The Empire of the Dead (The Godsblood Trilogy Book 1)

by Phil Tucker

“Your hammer,” she said. “You lost it because of me.”

  “It’s just a hammer,” he said.

  “No,” she said. “It was the Sky Hammer. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be.” It was hard to keep his eyes from drinking her in, but meeting her gaze was even more difficult. “It’s nothing compared to keeping you alive.”

  He hadn’t felt this awkward in decades. Throat dry, knowing he was amusing her, he looked down at the puddles of blood around their feet and smiled.

  Kish had raised her hand to touch his chest, but she paused. “What is it?”

  “This. It brings back a memory.”

  “Oh?”

  “Of Numias. The demigoddess of Scythia.” He shook his head. “Before your time, I know.”

  “No, I know of her.” Kish lowered her hand. “The great Numias. She still rules in Takurtum. Ishi thinks she’s my great-aunt.”

  “Whatever is ruling in Takurtum isn’t her,” said Jarek. “It’s a revived mockery of the Numias I once knew.”

  “And the memory?”

  “Blood. We had just fought Krucefer’s horde outside of Takurtum. We defeated them, sent them howling back into the steppe. Numias was wounded, but she looked so alive, so beautiful, burning as if with a terrible fever.” He shook his head. “Magnificent, but so dangerous. She came to my tent afterwards. She hadn’t bothered to dress her wounds. It was like being visited by a pyre. She wanted me to lie with her, to burn with her. To rub our wounds together, to mingle our pain and pleasure.”

  “Did you?”

  “No.” Jarek sighed. “I was young, and her sheer confidence frightened me. Her… carnality. She stood there bleeding, and when I refused, she laughed. Whenever I’m weak, whenever I turn away from the chance to live, I hear that laughter still.”

  “If you could go back - if you could relive that moment now, would you accept her?”

  Jarek stared at the floor. At the puddles of blood. “I don’t know. There was no tenderness in Numias. She didn’t know the meaning of the word. No empathy. No… humanity, even. She was a raging fire. Sex and war, a true paragon of Scythia. But I’ve come to appreciate tenderness. I learned so much from my wife. To cherish silence, to drink deep of intimacy, to value trust and… and love.”

  Kish was listening intently, her face grave.

  “There was never any future with Numias,” he said. “Only the ever-burning present. I’ve never known a more restless soul.”

  “I’m not Numias,” Kish said, reaching up slowly to unbind her hair. “And I know I’m young. I know little of love. Little of life, even. But I know you don’t have a future.” She shook her hair down and combed it out with long strokes of her fingers. “All you have left is the present. Your vengeance.” She lifted her hand again and laid it on his chest. “I would share this moment with you.”

  Jarek let out a shuddering breath. “Kish…”

  “Don’t worry about my feelings,” she said with a wry smile. “I’m a woman grown. If you don’t want to, that’s fine.” She moved forward just a fraction. “But I’ve found that release after a good fight can be exhilarating. So, maybe I’m like Numias in some ways.”

  She was beautiful. Strong, passionate, and intensely alive. Her youth seemed to burn within her, and his memory of Numias returned. But where Numias had been perilous, a scorpion in human form, Kish was more akin to the sound of joyous laughter carried to him on the wind. Humor danced in her eyes, and a wisdom beyond her years.

  “Your wounds,” he said.

  “Be gentle,” she replied. And then she moved in close and lifted her face toward his. “At least, at first.”

  Jarek couldn’t help but smile.

  He cupped the back of her head, sliding his fingers through her thick hair, and lowered his mouth to her own. The sound of Numias’ laughter, derisive and cruel, arose in his mind, but when Kish moaned, it faded away, and somehow Jarek knew he wouldn’t hear it again.

  Chapter 14

  The crowd moving along the road toward Rekkidu was impressive. Even a mile out, it was a veritable flood of humanity and the dead, a tramping mass of traders, soldiers, farmers, and heavily laden carts. The countryside was being drained of its populace, the residents of the local villages that lined the various tributaries of the Leonis abandoning their homes for the Great Market of Rekkidu and Akkodaisis’ spectacular ritual.

