Marked for Death

Chapter 4

A broadsword flashed out. Steel clanged against steel. The young knight yelped as Kandler’s blade was pushed aside, its tip nicking the boy in the throat as it was forced from under his chin.

Kandler stepped back and swung his sword back around to his left at the attacker. The same blade parried his riposte. He found himself staring into the flashing green eyes of the lady knight.

“You shall not threaten a Knight of the Silver Flame,” the woman said, holding her sword at the ready.

“Stand down,” Kandler said, leaning his blade against hers, testing her strength. “Your friend just desecrated a good woman’s corpse.”

“Hold!” Deothen thrust his steel gauntlet into where the two blades met. “Hold friends! Words shall serve us better than swords.”

“I don’t know Thranite customs, but we don’t butcher our dead here,” Kandler said, never taking his eyes from the woman’s. She met his stare without flinching and held her ground, but he could feel that she stood ready to counter any move he might make.

“It’s her!” Levritt said, as he scrambled to his feet, his hand at his throat. When he brought his fingers away to point at Shawda’s corpse, they were smeared with blood. He blanched at the sight. “Am I slain?” he asked weakly.

“Not yet,” said Kandler. He glanced at the young knight’s neck. The cut was shallow and small. He guessed that the boy had nicked himself worse the first time he’d tried shaving. The crowd pressed forward, and several men reached out to grab the young knight. They held him fast and snatched his sword from his hand. Levritt cried out in fear.

The lady knight used her sword to slap down Kandler’s blade, then brandished it before her as she spun about. The townspeople who had been hoping to grab her fell back with a communal protest.

“Sallah,” Deothen said in a firm tone, “these people are not our foes.”

Sallah glared at Kandler and stepped back from the crowd, though she kept her sword at the ready. “Levritt did no wrong,” she said.

Kandler opened his mouth to protest, but Mardak stepped between the justicar and the lady knight. Looking over the elder knight at Sallah, Mardak said, “We might see matters otherwise.”

A cry went up from Levritt, and Kandler turned to see the crowd starting to haul him away.

“Hold!” Kandler said.

The people carrying Levritt away stopped in their tracks. When they saw that the justicar was speaking to them, they put the young knight down, although they still held him tight.

“These people aren’t going anywhere,” Kandler said. “I’d like to hear their explanation if they have one.”

Some of the people in the crowd grumbled at this, but those holding Levritt let him go. One sandy-haired man to the side kept hold of the knight’s blade.

Kandler looked to Sallah and sheathed his own blade. She lowered her sword but did not put it away. She hefted the hilt in her hand as if daring the people in the crowd to rush her.

Kandler looked to the shaking young knight. Levritt gulped and stood as tall as he could, glancing nervously at the angry people who surrounded him. “So,” Kandler said to him, “what is your story?”

“Allow me,” Deothen said. He stepped forward and stood next to Levritt, putting a warm hand on the boy’s shoulder to calm him. “He is in my charge.”

All eyes turned to the eldest knight. All voices fell silent but for the sound of Norra’s muffled sobs.

Deothen cleared his throat. “This is not the first time we have encountered this woman whose body you are about to burn.” Deothen glanced about at the crowd, gauging the reaction of those who heard his words. His eyes hesitated on Kandler for a moment, but the justicar offered no consolation.

Kandler was willing to give the Silver Knights a fair hearing. He’d seen too many people lynched during the war, too many innocent souls damned to satiate the rage of an angry mob. He’d do anything he could to keep that from happening here, but he was only willing to go so far. He had Esprл to think of now.

“We first met this woman-”

“Shawda!” said Mardak. “Her name was Shawda.”

“Shawda.” Deothen nodded his thanks. “We first met Shawda last night on the edge of your town, atop the crater’s ridge. We reached your town after dusk and did not want to enter then for fear of alarming the watch.”

“So you killed one of our citizens instead?” Mardak asked in barely controlled outrage.

Deothen ignored the interruption. “As we settled down for the night, we gathered around our campfire for a final prayer. Just as we finished, we heard someone crashing through the brush in the darkness, coming from the east, the direction of the Mournland. We drew our blades, not knowing what to expect. She appeared at the edge of the fire’s light. Her clothing was rent and torn. Her skin was gray and streaked with dirt. I called out a greeting and welcomed her as a fellow traveler. I invited her to share our fire.”

