The Saint, the Sinner, and the Damned

  “Miertaz.” It was Dasha, her hand on his shoulder. “You cleansed the darkness.” She helped him sit and brushed some spew off his face with her grimy sleeve. “We’re saved. Your friends, too, if they’re still alive.” The arcanist laughed, almost hysterically.

  Thud thud.

  Miertaz coughed, spat to the side and then nodded. “It’s done then.” Her arm on him felt hot, and her usually pale skin was a ruddy colour, a rash dotting her forearm. She’d need to recover from the use of the Scale of Light, as would he. As would… but Miertaz didn’t feel the heat anymore, the sword had cooled the burning. Thud thud. The sword.

  Miertaz was overcome by a sudden panic. Thud thud. The sword. All the power it held, the darkness and strength to bring an entire city to ruin. Thud thud. It had shattered his dagger of sun scorched glass. Thud thud. Where was it? Where was it? Miertaz turned left, then right. He could not see the sword. Thud thud. The sword.

  “Dasha,” Miertaz said. “Where is it?” Thud thud. “I can’t let it… I can let it fall into the wrong hands.” Thud thud. “Dasha! Where is it?” Thud thud.

  The arcanist pushed herself away from the priest, her face taking on a mask of uncertainty, of fear. She glanced to her side. The sword was wrapped in the ragged red cloth of her tabard. She picked it up, held it to her chest.

  “Hand it over,” Miertaz said.

  Thud thud. Thud thwack. Sit up straight, boy.

  Dasha could not meet his eyes. “It’s dangerous, Miertaz. You’ve already held it. Used it even. It could be treacherous for you to expose yourself to the sword for a second time.” She took a step back, almost tripping on one of the steps to the altar. “I could keep it safe under my care. I wouldn’t give it to Larker. I’ll flee to Jalkabad. The university will have a place for it.”

  Thud thud. Thud thwack. Learn your duty, Miertaz.

  Miertaz stood. “You mean to steal it. Take the sword and its Darkness to be studied by your heretics.”

  Thud. Thwack.

  “You have seen what’s happened here,” Dasha said. She backed away, her voice trembling as she spoke. “An entire chapter lay dead. What makes you think that the Order of Leorian can contain it? It’ll be safe in Jalkabad. It’ll be…”

  Thud thwack. Reciting your oaths is more than a trite memory exercise. They are your compass, your duty, your life…

  “Do not lecture me, Ilas!” Miertaz clamped his hand on the arcanist’s wrist. “I am not a seminarian anymore.”

  “Miertaz, what are you talking about?” Dasha tried to pull her hand free, but the priest’s grip was too strong.

  “I said, hand it over.”

  “No!”

  Thud thud. Thud thud. Thud thud.

  The arcanist went still. Her eyes wide, a gasp of air was forced out of her lungs. Then blood. It trickled down her chin, dribbling onto her robes. She slumped forward, the arcanist’s head and matted hair coming to rest on the priest’s shoulder.

  “Dasha?” Miertaz stammered. “What…what.”

  Miertaz felt hot blood on his hand. He felt a hilt, cool and perfect in his grip, and he now felt the sword of Vannarbar that he had thrust through Dasha’s guts.

  ***

  Fenris Whiteeyes dragged Karlin like a sack through the cathedral doorway. He didn’t have it in him to curse as he stumbled and shifted over the debris that littered the floor. He just dragged. The archer barely noticed the broken pews and long-dead clergymen, took no notice of the glittering hoar frost or grand stillness that had overtaken the place. He dragged. His breath, his panting, and his grunting filled the hall, echoing back at him until he could drag Karlin no more.

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  “Miertaz,” Fenris called, then. “Miertaz, you bastard, get out here and-...”

  “Dead.” The priest’s voice cut through the air.

  Fenris craned his neck to follow the sound. Miertaz was sitting in the dirt by a broken window, the patch illuminated by the light of early dawn. He’d almost taken the priest for a statue. Fenris opened his mouth to say something, then saw the figure Miertaz held in his arms. Dark hair, pale skin, blue robe, red tabard. The arcanist. Fenris Whiteeyes clenched his fist. Fury rose up in the mercenary. He would hang her, the priest too, if he got in the way. He would… No, it wasn’t a red tabard. It was blood, and the body was a corpse.

