Martin looked at him sternly. "That he should never dare to cut in line again."

  The day passed for Gustav in a cruel, monotonous routine that demanded all his strength. Blood flowed in streams through the holes in the wooden board on which they treated the patients. Oddly enough, the feldsher caught some of it in a bowl. Gustav pushed through his hunger and thirst. There were still so many who were waiting for the field surgeon's help.

  A shout sounded through the camp and the baggage train. "Madlung and his regiment have fled."

  "What does that mean?" asked Gustav.

  "That the imperials are losing and have probably realized it." Martin removed another arm at the shoulder as he spoke. "Now the Linkel forest will take its revenge."

  Later they would hear that it had happened exactly as Martin had predicted it would. After the cowardly retreat of Colonel Madlung, the left imperial wing had collapsed, leaving the infantry center exposed on its flank. The troops on the left side of the forest could no longer be supported by those on the right and retreated into the woods to avoid being overrun by the Swedes in the open field. Their comrades from the right side tried to fight their way free in a last desperate counterattack but failed and fled to the seemingly safe Linkel forest, as well.

  What remained was child’s play for the Swedes.

  Torstensson had the forest surrounded and bombarded with his cannons. For the second time, Breitenfeld had given the Protestant Union a great victory.

  Later they would learn all of that. Hours later. For Gustav and Martin, the battle did not end even after the surrender of the League troops. Hostilities ceased, but a steady stream of the wounded continued to flow to them. Blood muddied the ground in front of the yellow cart. They were surrounded by wounded, groaning men and the dead who had not been treated by the feldsher. One by one, families emerged from the train to look for their loved ones. If they didn't find them here or with the other wound doctors, they moved on to the churned earth of the battlefield.

  Ahead of the families came the body-strippers, who took advantage of the post-battle hour to literally steal the shirts off the back of the dead and injured. Often, in their greed, they killed their own soldiers who had been left injured and alone.

  The feldsher washed his hands after the last patient had finally been treated. The water turned red so quickly that Gustav had to fetch him two more basins before he was clean.

  "It'll be dark soon." Gustav finished washing his own hands and glanced up at the autumn sky turning orange. He took another swig from Martin’s canteen and wolfed down a crust of bread and some bacon as he tried to convince his body it was safe to relax. Tendrils of fog crept along the ground. He shivered as the cool air chilled the sweat of the day.

  "I know," muttered Martin to himself. "We spent way too much time on this side issue."

  Gustav thought he had misheard. Treating the seriously injured wasn’t a side issue, was it?

  The surgeon climbed into his wagon and returned with a small bag. "Throw the amputated limbs on the fire."

  Gustav wanted to point out that their small fire couldn't handle the volume of human remains around them, but a look at the feldsher's stony face made him carry out this order without protest. The wicker basket was heavy. He hoisted it to the flames, dumped it out, and exactly what he had feared happened–the flames died under the bloody load of arms and legs.

  The feldsher pushed him aside."Throw all the instruments in the wagon. We don’t have time to clean them. Leave the plank here, it can't support their weight anyway."

  For the second time that day Gustav questioned his own intelligence. So much of what the surgeon told him to do made no sense—perhaps he was not as smart as he’d always thought himself to be. But he did as he was told and threw the blood-soaked equipment into the cart.

  "Harness Jolande. Quick!"

  The mule had been grazing comfortably the whole time. She had cropped up every little tuft of greenery in between the bodies of the dead and wounded as if the whole affair had nothing to do with her.

  Gustav didn't like to admit it, but he was almost as nervous about this command as he was at his first cauterization. He hadn’t forgotten the warning that the mule would try to bite.

  She did try, but Gustav managed to get the harness on her more or less unharmed. He turned to tell Martin he had finished when a jet of flame shot into the sky from the previously dead fire. The white light seared his retinas and for a moment, Gustav could see nothing.

  "What was that?"

  "That?" The feldsher waved it off. "I just burned the remains."

