Wildling (19 page)

Chapter Twenty Eight.

Lissa worked her way around the great hall as she went about her cleaning, scrubbing the marble tiled floor with a brush, a pail of hot water and a bar of lye soap. It wasn't her favourite duty. The soap was harsh on her hands and her knees always ached after a few hours of kneeling on the cold stone floor. But it had to be done and as the most junior maid it was usually the task given to her.

This day however, it was a duty she was actually grateful for. The Lord was in his meeting chamber just off to the side of the great hall, speaking with his visitor and she was eager to hear what was being said. She always enjoyed listening to him when he had someone to yell at. And he was going to yell. Though it was probably wrong, he made her laugh. Lord Indiri was old and temperamental. He had an irascible nature and was quick to snap. But sometimes he could be kind, almost fatherly and he was never unfair. He also had a wicked tongue.

It wasn't hard to hear him. Lord Indiri was in one of his tempers, screaming and yelling at his visitor like a petulant child. The Lord had to be eighty yet he acted like a small boy whenever things went wrong.

Of course in the last few days everything had gone wrong. For him, for the city and for the realm. The attack on the Dican temple had turned the world upside down. People were confused and frightened. They didn't know what to expect. No one liked the Dicans of course. They were always creating trouble and threatening people with terrible punishments for the most minor of crimes. Often for no crime at all save that of being born. But still they brought a form of order to the land. Stability. People knew what to expect of them. But no longer.

The temple was burnt, the priests had gone mad. Many had died. Many more had run away. And the soldiers didn't seem to know who to obey or what to do. Should they obey the Dicans who seemed to want to hunt down and kill anyone and everyone they could think of on the off chance that they might possibly have been involved in the attack? Or the nobles who were ordering them to guard their houses and castles and keep order?

For the first time in two decades there was a very clear schism between the church and the nobility. And she didn't have to look far to see it. It was there in the faces of the soldiers guarding the chamber as the lord screamed and yelled at his visitors. They were frightened. They didn't know what to do if things came to violence. Who they should protect.

Should it be Lord Indiri or the High Priest? The former paid them their wages and gave them their orders. The latter was the most powerful member of the church that ruled their lives and who would butcher them and their families if they opposed him. If it came to a battle the soldiers would be torn. But in the end she suspected it would be the high priest that would win them over, much as she would have wanted them to defend the lord. They would let fear rule them.

“No!”

Lord Indiri screamed suddenly, his strident voice echoing through the entire great hall and probably most of the castle. It was followed by the sound of something breaking. Glass. No doubt he'd thrown something against a wall. He was prone to doing that. And soon she knew, it would be her job to clean up the mess.

“You can't have a single soldier more! Not another gold piece! Not even a copper!”

“
Come now Lord Indiri. What I'm asking for is only right.”

The high priest was smooth she thought. His voice always calm and controlled, his words considered. He sounded so reasonable. And yet every insidious word out of his mouth sent shivers of fear and revulsion through her. It wasn't just the terrible things he had done – that he still did. It was what he was. There was something wrong with him. Corrupt. Every word he uttered was a lie. This was one day when she was glad that she was just a maid. Forever beneath his notice.

“We are at war. These demons have attacked us. Struck at the heart of our people. And they will strike again if we do not stop them.”

“
You mean they struck at you! And you were found wanting!”

Lord Indiri wasn't calming down. In fact Lissa thought he might be getting angrier. And that she thought as she scrubbed harder at a particularly tough boot smudge on the tiles, was not wise. She didn't know much about the high priest save that he scared her, but everyone knew he was dangerous.

“They struck at us first!”

The high priest put all his emphasis on the last word, trying to pretend that it was everyone who was endangered. But he should have known that would never work. Lord Indiri might act like a child from time to time, but he was not as easily lied to as one.

“They struck at you only. Wildlings may not like us but in the end it's you who’s their enemy. It's you that they hate. And it's you that they will burn. Your church is finished High Priest. They are going to pay you back for your evil, and there won't be a single Dican left in a year. And I will not let a single man of mine die with you. You will all go to the underworld by yourselves!”

“
Lord Indiri -.”

The high priest tried to sound conciliatory but he shouldn't have bothered. The Lord was in no mood for such things.

“Out!” Lord Indiri screamed at the high priest, his voice even louder and shriller than before. “Get your cursed black robed arse out of my home and off my lands!”

The meeting was over Lissa gathered, and she smiled a little at the thought. Finally someone was standing up to the Dicans even if it was an old man throwing a tantrum.

“Really. There's no call for rudeness.”

Something changed in the high priest's voice, and Lissa instantly knew it was bad. Very bad. She looked up from the floor to the arched doorway ahead leading to the Lord's chamber and knew something was very wrong. And then it got dark. It was day time and the windows were all open to let in some fresh air, the sunlight was streaming in as well. And yet up ahead at the doorway she could see a shadow, a globe of darkness, slowly growing out of it. The sight terrified her.

