The Godspeaker Trilogy

by Karen Miller

  “Kingseat has demons, Hekat,” he said. “It has a warhost.” A warhost trained by Zandakar, I think. Any warhost he trains will not be easy to kill . “Jatharuj had no warhost, it had merchants and traders. Hekat—”

  She stamped away along the row of moored warships, she was so angry her godbells growled. “Tcha! I will not stay here, Vortka, I will not wait like a slave who must stand where it is told. There are Ethreans alive for me to kill, I will kill them. I will give Ethrea to the god.”

  Vortka stared after her, stabbed with fright. No. No. She must not do that. If she goes into Kingseat she might find our son . If she goes into Kingseat, she might die.

  As Hekat stamped back again and pushed past him, he caught her by the hand. Before she could smite him, before she could call out, he pressed his palm to her face and prayed to the god.

  She breathed out hard, her eyes rolled back. With her bones turned to water, she slumped into his arms. He carried her to a patch of shade, he let her rest against his breast.

  I am sorry, Hekat, I am sorry, my love. You must be safe, I must save you.

  Twisting his head round he looked up to the township, wreathed in smoke, soaked in blood, soaked in Dmitrak's rage.

  Zandakar, my son, my son. Help me to end this, no more killing for the god.

  Ursa's small clinic on Foxglove Way was crammed to collapsing with the wounded dragged in from Kingseat's killing streets. She and three other physicks struggled to help the wounded, but there were too many patients and not enough physicks. Not any more. One by one the other eight who'd been bringing back Kingseat's people for healing had failed to return.

  Some nine hours after the killing began, Dexterity stood with Ursa beside a bloodstained pallet on which a girl of maybe thirteen lay drugged with poppy, and dying. Ursa folded her arms, as close to utter despair as he had ever seen her.

  “Are you sure you can't do anything, Jones?” she demanded. “Rollin's mercy, she's just a child .”

  Dexterity bit back a sharp retort. Everyone wanted a miracle today. If he could heal the girl, or any of these poor people, didn't she think he would? He'd tried his hardest, to no avail. The best he could do was fetch and carry basins of water and roll ban-dages, like the handful of unhurt townsfolk who'd taken shelter here and were helping. The best he could do was hold hands with the dying so they didn't die alone.

  Ursa sighed. “I'm sorry,” she muttered. “I don't mean to nag.”

  She was so weary. So grief-struck. Bamfield was one of the physicks who'd never returned. And she was a healer, Kingseat was in its death throes, but for the first time in her long life she had no help to give.

  Beyond the clinic's barricaded doors, the sound of chanting, coming closer. The sound of Mijak's warriors with their knives and lust for death.

  “Chalava! Chalava! Chalava zho!”

  The conscious wounded heard them, and cried out. The unhurt helpers cried out too. Dexterity looked at Ursa and saw resignation in her eyes. Saw that she expected to die now, with him and every helpless soul beneath her clinic's roof.

  A booming thud of timber against timber. A second. A third. A fourth. There was a splintering groan – and the barred doors gave way. Suddenly the clinic's entrance was full of Mijak's warriors and languid afternoon light.

  The warriors were covered in blood from their braided hair to their booted feet. The blades in their bloody fists dripped scarlet on the floor. There was nowhere to run. Dexterity snatched up an empty basin. Taking one step, then another, he picked his way towards them through the laden pallets crowding the floor.

  “ Wei ,” he said loudly. “ Wei chalava. Wei Mijak. Wei hotas, zho ?” He brandished the basin. “Go away!”

  Stunned, the warriors stared at him.

  “Jones!” hissed Ursa. “Jones, what are you doing ?”

  Ignoring her horror, he brandished the basin again. “ Wei chalava . Vortka, zho ? Vortka wei —” He pretended to hold a knife and stab with it. “ Wei. Wei .”

  Still the warriors stared, as though they couldn't trust their ears.

  And then he saw Hettie, standing in the corner. She was thinned to a shadow. Her voice, when she spoke, was the merest whisper of sound.

  “Oh, Dexie…Dexie…I think it's over…Dexie my love, I think we've lost…”

  Lost? No…no…they couldn't have. Rhian .