  Gustav saw him slip an empty pouch under his belt.

  The surgeon checked the sky and hurried to the wagon."Quickly, boy! The sun has almost set." He tapped the seat next to him.

  The strange symbol on the cart caught Gustav’s eye again. A rose that became a horrid demon skull, depending on how you looked at it. What am I doing here? He sighed, shrugged, and climbed onto the carriage seat. He didn’t exactly have other choices.

  Martin shook the reins and Gustav inspected the feldsher’s hands. They were covered with thick scars, as if huge claws had raked over them. Gustav had heard of lions and tigers but doubted they had been the cause of these scars. They must have been made by a knife or some other weapon.

  A horn sounded.

  Fog rose from the ground, bringing darkness over the land even faster.

  Once again, the horn sounded.

  The feldsher urged Jolande to hurry, bringing the whip to bear.

  They encountered fewer and fewer people. Even the looters were now running back to the camp. Everyone ran in the opposite direction to the one Gustav and the feldsher were heading towards.

  The ground grew more uneven. Corpses, overturned and burning carts, dead horses, and weapons lay everywhere, forming eerie silhouettes in the thickening fog. They had reached the battlefield.

  Gustav twisted in his seat, taking in the scene. A bead of sweat formed at his temple. "Why are we here?" The sun had disappeared. It was getting dark, and they were in a field full of dead bodies. Not his ideal place for a nighttime ride.

  "Because this is where our real work begins."

  8

  Night on the Battlefield

  "Gustav." Martin leaned in so close that Gustav could smell the ham on his breath. "You stay on the wagon until I allow you to get down. Got it?"

  Gustav nodded uncertainly.

  "Gustav, did you hear me?” The feldsher frowned, his voice stern. “Under no circumstances are you to leave the cart until I give you express permission. No matter what."

  "Yes," Gustav breathed, not even trying to suppress the fear that could be heard in his voice.

  "Good. I have some things to do now." The surgeon jumped off the coach box and walked around the wagon. Gustav heard the doors creak open.

  Gustav looked over the abandoned battlefield. A strong smell of copper was in the air. Blood. The last light of the day was fading, soon it would be pitch dark. The fog was getting thicker. Gustav couldn’t shake the feeling that something was moving out there in the darkness—shadows distorting in grotesque echoes of the day’s slaughter.

  Don't be crazy! Gustav rubbed his hands together to drive out the cold that had crept into his limbs—and to distract himself from the eerie fog. When he looked up again, he gaped. Small mounds had appeared all over the churned-up earth around their cart, as if hundreds of moles were trying to tunnel out of the ground at the same time. "Um …," he began, trying to point it out to Martin.

  He had just come back with a large bag. When one of the mounds appeared right in front of his feet, he stepped on it angrily. "Not here, you rascal. This is neutral territory. Get out, there's nothing for you here."

  Gustav watched with wide eyes.

  Martin untied the sack and began spreading small bits and pieces of something in a circle around his yellow cart and Jolande. He took his time, like he wanted the circle to be just so.

  Questions swarmed Gustav and he didn't know what to ask first. What was Martin doing? Why were they here in the first place? What were all those mounds of dirt? Who had the feldsher been talking to when he stomped on that one? One question burned hottest in his mind. Why has he brought me with him?

  As usual, the wound doctor did not give him time to ask questions. "Good job, boy. You can come down now. Don't step over the charcoal circle, though."

  Gustav stared at the fine line of charcoal Martin had drawn around them. It was the highest quality charcoal one could buy, the kind usually used to start large fires quickly. The kind charcoal makers could make the most money from. The familiar smell of the coal conjured images of working with his father. Grief smothered Gustav.

  From the fog came a bestial roar.

  Startled, Gustav stumbled, almost falling over the perimeter. The strong hand of the feldsher shot out to catch him.

