The War Hound and the World's Pain (12 page)

“I’ll not attempt to dissuade you now. Master Sedenko,” said I, “for I’ll admit that your company is as enjoyable as you claim mine to be. I head for Nürnberg, and from there go to a small town called Ammendorf.”

“I have never heard of it.”

“Neither had I. But I have instructions to go there and go there I must. It’s possible that you would not wish to continue with me, once we reach Nürnberg, where there will be plenty of opportunities for you to find employment. And it is possible that, once I find Ammendorf, you will not be able to accompany me farther. You know that I have no wish to describe my true mission to you, but you are right in recognizing its importance. You must agree, for your own sake as well as mine, to accept orders where they relate to my Quest.”

“I am a soldier and accept a soldier’s discipline, captain. Besides, this is your country and you know it a good deal better than I.I shall be proud to accompany you for as long as it suits you.”

Sedenko pushed back his sheepskin cap on his head and grinned again. “I am a simple Kazak. All I need is a little food, a worthy master, my faith in God and a chance to ride and use this”—he drew his sabre and kissed the hilt—”and I am completely satisfied.”

“I can promise you food, at least,” I said. We mounted again together. I felt that I would come to miss Sedenko’s companionship when the time came for our ways to part, but was selfish enough to allow him to stay with me until then.

A little later, as we took the highway to Nürnberg, he spoke more of Klosterheim. His distaste for his former employer was profound.

“He told me of the witches he’s killed—some of them children. Christian folk, by the sound of them. I draw the line at children. What do you say, Captain von Bek?”

“I have a great deal of blood on my hands,” I said. “Too much to let it grieve me immoderately, young Muscovite.”

“But in War—the blood was spilled in War.”

“Oh, indeed, in War. Or in the name of War. How many children do you think have died because of me, Sedenko?”

“You are a commander of men. There are always casualties which one regrets.”

I sighed. “I regret nothing,” I said. “But should I have regrets, I would regret that I ever left Bek. It is far too late for that now. I was not always a soldier, you see. You come from a race of warriors. Mine is a race of scholars and rural noblemen. We had no great tradition of warlike exploits.” I shrugged. “There have been peasant children killed by my men, one way or another. And I was at Magdeburg.”

“Ah,” said Sedenko, “Magdeburg.” He was silent for a while, almost, I thought, from a sense of respect. Nearly half an hour later he said to me: “It was an unholy shambles, Magdeburg, was it not?”

“Aye, it was that.”

“Any true soldier would wish not to have been there.”

“I’d agree,” I told him.

It was the last we were to speak of Magdeburg.

Soon we began to detect the signs of large movements of armies upon the road and we took to travelling along tracks which, according to my maps (which were the most accurate I had ever used), roughly paralleled the main highway. Even then we occasionally encountered small parties and once or twice were challenged. As had become my habit I cried: “Envoy!” and we were permitted to pass without much in the way of questioning.

I determined that it would be unwise to go directly into Nürnberg. Rumour had it that a number of Saxony’s greatest nobles were gathering there, perhaps to plan peace but more likely to consider fresh strategies and alliances. I had no wish to become involved in this and it would be harder, under sophisticated questioning, to maintain my deception. In those days one was the object of suspicion if one did not declare a loyalty or a master. It scarcely mattered what the cause might be, so long as one swore fealty to it.

About five miles beyond Nürnberg, in a glade where we bad set up our camp, I asked Sedenko if he did not consider it time to part company. “They would welcome you in Nürnberg,” I said. “And I can guarantee you that it would not be long before you saw an action.”

He shook his head. “I can always go back,” he said.

“There are lands ahead,” I told him, “where you could not travel.”

“Beyond Ammendorf, captain?”

“I’m not sure. I receive fresh orders there.”

“Then let us determine what I do when you discover the nature of those orders.”

I laughed. “You’re as tenacious as a terrier, Grigory Petrovitch.”

“We of the Kazak hosts are famous for our tenacity, captain. We are a free people and value our freedom.”

“Yet you have picked me as a master?”

“One must serve something,” he said simply, “or someone. Is that not so, captain?”

