by Dragon Lance
The Knight of the Rose stared back, but did not see.
Huma held a hand before the other’s face. He could feel and hear the man’s breathing, but it was the breathing of one deep in sleep. Huma dared slap the knight lightly on the cheek. The guard did not stir.
Leaning closer, Huma inspected the open eyes. They were glazed. He had seen men like this before, men who had been drugged for one reason or another. Huma suspected the Knight of the Rose would remember nothing about his lapse of duty. He also suspected something similar had happened to the rest of the temple’s inhabitants – including Rennard.
With a prayer to Paladine, Huma drew his sword. He followed the darkened halls until he came to the place where Rennard had sat, only to discover that the gaunt knight was gone. The doorway to the room where Lord Oswal lay resting also was partially open, and Huma discovered two more guards in the same comatose condition.
Huma feared the worst. Rennard and Lord Oswal had both been overwhelmed, he decided quickly.
With measured steps, Huma slowly opened the door to Lord Oswal’s chamber. The darkness disoriented him for only a second, then his trained senses located the even darker blur – Lord Oswal standing by the makeshift bed.
Standing? Huma blinked and allowed his eyes to adjust. No, it was not the High Warrior. Oswal was, indeed, lying on the bed. What then? A shadow?
Huma stepped forward and the darkness seemed to shift. He blinked. The figure – or what he had thought was a figure – was no longer there. With some trepidation, Huma moved forward until he was standing next to the still form of Lord Oswal. He was relieved to hear the regular breathing of the High Warrior.
Huma’s foot bumped against something. He peered down and found himself staring at the inert body of one of the clerics. The cleric slept as the guards had slept, his eyes glazed and wide. Huma shook him hard in an attempt to wake him, but the man did not even stir.
He felt, rather than heard, the darkness stir behind him. He hesitated and that hesitation might have nearly cost him his own life, for something metallic struck his breastplate and would have cut deep into his throat if he had moved any slower.
Cursing himself, Huma parried another vicious jab by a tiny, twisted blade. He had his first glance at his attacker, a figure in flowing darkness from which two red, glaring eyes peered. The figure threw the blade at his head, forcing Huma to duck. Even as Huma dodged the weapon, the specter brought forth a small pouch and raised it.
The knight scuttled back quickly. There was no denying what he faced now. The actions, the appearance – he was surprised he had not recognized the intruder immediately – were those of a cultist of Morgion, Lord of Disease and Decay. One of the vermin had made his way into Vingaard Keep – and had so far succeeded in killing one, and possibly two, of the most important figures in the knighthood.
The ragged figure hesitated before throwing the contents of the pouch.
Huma leaped forward, his broadsword up and before him. The flat of the blade slammed into the pouch, which burst, but not before the sword’s momentum pushed much of it back at the hooded intruder. Huma stumbled back, avoiding the deadly shower that rained on the other.
The assassin coughed and hacked as dust flew into his face. He stumbled back, but Huma dared not step forward. The cultist fell toward a pew and then, slowly, pulled himself back up again.
“If you think —” the voice was rough and strained, but familiar “— to kill me with my own tools, know that Morgion protects his own. Besides, I only wished to put you to sleep. Now you leave me no choice.”
It was all Huma could do to keep from dropping his sword as the hooded figure’s throat cleared itself of dust and his identity was revealed. Huma took a desperate step back, even as the cultist pulled out a broadsword hidden in his robe.
“The knife point would have nicked you, and again you would have slept. I fear, though, that this is all I have left now.” The blade came up, its point directed at Huma’s neck.
Huma could not bring himself to fight. It could not be happening like this. It could not be true. This was some terrible nightmare from which he would awaken!
The assassin laughed quietly. The sword lowered slightly. The laugh seemed to echo through Huma’s mind, mocking everything he had ever believed in.
“I had tried to protect you from this. I am sorry, Huma.”
And though Huma could not speak the words at first, they pounded in his head, cried in his heart.
