The Godlost Land by Greg Curtis

flames behind him had burnt low, Harl approached them. He let them hear his voice, smell his hand and then know its touch on their necks. It seemed to work. He was no horseman, but he still had some ability with them.
     
    Still, it was a long time before he could leave them. Even after the manticore's shrieking had ended and the fire of the high priest was dying down they continued to whinny and snort with fear. They could smell blood and burning, neither of which they liked, and as the flames of the high priest burnt low in front of them, he knew they were still thinking about fleeing. It would only take something small to startle them. And then if they fled he would never catch them. He would never free the prisoner. And that would be something more than ironic. To come all this way, to battle so many and even to win the battle, only to have the woman he'd come to save stolen from him by a couple of panicking horses.
     
    It was a good twenty minutes or more before he felt ready to leave the skittish animals long enough to go to the cage on the back of the wagon, and pull the cover free. But when he did, when he saw the prisoner, it came as a bitter blow.
     
    “You're not a dryad!”
     
    And she wasn't. She was pure human, which meant that the dryad who'd come for his aide had been lying. She wasn't the dryad's sister. And why he wondered as he stared at her, should that surprise him? Everyone lied. Why should it even bother him when the truth was that he should have expected it? But it did bother him. Maybe most of all because he had believed the dryad's tears. In all the world he had wanted only one thing – though he hadn't realised it until just then. That there was someone somewhere that he could trust. He had hoped that he could trust the dryad. Apparently he was wrong.
     
    But it wasn't even the fact that she was human that shocked him most. He could handle that. It was the fact that she was dressed as a priestess. Actually a High Priestess. And from the colours of her robes – forest green with black and gold trim – a High Priestess of Artemis. That was unfair. For a while he had been rescuing a prisoner from the clutches of his enemy. A sister. So killing all those priests and soldiers had been a good thing. The right thing to do. Seeing the prisoner though, he discovered he hadn't been rescuing anyone. There had been no righteous cause. No innocent to be saved. He had been cheated of his triumph by a dryad's lies.
     
    It seemed that the priests were imprisoning their own for whatever reason. And all he'd managed to do was get himself involved in some sort of temple dispute.
     
    But it must be something more than a minor dispute. Something more than even a major one. The followers of Artemis were obviously very frightened of their own for some reason. Heavy iron chains around her neck and wrists bound her to the floor of the iron cage, something that wouldn't be needed for any normal prisoner. So who or what was she that she should need such restraints?
     
    Was it, as the dryad had said, that there was a new temple and an old one? Was Artemis' own flock going to war with itself? He didn't know and he wasn't even sure that it mattered. It was enough that they were fighting among themselves. He supported that. At least someone was fighting them.
     
    “I never said I was.”
     
    She nodded at him politely, her eyes never leaving him. She was studying him. No doubt looking for some clue as to who he was and why he had done what he had done. Good luck finding anything he thought. Because he had absolutely no idea himself. No clue save that he'd been deceived by a lying dryad's tears.
     
    “And who may I ask are you and why have you rescued me?”
     
    “My name is my own Priestess. Names have power. And given what you are I don't think I will be rescuing you.”
     
    And while he didn't yet know what to do with her, he knew that letting her go was not an option. She might be an enemy of the temple but