Death's Paladin

by Christopher Donahue

The library layout was such that even with the sky overcast, most of the room had good light. Charred wooden shelves and scroll racks lined the walls. Piles of burned books and scrolls lay scattered around the floor. Cutting through the heavy smell of burned wood and parchment were the foul scents of blood and opened entrails.

  “Minateva, can you tell if any books were taken?”

  The Scribe looked around the walls and went to the shelves nearest the east-facing windows. “These look as though the shelves were nearly full when the fire was set. All writings on sorcery, charms and counter spells were kept here.”

  The Defender’s voice boomed in the ruined room. “You must be wrong. Why would a sorcerer force his way into a library and not take a thing?” He picked up a scroll and, after a disinterested glance, dropped it.

  “He wanted something else,” Karro answered as Minateva said, “He already knows more of that lore than we did. He covers his own secrets from us.” She gave the Defender a hard look.

  No one tells her she’s wrong often.

  “No, he came here for something.” She stepped over the wreckage to study the piles closer to the door. “Look where most of the shelves are smashed; we kept the oldest histories there. Most of what is left are burned books, very few scrolls. Nearly half of the records here were on scrolls.” She straightened and brushed ash from her gray skirt. “He killed all of those people to steal our history.”

  “We have enough trail food to let us close the gap on those things, Scribe. Hunting them down and destroying them is the way to protect your people.” Karro tightened the cinch on Vision’s saddle. He pulled a roll from behind the saddle and gave it to Minateva.

  “The pattern on this banner should give you some protection. It was laid out by a Scholar at the Silver Temple. This ward should protect you. It and the steady hand of your Defender.” He added the last as the man joined them. Talodan walked to the far side of his horse, muttering at the Defender’s arrival.

  He’s arrogant and holds to the old religion, but he is Tuskaran. Defenders of Sivek were said to be skilled―when they chose to fight.

  The Scribe unfolded the banner. It showed a coiling circle with a tighter pattern that drew Karro’s eye toward the center. The Defender jerked it from the Scribe’s grasp and tossed it back to Karro. “I am amazed to see a Tuskaran nobleman behaving like a back-country spell painter―Auros’s Unenlightened warrior even more so.”

  Karro’s glance up to the Defender’s reed and feather vooreega made the Defender blush. You wear a charmed bit of fluff as magic protection, but mock a Scholar’s work?

  The Defender turned to Minateva. “I’m sure you had no intention of daubing this on the gates, Scribe. Don’t encourage this kind of belief in the Unenlightened or attempt to display blatant Macmar ignorance near a Mist town. Your place here is only on our tolerance.” The Defender turned on his heel and headed toward a group of soldiers stacking up a barricade across a gap in the wall.

  More disappointed than angry, Karro watched the Scribe of Carranos weigh the heretic’s words. Karro felt foolish urging the use of Macmar wards, but Ervistellan’s recommendations were always worth following.

  Karro offered the banner back to the Scribe. She shook her head, looking at the ground.

  She must make accommodations, living among heretics. It was just another sign of the decay the world had fallen into. He left without a word.

  The trail was easy to follow, victorious raiders scattering broken loot as they retreated. Talodan didn’t bother pointing out the turns as they moved at a canter.

  “Sixty, I’d say” Talodan said. “Equal parts living men, prisoners and nightmen. The captives are dead as soon as there is time for it. The captives know this; they drag their feet more than those already dead.” The tracker looked up from the trail with a question in his eyes. “How can this happen under the Light? Why doesn’t your Auros stop it?”

  Not taking his eyes from the surrounding light woods, Karro answered, “Auros is acting. He lays out the tools for any hands willing to pick them up.”

  The tracker drew breath several times to ask questions or argue but let each one out slowly before speaking. Good. He answers his own questions. They’re the only answers one can believe.

  They rode through dusk and stopped at a clearing. Talodan’s horse danced nervously. The coppery smell of blood hung in the air. At several spots around the clearing’s edges, meaty bones lay piled. Rustling in the brush settled as scavengers returned to their meals.

