“Then that leaves us,” Darius said. “The tower might cause us problems, but we know where Cyric will be five days from now, don’t we?”
“We do,” Porter said, pushing off the wall and slowly walking over to the diagram. “And that means a far smaller guard at the tower, too. I’ve learned a few tricks in my time, and my gut says if we’re to save Robert’s life, we’ll do it quick, do it quiet, and most importantly, do it my way.”
“And what way is that?” Darius asked him.
The old man grinned.
“The least honorable way possible, so long as it works.”
Jerico knew he’d only been out a moment or two, given that they were still dragging him toward the tents and wagons. A man held each arm, hoisting him from his armpits. His toes dragged across the ground.
“Morning,” he told them, still feeling groggy. They ignored his remark. Jerico wondered why they didn’t make him walk on his own, then realized his ankles were also bound with rope. Not much likelihood for escape. He looked to either side, but the soldiers holding him blocked his view. Where was Sandra? He thought to call out to her, but worried the guards might strike him again. His head already felt like it had split in half. Adding another few bruises sounded like a terrible idea.
But he called out for her anyway. Since when did he let a little unconsciousness get in his way?
“You still alive, Sandra?” he asked.
Sure enough, they beat him, but he heard a muffled ‘yes’ to his right, and he smiled through the pain.
They took him to the blank space between the third and fourth wagon, then looped another rope through his bindings and tied it to a wheel. The soldiers guarding Sandra placed her opposite him and bound her to the fourth wagon, this one by the gate across the back. A man slapped her face after she was tied, and she spat at him in return. Jerico saw the fear in her eyes, lurking behind the defiance, and tried to comfort her best he could.
“Such kind hosts,” he said, smiling at her, knowing with his bleeding lip and bruised face he must have looked a wreck. “Why’d you stay?”
She smiled back, and her lips trembled.
“I didn’t want to be alone.”
The revelry resumed about them, with even greater cheer. They’d caught a paladin of Ashhur, perhaps the last of their kind. Seemed a rather pathetic end to his order. He’d rather have gone out in a blaze of glory, slaughtering paladins of Karak by the dozens while the common folk cheered his name. Dying without his armor in empty wilderness after failing his heroic task of breaking a few wagons felt a little too far from that for his tastes. Not that he had a choice in the matter.
Jerico leaned against the wagon and closed his eyes.
“Good thing there’s room for failures in the Golden Eternity,” he muttered to himself.
“Will they kill us?” Sandra asked, having heard him.
Jerico started to answer when a dark paladin arrived. His weapon remained sheathed, but Jerico could see his desire to draw it.
“I thought we would have to scour all the dark corners of the world to find the last of your cowardly kind,” he said. “To think you came to us, instead.”
“Hate to be an inconvenience.”
The paladin smirked, then turned his attention to Sandra. He released her from the wagon, then dragged her to her feet.
“Luther will speak with you once he is done,” said the dark paladin. “We’ll see if your tongue is still so glib then.”
Sandra remained proud and said nothing, even though she was clearly frightened. Jerico wanted to comfort her, to prevent anything from harming her. But his arms were bound, and he had nothing but words.
“We are here only a little while,” he told her as the paladin cut the cords about her ankles so she could walk. “Close your eyes and pray. The pain will pass, I promise, it’ll pass...”
The dark paladin struck Jerico across the face, then grabbed Sandra’s arm.
“Save your words for when you have something useful to say,” he said to Jerico, then led Sandra away.
Jerico spat a glob of blood, leaned back against the wagon, and looked up at the stars.
“I messed up, didn’t I?” he asked them. He didn’t need Ashhur’s voice in his ears to know the answer to that one. Time crawled on, and he prayed that Sandra escaped torture and pain. She’d killed two of their soldiers, though, and traveled at his side. Whatever fate awaited her, he did not trust it to be kind.
When she returned, he sighed with relief. He saw no marks across her hands or face, and no blood on her clothes other than from the men she had killed. Death might await her still, but at least she was not yet tortured.
