The Last of the Renshai

by Mickey Zucker Reichert

  “You thought wrong. We have no use for an infant, except, perhaps, as a sacrifice.”

  Mitrian shuddered. Still, the priest’s ambiguous phrasing suggested they had not captured Kinesthe, and, for that, she was grateful. The ceaseless pounding in her skull made thought nearly impossible. “Does your god . . .” She caught herself. “I mean, does God often have you sacrifice people?”

  The Leukenyan clasped his hands on his thighs. “It is not something He asks of us. It is something He appreciates that we do for Him when we can. Usually it’s an occasional outcast or a hunter who strayed too far. Rarely, a worshiper becomes gravely ill and begs to become a sacrifice, or one becomes deluded by a false religion and we have to destroy him.” He smiled encouragingly. “I hear you’re a princess.”

  “You hear wrong.” Mitrian adopted the priest’s speech pattern. “I’m no one special.”

  The priest shrugged.

  Mitrian did not press. If the priests accepted outcasts and fatally ill as sacrifices, the position did not require a test of worth. “What do you want with Rache, anyway?”

  The priest made a vague, uninterpretable signal with his head. “I’m not at liberty to say. In fact, I think I’ve already told you more than I should. I’m not here to talk, only to see that you don’t escape before the ceremony at sundown.”

  “Today?” Mitrian had found denying death a simple matter while it remained a distant threat. A date and time gave it an imminence she could not ignore. Terror shivered through her, and the movement chewed the ropes deeper into her wrists.

  The albino yawned, apparently bored. “Why wait?”

  “Because.” Mitrian waded through dread and pain to pry logic from her clouded mind. “Because Rache’s not stupid. He’ll get you in a compromise position. He’ll make you prove you’ve really got me before he surrenders.” It was a lie. Mitrian knew Rache would act rather than plot. He would hack his way through three-quarters of Corpa Leukenya’s citizens before it ever occurred to him to barter, but she also realized he, if anyone, would not be the one who came to rescue her.

  The priest smiled. “Once God has taken our offering, he will see to it we do not fail.”

  * * *

  Rage had left Garn an hour back, but his heart still raced at every sound. Urgency thrilled through him, and he would have galloped his steed to its death if not for Arduwyn’s logic and Sterrane’s restraining hands. Now they stood beneath a canopy of maple and pine that leaked droplets and trickles of rain, Mitrian’s trail lost.

  “We’re wasting time.” Garn growled, fighting the urge to race off without his dawdling companions.

  “Garn, please.” Arduwyn spoke through gritted teeth, assailed by his own concern and self-doubt. “In all the years I’ve hunted here, I’ve never seen so many patrols. The Leukenyans are expecting someone, presumably us. You’ve got a scout. Let me do my job.”

  Garn groused, twitching with annoyance. “What good will it do Mitrian for us to arrive safely after she’s dead?”

  “What good,” Arduwyn shot back, “will it do Mitrian for us to die before we reach her?” He tossed his head. “If the priests wanted to kill her, they could have done so back at the house.” He accepted the reins of his chestnut mare from Sterrane, leaving Sterrane the huge white gelding he had won from the dock foreman. Arduwyn was still amazed no one had accused Sterrane of theft and murder on account of that horse. “Just follow me.” Arduwyn brushed through the foliage.

  Garn and Sterrane followed, the larger man silently, the other grumbling about “hindrances” and “thieves in the night.”

  Arduwyn winced at the comparative amount of noise Garn made as he moved through the brush. He pitied Sterrane for the time he had spent alone with the ex-slave; it had taken Arduwyn more than a few moments to map the patterns of sentries and watch posts leading to the lone mountain that framed the natural caverns of Corpa Leukenya’s temple. In his five years as a Pudarian citizen, Arduwyn had hunted the area thoroughly. In all that time, he had seen Leukenyans only occasionally, rarely armed and never in the clusters and ambush formations he found them in now. Something’s happening. Something big. The thought chilled him, and the priest’s warning glare at the city gates returned, unbidden, to his mind. Do they still want Sterrane to join them? To kill me for interfering?