  Desperate, he reached within himself, searching for the flames of God he'd never wanted or understood. It's here, the power must be here. Han felt it, didn't he? He felt something in me!

  But he couldn't find it. They were going to die.

  “ Jones !” shouted Ursa. “You fool, what are you doing ?”

  He didn't have time for one of Ursa's scoldings. Shuddering, he tried to bring the power back. Something deep inside him shifted…or twisted. He felt the golden warmth, that suffusion of flame – and then he felt a searing agony. Felt the blood power of Mijak like rotten wine in his veins, clotting and clinging and choking his heart.

  “Hettie!” he gasped. “Hettie, please, help me !”

  He saw her shadow weeping, he saw her ghostly face twist. She screamed…and as she screamed she dissolved into the air.

  Dexterity, screaming with her, burst into flames.

  The warriors of Mijak cried out, their bloodied blades lifting. Burning and burning, Dexterity approached them. Every step was torment, the rotten blood power of Mijak in his own blood like acid. He pointed a trembling finger—

  — and the warriors were consumed. Nothing left but a drifting of ashes. Just like Marlan, a lifetime ago.

  “God be praised!” cried Ursa. “Jones, are you all right?”

  Painfully burning, he stared through the clinic's splintered doorway at Kingseat township, and saw to his desolation that Garabatsas had been… nothing . Saw flames and ruination and slaughter.

  Heard chanting and screaming, hooves on cobblestones, windows breaking, chimneys falling. Heard in the distance a great boom from Dmitrak's gauntlet. Smelled the choking stench of death. It seemed that half of Kingseat was on fire and the other half drowned in blood.

  Did Rhian still live? Zandakar? Alasdair? Prolate Helfred? He didn't know, and couldn't leave to find out. It was all he could do to stand upright, to keep himself from suffocating beneath the weight of Mijak's evil. With luck he could keep this clinic protected. Ursa and her patients. That many, and no more. He didn't even know how long he could do that.

  Long enough for a miracle, maybe. It was all they had left.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Zandakar wept as he searched Kingseat for Dmitrak. He wept for Rhian, who might even now be dead, who might have died believing he had betrayed her.

  Live, Rhian hushla, so you can learn why I ran.

  He had run to find Dmitrak, who would take him to Yuma and Vortka, so his mother and brother could learn the truth about demons. So he and Vortka could take them back to Mijak, and find a way to heal their demon-ravaged hearts. By saving them he would also save Ethrea, which could not stand against the might of Mijak. In saving his family he would keep his word to Rhian.

  As he searched for his brother he killed many warriors. He had to kill them, he could not let Rhian's people die. He had to kill them with his scorpion blade, he dared not risk knife-dancing with Dmitrak's warhost. Aieee, the god see him, it was a hard thing to do. He did not look closely at those warriors' faces, if he saw someone familiar he feared his strength would fail. He killed the warriors and their horses, As they died he saw Hano, he saw Didijik his pony. As they died he wept for them all.

  Everywhere in Kingseat, Dimmi's warriors killed Rhian's people like goats in a barracks' slaughter-pit. For every Ethrean he saved, twenty times that number died. He saw women dead, he thought of Rhian, and prayed the god would keep her safe.

  As he searched the township he could see where Dimmi had used the god's hammer, there were buildings rubbled and others burned, but to his searching eye too few were destroyed.

  If I were still
warlord and wore the god's hammer, Kingseat would be razed by now. Aieee, Dimmi, little brother, I think you have not changed. I think you still like to kill with your snakeblade, so you do not use the hammer to kill Kingseat quickly.

  It was not such a bad thing, that Dimmi hunted Ethreans for sport. It gave Ethrea a slow death, it gave him time to find his brother. He needed that time, he hunted Dimmi on foot in the twisty turns of Kingseat township, trying to remember where Rhian's traps were set.

  He saw the warhost killing Ethreans, he saw soldiers killing warriors. He watched those killings, he did not help. It hurt to see those warriors die and yet he was pleased for Rhian's people. He had taught them how to fight Mijak, he had taught them well.

