“Stand your ground,” Renda called, shifting her stance and regripping her weapon. “Do not be drawn in! We cannot let them surround us.”
Unlike Kadak’s armored demons, these creatures moved quickly, explosively, and within a single breath, the first wave was upon the knights, crowding in close to their swords. By the light that fell from the cardinal’s torch, the knights could see the enemy. Those who faced them were boys of every age that could walk, dark-skinned, as dark as Dhanani. Below those shadowy, feral faces, they wore no armor, only strange, knotted robes of richly colored cloth, silk or linen, and they carried wicked-looking weapons like nothing the knights had ever seen before.
But they did not attack.
The throaty scream of rage that came from the glade almost knocked Chul backward in terror. He did not want to consider what these sons of Xorden might be, or for that matter what Xorden might be. Instead, he swallowed painfully and regained some of his composure, enough to continue what he had begun.
“Idri ga brinania ro bana ka verere ba triaksa arada.”
The first prayer. Chul held the shrew by the back of its neck and lifted it above his head. He touched the small shrieking creature’s throat with his blade—a blade already stained with the blood of a man—but did not cut. Then he touched the point to the animal’s chest, then its little belly. The power to kill reserved. After a moment, he lowered the terrified creature to the ground and released it.
“What are they,” gasped Barlow, shifting back and forth in his stance, trying to stay calm.
“The dead,” answered Matow quietly, with a certainty the others found disturbing. “Dhanani dead, from the look of them.” Two of these dead, young and willing if inexperienced with the thick bladed swords they carried, shouted something in challenge and shook their weapons menacingly. “This glade must be an old Dhanani burial ground or temple, perhaps,” he added, looking around him. A shudder shook his weak frame, as if he’d found with these shades a certain kinship—those who had looked Death in the eye and somehow come back. He shut his eyes a moment to regain his composure. “Though what they’d be about this far east is beyond me.”
“It’s been thousands of years,” murmured the sheriff to himself, and dread darkened his features. “They’ve kept to the Kharkara Plains since the Gods’ Rebellion, or just after…” Renda watched him, curious, questioning, and he looked back toward the creatures facing them, hiding his thoughts from her.
“Why do they not attack?” Barlow scowled.
“They defend.” The sheriff breathed out sharply. “They stand between us and the cardinal; they need only hold us off long enough to let him complete his work, and they’d rather not open any holes for us. Sure we’re not in a position to attack them.”
“We did not come here to stand by and watch!”
“No,” answered the sheriff with a glance toward the altar, toward the rest of the priests, “no, we did not.”
“Idri ga brinania ro bana ka verere ba triaksa arada.”
The second prayer. Chul took the sluggish garter snake he’d dug out of its winter den and broke its neck cleanly. Then he cut it open and squeezed its cold blood into a small depression he’d made in the soil. The mulchy dirt drank the blood off thirstily. He slit the tip of his finger and dropped a few drops of his own steaming blood into the soil as well and watched the soil drink his blood just as eagerly. The blood of mortal brothers, shed. Then, feeling a little dizzy at the sudden cold and undeniable proof of his own mortality, he covered the depression with dead leaves.
Not far from the knights, one of the priests let out a cry of surprise and suddenly crumpled to the ground. From his body, a great lash of liquid fire spewed without direction over the ranks of the dead like a fountain, making the whole crowded body of them surge in every direction like panicked cattle.
“Did you see that?” cried Barlow, retreating with the rest of the knights to put the trees at his back as the Dhanani dead churned and swirled in panic before them. “What in the name of B’radik…?”
The sheriff grunted and heaved against the crush of bodies that threatened to overwhelm them. “Hold them off!”
The priests’ careful, orderly construction had flown apart, but they patiently restarted, quickly blending the two chants into the third, trying to regain control.
Goai drio gziara, goai kai baraina nro vortirarai bra Xorden.
