Chapter 9

Sam watched the second guard walking along the line. He had positioned himself in the shadows where the horse line curved a little toward the trees. As the guard passed him, looking toward the horses tethered along the thick rope, he rose from the crouch, striding fast and silently behind him; his knife, with its serrated edge and bone handle, gripped tightly in his hand. The guard sensed him in the last second and began to turn, but Sam's hand wrapped around his head, covering his mouth, and he jerked the man's head back, cutting off the warning shout as the knife blade plunged into the chest.

He almost let go when he saw the molten red-gold light erupting beneath the swarthy skin, shock hitting him like a hammer.

Demon.

The guard looked down at the long blade buried in his side and smiled at Alis, thrusting her from him. She backed away in shock, eyes opened wide as he wrapped his fist around the hilt and pulled the blade out. He looked at it for a moment then threw it aside, his gaze shifting to her as he started walking after her. Dean stared disbelievingly for a moment, then started forward, moving as quietly as he could.

Beyond the guard, Alis kept backing, her hands spread out to either side, her eyes fixed on the guard's face, face twisted into an expression of terror. Dean started to run, grasping the hilt of his sword with his right hand and pulling it free as he anchored the scabbard with his left. The blade hissed slightly against the leather as it came out, and the guard stopped suddenly, turning to him.

Looking into the guard's eyes, gleaming black across the eye socket, no iris, no white, he forced himself to ignore the jolt that went through his nervous system as he recognised what he was facing. He swung the long blade, not high but low, feeling the edge bite through the thick leather of the man's boots, through flesh and tendon and jar on the bone. The guard screamed, his face twisted in a rictus of pain.

"Dean, break left."

Sam's voice sounded from behind him and he yanked the sword free, hitting the ground on his left shoulder and rolling sideways. From the corner of his eye he saw something flash past him. As he came to his feet he saw the bone handle of Ruby's knife, embedded in the chest of the guard, flesh flickering with light as the demon inside was destroyed.

He glanced at the horizon, and where the mountains reared against the eastern sky he could see a thin line of grey.

Alis ran back toward them, struggling back into her hauberk, carrying her weapons. Dean lifted the mass of the shirt above her head and she shoved her arms through. He let it fall onto her shoulders, feeling not the slightest bit of remorse as her knees sagged slightly and a gasp escaped her. She buckled her sword belt on fast, slinging her shield over her shoulder and stringing her bow.

Sam looked at Dean. "It's going to be a massacre."

Dean nodded. "We have to warn them." He looked along the horse lines. "We could use these though, if this is an outrider party." He chewed his lip, considering their fast dwindling set of options.

"Get to Vasiliĭ, and warn him. Everyone has to get into the village, try and defend it." He swung around to Alis. "We'll take the horses, not free them, but take them."

She nodded, and she turned and ran along to the end of the furthest line, her knife retrieved from the ground and in her hand.

"Dean, we're three hundred years before Christianity – no holy water."

"Crap. Fine, salt then – whatever you can find." He watched Sam race along the horse line past Alis and into the tree line, and turned to the end of the line closest to him.

Demons. Here.

His thoughts raced in time with his hands as he hacked the end of the line free and started walking toward the forest, the horses, snorting at the change in routine, following him.

A hundred yards away, Alis led her line into the trees, as the first streaks of pale light stretched out across the sky.

They tethered the two lines in the forest a mile from where they'd come in to the valley. The horses were restive and Dean thought they'd be lucky to come back and find any of them there, but it was the best they could do.

"What was that man?" Alis asked him softly as they made their way back to the village, neither out of breath in the ground-covering dog-trot. Dean glanced at her.

"It was a man, possessed by a demon," he answered shortly. "They're all possessed by demons, I think." He looked ahead through the trees at the encampment outside of the village. "Which means we're in deep shit."

She frowned. "You mean inhabited?

He nodded. "Yeah, inhabited."

"Where is the man's soul?"

"Inside, with the demon, but under its control."

"You killed it."

Dean shook his head impatiently. "We only have one knife that can do that. Demons will ride dead bodies as happily as living ones. Only that knife can kill the demon inside."

He thought of something else. "The arrow tips, they're iron?"

She nodded, baffled at the change in subject.

"That'll help. Iron is like poison to demons." His hand was resting against the hilt of his sword as he ran, and he realised that the blade too was probably iron, not steel. He tried to think of what else they could use.

Sam slid through the shadows of the trees silently, making his way quietly to the camp. He had no idea how he was going to convince Vasiliĭ to abandon the attack and lead his people into the village. He had no idea if these people had ever encountered a demon – or even heard of one. He remembered that Persia had a long history with demons and a load of lore, but it was a long way from here.

He came into the hidden clearing where he'd last seen them and swore softly. It was empty, they were already on the move, executing the plan that had seemed to have a good chance of success … until now.

