The Broken Pieces (23 page)

“How many?” Darius asked, clutching his left arm and trying to decide how bad it was.

“I killed four,” she said. “Five if I count yours. The rest fled.”

Darius bent down to retrieve his sword. Putting a boot against the wolf-man’s chest, he yanked it free with a sickening plop. With a heavy intake of air, he stood to his full height. Grunting against the pain in his chest, he lifted the blade high into the air. The light shone far, and he hoped those who fled through the city would see it and know they were safe.

“How many?” he asked again.

“I told you, five.”

“No,” Darius said, shaking his head. “How many of ours?”

Valessa put away her dagger, and her hesitance in answering was enough.

“At least half,” she said at last.

Darius nodded, his teeth clenched tight for he knew nothing else to say. He’d led them there for safety. For that, thirty had died, perhaps more. Valessa reached out toward him, then let her hand fall. Darius saw strange markings on her clothing as she did, and he stepped closer.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

In answer, Valessa lifted her arm again, let him see the claw marks that shone red against her ribs, refusing to change like the rest of her. Liquid shadow dripped from them, intermixed with a light that shone like silver as it bled to the ground.

“Their claws,” she said. “Cyric has blessed them.”

He could just barely hear it in her voice, but it was there. Fear. Taking a step closer, he yanked off one of his gauntlets and then pressed his hand against her face, which she kept firm so he might make contact. Neither said a word, but they understood each other. They were both vulnerable now. They both bore wounds.

“You won’t die to them,” he promised. “You’ll die on your terms, and only after Cyric, not before.”

“Don’t make promises you cannot keep,” she said.

“It is a promise I can keep,” he said. “If you’ll help me.”

T
wo hours before dawn they rode up to Tower Red, just a pitifully small band. Daniel’s men welcomed them warmly despite the early hour. Many were led to the docks without a moment of rest, to board boats kept waiting all that time.

“Was it worth it?” Daniel asked Darius as he met him at the gates.

“Worth it?” Darius said. “Thirty will live that might have died. Yes, it was worth it.”

“Funny, then, that you don’t look so eager to celebrate.”

“I said it was worth it,” Darius said. “I never claimed it was easy. Get us to a boat. I want to be miles from here when Cyric comes with his damn wolf-men.”

Daniel clapped him on the back, eliciting a groan of pain.

“You try to do too much, paladin,” he said. “It’ll get you killed one day.”

“Better to die trying for too much than dying old having done too little,” Darius said, earning himself a chuckle.

“You’ll get your chance,” Daniel said as they approached the docks. “Once we hit Tower Silver, we’ll be abandoning the river, instead making a run toward the Castle of the Yellow Rose. I’m sure you’ll get plenty of opportunities to die along the way, you and your demon girl.”

18

T
hey marched out at dawn, and Jerico felt like a sheep among wolves as they passed by Lord Arthur’s camp. He kept his armor on, and his mace clipped to his side. Against the glares from the other priests and paladins it was meager protection. He touched his shield often, and only from its soft light did he receive comfort.

“Help me out here,” Jerico muttered to Ashhur. “I think I’m in way too deep.”

Luther had made it clear he was a guest, so he walked to the outskirts of the camp and waited. Many men saw him, and it didn’t take long until Arthur himself arrived.

“Jerico!” he called out, and the relief was palpable in his voice. Amid it was guilt, and despite everything, it made Jerico smile.

“Rule well,” he said. “Rule fair.”

And that was it. He gave him no other wisdom, no other knowledge of why he lived or where they were going. He’d thought briefly of trying to enlist Arthur’s aid in fighting Cyric, but Luther appeared insistent on dealing with the mad priest on his own. Was it pride? Jerico didn’t think so, but then again, he couldn’t pretend to know Luther all that well.

“I will,” Arthur promised as he walked away. “I would have you proud of me.”

Luther’s army marched along the road, well-disciplined and well-supplied. Jerico knew without a shadow of a doubt it could have crushed Arthur’s army, without need for walls and castles. Luther’s plan had been flawless, and after Arthur’s death, it wouldn’t have taken long before Sebastian was reinstated as their puppet ruler, always in fear for his life. That all this had been abandoned because of Cyric only reinforced how great a threat he was to the North, if not all of Dezrel.

Jerico kept to the rear of the army, with the rest of the mercenaries. Most paid him no heed other than the occasional glare. Far better that than the aura of loathing he felt from the priests and paladins at the vanguard. When they stopped for their midday meal, a young squire found him sitting amid the grass far from the road.

“My master, Luther, asked that I ensure you have enough to eat and drink,” said the freckle-faced boy. As he said it, he offered a waterskin as well as a wrapped package that smelled of smoked meat. Jerico took both and thanked him, and in silence he ate, enjoying the momentary privacy. Before him stretched fields of farmland, stopped only by a distant pine forest. They traveled to the river, and from there they’d head north. Jerico wondered how Darius fared. He’d gone to the Blood Tower in hopes of removing the bounty on his head, and he must have been there when Sir Robert was overthrown. Had he survived? If so, where was he now?

As Jerico wondered, he saw a thin trail of smoke rising from the distant forest. He thought little of it, and then came the call to resume the march.

Come nightfall, Jerico wanted to do little more than stretch out his sore legs and sleep in the soft grass. Instead the same squire returned, inviting him to Luther’s tent. With a sigh, the paladin agreed, and to the north of the army he went.