Deothen bowed his head for a moment to collect his thoughts. When the knight looked back up, Kandler could see tears welling in his eyes, and when he spoke his voice was raw.

“She snarled at us, an evil light dancing in her eyes. I called to her a second time. She lowered her head and charged straight at us, attacking with her bare hands. At first I feared she might be mad, and I ordered my fellows not to harm her. As she neared, though, I sensed the evil in her, and I called for them to attack. Sallah stabbed the woman through the heart. Such a blow should have been fatal, but your Shawda kept coming. With Sallah’s blade jutting from her chest, she pulled herself further along its length until she could reach Sallah with her nails, which broke upon Sallah’s armor. Levritt stepped forward and chopped at the intruder with his blade. His blow severed her arm, which then hung from where her fingers had caught along the edges of Sallah’s breastplate. No blood flowed. The woman kept coming. She snatched her own arm from Sallah’s breastplate and swung it like a flail. The palm of her detached arm smacked Levritt in the face and knocked him flat.” Deothen glanced at the young knight before continuing on. “I have fought the undead before. I like to say I can smell them from a league away. I hadn’t sensed that here.”

“It’s the Mournland,” said Kandler. As he spoke, he gazed up at the wall of ash-colored mist. “Bodies don’t rot there. There’s nothing to smell.”

“Perhaps. In any case, once I realized what it was we faced, I called for an all-out attack. We set upon the creature and made quick work of her.”

“Is this what happened with Shawda?” Mardak asked, his voice held low. Kandler angled his body so that he could intervene between the knight and the mayor should Mardak lose control.

Deothen grimaced. “We had to be sure. As your justicar points out, we know little of the Mournland. We had no desire to have the creature return later in the night for vengeance, so we took steps to make sure that could not happen.”

“You hacked her to bits,” said Mardak.

Deothen gave a stiff nod. “And we spread those pieces far and wide.”

“We couldn’t find all of her,” said Kandler. His voice was but a whisper, not out of respect for the dead, but so that Norra might not hear.

“That was the idea,” Deothen said. Norra’s sobs grew louder, and she punctuated them with a keening wail that put a halt to all other words.

Silence fell over the crowd. None of the people surrounding Kandler, Mardak, and the knights dared to breathe a word.

“So you say,” Mardak said, restarting the conversation. Anger seethed between his gritted teeth as he spoke, each word uttered with deliberate force. “So you say, but you offer nothing to prove your words true.”

Deothen stared at Mardak, indignation stitched across his brow. “We are Knights of the Silver Flame.”

“Which means nothing here. This is not Thrane, and your goddess holds no sway in our town. Even so, how can we verify your claim? Perhaps you are brigands in knights’ armor.”

Sallah pointed a gauntleted hand at the mayor. “You are bordering on blasphemy. None can speak to Sir Deothen so. How dare you impugn his honor?” She kept her sword lowered, but she gripped it as if it might leap from her grasp and find itself in Mardak’s heart.

Mardak spit at Deothen’s feet. “What honor did you show Shawda?”

The crowd murmured in agreement. The three younger knights gasped. Sallah scoffed in disgust.

Kandler could see that this could soon become ugly. He looked around for Burch but couldn’t spot the shifter anywhere.

Deothen remained impassive for a moment, then spoke plainly to Mardak. “What proof would you have me offer?” he asked. “We came to your town as soldiers of faith, on a mission handed down to us by our greatest prophet. We have no reason to kill your people. What of the others who are missing?”

“How do you know of these?” asked Mardak.

“I told him,” Kandler said.

“We arrived only last night,” Deothen said. “According to your justicar, whoever is responsible for Shawda’s transformation has been taking victims from your village for weeks.”

“Who’s to say you haven’t been lurking in the shadows until now?”

“Why would we reveal ourselves today? Why would young Levritt bring suspicion on us by attacking Shawda’s corpse?”

Mardak shook his head. “It’s not for me to fathom your reasons. The facts against you are damning enough.”

Sallah brought up her blade toward Mardak. Kandler met its edge with his own. The two young knights still armed drew their blades and pointed them at Kandler.

“I have heard enough!” Sallah said to Kandler. Her eyes blazed with anger as she spoke. “We are leaving you ungrateful wretches and your horrid, little town.”

“You really don’t want to try that,” Kandler said, staring into her emerald eyes above their crossed swords. Silently, he begged her to put down her blade, but he could see that this cause was lost.

