Bloodchild

by Anna Stephens

  It probably had to do with … the end, something Crys refused to think about. As he and Ash had promised each other, it was one day at a time with no eye for the future. Still, the sense of secrecy in his own skin was unsettling.

  Despite all of that, despite everything he’d done, Dom had slept for a week, a sleep that hovered like a kestrel over the cliff edge of death. Every breath could have been his last. Whatever had happened to him in the knowing had almost broken him, and it had almost broken Crys to save his life.

  But now the rhythm of Dom’s breathing had changed and his fingers were twitching on the blanket. His right eye opened, closed, opened, and then his left, more slowly.

  Crys and Ash craned their necks, manic grins stretching their mouths. ‘Hello, Dom,’ Crys said softly. ‘You’ve decided to join us, I see.’ Dom’s eyes were vague, anxiety building in their depths. ‘You had a violent knowing a little while ago when you were with the Seer-Mother and you’ve been asleep for a few days. Don’t worry, you don’t need to try and talk yet. Just concentrate on getting better.’

  Ash slid his hand beneath Dom’s sweat-lank hair and lifted his head, pressing a cup to his mouth. ‘Drink,’ he whispered. ‘Just little sips, that’s it. Not too much.’ Whatever animosity had been between the three of them had burnt away in the last days as Dom lingered within death’s shadow. Not forgiven, exactly, but accepting.

  ‘Here,’ Ash said, swapping the cup for a shallow dish, ‘chicken broth. It’s not very hot, so don’t worry about burning your tongue. Now that you’re awake, we can finally get some food in you. We had to massage your throat just to get you to swallow water, so I’m looking forward to you doing some of the work now.’ He grinned, but Crys could hear the strain in his voice.

  The archer half filled the bowl of a spoon and dribbled the contents into Dom’s mouth; they watched him swallow, a little better each time, but slow, so slow.

  ‘Can you tell us how you feel?’ Crys asked when he’d finally finished. Not the question he wanted to ask, but the one he needed to. The rest would just have to wait that little bit longer.

  ‘See …’ Dom mumbled.

  Ash screwed up his face in thought. ‘Seriously tired? Seriously pissed off?’ he guessed, working hard to raise a smile.

  ‘Tan …’

  ‘Tantrum?’ Ash tried. ‘Tangled? You’re worried about your hair? Tankard? You want a drink?’

  Crys grabbed Ash’s forearm. ‘Seer-Mother? Tanik?’ he asked. Dom blinked in acknowledgment. ‘Don’t worry, she’s dead. The Krikites follow the Fox God now; they know who I am. We found a mark on your neck – looks like you were poisoned, though why she did that we might never know. Unless you can remember.’

  Dom’s right hand cut weakly through the air. ‘Tanik … forced knowings.’ The words were more breath than sound, but they slid across Crys’s skin like a snake, leaving chills in their wake. Dom’s breathing was ragged. ‘Saw …’ he managed and coughed, the sound pitiful in his weakened chest. ‘Made me tell.’

  ‘Made you tell? Tell what – what you were seeing? And what did you see?’

  ‘Everything. Mace. Rillirin.’

  ‘Mother-shitting bitch,’ Ash breathed. ‘Not that it matters now, she got what she deserved.’

  ‘Pesh.’

  Crys frowned, the name familiar. Then he swore. ‘Tanik’s brother. We haven’t seen him since the tor. No, wait, he wasn’t up there. Did Tanik tell him what you told her?’

  ‘He was there. Heard it all. Saw him leave.’

  Crys and Ash looked at each other; there was no point pretending they didn’t know where he’d gone. ‘All right, Dom, I know you’re tired, but it’s very important that you tell me everything you remember. Where exactly is Rillirin?’

  ‘He’s got a week-long head start, Crys. We’re not going to catch him.’ Ash’s hands were firm on Crys’s shoulders as if to hold him in place in case he leapt up and started running for the border. The thought had crossed his mind.

  ‘If Lanta gets her hands on Rillirin and the babe it’s all over, no matter what I do, no matter whether we win the war.’ He kept his voice low, though Dom looked like he was sleeping again. ‘If she puts the Dark Lady into that infant, I really don’t think I can kill it, no matter what it becomes. I won’t kill it, not a babe.’

