“They would,” Arak’Jur interrupted. “They have already, whether you accept it or no.”
“Prove it,” the woman said. “Show us their gift, or we strike you down for your blasphemy.”
The spark struck, and almost caught, in the stances of the warriors arrayed behind her. The rest were men, he was almost sure, though they were thin and slight enough to make it uncertain. Yet they seemed to take the woman’s lead.
“I wish no violence here,” he said.
“Then show us the truth of what you claim.”
A vulgar display, but less so than unnecessary violence. He expected hostility from foreign tribes; part of why he hadn’t tried to secure their approval before venturing into the morass. But if he could have it now, for one misuse of the spirits’ gift, it was well worth the price.
He closed his eyes, opening his body to the spirits’ touch. Images flooded through him, sensations of death and rot. Black fog rolled through his eyes, staining the world a deeper and deeper shade of gray. Then it spewed from his hands, billowing clouds, inky tendrils rising like snakes, seeking life to kill, obeying his will as he commanded them into being.
“It is,” the woman said, almost making it a curse. “It is the swamp spirits’ gift. It is not possible, it could not be.”
He let the tendrils fade, feeling a stinging rebuke in his mind. Their power was to be used for killing. The spirits’ anger rippled through him as the ink-clouds faded, a vestige of their disapproval.
The small man stepped forward, as though he’d triumphed in whatever passed between him and the woman.
“Arak’Jur, guardian of the Sinari,” he said. “Our shaman will wish to speak with you. Will you come, and listen to what we have to say?”
The better part of him wanted only to journey onward. The shadow from Ka’Inari’s vision was elsewhere; the spirits of Moru’Alura’Tyat had known nothing of it, only repeated their insistence that the time of the Gods was coming, that the Goddess had need of her champions, that he must possess their gift, if he meant to fight at her side. But the corruption of his people had been delivered through the shamans of each tribe. If these people had a shaman speaking visions of his coming, he might find direction there, guidance toward the source of the madness that had driven him from his home.
“I am hunted,” he said. “So long as you know there are men tracking me, who might threaten your village and your shaman for treating with me, then I will listen.”
They left the darkest parts of the swamp behind, but traveled through long grasses and wetland pools as they angled around to the south. He’d been wrong as to the composition of their hunting party; three of the six were women, with clean-shaven heads and slim bodies caked with mud as though it were meant to be echtaka paint. They carried bows and short spears rather than muskets, with clothing that looked as though it had survived too many seasons without repair.
“Not far,” the man said when he asked after the location of their village. “A half day’s journey south and east, where the woodland meets the riverbank.”
“He is Hanat’Etak,” the woman said after, when he’d fallen in line. “I am Yinala. We are Lhakani.”
“Lhakani,” he said. “I’ve traveled south before, but never met a member of your tribe.” The woman’s manner seemed different, curious and eager where before she’d been full of disbelief. She paced alongside him while the others fanned out, two ahead and three behind, as though they were escorting a prisoner.
“We are hunters, by nature, not traders. Our neighbors know us well enough to respect our claims. The Sinari lands are far to the north, are they not? Why are you here?”
“As I said, I am hunted.”
“You were driven to exile, for crimes?”
The audacity of the question struck him. “No,” he said. “A neighboring tribe came for me, unrelenting. I left to spare my people a war.”
“You were marked by the spirits.”
“What does that mean?”
“Marked. Shamans granted visions of your passage, warriors promised power at your death, women threatened with loss and suffering, so long as you remain alive.”
“What …? This is a thing not known to my people.”
“Then the Sinari are fortunate,” she said. “The Lhakani were given such a quarry in our shamans’ visions, and the spirits have been terrible in their wrath, for our failures.”
“This is a thing for the shaman to speak of, Yinala,” Hanat’Etak said, having slowed enough to listen.
“He will learn of it soon enough,” she said, but fell quiet as they walked.
“This is a thing born of the spirits’ corruption?” he asked. “Their calls to war? Our shamans have heard these things.” He refrained from speaking of their alliance; too early to predict how a strange people might react.