“Welcome,” said Luther as he stepped inside. “I am glad you chose to join me.”

“The last time I was in your tent I tried to crush your skull with my mace,” Jerico said. “Are you sure I should be so welcome?”

Luther lay propped up on pillows, his face pale. When he spoke, each word came out labored.

“I remember,” he said. “You promised to kill me, if I recall correctly. That is why you should never promise to take another’s life. The gods might decide to amuse themselves.”

Whatever wound he suffered was affecting him greatly, and Jerico could tell he was worse off than the day before. He knew he should ask, but didn’t want to. Part of him enjoyed seeing the priest in pain, as much as it shamed him.

“What is it you want?” he asked. “Or am I here just to reminisce about good times?”

Luther shifted the pillows so he might sit up higher.

“I have not known many paladins of Ashhur,” he said. “But all I met were the same. Men who thought they were good. Men who thought they were better than everyone about them. Most of all, they hated the very sight of me. You were different. Even when you were my prisoner, you did not look upon me with hatred, not that first time.”

He shook his head.

“Now you are like all the others. The world will not weep for your passing, Jerico. Not anymore.”

Jerico breathed in deep, and he begged Ashhur for patience. There was some truth to Luther’s words, however bitter they were to hear.

“You’re right,” he said. “I should not hate you, and it shames me still. But I don’t hate you for what you are, Luther. I don’t hate you for the robes you wear, or the god you worship. I hate you for what you’ve done to me. I hate you for what you did to Sandra. You took her from me, and for what reason? A colder, crueler man I have never known. Ashhur asks that I love all the world, from the sinners to the kings. In this, I fail him. In you I see little to admire, and nothing to love.”

Luther listened to this with his head bowed and his eyes downcast. When Jerico stopped, silence lingered between them, broken only by Luther’s raspy breathing.

“I have thought often of her since that day,” Luther said when Jerico stood to leave. “I never expected to. When I cast my spell, I saw the light in your eyes die. I saw your hope crushed, and it was everything I’d desired. But to see the joy on that woman’s face suddenly extinguished…she had never harmed me. No, she didn’t even disobey me, for Kaide is far too stubborn a man to listen to anyone, not even his sister. Yet I killed her. I thought I’d teach you, teach Kaide, teach the whole North a lesson. But it was…wrong of me to do so in such a way.”

Jerico stood there, lost in a swirl of emotions he could not make sense out of. Looking at the priest, he tried to understand him. Ashhur’s gift assured him the man spoke the truth, every word of it. But what did it mean? What did it change?

“You took the life of another, all to torture me,” he said. “I strive to not hate you, yet you so openly hate me. What have I ever done to deserve this? Or is the god you serve so terribly cruel? What a joke this is, that we march to stop Cyric as if the Karak he envisions is any worse than the god you serve.”

His heart hammered in his chest, and even then Jerico had to fight down his rage. It would be so easy to attack the priest, to give in to his fury. Crushing the skull of a wounded man…what a way to honor Sandra’s memory.

Luther breathed in deep, then let out a sigh.

“I do not expect you to understand, but I will try,” he said. “There is fire in the Abyss, and who better knows how to avoid it than the god who rules amid it? We preach an ironclad law, a way to live so that men may escape the purifying fire through their works. Yet you paladins of Ashhur would show men a different way. It is easier, to be sure. Weaker. You elevate the sinner instead of condemning him. You cast aside all laws and rituals in favor of a single moment of repentance. You lead men astray, Jerico, how can you not see that? You heal wounds with your hands, but we purify the wretched with fire. We spill the blood of thieves and murderers, and like a gardener we pull away the weeds so the pure may become numerous. You are a destroyer of souls. Your words send men and women to an eternity of torment until Karak’s fire can purge away every last bit of their sin. And then you wonder why I hate you. You wonder why we so desperately desire the blight of your faith removed from the world. Is it not obvious? Is it not, even to one of the blasphemers, something so easy to understand?”

Jerico opened his mouth, then closed it. Against such a mind, his words would mean nothing.

“I am not a strong man,” Luther continued. “Nor am I a good one. But I am faithful. I pray that faithfulness will lead us to victory in the end. But what I did to Sandra was done out of spite. It was done out of malice. I will not ask for your forgiveness, for it is folly to ask for forgiveness from sinners. Karak’s forgiveness is all I will seek.”

“Then why tell me?” Jerico asked.

At last Luther met his eye.

“Because you are a good man, and seeing hatred in your eyes sickens me. If only you were as faithful as you were good. To have you at my side would be a wonderful thing. Imagine us together, instructing the weak of this world, and through our strength helping Dezrel become a new kingdom of righteousness.”

Jerico felt something in his heart finally give way. Luther’s words had helped him, though not in any way he might have expected. He knelt before the priest. Reaching out a hand, he touched Luther’s chest, and immediately he felt the wound. Closing his eyes, Jerico began to pray. His hatred, while not gone, was greatly lessened. Instead it had been replaced with pity. White light shone about his hands, and after only a hesitation, he plunged it into the wound. Luther gasped in air as his body straightened. Finished, Jerico stood.

“We save this world by healing it,” Jerico said. “Not with fire, not with destruction. I pray you one day realize this, and believe.”

Luther touched the bandages on his chest, and when he spoke, his voice was firm, healthy.