K Jeter - Infernal Devices

No sooner had I done so, than I heard the splatter of horses' hooves in the mud, distant but rapidly approaching. Silhouetted against the night were the cloaked riders of the Godly Army, heading straight for me. At their head, a sword was waved aloft, and a triumphant cry sounded: I had been spotted.

For a moment, I was frozen as though I were a rabbit startled by hunting hounds; then I dived from the edge of the road, sliding through gravel and mud to the marshy stream below. There was no time for quiet now, as the Godly Army reined their mounts to a halt at the point I had just vacated. In desperation, I plunged through the water, tearing aside roots and tangled weeds impeding my way. Behind me, I heard this fresh band of pursuers abandoning their horses – useless in the fens – and scrambling after me.

In my unthinking haste, I nearly slogged into the arms of Mollie Maud's gang. I spotted their torches in time the bullies, waist-deep in the marsh, were poking through the vegetation with the muzzles of their pistols – and, stifling a cry of alarm and despair, clawed my way through the reeds in another direction. Shouting arose behind me as the two groups collided; I was given a little respite as muddled fighting broke out amongst them. Pistol shots and shouted curses rang over the landscape; only when they realised that their common quarry was getting away, did they disengage battle and resume their increasingly chaotic, splashing and wallowing searches, exchanging blows whenever their paths crossed.

The confusion among my pursuers had enabled me to put some distance behind me, though I could easily glance over my shoulder and see their various torches weaving through the choked streams. I was nearing exhaustion, praying silently that I could make it to another of the roads before either the bullies or the Godly Army fell upon me. That was the only hope I could devise for myself; my dazed brain could conjure no other strategy than that.

Suddenly I heard more voices raise in angry tones, this time from in front of me. I crouched down behind a clump of reeds and peered ahead. A moan of anguish escaped my lips when I saw that it was the villagers of Dampford, brandishing pitchforks and other brutal implements as they waded through the marsh. Their piscine faces were made even more repellent by the ferocity displayed there; they had apparently regained their courage and had come seething after the sacrifice that had been snatched from them just a short time ago.

The three factions – Mollie Maud's bullies, the Godly Army, and now the villagers – were on all sides of me save one. I plunged in that direction, heedless that it led nowhere except farther into the weedy streams and stagnant pools of the marshland. There was no longer a conscious thought in my head, only blind panic impelling me into flight.

Something in the water tangled about my feet, and I went headlong into a muddy bank. Raising my head from the muck, I heard the overlapping shouts grow louder: some yards away, the villagers had collided with the others. Cries of Fish-face bastards! from the bullies mingled with the Godly Army's Heathens! Devilish spawn! overlaid with the villagers' indecipherable curses. More shots, the clash of sword against scythe, the splash when one body was thrown back from another, torches hissing as they were extinguished by the dark water – thus the renewed battle raged. No alliances were possible among such disparate elements; each man fought against the members of the other parties, and occasionally, in the confusion, his own.

I spat out the mud that had filled my mouth, and panted for breath. It would only be a matter of time before one of the factions prevailed against the others and, with as many of them as might be left standing, resumed their search for me. Or, seeing the futility of their combat, some sort of truce might yet be achieved, and all three parties would spread out for that purpose. Wet, cold, and miserable, I huddled behind the weeds, stifling the fear that would otherwise have sent me wallowing noisily in any direction.

Before I could assemble my scattered wits, a surge of muddy water slapped against my chest. A figure rose up before me, blotting out the night sky as I fell backwards. My only thought was that one of the combatants had separated from the others and silently tracked me down. His hand reached out and gripped me by the shoulder before I could make any attempt to escape.

I had been caught. I squeezed my eyes shut, awaiting the inevitable pistol shot, sword, or pitchfork into my vitals. Instead, I heard a voice, familiar from far back in my memory: "Dower – heed me." The hand shook me. "Little time is there."

An obscuring cloud slid from the moon as my eyes shot open. By the thin light, I saw the dark face ornamented with its lines of scars. The Brown Leather Man gazed down at me.

"But – you're dead…"

The Brown Leather Man pulled me close to the shelter of the stream's bank, and laid a finger on my mouth, silencing any further cry of astonishment. I could see that, above the water to our waists, the upper half of his body was stripped bare. Clouds parted before the moon, the thin light glinting from his powerful chest and arms as the rivulets coursed over lines of scars such – as those that decorated his face. "Be quiet, Dower," he whispered close to my ear. "Great danger you are in."

Cowering beneath an outcropping of tangled roots, I could hear the shouts and mingled violence of the searchers, surging first in one direction, then another, like a storm-driven sea. "Yes-" My own voice was close to breaking into a sob. "The villagers… and that Mollie Maud woman-"

The dark head nodded impatiently. "She is a person of evil, the mask of good using to better hide."

"I don't understand…"

The Brown Leather Man shook me roughly, breaking off the trembling small voice of my confusion. "Now that is not important." The slitted eyes bored into mine. "Many explanations will be later. First you must escape her, and the other."

"Yes… yes, of course!" I seized his arm, the veil of my exhaustion having been pierced. "But how-"

He signalled again for quiet. "Arrangements I have made. I have been following you – hidden – until you I could help. But now all will be safe. The crossroads there." He drew me away from the bank and pointed, his dark arm shining in the darkness. "Do you see?"

A pair of the region's gnarled trees stood sentinel over a raised bank a few hundred yards away. After a moment I could discern the flat surfaces of the two roads that met by them. "Yes," I whispered.

"Go there. This water-" He jabbed a finger at the murky ooze around us. "It goes there. Curves, yes? But if in it you stay, the others will see you not. At the crossroads, wait. Down below until a carriage you hear coming. Then go up. Away it will take you, to safety." His gaze searched my face. "Is all clear?"

"I understand. But – you'll be there? With the carriage?" I desperately hoped so; his was the first voice in a long while that, despite its odd accents, seemed untinged with either hostility or dementia.

"No." He drew away from me, into the deeper part of the stream, lowering himself into it so that the water lapped up to his chest. "Later – again you will see me." Only his head was visible; then one hand broke the surface and pointed. "The crossroads – go." He disappeared entire, leaving only a circular ripple in the moonlight.

I was alone again, as if the apparent resurrection of the Brown Leather Man had been but a phantasm born of a despairing mind driven beyond the limits of its endurance. In the distance, I could hear my pursuers – Mollie Maud's bullies, the villagers, and the Godly Army all muddled into one baying pack – as they combed the sodden landscape; they were undoubtedly real enough. I eased my way along the side of the stream, striking out for the appointed rendez-vous.