CHAPTER 909: SILENCING A BELL (PART ONE)

While Baron Hanrahan seethed in anger at the way Loman had turned everything on its head, he was at least warm and well fed, which was more than the men standing guard in the watch towers could say.

Everyone was nervous about demons, and the sudden winter storm had only made matters worse. Now, at a time when the Hanrahan soldiers should be drawing lots to figure out which unfortunate bastard would have to spend a night in the cold watch tower, their captains had ordered whole squads to venture out into the cold, standing watch over the dark, silent forests that overlooked the brightly lit town at the bottom of the valley.

"All right, ye sodding idiots," a shivering sergeant groused as he descended the spiral stairs from the top of the bell tower, slamming the wooden door shut behind himself before the warm air inside the tower could escape into the cold outside.

"Who’s tha’ next loser ta’ head out into tha’ cold?" Sergeant Garth said as he looked around the collection of soldiers huddling around the small hearth in the tower, tossing dice from a cup and holding steaming bowls in their hands. "And what is that smell?" the puzzled man asked as his nose caught a hint of something meaty in the air along with a faint herbal scent.

"Come ’ere an’ sit," one of the soldiers said as he scooted sideways, making room for the leader of their six-man squad and thumping the straw mat on the stone floor to invite Garth to join his men by the fire. "Saith got lucky an’ hit a rabbit with his sling an hour gone by or more," he said with a toothy grin directed at the youngest member of their squad. "He even fixed up a small stew for us."

"Saved some fer ye, Garth," the young soldier said as he dragged a small iron pot away from the fire where he’d been keeping it warm. "It’s not as good as the stew my da’ used to make, even when tha cellar was bare an’ there weren’t nottin’ but the rabbits ’e trapped an’ tha herbs ’e dug, but it’s better’n the dried meat an’ beans they sent us out ’ere wit."

He said it lightly, but there wasn’t anyone in the small squad who didn’t know that Saith had only become a soldier because his father had been jailed for poaching, and the young lad had taken over supporting his mother and two younger sisters. He was young, but he was a good kid, and the entire squad had taken him under their collective wings as the worst collection of wise elder brothers and dastardly uncles a man could ever wish for.

"Yer not supposed ta go wanderin’, idiot!" Garth snapped even as he reached out for the iron pot and started fishing in his rucksack for a small wooden spoon. "What’re we s’posed ta do if ya get yerself killed out away from tha’ tower? One man goes missin’ then tha’ next one goes lookin’ fer him, only ta go missin’ tha same stupid way. Next thing ye know, we’re ringing tha’ bloody bell on account of ye an’ yer idiot mate trippin’ in tha’ snow an’ breaking yer own foot on a tree root."

"Hey now, tha’s not fair, Garth," the man holding the cup of dice protested. "We might be dumb enough ta sign up fer this sort of work, but we aren’t utter fools!"

"Fool enough to dice away half yer pay the first hour we was ’ere," another man said with a laugh. "Yer new missus won’t like that, will she?"

"Oh, shut it, ye don’t know what it’s like marrying a pious lass like me Lili," the man with the dice groused. "Her father’s been tithing one snip in ten that ’e earns, an’ an extra penny every holy day fer as long as she remembers. Now, she expects me ta do tha’ same, jus’ because I’m tha ’man of tha’ house’ now."

The entire squad burst into deep, belly-shaking laughter at their companion’s misfortune, with several of them offering ’tips’ on how to convince his new wife that there were better uses for a few extra coins than giving them to the Church each month.

"Why’d ye even marry such a pious woman if ye don’t care for tha’ Church?" Garth asked, genuinely curious how his soldier had gotten himself into such a state. He should have been pressing for one of the men to take their turn atop the tower, but the sun would be setting soon and then it would be getting even colder and harder to see anything moving in the dark of the night.

It hardly seemed worth it to stand watch all through the night, especially when they hadn’t spotted as much as a feral hog in their entire march out to the watch tower at sunrise. Nothing was moving in the unnatural cold, and there were no tracks in the deep snow for leagues in any direction, so rather than press for someone to take up the next watch, he pressed for gossip from the newlywed man.

"Look, ye can all say what ye will, but give me a pious girl any day of the year an’ I’ll promise you that I’m tha’ first man ta ever touch ’er," the man with the dice said as he proudly thumped his chest. "That’s why..."

-CRACK-

The sound of an ax crashing into the heavy wooden door echoed through the circular stone chamber like thunder. Every man froze for a heartbeat. Dice clattered to the floor, and soup bowls dropped from suddenly weak hands, falling onto the straw mats as terror seized them.

Hearts hammering loud enough to be heard over the sounds of an ax striking the door, the Hanrahan soldiers scrambled toward their weapons stacked against the curved walls, cold-numbed fingers slipping on leather straps as they fumbled with helms and shield grips. In the confined space, shoulders collided and elbows jabbed as six men tried to arm themselves as quickly as they could.

-CRACK- -CRACK- -CRUNCH-

It only took a few blows from a wicked, half-moon-shaped ax to tear a hole in the heavy wooden door, revealing the dark, beady eyes and wicked, gleaming tusks of a demon that resembled a wild boar wearing a kettle-shaped helm.

"Demons!" Garth shouted, even though it was the most obvious thing in the world, his mind struggled to come up with a more useful order as the ax thudded into the door again and again, widening the hole as the boar demon searched for the wooden bar that held the door shut.

For years, he’d spent every year drilling his soldiers, telling them that the cat demons would attack in the night and reminding them that while the demons were stealthy, they were also skittish and weak, only attacking when their own ill fortune left them half mad from hunger and made them desperate enough to attack humans. When he said it, he’d spoken from experience, and he boasted of killing two demons himself in his second year as a soldier.

Now, however, as he looked through the hole in the door at the snub-nosed demon with tusks that looked like sharpened tent spikes and eyes that burned with predatory malice, his mind ground to a halt as icy cold claws of fear gripped his heart.

These weren’t the weak, feeble demons he knew... these were unholy terrors of the night made flesh and wrapped in steel... and Garth had no idea what he should do now that they had arrived at his door!