‘Then tell me why you came here. What were you to do?’
Dom’s hands were on her waist, thumbs stroking the muscles of her flanks. Her golden eyes bore into his, demanding, promising. He bent his head and kissed Her, their tongues twining around each other, Her breasts soft against his chest.
‘Beautiful,’ She murmured, Her finger over his lips to break the kiss, ‘but you are avoiding my question. Why did you come here? You will answer me.’
‘To do your will,’ he whispered and She licked her lips. ‘Whatever that will may be.’
‘Well done. Now tell me why.’
Because She was there, and here, and inside him, and She was never going to go away, he knew that now, he understood it in a sudden rush. It was over. He was Hers. She was endless and eternal and beautiful and terrible and he had no more strength to resist. With the knowledge came a certain peace, blanketing the fear, the guilt, the shame.
‘I give up,’ he whispered through bloody lips. ‘I give up,’ he said again, louder. ‘I’m yours.’ He inhaled Her scent of blood and smoke and closed his eyes, focused on the place in his head where the gods spoke and broke it open to give it to Her, to spill every last secret he had, even that one. The one that would end everything.
He packaged up his soul and he held it out for Her to take.
There was an explosion in front of him, light and heat and the tang of lightning and Dom fell backwards, hit his head on the stone and curled on to his side, waiting for the Dark Lady to claim him. That She would he had no doubt.
Instead a tender hand caressed his back and the scent of flowers filled his nostrils, chasing out the stench of burning. ‘Hello, Calestar,’ the Dancer said.
Dom looked up and recognised Her, and rage coursed through his veins, pounded in his head. ‘You come to me now?’ he screamed as She cocooned him in peace and light, Her face sad and beautiful and just as blinding as the Dark Lady’s, just as loved and hated when all was said and done.
‘You come to me here, in the graveyard of your people, among the corpse fires of my family?’ He swung at Her and She avoided the blow; then She swept him up into Her arms.
‘I come when you need me. I always have.’
‘No, you come when your plan’s in danger of failing,’ Dom shouted as She soothed away the pain and left balm in its place. He was empty without it, without something to strive against. So he strove against Her and Her endless demands, Her unending love.
‘That’s what you care about, not me. You don’t give a fuck about me.’ He paused, coughing. ‘Why are you doing this to me?’ and now his voice was cracked, failing. Like the rest of him.
‘I love you, Calestar, as I love all people. I love those who walk my Sister’s bloody path, and I welcome any who come to my Light.’ She rocked him as he would a babe. ‘I come now because your faith is weak and you need to be strong. And because you must understand the rest now. What has been dark I will illuminate. And I do it because I must. Because you are my beloved. And I’m sorry.’ She smiled, flickers of light dancing through and over Her face and form, and then She cupped his chin and kissed him.
The knowledge of what he was to do was an axe chopping into his mind, a lash scourging his soul into tatters and Dom screamed, screamed and wept and flailed against Her embrace. No, he wouldn’t. He fucking couldn’t. Not that. Not any of it.
‘You must be strong, Calestar,’ the Dancer whispered, releasing him. ‘This is only the beginning.’ And She brushed Her fingers on the raw wound of Dom’s wrist and the itching returned, worse than ever.
GALTAS
Third moon, eighteenth year of the reign of King Rastoth
East Rank headquarters, Grazing Lands, Listran border
‘My lord, we’ve had a veritable flock of pigeons from the prince,’ Skerris said. He passed over the slips of paper, each numbered so the code could be deciphered.
‘This is it, Skerris, I can feel it,’ Galtas said. ‘Rastoth the Mad’s time is up.’
‘Long live King Rivil the First in the gods’ bloody embrace.’
Galtas unrolled each paper in turn and compared the letters and numbers to the cipher he had inked on to the inside of his money pouch. ‘“Lockdown lifted. Durdil imprisoned. Command is mine.”’ Skerris slammed his palm on the table in excitement. ‘“West Rank still coming” – that’s unfortunate. “Will try for Rastoth.”’
‘He’s got balls, that one,’ Skerris rumbled approvingly. ‘Utterly without allies and still going for the king. And the last one?’
