Chosen of the Gods

Chapter Fifteen

Cathan drew his hood down, trying not to shiver in the autumn wind as he twisted his sling in his hand. Deep in the highlands south of Luciel, he crouched on a ridge thick with mountain ashes, their branches heavy with scarlet berries. Below, the imperial highroad snaked through the craggy hills. From his vantage, he could see two leagues of the broad, stone-paved path, all of it empty. In the two days he’d been perched on this outcrop he’d seem no other living being. He was alone in this place, save for his horse-tethered downhill and contentedly cropping at patches of tough grass-and a lone hawk that circled hungrily beneath the pall of gray clouds.

He hadn’t wanted to go on watch duty and resisted at first, telling Lord Tavarrc he wanted to stay near Wentha. She had returned from the edge of death, but she was still weak and frail. Even more than that, he didn’t want to leave Beldyn. In the week after he swore his oath, he kept near the monk, watching for trouble with a hand on his sword, and he balked at the notion of leaving to go out into the hills. He argued about it with the baron, and things might have come to shouting if Beldyn himself hadn’t intervened, drawing him aside and speaking to him quietly.

“This is a dangerous time,” the monk had said. “I need to know the men on watch are trustworthy.”

So here he was, with a only horse for company, watching the hawk soar over the hills. As he did he let his mind wander, going back to that night in Farenne’s house, when the light had poured from Beldyn’s hands and banished the Longosai. Part of him still didn’t believe it-it must be a trick of some sort-but there was no denying that Wentha was well again, and dozens of others as well.

Swearing the oath had been far from an easy decision. He’d forsaken Paladine and come to hate the clerics who worshiped the god. Bowing to any god had seemed a betrayal. In the end, though, it had come down to the simple fact: Wentha lived, and Beldyn was the reason.

Now he was one of many. When he’d left for sentry duty, more than fifty men and women had already knelt at the monk’s feet. The number surely had grown, and soon word of the miracle at Luciel would spread to the neighboring towns. A holy man has come. Bring your sick, your suffering, and he will cure them. How many folk would swear to Brother Beldyn then?

Suddenly he sucked in a breath. He’d heard something: the tread of a foot in the grass behind him. He reached for his sword, starting to turn-then stopped as the edge of a blade touched his neck. His skin turned cold as the steel pressed against his skin-not hard enough to draw blood but holding him completely still, not even daring to breathe.

“Daydreaming,” said a gruff voice. “A watchman should pay attention, or he might lose his head.”

The sword lifted away. He spun to his feet at once, jerking his blade from its scabbard with a ring that echoed down in the valley below. He stupidly took a step toward his assailant before he recognized the etched armor the man wore and stopped.

“Sir Gareth?”

The Knight raised his sword in salute, then nodded at Cathan’s own blade. “What’s this, boy?” he asked. “Do you mean to attack me again?”

Flushing, Cathan lowered his weapon. He’d carefully avoided Gareth thus far, afraid the Knight might find out whose slingstone nearly killed him. Apparently, he had. “I didn’t mean-”

“Easy, lad,” Gareth said, sheathing his sword again. “I seek no satisfaction for what you did. There is no honor in holding grudges-and besides, I survived. Now, if I’d died, that would be different. I would have been furious.”

Cathan frowned, not sure if Gareth was joking. The Knight’s face might have been made of stone, as stern as ever.

Awkwardly, Cathan slid his sword back into its scabbard. He ventured a tentative grin. “What are you doing here?”

“I tired of your village, to be honest,” the Knight replied, stepping forward to peer down at the highroad. “So I asked Her Grace’s leave to ride out here. It might help if someone attentive was on lookout. You’re lucky I wasn’t an imperial scout, lad, or I’d have-” He broke off, his eyes going wide as they ranged past Cathan, then whispered a curse. “Huma, hammer and lance.”

Cathan turned, his heart lurching as he followed Gareth’s gaze. At first he didn’t see anything, but when he squinted he made out what the Knight had spotted. Faint and distant above the hills to the east, the sky had turned dark, a gray-brown cloud rising from the road.