Why, Rennard?
Chapter 19
“Have you nothing to say?” Rennard asked. “We have time. All sleep here. The walls are thick. They will not hear our swords. Yes. I think we have time.”
“In Paladine’s name, Rennard. Why?”
Huma could almost see the face, despite the hood and darkness. He could almost feel the bitterness as Rennard spoke.
“When I lay dying of plague all those years ago, I pleaded with Paladine, with Mishakal, with all the gods of that house for release. They did nothing. I lingered, wasting away. My visage shocks many now; it would have horrified them even more had they seen it then. I had contracted the Scarlet Plague, you see.”
The Scarlet Plague. Of all the forms unleashed over the years, the Scarlet Plague had been the worst. The knighthood had been forced to burn whole villages when the greatest healers could not keep the disease under control. The victims wasted away, but each day was agony and many killed themselves long before the disease had the chance. The name came from the redness of the skin as the victim eventually burned up from the sickness. It was a frightening thing, still talked of in whispers.
“Then when I was sure the agony would finally kill me, I was visited – not by the gods I had pleaded to, but by the one god willing to take away my pain, for a price.” The point of the blade rose again. “Morgion. Only he cared to answer my prayers, though I had never looked to him. He was willing to take my pain from me, make me whole if I would become his. It was no difficult decision, Huma. I accepted immediately and gladly.”
Huma prayed for something – Lord Oswal stirring, knights coming to investigate the darkness, something – but all remained quiet. How long had Rennard planned? How long had he waited for this moment?
Huma heard more than saw the blade coming at him. That other knight moved confidently in the dark. Yet Huma managed again and again to counter each strike, though he knew that Rennard’s skill in personal combat was considered second to none. Especially now, when he faced a Huma who also fought within himself.
Then, as suddenly as he had attacked, Rennard ceased. He chuckled quietly. “Very good. Much like your father.”
“My father?”
They had worked their way farther from the doors, toward where the clerics stood when they offered ceremonies. Rennard pulled back his hood, and even in the dark Huma could make out the pale, drawn skin. “Father. Oh yes. That was why I protected you, you know. The mark of Morgion, even on an unsuspecting person, is a sign that that one is not to be harmed by any who serve Morgion.”
Huma remembered the words of the cultists in the ruins. They had seen the mark and had argued about it. Skularis had not known the reason for its existence.
“What a sentimental fool I am,” Rennard continued, “for wanting to save my kin.”
Kin? Huma shook his head in growing horror.
“You are so very much like my brother was, Huma. Durac was his name – Durac, Lord of Eldor, a land overrun soon after he and I joined the knighthood. Nothing remains of Eldor today, save a few pitiful ruins. Just as well. Unlike the Baxtrey domains, where Oswal and Trake ruled jointly, I would have inherited nothing. As eldest son, your father inherited.”
“Stop it!” Huma swung violently at the man who had betrayed all he believed in. A man who had once been a friend.
Rennard defended himself easily. After several moments, they parted again.
“I belonged to Morgion long before our father sent us as squires to Vingaard Keep. From the first, I tried to p
rotect Durac. He was family, after all. The others who followed Morgion might not understand that, so I planted within him the same invisible mark that protected you from them. It proved to be a futile gesture. Your father died in battle only a year after becoming a knight. He stayed back with a handful of others to block a passage through the eastern mountains in Hylo – the only passage that would allow the Queen’s forces to attack from the rear. The rest of us rode to warn the main army. There was nothing I could do. Ironic, is it not? I wanted to tell him the truth about me at that last moment, but of course I could not. Little did I know at that time that he had left a wife and son.”
Huma quivered, part of him yearning to hear the story, part of him repulsed.
“You must ask Lord Oswal about Durac sometime – when you meet him on the other side!” Rennard charged Huma, catching the anguished knight off guard. They struggled together, and Huma found himself staring into a face half-twisted by madness. Gone was the emotionless facade that he had always wondered about, the mask behind which Rennard had hidden his treachery. Huma succeeded in pushing the other knight away.
