Divine Hammer

by Chris Pierson

  “If I wanted to harm you, I wouldn’t have waited,” she said.

  That made sense, but it did little to ease his nerves. He met her eyes, saw the anxiousness in them. “All right.” He inclined his head. “But if you’re trying to trick me, I warn you that my men can be here at a shout.”

  “Now you’re threatening me,” she replied with a smile. Rolling up her sleeves, she raised her hands and began to cast. “Arvayas gro weshann, culpit to-sati harbandith … ”

  The red moon’s power swelled as she spoke, as intoxicating as any wine. Cathan tried to focus on his training, on his mission here, on Paladine’s grace.

  Something appeared, glimmering in the darkness: a ruddy mist, rising from the floor. It crept and crawled, coalescing, slowly resolving into the blurred image of a city. Cathan squinted, but the spell was not yet done. Leciane continued to sculpt a street, a mansion, a sprawling marketplace … and, there, looming above the rest, a square red tower, ringed with trees.

  Cathan caught his breath, knowing what he beheld. This was Daltigoth then, where Duke Serl and his men stood ready to launch the second attack, two days hence.

  “I don’t understand,” he said. “Why are you showing me this?”

  Leciane only kept chanting, her fingers plucking the air like harpstrings. The images were so fine now he could make out the pine trees that surrounded the Tower. Wait: one tree was different, larger and darker than the rest. He furrowed his brow. What was happening to the Tower? It seemed to be bulging and swelling, growing more distorted as he watched.

  Cathan stared, entranced.

  Suddenly, a loud noise broke through the stillness, making Cathan jump. He looked up, his heart pounding. Someone was knocking at the door.

  “Sir?” called a voice. It was Tithian.

  Leciane started as well. The image wavered, smearing. She threw herself back into the spell, furiously trying to retrieve it—

  The door opened.

  “Milord, are you all right?” Tithian stepped through, bare-chested and sword in hand.

  Two other young knights stood behind him, similarly arrayed. “We heard voices—Palado Calib!”

  The knights stared at the sorceress, who stared back at them. Cathan looked from one to the other, too stunned to react. On the floor, the phantasm Leciane had been conjuring dissolved back into mist, the magic leaking away.

  “Wait,” Cathan said, but no one listened.

  Leciane and Tithian acted simultaneously. Even as she spoke the word that made her vanish from the room, the young knight threw his sword.

  It struck as she was fading from sight under the power of the teleport spell. Instead of burying itself in her stomach, it pierced her ghostly image—as she disappeared—and crashed into a frescoed wall.

  *****

  The Master stepped forward to steady Leciane as she appeared in his chambers, but she held out a hand, staying him. Wanting to scream with frustration, she staggered to a velvet-cushioned bench and sat down, burying her face in her hands.

  “Gods and demons,” she growled. She recounted what had happened.

  “You should have told him first,” Khadar reproached her. “He would have believed you, with the charm you have laid on him.”

  Leciane laughed shrilly. “I never laid a charm on him.”

  Khadar stared with his mouth open. She bowed her head.

  Her thoughts drifted back, to that night in the hills. If only she had done what she was told, perhaps none of this would have happened. She shook her head, moaning.

  “Vincil said you told him—”

  “I lied!” she shouted, pushing to her feet. “All right?” Furious with herself as much as him, she stormed out of the room. Khadar called after her, but did not follow.

  By the time she calmed down again, it was nearly morning. Glancing out one of the few windows that looked out of the spire, she saw the eastern sky was the color of ripe blood-melons above the mesas. Still seething—mostly at herself, for being such a fool—she stood silently, staring at the coming dawn.

  That was when the first tremor struck.

  The vibration felt slight, but it made the hairs on the back of her neck prickle nonetheless. Dravinaar was not prone to earthquakes and never had been. That meant something else was happening, some force beyond nature. Who was doing it, the order or the knights? The mages wouldn’t have acted first, but surely without the Lightbringer, the Divine Hammer didn’t have the power …

  The second temblor was stronger than the first, enough to buckle her knees. She leaned against the wall to steady herself, listening to the cries of her fellow wizards sounding alarm all throughout the Tower.