Galtas held it up. ‘“Bring everything you’ve got.”’ He rubbed his hands together. ‘Well, that would be five thousand highly trained soldiers, a priest of Gosfath, several chests of gold and the blessing of the Red Gods, wouldn’t it?’ He tipped his head back and laughed. ‘Think it’ll be enough?’
They raised a glass to Rivil and the gods and Skerris summoned his staff and told them the news.
‘I gave a job to my tailor in Three Beeches for just this occasion, my lord,’ Skerris said when the jubilation had muted. ‘From afar it would be best to appear a loyal Rank, but I wanted some indication of our true allegiance, so I’ve had these made up.’ He pulled a cloth badge from inside his uniform. ‘Couldn’t get anything in blue, of course, but I’ve built up a fair store of woad and I’ve got some lads dyeing the others already. Delivered this morning.’
Galtas studied the white patch. An embossed R hovering over a wide black line that curved and narrowed. ‘A Dark Path?’ Galtas queried. ‘That is a bold move, General. Are these tailors of yours to be trusted?’
Skerris waved away his concern. ‘John and Mara Tailorson have worked for the East Rank for years. I’ve made sure to request some odder things during my time here, so they suspect little.’
Galtas crumpled the badge in his fist. ‘John and Mara Tailorson of Three Beeches? They’re here now?’
‘Yes, my lord. Why, do you know them?’
‘You could say that. I swore to kill their son; he nearly destroyed all my years of work, but he slipped through my hands. I wonder if I could beg them from you?’
Skerris frowned at the ceiling but then a broad grin split his face. ‘Take them. At least that way I don’t have to pay them, and it spares any awkward questions over my design, I suppose.’ He slapped Galtas on the back. ‘I wish you joy of them.’
‘John and Mara Tailorson, is it?’
The woman took several pins from her mouth and stuck them in a cushion. ‘That’s us. What can we do for you, sir?’
‘I’ve some news of your son, Captain Crys Tailorson.’
Mara pressed a hand to her heart and called for her husband. The room they’d been given to make repairs to the officers’ uniforms was small and well lit and Galtas could see Crys’s resemblance to his father immediately.
‘John, love, the lord has news of our Crys.’
‘Is that true, milord? Why, we’d be so grateful for any news, troubling times like this. Last we heard he’d joined the Palace Rank.’
‘That’s true,’ Galtas said, closing the door behind him and examining the piles of jackets and shirts. ‘This is very fine work, madam.’
‘Thank you, milord. So Crys is safe then?’
‘Hmm?’ Galtas looked up. ‘Safe? Oh no, Mara, Crys isn’t safe. Crys is dead. But don’t worry, I’ll send you to meet him.’
John didn’t even move as Galtas drew his sword and punched it through his chest. He fell hard, skull bouncing from the floorboards and his features never losing their expression of disbelief. Mara’s scream echoed to the rafters.
Galtas crouched by the dying man and studied his face. He stroked John’s hair out of his eyes with gentle fingers. ‘My name’s Galtas Morellis. I didn’t quite get around to cutting Crys to bloody ribbons like I swore to do, so in the absence of his hide to carve my name into, yours is just going to have to do.’
Mara unfroze and ran at him with a pair of cloth shears and Galtas flicked his blade out and hacked it int
o her ankle as she came. Her shriek climbed the scale and she pitched on to her face, howling. Galtas punched her into silence. ‘Lie there nice and quiet now, there’s a good girl. I promise I won’t forget about you.’
‘Dancer … Dance—’ John Tailorson tried. ‘Cryssssss …’
Galtas pushed his face right into John’s so the man was cross-eyed looking at him. ‘That’s right, John Tailorson. This is all the fault of your son. All Crys’s fault. All of it. What I’m going to do to poor old Mara over there’ – he pointed, then swung his finger to indicate out of the window – ‘and then what’s going to happen to young Richard and young, very young, and very beautiful apparently, Wenna Tailorson, back at your shop in Three Beeches, well, you can lay that blame on your son as well.’ Galtas sat up and patted John’s cheek.
‘Untouched, little Wenna, I’m guessing. Makes sense if she really is only thirteen. But rest easy knowing she won’t die pure. Might not die at all, if she pleases me.’ Galtas hawked and spat into John’s gaping mouth. ‘But then, I have such particular tastes. How likely is it that a child can satisfy them all?’
