Blood Of Gods (Book 3) (39 page)

“Uncle, please stop,” she said, cutting him off. “I wish to be alone now.”

“Alone? Why?”

“Because I have three days to learn how to love my brother. Let me be alone with my thoughts.”

“Ah, yes. I see.” Her uncle then drew back from the slatted boards and bent over. When he reappeared, he slid a bowl containing three apples and a halved and salted beet. He also slid in a flask of wine. “Think well, my sweet niece. I pray you will be successful in your efforts.”

With that, her uncle walked away, taking the precious light with him. Aully was cast back into darkness, but this time she didn’t care. She smiled instead, thinking on what she’d told him.
I will promise to love him as best I know how.
Those words weren’t a lie, for the best way Aully knew how to love Carskel was to set his whole body aflame.

Celestia forgive me,
she prayed, and pushing aside the thoughts of what would happen to her loved ones once her brother died, she took a bite from the apple instead. She had never tasted anything so sweet.

C
HAPTER

33

V
eldaren was bordered to the north by a thick wood that stretched all the way from the river in the west to where it ended when it curled around the Road of Worship. It was through that wood that Laurel, Pulo, Roddalin, and Jonn marched, silence among them as the gray day slowly darkened. Hunting had become a rare occupation of late, what with it being winter and there being few experienced hunters remaining in the city. Even the women who’d learned the art of trapping stayed away. It was tough enough to catch a squirrel or rabbit during the warmer months; in the snow and cold, it was a useless endeavor, a waste of good traps and precious time. So for two hours they walked in silence, seeing nothing, hearing no one, until the wood ended and Karak’s Temple loomed before them.

“There’s still time to turn back,” Pulo said.

Laurel shook her head. King Eldrich had pleaded that it needn’t be her to do this, and now Pulo was doubtful as well.

“Someone needs to drive a knife into Joben’s chest,” she said, “and tonight that privilege is mine.”

They hid there in the wood, huddled at the bases of four separate trees. For a fleeting moment Laurel feared Joben Tustlewhite had become suspicious and altered his schedule, which would have wasted four days of planning. Just the night before, Karl Dogon and Ennis Coldmine had been attacked by the Judges on their way back from this very temple, with Ennis dying and Dogon almost perishing as well. What a waste of a good man it would be should the priest not arrive. But finally she heard wooden wheels rolling over the packed dirt road. Laurel inched along the hard, snowy ground on her elbows and then peered over the bank she’d built. She watched the priest exit the wagon, climb the steps of the temple, and disappear inside. The acolytes closed the door behind him. The wagon carrying the Sisters turned about and headed back the way it came.

Still they waited. The minutes ticked by, and the sky darkened even further. Again Laurel worried something had changed, but sure enough the acolytes began to sing. Peering over her mound of dirt and snow, she saw the window to the priest’s study swing open. The four conspirators then exited their cover and gradually approached the western side, where Karl had told them the wall along the roof was highest.

The land was barren around them, and a chill worked its way up each of their spines. It seemed they all shivered at once as they stepped onto the road and approached the temple stairs. It was eerie to feel so alone, even with the singing coming from the roof. It was as if the world had gone and died on them. The feeling worsened when they scaled the steps and passed between the two onyx lions. The statues’ black eyes seemed to stare at them accusingly. She glanced up at the open window of the study, and for a moment she thought for sure that Joben Tustlewhite’s pale face would emerge, staring down at them. Again a quake ran through Laurel’s body.

They reached the entrance, and Laurel took a deep breath. Behind her, the other three men tensed, hands on their swords. Laurel grasped the handle of the massive door. She had with her tools to pick a lock, yet when she twisted the handle to the side, it opened.

“Well, at least we have some measure of good luck,” whispered Roddalin.

The interior of Karak’s Temple was as vast and desolate as the land surrounding it. The antechamber was empty save a stack of cloaks off to the right and a rod resting against the far wall. As Jonn gently closed the door, Laurel glanced about. The ceiling was high, at least fifteen feet, and just ahead of them was another set of huge double doors. She assumed those were the ones Harmony had said led to the monastery. To the right of the doors was a passage lit by torches resting in elegantly carved vases. At the end of that hall was a stairwell leading up. They went that way, walking lightly and trying not to make any noise, though a glance back showed they were leaving behind wet footprints. Hopefully, no one would be seeing those until the priest was dead and they were long gone.

