Even Hell Has Knights (Hellsong) (22 page)

“It doesn’t.”

“Then the one on my left’s safety is on. I assume there must be some protocol here.”

“Shut the hell up.” Aaron was visibly frustrated. “Duncan, safety your fucking weapon.”

Martin realized what it was that bothered him about the infidel’s manner.

He thinks he deserves the guards.

Martin nodded. That’s what it was, to be sure. It was ridiculous to have two armed men watching over one prisoner so wounded that he could barely walk, but the Infidel Friend thought this was necessary. As if he, even while unarmed and after having nearly died such a short time ago, was that dangerous.

So much pride.

The despicable man started forward, and the people of Harpsborough, sprawled about the village as they were, scrambled to get out of his way.

Not me, he’s going to have to walk around me.

He noticed Kylie was now behind his right shoulder. He took a deep breath, and made sure to keep himself interposed between her and the Infidel Friend.

He has no right to see a Citizen.

The infidel moved with a limp but managed to make it look almost like a strut.

He’s staring at me.

Martin flinched away from his gaze and glanced down.

I don’t need to be afraid of you.

He looked back up, trying to lock eyes with the infidel, but the man was already looking past him.

“Faster, infidel,” Duncan said.

“Cris,” the man responded.

“What?”

“My name is Cris.”

Martin felt the blood tingling in his bad hand. His blood was up.

I won’t let him think I’m some kind of pussy. I ain’t moving out of his way.

“He doesn’t care what your name is,” Martin spoke up, “unless it’s Speedy Fucking Gonzales. The man said faster.”

The Infidel Friend turned towards him. The tingling in his right hand gave way to a burning sensation. His left hand inched across his belly towards his pistol, which he had never managed to draw. He felt keenly the empty place between his shoulder blades where he strapped his rifle during hunts. He wished he had put it on before he left his hovel this morning.

The infidel did not seem angry, but curiously intense. The man’s gaze was hypnotizing.

“I am wounded, soldier,” the infidel said.

He can tell. He can see that I’m a hunter. He knows, somehow.

Martin nodded, not saying anything.

“Perhaps,” the infidel went on, “if you want me to go faster, you would be so kind as to help me walk.”

The request stunned Martin. He took a step back. The infidel was still staring, and he had no idea whether this was an honest plea for help, or some kind of challenge. He looked around. The whole village was watching.

Martin nodded, undid his pistol belt, and held it out to Kylie. “Hold this.”

“Don’t help him,” she whispered in his ear.

“He’s still a man, Kylie. God damned all of us, remember?”

Martin walked forward and took the infidel’s right arm over his shoulder. Aaron seemed to be leading them towards the exit of Harpsborough.

It’s silent.

No one was speaking. They were all just staring. Kara even forgot to get out of the way until the last second, when Massan had to reach out and grab her so that they didn’t run her over.

They’re judging me.

Some of those eyes were angry. How dare he help the enemy? Others seemed ambivalent, as if they had expected him to help. Others were nodding. Father Klein even gave him a grim smile.

Let them judge.

He saw Molly, but the girl’s eyes were only for the Infidel Friend. She seemed sad and terrified all at the same time.

He could feel the infidel’s warmth on his side. He was supporting the man with his right arm, which he had hooked under the Infidel Friend’s shoulder and around his back since he couldn’t grab with that hand. The frict
ion of the cloth against his regrowing skin was killing him, but he refused to show it. He wasn’t sure why he had to fight back tears. Were they coming from his own pain, or from the empathy he felt for the man he helped support?

Halfway to the entranceway, and he hasn’t killed me yet.

He could feel the eyes of his friends on his back. He could sense their fear and hatred. It was the same fear and hatred that he had felt, but it was almost impossible to hate a man you were helping.

Maybe when the other infidels come and slaughter us all, he’ll let them know that I was kind.

He saw the hunters at the entranceway. Their rifles were ready, but at least the weapons weren’t pointed straight at them. Martin hoped Duncan had safetied his weapon. A stray round in his back would be a terrible way to die.

The weight of the Infidel Friend lessened.

“Thank you, soldier,” the man said.

Martin nodded.

Without aid, the Infidel Friend walked through the entranceway, his two guards and Aaron in tow.

He’s still a man.

Aaron followed his hunters and the infidel into the river room. The sounds of the water usually calmed him, but not now. Not with the devil himself standing before them.

“We give our water over there,” Duncan said, pointing.

The bed the river flowed through was about ten feet wide and ten feet deep. The chamber’s side walls closed over the top of the river, which Michael Baker swore meant that no devil would come floating downstream. Aaron had his doubts about that, but he’d nev
er seen anything come out of these clear waters so far.

He wondered if the Infidel Friend knew if that were true or not.

“No,” Aaron ordered. “You piss in the center of the room. We don’t want you jumping in and trying to escape downriver. Not that it will do you any good, mind you. You’d drown long before the next chamber.”

“So you say,” the infidel said.

Does he know I’m lying? What is downstream from here?

The infidel let his pants drop away and walked, half nude, towards the river.

“Have you no shame?” Aaron was disgusted.

His initial instinct was to look away, but he could not. The man could escape if he wasn’t careful. He looked to Duncan and Fitch. Both were still on their guard.

The Infidel Friend squatted down on his left knee, kicking his wounded right leg out straight, supporting himself with his right arm. He tucked his penis between his legs so that his piss would join with the river.

When he was finished, he sat up, leaned back and shat.

Aaron had never watched a human defecate before. It wasn’t too dissimilar to watching a dog do it, except that the infidel was so brazen that Aaron figured a dog might actually have been more abashed.

