Amber and Iron - Margaret Weis [88]
Nightshade waited. Rhys remained silent.
“It’s horrible, isn’t it,” the kender said miserably, and he slumped over in his crate.
Rhys gripped the railing. The wind whipped around him. The ocean dropped away. The sea boiled and frothed far beneath the ship. Wisps of clouds fluttered like tattered sails from the mast.
“I told you so, Rhys,” Nightshade shouted. “You can’t quit a god!”
Rhys slid his hand over the staff. He knew every knothole and whorl, every imperfection. He could feel the grain of the wood, the stripes that marked the lifespan of the tree and told the story of its growth—the summers that were hot and dry, the gentle rains of spring, fall’s glorious and defiant colors, and the silent, waiting winter. He could feel, within the staff, the breath of the god, and not just because this staff had been blessed by the god. The breath of the god was present in all living things.
The breath of god was hope.
Rhys had lost hope, or rather, he’d thrown hope away. It kept coming back to him, though. Stubborn, persistent.
He stood braced on the lurching deck, the wind of a dark and evil night lashing him, the ghostly ship bearing him to some unknown destination. He rested his head on his staff and closed his eyes and looked within.
The kender was wise, as kender often are to those with the wisdom to understand.
You can’t quit a god.
hemosh stood on the ramparts of his fortress castle, watching the travesty that was taking place on a patch of scorched ground in front of him. The handsome brow of the Lord of Death was furrowed. He stood with his arms crossed over his chest. Occasionally he would grow so frustrated he had to quit watching and take to pacing the ramparts. He would then halt, looking back in hopes that things would have taken a turn for the better. Instead, it seemed they were going from bad to worse.
“Here you are, my lord,” said Mina, emerging from a door set in one of the corner towers. “I have been searching for you everywhere.”
She went to him and put her arms around him.
He pushed her away, repulsed by her touch. “I am not in a good humor,” he told her. “You would do well to leave me.”
Mina followed his irate gaze to where the death knight, Ausric Krell, was attempting to train the Beloved of Chemosh into a fighting force.
“What is wrong, my lord?” Mina asked.
“See for yourself!” Chemosh gestured. “That undisciplined mob is my army. The army that is going to march below the sea to conquer Nuitari’s tower. Bah!” He turned away in disgust. “That army could not raid a kender picnic!”
Krell was attempting to form the Beloved into ranks. Many of the undead simply ignored him. Those who did obey his commands would take their places in line only to forget why they were there a few moments later and wander off. Krell tried to bully and threaten those who refused to obey, but they were immune to his terrifying presence. He could break all the bones in their bodies and they would shrug it off and take another drink from their hip flasks.
Krell went to round up those who had wandered away and order them back in line. While he was gone, more deserted, forcing Krell to go thudding in pursuit. Some of the Beloved simply stood where they’d been told to stand, taking no interest in anything, staring up at the sky or down at the grass or across at each other.
“This is what I do to recruits who don’t obey my commands!” Krell howled in a rage. “Let this be a lesson to you!”
Drawing his sword, he began slashing at the Beloved, hacking off arms and hands and heads. The Beloved dropped down dead on the ground, where they began to wriggle themselves horribly back together in a few moments.
“There! Did the rest of you see that?” Krell turned around, only to discover the rest of the company had departed, heading in the direction of the nearest town, driven by their desperate need to kill.
“I have created the perfect soldier,” Chemosh fumed. “Impervious to pain. Ten times stronger than the strongest mortal. Unaffected by magic of any type.