I Know Not (The Story of Fox Crow) (6 page)

      Everything became crystal clear as fear continued to fuel my rage. Their cries were cobbled together of the death rattles of a hundred corpses, backed by the screams of a thousand mourning women. My answer was a roar of all life and the living screaming at death itself. My scalp suddenly felt too tight for my skull. I cradled the Angel in my hands, letting the cold metal of the Phantom’s robes flow into me as they came closer. The Fog released images, smells, thoughts and impressions. In a strange way, I remembered their kind, but I remembered them much taller, much bigger. As I glanced down to their brother, who even now was gurgling messily at my feet, the specter in my brain whispered that they can die, and death was my one, true calling.

      I leapt back and then planted my feet in preparation. Redcaps are powerful, far stronger than a man though shorter. Inside my head a foreign flavored voice whispered tantalizingly:
Be the wind, untouchable and supple. Power is only good if you bring it to a target, strength is only worthwhile if it is concentrated
. My hand tightened upon my sword, then loosened as I took a deep breath. Between one heartbeat and the next, I plotted a bladed course through the three of them.

      That’s when the Beast erupted inside my chest and began the butchery.

      The one on my left came straight on as the one to the right moved behind him to avoid the thrashing redcap. The last came more slowly, allowing the others first crack at the dirty work of murdering me. It turned three into one for a brief instant. The first pulled back his heavy sharpened bar in a blow that could cleave me in half from shoulder to hip, if I let it.

      I did not.

      It cocked its cleaver in a four fingered hand, but I sprang forward diving under the swing even before it was made, slapping the sharp edge of the Angel against the redcap’s spine. The thing recoiled as the blade slid along its shoulder, severing vessels and unleashing a torrent of black blood leaving it dying quickly behind me. No time for congratulations, because my second attacker was already here and now my sword tip was pointing directly away from the thing’s heart.

      The next foul faerie thing was already starting a double handed overhead chop of his own, but I sprang at it, grappling desperately. Well, to tell the truth my Left hand grabbed at his wrist, but that nasty bastard Right slammed the pommel of the Angel into the pouchy throat of the second redcap with the full force of our bodies meeting. Though shorter by a head, the redcap’s dense weight brought me to a dead stop, but not before I felt the grinding, popping vibrations of its throat muscles collapsing. Its crude weapon slid from nerveless fingers as it tore hard nails into its own throat, fighting for air. I had to gasp myself, but with more success as I brought the beast in a harsh embrace, and moved my sword to its chin. I gripped the damnable thing under the arm and heaved it right, allowing the creature’s weight against the blade of the Phantom Angel to sever its own throat.

      Yes, it was cold blooded. Yes, it was an act that would horrify anyone looking upon me. At that moment, however, it was just a method to get the corpse out of my way and ensure its death as the last redcap came within striking distance. As the second slumped into a shower of its own juices, I yanked at the Angel and brought it up, ready to impale.

      The redcap slung its sword in a circle, leaving me no choice but to lunge forward, mating our chests and making sure the only part of his swing that connected was his arm. The Phantom Angel took the thing low, in the gut, and pierced the faerie effortlessly from front to back. The thing howled, but it did not slow in the slightest.

      Remember when I said there were things out in the world that would fight on, even when mutilated and dying? Redcaps are like that, and this is why things stopped going according to plan.

      We went down in a tangle of limbs, my sword lodged in the redcap’s entrails and his too long to bring to bear while we embraced like lovers. It abandoned its sword and locked both hands on my shoulders, seeking to swallow my face. There seemed to be no neck, and no place safe to jam an arm while it tried to bite whatever part of me it could reach. I heard Theo shout, but the horrible rotting-meat smell of the redcap’s open maw enveloped my entire world.

      It bit once, twice, again, and again, catching nothing but air but nearing frenzy with the anticipation of fresh blood. Left continued to hold him barely at bay using the hilt of the Angel while right continued to play the heavy offstage. The cap dug its claws in and yanked me closer as Right came back into the light with my boot knife.

      I plunged it into the thick mass of arteries I hoped the redcap had hidden in its armpit, took it out with a twist. Hot, sticky blood burned over my fist. Four rows of teeth snapped shut next to my face. I stabbed again. The teeth came even closer, rubbery lips brushing my throat apple as I removed the blade with a twist, aimed the tip of my weapon for the ball joint in the shoulder, and rammed it to the hilt. The thing screamed. The hands loosened. The arms slackened. The mouth snapped again…and again…slower and slower.

      I heaved, throwing the creature from me as it trailed thick ribbons of black blood that streamed from a dozen wounds. My boot knife trembled in my hand as I lunged at the redcap. It began to roar, straining not just against me, but the sword buried in its chest and the host of dagger wounds I had given it. It was a matter of only a second to guess at the right spot, drive the dagger in deeply into the back of the skull, and remove it with a twist of grinding bone. I smiled obscenely as it died.

      Then the moment was stolen from me as Theo yelped again, accompanied by the fading sounds of a dying pig and the distinctive ring of shattering steel. Momentarily I considered letting him die. I had a dozen aching muscle groups, stinging scratches across my back, and a strained finger that was starting to throb insistently. Then he cried out again and something whispered that it would be a shame to waste all that effort I had spent getting him to worship me. I hawked a gobbet of phlegm on the head of one of the bleeding bodies, scooped up the Phantom Angel and ran to his rescue.

      Theo stood on the north bank of the village, his sword truncated by the strike of a redcap’s weapon. The creature pressed its advantage, swinging a stolen axe wildly. The boy dodged back and forth as his enemy cleft posts, sliced through a tree limb, shattered a sapling, and threw whole clods of soil into the air. Every strike seemed to shake the entire world, and splinters of wood, blades of grass, and specks of dirt hung suspended by fear and adrenaline in the air.