  ‘Of course not,’ Ash said, even as Crys remembered the Wolves’ promise of vengeance up on the Sky Path. ‘But you’ve got Tara in the city to prevent exactly that happening. Can’t the Fox God go to her, tell her to get her arse moving?’

  Crys stepped out from beneath Ash’s hands and threw his own out from his sides. ‘If I could do that, don’t you think I would have by now? If I had that sort of influence, I’d have reached out and stopped Lanta’s heart and Corvus’s too.’ He paused to compose himself, knowing that yelling at his lover wasn’t going to help either of them – or Rillirin. Or Gilgoras. ‘Sorry. If it’s possible, I don’t know how to do it, and Foxy isn’t giving away any secrets.’

  ‘What I wouldn’t give for a bloody messenger pigeon right now,’ Ash muttered. ‘So you’re telling me Rillirin’s on her own?’

  ‘For now, yes. Which is why we need to move out. Pesh might have a week-long head start but he needs to find allies among the Easterners or the Mireces, convince them he’s got valuable intel and get them to act on it. That gives us some time. Not much, granted, but maybe enough.’

  ‘Fewer than two thousand Krikite warriors have arrived so far. That’s not enough to aid Mace. It’s not enough to win.’ Ash winced as he spoke, knowing that wasn’t what Crys wanted to hear.

  Crys rubbed at the red markings tracing his collarbone, weighing up their options. ‘It’s going to have to be, love. We need to march for the Wolf Lands. If Rillirin’s there or on her way there, then we can protect her. If we’re too late and Corvus gets her, he’s going to think he’s invincible and that belief might just be enough to gift him victory. Either way, Mace is going to need whatever warriors we can bring him. The longer we delay, the more likely we are to lose.’

  ‘And the sooner we leave, the smaller our numbers,’ Ash pointed out. He sighed. ‘All right, I see your point. I’ll find the Warlord and tell him we need to leave tomorrow.’

  He glanced once at Dom, pressed a kiss to Crys’s eyebrow, and ducked through the low door into the warm sun. Crys watched him go until muffled sobs told him that Dom was awake again.

  He took a seat in the chair and clasped the calestar’s hand and the squeeze Dom gave it was less pressure than a butterfly’s kiss. ‘Don’t worry,’ Crys lied, ‘we’ve got plenty of time. We’ll find her.’

  ‘My fault,’ Dom breathed, haunted. ‘My fault. You should kill me.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Kill me. Please.’

  ‘You asked me this once before and I told you then: your task is not yet complete,’ the Fox God said while Crys was thinking of a response. ‘It is still not complete.’

  Sobs racked the man on the bed, energy he didn’t have expelled in shaking, heaving gasps. ‘Please kill me,’ he begged again. ‘Can’t do this. It’s too much.’

  ‘Yes, you can,’ the Fox God said. ‘And you will. You are needed, not just by me but by Rillirin and your child. Do it for them if no one else.’

  ‘I’m trying,’ Dom whispered. ‘But I haven’t the strength. Dying …’

  ‘Dying would be easier, yes. And as for strength, you’ll find it when the time comes. You’ll have to.’

  Crys put his hand on Dom’s shoulder to take the sting from the Trickster’s tone, but the calestar shrugged it off and turned his head away. Quietly, so as not to disturb him, Crys emptied the room of knives. And then, doubting his decision but with no alternatives presenting themselves, he began to pack.

  RILLIRIN

  Eighth moon, first year of the reign of King Corvus

  West of Fox Lake, Western Plain

  They’d been on the road nearly two weeks and, despite everything, they were making good time.
The long days and longer miles of walking had led to an increase in querulous adults and whining children, so to maintain the peace the Rankers let the youngest ride the provisions wagons for part of each day.

  Rillirin hadn’t realised the group would separate – she didn’t think the soldiers had told anyone, not wanting to cause more panic – but when they reached the start of the great marsh between the southwestern foothills and the plain, they’d been split down the middle, two groups of a little under two thousand each, with one soldier per hundred civilians to protect them. It didn’t seem enough, but so far there’d been no sign of the enemy.

