Sword of Hemlock (Lords of Syon Saga Book 1) (43 page)

One by one—

“
The knotted silks were once formal, ceremonial armor
,”
Nekraba’s voice whispered in Chul’s mind, “
but by this time, they weren’t
worn—
”

—the boys crumpled and fell to the ground at the katsas’
feet, choking and gagging on their own blood and vomit—

“—but for graveclothes
.”

—until at last they lay still.  All but one.  The same boy
who had managed to slip free of his brother’s grasp once before pulled free
again and ran screaming through the trees to escape.

Chul watched the terrified boy disappear into the clutching
trees, watched him run blindly from his family, from his city, from everything
he had ever known, and he felt his own chest grow tight.  He could feel the
unfriendly ground pounding against his own feet again, the face of his father
in the shadows of the trees and the terror that had chased him through the
trees himself not so long ago.  But this boy was no hunter, and he had no Gikka
waiting to take him in; without help, he would die in the forest before
morning.

“
Tedrivora
!”  The word formed in his mind as if he’d
spoken in the Old Voice all his life, and he spat it in the father’s face. 
“Betrayer of blood!”

The man did not see him, did not hear him.

“
Chul, these things you see happened thousands of years
ago
,” Nekraba’s voice soothed.  “
You cannot change them, but take
heart.  The boy survives, and he proves to be very important—
”

“
He betrayed Us to the Invaders
!” snapped the other
voice.

“
—in ending the Gods’ Rebellion
.”

“
Bah
!”

The escaped boy’s newly ascended brother lowered his head in
defeat, but he said nothing while the older
katsa
at the center lifted a
knife from the altar and raised it above his head.  The father’s dark eyes were
wide with fear, and he fell to his knees, pleading with them to wait, that he
would chase the boy down and bring him back, he would kill the boy himself if
they would only wait.

But they could not wait.  The knife flashed in the
torchlight, and the young
katsa
fell dead without a sound.

“
Disgrace
,” the voice chuckled, “
also has its
price
.”

And then he felt his mind released from the god’s grasp.

The faint echo of Renda’s words still hung between the
trees.  “I must find a way into that dome.”  Then, when he looked up at her,
she touched his shoulder and moved off through the trees.  She did not notice
the panicked, disoriented look in his eyes, or if she did, she was not
surprised.

Renda.  He breathed in deeply, surprised and angry at the
sob that hung in his chest.  The city, the wicked ritual in the glade.  It had
not been real, any of it.  What was real was the sheriff, lying here against
the tree, and Lady Renda, and the cardinal inside the dome who was making ready
to do something terrible. 

Let him see what his people had, what they were before the
Invaders came.

But he could not forget the strange, fantastic city he’d
seen—it was nothing like Farras, nothing like Gikka’s stories of the Brannford
docks.  Dhanani women perfumed and wrapped in silk, impossibly long ships
pushed over the sea by wind, great stone temples reaching up to the sky—he’d
seen only a glimpse, but what he’d seen had been fascinating.

What they lost.

He rubbed his shoulders to warm them.  Then he spread more
of the gooey salve over the sheriff’s burns and settled the heavy mantle over
him again.  If they’d lost all that, it was because they’d grown soft and fat
like Invaders.  Where were their warriors?  Where were the hunters?  He did not
care what they’d lost, not here and not now.  The gods, he thought wearily,
would have to see to Their own problems.

More images flowed through his mind, insistent images,
serene, beautiful images of peace and prosperity, the city, the merchants, the
benevolent
katsara
.  Farms of patchwork golds and greens at the
outskirts of the towns, the caravans of traders that moved between them, and
all this, all the subcontinent, belonging to the Dhanani.

But then he was left looking into the eyes of the boy, the
one who had escaped so long ago. 
Tedrivora
, Xorden’s soft voice
whispered in his mind.  Betrayer of blood.

Now he saw the Dhanani people running in panic from their
cities, cities aroar with flames and chaos.  Most carried their children and
precious little else.  The robed
katsa
ran screaming from armies of
horsed Invaders who smashed their skulls and cut them down.  Invaders, he saw
to his horror, who wore mantles of brilliant blue.

Let him imagine what they might have become if We had won
instead of the harridan goddess and Her pet, Damerien…

Bright light blazed through the cracks in the dome, a
glaring flash that made Renda fall back against the trees and turn away to
shield her eyes.  When she looked back, even more of the wall had burned away,
enough that she could probably slip through, and she crouched, ready to spring
the instant the cardinal’s back was turned.  But she drew up short; at last she
could see who was inside the dome with Valmerous.

