“Always was a long bet, brother,” Arendil said with a grim smile.
Frentis breathed out slowly, letting the scream die, casting his gaze about their bedraggled company and finding no fear on any face. They all looked at him in silent respect, waiting for orders. I was made monstrous, they made me better. They brought me back. I came home.
He could feel the rumble in the ground beneath his feet now, building steadily. Must be a thousand or more. “Form a circle,” he said, pointing to a slight rise in the ground twenty paces off. “Master Rensial, please mount up and stand with me in the centre.”
He hauled himself onto one of the warhorses, trotting over to the rise and standing with Rensial alongside as the others closed in around them, forming a spiked hedge of drawn swords and raised bows.
The first riders came into view only minutes later, dim figures in the lingering morning mist, twenty men riding hard. No armour, Frentis saw. Volarian scouts . . . All thought fled as he caught sight of the face of the lead rider. A lean man of middling years with close-cropped hair and pale eyes, his dark blue cloak billowing behind.
“Lower weapons,” Frentis said, dismounting and walking forward on unsteady legs as the blue-cloaked man reined in a short distance away.
“Brother,” Master Sollis greeted him, his voice even more hoarse than Frentis remembered. “You seem to be marching in the wrong direction.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Reva
Reva could hear the Reader’s voice before she reached the square, making her wonder how such an old man could shout so loud.
“. . . the Father’s Sight is taken from us, stolen by these wretched Heretics . . .”
She sprinted into the square, finding it full of people from end to end, crowding around with eyes fixed on the centre, rapt by the Reader’s words.
“. . . this city is the Father’s gift! The jewel given unto the Loved and named for his greatest servant! But we have allowed the corruption of unbelief to fester here . . .”
“Move aside!” Reva began shoving her way through the crowd, most onlookers making way when they saw her face, others proving more reluctant and she was in no mood to be gentle. “Move I said!” she snarled, the man who reached out to grasp her arm staggering back with a bloody nose. Her passage was a little easier after that.
“. . . cleanse this city! Those are the Father’s words to me, revealed in the Ten Books, though I have laboured long to find another course. ‘Make my city pure again and my Sight will fall on you once more . . .’”
She struggled free of the crowd, emerging to find the square filled with kneeling people, all bound with rope and surrounded by men with swords. She noticed a few of the sword-bearers were priests whilst others were mostly men of middling years, some a little too old to have seen service on the walls. At the sight of her a few grew visibly discomforted, but there were plenty who stared at her with stern-faced defiance, one even stepping forward to block her path as she moved towards the Reader.
Her sword came free of the scabbard in a blur and the man drew up short. With a shock Reva recognised him as the fruit seller who had sold her an apple that first day on the cathedral steps. “Get out my way,” she instructed him, voice soft and full of dire promise. The fruit seller paled and stepped back.
“She comes!” the Reader intoned from the cathedral steps. “As I foretold. The whore’s bastard pupil, the falsely blessed.”
Reva’s gaze took in the sight of Brother Harin, kneeling with a bloodied face in the front row of captives. Veliss knelt beside the healer, arms tied behind her back and a wooden gag secured in her mouth. Arken knelt at her side, hardly able to keep upright, his skin pale and head sagging.
“I have a blessing for you,” Reva told the Reader, breaking into a run, a red haze clouding her vision. “It’s made of steel, not words.”
The Reader’s pet priest tried to stop her, casting an inexpert thrust at her chest with a rapier. It clattered to the tiles along with two of his fingers. The Reader was flanked by his bishops and she found it significant that none came forward to shield him from her charge, most staring in shock or deciding to avert their gaze, although she was sure she glimpsed a smile or two. The old man fell like a bundle of rags as she grasped his robe, forcing him to the steps, sword drawn back.
“The priest!” she said. “Who is he? I know he answers to you.”
“Such sin.” The old man shook his head, madness and wonder in his eyes. “Such corruption of holy flesh. You, the one promised as our salvation, vile with unnatural lust . . .”
“Just tell me!” She forced him lower, the sword point pressing through his robe.
