Interlude 1
1982 Words
He was William now. The name had been his for almost twenty years, ever since the Old Woman had given him the face of the man to whom it had originally belonged. That man was now dead, buried in an unmarked grave near the beaches of Normandy.
Tall and proud in a ringmail shirt, he stood upon a hilltop with his head uncovered. His face was pale now – too pale to be handsome, in his estimation – and marked by a thick, graying beard. “Watch them run.”
The hill sloped gently downward to a flat plain of brown grass covered in the white flecks of a light snowfall. On that plain, several men in tunics of green and brown ran for the distant treeline. Those trees were bare now. Not a leaf to be seen on any branch. That would make for easier hunting if he were so inclined. Fortunately, he was not.
The thunder of horses" hooves got his attention.
He turned around to find one of his knights approaching on a massive black destrier. The man drew rein and then removed his helm, offering a curt nod of respect. “Sire,” he began. “The Northerners are in retreat.”
“So I see.”
“Shall we pursue?”
A frown tightened William"s mouth as he studied the other man. He shook his head slowly. “Never let your enemy choose the terrain,” he answered. “Our horses would be of little use in there. Our enemies are counting on that.”
“How shall we proceed then, Sire?”
Drawing his sword with a metallic rasp, he pointed the weapon toward the field where his men were arrayed on horseback. Nearly three dozen of them, awaiting his next command. There were farms in the distance: small houses of wood with thatched roofs. That would be a good place to begin. “The fields,” William said. “Burn them.”
“Sire?”
“Were my instructions unclear?”
The man swallowed visibly, then shut his eyes and tried to work up his courage. “No, Sire,” he replied at last. “But…This is good farmland. If we burn it, the region will be unfit for habitation for several years at least.”
“What"s your name, son?”
“Quentin, Your Highness.”
Despite himself, William felt a peal of laughter bubbling up. “Rebellion is a most grievous crime, Quentin,” he said. “Our response must be swift and decisive. Burn the fields and burn the villages. Take what you need from the larders and burn the rest. And put anyone who resists to the sword. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” Quentin mumbled. “Yes, I do.”
Sitting on a wooden stool in his tent, William scraped a sharpening stone along the edge of his sword. His helm was off, and what meagre protection the tent provided did little to keep the chill from nipping at his ears.
“Well done, my son.”
He looked up, blinking. “I was wondering when I would see you again.” His next stroke of the sharpening stone produced a loud, angry rasp. “How long has it been? Three years, at least.”
The Old Woman stood before him with a motherly smile, looking very much as she had the last time William saw her. Her appearance had not changed at all in over a thousand years. She would still blend in perfectly on the streets of Chang"An. “We must let the tether go slack if we wish you to grow.”
“What does that mean?”
She didn"t answer, which should not have surprised him. Instead, she just paced a line across the width of his tent, inspecting his lodgings. She stretched a hand out toward the wall but did not quite touch it. “We have asked much of you.”
William stood up, tossing his sword aside, and offered a deep bow. Upon rising, he greeted her with a smile of his own. “And you have given much,” he replied. “Eternal life is no small reward.”
“Nothing is eternal,” the Old Woman murmured.
That chilled him.
After a moment of silence, he looked down at the ground under his feet. Working up the courage to speak was not easy. That irked him. Whether as William or Saul or Liu Bang, he had never been afraid to speak his mind. But this creature – he had long since given up any notion that she might be human – made him hesitate. The spirits gave him life; they could take it back just as easily. “May I ask a question?”
She just looked at him, dark eyes never wavering.
Was that permission? Or should he hold his fool tongue? Eventually, he decided that he had never been one to keep silent when he had something to say, and now was not the time to start. “You send me out to conquer…Why?”
“Your kind must go to the stars.”
“To the stars?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
The Old Woman laid a hand on his cheek, and he was startled by the warmth in her touch. Her mouth cracked in a toothless grin. “All will be revealed to you in due time, my son,” she said. “In due time.”
Snow fell upon an open field where northerners fled like the cowards they were. Most did anyway. A few of them chose to stand and fight, not that it did them any good. Poor farmers in roughspun tunics and cloaks, carrying pitchforks or hatchets, they made a stand against his knights.
And they fell.
One young man with flecks of snow in his dark hair came charging toward William. The boy showed his teeth and drew back the pitiful knife he carried.
