In the Shadow of the Gods

by Rachel Dunne

He chased, not knowing quite why, diving through the grass, but the creature was gone. It left no track, no path of broken stalks, no sound. His heart pounding a desperate rhythm inside his chest, Keiro searched for an hour or more before he finally, achingly, gave up.

  The children were the first to see him, of course, as he trudged into the tribehome. They showered him with questions and demands for a story that was much too late, couldn’t he see the sun had gone down? He had no words for them—opened his mouth and then stood there looking a fool when no sound came out. He shook his head, the only apology or explanation he could give.

  Yaket was sitting on her grass mat near the fire. She must have seen something in his face or eye, for she rose wordlessly, motioned the children away and for Keiro to follow. They walked back into the grass, a distance from the tribehome, silent in the night. She stopped at a place no different from any other and turned to Keiro. No words, but eyebrows raised expectantly, moonlight glowing on her wrinkled face.

  The words came slowly to him. He could hardly do the creature or the experience justice, but he tried, chosing the words carefully. He was not a man prone to poetry, but there was a singing in Keiro’s heart like he had never felt before.

  Yaket smiled when he finished, a smile radiant as the moon, warm as the sun. “You have been blessed, Keiro. Keiro Godson.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I will show you.” She looked up into the sky, eye squinting at the moon, and smiled. “Three days, I should think. Three days, and all will be clear.”

  She left him there, standing in the middle of the grass sea, with no more explanation than that. Left him bereft, with a feeling of loss like none he had ever known. His eye, the one good eye, stared blankly into the grass. Behind the other eye, the empty one, a black beast danced, with glowing spots and deep red eyes.

  Three days, she had said. The longest days of his life, which had been full of days of endless walking and little sleep. The days stretched longer than the years he had walked Fiatera with his father, longer than the precious years he had spent with Algi that had felt like a lifetime, longer than all the years he’d held the Twins in his heart. He felt a broken man, more misplaced than he had ever felt among all the people beyond the river-that-ran-from-the-sun who looked and spoke so differently. He couldn’t even give name to the emptiness, the deep void that had grown within him.

  Three days of the plainswalkers smiling and calling him Godson, touching his arm and then placing their hands over their hearts. “You are blessed,” Yaket said simply, the only explanation she would give.

  Three days, useless days where he could do little more than sit and stare and ache.

  Three days, and at the sunset of the third, Yaket touched him on the shoulder and bade him rise.

  They walked east, and Keiro, tall enough to see above the waving grass, saw that they were walking toward the hills, the lumps of land that were so incongruous among the flat Plains. The moon, full and proud in the sky, watched serenely.

  Keiro asked no questions, for he knew the elder would give no answers. His throat was tight, constricted; he didn’t think he could have spoken if he’d tried. His heart was like a trapped thing, desperate for escape. There was a heaviness in him, his limbs thick and uncooperative, and yet his whole being strained forward. A frenzy to know, and a dread of the finding.

  The moon was high, almost directly above them as they ascended the first hill. With the night so well lit, Keiro could see the enormous mound that was the center of the hills, with the smaller knolls scattered all about. “We are in time,” Yaket said as they reached the top of their hill, and she sat, legs folding neatly beneath her. A frustrated scream resounded within Keiro, but found no voice. He, too, sat, his hands shaking.

  When the moon was at its highest point, throwing its glow over the rolling hills, it began.

  One first, a solitary creature standing atop the highest hill, its black scales drowned by the glow of the bright points embedded in its skin that gave back the glow of the moon. It stood, muzzle pointed up at the sky, and it began to sing.

  There was no other word for it, though it was like no singing Keiro had ever heard. One solitary sound, rising and falling alone in the night, weaving over and around and through itself. It was beautiful, heartbreakingly so, and the ache within Keiro’s breast deepened, a weight so heavy he was sure he would be crushed.

