She was not chained, however, and the brothers who escorted her even apologized for the dingy surroundings. They sent one of their own to get her clean bedding and water and promised that she would soon be allowed to speak her defense.
“My defense?”
“For the Ring Stones in your possession,” one answered. “You are no Abellican, surely, and while some who are not formally in the Church are allowed the stones, they are carefully observed.”
“Those aren’t your gemstones!” Aoleyn growled, but too late, for the monks had left her room and closed the heavy door behind them.
Aoleyn had only once heard a lock click before, in Ursal, but now she knew what it meant, and the reverberations of that metallic, hollow sound echoed within her and stabbed at her heart.
She moved to the one small window and peered out. The room was belowground, the window at ground level and facing east, so that even though the sun was still up, little afternoon light reached her.
Had she erred in coming east? In Aoleyn’s heart, in that terrible moment, she wished that she was on Fireach Speuer, wild and free, even if alone, battling the bright-faced xoconai.
She turned her back to the wall and would have slumped down, except that the floor was muddy and smelled awful. For all she knew, she was standing among the excrement of the last person imprisoned here.
“You defeated the fossa,” she told herself. “Find a way.”
Aoleyn began to plot her escape.
* * *
“I feel as if you are visiting me on two separate occasions,” Father Abbot Braumin Herde said to Brother Thaddius and Sister Elysant. Beside the father abbot’s desk, Master Viscenti, who seemed much more at ease now than he had on the docks, gave a laugh.
“Perhaps we should finish one important matter, and then I dismiss you, and then I summon you back so that we can finish the second important matter,” the father abbot went on.
“Yes, Father Abbot,” said Thaddius. “But if that is to be, then let us first discuss the disposition of our two companions. They came here at my bidding, and so—”
“The father abbot was joking,” Viscenti interrupted, and an embarrassed Thaddius fell silent.
The brother felt the weight of Father Abbot Braumin’s stare upon him. Thaddius took some hope, at least, from the parchments scattered and neatly weighted upon the father abbot’s desk, and the three beautiful alabaster coffers set off to one side.
“You found the tomb of a lost saint,” Braumin said at length. “One of the three or four greatest monks in the nine centuries of the Abellican Church. These writings before me are in the hand of Saint Belfour.”
“Yes, Father Abbot.”
“And you would make this other story you bring to my door paramount?”
Thaddius shuffled from foot to foot and had no answer.
“That tells me much,” Braumin went on, “both about the heart of Brother Thaddius and about the weight of this second story. So, yes, we will do as you bid…” He paused there, suddenly, his gaze aimed at Elysant, his expression becoming one of puzzlement. “Sister?” he began.
“Elysant,” she replied, her voice cracking with nervousness.
“Sister Elysant, whatever are you wearing?” the father abbot asked. “I know that you have walked a long and difficult road, but those robes hardly fit. And they are torn and threadbare. Did you not have a second—”
“They are the robes of Saint Belfour, Father Abbot,” Elysant dared to interject. “Given to me by the wraith of the great man himself.”
The look of absolute shock that came to Father Abbot Braumin’s face surprised Thaddius.
“This is his staff, one of stone,” Elysant continued, as Braumin rose and moved around his desk to approach and better inspect the young monk.
She handed Braumin the staff, and he clenched it in both hands, closed his eyes, and felt its power.
“Given to you? By the great Belfour?” the father abbot asked.
When Elysant nodded, the father abbot turned to Thaddius. “I have changed my mind. This story first and foremost. Tell me it, all of it. Tell me of Saint Belfour’s … wraith?”
Thaddius exchanged a glance with Elysant, and on her nod, began his tale. He omitted nothing, describing in great detail the battle in the crypt and producing the gemstones he had gained from the encounter, as well as his own staff, explaining that it, too, was in the sarcophagus of St. Belfour.
He kept going, over the father abbot’s attempt to end the tale there, pushing on to Appleby-in-Wilderland and Abbot Chesterfield, then to the meeting with Aydrian and the others.
