Chosen of the Gods

Beside him, Sir Gareth fought two men at once, lunging away from one man’s clumsy stoke while he batted the other man back with a sweep of his sword’s flashing blade. The man stumbled, then regained his footing and hurled himself back into the fray. Gareth raised his shield, hammering the charging man in the face with its rim. The Scata’s head snapped back with an awful sound-neck or skull, Cathan wasn’t sure- then dropped in a heap on the ground. Gareth kicked him, making sure he wasn’t faking, then turned to his last foe, both men with bloody swords at the ready.

Cathan’s opponent lunged in again, stabbing at his heart- a good, quick blow he couldn’t parry in time. Instead he twisted, rocking on the balls of his feet, and a hot line of pain raced across his back as the blow scored him. He gasped, his tunic tearing, then felt a tug as the blade snarled in his cloak. Instinct taking over, Cathan whirled, tearing the weapon from his opponent’s grasp. Pulled off-balance, the Scata staggered to his knees. Cathan turned back, afire with pain now, and slid his sword between the soldier’s ribs. The man choked, spitting blood, his wide eyes fixing in his head as he slid off the blade. Gasping, Cathan wheeled to go to Sir Gareth’s aid.

Sir Gareth needed none. He had laid into his opponent, driving him back with a flurry of swift, measured blows. The Scata gave ground frantically, looking for somewhere to run, but Gareth didn’t relent, battering away until finally the soldier missed a beat. Steel met the man’s neck, and his head flew free, an expression of shock frozen on his face as it tumbled into the furze. Blood sprayed as the rest of him made a wet, terrible sound and collapsed.

The Knight saw to the other Scatas, making sure they weren’t playing at being dead, then inspected the cut across Cathan’s back, peeling back his bloody tunic. He prodded at the gash, bringing a groan from Cathan’s lips.

“You’ll live,” he said, then nodded at the bodies. “Outriders, them-dispatched to clear away lookouts. Now let’s go see what’s raising that dust.” He waved his bloody sword at the cloud that hung in the air, very close now and drawing nearer every moment.

Crouching low, they hurried across the hilltop. The pain in Cathan’s back flared with every step, and he had to bite his lip to keep from crying out as they wormed along on their stomachs. Closing his eyes, Cathan took a deep breath, then raised his head, looked out into the valley below, and gasped.

He’d been expecting a large patrol-maybe five hundred men-but the force on the Highroad was much greater, a mass of footsoldiers clogging the path as far as he could see. There were thousands of them, an ocean of blue cloaks beneath a forest of glinting spears. Among them, here and there, he made out the colors of clerics-the gold robes of Kiri-Jolith’s war-priests, the blue of Mishakite healers, and the white of Revered Children of Paladine. Horn players and drummers walked with them too, though from here the wind’s howl drowned out the music. Standards bearing the triangle and falcon floated above the rest, leaving no doubt: this was the Kingpriest’s army, marching to war.

“Mother of the gods,” Cathan breathed.

“Indeed,” Gareth replied, beside him. The Knight didn’t seem the slightest bit surprised by what he beheld. “A Droma, at least. It seems Lord Kurnos wants a war.”

Cathan continued to stare at the army below. He’d never seen so many fighting men in one place. The rebels who had taken Govinna were a rabble beside this great mass. The pain in his back disappeared. He was too numb with fear to feel it.

“Wh-what do we do about them?” he stammered.

“Do? Nothing, yet,” Gareth replied, pushing himself up and striding back the way they’d come. Cathan hurried after. “We must return to Luciel at once. Lady Ilista and your baron will want to hear about this.”

Chapter Sixteen

Ten mounds of earth disturbed the courtyard of LuciePs keep where Lord Tavarre had once lived. It overlooked the town, perched on a cliff that plunged hundreds of feet to the jagged rocks below: small fortress, invisible from the town below. Its simple, stone curtain wall surrounded a stable, a granary, and a two-storey manor, which had housed a dozen people, before the plague came.

Ilista hesitated as she emerged from the manor’s upper doors, standing on a bridge that led to the battlements. The baron had given the keep over to her and Beldyn, and to Sir Gareth and his Knights as well. He himself refused to sleep within its walls any more, and Ilista couldn’t blame him. There were too many ghosts there, for the ten mounds had once been his household, of whom only he and his man Vedro remained. The rest were victims of the Longosai, from its earliest days. Most were servants and retainers, but two graves stood out among the rest, marked with stones where the others were bare. In one lay Ailinn, once baroness of Luciel and Tavarre’s beloved wife; in the other, his son Larris, who would have been ten years of age that summer.

The baron stood before the mounds, his head bowed, as Ilista made her way down to the courtyard. His shoulders shook, and though he heard the First Daughter’s tread on the stairs, he did not turn to greet her.

No wonder he took to the hills, she thought as her eyes flitted to the mounds. She thought of the others that filled Luciel’s graveyard and of the scorched patches of earth where pyres had burned. No wonder they all did. If only…

If only what? a voice asked in her head. Symeon may have ignored the plague, but even if he hadn’t, what could have been done? The Mishakites couldn’t have stopped it. No one could-or so she would have said, not long ago. Now things were different, though. Now there was Beldyn.

The monk was not at the keep right now, but rather stayed in Luciel, as he had every day since they’d come to the town. It was slow, healing all who suffered from the Longosai, but finally he was nearing the end of the task. A dozen men and women had remained ill this morning. By nightfall they would be half as many. When the morrow ended, the plague would be gone.

After that, Ilista didn’t know. Symeon’s death and Kurnos’s coronation had surely changed the situation, but she didn’t know how. She had tried repeatedly to contact Loralon, but to no avail. No matter how many times she spoke the Emissary’s name, the crystal orb remained dark, empty, her own reflection mocking her from its depths. Something had changed to keep Loralon silent, and not knowing what it was infuriated her. Tavarre had sent out riders to learn what news they could. Now, seeing the leather scrollcase tucked in the baron’s belt, she knew one had returned.

He straightened, signing the triangle, and though he did his best to blot them, tear-tracks still glistened on his scarred face when he turned to face her.

“Efisa,” he said, his voice hoarse.

“Your Honor,” she replied, then faltered, seeing something in his eyes, beneath the sorrow-a deeper unhappiness as his gaze met hers. “What’s wrong? Is it Beldyn?”

He shook his head, pulling forth the scroll-case. “I’m sorry.”

Ilista took the scroll-case from him and undid its lacing to remove a sheet of parchment. The wind tried to snatch it away, but she held on, unfolding it with trembling fingers. Something’s happened, she thought. To Loralon? Was that why he’d turned silent?

That wasn’t it. It was much worse, and as she read her skin turned cold.

There were three degrees of censure in the Istaran Church. The first, Bournon, was a simple reprimand for minor sins, easily lifted wifli an atonement tithe and three nights of fasting. The second, Abidon, was an official reproach and not so easily removed. It took a patriarch or a hierarch of the Great Temple to do so. The church bestowed it upon those who committed some great affront to Paladine, and while it was in effect, the condemned could receive no sacraments, nor could he set foot on consecrated ground. The clergy declared hundreds of folk Boumon each year, and perhaps a few dozen Abidon.

The third degree was different Foripon was a full declaration of anathema casting the condemned out of the church. Often it led to inquisition and death. Only the Kingpriest himself could revoke such a denunciation, and none had ever done so. In her years at court, Ilista had only seen Symeon cast out a single man, a soldier who had pissed on a roadside shrine and refused to do penance for it.