Crys rounded on her. ‘You mean there are no priests left in the whole of Krike, not just Green Ridge? What did you do, kill them?’
‘Of course not,’ Cutta protested. ‘But when the Seer-Mother’s gifts made them obsolete, they were given other work.’
‘Horseshit,’ Ash muttered. Even Dom looked shocked and Crys couldn’t remember an expression other than self-pity on the calestar’s face since they’d left Rilporin. He swallowed bitterness and put him out of his mind.
‘What is a community without priests?’
‘The Seer-Mother dispenses judgement,’ Sati ventured.
‘I did not say judgement; I said community. Your priests are still here – you have just stopped recognising their wisdom. Bring them to me.’
As war leader of the region, it seemed Cutta outranked even the elders, for soon enough an old woman hobbled towards Crys, labouring along the rutted road from a dark, ramshackle house on the outskirts of town. Ostracised. Crys favoured them all with a disgusted look and jogged to meet her; he could hear her whistling breath from ten paces away. He stopped her with a gentle touch and stooped to meet her eyes.
‘Priestess of Trickster and Dancer, I am the Two-Eyed Man and I see you as the vessel through which wisdom passes. Tell me, how can I prove my identity?’
She examined him for long enough that he started to get uncomfortable and doubt began to rear its head. ‘It is for the Seer-Mother to say who you are and who you are not,’ she said in the end, her voice thin as paper. ‘It is she who sees and knows all.’
Crys took her hand, dry as a bundle of sticks, in his and straightened up. ‘Thank you, priestess, but no one is the arbiter of my identity. I ask how you would have me prove it, not whether someone else allows me to be who I am.’ She flinched and he raised her hand to his cheek, acting on instincts that weren’t quite his, despite his fine words. ‘The fault is not yours, priestess. Can you tell me what has happened here, why the Seer-Mother has broken up the priesthood?’
‘I said,’ the old woman began, her voice quavering.
‘And only I am here to listen. I am not Krikite, priestess. You can tell me the truth.’
She sucked her remaining teeth, cheeks hollow, as she examined him. ‘The Seer-Mother has … she has broken our people’s connection to the land and the gods. All prayers must pass through her; all decisions come from her. There is no truth here any more, no reverence. She is the dam that separates us from the river of divinity.’
Her thin chest was heaving under her rags; the grip of her hand was fierce. ‘Save us, Two-Eyed Man. Save us all.’
And there it was, another burden for Crys to bear. And yet how could he say no? If he could do it, then he had to do it. ‘I will go to the tor. I will do all I can to fix this so that you are recognised as priestess again and the land remembers its people and its people the land.’ He kissed her hand. ‘I see you, priestess. There is no dam between us.’
‘I see you,’ she whispered. ‘I see. He is the Two-Eyed Man,’ the priestess called out in a wavering voice. ‘He will restore the gods to us. Follow him.’
A storm of muttering rose from the gathered Krikites, abuse hurled towards the old woman. Crys held his arms out in a barrier as a few began edging forward with clenched fists. Would they tear her apart for daring to speak out? Was this how far their faith had fallen – or been claimed by the Seer-Mother?
Crys headed towards the crowd and they fell back before him. ‘War leader, you will guarantee the priestess’s safety. I want three warriors you trust to look after her while we are gone. This behaviour towards the priesthood – regardless of the Seer-Mother’s pronouncement – is unacceptable.’
She withered beneath his anger and the noise of the dissenters faltered. Wordlessly she pointed to three Krikites and they shoved out of the crowd and passed Crys with bowed heads, taking up position around the priestess. One of them murmured reassurance to her.
‘Does some distant woman’s word mean more to you than decency and respect for those in your community? Does it mean more than the harmony of the land and the voices of the gods? Is this how you show your allegiance?’ Crys was disgusted and made no effort to hide it, uncaring whether he alienated those who were wavering in their decision to follow him. In light of their inability to think for themselves or treat each other with respect, he wasn’t sure he wanted them at his back when it came time to face down the Red Gods.
Ash and Dom fell in on either side as he stepped forward and then Cutta and her warriors behind, with Sati sliding into their ranks. Crys didn’t look back to see whether any others joined him as they marched through the parting crowd. He had a war to win but, first, he had to get to Seer’s Tor and cut out the rot that was infecting Krike.
