The magician began to rise, but the worshippers leaped at him with bare hands outstretched like claws, or wheeling their flails, and he went down beneath the onslaught. Before Sandreena’s eyes they literally tore the man apart. Sandreena took a long, slow breath, and wished she understood what it was she saw.
From their expressions, the fighting men who stood apart also were shocked. Many of them had weapons half-drawn, as if expecting to be attacked in turn. Sandreena then noticed a fact that had eluded her during the chaos of the last few minutes. These men wore an assortment of head coverings—tied bandannas, scarves, flop hats, foragers’ caps, kepis, cocked hats, and berets—but all of them were black. These were the Black Caps the villagers had spoken of, the men Father-Bishop Creegan had alerted her might be in the air. Whatever else they might be, they certainly were more than simple pirates and smugglers.
She sat back, scooting down below the top of the rock, so as not to be seen. Why would a band of cutthroats come to this isolated mountain valley? Why would they be in league with a bunch of demonic cultists? And what was that bloody ritual she had just witnessed?
She knew she had to find her way back to Krondor, but she also knew that there would be questions. The Father-Bishop would ask her questions for hours, and at this moment, she would answer most of them, “I don’t know.” But someone in the Temple would be able to give some insight into what this was she had observed, which meant she needed to push aside her revulsion and continue watching. Taking a breath, she rose up again.
A quick count put the total at thirty fighting men and two dozen cultists. The mangled corpses, including the dead magician, were left on the ground. From the way everyone was moving, this was not their camp. She slid along the top of the rock and tried to stay deep in shadows. The moons overhead were making it easy enough for anyone to see her, if they were vigilant. Then again, she considered, they thought her dead and anyone else a terrified villager. And they had been gathered around several fires, so their vision would be weaker.
The cultists all hitched up their robes, ignoring the bloody shreds of flesh on their backs and shoulders. Sandreena wondered if they had some magic to prevent festering. Else many of them would be ill within two days. Maybe they just didn’t care.
Cults were anathema to the organized temples. On the level of faith, they almost always were predicated on bad doctrine or some half-baked heretical theory. On the level of getting along with the neighbors, they created distrust and fear. Sandreena, as a Knight-Adamant, wasn’t always recognized as a temple functionary, and even when she was identified as a member of a religious martial order, it wasn’t always the first thing on other people’s minds that she could use magic.
Priests and priestesses in the temples in big cities were one thing. Town priests and monks and priors also were viewed as part of the fabric of the society. But in the smaller villages in out-of-the-way places, anyone practicing any kind of magic was to be feared.
She vowed that if the Father-Bishop didn’t forbid her, she’d personally inform the Temple of Lims-Kragma in Krondor of what was taking place here. No one had less patience with evil death magic than the followers of the Goddess of Death; they were content that everyone eventually would come to their Mistress. They didn’t see any need to hurry anyone along. And most death magic, or necromancy, perverted and twisted the soul energy, leaving the dying body a further insult to the Goddess, as that soul couldn’t find the Goddess’s Hall, to be judged and reborn. Sandreena had no doubt a full company of the Drawers of the Web, that Temple’s martial order, would be quickly dispatched to come down here and clean up this mess.
Still, she considered, she had her own duty to her own temple first. As she anticipated, the fighters began trudging up the hill, speaking softly among themselves, and they kept a discreet distance between themselves and the cultists. They were heading up the draw to the east of the temple where the carnage had occurred. She waited until she was looking at the back of the last cultists, then slipped down to follow.
Gripping her poor sword and shield much tighter than necessary, she started trailing more than fifty killers.
Sandreena was getting cramps in her legs. Abuse, fatigue, lack of food and water, all were taking their toll, as was a considerable amount of tension. She found what she sought, the Black Caps camp. There were another dozen people there, ten who seemed prisoners, two guards. The prisoners did the menial work, from what she could see—tending the fires; cooking meals; cleaning clothing, weapons, and tack. Everyone at the camp was subdued, and if news of the fate of the magician had reached the prisoners, they apparently had no joy in it.
Sandreena found her horse tied to a picket at the rear of the camp. The camp had the look of one that had been established for a while: wooden lean-tos built up to shacks and even one good-size cabin. The four fighters who entered there looked to be the leaders of the mercenaries, as Sandreena thought of them. That might be a good thing, as mercenaries often knew when to quit; fanatic cultists never did.
She considered the possibility of getting to her horse and riding out of here. Unless every single person in the camp was a sound sleeper, she had almost no chance at all. She wished she knew where her belt pouch had ended up. If any of the cutthroats who had ambushed and tried to kill her had found the Soul Gem, they might have kept it under the mistaken impression it was a precious stone. It had the look of a moonstone or milk opal, depending on the light, but if any magic-user examined it, they would quickly come to understand it was holy magic, and probably destroy it.
What to do? She was torn between the need to report back the location of this camp and the desire to learn as much as possible. Moreover, she was hardly equipped to travel, and needed to replace her missing arms and armor. She might be able to pick off a sentry and take what she needed.
