"That's what I was just thinking," the mercenary captain, Sarkos, muttered. Scarra had hired the best protection he could find, albeit for half their usual fee now, and a dozen men in brigandine were posted around the house.
"What is it, boy?" Scarra said to the child.
"Soldiers, Master Scarra. Coming along Dead Tree Brook."
"Secular, or religious?" Sarkos asked, suddenly all business.
Scarra was grateful for his alertness, but despaired at his gruffness with such a clearly terrified boy.
"Did they wear a symbol?" Scarra asked.
The boy nodded. "A circle, with a cross through it."
"The Swords. Makennon's private army. As if the true God would need anything so crude."
Sarkos smiled lopsidedly. "The true God can make do with a handful of hired blades?"
Scarra glared. "He can if the hired blades are as good as their Captain says they are." He turned back to the boy. "How many soldiers?"
"Six Knights."
"On horseback?"
"Yes. And almost ten times as many men on foot, with leather armour."
Sarkos snatched up his broadsword and belt from a table. "They outnumber us but we have more horses."
"Have my mount saddled." Scarra said.
"No."
"I wasn't planning to come along."
"I guessed that much," Sarkos said, managing not to sneer too much. "I'm saying don't try running, at least until my men have scouted the routes out of here. They'd have to be as thick as pig shit to not have put guards on all your exits." He sighed. "Hasso was right, wasn't he?"
"They're the Faith," Scarra muttered darkly. "Pigs all right. Pigs who take on the responsibilities of the Lord Of All and think women can tell men how to get closer to God."
Sarkos shrugged. "A woman can take me to heaven any day. Anyway, the Faith may be pigs, but they're not thick."
"True," Scarra admitted.
"So, you just stay here until my scouts confirm an escape route."
Something settled in Scarra's mind. He didn't like that Sarkos had opined that Hasso had been right about being short-changed. Hasso had run out after that, and Scarra had thought he had followed Kell and got himself killed. Now another idea struck him; Hasso might be the one who had led the Faith straight here. The further thought occurred that Sarkos and the other Red Daggers might change sides and join with their old comrade to turn Scarra in. In which case, he didn't want them to know what he would do now. That way they couldn't tell the Faith. "No… Never mind the escape routes. I've run enough. We'll make a stand."
Sarkos nodded. "Good for you."
"I will, however," Scarra said, "return to the main house. If it comes to it, it is more defendable."
"You've got guts, I'll give you that."
"The Lord of All is with me," Scarra assured him. He didn't say that he was simply bone-tired. Maybe he'd been frightened enough over the past few days for the power of that emotion to wear off. He had grown up in Nurn and moved down to Pontaine well before the last war, when his father defected to the Brotherhood and raised him into that sect. He had earned the right to buy this estate from his father, who had handed over the deeds with great pride. The small church would stay in the hands of the Brotherhood this way.
Scarra momentarily remembered the service in which he, his father and several other members of the family had joined the Brotherhood of the Divine Path in the wake of the elder Scarra's failure to become Anointed Lord of the Faith. So much could have been different if that had happened, Scarra knew. For one thing, he would never have ended up subordinate to that arrogant schemer Goran Kell.
Scarra knew that he had been used and he hadn't minded so long as it hurt the Faith, but he knew Kell had kept secrets from him. Worse, he knew Kell hadn't really trusted him, despite his years of loyalty to the Brotherhood. And now Kell had abandoned him instead of protecting him. Intellectually, Scarra knew Kell was protecting himself, but in his heart it was still a betrayal that had to be repaid.
At least his father had died in the war and thus been spared burning in a gibbet at the behest of the Faith. His father had made a good escape and so Scarra would too; preferably without dying though. A diversion would do the job as just as well.
"Good luck, Scarra." Sarkos gave him a salute. "We'll do what it takes."
"I know." With a sigh, Scarra shook Sarkos' hand in a warrior's wrist to wrist grip.
"You paid for a service, you get that service," Sarkos said. Scarra wished he could tell whether the man was being sincere, or making some dig about only being paid half. If it was the latter, then it was a surely a sign that he was about to betray Scarra.
Dead Tree Brook was small but trickled quickly along a wide, stony bed between two slopes of olive trees. The vineyard was beyond it, further upstream. The Swords were progressing on both sides of the stream, creeping towards Scarra's estate.
Nobody was surprised, as they neared the estate, to hear a distant rumble.
"Riders," Erak said. "decent horses too, not farm drays. Form up. We're about to have company."
Gabriella tensed as fifteen riders emerged from the groves on either side of them. They were all in leather amour, some with mail shirts or iron helms, and all carried swords or axes. There were no javelins or crossbows as far as Gabriella could see. Their shields were painted with blood-coloured daggers.
The mercenaries didn't attack, but took up positions in a semicircle in front of the Swords, blocking their path. One of them rode forward. "This is private property, friend," he said firmly. "I'm going to have to ask you to turn around."
Gabriella glanced at her comrades. Erak looked surprised, as did Oaks and Komo, while Tanner kept a poker face. The soldiers-at-arms were all professionally blank, waiting for orders. Erak nudged his horse forward.
"Captain…?"
"Sarkos."
"Captain Sarkos, We are members of the Order of the Swords of Dawn — "
"So I can see."
Erak kept his voice polite but low. "We are on our way to the estate of one Karel Scarra. I suggest you let us past. You may escort us if you wish."
"I'll be perfectly happy to escort you off this land."
"That's not what I meant." Erak kept his voice level, but Gabriella could see in his eyes that he knew which way this conversation was going to go. She was also certain that every moment they spent here meant a bigger lead for Scarra, who was no doubt wobbling off in the opposite direction as fast as his legs could carry his ungainly load.
"I know." Sarkos smiled and Erak's fingers began to flex.
"Let me," Gabriella said, putting her hand on Erak's forearm and gently pushing his hand away from his sword. "Are you religious, Captain Sarkos?"
He hesitated, put off his stride by the interruption. "Depends what you mean?"
"Do you observe the Tenthday?" Gabriella asked. "Make the proper offerings and tithes?"
He nodded reluctantly. "You don't meet a lot of soldiers who don't. It's always a good idea to keep your soul in good shape when you know you might end up in the clouds or the pits any minute."
"Sounds wise to me. So, here's the deal to keep your souls in good shape," Gabriella said, smiling. "You dismount, chat to our Confessor, pay a penance for your sins."
"Or?"
"Or you stay mounted, take on a numerically superior, better-trained force, and make your confessions to the Lord of All when you meet him; which you will, very quickly thereafter."
"You're threatening our employer."
"I'm dealing with a serious morality crime. The attempted assassination of a Final Faith Eminence by a member of a heretical sect." The mercenary Captain paled, clearly shocked by this news. "By rights I should have you under arrest already."