Steadfast

by Michelle Hauck

  The two priests spoke together in a whisper of the most likely place to find Santabe. Father Ansuro believed the bishop’s apartments to be given over to several of the more venerable Northerners, much older than the woman they sought, and suggested they check the rooms nearby instead.

  Ramiro kept his eyes on the floor and tried not to break into a run as two Northern soldiers stood half-asleep on their feet below a marble arch that led to the grander apartments. Proof that the Northerners found someone worth guarding ahead. They eased past the dull stares of the soldiers and continued to the other end of a long hallway. Here, the doors were farther apart and silver placards on each proclaimed the names of the now-deceased original occupants. The old priest slid open a panel in the wall to reveal a heap of irregular lumps of black rocks. Teresa squatted to fill her bucket as the other two worked out the details of delivering coal to each room as an excuse to get inside.

  Ramiro took a polishing cloth and idly ran it across a piece of crown molding. “Let me check the rooms,” he whispered. He tried to hand Teresa another cloth, but she glared at him.

  “I’m just as capable.”

  “It’s too dangerous,” he hissed back, trying to take the bucket from her as the two priests stared. “I’m the one with training. Let me be the one to risk myself.”

  She drew her bucket back when he reached for it. “No. You made me carry it. It’s mine.”

  “We don’t have time for this,” Telo said with a shake of the head.

  Teresa gritted her teeth, then relaxed and clicked her tongue. “You’re right. This is silly. We’ll take turns. But I think they are more likely to dismiss a woman like me as no threat. You give me too little credit.”

  Ramiro took his hands off the bucket as if stung. She had a valid point. His mother and Claire would both scold his sexist ways. “I’m an ass.”

  A smile crept up her face. “Not so much an ass as an overprotective nanny goat.”

  He grinned in turn. “I’ll let the name-calling slide. Equal turns, then. You can go first.”

  “Now you are an ass.” But she squeezed his arm as she chose a door at random and slipped her head inside. Ramiro held his breath as the others seemed to do the same, counting slowly in his head as thoughts tumbled on what he should do—could do—if something went wrong.

  The answer was a frightening nothing.

  “Not her,” Teresa said breathlessly, easing the door shut. “It was a man. Sound asleep.”

  Ramiro gave her the tray and took the bucket, then went to the next door. A glance inside showed a large canopy bed with the hangings left open. The priests of Aveston lived a richer life than most of their people. He shook off the intruding thought and focused on the snoring occupant—gray hair, mouth open, chest hair—another man. “Not her,” he said simply as he backed out and inched the door closed. Ramiro touched his medallion of San Martin as he traded the bucket for the tray again, cracking his neck to cut the climbing tension.

  By the saints, this could take all night.

  He didn’t know if his nerves could take it. A clearer message in his dream could have made this so much easier and faster, not to mention less dangerous to their health. Annoyance mingled with fear to make the sweat dampening his hairline that much thicker.

  Anyone could walk by at any minute and find servants clustered in the hall, most definitely not doing their jobs and in obvious need of punishment.

  Teresa opened the third door and dodged back out fast. Her face burned with a red blush and her eyes were round with shock. “Hell’s bells. Not asleep.” An angry shriek came from behind the door. “And not alone.”

  Before Ramiro could open his mouth, the door burst open and a naked woman launched out, a Diviner held in her upraised hand.

  Their plan fell into chaos.

  Chapter 16

  Indecision held Ramiro frozen in the hallway while their plan of stealth crumbled around them, taking their opportunity for flight.

  Teresa managed to dodge under the naked woman’s wild swing with the Diviner by falling to the floor and scrambling away. Her bucket went rolling, spilling lumps of coal. Ramiro hesitated as his other companions, the two priests, receded to a safe distance. Self-preservation screamed at him to flee, weaponless and therefore helpless, but it got scant notice behind the urge to protect those weaker.

  No longer stuck by uncertainty, Ramiro jumped in to intercept the next attack on Teresa, sweeping the tray around to give him time to pull his knife, sending polishing cloths flying everywhere.

