The next morning the cloud had sunk lower over the mountains, and everything was grey and hidden in mist. Colder, with the strange heavy silence. Water droplets gleaming on everything, furring everything, wearing away all the edges; the rock felt softer, swollen with water, the rock and the sky blurred into each other, a stream of water ran down the mountainside. Tobias tried to get his head clear. Make some decision about something.
“Right. Lenae. Naillil. Rovi. Right.”
Lenae stretched and groaned. Her hair was sticking up full of dirt. She looked awful, like the rain had soaked into her and puffed her up like it had the rocks.
“We go south-west,” said Tobias. “Away from everyone that’s left of the army.”
Lenae said, “South-west? There’s nothing south-west of here. Mountains. Then the sea.”
“Exactly.”
“We need to find shelter, food…”
Lenae, defenceless and rich and pretty; Naillil, kind of hardened but. Rovi, rotting; Thalia, her face puffy like she’d been crying half the night. Surprise surprise she’d been crying half the night. Odd smell in the air, every so often, when the wind changed: weird and freaky, what the fuck’s that now, that odd smell? And then the realization that sometimes, when the wind blew from the south-west, the odd smell was that they weren’t smelling death.
“What we need is to get out of the way of everything with a weapon.”
The mist lifted, as they were walking. The mountains rising out of it, mist and cloud in the valleys at first like the peaks were islands in the grey sea. Find you a place to live, here, then, Thalia girl, a kingdom of your own up here? It burned off, as they came down the mountain, the clouds fading away as they walked. A narrow valley, folded away into the mountainside, giving them some cover; its sides were high and wooded, the sky a thin pale strip hidden by leaves. They followed the course of a stream. Once they had to stop, when Naillil held up her hand and gestured to them to be silent, Tobias had heard nothing but she glared at him, finally there was a splashing in the water ahead of them, a sound that might be metal on stone. Thalia and Lenae stood together clutching each other’s hands. The sounds went on a long time. Silence a long time afterwards, before Tobias held up his hand, nodded, and they went very cautiously on. There were rocks in the stream bed a little further on, a crossing place, and the rocks had wet footprints on them.
Surrender to them. Whichever side they’re on.
A little further on again, the stream fell away in a waterfall, singing, and the valley closed in, became a ravine. High steep stone walls. The way the water ran down was beautiful. A silk veil, strung with rainbows, sewn with tiny bells. Could almost forget everything, watching it, listening to it. It went on down the ravine fast and white.
They were about to begin to scramble up out of the valley when Thalia said, “Stop.” A shape in the sky, very high above them, moving slowly. It shone in the sky. It looked like a bird, except that it must be huge, to seem to move so slowly in the sky.
“The green dragon,” Thalia said when it had gone.
Wanted to say no, it wasn’t, just a big bird, a trick of perspective. Didn’t. They’d made it up out of the valley when they heard it scream.
“We should go back down there, hide in the trees,” said Lenae. “Wait until it’s gone.”
“Travelling at night would be worse,” Tobias said.
They went on very cautiously. Blue lights high in the sky off to the north of them that morning, a cold wind. Not just scouts harrying camp followers. Soldiers under attack and fighting back. A roar in the air, a brightening of all their hearts, and then a crash that made the mountains ring out and a flash of red light. A shriek. The sky seemed to swallow up the red light. Thalia looked to the north, trembling. A column of smoke rose up in the north, thick and black. Fire in the sky, rolling in heavy waves.
“Come on,” said Tobias. “Stop looking at it. Just don’t look at it. Please.”
An hour or so later they had to crouch in the undergrowth while horses’ hooves galloped past ahead of them, heading north. A voice shouted in Pernish, with an accent of the White Isles, Thalia’s face lit up and fell back into shadow. She could try to run to them, Tobias thought, shout to them, stand before them radiant in her glory, order them to kneel at her feet, fight for her, rally to her. Saw her thinking it. Saw the thought die away. After a little while there was silence again, and they went on.
