Blood of the Gods

by David Mealing

  “Kill him,” Ka’Urun shouted. “The Sinari guardian is her creature. He must die!”

  The remainder of the Lhakani warriors had risen along with their shaman’s cries. Spears rose from the bog, though none had yet been leveled toward him.

  “I will go in peace, if you let me,” Arak’Jur said, loud enough to cut through the shaman’s commands. “Your shaman is a broken man. The spirits have deserted him, and cursed the rest of you. Leave him. Go and find peace, where you can.”

  The shaman’s ravings continued, but the Lhakani spears stayed pointed toward the sky. Only the thick slurp of mud and peat around his boots accompanied him as he trudged away from where they’d thought to set their trap.

  Guilt stung him, conflicted emotions running through his veins. If the woman, Ad-Shi, was truly coming, then he was leaving them to die. But the Uktani were here. He might already have drawn them too close for the Lhakani to survive. How many more tribes needed to perish, for the spirits to be sated? The Ranasi had already been destroyed. The Uktani corrupted by some malefic vision, driven to hunt him with strength enough they must have abandoned their homes to do it. The Nanerat, reduced to a husk of their former pride. And the Lhakani. All around him, civilization collapsed. And yet if he had his way, he would join Corenna wherever she had run. He would retreat to some corner of the wild, find a lush piece of land, and raise their child, with his magic to keep them safe from the comings of beasts, great and small. The spirits bade him seek their gifts, but he was tired. Weary of death and killing. A yearning for life burned deeper than any charge from the spirits. If Corenna had only asked, he would have gone with her anywhere.

  Instead he left the Lhakani sacred place behind, walking until the shaman’s ravings dimmed to nothing on the wind. The fog lightened as he left Moru’Alura’Tyat, and he walked in twilight, though there should be hours yet to go before nightfall. How many had been corrupted? How many had fallen to the madness of the hunt that drove the Uktani, the destruction of those foolish enough to wish for peace? The answer seemed to stretch in front of him, the land itself seeming soured by heat and lack of color. Perhaps the next tribes he met would be unfettered by the calls to war. Not enough hope to lift the burden from his mind, but enough to keep him walking, one step and then another, until the sky turned black, and he made camp.

  Instinct woke him hours before dawn.

  A subtle jolt, enough to bring him to his senses without disturbing his body, even leaving his eyes shut, his breathing steady. Better not to reveal he knew he was being hunted.

  His other senses cast out, searching for whatever had triggered him awake.

  He’d lit a fire and given it enough fuel to burn through most of the night; a ward against predators, and needed warmth against the nighttime cold. He heard it still crackling, felt its heat against his skin. Nearby leaves and grass rustled in the wind, with no telltale scraping if they blew over a predator’s back. The smell of mud filled the air. Insects buzzed their song, but no birds. Nothing to give warning of something approaching, save a warning tingling on his skin. Eyes were on him, from somewhere. He remembered what it was to be kirighra, burning with the ferocity of perfect stealth, the sure knowledge of the unseen killer.

  Better to meet it on his feet, whatever had come for him. He made slow, deliberate movements. Open his eyes. Roll to put his back away from the wind. Rise to his feet. No few would-be predators would retreat against such a display: confidence and strength where they’d expected fear. But this one didn’t move, and hadn’t moved since it came close enough to provoke his instinct. A silhouette drawn against the night, twenty paces from where he’d slept. A woman.

  She waited for him to set his feet, then bowed her head, only a slight incline.

  He said nothing, keeping his body still, but not rigid. Thoughts simmered beneath the surface. For now, instinct reigned, until he could be certain she was not a predator.

  “Guardian,” she said, “or shaman?” The accent was foreign, unlike any tongue he’d heard before.

  “Who are you?” he said. “Why have you come on me in the night?”

  She stepped forward, enough to add color to her form. She was short, even for a woman: Corenna’s height, and almost of an identical frame. But Corenna had never worn garb of fox hides sewn together and fringed with red and gray fur. Where most would travel with a cloak or coat, this woman’s arms were bare from the shoulders down, with no sign of pack or pouch. Mud seemed to cake her legs and hands, until she took another step and he saw the stains were a deep crimson, not the dull brown of dirt.