Blood began to seep through the man’s shirt at his shoulder. Aaron looked at the wound on the infidel’s leg. Someone, maybe the Infidel Friend himself, had re-bandaged it. The dressing didn’t cover all of the burns, however.
They were fresh, and sported pus-filled sores around their edges.

The man stood in that odd way of his, using his right arm as support to help get his right leg beneath him. “I would bathe, if you would be so kind as to allow me. My treatment, as fine as it has been, has given me no opportunity to lance my boils or wash off my dried blood.”

“He could swim off,” Fitch warned.

“You could shoot him,” Aaron shot back.

“If it is of any help to you,” the infidel said, “I could remain right by this edge. I will not stray from the stone.”

Duncan shot Aaron a worried glance.

“Go ahead,” Aaron said, and then turned to his men. “If he lets go of the edge, shoot him.”

The Infidel Friend took off his shirt, again shamelessly. The wounds were horrid. Aaron shook his head, but kept his eyes on the man. Blood was seeping from the bullet hole in the infidel’s shoulder. Purple bruises lined the man’s torso. Aaron knew that kind of bruise, having had them himself. They were from taking a bullet while wearing body armor.

Aaron wandered over to the river to make sure he would have a good shot in case the infidel decided to try and swim for freedom.

The infidel did not enter the water immediately, but instead unwound his bandages; first the one on his shoulder, then the one around his chest, and finally the one about his leg.

Aaron, despite his best effort, did look away as the last of the man’s wounds were revealed. The infidel had been bitten mid-thigh, and the jaws of whatever beast had gotten to him had ripped through the muscle there. The burns covered the bite thoroughly, and the skin had healed over the lacerations in loose, scabbing chunks.

Resolutely, Aaron looked back. “Was it a hound that got you?”

“There, yes,” the man replied, pointing to his leg. “A big one, nearly five feet tall.”

Duncan whistled.

“Rare to find beasts that big, even when the devils are thick,” Aaron said.

“I’m a lucky man.”

“You are,” Aaron said. “You should have bled to death, it’s a blessing that you got burnt in the same place.”

“Dyitzu fire. And again, I’m a lucky man.”

He dipped the bandages into the stream and kneaded them with his hands. The blood colored the water just slightly, before becoming invisible in the light current. He did the same with his pants and shirt before wringing them out and laying them across the stone floor to dry. Only then did he descend into the water.

Aaron wondered if it hurt him to feel the cold water on his wounds.

“It’s Turi,” the boy’s voice came from the hallway behind him.

Aaron jumped. Duncan’s gun went off, and water shot up from behind the infidel.

“Damn it,” Aaron shouted. “Duncan, I told you to safety that rifle.”

Duncan did so.

“Everything’s fine,” Aaron shouted. “You can come in.”

“Martin told us you had the infidel here,” Turi’s voice was getting closer as he spoke, “and Ellen wanted to talk to him.”

“What on Earth for?”

Turi and a young girl entered.

Ellen.

“I’m the one who saved him,” Ellen said, “so I need to talk to him.”

Turi began to whisper in her ear.

“She’s new,” Aaron explained to Duncan. “And keep your rifle trained on him.”

Duncan, who had let his rifle dip, brought it back up.

The infidel had settled into the water and was keeping himself afloat by resting his crossed arms on the shore.

The bloody trails coming from his body took longer to disappear into the river than did those that came from his bandages. Aaron shook his head. Somehow it seemed wrong to imprison someone injured so badly.

If he were healthy, he’d have killed you already.

“I do remember you, miss,” the infidel said to her. “I am fortunate that you were there to pull me from the river.”

Though the words seemed sincere to Aaron, they struck her like a blow.

“I need to talk to him,” the girl pleaded. “Can I speak with him in private?”

Duncan’s eyes widened in alarm.

“No,” Aaron said. “Say your peace, and leave quickly. You shouldn’t have been let in here.”

She rushed forward, pushing off of Turi and running to the infidel. She knelt on the bank next to him.

Duncan flipped off his safety.

“Jesus,” Aaron shouted, grabbing Duncan’s barrel and forcing it upwards.

“I’m sorry,” Ellen was saying to the Infidel Friend, nearly in tears. “I didn’t know. I went to get help. I didn’t know they were going to kill you. I’m so sorry. I wouldn’t have told them. I would have kept you secret.”

Aaron grabbed her by the arm and pulled her away from the bank. “Jesus, girl! Don’t you get it?”

She caught her balance as he let her go and looked at him. She rubbed at her shoulder where he’d grabbed her, looking like a beaten innocent.

“This man is a killer,” Aaron said. “A killer. We aren’t keeping him prisoner because we feel like it. We’re keeping him because if we don’t, he’ll hurt people. People like you. You can’t get that close to him. He can use you against us.”

Aaron noticed Duncan’s rifle was still pointed towards the girl.

“Duncan.”

“Yes, sir?”

“Eyes and gun on the infidel.”

Duncan snapped his rifle back in line.

“There’s a story, miss,” the infidel said, “about a scorpion and a turtle. Have you heard it?”

Turi stepped back, his mouth open.

What? Why is he surprised?

Ellen shook her head.

“The scorpion comes to the turtle and says, ‘Can you take me across the river.’ The turtle says, ‘No, why would I? You’ll sting me.’ ‘Of course I won’t,’ says the scorpion, ‘If I do we’ll both drown.’ Satisfied, the turtle carries the scorpion across the river. Midway through, the scorpion stings the turtle. The turtle feels its body numb as the poison enters its blood, and asks, ‘Why? Why would you kill us both?’ The scorpion replies, ‘It’s my nature.’”