For many days, Niamh and her friends wrestled with the contents of Roithe’s box. The Green Eye could be watching them still—Niamh felt its unsettling gaze whenever she went out from the Temple grounds into the streets of the city. Niamh spent her mornings in prayer or choir, her afternoons spreading Atmos’ will, and her evenings enjoying the company of either Myla or her Temple friends. Tib couldn’t believe the things they told her, while Gellek came around more quickly. All involved were sworn to secrecy for the time being—time that continued to drag by slowly, day after day.
Then the pirate fleets arrived.
Yesterday, word had spread like wildfire. Fishing ships had vanished, while others had returned to the city with nets full only of terror. A thousand ships, some had said—a thousand ships coming to burn the city down. The city had sunken into chaos. Many had fled the city, while Niamh and her fellow priests had done all they could to assist those who had chosen to stay. The Militant Creed had been tasked with joining the City Watch and strengthening the defense of Saanazar. Niamh had focused on helping the children and elderly who sought to leave the city, leaving the preparations—such as boarding up windows or blocking off doors—to those with greater physical strength. She had tried to remain calm, focusing on her duty not the fear. Sleep had eventually, and elusively, come.
Whispering and murmuring woke her. Niamh pushed the sheets of her cot down from around her face. She shivered despite the warmth of her blankets. It was too early to be awake.
The flickering light of lanterns and torches illuminated the commotion near the dormitory windows. A dozen priestesses—half of them in smallclothes and half of them in grey robes—thronged about the glass, faces pressed close.
Niamh swung her feet off the bed and grabbed her robe, though it dragged loosely from her drowsy fingers. She pressed for a vantage near the corner of the large window, then looked down across the familiar rooftops of her home.
The harbour was on fire. Dark smoke blotted out a grand swath of the blue-black sky. More ships than she could count obscured the sea. They were all mixed up and there was no way to tell one faction from another. Many were burning, just as the rooftops of the warehouses—warehouses like the one around which Niamh had just wandered. Saanazar was under attack.
“Miril,” Niamh whispered, turning to look around in the darkness. She found her dear friend standing a few sisters to her left. Niamh grabbed Miril’s arm. “What do you think is happening down there?”
“The pirate fleets are here,” Miril whispered, solemnly. Her face, in the distant, violent light, shone pale as the moon. “They’ll try breaking through the defenses…or lay siege if they can’t. Just like in Starath.”
Niamh felt one of her knees give out, but she caught herself. Trembling, she looked around the dorms once more. Many of her kin were gathered in prayer. Others were mumbling in fear or simply gawking out the window as she had been. “We need information,” she said. “What are the Archpriests doing?”
Miril and she asked around for a few minutes. Niamh donned her robe so they could leave the dormitories and explore the hallways of the Temple’s interior. The halls had never felt so frantic.
Archpriests Hartho, Bradach, and Cavi were just trying to keep everyone calm within the Temple. Archpriest Par of the Cardinal Creed was coordinating the defense of the Temple, while Archpriest Tobud coordinated the Militant Creed with the King’s military. Speaker Serand was deep in prayer, communing with Atmos as he had been since the enemy fleet had first arrived at the city’s perimeter.
With little direction, Niamh decided they had to do something for those outside the Temple. She asked Miril to come with her.
“I don’t know if the guards will let us out, but we can try,” Miril said, as they wandered the halls.
Niamh desperately shrugged, but led the way toward the exterior courtyard. She couldn’t just stand around. She knew Myla—out there at her chapel—would be far from idle.
The central courtyard of the Temple Grounds was lit by a ring of torches. Priests were coming and going through the main gate, but some. Clusters of grey-cloaked warrior-priests comprised the majority of the yard’s inhabitants—the Militant Creed was on high alert. Niamh had never seen so many standing on the ramparts of the outer wall.
“Careful out there,” one of the guards grunted, as Niamh and Miril approached the front gate.
Miril nodded gravely. As they continued past, she asked, “Will you be locking the gates?”
“Only if the Temple is in danger.”
Niamh frowned. Did the guards know more than she did? She paused and turned back. “Are the pirates gaining ground in the city?”
“We haven’t heard,” the guard muttered. “They will be, though—Atmos protect us.”
The streets outside the Temple were more deserted than Niamh had ever seen them. As they walked, Niamh reflected that she didn’t frequent the streets after dark, though, so she knew little of what they were normally like at this hour of the morning.
