“Break the key, and break the binding that draws the thing here. Break the stave. That is the center.”
Tregaran looked around wildly, seeing the first of his troops fall as the Fires, strengthened by the bodies of the fallen, lashed out at the living. A soldier frantically defended himself, using his blade to block the fist-shaped tounge of flame that grew out of the bonfire, punched through his armor, and immolated him. He had bare seconds to scream before writhing on the scorched paving stones, his body alight in sickly red flames. Tregaran heard a second scream to his right a moment later, and saw a third soldier fall across the square.
Tregaran knew then what he had to do.
He threw his shield away and gripped his sword tightly in both hands. He shook off the last feelings of despair and gathered his will into a single dart of purpose.
He lifted the blade over his head and charged the swirling pillar of flame.
Cogern with the First Battle just crested the hill and started the running slide down into the fight when the detonation blew him backward onto the scree. The entire center of the village, totally shrouded by flames and rising smoke, blew outward, the pressure wave tossing the smoke aside as it would a curtain. The lurid red glow that marked the horizon faded then, to something more normal.
An under-officer, his armor scorched and one arm hanging free, staggered into him. “Warmaster! Thank V’kandis! The colonel’s down.”
Cogern followed at a run, the bulk of First Battle behind. They passed into the center square, where the bonfires had been snuffed by the blast. A distant part of Cogern’s mind registered there was no wood in those fires, only bones. Second Battle lay scattered around the square, some dead, more hurt, most stunned from the detonation.
In the center lay Tregaran, held by an openly weeping soldier. Nearby lay the blasted body of something with too many arms, and a broken stave lay nearby.
Cogern fell to his knees next to what was left of Tregaran. Shiny skull showed at Tregaran’s forehead and his fingers and armor appeared burned away. Strips of flesh hung from the colonel’s ruined body, and sightless eyes stared up. Cogern wept freely.
The chirurgeon appeared from behind the men, falling to his knees besides them. He took a silvered mirror and held it to where Tregaran’s lips had been.
“By all that’s Holy, he’s alive!”
Cogern looked up, tears pouring down his sooty face.
“Will he live?”
The chirurgeon looked down, then up. “No. He’s too badly hurt. There’s nothing we can do. He’s probably not even aware of us.”
The firecat, unnoticed, sat to one side. It had done what it could to take as much of the man’s pain as he could. He opened the door to the man’s mind and began to ease him away. Better to end this now.
Tregaran slipped into something like a dream. He walked on a wide plain, marked only by the dead Herald and the horse’s head on the pike.
“It’s not your fault, you know.”
She sat on a rock nearby, her squarish jaw not a feature he liked. She stood, her acolyte’s chiton flaring around her and settling back. Her long, lithe legs flashed as she jumped down from the rock and walked toward the Herald.
“You see this as what you fight for,” she said. It was not a question. “You march your regiment from border to border, defending those who pervert the Way.” She gently took his hand between hers. He could feel his scarred fingers rough against her smooth palm, feel the scribe’s callus on the index finger against the back of his hand. “You lead your regiment to battle after battle. You execute traitors condemned by Laskaris’ word, with not a peep in their defense. You start wars you know are wrong, execute orders you know are wrong, and sent many a brave soldier to their deaths for a Son of the Sun you don’t believe in.”
Each sentence, softly spoken, struck him like a physical blow. “Yes,” he could but nod. “Yes.”
Her cool hand brushed his face. “You saved those you could from the Fires, spared the wounded from pointless burning. You did as you were sworn to do, leading your regiment to battle to defend your country, and enforcing those laws placed in your hands to enforce. Your doubt of your orders came often afterward, in the full light of day, and in growing realization of error . . . when duty compelled and honor failed.”
She smiled at him. He inhaled her scent, of honeysuckle and jasmine. “You have guarded your country, obeyed those you swore to obey, and held to duty when faith swayed.” She leaned down to him and kissed his brow. “Your god is pleased with you, Tregaran.”
“I love you, Solaris,” he whispered.
And in Cogern’s arms, he died.
The firecat lay still as the noon sun streamed down overhead. Tregaran’s body had been removed in great honor. Cogern’s men had worked their revenge, rooting out Black-robe sanctuaries all over the outskirts of Sunhame. It would be a miracle if even a few survived who lived within a day’s ride of the capital.
The ’cat felt the surge and heave of the god’s presence, even this far from Sunhame, as He made His own appearance. By now, Laskaris would be dead, and Solaris, ascendant.
A small tendril of that power settled at the place where a man gave his life for a woman, for love.
A second firecat shimmered out of the void and stepped down. It didn’t seem to know exactly what to do with its tail.
“Was that me?” it said, looking at the place where the colonel had died.
“Yes,” said the firecat. “Your task now is to watch over her. She is handmaid to our Lord, and she must survive.”
“I will,” said the new ’cat.
“In the meantime,” said the old, “let me show you the joys of field mice. They go best with toast.”
The chirurgeon deserted the next morning. A month later, he knelt before his own bound liege.
“Arise, Healer, and report,” said Queen Selenay of Valdemar. “What of Karse?”
THE BLUE COAT
by Fiona Patton
Fiona Patton lives in rural Ontario, Canada with her partner, a fierce farm Chihuahua, and inumerable cats. She has four novels out with DAW Books:
The Stone Prince, The Painter Knight, The Granite Shield,
and
The Golden Sword
. Her fifth novel,
The Silver Lake
, was published in hardcover by DAW in 2005. She has twenty-odd short stories published in various DAW/Tekno anthologies including
Sirius the Dog Star, Assassin Fantastic
, and
Apprentice Fantastic
.
SPRING had come late to the Ice Wall Mountains. Although the warm afternoon breezes had brought the first of the tiny purple-and-yellow flowers pushing up through the snow, the passes were still closed and the nights still frosty and cold well into the season. Two figures, each heavily bundled in hides and fleece and wearing thick caps made of the soft, luxurious brown fur that gave the Goshon clan its name, walked single file along a narrow, barely passable mountain path. Each carried a short hunting bow and several brown-fletched arrows in ornate quivers at their backs and long knives, waterskins, and a brace of rabbits at their belts. The older, just past twenty years in age, was tall and thin, with a short length of beard and long, dark hair, plaited in several thick braids and tied with bits of hide. The younger, closer to fourteen or fifteen, was clean-shaven, lighter in coloring and more compact in build, but still bore a striking resemblance to his companion. As the path widened to reveal a small, protected vale, they paused to study the tableau below them with an apprehensive air.