The Empire of Time by David Wingrove Read Free Book Online Page B

excitedly.
    ‘Thanks be to our Lady,’ Johannes murmurs and crosses himself, the others – myself included – responding in an instant. Then he turns, looking to us in disgust, as if we were still naked. ‘Now dress yourselves, quick, my brothers, unless you fancy a good flogging from the Meister!’
    And then suddenly I am back there in the forest, at night, walking silently through the moonlit dark towards the village. All about me are the shadowy figures of my brother knights. They walk slowly, with a dream-like slowness, their long swords drawn, their cloaks fluttering ghostly pale between the dark, arrow-straight trunks of the trees.
    We are close now. Ahead of us there’s light and laughter. Sparks fly up into the darkness from a great bonfire in a clearing not a hundred yards away. About the fire are a dozen or so huts, crude things of daub and wattle. Families crouch before them, their faces lit, their eyes drawn to the leaping flames. Dark figures dance and whirl about the pyre, dancing to a crude yet haunting melody played on a single four-stringed instrument, its strangely exotic sound drifting out to us. The villagers sway from side to side, caught up in the song, clapping along to its rhythm, and then, suddenly, a voice picks up the melody and is quickly joined by others.
    I feel the hairs on my neck bristle. The sound is beautiful, so pure and innocent. But I’ve no time now for such sentiments. My wrist is aching from carrying the sword, the muscles of my right arm stiff with tension. We are almost upon them, and as we come to within yards of the clearing’s edge, so the Meister’s voice cries out and we begin to run, our fierce yells of rage drowning out their song, which falters and stops.
    They’re screaming now, running this way and that, trying to flee into the forest as our men go among them, swinging their swords viciously. And those who do manage to slip away find themselves confronted by a second line of our men, standing out there among the trees, waiting to cut them down.
    A young woman tears herself from the small group and runs towards me, yelling, her arms out to me. Her dark eyes implore me not to harm her, but even as I step back, a crossbow bolt knocks her down. I watch in horror as her hands scrabble at the welling patch of red in her side, a look of shocked surprise in her eyes. She struggles a moment longer, then convulses, dying with a whimper.
    I look up. The huts are burning now, forming a great circle of brightness in the midst of that primordial dark. I turn, in time to see Brother Martin swing his blade and cleave a fleeing infant crown to navel, the child tumbling like a split fruit on to the carpet of bloodied leaves.
    I howl and try to throw my sword away, but the muscles of my wrist are locked. And even as I do, the Meister himself strides across and, bellowing in my face, shoves me towards a group of cowering peasants, who crouch before a blazing hut.
    There’s fear in their eyes, and an overwhelming hopelessness, and I want to tell them that I’m sorry. I want to say, ‘I have to do this, or my own people will die’, but I can’t. I am trapped in the moment, unable to deviate from it, and as I raise my sword again, I groan aloud and call to Urd herself to make this end.
    But Urd is not watching, not protecting me from this, and as the dream goes on, I am forced once more to watch as, one by one, they die at my hand, screaming like frightened children, their souls flying up into the darkness like windswept embers. And when it’s done, I turn to find the Meister watching me, a broad smile on his face.
    ‘There,’ he says, clapping me on the back. ‘Not so hard, is it?’
    The fires are raging now on every side, filling the dark night with their dazzling light, the blazing thatch roaring, the sound like a great torrent of falling water, glowing embers drifting on the gusting draughts like fireflies, carrying the blaze into the forest, setting parts of it alight,