by Mike Brooks
“We cannot risk it,” Tila told him. “There are rumours that Nari Himself has been reborn. The foolish mutterings of country folk, undoubtedly, but even so—”
“If Nari Himself has been reborn, as prophesied, your brother’s rule is invalid anyway, doubly so the Splinter King,” Natan said lazily. “Not to mention that we’ll have bigger problems: the sun going out, dragons ravaging the land, and the ocean rising to swallow us all.”
“This is no laughing matter!” Tila hissed.
“Who’s laughing?” Natan responded, more sharply than she’d expected. “Tila, you have raged since we were children against the rules that bind us. Let us break them. Who is to say your brother’s blood-son would be any better at ruling than he is? You won’t live to guide Narida forever. Choose a competent heir, and we need not worry about the scions of our great-great-great-great-uncle, thousands of miles away in Kiburu ce Alaba.”
Her brother was actually making sense, which was enough to make Tila consider his words carefully. She also couldn’t deny the transgressive appeal of subverting the system that had held her back all her life. Even so, she’d always been cautious.
Well, apart from that one time. But she’d been wallowing in self-destructive grief, and it hadn’t turned out too badly. In the end.
“It could be done,” she said slowly. “But some nobles may suspect the ruse, and view the Splinter King as a viable alternative. Narida’s future is still at risk while that family lives.”
“They must be almost pure Alaban by now,” Natan objected.
“Even so.”
Natan slumped back on the bench. “This, then, is the choice you are giving your brother? Your king? Marry a woman and father children, or send assassins after distant relatives, despite all previous attempts having failed?”
“Your sister would prefer you did both,” Tila admitted. “But, yes.”
“Fine.” The God-King buried his head in his hands. “Go find your knife-men.”
DAIMON
“RAIDERS! RAIDERS!”
The cry jumped from throat to throat, spreading like one of the devastating Upwoods fires that swept through the pine forests in late summer. The bronze bell in Nari’s shrine was tolling a warning even before the first panicking fishermen were seen steering their skiffs back upriver, chased from the sea by their ancestral enemies.
“How many?” Daimon Blackcreek shouted, hurrying up the stone steps that led to the narrow rampart of the castle walls. He was already doing the numbers of battle in his head, and finding them unfavourable. It was still winter! The Festival of Life wasn’t for another two weeks! Besides, the Raiders hadn’t bothered attacking Black Keep for a decade, always going further north along the Black Coast for richer targets, so his father Asrel had neglected to hire any Brotherhood mercenaries for the last three years. But the accursed demon-worshippers never raided this early…
Daimon had trained with weapons since he’d been five summers old, but he was only two-and-twenty, and the Raiders had never struck since he’d been of an age to face them in battle. He’d hoped that should the day come, he would be filled with the courage and martial vigour that would befit a sar of Narida.
Based on how his stomach was churning and the cold sweat that was prickling beneath his clothes, it seemed unlikely that was going to be the case.
“How many?” he demanded again, reaching the top. Two worried faces looked around at him; Rotel and Ganalel, members of his father’s household guard, but not men he’d ever have considered soldiers.
“L-Lord?” Ganalel stammered nervously. He was an older man, with grey strands liberally sprinkled through his dark hair, and his teeth stained brown from the leaf the lowborn chewed.
“Tell me, boy,” Daimon’s father’s voice instructed, and Daimon turned to see Lord Asrel Blackcreek climbing the steps to join him. His law-father was shorter than him, as indeed was his older brother Darel, and the hair forming their warrior’s braids was an almost pure black. Daimon’s height and the reddish tinge of his own hair marked him as the adopted law-son that he was.
“How many ships?” Asrel snapped, shoving him aside to get a better view. It wouldn’t benefit him much: Lord Asrel’s eyes had never been the keenest, and now he was past his fortieth year they seemed to struggle with distances more and more. Daimon turned to the ocean to see for himself and save his father the shame of admitting in front of his own men that he couldn’t make out the details.
