He rushed forward with a great shout. Lantern stepped in to meet him.
His left hand caught the Arbiter’s knife wrist and twisted it. The Arbiter grunted in pain and dropped the weapon. Lantern moved his foot beneath the falling weapon, flicking it back into the air. He caught it with his left hand, then rammed it through the Arbiter’s right eye socket.
As the body fell he stepped back and swept up the sabres. ‘The man was an idiot,’ he said. ‘But he was quite right. I cannot possibly kill you all.
Probably no more than ten or twelve of you. Do you wish to draw lots, peasants? Or will you rush me all at once and check the bodies later?’
No-one moved. ‘What about you?’ asked Lantern, pointing the sabre at a broad-shouldered young man standing close by. ‘Shall I spill your guts to the ground next? Well, speak up, worm!’ He suddenly moved towards the man. The townsman cried out in fear and forced himself further back into the crowd. ‘What about you, councillor?’ Lantern raged, making towards Raseev Kalikan. ‘Are you ready to die for your beloved townsfolk? Or do you think there has been enough entertainment for today?’
He advanced on the hapless Raseev, who stood blinking in the sunlight.
The crowd moved back from the terrified politician.
‘There has been enough… bloodshed,’ whispered Raseev, as the blood-covered sabre touched his chest.
‘Louder! Your miserable flock cannot hear you.’
‘Don’t kill me, Skilgannon!’ he pleaded.
‘Ah, so you know me then. No matter. Talk to your flock, Raseev Kalikan, while you still have a tongue to use. You know what to say.’
‘There has been enough bloodshed!’ shouted Raseev. ‘Return to your homes now. Please, my friends. Let us go home. I did not want anyone hurt today. Antol should not have attacked the abbot. He has paid for it with his life. Now let us be civilized and pull back from the brink.’
‘Wise words,’ said Skilgannon.
For a moment the crowd did not move. Skilgannon turned his ice-blue gaze upon the nearest man, and he backed away. Others followed his lead, and soon the mob was dispersing. Raseev made to follow them.
‘Not yet, councillor,’ said Skilgannon, the sabre blade tapping at Raseev’s shoulder. ‘Nor you, captain,’ he added, as Seregas backed away.
‘How long have you known?’
‘Only a few days, general,’ said Seregas smoothly. ‘I spotted the tattoo when you thrashed the Arbiter.’
‘And you sent word to the east.’
‘Of course. There is three thousand raq on your head.’
‘Understandable,’ said Skilgannon. Then he returned his attention to Raseev. ‘I will not be here after today,’ he told the councillor. ‘But I will hear of all that happens after I am gone. Should any harm befall my brothers I shall come back. I will kill you in the old way — the Naashanite way. One piece of you will die at a time.’
Skilgannon turned his back on the two men and moved towards where Braygan knelt, cradling Abbot Cethelin. As he approached them Marja reared up from alongside the body of her husband. ‘You bastard!’ she screamed and ran at Skilgannon. Spinning on his heel he swayed aside.
Marja stumbled and fell face first to the earth.
‘By Heaven, I never did like that woman,’ said Skilgannon.
Dropping to one knee he examined the wound in Cethelin’s side. Antol’s knife had slashed the skin above the hip, but had not penetrated deeply. ‘I will stitch that wound for you,’ he said.
‘No, my son. You will not touch me. I feel the hatred and the anger radiating from you. It burns my soul. Braygan and Naslyn will take me to my chambers and attend me. You will join me there in a while. I have something for you.’ Braygan and Naslyn lifted him to his feet. The old priest looked at the bodies and shook his head.
Skilgannon saw tears in his eyes.
Skilgannon stood silently as the two priests helped Cethelin across the open courtyard and into the buildings opposite. His hands were sticky with blood. Wiping them on his robes, he moved to a stone seat in the gateway arch and sat down. The woman, Marja, stirred and struggled to her knees. Skilgannon ignored her. She looked around, saw her dead husband and began to sob. The sound was pitiful. She stumbled over to the corpse and knelt beside it. Her grief was real, but it did not touch Skilgannon. She was one of those people who never gave thought to consequences. Marja had screamed for guts to be spilled. And they were.
Four more souls had been despatched on the long, dark journey.
Two years of suppressed rage had been released in a few terrifying heartbeats. Brother Lantern was a role he had tried so hard to play. His father’s face appeared in his mind, as he always saw it, the broad features framed in a bronze helm, a transverse horse hair plume of white glinting in the sunlight.
‘
Skilgannon had never forgotten those words. His father, Decado, had not been wearing the armour of a mercenary when he had spoken them.
He had been on one of his rare visits home, recovering from a wound to his upper thigh and a broken wrist. Skilgannon had been sent home from school in disgrace after fighting two boys and knocking them both senseless. ‘Blood runs true in our family line, Olek. We are warriors.’
Decado had chuckled. ‘People are like dogs, boy. There’s the little, tubby fat ones everyone likes to pet, and the tall, rangy ones we watch race and bet upon. There’s all kinds of house dogs with wagging tails. Then there’s the wolf. It is strong. It has powerful jaws, and it is ferocious when roused.
We are what we are, my son. And wolves is what we are. And all them little waggy-tail beasts best walk wary around us.’
Two months later his father was dead.
Trapped on a ridge by two divisions of Panthian infantry Decado had led a last charge down the slope. The few survivors talked of his incredible courage, and how he had almost reached the Panthian King. When the main body of the army arrived at the battlefield they found all but one of the corpses impaled on stakes. Decado was still sitting his horse, which had been tethered nearby. At first the relief force had thought him to be alive. When they reached him they saw he had been strapped to his saddle, his back held upright by three lengths of wood. His swords had been sheathed at his side, his rings still upon his fingers. In one closed fist they found a small gold coin, bearing the Panthian crest.
A rider brought the coin to Skilgannon. ‘It is the toll for the Ferryman,’
he told the boy. ‘The Panthians wanted to ensure that he crossed the Dark River.’
Skilgannon had been horrified. ‘Then what will he do now? You took the coin from him.’
‘Do not worry, lad. I buried him with another coin — one of ours. It is still gold and the Ferryman will accept it. I wanted you to have this one.
The Panthians honoured him, and this is the symbol of that honour.’
‘
Skilgannon the Damned was who he was, and who he would always be.
Hearing movement behind him he looked back, and saw the runaway priests returning, moving sheepishly back into the main building. It is all a nonsense, he thought. In all likelihood only Cethelin truly believed in the all- healing power of love. The rest? Naslyn wanted redemption, Braygan safety. Anager and the other runaways had probably chosen the priesthood as one might choose between being a tailor or a bootmaker. It was just a profession.
He could not find it in himself to hate Raseev Kalikan or the captain Seregas. At least there was purpose in their actions.
Skilgannon had stood beside Cethelin, and almost convinced himself that he would stand passively by and let the mob do as they would. The world would not be a poorer place without me, he had thought. Yet when the foul baker had stabbed Cethelin something had snapped inside Skilgannon. The darkness had been released.
Brother Anager crept alongside him, saw the bodies before the gates and made the sign of the Protective Horn. ‘What happened here, Brother?’
he whispered.
‘I am not your brother,’ said Skilgannon.
