Beyond the Elder Peaks

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I

27 July 1610

They slithered into her dreams, a cold, reptillian hate that hissed in her ear. She could feel their scales slide over her body, all over her, writhing and pulsing in a thick, knotted, orgiastic nest that kept her pinned and coiled. The hiss seemed to slither through her breath, cold and violating, with an ancient, primordial hate. “White Doe,” they hissed. “We have an offer for you, and for all the Hemp People. We have a mutual enemy, and we intend to move against him. We offer you this one chancccccce to earn our gracccce and join ussss.”

“No!” White Doe cried out in her dream. The snakes recoiled in horror.

“Very well, White Doe,” they hissed. “You condemn yoursssself, and all your people.”

White Doe woke from a bed of soft, cool moss, beneath the scented boughs of the Virginia forest. The fire had burned down to embers, and most of her companions slept. The coldest part of the early morning huddled around them. It took her a moment to notice that Manteo did not sleep, but sat with incredible stillness, staring into the embers. “What troubles you, little Doe?” he whispered after a few moments.

“The snake men,” she answered. “One of their priests slithered into my dreams, to … negotiate.”

“Negotiate?” Manteo asked. He looked disturbed. “What do those monsters want?”

“An alliance,” White Doe answered. “Against ‘a mutual enemy.’”

Manteo nodded. “They must mean the Powhatan. The snake men mean to move against the Powhatan Empire? How very odd … their power has passed. I would have thought they would need to concentrate on their enemies beyond the elder peaks.”

White Doe had no answers for him. She did not go back to sleep, but instead stayed awake near the fire like Manteo. As a few hours passed, first Solomon Kane, then Jack Quick and John White, roused themselves. Solomon completed his morning prayers as John and Jack readied themselves. “We should head into James’ Towne as soon as possible,” he said, “and confront the Baron.” Jack nodded his assent. As dawn touched the sky, the companions began to set out through the Virginia Wilderness, headed towards the sole English settlement in the uncharted New World.

At a sudden line, the forest gave way. The soft moss, the fragrant trees, the cool shade, all ended at a harsh perimeter. Beyond that, bare dirt baked in the sun; the trees had all gone; the only plant life at all took the form of virulent weeds. Beyond this expanse, the wooden palisades rose up sharply, surrounding a nest of impoverished, filthy hovels packed tightly together, guard towers and fortifications perched fearfully at every corner.

“Welcome to King James’ Towne,” Manteo smirked. They began to cross the fields, towards the palisade. As they entered the town, they noticed the colonists gawking in wide-eyed amazement, not at the treasure-hunting adventurer, nor the two Puritans, nor even the Indian. No, they stared at White Doe, dressed in the savage manner of the Indians, but with lily-white skin to match any of them.

The companions marched confidently into the Baron’s abode. As they entered, Baron de la Warr stood up in shock. “Who are you?” he demanded.

Jack seemed taken off-guard by the Baron’s response. “I, uh, am Jack Quick, this is…”

“The girl,” the Baron demanded. “Who is this girl?”

Jack recovered quickly. “Surely you have not forgotten the first English child of this land’s soil, governor,” Jack replied. “This is Virginia Dare.”

The Baron’s response perplexed the companions: not shock or wonder, but fear. “Take her!” he barked immediately to the soldiers. “Hand her over to Drake; cover her to make sure no one else sees her. We must get this situation under control immediately.” Two soldiers grabbed White Doe and began to restrain her.

Jack reacted quickly, grabbing the Baron, unsheathing his blade, and pressing the sharp, metal blade against the governor’s fatty neck. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Jack told the soldiers. Solomon and Manteo took defensive stances, readying themselves for a fight.

“Do not let them go!” the Baron ordered. “Page! Send for Drake, quickly!” A young boy ran out of the room. Soldiers surrounded them warily, while Jack kept the blade to the Baron’s throat. They blocked exit from the room, refusing to let them leave. For several minutes, the tense standoff continued.

“I hope you know what you intend to do,” Solomon whispered.

“At best, trusting in Providence,” Jack answered.

“I have known men who would call that foolish,” the Puritan replied, “but in all my travels, I have found no greater wisdom.”

But then, the page returned, and behind him came a wretched man in a heavy cloak, clutching a terrible book close to his chest in bony, vise-like claws. “I cannot come scurrying to get you out of every little scrape, Baron,” a rasping voice spoke from beneath the thick darkness that gathered under his heavy hood.

“Drake, you villain, get me out of this!” the Baron roared.

“As you command, m’lord,” the figure answered.

“I wouldn’t,” Jack said, pressing the blade closer to the Baron’s throat. “Not if you value your liege’s life.”