What he saw dotting the waves of the ocean turned his bowels to water.
“Seventeen,” he croaked, barely managing to prevent his voice from failing and unmanning him.
“Seventeen?” His law-father’s shock was understandable. The Raiders’ strange, double-hulled ships usually came in twos or threes, or sometimes as just one. Daimon had heard of a four-boat raid further up the coast once, nigh on a hundred screaming milk-faces descending with fire and their crude yet deadly blackstone weapons, but that had been an anomaly. The numbers of battle clicking through his head came to a standstill: Black Keep would be overwhelmed, overrun in short order. There were almost certainly more Raiders on those ships than there were people in the entirety of Black Keep town, and very few aside from Daimon, Darel and their father had any skill in battle.
“Find Malakel and open the armoury,” Asrel snapped at the two guards. “Arm anyone who can carry a weapon. Go!”
The pair bolted away to do their lord’s bidding, leaving the two Blackcreek men alone.
“Even the women and children, Father?” Daimon said, startled despite himself. The Code of Honour, to which his father absolutely deferred, stated that battle was a man’s pursuit.
“We are not sending a levy to the Southern Marshal’s forces, Daimon,” Asrel said bluntly. “All we need them to do is stand on the walls and try to look like men, and hope the Raiders lack the spine to press an attack.”
Daimon looked to their left, towards the town. The walls were high and strong enough around the castle Asrel’s great-grandfather had built on and in a curve of the Blackcreek River, using its waters as moats. The town’s walls had always been of poorer craftsmanship, however, and the last few years had not been kind to them. The ramparts had crumbled here and there, leaving the footing atop the wall unsafe, and in one place the wall had half-tumbled down, leaving that point an obvious one to attack.
“Do you think it will work?” he asked dubiously.
Asrel looked at the sun, dipping in the northern sky but still well clear of the Catseye Mountains to the west. “Your father doubts it,” he admitted heavily. “Were it approaching nightfall we could bluff them, perhaps, by the time they reached us. We could give each peasant a torch and have them walk the walls, and we would seem well guarded. In daylight they’ll see we’ve no strength here, but what other option do we have? Our war dragons still slumber, and Tavi would need time to prepare the charms of waking. The three of us alone could not hold back even one ship’s worth of this vermin in the field. Our only hope is to feign strength of numbers and give the bastards pause, at least.”
“Then send Darel away,” Daimon urged. “Have him go north to seek aid.”
Asrel snorted. “From the woodcutters? It is a week to Darkspur, and Thane Odem holds no love for us, as well you know.”
“Lenby, then?” Daimon suggested desperately. He couldn’t bear the thought of his brother falling to the Raiders’ blackstone axes.
“Lenby is still three days away,” Lord Asrel said dismissively. “Sar Elzur and his men would answer our call, yes, but not in time. Besides, the demon-worshippers will surely head north next, because they’ll find little enough here. Elzur would achieve nothing other than leaving his home undefended.”
“Father,” Daimon tried again, “Darel is your heir.”
Asrel shook his head. “You know better, Daimon. Darel is heir only by the leave of the Marshal, and any thane’s son who breaks his vow to defend his people will never inherit. Your father would be sending him into a lif
e of shame, for no purpose.”
“He would be alive,” Daimon replied quietly, but he had overstepped his bounds, for his law-father’s eyes flashed angrily and the familiar fires of his temper rose to the surface.
“Darel understands duty as you understand swordplay,” Asrel bit out. “Would that each of you were the other’s match!”
Daimon lowered his head, but the rebuke lashed at him nonetheless. The plague of twenty years ago that had swept across Narida had been triggered by Heaven’s upheaval at the violent death of the old God-King, according to the priests. It had taken not only Daimon’s family but many others in the town, and also his law-father’s wife, Lady Delil. Lord Asrel had adopted Daimon as an orphan, but it was not merely pity that had moved the Thane of Black Keep to such an action: he had wanted a second heir besides Darel, to guard against any other tragedies that might break the line of Blackcreek once and for all. Daimon had spent all of his life that he could remember trying to live up to his law-father’s decision, and prove himself worthy of the honour that had been bestowed upon him, coming from peasant blood as he did. To know that Lord Asrel still found him lacking cut deeper than any injury he’d taken on the sparring ground, or in falling from a dragon.
