Heaven's Gate (30 page)

Another wave goes through the crowd, jostling even those at the periphery;
Aden
crouches low, unnoticed in the shadows at the base of the wall. It’s about time, the boy must be standing on the gallows now by the sound of things. Aden’s thumb jerks over the tip of the match, as he touches the flame to the fuse, he sees the crowd near him on the corner part to admit a troop of heavy war horses, bearing Crusaders looking for all the world like the Union blue had never been bloodied at Golifany. In the middle of the troop
 
next to a stout old man in the robes of a priest, is Angus Leedon; even had his likeness not been on half the coins or paper money that Aden had ever seen in the last five years, there could be no mistaking the insignia of rank or the look of cold command. Then, suddenly,
Aden
realizes that it is a look he has seen before, the face has changed enough so that simply seeing it on paper or poorly minted in a coin is not enough for
Aden
to recognize. He had been so much younger when he knew him and people change but there is no mistaking the eyes. It is incredible! More than he can bring himself to believe but
Aden
is certain that not only is he looking at the most powerful man in the
Union
but they have met before.
 
Too startled to even think of snuffing the fuse
Aden
, scurries into the quieting crowd seeking his companions.

“They are here already,” Nathaniel whispers urgently, casting his eye over to the troop of horsemen, “they will almost certainly have gunmen all around the square and more troops outside, the General brought two full fifty man squads on the train with us. You must trust me, Samuel, if you want any chance at reaching those Gates.”

“I don’t care how many men he’s brought I will never marry that pig,” Lillian snarls.

“He might be more interested in what you have done with that book, girl. Besides what you want hardly matters. This is a decision for Samuel, he is the one who will die here if he plays the hero.”

The Pilgrim’s only response is to set his jaw and reach beneath his coat for the stock of his heavy pistol.

“Don’t be a fool, Samuel! Have you given so much, to survive this long, only to throw it away now? It is not just steel and lead that you face here, you and I both know that Rugan’s ‘revaluation’ has nothing to do with his faith! It’s almost certain that every man you can cut down will rise again, stronger than he was before. It is time to choose sides, I can offer you no protection if you do not surrender to me now.”

“I promised the Necromancer I would find him,” Blake says, through gritted teeth.

Nathaniel can see the hatred burning in the Pilgrim’s pale eyes but his hand does not draw the weapon clear of its holster.

“We have found him,” Nathaniel sooths, taking advantage of Blake’s hesitation. “All you have to do is tell the General of his involvement and I can destroy him.”

“What about your involvement?” Lillian chimes in, “I’m sure Angus would be just as interested to hear of your master, perhaps it would be in your best interests to help us leave before the General actually sees us.” Lillian casts a glance towards the riders at the other side of the tight packed square and can’t help but shiver at the thought that the man, who had helped her escape, was also the one who sent the corpses against them on the road.

“Silence, you little fool,” Nathaniel snaps. “Do you think that we have been idle all these years? That twenty loyal men are all I can bring to bear? I do not put my faith in corpses like Rugan. If General Leeden even credited your story as anything but the desperate fantasies of a willful girl, then all you would succeed in doing is getting Samuel and that mutant scum you are travelling with killed and starting a civil war to split the
Union
and bathe it in blood. I have no wish for things to come to that but you should know it will change nothing and will simply play into the hands of a man, who has already tried to kill you and your companions once. What do you say, Samuel?
 
I only need a single crack of doubt to separate the Father from the General’s protection and then he’s as good as dead.” Nathaniel smiles at the prospect of his enemy finally being toppled from his position of trust.

“And all I have to do is put myself in your caring clutches? Trust in your master’s mercy?”

“Do you see any other way to leave this square?” the Pardoner hisses, pressing home his advantage.

Before Blake can answer
Aden
comes barreling through the crowd. His cry of “down!” echoes through the square, which has become suddenly silent, as the realization of the General’s presence finally penetrates the massed consciousness. Seconds later flames and smoke billow from the base of
 
the wall nearest the General’s party. Men and rearing horses are hurled away from the blast, along with flying bricks and mortar that wreak devastation on the panicked crowd. Without waiting for the Pardoner or his men to have a chance to recover Blake explodes into action with a yell that sounds deadened and surreal to ears still ringing in the aftermath of the bomb. Faster than the eye can follow Blake’s revolver clears it’s holster and spits fire at the first of the Pardoners gathered around them. Lillian’s gun is only a fraction of a second behind cutting down two more men before they have even realized that they are under attack. From his prone position
Aden
takes in the situation and the white hems of Pardoners’ robes. A lifetime of living as an outlaw and gunman has given him the reactions to shoot faster than the Pardoners even as it has removed any compunction about shooting them from behind.

From his vantage on his teetering horse, Father Rugan has the chance to see the Pilgrim begin his attack. In that split second of frozen time, he watches the animal that Blake keeps so tightly cage find its expression. Half the stones from the wall have not hit the ground before half the disguised Pardoners are dead. Rugan has fallen too far to see the rest fire back but he registers the flash of white robes beneath the dying men’s coats. Was it possible that the Pilgrim had shot him that look of hate before the shooting began? or had he imagined it? There was no way that the Pilgrim could understand Rugan’s true nature was there? Suddenly the presence of the soldiers around him offers little comfort. His horse hits the ground amidst the others, from the corner of his vision Rugan sees Angus Leedon go spinning into the crowd. How could the Pilgrim have planned this? How could he have known? The questions pluck at his thoughts as insistently as the pain from the weight of the horse on his left leg. Beyond the square there were at least twenty gunmen on each exit, there should have been no possibility of escape for the fugitives but those men would have their hands full now with the hundreds of panicked citizens struggling from the square, their flight turns into a frenzied stampede when the wall that makes one side of the square begins to groan and topple.