“I don’t,” the man replied. “Not in the least.” Jack found his attention drawn to the tome the man held so closely, and somehow—he did not know how—he knew that the leather binding had come from the flesh of children. As he looked on it in horror, he saw what seemed like a face pressing against that binding, screaming a silent scream of eternal torment. Only Jack heard it, not through ears of flesh; no, it tore through his soul, and left a scar across his sanity. The blade clattered to the ground, and Jack fell backwards, screaming; he himself did not even know how he screamed. He heard no physical sound, only the unholy cry that in that moment shattered his mind.

The Baron lurched forward, springing away from Jack. “Capture them, I want them all to hang!” The soldiers closed in, as Solomon drew his sword.

“Ready to die, old man?” Manteo asked Solomon, as they closed. The soldiers outnumbered them greatly, and more would soon join them. They both knew that they could not win this fight, but to protect White Doe—to protect the granddaughter of their friend—they gladly, wordlessly moved forward to throw their lives away.

But the benefactor of that sacrifice would not have it. “No!” White Doe cried. “It’s … it’s all right. I’ll be all right. Don’t do it.”

“Are you sure, little Doe?” Manteo asked. “You don’t think I’m scared of these barking pups, do you?”

“Of course not,” White Doe answered.

“Very well,” Solomon said, throwing down his sword. Manteo followed suit. The soldiers closed and clapped them in irons.

“Lock them in the prison,” the Baron commanded. “And Drake—the girl is yours.”

White Doe could feel the man’s malevolent gaze upon her. He chuckled. “Delicious.”

The soldiers grabbed John White, Manteo, Jack Quick and Solomon Kane, confiscated their weapons and possessions, and marched them to the prison. The dark, dank cell offered little hope of escape. A small window let in only a few, meager rays of sunlight. Though the noonday sun heated most of Jamestown, the dungeon stank in brooding darkness. Manteo, John White, Solomon Kane and Jack Quick all hung by their wrists, shackled with steel chains to the cold, wet, stone wall.

“I don’t understand,” Jack muttered. “When de la Warr arrived, we constantly heard about the lost colonists; how the Powhatan had massacred the people of Roanoke, how John Smith himself had seen the proof. The rumors came in about survivors, and always it was about how they languished as slaves. I remember the Baron sending letters off to the king of the Powhatan, demanding the return of the colonists, or there would be war.”

“Of course!” White shot out with sudden revelation. “The letter on the officer, the kidnapped children, the ‘Irish tactics’—the Baron wants a war. To the people here, the fate of the colonists provided one of his best causes…”

“And then in we come with Virginia Dare, perfectly free and unharmed,” Jack completed, realizing the full measure of what had happened, “robbing him of his primary casus belli.”

“The Baron’s plans cannot allow any Englishman to know that Virginia lives,” Manteo said.

“And I fear,” John White added, his old voice trembling with terror, “that he lacks in scruples enough to see her dead, just to ensure his war.”

“No harm shall come to her, my friend,” Solomon promised.

“How can you know that?” White asked, a note of despair creeping into his voice. “We rot here in the Baron’s dungeons, powerless to stop him.”

“Though many think me powerful, in all my journeys I have not learned anything so acutely as my own powerlessness,” Solomon replied. “I am ever powerless. I have no strength in me, but by God’s grace to become an instrument of his justice. It is in Him that we must abide in faith. It is in Him that we must trust. And I promise you, the Baron shall not harm Virginia Dare.”

II

27 July 1610

Samuell Drake spent most of his time aboard one of the Baron’s ships, anchored in the harbor, with only a scant few soldiers to attend him. The Baron preferred to keep him largely out of view, for he had few friends among the colonists. During the Atlantic crossing, those coming to the New World—including John White, Solomon Kane, and Jack Quick—had noted the wretched shadows that haunted the Baron’s steps. His face bore a hideous brand, the scars left from the Inquisition in Spain. Rumors told how they had tortured him as a necromancer, and that he counted the illustrious Sir Francis as a cousin. But even so, his dark demeanor and his constant, maddened gibberings made him few friends. Many speculated as to why the Baron retained him. Most in Jamestown reckoned their governor a godly man, but suggested that the rampant sorcery and witchcraft of the heathen tribes he had to defend the colony against required him to retain a sorcerer of his own.

White Doe found herself shackled below decks, her chains riveted to the hull of the ship. She had waited there a long time, before she saw the cloaked figure descend the steps.

“So, you are … Virginia Dare?” he almost seemed to hiss.

“My parents called me that,” she replied.

“Gone savage. Fascinating,” Drake noted. “And you … you shape-shift, yes?”

“Shape-shift?” she acted. “I have no idea what you mean.”

