Temple Politics
Prodded by the damnable call of some bird or other, Allystaire woke up quickly. The hammer came easy to his hand as he stood, blinking against the light. Left the lamp lit, you old fool, he thought, then lifted it off the hook and walked to the edge of the tent, hammer dangling from one hand, lamp in the other.
He pushed the flap back with the head of the hammer and peered into the darkness, stymied by how he’d ruined his own night vision. He let out a sigh, and finally, softly, called out into the night.
“Keegan?”
A tall, lean shape suddenly materialized off the ground and, as it moved into the small pool of light, resolved itself into the former Oyrwyn scout. Allystaire stepped aside and Keegan walked into the tent.
He still wore his tattered scout’s leathers, but they’d been sewn and patched with care. His red-tinged brown beard was trimmed and his hair bound in a loose queue that lay upon his neck, and he carried an unstrung bowstave almost as tall as himself.
“Where did you find that?” Allystaire said, pointing with his chin at the bow while he set the lantern back upon its hook.
“I found a supply o’well-seasoned wood just ready for the carving, carefully wrapped and hidden, buried under a tree. Was there a bowyer in this village?” Keegan studied the furniture in the tent, and Allystaire gestured to a chair as he sat back down on his cot, groaning inwardly at the temptations of sleep that it offered.
“Not that I know. Could have just been a farmer who knew his way around wood.”
“Or a poacher making sure he’d not go short. I need some string and wax, but otherwise they’re just about ready,” Keegan said as he slowly eased himself onto the chair by Allystaire’s paper-strewn table.
“Good,” Allystaire said, then added, “Provided you mean to use it to defend yourself or to eat.”
“I’ve nothin’ else in mind m’lord, I swear it,” Keegan said wearily.
“I believe you, but mistrust is in my nature. I apologize.” There was a moment of heavy silence before he went on. “You could come live in the village, you know, you and the other men.”
Even in the dim light of the lamp, which was, by now, surely low on oil, Allystaire could see Keegan’s pained frown, and waited till the expression resolved into a heavy sigh.
“We’ve talked about it, m’lord, but…the world of men is…crowded now. Loud. We’re only just learning to become men again ourselves.” He stopped for a moment, toyed idly with his bowstave, looked down to his feet. “I think I’m doin’ the best of us at that, at rememberin’. And I’m none too good at it.”
Allystaire didn’t linger in the silence this time. “What can we do about that?”
“Don’t know.”
Silence reigned heavy for a moment again, and Allystaire finally said, “You might want to start thinking about it a little more like a man instead of a child waiting to be told what to do.”
“You’ve no right—”
“I have every right. Were it not for us, you would still be a mad beast, bound to the whim of a dying god. Maybe it is time to start thinking of what you can do in earnest thanks.”
The silence was even heavier this time. Allystaire heard the wood in Keegan’s hands creak as he wrapped his fists tightly around it, and he slowly began easing his hand towards his hammer.
“We’re grateful. And ya deserve our thanks. I’m man enough still to admit that,” Keegan said. “Some o’the others I’m not so sure of. One barely speaks; he grunts and howls.”
Allystaire put his hand back into his lap and leaned forward. “Idgen Marte can help with that. She’s a gift for easing the mind. It might be worth asking her.”
Keegan nodded, breathed out heavily. “I will do, m’lord.”
“You can stop calling me that, you know. I am no lord anymore.”
“How in the Cold did that happen? I didn’t think you lot could simply walk away like a common soldier,” Keegan said, a bit of joviality inflecting his voice for the first time.
“I walked away ahead of writs of exile. Maybe just a step in front the headsman.”
“The Old Baron would’ve never…well, if you don’t mind me sayin’, among the soldiers we all sort of thought the old man might name you his heir after Ghislain was killed.”
Allystaire snorted. “I was in his favor, but not so that he would throw over his own issue for me.” He sighed. “Took that death hard, though. But Gerard Oyrwyn was ever practical. I know he thought he could get a new wife with child before he would have to truly hand things over to Gilrayan.”
“And t’were him what banished you?”
“I banished myself, really. I knew what lines I was crossing. Shamed him in front of his entire court, called him an idiot, a pretender, and a boy playing at war. Told him he would have to play at it without me. He called that treason, and I dared him to make good on it. While he sputtered, I took what I could carry and rode straight out of the barony.”
“You probably did the right thing. He was an idiot. Proved it when’er he got his own command. I’ve got friends in the ground ‘cause of him.”
“Aye,” Allystaire agreed. “The only thing that made me hold on for the two years I did was the promise the Old Baron asked of me. He knew his natural son was no fit ruler, no leader of men. Asked me to help him, teach him. And I tried. The gods know I tried.” He stood suddenly, waving a hand in the air and making a scornful noise. “Bah. Noise and nonsense. We need to look at who we are now, where we are.”
“Aye,” Keegan agreed. “If we could have just a few supplies, bowstrings, as I said, maybe some store of roots or tubers.”
“There will be common stores here in the village, free for any who need it. You need but come and take it.”
“What d’ya want of me in exchange? I can’t promise fer all o’us.”
“What I want is a good man watching the woods. I can guard the roads, but it leaves us vulnerable in the north east.”
“Watchin’ for what exactly?”
“An attack. Brigands. Bandits. Men of any description, really, who do not seem to have a reason—”
Keegan frowned. “There are men out there now.”
Allystaire felt hair rise on the back of his neck. “What?”
“A dozen or so. They’re armed, it’s true, but they seem t’just be campin’—”
“Keegan, how long have they been there?”
“First I noticed ‘em was two days ago.”
“There have been armed men close upon us for two days, and you have said nothing of it?”
Keegan lowered his head, sighed. “I told you, the world was crowded and rushed and loud. We don’t…it’s hard t’remember what matters to men. All I want to do is run and hide—or kill them, rend their flesh and crack their bones, if I can. D’ya understand? Can I make ya?”
“I suppose you cannot,” Allystaire admitted. “From now on, if you can, I want to know it when armed men in groups of more than three pass nearby. Can you watch this group, without risking yourself unduly?”
“Yer askin’ an Oyrwyn scout if he can watch a band o’thugs without bein’ noticed?” A new note crept into Keegan’s voice then: pride.
Allystaire smiled, was startled as the expression suddenly became a wide yawn. “It is late, Keegan, and I must sleep. You can stay within the village tonight, or—”
“I’ve no need for much sleep,” the man replied. “I’ll bring ya a report tomorrow.”
“Good.” Allystaire extended a hand, felt Keegan clasp his forearm, and they shook. “Be well, Keegan. The world of men—or at least the village of Thornhurst—is here when you are ready to return. So is the Mother.”
“I’ve maybe had enough of gods,” Keegan answered. “But I’ll think on it.”
The tall and lean man slipped out of the tent. Allystaire placed the lamp back on its hook, blew the light out, and collapsed gratefully onto his cot.
* * *
He didn’t know how long it was till he woke again, unexpectedly, but it was pitch dark in his tent when he heard the footsteps outside and the tug at the flap. Allystaire came awake all at once then, reaching for the hammer where it lay beside the cot and pulling it up next to him.
He sat up, saw the tentflap twitch aside and a hooded figure enter, with a shuttered lantern swaying at its side.
“Lord Allystaire?” Cerisia’s voice was instantly recognizable: warm, honeyed, soft.
