Chapter XXII
XXII
Prior to the Red Winter, Saint-Julien-by-the-Stream had a reputation for both excellent hams and a particularly piquant form of soft cheese. From the moment the Beast revealed himself to me in that laneway, it would be known for only one thing: the massacre.
If not for the narrow lane and its quaint gated entrance, I would certainly have been among the first victims. Instead, I lay winded on the ground beneath a spall of shattered wood.
It took me a few seconds to collect myself. In that small space of time, the marketplace had become a carnival of crimson.
“Get up, you useless meat!” Sarmodel-child bellowed, railing painfully in my mind. “Did you see?! Avstamet! By the Rift! He will not escape me this time!”
I shook the splinters from my blade. The boards and banners of Saint-Julien’s market were suddenly drenched in spatter. Everything dripped.
The Beast moved with impossible power.
Some people were frozen in a rapture of terror at the monster come to life in the afternoon sun. He tore them apart where they stood.
Others fled before him like mice, but they were all too slow; far too slow.
A green-suited mummer was raked to the bone as he tried to run.
Madame Pradels tumbled among the last of her golden apples, fountaining blood from the stump of her neck.
The stablehand was pulled aloft by the hair like a turnip, his body opened onto the flagstones as the Beast tugged out his innards.
And with each kill, the Spirit claimed another heart and another draft of coveted human anima to fuel his eldritch flesh.
By the Almighty.
If there had been any doubt about what we faced, it disappeared in those few nightmarish seconds. I leveled the point of my sword at the monster and once again began the Crippling Yoke.
The Beast snarled as Arcane polyhedrons began to proliferate around him. His terrible eyes found me again in the throng.
But now a second tumult rose to rival the screaming: the baying of hounds. Just as the Beast drove the villagers before him, so he drew the hunters of France behind.
“Soeur! Allez!” Bauterne’s voice was unmistakable as he swept past me on his horse. His hounds splashed through the blood toward the Beast, led by the formidable Soeur. The Ennevals were not far behind, their own pack of sturdy northern dogs keen on the trail.
The Beast roared and cast the stablehand’s corpse into the oncoming pack. With a powerful leap, he fled along the street.
Shit! My Arcane focus slipped away as he moved out of range, and the Yoke failed a second time.
“Follow me!” the elder Enneval bellowed over his shoulder.
“We will catch it at the bridge! Do not let it reach the woods!” Perhaps a score of Gévaudan’s hunters were storming the small town with their army of hounds.
They called back to him and half of them wheeled around to follow him, driving their packs east along the riverbank.
Idiots! I fumed inwardly. Where are they going? Do they believe they are going to herd him into a treadle snare?
“Be silent and get moving!” Sarmodel’s child Projection shrilled at me. “Why are we still—Wait!”
He drew my focus to the fountain, now swirling red. A young girl panted on the ground beside it, struggling to sit upright. The monster’s parting attack had thrown her from her feet and inflicted a mortal wound. Her lifeblood streamed over her pinafore from a horrific gash across her throat.
“Avstamet has not claimed her!” Sarmodel hissed. “Quickly! We will use her strength!”
His Projection flickered eagerly toward the girl, clutching at the first traces of escaping anima.
But two people ran over to kneel by the victim. I recognized Père Arnaud, the priest from the chateau, in his black cassock.
And with him was Mademoiselle Cecile the herbalist.
“Hurry, Father!” she cried, taking the girl in her arms. “Before the end!” Her eyes were not on the priest, however, but fixed firmly on Sarmodel. She scooped water from the fountain and began to wash the victim’s face.
“No!” snarled the demon child, opening a mouth suddenly full of fangs. “You little bitch!”
Père Arnaud sobbed such that he could barely enunciate his prayers, but already the crown-like manifestation of the Almighty was forming about the dying girl’s head. The holy man was performing extreme unction. He applied sweet oil to her hands and forehead, speaking softly in Latin.
“Ssh, Therese, go now,” crooned the young witch, stroking the girl’s face. “The Lord will take you.”
The priest pressed a sliver of bread into the victim’s mouth. I caught a few words of viaticum before her anima welled up. It shone and trembled briefly before it was gently embraced by the glowing corona.
Sarmodel whirled on me, his boy’s face grown bestial.
“I need that phlam! Stop them—”
Sarmodel, she’s already gone! I interrupted, closing my eyes against the light of her final Communion. And I cannot do anything with you shouting at me!
“Sebastian! Here!” Antoine’s voice broke through the wailing.
He was leading our horses through the market. The animals were all but mad with fear, surrounded by blood and screaming and the ripe smell of dogs.
There was no time for subtlety. I whistled a snatch of melody that ascended above hearing. The horses stilled immediately.
I ignored Antoine’s raised eyebrows as we both mounted. “Come! You heard them—the bridge!”
Cecile the herbalist glared and raised her chin defiantly as we passed.
Draw up your Wards, witch, Sarmodel hissed at her. He withdrew his Projection, settling back into my mind. Get your “boon companion” to help. When I am done with the Beast, I am coming back for both of you.
The Ennevals and the other hunters pushed their packs hard.
The cobblestones of Saint-Julien were overrun with a tide of dogs, funneled by the narrow laneways down to the poplar-shaded promenade overlooking the river. They poured out onto the open ground, spurred on by their masters and drawn by the Beast’s bloody trail.
They caught him at the bridge, for all the good it did them. Hounds surrounded the monster like rats, but it barely slowed.
