Blood of the Fold (8 page)

That was the flaw with the Keeper’s creation—the flaw in anything the Keeper created: it could be used as a tool by the pious, if they were astute enough. The Creator always provided weapons to fight profanity, if one only looked for them and had the wisdom, the sheer audacity, to use them. That was what impressed him about the Imperial Order; they were shrewd enough to understand this, and resourceful enough to use magic as a tool to seek out profanity and destroy it.

As he did, the Order used
streganicha
, and apparently valued and trusted them. He didn’t like it, though, that they were allowed to roam free and unguarded to bring information and proposals, but if they ever turned against the cause, well, he always kept Lunetta nearby.

Still, he didn’t like being so close to evil. It repulsed him, sister or not.

Dawn was just breaking and the streets were already crowded with people. In abundance, too, were soldiers of different lands, each patrolling the grounds of their own palaces, and others, mostly D’Haran, patrolling the city. Many of the troops looked ill at ease, as if they anticipated an attack an any moment. Brogan had been assured that they had everything well in hand. Never one to take on faith anything he was told, he had sent out his own patrols the night before, and they had confirmed that there were no Midland insurgents anywhere near Aydindril.

Brogan always favored arriving when least expected, and in greater numbers than expected, just in case he had to take matters into his own hands. He had brought a full fist—five hundred men—into the city, but if there proved to be trouble, he could always bring his main force into Aydindril. His main force had proven themselves quite capable of crushing any insurrection.

Had the D’Harans not been allies, the indications of their numbers would have been alarming. Though Brogan had well-founded faith in his men’s abilities, only the vain fought battles when the odds were even, much less long; the Creator didn’t hold the vain in kind regard.

Lifting a hand, Tobias slowed the horses, lest they trample a squad of D’Haran foot soldiers crossing before the column. He thought it untoward of them to be winged out in a battle formation, similar to his own flying wedge, as they crossed the main thoroughfare, but perhaps the D’Harans, charged with the task of patrolling a vanquished city, were reduced to frightening footpads and cutpurses with a show of might.

The D’Harans, weapons to hand and looking to be in an ill mood, swept gazes over the column of cavalry bearing down on them, apparently looking for any sign of threat. Brogan thought it rather odd that they carried their weapons unsheathed. A cautious lot, the D’Harans.

Unconcerned with what they saw, they didn’t hurry their pace. Brogan smiled; lesser men would have stepped up their stride. Their weapons, mostly swords and battle-axes, were neither embellished nor fancy, and that in itself made them look all the more impressive. They were weapons carried because they had proven brutally effective, and not for flash.

Outnumbered well over twentyfold, the men in dark leather and mail regarded all the polished metal with indifference. Polish and precision often displayed nothing more that conceit, and although in this case they were a reflection of Brogan’s discipline, a display of deadly attention to detail, the D’Haran’s probably didn’t know that. Where he and his men were better known, a glimpse of their crimson capes was enough to make strong men blanch, and the glint off their polished armor was enough to make an enemy break and run.

When they had come across the Rang’Shada Mountains from Nicobarese, Brogan had met with one of the Order’s armies, made up of men of many nations, but mostly D’Hara, and had been impressed with the D’Haran’s general, Riggs, who had accepted counsel with interest and attention. Brogan, in fact, had been so impressed with the man that he had left some of his own troops with him to help in the conquest of the Midlands. The Order had been on its way to bring the heathen city of Ebinissia, the Crown city of Galea, to heel under the Order. The Creator willing, they had succeeded.

Brogan had learned that D’Harans didn’t hold much favor with magic, and that pleased him. That they also feared magic disgusted him. Magic was the Keeper’s conduit into the world of man. The Creator was to be feared. Magic, the Keeper’s witchery, was to be expunged. Until the boundary had been brought down the past spring, D’Hara had been cordoned off from the Midlands for generations, so in large part D’Hara and its people were still an unknown to Brogan, a vast new territory in need of enlightenment and, possibly, purification.

Darken Rahl, the leader of D’Hara, had brought the boundary down, allowing his troops to sweep into the Midlands and capture Aydindril, among other cities. If he had been more interested in confining himself to the affairs of man, Rahl might have seized all of the Midlands before they could raise armies against him, but he had been more interested in pursuing magic, and that had been his undoing. Once Darken Rahl was dead, assassinated by a pretender to the throne, as Brogan had heard it told, the D’Haran troops had joined with the Imperial Order in its cause.

There was no longer a place in the world for the ancient, dying religion called magic. The Imperial Order was upon the world, now; the Creator’s glory would guide man. Tobias Brogan’s prayers had been answered, and every day he thanked the Creator for placing him in the world at this time, when he could be at the center of it all, to see the blasphemy of magic vanquished, to lead the righteous in the final battle. This was the making of history, and he was part of it.

The Creator, in fact, had recently come to Tobias in his dreams, to tell him how pleased He was with his efforts. He didn’t reveal this to any of his men; that might be seen as presumptuous. To be honored by the Creator was satisfaction enough. Of course he had told Lunetta, and she had been awed; after all, it wasn’t often the Creator chose to speak directly to one of His children.

Brogan squeezed his legs around his horse to pick up the pace as he watched the D’Harans move on down a side street. None turned to see if they were to be followed or challenged, but only a fool would take that for complacency; Brogan was no fool. The throng parted for the column, giving them a wide path as they proceeded down Kings Row. Brogan recognized some of the uniforms of soldiers at various palaces: Sandarians, Jarians, and Keltans. He saw no Galeans; the Order must have been successful in their task at Galea’s Crown city of Ebinissia.

