A lone rider sat in the middle of the avenue, tall and beautiful, golden-skinned, with a bright red nose and brilliant blue stripes bordering it. Her hair bobbed about her shoulders, silken and smooth. Her form was lean but clearly strong and toned.
“Sidhe bitch,” one knight growled.
“Xoconai,” Midalis heard the young man, Bahdlahn, correct.
He had to agree with that, for this woman was no goblin. She sat on her mount, a beautiful pinto horse and no lizard, wearing a splendid breastplate of those rolled pieces of wood, all painted brightly. She carried a large black feather in her hair, sticking back from over her left ear.
“I am Tuolonatl,” she said. “This city is lost to you. I will have your surrender.”
The Allhearts about Midalis bristled, some cursing, one remarking, “How does this devil speak our tongue as if she was raised in Honce?”
“They are men, then,” another offered. “Their faces are painted.”
“It isn’t paint, nor a tattoo,” Julian answered definitively. “They are not men, none like we know, at least.”
“Xoconai,” Bahdlahn said again. “From the west, beyond the mountains.”
Xoconai, Midalis quietly mouthed.
“King Midalis dan Ursal, do you hear me?” the woman called. “If you do not hear me, we will make you hear me.” She turned her mount a bit, sweeping her arm out behind her to a host of xoconai.
Midalis’s eyes went wide when enemy warriors moved out from the crowd, each pushing a small child before him. Dozens and dozens came forward, children crying, people along the side streets wailing.
“Do you hear me, King Midalis?”
“I hear you,” he yelled back.
“You are lost. You have nowhere to run,” she said. “The city is ours. We are not without mercy, but mercy must be earned. I will have your surrender, without condition.”
She motioned for another rider, this one on a lizard, to come out beside her.
“Ataquixt will count to and call out each hundred. When ten have passed, if you have not come out the door of this monastery, the first child will be killed. Then another child with each subsequent hundred.”
“Monsters!” said one of the knights, and the cursing began anew, along with calls for a charge out of St. Precious.
Midalis turned from the window and bade them all to silence.
“Go, flee, all of you through the tunnels,” he told the knights and monks. “Find your way, fight your way.”
“Not without you, my king,” said Julian of the Evergreen, and a host of others agreed.
Outside, the xoconai man yelled out, “One hundred!”
“They want me,” King Midalis said. “Of course they do.” He searched about for a moment, then looked straight at Bahdlahn. “Tell me again, quickly, of these xoconai. They are not goblins. They do not murder for pleasure.”
“They are no different than the Usgar who enslaved me,” the young man answered. “They are not goblins. They are men, like us.”
Midalis nodded and motioned him to silence. He paused a moment.
“Two hundred!” came the call from outside.
“The city is lost,” he said. “I’ve nowhere to run. And I’ll not watch children slaughtered without—”
“They will kill them anyway!” one of the knights claimed.
“We do not know that,” said Midalis. “But we do know that they will kill them now. I have no doubt of that.”
“And you cannot allow that,” said Julian.
“No, I cannot. I will go out to them in surrender. Palmaris is lost. Ursal is lost.”
The knights all snapped to attention. “For the king, with the king!” one chanted, others joining in.
“I will go alone.”
“You will not,” said another.
“You will not!” Julian echoed.
Again, Midalis called for silence.
“Three hundred!” came the call from the street.
“The monks must leave, with all the gemstones they can find,” Midalis said. “Those treasures and secrets must not fall to our enemies.”
“Not all of us,” Brother Ottavian insisted. “For, in that case, our enemies would know of the escape. My brethren will flee with all of the most powerful Ring Stones. We will leave the minor stones here, enough for me to convince these sidhe or xoconai or whatever they are.”
Midalis stared at him for a short while, then nodded his agreement.
“And I will stay and stand by my king,” said Julian of the Evergreen.
“And I,” another Allheart said, rising determinedly.
“And I!” agreed another, and another, and all down the line.
