The letter was brief. One paragraph in his father’s bold forward-sweeping hand, surrounded by emptiness. Your brother has been murdered. Come home.
There were other words on the page, but they were meaningless. Ederras might have read them and might not. He remembered only those first two lines, black and lacerating and raw with grief. Your brother has been murdered. Come home.
He put the letter down on his desk and spread his hand over it, blocking the words from his sight. They didn’t leave his mind as easily.
The last time Ederras had been in Westcrown, Othando had been an ebullient boy of eleven. Although conscious of his family duties, he’d been very much a child, daydreaming about himself as a wandering knight and champion of the downtrodden.
In the decade and a half since—and especially after Ederras’s exile—those daydreams had given way to the reality of duty. The brothers had corresponded through letters over the years, and had met occasionally outside the city of their birth, but their paths had diverged that summer. Ederras had disgraced himself, and Othando had become the heir to House Celverian.
Ederras had always thought they’d have more opportunity to reconcile. He’d been close to his brother as a boy, but letters and visits were a poor approximation of knowing the man. And now even that was gone.
A gust of wind tore across his tent, dimpling the canvas walls and rattling the lamps so that their flames left black ribbons of soot along their glassy prisons. The wind smelled of brimstone and burning blood, as it too often did out here by the Worldwound.
When was the last time he had felt a clean breeze or breathed air that wasn’t poisoned with madness and despair? When was the last time he’d walked through gardens given over to the luxury of flowers instead of crowded with the scraggly, stunted crops that sustained Mendev’s defenders?
Ederras couldn’t remember. The memories slipped through his grasp like smoke. He had seen and felt such things, he knew, and not that long ago. Queen Galfrey’s advisors insisted that all the troops along the Worldwound be allowed periods of respite away from the front lines so that they might remember what it was they were fighting so fiercely to defend. But those days of rest might as well have been in another lifetime, and in someone else’s life.
Westcrown, though … Westcrown was as vivid as if he’d left it yesterday.
“Will you be sending a message back, sir?” The adjutant was new to her post—new to the Worldwound altogether, in fact—and plainly nonplussed by Ederras’s reaction to the letter.
“No. Thank you.” He’d forgotten she was there. Lifting his hand, the paladin folded the letter neatly in two. The outlines of his father’s script showed through the thin paper, but only barely. He could pretend they were but shadows in the dim light of his tent. “Please send Sorellon to my tent.”
“Yes, Knight-Captain.” The redheaded woman bowed and retreated, letting in another chilly gust of sulfurous wind.
Sorellon arrived a few minutes later. The old gnome had been drinking again. The smell of rotgut whiskey surrounded him like cheap perfume. He was upright, though, and his hands were mostly steady on his brass-capped walking stick, which meant he was about as sober as Ederras had ever seen him.
“Girl said you wanted to see me?”
Ederras gestured to a chair opposite his desk. “Have a seat.”
“I’ll stay standing, if it’s all the same to you. Not sure how easily I’d get up again if I sat.” The gnome leaned forward on his walking stick, swaying slightly. His eyes were yellow and cloudy, and his breath had a musty smell.
“You’ll be dead in six months if you keep drinking like that.” Ederras wasn’t even sure where Sorellon got the rotgut. It was well known among the troops that their knight-captain had no tolerance for drinking anywhere near the Worldwound, where the slightest carelessness could doom an entire company. Wine was forbidden to Ederras’s soldiers once they left town, yet somehow that had never stopped the wispy-haired old wizard.
The gnome snorted. “I’ll be dead in six months with or without my bottle. Least this way I’ll keep warm in the meantime. Now, what was so important you called me across camp for it?”
“I need you to send a dream message to Nerosyan. I don’t care which of the commandants you contact, but do it tonight. Tell them I’m resigning my command as soon as we return to the city. They’ll have to appoint someone else to lead the company. I give my recommendation to Kehora and Three-Tongue, but of course it’s not for me to make the final decision. You’ll have to help teach the ropes to whomever they choose, in any case.”
