Heretic

Chapter 3

Isaand trudged through the overgrown hill behind the inn, heart beating wildly. He felt Ylla’s weight dragging on him from where she held his hand, and he forced himself to slow his pace so she could keep up. A paladin hunting him was one of the worst case scenarios. His handful of miracles that could be used to dissuade violence were mostly useless against a paladin, and they had powers of their own that could be brought to bear against him. Worse, most paladins who’d earned the right to bear the title were fanatically single-minded, propelled by a ceaseless conviction to hunt down and eradicate the enemies of their god. He couldn’t hope to talk them down.

“Vehx, if we’re caught, can you materialize again? Just long enough to distract them so we can escape?” Isaand asked distractedly. The sendra was perched on his shoulders, watching his back.

“Are you serious? I’ll need at least another dozen meals before I can do that again, and even so I’ll only be at perhaps a third of the strength I had yesterday. The conditions placed on sendra by the Pact are rather irritatingly stringent. Of course, if you decided to free me from my bonds, things would be different,” Vehx answered. Isaand didn’t dignify that with a response. The sendra kept up an affable front, but they both knew his service was not his choice. If Isaand chose to strike off the chains that hindered the servile god, he would be under no obligation to aid him in any way.

“Tell me about this paladin.”

“I didn’t stick around long enough to paint a picture. It was a woman, heavily armored in polished plate. She was ahorse, with half-a-dozen soldiers accompanying. They were headed straight for the inn with some urgency. Obviously, they knew we were here.”

“I suppose we should have expected as much from a town ruled by a watchful and judgmental god. We should not have lingered,” Isaand said. As if they’d had any choice. Ylla had been exhausted and confused by her revival, and Isaand had been hurt and tired from his short battle. They’d stayed only long enough for a night’s sleep and to purchase supplies. Still, that had been too long.

Vehx’s description of the paladin gave him pause though. There were always exceptions, but the Warana grassland region did not have a habit of producing warrior women. Furthermore, there was little in the way of iron ore available for mining within hundreds of miles, and so most warriors wore little armor, preferring to use large shields, swift movement, and clever ambush tactics to avoid the dangers of a fair battle. And horses? Isaand had heard of the strange beasts, but he’d only seen one once at a traveling circus, and he had strongly suspected it was merely a starved and deformed elkan with its horns ground down. Horses were a valuable military resource, hoarded jealously by the handful of nations lucky enough to have acquired them. And the majority of those nations were clustered around the foothills of the great mountain known as the Throne of the World, far to the north…

“Isaand,” Ylla hissed, sounding troubled. Isaand snapped out of his thoughts, and realized that she was pulling hard at his arm, her grip tight around his fingers. No doubt he would be in pain, if it weren’t for his habitual numbness. He looked back to see the girl in some distress, eyes huge and whipping back and forth around her like a frightened mouse surrounded by cats.

Isaand looked around, warily. They had made their way into a small copse of trees atop a ridge overlooking the town, behind the inn. The area was overgrown, the thick grass coming up to mid-hip on Isaand and threatening to swallow Ylla whole. The acacia trees’ canopies were sparse, but sheltered them somewhat from view. There was no one around to threaten them.

“Can’t you see them? They’re all around us!” the girl cried.

“Oh, godsdamn,” Vehx muttered. “They’re well hidden, but the girl has the right of it.”

Isaand closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and opened his Godseye. Touched as he was by Szet, he maintained the ability to look beyond the shell of mundanity and into the realm of the gods and spirits, though it was not an experience he relished. As his inner sight opened, the world seemed to drop away from him, the trees and grass and earth beneath his feet losing their solidity and form, becoming distant and insignificant. He felt his stomach drop as though he had leaped off a tall cliff, and bile rose in his throat as nausea threatened to upend him. He thrust out his arm in blind panic, reaching for something, but he seemed to be sinking, drowning in a clear sea he could not see or feel. A scream threatened to tear forth from his mouth, but then he felt a comforting solid presence: Ylla’s hand in his. Taking a deep breath he could not feel, he focused on his touch, tightening his grip and orienting himself as with a lifeline. Ylla became ‘down,’ in his mind, the surface on which he could stand, the only thing solid and unshifting. His mind quieted.

All around him was a fog of vague, shifting colors he could not describe and geometry he could not have drawn if given paper and ink. Spirits fluttered through the mist, brightly glowing and trailing shining threads that vanished into the distance, influence connecting them to the few small anchors that they could touch. They gave a vaguely sea-like impression: eel creatures with eyes running down the length of their body, radial organs with a dozen tentacles spreading off and propelling them through the air like wings, a vast and sleek hunter like a fish made of swords, its body studded with protruding mouths filled with rows of teeth. The latter turned and swam towards him, mouths opened wide, and it only turned away when Vexh swept between them, his body a long and shining serpent made of light, wings spread wide and threatening.

It took time for Isaand to spot them, hidden behind colorless shadows that vanished only if you looked at them from the corner of your eye. Carved into the trunks of the trees surrounding them were dozens of eyes, glowing with the power of a god. The eyes were bright green, narrowed and sharp, and their gaze was vicious. They followed Isaand as he moved, and he could feel their hatred like a searing heat.

The vision dropped away as he closed off his Godseye, and sat down hard in the tall grass, his numb legs collapsing beneath him as he tried and failed to maintain his balance. Ylla hunched over him, looking down with concern, her free hand gripping the curved dagger at her belt. “What are they?” she asked. “Why can I see them?”

“The eyes of Tzamet,” Isaand answered. “He knows we’re here.” The latter was an excellent question. Ylla could not have seen them unless she possessed some Godseye of her own, but he had no time to ponder that now. “We need to run. Speed is more important than stealth, now.”

“I don’t think either is going to help now,” Vehx warned, a growl rising in his throat.

Isaand turned. Behind them, coming from every direction of the village, two dozen men and women were converging on them, the closest less than a hundred feet away. Each of them gripped some makeshift weapon: scythes and hoes and long saws, wooden mallets and butcher’s knives. Each of them had a dark green cloth covering their faces in their entirety, tied at the back of the head, and embroidered on the front of the cloth was a huge open eye. Though they should have been blind, each of them made their way swiftly towards Isaand and his companions.

Isaand looked over his shoulder, gauging his chances. The copse of trees went on for another hundred yards or so, and beyond that the hill sloped down to open grassland much like that he’d seen across the river. With his partially numbed body, Isaand was not a fast runner, and would likely trip and fall if he tried to escape. It wasn’t much of a choice, anyway. Ylla would never be able to keep up with her short legs.

Heart growing heavy, Isaand stepped in front of Ylla, dropped his hood, and planted his staff in the ground before him, waiting for them to come.

The villagers drew around him in a wide circle, staying back fifteen feet, carefully closing the noose. As they drew to a halt, every single one of them began to speak in unison, their ordinary voices becoming unearthly by the way they resounded together.

“AMAURO WARNED ME YOU WOULD INVADE MY LANDS. HERETICS DO NOT EVADE MY SIGHT.”

“And you would stoop to avenge the minor injury of that pitiful wolf, Tzamet?” Isaand answered.

“AMAURO IS A VILE FOE WHO HAS WELL EARNED MY IRE. EVEN SO, THE DOGS OF THE UNBOUND ARE THAT MUCH WORSE. YOUR CRIMES ARE SELF-EVIDENT HERETIC. I HAVE JUDGED YOU, AND SO DO SENTENCE YOU.”

As one, every one of the villagers raised their tools.