by Tim Akers
“We are the only faithful,” the sky answered. “The last faithful. You are the betrayer, Ian of dogs. These deaths are on you! Your father! Your blood!”
The storm that lashed his skin was bitter and cold. Leaves as sharp as steel cut his face and hands. He bore down, dragging himself closer to Gwen and her nest of living hair.
“That’s no excuse!” he yelled. “We have died to protect you! My father has waged a war to honor your name. Too many of the faithful…”
“Do not speak of faith,” the sky replied, and there was a hint of thunder in its voice. “The tribe of hounds was the first to bow to the new gods. Your hallow is empty, and your gods are absent.”
“No, that’s not true,” Ian insisted. “I have seen the hound. It led me here. The hound brought me to you.”
“To stop me?” Gwen asked. “To rob me of my vengeance? Do you mean to stand with Sacombre, Ian of hounds?”
“Sacombre will pay for what he’s done, but not if you destroy everything around him. Not if you kill the very people who looked to your father for protection!”
“I have no trust in the justice of your ashen god,” she snarled. “I will count the cost and exact the payment myself. You won’t stop me. No one will stop me.”
She curled away from him again. The storm redoubled. Ian found himself pinwheeling through the air. Behind him, the churning wall of destruction crept closer. If he was thrown out of the towering god now, he would be torn to shreds.
“I can’t… let you… do that!” he gasped. He bent his will against the sky, and found his heart lacking. He was floating at the whim of the storm, spinning madly through the air. Ian became just another piece of flotsam in Gwen’s destructive maelstrom, and flew over the castle like a discarded puppet.
He looked down at what remained of the Fen Gate. The stone walls were falling apart, shuffling into the air like cards of stone, the roofs of the outbuildings torn away. Far below, the bodies of the dead and dying tumbled close to the ground, smashing against the buildings that still stood, breaking into horrible rags of flesh and bone. The god was burrowing into the doma, cracking the shuttered dome like a shell and scattering the holy instruments of the Celestial faith into the wind. Ian shivered to see such destruction. This was not what he had expected of war.
This was not what he expected of his gods.
Movement near the central tower of the castle, miraculously intact, caught his eye. A familiar scrap of robe flashed past a window. Ian recognized his father, and a half-dozen others, moving carefully through the upper chambers.
They were hunting.
Ian twisted in the storm. He whistled past the window where he had seen his father, scraping along the stone wall to bump unceremoniously against the windows of a farther chamber. As he struggled to right himself, he peered inside.
Sacombre stood over the body of Colm Adair, his hands spread in benediction, the heart blood of the dying baron smeared on his face.
“Gwen!” Ian yelled, though the storm tore his words away. “I’ve found your justice! There is your priest!”
The storm guttered like a torch, then Ian was snatched up into the sky once again. He felt for a moment the wiry grasp of fur between his fingers and the stone-hard knobby spine of the hound against his chest, but the image passed.
The wind died down, and he was standing beside Gwendolyn Adair. She seemed more herself, though there was still a feral madness to her hair, her eyes, the bright glitter of her skin.
“The high inquisitor…” she snarled.
“My father hunts him. You can end this, Gwen. There is no need to destroy the castle if you can strike Sacombre down.”
“Yes,” she murmured. “Yes…” A crown of lightning and wicker graced her head, bright light dancing along the whip-thin branches of the mask, and she was arcing down toward the castle.
The god of storms followed in her wake.
56
SPLINTERED SHARDS OF stained glass littered the interior of the doma, the icons of faith scattered around the stations of sun and moon. The chimes used to denote the hours of Cinder’s ascension were dashed against the wall by a howling wind. The bodies of the choir eternal lay scattered among the pews.
Malcolm hurried through, scanning for any sign of life. He thought the high inquisitor might be here, preparing the sanctum’s defense against the pagan god, but there was no sign of Tomas Sacombre or his attendants. He took the priest’s door at the back of the doma, traveling through Frair Humble’s meager lodgings, then entered the labyrinth of back corridors and servant halls that formed the guts of the castle.