  Splinters and shards, she thought. It isn’t us.

  The stone wall shimmered, her reflection in the obsidian warping. She drew back, then saw the shape it was becoming, the lips parting to reveal glassy black teeth and tongue.

  She stared at the magical mouth, childlike in form like Khadar’s, and was unsurprised when its voice was the Tower Master’s.

  “Milady,” the stone mouth said, “come to the Heartchamber at once.”

  One of the first things a mage learned, one of the first lessons of spellcrafting, was how to clear one’s mind. Sorcery took concentration. It was hard to call upon the magic and give it form without emotions interfering. Even so, it seemed half the wizards in the Tower of Losarcum were panicking. One quake after another shook the spire. Men and women of all three robes shouted and shoved against one another. Books and sorcerous implements littered the halls and the great circular stair. Wizards clogged the entrance to the Chamber of Traveling. Some screamed curses at those in their way.

  Leciane forced past the rabble, sprinting up the stairs. Another tremor nearly swept her off her feet. Beyond the entrance to Khadar’s chambers, she reached a tall, iron-wood door.

  The runes inscribed on its surface glowed at her approach—all three hues of magic, united in protecting the Heartchamber. She spoke a word, and one by one they faded, the door swinging open to let her through.

  Most of Khadar’s inner circle were already there, gathered about the needle that was the Tower’s facsimile. They murmured to one another in strained voices. The Master waved her close, his eyes fear-widened.

  “The Guardians stand ready,” he said. “We must be prepared as well. Once they’re through, we will not have long.”

  A shuddering groan escaped her lips when she saw the events rendered in miniature before her. A strange black cypress had materialized, standing taller than the other trees, just like the pine in Daltigoth. Its branches drooped with weight, brushing the ground. The rest of the grove was moving away from the strange tree now, clearing a gap that led straight to the Tower—and there, behind the cypress, the knights of the Divine Hammer stood in gleaming armor.

  One more day, she thought, despairing. Cathan, why couldn’t you wait one more day?

  Tonight I would have tried again to tell you …

  Too late now. The chance had passed. The attack on the Tower of Losarcum had begun.

  CHAPTER 30

  Cathan stared at the black cypress, looming over him and his knights, above the other trees in the haunted grove. Had Beldinas truly sanctioned the creation of this strange tree?

  If he hadn’t, who had? A voice deep within him shouted that this was wrong—and, yet, the path to the Tower lay open as the missive had promised. The priests had blessed his men in Paladine’s and Kiri-Jolith’s names. The knights awaited his command. If he didn’t give the order, they would surely revolt and take the Tower anyway. His disgrace would be sealed.

  He drew Ebonbane and gave the cypress one last dubious glance. Reverently, he pressed his sword’s hilt to his lips, then shut the visor of his helm. A chorus of metallic clangs sounded behind him. He shifted his shield onto his arm, then looked back at the men of the Divine Hammer. They stood ready, some gripping crossbows, others with blades and maces. He thought of Tavarre, and Pellidas, and the others who had fallen over the
past few months. The surviving knights had waited a long time to avenge their deaths. Now that time was at hand.

  He raised his sword. “For Paladine!” he shouted. “For Kiri-Jolith! For the Lightbringer!”

  “The Lightbringer!” his men roared, and charged.

  The grove’s magic had diminished along the hewn path, but it hadn’t disappeared. As he ran, Cathan felt its enchantment, luring him toward the trees as it had in Istar. Shouts behind told him some of his men had succumbed. They are lost, he told himself. When the battle was done, gods willing, he would look for them. Right now, he had to keep moving toward the Tower.

  Finally they emerged from the trees into open ground. A quick glance behind told Cathan he had lost maybe a dozen men out of twenty times that number. He was glad to spot Tithian and Marto. The huge doors of the Tower, slabs of red stone carved with images of the moons, loomed before him. Legend said the doors were never locked. Only those who were welcome could pass through the groves.

  A pair of overeager knights leaped up the steps, and fell as they triggered the warding spells the mages had placed upon the entrance. Sheets of violet flame blazed into life, and they died screaming, beating at the fires that immolated them. Cathan winced at the stench, but part of him thanked the gods that he had only lost two to the spell, which had done its work and was now fading.