  And then came the others, swarming around the base and sides of the hill, joining their voices to the first, high and low, harmony and discord, joy and grief, beginnings and endings and an eternal balance. They sang to the moon, on the night when it rode fullest in the sky, and it was at once the most beautiful and the most anguished moment of Keiro’s life. A cry burst from him, a sound of sheerest yearning to bounce off the woven music that spiraled up into the stars.

  It ended, in time, as all things must. The voices left, one by one, the glowing creatures slipping slowly away as the moon began its descent, until only the first remained, the purest note among a night of more beauty than should rightly exist in the world. That voice, too, came to an end, a drifting closure, and something within Keiro broke.

  He didn’t know how long she let him cry, sobbing into his hands with all the sorrow and the joy he’d ever felt. At the touch on his shoulder he looked up, the tears still streaming from the only eye that could cry, and saw his face mirrored back in Yaket’s, her mouth stretched in the sweetest smile. “It is good, Godson. Here,” she said, patting his shoulder, “the old stories yet live.”

  CHAPTER 26

  The looks the merra’d given her hadn’t bothered her—Rora didn’t give two shits about anything a merra might think. It hadn’t been her glaring that’d made Rora give back the white cloak that was big enough to swallow her up—but she had given it back, and she was starting to regret it now as she lay on her belly at the top of an icy ridge, peeking out over the edge.

  She didn’t know if it’d started as a pit, but it sure was one now, a huge hole dug down into the snow and ice and stone, with what looked to be a hundred blond-haired men moving around below among the sounds of chipping stone. A hundred was the biggest number she knew of, and there were more Northman than she could count up to, so a hundred seemed as good a guess as any.

  There were fresh holes dug down into the ice, new-made piles of stones reaching almost hip-high. Looked like the Northmen had been hard at work, digging down the floor of the pit deeper. “You people sure move fast,” she murmured.

  Scal grunted, but didn’t do much more for a reply. Joros’d sent them up together, not wanting Scal to go alone in case anything bad happened, or maybe because he didn’t trust the Northman. Rora guessed he’d picked her because he didn’t think any of the others were much use, and really, she couldn’t say she disagreed. The witch had been so silly with excitement that Joros’d had to thump him on the head, and Joros and the merra weren’t on any kind of good terms. And Rora knew her brother, so it wasn’t hard to guess that Joros’d already pegged him as pretty useless. That left Rora, the best of all the people Joros didn’t trust.

  The others were all back a ways, back where Anddyr’d fallen off Rora’s horse, hunkered down against the cold while they waited for her and Scal. The wind was loud enough and blowing the right way, so it seemed like Anddyr’s laughing hadn’t reached this far. Though Rora didn’t like thinking about how close they’d all come to stumbling right into the pit and all the Northmen.

  There was no telling what they were digging for, but they didn’t look to have much idea of where it was either. Wide and deep, the pit was, and getting wider and deeper by the minute, with shovels and picks and hammers swinging.

  “Any ideas?” she asked. She didn’t know how much he knew about the North, but he had to have a better view of it all than she did.

  He just shook his head, though. “There is no knowing. This deep North, it is all a mystery to me.”

  “You’re a Northman, aren’t you?”

  He sh
ook his head a little. “I do not know all of the North. I know the snows . . . but this is a place of ice.” A pause, and she watched his face go hard as he stared into the pit. He said a word, hardly more’n a whisper, a word she didn’t know. “Iveran.” His hand went up to his chest, like he was grabbing at something under his tunic. “I will go find out what they search for.”

  Rora eyed him up. Obviously he could pass for a Northman, he was one after all. But that was part of what made her nervous. Everyone knew you couldn’t trust a Northman, they were all animals in men’s skins, bound to turn on you as fast as you could draw a blade. But Joros seemed to trust him, more’n he trusted any of the others—which wasn’t saying much. Still, Rora’d gathered that the witch’d been around longer than Scal and didn’t have near that amount of trust. That made sense, though you couldn’t trust a madman, and there was no denying Anddyr was that. Northmen were said to be worse than madmen. “Joros won’t like that,” she said, “not without us reporting to him first. He said to come straight back.”

  She couldn’t tell if he hadn’t heard her or just chose to ignore her. “I will wait here until dark. You go back.”

