Paladine would forgive him for bending the Measure. . .
.
At the top of the stairs Sturm paused. “Radiz?”
“Yes, young Sturm?”
“Would you have your men search for Sergeant Soren?
He deserves an honorable burial.”
“It shall be done.”
They descended the steps together. Radiz remarked,
“You know, Mukhari was right about one thing; you are a
noble lad.”
“I am my father’s son,” said Sturm.
The voices of the boy and the Kernaffi commander
echoed through the palace halls long after the rooftop had
returned to the clean air, bright sun, and nature’s honest
wind.
The road to exile was very long. For Sturm Brightblade, this was
only the beginning.
Heart of Goldmoon
Laura Hickman and Kate Novac
The air of excitement was high as the Que-shu tribe
milled before the ancient stone platform that was the focus
of their village. Everyone was clad in colorful festive
raiment. Adding to the delight of the senses was the
delectable smell of foods being prepared for the celebration
to come.
One by one, however, the exhilarated men, women, and
children fell into silence as their attention was caught by a
lone young woman, climbing the granite construction
before them. Soon, all was still. No child giggled, no babe
even cried. Nothing disturbed the faint shuffling sound
made by the slippered feet of the holy woman as she
ascended to the platform.
The woman was Goldmoon, princess and priestess of
the Que-shu. Those who watched knew that upon her death
– in the far future – Goldmoon would become a goddess, as
had her mother, Tearsong, and all her deceased ancestors.
Goldmoon was the tribe’s link to their gods. Her father,
Chieftain Arrowthorn, would also achieve godhood, but, as
revered as he was, the silence and awe of the crowd was
reserved for the slender woman who was his only heir.
Goldmoon’s long, silken hair was brighter than the
golden grasses waving in the fields near the village. Sight of
her hair still astonished the dark-haired tribesmen. “It is a
mark of her favor with the ancestors,” they said. As she
reached the platform and bowed to the crowd, the sun
glinted from those golden tresses, and no one present
witnessing her grace, her beauty, or that bright crown of
hair doubted Goldmoon’s worth in being honored with this
ceremony.
Goldmoon turned from the platform edge and bowed
respectfully to her father, who had previously ascended the
platform. Though it was her mother’s blood that decreed
Goldmoon’s status as priestess, it was her father’s greatness
as a warrior that had won him Tearsong’s hand in marriage.
Only Arrowthorn’s cunning and wisdom had kept the reins
of power from being torn from their family’s hands after the
crushing blow of Tearsong’s early death, and had held them
until she, Goldmoon, was old enough to serve as priestess to
her people.
Goldmoon moved to Arrowthorn’s right side and fixed
her gaze out over the plains to the mountain on the northern
horizon. She could not see it from here, but she knew that
near the summit was a vast cavern, called the Hall of the
Sleeping Spirits, where the mortal remains of Goldmoon’s
dead ancestors lay, behind a door opened by the rays of
Lunitari, the red moon, only once every ten years. On the
morrow, Goldmoon would journey to that cavern for the
first time to speak with her ancestors, her gods. She found
herself excited and perhaps a little anxious.
First, however, must come the games that would decide
who her escorts were to be. Only those two warriors who
proved to be the best would accompany and protect her on
the journey. Twenty young Plainsmen, lean and muscled, all
eager for the honor, filed onto a lower tier of the platform
and formed a semicircle before their princess. Goldmoon,
seemingly transfixed by the heat thermals shimmering in
the air before her, appeared not to notice the men.
When the last man took his place, however, Goldmoon
turned her gaze to the historian seated on the platform
behind her father, writing on a parchment with deliberate
strokes. She heard Arrowthorn let out a breath that might
have been a subdued snort of annoyance at Loreman. The