Sacred Fire

nothing… no boats, no sign of anything.

Gabbro spat again, darkening the floor even worse. Behind him, he heard the faint murmur of voices, then the flapping of goblin feet. He fought back a ripple of disgust at the stink of the hunched, snaggle-toothed creature that lurched up next to him.

“You should be at your post, Akku,” he growled. “I told you I’d shout if I saw anything.”

The goblin’s beetle-brow lowered. The creature glared at him with murderous yellow eyes. Akku hated Gabbro; only their common enemy kept them from going for each other’s throats. Gabbro already had plans for killing the creature once Beldinas was kidnapped and safely put away, and Lord Revando on the throne. He suspected Akku planned the same for him.

“Man no coming,” grunted the monster. “We wait long. Tired.” He yawned, baring a mouth full of brown- crusted fangs.

Gabbro rolled his eyes. “I don’t give a kender’s damn if you’re tired,” he shot back. “You get back to where you belong now, or I swear-”

He stopped. He heard something-a soft thump, as of a boat pulling up to the bridge’s base. He lost interest in Akku immediately, turning back to the secret door. There they were: two rowboats, each loaded with cloaked men, without any lanterns. A third drifted up behind. Gabbro frowned; there were supposed to be four boats. Had Idar met up with trouble, lost that many of his men? He lowered his axe, his bearded face splitting into a grin. Whatever … the loss would be worth it, to uncrown the Lightbringer, at last.

“Come on,” he muttered, watching the figures get off the boats. They were certainly taking their time. “Hurry it up, before someone sees you.”

Then Lunitari slid out from behind a drifting cloud, and his smile vanished. Its red light hit the cloaked men sidelong, revealing not the drab greens and browns of Idar’s force, but surcoats of white, over glinting chain mail. He glimpsed the burning sigil on their breasts, and all at once felt as he had the time he’d fallen into a frozen lake as a child. “Hammer!” he bellowed, whirling so fast he almost cut Akku in half with his axe. “It’s the Reorx-be — damned Divine Hammer!”

The goblin’s ruddy face turned pale with fear. He stood very still for a moment, then turned and ran, his feet flapping away in the shadows. Farther down the passage, other voices picked up Gabbro’s cry. Some of the rebels might flee; but others would stand and fight. Staring out the peephole, the dwarf had no illusions that any of them would get out of the tunnels alive. Someone had betrayed them, and he spent what he figured would be the last moments of his life dreaming up innovative curses against them. Old High Dwarven was a very versatile language when it came to curses.

“Gudruz dar morakh… agradoth boru ngazung… kai throntar gon-raxanum…”

The secret door opened outward; there was no way to bar it from within. Gabbro planted his feet wide apart, holding his axe two-handed as the knights approached. They found the entrance with ease, and just as easily managed the hidden catch that appeared to be a rusted old hook sticking out of the stones. The lead knight gestured to his men-some two dozen, with more pouring off the third boat-and as one they drew their weapons. Swords, maces, and hammers glinted in the silver moon’s glow; crossbows, too. Gabbro glowered at them through the peephole: If he was going to die, he’d drag a few of the Hammer with him.

The lead knight twisted the hook. The door swung open. Gabbro leapt out, roaring a dwarvish battle cry as he brought his axe down on the knight’s shoulder. Flesh and bone gave, and the man went down with a howl that choked off as the blade rammed down through his ribs into his heart. Gabbro yanked it free, whirled, and hit another knight in the neck, almost taking his head off. Then a hot pain lanced through him as a sword pierced his back. He swept around, spitting blood at whoever had just stabbed him. He saw only the edge of a blade, and just for an instant, as it arced around and caught him just above the eyes. Then it all stopped.

