And then he realized it wasn’t some specter of his father laughing. It was Maellas. Apparently the amulet didn’t keep him from talking, after all.
“Is this what you die for, Andri? Keeping me from death at the hands of vengeful shifters, so I can burn at the stake instead? Why bother? Let them have me. No one would blame you-you were ambushed and overpowered. I know I need to die for what I’ve done, but why does it matter whose hand it is that takes my life? As long as I die, justice is served.”
Andri did not answer immediately, blocking a sword stroke aimed at his knees. As he saw Irulan take a knife in the thigh, he thought that perhaps Maellas was right. Why should anyone have to die simply to delay a murderer’s execution?
No. The cleric might not be able to charm him with a spell, but he’d been influencing his flock from the pulpit for over a century. He didn’t need magic to be persuasive. Andri shook the priest’s words off. He’d been charged with a duty, and he would fulfill it, or die trying.
As if sensing the paladin’s resolve, Maellas pressed him again. “If it is so important that my executioner be an agent of the Flame, then kill me yourself. Are you not the hand of the Keeper? Kill me, and save these innocent lives, shifter, human, and dwarf.”
At Maellas’s words, Andri glanced over to see the braid-wearing shifter maneuvering behind Greddark. Just as the shifter was preparing to plunge his dagger into the dwarf’s back, Greddark spun and sunk his own blade deep into the shifter’s shoulder. Then he primed his blade, and alchemist’s fire ran down the length of the metal, burning the hapless shifter from the inside out. The shifter howled in agony, dropping his weapon and falling to the floor, where he rolled about in a vain attempt to extinguish the flames.
Irulan, distracted by the shifter’s wounding, sidestepped a thrust at her midsection. The movement brought her too close to Maellas, and the werewolf didn’t hesitate. He lunged at her, grabbing a mass of braids in his mouth and hurling her to the floor. Her sword skittered across the stone and then Maellas was on her, his powerful jaws tearing into the soft flesh of her throat.
“Nooooo!”
Andri turned and rushed at the werewolf, his sword raised, leaving his back unprotected. He felt shifter blades penetrating through the joints in his armor, but the pain was as nothing to him as his entire being focused on one thing.
Irulan.
Maellas’s jaws came away bloody as he drew back, preparing for another bite. Irulan’s eyes met Andri’s over the werewolf’s blonde head, and for a moment he was transported back to his mother’s bedroom in Flamekeep, watching as another woman he loved was ravaged by a lycanthrope. But where Chardice’s eyes had held resignation, Irulan’s held only fury. She fought to push Maellas off her, to get her hands ups between his muzzle and her throat, battling to the last. She would never give in to her fate like his mother had. When she died, she would be cursing, kicking, and screaming as death came to claim her.
But that would not be today.
Bellowing with a rage he’d been holding in check for five long years, Andri brought his sword down in a mighty arc that cleaved Maellas’s skull in two, spraying pink and gray matter everywhere. As the werewolf’s dead body slumped atop Irulan’s, Andri tossed his sword aside. He heaved the cleric’s corpse off Irulan, then knelt down next to her and gathered her up into his arms. As the light faded from her brown eyes, she looked up at him and smiled.
“Proud … of you,” she whispered, then her eyelids fluttered closed, as if she were simply asleep, and Andri crushed her to him, hot tears coursing down his cheeks.
Epilogue
Mol, Eyre 16, 998 YK
Greddark watched as Andri tethered a fine gray stallion to the post and entered the small teahouse. It looked like the paladin had finally gotten his mount. Apparently, in Andri’s black-and-white world, killing a Bishop was less sinful than killing your parents-or at least more easily forgiven.
Greddark raised his hand in greeting, and the paladin nodded, crossing the room and taking the seat opposite him. Greddark summoned the waitress and ordered another cup of Silverleaf. Though this was supposedly one of the best tearooms in Flamekeep, neither the tea nor the service was as good as in Sigilstar. But what the shop lacked in amenities, it made up for with an atmosphere of studied serenity. And, frankly, after the events of the last few days, he could use a little relaxation.
Xanin’s men had broken through the doors shortly after Maellas’s death and the shifters who still lived had been taken into custody. Andri had been able to heal the worst of Irulan’s injuries, and she’d been taken to the House Jorasco enclave to recuperate. Xanin had cleared Andri of all charges and revoked the edict exiling them from the city. He had, however, suggested that Andri might like to go back to Flamekeep sooner rather than later, and the paladin had been more than happy to take his advice. Greddark had offered to accompany him back to Flamekeep. He needed to report to Dzarro anyway, and the information he had for the older dwarf was best told in person.
As he’d expected, the news that the murders had been committed by a high-ranking member of the Church, but one that was acting alone, was a tale neither Dzarro nor Queen Diani wanted to hear. It wasn’t a tale he particularly wanted to tell, either, once the effects of the Mark of Justice had begun to kick in, but Diani’s wizards had been able to lift the curse before any of the damage became permanent. And since Andri had elicited a promise from him not to reveal the existence of the Burnt Woods werewolf pack or the Silver Circle, Greddark had precious little else to offer, though the young queen did express an interest in the activities of the Arulduskan Throneholders. In the end, though, her compensation had been generous, even if remorse had compelled him to have half of it sent anonymously to Zoden’s mother. The lad had been bright, if overeager, and his poems hadn’t been half bad. Perhaps Lady ir’Marktaros would use the funds to set up a scholarship in her son’s name at the local bard’s college. Or perhaps she’d follow in her estranged husband’s footsteps and gamble it all away. Either way, Greddark’s guilt would be assuaged.
“Did your meeting go well?” Andri asked, sipping from his own steaming cup. The paladin had exchanged his armor for a brilliant white tabard and gray leather pants, though he still wore his father’s sword. Greddark imagined he probably slept with the thing.
“As well as could be expected.” Andri had figured out that Greddark’s true employer was higher up the Throneholder chain than Zoden, but if he suspected how high up, he was keeping it to himself. “Yours?”
“The same.” Andri had had to make his own report to the Keeper of the Flame and the Diet of Cardinals, something he’d been more than a little concerned about. But apparently the greater good of ridding the Church of a murderous-and embarrassing-canker had outweighed the evils of consorting with necromancers, defying a Bishop’s edict, and raising a weapon against a superior. Either that, or the Keeper’s favor had protected Andri from any punishment other than what the paladin would heap on himself-not even Jaela Daran could shield him from that.
“The Cardinals were very … lenient. Especially since I couldn’t tell them the one thing they really wanted to know.”
“Which was?”