ONE
TRISTAN DURANT STOOD NOT ON A HIGH PODIUM, nor even on the back of a wagon, as he had seen other priests of his order do when they ministered to the masses. Instead, he stood on ground the same level as the men and women who surrounded him, their faces streaked with grime or, in some cases, even blood, all of them lined prematurely with the age that only hardship can bring.
He spoke to them of Menoth’s great love for mankind, of the mercy he had shown his creations even when they turned their backs on him, of the gifts he had given them; the Flame, the Wall, the Sheaf, and the Law. These gifts had protected them for centuries against the enemies constantly at their gates and, yes, even in their midst. He recited to them the words of the Canon of the True Law, the words that had so inspired him when he and his family were refugees themselves. He told them how there was room for all of them at the feet of Menoth in the City of Man.
“Aye,” a voice called out from the throng, “but we have done nothing wrong, so why should we have to suffer?”
Tristan had been trained to respond to such claims with the reminder that they had all done something wrong. That these men and women who surrounded him now had turned their backs upon their Creator; they had embraced the Morrowan faith and worshipped lesser gods; or they had turned their attentions to their own earthly concerns rather than to the glory of the Lawgiver. But such harsh words seemed out of place in the face of individuals who had obviously suffered so much, and so Tristan took a different tack.
“Such is the way of the world,” he told them. “But were it not so, we would be denied the opportunity to prove ourselves or to improve ourselves. Suffering is not a punishment Menoth levies upon his children. Suffering is an opportunity we are granted, a crucible by which we may forge ourselves into better people.”
Even this message, however, Tristan feared fell upon deaf ears. The Llaelese refugees had suffered so much already. Many had lost their homes during the Khadoran invasion years ago, had painstakingly rebuilt, had suffered under the austerity imposed first by the Khadoran occupation and then by the needs of the Northern Crusade, only to lose their homes again as Khadoran forces pushed against the borders of Protectorate-occupied Llael. As he looked around at their faces, he saw their eyes were less likely on him than on the Knights Exemplar who flanked him, their relic blades sheathed for now but never far from their hands.
They made for an imposing force, Tristan knew, he in his warcaster armor and the robes of his office in the priesthood, the knights in their plate with their swords always at the ready. Not far away stood his warjacks, their engines banked but ready to be stoked into action at a moment’s notice. The men and women to whom he sermonized were here not because they needed the word of Menoth but because they feared the consequences of not listening. This wasn’t how he had wanted to spread his faith, but he found himself with little choice.
Still, perhaps there was a way to bridge the gap, at least somewhat. Reaching up, Tristan removed his helmet, revealing his pale hair and eyes to the sun. To his right, Decimus began to step forward, but Tristan held out a hand, palm back, and the Exemplar seneschal stopped in his tracks, though Tristan could feel the tension ebbing through the knight even from here.
“I am a man like you,” Tristan told the crowd. “I came from a village in Wessina, and my family fled our homelands before the Khadoran invaders. As a part of the Great Crusade, I have seen more than my share of suffering, and I have gone on my knees to ask Menoth why it must be so. Like you, I wonder. Like you, I doubt. I think to myself, there must be an easier way. But that is why I am just a man, and Menoth is so much greater than I. For he knows the way that things must be and can make decisions that I, as a simple man, could never shoulder.
“What I know,” he continued, “is that Menoth is greater than any man and is more just. That his mercy is as all encompassing as his wrath. What I know is that if we face this suffering together, as brothers, united in his name, then we will weather it more easily than we ever could alone. There is no burden unendurable in Menoth’s name, and there is no burden that will not be lightened if we all carry it together.”
Tristan wanted to believe his words were getting through to them and that, given enough time, he could reach them. He had said as much to Decimus before. But looking around at their faces, downcast and resentful, he saw little to make him hope. Before he could continue, there was a commotion near the back of the crowd, and a runner dressed in the raiment of a temple clerk came pushing forward to stop, panting, at Tristan’s feet.
