by H. M. Long
The leader’s horse danced sideways in the high grass, though her rider’s face remained calm. “I beg you, sir. You may be a god, but I am not. I must answer to my general.”
“Then he will answer to me.” Ogam nudged our horse into movement. “Come.”
The Arpa hastened to catch up. As we crested the rise, their leader spurred his mount to the fore.
I caught my breath. A wall the height of the Hall of Smoke stretched from east to west against the backdrop of the Spines’ rocky formations. In its center was the largest stone fort I had ever seen. This was no outpost. This was a city. Its twin gates faced us, bracketed by square towers and ramparts capped by wooden rooves. Roads of fitted stone converged at the gates, again from the east and west.
Sunlight glittered off plate armor as watchmen noted our approach and ran for the towers. A bell began to ring and, at a wave from the scouts’ leader, one of the gates opened.
I felt the color leach from my face. “What is this place?”
“The Ilia Gates, a border outpost,” Ogam said.
“But…” I swallowed. “It’s… it’s huge.”
Ogam was silent for a moment. “This is only a shadow of the Arpa, Hessa. A full legion, a touch more if you add slaves and priests and the like. I have not been south for centuries, but even when I saw them in their youth, they were… impressive. Now? I can only imagine their strength. Legions and ships and cities with more inhabitants than there are stars in the sky.”
The weight of this revelation threatened to crush me. I hadn’t known there were that many humans in existence, let alone in one place. “That’s impossible.”
Ogam didn’t reply as we passed under the shadow of the gate and the legionaries came into file with us, before and behind.
The gatehouse was easily half a dozen paces thick. My skin prickled as we clopped through the shade, dreading whatever we would find on the other side.
Cities with more people than stars. Fortresses of stone, larger than any building I had ever seen. It made me feel small and ignorant, and I hated both.
“Why haven’t they conquered us,” I whispered to Ogam, “if the Arpa are so mighty? Why would they fear anything in the north?”
“My most formidable and dauntless mother,” he shrugged. “The Hinterlands, and the whim of Fate.”
The end of the tunnel approached in blinding light. With Ogam’s words echoing in my ears, I straightened my spine and suppressed all emotion. I was an Eangi, I reminded myself, chosen by the goddess who had held back this tide for hundreds of years. I would not cower under the sight of stone and beardless men.
Still, when the burning sun fell upon us, I faltered. A great courtyard opened, lined with shaded porticos and thick with men. Soldiers walked past boys in tunics, who bore sacks and bundles. A blacksmith’s hammer clanged. A fountain burbled into a long trough built into the back of the gate itself, where horses watered and a pair of road-worn messengers lingered in the shade.
The air smelled wrong. Where was the scent of mud and manure, the husky warmth of wood? There was the metallic mingling of iron and fire, smoke and human sweat, but this place was too clean. There was something else there, too, running through it all. A musky, heady scent that refused to disperse.
Following the smell, I saw a stone slab tucked into a recess to the right of the main gate, mirroring the fountain on the left. Bowls smoked before a collection of wooden panels, painted with faces and interspersed with bronze and wooden idols: an altar to an Arpa god, or gods.
As I stared, movement atop the great wall, over the shrine, caught my attention. A man loomed between me and the blinding summer sky, his short grey robes held in place by a belt and crossways chest straps, partially hidden by an armful of cylindrical white objects. These had wooden handles on each side and, when he adjusted his arms, I saw they were rolls of something like thin bark, but smooth and seamless.
“What are those?” I whispered to Ogam. “And who is that?”
“That’s a priest, and his scrolls. They mark their runes on them.”
I resisted the urge to twist and get a better look at the priest. Despite the fact that we were obviously speaking of him, he had not moved, staring down at me with a guarded, calculating gaze.
“Runes?” I repeated. “On that? What’s it made of?”
“Pressed reeds,” Ogam returned absently, his focus once more on the crowd ahead.
The man with the rune scrolls turned abruptly, vanishing along the wall into the nearest tower.
