by David Weber
“I see,” Wyllyms said slowly. It was obvious to Schahl that the lieutenant’s instincts were at war with his advice. That was unfortunate. Still, Wyllyms had already demonstrated his deference to the cloth, and Schahl reached up and casually adjusted his priest’s cap.
“As I say, my son, I’m no soldier, but I’m afraid I really must insist in this instance.” Wyllyms stiffened slightly, and Schahl patted him on the shoulder with a fatherly air. “There are elements of the situation of which you’re not aware, my son. Please, just trust me in this.”
“Of course, Father,” Wyllyms said after a moment, and began whispering orders to his sergeants.
Schahl stood back, listening and nodding in approval while his right hand crept into the side pocket of his cassock and touched the smooth, curved wooden grip of the pistol Bishop Mytchail had provided.
* * *
Tobys Raimair reached the bottom of the trail and dismounted. The basin below the fall was much larger than he’d thought it was looking down into the darkness from above. It extended well away from the rumbling smother of foam where the water crashed down into it, and he led his weary horse to the edge of the wind- and current-ruffled pool, enjoying the blowing mist and letting the beast drink but keeping one eye on it to make sure it didn’t drink too much. His other eye was on the trail, watching the others make their way down it—slowly and carefully, despite the moonlight—and he allowed himself a sense of cautious optimism.
Still, something didn’t quite smell right. He couldn’t put his finger on what it was, but there was something.…
You really are an old woman tonight, aren’t you? he asked himself sardonically. You’ll find something to worry about, no matter what!
That might very well be true, but it didn’t do anything about that itch he couldn’t quite scratch. Perhaps it was just that the Charisians didn’t seem to have reached the rendezvous point. Well, Seijin Merlin had warned them how far the boats had to come, so it was hardly surprising they hadn’t arrived yet. In fact, the truth was that even with Merlin being forced to lead off the pursuit, this entire operation had gone far more smoothly than Raimair would have believed possible after a lifetime in the Army. Something always went wrong. That was the soldier’s wisdom, and it had never yet failed him.
He grinned, shaking his head, then looked up as Princess Irys reached the bottom with Daivyn before her. Earl Coris was right behind her. The rest of the men followed in single column, with Zhak Mahrys, Rahzhyr Wahltahrs, and Traivahr Zhadwail bringing up the rear.
“Go ahead and dismount, Your Highness,” he said quietly as the princess reached him. “We should probably rest the horses again before we head on downriver. Besides, I’d like to let the moon get a little higher. It’s pretty rocky down here, and the horses’ll need all the moonlight we can get if they’re not going to break a leg.”
“Won’t that make us more visible?” Irys asked. It was a question, not an argument or a criticism, Raimair observed, and nodded back to her.
“Aye, Your Highness, it will,” he agreed. “Still and all, I think we’re probably past them now, given the seijin’s diversion. And, truth be told, I think it’s a lot more likely a tired horse is going to put a foot wrong in bad light than that we’re suddenly going to be ambushed by a batch of Delferahkan dragoons.”
“Sounds sensible to me, Tobys,” Coris agreed, dismounting as he reached the sergeant’s side. “And—”
“Stand where you are!” a voice shouted suddenly out of the darkness. “Throw down your weapons!”
* * *
Young Wyllyms had really done quite well, Schahl observed. It was a pity, in so many ways, that Bishop Mytchail’s instructions left him with no alternative.
“—down your weapons!” the lieutenant shouted, and Schahl heard his two sergeants ordering their men to advance cautiously. The Corisandians were frozen, standing as if struck to stone by the totally unexpected ambush. They obviously had no idea how many men Wyllyms had. If they’d realized how understrength the lieutenant’s platoon actually was, they might have shown more fight. As it was, Wyllyms’ ambush was about to become a brilliant success.
And that, unfortunately, could not be permitted.
The Schuelerite quietly drew the pistol from inside his cassock. He’d never used one of the Charisian-invented weapons before, but it wasn’t all that complicated, and he cocked it as he stepped up close behind the lieutenant.
“It worked, Father!” Wyllyms said exuberantly. “You were right—this is perfect!”