Without Tristan even realizing the other man had moved, Decimus was at his side, his relic blade drawn and at the ready.
“Attack,” the runner gasped between panting breaths. “A Khadoran force, larger than our own, not a mile distant.”
At that, the crowd began to panic. Some instinctively scattered away, heading back to the hovels and makeshift lean-tos that had become their homes after their village burned in a recent border skirmish with Khadoran troops. Others drew closer to the perceived safety of the Menite soldiers, less afraid of these stern theocrats than of the Khadorans whose tender mercies many of them had already endured.
For a moment, Tristan stood paralyzed, looking past the gathered refugees and down the road in the direction the runner had indicated, as though he would be able to see some sign of the approaching foe: the rumble of heavy armor, a plume of black smoke against the azure blue of the sky. Then he felt Decimus’ hand on his shoulder.
“We should withdraw to the temple,” the seneschal said, his voice a harsh whisper meant only for Tristan’s ears. “We should have ample time before they reach us. Our position will be stronger, and we don’t yet know the extent of the threat.”
Tristan shook his head, not intending to brush off the advice of the knight, his mind simply racing with possibilities he might choose from. “We cannot abandon these people to their fate,” he said, his mind on the suffering his own family had endured. He wanted to give these people hope, to show them what could be made possible with faith in Menoth, but stability was a hard thing to come by in these days of war and hardship.
“These people are unbelievers.” Decimus’ voice rose slightly as anger began to eat into the deference he had been trained always to show to the priest caste. “They brought their fate upon themselves. It is clear to anyone with eyes that they scorn the protection we have already offered them.”
“No,” a man said, stepping forward from the crowd. “Please.”
He had obviously been close enough to hear Decimus’ vehement words, and now he interceded, showing courage the rest of his fellows had failed to demonstrate. He was an old man, his hair grey and stringy and mostly gone from the top of his head. He walked with a limp, leaning heavily on a wooden crutch. One of his eyes was as cloudy as curdled milk, but with the remaining one, he looked straight at Tristan, clearly believing that in the young priest lay his best hope of salvation.
“We are simply tired and beaten down by our struggles. We mean no disrespect to the Creator. We are merely weak. If you offer us your protection again, then we will strive, one and all, to be better Menites in the future.” As the man spoke, a murmur of agreement rose from the crowd.
For a moment, Tristan stood in indecision. Mercy was his instinct, but it had served him ill more than once in the past, at times to the cost of other lives. His eyes traveled from the old man to Decimus, whose gaze from beneath his helmet still smoldered, and then back again.
“We cannot leave the faithful to the depredations of a hostile force,” he finally said, clasping the old man’s free hand in his. “We will make our stand here and show these people the glory that awaits them in the service of the Lawgiver.”
The old man smiled a gap-toothed smile and released Tristan’s hand.
The gathered refugees began to disperse into the surrounding buildings and places of relative safety as Tristan turned to begin arranging his troops to fight to their best advantage. Before he had replaced his helmet on his head or so much as issued an order, he felt Decimus’ mailed hand gripping his upper arm.
“Assuming we survive,” the seneschal said hotly, “this discussion isn’t over, priest.”
“Worry not,” Tristan said with more bravado than he felt. “I’m sure we will have many more discussions after this.”
* * *
THE KHADORANS STRUCK FROM THE TREES, though stealth wasn’t exactly their strong suit. It began with the distant thump and then closer boom of mortar fire—wildly inaccurate from that distance but likely enough to shake the morale of less-disciplined troops than those under Tristan’s command. Then came a barrage of shots from the rifles of widowmakers hidden back in the brush, most of which pinged off the armor of the warjacks Tristan had positioned to hold the center of the road, but one of which managed to take down an Exemplar errant, a costly loss. That was followed by a roaring cry like the sound of a wounded bear as a pair of manhunters—supported by black-fletched arrows fired by Kossite woodsmen—came barreling forth from the treeline…and right into the purifying flame of Tristan’s Repenter.