Seer’s Tor? the Fox God barked. No. My tor.
RILLIRIN
Seventh moon, first year of the reign of King Corvus
Fort Four, South Rank forts, Western Plain, Krike border
Rillirin squinted into the approaching night and jabbed her spear at the pell, pulling back, stepping and then striking upwards with the butt. It skittered off the wood and past, but if it’d been a person, it would have broken their knee, she was sure. She spun to the imaginary enemy behind her and lunged; Dalli’s spear parried and then the shorter woman had her weapon at Rillirin’s throat.
Rillirin froze in shock – she hadn’t even known the Wolf chief was there – and then sidestepped, batting Dalli’s spear down.
‘You’re dead,’ Dalli said. ‘Never hesitate in battle because you’re surprised; train until defence is as instinctive as breathing.’ She flipped her spear around her head and drove it for Rillirin’s temple; Rillirin staggered back, her parry clumsy and weak.
‘You’re dead,’ Dalli said again. ‘Don’t get distracted by your opponent’s words.’
Rillirin gritted her teeth and lunged, then feinted left and snapped the head of her spear towards herself, driving the butt in a flat arc. Dalli knocked it up and countered with a strike that finished a hand’s width from Rillirin’s eye.
‘You’re dead. You need to commit to a feint, otherwise your opponent knows what you’re doing and will ignore it to prepare for your true strike.’
Growling now, Rillirin lunged hard for the centre of Dalli’s chest; the Wolf sidestepped and snatched Rillirin’s spear, jerking her forward and finishing with a short jab towards Rillirin’s gut. She shrank back, dropping the spear to protect her belly and the child nestled within.
‘You’re dead. Don’t let anger make you clumsy. If you over-extend, you’re off balance and your enemy will take advantage.’
Rillirin snatched up her spear by the end and flailed it for Dalli’s knee, then backed away, trying to set her hands. Dalli slammed the shaft of her own spear down and ricocheted Rillirin’s spear tip off the flagstones. As it bounced back up in Rillirin’s stinging hands, Dalli skipped past it and put a knife against her cheek.
‘You’re dead. If you lose your weapon too close to the enemy, draw another. Don’t step into their range to pick it back up.’
Panting, Rillirin eased away from the knife and then raised her spear and lifted the fingers of both hands from where they wrapped the wood to signal she wasn’t going to attack. Dalli sheathed her knife and stepped clear anyway.
Rillirin grounded the butt and let it take some of her weight. ‘Is that what I am then?’ she asked as sweat trickled down her back. ‘Your enemy?’
Dalli shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Are you?’
Rillirin wiped her free hand across her face. ‘We were friends not too long ago, or I thought we were.’
‘People change. Loyalties change. Yours is quite clear.’
‘And Gilda made it quite clear that my baby is innocent. Even if you won’t believe me, you should believe her. Everything Gilda’s been through and you think she’d lie about something like this?’
Dalli spat. ‘Everything she’s been through, aye. Like Dom trying to kill her. Like him betraying Ril
porin and everyone inside it. Like him being a Darksoul.’
‘He didn’t choose any of those things!’
‘How do you know?’ Dalli flared. ‘You haven’t seen him in months. You’ve just got a memory of him you’ve put up on a pedestal and you can’t see past it to the truth.’
‘Neither have you. All you’ve got is rumour and hearsay and things glimpsed during battle that have been distorted or misremembered.’
Dalli shook her head in disgust. ‘Gods, but you’re naive. Will you damn us all, that child included, by believing he can be saved?’
Rillirin slammed the butt of her spear into the stone, the flat crack echoing across the drill yard. ‘Yes! Because he taught me that anyone can be saved, including me.’ Dalli flinched but Rillirin held up her hand. ‘No, you’ve said enough. Just, just fuck off, will you? I don’t need your poison poured in my ear. Dom’s the only one of your precious Wolves who saw past my accent and the things I was forced to do and loved me despite it all. Who understood not everything that happens to us is a choice. If you can’t see that, then just leave me alone. There’s talk of sending the civilians away somewhere safe – if there is such a place. I’m sure you know more about it, being chief, as well as the lover of someone respectable. You’ve made it clear I’m no warrior, and I’m pregnant too, so I’ll stay out of your way until it’s time and then I’ll leave with the other civilians, go wherever Mace thinks I won’t be able to infect anyone with my treason.’
