The Price of Faith

by Rob J. Hayes

  Thanquil shifted slightly in his escort’s grip. “You’re testing my patience Prince Naarsk. You have no say in this. If you send me away I petition the Dragon Empress and I assure you she will side with me. If you kill me the Inquisition will send someone more powerful than me next time, maybe even an Inquisitor, and that is something you do not want.”

  Again the witch whispered something in Naarsk ear and this time his dragon let out a low rumble that shook the stone they were standing on. Even the crowd quietened from the threat inherent in the creature’s growl.

  Prince Naarsk raised his hand and the witch stepped back, her eyes once again lowered to the ground and her lips closed.

  “Release him,” the prince ordered and the knight behind Thanquil obeyed immediately. “She says you’re right, Arbiter. She seems to believe the only way this can end is to let you have your way. She also tells me it’s a battle you can’t win.”

  Thanquil rolled his shoulders and sent an acidic glare back at the knight who had detained him before turning back to Prince Naarsk. The dragon kept its beady, lidless eyes focused on him the entire time, ready to strike should Thanquil make any threatening move.

  “I’ve made something of a habit of fighting battles I can’t win.”

  The dragon rumbled low in its throat and Naarsk turned to it as if talking but neither spoke a word. “I give you two hours to prepare yourself, Arbiter.”

  Already Thanquil’s escort were forming up around him, ushering him back out of the great hall. Thanquil shouted to be heard over the wall of flesh and steel.

  “My weapons…” he prompted.

  “Will be returned to you before your… judgement.”

  The familiar Dragon Knight gave Thanquil a firm push in the chest and he had no choice but to stumble along as they ushered him back to his well-decorated cell.

  Thanquil

  It so often came down to this. Thanquil couldn’t blame the witch, he couldn’t blame any of them; if they didn’t fight they were still going to receive judgement. In most situations judgement involved either forcing the witch to reveal herself by using her magic or by certain other tests, many of which were invasive and, in the unlikely event that they were not a witch, left the judged severely wounded or worse. Today there needn’t be any true judging, the witch had already revealed herself. Today all that was left was the sentencing and it was this part of the job that Thanquil liked least.

  He was not the type of Arbiter to burn his heretics, not unless the situation truly called for it. There was a cleansing power in fire that couldn’t be denied. He looked down at his right hand where the flesh was still tight and twisted. His own judgement and sentencing had been the most painful thing he ever experienced; as if being set on fire wasn’t enough he had to call down and experience the Judgement of the Righteous; the Inquisition’s most powerful magic. It was a searing beam of light sent from Volmar himself that literally burned the sin from a person’s soul. Standing in that light Thanquil had learned first-hand he was far from pure.

  He decided then he wouldn’t burn the witch. She did not use her powers for evil, though he had no doubt evil was done through her, she used her powers to help Prince Naarsk’s people and to protect her daughter. Thanquil decided he would give her a quick death… assuming she didn’t give him the same first.

  Walking out onto the dry, dusty ground Thanquil purposefully scuffed his boot in the dirt. Packed earth as solid as rock. He looked up to see a grey blanket coating the sky, blocking out the afternoon sun. The clouds were gathered and heavy but they were not yet ready to shed their load. It was said nowhere in the world did it rain like the Dragon Empire. A good storm could last for weeks of solid downpour so thick you could only see a foot in front of you. Entire villages could be swallowed in hours leaving only a haunted lake and drowned ruins behind. Towns could be washed away in flash floods as sudden as a lightning bolt. Such a storm wasn’t far off but it would not start for a few hours yet at least. Thanquil decided to reserve judgement as to whether that was a good thing or ill.

  If anything the gathered crowd was even larger than in the great hall. Many soldiers lined the battlements so high up they would barely be able to see the action. Others, along with the serving folk and peasantry and even women and children crowded every spare inch of the mustering yard with a large circle left free and clear in the centre for the afternoon’s entertainment. Many buildings, some homes, some workshops, some warehouses overlooked the yard and both the windows, doors and even the rooftops were bustling with the masses. Here and there an entrepreneurial food seller hawked wares, mostly in the form of rotten fruit no doubt harvested from the forest. Folk wouldn’t dare throw anything at an Arbiter now but if the witch won none would hesitate at the chance to humiliate him further.