That was merely the first wave, however, and as Tristan and his small cadre closed ranks to repel the invaders, the rest of the Khadoran force began to pour from the trees and into the muddy road that cut through the center of the small Llaelese village.
The Khadoran force outnumbered Tristan’s small interdiction by nearly three-to-one, but they were a comparatively ragtag group, comprised mainly of Winter Guard and supported by a handful of specialists. Once again, the mortar sounded its deep bass call, and the ground exploded not five paces from where Tristan stood, showering him and his battlegroup with bits of steaming dirt.
“Circle the errants around,” Tristan shouted to Decimus, who commanded the unswerving loyalty of all of the Knights Exemplar under his command. “We need to neutralize their artillery.”
Even as he said it, another widowmaker’s bullet pinged off the armor of Aegis of Faith, the heavy ’jack stood between Tristan and the trees.
“What of the others?” Decimus asked, not quite a contradiction of Tristan’s orders but more than he would normally have dared against a member of the priesthood, and Tristan knew it.
“We’ll take care of that,” he said, pointing with the tip of Veritas, his long spear, at the Khadoran Destroyer stomping from out of the trees, a man-o-war kovnik marching at its side. Not an enemy warcaster, at least, but Tristan knew from experience that the heavy ’jacks of the Khadorans were nothing to take lightly.
Decimus stood for a moment, his expression unreadable beneath his seneschal’s helm, and then he nodded once and gave a silent signal for the Exemplar errants to follow him. As they began to circle around, Tristan reached out his awareness, mouthing a prayer to Menoth to guide his sight, and sent his mind into the cortex of Aegis of Faith, the venerable Vanquisher that had served him since his training. He felt the machine waiting to serve him, ready to do the work of Menoth, and he smiled.
The widowmakers were burrowed deep into the treeline, giving them an unimpeded view of Tristan’s forces but making them almost impossible for his own deliverers to hit. Yet one of the gifts Menoth had seen fit to grant to Tristan was the ability to see beyond sight, an ability he could extend to the warjacks under his command, and so the Vanquisher took unerring aim at the group of widowmakers where they crouched in the underbrush. The flame belcher cannon roared with the sound of Menoth’s own wrath, and the treeline exploded in a wall of flame. That, at least, would make the work of Decimus and the errants a little easier.
By then it was time to turn his attention back to the task at hand. The Winter Guard had closed enough that their light arms’ fire was now cracking against the armor of Tristan’s two ’jacks, and the Destroyer was not far behind them, its cannon belching forth a shot that went wide of Aegis of Faith but crashed among a pair of the small unit of Temple Flameguard left in Tristan’s care.
Stepping forward, Tristan kept his mind on his two ’jacks, even as he stepped to the side of the Flameguard to see if there was anything he could do for the injured soldiers. Farther ahead, the remaining woodsmen did battle axe-to-spear with the Flameguard while the surviving manhunter fell upon one of the Knights Exemplar. The mud at their feet churned to a bloody soup, and even as Tristan laid his hands upon the wounds of his fallen brethren, he asked the Repenter to let loose its flamethrower across the ranks of the approaching Winter Guard, who scattered, at least temporarily, under the blazing curtain of Menoth’s Fury.
One of the fallen Flameguard was beyond help, but Tristan was able to get the other back on her feet. He said a prayer to Menoth, asking the Creator to heal the worst of her wounds. He was never sure that it would work, though this time it seemed to. Healing was a rare gift, one that was never easily given. It seemed to only work when the wounds were fresh—and not always then. Each time he called upon the Lawgiver to grant him the power to heal his soldiers, Tristan felt almost as if some of his own strength were being pulled out and funneled into his comrades, an act that always left him feeling drained and strangely hollowed out. Each act of healing was a minor miracle, a reminder to Tristan of the scope and power of Menoth’s mercy.
“I can fight, sir,” the woman said, though Tristan saw blood still dripping from the cuff of her armor and from the edge of her visor.