“Three-Tongue?” Sorellon shuddered. “That bear-greased barbarian? He barely knows twenty words of any civilized tongue.”
“They’re twenty words worth hearing. Better than you can say for some officers.”
“I suppose.” The gnome squinted at Ederras from under his long, wispy eyebrows. “Better than most of your other alternatives, now that I think on it. Brave, got fair judgment, treats his soldiers well enough, in his way. Not sure how well them uppity Taldan knights are going to take to Three-Tongue handing them chunks of hacked-up silver bracelet as prizes for a good mission, but hopefully they’ll see his heart’s in the right place. That’s more than most crusaders these days, and I count myself in that number.”
“Indeed.” The glory days of the Mendevian Crusades were long past. Once, the radiant army had been the flower of chivalry across the Inner Sea: paladins, clerics of every brave and goodly god, men and women whose virtue was equal to the strength of their sword arms.
Those days were gone. Today, a crusader was more likely to be a poacher fleeing the hangman, or a desperate bandit hoping for easy plunder, than anyone with a shred of either honor or skill. While a scattering of true souls remained, especially around Queen Galfrey and her stronghold in Nerosyan, the shining beacon of the Mendevian Crusade was neither as bright nor as clear as it once had been.
Ederras spent much of his time trying to coax the small sparks he found into light. Sorellon had spoken truly: Three-Tongue was a Kellid barbarian, given to eating the hearts of his foes and painting his face in their blood. He wore fetishes of hair and bone, prayed to a savage god in a strange tongue, and could scarcely write his own name.
Kehora, who had been born a poor farmer’s daughter under the rule of a petty lord, was worse. At sixteen, Kehora had turned to banditry to survive when unjust fines claimed her parents’ farm. She’d spent years as a robber queen, preying on that lordling’s guards and tax collectors, until one of her own betrayed her and sold her to a company of low templars heading to Mendev. She might have escaped, but within weeks her traitorous underling had led her people into ruin, and nothing was left for Kehora at home but a choice between the hangman and the headsman. So instead the onetime bandit queen had come to Mendev, and eventually to Ederras’s command.
Neither Kehora nor Three-Tongue had been paragons of knightly virtue when they’d come to the crusade. Both had initially thought their captain’s codes and strictures foolish, and neither had been shy about saying so. But both the barbarian and the bandit had a core of the true steel at their hearts, and brought out the best qualities in those they led. Ederras had seen it, and had spent long months carefully strengthening and polishing it, while the hardships of the Worldwound burned away their old foibles until only that steel remained.
If he’d had years, he might have turned them into great generals. Instead, he’d had months, and could only pray that one or both of them had learned enough to keep their troops from disaster.
It would be no easy task. Whoever took his command would inherit a motley collection of the disgraced and desperate. Wet-eared novices, sellswords from broken companies, gutter rats who had knifed countless victims in the back but never faced a foe in open combat. Their company wizard was a drunk and their cleric was a disgrace.
Ederras hoped they would succeed, but in truth he didn’t know. Able commanders were a rarity around the Worldwound, and his departure would be a blow.
Across the desk, Sorellon had reached the same conclusion. The gnome’s expression had grown dark as the implications of Ederras’s words sank in. “So you’re leaving us, eh? Getting out while you’ve still got legs to walk away on? Can’t say I blame you, but I never thought you’d be one to have that much sense.”
“It’s not that. There’s been a death in the family. I have to go home.” It stung to be accused of cowardice, however obliquely. Perhaps that hadn’t been Sorellon’s intent, but Ederras couldn’t help but feel that the gnome was suggesting that he was abandoning his duty. His soldiers.
Or maybe that was just his own guilt speaking.
“Where is home for you, anyway?” Curiosity seemed to have cut through the air of inebriated indifference that Sorellon wrapped around himself. “Somewhere in Cheliax, isn’t it? Egorian? I’d mark you for an Egorian man, myself. You have the air of a fellow who knows his way around the capital. I’ve been there myself, you know. Lots of good-looking girls around Egorian. Lots of devils too, of course. Must be hard for a fellow like you. Say, is that why you left? Why you came here? Because of the devils?”
