“He cried out to be brought to us,” a third man announced. He was a lanky creature with sharp, protruding joints and equally sharp movements. His tight-fitting garments glistened with an oily sheen that shimmered blue and violet, neither fabric nor sealskin nor any other substance the boy could identify. The others were dressed in different sorts of garments—some sleek and long and cut from a single piece, others fashioned out of smaller fragments, cobbled together in seemingly random array—but as his eyes adjusted to the shadows of the cave, the boy could see that all their clothes were made of the same curious substance. It looked like it was the same color as the skin of the gods, as if the great creatures’ wings had been wrapped around these men and then fixed in place. Or perhaps these were not truly men at all, he thought, but some supernatural amalgam of human and god, and the blue-black coverings were not clothing at all, but a kind of composite skin. Perhaps these were half-breeds, who might in time transform themselves fully into gods. Or maybe they were the cripples of their kind, the failures, who acted as servants to those who were fully transformed, and in return were permitted to share the heat of their caverns, but could never grow their own wings. His mind buzzed with possibilities, too terrible and too wonderful to contain.
Is this what you want to become? an inner voice whispered. Truly?
He thought of his village, struggling against the twin demons of cold and darkness, always so close to losing the battle. Of young girls mutilated so they could serve as sacrifices. Of the great Sleep that would come over the village sometimes, a weakness so terrible that crops would rot unharvested on their stalks and herd beasts would waste away while the villagers lay in a mindless stupor, too weak to care about anything. And then when the great Night came his people would die in droves for lack of food stores, and death would rule the land.
Heart pounding, the boy forced himself to his feet. Whatever these creatures were, it was unthinkable that he should display weakness before them. “I have come to serve the gods,” he told them. And then, his heart beating thunderously, he added, “Like you do.”
For a moment there was silence. Then one of them—a stocky man with long red hair, who wore a breastplate made up of coarse patches of god-skin—threw back his head and roared with laughter. “You wish to join us?” He slapped his thigh. “To join us?”
The flush of shame that came to the boy’s cheeks was a hot thing. “Yes.”
“Ambitious,” the dark-skinned man assessed. His eyes gleamed like fresh snow against the eerie blackness of his face. “And spirited.”
A stocky and bald man spat on the floor in disgust. “Iceborn brat. He knows nothing of the world save the legends we gave to his priests . . . and you know what those are worth. A sheep come to stand among the wolves, bleating to be one of them.”
“We were once sheep ourselves,” another said quietly. This one was a tall man, olive-skinned, with long black hair as sleek and as glossy as wet sealskin. “Or do you forget?”
“We are more than that now,” the bald man growled.
“Are we?” The words were softly voiced, but the boy sensed the challenge behind them. “Are we really?”
In a distant part of the boy’s mind—the one square inch not frozen solid by ice or fear—he suddenly realized that the men had spaced themselves evenly about him, and that each was very protective of the space surrounding him. Whenever one of them moved too close to another, his neighbor would warn him off with a low growl, and the intruder backed quickly away. What would happen if he didn’t? Would they roar at each other like the gods were doing down by the lake? Fight each other as beasts would fight, until one was subdued or even destroyed?
“What is your name, boy?” It was the black man asking.
He drew himself up as proudly as he could. The heat from the ground had finally reached his bones, so at least he was no longer shivering. They must be very close to where the Sun fragment was buried, for this cave to be so warm. “Nyuku,” he said. “I am called Nyuku.”
“So the food has a name.” The bald man snorted. “Now are you satisfied?”
“We need new blood,” said a man whose hair and skin were as pale as moonlight. Nyuku could see blue veins in his cheeks, pulsing as he spoke. “You know that.”
“Weak as a sheep, this boy is.” The speaker had red hair, bright red, like the skies at sunset. “Fit for the cooking pit, nothing else.”
“We have a clutch approaching its first season.” The speaker this time was a thickset bearded man with broad features not unlike those of Nyuku’s people. His voice was quiet and even in the manner of one who is secure in his own authority and need not prove it by volume or coarseness. “And no one to offer to the victor. Why? Because the girls given to us are weak, and for every living child one of them bears for us, five more are lost in the womb. And the ones that survive are too timid to please the ikati. So we have lost half a dozen candidates already. Do you wish to lose more?” He looked at the boy as one might look at a hunk of seal meat. “This one is strong, and almost old enough for his seed to have value. Maybe he will strengthen our stock.”
“The iceborn are food,” the redhead muttered. “Nothing more.”
The bearded man’s face darkened suddenly in anger; he took a step forward into the circle, and such was the sheer force of his presence that the boy instinctively moved backward to give him room. “Is this your colony?” he demanded of the redhead. His voice was not loud, but it filled the chamber with unexpected force. “No! It is mine. So if you mean to challenge me for primacy . . .” he turned slowly so that each man must meet his eyes in turn; Nyuku could feel the energy crackle between them like lightning as one by one they met his gaze, then turned away. “. . . Do it now. Otherwise, hold your tongue.”
