Ashhur listened patiently, his radiant eyes gazing at the clouds that gathered over the purple outline of the mountains in the west. When the tale was finished, they both sat in silence. The outside world seemed distant, as if Ashhur had wrapped him in a protective bubble that nothing but the love of the deity could penetrate. The only sounds he could hear were the beating of his own heart and the intake of his breath.
“Dreams can be portentous,” Ashhur said after a time. “They are not to be ignored, but considered, for in dreams we can receive warnings of the future or messages from the past. In worlds far from here, dreams have saved lives, stopped wars, and reunited long-lost loves. For when our minds are free from the earthly ties that bind us, we can sometimes see into the distance.”
Geris felt Ashhur’s finger slide over the back of his palm, and the warmth of his insides heightened.
“And what of my dream?” he asked. “Were the words of the shadow-lion…um…portentous?”
“You worry so,” laughed Ashhur. “No, my son, they are not portentous. My love for you is as great now as it has ever been. And my love for the goddess is not new. I have loved her from the moment our essences drifted past each other in the milky ether of infinity. I owe her much. She is wise, wiser than I am at times, and I benefit from her counsel. But she could never take your place. You are my children, and my responsibility lies now, and always, with you. Please do not fear my abandonment. It is not in my heart to ever leave you.”
“Thank you,” said Geris, his gratitude overwhelming him to the point of tears. “I’m sorry I doubted you. I love you so much…more than anything…more than my parents…more than becoming a king…more than my own life. The thought of losing you…I never want to feel that again.”
“Hush now,” the deity said, pulling the child in close. “There is no shame in fear, and there is no indignity in doubt. Beware your dreams, Geris, for while they can bring wisdom, they can also bring lies and despair. They can be the spreaders of falsehoods, the builders of a life of apprehension. So be still, my son, and hear my words. No harm shall befall you, and I promise, I will never leave your side, whether you become a great king or a simple farmer. You are perfect in my eyes, Geris Felhorn, and always shall be.”
Geris allowed the god to embrace him and fell fully into a trance of comfort. So contented was he that he never saw or questioned the touch of concern that darkened Ashhur’s features when the god turned his gaze toward the rolling meadows and the lands across the river to the east.
CHAPTER
12
Everything is falling apart.
It wasn’t just the palpable miasma of distrust that lingered in the air that made Soleh think this. The eyes of each person she passed on her way through the city skittered from side to side in panic. Shoulders hunched, hands were hidden from view, and footsteps quickened with a furtive sort of speed. The distant screams that cut through the morning air didn’t help matters any. People were being hurt, robbed, and murdered, right there in the streets. It was why Soleh now required an armed escort whenever she left the safety of either the Castle of the Lion or the Tower Keep.
Sixteen days. That was how long it had been since Clovis had drafted nearly all of the City Watch into Karak’s Army and then sent them south to Omnmount under the direction of two of his own children. Since the Left had served as the proxy Captain of the Watch, those responsibilities now fell to Malcolm Gregorian, the scarred survivor of Kayne and Lilah’s loyalty test. Serving as the Captain of both the Watch and the Palace Guard was a daunting task for one man, duties piled upon duties without ceasing. The loyal man was stretched too thin. He couldn’t control the commotion in the palace and the turmoil that boiled in the city streets at the same time.
To make matters worse, the new men who had been brought in to replace the guard were nothing more than common thugs. They had an unkempt look about them, with thick guts from years of downing copious amounts of liquor, and there was no pride in the way they wore the purple sashes of the order. Almost all of the new recruits’ had a shifty, scheming look to them. Soleh had no idea what King Vaelor, the man responsible for their appointment, had seen in these ruffians other than their apparent aptitude for violence.
“Stay close, Minister,” said Pulo, one of the three palace guards who chaperoned her around the city. Pulo was a tall and lean man, but ropy muscles defined his arms. He kept his left hand on Soleh’s shoulder while his right crossed over the front of his body, his fingers resting on the pommel of the cutlass that hung from his hip. The burgundy half-cape on his back billowed with each step. His eyes flicked from side to side through the slit in his half helm, and he gritted his teeth. The late-morning crowd was thinner than usual—much thinner—but it seemed more dangerous in every possible way.