Ederras sighed. “Send the message, Sorellon. Tonight. That will be all.”
Too short a time later, they returned to Nerosyan, the Diamond of the North.
The sight of the city gladdened Ederras, despite his weariness. Nerosyan had been built for defense against fiends in all their forms, but the city was far more than a military bulwark. It was a place of beauty and harmony, where the crowning glories of all the civilized races were held aloft to serve as a spiritual rebuke to the demons’ all-consuming destruction.
We will not go quietly. That was the proclamation in Nerosyan’s white and gold towers. We stand here, and we will stop you, and all the despair that you bring. We stand here, unbowed.
Time and again, Ederras had ridden out from those shining walls to do his part in keeping that promise true. Often he hadn’t expected to return. But always fortune had smiled upon him, and always he had felt his heart lift when the towers of Nerosyan came back into view. The defenders held. Their defiance burned. The Worldwound would not creep past their watch.
Today, however, his return to Nerosyan brought a pang of regret along with the joy.
With each step, Ederras came closer to abandoning the righteous cause that had restored his sense of purpose in the world and returned him to Iomedae’s holy graces. With each step, he came closer to Cheliax, where it was almost impossible to live by the code that had strengthened and sustained him in the Worldwound. It was in Westcrown that Ederras had failed and fallen. He had no wish to go back.
But his father had summoned him, his family needed him, and he had to obey.
At the gates, the white-cloaked guards waved his company in after a short exchange of passwords and a nod of approval from the cleric on duty, signifying that she had sensed no taint of supernatural evil and no masking magic among the returning troops.
“Commandant Monteyu is waiting to see you,” the gate captain informed Ederras. “She’s in the Cruciform Cathedral.”
“Thank you.” Ederras bowed his head in acknowledgement. He dismounted, handing his warhorse’s reins to Kehora. The stallion was too well trained, and too valuable, for him to take from his command. He’d leave the horse behind to serve another master, and go on foot himself. Brushing the animal’s flank in farewell, Ederras gave what he expected would be his last order in Mendev. “My troops: dismissed.”
As they dispersed, Sorellon patted the paladin’s leg. The old gnome looked completely sober. “You did well by us. Kept us alive, more often than not. I’m glad you’re going, though. Glad you’re getting out. You deserve better than this.”
“This was the best part of my life,” Ederras said.
The gnome pursed his lips in a soundless whistle. “Some life you’ve led.”
“Indeed. Goodbye, Sorellon. Try to keep the new recruits out of trouble.” Taking the reins of his pack mule, Ederras set off toward the Cruciform Cathedral.
It was, by design, a short walk. The Cruciform Cathedral stood at the heart of Nerosyan, its four great halls arranged so that its defenders could be deployed swiftly to any part of the city. The Cathedral served simultaneously as the center of faith, military leadership, and governance in Mendev, but like the city it ruled, it sought to lead as much by inspiration as by might. Its pennon-crowned towers and high walls were built in smooth, clean lines, as pleasing to the eye as they were effective in defense.
At the base of those walls, Ederras shrugged off his pack and handed the mule’s reins to a dwarven stable hand. The dwarf must have been very young; although stout and burly, he had only scant blond fuzz around his chin.
“Do you want a stall?” the stable hand asked, hoisting the pack onto his own shoulders.
Ederras shook his head. “I won’t be staying long. We’ll be leaving within the hour.”
“Very good, Knight-Captain. I will see that your animal is ready.”
“Thank you.” The paladin took off his helm and tucked it under an arm as he stepped into the shade of the Cruciform Cathedral.
Peace settled over him almost immediately. A whisper of sacred incense threaded through the cathedral’s cool stone halls. Under one of the apses Ederras passed, a chorus was practicing sacred hymns, and their harmonious voices soared over the corridors. Marble reliefs wound around the support columns and covered the walls in broad bands, depicting the triumphs of the First Mendevian Crusade and narrating incidents from the holy scriptures of Sarenrae, Iomedae, and their allied gods.
