by CW Thomas
With a nervous flutter in her heart Dana moved from the bedroom, down the stairs, and out into the street. People were emerging from all corners of the monastery—nuns from the orchards, men from the workshops, widows, orphans, and lay servants from the dorms and outbuildings. They bundled blankets and cloaks around themselves to guard against the snowless cold, mouths puffing white into the air.
Pick was munching on an apple when he came out of the barn and fell in step alongside Dana. He was a welcome sight to Dana’s eyes, even if he did reek of barn.
“Finally some new leadership around here,” he said quietly. “Gravis has me ready to slit his throat.” Noticing the worried expression on her face, he asked, “Is everything all right?”
She crossed her arms and shivered from the early morning cold. “Just worried, I guess.”
“There’s nothing to worry about. I suspect a duktori will do this place good. You just wait and see.”
Prior Gravis called out last minute matters of etiquette, reminding people to bow their heads upon the duktori’s arrival, to bow even lower if he approached them, and to show nothing but utmost reverence for “his holiness,” but no one was listening. They were all looking down the main road in hopeful anticipation.
Dana stood next to Ariella. The middle-aged woman put a gentle arm around her shoulders and offered a reassuring smile.
The first of the riders trotted up over the hill and around the bend. He wore the plain white and brown colors of his order and bore a flag bearing the yellow symbol of Omneesah.
At first, Dana felt her heart swell with relief, but then she noticed the sword hanging from his belt, and the black and silver armor covering his legs. His horse was armored as well.
“What is that?” murmured one of the lay servants.
The soldier tore off the robe, revealing his armor underneath and the glistening silver serpentine emblem of the high king of Edhen.
Dana stepped forward. Her gaze sharpened a trifle. Her eyes drifted from the mounted soldier, along the rope in his hands, to the horse attached to the other end. Sitting atop the animal was a bloodied holy man.
“The duktori!” someone exclaimed.
“What have they done?”
Ariella grabbed her and pulled her into the crowd. “Dana, get back! If they find you here, they will kill you!”
“They’ll kill us all,” Dana replied.
Gasps and whispers of horror washed over the crowd.
The duktori’s face had been beaten and cut to the point of being unrecognizable. His left hand was missing several fingers, and his clothing lay draped over his body in bloody shreds. There was no doubt it was the duktori, however, as evidenced by the familiar yellow sash around his neck and the white cap covering the top of his bloodied head. He had a gag in his mouth and his hands were bound in front of him.
“My lord!” Gravis shouted, bolting out into the street toward the helpless abbot. “What in the name of…” He looked at the soldier leading the way, a tall commanding officer. “Who are you? Why have you done this to—”
“Silence!” the black viper barked, his mouth spewing a small white cloud. He was an ugly man with a big brown beard and a fat nose. A rag of dark hair hung over his pale forehead, complimenting his bushy brows that drew down in a perpetual scowl.
Behind him came a contingent of black soldiers, all of whom had cast aside their priestly disguises. Dana estimated that there were more than twenty in all.
“My name is Marshal Garnock Welsh,” he said in a guttural, bear-like tone. “I have come here on behalf of High King Orkrash Mahl and demand that you hand over any refugees of Aberdour that may be hiding here.”
“This is an outrage!” Gravis said. He approached the commander, arms open in surrender. “This monastery is a place of peace. We have no quarrel with you.”
Garnock moved his horse forward to confront Gravis. He slammed his boot into the prior’s chin sending him tumbling back into the mud. The marshal smiled revealing two missing teeth on the right side of his bearded face.
“We know they are here,” Garnock said. “We caught up with a group of wanted fugitives in Thalmia. They told us where to find the rest.”
Dana felt her chest tighten. “Brayden,” she breathed.
She felt Ariella’s hand on her arm, heard her whisper in her ear, “Do not believe him. They would never tell anyone that we are here.”
“We slaughtered them,” Garnock added, “and if the traitors don’t come forward we will slaughter everyone here as well.”
