by P. J. Fox
If the rumors were true, about the duke. About life in the North. About their religion. If he’d survive. “The truth,” he said.
Callas sat down and, pulling a stalk of grass from the ground, twirled it. A minute later, Hart did the same. His muscles cried out in protest. Gods, but he’d let himself get soft.
“Soldiering is a thankless job, whoever you fight for.” Callas spoke quietly, and in truth Hart had never heard him be so serious. “A thankless job, where promises of honor replace coin. Men fight for many reasons, I’m sure, but at root of all those reasons lies the same thing: necessity. Soldiering provides the hope of advancement, when otherwise there is no hope.” He looked up. “I’m the son of a blacksmith. I’ll never be a knight.”
His words so closely mirrored Hart’s own thoughts that he started.
“Unless,” Callas continued, “I do something to earn our lord’s favor.” He studied Hart speculatively. “As you appear to have.”
Hart said nothing.
“Sacrifice is part of our culture.” Callas pulled another shoot from the ground and twirled it idly as he spoke. “It’s not widespread—I mean, it’s not as though it’s happening in every man’s garden. But it does happen. We believe that the Goddess delights in slaughter. The slaughter of prisoners, mostly; and there’s enough crime around that our priests don’t lack, I can assure you. We don’t,” he added, “have to resort to killing the innocent.” He paused. “At least not usually.”
Hart continued to absorb this information in silence.
“The last sacrifice I attended was that of a man who killed a woman and her baby. With an axe. He, according to the men who finally subdued him, laughed as she cried and begged him to stop. The tale he told…was a delusional one. Demons, clearly, had possessed his mind.
“And yes, there are virgins in the walls at Caer Addanc. And other places as well, I’m sure.” Callas chewed idly on the dry stalk. A chill wind had begun to blow across the field, pregnant with the promise of rain. Hart glanced up uneasily at the sky. What had been blue earlier was now the dull, brooding color of lead.
“It’s something we grow up knowing. Are there no things in your culture, which frighten and confuse you?” When Hart didn’t answer, he continued. “We have a reputation in the North, which for the most part is earned. I won’t lie to you and tell you that life is easy or that bad things never happen. Should you choose to stay, and to join us, you will change. That much is inevitable.
“The question is whether you want to.”
“I grew up,” Hart began slowly, “being told that people everywhere were basically the same. Our old sergeant at arms, he’d campaigned ceaselessly from one end of the kingdom to the other. Until he was injured, and forced to come home. He…but they think I’m stupid,” Hart found himself saying honestly. He hadn’t planned on saying that; had planned, indeed, to say something about the sergeant at arms. But Callas’ willingness to listen and his own admission that, yes, his own people practiced human sacrifice had awakened something. And Hart, unexpectedly, discovered that he needed to talk.
“But that’s not true.” Tristan had nothing in common with his own father, a wreck of a man who shamed himself in public without even realizing it. And who wouldn’t have cared if he had; who would have blamed, instead, those around him for failing to appreciate his vastly superior breeding. Because breeding was what made him belch and scratch at the table like one of the swine. But Peregrine Cavendish lived in a world of his own making, where things were as he wished them to be. “I suppose,” he said, “that one could make an argument against me: people live, and laugh, and love everywhere.”
“Let me ask you this.” Callas studied him. “What have your gods done for you?”
Hart shook his head slightly. His smile was small, and humorless. They’d done fuck all, was the answer. “There was a girl, once. We were of an age, and I worshipped the ground she walked on.” And still did, if truth be told. “She toyed with me, led me to believe that there was hope. That we might make a life together.” He shrugged. “I’m not a brilliant man, but I’m capable enough. There were any number of households, with which I could have taken service. It wasn’t unrealistic.” He added this last more for his own benefit than Callas’. All this time later and Hart was still trying to convince himself.
