Salt, Sand, and Blood

by MarQuese Liddle

  “What do you mean, ‘It?’” asked Trey.

  Frampt refilled his goblet and quaffed it down like it was ale. “What I mean, Sir, is that whatever did that wasn’t human.”

  “How is it that you’re so certain?” Paladin Schirmer voiced his concerns. “Did you see this thing yourself? It reminds me too much of the old Duke’s hunts. A hundred animals killed and butchered in a single night. A dozen horses and as many skilled skinners is all the pagans would need to do the same.”

  “No, Paladin. They would need more than that to do what they did, what little I saw. And if I’d seen more than that, I’d be dead. You see, I thought I was doing something brave. The men were too afraid to check inside the sheds and houses, so I ducked inside myself to save them the dread. And that’s when I heard it, some kind of shriek, like a woman screaming after her stolen babe. I thought at first that it was a survivor, some poor woman come home after the raid, but by the time I poked my head outside a mist had rolled in. I could still here that banshee screaming, but I couldn’t see a hand in front of my face, so thick was the fog. Then the horses whinnied, and the men were mostly quiet but for a few green lads asking what in Hell that awful howling was. If I’d been there, I’d have told them to shut up and ride out. Maybe more would have lived, but I wasn’t there when the screaming started, men’s screams, the kind you hear after a battle when you can’t tell your friends from your enemies dying all around you.

  “I bolted, tried to get to my horse but couldn’t find it in the mist. I couldn’t see a thing, but I can tell you paladins that the air was thick with the smell of piss and blood. There weren’t screams anymore, just this eerie silence and the clopping of horse hooves in the mud. Eventually I found a mount, but I found the corpses first—naked and unarmoured, stripped right down to the muscle. I swore to the Lord and rode harder away from there than I’ve ever rode before. I caught up with a few of the lads on the high road, they were all that was left. We never went back…never even gave our brothers a proper burial.”

  “Thank you, Elder Frampt,” interjected the commander. The senior cleric bowed and sunk into his chair. Pyke looked to the Cross. “What is your assessment, Captain?”

  “Of your massacre in the mist? It sounds to me like poor coordination, morale, and leadership. What else would you call a quarter of the men bolting before the skirmish begins?”

  “You’re not convinced, then?”

  Trey scowled at the cleric glowering at him. “No, Commander, I’m not. I’ve heard similar stories from my own squire, and they turned out to be naught but mere birds and brackdragons.”

  Jael balked at the thought of a mere brackdragon, but agreed with her captain all the same. It seemed to her Troy felt the same way. He was studying the surface of the table as if it were a map, his cool blue eyes darting between stands of matted, brown hair. After a moment’s contemplation, he raised his freckled nose and said, “Whatever the threat is, they’re using the ground against you. You’ll need to cut back the forest around these villages, drain the swamps, make it into proper farmland. As it sounds now, these pagans can sit right on top of you—strike at the perfect instant, like when the mist rolls in.”

  “Thank you, Sir,” Pyke replied, “That would work well somewhere like the Summerlands, and we’ve considered it ourselves, but the people here live off the wood and bark for barter. Cutting back the forest would be like cutting off their lifeblood.”

  “An attack then,” proposed Gildmane.

  The commander agreed. “That has been our thought as well, but some of us wanted to determine if there might not be a better option. Elder Lloyd?” Pyke nodded to one of the senior clerics who rose and bowed. He was an old man, older than his commander, knit with wrinkles and a snowy tonsure. He spoke with a tone unwavering.

  “I wish, my good sirs, the situation were simple enough for a counter-raid. It is unfortunately not. We’ve known for some years the location of the pagan den. It would have been easy for us to raze it, but the place is practically a village, and most of it denizens aren’t pagan blood. They’re run-aways and apostates from the local farms and estates. Youths, women and children. Even their fighting men are hardly more than lads, no older than your squires. This isn’t like Quiet Harbor and the Wild Isle. These are our own kin, misguided, but they are ours.”

  “Our kin are the men they slaughtered!” Frampt spat.

  “And when we slaughter them, what will wash the blood from our hands?”

