John Schettler - Anvil of Fate

The Arabian still seemed very skittish, snuffing the cold air and moving on with a guarded, sometimes halting gait. She noted the horse’s ears were moving this way and that, intent on something.

Maeve tried to calm the horse, but then caught sight of a few dark shapes in the dim light, just ahead. Then came a howl, and a low threatening growl, and she realized at once that she had come across a roving pack of wolves.

Kuhaylan snorted, his tail swishing fitfully. Afraid the horse was about to rear, Maeve softened the grip of her legs and kept her hands soft on the reins. A less experienced rider would have done just the opposite, communicating yet more fear and distress to the animal, but Maeve knew exactly what she was about. The Arabian seemed to sense her confidence and settled down somewhat, but it was clear to Maeve that she may be in some danger. A horse’s best defense was speed, she knew, and so she urged him forward, speaking softly. “Ride on, Kuhaylan. No one can match you. Run boy!”

The horse surged forward, leaping smartly over a fallen log and Maeve had to stoop low to avoid an overhanging tree branch. She heard a snarling growl and caught the flash of sharp white teeth beneath amber eyes in the shadow of a hedge. One wolf made as if to lunge at the horse as it came on, but the Arabian was enormously strong, leaping up again, well out of harm’s way and then accelerating so fast that the rabid pack could do little more than howl in futile pursuit. The powerful horse easily outpaced the wolves and, satisfied that the danger had passed, she soon settled the Arabian to a slower, steady gait.

In time she found the road, following it north in the dark, confident that she would not be likely to encounter anyone else at this hour, though wolves were known to scavenge even in the midst of human settlements at this time. The continent was still deeply wooded, a wild, untamed land. It would be another 600 years before many of the great woodlands had been settled and cleared, even in the most populous areas of Gaul.

It was not long before she spied a dark shape ahead against the starry horizon, and she made it out to be the livery where she had first met the blacksmith and purchased the mare. There was no sign of life or activity there now, and no sound of his hammer ringing on the cold night air. Being close to the entry point, she veered off to skirt the road and look for the low stump that had marked the place in her mind. It was not far.

A few minutes later she was off the Arabian, steadying him and feeding him an apple that she still had in a pocket of her robe. She tied the horse off on the branch of a nearby hedge, and studied the ground, squinting in the dark to see if she could find the exact place where she had manifested. The soil here was thick and sodden in places and, to her surprise, the ground was marked with many footprints. Booted feet had made many deep impressions here, not long ago from the look of them, and that thought made her very uneasy.

The horse was skittish as well, snuffing the night airs and chafing a bit. He soon became so disquieted that she went quickly over at took hold of the reins, afraid he might break loose and bolt.

At that moment there was a cellophane crackling sound and the palpable odor of ozone. The Arabian whinnied, and started to rear up, but Maeve took a firm hold and calmed him with a reassuring touch and low whisper. “Easy boy, easy…”

Then the place where she had been kneeling a moment ago seemed to shimmer with a rippling blue light, and it was immediately obvious to her what was happening. Someone was shifting in, but she could not think why. They should be monitoring her mass pattern and preparing the retraction by now. Why risk another entry… unless something was very wrong, she thought suddenly.

She kept a firm grip on Kuhaylan, watching with amazement as the image of a man in monk’s robes seemed to manifest in the blue haze of the breaching point. In a flash of recognition she saw that it was Paul, but the image seemed to waver and loose substance, and she immediately feared that there was a problem on the shift, until something came flying out of the haze, landing with a thud on the grass at her feet.

The light faded in a frosty crackle of sound and was gone. There was no sign of Paul at all now, but Maeve stooped to see that an apple lay at her feet, with a neat slice down one side where something seemed to be stuck in the meat of the fruit. She picked it up, seeing a piece of folded paper had been wedged into a the small slice in the side of the apple.

She slipped it out of the fruit, opening it quickly and leaning into the wan moon light to get a look at it. It was very dark, and she could barely make out the characters, but was able to discern the message.

“New variation,” it read, with the word heavily underlined. “Lambert warned and flees in the night! Dodo fails! New Pushpoint: “A Loose twine… by the water’s edge. DO SOMETHING!”

She stared at it for some time, stunned by the development. Something had happened and her mind raced to unravel what it was. It soon became obvious to her that she had found the correct horse and foiled the plot to delay Dodo and his men. If that were the case then he would be riding south at this very moment, perhaps well past the farm site where she had found the Arabian, and closing in on Lambert’s villa at Leodium. But the words on the note clawed at her: “Lambert warned and flees in the night! Dodo Fails!”

“Do something,” she breathed aloud, shivering with the residual cold still lingering in the air nearby. It was a Spook Job, she reasoned. They don’t have the fuel to risk another full breach of the continuum here to make a re-entry, so they ran a Spook Job instead.

“And I have to do something,” she said aloud again her mind racing along the limitless Meridians of Time, frantically trying to answer the single question burned in her mind. “But what?”

The Bishopwas roused from restless sleep by heavy hammering on the door. He had retired soon after matins, but his dreams had been fitful. Now he started awake with fear, a strange presentiment sweeping over him, mixed with the lingering remnant of a dream. There was danger at hand, mortal danger in the night. Men were coming to seek his life! Instinctively, he reached for the sword that lay by his bed, groping for the hilt, reassured to grasp it. Yet he was no fighting man. What could he do?

The sound of knocking at the door grew louder, more insistent, more urgent. Then there came a hard shudder and he heard the door give way, breaking open on failed hinges and crashing to the hard stone floor below. He rushed out of his room, already hearing fearful cries from his family in the lower rooms.

“Landebertus of Tongeren!” A harsh voice echoed in the hall, resounding up the stairs.

The bishop steeled himself, making the sign of the cross and whispering a silent prayer. He looked at the sword in his shaking hand, and realized the folly of it, setting the weapon down, resigned. “I shall not die with the sin of blood on my hands,” he said softly. “No, I shall meet my fate, steadfast in the Lord, and his will be done.”

A swarthy man came rushing up the steps, breathless, eyes wide with urgency. Seeing him, the bishop fell to his knees, eyes upward as if searching the heavens for aid and succor. Yet fear disturbed his prayer, an emotion so strong so as to wrench a cry from his soul, and he wept.