Murtagh

As the cultists escorted Murtagh up the worn stairs and through dark corridors to the front of the temple, he noticed that the ever-present stench of brimstone was startlingly stronger. The miasma lay on the village, as heavy as a blanket, and it made his eyes water and the back of his throat sting. Every breath threatened to make him retch.

Bloody light broke across him as the dwarf and man guided him between pillars into the temple courtyard. Smoke filled the valley. Black smoke, rising from the vents in the ground, and it acted as a curtain upon the sky: a red and orange scrim that diminished the sun to a dull disk no brighter than an ember in a dying fire.

The courtyard was transformed. Bachel’s carved throne had been moved into the yard and placed upon the dais at one end. A long table stood at right angles to the dais, and in the center of the yard, before the ruined fountain, the cultists had placed the great ash-colored altar. Murtagh could not fathom how they had moved such an enormous block of stone, unless Bachel had employed magic in the effort.

Banners hung upon the patterned pillars that lined the temple, and streamers of knotted fabric—similar to those the Urgals made—hung from the eaves of the surrounding buildings.

At the table sat the remaining guests. Lyreth had a chalice in one hand, while his other hand wandered across the back of a village woman seated on his lap.

All the villagers were gathered around the courtyard, packed into the streets as so many pickled bergenhed in casks. They were chanting and moaning and beating drums and ringing bells and striking brass cymbals that jarred the smoke with their brazen crashing. Their clothes were different: a complete change of raiment such as Murtagh had never known commoners to possess. Instead of their usual robes, they wore sleeved jerkins cut and sewn out of dish-sized scales of thick boiled leather dyed dark brown. The effect was between that of a closed pinecone and the belly of a dragon. The scale pattern continued along their arms and trousers, also of leather. On their faces, the Draumar wore molded half masks that resembled Bachel’s, though theirs possessed none of that mask’s transformative power. Even the children were garbed as such, furtive figures amid the forest of legs.

Bachel herself sat upon the hide-strewn throne, her hair raised in an edifice of ragged tufts, her lids and eyes blackened with soot, her lips red as blood, and the hated claws of onyx upon her fingers.

A flock of restless crows roosted on the eaves behind the dais, cawing and cackling in response to the cacophony the villagers produced. They formed a dark crown above Bachel’s head: a shadowed symbol of her supreme authority.

To the left of the witch stood Grieve, and for once the dour man had an almost pleasant expression. The festival seemed to suit him.

But of everything Murtagh saw, it was Thorn he had eyes for most. The dragon was chained next to the dais, wings pinned by cabled ropes, a muzzle of wrought iron locked about his long jaws. Murtagh could feel the dragon’s fetters as if they were tight against his own body, and their touch seemed to burn with icy cold.

Soon, Murtagh said to Thorn, and the word was a promise, an oath, an apology. But it was like pushing his thoughts through a wall of wool. Still, the dragon’s eyelids flickered, as if he understood. Murtagh hoped he did.

The two cultists brought him before Bachel, and she inspected him as one might inspect a prize horse. “You look as though the night treated you badly, Kingkiller.” She gestured with one elegant hand to her right, and he obediently took his place.

His gaze kept drifting back to Thorn. The dragon was still suffering the effects of the drug vorgethan; Alín could not bring him clean food or water without arousing suspicion. Murtagh could feel a low, dull sense of misery emanating from the dragon. Misery. He hated the word….

Once again, Murtagh attempted to access the power in the yellow diamond. Almost. But almost was never enough.

Then Bachel stood and clapped her hands over her head, and after the crowd quieted, she proclaimed, “Let the recitation begin!”

A line formed outside the courtyard, and one by one the cultists presented themselves to Bachel and told her of the visions they’d had that night. The dreams were far more varied than usual: fantastic images and narratives that Murtagh would have hardly credited as true had he not experienced something similar himself. Yet there were commonalities of theme among the visions, promises of bloodshed and vengeance claimed, premonitions of a world razed and rebuilt—a world where every living creature worshipped Azlagûr the Devourer, or else died.

The recitation took hours. Every member of the village came before Bachel and had their say. At the table in front of the throne, Lyreth and the other guests grew restless, and they often stood and left for a time, only to return later and resume eating.