by Mike Brooks
He wished he could trust his brother.
The streets were virtually deserted. A couple of Naridans on the far side of the square looked over at Zhanna and him, but were too far away to be required to bow, and perhaps they didn’t recognise the Tjakorshi girl. They certainly paid the pair of them no great mind, and went on about their business. One of the Brown Eagle clan saw them too, a hoe over his shoulder, and he stared openly at them. Or more accurately, Daimon realised as the man pointed and said something in his language, at Zhanna’s dragon. Zhanna’s reply was short and apparently to the point, and she didn’t slow her pace to continue the conversation.
“What did he say?” Daimon asked.
“He want to know if this warrior now Naridan is,” Zhanna said with a snort.
“And what did you say?”
Zhanna sniffed. “To go to field and work.”
Despite being so sure he was set on his course, Daimon found himself almost hoping for some disturbance, some problem that would require his attention and arrest his purpose. However, the town remained quiet and they reached their destination in short order, with no pretence he could use to delay.
He took a deep breath, climbed the steps that led to Saana Sattistutar’s front door, and knocked on it firmly.
There was no answer, which didn’t help steady Daimon’s nerves at all. The notion of going away and coming back again later appealed even less than walking here in the first place had. Then, just as he’d decided that standing here waiting for any longer would make him look like even more of a fool, he heard a voice behind him.
“What in the name of Father Krayk are you two doing here?”
Daimon and Zhanna turned, a little clumsily atop the narrow stairs. Saana Sattistutar was stood in the street, hood up and face largely in shadow, and looked little more healthy than her daughter.
Daimon opened his mouth to reply, but Zhanna blurted something angry-sounding in Tjakorshi first. Saana snapped a few words back, then raised her hand wearily and continued in a rather more moderated tone. Daimon glanced sideways at Zhanna. The girl didn’t reply, but her expression could have hewn stone.
Saana addressed her next words to Daimon. “This man should warn you, her morning so far has not been a good one. But she should have spoken less sharply, especially since you have brought Zhanna. Is she no longer required as a hostage, or is there another reason?”
“There is another reason,” Daimon said, trying to keep his voice level. “May we speak inside your house?”
Saana gestured to the door, and started up the stairs towards them. “Go. This man has no guards.”
Even so, Daimon had no intention of opening Saana’s door himself, despite the fact the house was technically his. Zhanna showed no such compunction, however, and lifted the latch to push the door inwards. Daimon waited for Saana to brush past him, then followed them both inside and entered a Tjakorshi dwelling for the first time.
He wasn’t sure what he’d expected, especially from the clan chief. Weapons and armour, perhaps, hanging from the walls. The banners of defeated opponents, possibly. Riches taken from a lifetime of plundering. He’d certainly thought the small house would have very little room left inside.
Instead, Sattistutar had few possessions. The ugly, thick-bladed sword she’d drawn when they’d first met was indeed hanging up, in its scabbard on a worn sword belt, between two Raider roundshields. There were a couple of other weapons, as well; lengths of wood edged with shards of the strange, bitterly sharp black stone that was like no rock Daimon had ever heard of in Narida. One was straight, a shape not dissimilar to the steel sword, while the other had a hooked head. Daimon eyed it distrustfully. Everyone knew the Raider’s weapons were lethal against cloth and flesh, but would largely be turned by good steel armour. When in his armour his thighs were protected by the panels of his coat, and his shins by his greaves, but the back of his knees and his calves were still exposed. That weapon almost looked like it had been designed to reach around from the front and cut into his flesh.
“This warrior’s axe,” Zhanna said with a grin as she tapped her chest, apparently catching him looking at it. “Very sharp.” On her shoulder, her rattletail hissed in apparent agreement.
Saana said something to Zhanna as she shucked her heavy fur jacket off: Daimon wasn’t sure what it was, but Zhanna’s face fell again and she reached up protectively towards her rattletail. Saana said something else, and this time Zhanna gestured towards Daimon before stomping off towards the back of the house. Her dragon jumped up off her shoulder onto a rafter, from which it peered down at them all.