Freeze. Allystaire swung his legs out of his cot and stood up. “What are you doing here, Archioness?”
“I found sleep a challenge, and I saw lights in your tent, heard voices. I couldn’t decide if I should see if all was well.” She lifted the lantern that hung in her hand, asked, “May I?” Before he could answer she pulled back the shutters, bathing the tent in soft light again.
Allystaire blinked at the sudden relative brightness, but his eyes instantly fixed—as he knew they were meant to—on Cerisia herself. She wore a loose, fur-lined robe over a too-thin silk nightgown that was only just the decent side of opaque. She pulled down her hood, loosing her hair in a dark cascade down her back and shoulders, drawing his eye again towards the pale expanse of neck and the swell of her breasts beneath the silk.
She took a step further into the tent, lifted her lantern, and then her breath caught as, he realized, her eyes took in his bare chest, and the network of white, puckered scars upon it.
“Fortune, but, your chest, it’s…”
“I have been a fighting man for more than a score of years now, Archioness. If this surprises you, it is because you have not known many men who were.”
“My father was an Archipelago sword-at-hire who made weight enough to send me to the Temple on Keersvast’s central island, Lord Coldbourne—I know more of fighting men than you think, and I understand that to bear so many wounds and to still be counted among the quick is unusual, at the least.” She took a couple of small steps deeper into the tent, fully unshielding her lantern and setting it down on the table.
Nowhere to retreat, Allystaire thought. Got to stand firm. He cleared his throat and turned his head, casting his eyes about the dimly lit space for a shirt. None came to hand. He turned back to the priestess, and said with a small shrug, “The Baron employed a fine surgeon. A dwarf. Saved my life more than once, I should think.”
“What was the noise earlier?” She switched subjects quite suddenly, in an attempt to catch him off guard, he suspected.
“Just someone come seeking counsel with me.”
“Why do you not meet my gaze, Allystaire?” Another two steps, a third, and she was arm’s length from him. An expensive floral scent reached his nose as she approached.
He lifted his eyes to meet her challenge, pressing his lips into a thin line and smoothing the skin of his cheeks with the tension of his tightly shut jaw. “I will make it a point to do so from now on, Archioness.”
“Please, do call me Cerisia. Why does my presence discomfit you so?”
“I know not how much you know of me, yet I am sure it is more than I know of you. I am, forgive me, not entirely certain of your motives, or whether what you told us this evening is the entire truth. I do not know the lengths you would go to in order to see the Mother subsumed or destroyed.”
“I am as true a servant to my Goddess as you believe yourself to be to yours.”
“I do not doubt that. I just have no clear idea what it means.”
“I spoke no lies at our dinner tonight, if that is what you mean. I did argue to be allowed this opportunity to prevent you all from simply being called anathema, and hunted as heretics.” With a slightly theatrical gesture, she held out her hand. “The rumors say that you can draw the truth from anyone who speaks to you. Take my hand and ask. Prove it to yourself if you must.”
Allystaire took her wrist between his fingers carefully. He could not help but notice the warmth of her skin, its softness, the alluring perfume that grew stronger—not unpleasantly so—with every moment.
He caught her eyes with his, noted how they widened slightly, how her lips parted. “Have you spoken the truth to us since you arrived in this village?”
Without hesitation, she said, “I have.”
“You argued that you should be permitted to travel here in an attempt to convince us to subordinate ourselves to your Church?”
“I did.”
“Why?”
“To avoid the bloodshed and the horror of rooting out a heresy,” Cerisia replied. “I have no love for that kind of thing. No desire to see it done.”
“And would you risk yourself, your status, or your wealth, to see it avoided?”
“I have already risked my position by coming here.” She bristled at the question as she answered it.
“That was a truth, but also an evasion,” he noted. “How much more are you prepared to do in order to curtail bloodshed?” Anger began to rise in Allystaire, and he felt his free hand curling into a fist, though he was careful to keep the touch of his other hand around her wrist light.
“If I cannot convince you to see reason—”
“It is not reason,” Allystaire half-shouted, dropping her hand. “It is madness. It is an absurdity. You have felt, however lightly, the touch of the Mother’s Gift to me. Is it anything like what Fortune grants to you? I have seen Her, spoken with Her, ki…” Allystaire broke off before finishing the thought. He felt his cheeks flush, and no doubt Cerisia saw it as well, for her lips curled boldly.
“Kissed Her? Come now, Allystaire—when was the last time you kissed a woman of flesh and blood?”
And then she was pressed against him, the silk of her nightgown cool against his bare skin, the promise of flesh behind it warm and soft. Her hand snaked around his neck and drew his mouth to her painted lips.
They were warm, soft, inviting. The scent that she wore filled his mouth as well as his nose as their lips met, opened. His heart pounded in his chest like a marching drum, and he felt hers, a pipe, distant and fast, answer through their chests. The kiss ended, whether too soon or too late, Allystaire could not have said.
“Why am I drawn to you, Allystaire of Thornhurst?” Cerisia murmured, slipping both arms around his neck. “You are not the kind of man who attracts me.”
Instinctively, Allystaire had placed one hand against her back. The other, he now rested on her arm as he asked, “And do I? Or would seducing me be politically expedient?”
“Both,” she replied huskily. “I would not find myself enjoying the prospect half so much were it only the latter. Or even mostly,” she added. She pressed her body more firmly to his, slid fingertips into his hair. “You are, to be frank, older and rather more worn than most of the lovers I take. The stories I followed paint you a knight out of a story, where they are always young, fair-faced, clear of eye. That is the man I expected to find. That, or a charlatan; the first, easily seduced, and the second, easy to expose.”
She gently but insistently tugged his head down closer to hers, meeting him eye to eye as she rose onto her tiptoes. “And yet here you are: broken nosed, with eyes that fear where your next step leads. Yet you are going to take it anyway, once you have decided where to set it down. And woe to those who would stand in your way. You are forceful in a way I find,” she wriggled slowly against him, pressing her hips to his, her breasts rubbing against his chest through the thin silk, “exhilarating.”
She moved to kiss him again, and he allowed her to take the lead. It was a longer and slower kiss than the first. Allystaire felt her nudge him towards the cot only a few steps behind him.
Her touch, her body, her kiss and scent—they were nearly overwhelming. Yet not so much as the Mother’s kiss, the memory of which, only a week hence, could make him weak in the knees in a stray moment.
He moved his hands to her wrists and gently but firmly removed them from around his neck, and stepped away from the circle of her arms. “No, Cerisia,” he whispered hoarsely. “No.”
She stepped back, confused, anger sending ripples along her jaw, though it was quickly hidden, her lips curling in a predator’s smile. “Are you going to prove a challenge?”
Allystaire thought of the ageless beauty of the Goddess, the radiance that followed Her, the overwhelming power of Her kiss. “More than you realize.”
She stepped forward, leaving him no space to move, and laid a hand upon his chest, soft fingertips moving warmly against his skin. “This need not be about whom we serve,” she murmured, before leaning forward to try to kiss the base of his neck.
Allystaire let out an impatient groan and put his hands upon her shoulders, and carefully but inexorably pushed her away. “Cerisia, you do not understand who or what I am. Everything is about whom I serve.”
“Have you saddled yourself with some foolish vow to be celibate, so as not to drain your strength or weaken your resolve?” Less able to conceal her hurt at being rebuffed this time, Cerisia began to curl her lips in scorn.
