“Our goal is to avert the invasion of Tymanther,” Perra said, “and a disaster in Luthcheq might accomplish that. Still, I take your point.”
“We nearly are to Luthcheq,” Khouryn said. He’d paid attention when he and the dragonborn had marched in the opposite direction.
“I know a spell or two to help us travel faster,” Biri said.
“As do I,” said Prax. He shifted his wings, and they gleamed in the moonlight. “But I can’t cast mine on the entire company, and I imagine yours are the same.”
Perra scowled for a moment, pondering. Then she said, “Sir Medrash, you’ll go on ahead. It’s your premonition, after all. Lady Biri and Sir Praxasalandos will accompany you to speed you on your way. And if the magic can manage so many, Khouryn and Balasar will ride with you as well. The rest of us will catch up as soon as we can.”
Balasar gave Khouryn a look of mock disgust. “I knew we wouldn’t dodge this either,” he said.
Cera kissed Aoth, then stepped far enough away from Jet to give him room to unfurl his wings. The griffon trotted with the uneven gait of his kind and then leaped upward. He and his master vanished into the night sky.
Cera took a long breath and turned toward the Keeper’s temple with its enormous sundial and colonnaded facade. Banners emblazoned with stylized sunsets hung from the cornices. She took that for a promising sign. Her order had chosen to observe the passing of its high priest whether Tchazzar liked it or not.
Then she stepped through the doorway and hands reached out to grab her from either side.
The assailant on her right had her arm gripped tightly, immobilizing her mace. But the one on her left didn’t achieve quite as firm a hold. She screamed, tore free, spun, and hit the man on the right in the teeth with her buckler, putting all her weight behind the blow.
The steel shield clanged. The man let go and reeled backward, and she saw he wore a badge in the shape of a wheel with five S-shaped spokes. A wyrmkeeper, then, or a warrior in their service.
His partner threw his arms around her from behind. She sensed she wouldn’t be able to break free again. But she did manage to shift sideways and jab the butt of the mace backward at groin level.
The man gasped and went rigid. She jabbed him again, and his arms jerked, loosening their hold. She yanked free, whirled, and smashed his nose with the mace. He fell back.
She glanced around, making sure neither man was about to come at her again, then looked to the interior of the temple. A fair number of men, women, and beasts were looking back at her.
It appeared that Tchazzar, Halonya, or someone else still loyal to the Red Dragon had also thought the sunlords might come out and fight. But unlike Cera, that person had moved to prevent it by dispatching wyrmkeepers, ruffians, and a pair of mastiff-sized drakes to round up Amaunator’s clergy and hold them prisoner in their own house of worship. It had likely been easy enough. The intruders had probably had surprise on their side, and while the sunlords all knew magic, including battle prayers, some had little experience in actual combat.
A wyrmkeeper snarled a sibilant word in what was almost certainly Draconic. The golden light of the lamps rippling across their olive green scales, the two drakes charged across the marble floor.
Cera called out to the Keeper, swept her mace over her head, and pointed it at the reptiles. A hedge of bright, whirling blades sprang into existence right in front of them. They were charging too rapidly to stop, and their own momentum flung them in. They tumbled out the other side, shredded and flopping in their death throes.
The blades of light blinked out of existence, and Cera advanced on the rest of her foes. “Surrender or die,” she said.
It was a bluff, of course, and a ridiculous one at that. She’d been lucky, but alone, she had no chance against so many. But if she could rivet all their attention on her, then maybe she wouldn’t be alone for long. If she distracted their captors, her brothers and sisters might seize the opportunity to act.
“Kill her!” a wyrmkeeper spit. Judging from the rings of five colors he wore on each hand, his filed, pointed teeth, and the tattooed scales that covered every inch of exposed skin, he was far advanced in the mysteries of his own order.
Warriors spread out to flank Cera. The wyrmkeeper leader started chanting. She called out to Amaunator and cloaked herself in glare. The defensive measure didn’t dazzle or hurt her own eyes, but if she was lucky, it ought to hinder every one of her foes.
The wyrmkeeper whipped his arm with a motion like a snake or dragon biting. Crackling flame leaped from his long, pointed nails. But Cera jumped sideways, and it missed her by a hair.
Two warriors rushed her. The one on the right yelled, “Tiamat!” She lunged toward them. Maybe they weren’t expecting that because she bulled her way between them without either of them stabbing or slashing her, although one short sword skated along the reinforced leather protecting her side.
She whirled and clubbed madly at their heads while they still had their backs to her. First one then the other fell. She spun back around, and her limbs locked into rigidity.
She recognized the spell and knew it would paralyze her for only a few heartbeats. But that was long enough for one of her remaining foes to drive a pick or a blade into her.
Except just then bright light flared from among the prisoners. Hands clapped to his smoking face, a wyrmkeeper fell down, screaming. Warriors made of golden shimmer appeared between captives and captors. The wyrmkeeper with the filed teeth started another prayer, and two sunlords jumped him and bore him to the ground. Their fists hammered him.
Another ruffian came at Cera, but the commotion had distracted him, and he didn’t quite make it into striking distance before her paralysis fell away. She called the Keeper’s name as she swung her mace, and the god’s power lent force to the blow. It caved in her attacker’s chest.
After that, it was easy enough. In a few more heartbeats, all the wyrmkeepers and their servants were either dead or incapacitated.
“Is everyone all right?” Cera panted.
“Pretty much,” a sunlord replied. His knuckles were raw, possibly from swinging at flesh and hitting armor instead. “I think they were working up to killing us, but they hadn’t started yet. Why is this happening?”
“Haven’t you heard?” said a priestess with black, plaited hair. “Chessenta doesn’t need any gods except the Red Dragon.”
“That’s part of it,” Cera said. She explained what was going on as concisely as she could. “I was going to try to convince you to fight Tchazzar. After what’s happened here, I hope I don’t have to.”
The other clerics exchanged glances. Then the one with the skinned, bloody fists said, “We’ll fight. Apparently we have to, to serve the Keeper, protect the people, and save our own lives. How do we begin?”
“Arm yourselves,” Cera said. “Then we’ll visit the temples of all the other true gods. If the wyrmkeepers are holding any other clerics prisoner, we’ll free them. Either way, we’ll ask our colleagues to fight alongside us. And then… well, we’ll figure it out as we go along.”
Light flickered and thunder cracked in the northern sky. Tchazzar knew it wasn’t a storm or at least not a natural one. Alasklerbanbastos was signaling his arrival.
Tchazzar hesitated and thought that no one could blame him for it. Alasklerbanbastos was his greatest enemy and the very embodiment of everything foul and unnatural. Under any other circumstances, only an idiot would go to meet him in the dark and lonely sky, especially knowing that he’d brought allies along.