Saana turned towards him, irritation writ large on her face. “Well, thane? This man would thank you for returning her daughter, except she doesn’t know why you have done so, or for how long, and it seems being your hostage has not improved Zhanna’s temper any.”
Daimon suppressed a grimace. There was no circumstance under which this conversation was going to have been easy anyway. Still, he’d try to make the best of it.
“May your roof turn the storms,” he said haltingly in Tjakorshi. Zhanna had taught him the traditional phrase, uttered when entering someone’s house for the first time.
“And yours,” Saana replied automatically in her own tongue, her expression veering towards puzzlement before swinging back to irritated. Daimon suspected that she wanted him to get to the point, so with what he understood to be the formalities out of the way, he did so.
“The year moves on. We will soon see the first traders from the north, and when we do, they will see you and your people.”
“Lucky for them,” Saana grunted.
“When they leave, they will carry news of your presence,” Daimon said, trying to make her understand. “We may not even know they have come; they might see you from the edge of the Downwoods and turn back. Either way, news will almost certainly travel north.”
“And what will happen?” Sattistutar asked. Daimon caught her glance towards the wall where her and her daughter’s weapons were hanging.
“This lord cannot say for certain,” Daimon replied carefully. “Even if traders report that all is well here, the thane of Darkspur and this lord’s father were… not friends. This lord would not be surprised if Odem Darkspur comes south with as much strength of arms as he can muster, eager to use your presence as a pretence to take Blackcreek lands for his own.”
“Then we must be ready,” Sattistutar said. She took a step towards the wall, but Daimon stepped into her path.
“No! That is not the way!”
Sattistutar’s eyes narrowed. “You are in this man’s house, thane, and she does not take kindly to anyone putting themselves between her and her axe.”
“This lord betrayed his own father and brother to prevent our people from fighting each other, and now you would seek to undo all that?” Daimon demanded tightly. “If Thane Darkspur comes, do you think this lord’s people will take up arms with you against him? Or do you think they will stand aside, or turn on you, and then beg for mercy when Odem wins?”
“Who is to say that he will win?” Sattistutar snapped.
“Even if he does not, it will make no difference!” Daimon said, trying to keep his voice under control. “Word will spread, and more warriors will come with more thanes, and perhaps the Southern Marshal himself. No matter how valiant your warriors, you will be driven into the sea, or you will be killed, and most likely this lord’s people will be killed along with you!”
“And your answer?” Sattistutar demanded, throwing up her hands. “This man understands you wish not to fight other thanes, but if they seek to kill her and her people, would you have us wait to be killed, like fish in shallows?”
“We must show that you belong and live here,” Daimon said. “It is the only way to avoid violence.”
“We are trying!” Sattistutar snapped. “We work fields; we fish; we play your game, and still this man is attacked with a knife! What more would you have us do?”
Daimon
took a deep breath. “We need a stronger, more visible bond. One that does not involve Zhanna being kept hostage.”
Sattistutar frowned. “What are you suggesting, Blackcreek?”
Daimon closed his eyes for a moment, then let his breath out again and opened them. He reached up to his left breast, unpinned the brooch fastened there, and held it out to her.
“Saana Sattistutar, chief of the Brown Eagle clan of Tjakorsha… This lord, Daimon, Thane of Blackcreek…”
He looked into her dark grey eyes, the colour of angry clouds, and prayed for all his ancestors, both by blood and by law, to forgive what he was about to do.
“… requests your hand in marriage.”
PART FOUR
WHAT CAN BE said of Godspire?
The greatest mountain in all the known world, he rises head and shoulders above his brothers. Even the boastful Morlithians, so proud of their Shining Mountains in the far west, will fall to their knees and cry out in wonder when first they catch sight of Godspire’s majesty: if indeed they do so, since his head is so often shrouded in cloud.