“Nothing so foolish or petty,” Allystaire shook his head, grimacing. “You show how little you understand. What would it look like to the people of this village if I am known to bed with the Priestess of Fortune who came here bearing a message that threatened their very lives?”
“How would they know?”
Allystaire couldn’t help but laugh. “The gossip in a village this size? Some of them are probably already whispering the possibility. I will not prove them right.”
She smiled again. “If you’re going to be accused of a thing, you might as well…”
She has a point. The thought was dismissed as soon as it occurred to him. “Till I know that I will not face an army raised by your church, this will not happen.” Allystaire shook his head. “It cannot.”
“You are an odd man, Allystaire,” Cerisia said, biting lightly at her bottom lip. “I do not know what to make of you. But,” her chewed-upon lip assumed the curve of a smile once more, “I note that there was a condition in your declaration.”
“There was,” Allystaire admitted.
She chuckled faintly and drew her robe closed, which action granted Allystaire the gift of slightly easier breathing. “Then you do—”
“Archioness, at the risk of being crude, had we encountered one another in my old life, we would not be having this conversation,” Allystaire admitted.
She responded with her own light, throaty laughter. Then her face grew serious, perhaps even tinged with regret in the set of her mouth and eyes. “I do not know what, if anything, I can do to prevent bloodshed.”
“And that,” Allystaire said, “is the problem. No one does know, because no one cares to know. Fear of the cost of doing the right thing is enough for most to abide in ignorance.”
Her jaw set as she briefly clenched her teeth. “I will do what I can.”
“You will do what you must, I think.”
She walked to the tent flap, paused, and turned back to him. “Your words are uncharitable, Allystaire. I am not as callous nor as cowardly as you would have it.”
“I am not averse to being proven wrong. Goodnight, Cerisia.”
Allystaire sat heavily on his cot as she collected her lantern and then exited, casting a backward glance. She opened her mouth to speak, but closed it again, and then was gone. The scent she wore stirred in the tent as the flap closed.
“Goddess, I do not ask for petty things in prayer to you,” Allystaire murmured, as he pulled the blankets over his slightly sweaty chest. “But tonight, I humbly beg that I am allowed to sleep the next several turns in peace.” He drifted quickly off, despite a voice that berated him for letting the Archioness walk away.
* * *
Allystaire’s next semi-conscious thought was, If that is Cerisia trying to wake me up, I am going to lie here and sleep while she has her way.
But then, as he realized that the voice hissing his name was considerably rougher, and that the presence in his tent didn’t smell nearly so fair as the priestess had, he sat up, blinking his eyes into wide awareness. The quality of the darkness in the tent had changed; dawn had not broken, but it approached. Well, a turn or three at any rate, he thought, as he finally focused on the interloper.
It was Ivar. She reeked of horse and sweat-soaked leather, and her voice, as it called Allystaire’s name, was somewhat plaintive.
“What is it, Ivar?” Allystaire asked, cracking a yawn.
“One of m’boys is gone missin’,” the warband captain replied. “Told me he was off followin’ one o the priestess’s guardsmen out o’the village. Regardless o’what he found, he was t’report in within three turns. Been four and a half.”
“Is it possible he has gotten lost?”
“It’s Evert, m’lord—knows how t’reckon better’n any man I know and has as good an eye for country t’boot. Never known the man to get lost any more than I’ve known rain t’be dry or shit t’smell like wine.”
Allystaire paused a moment, steeled himself with a deep breath, and then swung his legs out of his cot. He sat up on the edge of the bed, feeling weights and worries settle on his shoulders. “Does that mean no?”
“He’s no more like t’get lost than the freezin’ stars are,” Ivar said with a note of finality that had Allystaire reaching for his boots and tugging them onto sore feet.
“Where are the rest of the guards?” Allystaire stood and began dressing, pulling on the heavy iron bracers over his arming coat and the studded gloves over his hands. He slung his shield on his back, pulled his belt tight around a thick leather vest, and slid his hammer into place.
“Two watchin’ the pavilion. Three sleepin’.”
“Yet one left camp and you did not think to tell me?”
“I wanted a full report. He coulda been leavin’ to piss or to have a bit of a knee-knocker with a lass…”
Allystaire frowned. “You used your judgment, and I have never known a reason to fault it. Did your man say which way he was headed?”
“North and east,” Ivar said. “Into the woods.”
“Freeze,” Allystaire spat. “I learned just this night that there are men out there. Armed men, brigands. What, Ivar, do you think are the chances that this is a coincidence?”
Ivar held open the tent flap for Allystaire and then followed him out into the pre-dawn chill. “Lower than the chances of a Delondeur man bein’ pox-free, I expect.”
“Where do you find these lovely turns of phrase, Ivar?”
The captain grinned, leaving Allystaire glad of the darkness that hid her ruined teeth. “Bit o’natural talent, bit o’hard work.” The grin faded. “What’s our play?”
“We get Idgen Marte and Torvul up. And Renard.” Allystaire paused, taking in a big lungful of cold-tinged air. “And any of the Ravens who are fresh.”
“We gettin’ the village up? They aren’t ready t’hold a spear when it matters, but just havin’ folk up and about, havin’ men carryin’ spears around might give bandits a second thought.”
“No. Not in strength, at any rate. As you said, most are not ready. And I do not want panic getting in our way.”
They quickly covered the few paces to the other tent. Allystaire rapped his fist lightly against the front pole and shook the tent slightly. Wake up, Idgen Marte, he thought, closing his eyes and concentrating on her presence. He could feel her, knew she was sleeping, just a few feet away, knew that she stirred. Wake up. We may have enemies among us.
She came awake instantly and he heard movement inside her tent. Quickly, she appeared, wearing the same new, nearly black leathers she’d worn earlier that evening. She slipped a twisted leather band around her head to hold her unbound hair back from her face, and buckled her sword belt on as she joined them. “Where?”
“I will explain once Torvul joins us,” Allystaire replied, already walking to the large boxy shape of the wagon. He lifted his fist to pound on the side, then lowered it, closed his eyes, and reached out. Torvul?
He felt the dwarf sleeping within, and Gideon, but tried to share his thoughts with only the former. Wake. We may have enemies among us.
Allystaire knew he’d failed to wake only the dwarf when Gideon’s voice was the first to answer him. Enemies?
He sighed, lowered his head. Both of you, get out here.
Through the thick walls of the wagon, they could hear the deep, sonorous Dwarfish cursing.
“Where’s Renard?” Allystaire asked Idgen Marte.
Idgen Marte replied through a yawn. “Leah has trouble some nights, dreams of the slavers. I can Calm her, but she found that sharing a roof with Mol means the dreams do not trouble her at all.”
“And it means that Renard is in the same room as Mol,” Allystaire replied, nodding in satisfaction. “Damn. I should have thought of that earlier. We should be watching her while Fortune’s priests are here.”
“The Goddess thought of it for you,” Idgen Marte said. “And I don’t think Cerisia is foolish enough, after she was shown up tonight, to challenge Mol. Nor do I think she’d harm a child.”
Before Allystaire could argue with any part of Idgen Marte’s reply, Torvul and Gideon came clattering out of the wagon. The dwarf wore his hooked jerkin with its many pouches. He had his crossbow in one hand, and a quiver of bolts on his belt, balanced by his metal-shod cudgel. Gideon carried only his staff and wore the plain homespun wool he’d been given upon their arrival.
