Knightfall: Book Four of the Nightlord series

by Garon Whited

  That was more difficult. There were so many more civilians than soldiers! Getting through the press of bodies was impossible; they kept shoving civilians forward toward me. The threat of death motivated the ones in back to push forward. The reality of dying caused the ones in front to push back.

  Fortunately, with a crowd of such size, they couldn’t afford the power expenditure required to protect everyone from my tendrils. I started lashing at unprotected people with tendrils, draining away their vitality. I used to have to really try to get deep into someone’s spiritual essence and start sucking out their soul. These days, it’s disturbingly easy. I took great care to only touch people lightly, to only get their vitality, making them tired, exhausted, and then unconscious.

  A wave of collapsing people spread slowly out from my position. Bronze reared, blowing a plume of fire into the sky and Firebrand pushed it, causing it to mushroom upward like a bomb cloud. It illuminated the whole of the former market square in a bloody light and made the collapsing wave of unconscious people—not dead, but nobody else knew that—much more visible.

  I boomed out the usual surrender-or-die challenge, but at considerably greater volume than mortal throats can generate. Firebrand echoed it on the psychic wavelengths.

  The market square they were using for a headquarters had several streets running in and out of it. People decided leaving the square was a very good idea and overran their own barricades in their efforts to get away from us.

  I was happy with it. We stood there and watched them run. Several white knights ran with them, a fact I found surprising. At least, it was surprising until I recalled many of them were hired mercenaries, not necessarily fanatical faithful willing to die for a belief.

  There were plenty of the faithful, however, still clustered around the building that used to be their temple. I could see the spiritual radiance shining out of it.

  At least they gave up on keeping their combination cannon fodder and human shields. Instead, they fought their way through the fleeing crowd and re-formed around the building, prepared to make a final stand. I noted several of the clergy with them, chanting.

  Interesting. They were protecting their men from my tendril-touch. Their powers might not be able to affect me directly, due to the divine-o-matic immunity, but as long as they don’t affect me directly, I guess it’s kosher.

  Bronze picked her way carefully through the crowd of collapsed civilians while the market square emptied. The last of the insurgents stared at us and prayed for protection. We stared back.

  Well? Firebrand demanded. Don’t stop now! Are we going to carve roast cleric or not?

  I think not.

  For the love of… why not?

  Because I still don’t want this to be a holy war. This is a political statement. The King has rescued his citizens. I don’t want it to be a thing where His Infernal Majesty challenged the Lord of Light.

  …politics? Firebrand asked, disgusted.

  Politics, I agreed, disgusted.

  Firebrand’s reply used language I would rather not repeat.

  I completely agree, I told it. Now that the non-faithful have a good head start, we can go.

  What about slaughtering everything that moves?

  We’ve killed how many hundreds of people in the last hour? Three hundred? Four? We wounded… what, four times as many? Some of whom are also going to die. I’d say we’ve done enough slaughter.

  You think that’s good enough?

  I’m still angry about a lot of things, I admitted, and this has been a good bout of murder, but killing more people isn’t going to help.

  Killing things always helps.

  Only if you’re a dragon.

  Or a nightlord.

  You’d think that, wouldn’t you? I replied. I nudged Bronze and she turned around. We walked away from the unconscious bodies and the dead, leaving the shining host puzzled and confused—and maybe a little bit relieved—at our backs.

  Our perimeter advanced rapidly, taking back street after street in short order. They locked down everything as they advanced, secured their new front line, and started searching everything. They found nothing hostile. They didn’t encounter any resistance—well, a few archers on rooftops who didn’t realize how badly things were going, that sort of stuff—no meaningful resistance until they were about two blocks away from the house the Church of Light used as a temple. The Glowsticks didn’t have the manpower to hold anything more.

  I left them to it. I did my part. They could arrest the rest of them. I rather liked the idea of the clergy being arrested by the town guards. It sent a much better message, at least as far as I was concerned.