Dana’s hand shot to her mouth to stifle her horrified gasp. Ariella threw her arms around her and held her tight, urging her to be silent.
Gravis staggered to his feet, his hand cupping the generous flow of blood pouring from his mouth.
“If you wish to spare the life of your leader you will surrender the rest of these criminals,” Garnock said. He jerked the reigns of the second horse, bringing the beaten duktori closer to him. He grabbed the man by the back of his hair and jerked his face toward the sky. The people gasped when Garnock placed a blade at the duktori’s throat. “Give us the Aberdourian fugitives.”
Gravis lifted his hands toward the viper commander, begging for calm. “Please, m–my lord. We have nothing to hide.”
“Then give us the criminals. We know they are here.”
Gravis looked up at the duktori, an elderly man with long gray hair, who regarded the crowd with teary blue eyes of regret and pain. Then he nodded his consent to Gravis.
“My lord?” the prior said, his voice quivering.
Garnock pinched the duktori’s throat with his knife.
“Yes,” the captive choked over the cloth gag. “Give them up.”
Gravis faced the crowd, his eyes scanning.
Dana slunk back, horrified that those who had promised to protect her were now surrendering her to the enemy. She looked passed the lay servants and nuns standing at her back, to the monastery wall behind the chapel. If she ran as fast as she could she might reach the wall before any of the soldiers loosed their arrows. But even if she made it over the wall, where then could she go?
“Nairnah,” she whispered. “Where’s Nairnah?”
Several black vipers dismounted and walked up behind Gravis, their hands perched on the hilts of their swords.
Gravis called to Ariella. “Where is she?”
The woman scowled at him. “Don’t you dare, Gravis! Don’t do this.”
“Either the criminals give themselves up,” Garnock said, “or my men start killing your children.”
Panicked gasps and cries wove through the crowd.
“Dana!” Gravis shouted, pointing in her direction.
She froze, her eyes slamming shut, half wishing, hoping, praying that she was trapped in nothing but a nightmare. Perhaps if she pinched herself she’d wake up back in the frigid dormitory, her legs and feet still aching from the cold.
The black vipers pushed their way toward Dana and grabbed her by the arms.
“Damn you, Gravis!” Ariella cried.
“I’m doing it for the good of the many,” Gravis said. “Now where is the other one? Where is Nairnah? Where are the two little ones and the man they call Pick?” He stood back and shouted to the crowd, “Any refugees from Aberdour need to come forward now.”
Dana’s heart raced arrhythmically as the soldiers brought her before the marshal and threw her at his feet. The soiled dirt and horse manure from the road stained her dress.
“No!” Nairnah shouted. She burst out from the crowd. Pick was right behind her, trying to reel her in, but it was too late.
“Ah, the soldier,” Garnock said, eyeing Pick. “Your two comrades fought bravely against my men in Thalmia… for a time.”
Dana watched Pick’s jaw tighten in rage.
Two soldiers moved behind him and Nairnah and forced them to their knees.
Gravis found the two orphans, Joseph and Pan, who were younger than Scarlett was when Aberdour was attacked. T
hey were brought out from the crowd by impatient vipers who forced them to the ground next to Dana.
“As you all should know, harboring fugitives from the high king is a crime punishable by death,” Garnock shouted. He looked over the crowd with dark and guileless eyes. “By the order of High King Orkrash Mahl I order this monastery burned to the ground and everyone within sentenced to death.”
The black haired marshal shoved his knife up into the duktori’s throat, spilling his blood all over the neck and forelegs of his horse. The old man’s body toppled forward and into the muddy street.
“What?” Gravis yelled. “Please don’t—”
The black vipers unleashed a barrage of arrows into the crowd. People screamed as they took wooden shafts in their chests, necks, and heads. Others scattered, running for the safety of the nearest buildings.
Pick jumped up and thrust his palm into the chin of the soldier behind him. The man’s mouth slammed shut, ejecting shards of broken teeth into the air. Pick tackled the viper standing behind Dana. They tumbled along the ground through the mud.