  "Careful. The howlers are the least dangerous, cowardly loudmouths, but …" He shrugged his shoulders as if that said it all. "Here." Martin pressed the flint lighter into Gustav's hand and pointed at two oil lamps attached to the sides of the wagon. "Light them. Soon we won't be able to see anything."

  Gustav shivered as he struck the rod on the flint and tried to catch the sparks in a bowl of straw and twigs. He had done this countless times as an apprentice charcoal maker, but nerves made his fingers shake and it took him several attempts to strike a flame. He blew into the bowl, stoking the sparks to flames, and used one of the burning twigs to light the wicks of the oil lamps.

  Martin gave him two rectangular iron frames, each set with a round piece of crown glass. "Put these over the flames. We do want to be seen, after all." He winked at him and went back to humming the same tune inside the cart.

  With the frames in place, the lamps gave off a mystical red light that reflected off the fog.

  Another roar rang out. This time it was many-voiced. And much closer. Gustav thought he saw flames, too.

  Determined to figure out what this was all about, Gustav strode to the back of the cart, but as he passed the yellow side wall, he stopped in amazement. The symbol, alternating between rose and skull, glowed as bright as day, as if it were made of pure light.

  "Nice, isn’t it?"

  Gustav started. He hadn't heard the feldsher approach.

  "I'm sure you have a lot of questions, and I admire you for holding them back to help me. This has saved the lives of many people today. I'm proud of you."

  "What is this symbol?"

  Martin grinned from ear to ear. "You tell me something first. The first time you saw the symbol, when you had the noose around your neck, what did you see? The flower or the demon skull?" The red light of the lanterns glinted off the surgeon, carving deep lines and shadows on his face.

  "I have no idea; they were just about to …"

  "Yes, you do. Everyone remembers."

  Gustav was about to object when the situation played out again in his mind's eye. The feldsher was right, he knew exactly what he had seen first: "First the flower, a rose, if I'm not mistaken, then the skull appeared." The image on the cart changed its form from hellish skull to flower the moment he spoke it, as if it had understood what he had said.

  "Both? That's fantastic." Martin clapped his hands.

  "Please tell me what it means."

  Behind him came a malicious hiss and a flash lit up the night.

  "A fire breather already, but they must all be hungry today and …"

  Gustav cleared his throat.

  "Yes, yes, you're right. This part is always the hardest for me. I've had promising candidates before, but most ran away after learning the whole truth. Are you ready?" He stroked the yellow canvas with the glowing symbol.

  Gustav swallowed hard. "Yes."

  "All right. Demons are real." Martin paused for a long time and looked challengingly at Gustav.

  Gustav’s heart pounded, threatening to break through his ribs. Real? He sucked in a breath to steady himself and held Martin’s gaze. He had wanted to hear the truth, after all.

  "Demons." the feldsher repeated softly, as if it were still new and amazing to him, too. "There are beings in our world who are entirely different from us humans. Clawed, horned monsters whose powers are far superior to our own. In this morning's battle, some of the humans were possessed by demons. Nobody knows where they come from or why they are here. Most people think they come straight from hell, which I think is nonsense, but that's not important right now. The only thing that matters is that these beings are aware of …" He paused, took out a leather wineskin from the back of the wagon and handed it to Gustav.

  He pulled out the cork and sniffed. A harsh, fermented smell assaulted him, and tears welled in his eyes. "No thanks, I don't drink alcohol."

  "Trust me,” the surgeon interrupted. “You're going to want a drink, because not only are demons real, but they feed on human flesh. That is why we are here. All these dead bodies are their reward for fighting for the cause of mankind today."

  Gustav took a long draught. The drink ran down his throat like hot iron and he dropped the skin, coughing.

  Martin patted him on the back in sympathy.

  "Whaaat?" croaked Gustav in disbelief, already feeling the alcohol go to his head. The world seemed to lose its sharp edges. It was an uncomfortable sensation, but Martin had been right. The liquor helped him accept the existence of man-eating demons. In fact, Gustav found that his fuzzy brain even wanted to know more on the subject.

