With those remarks, Gallen grabbed the mask of Fale from his pocket and quickly pushed the rubbery thing over his face. The nanotech devices within the mask immediately flowed into position, conforming to his face, and pulled energy from his body heat, releasing it as photons.
Gallen leapt from limb to ground, so that suddenly he stood in the midst of the crowd. With a roar, he drew his shimmering vibro-blade and pointed it at Christian Bean.
“Behold, a liar and murderer who shall himself soon be a denizen of hell!” Gallen shouted.
There were screams, and all about him, the people fled. The sheriffs were a swirl of motion as they stood, drawing arms. One of them clutched at his sword and stumbled backward, falling into the fire.
Christian Bean just sat, his face lit by the twisting flames of the campfire, his mouth opened wide, clutching a bottle of wine in one hand, a goblet in the other. He was shaking, and Gallen watched in dismay as he soiled his pants.
There was a great uproar, and people from all over town began rushing toward Gallen.
“I warned you,” Gallen said loudly, pointing his sword toward all three of the robbers, “that those who commit murder in Coille Sidhe would have to answer to me.” His voice carried over the town and reverberated off the walls of the stable. No one on this small world had ever heard such a shout. “Yet now you have returned, and you seek to bring death to a man through your false witness!”
The sheriffs faded back a few steps, leaving the robbers alone beside the fire. All around Gallen, the curious onlookers were quietly retreating, leaving a larger and larger circle.
Gallen moved toward the robbers, and the young Argent Flaherty stood, tried to back away. Gallen commanded him to stop with a roar, and the boy froze, knees shaking.
Gallen moved to within a dozen feet of the men, and suddenly the Lord Inquisitor rushed forward with Sully at his side, and the two put themselves between Gallen and the witnesses. The Lord Inquisitor looked up at Gallen with his piercing blue eyes, and of all the people in town, he did not seem frightened.
“What are you?” the Lord Inquisitor asked, raising a hand as if to stop Gallen.
And at that moment, Gallen realized that he felt odd. Wearing his mantle and the clothing of a Lord Protector, he somehow felt as if he had been endowed with power. Surely, the artificial intelligence within the mantle did give him knowledge beyond the understanding of men, and Gallen felt that he was no longer a common man.
“I am more than a man, less than God,” Gallen said.
“And I am Brother Shayne,” the Lord Inquisitor said softly. He seemed to be wary, and he looked about, trying to see in the distance behind Gallen. Gallen wondered if the Lord Inquisitor wasn’t signaling with his eyes for one of the sheriffs to rush him from behind, but the sensors on his mantle assured Gallen that none were so foolhardy. “You are an angel, then?”
Gallen did not consider. “I am the Lord Protector of this land. I come to protect the righteous, and to bring evil men to judgment.”
Gallen did not want to answer more questions, so he thrust his hand into a fold of his robes and pulled out the light globe he had taken from the corpses in Thomas Flynn’s stable the night before. He raised the globe aloft and squeezed so that a piercingly brilliant light burst over the town, and he stood as if in sunlight while all around him the townsfolk gasped and groaned, shielding their eyes.
“Behold the light of truth,” Gallen shouted. “No mere mortal can look upon it and lie, for he who lies shall be consumed in holy fire!
“You-” Gallen waved his sword toward Christian Bean. “You seek to kill a man by bearing false witness. You have admitted to church authorities that you are a robber. What boon were you granted for bearing false testimony?”
Christian Bean half stood, and the poor man began gasping in fear. Though it was a cool night, he was sweating profusely, and he stammered, “M-m-money. B-Bishop Mackey said he prayed, and God told him that Gallen was responsible for Father Heany’s death. He offered us each a hundred pounds to testify!”
Young Argent Flaherty was nodding his head hugely in agreement, and Gallen stepped closer. “Yet you are under the penalty of a whipping. How do you hope to live through such a beating?”
Christian Bean’s eyes opened wide, and he began wheezing heavily. He dropped his brown bottle of wine and his goblet, and he stumbled backward, moaning incoherently. Gallen advanced on young Argent Flaherty and pointed his sword. “Answer me, Argent Flaherty!”
“H-he promised to commute our sentences after the trial!”
“Yet you have sworn in your affidavits that you asked this boon, and that Bishop Mackey denied it?”
“We said that he ‘never spoke a promise to us’-and he never did! He wrote the promise in a note, then told us to word our testimony this way so that we wouldn’t be lying.”
“Keep silent!” Mason Flaherty shouted at his younger brother, grabbing the boy’s arm. “If you answer no questions, you’ll speak no lies!”
“Och, you child of a serpent!” Gallen sneered at Mason. “Hardly shall you escape the wrath of hell! What does it matter if you worded a portion of your testimony with half-truths, when the brunt of your tale is a lie? I was never summoned by the prayers of Gallen O’Day or any other man, nor have I opened the gates of hell. What of this tale you tell?”
Gallen pointed his sword at Christian Bean, who was writhing on the ground. He was so terrified that Gallen was sure he could get the man to speak, to admit to perjury, but Christian Bean looked up through slitted eyes, gulped at the air loudly, and suddenly grabbed his chest. He began shaking uncontrollably, muscles spasming in his legs, his eyes rolling back in his head. A deep rattling noise came from his throat, and Gallen suddenly realized that the man had just died of fright.
Young Argent Flaherty stared at Christian and gasped, lurched away, rushed toward the crowd. He tried to beat his way through, but several townspeople caught him. The boy pulled his knife and took a swing, and some worthy drew his own blade and plunged it in the lad’s ribs. He gave out a startled cry and sank to the ground.
Gallen went to Mason Flaherty, looked down at him steadily. The man was shaking, but stood his ground and met Gallen’s eyes. Gallen had never seen such controlled hatred in a man’s eyes.
“And you,” Gallen said. “You alone are left to bear witness. Tell us now: was your testimony false?”
Mason gritted his teeth, spat his words. “I’ll-Not-Speak-Of-It! You cannot force me to talk! Gallen O’Day killed my brother and my cousin, and I’ve got nothing to say to you!”
Gallen looked at this man and wished that Mason would give him some other choice. He couldn’t leave the man alive. The man had tried to kill him on the road, and he’d tried to do it in court. To let such a stubborn and evil man live would only bring trouble later on.
Gallen looked up at Sully. The sheriff stood beside the Lord Inquisitor, shaking. “Do with him what you will,” Gallen told the sheriff, and he turned and walked away.
As Gallen passed the front door of his home, he clenched his fist over the glow globe so that there was a bright flash, then he quit squeezing his glow globe so that the light suddenly failed, and he ripped off his mask and headed into the woods.
At his back, he heard Mason Flaherty’s sudden scream and the sickening sound of a sword slashing through flesh, snicking through bone. Once, twice, and the head was off. Sully had done a poor job of it.
Gallen reached the edge of the woods, and there he stood panting. Hot, bitter tears were streaming down his face, and he found himself breathing heavily, gasping. He hadn’t cried in ages, not since that first time he’d been forced to kill a highwayman three years before. Then, he’d cried because he’d felt that somehow he’d been robbed of his innocence, but with every killing since then, he’d felt justified.