The Light of Heaven

by David A. McIntee

  "That's nothing new to the Anclas."

  "True enough. Work has been getting thinner on the ground since peace broke out."

  That was the price of peace, Gabriella supposed, but there was too much violence inherent in man's nature for peace to be universal. When the Faith guided man to unity with the Lord of All, then there would be peace, but for now there was always a fight somewhere. "You can't all be out of work."

  "We're not selling off horses because we got sick of them, Enlightened Sister. We're selling them because we can't support them."

  "I imagine that makes you a little jealous of companies who have contracts."

  "Not half!"

  "I hear the Red Daggers landed themselves a fat contract with a fat merchant..."

  "Hah. The Red Daggers got lucky," he spat. "We passed what's left of them half a day out of here, with the bloated sheep who's managing to fleece them, instead of the other way round. Scabby, or something I think he was called."

  Gabriella's ears pricked up at that, but she kept her expression neutral. "Scarra?"

  The mercenary snapped his fingers, and nodded vigorously. "That was it! Some local landowner. Has a big fat belly he carries in front of him like a wheelbarrow."

  Gabriella forced herself to seem no more than curious in passing. "Oh, I think I've heard of him. He has a vineyard somewhere outside of Andon, doesn't he?"

  "Yeah, that's where they were heading for," the mercenary confirmed. "Down past Dead Tree Brook."

  Inside, Gabriella was grinning. "Now, if you came in here, you must have sins you want to confess..."

  The border between the Anclas and Pontaine proper was the White Saw. A fast-flowing river bordered by high rock walls, its frothy peaks cutting a deep gorge on its journey westwards. The Imperial Highway was supported by several bridges west of Andon and a detachment of the Swords crossed the thundering river by means of the Dwarf Bridge.

  A small tower stood at the Pontaine end of the bridge. Erak halted the column as a few bored guards, wearing the tabards of Andon's standing army, came out to examine their credentials. Like all the Pontaine city-states the Lord of Andon paid for a private army, rather than drawing troops from a central force as Vos cities did with Imperial troops. Though the troops guarding Andon's lands were simply called the Andon Militia in official documents, the region's people tended to refer to them as the Border Brawlers. Gabriella couldn't help smiling as she remembered that from her youth. She had been a child not far from here, before her parents sent her to safety in Vos during the war.

  The Faith was keen to maintain as much a presence in Pontaine as it did in the Empire and, as far as Gabriella was concerned the service of the Lord of All ought to be above such petty things as nationhood and politics, though she had no illusions about the practical truth of that matter. The proportion of Faith devotees among the population in Pontaine was, according to the best efforts of Faith scribes, about half that in the Empire. She wondered whether the Border Brawlers would try to talk the Knights out of proceeding towards Andon, for the simple reason that the Swords had fought on behalf of Vos in the last war. It was before her time in the Order, but Gabriella knew that people tended to harbour deep feelings about such things.

  After a few moments of chatting to the soldiers, Erak came back to join Gabriella and the others. "You look happy," he said. "Stop it, you're frightening the guards."

  "I thought I had a nice smile."

  "They're simple men."

  "Is there another kind? Speaking of different kinds of men, did they say anything about Scarra's merry band?"

  "They confirmed what the mercenary at Hallam's Creek said. They've offered to request a detachment of the Brawlers to be sent with us."

  Gabriella wasn't surprised, but didn't like the idea either. When even one group had bad feelings about another because of past incidents, there was too much risk of accidents or outright betrayals and she didn't want anything interfering with them getting to Scarra. "My first instinct would be a polite refusal."

  "Mine too. It's not that I don't trust them not to warn him, but..."

  "Neither do I. On the other hand, if we wanted to show a bit of solidarity down here it might make diplomacy a lot easier. Here's a thought: we could send Karlsen on ahead to the cathedral to deliver the messages we're carrying on to Archimandrite Marek. They could escort him. That way they get to do something, and we don't have to worry about them."