  The solid staff of the Diviner hit the back of the wooden tray with an audible whack. Ramiro cringed, expecting the thin tray to fail and split. Instead, the Diviner burst in a spray of splinters, the solid weapon flying apart.

  Saints!

  Ramiro’s eyes closed as fragments cut into his face. His wasn’t the only gasp of astonishment. Someone screamed. He overbalanced when the resistance against the tray vanished and found himself falling before he landed hard on his left elbow on the relentless marble floor in a burst of pain. When he reopened his eyes, he stared in wonder at the tray, but it looked no different, though it felt a touch warmer.

  In the intervening time, Father Telo had shot forward, leaving Father Ansuro by the coal hole, and grabbed the naked woman around the neck, pulling her down. Her stiffened fist made contact with his middle, sending the air rushing out of Telo’s lungs in an explosive cough.

  Barefoot and hair tousled, a man burst out of the sleeping room, adjusting his white robe around his hips and brandishing another Diviner. Ramiro managed to stick out his leg. The Northerner’s feet caught on it, and he stumbled across the hall to bang into the wall. As Ramiro fought to his feet, Teresa jumped on the man’s back. They bumbled across the hallway with the Diviner flailing, the Northerner unable to quite bend his arm to reach Teresa for the kill.

  Doors opened all along the hall. Ramiro’s heart sank as more Northern priests poured out. There wasn’t time to worry about the fresh threats.

  Ramiro swung the tray in an upstroke to push the Diviner away. The barest brush with the tray and the white staff cracked apart like the first, showering them with bone-like shards.

  “Saints!” burst from Ramiro’s lips, aloud this time, then, “hold him still!” he shouted to Teresa to little avail. But years of training from the time he still wore his mother’s apron strings had taught him many things: how to fight or defend, how to survive, and how to be lethal in an instant. He punched out with his tingling left arm and landed his fist squarely in the Northerner’s throat, hearing fragile bones and cartilage break. The man folded, hands grasping his neck as he choked, taking Teresa down with him.

  Father Telo had his legs scissored around the naked woman, holding her captive. He fished a small brown bottle out of his pocket that Ramiro recognized from the herb shop they’d visited earlier. He splashed the liquid inside onto his handkerchief and doused his robe in the process. He held the cloth over the naked woman’s nose and mouth as she struggled and struck at him until her body went limp.

  “One out,” Telo panted. He twisted and found the choking Northern man with his handkerchief. Another out soon, Ramiro thought. But more Northern priests and Diviners rushed them from both ends of the hall.

  Tray held tight in both hands, Ramiro spun like when he’d fought the biting flies, fanning the tray to strike as many Diviners as possible. The Northerners aimed for the tray with a single-mindedness that bespoke an anger and obsession with an obstacle never encountered before. They weren’t used to seeing their weapons fail and it showed on their faces.

  Yet, the Diviners failed again and again.

  Bone-like weapons shattered in every direction, chips of them cutting into Ramiro’s arms, his back. The knife-sharp splinters, however, fell hardest on their opponents, taking out eyes or gashing throats. But not enough. With each strike, the tray grew hotter to hold as if it absorbed the power into itself and could not be rid of it.

  Disarmed Northerners fell
to fighting with empty hands. Ramiro drew his knife, while Teresa had found the coal bucket and swung it to good effect against Northern priests’ heads, allowing Telo to dose them with the knockout drug. The tide began to turn and the numbers to go their way.

  A Diviner reached for Teresa as desperation to destroy turned to killing rage. Ramiro despaired he’d be too late to save her when he saw frail little Father Ansuro leap between them. The Diviner touched the priest’s shoulder and his muscles locked for one terrible instant, then he dropped to the floor, eyes staring and empty.

  Teresa stifled a scream behind her hands.

  Something snapped. Ramiro didn’t bother going for the Diviner. He attacked with the knife, leaving the blade embedded when he lost his grip on the hilt and hitting the Northern man’s head with the tray—once, twice—putting all his strength behind the blows. The man crumpled, breathing raggedly. His outstretched arm fell across the dead body of Father Ansuro in an eerie embrace of murderer and victim.