“And why not?”

The sound of blades being unsheathed filled the air. Every able-bodied man and woman in the crowd stood with a weapon in hand, ready to fight. The children and elders scattered for cover without a word needed.

“These are not some farmhands you can scare with a bit of scabbard rattling,” Kandler said. He kept his voice friendly and even, as if he was explaining the varieties of local crops. As he spoke, he gazed out at the people of Mardakine and hoped they would follow his example. His eyes landed on Burch in the distance, and he smiled. “Everyone here lived through the War. Most of us fought in it.”

Sallah glanced around at the crowd, looking for an avenue of escape. Kandler grated the edge of his sword against hers and caught her eye. With a quick nod, he sent her eyes up toward the rooftop of the town hall overlooking the square. It was the largest building in town, big enough to hold all of Mardakine’s citizens at once. A low-slung place, it was the oldest edifice in town, made of steel-gray bricks crafted from the ash that had once filled the bottom of the crater and still collected in thick drifts in the farthest edges of the place. On windy days, the breeze threw that ash swirling up into the sky, from where it later settled down upon the town like a patina of fresh-fallen, filthy snow. The roofs of the buildings in town huddled underneath layers of this ash, except directly after a rain. It had been a long time since the last rain, and the roof of the town hall was thick with the dusty stuff.

Burch stood there atop the roof, the steel-tipped bolt loaded in his crossbow pointed directly at Deothen’s heart. The sun glinted off the bolt’s metal tip as the shifter readjusted his aim.

“He can pick the balls off a rat at a hundred yards,” Kandler said quietly. “If you attack, then he”-Kandler jerked his chin at Deothen-“is already dead.”

Sallah gritted her teeth. The point of her blade wavered. Next to her, Levritt shook so hard his armor rattled softly.

“Please,” Kandler said. He didn’t want this fight. His job was to protect the people of Mardakine, and if a battle broke out here, people on both sides would be killed. The knights didn’t deserve to die over this either. None of them did.

Deothen laid a hand on Sallah’s arm. “Stand down,” he said. She turned toward him, and he looked deep into her eyes. “These are good people. They are scared. We have no issue with them.”

“But, sir-” Sallah started.

Deothen cut her off with a raised eyebrow, then he reached down and unbuckled his sword belt. He wrapped the belt around his blade’s scabbard and handed the bundle to Mardak. “These knights are my charges,” he said as Mardak accepted the sword. “I am responsible for them and their deeds, whether good or ill. I shall bear the burden of your suspicions.”

Mardak weighed the sword in his hands. “You are charged with the murder of one of our citizens. The penalty for this is death.”

Levritt blanched. Sallah opened her mouth to object again, but Deothen silenced her with a wave of his hand. “Give them your swords,” he said. He raised his voice to preempt any protests. “We are guests here. We will follow their laws.”

The knights surrendered their weapons to Kandler. He handed them to Rislinto, one by one, marveling at them as he handled them. Each hilt was long and straight, of a piece with its blade, forged from a single length of the finest steel. Silver filigree wrapped around each crimson scabbard in the pattern of flames licking up the sheath’s full length. The soldier in Kandler felt the urge to draw one of the swords, to test its balance and its edge, but he passed them along instead.

Rislinto blew out a sigh of professional amazement as he collected the blades. The blacksmith cradled them in his arms as if each was a fragile flower.

Deothen drew in a deep breath and addressed Mardak. “I place myself in your hands and trust your mercy.”

“You are far wiser than your young charges,” said Mardak, a hard smile growing on his face. “Now we must determine the truth of your words.”

“How do you propose to do that?” Deothen asked, as serious as he had been while giving Shawda’s eulogy. “Knights such as I have the power to separate truth from lies. Do you have one among your number blessed with such favors?”

Mardak shook his head. “Fradelko has been missing now for two full weeks. We will have to resort to more traditional methods.”

“Wait,” said Kandler. “I can poke around a bit at their campsite, try to confirm their story.”

Mardak grimaced. “Do not waste your time, justicar. If these people could snatch so many from our midst without detection, then they could surely meddle with any such so-called evidence. We cannot trust our eyes or our hearts.”

Kandler’s stomach flipped over. He knew where this was going.

“Our course is clear,” Mardak said. “Trial by fire.”