“On your feet, paladin,” said the man escorting her. “Luther would speak with you, and if you have any sense, you’ll treat him with respect.”
Jerico shifted onto his heels, then pushed himself to a stand. The dark paladin cut his ankles free, then led him to a large tent at the front of the caravan. Luther sat atop several cushions in the center. A small meal lay beside him on a plate.
“Hello Jerico,” Luther said, smiling as the dark paladin cut the ropes around Jerico’s wrists. “Yes, I know your name, for Sandra has told me much. Would you care for something to eat?”
“Not much in the mood for poisons,” he said.
“I’d ask if you truly thought I would stoop so low as to poison my own prisoner,” said Luther, setting aside the plate. “But then again, I am the vile, evil servant of Karak. I sacrifice infants and have sex with the dead. Is that not what you’ve been told your whole life?”
Jerico shrugged.
“Everything but the sex. Common knowledge at the Citadel was that all your priests have their testicles removed the first time they say an ill word about Karak.”
Luther dismissed the dark paladin and then gestured for Jerico to have a seat.
“Indeed, and at the Stronghold, the dark paladins talk often of the games your elders play with the orphans taken under their wing. But surely you can understand the lack of truth in these insults, the childish desire to turn a man with an opposing view into an inhuman enemy?”
Jerico sat, trying to keep his guard up. It felt odd having a priest of Karak treat him so...humanely.
“You’re unlike most priests I have met,” Jerico said. “And I think I will accept that plate.”
Luther handed it over. On it was a potato, already chopped into pieces and smothered with butter, along with a small assortment of boiled vegetables.
“No knife?” Jerico asked.
“Try not to insult my intelligence, paladin. Our meeting will progress better that way.”
“Had to ask.”
He popped a piece of potato in his mouth, licked the butter off his fingers, and then closed his eyes. It tasted so good, his hunger awoke with a fury.
“You say I am unlike the priests you have known,” Luther said as Jerico wolfed down the food. “But how many is that?”
Jerico paused a moment to think. The only priest of Karak he had actually known, for however brief a time, was Pheus.
“Just one,” he said. “I know that’s not a lot, but to be fair, he did try to kill me.”
“One man, yet you judge hundreds by him. That is your way, I suppose. But yes, there is a large portion of my sect that wishes nothing more than to eliminate your kind. I feel it largely unnecessary, for we were already taking the hearts and minds of Dezrel away from you. Sadly, I am in the minority.”
“You’re not helping your argument much,” Jerico said, finishing the plate.
Luther gave him a patronizing smile.
“Perhaps. But I say this so you know I do not lie, nor try to hide the failings of my order. The North is ours now, Jerico, and I will do everything in my power to keep it so. Lord Sebastian will prevail over Lord Arthur. You know this as well as I. Your presence here is simply...irrelevant.”
“Then why capture me?” Jerico asked. “Why speak to me, instead of putting a blade through my brain?”
Luther leaned closer, his hands together as if he were to pray.
“Because I am one who lives by what he believes. Did I not just say I thought our hunting of you unnecessary? I have no desire to create martyrs, Jerico. It is a funny thing, trying to eliminate any people or race. No matter how weak as a whole they are, the strong will emerge. There comes the rare survivor who cannot stop even unto death, and he is the most dangerous. Men who might have accomplished nothing in life are suddenly declared precious and heroic in death. I have no desire to kill you, nor do I fear for myself if I let you live.”
“Perhaps you’re right,” Jerico said, the tent suddenly feeling far colder. “But how do you know I’m not the strong that endures, the rare survivor who cannot stop even unto death? Because my friends often tell me how stubborn I am...”
Luther shook his head, just a little. Jerico sensed the mockery in it, the superiority. To the priest, Jerico was a child, foolish and rash, nothing more.
