Paladins of the Storm Lord

by Barbara Ann Wright

  Caroline stared after them. “I didn’t know Sun-Moons could—”

  “They can’t. Listen, don’t tell anyone what happened. It’s god stuff.”

  She nodded slowly, and he could tell she was burning with curiosity, but she didn’t ask.

  “Do you know where the mayor’s house is?”

  She gave him directions, still not asking questions, and he gave her another kiss.

  “Go back to the temple. Have something to eat.” He didn’t wait for a reply before he was off.

  This time, as he walked through the crowds, he dismissed people, telling them he was on important business, and those who bothered him warned others away until news spread ahead of him. When he arrived at the mayor’s street, it had cleared of people.

  He ducked into the shadow of an awning when the mayor’s door opened. He stood flush against a storefront, trying for casual while remaining in shadow. Carmichael walked out of the mayor’s house, and Dillon’s gut clenched. A report? A friendly chat? Something else entirely?

  Carmichael didn’t seem to notice Dillon or the empty streets as she stalked away. Did she ever just walk anywhere, or did she always look like someone on the hunt? At the moment, it didn’t matter. Once she was clear, Dillon crossed to the mayor’s front door and knocked.

  A young man opened it. “Can I help…” His jaw fell. “You?”

  “Yeah, it’s me.” Dillon stepped past him. It was a nice house, roomy, though it lacked grandeur. “Is the mayor in?”

  “Yes, Storm Lord.” He brayed a nervous laugh that even Lazlo would have been embarrassed by and clapped a hand over his mouth, eyes as wide as saucers.

  “It’s okay, son,” Dillon said. “Show me in, please.”

  The young man led Dillon to an office off the side of a large entryway. “Sir, the Storm Lord is here to see you.” He stood aside without waiting for orders and shut the door behind Dillon.

  Mayor Ross stood from behind a wooden desk, his expression calm, though it had stayed pretty calm through the meeting with Carmichael, too. “Storm Lord, I don’t think we’ve been introduced. Paul Ross.” He held out his hand.

  Dillon gave it two quick pumps before he sat in one of the chairs facing the desk. “Is the drushka and boggin business all sorted out?”

  Paul Ross hesitated a moment before sitting. “I’m surprised you’re asking me instead of Captain Carmichael.”

  “I saw her leaving.”

  He gave one of those oily, politician smiles. “Very observant.”

  “I see a lot, including Sun-Moon worshipers in my city.”

  “Trading partners—”

  “Spies.”

  Paul Ross’s mouth inched closed, and he leaned back in his chair. Dillon could almost hear him wondering how he was supposed to deal with an irritated god. Dillon let him work it out in silence.

  “I beg your pardon, Storm Lord,” Paul Ross said, “but I won’t know what you want from me until you tell me.”

  But would knowing equal obeying? “It’s easy. I don’t want Sun-Moons in my city, and more than that, any tête-à-têtes between you and Carmichael are now going to be ménages à trois with you, her, and me.” He shrugged. “Without the sex part.”

  Paul Ross looked so baffled, Dillon wondered if it was more than just the French that was confounding him. He took a deep breath. “You want to be present for any discussions between Carmichael and me?”

  “You’ve got it.”

  “Our jobs overlap a lot, Storm Lord. We have many meetings—”

  “I like meetings.”

  Paul Ross took a deep breath, and Dillon wondered if he was about to get yelled at for the first time by someone in Gale who wasn’t Lazlo. On the one hand, he was amused, but on the other, it wouldn’t stand. But Paul Ross just took another breath, and another, as if he was counting to ten.

  Dillon had to laugh. “Are you trying to think of a way to refuse? Go ahead. Even I’m curious to see what I might do.” He laid his palms flat on the desk and pushed to his feet. “The simplest thing would be to replace you.”

  “Think so?” It was almost a whisper, but it showed balls. He stood, too, but without Dillon’s leaning menace. “I’ve been thinking a lot about gods recently.”

  “Is that right?”

  “It’s the power of distance. People judge me, critique me, make their opinions known. I have to earn their respect, their trust, their forgiveness. You…”

  Dillon raised an eyebrow. “I have it because of who I am.”