Yinala and Hanat’Etak shared a look. “Ka’Urun will speak of it,” Hanat’Etak said. “We will reach him by the day’s end.”
The exchange weighed on him as they walked. A mark, or a quarry, given by way of the shamans’ visions? In all his people’s stories there was no mention of such a thing. Yet the Uktani had pursued him without pause, beyond the skill of any hunter to track without a shaman’s guidance. The spirits’ hand was in it, he’d been sure before the Lhakani woman’s prompting. Now he was certain. But the shape of it would come from their shaman, whether or not they had recognized the split between the vile spirits and the pure.
The swamp thinned to a murky plain, dead trees replaced by live ones and then none at all, only light brush and long grass as they veered south and east. A sparse, thin land compared to the bounty of the northern forests, but it suited his mood, as did the relative quiet that passed between them as they traveled. A strange people, the Lhakani; he found himself wondering at what their village might look like, if the women shaved their heads to the scalp and carried bows and spears to mimic hunters. Yet soon they drew near a raging river, a soft roar in his ears through the whole of the approach, with no sign of tents or longhouses by the time they reached its banks.
“He’s here,” Hanat’Etak said. “Ka’Urun will receive you within.”
Arak’Jur frowned, looking up and down the banks. Only grasses and rocky hills, and the slow rush of a river a hundred spans across.
“Where is your village? Your people?”
“We are all that remains of the Lhakani,” Yinala said. “We six, and Ka’Urun.”
Hanat’Etak pointed with his spear, toward a rocky overhang he’d missed in his search for sign of settlement or life. “The shaman hides here,” Hanat’Etak said. “A cave, where he shelters from the wild.” He unslung a pouch from across a shoulder, offering it up. “Take this to him, if you would. Water, and food. We don’t enter unless summoned, and he doesn’t leave. But he will want to speak with you.”
Arak’Jur eyed the pouch, but made no move to take it. “You seek to trick me?” he asked. “Six of you remain, and your shaman, who will not leave a cave?”
“Not all of those marked by the spirits are so strong or brave as you, Arak’Jur,” Yinala said.
Hanat’Etak held a hand to forestall her, and turned toward him. “Please, honored guardian. I swear by the memory of my people, no harm will come to you by any Lhakani hand.”
An earnest look, and a deadness, hung behind the tradesman’s eyes. He recognized that look; he’d seen it on Corenna’s face, when she resolved to seek revenge for her people. He took the pouch, and turned toward the cave.
The river’s roar muted to a dull echo as soon as he stepped within. He’d entered a hundred such caves in his travels, sheltering within them from rain or snow, but the air was thick here, dense enough he felt no need for more than shallow breaths. Moss grew on rocks slicked by dampness, and the way within was dark after twenty paces, though the downward-sloping ground suggested a path that fell below the river’s waterline.
Yes, a voice seemed to whisper as he reached the edge of the shadows. Come to us.
He took a step forward, and a light appeared in the distance. Fifty paces, straight and down along the slope the path had suggested before it disappeared.
Arak’Jur, the voice whispered. He took another step, slow and sure, using his hands to feel along the wetness of the rocks jutting up from the surface. Chosen of the Sinari. Chosen of the Wild. You who would fight to become a champion. Come to us.
A man’s voice sliced through the haze of the spirits, and a silhouette appeared against the light.
“Who is it?” the man asked. “Is that you again, Yinala? I told you not to risk coming here.”
“You are the Lhakani shaman?” he asked.
Laughter rang through the cave. “A stranger. Here I am, last seer of my tribe, living my days in the shadows of a wellspring of the vision spirits, and still I am surprised by your coming.”
Arak’Jur stepped close enough to see the speaker, a man seated beneath a torch on the floor of the cave; but no, not seated. He was legless, shorn stumps where his upper thighs should have extended into legs. The man’s left eye was a ruin of warped flesh, his torso pocked by bite or claw marks where he could see the skin beneath a wrap of albino furs.
