Scathmizzane brought us the divine throwers to break the walls of the great human cities.
Scathmizzane guided the march, not Tuolonatl, and indeed, Scathmizzane didn’t need Tuolonatl.
Scathmizzane was the cochcal, of course!
But he chose her. He chose one who did not give prayers to him with the regularity (if at all) demanded by the augurs. He chose one who eschewed the rituals of Glorious Gold, one who, were it not for her value and reputation and the love of the common xoconai, would not be welcomed in the temples of the augurs at all, and who might well have been cast out of the more religious of xoconai cities altogether.
It pleased me when Tuolonatl was named cochcal—I know of no one who I would rather ride beside into battle. I admit my confusion as well, though now I have come to understand, and in that understanding, I feel as if I am standing on a field of shifting sands.
Because now I have come to realize that Scathmizzane selected Tuolonatl because she is not devout, not in spite of that truth.
Scathmizzane selected Tuolonatl because he knew there would be tension between her and the augurs every step of this march to the sea, and yes, I have witnessed that tension in our victories most of all. For Tuolonatl plays a longer game than the augurs can understand. In their zealotry and arrogance, they think nothing of the children of Cizinfozza and would be pleased indeed if Glorious Gold told them to simply kill every human—man, woman, or child—along our journey.
Tuolonatl would not do this, and not simply for the sake of expediency.
Tuolonatl would not do this because it is wrong.
The result, inevitably, is tension, and Scathmizzane, I have come to see, enjoys tension. Scathmizzane feeds on tension and unrest. Strife between his principal leaders does not displease him—quite the opposite.
But why?
He is a god, the unquestioned god of the xoconai. He need not worry about any xoconai—not Tuolonatl, not High Priest Pixquicauh—ever challenging him or even questioning him. No, he does this, I believe, simply because he enjoys it.
We march to conquer the children of Cizinfozza. Of course, we must, for Cizinfozza is the god of night, the god of darkness, the god of death.
Scathmizzane is Glorious Gold, the god of day, the god of light, the god of life.
The light is good, the darkness is evil, so we are taught from our childhood days.
But now I see. Now, at long last, I understand, and all the training that you have given to me rings truer in proper context.
Cannot darkness be serene and calming?
Cannot light bring agitation and unease?
The augurs think the children of Cizinfozza irredeemable, lesser, evil. Tuolonatl knows this not to be true.
And Scathmizzane picked the old augur, Dayan-Zahn, to be Pixquicauh. Dayan-Zahn, the most devout of all. The most zealous augur, merciless in his certainty.
And Scathmizzane picked Tuolonatl to be cochcal. Tuolonatl, who is not devout. Who is not zealous, and who is merciful in her uncertainty.
Scathmizzane feeds on strife. He has ensured that the conflict will continue long after the xoconai watch the sun rise from the sea on our eastern beaches. He has ensured that the children of Cizinfozza will not be eradicated, and that the fight will go on.
Why?
Now that the answer to that question becomes clear to me, I stand on shifting sands.
But I hold an anchor, my mentor, and that anchor is that which you have given to me. For this, I am ever grateful.
Ag’ardu An’grian
Sunrise Face
18
BEND THE KNEE
“There is a tunnel,” the knight reported to King Midalis. “It heads east, generally, but there seem to be several ways back above ground. We are exploring it now.”
“We should leave this night,” Brother Ottavian, one of the few remaining monks in the city, was quick to add.
King Midalis rubbed his face—with one hand, as the other arm was being tightly bandaged by an attending monk. He and his knights had led a gallant ride through the city, trampling and cutting down scores of the invaders. He had lost several knights in that ride, though, and barely a score remained at his side. And, in the end, for all their courage and ferocity, they had found themselves right back where they had started, caught inside the monastery of St. Precious.
Outside of that one large structure, Palmaris had almost completely fallen. Fewer and fewer were the sounds of battle echoing from remote corners of the sprawling city, and whenever a fight did start, it seemed to end very quickly.
“What think you, Julian?” he asked, looking over at the young man who had become his closest remaining advisor.
Julian pondered the question for a few heartbeats. He was stripped to the waist, tight wraps about his torso. He had taken a beating in the run across Palmaris. Thrice he had been pulled from his horse, and thrice he had fought his way back to his saddle, leaving broken sidhe in his wake. His gleaming breastplate, set on the floor beside him, showed dozens of dents from heavy blows of those strange paddles of the bright-faced invaders.
“If there is a way fully out of the city, that is the route we should go,” he answered.
“Desert them?”
“We bring the people of the city nothing but greater danger,” the Allheart explained. “We cannot lead them against such a force as now resides in Palmaris. I fear that our continuing presence here will press the hand of our enemy, and that hand will be tight about the neck of Palmaris’s prisoners.”
When he finished, he looked to the battered young man sitting next to him, a civilian and no member of the Allhearts, the Coastpoint Guards, the Palmaris garrison, or any other official military force. On that third fall, Julian had been surely doomed, caught under a trio of fierce warriors who set to pounding him with abandon. No knights had been near enough to get to him.