Mara started screaming then and Galtas punched her again. ‘Do be quiet. This is going to be tricky and I need to concentrate. I told you it’ll be your turn soon enough. And anyway, if I’m going to try the daughter, it’s only fair to see what the mother has to offer first.’
He looked back at John. ‘Well,’ he said brightly, resting on his heels and ripping at the bloody shirt with his knife. ‘Let’s get started, eh?’
John couldn’t really manage anything other than a bloody gurgle, but Galtas took it for acceptance anyway. ‘I’m afraid I’m going to have to make this quick. It doesn’t do to keep a lady waiting, and we’ve got a king to kill.’ John gargled again, and Galtas bit his bottom lip in concentration and got to work.
CRYS
Third moon, eighteenth year of the reign of King Rastoth
Watchtown, Western Plain
A forced march like this, with wounded, would’ve gone down in the history books if it wasn’t for the fact they were too late.
‘A day, maybe two ahead of us. They’ll have hit the Rank’s harbour by now, commandeered what they need and scuttled the rest. They’re sailing; we’re walking. We’ll never catch them.’
Crys’s voice was scratchy with thirst and fatigue and he looked for Ash in the throng of Wolves sitting, kneeling and sobbing in the grass in front of the blackened shell of their town.
Tara drifted gently to her knees and then leant on her hands, head hanging down. ‘These poor people,’ she muttered. ‘Came to fight with us and lost everything they have in the process. How many of them are there now?’
‘A few hundred survivors,’ Crys answered, his voice dull. ‘Gods, even the children,’ he said as a woman staggered out of the ruins with a bundle clutched to her chest. ‘Sweet Dancer, they killed everyone.’
‘Dom? Dom, are you here?’ The voice was thin and faint with distance and had been repeating the same question for the best part of an hour. If Dom was there, he was dead or deaf or both. He wondered whether Dom’d made it in time to be killed by Mireces, whether that was what he’d wanted. Or had the madness of the Dark Lady’s torments broken his mind and he didn’t know what he was doing any more? Ash had told him of the nightly visitations and Dom had taken to sleeping alone a mile from camp before the battle just so everyone else got some rest.
Crys shuddered. Alone in the woods, in the dark, with the Red Gods haunting you. He looked again at Ash and wanted nothing more than to go and wrap his arms around him. The one thing he couldn’t do. ‘I’m going to look inside,’ he said abruptly.
Tara’s lip curled. ‘Why?’ He didn’t answer and Tara didn’t push.
Crys threaded through the grieving Wolves to Ash and pulled him into a quick hug. ‘All right?’ he whispered.
‘No,’ Ash said. ‘Not in the least.’ They stepped apart and Crys felt a flush of guilt that he couldn’t comfort his lover.
‘I wish—’
‘Don’t,’ Ash said. ‘Thank you, but I have my people. What’s left of them anyway,’ he added bitterly. Crys hovered at his shoulder for a few seconds and then retreated from the rawness of their pain, berating himself for a coward.
Feeling a sudden urge to hide from everything, he made his way into the town, gaping at the scale of the destruction. Barely a building left standing. They hadn’t just killed the people, they’d gutted the town, torn it apart in a whirlwind of savagery. He could hear Rillirin calling for Dom to the north so he made his way into the eastern quarter, the furthest from the main gates, where the fire might not have spread so much.
The town had begun to smell, a miasma that coated his tongue and the back of his throat, but Crys found himself walking with his hands outstretched to either side, palms down. ‘Lady Dancer, sweet and true, take these people into your Light. Lord of cunning, holy Fox God, end their trials and bring them now to rest.’
He blessed the dead as best he could, not being a priest, blessed them from the heart and the smell and the horror began to melt away until Crys saw only the Light and he knew their souls were safe in its peace.
The houses were less burnt here, some looming strangely untouched as the road opened out and Crys recognised the town’s assembly place. They’d fought hard here, making use of firing platforms on the roofs and alley traps, using the width of the assembly place to fight in step, and they’d taken their share of heathens with them.
Crys was turning back when movement caught his eye. The flapping of cloth, that’s all. It flapped again, too regular a motion in this erratic wind, and Crys pulled out his knife and crept closer on soft feet. He rounded a mess of corpses and his eyes made sense of what he was seeing. Crys sheathed his knife and crouched down.