  Overlooking the entire mustering yard on a permanent gallows sat Prince Naarsk, his legs dangling over the side of the giant, wooden monstrosity. His daughter sat by his side mimicking his actions as well as she could and the witch stood at the foot of the gallows waiting for the Arbiter. The dragon was thankfully nowhere to be seen.

  The witch had changed but only little. She still wore a white dress, this one cut to a length between the knee and ankle and more open to allow ease of movement and she wore heavy leather boots to protect her feet. Thanquil had to admit white truly made her more beautiful. A half-chested leather jerkin covered her breasts and a portion of her mid-section and her arms were bared save for leather bracers. Her mousey brown hair was now tied into a braid that hung over her left shoulder and her eyes were lit as though on fire. She paid Thanquil no mind as he approached; her eyes were for the Prince alone.

  “That’s far enough, Arbiter,” the prince said as Thanquil entered the cleared circle, his escort dropped back into the crowd and he felt something thrown hit his leg. Looking down Thanquil saw his belt complete with sword, pistol and dagger. He quickly picked up the belt and set to fastening it around his waist.

  Prince Naarsk cupped the witch’s face gently with his hand and nodded to her. The woman smiled back, said something to her daughter and turned to face Thanquil, striding forwards to meet him with her head high and her shoulders back. She carried no visible weapons but then, Thanquil supposed, she didn’t need to if she were as powerful as she claimed to be.

  “He gives you one last chance to leave,” the witch said as she drew close, stopping almost within striking distance and easily within pistol range.

  “I give you one last chance to submit to my judgement,” Thanquil shot back with a half grin that the witch did not return.

  “He would have me kill you,” she continued as though he hadn’t spoken, “but he does not understand it would mean his own undoing. The Inquisition’s quarrel is with me and it will stay that way.

  “I will beat you and I will have you thrown out and when you return with the others I will be gone. I beg you don’t tell them of my daughter, if they try to take her Naarsk will fight.” All this the witch said in a quiet voice pitched so no one but Thanquil would hear.

  Thanquil had no intention of telling anyone about the witch’s daughter so long as she didn’t use her mother’s magic. “I make no promises. Was the marriage his idea?”

  The witch smiled and Thanquil saw tears welling in her eyes. “He thought it might protect me.”

  “A foolish plan.”

  “His way of showing he cares. How many witches have you killed?”

  “Somewhere between one and all of them.”

  “That’s not an answer.”

  Thanquil looked away. He wasn’t even sure why he was considering answering. “Thirty seven”

  “And how many innocent people have you killed?”

  “More.”

  “Is that why you’re hesitating now?”

  “What?”

  The witch gave him a half-smile that reminded Thanquil of Jezzet and he felt his stomach twist into a knot.

  “You’ve had your weapons for a while now,” she said. “You co
uld have attacked me any time you wanted yet you hesitate. Why is that?”

  As the witch spoke she turned and walked to her left and she changed. Verla Pre’lain was gone and now, standing before Thanquil, stood the image of his mother as she was when he was just a child. She wasn’t beautiful, none would ever call her that, but she had a strange matronly air that drew the eye and made him want to please her.

  “That won’t work,” he said, glaring at the witch wearing his mother’s form. “My mother was a heretic too.”

  “Perhaps that’s the point,” his mother said as she turned back and walked the other way. Again her form changed and this time she was old and crooked, her back stooped from years of hard use, her skin wrinkled and weather-worn, her hair as white as bone and as brittle as straw and her mouth all gums with only one remaining tooth. Now Thanquil once again looked upon the first witch he had ever hunted.