  “Who you were. It’s easy to worship an abstract, but a man?” He smiled sadly. “What will you do when they can see you letting them down?”

  Dillon’s chest tightened, and he could feel his anger building. Who the fuck did this guy think he was?

  “Go on, replace me,” Paul Ross said. “Make Gale a theocracy or dictatorship, however you want to sell it. Let the whispers of dissent and doubt start now.”

  Power hummed through Dillon, and he threw little sparks that Paul Ross watched closely. “So, that’s it, eh?” Dillon asked. “I let you do as you like, or you’ll start the ‘Let’s overthrow the Storm Lord’ campaign.”

  “Such a thought hadn’t entered my mind until now.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “But I did know a confrontation of some sort was coming.”

  “You haven’t seen a fight yet.”

  They locked stares, and a small noise came from the door. Paul Ross took a step around his desk, calling, “Blake?” and Dillon didn’t know if he was calling for help or a witness. Dillon grabbed him, not thinking, just as he had once before.

  He told himself to stop even as he was moving. Lessan loomed in his mind, and he tried to hold in his power, but he hadn’t been this goddamned angry in such a long time.

  Paul Ross didn’t shudder and jerk like Lessan had done. He went up on tiptoe, his eyes rolled, back arching, limbs splayed so hard it was a wonder his joints didn’t snap. Instead of horror, Dillon’s anger grew at this upstart paper pusher. How dared he lead Dillon down this road again!

  Power exploded outward, and Paul Ross went flying, hitting the wall beside his desk hard enough to dent the plaster, little cracks running from it like spiderwebs. The body fell with a pathetic thump. Dillon breathed hard. He closed his eyes, opened them to the body, and closed them again, trying to will it away.

  The skin of his temples tightened, tingling as his anger faded and left him gasping, hoping. “Oh God.”

  Next time he looked, it wasn’t just Paul Ross lying there but Lessan, too, her body covering his like a ghost. Both their heads rested upon their chests, arms and legs lying lifeless. As Dillon knelt, heart pounding, Lessan picked her head up, watching him with dead eyes, her lips quirking as if asking, “Is that all you’ve got?”

  The air was filled with the scent of charred meat, and Dillon swallowed, thankful there wasn’t anything in his stomach to bring up. He’d have to open a window before he left. The thought made him laugh, a high-pitched noise he didn’t recognize. “What the fuck am I supposed to do? I didn’t want to rule them with fear.”

  Lessan pointed over her left shoulder to a wooden poleaxe standing in the corner, almost hidden behind a potted plant. Dillon glanced at it and back to Lessan. She winked, eyes all black like a shark’s.

  Dillon shut his eyes tighter, pressing a hand over them until red lines streaked across the darkness. When he opened them again, she was gone, but her idea remained. He could make it look as if someone else had killed the mayor, someone who used a wooden poleaxe, whoever that might be.

  It would still be murder, but it wouldn’t be Dillon who’d done it.

  He took the poleaxe and gripped it high on the shaft. With one hand, he hauled Paul Ross’s body up until it aligned with the dent in the plaster, head still dangling. Dillon grunted with the effort but stabbed the body in the chest and shook it to get some blood on the wall. Then he let it slide down and stabbed it again, lower, letting gravity do the work of making a ni
ce blood pool. He cast the weapon aside. It was a good idea, never mind that it came from a ghost. Dillon snorted a laugh, opened a window on the far side of the office to let the fresh air in, and moved to the door.

  Just as he’d suspected, the young man waited there, eavesdropping, though he couldn’t have known all that had happened.

  “Your name is Blake?” Dillon asked, blocking the view.

  They young man nodded.

  Dillon slipped out and shut the door behind him before he laid an arm across Blake’s shoulders. “Come with me. There’s someone I’d like you to meet.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Halfway back to the Paladin Keep, Carmichael realized she’d left her sidearm behind. She didn’t go about armored as her lieutenants did, but several incidents with thieves and such had gotten her into the habit of going armed.

  But Paul Ross didn’t like guns in his house, so his aide had put it somewhere, and her head had been so full of everything they’d spoken about that she’d marched out without it. If she’d let the aide show her out, he probably would have reminded her, but she’d been in too much of a hurry.