  “You are the woman from Ka’Urun’s visions.” Instinct still reigned, strong enough to suppress the fear that went with the realization, and the guilt. He hadn’t truly believed the shaman could see anything more than his own terror.

  “He must have had a powerful gift, to see the coming of one woman.”

  Her voice was chilled, but flat, absent emotion. The same as his; the voice of a predator given over to instinct in the moment of the hunt.

  “Ad-Shi,” he said, and for a moment she paused, looking to him as though seeing him for the first time.

  “The spirits of things-to-come know my name,” she said. “Are you a shaman, to hear their whispers?”

  “No,” he said. “I am no shaman. I am guardian of the Sinari, and if you mean to strike at me as you slew the Lhakani, you will know what it means to claim my tribe.”

  She changed direction, pacing around the fire as though she meant to see him from another angle. He pivoted with her, keeping the fire at his back. A small edge, if she attacked; the fire would dim her night vision, and his would be sharper for looking away.

  “Sinari,” she said. “The tribe Axerian touched. They are far to the north, are they not? Why are you so far from your people?”

  He said nothing, hardening his stance. She meant to unsettle him with her words. It could precipitate an attack.

  Instead she came to a halt.

  “There is much you do not know, guardian of the Sinari,” she said. “But if you were strong enough to weather Axerian’s influence, I have great hopes for you. It would be a disappointment, if you were to die.”

  Mareh’et beckoned at the edge of his awareness, and valak’ar. He held back, watching her.

  “You mean to kill me?” he asked.

  “I mean to try. This is the way of things, among the Vordu. For too long, our ascendants have gone untutored, learning by grasping at weeds instead of firm instruction. We are meant to learn from our betters, from those who have gone before.”

  Fear again spiked below the surface of his conscious mind. A thought of Corenna’s face, of his unborn child, mixed with Rhealla’s, and Kar’Elek’s, his slain wife and son.

  “I hope you survive, guardian of the Sinari,” Ad-Shi said.

  Sadness seemed to touch her eyes. Then they filmed over with ice, at the same moment a nimbus of a strange creature—a winged serpent, spined and surrounded by fire—shimmered into place around her.

  He let mareh’et give its blessing, and thought fled before the instincts of battle.

  36

  TIGAI

  A Lush Green Field

  Somewhere Far from Ghingwai

  They fell together, tumbling in long grasses under a burning sun. The exertion of using the strands coupled with the feel of her in his arms set his mind swimming in a fog.

  “You bloody fool!” Mei shouted. “You can’t … you didn’t …”

  He wrapped his arms around her, squeezing to make certain she was real. She was.

  “Why are you laughing, you oaf?” she said. Mirth crept into her voice, over top of indignation. A blend that suited her perfectly. She’d always been at her best chiding the Yanjin brothers while reveling in his and Dao’s schemes.

  Her hands tightened around him when he didn’t relent, making it a mutual embrace. He buried his head sideways against her chest, and her fingers gripped the back of his head, pulling him close. He felt tears i
n his eyes. She was alive. He was free, and they were far away from the horrors he’d had to perform to try to make it so.

  “It’s really you,” he said.

  “Yes, it’s really me.”

  He let the moment last long enough to push the bounds of propriety. But then, they were alone, and far from the watchful eyes of any house servants inclined to gossip.

  “Where have you taken us?” Mei asked when he finally withdrew. He leaned back on his knees, surveying the field as she propped herself up. The field was a lush green, a place that had to have its fair share of rainwater, even late in the summer. The sun was halfway to the horizon, either making its descent before nightfall or its ascent to its apex at noon. He couldn’t be sure which, only that night had long since fallen in Ghingwai before they’d left.

  “Somewhere far to the east, or the west,” he said.

  “A comforting thought, that you have no idea which.”

  He grinned, though just as likely he only noticed the expression he’d doubtless been making since their arrival.