“I don’t like it here,” said Lenae. They had stopped to rest in a copse of yellow-leaved trees. A short rest, then a final hour’s walk, then stop for the night. A mountain between them and where they’d started that morning. The curve of the mountain between them and the column of black smoke. The trees were sickly. Withered. The leaves looked dried-up. Made Tobias itch. There was a dead tamas bird lying at the foot of one of the trees, its wings spread open black and red. It too looked dried-out, mummified, as if it had died of thirst.
“Protection against death by drowning, death by starvation, death by thirst in the midst of the sea,” Thalia whispered, looking at it. She shuddered. Tobias took out his knife, went to flick it away from her. “No,” she said, “leave it there. We can sit away from it.”
“I don’t like it here,” said Lenae again. “I don’t like it.”
“I don’t like any of this,” said Tobias shortly. “But I need a rest. Rovi needs a rest.” Rovi stank of rot and bad water, he wheezed and gasped and his wounds opened, he was grey like the earth, like he was crumbling away. Thalia looked at him with horror, couldn’t stop staring at him. “He’s fine. Stop staring. Got his throat cut by a soldier in the Army of Amrath, that’s all, like I said.” Thought: why do I have to be so cruel?
They drank some water, ate a little more dried meat. Need to find some supplies, soon. Find a village or somewhere where the inhabitants wouldn’t fall on them with drawn swords. Get to the coast… and then maybe Thalia was serious about the sea.
If we survive all this to do something, Tobias thought, I’m going to ask Lenae to marry me.
She’ll say no, obviously. But I’ll ask her.
“We should go on,” said Naillil. “We need to rest but now we need to go on.”
Lenae nodded. “Yes.”
Thalia got to her feet and looked away to the north behind them. Walked after them reluctantly.
The trees ended. A stretch of grassland rising, another damned mountain to climb. More peaks behind it. On and on until the sea. A lake, perfectly circular, reflecting blue sky and the mountain top. Birds reflected in it. An island in its centre, grown up with tall silent reeds. Far off on the horizon, far to the east, more smoke. Tiny figures moving on the horizon, black like insects. A troop of horsemen, riding fast. A moment’s flash of shining bronze. Then gone. And that look of fear and longing on Thalia’s face. Walk on. Come on. The dusk is coming. An hour or two more of light. We must go on. Get on further. Up into the high slopes of the mountain and hide. Have they seen us? Ah, gods, pray to all gods and demons they didn’t see us.
Tobias the bastard-hard sellsword. Oh yes.
“Look,” Lenae moaned. “Look.”
There, on the other side of the round lake. A god bird. Its body sprawled over the grass. The weight of it had broken the earth open as it came down. Silver and gold, draining the light away into it. Great wings unfurled, as the dead tamas bird’s wings had been unfurled to show the beauty of its feathers even in death.
In the sky, the enemy, it had been vast. Sprawled here, it was smaller, weaker, so fragile, like a thing of cloth. Tobias thought of the kites he had seen children flying, in Sorlost, in the evening as they walked to the palace. One had caught in a tree branch, he could see it still, a bloody omen, this little scrap of pitifully bright cloth. But in the sky it must have been like watching a dream.
There was not a mark on it. They crept up closer, all but Thalia who stood back from it watching the distant smoke. “Look on your works!” Tobias felt like shouting to her. “Look at it. What you did.” In on
e of its talons it clutched a long curl of red and black scaled skin.
They came very close, all but Thalia. The right eye was open. Tobias bent over it, saw himself reflected in it. Dead heavy black, like a night sky thick with cloud, or the choking dark of a windowless, lightless room.
“Is it dead?” whispered Lenae.
“What do you think, woman? Maybe it’s just having a pleasant snooze?” His voice sounded awkward and heavy: why do I keep saying these crude things? He said more gently, “Yes, it’s dead, don’t worry.”
As he had once before, so long ago now, he put out his hand. Touched it. It was cold, of course, it had lain out all night dead in the rain. It felt no different to any other dead thing. Feathers, like any other bird feathers. Its body soft and hard together, like the meat of a man’s thigh. No different to dead cattle, or dead men, or dead dogs.