  “If I’m to quiet my horse, we must camp farther along the path of these nightmen,” the tracker said. “I’ll not have my meal where they took theirs.”

  At the opposite side of the clearing Talodan reined up, cursing. He dismounted and examined the ground and brush. He tied off his horse and searched the exits from the clearing. The newly risen moon provided sufficient light for the search.

  “The trail ends here, Karro. I could follow them in a storm if there were a trail.” Talodan threw a stone at unseen, quarreling scavengers. He followed it with another and heard a yelp.

  Auros, give me True Sight that these abominations not escape Justice. Grant your Truth to pierce the lie this sorcery represents. Karro closed his eyes, repeating his prayer and willing himself to relax. The night breeze cooled his face and blew freshness into the fouled clearing. Talodan’s voice faded into the distance. Karro’s skin tingled and blood rushed into his face in the familiar way of Auros’s blessings.

  Karro opened his eyes. The clearing appeared as well-lit as on an overcast afternoon. Where moments before, a tangle of thorny vines had blocked the way, the path of the escaping raiders now obvious. He urged Vision onto the trail.

  Something more than the pierced glamour nauseated Karro. He poked Vision. The horse paced forward determinedly but jerked back when he stepped onto the trail.

  “Karro, what are you do―” The tracker gave a shout of glee and Karro grinned.

  They pushed through the night on the trail only visible to Karro’s enhanced sight. It would be wrong to get less than the fullest use from a gift of Auros. At false dawn, Talodan gave a startled grunt and Vision tensed for a moment, then relaxed. “The spell is done, Karro. The trail looks as bloody and wide as before.”

  They camped near a shallow stream. As they stretched out under travel capes, Talodan said, “Glad I am that you found the trail. More so to know they’ve used sorcery to lose us. To pit a man’s skill against magic and fail is no shame. Your fancy Voskov may have done us this way before.”

  The next days’ journeys took them out of the land of heretics and back into those of Macmar free clans. By the fifth burned-out farmstead, they no longer stopped to investigate. Karro had seen this and worse before and needed no more.

  Following the trail around a hill, they came on an unexpected sight. “Whole men! Karro, I thought I’d never see a farmer all of one piece again.” With a whoop, the tracker kicked his horse to a gallop.

  The farmer’s reaction was immediate. He shouted and ran into his sturdy house. The door slammed solidly. The sound of its bar dropping into place rang, loud and final.

  Talodan shouted at the door. “Och no, you fool. We’re friends to any living man this day. Well, not to stinking Shusk magic men, but no honest Macmar need fear us.”

  Talodan called reassurances to the farmer and coaxed the man into the open. Three rickety wooden outbuildings had collapsed or been knocked down. Smoke and animal waste odors nearly concealed the stench of old death left by Voskov’s creatures. Scorch marks told of attempts to burn wet straw piles. The stone barn bore the marks of axes and hammers along the sides, but no serious attempt had been made to get inside. The barn doors were untouched.

  Walking over to meet the farmer, Karro glanced back again at the barn. This new angle revealed a slight reflection from long-faded paint on the door. It’s invisible when seen straight on, but that ward is still potent. But most of the wrecked farms had wards, and fresher ones at that.

&
nbsp; The thick-bearded farmer was an old Macmar in unbleached homespun. His clothes, like the wood axe in his hands, were simple but serviceable. He blocked his doorway, but at least one bowman stood behind him.

  “You’re no nightmen, that I’ll grant. But I’ve no need of blooded Tuskar nobles, the True God’s men or snooty Mist.” When Talodan moved closer, the farmer shifted the grip on his weapon.

  The tracker raised empty hands. “It’s a breathing farmer that I wanted to see. For days we’ve tracked these things, and it’s only bloody ruins they’ve left behind. Until now. Did they not attack here?”

  The farmer tensed again. “Oh, they came for blood. They got some stock from the yard, and we’ve a hungry winter ahead for that. Only good steel did they get at the house.” He straightened a bit.

  Karro nodded. “I mean no insult, but this place seems no sturdier than other farmsteads we passed. None of the wrecked houses were weaker than your barn and it’s intact. There must be something about the warding here.”