For a moment it seemed the entire world was frozen. Waiting. The boy held his breath. Somewhere—thousands of miles away it seemed—one of the gods roared its defiance. But none of the other gods answered it, and after a moment or two it became clear that the men in the cave were not going to answer this man, either.
The redhead was the last to look away. “If that is your will,” he muttered. There was cold hatred in his voice, like that of a dog on a choke leash, forced to heel.
“It is.”
The redhead drew in a deep hissing breath and the muscles in his legs twitched, as if making ready for combat. For a moment all was silent, within the cavern and without, as the two men took each other’s measure. Then the moment passed. The redhead released his breath and nodded stiffly. The bearded man looked about the circle, clearly ready to confront anyone else who had issues with his leadership. But whatever the power was that had almost caused these men to turn on one another, it seemed to have passed.
Nyuku drew in a shaking breath as the leader of the god-riders turned to him. He sensed what was required and lowered his eyes as a dog might, acknowledging its master, but inside his chest his heart pounded wildly in defiance. Someday I will be the one who commands these men, he promised himself. And they will all lower their eyes to me . . . including you.
“We were all tested once,” the leader told him. “We chose to come here, then chose to remain here, to become something other than human. It pleased the gods that we did that, and they felt that we had proven our right to stand among them. But the sons that we breed for them now have never been tested. They are born to this fate, they do not choose it, and the gods do not accept them.”
Suddenly he came to Nyuku and grabbed him by the hair, pulling his head back until their eyes met; the man’s gaze was a dark and terrible thing, more like that of a beast than a human being. Everything inside Nyuku screamed to pull away, to wriggle out of the man’s grasp even if he had to leave half his scalp behind to do it, to prove to him that he would not be so easily humbled but he held himself still, heart pounding wildly, sensing the nature of the test that was taking place. The other men had given way to this one. If he did as well, he would not be allowed to join their number. That much was pl
ain.
For a long time the bearded man stared into his eyes. Finally he released him, pushing him back with a force that sent him skidding across the knife-edged gravel.
“This boy’s been tested in coming here. That’s a choice, isn’t it? Maybe the ikati will respect it.” A dark, twisted smile flickered across his face. “Or maybe they will decide he’s food after all, and devour him whole.”
Between gritted teeth Nyuku said “I am not food.” The bearded man waved his hand dismissively. “That is for the gods to decide. And best they do it when they are not hungry, yes?” He glanced meaningfully toward the cavern’s entrance, drawing Nyuku’s gaze in that direction.
He means the girls, Nyuku thought. The sacrifices. A wave of sickness rose up inside him but he swallowed it back, hard, unwilling to let these men see any sign of weakness in him. Did he care so much for the girls of his village that he would mourn their deaths? Or was he willing—and able—to let go of his former life, and embrace this one with a full heart?
It was a test. Everything here was a test.
“Let them decide,” Nyuku said steadily.
He could feel energy crackling between the men, sparks of unvoiced frustration and defiance. One wrong move and they would turn on their leader. One foolish word on Nyuku’s part and they would tear him to pieces.
Then: “So be it,” the bearded man proclaimed at last, and his tone left no room for protest. “The gods will decide.”
A hot flush of triumph coursed through Nyuku’s veins. He gritted his teeth with the effort of controlling his expression. Once he had dreamed of joining the servants of the gods. Now he hungered to rule them.
He must never let the current leader see that in him, he knew. Not until he knew how to make the dream real.
Thus it begins, he thought with satisfaction.
Chapter 12
TUKKO HATED the Wrath. He hated being near enough to feel its baleful presence. He hated having guard duty close enough to it that any time he tried to relax, nightmares would cling to his mind like beetles to dung. You’d feel a bug crawling inside your helmet, or catch sight of a snake out the corner of your eye, or even think you heard your commander whispering bad things about you as you came on duty, and you’d bear it as long as you could without moving, just in case it wasn’t real, but then eventually you’d become convinced it was real, and you’d pull off your helmet, or jump back as the snake lunged for you, or ask your fellow guards what was being said about you . . . all for nothing. The Wrath conjured enemies where there were none, and it made them seem believable. Even big strong warriors like Tukko were not immune.
Yesterday had been different. For the first time since taking up this cursed post, they’d actually gotten to do something. Mind you, Tukko didn’t really understand why they had attacked the two Guardians, but orders were orders. Stop any foreigners who are traveling along this route, Anukyat had said. Truth be told, it felt good to fight something that could bleed and die as opposed to the usual illusionary phantoms. It made him feel like his job was worth doing, which he hadn’t felt in a long time.
Now those two strangers were back in the Citadel, their dead horses were in the process of becoming the evening meal, and life was getting back to “normal.” For Tukko that meant a long ride to various checkpoints, delivering what had to be delivered and collecting reports of anything his superiors should know. Not a glamorous job by any measure, but Anukyat said it was important, so it must be done. Something about things being “finely tuned” and progressing “like clockwork.” Whatever that meant.
