“Then you will lead in what comes next. You will feel pain. Life is pain. Try not to scream.”
Bram looked at him and nodded again. He was very scared. He had right to be.
“This thing you do, it has never been done before. You understand this? Those whom the Wounder chooses to fight die. This is… This is as close to mercy as I have ever seen from my god. This is a rare blessing.”
Tusk plucked the first coin from the collection. It was a large coin and golden.
“You would follow Durhallem in the ways of war? You would become a disciple of the Wounder?”
“Aye. Yes, I would.”
Tusk nodded his head and placed the coin firmly against Bram’s head. “Do not move. This is your test. This is how you prove yourself to your new god.” Even as he spoke, he placed one hand against the back of Bram’s skull. With the other, he pushed the gold coin against Bram’s forehead.
For Bram and his people it must have been a momentous thing, but for the followers of Durhallem, miracles were not uncommon. The metal glowed hot against Tusk’s hand but he was not burned. Instead all of the heat seared into Bram’s forehead and the metal fused with the flesh. Skin burned and metal ran and Bram screamed. He did not stand still but tried to fight, as was to be expected. Two of Tusk’s followers grabbed the man’s arms and held him as still as they could while he bucked and howled and roared in agony.
Tusk stepped back and nodded, pleased with his work. The men who held Bram let him go, setting him on the ground instead of letting him fall.
All around them the people of the town murmured and tried to retreat, but it was too late for that. They were completely surrounded by the Sa’ba Taalor.
Tusk spoke loudly, roaring to be heard over the noises of the crowd. “This is the price you must pay! If you would follow a god you must make sacrifices!”
Bram stood. The gold of the coin was fused with his flesh. The metal was flush with his forehead and ran in swirls. Though his skin was burned, it was clear that the redness and even the bleeding was fading away.
The gold of the coin was not perfectly round, but had melted and smeared as it was held in place. There was a pattern there. A thick line ran through the melted lump.
Bram spoke up. “I have felt pain, but it’s gone now. I am not injured.” He sounded surprised. Several of the city dwellers came closer and looked at his face, frowning.
He said softly, “This is how we survive the day. This is how we learn to know a god. We must do this. As we discussed.”
The next to come forward was a portly woman. Her hands held on to the hands of two children.
“Must we all do this thing?” She did not ask Bram. She asked Tuskandru.
“Pain, or death. All must choose.”
Tears glistened at her eyes, but she did not move away. “We will be healed? Like Bram?”
“Yes. Durhallem demands a sacrifice, but he does not demand a life of misery. You must be tested. This is the test.”
She looked to her children and spoke solemnly. “I will go first, but if we are to be together you must do this thing. It will hurt, but I will be here for you.”
They were young. The oldest perhaps five years.
They watched and screamed as their mother was marked.
She watched and held them as each of her children endured the same.
Each person in the town was marked by Tusk, save a few that foolishly tried to escape.
They were struck down quickly and their bodies were laid out beside the forge for all to see.
As he made his mark upon the town, the fire in the forge glowed brighter and brighter.
The processing of every member of the town took most of the day and the following night.
Through it all Tusk spoke to the new disciples of Durhallem. He remained a calm, strong voice in a nearly endless series of screams.
After they were touched by Durhallem’s gift the people of the town were allowed to rest. Most gathered together in the area around the forge. Some wandered back to their homes, as once they had been tested they were free to do.
When the next morning finally came around, the people who had been marked by Durhallem were gathered together again.
They had been tested. Afterward, they were given the blessing of Durhallem and allowed to speak to a god.
None of them were unchanged by the meeting. Each of them was made to reach into the blazing coals of the forge to receive Durhallem’s blessing.
Five
Captain Callan woke up in the small cell and groaned. Every part of him hurt, but especially the wound where they’d pulled the arrow from his leg.
There had been a brief moment when he thought he and his crew would escape the gray-skins. That moment was crushed when the great black ship cut his little vessel in half. Each of the black ships, in addition to being nearly impossibly large, also had sharpened metal along the keel. That metal destroyed wood with ease and his little ship was no exception.
Wounded as he was, he thought he was a certain candidate for death, but the Sa’ba Taalor came down and grabbed him.
The woman who came for him was lean and hard and heavily scarred. She pulled the arrow from his leg and lifted him like he was a child. When he tried to struggle she put him down and beat him until he thought his seams would split.
When he came to, he was in the cell, three sides wood and one iron bars.
“You are alive and awake. This is good.” The voice was heavily accented.
It was not the same woman who’d bested him so easily. This one was scarier. She wore cloth pants and a leather vest over a white shirt. The fabric was made to breathe and hung loosely except where she had pulled the fabric tight with leather straps to hold the sheaths for her knives. She sported several knives along her arms. Her mouth was scarred in several spots, and her skin was dark gray and seemed almost corpselike. Her eyes glowed in the semi-darkness of the ship’s hold. On the top of her head a deep blue scarf ran around her hair, binding it, and then dropped along her back. The scarf was tied to her waistline loosely allowing her to move her head easily.
