Hurn paused in his advance as he saw the utter despair and madness descend across Lorace’s face. He left the man to his terrors and raised the body of Tornin for a final killing blow from his sword. To Lorace, the scene of distant memory and current desperation overlapped perfectly.
“Let her go!” Lorace cried out and the world around him shook to the sound. In the force and fear of his cry the air before him shimmered and split. A tapering needle as long as his arm appeared, it rippled and reflected like water. The same needle had appeared before him in his memory. It was only motionless for an instant before it blasted unerringly through Hurn’s chest, to the demon it did nothing; the demon laughed at his attack and absorbed the energy of the child’s gift. Hurn, however, was flung back to die with a large round hole punched through his chest. His black blade rang like a hammer blow when it struck the bloody stone floor.
The memory faded, though Lorace struggled to reveal more of what transpired after his mysterious gift failed to affect the demon, it ended with the creature’s contemptuous laughter. His senses came back to the present when he heard a wheezing breath from Tornin’s crumpled form. He is not dead! He crawled forward and carefully lifted the broken and unconscious man. The guardsman was very heavy, but Lorace somehow found the strength to carry him down the stairs and out into the street, away from the gory room and the mess of Hurn’s body. In the street behind the gate, Lorace sat down cradling Tornin and cried out to the sleeping city for help.
His cries woke the candle maker who slept in the loft above his workshop. The disheveled man came out onto the dark street to see what was amiss and rushed over to the blood-covered young man holding the wounded guardsman.
“Please,” Lorace begged the man, his despair plain upon his face, “get help.”
The man ran off toward the south tower after only a moment of stunned shock. Other townsfolk began appearing and likewise ran off to seek aid. The few who remained asked Lorace what had happened, but he was inarticulate to them, lost in the despair of the memory of his parent’s death and a friend in his arms whose breathing was coming in ever weakening gasps. They gently moved Tornin’s limbs into a semblance of comfort and helped Lorace wipe blood from his face. Lorace remained locked in a small world that only included his memory of horror and the limp weight of his friend in his arms.
When a somewhat rumpled Captain Falraan arrived with Nordoc in tow that changed; her cry of alarm pierced the bubble of isolation Lorace had erected about himself. He pulled himself out of his own misery to look up with shame and fear, but she asked no questions and demanded nothing of him.
She knelt down beside Lorace and checked to see if Tornin was alive before she even spoke. When she found him still breathing her first command was for a guard she addressed as Rovinnan to fetch the priests. She climbed back to her feet with slow dread and surveyed the scene, tracking the trail of blood leading from the guardhouse entry. When her eyes alighted upon the Pilgrim’s Gate standing open, she ran forward and peered out to see a handful of black clad figures approaching across the field.
She turned back to call upon her steadfast sentry.
“Nordoc! Help me bar the gate, we are beset by foes,” she put her back to the heavy gate and shoved it closed, whereupon Nordoc dropped the stout bar into place. She went among the assembled guards and chose several of them to dispatch to alert and reinforce the Keth Gate and the River Gate. “The rest of you get to the walls and sound the bell. Now!”
The guardsmen jumped into action, some running up the stairs that Lorace had descended what seemed like ages ago, though the dawn had not yet lightened the sky.
Falraan returned and knelt again beside Lorace and Tornin. Anxiety and worry filled her eyes, not for the betrayal or the threat beyond the gate, only for Tornin.
“Lorace, what happened here? Whose blood is this on you both?” she asked with a calming authority that Lorace suspected was more to keep her own feelings subdued than to soothe him.
There were cries of alarm and horror from the first guardsmen to arrive in the barracks room above. To their credit, they did not retreat from the scene, but continued upward to the battlements, for a deep toned bell soon began ringing from above.
“Hurn is—was—a traitor,” Lorace said, trying to wipe more of the foul man’s blood out of Tornin’s face. “He slew the guardsmen in their beds and he threw Tornin against the walls until he broke. I killed Hurn; his body is up there with his victims.”
