My strength starts to waver, my muscles weakening, until I realize it’s not me.
Something is pulling on me from behind, aiding the god, and I think for a moment that maybe someone from the crowd has a hold of my ax.
I tighten my grip as the ax is nearly wrenched from my hands, and get pulled along with it. Peruxolo sneers at me as he halts in place, watching me fly backward.
My fingers gripping the ax crunch under the weight of something, and I think my middle finger might actually be broken. A beat later, my back slams against the ground with my ax pinned above my head.
When I finally adjust to the pain, I note that I haven’t actually reached the crowd. No, my ax pins my fingers against a tree trunk. The bark is broken in places, held to the tree by thick nails. And underneath, little slivers of that new metal. It’s drawn me here, and no matter how hard I pull, I cannot get my ax to part from it.
“You are beaten, Rasmira Bendrauggo,” Peruxolo says. “I send you into the next life to meet Rexasena’s wrath. Just as you have met mine.”
I’m not afraid. He can’t take another step forward without sticking to this tree just as my ax is.
Peruxolo drops his ax to the ground and reaches behind his back once more—for another silver dagger. I pull at my fingers, trying to free them from where the ax has them trapped, glancing over my shoulder at the god.
He pulls back his arm, taking careful aim.
I prop one foot against the bark of the tree and pull.
My head cracks against the rocky ground just as the dagger embeds into the bark where my body was just seconds before.
And though the world spins, I rise to my feet, launching myself at Peruxolo and his confused face.
I plow right into him, and the two of us go crashing to the ground. I land on top and get my thighs on either side of him to steady myself as I send a closed fist flying toward his head.
“My armor isn’t made of metal.”
I try to hit him a second time, but he catches it and bucks his hips, sending me flying off.
I land right next to his ax.
Peruxolo eyes it and then me. “No!” he shouts.
I fling it toward that tree. It would have landed no farther than five feet away if the natural forces at work hadn’t propelled it onward. It clanks into the bark right next to the ax Iric made me.
Confused grumbles now come from the onlookers as they wonder why Peruxolo would allow his own ax to be trapped by his power.
“Behold Peruxolo!” I shout for the whole crowd to hear. “He who uses nothing more than simple natural forces to keep you afraid and helpless. He is nothing without his lodestones.”
“You worthless bitch!” he yells.
We charge each other, colliding in a tangle of limbs and armor. I try to force him toward that tree, where he’ll be helpless, sucked against that sheet of metal with his lodestone armor, but there’s no denying that he’s stronger than I am.
I have lost any advantage I had, and now that our weapons are gone, now that the battle is down to fists and feet, Peruxolo has the upper hand.
He steps on my foot in his haste to force me back. The fingers in my right hand throb and swell from where I grip him. At least one of them is definitely broken. My head still spins.
In the next movement, I strike him on his left side where I sliced him deeply and he cries out.
“I am your god!” he says when the surge of pain passes. He backhands me, cracking my neck in the opposite direction. “You do not challenge me. You do not tell lies regarding me. You obey. You deliver your Payment. And you stay out of my way! I will have the whole Bendrauggo line for this!”
I backtrack, trying to gain some footing so I can strike, but Peruxolo follows. Knuckles dig into my cheek as he hits me again, and for one brief moment, my gaze lands on Soren, standing at the edge of the clearing. His body is rigid, and his teeth are clenched together.
You promised, I hope my look says.
I try to dig my hands around Peruxolo’s throat, but he’s forcing me backward. A fist into my throat has me choking for air. My eyes water, my throat burns. Every appendage throbs with pain.
I’m going to lose the fight.
But then Soren’s voice trails through my mind.
If things go wrong, if you need a breather, you get him to follow you to this spot.
I make sure I land a little more to the left after his next strike.
I want everything to end. I want my people safe. I want to go home. I want Peruxolo’s tyranny over.
He steps on my hand, the one with the broken finger, and I scream. He sends a kick into my stomach with his other leg. I can just imagine the satisfaction on Havard’s face at that move.
But I can’t let him kill me. Not here. I look around. There are the boulders. I need to get him closer.
I pull my hand free of his foot, even though it feels as though I’m pulling my finger off. I roll in the right direction, the move sending more pain shooting through all my injuries. I still can’t breathe from the kick that stunned my lungs.
When I stop, I look up, trying to find the boulders.
Just a few more steps.
I right myself, back up some more, my breaths coming faster than ever.
And then I watch the god take his last step.
Peruxolo reaches for me, only his hands stop midair, as though crashing into an invisible wall. He pulls back, examining his own fingers, before trying to grab me again.
He can’t advance toward me any farther. Not with the boulder of iron at my back, holding him off. There’s another a few paces to his left and a third to his right. Iric, Soren, and I placed them carefully, testing them on lodestones to gauge the appropriate distance.
A large thud sounds behind Peruxolo, and he turns to see Iric and Soren dusting the dirt off their hands from the boulder they dropped behind him. He didn’t notice the two of them coming up from behind, hauling the rock from the sidelines of the battle.
And now Peruxolo is boxed in, unable to move, the natural forces of the metals working against him.
