A Paladin's Journey Ch. 19

The Paladins had not been what he expected, to be sure. They were supposed to be evil, vile things that spent most of their time fornicating or seducing. Dev could see why that was believed; the woman had been the most beautiful creature he'd ever clapped eyes on. Even now, when he thought of her, his heartbeat picked up and his loins tingled. He closed his eyes for a moment and pushed her out of his thoughts forcibly. That always worked, for a time, at least until she floated back in. The two men with her that night had had the same aura about them that she did; something that said they were trustworthy. Dev had tried to remind himself a thousand times that that's exactly what he was supposed to be wary of, but he just couldn't make it stick.

It was what he'd seen of the boy and girl that had rocked him to his core; the boy and the girl, wrapped up in Herald cloaks and slung over the shoulders of the men Paladins. Their faces bruised and battered like they'd been run down by a wagon and team. A bloodied ankle and foot sticking out from beneath the cloak, a hand with burn marks on the skin, blackened and weeping, the fingernails dark with blood.

Dev still felt sick at the memory. What could possibly warrant treatment like that? And on ones so young? Either the arohim were the most disgusting and vile creatures to ever walk the world, or there was something very wrong with the Heralds. Dev shifted uncomfortably and flexed his gloved hands on the haft of his spear; that thought alone was enough to get you hanged. He'd kept his reservations to himself, except for Rem, who agreed with him. They were silently loyal to each other. He exhaled, watching his breath mist before his face in the faint moonlight. This close to the Amarions, nights were cold all year round, even in summer.

Distant sounds of music and laughter from a nearby tavern drifted through the still night over Vesovar, making Dev wish he was down there, at a table near the fireplace and a mug of ale in his fist. His back itched again; still healing from his last lashing almost a week ago. One good thing had come from being stationed in Vesovar; the beatings had stopped. Remen said the two of them were lucky to be alive, letting five - five! - arohim go free, but it had been ruled that two Heralds of such a low station as Deven Blake and Remen Finyar could not have done much to stop them.

South of the wall upon which Dev stood, open fields lay, spread out for miles around the town. This high up, he could see a good long distance, though far less at night. The occasional cloud scuttered across the moon, throwing shadows over the fields that rolled like a dark tide before the light returned again. The clouds were moving north to south - Dev hoped that didn't mean another one of those furious storms - over the town and then on over the fields, so Dev gave a start when he saw the next shadow rolling toward the town.

"What-" he began to ask as he leaned forward over the parapet to get a better look.

"You see that?" Rem called as the shadow encroached, swallowing the crops like a hungry maw. "That's not-"

Somehow, Dev already knew what it was. "We're under attack!" He bellowed, spinning away from the wall and making for the nearest bell at a dead sprint. "Up spears! Up spears!" Even as he ran, arrows chinked off the parapet, and something heavy crashed into the stone wall down below. Fear lent him speed he'd never known before. Reaching the large, bronze bell, he seized the rope and began to heave with all his might, sending the alarm pealing over the town. Another one sounded; Rem must have got to it fast.

Dev kept hauling at the rope, his heart pounding in his chest and his stomach full of ice. That had been no army of men, down there, but darkspawn. He didn't know how many there were, but it seemed like that shadow went on forever. There was another crash below, and Dev felt the impact of this one through his feet as the wall shuddered. What felt like an eternity later, more bells began to ring, and shouts emerged from down below as Heralds and Vesovar guards came spilling out of the barracks. Dev just kept sounding the bell. If he survived this night, he was finally going to make up his mind about the thing he'd been thinking about ever since that night in Maralon.

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