  “I thought you had to know a place,” she said, “before you travel there? Is this field somewhere you’ve been frequenting in secret, Lord Tigai?”

  “I have to know a place to pick it out among the strands, but I can see thousands of possible places.”

  “You mean you could have put us under the ocean? Had us falling from the clouds?”

  “Either would have been a possibility,” he said, ignoring her stare. Yes, it was dangerous to hook himself to strands he didn’t know, but he had enough of a sense of things to know the difference by feel. Most of the starfield were places like that: deep underground, deep water, empty air. He’d learned to avoid those sorts of memories and connections by instinct. Evidently that knowledge had carried over for the purposes of panicked flight.

  He took another look at their surroundings, trying to remember a connection if in fact there had been one, and he’d taken them somewhere he knew from childhood, his raiding, or his travels. A wide plain of rolling grass, but it was neither the long brown stalks of the Ujibari steppes or the low, rolling hills and farmlands at the heart of Jun. He could guess they were somewhere in the north by the chill on the wind, though it could as easily have been no more than an unusually cold day.

  “Your hand,” he said abruptly. “You still have it.”

  She gave him a curious look. “I still have my feet, too.”

  “The men who took me … they threatened to hurt you, Dao, and Remarin. When I didn’t comply, they presented me with … a severed … I could have sworn it was yours.”

  Her expression softened.

  “No,” she said. “After you left, Dao and I were attacked by assassins. They seized control of the estate, but we escaped. Dao’s soldiers sheltered us until Lord Isaru arrived.”

  “Lord who?” he asked.

  “Lord Isaru Mattai,” she said, a sudden fervor in her voice. “He contracted the Yanjin legion, and paid enough qian to hold off our creditors for at least another year.”

  A ruse. He’d been deceived. Suddenly the image of him returning to Ghingwai and discharging his pistols in Indra’s face surfaced in his thoughts, and it felt damn good, even to think it. But it soured just as quick.

  “Remarin,” he said. “They still have Remarin. He was with me, when Lin caught us coming back to Yanjin from the palace.”

  “Lord Isaru will know what to do,” Mei said. “They’re his enemies—he was certain they would bring you to Ghingwai. That’s why he had me come along, in case they used you.”

  “What? Mei, that makes no sense. How could he know? I still have no idea what Indra and Lin were planning, or why they wanted me to attack the mercenary captains there.”

  “Isaru is leading a rebellion,” Mei said. “A magi rebellion, against the Great and Noble Houses. That’s why Lord Isaru paid so highly for Dao’s contract. He’s doing the same with other houses all across the Empire. And he’s gathering magi like you, free magi unsworn to the monasteries. He’ll pay triple if you join us, for your services alone, and maybe more. This is the answer to everything. We have to head back to his camp and wait for him there.”

  “Slow down,” he said. “What under the heavens would possess us to involve ourselves in a rebellion, let alone a fucking magi rebellion? Are you and Dao both mad?”

  “Lord Isaru can explain it better than I can,” she said. “And he will, if you’ll hear him out. But I heard him talking about you as if you were something enormously important. A ‘True Dragon,’ he called you. Do you know what he meant? It must have been related to your gifts, with your stars.”

  Dragon. The name resurfaced his fancies of blasting powder into Master Indra’s face. The name for the Great and Noble House of fools who could use the starfield and the strands.

  “I think I do.” He held out his hand. “But there will be time to talk about all of … whatever this is … later.”

  She grasped it. “Good,” she said. “We’ll have to travel to Isaru’s camp as quick as we can.”

  “Mei, we’re not going to any camp. I’m taking you somewhere safe.”

  He blinked, still holding her hand, and tethered them both to the strands. The chill air vanished, replaced by the musty smell of the dead.

  Darkness enveloped them both, and his head pounded, a trail of blood leaking from his nose. Evidently he’d taken them farther than he’d intended; coming back took a harder toll than he was used to, though he had more travel to do, before he was done.

  Mei sputtered a cough, spilling dust and a puff of wind in his direction. “What the … where are we?”