“Oh, I think I would agree,” I said. But what would he think, I wondered, if he knew I served the cause of Satan?

Privately, I had another cause. I was maintained in my Quest by the thought that sooner or later I must be reunited with the Lady Sabrina. Witch or no, she was the first woman I had loved as I had always expected to be able to love. It was more than enough. If I dwelled too long on the implications of my Quest I would lose my ordinary judgment. Lucifer might speak of the fate of the world, of Heaven and Hell, but I preferred to think simply in terms of human love. I understood that imperfectly enough, but I understood it better than anything else.

The following morning we passed a long gallows-tree on which six bodies swung. The bodies were clothed in black habits and blood was encrusted on the limbs, showing that the men had been tortured and broken before being hanged. At the foot of one I saw a wooden crucifix. It was impossible to determine to what order the monks had belonged. It scarcely mattered, as I knew. What was certain was that they would have been robbed of anything of value they had possessed. It was no wonder that so many orders were these days renewing their vows of poverty. There was no value in amassing wealth when it could be taken from you on almost any excuse.

A mile or two farther along the road we came upon an abbey. Parts of it were still burning and, for some reason, the bodies of monks and nuns had been folded over the walls at regular intervals, in the way a fanner might hang the corpses of vermin to warn off others. I had seen many an example of such dark humour in my years of War. I had been guilty of similar acts myself. It was as if one wished to defy one’s conscience, to defy the very eye of God which, one sometimes felt, was looking down on all the horror and noting the participants.

If Lucifer were to be believed, God had indeed looked down upon me and judged me unfit for Heaven.

I was glad when, the next day, I consulted my map and discovered that Ammendorf was only a few hours’ ride away.

I had no notion of how I was to find the Wildgrave, the Lord of the Hunt, but I would be relieved to have completed the first stage of my Quest, come what may.

The road took us through a thick forest whose floor was covered with mossy rocks and a tangle of vines which threatened the footing of our horses. The smell of that undergrowth, of the damp earth and the leaves, was so thick that it seemed at times to cover my nostrils. The path rose until we were riding a steep hill, still in the wood. Then we had reached the crest but, because of the foliage, could see little of what lay ahead of us. We rode down the other side.

Sedenko had become excited. He seemed to be gaining more from my adventure than was I. He was evidently having trouble in not asking me further questions and, since I could in no way answer him, I encouraged his discretion.

When I judged Ammendorf to be little more than a mile from us I reined in my horse and reminded my companion of our earlier conversation. “You do know, Sedenko, that you might not be able to follow me beyond Ammendorf?”

“Of course, captain.” He offered me a frank stare. “It is what you said before.”

Satisfied with this, I continued to ride along the narrow trail which now twisted to follow the natural contours of the valley floor.

The trees began to thin and the valley to widen until at last we came to Ammendorf.

It lay beneath a huge, grey cliff streaked with moss and ivy. It was built all of dark, ancient stone which seemed to blend with the rock of the cliff itself.

No smoke lifted from Ammendorf’s chimneys. No beasts stood in the walled yards, no children played in the streets; no townsfolk stood at Ammendorf’s doors or windows.

Sedenko was the first to bring his horse to a halt. He leaned on his saddle-bow, staring in surprise at the strange, black town ahead of us.

“But it’s dead,” he said. “Nobody has lived here in a hundred years!”

AMMENDORF AT CLOSE quarters gave off an odour of rot and decrepit age. Slates had fallen from roofs; thatch and wooden shingles were broken and tattered; only the heavy stones of the buildings were in one piece and they were covered in damp foliage and mildew.

The whole village had been abandoned suddenly, it seemed to me, and the green cast of the light through the gloom of the overhanging crag, the distinct and regular drip-drip of water, the soft yielding of the ground underfoot when we dismounted, all contributed to an impression of desolation.

Sedenko sniffed at the air and put his hand to the hilt of his sabre. “The place stinks of evil.”

We peered upwards. I thought I detected more man-cut stone at the top of the crag, but a tangle of ivy and hawthorn obscured everything.