The stairs were steep. They passed the second floor and then stepped off on the third, hastening their steps. Though the acolytes still sang on the roof, their song seemingly coming from the polished stone walls of the temple itself, Laurel and the men had no way of knowing when the musical rejoicing would end. The last thing they needed was for the faithful boys to stumble in on them while they were doing the deed.

The third level was carpeted, thick fibers that concealed their movements even more than before. Laurel quietly exhaled. The corridor was lined with doors, fifteen of them on either side. Most of the doors were open, and she poked her head in to see a small bedchamber containing a single dresser, four skinny cots, and a shrine on which a sculpture of a lion rested. The acolytes’ rooms, obviously. She backed away from the chamber and moved on, signaling for her colleagues to follow.

The door to the priest’s study was obvious; nailed to it was a plaque on which the Laws of Karak had been carved.
Laurel
stopped before it. Pulo pressed his back to the wall on one side of the door and drew his shortsword; Roddalin and Jonn did the same on the other. Laurel took a moment to fluff up her wavy hair. She undid the clasp on her cloak, shrugged it off her shoulders, revealing a sheer, barely there ensemble with thigh-high boots and a firming leather bustier. She had borrowed the clothes from a girl named Famke, a whore from one of the brothels along Merchants’ Road, who sought protection in the caverns. Laurel placed her hands beneath her breasts and shoved the bustier up, making her bosom swell in an obscene way. She glanced at Pulo, who retained his air of dignity, though his cheeks were red. She didn’t want to see how Roddalin and Jonn were reacting.

Now or never.
She reached out and rapped her knuckles on
the door.

Nothing happened.

Laurel bit her lip and frowned. She knocked again, but still nothing. She pressed her ear to the door and listened, but not a sound could be heard on the other side. Taking a step back, she looked over at Pulo. He was scowling.

“He’ll call for the lions the moment he sees you,” Pulo whispered. “Even with you wearing . . . that.”

“I only need a moment,” Laurel whispered back, glad the singing easily drowned out her whispers so that there was no way Joben could hear from the other side of his door. “Just one moment of confusion and lust.”

She grabbed the handle, pressed down the latch, and swung open the door.

There was no priest. Instead, what she saw were lions, one male and one female, each of them six feet tall while standing on all fours. Their golden fur shone in the torchlight, and their eyes glowed with intelligence. The heads of both lions swung her way, and an expression that she didn’t think possible for a feline came over their snouts: they smiled. The male then took a menacing step toward her and opened a mouth filled with giant, sharp teeth.

“Laurel,”
said Kayne.

“Lawrence,”
answered Lilah.

“Betrayer,”
they both said at once.

Laurel shrank back in horror, her heart hammering at the inside of her ribcage.

The Final Judges slowly sauntered toward her as she backed away from them. Their heads lowered to the ground, their nostrils flared. Yet they didn’t charge. Laurel tripped as she backed out of the room, and she almost fell. Jonn was there to catch her from beside the door. His arm wrapped around her waist and seemed to suffocate her.

“Laurel, what is—”

He glanced up, and his words became nothing but a wet whistle. Jonn released Laurel, letting her fall to the floor. She landed on her elbow with a thud. Finally her throat unlocked and she yelped. Jonn quickly sidestepped in front of her, his shortsword held before him, pointing at the lions as he blocked the exit. His sword arm trembled.

“Um, Pulo . . . Rod,” he said, his voice cracking and shaky. “Some help would be nice.”

The two other men joined him, forming a human shield before Laurel, though she could see their knees knocking. Laurel rose to her feet, cringing at the pain in her sore elbow. The Judges had stopped advancing and now sat on their haunches, looking like living statues as they stared at the four intruders.

“You have defiled the Divinity’s temple,” came a voice deep in the room. From beyond sight of the door stepped the priest, joining the lions. Joben Tustlewhite was gaunt and pale as a ghost. His robe hung open, revealing a skeletal chest scored over with four gigantic scars.

Roddalin’s lips parted as if he was about to say something, likely a bit of ill-timed wit, but only a feeble whimpering left his mouth.

The priest began to pace, the Judges’ eyes following him, though their bodies never moved.

“The flesh is a funny thing,” Joben said, staring at the floor. “On its own it is innocuous, simply a shield for what lies beneath, but that also makes it the most important substance in the universe. Flesh feeds the beasts of the wild; flesh holds our insides within our bodies; flesh both quells the desires of men and leads them to betrayal.”

“Betrayal,”
said both lions at once.

