“Whomever your patron, let Amaunator’s light help guide your way to your rest.”
The other bodies and pieces of bodies they found on the outskirts of the village showed similar wounds. Vasen’s heart ached over the dead children, who had spent their final moments in terror and pain. He prayed over everyone he found.
He and Orsin made slow progress, checking the bodies for signs of life, checking the interior of cottages for someone who might have hidden from the attackers. They found nothing but blood and the dead. Livestock had been slaughtered in their pens, cows flayed. Chicken feathers floated here and there in the wind like snowflakes.
Neither Vasen nor Orsin called out for survivors, although it would have made sense to do so. Breaking the quiet seemed blasphemous somehow.
He looked for tracks, some clue about the identity of the attackers, but the rain had washed them away. By the time they neared the center of the village, Vasen had resigned himself to finding neither survivors nor perpetrators.
“Ages turn, the world changes, but there is always horror,” Orsin said.
“And sometimes beauty,” Vasen said.
“But none here,” answered Orsin, his eyes distant.
A shout shattered the quiet, a rage-filled roar that originated from somewhere ahead, the commons, perhaps. The sound summoned Vasen’s anger. Shadows exploded from his flesh.
“Move!” he said to Orsin, and ran for the village center, blade ready. He channeled his god’s power as he pelted through the mud, empowering his blade and shield. Both glowed white. But the shadows around his flesh remained. Light and shadow coexisted in the air around him.
“Wait,” Orsin said, but Vasen did not wait.
When they reached the commons, shaded by the canopy of one of the large elms, they saw a woman slouched against the bole of the elm, her mouth slack, her eyes open. She looked alive. A man crouched beside her, head bowed, one hand on her shoulder, the other around a longbow. A sword hung from his belt. He had not noticed them.
“Step away from that woman!” Vasen said, slowing to a walk and advancing.
The man’s head snapped around and his eyes fixed on Vasen and Orsin. His mouth twisted with rage in the nest of his beard. He stood.
“Shadovar! You brought this down on my home!”
Before Vasen could respond, the man had drawn and fired an arrow with startling speed. At almost the moment he released it, Orsin dived in front of Vasen and hit the ground in a roll. Vasen feared he had been struck, but the deva came up in a crouch, the arrow clutched in a fist.
“He’s not Shadovar,” Orsin said to the man, who had already nocked and drawn another arrow and sighted for Vasen’s chest.
Vasen held his shield up, with its sun and rose, as evidence. He could see that the man was a victim of what had happened in the village, not a perpetrator.
The man walked toward Vasen, arrow still aimed at his chest. Circles darkened the skin under the man’s eyes. A large, purple lump marred his brow near the hairline and blades of grass stuck out of his hair. His nose was crooked, and dried blood was caked in his beard and mustache. His lips were peeled back from his teeth in a snarl.
Orsin tensed, as if he might launch himself at the man, but Vasen signaled for him to be still.
Moving slowly, as he might to calm an excited animal, Vasen dropped his blade and lowered his shield. The glow went out of both of them. As his anger dissipated, the shadows curling around his flesh subsided. He stood before the man, exposed, vulnerable.
The man kept his eyes on Vasen’s face and walked up to him until the point of the drawn arrow touched Vasen’s breastplate. Tears had made tracks in the filth and blood covering the man’s face.
“I’m not Shadovar,” Vasen said. “We came to help.”
The man studied Vasen’s face and Vasen imagined how he must appear, with his dark skin and yellow eyes.
“You’re not Shadovar,” the man said, the words empty. The bow creaked against the tension of the drawn arrow.
“We’re here to help,” Vasen repeated.
“To help,” the man repeated. He seemed dazed. Tears welled in his eyes and he audibly swallowed.
Holding the man’s eyes, Vasen reached up, slowly, and closed his fingers around the arrow’s tip. “To help.”
The words finally seemed to penetrate the man’s haze. He looked down at the sun and rose on Vasen’s shield.
“You’re a priest?”
“I serve Amaunator,” Vasen answered.
