Onward, Drake! - eARC Page 15

  The combat veteran learns new and unpleasant reactions involving extreme violence to situations that a civilian would not think about twice. You can read of a tank veteran in The Filthy Fifth (the 5th Royal Tank Regiment) who shot up a road sign in Germany simply because it had been unbolted and leaned against its pole—they found the mutilated corpse of a teenaged Hitler Youth behind it.

  Would the British tankers have cared if they had just killed a pregnant woman hiding in terror from the tank? Did they care that they had just killed a boy? At the time probably not, the dead boy still clutched a panzerfaust—literally a tank-fist—a lethal weapon that could burn through Allied armour like a blowtorch on ice cream to incinerate the whole crew.

  But how did they feel about it ten years later?

  Well, I’m not David Drake and I lack his skills. But I write this watching a bugler play the Last Post over the poppies in the grounds of the Bloody Tower. It is the eleventh day of the eleventh month of the year twenty-fourteen.

  They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:

  Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

  At the going down of the sun and in the morning,

  We will remember them.

  —Lawrence Binyon,

  North Cornwall, 1914

  Thank you, David.

  Saracens

  T.C. McCarthy

  “The Polish King and the Italian monk,” Alex said, “will take action. And people say the monk is a saint—sent from your precious God.”

  Florian shook his head. “I defeated a Saracen magician. In my dreams.”

  “They were just dreams and you were drunk. Again.”

  “I was not drunk!” Florian’s fist slammed against the table with a loud boom, causing the plates to jump. “I was not drunk.”

  He looked out the window. The sky flickered with an orange glow that pulsed as one fire died and another began, their flames invisible behind the hills so that the clouds became a kind of mirror, reflecting the lights of watch fires and reminding everyone that the enemy was still there. They had been—for months. Days and weeks had blurred and melted, fusing into a sculpture of time that he refused to mentally examine for fear that it would shape into a form demonic. Time had always been cruel. It had bent Florian’s back and hobbled his knees, making it painful to kneel, and withered his arms to the point where they carried no weight and made him long for the moment when Turkish sappers got close enough to blow them all up, ending everything, including growing old.

  But what Florian had seen was real. The dreams could not have been just dreams, and a strength he hadn’t felt in decades grew in his stomach and spread, sending warmth through his limbs to fight Vienna’s autumn cold. And his visions had been clear; Florian saw them still, as if they’d been etched on the glass of this mind in smoky pictures so the message would be remembered forever: there was something for him to do and God had willed it.

  Alex put his hands to his face, rubbing both eyes. “Father’s house is gone. Crushed into the dirt of an empty field so the Turks will have no cover to approach the walls. But this won’t work forever. Someday they will get close. Close enough to breach. And we will never bury our parents once Saracens take our heads.”

  “I am still a man of Christ,” Florian said. “Though not a Priest. Father understood that and so should you.”

  “Was it that hard to resist her? And couldn’t you have chosen someone with less influence than the wife of my General? You’re so old; it disgusts me.”

  “Think whatever you want, Alex; I’m leaving. Dawn will be here soon.”

  Florian stood, bumping the wooden table and almost knocking it over; there wasn’t much time. By now the Poles and Germans were massing for their attack and from his visions Florian knew that he had to move out before sunrise—to have any chance at infiltrating Turkish territory. He shuffled toward the barn door. The wooden panel groaned and creaked, making the horses stir, and Florian peered into the darkness of the alley, dimly lit by the glow of fires and a distant moon. Shadows filled the path surrounding the barn and to him it seemed as though sprits encircled the darkness, waiting for him to walk into the open where they could attack without warning. Florian made the sign of the cross; then he gripped his crucifix so the ends of it dug into his palm.

  “Where are you going?” his brother asked.

  “What difference does it make if I took the wife of an old General or a broom maker? It was a sin. But He has given me the way to redeem myself, by showing me the source of Turkish strength and how to destroy it. I’m moving south; I don’t know where yet, but God gave me the way and promised safe passage.”