“Oh, but of course you do,” Drake answered. “You turn into a white doe—that’s what they call you, isn’t it? White Doe? I’ve heard that Turtle Island has many shape-shifters like you. I’d love to see how it works.”

White Doe stared at him, silently. Nervously, Drake set his book down on a nearby table and began to page through it. “They contacted you, didn’t they?”

“Who?” White Doe asked.

“The snake people, of course,” Drake replied. “With the offer of alliance?”

“No,” White Doe replied.

Drake laughed. “You’re a terrible liar, little one. They told me they would contact you, try to get the Hemp People to join us. They also said you turned down the offer. Tsk, tsk. Terrible shame, there. You could have been part of something.”

A look of horror crossed White Doe’s face as she realized what had gone on. “That’s why the Baron is so confident in starting this war against the Powhatan,” she gasped. “The snake people are helping him!” Drake simply laughed as he paged through his book. “But … why?”

Drake patted the pages of his beloved tome. “At Mortlake, John Dee kept the largest library the West has seen since the burning of the Library of Alexandria. Included among those volumes, this,” he caressed the page lovingly. “The Necronomicon. My master, Roger Simeon, knew of it, and among his clients he counted the late Queen’s spymaster, Sir Francis Walsingham, who sometimes had need of … otherworldly assistance. My master told Walsingham of this tome, and while Dee was in Europe, Walsingham arranged a robbery of Mortlake. This tome went missing, a crime that disturbed Dee greatly. He had begun a translation of it to English, and had seen what I have seen….”

“My master did not study it much,” Drake’s story continued. “He merely kept it, locking its power away, close at hand. When that vermin, John Redley, betrayed my master, the tome passed to me. And I, I have studied it. I have learned its secrets. Oh, what secrets, what secrets it has to teach!”

Drake turned to White Doe, his eyes wide with the fanatical gaze of a madman. “We tiny mammals, even our angels and gods, good and evil themselves are nothing before the vastness of the cosmos! Before time, before space, they ruled. They created all life, they rule all existence, gods of the outer darkness!” His rant took on a sing-song quality, and White Doe realized he quoted something, almost certainly his vile book.

That is not dead which can eternal lie.
And with strange aeons even death may die.

“The only value our transient, passing life can have,” Drake whispered now, “is in service to the outer gods. When the stars are right, they shall come and undo creation itself, not only the present, but the past and the future, all time and space. Our lives have meaning only as their food. In serving them, we might pass beyond the narrow concepts of good and evil, and achieve a significance otherwise denied to beings like us. Do you not understand? Can you not perceive it?”

Drake reached out his bony hand, and caressed the side of White Doe’s face gently. “Join me,” he hissed. “Stand at my side. I shall share with you the horror of reality. You shall stare at the stark, unyielding madness at the center of the cosmos, and we will revel in the shattering of mind and sanity together, rejoice in the madness that frees our spirits, and submit our flesh and our minds and our souls to become food of the great elder god, the Father of Serpents, great Yig!”

Excitedly now, Drake threw open his maps. “Beyond the elder peaks live a race of giants—you no doubt know more of them than I—who fixed a prison for Yig, binding him to the earth near the axis mundi. But with the magic of this book, we can free him once again!”

“That is why the snake men have agreed to aid the Baron,” Drake laughed. “He is but a pawn in this. I needed the means of getting here, and making my rendezvous with those still faithful to Yig, his children, the snake men. I needed a way to the New World, and the Baron needed allies for his war. The snake men were more than willing to kill some humans in return for the release of their god from the prison of their hated, giant enemies.”

“But you have a unique opportunity to atone for your previous sins of ignorance, little doe,” Drake added. “Have you ever seen a snake eat a little fawn? What an incredible sight. Just imagine the meal great Yig will make of you!”

“You’re insane,” White Doe answered.

“Yes,” Drake hissed. “Happily so. But I see you do not understand the glorious wonder of that. But you will. You will. We are all a feast spread out before great Yig, and you shall be food to him. Accept it willingly, and you may embrace the wonder of madness and submission before your end; deny it, and Yig shall break you first.”

Drake closed his book, tucked it under his arm, and marched up the steps again, leaving White Doe in the darkness below deck. Her mind reeled with the necromancer’s insane rantings. The book had shattered his mind, but it had woven his madness through with terrible truths she knew all too well, the darkest, most dangerous lore her people knew. Drake had encountered something that even the greatest shamans feared to face; what it could do to a mind like his made White Doe shiver with cold fear. Suddenly, the sufferings and injustices of Jamestown and the Powhatan shrank to details of a cosmic drama.

But first, she had to free herself from the ship, and from Jamestown.