“Kill them!” the commander ordered. “Kill them all now!”
Dana grabbed Nairnah with one hand and Pan with the other.
“Get up!” she shouted. “Joseph, on your feet!”
A third black viper rushed toward them, his sword drawn. He took a swipe at the boy, severing his tiny head from his impish body.
Spatters of the child’s blood hit Dana’s face and she froze, horrified. For a moment, she forgot even to breath.
When she saw the soldier grab Pan her shock turned to fury that exploded into violence. She charged the man, surprising him and throwing him off balance. With a sharp elbow she caught him in the eye socket and knocked him over. In the next couple moments she lost herself in rage and fear and pounded on his face with her bare fists. She grabbed his sword and thrust it down into his mouth. He gagged, eyes wide, his body convulsing. She stabbed him again, pushing the blade down through his cheek and into the ground.
The next thing Dana knew she had been lifted off her feet and slung over Pick’s shoulder. She screamed, bouncing violently atop his back as he sprinted toward the safety of the chapel with Pan and Nairnah in tow.
Dana watched one of the soldiers behind them raise his crossbow. He loosed an arrow in her direction. She closed her eyes and screamed, dreading the moment the arrow pierced her skin, but the bolt missed her head and landed in the back of Pick’s shoulder. He toppled forward, spilling Dana onto the ground.
“Get up, Dana!” Nairnah yelled, just as an arrow flew past her head and impaled one of the priests.
All around her people screamed as blood poured on the grass. The black vipers took torches to the dormitories, slaughtering the male and female lay servants as they went. They set aflame a hay cart and wheeled it into the barn, leaving the horses and donkeys to scream and buck against their stalls as they burned. They set the orchards on fire, smashed through windows and doorways and sent flaming arrows into all the buildings.
Pick staggered to his feet, wincing at the arrow in his shoulder. Dana and Nairnah helped him toward the chapel.
Ariella was already inside, her hand extended to Dana through the entryway.
“Behind you!” she yelled.
Pick threw Dana to the grass and whirled around, catching the incoming attack of a black soldier. The man had a massive iron mallet, which Pick managed to knock from his grasp. They wrestled for a moment until they fell to the ground.
Dana scurried backward into the chapel. She watched as Pick got the upper hand, lifted the soldier’s mallet, and flattened his skull against the ground.
“Pick!” she shouted.
He hurried into the chapel behind Pan and Nairnah, his shoulder a bloodied mess. He took another arrow to the back just as he passed through the doorway.
“Close the door!” Ariella said.
Dana reached for the latch and pulled the heavy wooden door away from the wall. It groaned on its hinges as she pushed it into place.
Just before the door closed Dana glimpsed Prior Gravis on the road outside hurrying toward the chapel. The man was surrounded by violence. He stepped over bodies as he ran, ignoring the pleas of those dying around him.
“Wait!” he said, extending a bloodied hand toward Dana. “Wait, please!”
She hesitated. Her first instinct was to help him, but the thoughts that filled her mind a moment later were just the opposite. Gravis was the reason this was happening. If not for him, her brothers would still be alive. If not for him, Khalous and Stoneman would be here to help fight this assault. If he wanted mercy, he could beg it from the Black King’s army.
“Close it!” Ariella shouted again.
Through the western gate Dana saw a second contingent of horsed vipers thunder down the main road. They stormed into the monastery, swinging spiked flails, and long halberds, charging over fallen bodies while lopping off the limbs of fleeing residents.
“Wait!” Gravis pleaded, nearing closer. “Wait! Wait!”
Dana pushed the door shut and slammed the drawbar in place.
“The west end,” Dana said, pointing toward the garden through the door on the left side of the sanctuary.
Ariella hurried toward it and closed off the entrance.
There were three other people within the chapel—an elderly nun and a young dark-haired widow with her daughter. The girl couldn’t have been older than five. They huddled together against the exterior wall, terrified faces bowed to the floor in desperate prayer. Nairnah joined them along with Pan.
