David Dalglish: Dawn of Swords

Jacob scaled the middle ladder, gesturing for the two boys to follow.

“Let’s go,” Geris said to Ben, but the other boy was still shaking, his head between his knees. Geris waited, and when it became obvious that Ben would not be moving, he left him there and climbed the rest of the way up.

Once he reached the top, he peered over the edge, as his chaperone was doing. He gazed on the fields of yellow poppies and marsh grasses that grew along the banks of the eastern spine of the Rigon River delta. Just beyond those grasses was Karak’s Bridge, at the end of a dirt roadway less than a mile away, its black marble trusses shimmering in the sunlight. Geris’s breath caught in his throat. Beside him, Jacob whistled.

Over a hundred men stood on the Haven side of the bridge. They wore light bronze chainmail over simple tunics, with red paint splattered across their chests. Most of the men were equipped with bows and swords. Two men held aloft silver banners adorned with the black outline of a roaring lion, the sigil of the eastern god Karak. In front of them all was a lone man with flowing white hair, whose horse shifted side to side, as if impatient. The delegation from Haven approached him, stopping not far from the safety of the wall. As they neared, another soldier rode from the back of the army to join the man with the white hair. He had a shaved head and a long beard peppered with white, and was naked from the waist up. The largest sword Geris had ever seen hung from the man’s back by a thick leather strap.

Geris turned to Jacob and tugged on his sleeve. Jacob’s head swiveled around, revealing his soft blue eyes and furrowed brow. It was always strangely difficult to read his expression, but he seemed worried.

“What’s going on?” asked Geris.

Jacob shook his head.

“I’m not sure.”

Geris had never seen Jacob uncertain before. It frightened him. He closed his eyes and prayed to Ashhur that everything would be all right.

Vulfram Mori sat motionless in his saddle, stroking his beard. His heart pounded with anticipation, his stomach churned from indecision. Despite the distance, he could still hear people sobbing from the other side of the wall. He had never liked bringing pain to anyone, even the wrongdoers he’d been obligated to punish in his days as Captain of the City Watch back in Veldaren.

Beside him, Highest Crestwell cleared his throat.

“You have their attention,” Clovis said, his voice reedy and grumbling like a whistle blown beneath the water. “Why do you delay in giving them Karak’s orders?”

Vulfram straightened on his horse, and he met Clovis’s piercing blue eyes. Though Clovis was older than him by more than two decades, he had not aged a day since the first moment Vulfram laid eyes on him. Agelessness was a gift bestowed upon the forbearers and children of the First Families, a gift Vulfram had renounced the moment he dedicated his whole heart to his wife, Yenge.

“In due time, Highest,” said Vulfram. “Our display of force has frightened them beyond measure. I wish to let them regain a sense of order.”

Clovis’s mouth twisted into something resembling a smile.

“Karak would be most proud,” he said, urging his horse backward.

Vulfram let out a deep sigh. He tried to guard his thoughts at all times, just in case his god could see into his very soul, but it proved a difficult task. He had not been confident in the decision to march on the temple. The residents here had fled the east long ago, their chaotic souls unable to adhere to the order of Karak. This isolated land in the delta had gone unclaimed by the religions of the east and west for the last ninety years, and it was only when they began worshipping themselves that Karak had even seemed to notice. Although Karak had not been seen by mortal eyes in over two score years, Clovis assured the people of Neldar that he still held the god’s counsel. Vulfram remembered when Karak’s orders had been read to him, Clovis’s voice crystalline clear in his mind.

This temple is an act of chaos. They are citizens of an unlawful land, denying worship to their creator to instead worship the very forms I crafted. It is defiance; it is disorder; and they must be taught a lesson. They must choose a better way or succumb to the cleansing fire.

Deep down, Vulfram did not agree. He saw no harm in these people constructing a meeting place to celebrate their earthly bodies. He and Yenge celebrated their own bodies in a similar fashion each night back at his childhood home of Erznia. To be honest, the thought of having an entire edifice dedicated to the carnal pleasures intrigued him.

Yet never once had he voiced these doubts, for he knew it would be akin to sacrilege. Karak was divine; Karak was the wisest of the wise; Karak was the creator of life. If Vulfram had a problem with the verdict, it was a problem for him to solve within himself. Fulfilling the order of his deity was what mattered, not the dead inside the temple or the two of his men who had perished from return volleys launched back from the temple walls. Those two men were in Afram now, the afterlife, free from pain as they waited for their loved ones to join them. Vulfram would meet them again one day, and then they would drink and cavort and fill the afterlife with good cheer.

Vulfram shook his head. The decision had been made, and as Lord Commander of the newly formed Army of Karak, it was his duty to see it through. He had no use for uncertainty, for Karak waited for no man.

“Citizens of Haven,” he said, while fingering the rune-carved onyx stones in his left hand, using their magic to amplify his voice so that it carried across the expanse. “We come in the name of Karak, God of Order, Divinity of the Eastern Realm of Neldar. This structure you have built, this Temple of the Flesh, is a blasphemy of the greatest offense. By the authority given to me by the Council of Twelve and our beloved King, I order you to tear down the walls of this atrocity. Turn your eyes away from one another and set them on Karak, the true god of this land. If not, this is only the beginning. We will return on the night of the third full moon, with the Divinity himself by our side. If you have not repented to the supreme law, you will be judged, and judged harshly. Three months’ time. Do not tarry.”

He loosened his grip on the stones, cleared his throat, and then squeezed them again.

“Please, I beg of you, do not force Karak’s hand in this matter. Unlike we faithful, he shall not leave you with a second chance.”

With those words, Vulfram lifted the giant sword Darkfall from his back, raised it into the sky, and roared. He then re-sheathed the sword and pulled back on his horse’s reins. The stallion whinnied and circled around the throng, clomping back onto the bridge, its hooves clacking on the smooth stone. The men bearing the banners of the lion kept formation, mimicking the horse’s strides with their human feet, breathing heavily, never looking back. Vulfram followed their example, keeping his eyes fixed straight ahead. He did not want to reveal any of his skepticism. Uncertainty was weakness, and weakness was unbecoming of a Lord Commander.

Once they reached the other side of the bridge, Clovis took his place again at Vulfram’s right. On his left appeared another horse, a marvelous black mare whose rider was a lithe woman of ghostly pallor and long silver hair. She fixed him with a bitter and curious glare.

“What is it, Avila?” Vulfram asked.

Avila was Clovis’s daughter through and through. She shared his complexion, his coldness, and his unwavering faith in Karak. Her youth remained as eternal as her father’s, and she served as Shepherd of Southern Neldar, doling out punishment to wrongdoers in the growing provinces of Omn and Revere.