  Acharsis was sitting on a low wall of clay bricks, heels drumming against their dusty surface, a rope held idly in his left hand. That it culminated in a noose around Sisu’s neck seemed of little interest to him; he was paying little mind to his apparent captive or to Annara, who was standing on the young man’s far side, holding a knife almost idly to his neck.

  The occasional dusty group of travelers cast them a wary eye, but they were a good fifty yards removed from the road, at the border of a scraggly field of withered barley stalks. Too far away to be of any danger, so the travelers moved on, fixing their gaze up ahead to where the traffic had congested just outside Rekkidu’s walls.

  “Are you sure somebody’s going to come?” asked Sisu. “My arms are going numb.”

  “Pretty sure,” said Acharsis. “Leeches from all around should be trundling in to deposit their rotting cargoes and partake in the feast. Any hour now.”

  “Hour?” Sisu groaned. “I’m getting burned.”

  Annara laughed under her breath. “You’re the palest Urosian I’ve ever seen. A little of Qun’s love will do you good.”

  “Pallor is a mark of distinction,” muttered Sisu. “It indicates that I follow a noble calling. If they take any longer, people will start mistaking me for a common laborer.”

  “You’re breaking my heart,” Acharsis said, and then he sat up. “And it looks like you’re in luck. Your delicate fish-belly skin won’t blister after all. Here we go.”

  Up ahead, a trio of death wagons had rolled out of the shimmers of sweltering heat, their large wooden wheels creaking, death watch guards mounted on their headboards with the reins hanging idly from their hands. Dead oxen pulled them forward, plodding placidly without complaint. Their ribs were painfully visible under their weathered hides, their eyes were missing, and their cheeks were punctured, revealing stained yellow teeth.

  The three of them hopped off the wall and moved to the road’s edge.

  “Hello!” Acharsis waved a hand and stepped in front of the lead carriage. “A word with your honorable master!”

  The driver tapped his reins, and the dead oxen stopped. “Out of the way, you. I don’t care what you story is. You’ll get nothing from us.”

  “I expect a handful of gold for what I’ve got,” Acharsis said, shielding his eyes and chewing on the barley stalk that hung out of the corner of his mouth. “Your master will be right pleased with us. We’ve got ourselves a godsblood here. Delivered trussed up like a duck ready for roasting.”

  “Godsblood, eh?” The driver eyed Sisu, then sighed. “If you’re wrong, I’ll flay the hide off all of your backs.”

  He climbed down, then knocked respectfully on the carriage door. “Master? You might want to come out and see this.”

  The door creaked open, and a young woman emerged. Her hair was bound up, and she was dressed in black robes that looked crisp and recently dyed. She was slender, almost svelte, but there was a hardness to her face that belied any thought of her being delicate. She might have been called handsome, but her expression reduced her to one word: severe.

  “What’s this?” She stepped forward, and her guards dropped from the other wagons to stand behind her, wary and ready for trouble. “You waste my time at your own peril, fool.”

  Acharsis and Annara fell to their knees and pressed their foreheads to the dirt. “A godsblood, mistress. We’ve brought him to you. We know you want ‘em. Just a little silver is all we ask to recompense us for our troubles.”

  “Godsblood, hmm?” She stepped up to Sisu, who had remained standing, and pinched his chin between her fingers, turning his head from
side to side before she peered into his eyes. “Where are you from?”

  “Small village, mistress. Regash. A good three days’ travel from here.” Acharsis had yet to raise his head. “He was styling himself as Qun reborn, he was. Claiming he could control the very sun! We got tired of his bragging and did something about it. His family will miss him, but my wife and I will be all the richer, and Lord Akkodaisis will no doubt welcome another godsblood come tomorrow morning, won’t he?”

  “Son of Qun?” She stepped back, wiping her hand on her thigh. “Answer me, boy. What relation are you to Piamat?”

  Sisu scowled. “I don’t know.”

  Acharsis dared to look up. “He’s a godsblood, ain’t he, mistress?”

  “Oh, yes,” said the leech. “Surprisingly enough. And a powerful one. Well done. We will indeed take him off your hands. Regash, you said? I will be sure to come pay a visit. You never know who else may be lurking in the area, unaware of their… inheritance.”

  “That’s wonderful, mistress.” Acharsis forced a grin.

  “Silver!” hissed Annara. “Ask about the silver.”