Just as he exited the doma, he heard a tremendous crash behind him. The sanctuary collapsed, the wreckage lifted into the air by the storm outside. Malcolm found himself on the ground, his ears ringing.
“Gods bless,” he muttered to himself, then crawled forward and into the deeper chambers of the castle.
More bodies, more silence, the only sound the distant hammer of god against the walls. He continued on to the family’s corridors.
The great hall was choked with the dead and dying. They were lined up in tidy rows along the walls, attended by the remnants of the doma’s clergy and guarded by knights of Adair and Blakley. Sir Brennan paced quietly near the door to the courtyard, sword in hand.
“My lord,” the knight said. “Have you seen your son?”
“What is happening?” Malcolm said, ignoring the question. “Where is Lord Adair?”
“The baron is missing. I have sent messengers to his rooms, but none have returned. I was about to organize a search party.”
“I will lead that,” Malcolm said. “Do you know anything about this storm?”
“No, my lord. It seemed to rise from the stones themselves.”
“Something is buried in this place,” Malcolm grumbled. “Something best forgotten, I suspect. What force do you still command?”
“A dozen knights of the banner, mostly of Adair, a few of Blakley. Jaerdin and Roard have reinforced the gatehouse. Hopefully Halverdt’s men will be less likely to attack their own blood. The rest are spread throughout the castle, trying to hunt down whatever is killing our servants.”
“What other danger is there?” Malcolm asked.
“There remain blades in the shadows. Whether they are spies sent by Halverdt, or some darker emissary, we do not know. The corridors are far from safe.” Brennan motioned to an icon of Strife that hung about his neck, hastily formed from the wreckage of the doma and a length of rough cord. “The men have taken to wearing charms, my lord.”
“Charms,” Malcolm spat. “Soon enough we’ll be hanging wicker men from the mantels and touching stone whenever we get a chill. Where are these men you’ve called to search Lord Adair’s chambers?”
“Here, my lord,” a knight answered. He stood at the head of half a dozen lesser blades, men in chain and bucklers, with swords hanging from their belts. “Sir Merret, if you please. It will be an honor to repay you for leading me out of Greenhall.”
“Don’t speak in haste, sir—it’s an honor often granted shortly before pointless death,” Malcolm replied. “You know this castle?”
“I have served House Adair for a decade, my lord.”
Malcolm nodded. “You will lead us, Sir Merret.”
“My lord!” a voice called from the far side of the hall. Malcolm turned to see a priest of Cinder and a vow knight making their way between the dead. Malcolm recognized Sir LaFey from their time in Greenhall.
The inquisitor spoke. “I would go with you.”
“You will forgive me if I don’t find comfort in the company of an inquisitor,” Malcolm said.
“I would join you in that,” the vow knight answered, “but Frair Lucas is worthy company.”
“Sir LaFey and I have had a strange day, made stranger by finding ourselves in the Fen Gate,” Lucas answered. “We would like to see the end of this business, and help if we are able.”
“The word of a vow knight is sufficie
nt for me,” Malcolm answered. He turned to Sir Merret. “Lead us.”
The host marched silently through the grand hall and up a winding stairway. Merret headed the column, followed closely by Malcolm and the two newcomers. The rest of the soldiers trailed behind.
“The storm is not so fierce here,” Malcolm said.
“It shows a particular hatred for the doma,” Merret said. “There are few of the clergy remaining.”
“She has been treated poorly by the church,” Lucas muttered. “Hardly a surprise.”
“She?” Malcolm asked. “You know this gheist?”
“I have spent the last month walking with her. She is no less than Gwendolyn Adair.”
“Well,” Malcolm said quietly, his expression a mask. “That complicates matters significantly.”
They reached the top of the stairs and spread out into the corridor. There were bloody footprints on the carpet, leading from a door at the end of the hall and disappearing at the opposite side.
“Where does that door come from?” Malcolm asked, pointing to the origin of the prints. Merret shook his head.
“There should be no door there, or at least, I was not aware of one.”