Midalis shook his head and moved straight for Julian. “Not you,” he ordered. “You will leave, into the tunnel and into a house, any house, and you will get away from here in the dark of night and tell them. Go to Saint-Mere-Abelle and tell them. Go to Saint Gwendolyn-by-the-Sea and tell them. Go to Entel and tell them.” Midalis put his hands on the man’s shoulders, squaring up to him. “Go to Behren,” he said. “Go and find Brynn Dharielle, who rides the dragon Agradeleous. Go and tell her, and tell the Jhesta tu mystics. You, Julian of the Evergreen, you I charge with telling the world of what happened here and what happened in Ursal.”
He turned about, pulling Julian to Bahdlahn. “And take this man and tell them of the events in the west. This is my charge to you.”
Midalis released Julian and moved about the room, pointing to the younger Allhearts, ordering them to go with Julian.
“Warn the world of what is coming,” he commanded them all. “And keep alive that which is lost. You are the Allhearts. You serve Honce-the-Bear above all, above me.”
King Midalis took a last deep breath, closed his eyes.
“Six hundred!” called the xoconai in the street outside.
“Go, my dear Allhearts,” Midalis said. “Go now.”
A moment of silence followed, the selected knights bristling and shifting uncomfortably, the older knights, who would surrender beside their king, all staring and nodding.
“I hate that you did this to me,” Julian quietly admitted.
“I know,” Midalis replied, patting him on the shoulder, then warmly hugging him. “And that is why I know you will not disappoint me.” Then he whispered into Julian’s ear, more quietly, “Find my queen and protect her. Promise me.”
He felt the change in Julian’s frame, the man relaxing, surrendering. He pushed Julian back to arm’s length and saw on his face grim determination.
Yes, he had chosen correctly.
Off went the dozen selected Allhearts, the five other monks, and Bahdlahn, through the monastery and to the tunnels.
“What of the commoners?” one of the other knights asked the king.
“They surrender with us,” Midalis answered. “Let us hope that the young man’s description of these xoconai as more human than goblin proves true.”
“Seven hundred!” came the call outside.
“Let us go and shut up that annoying fool,” said Midalis, and he led the way to the front door and pushed it wide, then stepped out into the afternoon light.
“I am King Midalis of Honce-the-Bear,” he announced from the top of St. Precious’s large front stairway. “Do you speak for the xoconai, Tuolonatl?”
The woman on the horse nodded.
Midalis held back his knights and walked down the stairs, motioning for the woman to come to him. To his relief, she did, pacing her pinto up to the base of the steps, where she stared down at the king.
“How do you speak our tongue?” he asked.
“There are ways.”
Midalis chuckled.
“I will surrender the city of Palmaris,” he told her.
“It is lost to you in any case.”
“But my surrender will lessen the resistance, yes?”
Tuolonatl nodded.
“Then I ask something of you in return,” Midalis said.
“You
are hardly in a position to bargain.”
“Mercy,” he said. “I ask you for mercy.”
“For you?”
“I care not for me. For my gallant knights. For the brothers of the Church. For the common folk. For the children.”
“You doubt me?”
“Not for a moment,” he replied. He offered a smile and a helpless shrug. “Are you not relieved that I came out before your friend over there reached a thousand?”
She looked confused at that.
“A hundred, ten times,” he explained. “Are you not glad that you did not have to slaughter a helpless child on the street to convince me?”
The strangely beautiful creature stared down at him from her seat, her face impassive, revealing nothing.
But Midalis had his answer, because if there was no honor in this enemy leader, she would have ordered a child murdered right then, to shatter the king’s illusions and steal his hope.
But she did not. She turned her horse and started slowly away.
“Bring them out, all of them,” she told him as she left. “Have them throw down their weapons and strip their armor. Any who do not will be dead before they step onto the street.”
Midalis found that he didn’t doubt that.
* * *
They came out quietly into the dark, wincing at every heavy footfall, every scrape of metal armor.