She turned anxiously back to Miril. “If they come into the city, are we just going to hide in the Temple? And wait for them to attack us? I can’t fight!”
Miril shrugged. “We wouldn’t need to fight. They aren’t going to kill priests. We close the gates and wait them out, or—if Atmos tells the Archpriests to surrender—we surrender.”
“Priests died earlier this year…using magic to protect themselves, too,” Niamh reminded her. “We’re silly to think there are going to be no casualties.”
“Well, yes,” Miril muttered. “But what would you have the priests do? Like you said—most of us can’t fight. Why wouldn’t we close the gates and hide?”
Niamh sighed unevenly. “We hide and the people run. It doesn’t feel right—but we don’t have a choice in the matter.” She wrung her hands together on her grey robe. She felt like just one twinkling star in the night sky, blocked by bleak smoke.
“Atmos will prevail, one way or another,” Miril said, determined.
Doubt was an unusual feeling for Niamh, but fear had started it stirring deep within. She repeated Miril’s words in her head and willed them be true.
But surely Atmos did not wish them to simply hide.
Niamh and Miril stuck together throughout the morning. As the darkness thinned and the sun began to peak its face over the horizon, the two helped those still trying to flee and even found a few places they could help build barricades. Niamh soon found blisters forming on her hands as she helped a gruff and cussing man drag a table outdoors to add to the blockage in the street. Thankfully, Niamh also had a few chances to pray for those in fear.
They hurried back toward the Temple as the sunlight lit up the sky, fearing that the gates might be shut on them. The guards waved them through, and they found things in a similar state as when they had left. It took a while to track down Anthin, but he reported that Roithe’s box was still safe with his belongings, locked in the trunk at the foot of his own dormitory bunk.
As the morning matured, the fires in the harbour crept higher up the shore. Plumes of smoke and soot dotted the southern side of Saanazar as it became apparent that this would not be dealt with at the port only. The Archpriests eventually decided to invite the more vulnerable of citizens into the Temple grounds. The Reformer’s and the Speaker’s Creeds were tasked with welcoming their guests upon their arrival at the Temple, after others had sent them this way.
Niamh was eager to have something to do aside from worry, but the terror and grief of those that came to seek safety was infectious. By the time that a cheer went up from the Temple’s outer wall, it was a relief to a deep discomfort that was brewing in her chest. She quickly sought out Miril, and they heard the tidings together. Prayers answered, they charged up the nearest stone staircase to join a dozen other grey-robed priests on the battlements.
Near the horizon, a second group of ships had appeared. Charging toward the city, this second fleet was Saanazar’s allies—those were their own ships, and the ships of Eastpoint, Noress-That-Was, and High Raena. It was one of many such fleets, they were told, and it was the nearest. Under the smoky sky, they watched the pirate fleet turning about, blossoming out in front of the harbour to face the coming salvation.
Priests and citizens alike prayed for Atmos’ favour as they waited for the battle to begin—and then, with even greater fervour, as the battle raged. Niamh caught glimpses of the ships battering into each other with massive rams, breaking each other into halves. Sparks of distant fire could be seen trailing smoke. Men were fighting and dying in mayhem.
This was wrong. Niamh felt it in her stomach like a slow, pent-up thunder. She had always been taught that bloodshed and war brought sadness to Atmos—and watching the strife unfold out there brought Niamh a similar sadness.
To make matters worse, there was little to do. Many priests stood around, talking and praying. There was no sense in their usual duties—not today. The coming hours might irreversibly alter their lives. Their lives might have already been changed.
By the afternoon, the battle had come to a stark conclusion. The remnant of the allied fleet was limping back toward the horizon from whence it had come. At least their defeat had not been an easy one. A fraction of the pirate fleet returned to the harbour.
Before twilight crept in, they had rekindled many of the fires they had first ignited.
With the sheltered citizens fed and sheltered, Niamh and the other priests and priestesses were dismissed for the night. With an unclear future, many opted to stay up. Exhausted, Niamh and Miril joined those heading for the dormitory. They shrugged off their robes in silence and pulled up their respective blankets without a word.
Niamh lay awake until long after the last lantern was doused. Then she heard Miril mumble her name and she whispered back, “Yes?”
Miril’s quiet voice flitted through the shadows. “I hope tomorrow’s better. I hope it was all a bad dream.”
“Me, too,” Niamh whispered, feeling long-stayed tears well up. It was too raw to be a dream.