  Erak nodded. "I'll see what they say." He turned away and went back to the little fortress tower. Gabriella watched, half closing her eyes and enjoying the fresh air. Things were going well. The Lord of All was with her.

  The next morning, Gabriella DeZantez held up a hand, halting the soldiers-at-arms as they moved in a skirmish line through a dry olive grove north of Andon. Gabriella reined in alongside Erak, Tanner, Oaks and Komo. Karlsen, the fourth knight who had been given to them, had continued on the Imperial Highway to Andon, accompanied by a detachment of Andon's Border Brawlers.

  Neither of the Knights wore their helmets, and their mail coifs hung around their shoulders like unworn hoods.

  "What do you think?" Oaks asked. He wore a neatly-trimmed red beard and had a copper-coloured mane. Komo, characteristically quiet, was a flat-faced but powerfully-built knight. Tanner was tall and looked too thin for his armour.

  Erak squinted at the next rise across the olive grove. "The estate begins just over there. If Scarra or his hired blades have any sense they'll have people watching the approaches."

  "If he had any sense he wouldn't be a member of a heretical sect." Gabriella said disapprovingly.

  "No, if he had enough sense he wouldn't be a member of a heretical sect," Erak agreed. "Then again, given his stupidity in returning home, I'm glad he's one of them rather than one of us. I always prefer it when we're competent and they're not."

  "Trust you to see a bright side." She tried not to grin back; she was trying to be professional here. "We'll have Scarra tonight, I'm sure."

  "I think so -" Erak broke off at the sound of a snapping twig. "There's someone over there!"

  Gabriella was already riding towards the source of the sound. As her mount bore down on a pile of leaves and branches, they suddenly flew apart and a lanky boy was sprinting away, over the ridge. Gabriella cursed and kicked her horse into a gallop, but the boy ducked into the undergrowth and through a hole in a thick hedge that the horse couldn't go through. Gabriella looked for a way round, her heart pounding with urgency. By the time she found the end of the hedge, there was no sign of the boy.

  She returned to Erak. "We're screwed."

  "What?"

  "Some kid saw us. He got away."

  "Then we have to assume Scarra now knows we're coming."

  "He's got mercenaries," Gabriella reminded him. "If we're lucky he'll stand and fight." She hoped so, she didn't want to have to waste more time looking for him. Something told her he'd run though.

  The estate comprised a large two-storey house at the centre of an olive grove at one end of a small town. Two streets of residences for the local farmers ran towards a ridge with a small church at the centre of a square. Scarra was ensconced in one of the town houses. That had been the mercenaries' idea. They all knew that the main house was the first place the Faith would look.

  A boy in filthy homespun clothing ran in from the street and made straight for Scarra, in a cramped and dark living room. One of the mercenaries made to bat him away, but Scarra caught his wrist. "The children of these villages are the Lord of All's eyes and ears."

  "That's what I was just thinking," the mercenary captain, Sarkos, muttered. Scarra had hired the best protection he could find, albeit for half their usual fee now, and a dozen men in brigandine were posted around the house.

  "What is it, boy?" Scarra said to the child.

  "Soldiers, Master Scarra. Coming along Dead Tree Brook."

  "Secular, or religious?" Sarkos asked, suddenly all business.

  Scarra was grateful for hi
s alertness, but despaired at his gruffness with such a clearly terrified boy.

  "Did they wear a symbol?" Scarra asked.

  The boy nodded. "A circle, with a cross through it."

  "The Swords. Makennon's private army. As if the true God would need anything so crude."

  Sarkos smiled lopsidedly. "The true God can make do with a handful of hired blades?"

  Scarra glared. "He can if the hired blades are as good as their Captain says they are." He turned back to the boy. "How many soldiers?"

  "Six Knights."

  "On horseback?"

  "Yes. And almost ten times as many men on foot, with leather armour."

  Sarkos snatched up his broadsword and belt from a table. "They outnumber us but we have more horses."

  "Have my mount saddled." Scarra said.

  "No."

  "I wasn't planning to come along."