At last Brogan saw troops from his homeland. With an impatient wave he signaled a squad forward. Their capes, crimson to announce who they were, billowed out behind as they charged past the swordsmen, lancers, standard-bearers, and finally Brogan. Accompanied by the racket of iron shoes on stone, the horsemen charged right up the vast steps of the Nicobarese Palace. It was an edifice as garish as any of the others, with tapered, fluted columns of rare white-veined brown marble, a difficult-to-obtain stone quarried from the mountains in eastern Nicobarese. The profligacy galled him.

The regular soldiers guarding the palace stumbled back at the sight of the men on horseback and flinched into shaky salutes. The squad of horsemen herded them back farther, opening a wide corridor for the lord general.

At the top of the steps, between statues of soldiers atop rearing stallions carved from buff-colored stone, Brogan dismounted. He tossed the reins to one of the ashen-faced Palace Guard as he smiled out at the city, his eyes settling on the Confessors’ Palace. Today, Tobias Brogan was in a good mood. Lately, such moods were becoming increasingly rare. He drew a deep breath of the dawn air: the dawn of a new day.

The man who had taken the reins bowed as Brogan turned back. “Long live the king.”

Brogan straightened his cape. “A little late for that.”

The man cleared his throat, working up the courage. “Sir?”

“
The king,” Brogan said, as he knuckled his mustache, “turned out to be more than all of us who loved him thought. He burned for his sins. Now, see to my horse.” He gestured to another guard. “You—go tell the cooks I’m hungry. I don’t want to be kept waiting.”

The guard backed away, bowing, as Brogan glanced up at the man still on horseback. “Galtero.” The man stepped his horse closer, his crimson cape limp in the still air. “Take half the men, and bring her to me. I’m going to break fast, and then I will judge her.”

With a gentle touch, his bony fingers absently stroked the case at his belt. Soon he would add the prize of prizes to his collection. He smiled grimly at the thought, the smile tightening the old scar at the corner of his mouth, but not touching his dark eyes. The glory of moral redress would be his.

“
Lunetta.” She was staring at the Confessors’ Palace, her motley patches of tattered cloth drawn tight to her as she idly scratched her forearms. “Lunetta!”

She flinched, hearing him at last. “Yes, Lord General?”

He flipped his crimson cape back over his shoulder and straightened his sash of rank. “Come, break fast with me. We’ll have a talk. I’ll tell you about the dream I had last night.”

Her eyes widened with excitement. “Another one, my lord general? Yes, I should like very much to hear about it. You honor me.”

“
Indeed.” She followed as he marched through the tall brassbound double doors, into the Nicobarese palace. “We have matters to discuss. You will listen attentively, won’t you, Lunetta?”

She shuffled along at his heels. “Yes, my lord general. Always.”

He paused at a window with a heavy blue drape. Drawing his dress knife, he sliced a good-sized piece from the side, including a strip of edging with gold tassels. Licking her lips, Lunetta rocked from side to side, shifting her weight from one foot to the other as she waited.

Brogan smiled. “A pretty for you, Lunetta.”

Eyes glistening, she clutched it excitedly to herself before holding it in one place, then another, searching for the perfect spot to add it to the others. She giggled with glee. “Thank you, Lord General. It be beautiful.”

He marched off, Lunetta scurrying to follow behind. Portraits of royalty hung from the rich paneling, and underfoot sumptuous carpets ran into the distance. Gold-leafed frames surrounded round-topped doors to either side. Gilt-edged mirrors reflected the passing flash of crimson.

A servant in brown-and-white livery bowed his way into the hall, holding out his arm to indicate the direction to the dining hall before scuttling along, looking sideways to be sure he kept himself clear of harm, and bowing every few steps.

Tobias Brogan was not a man who had ever frightened anyone with his size, but the servants, staff, Palace Guard, and partially dressed officials who charged into the hall to see what was causing such a fuss all paled at the sight of him—at seeing the lord general himself, the man who commanded the Blood of the Fold.

At his word banelings burned for their sins—whether they be beggars or soldiers, lords or ladies, or even kings.

Sister Verna stood transfixed by the flames, their depths loosing transient whorls of glittering colors and shimmering rays alive with swaying movement, fingers twisting in a dance, luring in air that flapped their clothes in passing, and casting forth heat that would have driven them all back, if not for their shields. The huge bloodred sun hung half emerged at the horizon, at last abating the glory of the fire that had consumed the bodies. A few of the Sisters around her still sobbed softly, but Sister Verna had drained all the tears she had to give.

Well over one hundred boys and young men stood in a ring around the fire, with twice as many Sisters of the Light and novices circled inside them. Except for one Sister and one boy symbolically standing watch over the palace, and of course the one Sister who had become deranged and was locked in an empty, shielded room for her own good, all were on the hill above Tanimura watching the flames leap skyward. Even with this many people standing together, each was touched by profound loneliness, and stood withdrawn in introspection and prayer. As prescribed, no one spoke at the funeral rite.

Sister Verna’s back hurt from standing ward all night over the bodies. Through the hours of darkness they had all stood, praying, and maintaining the linked shield over the corpses in symbolic protection of the revered. At least it was a relief to be away from the incessant drumming down in the city.

At first light the shield had been dropped and each had sent forth a flow of their Han into the pyre, igniting it. Fire, fed by magic, had raced through the stacked logs and the two heavily shrouded bodies, one short and squat, the other tall and powerfully built, creating an inferno of divine power.