  A haggard old thing she may have been but that first witch never meant harm to anyone. She simply didn’t understand what her magic let loose in the world. She didn’t even fight him when he came for her, just submitted to his judgement and allowed him to burn her at the stake. She deserved better than burning but Thanquil had been young and full of righteous glory and determined to cleanse her with fire.

  “So can you only assume the form of heretics?” he asked.

  The old woman smiled a toothless, gummy grin and stepped towards Thanquil. “Perhaps.” With that step she changed again, this time into Jezzet Vel’urn.

  Thanquil knew the figure that stood before him so well that the image the witch pulled from his mind was perfect. The way Jezzet stood just an inch taller than him. Her lithe body so tight with muscle. The way she stood; a warrior’s stance, ready for a fight at any moment but always leading with her left leg. Her short, black hair and the way it framed her face and her dark brown eyes. That half smile that was so familiar to him played upon her lips. Thanquil couldn’t put into words how much he missed her, the real Jezzet, but he wasn’t so foolish as to believe this magical imitation could ever live up to the real thing.

  “That glamour won’t stop me,” Thanquil said.

  “You would kill me?” Jez asked.

  “No, I wouldn’t, but you’re not her.”

  Thanquil’s hand found his sword hilt and the blade cleared the scabbard with a metallic ring that was drowned out by the roar of a dragon from somewhere behind him. He turned, searching for the winged monstrosity and found it clinging to the battlements, high up on the wall, staring at him just as it had back in the great hall. Nearby soldiers had scattered giving the creature a wide berth and were starting to recover from its sudden appearance, stumbling over each other as they tried to back away from it.

  Satisfied that the creature wasn’t close enough to eat him Thanquil turned back to the witch to find not one but ten images of Jezzet spread out all around him, each one as beautiful as the real woman and each favouring him with that suggestive half-grin.

  Thanquil leapt at the nearest image and slashed with his sword but the blade passed straight through her. The image of Jezzet laughed and stepped through him. When he turned again the ten images had shifted places and again Thanquil had no idea which was the real witch.

  A pointed laugh from the crowd spread like wildfire and it soon seemed like the entire fort was mocking him, jeering as he flailed against a superior opponent. Something hard hit him on the back and Thanquil stumbled forwards a step as the stone thudded to the floor. Another missile flew at him from somewhere but this one missed by inches. He looked to the prince but Naarsk did not seem inclined to stop his subjects from interfering. Thanquil knew then he needed to do something to bring the situation back under his control. Or at least take the situation out of the witch's control.

  The images of Jezzet Vel’urn watched Thanquil, waiting to see his next move. He planted his sword in the ground and pulled out his pistol.

  “A one in ten chance, Arbiter. Assuming you don’t miss,” the images shouted at him in unison over the mocking of the crowd.

  Another stone launched from the crowd shot towards Thanquil and he ducked underneath its arc as he pulled a paper rune from his coat pocket and unceremoniously shoved it into the barrel of the gun.

  “Which one of us will you shoot, Arbiter?” the Jezzet’s asked.

  A stone collided with his head and Thanquil careened to the ground, the pistol falling from his hand as his vision rocked and blurred and sprouted flashing white lights. The roar of the crowd seemed to be everywhere, deafening as it swallowed him up and buffeted him from all sides. With feverish eyes Thanquil looked around for his pistol and found it lying a few feet away. Another stone hit him on the back and more struck the ground around him, a veritable hail of rocks falling towards him. He crawled to his gun, snatched it into his right hand and pointed it towards the sky.

  Bang!

  His one and only remaining shot rang out loud and clear and echoed around the fort. The jeering of the crowd ceased along with their attempts at stoning Thanquil and he slowly pushed himself to his feet. There was a stunned silence as everyone failed to realise just what he had done. The images of Jezzet all looked at him in confusion, unsure of how to proceed. Thanquil ran a hand through his dusty hair and it came away red, wet and sticky where the rock had struck him. Still the confused silence held.