“Hold on the left,” said another of the Guard, a short, stocky man named Jonn. A bearded drunkard staggered close by, stumbling across the cobbled street and heading right for them. The man’s expression was blank and his movements clumsy, but Soleh knew that clumsy could present the greatest danger of all.
When the drunkard didn’t veer off his course, Jonn stepped away from Soleh and Pulo and, joined by Roddalin, her third chaperone, channeled the swaying man to the side.
“Fuckin’ doddling arse,” muttered the man, taking a ham-fisted swing at Jonn. The guard ducked it easily and drew the truncheon clasped to the other side of his belt. He swung it hard at the man’s knee, striking him in the side of the cap with a sickening pop. The drunkard’s leg folded under his weight, and Roddalin clobbered him on the side of the head. The man collapsed with all the grace of a falling oak. His eyes rolled back, showing only their whites, just before his head bounced twice on the hard-packed road.
“Move along!” shouted Jonn, waving his truncheon before him. Those ahead gave them a wide berth, going about their business with practiced calm. Soleh noted a small group of older women lingering nearby, keeping an even distance between themselves and the four royal travelers. They looked scared and were likely following the royal troop in the hopes that the Guard would provide them with safe travel as well. Given the attitude that ruled the day, Soleh still eyed them warily.
Pulo ushered her along once more. They passed through sad gray streets of cold stone, avoiding all who looked like trouble. She happened to glance toward the windows of a mercantile building as she passed by and noticed that the shop owner was peering out like a child frightened of his own shadow. She wished she could feel pity for him, but her heart was too heavy. The city was in chaos, and worse, her granddaughter Lyana was far away, soon to be punished for some grave sin, by her own father. Any pity Soleh had, she reserved for herself.
The Castle of the Lion was almost in view when the sounds of a woman pleading for her life reached Soleh’s ears from one of the many downtrodden alleyways. There were three members of the Watch standing nearby, but they were lazing against the wall of a bakery, chewing bits of bread while the baker sat, cradling his arm on the front stoop.
She glanced at Pulo, who shook his head. “We mustn’t, Mistress,” he said. “Too dangerous.”
“It is my responsibility to dole out justice, Pulo.”
It was Roddalin, the youngest of them, who snapped his heels together first. “Yes, Minister!” he exclaimed and began to cross the road, unfastening the clasp over the handle of his cutlass. Pulo and Jonn exchanged a nervous glance before Jonn followed. Pulo took Soleh by the elbow and guided her through the light traffic, holding up a mailed hand when a horse-drawn cart bore down on them. Once on the other side, they turned to the left and pursued the sound of the now-weeping woman’s voice. Soleh glared at the three Watchmen on her way past them. They leered back at her until they noticed the black cloak that hung from her shoulders. Then they covered their faces with whatever shield they could find and scurried off.
They had already sealed their fate, however, for Soleh Mori never forgot a face.
When Pulo ushered her down the alleyway from wh
ich the sobs were issuing, Soleh stopped short. Jonn and Roddalin stared at the ground, where a uniform of the City Watch lay in a pile. Beyond them Soleh could make out the backs of four men. Lying nearby in a pool of blood, his neck slit from ear to ear, was a minstrel Soleh had often seen outside the gates of the castle, peddling his songs of praise to Karak for coppers. The sobbing intensified, accompanied by baritone grunts. Soleh took a step forward, shrugging aside Pulo’s hand when he tried to stop her.
Between the backs of the standing men she spotted a flash of cream-colored flesh. She took another step forward and heard laughter. A woman’s hand slipped between the feet of the onlookers, but the men kicked it away. The woman’s screams grew louder, the pain in her voice setting Soleh’s blood to boil.
Although Soleh could be timid and prone to outbursts of panic in private, out in the city, where her duty as a mother and wife ended and her duty as Karak’s Minister began, she was something else entirely.