White Doe looked about her, hoping to find some friend crawling about the ship. She had not learned much of the Englishman, but she knew they harbored some strange superstition that only human people could speak, or think, or might become one’s friend. White Doe had many friends who had never worn human flesh. Such forgotten friends might save her life now.

Rats scurried throughout the ship, but they could offer her little help. Then,she heard the quiet, distinct sound of termites running about in the wood. White Doe only knew the rudiments of the termite language, but she addressed them as respectfully as she could. “Little friends,” she asked, “since you’ve taken to eating this delicious wood anyway, might I ask for a small favor? Could you eat the wood around these bolts that hold me chained in place? I assure you, the wood here tastes as good as the wood you eat now, and it would help me greatly.”

She heard the clattering of insects in the wood, as if the whole swarm of the boat’s infestation had answered her call. Mere moment later, she easily pulled the bolts straight out of the rotted wood. “Thank you, little friends,” she replied. “I will leave an offering for your people, to repay your kindness.”

Her most immediate problem solved, White Doe looked about to find some way off the ship. Guards blocked her ascent up to the deck, trapping her below deck with the supplies; food, gear, gunpowder… She opened the keg of powder, and took enough to leave a trail, leading to the far end of the boat, where she took refuge. She still had her bowdrill. After a few moments, it sparked. The fire raced along the small trail of black powder, right into the keg of gunpowder.

A terrific explosion ignited, blasting apart half of the ship. Everyone in Jamestown and in the harbor could see it, as some colonists scurried to the boats to row out to help. The part of the ship that remained began to sink into the water.

With an agile dive, White Doe managed to survive the hail of debris that the explosion unleashed, but she now found herself trapped by the sinking wreck. She struggled to get free of the wreckage and make it into open water. Finally, she extricated herself, but her lungs burned for air. She pulled herself frantically towards the surface, feeling like she might drown. Finally, she broke the water’s skin, gasping frantically for air. After a few moments, she looked about, and saw the colonists rowing towards her. “There!” one shouted, pointing towards her. She panicked, and with all the strength she still had left in her, began swimming towards the further shore of the harbor, away from Jamestown and into the Virginia Wilderness. She felt weak already from her previous exertion; her muscles burned and her lungs ached, but still she swam. The shackles that still hung from her wrists with their heavy, metal weight dragged her down, making each stroke even more exhausting, but still she swam. Finally, she reached the shoreline and crawled up out of the water, her clothes heavy with their wetness. But she knew she had not yet reached safety.

Into the forests she had called her home all her life, she ran, and quickly disappeared from the colonists’ view, Virginia Dare once again lost to the wilderness that shared her name.

III

28-29 July 1610

The heavy door of the prison groaned as if in pain as it opened. Several armed guards entered, and two of them began to undo Jack’s bonds. “Careful with that one,” the officer instructed. “He’s the one what tried to take the Baron hostage. Feisty.”

They bound Jack anew in shackles, with a stiff pole behind his back and his arms looped and chained behind it. They moved him sideways up the steps and out of the prison, where Samuell Drake stood. “Yes,” he hissed to the officer. “He’ll do.”

“The Baron wanted to have you hung,” Drake told Jack. “But a public hanging requires public charges, and that would involve public knowledge of the one you brought back with you. And it just so happens I recently made some … hasty promises to our allies, which you can help me rectify.”

He turned to the officer and instructed him, “Take him to the same hilltop where you normally take the Indian children, and leave him there.” The officer nodded, and prodded his men forward. They pushed Jack out of the prison. After more than a day in that dank prison, the sudden glare of the hot afternoon sun in late July blinded him. He knew he could not hope to overcome the soldiers. They led him out of the colony, marching through the wilderness, until they crested a small hill. At its summit, the trees gave way to a circular opening of bare grass. In the center of the circle, a stone altar sat. Someone had bolted chain manacles to the altar. Jack noticed red stains on the stone.

“Where you brought the Indian children…” Jack muttered, and then exploded with rage. “You monsters! You’ve been bringing children here, to some kind of heathen ritual of human sacrifice!” The soldiers beat him and restrained him, and began transferring his bonds from those around him, to the ones binding him tightly to the altar.

“Of course we don’t like it,” the officer said. “But we have orders, eh? Jesus and all the saints preserve us, but I fear what kind of dark magic those heathens in the woods might yield. If a necromancer of our own needs an occasional criminal like you to counter that, well, it’s not like we weren’t going to kill you, anyway. All we know is we leave ‘em up here. What happens to them, we don’t know. We just know next time we come up here, they’re not here anymore. C’mon, men, let’s get back. Sun’ll set soon.” The soldiers marched off, leaving Jack Quick chained tightly to the altar, waiting for what might come.