We emerged onto the road behind them at a gallop.
“Hold!” the elder Norman was bellowing. “Hold, you bastard, do not—”
A gunshot cracked through the barking chaos.
Dogs screamed and dropped away like swatted bugs.
Cries of shock and anger rose over the general cacophony; it was utter folly to attempt to shoot the Beast at this distance, particularly when it was surrounded by hounds.
There could only be one man responsible.
Bauterne knelt on the near bank. He was right in front of the lavoir, where a group of villagers had just abandoned their laundry, and he was surrounded by tubs of fresh suds.
His long, black musket smoked and I could hear him shouting as he reloaded.
But he was not replying to Enneval; I doubt he even heard the man.
“You are my strength! Into your hands I commend my spirit; you have redeemed me!”
Bauterne’s Litany was not going unanswered. His musket was positively singing with Divine radiance. In my Arcane sight, jeweled wings unfolded over his head like a banner.
Michael is here?!
The Archangel was doing more than announcing his presence. He was warning us off, and I was keenly aware of the many ways he might eliminate his chief competition in the chaos.
Somehow, Sarmodel’s agitation escalated; his presence was like a steel wasp trying to grind its way out of my skull. Of course Michael is here! He must have known what we were really chasing. Did you think the Almighty would miss another tilt at such a prize?
Well, he has a gun, Sarmodel. That Litany is going to put holes in both of us if he turns it in our direction.
You know he can’t commit harm under the Covenant,1 he snapped. But he can find plenty of other ways to get underfoot.
The black musket thundered again.
“What is he doing?” demanded Antoine, horrified. “Bauterne—he’s hitting the hounds!”
“The Lieutenant of the Hunt did not earn his colors without making some sacrifices,” I shouted back, equally shocked; Bauterne’s ruthlessness was on full display. “Come! Onto the bridge!”
We pushed forward, driving our horses onto the span with the other hunters.
“Take care, Antoine!” I called as we moved along the arch of the bridge. The drop on either side was significant and the water below was shallow, rolling over a pavement of smooth stones. A fall would be unforgiving, if not fatal.
Bauterne fired again; the hornet buzz of flying shot was very close to us. More dogs fell, but the Beast roared its own fury this time; the Archangel’s blessing was yielding results.
A heavy runnel of blood snaked down the Beast’s hind leg.
The monster stumbled.
It was enough. The dogs swarmed over him like a second pelt.
Now, Sebastian! interjected Sarmodel. Get closer and finish the Yoke! Kill every mutt on this bridge if you have to.
Of course, my love! Watch as I ensnare an Olympian with the Crippling Yoke, on horseback, in the middle of a bridge covered in dogs, with the Archangel shooting a musket over my shoulder, I snapped back. Shall I stand on my head and fart the Pater Noster as well?2
His only reply was a snarl of frustration. He Projected ahead of me in the form of a monstrous mandrill, a demon baboon skipping over the sea of hounds. He capered across their backs, calling to the Beast in sulfurous Tartaric.
“Welcome to the flesh, Avstamet! We are here for your heart! Come, come!”
He bared his yellow fangs and hooted with murderous mirth.
The Beast stopped.
At the far end of the bridge, only a few steps from the forest and freedom, he rose from the fray and turned his unbearable gaze back on the hunt. I knew it had all been a ruse.
Smiling cruelly, the Beast scattered the hounds with an easy swipe.
He plucked the dogs from his hide, biting the heads off the most tenacious.
Only the indomitable Soeur, the single hound who came anywhere near matching him in size, remained steady.
She hunkered down, snarling on the flagstones as her terrified packmates churned around her.
The Beast set his feet and howled. A horrific cry vibrated beyond sound into Arcane frequencies.
And he received an answer.
A hundred wild voices rose in the eternal hymn of the hunt. The men on the bridge faltered. Their eyes followed the sound to the deep, autumnal forest behind the Beast.
Wolves.
From the thickets and the hollows they emerged in their dozens, shivering and drooling. Driven to madness by the cry of the ancient Spirit who wore their likeness, the animals trembled and whined, drawn to his side by the promise of blood.
We were perhaps halfway across the bridge, in the midst of the throng of hunters. And all around us, their dozens of hounds began to shiver.
“Back—Antoine!” I shouted. “Get everyone off the bridge! Back! Now!” But none were listening to me.
I held my beautiful sword, my Walloon silver, out to one side, softly intoning the succession of Violations carved into the fuller. It began to keen. In my Arcane sight, it was a tongue of blue flame.
“Yes!! Masterfully done, Avstamet! Come, War! Come, Discord!” shrieked the baboon. It perched on the corpse of a mastiff. “Join in the sublime sacrament!3 Eat and be eaten!”
The Beast had brought his own pack to the hunt, and the men on the bridge were almost close enough to taste.
The trap was sprung.
1. The Covenant that all of the angels have signed forbids (among many, many other things) physical violence, willful harm and/or deliberate killing of mortals without provocation. I would note that “provocation” has been very broadly interpreted over the centuries, hence my cautious approach.
2. The Crippling Yoke is the “nuclear option” among the many disciplinary measures in the magician’s tool kit—most practitioners would be driven to invoke it perhaps once or twice in a lifetime.
It is also exceedingly di?-cult to execute.
Sarmodel naturally advocates its use for almost everything, which has earned me a reputation as something of a sadist—albeit a very competent one—in the Arcane community.
3. The consumption of human flesh—or more specifically the heart, which is the richest repository of anima.