The Paladins

by David Dalglish

  The tip hovered a foot above his neck. Over and over she imagined plunging it into his flesh, slamming it down with a primal cry of torment and fury. Just like that, his life would be over. The red star would shine no more in the sky. In her hands, she thought, the blade was in her hands. All she had to do was use it.

  The boat drifted on. The Blood Tower looked like a child’s toy in the distance, just a tiny thing illuminated with torches no bigger than the light of the fireflies.

  “Why?” she asked aloud as she sat down beside him. “Why do I let you live?”

  She had to know. The blade rested atop his chest, the hilt still in her hands. A hard shove, and it would slide upward, through the lower half of his jaw and into his brain. But not until she knew why she felt such a terrible impulse to spare him. She would not act against it, not in ignorance. She did not love him. That was easy to discount. She wasn’t even sure she cared much for him. But something about being in his presence comforted her. She wanted to hear him speak to her, even if she had nothing to say back. His arguments for Ashhur were uneducated and shallow. But he’d turned anyway.

  He was a man who had endured similar turmoil, who had even knelt at the foot of the prophet, Velixar, and yet through all that he’d emerged whole, sane, and relatively happy. It was a future she could not see for herself in any way. Was that what she thought he offered her? But that was a happiness she could not take.

  Could she?

  She remembered when she and Cyric fled from Darius’s glowing blade at Willshire. Valessa had been threads of shadow barely held together by magic she did not understand. Cyric had towered above her, condemning her. Every bit of hate in his eyes had shone clear, and still she’d seen the love of Karak surrounding him, blessing him. What had happened to her god? She’d cursed Karak then, swore against him. Was that the same god Darius had turned against? Did she really want to find peace and redemption through Darius’s blood bleeding out of his neck and onto her hands, forever staining them the same shade of red as the star that shone above him?

  “Stop it,” she said, standing. The motion rocked the boat, and she fought for balance as she lifted the blade high and screamed out again. “No doubt! I am faithful, I am faithful, I am…”

  Tears of silver and tears of blood ran down her face, the only liquid seemingly capable of touching her ethereal flesh. They fell upon Darius’s armor with soft plinks, like rain. She knew her purpose. She knew her place. Was it not to kill the mad priest Cyric? It wasn’t Karak’s love she’d seen about him. It was hatred. It had to be. He was blaspheming, he was evil, horrible. He condemned her, called her unfinished. Doubt was killing her. Doubt was destroying her. She was faithful, she’d always been faithful. Ever since she was a child old enough to speak words, she’d knelt before Karak and called him lord. He wouldn’t abandon her. She couldn’t abandon him. Faithful, faithful, Karak help her, she was faithful…

  She lost control. Her feet slipped through the boat, followed by her legs. Instinct had her lash out, dropping the sword so she might grab the first thing she could. It was Darius’s leg. Her lower half felt aflame, and she had a sensation akin to her legs stretching on and on, as long as the river. The fish and the bugs crawled through them, and she felt every bit of their surface. Her fingers dug into Darius’s armor, and with a cry she flung herself back into the boat, her whole body solid. Atop Darius she lay, her upper half trembling, the lower half slowly becoming bones, legs, flesh.

  Kill him, she thought. Kill him, then fling yourself into the river, and let whatever god that would take you, take you.

  She reached for the hilt but stopped. No. Enough of this farce. Her hatred for Cyric and Darius had nothing to do with Karak, not anymore. It wasn’t for redemption. It wasn’t cleansing, and she knew without a shadow of a doubt that it wasn’t her performing Karak’s secret desire. No, it was selfish, it was desperate, and it was all she could hope for to remove the torment and chaos that filled her mind. Her entire world, built prayer by prayer, lesson by lesson by Karak’s priests, had crumbled. She only hated Darius for exposing it with that damn glowing blade of his.

  But there was no honor in killing Darius. No redemption. No salvation, no clarity, no relief. Just a bitter, angry denial of the painfully obvious.

