Between Two Fires

by Christopher Buehlman

“We are going to Paris. And then to Avignon,” she said. “The hell we are.” “I have to go to Avignon. I’m not sure why. I have something I have to do. And you have to make sure I get there safely.”

“What we need is to stay in the country. Those big cities are tombs, and they’re hungry. Going to them is stupid.”

“Oh, sweet Jesus, let our luck be in,” he said, and the two of them went to the gate. It was a simple gate of interwoven sticks, standing open. A wooden sign over the gate said, in burned-in Latin: This gate opens to all who enter in Christ’s peace He drew his sword and went in.

“Is this vow for the rest of your life?” he asked. She shook her head. “Just while we’re here?” She nodded. “In that case, we are definitely spending the night. Maybe a week.”

“A pity. You might have broken a lance tonight. In the night tourney.” “I thought tournaments were forbidden by the king.” “The king’s arm has grown short.”

A knight with a face somewhere between a man’s and a lion’s had entered the square from the direction of the river. His armor was bloody, as was the axe he carried head down in his left hand. He was riding a grayish horse with human mouths where its eyes should be and hands instead of hooves.

A man, or something man-shaped if not man-colored, stood over the cardinal. Impossibly, it had its arm down the cardinal’s mouth all the way to the elbow. It looked up at Robert, its mouth full of dirty teeth, its eyes black but somehow luminous; were there twelve of them? No, six. Now two.