“The bright light of your sacrifice would unite us. It was promised to him by the Father’s own messenger . . .”
“REVA!”
It was the only voice that could have stopped her. She turned to see her uncle hobbling through the crowd, people backing away with heads lowered. He made a pathetic sight, a wasted, dying man shuffling along, using an old sword as a walking stick. But there was dignity there too, a command in the unwavering gaze he cast about him, a few of the sword-bearers lowering their weapons as he made his slow progress to the steps.
Reva let go of the Reader, stepping back as her uncle came to a wheezing halt a few steps below. “I think,” he said in a thin gasp, “our people should like to hear your news.”
“News, uncle?” she asked, chest heaving with repressed rage.
“Yes. The Father’s revelation. It’s time we shared it.”
Revelation? Reva’s gaze tracked over the crowd, seeing a confusion of expression on the assembled faces; fear and hope but mostly just great uncertainty. That’s what he offers, she realised, glancing down at the Reader. Certainty. The lie of a great truth. Killing him won’t disprove it.
“Lord Vaelin Al Sorna rides to our relief!” she told them, casting her voice as wide as she could. “He rides towards us now with a great and powerful army!”
“Lies!” the Reader hissed, getting slowly to his feet. “She seeks to usurp the Father’s words with lies! Invoking the name of the Darkblade no less!”
“Al Sorna is not the Darkblade!” she shouted as the crowd began to murmur. “He comes to save us. I am Lady Reva Mustor, heir to the Chair of this fief and daughter to the Trueblade. You call me blessed, you believe the Father’s Sight rests upon me. I say it rests upon all of us. And the Father does not reward murder.”
“They shun the Father’s love!” The Reader cast a bony hand at the kneeling captives. “Their presence within these walls weakens us!”
“Weakens us?” Reva picked out the fruit seller who had confronted her earlier. “You! You have a sword. Why haven’t I seen you on the wall?”
The man shuffled and looked around warily. “I have a daughter and three grandchildren, my lady . . .”
“And they’ll die unless we hold this city.” She turned on a priest standing near the steps, a portly man with a thin-bladed sword dangling from his plump hand like a wet twig. “You, servant of the Father, I haven’t seen you either. But this man”—she pointed at Arken—“him I’ve seen, fighting and shedding blood in your defence. Whilst this man”—she pointed at Brother Harin—“works tirelessly to tend our wounded. And this woman . . . ” Veliss’s eyes were wide above the gag, shining bright. “. . . this woman has served this fief faithfully and well for years, and worked without pause or rest to secure this city and ensure all are fed.”
Her gaze blazed at the crowd. “They do not weaken us. You do! You are the weakness here! You come here like the slaves our enemy would make us, bowing down to this lying old man, filling your hearts with easy hate when you know the Father only ever spoke of love!”
She looked at the portly priest once more. “Put that down before you hurt yourself.” He stared at her, his sword falling from his grasp to clatter onto the tiles. She cast her gaze over the other sword-bearers, each dropping his blade as her eyes met their faces, looking away in shame or staring back in wonder.
There was a commotion off to the right as Antesh and Arentes forced their way through the throng, the entire House Guard behind them along with dozens of archers and Realm Guard. Reva held up a hand as they advanced towards the disarmed men, then pointed at the captives. “Free these people, my lords, if you would.”
She glanced over her shoulder at the Reader, his face white with either rage or disbelief. “The cathedral is closed until further notice. Don’t show your face outside it again.” She sheathed her sword and descended the steps towards the Fief Lord, reaching out to him. “I think you need a nap, Uncle.”
He nodded wearily, smiling then blinking in shock, eyes widening in alarm at something behind her. She turned to find the Reader flying towards her, a dagger raised high in his bony hand, yellowed teeth bared in a hate-filled grimace, too fast and too close to side-step or parry. Something blurred in the corner of her eye and the Reader doubled over before her, the dagger scraping a shallow cut on her arm as he collapsed onto the cathedral steps, her grandfather’s sword buried in his belly. He coughed, twitched and died.