“I am Arak’Jur, guardian of the Sinari. I met your people in the swamp. They guided me here.”
The man laughed again, a bitter sound, old and cracked, though his skin had no wrinkles from age.
“I am Ka’Urun, and yes, I am the Lhakani shaman. You went to Moru’Alura’Tyat. I was right. You did it.”
“You …? Did you not say you were surprised by my coming?”
“Bah, I didn’t say I saw you in particular. I saw that someone would come, a man who could wield the woman’s gift, or the reverse. And now you’re here, and you can help me track her down.”
He spared a glance at the shaman’s missing legs, and once again the shaman replied as though he’d given voice to his doubts. “No, no, I don’t mean to go with you ranging into the wild,” Ka’Urun said. “Only that we can flush her out. She’ll never expect another chosen when I show myself. But you’ll have to strike quickly—she’s as cunning as you’d expect.”
“What are you speaking of?” he said finally.
The mother, the voices whispered in the air. The false mother, who has whispered madness through our bonds.
The shaman grinned into the torchlight. “You can hear them. They’ll tell you. She’s here. She’s here in person, in the flesh.”
“Who?” The shaman was half a madman, as far as he could see, but the spirits had echoed the truth of it, and he was sure this was their place, as sure as he had ever been at Ka’Ana’Tyat.
“Ad-Shi,” the shaman said. “The False Goddess. She’s come to the world to die, and you and I are the instruments that will kill her.”
30
ERRIS
Overlooking the 17th Thellan Infantry Encampment
Northern Thellan Country
A sudden wave of heat struck her as Need slipped her senses into place. A moment before she’d been in her chambers at high command, far enough north for the occasional cool breeze through open windows, even in the dead of summer. Those comforts were replaced in an instant by humid, searing heat, the acrid sting of dust in her vessel’s throat, and the smells of horses, sweat, and dung.
She wore yellow, a Thellan cavalry uniform, as did the soldiers at her side. A copse of trees surrounded them, thick birchwood atop a hillside overlooking a flat plain, where yellow flags hung limp in the absence of wind. Thellan flags. Enough by itself to raise suspicions—why had the Thellan mobilized an infantry brigade so close to the Gand border? But a pale shadow next to the answers she expected to find, as soon as her company braved the distance between their trees and the Thellan lines.
“Colonel,” she said, and stirred the men and women around her.
“High Commander, sir,” Brigade-Colonel de Montaigne said. She was dismounted with the rest of her soldiers—a handpicked unit from among the best of the 11th Light Cavalry. Most among them had spyglasses, either pressed to their eyes or lowered to acknowledge her arrival.
“Has there been any sign?” she asked.
“None, sir. No golden light that we’ve seen, but this brigade is small, scarcely a regiment and a half, and idle here along the border. It’s possible the enemy wouldn’t have needed to deliver them any orders since we arrived.”
“How long have you observed them?”
“Four hours,” de Montaigne said. “I sent two of my soldiers to approach their line with false reports and they’ve already returned. They’re ripe for you to go, sir, if you’re still inclined to do it.”
She nodded, unlimbering a spyglass from her vessel’s belt and edging forward to the tree line. The soldiers of the Thellan 17th were down there, milling about in a valley a good two leagues below de Montaigne’s trees. The colonel had done a fine job picking a vantage point, as fine a job as the Thellan commander had failed to do in picking where to muster their brigade. With the spyglass to magnify her vision she saw the rope lines holding their tents in place, specks of campfires under clouds of black smoke, and the soldiers milling about in yellow coats that matched the ones de Montaigne had stolen for her soldiers. No sign of any alert in the Thellan camp, nor of any particular haste. If de Montaigne’s 11th had been noted crossing the border, she suspected an active infantry brigade would have had a somewhat different demeanor. Always possible for it to be a trap. But for now, she was inclined to believe it was what it appeared to be.
“How soon can you be ready to ride, Colonel?” she asked.