The man’s eyes overflowed but he seemed not to notice. Desperate, pained hope replaced the tears and sought validation in Vasen’s eyes. He released the tension in the bowstring, dropped the bow, and took Vasen by the shoulders, shaking him in his distress.
“Help her, man. Please.”
Before Vasen could respond, the man fairly collapsed into Vasen’s arms and began to sob, as if whatever tension had been holding him upright had just been released.
“Please help my wife. Help her.”
Vasen let the man’s emotion run its course while Orsin looked on, sympathy in his eyes. After a time the man pulled back, stood on his own two feet, wiped his nose and face, obviously embarrassed.
“I’m sorry. I just. I need. Just help her.”
He pulled Vasen toward the elm, toward the man’s wife.
“What’s her name?” Vasen asked, kneeling to examine the stricken woman.
“Elle.”
“And your name?”
“Gerak.”
“I’m Vasen, Gerak. This is Orsin.”
The woman’s long red hair hung over skin as pale as snow. Vasen leaned in to check her breathing and recoiled at the stench of her breath. “What is it?” Gerak asked. “What?”
Vasen shook his head. He removed his gauntlets and took her face in his hands. She was warm, feverish. Her eyes were open but rolled back in her head. He opened her mouth, wincing at the stink, and saw the remnants of a black film sticking to her teeth and tongue. Worry rooted in his gut.
He took her hand in his, channeled some of Amaunator’s power, and with it took the measure of her soul. He instantly cut the connection when he felt the growing corruption there. He tried to keep it from his face.
“What are you doing?” Gerak said.
“I’m trying to help her,” Vasen said. Using his shield as a focus, he held a hand over Elle and prayed to Amaunator. When the shield glowed and his palm warmed, he took Elle’s hand in his own and let the energy course into her, but he could see it changed nothing. When he was done, she remained feverish and unresponsive. He thought he knew why. Not even a more elaborate ritual could help her. She was beyond his arts. Maybe the Oracle could help her. Maybe.
“How long has she been this way?” he asked Gerak.
Gerak cleared his throat. “I don’t know for certain. Hours. Did it work? What you did?” He kneeled and took his wife’s hands in his own. “Elle? Sweets, come back.”
“Let’s get her inside,” Vasen said, sharing a meaningful look with Orsin. The deva took his point and sighed.
“Yes, of course,” Gerak said, and pointed. “There’s our home that way. Come.”
Gerak averted his eyes from the dead and led them into a one-room cottage that smelled faintly of vegetable stew. A large carpet covered the wood floor and modest, homemade furniture afforded seating.
While Orsin started a fire, Vasen and Gerak placed Elle in the bed and covered her to the chest in a quilt.
“You’re home now, Elle,” Gerak said, and smoothed her hair. He bent and kissed her brow.
Gerak pulled a chair over to the bedside and sat. Vasen remained standing, conscious of his shadow thrown on the wall by the fire.
“What happened here, Gerak?” he asked.
While holding Elle’s hand, Gerak told them his story: how he had left Fairelm a few days earlier to hunt, how he had been attacked by a creature that had been Lahni Rabb.
“You mean she had been transformed into something?” Vase
n asked, eyeing Elle and making connections.
Gerak swallowed, nodded. “A horrible, twisted form. The poor girl.” “Go on.”
Gerak explained how he had hurried back to the village to find almost everyone slaughtered, save his wife. He told them of the two men, one deformed and scarred, the other huge and unkempt. He told them about Minser, about the cats.
“Cats?”
“Yes. Lots of cats lingered around him. They weren’t from the village. They looked feral, larger than normal. I had an arrow on the skinny one but the bigger one took me unawares, gave me this.” He indicated the purple bruise on his brow, the ruin of his nose.
Vasen took it in, turned the information over in his mind.
“Why?” Orsin asked. He sat in the chair with his hands crossed in his lap.
Gerak looked at him as if he had spoken another language. “Why what? Why did they do it? I don’t know. How could I know?”
“Men always have reasons,” Orsin said.
“Men could not have done this to the village,” Vasen said.
“Not alone,” Orsin agreed.