  The most important thing he taught them was that a walking soldier could not hope to kill a mounted warrior, so Rhian had ordered Ethrea's glass-blowers to make thousands of marbles. They were put into buckets and left in every street, so when Dmitrak's warriors rode through Kingseat, Rhian's soldiers could roll those marbles and bring the horses down. Bring them down, and kill their riders. He watched Rhian's soldiers follow their training, he watched them slash and stab those warriors on the ground. Not one of them rose again. All of them died.

  They died in other ways, also, but too many lived. So many dead Ethreans, he slipped on bloodied cobbles and tripped in spilled entrails. Kingseat had become a Mijaki battlefield. He searched for his brother, he was afraid he would fail. He did not know Kingseat well enough, he did not know these streets. He knew the castle of Kingseat, which Dimmi had destroyed.

  Aieee, god, I need Dexterity, he would know the quick streets to walk. Dexterity is in the god's eye, he might even save Dimmi and Yuma as he saved Vortka in Jatharuj.

  But he did not know where Dexterity was hiding, or how to find him, or even if he lived. There was no time to search for him, he had to find Dimmi before his brother tired of slow hunting and hammered Kingseat to the ground.

  As I hammered Jokriel and those cities beyond the Sand River. Hammered villages and hamlets and people who did no harm.

  But that was his old life, he must not think of that now.

  So he ran lightly from shadow to shadow, through Ethrea's streets and the smoke and the screaming, he searched for his brother so Dimmi could be saved.

  And while he searched, Kingseat echoed to the chant: “ Chalava! Chalava! Chalava zho! ”

  After her sixth hairsbreadth escape from death, Rhian stopped counting. Either she'd survive this madness or she wouldn't. Worrying about it only got in the way of killing.

  Panting, coughing, bleeding from slashes on her left arm, her left thigh, her right wrist and her back, she led her small band of soldiers along the alleyways of Kingseat, playing hide-and-seek and dance-you-to-death with the warriors of Mijak.

  There was hardly a stretch of cobbles or paving-stones empty of violence. She faced severed Ethrean heads and spilled guts and puddles of blood without flinching; the carnage inflicted on her people had lost its power to shock. She'd only been sick twice, and not for several hours, which was more than could be said for half her soldiers. She looked at every dead face they passed, just in case one of the bodies was Alasdair. It hadn't been so far, but she didn't dare let herself hope.

  She and her soldiers had one bucket of marbles left between them. Once she'd tried to collect some that had been thrown, to delay the inevitable moment when their bucket ran dry, but that had resulted in her second close escape. After that she decided to live without more marbles.

  They crept along stinking Bloodnbone Alley, which ran the backside length of Butcher Street. On the other side of the butcher shops with their remorseless, relentless buzzing of flies, came the sound of horses, of warriors, of chanting.

  “Chalava! Chalava! Chalava zho!”

  Directly ahead of her, a narrow passage connected alley to street. She held up a clenched fist, warning the seven men behind her, and stopped. Held her hand out for the bucket, and eased into the passage. The horses were closer…they were closer…they were—

  She leapt out and threw the last handfuls of marbles beneath the horses' hooves. The beasts skittered and thrashed and crashed to the cobbles: blue-coated and roan-coated with tigerish black stripes. Their horsehide-wearing riders fell hard with them. Two out of eight were crushed to pulp. The other six danced to their feet, teeth bared, their long braids ringing with those brash silver bells.

  “ Ethrea !” she screamed, and her soldiers rushed out of hiding. As they fell upon the warriors, indiscriminate, she picked her first victim. Looked him in the cold eyes and started to dance.

  Sandcat leaping…falcon stooping…warrior dying…

  He died, his brothers and sisters died, she lived, she lost two men.

  No time to mourn them. Three of the horses had shattered their legs. With the ease of a butcher she put them out of their misery, and led her surviving five soldiers on to more hunting.

  Dmitrak at last tired of killing with his snakeblade, and began to hammer Kingseat to the ground.

  Weary now, no closer to finding his brother, Zandakar saw the bolts of crimson in the distance, smelled the fresh smoke, heard the new screams, the falling brickwork, the loud wild chanting as the warhost sang its praise.

  “Chalava! Chalava! Chalava zho!”

  He was in some laneway lined with deserted houses. No people, only corpses, they would not care what he did. Scorpion knife in his hand, pulsing blue, he entered a house with two storeys, climbed the stairs and looked through the highest window, across Kingseat's sea of roofs.