      Veiny, powerful muscles even made the air cry as the dull wood axe split it into invisible pieces. The guards-boy ducked and weaved between the paths of the steel death warrant, but he wasn’t looking into the future, simply captured in every second for fear it was his last. It would be his undoing.

      The ‘cap backed him to the log palisade of River’s Bend and struck to his left, burying the axe deeply in the wood. Theo stared at the dull metal head, pondering his near death for a second too long, and the redcap gathered the boy into its disgustingly strong grip. One hand on either one of his upper arms, the faerie drew him forward and roared like a lion into his face, and then leaned back with opened mouth preparing to bite. The thing leaned back, back, back…

      It would be his undoing, but not today.

      And then a flash of blackened steel severed one of the redcap’s wart strewn arms.

      Theo scrambled on his rear along the fence away from the thing trying to eat him. His wide eyes took in my merciless hand twirled into the redcap’s bloody mane, pulling back with all my might. I doubt he noticed the equally important knee planted in the small of the redcap’s back, which goes to show my genius largely goes unappreciated except by my victims. And who cares about impressing them? Who are they going to tell?

      He watched as the Phantom Angel rose and fell again as the other arm came up to strike at me. Another flood of black blood, another meaty thump as the limb struck the ground. Theo screamed as the fairy–thing continued to thrash and bite at every bit of nothing it could reach. I brought it around and kicked it to the side, sending it sprawling onto a chopping block. It flailed momentarily, trying to find purchase with the stumps of arms, before there was another dark flash and I used the Phantom to pin it face-down to the wood. Still it raved, still it screamed, as I moved heavily away and sat down on the grass, back against a nude apple tree.

      I flexed my aching hands and arms, wiped off a thread of black blood that had splashed across my face, and sighed. I heard Theodemar’s rapid breathing to my right, and a quick glance told me he was close to fainting.

      I had to yell to be heard, “Are you hurt?”

      “Aren’t you going to finish it?”

      My head turned left and right, but I honestly couldn’t tell what the hell he was talking about. “I said: Are you hurt?”

      “No!” but I didn’t think he was answering my question. He pressed both palms against his ears and sought to squeeze the unearthly screams of the dark fey I had unceremoniously stapled to the axe–scarred block. “Can’t you make it stop?”

      There was something desperate, pleading in his voice, and it moved a rare iota of pity inside of me. This poor boy was a month’s travel from home, further than he had ever been from the only place he had ever felt safe. Wherever the Lady Aelia’s domain lay, it was painfully obvious he had never so much as touched a riot, uprising, or battle. It must be a very boring place for a castle guard.
Lucky boy
.

      I felt an echo from inside when I gazed at the terror evident in his eyes. It took a full minute to yank the axe from the wall, but only a second to turn the bent, nicked head to a more deadly purpose. The axe came to a halt midway through the beast’s skull, but it was enough for it to die. The rest of its last scream came out between dead lips like a bladder being squeezed. After two more strikes I was confident enough to yank the Angel from its torso and sit back down. I sat there breathing for what seemed like a long time, just letting the rush of the Beast go, burying the relish with which I had done my business.

      Like a wounded animal, Theo crept forward toward the gray lump that used to be his enemy. He touched it, twice, and each time yanked back his hand as if burned. “What… What is it?”

      “A faerie. A redcap. Battlefield scavenger.” I said, levering myself to my feet and heading for the corpse of the beheaded old woman. I tore off part of her dress and used it to clean the ichor from the Angel and my hands before realizing I was covered in the stuff and it had the constancy of snot. I was going to need another bath, “The Barbarians raided this village, killed some people, took some supplies and moved on. The redcaps smelled the carnage and showed up later, looking for food and clothing.”

      “Food and clothing, they aren’t wearing…”

      “Theo, don’t!” But, of course I wasn’t quite fast enough.

      He had gotten a good look at the crude white leather garments. He could see the raw, pink edges, the splotchy patches of blue, and the unmistakable hints of stitched shut eyes, noses, and mouths. He spent several seconds vomiting, and then several minutes heaving. I grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and dragged him back into the center of the square where the air was marginally clearer. He regained control of his stomach and I sent him back down the road to the carriage, carrying a message urging the Lady to make her way here with all haste.

      An hour later the whole group arrived. I already and had a pyre started.

      The boys again showed their skill as porters, piling the villagers in a large stack spread with kindling while I hung the dead bodies of the fairies over the wall. I hoped the smell of their own dead would ward off any other fell scavengers. To be sure, as the night went on and they seemed to dissolve into bundles of sticks and piles of white curds, no fly, bird, or furred creature took even remote interest in consuming any part of them.

      In any case, we could go no further today, and I was eager to have to protection of the palisade. Aelia flat refused to sleep in any of the houses and instead had the boys pitch her tent. Her cat had no such trouble, and wandered into one and came out with a fat mouse. If danger showed up in the night I would have rather had her inside of wooden walls than behind pegged curtains of silk, and I would have argued that point if I thought there was some use.

      Worse, the boys had the enraging habit of unpacking the oak and iron treasure chest from the top of the carriage and setting it down in an out of the way spot of the camp. Surely it would take four burly men to make off with it, but I assumed all of the funds for Aelia’s mission were inside and if we lost that, we lost everything. Unfortunately, nobody was asking me what I wanted right now. Instead I made sure the watches were set for the night, and that the pig Theo had shot was well cooked and portioned out.
Shame to waste fresh meat, after all
.