“You stand in the shadow of our god!” she roared, her voice launching from her throat like a boulder from a catapult. “Cease at once and face Karak’s justice!”
The four onlookers whipped their heads around, staring at her first in surprise, then with dark intentions. Pulo, Jonn, and Roddalin surrounded her, swords drawn in her defense. The men’s eyes took note of the burgundy capes and the expertly crafted swords, and they backed away, revealing the horrible scene beyond. The woman’s face was so beaten and swollen Soleh couldn’t tell how old she was, but the smoothness of her flesh, where it was not gashed and bruised, suggested she was quite young. She was naked and shivering, and when the man slid off her, she drew her legs to her chest, concealing her breasts with her knees.
The man who’d raped her tried to hastily pull up his breeches. His face was flustered and angry, his beard coated in spittle. Soleh noticed that his knuckles were bloody.
“Come, lass,” said Soleh, and the girl gazed up at her through one eye, the other swollen shut. She began to pull herself across the ground until a booted foot slammed into her side, stopping her mid-drag.
“What the fuck?” the bearded man growled. He focused his gaze on Soleh, murder in his eyes. Even from where she was standing, she could smell the alcohol on his breath. His friends tried to grab at him, but he shrugged them aside.
“Bren, that’s the Min—” one began, before the man stopped his tongue with a fist to the face.
“Who do you think you are?” Bren said, grabbing his shortsword off the ground and repetitively sliding it in and out of its scabbard, revealing a few more inches of gleaming, sharp metal with each stroke. “You think your boys with their weapons frighten me?”
Soleh met his stare without flinching.
“Release the girl, or suffer Karak’s wrath.”
“No.”
“Are you of the Watch?”
“Yeah, what of it?”
Soleh held her head high. “Then I am your superior. If I order you to release the girl, you release her. If I order you to fall on your sword, you slide the tip into your belly as quickly as you can. Do you understand?”
“Fuck off.” Bren drew his shortsword completely from its sheath and turned to his cohorts. Only one of them came forward to join him, drawing his blade as well. The other three sank further into the darkness of the alley and slipped away.
The rapist threw back his arm and hacked downward with his sword, attempting to drive the point through the chest of his weeping victim. Pulo closed the distance between them in the blink of an eye, and steel clanged against steel. Jonn and Roddalin weren’t far behind. Her guards’ foes may have been ungainly brutes, but they handled their weapons with skill. Parry after parry, thrust after thrust, they held off her escorts’ attacks. The alley was filled with grunts, yelps, and the clanking of steel on steel. Yet for all their skill, the two could only defend. The moment they tried to attack, they found themselves overwhelmed by a coordinated offensive. Bren suffered a gash on his upper arm, his partner a slash on his thigh, and yet Pulo, Jonn, and Roddalin had not even suffered a scratch, and the thin chainmail over their chests and the silver vambraces on their forearms were as shiny as they’d been earlier in the morning. Even so, it was a chaotic ballet, one that allowed the naked, violated girl to crawl across the dirty ground and into Soleh’s waiting arms.
When the girl was safe, Roddalin ended the fight, drawing his dagger from his belt. Sliding sideways past a thrust, he dropped to one knee, and his dagger swept through the heel of Bren’s ally, severing the crucial tendon there. The man collapsed screaming, clutching at his leg. Jonn silenced him by hacking through his neck, spilling blood over his tunic and his purple sash. The man was dead an instant later.
Bren wasn’t so lucky. Pulo struck the man in the forehead with his pommel, and then looped his cutlass around like an oarsman, burying the blade in the man’s crotch. He yanked it free with a revolting plop, and the rapist backed into the wall, his cries shrill. He grabbed at his severed nether parts, blood spurting between his fingers and darkening his breeches. Soleh watched him suffer, the rage in her breast slowly abating. When she gave a nod, Jonn took off the man’s head with a single swipe of his sword.
Holding the shaking girl in her arms, a half-disgusted, half-satisfied grin crossed Soleh’s lips. Adeline would have been proud.