“Her fever is not breaking,” Gerak said, indicating Elle. “How long before she improves?”
Vasen stared at him, saying nothing, saying everything.
“She . . . will improve?” Gerak said, haltingly.
Vasen spoke in a low tone. “I don’t think her sickness is one of body. It’s in her soul.”
“Her soul? What are you talking about?”
“Gerak, I believe they put something inside her. . . ”
Gerak might have surmised what Vasen had already guessed. He shook his head. “No, no, no.”
“I felt it. And . . . it’s growing. . . ”
“No, no.”
“ . . . and I fear that what happened to Lahni. . . ”
Gerak’s voice grew louder and he slammed his palm into the arm of the chair. “No!”
“ . . . will happen to Elle. I can’t stop it.”
There was silence but for the crackle of the fire and Gerak’s heavy breathing. He stared at Vasen for a time, wide-eyed, as if stricken dumb by the words. He shed no tears. Perhaps he had already shed all he had. He pressed his hands together, as if in prayer, and placed them under his chin. “Not my Elle,” he said, as soft as satin.
Vasen said, “If the transformation runs its course—”
Gerak held up a hand. “Do not dare to speak what you’re thinking in my house, in her house. Do not dare.”
“That’s not what I was thinking,” Vasen said.
Gerak’s eyes widened, as if he were surprised that it was what he was thinking. “Who can heal her? Another of your order?”
“There isn’t time—”
“You don’t know that!” Gerak said, half rising from his chair; then, more quietly. “You don’t know that.”
Vasen conceded the point with a tilt of his head. He did not know.
“She’s pregnant with our child,” Gerak said, his voice breaking. He looked at Vasen as if the words were an accusation.
Vasen did not wilt, and he knew he would not turn his back on Gerak, on Elle, on their child. Perhaps Elle and the child could fight on long enough for them to get her back to the abbey.
“The Oracle might be able to help her,” Vasen said.
Gerak stared at him as if he did not understand. Finally, he said, “Oracle? The Oracle? The Seer of the Vale?”
Vasen nodded.
“Then . . . you two are from the Abbey of the Rose?”
Again, Vasen nodded. Orsin held his peace.
Gerak sat back in his chair, his exhalation audible through his teeth. “Minser.”
The name sounded vaguely familiar to Vasen but he could not place it.
“Minser?” Orsin asked.
“A peddler. He—”
“Fat with a moustache and ready smile,” Vasen said, placing the name. “He made the pilgrimage to the abbey once. His aunt was ill.”
Gerak nodded. “The two men took him prisoner. They wanted him to lead them to the abbey.”
Vasen half rose from his chair. “What? Why?”
“One of them was seeking the Oracle, Minser said.”
Vasen stood fully, shadows swirling around him. “What would he want of the Oracle?”
“I . . . don’t know.”
“I need to get back to the abbey,” Vasen said. “Quickly.”
“I’m coming, too,” Gerak said, standing. “And Elle.”
“Gerak,” Vasen said, trying to phrase the words gently. “I must move very fast.”
“So we’ll move fast. I know the terrain better than anyone.”
“Gerak. . . ”
Gerak’s expression turned vacant, as if he were anticipating a blow. “Don’t you dare say it. Don’t. You are a servant of the light. Don’t say it.”
Vasen felt Orsin’s eyes on him, felt the weight of his words to Byrne before he had come to Fairelm—his calling was more than escorting pilgrims.
“I’ll help you bear her,” Vasen said. “And we’ll move as fast as we can.”
“I’ll help, too,” said Orsin, standing.
Together, the three men hurriedly built a makeshift litter for Elle and pulled her along behind them.
“These were good people,” Gerak said, as they picked their way through the streets, through the dead.
“We have no time to tend to their bodies,” Vasen said. “I prayed over each, if that’s any consolation to you.”
To that, Gerak said nothing, and Vasen could not blame him. There was little consolation to be found in the destruction of Fairelm.
Chapter Nine
They dragged Elle’s litter behind them, moving as fast as they could. Byrne saw them coming and raised his arm in a halting hail. Vasen waved in return and Byrne hurried out to meet them. His eyes went to Gerak, the sick woman, Elle, and questions raised his eyebrows.
