In the Shadow of the Gods

by Rachel Dunne

  All the men who’d been fighting a second ago, stomping over dead men to get at the one Northman, were all down now, not a muscle moving. All down like dead men, except for the one still standing in the middle, his sword held up to block a blow that wasn’t going to fall anymore. Scal looked over at Rora, the only other person moving, their eyes meeting over all the bodies. The place was quiet as a crypt, and maybe it was one now.

  Rora turned to the merra. She was as unmoving as all the Northmen, but Rora pressed her hand against the side of Vatri’s neck and there was still a thump there, under all the hard, ridged skin. “She’s still alive,” she said, expecting Scal to be at her side. He wasn’t, though. He was just standing in the same place he had been, his sword hanging down and dripping blood on the ground, staring down at all the Northmen lying around like rag dolls. He was covered in blood, head to foot, and there was no knowing how much of it was his. Rora gave the merra a few slaps across the face, but it didn’t wake her up. Muttering to herself, Rora stood up and picked her way over the bodies to Scal. “Hey,” she said, but he didn’t answer. His eyes were somewhere far off, somewhere she couldn’t reach. She stretched up on her toes, reached up high as she could, and gave her arm a good swing. He reacted to the slap the way the merra hadn’t, his eyes blinking and finally focusing on her, his hand reaching up to touch his cheek. “I need your help with the merra,” she said when she was sure she had his attention.

  He nodded, like his mind was still off wandering, but he wiped his sword clean on the nearest body and sheathed it over his shoulder, following her back to the spot of yellow. He moved slow, like he was walking through a dream, like he expected all the Northmen to get back up and start fighting again.

  “She did this?” he asked. His voice was still the normal rumble, but it sounded different, somehow. Rora couldn’t put a finger on it, not with her head spinning like it was.

  “She must’ve. What’d you do, to make ’em all attack like that?”

  He shook his head, avoiding her eyes. He didn’t show emotion much, and Rora was a little lost to see it now. It didn’t help that she couldn’t really figure out what emotion he was finally showing either. He was a hard one to read, and he didn’t give any kind of answer to the question. When they got to Vatri, it was like he put on a mask, his eyes getting sharp like normal, his face going flat and smooth as a slab of cut stone.

  They hunkered down together next to the merra, and Scal lifted her up so that one of his hands was supporting her head, and with the other hand pulled the waterskin from his belt. It was as covered in blood as the rest of him, some of it dripping down onto the merra’s face with the water he squirted out. It worked better’n the slapping Rora’d tried, because Vatri’s eyes fluttered open, even if they didn’t seem to focus on anything. The water dripped down around her gasping mouth, faint pink trails where it touched Scal’s blood. “What did you do?” he asked her.

  “Not me,” the merra said weakly, and one of her hands lifted up to touch her chest. That didn’t make any kind of sense to Rora, but it seemed like it was enough for Scal, since he gave a small nod. Vatri started pushing herself up, trying to sit. She shook her head, like she was trying to clear out something inside it. “We should go. They’ll wake up soon.”

  “Then they are not dead?”

  “No. Just . . . sleeping.”

  Scal stood, pulled Vatri to her feet. The merra swayed, held on to Scal’s shoulder to keep from falling.

  “Why am I not also sleeping?” Scal asked.

  The merra reached out to tap a finger against his chest. “You have the Parents’ protection,” she said, and then her mouth stretched in a weird way. It took Rora a moment to realize it was supposed to be a smile. “I told you, I didn’t do this. I also told you they have a particular interest in you.”

  “She must’ve hit her head,” Rora said, but neither of them even seemed to hear her.

  “What happened here?” the merra asked Scal, motioning to all the Northmen, and then grimaced. “I mean . . . before me, what happened? Why did they attack you?”

  Scal frowned, and Rora expected him not to give her an answer either. Turned out he was just taking a long time to talk like he always did, like he was thinking his words over five times before he said them. “I did a thing that needed to be done, but should not have been,” he finally said. His eyes drifted across the ground and Rora followed them to where they stopped on the Northman with the little knife in his throat. “It was a thing that was not the way of the North. I”—and he shook his head, his eyes leaving the dead man and going back to Vatri’s face—“am not truly of the North.”

