spear shaft still sticking from its belly. Cathan’s eyes watered at the stink as Ebonbane rose and fell, rose and fell, in concert with Damid’s weapon. After a time, they began to tire, their blows becoming slow and clumsy, so they fell back, letting the next two knights take over the gruesome butchery.
It was one of that pair, a young knight named Sir Alarran, who became the first of the Divine Hammer’s casualties. He was fighting his fourth corpse, his blade dancing in tandem with the mace of the man beside him, when somehow the enemy got past his defenses and buffeted the side of his head with its’ fist. His helm came off, clattering against the wall, and he staggered to one knee, jabbing his sword through the corpse’s gut as he dropped. The ghoul did not fall, however. Even as the other knight rained blows down upon it, it lunged at Sir Alarran, broken yellow teeth clamping down on his forehead.
Alarran screamed. There was a sickening crunch.
A heartbeat later, the other knight’s mace struck the corpse in the ear, crushing its head to a pulp. It was too late, though. Alarran was dead. Another knight rushed forward to take his place.
The knights pressed forward. By the time the tunnel’s slope began to level, six more of their number had fallen and more than half a hundred corpses lay in their wake, hacked and crushed, a few still twitching. Finally, the numbers of the dead began to thin, and the tunnel opened out into the enormous cavern that was the Chemoshans’ fane.
The cave was vast, fifty paces across. A great, dark pool filled half of it, fed by dripping stalactites above. Firelight painted the walls, leaping from copper braziers festooned with skulls-animal and human alike. The dreaded drums towered atop the broad stumps of two broken stalagmites, and more skins hung upon the walls, stretched on wooden frames and painted with unholy sigils. Skull-helmed Chemoshans, two score and more, filled the fane, and more ghouls lurked in the shadows. On a stony outcrop above the pool was the altar itself, the huge skull of a long-dead dragon, cut open so its brainpan formed a bowl for sacrifices. Beside it, clad in midnight robes and a bear-skull headdress encrusted with scarlet and black gems, was the head of the cult, the Deathmaster.
Seeing the knights from across the cave, the high priest raised a hand-dark with blood from whatever offering he’d been preparing in the altar-and roared for his men to attack.
They obeyed, charging at Cathan and his men with sickle swords and wavy-bladed knives.
The remaining ghouls lurched behind. The knights raised their shields to repulse the charge, and for a time the cavern filled with the crash of steel against steel. The wounded and dying shouted out the names of gods both light and dark.
The knights were outnumbered, but they fought hard, and again the cultists were no match. Men died on either side, but the Divine Hammer slew three for each of their own. In time, the Chemoshans’ lines faltered, then gave way entirely.
The battle broke up, the Chemoshans’ lines unraveling into small pockets that soon fell before the knights’ swords. They died howling curses at their killers, their eyes blazing with hate. Cathan and Damid pushed past, Tithian and a half-dozen other knights on their heels as they charged the altar. Another knot of priests awaited them there, and these diehards fought even more furiously than their brethren had, desperation and fury fueling their strength. Even so, they were no match for the Hammer.
The Deathmaster had stayed by the altar, no weapon in his hand, his long-bearded face twisted into a cold sneer. There was no fear in his eyes, though his own end was surely at hand. He had made his pact with Chemosh, Cathan knew. His only desire now was to take his foes into death with him as many as he could. Cathan led his men up the steps of the fane’s makeshift dais, Ebonbane flashing red in his hand.
Smiling, the Deathmaster raised a finger to point at him.
Cathan froze, feeling the death god’s presence surge through the fane. Seconds became centuries as he watched the high priest’s eyes flare blood red, and crimson light swell around the man’s fingertips. A strange, itching heat spread across his skin, swiftly gathering into pain….
Something hit him from behind, knocking him to the ground.
Damid.
Cathan felt the Deathmaster’s spell leave him, saw his fellow knight freeze, scimitar upraised. “No!” he shouted, reaching out. “Get-”
With a sound like claws scratching slate, the crimson light around the Deathmaster’s hand became a whip, a scarlet strand that lashed out and wrapped around and around Damid. The Seldjuki screamed, dropping his sword, then shuddered as his cry rose into agony, muffled by the magical cocoon. Cathan clutched at him, but the webs burned where he touched them, and he snatched his hand back with a hiss.
For an instant, everything was still. Then the magical fibers sprang loose, and tore Sir Damid Segorro apart.
Bits of flesh spattered the stones, splashing down into the pool below. Steel armor ripped apart like tin. Red mist filled the air. Amid it all, Damid’s ghastly skeletal remains collapsed in a ruin of bone and tendon.
A mocking laugh burst from the Deathmaster’s lips as the knights stared at what remained of their fellow. Eyes blazing with madness, he reached out toward Cathan again-
— and stopped, staring at the sword that had just buried itself in his stomach.
Cathan blinked, turned, and saw Tithian. His squire no longer held his blade.
Recklessly, he had hurled it at the Deathmaster, and somehow the throw had struck true, burying the blade halfway to its quillons in the Chemoshan’s gut. It was hard to say whether he or the cult’s leader looked more surprised.
The Deathmaster fell to his knees, still gaping at the weapon. Furious, Cathan got to his feet, reached down, and lifted Damid’s scimitar. Setting his own blade aside, he walked to the high priest, grabbed the bear’s skull, and wrenched it from the man’s head. The Deathmaster was old, his face scarred by some long-ago pox. There were finger-bones woven into his hair and beard. He looked up, his dark eyes shining with fanatical hatred.
When he opened his mouth to curse Cathan, though, only a dark rope of blood spilled out.
“By the Divine Hammer,” Cathan pronounced, raising his dead friend’s blade, “in the name of god and Kingpriest, I condemn thee.
The blade fell.
CHAPTER 2
The Knights built two pyres the morning after the attack, on the cliff tops overlooking the Hullbreaker. The storm had broken, yielding to gray skies fringed with blue in, the south, and the sea had lost its rage. Gulls wheeled above, and crows as well, drawn by the smell of the dead. Far off, well beyond the stone spire, the dark speck of a lone caravel plied the waves.
The first pyre was a jumble of driftwood and scrub, thrown in a crude heap. Sprawled upon it, arms outflung and, often as not, eyes staring wide, were the Chemoshans and the stinking corpses who had served them. A few of the death cult’s ghouls still twitched, clinging to their horrible unlife. The knights had spent the better part of the night dragging them back from the Hullbreaker, The Church mandated that servants of evil be purified with flame, and so Cathan threw first torch onto the pyre as the company’s priests flicked oil upon the bodies. The conflagration leaped high, the trailing black smoke across the sky.
The second pyre, placed upwind of the first, was smaller-Paladine be blessed, Cathan thought as he looked upon it. It was carefully stacked, cut from a stand of goldleaf trees that stood inland. The bodies upon it were more orderly, each laid upon his shield, his hands grasping his weapon upon his breast. The dead knights’ eyes were closed, the more ghastly wounds covered with white linen. Here the priests took greater care with the rites of sanctification. They laid blocks of sweet incense among the dead, carefully daubed-each with oil, and recited the Ligibo, the ritual for those who died fighting in the god’s name.
“
As one, the surviving knights-twenty in all where thirty had stood the night before-drew blade and mace, and
