The Godlost Land by Greg Curtis Page B

around a hearth at night to frighten children. And yet what the woman was saying was insane. The demoness was no goddess. She would not interfere in divine matters. She would know better. And she had no thralls as far as he knew. There were a few wizards who summoned her from time to time. Who used her to kill their enemies. After all, she was a nearly unstoppable assassin. And she could also train others in the assassin's art. But that was it. There were a few who bonded themselves to certain demons, but not to Est. She simply wasn't powerful enough to have thralls. And if she did they wouldn't wear the robes of a goddess' followers. They wouldn't dare.
     
    “That makes no sense.”
     
    And it still left him with the basic problem of what to do with the priestess. Kill her? Free her? Leave her there? He didn't know.
     
    “Check their wrists.”
     
    The priestess had a point he realised. Thralls of demons, those who were powerful enough to have thralls, were branded on the insides of their wrists with the sigils of their masters. But given that he had set all three of them alight that was going to be difficult to check. However there was an alternative. Their personal weapons would also carry the markings.
     
    Reluctantly – it felt as if he was giving in to the priestess' lies or madness – Harl decided to do as she said. So he left her still safely trapped within her cage, and went to examine the piles of ashes to see if he could find some evidence.
     
    There wasn't much though. The crossbows of the two priests were simply normal weapons with no markings of any sort. But then he hadn't expected them to carry any markings. They weren't personal weapons they would carry all the time. Using a stick to push and prod at the piles of charred remains, Harl quickly found the priests' knives. The knives clearly had markings on their hilts. Unfortunately the markings were nearly burnt off. They could be the markings of the demoness. But they could equally be the markings of Artemis. He had no way of knowing which if either. Still, he retrieved his own knives from the priests' remains. They had worked well after all and he didn't want to have to craft too many more if he didn't have to. A quick wipe down with some long grass and they were back in their scabbards.
     
    The High Priest's body was in even worse shape than the others. It had burnt much hotter than the rest, presumably because he was a wizard as well as a priest, and what remained even after only twenty minutes of fire was little more than ash. As for his knife, if it had been a knife, it was barely even a blob of melted metal. He would learn nothing from it. Harl's knife had been luckier and he quickly found it lying in a patch of tall grass where it had been knocked aside. It quickly joined the others in his belt.
     
    Shortly he was standing there, re-armed and ready for another battle, but no wiser than before. He had a High Priestess of Artemis who had been locked in a cage by others including another High Priest of Artemis. A riddle that would make a fine bard's tale. He had no way of knowing if she was an enemy or perhaps even somehow an ally. Or something else. It was a problem that required answers he had no way of obtaining. Then there was a dryad who had lied to him. But that was no riddle and no surprise. And he knew he had little time to decide. Sooner or later other riders would come down the track, and some of them he had no doubt would be either more priests of Artemis, or more thralls of the demoness. Neither was good.
     
    Which left him back at the start. He had rescued someone he hadn't intended to save. And now he had to work out what to do with her. The right thing he thought was to kill her. For whatever reason Artemis' priests were chaining and killing one another, in the end they were all her priests. And his sword was ready for more blood.
     
    Harl walked back to the High Priestess' cage, thinking to end this quickly. He didn't know what