  Rora’d never felt more invisible, or less like she wanted to be somewhere. She looked up to the edge of the cliff where she’d come from, saw Aro’s head poking over, his arms sticking out, one waving and the other pointing deeper into the pit. She cleared her throat to get Scal and Vatri’s attention, pointed the same way Aro was. “Joros’s that way,” she said. “He might need some help.”

  And then there was a scream, echoing down from the way Rora’s finger pointed. Rora looked at Scal and he looked back, and something passed between them—something that was shared by people who were used to doing even after they thought they couldn’t move anymore. It was a look, a kind of test, that said something like If we both go do this, we’ll each have to do less. A silent sort of agreement between people who were used to cleaning up the stupid messes others made. So Scal scooped Vatri up and held her over his shoulder, and he was right at Rora’s side as they jogged deeper into the pit.

  CHAPTER 30

  There was a thing that kept a man going, after he should have rightly dropped. Once, Scal had seen a man fight with a dozen wounds, his own blood staining his battered armor as he fought. When the last bandit had fallen, the wounded man had stopped, looked around, and dropped. Dead at the very instant of victory. As long as there were things to be done, a man could force himself to do them. To push aside pain so raw it made a breath of wind feel like a thousand knives. To push aside the thinking, the thoughts that could make a mind or a heart crumble.

  Later. There was screaming. There was another thing to be done, yet.

  The witch-man knelt in the snow before a shallow hole, his hands scraped bloody as he pulled out things half frozen. There was a small pile on the ground next to him. One large piece, blackish-brown, bent in the middle. It was, Scal saw when he got closer, a giant’s arm. There were two bodies nearby, newly dead, still steaming in the cold air.

  Beyond, Joros knelt atop a third body. Scal guessed that she had been the one to scream, though she was screaming no longer. Joros’s hand lifted, a shortsword in his fist whose tip was dripping blood.

  Scal set Vatri upon the ground near the witch-man, told her softly to stay there, spoke to Rora with his eyes. She was competent. She knew how these things were done. She knelt down next to Anddyr, gently touching his arm. She would take care of him, and so Scal turned to Joros.

  He was not a small man. Heavy with his age and too little activity. Tall enough, for a Fiateran. One hand, grasping him by the back of his clothes, was enough to lift him off the woman. Deposit him struggling on the ice. Pull the sword from his hand. Then Scal looked to the woman.

  She was dead, well dead, a wide hole above her heart where the sword had gone in more times than Scal could guess. Joros had not aimed well, with the blows. Her chest was full of holes, her black robe blacker with blood. She stared sightlessly into the gray sky.

  Scal did not like the mutilation of corpses. A dead thing should be left to whatever peace there was in death. The dead have earned what little honor we can give them, Parro Kerrus had told him. Before death had touched his own life, Iveran had said, A dead man is nothing. Leave him, and let him rot.

  Joros’s fist pounded against his back, wordless rage pouring from his mouth. One of Scal’s hands, again, was enough to knock him to the ground. It left a print, the image of Scal’s hand marked in other men’s blood. H
olding his reddened jaw, Joros gaped up at Scal. He was not, Scal knew, a man used to being hit, for all the hitting he himself did.

  “This thing you did,” Scal said softly, motioning to the woman’s body with the other man’s sword, “it is not a good thing. You will not do it again.” He threw the sword at Joros’s feet. Waited. If the man moved to threaten, he could reach his own sword fast enough. Joros did not move, though. The glare remained on his face. The raw fury, and the hatred. But he did not reach for his sword.

  A laugh broke across the ice. High and wild. “I told you!” the witch-man cried out, and laughed again. “I knew it! Cappo! Oh, Cappo, come see!”

  Joros stood, still glaring, and sheathed his sword. Pushed past Scal, the woman forgotten. Over her, Scal murmured, “Be at peace in the Mother’s arms. Find shelter at the side of the Father.” Then he, too, went to see what the witch-man had found.

