Huma feared the worst. Rennard and Lord Oswal had both been overwhelmed, he decided quickly.
With measured steps, Huma slowly opened the door to Lord Oswal’s chamber. The darkness disoriented him for only a second, then his trained senses located the even darker blur—Lord Oswal standing by the makeshift bed.
Standing? Huma blinked and allowed his eyes to adjust. No, it was not the High Warrior. Oswal was, indeed, lying on the bed. What then? A shadow?
Huma stepped forward and the darkness seemed to shift. He blinked. The figure—or what he had thought was a figure—was no longer there. With some trepidation, Huma moved forward until he was standing next to the still form of Lord Oswal. He was relieved to hear the regular breathing of the High Warrior.
Huma’s foot bumped against something. He peered down and found himself staring at the inert body of one of the clerics. The cleric slept as the guards had slept, his eyes glazed and wide. Huma shook him hard in an attempt to wake him, but the man did not even stir.
He felt, rather than heard, the darkness stir behind him. He hesitated and that hesitation might have nearly cost him his own life, for something metallic struck his breastplate and would have cut deep into his throat if he had moved any slower.
Cursing himself, Huma parried another vicious jab by a tiny, twisted blade. He had his first glance at his attacker, a figure in flowing darkness from which two red, glaring eyes peered. The figure threw the blade at his head, forcing Huma to duck. Even as Huma dodged the weapon, the specter brought forth a small pouch and raised it.
The knight scuttled back quickly. There was no denying what he faced now. The actions, the appearance—he was surprised he had not recognized the intruder immediately—were those of a cultist of Morgion, Lord of Disease and Decay. One of the vermin had made his way into Vingaard Keep—and had so far succeeded in killing one, and possibly two, of the most important figures in the knighthood.
The ragged figure hesitated before throwing the contents of the pouch.
Huma leaped forward, his broadsword up and before him. The flat of the blade slammed into the pouch, which burst, but not before the sword’s momentum pushed much of it back at the hooded intruder. Huma stumbled back, avoiding the deadly shower that rained on the other. The assassin coughed and hacked as dust flew into his face. He stumbled back, but Huma dared not step forward. The cultist fell toward a pew and then, slowly, pulled himself back up again.
“If you think—” the voice was rough and strained, but familiar “—to kill me with my own tools, know that Morgion protects his own. Besides, I only wished to put you to sleep. Now you leave me no choice.”
It was all Huma could do to keep from dropping his sword as the hooded figure’s throat cleared itself of dust and his identity was revealed. Huma took a desperate step back, even as the cultist pulled out a broadsword hidden in his robe.
“The knife point would have nicked you, and again you would have slept. I fear, though, that this is all I have left now.” The blade came up, its point directed at Huma’s neck.
Huma could not bring himself to fight. It could not be happening like this. It could not be true. This was some terrible nightmare from which he would awaken!
The assassin laughed quietly. The sword lowered slightly. The laugh seemed to echo through Huma’s mind, mocking everything he had ever believed in.
“I had tried to protect you from this. I am sorry, Huma.”
And though Huma could not speak the words at first, they pounded in his head, cried in his heart.
Why, Rennard?
Chapter 19
“Have you nothing to say?” Rennard asked. “We have time. All sleep here. The walls are thick. They will not hear our swords. Yes. I think we have time.”
“In Paladine’s name, Rennard. Why?”
Huma could almost see the face, despite the hood and darkness. He could almost feel the bitterness as Rennard spoke.
“When I lay dying of plague all those years ago, I pleaded with Paladine, with Mishakal, with all the gods of that house for release. They did nothing. I lingered, wasting away. My visage shocks many now; it would have horrified them even more had they seen it then. I had contracted the Scarlet Plague, you see.”
The Scarlet Plague. Of all the forms unleashed over the years, the Scarlet Plague had been the worst. The knighthood had been forced to burn whole villages when the greatest healers could not keep the disease under control. The victims wasted away, but each day was agony and many killed themselves long before the disease had the chance. The name came from the redness of the skin as the victim eventually burned up from the sickness. It was a frightening thing, still talked of in whispers.
“Then when I was sure the agony would finally kill me, I was visited—not by the gods I had pleaded to, but by the one god willing to take away my pain, for a price.” The point of the blade rose again. “Morgion. Only he cared to answer my prayers, though I had never looked to him. He was willing to take my pain from me, make me whole if I would become his. It was no difficult decision, Huma. I accepted immediately and gladly.”
Huma prayed for something—Lord Oswal stirring, knights coming to investigate the darkness, something—but all remained quiet. How long had Rennard planned? How long had he waited for this moment?
Huma heard more than saw the blade coming at him. That other knight moved confidently in the dark. Yet Huma managed again and again to counter each strike, though he knew that Rennard’s skill in personal combat was considered second to none. Especially now, when he faced a Huma who also fought within himself.
Then, as suddenly as he had attacked, Rennard ceased. He chuckled quietly. “Very good. Much like your father.”
“My father?”
They had worked their way farther from the doors, toward where the clerics stood when they offered ceremonies. Rennard pulled back his hood, and even in the dark Huma could make out the pale, drawn skin. “Father. Oh yes. That was why I protected you, you know. The mark of Morgion, even on an unsuspecting person, is a sign that that one is not to be harmed by any who serve Morgion.”
Huma remembered the words of the cultists in the ruins. They had seen the mark and had argued about it. Skularis had not known the reason for its existence.
“What a sentimental fool I am,” Rennard continued, “for wanting to save my kin.”
Kin? Huma shook his head in growing horror.
“You are so very much like my brother was, Huma. Durac was his name—Durac, Lord of Eldor, a land overrun soon after he and I joined the knighthood. Nothing remains of Eldor today, save a few pitiful ruins. Just as well. Unlike the Baxtrey domains, where Oswal and Trake ruled jointly, I would have inherited nothing. As eldest son, your father inherited.”
“Stop it!” Huma swung violently at the man who had betrayed all he believed in. A man who had once been a friend.
Rennard defended himself easily. After several moments, they parted again.
“I belonged to Morgion long before our father sent us as squires to Vingaard Keep. From the first, I tried to protect Durac. He was family, after all. The others who followed Morgion might not understand that, so I planted within him the same invisible mark that protected you from them. It proved to be a futile gesture. Your father died in battle only a year after becoming a knight. He stayed back with a handful of others to block a passage through the eastern mountains in Hylo—the only passage that would allow the Queen’s forces to attack from the rear. The rest of us rode to warn the main army. There was nothing I could do. Ironic, is it not? I wanted to tell him the truth about me at that last moment, but of course I could not. Little did I know at that time that he had left a wife and son.”