“In the end, she married someone who’d inherited his own land rather than having to earn it. Someone who wasn’t, as she so delicately put it, a bastard.” He struggled to keep the bitterness out of his voice and couldn’t. He’d successfully convinced the rest of his family that he didn’t care; that this dalliance had been like all the others and that he’d no sooner marry a woman than he’d marry one of the hounds.
“In the North,” Callas said, “women respect strength. If you want a wife, you’ll find one. And if you continue in the duke’s good graces, you may find a very good one indeed.”
Hart tried not to think about the duke and marriage at the same time. If he did, he was forced to remember that this whole miscarriage of a journey was so that the duke could marry his sister. Marry her, and do the Gods knew what to her. That she seemed to welcome his attentions didn’t comfort him as much as it should have. For one, she was his sister. All women should know that the men in their lives—fathers, brothers, even friends—viewed other men with everything from suspicion to outright loathing. Because they knew what depravity lurked in their own minds. That the duke was assuredly more practiced even than Hart hadn’t escaped his notice. In the arts of love and…other arts.
Who knew to what corruption she’d find herself exposed?
He’d already asked rather alarming questions, indicating to Hart that if the duke hadn’t plundered her he’d done the next best thing. For the longest time, Hart had been convinced that his sister was pregnant. And wasn’t still entirely convinced otherwise. But when she’d shown no outward sign…Hart might be no celibate, but he was no fool, either. He’d assisted in a birth once. At a whorehouse.
“Do you want to get married?” he asked Callas.
Callas, laughing, shook his head. “I’ve seen what my brothers contend with, and my father. I’ve no wish for that, especially when there are any number of women willing to, ah, admire a member of the duke’s personal guard.” He winked.
The response seemed so refreshingly normal, so typical of something any man would say—and kindly, meaning nothing against women—that it was hard to imagine Callas as evil. As someone who participated in human sacrifice. And yet Hart knew that he did. Knew that Callas did all manner of things that Hart had been raised his entire life to believe were wrong: denied the church. Participated in dark rituals. Saw nothing wrong in human sacrifice. Helped to carry out the will of a man who, his thoughtful treatment of Hart aside, was known to be a monster made flesh.
Hart and Callas has talked before this; had been friends, if friends was the right term, for some time. And although Callas had given Hart no direct confirmation until today of—certain things—he’d hinted as much. He told stories, often meant to be amusing, that made Hart’s blood run cold. About his belief in the Dark One, though, Callas had always been open. According to him, many in the duke’s army and nearly all in his personal guard practiced the rites of a strange cult. And although no one had so much as suggested that joining was compulsory, or even expected, Hart got the sensation that no one evaded them forever. Not if they didn’t wish it.
People, somehow, wound up finding themselves sucked in. Changed, as Callas had put it. But changed…into what?
Hart felt a shiver run up his spine.
THIRTY
The northern gods loved blood.
When a man was sacrificed, the act was committed in a particular fashion so as to ensure the most blood. Isla had heard the stories, growing up, of course; every child had, every time he—or she—failed to heed his nurse. The northern tribes would come and steal him; the warlock-priests of the North would wrap his entrails around a tree.
Isla hadn�
��t yet confirmed with Eir the entrails wrapping—she was a little frightened to learn the truth. She’d grown up hearing about the rite, the priests converging wraith-like on their intended victim in the dead of night and spiriting him off to their sacred grove. Where they’d hold him down and, as he bucked and screamed, slit him open like a fish. The skill in performing the ritual, or so she was told, was in keeping the victim alive as his entrails were lifted from his body and the ends nailed to a tree. He was then passed, upright, in a circle around the tree until his entrails fully wrapped the trunk. If the Gods hadn’t granted him the blessing of death yet, he was left there to wait until they did.
But what Eir had described was bad enough. The sacrifice was brought into the center of the sacred grove where he was forced to stand, or sometimes kneel, as a rope was tightened around his neck. At the moment of maximum constriction, just before his air was cut off entirely, a knife was swept across his neck. This caused an enormous fountain of blood, bathing onlookers even several paces back. To receive this font of life was considered an honor, one for which the faithful competed.
