Page 80 of Crucible of Chaos

‘Run!’ he cried. ‘Run, and do not stop until the sea has taken you!’

CHAPTER 43

THE JUDICIAL DUEL

Ignoring his injuries and exhaustion, Estevar fled alongside Imperious, racing through the tunnels and back up the slope to the door to the Venerance Tower, where Strigan had held court with his followers. That vast, circular chamber was empty now, save for the corpses of Strigan’s followers strewn across the floor, the tattooed sigils now gone from their bodies.

Imperious neighed anxiously, his teeth nipping at the elbow of Estevar’s greatcoat.

‘Of course, you are quite right, my friend. The time for such investigations has passed us by now, however much it irks me to leave such intriguing questions unanswered.’

Man and mule ran out the doors of the tower, pounded down the steps and onto the long avenue beneath the cloister, where the colonnades were already collapsing.

‘I’ve never seen anything like this,’ Mother Leogado shouted. She had followed him, while Strigan and Brother Agneta had charted their own courses out of the tunnels.

Malezias had remained behind, insisting despite Estevar’s urging that they were all condemned to die and he would do so at the side of the god he’d loved even when she was a mere mortal like himself.

The roiling black clouds gleamed like onyx as they spat lightning across the courtyard, the trails of light the jagged bars of a prison being built all around them. Torrents of rain fell upon the abbey’s courtyard, turning hard ground into treacherous mud, tearing apart the flagstones.

In a sky devoid of stars, the only light came from the blue eyes of a god who looked down upon his unwilling subjects with disgust. Estevar could think of only one word to name the deity coming into being through Abbot Venia’s own transgressions and those of his followers.

‘Abomination,’ Estevar whispered.

No one could have heard him over the hurricane winds rushing through the abbey, or the cracking of the cloister’s stone roof, and yet the god smiled down at him anyway, pleased to have found his name, and when he spoke it from his own celestial lips, the bodies of dead monks began to twist and mangle themselves once more, rising up to praise their beloved god for his promise of a thousand different pleasures awaiting them: one for each cruelty they inflicted upon every sinner.

And there were so very many sinners to punish.

‘Saints,’ Mother Leogado swore. ‘What good was that trial of yours if this is what awaits humanity?’

‘You should have more faith,’ Estevar told her, holding Imperious’ reins tight to keep the mule from charging at the awakening demons.

‘I thought you didn’t worship any gods, only your laws.’

‘Humanity,’ he corrected her. ‘The laws I serve come from mortal men and women, and it is in them that you monks ought to have more faith.’

The tremors shaking the ground worsened, and Mother Leogado pointed to the top of the Venerance Tower where massive stone blocks had begun to tumble from the ramparts. The roof gave way, and rising from it was a small, slender figure in armour fashioned of glittering fragments in a dozen different hues of silver and copper.

‘There,’ Estevar whispered. ‘There is my faith.’

The young woman once known as Caeda Branwen came to face the entity that had been Abbot Venia, who had been responsible for both her death and her rebirth. For a moment, Estevar wondered whether perhaps the two would form the beginnings of a new pantheon to rule over the faithful of Tristia– but even among gods, it appeared, some grudges were hard to forgive. The two deities waged war upon one another, each drawing unto themselves pieces of the unnatural storms that had birthed them, neither caring that the wounds they inflicted on one another were nothing compared to the havoc being wreaked upon the island below.

‘I believe I shall take my chances with the sea,’ Mother Leogado said.

‘On this, we are in agreement,’ Estevar replied. He tugged on Imperious’ reins to lead him across the treacherous terrain ahead, but the mule, braying angrily, wouldn’t budge. It took a moment to realise Imperious was waiting for him to mount.

‘Come,’ Estevar said, extending a hand backwards to Mother Leogado as he prepared to clamber onto Imperious’ back. ‘Your added weight won’t slow him down.’

‘Alas, yours will, and that is a risk I cannot afford.’

Hearing the edge to her voice, he turned to see the pistol aimed at his chest. So Brother Agneta hadn’t been the only monk hiding such weapons in the abbey, and Leogado had saved hers for the moment when it would yield the most benefit.

‘Whoever survives among the brethren will need a leader to guide them,’ she said without a trace of remorse. ‘I won’t abandon my duty to them, even if it demands the sacrifice of one whom I would have hoped to call a friend.’

‘I would urge you to reconsider, Madam.’

Her finger tightened fractionally but visibly around the trigger. ‘And I would urge you to step back.’

Estevar spread his hands wide and did as she bade him, saying only, ‘Be kind to him, for as long as he’ll have you.’

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