“I have seen the charred corpses of the children the militia burned, my tahneff.” Leotin ignored the image that filled his mind. They had witnessed many unspeakable things in the past months traveling through the Atheton and Daeshen Dominions. “I do not think you wish to have that sight mar your memory as it does mine.”
“Then we can throw you from the wall as well,” Tontu-Gua fumed at him, spittle spraying his chest.
“My dead body would little assuage the blood lust of the militia commander.” Leotin calmly ignored the woman’s saliva now staining his jacket, making a note to have the boy Donjeo wash it at as soon as possible — assuming he survived the day.
“The militia must be heeded or they will burn my town to the ground.” Kang-Laau looked from the militia outside the castle walls to the pilgrims in the inner courtyard.
Leotin watched the castle commander, Pi-Gento, gathering his men. There were only ten of them, all too old to be called to fight. One walked with a pronounced limp and another had only one arm to hold a sword. Against a militia, they would not stand for a minute, but against unarmed pilgrims and carnival folk, they might easily impose their will. Not all of the carnival folk were unarmed, however. Leotin scanned the inner castle grounds for any sight of the outlanders. They might be his only hope of saving the pilgrims.
“The pilgrims will save the town with their prayers.” Palla stepped forward to stand beside Leotin, speaking in the northern Shen dialect.
She had remained atypically silent as Leotin attempted to quell the anger of the tahn and tahneff. He had hoped she might continue that way. His stomach tightened at her words, knowing he had likely lost all hope at swaying the nobles.
“Madness.” Kang-Laau raised his chin in disgust as he turned from Palla.
“Their goddess will protect the castle and the town through the pilgrim’s prayers.” Palla leaned forward, her voice filled with emotion.
“You are all heretics!” Tontu-Gua threw her hands in the air as she stepped back, making the Kam-Djen circle over her chest and head.
“No, my tahn, we are not.” Leotin placed a hand on Palla’s arm, pulling her away from Kang-Laau and Tontu-Gua. He had seen her spending more and more hours with the pilgrim woman, Ranna, but had taken that for friendship or some carnival affair, not as conversion to the new faith. It worried him, for reasons he had no time to articulate. “I took them in to protect them from those who would kill them for what they dream at night. Some of my people have joined them. They are not wicked. They are not evil. They merely have dreams.”
“Heretic dreams of a dark goddess bitch,” Kang-Laau said.
A great wave of voices rose above the turbulent sea of sound below in the courtyard. Leotin turned to see a Ketolin Kam-Djen priest, his crimson robes fluttering in the slow cyclone breeze circulating through the castle plaza as he approached the pilgrims.
“May Ni-Kam-Djen have mercy upon you as you burn!” The priest pointed to the pilgrims and continued to shout as Jhanal raised his hands defensively and yelled his prayers to the heavens.
“You must ask your priest to refrain from inciting your people, my tahn.” Leotin clasped his hands together once more.
“I must? You dare tell me what I must do?” Kang-Laau shook his head in disgust.
“Our son, Rantu-Wao, will purify the castle of your heretic infection.” Tontu-Gua smiled in righteous anger as she looked down on the courtyard.
“Your son is the town priest?” Palla seemed surprised by the revelation.
“My family has always had a priest,” Kang-Laau said with obvious pride.
“My tahn, I am certain we can come to an agreement.” Leotin’s heart thundered in his chest as he watched the men-at-arms closing from all sides on the pilgrims while the priest harangued them.
“Once the militia has you on their stakes, we’ll see what you agree to.” Kang-Laau leaned on the railing as he watched his men-at-arms begin to close on the defenseless pilgrims below.
“We can offer you compensation for sanctuary.” Leotin tried to judge the scene in the courtyard below. How much time did he have? Pi-Gento and his soldiers were not overly well armed. Each had a sword at his waist, but their leather and metal studded armor looked thin. They were not much a match for the outlanders. There were the townspeople to contend with as well. Several local men held makeshift weapons in their hands — lengths of wood, field knives, and wood axes. The carnival folk and the pilgrims might be able to overwhelm them if they fought back.
