Mercedes Lackey - Oathbreaker

"Should take us about three candlemarks to get him back -- " Tindel began.

A growl from the ranked fighters behind Tarma interrupted him, and he stopped, looking startled.

"Stefan promised him to us, my friend," Tarma said quietly. "He goes back only when we're finished with him."

"But -- "

"We called the Oathbreaking on him," Kethry pointed out. "He's ours by the code, no matter how you look at it."

Tindel looked from face to stubbornly set face, and shrugged. "Well, what do we do with him?"

"Huh. Hadn't thought that far -- " Tarma began.

"I had," Kethry said, firmly.

There was still a vast reservoir of anger-energy for her to draw on, and while the coercion of innocent spirits was strictly forbidden a White Winds sorceress, the opening of the gates of the other-world to a ghost that had a debt to collect was not.

And Idra most certainly had a long, bitter debt owed to her.

"We called Oathbreaking on him -- that's a spell, partner. I do believe we ought to see that spell completed."

Tarma looked at her askance; so did the rest of the Hawks. Char, gagged, made choking sounds. "How do you propose to do that? And just what does it mean to see it completed?"

Kethry shifted in her saddle, keeping Char under the tail of her eye. "It only takes the priestess and the mage to complete the spell, and I know how. Jadrek found the rest of it in some of the old histories. As for what it does -- it brings all the broken oaths home to roost."

"Does that mean what I think it does?"

Kethry nodded, and Tarma smiled, a bloodthirsty grin that sent a chill even up her partner's backbone.

"All right -- where?"

"The temple back there will do, I think; all we need is a bit of sanctified ground."

With Char's horse between them, they led the mystified mercenaries toward the white shape of the temple on their backtrail. It was, fortunately, deserted. Kethry did not especially want any witnesses to this besides the principals.

The temple was in a state of extreme disrepair; walls half fallen and crumbling, the pavement beneath their horse's hooves cracked and uneven. Tarma began to look dubious as they penetrated deeper into the complex.

"Are we far enough in, do you think? I don't want to chance one of the horses falling, and maybe breaking a leg if there's any help for it."

"This will do," Kethry judged, reining in her mount, and swinging a little stiffly out of the saddle.

The rest dismounted as well, with several of them swarming the King's mount to pull him roughly to the ground. The horses, eased of their burdens, sighed and stamped a little, pawing at the weathered stone.

"Now what?" Tarma asked.

"Tindel -- you and Beaker and Jodi stand here; you three hold Char." She indicated a spot on the pavement in the center of a roughly circular area that was relatively free from debris. "Tarma, you stand South, I'll stand North. The rest of you form a circle with us as the ends."

The Hawks obeyed, still mystified, but willing to trust the judgment of the mage they'd worked so closely with for three years.

"All right -- Tarma, just -- be Kal'enedral. That's all you need to do. And hold in mind what this bastard has done to our sister and Captain."

"That won't be hard," came the icy voice from across the circle.

Kethry took a deep breath and brought stillness within herself, for everything depended now on creating a channel from herself for the anger of the others. If she let it affect her -- it would consume her.

When she thought she was ready, she took a second deep breath, raised her arms, and began.

"Oathbreaker, he stands judged; Oathbreaker to priestess, Oathbreaker to mage, Oathbreaker to true man of his people. Oathbreaker, we found him; Oathbreaker in soul, Oathbreaker in power. Oathbreaker in duty. Oathbreaker, we brought him; Oathbreaker in thought, Oathbreaker in word, Oathbreaker in deed. Oathbreaker, he stands, judged, and condemned -- "

She called upon the power she had not yet exhausted, and the rising power within the circle.

"Let the wall of Strength stand between this place and the world -- "

As the barrier had been built between herself and the dark mage for the magic duel, so a similar barrier sprang up now; one pole beginning from where she stood, the other from where Tarma was poised. This wall was of a colorless, milky white; it glowed only faintly.

"Let the Pillars of Wisdom stand between this world and the next -- "

Mist swirled up out of the ground, just in front of Char and his captors. Kethry could see his eyes bulging in fear, for the mist held a light of its own that augmented the moonlight. The mist formed itself into a column, which then split slowly into two. The two columns moved slowly apart, then solidified into glowing pillars.

"Let the Gate of Judgment open -- "

More mist, this time of a strange, bluish cast, billowed in the space between the two Pillars. Kethry felt the energy coursing through her; it was a very strange, almost unnerving feeling. She could see why even an Adept rarely performed this spell more than once in a lifetime -- it wasn't just the amount of power needed, it was that the mage became only the vessel for the power. It, in a very real sense, was controlling her. She spoke aloud the final Word of Opening, then called with thought alone to the mist-shape within the Pillars, and fed it all the last of the Hawks' united anger in a great burst of unleashed power.

The mist swirled, billowed -- grew dark, then bright, then dark again. It glowed from within, the color a strange silver-blue, Then the mist condensed around the glow, forming a suggestion of a long road, a road under sunlight -- and out of the center of the glowing cloud rode Idra.

Char gave a strangled cry, and fell to his knees before the rider. But for the moment she was not looking at him.

She was colorless as moonlight, and as solidly real as any of Tarma's leskya'e-Kal'enedrcd, When Kethry had decided to open the Gate, she had faced this moment of seeing Idra's face with a tinge of fear, wondering what she would see there. She feared no longer. The long, lingering gazes Idra bestowed upon each other "children" were warm, and full of peace. This was no spirit suffering torment --

But the face she turned upon her brother was full of something colder than hate, and more implacable than anger.

"Hello, Char," she said, her voice echoing as from across a vast canyon. "You have a very great deal to answer for."

* * *

Tarma led two dozen bone-weary Hawks back into Petras that morning; they made no attempt to conceal themselves, and word that they were coming -- and word of what they carried -- preceded them. The streets of Petras cleared before their horses ever set hoof upon them, and they rode through a town that might well have been emptied

by some mysterious plague. But eyes were watching them behind closed curtains and sealed shutters; eyes that they could feel on the backs of their necks. There was fear echoing along with the sounds of hoofbeats along those streets. Fear of what the Hawks had done; fear of what else they might do --

By the time they rode in through the gates of the Palace, a nervous crowd had assembled in the court, and Stefansen was waiting on the stairs.

The Hawks pulled up in a semicircle before the new King, still silent but for the sound of their horses' hooves. As the last of the horses moved into place, the last whisper coming from the crowd died, leaving only frightened, ponderous silence, a silence that could almost be weighed and measured.

There was a bloodstained bundle lashed on the back of Raschar's horse, a bundle that Tindel and Tarma removed, carried to the new King's feet, and dropped there without ceremony.

The folds of what had been Char's cloak fell open, revealing what the cloak contained. Stefan. though he had visibly steeled himself, turned pale. There was just about enough left of Raschar to be recognizable.