The sun dipped slowly behind the trees, and soon Jack noted the first star appear—Sirius, the dog star, at this part of the year. The fading rays of sunset died away, and Jack watched the Milky Way come into view. The air grew cold, the world grew dark, and Jack expected he would never see the sun again.

Then, near midnight, Jack heard something approach. He strained his head to see, but they came from behind him. He did not hear footfalls, but instead, a sound like the slithering of several enormous snakes. When one came into view, Jack let out a scream of horror. Indeed, like giant serpents slithering out of the darkness, they reared up, but where an earthly snake would have its head, these extended into broad chests and shoulders, with arms like those of a man, though armored still in scales. Their heads again resembled the heads of venomous snakes. They adorned themselves with chains and plates of armor, and wielded scimitars. Such an abomination Jack had seen only once; horrible images like these raced through his mind when he looked too closely at Drake’s book, and now it shook him once again.

He saw one of the snake people emerge, obviously a priest to the rest of them. They settled into places, beginning to enact some terrible ritual. “Wait! Wait!” Jack cried. “Y-you weren’t promised me. He promised you Virginia Dare!” He made a bold assumption, but he knew that he would die in moments either way. Drake mentioned a promise he could no longer keep, and he had seen White Doe taken by the sorcerer. He did not know for certain that the promise Drake could not keep involved White Doe given over to these creatures as a sacrifice, but he had heard a great commotion through the tiny prison window the day before, one that might have signaled White Doe’s escape. At any rate, Jack reckoned it his best chance.

The snake man priest stopped for a moment. Jack heard his heart pounding in his chest like a drum, in a moment that seemed to go on forever. Finally, the priest spoke, “Yesssss. White Doe, the firssst of your kind born on thisss ssssoil. She belongsss to the Hemp People now.”

They seemed to know more of her, and care more about her, than Jack had thought. Can I use this? he thought. He decided to try—his ritual execution the only other option he could see. “I-I can take you to her.” He knew he might very well have promised more than he could deliver, but he had become desperate.

The snake priest seemed to think the proposition over. “Very well,” he finally said. “Though Yig will be mossssst disssspleasssed. I will sssssend word to Drake that our god will require two sssssacrificessssss for tomorrow night, both adultssss like yourssssself. Thesssse pitiful children have sssssuch limited capaccccity for ssssuffering. Ssssso much comessss from the anticccipation, yesss? Ssssometimesss, they don’t even know what’ssss happening until the knife cutssss. But an adult like you, oh, you sssspent the whole night here in agony, dripping with delicioussss pain.”

What have I gotten myself into? Jack thought. I have crossed the Rubicon. Alea iacta est, I suppose!

IV

29 July 1610

All the People of the village had gathered together to hear White Doe’s words. “The snake people stir,” she said. “They have made common cause with the Short-Lived People. A terrible sorcerer has brought them together, one who has glimpsed the outer gods and succumbed to madness. He seeks to unleash them upon the world. Our quarrels with the Powhatan shrink to nothing compared to this. I know it means aiding their empire, but this sorcerer’s madness threatens the whole world.”

Owl, one of the most respected of the People, pondered the question carefully. “The Powhatan have moved against us for many years; have they also moved against the snake people to raise this enmity?”

“No,” White Doe reported. “They hate everyone who walks on legs, and love only their own kind who slither on their bellies. Prompting them to kill Leg-walkers required little argument. They have joined the Short-Lived People’s fight only because the sorcerer promises to release their god.”

“And what of the giants?” Owl asked. “They have kept the snake people bound for a very long time, and they have always fought the snake people in the past. Where do they fit into all of this now?”

“I do not know,” White Doe confessed. “I have heard nothing from them. We should keep in mind the possibility that they do not even know of this yet. Perhaps these snake people have managed to escape the giants’ vigil.”

A murmur went through the People. If the snake men truly began to move, and the giants did not even know yet, then they would find themselves caught in a very dangerous spot, indeed.

Owl’s expression soured. “You bring us dire news, little Doe.”

Blue Jay stepped forward boldly. “I helped White Doe save our people, whom Gepanocan took as slaves. I have seen the power of her Song myself. If she says it, then I believe it. If she brings us dire news, then I say we prepare for the most dire.”

“Thank you, fearless Blue Jay,” White Doe smiled.

“I only speak the truth before our People, White Doe,” he replied. And the People, in turn, seemed impressed by his display. Owl even nodded.

“Very well,” he finally said. “The People will move against the snake men. Who among you will join White Doe in this?” Blue Jay stood up proud and tall, then Singing Stream, Owl Eyes and Jumper, the same four who had joined her in their raid against Gepanocan. Owl nodded. “Very well. If you told us the truth, White Doe, I suggest you move immediately; we may not have much time.”

