The Exodus Sagas: Book III - Of Ghosts And Mountains (33 page)

Cristoff III:II

Mountain Cliff Tradeway, Shanador

“Broushelle was right, crows swarming as we speak, but there is nothing left to see.” Sir Leonard looked to the priest of Alden, finishing his funeral prayers for the third death the exiled company had in just a few days. These were not lost scouts of theirs nor feeble peasants whose time had come that he had seen in the rocky foothills. He had not recognized the bodies, had not gotten close enough in fact.

“
Please Alden, Lord of Heaven, Lord of Mercy, Lord of Sacrifice, allow your light from above shine down to guide our lost brothers and sisters here to your home. Take them from us, and honor them as we have in life, and let them pass to life eternal, with you. Amen.
” Garret D’Ourmas repeated the prayer three times, eyes closed, feathered cross in hand. He looked up from the three mounds of earth to the mounted knight, once of Harlaheim.

“You may inform Lord Cristoff and Capitan Broushelle that we will be delayed. I cannot simply bury our own that pass on and leave those that may or may not be ours to rot in the summer sun. My faith will not allow that, not for any man. Where were they from?” Garret had just buried two elderly Harlian women from Saint Erinsburg, their life just gave out on the journey. The other was a scout, his horse was frightened in the foothills by something they assumed. They found him dead under his steed this morning, crushed by the weight and from two rocks that followed.

“Father, I am of the Order of Saint Tarumin, and I deeply feel the same way as you. However, the road is treacherous, the heat is rising, and we have spotted ogre already on three instances. Please remember, we have women, children, and the elderly with us. We incur the safety of nearly eight thousand lives here. Every hour we delay, gives
time
more a chance to do its work upon us. We need to reach Gillian and…
Alden
have mercy
,
he just does not listen to reason
.” Sir Leonard was talking to himself upon his horse in the midmorning glares of the western sun, Garret had begun to walk back into the foothills below the cliffs where the bodies had been reported.

The looming rock face was high, only the sparse misguided tree root broke the empty red mountain cliff of hundreds of feet. Crows cawed, issuing their displeasures at interruption as a knight on horse and a man broke their scavenging. Upon a small plateau in the hills, parts of bodies lay scattered. The blood was dry, a head here, the corpse twenty feet to the left. Another looked torn in half, entrails strewn about from impact it would seem. A third, legs twisted and broken like the arms, bone showing through from black garments, body and head swollen. Twenty more, crossbows riddled through them, smashed upon the low rocks another fifty feet eastward.

Garret breathed deep, the odor was terrible. He looked to the carnage, the blood, then up as he realized these bodies had been pushed or thrown from the cliff far above. He began to think Leonard was correct in his assumption, he looked to the company from Saint Erinsburg to the west, thousands traveling on. He looked up to the knight from Harlaheim, to the shovel across his steed, then to the rocky ground. He closed his eyes in a silent moment.

“Beheaded one first, then the slave torn in two, then the woman in black. Then we get the rest over there. Help me please, Sir Leonard. Alden bless these poor souls.” He went ahead, taking the remains as carefully as he could, Leonard assisting in silence.

Sword…

“Did you hear something father Garret?” Leonard turned, drawing his rapier slowly, gazing around.

“No, please, it is just the crows echoing off the cliff. Let us be done here soon.” Garret brought the first of the bodies, piece by piece, to lower ground with soil in which to dig, twenty feet off the tradeway.

Sword…

“There it is again, something stirs up there. Be it the crows, then they are speaking to us father. Let us go, I feel uneasy here.” Leonard walked up toward the crows that watched, surveying the hills and cliffs around him, looking for motion or the source of the voice.