“We can’t stay here,” Dana said. “They’ll find a way in.”
“They’ll burn us out,” moaned Pick as he struggled to rise onto his hands and knees.
Dana knelt, urging him to stay still. Two arrows protruded from his back: one right above his shoulder blade, the second in the muscle along his spine.
“Go,” he said, “out the window, ’cross the grass… over the wall.”
Dana shook her head. “What about the cliffs? We’ll have no place to go.”
“If we can get over the wall there’s a narrow trail that leads down to the shore,” Nairnah said.
“They’ll kill us before we get out.”
One of the stained glass windows shattered into a rainbow of small shards that collapsed on the heads of the huddling women and children. Pan screamed. A torch came spinning handle over flame into the sanctuary. It splashed down onto the pews in a spray of sparks.
Another window shattered and a second torch flew into the room. A third followed, then a fourth. A pitchfork crashed through a window near the pulpit, its prongs clutching a large heap of flaming hay. Black vipers ran by the windows, shouting for more fire. Bit by bit the flames took hold and the sanctuary started to burn.
“Mama!” cried the child of the young widow.
The woman jumped to her feet and ran for the door.
“No!” Ariella shouted.
The woman lifted the drawbar.
“If you open that door they’ll skewer you.”
“I’d rather that than be burned alive!”
“She’s right,” Dana said. “Don’t do it!”
The widow paused.
Dana felt Pick tugging on her skirt. She looked down. He pointed toward the basement door.
“The crypt?”
The mere thought of all those ancient bones nailed to the wall in their death mural sent a cold shiver down Dana’s spine. “We’ll be entombed down there. When this place burns it will fall on top of us.”
“It’s our only… chance,” he said. “Open the door. Go down. Hurry!”
A series of flaming darts shot through the broken windows, igniting the chapel’s maroon tapestries on the opposite wall. Other arrows aimed at a steeper angle dug into the sanctuary’s vaulted ceiling where their flames licked at the wooden beams and began to grow.
Dana went to the crypt door, lifted the latch, and heaved it open. The dank darkness beyond rose to welc
ome her like the shadowy arms of death. She pulled a torch off the wall and handed it to Pan.
“Into the crypt!” she shouted.
She went to Pick and lifted his arm up around her neck.
“Ariella!” she called. “Help me.”
Pick groaned as they took his arms and hoisted him onto his feet.
From the corner of her eyes Dana saw the front door to the chapel open, sending a thick shaft of light careening into the smoky sanctuary.
“No!” she yelled.
But the young widow and her daughter had already sprinted through the doorway, their arms waving away the smoke in front of their eyes. The first arrow caught the woman in the chest and stopped her in her tracks. The second hit her in the shoulder, spinning her around, giving Dana a clear look at the shock of death that filled her terrified eyes. A third arrow pierced the back of her head and pushed her down into the dirt.
The girl was beyond Dana’s view when she heard her scream.
Another arrow careened through the doorway and into Ariella’s side. The woman gasped as though she’d just been slugged in the stomach. She toppled to her knees, losing her grip on Pick who fell forward and tumbled down the first flight of steps into the basement.
Dana hurried down to him. “Get up, Pick! Please!” He wasn’t moving.
She looped her hands under his arms and pulled him down the second flight of stairs. Once at the bottom she laid him on the stone floor.
Pan was standing nearby with the torch, her tear-streaked face alive with fright.
“Wait here,” Dana said, trying to sound brave.
Sprinting back up the stairs, she saw Ariella crawling through the doorway, clutching the end of a bloody arrow protruding from her right hipbone. The sanctuary beyond was a nightmare of flames. Dana could hear the beams of the once gorgeous ceiling cracking and giving away.
She bent down and took the woman’s arm. “Grab onto me! We’re almost there. Come on!”
The ceiling groaned and a single beam broke away. It crashed down a few feet from the crypt’s entrance, showering Dana with a hail of red embers. She reeled back at the shower of hot sparks that stabbed her neck and face. She fell backwards down the stairs with Ariella.