  "I guessed that much," Sarkos said, managing not to sneer too much. "I'm saying don't try running, at least until my men have scouted the routes out of here. They'd have to be as thick as pig shit to not have put guards on all your exits." He sighed. "Hasso was right, wasn't he?"

  "They're the Faith," Scarra muttered darkly. "Pigs all right. Pigs who take on the responsibilities of the Lord Of All and think women can tell men how to get closer to God."

  Sarkos shrugged. "A woman can take me to heaven any day. Anyway, the Faith may be pigs, but they're not thick."

  "True," Scarra admitted.

  "So, you just stay here until my scouts confirm an escape route."

  Something settled in Scarra's mind. He didn't like that Sarkos had opined that Hasso had been right about being short-changed. Hasso had run out after that, and Scarra had thought he had followed Kell and got himself killed. Now another idea struck him; Hasso might be the one who had led the Faith straight here. The further thought occurred that Sarkos and the other Red Daggers might change sides and join with their old comrade to turn Scarra in. In which case, he didn't want them to know what he would do now. That way they couldn't tell the Faith. "No... Never mind the escape routes. I've run enough. We'll make a stand."

  Sarkos nodded. "Good for you."

  "I will, however," Scarra said, "return to the main house. If it comes to it, it is more defendable."

  "You've got guts, I'll give you that."

  "The Lord of All is with me," Scarra assured him. He didn't say that he was simply bone-tired. Maybe he'd been frightened enough over the past few days for the power of that emotion to wear off. He had grown up in Nürn and moved down to Pontaine well before the last war, when his father defected to the Brotherhood and raised him into that sect. He had earned the right to buy this estate from his father, who had handed over the deeds with great pride. The small church would stay in the hands of the Brotherhood this way.

  Scarra momentarily remembered the service in which he, his father and several other members of the family had joined the Brotherhood of the Divine Path in the wake of the elder Scarra's failure to become Anointed Lord of the Faith. So much could have been different if that had happened, Scarra knew. For one thing, he would never have ended up subordinate to that arrogant schemer Goran Kell.

  Scarra knew that he had been used and he hadn't minded so long as it hurt the Faith, but he knew Kell had kept secrets from him. Worse, he knew Kell hadn't really trusted him, despite his years of loyalty to the Brotherhood. And now Kell had abandoned him instead of protecting him. Intellectually, Scarra knew Kell was protecting himself, but in his heart it was still a betrayal that had to be repaid.

  At least his father had died in the war and thus been spared burning in a gibbet at the behest of the Faith. His father had made a good escape and so Scarra would too; preferably without dying though. A diversion would do the job as just as well.

  "Good luck, Scarra." Sarkos gave him a salute. "We'll do what it takes."

  "I know." With a sigh, Scarra shook Sarkos' hand in a warrior's wrist to wrist grip.

  "You paid for a service, you get that service," Sarkos said. Scarra wished he could tell whether the man was being sincere, or making some dig about only being paid half. If it was the latter, then it was a surely a sign that he was about to betray Scarra.

  Dead Tree Brook was small but trickled quickly along a wide, stony bed between two slopes of olive trees. The vineyard was beyond it, further upstream. The Swords were progressing on both sides of the stream, creeping towards Scarra's estate.

  Nobody was surprised, as they neared the estate, to hear a distant rumble.

  "Riders," Erak said. "decent horses too, not farm drays. Form up. We're about to have company."

  Gabriella tensed as fifteen riders emerged from the groves on either side of them. They were all in leather amour, some with mail shirts or iron helms, and all carried swords or axes. There were no javelins or crossbows as far as Gabriella could see. Their shields were painted with blood-coloured daggers.

  The mercenaries didn't attack, but took up positions in a semicircle in front of the Swords, blocking their path. One of them rode forward. "This is private property, friend," he said firmly. "I'm going to have to ask you to turn around."

  Gabriella glanced at her comrades. Erak looked surprised, as did Oaks and Komo, while Tanner kept a poker face. The soldiers-at-arms were all professionally blank, waiting for orders. Erak nudged his horse forward.