“Guards!”

Lord Indiri let out a scream and immediately the two guards standing outside the doorway rushed in. A heartbeat later there was a snapping sound and their broken bodies flew backwards out of the chamber as fast as an arrow. They crossed the great hall in front of her without ever touching the ground before hitting the far wall with a sickening thud and then falling lifeless to the floor.

Lissa shrieked a little. She couldn't help herself. But then knowing she was in danger she somehow cut most of her cry off. Whatever was happening in the lord's chamber, she could do nothing about it. The only thing she could do was save herself. She could run.

Lissa got to her feet and ran as fast as she could, frightened that at any moment whatever the high priest had done to the guards he would do to her, while behind her the sounds of whatever was happening in Lord Indiri's chamber grew louder. It was like thunder echoing through the entire castle.

Then the lightning struck. She heard it crack and pop behind her. She heard the lord scream one last time, and knew in that instant that he was dead. No one let out a scream like that and lived. And she knew sorrow for his passing. But there was nothing she could do except run.

She was lucky. As she ran out of the great hall an entire troop of guards came rushing in swords already drawn, and she knew they would keep the high priest away from her for a moment. Long enough she hoped, to get away.

Or maybe not.

Even as she made the stairs leading out to the courtyard she heard the thunder roar once more. The lightning flashed behind her, and she knew that those guards had likely fared no better than the two who had been guarding the door. And when she heard them screaming and the sound of their armour clad bodies smashing into walls Lissa knew there was no time.

So she sprinted across the courtyard as fast as she could while behind her the sounds of battle raged. More soldiers were rushing into the hall while she ran for her life to the gate.

She made it somehow, and instantly disappeared into the safety of the city streets. There she knew the high priest would not catch her. He would not be able to find her among the crowds. Which was fortunate because she was out of breath. It was all she could do to walk on shaking legs into their midst when all she wanted to do was fall down panting. But if she did that the high priest would catch her. She knew that. So instead she walked. Down the cobbled streets, turning right and left as she tried desperately to put Castle Indiri far behind her. Soon she found herself on the other side of the city.

Several hours later she was nearing the city gates when she heard the town criers start calling out the news. Lord Indiri was dead and he had been killed by a wildling. The church of Dica was now raising an army to battle the demons. It was then that she knew she had to leave. That she could never return. She was a witness to the crime and the Dicans would never let her live. There was no safety for her in Lampton Heights. There was no safety for anyone.

In time she guessed, the Dicans would have their army. A few more attacks like this one and the nobles would all give the church everything they asked for. Either because they believed that the wildlings had started attacking them, or because they knew it was the Dicans who had done it but were too frightened to resist. The High Priest had won.

For her though it was time to leave. To head for Alador where her sister worked as a shopkeeper's assistant. There she could find shelter and food and most important of all, safety. It was a long journey, and dangerous in parts. She had no coin, no transport, no food and only the clothes on her back. But it was still the best hope she had.

But as she set off on her journey one thing did occur to her. A question. Actually a whole lot of questions. The Dicans hated the wildlings. They feared them and hunted them. They said they were demons. That their magic came from the underworld. Yet their High Priest was obviously a wildling himself. He had powerful magic of some sort.

Was there no end to the lies they told? Were the wildlings really the demons the Dicans claimed they were? Had the black priests truly had nothing to do with the murders of the priests of Lue and the burnings of their temples? Who truly ran Lampton Heights? And why did they need an army?

But she knew that no one would ever tell her the answers. If she was lucky she would live long enough that she didn't care. And maybe someone would eventually kill that black High Priest. He needed to die.

Chapter Twenty Nine.

“
Wake up laggard!”

Sena called to him from the forest as she and the others approached the fort and Dorn groaned quietly to himself. Why did it have to be her? Why always her? Couldn't these annoying wayfarers or sun elves or whatever they called themselves send someone else to annoy him? And why was she smiling as if they were old friends greeting one another? They weren't. Were they?

Still he recognised Emmaline riding just behind her and that had to be a good thing. He liked the spellsword. He liked her directness and the fact that she understood that sometimes difficult things had to be done unlike the wayfarers. And he especially liked the fact that with her there it would be a foolish force that attacked the fort.

He shifted into his human form to speak to them. “I wasn't asleep.”

And he hadn't been. He'd seen them coming from the battlements, always alert for visitors ever since the war had come to the wastes. But he had been enjoying the sunshine, perhaps a little more than he should so he hadn't really paid them any attention. It was summer and a cat was supposed to be able to slumber a little in the warm sun. Besides, Sena had been right about one thing; the soldiers had gone. The Dicans and the elves both. Wherever they were, whoever they fought, they weren't anywhere near Little Rock.