“That’s your brilliant plan?” he asks with a laugh. “You forget that I know how this works. And you have no weapon.”
He reaches between the leathers on his forearm and starts to pull the sheet of armor out from there.
It doesn’t give an inch before I rise and reach down into my boot. From it, I pull out a silver dagger. The one Peruxolo used to stab me. His eyes widen in recognition as I plunge the silver tip into the skin at his neck. He goes down.
Blood oozes from the wound, seeps out the side of his mouth, drips onto the pebbles beneath his head. I pull the dagger out, and the stream turns to a pour, as the blood is freed from the large vein there.
He’s dead in seconds.
And the crowd is silent.
Not a soul stirs or really even breathes as I stand over Peruxolo’s body.
I kneel down beside him and pull the armor sheets from his arms and legs. I tug off his boots, unclasp the cloak from off his shoulders, and unstrap his breastplate.
I want to drop onto the ground and sleep. I want the pain to stop and the crowd to go away, but there is still one last thing I have to do.
I’ve finally put it together. The last of the mystery. Why a god would rely on natural forces instead of his power. I know what the rest of the things I saw in Peruxolo’s lair are for.
I grip Peruxolo by his hands and drag him across the ground. Rocks scrape against his back and blood still trickles from his neck, leaving a bloody trail in our wake. But the progress is too slow. I can’t bear it.
I kneel down and manage to heft his weight onto my back.
With an arm and leg on either side of my head, I walk toward my father, who stands at the front of the crowd.
His eyes meet mine. Open wide. Wondering.
I imagine mine like daggers poised to strike. He is why I am here. He sealed my fate.
But now I’m free.
I dump the bo
dy at his feet and let everything that has been burdening me fall off with it. No more worries concerning my family. No more thinking little of myself or thinking I’m not good enough for things.
I nudge the body with a foot, look up at my father, and say, “Here is your god.”
CHAPTER
24
Only then does the stillness evaporate. Cheering erupts so loudly, I think my ears will burst. People rush at me, trying to clap me on the back, ruffle my hair, or skim my clothes—they try to touch me as though I’m the goddess herself.
But one figure breaks through the crowd.
“She’s injured. Everyone back off!” Irrenia nudges bodies away with her shoulders in her haste to get to me.
She opens a bag of supplies and starts prodding at the bones in my right hand. People from all villages rush around us, eager to kick at or spit on the god’s body.
“Silence!” A voice breaks through the ruckus, and I recognize the leader of the Mallimer village from the clearing—the one who supplied Peruxolo with a girl once a year for sacrificing.
Those closest to us still, but excitement is tangible in the air, nevertheless.
“I recognize him,” the village leader says. “That’s Cadmael. He was banished fifteen years ago for failing his warrior trial.”
“Yes,” I say. Though I didn’t know the man’s name or where he came from, I did know he was a mortal man. “This is who you’ve been giving your Payment to each year.”
“No,” he says. “I’ve been paying tribute to Peruxolo for over thirty years, and Cadmael has only been banished for fifteen.”
“Peruxolo is just a name. My guess is that over the years, the mantle has been passed down from one banished man from the villages to another so he can collect tribute and silently punish the village that sent him to die in the first place. They’ve been at it for centuries, which is why the tale of Peruxolo goes back so far.”
“No!” the leader says more emphatically. “We sacrifice a girl every year for his blessing.”
“No,” I say, deadpan. “You send a girl to be raped and tortured by a man to satisfy his whims year after year.”
Women nearby start wailing. Mothers of those girls who were sacrificed.
“No,” he says again.
“Naftali,” Father says. “Stop arguing and let her speak.”
“He’s killed entire villages!” the leader, Naftali, says. “Without even showing his face! How do you explain that?”
Father turns to me. Irrenia wraps my fingers while I talk.
“Poison,” I answer. “I’ve been to the seam in the mountain where this man lived. There were barrels of iron fragments. All he had to do was drop them into a well, and the whole village would die.”
“And all his powers?” Father asks.
“All simple uses of lodestones. He’s found those that react strongly with one another in the wild. He has metal buried in the ground and strapped to his feet to make it look as though he can fly. There’s a sheet of iron nailed to that tree.” I point to where my ax still rests in midair.
There’s nothing but contemplative looks from the village leaders now.
That resignation, their failure to acknowledge their guilt—it infuriates me. I rip my hand out of Irrenia’s and stand.
“This is all your fault. The stupid mattugrs prove nothing. All they did was make those banished hate you enough to starve you, to hurt your women, to place burdens on your backs for revenge. You have no one to blame but yourselves.”
“Rasmira,” Irrenia says as a warning. These men all hold my fate in their hands, and I don’t care one bit. I survived the wild. I survived a god. And whatever else they decide to do to me next, I will survive that, too.
“Perhaps,” my father finally says. “But we have you to thank for our salvation.”
Father reaches down and hoists me onto one of his shoulders. I nearly lose my balance, because I’m unprepared for the movement. “All hail Rasmira Bendrauggo, God Killer!”
Deafening noise engulfs me. I know Father tacked on my surname so he would receive recognition, so all would know it was his daughter that slew the man who terrorized all the villages.
