way back to Elise bidding him farewell before entering the convent where she would live out her days without him. The Bird Doctor had come for them in the garden but while Martyn fell to his knees in terror she had seized up his staff and beaten the avian-masked demoniac into the fire. When the unclean spirit abandoned its vessel and came for them she stood strong, her fiery staff between them and possession. Then it had entered the unfortunate rider and fled, and the two of them had wandered south. Even after Elise had disappeared behind the nunnery’s gate Martyn could not believe her decision, and a year passed before he picked up his cowl and staff and went in search of vengeance.
The broken man did not hear the sand shifting as the behemoth rushed up the dune behind him, instead the soft, warm cadence of Elise’s voice bringing tears to his cracked cheeks. Martyn did not feel the warm breath emanating from Magnus’s dozens of mouths behind him, tightening his hand on her shoulder as she told him they must part and seek solace in God instead of each other. The massive rat’s head Magnus had in place of a left hand accommodated all of Martyn’s lame arm and part of his chest into its mouth before snapping shut. His body was acting curiously and his chest boiled, but in the cloister of his mind Martyn finally forgave her for abandoning him, although even as he died he could not forgive himself. Perhaps God would, he thought, and then thought no more.
“Martyn.” The thing inside Heinrich spoke with the farmer’s mouth as he rode up astride Brennen. “A monk, one of the only to escape me in years past. How might one doubt the existence of Fate, with such proof as our happy reunion down all these days?”
Heinrich had nothing to offer but a dull push to keep moving, to find the Grossbarts before he fell into the eternal sleep. His tenant merely directed the eyes they shared toward the two campfires blazing at the base of the dune, and tears of happiness dribbled down into Brennen’s mouths. The husks of Vittorio and Paolo appeared in the moonlight, and, inevitable as death itself, all five rushed down the hillside and fell upon the Grossbarts.
XXX. Their Just Reward
“Martyn’s hereby relieved of his duties,” said Hegel with a nod into the darkness where the cardinal had disappeared. “I reckon that makes you high priest or prelate, brother.”
“An honor I’s happy to receive.” Manfried gurgled as he drank heartily.
“Rigo and Raph, you two’s bishops, Hell, you’s a bishop, too, Arab.” Hegel nodded at his own wisdom and the returned Al-Gassur.
“Why not a cardinal, O font of the ages?” asked Al-Gassur.
“That title’s been corrupted, as has pope.” Hegel hiccupped. “Fact is, ain’t been a legitimate pope since Formosits.”
“Shame he had to go heretical on us,” said Manfried. “Martyn weren’t a bad sort fore his office went to his head. Sayin that rot bout you not beein saintly.”
“I did die a horrible death,” Hegel agreed. “That She saw fit to raise me up only proves Her commitment to spite that celestial rapist and his so-called martyrs. Any real saint ain’t gonna stand quiet for no martyrin, believe you me. Urgh!”
Hegel finished his proclamation by spraying vomit into the fire, bringing on a cheer from his brother. Never before had Hegel felt the Witches’ Sight come upon him with such speed and violence, and he battled his rebellious body to warn Manfried. Finally swallowing back the puke, he gasped, wild eyes roving over the skies and sand.
“We’s in a trap! Arabs!”
The freed slaves rushed an masse to the Grossbarts’ fire, experience having taught them to hasten when Hegel craved their audience.
“How’s that?” said Manfried, hopping into a squat and eyeing the horde of foreign allies suddenly crowding the edge of the fire.
“What kwan ower ownswelves dew?” Raphael panted.
“Suffer!” a voice crowed from darkness. “That’s all I’ve left you, Grossbarts!”
“Who the fuck-” Hegel began.
“Who else but your nemesis?!” Heinrich shambled into the firelight, flanked by Paolo and Vittorio. The young Italians’ tongues were too swollen for them to speak, but they grinned and drooled on their papal robes at seeing their quarry. In one misshapen hand Heinrich lazily dragged the scourge up his bulging stomach and chest, his sullied robe and rotting flesh peeling off like a roast turnip skin.
The stench overpowered them, even the Grossbarts gagging on the suddenly wet air. The slaves wailed at the uncomprehending Saint Hegel to banish the demons, some fleeing and others praying. Raphael and Rodrigo vomited at the stink of pus and carrion, and Al-Gassur burst a blood vessel in his eye staring at the festering men. The only pale areas on their blackened skin were the weeping pustules that glistened like the moon.
“Heinrich?” Hegel could not feel his legs, dizzy from the reek.
Manfried squinted. “Who?”
“Yes!” Heinrich hooted. “It is we!”
“Who?!” Manfried repeated, refusing to believe it. “Nah it ain’t!”
“Mecky dirt-fuckin farmer!” Hegel stepped toward him, hefting his pick. “What you done to yourself?!”
“We’ve joined!” Heinrich cackled. “The one you thwarted in the mountains as you did me!”
“Witchery!” Manfried shouted.
“Yes!” agreed Heinrich. “She is with us as well! You killed her husband as you did my wife, and now her children will end you as you ended mine!”
“Moonfruit let that demon in’em!” Hegel exclaimed, recognizing Heinrich’s rotten appearance for what it denoted. “The one what slayed Ennio and them monks and the rest a that town!”
“Eh?” Rodrigo wiped the slick vomit from his lip and drew his sword. “He’s the one?”
