That will end tonight, Cathan thought, touching Ebonbane again. By the god, it will.
“Sir? Sir!”
He blinked, snapping away from his musings to face the man who had spoken. It was his squire, a boy of sixteen summers with a wide, freckled face and a mane of straw-colored hair that he had gathered into a long ponytail. His armor was simple chain mail, the hammer on his blazon silver, reflecting the fact he had not yet been dubbed a knight. The eagerness in his eyes made them shine nearly as bright as Cathan’s own.
“What is it, Tithian?” Cathan asked.
“Sir, the boats are ready,” said the youth, who was Cathan’s squire. “Shall we go now?”
Cathan glanced at Damid, who shrugged, a grin twisting his lips. Tithian’s enthusiasm amused the Seldjuki, and Cathan had to fight back an answering smile. A Marshal of the Hammer didn’t mock his men, least of all for zeal. Besides, his own blood was beginning to warm a little, as well. After many years fighting evil in the Kingpriest’s name, the song of battle still rang within him.
“Very well,” he said: “Let’s attend the clerics first, though. We need our blessings before the battle.”
There were four priests in Cathan’s company, and now the knights gathered before them, heads bowed. Serissi, a silver-haired, iron-jawed woman in Mishakite blue who served as the band’s healer, prayed to her goddess to keep the knights safe from harm.
Revic, a mountain of a man with Kiri-Jolith’s golden tabard over his mail, cut the palm of his hand with a dagger, pouring his blood on the ground in the hopes that it would be the last they would shed that day. Athex-swarthy, fat, and draped in the purple of Habbakuk the Fisher-daubed the knights’ foreheads with blessed saltwater, reciting prayers of protection from the sea. Last, stooped by age and snowy vestments made heavy by the rain, came white-bearded Ovinus, Revered Son of Paladine, who sanctified them in the name of the holy church.
“Ucdas pafiro,” Ovinus prayed, signing the sacred triangle of Istar’s highest god, “nomas cridam pidias, e nos follas ebissas. Sifat.”
Father of Dawn, bring us glory, and guide our swords true. So let it be.
“Sifat,” the knights echoed. Each drew his weapon-sword, mace, or hammer-and laid a gentle kiss upon it. Then they turned and started down the cliff face.
The men who had once tended the Hullbreaker’s lighthouse had carved a long, narrow stair from the stone here. Wind and water had worn the steps smooth, and they were slick with rain, so the knights had to move slowly, creeping down to the rocky shore. Spray from the bursting surf billowed high above them. Most of the younger men, and a couple of the older ones too, stared at the water with dread-all the more so when they beheld the pair of boats that would carry them to battle.
They were puny things, six-oared shorecraft that bobbed and thudded against each other in the shallows. Damid coughed and sucked on his wispy moustache, and Tithian’s eyes were so wide, it seemed they would pop out of his skull. Cathan, however, merely nodded to himself, staring past the seas to the pillar of rock that was their destination. The storm was bad, but there would be no better time to assail the Chemoshans’ temple. The cultists would not see them coming in the tempest.
“Get in!” he shouted, above the storm’s roar. “As we arranged! Go!”
Several of the men were pale, their faces looking green in the lightning’s glare, but they all obeyed. They had taken oaths when they became knights, so on they went, sloshing through knee-deep water, then hoisting themselves over the gunwales. Cathan went last of all, clambering up to the prow of one vessel. It bucked beneath him as the sea swelled and dropped, but he kept his footing. He reached to his belt again, but this time his fingers didn’t find his sword. Rather, he pulled free a string of glistening pearls, letting them slide and dangle among his fingers. Drawing a deep breath, he held them out, pointing toward the rock.
“Palado Calib,” he said, “me iromas, tus ban abam drifo.”
Blessed Paladine, clear my path, that I may walk it without fear.
With that, he broke the string and flung the pearls away. A tiny hailstorm of pearls pattered down into the water before the skiff. Cathan held his breath, waiting. The sea swallowed them and continued to seethe for a time. Then silver light flared beneath the surface, and the water began to change.
Legends spoke of ancient priests, so rich in Paladine’s power that they could calm whole oceans with a prayer. This invocation wasn’t so strong. Beyond the foam-drenched rocks, the waves kept hurling themselves madly toward destruction. Around the two boats, however, the surface grew smooth, like a great sheet of Micahi glass. It didn’t even ripple when the oarsmen dipped their blades into it. The knights regarded it for a good while, wonder in their faces, then looked to Cathan again.
He smiled, his silver eyes flashing as a bolt of lightning struck the ruins atop the Hullbreaker. Slamming down his visor, he drew Ebonbane and pointed it forward.
“On, then! In the Kingpriest’s name!”
“For the Lightbringer!” the knights replied as one. Then the oarsmen set to, and the boats shot away from the shore.
The Chemoshans had set watchers on the rocks at the spire’s foot: six men with leather cuirasses under dark cloaks, and helmets made from the skulls of goats and wolves. In the storm’s fury, though, they didn’t notice the boats gliding toward them on patches of smooth water until they had pulled up to the Hullbreaker itself. The knights began to pour out even before the skiffs bumped to a stop, shouting the names of Paladine and the Kingpriest as they clambered up the slippery rocks. Shocked, the cultists hurried to block them, five brandishing sickle-bladed swords while one scrambled back toward a fissure in the stone, is robes flapping behind him.
The guards died quickly, in a clamor of steel. They were too few, the Divine Hammer too well trained. The followers of the death god fought without fear of being killed, but that didn’t stop steel from sliding between their ribs or opening their throats. Less than a minute after the battle began it was over, their bodies sprawled in tidal pools, the water billowing red about them. One young knight won a fresh scar on his chin from a sickle-blow, but other than that the knights escaped unharmed.
Still, the cultists achieved at least one goaclass="underline" the last of them escaped, disappearing into the fissure, shouting madly. The knights tried to give chase, but the ground was too treacherous, and he was gone before they, could stop him. Cathan cursed.
“So much for surprise,” said Damid.
Scowling, Cathan waved his sword, then plunged ahead toward the cave. “Quickly, men!” he shouted. “Take the fight to them!”
In the knights went, Cathan at the fore, Damid at his side. The tunnel was rough and close, its walls smeared with bloody handprints. Torches guttered in wall sconces, making the shadows dance. The way sloped down, a trickle of rainwater flowing along its midst as it twisted deep beneath the spire. As they left the din of the storm behind, a new sound rose, seeming to come up through the rocks beneath their feet. It was a deep thunder, the pounding of drums. Cathan signed the triangle. The Chemoshans skinned their instruments with hides flayed from living men. They made pipes of bones, too, but the knights were too far away to hear those yet.