Elizabeth Moon - Oath of Gold

Then they held her up once more for the crowd to see. The chamber was crowded with worshippers who had come to see the end of the spectacle. At the priests’ command the guards threw her to the floor.

“Will you admit that our Master commands your obedience?” asked one of the priests, nudging her face with the toe of his boot.

“I am Gird’s,” said Paks, forcing the words out. Her voice was clearer than she would have thought possible.

“You are meat. You are the sacrifice our Master demanded.” The priest’s voice was cold. “If you will not acknowledge our Master, the stones are heating for you.” Paks said nothing. “Do you want to be a helpless cripple?” he demanded.

“No,” she said. “But I do want to be Gird’s paladin.” Again she felt the lightest touch on her head, and a soothing haze came between her and her pain.

The priest snorted. “Gird’s paladin! A bloody rag too stupid to know the truth! Then you will suffer it all, paladin of Gird, just as you wish.”

Pain exploded in her legs as the burning stones were dropped in the hollow of both knees, and her legs bound tightly around them. She clenched her fists, forgetting the broken bones until too late. The pain was sickening, impossible; she retched, trying not to scream.

“And now, paladin? Where is your lord’s protection now?” The priests hauled her up by both arms, forcing weight on her knees.

“The High Lord has dominion,” gasped Paks. “Gird has upheld me here; I have not failed.” She felt herself falling, and willed to fall into that darkness.

The guards held a bloody wreck between them. The crowd smelled burnt flesh, and shivered, not hearing the priests’ final lecture. What had she meant, “I have not failed”? The paladin’s head hung down, slack against her chest, the brand of Liart dark on her forehead. Then the priests gestured, and the guards turned her around. The taller priest cut the cords around her legs, and her feet thumped down. With tongs, the priest yanked the stones from their place, ragged bits of skin clinging to them. The hall stank of it. The paladin did not move, or cry out; she might have been dead. For an instant, no one moved or spoke.

Then those in front saw, and did not believe, but recoiled even in disbelief against those behind. For the burnt bloody holes where the rocks had been disappeared, as a wave swept across lines on sand erases them, gone without mark or scar. At the movement, the priests turned, saw, and gaped in equal disbelief. One by one, other wounds healed, changing in the sight of those watching to unmarked skin. Finger by finger, her misshapen hands regained their natural shape. With a cry, the two guards dropped her, flinging themselves back. One of the priests cursed, and raised his whip, but when he swung, it recoiled from her and snagged his own armor. The other drew a notched dagger, and stabbed, but his blade twisted aside. She lay untouched, unmoving.

Now turmoil filled the hall: those behind wanting to see what had happened, those in front frantic to escape the wrath of Gird they were sure would come. The priests called other guards, who yanked her upright, head still lolling—now all could see that Liart’s black brand no longer centered her forehead. Instead, a silver circle gleamed there, as if inset in the bone itself. At that, the priests of Liart shrank away, their masked faces averted from the High Lord’s holy symbol. The terrified guards would have dropped her, but the priests screamed obscenities louder even than the crowds’ noise, and sent them away with her, out the same entrance through which they’d brought her earlier. And then they drove the crowd away, in a rage that could not disguise their own fear.

Chaos scurried through the warrens of the Thieves Guild, panic and disruption, as those who had seen tried to convince those who had not, and those who would not listen tried to find someone to believe. Some fled to the streets: black night, icy cold with a sweeping wind, and patrols of cold-eyed Royal Guards sent them back into the familiar warrens, even more afraid. Factions clashed; old quarrels erupted in steel and strangling cord. Those who had arranged to take the paladin’s body outside the city walls wrapped her in a heavy cloak and carried her gingerly, carefully not looking to see if that healing miracle continued, eager to get this terror out of their domain.

And at every grange of Gird, the vigil continued until dawn.

Kieri Phelan rode away from Vérella that dark night in an internal storm of impotent rage and frustration. He had been captured by a ruse he should have seen through—taken in by the plea of one of his veterans. That was stupidity, and he didn’t excuse himself that he was distracted by the day’s events. So he was Lyonya’s king—that didn’t mean he could let his mind wander. And then he’d been rescued—beyond his hopes—by another veteran—by Paksenarrion, now a paladin of Gird. She had freed him, and his squires, but she herself was now a prisoner—for five days, she had agreed to suffer whatever torments the priests of Liart inflicted. And he had agreed to that, because he could do nothing else. She made the bargain with the Liartians, and her oath bound him. He shifted in the saddle, glad of the darkness that covered his expression. What must they all think, of a king that would sacrifice a paladin to save his own life?

And yet—he had to admit she was right. He knew who he was, now: the rightful heir to Lyonya’s throne, a half-elf, torn from his birthright by slavers. No one else could do what he must do—restore the frayed taig of Lyonya, and the alliance of elf and human, clean the forests of evil influence. Lyonya needed its king—needed him— and he could not deny a paladin’s right to follow a quest to its end. But Paksenarrion—dear to him as his own daughter—his heart burned to think of her in their hands. All he had seen in thirty-odd years of war came to him that night, and showed him what she must endure.

He forced his mind to his own plans. If she had bought his life, he must make use of it. Selfer would be far north of Vérella by now, riding hard to meet Dorrin’s cohort and bring them down. Dorrin herself, in Vérella, would have fresh mounts ready for them, and a royal pass to follow him. Kostvan had agreed to let Arcolin pass through, if it came to that, and would be alert in case the Pargunese tried to take advantage of his absence. He thought ahead. Surely the enemy would strike before he reached Chaya—but where? Not in the Mahieran lands close to Vérella, nor in the little baronies of Abriss or Dai. East of that, in Verrakai domain? At the border itself? In Lyonya? He thought over what Paks had said about Achrya’s influence there—some thought of him as a blood-thirsty mercenary. He had no clear idea of the river road in his mind; he’d always gone south to visit the Halverics, cutting eastward from below Fiveway to go through Brewersbridge and avoid Verrakai altogether.

At Westbells, the High Marshal and Phelan both stopped to wake Marshal Torin and hand over Paks’s gear. Seklis did not explain much, and Marshal Torin, sleepy-eyed and bewildered, did not ask. Kieri touched that bright armor for the last time, as he thought, and prayed to all the gods that Paks might be spared the worst. The first glimmer of light seeped into the eastern sky as they rode away. Around him the ponderous hooves of the heavy warhorses—twenty of them—shook the earth. Behind were the lighter mounts of the infantry and bowmen, and then the pack train. Kieri’s mouth twitched, remembering Dorrin’s sulfurous comments on the pack train. He would have minded more, except that their slowness gave Dorrin a better chance to catch up. He thought where Selfer would be, on the road he knew best—changing horses, gulping a hot mug of sib, and starting off again, faced with Crow Ridge to climb.