  “Don’t try your hypocrisy with me, Stone-Slayer. Your hands are bloodier than all of ours.”

  “Elder Lloyd, was it?” Troy interrupted, “If I may ask, what do you suggest if not to rout them out?”

  The cleric frowned and answered, “My hope was that if the Cross brought enough men that we could try and capture the village. Convert them like we did the rest of the west, like the Guard did down in Babylon. But…” He sat back down, leaving his thought unfinished.

  Trey finished it for him. “But we haven’t brought many men, only what we could spare. And you might not have heard out here in the woods, but things in Babylon haven’t ended well. There was a pagan uprising; we had to smash it down, hard and fast. Does that sound familiar?”

  It sounded to Jael like a half-truth, sardonic, as if the words belonged to somebody else. Yet no further argument came from the council. It was decided that the attack would commence tomorrow at midday. Tactics were discussed: the Cross would be held in reserve with an escort of clerics while Elder Frampt led the rout. Any pagan’s fleeing onto the high road were to be ridden down—lest they immediately surrender: a concession made on behalf of Elder Lloyd. And in the case of mist, the raiding force would meet with their support, the Cross and junior clerics, on the road. They would lure out whatever committed the Cinnehollow massacre, surround it, and deliver it to Hell.

  Then the council adjourned, and the clerics dispersed, all save for the commander at Gildmane’s request for a word with him alone. Leonhardt asked if she could stay and listen—she knew that whatever Trey wanted to talk about had to do with the unrest in Pareo—but the captain sent her to the barracks with the others. He wanted her well rested for the raid tomorrow. It would be her virgin battle, and with real blood on her blade, she’d be no longer a maiden swordsman. Jael couldn’t argue. She was exhausted, and while the tensions simmering in the capital seemed of grave concern, more pressing to her was the prospect of murder. Since her exchange with Trey in the Temple Rock cloister, she’d been trying to imagine that it was her who swung the axe that severed Blackheart’s head, that she was the one to loose the arrow that killed Bishop Vaufnar. Part of her believed it, and to that part of herself she asked, What are another dozen pagans? Why fret for them and not for the others? So far, she’d not thought up an answer, nor did one manifest to her as she descended the spiral stairs, from the sixth to fourth floor, where in the barracks she prayed at the foot of her cot. Still, her mind was silent.

  Sleep came hard. It was hot in the chamber despite the winter winds blowing bitter outside. Bishop Berthold’s design, so the stories told, each of the floors modeled for a specific purpose determined first by its king and then by the clerics. Most famous was the bath in the basement, built for Saint Maxim, known then as Usurper King Wulfhart. He had a furnace installed tall as the first three levels—the bath, the kitchens and smithy, and the armory—with pipes and chimneys as high as the commander’s quarters on the seventh floor. The council chamber was modelled later, as was the sanctuary situated on the fifth floor. Jael considered sneaking off there to pray over her fears and to escape the snores and odors of the slumbering clerics.

  There were at least three hundred of them piled atop stacking cots four layers high, though the worst of the smells and noise came from her own men. All was quiet where Harpe rested above, but on the bunk below, Sir Schirmer’s every sleeping breath sounded like the snarl of a boar. On the stack beside hers, Ogdon lay pained and moaning. He had not emerged from their dragon hunt unscath
ed. His ankle had broken under the weight of the monster’s jaws, and the squalid water had festered his wound. Jael worried that if his fever didn’t break soon, he might lose his foot, or his life. She could already smell the blight burgeoning beneath his skin, dripping from the lingering puncture wounds and into the pan set below his swollen ankle.

  It was when she caught a whiff of herself that Leonhardt finally climbed out of bed. Never in her life had she reeked so, not even after cleaning the stable on a summer day back home in Herbstfield. The bath, she decided, figuring it to be unoccupied given the hour. She moved barefoot through the barracks and onto the spiral stairs, descending noiselessly on the wood and stone. It felt what she imagined as a girl it would be like to climb the tower of a castle: steps broad enough for five men abreast—a set of seven, a flat, then another set—again and again with a sconce at each landing lighting the way, moonbeams between, shining through shutters and arrow slits.