  It had taken most of the afternoon after the group split for Rillirin to realise she’d lost both Martha and her children and Gilda. A spasm of worry had rippled through her, but it was too late now. Gilda’s group had headed straight into the foothills and Rillirin’s party was taking the easier – but longer – route between the marsh and Fox Lake, the great expanse of water shielding them from view from the rest of the Western Plain. She sent a prayer after them and concentrated on walking.

  Sore feet and lack of food were familiar complaints, but the ache in her back, the growing discomfort in her hips and deep in the bowl of her pelvis, was new and unwelcome. Her body was changing to accommodate the ever-growing babe and she was starting to feel as though she were slowly spreading apart, everything settling into new configurations that supported her child but hampered her ability to walk.

  She’d begun leaning more and more on her spear as the hours and the days went by, but the pace was never allowed to slacken. The Rankers seemed to be everywhere, marching at their sides and front and rear, jogging back to the stragglers and hurrying them back into the column, encouraging adults to rotate the carrying of small children and bags of provisions so everyone got a chance to walk unencumbered. They had to be marching half as many miles again each day as the rest, but she never heard them complain. They had the safety of two thousand civilians to ensure; they couldn’t afford to favour blisters or strained muscles.

  Fox Lake was a glittering blue expanse under a sky almost the same colour, its shores thick with reeds and mud banks, great stretches of land soft and boggy and sucking underfoot. The going was slow and hard and the wagons had stalled three times, the weary horses straining in the harness until dozens of hands helped shove them free to muted cheers.

  By mid-afternoon the day after the group had split, they reached a fast-flowing river that pounded down out of the foothills towards the lake and were forced to unhitch the horses and swim them over, stringing guide ropes between the banks to help people cross and then hauling the wagons over by hand.

  Captain Sadler was as wet and exhausted as the bulk of his two Hundreds as they made multiple crossings to assist the refugees. Two-thirds of them had made it to the other side when the first arrows flickered out of the trees covering the uneven ground leading to the foothills.

  Screams rang out and those who’d already made the crossing, Rillirin included, milled in confusion, seeking the source of the danger. Many threw themselves back into the river, clinging to the guide ropes and thrashing towards the other side, but then screams rose from that bank too, more arrows finding homes in flesh.

  Sadler and his Rankers drew swords, but most of their bows were on the wagons, still on the other side of the river, and the few soldiers there were already being cut down. ‘Scatter!’ Sadler roared, one of the handful of orders the civilians been forced to memorise and the one Rillirin had never wanted to hear. Her clothes were heavy with water and chafing as she leapt away from the rest and began to run, not thinking, just running, spear tight in her slippery hand. Towards Fox Lake and the stand of willows and silver birch lining its closest edge.

  She caught a glimpse of Rank uniforms with the blue armbands that meant the enemy East Rank – and ignored the shouts and screams rising like a storm behind her. Run, just run. Protect the babe. Fucking run.

  An Easterner came alongside her when she was a few hundred strides out from the tiny wood at the lake’s edge. Rillirin skidded as she slowed and he turned with her. She lashed her foot into his knee and rammed the tip of her spear into his belly as he stumbled. His chainmail turned the point, but she swung into the next blow, a whining arc that drove the butt into his jaw and smashed it like eggshell. He went down choking on blood and Rillirin spun in a circle with the spear whirling around her as shield and weapon both. She opened the arm and chest of a second soldier and took off again.

  Her breath whistled in her throat and her legs were heavy as the ground grew softer, her lower back and pelvis jarring up to her skull with each footfall, but still she ran. Too scared not to.

  Rillirin focused on the trees getting closer with each jolting stride, the lake beyond them serene and shattering sunlight down its whole length until it blinded her, her footsteps slowing perceptibly despite her best efforts and now the fear was closing her throat further, making it harder to drag in air as the shouts from behind got louder and more strident, and her back was spasming with pain, the babe kicking its indignation up under her ribs, into her lungs and heart, adding to the misery. Telling her to stop.

  If I stop they’ll kill me. They’ll kill you, little one. I can’t stop. I can’t.