  I went back to the Hall of Justice to work my way through a ton of prisoners and suspected criminals—which was pretty much the rest of my night. I hated it. It was like penance for my earlier brutality. As far as I was concerned, though, it was worth it. We made good progress on working out our system of trial-and-punishment through the trial-and-error method. It helped enormously that I could actually see whether or not the accused was guilty, so we had reliable data on which to base our improvements in the system.

  Rendal was as good as his word. In addition to the simple, yes-or-no cases of insurrectionists, some of his lieutenants had a dozen potential crooks lined up and ready for me. We already had several of the pentatio arrangements set up from earlier, so this was really a case of formalizing what we already worked out. I grabbed a couple of city guards and had them act as bailiffs. We walked through the introduction of the prisoner, the reading of charges, some testimony, judgment, and sentencing. It helped that the first guy actually was guilty.

  After forty or so more, I called a time-out and discussed what we were doing, making sure the participants understood their duties and functions. There’s nothing like examples to get the point across; everybody was clear on how it all worked.

  Then we ran through some what-if discussions on the previous cases. This was a bit more difficult. They don’t really have a good theory of jurisprudence around here. Usually, someone in authority passes judgment—the Baron, or someone he appointed as a judge—and that’s the end of it. Rules of evidence, eyewitness testimony, all of that stuff is optional.

  I’m trying to inspire some critical thinking skills. It’s kind of an uphill fight. I’m not sure I managed it, but, although the other pentatia flew through insurrection-prisoner cases, mine worked through the cases Rendal gave us more slowly. I had a lot of hypothetical questions after each one. Slowly, they were starting to demonstrate some grasp of the theory. I think they were getting the idea.

  Can I start a Church of Reason? I’ve met her. She’s an anthropomorphic personification, not a simulata—although I couldn’t tell you what the difference is. I’m not sure there is one. Still, if I did start such a church, would she grant critical thinking skills to the worshippers, or only to the priests? Can you worship logic like a religion? Religious belief is usually not terribly logical… but some people I know—or knew—had a blind faith in science. Hmm.

  In my free moments between examinations, I found time to hope Lotar was sweating in fear as badly as I sweat in the sunrise. I didn’t want him afraid of me, though. I wanted him afraid of being hauled in front of a court.

  I can’t make this personal. Rather, I must not make this personal.

  Tuesday, March 2nd

  Seldar resumed command when he woke up. His schedule is completely shot; he sleeps when he’s tired and works in between. I may have to insist he has breakfast and dinner with his wife and child. He might not thank me for it, but they would. Then again, I saw a smear of something on the side of the sand table. It was about the right height for Tallin’s hands. I know they visit. Maybe they have meals with him during lulls at work. I bet Tallin gets a kick out of the little army men marching over the sand table.

  The containment perimeter was now small enough to pack solid. To keep the insurrection contained, Maruk had few barricades in place, but plenty of troops. T
hey blew horns and pounded drums all night, did some light sniping, set off the occasional flashy or noisy spell, that sort of thing, to keep the defenders awake and tense. They might have killed or wounded a few guys, but that wasn’t the point.

  Seldar, once he was up to speed on the tactical situation, was all for sending in the knights and finishing the matter. He said so as we spoke in the CIC.

  “No,” I told him.

  “No?” he asked, surprised. “May I be granted the boon of understanding your reasoning, Your Majesty?”

  “Is that a polite way to ask me what the hell I’m thinking?”

  “In a word, yes.”

  “Good job. Yes, you may. I’m thinking I don’t want a lot of religious conflict, here. I’m trying to minimize the holy war overtones in all this. I don’t want the Knights of Shadow to defeat the Warriors of Light. I don’t even want to give this an air of major conflict by ordering the King’s Personal Guard to deal with it.”

  “I am still listening.”