“I think you just might be, Jerico. But I also know I captured you with hardly a thought, and only a few casualties to my men. If you are the greatest threat Ashhur poses to us, then our war is already won. Like I said, Jerico...you are irrelevant. You can stop nothing. Destroy nothing. You hold faith in a dead god, and that faith blinds you to what this world has become.”
He stood, and Jerico did the same.
“And what is that?” he asked. “What has this world become?”
“Ours.”
Guards stepped in and took Jerico by the arm.
“Stay away from Arthur Hemman,” Luther said. “Go anywhere else, and try in vain to find meaning in the last years of your life. The damage you’ve done to our wagons will delay us for a few days at most. If you interfere again, I will not be so kind as I am tonight.”
“A priest of Karak, threatening to kill me?” asked Jerico. “Will wonders never cease?”
“Take him to the road,” Luther told the guards. “Kill him if he tries to return.”
“Wait,” Jerico said, pushing against the guards as they tried to remove him from the tent. “What about Sandra?”
Luther lifted an eyebrow.
“She stays with us. I know her full name, Jerico, who she is. Kaide Goldflint is the last player in this farce, and with his sister’s life on the line, it should be easy to manipulate him as I so desire.”
“If you lay a finger on her, I’ll..”
“You’ll what?” asked Luther, tilting his head to one side.
The corner of Jerico’s mouth twitched into a dangerous smile.
“I’ll be far less kind than tonight.”
Jerico flung aside the guards, sliding free of their grasps with ease. His fists struck one in the jaw, the other in the kidney. As they staggered back, Jerico turned to the priest, lunging with all his speed. It was not enough. Luther outstretched his fingers. Dark lightning shot from them, spiking through Jerico’s nerves. His body arched, his jaw clenched tight, and every muscle stretched to its limit. When the power faded, he dropped to his knees, completely exhausted.
“Get rid of him,” Luther said to his guards. “And Jerico, should I see you again, even hear rumors of your approach, I will sacrifice that whore to Karak. She’ll die naked, alone, and screaming in pain. Think on that the next time you would play the hero.”
More lightning arced across his body. Jerico endured as best he could. When the guards reached underneath his arms and lifted, he could not resist. Jerico glared at the priest, and there was no amusement anymore, no sarcasm.
“I’ll kill you,” he said as he was led from the room.
“A paladin of Ashhur, refusing to see reason?” asked Luther as the tent flap closed between them. “Will wonders never cease?”
16
When Darius flagged down the men in the boat, Valessa thought her moment of victory was finally at hand. The paladin handed over his blade, leaving him defenseless as he sat amid the soldiers. Valessa crept closer, watching, waiting. She could pass through solid trees as if they were smoke, so what protection could a boat be against her, especially when she did not even need to breathe? Submerged beneath the water’s surface, the men would have no warning of her approach.
And then she tried to enter the river.
When moving, when fighting, Valessa had to concentrate to become firm, corporeal. It came naturally with her feet, for she’d spent her whole life walking. It wasn’t much harder keeping her hands solid, but the rest of her body was another matter. Wearing clothes, or using her knee as a weapon, was far more difficult. But when her right foot dipped into the water, her mind recoiled with a horrible sensation of cold emptiness. The water was shifting, swirling, threatening to pull her away. She was shadow and smoke, she knew, and while the wind was something she could resist, the river was not.
Pulling free, she saw a shriveled stump where her leg should have been. Slowly, feeling returned, and while it hurt, at least it was not as terrible as enduring Ashhur’s light. Fighting down her panic, she told herself she still had all the time in the world. Darius would be their prisoner, yet those walls would mean nothing to her. Racing along the water’s edge, she followed the boat as it traveled upstream, toward one of their towers.
Except the tower was on the wrong side. They pulled their boat to shore and exited into the Wedge, while she remained in the opposite forest. There was no bridge.
“Damn you,” she whispered, trying to think. Perhaps she could not pass through water like she could wall or tree, but what about atop it? Closing her eyes, she gathered her concentration, then stepped again. Her foot remained firm when pressed against the water, which for the moment, held.