The little girl stood as she had in the duke’s audience
chamber, serene and confident, with her wooden sword outstretched.  Her form,
still gowned in the lovely white of her First Rite, radiated a brilliant blaze
of light, B’radik’s light, against which the cardinal had already protected his
altar.  But far from surprised by her presence, he turned and grinned at her.

“Ah,” he said, raising his hands toward her.  “I had begun
to wonder if you might not come.”

“
L
ord
Daerwin?”  Nestor paused in the library doorway and tied the sash on his
dressing gown.  “Have you been up all night, lad?”

“Aye.”  The young sheriff rubbed his eyes and looked up at the
old man.  “Studying.  Searching.”  He chuckled wearily.  “For a new way to
weaken Kadak’s armies, one everyone else has somehow overlooked for the last
five hundred years.”

Nestor’s look of concern changed to mild amusement.  “I
couldn’t sleep, either.  Not with Brada’s ascension tomorrow.  So much to plan,
so much to do.”  He looked over the stack of books and scrolls on the table,
scanned the titles.  “But you’ve brought down half the library, I see.  Have
you found anything interesting?”

Lord Daerwin studied the old retainer’s face for a moment,
considering.  “Nestor,” he began, moving aside scrolls and books until he found
the one he wanted.  “Do you remember Melchiorus?”

“The play, my lord?”

“Aye, the very one, required reading at the academy.  You know
it, aye?”

“Not well.”  Nestor settled in a chair across from him.  “I
recall little more of it,” he said with a yawn, “than a lot of tedious fretting
and strutting about, I’m afraid.”

“Act three, scene four.”  Daerwin flipped through the quarto
until he found the passage.  “Here it is.  At the hospice.  Lady Betancourt
asks the priestess of Ka’ar about her invalid son Godward’s condition, and the
priestess tells her that only the gods can help him.  But Lady Betancourt presses
her; she would know if the boy would survive.  Do you remember the priestess’s
reply?”

“Not precisely,” Nestor chuckled self-consciously.  “It was one
of those fretting scenes stuck in betwixt the strutting-about scenes, not very
memorable.”

Daerwin grinned at him.  “This is what she said: ‘Thei stirre
the bludds en heis staide da battaille.’”  He settled back thoughtfully.  “Now
what do you suppose that means?”

Nestor closed his eyes.  “They stir the bloods, obviously the
four sacred bloods of man.  The pith, the blood, the heart, the glow, symbolic
of your four knightly virtues Courage, Diligence, Empathy and Honor.  In the
play, the gods bring the bloods, hence the virtues, hence the knights
themselves, to battle in Godward’s stead.”  When Lord Daerwin only templed his
fingers and frowned, Nestor shifted uncomfortably.  “In the final battle, I
seem to recall four knights in four colors, each to symbolize—”

“Aye, and Godward symbolized the weakness in all mankind,”
murmured the sheriff, “so we were taught at the academy.  And Godward the
Innocent, being a bleeder, naturally They should be clever and bring blood to
battle in his stead.  But these are schoolboy metaphors.”  Lord Daerwin snorted
impatiently.  “This play is almost four thousand years old, Nestor.  Blood for
virtue, that’s our symbolism.  It’s arrogance to paint so ancient a work with
our meanings.”

“The ancients were men like us, my lord.”  Nestor shrugged. 
“Certain themes are timeless, aye?  And certain symbols, as well.”

“That,” the sheriff sighed, rubbing his eyes with weariness,
“that, I must grant you.  But now, for argument’s sake, suppose, as I did just
now, that the priestess meant exactly what she said.”

The retainer squinted his eyes in thought then shook his head. 
“I’m not sure I understand.”

“Let’s say the gods were stirring, literally stirring, real
bloods and saps and such to enhance Their powers.  Or the powers of Their
priests.”

“Real—!”  A strange look came over Nestor’s face.  “But why?”

“Aye, real bloods of men, of animals, even of trees.  The pith,
the blood, the heart, the glow, ingredients to gather for potions, salves. 
Perhaps they used different piths, different bloods for different things, but…”

“I should think it horrific!  What you’re describing is…”

“Not so different from the legends of the Witcher Mages.”

Daerwin watched Nestor fight to regain composure.  “Melchiorus
is a classic ancient play, not a cookbook for witchery.  My lord.”  Nestor’s
color returned to his face, and he smiled diplomatically.  “It’s late.  If I
may say so, a few hours’ sleep might—”

“What, is it so unreasonable?” he interrupted.  “The Keepers’
power, your own power, comes from the duke’s life force.”

