“Who is this priest?”
“Skilgannon.”
“The Damned?”
“The very same. We will need to keep his body for viewing. If we remove the inner organs then cover the corpse with salt it will dry and remain largely intact. Enough for them to see the tattooes. He has a spider on his forearm, a panther upon his chest, and an eagle upon his back. In all other respects he also matches the description; dark-haired, tall, with eyes of brilliant blue. After he arrived here the abbot sold a Ventrian purebred black stallion for more than three hundred Raq. It is Skilgannon.”
“How much is she willing to pay?”
Seregas chuckled. “The question is, Councillor, how much must I pay you?”
“Half.”
“I think not. You are organizing murders. Times change, as do political ideologies. You might well need someone in authority to give evidence of your good will in these troubled times.”
Raseev refilled the goblets. “Indeed so, Captain. Then what do you suggest?”
“One-third.”
“And that sum would be?”
“A thousand Raq.”
“Sweet Heaven! What did he do to her? Slay her firstborn?”
“I do not know. Are we agreed, Councillor?”
“We are, Seregas. But tell me, why did you not merely arrest and hold him?”
“Firstly, he has committed no crime here. More importantly he is a deadly killer, Raseev—with or without weapons. I don’t doubt that many of the tales are exaggerated, but it is well known that he entered the forests of Delian alone and slew eleven warriors who had captured the rebel princess—as the queen then was. You also heard how he dealt with the Arbiter. I saw that, Raseev. The skill was extraordinary.”
“You think he will fight tomorrow?”
“It will not matter against three or four hundred. He is not a god. Sheer weight of numbers will drag him down.”
In the bright light of morning Raseev walked with the crowd, Seregas beside him, three other soldiers of the Watch close by. As they approached the old castle Raseev saw that the gates were open. The abbot, Cethelin, was standing beneath the gateway arch, two priests alongside him. One was tall and lean, the other black-bearded and heavily built.
“The tall one is Skilgannon,” whispered Seregas. Raseev held back, allowing other people to pass him.
“Very wise,” said Seregas.
4
* * *
For Braygan it was the single most terrifying moment of his life so far. He had become a priest to escape the horrors of a life threatened by wars and violence, droughts and starvation. Now, before he was even twenty, death was marching toward him.
More than twenty of the thirty-five priests were already fleeing through the rear gates, running out toward the sheep paddocks and the woods beyond. He saw Brother Anager emerge from the main building, a canvas sack upon his shoulder. Braygan stood very still as the cook came alongside him. “Come with us, Braygan. It is futile to die here.”
Braygan so wanted to obey. He moved several steps toward the paddock, then glanced back to where Abbot Cethelin was standing beneath the gateway arch.
“I cannot,” he said. “Fare you well, Anager.”
The other priest said nothing. Hoisting his sack to his shoulder he ran out to the paddock. Braygan watched him laboring up the green slope.
In that moment a feeling of peace descended on the young acolyte. He took a deep breath and walked slowly to where the abbot waited. Cethelin turned as Braygan arrived. He smiled and patted the young priest on the arm. “I saw a candle in my dream, Braygan. It stood against the onrushing darkness. We will be that candle.”
The crowd was closer now, and Braygan saw the tall, lean figure of Antol the Baker, his dark hair held in place by a bronze circlet, his protruding eyes wide and angry. Beside him was the Arbiter who had punched Braygan to the ground, and then been stopped by Brother Lantern. Braygan flicked a glance at Lantern, who was standing very still, his face impassive.
“Bring out the criminal Rabalyn,” shouted Raseev Kalikan. “Or face the consequences.”
Cethelin stepped closer to the milling crowd. “I do not know of what you speak,” he said. “There are no criminals here. The boy Rabalyn is not within these walls.”
“You lie!” bellowed Antol.
“I never lie,” Cethelin told him. “The boy is not here. I see you have officers of the Watch with you. They are free to search the buildings.”
“We don’t need your permission, traitor!” yelled the Arbiter. The crowd began to move forward. Cethelin raised his thin arms. “My brothers, why do you wish us harm? Not one of my brethren has ever caused you ill. We live to serve . . .”
