He let his eyes open, taking in his surroundings. He lay amid a heap of blankets in an old, wind-worn ruin-a few crumbling, sandstone buildings surrounded by the stub of a wall, all of it mantled in red dust. Once, it had been a monastery. To which god Andras wasn’t sure, though the fact that the Abyss-spawned quasitas could dwell here gave him confidence it wasn’t any of the gods of light. His “children” could not bear hallowed ground.
They were everywhere here, perched like gargoyles on the rocks, occasionally leaping up to flap to some other spot. A few slept, their misshapen heads tucked beneath their wings, but most were awake, looking about with their feline eyes, or feeding on the bodies of wild dogs they had caught in the hills. There were two dead quasitas beside the other corpses too, their bellies ripped open, the ground beneath them soaked with black blood. Andras scowled at the sight, but let it be. The beasts sometimes killed their own, and there was nothing he could do to deter them. He had lost more than thirty since the summoning, but that still left him with more than a hundred. It would be enough.
He rubbed his maimed hand. The flesh was still crusted with scabs where his finger had been. Fistandantilus had given him a poultice to speed the healing but nothing for the pain. Even now, phantom twinges troubled him as his body tried to remember the piece it had lost. The aches only added fuel to his rage. Were it not for the Divine Hammer, his hand would still be whole. Another reason to hate. Another reason to rejoice.
He rose, and a hundred pairs of eyes turned to stare at him, a hundred tiny bodies tensed. The quasitas purred as he walked among them, knowing what was to come. After weeks of slaking their bloodlust on rats and dogs, the time had come for the true feast. He wished he could be there to see it, but the Dark One had been adamant when he gave Andras his instructions.
“They will burn you if they catch you,” Fistandantilus had warned-his last words before he teleported Andras and the quasitas here, to the wilds of Seldjuk. “Do you want that?”
Andras did not. What joy could he take in revenge if he were dead?
A flight of stairs, worn to humps by the ages, led up the wall. He climbed them carefully, aware of the malicious, hungry stares fixed on his back. The bricks of the wall were loose, shifting under his feet as he stepped onto what had once been ramparts. He couldn’t see Lattakay from here-it was dozens of miles away, in country where the terrain hid anything more than a few hundred yards away from view-but he could sense its nearness, sense the knights. They were out there, enjoying the new year and their grand tourney, unaware that soon their revels would turn to tears and terror. Andras smiled, his eyes like stones.
“Go,” he murmured.
The crowd roared when Sir Marto went down, curses ringing from within his helm as Tithian swept his legs out from under him. The big knight hit the ground hard, then rolled, somehow getting his shield up to block the finishing blow. Tithian fell back a pace, then came on again as Marto rose to one knee, his beaked axe lashing out in a vicious arc. The blow would have disemboweled Tithian, had the weapon not been blunted for the tournament. As it was, it sent him staggering long enough for Marto to regain his feet. The crowd cheered again, and the big knight came on hard.
“You bloody whelp!” he thundered, laying in with a series of blows that knocked Tithian back. “It’ll take a better man than you to lay me out!”
Frantically, Tithian twisted aside, trying to circle around the big knight’s flank. Marto only laughed, pivoting without missing a beat, and kept at it, driving the younger man across the arena. Finally, Tithian backed into the fence that surrounded the fighting ground. With nowhere left to go, he concentrated on his parrying, using sword and shield to wall out Marto’s hammering blows.
No one ever won a battle with parrying alone, though. Tithian began to slow, then to falter. Marto came on even harder than before, driving the young knight to his knees, then striking him a blow to the elbow that made his sword hand go slack. The crowd groaned as the blade fell, and Marto kicked it away. In another instant, the big Karthayan had knocked aside Tithian’s shield and raised his axe high.
“Wait!” Tithian cried, yanking his helm from his head. His eyes were wide in his sweat-soaked face. “Silonno!”
I yield!
For a moment, Marto didn’t seem to hear. Then, with a laugh, he let his axe fall and raised his visor. “Took you long enough,” he boomed, offering his hand.
Tithian took it, flushing as he let the big knight drag him to his feet. Together they gathered their weapons, then made their way across the battleground. The sounds of cheering and clapping followed them as they left the arena.
Cathan greeted them as they entered the barracks where the men from his company waited their turn. Out on the field, two other knights-one from the city of Odacera, the other from Dravinaar-moved out to begin the next round.
“It’s all right,” he told Tithian, who looked grim. He clapped the young knight on the arm. “You lasted longer than I would have when I was your age, lad. None of us ever win our first tourney, anyway.”
“Speak for yourself,” Marto grinned, going to a barrel of cold water and ducking his head. He came back up with a roar, his long beard dripping. “I won mine! Whipped your feeble arse doing it too, if I recall. Sir.”
The knights all laughed. Even Sir Pellidas, who had lost his bout half an hour ago and had been glum ever since, allowed himself a silent smile. Cathan chuckled with the rest of them. Today they were all brothers, sworn to win the tourney for their honor.
Half the entrants had gone down to defeat during the first round that morning, fighting in teams of two until everyone had a go. Cathan’s men had lost only one pair in that time, which even Tavarre allowed was a remarkable feat. Their luck had worsened since then-with so many men remaining, they often had to fight each other-but they still outnumbered any other company by the third round. Now they were deep into the fourth, the sun heavy in the west, and the field was down to the finest fighters in the knighthood.
Every warrior who was not a part of the Divine Hammer was gone, and a field of sixteen remained, seven of them from Cathan’s company-six, now, with Tithian eliminated.
The remainder of the round went poorly, however, and the next as well. Cathan had to fight Marto, and put an end to the big knight’s boasting in less than a minute, giving him such a blow to the head that he could barely get his helmet off after, and had to spit out three teeth before he could find voice enough to yield. The rest of Cathan’s knights lost as well, and the good cheer in the barracks disappeared. By the time the sun set, only Cathan himself remained for the final melee.
“Bad luck,” said Lord Tavarre as he came off the field at the end of the round. He had faced a young knight from Calah and dispatched him with a hit to the chest that cracked two of the other man’s ribs. What was more, he’d barely broken a sweat doing it. He slapped Cathan’s back with a clank of armor on armor. “Down to just us now, and those two other fellows.”
Cathan nodded, tossing the Grand Marshal a skin of raw wine. “Good showing for Luciel, at least,” he said as the old knight drank.
“That it is!” Tavarre boomed. “Between you and your sister, you’ve done well for the memory of our little town, lad.” He lobbed the skin back.
“And you,” Cathan noted.
Tavarre spread his hands. “Of course.”
Cathan chuckled and was drawing breath to say more when trumpets blared outside.
The final was about to begin. Wincing, he grabbed up his helmet and shield. After seven battles today, they looked as battered as he felt.
“Gods,” he groaned. “Just let me live through this.”