We trotted through a small space between two trees, winding between the twisted trunks and into thicker foliage, and then found what passed for a path. It was overgrown, and we couldn’t move with much speed at first, but the brush thinned slightly, and seeing the space open up, I again prompted the horse forward. It seemed glad to run once more, even if it was only an exaggerated canter.
I get lost in city streets even with beggars trading directions for small coin, so I had little sense of how far we’d come, or where we might be in relation to the temple or our original hiding place. We began moving downhill again, and the horse picked up speed, branches flying by in brown blur.
The spaces between trees grew, and as the ground leveled, I pulled on the reins. Unused to its awkward rider, it took several tugs before the horse obeyed, but we finally came to a stop. I looked everywhere and tried to listen, although my own heavy breathing distorted everything I might have heard. Trees and more trees, and I was about to urge the horse forward again, sure I’d accomplished nothing except getting lost in the woods. But then, perhaps one hundred paces away, there was a brief flash of color. Plum. The underpriest’s small cape. It disappeared as quickly as I’d seen it, but I kicked my heels into the horse’s flanks and we were off again, hooves crunching pine cones.
As we closed the gap and dodged between trees, I saw the underpriest in flight ahead of us. I clicked as loudly as possible, and when that had no noticeable effect, I put my heels to my horse again, and nearly dropped the crossbow as we suddenly picked up more speed. The horse navigated as best it could, but it wasn’t concerned about the branches that flew above its head, and one low-hanging pine branch struck me so hard in the face and chest I was sure I would be pulled from the saddle or discharge my weapon. There was sap on my forehead and no doubt twenty scratches, but otherwise I was unharmed.
I looked around, my face as close to the back of my horse’s neck as possible, wondering if I’d overridden the mark and passed the underpriest hiding in the brush, but the purple gave him away again as he darted from behind a tree when he heard my approach.
I yelled at him to stop, but he hiked up his tunic with both arms and ran as fast as he could. I gave chase, eyes so fixed on my fleeing quarry that I didn’t notice we were approaching the edge of the woods again. I burst through some bushes and found myself at the top of a hill. Shading my eyes with one hand and blinking, I saw the figure of the priest further down. He was trying to make his way without losing his footing, but once he glanced over his shoulder and spotted me, he hurtled down as quickly as he could.
My horse charged forward without any extra encouragement, no doubt happy to have left the labyrinth of trees and bushes behind us. The hill wasn’t as steep on this side of the valley, but I’d never ridden down a hill before, so it might as well have been a sheer cliff. The underpriest tripped and fell, rolling over and over, tunic flapping wildly about his legs and arms.
Somehow, we stayed upright and came to a stop at the bottom near the dizzy and bruised underpriest. He lay on his side in some tall grass, panting, eyes closed, knees tucked up halfway to his chest. I tugged at the reins and spun around to face him, the crossbow nearly slipping out of my right hand until I let go of the reins and steadied it with my left. While the underpriest surely knew I was there, he didn’t open his eyes to look at me. I glanced around. We were alone.
I tried to get my breathing under control, but my lungs seemed determined to betray my fear and exhilaration. I didn’t trust myself to speak, but even if I had, now that I actually had the underpriest prone and defenseless in front of me, I realized I had no idea what to do. If I said too much, I was sure to reveal that I wasn’t a soldier or even a common tavern brawler. And if that happened, I didn’t know how the underpriest would respond. He was unarmed, and I had a crossbow pointed down at him, so that was in my favor, but once he opened his eyes and steadied himself, if he sensed that I wasn’t a bloodspiller by trade, he could easily run again, or possibly even try to overwhelm or disarm me. And I wasn’t sure I could squeeze the long trigger if he did. When I’d done so in the wagon with Braylar, that was facing an armed soldier with the intent to dismember me, and even there, I’d missed badly from five feet away.
I knew I’d need to bluff the underpriest into believing I was a man of action with little remorse, and the only way I could do that was to try to imagine what Braylar would say. I was considering which words to begin with when the underpriest opened his eyes and fixed them on me. They were wet and red-rimmed, as if he’d been sitting too close to a smoky fire or had been long weeping, but I suspected that was either his natural condition, or perhaps a reaction to some plant or flower in the vicinity. His eyes stayed on me as he sat up, and they were filled with malevolence. It seemed his balance hadn’t quite returned from his many spins down the hill, as he slowly made his way to his feet.