“I’m happy for you, my son,” Schahl said, and then pressed the muzzle of the pistol against the back of the young man’s skull and pulled the trigger.
* * *
Tobys Raimair stood frozen by the shock of the sudden shout, cursing himself for not having listened to that inner instinct. He should have listened! And how had he missed spotting the damned slow matches? They were coming out into the open now, glowing like blink-lizards, but he’d never even seen a thing before they did! He hadn’t paid even that much attention to his job, had he? Oh, no, not him! Instead, he’d let the girl and her brother walk straight into it, and now—
Then the gunshot roared in the darkness, and the blinding muzzle flash and echoing report jerked him out of his funk. He turned towards Irys, both arms reaching out, gathered her and her brother to his chest, and flung all three of them not to the ground, but into the pool below the waterfall.
* * *
“They’ve shot the Lieutenant!” Schahl bellowed, tossing the empty pistol into the river and grimacing distastefully at the blood and bits of brain matter which had blown back over his cassock. “They’ve shot the Lieutenant!” He drew a deep breath. “Kill the heretics!”
* * *
“Down! Everybody down!” Phylyp Ahzgood shouted as he heard the three-word command and knew—somehow he knew—it had come from an inquisitor’s throat. Worse, the troopers out there in the dark would know the same thing, and the bone-deep reflex of obedience to the voice of Mother Church would finish what confusion had begun.
A matchlock flashed, thundering in the darkness. Langhorne only knew where the ball had gone, but another fired, and then another. Inaccurate at the best of times, it would take a special miracle for one of them to hit someone at this range under these conditions, but matchlocks weren’t the only weapons dragoons carried, and Coris knew what was coming.
Why God? a voice demanded bitterly deep inside him. Why did You let us come this far only to fail now?
God didn’t reply. Or not immediately, at any rate. But then—
“Take ’em, lads!” another voice shouted, and someone cried out in alarm, then screamed in anguish.
“Zhaksyn, make sure none of them get past us!” that same voice shouted—an extraordinarily young voice, Coris realized, but one which carried a hard ring of command.
Another matchlock fired, and then there was a different sound—a flintlock. A fresh muzzle flash stabbed the night, and suddenly half a dozen flintlocks went off almost as one, firing from the hillsides, upslope from and on either side of the dragoons who’d been hidden in the woods.
“Bayonets!” that voice yelled out of the darkness. “Up and in, boys! Up and in!” it shouted, and the night was abruptly ugly with the clash of metal, the terrible wet sounds of steel driving into human flesh, with screams and curses.
“Quarter!” someone bawled suddenly. “Quarter! Sweet Langhorne! Quarter!”
And then, that abruptly, it was over.
Silence fell, broken only by the crash and surge of the waterfall and the whimpers of the wounded, and Coris stood very slowly in the fragile stillness. Other sounds began returning to the night, as if creeping cautiously back into it, and he heard rough, sharp voices ordering surrendered men to their feet, herding them together, taking their weapons. It would, he decided, be prudent to remain where he was and avoid any … misunderstandings until that process was completed, and his eyes narrowed as someone stepped out of the darkness
into the moonlight.
It was difficult to be certain in such poor light, but the newcomer certainly looked as if he wore the uniform of a Charisian naval officer, although it was obviously somewhat the worse for wear. He paused and cleaned his sword on the tunic of a fallen dragoon, then sheathed the weapon with smooth, economical grace. Coris was still staring at him when he heard a splashing sound.
“If you don’t mind, Phylyp,” Irys Daykyn said tartly, her teeth chattering slightly, “I’d really appreciate a hand.”
He turned quickly, reaching down to take Daivyn as she and Raimair boosted the shivering, obviously frightened boy out of the icy mountain water. The prince flung his arms around Coris’ neck, clinging tightly, and the earl patted his back reassuringly.
“It’s all right, Daivyn. It’s all right now,” he said soothingly.
“I know,” Daivyn said in a tight voice, and nodded once, convulsively, but he never relaxed his hold, and Coris looked helplessly down at Irys over her brother’s shoulder.