  He could not see Dimmi, but he could see the hammer, he could see the path Dimmi rode by the crimson fire in the air. He stood at the window and watched until he was certain he had read his brother right.

  With lowsun approaching, Mijak's warlord swung in a wide arc, turning back for the harbour. Zandakar knew that once Dimmi reached his warships there would be no more killing, not until newsun. Instead his brother would plunder food and drink from the township, if there were women alive he would look for a fuck. When his appetites were sated he would sit with his warriors, they would laugh and tell tales of the kills they had made. When he and Dimmi had ridden together, killing cities, that was how his brother had celebrated with the warhost.

  Dimmi is the warlord, I do not think he has changed.

  Zandakar watched a little longer, he would not have another chance at this. When he was confident he knew where he would meet his brother, he left that sad and empty house, he ran into the lane and past all the staring corpses, he ran and he ran and saw no-one alive.

  Many streets in Kingseat were lined with purple-flowering trees. Rhian called them yeddas , and complained they made her itch. If they made him itch he would not care, he climbed a tree and waited for his brother.

  Dimmi came with his gauntlet and his shells of warriors. He came laughing and smiling, killing always made him smile. Zandakar looked down, his smiling brother made him sad.

  He does not know he smiles because of demons. I will change his heart. I will.

  As Dimmi rode his red stallion beneath the yedda tree, Zandakar dropped out of concealment, landing like a sandcat on the horse's warm loins. In one swift move he had the gauntlet pinned between his brother's back and his own belly and with his other hand pressed the scorpion knife to Dimmi's throat. He let a little of its power flare along the blade. Dimmi gasped as his throat burned and his flesh smoked. He gasped at the voice whispering kindly in his ear.

  “The god sees you, Dmitrak. It sees you in its eye. Take me to Yuma. I have something to say.”

  “Zandakar?” said Dimmi, his voice was shocked, he was not pleased. “How are you here? Why aren't you dead ?”

  Aieee, Dimmi, little brother, so much gone wrong for both of us.

  “I am alive because I live in the god,” he whispered. “I live with my scorpion knife pressed against your throat. Breathe too deeply, try to fall, try to kill me and you will die.”

  “Warlord!” cried a warri
or. “Warlord, is this—”

  “This is no-one!” snarled Dimmi. “You did not see him. Ride on.”

  The warriors pressed their fists to their chests, Dimmi was their warlord and they were well-trained.

  “Good,” said Zandakar, as the warriors rode away. “Now we see Yuma. Remember my words, warlord. One mistake and you will die.”

  Of course he was lying, he would not kill his brother. Dimmi did not know it, he was safer that way.

  “No, Zandakar,” said Dimmi. “I will kill you . I should have killed you in Mijak, that was my mistake.”

  Aieee, Dimmi. Dimmi. Still full of rage.

  “Ride,” Zandakar told him. “The empress awaits.”

  Hekat woke to feel arms around her, she could not understand it. She slept alone. Raklion had slept with his arms around her. Tcha, she had hated that. It was good when he died. She opened her eyes and saw there were shadows. The sun was sinking, it would be lowsun soon. She was outside, in Vortka's arms, they sat on the ground beside her beautiful warships.

  Why was she outside? What was this place? Then she remembered, this was the demon island Ethrea. Dmitrak warlord was killing it for the god. She remembered, she remembered, her heart slowed its beating.

  I am old, I am not dying. I am Hekat in the god's remembering eye.

  “Let go of me, Vorkta,” she said, and made herself sit up. Aieee, tcha, the pains in her body, she breathed and it complained, she would smite it if she could. It had complained since birthing Dmitrak, she was tasked without end. “I am the empress, why am I sleeping? Why am I on the ground with you? Why—”

  And then she remembered something else. Disbelieving, she looked at him. She pulled away completely, fingers reaching for her snakeblade.

  “You made me sleep , Vortka?” she whispered. “You used the god to make me sleep ?”

  “You used it to make me sick, once,” he said, there were tears in his eyes. “Do you remember, Hekat? I was so sick.”

  She should have used it to kill him. “ You made me sleep? ”

  “You were weary, Hekat. You needed to rest.”