The smell was the strangest thing about this section of the Great Cathedral. Many areas, especially the underground levels, stank in one way or another. Cells used by the Confessors reeked of blood and excrement, while the archives smelled of the must of ancient scrolls and most of the stonework bore a faint air of smoke. The incense that burned throughout the Great Cathedral masked a lot of it, but not always and not everywhere.
Katherine Makennon could have said she hated the stink, but she'd be lying. The sacred oils that were rubbed into her skin every day since her investiture masked most of the atmosphere in which she walked, but she had always found the scent of the corridors comforting. The smell reminded her of home not least because this was her home. This was where she was meant to be.
"A glass mountain," Makennon said curtly. "You can guess what I thought of immediately I heard the phrase."
"Ckeol se-Llrim. The Isle of the Star." The voice had an eerie quality. Its owner stayed in the shadows, walking around the edges of the chamber. "It is not a unique phenomenon."
"It is to humankind."
"Man does not know everything. If they did, no-one would ever send ships in search of the Isle. Any of the isles."
"There are others?"
"Several, daughter of Twilight, but none other within the reach of Man. They are sacred only to the Lord of All."
"As He wishes," Makennon murmured, "so mote it be. And the bridge of light… It's happening now?"
"Yes." The sound was more an exhalation than a word. "As it has so many times before, and as it will so many times again."
"This occasion is the only time that concerns me," Makennon said, satisfied. "All that matters now is that we are ready to respond to the opportunities offered when the Lord does His part."
Down in the heart of south-western Pontaine, scouts were rushing inland towards the armed camp that had grown up around the town of Solnos. A full fifty Knights of the Order of the Swords Of Dawn had moved in, joining Gabriella, DeBarres and Eminence Kesar. They had arrived in groups of twos and threes, so as not to arouse the ire of the local military. Kannis was sending hourly reports to Lord Aristide of Fayence, whose scouts were themselves prowling nervously outside town. No-one wanted those scouts to decide that the Swords and mercenaries were an invasion force threatening Fayence. Kannis had been employed by Lord Aristide before, and volunteered to keep him informed and to persuade him that he needn't fear these troops.
Gabriella had rolled out a copy of Wyngarde's map across a table in the church vestry. It had been drawn from memory in spite of Chaga's attempt to wipe it from the eyes of the Faith. She drew a finger along the route the goblins had taken.
"This is where they diverted around Fayence. They know they can't take such a major city."
"With the right strategy, they could hop from city to city, looting and burning everything in their path." Kesar said.
"No, even a rabid animal would know better than to leave two full cities on its flanks. If this had been a true invasion, they would have taken Fayence and used it as a bridgehead. There, they could withstand a counterattack from Andon and have a good base from which to launch further attacks." Gabriella said.
"You have a point." DeBarres agreed. "That way they could then move west against Turnitia and set up control of the whole of the southwest. But they're not doing that."
"Just a minute." Kannis began scrambling through scrolls, journals and papers. "The raids started from one area and have been spreading out. My unit had been called to several villages over the past months."
"The enemy have to come from somewhere."
"Everything began in a relatively small area and is spreading out." DeBarres put his finger on the map, where a jagged crown had been drawn, with the notation 'Glass Mountain — Freedom.' The name was Gabriella's editorial addition "Here. Whatever is happening, it started here."
Eminence Kesar sat back in his chair. "All these goblins are coming from that place, Sister DeZantez?"
"Yes. This is the location of a settlement that Bishop Goran Kell of the Brotherhood has set up."
"Then the goblin attacks are part of Kell's scheme?"
"I don't think that was the specific intent, Eminence. As far as we know they've simply been displaced. Even the goblins won't go too deep into the Sardenne."
"Didn't they come through it?"
"They're from the very end of the World's Ridge, so they've come up in the gap between the coast and the end of the Sardenne. The route they've taken up into the savannah is really the only place they could have gone. Hence, here they are."
DeBarres turned to Kesar. "With your permission, Eminence, it's time we dealt with these creatures and then proceeded to this Freedom place with all haste."
"My permission and my blessing," Kesar told him.
As the meeting broke up, Gabriella went to find Crowe. Someone — probably DeBarres, who Gabriella knew to be sensible about these things — had sent him to a quartermaster for a gambeson, helmet and mail. She found him and took him to one side.
"I told DeBarres and Eminence Kesar that you were a mercenary who is helping me." She said.