Lord Asrel’s mouth tightened as soon as the words had left his lips, and for a moment Daimon thought he caught a trace of regret, but his law-father did not take back what he’d said. After all, the Code of Honour required a sar or a thane to consider his words before speaking, and to apologise suggested that this had not been done.
“Enough,” Lord Asrel said, his voice clipped and emotionless. “Haul your brother’s nose out of whatever book he’s studying. Osred will have heard the bells and will be readying our armour. We can make these bastards pay a price of blood, at the least. If this thane is to die on a Raider’s weapon today,” he declared bitterly, “then he will die dressed for war.”
“Your servant obeys,” Daimon replied, bowing too low and turning to leave. It was petty of him, to take the obeisance and form of address of a servant instead of a son, but his father did not call him back as he hurried down the steps to find Darel.
As he ran, he tried to puzzle out how their doom would come to them. Would the Raiders land downstream and circumnavigate the walls to attack the Road Gate, on the west side? Would they sail past the castle walls to try the River Gate, braving the arrows the defenders could send into the channel? Or would they just slog through the marsh to attack the walls from the east, trusting to weight of numbers and the defences’ disrepair to carry the day?
He realised, with a leaden sense of dread, that it barely mattered. If his count was true, their enemy would have enough warriors to attempt all three at once.
SAANA
SAANA SATTISTUTAR HAD watched from the Krayk’s Teeth as the smudge of coastline grew steadily, and she could now distinguish the black mud of the beaches from the green flats of the marsh. These turned into fields, then into the dark trees of forest to the north, and west towards the distant mountains. The coast was strange, compared to the stony shores she’d left behind: the land was more open, flatter, and far, far bigger. Even the mountains looked different, more angular and possibly even higher than the smoking peak above her home in Koszal.
No. Not her home anymore.
A headland jutted into the sea, the northern edge of moorlands that ran south towards the great ice ocean. The outcrop would have looked pitiful next to the cliffs where she’d raided nests as a child, but it loomed over the salt marsh to the north. And there, perhaps a mile back from the coast, was the settlement she’d seen once before, fifteen years ago, when she was still Unblooded. The memory was vivid: the roar of waves growing as they approached the shore, setting down her paddle as the keels hit the mud, taking up her blackstone axe in her right hand and dropping it again to hastily strap her shield onto her left arm while Black Kal roared at her for getting in the way, leaping over the side into the breakers and letting the salt water kiss her feet for luck before battle.
She registered a presence at her left shoulder, and looked around to see Otzudh. Her daughter’s father was tugging at the bone spur in the lobe of his left ear, as was his habit when agitated.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, facing the land again. She allowed herself a small smile in the brief pause before he spoke. Otzudh had never realised how easy he was to read, and seemed to view her perceptiveness as something not far short of witchcraft. Saana was increasingly glad she’d refused his offer of marriage. He’d been fun to lie with, and remained a dutiful father to Zhanna, but she could only ever marry someone who could match her in wits.
“Should we release the crows?” Otzudh asked, his tone deferential.
“No.” She didn’t look at him, instead studying the beach as though it would give up some strategic advantage if she looked hard enough.
Another pause, and she pictured his face rearranging into puzzled concern. “But—”
“No crows.” Now she turned to face him. “The Flatlanders know we bring death when the crows fly. If no crows fly, perhaps they’ll listen to us.”
“There’s never been a landing without crows,” Otzudh argued, although his tone belonged to someone already resigned to the outcome.
“Just because no one alive remembers one doesn’t mean it’s never happened,” Saana said shortly. “Pass word to the other ships: if anyone looses a crow, they go overboard.”