  She’d tell Joros to have them move camp somewhere else. If Scal was like everyone said a Northman would be, and led all his brethren to come kill them in the night, Rora didn’t plan on sitting around and waiting for him to do it. If he was worth the little bit of trust Joros gave him, well, then that was good for him, and he was hardy enough that some time wandering in the snow to find their new camp wouldn’t do him much harm. If he wanted to stay up here and freeze, he was welcome to it. Rora started to shimmy backward, away from the edge of the pit.

  “Rora.” His voice stopped her. He was fidgeting at his throat, and finally pulled away the thick white cloak, letting let it slide across the ground to her. She raised her eyebrows, burying her fingers in the warm fur, and he shrugged. “It will mark me.”

  If he wanted to freeze even faster, that was his own business, too. She crept back, holding on to the cloak, and when she was far enough away to stand, she wrapped it gratefully around herself. She almost hoped he didn’t die, or betray them, though either one was more likely than neither. He was a good enough sort, even if he was a Northman.

  She was guided back to camp by a dull glow, and she felt a fire rising up in her to match it. She stomped into the camp, built in the shadow of the five most pathetic trees she’d ever seen, and then stomped on the sad little fire they’d built. Aro and Joros swore at her, the merra spit at her, and Anddyr cowered. “Just over that ridge,” she growled, glaring at all of them in turn, “are a hundred fecking Northmen. No fire.”

  “But I’m cold,” Aro said, snot dribbling from his nose over his upper lip like he was a kid again, “and hungry.”

  “No fire,” she repeated.

  “‘The accursed shall fear the righteous flames,’” the merra quoted at her.

  “Pathetic flames, more like,” Rora snapped. “A mouse wouldn’t’ve feared them.”

  A hand pawed at her leg. “I’m sorry,” Anddyr whimpered, and looked up at her with the same puppy eyes as Aro.

  “Tell me what you saw,” Joros demanded.

  “Whole bunch of Northmen digging into the ground. No sign of what they’re looking for, but they’re looking hard.”

  “Where’s Scal?” the merra suddenly demanded.

  Rora thought about not answering her, just because of all the spitting, but Joros’s face creased in a frown, and she could see the question in his eyes, too. “He stayed back. Said he was gonna find out what they’re looking for.” She spoke just to Joros then, trying to let her eyes do more of the talking than her words. “We should probably move camp. Just in case someone saw that fire.”

  Joros’s eyes narrowed at her, and she knew she was being sized up just the same way she’d done to Scal. Finally he said, “She’s right. Horses, everyone. We’ll circle wide around the Northmen.”

  It wasn’t pride that filled Rora, just the same sort of feeling she got from Tare or Garim or the Dogshead, the feeling of knowing you’d done right and been approved of. She still didn’t much like Joros, but he was a man who knew what he was doing, there was no question of that.

  So they rode dead east for a while, away from where Scal was probably still hunkered down, where all the other Northmen were digging for Parents only knew what. They turned north again when Rora suggested it, because Anddyr was in the middle of another one of his fits, and with Scal gone and Joros looking like he’d got lost in his thoughts, there wasn’t really anyone else to play guide. So after a while she told them to stay put and ranged carefully out, making sure there wasn’t any sign of Northmen nearby, and then they set up another cold camp, curling into miserable balls. Scal’s fur cloak was big enough to cover her and Aro both, and they sat huddled together. Anddyr passed around hunks of near-frozen meat, but didn’t keep any for himself.

  Joros was still silent, hadn’t said a word since they’d moved camp. Rora cleared her throat to get his attention and said, “You know what they’re looking for, don’t you? All those Northmen.”

  “I may,” he said, still seeming pretty distracted. “Anddyr. How long since we left?”

  The witch glanced to the side, his lips moving like he was talking, but it was nothing Rora could hear. He looked back and said, “Forty-seven days.”

  It couldn’t’ve been more than two weeks since she and Aro’d joined up with them, so they’d been on the road a while before that. Joros was nodding, talking to himself just like Anddyr did, and that almost made Rora smile. “They must have left directly, could have stayed on the main roads and moved much faster . . .”

