Once walked with Gods e-1

by James Barclay

  ‘We cannot just stand here and let-’ began Makran.

  Katyett silenced her with a glare to wither stone.

  ‘We are TaiGethen,’ hissed Katyett. ‘Appointed by Yniss and created by Takaar to protect the sanctity of our lands and the harmony against all of those who would destroy it. We do not lash out in hate and revenge. We are here to protect elves of every thread. This day, we protect the Ynissul. Tomorrow it may be Tuali or Beethan or Cefan. We do things as Takaar described. Pakiir. Speak.’

  ‘You led an attack against elves yesterday in the piazza. How is that not lashing out in hate?’

  ‘We all saw the perpetrators of the crimes. Yniss was our witness. We were not lashing out. We removed heretics. What we saw was deliberate desecration and destruction of the harmony of elves. We cannot allow the guilty to escape just punishment.’

  ‘It didn’t feel that way to me; it felt like revenge,’ said Pakiir.

  ‘There is joy in performing Yniss’s work,’ said Katyett. ‘Makran. Speak.’

  The young TaiGethen iad nodded. She drew breath. Katyett laid a hand on her arm.

  ‘We are all brothers and sisters here, Makran. We all feel the passions of other elves but we must learn to direct them. Tell me what you have heard. What stoked your anger so much to force you into an outburst unbecoming of the paint you wear on the hunt.’

  Makran’s eyes were hollow with hate.

  ‘We were too late for some,’ she said. ‘Not just the ones who have died. The things we have heard. Can you not see it in the faces of the iads?’

  ‘What’s happened, Makran?’

  Katyett could feel her heart beginning to beat hard and more atrocities of the past surface in her memory.

  ‘They knew what we would do. They knew we would go to the temple or deal with major conflict. And all the time they were kicking down the doors of the Ynissul. They blame us because our thread is still pure. No interbreeding. They don’t care that our fertility is on a different scale to theirs. So they have raped any iad they found, fertile or not. Not to enhance the harmony, to destroy lives. To remove choice. To encourage hate.

  ‘Well they have succeeded.’

  Makran was shaking. Katyett felt empty, scoured. She looked across to the refugee Ynissul and every iad eye seemed to be on her, imploring her to act. Their ulas standing mute beside them, most with bruised and battered faces. Forced to watch, no doubt. Forced to survive to carry the message of their helplessness.

  She could see the shock behind their eyes and the grief in the way they held their bodies. She had assumed it to be just the fact of being chased from their homes. How stupid that seemed now. Katyett cleared her throat.

  ‘I understand your anger, Makran-’

  ‘Then we must act. Now. We can identify the guilty.’

  Katyett nodded. She breathed deeply.

  ‘Believe me, I am sorely tempted. But we have more pressing concerns. Makran. Silence. I am speaking. The day of judgement for any rapist will come. That is my promise to you. None will escape. But we have to see these people, the innocent, to safety.

  ‘Next, we will gather the TaiGethen from the forest. We will gather the Silent too. Only then we will return to cleanse the city of the filth it harbours.’

  Makran made to renew her protest but Olmaat silenced her this time, his voice pained and his lungs wheezing.

  ‘Think, Makran,’ he said. ‘Preserve what we have now. Stand in judgement later. These people need us here, not stalking the streets of Ysundeneth like vigilantes.’

  Olmaat paused to cough violently. His whole body convulsed and an agony he could not hide crossed his face and settled in his eyes. He composed himself, wiping his mouth with the back of a burned, salve-covered hand, before continuing.

  ‘We face a conflict rendered all the more dangerous because we don’t know who the enemy really is. It seems to me there are several factions pulling us apart. But these criminals have no escape. If they run to the rainforest, they become our prey. So they will stay in the city, a prison they have built for themselves. And we will pick them off at will. When the time is right.’

  Makran nodded. So did Pakiir.

  ‘I hear you, Olmaat,’ he said. ‘Forgive me.’

  ‘There is nothing to forgive, my brother. We all feel the same. But we must ensure we act as one or we are lost.’

  Katyett raised her head at a brief commotion at the head of the Ultan.

  ‘What now?’ she said before feeling a wash of pure relief. ‘Yniss has not quite deserted us yet.’