It seemed an elaborate effort, but he decided not to focus on that. Instead he looked carefully at the sword she was sporting.
“You are Callan?”
Callan nodded, suddenly very aware that he had to piss and that he was also extremely thirsty.
“I am Donaie Swarl; I am the King in Lead, Chosen of Wheklam.” The words meant nothing. She was obviously not a king. Kings had finery and were, as a rule, men. But she had a sword and that was enough for him to let her keep her delusions.
“Majesty.” He nodded his head. “I’m sorry, but who is Wheklam?”
“Wheklam is the god of the sea, and seafaring warriors.”
“I like him already.”
She nodded her head and crouched down until they were eye to eye. “He likes you, too. He favors you. Your crew is dead. They served me no purpose. Your ship is gone, as you tried to flee.”
He nodded his head. “Sorry about that. I thought you were trying to kill us.”
“We were.” Donaie, King of the Mad, nodded. “We would have killed you, too, but Wheklam said you had a purpose.”
“What purpose is that?”
“You can talk to the scarred people, yes?”
“Scarred like you?” He shook his head.
“No. The others. They… write on themselves. They carve words in their flesh.”
“Oh, yes. The Brellar. I speak their language.”
“Excellent!”
Without preamble she opened the door. Apparently it wasn’t locked. He hadn’t bothered to check, really, as the light shone through several portholes and trying to sneak off the ship would have required darkness. Still, in hindsight, he could have at least looked into the matter.
Hard, callused hands grabbed Callan and pulled him to his feet. He did his best not to scream at the pain in his calf. It was bandaged and he could see that it had been cleaned, but still.
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Despite being a dead shade of gray, she was attractive enough. Still, he blinked when the scars around her mouth moved as she smiled her approval. As a rule, he found all women a worthwhile pursuit. He decided he could make an exception in this case.
“You can stand. Good. Come with me.”
Donaie Swarl moved and he followed. Her back was to him. He had no weapons, but if he were fast enough he could surely take her.
Callan shook his head. No. The way she moved, he had no doubt it would be a mistake. And anyway, there was nowhere to flee. They wanted him alive. There would be chances to escape later once darkness fell.
Callan could see other cells down the hallway they walked. They were, universally, uninhabited. They were slavers’ cells. He recognized them easily enough to understand that he was not on one of the black ships. This was a Brellar ship. Above him the deck would be vast, with enough space for three hundred men to stand comfortably apart from each other.
As they walked up the narrow stairwell to the top level – several flights that made his calf scream with each stair climbed – Callan’s eyes adjusted to the changing light. He saw more and more of the scars that crossed the woman’s body. The Brellar inflicted scars on themselves, but these were different. He could see that they overlapped in many cases and some were faint with age, others newer. This was a lifetime of fighting and injuries. He had heard of the Sa’ba Taalor from Tataya, but he had never seen them up close until now.
They were scary people. They were, judging by this one, survivors at any cost.
The sky outside was overcast, and a quick look around told him they were near the shores of Roathes. The villages that should have been there were little more than ashes among more ashes. The hot air here was acrid, but calmer than the last time he had been through. Far behind him, he knew, there was an island growing in the sea. A fiery mountain at the center of that island continued to bellow fire and smoke and cast lightning into the waters. But it did so with less violence than before.
The waters around the ship were littered with flotsam, jetsam and corpses. The sharks would come soon, he knew, even through the ashes that poisoned the waters, for they could not possibly resist a feast of this scale. Close enough to see but not to get caught in any currents, two of the great black ships waited, their decks covered with more of the gray-skins.
The deck Callan stood on was covered with the prone forms of the Brellar. They were not dead, but they had been beaten and subdued.
Standing among them were dozens of the Sa’ba Taalor. He looked first to the Brellar, who mostly lay still, their eyes searching their environs or closed to avoid the glare of the day. The Sa’ba Taalor did not wear much by way of armor and several of them had cuts freely bleeding, or newly crusted. They also had weapons. Sorts he had never seen before. There were swords, to be true, but there were other things that looked designed to break bones and heads with ease.
Judging by the ruined flesh on a few of the Brellar, they did their jobs quite well.
“You will speak for me.” Donaie Swarl looked his way. “And you will speak for them. Do not lie to me. I will know. My god will tell me.”
“Othea is my god. Also a god of the sea.”
Donaie looked at him for a moment. “What does your god tell you right now, Callan?”
“Nothing.” He frowned.
“Then listen to my god and listen well. Ask the questions. Answer them truthfully, and you will walk away from this intact.” She tilted her head for a moment and nodded. “Wheklam says you may even have this ship if you do this thing. You like to barter, yes?”
“Yes. I do. Indeed.”
“Then that is the offer that Wheklam makes. Safety and this ship in exchange for truths.”
“What of the people already on the ship?”
“You will be captain. That will be your decision to make.”
He nodded his head. As they’d spoken, several of the Brellar had looked around to see his face. He recognized Tomms, one of the chieftains of the Brellar.