  "Captain...?"

  "Sarkos."

  "Captain Sarkos, We are members of the Order of the Swords of Dawn -"

  "So I can see."

  Erak kept his voice polite but low. "We are on our way to the estate of one Karel Scarra. I suggest you let us past. You may escort us if you wish."

  "I'll be perfectly happy to escort you off this land."

  "That's not what I meant." Erak kept his voice level, but Gabriella could see in his eyes that he knew which way this conversation was going to go. She was also certain that every moment they spent here meant a bigger lead for Scarra, who was no doubt wobbling off in the opposite direction as fast as his legs could carry his ungainly load.

  "I know." Sarkos smiled and Erak's fingers began to flex.

  "Let me," Gabriella said, putting her hand on Erak's forearm and gently pushing his hand away from his sword. "Are you religious, Captain Sarkos?"

  He hesitated, put off his stride by the interruption. "Depends what you mean?"

  "Do you observe the Tenthday?" Gabriella asked. "Make the proper offerings and tithes?"

  He nodded reluctantly. "You don't meet a lot of soldiers who don't. It's always a good idea to keep your soul in good shape when you know you might end up in the clouds or the pits any minute."

  "Sounds wise to me. So, here's the deal to keep your souls in good shape," Gabriella said, smiling. "You dismount, chat to our Confessor, pay a penance for your sins."

  "Or?"

  "Or you stay mounted, take on a numerically superior, better-trained force, and make your confessions to the Lord of All when you meet him; which you will, very quickly thereafter."

  "You're threatening our employer."

  "I'm dealing with a serious morality crime. The attempted assassination of a Final Faith Eminence by a member of a heretical sect." The mercenary Captain paled, clearly shocked by this news. "By rights I should have you under arrest already."

  "Then why haven't you?"

  Gabriella leaned back in the saddle. "Because you, personally, haven't committed those crimes yet. But the instant you draw down on any of us, you're contributing not just to the morality crime, but to the heresy. And there's only one course of action we can take about that."

  "That's what you want, isn't it?"

  Gabriella shook her head. "I'm sure that's what Scarra and his Brotherhood friends would want you to think of us but, all things being equal, I'd rather there was another troop of faithful soldiers raising mankind towards the Lord in the world, than another bunch of heretics burning in the pits."

  The mercenary stiffened. "I assume you mean well, but your imp
lication that we would betray our paymaster -"

  "I wouldn't have used quite those words -"

  "Once my men have been paid," he said grimly, "they follow the job through. If we accepted a contract and a payment, then abandoned our client to his enemies, then we'd quickly be out of business."

  "You'd be alive."

  "If you call that life." He wheeled his horse around.

  "Are you going to die for the ignorant?"

  "Maybe that's what I take their coin for. I'm paid to protect Scarra from attack, not bring him intelligence. I won't be mentioning our meeting."

  Gabriella understood. Sarkos wanted to be honourable and professional. That was fine, but aiding and abetting a heretic was not. The mercenary had made his decision. She wished she didn't have to do what now became necessary, but as her father had always said, if wishes were horses, then beggars would ride.

  Sarkos was quick. He actually managed to raise his shield just in time to deflect her first cut, so it barely scraped his ear rather than rip his throat out.

  Hanging onto the reins with her left hand, Gabriella couldn't draw her other sword, but she could make her horse rear. It rose up on its hind legs, its front hooves slashing down onto the mercenary's shield. The sheer weight of horse and rider smashed Sarkos clean out of his saddle and his horse staggered sideways under the impact.

  Sarkos rolled, frantically trying to get out of the way of his own animal's stamping hooves. The horse finally got its balance and bolted off towards the ridge, and Sarkos gained his feet, drawing his sword. He made a wild cut at the neck of Gabriella's mount, but she pulled back just in time. Gabriella knew that he had the advantage for the moment; she'd find it difficult to lean down far enough to get in a killing blow at him, but he could easily strike at her horse, and try to bring it down and pin her under it.

  She jumped down, away from him, ready to face him on more equal terms.