The Eternal Kingdom (The Children Trilogy Book 3)

by Ben Peek

  He remained like that until Xrie approached. Once he was within speaking distance of him, the older man rose his head. ‘Uncle,’ he said, the voice barely carrying to Ayae. Then, louder, he said, ‘We have come to settle blood.’

  ‘You cannot claim that here,’ Xrie said. ‘Yeflam does not share your blood.’

  ‘We all share blood today.’ As the warrior spoke, it became clear that he was reciting lines he had rehearsed in the traders’ tongue. ‘The borders of land must be put aside. A blow struck at Yeflam is a blow struck at the Saan. In the First Kingdom of Ooila such a blow was made. It lingers in us like the destruction we see in Leviathan’s Blood. In the First Queen’s Province, our wound was made by the Innocent, Aela Ren.’ A ripple of whispers ran through the crowd and Ayae’s hands curled into each other. ‘Hau Dvir told us how the swords of our warriors did not hurt him, how the strength of our finest failed, and how the Innocent’s only desire was to speak of a new god, to hear her name spoken so that we could all hear it.’

  ‘Se’Saera.’

  ‘Yes, Uncle.’

  ‘Rise, Miat.’ From the ocean, the second boat was brought onto the shore. A woman stepped from it. Xrie greeted her as if there was nothing unusual in her presence, though even Ayae knew that there was, for the women of the Saan are forbidden to travel, and then he turned to the soldiers behind him. ‘Send word to Lady Wagan and Lord Alahn,’ he said. ‘Tell them that the Lord of the Saan has come to speak with them.’

  2.

  Until he led the tall grey into the hold of Glafanr, Bueralan had long considered the transportation of animals an act of cruelty, one that he tried to avoid. Over the years, he had stood on decks of vessels both large and small, and watched as horses were lowered into stalls not large enough for them to lie down in. It was a mercenary’s joke that, no matter how poorly you were housed on a ship, your horse had it worse. Packed tightly against each other, the animals spent the voyage in a canvas sling for support. At its end, they were lifted out and dropped into the black water to swim to shore. Bueralan could still remember watching the horses of Sky, the first mercenary unit he served in, swimming frantically after such an event, and the horror he felt when fatigued horses sank and did not rise. In the years that followed, he had taken to selling his horse at the market on the shore and buying a new one when he landed. It was a choice that he did not have as he rode into Dyanos, and one that he doubted, anyway, he could have acted upon given all that he had shared with the tall grey.

  ‘You still have not named him.’ Aela Ren had stood beside Bueralan as the sling was fitted to the beast before he was lowered through the hold’s entrance. They had still been in Ooila, then. ‘I would tell you that you should, that all things should be named, but we have had that conversation.’

  ‘We have,’ he had replied, watching the tall grey sink into the ship.

  After a moment, the Innocent said, ‘Kaze will take good care of him. You need not worry for his fate on this voyage.’

  After he had returned from the wreck of Mercy, Bueralan had climbed down the ladder that led to the bowels of Glafanr. Kaze sat, as she often did, at the end of the space that ran between the stalls in the hold, the booths laid out on either side of her, big enough for horses to both stand and lie down in. With her back to Bueralan, she revealed a long, narrow, dark-skinned body. She was not as dark as Bueralan, and her hair was tightly curled and verging on a ruddy red. Her long life had left her with little accent – like many of Aela Ren’s soldiers – and the saboteur did not know where she had originally been born. For her part, Kaze did not offer the information: she, like all of the soldiers on Glafanr, identified herself as the servant of a god that no longer existed. That was their birthplace and their nationality. For Kaze, that was Linae, the Goddess of Fertility, the first of the gods that had died.

  ‘He has been fed already.’ Kaze spoke as he drew closer, not turning from the table. ‘He has been brushed and walked, as well.’

  ‘Maybe I came down to thank you.’

  At that, the woman turned to him, her hazel eyes peering through a pair of thin wire frames. ‘Because we are so social, yes?’

  ‘Social creatures.’