The leader of the scouts lifted a hand and dismounted. A boy in a tunic and wrapped sandals darted forward to take his horse while the rest of us remained astride, waiting.
I fidgeted as more and more stares fell upon us. The blacksmith had stopped his hammering and come to stand at the end of an alley, arms crossed over his chest, a slave and an apprentice hovering behind him. More men appeared from doorways.
Then I saw him. Estavius, the curious blond Arpa I had met in the cave, peeled from the crowd. Nisien had mentioned Castor and his men would continue north on the Arpa roads – but could those roads really have brought them here so fast?
The scout leader reappeared with another man wearing a draped garment, tucked around his hips and thrown back over one shoulder across a polished breastplate and red tunic. He rested one hand on his scabbarded sword as he walked, his defined, hawkish nose lifted high. A commander of men, through and through.
Castor strode at his shoulder, his gaze fixed upon Ogam with cautious interest. He hadn’t recognized me yet, so I took the opportunity to scrutinize him, from the sword at his hip to the squint of his lovely, untrustworthy eyes.
“My lord,” the general in the red tunic addressed Ogam in a gravelly voice, as if he had spent one too many days bellowing across a battlefield. “You do us honor. I am Athiliu, General of the Outer Territories.”
“Let my companion and I pass, and I will not spoil this fine occasion by spilling your blood,” the Son of Eang replied calmly. “Bow.”
Athiliu’s back remained straight. “We bow to Lathian and his court alone, Ogam, Son of Eang. But I offer you my deepest respect.”
Ogam’s hair crackled with ice. I braced, preparing for his assault. But the Son of Winter merely nudged Cadic forward until the beast could have cropped the general’s grey hair between her teeth.
Everyone in the crowd watched us now, even the guards patrolling the wall.
I found Estavius again and met his quiet gaze. His eyes, I noticed for the first time, were so pale in the sunlight that they might have been colorless. Like those of Silgi’s son, Iosas. Was he a servant of Aliastros, allied with Oulden?
Aliastros. Lathian. How many gods would there be over a nation so vast?
Castor inquired in a tone that implied he already knew the answer, “Who is the barbarian traveling with you, my lord?”
“She is one of my mother’s priestesses, an Eangi.”
I felt a small thrill as the press of Arpa rippled. Clearly, my people had a reputation.
That thrill faltered as Castor’s gaze narrowed fractionally. I kept my expression smooth, but I felt a twinge of distaste, and unease – he recognized me. That meant that he knew Nisien had lied to him, and I was no slave.
“Eangi?” Athiliu repeated. He shifted sideways to get a better view of me. “I have met your kind in battle, woman. I offer you my respect.”
I inclined my head, hard-pressed to hide my disbelief. I hadn’t expected to find any respect here, not among the Arpa.
I wasn’t the only one surprised by Athiliu’s words. Castor’s gaze flicked to him and his upper lip twitched with displeasure.
“One does not survive thirty years on the Rim without learning to respect the gods of the north and the Eangi,” the general said, casting the crowd a slow, stony gaze. “In fact, my Lord Ogam, let us hold a feast in your honor.”
Castor’s head whipped around. “Sir, she’s a barbarian, and he’s—”
“What am
I?” Ogam prompted, deathly calm.
Castor’s mouth sealed.
“We will hold a feast in honor of Ogam, Son of Eang,” Athiliu stated in the same voice that brought battle-crazed men into line and ordered the razing of cities. “If, that is, you would condescend to sit with us.”
Ogam slid down from the saddle with easy grace and stepped towards the general. As his presence departed the heat of the day returned. I was left feeling exposed, a thousand eyes pressing upon me and five hundred thoughts moving my way.
I slipped down after the god.
Ogam faced the general, a full step closer than was polite between mortals. While the deity glared and deliberated, I drew up to his shoulder and kept my expression passionless. Tension hummed through the air and blood thrust through my veins with an almost ecstatic force. I could taste the approach of violence, and the Eangi inside me craved it.
“Let us pass,” Ogam ordered. His voice split the air like a tree burst with frozen sap.
