Page 138 of Paladin's Faith

“At least twenty people,” said Wren. “Maybe more. Not many fighters, I don’t think. Lots of kids and old people with bows, though. We saw the demon when they captured us.”

The paladin who hadn’t yet spoken until now slid off her horse, and grabbed Wren’s chin, staring into her eyes. Wren bore this patiently. Marguerite had only a moment’s warning before Jorge had her by the shoulders and was dipping his head to meet her eyes as well.

His eyes were deep, velvety brown, framed with fine laugh lines, and he was very handsome. Lucky, too, if the scar through his eyebrow was any indication. It picked up again on his cheek, which meant that he’d come within a hair’s breadth of losing that eye. Marguerite noted all this dispassionately. I must be tired. Normally I’d at least wonder if he was single. She found that she could not possibly care less. Behind her, she heard Davith squawk indignantly as the third paladin manhandled him.

Jorge nodded to her and stepped back, glancing at his fellows. “I don’t see any sign,” he said, “but if the demon’s as old and smart as they say, it could probably hide.” His lips twisted ruefully. “Forgive me, ladies, gentleman, this is extremely rude of me, but…KNEEL.”

His voice wrapped around her spine like a mailed fist. The paladin’s voice, no longer kind and patient but as implacable as winter. Marguerite’s knees tried to buckle under her, but she caught herself and glared at him.

“Son, I don’t care if you’re a paladin, I’m too old to kneel for anything less than a god,” Ashes said. Behind her, in honeyed tones, Davith invited Jorge to eat shit and die.

“Thank the Dreaming One,” Jorge said, stepping back. He clapped his hands together. “I’m very sorry about that. We don’t dare take any chances.”

“What did that prove?” Davith asked.

“If you held a demon, you would have knelt,” said Jorge simply. “Even if it resisted, we would have caught something of its shape when it did.” He looked back at Wren. “Forgive me, sister. We had to know.” He sighed. “I suppose it would take a berserker to escape such a demon’s clutches. How many did you kill?”

Wren paused, and Marguerite thought that she braced herself, as if expecting a blow. “We didn’t escape. Shane bargained for our lives and stayed behind.”

Jorge missed a step and nearly stumbled. The other paladins went gray. “Shane?” Jorge began to shake his head. “No. That’s not possible. Not Shane. He was one of us. He would never have bargained with a demon.”

“It’s the only reason we’re alive,” Marguerite said.

Jorge looked at her, all humor and flirtation gone. “Forgive me, madam,” he said. “But all of you should be dead, then.”

“You know, I can probably find a bath somewhere else,” said Davith. Marguerite was beginning to agree with him.

“No,” said Wren quietly. “He’s right. I should never have left Shane there.”

“We had no choice!” Marguerite snapped. “He sacrificed himself, and now we have to go back and get him. As soon as possible.” She faced Jorge, feeling anger starting to rise inside her, the sort of hot red anger that she always tried to avoid. “You’re paladins, you fight demons, bring an army and help us save him.”

“If he went with a demon willingly,” said one of the other paladins, in a voice as cold and clear as broken glass, “then it has taken him as a host. A berserker paladin, with all that entails, ridden by a demon so old and canny that it has eluded us for years.”

“And in that case,” said Jorge softly, “an army might not actually be enough.”

FORTY-SEVEN

The raiders’ holding consisted of a dozen rough stone huts. Shane watched it from the cover of an outcropping high on the hillside, Erlick at his side. The holding was not built for defense, but it didn’t need to be. The landscape was doing all the work for them.

He glanced up and down the length of the valley. It was not a geographically appealing piece of land, little more than a slot in the rock between high hills. The northern end was choked with trees, and he could see flashes of a stream between them. Shane could actually tell exactly where the winds came funneling through the hills by the growth of the trees, which grew thick near the base, then turned into thin gnarled trunks, like bony hands sticking out of full sleeves.

“I’m surprised no one’s logged that,” he said.

Erlick spat. “No use. That’s all mushpine.” At Shane’s raised eyebrow, he said, “You don’t know ’em?”

“Forestry wasn’t my god’s usual remit.”

Erlick snorted. Shane couldn’t tell if he was amused or thought that gods who didn’t pay attention to trees were beneath contempt. “It’s no good. They’ll grow on bare rock if they have to, but you cut one down and the wood rots out by the time you get it home. Nasty, runny rot, too. Whole log turns to paste with some bark on. People’ve tried all kinds of ways to get use out of it, but about the best you can say is that if you pour the paste out flat and let it dry in the sun for a couple months, it’ll burn.” He spat again. “’Course, it smells like a dead fish shoved up a dead sheep’s arsehole if you do.”

“That was an extremely vivid description. Thank you.”

A smile might have flicked across Erlick’s face, but Shane couldn’t be sure. He went back to studying the holding.

Defensible, but no one else wants it. From what he could see, there was precious little flat ground that one could till, and even the hardy highland sheep probably didn’t want a meal of mushpine. If you weren’t raiding your neighbors when you moved in, you’d have to start so that you didn’t starve to death. Hmm.

All the roofs were in poor repair, though from lack of craftsman or simple lack of materials, Shane couldn’t say. They were made of sod, he thought, or maybe thatch so old that it had grown grass. He wondered if they would prove flammable.

After an hour on the hillside, he counted ten obvious fighting men, a few who were obviously not, and a handful who might pick up cudgels in defense of their holding. It seemed a small force to be such a thorn in Wisdom’s side, but then again, Wisdom had so few people.