The Light of Heaven tok-3

by David A. McIntee

  Marta shook her head. "The Lord Of All was with her. Protecting her. Simple. Was there anything else you wanted to know?" He was tempted to ask if she had ever seen her daughter take a fireball in the face before, but it would have been facetious at best to do so. There were some other more rational questioned he wished he could ask, but it was clear to Crowe that Marta was hiding something from him and it was clear from her expression that their meeting was over.

  Gabriella awoke to the sound of footsteps. She looked up from the books that she had been studying before she had fallen asleep. "Mother? Crowe?"

  She was surprised to see the two scholarly, well muscled, visitors snatching documents off shelves. The one with the braided hair looked up, startled. "Chaga! Stop her!"

  The man with the oiled hair hurled a lamp at Gabriella and she ducked. It smashed into a shelf full of scrolls behind her, and they immediately burst into flame. Head down, Gabriella ran at Chaga, the crown of her head punching into his chest, hurling him back against the wall.

  He sagged with a grunt, but then tried for an uppercut, forcing Gabriella to jump back. Someone started ringing a bell and people began to appear in bedclothes and blue monastic robes. Marta ran in, saw the fire, and called for buckets of water.

  Meanwhile, Chaga hurled a handful of books at Gabriella's head, making her shield herself with both hands. He slid forward immediately, kicking at her ribs. She blocked and grabbed his leg, throwing him across a low table.

  He rolled to his feet, drawing a long dagger, and lunged at her. Gabriella flicked out a hand to grab his wrist and turned and pulled, smashing her fist into his elbow as he stumbled past. His blade fell from a numbed hand. She stepped in, cracking him on the side of the head with the point of her elbow, then jerking the elbow back into his nose. He finally went down when the back of her fist crashed across his jaw.

  By the time she looked back for the man with the braided hair, he had gone. She would have to find him later. For now, she had more urgent matters to attend to. "What's missing?" She asked her mother as she frantically sorted through scrolls.

  "Everything relating to the maps you viewed earlier it seems. Various other random materials as well, burned in the fire, but all subsidiary references to maps with the Glass Mountain are just gone. Stolen."

  "Which means somebody either believes the story and wanted a map, or wants to deny it to us. Luckily they're too late." Gabriella tapped the side of her head. "You've already got a scribe with a copy and I've got it in here."

  "Which means you're going, of course," Marta said.

  "Of course. And I doubt it'll be particularly safe."

  "I think I can guarantee that," Crowe agreed.

  There were familiar faces waiting for Gabriella when she and Crowe got back to Solnos. Four Knights in full ceremonial colours were on guard, themselves watched with some suspicion by an equal number of troops from two or three mercenary companies, including Kannis' company. Preceptor DeBarres greeted Gabriella with a smile as soon as she walked into the church.

  "Gabriella! Thank the Lord you're safe. Eminence Kesar will want to hear your tale."

  "He's here?" Gabriella hadn't expected that.

  "He's come to pay a visit to the site of an attack on a Faith church. He also brought some funds, for use in paying the mercenary groups which Captain Kannis and I are hiring to defend the area. The scouts report that there are more goblins coming and we will be marshalling a force to meet them."

  "Of mercenaries?"

  "It's politically safer than risking Lord Aristide — or any other Pontaine Lord — jumping to the wrong conclusion and defending themselves too vigorously against an imaginary Vos invasion." Gabriella couldn't fault that logic. "I'll arrange your meeting with the Eminence."

  Within the hour, in the top floor of the largest inn in Solnos, Eminence Rodrigo Kesar poured clear water, scented with droplets squeezed from fruit, into two goblets, and passed one to Gabriella. The water was cold and refreshing.

  "It does my heart a great deal of good," Kesar said, "to see you unharmed."

  "The Lord of All is with me, Eminence."

  "As with all of us, Sister DeZantez." He walked to the window and looked out towards where Crowe was checking over a horse. Beyond him, soldiers-at-arms were clearing debris from the makeshift barricades. "You fought a great battle. A triumph of the Lord's will over those creatures."