“What was her name, nephew? Karina? I saw her only once, years later, when I finally located the village he had frequented before his death. She was a beautiful woman – wheat-colored hair, elfin face, slim – a woman full of life. I thought of wooing her, but then I saw you – Durac all over again, though only a lad – and knew that she would shun the horror that I was. I was a fool to think of anything other than my promise to my true lord.” Rennard’s sword cleaved the air as it came down at Huma. The younger knight rolled to the side and into a squatting position.
“You killed her, didn’t you?” Huma’s voice was cold and lifeless as he finally relived the days of his mother’s fatal illness, which had seemed to come from nowhere.
“You should thank me. I thought of you. I wanted you to be the knight Durac should have been. I believed I could keep you unaware of the truth.” Rennard smiled obscenely.
“The dream. I had a dream about your foul god.”
“I thought I might draw you to my side, make you a comrade and spare us this.”
“What by the platinum dragon goes on here?”
Both combatants froze as light streamed into the room. Bennett stood in the doorway, flanked by two of his fellows from the Order of the Sword. A quick glance showed Rennard’s realization of his mistake; Bennett must have retired on his own or at least have departed, and Rennard had had no chance to treat him as he had treated all those unsuspecting others.
“Rennard? Huma?” Whatever his faults, the son of the late Grand Master was not slow. He took in the scene, saw the tattered cloak and hood that covered Rennard’s armor, and knew what the knight represented.
Bennett pulled out his sword and pointed at the traitor. “I want him!”
“How quickly the veneer of dignity vanishes in the face of petty emotions,” Rennard comment wryly. Without another word, he took a savage swing at Huma – who dodged – and then Rennard bolted over the pews.
“He has nowhere to go!” Bennett’s resemblance to a bird of prey was even more obvious now. His eyes were wide and burned intensely, yet they caught every movement, studied all angles. His movements were fluid, calculated. Bennett was a hawk about to dive upon its prey. He stalked Rennard now.
But Rennard stepped into the shadows of the wall – and slid through. Huma reached the walls before the others and felt the spot. He did not think that Rennard had used sorcery to get away, as Magius had done once. No, it might – yes! Huma’s fingers found a slight indentation, and the wall suddenly gaped open to swallow him. Behind him, he could hear Bennett shouting for the other two to follow, then the wall closed once more. Huma had no time to wait for them.
Where did Rennard hope to go?
The elder knight’s rapid footsteps were barely audible, moving upstairs. What did Rennard hope to find up there?
This was not an ancient, hidden stairway as Huma first suspected; he passed two windows on his way up to the next level.
The stairway ended at a trapdoor in the ceiling. Cautiously, he reached up and, with his blade ready in his other hand, pushed it open. Wind and rain rushed to meet him.
The attack he expected did not occur.
Footsteps behind him alerted him to the presence of Bennett and his two companions. Huma did not want them to be the ones to face Rennard. That was reserved for himself. Slowly, Huma stepped up and out, into the rain.
The roof was empty. There was no place to hide, no place to flee to. The knight walked to the nearest ledge and peered over. Knights were beginning to gather below; Bennett had sounded the alert.
The first of Bennett’s two companions lifted himself out onto the roof. “Where is he? Did you catch him?”
Huma shook his head. Where was Rennard? The newcomers also combed the roof, but they could not discover a trace. Rennard had simply vanished.
Bennett refused to believe this. Knights searched all the nearby buildings and, when that failed to turn up anything, searched the rest of the Keep as well. Rennard’s belongings were gathered and inspected, but they offered few clues.
The clerics had rushed to Lord Oswal’s side the moment they learned of the attack. To their amazement, he appeared to be recovering. As one cleric explained to Huma, Bennett, and the others who had assembled, Lord Oswal’s body was throwing off effects of the dose that Rennard had administered earlier – thus the assassin hoped to effect a second dose before the High Warrior had recovered.