  "Both sides, Union and League, want to harness the power of the demons for themselves. We feldshers have a secret ritual that allows the demons to possess people during the day. This amplifies the powers of the human fighters many times over."

  Gustav's eyes grew large.

  Martin grunted and took a long drink from the skin. Although he didn't have to cough afterwards, he did screw up his face when he set it down. "Oh, don't worry, the soldiers don't even notice. We disguise the procedure as a blessing before the battle. Afterwards, they forget the experience as soon as the creature leaves them and suffer no harm from it." He paused and seemed to wrestle with himself on whether to take another sip but decided against it. "If they survive the fight, that is. Being strong does not mean being invulnerable. Sometimes demons forget they're in a human body."

  "Are you saying that all those thousands of soldiers were possessed by demons when they fought each other?"

  The feldsher smiled in amusement. "Of course not. No one could control such a mass of demons. It depends on the skill of the summoning feldsher, but I don't know anyone who can summon more than two dozen of them."

  "So you summoned demons today and put them into men." Gustav paused. Put them into men? Was there a proper term for this process?

  "Yes." The surgeon pounded his chest. "I contributed to Torstensson's win. There are so many different demons with such different powers that it takes a clever mind," he tapped his temple and grinned, "to choose them correctly and use them in the right place in battle. Today, I did that remarkably well."

  "Then what are we doing here? Torstensson won. The battle is over."

  Martin laughed out loud. "We are healing their injuries from the battle. If the person to whom they were bound was hurt, they are also hurt."

  "Do all feldshers do this?"

  Martin grunted. "Of course not. Only we Black Feldshers. Most of the other quacks who call themselves feldshers can’t even see the demons and have no idea what we do. They can barely manage to cut hair and pull teeth. I hope you never have to deal with a simple feldsher, most do more harm than good. Enough questions, we have to hurry or they'll complain again that we're late."

  “But can these creatures speak? How do you explain to them who to fight for and who to fight against?” The earth trembled beneath Gustav, as if something very heavy was running toward him. He held steady, deliberately not looking over his shoulder to see what it was.

  "Yes, amazingly, they can. They are wily critters, and you should think twice before talking to them. Their tongues are almost more dangerous than their claws."

  "I can't believe Torstensson got involved in this. Surely this is blasphemy and contrary to everything the Protestant Union stands for."

  "His predecessor made this alliance with the demons before you were born. Just as Emperor Ferdinand III inherited these allies from his father Ferdinand II."

  "You mean even Gustav Adolf knew about the demons?"

  "Of course. The King of Sweden even had a demon as his bodyguard. Isolo, he called it, although I don’t think that was its real name. I don't know why he decided to have a demon as a personal bodyguard. The beast probably whispered to him how important it is to always fight in the front line, and we all know how that ended."

  "Why doesn't anyone know about this?"

  Martin grunted. "Well, the church, any church of course, doesn't want anyone to know. For most people, knowing that these infernal creatures were fighting for their cause would call into question the very meaning of the struggle between Protestants and Catholics. Only a few leading nobles, generals and church leaders know about it."

  The smell of burnt flesh and hair crept into Gustav's nose. Before he could stop it, his imagination conjured half a dozen ideas about where the stench could be coming from, all of them hideous. "Why don't the demons just attack random humans every night to feed? Why do they get involved in fighting the Union and League battles?" He couldn't believe he had just asked that question.

  The surgeon grinned. "They can't come to the surface without being summoned. We suspect they can’t find their way out of the ground on their own."

  Gustav's head began to hurt, and he almost accused Martin of lying when a mound of earth behind the charcoal line grew to the height of a man. The earth gave birth to a bellowing monster, with three arms and a horned skull. The demon roared, whipping its tail back and forth almost as if it were confused. Then its golden gaze fell on Gustav.

  He broke out in a sweat. The loathsome, muscle-bound creature only needed to stretch out its claws to rip open his throat.

 

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