Owl Eyes had found a hill, not far from the colony, where a stone altar, stained red with blood, stood on a bare hilltop. He knew of no other people who would use such a thing, and it puzzled him until he heard White Doe speak of the snake men. Then, he knew immediately who must have built it. He told White Doe about it, and led their war band directly to it.

“You riddled it out correctly, Owl Eyes,” White Doe said as they inspected the ground there. “Look here—tracks, Two-Leggeds, coming from the east (probably the colony) and going back; several groups, each more recent than the last.”

“Or, probably the same group, coming here many times,” Owl Eyes suggested.

“Yes,” White Doe replied. “I think you have that right.”

“And over here,” Jumper pointed out, “something similar, but instead of feet…”

“Slithering tracks,” White Doe pronounced. “Like enormous snakes.”

“They head west, into the trees,” Owl Eyes pointed out. They needed no instruction; as one,they all moved into the forest, following the trail. They followed it for some time, until Owl Eyes held up his hand, signaling them silently to stop. Ahead of them, they could see nearly a dozen snake people encamped, and with them, two two-legged people. White Doe recognized them: Jack Quick and Solomon Kane.

They prepared themselves for an ambush, hiding themselves behind trees, rocks and bushes. When White Doe saw them all in place, she gave the signal, the call of a snake-eating eagle. Five bows twanged, letting fly five obsidian-tipped arrows that broke the scales and buried themselves deep in the snake man priest’s chest. The priest died there immediately, while some of the warriors moved quickly into the trees, scimitars flashing. Blue Jay jumped out from hiding first, brandishing his spear and trying to impale one of the abominations. Four snake men closed on him, steel and scale on all sides.

“Blue Jay!” White Doe cried. The other warriors leapt from hiding, waving spears and closing with their enemy to save their fearless friend.

Meanwhile, in the camp itself, the first bow twang signaled Kane to his feet. Though manacles bound his hands, he still managed to knock one of the snake men to the ground with his shoulder, and seize hold of his scimitar. He could not move his hands, and the blade differed from the rapier he knew so well, but Kane’s lifetime of experience did not desert him. In the same movement that robbed the snake man of his weapon, Kane spun it around and cleaved the anthropoid snake skull in twain. Another snake man closed with Kane, and suffered a similar fate. When a second blade fell to the dust, Jack dove for it. Prone on the ground, he spun about to find two more snake men over him. Jack parried one away, jumped to his feet, and drove the scimitar into the serpentine chest, but in that moment the remaining snake man sliced his curved blade across the small of Jack’s back. Wtih a groan, Jack Quick crumpled to the ground. A moment later, the snake man fell in coils, half over top of him, cut down by Solomon Kane. “Jack, you are wounded!” Solomon cried.

“Yeah,” he replied. “Go … help them … I’ll be ….” Jack could not finish the sentence, but Kane knew how battle went. Their rescuers found themselves hard-pressed by the snake men, and they needed help. Kane dove into battle with a fury, cutting down the snake people as best he could. They had already struck down most of the warriors, and Kane found Virginia doing all she could to not join them, but she had suffered wounds, as well,and now the last three snake men turned all of their attention on her, and her alone.

From behind, Kane cut one of them down, drawing the attention of another. White Doe found herself fighting off a relentless attack; the snake man came out her with a savage ferocity, the curved blade slicing at her over and over. With each cut, she backed away, trying to give herself enough space to maneuver, but the snake man would slither towards her, closing the space with slice after slice. White Doe’s foot moved backwards, and caught a root that tripped her and threw her to the ground. White Doe thought she saw a smile on the snake mans’ scaly lips, but then, those cruel eyes went dull and glassy, and she saw the tip of a bloody sword erupt through the front of the warrior’s chest. His scaly body fell to the side, revealing the tall,rangy Puritan behind him. He threw down the blade, and with two manacled hands reached out to help her up. “Are you all right?” he asked.

“I’ve suffered worse,” she answered, taking his hand.

“I told your grandfather to have faith, that you would not be harmed,” Solomon told her. “I am glad that I have not had my faith tested once again. But come, you are an accomplished herbalist, are you not? Jack and all your men lie wounded, they have need of your skills now; mine will aid them not at all.”

White Doe hurried herself, binding wounds, collecting herbs and making poultices. She managed to save each of her warriors, but they had suffered grievously. Jack she bound up with poultices; he, too, had suffered some lasting hurts, but he could function.

“You … were with the snake men?” White Doe asked her two companions once she finished her work.

“Drake left me for a sacrifice,” Jack said. “I got myself out by agreeing to lead them to you. I never meant to actually go through with it, though!”

“As I hoped,” Solomon said. “I feared I had misjudged you when they told me.”