  Arduwyn continued from memory, making generous circles around the warded areas, though each loop sparked Garn’s protests. The hunter delved into remembrances he would rather have forgotten. Some years ago, in the early days of the cult of Corpa Leukenya, a fellow hunter had returned to Pudar claiming to have found a woman’s body, ritually slashed and with rope burns at wrists and ankles. Led to the site of the discovery, the Pudarian authorities had found no trace of the corpse. The Leukenyans had responded politely to questioning, denying knowledge of the incident with a sincerity that had satisfied the king’s officials. Soon after, rumors stated that the hunter became so obsessed with the cult he joined it himself. Not long after that, Arduwyn discovered the hunter’s body, similarly mutilated.

  Arduwyn shivered at the memory. He had thought of packing the hunter’s corpse onto Stubs and presenting the evidence directly to the king’s men. But to do so would have risked the possibility of being accused of the murder. Relatively new to Pudar then and recently banished from Erythane, Arduwyn doubted his ability to defend himself if such allegations were leveled. Even had he succeeded, he would have had to contend with the vengeance of an entire cult and its followers, a vengeance that might as easily have been taken against Kantar and his family as Arduwyn. To this day, Arduwyn questioned the wisdom and honor of his decision to let the corpse lie.

  * * *

  The sun swept westward, beginning the final downstroke of its daily frown. As the sun sank, the clouds parted, making the day seem endlessly drab, the same damp gray from twilight to dusk. Garn’s restlessness transformed into a stinging need for action. Arduwyn’s route wasted time and energy, and it had already taken them abreast of and beyond the temple’s lone mountain. At length, the hunter snaked toward the jagged rear slope of Corpa Leukenya’s peak.

  “The entrance is on the other side.” Garn’s patience had worn thin.

  “I know.” Arduwyn dismounted, scouring the rocks with eyes and hands. Without looking, he pulled his scimitar from the donkey’s pack and strapped it to his waist.

  Garn and Sterrane clambered down from their steeds as well, helping Arduwyn in a search they did not understand. “What are we looking for?” Garn demanded.

  “A crack,” Arduwyn called back. “I found it once when a bear I was hunting seemed to disappear. It ran deep into the mountain, too far for me to risk chasing a predator in the darkness.”

  Arduwyn did not need to add that he had no way of knowing if the passage connected with the caverns inside the temple. The possibility seemed unlikely; if so, he would have expected the crevice to be well-traveled by priests.

  Garn groaned. “Better we’d fought through all their patrols than get lost in a crack that leads nowhere.”

  Arduwyn ignored the reproach. He probed more frantically, measuring peaks and angles with his gaze.

  Sterrane swore, leaping from a clump of thorny bushes growing beneath an overhang. A dull, brown viper slithered back toward a small cave. Sterrane’s ax sliced through air and hacked the snake’s head from its body.

  “Careful,” Arduwyn said belatedly. He ran to his huge companion’s side. “Are you all right? Did it bite you?”

  “It miss.” He smiled happily. “But I find cave.”

  Garn shoved past Sterrane, but Arduwyn moved more quickly. The hunter plunged into the canyon on hands and knees. Garn scuttled after, hearing Sterrane scratch and scramble behind him.

  Arduwyn was speaking, but his words disseminated unintelligibly into the darkness. An oath uncharacteristically harsh for Sterrane echoed faintly through the cavern behind Garn. Arduwyn moved with swift precision, and Garn rushed as fast as his cramped position allowed. The fl
oor of the cavern rose and fell, alternately smooth as ice or sharp as shattered glass. Oblivious to rents torn in his clothing and skin, Garn pushed onward. The passage narrowed gradually.

  Sterrane’s voice wafted clearly to Garn. “Me stuck. Can’t go on.”

  Arduwyn responded. “Sterrane, go back and stay with the horses. If we’re not back by morning, get help. If this does lead to the temple, I doubt we’ll be able to leave by the same route.”

  If it’s a route at all. Garn did not waste breath. The rage he had abandoned was returning with each delay. The stone of the walls scraped his jerkin, closing in on Garn until he felt certain he would soon become trapped, wedged between stone. Brutally, he cursed Arduwyn.

  Arduwyn stopped suddenly, signaling Garn to be quiet.

  Garn obeyed. Only then, could he hear intermittent noises.