“
Liar!” She laughed gently at him adding to the strange feeling he had that she thought they were friends for some reason. But he'd probably said enough mean things to her for a while, so he decided not to add to them by mentioning it. Instead he studied the group and wondered if there was something she wasn't telling him.

Sena and her brother Eris were leading them, perhaps because they'd been there before and knew the way. Perhaps because they knew him. Emmaline and another man – some sort of fighter he thought, judging by his physical presence and the way his eyes suspiciously searched the fort hunting for enemies – rode to their sides and slightly behind them. Escorting them perhaps. Or more likely acting as their bodyguards.

Behind them rode the four scholars. Or at least he assumed that that was what they were supposed to be. They weren't armed at least and they didn't have the wary look of those accustomed to danger. Yet they didn't look like scholars. They weren't dressed like them either.

“
These are your scholars?”

Actually they looked like priests, though thankfully not the accursed Dicans. Their robes weren't black and they didn't wear their hoods up over their heads so as to bathe their faces in shadow. Also, one of the so called scholars was a wayfarer, though not dressed as one. Seeing that Dorn breathed a sigh of relief. He'd never heard of a wayfarer among the Dicans.

“As promised.”

Why wouldn't she stop smiling he wondered? It seemed wrong. Though she was, he had to admit, a pretty woman and it was a sunny afternoon. The sort of afternoon where a pretty woman should smile.

There was another oddity with the party's arrival he belatedly realised. It had been only two and a half weeks since Sena had accosted him in the alehouse. And though at least she hadn't returned in the wayfarer's traditional slow moving cart but instead was riding, she had still somehow covered the journey to Balen Rale and back in what seemed too short a time. It should have taken two and a half weeks simply for her to get there even on horseback. In a wagon it should have taken a month. The land was simply too rough and the forests too thick to go any faster. But as the party reached the gate and dismounted he decided that that was something he could ask about later. As usual he was naked. It wasn't really the best way to greet guests.

Dorn made his excuses, shifted back into his cat form and made a quick dash around the battlements and then jumped up into the fort.

By the time he'd made the roof, dressed and returned on two legs his guests were already in the courtyard and stretching their legs. Several of the scholars were busy rubbing away at the layer of soot covering the statue of Xeria and Emmaline and the other fighter were scouting the walls. Sena meanwhile was unpacking some containers from her pack and Eris was preparing a fire, laying out little piles of kindling and dry moss. It all seemed very ordinary though in fact he realised, it was anything but. For him at least, and for the fort. Neither of them was used to visitors.

“
That looks better. Though -,” she wrinkled her nose up a little, “- you could use a bath.”

“
Don't have one.”

It was the plain fact of the matter though perhaps not something to be proud of. Especially when others had from time to time mentioned the same thing. Mostly women unfortunately. They liked him, they would happily dance with him and do the other wonderful things that women did, but sometimes they did insist on his bathing first.

“Or a laundry I see.”

Dorn stared at her and then at his clothes, realising she was probably right and wondering if he should be embarrassed about it. After all this wasn't Lampton Heights. It wasn't a city full of expensively dressed nobles. It was a ruin in the middle of the wastes. His bathing and washing habits probably weren't that different to those of anyone else living out here.

“I'll help the scholars.” It seemed like the best option and Dorn quickly left to join the scholars who had gathered around the burned statue. They were busy rubbing at it with damp clothes and talking amongst themselves in hushed tones. Discussing esoteric matters. Of course once there he had a whole new set of problems to deal with. Problems that began with his being accused of having burnt the courtyard, and more importantly the shrine. It didn't seem to occur to them that actually the Dicans had burnt it. He'd just added a little fuel so that their controlled fire surrounded them and burnt out of control. Besides, they would have destroyed the statue as well if they'd had the chance. His actions had saved it.

Still, after the unpleasantness was out of the way their conversation turned to easier questions. What had the shrine looked like? How had it been arranged? What markings had the altar born? Questions he was disappointed to discover that he couldn't answer save only in the most vague way. It turned out that despite having lived in the fort for five years and having seen the shrine every day, he couldn’t really describe it all that well. He simply wasn't that observant. But in any case both the altar and the offering table had been far newer than the statue itself. Whatever markings the burnt altar might have born would not have been the same as the ones the original had.

The scholars did know rather more about the statue than he did. He discovered that when they brought some water, rinsed out the cloths they were using to wipe away the soot, and washed some more of it away. Fairly quickly they had found some of the text to read. While Dorn could read and write Common well enough, he couldn't read this. The text was in an ancient language that had long ago been forgotten by time. He didn't even know what the letters were. But the scholars did.

It turned out to be Xeria's full name and title. He hadn't even known that Xeria had more than just her simple name. Or that any gods did. But apparently she was Xeria of the Dawn, Goddess of the Hearth, Mother of the Home, Bringer of the New Day, Keeper of the Family, and a whole plethora of other titles. So many titles in fact that the entire stone plinth on which the statue sat was covered with them.

