The guards at the entrance were easily dealt with. One did not question a captain without very good cause. The men on the upper levels were just as efficiently disposed of. Loclon ordered them downstairs, accusing them of hiding inside the building to escape the cold. The men saluted sharply and hurried outside.
The guards in the hall outside the First Sister’s apartments were a different matter. These were Garet Warner’s men. Loclon could order them about until he turned green without any noticeable effect. He stopped just out of sight on the landing of the broad, carpeted staircase and motioned the Kariens to silence.
“What do you think, Gawn?”
“I think we’re going to have to fight,” the captain replied softly.
“There is no need to fight,” Terbolt informed them in a low voice. “Lork, take care of it.”
Before Loclon could protest, the big man stepped into the hall and walked towards the two Defenders standing either side of the First Sister’s door. The men looked up at his approach, hands on the hilts of their swords as they challenged him. Lork did not answer them. He just kept walking. As soon as he was in reach of the Defenders, who, by this time, had begun to draw their weapons, he grabbed a man with each of his plate-sized hands and smashed their heads together so hard Loclon could hear their skulls cracking. He hurried forward as the men collapsed at Lork’s feet.
“You fool! You’ve killed them!” he hissed.
“They were agents of evil,” Garanus announced as he came up behind them with Lord Terbolt and the other priests. “Their deaths will please the Overlord.”
“Well, they won’t please anyone around here! We have to get the bodies out of sight!”
“We can move them inside,” Terbolt said, turning to face the bronze-sheathed door. “Should we knock?”
Gawn muttered something as the Karien pounded on the door. It was opened a few moments later by Lord Draco, who took in the fallen guards and the tonsured priests with a glance, reaching for his sword with a speed that belied his age. Lord Setenton was prepared, however. He plunged his dagger into Draco’s breast while the older man’s blade was still in its scabbard. The Duke of Setenton shoved him backward into the room. Draco slid off the blade and collapsed on the expensive patterned rug, his red jacket darkening with blood. He cried out an unintelligible warning but there was nobody around to heed it.
Loclon stood frozen in shock, as Lork dragged the bodies of the guards into the room and locked the door behind him. They had killed two Defenders. They had killed the Spear of the First Sister.
He was damned whichever way he looked at it.
“Find the First Sister,” Terbolt ordered. The priests spread out, checking the numerous doors that led off the main hall of the First Sister’s apartments. Loclon stared at Draco who lay groaning softly, hand clutched uselessly over his punctured chest.
“Finish him, Captain,” Terbolt ordered brusquely. “His moaning offends me.”
“But he’s...” Loclon began uncertainly.
“I’ll do it,” Gawn offered, drawing his sword. He walked to where Draco lay dying and barely even hesitated as he plunged the blade into him, over and over again. Draco was long dead before he stopped.
Loclon watched Gawn mutilating Lord Draco and discovered, somewhat to his embarrassment, that rather than repulse him, the smell of the blood was arousing him. He turned away to hide the evidence of his excitement.
“Can’t bear to watch, eh?”
Loclon composed himself before turning back, trying to sound nonchalant. “A bit excessive, don’t you think?”
Gawn shrugged. “I thought you’d be pleased.”
“Pleased? To watch you hack an old man to death?”
“He’s not just an old man, Loclon. I thought you knew. Lord Draco is Tarja Tenragan’s father.”
Before that startling news had time to register, one of the priests cried out from a room up the hall. They hurried to the door and pushed their way through.
Across the threshold lay the body of a statuesque middle-aged woman, blood pooling beneath the knife wound in her chest. Her dark hair partially covered her face, but could not hide the startled look in her dead eyes. Loclon stepped over the body and stared, open-mouthed at the sight before him.
They had found the First Sister.
She was sitting on the floor, dressed in a simple grey tunic, her long, grey streaked hair undone and hanging limply over her shoulders. In her hands was a tattered rag doll with one eye missing. She was rocking back and forth, humming tunelessly.
Joyhinia Tenragan, the most ruthless First Sister in living memory, the woman who had ordered a Purge that had killed thousands of Medalonians, looked up as they crowded in her room and smiled at them.
“Do you want to play with dolly?” she said.
Chapter 44
Since befriending Dace, Mikel rarely spent a full day among the horses. Whenever Dace appeared, Sergeant Monthay would suddenly turn to Mikel and dismiss him, along with the warning that he did not expect to see him again until dinnertime. Mikel had no idea why Dace had that effect on the Medalonian and finally decided to stop questioning his good fortune. Perhaps it was the Overlord’s way of sparing him a life of forced labour.
Sometimes, Kali would join her brother on their daily jaunts. Every time he saw the barefooted little girl, she would stare at him closely and demand, “Do you love me?”
Mikel thought it the strangest question, and it seemed to annoy Dace too, but he had begun answering yes, simply because Kali would sulk if he answered any other way. An answer in the affirmative left her beaming for the rest of the day. She would hold his hand, and smile at him a lot, and not say blasphemous things about the Overlord, which Mikel found something of a relief.
Dace pouted a lot when Kali was with them, and he argued with her all the time. But he seemed incapable of refusing her anything. If Kali had been his sister, Mikel thought, he would have ordered her to stay at home and expected her to comply. These Medalonians really did lack the proper understanding of the place of a female.
When Dace and Mikel were alone, they spent hours exploring the Medalonian camp. They were never challenged by the Defenders, never asked what they were doing, never in trouble. The followers’ camp was even more interesting. Dace had a knack for smiling at people so charmingly that they never thought to question his right to be there. Mikel had no success trying to emulate his companion’s winning smile. The one time he had tried it on a Defender, hoping to sneak into the Keep to find out how the princess was faring, the Defenders on guard had sent him packing with a blistering reprimand.
Of course, one had to be on their guard around Dace. He was always trying to coax Mikel into stealing things. He did not seem to care what Mikel stole, just that he stole something. Its value was irrelevant, it was the act that mattered. But Mikel had been true to his faith and had not fallen to the dangerous charms of his new friend. If anything, he felt he was a positive influence on the young thief and was certain that he had saved the youth from sinning on more than one occasion.
Today however, Dace had finally suggested they steal something that even Mikel could not resist.
There was, according to Dace, a blue swallow’s nest in the tower of the old keep. The mother swallow must have gotten her seasons mixed up because it was almost winter, and the chicks would die if they hatched at this time of year. Dace’s noble plan was to steal the eggs from the nest and take them somewhere warmer, where they could incubate safely. Once hatched, they could dig up worms for the chicks and nurse them through the bitter weather. By spring, they would be ready to make it on their own and the boys could release them.