Working his way through the trees to the edge of the meadow that belonged to the village, he followed the deep, plain tracks of the warriors. The sky was brightening more and more quickly, grey giving way to pearl, clouds edged with rose and gold as the sun inched over the mountains to the east.

By the time Sam reached the fight, he knew he was too late. Vasiliĭ stood by the gate, surrounded by thirty of his people. They were fighting desperately, back to back, and above them on the wall surrounding the village, the people of Black Valley fired arrows into the enemy, threw boiling oil over them, used anything they could think of to gain enough advantage to be able to open the thick gates and give their kin shelter.

But the demons riding their Kurgan soldiers ignored the arrows embedded in their armour and flesh and bone; laughed at the missing limbs; at the fatal stab wounds; at the blood and sweat and stink that covered the churned up ground in front of the village gate.

Sam saw the bodies of the people of the village of Deep Ice, the village that had welcomed them in, given them shelter, lying crumpled by the wall, chopped up across the field, and he was out of the shadows and running toward the fight without thought, knife held in his hand. He slashed at the first Kurgan in front of him, opening a wound across the back of its neck that rippled with golden light as the blade severed the spine, and plunging the knife into the chest deeply as the body fell back toward him. The skin lit up and he pulled the knife free, moving onto the next, spinning, ducking, weaving and dodging as the knife rose and fell, blood covering the blade, the hilt and his arm to the elbow.

When Dean and Alis came to the edge of the trees, Sam stood in the centre of the clearing, his head bowed, breathing heavily, bodies piled around him. Several villagers were severing the heads of the remaining demons. Vasiliĭ stood by the open gate, talking with the leader of Black Valley. He glanced at them as they walked across the meadow, nodding to them, and turned back to the other man.

"You do this, Sam?" Dean looked around at the bodies around them. Sam nodded. From neck to ankle his clothing was red with blood, his face spattered and speckled with it.

"Look at this." He crouched beside one of the bodies, now headless, and lifted a limp arm. Dean hunched over beside him, staring at the brand on the arm, a circle with a short line through one side. Sam shifted, pushing his sleeve back and extending his own arm so that it was side by side with the other. The two brands were identical, save Sam's had a thick line crossing the entire circle. Bobby had done that, with a red-hot fire poker.

"Binding link." Dean looked around the bodies surrounding them. "Why? Why lock them into the meatsuits when they can be trapped that way?"

"No idea. It helps though. When we burn the bodies, they'll be sent back to Hell."

They straightened up and walked toward Vasiliĭ's group. Alis stood by him, listening to him talk to the new leader of Black Valley.

Vasiliĭ turned as they approached, thick dark brows drawing together. "What are these things?"

Dean's lips compressed as he considered how to answer that. "They're demons. They possess the bodies of the soldiers, even when they're dead."

He glanced around. "Decapitation or cutting off the limbs will slow them down, maybe stop them. But we need salt – a demon can't cross a line of salt or iron."

Vasiliĭ's expression was a mixture of horror, confusion and relief. "Demons, yes. We've heard of these creatures, from far to the south. But have never seen them." His face became hard and closed as he looked at the bodies of his people, scattered over the bloody ground. "Salt? And iron? We have plenty of both."

He looked up at them. "How do we use it?"

For the next two days, everyone, from the oldest grandfather to toddlers just able to walk, worked on the village's defences. The salt mine was normally a two day walk, to a smooth valley that had once been a briny lake, and walking, even with the handcarts, there was a limit on how much could be carried back. The sixty horses, still tied on their lines in the forest when Dean, Alis and several villagers had returned for them, made the trip fast and worthwhile. The horses were loaded with salt, and the blacksmith and wheelwright were quick to modify several carts to enable them to pulled by the horses, rather than by men.

There were a variety of problems with laying the salt around the village. It would poison the soils if too much were used and through dissolution, leeched into the ground. And rain would dissolve the defences if the salt lines were left in the open. It took Sam several hours to discover that the palisade wall of Black Valley had been built as a double wall, with a gap of thirty inches between the two walls of logs. Filled with rubble and rock and earth, it had made the wall much stronger than a single log wall could be, and it gave them a place to pack the salt crystals, to make a permanent defensive barrier to demon incursion.

Sam worked with the blacksmith, Kirill, to make iron blades that were stronger than those they had. The addition of carbon and the rock salt to the molten ore produced harder, more flexible weapons, closer to modern steel, and weapons that were more deadly to the demon-possessed Scythian army. As he watched the big man working the metal, his face lit by the lurid red-gold light of the forge fire, Sam wondered again about the binding links. They had found one on every soldier's body, trapping the demon within when the body was incapacitated. What he couldn't understand was why. It limited the demons flexibility enormously.