“This is for traitors!” shouted Antol, suddenly running forward. Sunlight glinted from the long knife in his hand. Cethelin turned toward him. Brother Lantern leapt across Braygan’s line of sight. Cethelin staggered and Braygan saw blood on the knife blade. A woman shouted from the crowd. “Spill his guts to the ground!” Braygan recognized the voice of Marja, Antol’s wife.
Braygan caught Cethelin as he fell. The abbot had been stabbed just above his left hip, and blood was soaking through his blue robes. Antol tried to reach him for a second thrust, but Lantern caught his arm and twisted it savagely. Antol screamed and dropped the knife. Lantern caught it with his right hand, then twisted Antol round to face the crowd.
Then Lantern spoke, his voice harsh and powerful. “Death is what you came here for, you maggot-ridden scum, and death is what you will have.” He looked toward Marja, a round-faced plump woman with short-cropped graying hair. “You called for guts to be spilled, you hag. Then here they are!”
Antol’s back was toward him and Braygan did not see the terrible strike with the knife. But he heard Antol scream, and he saw something gush from his belly and flop to the ground. The sound that screeched from the disemboweled man was barely human, and chilled Braygan to the depths of his soul. Then Brother Lantern dragged the man’s head back and slashed the knife across his throat. Blood gushed over the blade.
“No!” screamed Marja, stumbling to where her husband’s body lay. Brother Lantern ignored her and strode toward the crowd. “Is that enough pleasure for you, or do you desire more? Come, you gutless worms. More can die.”
They backed away from him—all save two black-garbed officers of the Watch who ran forward, sabers in their hands. Lantern moved to meet them. He swayed as the first blade lanced for his heart. The soldier stumbled back. Braygan saw that Antol’s knife was now embedded in the man’s throat. And somehow Lantern now had the dying officer’s saber in his hand. He parried a thrust from the second soldier, rolled his blade, then plunged it through the man’s chest. The soldier cried out and staggered back. The saber blade slid clear.
Lantern stepped back from the man and swung away. Braygan thought he was about to return to where Cethelin lay, but he suddenly spun on his heel, the saber flashing through the air. It took the soldier in the side of the neck, cleaving through skin, tendon, and bone. The young soldier’s head struck the ground while his body stood for several seconds. Braygan saw the right leg twitch and the headless corpse crumple to the earth.
There was not a sound now from the crowd. Lantern had both sabers in his hands and he walked along the line of waiting men and women. “Well?” he called out. “Are there no more fighting men among you? What about you, Arbiter? Are you ready to die? I have stitched your wounds—now let me give you another. Come to me. Here, I shall make it easy for you.” So saying he plunged both sabers into the ground.
“You cannot kill all of us!” shouted the Arbiter. “Come on men, let’s take him!”
He rushed forward with a great shout. Lantern stepped in to meet him. His left hand caught the Arbiter’s knife wrist and twisted it. The Arbiter grunted in pain and dropped the weapon. Lantern moved his foot beneath the falling weapon, flicking it back into the air. He caught it with his left hand, then rammed it through the Arbiter’s rig
ht eye socket.
As the body fell he stepped back and swept up the sabers. “The man was an idiot,” he said. “But he was quite right. I cannot possibly kill you all. Probably no more than ten or twelve of you. Do you wish to draw lots, peasants? Or will you rush me all at once and check the bodies later?”
No one moved. “What about you?” asked Lantern, pointing the saber at a broad-shouldered young man standing close by. “Shall I spill your guts to the ground next? Well, speak up, worm!” Lantern suddenly moved toward the man. The townsman cried out in fear and forced himself further back into the crowd. “What about you, Councillor?” he raged, making toward Raseev Kalikan. “Are you ready to die for your beloved townsfolk? Or do you think there has been enough entertainment for today?”
Lantern advanced on the hapless Raseev, who stood blinking in the sunlight. The crowd moved back from the terrified politician.
“There has been enough . . . bloodshed,” whispered Raseev, as the blood-covered saber touched his chest.