  Bile rose in Ramiro’s throat.

  “Look out!” Telo shouted.

  Ramiro turned to find one last Northerner.

  “You!” they both said in recognition at the same time.

  He faced a tall woman, easily able to look him in the eye. Wiry muscles stood out along her arms and confidence surrounded her like an aura. Santabe looked the same except for hair cut off raggedly short and two sun-shaped earrings. She flicked a strand of hair from her face, standing perfectly balanced among shards of Diviners, lumps of coal, and unconscious Northerners. A white Diviner was held ready in her poised hand and another of red waited belted at her waist.

  Her face twisted with hate. “The boy with the stone. This time you die.”

  “A boy no longer. This time we take you again.” Ramiro spat to seal his words, seeing his message hit home. She feared capture more than she did death. But his words were bravado. Already he panted, fatigued from the fight, recent wounds aching, while she was fresh and ready.

  Plus, wiser than her companions, Santabe held back, making no extravagant thrusts with her Diviner, but staying cautious and away from his kitchen tray as they felt each other out, measuring determination and finding not a hairsbreadth of difference between them.

  “Why would you come here?” she asked as they circled, stepping warily over the clutter in the hall. She motioned at Father Telo with a flicker of her Diviner, even outnumbered, holding her cool with impressive calm and employing a sneer. “I let you go and still you return. You are stubborn like a frigmet. You think to kill our chief priests and make us retreat from your land? It will not work. We shall never go away.”

  Teresa looked up from where she struggled to pull Father Ansuro’s body to a safe distance, but it was Father Telo who huffed and answered, “You tell us why the Northerners invaded in the first place, and we’ll tell you why we’re here. Why do you stay? Surely, you got what you came for. Your god is loose among us and away from your people. Why else kill Ordoño?”

  She barked out a laugh. “Ordoño? He was ever always . . . what is the word? A cata . . . catalyst. That is the word. Still you think of him. You are as stupid as the rest.”

  Ramiro saw his opening as her eyes wavered from him. “Now!” He charged in with the tray held before him at chest height. She swung at him, powering forward to meet him using all her strength. Diviner struck the miraculous tray, and for a moment the balance of power lay even, then the heat in the tray spiked to an unbearable level. The tray split with the sound of a thunderclap, growing instantly cool.

  As it gave way, Ramiro didn’t waste time on regret, twisting to the left and feeling the shadow of the Diviner pass along his back, actually touching his smock—like an invisible finger. The near miss raised chill bumps along his spine. He had avoided its deadly touch . . . and then his foot came down on coal dust mixed with blood, and the floppy shoes slipped, betraying him. He braced for death.

  His muscles didn’t lock, and the charge like lightning didn’t come.

  Father Telo had ahold of Santabe’s arm, forcing her Diviner aloft. She raked her fingers down the priest’s face, tearing his skin and scraping at his eyes, trying to force the priest to let her go. Ramiro used the time to scramble to his feet, reaching for his knife only to realize it was long gone. He looked about for something else, but then remembered he still held the split tray. Moving forward, he clapped the two halves of the tray around the deadly Diviner and squeezed them together, pinching her hand in between. Santabe howled in pain. Teresa leaped into the fray, grabbing Santabe’s free hand and pulling it down.

  Stymied, Santabe kicked out, catching Ramiro with bruising force on the thigh. In return, he drew the tray pieces with her arm clamped between closer to his chest just as she wrenched her other arm free from Teresa.

  Ramiro grunted as he swung their whole group around and slammed Santabe’s hand, clamped in the tray, against the wall until the Diviner clattered free. He kicked it away and it shot into the coal hole.

  He dropped the pieces of tray, but Santabe had already used his second of delay to punch Telo in the kidney, sending the priest reeling off.

  It was still three against one, however, and while the priest fell, Ramiro grabbed Santabe by the throat and squeezed. Her eyes rounded as anger surged through him. He might be exhausted, but right now he had one of the reasons for all his losses in his hands. For this he had strength to spare.

