Velixar resumed poking the fire with his stick, talking all the while.
“Serve Karak through serving me. Even children can understand this concept. You have felt Karak’s fury, yet you still deny you failed him? Still believe that you know his true heart and will? You amuse me, Darius, as much as you disappoint me. Sit awhile with me by the fire.”
Reluctantly, Darius stabbed his sword into the dirt and did as he was asked. He swore the air grew colder around the prophet, and he felt his insides twist at their proximity. As he sat, Velixar pointed to the fire, where he’d drawn several runes with his stick. The flames swirled, deepened, and then suddenly opened onto a vision of another place, one also filled with shadows and fire. Standing amid a great chasm of men, his obsidian armor gleaming, was Temaryn. He wielded a flaming sword in one hand and a whip in the other.
“Do you see?” Velixar asked. “He rules in the Abyss, purifying the wretched given to our lord. I will not judge you for sending him to Karak, for his soul is secure, and he is in his place. You, however…”
Darius could not look away from the horrific image. This was the future awaiting his Order? Temaryn looked pleased enough, and he lashed the sinners with his whip while crying out for repentance and obedience. The vision changed, and he saw a hundred things that he could not remember the moment after they passed, only feel the lingering terror and anguish. Through it all, the dead marched, sang, and burned with clockwork precision. True to his god, the Abyss was a place of order above all things.
And then he saw himself, up to his knees in a lake of fire. He was naked, and bleeding from many open sores. A man in shining armor towered over him, his very skin wreathed in flame, his movements trailing shadow. Removing his helmet, this tormenter looked up from the vision and straight into Darius’s eyes. It was him, only stronger, more faithful. Darius cried out, and he tore his eyes away from the sight. Kicking his foot, he scattered the fire, ending its heat. In the sudden silence, a distant wolf howled.
“You must choose,” Velixar said, his voice barely above a whisper. “Only two fates await you, and you have seen them both. Pretend to wisdom, or bow to those with understanding. You will cleanse, or be the tormented. There is no other fate left.”
Velixar stood, stepped into the shadows of the forest, and then was gone. Darius sat there, feeling drained. Everything else he’d seen was already fading from his mind, all but that last image of himself—both versions. They stared up at him, one in pain, one lost in ecstasy. He could almost imagine them pleading for him to make the right choice …
Darius fell to his knees, bowed his head, and cried tears to his god. He begged for wisdom, he begged for guidance, but all he heard was the silence and the distant cry of a wolf.
CHAPTER TWO
Jerico stirred as blinding light hurt his eyes. Blocking it with a hand, he tried to decipher who stood at the door.
“To your feet, paladin,” he heard Kaide say.
Jerico stood, groaning as he did. His platemail groaned along with him. He wished to oil it down, but could not. He refused to even take it off. So far the other men hadn’t demanded it of him, and he didn’t want to risk losing it now. As he stepped out, still shielding his eyes, he realized it wasn’t daylight that hurt him, but burning torches at either side of his door.
“What is the hour?” he asked.
“The stars are out,” one of the two lugs grumbled behind him, still guarding the door. “What hour you think it is?”
Jerico turned and smiled at the yellow and red blob that his eyes showed.
“Ever so helpful, Griff.”
“It’s Adam.”
“Sorry, can’t see your scars too well.”
It seemed like Adam grinned, but then a sharp pain struck Jerico’s throat. He collapsed to one knee and coughed.
“Take his armor,” Kaide ordered as Jerico fought to regain his breath. “I don’t want it turning a blade should we need to subdue him.”
Jerico tensed, and he almost resisted. In the end, he knew it was pointless. Half-blind, hungry, and disorientated, he would prove no challenge. Lifting his arms, he let Adam tug at the straps, pulling his armor off.
“Careful,” he said. “You’ll dent it.”
“It seems dented enough by your own travels,” Kaide said as the breastplate thudded to the dirt. “You should feel better not carrying that around, anyway. Now follow me.”