  There had been two giants in the hole, long dead, a cocoon made of their entwined bodies. The witch-man had torn them apart. Shattered the dusty bones. Ripped the dry flesh. Opened them like a cracked egg to show what lay within. All that was left, now, were the heads and the torsos, and the black thing curled between their chests.

  “Abomination,” Vatri said softly. She was distant still, since the thing she had done. He could see the fire returning to her eyes, but slowly.

  “I found it,” the witch-man crowed. Joros clapped him on the shoulder. Laughed. Coming from him, Scal could hardly recognize the sound.

  Together Joros and the witch-man lifted the black thing from the hole. They struggled with the weight of it, the size of it, as big as Scal’s chest. No one helped, or even offered. Scal did not want to be any nearer to it. Finally they laid it on the ground. Began pulling at parts of it. Uncurling it, slowly. Carefully. Making it nearly as big as Scal from foot to chin. When they had done, it was a hand. Blackened, and bigger than a hand could be, but a hand.

  Eyes bright, Joros looked to the witch-man. “What do you think, Anddyr? Burn it?”

  Vatri made a choking noise. “You’re going to destroy it?”

  “I told you.” Joros smirked at her, the mirth still in his eyes. “I’ve sworn to keep them bound. With one Twin broken, they can never be whole, and the best way to ensure they stay that way is by destroying Fratarro piece by piece. The toe is all I need to find the remaining pieces—like calls to like. I don’t intend to leave this”—and he tapped his foot to the great hand—“for any more of my old friends to find.”

  “I didn’t . . .” Vatri closed her mouth. Frowning. Thoughtful. Tried to speak again, stopped. Finally she managed, “Fire. Fire is the way.”

  Scal did not understand any of it. He decided he did not want to. There was a feeling, deep in his stomach and his chest, that he could not name. He did not like to look at the hand. Instead he watched Vatri. Watched the thoughts whirl behind her eyes, the distant-seeing pupils. She was returning to herself, after the thing she had done, but her eyes still moved strangely. She would need watching. Need to stay awake. He had seen men die, after a hit on the head, after their eyes had gone strange. Talking, laughing, drinking, and then sleeping and dead. It was not the same with her, for she had not hit her head, but still she would bear watching.

  The witch-man tried to make his spells, waving his fingers and hands, but he stopped. “I can’t,” he whimpered.

  Joros would have been angry, a different time. He was not now. “Scal,” he called. Sounded almost happy. “We need a fire.”

  He looked to Vatri, and she looked back. The strangeness was in her eyes still, and something else. She nodded, and so Scal pulled out his flint. He did not like having to get so close to the hand. The skin of it was hard, did not catch fire easily. There was no kindling. Only sparks falling onto the black palm, dancing for a moment, flickering out. Stars, falling in the night sky. Finally one landed and caught. The tenderest of flames, gasping against the unyielding skin. Fire, Parro Kerrus had said, is the most powerful thing there is in this world. It caught, and it held. Quickly, then, it began to eat. Scal backed away, to Vatri’s side. She watched the glowing flames. The same way she always did. Searching in them, for the voice of her goddess. The fire rose, stronger. Grown fat on its feast.

  “It’s done,” she said softly, though the flames still rose against the gray sky. Caught the falling snow and turned it to smoke. “We should go. I don’t know how much more time we have.”

  “For what?” Joros demanded.

  “Until the Northmen wake up.”

  There was too much to be explained. Too much Scal did not know, or understand. Time to leave, that he knew. That was a thing he could do. He rose, and he did not wait. He walked. Heard light footsteps following. Rora, it would be. Careful with her feet, careful with her words. Behind he could hear Vatri, trying to explain to Joros. Failing, because the words were rattled in her brain. The witch-man spoke softly to himself, the way he always did. Scal led them wide around where the Valastaa Clan lay sleeping among their dead. He did not want to see them again. Silently he prayed for them, for all the men he had known and killed this day. It was vengeance. Justice. Parro Kerrus and Brennon could rest now, be peaceful at the Father’s side. It was a strange thing, though. He could not see Brennon in his mind’s eye. When he tried to think of his friend’s face, he saw only a still babe burning in his dead mother’s arms.

  He hurt, in every way a man could hurt. Later. There were things still that must be done.