  She beat useless at his arms, unable to find purchase, and he elbowed her off when she went for his eyes. “Why?” he demanded in a growl. “Why is your kind doing this? Every time we meet, you kill another of my friends—my kin!” Sweat and blood trickled into his eye, stinging, yet his gaze never wavered from hers. He tightened his grip on her neck, uncaring if she could answer him or not. Tired of the killing—tired of the dying.

  Father Telo was abruptly there with his drugged handkerchief as Teresa spoke unheard words in Ramiro’s ear, fighting to pull his hands away from the Northerner’s throat. Santabe sagged in his arms and Ramiro slackened his grip with great reluctance as their common purpose flooded back. They needed her alive. He let Santabe crash to the floor, wiping his hands on his pants.

  Father Ansuro’s empty eyes stared up at him in accusation. His body even more shrunken. Another soul let down. Like Gomez and Alvito. Like Salvador. Like all his fellow soldiers.

  Ramiro tottered away to a bare spot against the wall to sink to the cold marble and cover his face with his hands. What good did it do to fight when good men could die in the time it took to snap your fingers?

  Even if Santabe lived and talked and they found a way to stop Dal, what good did it do? It wouldn’t recreate Colina Hermosa or Salvador or free Aveston from their occupiers. Even without Dal, they lived at the mercy of an unstoppable army in their midst.

  And most likely there was no way to stop a god.

  He scrubbed at blood and grit on his face, pushing the foul away as he pushed away the despair in his gut, trying to shake off bitterness. Wisdom claimed revenge was hollow, and so he struggled to look past retaliation and vengeance. The three of them had succeeded for the moment. If he only looked at the present and not ahead, he could keep faith and keep going. He could only pray in the long run that he didn’t regret this act of mercy and letting Santabe live another day.

  He clung to the fact that there was a job to do. One thing at a time. He wished to all the hells there was someone else to be in charge and give the orders. He looked over the jumble of bodies and knew they needed to act fast before they were discovered.

  He spoke his worries aloud. “What do we do now? How do we get her out of here without being caught?” The priest and the scholar had planned and bluffed their way through so far; they needed a little more of that magic.

  Father Telo looked up from where he said last rites over the little caretaker and spoke as if he hadn’t heard. “He was the best of men. I’d be a bandit or dead if not for his intervention.”

  Emotion tightened Ramiro’s throa
t. “Father Ansuro got involved when he didn’t have to.” Ramiro touched his San Martin medallion in silent salute to a brave man who deserved better. Who would take care of Her Beauty? Somehow the great cathedral being empty and uncared for sent a stab to his heart—another part of normal life wiped away. He choked off a sob before it could start and the last scrap of him that still stood firm could fall apart.

  Teresa continued to stand with her face against the wall.

  “Father,” Ramiro pressed. “I’m sorry, but we have to move on. Try and hide this to give us time to escape.”

  “I know a way.” Father Telo levered himself from the floor as if all the heart had gone from him as well and went a few feet down the hall to slide open another panel in the wall. “Laundry chute.”

  Ramiro nodded. The space was wide enough to thrust down an armful of bedding with ease. They could drop the living and dead down to the cathedral cellars, swab up the blood, coal, and splinters with the polishing cloths, and drop those down, too. He glanced down at his blood-splattered smock, feeling the sting of each cut on his face and body, and knew they’d never pass through the building unnoticed. They’d have to take the laundry chute as well and hope the bodies they pushed down first broke their fall.

  A piece of the tray lay nearby, and he touched a corner with his foot. It didn’t take a dream to tell him the kitchen tool would save their lives no longer. And he’d never get a chance to talk to Father Ansuro about the dreams.

  He said a thank-you to both in his head and touched mind and heart, tightened his jaw, and forced himself to his feet. There was a job to do in this moment. He’d meet what came later and so get through the now. But by the looks of things, they all be as broken as the tray before the end.

  Chapter 17

  Claire lay looking upward at the rough finish on the ceiling of the one-room structure, while the pit in her stomach slowly grew. Her Rose Among Thorns test would be first thing this morning. Dread kept her in her blankets and unable to move.