“Do us the honor of a feast.”
“Why do you keep us here?”
The general kept his gaze steady, though he had to look up a good six inches into Ogam’s face. “I doubt I could keep you here, even if I wanted to. But. You are a god. Why would you pass through this gate if you did not want to draw attention to yourself? Please. Let us feast, Ogam, Son of Eang. Then you can tell me why you’ve come.”
* * *
I turned on Ogam once the flap of the tent closed. We had been led to open ground where a hundred semi-permanent tents sat: the camp of the Arpa’s northern guard.
“‘Why you’ve come’?” I threw at Ogam. “What is this? A game?”
“No.” Ogam, for once, was calm and free of humor. “Do you want to know what’s happening in those mountains? This is where we learn. This is the largest Arpa settlement north of Souldern and General Athiliu is the highest officer on the Rim. He’s also known for being open-minded, as you may have noticed, but he’s an intensely devious man. If the Arpa have crossed Eangen to get into the mountains, he will have had a hand in it.”
“You lied to me.” Anger and anxiety churned in my gut. “I never would have come with you if I’d known.”
“Of course,” he acquiesced, shameless.
“Gods above and below, I’d already be over the wall if you hadn’t dragged me into—”
“Eangi, calm yourself.” Ogam arrayed himself in a carved chair. It was one of several in the room, along with a large bed, a table and three braziers. This was not an average soldier’s tent. “I’ll protect you.”
Heat rose in my chest. “You have limits.”
“You’re afraid,” Ogam stated. “Today you learned that there is a world beyond your borders more powerful than you ever dreamed and your greatest enemies are more numerous than the stars in the sky. That powerful world also thinks you are less than a feral dog. It’s understandable that you’re upset. Just give yourself time to adjust.”
I fidgeted with my sword as my Fire swelled. I swallowed it hard and tried to ignore the feeling that the tent was about to smother me. “Send me away. You can stay here, just… use your power to get me out.”
Ogam laughed. “What? I don’t have that kind of power, Eangi. Do they say that I do? I should listen to the new songs about myself more closely. Can you sing them again for me?”
“You went over the mountains,” I protested.
“Alone.” He looked at me again. “Not with you. Not with a horse. Can you turn into wind and water? No?”
Fire curled up into my mouth. I felt caged. Trapped. “Ogam. Let me leave.”
I heard the change in my voice. It deepened and broadened, rolling from my tongue like waves before a storm. Eangi Fire.
A single drop of silver-tinted blood escaped his inner eye and trickled down his face, shimmering and slow.
It took him a moment to feel it. Not realizing what was happening, he lifted a hand and brushed the droplet just before it crept into his moustache.
Ogam let out a startled bellow and launched to his feet. “What are you doing?”
I stood there, quivering with fear and shock. I’d never known Eangi Fire could do something like this. “I… It’s… You’re a god. How—”
“Yes, I am,” he roared. The tent shook and I heard footsteps beyond the canvas. The walls were so thin, I was sure the entire camp could hear us. “Do not use your petty Eangi tricks on me. You may be able to turn a man’s brain to milk, but you will only irritate me.”
Ogam strode forward and wiped the rest of the silvery blood on my face. I flinched away.
“Be grateful, human,” he said icily. “If you’d crossed alone your chances of making it into Eangen were fragile, at best.”
“I knew that.” I intended the words to be a growl, but they emerged as a mutter instead. “It was my risk to take.”
He snorted. “Well. Feast with the commanders and me tonight if you wish. Dine with a god and the most powerful military men on the Rim. Help me learn the secrets that might save your people. Or…” Ogam turned and strode back towards his chair. “…you can hide in here and pray that no one in this fort takes out their hatred of barbarians on you.”
NINETEEN
Isat against the tent’s central pillar and stared at the closed flap, hatchet in one hand and the other on my sheathed sword. Ogam had been gone for an hour or more and the day was growing late, the rays of the sun stretching over the horizon and filling the canvas with yellow light.