Light as air, she thought. I am as light as air. Light as a moth’s wing. Calm as a crow’s feather.
She stepped out, now both feet atop the water. Her balance shifted, and her concentration wavered. No good. The water was always in motion, the surface never the same. Her ankle sank, and as the water poured across her, she screamed. Flinging herself to the shore, she crawled free. On her stomach, she closed her eyes and waited for her body to heal. Again she wondered if her form were a blessing, or a curse. Rolling onto her back, she stared at the tower. Darius was inside, she knew, but how to get to him?
Looking to the skies, she saw the bright red star, wafts of its light shining down on the tower. Yet there was something more, and though she did not know why, she trembled. She had known its presence before, just a subtle kiss in the back of her mind, but now it was closer. A black star shone in the sky, darker than the night itself. Others might not see it, but she could. It pulsed in her mind, swallowing all other light.
Karak’s presence was upon Dezrel; it was strong, and it was near. Could she even go to it amid her failure?
When at last she could stand, she knew she had no other choice. It called to her, even stronger than the red.
“What is it you desire from me, my god?” she asked. “Who is it I am to meet that is so dear to you?”
She ran, careful not to stray too close to the water. Her eyes remained on the black star, and she passed through tree and rock without thought. Her daggers itched in her hands. If only she could give them blood to drink, and life to take. The moon dipped, the sun rose, yet even in the daylight the black star still shone, a pockmark on the blue sky. Who might it be? Whose presence left her enslaved to its call? She told herself it did not matter, that she trusted Karak fully...but the doubt still remained.
The day passed, and she saw no signs of life. Even though she made not a sound, the wild creatures sensed her approach and fled. The sunlight burned, but the trees were plentiful, and mostly guarded her from it. At last, as sunset came again, she reached where the black star shone down its darkness: the garrison of the Blood Tower. She thought to hide, but decided it was unnecessary. She could feel the presence of whomever the black star beckoned her to. If he was truly so powerful, she would not need to hide her allegiance.
Assuming her normal form, she approached th
e gate to the wall surrounding the tower. It was shut, and three soldiers stood above it on the wall, calling for her to halt.
“What is your name,” one asked, “and why do you come here?”
“I am to speak with he who is most faithful to Karak,” Valessa said.
This seemed to surprise them, for no doubt it was far from the answer they expected.
“Cyric is the embodiment of Karak’s will here,” said another of the men. “His duties are many, though, and I must ask the reason you would speak with him.”
Cyric...the very name gave her chills.
“I am Valessa of the gray sisters. I answer to none but the priests of Karak. Let me through, so I may speak to Cyric.”
The three debated with one another, then gave her their answer.
“Wait here, Valessa. We will find Cyric, and see if he will allow you to enter.”
Valessa rolled her eyes. She didn’t have the patience for this nonsense. She walked right through the outer gate, emerging on the other side. As the men stared down at her, their mouths agape, she blew them a kiss.
“Escort me, if you wish,” she told them. “But I will not be stopped.”
One of them grabbed his bow and loosed an arrow, which flew through her breast as if she were but an illusion. Another rushed down the steps, his sword drawn. Growling like a feral animal, she blocked the sword strike with a dagger, then stepped forward and clutched the soldier’s throat with her other hand.
“I do not mean him harm,” she said. “But I will harm you, if I so desire. Take me to Cyric.”
The soldier nodded, his eyes wide with fear.
“As you wish, milady,” he said.
“Good.” She let him go, and sent a glare to the man with the bow. “Lead on.”
They crossed the empty space to the tower, then walked around it to the other side. Two soldiers with pikes guarded the door, and they saluted at their arrival.
“Lady Valessa of the gray sisters wishes a word with our master,” the soldier told them. The guards exchanged a glance, then opened the door for her. Valessa followed her guide inside. They traversed the steps that wound along the inner walls, until stopping at a room near the top. The guard moved to knock, but Valessa pushed him aside and walked straight through the door.
Paladins: Book 03 - The Old Ways Page 16