“Tomms. You are alive.”
Tomms looked his way. “Yes, and thanks to you, they now know my name.”
Callan shook his head. “They want to speak to you. I am to translate.”
Tomms sat up. No one stopped him. His face was swollen on one side, bruised and bashed. His lip on that side was smashed and bloodied and would heal poorly. The scars on his body glistened in the sunlight.
Donaie walked Callan closer, holding his arm.
“I want to know about his scars. Why does he scar himself? Do his gods demand it?”
Callan asked the questions, moderately curious as to how Tomms would answer.
“My gods demand nothing. We write our victories on our flesh. We tell stories of what we have achieved in our lifetimes.”
Callan looked to Donaie Swarl and answered truthfully.
Her face took on a different look. Rage made her terrifying as she bared her teeth and her scars split baring even more.
“What do his gods say to this?”
Callan translated.
Tomms answered, “We have no need of gods. We find our own way. We are our own gods.”
Callan hesitated for a moment. He did not know that the Sa’ba Taalor would not like the answer, but he could guess.
“These are his words, yes? Not mine.”
Donaie Swarl nodded agreement and he repeated Tomms’s answer.
The woman of the Sa’ba Taalor strode over to where Tomms lay and grabbed him by his hair. She ripped hard and he followed, screaming in pain even as he stood.
Tomms brought his arm around and struck her in her side, his fist dealing a brutal blow. None of the Brellar were bound, they were merely subdued. At the sound of combat several of them started to rise.
Donaie Swarl barely flinched. She brought her free arm around and slammed Tomms in the face with the palm of her hand, sending him staggering back as she let go of his hair.
“Tell them to stop or they die faster!”
Callan repeated the message and the Brellars who were rising either froze where they were or stood the rest of the way with their hands above their heads, clearly showing that they had no weapons.
Donaie spoke again. “Tell them. Let them know that they have marked themselves and bragged for the last time. The gods decide who survives scarring, no one else.”
He repeated the words, and Tomms looked directly at the King in Lead and spat blood and a tooth onto the deck. Through his ruined lips he said, “Fuck your gods.”
And Callan sighed and repeated the words exactly.
The reaction was immediate. The Sa’ba Taalor brought all their fury upon the Brellar. Not a single one of them touched Callan, but as he looked on, the Brellar were cut, beaten and broken. Some used their hands. Others used swords. Some brought up their metallic clubs with heads the size of Pabba fruit and smashed them down on the skulls of their enemy.
Through it all, Callan watched. The Sa’ba Taalor acted with rage. They did not forgive and they took no quarter.
It took a few minutes to finish the massacre. Callan stood still throughout it, not daring to move, lest he catch the attention of the gray-skins.
When it was done, Donaie Swarl gestured to one of her followers, who took up a horn from a satchel at her hip and blew a sharp note. Moments later one of the black ships started moving in their direction.
“The ship is yours.” She dismissed Callan with those words.
“Why did you kill them all?”
“His words offended our gods. His scars offend our gods. His people offend our gods, and so we will kill all of them.”
“What of the corpses?” When Callan spoke that time it was more to himself.
Still, the king answered, “It is your ship. Do with them what you will.”
He did not speak to her again as she climbed the rope cast down from the black ship. A score of ropes fell and the Sa’ba Taalor scaled them.
Callan was left alone with the
dead.
He waited until the black ships were far in the distance before he started screaming.
The keep ahead of them was not large, but the gods wanted it taken. That was enough for Tarag Paedori.
He looked back at Kallir Lundt, and asked, “Do you know this place, Kallir?”
The Fellein looked at the tower and the surrounding walls with metallic eyes. His face was metal, a gift from Truska-Pren.
“I do not. The town we passed, Inbrough, that I know. I have seen it on trips down the river in the past, but this?” He shook his head in the way of his people. “This has been built in the last few years.”
Tarag looked the structure over. It was large enough to host as many as twenty, he guessed. Had they built it into the side of a mountain the size would be impossible to guess, but the short tower and the surrounding wall were freestanding. The wall surrounding it was only fifteen feet in height. That barely qualified as anything but decoration in the Taalor valley.
Without any preamble Tarag urged his mount forward. The great beast let out an amiable rumble and obeyed. The path leading to the strange standalone tower was hardpacked dirt and little else.
The others followed as he knew they would.
The gate in the wall was open. The King in Iron rode toward it with one hand on his sword’s hilt and looked around carefully.
He slowed only when he realized that the aperture in the wall didn’t have an open gate. It had no gate at all.
That was enough to give him pause. True, there were no other structures around, but that didn’t mean there were never visitors. The paved pathway was a sign of that.
“What sort of town builds a wall and forgets to build a gate as well?”
Kallir shook his head. “None that I have seen of any size. Most of the towns I’ve seen that had a gate needed it to keep out marauders. The land is mostly calm, but there are always exceptions.”
Tarag shook his head and moved forward again, riding through the opening, his eyes sliding over the landscape inside.
There was only the one structure and none other.
No people were moving about the courtyard.
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