Nathaniel ducks back behind the water sellers’ tent nursing his lifeless arm; beyond his flimsy canvas sanctuary the last of his men are withering under the cross fire of the three companions, as the square tears itself apart. When the sound of gunfire and the thunder of falling stone have died away, the Pardoner peeks from behind the canvas into the carnage that litters the square. The crowd is bottle necked around the exits, only the ruined archway through which the Crusaders had passed offers any hope of escape, since by and large, the crowd had run away from the source of the explosion and the collapsing wall. Nathaniel watches as Blake jogs across the square and grasps the bridle of one of the milling horses, whose rider is lying unmoving a few feet away; a few of the soldiers, who have regained their feet, try to protest but one sweep of his broad barreled gun is enough to subdue the battered men.

Once he is mounted, Blake signals for the other two to join him. It is not long before his shadow falls over the still prone Father Rugen.

“I said I’d find you, Necromancer,” the Pilgrim says, looking down at the trapped priest. “I should have guessed who you were, when you said that you had been at Golifany.”

“I…” Rugan opens his mouth to protest but he knows that there is no point, the false vitality, with which he normally invests himself, is gone and it is a death’s head that looks up at the vengeful rider.

“You should have just taken her north. They cannot find the Gate! You just don’t understand what it is! What it means!”

“And what does it mean? You were never going to let me get near it either, even though you know what that would mean. You tried to use me, then you tried to kill me. That was a mistake.”

“You have to understand, you think there is forgiveness beyond the Gate, absolution but there is none of that only emptiness. You must understand, now, before you do more harm…”

“And how should I understand betrayal, murder and dark sorcery? How should I learn to trust a creature like you?”

“You say you are a God fearing man, Blake and I know only too well how you fear him! but is not more of the Christ man’s message about compassion than selfishness? Could a true Christian save themselves at the expense of so many?”

“I suppose I should ask a priest?” Blake snarls in contempt, drawing back the hammer on his revolver.

“Don’t…” Rugan’s last words are lost in the roar of the gun.

“That’s one problem dealt with, we’d better get out of here before more arrive” Blake spits on the priest’s corpse. “Come on, before they get organized,” the Pilgrim urges as neither of his fellow riders make a move. To their left a few Crusaders are starting to regain their feet, weapons in hand; Blake sends a couple of shots their way, causing them to scatter as they seek cover in the chaos of the ruined square. Shots ring out over the heads of the crowd at the other end of the square, a sure sign that the Crusaders stationed at the other exits are trying to make it through to their fellows.

“Come on,” Lillian says softly to
Aden
, turning her horse to follow the Pilgrim. She gets
 
no response from the tall mutant. She follows Aden’s gaze and then looks quickly down again and she sees her horse stepping gingerly over the corpse of the man who had set her escape in motion, she suppresses a shudder at the sight of the once full face now skeletal and sporting a oozing bullet hole like a third eye. They have all tried to use me she thinks bitterly to herself, the General, the priest, the vampires. Is he any different? she asks herself studying the white haired rider ahead. Too late to stop now a part of her answers, let him think he is using you if it protects you from the others. Lillian takes one last dispassionate glance at the fallen confessor, then spurs her mount after the Pilgrim.

 
Aden
is not so quick to leave, aware of the growing danger and the cries of the soldiers, still he finds that his eyes are locked on the wooden platform across the square, where the mutant child swings from a length of rope his legs still kicking. A man lies next to the lever, his head staved in by a flying stone. Had he been some tenacious zealot who pulled the lever before quitting the stand? or had it simply been the force of the explosion that had thrown him back triggering the trap door and left the child dancing on empty air with a broken neck? There is simply no way to tell.

Chapter 15:

“From Dust to Dust”

The central square of the town of
Silverstop
is still full of the unclaimed dead. With the chaos surrounding the bomb and the injury of the
Union
’s foremost citizen, few bodies have been removed from the smoking chaos and fewer still have yet found rest in sacred ground. With the coming of night, the wretched denizens of the poor quarter are free to follow the carrion birds in picking at the dead, but there are others who walk such places and without the touch of blessed earth, no soul is free to resist them. The moon is nearly at its height, when two new figures enter the square, they do not pick from body to body like the others but make straight for the dead priest, still half buried under the rubble of the fallen wall.

As the two approach, one unlimbers a pipe, new carved from the long shaft of a human leg bone and begins to play a lilting melody. The musician’s companion frowns at this but at least the sound masks the harsh, guttural words that pour from him, as he stares down at the drawn face of the trapped corpse. The blood had long stopped flowing from the wound in the dead man’s forehead, now the black liquor blooms again, pouring over layers of dried gore as the dead man shifts his weight. Soon enough the dead man begins to sit up, lifeless eyes swivel in sunken sockets, taking in the scene around him. In spite of the darkness, his sight penetrates every corner of the rubble strewn square; recognition, then memory slowly
trickle
back, along with the knowledge that something is deeply, dreadfully wrong. At last, when he can no longer deny the stark truth, the corpse throws back its head, pumping his lungs like dry, reluctant bellows in order to let out a cry of despair that no, music however sublime, could sweeten.

“Noo,” the corpse protests in heavy tones, “this must not be! It is forbidden. I should lie in blessed soil now. Why have you used me so, brother?”