The Rise of the Clowns

Chapter 3

3

The fog hovered and drifted only a few feet above the ground of the vast plains. It moved like the back of a mystical blue serpent, shifted and slid, undulated slowly and curled into itself, exposing scale like shimmers of opalescent dew. Occasionally small patches would fade or pull apart revealing the tall thick grass it quietly coated.

Abelardus sat tall upon the back of his horse as he surveyed the land from the top of a small hill. He could see for miles across the immense barren grassland that was covered in clouds. The fog dulled all sounds and grew thicker every moment. There were no birds in flight, no rustle of a spooked hare, no herds of deer or roaming wolves, no hum of insects. Even the sound of the shifting movements of the proud armored horses and the twenty men that accompanied him were muffled.

In all directions he could only see the rolling flat fog along the ground and above rolling gray clouds filled the sky. The world, it seemed, was a cool pocket of misty air sandwiched between two skies. He and his soldiers seemed to float upon the backs of horse shaped boats, their steed’s legs hidden by the thickening brume.

Abelardus had signaled his men to stop so that he could contemplate his next move across this surreal ocean of fog. Its emptiness frustrated him. There were no clues, for the misty gauze covered any bending blades of grass and the tracks they had followed there were lost to them.

Not a single sign of the pack of rogues they were pursuing. Not a single whisper or horse whinny in the distance. No sign to help him decide which direction to go. He had never seen such a strange fog and he wondered at the cause of it, which God or spirit was protecting the men he followed?

Perhaps he had misjudged the direction to pursue long ago, at the riverbanks or within the forest, and now his mistake had led them far away from their prey. By now those they pursued could be sitting and laughing around a fire in a distant mountain cave. They could be resting, happily content that they had given the Legionnaires the slip, their bellies full with the supplies they had stolen.

The thought of their escape nauseated Abelardus and he privately rethought each decision he had made while tracking them. He reviewed his choices carefully and still swore to himself that he and his men had tracked the vandals effectively. He could not think of one moment along the trail that they could have been fooled. He had been sure that when he and his men entered the open plains they would see the distant fugitives clearly. He had counted on them being exposed in the vast plains, where he could finally keep them in sight.

Now, however, he questioned everything. He even questioned why they had chased them this far to begin with, over a theft of meat and wine. Now he and his men hovered in this clouded damp landscape, hungry and tired, far from their Legion’s encampment. Their own horses looked lethargic, the hounds paced slowly in exhausted boredom, tongues lolling. It was apparent to Abelardus that this chase had ended. The trail was cold, the weather unfavorable and he did what was rare for him to do, with a heavy shame weighing down his heart, he accepted defeat.

He was about to turn away and order the men to move back in the direction they had come, when he noticed the fog part over what appeared to be a small patch of water down in the fields below. He noted the drying foam of sweat on his own horse’s neck and could see the same on the rest of the steeds. He lifted his hand and pointed out the patch of water to his men, then led his troop down towards the pond. They and the horses would at least have a good drink before they started back on their way home.

The fog barely parted as the animals pushed through it. Occasionally, one of the hound’s heads would poke up out of the haze in front of them as it leapt into the air, trying to see ahead. Otherwise, the earth bound fog covered the movement of everything below the stirrups of the men’s saddles. It thickened around their legs, leaving dew on their boots. All the fields were quiet, the air heavy and still.

At the edge of the pond Abelardus had some of his men dismount and take turns drinking and watering their horses. He heard the hounds splash into the pond and then quiet down shortly after as if they had found a desirable spot to take a quick sleep. He marveled at the quiet. The horses refused to even nicker. He himself felt like he wanted to stay hushed, choosing to signal to his men instead of using speech.

When most of his men were refreshed, Abelardus dismounted and led his horse to the water’s edge to let it drink. He dropped to one knee so that he could scoop the cold water up to his mouth. He took one drink and splashed his face. It was then he noticed that upon kneeling he had dropped his head just below the level of the fog. He was now surrounded in clouds, only the flat water in front of him open to view.

Across the water, upon the edge of the pond shore, he saw the hounds lying down, fast asleep, their heads resting in front of what appeared to be a rock. He watched as the fog parted slightly around the rock and there, instead of stone, he saw the slight glint of metal, a flash of hammered brass. There, behind the hounds, lay the head of a horse with an armored bridal.

The sight startled him and briefly he thought the creature was dead until its nostrils barely flared with quiet breaths and upon its side something slowly moved. Abelardus stared in shock at what he realized was a man, laying belly flat against the horse’s side, bow and arrow on his back, knife held in his teeth.

The entire image moved, slow motion, like an unstoppable nightmare. The man locked eyes with Abelardus as he rose up from the edge of the pond yelling to his Legionnaires to mount up, to draw their swords. But before his men could react, before Abelardus could even lift himself back onto his own horse, the still quiet of the fog filled with the rustling of disturbed grass and he saw the clouded landscape undulate, revealing solid shapes of men and horses as they rose up from the ground, surrounding him and his men.

Hundreds of nomads had lain under the fog upon the sides of their quiet, downed horses. They waited, weapons and reins in hand and in one instant their cleverly trained horses stood, the riders shifting from their prone positions to sitting straight on their backs with uncanny horsemanship. They rose like underwater creatures from the depths and they filled the air with the hiss of arrows and a terrifying unified cry of war that broke into a chaos of whoops and jackal-like howls.

Abelardus remounted, even though his horse reared in fear, but a handful of his men had been pulled down by their attackers under the edge of the fog. Abelardus did not know if they were captured or dead. The loose horses, free from their captured riders, ran into the hands of their ambushers.

Abelardus and his remaining men instinctually banded together. They formed a tight circle, their large shields held to the outside trying to manage some protection, but they were surrounded and outnumbered. The foggy landscape before them bubbled and erupted with more and more armed ambushers.

Their closest attackers swung wide weighted nets over their heads that they threw towards the Legionnaires. The nets parachuted over and around his men pulling them from the backs of their horses. Before he could maneuver out of the way, one of the nets engulfed him, pinning his arms close to his body as he was pulled to the ground. For a moment, right before he fell from the back of his struggling steed, his eyes glanced ahead of him, across the small pond. There Abelardus saw the five men they had pursued to this place–laughing at them.