercing the thin mail corselet in a single, fatal thrust.
Stefan pushed forward into the mutant’s path. He aimed his sword into thin
air, but it found a solid mark, cleaving a path between flesh and bone. Stefan
drew the blade back and struck again. He had a momentary glimpse of a figure
with the proportions of a man with scaly, black skin. The mutant reeled under
the force of Stefan’s blow. Before it could melt back into the night, Stefan
connected with a third stroke of his sword. The scaly-fleshed warrior toppled
back in the saddle and its horse wheeled away, carrying its dead cargo away into
the night.
“Stefan, behind you!”
Stefan reacted instinctively at the sound of Bruno’s voice, dropping his head
and pulling his horse away to one side. He felt a rush of air come towards him,
then something strike the flank of the horse like a battering ram. Stefan
gripped tight but could not hold on. There was a moment of confusion as he was
thrown clear then a sudden impact as he struck the hard ground. Creatures—horses, men and mutants—thundered around him in every direction. Stefan looked
up, but his horse was gone. He was marooned, as likely to be trampled to death
as cut down by a sword. There was a rush of hooves and Bruno appeared, a
half-man, half-bird mutant falling beneath his sword.
Stefan shouted his comrade’s name. To his relief, Bruno heard him and turned,
reaching out to haul Stefan up into the saddle behind him. In the confusion
Stefan had lost his sword, but a replacement was soon offered.
“You can do more with this than I can,” Bea shouted to him. “Take it!” she
insisted, holding out the blade. Stefan took the sword. “Slow down a moment,” he
told Bruno. He climbed from Bruno’s horse onto Bea’s, and they rejoined the
battle. Another two mutants were put to the sword, but still they came on.
But their presence had given visible heart to their new allies. The men in
scarlet were fighting with a renewed vigour, turning defence to attack as more
and more of the shadowy creatures fell to their blades. The odds moved in their
favour. Now the mutants sought escape, not conquest. But there was no longer any
hiding; no shelter to be found within the shadows. The barren landscape would
become their burial ground. Blood raced in Stefan’s veins as he sent the last of
the mutants to the Gates of Morr.
The battle was over, the victory won. Stefan recovered his horse, which had
been wandering aimlessly at the edge of the battle field. Scattered fires
flickered like beacons where the soldiers were burning the broken bodies of the
mutants. Only when Stefan was satisfied that the creatures were truly all dead
did he seek out the leader of the scarlet-clad soldiers. As yet, he had not the
slightest idea who their allies might be, or, more importantly, where they had
come from.
Half the soldiers lay dead or dying where they had fallen in battle. The
survivors stood clustered around one of their injured comrades, trying to tend
to his wounds. Stefan watched them, unsure now of how far he should intrude. He
knew little of the surgeon’s art, but it seemed clear that what remained of the
soldier’s life would be measured in minutes rather than years if nothing could
be done.
He sheathed his sword and stepped forward. The soldier who seemed to be in
command looked up.
“He’s dying,” the man announced, briskly. “Can you help him?”
“No. He can’t.” Bea pushed past Stefan and approached the wounded soldier.
“He can’t,” she reaffirmed. “But maybe I can.”
The soldiers regarded Bea with a mixture of curiosity and suspicion, but they
let her through, standing back as she stooped low over the wounded man. She
worked quickly and silently, cutting away the remains of the blood-soaked tunic
to expose the ruptured flesh. She laid her hands firmly upon the open wound, and
closed her eyes. Her lips moved around the words of a prayer.
“I hope she knows what she’s doing,” the man who’d first spoken to Stefan
commented.
“Can you do any better?” Stefan asked him. The soldier said nothing, but
shook his head slowly, then stood back to watch. The wounded man’s cries
subsided a little. Bea stayed at his side, pressing her hands to his chest. When
at last she moved it was to look up, and seek out Bruno.
“Over in those bushes,” she said to him, indicating with her head. “You should
find a plant growing in amongst them. Thick fleshy leaves. Small yellow
flowers.”
Bruno looked around. “How much do you need?”
“As much as you can find. And quickly,” Bea urged him. “You others,” she said
to the soldiers standing by. “Set me a fire and boil as much water as you can
find or spare.”
Bruno set off in search of the herb, accompanied by one of the soldiers.
Stefan stayed with the others as they gathered wood together and set a pan to
boil over the fire. He turned to pick a conversation with the man on his left.
From his bearing, Stefan guessed that he was their captain.
“One of your good men?” he asked, indicating the wounded man.
“They’re all good men,” the soldier replied. “Each life is precious to us.”
“What were you doing out here?”
The soldier looked him up and down, as if weighing up his new companion to
satisfy himself that Stefan could be trusted with the information. “Out here?
Hunting. Hunting the mutants.”
Bruno and his companion arrived back, bearing handfuls of a dark herb
speckled with tiny bright gold flowers. Bea directed them to put the gathered
herbs upon the ground, then divided them into two piles, one about a quarter of
the size of the other. She scooped the larger pile carefully into the bubbling
water, collected the smaller pile into her fist and pressed it into the wound.
The soldier moaned. His breathing deepened, then became easier and more
regular.
One of the soldiers passed Bea a battered metal cup filled from the boiling
pan. The steam rising from its brim gave off a pungent, bitter scent. Bea took
the cup and handed it to Stefan.
“See if you can get him to drink,” she instructed him. “The more the better.”
The man coughed and spluttered as Stefan forced the hot liquid between his
lips. His eyes flickered open, but he still seemed to be barely aware of where
he was or who he was with.
Stefan paused and looked around. The watching soldiers were keeping a
respectful distance, as if fearful of upsetting the delicate balance of the
healing worked by Bea.
“These men,” Stefan said to her. “They appeared as from nowhere. They may be
our allies, but we know nothing about them.”