  Priest Serrin of the Silent had entered the Ultan. The Gardaryn had been comprehensively ransacked. The treasury vaults had been broken open. Every shop had been looted. Farms ransacked and stripped. Food was stockpiled all over the city and was giving rise to a fierce black market already spilling over into violence.

  Any pretence at thread harmony had disappeared like sea mist on a hot day. Individual threads gathered as the unity against the Ynissul broke apart. The Tualis turned their attention on the Beethans for reasons Pelyn could not fathom barring their relative long life. She presided over a city of thread ghettos. Barricades were going up all over the place. Territory was marked. The administrative vacuum was being filled by mob rule. It had been simply stunning how quickly the elves had reverted to type. Without Takaar’s law, there seemed nothing to bind them any longer. Priests of most threads had reappeared now but only to stand with their own.

  Al-Arynaar were a heavy presence at the temple piazza, where the mood was ugly and where the crimes of two days ago seemed likely to be repeated. The TaiGethen and nearly every Ynissul were gone to the Ultan and were planning their next moves. Everyone knew they were there. No one thought to attack them.

  ‘Good for them,’ muttered Pelyn, idly sifting through papers and records in the wrecked offices behind the Gardaryn chamber.

  At least the ships had ceased their approach. No doubt they were awaiting a signal but Pelyn had been unable to find out from whom that might be.

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘Just thinking aloud, Methian. Tual’s eyes, what a mess. Was there any motive for this beyond the desire for mayhem?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Methian and his face was grim. ‘Addresses. The whole public record is here. Or it was. Details of senior administrators and officials from every thread are missing, as far as we can tell. I mean, we haven’t found them so far but it looks to me as if those particular records were picked over with more care than others. That and the treasury information. People have known where to go and what to look for. Some people will be getting very rich on this.’

  ‘And do what with it?’ asked Pelyn.

  Methian gestured vaguely towards the sea. ‘Pay for mercenaries from the north, perhaps?’

  ‘What a cheery thought.’

  ‘I try my best.’

  Pelyn looked at Methian. Around them, mainly Gyalan Al-Arynaar were sifting the documents and parchments scattered across the floor and trying to restore some kind of order. Methian looked dreadful. No sleep for two days and the constant struggle to keep the Al-Arynaar a cohesive unit in the face of increasing animosity were terribly draining.

  ‘Thank you for standing with me.’

  ‘I would not dream of doing otherwise.’

  A door banged open at the rear of the Gardaryn. Pelyn heard her name called. She sighed and felt her exhaustion sap a little more of her will.

  ‘In here!’

  A frightened Cefan Al-Arynaar runner entered. His face was filthy and his hands grimy and bloodstained.

  ‘Down on the harbourside. There’s going to be big trouble if it hasn’t started already. We’ve got gangs of Tuali, Beethans and Orrans squaring up over the harbour master’s warehouse. Ixii and Apposans too. Plenty of goods still inside. We’re between them right now, but if they want to, they can overwhelm us.’

  Pelyn nodded. ‘Right. Methian, you stay here. Carry on this work. If you get harassed, back off. Get back to the playhouse or the
barracks. No fighting if you can avoid it. I’ll take the standing guard from the central market. Ready to run back, young Jakyn?’

  Jakyn nodded. ‘It’s bad out there. You can smell it.’

  ‘Trust me,’ said Pelyn. ‘We’ll beat this. Somehow.’

  ‘We could do with a few TaiGethen at the moment.’

  ‘We can always do with a few TaiGethen. But it’s just us so let’s not fret. We’ll stand in line and be strong, all right?’

  Jakyn nodded and the two of them ran out of the Gardaryn and onto the hostile streets of Ysundeneth.

  Chapter 16

  Battles are fought more in the mind than with sword or bow. Serrin looked for all the world as if he had been for a gentle stroll in the eaves of the rainforest. His white-painted face bore no signs of stress but his eyes were anxious. Ynissul from every group in the Ultan rushed to him, looking for blessing, desperate for hope. He stopped by each in turn, placing his hands on foreheads, shoulders and cupping chins. Katyett stood as he approached, having to restrain Olmaat from trying to do the same.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Olmaat. I think he’ll understand.’

