Chapter 10

The morning fog swirled as the golden, dragon-headed barge glided across the water. Chained minotaurs worked the oars, speeding the boat along faster than humans ever could, while on the deck above the Kingpriest and his court stood, watching as the mighty walls of the Bilstibo drew nearer. The great arena, its massive white walls covered with relief carvings of battle scenes, was a truly awe-inspiring sight. Its highest banners, however—bearing the Divine Hammer's blazon for the tournament—did not even reach to the waist of the great robed statue towering behind it.

Cathan looked up at the Udenso as the barge drew near to the jetties on the island's east side. The mist, still lifting from the city as the morning came of age, hid its head, eddying about its shoulders in gliding wisps. His gaze dropped to Beldinas, standing ruby-crowned at the barge's prow, and he shivered. The likeness was shocking, almost as if the Kingpriest and the statue were twins.

A groan roused him from his reverie, and he looked to his left and chuckled. Leciane sat with her head in her hands, her face pinching in rhythm with the oars. She had been that way since he'd gone to fetch her from her room, shortly after sunrise. She wasn't alone, either—the new year's festivities had left many the worse for wear. Sir Marto, for one, had consumed so much wine that the other knights had first thought him dead when they tried to wake him.

"I thought your people were used to boats," he said.

She glared at him, her dusky face the color of old parchment. "Not every Ergothian is born on the deck of a galleon," she croaked. "I just wish I could remember how I put myself into this state."

Cathan laughed. Leciane could recall nothing at all after the first courses of the banquet. Again, she was far from the only one.

"MarSevrin!" barked a voice behind him. "I hope you're ready to be stomped into the dust today!"

Cathan glanced over his shoulder. Lord Tavarre stood near the stern, his armor flashing as the sun struggled to break through the overhanging mist. A nasty grin split his scarred face. Cathan responded in kind.

"Enjoy your dreams, old man," he taunted back. "We'll see who's still standing when the morrow comes."

Tavarre's eyes widened, filling with mock outrage. Then the roar of his laughter rang across the harbor, bouncing off the walls of the Bilstibo as the barge bumped to a stop at the jetty.

"Aye, lad," he said. "We'll see."

The arena seemed even larger up close, its battlements ringed around with smaller statues. Once, minotaur heroes had looked down from atop its walls. Now men and gods had taken their place. Standing between them, trumpeters blared a fanfare on silver horns as Beldinas stepped off the barge. Cathan followed, placing a hand on Leciane's arm to steady her. She made a sound that might have been a mumbled thanks.

The Patriarch's private entrance was huge and vaulted, a massive platinum triangle shining above it. As they passed through, Cathan heard the crowds: a rumble of cheers and stamping feet, with the jangle of women's silver bracelets rising above the din. He looked back at Tavarre. The Grand Marshal was grinning like a fool, and Cathan realized he was, too. The noise was for them as much as for the Lightbringer.

They emerged into open air once again, striding out onto the wide, dusty expanse of the arena's floor. According to the tales, the minotaurs had fought dragons for sport in this very place, long ago. Cathan could believe it. He'd seen real battles fought on smaller fields.

The cheering grew from a rumble into a storm as they crossed the sands. The Lattakayans were stoic about religion, but when it came to their games they were deafening. Most of the knights were already there, resplendent in their mail and snowy tabards, arrayed in orderly ranks. The other warriors who had come for the tourney were not so disciplined. They stood in clusters, glancing nervously at the combined might of the Divine Hammer. Cathan and Tavarre strode over to join their fellows, smiling all the way.

Beldinas stepped forward, silver light shining around him, and raised his hands. The crowd grew still, muttering to one another and glancing skyward, where the Udenso loomed. The statue's presence should have made him seem small, but somehow it did not. Instead, if anything, he seemed the larger of the two.

"Twenty years," he began, his voice filling the Bilstibo.

"For twenty years, I have ruled this realm. For twenty years, I have healed its people. For twenty years, I have striven to drive darkness from its cities and provinces." He raised his head, looking up at the seas of faces. "The last has proven the hardest. Evil knows no honor, no shame. It hides—in caves, in the wilderness, in men's hearts. It will not let go its grip on our empire easily.

