18

BEND THE KNEE

“There is a tunnel,” the knight reported to King Midalis. “It heads east, generally, but there seem to be several ways back above ground. We are exploring it now.”

“We should leave this night,” Brother Ottavian, one of the few remaining monks in the city, was quick to add.

King Midalis rubbed his face—with one hand, as the other arm was being tightly bandaged by an attending monk. He and his knights had led a gallant ride through the city, trampling and cutting down scores of the invaders. He had lost several knights in that ride, though, and barely a score remained at his side. And, in the end, for all their courage and ferocity, they had found themselves right back where they had started, caught inside the monastery of St. Precious.

Outside of that one large structure, Palmaris had almost completely fallen. Fewer and fewer were the sounds of battle echoing from remote corners of the sprawling city, and whenever a fight did start, it seemed to end very quickly.

“What think you, Julian?” he asked, looking over at the young man who had become his closest remaining advisor.

Julian pondered the question for a few heartbeats. He was stripped to the waist, tight wraps about his torso. He had taken a beating in the run across Palmaris. Thrice he had been pulled from his horse, and thrice he had fought his way back to his saddle, leaving broken sidhe in his wake. His gleaming breastplate, set on the floor beside him, showed dozens of dents from heavy blows of those strange paddles of the bright-faced invaders.

“If there is a way fully out of the city, that is the route we should go,” he answered.

“Desert them?”

“We bring the people of the city nothing but greater danger,” the Allheart explained. “We cannot lead them against such a force as now resides in Palmaris. I fear that our continuing presence here will press the hand of our enemy, and that hand will be tight about the neck of Palmaris’s prisoners.”

When he finished, he looked to the battered young man sitting next to him, a civilian and no member of the Allhearts, the Coastpoint Guards, the Palmaris garrison, or any other official military force. On that third fall, Julian had been surely doomed, caught under a trio of fierce warriors who set to pounding him with abandon. No knights had been near enough to get to him.

But those invaders had gone flying away, shoulder-blocked by this man who was now sitting beside the knight, a young man of immense strength and growling bravery. He had saved Julian at the expense of his own life—or it certainly would have been at that price, except that Julian had pulled him up into the saddle behind him and charged out of that nest of enemies.

“I do’no wish to leave,” the young man replied to that look.

“Nor I,” Julian agreed. “But we cannot stay here. I can guess easily enough what these merciless fiends will do to coax us out.”

“They do not know that King Midalis is in here, surely,” said Brother Ottavian.

Julian shrugged as if it didn’t matter, and those who had been in Ursal for the previous fight all understood that it did not. Back in Ursal, he had seen the rubble of St. Honce, and so he could pretty easily guess how all of this would soon enough end. The sidhe would use prisoners, would torture and murder prisoners, to goad the force out in surrender, or they would knock the monastery down on top of the resistors.

“It pains me greatly to flee again,” Midalis told them, his voice heavy, his posture one of weariness. “I think of those left behind in Ursal, the trials they must now be facing.”

“I was their captive,” said the surprising man sitting beside Julian, and all eyes turned to him in a moment of shocked silence.

“Here? In Palmaris?” King Midalis asked.

“In a village far west,” the stranger explained. “In the lands you call the Wilderlands, a place called Appleby. I was caught there by the xoconai.”

“You’re from the Wilderlands?”

“I am from…” He paused. “I do not know how to even tell you. It would be a journey of many months for me to show you, past the mountains in the west, to different mountains, which we call the Surgruag Monadh.”

King Midalis pushed the attending monk aside and stood up, moving deliberately over to stand before this surprising man.

“You don’t know who I am, do you?” he asked.

“They call you King Midalis.”

“But I am not your king.”

The man shrugged.

“You walked east, thousands of miles?” Midalis asked.

“Yes.”

“Who led you?”

A curious expression crossed the young man’s face, as if he was trying to take a measure of the king’s intent here.

“Many, and none,” he finally answered. “We were a hundred and a few, fleeing ahead of the xoconai. Talmadge led us, and Aydrian.”

“Aydrian?” several echoed all at once, including Midalis himself.

“Yes. And Aoleyn. I followed Aoleyn most of all. She is my friend.”

“But you weren’t with her when she came through Ursal,” King Midalis said, and his eyes widened as the young man’s face brightened.