She waited as the camp quieted down. It was, however, a restless quiet. Those she thought of as the cultists were outright sullen, sitting in small clumps as far away from the others as they could. Those prisoners who carried food and drink to them positively cringed when spoken to, and the fighters kept a respectful distance. Sandreena had no idea what lay at the heart of this difference, but it was clear neither side considered this a happy circumstance.
Sandreena weighed her options. She decided to wait for the camp to settle in for the night. Whatever else, the smell of cooking food was causing her stomach to knot.
If nothing else, she’d try to steal something to eat before she turned and fled. Getting information back was paramount, but she could hardly achieve that goal if she died from exhaustion and hunger. Letting out a long sigh of resignation, she put her chin on her forearm and tried to get comfortable atop the rocks.
Hours passed, but as the large moon was setting and the small moon was rising, the last of the captive servants bedded down for the night. There was light coming from the door of what she thought of as the leader’s hut. She had identified one fighter, a black-bearded thug who sported lots of rings and gold chains around his neck, as the likely leader of the mercenaries. He and two others had retired to that hut after eating.
Sandreena carefully made her way down the rocks and through the camp. The cultists all were bedded down in rude leather-and-wood shelters; the evening’s slaughter seemed to have exhausted them. The fighters were scattered through a dozen small huts and lean-tos. Reaching the side of the big hut, Sandreena listened.
“Remember that inn in Roldem?” said a voice.
“Which inn? There’s a lot of them in Roldem,” came the answer.
“You know the one. Where we were playing lin-lan and you got into that fight with that Royal Navy sailor over him trying to take back part of his bet when no one was looking?” said the first voice.
“Ya, that one. What about it?” said the second voice.
“They had this lamb pie, with peas and carrots and those little onions, you know those?”
“Ya, I know those onions.”
“Well, they had this pie,
you see, and it had something else in it, some kind of spice or herb, I’m thinking. But it was really special.”
“What about the pie?” asked the second voice, impatience rising in his voice.
“I love that pie, that’s all.”
A third voice said, “You can sit and talk all night about the greatest meal you’ve ever had, but it won’t change anything.” This voice was deep and raspy, and its tone left no doubt who was in charge. Sandreena would bet her life this was the leader. Ironically, she considered that she probably was betting her life being here. Still, a lack of boldness had never been her problem. And she knew she would never survive a journey back to the nearest outpost of her Order, in Ithra, without weapons and armor and a horse.
“Ya,” said the first voice.
The man she now thought of as the leader said, “I don’t see any other way. We need to just kill them all as fast as we can, before they can start using their magic, then grab what we can and get out of here.”
The first voice said, “Ya.”
But the second voice said, “Even with Purdon dead, the rest of them can still do some nasty things and, besides, there’s Belasco. He doesn’t seem the type to forget betrayal. And we did take his gold.”
“We took his gold,” said the leader, “to keep things around here under control. But what we didn’t do was drink the demon’s piss. We’re not like them. We may be dogs, but we’re our own dogs, not his.”
The room fell quiet and then the leader said, “There’s something else. One of the old boys in Pointer’s Head told me a story, ’bout a bunch like us got sent here ten years or so ago. The reason the subject came up…”—there was a pause—“somebody was wearing a black headscarf in the tavern.”
“Sorry,” said the first voice.
“Anyway, he said that a bunch of fellows had sailed all the way around from the Sunsets, and that they provisioned here and someone said they were heading to the peaks.”
“Peaks?” asked the first voice.
“This is the Peaks of the Quor, you idiot.”
“Oh, I didn’t know,” came the plaintive response.
“How can you be camped in a place for four bloody months and not know what it’s called?”
“Nobody told me!”
The leader said, “This thing with that girl, in the armor. She had temple knight written all over her.”
“So?” asked the second voice.
“So, if one of the temples is sending one of their knights to investigate, things here are getting too twitchy.” A moment of silence, and he continued. “I signed on to terrorize some locals, maybe deal with a constable or two from Ithra if they showed up. But I’ve seen those temple knights in a fight. A murder cult sprang up down in Kesh ten years ago, and they were hiding out at the docks in Hansulé. A bunch of those knights from Lims-Kragma showed up and it wasn’t a pretty sight. Magic everywhere, and they didn’t take prisoners. Slaughtered every one of those cult fighters like they was lambs.”
“Magic!” said the first voice, like it was a curse.
“The gold is good,” said the second.
“But not if you’re dead. Can’t spend it here, and Lims-Kragma don’t give you a better turn at the Wheel if you brought a little gold with you.”
Silence followed for almost a full minute, then the second voice asked, “What do we do?”
“This morning, before they wake, I want you to quietly wake up Blakeny, Wallace, Garton, and that murderous little rat Allistair. The seven of us are just going to quickly and quietly go over and start killing. We hit them hard, fast, and they’re all dead before they know it. Then we kill those villagers, grab what we can, and ride south. Then I don’t know about you, but I’m on the first ship outbound, I don’t care where. Maybe I’ll head down to that other land, Novindus. Or the Sunsets.
“But something’s coming here, something I want no part of, and the faster we get away from here, the better.”
“What about our gold?” asked the second voice.
“Purdon was supposed to have it,” replied the leader.
“The magician?” asked the first voice.
