Chris Pierson - Divine Hammer

“Come, I beg of you,” she continued, spreading her arms. “If you will not stand as one for each other’s sake, then do it for the Art. For that is what is at stake here. If the Kingpriest has his way, magic will disappear from the world. If that is what you want, very well-but if you desire the Art’s survival, then join together now, and fight those who would upset the Balance of the world!”

For a long moment no one budged, the sorcerers still regarding one another with narrow eyes. Then, slowly, it happened. Embreth, the Red Robe, stepped away from his fellows to stand among the Black. A moment later Orlock did the same, walking over to the White.

One by one, the mages began to shift, mingling together, some clasping arms, White beside Black, Black next to Red, Red with White. Leciane marveled at the sight of the three robes united, a sight no one had beheld for a millennium. The Order might just survive, after all.

Smiling, she walked forward to join them, her brothers and sisters in the Art.

Daubas Mishakas, the maps called the maze of canyons and mesas at Dravinaar’s heart-the Tears of Mishakal. Some scholars believed it was because the goddess had wept over the parched land, and the waters had carved the rock. Others swore it had once been the site of her greatest temple, laid waste by ogres in ages all but forgotten. For the Dravinish, however, the place had a different name. Raqqa az Zarqa, they called it, in their native tongue. The Sun’s Anvil.

The Sea of Shifting Sands, the dune-swept desert that comprised most of the empire’s southern reaches, had been a hard enough passage, but it was nothing beside the Anvil.

The heat within the canyons was intolerable, rising from the golden stone of their walls during the day, and at night the cold was like to freeze a man’s blood. Little grew, save the occasional cactus or thorny bush, clinging high up on the cliffs, and the only animals seemed to be broad-hooded adders and hairy, jumping spiders the size of small dogs. Both were poisonous, and Cathan had lost two men and nearly a dozen horses as the journey wore on. Several knights had fallen sorely ill, wracked by fever from the sun pounding against their steel helms. Though it left them vulnerable, the men of the Divine Hammer rode bareheaded now and shook out their bedrolls when they made camp in the evening.

Cathan winced, mopping his brow with the hem of his tabard, and glared at the cloudless sky. Like most of the other men, his skin was red and peeling. He’d taken to the native custom of tying a cloth about his head to keep cool. He glanced over his shoulder at the train of knights, squires, and clerics who followed him-nigh five hundred men in all.

Some were singing a war hymn, a brooding song exhorting Kiri-Jolith and Paladine to fuel their strength in battle.

My blade grows slow, my arm doth tire,

My foes, so many, gather nigh.

O Horned One, to thee I cry

To sear them with thy vengeful fire.

And dragon high, O shining lord,

Bear up my soul, grant me thy light,

For with thy grace and Jolith’s might,

There are three hands upon my sword…

Sighing-he had never much liked that hymn-Cathan turned back to the way ahead.

Their Dravinish guides, lean men with curled moustaches dyed bright colors and horn bows on their saddles, called to one another in their guttural tongue, their laughing voices ringing off the canyon walls. They knew the path to Losarcum and where to find the stores of food and water their people had hidden among the rocks. They also knew how to avoid the true dangers of the Anvil, the manticores and serpent-headed hawks that still haunted the wilds.

They had seen one of the former on their first day, riding the warm updrafts above the desert-its sleek, leonine form betrayed by batlike wings, many-spiked tail, and a twisted, almost-human face. It hadn’t seen them, intent on some other prey, and had flown away before the knights could cock their crossbows. Since then, nothing.

Cathan’s thoughts drifted to the Lightbringer. They had not spoken since that night at the manse, when Beldinas had revealed his plan to assail the Towers. After that, Cathan had kept busy helping his men prepare for their journey. The one time he had tried to seek out the Kingpriest, Quarath had turned him away, claiming His Holiness was too busy for visitors. Finally, on the day Cathan’s company left the Lordcity, Beldinas had appeared at the western gates for the Parlaido, the leavetaking ceremony. He had offered the ritual benediction, then Quarath had steered him away. Now he was far away, sequestered in the Temple with only the elf for company.

Cathan shook his head. He could see nothing but grief coming of this. The stones in the Garden of Martyrs would bear many more knights’ names before this was over. More and more, he yearned to question the Lightbringer …

A sharp whistle yanked him out of his reverie. With a rattle he reined in, reaching for Ebonbane. Ahead, the Dravinish riders had come to a halt and were climbing down from their saddles. Beyond them, the canyon came to a sudden end in a cliff wall. Hewn into the soft stone was a great gatehouse, with stout pillars bearing up the tons of rock. Behind the columns was a huge stone plug, carved with intricate latticework and brightly painted in reds and golds. On either side stood a brass statue of a bullock sporting an eagle’s wings.

“We have come,” the lead rider proclaimed to the knights. His face was caked with road-dust. “Soon you shall behold Qim Sudri, the City of Stone.”

Some of the younger knights glanced at one another in confusion, but Cathan nodded.

He had been to Losarcum before, and knew its native name. He recognized the gates and easily spotted the archers perched on ledges above, all in leather kirtles studded with copper and tall conical helms that winked in the sunlight. The knights’ guides shouted up to them, and after a brief conversation-and more than a little laughter-one of the bowmen vanished into a cleft in the canyon wall. Soon after, the ground gave a great rumble, and the plug pushed out from the cliffs face, then slid aside. A burst of cool air blew out of the depths within, carrying the scents of wine and smoke.

Cathan glanced back at his men, who shifted nervously in their saddles. “We’re safe here,” he told them, climbing down from his horse.

For now …

Lights soon kindled in the blackness beyond-great, copper lamps on long poles, carried by half-clad servant boys with shaved heads. An old man, also bald and bare-chested, emerged and strode down the steps from the barbican. His eyes were rimmed with kohl, and his beard, which reached down to the scarlet sash that girded his waist, was dyed deep violet and bound with rings of gold. In his hands he bore a stone pot, carved with more latticework.

“Daqan si-tuli bhak,” he declared, tugging his beard. “All roads have their ending. I am Ibsim, Master of Doors. Taste of our salt.”

He extended the urn. It was filled with powder, smelling vaguely of the sea. Cathan nodded to the old man, then took a pinch and placed it on his tongue. The salt burned after the long, dry ride, but he swallowed politely.

“I thank you, Ibsim,” he said, tugging his beard in return. “May we enter your city, and drink the sweetness of its springs?”

“Of course,” said the Master of Doors, standing aside. “All who serve the Lightbringer are welcome within our gates.”

It hadn’t always been so, Cathan knew. Istar had not conquered Dravinaar easily, and the desert princes had fought the empire’s Scatas for decades before finally surrendering to the warlord Fabran, not long before the rise of the Kingpriests. Even after, Losarcum had been a site of strife, serving as home to intense factions during the church’s two great schisms-most recently in the War of Three Thrones, nearly a century ago. The last rebel Kingpriest to dwell here, Ardosean the Uniter, had seized the throne from his rivals, founding a dynasty that had not ended until Kurnos’s downfall and Beldinas’s rise to the throne.