“Help me understand this, Lorace. Why did he do this? Who are those men out there?” she asked, pointing toward the gate.
“He said the city would fall today,” Lorace replied with a minimal shake of his head. “I think he was making sure that nobody would be alive at this gate to stop those men from entering Halversome.”
Summoned by the alarm bell, more guardsmen and armed citizens began to arrive at the gate.
“Lorace, I have to get up there and organize the defenses. Please stay with him, the priests should be here in moments. Pray they can restore him as will I,” her eyes glistened as she spoke, but she regained her faltering composure and became a leader of men once more. She led the newly arrived guardsmen into the wall and up to the battlements, leaving Lorace to hold gently to Tornin and nod to the words of comfort from the gathering citizens.
Lorace heard the cries of men beyond the gate as guardsmen on the wall began to fire crossbows down at them. He saw the black clad raiders in his mind’s eye as the bolts fell among them. They retreated from the closed and defended gate while the rose colored dawn began to brighten the eastern horizon.
Chapter 7
the word of aran
Twenty-Third day of the Moon of the Thief
-in Halversome
When the crowd of citizens parted around Lorace, he returned his attention to his immediate vicinity. Rovinnan had returned. He led a group of white robed men and women bearing an empty litter. Walking beside the returning guardsman was another white robed man, but he was wearing a heavy silver chain of square plates linked together to lie flat over his shoulders and down to the center of his chest. He was a large, burly man of about forty summers. His hair was white and cut very short and his face was rough and heavy featured with a large chin and nose, and deep set eyes that seem to pierce through Lorace at a glance.
With extreme care, the robed men lifted Tornin from Lorace’s arms and laid him upon the litter. Their leader, the man wearing the plated chain, spoke only sparingly to them while examining Tornin’s wounds, this man as well had a clear emotional attachment to the fallen guardsman. He knelt and laid both his hands upon the bloodied surcoat at Tornin’s chest, then closed his eyes in stillness and silence for a long moment. A golden glow began to brighten the dawn around the kneeling man. It intensified into his hands and spread down upon Tornin, suffusing him with light. Lorace climbed to his feet, wide eyed, as Tornin’s limbs straightened and the rips and gashes in his skin closed.
“Return Tornin to the temple,” the priest bade his fellows. “Lord Aran has mended him whole, now he will need to rest.”
Then the silver chained man turned to Lorace and looked him over, his heavy brows lowered in concern. The priest appeared to be looking through him somehow, seeing him in a way that none other had. Lorace’s first instinct was to shrink back, away from such scrutiny, but a tangible gentleness and trust flowed from the priest despite his heavy features. Lorace relaxed before the examination and a slow smile gradually replaced the heavy concern upon the priest’s face. “Exceptional! Are you well, pilgrim? There is a great deal of blood upon you but it is not yours.”
“I am not injured, just very shaken by what happened up there,” Lorace said with a nod toward the guardhouse entry. “Is Tornin really going to be all right? What you did for him was incredible.”
“He will be well once his body has regained its strength. I merely prayed to Lord Aran to heal him, it was he that performed the incredible. I am Oen, his humble priest.”
“Guardian Oen?” he asked with some surprise. “My name is Lorace. That man saved my life yesterday and fought bravely to try and stop Hurn, the murderer who injured him so. He has become my dearest friend.”
“Tornin is a dear friend to all of us, Lorace. He is an exceptional treasure in this city of priceless souls. We are all in debt to you for saving his life. If you are up to it, I would ask you return with me up there and tell me what happened.”
Lorace nodded to the man without hesitation and followed him back into the guardhouse doorway. When they climbed to the bloody scene, it remained as Lorace left it, none of the guardsmen had disturbed anything on their way up to the battlements.