But chaos had already been unleashed. Their prayers splintered apart again and again in the frenzy, and when they saw that they no longer controlled the child warriors, the frightening dead warriors they had raised to battle the knights, they scattered in terror. In the same feverish moment, the knights found themselves under dire attack from the warriors. Nothing held back the Dhanani now, and the knights fought for their lives.
“Idri ga brinania ro bana ka verere ba triaksa arada.”
The third prayer. He quickly untied his gold storyskin and bound it around the snake’s body. Then he dug feverishly in the cold, mulchy soil to make a burial chamber and lay the snake inside. One by one, in ceremonial order, he spoke a blessing over each stone and set it in place until the snake was completely covered, in the style of a warrior’s barrow. The honored dead, bestowed. He breathed deeply and placed the final stone.
Nothing happened.
“Idri ga brinania ro bana ka verere ba triaksa arada!”
The words flew out like a volley of arrows. His voice was full of anger and indignation, and instantly, he regretted it. What did he expect? He had no right to speak to the gods. He had not spoken the ritual prayers with Aidan during his Rite of Manhood; he had not used the traditional animals, the elk calf, the goose, the wolf. His blade was stained with human blood. He had no right to think that the gods would hear him, or, even if They did, that They would help him. But in spite of all of it, he shouted his prayers again and again over the chanting and shrieking coming from the glade, hoping that his gods, the gods of the Dhanani, would listen to the voice of the outcast.
“Renda!” The sheriff shouted to her through the battle, and seeing that he’d gotten her attention, nodded toward the eastern side of the glade.
Through the smoke and flame and flutter of silk-clad bodies moving through the glade, she could see only glimpses of one of the priests who seemed to be fighting someone. In spite of the warriors pressing him, he was turned away, batting furiously at something Renda could not see, something that seemed to be tugging at him from behind, pestering him more than actually attacking him. But beside him, something still more interesting caught her attention.
Another priest, perhaps seeing what it was that attacked his fellow or perhaps thinking he might be next, had tightened his hood around his face and begun to move through the center of the glade between the risen dead. Toward the altar.
“Valmerous.” She snarled in frustration and redoubled her fight to push back the Dhanani. But she was still hemmed in on all sides by the boy warriors, as were the rest of the knights. They could not hope to break free in time to stop him.
Beyond the clot of dead warriors, the embattled priest fought with his hidden attacker, using his bare hands and what rocks and sticks he could pick up. Suddenly, his body arched stiffly, and his hands clawed weakly at his back. The posture was unmistakable—she’d seen it so many times on the battlefield. The priest was trying to pull a knife or a sword out of his back, but whose? She could not see through the smoke.
Then his cowl fell back from his head, and his strange, alien voice rose out of the chant in a pitiful cry for mercy before he died.
Had he fallen without a sound, Renda doubted the dead warriors would have seen him at all through the smoke. But he had not, and the Dhanani turned to his scream like a pack of wolves. The terrible, strangled cry of horror and outrage they sent up upon seeing the face of the fallen Hadrian priest made the rest of the battle fall to stillness and silence for a long, terrible moment. Then those who could see the priest’s face savaged the little Hadrian body, ripping it an
d rending it until no recognizable piece remained.
The rest of the priests, stopped from fleeing the glade, tried once again to resume the chant, but soon, they, too, fell silent, seeing the curious warriors move closer and eye their hoods with suspicion. Near the knights, one of the warriors had kicked away the hood of the priest Renda killed. Within only a few moments, that body, too, was ripped apart.
Dhanani blood rage. And these priests were Hadrians.
“By the gods,” whispered Matow, tentatively lowering his sword while one of the warriors tried to peer through the slits in his visor, trying to see his eyes. A vexed snarl rose on the lips of the warrior, and he shifted his grip on his pole ax.
“Remove your helmet,” Renda whispered.
It was a risk. After all, if they were souls from the early Dhanani Empire, from a time before the Gods’ Rebellion or even before the first of the Byrandian refugees had come this far west, then the knights might seem as alien to them as the Hadrians.