“But not from his blood, my lord.  We are not vampires.” 
Nestor’s eyes flashed darkly.  “Nor Witcher Mages.”

“No, of course not.  But our priests use oils and unguents to
enhance their powers, powers given them by the gods.”

“Aye, so they do.”  Nestor’s brow twitched.  “But not blood.”

“What if those oils and such are but a tiny scrap of what men
knew before, not to mention what the gods Themselves might know?”  Excited, he
picked up another ancient book.  “Look here.  This is Vorn’s En Magickes and
Strategia, from a thousand years later, just before the Gods’ Rebellion.  The
pages are stained, quite a few are missing, but now and again Vorn mentions
power in tree saps—hemlock, for example…”

“Priest’s blood…” Daerwin murmured.  “And hemlock sap...” 
His voice was breathy, vague, and no one was near enough to hear him.

He’d slept or lain unconscious against this tree trunk for
some time—not long, he thought; the sun still had not risen above the trees. 
His wounded arm was a searing iron weight attached at his shoulder, immovable,
but the pain had dulled enough to let reason return to him.  With his good
hand, he picked up the discarded leaves that Chul had used to spread the salve
into his wounds.  Chul, the Dhanani boy, who had somehow found them here.

The boy sat not far from him, lost in thought or perhaps
asleep himself.  Matow and Barlow he’d seen ripped away by Valmerous’s blast of
heat.  That left only Renda, and at some point while he’d been asleep, she must
have gone off to fight the cardinal herself.

He had to tell her.

With great effort, the sheriff turned himself over onto his
knees and crawled toward the dome like a wounded animal, binding and cradling
his burnt arm against his chest.  But when the blood settled into his arm, his
vision blurred with the splintering pain, and before he had gone twenty feet,
he crumpled forward in an agonized, exhausted heap.  He squinted up at the
sky.  The sun would touch the glade in minutes, and by then, the thing would be
decided.  He had to reach Renda before that, even if he died at her feet.

He grabbed the lowest branch of a tree with his good hand and
dragged himself to his knees again.  Then, branch by branch, he pulled himself
along toward the dome.

Pegrine.  Renda’s heart seized in her chest, and she lowered
herself behind a clump of brush only a few feet from the rift in the dome.  No
wonder the cardinal had spent so little of his energy against them; he was
saving it to use against Pegrine.  Her eyes narrowed.  She had already lost
three of her knights and she might well lose her father for no more than to
bait the cardinal’s trap.  But it made no sense.  If he could attack Pegrine’s
place of death and destroy her, as Dilkon had said, why did he need her here? 
To gloat?

Her eyes turned to the alderwood stump.  The altar.  She
cursed her own stupidity. This ground was sacred, possibly Xorden’s only sacred
place on all of Syon, and Valmerous would not dare desecrate it, not even to do
Xorden’s bidding.  So while Nara guarded Pegrine’s place of life and the
Brannagh dead guarded her place of rest, because of Bishop Cilder’s bungling,
Xorden Himself guarded her place of death from His own cardinal.  If Renda had
known this, if she had had the least bit of understanding, they could have
defeated him by simply ignoring him and staying at Brannagh.  Her throat
tightened.  By staying and saving Brannagh.

Valmerous might have known already when he left Brannagh, or
he might have discovered it upon entering the glade and changed his plans
accordingly, but either way, just the threat had been enough to lure the
knights and ultimately Pegrine herself to this place, away from the castle,
away—

To free Her hand and guard the throne.

—from Damerien.

Renda kept her head low and crept in closer, keeping her
mind clear and calm, ready for any opening, any possibility.  Because just now,
she saw none.

Inside the dome, Pegrine extended her small hemlock sword
still wet with blood toward the cardinal.  “Your arrogance is profound,
Valmerous,” she said, “to think that you could do battle with my mistress.”

“Arrogance, profound?  Bold words in the mouth of a child,
B’radik; You betray Yourself.” Valmerous laughed.  “And my arrogance is more
profound than You can imagine, for I intend to win.”

Renda gripped her sword and coiled her muscles to spring
through the breach in the wall.  If she missed, if she so much as touched the
sides, she could likely die, but she would not let Valmerous win while she
lived.

“Renda.”  Behind her, Lord Daerwin clawed his way over the
ground toward her.  “Renda, stay.”  His lips were pasty and dry, and he was
gasping for breath.