“I was suspicious of Hurn when I met him yesterday,” Lorace said. “He struck me as dark in some way, but I never thought he was a man who could do what you see here, or I would have voiced my concern. He threw Tornin around this chamber like he was a child’s doll, and I had to act to stop him.”
Oen stood over the form of Hurn and noted the wound in his chest as Captain Falraan descended from the battlements.
“He is going to be fine, dear,” Oen answered her before she could voice her concern to him. “His spirit remains strong and Lord Aran has completely repaired his injuries.”
Captain Falraan hugged Oen tight in her obvious relief. Lorace smiled at their familiarity, remembering that she was the daughter of Oen’s brother. She broke away from him and turned toward Lorace with fire in her eyes. “So what did happen here? Leave nothing out.”
“Something made Hurn very strong,” Lorace explained. “His armor turned aside Tornin’s blow easily. He said something about his mistress equipping him well; I think it may be the black sword at his side that gave him the strength to break Tornin. He also mentioned that the wolves which Tornin slew yesterday were his. He was enjoying himself in hurting Tornin, relishing the pain he inflicted.”
Oen pointed down at the dark guardsman’s corpse. “How did Hurn die? I see a very big hole in his chest, but there is nothing here that seems to be able to make such a wound.”
Lorace’s voice cracked with emotion. “I did that, I do not know how, but I think it is my gift. When Hurn came toward me I panicked. All the bodies, the blood, it made me remember a scene from my childhood, and it just happened, just as it did then.”
“Why were you here?” Falraan asked. “I am glad you were, but you had no business coming here with Tornin.”
Lorace spoke slowly, watching their faces for doubt. “No, I saw what was happening from my room in the inn. I lay awake in my bed, and I imagined the city in my mind’s eye. I saw the changing of the guard upon the towers and other positions, but when I looked toward the Pilgrim’s Gate it was empty of everyone. I saw Tornin approach to begin his watch and my imagination followed him within this chamber where I saw the dead guardsmen. After that I got up from my bed and ran here, it was not until I arrived that I saw Hurn and heard him confess to the murders before he assaulted Tornin.”
Falraan looked to Oen with her eyebrows raised. The priest could merely shrug in reply. Neither of their faces showed doubt, only concern.
“I am not the Truthseeker,” Oen said, “but I do see that you have a very bright spirit, Lorace, one that is not darkened with the corruption of lies. It is my gift. I see the spirit of everyone around me, you do not lie.”
Lorace ducked his head. “Is your gift ever wrong?”
“I would say no, except that I did not see foulness within Hurn’s spirit either when he came to Halversome over a year ago as a pilgrim himself, the last pilgrim we have had in fact, since before your arrival yesterday.”
Captain Falraan gripped the priests arm. “Lorace saved not just Tornin, Uncle—an army of Zuxrans have scaled the cliffs to the south. I have just received word from our lookout on the south tower that four large black galleys, revealed in dawns light, lay at anchor below the south promontory. Hurn’s treachery was seeing that this gate was open and unguarded to the raiders. We would have been overrun and many more lives would have been lost if Lorace had not called for help.”
They both turned back toward Hurn’s corpse while Lorace remained standing at the stairway landing. “Let us see what else we can learn of this fiend,” Falraan said as she bent to pull off the remains of the guardsman’s surcoat. “I have heard that Zuxrans bear a mark of their service to Queen Ivrane.”
Lorace came forward to assist Oen in lifting the body and removing the traitor’s chainmail. They revealed a broken length of golden chain at the dead man’s throat and a black dragon tattoo on his left shoulder. The hole in his chest was perfectly round and large enough to stick an arm through without touching the sides of the gory wound.
“That is the black drake emblem of the Zuxra slavers,” Captain Falraan confirmed with anguish clear in her voice and the soft features of her face.
