The House of Sacrifice

by Anna Smith Spark

  Fighting still seemed to be raging over off to the east and the south, towards the king’s tent. So keep away, try to crawl off north and west away from this on screaming weeping aching limbs. After a while, a troop of Ithish horsemen galloped back past them. Lathered horses. Bloody armour. Defeated slumped eyes.

  Oh gods and demons… fine ladies and gentlemen, girls and boys… spoke too soon there… Marith Altrersyr King of Death King of Ruin King of Shadows Amrath Return Ansikanderakesis Amrakane King of All Irlast Conqueror of the World… would seem to have… cocked up. Been creamed. Lost a fight.

  Didn’t I say they were getting complacent? I didn’t? Oh. Well. I thought it, deep down, like. Knew in my bones, what with being an expert in this kind of complex military stuff. Under-disciplined over-confident death-worshipping half-cut savages with no battle plan might lose occasionally: old secret sellsword’s wisdom, that.

  Fuck, Tobias thought, the world can throw some nice surprises at you occasionally.

  PART THREE

  THE FORGE

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Marith Altrersyr, the greatest war leader in the history of Irlast

  His camp

  “What happened? What the fuck happened? How? How?” Marith kicked at a body slumped before him. “How?”

  “They crept up in the dark,” said Osen uselessly.

  “Where were the sentries? How did we have no warning? An army! An army rides up over us and we don’t see them coming! How?”

  “The sentries are all dead,” said Osen. “Obviously. They came up from the north, from behind us, took the camp followers at our back first. We don’t know how they got up so close unobserved.”

  “Magery,” said Faseem Meerak.

  “I… fear Faseem is correct,” said Ynthe Kimek. Who was himself, of course, a magelord. He looked exhausted. Managed to kill some of them, apparently. One of the few with any sense left. “Magecraft, blinding the men’s eyes to their approach.”

  “Could they do it again?” said Ryn Mathen. Staring around in panic, as though a thousand screaming horsemen might appear surrounding him, cut him down. Bloody idiot. He who was supposed to be the greatest warrior in Chathe!

  “It was pitch black and we were concentrating on the assault in the morning and discipline was bloody lax,” said Osen. “End of it. I take a share of the responsibility myself, I should have been more vigilant. But we’ve all been getting slack. Haven’t we?”

  “Have you?”

  Osen looked at him. “If you’d been sober enough you could see anything, Marith, yes, you’d have seen that we have,” Osen said.

  Indrawn breath. Marith felt his face flush hot.

  Faseem and Kimek shaking, backing away.

  “If you’d been sober enough you could see anything, perhaps you’d have seen them coming yourself,” said Osen.

  You bastard, Osen. I hate you. How are you alive and… and not… and Carin…? You should be dead.

  Osen said, “Where were you when they first attacked, Marith? Unconscious? Puking? Pissing yourself?”

  Faseem weeping with fear.

  “I’ll kill you!” Marith shouted: “Kill him! Guards! Kill him! Now!” His hand went to the hilt of his sword.

  “Don’t be so bloody stupid, Marith,” said Osen.

  “I’ll kill you!” Drew his sword.

  Osen hit him in the face and the sword fell from his hand. Pain on his lips.

  “Marith.” Thalia put her hand on his hand. “Stop it. Now.”

  “Don’t!” He jerked his hand away. “I’ll kill him!”

  Her sleeve fell back, showing the scars on her arm.

  Stared at the scars.

  A dead child. Blood running off her. A dead child. Dead.

  He had held the child in his hands and it had moved, very briefly, one hand had moved. Its mouth had opened and closed. Red and brown and blue and pulpy. A girl. He would have called it Marissa. His real mother’s name. Its mouth and its hand had moved, he would swear it. My child. My child. Blood dripping around Thalia’s thighs.

  “Find anyone left alive who was on guard last night, and kill them!” he shouted at Osen. “Now.”

  “You won’t have an army left soon, for anyone else to kill,” said Osen.

  “They already believe that their king ordered their slaughter last night,” said Kiana Sabryya. Her face was flushed, her voice was angry. “Are you sure you wish any more of their blood on your hands, My Lord King?”