“Boy, you best have a damn good reason for waking a dwarf up before he’s good and ready,” Torvul rumbled, rubbing at his eyes with the back of his hand.
“I spoke with Keegan tonight. He told me there is a group of armed men, a dozen or more, camped in the woods nearby. Been there for two days.”
“Why’d he say nothing sooner?” Torvul stopped rubbing and spat into the grass, then reached into a pouch and pulled forth a dull metal flask. He unscrewed the cap with the thumb of the hand that held it, had a slug, and offered it to the rest.
Idgen Marte reached for the flask while Allystaire said, “He had his reasons. Now more to the point. Ivar tells me one of her men, her best tracker, followed one of the priestess’s guards in that same direction and has not reported back.”
“I don’t like that for a coincidence,” Torvul growled. Gideon frowned but said nothing. Idgen Marte handed Allystaire the flask and he had a sip. It burned, but he felt a jolt of energy ripple through him as the spicy liquid hit his stomach. He offered the flask back to Torvul, but the dwarf said, “We all ought t’have a nip. Give us focus, for a couple turns, anyway. Don’t want to overdo it.” With a nod, Allystaire handed it to Ivar, who tilted her head calmly back and had a long swallow.
“We need to prepare for this without causing a panic,” Allystaire replied. “Ivar, show Idgen Marte where your man went, then get the rest of the Ravens ready for a fight. I am going to go speak to Renard. I would like Gideon to come with me. Torvul, if you need time to get anything ready, take it, but watch the Archioness’s camp—if anyone comes or goes, I want to know of it.”
Allystaire turned his head to face them all in turn as he spoke. They all nodded, and as he turned to leave, they dispersed in his wake. Gideon followed, taking a few quick steps in order to catch up to him.
“Why not simply go directly to Cerisia and compel the truth of her?” Gideon asked his question suddenly as he took rapid steps to keep pace with Allystaire’s much longer stride.
Allystaire instantly thought of Cerisia’s words just a few turns earlier. She can’t have been lying then, could she? He cleared his throat, and said, “I have reason to believe she would not know of this. And if I go straight amongst her and her guards, well, then things are almost certain to end in bloodshed. I will avoid that if I can.”
“And if they have killed Ivar’s man?”
“Then they will have made their choice,” Allystaire replied.
They covered the distance to the Inn quickly, with the sun rising at their backs. Between the slight added warmth of the sunlight and whatever had been in Torvul’s potion, Allystaire felt energy building his limbs, the anticipation of a fight stirring him. A small part of him, he knew, was even looking forward to the possibility. It was as though some forge deep inside him was being stoked, readied for purposeful, meaningful work.
Inside the Inn and up the stairs to the room where he’d carried Mol the night before, Allystaire found the door opening as soon as he raised his gloved fist to knock. The girl stood there in her robe, yawning into her fist.
She looked up at him with, he thought, a mingling of joy and sadness in her eyes. “I can’t sleep past the sunrise anymore,” she said as another yawn set her jaw moving. “Too much o’the world starts t’speak t’me.” She studied his face for a moment and said, “Looks like they want t’make a fight of it, doesn’t it?”
“I am afraid it does. I need Renard.”
The girl nodded and pushed the door half closed. There was the murmur of hushed voices, and then the door swung open again, with Renard leaning on it in a nightshirt.
“Armed men camping outside the village,” Allystaire said. “There may be a fight in the offing. I thought that if any of the local men were ready for it, you would know. If they are—even one or two, I want them armed and turned out as soon as you can manage it.”
As Allystaire spoke, he watched the exhaustion of sleep melt out of Renard, saw his back straighten, his eyes focus, and his expression harden. His feet shuffled as though he meant to click his boot heels, and he said, “Half a turn or less. Where do we rally?”
“The Temple. Yet do not do it openly.” Allystaire turned to leave, then quickly spun back. “You are a sergeant born, Renard, and surely as much a gift of the Mother as anything else.”
With that, he and Gideon clattered down the stairs and back out into the morning. By the time they reached the Temple field, Idgen Marte awaited them by Torvul’s wagon, breathing heavily.
“They’ve got Ivar’s man,” she told them. “There’s more than a dozen of them but their camp was broken up, made it hard t’count. For all that they looked like brigands they felt like soldiers,” she added. “He’d been done up pretty badly. Broken leg. No chance of sneaking in and carrying him off.”
Allystaire felt that furnace inside him begin to pump and roar as if a bellows were working it. He pulled his gloves tighter to his hands and said, “Any sign of the temple guardsman among them?”
“I never made their faces,” Idgen Marte replied. “What next?”
“We take the initiative. Allystaire stretched his neck till he heard a click, and then balled his hands into fists and looked towards Cerisia’s pavilion. “Gideon, go tell Torvul to cover us. Stay with him.” He paused. “Please.”
With that, he set off with determined strides, shield bouncing against his back. He knew, without looking, without asking, that Idgen Marte was just a few paces behind, matching his stride, watching his back.
Allystaire made straight for the huge white and gold silk pavilion. One of the guards emerged from his own tent, armored, sword belt around his waist, helmet clutched in his hands. The guardsman, one of the younger men, headed straight to intercept, holding out his leather-over-steel helm in both hands to block Allystaire’s path.
“You cannot see the Archioness armed, nor can you enter without—”
As the man began to give him this command, Allystaire reached out and snatched the helmet from his surprised hands, feeling the weight and the solidity of it and registering the shock on the man’s face. Gripping it by the chainmail havelock that descended from the back, he gave it a short swing right into the man’s face, noting with satisfaction the crunch of the guard’s nose and the spray of blood that resulted.
The guard went to one knee, moaning in pain, his eyes closed, and Allystaire threw the helmet down beside him. “Give me an order of where I may or may not go armed again, and I will break your jaw as well as your nose,” he growled.
He set off again, feeling Idgen Marte’s unease in the way her stride quickened to catch up with him, and her hand went to his arm.
He shook it off, and bellowed as he neared the tent, “Cerisia! You and your men will answer to me. Come forward before I come in for you.”
Think, man, think! Allystaire heard Idgen Marte’s voice inside his head and turned to see her face livid, teeth clenched. “You’ve just told them all we’re onto them,” she murmured, hand falling to her sword.
If there is fighting to be done I would rather it start now, and not wait till they have numbers.
Even now, though, the other guardsman, four in all, had closed in around them. Two of them appeared from within the pavilion inside an antechamber in the front, Allystaire reasoned, and the other two from within the tents surrounding it. The first pair were armored and had their swords half drawn, while the remaining pair wore only the clothes they’d slept in, but stopped to grab spears from their neat piles of weaponry.
Allystaire’s hand fell to his hammer and Idgen Marte’s sword was gleaming in the early sunlight faster than anyone could have followed.
Guardsman’s swords cleared their sheaths. Allystaire swung his shield to his left arm, flexing his fist in the straps, and slid his hammer out of its ring.
“I should have barred you entry with your arms. Surrender them now and you may keep your lives,” Allystaire said as he and Idgen Marte squared off with one guardsman each. He felt a tiny tickle, nearly an itch, grow between his shoulder blades. There’s a man with a spear standing behind me, he thought, and I’m not wearing armor.