  Abandoning the sword for the oar, she began to row so she might have something to do instead of dwelling on her decision. Summoning the courage only once, she looked back and saw the black star directly over the distant blur that was the Blood Tower. She wanted to pray for the men remaining behind, but knew Karak would only mock her, and she did not think Ashhur would care to listen. So she rowed, rowed, and wished the night would finally end.

  13

  Thirty years Brute had served in Mordan’s military. Before enlisting he was Tory Baedan, an older cousin of Marcus Baedan, who would soon be crowned king. Brute had known remaining in any possible contention for the crown would put his life in danger, and so he’d become a soldier, quietly and without ceremony. He’d changed names often, but after a particularly deadly conflict with border raiders from Ker he’d earned the nickname Brute from his superior officer. Separated from the rest of his squad, and outnumbered four to one, he’d emerged victorious through his sheer strength and skill with his ax.

  Four to one, thought Brute as he stood on the wall overlooking the coming force. What he’d give to have odds that good.

  “I want every man on this wall,” he ordered, not taking his eyes off the north. “Let’s hope they don’t realize the gate is broken, and think far more of us are on the ground.”

  The soldier beside him saluted and hurried down the stone steps. Brute took in a deep breath, then slowly let it out, trying not to question his decision to send away Darius and the witch woman. He’d expected to die before, coming close numerous times. Once an elf had shot an arrow aimed at his eye, stopped only by another man stepping in the way without realizing it. Several times he’d been outnumbered, and whenever rebellions broke out in the north, it’d been Brute’s men who went their way, far ahead of any reinforcements. He’d often thought Marcus was secretly trying to get him killed, despite all his attempts to show his lack of desire for the throne.

  But then he’d been assigned to Sir Robert Godley’s division, and had stood with him when he refused to engage the fleeing elven refugees after the destruction of their kingdom. To the wall of towers he went, joining Sir Robert in his punishment. For years he’d been a glorified gatekeeper, killing the occasional beast foolish enough to try crossing the Gihon. Never had he thought to see another battle, not anywhere near the scale of his early days. But if he was to die, at least it wouldn’t be from a raging fever or shitting himself in a bed as his innards slowly turned on him.

  Brute looked to the gate. He’d purposefully snuffed out the torches near it. The witch woman had completely ruined the metal, and he hadn’t a fraction of the men required to repair it. So in darkness he hoped Cyric would not realize it was broken, and even better, assume some sort of trap lay within. Not that he expected to find any kind of victory. No, he was a delaying tactic, nothing more. Every minute Cyric wasted observing his walls and planning his strategy was another minute those under Daniel’s protection could travel toward safety. And from what he saw, they’d need every minute.

  “How many?” asked Alex, the youngest of the men to elect to stay. He’d come up the stairs to join him, watching the approaching force with a mournful expression on his face.

  “Hard to say with the darkness, but my guess is a thousand, maybe more,” Brute said. “So much for hoping Cyric would come alone, eh?”

  Stretching across the horizon was Cyric’s army. In the darkness they might have been hidden, but foul magic shone across them. Every one shimmered with a red light, much like moonlight flickering across a watery surface. And amid the horde he saw several that burned far brighter, as if they were moving torches, or demonspawn from the deepest reaches of the Abyss. Brute felt his stomach tighten as they neared with te
rrifying speed. He wasn’t afraid for his own life, but for those on the run. This was no normal army. Even on foot, they might outrace the river.

  “Why’d you stay?” Brute said as he pulled his ax off his back. “I understand the rest, but you?”

  Alex crossed his arms, and Brute recognized the look of a man struggling to hold himself together.

  “Daniel said that Cyric’s army would have attacked Bellham before coming here,” said Alex.

  “He did.”

  Alex nodded at the approaching force.

  “My family lives in Bellham. If that’s true, I’ve got nothing left. I might as well join them.”

  Brute put a hand on the man’s shoulder and squeezed it tight.

  “You’ll see them soon,” he said. “But before you do, make them proud.”

  The rest of the defenders gathered along the wall, spacing out to exaggerate their numbers. Brute stood in the center, and he lifted his ax high. The wolf-men were less than a minute away.