“Louder! Your miserable flock cannot hear you.”
“Don’t kill me, Skilgannon!” he pleaded.
“Ah, so you know me then. No matter. Talk to your flock, Raseev Kalikan, while you still have a tongue to use. You know what to say.”
“There has been enough bloodshed!” shouted Raseev. “Return to your homes now. Please, my friends. Let us go home. I did not want anyone hurt today. Antol should not have attacked the abbot. He has paid for it with his life. Now let us be civilized and pull back from the brink.”
“Wise words,” said Skilgannon.
For a moment the crowd did not move. Skilgannon turned his ice blue gaze upon the nearest man, and he backed away. Others followed his lead, and soon the mob was dispersing. Raseev made to follow them.
“Not yet, Councillor,” said Skilgannon, the saber blade tapping at Raseev’s shoulder. “Nor you, Captain,” he added, as Seregas backed away. “How long have you known?”
“Only a few days, General,” said Seregas, smoothly. “I spotted the tattoo when you thrashed the Arbiter.”
“And you sent word to the east.”
“Of course. There is three thousand Raq on your head.”
“Understandable,” said Skilgannon. Then he returned his attention to Raseev. “I will not be here after today,” he told the councillor. “But I will hear of all that happens after I am gone. Should any harm befall my brothers I shall come back. I will kill you in the old way—the Naashanite way. One piece of you will die at a time.”
Skilgannon turned his back on the two men and moved toward where Braygan knelt, cradling Abbot Cethelin. As he approached them Marja reared up from alongside the body of her husband. “You bastard!” she screamed and ran at Skilgannon. Spinning on his heel he swayed aside. Marja stumbled and fell face first to the earth.
“By Heaven, I never did like that woman,” said Skilgannon.
Dropping to one knee he examined the wound in Cethelin’s side. Antol’s knife had slashed the skin above the hip, but had not penetrated deeply. “I will stitch that wound for you,” he said.
“No, my son. You will not touch me. I feel the hatred and the anger radiating from you. It burns my soul. Braygan and Naslyn will take me to my chambers and attend me. You will join me there in a while. I have something for you.” Braygan and Naslyn lifted him to his feet. The old priest looked at the bodies and shook his head.
Skilgannon saw tears in his eyes.
Skilgannon stood silently as the two priests helped Cethelin across the open courtyard and into the buildings opposite. His hands were sticky with blood. Wiping them on his robes he moved to a stone seat in the gateway arch and sat down. The woman, Marja, stirred and struggled to her knees. Skilgannon ignored her. She looked around, saw her dead husband, and began to sob. The sound was pitiful. Marja stumbled over to the corpse and knelt beside it. Her grief was real, but it did not touch Skilgannon. She was one of those people who never gave thought to consequences. Marja had screamed for guts to be spilled. And they were.
Four more souls had been despatched on the long, dark journey.
Two years of suppressed rage had been released in a few terrifying heartbeats. Brother Lantern was a role he had tried so hard to play. His father’s face appeared in his mind, as he always saw it, the broad features framed in a bronze helm, a transverse horsehair plume of white glinting in the sunlight.
“We are what we are, my son.”
Skilgannon had never forgotten those words. His father, Decado, had not been wearing the armor of a mercenary when he had spoken them. He had been on one of his rare visits home, recovering from a wound to his upper thigh and a broken wrist. Skilgannon had been sent home from school in disgrace after fighting two boys and knocking them both senseless. “Blood runs true in our family line, Olek. We are warriors.” He had chuckled. “People are like dogs, boy. There’s the little, tubby fat ones everyone likes to pet, and the tall, rangy ones we watch race and bet upon. There’s all kinds of house dogs with wagging tails. Then there’s the wolf. It is strong. It has powerful jaws, and it is ferocious when roused. We are what we are, my son. And wolves is what we are. And all them little waggy-tail beasts best walk wary around us.”
Two months later his father was dead.