But those invaders had gone flying away, shoulder-blocked by this man who was now sitting beside the knight, a young man of immense strength and growling bravery. He had saved Julian at the expense of his own life—or it certainly would have been at that price, except that Julian had pulled him up into the saddle behind him and charged out of that nest of enemies.
“I do’no wish to leave,” the young man replied to that look.
“Nor I,” Julian agreed. “But we cannot stay here. I can guess easily enough what these merciless fiends will do to coax us out.”
“They do not know that King Midalis is in here, surely,” said Brother Ottavian.
Julian shrugged as if it didn’t matter, and those who had been in Ursal for the previous fight all understood that it did not. Back in Ursal, he had seen the rubble of St. Honce, and so he could pretty easily guess how all of this would soon enough end. The sidhe would use prisoners, would torture and murder prisoners, to goad the force out in surrender, or they would knock the monastery down on top of the resistors.
“It pains me greatly to flee again,” Midalis told them, his voice heavy, his posture one of weariness. “I think of those left behind in Ursal, the trials they must now be facing.”
“I was their captive,” said the surprising man sitting beside Julian, and all eyes turned to him in a moment of shocked silence.
“Here? In Palmaris?” King Midalis asked.
“In a village far west,” the stranger explained. “In the lands you call the Wilderlands, a place called Appleby. I was caught there by the xoconai.”
“You’re from the Wilderlands?”
“I am from…” He paused. “I do not know how to even tell you. It would be a journey of many months for me to show you, past the mountains in the west, to different mountains, which we call the Surgruag Monadh.”
King Midalis pushed the attending monk aside and stood up, moving deliberately over to stand before this surprising man.
“You don’t know who I am, do you?” he asked.
“They call you King Midalis.”
“But I am not your king.”
&nbs
p; The man shrugged.
“You walked east, thousands of miles?” Midalis asked.
“Yes.”
“Who led you?”
A curious expression crossed the young man’s face, as if he was trying to take a measure of the king’s intent here.
“Many, and none,” he finally answered. “We were a hundred and a few, fleeing ahead of the xoconai. Talmadge led us, and Aydrian.”
“Aydrian?” several echoed all at once, including Midalis himself.
“Yes. And Aoleyn. I followed Aoleyn most of all. She is my friend.”
“But you weren’t with her when she came through Ursal,” King Midalis said, and his eyes widened as the young man’s face brightened.
“She is alive?” the man asked, and it seemed as if he could not draw breath.
“What is your name?” King Midalis quietly asked him.
“I am Bahdlahn.”
“Friend of Aoleyn?”
He nodded.
The king turned to Julian, then looked all about, showing the gathering a knowing and warm smile. “When heroes are needed,” he muttered.
“Where are you from?” Midalis asked. “What is the name of your village?”
“My people are from Fasach Crann, but I—”
“Well, Bahdlahn of Fasach Crann,” Midalis interrupted, his voice steady and solemn, “on this day, in this place so far from your home, I, Midalis dan Ursal, though I am not your king, do hereby commend upon you the title of Allheart. Honorary, as you are not my subject.”
He heard his knights bristling about him and turned to regard them, then nodded again when he saw that all of them were nodding in agreement.
“What does that mean?” Bahdlahn asked.
“It means that I, that we, salute you and thank you for your efforts this day, and for your courage in traveling all the way from … from the west, to help us in our hour of need. You do not owe me allegiance, though I hope you will give it.”
The young man clearly had no idea how to respond. He looked to Julian, the knight he had saved out on the street, the knight who would not leave without him, and returned a smile.
“You were a captive in this town of Appleby?” King Midalis asked, bringing the conversation back.
“Yes.”
“Tell us.”
“We worked. If we worked without complaint, we were not punished.”
“These sidhe—what did you call them again?”
“Xoconai.”
“These xoconai, they were merciful?”
Bahdlahn shrugged. “They were not kind.”
“But you weren’t tortured? And none were killed?”
“Those who disobeyed or tried to run were killed,” he replied. “And the few others chosen for sacrifice to Scathmizzane.”
“Who is that?”
“Their god.”
“On the dragon,” Julian said, and King Midalis nodded.
“Were they cruel?”
“Some,” said Bahdlahn. “Some not.” He shrugged again. “They are not unlike men.”
That answer shook all of them.
* * *
“What are you doing here?” Tuolonatl asked, when she unexpectedly encountered High Priest Pixquicauh in the command post she had established just down the wide avenue from the fortified building the humans called St. Precious Abbey.
That she wasn’t happy to see him was clearly evident in her tone, she realized, as she heard her own words.
She didn’t really care.
Pixquicauh and a sizable splinter of the xoconai force had continued straight east from Ursal, with Tuolonatl taking the main battle group to the north to conquer the river and the two cities, Palmaris and Amvoy, at its mouth. Her success had been swift and decisive, and she had already pushed far to the east, to another huge fortress, which was being described by many of the prisoners she had taken as the strongest fortress in the world.
She might have expected Pixquicauh to arrive there, on the field outside of the place called St.-Mere-Abelle, but not here. Not now.
