By Schism Rent Asunder Read Free

muzzles of cannon poked out of them.
    â€œFather?”
    He glanced at his own second-in-command. The one-word question made the other priest’s tension abundantly clear, and Sawal couldn’t blame him. Not that he had an answer for what he knew the man was actually asking.
    â€œWe’ll have to see what we see, Brother Tymythy,” he said instead. “Hold your course.”
    *   *   *
    â€œHe’s not changing course,” Urvyn said.
    As redundant statements of the obvious went, that one took some beating, Hywyt thought.
    â€œNo, he isn’t,” the commander agreed with massive restraint as the range fell steadily. It was down to less than three hundred yards and still dropping, and he wondered how far the other skipper was going to go in calling what he undoubtedly hoped was Wave ’s bluff. “Pass the word to the Gunner to stand ready to fire a shot across his bow.”
    Urvyn hesitated. It was a tiny thing. Someone else might not have noticed it at all, but Urvyn had been Hywyt’s first lieutenant for over six months. For a moment, Hywyt thought he would have to repeat the order, but then Urvyn turned heavily away and raised his leather speaking trumpet.
    â€œStand ready to fire across his bow, Master Charlz!” he shouted, and Wave ’s gunner waved back in acknowledgment.
    *   *   *
    â€œI think he’s—”
    Brother Tymythy never completed that particular observation. There was no need. The flat, concussive thud of a single gun punctuated it quite nicely, and Sawal watched the cannonball go slashing across the waves, cutting its line of white across their crests as cleanly as any kraken’s dorsal fin.
    â€œHe’s fired on us!” Tymythy said instead. His voice was shrill with outrage, and his eyes were wide, as if he was actually surprised that even Charisians should dare to offer such insult to Mother Church. And perhaps he was. Sawal, on the other hand, discovered that he truly wasn’t.
    â€œYes, he has,” the under-priest agreed far more calmly than he felt.
    I didn’t really believe they’d do it, he thought. I’m sure I didn’t. So why am I not surprised that they have? This is the beginning of the end of the world, for God’s sake!
    He thought again about the dispatches he carried, who they were addressed to, and why. He thought about the whispered rumors, about exactly what Prince Hektor and his allies had hoped for … what rewards they’d been promised by the Church.
    No, not by the Church , Sawal told himself. By the Knights of the Temple Lands. There is a difference!
    Yet even as he insisted upon that to himself, he knew better. Whatever technical or legal distinctions might exist, he knew better. And that, he realized now, with something very like despair, was why he truly wasn’t surprised.
    Even now, he couldn’t put it into words for himself, couldn’t make himself face it that squarely, but he knew. Whatever might have been true before the massive onslaught Prince Hektor and his allies had launched upon the Kingdom of Charis, the Charisians knew as well as Sawal who had truly been behind it. They knew the reality of the cynical calculations, the casual readiness to destroy an entire realm in blood and fire, and the arrogance which had infused and inspired them. This time the “Group of Four” had come too far out of the shadows, and what they had envisioned as the simple little assassination of an inconvenient kingdom had turned into something very different.
    Charis knew who its true enemy had been all along, and that explained exactly why that schooner was prepared to fire on the flag of God’s own Church.
    The schooner was closer now, leaning to the press of her towering spread of canvas, her bow garlanded with white water and flying spray that flashed like rainbow gems under the brilliant sun. He could make out individuals