“She is alive?” the man asked, and it seemed as if he could not draw breath.

“What is your name?” King Midalis quietly asked him.

“I am Bahdlahn.”

“Friend of Aoleyn?”

He nodded.

The king turned to Julian, then looked all about, showing the gathering a knowing and warm smile. “When heroes are needed,” he muttered.

“Where are you from?” Midalis asked. “What is the name of your village?”

“My people are from Fasach Crann, but I—”

“Well, Bahdlahn of Fasach Crann,” Midalis interrupted, his voice steady and solemn, “on this day, in this place so far from your home, I, Midalis dan Ursal, though I am not your king, do hereby commend upon you the title of Allheart. Honorary, as you are not my subject.”

He heard his knights bristling about him and turned to regard them, then nodded again when he saw that all of them were nodding in agreement.

“What does that mean?” Bahdlahn asked.

“It means that I, that we, salute you and thank you for your efforts this day, and for your courage in traveling all the way from … from the west, to help us in our hour of need. You do not owe me allegiance, though I hope you will give it.”

The young man clearly had no idea how to respond. He looked to Julian, the knight he had saved out on the street, the knight who would not leave without him, and returned a smile.

“You were a captive in this town of Appleby?” King Midalis asked, bringing the conversation back.

“Yes.”

“Tell us.”

“We worked. If we worked without complaint, we were not punished.”

“These sidhe—what did you call them again?”

“Xoconai.”

“These xoconai, they were merciful?”

Bahdlahn shrugged. “They were not kind.”

“But you weren’t tortured? And none were killed?”

“Those who disobeyed or tried to run were killed,” he replied. “And the few others chosen for sacrifice to Scathmizzane.”

“Who is that?”

“Their god.”

“On the dragon,” Julian said, and King Midalis nodded.

“Were they cruel?”

“Some,” said Bahdlahn. “Some not.” He shrugged again. “They are not unlike men.”

That answer shook all of them.


“What are you doing here?” Tuolonatl asked, when she unexpectedly encountered High Priest Pixquicauh in the command post she had established just down the wide avenue from the fortified building the humans called St. Precious Abbey.

That she wasn’t happy to see him was clearly evident in her tone, she realized, as she heard her own words.

She didn’t really care.

Pixquicauh and a sizable splinter of the xoconai force had continued straight east from Ursal, with Tuolonatl taking the main battle group to the north to conquer the river and the two cities, Palmaris and Amvoy, at its mouth. Her success had been swift and decisive, and she had already pushed far to the east, to another huge fortress, which was being described by many of the prisoners she had taken as the strongest fortress in the world.

She might have expected Pixquicauh to arrive there, on the field outside of the place called St.-Mere-Abelle, but not here. Not now.

Unless …

“The king of the humans is in that building,” he replied, confirming Tuolonatl’s fear that the high priest was current on the recent news. She glanced around at those xoconai closest to her, knowing there was an informant among their ranks.

“We do not know that,” she answered. “I have only recently heard the same information, but it is hardly confirmed.”

“Well, then we must confirm it. Conquer the building.”

Tuolonatl tried not to scoff at the ridiculously casual tone of the daunting demand. “It is good that you have come, then,” she said. “When can you bring one of the divine throwers here, that we might convince those inside the fortress to come out?”

Pixquicauh seemed a bit off balance at the request. “We cannot,” he said.

“Why can’t you? I have heard of no significant battles east of Ursal, and we’ll not soon commence the attack on the great fortress in the east.”

“Take the building without them.”

“I will lose a thousand macana assaulting such a place,” she replied. “And even then, I doubt we can get through the walls. The doors and windows are few and fortified. The humans inside have powerful magic and strong steel. If you give me weeks, my macana can, perhaps, tunnel beneath the walls to weaken them, but—”

“Weeks?” Pixquicauh interrupted, with exaggerated incredulity. “Our forces are far to the east of Ursal already! We will be at the eastern sea in days, where Scathmizzane will demand the leadership of his chosen cochcal, and you think to hold us here for weeks?”

“You would have me fill the street with dead xoconai? Give me one thrower and I will take the fortress and their king this very day.”

She noted the change in Pixquicauh’s posture and knew that something else was going on here.