  “We’ve come at great expense,” Acharsis began, but the woman simply turned her back, waving airily with one hand.

  “Empress Irella thanks you for your service, and her blessings will no doubt prove more beneficial than any number of silver pieces. Good day.”

  She stepped back into her carriage as the guards swarmed around Sisu. Two clasped his arms behind his back, a third grabbed hold of the rope, and a forth clubbed him over the back of the head for no reason.

  Sisu’s knees buckled, and then he was bundled into the first wagon. Acharsis rose to his knees and winced. Sisu cast him one last terrified look before being thrust into the dark interior, and then the door was shut behind him.

  Neither Acharsis nor Annara spoke as the wagons resumed their journey. Some of the guards laughed at them as they passed, greatly amused by their leech’s cunning, and one spat on the dirt in front of them. A few minutes later, they had trundled from sight, swallowed by the heat shimmers and the crowded road.

  “Well,” Acharsis said, rising to his feet and dusting off his robe with sideways slaps of his hand. “That’s that.”

  “Poor Sisu,” Annara said, rising more gracefully. “I knew he’d be treated poorly, but seeing it happen before my eyes is another thing altogether.”

  “He’s a tough kid. He’ll be fine.” Acharsis moved back to the low wall and pulled out a bladder filled with warm beer. “Come. The day’s barely begun. We’ve much to do and little time in which to do it.”

  It took them three hours to navigate the crowds, pass back into Rekkidu, and make their way through the covered market and down to Sisu’s court. Word of Jarek’s return was on everyone’s lips. The streets were plugged with curious visitors. The market was teeming, boasting an almost festive air, and the heat and the constant roar of the crowds was overwhelming. Twice, Annara was pulled from Acharsis’ side by the press of the crowd, and both times he felt a moment of terror as she disappeared, swept away by the surging traffic. Each time, he fought his way back to her side so that he could clasp her hand all the tighter and vow never to let her go again.

  Finally, they slipped out of the crowd into the side alley. Even this place had a fair number of people skulking in its shadowed depths, but the copious amount of cattle dung that Babati had carted into the alley ensured that none of them stayed long.

  They hurried down the narrower second alley, through the nearly invisible door, and then down into Sisu’s court.

  “Mission accomplished,” Acharsis said as he stepped out into the main room, pulling back his hood. “Poor Sisu. He’s going to have a very uncomfortable next few hours.”

  Ishi was finishing the last of the sewing by candlelight, a black robe in her lap, silver thread hanging from her needle. Jarek was seated on the top step that led up to Sisu’s stone throne; Kish was two steps down and leaning against his knee.

  Acharsis paused, sensing immediately the new level of comfort between the two of them. Then he broke into a grin. “I hope you two have been keeping yourselves busy while the rest of us honest folk work.”

  Jarek’s scowl couldn’t hide his blush, but Kish merely laughed. Her arm was bandaged and suspended in a sling, but the injury didn’t seem to bother her.

  “We’ve been working hard,” she said. “I’ve been worshiping Scythia, and Jarek’s been praising Alok.”

  “Oh?” Acharsis stopped up to them, hands on his hips. “I thought that form of worship was Ekillos’ domain.”

  Jarek coughed into his fist, but Kish was unabashed. “I imagine,” she said, “that any time Jarek’s as hard as a rock, the lord of the earth can be nothing but pleased.”

  “All right, then!” Jarek rose to his feet, his face turning a deep crimson. “So, Sisu? He’s been delivered? In a death wagon, I assume. Good. For us, that is. It must be rough for him.”

  Annara stepped in, both amusement and compassion plain on her face. “Yes, all is proceeding as planned. Acharsis said he was going to check on the tunnel to the docks, and then we’re going to review our identities one last time before we take you in this evening. That gives us about four hours.”

  “That’s a lot of time,” Kish said, leaning back on her good elbow and smiling sweetly at Acharsis. “Do you need Jarek and me for all of it?”

  “You,” Acharsis said, wagging his finger, “are trouble. I need Jarek to able to walk, thank you very much. And you need your strength, too.”

  “I’ll come with you,” Jarek said gruffly. “To, ah, inspect the dam.”

  “Are you sure? Come on, then. It’s a bit of a walk.”