"Lying to protect a heretic, Dez?" Crowe tutted. "Let's hope that one doesn't come back to bite you on the arse. On the other hand, it sounds like a fine start to me. So does the arse-biting, come to think of it."
"I don't lie, sinner. Unless you're saying you're going to come with me voluntarily and not take the stipend I offered."
"I'll take it. I may be a liar but it's nice to be around someone who isn't, just for a change. Which reminds me, this Kesar…" Crowe had been around thieves, murders and criminals all his life. Sometimes he had been one and sometimes he had been against them, but he had quickly learned to recognise the dishonest and the untrustworthy. He leaned in close to Gabriella. "This Kesar…" She nodded. "Don't trust this man."
Gabriella looked at him in shock. "What? Are you mad? That's an Eminence of the Final Faith — "
Crowe held up a hand to silence her. "Look, love, I don't care if he's God's own sodding butler. He's the type of man who hides things, because he's always working an angle."
"He's a politician in a way, if that's what you mean," she grudgingly admitted. "But everything an Eminence does is geared towards fulfilling man's destiny of becoming one with the Lord of All."
"It's easy enough to introduce a man to the Lord of All, Dez. One quick cut is all it takes and anyone can do that."
Eminence Kesar returned to his room above the inn and resumed calculating and re-calculating the odds that Lord Aristide would jump to the conclusion that the force in Solnos was large enough to be a Vos invasion of some kind, and start a new war between the nations. He trusted the Swords and the Imperial army enough to believe that such a war would go badly for Pontaine, but he had no desire to even indirectly cause a war that wasn't specifically calculated to advance the position of the Lord and the Faith.
As a result, he had begun to compose letters to both the Lords at Andon and Fayence, requesting the co-operation of a few extra soldiers. It was for the sake of appearances more than anything else. Pontaine was never going to ignore an armed build-up of the Order within its borders, but hopefully the letters would garner merely a frosty refusal and not a stronger reaction.
When he had written the letters, he summoned DeBarres to look them over. Kesar needed no diplomatic advice from a man he outranked in the Faith, but he wasn't stupid. It was wiser to let his military commander voice an opinion on a military matter. DeBarres was wearing full armour already, like the rest of his Knights. The Swords wanted to be ready to fight at a moment's notice.
"Your thoughts, Preceptor?"
"They'll send a couple of liaisons along as spies, but I don't expect they'll send any soldiers. Dead goblins or dead Vos-men, either way will suit them."
"That will be quite sufficient, then."
As DeBarres called for a messenger to dispatch the missives, two scouts rushed upstairs and rapped on the door. A waft of horse-sweat and old clothes preceded them as they knelt to kiss Kesar's signet ring.
"The goblins are sighted, Eminence," the first scout said. "They've come along the coast and have turned inland. Their main force is about four leagues south."
"How many?"
"Battalion strength," the second scout said.
"Do they have cavalry?" DeBarres asked.
"None that we could see. They have dogs, wolves, some other animals… But few horses and it looks like those are being kept for the leaders as rallying points."
"Good." DeBarres smiled grimly. "Pass on that word to our archers. They should have easy targets."
Crowe and Gabriella were consulting the map again in the vestry of the church. A squire popped his head into the room.
"Sister DeZantez," he began, then looked at Crowe, clearly uncertain how to address him.
"Captain Crowe, all right, lad?"
"Captain Crow, the enemy force has been sighted. Preceptor DeBarres and Captain Kannis have ordered all Knights to begin transiting to a forward position. We will battle on the morrow."
"We're on our way," Gabriella reassured him. When the boy left, she cocked an eyebrow at Crowe. "Captain Crowe?"
"Every mercenary band has to have a mercenary captain. I'm a band of one, which I reckon makes me Captain of it."
"False pride is a sin," she reminded him.
"How many dead gobboes will atone for it?" They left the church, and mustered in the plaza with the rest of the Knights. DeBarres and Kannis led the column, followed by Gabriella, Crowe and the rest of the mounted force.
The sound of the Knights on the march echoed from Solnos' adobe and stone buildings; a driving repetitive crunching and jingling that almost became some kind of martial music.
By the time the column surged out of Solnos, Crowe reflected that he could, just about, see what Gabriella got out of this kind of set-up. His blood was up and he'd be happy to see a line of goblins right ahead.