“Now, sir. It’s only the six of us. A small force, but enough for a convincing retinue. We even stole a proper flag.”
She glanced to where de Montaigne was pointing, where two of her soldiers were already unfurling a battle standard. Yellow, with a red cross, seven stars, and the design of a lion rearing on its hind legs.
“You stole a general’s flag?” she said.
De Montaigne grinned. “Yes, sir, and, if you’ll permit me …” She gestured to Erris’s vessel’s collar, and only then did she notice the cut of her stolen coat. Three stars on the lapels. A Thellan major-general’s uniform.
“We figured it best, sir,” one of de Montaigne’s sergeants said, “seeing as you and the colonel don’t speak Thellan. It was Renauld’s idea. He figured you wouldn’t need to speak with the golden eyes, then Lieutenant Daréne could take up the deception playing the general’s role, once you’re finished. That’s … ah. … you, sir. Daréne speaks Thellan almost as well as Renauld.”
“Fine thinking, then,” she said, directing a nod toward the man the sergeant had called Renauld, then another toward Colonel de Montaigne. It was bloody mad, the whole exercise. Precisely the sort of thing she used to do with the 14th. And she needed mad brilliance here today.
“Twenty minutes, to make the camp?” she said.
“Better if we approach in some haste, I think,” de Montaigne said. “Make it fifteen.”
“Fifteen, then,” Erris said. “I’ll reestablish the Need bond then. And we’ll see the proof of it, one way or another.”
De Montaigne saluted along with the rest of her soldiers, and Erris let the Need binding go. It had been Brigade-Colonel de Montaigne’s idea, to save days of scouting by approaching a Thellan camp directly. They might have spent a week watching for sign of the golden light behind an officer’s eyes—or they could approach using one of Erris’s vessels and see the Thellan officers’ reactions firsthand. If they recognized Need, then Paendurion was in command, and Ilek’Hannat’s vision was confirmed. If not … there was a reason she’d insisted de Montaigne’s company be composed entirely of volunteers.
Fifteen minutes. She would have made the ride with them, but she had to conserve Need. It was stronger now, with the conquest of Gand, but it had never been infinite. She settled into the cu
shions of her desk chair, content for a moment alone, to wait.
“Lord Voren for you, sir,” Essily said. “Arriving shortly—his people just sent word.”
“He’ll have to wait,” she said, a sliver of guilt rising in her belly. Voren should have been among the first to know of her plans. Too much to do, not enough time for the doing. Only natural for some things to be missed, though she suspected Voren wouldn’t see it that way. “Tell him a sensitive operation is under way. I’ll see him in … two hours’ time?”
She made the last a question; Essily knew her schedule better than any man or woman alive. “Very good, sir,” Essily said. “Can I bring you a pot of tea in the meantime? Perhaps have the cooks send up a plate?”
No mention of the tray already sitting atop the side table near her chambers’ entrance, long since gone cold.
“Thank you, Essily. A fresh pot of black, if you will.”
“Sir,” he said, bowing as he left the room.
She rifled through the papers and maps on her desk to pass the time. Another few minutes and she could resume the connection to de Montaigne and her company, and settle this with a certainty she already expected to find. De Montaigne’s 11th had ridden ahead of the main body of the army, but the rest of de Tourvalle’s 2nd Corps was already on the march, with Etaigne’s 3rd and the Gand soldiers, under command of the freshly promoted General Wexly, trailing in a long line, all pointed toward the Thellan border. No need to commit them until she was sure, but she already had a plan. High Admiral Tuyard’s ships would blockade the two largest port cities, and de Tourvalle would march for the third, while Etaigne and Wexly postured on the Thellan side of the border, seeking to draw Paendurion into the open and provide cover for de Tourvalle to strike. With their shipping cut off, Thellan’s colonies would be unable to resupply, and be denied fresh levies from the island plantations to boot. A neat plan. Too obvious to work as stated, but open and flexible in the face of the enemy’s response. All she needed was confirmation it would be Paendurion on the other side of the field.
Blood of the Gods Page 27