Brother Ottavian, who was of Palmaris and knew the lay of the land, led the way, scooting down narrow alleyways, moving ever north. That would be their best choice, they had decided while still in the tunnels, since the invaders had mostly come from the south.
Julian and Bahdlahn took up the back of the column, the Allheart looking often to the west, to the dark silhouette of St. Precious.
King Midalis was there, somewhere, in their grasp.
Julian could not imagine that his beloved King Midalis, a man who had become as a mentor and friend, would survive for long. He kept leaning toward St. Precious, veering that way for a step or two, as if being pulled by unheard cries.
Ottavian led them swift and sure, soon coming in sight of a small gate across a wide plaza, not far from the docks. A trio of xoconai milled about that gate, two sitting on lizards, the third leaning against the wall, her lizard sitting up on the top of the wall, its head very close to hers as she shared some food with it.
“We can charge right through them,” one knight offered, as Julian and Bahdlahn came up to the front of the group.
“But we’re very near the docks, and there are many more there who will come to any calls or sound of battle,” another replied.
“Is there another way?” Julian asked Ottavian.
The monk looked all about, nervously tapping his finger against his lips. He fished in his pockets for a specific gemstone, then focused on it for a bit and held it up to his eye. Slowly, he turned his head, first toward the docks, and then back to the south, and then west.
“The docks are full of sidhe, and they’re patrolling the wall,” he said, his expression grave. “And there are sidhe groups moving outside the wall as well.”
“Then where?” asked Julian, and the monk shrugged.
“Back to the tunnel,” Bahdlahn answered, and all looked his way. “We can collapse the entryway to the side tunnel, and even if the xoconai come down into the main tunnel, they won’t find us.”
“It could work,” one knight agreed.
“Collapsing the entrance to the side tunnel will be easy,” Ottavian added, and he held up a pale orange gemstone.
The whispers began all around, as they tried to figure out how they might gather some supplies and hole up—perhaps they could strike out from their hidey-hole and sting these enemies. Perhaps they could organize a resistance among the populace.
Julian of the Evergreen put his hands over his face and rubbed his cheeks, remembering the last commands of King Midalis—orders that he go to the east and spread the warning. How much good would he really do while crouched in a dirty tunnel?
“No,” he said, silencing all about him. “No. We’re going out, right through that gate, fast and hard. The king has commanded us to carry the news to the east and to get those most sacred and powerful Ring Stones far from this place. What can you do to help us, Brother Ottavian? What magic have you and your brethren at your hand to get us away from Palmaris?”
The monks went off and conferred by themselves for a bit, while the knights laid plans for a sudden and brutal takedown of the three sidhe.
“Follow, and quickly,” Ottavian said, rejoining the group and leading them back down the alleyway, then along a perpendicular corridor to the west, bringing them farther from the docks. He used his gemstone again at several places, Bahdlahn noted—and he knew the stone, too, for it was the same kind as in Talmadge’s lens, which the man used for seeing things far away.
Finally, a long while later, with the dark of night perilously close to allowing the first tinges of dawn, Ottavian stopped them between two large buildings, once again looking across a wide avenue, to some structures to the north and to another alleyway that led to the base of the wall. Up on that wall, they saw enemy soldiers, some riding, some walking, many holding torches and others holding some magical lights that seemed like sheets of metal.
Ottavian and another brother moved to the front, checking their gemstones.
“I need one strong man,” the monk told Julian, and before the knight could reply, he pointed to Bahdlahn.
Moments later, the two monks and Bahdlahn slipped quietly across the dark street, their forms blurred by the magic of Abellican diamonds, the Ring Stone that both gave and stole light. They moved down the alleyway to the wall, and there, Ottavian produced his orange stone again—like the one Aoleyn had set within the large wedstone on her hip, Bahdlahn realized.
“When I free a stone, you lift it out,” Ottavian whispered to Bahdlahn. “Brother Alfonse will help lighten it that you might set it on the ground.”