They waited as more members of the City Watch arrived, summoned by the commotion. They were members of the old guard this time, men she recognized. They whisked the raped girl to safety, hunted down the three remaining men, and cleaned the bodies out of the alley. Soleh made sure to confiscate the coin purses of the criminals, the living and dead alike. She emptied their contents on the blood-splattered ground of the alleyway. Silvers and coppers bounced and spun on the cobbles. She stared at the contents of each in turn, particularly the crest adorning each coin, and then up at Pulo.
“This is Connington swag,” she said. Pulo nodded back at her, his expression dire. She shook her head. It had been the Conningtons who had accused another of hiring a rapist to strike against their family. Now they were lending coin to the kingdom to lure those same types of men into the Watch. She wondered who had suggested these bastards—the brothers, or the king.
When the mess in the alley had been cleared, Soleh handed four of the five sacks of gold to the victim, who thanked her mightily before Roddalin took her away to be treated for her wounds. Soleh then hurried to the castle. The streets were more crowded with curious onlookers now, but all it took was one glance at Soleh’s hard expression for them to clear a path. She stormed through the portcullis and into Tower Justice, telling Captain Gregorian she was canceling the day’s docket. The poor, overworked man looked less than happy about it, but he bowed and acquiesced, barking orders at the rest of the Palace Guard to stow the prisoners away once more.
Soleh felt for him, but she had more pressing matters to address.
She crossed the courtyard and burst into Tower Honor, still dragging Pulo, Jonn, and Roddalin along with her. She stormed into the King’s Court, but the room was empty. Karl Dogon, King Vaelor’s personal shield, informed them that the king was ill and would be receiving no visitors. No matter how much Soleh demanded, the man would not cave. “Sickness is sickness,” he said with a dismissive wave. Furious, she scoured the rest of the tower, seeking out Cleo or Romeo Connington, or both. One of them was always lingering about the castle somewhere, sidling up to the king or the royal Council, trying—often successfully—to curry favor for his mining and weapons trades or toss more unfounded accusations on Matthew Brennan.
Much to her chagrin, however, neither Connington was to be found. Tower Honor was a ghost town, with only cooks, servants, and whores lingering about. Not even Clovis, who never missed an opportunity to let everyone know how important he was, had shown up yet.
If the esteemed Highest Crestwell wasn’t in the palace, there was only one other place he could be.
Soleh left the castle and commandeered a horse and carriage from a jewel
er who had been selling his wares in the courtyard. As payment, she tossed him what remained of Connington coins that she’d taken from the purses of the five criminals. Pulo slid in beside her in the front of the carriage; Jonn and Roddalin took the rear; and they set off without delay.
Pulo guided the cart without care for those before them, the horses’ hooves pounding away. The wagon bounded along the streets of Veldaren, heading west toward Karak’s Temple. She didn’t need to look at her escorts to know they were worried, much more worried than they’d been when confronting the gang. Their tension hung in the air like a poisonous mist.
The streets emptied out the farther west they traveled, the buildings and homesteads giving way to wide expanses of dirt where only a few abandoned tents and lean-tos stood. Vulfram had insisted that in time the whole city would become a sprawling paradise of brick and stone, but that had not yet come to fruition. The sight of the bare earth, where all the trees had been felled and grass refused to grow, was actually more depressing than the gray gloominess of the finished sections of the city.
Soleh had embarked on this trek at least a couple times a week since Karak had returned to her, constantly needing to be in his presence. The deity preferred to greet his subjects in the home he had built for himself, located in the far west of the city. The structure slowly appeared before her, rising above the brown ruinous soil like a shimmering diamond in a sea of coal.
It was an overwhelmingly simple construction, square at its base and tall, the thick stones of its walls stained black. The onyx lions guarding the entrance were mirrors of those outside the Castle of the Lion; in fact, they were exact copies carved by Ibis. The entrance to the temple was a huge door marked with three stars set in a triangular pattern—a symbol representing the cooperation between the three gods of the realm.
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