  Rora came to his side, took the snowbear cloak from her shoulders. Held it out to him. His hand reached for it. Stopped. He shook his head. “Keep it,” he said, though he could not have said why. She put it back over her shoulders, the end of it dragging along the ground behind her.

  They found her brother at the edge of the pit, at the top of the slope leading into its depths. He held the horses, looking too proud of such a simple thing, and there was wonder in his eyes. “I thought you’d be dead for sure,” he said as Scal took Hevnje’s reins. He did not answer. Simply mounted, though his leg could hardly hold his weight. Began to ride. He could hear the the five others following, their voices mixing together. “I told you to stay up there.” “I knew it, I found it, right all along . . .” “The Parents work through me.” “How’s any of that possible?” “Anddyr has located four more.” He did not want to listen. Time to leave.

  The snow fell. It always did, and always would. Gray, this deep in the North. Sometimes a lighter gray, sometimes a darker. The sun did not truly rise or set here. It circled in the sky behind the gray snowy clouds, endlessly chasing the moon, but was never gone. There was always snow, and always gray. Little else. Little enough else to keep a man thinking. To keep his thoughts from going to the places he could not let them. Not yet. He was not done, yet.

  Vatri rode next to him, after a time had passed. She startled him from a half-sleeping daze, though she did not seem to notice it. “I think I know now,” she said. “Why Metherra brought me to you. You were meant to lead me here. For this. A black coal against the white . . .” She stopped. He could see her trying to sort the words. To make them come out right, when she was not even sure of the right way to spin them. “I thought he was evil, thought he was trying to free the Twins. That’s what the preachers do, I didn’t think he was any different. But now . . . I think he’s doing the right thing, truly. He’s trying to keep the Parents safe. Maybe not for the right reasons, or in the right ways, but . . . a good thing done for bad reasons is still a good thing, isn’t it? He knows things, Scal. He says the Fallen really can free the Twins. I can’t . . . not help. To stop them, I mean. And I think that’s why Metherra showed you to me. If I hadn’t found you, I never would have known about any of this. I never would have been able to do anything, and now I can. I can really help. Scal? Can you hear me?”

  The words were trapped in him. Hard in his throat. So many things in all his lives he had never said. Too late, now. Always too late. There was a breaking here. A fracture in a slab of ic
e, spidering slowly but unstoppably outward. There was an ending waiting for him, somewhere. A fourth life he had built, in all these years. A life he had not liked. Not been able to change. The snowbear claw still hung around his neck, next to the flamedisk of the Parents. It would end soon, this life. Perhaps it already had. He did not think this was a new life he was in now. It did not feel like a fifth beginning. It was a space between. Another wandering. Another searching, in the endless snow.

  They camped that night, the moon a pale shimmer beyond the falling snow. Vatri collected twigs to build a little fire, with Joros helping. Rora said it was a bad idea. They were not so far from the pit. The Northmen might come looking for them. Her eyes went to Scal for support. He saw them, saw the plea there. He could not answer it. His throat was closed, holding back all the things that would come spilling forth if he did not hold them tight.

  “The Tashat Mountains, I think,” Joros said. “That one’s the closest. We may be too late for any of the others, but we’ll have to try.”

  “If they find the other pieces, though,” Vatri asked, “won’t they be able to free the Twins?” Her voice sounded clearer. The words coming more steadily. She would not need watching for much longer.

  “Perhaps, but they’ll be much weaker than their full potential. Weak enough that, even unbound, they could still be destroyed. Fratarro is the key—in breaking him, the Parents broke both their children. It’s only a matter of keeping them broken . . .”

  A face loomed before Scal’s eyes. Crinkles around the mouth, between the eyebrows. Concern, yet also a distance. “Hey,” Rora said, touching his shoulder, “are you all right?”

  They had stopped. There were things to do yet, but they were far-off things. Things that were too far away to see in his mind’s eye. They were not things to keep a man going beyond his time. They had stopped. There would be no more pushing off. No more later. Nothing left to stop the inevitable. The walls dropped, and the world rushed in to break against him. There was too much pain. Body and heart, and it was too much. Scal was a simple man, and there was only so much a man could do.