Chapter 1 - The Execution

Men said the Tower stood to remind man of his folly, to show him what pride wrought. But it also stood as a testament of strength, of arrogance; that it could not be destroyed, only wounded. One day, the optimistic claimed, the Tower will be rebuilt, the City to the Stars will be rebuilt. And we will be worthy.

This night the jagged spire of the God's Tower pierced the full moon. The plaza glowed in its reflected light, and the emptiness was magnified by the cluster of lantern-bearing townspeople gathered at the mouth of the great boulevard. The lanterns seemed to dance merrily as the men passed into the city center, but there was no merriness in their stern countenances. Swords rattled at each belt, helms covered each head and they walked with a solemn surety into the plaza. Two throwing javelins rose from each back. A great black shadow, the shadow of the God's Tower, scarred the bright plaza, and as they neared the center, where the thin finger of shadow reached out for them, they stopped, all but one man.

This one had no sword at his belt, only a sheathed dagger, but in his clenched fist was the haft of a mighty war axe. The blade, resting casually on his shoulder, was long and curved, and though the edge was nicked in places, the moon limned a wide cruel arc along it. The owner called the axe Justice, as his father and grandfather before him had done. This was the family blade, their claim to knighthood, and it had served each of them well in his turn. The haft was blackened by the sweat and blood of battles long fought, and the steel of that blade was well forged. God's Tower steel, Corym claimed, and few would deny it. Justice had sent many men to their gods, and tonight it would do its work again.

He was Corym, Guards Captain, and Lord Knight of the town of Dunmere. He was the Lord's Justice, hand of Lord Manryk Dunmere, ancestral Lord of the Dunmerish lands and Justicar of the realm. Lord Manryk was the law, and Corym was his law-bringer. He stepped forward, out of the press of guardsmen and into the shadow of the God's Tower.

He could not see the stranger, the law-breaker, in the gloom, but he heard the rattle of chains twenty paces ahead, and he knew that was where his guardsmen had staked their prisoner. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he made out the dark shape ahead, saw the dim outlines of a man in armor.

But this was no man, his squire, Erikine had told him. It was Erikine brought him down. Erikine with his grapple, who pulled him from the tower to land painfully on the rubble below. It was he who had hammered the manacles on wrists and ankles, as the stranger lay dazed from his second (second!) fall from the God's Tower. With Rodryk's help, Erikine had pulled him from the base of the tower and drove the stake through the flagstones to hold him until Corym could be summoned.

The guards, patrolling the City to the Stars, had first come across the stranger that afternoon, when they spied him climbing the God's Tower. Outlaws and grave robbers had come to the City in the past. Invariably they sought the long lost treasures of the ancestors. Usually they were content to wreak havoc among the ruins for little more gain than some good steel. The people of Dunmere knew there were no treasures to be found.