A good part of him hoped Beldinas would not discover a way to foil the groves’ magic. He didn’t tell that to his men, though, nor to anyone else. They would have thought him a coward if he had. It wasn’t battle he feared, though-it was the question circling around and around in his mind: was this the god’s will?
The Lightbringer wished it, and he was Paladine’s voice. That ought to be enough-as it had been, for twenty years-but it wasn’t. The Kingpriest had changed, and Cathan had felt the magic. He could no longer easily revile it as others did.
He bowed his head, signing the triangle. “Father of Dawn,” he murmured. “What am I to do?”
“Sir? Are you well?”
Startled, Cathan looked up: Tithian. His former squire stood in the doorway, swaying a little from the wine. His brows knitted with concern.
“I’m fine, lad,” he said, unsure whether that was a lie. “I just grew tired of the noise.”
“Marto, you mean,” Tithian said with a grin.
Cathan laughed. “Him too.”
Tithian came forward to join him. He was silent a moment, looking at the moons. “I think about Damid sometimes,” he said. “I think he may have been luckier than any of us.”
Cathan looked at him in surprise.
“He dwells with the god now,” Tithian explained, his eyes glistening with tears. “He didn’t have to be at the Bilstiho, or the Eusymmeas.” He shook his head. “Or here.”
He’s afraid, Cathan thought. He doesn’t want to fight this battle, either. He rested a hand on Tithian’s shoulder.
“Damid was my right hand,” he said. “We protected each other. I’m honored that you have taken his place, lad.”
“But I’m not as good a fighter as the others. Most of them, anyway. I’m just-”
“You’re a knight of the Divine Hammer, lad,” Cathan said.
The tears were gone from Tithian’s eyes. Slowly, a broad grin took their place. He clasped Cathan’s hand and pressed it to his lips-then stopped, catching his breath.
Cathan blinked. Tithian’s gaze had shifted, looking over his shoulder. He turned and let out a soft oath of his own. There, soaring toward him, was a clockwork falcon.
It swooped in low, gears clattering, its brass wings beating the air. Cathan took a step back as it touched down, landing on a nearby stone bench with a clank. It looked at him with glinting yellow eyes, and its beak opened to let out a metallic squawk. Looking closer, Cathan saw a message tied to its leg.
Gingerly, he retrieved the note. It bore the imperial sigil in blue wax. He broke the seal and unfurled the scroll-and something fell out. Tithian reached out, catching it, and they looked at each other in confusion.
“A cypress cone?” asked the younger knight.
Shrugging, Cathan looked down at the scroll. His mouth became a hard line as he read.
Grand Marshal Cathan,
The time has come for us to act. The cone you hold is the way through the grove. Plant it, and it will part the trees for you.
If you do not receive another message before Spring Dawning, you must proceed at once with your attack upon the Tower of High Sorcery, For the glory of Istar, it will fall. When it belongs to you and the last of the mages are fled or in chains, you and your men shall return to the Lordcity. I look forward to that day.
May Kiri-Jolith guide thy sword, and Paladine thy steps,
Beldinas Pilofiro
Voice of Paladine and true Kingpriest of Istar
Cathan stared at the message. Spring Dawning was only five days away. His eyes shifted to the cone in Tithian’s hand. Lord Yarns and Duke Serl would, no doubt, be receiving similar tokens. He wondered how Beldinas had acquired them.
“Best not lose that,” he said, taking it from Tithian. Carefully, he tucked it into a pouch.
As he did, the falcon vaulted into the air, flapped its rattling wings, and wheeled away to the north. Cathan and Tithian watched it go. When it was out of sight, Cathan glanced back at the message and sighed.
“Well, then,” he said, steering Tithian back toward the palace. “Come on, lad. We have a battle to make ready for.”
CHAPTER 27
“Six days!” roared Duke Serl, crumpling the missive in his hand. “I have half a legion of men awaiting my order, and that Istaran whelp wants me to wait another six bloody days!”
Emperor Gwynned of Ergoth grunted, leaning back in his bronze throne with drool on his chin. His audience hall, though one of the grandest ever built, was small when compared to the Kingpriest’s. It was a dim, smoky place, hung with the shields of the empire’s noble houses and the heads of dragons slain in ages past. Great fire-bowls flanked the throne, their golden glow bathing the sovereign of what once had been the greatest empire in the world.
Gwynned was a weak man, both in body and in spirit. He had been born sickly-centuries of dynastic inbreeding had seen to that-and had a fondness for drink that was killing him by inches. Barely thirty, he had the constitution of a man thrice his age, and half the time he was too deep in his cups to govern. Even now, a mug of ale rested on the arm of his throne, sweating in the fire’s warmth. His counselors had been ruling the empire in his stead from the day of his coronation.
Serl Kar-thon, one of the foremost of those counselors, was by contrast a strong man.
Tall and built like an ox, he could hold his own against the finest warriors in the land, despite his fifty-some years. His hoary beard covered a grisly scar where an assassin had tried to cut his throat. He had broken the man’s neck with his bare hands. Few men in Ergoth could match the duke in fierceness … and he was very angry just now.
“That whelp, need I remind you, is the one who discovered the way through the grove,” said a white-cassocked, gray-bearded figure across from Serl. Grand Celebrant Kyad, high priest of the Ergothian church-the only other man in the room-raised a bushy eyebrow.
“It may be he knows what he is doing.”
The duke shot him a glance that could bore through stone, but didn’t deign to reply.
Instead he turned to Gwynned, peering into his bloodshot eyes. Emperors past had beheaded good men for such presumption, but Serl got away with it.
“Excellency,” the Duke declared, “this is an outrage. We are Ergothmen-we ruled here when the Istarans were barbarians in skin huts! The fame of taking the first Tower should belong to us, but it’s the knights in Losarcum who get to strike the first blow, while we wait another day to follow their lead.”
Gwynned pursed his lips, as if he thought to say something, then made a sound like a small explosion as he stifled a belch. Serl fought back the urge to grab the emperor and hurl him into a fire-bowl. One day, he hoped, a Kar-thon dynasty might replace the degenerate Gwynned and his line, but not today.
“Take heart, Lord Duke,” said Kyad. “At least we move before Yarns in Palanthas.”
“Pah,” declared Serl, spitting on the stone floor. “Some glory. We should be first. We have the seed to do it.” He held up a fist, clasped about the pine nut that had come with the message, strapped to one of the Lightbringer’s mechanical raptors. “Give the order, Excellency, and I shall assail the Tower tonight. Then the world will celebrate Ergoth’s might!”
Gwynned followed hardly any of this. His face showed only stupor, his head lolling first to one side, then the other. That gave the Grand Celebrant time enough to speak up again, the cleric leaning so far forward that it seemed his tall miter might topple from his head.
“My lord,” Kyad declared, “we must cleave to the plan. I think the good duke’s thirst for vengeance blinds his judgment.”