Chris Pierson - Divine Hammer

Sucking on her bleeding finger, she turned from the flap and began to put out the incense.

You know you have a spot of dried blood on your tabard?” asked Tavarre.

Cathan craned over his shoulder, though he could not see where the Grand Marshal was pointing. “Yes,” he said. “It happened a week ago, I think-while we were crossing Gather. I don’t know how.”

Shrugging, Tavarre turned to peer ahead. The wet season was on the empire, and while that meant snow in their home of Taol and rains in the heartland, here close to the Seldjuki coast it came as fog. Ripudo, the locals called it: the Mantle. It was pearl-gray and thick, dampening hair and cloth, swirling around their horses’ hooves, making it impossible to see more than a few yards in any direction. The Kingpriest’s entourage numbered thirty priests and a hundred knights, but Cathan could only see a few clearly: Marto and Pellidas riding to his left, Tavarre and Tithian to his right, Beldinas and Quarath behind him, and Leciane before. The rest were murky shapes at best, the jingle of their harnesses and the rattle of their mail muffled by the mist.

“We’ll run ourselves up against the city gates before we see aught,” Marto grumbled. “Or else we’ll step off this blasted cliff and fall into the ocean. Right, Pell?”

Beside him, Sir Pellidas gave a solemn nod.

Cathan half-grinned at the big knight’s bluster. Marto had a point. They were close to Lattakay now-the last marker stone they’d passed had proclaimed it a league and a half away-and the road was treacherous here, running along the edge of the high chalk bluffs.

He could hear the thunder of surf far below, but there was nothing to see but gray.

Cathan glanced back at the Kingpriest. Standing astride his golden chariot, Quarath at his side, Beldinas, gazed into the fog as if he could see right through it. Perhaps, with his strange pale eyes, he could. His aura made the mist sparkle around him.

“Holiness,” Cathan ventured, “is there anything you can do?”

The Lightbringer’s gaze flicked to him, and he shook his head. “It will tax my strength, and I shall need it when I get to Lattakay.”

“I can help,” offered Leciane. “There are spells-”

“No,” Cathan said, his voice loud in the fog. “No magic.”

He said it for her protection as much as for any other reason-with so many clerics and knights about, unsure what was around them, the sound of someone chanting spidery words could cause serious trouble-but the glare she shot him was no less annoyed. He flushed, feeling foolish and angry.

“It’ll pass,” Tavarre said. “It’s still early.”

Cathan nodded, feeling a sting as he remembered Damid. The little Seldjuki had often chattered fondly about the fogs around Lattakay. “Even in the middle of winter, the sun burns them off by midday,” he’d said.

Indeed, the fog seemed lighter an hour later, when the entourage came to a halt, the outriders galloping back to report that the city gates lay ahead. Peering through the mist, Cathan could just make out a looming shadow, in the shape of a mighty arch. Poets wrote odes about the arches of Lattakay.

Although he had never seen it, Cathan knew the city called the White Crescent was two-tiered, half standing on the top of the bluffs, and the other half on the beaches and long piers below, with long, sloping paths leading between the two. It hugged the edge of a round bay, a natural harbor with a narrow neck, its square buildings and thick walls hewn of the same pale stone. Decorative arches towered above it, carved with ancient images of men and minotaurs at war. Centuries ago, Lattakay had belonged to the bull-men-Nethosak, they called it then-and the Seldjuki warrior-kings had besieged it for more than a decade before driving them back across the sea. Istar had since conquered Seldjuk, and the only minotaurs who remained within the empire were slaves like the ones working to build up the Hammerhall.

Because of its heritage, Lattakay dwarfed those who dwelt within it, its buildings massive and its avenues wide and spear-straight. Even the mightiest galleys looked like toys beside its looming stone quays. In the midst of the harbor stood an island, home to the grandest structure of all, one that dwarfed even the temple to Paladine the church had built on the edge of the cliffs: the Bilstibo, the city’s arena.

For the minotaurs, gladiatorial games had been as much a religious rite as entertainment, and the Bilstibo gave proof to that. It could have held three of Istar’s arenas within it, vast enough to contain every man, woman in child in the city and still have seats to spare. This was where Wentha would hold the tourney in the Kingpriest’s honor, where the Divine Hammer and other warriors from across the empire would engage in three days of mock battle to determine the realm’s champion. A thrill ran through Cathan at the thought of it.

For now, though, there was nothing to see but the arched gates. They were opening now, and several figures emerged, like gray ghosts in the fog.

There were ten in all, seven men and three women. One of the men wore the silver robes of a cleric of Paladine, a plumed circlet on his head: Suvin, the provincial Patriarch. The other men dressed in traditional Seldjuki garb: bare chests crossed by wide sashes, flowing silken trousers, and beads that rattled in their hair and long moustaches. They were short and olive-skinned, the young ones lean and hard, the elders showing off broad bellies. The women, meanwhile, wore sleeveless gowns and dozens of silver bracelets, their foreheads painted to show their status: a green circle for unwed maids, a red cross for married women, a blue X for widows-Cathan sucked in a breath. There was one he recognized in this group … a widow a head taller than the rest, with golden hair.

He hadn’t seen Wentha for half her life. She had changed-the softness of youth was gone, leaving hard edges behind. There were lines around her mouth, and she had cropped her glorious hair short, a sign that she did not mean to remarry, but in her eyes, still, Cathan saw his sister, the girl she had been.

He wondered what she should see in his.

“Sa, Pilofiro, ” said Revered Son Suvin, signing the triangle. Hail, Lightbringer. “We are honored to welcome thee to our city.”

Heads turned to the Kingpriest as he descended from his chariot, a beacon in the fog.

He strode forward, stopping before the Patriarch, and signed the triangle in return.

“The honor is mine, Your Worship,” he said, and bent forward to touch his lips to Suvin’s.

“There is one among you who ails,” Beldinas said. “Let her come forward and be made whole again.”

This was a new ritual, one that had arisen since the Lightbringer’s ascent to the throne.

Over the years, Beldinas had visited every city in the empire, to spread his healing touch among the people. After the first year, they had taken to greeting him at the gates with a single person touched by sickness or injury, who stood for all those who yearned to feel his gentle hands upon them. The woman who stepped forward-a girl, a green circle on her face-was clearly ill. Her skin was the color of whey, stretched taut over her bones. Her hands shook, and a young man had to hold her arm as she shuffled forward. She looked up at Beldinas with pain-dulled eyes, but there was something else in them, a fragile hope that put an ache in Cathan’s breast.

“H-Holiness,” she gasped. “I am n-not worthy of-of thy grace.”

Beldinas smiled kindly. “All are worthy, child, if they are righteous in their hearts. Do you forsake the darkness that hides among us?”

She nodded. “I d-do, blessed one.”

“Then kneel, usas farno .”