Allystaire heard Torvul’s voice. I’ve got him. The one on Idgen Marte will never hit her.
Allystaire felt some of his tension ease. The furnace deep within him roared. He tightened his fist around the haft of his hammer. He felt his arm start to lift saw it all begin to unfold; he would simply lunge shield-forward to turn the blade, try to unbalance his man, and then come over the top with the hammer.
But then Cerisia’s voice, strong and resonant, sounded out over the morning. “Fortune’s servants, in Her name put up your swords. Stay this madness!”
The guardsmen lowered their weapons, but didn’t drop or sheathe them. Cerisia’s face, red from sleep but, Allystaire thought, still alluring, turned to him. “Allystaire—what is this? Why do you come to my tent with weapons drawn?”
Allystaire lowered his arm, but only halfway, keeping his elbow bent, ready to bring the hammer into play. “Tell me why there are a dozen or more armed men outside Thornhurst, coordinating with your guards.”
Cerisia’s eyes widened and her cheeks drew taut across the bones of her face. “I know nothing of this,” she whispered hoarsely. “Nothing. I swear it upon Fortune’s name.” Her eyes focused on Allystaire’s, and she held her slim arm out to him. “Compel me if you must.”
The priestess didn’t wait for Allystaire to respond, but turned to the nearest guardsman, the one Allystaire had identified as their captain, her voice cracking like a whip.
“Iolantes,” she snapped. “What does he mean? Explain to me now!”
The man was clearly taken aback. With one eye on Allystaire, he lowered his sword till the point nearly touched the ground, and stammered as he searched for a response.
“But, Archioness, it was your own command.”
Allystaire felt his arm rising, but whatever violence he’d been about to unleash was cut short as Cerisia’s acolytes emerged from the pavilion behind her. Clad in white and gold, both were armed with small crossbows that fit neatly into one hand, loaded and cocked with bolts only a few inches long.
“No, Iolantes,” the woman said. “You only thought it was Cerisia’s command. One voice sounds much like another behind a mask in the dark. Still,” the woman added, smiling, “you’ll be rewarded for your service.”
“What is the meaning of this treachery, Joscelyn?” Though a crossbow was pointed directly at her from only a span or so away, Cerisia was far more angry than she was frightened. She turned, placing her back to Allystaire and Idgen Marte. One of her hands, half hidden behind her hip, began forming some sort of sign, her fingers flexing and bending in ways he couldn’t follow.
The male acolyte had his crossbow leveled at Allystaire, a fact which did not escape him. He caught the man’s eyes, noted the hesitation in them, and smiled.
At the same time, Joscelyn laughed and answered Cerisia’s question with the air of someone deigning to accept a task that was beneath them. “Your primacy in Fortune’s service is over. She favors the quick to act, the decisive—not those who would mewl about peace and forbearance in the face of a threat to the church’s very existence,” Joscelyn said. She was younger than Cerisia, with finer, thinner features that should have been delicately beautiful, but now were twisted into a kind of lean, angry hunger.
“These fools will be presented as gifts to our allies at the Temple of Braech,” Joscelyn went on, “while the peasants shall be suitably chastised. Most lives will be spared, provided they give up their heresy.”
“You incomparable fool,” Cerisia hissed, her face white with rage. “You have no idea what you would set in motion. You have no notion of what a Declaration of Anathemata means, or what it will lead to!”
How long am I letting this farce proceed? Idgen Marte’s voice sounded, dry and angry, in Allystaire’s head.
Joscelyn spat. “What do I care for the lives of a few peasants bowing down for a renegade lord?”
“You were a born a peasant, Joscelyn,” Cerisia said.
“And look how I have risen.” The woman raised her crossbow, smiled. “Look how much farther I have to climb.”
Now, Allystaire thought.
There was a frenzy of sudden movement. Joscelyn was pulling the trigger on her crossbow, but even as she did, Idgen Marte had blurred right in front of her and brought the flat of her blade down hard across her wrist. There was a sharp crack as a bone in Joscelyn’s arm snapped, and the bow discharged straight into the ground.
Meanwhile, the other acolyte tried to loose his bolt just a hair after Joscelyn. Some surge of power welled up from Cerisia’s hidden, signing hand, and the string of his crossbow snapped. Allystaire stepped around Cerisia and, with a tight, controlled swing of his left arm, bashed his shield straight into the man, lowering his shoulder and stepping into the blow.
The acolyte was driven off his feet and back into the tent, crashing into a folding stand and sending the metal pitcher and basin atop it clattering. Though it must’ve hurt, he rolled to his feet, kicked the pitcher aside, and came up with his knife.
Well, he’s got stones. I’ll give him that, Allystaire thought, even as he raised his hammer and crouched behind his shield, yelling, “Think on it, lad. A knife versus my shield and hammer?”
“Drop them and make it a fair fight,” he called, not entirely convincingly.
Allystaire sighed and stepped deeper into the pavilion, watching the acolyte’s shifting feet. He feinted to Allystaire’s right, attempting to get around the shield, but Allystaire simply bulled straight at him again. The knife scored into the heavy oak panels of the shield, barely. Allystaire was once more able, with brute force, to knock the man onto his back.
He landed heavily, and Allystaire gave him no time to recover. He stomped on the acolyte’s wrist, pinning his knife to the ground, and began to let that heel take more of his weight, even as the acolyte yelled in pain.
Casually, Allystaire leaned over him and let the head of his hammer drop so that it rested, lightly, on his adversary’s chest.
“Boy, to make this a fair fight, you would need a wall of spears and a siege tower. I have killed dozens, scores, mayhap even hundreds of foolish lads like you. I am not keen to add to that list.” He leaned closer, scowling, and gently prodded with the head of his hammer to emphasize every word. “Do not doubt that I will if you force me to.” He let that sink in, watching the man’s face intently. He had an olive cast to his skin, though the underlying flesh now was paler with fear and pain. His brown eyes held Allystaire’s blue for a moment, a moment longer, then closed in defeat.
Allystaire nodded. “Toss the knife away as best you can. Up and outside, and if you try to run, my dwarfish friend with the crossbow will stick you like a hunted doe.” The acolyte followed him out, cradling his right arm.
Outside, Joscelyn was on the ground, holding her arm in pain and silently weeping. Cerisia’s guards had gathered around her and Idgen Marte stood warily by, sword at her side.
The Archioness turned to Allystaire, flushing in, he supposed, shame that her acolytes had betrayed her without her knowledge.
“Is this more of your temple politics, Cerisia?” Allystaire prodded the acolyte till he stood next to Joscelyn, and kicked him in the back of the knee, not as hard as he might have, but hard enough that his legs folded and he fell hard to the ground next to her.
“Unfortunately, yes,” Cerisia replied. “Such coup attempts are not unknown among Fortune’s clergy.” She watched her acolyte pick himself up and start to stand, and she snapped, “Kneel next to your companion in treachery, Gerther.” He did as commanded, all the fight having gone out of him. Cerisia’s anger and fear had subsided, pressed below the demeanor of self-assurance and power that she typically assumed, and she eyed Allystaire, frowning. “You need not resort to abusing him now that he has surrendered.”
“He is lucky to be alive.” Allystaire’s fist tightened around the haft of his hammer. “As will any of your guardsmen be who do not disarm themselves, instantly, and till my curiosity is entirely satisfied.”