  “Forward!” cried Sir Marto, before Cathan could say anything. “Let no man rest until every one of the demon worshipers has felt the god’s justice!”

  As Cathan had begun to suspect, the knights followed the big Karthayan’s orders more enthusiastically than his own. I’ve lost them, he thought, as the men of the Divine Hammer pounded up the steps, past the charred remains of their comrades.

  They slammed into the doors with all their might, Marto leading with his shoulder.

  Sparks flew as his armor scraped against the stone, and the doors groaned, grinding inward a few inches. The knights gave a roar, then hit the doors again, a third time, and a fourth. Each time, the doors budged a little more. Finally, the gap between them was wide enough to let the men peer inside. One knight near the front—Cathan wasn’t sure who—shoved his way halfway into the dim interior—

  A moment later, he screamed in agony, his body jerking, and pulled back out. Half his helmet was gone, sheared off as though by sharp teeth. He howled, clutching at the bloody ruin of his face. Finally, after several excruciating moments, he went limp, his fellows catching him as he fell. He wasn’t yet dead, but he couldn’t possibly survive the grievous wound he’d taken, and he would suffer from lingering. Knowing this, one of his fellows drew a dagger and slipped it between his ribs. He stiffened, then relaxed, beyond all pain.

  While he was dying, more knights shoved at the doors, pushing them farther open.

  Cathan gritted his teeth as the gap widened.

  The first of the Guardians came striding out—a nine-foot colossus with the head of a jackal, its eyes ablaze with golden light. The sight of its two giant scimitars—one of them dripping red—filled Cathan with dread. He brandished Ebonbane as his men fell back in a wide circle. One didn’t move fast enough, and a flick of a blade cut him in two beneath the shoulders.

  “Mother of Paladine,” someone cursed. Cathan nodded, agreeing.

  Reckless, heedless, Sir Marto surged at the jackal-headed thing, his new axe sweeping back. Damned fool, Cathan thought, admiring the big knight’s courage as the Guardian’s scimitars arced in, a scissoring blow aimed at Marto’s neck.

  Marto laughed, ducking with a grace that belied his size. The blades whistled above his head, close enough to slice off the tips of the horns on his helm. An eye-blink later he was up, his axe flashing in to hack the creature’s thigh.

  Stone fractured, green shards flying. Marto’s axe glanced away, leaving a deep crack in the Guardian’s leg. It gave no sign of noticing, though. Such a creature didn’t feel pain, and now its swords came up again, poised to bury themselves in Marto’s skull. He backed away, drawing it after him—closer, closer …

  The Guardian’s eyes couldn’t actually widen with surprise, but the sorcerous glow within them brightened when it tried to put its bulk on its damaged leg. With a snap, the limb gave way, splintering beneath its weight. It fell with a crash, both swords shattering as they hit the ground. It lay there a moment, in pieces, struggling to rise—until Marto brought his axe down in a mighty, double-handed chop, smashing its face. The light in its eyes went out.

  Cathan and the rest of the knights stared at Marto and the broken statue, too stunned to speak. A grinding sound caught their attention, and they looked toward the doorway.

  Through the gap, Cathan saw another Guardian shambling forward, this one with a lion’s head on its massive shoulders. There were more behind—ten, twenty, and more, their eyes blazing with unnatural life.

  It was going to be a slaughter. Cathan knew it—they all did. There was nothing they could do about it, though. They’d come too far to turn back. With a chorus of shouts and cheers, the knights charged.

  *****

  One of the other mages had brought her scrying vessel, a prism that bent light into flickering images. Now Khadar and his inner circle stared at these. As they watched, the Divine Hammer poured into the Tower, slamming into the Guardians. Many men fell, cut to shreds by the statues’ whirling blades, but the statues also faltered, crushed by blows from maces and hammers and cracked by swords and axes. The knights were taking heavy losses, but there were too many to hold back. The Guardians would fail at their task.

  Leciane bowed her head, tears burning her eyes. The Tower would fall, as she’d known it would. There was only one thing left to do.