  “What I want is for Lotar and all his accomplices to be arrested. I don’t want it to be a religion doing it, although priests will be involved. I want them tried for their crimes. I want them known as criminals, not holy warriors, not martyrs for their cause. The civil authority—people, mortal men, under the authority of secular rulers—arrested the high priest of a religion, took him into custody, and tried him. See what I’m after?”

  “I understand, Lord of Devious Schemes. Will not the presence of the priests run counter to that?” he asked. He glanced to one side. Carella and Tallin entered while we spoke. Aha!

  “Maybe,” I admitted, gesturing them to approach, “but I’ve got a fine line to walk between absolute temporal authority and the consequent alienation of all religions, and absolute submission to the will of the gods. Right now, men will arrest men for crimes against the State. It doesn’t really matter if they’re knights, mercenaries, or the High Priest of Mumbo-Jumbo God of the Congo. I want to minimize the impression this is anything but a matter for the police. Committing a crime because your god tells you to doesn’t get you off the hook.”

  “Perhaps we should arrest the gods,” Seldar said, chuckling. He stopped chuckling when he saw my face.

  “If I had a way to arrest and incarcerate one,” I told him, seriously, “some of them would be up on charges already.” In my heart, I wished for a Ghostbusters proton pack and containment grid. Maybe, if I analyze the energy type of the beings in question, I can start theorizing about how to contain one.

  I wonder. Is there a world out there, somewhere, that actually has this technology? Is it possible to capture one of the energy-state beings? Or… I don’t know. Ground it out, maybe, and weaken it enough to keep it small and inoffensive?

  Tallin interrupted my musings by hugging my knee. Seldar looked pained, but Carella was obviously amused.

  “I will see to the arrest of the priests immediately, Sire,” Seldar told me. He motioned at Tallin to let go, which he promptly ignored.

  “Take as long as you need,” I told him, and skritched Tallin’s head through his hair. He giggled. “Charge them with rioting, inciting to riot, disruption of city services, creating a public nuisance, obstructing traffic, unlawful restraint, kidnapping, armed insurrection, and all the rest. Just make sure the guards who do it have no affiliation with nor love for that particular church. This is important. Okay?”

  “I will discuss it with Rendal.”

  “Good.”

  I peeled Tallin off me by bribing him with another colored ball of light, kind of like a baseball-sized balloon. He chased it around the CIC while Seldar dealt with work and family. I made good my escape and went down to the fighting to check on the progress. Rendal met me there, looking grim, determined, and tired. Well, he was up most of the night, and at his age, too. I think he was hoping to finish things without anyone doing anything stupid. He was the Commander of the Guards, after all, and I’d put this stage of the job mostly on the Guards.

  By the time I reached him, the perimeter was down to a single building. Apparently, once you’re surrounded and besieged by overwhelming force, mercenary knights tend to take off their tabards and surrender. After all, there’s always another employer willing to give you gold for killing people, right?

  Wrong. They were in holding cells awaiting judgment. Being paid to perform unlawful acts is a crime on both sides—the guy paying you, and the fact you did it. The money is immaterial, and, if I have my way, will soon be regarded as not worth the risk. Word will get around.

  I put an instruction spell into the stonework, telling the mountain to put the area back into service as a city. It would be mostly sorted out in a few days, followed by some fine-tuning by the area residents for the next couple of weeks. In the meantime, however, I was interested in how the priests of the Lord of Light still managed to use their building when it was supposed to be sealed.

  As it turns out, the Church of Light retained some of their group spellcasting skills. They had special prayers—not really prayers, but spells that required a certain frame of mind, a group effort—and some of them apparently still used them. It’s one of the many areas of magic I haven’t investigated.

  The other thing they had going for them was the favor of their simulata. While they can’t direct its force at me, personally, they can direct it at the stone. They froze it in place, even forced it back in spots, keeping doors and windows open. At least, they managed it on the area they consecrated as “holy ground.” That’s another area of magic I haven’t yet come to understand.