The monk called upon the citrine, then brought his hand to the wall and began marring the solid stone there as if it were thick clay. A few moments later, he shifted back and to the side, huffing and puffing, and motioned for Bahdlahn to be quick.
The powerful young man worked his hands into the lines Ottavian had cut and began rocking the large section of stone left and right, easing it toward him. It was enormously heavy, and Bahdlahn knew that he wouldn’t easily hoist it, particularly with his fingers on the side instead of beneath it.
True to Ottavian’s promise, though, Brother Alphonse then added a different magic, and Bahdlahn nodded as the stone greatly lightened. He slid it out from the wall much more easily then, catching it in his arms. Even with the telekinetic help from the monk and his malachite, Bahdlahn feared that his legs would buckle, for he was holding a section of stone three feet across, equally high, and quite thick as well, a stone that weighed more than twice his own considerable weight, easily—or would have, except for Brother Alphonse’s magical trick.
Bahdlahn managed to ease it to the ground with minimal noise.
Ottavian leaned into the newly formed alcove and went right back to work with the citrine, this time digging a hole in the center of the next block, pulling out chunks of it as if they were putty and handing them back to Bahdlahn. When Ottavian came out of the wall, Bahdlahn saw that he had bored a hole right through, one large enough to allow a man to squeeze out of Palmaris and to the dark field beyond.
“Go out and hold this place,” Ottavian told Bahdlahn. “We’ll bring the others across with the darkness shroud.”
Bahdlahn crawled in and through, rolling out onto the grass beyond. He held very still, glancing all about.
Not far from him, to the east, a xoconai warrior leaned against the wall.
Bahdlahn looked back through the hole. He thought that he could slip off into the night unnoticed, but he knew that the others, particularly the knights with their noisy armor, would never escape that sentry’s attention. He thought to go back th
rough the hole and tell them to change the plan.
He thought to run off into the night.
In the end, he was creeping—not away, no, but toward that xoconai, hugging the base of the wall, moving inch by inch.
He heard a noise behind him, back at the hole in the wall. He started to glance back but then froze as the xoconai lifted his macana paddle and moved to investigate.
Bahdlahn crouched and held his breath. He wanted to scream. He felt his sweat, felt the tiny trembles shooting through his body.
The soldier wasn’t more than a step away!
Bahdlahn was shocked that he hadn’t been noticed. Perhaps he was thought to be just a mound of grass at the base of the wall, or a human corpse, someone killed in the attack on the city.
That last notion brought him anger, and that anger brought him courage. Bahdlahn leaped up right before the startled xoconai, and before the enemy could lift his macana, Bahdlahn grabbed him by the edge of the rolls of his strange wooden breastplate and flung him with all of his great strength to the right, smashing him face-first into the wall.
As the stunned warrior bounced back from the impact, Bahdlahn slugged him with a powerful hooking uppercut, catching him right under the chin, lifting him into the air, and sending him flying back and to the ground.
Bahdlahn fell upon him in a heartbeat, choking and squeezing his mouth, pressing with all his weight and all his might to keep the enemy quiet and still. The sentry struggled and managed a squeak, so Bahdlahn grabbed his throat and squeezed.
The xoconai fought wildly, but the man held on. Bahdlahn knew he was choking the life from the man. He didn’t want to do that! But if the xoconai called out, they’d all be cut down in short order.
The macana came up hard against Bahdlahn’s shoulder, its teeth cutting in superficially. Bahdlahn shifted his considerable weight, putting more of it directly atop the head and shoulders of the sentry.
The xoconai kicked and thrashed.
Bahdlahn squeezed tighter.
The xoconai managed only a couple more stifled gasps and grunts.
Trembling badly, both horrified and exhilarated, caught somewhere between victory and horror, Bahdlahn dropped the limp form to the grass and fell back. He rose, stumbled, and would have fallen, except that Julian was there to catch him.
Song of the Risen God Page 32