Divine Hammer

They emerged into open air once again, striding out onto the wide, dusty expanse of the arena’s floor. According to the tales, the minotaurs had fought dragons for sport in this very place, long ago. Cathan could believe it. He’d seen real battles fought on smaller fields.

The cheering grew from a rumble into a storm as they crossed the sands. The Lattakayans were stoic about religion, but when it came to their games they were deafening. Most of the knights were already there, resplendent in their mail and snowy tabards, arrayed in orderly ranks. The other warriors who had come for the tourney were not so disciplined. They stood in clusters, glancing nervously at the combined might of the Divine Hammer. Cathan and Tavarre strode over to join their fellows, smiling all the way.

Beldinas stepped forward, silver light shining around him, and raised his hands. The crowd grew still, muttering to one another and glancing skyward, where the Udenso loomed. The statue’s presence should have made him seem small, but somehow it did not.

Instead, if anything, he seemed the larger of the two.

“Twenty years,” he began, his voice filling the Bilstibo.

“For twenty years, I have ruled this realm. For twenty years, I have healed its people. For twenty years, I have striven to drive darkness from its cities and provinces.” He raised his head, looking up at the seas of faces. “The last has proven the hardest. Evil knows no honor, no shame. It hides-in caves, in the wilderness, in men’s hearts. It will not let go its grip on our empire easily.

“Because of this, twenty years ago I forged a new order of knighthood, to crush the forces of darkness wherever they are found. The knighthood has grown strong since that day, battling the evil among us and prevailing against it again and again. Through its labors, its sacrifices, one day we will know what it is like to live in a realm of light everlasting.

“Today we gather not only to celebrate my reign but to honor those who fight and die so that we may live in peace. People of Lattakay, usas farnas, we pay tribute to the Divine Hammer!”

His voice reaching a crescendo, the Kingpriest swept his arm around to point at the ranks of knights. The rubies on his crown flared, and the Lattakayans surged to their feet with a roar so loud that it seemed to shake the Bilstibo’ s walls. His chest swelling with pride, Cathan reached for Ebonbane and yanked it from its scabbard, raising it in salute as his fellows did the same. The blades flashed in the sunlight. As one, the knights turned and marched from the arena. Cathan went with them, his heart rising with joy as the crowd’s cries filled his ears.

Andras woke to the stink of carrion and brimstone. This was nothing new: the stench of the quasitas had been his constant companion for weeks. This morning, though, there was a difference, a sharper tang in the air that set his nostrils burning. He smiled. The day of vengeance had come, and the little fiends knew it too.

He let his eyes open, taking in his surroundings. He lay amid a heap of blankets in an old, wind-worn ruin-a few crumbling, sandstone buildings surrounded by the stub of a wall, all of it mantled in red dust. Once, it had been a monastery. To which god Andras wasn’t sure, though the fact that the Abyss-spawned quasitas could dwell here gave him confidence it wasn’t any of the gods of light. His “children” could not bear hallowed ground.

They were everywhere here, perched like gargoyles on the rocks, occasionally leaping up to flap to some other spot. A few slept, their misshapen heads tucked beneath their wings, but most were awake, looking about with their feline eyes, or feeding on the bodies of wild dogs they had caught in the hills. There were two dead quasitas beside the other corpses too, their bellies ripped open, the ground beneath them soaked with black blood. Andras scowled at the sight, but let it be. The beasts sometimes killed their own, and there was nothing he could do to deter them. He had lost more than thirty since the summoning, but that still left him with more than a hundred. It would be enough.

He rubbed his maimed hand. The flesh was still crusted with scabs where his finger had been. Fistandantilus had given him a poultice to speed the healing but nothing for the pain. Even now, phantom twinges troubled him as his body tried to remember the piece it had lost. The aches only added fuel to his rage. Were it not for the Divine Hammer, his hand would still be whole. Another reason to hate. Another reason to rejoice.

He rose, and a hundred pairs of eyes turned to stare at him, a hundred tiny bodies tensed. The quasitas purred as he walked among them, knowing what was to come. After weeks of slaking their bloodlust on rats and dogs, the time had come for the true feast. He wished he could be there to see it, but the Dark One had been adamant when he gave Andras his instructions.

“They will burn you if they catch you,” Fistandantilus had warned-his last words before he teleported Andras and the quasitas here, to the wilds of Seldjuk. “Do you want that?”

Andras did not. What joy could he take in revenge if he were dead?

A flight of stairs, worn to humps by the ages, led up the wall. He climbed them carefully, aware of the malicious, hungry stares fixed on his back. The bricks of the wall were loose, shifting under his feet as he stepped onto what had once been ramparts. He couldn’t see Lattakay from here-it was dozens of miles away, in country where the terrain hid anything more than a few hundred yards away from view-but he could sense its nearness, sense the knights. They were out there, enjoying the new year and their grand tourney, unaware that soon their revels would turn to tears and terror. Andras smiled, his eyes like stones.

“Go,” he murmured.

The crowd roared when Sir Marto went down, curses ringing from within his helm as Tithian swept his legs out from under him. The big knight hit the ground hard, then rolled, somehow getting his shield up to block the finishing blow. Tithian fell back a pace, then came on again as Marto rose to one knee, his beaked axe lashing out in a vicious arc. The blow would have disemboweled Tithian, had the weapon not been blunted for the tournament. As it was, it sent him staggering long enough for Marto to regain his feet. The crowd cheered again, and the big knight came on hard.

“You bloody whelp!” he thundered, laying in with a series of blows that knocked Tithian back. “It’ll take a better man than you to lay me out!”

Frantically, Tithian twisted aside, trying to circle around the big knight’s flank. Marto only laughed, pivoting without missing a beat, and kept at it, driving the younger man across the arena. Finally, Tithian backed into the fence that surrounded the fighting ground. With nowhere left to go, he concentrated on his parrying, using sword and shield to wall out Marto’s hammering blows.

No one ever won a battle with parrying alone, though. Tithian began to slow, then to falter. Marto came on even harder than before, driving the young knight to his knees, then striking him a blow to the elbow that made his sword hand go slack. The crowd groaned as the blade fell, and Marto kicked it away. In another instant, the big Karthayan had knocked aside Tithian’s shield and raised his axe high.

“Wait!” Tithian cried, yanking his helm from his head. His eyes were wide in his sweat-soaked face. “Silonno!”

I yield!

For a moment, Marto didn’t seem to hear. Then, with a laugh, he let his axe fall and raised his visor. “Took you long enough,” he boomed, offering his hand.

Tithian took it, flushing as he let the big knight drag him to his feet. Together they gathered their weapons, then made their way across the battleground. The sounds of cheering and clapping followed them as they left the arena.

Cathan greeted them as they entered the barracks where the men from his company waited their turn. Out on the field, two other knights-one from the city of Odacera, the other from Dravinaar-moved out to begin the next round.

“It’s all right,” he told Tithian, who looked grim. He clapped the young knight on the arm. “You lasted longer than I would have when I was your age, lad. None of us ever win our first tourney, anyway.”

“Speak for yourself,” Marto grinned, going to a barrel of cold water and ducking his head. He came back up with a roar, his long beard dripping. “I won mine! Whipped your feeble arse doing it too, if I recall. Sir.”

The knights all laughed. Even Sir Pellidas, who had lost his bout half an hour ago and had been glum ever since, allowed himself a silent smile. Cathan chuckled with the rest of them. Today they were all brothers, sworn to win the tourney for their honor.