The Firefarer

Part One / Chapter Two: Andre

Vito hitched up his robe, his sandals slipping comically on the tree's bark as he pushed against its trunk and levered his way upwards. A few gristly splinters caught in the exposed skin of his legs and he almost lost his balance, rocking belly down on the branch before dragging himself into a sitting position. Unsmiling, the girl furled and unfurled as she drew herself upright. Her grey eyes had widened with terror, her lips were white and strained. Vito followed her gaze, the extra height now gaining him some vantage, and he peered down directly into the pasture below.

The horsemen reeled in wild, careering circles: whooping, screaming, calling to one another with guttural cries and shouts. With a sudden thwack, an axe was planted into the dove cote sending it crashing to the ground, the birds escaping with a frantic flapping of wings. Vito almost cried out in dismay but the girl stopped him, her cool hand resting on his shoulder.

"The Ahi," she whispered. "Be thankful I stole your doves."

"The Ahi? Who are they?"

"Shh!"

His thoughts spinning now, his mind in chaos, he peered back down at the pasture, its grass already churned to pulp by hundreds of restless, stamping hooves.

The cloister gates were flung open. He craned his neck, desperate to see which of the brothers had courage enough to face these savages. No, not even savages. Demons, evil spirits that the Ruach might conjure to scare their children.

Flanked by novices, one brother stepped forward to greet the horsemen, pushing back his cowl to reveal a short shock of curly red hair, a pale, freckled face. Of course. Rasmus always spoke for the brothers at their meetings with the villagers. He represented the monastery on the common council. Who better to treat with these monsters?

Clutching the hands of both novices, Rasmus took a step forward. The boys flinched, pulling back, but the monk urged them on, calmly stepping across the grass towards the Ahi. The pounding of hooves died away, silence falling once more upon the pasture: heavier than the humid summer air with its buzz of insect wings, its scents of flowers and cornfields. The horsemen had formed a circle around the three monks now, lowering their axes, spears and arrows. For one hope-fuelled moment, Vito was sure that they would speak to Rasmus ˗ that in whatever coarse, harsh tongue they spoke, some understanding could be reached. Perhaps, he thought with sudden zeal, Rasmus would persuade them to shed whatever barbarous beliefs they held, to join with the brothers in celebration of the great Mystery, the unnameable, the power which fed through all living things. He stole a glance at the girl who sat with legs astride the branch, her knuckles paling as she curled her fingers around its bark.

Brother Rasmus uttered a few words but a sudden breeze rippled through the forest, muffling his voice. He threw his arms wide apart in greeting, gesturing in the direction of the cloister gates which were now lined with monks, their eyes inked with fear. Then, Rasmus turned back to the Ahi and awaited their response, a patient smile drawn across his lips. An Ahi drew his axe, its steel flashing against the sun's rays, the light blinding Vito briefly. He blinked, his eyes watering from the brightness, and when he opened them again, Rasmus's headless body sank to the ground, his head a trophy in the hands of an Ahi who swung it by its copper curls, the monk's lips opening and closing as if still welcoming his murderer.

Vito felt his own jaw drop, his hands shake and he almost plunged from the tree, the girl flinging her arms around him just in time.

"Don't look!" she breathed into his ear. "Just sit here. Stop your ears. If you love your life, don't look!"

He burrowed his face into the soft material of her jacket, shuddering as she passed her arms around him and held him close. With hands pressed to his ears, he tried to block out the shrieks and screams as his brothers were hacked down, the clatter of horses' hooves as the Ahi entered the cloisters, crushing men against walls or slaughtering them where they stood. And it would not stop. He told himself that he was still in bed, that this was a nightmare from which at any moment he would awaken, look around his cell, find himself late for morning prayers and race down to the chancel. But he did not wake up. Instead, he clung to the girl like a drowning, desperate man might cling to driftwood as the din, the roar of carnage rose up from the monastery below.