  Above them, in the rafters of the hold, a hammock had been slung. More than once, Bueralan had found Kaze lying in it and reading, having preferred the company of horses to that of her fellow immortals. ‘Yes,’ she said, blandly. ‘You came to ask about Taela?’

  He wasn’t surprised. ‘She is showing—’

  ‘Much more than she should,’ she finished. ‘I know.’

  ‘What does it mean?’ Bueralan stopped before the tall grey and rubbed his hand along the horse’s head. ‘For Taela, that is.’

  ‘You should convince her to let me see her.’ Kaze rose from her seat. On the table she left the old bridle and bit she had been working on. ‘I know only so much from a distance. Linae made it easier for me to help a child into the world, but I cannot work miracles.’

  It still surprised Bueralan to hear the god-touched talk about their gods, to hear them speak about the gods as if they were still their servants and their servitude had never ended. He had, at first, thought of them as individuals similar to those who were ‘cursed’, a belief helped by Aela Ren and the soldier Joqan. Bueralan had seen Ren’s strength and speed, but it had been the way that the latter coaxed the lava out beneath Ooila that had assured him of it. If the servant of Sil, the God of the Earth, could do that, then surely all the god-touched echoed the god that they served. But at sea, a different awareness had come to define itself. Joqan rode the waves poorly and was often seen on the deck of Glafanr with a faintly ill expression. He could not create fire, or cause the earth to rise up out of the black water, and it was not long before Bueralan realized that here lay the biggest difference between the god-touched and the men and women who were ‘cursed’ with a god’s power. The god-touched had been chosen, and had been given strength and immortality, but their masters had kept everything but the faintest part of their divine dominion from their servants. It meant that the god-touched did not fear it. They knew it, they could even touch it and draw from it. But they could not to control and master it in the way that the ‘cursed’ could.

  ‘But you know something, don’t you?’ he said.

  ‘It isn’t for you to hear. It is for her.’

  ‘She doesn’t want your help.’

  ‘Of course not.’ After Cynama, after Taela had failed to abort the child within her, Se’Saera had sent Kaze to examine her. ‘But I have never lost a mother,’ the god-touched woman said. She stopped before the grey and held out a slice of apple for the horse. ‘You should tell her that.’

  ‘What about a child?’

  ‘No child, either.’ She scratched the grey’s nose after he finished the slice. ‘But sometimes they are lost well before they are born.’

  ‘Do you think that likely here?’

  ‘You are like a father,’ she said. ‘Has anyone told you that?’

  He let the barb slide past. ‘Just tell me,’ he said. ‘She won’t talk to you, anyway.’

  Kaze was silent. She scratched the grey again. Then she said, ‘A god’s child is never lost. And it is never normal.’

  ‘Have there been many?’ Bueralan asked. ‘Many children of gods?’

  ‘The name is common, but no. It is rare. There was a very famous prophecy when I was a little girl that said that twins would be born, one to lead, one to fear. The two began a war that lasted a generation and, afterwards, women who were thought to be pregnant with twins were drowned. Baar did that. The God of War. His two children were said to be able to talk to him, and often claimed to be part of his own awareness. That is why they went to war.’

  She spoke mildly, as if the details were benign, and not something awful. Bueralan saw again Se’Saera’s hand thrust into Taela. Saw her push Zean’s soul down her throat. He did not ask how a child could be made from such an action, but rather what kind of child. Would it be a representa
tion of Se’Saera, a part of her, like the twins Kaze had just spoken of? And if those two had been a part of the God of War, what would Se’Saera’s child reveal about her?

  Would any of Zean be there?

  ‘On the topic of the God of War, I see you met General Zilt,’ Kaze said. She gave the grey one last scratch, and turned from it, to the other horses. ‘He was one of Baar’s favourites.’

  ‘He’s god-touched?’ Bueralan asked, surprised. The God of War had the distinction of being one of only three gods whose servants were not onboard Glafanr.

  ‘No, he is not like us.’ She laughed, as if the thought had humour in it, as if the leader of soldiers who allowed themselves to become monsters was funny. ‘No, Baar had soldiers that he watched. He was said to enjoy the way they fought. He would find a second when he found a first, for he was a god very much about balance. Hence the twin children. Zilt and his soldiers were the last of them. The very first tribesmen on the Plateau were the other side of that equation.’

