“Jurgen was sayin-”
“Ah! Illumi-fuckin-nation! The same Jurgen what was so fond a tellin you the evils a liberatin the dead a their unused valuables, that ill-learned asshole?”
“Now Jurgen weren’t half bad!”
“Correct again, that sister-fuckin thief was all bad. Can’t trust a man what cleans his dirty junk in his ma’s mouth, regardless how fit she might appear to the unrelated eye.”
“That’s damn conjecture and you know it!”
“Jecture or no, don’t lend’em weight as a reliable font a knowledge.” Manfried adopted the northern accent of the accused incest practitioner: “
“No,” Hegel lied, and poorly at that.
“Well, who you trust is up to you,” Manfried sighed, “some forsaken degenerate or your own blood, sayin naught a the fuckin Virgin.”
“You know it ain’t like that, brother!”
“Then why’s we still talkin, eh?”
That was good enough for the both of them, and they bedded down for the night. A howling wolf somewhere deep in the mountains reminded them of the prudence of keeping watch and they passed another night in shifts. The sun found them where it had left them-mildly lost in the Alps.
Picking their way up and down the range for several days brought them no closer to the southern road, and after a minor squabble over whose sense of direction surpassed the other’s, they traveled southwest over the spines of great peaks, skirting their stony brows and plodding onward, always in search of the next pass. The weather grew meaner by the day, the winds slashing ever deeper through their coats. The grassy meadows diminished in size and frequency while the glaciers increased, and each night the baying of wolves seemed closer. The meat had run out and the turnips were growing scant, and while Manfried’s logic had thus far prevailed, they both appraised Horse hungrily by starlight.
After a week they clambered to the summit of a boulder field and surveyed a forest sprouting between two monstrous ridges. They scrambled down the scree, dragging the weary Horse behind them. Firewood, fresh water, protection from the wind, and hopefully meat awaited them. Birds circled the thick pines, and the shady Brothers were cheered to enter shadows after being exposed to the open sky for days on end. The silence of tombs enveloped them, and the naive Brothers prayed they might even stumble upon an overgrown churchyard. The Virgin had delivered them into such a fine sanctuary the idea did not seem beyond reason.
“Mark me well,” Hegel cautioned, “them hill-dogs we’s been hearin is probably laid up somewhere in here.”
“Stands to reason,” Manfried agreed, scampering around the thick bushes that choked the wood. “Wolf meat’s better than none, though.”
A brook could be heard deeper in the copse, and when they finally found it among the twisted trunks they made camp nearby. Stretching out on the moss and drinking their fill, they realized they had burned most of their daylight; night comes on fearful quick in the mountains. They collected a huge pile of fallen limbs and underbrush but found no evidence of any animal they might catch for dinner. Hegel made a stew out of the last few turnips while his brother set snares along the stream, and even when the wind rocked the trees and howled through the crags above they remained comfortable.
“You want to sit first?” Manfried asked, pulling his blankets tight.
“Guess so.” Hegel set both crossbows beside the fire. They had salvaged only a dozen bolts, one of these having been removed from Hans’s groin. Hegel looked forward to trying out the heavy sword and pick, his brother curling up beside Bertram’s mace and his ax leaned against a tree. After Manfried began snoring, Hegel swigged the last bit of gutrot.
Night wore slowly under the trees, the canopy blotting out any stars or moonshine. The large fire provided ample light though, and nothing stirred in the wood. Just as Hegel felt his lids droop and reckoned he should wake his brother, a peculiar feeling crept over him.
In the course of their nefarious adventures neither Grossbart was a stranger to being hunted, yet time and again Hegel felt some inkling of when their pursuers drew close, and always knew when they were being watched. He kept such things to himself save when the situation necessitated it, and years earlier his uncle had declared him to possess the Witches’ Sight after Hegel suddenly urged they take cover just before a search party rounded the path they had walked. Hegel resented the term as any good Christian would, but his hunches always proved right.
The familiar raising of his hackles told him eyes watched from somewhere beyond the fire, and given the unbroken silence their owner must be soft of sole indeed. A more cautious and clever man might have feigned sleep to lure out the voyeur or slowly reached for a weapon. Such intelligent action would have meant disaster for both Grossbarts, so it is fortunate Hegel instead leaped to his feet as he notched a quarrel, shouting at the top of his lungs.
“Come out, you bastards!”
Manfried rolled out of his blankets and gained his feet, mace and ax at the ready.
“Got guests?” Manfried blinked his eyes, peering into the night.
“Don’t know,” Hegel shouted even louder. “Guests show themselves, honest-like! Only fools and fiends cower in the dark!”