Otzudh nodded and picked his way across the wide deck of the Krayk’s Teeth. Saana looked at the curve of the woollen sail—a healthy wind carrying them to their new homes, surely a good omen—and then at the wooden cages lashed to the deckhouse where the crows sat, cawing from time to time.
Of old, the Tjakorshi had carried crows as a last resort in the face of the ocean’s challenges, releasing the birds if navigation failed, then following them to land. No one now could remember a ship going astray, but Father Krayk’s sacred birds had still been captured and taken on long voyages as good luck charms, and reminders of the need for humility in the face of the ocean. Upon reaching their destination, sailors would release the crows as thanks for safe passage, and the birds would head for shore.
Of course, when the Tjakorshi sailed to the Flatlands they raided and killed, so it was understandable that Flatlanders had come to associate the sudden appearance of crows with approaching death.
A flash of red hair caught Saana’s eye. Zhanna was sitting just off one of the paddlers’ positions and checking the teeth of her axe, fierce concentration on her face. Saana’s stomach tightened a little at the sight of her daughter, sixteen summers old and more beautiful and fierce than Saana herself had ever been. Her hair was like fire, a far richer shade than it had any right to be given Otzudh’s muddy red. Saana wished she could hold Zhanna to her and keep her back from the fighting, but she had no right.
Her daughter would stand with the Unblooded, and what was more she wanted to stand with them, to earn the thick stripe of black down her forehead that marked an adult. A fighter had no higher status than shipwright, fisher, or even herder, but every hale adult was expected to be Blooded, even if they never again took up a weapon in their life. Saana had been almost shamefully late to it at twenty summers, and had sworn to herself she wouldn’t restrain her own daughter as Satti, now three years with the Dark Father, had done with her.
However, Saana was finding—as was so often the case—that there was a great difference between swearing something to yourself and carrying it through. She snorted in wry amusement while Zhanna exchanged good-natured jibes with Tsennan, a long-jawed lad of seventeen who’d raided through the islands already. Saana had uprooted her clan and brought them across the ocean to the Flatlands, leaving Tjakorsha behind forever. They would disembark onto a foreign shore, not as plundering raiders but as settlers fleeing disaster, bringing everything they could carry with them, and that little enough. Their way of life was irrevocably changed, and she’d endured long hours of argument with and amongst the wi
tches over whether Father Krayk would even recognise them as his children anymore once they’d lived on the Flatlands for a season. Would they then find the seas as hostile as the Flatlanders did?
She’d taken the most momentous decision of any chief in history with consideration, but with certainty. Yet she was still blown in the wind about her daughter bloodying her teeth.
She’d looked too long. Zhanna glanced up and caught her gaze, then carefully set her axe down and stepped across the deck towards the prow. Saana felt the urge to turn back to the approaching land, as though she were a guilty child and Zhanna her parent, but resisted the impulse. She smiled as Zhanna reached her, the clan chief greeting her daughter.
“You were looking at me,” Zhanna said. Her tone was largely neutral, but held faint hints of question, and accusation. She was starting to test boundaries, and Saana was still navigating through how to relax as mother while maintaining the authority of chief.
She nodded calmly, trying to mask her doubts. “I was. Are you ready for the landing?”
Zhanna clearly thought the question idiotic. “I was checking my axe.”
“Your axe’s teeth can be as sharp as Father Krayk’s,” Saana replied, a little more harshly than she’d intended. “It won’t help you if your swing is off.” She sighed, and moderated her tone. “You know we don’t intend to fight today, don’t you?”
“You think the Flatlanders will just move aside and let us settle, with no arguments,” Zhanna said. A twist to her lips indicated her opinion.
“I don’t think that,” Saana said, “but I hope for it.” She leaned a little closer, lowering her voice. “I need you to do something for me.”
“I won’t stay out of the fight,” Zhanna said defiantly, “I won’t!”
Sanna tried to control her frustration. “I’m not—”
“You said you’d let me—”
“Zhanna Saanastutar!”