“What is it?” he hissed, already suspecting.

Sir Gareth reached to his sword again, brushing its hilt. “The last thing I wanted to see.”

All they could see of the body as they climbed was one arm, dangling over a ledge halfway up the slope. There was blood on the fingertips, already beginning to dry, and a lone fly had lit on the hand, perched as if wondering what to do with such a feast. Cathan felt his stomach twist as he stared at the corpse, wondering who it was, and nearly lost his footing, grabbing the root of a nearby tree as his feet slid out from under him. Gravel rattled down the cliff beneath him. The noise drew a fierce look from Sir Gareth, and they stopped for a moment, listening, before the Knight nodded and started toward the top of the hill again.

They had ridden here at a gallop, nearly five miles to the next vantage-a looming tor fringed with furze. When Cathan had whistled and no reply came from above, he and Gareth had exchanged hard glances. Perhaps the sentry Tavarre posted here had dozed off. Or perhaps not.

Unburdened by armor, he got to the body first and soon wished he hadn’t. The man was sprawled on its stomach, the moss beneath him dark and damp with blood. At once, Cathan saw what had killed him: a pair of long, deep gashes in his back, deep enough to show the white of bone and the drab colors of the man’s insides. More flies crawled on the open wounds. Cathan retched and spat.

Gareth came up beside him, looked at the body, then reached down and rolled it onto his back. Cathan tasted bile when he saw the man’s battered face. He’d hit the ledge head-first, and it took a moment for Cathan to recognize him.

“Deledos,” he groaned. “The chandler’s son.”

“They cut him down from behind.” Gareth’s voice was thick with disgust. “Then threw him over the edge.” He waved his sword at the precipice above. Turning away from Deledos’s corpse, he started up the hill again.

Cathan grabbed his arm. “What if they’re still up there?” he asked, wondering who they were exactly.

Gareth gave him a look, then shook off his grasp and kept climbing. Cathan followed, his arms and legs burning as he pulled himself up the slope.

They stopped again just short of the hilltop, and Gareth peered over the crest. A heartbeat later he ducked down again and started tightening the straps of his shield around his arm. His sword hissed as he drew it.

“What is it?” Cathan breathed.

“Four of them,” Gareth replied. “Scatas. Blood on their swords.”

“Four? But-”

Before Cathan could say more, however, Gareth rose and strode up the last few paces to the tor’s scrubby crown. Swallowing, Cathan unsheathed his own blade and hurried after.

There they were, standing beneath a stand of cone-heavy pines, talking together in hushed, clipped voices. There were indeed four of them, clad in riding leathers and the blue cloaks of the imperial army. Their bronze helms glinted, plumes fluttering in the wind. So intent were they on their conversation that they didn’t look up until Gareth raised his sword and clanged down his visor. When they saw him they glanced at one another, not sure what to do.

Gareth rushed them while they were still making up their minds, leaving Cathan stunned behind him. The four Scatas drew themselves up in surprise then ran forward as well, swords held high.

Cathan had seen Lord Tavarre spar with Vedro and others. He had seen the captain of Govinna’s guard cut Embric down. Now, though, as he watched the Knight storm into battle, he knew he was looking at something else entirely, a man who fought with precision and grace, even when weighted down with mail. Gareth spun to his left, letting two of the men barrel past, then smoothly ducked beneath the lashing blade of a third and raised his shield to block the fourth. The clash of metal filled the air and was still ringing among the hilltops when Gareth shoved the fourth Scata back, neatly driving his sword into the man’s stomach. The soldier screamed and crumpled as Gareth jerked his blade free.

Taken aback by their comrade’s sudden demise-it had taken little more than a heartbeat-the other three Scatas fell back, watching Gareth with narrowed eyes. As they did, Cathan stepped up beside the Knight, his sword-hand sweating inside its glove. Gareth gave him a nod.