  “Who’s they?” Aro demanded.

  Joros gave him a withering look, but for once he seemed to be in a question-answering mood. “Some of my former compatriots. I don’t know who. A number were sent out to find the . . . items Anddyr was able to track down.”

  “Former compatriots?” the merra repeated. “You renounced the mountain?”

  “I did.”

  Her eyes narrowed, like she didn’t quite believe it. “Why?” she demanded, but Joros waved her words away like they were smoke.

  “What mountain?” Aro asked, but Rora touched his arm to hush him and ask a question of her own.

  “This is the place where you figure out if we’re useful or not, isn’t it?”

  “It is.”

  “Then you’d best tell us what we need to know.”

  The merra added, “Tell us all of it.”

  It was a dumb thing to ask, and Rora saw the same contempt on Joros’s face. The head never told his pack everything. He did tell them some, though, enough to keep them from asking too many questions. Joros spoke straight to Rora and Aro, and though she knew he hated sharing any words, still he kept talking: “I would imagine you know of the Bound Gods.” Aro snorted, but Rora’s hand on his arm kept him from interrupting. “There is a group, the Fallen, dedicated to freeing the Twins and restoring them to power. I was”—and his eyes darted darkly over to Vatri—“a member of that group. Their purposes no longer suit me. They are, however, at a point in time where they may be very close to achieving their goal.”

  The merra laughed, the sound cutting through the snow and wind and words. “You’re more a fool than I thought. The Twins can never be freed. They’re destroyed, and buried.”

  “Buried, yes. But not destroyed. Gods cannot be killed, even by other gods.”

  “Their powers are gone,” the merra went on, still laughing. “They’re trapped for all of eternity. Doomed to watch the world they hate carry on while they dwindle.”

  “You’re wrong,” Joros said evenly, “about so much. You priests always are. There is a way to free them, and restore them. It can be done, and it will. The Fallen need only find them.”

  Vatri laughed again, eyes bright with mirth. She looked more horrible that way than she did frowning like she usually was. “Oh, I’m shaking. There’s nothing more terri
fying than a god with no limbs.”

  “You,” Joros said, “are a fool. So sure of your invulnerability. I would almost”—and he gave a hard smile, the kind that didn’t even touch his eyes, the kind of smile that made Rora hear to the ends of the earth—“be content to sit here and let happen what will, if only to see you proved wrong.”

  The merra smiled right back, as much a threat as his was. “I would gladly sit and wait with you for as long as it takes. My corpse will keep watch on the sun, even after all memory of the Twins has faded from the world.”

  “Perhaps it will.”

  “Enough,” Rora said tiredly. She’d broken up enough pissing contents between Aro and the other boys in Dogshead Pack.

  “I’ll say nothing more,” the merra said, turning away with a smirk. “I have no more words for a traitor.”

  Rora rubbed her hands over her eyes. It’d been too long since she’d gotten a good amount of sleep. “So what’s the plan?” she asked Joros.

  “We’ll have to see what, if anything, Scal finds—”

  “You think the Twins are buried there, do you?” Vatri interrupted.

  Joros gave her a level look. “They just may be.”

  Again the merra laughed, long and loud.

  Without a word, Joros pulled at the pouch on his belt, the one Anddyr always did his magic on, and tossed it to Vatri. She caught it clumsily, the flap falling open, and showing a flash of black. She pulled it out, a black chunk almost too big to fit in one hand. Rora couldn’t figure out what it was, and the merra looked like she was having trouble, too. Then, all of a sudden, she started screaming, the black thing falling from her hands to roll in the snow.

  Anddyr and Joros moved in the same moment. The witch to scoop up the black thing, Joros to clap a hand over the merra’s mouth and cut off her screaming. She twisted away from him, disgust plain on her face, mixed in with raw horror. “Don’t touch me,” she snarled, scrambling backward away from him. She looked like a cornered cat, hissing and desperate and ready to kill.