“We cannot use the divine throwers,” he finally admitted. “Glorious Gold has forbidden their use at this time. He gathers his power for a great purpose, and use of them drains the great crystal above Otontotomi.”

“One throw?”

Pixquicauh shook his head.

Tuolonatl moved to the window and looked down the lane to the imposing St. Precious. She had to give the humans credit here, for they knew how to build a fortress. Had it not been for the divine throwers collapsing the monastery in Ursal upon most of the magic-wielding priests, then opening the walls, she wasn’t even sure that she would have won out at that city—and certainly not without catastrophic losses.

Here, she faced a similar proposition. Mundunugu and macana could not take down the walls of St. Precious. This xoconai army had been constructed for speed and open-ground battle, and Tuolonatl had already come to understand the greatest weakness of her force: back in Tonoloya, large battles were rare and war machines were virtually unknown. The beauty of xoconai cities could not be defaced by catapults and the like, by godly decree, and so there were few fortified buildings or walled cities. This wasn’t how the xoconai fought.

“Coax them out,” Pixquicauh insisted.

Tuolonatl tightened up, for she understood his meaning.

“Start with the children,” the high priest explained. “If you execute the adults, a king will justify it as a noble sacrifice. Minions should willingly give their lives for their king, of course. But when you start torturing children in the open street outside of that building, this human King Midalis will come forth. He is no coward, if it was indeed he who led the charges through the streets of this town.”

Again, Tuolonatl was taken aback by how much information had so quickly been passed on to Pixquicauh.

The high priest looked to Ataquixt, who stood beside Tuolonatl. “Take your mundunugu and begin fetching children. The younger, the better. Bring me a hundred. That will be a good start.”

“We have just tamed the city,” Tuolonatl argued. “You will send the humans back into a frenzy.”

“The more who die, the stronger becomes Scathmizzane,” the high priest quipped. “Perhaps if you slaughter enough of the beasts, our Glorious Gold will allow us a divine thrower after all.”

With a snicker that resonated with evil to Tuolonatl, the old augur turned and walked away, leaving Tuolonatl staring at St. Precious, trying not to imagine scores of little children being hung upside down and gutted.


“There are many outlets, most exiting into nondescript buildings, some into no more than hovels,” the knight explained to Midalis and the others. “The main tunnel goes down to the docks but comes out under the water before them.”

“The docks are heavily guarded, and the few boats remaining there are moored far out and also full of enemies,” said another. “That would be our best chance, but it will be difficult.”

“Their lizards are swift swimmers,” the first reminded.

Midalis chewed his lip and closed his eyes. There were several hundred people huddled within St. Precious. They had nowhere to run. Perhaps Midalis and a few of his skilled warriors and monks could get away, but not the others.

“Then we do that,” said Brother Ottavian. “We fight to the boats and flee. It is the only way.”

“You believe that we could free enough boats to take all of these people from the city?” Julian of the Evergreen growled.

“They can go out through the other exits and just melt in with the populace,” the monk replied. “The city is lost. Their homes are lost. They are caught by these sidhe monsters, whatever that might mean for them. Our being caught beside them does them no good deed.”

“The Church has grown soft since the De’Unneran Heresy,” Julian said, in less-than-complimentary tones, drawing a scowl from Ottavian and several other brothers.

Midalis took it all in—no option pleased him. Ottavian’s plan might be for the best, he thought, but before he could play it through in his head, he heard a voice from out in the street, calling him by name.

“King Midalis dan Ursal of Honce-the-Bear!” the speaker, a woman, called. “I would parlay with you now for the sake of your people.”

Midalis led the way to the room’s small windows and peered out, along with any who could crowd in for a glimpse.

A lone rider sat in the middle of the avenue, tall and beautiful, golden-skinned, with a bright red nose and brilliant blue stripes bordering it. Her hair bobbed about her shoulders, silken and smooth. Her form was lean but clearly strong and toned.

“Sidhe bitch,” one knight growled.

“Xoconai,” Midalis heard the young man, Bahdlahn, correct.

He had to agree with that, for this woman was no goblin. She sat on her mount, a beautiful pinto horse and no lizard, wearing a splendid breastplate of those rolled pieces of wood, all painted brightly. She carried a large black feather in her hair, sticking back from over her left ear.