Iolantes raised his sword, his grim mouth opening to speak, when Idgen Marte seemed to simply appear next to him, her sword held along his throat. “We’ll start with you,” she said, reaching for his weapon. Wisely, he let her pry it from his hands and drop to the grass with no resistance.
“Is this how a paladin negotiates? With a blade to the throat?” Iolantes’s voice, even with the edge of Idgen Marte’s curved sword held against his throat, was all calm.
She snorted before Allystaire could answer. “He’s the paladin. I’ll cut your throat in payment for the deception you’ve wrought and the danger you brought to this place. And I’ll sleep well tonight after I do it.” Idgen Marte swept her sword away from his throat and shoved him with her free hand, then leveled the blade at Cerisia. “Tell them to disarm, before I take literally your forfeiture of guest’s right.”
Cerisia’s lips furled into a scowl, but she spoke in a commanding voice that filled the air. “Drop your weapons, all of you, and step away from them if you wish to live.”
With Iolantes already disarmed and surrendered, the other three guardsmen surrendered their weapons and then stood, uncertainly, hands at their sides.
Finally settling his hammer back into its ring and slinging his shield over his shoulder, Allystaire took a deep breath. His heart still thumped in his chest and his muscles seemed to quiver with unspent energy. He stripped the glove off of his right hand, tucked it behind his belt, and unceremoniously seized the Archioness’s arm.
He sought eye contact, wished for a moment he hadn’t. It was a moment’s chore to tear his concentration away from Cerisia’s startlingly pale eyes and to look deep within himself to find the compulsion to lay upon her as he spoke.
“Did you know anything of armed men on our borders?”
“No,” she replied simply. Her arm hung lightly in his hand, and he could feel that her pulse beat faster than her expression would’ve suggested.
“Did you suspect anything, any plot on the part of your acolytes and guardsmen in reference to the Church of the Mother or the people of Thornhurst?”
“No.”
“Did you—”
She sighed, and closed her eyes in frustration. When she opened them again, they were fixed not on his face, but the ground. “Allystaire, the answer to the question will be no. I have been duped. I did not know the extent of Joscelyn’s ambitions and I underestimated her resolve to see them realized. As I have said, I came here as an advocate of peace. Mine is not a vengeful or a jealous Goddess—at least not as I came to know her.”
Without seeking to compel her answer, Allystaire asked, more from pity than anger, “How were you duped? How did you not know that a body of men larger than that of your own party was shadowing you?”
“Why should I know? I am from Keersvast. The first time I saw an inland wood I was past twenty summers.”
Allystaire let her arm slip from his hand and turned for Iolantes. Unceremoniously, he grabbed the captain by the throat. Iolantes tried to pull away, but Allystaire’s grip was firm, and Idgen Marte was suddenly beside him, her sword poking into his armpit.
“What was the plan? I want every detail.”
“My man slips back into the village today. Depends on what went on at your meeting last night. Most like, they come on in the night, try and kill you, her, the dwarf first. If we could get even one of you as you slept, we figured that meant better odds to take the village.”
“And you believed your orders came from the Archioness?”
“I did, though she left the details to me to plan,” he replied. His voice grew a little hoarse, and Allystaire realized his hand had been slowly and steadily squeezing the man’s throat, so he relaxed it incrementally.
“How many men are out there?”
“Fourteen.”
“Swords-at-hire or temple guards?”
“Mostly the first.”
“And you were willing to proceed with this plan simply because you were ordered? You thought what, exactly, of the people here?”
“Seemed a chance to profit. What is this village to me but more dirt and more peasants scratching at it?”
Allystaire gave Iolantes a hard shove, and, stumbling backwards, the man tripped over the acolytes, both of whom knelt in silence.
“Your mercenaries have one of my men. If he dies, this place will be something to you—it will be the spot of your grave—unmarked, unvisited, unmourned. You, you, and you,” Allystaire said, stabbing a finger at the acolytes and at Iolantes as he started to get to his feet, “will be bound and held till I decide otherwise. And it may be a long frozen time before I do.”
Silently, Allystaire pictured Torvul, imagined him kneeling atop his wagon, crossbow sighted carefully on the tableau of betrayal and recrimination. Indeed, if he concentrated, he could feel the distance the dwarf was away from him—and atop his wagon seemed a sharp guess. Torvul, Renard should be rallying men. Get them. And rope. Then we have a day to make plans. Let us make the most of it.
He felt a confirmation, a kind of mental nod, and Torvul drifted from his perception. Allystaire turned to the remaining guardsmen, who had retrieved their bloody-faced compatriot and were walking him, slowly, towards the pavilion.
“Do you mean to damage all of my guards?” Cerisia asked with a frown as she grasped the injuries of the man being helped to the pavilion.
“Are you sure they are your guards any longer?”
That hung awkwardly in the air for a moment, Cerisia tight-lipped in anger, and Allystaire took the time to try and center himself, to expel the energy and the fury that had built up in him.
He took a step closer to Cerisia, and pitched his voice low, turning his head and murmuring for her alone to hear. “We are going to need to talk about what happens to those who plotted against my people.”
“Fortune’s Temple has its own way of dealing with those who fail in their bids for power.”
“I do not give a frozen damn for Fortune’s Temple, its ways, or its justice. They plotted against the Mother’s people. For that, they will face the Mother’s justice.”
“What would you do? Hang them? Take their heads?”
“If I decide that is what their crime warrants.”
“Do you not see how that would only hasten a declaration against you? It would prove to my fellow Archions that you are anathema in need of suppression. They will come in numbers—”
“And do you not understand that enemies are going to come no matter what I do?” Allystaire’s voice rose in volume till all heads turned towards them. “As I see it, Cerisia, letting them go is only delaying the inevitable. They will come marching back and I will have to kill them then.” Even as he spoke, the realization of this truth settled heavily on Allystaire’s mind, a nearly physical weight dropping to the pit of his stomach. They will come, with flame and fear and steel and proclamations and the rule of their own precious law, his detached and cynical side told him.
He shoved the thoughts away and stifled a sudden yawn. Further conversation was delayed by the arrival of Torvul and Renard, along with a pair of villagers carrying spears, with handaxes thrust through their belts that looked more likely to chop wood than flesh. The dwarf had several coils of rope and he set about binding the guards and the acolytes with a grim efficiency. The guards he shoved to the ground alongside the acolytes.
He turned to Allystaire, holding up a loose coil and, loud enough to be heard by everyone, asked, “You want to tie the noose, or shall I?”
Allystaire was briefly taken aback, till Torvul’s voice sounded in his head. Play along, boy. We scare ‘em enough, maybe we don’t have to hang ‘em.
“You have a better hand with the rope than I do,” Allystaire said, forcing an affected nonchalance into his voice. “More likely to make the drop quick and clean.”
Torvul nodded. “You’re right. Better you do it, then,” he said, and tossed the rope to Allystaire.
One of the guards, suddenly wide eyed, leapt to his feet and started a panicked run. One of the two village men with Renard raised his spear as if to throw, but a sharp command from the bearded soldier and the tip was lowered again.
Idgen Marte was in front of the man in a flash, one hand held out, the heel of her palm extended. He ran straight into it and flew, heels up. His head struck the cold turf with a heavy thud. As he lay gasping, Idgen Marte looked over at the rest of the prisoners and suddenly produced a knife, protruding from her fisted right hand.