  Katyett opened her arms and blessed the air. The TaiGethen around her followed her lead. Priest Serrin returned her gesture. He walked into her embrace and kissed her mouth and eyes.

  ‘Yniss bless you, Katyett and your TaiGethen.’ He nodded his head at the assembled Ynissul in the Ultan. ‘Such pain. It is much worse here than I feared.’

  ‘Lead us in prayer and we will talk,’ said Katyett. ‘I have no good news for you, my priest. And you are travelling alone.’

  ‘Not all news is quite so grim.’

  Serrin knelt, placing one hand on the stone of the Ultan and opening his other palm to the sky. Katyett saw Ynissul everywhere mirroring him, though few would hear the words from this quiet elf uncomfortable with speech and completely alien to raising his voice.

  ‘Yniss, lord of gods and father of us all, hear us. Enemies sully our land. The hands of your own would crush the souls of elves. Let Tual guide our hands as we destroy our enemies. Let Shorth embrace those innocents who stand unwillingly before him. Let our faith embrace all those who waver and give them comfort. Let anger and forgiveness, mercy and vengeance guide our hearts. Let us not falter. I, Serrin, ask this of you.’

  Serrin stared into Katyett’s eyes and she shuddered at the passion she saw within.

  ‘Now we will talk,’ he said. ‘And I will seek the forgiveness of my god for all the words I must speak.’

  ‘Yniss forgives those who sacrifice themselves in his name.’

  Serrin smiled. ‘It will not stop the soreness in my throat.’

  Serrin switched his gaze at the sound of Olmaat coughing. He moved swiftly to the side of the stricken elf, laying hands on his chest and smoothing the salve that covered his forehead.

  ‘Rest, my brother. Release the pain in your soul. Retain the anger.’ Katyett watched Serrin frown and stare deep into Olmaat’s eyes, right into his soul. ‘You have seen it too, haven’t you? What men have brought with them. And you have felt it. Stay with us. We need you.’

  Olmaat’s eyes were damp and he grabbed one of Serrin’s wrists. ‘I have no intention of going anywhere. There is vengeance to be delivered.’

  Serrin nodded. ‘Yet mercy must also exist in your soul, my brother.’

  ‘What I have seen leaves little room for that.’

  Serrin kissed Olmaat’s eyes. ‘Yniss will guide you.’

  The Silent Priest stood and gestured Katyett to him. He took her by an elbow and led her away from the ears of others. Katyett felt nervous. There were things Serrin did not know. Terrible things. And she feared the inevitable question. He seemed to sense her anxiety.

  ‘Is Auum still alive?’ she asked, hoping to deflect him for a moment.

  Serrin released her elbow and instead put an arm about her shoulders.

  ‘It is very difficult to kill Auum. More difficult with each passing day.’ He paused. ‘Jarinn is dead, is he not? I can see no way in which he could be allowed to live.’

  Katyett felt stunned. She stopped and looked briefly away to Ysundeneth, where fresh smoke was rising into the darkening sky

  ‘How can you know that?’ she asked. ‘He was murdered by men acting for an Ynissul cascarg. Hithuur. Olmaat was burned trying to save him.’

  Serrin sucked in his lip. ‘Hithuur? The betrayal goes high. What I have seen. Katyett… Auum was forced to spill the blood of men on the floor of Aryndeneth. They unleashed their magic in the temple. Sildaan has betrayed us too and seeks a return of the Ynissul to dominance over the elves. Throughout the rainforest, villages fear a new War of Bloods. Hope is dying out there.’

  Katyett wiped a hand across her mouth. ‘Sildaan. Not a name I would have associated with this.’

  ‘I presume Takaar was denounced?’

  ‘And that denouncement unleashed a tide of hatred across Ysundeneth. The temple of Yniss has been burned and hundreds died inside. Ynissul are being targeted for slaughter by every other thread. I had to bring them here or risk more lives. Is Sildaan really the architect of this? It makes no sense. She wants dominance yet it is Ynissul who are dying in their hundreds. There will be too few left. She’s just handing power to the Tualis.’

  Serrin shook his head. ‘It goes higher than Sildaan. It must do. Into the higher echelon of the priesthood. Lorius may have set the denouncement in motion but he would not have wished for this, I’m certain.’

  ‘Indeed not. He died alongside Jarinn.’