“I am Tuolonatl,” she said. “This city is lost to you. I will have your surrender.”

The Allhearts about Midalis bristled, some cursing, one remarking, “How does this devil speak our tongue as if she was raised in Honce?”

“They are men, then,” another offered. “Their faces are painted.”

“It isn’t paint, nor a tattoo,” Julian answered definitively. “They are not men, none like we know, at least.”

“Xoconai,” Bahdlahn said again. “From the west, beyond the mountains.”

Xoconai, Midalis quietly mouthed.

“King Midalis dan Ursal, do you hear me?” the woman called. “If you do not hear me, we will make you hear me.” She turned her mount a bit, sweeping her arm out behind her to a host of xoconai.

Midalis’s eyes went wide when enemy warriors moved out from the crowd, each pushing a small child before him. Dozens and dozens came forward, children crying, people along the side streets wailing.

“Do you hear me, King Midalis?”

“I hear you,” he yelled back.

“You are lost. You have nowhere to run,” she said. “The city is ours. We are not without mercy, but mercy must be earned. I will have your surrender, without condition.”

She motioned for another rider, this one on a lizard, to come out beside her.

“Ataquixt will count to and call out each hundred. When ten have passed, if you have not come out the door of this monastery, the first child will be killed. Then another child with each subsequent hundred.”

“Monsters!” said one of the knights, and the cursing began anew, along with calls for a charge out of St. Precious.

Midalis turned from the window and bade them all to silence.

“Go, flee, all of you through the tunnels,” he told the knights and monks. “Find your way, fight your way.”

“Not without you, my king,” said Julian of the Evergreen, and a host of others agreed.

Outside, the xoconai man yelled out, “One hundred!”

“They want me,” King Midalis said. “Of course they do.” He searched about for a moment, then looked straight at Bahdlahn. “Tell me again, quickly, of these xoconai. They are not goblins. They do not murder for pleasure.”

“They are no different than the Usgar who enslaved me,” the young man answered. “They are not goblins. They are men, like us.”

Midalis nodded and motioned him to silence. He paused a moment.

“Two hundred!” came the call from outside.

“The city is lost,” he said. “I’ve nowhere to run. And I’ll not watch children slaughtered without—”

“They will kill them anyway!” one of the knights claimed.

“We do not know that,” said Midalis. “But we do know that they will kill them now. I have no doubt of that.”

“And you cannot allow that,” said Julian.

“No, I cannot. I will go out to them in surrender. Palmaris is lost. Ursal is lost.”

The knights all snapped to attention. “For the king, with the king!” one chanted, others joining in.

“I will go alone.”

“You will not,” said another.

“You will not!” Julian echoed.

Again, Midalis called for silence.

“Three hundred!” came the call from the street.

“The monks must leave, with all the gemstones they can find,” Midalis said. “Those treasures and secrets must not fall to our enemies.”

“Not all of us,” Brother Ottavian insisted. “For, in that case, our enemies would know of the escape. My brethren will flee with all of the most powerful Ring Stones. We will leave the minor stones here, enough for me to convince these sidhe or xoconai or whatever they are.”

Midalis stared at him for a short while, then nodded his agreement.

“And I will stay and stand by my king,” said Julian of the Evergreen.

“And I,” another Allheart said, rising determinedly.

“And I!” agreed another, and another, and all down the line.

Midalis shook his head and moved straight for Julian. “Not you,” he ordered. “You will leave, into the tunnel and into a house, any house, and you will get away from here in the dark of night and tell them. Go to Saint-Mere-Abelle and tell them. Go to Saint Gwendolyn-by-the-Sea and tell them. Go to Entel and tell them.” Midalis put his hands on the man’s shoulders, squaring up to him. “Go to Behren,” he said. “Go and find Brynn Dharielle, who rides the dragon Agradeleous. Go and tell her, and tell the Jhesta tu mystics. You, Julian of the Evergreen, you I charge with telling the world of what happened here and what happened in Ursal.”

He turned about, pulling Julian to Bahdlahn. “And take this man and tell them of the events in the west. This is my charge to you.”

Midalis released Julian and moved about the room, pointing to the younger Allhearts, ordering them to go with Julian.

“Warn the world of what is coming,” he commanded them all. “And keep alive that which is lost. You are the Allhearts. You serve Honce-the-Bear above all, above me.”

