Sacred Fire

wasn’t well enough concealed, he knew.

Then the sounds of the knights receded toward the north. Risking another look, he saw they had moved on toward Govinna. He allowed himself a sigh of relief, then waited for them to vanish altogether. Only then did he rise from the muck. The wind blew through his sodden robes, making him shiver: winter came early to the highlands. If only he could risk a fire-yet the smoke would draw attention. This part of Taol had been deserted for years, ever since Kingpriest Kurnos’s men came through, burning and killing in their efforts to find the Lightbringer. Except for the occasional trapper or charcoal-burner, no one dwelled in southern Taol any more, and certainly not near Luciel.

His heart quickened at the thought of his old home. When he’d been a knight, he’d come back here every year, to honor the mother, father, and brother whose disease-wracked bodies he’d burned. It was here that Beldinas-just Beldyn, then-had first revealed his powers. It seemed like a lifetime ago.

Perhaps it was, he thought. It was before I died, after all.

He dug at his belt and pulled out a flask of brandy-crude stuff, far from the moragnac they enjoyed in the Great Temple. He took a deep swig, and the warmth suffused his body again. It also awakened his stomach, which let out a peevish grumble. Food and drink had been scarce on the road, and here in the wilderness he’d been surviving on nuts and roots and berries.

He would eat again at dusk, and not before, he told himself as he put the flask away. His hand went automatically to a bag that hung at his hip, as it did a hundred times each day, and he fingered the Peripas through the leather. The Disks weren’t safe yet-they wouldn’t be, until he was out of Istar and across the Khalkist Mountains, into Kharolis. He also touched Fistandantilus’s spellbook, which, though it radiated cold and malice, somehow made him feel secure. He felt certain nothing evil would harm him as long as he carried that grimoire.

He glanced down the road again-there was nothing as far as his eyes could see, And yet, there was something, a presence he had felt constantly since his escape from the Lordcity. It never went away, and grew stronger every day. He signed the triangle, knowing it must be the gods. They were close now; the weight of the burning hammer was heavy on him. It still haunted his dreams.

“The end is near,” he murmured, and blessed himself again. Then he climbed out of the ditch and moved on down the road.

Tithian had never been to this place before, but he recognized it the moment he saw it. He’d heard about it often enough, back when he was Cathan’s squire, and life was simple. It once had been a prosaic cluster of thatched cottages in a valley close to the Imperial High Road, overlooked by a simple lord’s keep. Little remained of Luciel now. The Scatas had burned it to the ground almost forty years ago, and it had never been rebuilt. All that was left were foundation stones and the odd stub of a chimney, scattered like bones among thick bracken and furze. Badgers and ground-hawks ruled the ruins. But for the shell of the old keep-also weed-choked now, its walls crumbling and mantled in vines-one might never know that Luciel had once been home to several hundred souls.

Standing upon the wall of that keep, his shoulders hunched against the wind, Tithian stared down at the skeletal remains of Luciel and shivered. He was cold to the bone; he and his men hadn’t lit a campfire for days. That order had some of the other knights muttering bitterly, but he knew he was right to play it safe. No point in setting a trap, just to give away his position to anyone within ten miles.

The cold wasn’t the worst part. The sky was wrong. There was no other way to put it-there was simply something strangely unpleasant about its colors. To the west it was a filthy orange, as if the Khalkists were burning; to the east it was almost black, and flashing with lightning. Overhead, the clouds were bruise-purple, and they seethed and roiled like an angry sea. Tithian gripped his sword more tightly, seized by the irrational feeling that he might at any moment be sucked upward. Indeed the gods must be angry, he thought.

And then he shook his head, clearing thoughts such folly from his brain. Folly, that was all it was: folly and nerves, brought on by too many nights on the Twice-Born’s trail. His mind was muddled, and each thought came to him as though he were slogging through a swamp. He had been here, at the keep formerly belonging to Lord Tavarre-once the baron of this vale, who had gone on to become the Divine Hammer’s first Lord Marshal-for five days. He’d sent most of his men out to search the roads, but he’d kept a few here with him, at Luciel.

Conno cun polbit, the proverb went. Conno prum soidit

The poor hunter chases. The good hunter waits.

As he and his men had galloped across the plains of Ismin, he’d decided that his particular quarry would end up here. His gut told him, and told him this clearly. But Cathan had not yet come, and the other knights were beginning to doubt their leader’s instincts. They grumbled to one another when they thought Tithian wasn’t listening, exchanged pointed glances when they thought he wasn’t looking. They were sure Tithian had been rashly mistaken, and he was beginning to believe that too. The Twice-Born wasn’t coming to Luciel-and, in a way he would never care to admit, part of Tithian hoped he never would. It would be easier, in some ways, if Cathan simply vanished, and no one ever saw him again.

Sighing, Tithian glanced away from the vale below the keep and looked down into the courtyard behind him. The knights’ camp stood amid the rubble that had once been the manor house, and three of them were huddled there, keeping out of the ceaseless wind. To one side he spotted Sir Bron, trapping near the graves at the yard’s edge of what had been Lord Tavarre’s household; his family had been plague-dead before the Lightbringer arrived. A fresher mound stood beside them: Tavarre himself had been returned here twenty years later, to join his kin.

Bron glanced up, his gaze meeting Tithian’s, and he raised an eyebrow in question. Then he made a stoic face when the Grand Marshal shook his head. He had proven a good choice as second on this mission, for Bron had grown steadfast since the massacre at the Forino, and his loyalty helped keep the other knights in line. But Tithian knew that this mission was taking its toll, and surely the strange sky troubled Bron as well.

Tithian was just turning away when the call sounded: a sharp, rising whistle, a noise like that made by one of the bluefinches that lived in the highlands. The hairs on the back of his neck stood erect, and he clapped a hand to his sword as he stared out toward a fair-haired, sharp-eyed knight named Sir Girald, whom he’d posted at watch atop a half-collapsed watchtower. Girald was clambering down from his purchase, and moving with reckless speed across the wall to salute before Tithian. Bron and the other knights ran across the courtyard, their faces eager.

“One man,” gasped Girald, his face flushed with excitement. “On foot, alone. I think it must be him, milord!”

Of course it’s him, Tithian thought. Who else would he out here, in this forsaken place? He felt an odd twinge of disappointment that this confrontation would have to happen after all. The wind stinging his eyes, he stole a glance down into the valley. There was indeed a shape moving down there, blurred by distance.

“Down,” he whispered.

He and Girald descended a flight of age-worn steps into the courtyard. The rest of the knights had gathered- six in all, with weapons ready-and met their commander at the bottom. “Milord?” Bron asked. “What are your orders?”

“We do as we discussed,” Tithian replied, gesturing around him. “To your places, and wait. Let him come to us, then move when I give the signal. And no crossbows-this is a former knight, not some Sargonnite heathen. If it comes to fighting, we will do so with honor. Any man who feathers him loses his spurs.”

This earned more muttering and eye rolling. Most of these knights had no personal experience of Cathan MarSevrin. They didn’t know him like Tithian did.

The plan was simple. When Cathan arrived at the keep- for Tithian had no doubt that he would never leave Luciel without visiting Tavarre’s burial place-the knights would be hidden among the rubble. The moment he knelt by the grave, the ambush would begin. Tithian offered a silent prayer to Paladine that Cathan would be sensible and surrender, but an itch in his mind told him otherwise.

Bron took charge with admirable efficiency, urging the men to their appointed cover. The two youngest knights moved quickly about the courtyard, scattering gravel and pine needles to cover their tracks. Then they, too,