“A hidden door? More things are revealed every moment,” Malcolm said. He pointed to the opposite side. “And that way?”
“The baron’s suites,” Merret said.
“Very well,” Malcolm said grimly. “I suspect this may be a short search, then. These other rooms?”
“Belong to Colm’s son and the family’s servants,” Merret answered. The doors were open, and though the storm raged beyond, the windows remained unbroken. A strange stillness dominated this space. It seemed almost sacred.
“Search the rooms, but be quick about it. Sir Merret, Frair Lucas, Sir LaFey,” Malcolm pointed toward the baron’s suite. “Come with me.”
The lesser soldiers spread out and started knocking through the rooms, moving with reverent silence, as though the occupants might be sleeping. Sir Merret crept to the baron’s door, pausing to listen.
“There is movement within,” he whispered. Malcolm nudged him aside. He glanced at the inquisitor and the vow knight.
“Sir LaFey, where is your sword?”
“I will be the blade,” she answered. “Or at least the shield.”
“She wants badly to die a noble death,” Lucas said with a wry smile. “Don’t let it bother you.”
“As you say,” Malcolm said. “Stay close and stay down. Whatever we find inside, try to hold your courage.”
“If you knew the things we had seen…” Lucas said, shaking his head. “We will do our best, my lord. Pray that your own courage holds.”
Malcolm tightened the grip on his feyiron blade, then crouched and put his shoulder to the door. He rushed inside, the other three entering behind him.
Malcolm’s heart nearly left him. Sir Merret gasped, and Lucas and Elsa succumbed to anxious prayer.
Colm Adair lay at the center of the room, his life gone. His mortal flesh was unfolding bloodlessly on the carpet. Crouched over him was what remained of Tomas Sacombre. The high inquisitor had his back to the door. At the sound of Frair Lucas’s muttered prayer, however, he slowly turned and faced them.
Malcolm had seen a host of demons in his day, gods of the old court and the new. Sacombre’s eyes were lined with ash, and his fingers were cracked and dry, the veins of his skin black and pulsing. Blood trailed in lines from them to the body. Madness filled his eyes, and his face was smeared with blood, as well. When he saw Malcolm, the priest let out a laugh, sharp and short and full of rage.
“My lord!” Sir Merret screamed. He rushed forward, sword drawn.
Sacombre struck him down without thought or motion. A black tendril flickered into existence, its barb sinking deep in Merret’s chest. The knight, Suhdrin born, Tenerran sworn, honest and true to death, fell beside the body of his baron.
“You found me, thank the gods.” Sacombre limped forward, shaking free of the tangle of blood that linked him to Colm Adair’s fallen form, stepping gingerly over Sir Merret. “You needn’t be afraid, Houndhallow. I am not the man you knew.”
“I know a monster when I see it,” Malcolm hissed.
“Ho, yes, I suppose you do. A good, holy monster, at that.” He let out another cackle. “And now you’ve come to kill me?”
“If I must,” Malcolm said. “I would rather drag you to Heartsbridge and let you face the celestriarch’s will.”
“Wouldn’t that be a coup? The Reaverbane, bringing the high inquisitor of Cinder to trial. Quite the show.” Sacombre chuckled. “Well, I can’t allow that, of course. I have a history to protect.”
“You could humble yourself, and beg forgiveness,” Frair Lucas said. He looked up from the baron’s body, a weight of pity in his eyes. “Make amends for the deaths of Colm Adair and his family.”
“They were heretics,” Sacombre said, grinning wickedly. “You know that now, don’t you?”
Malcolm grimaced but didn’t answer.
Sacombre laughed again. “Heretics, yes, and heretics must die.”
“What of you?” Lucas asked. “What’s to be done with the corruption in your heart, High Inquisitor?”
“Well,” Sacombre said, peering first at Lucas, then at the others gathered before him. He smiled. “I suppose you’ll have to kill me.”
Malcolm rolled his tired shoulders, threw his shield to the ground, then swung his feyiron blade in a wide circle and held it in a double-handed guard. His bones creaked and his muscles burned from the days in the saddle, the months on the run, the weeks at war. His mind was clouded with thoughts of his son’s betrayal, his failure at protecting his beloved wife.
