The crowd murmured in agreement. The three younger knights gasped. Sallah scoffed in disgust.
Kandler could see that this could soon become ugly. He looked around for Burch but couldn’t spot the shifter anywhere.
Deothen remained impassive for a moment, then spoke plainly to Mardak. “What proof would you have me offer?” he asked. “We came to your town as soldiers of faith, on a mission handed down to us by our greatest prophet. We have no reason to kill your people. What of the others who are missing?”
“How do you know of these?” asked Mardak.
“I told him,” Kandler said.
“We arrived only last night,” Deothen said. “According to your justicar, whoever is responsible for Shawda’s transformation has been taking victims from your village for weeks.”
“Who’s to say you haven’t been lurking in the shadows until now?”
“Why would we reveal ourselves today? Why would young Levritt bring suspicion on us by attacking Shawda’s corpse?”
Mardak shook his head. “It’s not for me to fathom your reasons. The facts against you are damning enough.”
Sallah brought up her blade toward Mardak. Kandler met its edge with his own. The two young knights still armed drew their blades and pointed them at Kandler.
“I have heard enough!” Sallah said to Kandler. Her eyes blazed with anger as she spoke. “We are leaving you ungrateful wretches and your horrid, little town.”
“You really don’t want to try that,” Kandler said, staring into her emerald eyes above their crossed swords. Silently, he begged her to put down her blade, but he could see that this cause was lost.
“And why not?”
The sound of blades being unsheathed filled the air. Every able-bodied man and woman in the crowd stood with a weapon in hand, ready to fight. The children and elders scattered for cover without a word needed.
“These are not some farmhands you can scare with a bit of scabbard rattling,” Kandler said. He kept his voice friendly and even, as if he was explaining the varieties of local crops. As he spoke, he gazed out at the people of Mardakine and hoped they would follow his example. His eyes landed on Burch in the distance, and he smiled. “Everyone here lived through the War. Most of us fought in it.”
Sallah glanced around at the crowd, looking for an avenue of escape. Kandler grated the edge of his sword against hers and caught her eye. With a quick nod, he sent her eyes up toward the rooftop of the town hall overlooking the square. It was the largest building in town, big enough to hold all of Mardakine’s citizens at once. A low-slung place, it was the oldest edifice in town, made of steel-gray bricks crafted from the ash that had once filled the bottom of the crater and still collected in thick drifts in the farthest edges of the place. On windy days, the breeze threw that ash swirling up into the sky, from where it later settled down upon the town like a patina of fresh-fallen, filthy snow. The roofs of the buildings in town huddled underneath layers of this ash, except directly after a rain. It had been a long time since the last rain, and the roof of the town hall was thick with the dusty stuff.
Burch stood there atop the roof, the steel-tipped bolt loaded in his crossbow pointed directly at Deothen’s heart. The sun glinted off the bolt’s metal tip as the shifter readjusted his aim.
“He can pick the balls off a rat at a hundred yards,” Kandler said quietly. “If you attack, then he”-Kandler jerked his chin at Deothen-“is already dead.”
Sallah gritted her teeth. The point of her blade wavered. Next to her, Levritt shook so hard his armor rattled softly.
“Please,” Kandler said. He didn’t want this fight. His job was to protect the people of Mardakine, and if a battle broke out here, people on both sides would be killed. The knights didn’t deserve to die over this either. None of them did.
Deothen laid a hand on Sallah’s arm. “Stand down,” he said. She turned toward him, and he looked deep into her eyes. “These are good people. They are scared. We have no issue with them.”
“But, sir-” Sallah started.
Deothen cut her off with a raised eyebrow, then he reached down and unbuckled his sword belt. He wrapped the belt around his blade’s scabbard and handed the bundle to Mardak. “These knights are my charges,” he said as Mardak accepted the sword. “I am responsible for them and their deeds, whether good or ill. I shall bear the burden of your suspicions.”
Mardak weighed the sword in his hands. “You are charged with the murder of one of our citizens. The penalty for this is death.”
Levritt blanched. Sallah opened her mouth to object again, but Deothen silenced her with a wave of his hand. “Give them your swords,” he said. He raised his voice to preempt any protests. “We are guests here. We will follow their laws.”
The knights surrendered their weapons to Kandler. He handed them to Rislinto, one by one, marveling at them as he handled them. Each hilt was long and straight, of a piece with its blade, forged from a single length of the finest steel. Silver filigree wrapped around each crimson scabbard in the pattern of flames licking up the sheath’s full length. The soldier in Kandler felt the urge to draw one of the swords, to test its balance and its edge, but he passed them along instead.
Rislinto blew out a sigh of professional amazement as he collected the blades. The blacksmith cradled them in his arms as if each was a fragile flower.
Deothen drew in a deep breath and addressed Mardak. “I place myself in your hands and trust your mercy.”
“You are far wiser than your young charges,” said Mardak, a hard smile growing on his face. “Now we must determine the truth of your words.”
“How do you propose to do that?” Deothen asked, as serious as he had been while giving Shawda’s eulogy. “Knights such as I have the power to separate truth from lies. Do you have one among your number blessed with such favors?”
Mardak shook his head. “Fradelko has been missing now for two full weeks. We will have to resort to more traditional methods.”
“Wait,” said Kandler. “I can poke around a bit at their campsite, try to confirm their story.”
Mardak grimaced. “Do not waste your time, justicar. If these people could snatch so many from our midst without detection, then they could surely meddle with any such so-called evidence. We cannot trust our eyes or our hearts.”
Kandler’s stomach flipped over. He knew where this was going.
“Our course is clear,” Mardak said. “Trial by fire.”
Chapter 5
“You’re out of your mind,” Kandler told Mardak. “Dar-guun may only lie over the other side of Point Mountain, but we aren’t goblins.”
The mayor of Mardakine narrowed his eyes at his old friend. “Perhaps you’re forgetting who is in charge here, justicar,” he said. “Our people follow my guidance, and they know I speak the truth.”
Mardak turned and swept his arms wide, his ashen cloak swirling about him as he did. “My friends, Fradelko is with us no more. We have no means of extracting the truth from these intruders other than the tried and true methods our forebears used.”
“We could take them to New Cyre,” Kandler said, doing his best to be reasonable in the face of clear madness. The stress of having the citizens of Mardakine disappear one by one had taken its toll on the entire town, and it had affected no one more than Kandler. Still, he knew that the people were near their breaking point, and it seemed that Mardak was ready to snap them over his knee. “They have a priest there.”
“‘New’ Cyre,” Mardak scoffed. “A town filled with those Cyrans too fearful of what our home has become to live in its shadow as we do.”
Kandler didn’t like the way the conversation was headed. “Prince Oargev is the ruler in exile of Cyre.”