  Alex stood and moved closer. “God hasn’t given you anything; He damned you for eternity. I could have been a General and you could have been a Bishop. Instead you had us stripped of title and land and this,” Alex gestured to the barn in which they now sheltered, “this is our inheritance. If you go outside the walls, the Saracens will take you. And you know what they do to priests.”

  “You said it: I’m not a priest. Not anymore.”

  Florian stepped into the alley and began shuffling south, toward a small gate in the city wall, and wincing at the pain in his knees. He called out over his shoulder. “I’m old now, Alex. Old enough to know that this may be the last chance for us to do something important—something that matters. Whether you believe in God or not, I do.”

  Except for the reflection of distant flames, night flowed through the alley in a thick tide of black and Florian gripped his crucifix even harder. His brother followed. Florian didn’t need to turn and look; he heard Alex’s clicking boots and said a silent prayer of thanks because the dreams hadn’t been specific enough to tell him whether he would face this alone, and to have a military man—an ex-military man—made him feel less desperate. It wasn’t that he doubted the vision. It was more that Florian had less faith in himself, and worried that he might not have the courage to do God’s will once he arrived, and having Alex made it easier to imagine that he wouldn’t collapse in terror.

  Florian turned onto a main city street. Stones paved the road and the fact that it was more level than the alley made the walk easier on his knees, allowing him time to look up at the houses on either side; curious people peered from windows, their pale faces poking from between half-open shutters. All of them watched the sky. As he and his brother neared Vienna’s walls the reflection of Turkish fires became a bit brighter and when Florian first noticed the streaks he stopped.

  Alex ran into him. “What’s wrong?”

  Florian pointed upward. “Those. Lines in the sky.”

  Paper-thin lines of purple light streaked overhead and spread across the city like a web, each streak disappearing into a home. They crackled. It was a soft noise, barely audible over the occasional boom of cannon fire, and the lines flickered in a way that reminded Florian of a kind of lightning. He kissed the crucifix, sensing the corruption and fear that almost dripped from the filaments.

  “I see nothing,” Alex said.

  “God has given me sight. I can see a wizard’s spell: one that fills the city with terror.”

  “Terror? Are you serious? Tens of thousands of Ottoman Saracens—who butchered and raped their way through Constantinople, then Greece, then the Balkans and Hungary—surround us; with such a blade over our heads I hardly see a need for a terror spell.”

  Florian shook his head. “You don’t understand.”

  “Understand what? Your God? Parents in Hungary survived only to find their babies had been burned alive. It’s better that such a God doesn’t exist.”

  “Then why are you going with me?”

  “Because. We’re all dead tomorrow. So what does it matter? By going with you I won’t have to watch Janissaries torture my wife and children, or watch them rape and then behead them all. At least I can die like a soldier.”

  “There are the Polish forces,” said Florian, leading them southward toward the walls. “In my dreams, only the
Germans attack—at dawn—and the end is murky. For all I know, the Poles later help win the field and the Saracens will never touch Vienna.”

  “You dream again. We are outnumbered, brother, even with Sobieski’s Winged Hussars.”

  Soon the city’s main wall loomed over them, casting a shadow among the shadows, a tall curtain of blackness broken only by a single watch fire near a small door. Three soldiers warmed their hands in the glow. To Florian’s amazement the men said nothing when they approached; instead the guards nodded—as if expecting the brothers—and one stood and bowed deeply, his face an orange-pink in the warm glow of flames; he worked the mechanism opening the oak door, allowing the pair to duck into a small tunnel that dipped under the wall. The guard pushed past them with a torch. When they reached the other side, he grunted, lifted several beams from brackets that sealed the outer portal so it swung open, and then ushered Florian and Alex through. Florian flinched at the sound of the beams being dropped back into place behind them and then turned southward, squinting into the darkness and trying to match the scenery with his dreams.