  Arduwyn crawled forward slowly. The sounds became identifiable as voices wafting from far below them, too muffled to comprehend.

  The corridor made a sharp bend. Garn continued until his broad shoulders jammed between the sides. Unable to squeeze past, he swore, retreated, changed his angle of approach, and pressed forward. His jerkin caught on irregularities in the wall. He paused, brought nearly to tears by failure.

  Adrenaline heightened Garn’s senses enough to decipher most of what was being said below him. A compelling voice droned a story that his audience must have found familiar. Every few lines, they chanted a word or phrase in a powerful unison that indicated great numbers.

  “. . . and God landed on the lone mountain. ‘Here,’ He said, ‘You shall build your temple . . .’”

  The group chorused. “‘Chosen Ones!’”

  “‘Here beneath the shadow of my wings shall you make a temple of caverns and stone . . .’”

  Unison: “‘where you shall dwell beneath My protection for eternity.’”

  Garn stepped back, wriggling out of his leather shirt.

  The leader continued. “This having been done, God inspected the work of his . . .”

  “Chosen People!”

  “And found it to be good. ‘I will stay with you so long as your love remains loyal and your faith true,’ He said. ‘I will rise against your enemies when the need comes, and, one day, I will take the souls of my faithful from the Yonderworld to a place of ultimate harmony. The souls of the pagans, I shall destroy.’”

  Garn again attempted to push through the gap. Stone gashed his naked sides, and he felt as if his shoulders might break. Then he slid through into a wider opening. Ahead, Arduwyn crouched before a hole in the floor of the cavern.

  The crowd finished as one. “So saying, God landed on the altar and transformed himself to stone!”

  “Oh, no,” Arduwyn said.

  It was the kind of understated expletive most men would use for a minor annoyance, but Arduwyn’s tone as he bit off the syllables convinced Garn of a drastic situation. He sprang to the hole and stared over Arduwyn’s shoulder.

  After the perfect blackness of the tunnel, a vision of gleaming white nearly blinded Garn. Dangerously far below him, a mass of worshipers in white robes and feathers filled the room. Garn twisted his head, pushing Arduwyn down with a hand to gain a better view of the events directly beneath him. Bound hand and foot, Mitrian lay on an altar before an alabaster statue. A fat priest in shimmering garb hovered over her. He clutched Mitrian’s jeweled sword in both fists, his hands hovering over her chest.

  There was no time for thought. Garn vaulted through the hole. He met resistance as his momentum swept Arduwyn through before him. Mitrian, Arduwyn, and the priest screamed as one. Air surged around Garn, and his wits exploded with the terror of a fall that might prove fatal.

  Coincidently, the sword plummeted from the priest’s hand and chimed against the altar block as the fat man clamped his fingers to his face to shut out the sword’s demon images.

  Garn caught sight of Arduwyn rolling across the platform. Then Garn struck ground feet first, with knees bent. Pain shocked through his legs. He rolled, sword out before he knew he had reached for it.

  A bead of sweat wound along the priest’s nose. Before it touched his lips, Garn struck the Leukenyan’s head from his shoulders.

  The gasps of a multitude spun Garn. A sea of white robes, candles, and feathers confronted him. Rage reddened each face. The scene swayed dizzily before Garn. Intoxicated by his own adrenaline, Garn watched them as though through a dream.

  Arduwyn hastily cut the cords binding Mitrian.

  Garn’s sword fell from his fingers, useless against the limitless tide of worshipers surging toward him. Garn glanced right and left but saw no escape. Between him and the Leukenyans stood nothing but the grotesque, ivory statue carved into man-shape with a falcon’s head and wings. Its ruby eyes glowed with contempt, as if it dared Garn to challenge a god surrounded by its followers. I’m going to die. Garn accepted the penalty, hoping a savage sacrifice might divert the Leukenyans long enough to spare Mitrian and Arduwyn. He retreated inside himself, and there discovered a now-familiar strength.

  As the cultists surged toward them, Mitrian snatched up her sword and Arduwyn searched the walls for a passage. Far above them, the opening through which they had descended leered, unattainably distant, three times the height of the idol above them.

  Garn lunged at the ruby-eyed statue. It towered a full head above him and twice as wide, sneering at the muscular flyspeck with the gall to try to topple a god.

