The Deathmaster fell to his knees, still gaping at the weapon. Furious, Cathan got to his feet, reached down, and lifted Damid’s scimitar. Setting his own blade aside, he walked to the high priest, grabbed the bear’s skull, and wrenched it from the man’s head. The Deathmaster was old, his face scarred by some long-ago pox. There were finger-bones woven into his hair and beard. He looked up, his dark eyes shining with fanatical hatred.
When he opened his mouth to curse Cathan, though, only a dark rope of blood spilled out.
“By the Divine Hammer,” Cathan pronounced, raising his dead friend’s blade, “in the name of god and Kingpriest, I condemn thee. Du tas usam, porved.”
Go to thy god.
The blade fell.
CHAPTER 2
The Knights built two pyres the morning after the attack, on the cliff tops overlooking the Hullbreaker. The storm had broken, yielding to gray skies fringed with blue in, the south, and the sea had lost its rage. Gulls wheeled above, and crows as well, drawn by the smell of the dead. Far off, well beyond the stone spire, the dark speck of a lone caravel plied the waves.
The first pyre was a jumble of driftwood and scrub, thrown in a crude heap. Sprawled upon it, arms outflung and, often as not, eyes staring wide, were the Chemoshans and the stinking corpses who had served them. A few of the death cult’s ghouls still twitched, clinging to their horrible unlife. The knights had spent the better part of the night dragging them back from the Hullbreaker, The Church mandated that servants of evil be purified with flame, and so Cathan threw first torch onto the pyre as the company’s priests flicked oil upon the bodies. The conflagration leaped high, the trailing black smoke across the sky.
The second pyre, placed upwind of the first, was smaller-Paladine be blessed, Cathan thought as he looked upon it. It was carefully stacked, cut from a stand of goldleaf trees that stood inland. The bodies upon it were more orderly, each laid upon his shield, his hands grasping his weapon upon his breast. The dead knights’ eyes were closed, the more ghastly wounds covered with white linen. Here the priests took greater care with the rites of sanctification. They laid blocks of sweet incense among the dead, carefully daubed-each with oil, and recited the Ligibo, the ritual for those who died fighting in the god’s name.
“Porasom, usas farnas,” the clerics prayed, “e bonasom iudun donbulas, Palado fi.”
Go, children of the god, and dwell beyond the stars, at Paladine’s side forevermore.
As one, the surviving knights-twenty in all where thirty had stood the night before-drew blade and mace, and raised them high in salute. “Sifat,” they murmured.
Here, too, Cathan lit the first brand. He had lost count of how many men of the Divine Hammer-and boys, for that matter-he had burned over the years. Too many faces to remember, all of them martyrs in the Kingpriest’s name. Today, though, it was harder to light the fire. Damid, whose body lay shrouded to conceal how the Deathmaster had ruined him, had been more than just a comrade at arms. They had spent many good days together, drinking in wine shops and laughing at each other’s tales. They had journeyed from one end of the empire to the other. Now those days were done, and Cathan felt tired and old. It wasn’t like losing a brother, as some men said-Cathan’s own brother was twenty years gone, victim to a terrible plague, and that loss was still a thorn in his heart-but it hurt all the same.
“Farewell, my friend,” he said, as he set the pyre ablaze.
He walked away, not bothering to look back as the other knights added their own torches to the pile. He went to the cliffs edge, staring out at the caravel with his colorless eyes. The wind snapped at his white tabard, and fine rain began to fall. Sighing, he reached to his belt and pulled forth a talisman of bones and teeth, tipped with a rat’s skull. Black sapphires glittered in the empty sockets. He had pulled it from the Deathmaster’s neck, as proof the old man was dead. There was still blood on it. Now he stared at it, drawn into its ebon gaze.
Behind him, someone coughed. Cathan started, closing his fist around the talisman, and glanced over his shoulder. Tithian stood there, freckled, shaggy, and gangly.
Confronted with his master’s strange stare, he flushed deep red and looked down at his boots. The other knights and squires had taken to calling him Sword flinger after the battle.
Though Cathan had been only slightly older when he first became a knight, Tithian still looked little more than a boy.
“This war,” he said, scuffing the ground with his foot. “It never will end, will it, sir?”
Damid would have laughed at the question, in his infectious way. Just remembering it made Cathan chuckle. Seeing Tithian’s flush deepen, he laid a hand on the boy’s shoulder.
“This is no war, lad,” he said. “We fight the battle every pious man fights, to rid himself of evil-only we fight it for the empire. Our task is to keep the darkness at bay, not to destroy it utterly.”
In its early days, the Divine Hammer had sought to eradicate all evil in Istar. It remained the knighthood’s stated policy, even now. The Kingpriest still spoke of his promised kingdom of eternal light, where the sun would burn so brightly there would be no need for shadow. After so many years, however-so many lives lost-Cathan had found that as weak as the servants of darkness grew, there were always more of them. Perhaps there always would be.
Tithian coughed again, still studying his toes.
“What is it?” Cathan asked.
The squire squirmed beneath his stare. “Well, sir. I mean. It …” He stopped, took a deep breath. “The men say I’m to be knighted for … for what happened.”
Cathan scowled. Those dolts, he thought. I’d been hoping to keep it a surprise.
“Of course,” he said reassuringly. “You don’t do what you did and just get a pat on the head, lad. When we get back to the Lordcity, Grand Marshal Tavarre will dub you himself.”
He paused, frowning as he studied the boy’s grimacing face. “You’re supposed to be happy about that news, Tithian.”
“I know, sir,” Tithian said. “And I’m glad. But…well, I’d hoped you would…”
Pride surged in Cathan’s breast. He’d had four squires before Tithian-all of them knights now, two already dead and burned-but none had asked such a thing of him.
Rightly so, too: the code of the Divine Hammer was clear that the only men who could confer knighthood were the order’s Grand Marshal and the Kingpriest himself. There was something different about Tithian, though. The boy doted on him. He’d been an orphan when the order first took him in, had never known his father, didn’t even have a family name. If Damid had been almost a brother to Cathan, Tithian was nearly his son — and as close as anyone would be, since as a holy order, the Divine Hammer demanded chastity of its members.
Cathan smiled. “Kneel, then.”
Grinning like a kender, Tithian obeyed. His mail rattled as he lowered himself to the rocky ground.
“You understand this isn’t the official ceremony,” Cathan said. “Tavarre will still take care of that. You’re not getting out of your vigil that easily.”
Tithian nodded, still beaming. Chuckling, Cathan reached across his body and drew Ebonbane. The rasp of metal drew the other knights’ attention, and they looked on in surprise as he raised the blade, then set it down on his squire’s shoulders in turns-left, then right, then left again.
“All right,” Cathan bade, sliding his sword home again. “Get up. You’re not a true knight yet, lad, but you’re one in my eyes.”
Any wider and Tithian’s smile would have split his head in two. Leaping to his feet, he clasped Cathan’s arms. “Thank you, sir,” he gushed. “Thank you!” He dashed off, back toward the other squires, who were eyeing him jealously.