“It was you who thought to bring Aydrian, King Aydrian Boudabras, back to Honce-the-Bear?” Braumin asked.
“What choice lay before me?” answered Thaddius.
“Then you believe the story that there is a great army coming for us?” Braumin held up the imprimatur of King Midalis. “You agree with Midalis—in fact, you likely helped to convince Midalis, yes?”
Brother Thaddius swallowed hard and lowered his gaze. “I did, and I do believe, yes, Father Abbot. For I have seen them, these bright-faced invaders—the sidhe, or xoconai—in all their deep and splendid ranks.”
“I thought they had not gotten to Appleby.”
Thaddius swallowed hard again. “I traveled with the woman, Aoleyn,” he explained honestly. “We spirit-walked across the miles to the west.” He stopped there when both Viscenti and the father abbot gasped.
“Go on,” Braumin ordered.
“I felt the exigency of the situation,” Thaddius explained. “If they were not lying, or exaggerating, then of course we had to rush east to warn Honce-the-Bear. But that would mean bringing deposed King Aydrian, and with my own legacy well known…” He sighed and held up his hands helplessly.
“That you were once an admirer of Marcalo De’Unnero,” said Master Viscenti.
“But no part of the De’Unneran Heresy,” the father abbot reminded.
“I felt I had no choice,” Thaddius said. “I risked the spirit-walk because I believed the stakes higher than the potential loss of my own life.”
“You are forgiven that,” the father abbot declared. “Your reasoning was sound—perhaps.” He put a hand to his chin, his gaze scrolling from Thaddius to Elysant and back again. “What do you mean when you say that you spirit-walked with this woman, Aoleyn?”
“She led me to the sidhe.”
“Physically?”
“Her spirit guided me to the sidhe,” Thaddius corrected.
“You pulled the spirit from the woman’s body?” the father abbot asked incredulously.
“Hardly. Aoleyn walked more easily than I!”
Braumin Herde turned to Viscenti, who merely shrugged.
“She has such command of the Ring Stones?” the father abbot asked.
“She would claim that they are not Ring Stones,” said Thaddius. “But yes, her power is considerable—great, even.”
“Tell me about her, both of you.”
“We know little,” Thaddius said.
“She is a good person, of pure heart and intent,” Sister Elysant said.
“Everything,” the father abbot insisted.
So they did, relating every story they had heard of Aoleyn, and every story told by Aoleyn, and every anecdote from their weeks along the road beside the woman. Elysant did most of the talking, and spoke of some quiet conversations that she had held with Aoleyn that Thaddius hadn’t even known about.
When they finished, the father abbot seemed even more confused than when they had started.
“You have read these?” he asked, lifting a pile of the ancient parchments from his desk.
Thaddius nodded.
“You would go to the catacombs, then, I expect, to see what writings might have so inspired Saint Belfour to travel so far from Vanguard.”
“With your permission, yes. Saint Belfour makes note of the sidhe, and of the brother whose writings sent him on his way. It would seem pertinent to
the greater questions before us.”
The father abbot nodded. “A fortunate coincidence,” he said.
“Or perhaps no coincidence at all,” Sister Elysant dared to say, and all three looked at her in surprise.
She steadied herself under those harsh gazes and continued. “It is often said that the word of God whispers most directly when it is most needed. Perhaps all of this is tied together, a moment of divine fate to warn us of the approaching danger and of how we might defeat it.”
Brother Thaddius couldn’t suppress a smile, and though there was a bit of condescension in it, at the woman’s simplistic appeal to the supernatural, there was also a great measure of respect, counterbalancing his own doubts. Certainly, he had seen some amazing things these last months. And who, really, was this Aoleyn woman, who could use the magic of the sacred stones as easily as a bard might sing his most loved songs? Was Thaddius really being superior here, in his skepticism in light of all of that, or was he being limited by his own cynicism, which refused to accept that a—what, miracle?—might have just played out right before his eyes?