“Gods will it,” he said sharply. “Being faithful to the church sometimes means drawing a blade and cutting out its corruption!”
“Then come, cut!” Sacombre yelled. “I wait for your steel, Duke Hound!”
Before Malcolm could move, however, a glow lit the room.
“I am steel enough for you,” Elsa LaFey spat. She raised her arms and drew the sun from the sky, a golden disc that alighted on her shoulders, glittering brightly off her armor. The veins of her face pulsed brightly beneath her skin.
Frair Lucas drew up next to her. He shook his head and with his hands wove the sign of Cinder.
“The powers you wield are not the powers of the true god, Inquisitor,” he said. “I can not allow you to claim his name, or desecrate the orders of Cinder.”
Before he could complete his casting, the chamber windows burst inward, and autumn filled the room. A whirling cyclone of leaves cut through the tapestries that hung on the walls and whipped the curtains into shreds. The wind howled and screamed. Sacombre’s laughter echoed over the tumult.
“The pagan seeks to purge you, Frair Lucas!” he shouted. “But she will have to wait. The god of winter has many faces, and death is among them!”
A silvered fog joined the storm, leaking from the ruin of Colm Adair’s body, wisping like ink in water, then drew in toward Sacombre’s open mouth. The high inquisitor closed his eyes and breathed in the black tendrils, the soul of the dead baron. The lines of his face and the veins of his arms took on a silvery glow. He drew his hands together and pushed.
A storm came out from his chest.
Malcolm’s blood went cold.
57
GWEN’S FURY SCREAMED through the room. The priest and the knight standing against the high inquisitor burned brightly against the storm’s tumult. Their power flickered… and went out.
“You’ll kill them all!” Ian shouted.
“I will kill the one,” Gwen answered. “Others may die.”
The high inquisitor laughed. There was an echo to his voice, something that tore through the air, filling a space that was neither voice nor thought. Darkness lurked behind him, through him, shot through his veins like a disease. Sacombre raised his arms and winter filled the room.
The ice that cut the air and froze the win
d quickly pushed Gwen’s presence from the chamber. The windows froze shut. The power of the autumn god was denied by winter’s final judgment.
“No! No, no, no, no!” Gwen hammered against the tower, frustration and anger boiling through her voice, the fury lashing stone and whipping the sense from Ian’s mind. “I will not be stopped. My justice will not be stolen from me!”
She drew back, tugging Ian with her like a fish on the hook. The autumn god pulled away from the castle, the storm of his presence swirling in the air like a hurricane. Gwen descended in a tornado as wide as the tower, a wedge of hatred that tore stone and cratered earth. The walls tumbled.
The innocent died.
“You have to stop!” Ian yelled. He hung helplessly in the air above the destruction, watching in horror as the castle crumbled below. “Those people are trying to help you! Can’t you see that they want to stop Sacombre just as badly as you do?”
“What does it matter what they want? I wanted justice for my family. I wanted peace for my lands, and freedom from the shackle of House Halverdt. From the church. What has that yielded?”
“And what will this get you?” Ian asked.
Suddenly, Gwen was before him. She hovered in the sky, her hair a writhing mass of graceful light, her eyes burning like torches. The glow that came off her skin was as sharp as lightning.
“Peace,” she said. “This will grant me peace.”
“It will grant you death. For you, your family, for everyone you ever cared about. Is that the legacy of House Adair? Is that the story we will tell of your passing?”
Gwen paused, staring down at him with those terrible eyes. Ian nodded toward the tower.
“Look,” he said. “Look at the faithfulness of Blakley. Look at what my father does to protect you.”
Together they turned and watched. The tower was coming apart, and at its crown stood Malcolm Blakley. Darkness moved around him, darkness given the form of Tomas Sacombre.
58
THE STORM FROZE, beginning with the air itself. Slowly at first, a crisp of ice forming, fragments of leaves clumping together, then wheeling away, only to freeze again.