  "Thank you, Eminence."

  "And I was very sorry to hear about Enlightened One Brand. He was an excellent Knight of the Swords, and I fully believe he would have proved an equally valuable and excellent Enlightened One. I'm also aware that you and he had taken the Pledge and would have most likely have been Bound, in time. I can't claim to know how you must be feeling,"

  "It's not getting in the way." She said, making sure to keep her features as neutral as possible.

  "Of course it is." He shushed her next protest before she could make it. "But it is not something that can or will be held against you. You wouldn't be human if it did not affect you." He fell silent, and she could almost hear the wheels turning in his mind. "Now, this man Travis Crowe. Who is he?"

  "He's a mercenary," she said.

  "There are enough of them around, that's for sure."

  "He's also an informant."

  Kesar's expression showed piqued interest. "On what matters?"

  "On the Brotherhood and their operations."

  "Really?" Kesar pursed his lips as he regarded Crowe. "He is devout?"

  "I wish," Gabriella said under her breath.

  Kesar lifted a scroll. "I know you feel your true destiny is in the Swords and I'm certain that you will continue to be excellent in that duty, but… But we can't leave this parish without an Enlightened One and I know that you will serve well in that position."

  Gabriella stiffened. "Eminence… I would prefer to serve in another position."

  "Would you? Yet the Lord has means and manners for all of us."

  "It's not unusual for a parish to be missing an Enlightened One for a short period and I believe that you will approve of the duty I seek."

  "Really?"

  "It's related to a duty you already gave me, Eminence. I have found Goran Kell's hiding place."

  Kesar sat back in his chair and steepled his fingers under his nose. "All right," he said at last. "Tell me more."

  And she did.

  CHAPTER 15

  The smell was the strangest thing about this section of the Great Cathedral. Many areas, especially the underground levels, stank in one way or another. Cells used by the Confessors reeked of blood and excrement, while the archives smelled of the must of ancient scrolls and most of the stonework bore a faint air of smoke. The incense that burned throughout the Great Cathedral masked a lot of it, but not always and not everywhere.

  Katherine Makennon could have said she hated the stink, but she'd be lying. The sacred oils that were rubbed into her skin every day since her investiture masked most of the atmosphere in which she walked, but she had always found the scent of the corridors comforting. The smell reminded her of home not least because this was her home. This was where she was meant to be.

  "A glass mountain," Makennon said curtly. "You can guess what I thought of immediately I heard the phrase."

  "Ckeol se-Llrim. The Isle of the Star." The voice had an eerie quality. Its owner stayed in the shadows, walking around the edges of the chamber. "It is not a unique phenomenon."

  "It is to humankind."

  "Man does not know everything. If they did, no-one would ever send ships in search of the Isle. Any of the isles."

  "There are others?"

  "Several, daughter of Twilight, but none other within the reach of Man. They are sacred only to the Lord of All."

  "As He wishes," Makennon murmured, "so mote it be. And the bridge of light… It's happening now?"

  "Yes." The sound was more an exhalation than a word. "As it has so many times before, and as it will so many times again."

 
; "This occasion is the only time that concerns me," Makennon said, satisfied. "All that matters now is that we are ready to respond to the opportunities offered when the Lord does His part."

  Down in the heart of south-western Pontaine, scouts were rushing inland towards the armed camp that had grown up around the town of Solnos. A full fifty Knights of the Order of the Swords Of Dawn had moved in, joining Gabriella, DeBarres and Eminence Kesar. They had arrived in groups of twos and threes, so as not to arouse the ire of the local military. Kannis was sending hourly reports to Lord Aristide of Fayence, whose scouts were themselves prowling nervously outside town. No-one wanted those scouts to decide that the Swords and mercenaries were an invasion force threatening Fayence. Kannis had been employed by Lord Aristide before, and volunteered to keep him informed and to persuade him that he needn't fear these troops.

  Gabriella had rolled out a copy of Wyngarde's map across a table in the church vestry. It had been drawn from memory in spite of Chaga's attempt to wipe it from the eyes of the Faith. She drew a finger along the route the goblins had taken.