“This may have held an obfuscating ward of some kind,” Oen said holding up the length of gold chain. “On this and on his armor there is a fading residue of enchantment. I imagine that whatever it was is well destroyed from Lorace’s gift. For them to be able to plant an enemy of the light among us, it would require such a magic to allow him to pass my scrutiny. If your father, Lehan, had been here since the coming of Hurn, I am sure he would have seen the lie of such a ward and alerted us all to this threat. He would doubtless be able to tell us everything about this that eludes us.” Oen said this last with a touch of apprehension and sadness in his voice.
The priest reached out to pick up the black sword, but Lorace pulled back his arm. “It may be dangerous to handle.”
“I can see its magic,” Oen said with a grim nod. “It is not corrupt in and of itself, though it does radiate a strong spirit.”
“It is a living thing?”
“No. When something has a magic force behind it, my gift reveals that to me as well, such magic appears as most living spirits, only it does not carry the vibrancy of life.”
Guardian Oen lifted Hurn’s black sword with an experienced hand. “This was the source of his strength. I can feel its power flowing through me, a potent weapon indeed.”
He returned the blade to its sheath which was removed from Hurn prior to stripping his coat off and handed it over to Falraan.
“Let us get out of here,” she said with unveiled disgust at the room’s dreadful carnage. “I will send a detail to clean this up while I inform the families of these men and women of their sacrifice in our defense. Lorace, you should go to the temple and get cleaned up yourself; you are covered in blood.”
“Are the Zuxrans a danger?” Lorace asked before turning toward the stairs to leave the chamber.
“They come to the shores of Erenar only rarely, but their raiders have always been a danger at sea. I will personally see this entire force of theirs burn if they become a genuine threat to the safety of this city,” she said this last with her blue eyes flaring fire and determination.
Oen and Lorace descended from the guard room and exited before the gathering crowd of citizens.
The Guardian of Halversome took a moment to stand before them. “There is an army of Zuxrans beyond our walls,” his deep voice carried to all present, “and we have lost a few dear people to treachery, but with the aid of this man, our most recent pilgrim, Lorace, that treachery was halted before any further harm was done to us. I ask you all to have faith in your guardsmen and in our unassailable walls, we are safe and secure here. The enemy without will not harm us, soon they will withdraw or doom themselves in an assault, in either instance we will prevail without further harm.”
Oen walked among them, clasping hands and embracing a few of them, spreading his assurance to any of those who showed signs of fear. Before long, he was leading Lorace back through the fully roused city.
Lorace told Oen his story as they walked through Halversome in the early morning light. When Oen asked about the godstone, Lorace opened his satchel and lifted out the metal sphere, but held it well back out of danger of any accidental contact w
ith the priest.
“Have you recovered any other memories?” Oen asked between nods of greeting to the citizens upon the street.
“I remembered my parent’s death at the hands of a demon. My mother’s name was Fara and my father was Veladis, I believe they were members of a religious order of knights. The bodies I saw were well armored. I also remember a statue of a goddess in the main hall of our home.”
“She could be one of several different Old Gods,” Oen gestured with his broad hands like he was bracketing several unseen figures. “Most likely the Lady of Destiny, for she is known to employ paladins and heroes. My brother and I used to be devotees of the Warrior, before we learned of the Word of Aran.”
Lorace nodded to himself as Oen’s words explained his evident comfort with a sword in his hand. Neither the mention of the Old Gods nor the naming of two of them struck any chords of memory.
“Can you tell me of Lord Aran?”
“I can tell you a great deal,” Oen said with a warm chuckle. Lorace was impressed at how unaffected the man was by the gore death, and so comfortable in the security of his city and its protectors.
He led them through the open entry to the Temple of Aran. “Let us get you cleaned up and fed first.”
Oen gathered his priests, over a dozen men and women of various ages, and informed them of the Zuxran army beyond the wall and introduced them to Lorace, giving him the credit for thwarting this surprise attack. He dispatched several of them back to the south gate to watch over the men on the wall. He sent several others to go out among the people of Halversome and inform them, calm their fears and help organize relief forces of willing citizens for the guardsmen at the wall.
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