The door to the nave opened and two priests rushed in, shouting what sounded like curses. They focused on the fire, failing to see Rasdid’s men step out from either side of the door to cut them down and then hack apart their Diviners. Teresa slammed the door shut as they finished the task.
“No blood,” Ramiro shouted before remembering they couldn’t understand. It must have been a universal fear, for Rasdid was shouting as well, and the men began scraping pea gravel over the blood stains. Teresa pulled off her poncho with one hand and flung it over the first body. Several of Radid’s men added their cloaks. All the while Ramiro kept up his hacking of the Diviners. But time was running out, and there were still Diviners to be destroyed.
Rasdid shouted and gestured and three of his people hesitated, then ran over to help. With five swords breaking up the weapons, the last dozens shattered quickly. Teresa stomped among the outermost cooling ashes, using her boots to ensure they hadn’t missed any. Ramiro straightened slowly and knuckled his sore back, breathing heavy.
“Thanks,” he said again.
Rasdid leaned on his sword with sweat streaming down his neck. His odd green eyes carried a weight—a man who knew very well he’d just committed treason and signed his death warrant. “I remember you. I let you through gate. You make way to stop priests. Do you find way to stop Dal, too?”
“Not yet.”
Rasdid nodded. Disappointment there and gone in an instant on his face, replaced swiftly by the expression of a man with work to do.
“Ramiro.” Ramiro pointed to his chest.
“Rasdid.” The Northerner put his open hand on his chest against his heart. “Honored.”
Ramiro copied the gesture. “Honored as well.” He looked to the corner of the room, but the fog had gone—as he’d expected when help arrived from another source.
He looked at Teresa. “Stay behind me. We’re going out the quickest way.” She’d acquired two more of the red healing staffs and clutched them to her chest with the first. “I’ll get you as far as I’m able. Maybe we can take out more of their weapons on the way.”
“Weapons? Diviners are not weapons,” Rasdid said. “What the word? Ah—truth. Diviners are judgers of truth. Decide the worth of a man.”
Ramiro shivered and touched mind and heart. It wasn’t right.
“The Darkness doesn’t get to judge me. I deny it that right. I get to decide. My worth is decided by me and not some force of evil and destruction.” He touched his heart again and then his spleen as anger began to build. “Nobody is perfect. I’m no saint. I’ve made plenty of mistakes. But the truth of my soul is between me and the Light. No one else.”
He sheathed his sword and started for the doors to the nave, letting the righteous anger carry him and block out all else.
One of Rasdid’s soldiers threw open the door. Ramiro entered the nave surround by a cloud of smoke. It went rushing past him, allowing the light of dozens of candles to strike the armor and reflect back in a blazing glow. The Northern priests filling the sanctuary gawked. Then someone shouted and they rushed at him.
He was already striding forward to meet the first with an elbow into the man’s diaphragm, doubling him over. Ramiro took the Diviner out of the first priest’s limp hand and used it to finish off the second and third. Then too many to stop reached him. Their Diviners pinged off his armor, not even leaving the sting of a nettle slash anymore.
A fresh courage filled him. He backhanded a woman with no time for regret and punched another priest. He lobbed an elbow again and felt it crunch a throat. Adrenaline roared through his system. He threw the Diviner in his fist like a spear. It took down another. Teresa squawked at his back and he let none through to reach her. Hammering one after another.
Rasdid and his men flowed into the fight. Their swords cut into the priests. When one of their men went down to a Diviner, another stepped smoothly into his place. They gave Ramiro enough space to pick and choose, enough time to act on offense and not just react.
More priests came pouring from the sanctuary and the choir wings, leaving their bedding and seats at the pews. They focused on him with a single-minded intensity, ignoring Rasdid and his men as secondary unless engaged by them. The Northerners had training in combat, but it was a finesse sort of style. He could tell they weren’t used to real resistance, and he simply overpowered them with brute force, using the strength of his armor to bludgeon them as often as possible. A knee to the groin. An armored boot to the shin. An elbow to the back of the neck. A blow to the ear.
He swept all aside and left a trail of wounded behind him. Slowly drawing nearer to the gaping front doors and escape. They pressed against him like a wave and he parted them, thrusting them aside. Unstoppable. Until a Diviner came for his head. Reflexes took over, and he reached out and seized it in his bare hand.
Time slowed down.
The moss green eye of the Northerner filled with elation. Ramiro’s teeth set in a snarl. His muscles began to lock. Pain blazed.
“I . . . deny . . . you!”
He stood steadfast. The Darkness had no right to judge him or anyone. No right. If he died to a human, so be it. He refused to let evil decide whether he lived or died.
The pain fled.
The surprise he felt was punctuated when the Diviner burst apart in his hand. Splinters flew to tear into the Northern priests surrounding him. None touched him.
Ramiro used both hands to seize two more Diviners. They burst in a spray of white fragments. The priests shouted, drawing back. He lunged forward to grab two more. Destroying all the Diviners within his reach. Pushing ever forward toward the doors and escape.
A priest at the back of the mob turned and ran. Then another. With shouts they were all fleeing, leaving him panting and alone except for a wide-eyed Teresa at his back and eight soldiers. A trail of white splinters, mixed with a few bodies, led back toward the sanctuary.
“What are you?” Rasdid held back, trepidation on his face. “No one survives the priests.”
“Saint,” Teresa said, touching mind, heart, spleen, and liver. “He’s a saint. We just witnessed the proof.”
Ramiro shook his head as he emerged onto the portico of Her Beauty and took a lungful of fresh air. Daylight had come while they were engaged inside. The clouds had thickened, turning black, and as he raised his face, the first raindrop hit his cheek.
“The rains,” Teresa said. “Another sign, maybe.”
He pretended not to hear. Let them believe what they wanted. He was no saint. He’d done what had to be done—took just another step on the journey. That was all. It meant nothing. Certainly not that he was favored above anyone else.
“Just a man,” he whispered.
“Covet not the miracle,” Teresa quoted. “It brings death.”
A group of boys ran by, shouting, “The army! The army has come!” They veered away from Her Beauty when Rasdid and his men joined Ramiro on the portico.
“What army?” he asked, but the children had fled. It was not just children who ran the streets. Adults hustled past Her Beauty with their heads down and bundles in their arms. Some carried infants or pulled small toddlers along in their hurry. Too many adults to count.
A gust of wind touched his face. It sprang from a new direction.
“Something’s happening.”