Of old he was known as Spirithome, for the ancients knew he was the centre of the world, and the place from which the greatest spirits came. And there, of course, came the problem, because it was from Spirithome that the mightiest and most malevolent spirit emerged: the Queen of Demons, the Unmaker.
She granted ruinous power to her followers, the great witches and their lesser kin, and the petty kingdoms filling the land between the Catseyes and the ocean were overrun with evil. Babes were stolen in the dark of night; crops withered in the fields; adults and children alike lost their lives to the foul blood sacrifices of the witches. And where the darkness was greatest, where the malice was most potent, the Unmaker always lurked in a body she had stolen.
This body would be fearless in battle, immune to pain, heedless of all but the most grievous wounds. Scholars refer to that time as the Rule of Night, but in truth there was no rule, no order: merely death and suffering, and a few isolated places where good men stood together against the darkness.
It was from one of these places, in the north, that the man Nari arose and became more than man. Filled with divine fury, and at just fifteen years of age, he began his campaign to drive the Unmaker from these lands. The story of how he did so is told in many other places, in much greater (and sometimes contradictory) detail, but the crux of the matter is this:
At Spirithome, Nari and his most favoured retainers—General Gemar Far Garadh, Tolkar the Last Sorcerer, and the Band of Seven—entered the great caverns at the mountain’s foot and finally defeated the Unmaker and her foul converts. And there, once the deed was done, Nari at last accepted the truth his retainers had already been preaching: that he was a god, come to save the land, and to rule it. And so Spirithome was renamed Godspire, and Nari became the Divine Nari, the God-King, and the lands he had cleansed became Narida.
The entrance to the great caverns where the Divine One finally bested his enemy were sealed, and a monastery was founded there. This was originally intended as place for pilgrims to reflect on the majesty and might of our god. However, the Divine One declared he would return to it, and yet his physical form passed from this world before he did so. When the Foretellings of Tolkar became known, declaring that Nari’s spirit would be reborn in another body, it was accepted that the monastery was not just a place of pilgrimage: it was where the Divine One would announce his own return, thereby fulfilling his promise…
Excerpt from ‘Myths and Legends of the Catseye Mountains: A Collection’ by Elidhu of Bowbridge, written in the five-hundredth and twenty-third year of the God-King
SAANA
SAANA LOOKED DOWN at the brooch, then back up at Daimon Blackcreek. At his young, earnest face, shaved to be as free of hair as any Tjakorshi woman’s. At the strong, clean line of his jaw, his snub nose, his dark eyes.
She really wanted to punch him.
There was a clatter of movement to her right, and Zhanna disappeared through the back door. It banged shut behind her, and Saana bit back a curse, and the impulse to call her daughter back. There was every possibility Zhanna wouldn’t listen, and Saana was in no mood to get into a row with her right now. Not when there was a far more deserving candidate for it standing only a few feet away.
“What in the name of the Dark Father are you thinking?!” she demanded. She hadn’t meant to shout, but by the end of the sentence she was getting very close to it.
Blackcreek’s nostrils flared, but he kept his voice level. “Do you, even for one moment, think you are who this lord would choose to marry?”
Saana raised her eyebrows. The urge to hit him wasn’t going away.
“This lord was adopted into a noble family,” Blackcreek was saying bitterly. “He should have been able to marry a girl of noble Naridan blood! Failing that, any number of lowborn girls would jump at the chance to marry a noble son of Blackcreek! Now he must marry Saana Sattistutar of the Brown Eagle clan, because he cannot think of any other way the thanes of the South will possibly accept that the Raiders have become civilised!”
“This man led her people across the ocean to escape death, or being not free,” Saana snapped. She rolled her neck and placed her hands on her hips, and as she did so her left hand encountered the pouch of leaves she’d got from Kerrti. “You think she will agree to be not free to you, as Naridan women are?”