The Divine Hammer moved in all across Istar that night, sweeping the heartland and the provinces alike. Every city had its tunnels, and Tancred MarSevrin had told Lord Tithian where most of them were-the Araifas did the rest. The Grand Marshal had borrowed a dozen of the church’s clockwork falcons, and sent them winging their tireless way to the ends of the empire, with orders to strike at the rebels. In Karthay and Lattakay, Micah and Jaggana, Govinna and Edessa, Tucuri and Pesaro and Chidell and the Lordcity itself, the knights went to the concealed entrances and forced their way into the catacombs.

In a few places, the rebels fought back mightily, and the toll was heavy on both sides; in others, they tried only to escape. It didn’t matter. The Hammer were many, and well-trained, and easily overcame the rebels. Dwarf and goblin, half-ogre and heretic, all died that night, their blood running down the tunnels in rivulets. In two hours’ time, all organized resistance against the church vanished.

Then the knights started to move in on targets above ground.

Wentha MarSevrin could not say how, but she knew her sons were dead. She was in her private garden, staring into a silver reflecting pool when she felt an ache so deep, it was like something gnawing its way out of her from within. She staggered with the shock, groaning, and fell against the pool’s rim, her right hand slipping into the water. Servants came running, offering her aid. She waved them off, sent them away with a strangled voice. Breathing hard, Wentha stumbled to a bench, sat down, and threw her head back to stare at the night sky, whose stars were swallowed by the Lordcity’s own light.

“My boys,” she cried. “Oh, Paladine, what have they done to you?”

She couldn’t guess the fate of Cathan. Her brother was out there still, somewhere-with Beldinas, maybe? There was still a chance that Idar and the rest had succeeded, despite whatever had befallen Rath and Tancred. There was still a chance that all they’d worked for, in secret, all these long years, had not come to crashing failure tonight. There was still a chance that they might prevail.

Then she heard the pounding on her manor’s gates, the harsh shout made hollow and strange by a visored helm. “Anlugud fe cado Comuras Ufib!”

Open, in the name of the Divine Hammer!

Wentha shut her eyes. The guards at the gate would try to stall the knights; so would the servants. It would do no good. They had found her out and now she was trapped. There was no chance left, any more, at least not for her.

Tears in her eyes, she rose from the bench and walked inside, toward the vestibule to greet her guests.

*****

Lord Revando’s private study was an austere place, devoid of the gild work and jewels and redolent incense the First Sons before him had favored. Save for the red rose-windows and the platinum triangle that hung upon the wall, it might have belonged to the abbot of some wilderness monastery; the walls were bare stone, a simple, woven carpet lay upon the floor, and only a desk of plain snow wood, three benches, an ordinary foot-chest, and a modest shrine adorned the room. The other hierarchs had come to regard his domicile as an eccentricity, and never mentioned it in his presence-nor did they come to visit him more than necessary, which was fine with him. He loathed every powdered, perfumed one of them, even though he had to wear the powder and perfume at court as well.

He was sitting at his desk now, in the middle of the night His bedchamber stood empty and dark. He hadn’t even tried to sleep tonight. Instead he waited quietly, lost in thought, a goblet of wine sitting untouched beside him. He had poured the wine himself, after dismissing his servants early.

This was the hardest part. He’d planned it all, gone to such great lengths to insinuate himself into the Kingpriest’s court, taken charge of the rebels in their tunnels and subterranean chambers, planned and plotted and schemed like some character out of an Odaceran blood-play. He’d devoted his whole life to this night, and what was happening-had already happened, certainly-leagues away at the Forino and at Calah. And now, with the fate of the empire hanging, he knew nothing. Nor would he know anything until morning-only when the rest of the court learned of the Lightbringer’s disappearance would he himself be certain it had all worked according to his plans.

He glanced at the wine, raised his eyebrows, then stood and paced to the shrine. It was austere as the rest of his office, a humble altar with an icon of the god in his form as the platinum dragon, flanked by tapers of white beeswax. He knelt before it, signing the triangle, then kissed his fingers and pressed them to Paladine’s image.

“They do unspeakable things in your name, my god,” he whispered, so softly he did little more than mouth