“Flesh is also a great teller of truths,” the priest continued as if the lions hadn’t spoken. “It reveals all our past iniquities, like living memory. Should you be cut by a blade, a scar will remain. Should a woman be unfaithful to her husband, her inner flesh will be marked by another male’s entry. We forget sins with ease, but the flesh remembers; the flesh bears its marks, an undeniable truth. Yet if you strip it away, the pain will bring forth the forgotten memories, the lying tongue made to speak without lies.” The priest stopped pacing and finally looked up at them. A broad smile stretched his lips. “And the flesh of the guilty is the easiest to strip away, as my masters will surely show you.”

“Guilty,”
said Lilah.

“Flesh,”
said Kayne.

Roddalin took a deep breath and somehow found the nerve to speak. “How?”

“It matters not.”

“Why are you yammering and not getting busy with the killing?” asked Jonn. Though his words were confident, his body shill shook.

“Because Karak is just, and Karak is fair,” the priest answered. “Just like all betrayers of the faith, you will be given the chance to repent before the Final Judges. They will seek out the faithfulness in you . . . and tear the impure flesh from your bones.”

Roddalin and Jonn exchanged a look, then glanced at Pulo. The man who had once been the captain of the Palace Guard frowned at them, but still he nodded. His free hand snaked behind him, grabbing Laurel’s.

“Pulo, what—”

Before she could finish her statement, Roddalin and Jonn bellowed at the top of their lungs and charged into the room, swords raised. The priest never moved to defend himself. As Pulo whirled around and shoved Laurel down the hall, she couldn’t help but watch as a pair of blades arced downward for Tustlewhite’s bald pate. They never reached their mark, for the Judges were upon them, leaping over the priest’s head and knocking both men over with powerful swipes of their oversized paws.

Laurel saw no more, for she was running, Pulo dragging her along. But she heard, yes she did. Heard bones breaking. Heard flesh tearing. Heard her friends screaming.

Heard lions roaring.

Down the stairs they flew, seeking the door and desperate for the
safety beyond. Fear clawed at her throat, and she thought there was no way she would reach it in time, but then the door to the temple was before her. Pulo grasped for the handle, but there was nothing but an empty hole where it had once been. His eyes widened in horror and he shoved her aside, hands searching all over the enormous surface, seeking a way to get it open.

“No, no,
no
!” he said. His fingers dug into the crack where the door met the frame, but nothing he could do would make the door budge. Finally, he started flinging his body against it, hoping to break it open with his weight. Laurel swallowed her fear and joined Pulo in trying to get the door open, hoping two bodies were better than one.

Still it refused to budge.

“This temple offers no escape for you,” Laurel heard Joben say, and she turned to see him emerge from around the corner. “Just as the caverns beneath the Black Bend hold no safety for your fellow blasphemers.”

The female lion rushed past him, her golden skin soaked with blood. Laurel screamed, and Pulo turned just in time to see Lilah leaping toward him. He fell to his back, jabbing his sword at the beast, trying to keep its snapping jaws at bay. Its claws raked down his chest, shredding his leather armor and opening gouges in his flesh. Joben Tustlewhite shook his head in disappointment as Kayne joined his side from the staircase, Jonn’s severed arm hanging limp in his mouth.

Seeing the look on Joben’s face, and hearing Pulo’s continuing cries of terror, urged Laurel to act. She scampered to her feet, only to be knocked back down again when the temple door suddenly swung outward, and a long, heavy object was thrust inside. The wide lance, the object she’d run into, thwacked against the female Judge, causing Lilah to leap off Pulo, hissing at the now opened door.

The lance retracted, and two Sisters of the Cloth entered the temple, one large and one small, covered head to toe in wrappings and each carrying a pair of curved daggers. The large one reared back and tossed her dagger at Lilah just as she was readying to leap, the spinning blade striking her dead on in the nose and sinking in deep. The lion squealed and roared and swiped at the hilt sticking out of her face. The cry of distress angered Kayne, whose glowing eyes expanded in fury when he saw his injured mate.

“False faithful,”
he roared from his blood-soaked snout. Jonn’s arm flopped to the carpet.

Hands fell on Laurel’s shoulders, tugging her across the floor. She looked up to see Lyana’s familiar deep blue eyes peering out at her from the gap in the wrappings. The priest was shouting.
Laurel
struggled to her feet, feeling lightheaded, and heard a woman scream. She looked on in horror as the large Sister, Harmony
Steelmason
, met the charge of the lion head on. She slashed with her dagger, scoring tiny cuts that seemed to do no damage as she leapt around, pushing her large frame to move in a way that didn’t seem possible.