Afterward, if Eir was to be believed, the sacrifice was…eaten.
Isla’s stomach turned just thinking about it.
She tried—had been trying all morning—to turn her mind to more cheerful matters. They were about to enter Hardland. She’d been furious at Hart the day before, partly because he’d delayed this experience. Of seeing her first true—to her, city. Hardland was a town, granted the right to build defensive walls by the king. But such charters had become increasingly rare with towns turning on each other, and walls serving only to hide enemy forces. Isla had never seen a true town. And there had never been any like these in the Highlands to begin with. Only moors and bogs and cottages huddled around a parish church.
She rode alongside Eir in silence. Once again locked in her cage, Mica glared out through the wicker slats and howled. There was no other noise, save that of the horses. Hart was riding up ahead, with the man Isla didn’t like. Callas. He seemed fine enough, tall and fair like Hart. He had the blue eyes common in the North and almost unheard of everywhere else. He smiled easily—for a northerner—and kept his nails manicured.
Isla couldn’t say what about him bothered her so, only that his presence filled her with a profound unease. He wasn’t overtly horrible like so many of the northerners, with their braided beards and filed teeth. He didn’t curse, or spit. He seemed almost…too clean.
For all that Hart was coming with her, and staying, Isla felt like she was losing him. Like their friendship, so easy and uncomplicated for so long, was changing. The thought made her sad, and more alone than ever.
Gradually, the road began to fill as others joined them. Others heading to the same place, only to trade goods rather than merely pass through. Wagons clattered down side lanes, sending up clouds of dust. The storm that had threatened them now for days still hadn’t broken, and sweat stood out on Isla’s brow.
Soon the road—really more of a wide, beaten track—swarmed with farmers driving livestock before them with sticks, driving barrel-laden carts, driving each other crazy with threats and catcalls as they jostled back and forth. The road was wide, wide enough for four or so horses to ride easily abreast, but it made no difference. Every square inch was occupied.
This must, Isla realized, be a market day. Lost in the never-ending cycle of travel, a cycle that existed quite outside of ordinary time, Isla had almost forgotten about things like market days. The things that moved everyone else’s schedules forward. Watching the world pass her by, she felt strangely disoriented. Like a ghost.
Two carts collided and the farmers, both of whom had been driving exceedingly poorly in their rush, dismounted and began arguing. Isla reined up, as Eir did beside her. They had no choice. Another farmer was pulled into the fight as his pigs, sensing a distraction, lost interest in his stick and ambled over to watch. Pigs were highly intelligent creatures and, like most men, enjoyed a good sideshow.
Before the men could actually come to blows, one of the mercenaries dismounted and spoke to them in low tones. Isla saw a flash as coin was exchanged.
Eir peered down at him. “How much…are you paid?” she asked.
“Six pence per day,” the mercenary replied.
Eir shook her head slightly, the barest possible movement yet expressing a wealth of disapproval. “Not enough.”
The mercenary just smiled, a quick quirk of the lips as he swung back into the saddle. Within seconds, they were moving forward again. Their stores had been greatly depleted, but still posed a challenge for their own carters. Who, without the ability that a horse gave one to maneuver through crowds, found themselves fighting for space alongside everyone else. They’d have to reconnoiter on the other side of Hardland, giving everyone a chance to catch up. Otherwise, those on horseback would reach their campsite well before their food. If their food even arrived at all.
Silas had originally suggested that they abandon carts entirely for a simpler caravan of horses, stopping to renew their supplies en route. Isla could see the wisdom of this plan; as could, she was sure, most everyone else. But this was one battle that Apple had won, refusing even for the space of this one trip to go without her overladen trunks and myriad cosmetics boxes. She must have taken every gown she owned, a trousseau far larger than Isla’s. And she’d refused, obstinately, to see that such a thing wasn’t necessary; that they could have been in Darkling Reach a full moon sooner, at this rate, if she’d only been willing to compromise.