That surprised him as did the fact that there were people who could read them after all this time.

But then one of the scholars said something that caused him to forget such minor wonders. He simply said as he worked on cleaning the statue with his cloth, that he was looking forward to seeing the shrine return to service. That instantly set Dorn's heart racing. It was his dream coming true. It was also a nightmare.

The shrine returning to service meant worshippers coming. It meant the fort would once more become known, and not because of the terrible stories of its dark past that served to keep people away. It meant visitors. A path leading to his front door. It might even lead to a cadre of priests sharing his home with him. None of that was good. He left the scholars and rushed back to the one person who probably knew the truth and would be able to tell him.

“
You said they were only here to study the shrine.”

“
And they are studying it. With a view to restoring it to the Mother's service. I never said ‘only’.”

Sena smiled at him as if it was all some sort of harmless idea and he should always have known the plan anyway.  She held out a mug for him. “Tea?”

Dorn ignored the mug.

“Restoring the shrine means priests being here. It means worshippers visiting. It means the fort once more being on a recognised path and it being spoken about.” It was the madness from his dreams coming true.

“
In time yes.”

She kept holding the mug out for him, and he kept ignoring it until she finally let her hand and the mug drop to the ground. Then she sighed as if he'd said something particularly stupid.

“Did you think that this was yours? Really? You did not build this shrine or the fort. You just moved in after it had been abandoned. But this is no more yours than it is anyone else's. It belongs as it always did to the faithful of Xeria. They built it. They own it.”

“
But it's my home!”

He couldn't argue with her about ownership obviously, though there was still an accepted right of claiming things that others had left behind. At least in the wastes. But maybe that didn't apply to temples and forts.

“And it still will be. Even when the priests have restored it to service, you will not be sent away. None have the desire for that. It’s just that you will have some company to spend your days with.” She seemed to think that was a good thing. How wrong could she be?

“
A shrine brings attention. Especially out here in the wastes. It will bring brigands to harass the priests as well as to steal anything they can. And if there are any Dicans left in the region they will come too, determined to burn the shrine to the ground along with any priests and worshippers they find.”

“
Which is why the fort will be rebuilt as well. The walls will be made strong again, the gate repaired, the path restored and watched over. Defenders will be stationed here. And this will be far from the only shrine and temple to be restored. There will be another seventeen to Xeria alone. This is a part of the way that I spoke of. The true elves are restoring the faith in their old gods. It is the lack of faith in them that has in part allowed the corrupt faiths like that of the Church of Dica to arise and become powerful.”

“
Now please drink your tea and stop worrying. It does you no honour.”

Sena handed him the mug once more and this time he took it from her. He even managed to take a sip from it, and discovered it was quite fragrant. But his thoughts weren't really on it.

“You have no thought to the consequences of your actions.” He had to say it, even though he didn't want to. It felt too much as though he were supporting his most hated of enemies. Extolling their power.

“
The Dicans will never tolerate this. They never can. They have control of two realms already; Lampton Heights and the Kingdom of Yed. And though the nobles and lords think they run them, in truth it is only with the permission of the church. Between those two lands alone they could raise an army a quarter of a million strong if they wanted to. And they will want to. But there's more.”

“
They have a presence in Enderly to the east, and for twenty years now they have been bending those in power to their will. In another ten or twenty years they will have control of Enderly and the other faiths there will be purged. The wildlings who call it home, murdered. Burnt at the stake.”

“
To the west they move in Alador, building their temples and spreading their foul word. And they have even been seen in the White Plains trying to sway the beliefs of the plainsmen.” Not that they would have had any success there.

“
The wastes are large, but the people few and widely spread. And in time we will be surrounded by Dicans on three sides. This time they were only sent back because they didn't come in sufficient strength and weren't prepared for the creatures that call this land home. But if they hear of the return of the old religions to the land they will not be so easily stopped. They will slaughter everyone.”

Dorn paused, not wanting to think of what was coming. But then he thought of something else.

“You are a wayfarer, you should know this.” After all her people travelled through all those lands.

“And I do know of it.”

She stared right at him, her eyes searching for something. “But I am puzzled as to how you do.”

“My father was the clerk to Lord Indiri in Lampton Heights. He saw the letters that the black priests kept sending him as they demanded gold from him to further their mission throughout the lands.” Copies of the same letters that they most likely sent to all the other lords. Demands that none of them could refuse.

Dorn could still remember the temper tantrums Lord Indiri had thrown each time he'd received another one. Everyone in the estate would likely have seen them and few would forget them in a hurry. The man was white of hair and had to be in his seventies, yet he cried out to the heavens like a young man and stamped his feet like a peevish child. He had had no love for the Dicans.