  Silence.

  “They what?”

  “They believe that you brought the swords down on them,” said Kiana. “They believe that you ordered the army to turn on itself. The men of the mountains attacked us, my soldiers have been telling them. The men of mountains, cowards and traitors that they are. Their bodies lie there on the earth for all to see. But many of them—many of them do not and will not believe it was not you.”

  Silence.

  “Not since the dragon, the last time,” Kiana said.

  Thalia raised her hand to touch him. Dropped her hand back.

  Marith looked down at the body at his feet. Kicked it again. He rubbed at his eyes. His head hurt.

  “Kill anyone who repeats such things,” he said.

  The men of the Mountains of Pain had crept up in the darkness, their coming hidden by magecraft and mountain skill. The men of the Mountains of Pain fell upon the camp in a frenzy of men and horses and shadows. Broke over the men of the Army of Amrath, shattered into them, felled them. The night so dark they could not see to defend themselves. All was confusion. And so long it had been, since any man dared to lead an army to attack them. They killed others. Fell upon others. They were the storm, the floodtide, the death curse. So long it had been, since any man dared to bring the field of war to them.

  The flood had broken over them. Cold liquid fire in waves of killing. A thousand deaths at a sword blade. Then as quickly as they had come the men of the Mountains of Pain had turned and retreated. Disappeared into the dark from whence they came. The sun rose on a killing ground thick with corpses. Trampled bodies, many of them unarmed. Men who had fought their own comrades, thinking them the enemy, and been killed by them.

  “To try to be fair to them,” Osen said, “they probably assumed you’d turn on them at some point whatever they did. Just like you did with Tereen. Just like you would have done with Arunmen.”

  “Just like I would have done with Arunmen? Unfair! I left Arunmen alone!” Considered this. “Possibly I would have turned on Arunmen at some point whatever they did.”

  “Possibly?”

  “Probably. Okay, yes, very probably. Almost certainly. Yes.”

  “Actually, you told me you would have. At the victory banquet after we sacked it.”

  “Did I?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh.” Pause. “But the people of Arunmen didn’t know I would.”

  Osen snorted.

  “What?”

  “King Ruin King of Shadows King of Death. You think?”

  He went back to his tent. Gods. In the main chamber, a table was overturned, he must have knocked it over, running to get out and fight. His cloak lay in a heap where he had been unable to get the brooch fastened, abandoned it. A bottle had overturned. Firewine stained the thick floor carpet black. There was a book on the floor, open. He must have been trying to read it. It had been trodden on, the page it was open at was ruined and black.

  Brychan was on his knees sorting the wreckage, a servant girl beside him. “There’s a cup broken, My Lord King,” said Brychan. “Nothing else. The book’s damaged here, but the rest of it is fine. Just this one page.” He held it out to Marith.

  . . . stheone memkabest,

  . . . Sesesmen hethelen…

  . . . love came,

  . . . like a flower…

  The Silver Tree. In the original Literan.

  “Thank you.” He went through into the bedchamber, put the book carefully down on the bed.

 
“Your bath’s being prepared, My Lord King,” said Brychan.

  “Thank you.” He sat down heavily on the bed.

  “Those… those horses they were riding…” said Brychan.

  “Yes?”

  “They didn’t look… Magery, the men are saying. God things. Demons mounted on god things.” Brychan said, “The men are afraid, My Lord King. I’ve never seen them afraid before.”

  The bath was ready; Marith washed, ate a meal, drank a cup of wine, felt a little better. It didn’t happen; it couldn’t have happened. A hatha dream. And then a servant would come in to dress him, take away his plate, refill his wine cup, and he would see terror in the man’s eyes. And shame.

  We will attack them at dawn. Come down on the city in the morning twilight, dragons and shadows and bronze spears, I will break down their gates with my own bare hands, I will kill them. But he did not call his captains to discuss battles. Did not draw up orders for them to march out.

  There was a stirring at the doorcurtain. Alleen came running in, alive with nerves. Marith looked up sharply. “Yes?”

  “Marith. They have sent you an envoy. I think you should come quickly, Marith.”