Sword…

He looked down, the voice came as a whisper of a whisper, so faint and strained as to not be real at all. Auburn hair in a loose tie, all smattered with dried blood upon a swollen head that was face down. Her legs were twisted and broken behind in a terrible form, one arm broken and flopped over her back with bone protruding out the shoulder. Crow marks upon her back, where they had worked their way through the black cloth and leather to what appeared to be some sort of brand of a spider. Leonard looked at the closed eyes, kneeling to see them on this poor corpse of a woman. One swollen eye of slate blue opened, and his heart nearly stopped. He gasped.

Sword…

Tears in his eyes, all alone on the rock, Leonard drew his blade and placed it over the brand. One quick plunge down through the heart and her suffering of days and nights as such would finally be at an end. He put the tip to her pale and crimson marked flesh. He saw what looked to be a smile try and form from a broken jaw and bulging face, then she blinked twice.

Sword…

“May Alden bless you, take you in peace, and keep you safe in your journey to heaven. Have you any sins to confess before you die?” Leonard looked, a definite smile formed, tears dripping from her eye to the red rock. He had to do it, no human should be allowed such suffering, he tightened his grip with both hands, hoping for a quick end for her pain, and his own for every second of delay.

Sword…please…

“Then by the light of Alden I strike and pray you find---“

“Stop! Stop there Sir Leonard, I will be the judge of Alden’s word and will, not your blade if you would.” Garret saw the knight taking his time with the one body on this plateau, then saw the blade raise up and hold on the corpse of the woman for some moments. Something told him to walk over and inspect, though he knew not why.

“She begs for the sword father, let her have it. She has endured enough, I beg you.” Leonard kept his blade pointed to her skin, flies buzzing to survey what the crows had missed.

He looked the woman over, so swollen he did not know how she could even talk. Garret swatted the flies in the air, knelt down, and looked her in the eye. “Tell me if you feel this.” He touched her heel with his hand and squeezed just the slightest.

Yes…sword…please

“If you can feel that, your back may not be broken. You may live, if you wish, there is a chance.” Garret smelled the infection from her body, saw the crow marks where she had started to become a meal. He looked up, one tree branch to break a hundred foot fall, maybe, then another hundred from there to here. He shook his head.

“Father, the rot would have spread, the marrow would have poisoned what blood she has left by now. Do not let her suffer any longer.” Leonard shook his head, sword still ready to end it.

“And it would take a miracle to save her, heal her, and see that she could even have the chance of a normal life were she to live.” Garret looked to the bones he would have to set, knowing that even moving her may kill her in this state.

“Yes, a miracle and then---“

“Miracles are what I do, Sir knight, if Alden wills them. Sheath your sword.” Garret looked, brown eyes full of care and youth, he glanced at yound Sir Leonard and then his blade and back up.

“It could take days here, the company will not wait for---“

“The go and tell them I will catch up in time. Leave your horse so I may do my duties for the church and see the bodies put to the earth, saving those I can. Sheath your sword Sir Leonard,
now
.”

“You are stubborn, senseless at times, Alden have mercy. Yet, I cannot leave you alone here to die, very well then.” Leonard sheathed his rapier.

“Thank you. Now, keep the crows away for a time while I pray.”

“As you wish father.” Leonard waited as patiently as he could.

Garret placed his hand on the back of the broken woman, hot sun starting to warm her cold flesh. He closed his eyes, feeling only a faint pulse of her life, fading quickly beyond even that. He asked God in his silent reverie to help this woman and to feel for the infections and causes he would cure if he had the strength. He felt the poisoned blood in her shoulder and torso, then the breaks in her bones, there were nineteen. Garret sensed infection spreading in her face, her throat, her back, and even her legs. He sat back down from his kneeling position, coughing himself as if what he felt were inside him as well. He got back to his knees, and began to pray despite the feeling of futility in his mind. He pulled the golden feathered cross from his robes.

“Alden, Son of the Gods and Lord of men, He who sacrificed himself for our salvation at the hands of demons, He whose wings were torn from him for love of man, I beg you help me heal this woman that she indeed live. Should she be of value to you, to our journey, should she live in your grace with lasting purpose, Amen.”