He turned to the father abbot, thinking to support his dear friend Elysant, but saw on the face of Braumin Herde that no support was needed. The man’s gentle smile was sincere as he nodded at Sister Elysant.
“That robe and staff should be on display under glass along the back wall of the great nave of Saint-Mere-Abelle,” he said.
Elysant winced, but then nodded. “Of course, Father Abbot.”
“But it will not be,” Braumin added, and he handed the stone staff back to her. “Not yet. You claim that Saint Belfour himself gave these to you, and I’ve no reason to doubt your tale, or your observations. Who am I to stand against the choices of a saint?”
“I am honored,” Elysant said, clearly overwhelmed, her voice barely a whisper.
“You are laden,” the father abbot corrected. “A great responsibility rests upon your shoulders when you wear that old robe.” He shook his head. “How might it have survived the centuries?”
“There is more to it than mere cloth,” Elysant said. She lifted up one tattered edge and pulled back the frayed wool to reveal a mesh of the same silvery metal that striated Thaddius’s new staff, the metal Aydrian had called silverel.
“Saint Belfour is with you,” the father abbot decided, “and so his spirit is with us all.”
We will need it, Thaddius thought but did not say.
13
THE WALLS OF URSAL
The very next morning, Midalis found himself again running up the stairs to that tallest southern tower, this time more urgently than on the previous day. Koreen wasn’t up there, of course, having led the ride to help the refugees in the south, but the king was surprised to find Abbot Ohwan waiting for him, standing beside the spyglass, his expression grim.
“Your prudence in allowing Aydrian and the others to leave may perhaps prove vital,” Ohwan greeted him.
Midalis let the words digest for just a moment before rushing to the spyglass, calling upon its magical properties, and scouring the southland.
He saw it, then, the first battle of Ursal, only a few miles south of the city. Amid the dust and confusion, it took him a few moments to sort it all out, and when he did, his fears were realized. Many bodies lay on the ground in the midst of battling forces, his own horsemen against lizard-riding sidhe, and some of those carcasses were horses and some of the bodies were his Allheart Knights.
Frantically, King Midalis worked the spyglass, moving it slightly, from one small skirmish within the greater battle to another. His fist clenched when he saw a knight, perhaps Julian of the Evergreen, hack down a rider and take down the ferocious lizard, too, in one great slash.
His heart sank when he saw another of his Allhearts pulled from his horse and be immediately set upon by a pair of enemies, who let their lizards do the gruesome work of finishing the helpless, flailing soul.
The king stepped back, needing a deep breath.
“They are formidable,” Abbot Ohwan said.
“How did this happen?” Midalis demanded of the other soldiers up there, a pair of women he thought to be sisters.
“Dame Koreen led the knights to the south, but the morning found a host of enemies beyond the light and north of her position,” one explained.
“They informed my masters immediately and we sent magical word to our brothers escorting Dame Koreen,” Abbot Ohwan added.
“She turned immediately and appropriately, my king,” the lookout said. “But the enemy were too many.”
“The Allhearts have left a line of dead sidhe for miles in their return,” the other tower guard added. “Ten dead sidhe for every fallen Allheart.”
King Midalis nodded at that and then went back to the spyglass. He had heard the pride in the woman’s voice when she uttered that last sentence, and he didn’t want to dissuade that appeal to valor, but Midalis knew what the lookout apparently did not: the Allheart Knights were the finest warriors in Honce, superbly trained and outfitted in metal armor by the greatest blacksmiths in the land. Few who were not Allheart wore such armor, very few. The loss of even one Allheart was a devastating blow to the defense of Ursal and Honce-the-Bear. Ten-to-one losses sounded good, but not when Allhearts were involved.
Some hope returned to King Midalis when he focused again on the battle, for he noted Dame Koreen spearheading a wedge of knights in a more organized defensive grouping. That wedge barreled through the northernmost rank of enemies, a wall of lance and horseflesh, and to Midalis’s profound relief, they broke free of the tangle.