“Matow,” Renda said calmly, “trust me. Remove your helmet and look him in the eyes.”
He hesitated for only a moment. “For the duke, for Syon and for B’radik,” he whispered. He reached up to unfasten the leather straps, and the warrior watched him, keeping the ax ready to cut him down.
“All of you,” spoke the sheriff, “take them off. We’ve nothing to fear.”
Barlow snorted, eyeing the huge spiked weapon his opponent held poised over his head. “With all due respect—”
“You have your orders,” returned the sheriff calmly, already lifting his helmet from his own head. The warriors studied his face, his eyes, his waves of silver hair.
Renda unfastened the leather straps that held her helmet and moved to strip it off, then paused, uncertain. Aidan had told her that the present Dhanani were distrustful of women on the battlefield, but she knew nothing of how these men, whom the knights now assumed to be ancient Dhanani, would react. A woman, here, in armor and battling against them, might be even more of an outrage to them than a Hadrian.
“Renda, no,” her father called to her. “Only your visor. They should be satisfied to see your eyes.”
She lifted her visor, and a young warrior who reminded her of Chul loomed close to her, so close she could see the thin strands of blue silk woven into his braids, the dusting of soil that still lingered on his smooth, dark brow. He reached a rude, dirty hand up to touch her face, to turn her head roughly into the torchlight where he could see her better. The rest of the knights bristled, but she waved them back and withstood the warrior’s touch.
He stared at her for several moments, long enough that the rest of the knights looked at each other worriedly. Then the young warrior looked around at the mostly pale, bareheaded knights, at Renda, at Lord Daerwin, and his lip curled into a snarl, enough that the knights readied themselves for a renewed attack. It never came.
Without the chant to direct them against the knights, they seemed more inclined to hunt down this other enemy, this hideous creature whose very existence boiled their blood, and while they did not retreat visibly from the knights, they’d clearly relaxed their interdiction against them to focus on the priests.
At the rim of the glade, the priests were trying desperately to regain control, to renew their chant, but between the threats of the warriors and the strange, hidden pest that harassed them from behind, the chant had degenerated into muffled gibberish. Soon it lacked even that much substance as each priest turned his attention toward his own protection and prayed for the mercy of whatever gods they thought might listen.
Meanwhile, the knights saw their opening and moved through the crowd toward the altar. Silently, the rest of the dead closed in around them.
“Idri…” Chul sobbed, sinking to his knees, and drove his bloodied knife into the soil.
Twenty-Six
The knights stood motionless, afraid to move, afraid to breathe, as they watched the ancient Dhanani cut through the priests like so many deer. All but one. Somehow, this last and most dangerous of the priests, Valmerous, still knelt motionless at the alderwood altar on the far side of the glade, unseen, unnoticed.
Renda marked the purplish light that touched the tops of the trees and wondered if Valmerous would need to complete his rite against Pegrine before daybreak. She doubted it. But time and the rising sun were his allies, not theirs. The goddess was tied to Pegrine, and Pegrine was a creature of shadow. Once the day had broken, the knights would surely be on their own against him and his god.
Her knights had pushed their way through the Dhanani toward the altar, and at first, they had made good headway. She had thought they might get through, but now, they were no longer gaining ground; in fact, they began to lose ground.
Then the Dhanani attacked.
The knights cut them down easily with their swords, but they soon discovered that swords were not much good against those who were already dead. The Dhanani they cut down rose time and again to rejoin the fight, their wounds gone.
“Willem!”
Renda grunted and heaved against the crush of dead warriors with her sword and pressed forward, that much closer to the altar. She and her father were at the front edge of their tiny wedge, fighting through the crush of Dhanani toward the altar, with the other three knights holding the warriors off at the rear.
But the wedge broke, and Willem fell. Behind her, she heard Barlow fighting his way to the fallen knight, trying to clear the space around him with his sword.