  The Leukenyans hesitated, united in shock.

  Slick with exertion, Garn knew their surprised outrage would turn to bloodlust the moment it became apparent that the stone rebuffed him easily. Words seared Garn’s mind in Colbey’s voice: “If you find no weak spot, create it.” Any man stronger than his task could produce the weaknesses he needed to succeed. Once Garn had heard of a volcano that hurled chunks of stone as large as this for leagues. That power must be his.

  A picture of the great explosion formed in his mind, vivid in every detail. Red heat roiled from the pit. Tons of rock flew like pebbles. With a howl, Garn threw his shoulder against the statue, drawing on the power entrenched between body and mind, the strength he had found within his soul. A cracking noise echoed through the cavern temple. The bird-man rocked on its foundation.

  Screaming, the Leukenyans retreated. The idol crashed to the floor, shattering itself and dozens of its followers. Chips rattled, skittering across granite.

  Breathless, Garn turned to the empty altar. After the roar of the statue’s fall, Arduwyn’s whisper sounded ridiculous. “Garn, hurry!”

  Despite Arduwyn’s haste, the three were in no danger. Garn followed, watching his smaller companion limp between moaning or panicked Leukenyans and fragments of ivory. Mitrian took Garn’s arm, and he embraced her with an exuberance that bordered on violence. “If I can do that to a god, imagine what I can do to a man.”

  Mitrian shuddered in his grip.

  * * *

  King Gasir of Pudar studied the lean, aging Northman in his court with a respect usually reserved for other royalty. The silver-flecked golden hair was cropped unusually short, especially for a Northman whose warriors customarily wore their locks in braids. The creases etched in the man’s cheeks seemed more from rugged experience than age. The gray eyes never left Gasir’s face, and they radiated a stony mercilessness untempered by humanity. His stance was relaxed, yet there was a predatory readiness about him. “A war,” the king muttered.

  “The war, sire,” Colbey said. “The long awaited confrontation with the East.”

  Gasir frowned. If only I could be certain of this stranger. Northmen came only occasionally to Pudar and always in close-knit, tribal units. This one had arrived without others of his kind, accompanied by an army of soldiers mustered from the towns between the Weathered Mountains and Pudar. They awaited their leader just outside the open city gates. By every legend, the Western Wizard would bring news of the Great War.

  Colbey replied as if the king’s concern had been spoken
aloud. “The Western Wizard has other business. He sent me in his place.”

  Unsettled by Colbey’s reference to his thought, King Gasir avoided the Northman’s eyes. “Have your soldiers enter the city. I’ll need a few weeks to muster my army and gather allies.”

  “Days would be better, sire.” Despite his contradiction, Colbey spoke with the utmost respect. “I’ve got scouts out now. From the time they’re taking to return, I’d guess the Easterners have come no farther than the Western Plains. Better the battle there, sire, then let them take Béarn’s fortifications or siege Pudar.”

  “Days, then.” King Gasir felt suddenly old. There had been peace in the Westlands for long enough to make a king careless, but Gasir had resisted laziness. His elite guard force practiced military maneuvers daily; the main body of his army spent eight days of each month training. Raising allies that quickly might prove more difficult, but he had little choice. He hoped Santagithi’s returning guards would manage to league with some of the farm towns. Even a swiftly riding messenger might not make the trip to the general’s town quickly enough to mobilize Santagithi’s troops.

  “Sire,” Colbey continued. “If I may ask about a more personal matter?”

  Gasir nodded assent. His usual retinue of guards shifted uneasily.

  “A young family came to your city some months ago, Garn, Mitrian, and their unborn child.”

  “I know them,” the king admitted, wondering whether Colbey was a friend or foe to this most unusual couple. Swordsmen of their skill would tend to have powerful feuds as well as alliances. “What of them?”

  Colbey glanced casually over the semicircle of guards around their king. “I don’t know your policy on women or foreigners in your ranks, but you could do far worse than Mitrian and Garn and not a lot better.”

  Touched by the irony of the situation, King Gasir scratched his chin through his honey-colored beard. “I currently have no women in my ranks. I would have made an exception for Mitrian, had she not made that impossible.” Briefly, he relayed the encounter in his courtroom.