  “The mad priest will have no taste for a siege,” he shouted to them. “And if he does, all the better for those we protect! He’ll come running, and all that matters is us stalling as long as we can. The moment these walls are breached, retreat to the Blood Tower. We’ll hold in there until our last breath. You might have lived like scum, but tonight, we all die heroes.”

  “Fuck that!” cried someone on the far end. “I’ll stay scum to the end. It’s heroes that die easy. I plan on going down hard.”

  “You say that to your whores as well?” Brute called back, and a smile crossed his face. A long life of killing lay behind him. No long, tedious future of growing old and dying lay ahead of him. Whatever mysteries of the beyond awaited, at least he’d get to them now. The thought energized him, and when the wolf-men pulled back a hundred yards from the wall, each one howling at the top of their lungs, Brute held his ax above his head with both hands and howled right back. The cacophony thundered over them, carrying an almost physical force. Several held their hands over their ears. Howling, howling, like a legion of wolves gathered together to sing to the moon.

  “Let them howl!” Brute cried, even though he doubted any of the others could hear him. “They can howl all night if they want. I’ll howl right back!”

  And he did. Stupid creatures, thinking they needed to intimidate, to showcase their massive numbers. They knew nothing of what they faced. Keep wasting time, thought Brute. Just keep on wasting it.

  The wolf-men approached, this time much slower. Brute was thankful they came from the north. The broken entrance was to the west, and there would be no way they could see it from where they were. From the enormous pack emerged two figures. One was a gargantuan wolf-man, his fur glowing crimson as if it were made of embers. It made Brute think of the two lions Cyric had originally summoned during his ritual, on that terrible night he’d betrayed them all at the Blood Tower.

  Cyric stood beside the wolf-man, dressed in his priestly robes, his face illuminated by the fire of his companion. Brute wished he were closer so he could spit on him from atop the wall. The wolf-men fell silent so the priest might shout up to Brute and his defenders.

  “How gracious for you to guard my tower in my absence,” Cyric said. “But you need do so no longer. I am home, and I bring with me an army. Kneel to the true god, and I will spare your lives.”

  Wolf-men yipped and growled around him. Brute doubted they liked the idea of a surrender. They were hungry for a fight.

  “Give me an hour,” Brute shouted back. “I’ll talk it over with my friends here, see who feels like kneeling.”

  “There is no debate,” Cyric insisted. “No consensus, and no compromise. Kneel and live, or stand and die. Either way, you will serve Karak.”

  Brute shrugged.

  “I guess I’ll beg to differ. I won’t serve Karak, and I sure as shit won’t serve you. Send your pups after me, if you must. All hundred of us are ready to die.”

  An easy lie. Outnumbered ten to one was still a dire situation, but with the aid of walls, they would inflict significant casualties. Of course, they didn’t have a hundred men, and their walls could be bypassed by a short run around to the west. Brute prayed Cyric realized neither.

  “I don’t think you understand,” Cyric said. “But you are acting out of loyalty to your king, and such loyalty is admirable. Loyalty is a trait sorely lacking in this age, so for that, I will reward you. I will let you see your fate if you continue to deny me my rightful place.”

  He made a motion with his hand, and the wolf-men behind him parted.

  “What’s going on?” Alex asked, and then he gasped, seeing it a fraction of a second before Brute. Walking through the lines, overshadowed by the hulking wolf-men, were pale-faced men and women. They shambled forward, limbs stiff, eyes locked ahead. Over a hundred of them in number, and when Cyric called out for them to kneel, they did. Their clothes were torn, their necrotic flesh covered with claw marks and missing thick chunks where they’d been bitten.

  “Do you see?” Cyric asked. “The village of Bellham has been made pure. The weakness in it is gone, the divisiveness of serving two gods in one community ended. The murderers, the rapists, the heartless, the heathens; they all have been made to serve. Those who remain behind have loyal hearts, and will serve in the new nation I’ll create. One nation, from east to west, full of loyalty. Full of faith. We have allowed men to sin, to fail, and to condemn themselves for an eternity. It was wrong of us. It was weak to let children suffer the fire for their own failures, all under the guise of choice and fairness. Open your gates, and kneel. Confess your faith, whether it is born anew tonight, or has been in your hearts since your childhood days. All of you, kneel before Karak made flesh. Serve in life, or serve in death. Dezrel shall be made pure, one way or the other, for I shall have my paradise.”

