Fire Angels

Chapter 18 Part 2 News from the Patriarch

I had a horrible feeling that Shad deserved much better than me. I desired him and his company gave me great pleasure but after that I really could not say. I did not even want to look into that part of myself which might find that I loved him. I had loved Andre and look where that had led.

The following morning was just the same as the one before. I wrote names in the roll book while Shad handed out weapons. My mind was as confused as it had been the day before though about different thing. I started by feeling a certain restraint towards Shad, but as I became more engrossed in my task, I forgot about everything else. Later when I happened to look up and meet his smiling eyes, I was deliriously happy fighting off a ridiculous urge to sing. 

Around midmorning the work was interrupted when a priest-mage came running up to speak to Mark, the pale young man beside me.

"There is a Holy emissary come from our Lord," he cried urgently in Mazdana, the Holy States dialect.

"What does he say?" cried Mark.

"No one knows. He is wounded as is his party." The priest-mage turned to me and said in rough Gallian, "Madame, I think they have need of you. There are sick men at the convent."

Strange how people will assume a woman is a healer even when she is dressed in mage's blue.

"Dominic no!" cried Mark, blushing furiously. "She's not..."

Too curious about what had happened to wait and hear what he told his friend, I got up and ran down the main road to the convent.

At the convent gate, a crowd of people were milling about. Almost all of the priest-mages from the Holy States seemed to be there.

"I heard there is an emissary from the Patriarch," said Shad, appearing at my shoulder.

"Yes. Come on. Let's go in."

I pushed through the crowd and the guards let us both in through the gate.

"I knew there was a reason I liked you," said Shad chirpily. "You take me all the best places."

Lady Julia had set up her audience chamber in the Abbess's house. Here we found Ren Daniel, Lord Quercy and the Klementari Council in attendance on the Lady. There were also two men, both of them dusty and one wounded. Beg, looking at her most witchlike, was bending over the wounded one, who looked deeply nervous and greeted me keenly with an "Ah at last. This must be your healer.

His face fell when Lady Julia told him that this was not a healer, but Enna Dion Holyhands, the Demonslayer.

"For generations Morians have considered themselves safe in the hands the Klementari," she continued tartly. "You should consider yourself lucky that this august lady, who is the best healer in our camp, has time to help you."

The wounded man did his best to relax into Beg's touch, though his smile remained strained.

Lady Julia turned to me and held up a letter.

"These two men are emissaries from the Patriarch," she said. "Three days ago the Holy States Army was attacked and destroyed and the Patriarch now nearby and seeking asylum with me."

"The Duke..."

"No Madame," said the unwounded man, whose face was grey with fatigue. "It was a regiment of devils, devils made of fire and terrible things like dogs that ran on two legs, great hordes of them. They came over the Red Mountains behind us and fell on us suddenly at dawn. We were not prepared for an attack from behind. They destroyed all our mages first - cut through their defenses and outfought them - and left us to fight alone. Those dog beasts... It was a massacre Lady. The Patriarch was in the camp that night and we managed to get him safely away, but your cousin Gerard Hawksmoor is dead, though he fought bravely. Most of the rest of the army is dead or scattered. The creatures brought clouds of magical terror with them.