I tried to approximate Braylar’s tone. “I don’t want to shoot you. I really don’t. But I will if you run again.”
The underpriest stood where he was, swatting some of the mud and dirt off his clothes, and stopped to pick some twigs out of his hair before looking at me again. I was debating what to say next when the underpriest said, “Do you have any idea who you’re dealing with, boy?”
I forced the next string of words out more slowly than the first. “Yes. My prisoner. Now, you’ll walk in front of me as—”
“Not me, you fool. The high priest. I’m the high priest’s man. If you assault me, you assault the high priest, and—”
It was my turn to interrupt. “You’re my prisoner. That’s all I need to know.” I tried to instill Braylarian steel into those words, and probably failed miserably.
The underpriest replied as if he hadn’t heard me. “You’ll suffer greatly for this. All of this. The high priest will flail you alive when he discovers—”
“No.” I looked in the direction of the temple and then back to the underpriest. “The man back there with the flail will be doing all the flailing. Now, walk in that direction. Ten paces ahead of me. No more. No less. And be quiet please, or I’ll be forced to shoot you.”
The underpriest started up at me defiantly, and I tried to resist the awful urge to wipe at the syrupy stain on my forehead that was beginning to itch abominably. I didn’t think the underpriest would rush me—that seemed beyond him—but if he turned and ran, I didn’t think I could really shoot him either. He’d never stop again, and I might as well have brought his horse with and handed it back to him, wishing him safe journey.
His red-rimmed stare didn’t falter, and it seemed that he was considering the seriousness of my threat, weighed against what might be won if he chose the correct words to cow me into letting him go.
I was almost panicked into saying something else, even though I knew the more I said the greater my chances of being seen through, when the underpriest began to slowly walk back towards the temple. I kept the crossbow trained on him as he went past and waited until he could no longer see me before dropping one hand to the reins and tugging the horse around, sure if he noticed I couldn’t lead my horse with my legs alone he’d see through my poorly purchased disguise as well.
He moved at an unhurried pace, and the truth was, I wasn’t in a hurry to hurry him—I had no idea what awaited us back at the temple. If the Syldoon and Brunesmen were defeated, I was doing nothing but delivering myself into the hands of my enemy. Or their enemy, who by association, made them my enemy. There was possibly still time to release the underpriest and ride towards freedom, and a voice inside cursed me for chasing him down and leaving a perfectly good hiding place. I looked into the woods on the hill above me, certain that any moment another group of the high priest’s guards would come down the hill towards us. But, possessed by a foolish impulse, I’d captured the underpriest, so there was nothing left but to see it through to the end. So, we continued with the underpriest walking silently in front of me until we finally made our way back to the ruins. His sense of direction was more sound than mine. Had I been left alone, it might have taken me the rest of the day.
As we came out of the woods and began skirting the perimeter of the ruins, I heard the gurgle of the river and the sound of the wind. The sounds of battle—steel ringing, grunts and cries, screams as men died—were no more. I could only guess who’d won, and didn’t want to.
The Godveil was still some ways off, but I caught glances of it through the ruined walls. Its pull was much greater now. I slowed and then nearly stopped as I looked at it wavering in the distance over the river, the thrumming last-note of some unseen instrument louder, the smell of singe and vinegar more powerful. Still knowing it was death to do so, I wanted to turn my horse and ride closer. I pinched the skin on my wrist and kept moving. If the Syldoon had managed to defeat the priest guards, it must only have been because they’d spent two days secreted away in the vault, cramped in the dark with their shit and piss, but worst of all, fighting off the overwhelming urge to come out and walk towards the Veil.
When we rounded the corner of the temple and closed in on the steps where the bulk of the fighting took place, I heard the low moans of the wounded and the sound of men talking heatedly, punctuated now and then by a shout. Several people were talking at once, but I only made out the odd angry word.