But compromise wasn’t within Apple’s vocabulary. She reacted the same to her husband’s suggestions that she might budget: with abject horror. If less money needed to be spent, then everyone else could go without; her demands were perfectly reasonable.
As was her insistence, apparently, that she bring a full six trunks with her to her stepdaughter’s wedding. The earl, as was his fashion, caved. And, as Apple had pointed out rather smugly to Silas, the necessity of her bringing so much rendered his plan all but pointless. The strongest of pack animals could only carry fifteen, perhaps twenty stone; none of Apple’s trunks weighed so little. A cart, however, could carry four times that—or more.
Isla reined in as a small child darted almost under Piper’s hooves. Piper seemed unmoved but Isla’s heart was racing. She drew a deep breath, forcing herself to calm. She could walk faster, at this point, than she could ride—at least safely. And the carts were another matter entirely. Carts were all well and good, but carts presumed useable roads and those, for the most part, they hadn’t had. Either because the roads themselves were shit, little more a straggling series of uneven ruts, or because—like now—they were simply too congested to be of any use for their intended purpose.
For a place known in the South and West as the Gateway to Nowhere, Hardland certainly was populated.
A farrier started yelling something at one of his companions; he seemed to feel that a bale of alfalfa had been misplaced, and was demanding that the other man walk up the road and find it. The other man, in turn, wanted to know how exactly he’d rejoin the group—let alone while carrying a bale that weighed almost as much as his aged mother.
Isla fought back a small smile.
There were things to laugh about, even now.
And then she saw Hardland.
She’d expected their ascent into the mountains to be gradual, a slow building of altitude as the ground rose beneath her feet. Instead, before her, it looked like some giant had plunged his hand down into the earth and pulled back, like a child building a mud castle. Behind her and to either side spread the same flat pastures she’d been seeing for days. And ahead of her rose imposing stone walls and, behind them, cliffs.
The mountains. The mines. Hart’s stories flashed back in grim detail and, staring up, she could well picture every word. The walls, like the mountains themselves, were made from a strangely gray-beige rock that seemed to lack all color. The color of dust, she finally decided. Of things forgotten, a
nd overlooked. Sod roofs and slate rose up, the town’s many structures built on and into the mountains themselves. And all of that same sad stone.
Which made sense; what other building materials were to be found? What trees there were, were gnarled and stunted from exposure to the wind. And cutting a channel between them, what looked like almost straight up, was a road. This road, she realized.
“That,” Eir said, seeing her reaction, “is the pass. And beyond that pass lies the true North.” Not Darkling Reach, not yet; between their two points lay another, smaller holding, administered by one of Tristan’s vassals. Given to him as a reward, Isla believed she’d heard, for his service in the war. Given…after it had been taken away from its previous owner. She shuddered, in spite of herself.
She wasn’t ready for this.
“The ascent to the pass isn’t…as steep as it looks.”
“I thought….” Isla faltered. “I thought the ascent would be more gradual.”
Eir chuffed. The noise wasn’t reassuring. It looked like anyone who attempted the pass would fall off the mountain. And the closer they came to the gates, and to the world beyond, the more Isla’s feeling of terror intensified. And then Eir spoke again, and she almost turned around and rode for home. All that stopped her, at that precise second, was that she had no home to ride home to. Her father, and sister, had made that perfectly clear.
“This mountain range is called the Sisters, and protects us from…you.” To the average northerner, Isla had discovered, the difference between Highlanders and Southrons was negligible. If it existed at all. There was them, the North, and then there was everyone else. And everyone else was an enemy. “From the highest peaks, you can see for fifty leagues in each direction. Perhaps more, if the weather is especially clear.
“And the weather….” Eir paused, thinking. Unlike Isla, who dreaded the harsh northern winters and the isolation they inevitably brought, Eir seemed to relish the idea of being exposed to the elements. “They are…dangerous, too, the Sisters. The winds are strong enough to knock a man down. During winter, the air grows cold enough to freeze a man’s blood in his veins. There are…avalanches, too.”