More than Westcrown had ever been, this place was his home. This was where Iomedae had called him. This was where he was meant to do his life’s work. He had never truly known peace except here.
Commandant Monteyu’s guards stepped aside as Ederras came to her office, knocking to announce his presence before they opened the door. He nodded to each of them and stepped inside.
It was a clean, impersonal space, all in white and gold. Most of the north wall was dominated by an enchanted map of Mendev and the Worldwound. The wardstones glowed in tranquil shades of turquoise and sea green, a delicate strand of lights holding back the smoky pall that signified the Worldwound.
Some of the lights were weaker than others. A few flickered on the edge of extinction. The war never ends. And yet he was leaving.
The commandant rose to greet him as he entered. No one knew much of her history before she’d come to Mendev, but it was widely rumored that Commandant Monteyu had been a pirate of the Shackles before joining the crusade.
She certainly looked the part. Three heavy gold rings dangled from each of her earlobes, and her coarse black hair was twisted into dreadlocks that hung halfway down her back. Across her cheekbones, chest, and upper arms, whirling flames in vibrant gold, green, and scarlet had been tattooed upon her rich brown skin. When the commandant crossed the slash of sunlight that fell through the cathedral’s windows, the ink of her tattoos sparkled like powdered diamonds.
Her accent, however, was pure Nerosyan. Not a hint of the Shackles colored her words. “Knight-Captain Ederras. I received your wizard’s message. You’re resigning your commission?”
“I am.” It was no small sacrifice. Queen Galfrey herself had confirmed his commission—after he’d been knighted in the field, to be sure, but a considerable honor nonetheless—and Ederras held no illusions that he’d be restored to the same rank if he returned to the crusade. Not for a year or more, at least. “My family needs me in Westcrown. My brother was murdered, and his killer hasn’t been found.” And I’m the last heir to my house.
“I wish you swift justice. Will you return to us when the crime has been solved?”
“I hope to, if my obligations allow.” He didn’t think the chances of that were high, though. Without a son to carry on the line, his house would die with him—and Ederras’s duty to his family outweighed his duty to the crusade. In Mendev, he was valuable, but not indispensable. To House Celverian, he was irreplaceable. This had the feeling of a final farewell.
“Your service to our cause has been exceptional. The queen can’t offer you a wizard to take you directly to Westcrown, unfortunately. Not in Nerosyan. Their spells are needed for more urgent matters.”
“I would never have expected—”
Commandant Monteyu cut him off with a quick shake of her head. The gold rings in her ears clattered against one another, swaying loosely in holes that had widened under their weight. “We can’t spare a wizard here. But in Karcau, there are some who sell their spells for gold or favor, and who owe much to many in our crusade. You have passage on the Raven’s Daughter down the Egelsee River to Karcau, if you wish to take it. There you should be able to find a wizard to hire at a fair price.”
“Thank you. When does the ship leave?”
“This evening. If you need the time, however, the captain will wait a day or two.”
“No. This evening will serve perfectly.” Prolonging his departure would only make it more difficult. Best to make a clean break, and quickly.
The commandant nodded. “Good fortune to you, Knight-Captain.”
Sunset found Ederras and his pack mule on the Raven’s Daughter, watching Nerosyan recede along with the dying day. The Egelsee River, its waters luminous with dissolved silt, reflected a pointillist impression of the blue- and pink-streaked clouds overhead. The river’s radiance grew as that of the heavens dimmed, until they floated through the starry night on a wide swath of liquid moonlight.
As the Egelsee carried them south and west toward Ustalav, the concentration of cloudy silt in its waters diminished, and so too did their glow. The change came quickly; by midnight, well before Ederras thought they had reached the border, the river had gone entirely dark. Only the churning bubbles in their wake shone white under the low full moon.
It felt like a mirror to his own journey. With each passing minute, the brightness of spirit that Ederras had felt in Mendev dwindled. Darkness lay ahead for him, and a duty far heavier than any he had carried by the borders of the Worldwound.