Lenae touched it also. Put both hands on it, ran her hands over its feathers. Drew her face up very close. Naillil did not touch it but looked at it with tears in her eyes.
Piss and pain and grief. Curse Marith, for doing this. Like the dragon’s death had hurt him, that the boy could be so careless of something as terrible and beautiful as a dragon. What the boy must feel about other things, if he could destroy wonders such as this.
My mum and my gran were weavers, Tobias thought, and we all valued beautiful things, everyone in my village valued wonderful things. Gar the dyer, he was a small thin man, nothing to look at, grumpy old bugger, no manners, he had terrible wind—but he made dyes so beautiful, blues and reds and greens so vivid, cloth dyed in his vats looked more real than the world itself. And we all treated him like a king and a magelord, because of it, because he could make beautiful, wonderful things. And then after he died we didn’t make the cloth any more, I gave up the weaving, because the colours wouldn’t be right.
Hope, Thalia says Marith felt. Hope!
Thalia took a step towards it. Stepped back. The horror of what it must feel like, Tobias thought, to know that you did this. Bile rose in his throat.
No scavengers, no insects or carrion birds. The body would lie here slowly rotting, years and years, the bones erupting out of the wound it had made in the mountainside. This would surely be a haunted place. A fearful place. “A god died here,” the people of the mountains would say. “The gods fought, and our gods won, but a god died here.”
“Look at this.” Lenae pointed to a spray of waxy red flowers, carefully arranged near to one of its wings. There was a battered helmet beneath the flowers.
“Offerings,” said Lenae.
Looked at them for a while. Finally, to his own embarrassment, left a couple of iron pennies beside them.
They walked on past, looking back. The round lake gleamed like an eye. Reflected the sky and the mountain peaks and birds in flight. Thalia looked away the whole time until they had left it far behind them.
When they finally stopped for the night it was already growing dark. Walk on, get away from the dead god. Who could sleep with that near? It must light up the darkness. Pouring out shame into the night. Thalia walked on very fast. The evening came and her eyes were wide, Tobias saw her lips move, her hand close again around her scarred arm, a pulse beat at her beautiful throat. Sereletha… Sesesere… seserenthelae aus however it went. Marith’s voice, dreamy and longing: “Night comes. We survive.” The ache in his voice for these distant strange things.
A dangerous time. “There’s a place just up ahead, see it? There, where the trees are. We can stop there.”
Fuck, my feet are aching, Tobias thought. My legs are aching, my chest feels like shite. I could have gone twice as far twice as quickly, only a few years ago. Trotted along with a frigging tent on my back. No sloggers on the job! You, new boy, green boy, keep up, speed up! Gods, my leg aches and my shoulder bloody aches. What in the world I wouldn’t give for a hot bath and a bed with clean crisp sheets. Gods, the smell of clean linen, slipping into it, the feel of clean bedding, the smell of clean linen when you bury your nose in it, stretch out, roll over, pull the sheet up. Sleep.
Woken by voices. Thalia’s voice. Been dreaming about Thalia. Not . . . like that. Just seeing her, in his dreams, as she might have been, if things had been different, if the world could be changed back. Her voice must have made him dream.
“. . . dead,” Thalia was saying.
“My baby died. Six months, he lived.”
“We killed him. Didn’t we? That night.”
Silence. “Your husband killed him. Yes.”
“How do you go on?” said Thalia.
“Sadly,” said Lenae. Her voice sounded different. More real. “With my heart screaming all night and all day.” Her voice came out in a rush, choking: “I remember—one day, maybe a month, two months after my baby had been born—I remember putting my hands to my face, rubbing my face because I was tired, and I noticed the smell of my hands. They were all dry and spoilt, from washing clout clothes, washing and tending the baby, not getting any sleep. And they smelled like my mother’s hands had. Like I remembered her hands smelling, when she held me, when I was a child. I used to take her hands, hold them to my face. And they looked like her hands, all red and gnarled and worn.”