  Jael counted twenty-one stairs, three sconces, and no clerics by the time she reached the basement. There, the steps were stone and the air a wall of white humidity. No sconce illumed this landing, only the dull-yellow light which spilled under an arched portal fitted with an old, warped, whitewood door. She grabbed the iron door ring half rusted to nothing and pulled, smooth, despite the warped wood’s weight, and was at once hit full in the face with sweet cinnamon vapor. She padded inside the antechamber, a changing room, the like of which put to shame the gray and whitewashed stone that made up the rest of the citadel. Her feet fell warm onto its speckled granite floor, her fingers ran smoothly over the resin preserved benches and shelves hewn from ancient, eternal whitewood. Flames danced in inlets sculpted into the walls—in each, an oil lamp glowing yellow-gold.

  Leonhardt breathed deep the scented air. It pained her to sully something so pristine, but the itch of filth convinced her to take a seat on a bench and strip away her chaffing wear. Each piece came off with a sigh of relief to be tossed haphazardly onto the nearest shelf. Had she looked more carefully, Jael would have been unable to ignore what she had seen—an unmarked doublet and riding breeches—but her heart was clever, it led her unwittingly to the inner door. With ease, it opened.

  Her awe redoubled from its crest in the changing chamber. “Bath” did not do justice for this temple of marble and waxing moon pool. Its waters simmered crystal blue around the central column, steam obscured, housing the furnace which fueled the ovens and kilns above. Jael tiptoed over the silver streaked stone and slowly lowered herself into the pool. Each sinew released, a cascade of melting muscles as she submerged bit by bit up to her neck and watched the grime separate from her skin and drift into drains the shapes of grotesques, like the heads of brackdragons. They made her heart patter at first glance, but the heat and the trickling of water from beastly gargoyles calmed her just as quickly as she’d been frightened—till she rest her head against the pool’s edge and closed her eyes. From behind the cover of her eye lids, she heard the captain’s voice.

  “The Temple Rock needs one of these, don’t you agree?” Jael’s head snapped upright. Her eyes tore open, unadjusted to the lamp light made brighter in the mist. Trey continued, “That will be our first decree once the tyrants are deposed. But enough blasphemy. What did you think of Pyke and the meeting? Not as cordial as his brother, is he? But we’ll need men like him when the time comes.”

  “What time is that?” asked Leonhardt, sinking to her chin. She could just make out Gildmane’s silhouette through the mist.

  He stirred, she heard by the disturbance of the water. “War,” he said. “Perhaps the last one, but I’ll leave that decision to the bishop. What I’ll say for certain is that this illusion of peace is finally at its end. Nuw Gard is a festering wound, Jael, and you’re about to see that first hand. Are you ready? You never answered my question about the council.”

  “I think Elder Frampt was right. They killed a whole village, and all those clerics that died. And they’re pagans besides. It would be justice for them.”

  “And for the women and children?”

  Leonhardt paused, remembered the Purge of Babylon. “If they surrender and swear to convert, then maybe the other elder’s plan could work too. It’d be like Camilla and the Impii.” Trey laughed, and Jael burst from the water up to her waist. “What’s so funny?”

  “My apologies,” offered the captain, “It’s just that…no, I should save that for another day. There’s already too much ahead of us. But pray tell me, Lady Camilla, do you believe their claims about a monster in the fog?”

  “Of course not. I’m not a little girl.”

  “No,” Trey agreed, “You’re not.”

  She heard another shift from his side of the pool, saw that the steam was thinning between them, said, “I think I better go, before someone else comes in while we’re—”

  “While we’re bathing in a bathing pool? Stay. No one is coming so late, and I want to make sure you’re prepared.”

  “I am,” she affirmed.

  “Yeah? Well, I thought the same thing before I killed my first man. Maybe you’ve already heard the story? About Paul’s anointment.” She shook her head. “I guess news never gets around to the country side. You might as well sit back down. I’ve got a story to tell.”

  Jael dropped beneath the water. The mist had thinned enough to that they were no longer just silhouettes. She could see clearly the lean, taught flesh, the golden mane shining and unmatted. She did not want to imagine what he had seen.