  ‘Maybe Zilt should return the Plateau, then. He did not win any favours when he explained what happened in Yeflam after our new god left.’

  ‘I heard some of it. He said that he was driven away by a storm.’

  Zilt had knelt before Se’Saera when he explained what had happened, a chastised servant, a man admitting a wrong. ‘The Keepers washed him and his soldiers away, apparently,’ Bueralan said. ‘But that was not the part that struck me. It was after that. He said that the Keepers were in Leera, waiting for us. Waiting for her, waiting to pledge their loyalty.’

  ‘We’re all friends, are we?’ Kaze shook her head. ‘What did Aela say?’

  ‘He didn’t say anything.’

  3.

  The midday’s sun was high above the trees and the humidity had a touch of death’s odour in it. The Leeran camp looked like bones: the tents stripped of cloth, supplies and coin, while the dead had been rolled into a pile, their weapons and armour removed.

  Heast stood just beyond the dead, near the middle of the Leeran camp, where he had entered it the night before. Before him, the bodies of his fallen lay in a wagon. Eleven soldiers: four women, seven men, each still dressed and covered in thin blankets from head to toe. Not one of them was a member of his precious veterans. Heast did not like to remind himself of that, but he would not deny the reality of it, either.

  He had told Refuge that he would be heading to Vaeasa tonight. He did not lie to them: he told them what had been found in the tent. ‘The Lords of Faaisha will not be happy to see me,’ he said to them. ‘Lord Jye Tuael will tolerate me, however. At least, he will to hear what I say. If he is as corrupt as his marshal, then Anemone and I will struggle to make it back. If he’s not, we will return with weapons, armour and soldiers. While I’m gone, Sergeant Bliq and Sergeant Qiyala will have command. Kye Taaira will be their second. Listen to all three while I am gone.’

  He had approached the wagon after he dismissed them.

  There was no horse to pull it, but Corporal Isaap and the remains of his squad had asked for the task of pulling it through the scrub to their next camp. Heast had ordered them to go ahead to the ruins of Celp. He would meet them there later. The bodies would be buried well before then, he knew. He would have preferred for them to be burned, but he knew that that was not the Faaishan way. Still, he trusted that Bliq and Qiyala would keep the tracks and the graves hidden as they made their way to Celp. When it came to the burial, however, neither knew the words that were said over the dead soldiers of Refuge. It had been over two decades since Heast had said the words himself, but he would not allow the cart to leave without him saying them. The soldiers had given what they had for him, given it to Refuge, and it did not matter that what they had was not enough, that it was not moulded by years of war, of the industry of violence he had brought them into. They had given all they had and he asked for no less.

  ‘Captain.’ Corporal Isaap appeared beside him, a heavy rope over his shoulder. He was a lean man, no more than a boy, really, the dark beard along his olive skin a patchy stubble of thin hair. ‘I’m not interrupting, am I?’

  ‘No,’ Heast said.

  ‘It’s just that you looked as if you were speaking.’

  ‘Merely offering my thanks, Corporal. A captain can do only that at this point.’

  Isaap lowered the rope to the ground. ‘It was my mistake, sir.’ He almost called him marshal. A lot of them did. ‘I don’t know how, but the Ancestor heard us. You should have chosen someone else for the job.’

  Heast turned to him, turned away from the wagon. ‘How long have you been a soldier?’ he asked.

  ‘A few months.’ Isaap offer a wry smile. ‘Just over a year, I guess. I was given my post last spring.’

  ‘What were you before?’

  ‘Rich.’

  ‘And you gave that up, did you?’

  ‘No, sir. My parents said I could be rich and respectful in the lord’s army.’ He ran a hand through his hair, fidgeting, embarrassed by what he had said. ‘My parents did not want the family to stay in Maosa. They said that there was no fortune there, beyond what they had. No prestige. They said I should distinguish myself to bring the attention of the other lords to me. You know how parents are, sir.’