King Midalis took a last deep breath, closed his eyes.

“Six hundred!” called the xoconai in the street outside.

“Go, my dear Allhearts,” Midalis said. “Go now.”

A moment of silence followed, the selected knights bristling and shifting uncomfortably, the older knights, who would surrender beside their king, all staring and nodding.

“I hate that you did this to me,” Julian quietly admitted.

“I know,” Midalis replied, patting him on the shoulder, then warmly hugging him. “And that is why I know you will not disappoint me.” Then he whispered into Julian’s ear, more quietly, “Find my queen and protect her. Promise me.”

He felt the change in Julian’s frame, the man relaxing, surrendering. He pushed Julian back to arm’s length and saw on his face grim determination.

Yes, he had chosen correctly.

Off went the dozen selected Allhearts, the five other monks, and Bahdlahn, through the monastery and to the tunnels.

“What of the commoners?” one of the other knights asked the king.

“They surrender with us,” Midalis answered. “Let us hope that the young man’s description of these xoconai as more human than goblin proves true.”

“Seven hundred!” came the call outside.

“Let us go and shut up that annoying fool,” said Midalis, and he led the way to the front door and pushed it wide, then stepped out into the afternoon light.

“I am King Midalis of Honce-the-Bear,” he announced from the top of St. Precious’s large front stairway. “Do you speak for the xoconai, Tuolonatl?”

The woman on the horse nodded.

Midalis held back his knights and walked down the stairs, motioning for the woman to come to him. To his relief, she did, pacing her pinto up to the base of the steps, where she stared down at the king.

“How do you speak our tongue?” he asked.

“There are ways.”

Midalis chuckled.

“I will surrender the city of Palmaris,” he told her.

“It is lost to you in any case.”

“But my surrender will lessen the resistance, yes?”

Tuolonatl nodded.

“Then I ask something of you in return,” Midalis said.

“You are hardly in a position to bargain.”

“Mercy,” he said. “I ask you for mercy.”

“For you?”

“I care not for me. For my gallant knights. For the brothers of the Church. For the common folk. For the children.”

“You doubt me?”

“Not for a moment,” he replied. He offered a smile and a helpless shrug. “Are you not relieved that I came out before your friend over there reached a thousand?”

She looked confused at that.

“A hundred, ten times,” he explained. “Are you not glad that you did not have to slaughter a helpless child on the street to convince me?”

The strangely beautiful creature stared down at him from her seat, her face impassive, revealing nothing.

But Midalis had his answer, because if there was no honor in this enemy leader, she would have ordered a child murdered right then, to shatter the king’s illusions and steal his hope.

But she did not. She turned her horse and started slowly away.

“Bring them out, all of them,” she told him as she left. “Have them throw down their weapons and strip their armor. Any who do not will be dead before they step onto the street.”

Midalis found that he didn’t doubt that.


They came out quietly into the dark, wincing at every heavy footfall, every scrape of metal armor.

Brother Ottavian, who was of Palmaris and knew the lay of the land, led the way, scooting down narrow alleyways, moving ever north. That would be their best choice, they had decided while still in the tunnels, since the invaders had mostly come from the south.

Julian and Bahdlahn took up the back of the column, the Allheart looking often to the west, to the dark silhouette of St. Precious.

King Midalis was there, somewhere, in their grasp.

Julian could not imagine that his beloved King Midalis, a man who had become as a mentor and friend, would survive for long. He kept leaning toward St. Precious, veering that way for a step or two, as if being pulled by unheard cries.

Ottavian led them swift and sure, soon coming in sight of a small gate across a wide plaza, not far from the docks. A trio of xoconai milled about that gate, two sitting on lizards, the third leaning against the wall, her lizard sitting up on the top of the wall, its head very close to hers as she shared some food with it.

“We can charge right through them,” one knight offered, as Julian and Bahdlahn came up to the front of the group.

“But we’re very near the docks, and there are many more there who will come to any calls or sound of battle,” another replied.

“Is there another way?” Julian asked Ottavian.

The monk looked all about, nervously tapping his finger against his lips. He fished in his pockets for a specific gemstone, then focused on it for a bit and held it up to his eye. Slowly, he turned his head, first toward the docks, and then back to the south, and then west.