  A day had passed since all the squads had returned from the swamp. Carmichael wanted to fill Paul in on what they’d found, and as they’d talked, she’d blurted out what she knew about the boggins, the Storm Lord, everything. The Storm Lord’s experiments were probably going to get worse now that he was on the planet, and she’d wanted to warn Paul about that. While she was warning, she’d spilled the biggest secret she had: the Storm Lord was human.

  Paul had taken it well, with only a modicum of surprise, but that was more than she could usually get him to show. She wished Reach had been there. Then she could have smoothed things out between them by admitting the boggin project had been the Storm Lord’s idea. She’d taken responsibility at the time because there’d been too many ears in that room. She had no idea what might happen if everyone knew their god had marched them to war with the boggins. She didn’t know what that would do to morale. But now that the Storm Lord was among them, and he could do whatever he pleased, Carmichael thought the people in charge should be prepared.

  Paul had sat in silence a long time, finally asking what she thought the two of them should do.

  She’d admitted she hadn’t taken the news well when she’d first heard it. That her god was human had set off a cascade of betrayal within her. She’d loved the idea that a person could transcend their humanness and become something greater. “I suppose it’s the breaking of the illusion I can’t forgive him for,” she’d said to Paul. “I built up a god in my mind, something distant, other, not someone like me. I guess I’m pissed he dashed my expectations.”

  Paul had given her a bigger smile. “Rude of him. It won’t take the populace long to figure out, you know. They’ll start making comparisons between him and the yafanai. It won’t happen overnight, but it will happen.”

  “And what will he do then?”

  “Do you think he’ll go on a killing spree if challenged?”

  The thought had given her chills. “He’d target us first. Our families, our friends.”

  “The whole damn town if he has to?”

  She’d shaken her head. They didn’t have enough information to predict what he’d do. They’d have to keep their ears open, that was for damn sure.

  No one answered her knock on the mayor’s door. She raised the latch and poked her head inside. “Hello?”

  No answer. The aide stayed close to the front door at all times while the mayor was open to visitors, but no one came bustling forward, and she heard nothing from inside.

  She stepped in, shut the door, and inched toward the office. “Paul?”

  When she opened his office door a crack, she smelled it: a sharp, coppery tang, carried on a draft through the window.

  “Paul?” Standing to the side, she pushed the door open and saw him.

  Not her first dead body, probably not her last, but the violence in the room took her breath away. He lay in a crimson pool, a gore-stained poleaxe beside him. His chest was still, face pointed down. She tiptoed forward as if he might awaken, but when she pushed his head up, his slack eyes stared at nothing.

  “Holy hell.” She picked up the poleaxe and studied the end, looking for any clues about who might have used it.

  A shriek from the doorway drove her to her feet. Reach stood there, baring her sharp teeth as she screamed something in drushkan and leapt forward, leading with her poisonous claws.

  Carmichael jabbed, more interested in driving her away than hurting her. “Stop! It’s—”

  Reach pulled up short and hissed. The poleaxe writhed in Carmichael’s grip as if alive, and she threw it behind her. Reach darted forward again, and Carmichael swung a fist. Reach ducked under, claws up. Carmichael fell back against Paul’s desk and kicked, catching Reach in the stomach, though her claws left a deep groove in Carmichael’s boot.

  “I didn’t kill him, Reach!”

  When Reach leapt up again, Carmichael darted out of the way, but Reach sprang past her, grabbing the poleaxe.

  “Shit.” Carmichael moved to keep the desk between them, wondering if she could risk a mad dash for the door. Maybe Paul’s aide had left her sidearm somewhere obvious.

  Movement came from the doorway. Reach didn’t give it a glance, but Carmichael spotted someone running away. “Somebody went for help,” she said. “If they tell people you’re attacking me—”

  “I do not care if I am killed.” Reach jabbed, and Carmichael ducked, still on the other side of the desk. “I will have your blood.”

  “I didn’t kill him!”

  “He was a warrior of the mind, not the body! You did not have to slay him!” She leapt on top of the desk and stabbed.