  The farmer’s face went red and the man spat on the ground. He wiped his chin and looked Karro in the eye. “Wards? I’ll have none of those bits of trickery for my good silver. You look at these damned tattoos on my neck―my gran’s doing that was. My own boys have none of that on them. Onto his ass, I tossed the last fake who wanted my precious silver just to smear some paint on a door or a wall. Gran’ left us with too many hungry days from splashing magic paint around. My own won’t suffer that.” The farmer lowered his axe. The desire to complain overrode the desire to show a hostile face to strangers.

  From inside the house, three younger men came out. All carried tools as weapons. One had a young wife at his back. As the farmer said, none of them had tattoos.

  The oldest spoke up. “Pa, you saw them things stumbling around when they got near the door. Somethin’ to Gran’s bits of paint, maybe?” Then he said to Karro, “Hit those things with axes and hammers, solid as hitting a pig. Kept comin’ on like a dead pig won’t do. All moon-eyed they got at the door, worse than Pa with a bucket of Mist mead.”

  The farmer swung his axe into a stump by the door. “Enough talk. Chores there are for you boys. There’s no want here for the lord and his man, so off they’ll be now.” He turned back into the house. Before entering, the farmer stopped to study the face of the door.

  Shortly before nightfall, Talodan spotted a hill country inn. It boasted walls solid enough to serve as a plains noble’s castle. The red-tiled roof of the inn’s second story showed over the wall. Talodan and Karro pushed their mounts to reach the inn before full dark. In these wild hills, few places would open a gate for any visitor after sunset.

  As they forded a shallow stream, Talodan broke into a coughing fit. A wave of nausea washed over Karro stronger than when they had penetrated the trail-obscuring glamour. There was no barrier, no thorns nor any other deception. Karro noticed that the hard journey left Talodan looking gray.

  Voskov’s trail cut sharply north before the inn. A chance for a warm meal and bed made this a good detour. As they neared the gate, the bright yellow of a recently painted ward greeted them. Perhaps that made Voskov avoid the inn.

  The gate swung open just enough for Karro and Talodan to enter in file. The boy at the gate pushed it shut as Talodan’s horse cleared the gate’s arc.

  The yard before the inn held a pair of bronze-chased racing carts―Macmar nobles with heavy purses. The prized cart horses stood in the stable with four utilitarian-looking horses. A Tuskaran mercenary’s tack lay stacked before the latter. Near the inn’s door, a trio of Macmar armsmen leaned against the wall.

  Their pale beards were braided in a similar forked style. One passed an arquebusier’s slow match for his friends to light their pipes.

  Karro took Vision and Talodan’s horse into the stable while Talodan walked stiffly toward the inn. As the tracker entered the inn, a fit of raw coughing shook him.

  Karro saw to the horses and hurried across the stone-flagged courtyard, nodding to the warriors. Inside, a few farmers and poor merchants sat at one long table. Another table held a mixed-blood mercenary and a full Tuskaran with his thin brown hair cut to fit a lancer’s helmet. After weeks of seeing only bearded men, the Tuskaran’s shaved face was unusual. A lastman.

  The largest table was also the loudest, where a trio of Macmar diced and spilled wine. Talodan sat at the end of that table, staring at the floor with a listless expression.