“Leave him,” Matow said. “You can’t save him.”
“He moved,” Barlow grimaced, cutting through the dead. “He yet lives! If I can get him to his feet…”
“Aye, he lives,” Renda shouted, pressing ahead, “but the ax cuts too deeply into his helmet. You do him no favor to save him now.”
Barlow looked back at Willem. “But the priests at Brannagh could…”
“He’s gone,” gasped Matow, falling into Willem’s place at Barlow’s back. He panted, nodding ahead. “We’re almost to the altar.” He knocked away a spear with his sword. “Just a bit further…”
“Tiadre!”
Abruptly, the ferocious energy of the warriors and their unrelenting press on the knights fell away. Even the warriors they fought disengaged in midstroke and turned toward the voice.
Barlow cried out in triumph and raised his sword, but Matow caught his wrist and nodded toward the edge of the glade.
There, a single young Dhanani stood, alone, uncertain and very much afraid, with his hunting knife outstretched toward the dead warriors. He was clearly not one of these, not one of the ancient dead, but a living boy of the tribes.
Renda turned and squinted through her visor. “Chul?”
“Tiadre!” the boy screamed, swinging his knife back and forth viciously. “Gui, il tiadre lema!” The warriors watched him, studied him, as if they were seeing one of their primitive ancestors suddenly come to life before them. But they could not understand his language, and he could not form the words in theirs. When they only stared at him, he raised his hands to the sky in frustration. “Tiadre,” he cried, as if by shouting he might make them understand. “It’s dishonor to fight them!”
“Tedriadre,” echoed another voice in Old Dhanani, a young voice but resonant in this place, and at the sound of it, the dead warriors murmured and muttered between themselves, turning to see who had spoken now. A shadow emerged from the forest not far from the knights, and as it stepped into the pale predawn light, they saw that it was another young Dhanani the same age. The resemblance was striking; the two boys could be brothers.
“Dhanani, both of them,” Barlow spoke under his breath, “but who do you suppose—”
Like Chul, the second Dhanani was dressed in the habit of the tribes, in close fitting dark leathers, bare-chested for the hunt except for a pale gold storyskin on one arm and a young deer slung over the other, but as He moved into the glade, His garb changed. His leathers seemed to spread themselves on the air and swirl about Him unti
l they became smooth silken robes in dark shades of green. Hundreds of long, unadorned black braids framed a beautiful face that grimaced at the dead warriors in pure rage.
“Gui, le tedriadre liemna!”
The ancient warriors dropped their weapons and fell to their knees.
“By the gods…” Barlow lowered his sword in astonishment.
Renda raised her hand to silence him and gestured toward the other side of the glade.
Another shadowy form appeared, this one a sleek, agile Dhanani woman, old enough to be Chul’s mother but still handsome, with short cropped black hair. Her leather cuirass and kilt were a disturbing shade of gray, the gray of mold, of decay, of bones in the grave, but these, too, changed as she moved, becoming whispers of gray silk beneath a long gray veil.
“Gui, le tedriadre liemnad, Xorden!” She spat the name as if it tasted of bile.
Tiadre, dishonor. Tedriadre in the Old Voice, betrayal of a blood oath. Chul looked up in surprise when he heard his words being echoed in the Old Voice, first by the hunter and then by the woman. His eyes took in the two who had come into the light, and like the warriors, his deepest, most primitive self recognized Them. He dropped to his knees and kissed the ground.
The gods had answered his prayers.
Why would the gods answer you, boy, when They never answer the shamans?
He was suddenly ashamed of himself. It was arrogance to think that his meager little prayer could summon the gods like so many servants when no one, not even Aidan and the other shamans of the tribes, had ever seen Them. No, the gods had not answered the outcast; They had come for Their own reasons. Chul followed their dark gazes to the hooded shape at the altar and wondered what sort of mortal man could so threaten gods—
Sword of Hemlock (Lords of Syon Saga Book 1) Page 39