“Coin!” Kang-Laau shook his head as though bewildered. “You have enough coin to rebuild the town after they burn it down, do you? You have enough coin to eat when we run out of food? You have enough coin to keep the militia from scaling the walls? You have enough coin to purify our souls after betraying The True God, Ni-Kam-Djen? Coin!”
“You must give us time, my tahn.” Palla stepped forward again, hands clasped at her chest. “Time for a miracle or time to escape.”
“False gods perform no miracles, girl.” Tontu-Gua backed away from Palla as though the younger woman possessed an illness that might spread.
“I have seen with my own eyes the miracles of the Goddess.” Palla’s voice raised in volume with the obvious passion of her words.
Leotin wondered what she meant, but had no time to consider the implications of Palla’s statement.
“Lies and Dark Sight.” Kang-Laau turned back to the courtyard.
“No. Not The Sight.” Palla wiped at the tears in her eyes as she looked down at the pilgrims. Leotin saw Ranna staring up at the group atop the wall. “The goddess saved me.”
“Enough heresy.” Kang-Laau pointed to Pi-Gento and the men-at-arms as he shouted over the inner wall. “Round them up and ready the gate!”
Leotin swallowed back the bile rising in his throat as Pi-Gento and the nine men-at-arms drew their swords and approached the pilgrims. The townspeople cheered, those with dangerous implements raising their hands. A few threw small stones from the courtyard grounds. All chanted for the heretics to be cast out of the castle and burned.
“My tahn, I beg you, do not proceed down this…”
Leotin’s words faded under the animal roar that echoed between the courtyard walls, drawing everyone’s attention to the base of the western tower where the three outlanders emerged, casting off their cloaks to reveal their true natures, brandishing their weapons as Tarak’s growl ceased. The courtyard fell silent, the townspeople shuffling back a step in unison. Pi-Gento and his men froze where they stood as Tarak, Yeth, and Shifhuul stomped through the courtyard.
“The pilgrims are under our protection.” Tarak’s thunderous voice filled the air.
“Stand down, roagg.” Pi-Gento paced toward Tarak and the other outlanders, his men reluctantly following him. The old soldier had obviously seen a roagg. Leotin wondered if he had witnessed one fight.
“What is this?” Kang-Laau turned to Leotin. “What treachery is this?”
“Dark Sight creatures.” Tontu-Gua made the Kam-Djen circle of protection on her chest and forehead once more.
“Heretic demons!” the priest, Rantu-Wao, shouted from below at the outlanders.
Leotin ran toward the stairs leading down the inner side of the castle. He had made a mistake. He had wasted time standing atop the wall, quarreling with Tahn Kang-Laau. He should have been in the courtyard with his people, arguing with the town folk and the priest. The tahn or his wife might make decisions, but they were now driven by events rather than driving them.
“Hold! Hold!” Leotin yelled as he raced down the stairs. He stumbled slightly as he reached the bottom step, nearly falling to the ground. He recovered and rushed to stand between the outlanders and Pi-Gento and his men.
“This need not be a bloody day.” Leotin held his arms out, symbolically separating the two armed groups. The pilgrims shifted anxiously beside the outlanders, the carnival folk standing beside them. The townspeople warily moved back, creating a half circle to nearly enclose the outs
iders.
“Tell your carnival freaks to stand aside or be cut down.” Pi-Gento gestured toward the outlanders with his sword.
“That would be most unwise.” Leotin gave a glance to Kang-Laau and his wife, still safely observing from atop the castle wall, before turning to Pi-Gento and his guards. “You are likely a skilled warrior, and your men are doubtless very experienced, but I have seen these outlanders fight, and there are simply not enough of you to defeat them. You would die. Of that you may be certain.”
“The people of the town will rise to crush you and cast you out in the name of Ni-Kam-Djen,” the priest, Rantu-Wao, shouted as he turned to the townspeople. A few of them yelled back their enthusiasm, but most remained silent, staring at the outlanders brandishing their weapons.
“And how many shall die?” Leotin stared at the priest, but Rantu-Wao seemed nonplussed by the idea of the townspeople being cut down in combat. Why did fanatics always rejoice in the likely deaths of others, whether believers or non-believers? And priests made the worst zealots of all. Maybe that explained why he generally despised them regardless of the god they worshiped. “There is another choice, and we can all survive this day.”
