David Dalglish - Clash of Faiths

“Wait,” Jerico said, grabbing Arthur’s cup with one hand, and the girl’s wrist with the other.

“I’ve change my mind,” he said. “Please, drink with me, Arthur.”

“Of course,” said the serving girl, smiling sweetly at him.

Jerico accepted his cup, and once it was poured, he lifted it to his lips. Immediately he felt the warning of Ashhur sound in his mind. He looked to the girl, who stood perfectly still, as if waiting for her dismissal.

“Arthur,” he said, lowering the cup. “Can you please tell me her name?”

“Her, why that’s… step into the starlight, girl, I can’t see you well enough without.”

As the moonlight fell upon her beautiful features, Arthur’s face hardened, and that look alone told Jerico that she was a stranger.

“Don’t run,” Jerico started to say when she pivoted, smacking him across the head with the metal tray. He rolled with the blow, desperate to remain beside Arthur. Upon hitting the ground he spun, kicking his leg out. The girl leapt, and his leg smacked against the hard stone of the bench. He screamed.

“How dare you!” Arthur roared. “Guards!”

Guards wouldn’t be there in time, Jerico knew. Her hand shot out, chopping Arthur’s throat. His cry for guards choked down, and blood dripped from his lips. The tray clattered to the ground as she drew a dagger, but Jerico would not allow it. Shield pulled free, he lunged, flinging himself in the way. The dagger clanged against it, and the assassin cried out from the pain of contact.

“Do not interfere, paladin,” the woman said, taking a step back.

Jerico readied his mace and kept his shield high. He watched her, waiting. Every muscle in her body tensed. Time was not on her side. She couldn’t dance about, nor try to misdirect. Her target was Arthur, and so long as Jerico lived, he would stand in the way.

She shifted her weight twice, twisting her extended foot in a way to feint one direction, then leap the other. Jerico nearly fell for it, but at the last moment flung his mace in the way. It struck across her shoulder, and he heard the snap of bone. Despite this, she did not scream, nor stop. A dagger in her other hand, she thrust for Arthur’s throat.

Arthur caught her wrist with both hands and wrenched her arm. As she twisted, he kicked out, snapping his heel against her knee. When she crumpled, he kicked again, this time the arm Jerico had wounded. Jerico stepped between them, again ready with his shield, but Arthur pushed him out of the way. As the assassin tried to stand, he smashed his fists into her head.

“I am no fat lord for you to stick like a pig,” he said as he kicked her stomach, blasting a cry of pain from her lips. “In my own home, you come with poison and blade? You’ll hang, woman, hang!”

She rolled over, her dagger pressed against her own throat.

“Hang a corpse, then,” she said before slicing.

Her face contorted in pain as the life left her eyes. Jerico stepped back as the guards arrived, forming a protective circle about their lord. Arthur pushed them aside, and he clapped Jerico across the back.

“I owe you my life,” he said. “Any boon, name it, and it’s yours.”

Jerico looked to the corpse, then shook his head.

“I will name no boon. Just let me return to rest. All I ask of you is that you do what you think is right concerning your brother.”

Arthur nodded, and he pointed to the dead woman’s body.

“I have lived these past years fearful of an assassin,” he said. “But never did I think Sebastian would actually do it. I always doubted. No longer. He wants my head? Then I’ll take his. He wants poison in my veins? Then I’ll bleed his out on the field of battle. Go rest, paladin, and worry no more. My decision is already made.”

Jerico glanced once more at the woman, absently wondering of her name.

There were tears in Valessa’s eyes as she rode from the Castle of Caves. Together; she’d insisted they go together.

I can handle a single disgraced lord, Claire had said. I’ll return by morning, and no one will be the wiser.

But come morning, she was still inside. This might not have caused Valessa to panic. It wouldn’t be the first time her partner had had to improvise. But bells signaled a ceremony of some kind, and as the nearby farmers gathered, Valessa had walked among them, her heart in her throat.

“Last night, an assassin tried to take the life of your lord!” Arthur had called out to the crowd from atop the walls of his castle. “She failed, and took her own life. Before she did, she gave one last request. I grant it now.”

And with that, he flung a body over the edge, a rope tied about its neck. Valessa covered her mouth and choked down her cries. The rope snapped taut, jerking Claire’s lifeless body side to side. No hood covered her face, and her eyeballs popped loose, hanging by red threads from her skull. Valessa’s hands shook.

“You bastards,” she’d whispered as the rest of the crowd cheered. “You bastards.”

“This assassin was sent to me by the one I used to call my brother, but Sebastian is that no longer. He is a fool, and a coward, to send knives in the dark because he fears the slightest threat to his rule. So be it! I reclaim my birthright. I am Arthur Hemman, eldest son of my father, Arthos Hemman, and the North shall be mine!”

But that was not the worst. Standing there beside Arthur was a man she did not recognize, but that did not matter. She recognized his armor, and his strange shield. A paladin of Ashhur. Somehow, someway, one had survived, and no doubt he’d been the one to keep Claire from completing her task. Her rage grew. Both Arthur and this paladin needed to die, but she could do nothing now. Such a simple assignment, Sebastian had made it seem. All so she could take the life of Darius.

As she fled the city, her hatred grew. So many were to blame. Sebastian, for not cooperating. The paladin, for protecting Arthur. Darius, for his failures bringing them to the North in the first place. Arthur, for not dying like he should have, leaving her task unfulfilled. She had enough hate for everyone, and as a gray sister, she had the power to act on her hate.

Torn between finding Sebastian and acquiring reinforcements from the Stronghold, she rode south, knowing she had plenty of time to decide before the roads forked. Come her second night slumbering beside the road, her choice was made for her.

Valessa…

She startled, instantly alert. She expected a man kneeling beside her, but instead saw only a serpent coiled at her feet. Given the weather, she knew it should have been sluggish, and in hiding, but instead it slithered toward her, its red scales gleaming in the moonlight. When it reached her side, it coiled up once more, and its mouth opened. Bloodied fangs dripped poison. Valessa swallowed, tensing. She would give it no reason to strike, no reason at all…

The serpent struck anyway, its fangs sinking into her hand. As its poison flooded into her, her sight vanished, and all sound became the deep whispers of the man in black.

I call you to me, he said. Your task is at an end, as I have said. Come join us at the seventh altar, near Stonefield. I await you there, with Darius at my side.

“You’ve taken the traitor,” she said, unsure if he would hear her or not. All her senses were awry, and the sound of her voice was very far away.

Traitor no longer, and to be punished no more. The Stronghold has sent another, and you will hear from him the wisdom of your High Enforcer.

“They believed your lies.”

The truth is sufficient, even for one such as I. Do not tarry, gray sister. And tell me… where is Claire?

The darkness before her eyes seemed to quiver, and her anger flared as she imagined it was the effect of Velixar’s laughter.