A couple of hours later the column returned to walking pace once out of sight of Solnos; apparently the rush had been purely for show, to raise the townspeople's spirits. By the time they had passed above the Escarpment and turned towards the coast, Crowe wondered why he had bothered coming. He was still wondering that when DeBarres ordered camp to be made for the evening.
In the morning, Gabriella DeZantez appreciated the difference between the goblins she had faced in the streets and plazas of Solnos recently and the pitched battle she could expect now. Spread out across the field before and below her, dozens of yellow and orange blotches flickered in the darkness, casting an amber light across the undulating savannah.
Gabriella let out a long, slow, breath. "That's a lot of goblins.
The Knights had spent the twilight under canvas, but were mounted again by the time the sun moved out of eclipse. The countryside was open savannah, with long, hardy grass rippling in the dawn breeze. They were looking down a gentle slope towards the burnt-out remains of a village. The village was at the heart of a seething mass of scaly bodies. They weren't a cohesive army. The lanky goblins looked half-starved and wore mismatched armour looted from the dead of decades' worth of violence. Chieftains on horseback threaded their way through the crowd, waving and screaming encouragement. As the only goblins with horses, they stood out above their troops, where the masses could see them and the signals they gave.
Gabriella looked for familiar faces among her force. Crowe was looking at the enemy with a calculating expression, his colourless ponytail hanging out from the back of his helmet. He wore his battered coat over his mail. DeBarres was watching the enemy through a telescope, which he passed to Kannis. While Kannis took her turn with the telescope, DeBarres shuffled his horse sideways towards Gabriella.
"Well, it looks like you were right."
"Did you ever doubt it?"
"Never." He looked back at the enemy. "You know what worries me?"
Gabriella couldn't imagine anything really worrying DeBarres. "What?"
His pitted cheeks widened in a wry smile. "What sort of force kicked that lot out of Freedom in the first place?"
"Raul?" Kannis called. "They're moving."
Gabriella looked at the goblins charging towards them, with the wolves and big cats ranging out in front. The bone-chilling howls of the maddened horde carried across the fields between them. The goblin tribes, their teeth and claws filed to needle points and razor edges, competed with each other to lead the charge, not caring which of their own side they trampled in their crazed rush.
Preceptor Raul DeBarres felt his spine tingle at the sight of so many hostiles, but he reminded himself that they were a mob, not an army. They weren't trained, they had no strategy, they were just driven by hunger and their own momentum. There might be hundreds of them, but every member of the Knights was worth a dozen of them. DeBarres knew that victory wasn't in question, but he feared that it would hurt.
DeBarres drew his sword and all along the lines weapons were likewise drawn. "For the Lord of All! For Solnos! For your people!"
Gabriella DeZantez saw DeBarres rise slightly in the saddle, waving a hand forward, slashing it towards the goblins. Gabriella was already nudging her horse to one side, guiding it towards the dust cloud that signalled the goblin rush. She listened to the drumming of so many feet and paws rushing towards her across the earth.
Then battle was joined and the world disappeared in a red haze, and a cacophony of clashing metal and screaming voices. A wolf leapt at her and she cut it aside, before slicing the head from a goblin. She made her horse rear, its fore-hooves chopping down into goblin arms, shattering bone.
Blood filled Gabriella's senses. Red and green, sometimes even black. It sprayed across her vision, clouded her nostrils, flavoured her lips. She could even have sworn she heard it spatter on her helm. Then she really began to fight.
Travis Crowe slashed left and right with his broadsword, cleaving goblin skulls and spreading what passed for their brains across the trampled grass. He did his best to stay close to Gabriella and watch her back, but the Knights of the Swords all wore the same helms and surcoats, with the crossed-circle of the Final Faith. It was damn near impossible to tell them apart.
He pushed his horse forward towards a knot of goblins protecting one with tattoos marking him out as a chief or shaman. Crowe hoped he was the former and not a magic-user. Either way he was a more important target.
He spurred his horse straight at the tattooed leader, swinging the broadsword right for his tattooed face. His coat flapped like the feathers of a carrion bird, bringing death and decay. The goblin's eyes widened just before they were bisected by sharp iron. The cluster of goblins scattered and fell prey to Kannis' men.
A moment later, Crowe cursed violently as searing pain ripped across his thigh, and he wheeled his horse to trample a goblin as it withdrew a blade from him.