  “It passes to us now, my brothers and sisters,” said the Master, his voice heavy with sorrow. “I wish there were some other way. For the sake of the magic, we must act quickly, before they reach this chamber. Who will help me do what must be done?”

  The mages stood silent, their eyes downcast. All knew what Khadar was asking.

  Whoever stayed here would surely die, and the damage they did would be devastating. They had all seen what happened to Daltigoth.

  Lunitari, Leciane prayed. Do not let this happen …

  Hazael spoke first. An elderly Black Robe who had lived most of his years within the Tower, he shuffled over to the miniature obelisk, leaning on a staff tipped with dragon talons. His bloodshot eyes turned toward Khadar.

  “I will help, Master,” he croaked. “Nothing would please me more than sending the Kingpriest’s dogs howling to the Abyss.”

  Two more Black Robes followed suit before the first Red Robe replied. After a few more volunteered, the White Robes began to join in—not to mete out punishment upon the knights, but to protect the Tower’s secrets. Soon every wizard in the room had responded.

  All save one.

  “Leciane?” the Tower Master asked. The other sorcerers looked, the weight of their gaze heavy upon her. “Will you not help us, for the Order’s sake?”

  Part of her wanted to. Better to die here, fighting for the Art. Why would she care to live through this infamous day? To see the Towers at Palanthas and the Lordcity fall, as well?

  Her kind would be driven into hiding at Wayreth, reviled by people everywhere. Wouldn’t death be preferable?

  Still, she stayed silent. Her eyes flitted to the scrying prism. Amid the steel and broken stone, she spotted Cathan fighting a Guardian with a stag’s head, his sword whirling, ducking and dodging. As she watched he spun away from its attack and lunged, driving Ebonbane through the Guardian’s eye. Panting, Cathan wrenched his blade free and turned to face a new foe.

  Leciane sighed, looking at the floor. “I’m sorry, Master. I will not be a part of this.”

  A shocked murmur ran through the Heartchamber. The other wizards gave her betrayed looks. Khadar’s expression did not change. He shrugged, sighing.

  “Go, then,” he said curtly. “If you will not aid us, leave.”

  Leciane nodded, fee
ling the other mages’ angry gaze as she turned and hurried out of the Heartchamber. The sound of chanting rose behind her as she shut the door. The magic began to rise as the other mages summoned the power of the moons for the last spell of their lives. So seductive was the sensation that she nearly turned to go back into the Heartchamber—then she stopped herself, shaking her head. Weeping for what would soon be lost, she hurried down the steps, in search of Cathan.

  *****

  Green-veined scimitars whistled through the air. Slapping one aside with Ebonbane, Cathan twisted away. He slipped and nearly fell. The floor was slick with blood. To his left, a wounded knight had been laid open from throat to breastbone by a blow that split his plate mail like parchment. He offered a heartbeat’s prayer for the poor fellow, then brought up his sword to block another blow—then another, and another, as an ape-headed Guardian bore down on him, stony teeth bared.

  A third of his men were dead, and nearly that many were wounded, but the number of living statues was fast dwindling. There were eight left—no, seven, he corrected himself, seeing Sir Marto lay low yet another one. Victory would soon be theirs—and soon they would be free to continue their assault on the Tower.

  The ape-headed Guardian kept coming, pausing only to swat away a knight who tried to flank it. The man shrieked, falling back and grasping at a sword arm now attached to his body only by a strip of flesh. Then the statue was on Cathan again, pounding away, first with one curved sword, then the other, raining down blow after blow. Cathan kept backing away, sometimes parrying or trying to block with the shredded remains of his shield, but mostly keeping a safe distance between himself and his foe. Finally, he backed into the smashed remnants of a fallen Guardian, one of the many scattered about the hall. His arms weary, he raised sword and shield and made his last stand, each blow shaking him to the marrow. He cast about, looking for someone … anyone—

  “Milord!” cried a voice to his right.

  Starting, Cathan saw Tithian charging in, holding a flanged mace high. The Guardian also saw the young knight coming and turned, one scimitar spinning toward Tithian’s knees while the other stabbed at Cathan’s throat.