  ‘Mine have been dead for a long time.’ They had, at any rate, not been like that. ‘But I know what you mean. Not so long ago, I had a sergeant whose father was a very rich man in Yeflam. His son lived in the shadow of that for a long time. He tried to step out of it for years. I thought that there could be something in him if he managed to do so.’

  ‘Did he? Step out of it, that is.’

  ‘No,’ Heast said. ‘In the end, he was nothing more than his father’s son.’

  Isaap nodded. ‘I don’t want to be like that,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to be my father’s son. I have not always understood that, but I do now. I see how he never took responsibility for where the family was. For his bad choices. For the way he treated people. I own my mistakes, sir. The people here are dead because of me. I made the mistake when we came out of the brush. I came in before the Hollow was in position and others paid the price. If you want to strip me of my rank because of that, I’ll understand, sir. I’ll work it back.’

  Before the battle, Heast would have been prepared to do that. It was not that Isaap had asked for fire, or that he had let his nerves get the best of him. No, it was his continual failure to accept orders, his belief that he knew better, the inability to recognize that he had none of the skills he believed he had. He had been barely trained in the year he had been a soldier. He had one advantage over the others in Refuge and that was that he could wield his sword with a certain amount of skill. It was the reason that Heast had given Isaap the job of securing the tents around the Ancestor.

  Before he gave his orders to Refuge, Sergeant Qiyala and Bliq had both spoken to him about Isaap. They had waited for him outside the tent where Anemone worked. Both the sergeants had told him that the soldiers who had survived beside Isaap had done so because of him. They said he reacted quickly to the sight of Kilian rising, that he kept them alive and had pulled the survivors around Taaira.

  ‘When I was a corporal, I lost four soldiers. Four soldiers of Refuge.’ Heast bent down and picked up the rope. ‘I made a small mistake. I washed a pot in a stream. I was nervous and I thought it would keep me busy. But the food scraps flowed down and they gathered in the rocks downstream and a tracker saw it. I had just gotten back to the camp when we were swarmed. The sentry caught them as they came up on us, but we were never meant to see a fight there. It was bad terrain. But I survived. Myself and one other out of six. A couple of days later, I told the captain just what you told me. I said I’d work back my rank. At the time, the Captain of Refuge was Tisoc Denali. He was a big man, Denali. Had fists like stones. After I finished speaking, I kept waiting for him to punch me. To punish me for what I did.’

  Isaap followed Heast as he made his way to the front of the cart. ‘Did he?’


  ‘No.’ He dropped the rope on the seat of the cart, took one end. ‘He said to me that you make a mistake and people die. Then he said you make the right choice and people die. Then he left me.’

  ‘That doesn’t sound helpful.’

  ‘No?’

  He shook his head.

  Heast handed him the end of the rope. ‘Everyone dies in Refuge, Corporal. By sword, by fire, by will. That is what we say over the bodies of our soldiers when we bury them. That was what I was saying when you came upon me.’ He held up his hand as Isaap tried to speak. ‘You have made mistakes. I will not tell you otherwise. Indeed, you might lose your rank one day, but it is not today. Put aside your father’s shadow and it will not be tomorrow. Now, you find half a dozen soldiers to help you pull this cart. I don’t want you doing it by yourself. When you bury those in it, you say the words I told you. They were soldiers of Refuge, and I need you to be a soldier in Refuge, not just for them, but for everyone else who stands.’

  He left him there, tying the rope to the wagon, half a story in his mind.

  Captain Denali had said more to Heast, before he left the hut he was in. In truth, he had torn strips out of Heast for his failure, and rightfully so. He had done it with the one surviving member of the group present, and he had done it in a voice that was hard and sharp. At the end of it, Heast had offered to resign, to do more than earn his rank back. He had said he would leave Refuge. He did not know where he would go: he was not yet eighteen and his life for years had been the mercenary unit. All the world he had seen, he had seen with them.

  After Heast had said those words, Denali took one step towards him, as if he would strike out at the young soldier. His dark eyes burned, as if the words Heast had just said were worse than the men he had lost. ‘You die in Refuge,’ he said in a low, furious voice, ‘or Refuge kills you. That is all there is to your life now, Corporal.’