“The docks are full of sidhe, and they’re patrolling the wall,” he said, his expression grave. “And there are sidhe groups moving outside the wall as well.”

“Then where?” asked Julian, and the monk shrugged.

“Back to the tunnel,” Bahdlahn answered, and all looked his way. “We can collapse the entryway to the side tunnel, and even if the xoconai come down into the main tunnel, they won’t find us.”

“It could work,” one knight agreed.

“Collapsing the entrance to the side tunnel will be easy,” Ottavian added, and he held up a pale orange gemstone.

The whispers began all around, as they tried to figure out how they might gather some supplies and hole up—perhaps they could strike out from their hidey-hole and sting these enemies. Perhaps they could organize a resistance among the populace.

Julian of the Evergreen put his hands over his face and rubbed his cheeks, remembering the last commands of King Midalis—orders that he go to the east and spread the warning. How much good would he really do while crouched in a dirty tunnel?

“No,” he said, silencing all about him. “No. We’re going out, right through that gate, fast and hard. The king has commanded us to carry the news to the east and to get those most sacred and powerful Ring Stones far from this place. What can you do to help us, Brother Ottavian? What magic have you and your brethren at your hand to get us away from Palmaris?”

The monks went off and conferred by themselves for a bit, while the knights laid plans for a sudden and brutal takedown of the three sidhe.

“Follow, and quickly,” Ottavian said, rejoining the group and leading them back down the alleyway, then along a perpendicular corridor to the west, bringing them farther from the docks. He used his gemstone again at several places, Bahdlahn noted—and he knew the stone, too, for it was the same kind as in Talmadge’s lens, which the man used for seeing things far away.

Finally, a long while later, with the dark of night perilously close to allowing the first tinges of dawn, Ottavian stopped them between two large buildings, once again looking across a wide avenue, to some structures to the north and to another alleyway that led to the base of the wall. Up on that wall, they saw enemy soldiers, some riding, some walking, many holding torches and others holding some magical lights that seemed like sheets of metal.

Ottavian and another brother moved to the front, checking their gemstones.

“I need one strong man,” the monk told Julian, and before the knight could reply, he pointed to Bahdlahn.

Moments later, the two monks and Bahdlahn slipped quietly across the dark street, their forms blurred by the magic of Abellican diamonds, the Ring Stone that both gave and stole light. They moved down the alleyway to the wall, and there, Ottavian produced his orange stone again—like the one Aoleyn had set within the large wedstone on her hip, Bahdlahn realized.

“When I free a stone, you lift it out,” Ottavian whispered to Bahdlahn. “Brother Alfonse will help lighten it that you might set it on the ground.”

The monk called upon the citrine, then brought his hand to the wall and began marring the solid stone there as if it were thick clay. A few moments later, he shifted back and to the side, huffing and puffing, and motioned for Bahdlahn to be quick.

The powerful young man worked his hands into the lines Ottavian had cut and began rocking the large section of stone left and right, easing it toward him. It was enormously heavy, and Bahdlahn knew that he wouldn’t easily hoist it, particularly with his fingers on the side instead of beneath it.

True to Ottavian’s promise, though, Brother Alphonse then added a different magic, and Bahdlahn nodded as the stone greatly lightened. He slid it out from the wall much more easily then, catching it in his arms. Even with the telekinetic help from the monk and his malachite, Bahdlahn feared that his legs would buckle, for he was holding a section of stone three feet across, equally high, and quite thick as well, a stone that weighed more than twice his own considerable weight, easily—or would have, except for Brother Alphonse’s magical trick.

Bahdlahn managed to ease it to the ground with minimal noise.

Ottavian leaned into the newly formed alcove and went right back to work with the citrine, this time digging a hole in the center of the next block, pulling out chunks of it as if they were putty and handing them back to Bahdlahn. When Ottavian came out of the wall, Bahdlahn saw that he had bored a hole right through, one large enough to allow a man to squeeze out of Palmaris and to the dark field beyond.

“Go out and hold this place,” Ottavian told Bahdlahn. “We’ll bring the others across with the darkness shroud.”

Bahdlahn crawled in and through, rolling out onto the grass beyond. He held very still, glancing all about.

Not far from him, to the east, a xoconai warrior leaned against the wall.