  It took less than a minute before his shot was answered. A low rumbling spreading across the sky and building into a cacophony far louder and more violent than anything the gathered crowd of angry fools could throw at him. The crash of thunder built up to near deafening levels as it passed over the fort and sent a wave of panic through the crowd. A rain storm was not something any of them wanted to be caught outside in, especially not with so many people in a confined space.

  A flash a lightning streaked across the sky just as the first fat drops of rain plummeted to the earth. Slow at first the rain quickly built in speed and soon began to threaten being classed as a downpour.

  The crowd broke with the next crack of thunder.

  The dragon knights’ vain attempts to impose order failed in an instant as people began pushing and pulling, barging and stumbling as they all rushed and clambered to get away and out of the rain. People went down with screams of terror as they were trampled by their neighbours. Thanquil plucked his sword from the ground just in time as the crowd surged forward and engulfed him. People bumped into him from all directions as they struggled to run somewhere, anywhere and the rain built and built until it fell in noisy, grey sheets soaking everything it touched.

  Under the wave of people and the fall of rain the witch could no longer hold her weave of illusions and as one they failed. Where before there had been ten images of the woman Thanquil loved now there just stood a single person; the witch Verla Pre’lain, her face a mask of panic.

  The Dragon Prince shouted something but was drowned out by another crack of thunder and could not come to his witch’s aid as he was forced to stay on his pedestal and protect his daughter from the crush of the crowd.

  Thanquil began to push his way towards the witch, forcing the crowd to part before him with a blessing of enhanced strength.

  Another fork of lightning lit the sky a dazzling white-blue as it arced towards the fort and struck the battlements. The dragon, still perched nearby let out a shrill squawk that seemed out of place coming from its giant maw. As it edged sideways away from the site of the lightning strike it trampled two soldiers not quick enough to get away.

  Thanquil hadn’t let his eyes move from the witch since the panic began and now she saw him coming and struggled to push through the crowd to escape him. Already the flow of people was beginning to lessen but the effect was already clear, the mustering yard had been churned by the rain and the people’s feet into a thick mud that squelched and sucked at the feet. Here and there bodies lay trampled and bloody in the brown mess and some of the injured were crying out in pain, screaming for assistance but Thanquil ignored it all.

&nb
sp; He pushed the last person out of the way with unnatural strength and there was no one left between him and Verla Pre’lain. The witch spoke a word and hurled a blast of sizzling energy his way, streaking from her hand towards him but Thanquil was prepared. He snapped the wooden rune he had hold of and the spell disintegrated. The witch screamed and collapsed as the backlash from the neutralising rune hit her.

  Her dress, now brown from the mud tore beneath her as she struggled to stand and stumble away. Watery blood leaked from her nose and eyes. She looked like nothing so much as a pathetic drowned rat but Thanquil couldn’t let pity stand in the way of judgement. He forged forward, reaching out and grabbing the witch by the hair at the back of her head.

  As Thanquil raised his sword to strike he saw from the corner of his eye Naarsk leaping from the gallows into the mud and running towards him. Then he felt the impact of something impossibly large and heavy hitting the ground behind him and mud splashed up and covered the back of his coat.

  Thanquil let go of the witch and turned slowly, already knowing and dreading what he would find. Through the pouring sheets of grey rain the dragon towered over him, its massive head lowered but still a good eight feet from the ground and its beady eyes glowering hatred at him. Thanquil felt his arm shaking and knees go weak but he held his ground and stared back at the beast, his grip tightening on his sword.

  He had no idea how to fight a dragon, even his not-insubstantial reading on the subject area had provided him with no real knowledge of how to defeat one of the creatures without a very large arbalest and exceptional aim, neither of which did Thanquil currently possess. The only thought that raced through his mind was a simple piece of advice Kosh had once given him when fighting a man bigger than himself: Go for the eyes.

  From somewhere nearby Thanquil heard Naarsk shout an order for the dragon to stop. The creature’s eyes flicked sideways to its prince and Thanquil ran. He had no idea where to go but he turned and fled.