Skillful Death (67 page)

“Lean forward,” the woman yells. The nose of her horse is up near my thigh.

I follow instructions and the result is painful. The bouncing horse pounds the saddle into my guts. I understand the point as tree limbs fly overhead.

The horses pick up speed. I don’t even want to watch. I focus on the bobbing mane in front of me as the horses sprint under the low branches. With one mistake, one errant limb, I’ll know what it’s like to swallow my face.

The horse turns and I see the ground below morph into hard-packed dirt. We’re on a road. My horse pulls up even with the one in the lead and the third horse pulls up next to us. The three animals synchronize as we run down the dirt road.

“How much longer?” I yell to the woman.

“Six and a half grids,” she says.

Figures.

I don’t know how far a grid is, but it sounds far.

The male rider pulls ahead. He’s about three or four lengths ahead, kicking up dust in my face again, when he takes off to the left. To my horror, he leaves the road for the forest and my horse follows. We slow down once in the thick brush, and my horse seems to take more care to pick a path. You might think that going slower would be easier. You’d be wrong. The horse bounces more at this medium speed.

I don’t know how long we have left to travel, and I’m losing my sense of how long we’ve been bouncing along like this. The horse stops and I open my eyes. The riders pull their horses up on either side of me and they dismount. The woman pulls the reins from my hands.
 

We’re at a dark red barn in the shadow of giant arching trees. The man waves me down and I slide between the horses to a springy bed of short grass. This place reminds me of Vermont, but in a good way. I step out from between the horses, cautious not to stand behind them.

“What is this place?” I ask the guy.

He doesn’t reply. He takes the reins of the three horses and starts to walk to the corner of the barn. I start to follow at a safe distance, but the woman grabs my arm.

“We’re going this way,” she says.

“Why?”

“For the meeting.”

She doesn’t go in the big barn doors. Instead, she leads me around the side. A little shed juts out of the side of the barn and stone steps lead down and around. This side has shingle siding instead of clapboards, and the color is natural weathered wood instead of dark red. I smell cows. She takes me to a door that creaks open. A man’s voice filters down from above. I can’t make out what he’s saying.

We climb worn steps to another door that opens to the back of a crowd. They’re standing in the big open space of the barn, looking up at a gray-haired man who’s standing on a platform at the end. He’s right in the middle of a speech.

“…put them back on their heels and now they have another distraction? We won’t get a better opportunity.”

A much younger man, with big muscles pushing at the seams of his flannel shirt, steps to the gray-haired man and pats him on the back. The older man hands the younger a big stick, which I’m guessing gives the younger man permission to speak.

“Thank you, Frère Sobaka,” the muscle man says. He could be the brother of the rider who brought me here. They look very similar. I glance at the woman who led me in. Is she his sister?

“Does anyone else have an opinion before we take our vote?” the muscle man asks.

The woman who is helped to the platform is ancient. Her curly hair is white and wispy, like albino cotton candy. Hands guide her by the elbows as she shuffles across the platform to take the stick from the muscle man. The crowd falls silent, like everyone is holding their breath to hear the delicate voice of the tiny woman.

We’re next to a stout pillar and under a hay loft or something, so it’s hard to get a sense of the size of the group. I can see fifty or sixty people, but there could be more tucked away to the side. The wood above us creaks and I wonder if there might be more people standing up there.

Her voice is strong. “I was a teenager when this war started,” she says. “My father was accused of great crimes and then he was assassinated by a mob of your people. They tied his legs to an oak, tied his arms to his own horse, and then whipped the beast until it tore him in two.”

Murmurs from the group become grumbles as she makes this claim. The muscle man comes to her side and whispers something in her ear. “What?” she asks him, and he whispers again.

When she starts speaking again, her voice has lost some of its volume.

“I speak of the past just so we won’t forget what it has to teach us. We can make demons of mortals. We can lay blame at the feet of our friends and neighbors. We can, but we shouldn’t. They’ve poisoned our people, these Providentials. We rely on them for our prosperity? That’s nonsense. They bring us war, and sacrifice, and death. How many of your sons and daughters have been conscripted into this useless battle?”