  Wide fields stretched out in front of them, their grass and weeds cloaked in darkness. At first Florian panicked. Nothing looked as it should have and with one hand he gripped Alex’s shoulder when his legs began trembling, giving way at the thought that his brother had been right—that the whole thing had only been his imagination. Florian didn’t recognize the trees. They swung in a soft wind, silhouetted against the Saracen flames, and the orange flickered in a pattern that reminded him of laughter, taunting with thoughts of failure. Florian lifted his crucifix and whispered a prayer.

  “You’re lost?” Alex asked.

  Florian nodded, doing his best not to panic. The wind blew from the west and gently pushed his beard to the side at the same time it carried a murmuring hymn, sung with the deepest and most reverent voices, in a language Florian failed to recognize so that at first he thought it was a hallucination. Soon he recognized it: Polish. He was about to clap his hands with joy when a cry went up from the Turkish camps to the south and a moment later war screams drowned the song, followed by cannon fire that illuminated far off fields to the southwest with flashes of red and white. Florian began shuffling down a narrow path—away from the wall and toward the Saracen watch fires.

  “You remembered the way?” asked Alex.

  “No. But I still see the wizard’s spell. The lines converge over Perchtoldsdorf, to the south. We must hurry to get there before dawn; the battle has begun and if we fail, the Germans and Poles will be slaughtered. For now, the Hussars’ song helps to dispel all fear but they can’t sing forever.”

  Alex moved down the path, following closely. “What is that song?”

  “Bogurodzica.” Florian smiled at the thought and quickened his pace, already seeing the main road to Perchtoldsdorf ahead of them, a flat wide patch of darkness only a bit lighter than the shadows enveloping it. “It means Mother of God.”

  The road disappeared into the night and both men moved as quickly as they could, careful not to trip over uneven stones; stars provided just enough light. Florian’s legs trembled even more with the effort and he forced himself to ignore the pain, instead becoming lost in thought until tears clouded his vision. He recalled what his affair had cost. Memories of Alex’s insults threatened to overwhelm him because they had been well deserved and Florian’s betrayal had ruined everything. His parents had been so proud when he’d joined the priesthood. And a week ago, just before news of his affair with the woman broke, the Bishop had sent word that he was to report to Rome—for an assignment within the Papal Office. Rome. Just thinking of the city turned regret to anger. Florian recalled the number of his fellow priests who had done worse, including having children and hidden wives, but who continued in their duties for the simple reason that their sins hadn’t yet been discovered; their faults were still secret. It wasn’t fair. Florian clenched both hands into fists, ignoring the pain in his joints, and then opened his mouth, preparing to shout at God.

  Before he could scream something caught his attention: a series of shadows appeared out of the darkness, at the edges of the road—odd shapes, which transformed his anger into fear. He grabbed his brother’s arm. The two crept forward and Florian wondered why they hadn’t encountered any watch posts along the road until they got close enough to one of the shadows, its smell making everything clear. He grabbed his nose and dropped to his knees, crying.

  On either side of the road pikes had been planted in the earth to hold impaled corpses, each arranged in deranged poses and in various stages of decomposition, their odor making Florian dry-heave over the paving stones. Florian grabbed Alex’s hand to pull himself up, after which he waved his fist at the sky.

  “Why do you allow this?”

  “Quiet,” Alex hissed. “You’ll bring the Saracens!”

  “There are no Saracens on this road. Look around. This place isn’t guarded by men because it doesn’t need to be; no man can travel here without God’s protection.”

  “Protection! You hinted at it already; if God existed, he would never allow this.”

  Florian realized that now his brother was crying. He took his hand and squeezed it in a show of support before moving forward again, shuffling toward his dreams and the horrors that awaited them. “They are slaughtering everything, Alex—children and women. I can see it all now. The lines hum in the sky over us, energized with the blood of innocents and blocking this road with a curtain of terror. On either side of us, behind the corpses, I see them now.”

  “What?” asked Alex. “Again I see nothing. What’s out there?”

  Florian looked to his side. It was more than a glance—a period of long seconds in which he forced himself to relax his vision—and they formed out of the night, dark shadowy figures with red eyes. The creatures loped on all fours in the fields, laughing as they went and whispering something his ears failed to catch.