‘Hello, Dom, it’s me, Crys. Remember me?’
Dom stopped scraping at his forearm with a piece of splintered wood and his gaze wandered up to Crys’s face. He recoiled. ‘Hello, Fox God,’ he said and fainted.
DOM
Third moon, eighteenth year of the reign of King Rastoth
Watchtown, Western Plain
‘Easy, man, easy. There’s nothing to fear. Here, drink some water.’ A dribble of wet on his lips. He swallowed. ‘Good, good. A little more.’ He swallowed, mouth and water tasting of flame and blood. ‘Do you remember your name?’ the voice continued and a small frown creased Dom’s forehead. This voice … it wasn’t the voice. A man’s voice?
‘Who?’ he managed to croak, his eyelids refusing to lift.
‘It’s Crys, Crys Tailorson, do you remember? I brought word of the death of Prince Janis some weeks ago?’
‘Watchtown?’ Dom forced one eye open, squinting in the glare of daylight at a blurry outline. A warm breeze shook his hair, brought the tang of smoke to his nostrils. So thirsty, skin tight, sore with heat. Dom managed to unglue his other eyelid and focus for the first time.
‘Watchtown’s gone, my friend. There’s nothing left. No survivors. Just you.’
Dom hacked out a cough and drank again. Corpses everywhere, some in Mireces blue, most not. ‘How did I get here?’ he asked, not remembering. Crys was outlined in bright light, making it hard to focus on him.
‘You had a knowing in the West Forts, remember? You told Lim and the general that Watchtown was going to be destroyed. Then you stole Mace’s prize hunter and rode here alone.’ Crys gave him some more water. ‘What were you going to do? Did you see it happen?’
Dom pushed up on to his elbows and stared at the carnage. It was bewildering, absurd in its excess. ‘No, I was too late. They’re gone. I missed them.’
‘They’re waiting in the Light for you, Dom.’
‘Not them,’ Dom said.
‘Then who?’
‘Doesn’t matter now.’ Dom cleared his throat, looking away from the massacre with guilty relief. ‘You were here earlier, weren’t you? You saw the knowing? Did I speak?’
Crys shook his head and Dom g
usted a sigh. ‘Fine, you need to tell Lim. Don’t think Mace’ll believe me, but you can try. It’s all falling apart in Rilporin. Rastoth’s madness is increasing and he’s given Rivil command of the defences. Water.’ Dom drank and tried to collect his scattered thoughts. So tired, the light so bright around Crys. ‘There’s no one left to oppose him. Durdil’s under arrest. The East is moving. Chaos.’
‘Calestar? What else? What else?’ Crys’s voice was rising, whining in Dom’s ears like mosquitoes. A leap of smoke and flame across the square, a roof falling in. He felt the rumble through the earth, up into the bones of his spine, shivering through his lungs. It was still burning. Everything was burning.
Dom grabbed Crys in a tight embrace. ‘You shine. Do you know why?’ Crys didn’t answer. ‘Shine with godlight, Crys Tailorson. Shine like Him. You have to believe.’
Crys pushed him away hard but it didn’t matter. Dom’s eyes were full of the fire now, fire roaring, eating houses, eating bodies. It filled his face and head, filled his brain, went searing down his right arm to his wrist, up into his right eye.
The knowing came, and so did She. She wasn’t quite here in the world, but She was close enough, a flickering presence on the other side of the shadowy veil that was so thin now, so thin, and he could no more hide the knowing from Her than he could hide from himself.
CRYS
Third moon, eighteenth year of the reign of King Rastoth
Watchtown, Western Plain
‘Dom? Calestar?’
Crys shook him but whatever had happened, he was out. Dom had smiled, reached out as though he was taking someone’s hand, someone only he could see, and passed out again. Crys, feeling like a traitor, picked up one of the few lumps of unburnt wood lying nearby. He didn’t want to hurt Dom, but Dom wasn’t right in the head. Or at least, something in Dom’s head wasn’t right.
This business with the shining again. He’d thought it just a one-off, part of Dom’s condition. He’d forgotten all about it. Godlight? What did that even mean?
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