She begins to cough. The group doesn’t fidget.
 

“Let them smash against each other until their pieces no longer stir. But let us not raise another finger to help them. Without us to fight, they can sacrifice themselves and we will no longer be held hostage by their war.” A small percentage of the people applaud as she’s helped from the stage. Many people clear their throats.

Muscle man retrieves his stick and returns to center stage.

“Any more opinions, or information? Has my sister returned, by any chance?”

“Vasil!” the woman who led me in calls. She raises one hand to wave and uses her other to grip my arm again. The group parts as she leads me from the back to the platform. When we step up and turn around, I realize the size of the group. They’re packed into every space. Men and women not only crowd the floor, but stand on every level of the giant barn. There’s even a window on the end with faces looking in. They must be standing out on a roof.

Vasil—the muscle man—approaches me and puts a hand on my shoulder. Up close, he’s loud.

“This man,” he booms. He turns to me and says, “Malcolm.” I nod. Does everyone know my name?

“This man, Malcolm, was brought here by the wandering Providential. He knows about their plans. Tell us what you know.”

He hands me the stick.

“I’m,” I start. “Um. I’m not sure what you want me to say?”

A rumble of discontent starts at the front of the group and washes to the back. I take a small step back. I can picture the ancestors of these people tearing a man in half with a horse. I really can. They’re an angry, angry group.

“Just tell us what’s happened since you got here,” Vasil says in my ear.

“When I got here,” I say. I don’t think anyone can hear me over their own discontent. I start again, nearly shouting. “When I got here, the logicals tried to convince me that I had made a deal with them.” For a second, I think I should explain “logicals,” but I’m sure they will understand from the context. “I convinced them to let me leave their camp.”

The group is quiet now, so I lower my voice. I want to draw them in, if I can.

“Bud, um… Constantine, sought out the old man in the shack? The one with his eyes gouged out?” I see some nods, so I continue. “That old man told Constantine about the origin of your war.”

I’ve got a decision to make here. I didn’t expect to be talking before a group of angry villagers, and I’m not sure how to best play the situation to my advantage. On one hand, I still owe allegiance to Bud, but perhaps a large part of that feeling is because I want to prove to him that I haven’t betrayed him. On the other hand, it would be great to get out of this damned village alive.

“When Constantine left, he was just a child and didn’t know about Providentials or what any of that meant. He was just an orphaned boy, fighting for his life.”

I hear murmurs.

“He was thrown in the river and found his way into the world to live his life.”

The grumbling in the crowd is getting louder and I’m raising my voice to compensate.

“He had amnesia, and didn’t remember anything about his childhood,” I shout. It’s no use. I’ve lost them.

Vasil comes over to me and grabs the stick. I don’t let go. We’re both holding the stick when he speaks in my ear.

“We don’t care about your posturing. You can’t paint a sympathetic picture of Constantine for us. We only want to hear the facts about the last few days.”

“Oh,” I say. Vasil lets go and I raise the stick to regain command of the audience.

“We came through the bamboo and fought the rats and the lion,” I say. The crowd falls silent. “I was badly envenomated from the rats and Bud got me to the road.” This naked narrative is holding their attention. “We got a ride on a cart from a guy with a funny hat. He took us to the Yarrow Road?”

A guy from the floor interrupts me. “It may look funny, but it keeps the bugs out of my ears.” It’s the guy from the cart and his statement brings a hearty laugh from the group.
 

“Thank you, sir,” I say. Another small laugh breaks out. “When we left the cart, we found a blockade. Bud was trying to get me into town for medical help. I was going to die without help. Some people took us in—captured us, I guess you could say—and they healed me. They took me aside. They tried to convince me that I had made a deal to help them with Bud…Constantine.”

Another bit of whispering breaks out in the group. I sigh. The woman directly in front of me turns to her neighbor and whispers something. I don’t get all of it, but I swear she says something like, “He really doesn’t remember.”

I shake my head and start speaking again. I need to power through this interruption.

“So that’s when I talked the logicals into letting us go. I told them that if I could get Constantine back to the woods, I could talk him into returning his spirit. They think that with his spirit, they can defeat the creatives. Then we went to the blind man, heard our fortunes, got some advice, and left.”