  “I was fourteen,” he started, “When Saint Paul knighted me on the very day of his anointment. I was squiring under Justin Acker, the captain of the Cross at the time, and he somehow convinced the clergy to allow me to take part of the ceremony. Though, looking back now, I suppose it wasn’t such a miracle. He was charged as part of the saint’s honour guard. I don’t think any of us thought we’d be anything but a formality.”

  “But isn’t the Temple Guard supposed to protect the saint?”

  “They would had there been any. More than half were dead or discharged—you’re familiar—and Paul, Cornelius Dotto at the time, didn’t want to delay his ascension just to pick out his new, household guard. A mistake, as it turned out. The assailant would never have been able to try for the saint’s life had he been more cautious.”

  Jael’s thoughts caught on the word, discharged, but that was an old wound. “Did you say assailant? Someone tried to kill the saint?”

  “In front of the duke, the count, the clergy, and most of the skylords in Pareo. I thought the secret would have spread more than this, but maybe Paul was able to keep lips shut. He’d want to, given he was betrayed by his own clergyman. Warrior-Priest Normand Armstrong. We had no clue, no reason to suspect him. He was priest at Quiet Harbor as well as the commander of the clerics there. The man’s record was immaculate, but somehow a street rat managed to sniff out his intentions.

  “It was bishop Ba’al, though he wasn’t a bishop then, just a vagrant born out of the Dim. He’d stolen inside the Valley Rock and come screaming at the top of his lungs about a poisoned chalice. He never made it passed the first line of soldiers, but Acker though it worth listening to his warning before they took off his head.”

  “What did he say?” asked Jael, absorbed.

  Trey rested his head back against the stone, sighed, and answered, “He said he saw it in a vision that the chalice was poisoned by the ‘Spirit of Wulfhart.’ He was pointing to Normand when he said it. Of course, no one believed him, but Captain Acker convinced Paul to have his cup bearer taste the wine in case. That was quite a feat—the wine had already been commuted—but eventually the saint agreed. The cup bearer drank, and then he died on the spot choking on his own spittle. Then…” Gildmane hung his head, staring down into the water. Leonhardt crept toward him, just a step. She could feel his heartbreak, hear it in the strain of his voice. “Then Hell loosed itself. It was chaos—everyone screaming a hundred orders at once. No one knew who to trust, and the saint wasn’t sayi
ng a damn thing. He just stood there, shaking, while Acker drew his sword like a gallant fool and commanded Normand to hand himself over. It was brave, and it was stupid. The bastard was huge, twenty stone in maille, and he was lugging around that two-handed mace. I hardly had gotten my sword out its scabbard when that whore’s bastard smashed Captain Acker across the ear. Then he turned and bolted for the gate. He must not have seen me, or maybe he didn’t think me a threat; either way, he didn’t make it two steps before I slashed into the back of his leg.”

  Trey raised his head, his emerald eyes glaring feral. “I can still remember the boom as his twenty stone came crashing down the dais. He wasn’t wearing his helm, I remember that too, and each of the three bloody thuds that it took to lop off that bastard’s head!”

  “Trey…” Jael whispered, retreating to the edge of the pool.

  The captain laughed, “God, what a bloody mess that was. My hands were shaking, and the blade kept twisting. I just couldn’t line my cut with the edge.” He said it with a smile, then the mirth sunk into the lines on his face—drawn tight across the corners of his mouth and on his forehead. From outside the changing room came the clamor of boots—from within the antechamber—now from behind the door. “I don’t doubt that you’re ready, Jael, but you should know what you’re ready for.”

  The door burst open. Half a dozen clerics poured inside, all of them seniors from the council meeting, Elder Frampt at their head, gasping. “There you are, Gildmane! You’re a hard bugger to track, you know that? You—” He cut himself off, eyes locked onto the naked maiden hiding in the crystalline waters a few feet afar. His upper lip twitched in anger, but his tone betrayed a man abashed, confused at what to do with what he was looking at. He averted his gaze toward Trey and railed, “What in Hell do you think you’re doing, you son-of-a-bitch. Desecrating this place with your—”