Unless …
“The king of the humans is in that building,” he replied, confirming Tuolonatl’s fear that the high priest was current on the recent news. She glanced around at those xoconai closest to her, knowing there was an informant among their ranks.
“We do not know that,” she answered. “I have only recently heard the same information, but it is hardly confirmed.”
“Well, then we must confirm it. Conquer the building.”
Tuolonatl tried not to scoff at the ridiculously casual tone of the daunting demand. “It is good that you have come, then,” she said. “When can you bring one of the divine throwers here, that we might convince those inside the fortress to come out?”
Pixquicauh seemed a bit off balance at the request. “We cannot,” he said.
“Why can’t you? I have heard of no significant battles east of Ursal, and we’ll not soon commence the attack on the great fortress in the east.”
“Take the building without them.”
“I will lose a thousand macana assaulting such a place,” she replied. “And even then, I doubt we can get through the walls. The doors and windows are few and fortified. The humans inside have powerful magic and strong steel. If you give me weeks, my macana can, perhaps, tunnel beneath the walls to weaken them, but—”
“Weeks?” Pixquicauh interrupted, with exaggerated incredulity. “Our forces are far to the east of Ursal already! We will be at the eastern sea in days, where Scathmizzane will demand the leadership of his chosen cochcal, and you think to hold us here for weeks?”
“You would have me fill the street with dead xoconai? Give me one thrower and I will take the fortress and their king this very day.”
She noted the change in Pixquicauh’s posture and knew that something else was going on here.
“We cannot use the divine throwers,” he finally admitted. “Glorious Gold has forbidden their use at this time. He gathers his power for a great purpose, and use of them drains the great crystal above Otontotomi.”
“One throw?”
Pixquicauh shook his head.
Tuolonatl moved to the window and looked down the lane to the imposing St. Precious. She had to give the humans credit here, for they knew how to build a fortress. Had it not been for the divine throwers collapsing the monastery in Ursal upon most of the magic-wielding priests, then opening the walls, she wasn’t even sure that she would have won out at that city—and certainly not without catastrophic losses.
Here, she faced a similar proposition. Mundunugu and macana could not take down the walls of St. Precious. This xoconai army had been constructed for speed and open-ground battle, and Tuolonatl had already come to understand the greatest weakness of her force: back in Tonoloya, large battles were rare and war machines were virtually unknown. The beauty of xoconai cities could not be defaced by catapults and the like, by godly decree, and so there were few fortified buildings or walled cities. This wasn’t how the xoconai fought.
“Coax them out,” Pixquicauh insisted.
Tuolonatl tightened up, for she understood his meaning.
“Start with the children,” the high priest explained. “If you execute the adults, a king will justify it as a noble sacrifice. Minions should willingly give their lives for their king, of course. But when you start torturing children in the open street outside of that building, this human King Midalis will come forth. He is no coward, if it was indeed he who led the charges through the streets of this town.”
Again, Tuolonatl was taken aback by how much information had so quickly been passed on to Pixquicauh.
The high priest looked to Ataquixt, who stood beside Tuolonatl. “Take your mundunugu and begin fetching children. The younger, the better. Bring me a hundred. That will be a good start.”
“We have just tamed the city,” Tuolonatl argued. “You will send the humans back into a frenzy.”
“The more who die, the stronger becomes Scathmizzane,�
�� the high priest quipped. “Perhaps if you slaughter enough of the beasts, our Glorious Gold will allow us a divine thrower after all.”
With a snicker that resonated with evil to Tuolonatl, the old augur turned and walked away, leaving Tuolonatl staring at St. Precious, trying not to imagine scores of little children being hung upside down and gutted.
* * *
“There are many outlets, most exiting into nondescript buildings, some into no more than hovels,” the knight explained to Midalis and the others. “The main tunnel goes down to the docks but comes out under the water before them.”
“The docks are heavily guarded, and the few boats remaining there are moored far out and also full of enemies,” said another. “That would be our best chance, but it will be difficult.”
“Their lizards are swift swimmers,” the first reminded.
Midalis chewed his lip and closed his eyes. There were several hundred people huddled within St. Precious. They had nowhere to run. Perhaps Midalis and a few of his skilled warriors and monks could get away, but not the others.
“Then we do that,” said Brother Ottavian. “We fight to the boats and flee. It is the only way.”
“You believe that we could free enough boats to take all of these people from the city?” Julian of the Evergreen growled.
“They can go out through the other exits and just melt in with the populace,” the monk replied. “The city is lost. Their homes are lost. They are caught by these sidhe monsters, whatever that might mean for them. Our being caught beside them does them no good deed.”
“The Church has grown soft since the De’Unneran Heresy,” Julian said, in less-than-complimentary tones, drawing a scowl from Ottavian and several other brothers.
Midalis took it all in—no option pleased him. Ottavian’s plan might be for the best, he thought, but before he could play it through in his head, he heard a voice from out in the street, calling him by name.
“King Midalis dan Ursal of Honce-the-Bear!” the speaker, a woman, called. “I would parlay with you now for the sake of your people.”
Midalis led the way to the room’s small windows and peered out, along with any who could crowd in for a glimpse.
Song of the Risen God Page 31