Tristan had tried with varied success to memorize the names of all the soldiers who served under him. Decimus always seemed to immediately know every soldier by name, rank, and reputation, but Tristan sometimes struggled to keep them all straight. Now he cast about for this one’s name and finally found it: Caylan.
“To the back of the line, soldier,” he said, shaking his head at her protestations. “Make sure the village stays safe if they break through.”
There was another roar from the Destroyer’s cannon, and then the massive Khadoran warjack had closed with them. Next to its red bulk, even Aegis of Faith seemed small, but Tristan had seen his warjack come through worse. At just a touch of his will, it swung its blazing star into the side of the Khadoran ’jack, causing it to slide sideways in the mud.
For an instant, Tristan was distracted as the shot of a remaining widowmaker ricocheted off his power field. He momentarily lost touch with both of the warjacks under his command, and the Destroyer’s axe bit hard into the side of Aegis of Faith. Tristan’s mind snapped once more into communion with the ’jacks—he felt the axe almost as though it had cut into his own rib, and runes blazed in the air around him as he called upon Menoth’s divine might to strengthen the hand and sharpen the eye of his battlegroup, bringing the blazing star back around in a rending shriek that tore the Destroyer’s axe arm from its chassis to crash to the muddy ground.
At the same moment, there was a sound from the trees that was barely a sound, and through the eyes of his ’jacks, Tristan could see blessed crossbow bolts thudding into the bodies of the remaining widowmakers and the mortar crew. The Winter Guard had been largely scattered by Tristan’s superior soldiers; the woodsmen lay dead or dying in the mud. And though he had lost a handful of troops—and black-fletched arrows or bloody wounds showed on many of those who still stood—his force remained nearly as strong as when the battle had begun.
“This is your chance to surrender,” Tristan said to the kovnik, who still stood alongside his broken ’jack. “Spare those of your men who remain, and submit to the mercy of Menoth.”
To drive home the point, Tristan guided the arm of Aegis of Faith, which brought down one final blow upon the head of the Destroyer and sent it crumbling to the ground, spilling gears and pistons across the churned earth.
Tristan knew the man-o-war kovniks were among the most hardened and proud of the Khadoran soldiery, but he also knew the man before him was well and truly beaten. He hoped the kovnik would not be so foolish as to throw his life away on a lost cause. There was a long moment of tense silence. Even the other fighting had stopped, as the remaining Winter Guard waited to see what their commander would do. Tristan’s forces held their swords and spears at bay, awaiting his order.
Behind the kovnik, Decimus and the errants had continued to circle around, and even if there were some surprise waiting for Tristan, they would be prepared to end it in a moment. Decimus had his relic blade in his hand.
Both Tristan and the kovnik wore helms that concealed their features, but as he stared at the man, Tristan believed he could see the Khadoran’s spirit and hoped his enemy could see his as well. Finally, the kovnik dropped his heavy blade into the mud at his feet and sank heavily to one steam-armored knee.
In little more than a breath, Decimus was behind the man-o-war, his relic blade held at a weak point in the back of the kovnik’s neck. The seneschal looked to Tristan, awaiting some order.
“Spare him,” Tristan said. “Strip his armor, make him a prisoner, and return him to the temple. It may be he will have some intelligence that will be of use to the Crusade.”
For a moment, Decimus stood, and then he nodded as he and the other knights set about doing just that while the remaining Temple Flameguard rounded up the other surviving Khadorans. As they did so, Tristan inspected his warjacks, and while he examined the gash in the side of Aegis, he looked up to see the Flameguard whom he had healed looking back at him through the slit in her visor. Her eyes were inscrutable. Was it disappointment he saw there or hope? It was a distinction he’d found harder and harder to make since being given leadership over these soldiers, a question he found himself asking far more often than he would have imagined.