“Aye,” Jack nodded. “I was able to convince them that I needed some help, but they would only let me pick one. So, I asked for Solomon.”

“And what of my father, and … my grandfather?” White Doe asked.

“Still in James Towne’s prison,” Solomon answered.

“But not for long,” Jack said with surprise, the terrible realization growing upon him. “They said they would need two sacrifices to make up for me last night. Adults. They usually sacrifice some of the Indian children, the ones the Baron has been kidnapping, and Drake pointed out that a public execution for any of us would require public charges, and that would lead right to Virginia. He needs to erase all memory that Virginia Dare survived.”

“Then they will sacrifice John White and Manteo tonight,” Solomon summed up.

White Doe’s expression turned to stone. “Not if we stop them,” she said, with all the cold resolution of one of the Puritan’s oaths.

V

29-30 July 1610

With sunset nearing, the soldiers crested the hill, bringing with them two men this time: an Indian, and an elderly Puritan. They could not chain them both to the altar in the usual manner; instead, they used one manacle on each of them, binding them to the sides of the stone altar. Then, the soldiers left.

After just a few moments, White Doe and Solomon Kane emerged from the trees. “Little Doe!” Manteo cried out, seeing them first as they approached from his side. “And Solomon! You managed to escape!”

“Aye,” Solomon replied. “And they have left you….”

“I know,” Manteo nodded. “A sacrifice for the snake people.” John White’s eyes opened wide. “You told me they contacted you, little Doe,” Manteo reminded her. “And who else would build an alter like this?”

They worked the manacles loose, and took Manteo and John White into the safety of the trees, where White Doe explained everything to them.

“So,” Manteo asked, “where does that put Jack Quick? I don’t see him with you.”

“Right here,” a voice answered. A hooded figure cut through, carrying a small cart behind him. He pushed the hood back, revealing Jack Quick’s face. “I went into James Towne, in disguise of course, to procure a few supplies.”

“Supplies?” John White asked.

“Aye,” Solomon answered. “I must have my staff back, and there is still the matter of a villain we must dispatch.”

“So we’re going to plan a little surprise for them,” Jack grinned.

They set to work at once. Jack had brought them a keg of gunpowder, two muskets, and two strange metal canisters. He gave the muskets to John, instructing him to stay out of sight, and fire upon the enemy only from cover. The canisters he gave to Manteo, and the powder they spread upon the ground near the altar, leaving a trail leading off into the brush. Then, they waited. The sun set, the sky turned dark and the forest became cool, as the moon and the stars peeked out of the twilight. A little more than a quarter of the moon’s face shone, keeping the ambush in relative darkness. As that silver crescent rose in the sky, they prepared themselves. As expected, at midnight, they heard the rustling of the brush, and then the horrible sight of the snake men slithering into the clearing.

“Treachery!” one of the snake men hissed, as he saw the altar with no one there to sacrifice. “The Warmblood will have to account for this!” The snake people fumed with anger, but they waited in the clearing impatiently. After several minutes, the brush stirred again, and the wretched figure of Samuell Drake moved into the clearing, two soldiers behind him, carrying a heavy chest.

“Drake!” the snake man demanded, “what is the meaning of this!”

“I…” Drake began to say something, when Manteo stood up and threw one of the metal canisters into the clearing, and it landed on the ground amongst the snake men harmlessly with a thud.

They had anticipated that possibility. John fired one of the muskets, while White Doe crutched down in the bushes, where the trail of gunpowder ended, grinding furiously at her bowdrill. She saw smoke—and then, a spark! The fire ran quickly down the black powder trail, setting off the gunpowder-saturated ground, and the unexploded canister as well. The clearing erupted in an explosive inferno, like hell had suddenly burst through into the earth in a volcanic blast.

Into that hell waded Solomon Kane, scimitar slicing through the flames to cut the final cords of any snake men that still clung to life, striding with utter confidence through the burning field towards Samuell Drake like the fiery angel of God’s own vengeance. The two soldiers feebly moved forward to stop him, but not all of hell could stop him now; one slice, two, and two English soldiers folded in bloody piles on the ground. Drake backed away, then clutched his book tight against his chest under folded arms, and shot immediately into the earth. Solomon stepped back, eyes wide with astonishment. “What new devilry is this?”

“The necromancer’s making his escape through the earth itself,” White Doe answered. “We can no more track him like this than we might track a wojak.”

Solomon opened the chest the soldiers had carried. Lying on top, he saw the cat-headed staff. “I shudder to think what blasphemies he had in mind for this,” Solomon said as he took it back. “It was given to me by an African shaman, a man I am happy to say I finally had the wisdom to accept as a friend, named N’Longa. And it seems, before him, it once belonged to King Solomon, who used it to command demons and devils to build the Temple of the Lord. What a villain like Samuell Drake might have done with it gives me pause. I knew his illustrious cousin, once; once a friend, but in the end a petty dictator. There are times I pity that I did not kill him when I had the chance.”

