Jesse Bullington - The Sad Tale of the Brothers Grossbart

“Blasphemer!” Martyn snapped. “Only the Lord may judge me!”

“Heth a thaint!” Raphael wagged his stump from Hegel to Martyn. “Know your own pwace, Pwiest!”

“Just cause you ride with us don’t mean we won’t execute your ass,” Hegel reminded Martyn. “You been slippin of late, but despite all a your recent blasphemin I got faith you hates demons and witches and such, so you’s probably goin upways if I put you down like a blood-simple hound. If not that’s your own mecky fault. What was it you said bout us bein tools and Her Will bein done?”

All eyes were on Cardinal Martyn, who stood on shaky legs surveying the four men he had shared so many days with. Everything seemed so utterly wrong that he turned away without a word and stalked off, the jeers of the Grossbarts following him into the night. Instead of making for the other fire he wandered out into the open desert, a cool wind rinsing his mind free of the Grossbartian dust that had coated it for so long even as his good hand stripped him of the murder-bought cardinal’s vestments. Scaling a dune he followed the ridge until the rosy full moon again slid under the clouds. Completely naked, drunk, and crazed through the clarity of just what he had been up to over the last year of his life, Martyn looked back at the twin campfires and wept.

Closing his eyes, Martyn remembered the past for what it was and not what he had made it. His thoughts turned away from the lies he had almost believed, all the way back to Elise bidding him farewell before entering the convent where she would live out her days without him. The Bird Doctor had come for them in the garden but while Martyn fell to his knees in terror she had seized up his staff and beaten the avian-masked demoniac into the fire. When the unclean spirit abandoned its vessel and came for them she stood strong, her fiery staff between them and possession. Then it had entered the unfortunate rider and fled, and the two of them had wandered south. Even after Elise had disappeared behind the nunnery’s gate Martyn could not believe her decision, and a year passed before he picked up his cowl and staff and went in search of vengeance.

The broken man did not hear the sand shifting as the behemoth rushed up the dune behind him, instead the soft, warm cadence of Elise’s voice bringing tears to his cracked cheeks. Martyn did not feel the warm breath emanating from Magnus’s dozens of mouths behind him, tightening his hand on her shoulder as she told him they must part and seek solace in God instead of each other. The massive rat’s head Magnus had in place of a left hand accommodated all of Martyn’s lame arm and part of his chest into its mouth before snapping shut. His body was acting curiously and his chest boiled, but in the cloister of his mind Martyn finally forgave her for abandoning him, although even as he died he could not forgive himself. Perhaps God would, he thought, and then thought no more.

“Martyn.” The thing inside Heinrich spoke with the farmer’s mouth as he rode up astride Brennen. “A monk, one of the only to escape me in years past. How might one doubt the existence of Fate, with such proof as our happy reunion down all these days?”

Heinrich had nothing to offer but a dull push to keep moving, to find the Grossbarts before he fell into the eternal sleep. His tenant merely directed the eyes they shared toward the two campfires blazing at the base of the dune, and tears of happiness dribbled down into Brennen’s mouths. The husks of Vittorio and Paolo appeared in the moonlight, and, inevitable as death itself, all five rushed down the hillside and fell upon the Grossbarts.

“Martyn’s hereby relieved of his duties,” said Hegel with a nod into the darkness where the cardinal had disappeared. “I reckon that makes you high priest or prelate, brother.”

“An honor I’s happy to receive.” Manfried gurgled as he drank heartily.

“Rigo and Raph, you two’s bishops, Hell, you’s a bishop, too, Arab.” Hegel nodded at his own wisdom and the returned Al-Gassur.

“Why not a cardinal, O font of the ages?” asked Al-Gassur.

“That title’s been corrupted, as has pope.” Hegel hiccupped. “Fact is, ain’t been a legitimate pope since Formosits.”

“Shame he had to go heretical on us,” said Manfried. “Martyn weren’t a bad sort fore his office went to his head. Sayin that rot bout you not beein saintly.”

“I did die a horrible death,” Hegel agreed. “That She saw fit to raise me up only proves Her commitment to spite that celestial rapist and his so-called martyrs. Any real saint ain’t gonna stand quiet for no martyrin, believe you me. Urgh!”

Hegel finished his proclamation by spraying vomit into the fire, bringing on a cheer from his brother. Never before had Hegel felt the Witches’ Sight come upon him with such speed and violence, and he battled his rebellious body to warn Manfried. Finally swallowing back the puke, he gasped, wild eyes roving over the skies and sand.

“We’s in a trap! Arabs!”

The freed slaves rushed an masse to the Grossbarts’ fire, experience having taught them to hasten when Hegel craved their audience.

“How’s that?” said Manfried, hopping into a squat and eyeing the horde of foreign allies suddenly crowding the edge of the fire.

“What kwan ower ownswelves dew?” Raphael panted.

“Suffer!” a voice crowed from darkness. “That’s all I’ve left you, Grossbarts!”

“Who the fuck-” Hegel began.

“Who else but your nemesis?!” Heinrich shambled into the firelight, flanked by Paolo and Vittorio. The young Italians’ tongues were too swollen for them to speak, but they grinned and drooled on their papal robes at seeing their quarry. In one misshapen hand Heinrich lazily dragged the scourge up his bulging stomach and chest, his sullied robe and rotting flesh peeling off like a roast turnip skin.

The stench overpowered them, even the Grossbarts gagging on the suddenly wet air. The slaves wailed at the uncomprehending Saint Hegel to banish the demons, some fleeing and others praying. Raphael and Rodrigo vomited at the stink of pus and carrion, and Al-Gassur burst a blood vessel in his eye staring at the festering men. The only pale areas on their blackened skin were the weeping pustules that glistened like the moon.

“Heinrich?” Hegel could not feel his legs, dizzy from the reek.

Manfried squinted. “Who?”

“Yes!” Heinrich hooted. “It is we!”

“Who?!” Manfried repeated, refusing to believe it. “Nah it ain’t!”

“Mecky dirt-fuckin farmer!” Hegel stepped toward him, hefting his pick. “What you done to yourself?!”

“We’ve joined!” Heinrich cackled. “The one you thwarted in the mountains as you did me!”

“Witchery!” Manfried shouted.

“Yes!” agreed Heinrich. “She is with us as well! You killed her husband as you did my wife, and now her children will end you as you ended mine!”

“Moonfruit let that demon in’em!” Hegel exclaimed, recognizing Heinrich’s rotten appearance for what it denoted. “The one what slayed Ennio and them monks and the rest a that town!”

“Eh?” Rodrigo wiped the slick vomit from his lip and drew his sword. “He’s the one?”

“That’s it, ain’t it?!” Hegel demanded. “Confess now fore we smite you twice!”

“Yes!” Heinrich bellowed. “Now see what came from the witch’s loins, Grossbarts, see what you have brought out of Hell upon you! Brennen! Magnus!”

“You’s still a fool!” Manfried said. “Who’s that skulkin behind you in them robes, eh? Couple a crumbs from that town we torched outside Venetia, or is there true popery at work?!”

Hegel felt his guts try to flee north and south simultaneously, he alone comprehending the nuances of the situation. How might a harvest spring forth but with a planted seed? Before he could recover, half a dozen slaves on the edge of the firelight disappeared, yanked backward into the darkness without a scream among them-but their fellows who had seen what had taken them supplied shrieks to go around. All assembled felt hot wind stir their hair, a wind that pushed and pulled like a rapid tide, a wind born of dozens of massive mouths breathing in unison.