A deep laugh rolled out of the blackness, and to Hegel’s shock it came from just behind him. He twisted around, crossbow leveled, but found no target. He aimed at where he thought the laughter emanated from but held his finger, wanting to make sure.
“Come over by the fire,” Hegel called a bit more softly. Manfried moved closer to his brother, squinting into the moonless forest.
“No thank you,” a voice growled from the dark, seeming to come from a throat choked with gravel. “Unless you care to douse that fire.”
Another chuckle that chilled the guts of both Brothers. They were accustomed to being the sinister voice in the night, and did not care to be on the receiving end of such a discourse. Manfried attempted to wrest control of the situation.
Taking a step forward, Manfried intoned, “May all those who love their salvation say evermore Mary is great!”
Another genuine belly laugh, and after a pause, that voice: “My mistress is far closer than that slattern, dwelling as she does in this very wood!”
“Fire your bow,” Manfried hissed.
Hands shaking, Hegel fired toward the voice. There was a skittering in the underbrush while Hegel clumsily reloaded, Manfried cocking his ear to pin down where the man was moving. Readied, Hegel raised the weapon but the silence persisted, only their breathing and the wind disturbing the stillness. Then they heard a swishing, like a switch being swung back and forth. Now the man must be even closer, somewhere just beyond the glow of the fire.
“Not Christian,” the man complained. “Come into my house and try to murder me.”
“See, it ain’t like that,” Hegel explained. “My finger slipped.”
The chortling bothered them more than the voice, and the faint whipping noise did not help.
“Slipped, did it? Oh, then it’s alright. After all, travelers in the night are right to be cautious, especially so deep in the wood, so far in the mountains. Never know who’s out there, prowling the night.”
“Right enough,” Manfried answered, sorely aware he did not need to yell to be heard.
“It’s been an awful long time,” said the man, “since we’ve had any visitors who’d talk to us.”
“That a fact?” Hegel swallowed, still trying to pinpoint the man’s location.
“Most just scream like children and run. Rather, they try to run.” Neither Grossbart found this warranted even a chuckle, let alone the drawn-out laugh that shook their nerves.
“We’s talkin,” Manfried pointed out. “Ain’t gonna run. Anyone runs, reckon it’ll be you.”
Hegel could not return his brother’s weak smile. “Yeah, uh, that’s how it is, friend.”
“Oh, I think I could make you run,” the voice growled. “Yes, I wager you’d run if you weren’t too scared to do nothing but mess your drawers and pray. All it’d take is me taking a few more steps toward that fire. Still want me to come into the light? Fair’s fair, here I come.”
“Nah, that’s alright,” Hegel quickly interjected. “You’s fine where you’s at, and we’s fine where we’s at, no sense in, uh, no sense in-”
“Forcin us to kill you,” Manfried finished, but the words almost stuck in his craw. He was no superstitious bumpkin but he knew dark things move at night, especially in the wilds where men rarely journey. Still, no sense in getting all frazzled. Sweat poured down his face despite the frigid night air. The chortling coming from the dark twisted his bowels, and his whole body shook with nervous excitement.
“Can’t have that,” the unseen interloper managed through his mirth. “My goodness, no.”
“Knew he was bluffin,” Manfried muttered, mouth dry and brow damp.
“Can’t have
“Yeah.” Hegel tried to keep his voice from quavering but he felt ill and weird. The Witches’ Sight-if that was truly what he possessed instead of mundane intuition- wracked his body with chills, every scrap of his skin itching to dash off into the night away from this clearly Mary-forsaken wood.
“So we’s decided,” Hegel finally said.
“Yes we are,” the voice almost whispered from the trees.
“You stay where you’s at and we stay where we’s at,” Hegel confirmed.
“Yes.”
“Good.” Hegel felt relieved.
“Until morning.”
“Til mornin?” Manfried bit his lip.
“When I fall upon you and eat you both alive.”
For the first time in their lives the Grossbarts were dumb-struck.
“You’ll scream then,” he continued, his voice rising with the wind. “You’ll beg and cry and I’ll suck the marrow from your bones before you expire. You’ll feel bits of you sliding into my belly still attached, and I’ll wear your skins when the weather turns.”
“Uh,” Hegel managed, looking like an occupant of the crypts from which they made their living.
Manfried could not even get that much out, eyes like saucers. His lips moved in prayer but no sound emerged. His faith that whoever waited outside their vision posed no serious hazard to them had dissipated. He wanted to spit in the face of whoever lurked in the trees, to say something so insulting it would make even his brother blush. What finally came out mirrored Hegel’s statement:
