The Rite of Blooming Blood
“Landen,” the Baron Delondeur bellowed, moving back and forth across the half-empty camp. “LANDEN!”
Men and horses milled around him, stunned by their reversal in the battle. Officers and knights tried to gather what was left of the Salt Spears to form them into units and take note of casualties. While the general panic had subsided, confusion reigned.
The Baron knew, inwardly, that he needed to assume control, show them confidence and flair, and allow the men to settle down.
But first he had to find his heir.
“M’lord. M’lord Baron,” he heard, and whirled to find a young man in armor, unhelmed, with one arm loose and broken, limping towards him. His face was bathed in sweat and soot-stained. Lionel struggled to recall a name, but found none as the boy sank to a knee.
“Up, lad. No time for that kind of formality in the field. What is your name and what have you to say?”
“Sir Darrus Cartin, m’lord. I was given my spur this past fall as a member of Landen’s company—and I am sorry to say, m’lord, but I saw her unhorsed. I tried to fight to her side, but…” The man tried to lift his clearly wounded arm, grimacing in pain. In the lanterns he’d once again ordered gathered round him, he could see how the boy’s face paled when he moved it. “I didn’t see her killed, m’lord,” he added hastily. “But she took a wound.”
“A wound valiantly earned in honest service is not something I’ll forget. A lordship is yours when we conclude this business,” Lionel bellowed, drawing the eyes of the men around him. “A hundred gold links, armor from my own smiths, and a horse from my own stables to the man who finds my heir in the coming day’s fight.”
He felt the immediate effect the words had as they moved through the camp, passed by whispers and shouts. His command asserted himself. Composure was contagious, as was optimism about the coming fight. Delondeur turned for his tent, lantern bearers pacing him, smiling to himself.
He stopped short of the flaps as he saw the unmistakable blue and yellow glow on the frozen ground.
Lionel Delondeur gathered himself with a deep breath and held out one hand to pause his lantern-bearers, then threw open the flap, and stepped boldly in.
Gethmasanar and Iriphet were both seated on the only camp chairs within the tent, leaving just his cot if he wished to sit. His bones ached, his shoulders protested the weight of armor, and his knees screamed in pain.
Command the moment, he thought as he drew himself up imperiously. “Why did you not support our attack?”
“We noted some heretofore unknown powers at work. We needed to evaluate them,” answered Iriphet, his words hanging in the air, an eerie echo of themselves. “We will have a suitable number of Wights ready very soon. In the meantime, we had a further notion.”
“Soon? We could’ve crushed them with a dozen of the blasted things tonight!”
“Tomorrow night would be more suitable. It is the midpoint of the winter season. This has symbolic as well as thaumaturgical significance,” Gethmasanar put in. “The omens were not quite right for this night. We should have told you but we had not consulted the runes nor the charts. It is, of course, our mistake.”
Lionel’s stomach chilled, and despite his willpower, his years of practice, he felt himself shrinking down in the face of the trap they’d sprung. And it was, indeed, a trap.
“We will,” Iriphet was already saying, “require the dead and the wounded. And as to this further notion…”
“What of it,” Lionel answered, wearily shuffling to a table and leaning upon it. Tired. So Cold-damned tired.
“Imagine the ache in your limbs, gone. Imagine being suffused with a strength unlike any you’d ever known, even in your days as Lionel Giantsbane.” Iriphet’s voice was a wavering, grating thing. Sometimes it almost sounded as if it echoed in his own throat. “Imagine, most of all, matching Coldbourne strength for strength.”
“He has your daughter as a prisoner. We have confirmed this. With the power we offer, you could challenge for her return.”
Lionel didn’t turn to face them. He splayed his fingers on the table before him, considered the gnarled and swollen knuckles of each hand, the bent fingers and scarred backs. “What must I do?”
“Give us the necessary time, and the tools.” A pause. “A man, hale, or nearly so. A few of the wounded.”
“The sooner we can begin the better. Outside our wagon we will have our implements prepared. Meet us there before dawn, which is coming in but a turn or two.”
The sorcerers vanished into the shadows at the back of his tent. Lionel’s first impulse was to call for his lanterns, but he checked himself. He stood, gathered his hands into fists, and straightened his back. He went to the tent flap and pushed it back.
“You,” he said, gesturing to one of the lantern bearers. “Fetch Sir Darrus Cartin. Tell him I wish to take counsel with him on a walk before dawn. Quickly now.”
* * *
“Landen Delondeur,” Chaddin spat, jabbing a finger towards a figure in the back of the knot of Delondeur prisoners. “Coldbourne,” the man yelled excitedly. “We have the Baron’s likely heir!”
Allystaire looked up from the wounded man he was healing. Space was at a premium inside the Temple, which was jammed with the Mother’s people and the Delondeur prisoners. Idgen Marte, Torvul, and a party of Renard’s men moved in the distance still, finding wounded and bringing them back to be healed, along with a few Delondeur volunteers that Allystaire had already put back on their feet.
The place felt anything but holy, now. It was rank with fear, with metal and sweat-stained leather, and the faint but unmistakably coppery tang of blood. Families huddled together, the children’s eyes huge and distant. Torvul moved among the families with the youngest in particular, dispensing cheer where he could. Allystaire saw him pressing something from one of his huge, creased palms into the hands of a child more than once.
It’s going to take more than boiled sugars, Allystaire thought to himself. As he stood he saw Torvul turn and fix a glare on him, then go back to moving among the people and talking quietly to them in his low rumbling bass.
Allystaire pushed himself to his feet. He expected to tip over and lose consciousness before reaching his full height. He expected to soon feel the sudden accumulation of the exertions of his muscles all in one moment.
Still the song, though faint, rushed through him.
People made a path for him as he walked. The candles and lamps they held and huddled over gleamed brightly back at them when his armor caught their reflection. His perfect, unblemished armor. The armor that should be covered in the wear of battle and spattered with mud, and worse. Instead it shone like purest hammered silver.
Their eyes followed him whenever he moved, and he could feel them like a weight. He felt them as he walked to the prisoners, who were shoved against one section of wall.
Chaddin was dragging a prisoner forward. It took Allystaire a moment to realize that the struggling figure was, beneath a bulky and bloodied gambeson, a woman. There was a long stain along her left arm, held awkwardly against her body. Her eyes were downcast and the resistance she offered to Chaddin’s pulling was token, at best.
“Take your hands off of her, Chaddin. She is no more threat.”
“I tire of your orders, Allystaire,” Chaddin shot back. “We need to find out what she knows.”
Allystaire fixed Chaddin with a hard stare for a moment. “If I need to ask her any questions, I will,” he finally said. “For now, take your hands off of her, and try to get some rest. This battle is not done.”
Chaddin stepped away, but not without a last shove that sent Landen sprawling against the stone wall. Allystaire took a half step towards the pretender, half-snarling. “It is not worthy of the Goddess’s Temple that a wounded, defeated enemy should be roughly used, especially by one who claims the rights of rank and rule.”
“And once again I say I tire of your orders,” Chaddin snapped back. “I’m not interested in your Goddess. My father was beaten, and had we pursued him we could have won. Instead we have retreated in here, and for what? To nurse the enemy wounded back to health? They should’ve been seen to on the field and left to rot.”
His last comment sent a general murmur of assent through his remaining men, and, Allystaire thought, some quizzical looks among the village folk. Allystaire waited for the room to quiet down.
“You are a fool. First, he was not beaten. He will not be beaten till he is dead.” Allystaire flicked his eyes towards Landen and said, “I am sorry to say that in front of you, but it is the truth.” Then he looked back to Chaddin. “Second, had we pursued him, his numbers would have told the tale sooner rather than later. His foot would have organized and bought time for the horse to do the same, and we would all be dead. Third, and fourth, why do we not leave the enemy to die upon the field?”
Allystaire looked at the knot of beaten, wounded, yielded enemies, then at his people, the Goddess’s people. “It is not enough that we fight Delonduer. It will not be enough if we win. We have to be better men. Yes, ruthlessness might serve us here and now. We could have made quick work of the wounded and evened the numbers a bit more. But then the story goes out, after the fight: the Goddess thirsts for the blood of those who oppose Her, and Her paladin orders their throats cut. And then we have lost.”
Allystaire leaned close to Chaddin and added, “And the more corpses upon the field—the more of those monstrosities Delondeur’s sorcerers can make.” He made sure that the Delondeur prisoners heard him, waited for them to grasp the implications, and began to walk away.
“If you’re determined to be better men, why did you turn sorcerous fire upon us? Why is the captain of the Long Knives dead after yielding? Why do two of my father’s officers and one of his finest knights lie dead, assassinated by this Shadow of yours?”
Allystaire turned on Landen, who had found her voice and pulled herself erect against the wall. Her face was pale, showing clear lines of pain, but her voice was strong and clear.
“It was alchemical, in point of fact,” Torvul casually answered as he picked his steps from halfway across the room. “Calling what I do sorcerous is an insult, girl.”
“A death in flames is not something I wish to offer anyone,” Allystaire said. “But I did not look for this fight. Everyone who has died here in the past few days has done so because of your father. That blood, along with so much more, is on his hands.”
“And the yielded man?”
“Attacked me, but not before he admitted to me he meant to do murder, to slit the throats of children in the night. I will not suffer a man like that to live.” Allystaire felt his anger rising. “I cannot suffer a man like that to live. If you believe for even a moment that I am what I say I am you will understand that. That so many of you draw breath, and walk, and move your limbs freely still ought to be all the proof you need that my Goddess is no delusion, that my Gifts are no lie.”
Suddenly the door swung open, and Renard stuck his bearded head in. “Allystaire—we have found a wounded man we cannot move. You’ll need t’come to him, and quick.”
Allystaire darted to his feet and was a step from the door before he stopped and said, “Landen. Chaddin. Both of you come with me.”
* * *
Gethmasanar moved with casual serenity around a folding table that had been erected outside his and Iriphet’s wagon, occasionally lifting one of the sharp tools laid upon it and examining it with a critical eye. Iriphet stood silent and unmoving some distance away. Periodically, some of their fearful swords-at-hire approached, carrying the dead or nearly dead. They had ceased questioning the necessity of delivering such material, though their own numbers grew fewer as the night passed.
As if he plucked the thought from Gethmasnar’s head, Iriphet said, “Men cannot be relied upon except in short bursts. You know this.”
“Of course,” Gethmasanar agreed as he thumbed the edge of a knife. “Like as not their bodies lie upon the field and will come to serve us anyway. What was it the Baron said? Dead men draw no pay.”
Iriphet laughed, an odd and disturbing echoing noise. “Indeed.” There was a moment of silence interrupted only by the rustling of wind against bare tree limbs and Gethmasanar setting a barbed hook down upon the table.
“Must you use such crude implements?”
“No. I simply prefer it,” Gethmasanar answered. “I find there is less wastage when I use a knife.”
“And you are certain you can perform the Rite of Blooming Blood? It is hardly commonplace.”
“It is not so different from preparing Wights.”
“As you say,” Iriphet said. “Our employer approaches.”
Baron Delondeur wandered into the clearing, preceded a bit by a much smaller circle of light than had followed him for most of the night. He held a lantern in one hand, as did his companion. They stopped just beyond the tree line, with the younger man eyeing the sorcerers warily.
“M’lord, what is—”
Lionel cut him off quickly. “You wish to serve your Baron, yes? And help me locate my daughter?”
“Of course, m’lord, but—”
Iriphet waved a hand contemptuously, and the young knight’s mouth moved soundlessly as he was lifted from the ground by bands of luminous blue. Delondeur himself started slightly and retreated a step, but then calmed and watched as Sir Darrus Cartin floated gently through the air and settled out upon the sorcerer’s folding table.
Gethmasanar came forward, and, with a beam of yellow light extending from one finger, began cutting the young man’s armor. It curled like wood under the hasp, falling away in long strips.
Cartin struggled, such as he could. His eyes were wide, and soon the small clearing was rank with the stink of piss as his fear mastered him. Lionel watched at some remove.
Iriphet waved the Baron to his side, and Lionel hesitated only momentarily before obeying.
“There are parts of the Rite of Blooming Blood that you may find unpleasant, Lionel,” Iriphet began, his voice sounding even more alien than usual. “You will have to banish such thoughts from your head.”
Gethmasanar picked up a knife. Strips of metal and gambeson lay curled upon the ground like shorn hair. Despite the sorcery that was gagging him, Cartin’s scream was audible as a kind of whine as Gethmasanar’s hand plunged down and began to slice.
With his free hand, the sorcerer gestured, and a wide goblet made of some strange dark metal floated into the air next to him.
“You must steel yourself and do as instructed, Baron,” Iriphet went on. “For it is only after this Rite that you will survive the construction of your new armor. Remember—in order to match the paladin’s strength, you must do as we say.”
Lionel eyed the goblet that floated above the knight as he was butchered. He tried not to think about the dark substance flowing into it. He especially did not focus on the thrashing, mewling form on the table, pinned fast by glowing blue bands of twisting light.
“Armor?” Delondeur asked the question absentmindedly, his voice faint and drawn.
“Yes. It is not entirely unlike creating a Battle-Wight, you see.”
* * *
Allystaire didn’t give Landen or Chaddin time to pause or consider his demand to follow him. He simply went, hot on Renard’s heels, hoping they would follow a commanding voice without thinking on it.
When he heard the tramp of feet on the frozen ground behind him, he knew that they had.
It didn’t take him long to understand the nature of Renard’s urgent request, because the soldier’s steps took him straight out to the battlefield they’d recently held, to the scorched and blackened spot where Torvul’s potions had bloomed into fire.
Idgen Marte knelt at the edge of it, next to a form that screamed so faintly that Allystaire thought the man’s lungs must have been damaged. A wordless, wet sound, it was a horror to the ear, but from more than fifteen feet away, no one could have heard it.
Allystaire slid to his knees at the man’s side, offering his hand. How old he had been, or how he’d looked, was anyone’s guess. The chainmail he’d been wearing had scalded against his skin, and all along the left side of his body and his face, it was as if the metal had been grafted to him.
The sense of pain that washed over Allystaire as he pushed his Gift into the man was so overwhelming that he nearly blacked out.
Goddess, please hear me. I know that you are distant. I know that I have asked much of you, Allystaire quickly prayed as he tried to pour healing into the burned man. But this man is in pain because of me. I did this to him. I do not know if he is an evil man. I do not know if he is truly our enemy. Even if he were, I would not wish this upon him.
Allystaire built the compassion, the love that the Mother’s Gift offered to him, into a raging torrent, and tried to pour it forth into the Delondeur soldier. He found the resistance to it more than he could imagine.
Please, my Lady. I am sorry. No matter his crimes, no man can deserve to die this way. Do not let this be done in your name.
Unlike Jeorg the night before, the man he tried to heal now did not seem to remember his own name. There was only pain and loss and fear and Allystaire found himself muttering, “I am sorry, I am sorry,” audibly, pushing and pushing and pushing against the enormous wall of pain that threatened to engulf him.
And then suddenly it broke and the man’s scream grew louder and more intense for a moment, and then the healing began to wash over him in earnest. The links of metal that had melted into his skin were pushed free as his flesh knit, and the screaming subsided till the man lapsed into unconsciousness.
Two of Renard’s volunteers delicately picked him up, and began carrying him back to the Temple. Allystaire stood and turned towards Chaddin and Landen. “Do you still doubt me?”
“I have seen sorcery before,” Landen muttered darkly.
“Aye. Seen it kill and maim and plunder, no doubt. I know without thinking on it that the power the sorcerers wield—the sorcerers your father pays to do his bidding—can never heal.”
“Why?” Chaddin’s arms were crossed over his mailed chest. “It still makes no sense to give so much aid to the enemy’s wounded.”
“And is this man my enemy? Is he yours? What lured him here, Chaddin? What promises or lies? And I healed him because I am the man who nearly killed him, who made him suffer with fire.” Allystaire turned to Landen then, and said, “I will do what I must to protect the people I serve. But I will also do what I can for anyone who suffers. Could you claim any of that to be true of your father?”
Allystaire didn’t give the Baron’s daughter a chance to answer. He followed the men bearing the newly healed Delondeur soldier, leaving Chaddin and Landen to exchange curious looks before rushing after him again.
* * *
Lionel Delondeur fell to one knee, simultaneously gasping for air and fighting to keep his gorge from rising. Surely some of the men heard the screams, he thought. Surely they will come looking.
Wild-eyed, he looked up at Iriphet, who stood calmly and immovably above him, goblet in hand. “We are only just begun, Baron. Do not think of it in the crude terms that are causing your mind to reject it. Think of it thus: Sir Darrus Cartin’s life, the strength of his youth and manhood, are now given to you. They would have been anyway, over a lifetime of service. Now they are given to you to use in the coming days. Do you understand? In this, the man still serves you. You must have steel enough to accept that. Up.”
There was no denying the snap of command in the sorcerer’s odd voice. “Yes,” the Baron spat, pushing himself to his feet. “His service, still,” he added weakly. His service ended with him a mewling, whimpering thing. Dressed out on a table like an animal taken on a hunt, with less dignity. The suddenness of his own thought surprised him. He pushed it away, straightened, and reached for the goblet. “Let’s get this over with,” he said, trying to put a bit of his flair back into the words.
Next to him, Iriphet offered no reply except to hold out the goblet and its dark reeking contents.