His hand went to her back, golden light flowing from fingertips into pale flesh. He concentrated more, and more light shone in small flashes as he thought of her infections and poisoned blood. He thought of her pain, asking silently for Alden to take it away into the light, so that she may rest in preparation for the setting of bones and more healing. More flashes of light struck from his hand and into the morning skies below the cliffs. Then he sat down, exhausted.

No one moved, the crows did not bother and the flies did not buzz. Leonard looked to Garret, seeing the look of weariness on his face. He put his hand on the priests’ shoulder, then knelt next to him. He looked then to the woman, still, eyes closed, unmoving. He hung his head and said a silent prayer for the woman himself.

“You tried father, you tried. There was nothing that could have saved her. Twas a miracle she lasted as long as she did.
Alden have mercy
.”

Garret looked to the woman, then to Leonard. “What can I get for you my child, will be time to move soon.”

“Father, she is dead, it is enough now---“

Water…please….water…

Sir Leonard gasped again, his heart stopping. He made the sign of the cross on his chest and circled it, bowing his head in prayer. “I…I…I do not know what to say.”

“
To those of greater faith and understanding, greater knowledge of his will for us will seem, at times, miraculous indeed…”

“…
to those of lesser faith
…the Aldane texts, Psalm twelve, Book of Saint Tarumin, I now it well.” Sir Leonard had not blinked, just stared back and forth between this woman still on the rocks and father Garret.

“Not as well as I.” Garret walked to the horse to get a waterskin for the woman he had saved.

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He slowed his charging steed as he reached his capitans and Sir Karai. They looked down at another dead scout, this one bludgeoned to death by something large, horse stolen. Cristoff looked south, then west, the dust from his charge just now catching up to he and the men gathered.

“We have footmen with halbreds in the low hills there to the south of the tradeway my lord. Westward as well. We will find them.” Karai nodded, drew his heavy steel rapier, and trotted ahead with ten horseman, watching the road to Gillian.

“Second one this morning sire. Best inform the people, keep them on guard while we hunt down the trangressors.” Capitan Broushelle, aged and staunch in his saddle, motioned for his boy to hand him his lance and helmet.

“Form your men, there is nothing to report to the citizens until we know what stalks us. Whatever it is, it uses the hills and cliffs for cover.” Cristoff drew his longsword, the sword with the pyramid pommel he had traded his for with the mercenary elf, Kendari.

“We are days from the Misathi Mountains, days further from Bloodskull. Won’t be giants or ogre, lest they are lost or scavenging. We will find them my lord, rest assured.” Broushelle waved his men forward with him.

“Soldier, where are father Garret and Sir Leonard?”

“My lord, they are burying the dead behind us about three miles. Should not be long, shall I fetch them sire?” The soldier, a man barely out of his teens, stood at attention.

“No, send word we have trouble ahead of the caravan, have them meet us when they finish.
Hyaaah!
” Cristoff Bradswellen the Third charged ahead, ten men with him as well, moving between the road and the bluffs, four squads now scouring the land before them.

For hours they searched every hill, bluff, cliff, and lowland marsh. The terrain changed every half hour, the sun warming in time, yet Broushelle, Cristoff, Karai, and the footmen found neither missing horse nor tracks to follow. It was as if the horse simply disappeared from the earth and left a bludgeoned rider as but a token sign of some trickery.

“Men, spread out, each one of you. Watch the sky.” Cristoff pointed to each capitan, then forward in a wide arc ahead of the caravan.

“Why, my lord, do you see something?” Karai looked, hand shielding his eyes from the beaming sun overhead.

“Just do as I say, keep your swords low, but eyes up.”

“Yes sire.” They all nodded, turned their steeds, and spread far.

It was minutes later, if that, and they heard it. Screeching beyond the clouds and bluffs, many returned the call the same, louder than a charge of heavy cavalry were it close by, ear piercing to man and beast alike. From south to north, then to the west, the screeches called to one another like dying animals, then stopped. No one moved, just looked and waited.