Roaring at the top of his voice, Crowe set about killing more of the creatures for the pain they'd caused. Now they had made him really angry.
Kannis led her unit in a wide wheel around the goblins' left flank. Crowe's killing of one of their leaders had caused a weakness in that area. Swarming lines of the creatures met steel and iron and were found wanting. The mix of Knights and mercenaries charged down the goblins and the creatures ranks were beginning to fragment.
Filled with the red joy of battle, Kannis and her men swept through the weak and starved hordes and scythed them down.
Then something slammed into her chest and she was momentarily floating. For a heartbeat, she enjoyed the surprising sensation of weightlessness, but then the world smashed into her back and it felt like every rib exploded like a thousand suns.
The mounted Knights crashed into the charging goblins like a mailed fist hitting a grinning mouth. Sabres cut down into the goblin onrush and dozens of the creatures fell screeching to the earth and rolled wildly though their ranks. Other goblins scrambled for better positions, or hurled themselves flat, risking being trampled under hoof rather than fall to the sabres.
DeBarres and his Knights wheeled their mounts around, drawing sabres and longswords, before charging again. This time they dropped into the enemy lines on their left flank and charged lengthwise, splitting skulls and cleaving heads from inhuman bodies.
The goblins were running purely on instinct, as DeBarres had suspected; instead of closing in under the Knights' reach and trying to bring down the horses, they began to scatter. The goblins' lines ripped themselves apart and DeBarres could see clear through the swirling lines to where Kannis' mount was rearing and riderless.
"Kannis!" he screamed, and spurred his horse towards hers. He narrowly avoided running over Kannis herself, who was twitching on the flattened grass. He reached down, as a couple of Knights knelt to check on Kannis.
"Get her on my horse!"
Together, the two soldiers hoisted Kannis onto the flanks of his horse, and beat their way towards the edge of the battle.
The stink of sweat-lathered horses and warm blood assaulted Gabriella. The earth itself rose upwards in front of her. Gabriella clung on grimly as her mount reared back and she managed to guide it alongside the suddenly-rising embankment.
"Sorcery!" someone shouted. "They've got shamans!"
Gabriella looked around frantically for any sign of the spell caster.
As she scanned the battle, she saw DeBarres carrying Kannis to safety, cutting down anything that got in his way. She looked for Crowe and waved to him.
"Look after DeBarres and Kannis!"
He waved in return and plunged into the fray around the pair.
She saw the shaman then, dancing as if possessed and hurling power from his fingertips. With a roar of fury, Gabriella pulled a javelin from a fallen horse and hurled it with all her might.
It impaled the shaman cleanly and he fell twitching. Screams arose from the survivors of the goblin horde as they scattered. To all intents and purposes, the battle was over.
"Swords!" Gabriella shouted, "To me!"
Gathering her forces, she led them in a wide sweep, cutting down the scrambling, flopping monstrosities as they panicked and fled.
"To victory!"
The twilight was rent by occasional screams. Some of them were the sounds of the wounded and dying men and women being attended to by Healers. A few were the last goblin stragglers being cut down.
Gabriella and Crowe had caught up with each other after sundown, when she found him sitting outside, bags under his eyes. He looked more tired than she felt.
"Gabriella," he said. "You'd better go inside."
She entered the tent and found DeBarres sitting sadly, holding the hand of Kannis. She lay on a cot and Gabriella could tell from her pallor that she was dead.
"A lance pushed her off her horse," DeBarres said quietly. "The fall broke her neck."
He looked tired and worn. Not tearful, because that wasn't his way, but he had no liveliness left in him to make him seem as powerful as he usually did. Gabriella wondered if this was also how she looked.
"You two were close?"
"She was my daughter in law. My son was Bound to her."
"I'm sorry."
"I don't know how I'm going to tell him."
"Directly is probably best."
DeBarres stroked his moustache. "Yes. He'll understand. He's from a military family. And she died achieving a great victory."
"Is there anything you need me to do?"
DeBarres looked up. "We'll be moving south, towards this Freedom city. Take what men you need and scout the route. If there are any goblin stragglers, I want to know about them before we reach them."
"I'll take Crowe," she said. "Though really…"
DeBarres nodded his understanding. "I wish Erak had got to track Kell to Freedom as well. But when we get there…"
"Erak won't have died for nothing."
DeBarres managed a smile and reached across to pat her hand. "He never did. No-one who serves the Faith really dies for nothing."