  “Paradise?” breathed Brute as he stared at the walking dead. Beside him, Alex let out a cry, and he looked ready to collapse.

  “Don’t you kneel on me, boy,” Brute said, grabbing him by the shoulder.

  “No,” he said, shaking his head as tears ran down his face. “I’ll never. That’s my family there. Don’t you see? That’s them.”

  He was pointing into the rows of the dead. Brute felt his innards twist.

  “That’s not them,” Brute said. “That’s not. That’s just a corpse, a shell, an empty thing. Be proud of them for staying strong till the end. They’re safe from him now, as will we be. As will we all.” Turning to Cyric, he shouted, his rage never before higher. “Send your wolves. Send your dead. Not a knee will bow on this wall.”

  Cyric shook his head as if disappointed, but he was grinning.

  “I could strike you down from where I stand…but my wolves are hungry.” He turned to his wolf-men. “Kill all but the man who leads them. I would have him humbled before he dies.”

  The wolf-man standing beside Cyric let out a howl, and with that the charge began. Brute readied his ax, baffled as to what they planned to do. They had no ladders, no siege towers. Did they hope to tear down the wall with their bare claws? Or was the priest powerful enough to smash open a gap with his magic? A red hue shone around them, and all of their claws flared as if with a great heat. Brute knew they would be terrifying to face in combat, but they would face no combat with the wall standing…

  And then the wolf-men leapt, hundreds of them, slamming into the side of the wall and digging in with their burning claws. The stone gave way, the claws piercing it as if it were butter. All around, Brute heard his men cry out in fear. Like spiders they climbed, or cats up a tree. The wall was nothing. Castles, towers, gates…nowhere in Dezrel would be safe, not from them. Brute prepared to swing his ax as he cried out an order, canceling his initial idea to retreat when the walls were breached. They’d be overrun before they ever reached the tower door.

  The first wolf to poke his head over the edge received Brute’s ax through his skull. Brute let out a roar. They might have been blessed with unholy magic, but t
hey were still mortal. There might be hope in Dezrel after all. Another tried climbing over, and Brute smashed his face in. All around his men stood firm, and his heart swelled with pride. Every second, he thought, every second was precious. Beside him, Alex stabbed a wolf-man through the eye, then fell as two more hurled themselves over the ramparts. Their claws shredded his flesh. Brute flung himself at them, severing in half the spine of one. The second lashed out, and it knocked the ax from his hand.

  Strong paws clutched at his arms, and he screamed as he felt teeth lock around his neck, holding him in place. Like an unstoppable river the wolf-men flowed over the wall, overwhelming the last of his men. He struggled, but now three of the creatures held him down. He bled from their claws and teeth, but only superficially. None of it would be fatal. They’d leave that to their master.

  The minutes passed in horror as he listened to the wolf-men feast.

  “You’re a frustrating one,” Cyric said, walking up the stairs to join him upon the wall. Brute heard his approach, but could not see, his head locked so he could only stare upward at the stars.

  “I do my best,” Brute said, his voice cracking.

  “A hundred men, you say? I count twenty at best. Willshire was empty, and I expected them here. Where are your men? Where are the refugees?”

  “They’re safe from you,” Brute said as Cyric loomed over him, a sick smile on his pale face.

  “You cling to old ideas,” Cyric said. “Nowhere is safe, not anymore.”

  He turned to his wolf-men, and with a clap of his hands, they backed away from the bodies.

  “I promised them a feast,” the priest said. “No doubt they feel cheated, but the North is plenty large enough. But you must be humbled. You won’t join them, not like the others. Your soul will move on to the fire, and the fault will be yours alone.”

  Cyric stood, putting his back to Brute. He raised his hands, and they shone with a dark power. Words reached Brute’s ears, indecipherable. The very sound of them made his skin crawl. When Cyric stopped, he saw nothing, and could only hear the soft growls of the many wolf-men. He struggled against the creatures holding him, but they pushed down harder, one popping his shoulder out of joint. Brute choked down his scream.