“Hear me, my children,” he declared. His voice was stern, the music all but gone from it, leaving cold authority behind. He raised his chin, and his youthful features hardened before her eyes. “I know this is a hard thing, but it must happen. There is no shelter here, and Govinna’s walls will keep us safe. As to these people…”he added, gesturing at the fever-wracked bodies,”… watch.”
As he knelt before the eight pallets, the only sound in Luciel was die ever-present rush of the wind. He looked out upon the bodies, spreading his hands over them. Ilista stopped breathing without realizing it as he closed his eyes and began to pray.
The light, when it came, grew bright so fast that all around the yard, folk cried out, shielding their eyes against the glare. The chiming noise that accompanied Beldyn’s healing rituals was louder and deeper, filled with strange echoes that came from nowhere. The autumn chill vanished, turning warm as the holy light engulfed Beldyn, then snaked out into the crowd in tendrils of silver fire. Ilista found herself trembling at the monk’s power.
“Be right,” she whispered, clutching her medallion until its sharp corners dug into her flesh. “Merciful Paladine, let him be right…”
At last the glow rippled and began to fade, bleeding away into the gathering night. One by one it uncovered the bodies on the pallets, washing away like a sunrise in reverse. Each time it left a healthy person behind-clear skin, brows no longer damp with fever, breathing easily again as they slumbered. Only Beldyn remained, all but lost amid the radiance, his eyes burning blue through the god’s white light. Ilista also saw the red gleam of rubies-then it was gone, swallowed by the brilliant whiteness.
The villagers who hadn’t already knelt did so now, their faces aglow with belief. Atop his stump, Tavarre shook his head, his mouth crooking into a wry, wondering grin. Ilista stared, fingering her medallion worriedly. Beldyn, gazing out upon the doting folk of Luciel, closed his eyes, smiled, and crumpled to the ground.
Chapter Seventeen
Everyone stared as Beldyn fell, dropping first to his knees, then slumping backward in a senseless heap. Some gasped, a few put their hands to their mouths, but coming so soon after the healing, his collapse took everyone aback.
With a cry. Cathan shoved his way through the mass of villagers, hurrying to the monk’s side. The holy light continued to burn, rippling silver and making soft, crystalline sounds, but Cathan didn’t balk. Holding his breath, he knelt hurrying and reached into the glow. It was a strange feeling, like putting his hands in a cool stream on a hot day, and the hairs on his arms stood erect, but there was no pain. Feeling around inside the light, he found Beldyn’s head, pillowed on one outflung arm and lifted it, propping it in his lap. The monk’s skin was clammy, and for a heartbeat Cathan feared he might be dead, but then he felt the body stir and the faint hiss of breath, and he sighed in relief.
Others were crowding close now, and the townsfolk parted to let them through, Ilista, Tavarre, Sir Gareth. Wentha was there too, somewhere-she had been standing beside him. Cathan heard their voices, taut with worry, but he didn’t listen; his attention fixed on Beldyn, his hands moving within the light to brush hair from the monk’s brow. The glow was already beginning to fade. Through it, he could see Beldyn’s youthful face, pale and slack, the lips parted, keeping a hit of the smile they’d held before he fell.
Cathan patted Beldyn’s cheek. “Reverence,” he asked. “Can you hear me?”
Beldyn stirred, moaning, and his eyelids trembled open. The blue fire in his eyes was banked, but it flared a little when he saw Cathan. His smile widened.
“You kept your word,” he said. “You came to my aid.”
Nodding, Cathan continued to stroke his cheek. “How can I help?”
Beldyn considered this. Letting out a shuddering breath, he glanced not only at Cathan, but the others as well.
“Help me up,” he said.
Cathan hesitated, looking at Ilista. The First Daughter hit her lip, unsure.
“Do it,” Beldyn insisted. “The Kingpriest’s warriors won’t wait for me to gather my strength.”
It was true, Cathan knew. Even now, the soldiers were heading for Luciel. Time was dear. So with a swallow, he grabbed Beldyn under his arms and rose, lifting the monk’s weight. In a moment, Beldyn was on his feet again, though he leaned much of his weight into Cathan’s shoulder. They exchanged looks, and Beldyn smiled.
“Thank you, my friend,” he said.
They left Luciel an hour later with whatever they could carry. The sun set soon after that, but they kept on, moving well into the evening. Finally, when it was full dark and they had put two leagues of wilderness between themselves and the town, they stopped and spent the night huddled and shivering in the shelter of a stand of aspen. They lit no fires, for fear of the
Hours later, they woke-more tired, it seemed, than when they’d made camp-to the sight of ruddy light smearing the horizon. At first they thought it was dawn, but the glow was to the south, not the east They stared silently, knowing what it meant but not daring to speak of it. The Kingpriesf s men were burning their homes. Whatever became of them, no more maps would bear the name of Luciel.
The
“Well never make it,” Gareth said, studying a map of Taol. Scowling, he traced his finger along the distance to Govinna, still many leagues away. “We can’t outrun imperial cavalry.”
“Can we hide from them?” Ilista asked.
Tavarre glanced at the villagers and shrugged. “Where? There’s two hundred of us.”
“We’re done, then,” Vedro said, and spat.
“No.”
Everyone stopped, turning to look in surprise. Last night’s healing had left Baldyn pale and weak, but he was recovering, and the silver light dimmed to a glimmer around him. His eyes blazed, silencing questions. Half the bandits and more than one of the Knights couldn’t meet that unsettling gaze at all and looked away.
“There is a way,” he said, pointing at the map. His finger marked a spot ten miles to the north, where the old road passed over the River Edessa. “This crossing. Is it a ford or a bridge?”
Tavarre leaned in, scratching his beard. “Bridge. That’s high ground there-the river flows through a gorge.”
“Good!” Gareth proclaimed, his eyes glinting. “We can cross, then burn it behind us.”
The baron shook his head. “We could, if it were made of wood. That bridge is stone.”
Everyone looked at one as the spark of hope they had felt faded. Beldyn, however, still stared at the crossing.
“Then we’ll knock it down,” he said.
“How?” Tavarre pressed. “We have no tools, and even if we did, it would take days-oh.”
He stopped, seeing the look in Beldyn’s crystalline eyes. Everyone who saw knew what he had meant. Healing was not the only power the god had given him. Looking at him, the others felt some of his conviction flow into them. Besides, they had no other option but surrender, and that path surely led to the gibbet for them all.
After dispatching riders to trail behind and serve as watchers, the folk of Luciel-all of them cold, hungry and tired- broke camp and set forth, through the morning mist. Behind them, the distant glow of Luciel’s death vanished in the brightening dawn.
They first saw the bridge late that morning, as the road humped over a hill-shoulder. The refugees halted at its crest. Less than a league away, the trail wound up to the lip of a chasm, where a narrow arch of white stone spanned the gap. Huge figures, carved from streaked granite, loomed at either end: statues of warriors, wearing old-fashioned, banded armor and holding oblong shields and tall spears. They had been four, once, but one had