Her face twisted with bitterness. She turned on her heel and stalked across the drill yard. When Dalli called after her, tentative and too quiet, it was easy to pretend she hadn’t heard, to pretend there were no tears clogging her throat. She wouldn’t cry for Dalli’s spite. Rillirin stalked up the southern watchtower’s steps and out on to the allure, staring into the night. Krike was out there somewhere and for a mad, intoxicating moment, she thought about slipping out of the fort and crossing the border, losing herself in a foreign land and never coming back.
There was a fluttering in her stomach, a weird shifting. Rillirin leant her spear against the wall and put her palms on the small mound. Is that you in there, little warrior? Is that you? Do you want to go to Krike? Nothing. Or do you want to stay in Rilpor? Another flutter.
Rillirin huffed. ‘All right then,’ she muttered to the first stars and the stirring life within her, ‘that’ll do. Rilpor it is. But if we’re staying, I really hope we win.’
‘Colonel Thatcher?’ Rillirin hurried to catch up as the officer crossed towards the mess. He paused and waited, giving her a distracted smile. ‘Colonel, I’d like to volunteer.’
He glanced sidelong at her spear. Despite general Rilporian attitudes to women fighting, her status as a sort-of-Wolf had guaranteed her a weapon when she and Gilda made it to the forts. ‘Volunteer for what?’ he asked.
‘Anything, really,’ she said. ‘Anything that gets me out of the forts. Or a transfer to one of the others.’
He paused by the mess hall door. ‘Transfer? I know we’re tightly packed in here, but the other forts are just as crowded.’
‘Away from the Wolves,’ she said in a rush. ‘I’ll go when the civilians go, so it won’t be for long, but I’d like to help out. Riding patrols, perhaps?’
He gestured her into the mess and followed and they joined a line of people waiting for breakfast. ‘You’re pregnant, aren’t you?’
‘Yes, but I can still ride and fight and scout,’ Rillirin said, annoyed at how everyone assumed she was incapable. ‘I’m barely even showing,’ she added.
Thatcher frowned. ‘Pregnant women get extra rations,’ he said and pointed at the soldier doling out bread and porridge. Rillirin blushed, stammered an apology. ‘As for volunteering or moving barracks, let me see what I can do. Ride and scout and hunt, you say?’
‘Well, I’ve done it before a few times,’ she admitted and took the bowl offered, added a spoonful of honey. ‘I want – I need – to be useful. I can’t just sit here doing nothing.’
‘I appreciate your enthusiasm, but I need experienced people performing those tasks – the security and provision of the forts isn’t something I can trust to a novice. But I’ll sign you up to train with the militia, and we might get you out on a foraging party or something. There are lists of things that need doing, if you don’t mind hard work.’
‘I don’t mind,’ she said. ‘I just need to be busy.’ He nodded, already distracted by another soldier waving a sheaf of papers, and slipped away into the press. Rillirin examined the long trestle tables packed with soldiers and civilians. A knot of Wolves eyed her from a corner; Isbet beckoned with a wave.
Rillirin took her bowl outside and ate in the early sunlight. Two hours later, she joined three hundred civilians in the drill yard and began to learn to fight like a Ranker. In the afternoon she rode out with a firewood party, and by nightfall she’d been transferred to Fort Three.
It was exactly what she wanted, so it had to be the pregnancy that made her cry herself to sleep.
TARA
Seventh moon, first year of the reign of King Corvus
Marketplace, First Circle, Rilporin, Wheat Lands
Tara didn’t know what to think of the shopping list Valan had given her, didn’t want to examine what it said about the man who owned her, who lived a life of brutality and violence, who only three days before had flogged one of his other slaves for breaking a plate.