  “Things not of this world. For now we have His protection but hurry; these creatures are hungry.”

  By the time they reached the village outskirts, piles of bodies replaced the pikes and Florian said silent prayers for the dead, whom he avoided looking at since all of them were missing heads. How could the Saracens be this blind? These were physical acts—not spiritual—meaning that men had to be the ones wielding the sword and ending the lives of even infants, and surely they couldn’t all be evil; surely there had to be good Turks.

  Florian paused to retch again and wondered: maybe Satan’s influence extended far beyond what he’d imagined. And, if so, what chance did he, Florian the drunk, Florian the dishonorable, have against such power? But there were no answers to the question and he clung to his dream as if it were the only thing protecting them both. Florian moved forward again, leaning heavily against his brother’s shoulder and filled with a sense of dread that forced a cold sweat to break on his chest, followed by an uncontrollable shivering that made his teeth chatter. Within a few minutes Alex stopped them both, tugging on Florian’s robe.

  “Why so many of those?” he asked.

  His brother pointed to a group of homes. Each had been burnt to the ground and their stones gathered in tall piles that supported long poles, at least thirty feet tall and capped with a golden half moon and star—the symbol of the Turks. An early morning sky had begun to turn purple. It silhouetted the symbols against the heavens and Florian crossed himself before murmuring in Latin. “And a great sign appeared in heaven: A woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet.”

  “I never bothered with Latin, brother.”

  “It’s from the Bible. It describes our Mother, standing on the moon.”

  Alex sighed. “Then I suppose it’s a relief that the moon is under her feet—that she has power over Saracens whose symbol she crushes?”

  “Not necessarily,” said Florian. “There’s more to those passages. Elsewhere an angel blows a sixth trumpet, which brings a massive army with breastplates of fire and of hyacinth an
d of brimstone, and the heads of the horses were as the heads of lions: and from their mouths proceeded fire, and smoke, and brimstone. This army kills a third of the world before God wins.”

  “Fire, hyacinth, and brimstone—Janissary colors.”

  Florian nodded. “And the Turkish cannons. Some are crafted so the end is as the head of a lion, which spouts flame and smoke each time they fire.”

  “Superstitious vomit. It’s coincidence.”

  Florian waved him quiet. The brightening sky illuminated Perchtoldsdorf in a kind of dim grey and he flinched, surprised when Alex produced a saber and wheel lock from underneath his cloak; the weapons underscored the danger into which the pair of them now headed, and which—until then—had been more of a dream than anything real. More clouds materialized out of thin air, lowering themselves to the point where they scraped against the town’s roofs and provided a dim, reflected illumination that did little to dispel the gloom. Instead it provided just enough visibility to make Florian question his vision, squinting at every shadow to make sure nothing lay in ambush. And the violet lines almost disappeared. They quivered under the clouds like piano strings, vanishing for a moment within the grey only reappearing a few seconds later to guide them toward the town’s center, which, when they saw it, forced both men into the doorway of an abandoned shop.

  Saracens filled the town square. Florian counted at least thirty, all of them dressed in short white coats, and who spun so rapidly that what looked like long women’s skirts rotated around them, floating upward to form weightless undulating disks of brilliant white. The sight hypnotized. At first Florian didn’t even notice the music, a repetitive noise which seemed to come from under his feet rather than from the small group that played drums and stringed instruments at the side of the dancers near Perchtoldsdorf’s town hall. Each Saracen spun to the music’s rhythm and the dancers wore tall cylindrical hats, as grey as the clouds, and tilted their heads to the sides at the same time they grinned, a sight which disturbed him the most. At first Florian couldn’t pinpoint what made the dancers look so strange; the light was too dim and their rapid movements blurred his eyes with confusion. Then, a few moments later he saw it; they had painted themselves—so the dancers’ faces formed white skulls that glared at him over and over again, each time they spun, making him shiver with cold. He pointed to the center of the group and whispered.