Dean was wondering the same thing as he drove iron spikes into the huge beam. The village was built similarly to Deep Ice, a stone stronghold surrounded by less fortified homes, which in turn were protected within the village wall. If the demons did breach the wall somehow, the villagers needed a strong, protected building to keep them safe. The stone of the leader's house was four feet thick, and built partially into the hillside behind it. Dean and several men from the village were rebuilding the doors and gates to the two entrances, replacing the thinner hardwood with much thicker planks, and sheeting them in iron. The extra weight meant that the doorways themselves had to be rebuilt, but Sam's knowledge and Kirill's enthusiasm for new ideas had provided them with the tools and materials to hang the gates deep within the stone, the weight balanced on a thick pivot so that despite its size even a small child could push it shut and lock the massive barrel tenons that extended through the door and into the walls.

He wiped the sweat from his forehead and looked around. Vasiliĭ had sent messengers to every village along the mountains; mounted now, they would be able to warn the other settlements of what they were facing, give them the details of how to protect themselves. Two more scouts had ridden out that morning, heading east and south, to locate the main body of the Scythian army.

He wanted to get back to Deep Ice as soon as possible, its vulnerability played on his nerves, and they needed to talk to Cas about this – surely in the time he'd been stationed on earth, he would know about this. He knew Vasiliĭ wanted to get back as well, it was only his sense of honour that had kept him here this long. In the morning they would be leaving, taking as much of the rock salt and the smelted pigs of iron ore as they could carry. Twenty of the horses would remain here, the rest would be taken back, carrying the Deep Ice warriors or pulling the carts that Black Valley could spare, loaded with salt and ore.

"Your brother is looking for you."

Alis' voice behind him made him jump slightly. He turned to look at her.

"Don't sneak up on people."

"If you don't want to be startled, then keep your wits about you, instead of being in a dream," she retorted.

He scowled at her. "Where is he?"

"With Kirill, at the forge." She looked at the long beam, held now by huge iron spikes. "Will it be enough?" She gestured around them, "All this, to keep them out?"

Dean turned away, mouth twisting. "I hope so."

"You don't sound certain," she said quietly. He glanced at her as he set down his tools, and unbuckled the leather tool belt from his waist.

"I'm not," he admitted. "This is as strong as we can make it, and it should be strong enough for what we've seen so far." He shrugged. "If they have stronger demons with them, then maybe not."

He followed her down the narrow road to the forge, ransacking his memories along the way. Without the exorcisms, there was no way of sending the demons back to Hell. But he'd read somewhere, in Bobby's library maybe, sometime, about more ancient methods for dealing with demonkind. He just couldn't remember where – or what the details had been.

Sam looked up as Dean ducked under the low doorway and came into the workshop. He held out a sword and a knife. The blades of both were black, with an oily gleam and satin finish. Dean took them, looking at the fine edges.

"I had an idea," Sam said, the barest hint of a smile tucking in the corners of his mouth. Dean raised an eyebrow at the expression as his brother took back the sword.

"Come on, I want to show you." He walked around the massive stone that Kirill used as an anvil, and ducked low through the doorway. Dean followed him, somewhat mystified.

They had been burning bodies for the last two days, but with the other work, only a few men could be spared for the job. Several of the Scythian soldiers still lay in a pile by the wall, their flesh slow to decompose in the cold weather.

Sam looked at them, and chose a body that had been decapitated but was otherwise intact. He lifted the sword and drove it suddenly into the chest. Dean jumped as the body arched suddenly up, a furious burst of red-gold erupting from beneath the skin.

When it had died completely, he turned to look at his brother, mouth open.

"You made a demon-killing sword?" He looked back at the body. "How?"

"We've made a dozen demon-killing swords – and knives for every man, woman and child here." He wiped the blade on the body's clothing and slid into the scabbard at his side. "We never knew where Ruby's knife came from – even Alastair didn't know, and he was a lot older than Ruby – but what if it was made here. Now. Because of what's happening?"

Dean looked at him. "How?"

"Kirill and I were using different mixes in smelting the ore, adding more or less carbon, and the salt, to get a harder metal, something that wouldn't just bend, and would take an edge better, and keep it longer. And I just thought, well it couldn't hurt to try." He shook his head. "I put about a quart of blood from one of the possessed bodies into the latest batch."

Dean's eyes narrowed as he thought about that. "And it worked."

"Yeah, Kirill forged the sword and worked it yesterday. It's not as well made as with multiple workings; usually a sword would take weeks to be finished, but we needed to see if it would work." The corner of his mouth lifted slightly. "Kirill calls it blood metal."

Dean shook his head slowly in admiration. "Dude, you are awesome." He looked down at the black metal blade of the knife he still held.

"Where are we going to get enough demon blood to make these standard munitions?"

"We'll have to bleed out the ones that haven't been burned. Alis has gone to round up some of the women to do that now. If they come calling again, then we'll have a better supply."

Dean gave him a bleak glance. "Yeah, and other bodies too."

Sam turned away. "I know, but at least this gives them a chance."

Dean grimaced, and reached out to touch his shoulder. "No, you're right. Sorry." He shrugged. "It's good, Sam. Better than good. It'll give them – and us – a chance."