The Preacher

  Brother Miertaz would not have thought himself a proud man. Pride was a sin. He was valiant in the hunt. That much was true. Wise, according to the doctrine of the order. Strong in the battle, and merciful in the aftermath. But humble too, penitent, even, when the fault was his. So, he could not quite fathom why even a glance at Fenris Whiteeyes made him tilt his chin and sneer. But it did.

  The man was a dolt. An ignorant, blasphemous, cocky fool. Both a coward and a dangerous leader all at once. His unflinching argument with Einar Smashednose had proved just as much. He was respected, only for the few things he did exceptionally well, and likely hated for everything else. Then there was Karlin, a lumbering imbecile, but at least he kept his mouth shut.

  “Nearly took my head off.” Fenris was saying to Karlin as they trailed behind, in the light of their sputtering torches. “What’d you have done after that? Commanded the men by yourself?”

  “I would have had to,” Karlin mumbled.

  “You’d have done a shit job of it, I reckon.” The two mercenaries laughed uneasily at that. They’d need more than good spirits to keep the dark at bay.

  A great archway loomed ahead, a hole in the sheer ancient cliffs that were the walls of the ruins. The city of Vannarbar, it had been called, centuries ago. Cold seeped through Miertaz’s chainmail like he was naked. It was not a wind, like Smashednose’s men thought, but a breath. Each exhale was more frigid and icier than the last. He felt his skin prickle against his shirt, chafe against his boots, hands flecking in his gloves. His armour, which had once felt like a second skin, was nothing more than an ill-fitting shell.

  “We’re here,” Miertaz said. It was obvious. He expected a gibe from Fenris for that, but none came. The two mercenaries were staring into the blackness beyond the arch like it was their doom.

  “Shit,” Fenris breathed.

  Both men looked like they were ready to turn tail and fight their way through Larker’s forces. Pause now, and they probably will. Miertaz fought his own fear and reached into a satchel by his side. “We need to make ready.” He produced two vials from his pouch and gave them to each man, almost fumbling and almost dropping them before he got his hands to stop shaking. “Holy water, mixed with silver flakes, when the time comes, douse your weapons with it.” Next, he took two stones from the pouch, whispered a prayer. They started glowing. “Wards, take them.” Fenris hesitated for a second, scrunching his nose up. “They can offer you some protection.” He took them, passing the one to Karlin. “We will enter the gates now. Any questions?”

  “What got you last time?” Fenris said.

  “I don’t know,” with that, Miertaz turned and strode beneath the archway. The campfires were too far away now, hidden by the crumbling buildings without the walls, the only other light Fenris and Karlin could see would be Meirtaz’s torch, and he couldn’t say how desperately he needed them to follow that light.

  The archway engulfed them like the jaws of a wolf, salivating from the rain that trickled down the walls. In the avenue on the other side, what little moonlight pierced the clouds and painted the stonework silver. The buildings were slumped, made of rotted wood and crumbled piles of stone tangled in ivory. But Miertaz had seen it in daylight. There were still towers standing here, halls and cathedrals, hollow and empty as caves. Smashednose could have his pick of fortifications. They entered a square, the edge of their torchlight failing against the empty doorways.

  “Where did you get stopped last time?” Fenris whispered. Miertaz hadn’t noticed it before, but the man already had his blade ready, holding the torch in his other hand.

  “As I passed out of the western bailey.”

  “So, we go round then?”

  Miertaz shook his head. “Our path only leads us closer to the danger. There is no way around, only to.”

  Fenris was muttering something, but Miertaz pressed on. He could see the gate to the eastern quarter up ahead, and as they drew near, he could feel the breath. It blew cold through the archway, reeked of rot, and then with the inhale, it dragged him closer, lured him forward. He could almost forget the cold hands he’d felt grip his heart just hours before.

  The irony of hunting evil is that one becomes accustomed to walking towards it, basking in its presence before snuffing it out. If not for Fenris’s cursing, Miertaz may not have even noticed that his torch dimmed on the other side of the gate.

  There was something blacker than night further down the street, seen only in the way it rejected the moonlight. It spun and twisted through the air like a loose sailcloth, drifting towards them.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

  “Steady,” Miertaz heard himself say, eyes locked on the blackness.

  He could hear Fenris and Karlin shifting, fumbling for their wards.

  “Steady!” Miertaz commanded this time, felt the light as it left his tongue, saw the flicker as it flowed towards the men on either side. There was stillness, brief warmth, but tension. Fenris and Karlin stood by his side like ready hounds. The darkness came closer, mothlike towards their light.

  Miertaz raised a hand. “I command you, no further.”

  The Balance tilted, and his hand shone through the gaps in his gauntlet. It was a prickly sensation, a flash of heat inside his body, but something the priest was used to. The blackness stopped on the edge of the light, like a hole in the world. The form shifted, tensed, squirmed against nothing, unable to move forward.

  “What now?” Fenris hissed.