“Anyone else thinks they can outrun me finds a knife at the end of their trip.”
She hauled the stunned guardsman back to his feet and shoved him back towards the rest.
“If everyone is finished testing our resolve,” Allystaire said, turning angry, but weary eyes on the bound acolytes before finding Renard. “I want every single one of these prisoners out of sight and under guard, and I want them held in separate places. Scatter them.” He knelt and seized the guard captain by his arm, lifting him to his feet. “Once they are in place, I want their ankles bound and secured to their wrists.”
None too gently, Allystaire walked Iolantes to his tent, and tossed him through the flap, sending him careening over a stool and falling onto his face. Allystaire followed him inside and was pulling his gloves on without realizing it. He was upon the other man before he could even roll over and stagger to his feet, one fist upraised, leather creaking, the iron rings along the fingers of the glove pressing into his flesh.
He is helpless, came the sudden thought. And this is not knightly.
With a wordless shout of barely checked anger, Allystaire pounded his fist into the ground by Iolantes’s head, and leaned over him. He read the scars in the captain’s face, the cold set of his eyes, the lips drawn in a fear that was well hidden.
“I ought to kill you,” Allystaire growled. “By all rights of hospitality, and all common sense, I ought to string every single one of you up, and let your bodies hang for the crows.”
“Yet you aren’t,” Iolantes replied, trying, and halfway succeeding, to force some confidence into his voice, “elsewise you’d be doing it already. Is it t’be ransom, then?”
Even as he’d punched the ground instead of the man, Allystaire knew a plan had formed in his mind. His strategies often seemed to come to him thus, seemingly instantly, but only after he’d set some part of his mind working at unpicking the knot.
“I have less use for gold than I do for the satisfaction of hanging you. And yet that satisfaction would avail me nothing, if Cerisia is correct, and she may well be.” You should kill him. One less sword when the time comes, came another thought, unbidden, less knightly. “If I can have peace, I will,” he said aloud, as much to his inner voice as to the captured guard captain. “And Thornhurst will have no peace if I kill the lot of you.
“Yet there is a way, one way, and only one, for you to buy your life, and the lives of your men, back. Listen. And listen well.” He stood up, turning his back only briefly to Iolantes, righted the stool he’d knocked over by hurling the man into his tent. “I need to know all of it: sign, countersign, the duress sign, for your communications with your other detachment. They need to think everything is proceeding as planned.”
* * *
Allystaire knelt in the stubbly field, his knee starting to ache, his lower leg going numb. The weight of hammer and shield, though comforting, did not make up for his relative lack of armor. Gideon squatted behind him, along with Torvul. Renard, the Ravens, and such of the village men as Renard judged ready—not even a half dozen—were spread out in three clusters where Henri’s farm met the edge of the wood.
Somewhere in the distance, growing slowly nearer, he could feel Idgen Marte’s presence, knew that she was calm and unhurt. If it was all freezing over we would know it by now, he silently told himself, not for the first time.
He wondered whether any of this was wise, whether a murderous ambush in the woods, a simple, brief cascade of blood and death, wouldn’t have been better. Easier, maybe. Not better, he thought. Not knightly. Certainly not worthy of us now.
Behind him, he felt Gideon shift from one knee to the other. He resisted the urge to take a backwards look for fear of shaking the boy’s confidence.
Then the first figures began to break from the treeline. The moon was slight, a slice of dim autumn orange in a clouded night sky, but thanks to a drop of Torvul’s unguent rubbed around his eyes, he—and everyone else lying in wait for the incoming bandits—saw as though it were the bright, early part of the twilight turns.
The men sneaking from the woods came slowly, professionally, with a creeping vanguard of four men leading the way, bows in hand, arrows nocked but not drawn. Always the worst part of an ambuscade, Allystaire thought. Waiting for enough men to come into the trap to make it worth springing.
More men crept into the field, so that the initial four were well within the circle of ambushers hidden behind hay bales, a fence-line, or as in Allystaire’s case, simply behind a fold of earth below the field. Nearly half a score now in his vision—and from the corner of one eye, a blurred, fast moving outline that the would-be reavers entirely failed to notice, a silhouette that he could see less of the more he looked for it: the Shadow of the Mother upon their flank.
Not all of them are out of the woods, he thought, having made a quick count. Yet they showed no sign of emerging, and given too long, those who’d already come forward would stumble into their positions.
Now! he thought, making the command into a mental shout.
I hope they remember to close their eyes, Torvul replied, even as there was a rustling movement, a hiss as a bottle was uncorked, and then the rustle and clink of leather and metal moving as the dwarf stood and threw.
You have a good throwing arm, Allystaire thought as he watched the bottle sail into the night, saw it describe a graceful arc of several dozen yards, and remembered almost too late the dwarf’s injunction against watching. He shut his eyes and tucked his chin against his chest, heard the hissing rise in intensity, then felt, and even saw behind his eyelids, the brief but intense burst of light and smoke.
There were too many uncomfortable seconds of waiting, crouched, eyes closed, before Torvul’s voice came rumbling over the night. “Now!”
Allystaire sprang to his feet. The better part of the enemy who’d crept out of the woods to ambush them now knelt or laid upon the ground, clutching at their eyes. Hefting his hammer and trotting a few steps into the field, his boots sinking into the soft, cold earth, he filled his lungs with chill night air and bellowed.
“MEN OF FORTUNE’S TEMPLE, YOU HAVE BEEN DECEIVED AND YOU ARE UNDONE.” He paused, sucked in another huge breath, feeling every year of his age, every battlefield order and yell. “SURRENDER AND BE TREATED FAIRLY. RESIST AND BE DESTROYED.”
A few men threw down their bows, still rubbing at their eyes, while others staggered uncertainly. The Ravens, the village men, Renard, and Idgen Marte had left their positions, weapons out, and loosely surrounded the enemies.
Even as three or four complied with his commands, a final four emerged from the treeline, one of them drawing his nocked arrow.
“Gather yourselves, lads,” yelled the would-be archer, as he sighted down his arrow at Allystaire. “He’s a hangin’ bastard and would see us all dance the short drop!”
The string drew back to the man’s cheek. Allystaire sighed. There’s always one, he thought.
Then before the arrow could loose, a giant stepped out from behind Allystaire and into the night.
This was no Gravekmir, no giant of flesh and bone, of bloodlust and savagery. In fact, it doubled the height of the only giants Allystaire’d ever seen, reaching a score of spans into the sky. It was all of a color, a soft, radiant gold that shed light in a wide pool around it as it moved. A single step carried it towards the suddenly terrified archer, and a quick open-palmed swing later, the man flew several yards in the air, his bow tossed aside, bones rattling as he landed hard against a tree.
For good measure, the giant swung his other arm and knocked aside the rest of the men.
Then, turning monochrome golden eyes set in a plain, blandly featureless face over the rest of the men, the giant spoke.
“I am the Will of the Mother,” it said, and for all that its tone was soft, the power and volume of the voice shook Allystaire’s chest. “Lay down your arms, or face me in my wrath.”
The last word the giant roared, shaking the very ground. When it spoke, its face and form suddenly erupted in livid flames, and men cowered. Somewhere, deep within Allystaire, the urge to bolt, to seek refuge, cried out, though he knew very well he had nothing to fear.
