Few of the humans present looked comfortable after Loman declared himself and everyone else present sinners for surrendering to save their lives.
Germot looked like heâd swallowed an insect, and that the greatest struggle of his life had arrived in the form of a stomach that wanted to empty itself on the stone floor in front of the powerful vampire.
Roseenâs face had gone deathly pale, but inside her chest, something else was welling up and threatening to burst forth, and unlike the sickly looking Head Priest, it wasnât her dinner.
"He thinks weâre sinners for not wanting to die?" Roseen hissed, barely able to keep her voice to a whisper as she clenched her fist hard enough for her fingernails to bite into her palms. "For wanting our families to live?"
"He sounds like he believes it," Cossot said, and there was something broken in her voice. "He really, truly believes that we should have all died fighting rather than surrender. He, he probably even thinks that Iâm a sinner for helping Dame Sybyll tonight," she realized, half convinced that Loman would have rather seen her die to Dame Sybyllâs axe than reveal where Ian and Bastian Hanrahan had gone during the battle.
"Thatâs insane," Roseen hissed, more forcefully than she intended. Several people glanced their way, and she quickly lowered her voice again. "My mother didnât raise me to throw my life away for nothing. Neither did yours."
Cossot nodded slowly, but her eyes remained fixed on Lomanâs face, watching the zeal burning there along with a good amount of self-loathing. The man sheâd once admired, the powerful lord who seemed so certain and strong when he stripped off his lordly tunic to don the robes of his faith, now looked like someone who would gladly lead everyone she loved to their deaths if that very same faith demanded it.
Heâd seemed like a savior come to rescue them from the jaws of darkness and evil... but the darkness turned out to be a woman who had been badly wronged by the lords of Lothian March... and if there had been any evil on display tonight, it had come from the man who sat upon a stolen throne.
So what then, was Loman Lothian? Had he ever been a savior? Or had he always been this... this wretched, tattered thing who would see everyone die instead of yielding even one inch of ground?
Liam Dunn and Hugo Hanrahan, on the other hand, frowned deeply as they listened to the men of faith debating doctrine with their Eldritch peers. Both men had come close enough to leaders of the church to see beneath the surface of the churchâs teachings and to understand that the church served its own interests first, before it ever served the interests of the people.
Yet Loman struck them differently than any of the high church officials theyâd encountered in the past. More than either of the young lords, and much more than the aged officials of the Church like Head Priest Germot, Loman truly believed...
The revelations that the Eldritch shared some traditions with the Church did little to shake either man, but seeing the zeal burning in Lomanâs eyes, and even a bit of self-hatred, shook both men to their cores. After all, if Loman represented the true will of the Church, and the Church would follow the dictates of the Ascended Archer, Ceslovas Beksa, to pursue their enemies until they were utterly destroyed... then there would be no hope for peace once Lady Ashlynn concluded her war. The Church would never let them rest!
"I understand ye have a good deal taâ discuss," Sybyll said, interrupting the scholars and stepping into the silence created by Lomanâs condemnation of surrender. "Yer welcome taâ continue yer conversation fer as long as ye wish after we conclude our business," she said, calling their attention back to her original question.
"Dawn waits fer no woman, anâ I need an answer soon," Sybyll said firmly. "Is there any reason I shouldnâa judge Loman Lothian a murderer fer sacrificing my people taâ fuel his sorcery?"
Sybyllâs question brought everything back into sharp focus. As interesting as it was to hear the similarities between the traditions Jalalâs people had meticulously preserved since the end of the Age of Ice and the early days of the Church, there was a pressing question that demanded an answer.
"Iâm sorry, old friend," Jalal said as he looked at the tattered and ragged priest. "I wanted to understand if the power and traditions he invoked were the same as ours or different. Not because Iâm curious, but because aligning ourselves with the stars aligns our bodies, our minds, and our hearts with the guidance from above."
"Young Hugo," Jalal said, flashing a slight smile at the young man heâd lent a blade to at the start of the battle. "How did you feel after using the ritual I taught you tonight?"
"Sharper," Hugo said after thinking for a moment. "I, Iâm not meant to wield a sword or charge into battle with a lance," he admitted. "No matter how much Sir Rain and Lord Owain beat me in the name of âteachingâ, I was never going to be a real knight, no matter what title my father gave me."
"But the ritual you taught me," he said, placing a hand over his heart. "It helped me cut through my fears and doubts. The blade in my hand felt more comfortable than any sword ever did. I was... ready to face what was ahead, even if I was still frightened of it."
"Thatâs part of what it means to be a warrior," Jalal said, using his only remaining hand to clap the young human lord on the shoulder. In an odd way, he realized, heâd become some kind of kin to the human when Sybyll gave him the surname âHanrahanâ, and somehow, he felt even closer to Hugo than he had at the start of the evening... as though he were a young kitten in need of guidance.
"Sybyll," Jalal continued, as he finally arrived at the answer heâd been looking for when he asked about the teachings of the âAscended Archer.â "When Stargazers in my clan invoke the First Hunter, they gain a determination to finish their hunt, to complete what theyâve started because people depend on their success. Their world narrows, distractions fall away, and they become better hunters in a number of ways."
"I have not seen the ritual that this priest used, but once he set his arrow to the string, he may have lost his ability to change his mind," he said. "From the way he speaks, I do not believe that the person who taught him this ritual gave him the freedom to set his own conditions or limit the scope of his hunt. In a way, he is both the archer taking aim at me, and the arrow in his teacherâs bow."
"Youâre suggesting that what Loman did was an extension of Exemplar Domasâs will?" Diarmuid said, horrified by the implications of that statement if it were true. "That the rituals he used were... were homicidal traps that would consume the lives of the people who supported his own disciple?"
"No, it wasnât like that at all!" Loman insisted, trembling in fury as the conniving demon sought to move the blame from his own shoulders onto his teachers. "Exemplar Domas warned me that the rituals he taught me could claim the lives of men with weaker faith. He told me that if I ever needed to fill my quiver with arrows, I should choose the strongest, most devout men available."
"Those were the men whom Head Priest Germot sent me," he said as he looked at the head priest with a ripple of doubt suddenly sending his heart beating faster and turning his palms slick. "Those were the most devout men of your temple, werenât they? You chose them all personally?"
"I, I told my acolytes that a Disciple of Exemplar Domas needed our most faithful men at his side to repel the demons," Germot said, awkwardly wringing his hands. "The ones I sent were the ones who volunteered. But if Iâd wanted to, I could have sent twice as many men," he added quickly. "No one would have turned away from your request, your Worship."
"But, you chose among those volunteers for the strongest and most devout, didnât you?" Loman repeated as his stomach plummeted. He didnât need to hear an answer from the Head Priest to know that he hadnât... Just looking in the other manâs eyes told him everything he needed to know.
Head Priest Germot had sent him a dozen men who volunteered, but beyond that... if Loman was lucky, the decision had been random. But watching as the Head Priest squirmed against the chains that bound him and struggled to provide an answer, Loman suspected that the men he sent were the ones he would have been happiest to be rid of should Loman have taken them into his service after the battle...
Some of them may have had strong faith, but none of them were people Germot would have minded losing from his temple.