“The only way is the way of the righteous.” Rantu-Wao made the symbol of the Kam-Djen circle on his chest.
“The way is to stand aside or die.” Pi-Gento pointed his sword at Leotin.
“Smoke!”
“They burn our homes!”
“Cast ’em out!”
Leotin looked to see black smoke rising in several distinct columns from beyond the wall.
“They’re burning the houses!” Kang-Laau shouted from the top of the wall. “Kill them!”
“Wait! Wait! We can all…”
Leotin never finished his thought, never completed his plea for a truce among those gathered in the courtyard. The few armed townspeople, enraged by the loss of their homes, charged the pilgrims. Pi-Gento and his men took this as a signal to attack the outlanders, their swords glinting in the sunlight, tracing arcs over their heads. The priest yelled ecstatic prayers as the fighting began to churn around him.
Leotin shouted again for calm, for peace, for a chance to convince them all of a better plan. A pair of hands pulled him from the path of a charging group of townsmen. He looked to Palla’s stricken face as she tugged at his arm, dragging him toward the safety of the carnival wagons.
“Stay here.” Palla left his side, climbing up into a nearby wagon. She cast a tarp aside and began rummaging through a large box to retrieve a prop sword. The dull blade could not pierce flesh, but it would hurt well enough if struck by it. She pulled more swords from the prop box and handed them out to carnival folk and pilgrims alike. She shouted as she leapt from the wagon, a sword blade in her hand. “We must fight!”
Leotin felt dizzy, his mind unable to comprehend the multitude of events transpiring around him in unison.
The outlanders fought Pi-Gento and the castle’s men-at-arms — a vastly disproportionate battle. Already three castle guards lay dead. Pi-Gento and two others battled Tarak, his axes clanging against the steel of their swords. Another two fought Yeth, her spear spinning in the air as she attacked, pushing them back toward the wall of townspeople behind them. Shifhuul rolled across the ground, springing through the air to thrust his slender sword into the neck of the man he attacked.
Townspeople, armed with whatever came to hand, most men of advancing years, attacked the pilgrims. Some fell back and hid. Others fought, striking with their hands and kicking with their feet.
Palla and the pilgrims and carnival folk, armed with prop weapons, waded into the front of the townspeople, pushing them back with dull, bruising blades and the anger of their raised voices. Some of the townspeople made for the gate wheel, but Palla’s armed carnival folk intercepted them.
Leotin stared at the blood staining the earth of the courtyard. How many would need to die? When would it stop? He looked to Kang-Laau atop the castle wall. The fool and his foolish wife who had witlessly orchestrated these deaths he witnessed. Had they but listened, their men would still be alive, their townspeople would not be dying, his friends would not lie bleeding on the ground, the pilgrims he had sheltered for weeks would not rest lifeless in the dust. The guard who protected the tahn ran down the stairs to defend his companions at arms. Kang-Laau and his wife stood and watched the carnage they had fostered in the safety of distance.
He did not follow the rational thought that normally so dominated his decisions. He did not weigh the costs and benefits of action or inaction. He ran, his feet pounding the packed earth, his legs dodging townspeople who sought to slow him. He pushed open the door at the base of the western tower and plunged up the spiraling stone staircase. He gasped for breath as he reached the head of the stairs, but pressed on, running along the top of the wall toward the tahn and his wife.
Kang-Laau and his wife faced outward toward the town, shouting down at the militia commander.
“They are killing us!” Kang-Laau yelled.
“Open the gate!” the militia commander called from below.
“Stop this!” Leotin halted beside Kang-Laau as the man and his wife turned to him. “Your people are dying. My people are dying. You can stop this.”
“You! You are the reason they die. Heretic!” Tontu-Gua charged Leotin.
He did not know what the woman intended and did not care. He thrust his fist toward her face with all his might, her nose cracking as she stumbled backward. Her husband, red-faced in disbelief and anger, grabbed Leotin by the throat.