* * *
FLANKED BY TEMPLE FLAMEGUARD, they marched the Khadoran prisoners from the village toward the Menite temple in the nearest town, from which they could eventually be transferred to Leryn or some other stronghold. Before they left, the villagers to whom Tristan had been sermonizing came once more out of their homes, slowly and uncertainly. They were met, Tristan knew, by stares of withering disdain from Decimus and some of the other knights; he knew as well that his own look was one of disappointment, so this time he kept his helmet on to keep his expression from them.
He had hoped they would see in his soldiers some spark of inspiration to take up what meager arms they had and help defend themselves. When they came out, he had hoped to see the burning light of renewed piety in their eyes. But while they were obviously grateful for the intervention of his forces, while the old man with the crutch came up and clutched his hand and said his thanks with tears in his eyes, Tristan could also see in the faces of the crowd around him that they were eager to see the Protectorate force leave.
To their eyes, he had delivered them from one oppressor, only to replace it with another. Why could he not show them the freedom that came with service to Menoth? He remembered the old man’s words, that these people were tired and beaten down from their struggles. Perhaps with time, they would see their way to the proper path.
As Tristan turned to depart, Decimus stepped before him. “I would speak with you,” he said, each word clipped, hard as flint.
“As you promised,” Tristan replied, allowing himself a tired smile that Decimus could not see. He stepped aside with the seneschal so their words would not be heard either by the villagers or by the other troops, though Tristan had the impression Decimus had no care if the former overheard.
“These people should be put to the flame,” Decimus said as though he were discussing which path to take across a river or which piece of produce to buy at a merchant’s stand. “They are unbelievers, and they have no intention of changing their ways. If you could not see it before, then surely you must now.”
Tristan looked over his shoulder at the villagers who gathered. Some had already slunk away while others stood nervously, watching the exchange, perhaps knowing their fate hung in this conversation. He wanted to dispute what Decimus was saying, but even he had to admit, if only to himself and his Creator, that the seneschal was most likely right: these people might never convert to the True Faith. Tristan’s words had not reached these people, and it might be that nothing ever could.
He had seen other priests put villages to the torch for less, and he knew it was not his place to condemn their actions. They had acted in Menoth’s name, and he knew the words of the Canon of the True Law by heart. He knew suffering brought men closer to the Lawgiver, knew that sometimes fire was the only thing to purify that which could never otherwise be made worthy. And yet, it did not feel right to him. The purifying flame should be reserved for the true enemies of the faith, not those who might yet be saved by the proper word or deed. Even though Tristan had not been able to reach them, should they suffer for his failings?
He shook his head. “Purifying these people would serve no more purpose than letting the Khadorans take them would have. We have done what we came here to do. Let us depart and hope that perhaps there is even one amongst their number who has heard our words.”
Decimus didn’t spit on the ground at Tristan’s feet, the young priest believed, only because his years of training as an Exemplar prevented him from showing any such disrespect to the clergy. Instead, Decimus nodded and turned on his heel to see to the disposition of the prisoners.
As they left the village behind, Tristan knew that, to Decimus, his decision must have seemed a light one, something done as an afterthought, when nothing could be further from the truth. He looked back over his shoulder at the handful of Llaelese refugees who still stood in the muddy street, and he remembered all too well the price of mercy. In the village of Bridoche, he had shown mercy to infidels, and the faithful had perished for it; the city itself had nearly fallen. Even now, his people bore with them the bodies of two of his own soldiers, men who had been entrusted to his care—one of them an Exemplar, brother-in-arms to Decimus himself.
He had learned in Bridoche, in the hardest possible way, that no man was infallible and that, as a servant of the Lawgiver, there were times when he would have to act as his Creator’s wrath, setting aside his moral qualms. But he also believed in the power of the words of the True Law, which had won him over even when he was a young man. He believed Menoth’s mercy was every bit as important as his Wrath, a lesson that, he sometimes feared, many among the more hardened Sul-Menites had forgotten in the heat of war.
As he walked away, he prayed to Menoth he had made the right choice, and he asked forgiveness he did not deserve for all the times he had erred and would err again in the future.