“Father,” she cried, “what are you doing?”  She looked back
to the spot where she had left him, where Chul sat angrily cutting into the
ground with his knife, oblivious.  “Why did you follow me?”

“You can’t go, Renda.”  He grasped her arm with his good
hand.  “
The pith, the blood, the heart, the glow
.  Don’t you see?  You
can’t go!”

“You must be delirious.”  She pulled herself away from him
angrily.  Had he not been the one to press them forward?  And now he spoke to
her of, what, of Pegrine’s rhyme, of the four bloods, of the four knightly
virtues?  Nonsense.  She was the last of the Knights of Brannagh, and the duty
fell to her to protect B’radik.  “Go back and wait.”

“Leave it.”  He fell gracelessly beside her.  “You do not
understand.”

“If you cannot go back alone, then stay and wait for me
here, but do not stay me from this.”

A flash of light burst from within the dome again, but the
cardinal recovered himself right away.  He twitched his fingers and gestured. 
All at once, the little girl’s body was engulfed in blue flames.

“I must go now, or all is lost!”

The flames disappeared almost instantly, swept away in
another brilliant flash of power, but he had given himself time to take up the
weapon he’d prepared against her, a sharpened staff no longer than a man’s
thigh and carved from a single long bone.

“I…order you.  Stay.”

Renda edged forward nervously.  He was the sheriff, the
Knight General of Brannagh, but he was also her father, the one who had taught
her everything she knew about battle and honor.  His sense of duty, his oath to
B’radik, was as sacred as hers.  But he was injured, and his judgment might not
be his own.  “Bone against undead.”  Her protest was weak, almost the whine of
an anxious hound on tether.   “It’s as sure a weapon as any.”

“Aye.”  The sheriff licked his dry lips and closed his eyes
against the pain in his arm.  “Unless…”

“Unless?”  Renda watched the cardinal step slowly toward
Pegrine, watched her last opportunity slip away.  “Unless what?”

“‘
The pith, the blood, the heart, the glow.
’”  He opened
his eyes again. When Renda looked down at him, he shook his head.  “Not the
virtues, Renda.  Real blood, real pith.”

“What?”

“Trust me.”

She frowned, watching Pegrine and the cardinal circle each
other with their weapons.

“Bits and pieces, I’ve found over the years, hints,
references to lost texts...”  The fingers of his good hand opened and dropped
one of the empty leaf-sacs.  “A lost science of bloods and saps,” he sighed,
marshaling his strength to say more.  “Lost since antiquity to all but the gods.”

But then comes an old, forgotten god, a god who sees my pain, a
god who grants me a tiny fragment, but the barest splinter of the gods’ own
knowledge for my own!

She nodded uneasily. “Magic, then?” she asked.  When he made
no answer, she pressed him.  “Magic, like Dith’s?”

The sheriff craned his neck to watch his granddaughter
attack, not the cardinal, but the bone spear he thrust at her, as if the dried
marrow inside were more precious than her very life.  Finally, Pegrine’s sword
smashed through the cardinal’s spear, and he blew out sharply.  “Draw a cart
with horses, or push it down a hill.”  He swallowed painfully.  “Both move the
cart, aye?”

Inside the cardinal’s dome, Pegrine’s hemlock sword was
dipped in the blood of a priest and flecked with dried marrow.  But at the same
time, the cardinal’s bone spear was splashed with the priest’s blood and
splintered with hemlock.  If her father was right, both had the pith and the
blood.  Both were capable of completing the rite or whatever it might be called.

“What will happen?”

But the sheriff did not answer.  He only stared at the
dawning sky.

Chul rose to his feet, his whole body shaking with the rage
of his fifteen years, all the abuse, all the betrayal, all the pain.  Scars
he’d thought healed burst and bled in his mind, and his throat tightened with
horror at what he’d seen.

Before his eyes, Dhanani families ran screaming from the
Knights of Brannagh and their armies.  He saw farms burned, men cut down as
they ran away, women, young girls and even boys raped and beaten to death,
little children spitted and flayed alive.  He watched the Invaders feed the
Dhanani dead to their dogs.

“
How dare You
?”  Nekraba’s voice bristled with
anger.  “
You caused this, not B’radik! They fell in punishment for Your
rebellion!  This was justice
!”

“
Does this look like justice
?”  Xorden shrieked.  His
voice turned outward, horrifying, deafening inside the boy’s mind.  “
Does it
feel like justice to You, B’radik, to see Your own priests and warriors die
like so many diseased sheep, to watch Your temples fall, to watch Your people’s
world fall to pieces, and stand helpless against it
?”