  Together, they left the court and moved down one of the side tunnels. It immediately grew darker, and Acharsis lifted the last candle from its sconce and led the way. “Is the tunnel to the ziggurat’s basement complete?”

  “Yes,” Jarek said softly. “I left a thin sheet of rock standing, but it’s nothing a good blow won’t topple.”

  “Will it be easy enough for us to find?”

  “It should be. I placed a small scrap of copper across the hole I made. A torch shining down into the pit should reflect off of it.”

  “Good thinking. Where exactly did it come out? A pit?”

  “Yes. The place stank of rotting flesh. I didn’t look around much for fear of being spotted, but given that the air coming through was as chill as I remembered, I imagine it’s where they store the bodies before animating them and sending them back out to work the fields.”

  “Or stand guard,” said Acharsis. “All right. A charnel pit. Delightful. And something I won’t mind flooding when we’re out.”

  They walked in silence for a spell. The tunnel was so narrow, they had to move single file.

  Acharsis finally looked back over his shoulder with a grin. “So?”

  “So, what?” grumbled Jarek.

  “So? Kish?”

  Jarek sighed. “Kish.”

  “Good for you, my friend. Good for both of you. There’s nothing better than giving praise to the joy of living before you confront death.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “Then, why don’t you sound happier?”

  “Why? Because… because she’s wonderful. She’s so… alive? In the moment. She laughs in a way that makes me want to laugh as well, delighting in everything. Just plain fucking joyous. I’ve never met someone so simple. So carefree.”

  Acharsis stopped and turned around. Jarek was frowning again, so Acharsis put his hand on his shoulder. “That all sounds incredible. Welcome to the world of making love to a descendant of Scythia. So, what’s the problem?”

  “There is no problem.” Jarek looked away and sighed. “All right, I’m the problem. She makes me feel old. Complicated. I find myself thinking of Alassa.”

  “There’s not much I can help you with there.” Acharsis gave Jarek’s huge shoulder a squeeze. “Other than tell you to relish the pain, too. Toget
her, I hope we sent Alassa down to Nekuul, but even if her spirit has been laid to rest, you’ve not forgotten her. And if something so good can bring her back to life in your heart, can make you feel that pain again? It means she’s still alive within you. It means you’re still alive.” Acharsis paused. “Does that make any sense?”

  Jarek shrugged. “Maybe. I think I see what you mean. But all the memories of her lead to the lakhar imitating her screams.” Jarek pressed his hands to his temples. “I can still hear them, like they’re branded into my soul. Oh, Alok.” His voice nearly broke. “How could her life have ended like that?”

  Acharsis rubbed hand across his brow, searching for words, for wisdom. If Ekillos had still been whispering in his soul, perhaps he would have been able to find some means of comforting Jarek, but nothing came. So he just stood there, giving his friend time, letting his shoulders hitch in quiet sobs until Jarek let out a strangled gasp and wiped his forearm across his eyes.

  “Fuck, I’m a mess. I almost had one of my breakdowns in front of Kish. I lied and said I had to go relieve myself. It took me so long to return, she started to wonder if I’d run away.”

  “Go easy on yourself, Jarek. There’s a lot riding on your shoulders. And there’s tonight.”

  “Tonight. Yes.” Jarek let out a shuddering breath. “Tonight, I see Alassa again, at long last. I’m almost relieved.” He gave himself a shake. “Look, I’m going to take a moment to pull myself together. Go ahead and check the dam without me.”

  “Sure thing,” said Acharsis. “Take your time.” He pulled out his knife, cut the candle in half, pared away the wax, then lit the other half and handed it to Jarek. “I’ll see you soon.”

  He watched as Jarek turned and walked back, both massive shoulders rubbing the tunnel’s sides, the candle flame limning his massive frame in gentle gold. Only when Jarek was gone from sight did he resume walking.

  This had been the first tunnel that Sisu had ordered his dead to dig; he’d had visions of smuggling expensive goods from the foreign ships in the enclosed dock directly to his court but had given up on them after realizing just how detailed the dock master’s scribes were. He’d turned his attention instead to working with the merchants who handled the barley, but this tunnel had remained, two-thirds finished and almost forgotten. Jarek and the dead had finished it, and in doing so had finalized Acharsis’ plans.