The Enterprise of Death (56 page)

“That’s good.” Awa dragged her arm away, the phantasmal shapes lurking just behind Monique almost capturing the necromancer’s attention before she turned back to her work. “Now go away, both of you.”

“Fuck that!” Manuel was shaking his head vigorously. “And fuck you both if you think I’ll go out there! No!”

“Niklaus Manuel Deutsch of Bern, if you don’t leave you’ll distract me, maybe get us all killed,” said Awa. “Maybe worse.”

“Fine! Fine! Fuck fuck fuck—”

“Niklaus!” Awa shouted in his face. “What happened to you? You were brave, gallant, fearless, you saved me and—”

“Fearless, she says.” Manuel looked between Awa and Monique. “Never fearless, Awa, and brave? More like stupid. Reckless. I—”

“You saved me,” Awa said quietly. “I’m asking you, Niklaus, to try and save me a second time. To save us all. I won’t be able to do it if you’re here, I’m too scared he … If I, if I don’t have complete concentration I’ll fail and he’ll kill me, Niklaus. Not even that, not death, but worse, he’ll—”

“Damn you. You told us.” Manuel sighed, the old Manuel, the Manuel who, in that instant, regretted not his decision to leave his comfortable home and loving family, nor his choice to march into the mouth of Hell with his countrymen and these two friends, but only his forgetting of pine planks and charcoal. We always have a choice, and Manuel made his. “Well, Mo, ready to say good morning to the Imperials?”

“ ’Eard they give’em prime matchlocks of different make than we’s used ta down ’ere,” said Monique. “Let’s get a closer look, then.”

“Let no one disturb me,” Awa told them. “But stay close, if, if this even works, we’ll still be, well, right here, with all those—”

A volley cut her off, and before it quieted Monique had given her a kiss on the cheek and dragged Manuel out after her, the artist flashing Awa a crazed smile as the descending cloud of black smoke covered them. No goodbyes, no speeches or tears, just the tide of gunsmoke swallowing them up and leaving Awa in her cart-cave at the edge of the earthwork.

The rays of sunlight punching through the smoke cloud would have formed the shapes of skulls to the artist if the vapors had not blinded his eyes, and the mud squeezing up between his fingers as he climbed the earthen wall would have looked like worms. Instead everything looked like a blur, which was in and of itself a sort of symbol, but he could not be fucked to sort out
what it might mean. Mo had gone straight up the wall and he went after her before his mind could betray him with its logic. Besides, logic was subjective, and as suicidal as scaling the wall might be, they would do Awa no good at all milling around beside her cover—the two corpses that had been guarding the cart had been decapitated by a volley and were as dead as was natural, and atop the wall he and Monique could at least distract the arquebusiers from the obvious cover Awa hid beneath.

Mo stopped climbing. A pikeman or gunner or, if they were really fucked, one of those plate-covered Imperial assholes, must have tickled her brain, and Manuel almost let himself slide back down the wall, but then she crawled a little higher and he clumsily squirmed to her left, and with much sliding and slipping he was able to scramble up beside her. The cloud had dissipated, and with the edge of the earthwork just above them he assumed she was waiting for the next volley to blanket the wall before making their charge. He tried to pray, then, but could not fully concentrate, the best he could manage a muttered promise never to paint again if God would only let him live out the day.

Manuel began to panic but caught himself—this was the bravest thing he had ever done, this was his noblest act. Saint Niklaus, the muddy martyr, the man who gave his life so that a witch who denied Christ might live. At least he was not a fucking coward Imperial hiding behind a wall instead of fighting like honest men. His mind began to slide back down the wall, across the field, past the little red millwheel, and up the walk to where his wife and niece and daughter and little boy and even that terrible cat all awaited his safe return, then his eyes fell on the overturned cart beneath him. Smoke was trailing up from the slats like the mud squishing between his fingers, but before he could go back or tell Mo the next volley shook the wall, and with the wave of smoke washing down over them Manuel realized the arquebusiers must be just over their heads, firing at the Swiss who
huddled a short distance east along the wall. Fuck them, fuck them and fuck him, and over he went.