  "This is where they diverted around Fayence. They know they can't take such a major city."

  "With the right strategy, they could hop from city to city, looting and burning everything in their path." Kesar said.

  "No, even a rabid animal would know better than to leave two full cities on its flanks. If this had been a true invasion, they would have taken Fayence and used it as a bridgehead. There, they could withstand a counterattack from Andon and have a good base from which to launch further attacks." Gabriella said.

  "You have a point." DeBarres agreed. "That way they could then move west against Turnitia and set up control of the whole of the southwest. But they're not doing that."

  "Just a minute." Kannis began scrambling through scrolls, journals and papers. "The raids started from one area and have been spreading out. My unit had been called to several villages over the past months."

  "The enemy have to come from somewhere."

  "Everything began in a relatively small area and is spreading out." DeBarres put his finger on the map, where a jagged crown had been drawn, with the notation 'Glass Mountain — Freedom.' The name was Gabriella's editorial addition "Here. Whatever is happening, it started here."

  Eminence Kesar sat back in his chair. "All these goblins are coming from that place, Sister DeZantez?"

  "Yes. This is the location of a settlement that Bishop Goran Kell of the Brotherhood has set up."

  "Then the goblin attacks are part of Kell's scheme?"

  "I don't think that was the specific intent, Eminence. As far as we know they've simply been displaced. Even the goblins won't go too deep into the Sardenne."

  "Didn't they come through it?"

  "They're from the very end of the World's Ridge, so they've come up in the gap between the coast and the end of the Sardenne. The route they've taken up into the savannah is really the only place they could have gone. Hence, here they are."

  DeBarres turned to Kesar. "With your permission, Eminence, it's time we dealt with these creatures and then proceeded to this Freedom place with all haste."

  "My permission and my blessing," Kesar told him.

  As the meeting broke up, Gabriella went to find Crowe. Someone — probably DeBarres, who Gabriella knew to be sensible about these things — had sent him to a quartermaster for a gambeson, helmet and mail. She found him and took him to one side.

  "I told DeBarres and Eminence Kesar that you were a mercenary who is helping me." She said.

  "Lying to protect a heretic, Dez?" Crowe tutted. "Let's hope that one doesn't come back to bite you on the arse. On the other hand, it sounds like a fine start to me. So does the arse-biting, come to think of it."

  "I don't lie, sinner. Unless you're saying you're going to come with me voluntarily and not take the stipend I offered."

  "I'll take it. I may be a liar but it's nice to be around someone who isn't, just for a change. Which reminds me, this Kesar…" Crowe had been around thieves, murders and criminals all his life. Sometimes he had been one and sometimes he had been against them, but he had quickly learned to recognise the dishonest and the untrustworthy. He leaned in close to Gabriella. "This Kesar…" She nodded. "Don't trust this man."

  Gabriella looked at him in shock. "What? Are you mad? That's an Eminence of the Final Faith — "

  Crowe held up a hand to silence her. "Look, love, I don't care if he's God's own sodding butler. He's the type of man who hides things, because he's always working an angle."

  "He's a politician in a way, if that's what you mean," she grudgingly admitted. "But everything an Eminence does is geared towards fulfilling man's destiny of becoming one with the Lord of All."

  "It's easy enough to introduce a man to the Lord of All, Dez. One quick cut is all it takes and anyone can do that."

  Eminence Kesar returned to his room above the inn and resumed calculating and re-calculating the odds that Lord Aristide would jump to the conclusion that the force in Solnos was large enough to be a Vos invasion of some kind, and start a new war between the nations. He trusted the Swords and the Imperial army enough to believe that such a war would go badly for Pontaine, but he had no desire to even indirectly cause a war that wasn't specifically calculated to advance the position of the Lord and the Faith.

  As a result, he had begun to compose letters to both the Lords at Andon and Fayence, requesting the co-operation of a few extra soldiers. It was for the sake of appearances more than anything else. Pontaine was never going to ignore an armed build-up of the Order within its borders, but hopefully the letters would garner merely a frosty refusal and not a stronger reaction.