A shadow stopped before the flap and scratched. I was tired from my journey, exhausted by my fear and sapped by the Fire, but I gathered my frayed wits and rose into a crouch. “Who is it?”
To my shock, a female voice replied in indecipherable Arpa.
I edged closer to the door flap. “Who are you?”
The voice came again, tentative and unintelligible.
I pushed the flap open. A young woman flinched back, shoulders hunched, head bowed. Two passing soldiers gave us pointed looks and I noted one’s hand drift towards his sword. What did they expect me to do? Kill her for no reason in the middle of the camp?
“Come, please,” she beckoned in accented Northman, drawing my attention away from the soldiers. “Please.”
I didn’t move. I understood, but I wanted a closer look at an Arpa woman: one of these southern females who could not – would not – fight. She did not look half as soft as I anticipated. Her arms were leanly muscled from labor down to the metal circlets at her wrists, etched with Arpa runes – the mark of a slave? Her hands were rough, and her posture had a guardedness to it, like a rabbit prepared for flight.
She looked foreign, too. Her masses of frizzing, light brown curls were bound back from her face, framing a nose that ran straight down from her forehead without dip or falter. Until today I hadn’t seen enough Arpa to realize this was a hereditary trait.
She was staring at me in terror. I raised my hands in what I intended to be a calming gesture, only to realize I still held my hatchet. I thrust it through my belt and opened my empty palms. “I’m sorry.”
Every line of her body remained taut, but she ceased to cower.
My eyes lifted back to the soldiers. A handful more had gathered, amused comments passing between them. The casual, predatory way some of them eyed us made my skin crawl and reinforced my conclusion that this woman was a slave.
An Arpa slave on the edge of the world. I stared at her for one more minute, trying not to imagine the details of her life. Still, the images rose up.
I remembered the line of men who had passed me in the Algatt camp. I remembered their hands and their faces and wondered what my life would have been like if Omaskat hadn’t been the one who purchased me, or if he had treated me like an average slave-owner would have instead of dumping me in the river.
Sixnit’s face flashed through my mind, and with it a pang of loneliness and worry. Was she still there, in that camp? Had she escaped and gone searching for Vistic?
“Please,” the
slave interrupted my thoughts.
“I will come with you,” I relented, half out of pity, and half to escape the soldier’s eyes.
Relief melted the girl’s features. She skittered down the well-worn path ahead of me, sandaled feet scuffing as she went. I strode behind her, past tents and appraising Arpa.
The air was full of the smell of food and fire, men and oil and metal and horseflesh. The tents themselves were square things, uniform in shades of dun and grey and interspersed with fluttering crimson flags, each emblazoned with the heraldry of the men who lived under them – an eagle, a boar, crossed spears. Their campfires burned in communal spaces, and trails of smoke partially obscured my view of the fortress proper.
Still, my heart contorted at the sight. The fortress, with its lording walls, arched gateways and hefty towers, was a monument to my own smallness.
The feeling solidified as we entered the cool of the massive structure. It was a maze of cloisters and curtains, echoing halls and gates. We passed courtyards where nearly naked legionaries wrestled, barracks hung with rectangular Arpa shields, and countless alcoves with incense-laden altars to gods I did not know, populated by idols of bronze and wood and stone.
By the time we entered a large, covered courtyard, my feeling of smallness had become coiling resentment.
“Here,” the slave said.
Thick candles on black iron stands stood about the table where Ogam and half a dozen men reclined on elongated chairs of fine wood and soft cushions. Three more slaves – two women, one man with rune-etched cuffs – stood against one wall with pitchers and bowls in hand, unmoving.
My guide motioned me towards a side table, where I saw a number of Arpa swords already laid out – the same length as my Soulderni blade, with pommels modeled after eagles, a narrow-eyed boar and a great, roaring feline.
The slave held out her hands and looked at me with no small degree of pleading.
I glanced at the men. They hadn’t cast me more than a sidelong glance yet, their bodies turned inward in conversation. None appeared to be armed, but this was their world, the seat of their power. I bristled at the thought of setting aside my weapons.