A volley of spears chased them, but the knights, so skilled and practiced, used their shields to protect the flanks of their mounts, half-turning and never slowing.
The sidhe gave chase, but the lizards couldn’t pace the horses.
King Midalis almost cheered—almost. But then he noted the number of Allhearts running free.
A dozen.
Only a dozen.
Two score had gone out.
He didn’t bother to try to count the sidhe dead in this one skirmish zone alone. It didn’t matter.
He had lost almost thirty of his finest, and likely more than a couple of magic-wielding priests, as well. And no mere goblin force was this sidhe army, not in skill or in tactics.
“Dame Koreen to my audience hall as soon as she arrives,” he told Abbot Ohwan. “And yourself, as well.”
“Yes, my king.”
“Prepare,” Midalis told the abbot, as he began descending the stair. “They will come at us this day.”
* * *
Tuolonatl watched curiously as the augurs formed into groups, assembling in semicircles to the side and back of the strange crystals they had called divine throwers. Their line was broken only by ramps set against the back of the up-angled cylinders, leading to low wooden platforms that had been hastily constructed behind each of the throwers.
The teleportation mirror flashed repeatedly and the mundunugu commander watched a line of servants appearing, each bearing a large, roughly circular stone, then shuffling to one of the platforms, where others took the stones and hoisted each up to the landing.
Very soon, the wooden platforms groaned under the weight.
“The human warriors are in full flight and will near the city soon,” Ataquixt said, coming up to her. “If we go now, we can intercept.”
Tuolonatl looked out at the high, dark walls of the city, considered it for a moment, then shook her head. “What do we care for a score of riders?” she asked. “We go when they near the gates.”
“The southern gates will close before we can hope to reach them…” Ataquixt’s voice trailed off as he finished, for Tuolonatl flashed him a disappointed scowl.
“They will be busy welcoming back their valiant warriors and grieving those who did not return,” she explained. “We ride near enough to get our spears over the western wall. Let us measure their response.”
“Lo, he comes!” added a third voice br
eathlessly, and the two turned to see Pixquicauh rushing up.
“He comes?” Tuolonatl asked.
“We need not gain the measure of their response,” the high priest replied. “No feigned attacks. There will be but one assault and the city will fall.”
“The cost will be great. Too great,” Tuolonatl argued. “We will encircle the city and take the riverbank north. The humans will have nowhere to run.”
“The city will fall,” said Pixquicauh. “This is the greatest city of the humans, so say the captives. Overwhelming it in a single attack will dispirit all others standing before us. Any victory the children of Cizinfozza find here, even if just in holding us back for a single assault, will offer them hope.”
Tuolonatl looked all around, taking a measure of her forces. Almost half the army had arrived on the field, some forty thousand warriors, but another fifty thousand would soon enough be available, leaving one in ten behind to hold the captured towns. She didn’t discount the power of forty thousand xoconai, particularly since almost half were mundunugu riders, but neither would she dismiss the height of those city walls, nor would she underestimate the fighting prowess of the humans.
Many more xoconai than human horsemen in their shining armor had fallen in the southern ambush.
“He comes,” Pixquicauh said again. “I have seen it.” The man in the skull condoral turned on his heel and strode away, back for the middle divine thrower.
“Scathmizzane?” Ataquixt quietly asked.
Tuolonatl could only shrug and shake her head. A single assault on a target as hardened as this seemed madness to her. She thought to that long-ago battle against a xoconai city, when the warriors had simply walked over the walls on the backs of their dead comrades. She had no doubt that dead xoconai would pile deep here, as well, but these walls were much higher.
“A single attack,” Pixquicauh called back at her, as if reading her thoughts. “The human king is in there.”
“Select two hundred of the swiftest riders,” she told Ataquixt. “Go south of the city and pursue the human riders.”
Song of the Risen God Page 23