  It took Miertaz a moment to respond. There was a weight on his shoulders bearing down like a mountain. He couldn’t let Fenris or Karlin see, but his knees were trembling, and hot sweat mixed with the cold rain on his forehead. “Now, we put it down.”

  They left their torches on the ground and doused their blades in Miertaz’s holy water. Step by step, they approached the shuddering darkness. Fenris had a grim scowl. Karlin’s emotions were barely readable behind his beard. Miertaz himself, a stern frown, solum, immovable. He didn’t feel it. He felt the darkness weighing down on him, grinding his knee sockets with each step. But half of having faith, he remembered Sister Ilas say, was pretending that the other half is strong enough.

  A stride away, they halted, each man looking at the other. Miertaz barely had the strength to lift his sword above his shoulder. It was almost slipping from his grip. He’d no voice, and it was all he could do to pray that one of the other men would take the initiative. So, it was Fenris’s sword that swung, cutting a golden line across the darkness. The form squirmed, writhed, a face protruding from the darkness, gapping hollows where eyes should be, a mouth screaming silently. A single dark arm flailed at them. Its other was missing at the elbow. Karlin swung next, axe flashing bright as it hacked the mewling head. Then Fenris with a stab. It became a bloodless butchery until the weight subsided, and Miertaz had the strength to thrust his sword, glowing with the light of God, into the darkness’s centre. It burnt from the inside out, a smokeless white flame. Once the darkness was gone, all that remained was a tattered, smouldering red cape that dropped from the air, clinking as the clasp hit the stone.

  “Not so hard,” Fenris muttered to no one in particular.

  But it was a hollow victory, and they all knew it. Miertaz could still feel the icy breath, in and out, waiting for them. Fenris could barely manage a smug face, and Karlin, there was something in his eyes now as he stared down at the tattered cloth. The gruff warrior rubbed at his elbow in confusion. The world had been a better place for these men when darkness just meant the absence of light.

  Miertaz retrieved his torch and set fire to the cloak. It was damp, smoked, smelt something awful, but eventually it was burnt to his satisfaction. He ripped the clasp free of the remaining material and started down the street. Not giving Fenris or Karlin a chance to think about turning back. All ways onwards, Miertaz could hear Sister Ilas in the back of his mind, see her marching between the pews of the chapel. All ways onwards. Thwack. Her cane cracked against the flagstones. Stop squirming, Master Meirtaz. Urges, habits, temptation. We must resist. Temptations most of all, for in the end it is power we hunt, evil power, but power nonetheless. Now, everyone, sit up straight, and recite the Oaths. I feel no fear. I tell no lie. I harbour no evil thing.

  ***

  Fenris was shivering something bad. He hadn’t taken his bow, left it under the watchful and slightly intoxicated eyes of Borke, but if he had, he doubted he’d be able to knock an arrow.

  Their small victory hadn’t done much. Whatever it was they’d put down, Fenris was still waiting for the rest of the army to crest the hill, for Smashednose to be screaming commands, except they weren’t with Smashednose. They were with Brother Miertaz. Damned if he knew what that priest prick was muttering underneath his breath, but it’d better have been one hell of a prayer.

  Shadows spread and turned away from them in the torchlight, pivoting around the pillars, the grinning statues of long-dead dignitaries and disappearing in the hollow doorways. Whiteeyes tried to keep it out of his mind that he wasn’t quite sure which way was out. He glanced sideways at Karlin. He was a big man, but stooped now, holding one of Miertaz’s wards in the hand that should have been holding an axe.

  “Priest,” Fenris hissed. “Where are we going?”

  “The cathedral, I believe.” Miertaz pointed ahead. A spire stood out against the night sky, edged silvered by a trickle of moonlight that slipped between the clouds.

  “A church?” Fenris scowled. Didn’t like the buildings on the best of times, and religion didn’t seem much good if it could get cursed in the first place, did it. Blood holy men. “You better be certain you can fix this.”

  “Whiteeyes, I promise-…” Miertaz didn’t get to finish his sentence.

  A wave of cold washed over them. The priest stumbled back, almost ending arse on the ground. Fenris grit his teeth, presenting his blade. To his left, Karlin was holding out the ward like it was some sort of shield. Light flashed from an alleyway up ahead. The air cracked. Fenris wasn’t sure if he heard a whimper from Karlin, himself, or the priest, maybe all three. There was another shadow, rushing towards them, looked like a hound from hell. Fenris roared something. It didn’t sound like words, but he charged, sword raised, feet pounding the ground. He’d have this cursed bastard, or it would have him, either way, he was charging now, a mix of fury and fear. That was all that mattered.

  Just as his sword was about to come down, Fenris stopped dead in his tracks. It wasn’t the dark thing they’d seen before. Fenris’s torchlight flickered across a sunken face, blue robes stained and torn, black hair plastered with mud on the side of a pale face.

  “If it’s not the arcanist,” Fenris growled. If she’d looked like a cornered fox before, now she was a rat caught at the bottom of a well.