The very first of the Rilporian merchants had arrived, those bastards who didn’t care who they sold to or what it was if it turned a profit. The same merchants who sold opium to the rich or the desperate, or stolen goods to the unsuspecting poor, had arrived in a small, wary group outside the gates and Corvus had allowed them entry.
Tara had to admire their ingenuity even as she cursed their greed. Livestock and grain, jewellery and weapons, fish and information: all were for sale. Some merchants were even accepting slaves as payment and then bartering those for more goods and reselling on again, a loop of wealth that gained them a few copper knights more with each transaction.
She stared at their bare necks with hungry intensity. Rilporians without slave collars – how was it they were allowed to walk free? She stopped at a stall holding thin bolts of cloth, all of them dyed an uneven blue. The quality was poor, but the price was high and it was the only stall selling material in the required colour.
‘How much for eight yards?’ she asked.
The man leered at her, brown teeth in a pockmarked face. ‘For you, pretty? Depends on what you got to offer. Knock a bit off the price if you’re a good girl.’
‘I’m not a good girl,’ Tara said and then cursed as the merchant winked and leered some more. ‘No, is what I’m saying. How much?’
‘No? Say no to your owner too, do you? Bet you don’t. How’d it be if I told him you offered yourself to me in exchange for your freedom, eh? How’d that be?’
Tara rounded the stall and grabbed the man by the front of his shirt, hauled him close until they were nose to nose and she was enveloped in the stink of his breath. ‘How’d it be if I choked you to death with your own shitty linen, you traitorous little wank-stain? I want eight yards and I want a good price.’
‘Royal a yard, royal a yard and no less,’ the man croaked.
Tara shoved him away. ‘I’m not paying you eight silvers. I wouldn’t pay two silvers for this quality of dye.’
The merchant spat at her. ‘Fucking Mireces can afford it, why shouldn’t I make a profit serving scum like that?’
Tara could’ve told him why not, could’ve mentioned the fact many of the slaves here in the market would be beaten, starved or executed either for failing to purchase the goods or for buying at too high a price. She knew none of that would matter to this man.
She put her back to him and snatched up the tailoring shears, started measuring the linen. When he tried to stop her she shoved the shears towards his face and he fell back squealing, though not loudly enough to attract attention.
> Tara hacked off eight yards and threw two silver royals on to the table. ‘And just so we’re clear,’ she snarled in his face. ‘You’re all scum.’ She stalked away before he could reply and made it twenty yards before she remembered to drop her head and slow her steps, kill the fire in her eyes.
A slave was watching her, standing with a couple of others. A big man, huge in fact, with a beard halfway down his chest. He had a trowel in his hand and was supposed to be shovelling mortar on to the inner face of the wall, right about where it had breached. Where Durdil had died. She blinked and looked away, looked back. The man went to wipe his face, then tapped his fingertips quickly against his heart. Tara faltered, then kept walking. When she was almost past she glanced back, gave him the tiniest nod. A Mireces overseer snapped something at him and he bent to his task again.
A mason. That could be useful, either to bring the wall down or to blow the fucker up, maybe. Somehow. Failing that, he’s as big as an ox and if he had a shield he could hold a stairwell indefinitely.
It wasn’t much, but it was a start. Tara checked her list and bought those items she could find. Combs and hair ribbons; four fine cups and plates with a matching pattern of flowers around the edges; linens and breast band, linens for children. The underwear was the only thing she got for a good price, there not being any free women or children in the city who might need such things. So cheap, in fact, that Tara took the enormous risk of buying fresh ones for herself and then, on a whim that could see her executed, she bought two painted wooden horses.
The slave woman who was selling them wept with silent hopelessness as she handed them over. ‘Your children’s?’ Tara whispered as she paid. The woman nodded; then she looked fearfully over her shoulder at the Raiders crouched in a circle and betting on dice.
‘I’m so sorry,’ Tara said. ‘Have they gone to the Light?’
‘I don’t know,’ the woman choked. ‘I lost them in the smoke. I let go of their hands and they were gone, taken in a heartbeat. I lost them.’ Her voice began to rise and Tara shushed her, but it was no good. One of the Raiders looked up, scowling, and Tara did the only thing she could: she shoved the toys into her basket and walked away. She wasn’t even around the corner before the screaming started.
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