“Du-chairn! Du-chairn! Du-chairn!”
The shouts rose above the vast, indistinguishable crowd surf of the mob, and he swallowed hard.
“Your Grace, we have to go,” Rayno said urgently.
“Go?” Clyntahn turned back to the archbishop. “You mean run? Run away like a dog with my tail between my legs?!”
“Your Grace, we’ve lost. For today, at least, we’ve lost. I have reports of additional Army troops moving into the city from the Holy Martyrs Training Camp. I don’t doubt more are coming from farther away. Apparently there’s been some fighting in the ranks, some resistance by men who understand where their true loyalty lies, but their resistance has been crushed. Most of the men marching into the city seem to be prepared to follow their officers’ orders even against the Inquisition, and at least a quarter, probably more, of the Temple Guardsmen we’d counted upon to support our agents inquisitor have gone over to the traitors. And between the cordon around St. Thyrmyn and what happened to our people who were caught in the streets, I doubt there are more than twenty percent of our agents inquisitor in any position to help us. Without more men, we can’t hold the Temple. We just can’t. So it’s time to get you out of Zion to someplace where you can rally the Faithful to deal with this.”
“Someplace like where?” Clyntahn demanded.
“This madness can’t have infected the entire Temple Lands,” Rayno replied. “There are too many Faithful out there, and they couldn’t possibly have coordinated something like this all across the Temple Lands without our picking up some indication of what was coming. They obviously believe that if they can take Zion, if they can control the Temple itself—and if they can take you—the rest of the Temple Lands will fall into line. That means this is the focal point of their entire rebellion. So if we can get you away, outside the area of their control, I’m sure we can rally forces from the other episcopates. And, in a worst case, if we can get you to Harchong—where we know we can count on the people’s loyalty and faith—God will surely show us the path to reclaim Zion in His good time.”
Clyntahn stared at him for a handful of heartbeats. Then he nodded sharply.
“You’re right, Wyllym,” he said crisply. “Let’s go.”
* * *
No one knew why the tunnel had been dug in the first place. It was obviously as ancient, or almost as ancient, as the Temple itself, because it was illuminated by the same mystic panels that lit the Temple. Its walls were lined with brick, however, not with the smooth, solid stone the Archangels had used. According to the oldest rumors, it had been built after the Archangels’ servitors had withdrawn to the Dawn Star and it had departed in glory.
Wyllym Rayno didn’t know about that, but he did know it was one of the Inquisition’s most tightly held secrets. It was over seventeen miles long, from the Temple’s cellars all the way across Templesborough and Langhornesborough to the countryside beyond, and its exit was hidden under a vineyard the Order of Schueler had very quietly owned for well over three centuries.
The tunnel was amply large enough for the thirty picked agents inquisitor escorting him and the Grand Inquisitor to safety. Every one of those bodyguards was an experienced veteran of either the Temple Guard or the Army of God—men who’d distinguished themselves in rooting out heresy and proven their loyalty time and again. Of course, simple loyalty and zeal weren’t enough to gain a man admission to the Grand Inquisitor’s own guard. They also had to have thoroughly demonstrated their competence, and there wasn’t a man of that guard who wouldn’t have qualified easily for an officer’s commission in the AOG.
Another seventy men waited at the vineyard, sent ahead to secure the exit and arrange horses. Rayno wished they had horses in the tunnel itself, but although it was wide enough, its roof was far too low, which was … unfortunate. The Grand Inquisitor was a poor rider, but he was even more poorly accustomed to seventeen-mile hikes, and the entire party had to pause for rest far more often than Rayno preferred. Every time they did, he worried that someone they’d believed was loyal might have betrayed the tunnel’s existence to the traitors. That they were being pursued even as they stood guard, waiting for Clyntahn’s breathing to settle back into a normal range.
But, eventually, they reached the far end and went hurrying up the steps. They emerged into another cellar, quiet and cool, shadowed by enormous wooden vats, and Rayno heaved a vast sigh of relief. But then he frowned. He’d expected to find at least one of the men he’d sent ahead waiting to guide them to the others. On the other hand, it wasn’t as if the bodyguards surrounding him and Clyntahn weren’t fully capable of finding their own way up the stairs. Besides—
They reached the head of the stairs, emerged into the early afternoon sunlight, and froze.
At least they knew why there hadn’t been anyone waiting for them at the tunnel exit, a tiny corner of Wyllym Rayno’s mind thought numbly.
All seventy of the men he’d sent ahead lay scattered about. Or he thought they were all there, anyway. It was hard to be certain, given all the blood and body parts, and he felt his gorge rise. Everywhere he looked, there was more blood, more carnage.
There’s not even one intact body, he thought, staring at corpses which had lost heads, or arms, or legs, or some hideous combination of all three. And standing there, amid the butchery, were two people.
Only two.
His heart froze and his breathing stopped as he realized who—or at least what—those people were. The Inquisition’s entire intelligence apparatus reported directly to him. He’d seen more than one sketch of a so-called seijin, and especially of the two most infamous false seijins of them alclass="underline" Merlin Athrawes and Nimue Chwaeriau. But neither of these were Athrawes or Chwaeriau. He didn’t know who the shorter, female seijin was, but he’d seen at least one sketch of her taller companion.
Dialydd Mab, the seijin who’d made the destruction of the Inquisition and all its works his personal crusade.
“Don’t just stand there!” Clyntahn bellowed. “Take them!”
If their escort had been given time to think about it, they might not have obeyed that thunderous order. They might have paused, looked upon the bodies of their fellows, reflected that they might fare no better, and considered an alternative reponse. But they weren’t given that time, and the reflexes of their training took over.
They charged the two seijins, half of them shouting war cries, and the seijins came to meet them.
The seijins didn’t charge. Neither did they shout. They simply walked into the agents inquisitor, and if the fact that they were outnumbered fifteen-to-one concerned them, they showed no sign of it.
Then the charging agents inquisitor were upon them, and the carnage began.
Rayno’s eyes bulged in stunned disbelief. He’d read report after report about the seijins—especially about Athrawes—and their incomparable lethality, and he’d rejected them as the obvious exaggerations they were.
But they hadn’t been exaggerations after all.
The seijins’ swords moved so swiftly they weren’t even blurs, and they struck with deadly accuracy. They truly were capable—even the woman, despite her smaller, more delicate frame—of decapitating a man with a one-hand blow. That was one of the things Rayno had refused to believe, but he could disbelieve no longer as heads and limbs and blood exploded away from those deadly swords.