“Yes,” said the leader. “So if no one’s disturbed his kit since they murdered him for failing to bring in the right demon, it should all be there.”
“How much?” asked the second voice.
“Does it matter?” asked the leader. “It’s gold, it’s whatever there is, and we take it. If any of the boys don’t like it, they’re free to stay and see who Belasco sends to replace Purdon. They can explain to the next bunch of those blood-drinking whores and pimps why the first batch is all lying around dead.”
“Okay,” said the second voice. “It’s time.”
“No,” said the leader. “An hour before sunrise. That’ll put us in the saddle as soon as the sun comes up, and we head south.”
“How much longer is that?” asked the second voice.
Sandreena glanced at the rising small moon and knew the answer. She had an hour to figure out what to do next.
CHAPTER 13
CONCLAVE
Sandreena took a deep breath.
Sandreena had no love for anyone in this camp, but she had sympathy for the villagers being used as slaves. She struggled for a long time, deciding what her best course of action would be, but finally rejected all the choices that didn’t involve trying to save the slaves. She slowly worked her way over to where they were sleeping, and gently nudged a young woman. The woman awoke suddenly and was about to shout, as Sandreena’s hand clamped down over her mouth. “Shh,” she whispered. “If you want to live, make no sound. Do you understand me?”
The young woman nodded her head up and down. “In a few minutes the guards are going to kill the cultists. Then they’ll kill you and your friends. Help me wake them up quietly and flee silently. Do you understand?”
Again the woman nodded, and Sandreena let go of her. There were eleven other sleeping villagers, all of whom looked exhausted and underfed. They were normally listless, but their fear energized them. The young woman who was the first one Sandreena awoke said, “What do we do?”
“Go north,” she said. “Find a safe place to hide for a day. Those cutthroats will ride east to Akrakon. Then south to Ithra. After they’ve gone, it should be safe for you to go home.”
“Who are you?” asked a man standing behind the young woman.
“I’m a Knight-Adamant from the Temple of Dala in Krondor. If I can get out of here alive, I’m going to try to find help to come up here in case others like those Black Cap bastards return.”
“Thank you,” said one old woman, obviously frightened.
“Don’t thank me yet. I haven’t made it out of here alive, either.” Looking at the young woman, she said, “Remember this: if I don’t get out, someone has to go to Ithra. There’s a Keshian garrison there and a shrine to Dala. Go to the shrine first and tell whoever’s there that Sandreena of the Shield of the Weak spoke to you. Tell them what you’ve seen and heard, and then tell them there’s someone behind all this named Belasco.” She looked the young woman in the eye. “Can you remember that?”
The young woman nodded. “Sandreena,” she said softly, looking at the Knight-Adamant, as if trying to burn her face in her memory. “Belasco is behind all this.”
“Good. The monk at the shrine will talk to the garrison commander and maybe the Empire will send someone up here. If they don’t, my Temple certainly will. Now go!” she hissed.
The prisoners needed no further prodding; they turned as one and began scrambling over the rocks to the north. Sandreena knew that if they could get a half-hour start, the fighters wouldn’t bother to hunt them down. Glancing at the moon, she realized a half-hour was about all she had, too.
She hurried to where the horses were picketed. In their certainty that they had no threats up here in the hills, the Black Caps had gotten complacent to the point of sloppiness. She approached the horses slowly, for she didn’t want nickering and stompin
g to alert those three murderers in the big hut or any light sleepers close by.
She reached the side of her own mount and saw the mare was unharmed. She patted it on the neck as she looked for any sign of her tack. It was in a heap nearby and Sandreena quickly tacked up her horse. She saw nothing that resembled her armor or arms, let alone the little pouch with the Soul Gem in it. Most likely her armor had been apportioned to some of the smaller men, one of the leaders had her mace and shield.
Regretting her inability to get more information than she had, she put all that behind her. She considered for a brief instant trying to muffle her horse’s hooves, but there was nothing at hand that would easily lend itself to doing so, and she didn’t have the time. Sandreena quietly led her horse away from the others a short distance and paused, waiting to see if the sound of hooves on the ground attracted notice. When no alarm was raised, she slowly moved through the heart of the sleeping camp, and a short way down the trail. Tying her horse to a bush, she hurried back up to the rock from which she first observed the camp.
The balance of the hour passed quickly and as she anticipated, the three murderers from the hut were quietly awakening their companions. No one appeared to notice the absence of the dozen prisoners—their attention seemed focused on the sleeping cultists.
Sandreena felt torn; her Order’s very mandate would be to ride in and attempt to balance this conflict, which would almost certainly get her instantly killed. Yet it galled her to see cold-blooded murder, even if those being slaughtered were monsters such as these cultists. And she didn’t relish the notion of the mercenaries riding off without penalty. Some of those men, perhaps even those in the hut she had overheard, those were the men who sliced her up and threw her into the sea as food for the crabs.
Without thinking about it too long, she picked up a rock and threw it hard at the foot of a sleeping cultist, where it jutted out of his lean-to, just as the fighters started to cross the clearing to where the cultists slept. It struck as she hoped, and in the dark, none of the fighters took note.
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