  Miertaz looked up from his position, staring at the arcanist. The priest was shocked, mind only half in the here-and-now. He met Fenris’s eyes with a bewildered gaze, blinked a couple of times like he’d just woken up. Then the priest saw Karlin, propped up against Fenris. It seemed to wake the man like a splash of cold water.

  “He’s dead, Fenris,” Miertaz said. “There is nothing anyone can do.”

  And the strength left the Fenris Whiteeyes. He let Karlin gently to the ground and knelt by his side, the first time Fenris had knelt in a church for a decade.

  ***

  The looming hall that was Vannarbar’s keep was an unwelcome home to its new guests with their harsh looks and sharp swords. It glared back at them through its shadows and webs and dust. None were at ease. The grand fire in the centre of the hall felt like a thing dark, miserable and cold. The men sitting around it were subdued, quiet.

  Only Borke and Hessen spoke, the stout man and hairy Kostian talking in low tones. They spoke of plans, of what should happen next, what would happen next, things that they should have been speaking to Smashednose about, but the old warrior was out in the rain. Even after they’d fought so hard to find themselves a wall to hide behind and a hall to make camp in, Einar Smashednose was out in the cold. Fenris Whiteeyes was by the fire too, but he hadn’t added a word to the conversation, even though the two men needed plenty.

  Soon enough, the priest took his place, sitting on the wooden bench with a bowl of pottage that he didn’t feel hungry for. Whiteeyes gave him the slightest nod before returning to look into the flames. Then, after a moment, and without looking away from the fire, he asked, “So, what’s next for the hallowed priest then?”

  “Food,” Miertaz said. He scooped some pottage out of his bowl, forced himself to swallow.

  “And after that?” Fenris looked at him, a joyless grin spread across his face. “You’ll leave us to our killing, because Vannarbar’s a holy place now, is it?”

  “I’ll take the sword back to my order,” Miertaz said. “It’s bound to me for now, but it will have to be destroyed in time.”

  “Ah, this fucking thing,” Fenris said grimly.

  The man reached towards it. His finger, his grimy, dirty, bloody finger nail almost touching the cloth that covered the Sword of Vannarbar. Thud, thud. Miertaz would rip that finger off, would tear that cocky bastard limb from limb, would have him face down in a pool of his own-... Fenris scowled and pulled his hand away.

  Miertaz was left shaking in his seat, his spoon rattling in his hand until he clenched it tight. Thud thud. Thud thud. The priest closed his eyes. I feel no fear. I tell no lie. I harbour no evil thing. I feel no fear. I tell no lie. I harbour no evil thing. He opened them after the short recital in his mind. “What about you then? What waits for your company?”

  “The campaign is not over,” Fenris said. “A few more of us and Larker’s men will die until we get paid or have a new king. Then, it’s off to the taverns and brothels ‘til we get bored, broke or suicidal.”

  “What a life,” Miertaz said. “You don’t get tired of burying dead friends?”

  Fenris looked angry, furious even, then the archer lost it all to exhaustion. “You don’t have friends in this business.”

  And the priest knew that was a lie.

  Fenris Whiteeyes looked back into the fire. “If I were you, I’d finish your food and fuck off back to Highvale before the killing starts.”

  Those were the archer’s last words to Miertaz, and that is exactly what the priest did, leaving the gloomy hall with naught a farewell.

  ***

  Smashednose stood in the rain atop the battlements of Vannarbar. He stared out at the land before him, the mud, the picketed mound, the dead, the churned field, and the bridge. Finally, Larker’s camp. Smoke rose from cooking fires, vanished into the clouds, the haze of rain. The whole thing like a sleeping dragon. Larker and his arcanist’s and his men would be making their plans, but for now, Smashednose had the wall. The old warrior thought about men, weapons, and beneath his cloak, there was the rasping of dry skin, as his old hands wrung, callus running over callus.

  Silker was by his side. The man had the number of their company that was dead for Einar Smashednose on the tip of his tongue, a report about their food stocks, no doubt, and the general shittening of morale. Silker was a figures and rumours man. He was in a better position than any to take over if Smashednose died, and for a brief moment, the old man wished that he would. Push me off the walls and sort this out yourself. But he didn’t. Instead, the two men stood in the rain and the weight of all that was to come, that would have to be done, that could go wrong.

  Something groaned below. Einar Smashednose looked down, saw the priest slip between the makeshift gates. He watched Miertaz leave, march through the ruins on the city’s outskirts, and turn northward, becoming a small spec before he disappeared into the woods. And the priest was gone, taking the good Saints with him.