They’re still quiet.

“We walked through the woods, found the creatives, and split up. Constantine is supposed to be gathering up the logicals, and I’m supposed to be gathering the creatives. We were going to get them together for one battle to end everything. The goal is for them to wipe each other out. Bud figured it was the only way to get them to stop fighting.”

I think I’m done, but they’re still looking at me. I realize that I haven’t caught them up to the present moment.

“When that storm hit, the creatives went underground. They knew where the meeting was, so they were all done with me. I ran. They shot at me. Vasil’s sister and some guy brought me here. That’s it.”

Vasil approaches and takes the stick from my hand.

“Thank you, Malcolm,” he says. “One battle to end everything.” He turns to me. “Where was this battle to take place?”

If I could just have a moment to think, I could decide if I should tell him. This group doesn’t look like they want to give me any time.

“The cedar grove near the Skomin farm,” I say.

“The cedar grove,” Vasil says. “We have two proposals on the table. We shall either engage with both sides and bring them down, or we will wait for our enemies to wipe each other out and then we will take out the remaining forces.”

“Wouldn’t it make sense to let them fight each other?” I ask.

“Quiet,” Vasil says. “By aye and nay. Shall we fight?”

“AYE!” the group yells.

“Shall we wait?”

“NAY!” they yell again. If there are any dissenting voices, I don’t hear them.

“Brothers and sisters, to arms!” Vasil says.

The floor moves instantly. People throw open the barn doors and light streams in as the people hustle out. Vasil strides to the edge of the platform but I catch him.

“They’re rigging the cedar grove with traps,” I say.

“Yes,” he says.

“And sending squads of fighters and snipers to take out the opposition,” I say.

“Frère Malcolm,” he says, looking me square in the eyes, “who do you think are their fighters?”

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More running.

The people from the barn swarm through the forest at a fast jog. Behind us, come a cavalry of plow horses. I tried to leave the group at the barn. I just melted into the background while everyone made their plans, and I hoped to sneak away during their departure. The muscle man—Vasil—put a stop to that. He cinched a belt around my waist and gave the leash to a sturdy woman. She hasn’t introduced herself yet, and that’s fine with me. I’m hoping she dies in the fighting so I can make my escape.

We’re near the back. Our speed is regulated by the horses behind us. They don’t hesitate to breathe down my back when I jog too slow. Plus, the sturdy woman doesn’t hesitate to jerk on my belt when I stumble. It’s a miracle I haven’t been trampled yet.

All at once, everyone slows to a creep. I don’t know what their signal was. People separate into groups of twenty to fifty and begin to head in different directions. I’m hoping we stay with the horses. Don’t they usually hold back and come in later?

There’s a road nearby, maybe over that hill to our right. At least that’s my guess. I hear heavy machines rumbling. It’s the chatter and clank of tracked vehicles. This is going to be a serious battle. I wonder where Bud is. I wonder if he knows what he’s coming towards.

We stop.

“Where are we?” I ask the sturdy woman. Her black hair is pulled back so tight that her eyebrows are perpetually arched, which makes her look surprised by my question.

When she speaks, the mole next to her nostril commands my full attention. It bounces with each syllable. “On Skomin property.”

“So we’re near the cedar grove?” I ask. I must have reached my question quota. She doesn’t reply.

“Are you guys going to wait and come in at the end?” I ask the woman atop the nearest horse.

“The Providentials will flee. If they try to come through this part of the forest, we’ll run them down,” she says.

“They’ll probably just go underground,” I say.

“There are no tunnels here,” she says.

“Is that what they told you?” I ask. I don’t know what I’m playing at. I’m looking for some kind of angle, but I probably don’t need one. I’ll just wait for these guys to hunt down the Providentials and then my problems will be solved. We’ll have to talk them out of lynching Bud, but that shouldn’t be too difficult. He wasn’t here for any of the years of oppression these people seem angry about. As for me, I’ve done everything that’s been asked of me. I don’t expect gratitude, but there’s a good chance these guys will let me go once the fighting is concluded. Assuming they win, of course.