Jerico’s sight was finally coming around, and he glanced about the forest dwellings. He saw the light of fires burning in several homes, and a few more outside in a ring. The sound of laughter met his ears, so he figured it couldn’t be too late into the night. The amount of people he heard and saw surprised him. At least a hundred formed this motley bunch.
“Did something happen to Sandra?” he asked as they returned to where the woman had been kept.
“Just be quiet,” Kaide insisted. He pulled the band from his hair, releasing the ponytail. Shaking his hair free, he sighed and put a hand on the door. “Behave yourself, and respond kindly. Sandra has woken, and she wishes to thank you.”
He pushed it open, then gestured for Jerico to enter. As he did, Kaide followed and shut the door behind them.
Already Sandra looked worlds better. Her arm was bandaged, its linen clean. She smiled at their entrance, confirming Jerico’s earlier suspicion about her beauty. Her room was lit by a fireplace, but it had dwindled down, allowing a chill to enter. Kaide took to tending it, as if he wanted no part of the proceedings.
“Are you the paladin?” Sandra asked. Her voice was thick with the northern accent, and it masked how tired she clearly was. Jerico nodded, trying to make sense of things. He’d been dragged from a windowless prison to be thanked? Would he be sent back afterward? Hardly seemed an appropriate reward, but Kaide had further plans for him, that was obvious. Would Sandra know any of it? No, of course not. She’d been out at the time of his capture, and he had a feeling her brother had not filled her in.
“I am,” Jerico said, bowing.
“Thank you,” she said, smiling. She sat up, tugging her blanket so it remained wrapped tight about her. “I doubt I’m worthy of such a noble gesture, though.”
“I bow to all beautiful women,” Jerico said, glancing at Kaide. Sure enough, he was glaring death, which made it all worthwhile.
If Sandra was flattered, she kept it in check.
“If you say. Please, sit by my bed. None of the men here, my brother included, are much use for conversation. Too dull, too focused. They haven’t seen the world. Have you?”
“I think you should get some rest,” Kaide interrupted. “The hour’s late, and—”
“I have slept for days,” Sandra said, glaring. “Please, give us our privacy. Or do you think a paladin of Ashhur will murder me in cold blood the same day he saved my life?”
Jerico found himself liking the woman more and more.
“So be it,” Kaide said, nearly growling with rage. He flung another log into the fire, not caring that he scattered it. Jerico waited until he left, chuckled, and then took Kaide’s place at getting it roaring.
“Don’t judge him too harshly,” she said. “He has a temper is all.”
“I don’t think that’s all,” Jerico said, gently pushing the errant log aside so he could layer on more kindling.
“I take it he blindfolded you before bringing you here?”
Jerico laughed.
“If you consider being dragged here unconscious in a net as blindfolded, then yes, I was.”
Sandra fell silent, and Jerico berated himself for his sharp tongue. It certainly wasn’t her fault. The fire finally going strong, he stood and closed his eyes, enjoying the warmth. His room had felt like ice when he’d been awoken. Dread filled his stomach as he thought of the coming night, without blankets or a fire.
“He’s keeping you in the windowless room, isn’t he?” she asked quietly.
“He is.”
“No fire, no blankets, and no bed?”
Jerico looked her in the eye.
“You seem familiar with your brother’s accommodations. I hope those who came before me all deserved the same treatment.”
Her neck flushed red.
“That was uncalled for,” she said. “I wished to thank you, and hear of the Citadel, the waters of the Gihon, and the peoples in the lands beyond Mordan. Yet you’d call me a jailor, instead?”
Jerico felt petty, but he was tired, grumpy, and unable to stop himself.
“You’re sister to one. And forgive my lack of tales, for my prison’s not as comfortable as yours, Sandra.”
She sat erect in her bed, her jaw trembling with anger.
“Get out,” she said.
Jerico rolled his eyes. There were a million ways he could have handled the situation better, but of course, he’d screwed them all up.