The bodies of two of the underpriest’s guards were lying across each other at the foot of the stairs, like a belated sacrifice to the Deserters. Someone stepped out from behind a pillar, shouting something in my direction, and I instinctively aimed my crossbow at him, almost pulling the trigger before recognizing he was a Brunesmen. He sheathed his sword and called out over his shoulder, “Your man lives. And he isn’t alone.”
Suddenly there were several men approaching between a row of pillars, Gurdinn and Braylar among them. A Brunesmen was pushing a prisoner forward, one of the underpriest’s guards, a bandage across his bare chest and shoulder, arms tied behind him.
Braylar opened his mouth to speak to me, but stopped as he saw the underpriest. Two things crossed his face—shock, though fleeting, which was perhaps understandable, and then what might have been anger, which lasted longer, and truly confused me. Gratitude was nowhere to be seen. He stopped in front of the underpriest and said, “Welcome back, your holiness. We were worried you’d lost your way in the wild.”
Braylar’s voice was raspy and thin, testament to nearly being choked to death. He spoke to those behind him, his eyes never leaving the underpriest. “Someone bind this man’s hands so he doesn’t lose his way again.”
The underpriest looked at his injured guard. “I’m a man of Truth, and you’ll release the both of us this instant.” He pointed at Braylar. “If you turn that man over to us, I’ll forget that anyone else was involved in this treachery.”
Braylar stepped forward and struck the underpriest across the face with the back of his hand. “Treachery? You would speak to us of treachery, worm? Bind him and gag him.”
The underpriest would have been taken off his feet by the blow if he hadn’t stumbled into my horse, which snorted at the impact. He straightened himself and addressed Gurdinn, “He has assaulted an underpriest of Truth, and in doing so, assaulted the high priest himself. He can’t be saved. But you have the power to save yourself. You—”
Given the animosity Gurdinn bore Braylar, I expected him to hear the underpriest out, but he surprised me. “I don’t yet know the full depths of your involvement in this treason, but I soon will. Today, I only know that your men assaulted agents of the baron, and in doing so, assaulted the baron himself.” He turned to the soldier who’d first spotted us. “Do as the Syldoon commanded—bind and gag him immediately.”
Braylar gave Gurdinn a small nod and then addressed what remained of the company. “We depart this forsaken place. Now.”
Gurdinn was in the middle of saying something to one of his soldiers, but hearing Braylar’s announcement, turned to him. “Two of the underpriest’s guards escaped. We’ve wasted enough time already. Let’s hunt them down, and then we can gather our dead and wounded and return home.”
This had clearly been the source of the argument I heard riding up to the ruins. Mulldoos answered him, “He told you already, we got no time at all. None. And we got less time to argue about it.”
Gurdinn glanced at Mulldoos for a moment and then looked at Braylar again. “Your man said the surrounding area was clear. The guards—”
Braylar was as grim as I’ve ever seen him. “My man’s name was Glesswik, and he’s dead. And we’ll be his rearguard in the afterlife if we delay here another moment. We mount up. Now.”
It was only then I realized that Glesswik wasn’t among the group of survivors. Gurdinn said, “We’ve both lost men here today. I only pray it was worth it. But the underpriest has no reinforcements nearby. The two guards are on foot, or were when they escaped, so if we track them down, we can capture them. But only if we head after them now.”
Braylar’s patience, rarely bountiful, was now completely depleted. “This underpriest had men planted for an ambush at least two days in advance, and planned it for some time before that. Do you really believe he’d have reinforcements so far from the engagement? I’ll answer for you, he wouldn’t. And if he doesn’t, then we have no assurance that’s where his men are heading. In all likelihood, they’re running straight towards a grove or cave a few miles from here. My best tracker is dead. We couldn’t possibly hope to catch those two guards in the wildlands in time. So, we return to the city as quickly as possible. Thanks to my man,” he gestured at me, “we have what we came here for. Put the dead on the free horses. We ride hard. We ride now. That is all.”
Gurdinn replied, “There’s time—”
“This discussion is over. Mount up. That’s an order.” Braylar pointed at the Brunesman who just finished tying the underpriest’s hands together. “Get those two on the spare horses. And tie their legs together underneath. We wouldn’t want to lose them along the way.” He regarded the underpriest. “I advise you and your man to keep your legs clamped tight, holy man. Should you fall, it will prove a most uncomfortable ride to the city.”