  Marith thought: tell the envoy I will come and kill them all. That’s it. I don’t need to see him, to tell him that. But Alleen looked afraid. Brychan looked afraid, from looking at Alleen. Thalia came in and she too looked afraid and on edge.

  “Don’t be absurd,” he snapped at them. “Stop it.”

  Thalia fastened his cloak, arranged the folds. Dried blood crumbling off it, filling the air. Marith strapped on his sword.

  “Well?”

  Brychan said, “The envoy… the envoy’s waiting… on the edge of the camp…”

  On the edge of the camp there was bloody chaos. Battered down earth, dead horses still lying where they fell, two of the enemy lying dead. The burned-out remains of one of the war engines. And the envoy.

  Marith stopped. Thalia beside him reached out and took his hand.

  The envoy was mounted on a black horse. It was vast, taller than a man at the shoulder, but very thin. Like a hobby horse, flayed skin over dry bones. In the daylight, a pale gleam of blue fire played around its mouth and its flared nostrils and its killing hooves. Its mouth was red. Its eyes were red. Its mane stirred and moved and a hissing sound came from it. Its mane was black snakes, flickering out long black tongues, hissing at Marith.

  It was saddled and bridled in iron, all studded with sharp spikes. In the saddle sat a woman.

  Her hair was the colour of a wheat field in summer and her skin was the colour of the rich dark earth in which the wheat grows. Her eyes were as blue as flowers and her lips were as red as ripe cherries and her body was as slender as a young willow tree. She was wearing a dress of green silk and a crown of green leaves. In her right hand she held a silver sword.

  She opened her mouth to speak. Her voice was sweet as music, like the babble of cool deep water or the murmur of the wind in the reeds. “Marith Altrersyr.”

  “Who are you?”

  She tossed her beautiful hair. Blur of gold. A memory: the wheat ripe in the fields, the men and women dancing out to the harvest, he and Ti young boys, visiting with their grandfather Carlan in the country, the Murade fortress of Malth Denamen on Sel Island; they had gone out to join the harvesting, played in the corn, got sweaty and weary and joyful, with black soil on their faces; he’d drunk beer and danced with a girl with poppies in her black hair, stayed up very late.

  Ti… He felt Thalia’s presence, tense, beside him. Warm, beside him. Her voice, too low to make out the words, whispering something.

  “Who are you?” he shouted at the woman.

  “I am the Queen of Turain,” the woman said. The demon horse stamped and snorted. The snakes in its mane hissed at him. “Will you fight me, Marith Altrersyr? I challenge you for the throne of Turain.”

  Laughed, incredulous. “You challenge me?”

  She said, “I will make a bargain with you, Marith Altrersyr. If I win, you will put down your sword and take your men a thousand miles from here, never return to harm us. But if you win, you may cut off my head and take my place here as king.”

  Thalia put her cool hand on his arm. “Marith. Be careful.”

  “That’s all? The throne of Turain and your death, or a promise to leave you in peace?”

  “That is all. Is that not enough?” She shook out her hair again. Ripe corn, summer fields: lying with his head in Carin’s lap, in a cornfield, one morning, there is a lark singing, very high above them, there is a cornflower growing among the wheat just by them, “Your eyes are that colour, Carin, exactly the colour of the cornflower there.” A breeze makes the stalks ripple and rustle, “The corn is telling you how much I love you, Marith.” “I know you love me, Carin.” “If you love me, Marith,” a kiss, a hand on his chest, Carin must feel his heart beating, “if you love me…” “I do love you, Carin.” “My father wants you to kill your father, Marith, after you’ve married Landra, they want me to ask you to do it, but I can’t, I won’t, because I love you too much.”

  His mouth seemed filled with sand. He swallowed and his throat felt raw. Sand crunched in his mouth. I’d forgotten that. Pretended I’d forgotten that.

  “Marith,” Thalia said in a low voice.

  The Queen of Turain smiled at him. A long black tongue hissed out through her red lips. A snake’s forked tongue. “Will you fight me, then, Marith Altrersyr King of Dust King of Shadows King of Death?”

  “My father wants me to ask you, but I won’t ask you that, Marith.” And the guilt in Carin’s eyes, the shadow, Carin knew what he was doing, oh he did, Carin had known always. But I loved him and he loved me.