Spinning to face him with the elegance of a trained soldier, William thrust his blade forward. Right through the lad"s chest. He savoured the crunch of breaking bones and the look of horror in the boy"s dark eyes. There was nothing sweeter than breaking an enemy. Any enemy.
crunchWith a growl, William pulled his sword free, and the boy"s corpse dropped to the ground. He stepped over it without a second thought.
Men in ring-mail shirts hacked down anything that got in their way. The air was thick with the stench of death. William glided across the battlefield as if in a trance. After a thousand years, it was all second-nature to him.
A man with an axe came racing toward him.
Cocking his head, William raised an eyebrow at the fool. “Do you welcome death so eagerly?” he muttered. “Well, if you were stupid enough to begin this rebellion…”
The man raised his axe above his head.
William"s sword struck first, slicing cleanly through his wrist on the down-stroke. With a quick pivot, he severed the man"s leg at the knee, laughing as his opponent fell to land face-up in the grass.
Twirling his sword with a flourish, William pointed the blade downward and drove it home through the other man"s chest. Another rebel dead at his hands. This was almost too easy.
“No!”
William spun to find one of his own knights striding toward him, stepping over the bodies of fallen northerners. The man"s face was red, his eyes wild with hate and fury. A tall fellow with golden hair and a neat goatee, he looked like a demon loosed from Hell. It took a moment for William to put a name to the face.
Raymond.
Lifting his weapon in a defensive posture and smiling behind the bloodstained blade, William chuckled. “You would turn upon your own king, sir?” he called out. “To protect these treasonous dogs?”
Raymond held his sword in both hands, neither advancing nor retreating. His gaze did not waver. “These are good men,” he said. “No different than you or me.”
“These are dead men,” William countered. More laughter bubbled up, and he made no effort to stifle it. “They just don"t know it yet. And so are you!”
Raymond attacked.
Steel rang against steel, and William drove the traitor backward across the field. He slashed at Raymond"s legs, but the other man was nimble even in his armour, jumping back just in time.
Hammering him with blow after blow, William kept his adversary on the defensive. He offered a fierce, horizontal s***h that would take the other man"s head off.
Raymond brought his sword up just in time to intercept the cut. He delivered a kick to the gut that made William want to empty his stomach. Dazed by the hit, William danced backward to get some distance.
He looked up to see a blade coming down to split his skull open. It took everything he had to get his own weapon up in time. A challenge! It had been too long since anyone had made him work for victory.
Stepping aside, he let Raymond"s blade fall like a headsman"s axe, its tip landing in the grass. He lashed out with a back-hand strike that clipped the side of Raymond"s open-faced helm. It was still enough to stun the traitor.
Rounding on the other man, William slashed at his neck. Raymond parried that with some difficulty. The man was retreating now, moving backward through the grass like a hunted animal.
Desperate, frantic, Raymond swung at William"s left shoulder.
William batted the sword aside, tearing it out of the other man"s hand. He could end this here and now, but his blood was hot. No one defied him. No one. He would see to it that the northerners learned the depth of their mistake.
Snarling, he grabbed Raymond"s throat with a gloved hand and pulled the other man close. He looked into the traitor"s blue eyes…and something happened. Suddenly, it was not Raymond but Lihua who squirmed in his grip.
She stared at him defiantly, legs kicking, teeth bared.
“You!” William shrieked.
He threw Lihua to the ground, but when she landed, she was Raymond once again. The traitor knew that his death was imminent. His face was pale, his eyes haunted. And this time, there would be no coming back.
Planting a foot on the other man"s chest, William pinned him to the ground. “I confess,” William purred. “I will enjoy killing you a second time.”
“Raymond!”
A glance to his right made him aware of a northern boy rushing toward him with nothing but a poorly-made spear. A skinny lad with curly, dark hair, he looked as though he were ready to wrestle a bear.
“Edwin, no!” Raymond bellowed.
William silenced him with one quick, clean thrust, laughing as blood frothed from Raymond"s mouth. Pulling his blade free of the other man"s flesh, he turned around. “Think clearly about this, boy. Is this how you want to die?”
Edwin just kept coming. When he got within striking distance, he tried to ram his spear through William"s belly.
William swatted it aside with little effort and then reversed his swing to slice open the boy"s guts. Edwin fell to his knees, clutching his belly.
And then it was Guo Dong who stared up at William with hatred in his eyes. Guo Dong who, even as his blood spilled onto the ground, greeted William with that mocking smile. “You know the worst part, Liu,” he croaked. “You will never be happy. You could live another thousand years. Ten Thousand! But you will always be…alone.”
William ended it before the wretch could say another word.
- Writer
