Destiny’s Conflict: Book Two of Sword of the Canon. Janny Wurts

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      To a friend, Lysaer’s suave response sounded frayed, “This selection was made by a damned astute eye!”

      “You have no idea.” The stranger chuckled. “Diviners selected the most faithful. They picked for strong stomachs and unquestioned zeal to enforce Canon Law without qualms. His Hallowed Eminence, the Light’s Priest Supreme expounded upon needful slaughter. With reason, or hadn’t you heard? The clanblood condemned among Torwent’s crofters escaped from their execution by fire. The captain in charge was stripped of his insignia and flogged a fortnight ago.”

      Lysaer’s murmur broke in.

      “Guilty? Beyond doubt.” The stranger’s contempt echoed down through the chimney. “His own sergeant attested to his craven weakness. More, the men who failed to secure the Light’s prisoners were put to death under evidence. Trackers with hounds confirmed someone helped the heretics break out of the barn that confined them.”

      Lysaer paused in stark disbelief. “I was told that all of the able young men were killed outright on the field.”

      “So they were,” verified the temple informant. “Shut in for the pyre were their women and babes. Telling fact, the nailed doors failed to hold them.”

      This statement also raised a poisoned silence. Dace could picture Lysaer’s composure, a chipped-stone facade that armoured the gut wrench of horror beneath. The dawning awareness about froze his blood: this exchange must be the covert report garnered from a secret network high in the ranks of the True Sect temple.

      Dace dared not presume he was the sole witness to the sensitive meeting upstairs. The flue in the sitting-room also connected to the bread oven’s stove-pipe, a convenient conduit during the summer, when the day’s baking was done before dawn.

      Above, a deliberate tread indicated that Lysaer strode to the casement. Not for an innocuous breath of fresh air. Grey daylight would punch-cut his features like sculpture, a trick he often used to harden the appearance of invulnerability. Distance from the hearth obscured his next words.

      “But they have dared to extend their reach beyond Tysan,” the temple informant contradicted. “While the whirlwind campaign razes the clan enclave at Orlan, the companies fragmented by casualties will be re-formed and drilled back to fitness. Mid-season, they’ll be dispatched to Rathain for the next course of brisk action.”

      “The priesthood’s bid to consolidate True Sect rule at Etarra by force of arms?” Lysaer’s acid surprise framed rebuttal. “There’s an arrogant trespass not to be borne.”

      “Temple gold’s been allotted for staging.” Perhaps the priest smiled before he resumed. “You’ll soon hear more than rumours. Galleys are being chartered for the troops’ passage across Instrell Bay. The campaign under The Hatchet will take Rathain’s shore before the autumn storms disrupt his supply.”

      Lysaer’s oath inflected sheer disbelief.

      “The invasion’s no feint,” the visitor insisted. “Our Lord Highest Examiner claims to hold evidence that Fellowship interests cannot intervene. You’ll have to choose which advance to endorse. Blessed Lord, I suggest that you favour Etarra. Because Erdane’s foray into the Thaldeins confronts the most pernicious of the clan outposts, that thrust will involve the leagues’ finest trackers and the most gifted True Sect diviners.”

      Lysaer’s diction bit. “You insist the temple’s sealed orders will target children and babes without quarter?”

      “No question,” the visitor snapped, and killed hope. “The command calls for a sweeping extermination, backed up by the resource to route every hidden survivor.”

      Lysaer’s venomous stillness this time carried a palpable force that unsettled the sen Evend ancestral instinct. Dace shivered, raked by the visceral certainty his liege’s disastrous sentiment showed. Lysaer was human and fallible. A True Sect devotee beguiled by the dangerous myth he was god-sent perhaps beheld a crack in the immortal facade.

      If the avatar’s closing phrase was too low to discern, the brisk rap of his informant’s step in departure suggested an ominous quittance.

      Dace bottled his helpless fear and applied himself, shovelling. The reek of carbon seemed chillingly apt. The True Sect High Priesthood would move with alacrity to defend temple interests if today’s visitor played his avatar false. Worse, atop pending calamity, the door-latch clicked open before Dace contrived any plan to amend his gross breach of etiquette. The scullion poked in with a freckle-faced sneer. “Not done, yet? Lazy sod. I’m sent to finish. The cook needed Dolcie to strain the new cheese, and you’re tasked to fetch him more water.”

      Dace arose, hoping the steward was preoccupied.

      Hag’s luck prevailed: the gaunt stick still lurked by the servant’s stair, engrossed in a whispered discourse with the stranger, who was cloaked and hooded for his anonymous exit. Interrupted untimely again, both parties stiffened.

      “You!” barked the steward. “Still slinking about? I’ll have your severance forthwith!”

      The turncoat priest coughed. “I’ll be about my business.” He breezed toward the back door on the pretext he had lingered for casual gossip.

      No chance to expose the curtailed encounter as a collusion: the steward squared off like a blood-letting weasel for Dace’s immediate quittance.

      Except that a sturdy obstruction blocked egress through the kitchen. “If you’re tossing my help out, that’s stinking spite.” The cook’s bull-dog jaws gnashed the carved-ivory shim he kept for picking his teeth. “Manda’s moping in the privy, and I can’t be hauling the water myself. Not with these feet! My bunions would hobble me in a chair with a hot brick for a fortnight.”

      The steward sniffed in rapacious disgust. “Send Quince.”

      “I would.” The cook smirked. “The brat’s scarpered. I’d waste the morning chasing his hide to no purpose.”

      Dace seized the desperate initiative and braved the cross chop of argument. “I’ll finish the errand, if I can get past.”

      “Hurry on,” the cook groused. “I’ll be needing eight trips with the buckets at least.”

      “Work up a sweat all you like in the street.” The balked steward glared above his starched collar. “Just don’t expect to be let inside if you show the gall to come back.”

      Dace barged past. “The master,” he said, “will allow me a hearing before I’m excused.” To the obstreperous cook, he remarked, “You want your filled cauldron? Then appeal to his Lordship for his final word on my case.”

      “The master won’t trouble himself!” the supercilious steward insisted. “Or weigh an upstart’s claim above mine.”

      “Wouldn’t he?” The cook chomped on his toothpick and grinned, pleased to hackle his rival.

      Dace seized the impasse. Slim as a mackerel and quick on his feet, he accepted the corpulent cook as his shield and retreated into the kitchen. Two steps ahead of the thwarted steward, he snatched the buckets and fled.

      But his narrow escape only drove his vengeful antagonist to act on the sly. Seven round trips to the well occurred without any counter-move. The eighth СКАЧАТЬ