“Allow me, Your Highness,” someone else said in a pronounced Charisian accent, and the newcomer in the naval uniform was suddenly beside him, reaching down both hands to Irys. She looked up at him for a moment, then reached to take the offered hands. The Charisian wasn’t especially tall or broad-shouldered, but he boosted her effortlessly out of the water. Then he reached down again and hoisted Tobys Raimair out, as well.
“That was quick thinking, getting them below ground level that way when the shooting started,” he congratulated the sergeant. It was still a ridiculously young-sounding voice, Coris decided, but it was also crisp and decisive. A very reassuring voice, all things taken together.
“Excuse me,” its owner continued, turning back to Coris, Irys, and Daivyn. He bowed gracefully. “Lieutenant Aplyn-Ahrmahk, Imperial Charisian Navy, at your service. If you’re ready to go, I have two boats waiting about a mile downstream from here. It’ll be a little crowded,” teeth gleamed faintly in the moonlight which was finally probing into the darkness at the foot of the waterfall, “but I believe you’ll find the accommodations preferable to these.”
“I believe you’re right, Lieutenant,” Coris said gratefully. “In fact—”
“Beg pardon, Sir,” another voice interrupted, and Aplyn-Ahrmahk—and did that name indicate this youngster was who Coris thought he was?—turned towards the interruption with a frown.
“What is it, Mahlyk?” he asked in a no-nonsense tone.
“Beg pardon for interrupting, Sir,” the other voice belonged to what could only be a professional Charisian petty officer, “but I think this is important.”
“And what, exactly, is ‘this’?” Aplyn-Ahrmahk prompted.
“Well, Sir, Zhaksyn put the arm on this priest here when he tried to scamper off downstream,” the petty officer said, dragging a prisoner into the moonlight. “And we found the officer in command of this here ambush, too, Sir. Seems somebody”—the petty officer kicked the prisoner to his knees, and Coris saw the priest’s cap and cassock—“blowed the poor bastard’s—beg pardon for the language, Your Highness”—he bobbed Irys a brief bow—“blowed the poor bastard’s brains out. ’Twasn’t any of us, because from the powder burns, whoever it was shot him from behind and real up close and personal, like. And a funny thing, Sir, but this here priest? He’s got blood and brains splashed all over his right arm.”
“Does he now?” Aplyn-Ahrmahk said in a deadly soft voice.
“I’m a priest of Mother Church!” the captive thundered suddenly, surging up as he started back to his feet. “How dare you—?!”
He went back down again, this time squealing in pain, as the petty officer casually, and with brutal efficiency, stamped down—hard—on the back of his right knee.
“A priest, are you?” Aplyn-Ahrmahk said in that same deadly voice. “And a servant of the Inquisition, no doubt?”
“A priest of any order is still a priest of God!” the prostrate cleric shouted furiously, both hands clutching at the back of his knee. “And he who lays a hand on any priest of God is guilty of blasphemy!”
“An inquisitor, all right,” Aplyn-Ahrmahk said, and looked past the petty officer still standing over the Schuelerite. “Zhaksyn, go find me the senior prisoner. Bring him here.”
“Aye, Sir.”
“I tell you, you’re all—!” the priest began again, and Aplyn-Ahrmahk looked at the petty officer.
“Mahlyk?” he said quietly.
“My pleasure, Sir,” the petty officer said, and kicked the priest none too gently in the belly. The inquisitor doubled up into a ball with a shrill, whistling cry of pain and then lay grunting and gasping for breath while the petty officer watched him with a mildly interested air.
The priest was just starting to get his breath back when the man named Zhaksyn returned with a Delferahkan dragoon. The man had been wounded, and a rough dressing around his upper left arm was stained black with blood in the moonlight, but the shock of such abrupt defeat when victory had seemed certain was obviously more debilitating than any sword cut.
“This here’s the senior sergeant, near as I can tell, Sir,” Zhaksyn said.
“Thank you.” Aplyn-Ahrmahk turned to the Delferahkan. “Are you the senior prisoner?” he asked.
“Aye, that I am … Sir,” the Delferahkan said. “Leastwise, I am if the Lieutenant’s really dead.”
“Oh, he’s dead, mate,” the petty officer said. “Shot in the back of the head, and from real close, too.”