“Please, I’m sorry, it’s just…”
“I said out. Kaide!”
The door opened so fast Jerico wondered if the man had been pressing his ear against the other side. He held his dirks in hand, and seemed disappointed that he had no reason to use them.
“Let’s go,” he said, grabbing Jerico’s arm and pulling. “Back to your room.”
Jerico bowed once more to Sandra and then allowed himself to be led back to his prison. When inside, he shivered against the wall, enveloped once more in darkness. He tried to sleep, but could not. Even with how slow time crawled, it was not long before the door burst open.
“Yes?” Jerico asked.
“Off your ass,” Adam said. “Come on, now, hurry!”
With a blade pressed against his back, Jerico was pushed back into the night and toward another building. The door was opened, and they shoved him inside. Within was a bed, a fireplace, and a slender window too small for him to crawl through.
“Courtesy of the woman,” Adam said, shutting the door. He heard the sound of locking, then whistling as Adam wandered away. Jerico checked the bed for lice or fleas, and found none. Impressive.
“Well, Jerico,” the paladin said, finding it disturbingly easy to talk to himself given his lack of company. “It looks like you’re not that terrible at talking to women after all.”
He knew that was false, of course, but it was nice to pretend otherwise.
* * * * *
The following day passed full of tedium and boredom. Jerico ate his meals when they were brought to him, and filled the rest of his hours with exercise and prayer. He wanted both his muscles and his faith sharp should any chance at escape present itself. So far his captors didn’t seem to have any intention to kill him, so he remained patient. It wasn’t like he had anywhere else to go, not with dark priests and paladins scouring the North.
“There’s a disturbing thought,” Jerico muttered, thinking of Kaide selling him to someone from the Stronghold for a nice sack of gold. Or would he be worth only silver? Questions he’d never get adequate answers to. His personal pride wanted Karak’s servants hurling entire treasuries at people to bring him down, but that seemed unreasonable. Maybe just a few thousand gold. That’d at least be something worth bragging about.
Not that he had anyone to brag to. Adam and Griff alternated guard duty, broken up by the occasional third man named Barry. An impatient and ill-tempered man, Barry was actually the worst of the three. The twins, as he’d discovered, would at least joke around, however poorly, when he spoke to them through the hole in his door. Barry only shouted for him to shut up.
“Must you always be talking in there?” the man once asked around midday.
“I’m praying,” Jerico replied.
“Then pray into a pillow or something. Tired of hearing it!”
Jerico spent the next hour praying directly in front of the door, and his lamentations were loud and heartfelt. He even prayed for Barry’s soul, and only the iron will of a paladin kept him from breaking into laughter at the angry shouting that caused.
Come nightfall, he heard only silence. He wondered if they’d left him without a guard. No one answered his occasional question. Through the window, he saw the occasional person milling about, nearly all of them male. He wondered if Kaide recruited only unmarried men, or if they kept their families somewhere else, presumably safer. Jerico added that to the list of other questions he expected to never receive an answer to. The best information he could get out of Adam and Griff was their last name: Irons.
When the stars were at their fullest, the door opened without a single knock for warning. Sandra stepped inside, then closed the door behind her. Jerico sat on his bed, feeling ragged and dirty. It’d been days since he bathed, and despite the moderately improved living conditions, he was still not the cleanest. Brushing a hand through his hair, he smiled, then remembered to bow.
“Kaide still thinks you will run,” she said, as if struggling to think of something to say. “Will you?”
“Not going to lie. If I thought I could, I’d already be gone.”
“You haven’t tried breaking down the door, or digging through a wall. You’ve made no effort to escape. You speak in blusters.”
“How do you know?”
She smiled at him.
“Because you’re a paladin. That’s just not what you do, is it? Or have the stories I’ve heard all been a lie?”
Jerico shrugged. “Depends on what stories.”
“What about the one with you and the wolf-men?”
The paladin groaned.
“That one made it all the way up here?”