Could Lucifer, I wondered to myself, be losing His memory to send me to a place deserted for so long? There was none here to direct me to a Wildgrave doubtless long since dead.

Sedenko’s look was questioning. Plainly he did not wish to say what he was thinking: that I had been, at the very least, badly misdirected.

The day was closing hi. I said to Sedenko: “I must camp here. But if you wish to travel on now I would suggest that you do not hesitate.”

The Muscovite grunted, fingering his face as he considered the prospect. Then he looked up at me and uttered a small laugh. “This could be the adventure I have been expecting,” he said.

“But not one you would relish.”

“It’s in the nature of adventure, is it not, to risk that possibility?”

I clapped him on the back. “You are a companion after my own heart, Kazak. Would that you had been with me in some of my former engagements.”

“I have it in mind, captain, to be with you in some of your future engagements.”

The future for me was so mysterious, so numinous, that I could not answer him. We began to explore the houses, one by one. We found flagstones cracked and pushed apart by plants. In some, small trees were growing. Everything was damp. Pieces of furniture were rotting; fabric fell to shreds at a touch.

“Even the rats have gone.” Sedenko returned from a cellar with a wine-jar. He broke the seal and sniffed. “Sour.”

He dropped it into an empty fireplace.

“Well,” he said, “which of these comfortable houses shall we make our own?”

We decided in the end upon the building which had evidently been the town’s meeting place. This was larger and airier than the others and we could light a fire in the big grate.

By dusk, with our horses billeted in one corner of the room and the fire providing us with sufficient heat and some light, we were ready to sleep.

Outside, in the deserted streets of Ammendorf, there was little movement. A few birds hunted for insects and occasionally we heard the bark of a fox. Soon Sedenko was snoring, but it was harder for me to lose consciousness. I continued to speculate on Lucifer’s reasons for sending me to this place. I thought about Sabrina and despaired of ever seeing her again. I even considered retracing my steps partway and seeking service with the Swedish King whose army was just now marching at some speed through Germany. Then Magdeburg came back to me, as well as Lucifer’s threats of what should happen if I betrayed Him, and I lapsed into despondency. Two or three hours must have passed in this useless state of mind before I nodded off, whereupon I was immediately aroused by what I was sure was the sound of hoofbeats.

I was on my feet almost with relief, picking up my scabbarded sword as I ran towards the window and looked out into the murk. A thin drizzle had begun to fall and clouds obscured moon and stars. I thought I saw the glow of an oddly coloured lantern moving between the buildings. The light began to grow brighter and brighter until it seemed to be flickering over half Ammendorf, And the hoofbeats grew louder, filling my ears with their din—yet still I could see no rider.

Sedenko was beside me now, his sabre ready in his fist. He rubbed at his face. “In the name of God, captain, what is it?”

I shook my head. “I’ve no idea, lad.”

Even the meeting hall was shaking and our own mounts were stamping and whinnying, trying to break free of their halters.

“A storm,” Sedenko said. “Some kind of storm, eh, captain?”

“It’s like none I’ve ever witnessed,” I told him. “But you could be right.”

He was convinced that he was wrong. Every gesture, every movement of his eyes, betrayed his superstition.

“It is Satan’s coming,” he whispered.

I did not tell him why I thought that explanation unlikely.

All at once, from around a bend in the street, a horseman appeared. As he came into sight the hounds which surrounded his beast’s feet, an undulation of savagery, began to bay. There were other riders behind him, but the leader was gigantic, dwarfing all. He wore a monstrous winged helmet framing a bearded face from which the eyes glowed with the same green-blue light which flooded the village. His great chest was encased in a mail shirt half-covered by the bearskin cloak which hung from his shoulders. In his left hand was a long hunting spear of a type not used in at least a hundred years. His legs were also mail-clad and the feet stuck into heavy stirrups. He lifted his head and laughed up at the sky, his voice joining in the note his hounds made until all seemed to be baying together, while his companions, shadows still behind him, began one by one to give forth the same dreadful noise.

“Mother of God,” said Sedenko. “I’ll fight any man fairly, but not this. Let’s go, captain. They are warning us. They are driving us away.”