“What?” The Delferahkan looked back and forth between Aplyn-Ahrmahk and the petty officer. “That don’t make no sense … Sir. The Lieutenant, he was behind us. And the Father said he was dead before any of you lot started shooting from the hills! I thought the shot had to come from here.”
He jabbed the index finger of his good hand at the rocky edge of the pool.
“That’s exactly what you were supposed to think, Sergeant,” Aplyn-Ahrmahk said grimly. “This Schuelerite bastard murdered your lieutenant in order to turn what should have been an orderly surrender into a massacre. And it would have worked if we hadn’t already been here keeping an eye on things—and you—when your lot first arrived, wouldn’t it?”
“Well, I don’t know as how—” the sergeant began uncomfortably, then stopped. “Aye, Sir,” he admitted in a lower voice. “Aye, it would’ve, that it surely would.”
“This is all lies!” the priest sputtered suddenly, still more than a little breathless from that kick in the belly. “Lies by heretics and blasphemers—by excommunicates! Sergeant, you can’t take their word for this! Why, it probably was one of them, deliberately shooting poor Lieutenant Wyllyms down from ambush without warning, just to discredit me! Is it my fault I was standing so close to him I was splashed with his blood when they killed him?!”
The sergeant looked down at the priest for a moment, then met Aplyn-Ahrmahk’s eyes in the moonlight.
“He weren’t the very smartest officer nor I ever served under, the Lieutenant,” he said, “but he were a good lad, an’ he always tried to do what was right. Didn’t always manage it, but he tried, Sir. And in a fair fight, all the holes would’ve been in the front, not the back like this. It ain’t right, Sir.” He shook his head, his voice stubborn. “It ain’t right.”
“No, it isn’t, Sergeant,” Aplyn-Ahrmahk agreed. “So I have only one more question for you.”
“Sir?” the Delferahkan said a bit cautiously.
“This man is obviously a Schuelerite,” Aplyn-Ahrmahk said. “Can you confirm that he’s also an inquisitor?”
“Aye, Sir,” the Delferahkan replied. “That he is. Attached to Colonel Tahlyvyr special by Bishop Mytchail. Heard him telling the Colonel myself, I did.”
“Think what you’re doing, Sergeant!” the priest snapped. “By God, I’ll see you put to the Punishment for collaborating with heretics! I’ll—”
The Delferahkan flinched, but then his shoulders hunched stubbornly and he glared down at the priest.
; “He’s an inquisitor, Sir,” he said firmly. “Sure as sure.”
“Thank you, Sergeant.” Aplyn-Ahrmahk nodded to the Delferahkan, then looked at the petty officer. “Stand him up, Mahlyk,” he said flatly.
“Waste of good sweat, Sir,” the petty officer said. “He’ll only be back down in a minute or two.”
“Even an inquisitor should have the chance to die on his feet, Stywyrt,” Aplyn-Ahrmahk replied in a voice of iron.
“What?” The priest stared up at him in shock. “What did you just say?”
“You and your friend Clyntahn should pay more attention to proclamations coming out of Tellesberg,” Aplyn-Ahrmahk said coldly. “Some of those men you tortured and butchered in Zion were friends of mine, and every damned one of them was innocent. Well, the blood on your cassock says you’re not, and my Emperor and Empress’ policy where inquisitors are concerned is very clear.”
“You can’t be—I mean, I’m a priest! A priest of Mother Church! You can’t just—”
“I know priests,” Aplyn-Ahrmahk told him as Stywyrt Mahlyk hauled him to his feet by the collar of his cassock. “I even know a Schuelerite priest—a good one, the kind who truly serves God. And that’s how I know you aren’t one, whatever that fat, greedy bastard in Zion might say.” He drew a pistol from his belt and cocked it. “If you want to make your peace with God, you have thirty seconds.”
“Damn you! Who do you think you are to threaten a consecrated priest of God! You wouldn’t dare—!”
“You don’t want to make peace?” Aplyn-Ahrmahk said. “Fine.”
His hand rose, his finger squeezed, and Dahnyvyn Schahl’s eyes were just starting to widen in disbelieving terror when his head disintegrated. The body dropped like a sring-cut puppet, and Aplyn-Ahrmahk turned to Earl Coris and Princess Irys.