  This wasn’t such a bad thing, really. It meant the City Guard had doors to work with. They went in with clubs and shields, bopped people with a grand disregard for clerical robes or declamatory oratory and dragged them out in irons. Some of the clerics fought, some of them prayed, some of them came quietly. There were some issues with blinding lights and a couple of scorching beams, but we had medics on standby and far more Guardsmen than were necessary. Very few police actions have failed due to excess manpower.

  My absolute favorite moment though, was when a pair of Guardsmen dragged Lotar out of the building and plopped him down in front of Commander Rendal.

  “Do you know who I am!?” Lotar demanded, glaring up at him, one eye starting to swell shut, a nasty bruise forming on the side of his jaw, struggling and rattling his chains. It was the most perfect straight line I’ve ever heard, and for one brief moment, I felt the deepest despair that Rendal might not answer it properly.

  “Yes, my lord Lotar. You are the man under arrest.”

  I’m a creature of darkness and shadows. Nonetheless, I’m pretty sure I beamed.

  Wednesday, March 3rd

  Things are finally starting to slow down a little.

  I’ve been busy sitting in non-stop judgment on the people found guilty by a bunch of pentatia. I didn’t anticipate how many of the things we could run in parallel. They also run in shifts and keep up a steady stream of people, processing them through and sending most of them back to their lives as innocent civilians.

  But there’s a steady stream of people found guilty of rebellion or treason or whatever the charge is. Those get sent to me for final disposition under the King’s Justice. I’d like to simply tell the Hall of Justice to handle it and leave me out, but we’re still in the beta-testing phase of the new trial system. I occasionally find someone has been sent to me by mistake. Then we have to go back, sort out how it happened, and fix it. It’s rare, but it does still happen.

  So far, the main problem is the way they ask questions. The pentatio assumes guilt and fails to ask any questions which don’t assume guilt. When you have a frightened, even panicky subject being asked leading questions, his answers might not be entirely accurate. Admittedly, he’s trying to tell the truth—and the priest of the Temple of Truth will verify it—but he is sometimes either confused or simply wrong.

  At least I’ve had a chance to give a couple of lectures on logic diagrams, decision trees,
critical thinking, and on the presumption of innocence. The last time I explained a lot of stuff to people, it was mostly about technology and it mostly didn’t take. I hope His Majesty the God-King made more of an impression on the subjects of right and wrong, guilt and innocence.

  Still, this leaves me with the duty of sorting through their would-be convicts. I’ve had a mirror brought in and set up. The show is live and connected to the Palace of Carrillon. I don’t know if Lissette is watching—or, for that matter, who else might be watching—but I’m trying to establish two things. First, I’m not the Demon King. Second, I’m not playing God; I’m playing King. I’ve got the fancy hat on to prove it, too. Future kings and queens might benefit from the experience.

  Even though it upset Beltar, I had to order all the grey sashes out. There are still knights present, but they’re red sashes—not formally affiliated with the Temple of Shadow—and they’re only present to assure the safety of the King. It’s usually Torvil or Kammen, but they always have a couple of partners. The actual handling of prisoners is done by the City Guard.

  I think Rendal is starting to get the hang of things. Or he’s getting the idea regarding the things I want the Guard to be and do. He’s been keeping things moving and watching closely. He’s never been stupid, just sometimes a bit slow to change his set ways. Now that he’s realized change is coming—whups, no, change is here! —he’s trying hard to adapt.

  Torvil and Kammen don’t much care how the legal proceedings go, but Seldar does. He’s been paying attention, taking notes, discussing the finer points of what-if with Nothar, Rendal, and Dantos, that sort of thing. I have high hopes for him. If he’s really interested, we might establish a High Court and allow appeals to it. He might wind up in position as Chief Counsel to the Crown, or Attorney General, or maybe just Cabinet Minister of Law and Justice. Someday, when I don’t need him as my Prime Minister, I might let him. Or Lissette might.