Avila lowered Integrity, and this time the girl reacted to its presence, her eyes focusing on its still dripping blade as she backed away.
“He insulted the one true god,” Avila said.
“Will he get up?”
“No. He will lie there forever, rotting until he becomes one with the soil.” She cleared her throat. “What is your name, girl?”
“Willa,” the girl replied, sniffling now.
“How old are you?”
“Seven.”
Avila took in the sight of the girl’s blond curls and supple, dirt-streaked flesh. She had not been this girl’s age in sixty-seven years, even though she still looked the same as she had on her eighteenth birthday. She wondered how she would have reacted if her brother had been killed before her eyes. And then she realized it had happened just seven months earlier, on that damned soggy soil of Haven.
Stop it, she thought. Do your duty. Forget the rest.
“I will ask you the same thing I asked your brother,” she told Willa. “Do you love Ashhur? What do you feel for Karak?”
Willa shuffled on her feet, still staring at her brother’s corpse. Tears cascaded down her plump red cheeks. She looked ready to run, yet too terrified to do so.
“I await your answer.”
“I don’t know,” said Willa, her voice small. “Ashhur’s our god. That’s what Mother and Father say.”
“But what do you feel? What has Ashhur done for you?”
The little girl’s perplexed eyes rose to meet hers. “Gave me life?” It was said with uncertainty.
“No,” replied Avila. “Ashhur might have created your ancestors, but your parents gave you life. Now tell me, what has Ashhur done for you?”
The girl shrugged. “Told us stories?”
“Is that all?”
Willa nodded.
The little girl looked so lost. Avila sheathed Integrity and swung her leg over the saddle, leaping to the ground. Little Willa winced but did not retreat. The girl was an ignorant simpleton to be sure, unable to comprehend death, the most basic of life’s tenets. Even so, Avila felt a shard of pity. This girl was remaining remarkably strong given what she’d just witnessed.
Kneeling before the girl, Avila placed a hand on her shoulder and said, “Ashhur is a false god, child. He has raised his people in chains. And he broke his oath with his brother when he tried to destroy holy Karak on a battlefield where he had no place. Our Divinity then swore to cross the great river to free Ashhur’s people from the chains with which they’ve been shackled. And what does Ashhur do? He leaves you, a mere child, alone to face the coming army. My army. Is this the kind of god to whom you wish to dedicate yourself? A god who would allow your brother to perish in his name?”
“Um…no?” replied Willa.
Avila ruffled her hair. “That is a better answer.” She then grabbed the child’s head and forced her to look down at her brother’s body. She shoved the corpse over, exposing the gaping second mouth that still leaked blood below his chin. “Karak will give you the freedom to live your life as you wish. So long as you stay true to Karak’s law, your life will be yours to live. Does that sound appealing to you?”
Willa stared at her dumbly and shrugged.
“Idiot,” Avila muttered, and then, “Child, would you like to join me and see what befalls those who insult the true god of Dezrel?”
“I don’t know…”
Avila grabbed dead Will by his ratty shirt collar and lifted him. Torrents of red poured over her hand, dripping on Willa’s feet. The child shrieked and leaped backward.
“Or you could end up like your brother,” Avila said.
The girl nodded her head up and down as she sobbed.
“Good,” said Avila. “Now tell me where your village is. Just point girl, point!”
She did so, her sobs growing louder with each moment. When she outstretched her arm to the southwest, Avila nodded in approval. She rode to the supply carts and deposited the girl on the back of one of them before rejoining her company. The fighting men fidgeted, sweat drenching their smallclothes and leaking through the heavy leather and mail they wore. Malcolm frowned at her, but she ignored him. She knew what he was thinking, had known since he’d treated her like some craven weakling earlier. But Avila knew better, she knew herself. Malcolm might be stringent in his loyalty to Karak, but so was she. The girl would prove useful down the road, and when her usefulness ended, she would either bow before the deity or perish.
The convoy followed Willa’s occasional directions, marching down a slender pathway cut through the fields of grain. Far behind, at the rear of the five thousand men, soldiers used buckets to spread a sticky concoction across the fields. Torches were touched to ground, and the fire spread rapidly, swallowing the land and the vegetation that grew on it. When the first crackle reached her ears, Avila glanced behind her, and all she saw was a thick wall of billowing black smoke that blotted out the sky.
The village of Nor came into view after an hour of riding. A makeshift wall surrounded it, constructed from jagged stone and twisted, unnatural-looking trees. It was almost as if the wall had sprouted from the very land beneath them. Avila held out her hands, halting the progress of her troops. Best she could tell, the wall was only ten to fifteen feet high. It was a laughable defense against the might she had at her disposal.
“Archers, forward,” she said loudly, and sixty men stepped to the front of the procession, fanning out wide, thirty on either side of her.
“Did they think that shoddy wall would protect them?” asked Malcolm.
“I don’t care,” Avila snapped back. “They kneel, or they die.”
Heads began appearing over the wall. She counted seventeen.
“With me, archers,” she said. “March.”
Gently snapping the reins, she walked her mare toward the walled village. Malcolm remained beside her, and the archers kept in stride with the horse, their feet moving in unison, a perfectly tuned machine of her creation. Pride filled her belly with warmth. Father taught me well, she thought. A slight pang of sorrow followed when she thought of him. The man’s gorgeous platinum hair was gone now, his body warped by the presence of the otherworldly demon inside him.
Think. Concentrate. Lead.
When she was a mere fifty yards from the village, she shouted the order to stop. All came to a silent halt. She could hear the archers breathing heavily, and she knew it had little to do with the day’s warmth.
Malcolm glanced at her and nodded.
“The moment is yours, Lord Commander,” he said. An expectant gleam shone in his milky eye.
She lifted her chin to the sky and spoke.
“People of Nor, hear my voice! Open your gate and let us enter. None shall perish if you bend your knee to Karak, the rightful god of all Dezrel. We come here to release you from the bonds imposed by your hateful deity. Do not turn us away. Refusal to kneel is tantamount to blasphemy, and we shall not hesitate to batter down your weak wall and run you through.”
Behind her legions, the raging inferno of the crops sputtered and hissed. A light rain of ash had begun to fall all around them.
Pausing, she edged her mare a few steps forward. She heard voices raised in panic on the other side of the wall. The front gate creaked open, catching on the dirt, and someone cursed in a familiar yet foreign tongue. Grunts came next, and the gate swung outward as far as it could go.
The gate was only six feet tall at most, and beneath it ducked two Wardens to join the third who had shoved open the substandard entryway. She was unsurprised to find she knew all three. They were Benedictus, Azrial, and Gabriel, Wardens from the east who had relocated to Ashhur’s Paradise after Karak sent them away from Neldar. They stood tall and proud, their silken auburn hair hanging down to their waists. The simple hemp-spun clothing they wore made them look like absurdly giant elves, and the staffs they held in their hands, sharpened to points, made them resemble elegant barbarians.