  Karro’s eyes smarted from the smoke hanging in the air when the door to the wine cellar banged open and a familiar, cask-laden figure stepped through. Karro smiled and said, “Well, Balanar, what brings you into the high hills?”

  ~~~~~

  Lady Kestran stopped at the top of the stairs as another warrior entered the inn’s common room. What had promised to be a quiet evening now looked more likely to be a night-long drinking and shouting contest. She sighed

  A newcomer, a powerfully-built Tuskaran, wore mail of the older six-in-one type her father had favored. He trimmed his hair in a simple style rarely seen outside the Temples. It suits him, she thought as she descended. He was not handsome, but radiated the calm confidence she had missed since her father’s death.

  As Golden Balanar came through the cellar door, again the newcomer greeted the Macmar Knight as an old friend and equal. Only one living Tuskaran knew Balanar this well.

  Golden Balanar and Karro the Avenger together, here!

  Having two of Auros’s most deadly servants in the same place must be the will of the True God himself. To be at a place the True God deemed to be in such peril was not be what most women might consider the best of fortunes.

  A chill passed through her. It felt different from the constant cold Kestran had faced in this last leg of the trip back to her family. After years in the festering Delta swamps, she expected to endure the cold of the hill country. This chill felt more like the harbinger of a fever.

  As Kestran reached the main floor, Zamkrik, her lastman, stood. The Knights of Auros broke the comradely hug, Balanar nodding cheerfully.

  Karro’s eyes weren’t what Kestran expected from a man called the Avenger. She saw concern for others in his face but no signs of doubt, weakness or burning hate. So much like father.

  For the first time in over a year, she wondered how she looked. Her travel clothes had received no more than airing and the press of a hot iron in over two months. At least her hair was still braided from the day’s ride.

  She bowed deeply and with a grace that would make her mother proud. “Favored of the True God, welcome. If I may offer aid or service I would be honored. I am Kestran, Lady of―”

  My husband is dead. Elinka is now Lady of Helos. The habits of a decade were hard to break, even with two years to work on it. “I am Kestran, a daughter of House Burkos. I return home with my guardian and servants.”

  The words barely passed her lips before she realized how stiffly formal she must sound.

  Balanar wiped a hand across his blue tunic, dust from the cask he had carried leaving a gray track behind his hand. Karro returned Kestran’s bow smoothly, his eyes never leaving her face.

  “I thank you for the offer, Lady Kestran. It is good to meet others who bend their will to the service of the True God.”

  I like the way he says my name. But he looked at her like she reminded him of someone else.

  At her right, a rough-looking peasant coughed. The other men at that table gathered their dice and moved away.

  The deep chill returned. She was so unused to the cold. Being around the sick peasant was foolish. But Karro went to the man.

  A wave of mead fumes scorched the side of her face as Balanar said, “I think young Talodan carries more than road-weariness. Lady, if you have some medicines packed, you might search for one to put heat back in his veins.”

  Kestran had several packages of medicinal herbs in her luggage. Most were cooling mixtures to deal with the fevers so common in the hot Delta air. The compound of dogroot and yellow dyeweed m
ade a good purifying tea and imparted energy.

  As she climbed the stairs several Macmar in the common room began coughing. Sickness could easily wipe them all out in an evening.

  Only if the True God wills it so.

  She nodded to herself as she pushed the door to her room open. Tana, her maid, glanced up and pulled a wrap tightly around her shoulders.

  Tana felt the touch of sickness up here? A new kind of cold swept through Kestran. Only vile witchcraft made a sickness spread so quickly and without contact. As the thought took form, fear warred with rage. A swamp witch’s foul magic had taken lost all that mattered to Kestran.

  She could not suppress the first cough, immediately followed by another.

  Chapter Eight

  Voskov pushed the scroll away, leaned back and rubbed his eyes. As he studied the loot from the Mist library, the day had advanced into late afternoon. It was time well spent.

  An original journal by Qu’s apprentice detailed the Hykori genius’s rise in Mallaloriva’s court. Qu’s experiments in sorcery led to the necromantic arts and his falling out with the court. As the highest nobility sought immortality, they embraced necromancy and the curse of the souldrinkers. The journal referred several times to the very book in Voskov’s possession. Most useful were the tools and weapons Qu used to keep himself safe from necromancers—quite a revealing piece of work.

  Voskov admired the way Qu didn’t meet the strengths of necromantic creatures head-on. When humans became the undead, willingly or not, it changed them. Qu’s charms and wards worked against the instabilities within the undead to weaken the bonds between dead flesh and the changed spirit.

  Qu gave these secrets to the Macmar to keep them from becoming more fodder for the necromancers. The Macmar aped the use and made it part of their culture while forgetting the reasons behind the tattoos and warding glyphs.

  This interesting information gave Voskov nothing he could craft without revealing his new knowledge.