  When he had written the letters, he summoned DeBarres to look them over. Kesar needed no diplomatic advice from a man he outranked in the Faith, but he wasn't stupid. It was wiser to let his military commander voice an opinion on a military matter. DeBarres was wearing full armour already, like the rest of his Knights. The Swords wanted to be ready to fight at a moment's notice.

  "Your thoughts, Preceptor?"

  "They'll send a couple of liaisons along as spies, but I don't expect they'll send any soldiers. Dead goblins or dead Vos-men, either way will suit them."

  "That will be quite sufficient, then."

  As DeBarres called for a messenger to dispatch the missives, two scouts rushed upstairs and rapped on the door. A waft of horse-sweat and old clothes preceded them as they knelt to kiss Kesar's signet ring.

  "The goblins are sighted, Eminence," the first scout said. "They've come along the coast and have turned inland. Their main force is about four leagues south."

  "How many?"

  "Battalion strength," the second scout said.

  "Do they have cavalry?" DeBarres asked.

  "None that we could see. They have dogs, wolves, some other animals… But few horses and it looks like those are being kept for the leaders as rallying points."

  "Good." DeBarres smiled grimly. "Pass on that word to our archers. They should have easy targets."

  Crowe and Gabriella were consulting the map again in the vestry of the church. A squire popped his head into the room.

  "Sister DeZantez," he began, then looked at Crowe, clearly uncertain how to address him.

  "Captain Crowe, all right, lad?"

  "Captain Crow, the enemy force has been sighted. Preceptor DeBarres and Captain Kannis have ordered all Knights to begin transiting to a forward position. We will battle on the morrow."

  "We're on our way," Gabriella reassured him. When the boy left, she cocked an eyebrow at Crowe. "Captain Crowe?"

  "Every mercenary band has to have a mercenary captain. I'm a band of one, which I reckon makes me Captain of it."

  "False pride is a sin," she reminded him.

  "How many dead gobboes will atone for it?" They left the church, and mustered in the plaza with the rest of the Knights. DeBarres and Kannis led the column, followed by Gabriella, Crowe and the rest of the mounted force.
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br />   The sound of the Knights on the march echoed from Solnos' adobe and stone buildings; a driving repetitive crunching and jingling that almost became some kind of martial music.

  By the time the column surged out of Solnos, Crowe reflected that he could, just about, see what Gabriella got out of this kind of set-up. His blood was up and he'd be happy to see a line of goblins right ahead.

  A couple of hours later the column returned to walking pace once out of sight of Solnos; apparently the rush had been purely for show, to raise the townspeople's spirits. By the time they had passed above the Escarpment and turned towards the coast, Crowe wondered why he had bothered coming. He was still wondering that when DeBarres ordered camp to be made for the evening.

  In the morning, Gabriella DeZantez appreciated the difference between the goblins she had faced in the streets and plazas of Solnos recently and the pitched battle she could expect now. Spread out across the field before and below her, dozens of yellow and orange blotches flickered in the darkness, casting an amber light across the undulating savannah.

  Gabriella let out a long, slow, breath. "That's a lot of goblins.

  The Knights had spent the twilight under canvas, but were mounted again by the time the sun moved out of eclipse. The countryside was open savannah, with long, hardy grass rippling in the dawn breeze. They were looking down a gentle slope towards the burnt-out remains of a village. The village was at the heart of a seething mass of scaly bodies. They weren't a cohesive army. The lanky goblins looked half-starved and wore mismatched armour looted from the dead of decades' worth of violence. Chieftains on horseback threaded their way through the crowd, waving and screaming encouragement. As the only goblins with horses, they stood out above their troops, where the masses could see them and the signals they gave.

  Gabriella looked for familiar faces among her force. Crowe was looking at the enemy with a calculating expression, his colourless ponytail hanging out from the back of his helmet. He wore his battered coat over his mail. DeBarres was watching the enemy through a telescope, which he passed to Kannis. While Kannis took her turn with the telescope, DeBarres shuffled his horse sideways towards Gabriella.