  “Keep your voice down,” he said in a whisper. “Please. I only need to leave you here for a few hours.”

  She responded by clinging to him, latching both hands around his arm. “Don’t you bloody dare.”

  He growled, trying to wrench himself free. She collided into him, sending them both backward into the side of the crypt. Dirt scraped along his back, and she pressed forward, pinning him against the wall.

  “Mei, we’re in Yanjin Palace. In the crypts. You’ll be perfectly safe here. Just let me—”

  “Perfectly safe? Last time I was here one of my own retainers tried to knife me in the rib cage. I thought it was debt collectors then and I still fled; I know it’s worse now.”

  “No one will look for you here. I have to find Remarin before they kill him.”

  “No one will think to look in your ancestral home now that you’ve escaped the Great and Noble Houses’ influence? Are you bloody serious?”

  He relaxed, though she still kept a cold iron grip on his arm. She was right. It was stupid to bring her here.

  “I have to get back to their temple,” he said. “Remarin has to be somewhere close, somewhere they could reach.”

  “Their reach is anywhere in the Empire,” Mei said, her voice suddenly soft, but still sharp enough to cut through the darkness of the crypt. “And they won’t keep him anywhere you have a connection. Remarin is dead.”

  He tensed, and she held him harder, pressing him into the wall.

  “Remarin is dead,” she said again. “Unless you listen. You’ve never cared about politics, or anything beyond your brother. And maybe me. But if you value either of us, you’ll understand. More is at stake here than just your master-at-arms’ life. We have to go to Isaru Mattai’s camp. You’ll hear it from Dao, if you won’t listen to me. And if there’s any chance at all to save Remarin, Isaru will know of it.”

  “Why should we trust this Lord Isaru?” he asked, and finally Mei loosened her grip, though she still held to him. “How is it he seems to know all there is to know?”

  “Don’t be jealous. It doesn’t suit you.”

  “What? I don’t—”

  “Shh,” she said, cutting him short. “I’ll leave it to Dao to explain. You never trust me anyway.”

  “That’s far from true,” he said, then paused. “Dao is well? He’s at this camp?”

  “
He’s fine, and yes, he should be there, if Isaru doesn’t have him in the field. Now, can we go? I meant what I said, that this will be among the first places they look for you.”

  He sighed, feeling a pain in his chest over the thought of Remarin, alone and held in some cell somewhere. They wouldn’t kill him. They’d be throwing away whatever leverage they might have had, if he encountered them again.

  “All right,” he said. “You’ve been living in this camp for the past few weeks?”

  “Yes,” Mei said. “But you can’t take us there directly. It’s on the other side of a wall of shadows, something Lord Isaru calls the Divide.”

  “… What?”

  “You’ll have to see it to understand. He says it keeps the magi from being able to track him. It can’t be safe to try to travel through it.”

  “Well, I think I have the strands for the camp,” he said, his eyes closed, feeling Mei’s light blending into his among the stars. One light shone brighter than the rest, the soft glow of recency; the place she’d last thought of as home. “Should I take us, or not?”

  “No,” she said. “It’s too dangerous. How close can you get us?”

  “It doesn’t work like that,” he said. “I can’t just pick a different route. Either I have a connection to the place, or I don’t.”

  “Somewhere in the north, then,” she said. “We traveled across the ice fields north of Gantar Baat to get there.”

  “Oh for the koryu’s sake …” he said.

  “We have to go there,” she said. “Even if we have to walk the whole way. Lord Isaru will have the answers, and the coin to keep our family out of debt.”

  It felt wrong. A sudden savior, when they’d never trusted any outsiders before, and a magi war mixed in for spice. It was a relief beyond measure to know Mei and Dao were safe, that Master Indra had lied about having them and lied when he’d presented the bloody trophy of her hand. But Remarin had been taken; barring an escape, they had him somewhere. Without knowing this new magi, this Lord Isaru, for himself, he couldn’t have any degree of confidence in the man’s ability to help him find his master-at-arms. But he couldn’t see any other course. And he could trust Mei. It would have to serve.