“And lord it over them who now they serve.”
-Samson Agonistes, Milton
“Dogged Works of Men, Father, are like the letters writ with God’s inky pen.”
Father nodded, giving Peter space to grow the man rising within.
As the sun set in the southwest sky and the wendigo raised the bier to their chief on the southwestern thumbnail of Cedar Mountain, the men tilted the last post into place at center, the crews having played the game of work to a draw. Anton, Ben and Juan built the turret by turning the southwest corner with the cat walk and roofing it with a peaked shed roof on four tree top poles, a simple lattice of boughs, not yet shingled. This work had been tackled as Thirteen held the Cherub Sword, that great length of lit steel, before him as a priest carried the cross, passing the outer wall in a warding walk.
The last great trunk set, Peter and Father found themselves in the long shadow of sun fall. Tory Ball was within, being bathed and mended by the maid and Mother, as he had taken some hurt, crashing through low tree bows and high thickets on his ride up from the sea.
“The gate, though, is a wide open hole, Son. What has our churchy engineer in store for a gate—Black Feet are dancing by fire on the mountain and like to walk right in while the fiends scamper over above.”
Peter looked above at the eight remaining fiends, one wounded, regarding their chief on that unlit bier, and decided, “Father, I never thought to parlay with fiends,” drew the sword of pummel bright, the arming sword from Rome given by Thirteen to him. He held this like the knight held the Cherub sword, like a Holy Cross in left hand, walked past Ben’s pitch pot and the fire the men warmed themselves by, and grabbed a brand.
With this smoldering in his hand, he said to Breed, now so pale of skin, “Two ladles of pitch, a pouch of powder, on my heels for weird parlay.”
“Son, Son!” Father said, as Breed followed him and the men crowded the single gap left in the wall, taking up guns and fanning out, aggressive, not defensive, he could hear by their mutters and tramps.
He passed Thirteen, praying in Latin, “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done, as it art in Heaven,” the great sword humming a chorus in the same tongue, “Ah-ah-men.”
The others did not know the holy language turned to Christ’s purpose in ancient days, from pagan ways, but they understood at a gut level, that Peter walked with a protection, with Breed behind him, his stride somewhat longer, nearly five feet tall, since his bent back had straightened, as if by the act of placing the gun stand by the gate post.
‘Good Priest Engels, when you taught me Greek, it was in the words of Homer. I suspect these wendigo—poor fiends—are shades risen from that ancient crew from before Christ’s salvation.’
Breed was humming, in imitation of the singing sword, “Ah-ah-men,” in low respectful tones.
“Yes, Breed, I think they do not lie, I think these fiends were once men in the long ago, wishing they had a means to light their chief’s pyre.”
The crest of the hill was had by chopping feet down into the hard crust of the snow, wending their way between the hummocks of brush Thirteen had left of the felled tree branches. Coming, within a few easy minutes, to the circle of reeking fiends, their big pig red eyes now softened to a fey blue, Peter announced, “Parlay?”
All but one mumbled incoherently. Yet he, seeming more stately, more human, at least apish, growled, “We were men once, Prince. Then heaven took our fire and sent we below to expire.”
It was as if a poet were lodged in that hideous beast body.
“Your name, before you were cursed?”
The jaws cracked and popped with the formation of the words, “Arch-eh-lock-us, sergeant of men, served Master War.”
Peter recalled his theology under Father Basil, up from Acapulco two summers ago: “Sergeant, Mars came to God, away from devil ways, to fight for Christ. I urge you consider this, and speak it to your fellows, to follow Saint Martial of the Sword.”
The fiend looked him clearly in the eyes, his tears turning to mist on his horrid moist snout, “I see Master’s sword in ye hand, Prince, Aor he was, before the walls where we fell.”
Peter sheathed the arming sword, which did not cease its pummel to glow, gathered the pitch and powder in his left from Breed, stepped forward three paces, beneath that monstrous bulk, and extended both hands, combustibles and brand, towards the wendigo sergeant, “Then have your fire back, Sergeant, and pray your king to heaven, rather than hell.”
The big reeking thing shambled forward on its haunches, head down, eyes up, drooled, shivered and, as broad as a bison growled, “Honor was ours, fire too—you restore both… Our Prince.”
Keep the fire, Sergeant, Pray God in heaven for light.”
“Aye-a-men,” slathered one of the other fiends, who placed his snout in paws, and cried like a big baby.
“Master,” asked Breed, “may I assist, to spread the powder and pitch?”
“Yes, Breed,” he motioned with upward hand as the wendigo leader held the powder and pitch as if knowing not what its properties were. Breed walked smartly up, took these and walked around with his back to the fiends sprinkling the pyre with powder and smearing the pitch with ladle.
Within a minute, the task had been done and the fiend holding the brand breathed upon it to bring it to a glow, then breathed harder and longer to set it alight.
Peter assured the fiend, noting the coming breeze, “Sergeant, North Wind is coming. It is time to light your king’s pyre.”
The thing touched the torch to the ring of powder and pitch under the cedar bows, where the wendigo king lie, and the pagan funeral bier took light, with a Christian prayer spoken in Greek by Peter, “Rise before the night, and seek Christ’s light.”
The fiends mumbled like men recalling forgotten tongues and knelt in the snow, their snouts in their paws, challenging the hooted calls from the mountain tops that ushered in the night.
The last light of the sun was waning across the west and south walls of Fort Grim as Peter crossed the creek and returned to the men’s cheers. Thirteen followed him, behind Breed, praying with the Flamberge to the gate.
Peter Grim waited there, “Thirteen what of a gate—it’s near to dark and my carpenters hands are all numb?”
“Master,” said Thirteen, “he who thrusts this sword into the gate post above, shall be the only one to draw it. Beware, to unsheathed the sword from its wall will be to undo it’s blessing.”
The sword was handed to Peter Grim, who hefted it, smiled, then grinned and said, “Too big for the war trace. The big corner post the culvern was mounted on?”
“Yes, Master, the great southwest post.”
The Master of Grim Hall climbed the ladder, stood upon the wall, looked at the half-fallen sun past the burning pyre of the wendigo, and thrust the sword into the top of the five foot thick trunk.
The sound was of a nail driven into a plank. The sword hilt grew bright, drawing on the falling sunlight, spreading white, down the post across the walls and around the hall, like an ivy vine of white hot iron winding itself around the great trunks. For what seemed five minutes, but was perhaps two, the fort and hall were turned ivory white, an enamel iron gate forming like an arbor in the gateway before which the men stood, most of them outside the precinct, of what was suddenly a fort of bright right. Where the sword had been thrust stood a white ivory cross. Behind this Peter Grim stood in amazement, his beard white, face bright, even his eye brows snowy white.
Every man took to his knees as night came down, a night that barely encroached upon the walls, that waxed ivory white, and would so, it was obvious, shine under the moonlight.
Peter, on a notion, suggested, “Christians at the gate,” and the gate opened, animated by an angelic intelligence.
Thirteen spoke, low, and sure, “Master, your Second, Third and Fourth truths are learned, fey known, untaught. So Holy Father Boniface saw in his dream, a greyhound named Peter, sired of a lion named the same.”
“Thirteen, will it against heathen’s protect?”
The voice was grave, “Devils, demons and horrors, yes. Heathens, heretics and invited evil, no.”
“To table, Crew Ball, while crew Grim keeps the wall. We eat and rest in two watches,” commanded Peter, and walked through the pearly gate towards the now ivory logs of Grim Hall, its walls and eves wound with an ivory ivy, leaves like tiny jousting shields, budding under the pall of night, as common vines wax with the morning light.
