David Drake - The Gods Return

"No one can defeat the Lord!" said his companions. "And yet," said Rasile, "we shall." She turned to smile at Cashel. "Are you ready, Warrior Cashel?" she asked. "Yes ma'am," Cashel said. "Where do we find this Lord, please?" "I think he's found us," Liane said, pointing with her left hand toward a blotch of light the color of rust. It was half a furlong distant, near a pair of the little demons flattened against the wall of the canyon. "Yes," agreed Rasile. Cashel nodded and started toward the light as it flickered, swelling rapidly. *** Sharina wore a pair of simple tunics and a nondescript gray cloak-borrowed from Diora-over them to conceal not only the Pewle knife but Burne. The rat rode in a fold of her outer tunic, his little nose wrinkling excitedly at smells that passed Sharina unremarked.

"Oh, my!" he'd murmur, and, "Now, who'd have imagined that?" Sharina thought of asking the rat what was of such interest in this grubby city, but she figured he'd tell her if there were something he thought she should know. She had enough on her mind already. Sharina was in the middle of a group of twenty men, all of them soldiers except for Dysart and three attendants. She'd been wrong to expect that at least a few of the troops would still be wearing the hobnailed sandals which on these stone pavers would send a ringing warning several blocks ahead: they'd donned either soft boots or clogs. Prester and Pont, the regiment's camp marshals, weren't with this detachment, but Sharina suspected the way the troops were prepared for their assignment had a lot to do with those old veterans. The clop of wooden soles-Sharina wore clogs herself-could be heard at a distance also, but noise alone wasn't a problem. The clang of many hobnails together cried "Army!" to everyone in earshot. Captain Ascor was at her side. He wore a grim expression and she didn't need to be a soothsayer to know that the hand he kept under his cloak was clutching a bare sword. Ascor had winced, but he hadn't argued when Sharina told him what she was going to do. She'd offered him a plan which, though he probably thought was insanely dangerous for Princess Sharina, showed a willing to compromise with a bodyguard's sensibilities. The Blood Eagles had learned that guarding Garric and his sister was a different business from the days when Valence III hunched in his room and drank morosely with friends. Dysart glanced over his shoulder to check where Sharina was, then paused for a moment so that she came alongside him. "The graveyard where they're meeting is to our right at the next intersection," he said. "Less than a half block. There are three other teams approaching at the same time." Or so we hope, Sharina thought.

They weren't concerned with the individual worshippers, who had nothing to tell. She was hoping to catch the man preaching, though.

According to Dysart, he was a former priest of the Shepherd named Platt. Where Dysart or Tadai could identify particular leaders, they'd been priests of the Shepherd before being won over to the new heresy.

Aloud she said, "I'm surprised that there's a graveyard within the city. They've been outside the walls everywhere I've been in the past.

I guess the pirates who ruled here weren't so superstitious." "They weremore superstitious than honest folk," Burne said unexpectedly.

"Well, what passes for honest folk. This graveyard's newer than the rest of Pandah." "Master Burne," Dysart said quietly. If he felt any emotion about what he was saying, he certainly kept it concealed. "The Sultans of Pandah back for seven generations are buried on this particular site." "Yes, but ithad been outside the walls before the Change, when the sultans of your age ruled a sleepy trading port,"

Burne said sharply. "You know how graveyards concentrate power, though. This burial ground and several others ripped through the fabric of the past. That's why they're in the middle of an ancient pirate fortress now." The rat laughed. "If you found human teeth in a hog's stomach, Master Dysart," he said, "would you claim that they'd grown there?" "That's enough," Sharina said as the party reached an irregularly shaped plaza with a dry fountain in the middle. She spoke to end the squabble, but as soon as she did she heard the preacher they were hoping to arrest. "Brothers and sisters in the one God, in the true Lord of Existence," Platt whined in a nasal voice. "The gods of the past are dead. The future is Lord Scorpion's!" There must be a hundred or more listeners crowded close to the preacher. Low altars were built out from the fronts of the large tombs in the middle of the graveyard. The family of each deceased was expected to use them for offerings of wine and on the anniversary of his death. Platt stood on one of them, wearing a bleached wool robe that seemed to glow in the moonlight. The soldiers carried truncheons for this raid, though they wore their short infantry swords as well. From all reports, the Scorpion worshippers were planning the violent overthrow of the kingdom. Sharina wasn't going to order a massacre of frightened, deluded people-but neither was she going to disarm soldiers who might be facing deadly weapons themselves on the kingdom's behalf. "Only those who serve Lord Scorpion will be spared agonizing stings in this world and eternal torment in the world to come," Platt cried. He seemed to be looking upward, not toward the crowd beneath him. "You are the chosen, brothers and sisters! You are the wise ones who see the truth already." The ashes of the common people of Pandah-those wealthy enough to have memorials at all-were buried in loculi, stone boxes three feet long and a foot in width and depth. They were clustered as near as possible to the row of sultans' tombs, but after generations they covered most of the field set off for burial. The boxes were carved from Pandah's soft yellow limestone and weathered quickly. Within a few generations most had crumbled to shards and loose gravel that Sharina couldn't tell in the moonlight from the calcined bones of those interred. Burne leaped from the fold in Sharina's tunic. She caught a flash of him darting among the boxes; then he vanished among the legs of the crowd. She grimaced in surprise, then drew the Pewle knife. She probably should have done that sooner. "Sons and daughters of Lord Scorpion!" Platt called in a cracked, wavering voice. He sounded insane… and perhaps he was, but his shrill periods cut through the normal layers of doubt and common sense. "Our Lord's day is coming. On that day we will rise to glory with our God!" The spectators were staring at the preacher with rapt attention. Dimly Sharina could see movement converging on Platt from the other directions. She stumbled and stumbled again. Around her soldiers cursed under their breath as they turned ankles or barked shins. "The enemies of God are around us!" Platt cried. "Flee, my brethren!" "Get him, boys!" bellowed a soldier in the group approaching from the opposite end of the cemetery. Everybody was lunging and crying out. As the preacher shouted his warning, he'd turned and jumped off the side of the altar. Sharina lost sight of him, but she ran toward where he had to be. The stone boxes and terrified spectators made it an obstacle course rather than a normal race, but as expected she saw Platt an instant later; the bleached robe stood out like a flame. "There!" shouted one of Dysart's men, snaking between two soldiers and grasping the preacher by the arm.

"Don't hit him!" cried another of the civilian agents, grabbing the other shoulder and tucking Platt's head under his own arm to keep the soldiers from clubbing the fellow. "We want him able to talk!" Dysart said, his hands raised to prevent more soldiers from piling on enthusiastically. "We've got him! Stay back out of the way!" "We've got him!" called someone from the other side of the large tombs.

"Master Dysart, we've got him!" "Herehe is, by the Shepherd!" shouted a soldier well along to the east end of the cemetery. "Tell Marshal Prester we got him!" Sharina jerked the captive's white hood back. A soldier clacked open the shutter of the dark lantern he carried, throwing yellow candlelight over the prisoner's face. He was an unremarkable man with a weak chin and high forehead. "Is this Platt?"