Michael Stackpole - Of Limited Loyalty

Branch laughed. “Such a sinner are you, Colonel. You shall burn for a long time.”

Fire crouched, reaching a hand toward Rathfield, but looked up at his former charge. “Rufus, this is not like you. What has happened?”

Branch pulled back and smiled easily. “The tablets held the secret. Tell him. Tell them.”

Stone nodded. “It’s true, all has been revealed. God has granted us the gifts denied us when we left the garden. It is as you preached, Ezekiel.” The man raised a finger and wrote on the air. Golden sigils hung there, twinkling as if made of stardust, then slowly vanished. Owen could make nothing of them, but he’d seen them before, on the walls of the outpost.

As the sigils drained away, a plant sprouted beneath them. It looked for all intents to be a sunflower, with a blossom eight inches across. It grew to waist height in less than a minute’s time, and the flower opened. The blossom appeared very much like cauliflower, but golden-brown on the surface. It smelled for all the world of cinnamon.

“You see, as it was said in the Good Book: Manna, given to us through this Godly gift. These tablets that the Steward has translated were put here for us, so we can lead people to God.”

Fire, instead of rising, went down to his other knee. He clasped his hands in prayer. “Father Almighty, please forgive these Your children…”

“Silence! Blasphemy will not be tolerated.” Branch thrust a finger at Fire. “Clap him in irons and hitch him to the Post of Shame.”

Two men stepped forward, pulled on leather gloves, and dragged Fire toward the center of the green. A stout post had been sunk into the middle of it, and a pair of manacles bound to it by a short length of chain. Fire neither struggled nor protested his treatment. Once secured, he went to his knees again, and the short chains raised his arms to an obviously uncomfortable height.

Owen and Nathaniel exchanged glances. If they attacked now and managed to kill Branch, they still would have three dozen adults to deal with. Not only would the expedition end right there, but whatever had transformed the people of Happy Valley would be free to continue working.

Nathaniel raised his rifle’s muzzle to the sky. “You serious ’bout that trial, Rufus?”

Branch scratched over his ear and a clump of hair came away. He looked at it for a moment, puzzled, as if he didn’t know what it was. Then he cast it aside and stroked the tablet again. “Yes. A trial. Exactly. I will summon those who will judge you. If you run, Fire will die.”

Makepeace bent down to help Rathfield to his feet. “And what if we recant our heresy and accept fellowship and communion here in Happy Valley?”

Rufus looked Makepeace up and down, then snorted. “There may be mercy granted. Go to the workshop. Await the summoning.”

Nathaniel led the way to the workshop. It didn’t appear as if Rathfield would be able to climb the ladder into the hayloft, so Owen gathered a length of rope and hitched it to a chain and hook. He opened the loft door to thread it through the pulley, but the Colonel had recovered enough to make the trip himself. They positioned him by the loft door so he could watch the green and report if anything unusual was happening.

Owen crouched with the others two-dozen feet away. “Suggestions?”

Nathaniel nodded. “I got me a plan.”

“Let’s hear it.”

“Well, Kamiskwa, the second it gets dark, you’re going to light on out of here.”

“I am not abandoning you.”

Nathaniel clapped the Shedashee on the shoulders. “I ain’t sending you off to save your life. It’s to save many lives. Did you notice that the workshop here, and near all the houses I could see, they had themselves paper nailed up on the doors. Got that fancy writing that Stone made on ’em?”

Kamiskwa nodded. “I take some of those and get them to Prince Vlad?”

“You got the best chance of any of us to do that.”

Owen’s eyes narrowed. “Once he’s gone, they’ll kill the rest of us.”

“I ’spect, but see, Rufus Branch, he ain’t never really got the best of me. He couldn’t never beat me fair and square, so he went to poison and all. I don’t got me no idea what’s going on here, but he’ll jump at the chance to break me his own self.”

“You saw what he did to Rathfield. Breaking you is not going to take long.”

“Now Captain, I reckoned you had more faith in me than that.” Nathaniel smiled. “Rufus, he’s playing by some rules here, and I reckon offering a benediction will be part of them. Makepeace, do you reckon you could offer some Scriptural comments to mount our defense for heresy?”

“Iffen you think there is going to be a trial.”

“I think there will. He still needs the congregation. If he didn’t, he’d gone and kilt us right off.”

Rathfield shifted his position by the loft door. “People going into the Temple. All of them.”

Owen walked over and watched. The people weren’t just walking to the meeting house, they were streaming toward it, like ants on the edge of a leaf. Fathers leading mothers, children following behind in descending order of height. Owen couldn’t help but imagine that was how the people in Piety had moved before they were attacked.

He looked down at Rathfield, whose eyes still focused distantly, and whose lower lip trembled. “What happened, Colonel?”

“It got inside my mind. Everything, it knows everything.” He stared up with haunted eyes and gripped Owen’s forearm tightly. “Even things I never wanted to remember.”

As the people continued making their way to the Temple, Rufus Branch emerged from it wearing a long robe belted narrowly at the waist. He carried both tablets beneath his left arm.

Owen turned. “Something strange going on with Branch.”

Nathaniel crossed to the door, crouching between Owen and Rathfield. “Kamiskwa, get ready. Almost dark enough.”

The new Steward approached the post and said something to Fire, then threw his head back and laughed. He began walking a slow circle around him, and faint snatches of melody made its way to the loft. As Branch began singing louder, the discordant notes and odd phrases made Owen’s flesh crawl. Even more eerily, as the volume increased, the song appeared as a black ribbon of sigils trimmed in gold, rising from Rufus’ mouth as steam might from a winter’s-night conversation. They swirled into the sky, evaporating slowly and mingling with the gloom.

Owen pointed toward the meeting house. “I can’t see beyond it. There’s a black fog.”

Makepeace grunted. “More like shadow done froze over.”

Kamiskwa, over by the workshop’s side door, called out. “It’s around the barn. I can’t open the door.”

Nathaniel retreated from the window and fetched his rifle. He crouched again and sighted down the barrel. “Hundred and ten yards, give or take.”

Makepeace nodded. “I reckon you can hit him, but killing him’s another matter.”

As if he had heard the remark, Rufus stopped singing and turned toward the workshop. He ran a hand back through his hair as if to smooth it, but instead harvested great swaths instead. He let the hair float in the air for a moment before beginning his approach.

His voice boomed. “I know you too well, Nathaniel Woods. This is why I have taken the precaution of summoning the fog. You would have sent your friend away, but the mist will kill him.”

“That doesn’t sound like Rufus Branch to me.” Owen shook his head. “Too precise.”

Kamiskwa, who had joined them, shrugged. “Fire did say he taught him to read and write.”

“Different from making speeches, though.”

Nathaniel stood. “Well, whatever or whoever, I ain’t about to be crouching here like some mouse.” He descended the ladder and threw open the workshop door. The others, save for Rathfield, followed from the workshop and took a stand beside him with the workshop’s narrow wall at their backs. “I thought we was getting a trial, Rufus.”