“You take the one on the right,” the Knight said. “The others are mine.”

“But-”Cathan began, but it was too late to argue.

The soldiers attacked again, and then he was parrying, turning away a blow aimed at his knees, pivoting aside as a sword point flashed toward his eyes, catching another stroke that would have cut him in half. The smash of blade against blade rang up his arm, numbing his shoulder as he shoved his attacker back.

Beside him, Sir Gareth fought two men at once, lunging away from one man’s clumsy stoke while he batted the other man back with a sweep of his sword’s flashing blade. The man stumbled, then regained his footing and hurled himself back into the fray. Gareth raised his shield, hammering the charging man in the face with its rim. The Scata’s head snapped back with an awful sound-neck or skull, Cathan wasn’t sure- then dropped in a heap on the ground. Gareth kicked him, making sure he wasn’t faking, then turned to his last foe, both men with bloody swords at the ready.

Cathan’s opponent lunged in again, stabbing at his heart- a good, quick blow he couldn’t parry in time. Instead he twisted, rocking on the balls of his feet, and a hot line of pain raced across his back as the blow scored him. He gasped, his tunic tearing, then felt a tug as the blade snarled in his cloak. Instinct taking over, Cathan whirled, tearing the weapon from his opponent’s grasp. Pulled off-balance, the Scata staggered to his knees. Cathan turned back, afire with pain now, and slid his sword between the soldier’s ribs. The man choked, spitting blood, his wide eyes fixing in his head as he slid off the blade. Gasping, Cathan wheeled to go to Sir Gareth’s aid.

Sir Gareth needed none. He had laid into his opponent, driving him back with a flurry of swift, measured blows. The Scata gave ground frantically, looking for somewhere to run, but Gareth didn’t relent, battering away until finally the soldier missed a beat. Steel met the man’s neck, and his head flew free, an expression of shock frozen on his face as it tumbled into the furze. Blood sprayed as the rest of him made a wet, terrible sound and collapsed.

The Knight saw to the other Scatas, making sure they weren’t playing at being dead, then inspected the cut across Cathan’s back, peeling back his bloody tunic. He prodded at the gash, bringing a groan from Cathan’s lips.

“You’ll live,” he said, then nodded at the bodies. “Outriders, them-dispatched to clear away lookouts. Now let’s go see what’s raising that dust.” He waved his bloody sword at the cloud that hung in the air, very close now and drawing nearer every moment.

Crouching low, they hurried across the hilltop. The pain in Cathan’s back flared with every step, and he had to bite his lip to keep from crying out as they wormed along on their stomachs. Closing his eyes, Cathan took a deep breath, then raised his head, looked out into the valley below, and gasped.

He’d been expecting a large patrol-maybe five hundred men-but the force on the Highroad was much greater, a mass of footsoldiers clogging the path as far as he could see. There were thousands of them, an ocean of blue cloaks beneath a forest of glinting spears. Among them, here and there, he made out the colors of clerics-the gold robes of Kiri-Jolith’s war-priests, the blue of Mishakite healers, and the white of Revered Children of Paladine. Horn players and drummers walked with them too, though from here the wind’s howl drowned out the music. Standards bearing the triangle and falcon floated above the rest, leaving no doubt: this was the Kingpriest’s army, marching to war.

“Mother of the gods,” Cathan breathed.

“Indeed,” Gareth replied, beside him. The Knight didn’t seem the slightest bit surprised by what he beheld. “A Droma, at least. It seems Lord Kurnos wants a war.”

Cathan continued to stare at the army below. He’d never seen so many fighting men in one place. The rebels who had taken Govinna were a rabble beside this great mass. The pain in his back disappeared. He was too numb with fear to feel it.

“Wh-what do we do about them?” he stammered.

“Do? Nothing, yet,” Gareth replied, pushing himself up and striding back the way they’d come. Cathan hurried after. “We must return to Luciel at once. Lady Ilista and your baron will want to hear about this.”