Bahdlahn looked back through the hole. He thought that he could slip off into the night unnoticed, but he knew that the others, particularly the knights with their noisy armor, would never escape that sentry’s attention. He thought to go back through the hole and tell them to change the plan.

He thought to run off into the night.

In the end, he was creeping—not away, no, but toward that xoconai, hugging the base of the wall, moving inch by inch.

He heard a noise behind him, back at the hole in the wall. He started to glance back but then froze as the xoconai lifted his macana paddle and moved to investigate.

Bahdlahn crouched and held his breath. He wanted to scream. He felt his sweat, felt the tiny trembles shooting through his body.

The soldier wasn’t more than a step away!

Bahdlahn was shocked that he hadn’t been noticed. Perhaps he was thought to be just a mound of grass at the base of the wall, or a human corpse, someone killed in the attack on the city.

That last notion brought him anger, and that anger brought him courage. Bahdlahn leaped up right before the startled xoconai, and before the enemy could lift his macana, Bahdlahn grabbed him by the edge of the rolls of his strange wooden breastplate and flung him with all of his great strength to the right, smashing him face-first into the wall.

As the stunned warrior bounced back from the impact, Bahdlahn slugged him with a powerful hooking uppercut, catching him right under the chin, lifting him into the air, and sending him flying back and to the ground.

Bahdlahn fell upon him in a heartbeat, choking and squeezing his mouth, pressing with all his weight and all his might to keep the enemy quiet and still. The sentry struggled and managed a squeak, so Bahdlahn grabbed his throat and squeezed.

The xoconai fought wildly, but the man held on. Bahdlahn knew he was choking the life from the man. He didn’t want to do that! But if the xoconai called out, they’d all be cut down in short order.

The macana came up hard against Bahdlahn’s shoulder, its teeth cutting in superficially. Bahdlahn shifted his considerable weight, putting more of it directly atop the head and shoulders of the sentry.

The xoconai kicked and thrashed.

Bahdlahn squeezed tighter.

The xoconai managed only a couple more stifled gasps and grunts.

Trembling badly, both horrified and exhilarated, caught somewhere between victory and horror, Bahdlahn dropped the limp form to the grass and fell back. He rose, stumbled, and would have fallen, except that Julian was there to catch him.

Bahdlahn wanted to scream, to cry, to shout in denial.

But mostly, to cry.

He had killed a xoconai. Not a goblin, he knew. Not a monster, he knew.

Julian pulled him away. The others were through the hole in the wall, and Brother Ottavian worked his citrine once more to try to cover the breach as best he could.

A pair of knights hoisted the dead sentry and off the troupe went, into the night, across the fields north of Palmaris, with the monks guiding them by using the farseeing quartz crystal and shielding them with the shrouding darkness of their magical diamonds.


The sun rose on the conquered city of Palmaris. Xoconai columns roamed the streets, ordering the citizens out of their homes, sometimes pulling them out of their homes, directing them into the streets to hear the demands of their conquerors and to learn the new reality of Palmaris.

On a high platform built on the enormous square outside of St. Precious monastery, High Priest Pixquicauh addressed them all, his voice echoed by callers set strategically throughout the city, assuring them that the fighting was over.

“We are not unmerciful,” he told them. “We come with the word of Glorious Gold—you will learn the beauty of our god, the true god, Scathmizzane.”

He motioned, and the xoconai ranks below moved back, revealing King Midalis dan Ursal, stripped to the waist and bound to a large pole that had been set deep into the ground among the cobblestones.

A thousand gasps echoed around St. Precious Square.

“Look up at me, Midalis,” Pixquicauh ordered, and when the battered and broken man didn’t immediately respond, a xoconai warrior stepped over and yanked his head back.

“Pledge undying fealty to Glorious Gold,” Pixquicauh demanded.

“I pledge that I will not raise arms against—” Midalis began.

“Fealty! Name Scathmizzane as the one true god. Your god!”

Midalis stared up at him in obvious confusion.

Tuolonatl walked over and dismissed the soldier, forcing him away.

“Fealty!” Pixquicauh called down.

Tuolonatl moved before the king. “You know what you must do,” she said quietly.

“I cannot,” Midalis told her. “I hold faith in the teachings of Blessed Abelle.”