Vasen did not waste words. “Everyone in the village is dead save these two.”
Byrne’s expression fell, although he did not look surprised. “Darkness falls. I am sorry,” he said to Gerak. “The woman?”
“My wife,” Gerak said. “She’s . . . ill.”
Vasen said, “The attackers are headed to the abbey.”
That brought Byrne up short. “The abbey? Why?”
“They seek the Oracle. I don’t know why.”
“If they get to the pass, the spirits will stop them.”
“Maybe,” Vasen said, “But I’m taking no chances. You didn’t see the village, Byrne. These are not ordinary men.”
Byrne looked Vasen in the eye. “Well enough. Then we’ll stop them together. Come on.”
Byrne turned to go, but Vasen grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him around.
“We’ll stop them,” Vasen said, nodding at Orsin. “You have to stay with the pilgrims, Byrne.”
Byrne’s eyes narrowed. He chewed his moustache, spit it out, and said, “I swore to protect the Oracle, the same as you, First Blade.”
“And we also took a charge from the Oracle to protect Amaunator’s pilgrims. Would you abandon them to Sembia’s plains? Let them try to find their own way through the battle lines drawn across the Dales?”
Byrne colored, masticated his moustache anew, shifted on his feet.
“Say it,” Vasen said, and Byrne did.
“You stay with the pilgrims, then,” Byrne said. “You’re a creature of darkness, First Blade. You can lead them better through this. Even now you sweat shadows. Even now you—”
Too late Byrne realized what he had said. His eyes widened.
Shadows coiled around Vasen but he kept his face expressionless. He’d heard the words, or read them on the faces of his fellow Dawnswords, many times. He was the first blade, but he was apart from his fellows and always would be. Like Orsin, he was a congregation of one.
“I stand in the light, Byrne Neev. The same as you.”
“I’m sorry,” Byrne said, flushing, but Vasen ignored h
im and continued:
“Faith defines me, not blood.”
“I know, First—”
“And I’ve been in service to the abbey, and the Oracle, for much longer than you.”
“Yes—”
Vasen’s voice was rising as he spoke. “This decision is mine and you will abide by it.”
“Of course.”
“You will remain with the pilgrims.”
“Yes, First Blade,” said Byrne, chastened.
Vasen’s breath came hard. The shadows around him swirled, nearly touching Byrne. He closed his eyes, inhaled, and calmed himself.
“I’m sorry,” Byrne said, looking off to the side of Vasen’s face. “I spoke inartfully, with heat, and I regret it.”
“Words are not swords, Byrne,” Vasen said. “I’m uncut, and it’s forgotten.”
Byrne sagged with relief.
“Keep moving, as fast as they can bear. By now, the Shadovar know we’re out here. Watch for them. Watch for soldiers as you near the Dales.”
Byrne nodded.
“After you’ve gotten the pilgrims to safety, return to Fairelm and see to the bodies as best you can. They deserve what rest we can give them.”
“Well enough, First Blade.”
“The light keep you,” Vasen said to him.
“And you,” Byrne said, coloring as he spoke the words.
Despite the harsh words, they embraced. Vasen started to walk toward the pilgrims, but Byrne put a hand on his breastplate to stop him.
“Has the Oracle ever seen for you, First Blade?”
“Of course.”
“What did he say?”
The question took Vasen aback. “Each man’s reading is his own, Byrne.” “He told me I would not die while the abbey stood. Those were his words.” Vasen swallowed, nodded.
“I don’t know what to do with that,” Byrne said.
“Nor I,” Vasen said. “Let me tell the pilgrims I’m leaving.” “Of course.”
After he’d explained things to the pilgrims, Vasen said to them, “Byrne and Eldris and Nald will see you safely north. There’s nothing to fear. The light keep and warm you all.”
They returned his greeting haltingly, and he turned to go before they began to ask questions. A soft touch on his forearm brought him around. Elora stood there, concern written on her features. Her hand slid down to take Vasen’s.