As the knights dispersed, some to continue the search for the traitor, some to their various duties, Huma felt a hand on his shoulder. He started, his first thought that Rennard had come to finish him off. The figure behind him spoke.
“It’s Bennett.”
Huma turned slowly around, and the two faced one another. Oswal’s nephew seemed to be fighting several emotions all at once, for his face registered traces of embarrassment, anger, and confusion. At last, he reached out a hand.
“My gratitude for all you’ve done.”
Uncertain as to how to react, Huma simply took the hand in his own and shook it. “I failed to capture your father’s killer.”
Bennett forced his face into immobility. Huma knew that the other knight was very uncomfortable. “You unmasked him. You saved my uncle. Even – even fought that pale traitor to a standstill, something I never could have done.”
The hawk-faced knight saluted briefly and departed. Huma watched him disappear, a brief smile playing on his lips before he, too, turned and left, hoping to find some trace of Rennard.
It came as no surprise, two days later, that Lord Oswal became the new Grand Master. He had remained isolated before that decision, with only the Council members speaking with him. All possible opposition by Bennett had vanished; in fact, the new Grand Master’s nephew was petitioning to step up to the Order of the Rose. There was every likelihood that he would be recommended. It was also likely that he would be wearing the trappings of High Warrior himself before long.
Huma struggled to get through those two days. When he was at last granted an audience with Lord Oswal, Huma shook visibly. To him, the Grand Master was a figure almost as revered as Paladine, for he was, after all, the living symbol of the Triumvirate’s desires.
As Huma knelt in supplication, an odd sound reached his ears and he dared to look up. Flanked by an impressive honor guard consisting of veterans from all three Orders, the Grand Master was sitting on his throne and chuckling.
“Get up, Huma. You don’t have to stand on ceremony with me. Not now.”
Huma rose and came closer. “Grand Master —”
A sigh. “If you must be formal, make it Lord Oswal. I do not have the pretensions of my brother – not yet.”
“Lord Oswal, before I start, tell me of Durac of Eldor.”
“Durac? I’ve known two or three. Eldor … I’m not sure —”
“Please. You know which one. Rennard’s brother. My – father.”
“My uncle.” Huma forced the unsavory word from his mouth.
“Paladine!” Lord Oswal’s voice was little more than a whisper. “Huma, I am sorry.”
“Sir. My father?”
The Grand Master wiped something from his eye. “I’m sorry, Huma. I wish I could tell you everything, but I honestly don’t remember much. Durac was a good knight, although a little overenthusiastic. He was a brilliant, almost natural fighter, picking up skills as easily as I might pick up a knife. I remember that he spent much of his time west, but I never knew it was because he had a family. I do remember, though,” Oswal said, rubbing his chin, “him shouting to us as we left him and the others to hold the pass. Now I realize what he meant. When he said ‘watch over them,’ I thought he meant the men. What a fool! He meant his family, and only Rennard really knew.”
There was little more the Grand Master could add, which disappointed Huma, though he did not show it. It was Oswal who broke the uneasy silence by saying, “You have my permission to start out for Ergoth and your mountains. How many knights will you need to accompany you?”
“None.”
“None?” The Grand Master leaned forward, his hands gripping the throne tightly. “As you yourself mentioned, this is a matter of the utmost importance. I want to ensure your success. Paladine has seen fit to give us this chance, but I will not let you take unnecessary risks.”
“What Paladine seeks must be from me alone,” Huma replied. “I feel that now. I cannot explain how I know. It simply feels right.”
Oswal sighed and leaned back. “You say that with great conviction. My head tells me that you are wrong, but my heart listens to you. I think, in this matter, I will go with my heart, for that is where belief begins.”
“Thank you, milord.”
Lord Oswal stood. Huma followed suit. The Grand Master clasped Huma on the shoulders. “Regardless of your birth and who your parents were, I shall always consider you my son.”