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He’d received word from Luciel, too. He’d dreaded what might happen if the soldiers discovered Tavarre and his men, but somehow the villagers had fled before that could happen. As if that were not wonder enough, they had managed to escape the Scatas and were marching north even now.
He’d heard the stories of the refugees’ flight from men Tavarre had sent ahead, the tales of the monk who had destroyed the Bridge of Myrmidons. It was hard to discount them as fancy when they came from the lips of men who claimed to have seen the span collapse, but he told himself it had to be. Myths abounded of priests who could do such things, but they were hoary tales, dating back a thousand years to the Third Dragonwar and before. No cleric wielded that kind of power these days-and likely no one ever had. It was all stories, legends made up by the church. Ossirian might want them to be true, but that didn’t make it so.
The same went for the other tale that preceded the so-called Lightbringer, of how he had cured the Longosai. Ossirian had heard the same story many times over the past few days. It had spread quickly through Govi
Plagues and miracle-working monks, however, were far from Ossirian’s main worry this morning. Neither, in fact, was the imperial army, though he knew that would change once word came of its progress. Today, of all the things that troubled him, the foremost was the Little Emperor.
Ossirian never truly intended to harm the patriarch. Even when he’d taken Durinen prisoner, the threats he’d sent to the Lordcity were little more than a bluff. Perhaps another man might have been able to kill a hostage in cold blood, but Ossirian could not. He’d gambled, though, that the church hierarchs wouldn’t guess that and would bargain with him-at least that was his hope, before Symeon had died.
He cursed, a bitter taste in his mouth. None of that mattered any more. The Little Emperor was going to die anyway.
It had been an amazingly stupid thing for Durinen to do. Last night-a scant few sleepless hours ago, in fact-the Little Emperor had tried to escape. Unable to face confinement in his own church any longer, he had attacked his guards when they brought the evening meal to the tower where they held him. The Little Emperor was a strong man, and he’d overcome the guards, leaving one man unconscious and the other with a broken arm. That gave him enough time to slip out and flee into the Pantheon’s halls, seeking a way out into the city.
Before he could flee the temple, however, the guards had raised the alarm and sealed the building. He’d tried to hide, but one of Ossirian’s men tracked him down in the Pantheon’s servant’s wing. The man had had a crossbow, shouting for the Little Emperor to surrender. Foolishly, Durinen had tried to flee, and just as foolishly, the man had shot him.
Ossirian was no stranger to battle or to injured men. He knew a mortal wound when he saw it and could tell if it would kill a man fast or slow. He’d taken one look at the quarrel lodged in the patriarch’s belly-too deep to pull out without taking half his insides with it-and bowed his head. Durinen might last days, even a week, but it would not be pleasant, and the end would come just the same. The prayers and medicines of the Mishakites Ossirian summoned wouldn’t change that, any more than they could stop the Longosai. Now the Little Emperor lay back in his tower cell, drugged into a stupor with bloodblossom oil, awaiting the end-whenever it came. With gut wounds, you could never tell.
The tread of feet echoed up the tower steps, faint from far below, and Ossirian reached for his sword. In time a young man appeared, breathing hard. Ossirian recognized him-it was a lad from his own fief-but he still didn’t lift his hand from his weapon. The boy bowed, wheezing after his climb. It was more than three hundred steps to the top of the tower.
“What is it now?” Ossirian snapped, his patience frayed.
The boy drew back at his anger, stammering. “I was looking-that is, I wanted to-you told me to tell you-”
“Tell me what?” Ossirian pressed. He knew it already- Durinen was dead, he was sure of it. He’d lost the last thin hope he had of saving his people from the Scatas. “Out with it!”
“Lord,” the boy said, more composed now. “It’s Baron Tavarre. The outriders spotted him and his lot on the road, about a league south of here. They’ll be at the gates within the hour.”
Ossirian blinked, surprised. He glanced over his shoulder, out across the hills once more, then, without another word, he pushed past the boy and dashed downstairs to the Pantheon below.
Chapter Twenty
Word the survivors of Luciel had come spread through Govi
Ossirian went out with an armed escort, watched over by archers on the city’s battlements, and met Tavarre and his men just beyond bowshot of the walls. The two lords embraced each other roughly, and there were tears on both men’s cheeks when they parted. Scratching his grizzled beard, Ossirian looked past Tavarre to the mob of refugees. They were scrawny and exhausted, shivering in their dirty clothes. Nearly three weeks had passed since the fall of the Bridge of Myrmidons, and the folk of Luciel had not borne it well. They were well, though, with no sign of the Longosai among them.
Ilista sat her horse nearby, looking grave and troubled, and behind her-also ahorse-were two young men. The first wore fighting leathers and shared his saddle with a ski
“You must be the one we’ve heard about,” Ossirian said, “the one they call Lightbringer.”
“I am,” said Beldyn.
“The stories are true? You healed these people?”
“They aren’t stories,” insisted the young bandit beside the monk.
Ossirian recognized him then, beneath the road-grime and the scraggly whiskers that patched his cheeks. MarSevrin, the one who had brought him the Little Emperor, and begged leave to return south, so he could be with… with his dying sister. Ossirian paled, looking at the girl who rode with him. She was frail with hunger, dark smudges under her eyes, but as for the Longosai, there was no sign of the disease. Ossirian’s lips parted as Wentha met his gaze, then blushed and lowered her eyes.