"Because of this, twenty years ago I forged a new order of knighthood, to crush the forces of darkness wherever they are found. The knighthood has grown strong since that day, battling the evil among us and prevailing against it again and again. Through its labors, its sacrifices, one day we will know what it is like to live in a realm of light everlasting.

"Today we gather not only to celebrate my reign but to honor those who fight and die so that we may live in peace. People of Lattakay, usas farnas, we pay tribute to the Divine Hammer!"

His voice reaching a crescendo, the Kingpriest swept his arm around to point at the ranks of knights. The rubies on his crown flared, and the Lattakayans surged to their feet with a roar so loud that it seemed to shake the Bilstibo's walls. His chest swelling with pride, Cathan reached for Ebonbane and yanked it from its scabbard, raising it in salute as his fellows did the same. The blades flashed in the sunlight. As one, the knights turned and marched from the arena. Cathan went with them, his heart rising with joy as the crowd's cries filled his ears.

Andras woke to the stink of carrion and brimstone. This was nothing new: the stench of the quasitas had been his constant companion for weeks. This morning, though, there was a difference, a sharper tang in the air that set his nostrils burning. He smiled. The day of vengeance had come, and the little fiends knew it too.

He let his eyes open, taking in his surroundings. He lay amid a heap of blankets in an old, wind-worn ruin—a few crumbling, sandstone buildings surrounded by the stub of a wall, all of it mantled in red dust. Once, it had been a monastery. To which god Andras wasn't sure, though the fact that the Abyss-spawned quasitas could dwell here gave him confidence it wasn't any of the gods of light. His "children" could not bear hallowed ground.

They were everywhere here, perched like gargoyles on the rocks, occasionally leaping up to flap to some other spot. A few slept, their misshapen heads tucked beneath their wings, but most were awake, looking about with their feline eyes, or feeding on the bodies of wild dogs they had caught in the hills. There were two dead quasitas beside the other corpses too, their bellies ripped open, the ground beneath them soaked with black blood. Andras scowled at the sight, but let it be. The beasts sometimes killed their own, and there was nothing he could do to deter them. He had lost more than thirty since the summoning, but that still left him with more than a hundred. It would be enough.

He rubbed his maimed hand. The flesh was still crusted with scabs where his finger had been. Fistandantilus had given him a poultice to speed the healing but nothing for the pain. Even now, phantom twinges troubled him as his body tried to remember the piece it had lost. The aches only added fuel to his rage. Were it not for the Divine Hammer, his hand would still be whole. Another reason to hate. Another reason to rejoice.

He rose, and a hundred pairs of eyes turned to stare at him, a hundred tiny bodies tensed. The quasitas purred as he walked among them, knowing what was to come. After weeks of slaking their bloodlust on rats and dogs, the time had come for the true feast. He wished he could be there to see it, but the Dark One had been adamant when he gave Andras his instructions.

"They will burn you if they catch you," Fistandantilus had warned—his last words before he teleported Andras and the quasitas here, to the wilds of Seldjuk. "Do you want that?"

Andras did not. What joy could he take in revenge if he were dead?

A flight of stairs, worn to humps by the ages, led up the wall. He climbed them carefully, aware of the malicious, hungry stares fixed on his back. The bricks of the wall were loose, shifting under his feet as he stepped onto what had once been ramparts. He couldn't see Lattakay from here—it was dozens of miles away, in country where the terrain hid anything more than a few hundred yards away from view—but he could sense its nearness, sense the knights. They were out there, enjoying the new year and their grand tourney, unaware that soon their revels would turn to tears and terror. Andras smiled, his eyes like stones.

"Go," he murmured.

The crowd roared when Sir Marto went down, curses ringing from within his helm as Tithian swept his legs out from under him. The big knight hit the ground hard, then rolled, somehow getting his shield up to block the finishing blow. Tithian fell back a pace, then came on again as Marto rose to one knee, his beaked axe lashing out in a vicious arc. The blow would have disemboweled Tithian, had the weapon not been blunted for the tournament. As it was, it sent him staggering long enough for Marto to regain his feet. The crowd cheered again, and the big knight came on hard.