And for once, I don’t care.
I feel whole.
* * *
EVERYONE GOES HOME TO their villages afterward. And Peruxolo—Cadmael? The leaders decide to leave him right where he is. For the ziken to feed on, just as he’d doomed the previous leader of Restin. An order, I now realize, Cadmael gave to hide the metallic triangle he used to kill him.
It’s difficult dragging myself away from the crowd. Shouts of “God Killer” follow me all the way from the Payment site to the village. People swarm me, want to talk to me, want to offer compliments up to the goddess on my behalf, thank me for killing the false god.
It’s only by Irrenia insisting she needs to tend to me back at the house, where her supplies are, that Father finally makes the crowds go away.
He’s only too happy to turn their attention onto himself.
Now I sit on Irrenia’s mattress, with an army of ointments staring at me from the shelves in the room. Soren, Iric, and Aros sit on the pillows and furs on the floor of the room, watching. Despite witnessing me kill the god, they insisted they would see me home.
So here we are.
“Are you almost done, Irrenia?” I ask. “I’m ready to sleep in my own bed.”
“Not even close,” she says. “I still have to treat the cuts on your face.”
“They’re barely scratches!”
“You’re my patient, and you will sit through any treatments I deem necessary.”
As I’ve long learned, arguing is pointless. It’s partly an act, anyway. The familiarity of my sister tending to my injuries is a balm to my homesick heart. I was not lying about my bed, though. I crave it desperately.
“And I thought Rasmira was bossy,” Iric whispers to Soren.
“I heard that,” Irrenia says.
Iric grins before scooting closer to Aros.
“If she decides to smack you, I won’t stop her,” Aros says.
“To think I suffered through monsters only to be done in by Raz’s little sister.”
“I’m older,” Irrenia says.
“But littler.”
Irrenia closes her eyes and draws in a deep breath. “You willingly lived with this person?” she asks.
“I didn’t have much of a choice,” I assure her.
She throws a look over her shoulder toward Soren, who watches her administrations carefully. “I suppose I would have suffered through it, too, if it meant spending more time with the handsome one.”
Soren’s cheeks redden, but Iric speaks before he can say anything. “I’m the handsome one!”
“No, you’re not.”
“Yes, he is,” Aros says.
I can’t help it. The bickering is contagious. “No, he’s not.”
Soren rewards me with a perfectly handsome smile.
“Two against two,” Irrenia says. “That means Soren has the tie-breaking vote.”
“He doesn’t get the tie-breaking vote regarding his own looks!” Iric says.
“In that case, your vote doesn’t count, either. So Soren wins.”
Aros eventually calms down Iric’s outrage. Iric doesn’t know Irrenia enough to know she’s only teasing him, and I’m far too amused by the exchange to make her put a stop to it.
The door opens suddenly, and all talking comes to a halt as my father steps inside.
Inwardly, I groan.
“Are the worst of her injuries tended to?” he asks. “There’s a matter Rasmira needs to see to.”
“Can it not wait until tomorrow?” I ask. Is he going to make me talk to the elders? If he intends to parade me around to seek more praise from villagers—
“I don’t think you’ll want to put this off. It’s to do with your mother.”
That has me on my feet so quickly, Irrenia nearly drops the damp cloth in her hand.
I FOLLOW FATHER THROUGH the streets, Soren behind me. Iric opted to stay and argue with my sister more, but really I don’t think he wanted to leave his close proximity to Aros. Fine by me.
“I’ve had a talk with the elders,” Father says. “You should know you have been reinstated as my heir and proclaimed a woman and a warrior for all the village to hear. I would have done that with you present, but I didn’t think Irrenia would permit it. This, however, is a matter that needs your immediate attention.”
Those in the village have already returned to their work for the day, despite the earlier battle with the god. A blacksmith hammers in his forge. The smell of freshly cooked valder wafts from the open door of an eatery, which will only be available for purchase at an exorbitant price. Peruxolo may have been defeated, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t already hurt our meat supply—
“Father. In the mountain where the god—Cadmael—lived, there’s food. He’s dried our meat to preserve it. It’s still there. We must send people out to retrieve it. The other villages will want to be notified so they can retrieve their goods as well.”
“It will be done,” Father says. “Will you lead a group of warriors through the wild?”
If he asked me that question before my banishment, I wouldn’t have been able to do it, but now—“Of course.”
And that’s the end of it.
Father eventually stops in the open air of the village square. The elders of Seravin survey two figures kneeling on the ground, a warrior on each side of them to prevent them from running.
One of the bent figures is my mother. The other is Torrin.
“Kachina Bendrauggo has admitted her guilt before myself and the elders,” Father says. “She freely stated that she lied about what happened at your trial and revealed the truth. She says this man, Torrin Grimsson, sabotaged your test.
“This village cannot take back the punishment that was dealt to you. What’s done is done. However, these are those who have wronged you. They have told lies before the goddess. And as the person most affected and the future leader of Seravin, I leave it to you, Rasmira, to decide their fate.”
I blink. Whatever I thought my father might say, I wasn’t expecting this.
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