Trapped on a ridge by two divisions of Panthian infantry Decado had led a last charge down the slope. The few survivors talked of his incredible courage, and how he had almost reached the Panthian king. When the main body of the army arrived at the battlefield they found all but one of the corpses impaled on stakes. Decado was still sitting on his horse, which had been tethered nearby. At first the relief force had thought him to be alive. When they reached him they saw he had been strapped to his saddle, his back held upright by three lengths of wood. His swords had been sheathed at his side, his rings still upon his fingers. In one closed fist they found a small gold coin, bearing the Panthian crest.
A rider brought the coin to Skilgannon. “It is the toll for the Ferryman,” he told the boy. “The Panthians wanted to ensure that he crossed the Dark River.”
Skilgannon had been horrified. “Then what will he do now? You took the coin from him.”
“Do not worry, lad. I buried him with another coin—one of ours. It is still gold and the Ferryman will accept it. I wanted you to have this one. The Panthians honored him, and this is the symbol of that honor.”
“We are what we are, my son. And wolves is what we are.”
Skilgannon the Damned was who he was, and who he would always be.
Hearing movement behind him he looked back, and saw the runaway priests returning, moving sheepishly back into the main building. It is all a nonsense, he thought. In all likelihood only Cethelin truly believed in the all-healing power of love. The rest? Naslyn wanted redemption, Braygan safety. Anager and the other runaways had probably chosen the priesthood as one might choose between being a tailor or a bootmaker. It was just a profession.
He could not find it in himself to hate Raseev Kalikan or Captain Seregas. At least there was purpose in their actions.
Skilgannon had stood beside Cethelin, and almost convinced himself that he would stand passively by and let the mob do as they would. The world would not be a poorer place without me, he had thought. Yet when the foul baker had stabbed Cethelin something had snapped inside Skilgannon. The darkness had been released.
Brother Anager crept alongside him, saw the bodies before the gates, and made the sign of the Protective Horn. “What happened here, Brother?” he whispered.
“I am not your brother,” said Skilgannon.
He walked back to his room and pulled the narrow chest from beneath the bed. From it he took a cream-colored shirt of linen edged with white satin. It was collarless and sleeveless. He draped it across the bed and pulled clear a pair of leather leggings and a broad brown belt. These he laid alongside the shirt. Stripping off his blood-drenched robes he tossed them to the floor and put on the clothes from the chest. Tugging on a pair of knee-lengt
h brown riding boots he stood and stamped his feet. The boots felt tight after two years of wearing open sandals. Lastly he lifted clear a riding jacket of greased buckskin. This was also sleeveless but long leather fringes, tipped with silver, had been placed over both shoulders. The silver was tarnished now and black, as were the silver rings—five on each side—which decorated the outside of his boots from knee to ankle.
Donning the jacket he strolled from the room without a backward glance.
Brother Braygan was waiting in the courtyard. “It was a nasty gash,” he told Skilgannon. “Naslyn stitched it. I think he will be fine.”
“That is good.”
“You are leaving us?”
“How can I stay, Braygan? Even without the deaths they know who I am. Hunters will come, killers seeking bounty.”
“So you really are the Damned?”
“I am.”
“It is hard to believe. The stories must be . . . exaggerated.”
“No they are not. Everything you have heard is true.”
Moving away from him, Skilgannon mounted the steps to the abbot’s chambers. He found him upon his bed, Naslyn beside him. The black-bearded priest rose as he entered and left quietly. Skilgannon approached the bed and looked down at the gray face of the elderly abbot.
“I am sorry, Elder Brother.”
“As am I, Skilgannon. I thought my dream meant a candle of love. It did not. It meant a warrior’s flame. Now everything we set out to do here is sullied. We are the priests who killed to save ourselves.”
“Would you sooner have died out there?”
“Yes, Skilgannon, I would. Or rather, the priest that I am would. The man that I am is grateful for a few more days, months, or years of life. Go to the closet over there. At its base you will find a bundle wrapped in an old blanket. Fetch it here.”
Skilgannon did as he was bid. As he touched the bundle he knew instinctively what was hidden within it. His pulse began to race. “Open it,” ordered Cethelin.
“I do not want them.”