Paul Hoffman - The Left Hand of God

By the third day Cale had caught up with the Redeemers and had watched them turn west, taking them away from Vague Henri and Riba. And after another day they turned east, which would have taken them dangerously close to the pair. It was while following and hoping they would turn again that the only truly unusual experience of his watch took place.

He was approaching the end of one of the Scabland hillocks, one that had collapsed and formed a jagged edge. As he turned the corner, he bumped into a man coming the other way. Cale was so surprised he almost lost his feet on the loose gravel, but the man, standing on a steeper section, could get no purchase and crashed onto his back with a hefty thud.

It gave Cale time to pull the knife he had stolen from the Lord of Discipline and stand over the man with him at his mercy. The man, however, quickly got over his surprise at the strange sight and groaned as he started to get to his feet. Cale waved the knife at him to make it clear he should stay where he was.

“So,” said the man with weary amiability, “first you bump into me and now you want to cut my throat. Not very friendly.”

“People do say that about me. What are you doing out here?”

The man smiled.

“What everyone does in the Scablands-trying to get out.”

“I won’t ask you a second time.”

“I don’t think that’s really any of your business.”

“I’m the one with the knife, so I’ll decide what’s my business or not.”

“A good point. May I get up?”

“You’ll do where you are for the moment.”

The man looked as if he’d seen a few odd things in his life, but he was clearly puzzled by the presence of someone so young and so self-possessed in the middle of the Scablands.

“You’re a long way from home, aren’t you, boy?”

“Never mind about me, Granddad, you need to be more worried about where you’re going to buy a walking stick all the way out here.”

The man laughed.

“You’re a Redeemer’s acolyte, aren’t you?”

“What’s it to you?”

“Nothing, really. It’s just that on the few occasions I’ve seen an acolyte they were in rows of two hundred and there were a couple of dozen Redeemers watching them with whips. Never seen one on his own before.”

“Well,” said Cale, “there’s a first time for everything.”

The man smiled.

“Yes, I suppose there is.” He held his hand out. “IdrisPukke, currently in the service of Gauleiter Hynkel.”

Cale didn’t take his hand. IdrisPukke shrugged and lowered it.

“Perhaps you’re not as young as you look. It’s wise to be careful out here.”

“Thanks for the advice.”

IdrisPukke laughed again.

“You don’t compromise, do you, boy?”

“No,” said Cale flatly. “And don’t call me boy.”

“As you prefer. What should I call you?”

“You don’t need to call me anything.” Cale nodded toward the west.

“You’re going that way. Try to follow me, IdrisPukke, and then you’ll see just how uncompromising I can be.” He gestured that he should get up. IdrisPukke did as he was told. He looked at Cale for a few moments, as if carefully considering what he would do. Then he sighed, turned round and went off in the direction Cale had signaled.

For the next twelve hours Cale remained intensely suspicious of the meeting with IdrisPukke. Was he a Redeemer in disguise, for example? Not likely. Too much liveliness of soul came off him for one of them. A bounty man? Again, not likely. The Redeemers kept things like this to themselves. On the other hand he had killed a Lord of Discipline, a sin of such foulness that they might be ready to do anything to get him back. So it was on this thread that he stayed while he tracked the Lord Redeemers and hoped they would change direction. A day later they did so, heading west again. Usually the hunters would stay that way for at least twenty-four hours. It was time to get back to the others. If he could find them.

Twelve hours later he was on the line they had planned for Henri and the girl to take. But ten miles ahead, just in case. Then he started to walk back down the line to make sure he didn’t miss them, all the while keeping as hidden as he could so that the Redeemers Kleist was supposed to be spotting didn’t blunder into him or he into them. It was only a few hours before he found all three of them standing in a large hollow surrounded by some twenty mutilated bodies, some cut into small pieces. The others saw him from a hundred yards away and waited, without moving, as he walked through the scatter of dead bodies. He nodded to all three of them.

“The Redeemers have gone to the west,” he said.

“Last time I was with mine, they’d turned east.”

Then there was silence.

“Any idea who they are?” said Cale, nodding at the dead.

“No,” said Vague Henri.

“They’ve been dead for about a day, I’d say,” said Kleist.

Riba had something of the same stunned look about her Cale had seen when he rescued her from Picarbo-a look that said: this isn’t happening.

“How long have you been here?” he asked softly.

“About twenty minutes. We met Kleist on the way here a couple of hours ago.”

Cale nodded. “We’d better search them. Whoever did this hasn’t left much, but there might be some salvage.”

The three boys started to search among the remains, finding the occasional coin, a belt, a torn coat. Then Vague Henri spotted something shiny in the sand next to a severed head and quickly brushed the sand away, only to discover it was a brass knuckle duster. He was disappointed, but it was at least useful.

“Help me,” groaned the severed head.

With a cry Henri leapt backward.

“It spoke to me, it spoke to me!”

“What?” said Kleist, irritable.

“The head. It spoke.”

“Help me,” groaned the head.

“See!” said Vague Henri.

Carefully Cale approached the head with his knife and poked it in the temple. The head groaned but did not open his eyes.

“They’ve buried him up to his neck,” he said after a moment of careful consideration. The three boys, familiar with human atrocity, realized now that nothing supernatural was involved. They all looked down at the buried man and considered what was to be done.

“We should dig him out,” said Vague Henri.

“No,” said Kleist. “Whoever did this went to a lot of trouble. I can’t see they’d take kindly to us ruining their efforts. We should leave well alone.”

“Help me,” whispered the man again.

Vague Henri looked at Cale. “Well?” he said.

Cale said nothing, thinking carefully.

“We haven’t got all day, Cale,” said Kleist. By now Cale was looking into the distance.

“No, we haven’t.” Cale’s tone of voice was odd, alarming. The other two looked up, following his flat gaze. At the top of the nearest hillock, about three hundred yards away, a line of Redeemers was looking down at them. Then the line began to move.

The boys, all three of them pale, stood still. There was nowhere to run. Riba moved first, running forward to get a better look at the line of men marching toward them.

“No. No. No,” she said, over and over again.

Vague Henri, white as flour, looked at Cale.

“You drew the small stone,” he said.

Cale stared at his friend, eyes expressionless. There was a moment’s pause, and then Cale took out his knife and walked quickly toward Riba, who was still staring at the line of advancing men. As Cale moved to grab her hair and expose her neck, Kleist called out.

“Wait!”

At this Riba turned round. Cale had lowered the knife, but even in her terrified state she could see that something odd was happening.