Sandra seemed intrigued by his annoyance. She sat in a chair beside his small fire, shifting her skirt to the side. Her dress was thick and cut high, practical for the rough terrain surrounding the area.
“I think all of Mordan will be talking about that one for a while, though the paladin’s name has changed several times. But I still think it is you.”
“And why’s that?”
“I’ve seen your shield.”
Jerico shrugged. Seemed pointless to argue it.
“I wasn’t alone,” he said. “And the men with me fought bravely, many dying to protect others. We fought a few hundred wolf-men, killed most, and chased the rest off. Meanwhile, more than half the town died. It wasn’t some epic victory, not the true version of the story, anyway.”
Sandra shifted in her seat.
“I liked the one I heard better. It described you as a man with hair made of fire, and a shield of pure light. You would point it at your enemies, and the light itself would strike them down. I heard not a man died, not a woman or child touched.”
Jerico thought of the horrors he’d seen, and the many graves he’d dug.
“I’d rather talk of something else,” he said.
“Like what?” she asked.
“Oh, why your brother’s keeping me captive. That might be a fun story to hear.”
Sandra rolled her eyes.
“That’s something I’d rather not talk about, either,” she said.
“Forgive me for pressing the issue anyway.”
Standing, Sandra looked away for a moment, as if collecting her thoughts.
“What do you know of Lord Sebastian Hemman?” she asked. At Jerico’s shrug, she continued. “Not many know anything about him outside our lands. By law, he rules much of the North. He draws his wealth from our fields, our mountains, and the sweat of our brow. When Kaide could take it no longer, when he was given no choice, he gathered his friends and struck back.”
“Fascinating,” Jerico said, trying not to sound condescending. “But what does this have to do with me?”
“You’ll see soon enough,” she said. “Kaide’s off chasing rumors of Sebastian’s knights traveling the road through the forest. You’ll be needed when they return.”
“Why did you come to talk to me?” Jerico asked before she could exit the door. “Is it guilt?”
A sad smile marred her beautiful face.
“I’m here because I wish things were different,” she said. “I’m here because I want you to know
we are not butchers, thieves, and cruel people.”
“You kidnap, rob, and attack men loyal to the king,” Jerico said. “Your brother breaks hundreds of laws. Oh, and his thugs beat me with clubs. Forgive me for not warming up to him.”
Sandra left, refusing to argue the point. Jerico slammed a fist against the wall when she was gone.
“Help me out, Ashhur,” he whispered. “I don’t have a damn clue what I’m doing.”
An hour or so passed, a disturbing silence compared to the previous day and night. All commotion had died down. Sandra said Kaide had gone after some of Hemman’s knights, and he must have taken the entire camp with him. If there was ever a time to escape, it was now.
“I want no part of this,” he said, leaning against the door. In the dark, he could see little through the slit. Still, there appeared no guard, and he heard no nearby noises. Putting his hands against the door, he tested the lock’s strength. It budged, but only a little. Stepping back, he kicked it once, twice, and then slammed his shoulder against it. The wood groaned, and the noise seemed thunderous in the quiet. Preparing another charge, he just barely stopped in time before impaling himself on the tip of a spike that pressed through the door’s slit.
“I must admit,” Sandra said from the other side. “I’m disappointed.”
“Move aside, Sandra. I won’t be kept prisoner.”
The metal tip remained.
“I have a bow as well,” she said. “Even if you kick down the door, you won’t escape. I’ve learned plenty from my brother, Jerico. I know the vital spots to kill a man. You aren’t leaving, not until he gives you his blessing. I’m sorry.”
Jerico sighed, and he slumped down into the chair Sandra had occupied. It seemed absurd, knowing he’d have to subdue a single woman to make his escape. But armed with a spear and a bow, she was quite capable of killing him. More importantly, he’d have to hurt her to protect himself, and that was something he wasn’t willing to do. To strike at a woman, just because he didn’t like his current sleeping accommodation? Hardly the actions of the champion of mankind he was supposed to be.
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