  Carmichael went flat, rolling. She grabbed the chair and used it as a shield. Reach’s next thrust skewered it, and Carmichael tried to hold on, but Reach levered the chair out of the way. When the poleaxe came darting back, there’d be nothing to stop it.

  The crack of a gunshot made them freeze, though Reach’s stare didn’t leave Carmichael.

  “Stand down, Ambassador!” Ross’s voice from the doorway.

  “Paul’s niece,” Reach said, her voice still tight and raw, “stand with me. We must avenge him!”

  “I said stand…” Her voice trailed away as if she’d spotted the body. “What the fuck is going on?”

  Carmichael risked a look.

  Ross had her sidearm out and her gaze locked on Paul. Her free hand flailed toward Reach as if seeking to pull her off the desk. “Reach? Captain? What the fuck?”

  Reach clambered down. “This shach has killed Paul!”

  “He was dead when I got here!” Carmichael stood and marched around the desk, taking Ross’s sidearm and pointing it. “Back the fuck up, Ambassador.”

  “You will not live to—”

  “Everybody, shut up!” Ross tore her gaze from her uncle and looked at Reach, her shoulders heaving. “If Carmichael wanted him dead, Reach, she would have shot him!”

  Reach breathed hard for a moment before she rested the butt of the poleaxe on the floor, the best they would probably get from her.

  Ross turned crazy eyes on Carmichael; she looked like someone half an inch from losing it.

  “Take the ambassador outside, Lieutenant,” Carmichael said. “I’ve got this.”

  With a tight nod, Ross ushered Reach outside, both of them shaking. Maybe they could lean on each other. Carmichael knelt and closed Paul’s eyes.

  *

  Cordelia kicked the side of the house until her boot went through the wood, and her foot felt as if it might come off. Reach watched her closely, as if wanting to join in the show of grief but not sure how.

  “I keep thinking of the ballista,” Cordelia said. “I was going to write him a thank-you note. A fucking note! I couldn’t be bothered to tell him in person.” Her voice cracked, and she felt the tears start. She tried to wipe them away, not wanting anyone to see a p
aladin in armor bawling her eyes out.

  “Sa—”

  “He deserved better than that, Reach!”

  “Sa!”

  Cordelia turned to look. Reach had Paul’s housekeeper by her side. “You’re…”

  “Katey.” She didn’t bother to wipe her tears away. “Is it true? I saw the captain kneeling over him. Poor Mayor Ross.” She put her face in her hands again.

  “You could be mistaken about Carmichael, Sa,” Reach said. “If she wanted to turn suspicion away from herself, the shach would not use a gun.”

  “Carmichael isn’t like that. You don’t know her.”

  “I do not need to know her!” Reach shouted. She didn’t cry, but Cordelia had never seen a drushka cry, didn’t even know if they could. “She is made of secrets. She contacted the old drushka, changed the chanuka for her own ends, and then they killed so many of my kind. How can she be the same in your mind as she once was?”

  Cordelia took a deep breath. Carmichael had smacked Liam around, too. At the time, she’d seemed to be coming apart at the seams. But enough to kill Paul? Cordelia shook her head. “She didn’t have a reason.”

  “None that she has shared.” Reach lifted her arms and dropped them as if the will to fight was leaving her.

  “I’m all over this, Reach. I’ll find out who did it.”

  “Where’s Blake?” Katey asked. “Is he dead, too?”

  “Paul’s aide,” Reach said at Cordelia’s questioning look.

  Cordelia nodded. “Let’s search the house.”

  *

  Dillon hummed with nervous energy as he guided Blake through the streets. He kept one arm tight across Blake’s shoulders and put off anyone who stopped to speak with them. He couldn’t stop thinking of Lessan’s ghost, even though ghosts didn’t exist, couldn’t exist. He had to have been imagining things. He would have felt any telepathic attack.

  Unless the attackers were capable of being so subtle he wouldn’t notice. He hadn’t met all of the yafanai, didn’t know what everyone could do. He shook the thought away. He needed to trust someone, and so far, the yafanai hadn’t done anything to earn his ire. “I was imagining things.” He held Blake tighter.