Blackcreek hissed a breath out and flapped his hand irritably. “This lord knows a lost cause when he sees one. He would merely ask you to not contradict him in front of other thanes, lest they decide you are not civilised after all.”
“That does not sound very Naridan,” Saana said, warily.
“It is very Naridan to wish to keep one’s head on one’s shoulders!” Blackcreek replied through gritted teeth. “This lord knows you will not submit to him, as a wife should to her husband. Very well! He is already a dishonoured son and brother; what difference does it make if he is a mockery of a husband as well? Either his ancestors will smile on his efforts to keep his people alive, or they will not. This humiliation will make little difference.”
“This man does not know what ‘humiliation’ means,” Saana said slowly, “but it does not sound like you would be proud to have her as your wife.”
“This lord’s pride is unimportant,” Blackcreek said bluntly. “This is necessary.” He gestured to her. “What of your pride, Saana Sattistutar? This lord swears to you, by his ancestors and by Nari Himself, he believes this will be the only way to convince the other thanes you truly belong here, thereby saving both our peoples from their vengeance. Will you spurn this offer?”
Saana took a deep breath and rubbed her eyes. Of all the mornings Blackcreek had to choose for this…
“Is this how you do this in Narida?” she asked. “The man comes to the woman’s house and demands an answer, there and then?”
“This lord has obviously never done this before,” Blackcreek replied testily. He paused for a moment. “However, in most cases there would have been… courting, beforehand.”
Courting. Saana’s mind flashed back briefly to straddling Tavi the night before, and she forced the image away before her cheeks could colour. She looked back at Blackcreek and tried to put the stablemaster’s opinions about this young man, and his thoughts about her, out of her mind as well.
“So let us say you had… courted this man,” she said. “Let us say this was for love, not because it is needed. This man would be expected to just say yes or no?”
Blackcreek clearly had no idea what she was talking about. “It is customary to give a reply there and then, yes. Do your people leave each other waiting?”
Saana sighed. She wasn’t certain she knew the meaning of the word “civilised”, either, but she was starting to come to the conclusion that even if she thought she did, their definitions weren’t the same.
“You do not talk about the marriage first?”
“Talk about it? In what way?”
&nb
sp; She’d been correct. Saana walked to the water barrel and sat down beside it, then pointed at the patch of floor on the opposite side of it. “Come. Sit.”
Blackcreek, to her mild surprise, did so. She took a wooden cup and passed it to him, then took one for herself and dipped it into the barrel before taking a drink. The water was cool on her tongue, and a welcome relief to the dry mouth the previous night had left behind. There was a scrabbling noise and a thump, and Zhanna’s young dragon half-fell down a post and landed on the floor, then trotted across the floor towards the fire, whereupon it curled up with every sign of satisfaction. Saana eyed it warily, but it seemed to have settled, so she turned her attention back to Daimon.
“If a Tjakorshi man asked this man to marry him, and she had any interest in his offer, we would sit and talk,” she began. “We would talk about what we expected from each other, how we would behave. If we agreed, we would each have a friend come and we would agree on those things in front of them. Once those things were agreed, we could marry.”
Blackcreek was staring at her as though she’d grown a second head. “But why?”
“So we would know we were a good match!” Saana said. His lack of understanding was really quite exasperating. “Why should this man marry, if her husband expected her to obey his every word, or repair his brother’s clothes, or never sail again? If he expects those things, this man would never accept his offer. If he then expects them afterwards, but did not say so before, this man could call upon the friends to say he is not doing as he should, and so the marriage would end.”
“And do the friends always agree, if they are asked to recall these things?” Blackcreek asked, apparently intrigued despite himself.
Saana shrugged and took another sip of water. “Not always. It is not perfect. But to lie about a marriage vow is known to anger Father Krayk.”
Blackcreek grunted. Saana wasn’t sure whether this was an acknowledgement of such a threat or a dismissal of the Dark Father’s power, but she didn’t push it. Then he frowned.