“How dare you! How dare you, vermin!” Kang-Laau choked Leotin, pushing him back against the crenellations of the outer wall.
Leotin did not struggle to pull the man’s hands free of his neck. The tahn outweighed him by half a man or more, with arms grown strong not from work but from the effort of carrying the extra weight. He could not fight the tahn and win. Instead, Leotin pulled free the dagger in the tahn’s belt and rammed its blade up into the man’s ribcage.
Kang-Laau’s eyes went wide as the air wheezed from his lungs.
“What have you done?” Kang-Laau stared at Leotin in shock.
“I do not know.” Leotin looked into the tahn’s eyes, wondering what manner of man he had transformed into with the passing of a single moment and what further transformations awaited him.
“Open the gate!”
The militia commander’s call reached Leotin’s ears, and he found himself once more following some mindless instinct as he drew the blade from Kang-Laau’s chest. He pushed the dying tahn against the space between the crenellations atop the wall and bent down to grab behind the man’s knees. Straining, his legs burning and his back tightening in a spasm of pain, Leotin flipped the rotund tahn over the edge of the castle wall. Kang-Laau screamed as he tumbled briefly through the air before landing with a bone-cracking thud not far from where the militia commander sat on his horse.
“No!”
Leotin spun around to the sound of Tontu-Gua’s anguished voice, surprised to find her right behind him. He felt her body press against his, sensed the pressure on the dagger still in his hand, and saw the shock on her face as her momentum impaled her heart upon the blade. He bore her suddenly slack weight as he stared into her face, a wave of guilt and remorse welling up within him while he watched the flame of life in her eyes flutter out. He pushed her away with all his strength, her dead body falling back to smash against the flimsy wooden railing along the inner side of the castle wall. The weathered planks of thin wood gave way under the impact of Tontu-Gua’s mass, her body smashing through the railing to plummet to the ground. He heard a crash a moment later and looked down to see her arms and legs splayed in impossible positions in the bed of a grain wagon.
The people of the courtyard turned as one toward the great cracking sound of Tontu-Gua’s impact on the wagon. Leotin stared out at a strange tableau — a battle paused in a moment of time. The castle’s men-at-arms all lay dead. Only Pi-Gento remained, hi
s sword held in defense of a group of townspeople against three carnival folk with prop weapons. Pilgrims, carnival folk, and townspeople lay dead and bleeding around the courtyard. The yutan outlander held a bleeding arm close to her chest, but the roagg and the wyrin seemed uninjured. Leotin knew he had mere moments to turn tragedy to advantage.
“The tahn and his wife are dead!” Leotin pointed down to the tahneff’s body, mangled in the broken wagon. “Your soldiers are dead. Your neighbors are dead. My people are dead. The pilgrims are dead. We are all dying for no cause. The militia burns your homes, but are your houses worth your lives? We do not wish to fight, but we will continue if we must and more will die.”
“Heretic demons and blasphemers!” The priest, Rantu-Wao, now tahn of the castle and town, screamed in rage as he pointed to the body of his dead mother. “They killed our tahn. They killed my parents. They will kill you all. Slaughter them in the name of Ni-Kam-Djen. Open the gate and burn them all. The wrath of The True God shall fall down upon…”
Rantu-Wao crumpled to the ground beneath a blow to the temple from the hilt of a sword. Pi-Gento stood above the priest. He looked up to Leotin as he lowered his weapon.
“You have the castle, carnival barker.” Pi-Gento wiped the blood from his blade on a pants leg. “What will you do now?”
Leotin’s hands shook and a chill gripped his stomach. He held tight to the inner railing of the wall to steady himself as he looked down upon the carnage in the courtyard — townspeople pressed to one side, pilgrims and carnival folk on the other. Had he stood firm so many weeks ago, the pilgrims would not have been with him in the town and none of this day’s events would have transpired. Had he been harsher with them as they hid behind the castle walls from the approaching militia, they could have escaped this outcome. Had he not confronted and killed the tahn and his wife, they might…
He ceased thinking about the past and what could not be changed and considered Pi-Gento’s question. What would he do now?
The Dragon Star (Realms of Shadow and Grace: Volume 1) Page 46