  Someone grabbed her jerkin and hauled her to a halt, and Rillirin pivoted on her left foot and rammed her spear towards him, barely fast enough but barely would do. He folded up around the point, the breath grunting from him. She yanked back on the spear and rammed it in again, missing his throat but opening his cheek instead so she could see teeth and tongue and pink gum. He sprayed blood as he screeched and fell, kicking like a rabbit in a snare, and she was off again, the single glance behind her enough to show more coming, and more engaged in battle and slaughter on both sides of the river. The trees were close, so close now, her only refuge.

  She ducked under the branches of the nearest willow and into its long feathered fingers whispering and sighing in the breeze, incongruous beauty of pale leaves backlit by the sun. Rillirin wove past a stand of birch, staggering and panting, heading for the darkest heart of the little wood. The Rankers were shouting, angry now, crashing through the trees behind her, snarling their frustration as she wormed ever deeper beneath the low-hanging branches. Why were they after her? There were thousands out there they could take. Why her?

  A shock of birds flew up, piping alarm calls, and Rillirin hunkered down in the gap between the boles of two trees, dizzy and frightened, gasping at the air, spear shaking in her fists. She just needed a few seconds, a few deep breaths.

  Someone must have signalled for quiet, because the voices died away and the wood fell into the unnatural silence of any wild place invaded by people. In it, the furtive sounds of approaching footsteps were clear. Rillirin tried to quiet her breathing, her thighs beginning to cramp. She slid out of her refuge and across and around roots and underbrush, thick ferns tangling in her hair, the shock of purple foxglove in a shadow making her flinch.

  The ground was getting wetter, softer, and despite her best efforts Rillirin was leaving sign, the imprint of hands and knees as she crawled, the drag of spear and toes behind. Maybe if she stayed still they’d give up; there were more than enough civilians out there to be captured. The thought of trading her life for theirs made vomit burn the back of her throat, but the shame wasn’t enough to make her give herself up. She hunkered down low, sinking very slowly into the boggy ground. She had the babe to think of.

  ‘Rillirin? It is Rillirin, isn’t it?’ a voice called. Not Rilporian, not Mireces. ‘My name’s Pesh, Rillirin. I’m from Krike and I have news of Dom. He sent me to find you.’

  Rillirin sat up on her heels without thought, staring back in the direction of the voice. ‘Dom?’ Why would Dom send a friend to the East Rank to tell them of her? Unless …

  ‘Come on now, girly, there’s nowhere to go,’ a soldier called, definitely Rilporian this time. Definitely an enemy. ‘Corvus himself sent orders to find the pretty redhead c
arrying a babe. Fucked the king, did you? Well then, he won’t hurt you if you’re carrying his child, now will he?’

  ‘Shut up,’ the Krikite yelled, angry, but the words were ice down her neck. If Rillirin had needed any reminder of what awaited her at the hands of her enemies, this was more than enough. Unbidden came flashes of images: Liris, not the king in question but the one who’d raped her, drunk and pawing at her flesh; the pinches, slaps and casual punches of his second and war chiefs; the Blessed One’s calculating stare, weighing her life in the scales of her foul gods.

  I won’t go back to that. I won’t see you raised like that.

  She crouched lower, but there was a subtle slide of movement off through the trees and Rillirin knew they’d find her soon enough. They knew her name; they weren’t going to leave her be. Corvus would kill them if he found out they’d let her escape.

  There was no escape. Rillirin’s breathing steadied and a quiet certainty grew in her stomach – they wouldn’t take her. Not again. I’m so sorry, little warrior. I would’ve dearly loved to have met you. I’ll see you in the Light, I expect, and I’ll explain then why I had to do this. It’s not your fault; please know that.

  It wouldn’t be easy with the spear, but it’d be easier than seeing her child as Lanta’s plaything. And it was the child she did this for – not herself. She reversed the weapon and wedged the butt in a knot of roots, shifted up on to her feet and placed her throat against the tip of the blade. Left hand holding it in place, right hand on the curve of her stomach.

  ‘Dancer’s grace, my child. I love you.’ Her voice was breathy against the pressure of the sharp, bright steel.

  A sudden gust of wind and the drooping fingers of willow parted ahead of her and there was the lake, right there, only strides away. Get in the lake, hide in the rushes. Swim. Rillirin leapt forward, crashing heedlessly through the mud as shouts went up around her, grunting as she pulled her boots free one at a time, step after desperate, laborious step until her foot went in up to the ankle.