Allystaire risked a look back over his shoulder. Torvul stood with his crossbow, a bolt nocked, in the cover he himself had recently abandoned. Hidden and sheltered from bowshot by Torvul, Gideon knelt, eyes shut, hands fisted, intense concentration writing lines on his face and drawing droplets of sweat onto his forehead.
Most of the men had recovered by then. A few of Allystaire’s own men stepped back, shaking, but one of Fortune’s mercenaries let loose with a fearful howl, yelling, “Sorcery! Foul magic!” and drawing back his bow. In his haste, the first shot went well wide of the giant that Gideon was projecting into the middle of the field.
His second shot never left his bow, because as he drew the arrow free from his quiver, Idgen Marte’s sword bit into the arm that held the string, only seconds before Ivar’s spear was driven into his knee. He collapsed, his yells gone to incoherent, pained babble.
Following their commander’s lead, the Iron Ravens raised their weapons, spears and polearms mainly, and advanced. Allystaire bellowed once more. “LAST CHANCE. TO BE ARMED IS TO DIE!”
He joined them in the advance, rushing in on a mercenary who threw aside his bow and drew an axe and a dirk from his belt, only to throw them to the ground. Amidst the moans of the two wounded men and the crackling flames of Gideon’s giant, the mercenaries surrendered.
The Ravens began to gather up the discarded weapons. After some sharp-tongued prompting from Renard, the villagers joined in. At spear and sword point, the mercenaries even tossed away their sheathed daggers, watching as they were thrust through the belts of the men who began to herd them into the center of the field.
Few of them could tear their eyes away from the giant that stood amongst them, though Allystaire could see its edges flicker and its body begin to waver.
It looked down upon the defeated men beneath it, and spoke once more, the volume of its voice dying slowly away.
“Remember what you saw. Tell all who will listen that those who would do harm to the Mother’s people must face me. Those who come to the Mother in peace are under my guard. Make it known.”
Then it raised its hands, palms out, and began to dissipate, dissolving into streaks of light that flew upward into the night sky.
“Which one of these sorry cowards is in command?” Allystaire addressed his question to Idgen Marte, having slung his shield and stowed his hammer. The anticipation of the fight still hammered away at him, his limbs jostling with energy. Beneath the wave of it, though, he could feel the gaping trench of fatigue that was going to swallow him sooner or later.
Idgen Marte, her sword still out, began searching among the captives, even as the Ravens began to clasp a hotch-potch of manacles, ropes, and improvised cordage around wrists and ankles. Once or twice she encouraged one to move out of her way with the flat of her sword, finally tapping the point against the chest of a tall and sturdy looking bearded man who remained unbound. He wore a coat of mail over leather, and appeared a few years younger than Allystaire.
“This’s the one who talked business with our man,” Idgen Marte said. “I heard one call him Altigern,” she added.
“Tell me, where is my man Evert?” Allystaire said, addressing Altigern. After a beat, he added, “I hope for the sake of you and your men he is still alive.”
The man drew himself erect and lifted his head slightly. “It’s no concern of mine what happens to those who consort with dark and unnatural powers.”
Allystaire sighed, then began tugging the glove off his left hand. “I am not a patient man tonight, Altigern. Cowards and would-be assassins ruining my sleep do nothing for my mood.”
The man spat near, if not quite on, Allystaire’s boots. “As if killing a warlock in thrall to some child witch could be anything but a good night’s work,” he snarled.
Allystiare pinched the bridge of nose and tried to find some fresh store of patience within himself, but even as he tried, the other man gained momentum.
“What’re you going to do with us? Hang us upside down beneath the new moon and flay us? Or simply spill our entrails for your witch-whore’s magics?”
The anger, the frustration, the pent-up tension of waiting and worrying for the whole of the village suddenly welled up within Allystaire the instant the man said “witch-whore.” Before he knew it, his right hand curled into a fist, his arm bent at the elbow, and his body torqued as he drew back his fist and then hurled it, with the short, compact movement of a beautiful punch. It traveled less than a foot before it exploded on Altigern’s jaw.
The force, delivered through his iron-banded glove, dropped Altigern to the ground like a man struck dead. Allystaire felt the impact jar his hand, heard the man whimper in pain as he went to the ground.
Bending over the prone form of the mercenary, Allystaire reached down and grabbed him by the collar. Though Altigern swam on the very edges of consciousness, the sudden shaking, and Allystaire’s angry voice, stirred him awake.
“This need not end in blood. My man. Where is he?”
Allystaire instinctively pushed out towards the man with the Mother’s compulsion, and was astonished to find it drawing forth a response through broken teeth and bloodied lips.
“Dead,” Altigern moaned. “No men t’guard ‘im, no use for ‘im.”
“At your command?”
“Aye,” the man confirmed, before slumping to the earth, finally giving into oblivion with a clatter of teeth falling from his mouth.
Allystaire’s fists curled in rage. He gave thought to simply caving the man’s skull in with his fists, or to drawing his sword and taking his head. Idgen Marte probably sensed the bloody thoughts, or at least read them in his body language, for she stepped between him, shoving him away from the unconscious mercenary.
“Go,” she said. “Before you murder them all in a haze. Sleep. Renard and I’ll see to their disposition.”
“We need to recover Evert’s body,” Allystaire replied. “And—”
She cut him off with a curt shake of her head. “I said we’d handle it. Go. I don’t want t’spend the rest of the night digging graves.” And take Gideon with you.
He nodded, turned, plodded heavily back to the edge of the tilled earth and down the slight hillock to where Gideon and Torvul still waited. The alchemist’s unguent was starting to wear off and darkness was impinging on his vision, but he could see Gideon resting heavily upon one knee, a light sheen of sweat on his face despite the night’s chill.
Allystaire lowered a hand upon the boy’s shoulder and squeezed gently. “You did well, lad. We took them all with no death.” He paused, then added, “No more deaths.”
“I was just tellin’ the lad that more than one hardened man out there is likely walking around in wet trousers,” Torvul added.
Gideon nodded and pushed himself to his feet. “I was…sloppy. The flames did not need to be flames in truth. Merely the seeming would have done,” he said, half to Allystaire, half to himself. “It was a waste of energy.”
“Remind me in the morning to ask what it is you mean,” Allystaire said wearily. “If you explained it now, like as not I would not remember it. We are off, Torvul,” he added, giving the dwarf a nod.
The two of them walked with increasing weariness. By the time they’d reached the Temple field, Allystaire’s eyes had lost all of the brightness Torvul’s potion had magicked into them, and the night was night once more.
“Why’d you hit that man, their captain,” Gideon suddenly asked as they stopped between Torvul’s wagon and Allystaire’s tent.
“I snapped. Spent all that time waiting for a fight, some part of me needed one to happen, and the man said something that cut straight to that need.”
“It didn’t look good to his men.”
“Gideon, in the morning, we may hang them all. They meant to murder as many folk in the village as they could, starting with us. They killed one of Ivar’s men, who was trying to protect us.”
The boy frowned. “We can’t kill every would-be murderer.”
“No, Gideon. Not all of them; only those that we find. Goodnight.” With that, Allystaire turned, lifted the flap of his tent, and barely managed to tear off his outer garments and set his hammer down by his bed before the abyss of unconsciousness rushed up to claim him.