  “Marith,” Thalia said. Urgent.

  Marith drew his sword. “I have fought with gods and monsters before, and destroyed them. I will fight you, Queen of Turain. It will be your death. Your death or I will leave your city in peace.”

  The snake’s tongue hissed out at him. “When will we fight, then, Marith Altrersyr? Now?”

  “Not now.” He looked at Thalia and she was trembling. “This evening. At dusk.”

  “Not at dusk. At dawn. If you kill me before the sun has fully risen, you may have my crown and my city and my people’s lives, Marith Altrersyr.”

  Marith said, “At dawn.”

  She said, “We will fight on the banks of the River Isther, where it flows before the walls of my city of Turain, beneath the willow tree that grows there whose leaves make up my queenly crown. At dawn, then. All the birds will sing.”

  She turned her horse, galloped away from them. “An archer!” Osen whispered to Marith. “Bring her down. Where’s Ynthe Kimek, to blast her with mage fire?”

  Thalia was staring after her with anger, nodded in agreement. “Kill her, Marith. Now. Please.”

  “Are you a mad fool, my Lord Fiolt?” the woman’s voice shouted. “Look! Look to your enemy!” She laughed like children playing and women dancing and all the happiness in the world, and was gone out of the camp into the burned fields of Turain. Her horse’s hooves threw up black ash and white ash.

  Look to your enemy. Scouts came in soon afterwards to bring the truth of it: in the plain to the south of the city, with their backs to the bare hills of Mar like an arm cradling them, an army had appeared. It stood silent, in perfect order. Not a man moved there, the horses stood silent, every spear and sword was frozen still. Their shadows were still. Only the pennants they carried danced in the wind, to show that there were real men there, not an illusion born of fear. Black armour. Antlered helmets, through which dark eyes stared. In the armour, with the antlers, they did not look like men. Their mouths showed red beneath the shadow of their helmets. Their armour was spiked, like teeth. Infantry, shields locked together. Archers, their bows made of sweetwood and human bone. Cavalry, mounted on huge black horses with living snakes for manes. They were armed with axes and knives. Golden-winged eagles circled above them. The air above them glowed.
The men of Turain and the men of the mountains, rank upon rank, filling the plain. Like the plants in a wheat field, said one of the scouts in wonder. Rooted in the earth, silent and still and numberless. Too many to see them individually, or to count. Never, the scout said, had he seen so many men gathered, they made the Army of Amrath look like boys playing in the roadside, he had not thought, truly, that there could be so many on all the face of the earth.

  Marith rode over to see. The man’s exaggerating. He is. Obviously he is. Took a role as a scout because he’s too much of a coward to stand in the front ranks and fight. We’ll see, this mighty terrifying army, we’ll see…

  Saw.

  Rode back.

  The men of the mountains. Bloody traitors. “Oh Dragon King, Great Lord of Death, Master, King of All, here, take these gifts, a toast to your glory, take our oaths of fealty and love. Truly are you called Great Lord and Wonder and King.” Bastards. Just like Arunmen.

  “They swore me their loyalty. Crowned me.”

  Osen said, “You just can’t trust people, can you? And size isn’t everything, isn’t that right, Alleen?” Osen tried to laugh at his own joke. Alleen Durith tried to laugh, as did Ryn Mathen. It came out of them like dogs barking. Died off. A servant girl pouring wine spilled some over the table. Gasped and muttered while she mopped it up.

  “Leave it,” Marith said to her.

  “You shouldn’t be fighting this woman,” Osen said. “Let me fight her, Marith.”

  “Don’t be absurd.” He slapped his hand on the table, spilling more wine. “I said leave it.”

  “She’s a demon, Marith. A god. Something.”

  “So I can fight her, Osen. You can’t.”

  “But I can be spared to die, Marith,” Osen said.

  People shifting in their seats. Don’t say that word. Impossible word. The serving girl gasped.

  “I can’t die. I cannot die.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Osen. “I didn’t mean that. I don’t know why I said that.”

  “She is not a demon,” said Thalia. “She is what she says she is. The Queen of Turain.”