He heard a moan in the bushes.
His hand went reflexively to the short sword he wore at his belt as he pulled up his horse. There weren’t a lot of animals around here and there shouldn’t be any people other than his own company. Everyone from the fight yesterday had returned home unharmed—not a big surprise when you figure how neatly the trap had been sprung—so if someone was wounded, it wasn’t one of his people.
Holding his horse steady, he strained his ears and thought he heard the sound again.
It sounded like a woman.
Slowly he urged his horse forward, one step at a time. The sound seemed to be coming from up ahead, behind a thicket of brush. The land surrounding it was mostly open, with few obstacles to conceal enemies. He looked carefully around, just to make sure. You couldn’t be too careful in this region.
Finally he reached a position where he could see what was making the noise.
It was a woman.
She wore nothing but the scraps of what might have been a shirt, which did not do much to hide a rather shapely body from his view. Her limbs were dirty and there was blood streaked on her forehead, as if something had struck her there. She had her arms wrapped about her knees and she lay on her side moaning softly, not even aware of his presence. Every now and then a tremor of fear ran through her, the way it might with an animal that was trapped and had nowhere to run.
For a minute or two he just watched her, looking up periodically at the surrounding landscape to be sure that there were no surprises coming. Guard duty had prepared him for many things, but not this. Finally he dismounted, and when she still seemed to be unaware of his presence, cleared his throat.
Startled, she looked up. Her green eyes filled with fear and she began to scramble away from him, muttering things that sounded like pleas for him not to hurt her.
He could not see anyone else nearby, and there was no sign of anything that might explain why she was here. But as she moved he caught a flash of dried blood on her thighs, which combined with the fear in her eyes to draw a pretty clear picture for him, of one thing at least. Whoever had left her here had used her pretty harshly before departing.
“It’s all right,” he said quietly. He wasn’t used to calming terrified women, and didn’t quite know what tone of voice to use for it. “I won’t hurt you.”
Shaking visibly, she regarded him as a field mouse might a hungry hawk. But at least she stopped crawling away. “Where am I?” she whispered.
He gave her the common name for the northern Alkali mountains. Those who dealt with the Wrath on a daily basis usually called it much worse things. “Where are you from?”
“Rayt,” she whispered hoarsely. “I was traveling with a trade caravan . . . that is . . . there were bandits . . .”
“Not from here, though.” No caravan in its right mind would travel this close to the Wrath.
She shook her head. “No, they . . . farther south . . . they brought me here afterward.” Then her nervous hands came in contact with the short ends of her red hair and hers eyes widened. “They cut off my hair! Oh, my gods, they cut off my hair . . .” She began to weep.
He tried to focus on the bigger picture, rather than those portions of a rather shapely body which were revealed as she shifted her position. The Lord Protector would not be pleased to hear that there were bandits using these mountains for cover. This woman might have information that would be of value to him. If so, then bringing her back and delivering her personally to his superiors was the order of the day. But there was only one way to do that—well, two, if you counted the option where she rode the horse and he walked back—but it was a long journey and he didn’t like to be out in the mountains after nightfall.
“Listen,” he said, pulling out the cloak that he kept with him for night jobs. The mountain evenings could be chilly.
“I’m going to take you somewhere safe, you understand? But you will have to ride with me to get there.” The green eyes grew wide and fearful. He tried to look directly at them, and not at the taut, full breast that had slipped free of its cover. “I won’t hurt you, I promise.” There was a growing tightness in his groin now, which was making it hard to think clearly.
She bit her lip for a moment, and then, very hesitantly, nodded.
She let him help her up, wincing in pain as she moved. He handed her the cloak and turned away while she wrapped herself up in it. Then he mounted his horse, shift
ed forward in the saddle as far as he could, and gave her a hand up behind him. She had some trouble mounting—probably used to riding sidesaddle, he thought—but then finally managed to get onto the horse behind him, legs astride. The sudden heat of her thighs against his own was disconcerting, and the fact that this new position pressed his groin up hard against the forward curve of the saddle didn’t help matters. Her hands wrapped about his waist from behind, her breasts a warm pressure against his back. Thank the gods she couldn’t see what effect she was having on him. Given what he guessed her kidnappers had done to her before discarding her in the middle of nowhere, that would scare her off for sure.
They’ll have use for her information at the Citadel, he thought as he focused his thoughts on that, rather than on the soft heat of the woman behind him. I’ll be rewarded for finding her.
He did not even hear the whisper of his sword being drawn from its sheath until it was too late.
Water engulfed Rhys, cold and choking, dragging him back from darkness. He tried to draw in a deep breath but another wave broke over him and he breathed it in. Coughing, he struggled to turn himself over so that gravity would help him empty his lungs, but his hands were fixed behind his back and he couldn’t manage the maneuver. All he could do was gasp for breath helplessly, like a beached fish, turning his head to the side when he finally began to cough the fluid up.
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