zeal. Besides, his own blood was beginning to warm a little, as well. After many years fighting evil in the Kingpriest’s name, the song of battle still rang within him.
“Very well,” he said: “Let’s attend the clerics first, though. We need our blessings before the battle.”
There were four priests in Cathan’s company, and now the knights gathered before them, heads bowed. Serissi, a silver-haired, iron-jawed woman in Mishakite blue who served as the band’s healer, prayed to her goddess to keep the knights safe from harm.
Revic, a mountain of a man with Kiri-Jolith’s golden tabard over his mail, cut the palm of his hand with a dagger, pouring his blood on the ground in the hopes that it would be the last they would shed that day. Athex- swarthy, fat, and draped in the purple of Habbakuk the Fisher-daubed the knights’ foreheads with blessed saltwater, reciting prayers of protection from the sea. Last, stooped by age and snowy vestments made heavy by the rain, came white-bearded Ovinus, Revered Son of Paladine, who sanctified them in the name of the holy church.
“
“
The men who had once tended the Hullbreaker’s lighthouse had carved a long, narrow stair from the stone here. Wind and water had worn the steps smooth, and they were slick with rain, so the knights had to move slowly, creeping down to the rocky shore. Spray from the bursting surf billowed high above them. Most of the younger men, and a couple of the older ones too, stared at the water with dread-all the more so when they beheld the pair of boats that would carry them to battle.
They were puny things, six-oared shorecraft that bobbed and thudded against each other in the shallows. Damid coughed and sucked on his wispy moustache, and Tithian’s eyes were so wide, it seemed they would pop out of his skull. Cathan, however, merely nodded to himself, staring past the seas to the pillar of rock that was their destination. The storm was bad, but there would be no better time to assail the Chemoshans’ temple. The cultists would not see them coming in the tempest.
“Get in!” he shouted, above the storm’s roar. “As we arranged! Go!”
Several of the men were pale, their faces looking green in the lightning’s glare, but they all obeyed. They had taken oaths when they became knights, so on they went, sloshing through knee-deep water, then hoisting themselves over the gunwales. Cathan went last of all, clambering up to the prow of one vessel. It bucked beneath him as the sea swelled and dropped, but he kept his footing. He reached to his belt again, but this time his fingers didn’t find his sword. Rather, he pulled free a string of glistening pearls, letting them slide and dangle among his fingers. Drawing a deep breath, he held them out, pointing toward the rock.
“
With that, he broke the string and flung the pearls away. A tiny hailstorm of pearls pattered down into the water before the skiff. Cathan held his breath, waiting. The sea swallowed them and continued to seethe for a time. Then silver light flared beneath the surface, and the water began to change.
Legends spoke of ancient priests, so rich in Paladine’s power that they could calm whole oceans with a prayer. This invocation wasn’t so strong. Beyond the foam-drenched rocks, the waves kept hurling themselves madly toward destruction. Around the two boats, however, the surface grew smooth, like a great sheet of Micahi glass. It didn’t even ripple when the oarsmen dipped their blades into it. The knights regarded it for a good while, wonder in their faces, then looked to Cathan again.
He smiled, his silver eyes flashing as a bolt of lightning struck the ruins atop the Hullbreaker. Slamming down his visor, he drew Ebonbane and pointed it forward.
“On, then! In the Kingpriest’s name!”
“For the Lightbringer!” the knights replied as one. Then the oarsmen set to, and the boats shot away from the shore.
The Chemoshans had set watchers on the rocks at the spire’s foot: six men with leather cuirasses under dark cloaks, and helmets made from the skulls of goats and wolves. In the storm’s fury, though, they didn’t notice the boats gliding toward them on patches of smooth water until they had pulled up to the Hullbreaker itself. The knights began to pour out even before the skiffs bumped to a stop, shouting the names of Paladine and the Kingpriest as they clambered up the slippery rocks. Shocked, the cultists hurried to block them, five brandishing sickle-bladed swords while one scrambled back toward a fissure in the stone, is robes flapping behind him.
The guards died quickly, in a clamor of steel. They were too few, the Divine Hammer too well trained. The followers of the death god fought without fear of being killed, but that didn’t stop steel from sliding between their ribs or opening their throats. Less than a minute after the battle began it was over, their bodies sprawled in tidal pools, the water billowing red about them. One young knight won a fresh scar on his chin from a sickle-blow, but other than that the knights escaped unharmed.
Still, the cultists achieved at least one goal: the last of them escaped, disappearing into the fissure, shouting madly. The knights tried to give chase, but the ground was too treacherous, and he was gone before they, could stop him. Cathan cursed.
“So much for surprise,” said Damid.
Scowling, Cathan waved his sword, then plunged ahead toward the cave. “Quickly, men!” he shouted. “Take the fight to them!”
In the knights went, Cathan at the fore, Damid at his side. The tunnel was rough and close, its walls smeared with bloody handprints. Torches guttered in wall sconces, making the shadows dance. The way sloped down, a trickle of rainwater flowing along its midst as it twisted deep beneath the spire. As they left the din of the storm behind, a new sound rose, seeming to come up through the rocks beneath their feet. It was a deep thunder, the pounding of drums. Cathan signed the triangle. The Chemoshans skinned their instruments with hides flayed from living men. They made pipes of bones, too, but the knights were too far away to hear those yet.
All at once, the drumming stopped. For a heartbeat, the tunnel was horribly quiet, save for the clatter of the knights’ armor. Then came a chorus of angry shouts, punctuated by ululating howls that echoed up the tunnel. Biting his lip, Cathan glanced over at Damid.
The Seldjuki’s eyes were closed, his lips moving in silent prayer. Cathan offered a quick entreaty to the gods as well.
The smell hit them.
It was sickeningly sweet, like the attar of some terrible flower, with a meaty, greasy stench beneath: the reek of rotting flesh. Several knights choked as it clogged their nostrils, and toward the rear a squire was noisily sick. Cathan focused and held firm. He had fought Chemoshans before. He’d been expecting this, and he tightened his grip on Ebonbane as the shadows down the tunnel began to move.
The fane’s defenders wore no skull helms, wielded no sickle swords. They walked unsteadily, the scuff of feet dragging across the floor the only sound of their approach. They did not speak, growl, nor even breathe. The Chemoshans’ protectors were dead.
The stench grew unbearable as they staggered into the torchlight. They were horrible to behold, all rancid flesh and glistening bone, slack-hanging mouths and clutching, clawed hands. The Chemoshans’ rites gave the dead power to move but not to think. They were as mindless as the creatures that scuttled among the shipwrecks outside. They shambled on, seeking warm flesh, every step an affront to all that was holy.
The first of the dead was a big man who had clearly died by drowning. His flesh was swollen and blue, and there were hollows where the crabs had taken his eyes. Cathan cut him open with a stroke of his sword, slitting his belly to let his entrails slide out. The wound barely slowed the lurching horror, though, and it took a second slash from Damid to drop it, its bloated head spurting free of its shoulders and smacking against the corpse behind it. The creature went boneless, hitting the floor with a wet smack.
The second ghoul had died more violently, a gash in its throat gaping like a second smile. The cut did not bleed, nor did its arm when Damid’s scimitar took it off at the elbow leaving ragged strips of sinew behind. Cathan finished it with a thrust through its mouth, turning it as limp as a Pesaran puppet with the strings cut off.
On they came, one grisly wight after another: one with the side of its skull staved in, another with a broken