  Serrin gasped. ‘Lorius too? That is a heavy blow. The Tualis are without reason now. Who survived?’

  ‘Lorius and Jarinn are the only two we know have died. We believe the rest of the government is safe but we know little of their whereabouts or plans.’

  ‘Some will be living in fear. Some will be tending to their people. Some will be plotting. We need names. This may not be simply an Ynissul betrayal.’

  ‘What can we do?’ asked Katyett. ‘Realistically. The TaiGethen numbered just a hundred and seventeen before the trouble began. We are few and this magic seems massively powerful. The Al-Arynaar are struggling to keep themselves cohesive let alone maintain order in Ysundeneth. If the threads truly separate we’ll be powerless to stop whoever it is from taking control.’

  ‘There is always hope, Katyett. Save the Ynissul gathered here. Have faith that the harmony is strong in the souls of elves and that it can never truly be broken, only hidden. We can return to peace. But only if we believe.’

  Katyett studied Serrin’s face. Something was missing from Serrin’s plan.

  ‘Where is Auum, my priest?’

  ‘Auum has gone to find Takaar.’ Harbourside seethed. Seven different threads were represented by the time Pelyn reached the harbour master’s warehouse. Some carried makeshift arms – boathooks, chains and shovels. Most relied on the weapons with which they were born.

  She saw them trade insults across decreasing space. The knots of elves were closing slowly on the thin line of Al-Arynaar ranged across the front of the warehouse. Several hundred Tualis and Beethans had taken central positions. Gyalans, Cefans and Orrans were there too in smaller numbers. Ixii and Apposans, in tight knots of twenty or so, looked for opportunity on the flanks.

  The Al-Arynaar had withdrawn to secure the building. Pelyn was disappointed to see that they had arranged themselves to minimise the chance of fighting one of their own thread. She shouldn’t blame them, but the move, conscious or not, spoke much about the state of mind of her warriors.

  So far, the threads had not come to concerted blows amongst themselves, managing to maintain their distance from each other. But the gaps were closing. Each wanted first access to the warehouse. The Al-Arynaar were an impediment. Pelyn’s appearance took a little of the boldness from them and she was quick to bolster the confidence of the forty or so of her warriors who stood in crumbling defiance.

  ‘Al-Arynaar, I am proud of each of you. Wear your
cloak with pride and remember the reason you took it. We stand to defend the harmony for all elves. I stand with you. I will not desert you. I know what you fear. You fear striking down one of your own. I am Tuali. Tualis stand before us. I will strike them down if I must. A Tuali who attacks me has betrayed both thread and harmony. We all know the sentence for such crimes.’

  Pelyn swung round to face the approaching mob. Her voice would not reach them all over the shouting, stamping and clashing, and the chanting of ages-old songs that had no place outside a lesson in the history of the bleakest days.

  ‘I am Pelyn, Arch of the Al-Arynaar. I and my warriors, drawn from every thread, are tasked by Yniss to defend our people, cities, buildings and streets. We defend every cobblestone, every pane of glass and every timber. We will not flinch from our duty. We cannot. Come no further. Return to your homes. Return to peace. The supplies in this warehouse are the property of the city and will be dispensed on the basis of need.’

  They paid her no heed. She knew they wouldn’t.

  ‘We will strike any who seek to harm us. You are so warned. Al-Arynaar. To ready.’

  The swords of the Al-Arynaar, held low until now, were all brought up and forward. Each warrior took a pace to the front to the ready stance. Those with shields moved them into defensive position. Pelyn walked along the thin single line, some fifty yards long. At every pace she spoke for their ears only.

  ‘None of these can fight. Remember your training. Fight for your brothers and sisters. No one before you can beat you.’

  ‘And if they fight among themselves?’ asked one.

  ‘Then let them. Those who remove themselves are doing the rest of us a favour. Any of you want any of these to bring up the next generation of elves? Think on it and temper your sympathy.’

  The space in front of the Al-Arynaar was disappearing quickly. In the centre the Beethans and Tualis closed on each other, both groups pressing forward into the inadequate space. There was no clear leadership and the formation was chaotic. The inevitable happened. Right at the back the two sides came together. Fighting broke out. Fists and feet. Pushing and shoving. For now.