"You bloody whelp!" he thundered, laying in with a series of blows that knocked Tithian back. "It'll take a better man than you to lay me out!"

Frantically, Tithian twisted aside, trying to circle around the big knight's flank. Marto only laughed, pivoting without missing a beat, and kept at it, driving the younger man across the arena. Finally, Tithian backed into the fence that surrounded the fighting ground. With nowhere left to go, he concentrated on his parrying, using sword and shield to wall out Marto's hammering blows.

No one ever won a battle with parrying alone, though. Tithian began to slow, then to falter. Marto came on even harder than before, driving the young knight to his knees, then striking him a blow to the elbow that made his sword hand go slack. The crowd groaned as the blade fell, and Marto kicked it away. In another instant, the big Karthayan had knocked aside Tithian's shield and raised his axe high.

"Wait!" Tithian cried, yanking his helm from his head. His eyes were wide in his sweat-soaked face. "Silonno!"

I yield!

For a moment, Marto didn't seem to hear. Then, with a laugh, he let his axe fall and raised his visor. "Took you long enough," he boomed, offering his hand.

Tithian took it, flushing as he let the big knight drag him to his feet. Together they gathered their weapons, then made their way across the battleground. The sounds of cheering and clapping followed them as they left the arena.

Cathan greeted them as they entered the barracks where the men from his company waited their turn. Out on the field, two other knights—one from the city of Odacera, the other from Dravinaar—moved out to begin the next round.

"It's all right," he told Tithian, who looked grim. He clapped the young knight on the arm. "You lasted longer than I would have when I was your age, lad. None of us ever win our first tourney, anyway."

"Speak for yourself," Marto grinned, going to a barrel of cold water and ducking his head. He came back up with a roar, his long beard dripping. "I won mine! Whipped your feeble arse doing it too, if I recall. Sir."

The knights all laughed. Even Sir Pellidas, who had lost his bout half an hour ago and had been glum ever since, allowed himself a silent smile. Cathan chuckled with the rest of them. Today they were all brothers, sworn to win the tourney for their honor.

Half the entrants had gone down to defeat during the first round that morning, fighting in teams of two until everyone had a go. Cathan's men had lost only one pair in that time, which even Tavarre allowed was a remarkable feat. Their luck had worsened since then—with so many men remaining, they often had to fight each other—but they still outnumbered any other company by the third round. Now they were deep into the fourth, the sun heavy in the west, and the field was down to the finest fighters in the knighthood. Every warrior who was not a part of the Divine Hammer was gone, and a field of sixteen remained, seven of them from Cathan's company—six, now, with Tithian eliminated.

The remainder of the round went poorly, however, and the next as well. Cathan had to fight Marto, and put an end to the big knight's boasting in less than a minute, giving him such a blow to the head that he could barely get his helmet off after, and had to spit out three teeth before he could find voice enough to yield. The rest of Cathan's knights lost as well, and the good cheer in the barracks disappeared. By the time the sun set, only Cathan himself remained for the final melee.

"Bad luck," said Lord Tavarre as he came off the field at the end of the round. He had faced a young knight from Calah and dispatched him with a hit to the chest that cracked two of the other man's ribs. What was more, he'd barely broken a sweat doing it. He slapped Cathan's back with a clank of armor on armor. "Down to just us now, and those two other fellows."

Cathan nodded, tossing the Grand Marshal a skin of raw wine. "Good showing for Luciel, at least," he said as the old knight drank.

"That it is!" Tavarre boomed. "Between you and your sister, you've done well for the memory of our little town, lad." He lobbed the skin back.

And you," Cathan noted.

Tavarre spread his hands. "Of course."

Cathan chuckled and was drawing breath to say more when trumpets blared outside. The final was about to begin. Wincing, he grabbed up his helmet and shield. After seven battles today, they looked as battered as he felt.

"Gods," he groaned. "Just let me live through this."

Tavarre winked, putting an arm around his shoulders. "Come on," he said. "Let's go win this thing, hey? For Luciel."

Cathan nodded. "For Luciel."

Lord and subject, arm in arm, they walked out into the twilight.