Jack collected his things from the chest. Drake had obviously had some fell purpose in mind for Solomon’s staff, and simply brought all their belongings with him to be thorough, and not to arouse too much attention towards the precious artifact, but it benefited them now greatly. “But what do we do about stopping his sorcerous cousin now?”

“White Doe’s right,” Manteo said. “We cannot track him. But we know where he’s heading.”

“We do?” John White asked.

“Aye,” Manteo nodded. “The Elder Peaks. And I know how we can catch up with him.”

They needed no more explanation; they all ran behind Manteo, heading north and west. They ran for most of the night’s remainder, until the deepest cold and dark before dawn settled upon them, and they ran and scrambled over rocky outcrops and rising hills. Then, they saw a hooded figure ahead of them duck into a cleft among the rocks. They ran harder and faster then, turning hard to duck into the same cleft, and finding that it opened into a nearly perfectly concealed cave that slipped precipitously into the earth. White Doe took her ember from its protective pouch, and used it to set alight the pitch-soaked torches that Jack and Solomon carried, and with those to light their way, they descended into the darkness.

The saves twisted into the deep earth for a long time, until Manteo noticed a light ahead, not from their own fires. The cave opened up into a chamber carved out of the rock. Images of snakes adorned the walls and many, serpentine enclaves. The central chamber showed a magical circle carved into the center of the floor. Opposite, they saw Samuell Drake, paging through his book. He had set alight the ceremonial sconces, shaped like the open mouths of venomous snakes. He intoned ancient verses in some forgotten, blasphemous tongue.

He completed the incantation as they entered the chamber. He looked up then, and cackling madly, recited to them in English:

That is not dead which can eternal lie.
And with strange aeons even death may die.

The carvings of the magical circle glowed with an ethereal, purple light.

“Manteo!” Jack cried. “The other grenade!”

Manteo had forgotten about it. He pulled the metal canister from his belt, and threw it into the center of the magic circle. This one exploded the moment it hit the ground, bringing a hail of stones crashing down. The companions fell back, into the natural cavern tunnels, as the cave-in cut them off from the carved room. But the sound of crushing rocks did not stop.

The magic circle had topped off an enormous tube, one that Drake’s magic began to open. Manteo’s grenade had added a distinct note of chaos, but it had still unleashed the Thing Drake had summoned.

It burst through the rock moments later, rows and rows of teeth down a deep maw, now scarred with burn marks, smoke, and choked with chunks of rock. A hideous, worm-like abomination, one that had long eaten at the earth’s core, rotting it. It bored through nightmares. As Jack saw it, his mind snapped back to Drake’s book…

The others rushed at it, blades flashing and bows snapping. They sunk deep into the Worm-Thing, and though a terrible, black ichor oozed from its wounds, it did not stop or slow.

“It cannot die!” Jack screamed. “It cannot die!”

“Take Jack,” Solomon commanded the others, “and all of you, leave this place. I shall hold back this blasphemy against the Lord.”

“But Solomon!” John White called.

“Go!” he repeated. The iron in his voice left no doubt. Manteo and White Doe grabbed Jack, and hurried him up, out of the cave.

Solomon turned on the Worm-Thing with all his rage. “I have spent my life battling all manner of oppression—the oppression of hell, yes, and the oppression of men who do so much for hell’s cause. But now I have grown old and weary of my long wanderings, and I see that the Lord has marked the end of my long road, for thou art the very beast at the heart of all oppression; the terror of men’s hearts, wrapped in blasphemous flesh, the very fear that makes men surrender the will God gave them to the tyranny of man and Devil. Well then, Old Serpent, let us struggle now to the last!”

Solomon threw down the rapier with which he had battled the Worm-Thing’s myriad teeth, and gripped his staff with both hands, and with that strode boldly into the Thing’s horrible maw.

Above, his friends emerged into the first hesitant light of the new dawn. As they clamored free, Manteo looked back into the darkness, a solemn look on his face. “The Worm has been stopped,” he intoned. “And Solomon Kane has died.”

No one asked how he knew. If they could pay the same honest attention to the stirrings in their heart that he did, they would know, as well. “What do we do?” Jack asked.

“Solomon Kane gave his life because of the things he believed in, the things he spent his life fighting for,” John White answered. “To fight tyranny and oppression, and to leave a new world of freedom and friendship for us all.”

Manteo nodded. “Yes. What we do should be obvious. We carry on his work. We justify his faith. We make certain that his sacrifice was not in vain.”