“That’s it, ain’t it?!” Hegel demanded. “Confess now fore we smite you twice!”
“Yes!” Heinrich bellowed. “Now see what came from the witch’s loins, Grossbarts, see what you have brought out of Hell upon you! Brennen! Magnus!”
“You’s
Hegel felt his guts try to flee north and south simultaneously, he alone comprehending the nuances of the situation. How might a harvest spring forth but with a planted seed? Before he could recover, half a dozen slaves on the edge of the firelight disappeared, yanked backward into the darkness without a scream among them-but their fellows who had seen what had taken them supplied shrieks to go around. All assembled felt hot wind stir their hair, a wind that pushed and pulled like a rapid tide, a wind born of dozens of massive mouths breathing in unison.
“Draw circles bout yourselves!” Manfried shouted before seeing the towering abominations.
“Use fire on’em!” Hegel shouted, spinning into a crouch and leaping at the shape blocking out the moon beside him.
Sheer idiotic rage allowed the Grossbarts to act, everyone else catatonic. Heinrich and his disciples chanted from across the campfire, the enormous twins among the company and devouring two slaves apiece with the maws on their legs. Magnus thrust his left arm at Hegel, the snarling rat-hand snapping its jaws over his head.
Hegel’s pick went into Magnus’s groin with a dull thunk and he jumped back, blood jetting into his face. Then the monstrosity’s leg kicked out, the mouth on the sole of its hairy paw just the right size to bite off Hegel’s head. Galvanized by the Grossbarts’ heroic charge, the remaining men took action: a Syrian pederast jumped under Magnus’s extending leg and deflected the foot before it could decapitate the saint. The mouth snapped over Hegel’s head and the unbalanced beast stumbled back. Before the child-rapist could move, jaws behind Magnus’s knee opened and bit off his face, chewing the man’s triumphant smile as he fell dying to the sand.
Brennen swiped a hand at Manfried, the Grossbart parrying three of the sword-sized claws with the haft of his mace. The pinky talon, however, went under Manfried’s weapon, through a gap in his plate, and the claw sunk through his mail shirt as though it were knit of yarn instead of iron. The force of the blow sent him rolling ass over head across the sand, his mace flying into the sky. Before the creature pounced a figure flitted in front of its sole eye, scrambling away into the darkness. Bellowing with every mouth, Brennen forgot Manfried and pursued the fleeing coward.
Looking back, Al-Gassur could not even piss himself before a huge hand closed around his left leg, the teeth thereon holding it tight. Brennen lifted his victim to drop the morsel into the central mouth on his cyclopean face but then the satchel housing Barousse’s relic slipped through Al-Gassur’s torn breeches and dangled beside him. The mock-Arab noticed this and invoked the name of the captain, slapping the bag into one of the mouths. The lips encircling his leg parted in surprise, and Al-Gassur fell to the sand.
The witch-born beast howled in Al-Gassur’s face, dozens of mouths blowing the stink of his own death upon him. The beggar saw the bottle tumble out of the ripping satchel, and the small vessel containing his brother’s heart blazed with a pale yellow luminescence as the glass shattered in the gnashing teeth of Brennen’s hand. Al-Gassur closed his eyes, unaware that the loop of cable on the bottle’s neck slipped down a prodigious tooth and cut into its gums as the monster chewed glass and glowing relic.
Just as there exist dark things that traverse oceanic abysses as if they were dry land, so too do fell beings troll the skies as if they were seas. The releasing of the artifact from its glass prison brought the attention of one of those, which might otherwise have failed to notice the object from such a distance. With the speed of God it descended from the heavens in pursuit of the shimmering prize for which all vile powers lust. Before Brennen could swallow the scorching relic a shadow even the moon feared to illuminate plucked him up with the ease of a falcon snatching a rodent. Blood splashed across Al-Gassur and he opened his eyes to see the beast vanish, but before the first syllable of thanks could leave his lungs the spool of cable he had attached to the bottle, and his thigh, burst from his satchel. Bonded to Brennen by the suddenly taut line, Al-Gassur shot into the sky and out of the knowing of the Grossbarts.
Two more convicts were torn apart by Magnus’s voracious legs and right arm, the rat-faced left hand intent only on devouring Hegel. The creature had regained its balance and pressed forward, murine jaws tearing into Hegel’s left hand and coming away with the Grossbart’s two outer fingers and sword. Hegel responded by burying his pick in its snout but the arm drew back and Hegel released his weapon lest he be pulled any closer to the behemoth.
Drawing his prybar, Hegel jabbed the comparatively normal but massive hand snatching at his face. Then the other arm returned, the bestial face wielded like a club. Hegel sprawled on the ground under the impact but rolled away before the toothy feet could fall. He spied Manfried’s mace on the ground beside him and snatched it, but this distraction enabled the three-eyed horror to focus fully on its quarry, all other victims forgotten in its rage.
The pick-skewered rat-hand leaked blood from its clamped jaws, but as it fell they again sprang open to rend Hegel’s exposed back. Manfried swung his ax over his prone brother’s head, exploding rat teeth and severing the lower jaw. Magnus’s mouths shrieked and he threw himself atop them, desiring only to crush and chew their defiant bones. Rodrigo snatched Hegel and Raphael seized Manfried, each jerking a brother in a different direction. The beast crashed to the empty ground, two pairs of