The wind was carrying the smoke down the wall and over the Swiss, which was grand for the pikemen clustering at the base of the earthwork but rather fucked for Manuel, who rolled over the top of the wall to find himself utterly exposed in the early morning light. Thankfully Mo had captured the attention of the dozens of arquebusiers they had emerged on top of, the giantess leaping into their rows with a pistol in each hand. Manuel saw the lines instantly become a disorganized mob as she fell amongst them, both guns discharging as she kicked men down and stomped them into the earth.

“Ay dios mio!” one of the gunners cried, which only incensed Monique further.

“Spaniards!” she howled as she dropped the pistols in her hands and drew the pair from her waist-scabbards. “Evil fuckin Spaniard cunnnnts! Fire! Fire!”

Two heads split, fountains of blood and brains erupting as her second volley struck home, and then the pack of arquebusiers broke, the devil amongst them, and as they ran Manuel went to work with his hand-and-a-half. He had only hacked a few legs out from under the fleeing gunners before his stomach dropped and he took a step back—a dozen landsknechte, the Imperial equivalent of the Swiss pikemen who had proved so effective against the Empire in the past, were pushing through the fleeing arquebusiers.
Must have crossed myself with the wrong hand this morning
, the artist thought glumly. Then he noticed the plated man at their forefront, and the eager voices of the old Manuel shouted down the less brave ones of Niklaus Manuel Deutsch, would-be civil servant and fusspot. A real fucking knight had come to play, and Manuel would have charged at once if Mo had not dropped to her knees over her discarded guns.

“Are you—what the fuck are you doing?!” His concern that
she had been shot or stabbed by the routed gunners turned into incredulity at her foolishness—she was reloading her pistols from pouches at her belt, as if such a thing were at all acceptable in the midst of battle. “Get up, you fucking cow!”

“You want me doin what I do best.” Mo winked at him, then raised a pistol in each hand and aimed past him. “Fire. Fire.”

Her pistols blazed and two of the charging pikemen fell, tangling up the legs of their fellows. Manuel had no more time to reprimand her, the others almost upon him. The heads of the pikes were bobbing at him, and he pictured himself as Sebastian, pincushioned with shafts. Then he cleared his throat and hoisted his sword—this time his last words would amount to more than a string of fucks and a squeal.

“I challenge you to single combat!” Manuel shouted at the knight, hoping he was an Imperial, or at least bilingual—the soldier didn’t have time to repeat his challenge in Spanish. “Let God hear that I challenge you, in the name of honor!”

They were almost upon Manuel, the knight’s conical visor reflecting the dawn sun as the pikes jutted out from behind him like the fan of a charging peacock.

“Let God hear that I am ready to die, and fear not death!” Manuel’s voice broke. “God forgive those who martyr me!”

“Halt,” the knight said, to Manuel’s tremendous surprise and relief. He came to a stop, as did the pikemen. Manuel heard Mo reloading behind him but over the shoulders of the looming landsknechte he saw the arquebusiers were all engaged in the same act. “Thinking highly of yourself, cow-toucher? Martyr you? Honor you? I’m going to cut you in half, you piece of shit.”

The knight came forward, a noble out to earn his name or some such asshole, and Manuel smiled a wry, ugly smile. “Hiding behind that shell, hiding behind those gunners, hiding behind this wall?! You fucking bastard! I’d rather be a cowherd than a coward!”

The knight was only a few paces away and then, like dogs who have growled enough, they went at each other. The knight seemed almost to fall forward on top of Manuel, the sword he held in both hands coming around fast, and Manuel deftly hopped forward and jabbed his own sword into the slit of the man’s visor. He put both shoulders into the stab and the point of his hand-and-a-half ground through the knight’s left eye socket and killed him instantly. There was an awkward pause as the knight toppled over, and then the ten standing landsknechte all brought their pikes to bear on Manuel.

“Fuck,” said the artist.

“Fire. Fire.” The reports deafened Manuel, and so he did not hear Monique repeat the word twice more. The pikemen fell back, nearly half their number gunned down in an instant, but now it was the arquebusiers’ turn to push forward, their rows restored, their weapons reloaded, their vengeance at hand.

“Saint fuckin Crybaby an’ his ol’ pal Saint Cuntlick,” said Monique. “Did our fuckin all, eh?”

“What!?” said Manuel, swaying from his ruined equilibrium. “What?!”

“Never mind,” Monique said sadly, putting her arm around Manuel as the arquebusiers raised their weapons. “Never mind.”

Awa focused on the circle before her, and then the ring of blood started to bubble and the edges of the page in the center began to brown and blacken. The circle she had drawn around herself was bubbling as well, and soon the page caught and the muddy alcove under the tipped cart filled with acrid, yellow smoke. He was coming.

His shade swirled inside the ring of burning blood, its shape as nebulous as those of the dead spirits congregating over the battlefield, but there could be no doubt that it was him. Awa was trembling, suspecting just how much worse what he threatened was compared to the mundane deaths going on all around her. He could not leave the circle so long as it was unbroken, and she focused on that to calm herself.

“Decided to trade in that last page?” The black specter looped over and under itself, its eye holes sliding around its head to stay ever fixed on Awa. “Changed your mind about offering up a hundred sacrifices? Hit on a bright idea to
fucking end me
, as you said? Come to grovel?”

“I’m done talking to you,” said Awa, the air muggy and cloying. “And I’m damn sure done listening to you.”

Awa left her circle, crawling over to the edge of his with the book in her hand. Then she set it down just outside the ring of
hissing, evaporating blood and opened it at random. Winking at her tutor, she hoisted the pistol Monique had given her, the short-barreled Last Resort that the gunner normally kept in a hidden holster at the base of her spine. He was saying something but she refused to hear him. Dumping the shot and powder out of the gun, Awa let the salamander egg roll into her palm, placed it on the ground, then put the open book facedown over the egg.

“I might not be able to beat you,” said Awa. “But I wanted you to watch me fuck you over as best I can.”

“Awa?” The necromancer’s voice had grown plaintive. “Awa, I can’t lie, you know this, and when you summoned me before I mentioned that we might find another way together, remember? Before you lost control and banished me? If—”

“Fire,” said Awa, and the necromancer screamed inside his prison. The egg ignited, the book shrieking like an owl-nabbed field mouse as the flames engulfed it, and Awa rocked with laughter. The powder she had dumped out of the gun caught as well, the ground sizzling and popping around the burning book, and then a deposit of the powder popped at the edge of the circle containing the necromancer. A smoking piece of blood-soaked earth spit up into the air from the tiny blast, and before it had landed or Awa’s laugh could turn to a scream the necromancer came billowing out of the sliver cut from the circle, bringing his vaporous body down atop the book. It went out instantly, and he reared up before Awa, his old face forming on the head of the cloud.

“Spiteful, nasty little thing! Think I have to obliterate your spirit when I claim you!? Think I can’t keep it around for a few centuries, in constant agony!? Think I have limits!?”

“Yes,” Awa said from where she lay sprawled on the ground beside the broken circle, and then she pointed at him and said his name.

The dead came howling from the sky, hundreds of spirits falling through the cart onto the necromancer before he could flee
back into his circle. The dozens of black claws he sprouted to fend them off were not enough, nor were the few arcane tricks his ethereal body was capable of, and they drove him to earth. They knew his name, she had told them his name, and with it they found him and held him. A dozen or two would have been little trouble, a few score a touch difficult, but the hundreds of spirits adhering themselves to his spectral form were too much, and his voice cut through the roaring gale of the dead, a single desperate word.