“A proper mother’s hands, I thought, that’s what I have now. But now my child is dead.”
Silence. “And your husband? You said that he was dead.”
Silence. “My mother arranged the marriage. I don’t miss him like… you know. But he was a good father to our son.”
“Marith would have been a good father.” A pause. “No, Marith would have been a dreadful father. But he would have loved our children.”
“You might find another man,” Lenae said. A pause. A nervous rush: “Any number of them, I expect.”
Silence. “I should think that bedding the High Priestess of the Lord of Living and Dying, Eltheia Returned, the Ansikanderakesis Amrakane Amrath Returned’s widow might… put most men off their stroke, don’t you think?”
A laugh. “Perhaps.”
Thalia said, “Ryn Mathen hinted that I should marry him… should anything happen to Marith. He’s not as bad as some.”
“The Chathean war leader?” Another pause. “He’s gorgeous.” Another laugh.
“I should think he is dead by now. Or running back to Chathe. His cousin is the King of Chathe. His cousin is also unmarried, I’ve been told. I don’t know what he looks like.”
Silence. “I don’t think I can have a child. I don’t think—I don’t want to endure that again.”
Silence. “What do you want?”
Thalia said, “I don’t know.”
“I have a purse with two thalers left in it,” said Lenae. “I could give you one thaler. That’s enough to buy a farm somewhere.”
“Somewhere my army hasn’t burned and sown the soil with salt and human ashes, you mean?”
Silence.
“I—I mean—I—”
Pause.
“I’m sorry. That is a kind thing to offer. Thank you. But I can’t take it. I will go—wherever I go, whatever I do—”
Silence.
“That was a kindness. Thank you. Thank you, Lenae.”
“I could come with you, even. If you wanted. I’ll ask you… You think about it. Tobias is right. There are so many things you could be and do.”
“Are there? Really?”
Both women fell silent.
On through the mountains. Day after day. Getting confusing, sometimes, the ache in his legs and his shoulder, his chest hurting him, limping along hungry and tired. Alone in the wilderness. Am I walking with Raeta and Landra, are we back in the Wastes, can I still make it all go right? Time has stopped, time has gone backwards, there’s still a chance to make it right. Or before that, before everything, walking with Rate and Alxine and Marith through the desert, and Marith’s the pretty new boy in the Free Company, cries at night sometimes, Emit’s running a book on how long he lasts before this breaks him, starts crying for his m
um, he can’t make tea to save his life. I should feel anxious, knowing what we’re going for; I should feel guilty, knowing they won’t be coming back. We stop for a breather and he’s sitting on the grass eating an apple, legs drawn up before him looking fresh as new cotton, sweet and young and innocent apart from his eyes. He smiles. Alxine’s hoping he might smile at him. Rate says something and we all laugh.
Once they almost ran into a troop of soldiers, mountain men in their black armour, heading home after the victory. They had a man’s head on a pole. A woman walked with them, her hands bound. There was a rope around her neck like a horse’s bridle. A tall man with an antlered helmet dragged her along. They were going slowly and leisurely. The woman was stumbling. Very slow. A child with the same skin colour and hair colour as the woman trailed behind them. The men laughed, one brandished the pole with the head on it, one threw a stone that struck the child in the leg. The child cried out, but kept on following them. The woman turned to look, cried out also, and the man leading her jerked the rope around her neck, made her choke. The whole company of them went on out of sight.
“I would have jumped them. If there’d been twenty of me.”
Lenae said, “Yes.”
“The child,” said Naillil.
Thalia said nothing. Put her hands to her throat.
They went on, and none of them spoke for the rest of the day. That night Tobias lay awake trying not to close his eyes. The woman’s face was there in the dark with his eyes open, and there close up with a face like his mother, or like Lenae, or like Thalia, when he closed his eyes. “You could at least have killed my child,” she said when he closed his eyes.
The House of Sacrifice Page 28