“And you would rather die than renounce your faith,” Tuolonatl said. “Yes, I know this and understand this, and even applaud this. But this is no longer about you.”

“You are defeated,” Pixquicauh called from above. “Pledge your undying fealty, indeed your love, to Glorious Gold!”

“No,” Midalis called back, and Pixquicauh mocked him with laughter.

And Tuolonatl sighed.

“Then I will murder before you every human in this city,” the high priest replied. “Each day. Every day, until they are all dead.”

The crowd shuddered as one, wails and cries and shouts of protest rising, the whole thing threatening to explode.

“He is not bluffing,” Tuolonatl explained. “If any now about this area try to revolt, the blood will be deep enough to cover your bare feet.”

“Fealty!” Pixquicauh yelled.

Of all the awful moments of King Midalis’s life, this was the worst. Even the Battle of St.-Mere-Abelle, where thousands had lain dead, paled beside the man’s current turmoil.

“This is not about you,” Tuolonatl told him again.

She might as well have added that Midalis’s fate was already sealed in any case, and he knew as much, of course. His mind whirled, trying to suppress the fear, trying to determine the righteous course and the correct course, which seemed disparate paths indeed. Which would be the better course?

“Bring forth—” Pixquicauh started to order, moving to the front of the platform.

“I pledge!” King Midalis shouted, and he called out, too, for his warriors, for his citizens, to hold back, to hold calm.

The high priest paused and turned that hideous skull face upon Midalis once more.

“You pledge fealty?”

“Yes.”

“You pledge your obedience to the xoconai, who have claimed this city as their own?”

“Yes,” he said through gritted teeth—for that was the only way he could stop them from chattering.

“You pledge your love to Glorious Gold?”

The utterly defeated, utterly broken man slumped then to the limit of his bindings and quietly replied, “Yes.”

“Good! Then you accept his judgment!” Pixquicauh announced. This time, he did not ask.

Time seemed to both slow down and speed up for Midalis at that terrible moment. The woman who had come to him to quietly speak with him, the great xoconai warrior named Tuolonatl, offered him a last nod, even a look of respect, then turned and walked away. A bunch of xoconai men dressed in robes swiftly moved past her and formed a circle about him.

As one, they lifted sheets of polished gold, like large shields, before them.

Up on the platform, another augur lifted a smaller sheet, holding it high and turning it to catch the morning sunlight and then reflect that beam down at the circle of augurs.

Midalis grimaced in pain as soon as the light hit the golden shields and was magnified a hundred times over in a brilliant glare that stole all other images.

The augurs began to chant and, as one, took a small step forward.

The heat intensified.

Another step. Midalis cried out in pain.

Another step, and another, and then more slowly, until the golden shields formed a solid circle about the king, and within that ring there was only light, blindingly bright, a singular white image.

And within that ring there came a singular sound: the screams of a man melting alive.

And then … silence, perfect silence, all about the square.

Up on the platform, the augur lowered his golden mirror. The circle of augurs moved away.

Where King Midalis had been, there was now only a crumble of blackened bones, piled in a puddle of black liquid.

“Will any choose to join him now?” Pixquicauh cried. “No? Then kneel, one and all, to the power of Glorious Gold!”

Tears and screams and shouted protests gradually gave way, the massive gathering falling to their knees.

Not all, though, the high priest saw from his high perch. “Bend the knee to Glorious Gold,” he called down one last time.

More lowered. A few did not.

Pixquicauh motioned to Tuolonatl, and she sent forth her mundunugu.

The defiant humans were brought forth, one by one, and were tied to the pole, which had survived the fiery light.

The augurs repeated their gruesome ritual.

It went on for a long while, and even those taken who changed their minds were offered no reprieve. When it was done, the pile of bones at the base of the pole could be counted only by the thirteen distinct skulls.

“Go forth to your homes and your work,” the high priest told the gathering, and the echoing augurs told the rest of the city. “You are the servants of Glorious Gold now, the servants of the xoconai. We are merciful masters—to those who obey.

“But know this, without any doubt,” he cried more loudly. “Know that we will kill a hundred of you for every xoconai who is assaulted.”

The crowd dispersed. The sun climbed higher in the sky, a clear day.

But to the folk of Palmaris, the darkest day of all.